Read Ebook: The Story of a Needle by A L O E Petherick Rosa C Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 588 lines and 30992 words, and 12 pages

"Mamma--"

"Yes, my dear," said Mrs. Ellerslie, without raising her eyes, and continued murmuring half aloud, "Thirteen pounds and a half at seven-pence three-farthings--I thought there must be an error somewhere."

"Mamma, please will you lay down the hem for me?"

"Really, my love, I am very busy at present. I think that, after all the trouble which I have taken to teach you, you might manage to do that for yourself;" and again she went on with her accounts; while Lily, looking rather discontented, slowly returned to her seat.

"Mamma," said Eddy, rising, and laying his book on her knee, "I know my lesson."

"Wait a minute, my boy; I will hear you almost directly."

So Eddy waited cheerfully enough, and, to amuse himself in the meantime, began trying to mend his mother's pen, to the no small damage of the pen, and the imminent risk of his own fingers.

"Oh, Eddy, put that knife down!" exclaimed the harassed lady, when she had raised her head for a moment to see the nature of his occupation. "Come, you had better say your lesson at once," she continued, hopelessly laying down the bill, and taking up the spelling book. She was too gentle, too loving, to be irritable or peevish; but petty cares and petty troubles were wearing out her strength, and damping the spirits which had once been so light. I saw that though Mrs. Ellerslie fondly loved her children, she could not help feeling them a weariness to her; and though they had much affection for their mother, they had little consideration for her comfort.

"B-o-y," replied Eddy, with emphasis.

"Oh, fie! that's not knowing your lesson. You had better look it over again," she continued, as a servant brought in a note with the words, "The messenger is waiting for an answer."

In the meantime, I was making my first essay in sewing; and though, I assure you, it was from no fault of mine, a lamentably bungling essay it was. The hem laid down by my little mistress was in some parts twice as broad as in others, while in one place the edge was scarcely turned in at all. I was quite hurt at the crooked stitches which Lily forced me to make, and I wondered to myself whether she worked thus from stupidity or a wilful temper.

While the lady read and answered the note in haste, Eddy sat demurely on his stool, leaning his elbows on his knees, and his chin on the palm of his hands, as if buried in profound study. As soon as the servant had left the room, he came again to his mother with,--

"Mamma, I know my lesson now."

"What do p-i-n make?" said the lady.

"And what do p-i-n-e make?" continued his mother.

Eddy pouted as he took back his lesson, and before Mrs. Ellerslie resumed her accounts, she said to Lily, "Let me see how you are getting on with your work."

Lily brought it reluctantly to her mother.

"Oh fie! this will never do! Are you not ashamed of such hemming?"

"I couldn't lay down the hem right," said Lily very dolefully.

"Could not, or would not, Lily? I am sure that you can work more neatly than that. Just take it back and unpick it nicely."

Lily coloured, and as she bent over me again, I saw a big tear fall close beside me.

"Three and eight, nine and four," murmured Mrs. Ellerslie over her accounts. "Lily, hold up your head; you must not stoop so my child. Eddy, do not pull off your buttons." She leaned her head upon her hand. I believe that it was aching, and so Lily would have suspected had she looked at that pale face; but the young lady was gloomily proceeding with her work, and perhaps grumbling in her heart at the little task which she might so easily have performed.

It was clear to me that the poor mother was to have no peace, for again she was interrupted to pay the washerwoman, and had scarcely finished that small piece of business, rendered troublesome by not having enough of change, when there was a sound of crying from the room above.

"Is not that baby's voice?" exclaimed Mrs. Ellerslie, half rising from her seat. She glanced at Lily, probably intending to send her on a message--at least it appeared so from the movement of her head; but Lily had no idea of reading the wishes of her mother, and kept sullenly pricking me in and out, sitting as if fastened to her seat. Mrs. Ellerslie, therefore, took the shortest way of settling the matter, and herself ran upstairs to the baby.

Master Eddy took advantage of her absence to clamber up her vacant chair, and make himself acquainted with the contents of her desk. A very little care on the part of Lily might have prevented him from doing any mischief; but, whether from ill-temper or inattention, she took no notice whatever of his pranks. When Mrs. Ellerslie re-entered the room, she found her ink-bottle overturned on the table, and a black stream flowing down on the carpet, which her little boy was attempting to stop with a handful of bills.

"Oh, Eddy, Eddy, what have you done!" cried the poor lady. "Lily, run quickly and call down the housemaid. I cannot leave the room for a minute," she added, provoked beyond even her powers of endurance, "but some mischief is sure to occur."

