Only, dressin' little girls is some off my usual course.
Bailey, does Ketury make her own duds?"

"Why, no! Course she helps and stands by for orders, but Effie Taylor
comes and takes the wheel while the riggin's goin' on. Effie's a
dressmaker and--"

"There! See, Ase? It IS some good to have a married man aboard, after
all. A dressmaker's what we want. I'll hunt up Effie to-morrow."

And hunt her up he did, with the result that Miss Taylor came to the
Whittaker place each day during the following week and Emily was, as
the captain said, "rigged out fresh from main truck to keelson." In this
"rigging" Captain Cy and his two partners--Josiah Dimick had already
christened the pair "The Board of Strategy"--took a marked interest.
They were on hand when each new garment was tried on, and they approved
or criticised as seemed to them best.

"Ain't that kind of sober lookin' for a young one like Bos'n?" asked the
captain, referring to one of the new gowns. "I don't want her to look as
if she was dressed cheap."

"Land sakes!" mumbled Miss Taylor, her mouth full of pins. "There ain't
anything cheap about it, and you'll find it out when you get the bill.
That's a nice, rich, sensible suit."

"I know, but it's so everlastin' quiet! Don't you think a little yellow
and black or some red strung along the yards would sort of liven it
up? Why! you ought to see them Greaser girls down in South America of a
Sunday afternoon. Color! and go! Jerushy! they'd pretty nigh knock your
eye out."

The dressmaker sniffed disdain.

"Cap'n Whittaker," she retorted, "if you want this child to look like an
Indian squaw or a barber's pole you'll have to get somebody else to do
it. I'm used to dressing Christians, not yeller and black heathen women.
Red strung along a skirt like that! I never did!"

"There, there, Effie! Don't get the barometer fallin'. I was only
suggestin', you know. What do you think, Bos'n?"

"Why, Uncle Cyrus, I don't believe I should like red very much; nor the
other colors, either. I like this just as it is."

"So? Well, you're the doctor. Maybe you're right. I wouldn't want you
to look like a barber's pole. Don't love Tad Simpson enough to want to
advertise his business."

Miss Taylor's coming had other results besides the refitting of "Bos'n."
She found much fault with the captain's housekeeping. It developed that
her sister Georgiana, who had been working in a Brockton shoe shop, was
now at home and might be e