Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

1 82 ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
esting place and typical of a prosperous, old-fashioned home.
To me it seemed a regular "old curiosity shop." There we
found three or four flax wheels — those small, low wheels —
also big, high wheels for spinning woolen yarn, reels for winding
thread, and all appliances for the domestic art of spinning
and weaving so well known to our mothers. I remember to
have seen the remnant of an old loom up there upon which
they wove, in the long ago, those wonderful coverlids. What
works of art they were where our grandmothers wove in their
longings for home decoration! What houses, trees and flowers
grew with their swiftly flying shuttles! They wove their
names and perhaps the date of their accompHshment upon the
borders of these coverlids. They were mostly blue and white
or madder red and white; all the colors were of domestic making,
and each woman had her dye-pot for coloring large quantities
of yarn. I can remember ours, from which mother would
take as much as a tubful of yarn at a time. Much ingenuity
was required in housekeepers of those days — ingenuity and
skill; each home was a little factory.
The Morris mothers for generations had been known for
their thrift and in the old attic it did not require great stretch
of imagination to picture Grandmother Benjamin Morris before
a blazing, open fire, one foot on the cradle rocker, rocking
her son Isaac to sleep, the other on the treadle of the spinning
wheel, while with her free hands she drew the fiber from the
distaff". All this time her mind was free to plan her work, and
so mentally, we fancy, she counted the number of towels, linen
sheets and pillow cases she would need for the coming spring.
She must also spin fine thread for her sewing and card and
spin wool for stocking yarn as well as for the flannel and cloth
for fulling she must weave. I imagine, too, that as she spun
she studied on what colors would be best for the girls' dresses
and her own. Besides, she must plan for a lot of blankets and
coverlids. These latter she thinks she will make with a border
of pine trees; the center will be either flowers or stars.
The wheels were all silent in the attic, but they spoke of
the industrious life of the Morris mother; and looking back
over all the years we recall that she died of exhaustion at the