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

22 ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
Cooking stoves were then but little used. In the immense
kitchen of grandfather's frame house the heavy kettles hung
over the fire from a crane, where meat and vegetables were
boiled. The baking was done in Dutch ovens. These were
large, flat-bottomed kettles set up on three legs and covered
with a thick iron lid. The oven was placed on the hearth and
hot, bright coals drawn out beneath it; more coals were placed
on top the lid, and renewed when necessary until the corn or
wheat bread or the pie was baked. I do not know whether our
grandparents had a brick oven or not, but I do know that all
the larger families about did.
How cheerful the bright, clean hearth with its singing teakettle;
how good the odors of savory meat and wholesome
bread arising from the crane and Dutch oven; how clean and
white the coarse, homespun hnen on the "fall-leaf table;" how
pretty the blue-and-white plates; how dark and rich the pre-
serves and golden the custard pudding! This was the tea
table in the kitchen when company had come to spend the
evening. Let us peep into the next room, where the host and
hostess are entertaining: the fire has been made up, the hearth
is swept, bright red apples are warming there, and a large
mug of cider is being passed around, while matrons in caps
are plying their swift knitting-needles and chatting merrily
of such subjects as their flax and wool — how many hanks they
have spun this fall or how much cloth they have woven. There
is no conversation concerning "bargains" in Hnen and cloth,
though there is some mention of the pretty chintz dresses
folded away in chests, almost as expensive as silken gowns.
The men, then as now, have other things to talk about — how
many hogs they will kill; how much land has been cleared on
their respective places; how the young orchards are doing;
whether the wolves have been after the sheep or the deer made
havoc with their turnips; perhaps they have even seen bear
tracks about the barn.
Then as the fire begins to fade and the shadows to deepen
in remote corners, they tell the tales of olden times — tales of
witches, of wonder-inspiring comets foretelling famine, pestilence,
and war; tales of murder, of buried treasure, of haunted