Thus for many years (refusing meanwhile
several good offers of marriage) she continued to ply her needle and
shears, working steadily and cheerfully in her vocation, earning good
wages and spending but little, until the thrifty sempstress was
counted well to do, and held in esteem according. Sometimes, when she
got weary, and thought a change of labor would do her good, she would
engage with some lucky dame to help do housework for a month or
two. She was a famous hand at pickling, preserving, and making all
manner of toothsome knick-knacks and dainties. Nor was she deficient
in the pleasure walks of the culinary art. Betsey Pratt, the
tavernkeeper's wife, a special crony of Statira's, used always to send
for her whenever she was in straits, or when, on some grand occasion,
a dinner or supper was to be prepared and served up in more than
ordinary style. So learned was she in all the devices of the pantry
and kitchen, that many a young woman in the parish would have given
half her setting-out, and her whole store of printed cookery-books, to
know by heart Tira Blake's unwritten lore of rules and recipes.
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