May

May 2, 1851

1528

Globe Amaranth

1851

May 2nd Friday.  Susan started with several other children

about 6 Oclock maying and did not get back

untill half past nine.  They went over three miles

to the “West Shire”  I made cake & ginger snaps to

bake with Mrs Witherell. Jane made some pies and 

bread.  Mr & Mrs Whitwell and Mrs William Reed

called. Afterward planted some globe seed and 

carried my stockings to mend in the other part of the house

Today’s good weather gave Susie Ames and her friends the opportunity they missed yesterday. Leaving early in the morning, they walked west to deliver May baskets to friends and family, or perhaps even to strangers. It sounds as if the children walked a long way on their little legs. Readers in Easton, where exactly is the “West Shire?”  By the Bay Road?

Baking was in order today. Evelina and her sister-in-law Sarah Witherell baked cake and ginger snaps, while Jane McHanna prepared the usual pies and brown bread. Did the children get any ginger snaps when they returned home? Certainly, Reverend and Mrs. Whitwell would have been offered some to eat, as would Abigail Reed, wife of the Reverend William Reed. Guests who dropped in, whether or not they were expected, were always offered refreshments such as tea and fruit or biscuits. Cider was a common refreshment, too, but not at the Ames’s house; it was too close to alcohol.

Once the guests had departed, Evelina went out to her garden and began to plant globe seed. Did she have a specific plan in mind for the garden, or was her planting haphazard and spontaneous? If she consulted any of the publications she read, like The Massachusetts Ploughman, or the ladies’ periodicals, she probably found suggestions for arranging her flower beds.

 

 

May 1, 1851

Basket

 

1851

May 1st Thursday  Have cleaned the shed chamber to

day and a long dirty job it is  there is so much in it.

I got through just in time to go to Mr Torreys

after some plants when Orinthia came out of

school.  She went with me and we brought home

three baskets full and have set them out in

the garden This morning it was quite unpleasant

and Susan was disappointed in her walk

May Day! In our modern world, the first day of May means many things to many people, among them International Workers’s Day, the Roman Catholic Celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary Day, even a day for the 21st century Occupy Movement. May Day has ancient iterations, too, most of them having to do with pagan rites of spring.

In 1851, the first of May meant “maying.” Young people like nine-year old Susie Ames filled small baskets with flowers, ribbons, or other little treats and left them, anonymously, on doorsteps around the town. The game was to leave a basket, ring the doorbell, and run away.  If the recipient caught you, he or she was allowed to chase you for a kiss; at least, that was one version. Another version was to leave the basket as a surprise at the home of an elderly person. On this particular May Day, the weather was too disagreeable for the traditional maying walk, so Susie and her friends were unable to deliver their baskets.

Evelina dealt with baskets, too. She and Orinthia Foss filled three of them with plants from John Torrey and put them in her garden. It was her reward for having spent most of the day cleaning out the “shed chamber.”  Spring cleaning was still underway.