FLOWER LORE OF CHILDREN
_In childhood when with eager eyes
The season-measured years I view'd
All, garb'd in fairy guise
Pledg'd constancy of good._
_Spring sang of heaven; the summer flowers
Bade me gaze on, and did not fade;
Even suns o'er autumn's bowers
Heard my strong wish, and stay'd._
_They came and went, the short-lived four,
Yet, as their varying dance they wove,
To my young heart each bore
Its own sure claim of love._
--_J. H. Card. Newman, 1874._
The records of childish flower lore contained in this chapter are
those of my own childhood; but they are equally the records of the
customs of colonial children, for these games and rhymes and plays
about flowers have been preserved from generation to generation of
New England children. The transmission of this nature lore has been
as direct and unaltered in the new world as in Great Britain. Some
of these customs, such as the eating of hollyhock cheeses and the
blowing of dandelion clocks, came originally, as have other play
usages, from England; many were varied in early years by different
conditions in the new world, by local fitness and suggestion.
One chapter in Mr. Newell's book upon the _Games of American
Children_ dwells upon the conservatism of children. The
unquestioning reception of play formulas, which he proves, extended
to the flower rhymes and lore which I have recollected and herein
set down. These inherited customs are far dearer to children than
modern inventions. There is a quaintness of expression, a sentiment
of tradition, that the child feels without power of formulating.
[Illustration: Stella (Bradley) Bellows, 1800, _circa_]
If the paradise of the Orientals is a garden, so was a garden of
old-fashioned flowers the earthly paradise for a child: the long
sunny days brought into life so many delightful playthings to be
made through the exercise of that keen instinct of all children,
destructiveness. Each year saw the fresh retelling and teaching
of child to child of happy flower customs almost intuitively, or
through the "knowledge never learned at schools," that curious
subtle system of transmission which everywhere exists among
children who are blessed enough to spend their summer days in the
woods or in a garden. The sober teachings of science in later years
can never make up the loss to those who have lived their youth in
great cities, and have grown up debarred from this inheritance,
knowing not when
"The summer comes with flower and bee."
The dandelion was the earliest flower to stir the children's
memories; in New England it is "the firstling of the year." In the
days of my childhood we did not wait for the buttercup to open to
learn whether we "loved butter"; the soft dimpled chin of each child
was held up, as had been those of other children for past decades,
to catch the yellow reflection of the first dandelion on the pinky
throat.
The dandelion had other charms for the child. When the blooms had
grown long-stemmed through seeking the sun from under the dense
box borders, what pale green, opal-tinted curls could be made by
splitting the translucent stems and immersing them in water, or by
placing them in the mouth! I taste still their bitterness! What
grace these curls conferred when fastened to our round combs, or
hung over our straight braids!--far better than locks of corn silk.
And what adorning necklaces and chains like Indian wampum could be
made by stringing "dandelion beads," formed by cutting the stems
into sections! This is an ancient usage; one German name of the
flower is chain-flower. The making of dandelion curls is also an
old-time childish custom in Germany. When the dandelion had lost her
golden locks, and had grown old and gray, the children still plucked
the downy heads, the "clocks" or blowballs, and holding aloft these
airy seed vessels, and fortifying the strong young lungs with a deep
breath, they blew upon the head "to see whether my mother wants me,"
or to learn the time o' day.
"Dandelion, the globe of down,
The schoolboy's clock in every town,
Which the truant puffs amain
To conjure back long hours again."
The ox-eye daisy, the farmer's whiteweed, was brought to New
England, so tradition tells, as a garden flower. Now, as Dr. Holmes
says, it whitens our fields to the great disgust of our liberal
shepherds. It soon followed the dandelion in bloom, and a fresh
necklace could be strung from the starry blossoms, a daisy chain,
just as English children string their true pink and white daisies.
This daisy was also used as a medium of amatory divination, by
pulling from the floret the white ray flowers, saying, "He loves me,
he loves me not," or by repeating the old "apple-seed rhyme":--
[Illustration: A daisy chain surrounds most of the page]
"One I love,
Two I love,
Three I love, I say,
Four I love with all my heart,
Five I cast away," etc.
Flower oracles are mediæval, and divination by leaves of grass.
Children to-day, as of old, draw grass stalks in the field and match
them to see who will be "It." Walther von der Vogelweide (1170-1230)
did likewise:--
"A spire of grass hath made me gay--
I measured in the self-same way
I have seen practised by a child.
Come, look, and listen if she really does,
She does, does not, she does, does not, she does."
The yellow disk, or "button," of the ox-eye daisy, which was formed
by stripping off the white rays, made a pretty pumpkin pie for the
dolls' table. A very effective and bilious old lady, or "daisy
grandmother," was made by clipping off the rays to shape the border
or ruffle of a cap, leaving two long rays for strings, and marking
in a grotesque old face with pen and ink. A dusky face, called with
childish plainness of speech a "nigger head," could be made in like
fashion from the "black-eyed Susan" or "yellow daisy," which now
rivals the ox-eye daisy as a pest of New England fields.
Though the spring violets were dearly loved, we slaughtered them
ruthlessly by "fighting roosters" with them. The projecting spur
under the curved stem at the base of the flower was a hook, and when
the violets "clinched" we pulled till the stronger was conqueror,
and the weaker head was off.
What braided "cat-ladders," and quaint, antique-shaped boats with
swelling lateen sail and pennant of striped grass could be made from
the flat, sword-like leaves of the "flower-de-luce!" Filled with
flowers, these leafy boats could be set gayly adrift down a tiny
brook in the meadow, or, with equal sentiment, in that delight of
children since Froissart's day, the purling gutter of a hillside
street after a heavy midsummer shower. The flowers chosen to
sail in these tiny crafts were those most human of all flowers,
pansies, or their smaller garden sisters, the "ladies'-delights"
that turned their laughing, happy faces to us from every nook
and corner of our garden. The folk names of this flower, such as
"three-faces-under-a-hood," "johnny-jump-up," "jump-up-and-kiss-me,"
"come-tickle-me," show the universal sense of its kinship to
humanity. I knew a child who insisted for years that pansies spoke
to her. Another child, who had stolen a rose, and hidden it under
her apron, called out pettishly (throwing the rose in a pansy bed),
"Here! take your old flower"--as the pansy faces blinked and nodded
knowingly to her.
The "dielytra" (bleeding-heart, or lady's-eardrops we called it)
had long, gracefully drooping racemes of bright red-pink flowers,
which when pulled apart and straightened out made fairy gondolas,
or which might be twisted into a harp and bottle. How many scores
have I carefully dissected, trying to preserve intact in skeleton
shape the little heart-shaped "frame" of the delicate flower! The
bleeding-heart is a flower of inexplicable charm to children; it has
something of that mystery which in human nature we term fascination.
Little children beg to pick it, and babies stretch out their tiny
hands to it when showier blossoms are unheeded.
What black-headed puppets or dolls could be made from the great
poppies, whose reflexed petals formed gay scarlet petticoats; and
also from the blossoms of vari-colored double balsams, with their
frills and flounces! The hollyhock, ever ready to render to the
child a new pleasure, could be tied into tiny dolls with shining
satin gowns, true fairies. Families--nay, tribes of patriarchal
size had the little garden-mother. Mertensia, or lungwort, we
termed "pink and blue ladies." The lovely blossoms, which so
delighted the English naturalist Wallace, and which he called
"drooping porcelain-blue bells," are shaped something like a child's
straight-waisted, full-skirted frock. If pins are stuck upright in a
piece of wood, the little blue silken frocks can be hung over them,
and the green calyx looks like a tiny hat. A child friend forbidden
to play with dolls on the solemn New England Sabbath was permitted
to gather the mertensia bells on that holy day, and also to use the
cherished income of a prosperous pin store. It was discovered with
maternal horror that she had carefully arranged her pink and blue
ladies in quadrilles and contra-dances, and was very cheerfully
playing dancing party, to beguile the hours of a weary summer Sunday
afternoon.
[Illustration: Playing Marbles]
Mr. Tylor, the author of _Primitive Culture_, call our attention
to the fact that many of the beloved plays of children are only
sportive imitations of the serious business of life. In some
cases the game has outlived the serious practice of which it is a
copy--such as the use of bows and arrows. Children love to produce
these imitations themselves with what materials they can obtain, not
to have them provided in finished perfection. Thus the elaborately
fitted-up doll's house and imitation grocery store cannot keep the
child contented for days and weeks as can the doll's room or shop
counter furnished by the makeshifts of the garden. The child makes
her cups and saucers and furniture herself. She prepares her own
powders and distillations and is satisfied.
A harvest of acorn cups furnished table garniture, but not a
cherished one; they were too substantial; we preferred more fragile,
more perishable wares. Rose-hips were fashioned into tiny tea-sets,
and would not be thought to be of great durability. A few years
ago I was present at the opening of an ancient chest which had not
been thoroughly searched for many years. In a tiny box within it
was found some cherished belongings of a little child who had died
in the year 1794. Among them was one of these tea-sets made of
rose-hips, with handles of bent pins. Though shrunken and withered,
the rose-hips still possessed some life color, but they soon fell
into dust. There was something most tender in the thought of that
loving mother, who had herself been dead over half a century, who
had thus preserved the childish work of her beloved daughter.
