It is my task to hang six or eight of the milkweed wicks on the rod,
taking good care that they shall be straight, which is not easy
to accomplish, for silvery and soft though the down is when first
gathered, it twists harshly, and of course, as everyone knows, there
can be no bends or kinks in a properly made candle.
Mother dips perhaps eight of these wicks at a time into a pot of
bayberry wax, and after they have been so treated six or eight times,
they are of sufficient size, for our vegetable tallow sticks in greater
mass than does that which comes from an animal.
A famous candle-maker is my mother, and I have known her to make as
many as one hundred and fifty in a single day.
[Illustration]
The candle box which your uncle gave us is of great convenience, for
since it has on the inside a hollow for each candle, there is little
danger that any will be broken, and, besides, we may put therein the
half-burned candles, for we cannot afford to waste even the tiniest
scraps of tallow.
Captain Standish has in his home candles made from bear's grease, and
as wicks, dry marsh grass braided.
When the second winter had begun, and the snow lay deep all around,
save where our people had dug streets and paths, Sarah and I were
forced, as a matter of course, to remain a goodly portion of the time
within our homes. Those of the men who were not needed to hew huge
trees into lengths convenient for burning, were hunting and setting
traps, in the hope of adding to the store of provisions which was so
scanty after it had been divided among those who came in the _Fortune_,
and Sarah and I had little else to do than recall to mind that which
had happened during the summer, when all the country was good to look
upon instead of being imprisoned by the frost.