Daily Kennebec journal., 1905-11-16
Woolen Mittens.
lBangOr NeNS.)

The world is much better than it
used to be. We have more necessities,
more comforts and more luxuries than
cur ancestors dreamed of. Articles in
every day use now were choice treas
ures so years ago. Before the Civil
War oranges We're luXuries in Maine,
and when one of our dead and gone
forcbears bought an orange and
brought it home, the fruit was divided
UP among the entire family, and every
one who received section felt as if
he were about to step over the thres-
hold of Paradise, so great was the an
ticipated joy. And now most any of
us feels able to buy six or even dozen
oranges and bring them home, even if
there are no more than three Or four
in the family.
But what we have gained in some
respects we lack in others. For in
stance, nobody can buy at the stores
nowadays such nice and warm and
beautiful double" mittens as mother
used to make. This assertion is a
sweeping one, and several may feel in
clined to doubt it, though in our opin-
ion il is true. We can buy plenty of
wooden 1nittens at the stores. Some of
them are firm and thick and seemingly
good, but they lack some of the best
features mittens ever had. Very few
modern mittens have fringes about the
wrist to keep the wind and snow
away. Now and then we can buy a
fOx-and-geese pair of mittens. or a
pair that was knitted in saw-tooth
style, but one must look long and
look in vain for pair of old com
pass work mittens. The knitter car
ried a thread of blue on the finger of
one hand and a thread of white on the
finger of the other hand. and as the
shining needles flashed to and fro. the
knitter would throw two blue threads
and four black threads, and five blue
threads. and purl five and take up two.
and drop three and gather six, and
knit blue and knit white. and purl and
take up. and drop some more, and keep
on doing SO. widening and narrowing
until the mitten took shape right un-
der ones eyes. and kept growing and
lengthening and getting into harness.
and showing how nice it was until it
was finished and bound off and ready
to be washed and worn and enjoyed.
And there was the woolen knob away
at the finishing off spot, clear out at
the point of the mittens. Perhaps peo-
pie will laugh and say there was no
use in having such a knob anyhow,
but that is all people know. Suppose
you had given a girl a slide down the
hill on the new sled, and suppose you
were walking back and that you had
one arm around the girl and the hand
of the other arm pulling on the sled
line. And suppose right at that time
the girl should ask you for a chew of
gum. Your gum was inside your nit
ten, Of course, but so long as you had
both hands busy, you couldn't get at it
to give it to the girl. Couldn't, hey!
That's all people know about the re-
sources of an old-time boy. By taking
the knob of the mitten holding the
gum in your teeth you could snatch
that rlitten off in a jiffy and pass it to
the girl with your mouth. and tell her
to help herself. And all this time you
would be hugging the girl and hauling
the sled and Dragging about the boys
you could lick, and doing lot more
things. In those days if boy
couldn't do six or half a dozen things
at the same time he was counted as no
good.
No; we shall never be able to find
any of those nice old mittens again.