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A black stream was flowing down on the carpet. _Page 32._ ]
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_XII._ _The Story of a Needle and a 90 Compass_
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_A black stream was flowing down on the _Frontispiece_ carpet_
_“Mamma, please, will you lay down the hem 27 for me?” said Lily_
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I REALLY can say nothing of my earliest days except from report. I have heard, but I can hardly believe it, that I was once part of a rough mass of iron ore, that had lain for ages in a dark mine in Cornwall; that I was dug out, and put into a huge furnace, and heated till I became red-hot, and melted; that I was made into part of an iron bar, and when in a fiery glow was suddenly plunged into cold water, which changed my whole constitution and name, for iron was thenceforth called steel. I can just fancy how the water fizzed and hissed, and how my fiery flush faded suddenly away, and I became again quite black in the face! I can fancy all this, as I said, but I really remember nothing about it.
Nor have I any recollection of being drawn out into wire, forced to push myself through little holes, smaller and smaller, till I was long enough and slim enough for the purpose for which the manufacturer designed me. My very earliest remembrance is of finding myself lying on an anvil, along with thousands of others of my species. But you must not fancy me then, gentle reader, in the least like the neat, trim, bright little article that now has the pleasure of addressing you. I fancy that I looked uncommonly like a bit of steel wire, neither useful nor ornamental.
While I lay quietly reflecting in a kind of dull, sleepy doze, for at that time I was not sharp at all, a violent blow on one end of me startled me not a little—I had been hit on that side as flat as a pancake!
“What next?” thought I. I had little time for thinking. I was popped into the fire in a minute, but taken out again before I had time to melt. Then down came another blow upon me, which had quite a different effect from the first. It pierced out a little hole in my flat head, and I received the advantage of having an eye. No sooner did I possess it than I began to use it. I peered around me with much curiosity, now on the long brick building in which I found myself; now on the rough care-worn faces of the workmen, reddened by the glow of the fire-light; now on the multitude of baby needles around me, all looking up with their little round eyes.