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being adaptations in nomenclature, as they were in form, of the Indian toboggan or moose-sled, sledge with runners or flat bottom of wood or bark, upon which the red men drew heavy loads over the snow. This sledge has become familiar to us in the light and strong Canadian form now used for the delightful winter sport of tobogganing.

On these chebobbins great logs were hitched together by chains, and dragged down from the upland wood-lots. Under these mighty loads the snow-tracks got an almost icy polish, prime sledding for country sleighing parties. Sometimes a loggingbee was made to clear a special lot for a neighbor, and a band of wood-choppers worked all day together. It was cheerful work, though the men had to stand all day in the snow, and the thermometer was below zero. But there was no cutting wind in the forest, and the exercise kept the blood warm. Many a time a hearty man would drop his axe to wipe the sweat from his brow. Loose woollen frocks, or long-shorts, two or three over each other, were warm as are the overlapping feathers of a bird; a few had buckskin or sheepskin waistcoats; their hands were warmly covered with home-knit mittens. In later days all had heavy well-greased boots, but in the early years of such pioneer settlements, as the towns of New Hampshire and Ver

mont, all could not afford to wear boots.

Their

place was well supplied by heavy woollen stockings, shoes, and an over-covering of old stockings, or cloth soaked in neat's-foot oil; this was deemed a positive preventive of frozen feet.

It was the custom both among men and women to join forces on a smaller scale and have a little neighborly visiting by what was called "changework." For instance, if two neighbors both were to make soap, or both to make apple-butter, or both to make up a rag carpet, instead of each woman sitting at home alone sewing and fitting the carpet, one would take her thimble and go to spend the day, and the two would sew all day long, finish and lay the carpet at one house. In a few days the visit would be returned, and the second carpet be finished. Sometimes the work was easier when two worked together. One man could load logs and sled them down to the sawmill alone, but two by change-work" could accomplish the task much more rapidly and with less strain.

Even those evil days of New England households, the annual house-cleaning, were robbed of some of their dismal terrors by what was known as a "whang," a gathering of a few friendly women neighbors to assist one another in that dire time, and thus speed and shorten the hours of misery.

For any details of domestic life of colonial days. the reader has ever to turn to the diary of Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston, just as the student of English life of the same date turns to the diary of Samuel Pepys. Sewall was a Puritan of the narrow type of the later days of Puritanism; and there is little of warmth or beauty in his pages, save that throughout them there shines with gentle radiance the unconscious record of a pure and never-dying neighborliness, the neighborliness of an upright and reserved but deeply tender Christian. No thoughtful person can read the simple and meagre, but wholly self-forgetful entries which reveal this trait of character without a feeling of profound respect and even affection for Sewall. He was the richest man in town, and one of the most dignified of citizens, a busy man full of many cares and plans. But he watched by the bedside of his sick and dying neighbors, those of humble station as well as his friends and kinsfolk, nursing them with tender care, praying with them, bringing appetizing gifts, and also giving pecuniary aid to the household. He afforded even more homely examples of neighborly feeling; he sent "tastes of his dinner" tastes of his dinner" many times to friends and neighbors. This pleasant custom lingered till the present day in New England; I saw last summer, several times, covered treasures