Only a housewife, who lived in an age of abundant leisure, could afford to interest herself for two weeks in the preparation of a bottle of the "Vinegar of the Four Thieves." The housekeeper of to-day can steep her herbs, then strain them through one of the fine sieves in her pantry, the whole operation costing little labor and time, with perhaps as good results. If she is inclined to make the experiment, she will achieve a decoction which has the merit at least of romance, the secret of its combination having been purchased by sparing the lives of four distinguished Frenchmen, with the present practical value of providing a refreshing prophylactic for the sick room,—provided the lavender, rosemary, sage, wormwood, rue, and mint completely stifle the clove of garlic!
Pepper and spices were pounded in marble mortars. Sugar was purchased in the bulk—in large cones wrapped in thick blue paper. This was broken into great slices, and then subdivided into cubes by means of a knife and hammer.
Sometimes a late winter storm would overtake the new-born lambs, and they would be found forsaken by the flock. The little shivering creatures would be brought to a shelter, and fed with warm milk from the long bottles, in which even now we get Farina Cologne. Soft linen was wrapped around the slender neck, and my dear aunt fed the nurslings with her own white hands. How the lambkins could wag their tiny tails! and how they grew and prospered!
All the fine muslins of the family, my aunt's great collars, and the ruffles worn by my uncle, my Cousin Charles, and myself, were carefully laundered under my aunt's supervision. Dipped in pearly starch, they were "clapped dry" in our own hands, ironed with small irons, and beautifully crimped on a board with a penknife. Fine linen was a kind of hall-mark by which a gentleman was "known in the gates when he" sat "among the elders of the land."
I was intensely interested in all this busy life—and always eager to be a part of it.
There was nothing I had not attempted before I rounded my first decade,—churning, printing the butter with wooden moulds, or shaping it into a bristling pineapple; spinning on tiptoe at the great wheel—we had no flax-wheels—and even once scrambling up to the high seat of the weaver and sending the shuttle into hopeless tangles. "Ladies don't nuvver do dem things" sternly rebuked Milly. "Lemme ketch you ergin at dat business, an' 'twont be wuf while for Marse Chawles to baig for you."