Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

SMALL POX PARTIES. 265
a period of more than three score years, will give some idea
of a season that left so agreeable an impression of itself
upon the young of a past generation.
Among the evening enjoyments, candy-parties were
highly popular; occurring, by turns, at the different dwellings where the patients were quartered. A ludicrous affair
happened at one of these saccharine gatherings, that was
long remembered. Afresh supply of molasses had been
procured from town, which unfortunately proved of an
obstinate quality, still to be found, that cannot be induced
to boil into candy. It came off the fire but little thicker
than it went on, and was turned into a gallon punch bowl,
which it nearly filled, and placed upon a bench in the yard
to cool. A brother of the young lady who placed it there,
by way of a joke removed it a short distance to a position
directly under the eaves of a shed, where it had remained
scarcely a minute, being still in a liquid state, when
the family cat, returning from an evening walk, leaped head
foremost into the bow], and the next instant came bounding
into the house, presenting a spectacle at which even the
most tender-hearted, who sympathized with her in the misfortune that had befallen her, could not help laughing. A
benevolent young lady (who retained a soft spot in the
heart for the unfortunate through a life-time of nearly fifty
years,) procured some warm soap-suds and attempted to
relieve her from so uncomfortable a predicament; but
pussy preferred to be her own laundress, and had ample
employment for a week or two thereafter, in efforts to restore her sable garment to its pristine sleek and glossy appearance.
"Dutch-dolls," then much in vogue, formed another of
their pastimes. With the exception of its occasional
revival among the Christmas festivities, of families who
love to keep up the ancient customs, this grotesque invention of a past age is now but seldom seen. It was of
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