The tailors at Colonial Williamsburg made a suit for their cat
The best part is that they were inspired by a diary entry from 1775, written by a 12 year old tailor’s apprentice who had been left unsupervised all day and decided to make a suit for a cat. Here’s a link to the blog post about it, but I’ll just paste the whole diary entry here:
“I had been at work about two months when Christmas came on – and here I must relate a little anecdote. The principal [the tailor] and his lady were invited to a party among their friends…while it devolved on me to stay at home and keep house. There was nothing left me in charge to do, only to take care of the house. There was a large cat that generally lay about the fire. In order to try my mechanical powers, I concluded to make a suit of clothing for puss, and for my purpose gathered some scraps of cloth that lay about the shop-board, and went to work as hard as I could. Late in the evening I got my suit of clothes finished; I caught the cat, put on the whole suit – coat, vest, and small-clothes [breeches] – buttoned all on tight, and set down my cat to inspect the fit.
“Unfortunately for me there was a hole through the floor close to the fireplace, just large enough for the cat to pass down; after making some efforts to get rid of the clothes, and failing, pussy descended through the hole and disappeared; the floor was tight and the house underpinned with brick, so there was no chance of pursuit. I consoled myself with a hope that the cat would extricate itself from its incumbrance, but not so; night came and I had made on a good fire and seated myself for some two or three hours after dark, when who should make their appearance but my master and mistress and two young men, all in good humor, with two or three bottles of rum. After all were seated around the fire, who should appear amongst us but the cat in his uniform. I was struck speechless, the secret was out and had no chance of concealing; the cat was caught, the whole work inspected and the question asked, is this your day’s work? I was obliged to answer in the affirmative; I would then have been willing to take a good whipping, and let it stop there, but no, to complete my mortification the clothes were carefully taken off the cat and hung up in the shop for the inspection of all customers that came in.”
“I was hoping they’d beat me and forget about it but to my horror they stuck my work up on the fridge”
Not just any fridge-
The public fridge
I wish we could see the tailor’s diary entry because I’m willing to bet it was one of the best days of his life. If I was that tailor and my fresh new 12yo apprentice, who was only told to mind the house, made something like that in their (probably very limited) free time, I would not only hang the outfit on the door, I would rub it in every one of my colleague’s noses. “Doust thine apprentice even lift a needle when you’re not watching? MY apprentice just started and yet his ideas are so advanced! Already some posh lady has asked me to lend him to her to outfit her dog! He is bringing in business, all on his own! And you can’t have him! Face it, I have made the finest choice of apprentice!”
Meanwhile the kid is probably trying to squeeze into that hole with the cat.
