WHY PEGGY WORE BLUE FROCKS
Early in April there came a very hot day, and this reminded Mrs. Owen
that she must be looking over the children's summer dresses to see what
new ones they would need, for it would take some time to make them, with
all the other work she had to do. She went up into the large
store-closet, which was all they had in the way of an attic, and she
unpacked the trunk that held the dresses. There were only four of
Peggy's, for she was very hard on her clothes, and she had stained or
torn several of them. There were six of Alice's in excellent condition.
They were a little short for her, but there were tucks that could be let
down. Peggy had two white dresses, a pink one, and a plaid dress. She
tried on one of the white dresses first and pranced about the room with
it. Her legs looked longer than ever, for the skirt was several inches
above her knees.
"You look just like a mushroom, Peggy," said Alice.
"Oh, dear! I didn't know I'd grown such a lot," said Peggy ruefully,
"but you can let down the tucks, mother," she added hopefully.
"But there aren't any tucks. I let those down last summer."
"I guess I'll have to have that dress," said Alice joyously.
She was so fond of her sister that she liked Peggy's clothes better than
her own.
"Oh, dear!" said Peggy. "I like it so much because it's smocked. But I
hope I can wear the dotted muslin. That's my favorite dress."
But, alas, the dotted muslin was only half an inch longer than the
cotton rep, and there were no tucks in that either.
Peggy skipped about the room again, and she tried to persuade her mother
that it would be possible for her to wear the dress.
"I don't mind if it is rather short, mother," she said.
"I can't have you going around with skirts like a ballet dancer."
"But you could let the hem down, or put in insertion, or something,"
said Peggy.
"But the waist is too small for you, and the dress will be just right
for Alice."
The pink dress and the plaid one were too small for Peggy, too, so Alice
became the proud possessor of Peggy's frocks, which would fit her very
well after tucks had been taken in them.
"I've three pink dresses now and four white ones and two plaids and a
yellow," said Alice.
"And I've nothing at all," said Peggy.
"It's too bad," said Alice, "but yours will all be new."
The first chance Mrs. Owen had to go to the village she said she would
buy the materials for Peggy's summer frocks.
"I've got to get something for working dresses for myself, too," she
said.
She took the children with her, and they had a joyous time, for it was
one of those sunshiny afternoons when everything was so gay and cheerful
that it seemed to Peggy as if the whole world were smiling. The sun
seemed positively to laugh, and the blue sky and the white clouds seemed
almost as glad as he. Alice walked quietly along, taking hold of her
mother's hand; but Peggy had to run along ahead of them every now and
then. She wanted to dance and shout with the joy of it all.
"Oh, Mother, there's Mrs. Butler and her canary-bird," said Peggy, as
they passed a small gray house. "Let's stop and make her a call."
"Not to-day," said Mrs. Owen. "We'll never get our shopping done if we
stop to call on all the neighbors."
When they came to the smoothly finished stone wall in front of the
Thorntons' large place, Peggy climbed up so she could have the pleasure
of walking across it.
"Come, Alice," she said, helping her small sister up.
"Oh, children," said their mother in despair, "we shall never get
downtown."
But they did get there at last, although they met several of their
neighbors on the road, and Peggy stopped to caress a black pussy-cat and
make friends with a yellow collie dog. The shop seemed very dark after
the brightness of the spring sunshine outdoors. The saleswomen seemed
sleepy and not at all interested in what they were selling. Peggy
thought they probably did not live so far from the village; they could
not have had such a joyous walk as they had had, or met so many friends.
"Oh, that beautiful collie dog! How lucky the Thorntons were to have
him! And the black pussy was a darling, not half so beautiful, of
course, as Lady Jane, but still, a darling." She sighed when she thought
of Lady Jane.
She had slipped away again to her old home, and a few days later the
same boy had brought her back in the same basket. The children had not
seen him, for they were at school when he came, and their mother did not
ask him how many children there were in the family. She had discovered,
however, that his name was Christopher. They had kept Pussy in the house
since then, hoping in this way to get her used to the place. But she
seemed very anxious to get out, and in this April weather Peggy did not
feel it quite kind to keep her indoors. She would not like it herself,
and one should do as one would be done by.
Peggy's mother went to the back of the store, where there was a man
behind the counter who seemed more alive than the girls. Peggy followed
her mother, but Alice's attention had been caught by some doll
carriages.
"I want you to show me something strong and serviceable for frocks for
my little girl, who is very hard on her clothes," said Mrs. Owen.
Peggy hung her head. She wished her mother had not said that. The man
did not look as if he ever could have been hard on his clothes, even
when he was a small boy.
"This plaid is a great favorite," he said.
Mrs. Owen asked the price, and it was too high. "Why, it is double what
it was before the war," she said.
Everything was either too expensive or too frail. Mrs. Owen bought some
white materials for best dresses for Peggy, but there seemed to be
nothing in the shop that would do for common.
"I am afraid I shall have to wait until later in the season," said Mrs.
Owen. "I suppose you'll have new things in?"
"The new goods will be more expensive still."
Mrs. Owen sighed. There were drawbacks about having so little money. She
had turned to leave the store when the man called after her:
"Mrs. Owen, I have something on the top shelf I think may suit you. It's
strong as nails, and it's cheap. It's almost as strong as the stuff
butcher's frocks are made of."