Poppy pericarps made famous pepper-boxes, from which the seed could
be shaken as pepper; dishes and cups, too, for dolls' tea-tables,
and tiny handles of strong grass stems could be attached to the
cups. For the child's larder, hollyhocks furnished food in their
mucilaginous cheeses, and the insipid akenes of the sunflower and
seeds of pumpkins swelled the feast. A daintier morsel, a drop
of honey, the "clear bee-wine" of Keats, could be sucked from the
curved spur of the columbine, and the scarlet-and-yellow trumpet of
the beautiful coral honeysuckle, mellifluous of the name, as well as
from the tubes of the heads of clover. We ate rose-leaves, also, and
grass roots, and smarting peppergrass. The sorrel and oxalis (which
we called "ladies' sorrel") and the curling tendrils of grape-vines
gave an acid zest to our childish nibblings and browsings.
The gnarled plum trees at the end of the garden exuded beautiful
crystals of gum, of which we could say proudly, like Cornelia,
"These are my jewels." Translucent topaz and amber were never more
beautiful, and, void of settings, these pellucid gems could be
stuck directly on the fingers or on the tip of the ear. And when
our vanity was sated with the bravery, or we could no longer resist
our appetite, there still remained another charm: with childish
opulence, like Cleopatra, we swallowed our jewels.
A low-growing mallow, wherever it chanced to run, shared with its
cousin hollyhock the duty of providing cheeses. These mallow cheeses
were also eaten by English children. In allusion to this the poet
Clare wrote:--
"The sitting down when school was o'er
Upon the threshold of the door,
Picking from mallows, sport to please,
The crumpled seed we call a cheese."
These flower customs never came to us through reading. All our
English story-books told of making cowslip balls, of breaking the
shepherd's purse, of playing lords and ladies with the arum--what we
call jack-in-the-pulpit; yet we never thought of making any kindred
attempts with these or similar flowers. We did gather eagerly the
jack-in-the-pulpit, whose singularity of aspect seems always to
attract the attention of children, and by pinching it at the base
of the flower made it squeak, "made Jack preach." But like true
republicans we never called our jacks lords and ladies.
The only liking we had for the portulaca was in gathering the seeds
which grew in little boxes with a lid opening in a line around the
middle. Oh, dear! It doesn't seem like the same thing to hear these
beloved little seed-boxes described as "a pyxis, or a capsule with a
circumscissile dehiscence."
From the live-for-ever, or orpine (once tenderly cherished as a
garden favorite, now in many localities a hated and persistent
weed), we made frogs, or purses, by gently pinching the fleshy
leaves between thumb and forefinger, thus loosening the epidermis on
the lower side of the leaf and making a bladder which, when blown
up, would burst with a delightful pop. The New England folk-names
by which this plant is called, such as frog-plant, blow-leaf,
pudding-bag plant, show the wide-spread prevalence of this custom.
A rival in sound could be made by popping the foxglove's fingers.
English countrywomen call the foxglove a pop. The morning-glory
could also be blown up and popped, and the canterbury-bell. We
placed rose petals and certain tender leaves over our lips, and drew
in the centres for explosion.
[Illustration: Spanish Dolls]
Noisy boys found scores of other ways to make various resounding
notes in the gardens. A louder pop could be made by placing broad
leaves on the extended thumb and forefinger of one hand and
striking them with the other. The boys also made squawks out of
birch bark and fiddles of cornstalks and trombones from the striped
prickly leaf-stalks of pumpkins and squashes.
The New England chronicler in rhyme of boyhood days, Rev. John
Pierpont, called this sound evoked from the last-named instrument
"the deeper tone that murmurs from the pumpkin leaf trombone."
It is, instead, a harsh trumpeting. These trombones were made in
Germany as early as the thirteenth century.
An ear-piercing whistle could be constructed from a willow branch,
and a particularly disagreeable sound could be evoked by every boy,
and (I must acknowledge it) by every girl, too, by placing broad
leaves of grass--preferably the pretty striped ribbon-grass, or
gardener's garters--between the thumbs and blowing thereon. Other
skilful and girl-envied accomplishments of the boys I will simply
name: making baskets and brooches by cutting or filing the furrowed
butternut or the stone of a peach; also fairy baskets, Japanesque
in workmanship, of cherry stones; manufacturing old-women dolls of
hickory nuts; squirt-guns and pop-guns of elderberry stems; pipes
of horse-chestnuts, corn-cobs, or acorns, in which dried sweet-fern
could be smoked; sweet-fern or grape-stem or corn-silk cigars.
Some child customs successfully defy the law of the survival of the
useful, and ignore the lesson of reason; they simply exist. A marked
example of these, of bootless toil, is the laborious hoarding of
horse-chestnuts each autumn. With what eagerness and hard work do
boys gather these pretty nuts; how they quarrel with one another
over the possession of every one; how stingily they dole out a few
to the girls who cannot climb the trees, and are not permitted to
belabor the branches with clubs and stones for dislodgment of the
treasures, as do their lordly brothers! How carefully the gathered
store is laid away for winter, and not one thing ever done with one
horse-chestnut, until all feed a grand blaze in the open fireplace!
At the time of their gathering they are converted to certain uses,
are made into certain toys. They are tied to the ends of strings,
and two boys, holding the stringed chestnuts, play cob-nut. Two nuts
are also tied together by a yard of cord, and, by a catching knack,
circled in opposite directions. But these games have a very emphatic
time and season,--the weeks when the horse-chestnuts ripen. The
winter's store is always untouched.
From a stray burdock plant which had escaped destruction in our
kitchen garden, or from a group of these pestilent weeds in a
neighboring by-path, could be gathered materials for many days of
pleasure. The small, tenacious burs could be easily wrought into
interesting shapes. There was a romance in our neighborhood about
a bur-basket. A young man conveyed a written proposal of marriage
to his sweetheart reposing in one of the spiny vehicles. Like the
Ahkoond of Swat, I don't know "why or which or when or what" he
chose such an extraordinary medium, but the bur-basket was forever
after haloed with sentiment. We made from burs more prosaic but
admirable furniture for the dolls' house,--tables, chairs, and
cradles: Traces of the upholstery clung long and disfiguringly to
our clothing, but never deterred us from the fascinating occupation.
To throw these burs upon each other's clothing was held to be the
commission of the unpardonable sin in childish morals; still it was
done "in holiday foolery," as in Shakespeare's day.
The milkweed, one of our few native weeds, and a determined settler
on its native soil, furnished abundant playthings. The empty
pods became fairy cradles, and tiny pillows could be made of the
beautiful silk. The milkweed and thistle both furnish pretty,
silvery balls when treated with deft fingers; and their manufacture
is no modern fashion. Manasseh Cutler, writing in 1786, says:--
"I was pleased with a number of perfectly white silken balls, as
they appeared to be, suspended by small threads along the frame
of the looking-glass. They were made by taking off the calyx of
the thistle at an early stage of blooming."
Ingenious toys of amusing shapes could be formed of the pith of
the milkweed, and when weighted with a tack would always fall tack
downward, as did the grotesque corn-stalk witches.
Pressed flowers were devoted to special uses. I cannot recall
pressing any flower save larkspur,--the "lark-heels" of Shakespeare.
Why this flower was chosen I do not know, unless for the reason that
its colors were so enduring. We used to make charming wreaths of the
stemless flowers by placing the spur of one in the centre of another
flower, and thus forming a tiny circle. A favorite arrangement was
alternating the colors pink and blue. These stiff little pressed
wreaths were gummed on a sheet of paper, to be used at the proper
time as a valentine,--were made for that definite purpose; yet I
cannot now recall that, when February came, I ever sent one of these
valentines, or indeed had any to send.
I have found these larkspur wreaths in a Pike's Arithmetic, used a
century ago, and also in old Bibles, sometimes fastened in festoons
on the title-page, around the name of a past owner. Did Dr. Holmes
refer to one when he wrote his graceful line, "light as a loop of
larkspur"? A similar wreath could be made of the columbine spurs. A
friend tells me she made scores in her youth; but we never pressed
any flowers but larkspur.
Many pretty wreaths were made of freshly gathered flowers. The
daintiest were of lilac or phlox petals, which clung firmly
together without being threaded, and the alternation of color in
these wreaths--one white and two purple lilac petals, or two white
phlox petals and two crimson--could easily prove the ingenuity
and originality of the child who produced them. In default of
better-loved flowers, the four-o'clock, or marvel-of-Peru, was made
into a similar garland.
In the beautiful and cleanly needles of the pine the children had an
unlimited supply for the manufacture of toys. Pretty necklaces could
be made for personal adornment, resembling in miniature the fringed
bark garments of the South Sea Islanders, and tiny brooms for dolls'
houses. A thickly growing cluster of needles was called "a lady."
When her petticoats were carefully trimmed, she could be placed
upright on a sheet of paper, and by softly blowing upon it could
be made to dance. A winter's amusement was furnished by gathering
and storing the pitch-pine cones and hearing them snap open in the
house. The cones could also be planted with grass-seeds, and form a
cheerful green growing ornament.
[Illustration: Leaf Boats made from Flower-de-luce]
From birch bark gathered in long wood walks could be made
cornucopias and drinking-cups, and letters could be cut thereon and
thereof. There wandered through the town, harmless and happy, one
of "God's fools," whose like is seen in every country community.
