“Then we’ll rip them up, dye them together, and make a good dress of them that will last you as long as you need to wear black. Give me that piece of blue ribbon; it will do to go around your hat when it’s dyed. There now! I don’t see but you’re all fixed up, or will be when we get everything ready.”
Ellen was quite overcome by these suggestions of her exceedingly resourceful cousin. “You’re a perfect wonder, Cousin Rindy,” she said.
“Well, I never was placed in the bric-à-brac class, pretty but useless, and I hope you’ll not be.”
“I’ll never be the first,” returned Ellen with a smile, “and I don’t want to be the second.”
“It’s up to you,” returned Miss Rindy. “We’ll start on these things to-morrow, Ellen. If it should suddenly turn cold, you’ll need the coat and hat. Those stockings you have on are disgracefully faded, such a dirty green as they are. Haven’t you any other black ones?”
“I have a couple of pairs, but they are soiled and need mending.”
“Then get them out. Here, pile all those things on one chair. Don’t leave them scattered around till your room looks like a second-hand clothing shop. First thing to do is to wash out those stockings, and, while they are drying, you can run down to the drug store and get the dye. This evening the stockings will be dry and you can darn them. If you are to start to school on Monday, your wardrobe must be in some sort of shape.”
Under her cousin’s directions Ellen soon had the stockings washed and hung out; then she started forth to get the dye. “But, you know, I haven’t an idea where the store is,” she remarked as she paused at the door.
“You can’t miss it or anything else in this place,” Miss Rindy answered. “Just follow your nose and it will take you anywhere you want. Walk straight down the street till you come to the church, the white one, not the gray. It is just opposite the store, and the store is opposite the church; it’s the post-office, too. You can’t miss it. Now, run along.”
Ellen started off to make her first venture into the one long street of the drowsy old town. It was early November, and a mat of red and gold leaves covered the boardwalk, for the street was not paved. Houses, set rather far apart, stood each side the street. Most had gardens in front where a few late chrysanthemums and scarlet salvia brightened the borders. Some more thrifty households had vegetable plats in which long, dry blades rustled from shorn cornstalks, and purple cabbages squatted in rows farther along. The air was full of the tang of fallen leaves, of apples, wind-fallen, rotting on the ground. Once in a while, from some kitchen where pickling was going on, spicy odors were borne.