USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Nanticoke > History of Hanover Township : including Sugar Notch, Ashley, and Nanticoke boroughs : and also a history of Wyoming Valley, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania > Part 21
USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Ashley > History of Hanover Township : including Sugar Notch, Ashley, and Nanticoke boroughs : and also a history of Wyoming Valley, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania > Part 21
USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Sugar Notch > History of Hanover Township : including Sugar Notch, Ashley, and Nanticoke boroughs : and also a history of Wyoming Valley, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania > Part 21
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
Sheep, hogs and cattle had to be securely housed at night; and many men have been overtaken by night in the woods at a distance from home, and sometimes only a short distance, and have been forced to climb trees to get out of the reach of wolves, and sit there all night. As the morning sun began to give a little light the wolves would sneak off one by one until they were all gone, and the shivering traveler could come down and go home. They would frequently howl around the houses of the inhabitants all night long. There was constant warfare with them. The settlers would sometimes get up large hunting parties for the especial pur- pose of hunting wolves, and in the course of fifty or sixty years they exterminated them. It is doubtful if a wolf has been seen in fifty years past by any hunter in Wyoming Valley.
Hunters used to meet deer in herds of six, eight and even ten together, and sometimes three or four bears together. The early settlers had to let their hogs run in the woods in the day-time and hunt their own living, and bears frequently, in the spring, killed off the settler's whole supply. In such cases his dependence was only on a supply of shad, to be caught and salted for the next year's use in place of pork, unless he was a pretty good hunter. In that case he might kill bears and deer enough to supply the place of his lost hogs, but deer and bear meat was a poor substitute. One hunter
1
233
HANOVER TOWNSHIP.
could frequently kill three or four deer in a day and not go so far from home that he could not return at night to sleep. These early settlers were not hunters, but some of the second generation made their living mostly, if not wholly, by hunting. They delighted in telling hunting stories, and some of their stories were very queer, to say the least. To the right of the Indian Spring on the old Warrior Path as you approach it from the north going up the mountain, is a large rock lying on two other rocks that are elevated three or four feet above the ground and lying some six or eight feet apart. It is some rods from the spring and made a very welcome shelter in case of a storm. Fire has been made in there sometimes to warm, and perhaps to cook by, and looking out from it there was to be seen, many years ago, a large tree a hundred yards or so distant well marked and scarred with bullets. Hunters while sheltered there would shoot at mark., Large oak trees sur- rounded the spring and- the rock, and grass grew around there, and in the summer time there was a beautiful and inviting shade there some forty and more years ago. When the writer first remembers it apple trees were growing there. There was no underbrush there then to speak of, and grass grew all around the spring and along the path up to the top of the mountain ten or twenty rods further on.
Sometimes a person would build a hunting cabin in the woods on his own land, and when the hunting season came take some provisions there and stay for a week at a time, and sometimes two weeks, and hunt. The writer knew of one of these hunting cabins being turned into a dwelling-house by the owner after some ad- ditions had been made to it, and the owner residing in it many years, and dying there just forty years ago-a person of no mean fortune, character and standing in Luzerne County.
The troubles in all the townships settled by the Yankees, from the attempts of the Pennsylvania government to dispossess them and drive them out of the valley, by throwing their furniture and utensils out of doors and turning the families, men, women and children, out and nailing up the houses, and in some cases burning them down; had ceased in 1785. A constitution of the United States had been framed and adopted in 1787, and in 1790 the first census was taken. The constitution provided that a census should
15*
234
HISTORY OF HANOVER.
be taken every ten years, so as to form the basis and distribution of the representatives in Congress. No census had ever been taken anywhere in any state or country previously and so they had no guide to go by, no precedent.
1790. In taking the census of 1790 Luzerne County was all taken in one district in one body in regular alphabetical order. There is no township division, so the population of townships can- not be ascertained. The names of all the persons were not taken down, but only the heads of families, whether the head was male or female. The head of the family written down, then on the same line across the page in figures is given the number in the family of free white males under 16 years, over 16 years, then free white" females, then all other free persons, then the number of slaves:
Luzerne County had free white males under 16
16 16 over 16 . 1,331 .
