SAMPLER worked by Nancy Dennis, Argyle, N. Y., in
1810.

_Right_--SAMPLER worked by Nancy McMurray, of Salem, N. Y., in 1793.

_Courtesy Mrs. E. M. Sanford, Madison, N. J._]

[Illustration: PETIT POINT PICTURE which belonged to President John
Quincy Adams, and now in the Dwight M. Prouty collection.

_Courtesy Colonial Rooms, John Wanamaker, New York_]

There were Infant Schools in my own days, little congregations of
children not far removed from babyhood, who were taught the alphabet
from huge cards, and repeated it simultaneously from the great
blackboard which was mounted in the center of the room. In the schools,
as well as at home, every little girl-baby was taught to sew, to
overhand minutely upon small blocks of calico, the edges turned over and
basted together. When a perfect capacity for overhand sewing was
established, the next short step was to the sampler, and the tiny
fingers were guided along the intricacies of canvas crossings. The dear
little rose-tipped fingers! the small hands! velvet soft and satin
smooth, diverse even in their littlenesses! They were taught even then
to be dexterous with woman's special tool, the very same in purpose and
intent with which queens and dames and ladies had played long before.

The sampler world was a real world in those days, full of youth and as
living as the youth of the world must always be, but now it is dead as
the mummies, and the carefully preserved remains are only the shell
which once held human rivalries and passions.

Quilts

The domestic needlework of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries, should not be overlooked in a history of embroidery, it
being often so ambitiously decorative and the stitchery so remarkable.
The patchwork quilt was an instance of much of this effort. It was
unfortunate that an economic law governed this species of work, which
prevented its possible development. The New England conscience, sworn to
utility in every form, had ruled that no material should be _bought_ for
this purpose. It could only take advantage of what happened, and it
seldom happened that cottons of two or three harmonious colors came
together in sufficient quantity to complete the five-by-five or
six-by-six which went to the making of a patchwork quilt. Nevertheless
one sometimes comes across a "rising sun" or a "setting sun" bedquilt
which is remarkable for skillful shading, and was an inspiration in the
house where it was born, and where t