But it was generous living, far more so than at the present day, abundance being the first essential where all worked and all brought keen appetites to the board, and every householder counted hospitality one of the cardinal virtues.
Pewter was the only family plate, save in rarest instances. Forks had not yet appeared, their use hardly beginning in England before 1650, save among a few who had travelled and adopted the custom. Winthrop owned one, sent him in 1633, and the Bradstreets may have had one or more, but rather as a curiosity than for daily use. Fingers still did much service, and this obliged the affluence of napkins, which appears in early inventories. The children ate from wooden bowls and trenchers, and their elders from pewter. Governor Bradford owned "fourteen dishes of that material, thirteen platters, three large and two small plates, a candlestick and a bottle," and many hours were spent in polishing the rather refractory metal. He also owned "four large silver spoons" and nine smaller ones. But spoons, too, were chiefly pewter, though often merely wood, and table service was thus reduced as nearly to first principles as possible. Very speedily, however, as the Colony prospered, store of silver and china was accumulated, used only on state occasions, and then carefully put away.
The servant question had other phases than that of mere inadequacy, and there are countless small difficulties recorded; petty thefts, insolent speeches, and the whole familiar list which we are apt to consider the portion only of the nineteenth century. But there is nothing more certain than that, in spite of creeds, human nature remains much the same, and that the
