V. DUTCH TOWN HOMES 98 VI. DUTCH FARMHOUSES 115 VII. THE DUTCH LARDER 128 VIII. THE DUTCH VROUWS 154 IX. THE COLONIAL WARDROBE 172 X. HOLIDAYS 185 XI. AMUSEMENTS AND SPORTS 204 XII. CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS 227 XIII. CHURCH AND SUNDAY IN OLD NEW YORK 261 XIV. “THE END OF HIS DAYS” 293 COLONIAL DAYS IN OLD NEW YORK CHAPTER I THE LIFE OF A DAY At the first break of day, every spring and summer morn, the quiet Dutch sleepers in the old colonial town of Albany were roused by three loud blasts of a horn sounded far and wide by a sturdy cow-herd; and from street and dooryard came in quick answer the jingle-jangle, the klingle-klangle of scores of loud-tongued brass and iron bells which hung from the necks of steady-going hungry Dutch cows who followed the town-herder forth each day to pastures green. On the broad town-commons or the fertile river-meadows Uldrick Heyn and his “chosen proper youngster,” his legally appointed aid, watched faithfully all day long their neighbors’ cattle; and as honest herdsmen earned well their sea-want and their handsel of butter, dallying not in tavern, and drinking not of wine, as they were sternly forbidden by the _schepens_, until when early dews were falling they quit their meadow grasses mellow, for “at a quarter of an hour before the sun goes down the cattle shall be delivered at the church.” Thence the patient kine slowly wandered or were driven each to her own home-stall, her protecting cow-shed. In New Amsterdam the town’s cow-herd was Gabriel Carpsey; and when his day’s work was done, he walked at sunset through the narrow lanes and streets of the little settlement, sounding at each dooryard Gabriel’s horn, a warning note of safe return and milking-time. Until mid-November did the morning cow-horn waken the burghers and their _vrouws_ at sunrise; and when with cold winter the horn lay silent, they must have sorely missed their unfailing eye-opener.