style="font-size:15px;"> Questions as old as the human heart and its human grief! Here is the glove, but where is the hand it held but yesterday? Here the jewel that she wore, but where is she?
‘Where is the Pompadour[17] now? This was the Pompadour’s fan!’
Strange, that such things as gloves, jewels, fans, and dresses can outlast a woman’s form.
‘Behold! I show you a mystery’ – the mystery of mortality. And an eery feeling came over me as I entered into the old woman’s mood and thought of the strong, vital bodies that had clothed themselves in those fabrics of purple and pink and white, and that now were dust and ashes lying in sad, neglected graves on farm and lonely roadside. There lay the quilt on our knees, and the gay scraps of calico seemed to mock us with their vivid colors. Aunt Jane’s cheerful voice called me back from the tombs.
‘Here’s a piece o’ one o’ my dresses,’ she said; ‘brown ground with a red ring in it. Abram picked it out. And here’s another one, that light yeller ground with the vine runnin’ through it. I never had so many caliker dresses that I didn’t want one more, for in my day folks used to think a caliker dress was good enough to wear anywhere. Abram knew my failin’, and two or three times a year he’d bring me a dress when he come from town. And the dresses he’d pick out always suited me better’n the ones I picked.’
‘I ricollect I finished this quilt the summer before Mary Frances was born, and Sally Ann and Milly Amos and Maria Petty come over and give me a lift on the quiltin’. Here’s Milly’s work, here’s Sally Ann’s, and here’s Maria’s.’
I looked, but my inexperienced eye could see no difference in the handiwork of the three women. Aunt Jane saw my look of incredulity.
‘Now, child,’ she said, earnestly, ‘you think I’m foolin’ you, but, la! there’s jest as much difference in folks’ sewin’ as there is in their handwritin’. Milly made a fine stitch, but she couldn’t keep on the line to save her life; Maria never could make a reg’lar stitch, some’d be long and some short, and Sally Ann’s was reg’lar, but all of ’em coarse. I can see ’em now stoopin’ over the quiltin’ frames – Milly talkin’ as hard as she sewed, Sally Ann throwin’ in a word now and then, and Maria never openin’ her mouth except to ask for the thread or the chalk. I ricollect they come over after dinner, and we got the quilt out o’ the frames long before sundown, and the next day I begun bindin’ it, and I got the premium on it that year at the Fair.
‘I hardly ever showed a quilt at the Fair that I didn’t take the premium, but here’s one quilt that Sarah Jane Mitchell beat me on.’
And Aunt Jane dragged out a ponderous, red-lined affair, the very antithesis of the silken, down-filled comfortable that rests so lightly on the couch of the modern dame.
‘It makes me laugh jest to think o’ that time, and how happy Sarah Jane was. It was way back yonder in the fifties. I ricollect we had a mighty fine Fair that year. The crops was all fine that season, and such apples and pears and grapes you never did see. The Floral Hall was full o’ things, and the whole county turned out to go to the Fair. Abram and me got there the first day bright and early, and we was walkin’ around the amp’itheater and lookin’ at the townfolks and the sights, and we met Sally Ann. She stopped us, and says she, “Sarah Jane Mitchell’s got a quilt in the Floral Hall in competition with yours and Milly Amos”. Says I, “Is that all the competition there is?” And Sally Ann says, “All that amounts to anything. There’s one more, but it’s about as bad a piece o’ sewin’ as Sarah Jane’s, and that looks like it’d hardly hold together till the Fair’s over. And,” says she, “I don’t believe there’ll be any more. It looks like this was an off year on that particular kind o’ quilt. I didn’t get mine done,” says she, “and neither did Maria Petty, and maybe it’s a good thing after all.”
