Diadema, wife of Jot Bascom, was sitting at the window of the village
watch-tower, so called because it commanded a view of nearly everything
that happened in Pleasant River; those details escaping the physical
eye being supplied by faith and imagination working in the light of
past experience. She sat in the chair of honor, the chair of choice,
the high-backed rocker by the southern window, in which her husband's
mother, old Mrs. Bascom, had sat for thirty years, applying a still
more powerful intellectual telescope to the doings of her neighbors.
Diadema's seat had formerly been on the less desirable side of the
little light-stand, where Priscilla Hollis was now installed.
Mrs. Bascom was at work on a new fore-room rug, the former one having
been transferred to Miss Hollis's chamber; for, as the teacher at the
brick schoolhouse, a graduate of a Massachusetts normal school, and
the daughter of a deceased judge, she was a boarder of considerable
consequence. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, and the two women were
alone. It was a pleasant, peaceful sitting-room, as neat as wax in every
part. The floor was covered by a cheerful patriotic rag carpet woven
entirely of red, white, and blue rags, and protected in various exposed
localities by button rugs,--red, white, and blue disks superimposed one
on the other.
Diadema Bascom was a person of some sentiment. When her old father,
Captain Dennett, was dying, he drew a wallet from under his pillow, and
handed her a twenty-dollar bill to get something to remember him by.
This unwonted occurrence burned itself into the daughter's imagination,
and when she came as a bride to the Bascom house she refurnished the
sitting-room as a kind of monument to the departed soldier, whose sword
and musket were now tied to the wall with neatly hemmed bows of bright
red cotton.
The chair cushions were of red-and-white glazed patch, the turkey
wings that served as hearth brushes were hung against the white-painted
chimney-piece with blue skirt braid, and the white shades were finished
with home-made scarlet “tossels.” A little whatnot in one corner was
laden with the trophies of battle. The warrior's brass buttons were
strung on a red picture cord and hung over his daguerreotype on the
upper shelf; there was a tarnished shoulder strap, and a flattened
bullet that the captain's jealous contemporaries swore _he_ never
stopped, unless he got it in the rear when he was flying from the foe.
There was also a little tin canister in which a charge of powder had
been sacredly preserved. The scoffers, again, said that “the cap'n put
it in his musket when he went into the war, and kep' it there till he
come out.” These objects were tastefully decorated with the national
colors. In fact, no modern aesthete could have arranged a symbolic
symphony of grief and glory with any more fidelity to an ideal than
Diadema Bascom, in working out her scheme of red, white, and blue.
Rows of ripening tomatoes lay along the ledges of the windows, and a
tortoise-shell cat snoozed on one of the broad sills. The tall clock in
the corner ticked peacefully. Priscilla Hollis never tired of looking
at the jolly red-cheeked moon, the group of stars on a blue ground, the
trig little ship, the old house, and the jolly moon again, creeping one
after another across the open space at the top.
Jot Bascom was out, as usual, gathering statistics of the last horse
trade; little Jot was building “stickin'” houses in the barn; Priscilla
was sewing long strips for braiding; while Diadema sat at the drawing-in
frame, hook in hand, and a large basket of cut rags by her side.
Not many weeks before she had paid one of her periodical visits to the
attic. No housekeeper in Pleasant River save Mrs. Jonathan Bascom would
have thought of dusting a garret, washing the window and sweeping down
the cobwebs once a month, and renewing the camphor bags in the chests
twice a year; but notwithstanding this zealous care the moths had
made their way into one of her treasure-houses, the most precious of
all,--the old hair trunk that had belonged to her sister Lovice. Once
ensconced there, they had eaten through its hoarded relics, and reduced
the faded finery to a state best described by Diadema as “reg'lar
riddlin' sieves.” She had brought the tattered pile down in to the
kitchen, and had spent a tearful afternoon in cutting the good pieces
from the perforated garments. Three heaped-up baskets and a full
dish-pan were the result; and as she had snipped and cut and sorted,
one of her sentimental projects had entered her mind and taken complete
possession there.
