Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1873-02-21
The Leisure Hour.
sL.st.Bs OF THE WHEEL.
BY MRS. 3. G. HALLowELL.

"She's very pretty girl" 1 thought, as
watched her at the window, across the
street from mine. An intellectual face,
with its clear, gay eyes and low, broad
brow-a pure profile of the Greek type, but
relieved from impassiveness by the full
pout of her mouth. The hair, too, in its
dark richness of chestnut brown, though 1t
was wonderful in band, and braid, and
glossy spiral, frames rarely that graceful
head.
1t is early in the morning, and she wears
a close-titting dress of some dark brown
stuff, with clear ruffle at the throat. Day
after day she sits there, and all day long {;
and / can divine by the motion of her
shoulders, and the lift of her arm, n ow and
then, that she sits at the sewing machine.
And yet, see her go down the street
sometimes, arrayed like the lilies-not the
shy one of the valley; and superb in all
the mysteries of many-ruffied, gorgeous
street costume. Evidently she is a girl, as
girls go, with money enough for each pass
ing fancy; and time all her own. Indeed.
believe that she is the only child of a IA
ther "wel-to-do' in worldly goods.
have It'll She is sewing for Boston, as
we all sewed tor Chicago last year! Some
of those pathetic appeals of Jennie Collins
have reached her, and she is at work for
these "burned- d-out" shop-girls. Bless her
dear heart How her beauty glows and
grows as she bends over her work too in
| tent on it to notice watching me!
stand on tip-toe that may see still far
| ther into the room may penetrate into the
| heart of this grlish mystery, that has held
her already many days.
| What is it that seer Pink silk, fold on
fold of it, on chairs and on table; and her
white fingers, guiding the flying wheel,
are turning and putting, with marvellous
dexterity, a shining ruffie of the same.
| A ball-dress! And that is the meaning
of these hard working days? The fair girl
that had been text for such gracious SER
mon in my thought, seemed now, as she
bent over the wheel, like devotee before
some CHASTITY idol. 1t was almost suttet
she was performing, as her cheeks glowed
with the mad eagerness of her work. i
was making sad waste and havoc OF thu
Young energy, the concentrated will, anC
the golden morning hours. All thos'
bright, girlsh thoughts pinned down Il
one point--six teen rose-colored ruffies!
let fall my curtain; 1 would look M
more. The fair thing she had seemed-th
type of womanly helpfulness for those 9th
er women afar off-she was wrapped II
self; could see it now.
And when, an hour later, she appear
at her door, in another marvellous creation
of cloth and velvet, piled with loop an
fold, and intricate with fur tracery, tur
away with a shiver. For now / know wha
this magnificent walking-dress represent
not the expense of the lnilliners bill
would that it did but days and weeks
among its folds.
swell, there is no pleasing some folks |!
my clear-eyed damsel opposite would say
if told her this. "If had bought this
dress, II would have cost-yes-two hun
dred dollars, easily! Because 1 made
myself, and II costs nothing, in compar
son, why should you carer l have plent
of time; nothing else TO do, In fact?'
"Who darns the stockingsH"
"Mamma, of course"
"Who keeps house, and orders all I'll
supplies ?"
"Mamma; who elsef"
"Who nursed your father through thi
attack of gout in the winter, when the do
, tors carriage was often at the door?"
"Nobody but mamma. I'm not good
nursing"
"And yet you are qualifying yourself
be somebody else's mamma, in due tim
by patient frilling of pink silk, and sui
able devotion to your dainty bonnet!
to, go tor Il love the dear old Sake
, words; they are so convenient when yo
don't know just where to send your adve
sary.) "To school," l fain would ha'
!, said, could there be but school that won
teach women that living is the aim of iii
Living, in its fullest sense, and not me
examining of crude knowledge, nor Il
other extreme of infinite. sewing. Ala
e for the leagues upon leagues of tucks al
hens! and alas, for the fairest hours of Ii
spent with that cruel little needlei N
merely cruel in the sense which Hood h
set it ina tiny dagger TO stab away a gir
life. OF that presently.
If l were required to state a formula
!, my belief, would put II simply thus:
women sew too much.
l.