June, 1921 
33 
dolls longing for fine madam fal¬ 
lals, pets wanting cosseting. Small 
wonder there were rebellions. And 
yet, the stitches went on—cross- 
stitches, interlacing, plaiting, 
scroll work, applique work, stump 
work, raised work, small stitch 
and large stitch. One cannot even 
visualize the multitudes of mock 
flowers, the euphuistic affecta¬ 
tions, the strange fruits, the 
known and unknown animals, the 
calls on the Deity, the bits from 
Psalms, the unrhymed and mis¬ 
spelled poems — the wonderful 
medley of youth—all that it was 
taught and all that it tried to 
teach. We hear its lisp and see 
its pious grimace. 
Eliza Fernie’s bundle of crea¬ 
tion at the age of eight shows a 
futuristic tendency nearly a cen¬ 
tury before the arrival of the cult. 
One wonders if her precocity made 
her languish and pause forever un¬ 
der a weeping willow tree at nine, 
or if she lives on today in some 
Chelsea or Montmartre studio. 
From the number of hearts in her 
embroidery she evidently was of 
an ardent sentimentality. I think 
she might be the adopted child of 
a nice old lady like Miss Matty 
of Cranford. One feels she was 
almost always happy, although 
she lived in a ram-rody age. Her 
fancies, which she cut out of bits 
of silk and chintz and then em¬ 
broidered, are from the depths of 
her first realization. Her mates 
at the Dames School, with the aid 
of the dames’ dash of fine learning might be 
led off on excursions with the Chinese phoenix 
and the chaotic Orient, but Eliza was quite 
satisfied with a robin red-breast. Houses, 
mothers and children, brides and bridegrooms, 
ladies taking the air, cows, rabbits, horses and 
above everything, clocks, made the theater of 
her emotions. Father Time himself must have 
loved her, for she evidently feared any wanton 
misuse of him. In the shadowy hall near the 
tall clock that came from York by frigate in 
Queen Anne’s day one places her little flitting 
shadow. She ran to and fro bobbing curtseys 
to the hours. 
She played, perhaps, at battle¬ 
dore and shuttlecock to take the 
cramps out of her small fingers 
and the chill from the end of her 
small nose. She hated the back- 
board, which was to make her 
straight, and the spinet, which 
was to make her accomplished. 
She speculated upon the possibil¬ 
ity of her ever attaining the up¬ 
right and unbending spine of Aunt 
Mathilda, or the delicate preci¬ 
sion of Aunt Maria’s touch upon 
the keyboard, and very likely she 
did not aspire toward either per¬ 
fection in the dreamy recesses of 
her demure, fanciful little heart, 
whose corners were completely 
and comfortably hidden away 
from her sedate elders. 
Discipline of deportment and 
lesson-book were hers. Fine writ¬ 
ing as well as fine stitching had 
to be acquired. Old-fashioned 
drilling made for model manners 
and docility of character, and the 
simple families of the past were 
more easily managed than the 
single child of the present. One 
asks oneself whether sampler and 
embroidery did not train eye and 
hand, attention and temper, in 
ways that were quite as valuable 
to the disposition as are the kin¬ 
dergarten pursuits of more modern 
times? Was it of no advantage 
in after life that children were 
taught to obey rather than coaxed 
to employ themselves? 
In examining this newly dis¬ 
covered record of the industrious 
child mind of yesterday one wonders if the 
children of today would profit by one of her 
forgotten needles and the threads of sweet wis¬ 
dom—self-restraint, the joy of accomplishment 
—the making of an early friendship with 
quietude and not calling to the moon, the moon 
that is always a little out of reach. Oh, Eliza, 
one imagines you looking out at the Kings 
Highway, just as the old windows of your one¬ 
time dwelling place look out on the same scene 
today. Did you forget the awakening dreams 
of one frail year in the road winding away, or 
do you haunt the place with the budding lilacs, 
the spirit of a fanciful child? 
Quaint beings, giant butterflies, hearts, double and single, and in the 
middle, a clock, are here cut out in silk or chintz, and carefully embroi¬ 
dered on the satin by the quaintest of childish hands 
Surely no other girl of eight could match 
the magic stitchery that appeared in this 
rural family picture 
Eliza Fernie, the maker of all this, must have loved beasts, birds and trees almost as much as she loved human beings and ( probably ) 
hated the discipline which forced such industry when she was longing to play with her pets, nurse her doll or roll her hoop along the 
box-hedged paths of the dreamy old place she lived in 
