Two Centuries of Costume in America, Volume 1 (1620-1820)Earle, Alice Morse
History
Two Centuries of Costume in America, Volume 1 (1620-1820)
Earle, Alice Morse
Clothing and dress -- United States -- History
Here is one little “antick.” It is an ample bag with the neat double
drawing-strings of our youth; a bag, nay, a pocket. It once hung by the
side of some one of my forbears, perhaps Elizabeth of the brass-nailed
initials. It was a much-esteemed pocket, though it is only of figured
cotton or chiney; but those stuffs were much sought after when this old
trunk was new. The pocket has served during recent years as a cover for
two articles of footwear which many “of the younger sort” to-day have
never seen—they are pattens. “Clumsy, ugly pattens” we find them
frequently stigmatized in the severe words of the early years of the
nineteenth century, but there is nothing ugly or clumsy about this
pair. The sole is of some black, polished wood—it is heavy enough for
ebony; the straps are of strong leather neatly stitched; the buckles
are polished brass, and brass nails fasten the leather to the wooden
soles. These soles are cut up high in a ridge to fit under the instep
of a high-heeled shoe; for it was a very little lady who wore these
pattens,—Elizabeth,—and her little feet always stood in the highest
heels. She was active, kindly, and bountiful. She lived to great age,
and she could and did walk many miles a day until the last year of her
life. She is recalled as wearing a great scarlet cloak with a black
silk quilted hood on cold winter days, when she visited her neighbors
with kindly words, and housewifely, homely gifts, conveyed in an ample
basket. The cloak was made precisely like the scarlet cloak shown here,
and had a like hood. She was brown-eyed, and her dark hair was never
gray even in extreme old age; nor was the hair of her granddaughter,
another Elizabeth, my grandmother. Trim and erect of figure, and
precise and neat of dress, wearing, on account of this neatness,
shorter petticoats, when walking, than was the mode of her day, and
also through this neatness clinging to the very last to these cleanly,
useful, quaint pattens. Her black hood, frilled white cap, short,
quilted petticoat, high-heeled shoes, and the shining ebony and brass
pattens, and over all the great, full scarlet cloak,—all these made her
an unusual and striking figure against the Wayland landscape, the snowy
fields and great sombre pine trees of Heard’s Island, as she trod
trimly, in short pattened steps that crackled the kittly-benders in the
shadowed roads, or sunk softly in the shallow mud of the sunny lanes on
a snow-melting day in late winter. Would I could paint the picture as I
see it!
These pattens in the old trunk are prettier than most pattens which
have been preserved. In general, they are rather shabby things. I have
another pair—more commonplace, which chance to exist; they were not
saved purposely. They are pictured here.
English Clogs. English Clogs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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