Radio Script #61
Little Talks On Common Things
March 26, 1950
Let us return for a few minutes tonight to the old account book of the Augusta trader, whose interesting sales we talked about a few weeks ago. In his book I found frequent mention of a term I had previously seen only in one ·other place. The term is “Bohea tea”, which our Augusta merchant sold for 47 cents a pound. The only other place I ever saw that kind of tea mentioned is in the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. When Franklin took on the job of supplying provisions for General Braddock’s ill-fated expedition, he listed among the needed items 20 pounds of good Bohea tea.
When I mentioned rum as one of the three commonest items of sale in that old store, I did not mean to imply that it was the only beverage sold. There are several mentions of brandy, a few of gin, and in November and December the item “1 mug cider” is almost as frequent as “1 glass rum”.
OUr Augusta storekeeper sold a lot of horn combs. The charge was uniformly 11 cents a piece. As all readers of Colonial history know, glass beads were very much in demand for trading with the Indians. I had no idea how cheap those beads were as late as 1802 until I read this item in the storekeeper’s journal: “4 strings beads, 12 cents”.
As I turned the pages of that old book it suddenly occurred to me that, although I encountered many mentions of thread, I never saw the word “spool”.
The unit is either skein or knot. Skein is still used, I believe, as a unit for yarn, but does anyone remember ever hearing the word “knot” as the old storekeeper used it in this charge: “Henry Bolster, 28 knots brown thread, 50 cents” ?
Nowhere in the account book is there any record of a small quantity of salt. It is usually “1 bushel salt, 92 cents”. The smallest amount is one peck. What kind of salt was that? Certainly not modern, refined table salt as we know it. Nor was it necessarily rock salt or mineral salt. It may well have been what in my boyhood we used to call Liverpool salt, a some what powdery, often soggy, unrefined salt.
Sometimes a customer would get away with short payment. Then the storekeeper would make a careful notation of the lapse or error. For instance, on November 2, l804.he made this entry: “Jeremiah Richards of Fayette, to short pay for knives and forks, 7 cents.”
“Due on one gal. molasses, 4 cents.”
In April, 1805 Jeremiah Towle was charged:
Now let us take a fond, nostalgic glance at some of the sales seldom, if ever, made in a store today. Our old-time merchant’S journal is filled with such items as these:
1 pair boot legs $ 1.50
1 bed cord .50
1 cow bell 1.17
1 lb. ink powder .17
1 pair specks .34
1 clay pipe .02
1 lb. brimstone .04
1 string sleigh bells 1. 75
1 pair ox bows .42
7 flints .07
1 snuff box .10
1 slate and 2 pencils .27
4 gallons soap 1.00
Our Augusta merchant seems to have been a pretty good fellow, lending a helping hand as need arose. Often in his records we find mention of money loaned, always in small amounts, seldom more than a dollar at a time. Sometimes it was as small as this item entered on October 10, 1806: “Henry DOW, cash loaned, 20 cents”. It would be interesting to know what Henry was going to do with that twenty cents. Perhaps he was going to buy a meal at Soule’s Tavern, where you’will recall the merchant paid for the entertainment of one man’s wife while the husband was being charged for three successive purchases of rum at the store.
Everyone my age is familiar with the expression “a dollar a day and found”. It is not often, however, that one sees any form of this expression in writing. But here, in this old book, is the entry on March 10, 1803: “John Soule, credit, by finding Henry Babcock, 2 meals and lodging, 64 cents”. Incidentally rates like that ought to make modern innkeepers ashamed of their prices.
Apparently our storekeeper was not averse to doing errands. In June, 1805 he entered these charges: “Jeremiah Glidden, to going to Vassalborough on your business, 50 cents; to wine .07”. Correct interpretation is impossible, but we’ll hazard a guess that the storekeeper, not Glidden, drank the wine, and that the 7 cents is part of what we would today call an expense account.
It is evident that some of the old customers were slow pay, and occasionally the merchant had to swear out a writ, or bring suit. Whenever he did that, he added the’ cost of the writ to the customer’s account. Whether he was ever able to collect through these suits is not clear. The records show scrupulous honesty, as when he credits Nathaniel Shaw with 6 cents overpaid.
In May, 1806 he wrote this item: “Nathaniel Folsom, 45 lb. rush iron, $2.70; 1 piece rush iron about 30 lb. The reason of this being charged in this manner was he took the wrong piece.”
An interesting feature of this old account book is the merchant’s amazing spelling. The point is not his misspelling of common words; that was ordinary enough in 1802, and isn’t particularly unusual today. But this storekeeper’s spelling reminds us of what many Shakespearean scholars assert about the Bard of Avon. Shakespeare, it seems, could not make up his mind how to spell his name. One authority says it appears in eleven different spellings. Likewise, our Augusta merchant of 150 years ago could not decide how to spell the days of the week. Saturday appears not only in its correct spelling, but also as Saterday, Satterday, Saterdy and Satdy. Monday is sometimes Munday, sometimes Mundy, and at least once appears as Moonday. Of course Wednesday was the old fellow’s worst stumbling block. Interestingly enough he sometimes spells it correctly, but more commonly it appears as Wensday, Wensdy, and once as Wendsday.
