The ample kitchen was the centre of family life, social and industrial. Here around the rough table, seated on rude stools or benches, all partook of the plain and often stinted fare. A glance at the family gathered here after nightfall of a winter's day may prove of interest. After a supper of bean-porridge, or hominy and milk, which all partake in common from a great pewter basin, or wooden bowl, with spoons of wood, horn, or pewter; after a reverent reading of the Bible, and fervent supplication to the Most High for care and guidance; after the watch was set on the tall mount, and the vigilant sentinel began pacing his lonely beat, the shutters were closed and barred, and with a sense of security the occupations of the long winter evening began. Here was a picture of industry, enjoined alike by the law of the land and the stern necessities of the settlers. All were busy. Idleness was a crime. On the settle, or a low arm-chair, in the most sheltered nook, sat the revered grandam--as a term of endearment called granny--in red woollen gown, and white linen cap; her gray hair and wrinkled face reflecting the bright firelight; the long stocking growing under her busy needles, while she watched the youngling of the flock, in the cradle by her side. The goodwife, in linsey-woolsey short gown and red petticoat, steps lightly back and forth in calf pumps beside the great wheel, or poises gracefully to give a final twist to the long-drawn thread of wool or tow. The continuous buzz of the flax wheels, harmonizing with the spasmodic hum of the big wheel, shows that the girls are preparing a stock of linen against their wedding day. Less active, and more fitful, rattles the quill-wheel, where the younger children are filling quills for the morrow's weaving. Craftsmen are still scarce, and the yeoman must depend largely on his own skill and resources. The grandsire, and the goodman, his son, in blue woollen frocks, buckskin breeches, long stockings, and clouted brogans with pewter buckles, and the older boys, in shirts of brown tow, waistcoat and breeches of butternut-colored woollen homespun, surrounded by piles of white hickory shavings, are whittling out with keen Barlow jack-knives, implements for home use,--ox-bows and bow-pins, axe-helves, rakestales, forkstales, handles for spades and billhooks, wooden shovels, flail-staff and swingle, swingling knives, pokes and hog-yokes for unruly cattle and swine. The more ingenious, perhaps, are fashioning buckets, or powdering tubs, or weaving skepes, baskets, or snow-shoes. Some, it may be, sit astride the wooden shovel, shelling corn on its iron-shod edge, while others are pounding it into samp or hominy in the great wooden mortar.