Life Lines

A Shared Reading activity pack

to read wherever you are
Issue 22

For more Shared Reading, poems and texts,

email us at: coronavirus@thereader.org.uk
.
 “Mrs. Sommers was one who knew the value of bargains; who
could stand for hours making her way inch by inch toward the
desired object that was selling below cost.”

A Pair of Silk Stockings by Kate Chopin

The Reader is a charity which usually brings people together to listen

to stories, extracts and poems in free, weekly Shared Reading
groups. In these Life Lines activity packs we hope to offer everyone
the same comfort, meaning and connection through great literature
that our reading groups provide – wherever it finds you.
Now that we all have time on our hands, we face the strangely
demanding task of filling our days in a way that feels good. Each Life
Lines pack will bring you some of a story and a poem, which you can
read in your own time. Along with the reading, you’ll find a selection of
thoughts and feelings shared by other fellow readers about the
chosen pieces. We suggest that reading the poem or the story out
loud is a great way to get below the surface and make your own
connection with them. It may feel strange but it does make a
difference, so do please give it a try!

This week’s story is called A Pair of Silk Stockings and it is by

Kate Chopin. A mother comes unexpectedly into a modest
amount of money. It seems that she knows just what to spend it
on, but will her well-thought out plans come to fruition, or might
she be persuaded to think again? After all, shops do contain a lot
of tempting things on display…

Feel free to make notes on your own thoughts and feelings as

you go , perhaps marking words or sentences that particularly
stand out to you…

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‘A Pair of Silk Stockings’ by Kate Chopin

Little Mrs. Sommers one day found herself the unexpected possessor of
fifteen dollars. It seemed to her a very large amount of money, and the
way in which it stuffed and bulged her worn old porte-monnaie gave her
a feeling of importance such as she had not enjoyed for years.

The question of investment was one that occupied her greatly. For a day
or two she walked about apparently in a dreamy state, but really
absorbed in speculation and calculation. She did not wish to act hastily,
to do anything she might afterward regret. But it was during the still
hours of the night when she lay awake revolving plans in the mind that
she seemed to see her way clearly toward a proper and judicious use of
the money.

A dollar or two should be added to the price usually paid for Janie’s
shoes, which would insure their lasting an appreciable time longer than
they usually did. She would buy so and so many yards of percale for
new shirt waists for the boys and Janie and Mag. She had intended to
make the old ones do by skilful patching. Mag should have another
gown. She had seen some beautiful patterns, veritable bargains in the
shop windows. And still there would be left enough for new stockings –
two pairs apiece – and what darning that would save for a while! She
would get caps for the boys and sailor-hats for the girls. The vision of her
little brood looking fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives
excited her and made her restless and wakeful with anticipation.

The neighbors sometimes talked of certain “better days” that little Mrs.
Sommers had known before she had ever thought of being Mrs.
Sommers. She herself indulged in no such morbid retrospection. She
had no time – no second of time to devote to the past. The needs of the
present absorbed her every faculty. A vision of the future like some dim,
gaunt monster sometimes appalled her, but luckily tomorrow never
comes.

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A Pause for Thought…

What do we make of Mrs. Sommers so far? Perhaps we have

known a few people very like Mrs. Sommers in our own lives. The
fifteen dollars she has come into seems quite the prize, but it also
has a value greater than its sum for her, as it ‘gave her a feeling of
importance such as she had not enjoyed for years’. What do we
think about money equating to importance - they are two things
that some people might pair quite easily, but perhaps having
money only gives you importance in some areas and not others?

Mrs. Sommers has given a lot of considered thought to what she

will spend the fifteen dollars on, being drawn in particular to a
‘proper and judicious use’. Do you think that there is only one? Her
children are the ones who will benefit from the money – which Mrs.
Sommers intends to stretch quite far indeed – and Mrs. Sommers
appears to take great pride in the thought of ‘her little brood
looking fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives’. It seems
like a treat for all of them, indeed.

Mrs. Sommers does not look back to the ‘better days’ that her
neighbours reminisce about, nor forward to the future: ‘The needs
of the present absorbed her every faculty.’ Is this something we
can relate to? Why might she do this, do we think – perhaps it is a
natural part of being a mother, where your concerns become about
your children who live more ‘in the moment’? Perhaps it is also to
do with the family’s personal circumstances and the idea of
‘making do and mend’? Or is it something else? Is this a helpful
way to live, or more of a necessity – something that just can’t be
helped?

