Mrs. Wilson was cutting out hospital shirts.
“This finishes our last piece of cloth,� she said regretfully. “I do wish we had some money.�
There was an awkward silence. Money had to be mentioned sometimes in a shop—asking Mr. Blair the price of shoes and umbrellas, in an apologetic tone. But to wish for it, in public and aloud! No one had ever before heard a Village lady do such a thing.
Miss Fanny Morrison, who had charge of the work, broke the embarrassing silence. “These shirts ain’t ready to pack,� she said with a frown, as she pushed aside a bundle she had just opened. “I’ve got to rip ’em and do ’em over. Every seam is crooked or puckered.�
“If you would tell whoever did them——� began Mrs. Blair.
“Course I can’t tell her,� said the seamstress, who was supposed to have a tongue as sharp as her needle. “It’s Mrs. Tavis. Ain’t she doing her best, with her dim old eyes and trembly old hands? I can’t tell her it would save me time for her to sit and twirl her thumbs, and let me make the shirts instead of unmaking ’em and making ’em over. Well, we’ve got a lot done. And you girls have certainly worked splendid. I thought you-all—Alice and Ruth and Patsy and Mary Spencer and Essie Walthall, the bunch of you—would just be a lot of trouble. But you’re faithful and painstaking, and you do as good work as anybody.�
“We like to do it,� said Patsy, whose fingers were flying in the effort to finish a sweater.
“This will be six pairs of socks I’ve knit,� said Alice Blair; “and I thought I’d never get done that first pair!�
“You’ve learned how,� said her mother; then she chuckled: “Will says he expects to wake up some night and find me knitting in my sleep!�
“Ah, dears!� Mrs. Spencer said in her gentle, quavering old voice. “This takes me back to The War. We used to gather here, in this very room, to knit socks and make bandages and tear linen sheets and underwear into lint for our poor, dear, wounded soldiers.