Yet their innocent and generous hospitality forbade that the stranger,
or the friend whom night overtook on their threshold, should be turned
shelterless and couchless away, so long as they could offer him even
half of a bed. As an example of this we may cite the case of Lieut.
Anbury, a British officer, who served in America during the
Revolutionary War, and whose letters preserve many sprightly and
interesting pictures of the manners and customs of that period. In a
letter dated at Cambridge, New England, November 20, 1777, he thus
speaks:

"The night before we came to this town [Williamstown, Mass.], being
quartered at a small log hut, I was convinced in how innocent a view the
Americans look upon that indelicate custom they call _bundling_. Though
they have remarkable good feather beds, and are extremely neat and
clean, still I preferred my hard mattress, as being accustomed to it;
this evening, however, owing to the badness of the roads, and the
weakness of my mare, my servant had not arrived with my baggage at the
time for retiring to rest. There being only two beds in the house, I
inquired which I was to sleep in, when the old woman replied, 'Mr.
Ensign,' here I should observe to you, that the New England people are
very inquisitive as to the rank you have in the army; 'Mr. Ensign,' says
she, 'our Jonathan and I will sleep in this, and our Jemima and you
shall sleep in that.' I was much astonished at such a proposal, and
offered to sit up all night, when Jonathan immediately replied, 'Oh, la!
Mr. Ensign, you wont be the first man our Jemima has bundled with, will
it Jemima?' when little Jemima, who, by the bye, was a very pretty,
black-eyed girl, of about sixteen or seventeen, archly replied, 'No,
father, not by many, but it will be with the first Britainer' (the name
they give to Englishmen). In this dilemma what could I do? The smiling
invitation of pretty Jemima--the eye, the lip, the--Lord ha' mercy,