DOING IT OVER AGAIN
AS soon as Mary Frances opened her eyes the next morning she thought of
the promised lesson.
“I’ll hurry and dress,” she whispered. “Perhaps I can start my lesson
before breakfast. I wonder if the Knitting People are awake yet?”
Soon she was dressed, and ran to the sewing room.
“Good morning,” everybody greeted her as she entered.
[Illustration: “Good morning.”]
This surprised her quite a little.
“Why, good morning, my dear friends,” she replied. “I thought maybe you
wouldn’t be awake yet. It is so early.”
[Illustration: “Good morning.”]
“Give me a shake
If I’m not awake
Before anyone else
Jumps into the cake,”
sang Crow Shay.
“Jumps into the cake!” exclaimed Mary Frances. “Why, what has that to
do with your waking up?”
“Oh, nothing,” answered Crow Shay, “only I couldn’t think of any other
word to rhyme.”
Then Mary Frances laughed and said the little magic verse,
“Fairy Fairly Flew,
Please come, for I need you.”
“Good morning,” Fairly Flew said; and before Mary Frances could reply,
she added, “How pleased we are to see you so bright and early because
you are so anxious to learn your lesson.”
[Illustration: “Give me a shake.”]
“And because I am so anxious to make something for my dolly,” said Mary
Frances.
[Illustration: “Jumps into the cake!”]
“Well, you may start right away,” and Fairly Flew began to give the
instructions for making—
DOLL’S KNITTED SHAWL
(See picture opposite page 72—color plate)
Material: Four-fold pink Germantown zephyr.
Needles: one pair No. 5 knitting needles, one crochet
hook No. 3.
1. Cast on 23 stitches. Knit plain until shawl is 14
inches long; and bind off.
2. Trim ends with fringe, cutting the strands of yarn
each 4 inches long. Put 2 strands in every other stitch
at ends of shawl and pull through with crochet hook.
(See directions for making fringe, page 69.)
[Illustration]
Mary Frances set to work with great pleasure, and before Katie called
her to breakfast she had eight rows of knitting done.
After helping Katie to dry the breakfast dishes, she sat in the hammock
and did six more rows.
“Won’t Fairly Flew be surprised when she sees this!” she thought as she
started upstairs.
The fairy was waiting in the little rocker when she entered the room.
[Illustration: Waiting for her.]
[Illustration: Katie called her.]
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “isn’t that lovely! You have done some work all by
yourself.”
“Yes,” said Mary Frances, “I wanted to surprise you, but somehow it
seems to me that the rows I have just knitted do not look quite so even
as those I did when I was with you.”
“Let me look at them more closely,” said the fairy, and when Mary
Frances laid her work on the table she bent close over it.
“Oh, my dear!” she said in her tiny voice. “Oh, my dear, you have
dropped some stitches! See?” and she pointed to the loose threads.
Mary Frances picked up her work and stretched these places open. The
stitches ripped apart.
“My, I am so disappointed!” she exclaimed. “What shall I do?”
“You must pull out your needle and rip out all your stitches back to
the beginning of the row where you see your first mistake,” said the
fairy.
Try as she would, Mary Frances couldn’t keep the tears from coming to
her eyes as she ripped out the stitches which she had made with so much
pleasure.
[Illustration: “You dropped some stitches”]
[Illustration: Couldn’t keep back the tears.]
“Oh, see how wrinkled the yarn is!” she cried. “I guess it will look
awful when it is used again!”
“No,” said the fairy, “it will not. Why, many a grown person has
unraveled a whole sweater and used the yarn again.”
“I shouldn’t think used yarn would make anything very nice,” said Mary
Frances.
“Yes, it does, if it is steamed.”
“Why, how can it be steamed?” asked the little girl, wondering.
“To steam the crinkles out of used yarn, lay it in a towel. Place the
towel in a wire strainer or colander. Place the strainer for five
minutes over a kettle of boiling water, but not touching the water. Let
the yarn dry in the strainer with the towel open.”
“Isn’t that fine to know!” said Mary Frances. “Shall I go steam this?”
She held up the pink yarn.
[Illustration: “Can it be steamed?”]
“No,” replied the fairy. “That has been ripped so soon after making
that you will not have any trouble with it. Try, and see.”
[Illustration: “Place in a colander.”]
So Mary Frances started bravely to work again. When she had done the
seven rows which she had ripped out Fairly Flew said, “How well you
have done, little girl! Now, you may finish the shawl with my magic
needles.”
You can imagine, can’t you, just how pleased Mary Frances was when the
fairy’s golden diamond-headed needles finished the shawl in a minute?
[Illustration: Diamond-headed.]
All this time Crow Shay had watched with sparkling eyes everything that
happened.
Fairly Flew now turned to him and said, “You have been so very good,
Crow Shay, that you may make the fringe on this shawl.”
[Illustration: Kick the fringe.]
Mary Frances couldn’t help laughing to see the little fellow tumble
head foremost into the little shawl and kick the fringe on the ends in
less time than it would take to tell you how to do it.