The semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1882-1886, 1883-10-20
THE SOOKlNGS N
KNIT.
. Sketch for Sunday Leisure
That Will Invoke fearful
Memories of the De ad
Old Years.

In these busy days grandma's oc
! cupation is gone. This noisy, whirl
ing, breathless machine has quite
drowned the soft, irregular kick OF
her knitting-needle, and while the
dear old eyes are looking for z
dropped stitch, lost because some
youngsters restless pate bobbed
against the patient arm, the restless
n,achine has finished a long-legged
stocking and is clamoring for more
yarn. Grandma still sits on the
south porch or in the warm chimney
corner and knits, but who waits now
for the stocking to be finished? The
rattling, clicking, noisy old mill, with
its smell of dyes, its whirr of machin-
cry and noise of steam, poules a
steady cataract of socks and stock
ings on the market while grandma
rounds the heel of a little One for
Harry or points off the toe of & big
one for Fred. Who waits for grand
mas stockings now? All, we'll; we
all wait for them now and then. The
noisy old milf doesn't make them so
warm after all. Does ever the breath
less, swapping machine stop to teach
q bright-eyed urchin to knit a
slight row on 4 pair of chicken quilts?
The wrinkled old hands, how softly
they pattpd the cheeks of the rOml-
ing grand child, not half so soft in
their childish curves at the touch of
grandma's hands. The stocking
grandma knit; how much love went
into every stitch, how many prayers
We're wrought into every round.
somewhere I once read about a nun
who bent over her needle work and
as oft as a tear fell from her eyes up
the snowy fabric she wrought about
it and worked il with her deft needle
until at last the strange design
wrought out a touching story of her
loneliness and orrow And if we
could read all the dreams, thoughts
and prayers that grandma wrought
with those patient needles we would
the stockings she knit on our
hearts, rather than on our feet. For
here is a dream Of John, and there is
a tear for Chris Robbie, and here is
q plan for Will and here comes creep
ing in a quiveriDg strain from some
old, old hymn that is hallowed to us
now because her lips blessed fit so
e how a prayer quivered all
this round; here the stocking
was laid down while the old hands
over the leaves of the Bible
that seemed never to be out of her
here the old eyes looked out
across the pasture and the moving
lot down to the wooded bills where
the birds are answering winds; here
the old eyes slept for a few moments,
and he e is a knot. All, yes, Philie
and Ahnie are home this week and
the house is full Of their children.
There will be many o knots in
The yarn before the stocking is fin
Who is the boy whose fate
it is to held on his extended hands
the skein of yarn while grandma
it off after the romping
youngsters who taunt him with
shrieks of laughter as they desert
him. But never mind, grandma
comforts him with splendid stories of
Uncle Does pranks when he was a
boy and going to school at Car
vn. until the boy wishes
the skein was five miles long, And
then he is rewarded by a great big
sweeter than honey, because
he was such a good boy. The only
hing that took the edge off this re-
ward was that all the other children
got just as big cookies as he did, be-
cause some how grandma's rewards
'ior the good boy and girl managed to
include all the other boys and girls.
To grandma all children were good; |
,ome children were better than 9th
ers, but there were no bad children.
thousand blessings a thousand
lines told, on the dear old face and
he silver hair that crowned the
brow; on the wrinkled hands
ind the work they wrought; on the
lear lips and blessed old hymns they
Jung; on the dear old book that lay
her zap, and the life that drew SC
much faith and love and help from
is pages. In every household and
very nook of the land; In the city
enement and in the roomy old
arm house; in the mansion on the
and in the cottage down the
ane. God bless grandma and the
beautiful memories her figure always
nvokes, Han eye.