The wood for these beneficent noon-house fires was given by the farmers
of the congregation, a load by each well-to-do land-owner, if it were a
"society-house," and occasionally an apple-growing farmer gave a barrel of
"cyder" to supply internal instead of external warmth. Cider sold in 1782
for six shillings "Old Tenor" a barrel, so it was worth about the same
as the wood both in money value and calorific qualities. A hundred years
previously--in 1679--cider was worth ten shillings a barrel. In 1650, when
first made in America, it was a costly luxury, selling for L4 4s. a barrel.
That this thawed-out Sunday barrel of cider would prove invariably a source
of much refreshment, inspiration, solace, tongue-loosing, and blood-warming
to the chilled and shivering deacons, elders, and farmers who gathered in
the noon-house, any one who has imbibed that all-potent and intoxicating
beverage, oft-frozen "hard" cider, can fervently testify.
Sometimes a very opulent farmer having built a noon-house for his own and
his family's exclusive use, would keep in it as part of his "duds" a few
simple cooking utensils in which his wife or daughters would re-heat or
partially cook his noon-day Sabbath meal, and mix for him a hot toddy or
punch, or a mug of that "most insinuating drink"--flip. Flip was made of
home-brewed beer, sugar, and a liberal dash of Jamaica rum, and was mixed
with a "logger-head"--a great iron "stirring-stick" which was heated in the
fire until red hot and then thrust into the liquid.
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