diversion in the winter is riding sleighs about three or four miles out of town, where they have houses of entertainment at a place called the Bowery, and some go to friends’ houses, who handsomely treat them.  Mr. Burroughs carried his spouse and daughter and myself out to one Madam Dowes, a gentlewoman that lived at a farm house, who gave us a handsome entertainment of five or six dishes, and choice beer and metheglin cider, etc., all of which she said was the produce of her farm.  I believe we met fifty or sixty sleighs; they fly with great swiftness, and some are so furious that they will turn out of the path for none except a loaded cart.  Nor do they spare for any diversion the place affords, and sociable to a degree, their tables being as free to their neighbors as to themselves.”

And Mrs. Grant has this to say of their love of children and flowers—­probably the most normal loves in the human soul:  “Not only the training of children, but of plants, such as needed peculiar care or skill to rear them, was the female province....  I have so often beheld, both in town and country, a respectable mistress of a family going out to her garden, in an April morning, with her great calash, her little painted basket of seeds, and her rake over her shoulder to her garden labors....  A woman in very easy circumstances and abundantly gentle in form and manner would sow and plant and rake incessantly.  These fair gardners were also great florists."[212]

Doubtless the whole world has heard of that other Dutch love—­for good things on the table.  This epicurean trait perhaps has been exaggerated; Mrs. Grant herself had her doubts at first; but she, like most visitors, soon realized that a Dutchman’s “tea” was a fair banquet.  Hear again her own words: 

     “They were exceedingly social, and visited each other frequently,
     besides the regular assembling together in their porches every
     evening.

“If you went to spend a day anywhere, you were received in a manner we should think very cold.  No one rose to welcome you; no one wondered you had not come sooner, or apologized for any deficiency in your entertainment.  Dinner, which was very early, was served exactly in the same manner as if there were only the family.  The house was so exquisitely neat and well regulated that you could not surprise these people; they saw each other so often and so easily that intimates made no difference.  Of strangers they were shy; not by any means of want of hospitality, but from a consciousness that people who had little to value themselves on but their knowledge of the modes and ceremonies of polished life disliked their sincerity and despised their simplicity....

“Tea was served in at a very early hour.  And here it was that the distinction shown to strangers commenced.  Tea here was a perfect regale, being served up with various sorts of cakes unknown to us, cold pastry, and great quantities