He found his pleasure in early autumn in strolling through the
country, and marking with his jack-knife, in cabalistic designs,
the surface of all the unripe pumpkins and squashes. He was driven
by the farmers from this annoying trespass in the daytime, but "by
brave moonshine" could still make his mysterious mark on the harvest
of the year. The boys of the town, impressed by the sight of a
garden or field of squashes thus curiously marked, fell into a habit
of similar inscription, which in them became wanton vandalism, and
had none of the sense of baffled mystery which always hung around
and illumined poor Elmer's letters. A favorite manner of using the
autumn store of pumpkins was in the manufacture of Jack-o'-lanterns,
which were most effective and hideous when lighted from within.
"The umbrellas are out!" call country children in spring, when
the peltate leaves of the May apple spread their umbrella-shaped
lobes, and the little girls gather them, and the leaves of the
wild sarsaparilla, for dolls' parasols. The spreading head of what
we called snake grass could also be tied into a very effective
miniature parasol. There is no sense of caste among children when
in a field or garden--all are equally well dressed when "bedizened
and brocaded" with garden finery. Green leaves can be pinned with
their stems into fantastic caps and bonnets; foxglove fingers can be
used as gloves; the blossoms of the jewelweed make pretty earrings;
and the dandelion and daisy chains are not the only necklaces,--the
lilac and larkspur chains and pretty little circlets of phlox are
proudly worn; and strings of rose-hips end the summer. The old
English herbalist says "children with delight make chains and pretty
gewgaws of the fruit of roses." Truly, the garden-bred child walks
in gay attire from May to October.
The "satten" found by the traveller Josselyn, in seventeenth-century
New England gardens, formed throughout New England a universal
plaything, and a frequent winter posy, in country parlors, on
mantel or table. The broad white oval partition, of satiny lustre,
remaining after the side valves had fallen, made juvenile money, and
the plant went by the appropriate name of money-in-both-pockets.
Other seeds were gathered as the children's spoils: those of the
garden balsam, to see them burst, or to feel them curl up in the
hand like living creatures; those of the balsam's cousin, the
jewelweed, to watch them snap violently open--hence its country name
of touch-me-not and snapweed. When the leaves were hung with dew it
deserved its title of jewelweed, and when they were immersed in
water its other pretty descriptive folk name of silver-leaf.
A grotesquery could be formed from the seed-pods in the centre of
the peony, when opened, in such a way that the tiny pink and white
seeds resembled two sets of teeth in an open mouth. Imaginary
miniature likenesses were found in the various parts of many
flowers: the naked pistil and stamens of one were a pair of tongs;
another had a seed ovary which was a lady, a very stout lady with
extending hoops. The heart's-ease had in its centre an old lady
washing her feet; the monk's-hood, a devil in his chariot. A single
petal of the columbine, with attached sepals, was a hovering dove,
and the whole flower--Izaak Walton's "culverkeys"--formed a little
dish with a ring of pigeon-heads bending within.
There were many primitive inks and staining juices that could be
expressed, and milks and gums that exuded, from various plants. We
painted pictures in our books with the sap from the petals of the
red peonies, and blue juice from the blossom of the spiderwort, or
tradescantia, now a neglected flower. We dyed dolls' clothes with
the juice of elderberries. The country child could also dye a vivid
red with the juice of the pokeberry, the "red-ink" plant, or with
the stems of the bloodroot; and the sap crushed from soft, pulpy
leaves, such as those of the live-for-ever, furnished a green stain.
There was a certain garden lore connected with insects, not so
extensive, probably, as a child would have upon a farm. We said to
the snail:--
"Snail, snail, come out of your hole,
Or else I will beat you as black as a coal."
We sang to the lady-bug:--
"Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home;
Your house is on fire, your children will burn."
We caught the grasshoppers, and thus exhorted them:--
"Grandfather, grandfather gray,
Give me molasses, or I'll throw you away."
We believed that earwigs lived for the sole purpose of penetrating
our ears, that dragon-flies flew with the sole thought of sewing
up our lips--devil's darning-needles we called them. To this day
I instinctively cover my mouth at their approach. We used to
entrap bumble-bees in the bells of monopetalous flowers such as
canterbury-bells, or in the ample folds of the hollyhock, and
listen to their indignant scolding and buzzing, and watch them gnaw
and push out to freedom. I cannot recall ever being stung in the
process.
We had the artistic diversion of "pin-a-sights." These were one of
the shop-furnishings of pin stores, whose curious lore, and the
oddly shaped and named articles made for them, should be recorded
ere they are forgotten. A "pin-a-sight" was made of a piece of
glass, on which were stuck flowers in various designs. Over these
flowers was pasted a covering of paper, in which a movable flap
could be lifted, to display, on payment of a pin, the concealed
treasures. We used to chant, to entice sight-seers, "A pin, a pin,
a poppy-show." This being our rendering of the word "puppet-show."
I recall as our "sights" chiefly the tiny larkspur wreaths before
named, and miniature trees carefully manufactured of grass-spires.
A noted "pin-a-sight," glorious still in childish history and
tradition, was made for my pin-store by a grown-up girl of fourteen.
She cut in twain tiny baskets, which she pasted on glass, and filled
with wonderful artificial flowers manufactured out of the petals of
real blossoms. I well remember her "gilding refined gold" by making
a gorgeous blue rose out of the petals of a flower-de-luce.
I cannot recall playing much with roses; we fashioned a bird out
of the buds. The old English rhyme describing the variation of the
sepals was unknown to us:--
"On a summer's day in sultry weather
Five brethren were born together:
Two had beards, and two had none,
And the other had but half a one."
Still, with the rose is connected one of my most tender child
memories,--somewhat of a gastronomic cast, yet suffused with an
element of grace,--the making of "rosy-cakes." These dainty fairy
cakes were made of layers of rose-leaves sprinkled with powdered
sugar and cinnamon, and then carefully enfolded in slips of white
paper. Sometimes they were placed in the garden over night, pressed
between two flat stones. As a morsel for the epicure they were not
altogether alluring, although inoffensive, but decidedly preferable
to pumpkin or sunflower seeds, and they were englamoured with
sentiment; for these rosy-cakes were not destined to be greedily
eaten by the concocter, but were to be given with much secrecy
as a mark of affection, a true love token, to another child or
some beloved older person, and were to be eaten also in secret.
I recall to this day the thrill of happiness which the gift of
one of these little paper-inclosed rosy-cakes brought to me, in
the days of my childhood, when it was slipped into my hand by a
beautiful and gentle child, who died the following evening, during
a thunder-storm, of fright. The tragedy of her death, the memory
of the startling glimpses given by the vivid lightning, of agitated
running to and fro in the heavy rain and lowering darkness, and the
terrified summons of kindly neighbors,--all have fixed more firmly
in my mind the happy recollection of her last gift.
Another custom of my youth was watching at dusk the opening of the
twisted buds of the garden primrose into wan, yellow stars, "pallid
flowers, by dew and moonlight fed," which filled the early evening
with a faint, ineffable fragrance that drew a host of encircling
night moths. Keats said they "leaped from buds into ripe flowers," a
habit thus told by Margaret Deland:--
"Here, in warm darkness of a night in June,
* * * * * children came
To watch the primrose blow.
Silent they stood,
Hand clasped in hand, in breathless hush around,
And saw her shyly doff her soft green hood
And blossom--with a silken burst of sound!"
In our home garden stood a clump of tall primroses, whose beautiful
flowers, when opened, were four inches in diameter. When riding,
one summer evening, along a seaside road on Cape Ann, we first saw
one of these queens of the night in an humble dooryard. In the
dark its seeds were gathered and given by an unknown hand and a
flower-loving heart to my mother, to form under her "fair tendance"
the luminous evening glory of her garden. And on summer nights this
stately primrose still blooms in moonlight and starlight, though the
gentle hand that planted it is no longer there:--
"Yon rising Moon that looks for us again
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane
How oft hereafter look for us
Through this same Garden--and for _one_ in vain."
To every garden-bred child the sudden blossoming and pale shining in
the gloaming have ever given the evening primrose a special tender
interest,--a faintly mystic charm through the chill of falling
dew and the dim light, and through a half-sad atmosphere which
has always encircled the flower, and has been felt by many of the
poets, making them seldom sing the evening primrose as a flower of
happiness. With the good night of children to the flowers, I close
this record of old-time child life.
Index
_Ye labor and ye patience, ye judgment and ye penetration which
are required to make a good index is only known to those who
have gone through with this most necessary and painful but least
praised part of a publication._
_--William Oldys, 1687._
Abcie. See Absey-book.
Abiel, the name, 15.
Abigail, the name, 16.
Absey-book, 127, 229.
_Accidence, Young Lady's_, 96, 135;
_Cheever's_, 134.
Acorn cups, playthings of, 386.
Adams, Abigail, quoted, 93-94;
patriotism of, 171.
Adams, John Quincy, birth of, 40;
letters of, 147, 169-170;
patriotic education of, 170 _et seq._
Advertisements, of booksellers, 267 _et seq._
Æsop's _Fables_, 264.
_Afflicted Parents_, 257.
Agates, 375.
Albany, N. Y., education of girls in, 94.
Alleys, 375.
"All the birds of the air," 348.
Almanacs, notes in, 163.
Almonds, 32.
Alphabet-blocks, 182.
_American Preceptor_, 144.
Amphidromia, 18.
Andover, Mass., school at, 83, 134.
Angelica candy, 31.
Appleseed rhyme, 381.
Appleton, Samuel, as teacher, 98.