1,236
44 females . 2,313
all other free persons 13
slaves II
Luzerne County had total population . · 4,904
Only one of these slaves was owned in Hanover. Luzerne County at this time included the most of what is now Bradford, Susquehanna, Wyoming and Lackawanna Counties. Before the Decree of Trenton of 1782 Westmoreland County, Connecticut, in- cluded Luzerne, part of Bradford, Susquehanna, Wyoming, Lacka- wanna, Pike and Wayne Counties.
The act of Congress under which this census was taken, was in force until after the census of 1840.
It is altogether probable that about four thousand of these persons lived in Wilkes-Barre, Kingston, Plymouth, Huntington, Pittston, Hanover and Newport, leaving all the rest of the territory with less than a thousand inhabitants in it.
Immediately after the second Continental Congress met, in May, 1775, they appointed a committee to report a scheme of a post, "for carrying letters and intelligence through this continent." In July an establishment was made under a post- master-general (Benjamin Franklin) to be located at Philadelphia, "he to form a line of posts from Falmouth, New England, to
235
HANOVER TOWNSHIP.
Savannah, Georgia, with cross posts where needful." In 1776 authority was given "to employ extra post riders between the armies from their headquarters to Philadelphia."
In 1779 the post was regulated "to arrive and set out twice a week at the place where Congress shall be sitting, to go as far as Boston, and to Charleston, South Carolina." This was an increase of business, so much so that the postmaster-general's salary was doubled. There is nothing away back here to indicate the rate of postage on letters.
CHAPTER XII.
1790 TO 1800.
OADS were only mud roads or dirt roads then as they are These early settlers used as little time for making roads as they could and make them passable for teams. There was so very little teaming done that they did not need much of a road anywhere, and perhaps, from our surrounding mountains and the general barrenness of the land for so many miles on the east of them, they may have thought that the teaming of any pro- duction of theirs would never pay, and so took no care to make good roads in the beginning. Their roads were made from two to three rods wide (during the Yankee or Connecticut jurisdiction they were six rods) generally only two, and if possible on the line between two adjoining farms, one rod on each. The roads were generally opened after the farms had been made, and of course fenced. Then when the officer having authority to open a road came on with men to do the work, the fences were set back from the line between the lots or farms to the place for the fence on each side, then a broad ditch was plowed on each side of the proposed road and the dirt scraped from them into the middle of the road and rounded up, and that was a road. In places where a brook ran across, or a drain had to be made across the road, a culvert or little bridge was made by digging a ditch across the road and laying two small logs in it a couple of feet apart, and across the road-bed, letting three or four cross sticks into the top of these, laying poles on them and covering up with dirt. Here was a little bridge that would last three or four years without repair. These were their roads a hundred years ago, and we have pretty much the same kind yet. There was another kind of road made in low and wet or marshy places called "corduroy" roads. These were made by laying logs, like the string-pieces of a bridge, across the marshy
237
HANOVER TOWNSHIP.
place, and from three or four feet to eight feet apart and parallel. Across these, poles ten or twelve feet long were laid side by side until solid ground was reached. It was a rough road, but it would float on a marsh and bear up heavy teams and loads. These were quite common.
New settlers were coming into the township from other parts of Pennsylvania and from New York and New Jersey, and they bought land of the Yankees before the titles to the lands were set- tled, and some of the old settlers sold all their land and moved away. Another war had been fought with the Indians, and the Indians had been terribly whipped by Gen. Anthony Wayne in Ohio and Indiana, in 1793-4, and now those territories were begin- ning to be settled by the white people, and our people were casting their eyes in that direction. Some of the old settlers here divided up their lands and sold part to the new-comers, heirs divided their deceased parents' estates, new farms were cleared up and homes made on the back lands towards the mountain. Two roads had been opened from Wilkes-Barre down through Hanover to the south-west into Newport: the River Road to Nanticoke and beyond, and the Middle Road through nearly the center of the township, and now, as we approach the year 1800, the Back Road was ordered by the court to be opened as a public highway. That road enters the township-from Wilkes-Barre at what is now called Newtown-and passes down at a distance of about half a mile from the Little Mountain, through the town- ship. Cross-roads were opened to the Middle Road and River Road, and not always in the very best places either, but for the convenience of the inhabitants. Later on, the Back Road from Rummage's Hill down to Newport was vacated, and a road opened from the Rummage or Sorber cross-road in the bottom of the hol- low, along which the Nanticoke railroad now runs, down to Lueder's cross-road, but it went no farther.
