and drove their own wagons. The company commonly assembled at 3
o'clock, and went away about six, unless it was in winter time,
when the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies
might get home before dark. . . . The tea was served out of a
majestic Delft tea-pot, ornamented with paintings of fat little
Dutch shepherdesses tending pigs, with boats sailing in the air
and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other Dutch fantasies.
The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in
replenishing this tea-pot from a huge copper tea-kettle. . . .

To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each
cup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great
decorum, until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and
economic old lady, which was to suspend a large lump directly
over the tea-table by a string from the ceiling, so that it
should be swung from mouth to mouth--an ingenious expedient
which is still kept up by some families in Albany, but which
prevails without exception in Communipaw, Bergen, Flatbush, and
all our uncontaminated Dutch villages.

"At these primitive tea-parties the utmost propriety and dignity
of deportment prevailed. No flirting or coquetin gambu of old
ladies, nor hoyden chattering and romping of young ones, no self
satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen with their brains in
their pockets, nor amusing conceits and monkey divertisements of
smart young gentlemen with no brains at all. On the contrary, the
young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottomed
chairs, and knit their own woolen stockings, nor ever opened
their lips except to say "yaw, mynherr," or "yaw, yaw, Vrouw,"
to any question that was asked them, behaving in all things like