“I declare,” she said, as she drew her hooking-needle in and out, “I
wouldn't set in the room with some folks and work on these pieces; for
every time I draw in a scrap of cloth Lovice comes up to me for all the
world as if she was settin' on the sofy there. I ain't told you my plan,
Miss Hollis, and there ain't many I shall tell; but this rug is going to
be a kind of a hist'ry of my life and Lovey's wrought in together, just
as we was bound up in one another when she was alive. Her things and
mine was laid in one trunk, and the moths sha'n't cheat me out of 'em
altogether. If I can't look at 'em wet Sundays, and shake 'em out, and
have a good cry over 'em, I'll make 'em up into a kind of dumb show that
will mean something to me, if it don't to anybody else.
“We was the youngest of thirteen, Lovey and I, and we was twins. There
's never been more 'n half o' me left sence she died. We was born
together, played and went to school together, got engaged and married
together, and we all but died together, yet we wa'n't a mite alike.
There was an old lady come to our house once that used to say, 'There's
sister Nabby, now: she 'n' I ain't no more alike 'n if we wa'n't two;
she 's jest as diff'rent as I am t' other way.' Well, I know what I want
to put into my rag story, Miss Hollis, but I don't hardly know how to
begin.”
Priscilla dropped her needle, and bent over the frame with interest.
“A spray of two roses in the centre,--there 's the beginning; why, don't
you see, dear Mrs. Bascom?”
“Course I do,” said Diadema, diving to the bottom of the dish-pan. “I've
got my start now, and don't you say a word for a minute. The two roses
grow out of one stalk; they'll be Lovey and me, though I'm consid'able
more like a potato blossom. The stalk 's got to be green, and here
is the very green silk mother walked bride in, and Lovey and I had
roundabouts of it afterwards. She had the chicken-pox when we was about
four years old, and one of the first things I can remember is climbing
up and looking over mother's footboard at Lovey, all speckled. Mother
had let her slip on her new green roundabout over her nightgown, just to
pacify her, and there she set playing with the kitten Reuben Granger had
brought her. He was only ten years old then, but he 'd begun courting
Lovice.
“The Grangers' farm joined ours. They had eleven children, and mother
and father had thirteen, and we was always playing together. Mother
used to tell a funny story about that. We were all little young ones and
looked pretty much alike, so she didn't take much notice of us in the
daytime when we was running out 'n' in; but at night when the turn-up
bedstead in the kitchen was taken down and the trundle-beds were full,
she used to count us over, to see if we were all there. One night, when
she 'd counted thirteen and set down to her sewing, father come in and
asked if Moses was all right, for one of the neighbors had seen him
playing side of the river about supper-time. Mother knew she 'd counted
us straight, but she went round with a candle to make sure. Now, Mr.
Granger had a head as red as a shumac bush; and when she carried the
candle close to the beds to take another tally, there was thirteen
children, sure enough, but if there wa'n't a red-headed Granger right in
amongst our boys in the turn-up bedstead! While father set out on a hunt
for our Moses, mother yanked the sleepy little red-headed Granger out o'
the middle and took him home, and father found Moses asleep on a pile of
shavings under the joiner's bench.
“They don't have such families nowadays. One time when measles went
all over the village, they never came to us, and Jabe Slocum said there
wa'n't enough measles to go through the Dennett family, so they didn't
start in on 'em. There, I ain't going to finish the stalk; I'm going
to draw in a little here and there all over the rug, while I'm in the
sperit of plannin' it, and then it will be plain work of matching colors
and filling out.
“You see the stalk is mother's dress, and the outside green of the moss
roses is the same goods, only it 's our roundabouts. I meant to make 'em
red, when I marked the pattern, and then fill out round 'em with a light
color; but now I ain't satisfied with anything but white, for nothing
will do in the middle of the rug but our white wedding dresses. I shall
have to fill in dark, then, or mixed. Well, that won't be out of the
way, if it 's going to be a true rag story; for Lovey's life went out
altogether, and mine hasn't been any too gay.
“I'll begin on Lovey's rose first. She was the prettiest and the
liveliest girl in the village, and she had more beaux than you could
shake a stick at. I generally had to take what she left over. Reuben
Granger was crazy about her from the time she was knee-high; but when
he went away to Bangor to study for the ministry, the others had it
all their own way. She was only seventeen; she hadn't ever experienced
religion, and she was mischeevous as a kitten.