Arithmetic, manuscript, 79, 138, 139;
study of, 138;
verses in, 141, 142;
printed, 140 _et seq._;
rules on birch bark, 79.
Arsemetrick, 140.
_Arte of Vulgar Arithmetike_, 142.
Ascham, Roger, 91;
habits of, 352.
Ashes, saved by school children, 77.
Astrology, 5-6.
Augrime, 140.
Austin, Madam, names of children, 16.
_Babees Book_, 215, 220.
Babies. See Dolls.
Backboard, 105, 107.
Ball, games of, 347.
Ball, Mary, quoted, 95.
Balsam, dolls of, 384.
Bangwell Putt, 366.
Baptism, in winter, 4.
Barbadoes, scholars from, 86 _et seq._
Barbauld, Mrs., learnt upon, 298 _et seq._
Barnard, John, quoted, 97, 200.
Barring-out, 77.
Baskets, of fruit stones, 390;
of burs, 392.
Bathing, 25, 26;
Locke's ideas about, 25;
old-time lack of, 27-29;
on shipboard, 28.
Battledore and shuttlecock, 376.
Battledore book, 125 _et seq._
Beans, as food, 30.
Bears, hunting of, 316.
Bearing-cloth, 23.
Beechen roundels, 335.
Beer, drinking of, 26.
Bendall, Edward, names of children, 17.
Berkeley, Governor, his narrow mind, 64;
quoted, 65.
Berries, as food, 30.
Bethlehem, Pa., schools at, 114.
Bewick, cuts of, 258, 286, 289, 291, 293.
Bible, as guide, 191;
use in schools, 203 _et seq._;
reading of, 228;
familiarity with, 228;
deprivation of, 229;
influence of, 229;
versification of, 258;
abridgments of, 258;
texts of, embroidered, 334.
Bingham, Caleb, school of, 96-97;
books of, 96, 135, 144.
Birch, for rods, 196.
Birch bark, for paper, 79;
for cradles, 21;
toys of, 367, 390;
letters cut of, 395;
cups of, 395.
Blackburn, portraits by, 37, 51.
Black-jacks, 32.
Bladders in windpipe, 4.
Blair, Agan, letter of, 104-105.
Blanchard, Claude, quoted, 151.
Blankets, 21-23.
Bleeding heart, 383.
Bloodroot, ink from, 398.
Boarding schools, 113 _et seq._
_Boke of Curtasye_, 215.
_Boke of Nurture_, 215.
_Book of Martyrs_, 249.
Bonner, Jane, portrait of, 44-45.
Borrowing, of books, 301, 302.
Boston, land allotment of, 13;
cakes in, 32;
schools of, 69, 99, 135;
boarders in, 99;
writing-teachers of, 152, 153;
laws in, 205;
funerals in, 243;
children's books in, 299;
style of writing, 153.
Bounds, beating the, 312 _et seq._
Bowling, 350.
Bowne, Eliza Southgate, letters of, 113, 114.
Bows and arrows, 371, 385.
Boys' pews, 246.
_Boy Bishop's Sermon_, 193.
Bradley, Daniel, infant conversion of, 251.
Bradford, Governor, christening shirt and mittens of, 35;
bearing-cloth of, 23;
quoted, 230-231, 353.
Bradley children, 61.
Brainerd, David and John, childhood of, 223 _et seq._, 307 _et seq._
Breaking up, in school, 115.
Breeches, 62.
Bristle-saving, 310.
_British Instructor_, 136.
Brookline, Mass., land grants in, 13.
Broom-making, 308.
_Brother's Gift_, 281.
Browne, Sir Thomas, quoted, 57;
his early maturity, 176.
Brownell, advertisement of, 321.
Buck, Richard, children's names, 14-15.
Buckingham, Joseph T., precocity of, 184;
cited, 310.
Bumble bees, trapping of, 399.
Bunyan, John, writings of, 254-255.
Bunyan, Mrs. John, books of, 249.
Burr, Aaron, advice to daughter, 160-161.
Burs, playthings of, 392.
Busks, 106.
Bussee, 199.
Butcher, Elizabeth, infant query of, 251.
Cakes, groaning, 17;
nurses', 18;
Meers, 32;
caraway, 31.
Canterbury bells, 389.
Caraways, 31.
_Careful Father and Pious Child_, 130.
Cards, playing, 353.
Card-setting, 309.
Carter, Robert, wardrobe of, 55-56.
Carolinas, schools of, 65.
_Caroline, or a Lesson to Cure Vanity_, 293-294.
Cary children, 61.
Cat and clay chimney, 76.
Catechism, in schools, 131;
as gifts, 258.
_Catechism of Health_, 95.
Cat-ladders, 382.
Cat's-cradle, 346.
Caudle, drinking of, 18.
Cereal foods, 29-31.
_Charlotte Temple_, 113.
Chaucer, cited, 211.
Chastellux, Marquis de, cited, 110-111.
Cheeses, of hollyhocks, 386;
of mallows, 387.
Cheever, Ezekiel, discipline of, 200;
grammar of, 134.
Chester, England, child marriages in, 186 _et seq._
Chesterfield, Lord, education of his son, 178-179;
quoted, 178.
Child, Tom, 44.
_Child's Body of Divinity_, 262.
_Child's Companion_, 144.
_Child's New Spelling Book_, 136.
Chimney, cat and clay, 76.
Chokecherry-gathering, 309.
Christening, in winter, 34.
Christening dress, 34 _et seq._
Christening party, 18.
_Christian's Metamorphosis Unfolded_, 255.
_Christian Pilgrim_, 255.
Chuck farthing, 347.
Chuckstones, 375.
Clap, Roger, names of children, 16.
Clare, quoted, 387.
_Clarissa, or The Grateful Orphan_, 295.
Clinches, 375.
Clocks, dandelion, 380.
Coarseness of children's books, 291.
Coasting, 350.
Coats, worn by boys, 41.
Coat-of-arms, 323 _et seq._
Cobnuts, 391.
_Cobwebs to Catch Flies_, 284, 290.
Cocker's Arithmetic, 140, 142.
Cock-fighting, 352.
Cock-throwing, 351.
Codrington, Richard, quoted, 264, 265.
Coffin, Thomas A., portrait of, 52.
Coleman, Jane, education of, 91 _et seq._
Coleman, Lydia, letters of, 87-88, 102;
guardianship of, 87 _et seq._, 101 _et seq._
Coleman, President, letter of, 92.
Colet, 91.
College, old use of word, 277.
_Columbian Orator_, 144.
Columbine, wreaths of, 394;
playthings of, 398.
Comets, notions about, 148, 240.
Comfits, 87.
Commonplace books, 172 _et seq._;
of children, 173.
Concord, N. H., funeral at, 242-243.
Connecticut, schools of, 68;
early laws of, 68.
Conservatism of children, 378.
Contagious diseases, 5.
Cookies, 32.
Cookey-moulds, 124.
Cooper, Rebecca, wooing of, 188 _et seq._
Copley, portraits by, 37, 49, 50, 52, 53, 55.
Copley family, 55.
Copybooks, home-made, 79.
Cordes, Ellinor, portrait, 48.
Cornstalk, witches of, 393;
fiddles of, 390.
Corsets. See Stays.
Cotton, dress of, 60.
Cotton, John, 130.
_Country Rhimes for Children_, 255.
Cowper, William, quoted, 375.
Cradle, of Peregrine White, 20;
swinging, 21;
of birch bark, 21;
of wicker, 21;
of Indians, 21;
cost of, 21.
_Cradle Hymn_, 262-263.
Criss-cross row, 118.
Cromwell, Oliver, discipline of, 193.
Culverkeys, 398.
Curtius, Dr., 201-202.
Custis, "Miss," wardrobe of, 56-57;
harpsichord of, 113.
Custis family, portrait, 57.
Cutler, Manasseh, quoted, 393.
Cut-tail, 319.
Cyphering. See Arithmetic.
Daffy's Elixir, 6.
Daisies, divination with, 380;
chains of, 380.
Dame schools, 97.
Danbury, Mass., spelling in, 137.
"Dance barefoot," 103.
Dancing, price of lessons, 103;
"gynecandrical," 109;
"petulant," 110;
sermon against, 109-110;
repression of, 110;
formality of, 110-111;
varied titles of, 111.
Dandelion, chains, 409;
clocks, 380.
_Day of Doom_, 252 _et seq._
_Dealings with the Dead_, 242.
_Death and Burial of Cock Robin_, 292.
Death-bed scenes, 257, 295.
Death rate, 4.
Deer, hunting of, 316.
Deland, Margaret, quoted, 402.
Deming, Mrs., letter of, 99.
De Peyster twins, portrait of, 45.
Deportment, 105.
Desks, primitive, 75.
Devil, familiarity with, 175;
names of, 239.
Devil's play-houses, 247.
_Dialogue between Christ, Youth, and the Devil_, 131.
Diaries, of adults, 163 _et seq._;
of children, 164;
penmanship of, 164.
_Diary of a Lady of Quality_, 206.
Dibstones, 375.
Dielytra, 383.
Diet, of children, 26, 29-30;
Locke's notions on, 26.
_Dilworth's Speller_, 136.
Discipline, in American schools, 196 _et seq._;
in English schools, 192 _et seq._;
Dr. Johnson on, 194;
in Dutch schools, 194;
parental, 192;
of servants, 192;
of grown children, 192.