"Mamma, I didn't know there was ink in the bottle--I only turned it up to see if there was any; but I'm trying to wipe it all up."

"Oh dear! the bills!--and your hands and pinafore; just see what a state they are in! You must run up to Sarah directly!"

"I'll never do so any more!" cried Eddy, looking at his blackened fingers, and beginning to whimper.

When the housemaid had performed her office, and the children had been sent up to prepare for their walk--happily the weather was not rainy--the weary, delicate mother again took her place before the table, and pushing aside the blackened heaps of bills, which she had now hardly a hope of being able to make out, she leaned back upon her chair and sighed.

"The children are too much for me!" she murmured to herself; "I really have not the strength to do them justice. I must ask Edward to let me have a governess. But no; how could I think of such a thing, after the hint which he gave me about expense, after his parting with his own horse and gig, and giving up the trip into Wales? He spoke, too, of the expense of keeping George at school! I am sure that there is something weighing upon his mind; shall I add to it the burden of my petty cares? No, no; whatever my dear husband finds to annoy him in the busy, bustling world, he must find his own home a quiet haven of rest. I must manage as well as I can, and always have a cheerful smile for him! One comfort is, that George's holidays are so near;--my own boy, what a welcome he shall have!" and her lips parted with a pleasant smile, and the lines upon her pale brow quite disappeared, as if smoothed down by an invisible hand.

"This is odd enough!" thought I, as I lay half out of the work-box, sticking in my unfortunate hem; "three children are more than this poor lady can manage. I should have thought that a fourth would have driven her wild!"

A PERFECT METAL.

"I AM not very sorry," observed I to the Thimble, "that careless Miss Lily has forgotten to replace our companion, Mrs. Scissors, in the box. Her manners are so sharp, her remarks so cutting, that I take little pleasure in her society."

"She has a little speck of rust on her, I own," quietly replied my philosophic friend; "but we must all learn to bear patiently with the weaknesses of others, and see that we keep our own metal bright."

"You have no difficulty about that," I observed.

"Pardon me," answered the Thimble; "silver is not subject to rust, but it tarnishes, especially if exposed to impure, smoky air."

"And was your origin as low as mine?" I inquired; "were you also dug from the earth?"

"I was dug out of a mine in Norway; I have been, like you, purified in a furnace, and exposed to heavy blows of the hammer."

"I wonder how long it is," exclaimed I, "since man first found out the use of metals, and employed them in making whatever he requires!"

"The use of metals was known before the time of the Flood, more than four thousand years ago. Tubal-Cain is the name of the first man who is recorded to have worked in metals."

"Oh!" cried I, "how much I should like to know who it was who first invented needles!"

"I dare say that the invention is of early date," replied the Thimble, "though the needles of ancient times were probably far inferior to the polished, delicate articles of which I see so fine a specimen before me. I have heard that needles were first manufactured in England by an Indian, in the reign of stout Harry the Eighth, upwards of three hundred years ago."

"Well," I exclaimed in admiration, "what it is to have a thimbleful of information! I shall always couple silver and knowledge together, the best metal and the best thing in the world!"

"Ah, there you are wrong!" said my bright companion; "there is a metal far more precious than silver, and a possession even more valuable than knowledge. What is learning compared to virtue! what is silver compared to gold!"

"Gold is what is called a perfect metal," replied the Thimble; "it is injured by neither fire nor water, and it is reckoned of great value in the world. It is found chiefly in South America, California, and lately in the immense island of Australia."

"And has it to submit to the hammer as well as we?" I inquired.

"It has much more wonderful power of enduring it than either silver or steel," replied the Thimble. "It never breaks beneath the heaviest stroke, but it spreads itself out beneath it, and that to such an amazing extent that I have heard that a bit of gold not so large as a halfpenny can be beaten out into a wire a thousand miles long."

I was not a little astonished to hear this, and I was still more so as the Thimble proceeded.

"Look around you, and, even in this room, you will see wonderful proofs of the malleability of gold--that is the name given to this curious property which it possesses. See the picture-frames glittering in the light, the shining pattern on the paper on the wall, the edge of all those gaily bound books; they owe their beauty to a layer of gold so thin that, though that metal is one of the heaviest known, the gentlest sigh would have blown the leaves away."

"It is much used in various ways," she replied; "amongst others, it was formerly much employed in medicine, and is now used in giving a fine red colour to glass."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet