I can't finish writing today, so I'm sorry to change it before nine o'clock tomorrow morning.

  ————

  The hardest of all are women. Unlike the average man who usually works outdoors, wives and children in the city spend most of their days at home, except for running errands, doing outdoor chores, or visiting a neighbor's house. By the late 16th century, there was a growing opposition to women "going from house to house to listen to other people's gossip"—as the Bass woman in The Canterbury Tales (c. 1387) put it. A virtuous woman cannot "go out" but "work at home." Whether a woman is virtuous or not is related to the reputation of the family, after all, what she does is under closer surveillance. The wife is not the head of the family, but at least the housekeeper, and she needs to take care of everything in the house. Cook, wash and take care of the children every day. Although most women wake up earlier than their husbands, they have fewer opportunities to rest during the day than their husbands. In the 16th century, Thomas Tussel wrote: "Bad weather can give a husband a rest, but a wife's life never ends." ”

  The night also does not make it easy for women. According to someone at the time, it was nothing more than one kind of work exchanged for another. After a hard day's work, there are endless chores. William Baldwin wrote in Beware of the Cat (1584): "The candle of a good housewife is always lit. "One late night in July 1650, Jane Bond of Massachusetts made a cake and gathered firewood, while Jane Morris of London mended clothes from the afternoon until nearly midnight. The 17th-century ballad, "A Woman's Work Is Never Done," became a household name, and Martha Ballard, a midwife in Maine, quoted it in her diary late one night — she wrote, "Blessed are the women who can stay energized until the end of the day." When Stephen Duck of Wiltshire published his famous poem "The Threshingman's Labour" in 1739, it immediately drew a backlash from the poetess Mary Corrier. "By the time night came, we were so exhausted that we lost count of the amount of work that had fallen upon us. Unlike the men's toil, Corrill retorted, "Our toil never ends." ”

  Clothes are never washed. This kind of work is uncomfortable and tiring. Basins of water had to be brought into the house in carts and then heated, and clothes had to be vigorously brushed, starched, and ironed. Since soap is not available, the most common detergents are lye, urine, and even horse manure mixed with cold water. In wealthy families, maids took on this type of work. Since washing takes up so much time, it can only be done late at night to minimize disruption to family life during the day. When he returned home on a November night, Peppis called the chaos at home "the mess of laundry." Poor women often make a living by washing clothes at home or at home. At two o'clock in the morning on a "moonlit and starry night", the widow Mary Stoll had to go to a house in Leeds to do her laundry. Ann Timms of London said: "I make a living by washing people's clothes, and I am still working at 11 or 2 o'clock in the evening. ”

  Women also have to find other ways to supplement their family income – brewing beer and making cheese, which are all nightly jobs. Referring to brewing beer, Corrier explains: "If we were to sleep, the boiling mash would overflow everywhere. "More often than not, women spin yarn, knit sweaters, comb cotton, and weave cloth at night. From the 14th century onwards, expatriate processing systems emerged in many parts of Europe, with merchants in cities providing wool, linen and other raw materials, and women working at home. Spinning and weaving is the main activity of many families in the countryside and in the city. On long winter nights, from Sweden to the Italian peninsula, mothers, daughters and maids are busy with their hands on spinning wheels or looms. The steward of a Scottish landowner instructed: "As long as the maids are not washing or doing any other work that must be done, they must be allowed to spin until nine o'clock in the evening." Recalling his childhood in Bavaria, Jean Paul said that the milkmaid "sat in front of the spinning pole in the servant's room by a dimly lit pine torch." None of these jobs require much lighting. As for weaving, a priest in Aberdeen said that many parishioners "weave clothes on winter nights by the faint light of the peat fire". In some parts of Germany, spinning was a very important source of income, and when all the family property was sold to pay off the debt, the only property the widows kept was the spinning wheel. According to the census around 1570, 94% of poor women in the city of Norwich in East Anglia were spinning and weaving. When a family is in financial crisis, the income from spinning and weaving can provide important support to the family. When the Scottish crops failed in 1782, a local resident reported that women "stayed up late every night" and "contributed more than men" to the maintenance of their families.

