time for breakfast, which was hardly over when she entered.
After she had shown her kettle to every one, and satisfied herself that
it would bear a comparison with me, she said,--

"Now, at last, I've got a kittle o' my own; and I'll never borry nor
lend agin as long as I live in this here vale o' tears."

Not long after this, a careless girl left my rival on the fire till the
bottom was burned through, and the kettle was ruined.

The next time the good woman came, her speech ran somewhat thus; "I
spose you was to meetin' last Sabbath."

"Yes."

"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 lost.

When a large quantity of these old woollen pieces was collected, it was
a custom in the country to invite all the neighbors to come in, and aid
the family in cutting these fragments up into narrow strips, about an
eighth of an inch wide, and then sewing the strips together, and
winding them up into large balls. This was