I arranged my cutting table and had Harper's Bazaar and
other fashion plates and Butterick patterns on the shelves. Our signs
in the window read: "Children's clothing neatly done and made to
order." Our dressmaking parlors were in full swing and in apple-pie
order. All we lacked were the customers, so we sat at the machines and
sewed until the third day, hoping to have some one come, yet dreading
to see them, for fear we would fail in our efforts. We watched people
passing all day long, going and coming and stopping to look at the new
place. At last, on the fifth day, a lady with a bundle came in at the
gate, and my heart beat with excitement. When I opened the door a
gentle little woman asked if I was the dressmaker, and I told her yes
and bade her enter. She unfolded her bundle and told me what she
wanted. I found myself talking and planning as if I had made dresses
for a number of years. It was her wedding dress of dove-colored silk
and she wanted me to make a dress of it for her twelve-year-old
daughter, with an addition of three yards of blue to match. I told her
I could make a beautiful child's dress, a very suitable and pretty
combination. The next day the girl was measured and the dress began
and by the end of the week it was to be tried on. When the dress was
done she was so pleased that I did her work as long as I was in the
business of dressmaking, which lasted ten years. This was the
beginning.
After Mrs.
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