“Neil made me my chairs too, and the washstand. He had to be careful about the chairs, but the stand is made of two soap boxes nailed together, and the top one has three partitions in it. I use it for a kind of bureau too. And the flounce is made from an old bed-quilt cover mother didn’t want any more. I ripped it up, and took out the lining, and made it all myself.”
“It’s dandy, Peggie,” Ruth exclaimed. “I think your pelts are the best of all though, and the Indian things.”
“The pelts should be put away in the summer time, but I like to see them around. They’re mostly gray wolf, and wild cat. Archie and Neil caught enough ’coons one year to make mother a whole coat, didn’t they, Jeanie? They were so proud over it that they wanted her to wear it all the time.”
“This skirt of doeskin belonged to Sally Lost Moon, girls,” said Jean, lifting down a beautifully fringed and beaded garment from the wall. “She beaded it herself when she was a girl. Feel how soft it is, like chamois skin. She told us she had moccasins to match, and a little short jacket.”
“How long it must have taken her to make it.”
“Yes, but when it was done, she had a spring suit that would last years, and always be in style in the hunting lands. Where is your skirt that Archie burnt for you, Peg?”
Peggie smiled, and found it, a little riding skirt of buckskin, fringed around the bottom, branded all over its surface with strange signs and symbols.
“Those are the brands of every outfit we know up here,” Jean told them. “Isn’t it a queer idea? Here is our brand, see—Cross and bar. This is Sandy’s, Double A.”
The girls thought it the most unique kind of ornamentation they had ever seen. The deep-toned brown of the burnt brands showed up richly against the cream of the buckskin.
“Mail for the girls,” called Don’s voice outside the window. “Peters brought it on his way east.”