Every farm, of course, had an orchard. It was generally planted in the first field cleared up, perhaps because other crops could be raised in the same field while the trees were growing. It took ten years to produce a crop of apples from the time of plant- ing the seed. Young apple trees could be bought for sixpence apiece.
238
HISTORY OF HANOVER.
A new generation had now grown up in the township, and the land opened up by the Back Road was settled and cleared up by the young men who had grown up here, or by new-comers who came in and bought it, the most of whom were Pennsylvania Dutch. These Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York Dutch were industrious people, and in a few years the new clearings touched each other all the way from the Wilkes-Barre line to Newport.
These new fields waved with grain, and fine herds and flocks of cattle, sheep and hogs could be seen on every farm. Here and there a grove of trees was left standing, and the tops of the hills were still capped with their original woods. The prospect from any of the hill-tops or mountain was beautiful indeed, and it has re- mained so to the present day, notwithstanding the neglect into which the farms have fallen. All the necessaries of life were pro- duced in abundance. The same ways, customs, and habits remained and the same wages and prices that had been obtained from the very earliest settlement. Everything was primitive. The early settlers had no dishes except iron, wood and pewter ones, and but very few of them. Wood had to be used for pretty much all household purposes, and the fewest cooking utensils possible were used, and these made mostly by the blacksmith. How could the girl learn to cook? Everything (almost) she had to cook and to cook with was produced on the farm, and having had everything so often destroyed during the Pennamite and Yankee, and the Revolu- tionary wars, they kept as few as possible.
The meals provided for the family in those early times were about the same as they were in 1840, only that in those early times their dishes were pewter, or wooden, or both. Breakfast, dinner and supper among the farmers were very much alike. The table was made of white pine or cherry boards, unpainted and unvar- nished, large enough for the whole family, men, women and children, and the hired men and women, all to sit down to at once, generally the cook and all, for the whole meal was placed on the table before sitting down. Very frequently a blessing was asked, standing, before sitting down to eat. Everything not too large was handed round for every one to take as much as he pleased. The carving was all done before the food was placed on the table. The
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239
HANOVER TOWNSHIP.
dishes were very frequently of wood, as were the spoons, knives and forks were of various patterns of iron or steel. A common dish was a large, deep; wooden or pewter platter filled high with boiled potatoes, cabbage and salt pork or corned beef. At every meal there was a large dish of fried salt pork swimming in its own fat. There was plenty of wheat or rye flour, or a loaf of each, butter of the very freshest and best, eggs, cheese-home-made-milk, butter- milk, water and cider for drink-frequently a large dish of baked beans with a large piece of pork baked with it, radishes, green peas in their season, and green corn, and succotash. These things were frequently all on the table together. Honey, pepper, mustard, vinegar, all of their own production, and other garden products not necessary to mention. In the winter the principal bread food used* was buckwheat cakes. Corn and rye flour mixed and baked in loaves was a favorite bread. Tea and coffee were scarce and used only on special occasions. It was only when they killed a beef, or calf, or sheep, or hogs, that they had any fresh meat. It had to be salted at once to save it for use, and so it happened that their butcher- ing was done late in the fall or early in the winter and was intended to be sufficient for the whole year for themselves and their hired hands. Laboring men took these things for pay, but they-when married-usually raised a hog or two, and often more, for themselves, and had as many chickens and geese and ducks as the owners of farms, and every family had a cow. His valuation for taxes was only the cow-$150, but a single man's valuation was $100. So their meat was all salt meat, except venison and bear meat. Frequently, however, when a calf was of the proper age it was killed and divided among their neighbors fresh and returned in fresh veal again by the neighbor when he killed a calf. The same was sometimes done also with a sheep. So in their accounts we find them both buying and selling the same things in these cases.
