Part 25 (1/2)

21. Or for provisions?-Yes.

22. And you always got what you wanted for these purposes?- Yes. When I asked for a few s.h.i.+llings of money for knitting, I always got it.

23. Do you live by yourself?-Yes.

24. And not in family with any others?-No.

25. Do you make all your living by knitting?-Yes.

26. You have no other means of getting money to pay your rent?- No.

27. You pay rent for a room?-Yes.

28. And you have always got enough from the employer to whom you sell your work to pay your room rent and your food?-Yes. It had to be enough, for I could not get anything else.

29. Do you mean by that, that you would have liked to have had more money to spend upon food?-Yes.

30. But you could only get goods?-Yes.

31. How much do you earn by knitting in a week or in a month?-I suppose perhaps about 10s. in a month. I would knit a shawl in a month, and the merchant would allow me that sum for knitting it.

32. Would it take you a month to knit a shawl, working at nothing else?-Yes. Of course I would not be always at it. People cannot sit and knit continually; but it would take a month to make it, working in an ordinary way.

33. When you take that shawl to the shop, price of say 10s. is put upon it, how much of that do you got in money, and how much in goods?-I have knitted a shawl for 10s, and I have got 5s. in money on it from Mr. Linklater.

34. Is that the usual proportion of money you get?-No, not always. Sometimes I don't get so much as that.

35. Did you ever ask for more?-No; I think never asked for any more on one shawl.

36. Supposing you were going with a shawl of that value what goods would you get? Take the last time you went, for instance: what did you get?-Cottons, or such things as I would be requiring. The last time I was there I bought nine yards of cotton at 81/2d. a yard.

37. Was that to make a dress with?-No; it was white cotton.

38. Did you ask for that?-Yes.

39. Did you want it for any particular purpose?-Yes; I wanted it.

40. What else did you get?-That is all I remember getting at that time.

41. Did you get the rest in money?-Yes.

42. Have you any reason to complain of the quality of the goods you get?-No, I have not.

43. Would you wish to go to any other shop if you got money?-I have no reason to leave Mr. Linklater, for he has always given me money as well as I could have got it from any other merchant, I believe.

44. What arrangement do you make about the supplying of the wool?-We make no arrangement.

45. Then you are supplied with the wool; and the 10s. is the price not of the shawl, but of your work upon it?-Yes.

46. Is that the usual way in which the knitting trade is carried on by the women in Shetland?-Yes.