sounds; the oxen bent to the work, their eyes bulged, their nostrils
distended; the lookers-on cheered, and away went the old house or
barn as nimbly as a boy on a hand-sled. Not always, however;
sometimes the chains would break, or one runner strike a rock, or
bury itself in the earth. There were generally enough mishaps or
delays to make it interesting.

In the section of the State of which I write, flax used to be grown,
and cloth for shirts and trousers, and towels and sheets, woven from
it. It was no laughing matter for the farm-boy to break in his shirt
or trousers, those days. The hair shirts in which the old monks used
to mortify the flesh could not have been much before them in this
mortifying particular. But after the bits of shives and sticks were
subdued, and the knots humbled by use and the washboard, they were
good garments. If you lost your hold in a tree and your shirt caught
on a knot or limb, it would save you.

But when has any one seen a crackle, or a swingling-knife, or a
hetchel, or a distaff, and where can one get some tow for strings or
for gun-wadding, or some swingling-tow for a bonfire? The
quill-wheel, and the spinning-wheel, and the loom are heard no more
among us. The last I knew of a certain hetchel, it was nailed up
behind the old sheep that did the churning; and when he was disposed
to shirk or hang back and stop the machine, it was always ready to
spur him up in no uncertain manner. The old loom became a hen-roost
in an out-building; and the crackle upon which the flax was
broken,--where, oh, where is it?

When the produce of the farm was taken a long distance to
market,--that was an event, too; the carrying away of the butter in