This was true. The family towel was a filthy affair when there _was_ one. Even if Mollie had had money, it is doubtful if she would have spent it for towels. As for _washing_ anything, it was much easier to tuck it into the stove or to drop it into the lake. Mollie simply _wouldn't_ wash; and since Mrs. Shannon's hands had become crippled with rheumatism, she couldn't wash. Jeannette, however, washed her own shabby dress. Her father washed and mended his own socks and shirts. Also he had towels for his own personal use and those he managed to launder, somehow. Time and again he had provided towels and bed-linen for his family; but Mollie, who grew lazier with every breath she drew, had taken no care of them. One by one, they had disappeared. "I think," said Jeannette, wisely, "that it would be a very good thing if I knew how to sew. Then, perhaps, father could get me some cloth and I could make things. I'd love to have nice clothes." "Grown-up ladies," contributed Michael, "wears a lot of white things under their dresses--twenty at a time I guess. I seen 'em on a clothesline. The lady what was hangin' 'em up says, 'Don't you trow no mud on them _under_clothes.'" "_Any_ mud," corrected Jeanne, patiently. "And _saw_, not seen." "The lady said '_no_ mud,'" insisted Michael. "Then maybe she wasn't a truly lady. Sometimes you see a truly lady in a little gold frame and _she_ never says 'I done it.'" "How _could_ she?" demanded practical Michael, to whom Jeanne had intrusted the cake of soap, in order that he might lather himself while she rinsed Annie's hair. For this process, Annie sat in the Cinder Pond, whose waters were so placid that, even when the lake outside was exceedingly rough, there were no treacherous waves to trouble small children. Both boys could swim. Jeanne, too, could swim a little, but was too timid to venture into very deep water. "There," said Michael, returning the precious cake. "Gimme the rag and I'll rub if I _got_ to. Here, Sammy, I'll rub _you_ first." "Aw, no," protested Sammy, backing away. "Let sister do it--she rubs _softer_." The bath lasted a good long time, because, the worst of the agony over, the happy youngsters wished to play in the water. It was only with great difficulty that Jeanne finally coaxed her charges back into their clothes. "I don't blame you," she mourned, "for hating them. I _do_ wish you had some clean ones." Mollie was peeling potatoes outside the cabin door, when Jeanne returned home with her spotless family. She was peeling the vegetables wastefully, as usual. Mollie could go everlastingly without things; she couldn't economize or take care of what she had. Or at least she didn't. "Mollie," said Jeanne, "I've been thinking that I'd like to sew. Could you teach me, do you s'pose?"