Of all the Elwell family Aunt Mehetabel was certainly the most unimportant
member. It was in the New England days, when an unmarried woman was an old
maid at twenty, at forty was everyone's servant, and at sixty had gone
through so much discipline that she could need no more in the next world.
Aunt Mehetabel was sixty-eight.
She had never for a moment known the pleasure of being important to
anyone. Not that she was useless in her Brother's family; she was
expected, as a matter of course, to take upon herself the most tedious and
uninteresting part of the household labors. On Mondays she accepted as her
share the washing of the men's shirts, heavy with sweat and stiff with
dirt from the fields and from their own hard-working bodies. Tuesdays she
never dreamed of being allowed to iron anything pretty or even
interesting, like the baby's white dresses or the fancy aprons of her
young lady nieces. She stood all day pressing out a tiresome monotonous
succession of dish-cloths and towels and sheets.
In preserving-time she was allowed to have none of the pleasant
responsibility of deciding when the fruit had cooked long enough, nor did
she share in the little excitement of pouring the sweet-smelling stuff
into the stone jars. She sat in a corner with the children and stoned
cherries incessantly, or hulled strawberries until her fingers were dyed
red to the bone.
The Elwells were not consciously unkind to their aunt, they were even in a
vague way fond of her; but she was so utterly insignificant a figure in
their lives that they bestowed no thought whatever on her. Aunt Mehetabel
did not resent this treatment; she took it quite as unconsciously as they
gave it. It was to be expected when one was an old-maid dependent in a
busy family. She gathered what crumbs of comfort she could from their
occasional careless kindnesses and tried to hide the hurt which even yet
pierced her at her brother's rough joking. In the winter when they all sat
before the big hearth, roasted apples, drank mulled cider, and teased the
girls about their beaux and the boys about their sweethearts, she shrank
into a dusky corner with her knitting, happy if the evening passed without
her brother saying, with a crude sarcasm, "Ask your Aunt Mehetabel about
the beaux that used to come a-sparkin' her!" or, "Mehetabel, how was't
when you was in love with Abel Cummings." As a matter of fact, she had
been the same at twenty as at sixty, a quiet, mouse-like little creature,
too timid and shy for anyone to notice, or to raise her eyes for a moment
and wish for a life of her own.
Her sister-in-law, a big hearty housewife, who ruled indoors with as
autocratic a sway as did her husband on the farm, was rather kind in an
absent, offhand way to the shrunken little old woman, and it was through
her that Mehetabel was able to enjoy the one pleasure of her life. Even as
a girl she had been clever with her needle in the way of patching
bedquilts. More than that she could never learn to do. The garments which
she made for herself were the most lamentable affairs, and she was humbly
grateful for any help in the bewildering business of putting them
together. But in patchwork she enjoyed a tepid importance. She could
really do that as well as anyone else. During years of devotion to this
one art she had accumulated a considerable store of quilting patterns.
Sometimes the neighbors would send over and ask "Miss Mehetabel" for such
and such a design. It was with an agreeable flutter at being able to help
someone that she went to the dresser, in her bare little room under the
eaves, and extracted from her crowded portfolio the pattern desired.
She never knew how her great idea came to her. Sometimes she thought she
must have dreamed it, sometimes she even wondered reverently, in the
phraseology of the weekly prayer-meeting, if it had not been "sent" to
her. She never admitted to herself that she could have thought of it
without other help; it was too great, too ambitious, too lofty a project
for her humble mind to have conceived. Even when she finished drawing the
design with her own fingers, she gazed at it incredulously, not daring to
believe that it could indeed be her handiwork. At first it seemed to her
only like a lovely but quite unreal dream. She did not think of putting it
into execution--so elaborate, so complicated, so beautifully difficult a
pattern could be only for the angels in heaven to quilt. But so curiously
does familiarity accustom us even to very wonderful things, that as she
lived with this astonishing creation of her mind, the longing grew
stronger and stronger to give it material life with her nimble old
fingers.
She gasped at her daring when this idea first swept over her and put it
away as one does a sinfully selfish notion, but she kept coming back to it
again and again. Finally she said compromisingly to herself that she would
make one "square," just one part of her design, to see how it would look.