‘Well, I saw in a minute what Sally Ann was aimin’ at. And I says to Abram, “Abram, haven’t you got somethin’ to do with app’intin’ the judges for the women’s things?” And he says, “Yes.” And I says, “Well, you see to it that Sally Ann gits app’inted to help judge the caliker quilts.” And bless your soul, Abram got me and Sally Ann both app’inted. The other judge was Mis’ Doctor Brigham, one o’ the town ladies. We told her all about what we wanted to do, and she jest laughed and says, “Well, if that ain’t the kindest, nicest thing! Of course we’ll do it.”
‘Seein’ that I had a quilt there, I hadn’t a bit o’ business bein’ a judge; but the first thing I did was to fold my quilt up and hide it under Maria Petty’s big worsted quilt, and then we pinned the blue ribbon on Sarah Jane’s and the red on Milly’s. I’d fixed it all up with Milly, and she was jest as willin’ as I was for Sarah Jane to have the premium. There was jest one thing I was afraid of: Milly was a good-hearted woman, but she never had much control over her tongue. And I says to her, says I: “Milly, it’s mighty good of you to give up your chance for the premium, but if Sarah Jane ever finds it out, that’ll spoil everything. For,” says I, “there ain’t any kindness in doin’ a person a favor and then tellin’ everybody about it.” And Milly laughed, and says she: “I know what you mean, Aunt Jane. It’s mighty hard for me to keep from tellin’ everything I know and some things I don’t know, but,’ says she, ‘I’m never goin’ to tell this, even to Sam.” And she kept her word, too. Every once in a while she’d come up to me and whisper, “I ain’t told it yet, Aunt Jane,” jest to see me laugh.
‘As soon as the doors was open, after we’d all got through judgin’ and puttin’ on the ribbons, Milly went and hunted Sarah Jane up and told her that her quilt had the blue ribbon. They said the pore thing like to ’a’ fainted for joy. She turned right white, and had to lean up against the post for a while before she could git to the Floral Hall. I never shall forgit her face. It was worth a dozen premiums to me, and Milly, too. She jest stood lookin’ at that quilt and the blue ribbon on it, and her eyes was full o’ tears and her lips quiverin’, and then she started off and brought the children in to look at “Mammy’s quilt.” She met Sam on the way out, and says she: “Sam, what do you reckon? My quilt took the premium.” And I believe in my soul Sam was as much pleased as Sarah Jane. He came saunterin’ up, tryin’ to look unconcerned, but anybody could see he was mighty well satisfied. It does a husband and wife a heap o’ good to be proud of each other, and I reckon that was the first time Sam ever had cause to be proud o’ pore Sarah Jane. It’s my belief that he thought more o’ Sarah Jane all the rest o’ her life jest on account o’ that premium. Me and Sally Ann helped her pick it out. She had her choice betwixt a butter-dish and a cup, and she took the cup. Folks used to laugh and say that that cup was the only thing in Sarah Jane’s house that was kept clean and bright, and if it hadn’t ’a’ been solid silver, she’d ’a’ wore it all out rubbin’ it up. Sarah Jane died o’ pneumonia about three or four years after that, and the folks that nursed her said she wouldn’t take a drink o’ water or a dose o’ medicine out o’ any cup but that. There’s some folks, child, that don’t have to do anything but walk along and hold out their hands, and the premiums jest naturally fall into ’em; and there’s others that work and strive the best they know how, and nothin’ ever seems to come to ’em; and I reckon nobody but the Lord and Sarah Jane knows how much happiness she got out o’ that cup. I’m thankful she had that much pleasure before she died.’
There was a quilt hanging over the foot of the bed that had about it a certain air of distinction. It was a solid mass of patchwork, composed of squares, parallelograms, and hexagons. The squares were of dark gray and red-brown, the hexagons were white, the parallelograms black and light gray. I felt sure that it had a history that set it apart from its ordinary fellows.
‘Where did you get the pattern, Aunt Jane?’ I asked. ‘I never saw anything like it.’
Pompadour – marquise de Pompadour (1721–1764), the mistress of Louis XV, king of France; she was a well-educated woman and a patron of art and literature.
