included, but nothing could well be more meager than this outfit, though doubtless it filled the narrow quarters of the early years. Whatever may have come over afterward, there were none of the heirlooms to be seen to-day, in the shape of family portraits, and plate, china or heavily carved mahogany or oak furniture. For the poorer houses, only panes of oiled paper admitted the light, and this want of sunshine was one cause of the terrible loss of life in fevers and various epidemics from which the first settlers suffered. Leaden sashes held the small panes of glass used by the better class, but for both the huge chimneys with their roaring fires did the chief work of ventilation and purification, while the family life centered about them in a fashion often described and long ago lost.
There is a theory that our grandmothers in these first days of the settlement worked with their own hands, with an energy never since equalled, and more and more departed from as the years go on. But all investigation of early records shows that, as far as practicable, all English habits remained in full force, and among such habits was that of ample service.
It is true that mistress and maid worked side by side, but the tasks performed now by any farmer's wife are as hard and more continuous than any labor of the early days, where many hands made light work. If spinning and weaving have passed out of the hands of women, the girls who once shared in the labor, and helped to make up the patriarchal households of early times, have followed, preferring the monotonous and wearing routine of mill-life, to the stigma resting upon all who consent to be classed as "help". If
