Of these, though dead men's
gloves did not have a very good market, he sold through various salesmen
and dealers about six hundred and forty dollars worth. One wonders that he
did not "combine" with the undertaker or sexton who furnished the gloves to
mourners, and thus do a very thrifty business.
The parson, especially in a low-salaried, rural district, had to practise a
thousand petty and great economies to eke out his income. He and his family
wore homespun and patched clothing, which his wife had spun and wove and
cut and made. She knitted woollen mittens and stockings by the score. She
unfortunately could not make shoes, and to keep the large family shod was a
serious drain on the clerical purse, one minister declaring vehemently
that he should have died a rich man if he and his family could have gone
barefoot. The pastors of seaboard and riverside parishes set nets, like the
Apostles of old, and caught fish with which they fed their families until
the over-phosphorized brains and stomachs rebelled. They set snares and
traps and caught birds and squirrels and hare, to replenish their tables,
and from the skins of the rabbits and woodchucks and squirrels, the
parsons' wives made fur caps for the husbands and for the children.
The whole family gathered in large quantities from roadsides and pastures
the oily bayberries, and from them the thrifty and capable wife made scores
of candles for winter use, patiently filling and refilling her few moulds,
or "dipping" the candles again and again until large enough to use.
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