DAINTY HEMMER
[Illustration]
Next day Margaret ran happily home from school. She put her books, hat
and coat in the closet and then rushed up to her room to finish her
doll’s dress.
“Goody me, such dirty hands! I must go to the bathroom and give them a
good scrubbing with soap and water before I touch my work,” she said
importantly to Sir Bodkin, who sang:
“Clean white fingers,
Needles shining bright,
Will help the sewing,
To go along just right.”
“Sir Bodkin,” she said to him, when her hands were clean and dainty
again, “I hope you and the One-Eyes enjoyed your rest in the
pincushion.”
“Indeed we did, My Lady, thanks to you,” he replied as Margaret lifted
the red tomato pincushion, in which they were sticking, out of the
work-basket and placed it on her table. He then stepped on the table-top
ready to direct the hemming of the doll’s dress.
“All ready, My Lady?” he asked eager to begin.
“Yes,” replied Margaret.
“Before we begin, have you any pins, My Lady?” said Sir Bodkin.
“Only a few in my pincushion on my bureau,” replied Margaret.
“We better have plenty, because they will be needed from time to time as
we do our work,” the tiny King told her.
“Very well, I’ll ask Mother for some more,” said Margaret and went out
of the room to her mother’s sewing-room. When she came back she had a
whole paper of pins in her hand.
[Illustration]
“That’s the ticket,” said Sir Bodkin; “take some out and stick them in
the red tomato with my boys and girls.” Then he directed as follows:
“Slip the dress on your doll and mark with pins how long it should be
when finished. Then slip it off and baste along the hem edge to hold it
firm.” Then Sir Bodkin told Margaret to get out her tape measure and
measure the width of the hem from the edge of the dress to the top of
the hem to be sure it was even all around.
“Trim off with your scissors where it is too deep,” Sir Bodkin said, and
Margaret followed his directions.
[Illustration]
“Now turn in the hem top one-quarter inch and crease it with your nail
or pleat it with your fingers, then baste it to the dress,” the King
said and with hop, skip, and jump that jolly fellow Baster did his work.
Sir Bodkin then called Hemmer, a dainty little One-Eyed Fairy. Margaret
was about to harness her with the same thread she had used for Runner
but it wouldn’t go into her eye.
[Illustration: “Mark with pins how long it should be when finished”]
“It’s not the proper number,” said Sir Bodkin. Margaret tried some finer
thread, number 80.
“That’s better,” she said as it slipped easily through Hemmer’s little
eye.
After taking two back steps on the edge of the hem to fasten the thread,
Hemmer began to step daintily along, singing:
“First through the dress,
Then through the hem,
And now we do it all over again.
Stitches must not on the right side show,
So put me through lightly as onward we go.”
[Illustration: Hemming]
“I love hemming!” cried Margaret as Hemmer slipped through the dress and
then through the hem edge with Margaret’s little pink thumb and
forefinger holding her, and her silver thimble on her middle-finger
pushing her. Margaret’s left hand was holding the hem.
“Goody me, it’s all sewed!” cried Margaret when the thread was fastened
at the end and snipped off with the scissors.
“Now turn over the tiny hems one-eighth inch on the wrong side around
the neck and sleeves and down the slit in the back and crease them,”
ordered Sir Bodkin. “Then turn one-quarter inch over all around again
for width of the hems. Press them flat as you go along,” said the King.
Margaret did this, creasing one turn then the other.
“Come, Baster!” called Sir Bodkin and soon he had all these tiny hems
basted along their tops so Hemmer could come after him and finish them
with her dainty steps.
When all the hems were finished and threads fastened, Sir Bodkin cried,
“Pull out your bastings and be careful when you do it!”
Margaret laughed to herself to hear him order her around.
[Illustration]
“How shall I fasten the dress on my doll?” she then asked.
“Suppose you trim it first, then we’ll decide,” said the King. “How
would you like some kind of bright-colored hand-stitching around neck
and sleeves?”
“Oh, that would be lovely!” cried his little mistress, “but I’ll have to
do that another day for I want to run out and play a while in the yard
now.”
Sir Bodkin and all the One-Eyed Fairy Stitchers sat up very stiff and
straight in the red tomato pincushion as Margaret picked it up and put
it in her work-basket.
“Thank you all so much,” she said to them. On her way out to play she
showed her mother how much she and the One-Eyes had done on her doll’s
dress.
“To-morrow we’ll trim it and put on the fastenings,” she said happily.
[Illustration]