Let’s read on and see what happens.

Mrs. Sommers was one who knew the value of bargains; who could
stand for hours making her way inch by inch toward the desired object
that was selling below cost. She could elbow her way if need be; she
had learned to clutch a piece of goods and hold it and stick to it with
persistence and determination till her turn came to be served, no matter
when it came.

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But that day she was a little faint and tired. She had swallowed a light
luncheon--no! when she came to think of it, between getting the children
fed and the place righted, and preparing herself for the shopping bout,
she had actually forgotten to eat any luncheon at all!

She sat herself upon a revolving stool before a counter that was
comparatively deserted, trying to gather strength and courage to charge
through an eager multitude that was besieging breastworks of shirting
and figured lawn. An all-gone limp feeling had come over her and she
rested her hand aimlessly upon the counter. She wore no gloves. By
degrees she grew aware that her hand had encountered something very
soothing, very pleasant to touch. She looked down to see that her hand
lay upon a pile of silk stockings. A placard nearby announced that they
had been reduced in price from two dollars and fifty cents to one dollar
and ninety-eight cents; and a young girl who stood behind the counter
asked her if she wished to examine their line of silk hosiery. She smiled,
just as if she had been asked to inspect a tiara of diamonds with the
ultimate view of purchasing it. But she went on feeling the soft, sheeny
luxurious things--with both hands now, holding them up to see them
glisten, and to feel them glide serpent-like through her fingers.

Two hectic blotches came suddenly into her pale cheeks. She looked up
at the girl.

"Do you think there are any eights-and-a-half among these?“

There were any number of eights-and-a-half. In fact, there were more of

that size than any other. Here was a light-blue pair; there were some
lavender, some all black and various shades of tan and gray. Mrs.
Sommers selected a black pair and looked at them very long and
closely. She pretended to be examining their texture, which the clerk
assured her was excellent.

"A dollar and ninety-eight cents," she mused aloud. "Well, I'll take this
pair." She handed the girl a five-dollar bill and waited for her change and
for her parcel. What a very small parcel it was! It seemed lost in the
depths of her shabby old shopping-bag.
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Mrs. Sommers after that did not move in the direction of the bargain
counter. She took the elevator, which carried her to an upper floor into
the region of the ladies' waiting-rooms. Here, in a retired corner, she
exchanged her cotton stockings for the new silk ones which she had just
bought. She was not going through any acute mental process or
reasoning with herself, nor was she striving to explain to her satisfaction
the motive of her action. She was not thinking at all. She seemed for the
time to be taking a rest from that laborious and fatiguing function and to
have abandoned herself to some mechanical impulse that directed her
actions and freed her of responsibility.

How good was the touch of the raw silk to her flesh! She felt like lying
back in the cushioned chair and revelling for a while in the luxury of it.
She did for a little while. Then she replaced her shoes, rolled the cotton
stockings together and thrust them into her bag. After doing this she
crossed straight over to the shoe department and took her seat to be
fitted.

She was fastidious. The clerk could not make her out; he could not
reconcile her shoes with her stockings, and she was not too easily
pleased. She held back her skirts and turned her feet one way and her
head another way as she glanced down at the polished, pointed-tipped
boots. Her foot and ankle looked very pretty. She could not realize that
they belonged to her and were a part of herself. She wanted an excellent
and stylish fit, she told the young fellow who served her, and she did not
mind the difference of a dollar or two more in the price so long as she
got what she desired.

It was a long time since Mrs. Sommers had been fitted with gloves. On
rare occasions when she had bought a pair they were always "bargains,"
so cheap that it would have been preposterous and unreasonable to
have expected them to be fitted to the hand.

Now she rested her elbow on the cushion of the glove counter, and a
pretty, pleasant young creature, delicate and deft of touch, drew a long-
wristed "kid" over Mrs. Sommers's hand. She smoothed it down over the
wrist and buttoned it neatly, and both lost themselves for a second or
two in admiring contemplation of the little symmetrical gloved hand. But
there were other places where money might be spent.
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Another pause for thought…

Well, Mrs. Sommers has gone quite off track from her original
plans! We can see that her day didn’t get off to the best start,
making her distracted and unable to think. Her shopping trip
seems to have come as a relief, in a way, giving her a break from
being taxed with thinking so hard all of the time. Instead, she is
seized by a ‘mechanical impulse that directed her actions and freed
her of responsibility.’ You might have heard of the term ‘impulse
buying’ – do you think this is what Mrs. Sommers is doing?

