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I knew that I dare not take any of these things. Miss Cora was most efficient with respect to her house and her things and so was Alice, for that matter. Surely there was some other way. Now in a city the solution would have been easy. I could just have gone to a ladies' shop and that would have been that. I could have said that the garments were for a present. In this town which was a village of few people and in which I was well known, this could not be done. So I thought and worried and all at once came the answer. There it was right in front of me why had I not thought of this before?

-

I had it -

In the back hall downstairs was a large clothes hamper where soiled garments were put. Alice had done a part of the washing and ironing with the help of a woman who came in on certain days. However, as there was a lot of work and as Alice was learning to do fancy work, a "washer- woman" was engaged to do it. This lady called each Monday and took the soiled garments from the hamper, or sometimes her daughter, a girl of my own age, called for them. They would take the things and on the next Monday return them when they again picked up the soiled things.

I picked out one complete outfit. I longed for a pair of Alice's sheer hose but I dared not take them from her room. There were none in this hamper but there was a pair of her gym hose - long black cotton stockings. Here was my gold mine indeed! I got a complete outfit all together, in- cluding a dainty corselette with the cute supporters at- tached! Alice must have washed most all her own panties as all the panties I could find were a pair of her "square dance" ones. There was a square dance fad from New York to San Francisco and in our rather rural community, square dancing was a part of any dance or get together. These panties were taffeta, a cream colored taffeta and made like bloomers or knickers.

I figured that these garments, being in the soiled clothes hamper, could be taken and kept and when missed, they