Diseases of children, 4.
Disinfection, 4-5.
_District School_, 155.
_Divine Blossoms_, 252.
_Divine Emblems_, 255.
_Divine Songs for Children_, 262.
Dock, Samuel, character of, 209 _et seq._;
methods of teaching, 210;
quoted, 211.
Dod, Mr., book of, 249.
Dogs, in meeting-house, 245.
Dolls, antiquity of, 363;
as fashion conveyors, 364-365;
Dutch, 365;
Bartholomew Fair, 365-366;
French, 366-367;
of hollyhocks, 384;
of poppies, 384;
of mertensia, 384;
of hickory-nuts, 390.
Dorchester, Mass., boys of, 246.
Dorchester in America, 165 _et seq._;
churches in, 166.
Dorothy Q., 107-108.
Double names, 17.
Downing, Lucy, christening party, 18;
on son's marriage, 188.
Doyle, Sir Francis, quoted, 225.
Dragon flies, notions about, 399.
Drainage, 4-5.
Dream-books, 265.
Dress, laws about, 45;
in book-cuts, 293.
Drift of the forest, 315.
Drunkenness, of school-teachers, 72.
Dudley, Governor, 179;
quoted, 2, 185.
Dudley, Paul, 185.
Dulany, Major, on school plays, 116;
on letter writing, 159-160.
Dulany, Mary Grafton. See Mary Grafton.
Dumps, 352.
Dunton, John, quoted, 358.
Dwight, Timothy, precocity of, 184-185.
Dyves Pragmaticus, title of, 30;
on sweetmeats, 30;
on books, 127 _et seq._;
on birch, 196.
Earle, Abigail, handwriting of, 151.
Earle, John, quoted, 112;
cited, 164.
Earle, Professor, cited, 136-137.
Earrings, 47.
Earwigs, notions about, 399.
Edwards, Jonathan, education of, 92-93;
precocity of, 180;
letter of, 180-181;
on spiders, 181;
his book, 251.
Edwards, Timothy, letter of, 92.
Elderberries, squirt guns of, 390;
ink from, 398.
Elyot, Sir Thomas, quoted, 357.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quoted, 215.
Endicott, Governor, quoted, 188 _et seq._
Epidemics, 4.
Equality, sign of, 139.
Erasmus, 91.
Erasmus Hall, 126.
Eringo-root, candied, 31.
Ernst, C. W., quoted, 31.
Essex, Earl of, child marriage of, 187.
_Essays to do Good_, 255.
Etiquette, regard for, 222 _et seq._
Eton, games at, 358.
Evelyn, John, quoted, 177, 231-232;
on child marriage, 187;
cited, 283.
Evelyn, Richard, character of, 177 _et seq._
_Evenings at Home_, 295.
_Every Young Man's Companion in Drawing_, 54.
Exhibitions, school, 115 _et seq._
Exposure, at baptism, 4.
_Fairchild Family_, 295 _et seq._
Falkland, Elizabeth, discipline of, 193.
Falkland, Letice, quoted, 232.
Family, size of, 11 _et seq._
Farm life, change of duties in, 308.
Fathergone, the name, 15.
_Father's Gift_, story from, 279-280.
Fear of the Lord, 227, 237.
Feather-work, 322.
Feet, wetting of, 25.
Ferule, in Dutch schools, 194;
derivation of, 195.
Fescue, 122.
Fiddle, corn-stalk, 390.
Finger-sticking, 213.
Fiske, Reverend Moses, family of, 12;
thrift of, 12.
Flagg, James, portrait, 48-49.
Flagg, Polly, portrait, 48.
Flannel sheet, 21.
Flapper, 197.
Flatbush, L. I., school at, 74, 202;
curious discipline of scholars, 199-200.
Flax, children's work on, 306.
Fleetwood-Quincy sampler, 329 _et seq._
Fleetwood, Anne, 330.
Fleetwood, Miles, 330.
Floor, of earth, 75;
puncheon, 75.
Flower de luce, playthings of, 382-383.
Food. See Diet.
_Food for the Mind_, 275.
Foot-ball, 354 _et seq._
Ford, P. L., cited, 128.
Four-o'clock, wreaths of, 394.
Foxes, hunting of, 316.
Foxgloves, as playthings, 389, 397.
Franklin, Benjamin, family of, 11-12;
proverbs of, 136;
early reading of, 255;
practical jest of, 290-291.
Franklin, Conn., teachers' pay in, 98.
Fredericksburg, Va., school in, 66.
Froissart, Jean, quoted, 342-343.
Fruit, eating of, 26;
native, 30.
Funeral, of servant, 205-206;
children at, 242.
Funeral pieces, 325.
Furnivall, Dr., cited, 186.
Games, antiquity of, 349;
exact recurrence of, 360.
Gardeners' garters, 390.
_Geographical Catechism_, 148.
Geography, study of, 147 _et seq._
Germans, indifference to education, 71.
Gershom, the name, 14.
Gibbs, Robert, portrait of, 43-44.
Gibraltars, Salem, 32.
Gingerbread, hornbooks of, 124.
Girls, schools for, 90 _et seq._;
in England, 91;
school-hours for, 95;
price of schooling for, 96;
education in New York, 94, 95;
education in Providence, R. I., 95;
education in Salem, Mass., 95;
discipline of, in England, 192 _et seq._
Glass-painting, 322.
Go-cart, 23-24.
Goldsmith, Oliver, quoted, 72;
children's books by, 267, 270, 273, 287;
love of catches, 287.
_Good Child's Little Hymn Book_, 257.
Goodrich, S. G. See Peter Parley.
_Goody Two Shoes_, authorship of, 270;
title-page of, 270-271;
chapter from, 271-272;
Charles Lamb on, 298.
Goosequill pens, 154.
Gore family, portrait, 50.
Gordon, G. L., hornbook of, 119.
Grafton, Mary, letter of, 111, 115.
Grafton, Seeth, 15.
Grammar, study of, 133 _et seq._
_Grammar of the English Tongue_, 135.
_Grammarian's Funeral_, 134.
_Grammar School_, 221-222.
Grant, Anne, quoted, 94.
Grasshoppers, rhyme to, 399.
Green, family of, 11.
Green, cited, 228.
Greene, Nathanael, daughter of, 107.
Grey, Lady Jane, punishment of, 193.
Gridley, Richard, children's names, 17.
Groaning-beer, 18.
Groaning-cakes, 17.
"Grown-ups," 50.
Grymes family, portrait, 50.
Guessbooks, 275.
_Gulliver's Travels_, 265.
Hair, dressing of, 59.
Hall, Richard, his schooling, 86 _et seq._;
letters of, 87.
Hall, Sarah, her schooling, 101-103;
marriage, 103-104.
Hall, Hugh, letters of, 86, 102.
Halliwell, cited, 143.
Hammond, John, quoted, 11.
Handwriting. See Penmanship.
Hancock, John, teacher of, 152;
handwriting of, 152.
Hands of Great Britain, 153.
Hannah, the name, 16.
Harpsichords, 112-113.
Hartford. Mass., servants in, 205.
Harvard College, establishment of, 64;
library of, 180;
bequest to, 152;
curriculum of, 185;
etiquette at, 222.
Hatfield, Mass., school at, 96.
Hawkins, Francis, precocity of, 219.
Head-dress, 59.
Health-drinking, 217, 293.
Heartsease, playthings of, 398.
Heddle-frame, 305.
Hedge-teachers, 65.
Hell, familiarity with, 175.
Henry, Patrick, saying of, 67;
pronunciation of, 67.
Heraldry, domination of, 212.
Herbs, in medicine, 6-8.
_Hieroglyphick Bible_, 258.
Higginson, Hetty, school of, 199.
_History of the Holy Jesus_, 260, 261.
_History of the Revolution_, 290.
_History of Tommy Careless_, 281.
Hoar, Bridget, 84.
Hoar, Mary, letter of, 83-84.
Hobby, teacher of Washington, 65.
Holbrook, Abiah, funeral notice of, 152;
accomplishments of, 152-153.
Hollyhocks, cheeses from, 386;
dolls of, 384.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, quoted, 25, 107, 108, 109, 243-244, 303, 394.
Holmes, Thomas, quoted, 71.
Holy Innocents' Day, 261.
Homespun, infant's dress of, 37.
Honey, 387.
"Honey flowers of New Testament," 204.
Honeypots, 345-346.
Honeysuckle, 387.
Hop-scotch, 343-344.
Hornbook, description, 118;
in America, 119-120, 122;
rarity of, 121;
price of, 121;
gilt, 122;
of silver, 122;
of ivory, 122;
names for, 124;
of gingerbread, 124;
symbolism of, 125.
Horsechestnuts, as playthings, 391.
Hoverer, 318.
Howell, James, quoted, 155.
Hunt, Nicholas, 143.
Hunters, tales of, 311, 312.
Huntington, Miss, dress of, 60.
Hylles, Thomas, 142.
Illustration, of children's books, 285 _et seq._
Indians, cradles of, 21;
names of foods, 29-30;
hunting methods of, 316 _et seq._;
foot-ball of, 357-358.
Ink, home-made, 154-155;
from flowers, 398.
Ink-powder, 154.
Irving, Washington, quoted, 270, 287.
_Italian Relation of England_, 82.
Jack, signification of word, 369.
Jack-in-pulpit, 388.
