Upon occasions like this,
feats of strength and activity universally constituted a part of the
programme. The youth who could pull down his man at the end of the
hand-stick, throw him in a wrestle, or outstrip him in a footrace, was
honored as the best man in the settlement, and was always greeted with
a cheer from the older men, a slap on the shoulder by the old ladies,
and the shy but approving smiles of the girls,--had his choice of
partners in the dance, and in triumph rode home on horseback with his
belle, the horse's consciousness of bearing away the championship
manifesting itself in an erect head and stately step.
The apparel of male and female was of home-spun, woven by the mothers
and sisters, and was fashioned, I was about to say, by the same fair
hands; but these were almost universally embrowned with exposure and
hardened by toil. Education was exceedingly limited: the settlements
were sparse, and school-houses were at long intervals, and in these
the mere rudiments of an English education were taught--spelling,
reading, and writing, with the four elementary rules of arithmetic;
and it was a great advance to grapple with the grammar of the
language.
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