And the old lady picked out a sc.r.a.p of marvelous brocade, with silver-white roses on a wine-colored ground, and smoothed it on her knee.
"This was the one she wore to the President"s reception"--selecting a bit of rose-colored satin, striped with sky-blue velvet; "and this,"
she continued, smoothing out a long strip of changeable silk in green and ruby tints, "was another dinner dress. Here"s a piece of plaid silk that was made up for Squire Harney"s wife, when she was goin" to Europe; and here"s a piece of Mrs. Doctor Thorne"s dress, that she had made on purpose to wear to a grand party over in Tolland."
This last was a good-sized square of bright yellow silk, with polka-dots of mazarine blue.
Linda, looking at the gorgeous fabric with admiring eyes, exclaimed:
"I never saw such pieces in all my life! They _would_ make the loveliest crazy quilt!"
"What kind of a quilt, my dear?"
"A crazy quilt," said Linda, laughing. "Haven"t you ever seen one, Mrs.
Burbank? Fred says the person was crazy who first invented them; but I think they"re just as pretty as they can be. It takes a great many pieces of silk, though, to make a bed-quilt, and some of the girls only make sofa-pillows and such things."
"Oh, you mean patchwork. The land!" said Mrs. Burbank, "I used to make silk patchwork more than sixty years ago. It was all the style then, but I didn"t s"pose they ever done it now."
"Oh, yes; it is all the style now," said Linda, with a smile.
"Do tell! I want to know if you like to piece patchwork?" said the old lady, looking over her spectacles at Linda"s girlish face, with its gentle eyes and frame of soft, brown hair. "I declare for"t, you look just as my Nancy Jane did when she was your age! If you want them pieces, child, you can have "em; I ain"t got any use for "em, and don"t s"pose I ever shall have. I"m too old to piece patchwork, myself--my eyesight ain"t what it used to be."
For a moment Linda was speechless with delight, but finally she found her voice, and cried out:
"Oh, Mrs. Burbank! All those lovely crazy pieces! Do you really mean to give them to me?"
"Of course I do, and I"m real glad to see ye so pleased, my dear. Them silk pieces have laid in that chest years an" years, doin" n.o.body any good; an" they shan"t lay there no longer, if they can make a little girl so happy."
And the good old lady looked happy herself as she opened another chest, and, taking out an old pillow-case of home-spun linen, began to fill it with the wondrous "crazy pieces."
When she had crowded them all in and tied the bag with a piece of twine, she said:
"Now, you can take "em right along with you, an" whenever your father happens to come this way ag"in, he can bring me back the piller-case, for it was one of Mother Burbank"s, and I shouldn"t want to lose it.
I declare for "t!" she added, "I forgot all about your father, child, I got so took up with lookin" over them pieces. He"s got the buggy mended, an" he"s come back after you, so you must come right down.
I want you an" he should have dinner "fore you go; it"s all ready."
And happy Linda went down to the kitchen, where she found her father and Johnny, and Deacon Burbank, who had just come home to dinner.
Mr. Trafton was hungry, and quite willing to take dinner at the deacon"s, instead of waiting till they arrived at East Berlin.
They all became very well acquainted in the course of the meal, and Mr.
Trafton promised to bring Linda to see Mrs. Burbank, whenever he came that way.
"And I will bring my crazy quilt and show it to you, when I get it done, Mrs. Burbank," added Linda.
Whereupon Johnny spoke up, and said:
"If you don"t get on with your crazy quilt any faster than my sister does with hers, you won"t ever get it done!"
And Linda told him that sounded just like Fred!
Johnny carried the pillow-case out to the buggy and tucked it under the seat; and Linda could think of nothing but her crazy pieces all the way to East Berlin.
When she got home and showed them to Fred, he declared they were the jolliest, craziest lot of pieces he had seen yet!
And when Linda"s quilt was commenced, all the girls went wild over it; but she laughingly refused to tell them where her pieces came from.
She made a great mystery of the matter, a.s.serting, in reply to all inquiries, that hers would be a crazy quilt with a history, and n.o.body should know anything about it until the quilt was finished.
A crazy quilt with a history is no trifling piece of work, and the girls have not yet heard the story.
DAVY"S TURN.
BY FLORENCE B. HALLOWELL.
"Never mind! It"ll come my turn some day, and then I"ll pay you boys up; and you"ll be sorry enough for all the mean things you"ve done to me,"
and Davy Potter stooped to pick up the books which one of a group of a dozen boys had pushed from his arm.
The school-house yard was muddy from recent rains, and the books were so wet and dirty that Davy took out his pocket handkerchief to wipe them off.
"What"ll you take for that handkerchief, Dave?" asked Fred Ba.s.sett.
"It"s a beauty, and no mistake."
There was a loud shout from the other boys, and universal attention was directed to the little square of faded calico Davy was so industriously using.
A hot flush rose to the boy"s thin, freckled face; but he made no reply, except to mutter under his breath something which the boys could not catch.
But there was a bitter, vindictive feeling in his heart as he followed his persecutors into the school-house. He did not understand why all the wit--if wit it could be called--should be leveled at him; why he should be the target for every poisoned arrow, simply because he was poor, ugly and always at the bottom of his cla.s.ses. He thought it unjust and cruel, and longed with all his heart for the time to come when by some real good luck he would have a chance to "pay the boys up."
He knew that if he ever needed a.s.sistance in any such work, he could rely on old Sim Kane to help him; for the old man--a half-witted creature who earned a miserable livelihood by doing odd jobs of wood-sawing and cleaning for charitably-disposed people--had good reason, also, to hate the boys of the p.r.i.c.kett school, and long for revenge.
Davy lived with an aunt, who gave him a home as a matter of duty, and regarded him as a burden and a nuisance, often treating him so unkindly that he was made very unhappy, and spent as little time with her as possible.
He tried honestly to be dutiful and obedient; but he couldn"t help forgetting occasionally to wipe his feet before entering the kitchen, and sometimes he let the fire go out, or forgot to feed the chickens.
Then he was severely reprimanded, of course, and told that he was ungrateful, as well as stupid.
But in the woods he was free to do as he liked, and there was no one to scold or find fault with him, and he had many dumb but affectionate friends there among the squirrels, rabbits and birds.
So he always took his way to the woods every Sat.u.r.day as soon as he had cleaned up the yard about his aunt"s house, filled all the water-buckets, cut the kindling for the kitchen stove, and attended to the dozen or more other ch.o.r.es Miss Potter required of him.
He never shirked the least of them, no matter how anxious he was to get away; for he had been so frequently told how much he owed to his aunt, that he believed he could not do too much for her.
It was while exploring the depths of the woods, one day, that he discovered the secret retreat of the "Mystic Nine," a club of nine boys who disappeared from the village regularly every Sat.u.r.day morning during the spring, summer and fall, and remained away until sunset, often returning with torches to have a street parade after dark, or with a bag of plump birds for a grand "fry" in the kitchen of some indulgent mother.
That they had a hiding-place of some sort, where they held meetings and ate the generous lunches they carried with them, all the boys outside the nine felt sure; but none of the Mystics ever answered any questions concerning it, and threw out vague but impressive warnings as to the terrible fate that would befall any one whose curiosity led him to seek to penetrate the secret they guarded so closely.