stefansson-wrangel-09-34-018

14.

and she had very quickly discovered how to cast on, rib, purl,
tuck, and widen or narrow as necessary on the needle.

This had not seemed to particularly impress the
boys, but it gave her a secret pleasure to know that she was
proving herself to be worth the fifty dollars a month they
had agreed to pay her as a seamstress who had not been expected
to knit at all.

"April 10.
I caught one female fox, very small but it's
good mead. Clear and sunshine.

April 11.
I was over to the traps no fox or tracks. I
went to other side and saw wood and haul them
home.

April 12th.
I was out to the traps but there is nothing
and I went to other side and saw three cuts
of wood and bring them home and I'm short of
yarn for Galles gloves."

Short of yarn, now. She may have misjudged the
amount needed but even if she had not, even if she had known
there was too little yarn, she probably would have started
the gloves anyway. Yes, because it was important to her to
go on making things for the three boys who were gone. She
thought of the gloves as being for Galle, but they could as
easily have been for Crawford or Maurer, she wanted very much
to keep each of the boys in her thoughts. As long as she
continued to do that, kept them in her thoughts and worked
for them as she had done all these past months, sho could go
on believing they still lived and had not died out there on
the ice during those terrible howling nights of storm last
January.