1
1
Buckwheat cakes almost exclusively were eaten in the winter season, scarcely any other breadstuff being used, unless it was corn meal cakes for a change, and sometimes flannel cakes. Mush and milk was a favorite dish for children. Indian pudding and pump- kin pies were also in great demand, and, after butchering, sausages and mince pies were in daily use. They lived well but not high, and yet they sometimes had cases of gout among them, and an ex-
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HISTORY OF HANOVER.
tremely fleshy person was not an unusual sight. Generally, how- ever, these descendants of the Puritans had a lean, lank and solemn appearance. Perhaps their troubles here made them have a serious look. They wore their hair in a "queue" till about 1800. Then fashion compelled them to "crop it."
The boys were not unskilled in such things as were possible for them to learn under the circumstances. They had the skill-"the knack"-of their fathers and whatever implement was necessary about their farms they could make. But these young people seemed to have the spirit of emigration born in them, and many of them left the paternal roof and acres and emigrated to the new lands, now at the end of the dying century, opened up to settle- · ment in Ohio. Tales of the richness of the lands in Ohio, came here from those that had gone before, and by soldiers that returned home from the war, and by the opening of the new century a full tide of emigration had set in, and some of the old as well as the new generation went west to try their fortune again in another new country, or to be near their children. Streams of the younger men and women poured towards the west. One of a family, in some cases, kept his ancestral acres until the next generation and then again they left, till now there is scarcely one of the old stock left remaining in the township. The Pennsylvania and New Jersey Dutch came in and took the places of the emigrating Yankees for a couple of generations, but even they have mostly "gone west" now (1884-5).
Now, as we approach the end of the eighteenth century, it seems proper to introduce a list of the productions of the township which the farmers had any hand in producing, and such other productions as they dealt in, but which were produced by tradesmen. The prices also are given so far as they could be ascertained. They were such as the producers-the farmers-charged, and are taken from on account-book of a farmer of the time between 1791 and 1800. In cases where the things were produced by tradesmen no price is given. Some things brought from abroad have a price given to show the cost of it to these people at this time.
Tobacco, raw and manufactured, and cloth of every kind they used were manufactures of the farmers' families. Siding and boards and leather were made on shares by the mill-man and the tanner.
241
HANOVER TOWNSHIP.
Of course it was not all done so. Some such stuff was bought out- right by the exchange of other produce for it. Shoes and boots were made by the farmer that knew how and had the tools, at home in his own house for his own family and for his neighbors. Everyone, or every farmer, and pretty nearly everyone else, fur- . nished the leather and thread for his own and his family's shoes. The prices here named and the wages of labor continued here with- out much if any variation till the war of 1812. Then, for six or seven years, there was considerable fluctuation, but from 1820, about the same prices seem to rule again until they ceased almost entirely to produce these things-which was somewhere near 1840. Coal was quarried out for blacksmiths and used in their forges, but no one knew how to burn it for domestic uses until 1808.
List of things produced or used in Hanover previous to 1800: Apples $ .
Apple trees
6d.
.062/3 |
Apple-jack, gal., 75. 6d= 1.00
Beef, fresh . . 4d .= .04$ Cheese . 6d .- 10d .=. 063/3-11} Butter IS .= . 13 73 Cherries, qt 5d .= . 05g
Bear. meat, 3d .- 4d .=. 0373 -. 049
Bear-skin, tanning, .
. 75. 6d .= 1.00
Buckskin, tanning . .
Blackberries IOS .= 1.3333
Buckwheat, bu., 35. 9d .= .50
Broom corn
Brooms .
Buckskin.
I3S .= 1.73 73
Bees-wax
Bees, hive ($4 in 1840) Beets *
Beans ($2.50 in 1840) .
Black walnuts Boots, making . 14s .= 1.862/3
Bark, cord .. . 1Is. 3d .= 1.50
Corn, Indian, 35 .- 35. 9d .=. 40 -. 50 Cows ($12-$15 in 1840)
Carrots ..