The silk stockings contrast quite sharply with the cotton ones she
is used to wearing, and seem to set off a chain of buying other nice
items. Have you ever treated yourself to something that you
wouldn’t typically buy, a luxury – whatever it might be? How did it
make you feel, or if you’ve been more restrained, how do you think
it would make you feel? Joyful, excited? Or perhaps you might feel
a little bit guilty after the initial rush had faded?

Mrs. Sommers seems to know what she wants as she goes on to

try on boots and gloves. Yet we also get a hint that her sense of self
and identity is not as sure as she might think, and that the items
she buys affects it: “She could not realize that they belonged to her
and were a part of herself.” Have you ever had that feeling of
stepping into another pair of shoes and feeling really quite different
to your usual self?

Let’s rejoin Mrs. Sommers on her shopping trip.

There were books and magazines piled up in the window of a stall a few
paces down the street. Mrs. Sommers bought two high-priced
magazines such as she had been accustomed to read in the days when
she had been accustomed to other pleasant things. She carried them
without wrapping. As well as she could she lifted her skirts at the
crossings. Her stockings and boots and well fitting gloves had worked
marvels in her bearing--had given her a feeling of assurance, a sense of
belonging to the well-dressed multitude.

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She was very hungry. Another time she would have stilled the cravings
for food until reaching her own home, where she would have brewed
herself a cup of tea and taken a snack of anything that was available.
But the impulse that was guiding her would not suffer her to entertain
any such thought.

There was a restaurant at the corner. She had never entered its doors;
from the outside she had sometimes caught glimpses of spotless
damask and shining crystal, and soft-stepping waiters serving people of
fashion.

When she entered her appearance created no surprise, no

consternation, as she had half feared it might. She seated herself at a
small table alone, and an attentive waiter at once approached to take
her order. She did not want a profusion; she craved a nice and tasty bite-
-a half dozen blue-points, a plump chop with cress, a something sweet--
a creme-frappee, for instance; a glass of Rhine wine, and after all a
small cup of black coffee.

While waiting to be served she removed her gloves very leisurely and
laid them beside her. Then she picked up a magazine and glanced
through it, cutting the pages with a blunt edge of her knife. It was all very
agreeable. The damask was even more spotless than it had seemed
through the window, and the crystal more sparkling. There were quiet
ladies and gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small
tables like her own. A soft, pleasing strain of music could be heard, and
a gentle breeze, was blowing through the window. She tasted a bite, and
she read a word or two, and she sipped the amber wine and wiggled her
toes in the silk stockings. The price of it made no difference. She
counted the money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on his tray,
whereupon he bowed before her as before a princess of royal blood.

There was still money in her purse, and her next temptation presented
itself in the shape of a matinee poster.

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It was a little later when she entered the theatre, the play had begun and
the house seemed to her to be packed. But there were vacant seats
here and there, and into one of them she was ushered, between
brilliantly dressed women who had gone there to kill time and eat candy
and display their gaudy attire. There were many others who were there
solely for the play and acting. It is safe to say there was no one present
who bore quite the attitude which Mrs. Sommers did to her surroundings.
She gathered in the whole--stage and players and people in one wide
impression, and absorbed it and enjoyed it. She laughed at the comedy
and wept--she and the gaudy woman next to her wept over the tragedy.
And they talked a little together over it. And the gaudy woman wiped her
eyes and sniffled on a tiny square of filmy, perfumed lace and passed
little Mrs. Sommers her box of candy.

The play was over, the music ceased, the crowd filed out. It was like a
dream ended. People scattered in all directions. Mrs. Sommers went to
the corner and waited for the cable car.

A man with keen eyes, who sat opposite to her, seemed to like the study
of her small, pale face. It puzzled him to decipher what he saw there. In
truth, he saw nothing-unless he were wizard enough to detect a poignant
wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere,
but go on and on with her forever.

