Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/40

 still turning and lengthening, grew under her restless fingers; mind and eyes were not requisite to the familiar and mechanical task, else would the stocking she was skillfully fashioning have been an utter failure; for her whole attention was given to the view up the street which her window commanded.

The little room in which she sat, although in every way comfortable, according to the very limited requirement of the times, was very simple in its appointments, and would have looked meagre even to bareness to modern eyes; but it was neatness itself, and surely that is in itself a beauty. The bare, whitewashed walls were spotless in their purity; no carpet covered the unpainted floor, but it had been scrubbed white as snow, had been carefully sanded, and the sand freshly "streaked," or brushed into wavy lines and curves of beauty.

The graceful streaking of a sanded floor in this fashion was an accomplishment upon which thrifty housewives greatly prided themselves in those days, and taught its mysteries as an important branch of womanly education to their young daughters. The