EDINA GETS HER HAIR CUT
Edina Tooker’s hair, released from the hard knot into which she had
bound it at the back of her head, proved to be luxuriant and soft to
the touch. The barber, a dark-skinned, effusive little fellow, was
charmed with the color and texture.
“It is a long day since I have seen such a head of hair. And now it
must be cut off, shorn like the wool of a sheep. Eh, well, it is the
fashion. These ladies,” with a twinkling glance at Billie, “must be in
the fashion or die, is it not?”
The barber took up a pair of gleaming shears. Edina’s eyes met Billie’s
in an agonized look of appeal.
Billie smiled reassuringly, but remained adamant.
“She is the boyish type, don’t you think?” she said, cajoling the
barber. “It seems to me her hair would look nice short, quite short,
and maybe tucked behind the ear on the left side.”
“Leave it to me,” returned the little dark man with a flourish of the
shears. “I will make her ravissant. So she will not know herself. Now
then! Attend!”
At the first rip of the shears through her heavy tresses, Edina shrank
deep into her seat and shut her eyes tight. She did not open them again
until the barber announced in a pleased tone that all was finished.
“Will you please to look at yourself in the mirror, Miss?”
Edina looked, batted her eyes and looked again.
“It ain’t so bad,” was her final pronouncement. “But it ain’t me!”
Billie thought the haircut a triumph of art. It was cut short in the
back, fitting Edina’s admirably shaped head like a soft black cap. In
the front it was longer, but not too long, falling back from the girl’s
broad forehead like the sweep of a raven’s wing.
Billie reached forward and tucked a lock of ebony hair behind a shapely
ear.
“You have nice ears and you should show them. Ears are an asset these
days, if they are not positively deformed. Pay the man now, Edina, and
let’s go on about our business.”
The barber bowed them out with Latin gallantry--they being the only
customers in his shop at the time--and Billie led her protégé to one of
Fleetsburg’s best department stores.
There they entered into an orgy of buying.
Edina, bewildered, silent, left it to Billie to do all the work, merely
signifying by a nod of the head when appealed to that everything was
proceeding to her satisfaction.
“Something for yourself, Miss?” the saleswoman asked Billie, with a
hopeful smile. “I have some sweet little new fall models that will
exactly suit your type.”
Billie smiled and shook her head.
“I’m not doing a scrap of buying for myself to-day. Everything must be
for the young lady,” indicating the tongue-tied Edina. “And we want
everything, from undies to hats.”
The saleswoman glanced dubiously at the dowdy figure of the girl from
Oklahoma.
“Everything must be simple, but smart,” Billie continued. “A complete
ensemble first of all, if you please--dress, coat, hat. We will pick
out the shoes and stockings later.”
The saleswoman’s deference returned. Here was a young person who knew
what she wanted, even though her companion did look like some one’s
poverty-stricken cousin.
“This way, please!” said she.
The next moment Edina found herself in a tiny cubicle just large
enough to admit her and Billie, a chair or two, a tiny table and the
saleswoman.
The saleswoman, en route, had picked up two frocks and a coat of soft,
rich-looking material.
“Take off your things, Edina,” directed Billie, beginning to enjoy
herself thoroughly. “This coat is adorable. I’d love it myself. What
are you waiting for?” as Edina continued to regard her in a dazed way
and made no motion to remove her dowdy cloak.
“You don’t mean I’ve got to--to undress here--before a stranger?”
stammered Edina and flushed crimson at the saleswoman’s momentary and
involuntary giggle.
Billie ached to echo the giggle but she only said gravely:
“Only to your slip, Edina. And we’re all girls together. What
difference can it make?”
As at the moment before they entered the barber shop, Billie had the
impression that Edina was about to balk. She favored her protégé with a
severe look and waggled a finger beneath Edina’s decided nose.
“You do as I say, young lady, or back we go to Three Towers with only a
haircut to show for our pains.”