Accustomed to the most complete dependence on her brother and his wife,
she dared not do even this without asking Sophia's permission. With a
heart full of hope and fear thumping furiously against her old ribs, she
approached the mistress of the house on churning-day, knowing with the
innocent guile of a child that the country woman was apt to be in a good
temper while working over the fragrant butter in the cool cellar.
Sophia listened absently to her sister-in-law's halting, hesitating
petition. "Why, yes, Mehetabel," she said, leaning far down into the huge
churn for the last golden morsels--"why, yes, start another quilt if you
want to. I've got a lot of pieces from the spring sewing that will work in
real good." Mehetabel tried honestly to make her see that this would be no
common quilt, but her limited vocabulary and her emotion stood between her
and expression. At last Sophia said, with a kindly impatience: "Oh, there!
Don't bother me. I never could keep track of your quiltin' patterns,
anyhow. I don't care what pattern you go by."
With this overwhelmingly, although unconsciously, generous permission
Mehetabel rushed back up the steep attic stairs to her room, and in a
joyful agitation began preparations for the work of her life. It was even
better than she hoped. By some heaven-sent inspiration she had invented a
pattern beyond which no patchwork quilt could go.
She had but little time from her incessant round of household drudgery for
this new and absorbing occupation, and she did not dare sit up late at
night lest she burn too much candle. It was weeks before the little square
began to take on a finished look, to show the pattern. Then Mehetabel was
in a fever of impatience to bring it to completion. She was too
conscientious to shirk even the smallest part of her share of the work of
the house, but she rushed through it with a speed which left her panting
as she climbed to the little room. This seemed like a radiant spot to her
as she bent over the innumerable scraps of cloth which already in her
imagination ranged themselves in the infinitely diverse pattern of her
masterpiece. Finally she could wait no longer, and one evening ventured to
bring her work down beside the fire where the family sat, hoping that some
good fortune would give her a place near the tallow candles on the
mantelpiece. She was on the last corner of the square, and her needle flew
in and out with inconceivable rapidity. No one noticed her, a fact which
filled her with relief, and by bedtime she had but a few more stitches to
add.
As she stood up with the others, the square fluttered out of her trembling
old hands and fell on the table. Sophia glanced at it carelessly. "Is that
the new quilt you're beginning on?" she asked with a yawn. "It looks like
a real pretty pattern. Let's see it." Up to that moment Mehetabel had
labored in the purest spirit of disinterested devotion to an ideal, but as
Sophia held her work toward the candle to examine it, and exclaimed in
amazement and admiration, she felt an astonished joy to know that her
creation would stand the test of publicity.
"Land sakes!" ejaculated her sister-in-law, looking at the many-colored
square. "Why, Mehetabel Elwell, where'd you git that pattern?"
"I made it up," said Mehetabel quietly, but with unutterable pride.
"No!" exclaimed Sophia incredulously. "_Did_ you! Why, I never see such a
pattern in my life. Girls, come here and see what your Aunt Mehetabel is
doing."
The three tall daughters turned back reluctantly from the stairs. "I don't
seem to take much interest in patchwork," said one listlessly.
"No, nor I neither!" answered Sophia; "but a stone image would take an
interest in this pattern. Honest, Mehetabel, did you think of it yourself?
And how under the sun and stars did you ever git your courage up to start
in a-making it? Land! Look at all those tiny squinchy little seams! Why
the wrong side ain't a thing _but_ seams!"
The girls echoed their mother's exclamations, and Mr. Elwell himself came
over to see what they were discussing. "Well, I declare!" he said, looking
at his sister with eyes more approving than she could ever remember. "That
beats old Mis' Wightman's quilt that got the blue ribbon so many times at
the county fair."
Mehetabel's heart swelled within her, and tears of joy moistened her old
eyes as she lay that night in her narrow, hard bed, too proud and excited
to sleep. The next day her sister-in-law amazed her by taking the huge pan
of potatoes out of her lap and setting one of the younger children to
peeling them. "Don't you want to go on with that quiltin' pattern?" she
said; "I'd kind o' like to see how you're goin' to make the grape-vine
design come out on the corner."
