NEEDLE AND GARDEN.
THE STORY OF A SEAMSTRESS WHO LAID DOWN HER NEEDLE AND BECAME A STRAWBERRY-GIRL.
WRITTEN BY HERSELF.
INTRODUCTION.
I am very sure that nothing was ever farther from my thoughts than the writing of a book. The pages which follow were never intended for publication, but were written as an amusement, sometimes in long winter evenings, when it was pleasanter to be indoors, and sometimes in summer days, when most of the circumstances mentioned in them occurred. I was a long time in writing them, as they were done little by little. There was a point in them at which I stopped entirely. Then I lent the manuscript to several of my acquaintances to read. Some of these kept it only a few days, and I feel quite sure soon tired of it, as it afterwards appeared that they had read very little of it: they must have thought it extremely dull. But these probably borrowed it only out of compliment, and so I was neither surprised nor mortified. The only surprise was, that now and then there was one who did have patience to go over it all, as it was written in a common copy-book, not in a very nice hand, and with a great many erasures and alterations. But when one has a favorite, it is grateful to find even a single admirer for it. So it was with me. I wrote from love of the subject; and when any one was kind enough to give his approval, I felt exceedingly pleased, not because I had a high opinion of the matter myself, but only because I had written it. Then it must be acknowledged that my small circle of acquaintances comprised more workers than readers. Those who had a taste for reading found their time so occupied by the labor necessary to their support that but little was left to them for indulging in books; and the few who had leisure were probably such indifferent readers as to make the task of going over a blotted manuscript too great for their patience, unless it were more interesting than mine.
At last, after a very long time, and a great many strange experiences, the manuscript fell into the hands of one who was an entire stranger to me, but who has since proved himself the dearest friend I ever had. He read it, and said it must be published. But the thought of publication so frightened me that it almost deprived me of sleep. Still, after very long persuasion, I consented, and the whole was written over again, with a great many things added. When it was all ready, he told me I must write a preface. So I was persuaded even to this, though that was a new alarm, and I had scarcely recovered from the first. I have always been retiring,—indeed, quite out of sight; and nothing has reconciled me to this publicity but the knowledge that no one will be able to discover me, unless it be the very few who had patience to read my manuscript. Even they will find it so altered and enlarged as scarcely to remember it.
Yet there is another consideration which ought to reconcile me to coming forward in a way so contrary to what I had ever contemplated. I think the story of my quiet life may lead others to reflect more seriously on the griefs, the trials, and the hardships to which so many of my sex are constantly subjected. It may lead some of the other sex either to think more of these trials, or to view them in a new and different light from any in which they have heretofore regarded them. They may even think that I have suggested a new remedy for an old evil. I know that many such have labored to remove the wrongs of which poor and friendless women are the victims. But while they have already done much toward that humane end, as much remains to do. I make no studied effort to influence or direct them. The contrast between my first and last experience was so great, that, in rewriting, I added some facts from the experience of others to give force to the recital of my own. My hope is, that humane minds may be gratified by a narrative so uneventful, and that they, fortified by position and means, will be led to do for others, in a new direction, as much as I, comparatively unaided, have been able to do for myself.
CHAPTER I.
Having always had a great fondness for reading, I have gone through every book to which my very limited circle of acquaintance gave me access. Even this small literary experience was sufficient to impress upon my mind the superior value of personal memoirs. Of all my reading, they most interested me; and I have learned from others that such books have most interested them. Indeed, biography, and personal narrative of all kinds, seem to command a general popularity. Moreover, we like to know from the person himself what he does, how he thinks and feels, what fortunes or vicissitudes he encounters, how he begins his career, and how it ends. All biography gives us most of these particulars, but they are never so vividly recited as by the subject of the narrative himself. Accordingly what was once a kind of diary of the most unimportant events I have transformed into a personal history. I know the transformation will not give them any importance they did not originally possess, but it gives me at least one chance of making my recital interesting.
All who have any knowledge of the city of Philadelphia will remember that on its southern boundary there is a large district known as the township of Moyamensing. Much of it is now incorporated with the recently enlarged city, but the old name still clings to it. There are many thousand acres in this district, which stretches from the Delaware to the Schuylkill. The junction of the two rivers at its lower end makes it a peninsula, which has long been known as "The Neck." When the city was founded by William Penn, much of this and the adjoining land was in possession of the Swedes, who came first to Pennsylvania. They had settled on tracts of different sizes, some very large, and some very small, according to their ability to purchase. It was then covered by a dense forest, which required great labor to clear it.
