“Why yes, if she goes to a public school. She learns it, or she may. I think perhaps she might shirk a good deal. But if the teacher sees you are interested, and you do as well as you can, she helps you on. I know a great many girls who have made dresses for their friends. And I know there are girls who went directly to dress-makers from schools, and earned good wages at once. Some girls, you know, have a gift for cutting and fitting.”
II.
It must be confessed that Aunt Fanny went down stairs a little relieved in mind after this talk with Belle. Here was one, at least, of her little charges, who would be worth her weight in the new home to which they were to be transferred. As the boys came in from school, she had another such lesson. She asked Nahum who would be a good man to whom to send her trunk, which needed some repair. The boy gave her his views, and then asked what she wanted to have done. Aunt Fanny explained that in coming on she had, wisely or not, left the dress tray of her trunk at home. In going back she was sure she would need a tray, and she must have a new one made.
“Is that all?” said Nahum. “I should never send to Sage’s for that.”
“What would you do?” asked Aunt Fanny.
“I should make the tray myself,” said Nahum, quite unconsciously. “When Belle made her famous visit to Swampscott, she found that that trunk she has now would not take in some dandy-jack hat she wanted to carry. And I made a new tray for her.” So he brought his aunt to the “trunk closet,” dragged out Belle’s trunk, and showed her a neat tray, made of white-wood, and very perfectly fitted. “Is that good enough?” asked the boy.
Of course it was good enough, and Aunt Fanny explained that she had not known that Nahum was fond of tools.
“Oh, I might have been as fond of tools as of candy,” said Nahum. “But that would not have come out for much. I learned to handle tools at school.”
“School!” said Aunt Fanny.