“Well, I will honestly tell you, I never was so ashamed in all my life.  You see, Madame ——­, and Madame ——­, and Madame Budd, and myself thought we would visit Lady Washington, and as she was said to be so grand a lady, we thought we must put on our best bibbs and bands.  So we dressed ourselfes in our most elegant ruffles and silks, and were introduced to her ladyship.  And don’t you think we found her knitting and with a speckled (check) apron on! She received us very graciously, and easily, but after the compliments were over, she resumed her knitting.  There we were without a stitch of work, and sitting in State, but General Washington’s lady with her own hands was knitting stockings for herself and husband!”

“And that was not all.  In the afternoon her ladyship took occasion to say, in a way that we could not be offended at, that it was very important, at this time, that American ladies should be patterns of industry to their countrywomen, because the separation from the mother country will dry up the sources whence many of our comforts have been derived.  We must become independent by our determination to do without what we cannot make ourselves.  Whilst our husbands and brothers are examples of patriotism, we must be patterns of industry."[107]

X.  Interest in the Home

Many indeed are the hints of gentle, loving home life presented in the letters and records of the eighteenth century colonists.  Domestic life may have been rather severe in seventeenth century New England—­our histories make more of it than the original sources warrant—­but the little touches of courtesy, the considerate deeds of love, the words of sympathy and confidence show that those early husbands and wives were lovers even as many modern folk are lovers, and that in the century of the Revolution they courted and married and laughed and sorrowed much as we of the twentieth century do.  Sometimes the hint is in a letter from brother to sister, sometimes in the message from patriot to wife, sometimes in the secret diary of mother or father; but, wherever found, the words with their subtle meaning make us realize almost with a shock that here were human hearts as much alive to joy and anguish as any that now beat.  Hear a message from the practical Franklin to his sister in 1772:  “I have been thinking what would be a suitable present for me to make and for you to receive, as I hear you are grown a celebrated beauty.  I had almost determined on a tea table, but when I considered that the character of a good housewife was far preferable to that of being only a gentle woman, I concluded to send you a spinning wheel."[108]