Edina hesitated, glanced appealingly at a ruthless Billie--and
capitulated.
Off came the heavy coat. After considerable unhooking and unbuttoning,
off came the heavy dress as well. Beneath the dress, Edina wore, not a
slip, but a starched, old-fashioned petticoat!
Billie could not surpass an exclamation of dismay.
“Edina, you don’t mean to say you wear _those_ things!”
Instantly she regretted her tactless speech. Edina’s crimsoned face
grew redder. She bit her lip and turned away and Billie caught the
gleam of tears in her eyes.
“Maw fixed ’em for me. She thought they was grand. I’m sorry if you
think they are somethin’ to--laugh at.”
Instantly Billie’s contrite arm was about the girl’s shoulders.
“Dear Edina, I wasn’t laughing, truly, and I’m dreadfully sorry for
being so rude. It’s only that a slinky, soft silk slip sets off your
dresses so much better than a petticoat. Dresses are slinky these days
too, you know. Still, if you prefer the petticoat----”
“I don’t!” Edina had fought a battle with herself and was willing to
acknowledge defeat. “Maw would want me to have what was right. She
wasn’t sure herself about the petticoats. You go ahead and tell me what
to get. I’ll do as you say about everything.”
“Good girl! Then the first thing for you to do is take off that
petticoat.”
After a short, inward struggle, Edina obeyed and stood before the
amused saleswoman and an interested Billie in a chemise and a pair of
ruffled knickers. Billie was glad to see that, relieved of the greater
part of her starched and bulky wearing apparel, Edina was slim. The
saleswoman, too, was astonished.
“I brought you size eighteen and I guess you don’t take any more than a
sixteen,” said she. “Well, we can try these on anyway, and see how you
like the style.”
Over Edina’s dark, sleek head, the saleswoman slipped a one-piece
sports frock, beige in color and elaborately simple in design.
It was too big for the girl, but one glance was sufficient to assure
both Billie and the saleswoman that color and design were just right.
“I’ll get her size in that,” said the saleswoman to Billie, and
disappeared.
Edina turned this way and that before the long mirror. She glanced
appealingly at Billie.
“It looks grand--but it ain’t me. Seems like I got to live with a
stranger before I git used to myself.”
“A mighty nice stranger, though. In that get-up, you’re stunning,
Edina--no other word to describe you.”
Edina’s pleasure in the praise was almost pathetic.
“You really think I look nice?”
“Stunning was the word I used,” cried Billie gaily. “And wait till you
see the rest of the things we are going to get for you, Edina Tooker.
Why, you don’t know the half of it!”
Before Edina could think of a reply to this cheerful prophecy, the
saleslady returned. Over her arm were half a dozen frocks, size
sixteen, two adorable coats and a shower of soft satin, lace-trimmed
underwear.
Edina gave a little gasp and, like any other normal girl with a love
for “pretties,” seized a handful of the shimmering things and buried
her face in them. When she looked up again, Billie knew that she had
won her victory. The subtle magic, the touch of those lovely things,
had accomplished more than all her arguments and pleading. From the
moment, Edina was all girl, reveling in girlish things.
“I never knew just underclothes could be so purty,” she murmured,
reluctantly relinquishing the armful of loveliness. “I’d ruther have
them than all the coats and dresses.”
Billie laughed delightedly.
“I know how you feel. But, unfortunately, the dresses are a necessity.
Now,” with a little wriggle of sheer delight, “let’s get on with the
fitting.”
The magic of those silken underthings had done their subtle work. Edina
warmed to the spirit of the occasion. As Billie watched her try on
dress after dress it seemed to her that Edina’s very look softened; her
nose became less dominant, her square chin less aggressive. In her eyes
was a bemused, dreaming, feminine look that Billie had never seen in
them before.
Billie thought of a phrase Amanda Peabody was fond of using. Edina had
become “clothes-conscious.”
After an hour of sheer enjoyment, Edina threw an appealing glance
toward Billie.