My ancestors were among these early Swedes. They were so poor in this world's goods as to be able to purchase only forty acres of this extremely cheap land. Even that was not paid for in money, but in labor. In time they cleared it up, built a small brick house after the quaint fashion of those early days, the material for which was furnished from a superior kind of clay underlying the land all around them, and thenceforward maintained themselves from the products of the soil, then, as now, proverbial for its fruitfulness. It descended to their children, most of whom were equally plodding and unambitious with themselves. All continued the old occupation of looking to the soil for subsistence; and so long as the forty acres were kept together, they lived well. But as descendants multiplied, and one generation succeeded to another, so the little farm became subdivided among numerous heirs, all of whom sold to strangers, except my father, who considered himself happy in being able to secure, as his portion, the quaint old homestead, with its then well-stocked garden, and a lot large enough to make his whole domain an acre and a half.
I have many times heard him relate the particulars of this acquisition, and say how lucky it was for all of us that he secured it. The other heirs, who had turned their acres into money, went into trade or speculation and came out poor. With the homestead of the first settler my father seemed to have inherited all his unambitious and plodding character. His whole habit was quiet, domestic, and home-loving. He was content to cultivate his land with the spade, raising many kinds of fruits and vegetables for the family and for market, and working likewise in the fields and gardens of his neighbors; while in winter he employed himself in making nets for the fishermen.
But much of this work for others was done for gentlemen who had fine old houses, built at least a hundred years ago. The land in Moyamensing is so beautifully level, and is so very rich by nature, that at an early day in the settlement of the country a great many remarkably fine dwellings were built upon it, to which extensive gardens were attached. Father had been in and all over many of these mansions, and was fond of describing their wonders to us. They were finished inside with great expense. Some had curiously carved door-frames and mantels, with parlors wainscoted clear up to the ceiling, and heavy mouldings wherever they could be put in. These old-time mansions were scattered thickly over this beautiful piece of land. Such of them as were built nearest the city have long since been swept away by the extension of streets and long rows of new houses; but all through the remoter portion of the district there are many still left, with their fine gardens filled with the best fruits that modern horticulture has enabled the wealthy to gather around them.
I remember many of those that have been torn down. One or two of them were famous in Revolutionary history. The owners of such as remained in my father's time were glad to have him take charge of their gardens. He knew how to bud or graft a tree, to trim grapevines, and to raise the best and earliest vegetables. In all that was to be done in a gentleman's garden he was so neat, so successful, so quiet and industrious, that whatever time he had to spare from his own was always in demand, and at the highest wages.
When not otherwise occupied, my mother also worked at the art of net-making. At times she was employed in making up clothing for what some years ago were popularly called the slop-shops, mostly situated in the lower section of the city. These were shops which kept supplies of ready-made clothing for sailors and other transient people who harbored along the wharves. It was coarse work, and was made up as cheaply as possible. At that time the shipping of the port was much of it congregated in the lower part of the city, not far from our house.
When a little girl, I have often gone with my mother when she went on her errands to these shops, doing what I could to help her in carrying her heavy bundles to and fro; and more than once I heard her rudely spoken to by the pert young tailor who received her work, and who examined it as carefully as if the material had been silk or cambric, instead of the coarse fabric which constitutes the staple of such establishments. I thus learned, at a very early age, to know something of the duties of needle-women, as well as of the mortifications and impositions to which their vocation frequently subjects them.
My mother was a beautiful sewer, and I am sure she never turned in a garment that had in any way been slighted. She knew how rude and exacting this class of employers were, and was nice and careful in consequence, so as to be sure of giving satisfaction. But all this care availed nothing, in many cases, to prevent rudeness, and sometimes a refusal to pay the pitiful price she had been promised. Her disposition was too gentle and yielding for her to resent these impositions; she was unable to contend and argue with the rough creatures behind the counter; she therefore submitted in silence, sometimes even in tears. Twice, I can distinctly remember, when these heartless men compelled her to leave her work at less than the low price stipulated, I have seen her tears fall in big drops as she took up the mite thus grudgingly thrown down to her, and leave the shop, leading me by the hand. I could feel, young as I was, the hard nature of this treatment. I heard the rough language, though unable to know how harshly it must have grated on the soft feelings of the best mother that child was ever blessed with.
