A small fire burned red on the hearth and a gentle cloud of steam rose from the bubbling kettle. The brass warming-pan made a blob of light against the dull red bricks. The dresser was white from its recent scrubbing and the pewter on it shone brightly. Grandmother’s blue plates and saucers had been rearranged on the plate rail and the spoons and white-handled knives laid back in the mahogany boxes on the dresser. John had whittled and smoothed those boxes for his mother in the winter evenings. The Bible, and the New England Primer and Father’s horned spectacles lay on the small table in the corner, and the cradle, with its new pink and white checked cover, stood near the fireplace. When Mother got up, the baby would lie in that all day. The floor looked nice and clean. It had been freshly sanded and the braided rugs laid carefully in their usual places before the hearth and doorways. The old gray cat had stretched himself near the fireplace, and his friend, the dog, slept beside him.
Mary Jane noticed that the wind had blown awry Dorothy’s framed sampler which hung on the wall. She straightened it and read again the words: “Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Dorothy Ward Andrews.” She read the words soberly, and thought of her own good father. Picking up her clean cap and a basin of water, she started upstairs. A sudden clap of thunder shook the house and, with the first sprinkle of rain, the kitchen door blew open and Jenny Lewis dashed in.
“Just in time, Mary Jane! I am glad you are through with your work! I have come to take you home to supper as soon as this shower blows over. John told me to tell you he would bring you home this evening. He has something pretty for you. I do not know what it is, but he made it and he feels sure that you will like it. You are too good, Mary Jane! I told John that you were kinder than I, but perhaps you would not like his homemade gift. I am very sure that I should not prefer it unless it were finer than you could buy in the shops.” So talking on, Jenny pushed Mary Jane through the stairway door.
The storm drove her father out of the flax patch, and in a few minutes, he hastened into the warmth of the kitchen. His wife called from the inner room and told him that Jenny Lewis had come for Mary Jane and she hoped he would allow the girl to go down to Cap’n Lewis’s for the evening. There could be no harm, the mother said, in Mary Jane having well-to-do friends. John Lewis was a sober, industrious youth, even though his sister Jenny was rather flighty. She would like to have Mary Jane go more often to visit in Jenny’s home. As the mother made her ambitious little plans, the girls came into the kitchen. Mary Jane glanced shyly at her father. She was wearing her best summer dress.
“Jenny has asked me down to her house for supper, Father. The storm has passed around, and the sun is coming out. I should like to go. Everything is ready to put on the table for your supper, and Abigail can attend to the children. Jenny says she and John will walk a piece with me when I come home.”
“Why, Mary Jane Andrews, I never said anything of the sort!” Jenny exclaimed, “John sent word he wanted to bring you home.”
Mary Jane’s father looked at her searchingly and gravely. Mary Jane had not meant to tell a fib but she was always bashful when she spoke of John Lewis. Could there be a smile in her father’s eye? She thought not. She dropped her own eyes and waited. In a minute her father spoke:
“Better not go out to-night, Daughter. Your mother will be up in a day or two, and then there will be more freedom for you. Responsibility will not hurt any lass and a small disappointment is better than a pleasure taken at the wrong time.”
“Tell John,” her father added as he turned to Jenny, “that we shall be glad to see him when he calls up here. I hear that your father has made another successful trip. It is a hard and dangerous life he lives on the sea. May the Lord prosper him.” Then Mary Jane’s father went out.
Jenny flung herself into the rocker and spoke angrily to Mary Jane.
“I am glad indeed that my father is not a cross-patch! What does your father think? Just because he is one of the elders in the church must his daughter have no pleasure? He does not give you any gay dresses. Even your best dress is just this blue one with a white kerchief. It is not fair, and now he will spoil our little pleasure. I believe he likes to forbid you to do things, just because he knows you will obey. Why do you? Come with me and show your father you have a right to a few minutes in the day! Perhaps he does not approve of me! Well, I do not care. Come, Mary Jane. Come down and see my new dresses. Your father said, ‘Better not go out to-night’; he did not forbid you to go. You can tell him that when you come back. Oh, what is the use of coaxing! You look just as stubborn as your father. Good-by, I am going home!”
“Come back here, Jenny Lewis!” Mary Jane called after her. “I am glad I look like my father! He has a perfect right to keep me at home if he wants to. Folks feel sorry because your father has to work so hard and spend so much of his money on clothes for you. I like pretty clothes too, but if my father thinks I am putting too much thought on myself, he tells me so. He shows me my duty.”