Peggy gave a little cry of pleasure when she saw it, for it was such a
delicious color. It made her think of the sky when it was a deep blue.
Mrs. Owen was attracted to it because it was dark enough not to soil
easily. But Peggy did not think of this; she just thought what a
pleasure it would be to be dressed in something so pretty. It was so
cheap that Mrs. Owen could hardly believe her ears when the man told her
the price.
"We got in a lot of the material before the prices went up," said he.
"It is entirely out of fashion now. Nobody wants it."
Peggy and her mother cared nothing about the fashion; and indeed they
seemed to set the fashion, whatever they wore.
"How many yards are there in the piece?" Mrs. Owen asked. He told her
and she made a rapid calculation. "I'll take it all," she said.
The man could not conceal his surprise. "We only sell seven yards for a
grown person and four would do for her."
"I know, but I am going to make two dresses for myself and she will need
four. It is so much cheaper and stronger than any of the other wash
materials that I shall make all her dresses out of the same piece. She
won't mind having them all alike, will you, Peggy?"
"I'll like it; it's so pretty."
"Oh, please, mother, do make me one," Alice begged.
"I'm afraid you will have to be contented with the ten dresses you
already have," said her mother. "For, as I will have six dresses to make
for Peggy and two for myself, I think that will be all I can manage."
"Perhaps one of my dolls can have a dress out of it," Alice said
hopefully.
"Yes, I'll cut out a dress for Belle, and I can teach you to make that
so you can be sewing on it while I am making Peggy's frocks."
But it was some time before Peggy began to wear them, for it took her
mother a long time to make them. The very next afternoon, after the
dinner dishes were washed, Mrs. Owen got out the blue material and she
cut out a dress for Peggy, and then a small one for Belle. Alice was
learning to hem and she took as careful stitches as a grown-up person.
Peggy was divided between wanting to do what the others were doing and
hating to be tied down. She made frequent trips to the kitchen for a
drink of water and to see how Lady Jane was getting on.
"You can overcast these sleeves, Peggy," her mother said later in the
afternoon. "That is much easier than hemming."
"It's better than hemming," Peggy said, "because you can take such long
spidery stitches. But I just hate sewing. I'm never going to sew when I
grow up."
"But that is just the time you'll have to sew," said Alice.
"No, I'm going to be a writing lady."
"But they have to wear just as many frocks as other people," said Alice.
"I'll have them made for me. I'll get such a lot of money by my
writings."
"You may be married and have to make clothes for your children," said
her mother.
"I'll just have boys," said Peggy. "That would be much the best. Then I
could climb trees with them and climb over the roofs of houses, and
nobody could say, 'Peggy, you'll break your neck,' because I'd be their
mother, so everything I did would be all right."
"Oh, Peggy, you haven't been putting your mind on your work," said her
mother. "Pull out those last few stitches and do them over again, and
think what you are doing and not how you will climb trees with your
sons."
"I'll have all girls," said Alice. "Some will be dressed in pink and
some in blue."
"And some in red and some in yellow, and some in purple and some in
green," added Peggy, "and you'll be called the rainbow family. There,
mother, is that any better?"
"A little better, but you don't seem to make any two stitches quite the
same length."
Peggy suddenly flung down her work. "There's somebody at the back door,"
she said.
"It's the grocer's boy. You can go and get the things, only be sure not
to let the cat out."
Peggy never quite knew how it happened. She did not mean to disobey her
mother, but the afternoon was very pleasant and the kitchen was hot. It
seemed cruel to keep a cat in the house. She held the door open and,
while she was debating whether it would not be possible for her and the
cat to take a walk together, Lady Jane slipped out. Something gray and
fluffy seemed to fly along the grass and disappear under the fence. She
had gone without waiting for their pleasant walk together. Instead they
would have a mad race. Peggy liked the idea of a chase. It was much more
exciting than overcasting seams.
Peggy and the pussy-cat had a wild race, and more than one person looked
back to see why Peggy Owen, with flying yellow hair, was running at such
speed cross-lots, through back yards, and climbing over fences. Suddenly
Peggy was caught, as she was scrambling over a fence, by a piece of
barbed wire. Her one remaining winter school frock was torn past
mending. "Oh, dear, what will mother say?" said Peggy.
The skirt was almost torn from the waist, and Peggy felt like a
beggar-maid as she crept home. "Only, everybody will know I am not a
beggar-maid," thought Peggy. "They'll all say, 'What mischief has Peggy
Owen been up to now?'"
And her mother did say something very much like it when she came in.
"Peggy, what have you been doing now?" she asked.
"I was hunting for Lady Jane," she said breathlessly. "She slipped out
of the kitchen door."
"Peggy, how could you be so careless?" said her mother. Then, as she
noticed the confusion on Peggy's face, she said, "Did you let her out?"
"Not exactly," said Peggy. "I was thinking perhaps it would be nice for
us to have a walk together, when she ran away."
"You don't deserve to have any new clothes," said her mother, as she
looked at Peggy's torn frock.
"The blue ones will be stronger than this old thing," said Peggy.