Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1871-03-23
Flvo Lisslo stitches.

Five little stitches And they were
taken more than twenty-five years ago.
And Why should they be remembered
more than thousands of other stitches
taken by the same fngers3 I will tell
you. !.
Little Rose went to the infant school
then. It was very happy place for the
little folks. They had no hard lessons in
arithmetic or geography. The nearest
approach to lessons was saying over the
multiplication table in sort of rhyming
concert-"Twice one are two, twice two
are four" while the teacher slid along the
little wooden balls on the wire frame, to
suit the words. No, but when the march
ing and singing were over, there were
plenty Of busy fingers learning to sew.
Rose was making blocks of patchwork
-"nine-patch," her mother called it.
Roses mother cut the small squares and
basted them neatly for Rose to sew cover
and over" one block day. And it was
Roses special delight to show her mother
the neatly finished block each night, and
be able to say, II did it all myself" One
warm June day Rose found her needle
rather dull and the new pink chintz SO
hard; her fingers trembled, when she
came to where the four corners met, and
she tried in vain, with her little thimble-
less finger, to push the needle through 80
many thicknesses of cloth. She looked at
the little girl who SAB next her on
the long bench-an older girl than
Rose by two years, and rich in the
possession of "real silver" thimble.
Rose passed the block to Pogue IA
curious name, but her very own, and
motioned to the little hard corner, touch
ing her thimble and nodding and wink
ing significantly. Pogue understood and
| taking the nine-patch sewed very neatly
over the hard place-Rose watching very
carefully lest she should do too much.
One, two, three, four. five stitches, and
oh, so neatly done Rose bowed and
smiled her thanks, and put in stitch or
two as neatly as possible next to the five,
when she stopped in dismay at the
thought that popped into her conscienti.
GUS little head. II can't tell mother did
it all myself" It would have taken away
half her pleasure not to be able to say
this. And yet it was so very little-only
Just five stitches! 81 needn't mind that
came the temptation, 81 can say did it
myself that's almost nothing" But it
is help, another voice said, "and you'd
better say 4 did it nearly all
But Rose couldn't make up her mind to
say this. Her mother would be sure to
think, if Pogue sewed any of it, likely
she made half the block, at least one seam
across. So you see it was real struggle.
And how do you suppose she settled it
After looking at it about as long as it has
| taken me to tell you this, Rose unthreaded
her needle and very deliberately picked
ont those five stitches, and then went to
work and sewed them over herself. And
she is glad to-day that she did. Not be-
cause it might not have been foolish for
her to be 30 anxious about the credit of
doing the work all herself-no; but be-
cause it was her first resistance to the
temptation to tell a falsehood And
resisting once always makes it
easier to resist again. So do
not think Rose ever told deliberate
falsehood since that day when she came
SO near making black spot in her mem
DRY, instead of bright one. Does any
little girl think Rose made too much OF
such little thingP Oh, no. 1t is just
as much stealing to take five pennies from
another's purse as five dollars, and it
would have been as much falsehood for
Rose to have left Pogue's five little
stitches in her work and said she dit it all,
as if Pogus had sswed half the block, and
she had said the Same thing. And Rose
knew it, and is glad to-day, as she was
then, that if she must have credit for do
ing all the work, she picked out those
"five little stitches"