THE MISSION OF A GRAY WOOLLEN SOCK.
VARIOUS exclamations greeted Nell Erwin as she entered the schoolroom and drew out her work—a coarse gray woollen sock.
It was “Fancy Friday” at Daisy Hill Seminary—something peculiar to the place. Three Fridays out of the month were spent in the customary elocutionary exercises, but the afternoon of the fourth was spent in a cosey, informal way, the girls, both day scholars and boarders, bringing their fancy work, and Madam Lane reading to them from some standard work.
At the present time she was in the midst of a translation of the Iliad, but I fear that in spite of Madam’s clear and beautiful rendition, “Jove, the cloud-gatherer,” “Juno, the ox-eyed,” and the other Homeric worthies, were less fascinating than “rick-rack” and “Kensington stitches.”
On this particular Friday, there was a brilliant display of fancy work. Helen Grant was embroidering a pair of slippers—splendid purple and yellow pansies; Lulu Fletcher a sofa pillow—a cluster of lilies on cardinal satin; Katie Lee was at work on an elaborate stand-spread; Mary Morse was crocheting a fleecy white shawl; Carrie Evans was making an applique bracket; a dozen or so girls were deep in the delightful mysteries of “crazy quilts”; and—but, dear me! I have not the time to enumerate all the beautiful things! Seats and desks were covered with a dazzling array of silks and worsteds.
So you see it was no wonder that Nell’s humble gray sock created such a sensation. However, though she blushed a little at the pleasantries of her mates, she took her seat and courageously set to work.
“Why, Nell! I thought you were going to bring that lovely foot-rest!” said Helen Grant. “You told me yesterday that you were going to finish it to-day. Have you it already done?”
“O no!”
“Then why under the sun didn’t you bring it instead of this solemn old sock!”
Nell blushed still redder, then she said hesitatingly, “Well, you see, girls, I did think I’d bring the foot-rest. In fact I had it all done up in my work-bag, and then I remembered that I would need a pair of scissors. So I went to mother’s work-basket, and, girls, in rummaging around there, I got an idea!”
“An idea in a work-basket! How very remarkable! Now I shall know where to go when I am obliged to write a composition and can’t think of anything to say!” said Maude Hasket.
“What I mean is this,” said Nell earnestly; “I found that work-basket full—yes, full to overflowing—with things to mend, make and fix! There were Billy’s mittens to mend; the baby’s petticoats to be shortened; buttons to be sewed on Kitty’s apron; a patch in Tom’s jacket, and all for my dear little mother’s one pair of tired hands! And all to be done this afternoon or evening! I tell you, girls, I felt ashamed when I looked at my own nonsensical piece of fancywork! And then and there I made up my mind to do something towards lessening the contents of that basket. So I grabbed up this sock, for I remembered hearing mother say only a few days ago that father needed a new pair. I’m not much of a hand at knitting, but I’ll do all I can this afternoon, working on the leg, and when I get home to-night, mother’ll show me about fixing the heel.”
There was a short silence.
Presently Maude said, “Well, girls, I dare say the most of us have mothers whose work-baskets are in the condition of the one Nell has described! I’ve no doubt that I can find one in my own home! There are six of us children—four younger than myself. It would take one woman’s time to keep our little Ben in anything like decent order! He is a veritable Peggotty for button-bursting! And sister Flo is almost as bad! She’s a perfect Tomboy! Tears regular barn-door holes in her apron!”
“Well, it’s pretty much the same at our house,” observed Maggie Gray. “Of course there are not so many of us, but still mother’s sewing, mending and darning about all the time.”
“And mine too!” said Laura Harris. “It was only last evening that I heard father ask mother if she wouldn’t go to the lecture with him, and she said she would like to very much, but couldn’t go, because she had to patch Jack’s trousers so that he could wear them to school the next day. And I sat there like an unfeeling wretch, working on a silly, good-for-nothing lamp-mat! And mother did look so tired and wistful, poor darling! Father seemed disappointed too. Now I might have offered to do the patching, and so given her a chance to go. It would have done her so much good!”
“Well,” said Maude briskly, “I guess we’re all in the same fix! We have been going on and doing our own sweet wills, and I for one propose that we make a change! Suppose we all agree to go to our respective mother’s mending-basket and get work from it for our next Fancy Friday?”
“All right! We will!” chimed the others.
Further conversation on the subject was put an end to by the entrance of Madam, Iliad in hand, and for the next hour, the girls were regaled by the account of Achilles dragging the body of Hector nine times around the walls of Troy.
“Four!” chimed the great clock in the hall.
“Young ladies, you are dismissed,” said Madam, closing her book. “Next time, I think we will have a little prose instead of poetry. It will be a change, you know. Good afternoon!”
“Prose instead of poetry,” Maude repeated as they put on their wraps. “And we’ll have the prose of sewing instead of its poetry, won’t we?”
And Nell answered by a wave of the gray woollen sock. “You dear old sock!” she whispered as she rolled it up, “how I did hate to bring you this afternoon, for I was so afraid the girls would make piles of fun! But it all turned out nicely, after all, and you had a mission, didn’t you, you humble thing!”
M. E. Brush.
POEM FOR RECITATION.
MISS MARION’S THANKSGIVING DAY.
TWO big houses broad and high,
Outlined against an autumn sky.
Set on two hills, the houses stand,
One grim and cheerless, one fair and grand;
One teems with life throughout its walls,
One silent in all its stately halls.
One is of wood, and one of stone,
Each set in broad acres all its own.
One is the almshouse, gaunt and gray,
One the beautiful home of Miss Marion Ray.
Miss Marion Ray—her kith and kin
All to their rest have entered in.
Now she dwells with servants in lonely state,
In the mansion behind the iron gate.
A lady tall, and sad, and fair,
With a quiet face and a gentle air—
A sweet, worn face, and hair of gray,
Has the lonely lady, Marion Ray.
Sometimes in the night, when all is still,
She has looked at the lights on the other hill,
And wondered much if ’twere sadder fate
To live in the house with the wooden gate.
But something happened, the other day,
That has stirred the heart of Miss Marion Ray:
A mother went out of the almshouse door,
Went out of it to go back no more;
Went out to be buried under the leaves,
While the wind of November moans and grieves,
And left a wee blossom with eyes of brown,
To the tender mercies of all the town.
Miss Marion has thought of the baby’s fate
Till love and pity have grown so great.
She has opened her Bible there to see:
“As ye did it to Mine, ye did it to Me;”
And so, on the morn of Thanksgiving Day
In the early morn, when the sky is gray,
At the almshouse door a carriage stands,
With shining horses in gleaming bands;
And into the eyes of the little child,
The sad-eyed lady looked and smiled.
On the silken shoulder the glittering head,
Then—“I love ’oo, lady,” the baby said,
Gathered close to the hungry heart,
The child and the lady never to part—
Carried home to the mansion grand,
The proudest and richest in all the land.
Never a pauper, the lovely child
Into whose face the lady smiled.
“Done to the least it is done to Me.”
What grander honor on earth could be?
Oh! a sweet and joyous Thanksgiving Day
Has come to the home of Miss Marion Ray.
Emily Baker Smalle.