Mrs. Lyman was sitting before the kitchen fire with the great family Bible in her lap; but, instead of reading it, she was winding round it some white soft wicking.
"Why, mamma, mamma, what are you doing?" exclaimed Patty. "How can papa read to-night with the Bible all tied up?"
"I shan't hurt the good book, my dear." And as Mrs. Lyman spoke she cut the wicking in two with the shears, and as it fell apart it let out the precious volume just as good as ever. Then she took from the table some slender sticks, and put on each stick twelve pieces of wicking, giving each piece a little twist with her fingers.
"O, now I know," said Moses, who was watching too; "you're a goin' to make candles—going to dip those strings in a kettle of something hot. Yes, I know."
"Yes, and there's the kettle," said Patty.
Mrs. Lyman was very late this year about her candles. She dipped them once a year, and always in the afternoon and evening, because there was so much, so very much going on in that kitchen in the morning.
"Now, please, mamma," said Patty, "let me help."
Mrs. Lyman tipped two chairs face downward towards the floor,—"Like folks trying to creep," said Patty,—and laid two long sticks from one chair to the other, making a very good fence. Next she set the candle rods across the fence, more than a hundred of them in straight rows.
"James," called she, going to the door; and while James was coming she laid a large plank on the floor right under the candle rods.
"That's to catch the drippings," said the learned Moses; and he was right.