IV.THE SEWING-CIRCLE.—HOW IT WAS STARTED.
THE sewing-circle is in session in the adjoining room. It counts thirty-two members in all,—a goodly number for a population of only twenty-five or thirty families. The gathering to-day is not large; a thunder-storm, and a circus at Elmbridge, conspiring to keep many away.
Mrs. Fennel has been telling me about this sewing-circle, and what it is trying, or rather is determined, to do. The people of Tweenit village never had a meeting-house, but have held religious services in the schoolhouse. Now the women want to change all this. They want to build a chapel; and for that purpose they mean to raise eight hundred dollars.
“Eight hundred dollars!” I exclaimed when Mrs. Fennel named the sum. “Why, there’s hardly as much money in the place!”
“That’s just what the men told us,” she answered; “but we have faith.”
“I should think so,” said I, “and works too.”
The men, it seems, threw cold water at the very beginning.
“Where’s all that money coming from?” “Lumber high!” “Labor high!” “Saddle the place with debt!” “All nonsense! The old schoolhouse is good enough!”
And the idea might have been quenched entirely, but for the burning zeal of two unmarried women,—“Nanny Joe” and “Nanny Moses,” the daughters respectively of Mr. Joseph Payne and Mr. Moses Payne. They believed in a chapel. They preached this belief; and many women were converted. The first convert was Miss Janet (Mr. William Melendy’s wife, called “Miss Janet,” to distinguish her from four other Mrs. Melendys). A meeting was called at her house. Before its close, the wildest enthusiasm prevailed. The men’s objections first were shown up to be scarecrows, then pelted down with ridicule. A sewing-circle was formed, which met once a week to sew “slop-work,” and knit toes of stockings,—heels, too, I think. Oh, yes! “heeled and toed:” that’s the very expression. In other respects, the stockings were woven. The circle meant business. Some members met early in the morning, and worked all day. Ellinor Payne,who is employed in a tailor’s shop at Piper’s Mills, gave fifteen dollars of her own earnings. The enthusiasm increased. Did any waver in the faith, influenced by doubting men, Nanny Joe and Nanny Moses were ready to encourage and sustain. Nanny Joe and Nanny Moses were eloquent to persuade, ingenious to devise, skilful to contrive, and untiring in their labors. They fired the ambition of every woman in the place. They took that chapel (the chapel that was to be), and resolved it into its constituent parts,—its doors, windows, timbers, boards, nails even, and induced different individuals to be responsible for, say, a bundle of shingles, a window, a door, a stick of timber. Young and old caught the fever. Little girls vied with each other in earning panes of glass. Blooming maidens took upon their shoulders clapboards, laths, and kegs of nails. Matrons bore bravely their respective burdens of beams, rafters, and flooring; and one cheerful old grandame, a steadfast knitter, smiled under the weight of the desk.
The little girls earned their money by running of errands, and picking huckleberries, and making patchwork cradle-quilts to sell. The older ones also picked huckleberries. When the season was at its height, the circle met in the pastures, andpicked its pecks and its bushels. The berries were sent to Piper’s Mills to be sold. If there were no other way of sending them, Nanny Joe and Nanny Moses would take Mr. David’s old red horse and go themselves. Mr. David Melendy committed himself at the very beginning, by a promise, which, though made in jest, was claimed in terrible earnest, as the old man found to his cost.
“I’ll agree to find horse and cart to cart all the work they’ll get,” said Mr. David sarcastically, when he first heard of the sewing-circle. His narrow vision took in Tweenit village only, where each family generally does its own needlework. But there were eyes of a wider range,—far-seeing eyes, which saw the “store” at Piper’s Mills, whereat were left weekly, by an agent from the city, huge bundles of slop-work and stocking-work for the sewers and knitters of that neighborhood. The sewing-circle obtained one of these bundles, and did its work so well that the agent not only promised it more bundles, but heaped bundles upon it; so that Nanny Joe had frequent opportunities of going to Mr. David, and saying, with a mischievous twinkle of her laughing black eyes, “More work to cart, Mr. Melendy!”
“Wal, wal, Nancy,” that victim of his own jestwould reply, “I’ll stan’ by my word. But you must help me ketch him.”
This is not so very difficult a task; for that fat old horse of his would as soon be caught as not to be. Whether he goes or stands still is all one to him, and nearly so to his driver. For calmness, for meekness, for sublime indifference, Mr. David’s animal would take the medal. As may be imagined, he is a veryevenhorse to drive; never allows himself to be disturbed by outside influences, but jogs heavily on, with a flop and a plunge, unmoved by word or blow.
“Speak of the ancient Nicholas,” says the proverb, “and you will see his horns.” And, in confirmation of it, behold this identical animalnow approaching the house, shaking all over at every flop, as if he were a horse of jelly. Nanny Joe and Nanny Moses have just driven from Piper’s Mills with some bundles of work. Nanny Moses holds up a letter. Her fair, round face reminds me of Mrs. Fennel’s favorite expression, “Smiling as a basket of chips.” Thirty-seven or thirty-eight they say is her age. They also say that she holds her own pretty well, which is saying a good deal; for “her own” must weigh a hundred and fifty, at the least. Anybody might know those two would be intimate, they are so unlike. Nanny Joe is tall, slender; has coal-black hair, coal-black eyes, a sallow complexion, and a chin unnecessarily long. She is pleasing and sprightly; her friend, pleasing and quiet.
Now joyful shouts uprise. There is money in the letter. David Melendy, junior, has sent twenty dollars. These women leave no stone unturned. A few months ago, one of them, while on a visit to the city, called upon all Tweenit-born individuals there residing, and by appealing to their pride, their generosity, or their piety, as suited each case, obtained various sums to help the cause along. Tweenitites dwelling afar, amid Sitka’s snows or California’s golden sands, were appealed to throughthe United-States mail; and the letter just received is in answer to one of those appeals. It comes from Sitka; and Nanny Joe says the money is the profits arising from a rise in white bears. I was present the other day at the reading of a letter addressed to one Mr. Ezra Fennel, which must stir the depths of Mr. Ezra Fennel’s heart, if not of his pocket-book. Men’s money, after all? Well, so is the gold in a gold-mine the gold-mine’s gold. There is a great deal in knowing how to work a mine, and a great deal in knowing how to work a pocket-book.
Now that the Sitka excitement is over, and the circle is subsiding into its natural state, I will take a few notes of the conversation. They may throw some light on the subject of my present inquiries. Woman, I perceive, displays mind enough, both at home and abroad; and now I want to find out upon what kind of subjects her mind ordinarily dwells.