“Linda said when she was a little girl her mother made her wash her own dresses if she got too many dirty in one day,” Dot declared. “Maybe I could wash this.”
Twaddles and Bobby hadn’t a very clear idea of how to wash a dress, and because it was something they had not done before, the idea appealed to them.
“We’ll help you,” offered Bobby generously. “I saw a piece of soap out at the barn this morning. And the rain barrel’s full. Come on.”
They trotted down to the barn. Neither Peter nor Jud was anywhere in sight, which was just what the washers hoped for. Of course, they argued, it wasn’t naughty to wash a dress, but you never can tell what objections grown-ups are going to make. Sometimes they find fault with every single thing one wants to do.
“Let me rub the soap on,” begged Dot, as Bobby unbuttoned her frock for her and she 111 stepped out of it, a sturdy little figure in a brief white petticoat.
So Dot rubbed plenty of soap on the blackberry spots. It was harness soap, which Jud had been using for the leather harness, but the children thought it made a fine lather. Linda would have scolded had she seen them, for soap sets fruit juice stains so that it is almost impossible ever to get them out.
“Let’s put in our handkerchiefs, too,” suggested Bobby, pulling out a grimy square.
Twaddles had lost his, and Dot’s was in the pocket of her dress and already wet, but Bobby added his to the wash.
“We must let ’em soak,” advised Dot, who had been in the kitchen on wash days. “Linda says that gets the dirt out.”
The three children balanced themselves on the edge of the rain barrel while they waited for their wash to soak.