"No one could run on the Sabbath day, or walk in his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting. No one should travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave on the Sabbath day. No woman should kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting day. Whoever brought cards into the dominion paid a fine of £5. No one could make minced pies, dance, play cards, or play on any instrument of music, except the drum, trumpet, and jews-harp.
"None under 21 years, nor any not previously accustomed to it, shall take tobacco without a physician's certificate. No one shall take it publicly in the street, or the fields, or the woods, except on a journey of at least ten miles, or at dinner. Nor shall any one take it in any house in his own town with more than one person taking it at the same time."[209]
We must not, however, reach the conclusion that life in old New England was a dreary void as far as pleasures were concerned. Under the discussion of home life we have seen that there were barn-raisings, log-rolling contests, quilting and paring bees, and numerous other forms of community efforts in which considerable levity was countenanced. Earle's _Home Life in Colonial Days_ copies an account written in 1757, picturing another form of entertainment yet popular in the rural districts:
"Made a husking Entertainm't. Possibly this leafe may last a Century and fall into the hands of some inquisitive Person for whose Entertainm't I will inform him that now there is a Custom amongst us of making an Entertainm't at husking of Indian Corn where to all the neighboring Swains are invited and after the Corn is finished they like the Hottentots give three Cheers or huzza's, but cannot carry in the husks without a Rhum bottle; they feign great Exertion but do nothing till Rhum enlivens them, when all is done in a trice, then after a hearty Meal about 10 at Night they go to their pastimes."[210]
In New York, among the Dutch, social pleasures were, of course, much less restricted; indeed their community life had the pleasant familiarity of one large family. Mrs. Grant in her _Memoirs of an American Lady_ pictures the almost sylvan scene in the quaint old town, and the quiet domestic happiness so evident on every hand: