s after the
cutter finished his job, and he and his helpers stamped the patterns
on sleeves, front and back, skirt, by rubbing chalk over the paper.
Upon the scene at this psychological moment enters the bright girl to
make herself useful. The bright girl "framed-up" the goods for the
beaders to work on. (In fact, you noted she entered even earlier, by
helping the cutter tie the bundles according to size and color.)

"Frame-up" means taking boards the proper length with broad tape
tacked along one edge. First you pin the goods lengthwise, pins close
together. Then you find side boards the desired length and pin the
goods along the sides. Then with four iron clamps you fasten the
corners together, making the goods as tight as a drum. There is a real
knack to it, let me tell you--especially when it comes to queerly
shaped pieces--odd backs or fronts or sleeves. Or where you have a
skirt some six or eight feet long and three broad. But I can frame!
Ada said so.

When I got a piece framed (Now I write those six words and grin) ...
"_when_" ... Two little skinny horses I had to rest the frames upon.
The space I had in which to make myself useful was literally about
three by four feet just in front of the shelves where the thread and
beads were kept. That is, I had it if no one wanted to get anything in
the line of thread or beads, which they always did want to get.
Whereupon I moved out--which meant my work might be knocked on the
floor, or if it was bigger I had to move the work out with me. Or I
crawled under it and got the thread or beads myself. If it were a
skirt I was framing up I earned the curses, though friendly, of the
assemblage. No one could pass in any direction. The beaders were shut
in their quarters till I got through, or they crawled under. Or I
poked people in the back with the frames while I was clamping them. I
fought and bled and died over every large frame I managed to get
together, for the frame was larger than the space I had to work in.
Until in compassion they finally moved me around the corner into the
dressmaking quarters, which tried Joe's soul. Joe was the Italian
foreman of that end of things. He was nice. But he saw no reason why I
should be moved up into his already crowded space. Indeed, I was only
a little better off. The fact of the matter was that the more useful I
became the more in everybody's way I got. Indeed, it can be taken as a
tribute to human nature that everyone in that factor