An embroidered pocket on
exhibit
at Colonial Williamsburg.
I curtsied to my father, and thanked him for the birthday pennies. I
then reached through the slit in my skirt and carefully placed the pennies into
the linen pocket that hung underneath by strings tied around my waist. My
cousin Hetty scorned the old-fashioned pocket, saying that all young ladies
these days carried embroidered reticules on their wrists instead. But this
old-fashioned pocket had belonged to my mother, whose name was Caroline. She
had embroidered it with the words, “Carrie, Her Pocket” in the staggering
stitches of a young girl. I would never trade it for a fashionable little wrist
bag, especially when this cherished pocket might now hold what I needed to
fulfill my greatest dream.
– from A Buss from Lafayette, Copyright 2016 by Dorothea Jensen
When I was a child,
the “Lucy Locket Lost Her Pocket” nursery rhyme baffled me. How could someone lose a pocket?? Later I learned that
pockets started out as items that were separate from clothing. They had strings that could be tied around the waist underneath a skirt, which had a slit in the
side. The wearer could reach through the slit to reach the pocket. Lucy
probably lost her pocket because the strings came untied or broke.
I once played Lucy
Lockit (not exactly the same but close) in Beggar’s
Opera. I did not lose any pockets, but I did .lose the hero. To the
soprano. As usual.