Jack-knife, power of, 254;
use of, 308;
derivation of, 370;
of old times, 370.
Jack-o'-lanterns, 396.
Jackstones, 375.
_Jack the Giant Killer_, 267.
Janeway, James, books of, 249, 251.
Jest-books, 275.
Jewel weed, as playthings, 397.
"Job's Trouble," 389.
_Joe Miller's Guess-Book_, 275.
Johnson, Samuel, school-life of, 193-194;
on discipline, 194;
manners of, 215.
Johnson, Governor, infant's dress of, 35.
Joseph, the name, 15.
Josselyn, John, quoted, 397.
_Juvenile Pastimes_, 346.
Keats, quoted, 387, 402.
Keeler, Sarah, sum-book of, 139.
Kingsley, Charles, quoted, 311.
Knitting, 339.
Knotwork, described, 152.
Lace, pillow, 339;
darned, 341.
Lady-bug, rhyme to, 399.
Ladies' delights, folk names of, 383.
Lamb, Charles, quoted, on children's books, 298 _et seq._
Lancasterian System, punishments of, 200-201.
Land, allotment of, 13.
Larkspur, wreaths of, 393-394.
Latin, study of, 133 _et seq._; 184 _et seq._
Laurens, Henry, letter of, 78.
Laurens, Martha, precocity of, 183.
Leather, worn by children, 77.
Lester, Master, 202.
Letter, defined in rhyme, 136.
Letter dice, 182.
Letters, sentiment of, 155 _et seq._;
of Puritan women, 156;
mode of addressing, 156, 157;
formality of, 161.
Letter-writing, taught by Samuel Dock, 205.
Lewis, John, wards of, 55.
Lilacs, wreaths of, 394.
_Lilly's Grammar_, 133.
Limning, materials for, 54;
teaching of, 54-55.
Lincoln, Abraham, sum-book of, 138;
early reading of, 255.
Linen, for clothing, 34.
_Little Book for Little Children_, 254.
_Little Prattle over a Book of Prints_, 23.
Live-forever, as playthings, 388;
folk names of, 389;
ink from, 399.
Livingstone, John, wife of, 47.
Livingstone, John L., wife of, 46.
Livingstone, William, skates of, 372.
Lloyd, Joseph, school-feast of, 77.
Locke, popularity of, 24;
on children's books, 264;
good sense of, 25;
advanced thought of, 25-26;
on bathing, 25;
on diet, 26;
quoted, 117, 133;
on learning letters, 182.
London, letter to Bishop of, 66.
_Looking Glass for Children_, 251 _et seq._
_Looking Glass for the Mind_, 292 _et seq._
Lord, Mary, portrait, 52-53.
Lotteries, to support schools, 68.
Lovell, Master, 197.
Lybbet, 196.
Lynde, Dorothy, sampler of, 333.
_Lytill Children's Lytill Boke_, 215.
Madison, Dolly, 57.
Maine, ink made in, 154.
Majority, age of, 190.
Mallow cheeses, 387.
Maple, bark used for ink, 155;
sugar from, 311.
Maps, lack of, 78.
Mara, the name, 14.
Marbles, 374-375.
Marie Antoinette, child's dress, 62.
Marriages of children, 186 _et seq._
Martin, G. W., quoted, 122.
Marvel-of-Peru, wreaths of, 394.
Masks, 56;
of linen, 57.
Massachusetts, school laws of, 64, 67-68, 70;
ink made in, 154;
schools in, 64, 68.
Mather, Cotton, quoted, 12, 67, 131, 134, 172, 223, 225, 236;
family of, 12;
character of, 209, 233-234;
book by, 250.
Mather, Increase, as school committee, 67;
quoted, 109.
Mather, Nathaniel, 239, 254.
Mather, Samuel, quoted, 234.
Mather, Samuel, Sr., 239-240.
Mather Papers, 156.
May apples, as playthings, 397.
McMaster, Mr., cited, 78.
Medford, Mass., boarding-school at, 114.
Medicine, astrology in, 6;
sympathetical, 6;
secret, 6;
ingredients of, 7;
revolt against, 10-11.
Meigs, Return Jonathan, 17.
_Memoirs of an American Lady_, 94.
Mertensia, playthings of, 384.
_Merry Tales of the Wise Men of Gotham_, 266, 267, 275.
Meteorology, 6.
_Microcosmographië_, 112.
Middletown, Conn., school at, 96.
Midway Church, Dorchester, Ga., 165-166.
Milkweed, playthings of, 392.
Ministers, families of, 12;
as school committee, 67;
as teachers, 83.
Mintsticks, name of rods, 204.
Minturn, Anne R., hornbook of, 119.
Mirror of Compliments, 221.
Miss, the term, 223.
Mission, quoted, 17; 354.
Mithridate, 7.
Mittens, of Gov. Bradford, 35;
of lace, 36;
of nankeen, 36.
"Money in both Pockets," 397.
Monitorial system, 97.
Monkshood, playthings of, 398.
Morning-glory, 389.
_Morse's Geography_, 147 _et seq._
Mother, sayings of a, 64.
_Mother Goose's Melodies_, 174, 286 _et seq._
Mountfort, Jonathan, portrait of, 49;
romantic marriage of, 49.
Mourning pieces, 325.
Mulberries, planting of, 310;
leaves of, 311.
"Multiplication is vexation," 143.
Murder, of servant, 205.
Music, love of, 112;
simplicity of, 112;
in colleges, 211.
_My Mother_, imitations of, 298.
Names, curious, 14-17;
biblical, 15;
double, 17.
Nankeen, 60.
_Narratives of Conversion_, 251.
Necklace, anodyne, 9;
of berries, 10;
of fawn's teeth, 10;
of wolf fangs, 11.
Necromancy, 5-6.
Negro servant, funeral of, 205.
Nero, medicine of, 7.
_New Academy of Compliments_, 221.
New Amsterdam, first teacher in, 74;
schools in, 74-75;
discipline in, 201-202.
Newbery, John, life of, 266;
publications of, 267, 287;
advertising of, 268-269.
New England, schools in, 64;
traits of children, 67;
controlled by ministers, 67;
perambulating the bounds in, 314.
_New England Primer_, vast number of, 128;
nickname of, 128;
description of, 128 _et seq._
New Hampshire, school-feast in, 77.
New Jersey, school in, 77.
_New Lottery Book_, 274-275.
News, lack of, 213-214.
Newspapers, in school, 97.
New York, schools of, 74 _et seq._;
education of girls in, 94-95.
Nicknames, 199.
"Nigger heads," 382.
North, Francis, Baron Guildford, letter about, 41-42;
on commonplacing, 172-173.
Northfield, Mass., school in, 98.
Norton, J. W., hornbook of, 119.
Note-taking, of Puritan women, 164.
Nott, Eliphalet, cited, 197.
_Nurse Truelove's Christmas Box_, 277-278.
_Nurse Truelove's New Years Gift_, advertisement of, 268;
title-page of, 276.
Nut-gathering, 309.
Oglethorpe, ship-stores of, 28.
Old-field school, 65.
Onion-tying, 309.
Oracles, flower, 380-381.
Oranges, 32.
Ordination balls, 110.
Orne, R. T., petticoat of, 335.
Orpine. See Live-forever.
Osprey bone, 10.
Ox-eye daisy, 380, 382.
_Pages and Pictures from Forgotten Children's Books_, 386.
Pall bearers, boys, 242;
girls, 243.
Pansies, children's notions about, 383.
Paper, oiled, for windows, 76;
scarcity of, 79;
flowered, 301.
Parables, books of, 258;
definition of, 230.
_Parable against Persecution_, 291.
_Parent's Assistant_, 295.
Parkman, Dr., diary of, 164.
Parley, Peter, books of, 303-304.
_Passing of the Stall-Fed Ox and the Farmer's Boy_, 308.
Paston, Agnes, quoted, 192.
Paston Letters, cited, 83.
Patillo, Henry, 148.
Patriotism, teaching of, 171;
juvenile marks of, 172.
Payne, Dolly, dress of, 57.
Peaked block, 197.
Pedlers, of birch rods, 196.
Peleg, the name, 15.
Pemberton, Samuel, portrait of, 51.
Pencils, use of, 78.
Penmanship, how taught, 150;
of adult colonists, 150, 151;
of school children, 151;
of Abigail Earle, 151;
of Anna Green Winslow, 151;
of Governor Bradford, 151;
of John Winthrop, 150;
of Anna Reynolds, 152.
Pennoyer, Frances, quoted, 207.
Pennsylvania, schools in, 71-72; schoolhouses in, 75;
barring out, 77;
teachers in, 204.
_Pennsylvania Farmer_, 72.
Pens, of olden times, 154.
Penwiper, not used, 153-154.
Peonies, playthings of, 398.
Pepperell children, portrait, 52.
Pepperell, Sir William, order of, 57.
Pepys, Samuel, on bathing, 27;
friend of Cocker, 142;
cited, 206, 313.
Perambulating the bounds. See Bounds.
Perry, Reverend Joseph, medicine of, 7-8.
Petticoats, embroidered, 335.
Philadelphia, schools of, 71.
Phips, Sir William, family of, 11.
Phlox, wreaths of, 394.
Pierpont, John, quoted, 390.
Pigeons, shooting of, 317 _et seq._
Pike, Nicholas, arithmetic of, 144-145.
_Pilgrim's Progress_, 254-255, 265, 312.
