"Well, if you was, I guess you heerd how the minister told us to be
good to one another--to be neighborly, and help folks along. Now I
guess as how I told you once that I shouldn't neither borry nor
lend. Now I ain't tew old to larn and mend my ways, and I mean to
deu as the parson says, and lend and borry all the days of my life;
so maybe you'll lend me that ere kittle."

But I must tell you about one of these visits I made to this
peculiar neighbor. When she came in for me that day, she looked full
of business and earnestness, and, before she was fairly seated, she
began to tell her errand.

"I have come," she said, "to invite you all to a rag bee, every one
on ye--men folks and all, because they can cut and wind and be
agreeable, and hand round cups and sarcers and things to eat, if
they can't deu nothin' else; so now you must all come and bring your
thimbles and scissors and big needles, and, ef you've no objections,
I'll jest take the tea-kittle now, as I'm goin' straight home."

My mistress, who was the kindest person that ever lived, promised to
go to the rag party. She wished to please and aid this selfish
woman, for she was her nearest neighbor."

"Pray, dear mother, tell us what a rag bee is," said Harry.

"At the time when our tea-kettle was in its prime, we had no woollen
or cotton factories in this country. Our carpets all came from
Europe, from England most of them, and poor people could not afford
to buy them. Families were in the habit of carefully saving all
their woollen pieces, all their old woollen clothes; not a scrap was