"Why, mamma, is that true, pens can be made of a quill? I never heard of such a thing."
"There are a few things that my daughter has never yet heard of."
"Now, mamma, you are laughing at me! But truly I never heard of a pen being made of a quill. Dear me, I wish I had a cyclopædia. The next time we come out here I mean to bring a whole set!"
"Perhaps I could tell you something about pens," said Mrs. Carter quietly.
"O mamma! I beg your pardon," exclaimed Essie coloring slightly. "I ought to have known that you could! I have heard papa call you a walking cyclopædia."
"Your uncle Horace was at one time employed in a gold pen manufactory and I learned a great deal at that time, and we studied up the history of pens. If I remember rightly the first pens used were made of iron or steel and were not used with ink, but the letters were cut in stone, or clay, and afterwards the same sort of an instrument was used to write upon waxed tablets; then when parchment and paper began to be used pens were made of reeds, and of course the people must have had ink of some sort. Now about quill pens. It was probably more than a thousand years ago that some one discovered that the quills of birds made better pens for writing on paper than could be made of reeds, and people have used quill pens more or less ever since."
"Why do we not use them? Did you ever use one?"
"Two questions at once! I'll answer the last one first. Yes, I remember using quill pens when I first began to go to school. My father had never used any other and he had a prejudice against steel pens, which had already come into use, and as we kept a flock of geese we always had a supply of quills. It was considered in my father's day one of the necessary qualifications of a schoolteacher that he should be able to make a good quill pen. Such steel pens as we use may be classed among modern inventions. It is said that they were first introduced about the beginning of the nineteenth century, but they were not a success and very little progress was made in the manufacture for more than a quarter of a century. One thing will surprise you, I think. The first pens made, in an English factory about the time they were successfully introduced, sold for nearly twenty-five cents apiece at wholesale rates."
"At that rate it would cost papa a fortune to keep me in pens! Why, I use up a box in a little while."
"Probably; you are apt to use up things."