Mary Jane pulled her flax-wheel toward her and whirled the wheel rapidly.
“My father believes I will grow in grace and patience for big sorrows and disappointments if I bear little ones cheerfully. What kind of practice are you getting, Jenny Lewis? It is wicked to talk about a father as you have talked about mine. I am not disappointed one bit about not going to your house. I like my homespun dresses and I can make linen as fine as you get in your dresses from England. When I get the kitchen cleaned and the floor sanded and the white curtains in place I feel happy. It is my work and it pleases my mother and I like to do it. Father does not say much about our work, because he expects us to do it well. He knows work is good for us. But what are you doing, Jenny? All you think about is pretty dresses and looking gay. I am glad Father thought I was needed here at suppertime—but I will come down to your house some other night,” Mary Jane said more gently.
“Perhaps you are right, Mary Jane, but you need not get so cross about it. I may be lazy, I suppose, but I do not see what there is about work that makes you like to do it, and in disappointment, even a little one, that makes you glad to bear it.”
“Jenny, I cannot explain. I like to cook and clean and spin and knit. That’s the way I feel. It isn’t hard. I don’t mean to be conceited or think myself better than other people, but somehow when my father is strictest with me something inside of me likes it. Here comes Dorothy with a bunch of pink and white arbutus. It grows late up in the woods. How pretty it is! Our Pilgrim grandmothers must have been glad to see it peeping up from the snow after their long, hard winters. Who is this coming in with the boys? Why, it is your brother John! Jenny, will you and John stay to supper with us?” Mary Jane turned to her friend eagerly.
“Yes, Mary Jane, and I will help you with the dishes and, after supper, John shall tell us stories about his voyage. It is just as well we were disappointed! I will try to be a more dutiful daughter, Mary Jane. I guess Father and Mother like to have me visit you. They chide me for my heedless ways.”
The girls and boys came trooping in together and Mary Jane pushed aside her flax-wheel and stirred the embers on the hearth, laying on fresh sticks. John Lewis met her with awkward shyness and dropping a bulky package on the chair beside her said, “Open it later, Mary Jane. It is for you. I whittled it out in spare minutes aboard the Breezy Belle.”
Jenny called across the room.
“Hurry up, John Lewis, and all of you boys wash while we help Mary Jane dish up the beans. It is supper time, and she has asked you and me to stay. Here is Sam Dodd, Mary Jane.”
“Oh yes, he wants his mother’s beans. They are the ones in the back of the oven, Jenny. Please help him.”
“We shall be glad to help you while your oven is being repaired, Sam. Tell your mother to send in anything she wants to have baked.
“Do open the door for him, John. It would be a pity for him to drop the beans and spoil his mother’s supper.”
So, laughing and hurrying, Mary Jane and her helpers soon had on the table their supper of baked beans and brown bread, custards and cool drinks of milk. After supper, Father asked his family and the company to gather for prayers at once for he had an errand up the road and wished to get back early. The planting and housecleaning days were hard ones and he knew that his folks needed to get to bed in good season if they wanted to do good work the following day.
Mary Jane placed a candle on the table near the Bible and the children drew up their stools and Father’s chair. Father read the twenty-third psalm and knelt to pray. He thanked the Lord for the blessings of the day, the fair weather and plentiful food and his helpful sons and daughters. He prayed that all young souls, untried in the furnace of life, should lean on the Lord and strive to do their duty nobly as He would show it to them. He prayed earnestly and rose from his knees weary but heartened. The young folks went gravely about the task of clearing away the dishes. But when Father Andrews departed, their solemnity gave place to mirth and jolly fun. John raked open the coals and brought out a little popcorn that had lasted through the winter. Thomas agreed to pop it for them, and John took down his powder-horn. He wanted to finish whittling the design on it. Dorothy coaxed Jenny down on the settle to tell about her visit in Boston and Mary Jane brought out a skein of soft, white wool.
“Perhaps you will hold this for me, John Lewis? I am going to knit a hood for the new babe Samuel, but the wool must first be wound in a ball.”
“No, Mary Jane, there is a better way to hold that worsted than on a man’s outstretched arms. Open the package I brought you and look within.”
