Since the arrival of Muriel and Margot and Dad, things seem to have picked up a lot. Having divided the work so that it is done in shifts, two of us cooking one day and the other tow cooking the next, the two non-cooks dishwashing each day, there has been more free time for everyone. Except that free time is only what we call it. Actually, it is time to be put to use.

 

Before we came up here and got used to it, we might have lolled on the porch and loafed during any free time available. After five years here, we seem to have rare moods for lolling and loafing.

 

Last week it went into the channel of sewing. That is quite a channel. Sewing is an art, which makes it a very lofty pursuit. It requires patience and nerves of iron. Also it required music. Nobody can tell me sewing is not exercise. I know for a fact that it gets into the little muscles you didn’t know you had and packs a wallop for the regular ones, too. After sewing, swimming is duck soup. You practically have to swim to make yourself forget you sewed. Sure, you get out of breath swimming, but it lets your muscles alone.

 

Anyhow, what we were sewing were chair covers for the living room chairs. We wrestled the chairs all over the floor and tacked fine plaid material on the backs. We had sent for the material from here to Stewart’s and it had duly arrived and Margot and I were itching to get at it. So we got at it. After the backs were tacked on the chairs, we still had to make seat covers for the pads of the seats.

 

Creeping around on the floor, we marked off and cut cut cut the shapes, cut boxing for them and stitched them up. We had brought Frieda’s machine for this job. We had asked Frieda if we could use it, finding out at the same time that Mr. Miner was going to the hospital in Wausau because there were some tests he needed to have made. He was feeling badly and Dr. Berwanger had suggested that he go to this hospital in Wausau and he agreed. He hated to go.

 

Knowing this, we hated to think of his going. The woods is not the same, with Mr. Miner sick. We expressed our sincere regrets about Mr. Miner and Frieda wanted us to come inside and see him for a minute. I was sorry I had two buttons off my blouse and my jeans seemed to have some jam on them from breakfast, but we went in to see him.

 

He sat at his center table by the light and was reading an article about Texas in the Reader’s Digest. The article said, he explained, that Texas could divide itself into five states if it wanted to, but Texas wouldn’t do it because everyone wanted to be from Texas, not from some new state. He read to us directly from the article and it tickled him.

 

But he became tired after awhile. We tried to laugh with him in the old way and he poked fun at us a little. But he is not the same and the woods is not the same when he is like that. We stopped for Frieda’s machine then. It is an old Singer and just as heavy as any of them, but we put it in the car and took it home. 

 

The machine’s being here changed everything. Every minute of anyone’s free time was sewed right up on that thing. Muriel made Merrily a nightgown and Penny, her granddaughter, a nightgown. Margot and I finished the new living room coverings. I made two extra pillows to match. Margot sewed up her bedroom curtains and made some ruffles for her window and mirror.

 

The trouble is that the machine is still here. I do not know how long this will go on unless we somehow get it back to Frieda.

 

We worked so hard all week that Saturday Muriel said, “Why don’t we loaf?” And we did. We spent all day in the rocking chairs. We had canned beans and sliced tomatoes for supper and fortunately, some gingerbread resulting from Muriel’s conscience. Gran had no conscience at all and did not see why Muriel monkeyed with the gingerbread.

 

Margot and I being the dishwashers, felt that they should have used smaller plates for that supper. But we all had a Sunday feeling because we had sat in the porch chairs all day. Only, of course, there had been mail so we knew it wasn’t Sunday. But, as Muriel said, tomorrow’s Sunday so we can loaf all over again!