Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1904-03-04
CHAPTER Nv.

CHAPTER Nv.
From the back yard of more than
one New Salem home, where soap-mak-
ing and gardening were going forward,
azure smoke rose over pink Goals OF
wood and old vines. The whole worlo
was getting ready to be new. AIMS
Cwn winter linsey was laid aside. She
wore something which made her look
like blossom to the eyes of the boy.
Antywine gave her the parcel and
stood abashed while it was unrolled,
revealing yards of dark red and yellow
calico, the colors alternating in tiny
decks which globed themselves to
pomegranates. Ann had noticed it in
the store as most daring attempt in
cotton printing. Some balls of thread
fell out and Antywine picked them
up.
TITS for Peggy. isn't it,"
"Yes, mam'selle.
did you buy it yourself. Anty-
wine?"
Il have some money that make in
Belleville," he apologized. "Shick-
some tas'e in clothes for young girls.
You, mam'selle, have that tas'e."
eff you think 1 really have, Anty-
wine, you must let me help Peggy
make this dress.''
"Oh, mam'selle! It is what would
ask, but dare mott"
Il would love to do it, and Peggy
will be so glad to have a new Dress
Peggy was glad when Ann waylaid
her in the evening. Her face quivered
and she said, "Goody!" She talked
the great event quite out with Anty-
wine, standing beside their cabin, be-
cause they seldom spoke to each other
in the presence of Shickshack's wife.
Then tire was the JOY Of going to the
tavern and learning neat stitches while
Ann cut and basted and fitted. The
slow process of hand sewing went on
a part of every day, as the two girls
had time, until Peggy, by accident of
Antywine's choice, stood at last un-
consciously arrayed in the cOlors OF
Spain. The garment was gathered to
her slim figure under the bust, whence
escaping fullness hung as low as her
ankles. This short-waisted look, and
the gorgeous setting of colors for her
pale olive skin, and her hair cut in
the fashion of the middle ages,
suddenly developed in her charm.
People noticed her, and said that she
was not exactly growing pretty, but
there was something to her. The con-
fidence of knowing how to do things
appeared in her face. For, having be-
gun with the needle, Ann Rutledge
went on to knitting and spinning.
Ann had pretty clothes, for her father
never rode to Springfield without
bringing her a gift, and her mother
even indulged her with cashmere
pelisse modelled after one worn by the
Doctors wife, who came a bride to
New Salem. Viane saw with some re-
sentiment her elder sister take things
which had usually fallen to her and
cut them over for the Indians adopted
daughter. Thus Peggy became trans
formed in every garment except her
moccasins. To these heelless, quill
embroidered shoes she clung with the
instinct of wilderness lover. They
were light and soft and small, hamper
ing her no more than her own muscles.
Antywine made them for her when he
made his own. In return she knitted
wooden stockings to keep him and her
foster father warm in winter.
When Peggy first learned to knit
she pulled the yarn so tight that the
stocking leg stood above the needles
as stiff as a board triangle and had
to be raveled and done over.
You're not building stake-and-
ridered fences for your men folks, -
laughed Ann.
Shickshack's wife gave Peggy many
tasks to do, but in house where there
was no home-making, strewn with the
appointments of a dirty camp, the
tasks were sordid and often useless.
Sally let pots and kettles litter the
hearth, her cob pipe dropped ashes
into a dinner hanging on the crane;
joists were grimy, and dust stood thick
on the pewter she got with her first
husband and was too stingy to use.
But her splint-bottomed chairs had to
be secured with soap and sand every
week. and she made the lame girl, in
dael..n - eGS, creep inch by l1cL over