They’d found a dress, shoes, and even a shawl so she wouldn’t have to cover up with her old cloth coat. Some mending and tailoring would be needed, but Tabitha thought she could handle it. “You have to answer in kind,” she told Eleanor. “It’s tradition.” They couldn’t afford a show like David had made. Eleanor was startled to see how much such things cost and quietly calculated what David had literally blown asking her out. “We can’t afford any of these,” she said to her mother. “When money’s low, your imagination should be high,” she said and pointed to a box of sparklers. “I have an idea.” When they got home, Eleanor fetched a piece of salvaged plywood from the shed. Using a rusted saw left over from a previous owner, they cut off the chipped edges. With a handle-less file, they smoothed off the splinters. They worked into the night with crayons and a hair dryer.
