"Father was pre-eminently a man of common sense, and economy was one of
his darling virtues. I suppose I inherited some of the latter quality,
for from early life I have been renowned for gathering up the fragments
that nothing be lost, so that it was quite a common saying in the
family: 'Oh, give it to Sally; she'll find use for it,' when anything
was to be thrown away. Only once within my memory did I depart from
this law of my nature. I went to our country residence to pass the
summer with father. He had deposited a number of useful odds and ends
in a drawer. Now little miss, being installed as housekeeper to papa,
and for the first time in her life being queen--at least so she
fancied--of all she surveyed, went to work searching every cranny, and
prying into every drawer, and woe betide anything which did not come up
to my idea of neat housekeeping. When I chanced across the drawer of
scraps I at once condemned them to the flames. Such a place of disorder
could not be tolerated in my dominions. I never thought of the
contingency of papa's shirts, etc., wanting mending; my oversight,
however, did not prevent the natural catastrophe of clothes wearing
out, and one day papa brought me a garment to mend, 'Oh,' said I,
tossing it carelessly aside, 'that hole is too big to darn.'

"'Certainly, my dear,' he replied, 'but you can put a piece in. Look in
such a drawer, and you will find plenty to patch with.'

"But behold the drawer was empty. Happily, I had commuted the sentence
of burning to that of distribution to the slaves, one of whom furnished
me the piece, and mended the garment ten times better than I could have
done. So I was let to go unwhipped of justice for that misdemeanor, and
perhaps that was the lesson which burnt into my soul. My story doesn't
sound Southerny, does it? Well, here is something more. During that
summer, father had me taught to spin and weave negro cloth. Don't