The Knitter's Gift by Bernadette Murphy

Author:Bernadette Murphy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Adams Media
Published: 2011-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

A little tricky—but not difficult. The “Double Moss” stitch, she thought back, that was what they called it. Made a nice change, really. All the knitting she had ever done was always garter stitch. “Fancy stitches use more. Garter is smarter: save wool!” they used to say. Both wars it was like that. Garter. The first time, the Great War, it was not so bad. Wool from Australia at first, before the unraveled stuff. Of course, thrifty housewives had always reused wool, but at the time, she was neither thrifty nor a housewife. Well, not at first. At first she was a girl. Later, after she married, she was a housewife. Then a mother. Then a widow. All in the space of two years. Such an awful lot of her life was completed in those two years, no time to be thrifty really. But, she was, in her own way She had no choice about the wool. Australian wool went for Australian soldiers in the end; tired, overused English wool had to do for tired, overused English soldiers. Not that she cared. She knitted until 1918, but her own husband, her Will, he died the first day of the Somme, July 1, 1916. Young Will was born on the 25th, that same month. She had already had Ellen. Just nearly one year old, she was.

Work in pattern for approx. 5 inches, ending in a 4th row.

Ellen was a good child. Quiet, as older children often are. Will, now, Young Will, he was the opposite. Full of spirit. Never dull. Never still. Never quiet. Perhaps it was the lack of his father, or perhaps, Brigid thought, it was his father's high happy nature in him. Brigid remembered the two of them as two pairs of flashing gray eyes, two mouths that turned upward in easy smiles. They were both so young, they were, when they were killed.

She had only two photographs of her husband; they both looked like her son.

There, four rows done. Now repeat.

Repeat. Repeat. Her life was all repeat. After her Will died she thought there would be no more. Yet, there was Will, their son. And after that bloody war which she had knitted away, stitch by greasy stitch, she thought she would knit no more.

But she did. Repeated it all. Knitted from 1939 to 1945. Young Will was killed in action in 1941. She knitted after he was gone. Knitted with tired old wool from tired old vests. Khaki, always khaki, the loops endlessly repeating, becoming scarves, becoming socks. Her fingers growing tighter and tighter in their hold on the needles. She had had so many pairs of needles, then she had only a few. They were needed for the war. “Save Steel because Tanks and Aeroplanes require Metal” the saying went.

Still, she always managed, didn't she? Ellen left for America with some lad she met at a dance. Her new American family sent new American knitting needles.

There. Four more rows done now. She must try to loosen; even with these big needles her stitches were tight and close.

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