Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/422

416 mouths of old Swedes who remembered the land in the earlier days of its settlement.

The first houses that the Swedes built consisted of but one little room, with the door so low that one had to stoop in order to get in. "As they had brought no glass with them, they were obliged to be content with little holes, before which a movable board was fastened." The cracks and crannies were stopped with clay. Clay was also used, in many instances, in the construction of their chimneys.

Before the English came to settle here, the Swedes could not get as many cloaths as they wanted; and were therefore obliged to make shift as well as they could. The men wore waistcoats and breeches of skins. Hats were not in fashion; and they made little caps, provided with flaps before. They had worsted stockings. Their shoes were of their own making. Some of them had learnt to prepare leather, and to make common shoes with heels; but those who were not shoemakers by profession, took the length of their feet, and sewed the leather together accordingly; taking a piece for the sole, one for the hind-quarters, and one more for the upper-leather. At that time, they likewise sowed flax here, and wove linen cloth. Hemp was not to be got; and they made use of flaxen ropes and fishing tackle. The women were dressed in jackets and petticoats of skins. Their beds, excepting the sheets, were skins of several animals; such as bears, wolves, etc.

Such "superfluities" as tea, coffee and chocolate were unknown to these first settlers on the Delaware, but rum they had at "moderate price" and "sugar and treacle they had in abundance. . . . Almost all the Swedes made use of baths; and they commonly bathed every Saturday." Their carts must have been remarkable constructions, the wheels sawed from thick pieces of the liquidambar tree.

These old Swedes had a small idea of the value of land and sold large tracts to English settlers for a mere song. One old Swede told Kalm that his father sold an estate, which at the time of Kalm's visit was reckoned at three hundred pounds value, "for a cow, a sow and a hundred gourds."

Kalm was evidently much impressed by the spirit of liberty that prevailed amongst the 'people. Speaking of the decrease of certain wild birds, as compared with their former abundance, he says:

But since the arrival of great crowds of Europeans, things are greatly changed; the country is well peopled, and the woods are cut down; the people increasing in this country, they have by hunting and shooting in part extirpated the birds, in part scared them away; in spring the people still take both eggs, mothers and young indifferently, because no regulations are made to the contrary. And if any had been made, the spirit of freedom which prevails in the country would not suffer them to be obeyed.

In another place he refers to the freedom displayed in taking fruit from the orchards.

The orchards, along which we passed today, were only enclosed by hurdles. But they contained all kinds of fine fruit. We wondered at first very much