The first open-end thimble I ever saw was one Mrs. Preston used when I
was with her at the Springs. I remarked upon it and she said that when
she used a thimble she always had that kind. "I feel about a thimble
as I do about mitts, which I always wear instead of gloves, because I
like to see my fingers come through. So I like to see my finger come
through my thimble. It is a tailor's thimble. Tailors always use that
kind. I do not know whether they like to see their fingers come
through or not." I had heard it said that it takes nine tailors to
make a man and now I reflected that it would take eighteen tailors to
make a thimble. Upon presenting this mathematical problem to Mrs.
Preston she told me about the origin of the old saying:

"It was not that kind of tailor at first. In old England the custom
was to announce a death by tolling a bell. After the bell had ceased
tolling, a number of strokes, called 'tailers,' indicated whether the
death was of a child, a woman or a man; three for a child, nine for a
man. People counting would say, 'Nine tailers, that's a man,' which in
time became colloquially 'Nine tailers make a man.' When the custom
became obsolete the saying remained, its application was forgotten,
_o_ was substituted for _e_ and it was used in derogation of a most
worthy and necessary member of the body politic."

Margaret Preston was very small, in explanation of which fact she told
me there was a story that she had been tossed on the horns of a cow.
There was Scotch blood in the Junkin family and with it had descended
the superstition that this experience dwarfs a child's growth. When
she sat upon an ordinary chair her little feet did not touch the
floor. She had a way of smoothing the front of her dress with her
hands as she talked.