I believe I remember the incident you're talking about.
It was after the Ingalls family moved to what became the town of De Smet in Dakota Territory. Laura would have been in her teens, I think. It had been arranged that during the summer she would take a job in town - the lady of the business needed help making shirts, as there were enough single men in and around town that shirt-making was a paying proposition.
The business had the first sewing machine that I think Laura had ever seen. Laura herself didn't touch it - she was there for the fine details of making buttonholes and putting on buttons - but there was a sort of wistful attitude among the distaff side of the Ingalls household that you could only really justify the expense of a machine like that as part of a paying business.
It might have been in LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE, maybe.
RE: Little House
It was after the Ingalls family moved to what became the town of De Smet in Dakota Territory. Laura would have been in her teens, I think. It had been arranged that during the summer she would take a job in town - the lady of the business needed help making shirts, as there were enough single men in and around town that shirt-making was a paying proposition.
The business had the first sewing machine that I think Laura had ever seen. Laura herself didn't touch it - she was there for the fine details of making buttonholes and putting on buttons - but there was a sort of wistful attitude among the distaff side of the Ingalls household that you could only really justify the expense of a machine like that as part of a paying business.
It might have been in LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE, maybe.