Thursday is often written Thirdsday, which by any reckoning it could not possibly be. Probably the writer never thought of it as actually the third day of the week, because a few pages later he spelled it Thirstday perhaps that was a day when he got in a new barrel of rum.
When I first mentioned this old account book, I told you it is a valuable historical record. Many of you are aware of my interest in old-time words and sayings of our Maine dialect. Our good storekeeper’s fantastic spelling gives us interesting clues to the old-time pronunciation. When he records the sale of 1 arthen ware jug, it is clear that folks of that time pronounced earth as arth. When he writes boot legs as “Boot laigs” I we know he pronounced the words eggs and legs just the way a lot of Maine folks still pronounce them, to the amusement of people from other states. When he makes a charge for 1 yard narrer tape and another 1 axle for wheelbarrer, we know how he and his neighbors pronounced the words ending in “ow”. “Mending chimley, 50 cents” shows that the pronounciation of chimney still occasionally heard was common a century and a half ago. But when he charges a customer 80 cents for “I cagg and brass lock with same”, we cannot be sure whether he pronounced keg as kaig or kag. In my boyhood I heard both pronounciations.
OUr final word tonight about the old-time Augusta merchant calls attention to his practice of selling goods on trial and taking other goods on consignment.
On July 10, 1805 appears this item: “Samuel Babcock, 1 gunlock to have to try and to take mounting if it fits, $3.00” On August 3 of the same year is entered: “Joseph Ham, credit by 1 pair boyls boots, $3.33; to be returned to him if no sale.”
Some people tell us that we live in a world where the fellow who shouts the loudest gets the most. All around us we hear individuals and groups making dire threats of what they will do to us if they don I t have their way.
It might be well if we occasionally looked to see how much substance lies behind a threat.
A man driving a buggy.down a steep hill met a farmer with a load of hay.
Both stopped their teams and the man in the buggy shouted, “Turn out — turn out — or I III treat you the way I did a man I met a mile back.” The farmer, deeply concerned, pulled his team out into the ditch, endangering his whole load. Then as the buggy drew past, he timidly asked, “What did you do to the fellow you met back there?” nOh”, came the reply, “I turned out for him”.
Ed Chase, the well known legislator and business man of’Portland, calls pertinent attention to some good sized holes in the social security bag. He points out that a great illusion of. our times is the notion that future security can be assured by paperwork and bookkeeping. We have created a system by which the government extracts a percentage of our wages in return for a promise that when we reach a certain age we shall be paid so much per month.
No one has any idea whether, when the time comes, the amount will buy what it buys today. The plain fact is that what we have really done is to hire a horde of bookkeepers whom the rest of us must support. Under such a system social security has no reliable security in it.
What Mr. Chase is trying to make us see is that, just as it used to be alleged that a country can have a sound economy if all the people took in each other’s washing, so our country now seems to be moving toward a state of paper prosperity based on taking in each other’s bookkeeping.
A lot of us are too indifferent to the destructive forces at work on the American system of economy. It reminds us of the story about the ant hill on the golf course. A round, white object came rolling along one day and stopped on top of the ant hill. A hundred ants quickly assembled to inspect this object at close hand. Suddenly a terrific blow fell. When the dust settled, the object was still there, but half the ants were dead. The remainder reassembled to continue the inspection. A second blow fell, leaving the white object still in place, but killing all but two of the ants. Then one of the survivors said to the other, “If we want to stay alive, maybe we’d better get on the ball.”
Tea is a very common thing, though with us it is less common than with our British friends. Although, a hundred and fifty years ago, the merchant in that cld store in Augusta sold very few articles for human consumption, compared with the numerous articles today, one of his few commodities was tea.
Nevertheless tea as a drink known to the western world is not very old probably Shakespeare never tasted it. In the very year when Charles II restored the monarchy after the interruption of Cromwell’s commonwealth — the year 1660 — Samuel Pepys wrote in his famous diary: “I did send for a cup of tea (a China drink) of which I had never drank before.”
Those of my generation who worked in the grocery stores of half a century ago were familiar with not only the China teas, but with the thin, wiry leaves of Ceylon tea, and the coppery green leaves of Japanese tea. In those days we hadn’t heard much about the now common India tea.
It is a fact, however, that until the time of our own Civil War, tea was produced exclusively in China and the island of Formosa. Since 1860 the plant has been introduced into India and Pakistan, Java and Sumatra, Japan and East Africa.
Tea experts insist that the finest tea is grown at the highest altitudes and that if the leaves are picked 24 hours too early or 24 hours too late, its flavor will be inferior. Many of them also maintain that the finest flavored tea is produced in Darjeeling in the foothills of the Himalayas. To this day many British people, when they provide for an important social occasion, insist on serving Darjeeling tea.
Year: 1950