Introduction

Martha Slawson sat at her sewing-machine, stitching away for dear life. About her, billowed yards upon yards of white cotton cloth, which, in its uncut length, shifted, as she worked, almost imperceptibly piling up a snowy drift in front of her, drawn from the snowy drift behind.

This gradual ebb and flow was all that marked any progress in her labor, and her husband, coming in after some hours of absence and finding her, apparently, precisely where he had left her, was moved to ask what manner of garment she was making...