“You remember you laughed, this morning, when Mr. Bascom told about
Hogshead Jowett? Well, he used to want to keep company with Lovey; but
she couldn't abide him, and whenever he come to court her she clim' into
a hogshead, and hid till after he 'd gone. The boys found it out, and
used to call him 'Hogshead Jowett.” He was the biggest fool in Foxboro'
Four Corners; and that 's saying consid'able, for Foxboro' is famous
for its fools, and always has been. There was thirteen of 'em there one
year. They say a man come out from Portland, and when he got as fur
as Foxboro' he kep' inquiring the way to Dunstan; and I declare if he
didn't meet them thirteen fools, one after another, standing in their
front dooryards ready to answer questions. When he got to Dunstan, says
he, 'For the Lord's sake, what kind of a village is that I've just went
through? Be they _all_ fools there?'
“Hogshead was scairt to death whenever he come to see Lovice. One night,
when he 'd been there once, and she 'd hid, as she always done, he come
back a second time, and she went to the door, not mistrusting it was
him. 'Did you forget anything?' says she, sparkling out at him through
a little crack. He was all taken aback by seeing her, and he stammered
out, 'Yes, I forgot my han'k'chief; but it don't make no odds, for I
didn't pay out but fifteen cents for it two year ago, and I don't make
no use of it 'ceptins to wipe my nose on.' How we did laugh over that!
Well, he had a conviction of sin pretty soon afterwards, and p'r'aps
it helped his head some; at any rate he quit farming, and become a
Bullockite preacher.
“It seems odd, when Lovice wa'n't a perfessor herself, she should have
drawed the most pious young men in the village, but she did: she had
good Orthodox beaux, Free and Close Baptists, Millerites and Adventists,
all on her string together; she even had one Cochranite, though the
sect had mostly died out. But when Reuben Granger come home, a
full-feathered-out minister, he seemed to strike her fancy as he never
had before, though they were always good friends from children. He had
light hair and blue eyes and fair skin (his business being under cover
kep' him bleached out), and he and Lovey made the prettiest couple you
ever see; for she was dark complected, and her cheeks no otherways than
scarlit the whole durin' time. She had a change of heart that winter; in
fact she had two of 'em, for she changed hers for Reuben's, and found a
hope at the same time. 'T was a good honest conversion, too, though she
did say to me she was afraid that if Reuben hadn't taught her what love
was or might be, she 'd never have found out enough about it to love God
as she 'd ought to.
“There, I've begun both roses, and hers is 'bout finished. I sha'n't
have more 'n enough white alapaca. It's lucky the moths spared one
breadth of the wedding dresses; we was married on the same day, you
know, and dressed just alike. Jot wa'n't quite ready to be married, for
he wa'n't any more forehanded 'bout that than he was 'bout other things;
but I told him Lovey and I had kept up with each other from the start,
and he 'd got to fall into line or drop out o' the percession.--Now what
next?”
“Wasn't there anybody at the wedding but you and Lovice?” asked
Priscilla, with an amused smile.
“Land, yes! The meeting-house was cram jam full. Oh, to be sure! I know
what you 're driving at! Well, I have to laugh to think I should have
forgot the husbands! They'll have to be worked into the story, certain;
but it'll be consid'able of a chore, for I can't make flowers out of
coat and pants stuff, and there ain't any more flowers on this branch
anyway.”
Diadema sat for a few minutes in rapt thought, and then made a sudden
inspired dash upstairs, where Miss Hollis presently heard her rummaging
in an old chest. She soon came down, triumphant.
“Wa'n't it a providence I saved Jot's and Reuben's wedding ties! And
here they are,--one yellow and green mixed, and one brown. Do you know
what I'm going to do? I'm going to draw in a butterfly hovering over
them two roses, and make it out of the neckties,--green with brown
spots. That'll bring in the husbands; and land! I wouldn't have either
of 'em know it for the world. I'll take a pattern of that lunar moth you
pinned on the curtain yesterday.”
Miss Hollis smiled in spite of herself. “You have some very ingenious
ideas and some very pretty thoughts, Mrs. Bascom, do you know it?”
“It's the first time I ever heard tell of it,” said Diadema cheerfully.
“Lovey was the pretty-spoken, pretty-appearing one; I was always plain
and practical. While I think of it, I'll draw in a little mite of this
red into my carnation pink. It was a red scarf Reuben brought Lovey from
Portland. It was the first thing he ever give her, and aunt Hitty said
if one of the Abel Grangers give away anything that cost money, it meant
business. That was all fol-de-rol, for there never was a more liberal
husband, though he was a poor minister; but then they always _are_ poor,
without they're rich; there don't seem to be any halfway in ministers.