By the end of the summer the family interest had risen so high that
Mehetabel was given a little stand in the sitting-room where she could
keep her pieces, and work in odd minutes. She almost wept over such
kindness, and resolved firmly not to take advantage of it by neglecting
her work, which she performed with a fierce thoroughness. But the whole
atmosphere of her world was changed. Things had a meaning now. Through the
longest task of washing milk-pans there rose the rainbow of promise of her
variegated work. She took her place by the little table and put the
thimble on her knotted, hard finger with the solemnity of a priestess
performing a sacred rite.
She was even able to bear with some degree of dignity the extreme honor of
having the minister and the minister's wife comment admiringly on her
great project. The family felt quite proud of Aunt Mehetabel as Minister
Bowman had said it was work as fine as any he had ever seen, "and he
didn't know but finer!" The remark was repeated verbatim to the neighbors
in the following weeks when they dropped in and examined in a perverse
silence some astonishingly difficult _tour de force_ which Mehetabel had
just finished.
The family especially plumed themselves on the slow progress of the quilt.
"Mehetabel has been to work on that corner for six weeks, come Tuesday,
and she ain't half done yet," they explained to visitors. They fell out of
the way of always expecting her to be the one to run on errands, even for
the children. "Don't bother your Aunt Mehetabel," Sophia would call.
"Can't you see she's got to a ticklish place on the quilt?"
The old woman sat up straighter and looked the world in the face. She was
a part of it at last. She joined in the conversation and her remarks were
listened to. The children were even told to mind her when she asked them
to do some service for her, although this she did but seldom, the habit of
self-effacement being too strong.
One day some strangers from the next town drove up and asked if they could
inspect the wonderful quilt which they had heard of, even down in their end
of the valley. After that such visitations were not uncommon, making the
Elwells' house a notable object. Mehetabel's quilt came to be one of the
town sights, and no one was allowed to leave the town without having paid
tribute to its worth. The Elwells saw to it that their aunt was better
dressed than she had ever been before, and one of the girls made her a
pretty little cap to wear on her thin white hair.
A year went by and a quarter of the quilt was finished, a second year
passed and half was done. The third year Mehetabel had pneumonia and lay
ill for weeks and weeks, overcome with terror lest she die before her work
was completed. A fourth year and one could really see the grandeur of the
whole design; and in September of the fifth year, the entire family
watching her with eager and admiring eyes, Mehetabel quilted the last
stitches in her creation. The girls held it up by the four corners, and
they all looked at it in a solemn silence. Then Mr. Elwell smote one horny
hand within the other and exclaimed: "By ginger! That's goin' to the
county fair!"
Mehetabel blushed a deep red at this. It was a thought which had occurred
to her in a bold moment, but she had not dared to entertain it. The family
acclaimed the idea, and one of the boys was forthwith dispatched to the
house of the neighbor who was chairman of the committee for their village.
He returned with radiant face, "Of course he'll take it. Like's not it may
git a prize, so he says; but he's got to have it right off, because all
the things are goin' to-morrow morning."
Even in her swelling pride Mehetabel felt a pang of separation as the
bulky package was carried out of the house. As the days went on she felt
absolutely lost without her work. For years it had been her one
preoccupation, and she could not bear even to look at the little stand,
now quite bare of the litter of scraps which had lain on it so long. One
of the neighbors, who took the long journey to the fair, reported that the
quilt was hung in a place of honor in a glass case in "Agricultural Hall."
But that meant little to Mehetabel's utter ignorance of all that lay
outside of her brother's home. The family noticed the old woman's
depression, and one day Sophia said kindly, "You feel sort o' lost without
the quilt, don't you, Mehetabel?"
"They took it away so quick!" she said wistfully; "I hadn't hardly had one
real good look at it myself."
Mr. Elwell made no comment, but a day or two later he asked his sister how
early she could get up in the morning.
"I dun'no'. Why?" she asked.
"Well, Thomas Ralston has got to drive clear to West Oldton to see a
lawyer there, and that is four miles beyond the fair. He says if you can
git up so's to leave here at four in the morning he'll drive you over to
the fair, leave you there for the day, and bring you back again at night."
Mehetabel looked at him with incredulity. It was as though someone had
offered her a ride in a golden chariot up to the gates of heaven. "Why,
you can't _mean_ it!" she cried, paling with the intensity of her emotion.
