Mother had a long coat of black astrakhan. It was too bad that whenever the weather was cold enough for Mother to wear that coat it was too cold for her to be out, because she was ill. So the coat hung in the cupboard, limp and empty.
One winter Bigger and Middle grew so fast and wore their winter coats so hard that when it came time to hand them down they were too dilapidated even for me. My old coat split too, because I was fat. There was too little winter left to buy another coat that year which I would outgrow during the summer. So Mother took the curly coat and cut it down to fit me. She put a pretty new lining in for fear I’d feel bad about having to wear a grown-up’s cut-down coat—but I was proud. It was a splendid coat. No other girl in school had such a curly lovely material.
I saw them run fingers down it as it hung on the cloakroom peg, caressing it as if it were a puppy, offering to hold it while I got in. I felt like Father, who always had his coat held while he put his arms in the sleeves. I put my arms in slowly so that all the girls should have a chance to see the pretty lining while it was being held.
I finished the winter out proudly. There were ever so many coats like Bigger’s and Middle’s, but none like mine. There was one peg a little apart from the others and I hung my coat on that. I said to myself, “My coat is so good it will never wear out. I hope it won’t finish till I am quite grown up, then I won’t have to wear out any more of Bigger’s and Middle’s.”
Spring came and so did spring clothes. Sometimes I would think, “How splendid it will be when winter comes and I can snuggle down into the curls of my winter coat!” But next winter the style changed, all the girls came to school in short jackets. Bigger and Middle had them too. I felt as dowdy as a fox terrier whose tail has not been docked. I hated the curly coat, which came to the bottom of my skirt.
One day I put on the coat, got Mother’s shears, stood on a chair in front of the mirror, and chawed the scissors through the curls all round my middle. As I twisted, the shears zigzagged. It looked terrible. The skirt of my coat fell to the floor just as Mother came into the room. I said, “Oh!”—trying to sound ordinary. “Nobody wears tails this year, Mother.”
“So this snake-fence effect is the style, is it?”
My face burned and I looked down at all the black curls round my feet. I cried, “What’ll I do? Oh, what?”
“Wear it.”
“Everybody’d laugh, I couldn’t!”
“Sew the tail on again, then.”
“Couldn’t I wear my summer coat with a jersey underneath?”
“No.”
I sewed the tail on; but, though I pressed and pressed, there was a hideous lumpy ridge round my waist and the curls twisted all ways. Going to school, I lagged so nobody would be walking up Fort Street Hill behind me. I carried all sorts of unnecessary books to school in my arms so that my waist would not show. I tried to persuade Bigger and Middle, “Let’s have fun and walk Chinaman-way—one behind the other.” (If the front and back were hid the sides did not seem so dreadful.) But Bigger said, “We are not Chinamen but young ladies and must walk as such.”
I was angry—wouldn’t keep step for that, but dropped behind and got late marks on my report. That was more trouble. Wasn’t I glad when spring came and Mother told me to hang the curly coat on the back of the storeroom door.
I had two summer coats—Bigger’s and Middle’s of last year. They were tidy, careful children and kept their clothes nice.
All that summer I hadn’t one trouble; then came winter and Mother said, “Winter has broken suddenly before I have prepared. Fetch out your curly coat.”
It was not there, it was not anywhere. Everyone looked, everyone waited for me to confess; Bigger had ever so many texts to fit. Nobody accused me, but they all made it plain that they were sorry I had not the courage to confess. It made me feel dirty. I really wished the miserable coat would turn up. I’d rather have worn it than the disgrace. Bigger and Middle got new coats, I had an old patched one—too tight. We got through winter.
At spring cleaning the drawers of a chest in the storeroom were pulled right out to be brushed behind. Out fell piles and piles of chewed-up black curls and little bits of the pretty lining Mother had put into the curly coat. From the middle of it darted a mother rat and there were four little pink naked rats like sausages in the nest.
Mother called the cat and me at the same time, and mixed our names. Everyone stopped looking disgust at me. I felt as if I had had a bath. Mother bought me an entirely new coat, although the winter was half over.
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