In cooking, and the general labor of the dining-room and kitchen, the
sisters take turns; a certain number, sufficient to make the work light,
serving a month at a time. The younger sisters do the washing and
ironing; and the clothes which are washed on Monday are not ironed till
the following week.
[Illustration: SHAKER COSTUMES.]
Their diet is simple but sufficient. Pork is never eaten, and only a
part of the Shaker people eat any meat at all. Many use no food produced
by animals, denying themselves even milk, butter, and eggs. At Mount
Lebanon, and in some of the other societies, two tables are set, one
with, the other without meat. They consume much fruit, eating it at
every meal; and the Shakers have always fine and extensive vegetable
gardens and orchards.
After breakfast every body goes to work; and the "caretakers," who are
subordinate to the deacons, and are foremen in fact, take their
followers to their proper employments. When, as in harvest, an extra
number of hands is needed at any labor, it is of course easy to divert
at once a sufficient force to the place. The women do not labor in the
fields, except in such light work as picking berries. Shakers do not
toil severely.
They are not in haste to be rich; and they have found that for their
support, economically as they live, it is not necessary to make labor
painful.
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