Mary Jane untied the hempen cord fastened about the bundle John had brought in and the boys and girls gathered near, with jest and laughing glances. So John Lewis had made their sister something! Well, he always looked as if he liked her, but this was proof indeed. What could it be, so bulky and strange looking? Would Mary Jane never get it out? She handled the string slowly (almost lovingly, John Lewis hoped). But at last the covers fell off on her lap, and she held out a dainty and beautifully polished swift. John took it from her, and, placing it on the table, dropped over the outspread spokes, her skein of white worsted. He quickly found the end of the skein, and placing it gently in Mary Jane’s hand, bade her wind the ball. As the reel turned slowly and Mary Jane’s ball grew large and soft, she lifted her eyes gratefully to John Lewis. The others had withdrawn to the settles and fireplace and John made bold to whisper as he leaned across the corner of the table:
“Mary Jane, will you walk out with me on the Sabbath? ’Twill be a long six months before we put to sea again, and, perhaps, in that time you may come to like a slow fellow like me. Maybe I can make you a chest to put your caps and linens in while I am home. That would make you think of me when you put things in it after I am gone. Will you walk with me, Mary Jane?”
Mary Jane twirled the reel and examined the cunningly wrought initials of her name on the side and flushed a lovely color when she discovered J. L.—John Lewis—just below them. She gazed laughingly at John and nodded her head, but her shy whisper left him speechless:
“I do not think you are a slow fellow, John, and I like you now. I have liked you a long time! I have a chest and it is half full of fine linen. I have been busy.”
“Mary Jane, did you think of me as you spun the linen and dyed the wool?”
Mary Jane nodded again and picked up her knitting-needles. Her father came in and John jumped to his feet.
“Elder Andrews, may I have Mary Jane for my wife? She likes me, she says, and we need not wait? Will you let us have the banns published this Sabbath approaching? I am twenty, sir, and Mary Jane is sixteen. That is only a year younger than my father and mother were when they married and came to the colony.”
“Daughter, is this your wish?” her father asked.
A solemn hush fell on the group in the kitchen. Grandmother stood in the doorway and gazed affectionately on the oldest daughter of their family. She knew the sterling worth of the girl John Lewis desired for his wife, and she knew that if these young people married, another home would be established in the colony which would be a power for righteousness and godly living.
Mary Jane looked steadfastly at her father, and tucked her hand under John’s arm as she answered:
“Yes, Father.”
“Then God bless you both, my children, and may you believe all that is required in this world is for you to live justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
So saying, he walked quietly from the room. The brothers and sisters crowded about Mary Jane and John, and Jenny whispered as she put on her bonnet: “Mary Jane, I like your father.”
Mary Jane smiled gently. A peace and happiness had come into her heart that knew no words. She turned to John to say good-night. Her father’s blessing shone from her loyal, brave eyes, and John Lewis knew that he was truly fortunate among men.
HOW TO BUILD A COLONIAL KITCHEN
IN SCHOOL, LIBRARY OR MUSEUM
Give to an intelligent carpenter the following directions:
Make the kitchen, if possible, as large as 16′ × 20′. Put the fireplace in the center of one of the longer sides. On the opposite side make the wall the height of an ordinary table, 31″, except for a space of 3′ at each end, thus leaving an opening on that side about 14 feet long. Through this opening the kitchen will be chiefly viewed. At the right of the opening put a door, cut in half in the old Dutch fashion. (Plate I.)
Build the walls of “compo-board,” a trade article easily obtained, and costing (January, 1921) about 8 cents per square foot. We have found nothing so serviceable as this for light and temporary interior construction. Make the walls not over 8′ high. Construct rafters of thin boards—they may even be of compo-board and hollow, and lay them across from wall to wall. (Plate II.)
At one end put 2 or 3 windows. These windows should be small and have small panes. The sash need not be movable. The windows in the picture were found at a junk shop, as were also the door already mentioned and the one for the corner cupboard. (Plate III.)
Plate II shows the character of the fireplace and its size, and gives the mantel-piece in ample detail. The bricks are, of course, only such in appearance, being painted on. The crane may be a genuine old one, or of wood. The fire is made by an electric lamp, hidden in the sticks and covered with red tissue.
The wainscoting and the mantel-piece are simple in the extreme. The appearance of paneling is produced by tacking molding on the walls of compo-board, all as indicated. The ceiling is made of cotton cloth stretched tightly above the beams.
In one corner is a cupboard. This can be made, as in the picture, with an ordinary small door, or can be a genuine antique. On the walls may be hung a hood, tippets, mittens and a few other domestic articles, all as indicated. Above are peppers, a few strings of dried apples, etc. But be chary of objects and keep the whole atmosphere simple. (Plate IV.)
Paint rafters, wainscoting and cornice all the same color, as suits the taste of the constructor. The walls above the wainscoting should be very near white for lighting purposes.
