Just after luncheon Aunt Selina brought me some undergarments of Jim’s to be patched. She explained at length that he had always worn out his undergarments, because he always squirmed around so when he was sitting. And she showed me how to lay one of the garments over a pillow to get the patch in properly.
It was the most humiliating moment of my life, but there was no escape. I took my sewing to the roof, while she went away to find something else for me to do when that was finished, and I sat with the thing on my knee and stared at it, while rebellious tears rolled down my cheeks. The patch was not the shape of the hole at all, and every time I took a stitch I sewed it fast to the pillow beneath. It was terrible. Jim came up after a while and sat down across from me and watched, without saying anything. I suppose what he felt would not have been proper to say to me. We had both reached the point where adequate language failed us. Finally he said:
“I wish I were dead.”
“So do I,” I retorted, jerking the thread.
“Where is she now?”
“Looking for more of these.” I indicated the garment over the pillow, and he wiggled. “Please don’t squirm,” I said coldly. “You will wear out your—lingerie, and I will have to mend them.”
He sat very still for five minutes, when I discovered that I had put the patch in crosswise instead of lengthwise and that it would not fit. As I jerked it out he sneezed.
“Or sneeze,” I added venomously. “You will tear your buttons off, and I will have to sew them on.”
Jim rose wrathfully. “Don’t sit, don’t sneeze,” he repeated. “Don’t stand, I suppose, for fear I will wear out my socks. Here, give me that. If the fool thing has to be mended, I’ll do it myself.”
He went over to a corner of the parapet and turned his back to me. He was very much offended. In about a minute he came back, triumphant, and held out the result of his labor. I could only gasp. He had puckered up the edges of the hole like the neck of a bag, and had tied the thread around it. “You—you won’t be able to sit down,” I ventured.