that way herself. Did not
I, sixty years ago, lie on the shelf and laugh as I saw her stand by the
half hour before the glass, giving an extra twist to her curl and an
additional dash of white powder on her hair--now fretted because the
powder was too thick, now fretted because it was too thin? She was as proud
in cambric and calico and nankeen as Harriet is to-day in white tulle and
organdy. I remember how careful she was when she ran me along the edges of
the new dress. With me she clipped and notched and gored and trimmed, and
day and night I went click! click! click! and it seemed as if she would
never let me rest from cutting.

I split the rags for the first carpet on the old homestead, and what a
merry time we had when the neighbors came to "the quilting!" I lay on the
coverlet that was stretched across the quilting-frame and heard all the
gossip of 1799. Reputations were ripped and torn just as they are now.
Fashions were chattered about, the coalscuttle bonnet of some offensive
neighbor (who was not invited to the quilting) was criticised, and the
suspicion started that she laced too tight; and an old man who happened to
have the best farm in the county was overhauled for the size of his
knee-buckles, and the exorbitant ruffles on his shirt, and the costly silk
lace to his hat. I lay so still that no one supposed I was listening. I
trembled on the coverlet with rage and wished that I could clip the end of
their tattling tongues, but found no chance for revenge, till, in the hand
of a careless neighbor, I notched and nearly spoiled the patch-work.

Yes, I am a pair of old scissors. I cut out many a profile of old-time
faces, and the white dimity bed curtains. I lay on the stand when your
grandparents were courting--for that had to be done then as well as
now--and it was the same story of chairs wide apart, and chairs coming
nearer, and arm over the back of the chair, and late hours, and four or
five gettings up to go with the determination to stay, protracted
interviews on the front steps, blushes and kisses. Your great-grandmother,
out of patience at the lateness of the hour, shouted over the banister to
your immediate grandmother, "Mary! come to bed!" Because the old people sit
in the corner looking so very grave, do not suppose their eyes were never
roguish, nor their lips ruby, nor their hair flaxen, nor their feet spry,
nor that they always retired at half-past eight o'clock at night. After a
while, I, the s