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FANCY-WORK IN PODTTNK. 
Our sewing-circle met one afternoon last summer 
with Mrs. Deacon Potts, and when Lyddy Plumb 
came site brought several Floral Cabinets, think¬ 
ing that perhaps she might persuade some one to 
subscribe. After the papers had been thoroughly 
examined, and we were sewing again, the talk ran 
on doing fancy-work, making all such things as 
were illustrated in the Cabinet, “fixing up” fur¬ 
niture at home, etc. 
“ Well,” said Mrs. Potts, “ if any one has got time 
to spend on such nonsense, they are welcome to it; I 
haven’t.’ 
“Neither have I,” said Mrs. Pincher, “and I 
think it’s just wicker to spend time fussing things up 
so. I wouldn’t hai e little fancy things around any¬ 
way, to litter up the house ; and I reckon Mrs. Prince 
thinks as I do, too, for she hasn’t got any such trash 
in her house, any more’n I have in mine.” 
Mrs. Prince smiled in her grand way, and an¬ 
swered : 
“ Really, Sister Pincher, I can’t say that I think 
it is wicked. If one wants to do it, I suppose they 
have the right; but I think it is in extremely bad 
taste ‘ to litter up ’ a room as you say with little 
fancy articles. They detract so much from the ele¬ 
gant effect which a well-furnished room produces. 
Now, when I began housekeeping I made cotton-flan¬ 
nel doves and rabbits, and grass bouquets, and bead 
baskets, and had bird’s nests on forked sticks, and 
butterflies hung by threads ; hut I soon tired of them 
all, and at last swept them out. I do not believe, 
though, that I ever could have made one of the 
barrel-chairs that those papers say so much about. 
The idea of sitting on an old barrel! How can a 
lady have such a thing in her parlor! My idea of 
good taste in furnishing is to buy good honest things, 
as handsome as one can afford. It I could not get 
nice pictures I would go without any, rather than 
cover my walls with little trashy things in home¬ 
made frames.” 
I saw' several of the ladies exchanging glances, but 
no one seemed willing to oppose their opinions to 
Mrs. Prince’s, until Aunt Keziah Prindle spoke up 
in her own blunt way : 
“ Land sales now, Mrs. Prince ! It’ll do for you 
to talk so, for you can get all the handsome furniture 
you want; but s’pose you couldn’t! Land salies ! I 
don’t know nothin’ about these fancy things, ’cept 
that they do fix up a house mighty pretty and plea¬ 
sant when folks can’t get nice furniture and big ile- 
pain tin’s.” 
“ Well,” said the deacon’s wife, “ if one can’t 
afford to get good plain furniture, they certainly can’t 
afford to spend time in doing fancy-work.” 
“ But one can do a great deal of such work, Sister 
Potts, without ‘spending time’ as you say,” said 
Becky Prim, a pretty little matron. “I keep a bit 
of crochet-work, or something of the kind, in my 
basket all the time, and when I sit down to rest a 
minute, or when a caller comes in, or I have baby 
on my lap, I can pick it up and do a- few stitches. I 
have made a good many things in odd minutes 
when very likely I should not have done anything 
if it had not been that, and, as Aunt Keziah says, 
they do fix up the house, so that it would look plain 
and dull enough if thej r were all taken out, for I 
have got nothing really nice.” 
“ Well,” said Mrs. Pincher, “you young folks all 
seem to be going in for such things nowadays. I 
agree with Mrs. Prince. Now, I’ve just got a new 
parlor set, best of hair-cloth, and springs so stiff that 
Jerushy can hardly bear ’em down ; and that’s the 
kind of things to have in a house I say. But, if you’ll 
believe it, the girls, and Nathan too, wanted me to 
take that money and get muslin curtains, and some 
pictures and brackets and vases, house-plants too, 
and new wall-paper, and even a new carpet, if ’twas 
“nothing but the cheapest ingrain,” Jerushy said ; 
and that beat me. Why, my parlor carpet was the 
best piece of body Brussels that I could get at the 
Centre, and it’s most as good as new, if it has been 
worn nigh on to twelve years, but they don’t like the 
pattern ; sunflowers and pumpkin-vines, Nathan says 
’tis ; and the wall-paper too is satin finish and good 
as new, but Nathan, he asked what I wanted cab¬ 
bages on the wall for, if they were satin ? And the 
girls, they wanted to cover the old chairs with their 
old green empress-cloth dresses and have Nathan 
help ’em fix up a lounge out of old stuff. Dear me ! 
I never was so taken down. Why, I said to Jerushy 
how was she a-going to get time for all that work, 
when she couldn’t finish the ‘ rising-sun ’ quilt that she 
begun years ago; and I do want it to put on the 
spare bed, for ’twill be mighty pretty and there’s a 
dreadful sight of work on it already.” 
