Nearly all the judges of the Superior Court occasionally worked in the field, in these hearty old federal times.

Whether these facts may be connected with others, which I am about to state, is a question I leave for doctors to determine. Certain it is that at this period professional men had good health and good digestion: no clergyman was known to have bronchitis. I seldom heard of dyspepsia, bodily or mental, during the existence of the Charter of Charles II. There is a pretty common notion in the United States, that Jefferson infused a general demagogism into this country, which percolated through the blood and bone of society, and set everybody in some way or other, to flattering the masses. It is certain that about this time, not only the politician, but the preacher, the lawyer, the editor, the author, all took to talking, speech-making, lecturing in a new way, in a new sense-that is, so as to seduce the multitude. Thus was ushered in the Age of Talk, which soon grew into a rage. The mania kept pace with democracy, and democracy with the mania; and at last, at the end of this national flatulence, the world grew light-headed, and forth came a spawn of isms, which no man can number. Under the influence of this advent of new notions, some took to cold water and some to mint-juleps; some to raw vegetables and some to hot slings. All agonized in one way or another. Every thing grew intense: politics swam with pota

tions; religion got mixed up with transcendentalism; until at last, professors took to table-turning and judges to spirit-rappings. Now I do not say that all this is a sequence of logical deductions: that spiritualism is to be fathered upon Thomas Jefferson: what I affirm is, that demagogism and democracy, dyspepsia and transcendentalism, vegetarianism and spiritualism, have all come up, one after another, since old federalism went down! If it is any object to cure mankind of these vapors, I recommend that we all go back to the habits of other days, in which ministers, judges and governors wrought occasionally in the field.

But I return to Ridgefield. The household, as well as political, economy of these days lay in this, that every family lived as much as possible within itself. Money was scarce, wages being about fifty cents a day, though these were generally paid in meat, vegetables, and other articles of use seldom in money. There was not a factory of any kind in the place. There was a butcher, but he only went from house to house to slaughter the cattle and swine of his neighbors. There was a tanner, but he only dressed other people's skins: there was a clothier, but he generally fulled and dressed other people's cloth. All this is typical of the mechanical opera

*

* I recollect, as an after-thought, one exception. There was a hatter who supplied the town; but he generally made hats to order, and usually in exchange for the skins of foxes, rabbits, muskrats, and other chance peltry. I frequently purchased my powder and shot from the proceeds of skins which I sold him.

tions of the place. Even dyeing blue a portion of the wool, so as to make linsey-woolsey for shortgowns, aprons, and blue-mixed stockings-vital necessities in those days-was a domestic operation. During the autumn, a dye-tub in the chimney corner -thus placed so as to be cherished by the genial heat -was as familiar in all thrifty houses, as the Bible or the back-log. It was covered with a board, and formed a cosy seat in the wide-mouthed fireplace, especially of a chill evening. When the night had waned, and the family had retired, it frequently became the anxious seat of the lover, who was permitted to carry on his courtship, the object of his addresses sitting demurely in the opposite corner. Some of the first families in Connecticut, I suspect, could their full annals be written, would find their foundations to have been laid in these chimney-corner courtships.

Being thus exposed, this institution of the dye-tub was the frequent subject of distressing and exciting accidents. Among the early, indelible incidents in my memory, happening to all vigorous characters, turning this over is one of the most prominent. Nothing so roused the indignation of thrifty housewives, for besides the ignominious avalanche of blue upon the floor, there was an infernal appeal made to another sense than that of sight. Every youth of parts was laden with experience in this way. I have a vague impression that Philip N...., while courting

H.... M ..., was suspended for six weeks, for one of these mischances. If it was not he, it was some other spark of that generation.

To this general system of domestic economy our family was not an exception. Every autumn, it was a matter of course that we had a fat ox or a fat cow, ready for slaughter. One full barrel was salted down; the hams were cut out, slightly salted, and hung up in the chimney for a few days, and thus became "dried" or "hung beef," then as essential as the staff of life. Pork was managed in a similar way, though even on a larger scale, for two barrels were indispensable. A few pieces, as the spare-ribs, &c., were distributed to the neighbors, who paid in kind when they killed their swine.

This,

Mutton and poultry came in their turn, all from our own stock, save that on Thanksgiving-day some of the magnates gave the parson a turkey. let me observe, in those good old times, was a bird of mark; no timid, crouching biped, with downcast head and pallid countenance, but stalking like a lord, and having wattles red as a "banner bathed in slaughter." His beard, or in modern parlance, his goat, without the aid of gum and black-ball, was so long, shining, and wiry, that it might have provoked the envy of his modern human rival in foppery. There was, in fact, something of the genius of the native bird still in him, for though the race was nearly extinct, a few wild flocks lingered in the remote

woods. Occasionally in the depth of winter, and along to the early spring, these stole to the barnyard, and held communion with their civilized compatriots. Severe battles ensued among the leaders for the favors of the fair, and as the wild cocks always conquered, the vigor of the race was kept up.

Our bread was of rye, tinged with Indian meal. Wheat bread was reserved for the sacrament and company; a proof not of its superiority, but of its scarcity and consequent estimation. All the vegetables came from our garden and farm. The fuel was supplied by our own woods-sweet-scented hickory, snapping chestnut, odoriferous oak, and reeking, fizzling ash-the hot juice of the latter, by the way, being a sovereign antidote for the ear-ache. These were laid in huge piles, all alive with sap, on the tall, gaunt andirons. You might have thought you heard John Rogers and his family at the stake, by their plaintive simmerings. The building of a fire was a real architectural achievement, favored by the wide yawning fireplace, and was always begun by daybreak. There was first a back-log, from fifteen to four and twenty inches in diameter and five feet long, imbedded in the ashes; then came a top log; then a fore stick; then a middle stick, and then a heap of kindlings, reaching from the bowels down to the bottom. A-top of all was a pyramid of smaller fragments, artfully adjusted, with spaces for the blaze.

Friction matches had not then been sent from the