The herb was pulled
up like flax, its stalks were stripped of the leaves and were boiled. The
leaves were put in a kettle and basted with the liquor distilled from the
stalks. After this the leaves were dried in an oven to use in the same
manner as tea-leaves. Liberty tea sold readily for sixpence a pound. In
1787 these same Newbury women spun two hundred and thirty-six skeins
of thread and yarn for the wife of the Rev. Mr. Murray. Some were busy
spinning, some reeling and carding, and some combing the flax, while the
minister preached to them on the text from Exodus xxxv. 25: "And all
the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands." These
spinning-bees were everywhere in vogue, and formed a source of much profit
to the parson, and of pleasure to the spinners, in spite of the sermons.
Pieced patchwork bed-quilts for the minister's family were also given by
the women of the congregation. Sometimes each woman furnished a neatly
pieced square, and all met at the parsonage and joined and quilted the
coverlet. At other times the minister's wife made the patchwork herself,
but the women assembled and transformed it into quilts for her. The parson
was helped also in his individual work. When the rye or wheat or grain on
the minister's land was full grown and ready for reaping and mowing, the
men in his parish gave him gladly a day's work in harvesting, and in turn
he furnished them plenty of good rum to drink, else there were "great
uneasyness.
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