Near the Home was a good-sized creek of fresh and pure water, which ran singing along through the hills to the ocean, and for this reason the site had been selected and built upon.
CHAPTER XV.
WINTER IN THE MISSION.
HE first few garments I made for Little Bessie were not a great success. I had told Miss E. that I would be delighted to assist her in any way that I could, never dreaming what would come; and she being more in need of warm clothing for the children than anything else, with rolls of uncut flannels, and baskets piled high with materials to be made into underwear, said immediately that I might help with their sewing.
She then brought a piece of Canton flannel, and the shears, and put them into my hands, saying that I might make two pairs of night-trowsers for the baby. My heart sank within me in a moment. I made a desperate effort to collect myself, however, and quietly asked if she had a pattern. No, she had none. The child, she said, kicked the cover off her in the night so often, and the weather was growing so cold, that she and Miss J. thought a garment of the trouser description, taking in the feet at the same time, would very well answer her needs, and this I was requested to originate, pattern and all. Whatever should I do? I could more easily have climbed Mt. McKinley! If she had told me to concoct a new pudding, write an essay, or make a trip to Kotzebue, I should not have been so much dismayed; but to make a garment like that, out of "whole cloth," so to speak, from my own design—that was really an utter impossibility.
"O, well," she said, "I am sure you can do this well enough. It is not such a very particular job; just make something in which to keep the child warm nights, you know. That is all I care for," kindly added she, as she closed the door behind her and went back to the kitchen.
Finally I appealed to Alma. She was busy. She had never cut out anything of the sort, neither had Ricka nor Miss L., but I being a married woman was supposed to have a superior knowledge of all such things. I admitted that I might have a theory on the subject, but a "working hypothesis," alas, I had none.