IN THE SMITH ATTIC
"GRANDFATHER EMERSON wants to give the Club a present," cried Ethel
Brown as the last arrivals, the Hancocks, came up the stairs and entered
the attic of Dorothy's house on Saturday afternoon.
The large room was half the width of the whole cottage and, with its low
windows and sloping roof had a quaint appearance that was increased by
its furnishing of tables and seats made from boxes covered with gay bits
of chintz. Dorothy had not neglected her work for the orphans but she
had found time to fit up the meeting place of the U. S. C. so that its
members might not have to gather in bare surroundings. The afternoon sun
shone brightly in through simple curtains of white cheesecloth, the
sewing machine awaited Helen beside a window with a clear north light,
and Roger's jig-saw was in a favorable position in a corner. Each one
who came up the stairs gave an "Oh" of pleasure as the door opened upon
this comfortable, cheerful room where there was nothing too good to be
used and nothing too bad to have entrance to the society of
beauty-loving folk. "What did your grandfather give us?" asked Margaret.
"Grandfather has been awfully interested in the Club from the very
beginning, you know. The other day he asked if we wouldn't like to have
him give us club pins with our emblem on them."
"How perfectly dear of him!" ejaculated Delia.
"Don't let your hopes rise too high. I said it would be simply fine to
have little forget-me-not pins like those we talked about at our very
first meeting in the ravine at Chautauqua--do you remember?"
"Blue enamel," murmured Dorothy.
"He said he wanted us to have them, and that it was a lovely symbol and
so on, and he'd seen some ducks of pins in New York that were just what
we'd like, and some single flower ones for the boys--"
"Um. This suspense is wearing on me," remarked Roger.
"We talked it over and the way it came out was that Grandfather said
that perhaps he'd better give us now the money the pins would cost and
keep his present for later."
No one could resist a groan.
"He won't forget it. Grandfather never forgets to do what he promises.
We'll get them some time or other. But I had a feeling that we'd like
them later better even than now because we'd feel then that we'd really
earned them after the Club had done something worth while, you know."
"I suppose we will," sighed Della, "but they do sound good to me."
"He was bound that we should have the forget-me-not in some form or
other," went on Ethel Brown, "and he's sent us a rubber stamp with 'U.
S. C.' on it and a forget-me-not at each end of the initials. There's an
indelible pad that goes with it and we are to stamp everything we send
out on some part where it won't be too conspicuous."
"It will be like signing a letter to the child the present goes to,"
said Dorothy.
"Isn't he a darling!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "I love him as much as if he
were my own grandfather."
"He turned the money right over into my hand," continued Ethel
Brown--"the money he didn't spend for the pins, I mean. It's fifteen
dollars. What shall I do with it?"
"Pay for the yarn you bought for the women in the Old Ladies' Home to
knit with," said Helen promptly.
"'"The time has come," the walrus said,'" quoted Tom, "when we must have
a treasurer. It was all very well talking about not needing one when we
didn't have a cent of money, but now we are on the way toward being
multis and we can't get on any longer without some one to look after
it."
"Let's make Tom treasurer and then he can fuss over the old accounts
himself," suggested Roger.
Roger's loathing for keeping accounts was so well known that every one
laughed.
"Not I," objected Tom. "I'm not at all the right one. It ought to be one
of you people who live out here where we're going to do our work. You'll
have hurry calls for cash very often and it would be a nuisance to have
to wait a day to write or phone me. No, sir, Roger's the feller for that
job."
"No, Roger isn't," persisted that young man disgustedly. "I buck, I
kick, I remonstrate, I protest, I refuse."
"Here, here," called Ethel Blue. "Who said you could have James's
vocabulary?"
"Well, James, then," said Tom. "It doesn't make much difference who it
is as long as he lives in these precincts and not as far away as I do.
Madam President, I nominate Mr. Hancock for treasurer of the United
Service Club."
"You hear the nomination," responded Helen. "Is it seconded?"