Outside so place bushes like barberries that they may be seen through the windows. (Plate III.)
We found it desirable to have the kitchen lighted from one end. Thus lighted it looked much like a genuine interior at sunset. To get this illumination through the windows at one end, we first reduced the general lighting of the room in which the kitchen was erected. We then placed, a few feet from the windows, a large screen of cotton cloth on which were sketched in strong color a tree against a brilliant yellow sunset sky. Right under the windows we placed several strong electric lights with reflectors, throwing a brilliant light upon the screen above mentioned. From the screen, as if from a sunset, there came a yellow light into the room, adding greatly to the beauty and attractiveness of the whole interior.
The furnishings of the room will depend on what may be found available for the purpose.
APPENDIX
FIGURE 1
Well and well-sweep. Water was rarely piped into houses and barns. Lacking a brook or spring a well was dug near the house. Pumps were expensive and not often used, but a device like this for lifting water from a well could easily be made. The pole, or sweep, was so weighted at the large end that it would almost lift the vertical stick and the bucket at the other end when the latter was full of water. A moderate pull on the vertical pole carried the bucket down to the water. When the bucket had filled a moderate lift on the pole brought it to the top. A chain from A to B gave room to lift the bucket over the curb.
FIGURE 2
Candlesticks were often of brass, though the poorer people used those made of wood, iron or tin; and three nails driven into a bit of board could serve very well. Those of brass were often beautiful.
The knob on the upright of the stick at the left slid up and down in a slot and carried with it a movable base; with this device the candle was lifted out of the upright as it burned, until the base came to the top and the last atom of the candle burned.
The central stick shows a like device, and has also a thin projecting arm of brass which could be put into a socket in the wall.
The third one has its candle covered by an extinguisher, a hollow cone, dropped on a lighted candle to put it out. The upstanding extension of brass has a hole in its end, and by this can be hung over a nail in the wall.
FIGURE 3
A porringer or shallow bowl, often of pewter and sometimes of silver, with a handle which was commonly decorated with perforations. The perforations helped to keep the handle cool. The porringer was chiefly used on the table as a dish, though food was often cooked in it also. It was most often used for serving food to children.
FIGURE 4
A cast-iron skillet with legs to lift it above the coals and ashes. As all cooking vessels were used at an open fire they were all made either to hang above it like a pot or to stand before it like a tin oven, or to rest upon its coals like a three-legged skillet.
FIGURE 5
A tin kitchen or roaster. A box of tin standing on legs and with one side open. A steel spit was stuck through the meat and the meat was fastened to it by skewers, which passed through the meat and through small holes in the spit itself. All was then placed in the roaster, which was set before the fire. The spit was turned from time to time as the cooking required. Gravy was caught in the hollow below, and some of it was now and then taken up in a spoon and poured on the meat. This was “basting.” The task of turning the spit by the crank on one end of it was often given to a boy. In the homes of the wealthy and in taverns the one who thus minded the roast was often called a turn-spit. By means of simple tread-mill devices a dog was often used to turn the crank, and he then became a turn-spit dog.
FIGURE 6
A plate-warmer. This was a box of tin or sheet iron on legs, with a door in one side. It stood near the fire and in it were placed dishes to be warmed, and food that was cooked and ready to eat but needed to be kept hot until the rest of the meal was prepared, or until all the family had gathered and were ready to sit down to the table. In very cold weather the kitchen sometimes could not be kept warm, no matter how big and hot the fire in the fireplace. It was then a comfort, and almost a luxury, to have hot dishes from which to eat the food which the cold room soon chilled.
FIGURE 7
A wool spinning-wheel. The spinner walked back and forth in using this wheel, and her walk was often many miles in a day’s spinning. A band of stout cord goes around the big wheel and around the spindle. A strand of wool, very light and loose, is gently drawn by hand from the distaff to the end of the finished thread which is wound about the spindle. This strand is held loosely in the left hand. The right hand on one of the spokes of the large wheel gives it a smart turn. The spinner then walks away from the machine and the spindle, swiftly turned by the momentum of the large wheel, twists the loose strand of wool into a close thread. This thread is of such length and of such size and hardness of twist as the spinner decides upon, all being dependent on the force with which the big wheel is pushed, on the thickness of the loose strand of wool, and on the way in which the spinner holds it as she walks from the wheel. The finished thread is then wound on the spindle by gently reversing the large wheel, and holding the thread at the spindle. Then the same process is repeated.
