The Inventiveness of a Little Girl

My mother recently told me the story of when she and her older sister were little girls, probably when she was just in elementary school. My mom says she lived near a factory that made purses from either black vinyl or black patent leather. The factory would throw away the scrap pieces of leather in the trash bins in the street.

My mother and her sister would go by and pick up all the scrap leather out of the trash and the two of them would cut the leather pieces and wrap twine and string around folded pieces to make pretty bows for hair accessories for women, and then they would sell these hair accessories to their friends and other students.

They made enough money that my grandmother (my mom's mom), took the money and bought my mom a gold ring with the money. My mom had that ring with her at school one day, and she wasn't allowed to have any jewelry at school so when they students lined up to be inspected she took off the ring and put it in her desk. She doesn't know if there was a hole in the desk or what happened, but when she went to fetch the ring later it was gone.

She doesn't remember if she was scolded by my grandmother for losing that ring, but she's sure she was somehow disciplined.

It was a story that was lost to her until recently, when seeing a black patent leather purse reminded her of her childhood activity.