My sister and myself were gathered around the fire one night, and when Mother had her work for the night finished she joined us. She was in exceptionally good humour- so she told us a story. This was it.
"When I was a small girl oh! much smaller than either of you two! I was sent with my eldest sister your Aunt Jinnie, for a message to a house about two miles distant. Well of course there were no bicycles that time and so we had to take "shank's mare" for it. Well, I suppose like you we were a bit lazy, and we took the shortcut, through the fields. As we were crossing our second field, we came on to a style, when I suddenly looked up and there on the style was a little man, not quite as big as a sod of turf, and dressed in red, he was sitting as a tailor and was making wax end. (here we asked her how she knew she was making wax end and she replied, that the man next door to them was a shoemaker- hence
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