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Though I have seen a New England inventory of the year 1690 in which a "sley" appears, I do not find that they were frequently used until the second or third decade of the succeeding century, though a few Bostonians had them in the year 1700. They were largely used by the Dutch in New York, and Connecticut folk occasionally followed Dutch fashions.
"At last one day of late summer when I, now of some fifteen summers, was pasturing the goats not far from the house, the sky darkened, and there came up so great a storm of thunder and lightning, and huge drift of rain, that I was afraid, and being so near to the house, I hastened thither, driving the goats, and when I had tethered them in the shed of the croft, I crept trembling up to the house, and when I was at the door, heard the clack of the loom in the weaving-chamber, and deemed that the woman was weaving there, but when I looked, behold there was no one on the bench, though the shuttle was flying from side to side, and the shed opening and changing, and the sley coming home in due order.
Behold with this woman was I appointed to have to doe before the face of the people, but I being wrapped in great anguish, and envying the day of the triumph, when we two should so abandon our selves together, devised rather to sley my selfe, then to pollute my body with this mischievous harlot, and so for ever to remaine defamed: but it was impossible for me so to doe, considering that I lacked hands, and was not able to hold a knife in my hoofes: howbeit standing in a pretty cabin, I rejoyced in my selfe to see that spring time was come, and that all things flourished, and that I was in good hope to find some Roses, to render me my humane shape.
He said nothing, but I saw his brow knitted and his lips pressed together as though in anger; and again I said: "Thou hast seen the weaver at his loom: think how it should be if he sit no longer before the web and cast the shuttle and draw home the sley, but if the shed open of itself and the shuttle of itself speed through it as swift as the eye can follow, and the sley come home of itself; and the weaver standing by and whistling The Hunt's Up! the while, or looking to half-a-dozen looms and bidding them what to do.
"Leastwise that's the word that's 'goin'." Poor Ethelinda! The clutch of cold horror about her heart seemed to stop its pulsations for a moment. She saw the still mountains whirl about the horizon as if in some weird bewitchment. Her nerveless hands loosened their clasp upon the sley and it fell to the ground, clattering on the protruding roots of the trees.
Where from finger to finger the shuttle flies fast, And the eyes of the singer look fain on the cast, As he singeth the story of summer undone And the barley sheaves hoary ripe under the sun. Then the maidens stay The light-hung sley, And the shuttles bide By the blue web's side, While hand in hand With the carles they stand.
He had called more than once on Widow Ruggles, and had had Widow Gill to dine with him; had looked critically at Widow Emery, and noted that Widow Tilley was absent from meeting; and he had gazed admiringly at Widow Winthrop in "her sley," and he had visited and counseled and consoled her ere his wife had been two months dead, and had given her a few suitable tokens of his awakening affection such as "Smoking Flax Inflamed," "The Jewish Children of Berlin," and "My Small Vial of Tears;" so he had "wandered" in the flesh as well as in the mind.
All unprescient of the day's impending event, she had come to the forge with the sley of her loom to be mended, and she now stood holding the long shaft in her mechanical clasp, while she listened spell-bound to the agitated talk of the group.
Fair morning Wind from N. W. had a sley prepared against the return of the horses which Capt Clark had promised to send back as soon as he should be able to procure a load of meat. visited by many of the natives among others the Big white, the Coal, big-man, hairy horn and the black man, I smoked with them, after which they retired, a deportment not common, for they usually pester us with their good company the ballance of the day after once being introduced to our apartment.
For most vehicles they have what they call a Sley, which is the body of a Coach fastened on to a Sledge with ropes, and drawn by one Horse. A Fellow walks by the side on't, and holds on with one hand to prevent its falling over, while with the other he manages the Reins.
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