REFERENCES AND QUESTIONS

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Frémont and what did he discover? 13. Who was Dr. Whitman and what did he do for the country?

(§ 235) 14 (For an essay). Accounts of journeys on the Santa Fe Trail. 15. How and when was Arkansas admitted to the Union? 16. How much territory did the Texans claim? 17. Why was there objection to the annexation of Texas?

(§ 236) 18. Who were nominated and who was elected in the presidential campaign of 1844? 19. How was Texas admitted to the Union? 20. How were Florida and Wisconsin admitted? 21. How was the dispute about Oregon settled? 22 (For an essay). Accounts of early journeys to Oregon.

(§ 237) 23. What grievances had the United States against Mexico? 24 (For an essay). Accounts of Taylor's march and first fight with the Mexicans. 25. What were the principal battles of the Mexican War? 26 (For an essay). Accounts of the soldiers' life in the war.

27. What territory did the United States gain? 28. How was the boundary with Mexico settled?

(§ 238) 29. What action was taken relative to slavery in the new annexation? 30. What was the Wilmot Proviso? 31. What was the result of the election of 1848?

(§ 239) 32. What serious questions were raised by the annexation of New Mexico and California? 33 (For an essay). Early accounts of gold digging in California. 34. How did the Californians look on slavery?

(§ 240) 35. What questions respecting slavery had to be settled by Congress? (See also § 239.) 36. What was the Omnibus Bill? 37. How did leading statesmen look on the Compromise of 1850? 38 (For an essay). Account of Webster's 7th of March speech. 39. What were the details of the Compromise of 1850? 40. Why was the compromise not a "finality"?

CHAPTER XXII

YOUNG AMERICA (1829-1861)

242. Young Folks and Old Folks. While the men and women of the Republic were so busy, what were the children doing? There were plenty of them, for more than half the population was under twenty-one years of age. For instance, the city of New York in 1860 contained about 400,000 boys and girls. But children were not expected then to have all the delicacies, privileges, and pleasures of older people. Even in wealthy families they lived simple lives, rarely left the town or village where they lived, had little money to spend, and were expected to give way to their elders. An old gentleman, who was a child at that time, when asked whether he liked the white meat of chicken, answered that he had never found out, because when he was a child it never reached him, and now that he was old, it never came past his children.

Intimate family life was perhaps more common then than now, because the children had fewer interests outside their own dwellings. Few attractions drew children from their homes, and in many households in country or city only one room was warmed in winter evenings, and early bedtimes were enforced. It was easy for parents and children to gather together, talking things over, doing light work, and reading aloud. Children who were away from home were expected to write long, frequent, and careful letters. In the large families the oldest children helped to bring up the young ones, and were often a kind of second father and mother to them.

People were fond of talking about the past, and often gave to children historic names, such as George Washington or Andrew Jackson, or Bible names. Shearjasub Bourne was a name handed down from father to son in a Cape Cod family for five or six generations. Then, as now, good fathers and

HOME LIFE AND WORK

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mothers told their children of their own early lives and struggles, and shared the events of the children's daily lives. 243. Children's Work. In the factory and mining villages previous to 1860, thousands of children were cruelly overworked and grew up in ignorance, because there was no time for them to go to school (§ 223). On the farms, then as now, every healthy boy and girl had regular tasks. They began while little to go for the cows, to water the stock, to lay the table, to wipe the dishes, to "rake after " the hay wagon, to care for lambs and little calves, to run cultivators, and to bend their backs over planting potatoes or weeding gardens. They thought it no hardship, and that is the way to learn practical farming.

The girls did housework, picked fruit, helped at butter and cheese making, and joined in cutting and sewing together a variety of pieces for patchwork quilts. Much of the churning, which was rather hard work, was left to the girls. In the evenings all hands might shell corn, or work the apple parers and sausage grinders.

Many town boys and girls had similar duties which cannot be performed in modern crowded cities. Most comfortable families kept a horse or a cow, chickens and pigs, which had to be cared for by the young folks. Vegetable and fruit gardens had to be weeded, grass had to be cut, errands run, fences whitewashed; all this required of the boys from one to four hours a day of useful work for the family. Country, village, and town girls almost all took part in the housework and did much sewing, for no girl was thought well brought up who could not use her needle handily, mend her own clothes and the family stockings, and make some of her clothes. Often she made shirts for her father and brothers. The newly invented sewing machine (§ 225) was a great help in these tasks.

Outside the family, boys could begin early to earn wages for other people as errand boys; or they went into a shop to learn a trade, or worked as drivers of horses, as boys do now. Those who had enough schooling to write a good hand and were quick at figures could find work as clerks, bookkeepers, and telegraph operators, or as salesmen (then usually called

CHILDREN'S PLAY

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"clerks ") in stores; and a bright boy might expect to go on up till he became a storekeeper or mill owner.

For the girls there were few chances of wage work except working out" in neighboring families or going into the woolen and cotton mills. There were no women stenographers or library assistants. But plenty of bright girls sixteen years old or upwards were welcomed as school-teachers, though the pay was small and the work might last only a few months in the year. In the country the teacher who did not live at home was expected to "board round board round" among the families in the district. A capable girl of sixteen could manage her school for some time, unless, as often happened, one of the big boys insisted on marrying her.

In the South the children of white farmers and of "poor white" families helped in the housework and farm work, but had few cattle to care for. On the plantations slave children of nine or ten were expected to begin as quarter hands"; that is, to do one fourth of a grown man's task.

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244. Children's Play. Children at home seldom had too much to do, and they found time for happy play. Nowhere were children shut up in narrow streets lined with high buildings. The largest cities contained plenty of vacant lots and grassy streets where children were undisturbed. There were no professional games to attend. Nobody belonged to regular baseball or football or rowing clubs, but boys got great fun out of such ball games as rounders." This was an early form of baseball, in which the players had the fun of trying to "patch out" the runner by hitting him with the ball while he was running between bases.

The boys and girls, especially in the villages, were often brought up like members of one big family. They went to Sunday school, church, and day school together, played together, and were fond of big-side games in which all could join, such as " pom-pom-pull-away," "prisoner's base," and

"barny ball," where one excited group sent the ball over the top of a high building, and the other waited for it on the other side. Children loved good noisy, running, yelling, squealing games.