“Anyway,” put in Asaph, “you need somethin' she could wear forenoons, if she wanted to. What's this one? She looks young enough.”
The “one” referred to turned out to be a “coat for child of four.” It was therefore scornfully rejected. One after another the different magazines were examined and the pictures discussed. At length a “costume for miss of eight years” was pronounced to be pretty nearly the thing.
“Godfrey scissors!” exclaimed the admiring Mr. Tidditt. “That's mighty swell, ain't it? What's the stuff goes into that, Cy?”
“'Material, batiste, trimmed with embroidered batiste.' What in time is batiste?”
“I don't know. Do you, Bailey?”
“No; never heard of it. Ketury never had nothin' like that, I'm sure. French, I shouldn't wonder. Well, Ketury's down on the French ever sence she read about Napoleon leavin' his fust wife to take up with another woman. Does it say any more?”
“Let's see. 'Makes a beautiful gown for evening or summer wear.' Summer! Why, by the big dipper, we're aground again! Bos'n don't want summer clothes. It's comin' on winter.”
He threw the magazine on the floor, rubbed his forehead, and then burst into a laugh.
“For goodness sake, don't tell anybody about this business, boys!” he said. “I guess I must be havin' an early spring of second childhood. But when I heard those women at the meetin' house goin' on about how pretty 'Licia Atkins was got up and how mean and shabby Bos'n looked, it made me bile. And, by the big dipper, I WILL show 'em somethin' afore I get through, too! Only, dressin' little girls is some off my usual course. Bailey, does Ketury make her own duds?”
“Why, no! Course she helps and stands by for orders, but Effie Taylor comes and takes the wheel while the riggin's goin' on. Effie's a dressmaker and—”