The bee., 1897-11-25
THE PURITAN FOLK.
MEN AND WOMEN WHO GAVE US
THANKSGIVING DAY.

Nothing Very Attractive About This Side
Of the Lives of Our Famous Ancestors.
Good Things to Eat and DrInl. Large
Families.
Those who want TO know just what
sort of people they were who gave
America Thanksgiving day should
read Alice Morse Earle's book, "Cus-
toms and Fashions In Old New Eng
land. "
The reader will surely wonder how
it came about that these people We're
responsible for an anniversary day when
they so bitterly opposed letting their
poor, little, half frozen, skinny children
celebrate April FOOLS day.
The young ones of those days were
beautifully clad in linen-goose feshy
thought-little, thin linen, short Slew
ed, low necked shirts and baglike dress
es Of linen, drawn in around the neck
with pickering strings.
Then the Sunday after they were born
they were carried off to the meeting
house to be baptized. There was no fire
in those meeting houses, and they often
had to break the ice in the christening
bowl But the Puritans had no monop-
oily of such cruelty TO children. TheTu-
brio of the Episcopalian prayer book
says that parents must not defer baptism
longer than the first or second Sunday
after birth.
One of these New England parsons
believed in infant immersion and prac-
ticed it, too, till his own child nearly
lost its life by it. After that he learned
some sense
Judge Sewall writes Jan. 90, 1894:
"a very extraordinary storm by reason
of the falling and driving of the snow
Few women could get to meeting. a
child named Alexander was baptized in
the afternoon.
1t is not surprising that consumption
struck so deep into New England or
that infant mortality was so great. Re-
member, too, that in the books Oh the
rearing of children it was advised that
their feet be often dipped in cold water
and that they wear thin soled shoes,
that the wet may come freely TO
them.
One doesn't wonder, either, at the
size of the families. Sir William Phips
was one of 20 children by the same
mother; Printer Green had 30 children;
the Rev. John Sherman of Watertown
had 26 children by two wives--20 by
his last. With death making SO many
subtractions, the Puritans had TO do
little multiplication.
1t must have taken q good deal of
scuffiing with the elements to provide
bread and meat and clothes for family
like small Sunday school They didn't
get enough to eat, it is plain, for the
children were almost all rickety, and
all had to take elaborate compounds of
baked snails, mashed earthworms, herbs,
hartshorn and strong ale to cure them.
But the children were smart children.
Phebe Bartlett was powerfully convert
ed when she was years old. Jane Tur-
ell could tell Scripture stories before
she was 2 years old, and before she was
she could say the greater part of her
catechism, many of the Psalms, read
distinctly and make pertinent remarks
ON many things she read. She asked
many astonishing questions about divine
mysteries.
Cotton Mather took his little daugh-
ter Katy, aged 4, into his study and
told her that he was to die shortly and
that she must remember all he said. He
set before her the sinful condition of
her nature and charged her TO pray in
MI H.av nd ca m xxrith
much more lugubrious matter Of the
same sort He lived 80 years after he
scared poor little Katy so.
that's the lively sort of time the
Puritan children had.
The poor little Puritan boys Were not
allowed to 90 swimming at all, and
every ,tithingmen was strictly enjoined
to keep them from it, Each tithinglnan
had ten families under his charge, and
if one may estimate that there We're ten
boys in each family the chances are
that on n hot August day some one Of
those 100 young ones defied the law, its
dread executor aud the chances of going
to place where it is more than August
all the year around, and no good swim
ming holes either.
But the young ones danced, and they
had punch to drink. One little girl
years old wouldn't stay at her grand
mothers house because she couldn't
have wine to drink at every meal, aud
her parents upheld her in her conduct
They had candy and gingerbread aud
oranges and pictured story books; but
alas. they were stories of tho "Conytr-