[pg 12]

 

     A Cluster of Ripe Fruit 

     CHARACTER STUDY 

 They were five sisters, all unmarried; they lived in the old Dutch town that was made memorable by Barbara Frietchie's exploits. They never hoisted a Union flag, or did any grand thing; but they deserve a place in story just the same. Their name was Peyre, and the young people called them "The Pears", not in derision, for the regard they inspired was little short of veneration. Their ages ranged from sixty-five to eighty years when I first knew them. Unlike the Hannah More quintette, they were not literary. But no hive of busy bees was ever more industrious than they in the line of purely feminine accomplishments. 

 "The Pears" were not poor, but they were frugal. They owned a comfortable two-story brick house on a quiet street, and let their ground floor to a small tradesman. The way to the sisters led along a smoothly-paved side alley, all fenced in, through a little kitchen with spotless floor and shining tins, up a narrow, crooked, snow-white stairway, and finally through funny little chambers, up two steps, or  [pg 13]  down three, till the workshop was reached. There they sat, clean and fresh and busy, each in her own nook; and just there they might have been found every day these sixty years. 

[pg 13]

 The workshop had the appearance of tidy fullness. An everlasting quilt was stretched across the end window, and here Miss Becky had laid her chalk-lines and pricked her fingers through several generations. The faithful fingers were brown and crooked, she said, from rheumatism; but how could they be straight when eternally bent over the patchwork? Surely the quilt was not always the same; yet the frames were never empty, and the chair was never vacant. 

 Miss Polly was housekeeper and cook, with Miss Phoebe to run errands, do the marketing, visit the needy, and supervise generally. Some one must have done the mending and darning and laundry work, but I never saw any of that. 

 Miss Sophie (the sisters said Suffy) was the knitter and her needles were never still. Always a gray yarn stocking, and never any appearance of the finished pair. Go when you would,—and the dear ladies were not alone many hours,—the knitting was on and going on. 

 Miss Chrissy was the beauty. Ages ago there had been a tradition of a lover, but nothing came of it. Perhaps 

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