Emma Field Book I - coming of age in the changing times of the mid-19th century

Chapter XIII - Making a Dress

Jeremiah soaked up the last of his stew with a crust of bread. Emma watched him intently in the candlelight.

"Are you going to the village tomorrow, Father?"

"I don't expect so, although I may have to take some grain to the mill for Mr. Cooper. Why do you ask?"

"No particular reason. I was just wondering. When will you know if Mr. Cooper wants you to go?"

"Probably after chores tomorrow...but you can go any time you like, as long as your chores are finished. What would you want with going to the village?" He slid his plate toward the centre of the table and his chair toward the fire.

"Nothing. It really is nothing, Father." Emma plucked the dishpan from the wall.

•

Mrs. Henderson opened her door to find Emma on the step. "How do you do, Miss Field?" Her eyes twinkled again from behind her spectacles.

"Fine, thank you, Mrs. Henderson, and you?"

"I have never been better. Won't you come in and join me while I sew? It is lovely to see you." Mrs. Henderson's hands fluttered like a butterfly. Her skirts swung from side to side.

"Mrs. Henderson, I was wondering if you had determined where lilac comes from?" asked Emma, feeling awkward again.

"Yes, I have thought about it – a great deal in fact. Hang your shawl there if you wish. A cup of tea, Miss Field?"

"Yes, please, Mrs. Henderson."

"There you go. Sit right there – in the chair at the end of the table. Now, I can't think of how one would make lilac fabric. Yet I know that hundreds of years ago the Ark of the Covenant, which the Jews carried into the wilderness, was covered with a dark purple cloth. And I know that Cleopatra, when she was Julius Caesar's mistress, decorated the whole palace in purple. That story is a little too steamy for someone as young as you, but old Caesar must have liked it because he started wearing purple togas..."

"Caesar? Born approximately 100 BC!" stated Emma.

"Oh I don't know those details," Mrs. Henderson continued, "but I am puzzled because I don't think that I have ever seen fabric the colour of lilacs. One would need to have a weave of blue and pink for that, and I have never seen such a weave. The blue would come from indigo, of course, but the pink – I don't rightly know that I have ever seen pink fabric. I don't know what you would use to make such a dye. Madder is too red, not pink enough.

"Every fabric has to have a weave of black or white or gold as a base," Mrs. Henderson continued, her elbow resting on the huge tabletop. She flicked her thimble-capped fingers together. "No, this is just one more thing I don't understand. Another cup of tea?"

"No thank you. I still have some. What are you working on today, or should I not ask that question?"

"You may ask, Miss Field, but I will only say that this is a wrap dress for a woman who will soon be 'wearing the shawl.'"

Emma nodded. She knew that that meant there was a new mother-to-be in the village. "Is that calico?" she asked.

"English calico, yes, but it comes from Calcutta. It is American calico only if it has oranges and blacks in it."

"Then there is orange fabric. I don't think I've ever seen any."

Mrs. Henderson picked up the bodice from the table. "Yes, there is orange fabric, but it always appears as a pattern in a print. Orange is just too ostentatious to be by itself." She slipped the end of the thread into her mouth before pushing it through the eye of the needle.