Emily and her family relaxed and rejoiced. Life in Norwich went back to normal.
Normal meant a lot of work. Emily and Cornelia, her sister who was two years younger, shared many jobs. They milked cows, churned butter and baked bread. Sitting around the fireplace, the girls sewed samplers with neat even stitches. They knitted undershirts for winter. Then they quilted covers from rags and old clothing, perhaps wishing their choice of futures was as plentiful as their colourful threads.
In 1844, when Emily was thirteen years-old, Hannah encouraged the girls to make baby clothing, a small quilt and some rag toys.
SAMPLERS
Mothers taught daughters how to embroider the alphabet or poems onto a piece of linen or canvas. These sewn pictures became known as samplers. Girls often as young as six made samplers as a way of learning to read while practising their stitches. This is a picture of Emily’s sampler.