Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1855-02-17
miscellaneous.
FTUHl NHHOIUVIF "VWI""'
THE SEWN L,

Duke of Buccleuch himself might wear t!' ms
was high praise for little Annie, who was only
eleven years of age; and size never forgot it. Her
work was the neatest and cleanest ever seen. Then,
she did it 81 quickly, her mother could not keep
pace with her daily demand for something to
sew"
II wish Annie would take TO her book" said
Mrs. Linton to her husband. But it was quite
clear that Annie would never take to her book; she
had little reading and less spelling and yet she
could mark" with %cotton) all the letters of the
alphabet, as 1t she was a very miracle of learn
ing
I" Something to sew" eagerly demanded An
mic.
"Wil any moving come to this sewing?" ask
ed her father, with q very natural attempt at a
pun.
Those who do not sew shall not reap" said
little Annie, cleverly taking up her fathers mean
ing and her work-bag at the same time, as she
whisked past him in fear of BEING too late for
school.
Three weeks after: "Annic's learning to be a
scholar" said Mrs. Linton "No more demands
for sewing" That afternoon Annie came bound
ing into the house from school, sat upon her IA
theirs knee, opened her w~ork-bag, which hung
over her arm, and putting a screwed up paper into
his hand, said There's the moving"
:" Her father undid the the pa per, and found
four half.crowns. "Annie," questioned her father
"where did this come from ?"
From the sewing" answered Annie, laughing
delightedly at his surprise, as she escaped from
his knee, and ran out of the room, to delay o little
longer the solution of the riddle.
Wife" said John Linton, 1T is impossible
that Annie could earn all this by the sort Of child's
play girls call work and whom did she earn it
from ? I'm afraid there's something wrong" And,
to tell the trkth, Annie Linton was practising II
little disguise nor had she given her father all
the money she had earned. The sum originally
was twelve s~hillings. This was all designed for
her father alone; but a prior claim had come in
the way. 1t was cold winter weather, and the
children of the school brought their forms, in n
sort of square, around Mrs. Roy's fire. Annie,
who was a fayorite of the mistress, always occu-
pied a warm corner close to her own big chair. On
the day IN question, Mrs. Roy happened to be out
of the room
"fll change seats with you, Jessie Wilson if
you're cold" said Annie, addressing Il little girl, q
very book worm, who, clad in a threadbaro print
ed cotton gown, sat shivering over her lesson.
Jessie thus invited, came n little nearer.
" You should put on a wooden frock like mine,
and warm yourself at your mothers fire before you
come to school these winter days" said Annie,
scrutinizing the poverty-struck appearance of the
girl.
Mother says" replied Jessie, 'that she'd rather
do without a fire than my schooling, and she can't
pay for both"
"IIas your mother no fire at home this cold
weather 2" asked Annie, in amazement.
NO" said Jessie. al wish ] dared bring
her with me here-its warmer than at home. And
l know mother is i'll, though she won't tell me-"
"Sit there" said Annie, placing Jessie in her
warm corner and don't 20 out of school without
me-"
That afternoon the two girls went hand in hand
to Jessie's door.
Have you plenty to eat, if you've no fire ~
asked Annie.
This is the first day mother has been forced to
send me to school without any breakfast said
Jessie, hanging down her head, as if ashamed of
the confession.
Here, said Annie, after a slight pause, untwis.-
ing the paper in which were deposited her first
earnings; Z" l wont go in with you, for your mother
might not like to take it from n little girl like me
but'-and she put two shilings into Jessie's hand
THAT is to buy you something to eat and a fire
and, if your mother can sew as we'll as l can, said
Annie, with pardonable vanity, 81 can tell her how
TO get plenty of money to pay for both"
No wonder Annie's riches increased the first
Investment was a good one. Nevertheless, the
concealing of it from her parents she knew to be
wrong she feared they would disapprove of it
and she added to her little prayer at night, after
the usual ending of "God bless father and mother
and forgive me for keepiaS secret that l helped
Jessie Wilson," Could the Recording Angel carry
up a purer prayer to Heaven?
Of course, Mr.. and Mrs. Linton very soon dis
covered that Mr.. Seamwell, of the "Ready-Made
Linen Warehouse" was the grand source of An
MES wealth. lie said there was no one who could
work like her, and said that he would give eighteen
pence each for the finest specimen of shirt-making
This was no great payment for Annie's exquisite
stitching-and thirty years ago it would have
brought her three-and-sixpencc 4 shirt. But Annie
Is of the present, not of the past and as she
could complete a shirt a day, her fingers flying
swiftcr than a weaver's shuttle, she earned nine
shillings a week.
Cool wife" said Mr.. Linton, "we are not so
poor but that we can maintain our daughter until
she's twenty, and by that time, at the present rate
of her earnings, she will have a little fortune in
the bank" But this little fortune amassed but
slowly, for Annie seldom had nine shillings at the
end of the week there were other "Jessie Will
sons" who required food and fire.
Had Annie been a poet, she would assuredly
have written, not the song, but a song of the shirt,
for once, when she was questioned rs to the dull
monotony of her work: 'Dull? Delightful" said
Annie, in advocacy of her calling. "Why. with
this rare linen and fine thread, my stitches seem
like stringing little pearls along the wrist bands
and collars" What an anti-song of the shirt
might not Annie have written
Armies eighteenth birth day was celebrated by
a tea party to all the seamstresses of Mr.. Seam
wells establishment, where she was now fore
woman besides being a cheerful, kind-hearteC
little creature, it was a compliment, Mr.. Seamwel
said, she well deserved--her admirable superin
tendence Of the department allotted her, having
increased his business teniold.
Sometime after, there was a great day of rei0ic
ing in the firm of Seamwell x Co. The father had
taken his son as a partner, and the son took g
partner for life-the indeiatiagble little seamstress
~hhhi NV 1hNA hONCA " u bilNhCt lhdl
Annie-hcrself having risen from the ranks-had
n present for every w0rkwoman. Indeed, it was a
day Of presents, for on that very morning, and in
time to be worn at the wedding, a shawl arrived
for Annie, all the way from lndia-an India shawl
that a duchess would have enVied! Upon it WIS
pinned a paper. on which was written: Wear
this for the sake of one who is now rich and hap
Ply, but who never can forget the services you rem
dered to the poor school girl-Jessie Wilson"
annie" said young Seamweh after the MARI
age, IL fell in love with you when you were a child
and came 10 our shop for your fret sewing l also
happened to he passing when you gave part Of
your first earnings 10 Jessie Wilson ; 1 was = boy
then, but l said to myself: If | were a man, I'd
marry Annie Linton; not because she's so pretty
here Annie biushed most beeomingiy-'not be-
cause she's SO industrious. but because she's &C
kind hearted"
Az 0LD-FAsHzsSsD OaDENATEoS.-John c. Pal
fry stated befGre the Lowell ~Iustitute The ordi