But I comprehended nothing beyond what I saw and heard,—nothing of the merits of the case,—nothing of the nature and bearings of the business,—nothing of the severe laws of trade which govern the conduct of buyer and seller. I did not know that in a large city there are always hundreds of sewing-women begging from these hard employers the privilege of toiling all day, and half-way into the night, in an occupation which never brings even a reasonable compensation, while many times the severity of their labors, the confinement and privation, break down the most robust constitutions, and hurry the weaker into a premature grave.
I was too young to reason on these subjects, though quick enough to feel for my dear mother. When I saw her full heart overflow in tears, I cried from sympathy. When we got into the street, and her tears dried up, and her habitual cheerfulness returned, I also ceased weeping, and soon forgot the cause. The memory of a child is blissfully fugitive. Indeed, among the blessings that lie everywhere scattered along our pathway, is the readiness with which we all forget sorrows that nearly broke down the spirit when first they fell upon us. For if the griefs of an entire life were to be remembered, all that we suffer from childhood to mature age, the accumulation would be greater than we could bear.
On one occasion, when with my mother at the slop-shop, we found a sewing-woman standing at the counter, awaiting payment for the making of a dozen summer vests. We came up to the counter and stood beside her,—for there were no chairs on which a sewing-woman might rest herself, however fatigued from carrying a heavy bundle for a mile or two in a hot day. And even had there been such grateful conveniences, we should not have been invited to sit down; and unless invited, no sewing-woman would risk a provocation of the wrath of an ill-mannered shopman by presuming to occupy one. Few employers bestow even a thought upon the comfort of their sewing-women. They seldom think how tired they become with overwork at home, before leaving it with a heavy load for the shop, nor that the bundle grows heavier and heavier with every step that it is carried, or that the weak and over-strained body of the exhausted woman needs rest the moment she sets foot within the door.
The woman whom we found at the counter was in the prime of life, plainly, but neatly dressed,—no doubt in her best attire, as she was to be seen in public, and she knew that her whole capital lay in her appearance. I judged her to be an educated lady. Though a stranger to my mother, yet she accosted her so politely, and in a voice so musical, that the gracefulness of her manner and the softness of her tones still linger in my memory. Looking down to me, then less than ten years old, and addressing my mother, she asked,—
"How many of them have you?"
"Only three, Ma'am," was the reply.
"I have six of them to struggle for," she said,—adding, after a moment's pause, "and it is hard to be obliged to do it all."
I saw that she was dressed in newly made mourning. I knew what mourning was,—but not then what it was to be a widow. My mother afterwards told me she was such, and was therefore in black. Other conversation passed between the two, during which I looked up into the widow's face with the unreflecting intensity of childish interest. Her voice was so remarkable, so kind, so gentle, so full of conciliation, that it won my heart. There was a sadness in her face which struck me most forcibly and painfully. There was an expression of care, of overwork, and great privation. Yet, for all this, the lines of her countenance were beautiful even in their painfulness.
While I thus stood gazing up into the widow's face, the shopkeeper came forward from a distant window, by whose light he had been examining the vests, threw them roughly down upon the counter in front of her, and exclaimed in a sharp voice,—
"Can't pay for such work as this,—don't want it in the shop,—never had the like of it,—look at that!"
He tossed a vest toward my mother, who took it up, and examined it. One end of it hung down low enough for me to catch, and I also undertook the business of inspection. I scanned it closely, and was a sufficient judge of sewing to see that it was made up with a stitch as neat and regular as that of my mother. She must have thought so, too; for, on returning it to the man, she said to him,—
"The work is equal to anything of mine."
Hearing a new voice, he then discovered, that, instead of tossing the vest to the poor widow, he had inadvertently thrown it to my mother. Then, addressing the former, he said, in the same sharp tone,—
"Can't pay but half price for this kind of work; don't want any more like it. There's your money; do you want more work?"
He threw down the silver on the counter. The whole price, or even double, would have been a mere pittance, the widow's mite indeed; but here was robbery of even that. What, in such a case, was this poor creature to do? She had six young and helpless children at home,—no husband to defend her,—no friend to stand between her and the man who thus robbed her. A resort to law were futile. What had she wherewith to pay either lawyer or magistrate? and was not continued employment a necessity? All these thoughts must have flashed across her mind. But in the terrible silence which she kept for some minutes, still standing at the counter, how many others must have succeeded them! What happy images of former comfort came knocking at her heart! what an agonizing sense of present destitution! what a contrast between the brightness of the one and the gloom of the other! and then the cries of hungry children ringing importunately in her ears! I noticed her all the time, and, child that I was, did so merely because she stood still and made no reply,—utterly unconscious that emotions of any kind were racking her grief-smitten heart. I felt no such emotions myself,—how should I suppose that they had even an existence?
She made no answer to the man who had thus wantonly outraged her, but, turning to my mother, looked up into her face as if for pity and advice. Were they not equally helpless victims on the altar of a like domestic necessity, and should not common trials knit them together in the bonds of a common sympathy? A new sadness came over her yet beautiful countenance; but no tear gushed gratefully to relieve her swelling heart. She took up the money,—I saw that her hand was trembling,—placed it in her purse, lifted from the counter a bundle containing a second dozen of vests, and, bidding my mother a graceful farewell, left the scene of this cruel imposition on one utterly powerless either to prevent it or to obtain redress. I have never forgotten the incident.
These labors of my mother were at no time necessary to the support of the family; but, though quiet and retiring in her habits, she had ambitious aspirations for supplying herself with pocket-money by the work of her own hands. As I said before, she was a beautiful sewer on the finest kinds of work, such as, if obtained from the families in which it is worn, would have yielded her remunerative wages. But we lived away beyond the thickly settled portion of the city, had no influential acquaintances from whom it could be procured, and hence my mother, with thousands who were really necessitous, resorted to the tailors, to the meanest as well as to the honorable. When my father heard of the indignities they practised on us, and of the shamefully low prices they paid us, he forbade my mother ever going to them again. He said their whole business was to grow rich by defrauding of their just dues the poor women who were thus competing with each other for work, and that we should do no more for any of them, until we could find an honest man and a gentleman to deal with.
But my father, always busy in his garden or in that of some wealthy neighbor, knew nothing even of the little outside world into which we had penetrated. His generous, unsuspecting nature thus led him to feel sure that the honest and the gentlemanly were to be found in abundance; but he overlooked the fact that it was only his quiet wife upon whom was devolved the task of discovering them, as well as that her explorations had never yet been rewarded with success.
Notwithstanding these discouragements, my mother was firmly of opinion that the needle was a woman's only sure dependence against all the vicissitudes of life. She believed, in a general way, that a good needlewoman would never come to want. The idea of diversifying employment for the sex had never crossed her mind; the vocation of woman was to sew. All must not only do it, but they must depend on it. She considered it of little use to think of anything beyond the needle. She could not see, that, if all the women of the country did the same thing, there must inevitably be more laborers than could find employment,—that the competition would be so great among them as to depress prices to a point so low that many women could not live on them,—and that those who did would drag out only a miserable existence.
Though a woman of excellent sense, with a tolerable education, and fond of all the reading she could find time to do, still she continued to plead for this supremacy of the needle, even after her humiliating experience at the slop-shops. She was the most industrious sewer I have ever known,—and not only industrious, but neat, conscientious, and rapid. Machines, with iron frames and wheels, had not then been invented; but since they have, I have never seen a better one than my mother. Her frame, if not of iron, seemed quite as indestructible, even if it did turn out fewer stitches. Times without number has she sat up till midnight, plying her needle by the dull light of a common candle: for there was no gas in our suburban district. While we children were sound asleep, there she sat, not from necessity, but from pure love of work. Yet she was up early, long before any of the dull sleepers of the household had stirred, and had more trouble to get us down to breakfast than to get up the meal itself. I scarcely thought of these things during the young years of my life, when they were occurring; but as I am writing this, they all come thronging before my memory with the freshness of yesterday. They will no doubt seem dull to others; but the recollection is very precious to me.
With this conviction of its being almost the sole mission of a woman to sew, she made the needle a vital point in my education, as well as in that of my sister. There were two girls of us, and a brother. I was the eldest, and my sister the youngest of the three. Thus, when I was quite a child, I learned to use the needle; and as I grew older, the utmost pains were taken to teach me every branch of sewing, from the commonest to the most difficult. My sister went through the same course of instruction.
At a very early age we were able to make and dress our own dolls, hem our handkerchiefs and aprons, and in due time were promoted to the darning of father's stockings and the patching of his working-clothes. We thought the being able to do these things for him a very great affair, and mother praised us for our work. But when sister Jane once put a patch over a hole in the knee of father's pantaloons, without covering all the rent,—she had let the patch slip down a little,—mother required her to rip it off and put it in the right place: but there was not a word of scolding for Jane; it was all softness, all kindness; she knew that Jane was a child. I think father, however, would never have noticed that the patch was a little out of place; and, indeed, I think it very likely he didn't care about having a patch of any kind put on, for his mind was on work, and not on appearances. But then it was my dear mother's way. We were taught that the needle was to be the staff of our future lives. Whatever we undertook must be done right; and then she had a just pride in making father always look respectable.
