Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/393

order, but meekly suggest what she thought might be done.

All supplies were laid in, early in the winter: Beef by the quarter, a pig, poultry of all kinds, and maybe some moose meat and caribou. All the meats, not salted or pickled by the mistress, were kept frozen in a place prepared in the barn. The cellar was well supplied with potatoes, turnips and other vegetables, and in one corner, carefully railed off, was a space especially under the care of the master of the house, and his deputy, the old family servant, who generally spent his life in the household, and considered his master a greater man than the governor of the province. In the corner was stored a cask of madiera, another of port, and one of sherry, and chief among them, the main stay of the supply, a cask of Jamaica rum, very old, and very fragrant. Brandy and whiskey and other fiery liquids were not then in general use. There might be a bottle of brandy in the house, but only to be used as a corrective of internal disturbance arising from too generous an indulgence in the good things of the season.

Every preparation was made for a befitting celebration of the important day. Those who had been remiss or improvident, scoured the adjacent country to see if any unfortunate fowl or bird had escaped the promiscuous slaughter. The girls and their mother were unremitting in their work in furnishing a bountiful supply of pies of al kinds, and cakes and doughnuts. In that day the doughnut was king of the feast, fat, juicy and crisp, well cooked and wholesome. In these degenerate times his glory has departed. We are half ashamed of him, and though still considered a requisite of the Christmas holidays we eat him in a furtive manner, and many loudly declaim that they never eat doughnuts, call them bilious, and apply other heretical calumnies to what in old times was considered indispensable to