Chapter 12 cont. WOMEN'S WORK Besides cooking in the manner described, the women had many other arduous duties to perform, one of the chief of which was spinning.  The "big wheel" was used for spinning yarn and the "little wheel" for spinning flax.  These stringed instruments furnished the principal music of the family, and were operated by our mothers and grandmothers with great skill, attained without pecuniary expense, and with far less practice than is necessary for the girls of our period to acquire a skillful use of their costly and elegant instruments.  But those wheels, indispensable many years ago, are all now superseded by the mighty factories which overspread the country, furnishing cloth of all kinds at an expense ten times less than would be incurred now by the old system. The loom was not less necessary than the wheel, though they were not needed in so great numbers.  Not every house had a loom, one loom having a capacity for the needs of several families.  Settlers, having succeeded in spite of the wolves in raising sheep, commenced the manufacutre of woolen cloth.  Wool was carded and made into rolls by hand cards and the rolls were spun on the "big wheel."  We still occasionally find in the house of old settlers a wheel of this kind, sometimes used for spinning and twisting stocking yarn.  They are turned with the hand and with such velocity that it will run itself while the nimble worker, by her backward step, draws out and twists her thread nearly the whole length of the cabin.  A common article woven on the loom was linsey, or linsey woolsey, the chain being linen and the filling woolen.  This cloth was used for dresses for the women and girls.  Nearly all the clothes worn by the men were also home made.  Rarely was a farmer or his son seen in a coat made of any other.  If occasionally a young man appeared in a suit of "boughten" clothes, he was suspected of having gotten it for a particular occasion, which occurs in the life of nearly every young man. Debbie Clough G-erischer G-erischer Family Web Site http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/ Assistant CC, Iowa Gen Web, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ List Manager for: IASCOTT-L * G-erischer-L * D-encker-L Fitzpatirck-L * V-lerebome-L * Huntington-L * Otis-L * Algar-L EIGS-L * Pickens-L * McNab-L * Patris-L - Rankin-L