Distaff

The distaff leaned in the corner by the wheel, a tall staff wound about with a cloud of combed flax, pale as winter straw. Through the short days Nyra drew the fibre from it a little at a time, and the thread grew on the spindle below. The girl watched the bundle thin as the afternoon wore on, and she asked how much a distaff could hold. Nyra said that the measure of it was easy to write, but the holding was another matter.

You could set down the weight of the flax, Nyra went on, and the height of the staff, and the number of days one dressing of fibre would last. A book gathers what can be set down in a line and counted, and leaves the rest to the one who was there.

For the book could not keep the slow give of the flax as it loosened under a patient hand, nor the way the fibre smelled faintly of the field it had grown in. It could not keep the steadiness of the draw, the small judgement of how much to let down so the thread ran even and did not break. It could not keep the quiet trust between the staff that held and the hand that took.

The girl reached up and touched the soft pale cloud of it, and she understood that the distaff did not give all at once. It gave as it was asked, and no faster, and the whole of the work lay in that unhurried trade. She stopped trying to reckon the bundle and simply watched the thread come. Nyra smiled and let the wheel turn.

The book keeps the measure of the distaff, and you keep the drawing of it.