Spencer Heath Archive

Item 3119

Carbon copy of a typed story told by Spencer Heath to his daughter, Lucile Heath MacCallum (the presumed typist), at the request of his great grandson, John Crawford MacCallum, at Lucile’s home in Waterford, Virginia.

November 11, 1962

When my mother had occasion to replace a broken needle in her sewing machine, she did not understand how to set the new needle but warned me not to touch it. I was under thirteen years of age, I don’t remember exactly, we were living at Bailey’s Cross Roads, Virginia, but I liked to play with machinery. As she tried to fix the machine, the needle went down many times, hitting the side of the plate and missing the hole. She was greatly vexed. I offered to fix it for her. She ordered me not to touch it.

When my mother was called from the room, she warned me what she would do to me if I tampered with it. I had already been playing with it, so could not resist putting it right. Returning, she was astonished to find the needle hitting the hole and wondered what had happened. I was hiding behind the stove, in the corner of the room, grin­ning. When she saw my guilty expression, she said, “You little tyke! You fixed it.” Ever after during my childhood, she was unable, or pretended to be unable, to make this change herself.

On an earlier occasion when my mother was away from home, I had taken the machine pretty much all apart. All went well except that I had a piece left over when I put it together again. I had a great deal of trouble in finding the right place for the piece. At last I managed to get the machine to sew again. The truth is, it seemed to require more fingers than I had to hold the piece in place, while attaching it. I persisted until final success and escaped the imminent punishment that had been promised me if I touched the machine in her absence.  I don’t remember that she ever found out that it had been taken apart.

/Heath told me this story another time. The piece in question was a spring. The machine was new and had just arrived. His mother had gone to town and warned him not to touch it in her absence. But he took it apart, laying the pieces all out on the floor. He could hear her wagon, or buggy, or whatever it was, coming up the gravel drive as she returned, and was desperate, but the spring slipped into place just in time. SHM/