Her brother laughed a little uneasily. Even to his careless indifference
this joy was a revelation of the narrowness of her life in his home. "Oh,
'tain't so much to go to the fair. Yes, I mean it. Go git your things
ready, for he wants to start to-morrow morning."
All that night a trembling, excited old woman lay and stared at the
rafters. She, who had never been more than six miles from home in her
life, was going to drive thirty miles away--it was like going to another
world. She who had never seen anything more exciting than church supper
was to see the county fair. To Mehetabel it was like making the tour of
the world. She had never dreamed of doing it. She could not at all imagine
what would be like.
Nor did the exhortations of the family, as they bade good-by to her, throw
any light on her confusion. They had all been at least once to the scene
of gayety she was to visit, and as she tried to eat her breakfast they
called out conflicting advice to her till her head whirled. Sophie told
her to be sure and see the display of preserves. Her brother said not to
miss inspecting the stock, her niece said the fancywork was the only thing
worth looking at and her nephews said she must bring them home an account
of the races. The buggy drove up to the door, she was helped in, and her
wraps tucked about her. They all stood together and waved good-by to her
as she drove out of the yard. She waved back, but she scarcely saw them.
On her return home that evening she was very pale, and so tired and stiff
that her brother had to lift her out bodily, but her lips were set in a
blissful smile. They crowded around her with thronging questions, until
Sophia pushed them all aside, telling them Aunt Mehetabel was too tired to
speak until she had had her supper. This was eaten in an enforced silence
on the part of the children, and then the old woman was helped into an
easy-chair before the fire. They gathered about her, eager for news of the
great world, and Sophia said, "Now, come, Mehetabel, tell us all about
it!"
Mehetabel drew a long breath. "It was just perfect!" she said; "finer even
than I thought. They've got it hanging up in the very middle of a sort o'
closet made of glass, and one of the lower corners is ripped and turned
back so's to show the seams on the wrong side."
"What?" asked Sophia, a little blankly.
"Why, the quilt!" said Mehetabel in surprise. "There are a whole lot of
other ones in that room, but not one that can hold a candle to it, if I do
say it who shouldn't. I heard lots of people say the same thing. You ought
to have heard what the women said about that corner, Sophia. They
said--well, I'd be ashamed to _tell_ you what they said. I declare if I
wouldn't!"
Mr. Elwell asked, "What did you think of that big ox we've heard so much
about?"
"I didn't look at the stock," returned his sister indifferently. "That set
of pieces you gave me, Maria, from your red waist, come out just lovely!"
she assured one of her nieces. "I heard one woman say you could 'most
smell the red silk roses."
"Did any of the horses in our town race?" asked young Thomas.
"I didn't see the races."
"How about the preserves?" asked Sophia.
"I didn't see the preserves," said Mehetabel calmly.
"You see, I went right to the room where the quilt was and then I didn't
want to leave it. It had been so long since I'd seen it. I had to look at
it first real good myself and then I looked at the others to see if there
was any that could come up to it. And then the people begin comin' in and
I got so interested in hearin' what they had to say I couldn't think of
goin' anywheres else. I ate my lunch right there too, and I'm as glad as
can be I did, too; for what do you think?"--she gazed about her with
kindling eyes--"while I stood there with a sandwich in one hand didn't
the head of the hull concern come in and open the glass door and pin
'First Prize' right in the middle of the quilt!"
There was a stir of congratulation and proud exclamation. Then Sophia
returned again to the attack, "Didn't you go to see anything else?" she
queried.
"Why, no," said Mehetabel. "Only the quilt. Why should I?"
She fell into a reverie where she saw again the glorious creation of her
hand and brain hanging before all the world with the mark of highest
approval on it. She longed to make her listeners see the splendid vision
with her. She struggled for words; she reached blindly after unknown
superlatives. "I tell you it looked like----" she said, and paused,
hesitating. Vague recollections of hymn-book phraseology came into her
mind, the only form of literary expression she knew; but they were
dismissed as being sacrilegious, and also not sufficiently forcible.
Finally, "I tell you it looked real _well!_" she assured them, and sat
staring into the fire, on her tired old face the supreme content of an
artist who has realized his ideal.