“We was both lucky that way. There ain't a stingy bone in Jot Bascom's
body. He don't make much money, but what he does make goes into the
bureau drawer, and the one that needs it most takes it out. He never
asks me what I done with the last five cents he give me. You 've never
been married Miss Hollis, and you ain't engaged, so you don't know much
about it; but I tell you there 's a heap o' foolishness talked about
husbands. If you get the one you like yourself, I don't know as it
matters if all the other women folks in town don't happen to like him
as well as you do; they ain't called on to do that. They see the face
he turns to them, not the one he turns to you. Jot ain't a very good
provider, nor he ain't a man that 's much use round a farm, but he 's
such a fav'rite I can't blame him. There 's one thing: when he does
come home he 's got something to say, and he 's always as lively as a
cricket, and smiling as a basket of chips. I like a man that 's good
comp'ny, even if he ain't so forehanded. There ain't anything specially
lovable about forehandedness, when you come to that. I shouldn't ever
feel drawed to a man because he was on time with his work. He 's got
such pleasant ways, Jot has! The other afternoon he didn't get home
early enough to milk; and after I done the two cows, I split the
kindling and brought in the wood, for I knew he 'd want to go to the
tavern and tell the boys 'bout the robbery up to Boylston. There ain't
anybody but Jot in this village that has wit enough to find out what 's
going on, and tell it in an int'resting way round the tavern fire. And
he can do it without being full of cider, too; he don't need any apple
juice to limber _his_ tongue!
“Well, when he come in, he see the pails of milk, and the full wood-box,
and the supper laid out under the screen cloth on the kitchen table, and
he come up to me at the sink, and says he, 'Diademy, you 're the best
wife in this county, and the brightest jewel in my crown,--that 's what
_you_ are!' (He got that idea out of a duet he sings with Almiry Berry.)
Now I'd like to know whether that ain't pleasanter than 't is to have a
man do all the shed 'n' barn work up smart, and then set round the stove
looking as doleful as a last year's bird's nest? Take my advice, Miss
Hollis: get a good provider if you can, but anyhow try to find you a
husband that'll keep on courting a little now and then, when he ain't
too busy; it smooths things consid'able round the house.
“There, I got so int'rested in what I was saying, I've went on and
finished the carnation, and some of the stem, too. Now what comes next?
Why, the thing that happened next, of course, and that was little Jot.
“I'll work in a bud on my rose and one on Lovey's, and my bud'll be made
of Jot's first trousers. The goods ain't very appropriate for a rosebud,
but it'll have to do, for the idee is the most important thing in this
rug. When I put him into pants, I hadn't any cloth in the house, and it
was such bad going Jot couldn't get to Wareham to buy me anything; so I
made 'em out of an old gray cashmere skirt, and lined 'em with flannel.”
“Buds are generally the same color as the roses, aren't they?” ventured
Priscilla.
“I don't care if they be,” said Diadema obstinately. “What's to hender
this bud's bein' grafted on? Mrs. Granger was as black as an Injun, but
the little Granger children were all red-headed, for they took after
their father. But I don't know; you've kind o' got me out o' conceit
with it. I s'pose I could have taken a piece of his baby blanket; but
the moths never et a mite o' that, and it's too good to cut up. There's
one thing I can do: I can make the bud up with a long stem, and have it
growing right up alongside of mine,--would you?”
“No, it must be stalk of your stalk, bone of your bone, flesh of your
flesh, so to speak. I agree with you, the idea is the first thing.
Besides, the gray is a very light shade, and I dare say it will look
like a bluish white.”
“I'll try it and see, but I wish to the land the moths _had_ eat
the pinning-blanket, and then I could have used it. Lovey worked the
scallops on the aidge for me. My grief! what int'rest she took in my
baby clothes! Little Jot was born at Thanksgiving time, and she come
over from Skowhegan, where Reuben was settled pastor of his first
church. I shall never forget them two weeks to the last day of my life.
There was deep snow on the ground. I had that chamber there, with the
door opening into the setting-room. Mother and father Bascom kep' out in
the dining-room and kitchen, where the work was going on, and Lovey and
the baby and me had the front part of the house to ourselves, with Jot
coming in on tiptoe, heaping up wood in the fireplace so 't he 'most
roasted us out. He don't forget his chores in time o' sickness.
