Mystery Item Answer

Are you ready for this? They are POT SCRUBBERS! Remember that most cooking used to be done in heavy cast iron pots and pans. These hickory scrubbers will work miracles on burned on food. (However, I do not think that you would want to use this on your modern non-stick pans!)

To make these scrubbers, you take a thick hickory stick and use a draw knife to carefully shave pieces almost to the end, but leave them connected about 1/2" from the end.  Then, after you have shaved enough to make the brushy part, bend them downward and either use a piece of leather or another piece of thinly shaved hickory to tie the shaved pieces to keep them in place.  When it is time to do dishes, simply wet the scrubber and the hickory shavings become flexible and make an excellent pot scrubber.

Folks used to also make broom-sized scrubbers like these to scrub wood floors.

If you look carefully, you can see how the piece of hickory is shaved to make the brushy part

The larger one is the actual pot scrubber.
The two smaller ones are more like toys than anything,
but they would also make good small scrubbers.

Now you know!   :D
Thanks to Becky, Rae, Leslie & Meg for posting your guesses!