"So have you when it's clean. Why don't you wash it yourself as I do mine? I'm sure you're big enough."

"Nuffin to wipe it on," objected Annie.

This was true. The family towel was a filthy affair when there _was_ one. Even if Mollie had had money, it is doubtful if she would have spent it for towels. As for _washing_ anything, it was much easier to tuck it into the stove or to drop it into the lake. Mollie simply _wouldn't_ wash; and since Mrs. Shannon's hands had become crippled with rheumatism, she couldn't wash. Jeannette, however, washed her own shabby dress. Her father washed and mended his own socks and shirts.

Also he had towels for his own personal use and those he managed to launder, somehow. Time and again he had provided towels and bed-linen for his family; but Mollie, who grew lazier with every breath she drew, had taken no care of them. One by one, they had disappeared.

"I think," said Jeannette, wisely, "that it would be a very good thing if I knew how to sew. Then, perhaps, father could get me some cloth and I could make things. I'd love to have nice clothes."

"Grown-up ladies," contributed Michael, "wears a lot of white things under their dresses--twenty at a time I guess. I seen 'em on a clothesline. The lady what was hangin' 'em up says, 'Don't you trow no mud on them _under_clothes.'"

"_Any_ mud," corrected Jeanne, patiently. "And _saw_, not seen."

"The lady said '_no_ mud,'" insisted Michael.

"Then maybe she wasn't a truly lady. Sometimes you see a truly lady in a little gold frame and _she_ never says 'I done it.'"

"How _could_ she?" demanded practical Michael, to whom Jeanne had intrusted the cake of soap, in order that he might lather himself while she rinsed Annie's hair. For this process, Annie sat in the Cinder Pond, whose waters were so placid that, even when the lake outside was exceedingly rough, there were no treacherous waves to trouble small children. Both boys could swim. Jeanne, too, could swim a little, but was too timid to venture into very deep water.

"There," said Michael, returning the precious cake. "Gimme the rag and I'll rub if I _got_ to. Here, Sammy, I'll rub _you_ first."

"Aw, no," protested Sammy, backing away. "Let sister do it--she rubs _softer_."

The bath lasted a good long time, because, the worst of the agony over, the happy youngsters wished to play in the water. It was only with great difficulty that Jeanne finally coaxed her charges back into their clothes.

"I don't blame you," she mourned, "for hating them. I _do_ wish you had some clean ones."

Mollie was peeling potatoes outside the cabin door, when Jeanne returned home with her spotless family. She was peeling the vegetables wastefully, as usual. Mollie could go everlastingly without things; she couldn't economize or take care of what she had. Or at least she didn't.

"Mollie," said Jeanne, "I've been thinking that I'd like to sew. Could you teach me, do you s'pose?"

"Me? _I_ couldn't sew," laughed Mollie, good-naturedly, her soft fat body shaking as she laughed. "I never did sew. Ma always done all that.

I could tie a bow to pin on a hat, maybe, but _sew_--lordy, I couldn't cut out a handkercher!"

Mrs. Shannon, in spite of the warm sunshine, sat inside, huddled over the stove. Her fingers were drawn out of shape with rheumatism. Her knees and her elbows were stiff. She sat with her back bent. Out of her shriveled, unlovely face her eyes gleamed balefully.

"Granny," asked Jeannette, rather doubtfully, "could _you_ teach me to sew?"

"I could, but I won't," snapped the old woman. "Let your father do it--your _his_ young one. If he'd make money like a man ought to, you could buy clothes ready-made. But he ain't no money-maker, and he never will be."

Jeanne backed hastily out of the shack. Even when Mrs. Shannon said pleasant things, which was not very often, she had a rasping, unpleasant voice. Clearly there was no hope in _that_ quarter.

CHAPTER V

THE SEWING LESSON

Jeanne's father was out in the fishing boat with Barney; but Old Captain was mending a net near the door of his box-car. Perhaps _he_ could help her with this new and perplexing problem. She would ask.

So, with her family trailing behind, she paid a visit to the Captain.

"Captain," said she, "can you mend anything besides nets?"

"Men's pants," returned Old Captain, briefly.

"Could you _make_ anything? A shirt, you know, or--or an ap.r.o.n?"

"Well," replied the Captain, doubtfully, "I could sew up a seam, maybe, if somebody cut the darned thing--hum, ladies present--the _old_ thing out."

"Could you teach _me_ to sew a seam! You see, these children haven't a single clean thing to put on. If I could sew, I could make clothes for them, I believe, because I _think_ Daddy would buy me some cloth."

"Well now, Jeannie, if you could manage to get the needle threaded--that there's what gets me. Hold on--I got a _big_ one, somewhere's--now where did I put that needle!"

Old Captain rose ponderously to his feet, shuffled about inside his cabin and finally returned with a large spool of dingy thread, a mammoth thimble, and a huge darning needle. Also, he had found a piece of an old flour sack.

"Now, sit down aside me here and I'll show you. First you ties a knot--Oh, no! First you threads the needle like this--Well, by gum, went in, didn't she? An' _then_ you ties the knot--a good big 'un so she won't slip out. Then you lays the edges of the cloth together, like this, and you pokes the needle through--Here you, Sammy! You'll get your nose p.r.i.c.ked!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SEWING LESSON]

Inquisitive Sammy retired so hastily that he fell over backward.

"Now, you pull up the slack like this--Hey, Mike! I _did_ get you--Say, boys, you sheer off a bit while this here's goin' on. I'm plum'

dangerous with this here tool."

"What do you do with the thimble?" asked Jeanne, when she had removed placid Annie to a safe distance.

"Durned if I didn't forget that. You puts it on this here finger--no--well now, you puts it on _some_ finger and uses it to push the needle like that."

"How do you _keep_ it on?" asked Jeanne, twirling it rapidly on an upraised finger.

"I guess you'd better use the side of this here freight car like I allus does," admitted Old Captain. "Just push her in like that. Now, _you_ try."

Jeanne sewed for a while, according to these instructions, then handed the result to her teacher. The Captain beamed as he examined the seam.

"Ain't that just plum' beautiful!" said he, showing it to Michael. "That little gal can _sew_. But I ain't just sure them is the right tools--this here seam in my shirt now--well, it ain't so goldarned--hum--hum--ladies present--so tarnation thick as that there what I taught ye."

At their worst, the good old Captain's mild oaths were never very bad.

Unhappily Jeanne had heard far more terrifying ones from sailors on pa.s.sing boats. As you see, Captain Blossom _tried_ to use his very best language in the children's presence; but his best, perhaps, wasn't quite as polished as Leon Duval's.

"I don't see any large black knots in your shirt seam," observed Jeanne.

"Mine look as if they'd _scratch_."

"Maybe they cuts 'em off," returned the Captain, eying the seam, doubtfully. "No, by gum! This here's done by machine. Yours is all right for hand work. But I tell ye what, Jeannie. You come round about this time tomorry and maybe, by then, I can find better needles. An' there was a sleeve I tore off an old shirt--maybe that'd sew better."

"I've always wondered," said Jeanne, "how people made b.u.t.tonholes.

They're such _neat_ things. Can _you_ make b.u.t.tonholes?"