Free Little Town On The Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

tight to the elbows.”
    “ The y are,” Mary said. “I don't know if I can button—”
    Laura went around in front. “Hold your breath, Mary. Breathe out, and hold it,” she advised anxiously.
    “It's too tight,” Ma said in despair. Some of the buttons strained in the buttonholes, some could not be buttoned at all.
    “Don't breathe, Mary! Don't breathe!” Laura said frantically, and quickly she unbuttoned the straining buttons. “Now you can.” Mary breathed, outbursting from the open bodice.
    “Oh, how ever did I make such a mistake,” Ma said.
    “That bodice fitted well enough last week.”
    Laura had a sudden thought. “It's Mary's corsets! It must be. The corset strings must have stretched.”
    It was so. When Mary held her breath again and Laura pulled tight the corset strings, the bodice buttoned, and it fitted beautifully.
    “I'm glad I don't have to wear corsets yet,” said Carrie.
    “Be glad while you can be,” said Laura. “You'll have to wear them pretty soon.” Her corsets were a sad af-fliction to her, from the time she put them on in the morning until she took them off at night. But when girls pinned up their hair and wore skirts down to their shoetops, they must wear corsets.
    “You should wear them all night,” Ma said. Mary did, but Laura could not bear at night the torment of the steels that would not let her draw a deep breath.
    Always before she could get to sleep, she had to take off her corsets.
    “What your figure will be, goodness knows,” Ma warned her. “When I was married, your Pa could span my waist with his two hands.”
    “He can't now,” Laura answered, a little saucily.
    “And he seems to like you.”
    “You must not be saucy, Laura,” Ma reproved her, but Ma's cheeks flushed pink and she could not help smiling.
    Now she fitted the white lace into Mary's collar and pinned it so that it fell gracefully over the collar's edge and made a full cascade between the collar's ends in front.
    The y all stood back to admire. The gored skirt of brown cashmere was smooth and rather tight in front, but gathered full around the sides and back, so that it would be ample for hoops. In front it touched the floor evenly, in back it swept into a graceful short train that swished when Mary turned. All around the bottom was a pleated flounce.
    The overskirt was of the brown-and-blue plaid. It was shirred in front, it was draped up at the sides to show more of the skirt beneath, and at the back it fell in rich, full puffs, caught up above the flounced train.
    Above all this, Mary's waist rose slim in the tight, smooth bodice. The neat little buttons ran up to the soft white lace cascading under Mary's chin. The brown cashmere was smooth as paint over her sloping shoulders and down to her elbows; then the sleeves widened. A shirring of the plaid curved around them, and the wide wrists fell open, showing the lining of white lace ruffles that set off Mary's slender hands.
    Mary was beautiful in that beautiful dress. Her hair was silkier and more golden than the golden silk threads in the plaid. Her blind eyes were bluer than the blue in it. Her cheeks were pink, and her figure was so stylish.
    “Oh, Mary,” Laura said. “You look exactly as if you'd stepped out of a fashion plate. There won't be, there just can't be, one single girl in college who can hold a candle to you.”
    “Do I really look so well, Ma?” Mary asked timidly, and she flushed pinker.
    For once Ma did not guard against vanity. “Yes, Mary, you do,” she said. “You are not only as stylish as can be, you are beautiful. No matter where you go, you will be a pleasure to every eye that sees you. And, I am thankful to say, you may be sure your clothes are equal to any occasion.”
    The y could not look at her longer. She was almost fainting from the heat, in that woolen dress. The y laid it carefully away, done at last, and a great success.
    There were only a few more things to be done now.
    Ma must make Mary a