Olden Habits and Customs
The habits and customs of the last generation, it is true, may have been less refined in some respects, but they were more wholesome and more favorable to longevity. A thousand inventions of the present day, then unknown, invite to ease, indolence, and luxury; but they are at the same time effeminating, and minister not only to new forms of bodily ailments but tend to shorten life. The physique, at least, of the last generation was superior to this, and as the full exercise of the mental powers depends on the proper development of the body, the palm of intellectual superiority and force of character may also be claimed. This is due to the habits and customs of the past and the changes that have been wrought in the last half century.
The boy who is reared in the lap of luxury grows up like a cryptogamous plant, and withers like Jonah’s gourd in the strong light of the meridian sun. But he who from early youth is inured to toil, accustomed to simple diet, and taught by experience the lesson of self-reliance, will grow up strong and vigorous like the oak of the forest. Hence it is that not only the hardy athletes, but the solid thinkers and leading men of the times so often come up from the lower ranks of society and outstrip those who enjoyed every external advantage in the start. The habits and customs of the last generation were more favorable to the development of both mind and body. If not, why is it that the race of far-seeing and almost prophetic statesmen is passing away? Those now in the front ranks of political power are but pigmies in contrast with the leading spirits of the nation in the early history of the country. True, it is sometimes said they were only comparatively great, as others around them were small just as the pedagogue is great in the midst of his pupils. But, “by their fruits ye shall know them.” Their works and the fruit of their planting not only remain as memorials of wisdom and of human greatness, but the highest glory of the present statesman is to approach as near as possible to the excellence of those who have gone before.
But let us look at some of the customs and habits of the past, and whilst we may find much to amuse us, there is also much to challenge our more serious attention.
Pure air, exercise, and simple diet will produce a hardier people, stronger physically and intellectually, than impure air, close houses, feather-beds, indolence, and luxurious living. If the nourishment of the physical system consists of highly-seasoned dainties, and that of the mind, the no less poisonous aliment of the novel, both will become dyspeptic.
Now let us go back for half a century and take a took at the old folks. What are our grandfathers and grandmothers doing? See that rude pile of stones from which the smoke slowly arises. And what means that ” rap, rap, rap?” Sometimes it is muffled, and then again it rings out quick and sharp. The man is breaking flax, and in the early winter you hear the sound of the “brake” echoing all over the country. Near the barn, the women folks, with wooden paddles, are o swingling ” and preparing it for the ” heckle.” Then, in the long winter evenings they ply the spinning-wheel whose whirr is heard far in the night. See, that mischievous boy has got his fingers in the “flyers !” Ah ! that was the fate of many a youngster. The yarn thus spun was woven into cloth, and little else than I homespun was worn in the family. The finer portions were bleached and made into underclothes and bedclothes, and the coarser into pantaloons, &c. There was too somq taste about it. The thrifty housewife with hickory bark dyed it yellow, and this, warp-woven with the natural woof, made what was called “shambaree;” or it was striped and barred with the same, white and yellow.
When the sheep were sheared, the wool was cleansed and “picked,” picked,” made into rolls with a pair of hand-cards, spun on a big wheel, dyed, woven and made into winter garments, all within the family. Don’t you remember the big wheel? What a whirr the spinner would give it, and then step backwards to extend the thread as it took the twist, and forwards again as it wound on the spindle. Then she gave it another whirl that made it buzz and hum all over the house. A young lady who was a good spinner was respected accordingly in those days. Some went out to spin among the neighbors, and it was no uncommon thing to meet a woman on the road with a spinning-wheel on her shoulder, “going out to spin” by the day or by the dozen. Of course this passage from family to family was rather favorable to “gossip,” and then we heard of “spinning yarns,” but spinners generally married in due time. A few who did not were called “spinsters,” and now all old maids are designated in the same way.
