There came at this time to another lady in this Boston court circle a grandchild eight years of age, from the Barbadoes, to also attend Boston schools. Missy left her grandmother's house in high dudgeon because she could not have wine at all her meals. And her parents upheld her, saying she had been brought up a lady and must have wine when she wished it. Evidently Cobbett's statement of the free drinking of wine, cider, and beer by American children was true as Anna Green Winslow's "treat" would also show.

Though Puritan children had few recreations and amusements, they must have enjoyed a very cheerful, happy home life. Large families abounded. Cotton Mather says:

Sir William Phips was one of twenty-six children, all with the same mother. Printer Green had thirty children. The Rev. John Sherman, of Watertown, had twenty-six children by two wives twenty by his last wife. The Rev. Samuel Willard, first minister to Groton, had twenty children, and his father had seventeen children. Benjamin Franklin was one of a family of seventeen. Charles Francis Adams has told us of the fruitful vines of old Braintree.

The little Puritans rejoiced in some very singular names, the offspring of Roger Clap being good examples: Experience, Waitstill, Preserved, Hopestill, Wait, Thanks, Desire, Unite, and Supply.

Of the food given Puritan children we know but little. In an old almanac of the eighteenth century I find a few sentences of advice as to the "Easy Rearing of Children." The writer urges that boys as soon as they can run alone go without hats to harden them, and if possible sleep without night-caps, as soon as they have any hair. He advises always to wet children's feet in cold water and thus make them (the feet) tough, and also to have children wear thin-soled shoes "that the wet may come freely in." He says young children should never be allowed to drink cold drinks, but should always have their beer a little heated that it is "best to feed them on Milk, Pottage, Flummery, Bread, and Cheese, and not let them drink their beer till they have first eaten a piece of Brown Bread." Fancy a young child nowadays making a meal of brown bread and cheese with warm beer! He suggests that they drink but little wine or liquor, and sleep on quilts instead of feathers. In such ways were reared our Revolutionary heroes.