Do We Mend, or Do We Embroider?
By Martha E. Warner
“Yes, I had a delightful time at my daughter’s,” said a member of the Thimble Club one afternoon. “I mended forty pairs of stockings during my visit, and I am sure there were as many more left to darn. The children are so nearly of a size that the stockings get dreadfully mixed. I wish I knew of some plan to suggest to her that would help keep them in order.” “Pin them together with a safety pin before they are washed,” said one. Another suggested marking the stockings with a different color for each child; and a third proposed white “French knots,” one for the oldest child, two for the next younger, and so on. Lest the conversation become too practical, the hostess skilfully turned it to other topics, and stockings were forgotten for the time. Since that day I have often thought of that mother with eighty pairs of stockings to mend, and wondered if darning has gone out of fashion. Some time ago business called me to a certain home on a rainy day. In the living-room I found the lady of the house facing an armchair piled high with an assortment of stockings. With a wry smile, she explained that as the weather was unfavorable for callers, she thought of mending a few stockings. In another home where I was calling, a child pulled the cushion out of a Morris chair, and exposed to view many pairs of stockings waiting to be mended—or perhaps, thus tucked out of sight, to be forgotten. I had just about made up my mind that only old-fashioned persons did any darning, when I was called to see a lady who was ill. She was really only a girl, and had never known a mother’s care. The family of four lived in two rooms, but the tiny home was neat and clean, and on the table lay a stocking slipped over a glass for want of a darner, and the neatly mended hole told its own story. Of course this family was poor. Their income was less than ten dollars a week. Yet, on the other hand, she was rich in that she had been taught to mend, and was willing to practice this economy. Mending saves many a hard-earned dollar, and that little woman saved fifty dollars during the winter. A little here and a little there soon count up. Christ says, “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost;” and if we would learn to save the wasted “littles” for him and his work, we should often have dollars to give where now we have only dimes.