The clothing of Rosa Marie had presented another distressing problem. She owned absolutely nothing in the way of a wardrobe. The single, unattractive garment she had worn on her arrival had not survived the girls' attempts to wash it. They had left it boiling on the stove, the water had cooked off and the faded gingham had cooked also.
To make up for this accident, all four of the Cottagers had contributed all they could find of their own cast-off garments; but these of course were much too large without considerable making over.
"If," said Jean, reproachfully, as she took a large tuck in the grown-up stocking that she was trying to re-model for Rosa Marie, "you'd only let me tell my mother, she'd give us every blessed thing we need. One live little Indian in the hand ought to be worth more to her than a whole dozen invisible ones on a way-off Reservation; and you know she's always doing things for them."
"Jeanie Mapes!" threatened Mabel, "if you tell her, that's the very last breath I'll ever speak to you."
"I'll be good," sighed Jean, "but I just hate not telling her. And this horrid stocking is still too long."
"Button it about her neck," giggled Marjory, who flatly declined to do any sewing for Rosa Marie. "That'll take up the slack and save making her a shirt."
"Don't bother about stockings," said Bettie, fishing a round lump from her blouse. "Here's a pair of old ones that I found in the rag bag. One's black and the other's tan; but they're exactly the right size and that's something."
"What's the use," demurred Marjory. "She won't wear them."
"If Rosa Marie were about eight shades slimmer," said Jean, "I could easily get some of Anne Halliday's dear little dresses—her mother gave my mother a lot day before yesterday for that Reservation box; but goodness! You'd have to sew two of them together sideways to get them around that child."