“Well, I’ve done enough to do it middlin’ well.”
“What is it to be?” asked Marion, not caring much, but feeling that her companion wanted to talk.
“It’s a Tam o’ Shanter; this is the fifteenth one I’ve made for the new church organ.”
“What does the church organ want of them?” asked Marion, so busy thinking she hardly knew what she said.
“You seem to be awful dumb, for your size,” said the crocheter. “The ladies of the church have undertaken to buy an organ, an’ we’re takin’ every way to do it; we’ve had strawberry festivals an’ clam suppers, an’ a passel-bag, an’ a guess-cake, an’ even the children had a parlor fair and raised twenty-five dollars. I get a dollar an’ fifteen cents for these, an’ takin’ out for the yarn I buy at wholesale they give a profit of one dollar each for the organ.”
As she talked she was opening a traveling-bag from which she took a finished cap, a dark blue one, and held it out for Marion’s admiration.
“This,” she continued, “is one Cousin Sarah Bly, in Albany, ordered for one of her girls, and I’m going there on a visit.”
A sudden thought struck Marion.
“O, wouldn’t you sell that one to me? Perhaps your cousin would wait till you could make another, and I do need something to cover my head.”
The woman looked at her thoughtfully.