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When the squire, after his fatiguing day, was compelled, along with his host and hostess and the girls, to climb two flights of stairs to an ice-cold garret, his loyalty was little warmer than the atmosphere; and when the five were further forced to make the best they could of two narrow trundle-beds, but a brief time before deemed none too good for the coloured servitors, with a scanty supply of bedclothes to eke the discomfort, he became quite of the same mind with Tabitha.
An' nobody but God an' his angels will ever know how many of us passed th'oo the valley o' the shadder o' that singular-appearin' lady, or how often we notified the other eight of the fact, unbeknowinst to his audience, while they was distributed in their little trundle-beds. I sometimes wonder ef they ain't no account took of little child'en's trials.
Harrateen, a strong, stiff woollen material, formed the most universal bed hanging. Trundle-beds or truckle-beds were used from the earliest days. So there was variety in plenty. A form of bedstead called a slawbank was common enough in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania until this century.
It is ordinarily supposed that carbonic-acid gas, being heavier, sinks to the bottom of the room, and that thus trundle-beds, for instance, are especially unwholesome. This would be so, were the gas pure. As a matter of fact, however, being warmed in the body, and thus made lighter, it rises into the common air, so that usually more will be found at the top than at the bottom of a room.
"When'll we see some rebels?" the boys asked. "Don't be impatient," said a soldier on the sidewalk; "you'll see 'em soon enough, and more'n you want to. You'll have to go a little further, but you'll find the woods full of 'em. You'll be wishin' you was back home in your little trundle-beds, where they ought've kept you." "Shut up, you coffee-boiler," shouted Shorty, striding toward him.
It is often thought that carbonic acid, being heavier than common air, sinks to the floor of sleeping-rooms, so that the low trundle-beds for children should not be used. This is all a mistake; for, as a fact, in close sleeping-rooms the purest air is below and the most impure above.
There were two trundle-beds in a corner, and four bright beings, oblivious to the discomfort, in the happy sleep of childhood. There was a mattress in another corner, with a pile of bedquilts and a sheet. The fire had burned down to a coal. It shone on the mantle with a sickly glare; and this was the only light there was.
Early at morning, just as the dawn began to pale the sandy bluffs along the shore, and while the cypress bottoms still lay under the blackness of night, there came the trampling of horses, the low tones of men, the sharp, nervous voices of women, and the cries of children untimely gathered from their trundle-beds. The Major and his wife were ready to receive this overflow of company.
I also recall a waxwork representation of the Birth in the Manger. I still can see the heads of the cattle, the spreading horns, and the blessed Babe. As I recall my early boyhood, many changes in customs seem suggested. There may be trundle-beds in these days, but I never see them. No fathers wear boots in this era, and bootjacks are as extinct as the dodo.
We slept on trundle-beds, which were covered with straw ticks. Our covers were made in big patches from old cast-off clothes. When we got up in the morning we shoved the trundle bed back under the big bed. Some boy would ring a great big bell, called the "farm bell" about sunrise. Some went to the stables to look after the horses and mules. Plowing was done with a yoke or oxen.
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