"I second it with both hands and an equal number of feet," replied Roger
enthusiastically.
"Now is the opportunity for a discussion of the merits of the
candidate," observed Helen drily.
"There are many things that might be said," rejoined Dorothy, "but
because it would probably embarrass him--"
"Oh, say!" came from James. "Are they as bad as that?"
"As I was remarking when I was interrupted," continued Dorothy severely,
"because it might make the candidate feel queer if he were to hear all
the compliments we should pay him, I think we won't say anything."
"I'll trust old Roger not to pay compliments," responded James.
"Old Roger is in such a good humor because this job is being worked off
on to your shoulders instead of his that he might utter some
blandishments that would surprise you."
"I wouldn't risk it!"
"Are you ready to vote?" asked Helen.
"We are," came ringing back, and the resulting ballot placed James in
the treasurership, the only dissenting vote being his own. His first
official act after the money was put into his hands was to give it back
to Ethel Brown in part repayment of the sum which her mother had
advanced for the yarn for the Old Ladies' Home.
"Here's another bundle," announced Mrs. Smith, appearing with a large
parcel as the Club members were looking over the collection that had
come in. All the contributions were piled in a corner, and already they
made a considerable mound.
"Roger will have to apply some of his scientific management ideas to
that mass of stuff," laughed Mrs. Smith.
"I wish we could spread them out so that we could get an idea of what is
which."
"Couldn't we boys make some sort of rack divided into cubes or even
knock together a set of plain shelves? That would lift them off the
floor."
"I wish you would," said Helen. "Then we ought to put a tag on each
bundle telling who sent it and what is in it."
"And what we think can be done with it, if it isn't in condition to send
off just as it is," added Ethel Brown.
"I believe I saw some planks in the cellar that would make sufficiently
good shelves for what you need," said Mrs. Smith. "Suppose you boys go
down stairs with me and take a look at them while the girls are making
out the tags."
So the boys trooped after their hostess while Ethel Brown unscrewed the
cap of her fountain pen and wrote on the tags that Dorothy cut out of
cardboard, and Ethel Blue fitted them with strings, so that they might
be tied on to the parcels.
"These dresses and coats came from Mrs. Ames," said Helen. "They
belonged to her daughter who died, and they're all right for a child of
ten, so we'll just mark the bundle, 'From Mrs. Ames,' and 'O.K.,' and
put it away."
"There's an empty packing box over in that corner," said Dorothy.
"Wouldn't it be a good scheme to put the bundles we shan't have to alter
at all, right into it?"
"Great. Then we shan't have to touch them again until the time comes to
tie them up in fancy paper to make them look Christmassy."
"Here's the dress Mrs. Lancaster couldn't decide whether to have made
over with black silk or blue velvet."
"Mrs. Lancaster," murmured Ethel Brown, making out her card.
"That certainly can't go as it is," pronounced Della.
"There's material enough in it for two children's dresses," decided
Margaret. "Mark it, 'Will make two dresses.'"
"Here's Maud Delano's jacket. She told Roger she'd send this over when
she got her new one."
"It came this morning. It's all right except for tightening a button or
two," and Ethel Brown inscribed, "Coat; tighten buttons" on the slip
which Della tied on to one of the incompetent fasteners.
"Good for Mrs. Warburton!" cried Helen.
"What's she done?"
"Here's a great roll of pink flannelette--and blue, too--among her
things. We can make dresses and wrappers and sacques and petticoats out
of that."
"It always seems just as warm as woolen stuff to me," said Dorothy. "Of
course it can't be."
"Cotton is never so warm as wool, but if it's warm enough why ask for
anything different. What's in your mind?" inquired Margaret.
"I was wondering if we couldn't do something to forward the cotton
crusade at the same time that we're helping the war orphans."
"You mean by making things out of cotton materials?"
"Yes. The orphans will want the warmest sort of clothing for winter, I
suppose, but spring is coming after winter and summer after that, and I
don't believe anything we send is going to be wasted."