Thus in time we came to feel as much pride in being good seamstresses as did our mother. It was natural we should, for we believed all she taught us, and there was no one to controvert her positions,—except sometimes, when father heard her impressing her favorite dogma on our minds, he put in a word of doubt, saying, that, before the needle could be made so sure a dependence for poor women, there must be found a better market for female labor than the slop-shops, and a more honorable race of employers. To this questioning of her doctrine she made no reply, knowing that she had us all to herself, and that a doubt from father, only now and then uttered, would make no impression. But I remember it all now.
I can remember, too, how proud I felt when mother called me to her, one day, and gave me a piece of cotton cloth, of which she said I was to make father a shirt. It was of unbleached stuff, heavy and strong, but still nice and smooth. Father wore only one kind; and as it was to serve for best as well as for common wear, I was to make it as nicely as I could.
That afternoon all of us children were to go on a little fishing-excursion to the meadows on the Delaware, among the ditches which run all round the inside of the great embankment that has been thrown up to keep out the river. There was a vast expanse of beautiful green meadow inclosed by this embankment, on which great numbers of cattle were annually fatted. As viewed from the bank, it was luxuriant in the extreme; in fact, it was a prairie containing hundreds of acres, trimmed up and cared for with the utmost skill and watchfulness, and intersected with clean, open ditches, to secure drainage. Into these ditches the tide flowed through sluices in the bank, and thus they were always full of fish.
These beautiful meadows were the resort of thousands who resided in the lower section of the city, for picnics and excursions. The roads through them were as level as could possibly be, and upon them were continual trotting-matches. In summer, the wide flats outside the embankment were over-grown with reeds, among which gunners congregated in numbers dangerous to themselves, shooting rail and reed-birds. On Sundays and other holidays, the wide footpath on the high embankment was a moving procession of people, who came out of the city to enjoy the fresh breeze from the river. All who lived near resorted to these favorite grounds.
Several other little boys and girls were to come to our house and go with us. We had long been in the habit of going to the meadows to fish and play, where we had the merriest and happiest of times. Sometimes, though the meadows were only half a mile from us, we took a slice or two of bread-and-butter in a little basket, to serve for dinner, so that we could stay all day; for the meadows and ditches extended several miles below the city, and we wandered and played all the way down to the Point House. On these trips we caught sun-fish, roach, cat-fish, and sometimes perch, and always brought them home. We generally got prodigiously hungry from the exercise we took, and sat down on the thick grass under a tree to eat our scanty dinners. These dinner-times came very early in the day; and long before it was time to go home in the afternoon, we became even more hungry than we had been in the morning,—but our baskets had been emptied.
I think these young days, with these innocent sports and recreations, were among the happiest of my life. I do not think the fish we caught were of much account, though father was always glad to see them; and I remember how he took each one of our baskets, as we came into the kitchen, looked into it, and turned over and counted the fishes it contained. My brother Fred generally had the most, and I had the fewest: but it seems that even for other things than fishes I never had a taking way about me. Father was very fond of them, for mother had a way of frying their little thin bodies into a nice brown crisp, which made us all a good breakfast. So father had made us lines, with corks and hooks, tied them to nice little poles, and showed us how to use them and keep them in order, and had a corner in the shed in which he taught us to set them up out of harm's way. Occasionally he even went with us to the meadows himself.
But while I am speaking of these dear times, I must say that we always came home happy, though tired and dirty. Sometimes we got into great mud-holes along the ditch-bank, so deep as to leave a shoe sticking fast, compelling us to trudge home with only one. Then, when we found a place where the fish bit sharply, all of us rushed to the spot, and pushed into the wild rose-bushes that grew in clumps upon the bank: for I generally noticed, that, where the bushes overhung the water and made a little shade, the fish were most abundant. In the scramble to secure a good foothold, the briers tore our clothes and bonnets, sometimes so as to make us fairly ragged, besides scratching our hands and faces terribly. Occasionally one of us slipped into the ditch, and was helped out dripping wet; but we never mentioned such an incident at home. Then more than once we were caught in a heavy shower, with nothing but a rose-bush or a willow-tree for shelter; and there were often so many of us that it was like a hen with an unreasonably large brood of chickens,—some must stay out in the wet, and all such surplusage got soaked to the skin.