“I never took so much comfort in all my days. Jot got one of the
Billings girls to come over and help in the housework, so 't I could
lay easy 's long as I wanted to; and I never had such a rest before nor
since. There ain't any heaven in the book o' Revelations that 's any
better than them two weeks was. I used to lay quiet in my good feather
bed, fingering the pattern of my best crochet quilt, and looking at the
fire-light shining on Lovey and the baby. She 'd hardly leave him in the
cradle a minute. When I did n't want him in bed with me, she 'd have
him in her lap. Babies are common enough to most folks, but Lovey was
diff'rent. She 'd never had any experience with children, either, for we
was the youngest in our family; and it wa'n't long before we come near
being the oldest, too, for mother buried seven of us before she went
herself. Anyway, I never saw nobody else look as she done when she held
my baby. I don't mean nothing blasphemious when I say 't was for all the
world like your photograph of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
“The nights come in early, so it was 'most dark at four o'clock.
The little chamber was so peaceful! I could hear Jot rattling the
milk-pails, but I'd draw a deep breath o' comfort, for I knew the milk
would be strained and set away without my stepping foot to the floor.
Lovey used to set by the fire, with a tall candle on the light-stand
behind her, and a little white knit cape over her shoulders. She had the
pinkest cheeks, and the longest eyelashes, and a mouth like a little red
buttonhole; and when she bent over the baby, and sung to him,--though
his ears wa'n't open, I guess for his eyes wa'n't,--the tears o' joy
used to rain down my cheeks. It was pennyrial hymns she used to sing
mostly, and the one I remember best was
“'Daniel's wisdom may I know,
Stephen's faith and spirit show;
John's divine communion feel,
Moses' meekness, Joshua's zeal,
Run like the unwearied Paul,
Win the day and conquer all.
“'Mary's love may I possess,
Lydia's tender-heartedness,
Peter's fervent spirit feel,
James's faith by works reveal,
Like young Timothy may I
Every sinful passion fly.'
“'Oh Diademy,' she 'd say, 'you was always the best, and it 's nothing
more 'n right the baby should have come to you. P'r'aps God will think
I'm good enough some time; and if he does, Diademy, I'll offer up a
sacrifice every morning and every evening. But I'm afraid,' says she,
'he thinks I can't stand any more happiness, and be a faithful follower
of the cross. The Bible says we 've got to wade through fiery floods
before we can enter the kingdom. I don't hardly know how Reuben and I
are going to find any way to wade through; we're both so happy, they 'd
have to be consid'able hot before we took notice,' says she, with the
dimples all breaking out in her cheeks.
“And that was true as gospel. She thought everything Reuben done was
just right, and he thought everything she done was just right. There
wa'n't nobody else; the world was all Reuben 'n' all Lovey to them.
If you could have seen her when she was looking for him to come from
Skowhegan! She used to watch at the attic window; and when she seen him
at the foot of the hill she 'd up like a squirrel, and run down the road
without stopping for anything but to throw a shawl over her head. And
Reuben would ketch her up as if she was a child, and scold her for not
putting a hat on, and take her under his coat coming up the hill. They
was a sight for the neighbors, I must confess, but it wa'n't one you
could hardly disapprove of, neither. Aunt Hitty said it was tempting
Providence and couldn't last, and God would visit his wrath on 'em for
making idols of sinful human flesh.
“She was right one way,--it didn't last; but nobody can tell me God was
punishing of 'em for being too happy. I guess he 'ain't got no objection
to folks being happy here below, if they don't forget it ain't the whole
story.
“Well, I must mark in a bud on Lovey's stalk now, and I'm going to make
it of her baby's long white cloak. I earned the money for it myself,
making coats, and put four yards of the finest cashmere into it; for
three years after little Jot was born I went over to Skowhegan to help
Lovey through her time o' trial. Time o' trial! I thought I was happy,
but I didn't know how to be as happy as Lovey did; I wa'n't made on that
pattern.
“When I first showed her the baby (it was a boy, same as mine), her eyes
shone like two evening stars. She held up her weak arms, and gathered
the little bundle o' warm flannen into 'em; and when she got it close
she shut her eyes and moved her lips, and I knew she was taking her lamb
to the altar and offering it up as a sacrifice. Then Reuben come in. I
seen him give one look at the two dark heads laying close together on
the white piller, and then go down on his knees by the side of the bed.
