"Sunday-go-to-meeting" dresses of the three little Anthony girls were
lent to the children of a poor family to wear at the funeral of their
mother, while she and her sisters had to wear their old ones. She
thought these were good enough to lend. She had no toys or dolls except
of home manufacture, but her rag baby and set of broken dishes afforded
just as much happiness as children nowadays get from a roomful of
imported playthings.
To go to school the children had to pass Grandmother Read's, and they
were always careful to start early enough to stop there for a fresh
cheese curd and a drink of "coffee," made by browning crusts of rye and
Indian bread, pouring hot water over them and sweetening with maple
sugar. Then in the evening they would stop again for some of the
left-over, cold boiled dinner, which was served on a great pewter
platter, a big piece of pork or beef in the center and, piled all
round, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, beets, carrots, etc. The story runs
that, when the mother remonstrated with the children for bothering the
grandmother for what they could have at home, Susan replied, "Why,
grandma's potato peelings are better than your boiled dinners." The
Anthonys and Reads used white flour and real coffee on state occasions,
but very few families could afford such luxuries.
One of the recollections of Grandmother Anthony's house is of the
little closet under the parlor stairs, where was set the tub of maple
sugar, and, while the elders were chatting over neighborhood affairs,
the children would gather like bees around this tub and have a feast.
Always when they left, they were loaded down with apples, doughnuts,
caraway cakes and other toothsome things which little ones love. Along
the edges of the pantry shelves hung rows of shining pewter porringers,
and the pride of the children's lives was to eat "cider toast" out of
them. This was made by toasting a big loaf of brown bread before the
fire, peeling off the outside, toasting it again, and finally pouring
over these crusts hot sweetened water and cider. The dish, however,
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