  Livestock also need to be cared for. After the cows are driven back from the pasture, they are fed, watered, and milked in the morning and evening. After the barn is cleaned, it needs to be covered with fresh hay. Horses, pigs, and poultry all need to be fed and put to sleep. Cumberland's servant, John Brown, was busy until eleven o'clock one night in March before he "brought clean hay and put it to sleep" for his master's horse. Poultry can also get sick, and horses or cattle need to wait long hours at the barn when they give birth. Lambs born in early spring need to be cared for at all times. The cattle will run away and trample on the crops and vegetable gardens. One spring night in 1698, John Richards' cow, Red Beckington, fell into a ditch. Because the cow could not stand up due to a fall, he had to send someone to watch it all night.

  Some farm activities are especially suitable for night, such as slugging and changing honeycombs. It is also the best time to burn a hornet's nest after dark. It is also easy to catch starlings, sparrows and other "pest birds" at night with lanterns and bird nets. While the humid, cool air at night is considered harmful to health, certain authors and farmers of agricultural books believe that it also has some benefits. Di Giacomb Agostineti suggested that people sow millet "on cool nights" to "take advantage of the dew at night". So one night in April 1648, Adam Eyre of Yorkshire planted mustard and turnip seeds in his vegetable garden. Night is also a good time to water to avoid water evaporation. Slaves on the Langton Carter Plantation in Virginia would carefully water the young tobacco seedlings at night to allow them to ripen earlier. The wealthy plantation owner boasted in his diary: "We have enough men to send them to the fields at once." "Henry Best of Elmsville's book on agriculture advises that hay should be watered at night when preparing a grass roof.

  The night sky can also be a sign of the weather conditions for the next day. The sky is full of air signs, which can predict a variety of weather conditions, including thunderstorms and frost. As the author of The Farm Work explained in 1616, a competent farmer "does not need to be proficient in all kinds of books, but must have some knowledge to predict rain, high winds, good weather, and other seasonal changes." "Despite the signs, most people seem to trust the night sky more. A Londoner said in his book Eternal Signs (1605): "Pay attention to the familiar stars. If they appear brighter and larger than usual, then strong winds or heavy rainfall will occur where they can be seen. ”

  Moonshine can help people do a lot of farm work. Whenever possible, the men would hoe, sow and weed by the moonlight. People with thatched roofs "will work at night as long as they can be seen," Best said. Sanger transports wood in the winter by the moonlight reflected off the snow. One night when there was only a moon bud in the sky, when he sent a bushel of rye to the mill, he lamented: "When I came home at night I could only struggle in the mud." "Moonshine really plays a key role during harvest season, when the fields are at their heaviest. On the nights closest to the autumnal equinox in September, the full moon shines longer than usual due to the moon's particularly small orbital angle. The English called it the "Moon" and the Scots called it the "Michael Moon". Farmers on both sides of the Atlantic use this moonlight to harvest their crops. Jesper Charlton wrote in 1735: "People were busy harvesting corn and straw all night. Equally popular is the full moon that follows in October, the "Moon Hunt". One writer wrote, "The September Full Moon shortens the nights, and the October Full Moon is a hunter's favorite." ”

  Fishing takes the villagers outdoors at night. In addition to adding food to the family, the fish caught at night can be exchanged for goods or sold to supplement the family. Some fish, such as trout, are easier to catch after dark, especially if there are torches as bait. In the Mediterranean, Italian farmers rowed small boats and spearfished. In the lakes of Scotland, herring can be caught in abundance with fishing nets from late summer to early spring. One resident who lives near the lake said: "Fish are always caught at night, and the darker it gets, the easier it is for fishermen to catch them. ”

