The Gamble (I) by Lavyrle Spencer Page A

we can do to help you—haul things up and down, or run and fetch—you be sure to call on us.” Jubilee turned to her friends. “Isn’t that right, girls?”
    “Sure thing,” Pearl agreed. “We sleep late in the mornings, but we always have afternoons free.”
    “Me, I’m strong as a horse, and I was born takin’ orders,” claimed Ruby. “Any way I can he’p, just beller.”
    How was Agatha supposed to dislike these three? Whatever their pasts, Ruby, Pearl, and Jubilee appeared to have intrinsic generosity that ran deeper than that in some of the Presbyterians she knew.
    “Thank you all, but for now, just stretch the top of the curtain flat so I can get the cord through the casing.”
    “How you going to do that?” Jubilee inquired.
    “Easily. Tie the cord through the eye of the needle and run it through backward.” Jubilee’s eyes grew bigger and bigger as she held the edge of the red satin and watched Agatha work. “Balls o’ fire, would you look at that!”
    A spurt of laughter escaped Agatha. “You girls certainly have colorful language.”
    “Sorry, ma’am. It’s where we’ve worked. But that’s amazing.”
    “What?” Agatha busied herself pursing the fabric on the cord.
    “That! What you’re doing! How’d you learn such tricks?”
    “My mother taught me.”
    “Why, I never would’ve thought of a thing like that. I’m lucky I can tie my own boot strings.”
    Agatha had known how to thread a casing for so long she took it for granted. She looked up at Jubilee’s entranced almond eyes and felt a flicker of pride in her work.
    “I’ve been doing it so long it’s second nature to me.”
    “You sure are lucky, knowing a trade like you do.”
    “Lucky?” When was the last time Agatha had thought of herself as lucky?
    “And having a mother to teach you. I didn’t have a mother. I mean, she died when I was born, they tell me. Lived in St. Luke’s Orphanage when I was little.” Suddenly she flashed a mischievous smile. “Wonder what those nuns would say if they could see me now?” There wasn’t the faintest note of self-pity in Jubilee’s revelation. With a quicksilver shift of expression, she became engrossed in Agatha’s occupation again. “Your mother, did she teach you lots of sewing tricks? I mean, like how to make dresses and petticoats and other things besides hats?”
    “Well, actually, yes, I make all my own clothing.”
    “All your own! You mean you made that?” She took Agatha by an elbow and inspected the intricate shaping of her bodice—welts, gussets, flutes, and tucks. She turned to her and exclaimed, “Would you look at this, girls!” The three of them examined the details of Agatha’s Austrian draped tie-back, and her even more elaborate cascading bustle. “That’s some fancy work!”
    They oohed and ahhed, even Ruby, who was handy with a needle herself.
    “Petticoats, too?” Before Agatha could object, they lifted her rear hem to inspect the cagelike bustle, which fell from waist to heels in a set of horizontal ribs securely set in white cotton. Agatha was so surprised, she forgot to object.
    “She could do it, couldn’t she?” Jubilee asked Ruby.
    “Do what?” Agatha demanded.
    “Do what?” repeated Violet.
    The girls ignored them. Jube was waiting for an answer. “Couldn’t she?”
    Ruby closely studied the construction of Agatha’s clothing. “I b’lieve she could.”
    “Do what?” Violet insisted.
    “Make those new skirts we been wanting for that French dance.”
    “New skirts?”
    “French dance?”
    “The cancan,” Pearl informed them. “No offense, Miss Agatha, but I’ve been practicing my high kick especially for it. But I can’t do the cancan without one of those ruffled skirts.”
    “Ruffles run clear around in layers,” Ruby added, gesturing. “Like the old crinolines, only inside the skirt.”
    “You could do it!” Jubilee said enthusiastically. “I know you could, and I’ll talk to Gandy about