A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER, I returned Mrs Hoe’s basket, and we spent the morning trying on all the things they’d altered. Of course, Billy the marmalade cat tried to sit on everything.
“Milly tried to sit on my red dress,” I told Mrs Hoe, “just as you said.” And I explained how she got jealous, and how Aggie got the giant sulks.
Mrs Hoe laughed and nearly swallowed a pin. “Have you a piano, Maggie?” she asked while Laura was showing me how easy it is to make a buttonhole on the sewing machine.
“Mummy’s old one. Dad taught me ‘Chopsticks’, but he doesn’t know anything else.”
“I’ll have a word with him. It’ll need tuning, of course. A girl should know how to play the piano.”
Mrs Hoe licked the end of the piece of cotton, held her needle up to the light, and threaded it. “When you get to be a young woman, you’ll find there’s always somebody wanting an accompaniment, or someone to play for a dance, or for the hymns at church—it’s easy enough to play the organ over there, once you get used to pumping with your feet, a bit like the treadle on Laura’s machine.” She knotted the end of the thread.
“You never can tell when it’s going to come in useful. I always think it’s nice for a young woman to be able to just get up and perform a piece when asked, without making a fuss about it. I used to play myself, and Laura’s got a nice touch, much better than I ever was, but she’s been letting it go lately.
“She can give you lessons after school; it’ll brush up her own playing; and you can practise on your mother’s piano. When you come, you can show me how you’re getting on with your sewing, and I’ll show you how to cast off, how to knit a sock, and how to turn a heel. Such a lot of things a girl needs to know. It’s only a matter of being shown once, and it’s with you for life. Rather like riding a bicycle.”
“Oh, Mother,” said Laura, and we laughed, all three of us.
“Well, there’s such a lot the child needs to know: how to turn the collar on her father’s shirts, how to turn sheets so you get twice the life out of them. And how to make them into pillowslips when they’re no use any longer as sheets.”
“I know how to unpick a jersey. That’s what I knit my peggy squares with.”
“Exactly the sort of thing I mean. And I’ll show you how to turn the sleeves before the elbows start wearing through. A penny saved here, a penny there: it all adds up.
Laura laughed. “Mother turned her tweed costume—and it looks as good as new.”
“That tweed,” said Mrs Hoe, “was made to last. A good Donegal, it would have been a waste to just throw it out; there’s years of wear in it.”
“I’d love to know how to do things like that.”
“You will.” Mrs Hoe’s eyes crinkled at their corners when she smiled, like Mr Bluenose’s. “We’re going to show you how. Does your father darn his socks? Good on him. That Hoe, if I didn’t darn for him, he’d just wear them upside down till they got another hole and throw them away.”
Mrs Hoe and Laura laughed and laughed when I told them how I’d been polite but firm to Mrs Dainty, and then to Aggie, and Milly, and Dad.
“Let the poor man enjoy his bit of fruit cake,” Mrs Hoe wiped her eyes. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”
I liked going into Mrs Hoe’s friendly kitchen with the stove that never went out. There was always bread or scones in the oven, something simmering away in one of the big cast-iron pots, the kettle singing, and Billy sitting on his own stool, closing his eyes and listening, just like Milly.
Sometimes I was there when the men came in for their morning or afternoon tea, and I shifted the flowers off the table and on to the windowsill, helped Laura butter scones and pikelets, and pour tea into the big mugs. Mr Hoe always asked how was Dad, and when was school opening again, and Jerry always had a story about what had happened up the farm that morning. Sam smiled and ducked his head at me, but never said anything. They ate, drank their tea, then they’d be gone suddenly, leaving a silence, and there was the kitchen to be tidied, the dishes washed and dried, and something else going into the oven.
The first dress I ran up on Mummy’s old Singer was for Aggie. Then I sewed white zigzag ricrac around the square neck of a red-and-white checked cotton dress of Laura’s. It looked brand-new and I was going to wear it the day we went back to school, but first I took it and Aggie’s dress over to Mrs Hoe’s one afternoon, to show her.
“You’re going to be as clever with your needle as your mother was. She was always so nicely turned out,” said Mrs Hoe. “What’s that you’ve got there?”
“I found it in the cupboard with a lot of Mummy’s things. I thought you’d know what it is. See, it’s got her name.”
“Elizabeth Milne. Mercury Bay Primary School. 1910.” Mrs Hoe read the embroidered words aloud from the front of the booklet made from cloth—flannel, cotton, and linen pages.
“It’s your mother’s sewing sampler, from when she went to school. We all had to make one back in those days. See, there’s a gusset, a pocket, tucks, pleats, patches, darns, buttonholes, handmade buttons, seams, hems, embroidery stitches, everything. Look, invisible stitching. Hook-and-eye loops, drawn-thread decorations, gatherings. All the same things we’ve been showing you.
“I’ve got a sewing sampler somewhere. Just fancy, there I was making one around the other side of the world, and there was your mother doing the same thing, only years later. She was quite a bit younger than me, of course.
“Laura says you were really quick at picking up how to use the machine. That reminds me: I must have a word with your father about having your piano tuned. Heavens above, just look at the time! You put the cloth on the table, Maggie, and set out the plates while Laura makes the tea.”
We talked and laughed so much in the friendly kitchen, and Billy jumped down off his stool and came across and rubbed himself against my leg. I almost forgot I should be home lighting the stove and heating the stew for Dad’s tea.
“You look after that,” Mrs Hoe said, giving me back my mother’s sewing sampler. “Some day, you might have a little girl of your own, and you can show it to her and tell her how her granny learned to sew all those years ago.
“Put it safely in the basket. I’ve put in some more fruit cake for your father. Lord, above, there’s the five o’clock whistle. You’d better run, if you’re going to beat your father home.”
I ran across the paddock so fast I forgot to look at the haystack, to see if Mr Hoe had thatched it yet. I remembered, as I climbed the stile, and looked back, but the brown elephant still slept under its canvas covers.