Moses stood up and was measured; and five dollars went into the cash drawer of the Hamlin Department Store, while the two girls, laden with their purchases, steered their young charges toward home.
Grandmother produced goods enough to make Moses a blouse of brown striped shirting and each of the little girls a print dress. She also found some old petticoats, yellowed with age, but daintily made, and some waists with which they could be worn, complete to the very last button.
"So far, so good," Peggy said, "but we've got to hustle to get this family covered before five o'clock to-morrow night. Moses' shirt is going to be the worst. The dresses we can mostly make on the sewing machine. You play around here in the yard all day to-morrow, children, so we can try on the things whenever we need you."
They started with their dressmaking bright and early the next morning.
Moses' shirt went very well, for after it was cut and basted, Grandmother offered to do all the necessary finishing, but Madget's dress kept both the girls busy almost all the rest of the day. It was a very effective garment, despite the fact that the seams were not finished. The hem was done beautifully by hand, the little sleeves were lace trimmed, and the pink chambray of which the dress was made hung in graceful folds about the small figure. Madget's toilet was very successful, but as for Mabel, ill luck seemed to blight her costume from the very start. One side of the dress was cut shorter than the other, both sleeves turned out to be for one arm, and there was no more material to cut another, and to add dismay to discomfiture, Elizabeth spilt a whole bottle of ink over the front breadth just as she was getting it ready for the machine.
"I don't know what we are going to do," Peggy cried. "It's nearly four o'clock. We've just about got time to wash and dress them and get them started."
Grandmother appeared at this juncture with a little white, frilly garment in her hands.
"Here's an apron that would just about fit the oldest girl," she said. "I know it ain't the style to wear aprons, and this would cover all her new dress up, but I found it, and I just thought I'd show it to you."
Elizabeth looked at it speculatively.
"She could wear that for a dress," she cried. "We could just sew in lace at the armholes, and nobody would ever know."