"They might wear two cotton garments one over the other," suggested
Della.
"I don't say that we'd better make all our clothes out of cotton
material, but where it doesn't make any especial difference I don't see
why we shouldn't choose cotton stuff. After all, it's the war that has
spoiled the cotton trade so we're still working for war sufferers only
they'll be on this side of the Atlantic. You know they say the southern
cotton planters are having a serious time of it because they aren't
selling any cotton to speak of in Europe."
"Let's do it!" cried Ethel Blue and she told their decision to James who
had come up to measure the attic doorway for some reason connected with
the planks they had found.
"It's a great idea. Bully for Dorothy," he cried working away with a
footrule. "This will go all right," he decided, and ran down again to
give a lift to the other carpenters.
There were eight planks each about six feet long that Mrs. Smith had
discovered in the cellar. A telephone to Mrs. Warburton had gained her
consent to their use and the boys set about fitting them together as
soon as they were on the top floor. Fortunately they were already planed
and of so good a length for the purpose they were to be used for that
nothing was needed but hammer and nails to produce a set of shelves
quite adequate for the purpose. Two of the boards made the sides, and
between them the remaining six were nailed at intervals.
"We can set it against the wall over here," decided Tom, "and it won't
need a back."
"Which is lucky," James declared, "cos there ain't no planks to make a
back of."
"Let's nail a block of wood or a triangle of wood under the bottom shelf
in the corners," advised Roger, "so the animal won't wobble."
"If we had enough wood and a saw we could make nice cubby-holes, one for
each bundle," remarked Tom, his head on one side.
"Tom's getting enthusiastic over carpentering. We haven't either any
more wood or a saw, old man, so there won't be any cubby-holes this
time," decreed Roger.
"It will do perfectly well this way," said Helen. "Now if you'll help us
up with these bundles--"
It was a presentable beginning for their collection. Two parcels in
addition to Mrs. Ames's had gone into the packing case in the corner,
but three shelves of the new set were filled with tight rolls, each with
its tag forward so that no time would be lost in examining the contents,
again.
"That's what I call a good beginning," announced Helen after the boys
had swept up their shavings and had taken them and their hammers and the
remaining nails down stairs.
"What next, Madam President?" inquired James when they returned. The
girls were already spreading out the pink and blue flannelette on a
plank table that had been left in the attic by the carpenters who had
built the house.
"We are going to cut some little wrappers out of this material. I think
you boys had better fix up some sort of table over on that side of the
room and get your pasting equipment ready, for we'll need oodles of
boxes of all sizes and you might as well begin right off to make them."
"Right-o," agreed Roger. "Methinks I saw an aged table top minus legs
leaning against the wall in the cellar. Couldn't we anchor it on to this
wall with a couple of hinges and then its two legs will be a good enough
prop?"
"If they're both on the same side."
"It seems to me they are."
"Any superfluous hinges around the house, Dorothy?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Never mind, I'll get a pair when I go after the pasteboard and the
flour for the paste and a bowl for a pastepot, and a--no, _three_
brushes for us three boys to smear the paste with and some coarse cotton
cloth for binders."
"Don't forget the oil of cloves to keep your paste from turning sour,"
Dorothy cried after them.
"And mind you boil it thoroughly," said Margaret.
The boys started again towards the cellar when Roger's eye happened to
fall on the cutting operations of the girls.
"Pshaw!" he cried in scorn. "You are time-wasters! Why don't you cut out
several garments at once and not have to go through all that spreading
out and pinning down process every time? I saw a tailor the other day
cutting a pile of trousers two feet high."
"What with, I should like to know?" inquired Della mystified.
"He did have a knife run by electricity," admitted Roger, "but there's
no reason why you can't cut four or five of those things just as easily
as one."
"We'll go on down and get the table top," said James, and he and Tom
departed.
