History of the United States in Words of One SyllablePierson, Helen Wall
History
History of the United States in Words of One Syllable
Pierson, Helen Wall
United States -- History -- Juvenile literature
When they sung, it was out of a book by the name of "The Bay
Psalm Book," and they did not know more than ten tunes. In those
days no one could stay from church but for a good cause, or
else they had to pay a fine. And if a man staid from church
a month, he was put in the stocks, or in a cage of wood, where
all could see him and laugh and jeer at him.
You do not know what stocks are in these times, but if you had
stood in a New Eng-land town then, you would have seen a strange
thing made of wood, by the road near the church. This queer
frame of wood would hold a man fast so that he could not move,
and you may think a day in the stocks would be hard to bear,
and would make one's bones ache.
A house in such a town, in those days, was all built on the
ground floor; so there were no stairs. It was made of earth
or logs, and had a steep roof of thatch. The place for the fire
was built of rough stones. It was large enough to burn logs
four feet long, and had so much room in it that a man and his
wife and boys and girls could sit in it and look up at the sky.
The dress in those days was not the same as it is now. The men
wore small clothes, which came to the knee like a small boy's
in these times, and they had stiff ruffs round their necks and
caps of rich stuff on their heads. The young men wore fine belts,
and great high boots which were made with a roll at the top.
The girls wore silk hoods in the streets, and stiff rich gowns,
with long waists, and lace caps on feast-days. But folks could
not wear gay clothes if the law did not think they had means
to spend for such fine things.
They had some queer laws in those days. Those who had done wrong
had to stand in the stocks, which held them by the feet and
neck, so they could not get away, or they had to mount stools
in church. If a man had a wife who had the name of a bad scold,
a cleft stick was put on her tongue, or she was made to take
a cold dip in a stream. I dare say you think those were hard
laws, and you are glad to live in these days. But that was a
race who had the fear of God in their hearts; their aim was
to do just right and to rule the land in the best way.
CHAPTER III.
THE RED MEN AND THEIR WARS.
At first, before they had time to plant the fields, the men
could but hunt and fish for food; but as years went by, they
had farms, and made glass and things for trade; they wove cloth
of wool, and some from a plant that grows in the south, of which
you may know the name. It is white and soft.
They had not much coin, and so they had to do the best they
could with skins and corn, or what they could get for trade.
The first mint to make coin was set up in Mass-a-chu-setts in
1652. This coin had a pine tree on one side, and the name of
the State. One side had a date and N. E. for New Eng-land. All
this coin was known as "pine-tree coin." In time the land at
Plym-outh Bay and those near took one name, "Mass-a-chu-setts."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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