When a young lady was married, no matter how humble the circumstances of her parents might be, she always got an outfit of a bureau, a bed, a cow, and a spinning-wheel. If she had no parents to provide them, she went to work industriously until she earned them herself, or she was “bound to work ” in a richer family until she was eighteen years old, and the bed, the cow, the bureau, and spinning-wheel were provided for in the indenture. In all cases the wedding was postponed until she had the outfit, as it was a lasting disgrace to marry without it. The more wealthy added a horse and a side-saddle, but the spinning-wheel was no less essential. We may hereafter take a look at a wedding in the olden time. At present we shall only glance at some items tending to establish the proposition in hand.
Again we listen to the regular sounds of a ceaseless hammering in yonder barn. Like the stroke of the flax-brake it is muffled at times, and again it rings out sharp and clear as it strikes the floor. They are threshing with the flail. These flails, were sometimes called “poverty sticks,” because the poorer day laborers went round among the farmers in the winter time and flailed out the grain for the tenth bushel. There were generally two in company, and the precision with which they kept stroke in striking the same spot and flinging the “suple” end of the flail round their heads would astonish you at this day. Each man could earn a bushel or more of wheat or rye in a day. Another mode of threshing grain then in vogue was to lay it on a floor and then drive a team of horses over it in a circle, until the grain was tramped out. Corn was threshed in the same way, for there were no machines to do the work.
Wheat and rye were harvested with the sickle, and as many as fifty reapers could be seen together in, an oblique line gathering the golden grain. Good reapers were highly prized, and the best was generally made the leader for the day. It was considered mean for the owner to take the lead, as the number and the length of the rests under the trees, as well as the number of drinks, was regulated by the leader. Hence it was considered proper to have one who was disinterested. Of course, they looked for a full bottle of whisky and plenty of fresh water every “through,” or oftener, if the field was long. These were usually supplied by little urchins, called “bottle boys.” These “bottle boys,” for small pay, were bound to have fresh water and the whisky at the proper time and place, as ordained by the leader. This was generally under the shade of a tree nearest the next resting place. Each reaper, in turn, seized the bottle by the neck and took a draught, as they said, by the word of mouth,” amid the songs and jokes of the gay reapers assembled for a brief respite under the wide-spreading walnut tree. At last the welcome sound of the dinner horn is heard, when a two hours rest was taken. At four o’clock he lunch arrived and was often spread in the shade on the green sod, and never were the substantial dishes of the good lady better appreciated nor were ever rosy-cheeked girls more heartily welcomed than those who brought them to the field.
It may seem strange, but it is true, that there was but little drunkenness, notwithstanding the workingmen drank from ten to twenty times a day, and the diseases that now choke the life out of habitual drinkers were unknown. The only solution is in the fact that the liquor was pure. Compounders of liquors had not been born, and it was free from the poisons now often decocted. This fact in addition to the constant exercise of drinkers in the open air, prevented injurious results. To drink was more common then than now. Scarcely a family was without at least a jug in the house, and many families bought it by the barrel. The boys could drink when they pleased, and whisky was always set out to visitors, and especially when the pastor called; and the writer remembers well with what a bland smile some of these walked up to a decanter and seized it by the neck. It was then considered no less respectable to swallow spirits than it was to take a glass of water. It was cheap, too. Pure rye whisky was retailed at all the stores, at from eight to ten cents a quart. In public houses it was sold for three cents for half a gill. When ‘a drink was called for at the bar the bar-tender always set out a half-gill stem glass and filled it himself. The customer himself never got hold of the bottle at all. But this was then regarded the same as it is for a saloon-keeper to measure out a glass of lager. Who knows but the world may continue to improve until, under its civilization, it will become the fashion to roll a keg of beer to a customer, to take his fill, and call it a drink?
All in all, as we rummage amid the memories of the olden time we find more to approve and less to condemn than we do when we look abroad on the boasted wisdom, light, and knowledge of the present day.
SOURCE: Page(s) 45-49; Danville, Montour County Pennsylvania; D.H.B. Brower, Harrisburg; 1881
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