Pillory, 200.
Pin-a-sights, 400.
Pinckney, Charles C., education of, 180-183.
Pinckney, Eliza L., quoted, 180-183.
Pincushion, gift of, 18-19.
Pine-needles, playthings of, 394.
_Pious Motions and Devout Exercises_, etc., 251.
Pitch and hustle, 347.
Pitkin, Jerusha, embroidery of, 324-325.
Pitman, John, precocity of, 185-186.
_Plaine Mans Pathway to Heaven_, 248, 249.
Plays, in schools, 115 _et seq._
Plum trees, gum from, 387.
Plummets, use of, 79;
manufacture of, 79.
Points, 313.
Poison, 345.
Pokeberries, dye from, 398.
_Poor Robin's Almanack_, 18, 21.
Pope, quoted, 148.
Pops, 389.
Poppies, playthings of, 384, 386.
"Poppy-show," 400.
Porter, Dr., cited, 247.
Portulaca, as playthings, 388.
Post, Cathalina, 47.
Potash saved for treat, 77.
Potation-penny, 77.
Prating, 317.
Prayer, "Now I lay me," etc., 130.
Present, in address, 157.
_Pretty Little Pocket Book_, 346, 354, 374.
Primer, defined, 128.
Primroses, children's interest in, 402.
Prince Library, 156.
Prior, quoted, 124.
Processioning. See Bounds.
Proctor, Master, 153.
_Prodigal Daughter_, 256.
Profanity, punished, 203.
Prophecy of a child, 2-3.
Prosperity of settlers, 3.
Providence, R. I., education of girls in, 95-96.
Provisions on shipboard, 28.
Pumpkins, seeds, 386;
trombones of, 390;
lettering of, 396;
lanterns of, 396.
Puncheon floors, 75.
Punishments of scholars. See Discipline and Schools.
Puppets. See Dolls.
Quakers, schools of, 71.
Quills. See Goosequills.
Quilts, 21;
piecing of, 339.
Quincy, Dorothy, 107-108.
Quincy, Elizabeth, 108-109.
Quincy, Elizabeth Morton, 115-116, 202.
Quincy, John, portrait of, 40-43.
Quincy, Josiah, rearing of, 25-26;
school life of, 83, 134.
Rabelais, on abridgments, 300.
Raisins of the sun, 32.
Raritan, N. J., schoolhouse at, 76.
Rattlesnakes, bounties on, 316.
Ravenel, Daniel, portrait, 48.
Rawhide, 204.
Rawson, Susannah, 113.
Rawson, William, family of, 12.
Reading-boards, 126.
_Reading-made-easies_, 136.
_Record's Arithmetic_, 140.
Redemptioners, as teachers, 72.
_Reformed Virginian Silk Worm_, 310.
_Religio Medici_, 176.
Ribbon-grass, 390.
Richards, Mary, sampler of, 338.
Rickets, new disease, 7;
treatment of, 7-8.
Riddles, in commonplace book, 174;
old-time esteem of, 275.
Riding for the goose, 352.
Rhyme, grammar in, 135-136;
arithmetic in, 141, 142.
Robinson Crusoe, 265.
Rock, for spinning, 305.
Rock candy, 32.
Roelantsen, Adam, 74.
Rogers, Ezekiel, quoted, 235.
Rogers, John, burning of, 130.
Roll, for hair, 59.
Ropes, Seeth, 15.
Rose-hips, as playthings, 386, 397, 400.
Rosy-cakes, 401.
Rubila, 7.
Ruskin, quoted, 342.
Sailors, interest in, 319 _et seq._
Salem, laws in, 68;
curious custom in, 69;
schools in, 68;
punishments in, 199;
seating boys in, 246.
Salem Gibraltars, 32.
Saltonstall, Elizabeth, letter of, 100-101.
Sampler, derivation of, 327;
description, 328;
verses of, 328 _et seq._;
age of, 329.
_Sanford and Merton_, 295, 297.
Sanitation, unknown, 4-5.
Sarah, the name, 16.
Sargent, L. M., quoted, 242.
Satten, 397.
_Schole of Vertue_, 215, 222, 352.
Schools, grammar, old-field, 65;
attended by Washington, 65-66;
free, 65;
fires in, 69-70;
furniture of, 78 _et seq._;
for boarders, 113 _et seq._;
treats in, 77;
fare in, 83;
mode of study in, 134.
School feasts, 77.
School fields, 68.
Schoolhouse, building of, 75;
descriptions of, 75, 76;
furnishings of, 75-76;
discomforts of, 76;
windows of, 76;
in Raritan, 77.
School-meadows, 68.
School-teachers, character of, 72;
Scotch, 73;
contract with, 74-75;
Dutch, 73-74;
women, 97;
pay of, 68, 96-97, 103;
English, 192;
cruelty of, 204.
School-treats, 77.
School wood, 69-70.
_School of Manners_, 219, 222.
Scotch-hoppers. See Hop-scotch.
Scottow, Joshua, quoted, 2;
his daughter, 86.
Scribbling in books, 161 _et seq._
Seaborn, the name, 15.
Seating the meeting, 223, 247.
Seats in school, 75.
Seeth, the name, 15.
Servants, discipline of, 204 _et seq._
Sewall, Elizabeth, 237, 238.
Sewall, Joseph, hornbook of, 122;
original sin of, 208.
Sewall, Rebeka, 223.
Sewall, Samuel, quoted, 4, 15, 16, 32, 44, 122, 208, 237, 238, 351;
diary of, 164, 205;
tenderness of, 208;
servant of, 205;
at funerals, 242.
Shakespeare, first sold in Boston, 180;
songs from, 287.
Shepherd, Thomas, funeral of, 242.
Sheriff, standing of, 283.
Sherman, John, family of, 12.
Shippack, Pa., school at, 202 _et seq._
Shirts, of infants, 34-35.
Shoes, 57-58.
Shoe-pegs, 359.
_Shorter Catechism_, 130-131.
Shovel board, 351.
Silk culture, 310-311.
Silsbee, Mrs., cited, 225.
_Sir Charles Grandison_, 300.
Skating, 371 _et seq._
Slander, law-suits for, 213.
Slates, use of, 80, 81.
Sleeves, virago, 43;
hanging, 43-44.
Slide-groat, 351.
Small-pox, 4.
Smibert, portraits by, 37, 48, 107.
Smith, John, quoted, 319.
Smith, William, cited, 94-95.
Snails, rhyme to, 399.
Snail-water, 6.
Snake-grass, 396.
Snuff-taking, by children, 77.
Spelling, variety of, 136;
of _Paradise Lost_, 137;
teaching of, 137.
Spelling-books, 136 _et seq._
Spending-money, 308 _et seq._
Spinets, 112.
Spiderwort, ink from, 398.
Spinning, for children, 305 _et seq._
_Spiritual Milk for Babes_, 130.
Sports of the Innyards, 351.
Squawks, 390.
Squirrels, bounties on, 316.
Stalking head, 316.
Standing-stool, 23.
Standish, Lora, sampler of, 328.
Stays, 56-57, 58;
of tin, 58;
for boys, 58.
Stitches, old time, 337-338.
Stool-ball, 354.
Storer, Elizabeth, 107.
Stuart, Gilbert, 37.
Stubbes, Phillip, quoted, 356.
Suckets, 31.
Sum-books, 138 _et seq._
Sumner, Mary Osgood, 166 _et seq._;
monitor of, 167 _et seq._
Sumptuary laws, 45.
Sunday, observance of, 243 _et seq._
Sunday-school books, 304.
Sunflower seeds, 386.
Superstition, 240-241.
Sweetmeats, 30.
Swimming, prohibited, 244.
Syllabarium, 128.
Tag, various games of, 344 _et seq._
Tambour-work, 341.
Tape-weaving, 305.
Tattling stick, 197.
Taws, 204.
Taylor, Ann, 298.
Taylor, Bayard, quoted, 72.
Taylor, John, quoted, 337-338.
Teachers. See School-teachers.
Teething, death by, 10.
Ten Broeck, John, letter of, 80-81.
Ten Broeck, Katherine, portrait of, 47.
Thayer, Mrs. Sarah, family of, 13.
Thimble, first, 338.
Thimell-pie, 198.
"Thirty days hath September," etc., 143.
Thistles, playthings of, 392.
Thomas, Gabriel, quoted, 11.
Thomas, Isaiah, books printed by, 219, 220, 221, 269, 273, 275,
287, 300;
character of, 269.
Thornton, Alice, her bathing, 28.
_Thoughts Concerning Education_, 117.
_Thumb Bible_, 258.
Tick-tack, 350.
Tileston, Johnny, 153-154.
school-houses, duties of, 244-245.
Title-page lore, 161 _et seq._
Todd, John, discipline of, 204.
_Token for Children_, etc., 249.
_Tommy Trip's History of Beasts and Birds_, 273.
_Tom Thumb's Play Book_, 270
Tops, 343.
Torrey Papers, 156.
Toss-about, 284, 290.
Town, S., on slates, 80.
Townes cradle, 21.
Toys, home-made, 367, 371;
of tin, 367;
Chinese, 368;
ancient, 371.
Tree of life, embroidered, 326.
Trock, 350.
Trombones, of leaf-stalks, 390.
Trouncing, 197.
_True Relation of the Flourishing State of Philadelphia_, 71.
Trumbull, portraits by, 37, 53.
