Holly. _Ilex aquifolium._
Dedicated to _St. Ethelburge_.
[348] Fesbroke’s Ency. of Antiq.
[349] Brand.
~October 12.~
_St. Wilfrid_, Bp. of York, A. D. 709.
_Seasonable Work._
Now come the long evenings with devices for amusing them. In the
intervals of recreation there is “work to do.” This word “work” is
significant of an employment which astonishes men, and seems never to
tire the fingers of their industrious helpmates and daughters; except
that, with an expression which we are at a loss to take for either jest
or earnest, because it partakes of each, they now and then exclaim,
“women’s work is never done!” The assertion is not exactly the fact, but
it is not a great way from it. What “man of woman born” ever considered
the quantity of stitches in a shirt without fear that a general mutiny
among females might leave him “without a shirt to his back?” Cannot an
ingenious spinner devise a seamless shirt, with its gussets, and
wristbands, and collar, and selvages as durable as hemming? The immense
work in a shirt is concealed, and yet happily every “better half” prides
herself on thinking that she could never do too much towards making good
shirts for her “good man.” Is it not in his power to relieve her from
some of this labour? Can he not form himself and friends into a “society
of hearts and manufactures,” and get shirts made, as well as washed, by
machinery and steam? These inquiries are occasioned by the following