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At last she was at liberty to fling her exhausted body down on the cool, patched, old linen sheets of the great four-poster which had harbored many of her foremothers and let herself drift out on her own troubled waters.
Generally speaking, in the religious notions of our sailors, there is mixed a portion of that superstition which we, our forefathers, and foremothers brought with them from England, Scotland and Ireland.
Individual effort could not suffice the rage for slaughter, and the ancient order of "assassins" was revived, with an "Old Man" of the swamps at its head. Thus "Ku-Klux" originated, and covered the land with a network of crime. Earnest, credulous women in New England had their feelings lacerated by these stories, in which they as fondly believed as their foremothers in Salem witches.
As Governor Bradford specified that during that autumn "beside waterfoule ther was great store of wild turkies," we can have the satisfaction of feeling sure that at that first Pilgrim Thanksgiving our forefathers and foremothers had turkeys. Thus fared the Pilgrims better at their Thanksgiving than did their English brothers, for turkeys were far from plentiful in England at that date.
Here and there a husband or a father is found who is conscious of the disadvantages under which the women of his family are laboring and would be glad to take upon himself the duty of instructing his wife and daughters, yet is prevented from doing so because the latter prefer to follow the example of their foremothers and remain ignorant.
No mass-meeting, no picnic, and no function out in the great world, even New-Year's reception at the White House or afternoon tea at the Plaza, could be half the fun that going to the Hayesboro post-office for the afternoon mail is. I think the distinct flavor is imparted by the fact that all our forefathers and foremothers have done it before us.
To-night as we drink the reddish aromatic brew we return, not only to our own young days, but to the young days of the nation when our folks moved to the West in a covered wagon; when grandpap, only a little boy then, about as big as Charley there, got down the rifle and killed the bear that had climbed into the hog-pen; when they found old Cherry out in the timber with her calf between her legs, and two wolves lying where she had horned them to death we return to-night to the high, heroic days of old, when our forefathers conquered the wilderness and our foremothers reared the families that peopled it.
The orniments of this house wuz more on the inside, and I couldn't help thinkin' that this house, compared with the modern ornimental cottages, wuz a good deal like one of our good old-fashioned foremothers in her plain gown, compared with some of the grandma's of to-day, all paint, and furbelows, and false hair.
But I know now that millions of years ago a great, big, distinguished hippopotamus stepped out of the woods and frightened one of my foremothers so that she turned and fled through a thicket that almost tore her limb from limb, right into the arms of her own mate. That's what I did!
But as soon as our religion grew to any height at all we left them out, of course." From this, as from many other things, I grew to see what I finally put in words. "Have you no respect for the past? For what was thought and believed by your foremothers?" "Why, no," she said. "Why should we? They are all gone. They knew less than we do.
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