Sharp County record., 1881-03-24
N4NCY'S LETTER.

| many calls for mittius alOlg back this winter;
mostly they're wOve goods, tibet don't last no
time. It's come into my head that nabbe you u
lest as lives make leetIe suthIn 10 buy snu1
[ an ha1dkerchers with, odd times, and rex
I Iecrin you used 10 be a master hand 10 knit
this is for 10 say that et you fall 70 and knit
lot Of them two-thredded mituns we boys set
by 50, why could sell EN- Tor ye-On cOuulls-
l sion. IF you re agreeble WY drop me line
10 III Blank st st JOsephs. you see It's mostly
/ drOvers and sech wants en-
Yours to command, JOHN JACKSON.
The lands sakes!n calculated Miss
Roxy Blair, as she laid down her spec
tacles after reading this letter. John
was alters the beateree for gumptiOn. l
alters said he'd make a spoon or spile a
horn. an | do b'Ieve it's the spoon.
Well said. I've got full twenty run o
blue warn | spun last year, an some
red: guess there won't be no white
wanted in them parts. I'll set to an
get a lot more red over to Miss Billins'.
Wonder eff shed git wind ont. and 60
to maxim mittins herself?- she beats
all to question folks up. III tell her
I'm a-goin' to teach Nance to knit; and
so be: 'ta'n't no lie. l will teach her
to knit an help on the mittins. 1t II
be suthin for her to do nights, stead Of
readin' all the newspaper scraps she
can pick up"
Nancy Peck was Miss Roxy's bound
/ girl; the old lady lived alone in a small
| brown house on a hillside far above
BasSett; grass-grown track ran by the
house, through the woods that clothed
the hilltop, over and away into the
heart of the Green Mountains.
| Little Nancy had been bound out to
Miss Roxana only about a year when
John Jackson's letter reached Bassett.
Miss Roxy was getting old; rheumatism
/ had laid hold of her, and she could not
hobble up and down hill to the village
any longer: so she resolved to take a
young girl into her house to wait on her.
"TwOn't cost a great deal, she said
to herself There's the gardin amt
half planted; she can drop potaters as
well as man. and hill 'em up, too; and
l can set more beans outside the fence;
when Isr'el comes up to spade the
gardin, he can fix up place for more
beans, and lngin meals cheap. Fact
is, anyway, durstn't be up here alone
no longer. and hirin' some feller or
mother to do arrands would cost more'n
it come to. There's mas old gownds
can be cut over for her, sech as is too
ragged for me-"
Having made up her mind, the old
lady persuaded neighbOr who some
times drove by her house to mill to
take her in, and leave her at the poor
house. which was on his way, until he
came back with his grist. When he re-
turned he found two passengers, for
Miss Roxy had fixed on Nancy for an
experiment.
"'Twas HobsOn's CHOICE" she eX-
planned to Mr.. Tucker. as they drove
along; "there want no other gal there.
She's real small, but Miss Simons says
she's spry an handy, and she ha MT got
nobody belongin' to her, sO's't | sha mt
be pestered with folks a-comin' round"
In six months little Nancy had be-
come so useful that she was formally
bound out to the old lady, and now she
went to school in summer half day,
and had learned to read and write tol-
erably. She was very lonesome in that
solitary house. There were children at
the poor house whom she played with,
tended and loved, but Miss Roxy had
not even a cat, and when Nancy, in the
longing Of her loving little heart, took
a crOOk-necked squash out of the shed,
tied a calico rag about its neck, and
made a dolly Of it to be company for
her in the little garret where she slept,
Miss Roxy hunted it up-fOr she kept
count CT everything she had-bOxed
Nancy's ears sOundIv, and cut up poor
little yellow Mary Ann, and boiled her
in a pot for pies.
Until the mtten business BEGAN, Miss
Roxy found it hard to find enough work
for the child's active fingers to do; but
after that she had no trouble in keeping
the little girl busy, as poor Nancy found
out to her sorrow. The evenings of
spring, when she used to love to sit on
the doorstep with her apron over her
head, and listen to the frogs peeping in
a swamp far below, were now spent in
winding hanks OF yarn, or struggling,
with stiff little fingers, to slip the loops
off one needle and onto another, her
eyes tired with the dull light of tallow
candle, and her head aching with the
effort to learn and the slaps her dullness
earned from Miss Roxy's hard hands.
IT was worse as summer came on, and
she had to knit, knit, all the time, with
not minute to get new poSies for her
garden. Only by early dawn did she
get her chance to watch the blue liver
wort open its sunny cup; the white eggs
of blood-root buds come suddenly out
of the black ground; the tiny rows of
small flowers that children call Dutch
mans breeches" hang and futter on
their red stems; the azure sand-violet,
dancing cOlumbine, purple crane s-bill.
lilac Orchis, and queer moccasin flower
make that hidden corner gay and
sweet.
Even when school began. she had to
work still. Miss Roxy was determined
to send a big box of dOube-knit mittens
to John Jackson before winter set in;
and as fast as they were finished they
were dampened, pressed and laid away
in the old hair trunk in the garret where |
Nancy slept.
Poor little girl! she hated the sight of
mittens, and this summer wild wish |
came into her head. that grew and