That Old-Time Child, Roberta | Page 7

would get down on
the floor by Aunt Betsy and hug her tight around the knees and say,
"God love you, Mistiss," to show her she wasn't mad at her for scolding
her. That was "religion," mamma said. Aunt Betsy would cry, and say:

"Get up, Sarah, you make me ashamed of myself."
Yes, she would go to Mam' Sarah at the loom-house. It was considered
a great treat by Roberta to go down to the loom-house. That was where
the wool, cotton, and flax was carded, spun, and wove, then
manufactured into winter and summer clothes for the negroes on the
place. Yard upon yard of beautiful red and black flannel, blue and
brown linseys, and blue and white striped cottonades, for the women,
jeans for the men, and that coarse fabric called tow-linen made from the
refuse of flax. The wonderful counterpanes, I have mentioned before,
were manufactured there and the linen for sheets and towels. Let me
tell you something curious while I am on the subject of the loom-house:
Roberta's grandmother raised silk-worms in the room adjoining. She
fed them on mulberry leaves. Mam' Sarah told Roberta they made a
noise like wind while they were feeding. Those worms spun fluffy balls
of silk, called cocoons, that the old lady reeled her silk thread from. She
had all the silk thread and embroidery floss she needed.
There were no silk-worms raised in Roberta's time, and the room was
given up to other uses.
There was kept the huge iron mortar where the grains of corn were
crushed to make the delicious hominy Kentuckians are so fond of.
When rightly prepared each grain stands out like the beautiful
white-plumed corn captains and colonels that dance up so gaily over
beds of live coals. There were made also the tallow dips, almost the
only light used in the old days on the farms in Kentucky. Pieces of
cotton wick were cut the required length and fastened at regular
intervals to sticks of wood. One of the rows of wicks was dipped in the
melted tallow, taken out and suspended over a vessel to drip. Then
another was dipped, and another, till the same process was gone
through with all. That was repeated many times before the wicks held
enough tallow to be used for candles. An improved method was to run
the wicks through tin molds, the required size and shape, and fasten
them at one end with a knot; then pour in the melted tallow, and set the
molds aside for the tallow to harden. The candles were put in brass,
silver, and bronze candlesticks, accompanied by quaint little waiters

that held snuffers, used to nip off the charred wick, as the tallow melted
away from it. Very primitive that, compared with the brilliant
luminaries we have now.
Well, there were hanks of different colored yarns and strings of red
peppers hanging from the ceiling of the loom-house. Great beams ran
through, called "warping bars," where the various warp threads were
measured and cut for the loom. There were scutchens for dressing flax,
carding combs, spinning wheels, and the great wooden loom with
shafts reaching almost to the ceiling.
It was prime fun for Roberta to go down to the loom-house in the long
winter evenings, and, sitting down before the open fire-place, help
Polly and the others card the wool in long, smooth "curls," and pile
them in even layers, ready for the spinner.
It required deft fingers, too, to gather together all the bits of wool
caught on the many sharp teeth of the carding comb, and that, by
working the two parts of the comb up and down, like a see-saw, then
turning them over and smoothing the rolls with the back.
Those were busy days on the farms in old Kentucky, and happy days,
besides. The very best days for many, both white and black. That
afternoon I will tell you about especially, Mam' Sarah had a
bright-colored rag carpet in the loom. There she sat, her eyes fixed
intently on the pattern before her, shuttles carrying the black, red, and
orange filling flying in and out under her deft, busy fingers. Many a
strip of that gay filling had the little girl cut, sewed, and wrapped. Mam'
Sarah raised her eyes and smiled at the child, but didn't stop working.
"Don't it tire you Mam' Sarah?" Roberta once compassionately asked.
"No, indeed, honey! Pear-lak I got sumfin' in my elbers en sumfin' in
my knees that keeps on goen, sumfin' like springs. I never gits tired. I
likes it."
That was the secret, Mam' Sarah liked it. One can keep on forever
when one "likes it." "A merry heart goes all the day, a sad one tires in a

mile."
Roberta climbed upon a stool