The police officers then handed her back the contents of her pockets, an assortment of necessities that Kate would have always kept on her person: six pieces of soap and a swatch of flannel, a small comb, a table knife with a white handle, and a metal teaspoon, her tin boxes of tea and sugar, an empty tin matchbox, a piece of red flannel that she used for keeping her pins and needles, a thimble, and a collection of menstrual rags. She refilled her skirts with her other possessions suitable for hawking: an empty red-leather cigarette case, two short black clay pipes, and a ball of hemp.
