They thought the cloth and the shawls were very beautiful
So Captain Solomon got down from the wagon, and the men took the chests and carried them into the office. In the office were Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob. They had been sailors, too, and they owned theIndustry. And Captain Solomon opened the chests and showed the cloth and the shawls to Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob, and they thought the cloth and the shawls were very beautiful. And while Captain Jonathan was looking at the shawls he found one that was white, with a pattern in the middle of red and yellow and brown and blue. He thought that shawl was the prettiest shawl he had ever seen. So he said: "Jacob, I am going to give this shawl to my daughter Lois."
And Captain Jacob said, "All right." For Captain Jonathan's daughter Lois was Captain Jacob's wife.
So Captain Jonathan gave the shawl to his daughter Lois. And after a great many years she gave the shawl to her daughter Lois. And after a great many years more, when that Lois was an old lady, she gave the shawl to her niece, who was named Lois. And when that Lois was an old lady she used to wear the shawl almost all the time. But one day she forgot and hung the shawl over the balusters near the door just when the cook was going away. And the cook saw the shawl and took it away and never brought it back.
And that's all.
ONCE upon a time there was a farm-house, and it was painted white and had green blinds; and it stood not far from the road. And in the fence was a wide gate to let the wagons through to the barn. The farm wasn't Uncle Solomon's then, but it belonged to the man that had built the farm-house, and that man had built the barn first and then the house. And he had cut down the trees and made the fields smooth and nice where the different things were to grow. And when he had lived there a good many years, he was tired of being there, and he wanted to go somewhere else.
Captain Solomon had sailed on the great ocean a great many years, and he was tired of being a sailor, and thought he would like to have a farm; and besides, he was afraid that if he kept on being a sailor, his little boys would want to be sailors, too, and he didn't want them to be. There were three boys, Uncle John and his two brothers; and when they got big enough, Uncle John's brothers ran away and were sailors. For they didn't like to be on a farm. But Uncle John stayed on the farm after Uncle Solomon bought it.
So one day Captain Solomon came to the farm and he found the man that had got it all ready and had built the house. And the man showed Captain Solomon all the fields where the things were growing, and the orchard and the maple-sugar woods and the barn and the house. And Captain Solomon liked the farm. So he paid the man some money, and the man gave the farm to Uncle Solomon. For after he had bought the farm, the people all called Captain Solomon Uncle Solomon. Then the man took all his beds and chairs and tables and the other things from the house, and he moved them away to another place.
All the things had to be dragged in the wagons
Then Uncle Solomon put all his things in great wagons, and it took a long time to move them to the farm, for Uncle Solomon had lived in Wellfleet, a town that is on the shore of the great ocean, and the farm was a long way from that town, and it was not on the shore of the ocean. They didn't have railroads then, and all the things had to be dragged in the wagons. But at last the wagons came to the farm, and Uncle Solomon took all the things out of the wagons and put them in the house. He put the wagons in the shed and the horses in the barn. That was a very long time ago, more than one hundred years.
When all the things were put in the house, Uncle Solomon bought some cows and the things he needed to do farm work with. Then he began to do all the things that have to be done on a farm, the things that the other stories tell about.
And that's all.
ONCE upon a time there was a farm-house, and it was painted white and had green blinds; and it stood not far from the road. In the fence was a wide gate to let the wagons through to the barn. And the wagons, going through, had made a track that led up past the kitchen door and past the shed and past the barn and past the orchard to the wheat-field.
In the morning, when Uncle John had milked all the cows, he took all the milk, in the big pails, to the milk-room that was in the corner of the barn, and he poured it through a cloth into some cans. Then he carried the pails to the kitchen door, and Aunt Deborah washed them out with cold water. Then she poured some very hot water into them and rinsed them out, and set them in the sunshine. And Uncle John went back to the milk-room and took the cans of milk and carried them out to the spring-house.
The spring-house was a little low house that was in the orchard, and a stream of water ran right through the middle of it. It was the same stream of water that ran on through the big field where the cows went to eat the grass, and then it ran on, under the road and through another field and into the river. They didn't have ice then, in the summer time, but the water of the little stream was cool, and they used that to keep the milk and the butter from getting too hot. They had made a trench for the water to run through, and in the bottom of the trench they had put great flat stones, so that the water ran over the stones. And on top of the stones the water wasn't deep at all.
Put it in flat pans
So Uncle John took the milk to the spring-house and poured it into big flat pans, and set the pans in the water on the flat stones, so that the water would keep the milk cool while the cream came to the top. The cream is the yellow, fat part of milk, and when the milk stands still, the cream comes to the top.
Every time Uncle John had finished milking the cows, he took the milk to the spring-house and put it in flat pans and left the pans in the cool water. And when the milk had stood so for as long as all day or all night, Aunt Deborah went out to the spring-house and took a kind of big spoon and skimmed the cream off the top of the milk, and put the cream into a stone jar. And she left the cream in the jar for two or three days until it was just right to make into butter.