Cabbage, 3d .- 4d .=. 0313 -. 043 Calves
Chickens, each . . Is .= . 1313 16
! Chestnuts, quart 5d .= $ .055 Cider, barrel . . 15s .= 2.00
Cucumbers
Currants
Coverlets
Cloth, linen 35. 9d .= .50
Cloth, woolen . . 45 .= .5373
Chairs, splint and rush bottom Ducks
Dogs .
Dog skins, tanning, 3s .= . 40
Eggs (6 to 12 cts. in 1840)
Flax, pound, Is .- Is. 3d .=
.1373 -. 1623
Flax, hackled 2 .= .262/3
Flax-seed, bu., 65. 6d .= 1.00 Fulled cloth Fish
Flour, rye . 21/2d= . 02} Flour, wheat, 4d .- 5d .= . 043 -. 055 Fur, skins .
Grind-stones : 35. 9d .= .50 Geese (1840, 50 cts. each) Gourds
Horses
242 -
HISTORY OF HANOVER.
Hogs and pigs $
Hides
Hoop-poles
Hay, ton, 2£-3£=5.33-8.00
Hops
·
Half a Crown, 2s. 6d .== .3313
Hickory nuts
Hazel-nuts
Huckleberries(1840,6cts) Handkerchiefs, weaving,
Is. 6d .= .20
Iron ore, ton (1820, $2.66)
Iron, pound, 41/2d .- 6d .==
Lace, linen
:05 -. 063/3
Linen thread
"Linsey-woolsey" cloth
3s. 9d .=
.50
Linen cloth . 3s. 9d .=
.50
Linseed oil and oil-cake
Leather, for pair shoes,
8s .= 1.063/3
Lard
8d .=
.08.g
Log of maple . 55 .= .663/3
Metheglin
Mutton
Melons (1840, 25 cts.) . Oats
Onions
Oxen, yoke
Potatoes, bu . 25. 6d .== .33 1/3
Pumpkins (1840, $I per load)
1
Parsnips
Pork, salt, 6d .- Is .=. 063/3 -. 1373
Pork, fresh .
4d .==
.043
Pigeons, doz
IS .=
.13 1/3
Pheasants, apiece,
IS .=
.I 313
Pease, bu 7s. 6d .== 1.00
Peaches . Plums
Pears
Plaster (gypsum), ton, $13-17.00
Plows .
Panniers
Pack saddles .
$
Quails
Rye, bu .
3s. 9d .=
.50
Rabbits
Radishes
Ropes
Raspberries (6 cts. in 1840)
Strawberries, wild .
Sheep (1840, $1.50 and $2.50)
Sheepskins, 35. 9d .- 6s .==. 50 -. 80
Sheepskins, tanning,3s .= . 40 Siding, white pine, per M. 6.50 Shad, fresh, 3d .- 4d .=. 0373 -. 043 Shad, salt . . Sheeting and shirting, linen . . . 35. 9d .= . 50
. 8d .= . 08%
Shoes, making, 3s. 9d .-
4s. 6d .=. 50 -. 60 Shoes, per pair, 12s. 6d .= 1.662/3 Shoe thread, spinning,
per knot . . 6d .== .062/3
Spinning run of yarn, Is= .1373
Stockings, linen and .
woolen
Socks, per pair . . 5s .=
.662/3
Straw, bundle
Id=
.OIg
Sage
Sieves, hair, reed, hick-
ory
Saddles
wool,
Spinning-wheels, flax
Splint baskets
Soap, soft, qt . 6d .== . 063/3
Salt, bu
18s .= 2.40
Starch
·
Turnips, bu
. 2s .= . 263/3
Tallow, pound, Is. 6d .= . 20
Turkeys, tame and wild
Tow cloth, 35 .- 3. 9d .=. 40 -. 50
Towels
Tobacco, leaf, Is., plug
25 .==. 1313 -. 2633
Tar, gal .
. 25 .=
.263/3
Vinegar, qt
6d .= . 0633
243
HANOVER TOWNSHIP.