“They’re all so purty,” she breathed, “I don’t hardly know which to
take.”
Billie chuckled.
“That’s easy! Why not take them all?”
The saleswoman threw Billie a startled glance, that at once gave place
to eager hopefulness. Edina’s glance was also startled--and hopeful.
“Dare I?” she breathed. “I never had so many clothes in all my life
before!”
“That’s why you need them now,” said Billie cheerfully. “It gives a
girl no end of confidence to have a complete wardrobe. And I’d add a
party dress, or two, if I were you. We have school hops in the gym, you
know, and once in a while the boys at Boxton give a dance. Yes, you
will need at least two party frocks.”
Edina had surrendered completely to Billie’s guidance. She did not
protest when the saleswoman--voluble now, and almost oppressively
anxious to please--disappeared and a moment or two later reappeared
with a mass of color and fluff over her arm.
Billie gave the frocks one glance and waved them aside.
“Something plainer,” she said to the saleswoman, disregarding Edina’s
protests. “Something that depends entirely on color and line for its
effect. We can’t have Edina here swamped with fluffy ruffles and bead
embroidery. It isn’t her type.”
“But I liked them,” Edina protested, when the saleswoman had retreated
uncomplainingly with her burden of fluff. “They were purty--almost as
purty----”
“Pretty,” corrected Billie.
“Pretty,” Edina accepted the correction docilely, “as the undies.”
“Pretty--but not for you,” said Billie decidedly. “Trust me, Edina. I
am going to make you a personage at Three Towers Hall.”
Billie’s enthusiasm was difficult to resist. Edina did not try to
resist it. She permitted herself to be swept along by the new and
entirely blissful experience of being able to buy all the lovely things
she wanted at one time. The long-starved, demanding girlhood in Edina
was finding expression.
The saleswoman returned with an entirely different collection of
evening frocks which the critical Billie was good enough to approve.
“The coral one would look gorgeous on you Edina and the yellow taffeta.
Try them.”
Edina obeyed and was captivated. She insisted that she would take both
the frocks of Billie’s choice but remained adamant in her intention to
try on nothing more.
“If I try ’em on, I’ll buy them,” she said, showing a grain of the good
horse sense she had undoubtedly inherited from “Paw.” “I’ve got more
now than I could wear out in a lifetime of trying--unless I was twins.”
Billie gave in with a sigh and a giggle.
“We’ve got to get hats and shoes and stockings, anyway,” she mused.
“Suppose we’ve got to stop somewhere.”
The saleswoman, feeling that this was her lucky day, offered a bright
suggestion.
“I can have hats sent up here to match the frocks----”
“One hat!” corrected Edina, putting down her foot. “I can’t wear more’n
one at a time, and that’s all I want.”
Billie conceded this point, having won so much.
“You might send up a few small shapes in beige or brown to match the
coat,” she said to the saleswoman. “Then I guess,” with a hurried
glance at her wrist watch, “that will be all!”
From the hats that found their way promptly from the millinery
department to the tiny cubicle wherein Billie sat in judgment they
selected one small, helmet-like chapeau that fitted Edina’s head snugly
and showed only one tantalizing lock of raven-black hair.
“Looks like I was scalped,” was Edina’s comment. “But if you say it’s
all right, that goes with me. Now,” with a nervous glance about her at
the extravagant numbers of her purchases, “what would you say I’d best
wear back to Three Towers Hall?”
“The beige frock, the one you tried on first,” said Billie, without
the slightest hesitation. “Then that adorable brown coat with the fox
collar and cuffs and the beige hat. Downstairs we’ll get you shoes and
hose and gloves to complete the outfit. Good gracious!” Billie glanced
at her wrist watch again and jumped to her feet with a look of alarm.
“It’s past the time I promised to meet Miss Arbuckle and the girls. You
stay here, Edina, and climb into that outfit. I’ll be back in less than
two shakes!”