FIGURE 8
A cradle. Few colonial babies had rocking cradles as luxurious as this; indeed, few had cradles at all.
FIGURE 9
A wooden churn. Its like is used to this day. In former times churning was one of the tasks that many a farmer’s boy had too much of. On the lower end of the handle, which passed down through a hole in the center of the cover, was a disk of wood, perforated and fitting loosely in the tall tub. The tub was partially filled with cream and the butter was made to “come” by moving the handle up and down and thus splashing the disk up and down in the cream.
FIGURE 10
A flint-lock gun. The flint was fastened into the hammer and, as it drove down against a curved shield, it raised a shower of sparks and at the same time lifted the shield and exposed to the sparks the powder in the pan. The powder, being thus ignited, the fire followed it through the hole into the barrel and exploded the powder in the “charge” behind the bullet or shot. All flint-locks “hung fire.” That is, the pulling of the trigger did not discharge the gun as quickly as it does in modern guns where the exploding cap is connected directly with the charge in the cartridge.
A flint-lock pistol. This operated just as did the flint-lock gun.
FIGURE 11
The warming-pan. In most houses the only warm place was by the kitchen fire. In winter the bedrooms were about as cold as the weather out of doors. This made the beds far from comfortable to get into on a cold night. The warming-pan was a basin of brass or copper with a hinged cover, sometimes decorated. Hot ashes and coals from the kitchen fire were put into it; it was then carried to the bed and the hot pan was pushed up and down between the sheets until the whole bed was warm.
FIGURE 12
Snuffers. Here, as in many of the other pictures in this book, a tea-cup and saucer are placed near the drawing of the object to be described. This is added to give a correct idea of the relative size of the objects represented. In each case the object to be described and the tea-cup are drawn to the same scale; and, as you know about how large a tea-cup is, you get a clear idea of the size of the object by which it stands.
Snuffers were used to snip off the end of a candle wick. As the tallow or wax melted and burned, the top of the wick, although it was burned to a mere black bit of coal, held fast to the part of the wick which still continued to draw up the melted tallow into the flame. If this black end was not now and then picked off with the snuffers, or some other instrument, or with the fingers, it dropped over and perhaps hit the top of the candle and kept it from burning bright and clear.
The snuffers are like a pair of scissors, with a box on one blade and a cover for the box on the other. When used they were handled like a pair of scissors and the black end of the wick was snipped into the box out of sight and harm. The pointed end of one blade was used to prick up the wick if it did not stand straight or was too tightly twisted. The three legs kept the snuffers, which were sooty on the under side from being stuck into the candle flame, away from the table or the tray where they were usually kept.
The candles of to-day do not often need to be snuffed, because as their wicks, which are carefully twisted, are burned free of the tallow, wax or paraffin, they bend a little in the effort to untwist. This bending thrusts the used-up end sidewise into the hot, outer flame and there it is quite burned up. In old days the wicks were not twisted much, if at all, and so, as the candle melted from them,—they stuck up into the dull, smoky, non-burning part of the flame, and stayed there until they hung over or fell off.
FIGURE 13
A reel for winding the thread into skeins, from the spindle which was taken from the spinning-wheel as soon as it was filled. By means of a cog wheel and a worm screw within the box, and a pointer on its side, the number of turns of the reel were easily counted, and that told the length of the thread wound on it. As the wheel revolved it made a loud click for each of a certain number of turns.
FIGURE 14
Kettles were usually made of iron; these had to be cast and not wrought, but, as they were usually thick and heavy, most large kettles were made of thin brass, sometimes of copper. These tarnished easily and one of the many and not very pleasant tasks of the housewife was to keep them clean and bright.
FIGURE 15
In the fireplace was hung a swinging crane of iron. Suspended from it were hooks on which pots and kettles were hung. The hooks could be moved along the crane and were of different lengths and sometimes adjustable. The crane could thus hold several kettles at once, some in the very heat of the fire and some farther away. The fireplace was the center of the home, the one source of heat, the one place for cooking and often the one source of light at night. Many pioneers and their families had to do all their reading on long winter evenings by the light of the open fire.
When a house was built and the chimney and fireplace finished, the “hanging of the crane,” the final step in preparation for housekeeping, was sometimes part of a ceremony, with Bible reading, hymns and prayers, followed by feasting and rejoicing.
FIGURE 16
All sewing was done by hand. A sewing-bird was often fastened to a table by a thumbscrew. The cloth was caught in the beak as desired and this made the sewing easier.
