NEEDLE AND GARDEN
THE STORY OF A SEAMSTRESS WHO LAID DOWN HER NEEDLE AND BECAME A STRAWBERRY-GIRL.
WRITTEN BY HERSELF.
CHAPTER IV.
I quitted the sewing-school on a Friday evening, intending to put my things in order the following day: for Monday was my birthday,—I should then be eighteen, and was to go with my father and select a sewing-machine.
As before mentioned, he had usually employed all his spare time in winter, when there was no garden-work to be done, in making seines for the fishermen. These were very great affairs, being used in the shad-fishery on the Delaware; and as they were many hundred yards in length, they required a large gang of men to manage them. This employment naturally brought him an extensive acquaintance among the fishermen, by whom he was always invited to participate in their first hauling of the river, at the breaking up of winter. As he was quite as fond of this exciting labor as we had been of fishing along the ditches, he never failed to accept these invitations. He not only enjoyed the sport, but he was anxious to see how well the seines would operate which he had sat for weeks in making. In addition to this, there was the further gratification of being asked to accept of as many of the earliest shad as he could carry away in his hand. It was a perquisite which we looked for and prized as much as he did himself. This recreation was of course attended with much exposure, being always entered on in the gusty, chilly weather of the early spring.
The morning after my quitting school saw him leaving us by daybreak to go on one of these fishing-excursions, taking my brother with him. It was in April, a cold, raw, and blustering time, and they would be gone all day. I had put my little matters in order,—though there was really very little to do in this way, as neither my wardrobe nor chamber was crowded with superfluities,—and having decided among ourselves where the machine should stand, I sat down with my mother and sister to sew. The weather had changed to quite a snow-storm, with angry gusts of wind; but our small sitting-room was warm and cheerful. We drew round the stove, and discussed the events of the coming week. We were to try the machine on the work which my mother and sister then had in the house,—for Jane had long since left school, and was actively employed at home. She had gone through a similar training with myself. I was to teach both mother and her the use of the machine; and we had determined, that, as soon as Jane had become sufficiently expert as an operator, she was to obtain a situation in some establishment, and our earnings were to be saved, until, with father's assistance, we could purchase machines for her and mother. We made up our minds that we could accomplish this within a year at farthest. Thus there was much before and around us to cheer our hearts and fill them with the brightest anticipations. It seemed to me, that, if I had been travelling in a long lane, I was now approaching a delightful turn,—for it has been said that there is none so long as to be without one.
We had dined frugally, as usual, and mother had set away an ample provision for the two absentees, who invariably came home with great appetites. Our work had been resumed around the stove, and all was calm and comfortable within the little sitting-room, though without the wind had risen higher and the snow fell faster and faster, when the door was suddenly opened, and as suddenly shut, by the wife of a neighbor, who, with hands clasped together, as if overcome by some terrible grief, rushed toward where my mother was sitting, and exclaimed,—
"Oh, Mrs. Lacey! how can I tell you?"
"What is it?" eagerly inquired my mother, starting from her seat, and casting from her the work on which she had been engaged. "What is it? Speak! What has happened?" she cried, wild at the woman's apparent inability to communicate the tidings she had evidently come to relate.