“Made a husking Entertainm’t.  Possibly this leafe may last a Century and fall into the hands of some inquisitive Person for whose Entertainm’t I will inform him that now there is a Custom amongst us of making an Entertainm’t at husking of Indian Corn where to all the neighboring Swains are invited and after the Corn is finished they like the Hottentots give three Cheers or huzza’s, but cannot carry in the husks without a Rhum bottle; they feign great Exertion but do nothing till Rhum enlivens them, when all is done in a trice, then after a hearty Meal about 10 at Night they go to their pastimes."[210]

IX.  Dutch Social Life

In New York, among the Dutch, social pleasures were, of course, much less restricted; indeed their community life had the pleasant familiarity of one large family.  Mrs. Grant in her Memoirs of an American Lady pictures the almost sylvan scene in the quaint old town, and the quiet domestic happiness so evident on every hand: 

“Every house had its garden, well, and a little green behind; before every door a tree was planted, rendered interesting by being co-eval with some beloved member of the family; many of their trees were of a prodigious size and extraordinary beauty, but without regularity, every one planting the kind that best pleased with him, or which he thought would afford the most agreeable shade to the open portion at his door, which was surrounded by seats, and ascended by a few steps.  It was in these that each domestic group was seated in summer evenings to enjoy the balmy twilight or the serenely clear moon light.  Each family had a cow, fed in a common pasture at the end of the town.  In the evening the herd returned all together ... with their tinkling bells ... along the wide and grassy street to their wonted sheltering trees, to be milked at their master’s doors.  Nothing could be more pleasing to a simple and benevolent mind than to see thus, at one view, all the inhabitants of the town, which contained not one very rich or very poor, very knowing, or very ignorant, very rude, or very polished, individual; to see all these children of nature enjoying in easy indolence or social intercourse,

    ‘The cool, the fragrant, and the dusky hour,’

clothed in the plainest habits, and with minds as undisguised and artless....  At one door were young matrons, at another the elders of the people, at a third the youths and maidens, gaily chatting or singing together while the children played round the trees."[211]

With little learning save the knowledge of how to enjoy life, under no necessity of pretending to enjoy a false culture, conforming to no false values and artificialities, these simple-hearted people went their quiet round of daily duties, took a normal amount of pleasure, and in their old-fashioned way, probably lived more than any modern devotee of the Wall Street they knew so well.  Madam Knight in her Journal comments upon them in this fashion:  “Their