"Surely you did not need to go to Mrs. Blake to learn that?"
I was silent, perhaps ashamed for Mrs. Flaxman to know how very dense my ignorance was respecting these mysteries of our holy religion. As the weeks went by my friendship for Mrs. Blake strengthened. I kept her little cottage brightened with the old-fashioned blossoms that she loved best. "They mind me so of when I was a child, and the whole world seemed in summer time like a great garden. We lived deep in the country, just a little strip of ground brought in from the woods, and all round our little log house was the green trees," she said one day, the pleasant reflective look that I liked to see coming into her kind, strong face. I used to sit and listen to her homely, uncultivated speech, and wonder why I liked her so much better than my natural associates. She was so real, I could not imagine her trying to appear other than she was. Some way she seemed to take me back to elementary things, like the memories of childhood or the reading of the Book of Genesis. Then she had so changed Daniel's cottage—newly papered, whitewashed and thoroughly cleansed with soap and water, it seemed one of the cosiest, homeliest places I ever saw. I only went in the afternoons, and her housework then was always done; but she was never idle. I used to watch her knitting stockings of all sizes with silent curiosity; but one day I asked who a tiny pair of scarlet ones was for. "Mrs. Larkum's baby. The poor things are in desperate trouble," she replied.
"But do you knit for other folks?"
"Yes, fur some. Them I jest finished is fur one of the Chisties' down the lane. Any size from one to ten fits there."
"Are they able to pay you?" I ventured to inquire.
"I don't ginerally knit for folks as can pay. It's a pity for little feet to go bare because the mother was thriftless or overworked."
I watched the busy fingers a little sadly, comparing them with my own daintily gloved hands, that had never done anything more useful than to hold a text book, or sketch, or practice on the ivory keys, while those other hands often tired, calloused with hard usage, had been working unselfishly through the years for others.
"I wish you would teach me to knit," I said one day, seized with a sudden inspiration.
"'Twould be a waste of your time. Folks like you don't wear home-knit stockings."
"Oh, yes they do. Pretty silken hose is quite the fashion; but I hire mine knitted."