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The City of DuBois
Chapter 6
Page 034
Page 34 PIONEER HARDSHIPS
the sheep was simple, for they ran in the forests and secured their
own living, coming in to the home place once or twice a week for
salt.
Sheep shearing was an annual event taking place about
the first of May. A long table was erected of planks sixteen feet in
length, placed on trestles about two feet high and the table would
be four feet to five feet in width. The sheep were herded in a pen
or maybe in the stable which they had occupied in the winter. When
the operator, armed with a pair of sheep shears and a rope was ready
to go to work, he grabbed a sheep by the wool, threw it on the
table, tied its legs below the knees with the rope, and proceeded to
relieve the sheep of its fleece. The unskilled usually relieved the
sheep of a good part of its skin by snipping out spots during the
shearing. A good operator could clip a sheep in about ten minutes.
When the sheep was sheared, the initials of the owner were placed on
its side with tar. A tarbucket with a paddle in it was kept on hand
and when the operator was through, he placed the initials of the
owner on its side in rude characters. It was then turned loose and
supposed to look out for itself until the pasture would be frozen in
the fall.
Before the flock of sheep was turned into the woods, a
leader would be selected, upon which a bell was tied. From this we
get the expression "bellwether." Gray in his ELEGY refers to the
sheep bell in the third verse, as follows:
"Now, fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
Or drowsy tinkling lulls the distant fold."
The fleece of the sheep was turned over to the wife who
washed it and scoured it until the grease was removed. With a pair
of hand cards, she made her rolls which she spun on her wheel. The
process of hand carding continued until woolen mills were erected in
the community.
DYEING CLOTH
After spinning either flax or wool, a coloring process
took place. Pioneers could not walk out to a neighboring store and
buy coloring matter. They relied on the barks of the trees, onion
skins and such little coloring matter as might be brought to the
stores, known as madder and indigo. The barks used were that of the
alder, maple, walnut, oak, and any other bark they might find
producing a color or part of the color they wished to use. Coloring
blue was a rather offensive process. The blue had to be set and for
the setting process a lye pot was placed in some secluded place to
which the family contributed daily until sufficient lye was obtained
for setting the blue. This pot smelled to the heavens and was very
offensive. The indigo was then dissolved in the lye and the yarns
dipped in until the color suited the operator. If one takes what was
known as the old coverlets or bedspreads, they find this blue has
come down through years and years without fading. Likewise the
mineral colors of red and other
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