the thimble museum

two hundred and one thimbles, on six red velvet cushions, in a single low room above the post office. mrs. shoebridge keeps it, and has kept it, since her mother in the same chair before her. they came in twos and threes from sewing-bags, tea-caddies, the pockets of women now mostly gone.

the founding gift was twenty-eight, from a dressmaker called lily wrenn in 1947, on the condition that none be polished. mrs. shoebridge keeps the condition. the patinas — green on the brass, dark on the silver — are the closest thing the museum has to a clock.

cushion four holds three thimbles all of the same maker, all the same year, all from the same hand: lily wrenn's own. they are ordered, mrs. shoebridge says, by how often the wearer pricked herself. she will not say how she knows.