Olive Higgins Prouty

“ Alone with the pink-and-white Canton flannel, the gray felt slippers, and my thoughts.
My soldier was a big man—long-armed, broad-shouldered, hairy-chested, I somehow liked to think.
Like the man who brings my coal every August, smeared with soot and sweat, deep-voiced, with raucous curses bellowing forth from time to time from out his blackened breast.
Somebody to be afraid of—yes, perhaps—in times of peace—brutish, boisterous. ”

“ I had never sewed for any man before.
But there it was complete. I had triumphed. Instinct taught me possibly.
I hung it in my closet, among my things, carelessly, as if it was its natural place.
And on the floor beside my long, straight row of tidy shoes I put the gray felt slippers.
My man should not be wounded yet, if I could help it. ”

“ I SAT in the town-hall and basted red tape round the edge of gray felt slippers.
They are to be worn by a wounded soldier somewhere in France.
I took the half-finished slippers home with me, when I went.
Also a roll of pink-and-white Canton flannel, cut up into pieces ready for me to put together.
I never sewed for any man before.
I live alone in a white house with green blinds on a New England hill-top with a maid-servant and a majestic female cat for company. ”