But we cared nothing for any of these things. Indeed, I am inclined to think that we were happy in proportion as we got tired, hungry, wet, and dirty. Mother never scolded us when we came home in this condition. Though we smelt terribly of mud and fish, and were often smeared over with the dried slime of a great slippery eel which had swallowed the hook, and coiled himself in knots all over our lines, and required three or four of the boys to cut off his head and get the hook out, yet all she did was to make us wash ourselves clean, after which she gave us a supper that tasted better than all the suppers we get now, and then put us to bed. We were tired enough to go right to sleep; but it was the fatigue of absolute happiness,—light hearts, light consciences, no care, nothing but the perfect enjoyment of childhood, such as never comes to us but once.
This is a long digression, but it could not be avoided. I said, that, when mother told me I was to make a shirt for father, we were that very afternoon to go down among these dear old meadows and dirty ditches to fish and play. Our lines were all in order, and a new hook had been put on mine, as on the last excursion the old one had caught in what the boys call a "blind eel," that is, a sunken log,—and there it probably remains to this day. Fred had dug worms for us, and they had coiled themselves up into a huge ball in the shell of an old cocoa-nut, ready to be impaled on our hooks. Everything was prepared for a start, and we were only waiting for dinner to be over: though I can remember, that, whenever we had such an afternoon before us, we had very little appetite to satisfy. The anticipation and glee were such that the pervading desire was not to eat, but to be off.
But when mother gave me the shirt to make, I felt so proud of the trust, that all desire to go to the meadows left me. I felt a new sensation, a new ambition, a new pride. It was very strange that I should thus suddenly give up the ditches, the fishing, the scratching, and the dirt; for none of us loved them more dearly than myself. But they were old and familiar, and father's shirt was a novelty; and novelty is one of the great attractions for the young. So they went without me, and after dinner I sat down to make my first shirt.
It was to be made in the plainest way; for father had no pride about his dress. I cut it out myself, basted it together, then sewed it with my utmost care. There was to be no nice work about collar or wristband,—no troublesome plaits or gussets,—no machine-made bosom to set in,—only a few gathers,—and all plain work throughout. My mother looked at me occasionally as the shirt progressed, but found no fault. She did not once stop me to examine it; but I feel sure she must have scrutinized it carefully after I had gone to bed. I was so particular in this, my first grand effort to secure the honors of a needlewoman, that quite two days were occupied in doing it.
When all done, I took it to mother, proud of my achievement, telling her, that, if she had more cotton, I was ready to begin another. She looked over it with a slowness that I am sure was intentional, and not at all necessary. The wristbands were all right, the buttons in the proper places, the hemming she said was done well. Then, taking it up by the collar, and holding the garment at full length before her, so that I could see it all, she asked me if I saw anything wrong. I looked closely, but could see no mistake. At last she exclaimed,—
"Why, my dear Lizzie, this is only a bag with arms to it! How is your father to get into it?"
She turned it all round before me, and showed me that I had left no opening at the bosom and neck,—father could never get it over his head! I cannot tell how astonished and mortified I felt. I cried as only such a child could cry. I sobbed and begged her not to show it to father, and promised to alter it immediately, if she would only tell me how. But, oh, how kind my dear mother was in soothing my excited feelings! There was not a word of blame. She made me comparatively calm by immediately opening the bosom as it should have been done, and showing me how to finish it. I hurried up to my chamber to be alone and out of sight. They called me to dinner, but my appetite had gone. Though my little heart was full, and my hand trembled, yet long before night the work was done.
Oh, how the burden rose from my spirits when my dear mother took me in her arms, kissed me tenderly, and said that my mistake was nothing but a trifle that I would be sure to remember, and that the shirt was far better made than she had expected! When father came in to supper, I took it to him and told him that I had made it. He looked both surprised and pleased, kissed me with even more than his usual kindness,—I think mother must have privately told him of my blunder,—and said that he would surely remember me at Christmas.
I know that incidents like these can be of little interest to any but myself. But what more exciting ones are to be expected in such a history as mine? If they are related here, it is because I am requested to record them. Still, every poor sewing-girl will consider that the making of her first shirt is an event in her career, a difficulty to be surmounted,—and that, even when successfully accomplished, it is in reality only the beginning of a long career of toil.