It
was evident that I should never conquer fate with my needle.
Among other domestic traditions of the old times was the saying
that every girl must have a pillow-case full of stockings of her
own knitting before she was married. Here was another mountain
before me, for I took it for granted that marrying was inevitable
--one of the things that everybody must do, like learning to
read, or going to meeting.
I began to knit my own stockings when I ways six or seven years
old, and kept on, until home-made stockings went out of fashion.
The pillow-case full, however, was never attempted, any more than
the patchwork quilt. I heard somebody say one day that there must
always be one "old maid" in every family of girls, and I accepted
the prophecy of some of my elders, that I was to be that one. I
was rather glad to know that freedom of choice in the matter was
possible.
One day, when we younger ones were hanging about my golden-haired
and golden-hearted sister Emilie, teasing her with wondering
questions about our future, she announced to us (she had reached
the mature age of fifteen years) that she intended to be an old
maid, and that we might all come and live with her.
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