'T wa'n't no place for me; I went off, and left 'em together. We didn't
mistrust it then, but they only had three days more of happiness, and
I'm glad I give 'em every minute.”
The room grew dusky as twilight stole gently over the hills of Pleasant
River. Priscilla's lip trembled; Diadema's tears fell thick and fast on
the white rosebud, and she had to keep wiping her eyes as she followed
the pattern.
“I ain't said as much as this about it for five years,” she went on,
with a tell-tale quiver in her voice, “but now I've got going I can't
stop. I'll have to get the weight out o' my heart somehow.
“Three days after I put Lovey's baby into her arms the Lord called her
home. 'When I prayed so hard for this little new life, Reuben,' says she
holding the baby as if she could never let it go, 'I didn't think I'd
got to give up my own in place of it; but it's the first fiery flood
we've had, dear, and though it burns to my feet I'll tread it as brave
as I know how.'
“She didn't speak a word after that; she just faded away like a
snowdrop, hour by hour. And Reuben and I stared at one another in the
face as if we was dead instead of her, and we went about that house o'
mourning like sleep-walkers for days and says, not knowing whether we et
or slept, or what we done.
“As for the baby, the poor little mite didn't live many hours after its
mother, and we buried 'em together. Reuben and I knew what Lovey would
have liked. She gave her life for the baby's, and it was a useless
sacrifice, after all. No, it wa'n't neither; it _could_n't have been!
You needn't tell me God'll let such sacrifices as that come out useless!
But anyhow, we had one coffin for 'em both, and I opened Lovey's arms
and laid the baby in 'em. When Reuben and I took our last look, we
thought she seemed more 'n ever like Mary, the mother of Jesus. There
never was another like her, and there never will be. 'Nonesuch,' Reuben
used to call her.”
There was silence in the room, broken only by the ticking of the old
clock and the tinkle of a distant cowbell. Priscilla made an impetuous
movement, flung herself down by the basket of rags, and buried her head
in Diadema's gingham apron.
“Dear Mrs. Bascom, don't cry. I'm sorry, as the children say.”
“No, I won't more 'n a minute. Jot can't stand it to see me give way.
You go and touch a match to the kitchen fire, so 't the kettle will
be boiling, and I'll have a minute to myself. I don't know what the
neighbors would think to ketch me crying over my drawing-in frame; but
the spell's over now, or 'bout over, and when I can muster up courage
I'll take the rest of the baby's cloak and put a border of white
everlastings round the outside of the rug. I'll always mean the baby's
birth and Lovey's death to me; but the flowers will remind me it 's life
everlasting for both of 'em, and so it's the most comforting end I can
think of.”
It was indeed a beautiful rug when it was finished and laid in front of
the sofa in the fore-room. Diadema was very choice of it. When company
was expected she removed it from its accustomed place, and spread it in
a corner of the room where no profane foot could possibly tread on it.
Unexpected callers were managed by a different method. If they seated
themselves on the sofa, she would fear they did not “set easy” or “rest
comfortable” there, and suggest their moving to the stuffed chair by
the window. The neighbors thought this solicitude merely another sign of
Diadema's “p'ison neatness,” excusable in this case as there was so much
white in the new rug.
The fore-room blinds were ordinarily closed, and the chillness of death
pervaded the sacred apartment; but on great occasions, when the sun was
allowed to penetrate the thirty-two tiny panes of glass in each window,
and a blaze was lighted in the fire-place, Miss Hollis would look in as
she went upstairs, and muse a moment over the pathetic little romance
of rags, the story of two lives worked into a bouquet of old-fashioned
posies, whose gay tints were brought out by a setting of sombre threads.
Existence had gone so quietly in this remote corner of the world that
all its important events, babyhood, childhood, betrothal, marriage,
motherhood, with all their mysteries of love and life and death, were
chronicled in this narrow space not two yards square.
Diadema came in behind the little school-teacher one afternoon.
“I cal'late,” she said, “that being kep' in a dark room, and never being
tread on, it will last longer 'n I do. If it does, Priscilla, you know
that white crepe shawl of mine I wear to meeting hot Sundays: that would
make a second row of everlastings round the border. You could piece
out the linings good and smooth on the under side, draw in the white
flowers, and fill 'em round with black to set 'em off. The rug would be
han'somer than ever then, and the story--would be finished.”