The next day they washed the shirt.
The ceremony was performed in the kitchen after they had finished doing the breakfast dishes. Ophelia, after water for a vase of roses, came into the room while Skinny was rinsing the shirt in the large tin dishpan.
The garment was a sickly yellow.
"Darned if I know what's wrong with it," Skinny said, a trifle discouraged, while Carolyn June, her sleeves rolled above dimpled elbows, stood by and watched the slushy operation. "Carolyn June and me both have blamed near rubbed our fingers off trying to get it to look right again but somehow or other it don't seem to work."
"Did you put bluing in your rinse water?" Ophelia asked with a laugh.
"Bluing?" Carolyn June and Skinny questioned together. "What does that do to it?"
"Bleaches it—makes it white," the widow replied with another laugh as she returned to the front room.
"By golly, maybe that's what it needs!" Skinny exclaimed hopefully.
"Of course," Carolyn June cried gaily. "How silly we were not to think of it! Any one ought to know you put bluing in the water when you wash things. Wonder if Sing Pete has any around anywhere?"
They searched the kitchen shelves and found a pint bottle, nearly full, of the liquid indigo compound.