“But here I am letting my quill go wandering again, John. It is not of my doll that I am minded to write you, but of the important thing that happened in the shop of Mistress Betsy Ross this summer time. I was there, John. I saw it with my own eyes.
“Mistress Betsy was fitting new covers to grandmother’s best fiddle-backed chairs, and I had come down to her shop to see if they were done. It chanced that they were, but I lingered a while for Mistress Betsy was busying herself at what she likes best to do. She was stitching a flag.
“You know, of course, John, that each of our American Colonies has its own flag, each of a different design, although they all favor the same colors, red, and white, and blue. Such days as these, when troops are marching to war, there is need of many flags, and so Mistress Betsy is as busy stitching them as she is in making her furniture covers. So quick and deft, she is, John.
“I wish you could but see how neatly she sews together the colors, and stitches on the designs. No scrap of cloth is wasted, and each flag that Mistress Betsy makes is quite perfect in shape and pattern. I mind that the packet had just brought Mistress Betsy some bundles of fresh stuff for her flag-making, red and blue, and she was looking it over as she spoke to me:
“‘Tabitha, child,’ Mistress Betsy said to me, ‘it would save me much time and work if I had one pattern for a flag. It tries my patience sorely to keep in my thoughts and at my fingers’ ends the patterns of thirteen.’
“‘So think I.’ The voice of a man surprised us, and we looked up to see a very grand gentleman standing in the door of the shop and looking at us. ‘I heard your speech just now, Mistress Ross,’ he said, ‘and it is even upon such an errand that I come to you. The Continental Congress is of a mind to adopt one flag that will be the flag of freedom and the emblem of the brave; one banner for the Colonies. The fame of your fine needlework has come to our ears, Mistress Ross, and we are here to consult with you in the matter.’
“The gentleman, very fine indeed in his blue broadcloth and gold lace, stepped into the little shop now, and behind him were other gentlemen in the uniform of the Colonies.
“I confess, John, that I was a bit awed, and I hid myself behind Mistress Betsy’s tall clock, where I could hear but not be seen. You see I was in my linsey-woolsey frock, not dressed for company. Mistress Betsy wore her long working apron over her chintz short gown, but she curtsied with great ease.