Aunt Phyllis took hold of the long handle
When the cream in the jar was just right, Aunt Deborah and Aunt Phyllis took it to the buttery and put it in the churn, a kind of box that had a long handle. And on the end of the handle was a big piece of wood with holes all through it. Then Aunt Phyllis took hold of the long handle and made it go up and down, and Aunt Deborah held on to the churn, so that it wouldn't tip over. And when Aunt Phyllis was tired, Aunt Deborah made the handle go up and down, and Aunt Phyllis held on to the churn. And the cream splashed all about, and at last it began to turn into butter, in little lumps.
When it was done enough, Aunt Deborah poured off the watery stuff that they called buttermilk, and she washed the butter with water, and she put in a lot of salt. The buttermilk she saved, because sometimes people like to drink it. Then she took the butter that was all in little lumps, and she worked it together, so that the water came out of it, and it was all in big lumps. And she worked that all together until it was worked enough, and was in one big lump.
Then she got a little mould, a kind of cup with a cover. And in the inside of the cover was a picture, cut into the wood, of an ear of corn and some marks all about. Then Aunt Deborah put some of the butter into the mould, and she put the cover over, and pushed hard, and the butter was squeezed into a little round cake, with the picture of the ear of corn on the top. Then she took out that piece and put in some more, and she made a little cake of that. And so she did with all the butter, until it was all in little cakes; and those cakes of butter they call pats.
When all the butter was made into pats, Aunt Deborah put the pats into a great round wooden box and carried the box out to the spring-house to get cold, and keep until it was wanted. Every week she made enough butter to fill the big round box. That was enough for them to eat, and some to take to market besides.
And that's all.
ONCE upon a time there was a farm-house, and it was painted white and had green blinds; and it stood not far from the road. In the fence was a wide gate to let the wagons through to the barn. And the wagons, going through, had made a track that led up past the kitchen door and past the shed and past the barn and past the orchard to the wheat-field.
All about were other fields where different things grew. There were squashes and turnips and melons and corn and oats and potatoes and cabbages and onions and peas and beans. Some of the bean plants grew like little short trees, but the others wanted to climb on something. So Uncle John had to get some bean-poles for the bean plants to climb up. So, one morning, when summer was just beginning, the bean plants had come up through the ground, and were tall enough to begin to climb.
Uncle John took his axe and a big sharp knife and he got out the old oxen. They put their heads down and he put the yoke over and the bows under, and hooked the tongue of the cart to the yoke. Then he said "Gee up there;" and the old oxen started walking slowly along, past the barn and past the orchard to the wheat-field, and little John came after.
And Uncle John took down the bars, and the oxen went through the wheat-field, and he took down the bars at the other side of the field, and they walked through into the maple-sugar woods. Then they went along the road in the woods past the little maple-sugar house, and they kept on until they came to a place where there weren't any big trees, but there were a great many little slim trees very close together. The little slim trees were about as big as little John's wrist at the bottom, and they were about twice as tall as Uncle John.
He cut down each tree with one whack of the axe
Then Uncle John stopped the oxen, and he took his axe and cut down a great many of the little slim trees. They were so little that he cut down each tree with one whack of the axe. And when the trees were cut down, as many as he wanted, he took the big sharp knife and he cut off all the branches of each tree. The trees grew so close together that there weren't many branches, and what there were, were very small. Then Uncle John put all the branches in a pile away from the trees, and he piled the trees all on the cart. The trees, after the branches were cut off, were straight and almost smooth. At the bottom they were about as big as little John's wrist, and at the top they were only as big as his thumb. These smooth trees without any branches they called poles.
Then Uncle John said, "Gee up there," and the oxen started and turned around, and walked slowly along, through the maple-sugar woods, and through the wheat-field, and Uncle John put up the bars after they had gone through. Then they walked along past the orchard and past the barn and past the shed and past the kitchen door, and through the wide gate into the road. And they went along the road until they came to the field where the beans were growing; and they turned in at the gate into that field, and went along to the bean plants, and there they stopped.
Then Uncle John took the poles out of the cart, one at a time, and he stuck a pole into the ground near each bean plant, so that the vine, when it was feeling around for something to climb on, would find the pole. The poles, after they were stuck into the ground, went up in the air just a little higher than Uncle John's head. And Uncle John said, "Gee up" again, and the old oxen turned around and went back along the road and in at the wide gate and up past the kitchen door to the shed. And Uncle John unhooked the tongue of the cart and took off the yoke, and the oxen went into the barn.
The bean vines kept on growing
Then the bean vines kept on growing, and they got higher and higher, and they twisted around and found the poles, and they held on to the poles and kept on twisting and climbing until they had reached the tops of the poles. Then the flowers came on the vines, and afterward the pods with beans in them grew where the flowers had been. For the beans are only the seeds that the flowers change into after they wither away. And at the end of the summer, when the beans had stopped growing and were ripe, Uncle John gathered them and took them in to Aunt Deborah.
And that's all.
THE END.