Still I hung around Alma, who was an expert dressmaker of years' standing in San Francisco.
"No, I can't cut them out, really; but why don't you make a pattern from some garment on hand?"
Here was an idea. Something to build upon.
"But there are the feet, and the waist?" I said still anxiously.
"O, build them on to your pattern," she said carelessly; as if anyone with half an eye and one hand could do that sort of building, and she left the room for more important matters.
There was nothing else for me to do. I secured a suit of the baby's clothing throughout, and, taking the cloth, the shears, and an old newspaper, I went upstairs to Miss J.'s room and closed the door. I wanted to be alone. I longed to have my dear old mother there for just one short hour, for in that time I felt certain she would have cut out these as well as other garments, enough to keep us for weeks sewing, as her own babies had kept her at one time.
However, there was no help for me, and I went to work. For an hour I cut and whittled on that old newspaper, along with a number of others, before I got a pattern that I fancied might do. Then I submitted it to Miss J. herself, who told me to go ahead and cut it out. It appeared all right, so far as she could see. Then I cut, and basted, and tried the garment on Bessie. It was too wide across the chest, too short in the legs, and the feet were monstrosities. What was to be done, I asked of the others?
"Make new feet, and sew them on around the ankle," said Miss J., thoughtfully, surveying her little charge from all sides, as the child stood first on one foot, then on the other, "then you can lengthen the legs a little if you want to," careful not to offend by criticising abruptly, but still feeling that the height of the gearing should be increased.
"Dear me, that's easy enough," suggested Alma, "just put a wide box plait down the front, like that in a shirtwaist, and it will be all right."
"The back can be taken out in the placket," and Ricka folded and lapped the cloth on the little child's shoulders, and then we called Miss E. from the kitchen. After making a few suggestions in a very conservative way, as if they did not come readily because the garment was just about right; she left the room hastily, saying her bread would burn in the oven; and I thought I heard her giggling with Miss L. in Swedish until she ran away out into the woodshed, ostensibly for an armful of wood; though if her bread were already burning I wondered what she wanted of more fire.