Veal, pound . . 5d .= $ .055 Venison, pound, 3d .= . 0373 . Wood, per load . . 3 .= . 40 Wool, Ib., 2s .- 3s. 9d .=. 2633 -. 50 Whetstones Wheat, bu., 6s .- 7s. 6d .=. 80-1.00 Whisky, gal . 7s. 6d .= 1.00
Wagons, carts, sleds, sleighs, wheel-barrows, barrels, kegs, tubs, bowls, trays, ladles, salt-cellars, pepper-boxes, plates, dishes, cups, pails, spoons, spools, etc. Yarns of wool, tow, flax.
Ishmael Bennett made grindstones at the foot of the Little Mountain, about a half mile'or less north-west of the present Han- over Coal Co.'s breaker, known also as "Maffett's" breaker or mines. Whetstones were made in the Warrior Gap, at the back of . the conglomerate rock.
Almost innumerable things about the barns and houses were constantly being made, and bought, and sold. Scythes, rakes; flails, fans for fanning, that is, cleaning grain, sickles, half-bushel and peck measures, troughs, cutting-boxes, hoes, axes, hatchets, knives, traps of different kinds for catching bears, foxes, wolves, rabbits, mice, rats, minks, skunks, squirrels, nets for catching pigeons and fish-all these things were made and sold, and were in constant change from owner to owner. Horses, oxen, cows, sheep, hogs, dogs and cats, and all the domestic animals were in. constant transfer in the payment of debts of all kinds. . Any kind of money used for the purpose was a very unusual exception ..
Leather, linseed oil, oil-cake, lumber, salt, wagons, iron, wooden ware, spinning-wheels and looms, after the first few years were not made by the 'farmers themselves, but by tradesmen. Leather was furnished to the shoemaker by the person for whom the shoes were made as a general thing, and all he paid the shoemaker for was for the work of making them. A pair of women's shoes cost 3s. gd. for making. If one bought the leather also for them he paid for that 7s. 6d., a total of IIS. 3d .= $1.50. Perhaps the thread should be counted in addition, as they were always sewed. What- ever pegs were used the shoemaker made himself. They were made from soft maple saplings sawed off the length of the pegs desired and split.
Starch was made by grating up raw potatoes very fine in water, rubbing it, pressing it through a cloth to strain it, letting it stand a day, or over night, then pouring off the water and evaporating the
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HISTORY OF HANOVER.
settlings to dryness. After the rubbing and pressing of the pulp and straining it thus from the starch, the starch would settle to the bottom of the water in the vessel by standing a few hours, and then the water could be poured off, when it was dried for future use.
Saleratus was scarce, so a substitute was found. . Corn cobs were burned to ashes in a clean vessel and the ashes kept for use. When saleratus was needed, a portion of the ashes was taken, water was poured on it, when it was stirred and set away to settle. When settled the clear water was taken and used as saleratus is now. It would do the work, but it is said it was not very good. Corn cob ashes and other clean ashes were thus used in Wyoming Valley as late as 1825. This was told to the writer only lately by a lady who, when a child, saw it done.
The amusements of the Connecticut settlers-these Puritans and their descendants-were not many. Mr. Miner has described them as "wrestling, running races on foot, pitching quoits, throw- ing the hammer or sledge, a pole, crowbar, or stone." To these should be added shooting matches, ball playing, jumping, hunting, fishing, apple-cuts, husking-bees, stone frolics, quiltings, sleigh- ridings, and, among the later generations, dancing. An elephant, a monkey or a learned pig show, drew great crowds, considering the sparseness of the population. But these shows did not come here till about 1810 or 1812. After the Revolutionary war they had the great national holiday-the Fourth of July, but the greatest of all was the holiday appointed or directed by the governor-Thanks- giving Day. The Puritans would not celebrate Christmas, nor any other of the church's holidays, for they were celebrated by the church that persecuted them and from which they had fled. When the Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey Dutch-all Lutherans or Presbyterians-came to be their neighbors, the boys and girls, young men and women mingled together, and the Yankee boys assisting their Dutch neighbors in their Christmas and Easter games-they came to more than half like them. The "Belsnickle"* was just as funny to them as to the others (and per- haps more so, because new), and the "Paus" eggs-"Paas" or "Pasch" eggs-were just as good and just as solid, and could be
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