In writing of “old times” we have a definite period in mind. All times, in truth, but the present are old, but wherever the phrase is met with, it refers to the years when the grandfathers and grandmothers then living were young. Ever since there were grandfathers and grandmothers there have been “old times,” and these times have kept even pace with the ageing of the world, following, shadow-like, the accumulating years, and always nearly three-quarters of a century behind the present. It therefore follows that the “old times” pictured in this volume have to do with the early part of this century. [Illustration: FARM TOOLS] This old life as it ran then in our New England farmhouses was the typical American life, and was not essentially different from country life in any of our Northern States. Even with that of the city it had many things in common. The large places had much the character of overgrown villages, and were not yet converted into the great blocks of brick and stone, now familiar, where business may throng miles and miles of noisy streets. Factory towns, too, with their high-walled mills and grimy, crowded tenements huddling about, were of the future. [Illustration: A LOOM] [Illustration: FANS AND BACK-COMB] But the dawn of the new century was the herald of change. Everywhere was activity. The country was new, and we had many needs which the Old World did not feel. Necessity made us inventors, and ingenuity became an American characteristic. A long line of towns stretched along the Atlantic coast and occupied an occasional interval along the larger streams, and houses were beginning to appear and hamlets to grow farther inland. The adventurous were pushing westward. The heavy canvas-topped wagons drawn by the slow-moving oxen were trundling along the road toward the setting sun. Under the white arch of canvas were stored the furniture and household supplies of a family. Behind were driven the sheep and cattle which should form the nucleus of new flocks in the new home. [Illustration: OLD CHAIRS] The century was seven years old before Fulton’s steamer made its trial trip. Advantage was quickly taken of this new application of power, and soon steam vessels were puffing up and down all the larger rivers and along the coast, though a dozen years elapsed before one ventured across the Atlantic. Railroads were still unthought of. Even wagons were not common for some years after the close of the last century. There were very few places in the United States whose inhabitants exceeded ten thousand in 1800; but the building of factories shortly commenced, and these became the magnets which drew a great tide of life from the country and from foreign shores into the cities. The factories gave the deathblow to the multitude of handicrafts which up to this time had flourished in the New England villages. [Illustration: ONE OF THE OLD HOUSES]