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Always the meals were conducted with a certain stately ceremony which made the lack of dishes, other than the shaped slabs of wood sawn from the ends of logs odd make-shifts invented by Harry, seem merely an accident of the moment, while the bits of lace-edged linen that Amalia provided from their little store seemed quite in harmony with the air of grace and gentleness that surrounded the two women.
We have been born and brought up on make-shifts, and can make anything out of nothing, and a box of tacks can't we, Ruth?" cried Mollie, in the brutally outspoken manner which always brought a flush into her sister's face.
At the outbreak of the war, the Tredegar Iron Works at Richmond was the only place in the South where iron plates of a size suitable for plating vessels could be rolled. The demand was of course far in excess of the facilities of the factory, and many were the make-shifts that shipbuilders were forced to. Some vessels were plated only about the centre, so as to protect the boiler and engines.
'All begun as if the projectors thought they had the command of the mines of Peru, and ended as if the possessors had not sixpence; DES ARRANGEMENS PROVISATOIRES, temporary expedients; in plain English, MAKE-SHIFTS. Luxuries, enough for an English prince of the blood; comforts, not enough for an English woman.
He silently and expeditiously encased himself in the covering of the beast, and then awaited such other movements as his more aged companion saw fit to dictate. "Now, friend," said Hawkeye, addressing David, "an exchange of garments will be a great convenience to you, inasmuch as you are but little accustomed to the make-shifts of the wilderness.
But if the great blocks were raised by a mob of naked Picts, or any tribe that knew none of the mechanical powers but the lever, how did they set them up and lay the cross-stones, the imposts, upon the uprights? It is pleasant, once in a while, to think how we should have managed any such matters as this if left to our natural resources. We are all interested in the make-shifts of Robinson Crusoe.
Mollie smiled, remembering the little make-shifts and contrivances, seeing the humour of them, and feeling again the glow of triumph with which each difficulty had been surmounted. Ruth shuddered with a mingling of fear and repulsion.
Once I remember a very long stitch baffled all her contrivances, and she said I must pretend it was a new-fashioned sort of embroidery. But Susan scorned all make-shifts. Nothing could have been more unfounded than my fears of becoming ragged or dirty. My attire was plain and suited to my station, but most scrupulously finished.
All equivocations and dissimulations, all literal truths that are really deceptions, all attempts to salve one's own conscience by making one's statements true "in a sense," and yet gain the advantage of an out-and- out lie, are miserable make-shifts and utterly demoralizing. There is "not much in a truthfulness which is only phrase-deep."
Nor, which is the greater marvel, did we kill anybody; though we did miracles down the streets to avoid babes, kittens, and chickens. The land is used to every detail of war, and to its grime and horror and make-shifts, but also to war's unbounded courtesy, kindness, and long-suffering, and the gaiety that comes, thank God, to balance overwhelming material loss.
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