In a sense, however, the very nature of such work provided some phases of that social life which authorities consider so lacking in colonial existence.  For those arduous tasks frequently required neighborly co-operation, and social functions thus became mingled with industrial activities.  Quilting bees, spinning bees, knitting bees, sewing bees, paring bees, and a dozen other types of “bees” served to lighten the drudgery of such work and developed a spirit of neighborliness that is perhaps a little lacking under modern social conditions.  Ignoring the crude methods of labor, and the other forms of hardship, we may look back from the vantage point of two hundred years of progress and perhaps admire and envy something of the quietness, orderliness, and simplicity of those colonial homes.  After all, however, doubtless many a colonial mother now and then grew sick at heart over the conditions and problems facing her.  Confronted with the unsettled condition of a new country, with society on a most insecure foundation, with privations, hardships, and genuine toil always in view, and with the prospect of the terrible strain of bearing and rearing an inexcusable number of children, the wife of that era may not have been able to see all the romance which modern novelists have perceived in the days that are no more.

VI.  The Size of the Family

And this brings us once more to what was doubtless the most terrific burden placed upon the colonial woman—­the incessant bearing of offspring.  In those days large families were not a liability, but a positive asset.  With a vast wilderness teeming with potential wealth, waiting only for a supply of workers, the only economic pressure on the birth rate was the pressure to make it larger to meet the demand for laborers.  Every child born in the colonies was assured, through moderate industry, of the comforts of life, and, through patience and shrewd investments, of some degree of wealth.  Boys and girls meant workers—­producers of wealth—­the boys on farm or sea or in the shop, the girls in the home.  Since their wants were simple, since the educational demands were not large, since much of the food or clothing was produced directly by those who used it, children were not unwelcome—­at least to the fathers.

Yet, who can say what rebellion unconsciously arose sometimes in the hearts of the women?  Doubtless they strove to make themselves believe that all the little ones were a blessing and welcome—­the religion of the day taught that any other thought was sinful—­but still there must have been many a woman, distant from medical aid, living amidst new, raw environments, mothers already of many a child, who longed for liberty from the inevitable return of the trial.  Women bore many children—­and buried many.  And mothers followed their children to the grave too often—­to rest with them.  Cotton Mather, married twice, was father of fifteen children; the two wives of Benjamin Franklin’s