“But the cobbler will do nothing he is not paid for; and poor folks cannot always pay. It would be very useful to have a shoemaker of our very own. We could buy our leather and make it into enormous boots. Gentleman-boots are really hardly any good to us.”
“That’s true. But, please, may I have the things? And I will try my best to persuade somebody to learn shoemaking.”
Frances rose, and stepped thoughtfully towards her cupboard. Thence, after some searching, she extracted a tiny garment of crimson serge, warmly lined and neatly finished. To this she added two pairs of knitted socks of the same cheerful hue.
“Oh, I say!” exclaimed Max, radiant. “May I really have these awfully swell things? You girls are bricks!”
“You boys helped to buy the stuff. I’m glad you like the colour,” continued Frances graciously, “because at the last sewing-meeting of our Society we decided that for the future all the clothing we make shall be scarlet or crimson, if it can be. It was Florry Fane’s idea. She said it would be ‘the badge of all our tribe’. We shall be able to tell our pensioners the moment we see them. For instance, next time I meet the little child who is to have this frock, I shall think, ‘There goes an Altruist baby!’”
“I see. And next time I come across a hoary old chap to whom you’ve given a crimson comforter, I shall say, ‘There goes an Altruist antediluvian!’”
“Well,” laughed Frances, “suppose you do? You’ll allow that our colour is becoming. It’s bright and picturesque; and by and by, when we’ve given away lots of crimson things, think how gay Woodend will look.”
“Oh, it will! As soon as a visitor reaches the favoured spot, he’ll cry, ‘Hullo! here’s an Altruist village!’”
“I hope he may. Now, tell me whom these things are for, because I must put the names down in our clothing book.”
Max, remembering certain private labours of his own, gazed in admiration at Frances’s neat records.