Mrs. Morrow stood silent a moment and then repeated slowly:
| “Life is more than the breath and the quick round of blood, It is a great spirit and a busy heart. We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not figures on a dial. We should count time as heart throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.” —Bailey. |
The girls now seated themselves in a circle, and as Jessie read the news from the monthly “Pioneer,” which reported a flower hike for the Saturday two weeks hence, they took out their materials and set to work. Some wove gay-colored yarn on small frames, others braided raffia baskets, or made squares of plaited slips of paper, while Mrs. Morrow told them something about the art of weaving.
After some time spent in learning this old-time craft, the Director asked the girls how they could best apply this industry to a very common fundamental of the home. There was a slight pause, and then some one called out “To the carpet!” Another girl ventured to say “Our clothes.” Mrs. Morrow smiled as she said they were all right in a sense, but the particular craft she meant at that time was what Helen had timidly suggested, and that was, darning stockings!
There was a ripple of laughter at this truism and then, to Nathalie’s surprise, there was a stocking drill, every one hauling forth a stocking from her basket and setting to work to practice this homely art. It was indeed a trial by needle to Nathalie, and she suffered some embarrassment when, after borrowing a stocking from her neighbor, and trying her very best to do it well, it was returned to her from the Director with the remark that she needed training in the science.
Later, when Mrs. Morrow came to her side and showed how neatly her stocking hole appeared after weaving her thread back and forth, and made Nathalie practice doing the same, the girl suddenly realized what a braggart she had been. “Oh, I told Mother I was the champion mender,” she thought remorsefully. “What a bungle I must have been making of those stockings!” With the avowed purpose that she was going to make darning her life-work for the next three weeks, she laid her work aside and hurried with the girls into the adjoining dressing-room to get ready for the real Pilgrimy time, when they were to represent the women of Plymouth town.
“Do you always have an all-day meeting?” she asked Grace, who was pinning a blue bird on Nathalie’s gown, for at Helen’s suggestion she was to appear at this, her first Rally, as a Blue Robin, in memory of the first songster that welcomed the Pilgrims.
“Oh, no, indeed,” answered Grace, “but we departed from our usual plan, which is to meet in the afternoon only, unless we have a hike or demonstration, as we wanted to make our luncheon the Mayflower Feast. But, oh, Nathalie,” she ended enthusiastically, “you are a veritable blue bird! Look, girls, isn’t she the dearest? That bluebird blue makes her cheeks like pink roses!”
At this sudden thrust into notoriety the girl’s color grew more vivid as she turned for the inspection of the girls. They grew very enthusiastic over her bluebird costume with its bluish-gray slip with scalloped edges, and bluebird cap edged with tiny blue wings, where a blue bird, standing up in the front, poised with outspread wings “ready to fly,” as one of the girls asserted.
“Oh, it’s only blue paper muslin,” explained the “flier,” as her mates had called her, when they examined the Blue Robin gown. “Helen helped me make it, and what a time we had making that birdie stick—hands off,” she finished laughingly, as some too ardent admirer pressed her close, “or I shall not fly away but fall to pieces.”