Opbrakel stands unquestionably first in Belgium in the production of figures in Point de Venise. During the war, its workers have repeated several times for the Committee their beautiful “Fables de La Fontaine” series of medallions, as well as those which represent so charmingly “Little Red Riding-Hood,” “Puss in Boots,” “The Sleeping Beauty,” and other much loved fairy-tale figures. These medallions have been sold separately as doilies, or have been combined with Flanders lace or linen in handsome cloths.
It was fast growing dark, and the 125 girls began folding their patterns, and carefully wrapping their delicately pictured little rabbits and ducks to keep them clean till the morrow; maids appeared with dust-pans and brooms, and we gathered up our skirts and stept out into the courtyard. As we crossed it in the dark and the rain it was difficult to refuse the further hospitality of these sisters, who would have kept me for the night.
In the court in front of the big brick convent building with its odd little steeple, two sisters, skirts tucked up, and pails swung over their shoulders, Chinese fashion, were about to begin the Saturday scrubbing. Madame Kefer-Mali and I were on our way to Liedekerke, the principal remaining lace center in Brabant, and had stopt in this less important village of Heckelgem for a look at the convent school opened nine years ago.
In the village itself we had found about 150 of the 2,000 inhabitants busy with their needles, for this is distinctly a needle-lace commune, producing a fairly good quality of Venise. Which means that there are as yet no local mills, and tho an adjacent match factory has already attracted a number of Heckelgem girls, most of the women are still content to spend their time making Venise, which they take to the convent, to be sold there to Brussels or other agents.
The convent class-rooms were warm and cheery; fern baskets hung from the ceilings and every window was gay with potted plants. Practically all the village children were gathered inside, and since it was 11 o’clock when we arrived, were happily engaged in drinking their daily Comité National cup of cocoa and in eating the good white biscuit that goes with it. Saturday morning is mending time and on the girls’ desks I saw more of those amazing patchwork socks and stockings, the result of three or four years’ weekly attempts to hold them together.