I remember, Mary, when a little child, my thrifty mother, wishing to encourage me to learn to knit my own stockings, she, when winding the skein of German yarn into a ball, occasionally wound a penny in with the yarn.

I was allowed to spend the penny only after I had knitted the yarn and the penny had fallen from the ball.

What untold wealth that penny represented! And planning how to spend it was greater pleasure still.

Many a pair of long old-fashioned, dark blue and red-striped stockings, were finished more quickly than otherwise would have been done without the promised reward.

I became proficient in knitting at an early age," continued Aunt Sarah; "a truly feminine occupation, and as I one time heard a wise old physician remark, 'Soothing to the nerves,' which I know to be true, having knitted many a worry into the heel of a sock.