Tryon, Governor, child of, 57.
Tuer, Andrew W., 125, 385.
Tunkers' aversion to education, 72.
Turell, Jane. See Jane Colemen.
Turkeys, trapping of, 317.
_Tutor's Guide_, 143.
Twitch-up, 318.
Tylor, cited, 385.
Unipod, 199.
Vails, 18.
Valentines, of flowers, 393.
Van Cortlandt family names, 46.
Van Cortlandt, Mrs., quoted, 338-339.
Venice treacle, 7.
Vermin-hunting, 316.
Vermont, ink made in, 154.
Verney, Sir Ralph, on girls' education, 91.
Verney, memoirs, cited, 28, 83.
Verstile, Wm., portrait of, 53;
letter about, 53-54;
instruction of, 54-55.
Vice in its proper shape, 302.
_Village School_, 226.
Vinegar, as disinfectant, 4.
Violets, fighting, 382.
Vipers, in medicine, 7.
Virginals, 112.
Virginia, schools in, 64, 65, 66;
plantations scattered, 66;
girls' education in, 95;
religious observance in, 232-233;
processioning in, 314.
Virtues, as names, 16.
Vogelweide, W. von der, quoted, 381.
Wadsworth, portrait, 53.
Washington, George, purchase order of, 56;
schooling of, 65-66;
manuscript books of, 66;
designs relating to, 325-326.
Water, cold, bathing in, 26-28;
ancient aversion to, 28, 102.
Watts, Dr., hymns of, 260.
Waxwork, 336.
Weaving, by children, 306.
Webster, Noah, Jr., quoted, 80;
books of, 136, 144.
Weld, Reverend Abijah, family of, 12;
thrift of, 12.
Welsh, Charles, book of, 266;
quoted, 273.
Wendell, Elizabeth. See Elizabeth Quincy.
Wentworth, John, 103.
Wentworth, William, 104.
Wesley, Samuel, quoted, 258.
West Hartford, Conn., schools in, 70.
Whispering sticks, 198.
Whistles, of willow, 390;
of grass, 390.
White Bible, 162.
White, Peregrine, cradle of, 20.
White, Thomas, quoted, 248-249;
book of, 254.
White House Doll, 367.
White-weed. See Daisy.
_Who Killed Cock Robin_, quoted, 291-292.
Wicker cradle, 20-21.
Wig-wearing of children, 51.
Wigglesworth, Michael, 252.
Willard, Samuel, family of, 12.
_William and Amelia_, 293.
Williams, Ephraim, quoted on writing, 158-159.
Windows, of greased paper, 76.
Windsor, Conn., schools in, 69;
boys' pews in, 247.
Wine-drinking, of children, 102.
Wingate's Arithmetic, 145.
Winslow, Edward, portraits of, 38 _et seq._
Winslow, Anna Green, handwriting of, quoted, 17, 19, 58, 59, 307;
dress of, 58-59;
letter to, 99;
diary of, 164, 165;
books of, 301.
Winslow family, arithmetic of, 145.
Winthrop, John, history of, 2, 164;
medicine of, 7;
quoted, 90;
handwriting of, 150;
early marriage of, 190.
Winthrop, Waitstill, 122.
Witchcraft, 241 _et seq._
Woburn, school in, 97.
Wolcott, J., letter of, 84-85.
Wolves, hunting of, 315.
Wood, for school fires, 69-70;
farm-work on, 308.
Woodbridge, Wm., 96.
Worde, Wynkyn de, 193.
Wordsworth, quoted, 163.
_Worthy Tenant_, 294.
Writing. See Penmanship.
Writing-masters, esteem for, 150, 152;
in Boston, 153;
funeral notice of, 152.
Writing-paper, 156.
Wynter, John, quoted, 206.
Yoking as punishment, 198, 203.
_Young Lady's Accidence_, 96, 135.
_Youth's Behaviour_, 27-28, 219.
_Youth's Instructor in English Tongue_, 159.
Zurishaddai, the name, 16.
Home Life in Colonial Days
By ALICE MORSE EARLE
Cloth. 12mo. $2.50
=Boston Herald=:
"A good many books have been written about the lives and customs
of our ancestors of colonial times, and especially about the
differences between their lives and ours and the primitive and
picturesque utensils which they employed in their households. These
have been partly the outcome and partly the prompting agency of the
rage for antiques. Various writers have unearthed a large amount
of curious lore, which is not all of equal value, though almost
every hint that has come through their pages goes to recreate the
atmosphere and reveal the conditions pertaining to the earliest
pioneers in North America. Mrs. Alice Morse Earle has done a great
deal of good work in this field. Probably it is quite within bounds
to say that she possesses a larger fund of vivacious and interesting
knowledge about the lives and the works, the occupations and
makeshifts, the industries and enjoyments, of the Puritans and the
other early colonists than any other student in this rich domain."
=Philadelphia Evening Telegraph=:
"Mrs. Earle, as many readers have discovered, is one of the most
painstaking and agreeable of antiquarians. The present book is one
of her best."
=Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester=:
"Touches a most fascinating phase of American history.... The story,
which has been patiently gathered from many sources and historical
records, is told in a graphic and charming manner, and is pictured
by nearly 200 illustrations ... certainly a contribution to our
history of very high value."
=The Herald, Boston=:
"Full of new information and description of surprisingly fresh
interest ... no other single volume with which we happen to be
acquainted constructs with such completeness, fairness, and
suggestiveness, the atmosphere of colonial homes."
=Buffalo Commercial=:
"One of the handsomest books that we have received."
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
=66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK=
=_STORIES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY_=
Each Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50
=YANKEE SHIPS AND YANKEE SAILORS=
=TALES OF 1812=
=By JAMES BARNES=
Illustrated by R. F. ZOGBAUM and C. T. CHAPMAN.
"Mr. Barnes knows how to tell a story as well as how to write
history. His style is terse and full of movement; his book one
that old and young may read with zest."--_Detroit Free Press._
=SOUTHERN SOLDIER STORIES=
=By GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON=
_Author of "A Rebel's Recollections," etc., etc._
Illustrated by R. F. ZOGBAUM.
"Faithfully told stories, bearing every evidence of absolute
truth.... One's pulses quicken as he becomes acquainted with the
heroic deeds of those brave Americans, who were on the losing
side, fighting an impossible cause; he sorrows with those who
felt the tragedy of it all. It is a volume which every boy or
girl, as well as every man and woman in America, may read with
profitable interest."--_The St. Louis Globe Democrat._
"Such capital reading that no one can fail to enjoy them."--_New
Orleans Picayune._
=TALES OF THE ENCHANTED ISLES OF THE ATLANTIC=
=By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON=
_Author of "Young Folks' History of the United States," "Malbone,"
"Cheerful Yesterdays," etc._
Illustrated by ALBERT HERTER.
Legends with which the people of Europe were for many centuries fed
in regard to the countries beyond the seas now known as America. "No
national history has been less prosaic in its earlier traditions,"
says Colonel Higginson, who relates in a manner which shows strong
sympathy and learned research, these wonderful stories which for a
thousand years were told of a mysterious island in the Atlantic.
=BUCCANEERS AND PIRATES OF OUR COASTS=
=By FRANK R. STOCKTON=
_Author of "Rudder Grange," etc., etc._
Illustrated by G. VARIAN and B. W. CLINEDINST.
Stories of the rise and decline of buccaneering and piracy in
our West Indian waters. Spanish exactions grew so monstrous in
the seventeenth century that English, French, and Dutch combined
against their excesses. The buccaneers who were the result of the
combination became later pirates for private gain. Mr. Stockton's
quaint humor brightens the stories of their dark deeds in
characteristic style. The book is unique.
=THE STORY OF OLD FORT LOUDON=
=A Tale of the Cherokees and the Pioneers of Tennessee, 1760=
=By CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK=
_Author of "Where the Battle Was Fought," etc., "The Prophet of the
Great Smoky Mountain."_
Illustrated by E. C. PEIXOTTO.
A narrative of the life of the pioneers of Tennessee and their
fortunes at the hands of the Cherokees in the uprising of 1760. The
brilliant Tennessee landscape and the old frontier fort serve as a
background to this picture of Indian craft and guile and pioneer
hardships and pleasures.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
=66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK=
Adown a shallow stream we sent our leafy boats with swelling sail,
and floating pennant of striped grass. Freighted with flowers
beloved of children, the laughing pansies,--for thoughts,--we thrust
them heedlessly forth with never a care whether boat or crew e'er
reached a harbor.
Out into the world on the stream of the fast-hurrying century I
send this paper boat--my book--laden with thoughts of children's
lives. Grown careful with years, I crave for it a safe journey
and sheltered harbor. Perhaps the craft may bear to some reader a
memory of his own childhood, as well as stories of the children of
an ancient day; a day so gray and sad as seen through the haze of
centuries that the only cheerful light is found in the faces of the
children.
[Illustration: leafy boats]
* * * * *
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been
retained as printed.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
paragraphs, thus the page number of the illustration might not
match the page number in the List of Illustrations.
Mismatched quotes are not fixed if it's not sufficiently clear
where the missing quote should be placed.
The transcriber has changed hyphenation in the index to match the
book in the following cases:
cornstalk to corn-stalk
lawsuit to law-suits
playhouses to play-houses
tithingman to tithing-man
End of Project Gutenberg's Child Life in Colonial Days, by Alice Morse Earle