SPRING, from Godey’s Lady’s Magazine, April, 1851
1851
March 21 Friday Have heat the oven twice to day
baked 15 mince pies, 2 loaves bread &
two sheets cup cake & ginger snaps got the
last oven full in about twelve.
This afternoon have been looking over my
accounts and mending stockings A[u]gustus dined
here. Helen came to night in the stage
Pleasant weather but sloppy.
Vernal Equinox, at last. The first day of spring was mild, with the earth tilting in the right direction. If the ground hadn’t been “sloppy” and she hadn’t been tied to the oven, Evelina might have gone outside to inspect her flower beds to see if any bulbs were peeking up through the disappearing snow.
Evelina, and probably Sarah Witherell, too, baked today. Evelina made her patented host of mince meat pies to be served over the next week or two. Brown bread, cake and ginger snaps also had a turn in the capacious brick oven, no doubt filling the house with some wonderful aromas. Pleasant day outside, pleasant day inside.
Nephew Augustus Gilmore, still bookkeeping next door, continued to dine with the family at midday, perhaps walking back from the office or counting house at noon with Oakes. Niece Helen Ames arrived home via stagecoach from her boarding school in New Bedford for a weekend visit, although “weekend” was not a term most people in town would have used. The shovel shop ran six days a week, after all, so Saturday had no special connotation for most citizens of North Easton.
evelinaames 