sunday-work

Updated: May 16, 2025

In those early days, towns used to give each other nicknames, like schoolboys. Ours was called "Bean-town" not because it was especially devoted to the cultivation of this leguminous edible, but probably because it adhered a long time to the Puritanic custom of saving Sunday-work by baking beans on Saturday evening, leaving them in the oven over night.

Lucy Larcom - A New England girlhood, outlined from memory (Beverly, MA)