Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 25.

[p. 33] cheese making; cooking; weaving; spinning; sewing; drying wet shoes by filling them with hot oats; drying storm-soaked clothes by the blazing logs on the hearth; and teaching the boys and girls. Moments of recreation were rare.

Many deaths have occurred, and the procession of brides still lengthens. The opening of another decade in the new world showed great contrasts to the Plymouth women who remembered the first years. Now they were able to see and hear of the experiences of others. If the arrival of the first cows into Plymouth was a neverto-be-forgotten joy to the women of the Mayflower, the entrance of horses into Plymouth life was elation. Remember Allerton married and went to Salem to live. At this time in Boston eggs were three cents a dozen, milk one cent a quart, butter six and cheese five cents a pound, and housekeepers not caring for the higher prices in Plymouth could send to Boston.

One of the weddings of that year was Mary Allerton's. She was last but one of the Mayflower girls to marry. Damaris Hopkins' marriage completed the list.

How I would like to take you to some of their parties and merry-making evenings! I can only speak of one. The swift knitting-needles click in Desire's hands as she watches the progress of the sampler which is being worked by a lovely girl. Betty Alden also is one of the worker's admirers and friends. The sampler was made by Lora Standish, only and much-beloved daughter of the Pilgrim captain. That piece of handicraft is the only specimen of their work that we know of which may be looked at today.

When Mary Chilton-Winslow moved to Boston it could not have seemed more strange to her than Plymouth had come to be to her. As the first death on the Mayflower was that of a woman, Dorothy Bradford, so the last survivor of the Mayflower company was a woman, Mary Allerton-Cushman, who saw all of the life, with its chances and changes, of which we read.