The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1905-06-23
D D|R |.|:.' ! I !: COMES ] / {
BUT A FAITHFUL
FRIEND rs THIS VISITOR.
Lady Of Scissors and Styles Person
:. age Of Distinction-Man Is Super
huous Furniture, When She APP
pears-she Regards Most Elegant
~ Stuffs with Indifference-Never a
Vender of Malice, She Cleans with
Gayety and Gossip.

oAu VVSSAPs
= BY MARGARET L. SANGSTER.
Copyright, 1905, by Joseph Z. Bowles.
A function, mysterious and sacred, as
recurrent as moon or the. tides in
cal. is known to the initiated as the COM
cal is known to the initiated as the COM
ing of the dressmaker. Its rites are
treated with the deepest awe, and meyer
without proper ceremony, although
there be those who tear their hair and.
gnash their teeth when the time for Gel
ebration comes around
To the man of the house. the coming
of the dressmaker is as annoying as the
old-fashioned housekeeping. In both
cases he is made to realize his insight
ficance, is Impressed with the fact that
he is only big clumsy and laundering
man-body, and is, for once in his life,
showed aside with as little Formally as
if he were merely superfluous bit OF
furniture.
The dressmal1er, let it be understood,
is parsonage Of distinction. For weeks
before her arrival affairs have been so az
ranged as to give her an undisputed right
of way She is often engaged months in
advance and her dates are as fixed and
as carefully made as those which an
nounce visits of royalty. In her own
character she is plain Mary Jenkins or
Kitty Cassidy. In her role OF dressma-
l1er she is an autocrat, and stately danes
and fair demoiselles bow before her.
One sOlicits her in the autumn for a
week in the spring. One who is at all
forehanded engages her for the fall the
day the spring sewing is finished. Her
prices are high, but nobody disputes
them. A dressmaker who has style and
savoir-faire in the creation of feminine
toilettes may simply ask what price she
pleases.
When she is expected an air of excite
ment peryades the household.
Breakfast is earlier than usual. The
children are hurried off to school. WISH
BILE Impotence flurries the mistress, and
the maid moves about as hastily as ii
looking for an invitation to a wake
Should John choose that special MORN
ing to loiter little before going to bust
ness saying that he has to meet a man
on his way to the Office and will take a
later train, deep detection seizes his
womankind. There are times when the
best of men is stumbling block; when
one waves joyful hand at the most
adorable husband as he disappears
around the corner
Everything else yields to the urgency
of the moment when the lady OF the scis-
sors and the styles appears on the scene
Samples were sent for weeks ago, and
goods anxiously selected and purchased.
Mother and daughters have reminded
one another whenever errands have
been made TO the local shops, to bring
home needles and buttons and braids
and sewing silk and Innings and hooks
and eyes and twist. 1t would be too
dreadful to find anything lacking when
the dressmaker's time had come.
When she has taken off her hat and
jacket, and unrolled her patterns, the
artistic surveys the materials laid out for
her inspection. The shimmering silks,
the tilmy gauZes, the sheer lawns. the
Powered organizes, the lustrous mo-
hairs, the soft woods, whatever the fab
RIGS chosen may be, are spread before
her with certain PRIDE
Beautiful and costly they may be. but
the dressmaker is never enthusiastic.
She regards the most elegant stuffs with
Indifference, as BELTS one who handles
such goods daily, and to whom nothing
is sumptuOus or magnificent. She is often
naughty, and occasionally condescend-
Ing, but take her for all in ALL she is
businesslike, and who does not know
that between business and sentiment
there is divorce which cannot be ig-
nored? If she says nothing critical, you
may thank your stars; if she approves,
be certain that your horoscope was cast
in fortunate hour; if she wakes cordial
in her glance and words, fate has indeed
been kind to you.
= =
After little, the dressmaker. in the
PAsASS VI SOuAAAaAuAAS dSSlSuS 10
each member of the family her task, One
presides at the sewing machine, another
meelxly stitches according to direction,
another bastes; each does as she is told.
If three or four gowns are in process of
making at once, there is superficial con-
fusion, and there are naturally weari-
some half-hours of trying on. of hang
ing skirts and adjusting sleeves.
The latter indicate the ebb and flow of
fashions waves. One year they puff at
the shoulder, the next they flare at the
wrist. Sometimes the puff is below the
elbow. Sometimes the sleeve clings to
the arm, as the rind of an apple to the
fruit. Turn to any toilet-chronicle of
the past thousand years,-and observe
how sleeves have varied in caprice and
whim all the way along the centuries,
just as they do now. Empires crumble.
dynasties wane, battles rage, the map of
the world is changed, but sleeves main
tain their whirling dance, through all,
and the dressmaker sits as calmly on the
ton of IeaD of ruins az in tho na1aco of