The Button Jar That Took All Afternoon
Chapter 1A Hundred Little Circles
The button jar tipped when Esty reached for a spool of thread.
Buttons pattered across the table. Four dropped onto the floor.
Bubby turned from the cupboard. Her silver-patterned scarf covered her hair.
"Leave the floor ones until we can find them together. I do not want a little child finding one first."
Esty stayed by the table. Bubby picked up the four buttons and checked beneath the chairs.
"I can put them all back," Esty said.
Bubby glanced at the sleeves waiting beside her sewing basket.
"Thank you. I need two matching buttons for those cuffs afterward."
Esty looked at the scattered colors.
She could do better than simply putting them back.
Chapter 2The Best Arrangement
Esty placed the white buttons in one saucer and the black ones in another.
Brown buttons went into a little bowl. Blue ones made a line along the table edge.
She found green, pink, and purple.
One button looked blue on one side and gray on the other. She made it a place of its own.
When Bubby returned with the pressed sleeves, Esty swept her arm above the table.
"Look! Now you can find everything."
Bubby pulled up a chair.
She needed two small, flat white buttons, each with four holes.
Esty brought the white saucer.
There were twenty-three buttons in it.
Chapter 3Not Quite a Pair
Esty selected two shiny white buttons.
Bubby put them on the cuffs.
One was wider than the other.
"They look the same in the saucer," Esty said.
"Beside each other, they do not."
Esty chose another.
It had a little loop underneath instead of holes through its face.
Bubby set it aside.
"That one would sit too high on this cuff."
Esty tried two flat buttons. Both were white, both small.
One had two holes. One had four.
Her lovely arrangement had not made finding a pair very quick.
Bubby waited with the needle safely tucked in her pincushion.
Chapter 4What Belongs Together
"I thought color was the hard part," Esty said.
"For some jobs, it is. For this one, size, shape, and holes matter too."
Esty moved the white buttons onto a square of dark cloth so she could see their edges.
She placed the small ones together.
Then she separated flat buttons from the ones with loops underneath.
Among the flat ones, she made little groups with two holes and four.
Two dull white buttons lay side by side. Their rims were the same width. Each had four holes in a square.
Esty placed them on the cuffs.
They matched.
"These?"
Bubby nodded and threaded her needle.
Chapter 5The Jar Again
While Bubby sewed, Esty looked at the other saucers.
She could spend another hour arranging every color by size and holes.
But Bubby had not asked for a museum of buttons. She had asked for help after a spill.
"How do you usually keep them?"
Bubby showed her a small envelope in the sewing basket. It held three identical brown buttons.
"Those belong to a jacket. I keep known sets together. The loose ones go in the jar."
Esty found a pair of big blue buttons that matched. She showed Bubby, who placed them in another envelope.
They checked several other possible pairs together.
The blue-gray button stayed loose. Turning it over did not give it a twin.
Esty poured the remaining buttons back into the jar, below its rim. She closed the lid firmly.
Chapter 6Two Finished Cuffs
Bubby fastened the new buttons through the cuff holes.
Both fitted without stretching the fabric.
Esty put the empty saucers away and wiped the table. Bubby checked the floor once more before Esty's little brother came in.
He wanted to know why there was dark cloth on the table.
"It helped me see white buttons," Esty said.
"Can I see them?"
She showed him the finished cuffs, with the buttons sewn securely in place.
He admired them for about two seconds and went to look for his wooden horse.
Esty laughed.
Bubby folded the sleeves.
The button jar was mixed again, except for the matching sets in their envelopes.
It looked less impressive than seven saucers of colors.
But the cuffs were finished, the floor was clear, and Bubby could find the jacket's spare buttons without searching.
Esty put the jar well back on the shelf before reaching for the thread.
