Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1912-02-09


mother, ''away out in western New
York, but when | was a grown girl |
visited grandfather Joseph Kinsman in
Shrewsbury, Rutland Co., Vt. That
must have been about the year 1852.
Grandfather Kinsman had farm away
up on the mountains. / remember how
when we went up the long hill, the horse
would go little way as fast as it could
go and then would stop to rest and
grandfather would get out and put
stone behind the wheel so that the horse
could rest and breathe little. When
once we got to the summit, however, it
was wide plateau and there was no
hint that we were on the mountain top.
l remember how finely the grass grew
there and what good homes the farmers
had. Grandfather Kinsman was very
active, energetic man. thoroughly
good farmer and he had everything in
apple-pie order. Like the other men
who lived on that mountain, he made
practice of storing carefully away great
supplies of things for the long cold
snowy winters that never failed to
come. The barns would be filled with
hay, the woodshed with racks of dry
wood, this cellar with apples and pota-
toes, so that they lived in the greatest
comfort. While grandfather was STIR
ring active man and while he insisted on
order and industry, yet he enjoyed life,
after all He would sit by the open
fire and tell stories and laugh till the
windows ratified.
"He kept Merino sheep, as did many
of the farmers in that country then, and
he was proud of them and of the wonder
full soft silky white fieeces they bore.
He had in the barn samples of the wool
of each sheep, all carefully covered with
curtain of thick white cotton cloth.
He would lift this and show US the type
of wool borne by this eve or the other
one. Very, very soft and fine and
beautiful was that Merino wool. My
father came to western New York and
bought waterpower and with the CO.
operation of another man who wished
to build saw mill, they built great
dam there and father built a carding
mill Many day played in the mill
as father worke ed there. The neighbor-
| ing farmers would bring in their wool,
and father would first have it washed
Tor the farmers would wash it before
they brought it to him) and then it
would go through his machine. 1t
seemed very big and complicated to me
in those days, though it was no doubt
very simple thing compared with what
the great mills have to-day. This
machine picked the wool apart and
partially freed it from dirt or seeds, and
then made it into "rolls" for the
farmers to take home with them.
The rolls were just a little soft combed
long round rolls of wool, not twisted,
but all ready to go to the spinning wheel
and be spun into thread or yarn. AS
remember now the rolls were just about
Is inches long and perhaps an inch
thick. Anyway the farmers took them
home when father had made them and
next they went through the spinning
wheel and were made into thread or
yarn. Then the farm loom took up the
matter and the wool was woven into
cloth. Not every farmers house had
loom. Some women would weave
steadily nearly all the time, but your
grandmother had her loom and often
saw her weave, and always she spun,
and you yourself remember seeing your
aunt spinning yarn for the family's
stockings on the hill farm in New York.
"Well, then at last the cloth was
woven and at once 1t came back to
father. He must dye it and full it.
What fine fast colors he used to put into
the cloth in those days! He grew
madden himself to dye the reds with and
they were not fading colors. Afterward
the cloth was taken to the innumerable
homes that had furnished the sheep
that grew the wool. that had spun the
thread and woven the cloth and that had
any number of boys and girls to be
clothed. There were plenty of tailors
in the country to cut clothes for the
ministers and doctors, and the wedding
suits for all, but for the children the
housewife would simply consult with
some other women, seize her shears and
cut out and make the clothes herself.
Perhaps once year she would have in
woman, who made the rounds of the
neighborhood, and like as not the father
had his clothes cut in much the same
manner. l tell you they were gooo
clothes that we made in those days, too,
and they were warm. There was nc
shoddy in them. They wore a long,
long time and we always saved remnants
of the cloth for patching when the time
of need came If was NOT conSidered al