“Wait a minute,” added Annie, as she caught up her hat and left the room. She passed downstairs and out of the house to that convenient corner shop, where she invested one cent in the tiniest nickel-plated thimble she could find.
“You must have a little girl staying with you, Mrs. Moss,” said the saleswoman of whom Annie had bought the clothing that morning, and who, by the way, was a tenant in the same house with the seamstress.
“Yes, I have.”
“A relation?”
“No; only a visitor. I am taking care of her a few days. Good-morning—though it is noon now.”
When Annie re-entered her room she tried the thimble on the child’s finger, and found it fit. Then she took up a calico sack, from a pile that she was at work upon—just such a sack as the cheap stores sell for twenty cents apiece.
“Here,” she said, “the buttonholes are worked, you see, and I have marked for the buttons. Now you may try to sew them on. Here is the card of buttons. Now let us see what you can do.”
The child sat down on a little cricket and went solemnly to work.
Annie began to prepare their frugal midday meal of coffee, bread, butter and stewed apples. By the time it was on the table the child got up and said:
“I have sewed all the buttons—six of ’em—on this sack. Will you look and see if you like ’em, ma’am?”