"Now, then, watch your Uncle Roger. Is this tissue paper affair your
pattern? All you need to do is to fasten your cloth tightly down on to
your table four thicknesses instead of one. Thumb tacks, Dorothy? Good
child! Now lay your pattern on it--yes, thumb-tack it down if you want
to--and go ahead. You've got new, sharp shears. Don't be in a hurry.
There you are--and you've saved yourself the fuss of doing that three
times more."
[Illustration: Pattern for Wrapper
e c e = twice the length from floor to neck
a b = slit
Fold cloth on line c b d
Sew together sides f to e
Insert sleeves c to f]
"Roger really has a lot of sense at times," admitted Ethel Brown, after
her brother had leaped down the attic stairs in pursuit of the boys.
"He is good about helping," added Della.
"What is this garment--a wrapper?" asked Margaret as Helen held up the
soft flannelette.
"Yes, it's the simplest ever, and we can adapt one pattern to children
of all sizes or to grown people," explained Helen.
"I never heard of anything so convenient!"
"First, you measure the child from the floor to his neck--I measured
this on Dicky. Then you cut a piece of material twice that length. That
is, if the kiddy is thirty inches from the floor to the chin you cut
your flannelette sixty inches long."
[Illustration: Wrapper Completed]
"Exactly. Then cut a lengthwise slit thirty inches long. Then fold the
whole thing in halves across the width of the cloth and sew up the sides
to within four and a half inches of the top and you have a wrapper all
but the sleeves."
"How do you make those?"
"It takes half a yard for a grown person--a quarter of a yard for a
youngster. Cut the width in halves and double it and sew it straight
into the holes you've left at the tops."
"Will that be the right length?"
"You can shorten it if you like or lengthen it by a band. You finish the
slit up the front by putting on a band of some different color. It looks
pretty on the ends of the sleeves, too. We can use blue on this pink and
pink on the blue."
"It's easy enough, isn't it? I think I'll make myself one when we get
through with the Ship."
"All you need to know is the length from the person's chin to the floor
and you can make it do for anybody. And all you need to do to make a
short sacque is to know the length from the person's chin to his waist.
I have a notion we'll have some wee bits left that we can make into
cunning little jackets for babies."
"I don't see why this pattern wouldn't do for an outdoor coat if you
made it of thicker cloth--eider-down, for instance."
"It would. Gather the ends of the sleeves about an inch down so as to
make a ruffle, and put frogs or buttons and loops on the front and there
you have it!"
"Did you bring a petticoat pattern, Margaret?" asked Ethel Blue.
"Haven't you seen the pictures of European peasant women and little
girls with awfully full skirts? I believe they'd like them if we just
cut two widths of the same length, hemmed them at the bottom, and ran a
draw-string in the top. We can feather-stitch the top of the hem if we
want to make it look pretty, or we can cut it a little longer and run
one or two tucks."
"Or we might buttonhole a scallop around the edge instead of hemming
it," suggested Ethel Brown.
"You know I believe in doing one thing well," said Dorothy. "How would
it do if we Club girls made just coats and wrappers and sacques from
that pattern of Helen's, and petticoats? We can make them of all sorts
of colors and a variety of materials and we can trim them differently.
We'd be making some mighty pretty ones before we got through."
"I don't see why not," agreed Margaret thoughtfully. "Let's do it."
"I brought the Red Cross knitting directions," said Delia. "I didn't get
them till this morning."
"Grandmother will be delighted with those. She's going to take them to
the Old Ladies' Home and start them all to work there."
"Are you sure they'll knit for the children?"
"She's going to ask them to knit for the children now, with
bright-colored yarns. Afterwards they can knit for the soldiers, and
then they must use dark blue or grey or khaki color--not even a stripe
that will make any poor fellow conspicuous."
As they finished reading the instructions they heard the boys tramping
upstairs with their paraphernalia.
"It looks to me, Dorothy," said Tom, "as if you had us on your hands for
most of these club meetings, to do our work here. Are you sure Mrs.
Smith doesn't mind?"
"Mother is delighted," Dorothy reassured him. "And she wants you all to
come down and have some chocolate."