PENELOPE AND NAUSICAA 195 
One penetrating into a certain "cove" of the 
mountains finds Mrs. Hint Tomson, still a "power- 
ful weaver." Near her lives old Mrs. Robbins, who 
used to do "a heap of mighty good weaving work," 
too, but she is now blind in one eye, though she can 
still "design" sunlight with it, and she is ninety 
years old, so she says, and "plumb broke down." If 
she is right about her age, one can well believe the 
rest of the statement. There are other weavers liv- 
ing in the same neighborhood, some of whom yet 
"weave a power," and all of them will bring out from 
chests or shelves and display with pride the old 
coverlets made by dead and gone grandmothers or 
great-grandmothers, as well as by less industrious 
present-day weavers. 
With what pride they display their favorite pat- 
terns ! They know nothing about the latest novel or 
the opera or scandal in high life, perhaps they could 
not even tell you who is President of the United 
States at the present moment, but they are ready to 
give their opinion upon the relative merits of the 
"rattlesnake trail," "the wheels of time," "the 
rising and setting sun," "Bonaparte's March," "the 
snail's trail," and other old and prized designs. 
And as they show their treasures and talk, they 
tell you many a homely secret connected with the 
art of weaving. 
" If you want to make a man jeans that he can't 
hardly wear out," one woman confides to your sym- 
pathetic ear, although you have no great expectation 
of needing the advice, "you dye the chain light tan 
