Peggy's mother went to the back of the store, where there was a man behind the counter who seemed more alive than the girls. Peggy followed her mother, but Alice's attention had been caught by some doll carriages.

"I want you to show me something strong and serviceable for frocks for my little girl, who is very hard on her clothes," said Mrs. Owen.

Peggy hung her head. She wished her mother had not said that. The man did not look as if he ever could have been hard on his clothes, even when he was a small boy.

"This plaid is a great favorite," he said.

Mrs. Owen asked the price, and it was too high. "Why, it is double what it was before the war," she said.

Everything was either too expensive or too frail. Mrs. Owen bought some white materials for best dresses for Peggy, but there seemed to be nothing in the shop that would do for common.

"I am afraid I shall have to wait until later in the season," said Mrs.

Owen. "I suppose you'll have new things in?"

"The new goods will be more expensive still."

Mrs. Owen sighed. There were drawbacks about having so little money. She had turned to leave the store when the man called after her:

"Mrs. Owen, I have something on the top shelf I think may suit you. It's strong as nails, and it's cheap. It's almost as strong as the stuff butcher's frocks are made of."

Peggy gave a little cry of pleasure when she saw it, for it was such a delicious color. It made her think of the sky when it was a deep blue.

Mrs. Owen was attracted to it because it was dark enough not to soil easily. But Peggy did not think of this; she just thought what a pleasure it would be to be dressed in something so pretty. It was so cheap that Mrs. Owen could hardly believe her ears when the man told her the price.

"We got in a lot of the material before the prices went up," said he.

"It is entirely out of fashion now. n.o.body wants it."

Peggy and her mother cared nothing about the fashion; and indeed they seemed to set the fashion, whatever they wore.

"How many yards are there in the piece?" Mrs. Owen asked. He told her and she made a rapid calculation. "I'll take it all," she said.

The man could not conceal his surprise. "We only sell seven yards for a grown person and four would do for her."

"I know, but I am going to make two dresses for myself and she will need four. It is so much cheaper and stronger than any of the other wash materials that I shall make all her dresses out of the same piece. She won't mind having them all alike, will you, Peggy?"

"I'll like it; it's so pretty."

"Oh, please, mother, do make me one," Alice begged.

"I'm afraid you will have to be contented with the ten dresses you already have," said her mother. "For, as I will have six dresses to make for Peggy and two for myself, I think that will be all I can manage."

"Perhaps one of my dolls can have a dress out of it," Alice said hopefully.

"Yes, I'll cut out a dress for Belle, and I can teach you to make that so you can be sewing on it while I am making Peggy's frocks."

But it was some time before Peggy began to wear them, for it took her mother a long time to make them. The very next afternoon, after the dinner dishes were washed, Mrs. Owen got out the blue material and she cut out a dress for Peggy, and then a small one for Belle. Alice was learning to hem and she took as careful st.i.tches as a grown-up person.

Peggy was divided between wanting to do what the others were doing and hating to be tied down. She made frequent trips to the kitchen for a drink of water and to see how Lady Jane was getting on.

"You can overcast these sleeves, Peggy," her mother said later in the afternoon. "That is much easier than hemming."

"It's better than hemming," Peggy said, "because you can take such long spidery st.i.tches. But I just hate sewing. I'm never going to sew when I grow up."

"But that is just the time you'll have to sew," said Alice.

"No, I'm going to be a writing lady."

"But they have to wear just as many frocks as other people," said Alice.

"I'll have them made for me. I'll get such a lot of money by my writings."

"You may be married and have to make clothes for your children," said her mother.

"I'll just have boys," said Peggy. "That would be much the best. Then I could climb trees with them and climb over the roofs of houses, and n.o.body could say, 'Peggy, you'll break your neck,' because I'd be their mother, so everything I did would be all right."

"Oh, Peggy, you haven't been putting your mind on your work," said her mother. "Pull out those last few st.i.tches and do them over again, and think what you are doing and not how you will climb trees with your sons."

"I'll have all girls," said Alice. "Some will be dressed in pink and some in blue."

"And some in red and some in yellow, and some in purple and some in green," added Peggy, "and you'll be called the rainbow family. There, mother, is that any better?"

"A little better, but you don't seem to make any two st.i.tches quite the same length."

Peggy suddenly flung down her work. "There's somebody at the back door,"

she said.

"It's the grocer's boy. You can go and get the things, only be sure not to let the cat out."

Peggy never quite knew how it happened. She did not mean to disobey her mother, but the afternoon was very pleasant and the kitchen was hot. It seemed cruel to keep a cat in the house. She held the door open and, while she was debating whether it would not be possible for her and the cat to take a walk together, Lady Jane slipped out. Something gray and fluffy seemed to fly along the gra.s.s and disappear under the fence. She had gone without waiting for their pleasant walk together. Instead they would have a mad race. Peggy liked the idea of a chase. It was much more exciting than overcasting seams.

Peggy and the p.u.s.s.y-cat had a wild race, and more than one person looked back to see why Peggy Owen, with flying yellow hair, was running at such speed cross-lots, through back yards, and climbing over fences. Suddenly Peggy was caught, as she was scrambling over a fence, by a piece of barbed wire. Her one remaining winter school frock was torn past mending. "Oh, dear, what will mother say?" said Peggy.

The skirt was almost torn from the waist, and Peggy felt like a beggar-maid as she crept home. "Only, everybody will know I am not a beggar-maid," thought Peggy. "They'll all say, 'What mischief has Peggy Owen been up to now?'"

And her mother did say something very much like it when she came in.

"Peggy, what have you been doing now?" she asked.

"I was hunting for Lady Jane," she said breathlessly. "She slipped out of the kitchen door."

"Peggy, how could you be so careless?" said her mother. Then, as she noticed the confusion on Peggy's face, she said, "Did you let her out?"

"Not exactly," said Peggy. "I was thinking perhaps it would be nice for us to have a walk together, when she ran away."

"You don't deserve to have any new clothes," said her mother, as she looked at Peggy's torn frock.

"The blue ones will be stronger than this old thing," said Peggy.