Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-11-21
The Fall Sewing.

Woman's work is never done 1t is i'm
possible to make gentlemen on the average
understand why every season must bring so
large an amount of care and especially so
much sewing. But the most frugal wife in
the world, and she who is most anxious to
save time for the higher demands of mind
and soul, knows that there is great deal to
be done in the fall. When last spring YOU
folded away the winter clothes in camphor,
you thought that they were all clean and in
good repair and that there would be moth
ing to do except to shake them out and
wear them again. You forgot how fast the
children were growing. You forgot the
need of freshening and furnishing which
would suggest itself, when you began to see
the new fabrics and fashions of the autumn.
do not myself see how ladies are to es-
cape from the duty of personally supervising
the family wardrobe at regularly recurring
periods. A few have the means of sending
all their sewing to be done out of the house.
The many must attend to it at home.
Nobody but she VINO has gone through it
knows how many hours of work, how many
stitches, how much wear and tear of cutting,
planning, arranging and contriving, and how
long a confinement at the sewing-machine,
are implied in one seasons work, when five
or six people of different ages are to be
provided for.
1t would generally be better for women,
though they had only limited income from
which to draw their supplies, to hire help at
such a crisis as this ! know that some i'm
agine that economy demands that they shall
never spend a penny for what they can pos
sibly do with their own hands. 1t happens,
however, that there are two ways of econo-
MIXING, and that which uses up the vital
forces and ends in a fit of sickness and a
doctors bill is very poor one. As Chris
tian duty too, every matron should try TO
furnish work to some woman who needs it,
saving if need be in another direction, that
she may extend this kind of charity to a
struggling sister. For instance, buy one gar
ment apiece less for each little daughter, OF
let each little hat be neatly trimmed with
velvet ribbon, and do without the plume or
the feather, and take the money thus gained
to pay a seamstress who will come to you by
the day or the week. She must have work
or she cannot have bread. 1t is with her a
question of the necessities of life, not OF
the comforts or luxuries. Almost every
lady in circumstances at all easy has, among
her acquaintance, soma young woman who
needs Just the help which would be secured
every week. Now if there were two fam
lies who would give her two days work eaci
week. or four who would engage her eacl
week for one day, she would be able to live
in a sell-respecting way, without being some
times put to great straits. The preference,
should be given first to those who attend oui
own.church or Sunday-school. If we do no
| know any one there for ourselves, an inquiry
of the superintendent or teachers will fur
uish us with information. After the house
hold of faith to which our first obligation
always is, we should feel that our own neigh
borhood has special claims upon us. A Sc
we're winter is coming, and each OF us shoul'
feel that she has duty to those on whom /
will be hardest. Nothing is worse than in
discriminate alms-giving, and nothing bette
than judicious giving out OF work, even i
small sums must be paid for it. know in
stances in which women are glad to accep
a small remuneration in money for their sci
vices in housework with the addition o
some article of food, cooked or in the raS
material A little coal or wood from you
cellar, with the feeling that it has been pai
for by services rendered, will make the poo
widow happier than the same sent as gil
merely.
There are some other kinds of fall SEWN
besides her own, which ought to come With
the province of every house-mother. Nj
dear sister, when you look at your own dal
lngs, warmly clad and rosy with health, d
you not think of the thousands who are col
and hungry every winter | believe in sew
ing for poor children. Never have see
such gladness as has danced in the eyes c
/ little girls to whom needed garments, {
: stockings and shoes, have been given ]
winter, when their fathers were out of worl
: and they knew what poverty meant. n
/ one of us has any right to live only for he
5 self and her own children. We can ofte
e send cast-off dress or skirt, or lit
; frock which child has outgrown, to som
% body who needs it and will bless God for
Never let us send it, however, ragged an
torn. Garments given to the poor, ii IL
i examples sake only, should be in perfe
a order, properly mended.
@ DO not forget that no home stands alon
!, 1t is bound by minute threads to the who
e fabric of soclety.-Christian Inteiigeneer.