We could not claim restitution as the steamship company had been courteous enough to take the boxes down free of charge.
John Smith, the post trader (the name "sutler" fell into disuse about now) kept a large store but, nothing that I could use to beautify my quarters with--and our losses had been so heavy that we really could not afford to send back East for more things.

My new white dresses came and were suitable enough for the winter climate of MacDowell.

But I missed the thousand and one accessories of a woman's wardrobe, the accumulation of years, the comfortable things which money could not buy especially at that distance.
I had never learned how to make dresses or to fit garments and although I knew how to sew, my accomplishments ran more in the line of outdoor sports.
But Mrs.Kendall whose experience in frontier life had made her self-reliant, lent me some patterns, and I bought some of John Smith's calico and went to work to make gowns suited to the hot weather.

This was in 1877, and every one will remember that the ready-made house-gowns were not to be had in those days in the excellence and profusion in which they can to-day be found, in all parts of the country.
Now Mrs.Kendall was a tall, fine woman, much larger than I, but I used her patterns without alterations, and the result was something like a bag.

They were freshly laundried and cool, however, and I did not place so much importance on the lines of them, as the young women of the present time do.