Working in the closed room, Ma’s fingers flew as she took the hair as we clipped it and made it into a wig. As a sort of rehearsal, I privately helped Poppy into the outfit—and standing there in the middle of the room, did he ever look like a whipped puppy! First came slippers and long silk stockings. Then a fancy petticoat of Ma’s. And over that a hand-worked dress that the elder, fortunately, had brought along as a present for the younger relative. With the wig on, and his eyebrows touched up with a burnt match, “Miss” Poppy Ott was the snappiest little chicken that ever cracked a shiek’s heart.
Ma came back to the room.
“I swan!” she told Poppy. “You look more like a girl than Miss Ruth, herself. For, if the truth is known, she always acted like a tomboy.”
Poppy wiggled.
“It’s too tight,” he suffered at the waist.
“You don’t want to look like a tub,” I stood off and admired him.
“I feel like a fool,” he grunted.
“Nix on the bass-drum talk,” says I. “Squeak.”
“What do you think I am?—a rusty hinge?”
“Make your voice sound like a girl’s.”