Elm Creek Quilts [12] The Winding Ways Quilt Read Free Page A

sentences, but most of the Elm Creek Quilters thought they had not been sufficiently punished. “If they showed one sign of remorse, just one,” Sarah had grumbled to Judy earlier that summer as she ordered her reluctant new employees outside to scrub out garbage cans. “Working instead of enjoying a carefree, three-month-long summer vacation isn’t a punishment. It’s normal life for most of us.”
    Judy agreed, and she, too, had saved the worst, dirtiest, and most tedious jobs for the vandals without a single twinge of conscience. And she had to admit that all three had worked hard that summer, probably harder than they had ever worked in their lives. She couldn’t say whether they were genuinely remorseful or just sorry that they had been caught, but she knew that few young men had ever had more reason to welcome the approach of autumn.
    Leaving the kitchen to the young men, Judy joined in helping her friends prepare for registration. They arranged the long tables on the black marble floor and set up the usual stacks of forms, chatting companionably, occasionally glancing at the tall double doors in case an early arrival surprised them. Invariably, some eager quilter wouldn’t be able to wait for the first day of camp to begin at noon. Once a camper had entered through the back door at nine o’clock in the morning and had sat alone in the kitchen, sewing a quilt block and helping herself to the coffee still in the pot from Sarah and Matt’s breakfast. The Elm Creek Quilters didn’t discover her there until it was time to prepare lunch.
    A few veteran quilt campers preferred to drive around back, park their own cars, and enter through the back door as that early arrival had done, but most preferred to use the front entrance and have Matt or Andrew valet park for them on the first day. Judy understood that, especially for new campers, it was the approach that mattered, the sense that they had arrived at another, separate, sheltered, and sheltering place, a haven from the chaos and disappointments of ordinary life. As their vehicles emerged from the leafy wood, the gray stone manor suddenly appeared, steadfast and welcoming, surrounded by a lush green lawn. Then the newcomers would spy the wide, covered veranda whose columns spanned the front of the manor. As they drew closer, they would see the twin arcs of the stone staircases descending to the driveway, which encircled a fountain in the shape of a rearing horse, the symbol of the Bergstrom family. Judy enjoyed watching campers take in the scene for the first time, awestruck and thrilled that they would be able to spend a week in such a grand place. Judy still experienced that same thrill, even though Elm Creek Manor had become as familiar to her as her own home. Sometimes it felt like her true home, the home of her heart.
    One by one the other Elm Creek Quilters arrived. Gwen, her gray-streaked auburn hair rippling in thick waves down her back, made a dramatic entrance in a swirl of long batik skirts and the clinking of beaded necklaces. Diane appeared soon after, tall and blonde and enviably slender, clutching a coffee cup and scowling as if she had been dragged unwillingly out of bed only moments before, although Judy was certain she had already done Pilates, prepared breakfast for her husband and two sons, and shepherded the whole family to nine o’clock Mass. With Diane came Agnes, Sylvia’s sister-in-law, her snowy curls as neatly arranged as if she had left the hairdresser only moments before. Her blue eyes were bright and guileless behind oversize pink-tinted glasses as she surveyed the preparations and immediately took charge of room assignments, a task everyone agreed she handled better than anyone. Although Sarah did her best to accommodate every camper’s special requests as soon as their registration forms arrived in the mail, sometimes mistakes occurred. Other times the campers did not make their preferences known until they stood in the foyer. A