The Shaker family, or commune, usually consists of from thirty to eighty or ninety persons, men and women, with such children as may have been apprenticed to the society. These live together in one large house, divided as regards its upper stories into rooms capable of accommodating from four to eight persons. Each room contains as many simple cot-beds as it has occupants, the necessary washing utensils, a small looking-glass, a stove for the winter, a table for writing, and a considerable number of chairs, which, when not in use, are suspended from pegs along the wall. A wide hall separates the dormitories of the men from those of the women. Strips of home-made carpet, usually of very quiet colors, are laid upon the floors, but never tacked down.
On the first floor are the kitchen, pantry, store-rooms, and the common dining-hall; and in a Novitiate family there is also a small separate room, where strangers--visitors--eat, apart from the family.
Ranged around the family house or dwelling are buildings for the various pursuits of the society: the sisters' shop, where tailoring, basket-making, and other female industries are carried on; the brothers' shop, where broom-making, carpentry, and other men's pursuits are followed; the laundry, the stables, the fruit-house, wood-house, and often machine shops, saw-mills, etc.
If you are permitted to examine these shops and the dwelling of the family, you will notice that the most scrupulous cleanliness is every where practiced; if there is a stove in the room, a small broom and dust-pan hang near it, and a wood-box stands by it; scrapers and mats at the door invite you to make clean your shoes; and if the roads are muddy or snowy, a broom hung up outside the outer door mutely requests you to brush off all the mud or snow. The strips of carpet are easily lifted, and the floor beneath is as clean as though it were a table to be eaten from. The walls are bare of pictures; not only because all ornament is wrong, but because frames are places where dust will lodge. The bedstead is a cot, covered with the bedclothing, and easily moved away to allow of dusting and sweeping. Mats meet you at the outer door and at every inner door. The floors of the halls and dining-room are polished until they shine.