I was pinning my jacket together, excited to see it grow in my hands, when I heard Flora, the cat, wailing at my closed door.
And a moment after Sarah's flat-footed tread on the stairs, coming to see what was the trouble.
I hid the pieces in my bureau-drawer—'way back. After that I worked for my French soldier only at night—late.
I worked for him by hand—every stitch.
The machine was down-stairs in the sitting-room, and noisy.
It must have been because I was not used to sitting up late, that strange thoughts visited me.
When it's one o'clock, and all the proper town's asleep, one thinks weird things.
I got so I looked forward to those hours from ten to one,
Alone with the pink-and-white Canton flannel, the gray felt slippers, and my thoughts.
My soldier was a big man—long-armed, broad-shouldered, hairy-chested, I somehow liked to think.
Like the man who brings my coal every August, smeared with soot and sweat, deep-voiced, with raucous curses bellowing forth from time to time from out his blackened breast.