Aunt Keziah broke in here : 
“ Land sakes! how you talk, Sister Pincher! 
Why, I should think you’d ’nough sight rather fix the 
house to suit your children, seein’ as they’re young 
men and women grown most; and ’ll be wantin’ to 
hev nice company and secli. And house-plants too ! 
Land sakes ! I s’posed every one believed in havin’ 
them. It makes children like their home a sight 
better if they hev flowers to take kere of. Now, if 
you’d let the girls do as they wanted to, they’d hev 
thought the world of it; and you say Nathan would 
hev liked it too ! Dear me ! mebbe he wouldn’t sit 
in the grocery so much evenin’s if there was a real 
nice, cheery place to home, where he could hev some 
of his mates come in and hev a good time with the 
girls. It does young fellers secli a sight of good, 
arter workin’ all day, to dress up and put on their 
company manners. Ye see young folks an’t as they 
used to be, any more’n anything else is; an’ they 
an’t a-goin’ to sit in the kitchen evenin’s, with 
nothin’ pretty around and nothin’ lively goin’ on. 
And as to piecin’ quilts, I don’t see why it an’t 
‘ fancy-work’ as much as embroiderin’ footstools and 
curtains ; and now, when everybody has to cover up 
their quilts with a spread, seems te me it’s a sight 
more sensible to put the extra work in the parlor 
where ’twill show.” 
Aunt Keziah is the one privileged person in the 
village, who says just what she pleases to every one ; 
else, of course, Mrs. Pincher had been mortally 
offended at such plain speaking. As it was, she 
only said sarcastically: 
“ Oh ! well, Aunt Keziah, we d know you always 
stand up for the young folks, as if they were so much 
wiser than their elders; but I guess if you had a 
house and children of your own to take care of, you’d 
do about like the rest of us.” 
“ Mebbe I should ; but I’d thank the Lord that I 
haven’t got 'em, if I could believe that I’d ever hev 
put the house before the children.” 
“ Really now, Sister Pincher,” said the deacon’s 
wife, “ you might let Jerushy keep a few plants ; I 
could give her some slips. They don’t make so 
much work as most folks think, and then you can 
see them grow and blossom. I don’t believe in 
fancy trash any more than you do, but flowers are 
different.” 
“ Oh ! she did have some Geraniums once, but she 
always spattered the floor when she watered them; 
and kept the blinds open—let the flies in—because 
they must have the sun ; and I was glad enough that 
they died off while she was up to her grand¬ 
mother’s.” 
Then Mrs. Peters took up the ball: 
“ Sister Potts, I quite agree with you that it is a 
great waste of time for a sensible woman to do fancy- 
work ; but I do not call all ornamental things ‘ trash ’ 
by any means. I have always liked to have pretty 
things in the house, and my girls like to have nice 
toilet-sets and trees in their own rooms, as well as 
pictures and brackets and vases in the parlor; and I 
have always thought that one showed a refined taste 
in wanting to have everything around them pretty 
as well as neat. I use a large part of the money I 
earn with my sewing-machine in buying such things, 
and I always encourage the children in spending their 
pocket-money so ; but I think it much better to have 
a book at hand to employ a few minutes’ leisure than 
a piece of fancy-work. Then, too, one can buy such 
things so much cheaper than they can make them. 
Now, one of my nieces spent the best part of two 
days last week in making a bracket like one that I 
bought for fifty cents.” 
We had a new member at this meeting of the 
society. The Pinkertons had moved here the week 
before; and when Mrs. Peters had finished her say 
Becky Pym said : “ I wish Sister Pinkerton would 
say something. She believes in fancy-work I know ; 
I’ve seen her house.” And after some urging she 
gave us some of her experience : 
“ When we were married, three years ago, John 
put all of his savings into the house and I w-as going 
to furnish it nicely with mine. I had my piano, a 
good many flowers, and plenty of house-linen ; then 
his mother gave me her cooking-stove, when she 
broke up housekeeping, and her best bed, with mat¬ 
tresses and quilt3 ; and all her common crockery and 
kitchen-ware. But before I had spent a cent John 
had a dreadful accident, and, with paying for board 
and nurse’s and doctor’s bills, my money barely 
lasted until he was earning again ; so we went to 
housekeeping with only the things I have mentioned, 
and a kitchen table and four chairs. Oh ! wasn’t I 
homesick in that bare house. I could not get any 
music-scholars there, and after baby won bom I was 
not strong enough to take in sewing, and there was 
nothing else I could do to earn money myself. We 
could spare just one dollar a week from John’s pay, 