FIGURE 17
Andirons or fire-dogs were used in every house, for all fires were of wood and in fireplaces. The poorer people were content with very simple andirons, made of wrought or cast iron and without any ornament. In these, the standards are made tall and they have as ornaments little vase-forms of brass at their tops.
Tongs and shovel were as necessary as the andirons, and like them were often of the simplest make. These have handsome brass handles.
FIGURE 18
A toasting rack. Slices of bread were placed on edge between the curved bars, and the rack was then set before the fire. The flat strip of iron to which the bars were fastened could be made to revolve on the bar below, attached to the handle so that when one side of the bread was toasted, the other side was easily turned to the fire.
FIGURE 19
A gridiron, used not only for cooking meat but also as a rest on which to set cooking utensils of any kind, raising them above the coals below. All utensils of this type stood on legs to lift them a little above the coals and ashes.
FIGURE 20
Knife-tray, used also for spoons. It was handy and took the place of a drawer. In many of the home-made tables for the kitchen there was no drawer. The tray was usually made of wood and very simple.
FIGURE 21
Spectacles and Bible. The rings at the ends of the frames gripped the head behind the ears a little and helped to hold the spectacles more securely. The rims and frames were often made of iron and were then very heavy.
A big Bible like this, with brass corners and clasps, was in many colonial homes. From it the head of the house read aloud every morning or evening. In it, on blank leaves between the Old and New Testaments, was kept the “Family Record,” that is, a list of births, marriages and deaths with dates, sometimes going back for several generations.
FIGURE 22
A wheel for spinning flax. At this wheel the spinner, almost always a woman, sat to spin. The process was quite similar to that followed with a wool-wheel; but the wheel was made to revolve by a pedal like that on a sewing machine.
FIGURE 23
A powder-horn. Powder was almost always carried in a horn. The horn was usually home made and very simple. A cow’s horn, which is hollow, was patiently scraped on the inside until it was smooth and as thin as the maker desired. In the larger end was fitted a bottom of wood, and in this was fastened a ring or a nail. The small end was cut off to give a hole of proper size. In the horn was cut a rim or groove. To this groove and to the ring in the bottom a stout cord was fastened, which passed over the hunter’s shoulder and held the horn at a convenient place at his right side. The opening was stopped by a wooden plug, so made that it could be easily removed and held in the teeth, so that the hunter might have both hands free to pour out the powder. Often a smaller horn was carried in the pocket to hold a finer and quicker-acting powder to fill the pan for firing. Being finer, it entered the hole more easily and joined the powder of the main charge. Being quicker-acting, it helped to lessen the “hang fire” habit.
FIGURE 24
A swift, which was fastened to the edge of a table by a thumb-screw. A skein of yarn was placed on it just as it was expanded, like an umbrella, and then, the swift turning as the yarn was pulled, the yarn could be easily wound from it into a ball or on to a spool.
FIGURE 25
A spider or skillet with a bail by which it could be hung over the fire from the crane. It also has legs for standing among the coals.
FIGURE 26
This house is suggested in part by a picture of the Nathan Hale Schoolhouse in Alice Morse Earle’s Child Life in Colonial Days, but chiefly by the floor plan in Abbott’s “Rodolphus,” Harpers Magazine, Vol. 4., 1851, page 441.
FIGURE 27
This floorplan is taken from Abbott’s “Rodolphus,” Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 4, 1851, page 444.
- BED ROOM
- BACK ROOM
- BACK ENTRY
- FRONT ROOM
- Fire places
- KITCHEN
- PLATFORM
- ENTRY
- PORCH
PLATE I
Colonial Kitchen in the Newark Museum
The room in which the kitchen was built at the Newark Museum is about 31′ × 75′. One carpenter, with very little assistance, constructed the kitchen in a few days. A house-painter painted it in about two days. Its total cost, ready for furniture, was not over one hundred and seventy-five dollars.
PLATE II
Colonial Fireside
A picture of the fireplace at one end of an old time kitchen which was set up in the Newark Library, 1916. Notes on its construction are given on pp. 49-51.
PLATE III
Domestic Industry
How the colonial kitchen was used as sewing room and nursery. The end of the kitchen through whose window is seen the landscape painted on screens and the barberry bush standing in a pot on the floor.
PLATE IV
Tea Time
An old-time dining-table set with old-time china and pewter and lighted with candles. The end of the kitchen shows the corner cupboard, shelves for dishes and hooks for tippets and mittens.
END
Transcriber’s Notes
- Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.
- Silently corrected a few palpable typos.
- In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.