  Reply to report|7th floor 2012-04-0613:03

  Uchiha Ichiha arrives at your sister

  Sheng Tang Long Song 8

  Thieves bring the same threat. A visitor to France found that farmers were guarding their crops all night to protect them from being stolen until they were harvested and transported home by car. One winter night, Peter Butler, who had been hired to tend a small flock of sheep, saw four thieves grab a sheep from behind a hedge in a field. The moon had just risen—"as bright as day," and Butler's gun had not fired. Instead, the thieves beat him up, tied him up, and walked away. One night in October 1555, an Italian brother was on patrol and encountered a common occurrence in the fields. Lorenzo and Giakober Bercati woke up at midnight and spent the night patrolling oak forests and several fields. Instead of splitting into two lines, the brothers patrolled side by side for safety. Usually they only carried tomahawks and swords, but this night they brought guns. They put a stop to some of the mischiefs and scared away a few threshing men who deliberately put their horses in their vineyards to eat.

  Finally, the farmer had to transport the crops or cattle to the market, and he had to arrive before dawn to allow time to bargain with the vendors. In the darkness, wagons loaded with vegetables and fruits walked in the direction of the city, followed by small herds of cattle and sheep, each with bells around their necks, so as not to get lost. At night, the countryside poured into the city. In Venice, peasants arrive from 3 a.m. in boats "filled with all the products of nature", while a visitor to Lyon is awakened at 4 a.m. by "the sound of donkeys and the noise of people". The departure time depends on the date on which the bazaar takes place and whether there is moonlight or not. Normally, the gates of a fortified castle will be opened before dawn. The city's appetite for food can never be satisfied, and the souks are open from early morning until dusk and beyond. In 1750 it was estimated that in a week a thousand bulls, two thousand calves, six thousand sheep, three thousand lambs, three thousand five hundred pigs, and nearly twenty thousand poultry entered the city. "How much work you have to do in a day, how many miles you have to walk, how many miles you have to go at night, how much food you have to do to bring so much food into the city!" exclaimed, "Even the peasants of Guisol and Omale would make their way to Paris. "At one o'clock in the morning," Messier wrote, "six thousand peasants arrived with vegetables, fruits, and flowers that the city needed. He describes the Central Market as follows:

  Although there is hardly a light to be seen, the cacophony of people never ceases, and most of the transactions take place in the dark, as if they were another species, hiding in caves to escape the sun. The first to arrive were the fish sellers, who never seemed to see daylight, and always came home before dawn when the street lamps began to flicker;

  As soon as the temperature drops, country dwellers go indoors to work. The old French saying "winter with a fire, summer with a field and forest" applies not only to the day, but also to the night. As early as the 1st century AD, Corumella wrote in The Countryside about "many works under artificial lighting". Like families in the city, the countryside spins and weaves. According to a visitor to Sweden, at night almost every peasant becomes a weaver, and some are so poor that they don't even have candles, so they can only comb their wool by moonlight. As commercial activities permeate the interior, rural women often weave for the local textile market. Josiah Tucker wrote in 1757: "In many parts of Yorkshire, wool is produced on small farms and by real estate owners. Some of the wool was home-grown or bought, and wives, daughters, and servants spun it on long winter nights. ”

  Clothes and shoes can also be mended at night, farm tools can be repaired or sharpened, and flax to be beaten or threshed with grain. In addition, apples can be mashed at night to make cider, and malt can be crushed to make ale or beer. One day in February, Pastor Woodford woke up at three a.m. to "brew a big barrel of beer." Three days later, he woke up just before 1 a.m. to brew two large barrels of beer. In the short story "The Farmer's Wife", Résteve de la Breton tells of the winter night where "the boys chatted and made fence posts to hold up the vines, while the girls peeled or spun flax". In addition to his farm work, Sanger did all sorts of chores for friends and neighbors at night, standing in the open doorway, peeling corn or chopping wood by moonlight. One day in early April, he wrote: "I spent the night helping Tilly make juice. "In the Chesapeake colony, the lords of the manors occasionally asked their slaves to use the moonlight or candlelight to stalk tobacco or peel corn. On the South Carolina plantations, slaves often cooked rice on winter nights, and some took the opportunity to escape in the bitter cold. Some other people in the countryside who worked at night, and even some farmers, undoubtedly had similar thoughts of escaping.