A last pause for thought…

As Mrs. Sommers goes out into the world, the ‘impulse’ that
caused her to buy several items from the store remains, ‘guiding’
her, but there seems to be something else that influences her
course of action. She gets ‘a feeling of assurance, a sense of
belonging’ by her new, polished appearance, but still feels self-
conscious as she enters the grand-looking restaurant, which she
had passed by before but not dared to enter. However, she does
not cause the stir she imagines she might, and indeed, goes
unnoticed by the other diners – the ‘quiet ladies and gentlemen’.
She seems to fit in quite well – do you think that’s important when
it comes to feeling self-assured?

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When she goes to the theatre, Mrs. Sommers seems to stand out,
however, in her attitude if not her appearance: ‘She gathered in the
whole – stage and players and people in one wide impression, and
absorbed and enjoyed it.’ It seems like quite the experience for her,
where she almost becomes another person. And while, previously,
she was conscious of her spending, things seem to have changed
on this particular outing: ‘The price of it made no difference.’ What
do we make of this change in attitude?

All shopping trips and days out have to come to an end, and we
leave Mrs. Sommers in the cable car, presumably on her way home.
What do we make of the ‘man with keen eyes’ who regards Mrs.
Sommers? And what about the ‘poignant wish’ that Mrs. Sommers
is left with? It seems like her day out has been something of a
dream, although she does have her new stockings, boots and
shoes to take home. Did she spend that valuable fifteen dollars
wisely, do you think?

Time for a Poem

This week’s poem is called ‘Barter’ by Sara Teasdale. Many of us,

like Mrs. Sommers, might enjoy a shopping trip now and then and
be surprised by what we might come across on the shelves. But
are such material items really as important and valuable as we
think they are? There’s that saying, isn’t there: ‘the best things in
life are free.’ And there’s also another that people are fond of
saying, that ‘money can’t buy you happiness.’
Let’s keep these ideas in our minds as we read this poem, which
looks at things other than stockings, boots and other material
items, which can be sold and bought, and enjoyed.
We aren’t looking to find any answers here, or what the person
writing it might have meant when they wrote it. We’re just looking
to see if any feelings or ideas come up when we read it – and often
we find that the more time you allow yourself to simply be with the
poem, the more thoughts and feelings will come through.

One of the keys is to enjoy yourself: take your time, read it out
loud, have a think about any bits you like, or that puzzle you, then…
have another read!

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‘Barter’ by Sara Teasdale

Life has loveliness to sell,

All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,

Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,

Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

Some thoughts…

What do we make of that opening line, ‘Life has loveliness to

sell,’? Have you ever thought of ‘Blue waves whitened on a cliff’ or
‘children’s faces looking up’ as commodities that can be sold or
bought? It’s a rather strange idea, isn’t it? Perhaps thinking of
these things from a new perspective might make us appreciate
them differently?

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If we move on a little further, we come across things that aren’t
permanent features in our lives, but instead are things that come
and go – ‘Music like a curve of gold / Scent of pine trees in the
rain’. I wonder, what would we pay to have things like these in our
lives? They seem to add value – I couldn’t imagine life without
music, for example – but could we put a price on these
experiences? Then, we have things that seem to mean even more,
at least in an emotional sense: ‘Eyes that love you, arms that
hold’.

What about ‘your spirit’s still delight’ – is it that we need all of

these perhaps priceless things to find joy, peace and fulfilment? In
that case, would we spend more than we could really afford to
have them?

The last part tells us to ‘Spend all you have for loveliness, / Buy it
and never count the cost;’. Do you agree with this? It makes me
think of Mrs. Sommers in the story, who seemed to be in need of
some loveliness in her life. There does often seem to be a
consequence that comes from spending, at least on material
items, but perhaps it is different when it comes to absorbing
ourselves in the world around us?

‘And for a breath of ecstasy / Give all you have been, or could be.’
What do we make of this line which closes the poem? It feels like
there’s a lot to think about in there, about giving and receiving,
amongst other things.

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We’ve left this page blank for you to make notes, draw a picture, have a
go at writing yourself or jot down something you’d like to tell us…

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Time for a Puzzle

This week, as we’ve gone on a shopping spree with Mrs. Sommers,

we’re going to continue by including a wordsearch all about shopping.
See if you can find all of the words in the grid below while you have a
cuppa and a biscuit – something that we all need after a day spent going
around the shops!

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