HOW MAMMA RAN AWAY
My mother was not a very strong woman, while I was a healthy strong girl, so when she tried to teach me to knit and sew, I always managed to get out of it, and she was too weak to insist. So when I went to my grandmother’s to spend the winter, and her first question was, “What sewing have you on hand now?” I was struck with horror.
“Why none”—I stammered, and seeing the look of surprise in her face, I hastened to add, “I never have any on hand.”
“Do you never sew?” she asked, in her sternest tone.
“Why—not very often,” I faltered. “I don’t like to sew.”
“Hm!” said my grandmother, “I shall have to teach you then; I am surprised! ten years old and not know how to sew! At your age, your Aunt Emily was almost an expert needlewoman; she could do overhand, hemming, felling, backstitching, hemstitching, running, catstitching, buttonholes, and a little embroidery.”
I was aghast. Had I got to learn all these mysteries of the needle! My grandmother went on.
“We’ll begin at the beginning then; I’ll prepare some patchwork for you.”
My heart sank; patchwork was the thing my mother had tried to have me do, and I hated it. I remember now some mussed up, dirty-looking blocks, stuffed behind a bureau at home—to have them lost.
True to her word, my grandmother brought out her “piece-bag” and selected a great pile of bits of colored calico and new white cotton cloth, which she cut into neat blocks about four inches square, and piled up on the table, the white pieces by themselves, the pink and the blue in separate piles, and the gray and dull colored also by themselves.