“Slang,” began Scissors Shears, crossly flapping his ears back; but Fairy Lady leaned forward in her chair, and, reaching out with her bodkin wand, touched him on the ear, and down he fell flat at her feet.
Pushing him aside, she said, “I can control him when I have my wand. If he’s ever rude, and you want me, say the magic verse I taught you.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Mary Frances, smiling to herself.
“I guess if I pulled his ears real hard, he’d be good anyhow,” she thought, “but I’ll not let Sewing Bird know. All rabbits are controlled by their ears, and I’m sure he looks more like a rabbit than any other animal I can think of.”
“Well,” smiled Fairy Lady, “we have the dolly’s laundry bag all cut out: now, to learn,
2. Cut the paper seven inches long and three and one-half inches wide.
3. Draw a line one-quarter of an inch from lower edge of paper and turn up and crease along this line.
4. One inch above that, draw a line. Turn up and crease along that line.
5. Follow same directions on muslin. Baste and hem.
“Good!” she nodded, as Mary Frances held up the folded paper. “You remember the hemming stitch on canvas. This is the same kind of stitch; only, as you have already observed, no doubt, it is a very zig-zag stitch, and is taken from the single through the folded part of the goods.
“Wait a minute, I’ll mark it to show you,” and taking the pencil, she marked the paper as shown on this page.
“Oh,” exclaimed Mary Frances. “I understand now!”
[Illustration: First learn to turn a hem on paper]
[Illustration: Now, turn the hem on each end as I have already shown you.”]
“Only one thing more,” said Fairy Lady, “the way to hide the starting of the thread. You put the needle in between the fold and the cloth, and tuck it down. Then put it in, or ‘insert’ it, at 1, and push it out at 2, and pull it through. Can you do it on the ends of the laundry bag?”
“One minute,” said Fairy Lady, as Mary Frances started.
“First, you must turn in the edges. Here is a piece of paper the size of the laundry bag.
“On the longer edge, turn up and crease a quarter of an inch fold as you did in preparing the paper hem. Now, turn the hem on each end as I have already shown you.
“That’s it!―and that’s all for to-day’s lesson. It was a tech-ni-cal lesson,” she said.