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Updated: July 21, 2025
Sam, the big, genial, curly-headed only son of the house of Norris, who saw fit to take unto himself as a life partner tiny, delicate, college-bred Della Kennedy, who taught school over on the Sixth Concession, and knew more about making muslin shirtwaists than cooking for the threshers, could quote from all the mental and moral philosophers, could wrestle with French and Latin verbs, and had memorized half the things Tennyson and Emerson had ever written, but could not milk a cow or churn up a week's supply of butter if the executioner stood ready with his axe to chop off her pretty yellow mop of a head in case she failed.
They stopped short, swung off their ponies, three girl homesteaders. They rode astride, wore plain shirtwaists and divided skirts. Two of them wore cheap straw hats much like those worn by farmers in the fields everywhere. They swung from their saddles as easily as though they wore breeches and boots. "How did you learn we were here?"
The results of Lydia's summer dressmaking had not been bad. She had made herself several creditable shirtwaists and a neat little blue serge skirt. Her shoes were still shabby. Poor Lydia seemed somehow never to have decent shoes.
It was twilight, and the gray shadows were creeping into the bare little room, touching with feathery fingers a tangled mop of yellow curls that aureoled a pillowed head that was not now filled with thoughts of Tennyson and Emerson and frilly muslin shirtwaists.
"I just love fancy shirtwaists, an' I spent my life ironing some of the beautifullest I've ever seen. It's funny, an' it isn't fair." Billy gritted his teeth in another of his rages. "An' the way some of them women gets their shirtwaists. It makes me sick, thinkin' of you ironin' 'em. You know what I mean, Saxon. They ain't no use wastin' words over it. You know. I know. Everybody knows.
So they went in without further word spoken, and after all Marjorie found herself the possessor of as good an appetite as she'd had for breakfast. "Be sure to get back in time to dress for the dance," Peggy warned them as they started off in the motor-cycle. "It's to be a really fine dance, with the girls in muslin dresses, not brogans and shirtwaists!"
On the street she invariably wore the tailored suit, and her tailor was the best in New York. She thought blouses in public indecent, and wore shirtwaists of linen or silk with high collars, made by the same master-hand.
Why, that wouldn't tip the 'chink' who irons our shirtwaists," and the original laugh was encored. "Are your folks all gone from Flosston, Rose?" Mary Furniss inquired, just as the little procession was about to break ranks for respective individual "barracks." "Oh, yes. Father got good work in Connecticut, and I may go soon," replied Rose frankly.
By dusk the overworked ranch women had fed the last hungry mouth and put away the fragments of home-baked cakes and thick sandwiches, and were forming a solid line of light shirtwaists and dark skirts along the wall. The dance was really beginning.
"The girls?" asked Marjorie of Francis wonderingly. "I think she means that the men aren't to wear brogans, or the girls shirtwaists," he explained, as they whizzed down what seemed invisible tracks in a trackless forest. "Smell the pines aren't they good?" Marjorie looked up, beaming. "Stunning!" she said. "I don't see how you ever wanted to come to New York, after you'd had this."
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