ELIZABETH ALEXANDER 2009 INAUGURATION POEM.

BORROWER'S PINS.

Thank you to Colleen who mailed us this charming pin story to add to Kirsty's Pin Story Collection. 

It is from chapter 2 of the Borrowers by Mary Norton. The Borrowers were little people who lived under the floorboards and had to borrow everything they needed from the humans above.

" How cosy those winter evenings could be. Arrietty, her great book on her knees, sometimes reading aloud: Pod at his last (he was a shoemaker, and made button boots out of kid-glove - now alas only for his family); and Homily, quiet at last, with her knitting.

Homily knitted their jerseys and stockings on black headed pins, and, sometimes, on darning needles.  A great reel of silk or cotton would stand, table high, beside her chair, and sometimes, if she pulled too sharply, the reel would tip up and roll away out of the open door into the dusty passage beyond, and Arrietty would be sent after it, to rewind it carefully as she rolled it back."

For more pin stories, come to Prick Your Finger for tea on Saturday afternoon.