He remembered that on at least two occasions, they had been loose, but after she had washed them, they had seemed smaller than they had when she bought them. When he put them on the next day, they had been as tight as when they were first purchased. Surely there was a limit to how much a garment would shrink in the wash!
Howard went back to the dresser to find a pair of pants to wear that day. The only thing he found in the drawer was a pair of little boy’s overalls. He sat on the corner of the bed and hiked them up his legs, then pulled them over his bottom. They were a good deal tighter than he would have liked, but they fit. He left the suspenders unfastened while he found a T-shirt and shrugged his way into the cotton shirt.