The system formulated for one society became the system for all; each district which received rations of food had its regularly organized sewing society for the clothing sent to them on requisition. First some room was found, with a fire, shelves arranged for garments and tables for work. Of the twenty-five official women, each should give one week of her time in every month, but changing regularly in order that at no time should there be more than one-fourth of the number new to the work in hand. Four women should visit and inspect applicants for assistance, and two should attend entirely to the wants of the feeble and old and the sick, to see that they were in no way neglected.
Of those in the sewing room, a part cut over garments for children, as there are never enough of these; others repaired and mended. As the barrels and boxes went in from the committeemen, they were received and opened on one side of the room; when repaired they were placed on the shelves on the opposite side and given out from there on the recommendation of the visiting inspectors. Along with the clothing went thread, needles, pins, thimbles, wax, shears, knives and pieces for mending. For the bedding, besides two thousand heavy wool blankets which were donated, as many more purchased; cotton batting and calico, or muslin, by the ton were bought, and the societies instructed in tying “comforts,” which in many instances served as both cover and bed.
There was never any complaint with these women about the time given to, or the labor performed, in this service for the common weal, and seldom any difficulty arose between them. If so, a few words set it right, and the offending individual was discovered, pointed out, and put out of the society, with the usual explanatory remark: “She want too much rule; she done always do make trouble.” But whatever trials the day might bring to them, they were solaced and forgotten in the nice afternoon lunch, and the steaming cups of tea and coffee prepared by one of the members from the rations so wisely planned and faithfully sent by Mrs. Gardner.
Next to the absolute necessity for the distribution of food supplies, and the great essentials of life itself, I regard the sewing societies as perhaps the most important feature of the field. From these they learned not alone the lesson of self-help, but of mutual help, which they had never known before. It had never occurred to them to look about and see who was in need, and find a way to help it; and it was a glad satisfaction to hear their voluntary pledges when we left them, never to give up the custom of these societies, and the habit of caring for their poor.
Appended to Mrs. Gardner’s report are long, tiresome lists of names of recipients, which, however necessary and business like in their time and place, we may well spare the reader in these belated years; but one little list appeals to me with such loving interest, that I am constrained to ask the privilege of inserting it. It is a partial roll of the presidents of the sewing societies, of whose tireless, faithful work no adequate description could be given. And when we read among them the name of Mrs. Admiral Beardslee, and that missionary of scholarship and teaching on St. Helena, Miss Ellen Murray, the lovable and accomplished late wife of Robert Small, and Mrs. John MacDonald, who humbly and magnanimously placed themselves side by side with poor, unlettered, but honest and faithful Patty Frazier, and her kind, the reader will feel with me that it is indeed a roll of honor:
Christmas, which two months before had seemed but a veil of future blackness, opened bright and cheerful. Most of the churches had been in some way reopened, and Christmas Eve brought again its melody, its prayer and its praise.
There was in all this a Christian spirit, so sweet, so much to be commended, that I could not refrain from passing in my little contribution of a Christmas carol, for which they at once found a tune and sang it with a will. Light-hearted, happy race.