Colonial days in old New York / Alice Morse Earle.

  • Earle, Alice Morse, 1851-1911.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Colonial days in old New York / Alice Morse Earle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    well their sea-want and their handsel of butter, dallying not in tavern, and drinking not of wine, as they were sternly forbidden by the schepens, until when early dews were falling they quit their meadow grasses mellow, for “at a quarter of an hour before the sun goes down the cattle shall be delivered at the church.” Thence the patient kine slowly wandered or were driven each to her own home-stall, her protecting cow-shed. In New Amsterdam the town’s cow-herd was Gabriel Carpsey; and when his day’s work was done, he walked at sunset through the narrow lanes and streets of the little settle- ment, sounding at each dooryard Gabriel’s horn, a warning note of safe return and milking-time. Until mid-November did the morning cow- horn waken the burghers and their vrouws at sunrise; and when with cold winter the horn lay silent, they must have sorely missed their unfailing eye-opener. Scarce had the last cow departed in the early morn from her master’s dooryard, before there rose in the gray light from each vast-throated chimney throughout the little town a faint line of pale, wavering smoke