The Quilt Read Free Page B

haven’t you?
    Mary rarely said anything when somebody brought baked goods by. She’d just sit and smile her heartfelt smile, take a little silver pie fork, and taste the first tiny sliver. The guest would slide up close to the edge of her chair and hold her breath. Mary would take this teensy bite, close her eyes a minute, open them, and smile again. That gave the guest signal to smile back—which was pretty hard, what with their heart in their throat and their palms slick. Then came the verdict. If Mary put the cake down, it was back to the kitchen, girl, and try again. But if she took another bite, well, rest assured there was a winner here.
    So Jody was understandably worried when she walked up the long-hill drive from her home to Mary’s. Unconsciously the others all kind of pulled in behind her. But their worries were forgotten when they walked into Mary’s sitting room and found her sorting through a pile of beautiful old clothes.
    â€œBeen up since dawn washing all these old things,” Marysaid in greeting. “That after spending half the night trying to remember where I stored them.”
    In Mary’s typically neat fashion, the quilt frame was set up against the far wall, as much out of the way as a seven-by-seven wood frame with three-foot corner-posts could be in a formal sitting parlor. Especially a frame which was fitted with a stretch of the prettiest pastel-blue cotton backing any of the ladies had ever seen.
    â€œI brought you a home-made blackberry cobbler,” Jody said, her eyes caught by the frame and the backing. “Momma, where on earth did you get that beautiful cloth?”
    â€œBless your heart, child, just put it on the kitchen cabinet and we’ll have it in a bit.” Mary straightened from the pile with a grimace and a hand pressing hard on her back. “Been bent over for too long, I reckon.”
    â€œYou ought to sit down for a while,” Jody said, handing the pie to Nancy and hurrying over.
    To their surprise Mary did not object. She let herself be led over and seated by the window. All she said was, “Got an awful lot of work ahead of me.”
    Jody knelt beside the chair. “Momma, you just have to let us help you with this.”
    â€œIsn’t that pretty cloth?” Mary said in reply, looking over at the quilt frame. “It came to me late last night. I found that, oh, it must be five years ago if it’s a day. You remember old Mrs. Lane, used to run that fabric shop downtown?”
    â€œâ€™Course I do, Momma, but it was more than five years. Mrs. Lane passed away, my goodness, it must be ten or eleven years now.”
    â€œWhenever. It was just before she closed that pretty shop of hers. She came by for coffee one day and gave me that fabric you see over there. Said she’d been saving it for someone special.”
    Amy walked over to the quilt frame, ran her hand down the cloth and exclaimed, “Will you just come over here and feel this? That’s the softest cotton I’ve ever seen.”
    â€œFeels like velvet,” Nancy agreed.
    â€œWhat is it, Miss Mary, some mixture with silk thread?”
    â€œI’m sure I don’t know. All I remember is what Mrs. Lane said to me. The first time she felt it, she knew it’d make somebody a very special quilt. Mrs. Lane planned to use it herself, but what with one thing and another she never got around to it.” Mary was quiet for a very long time. “It just came to me. Wasn’t more than a week after she gave me this material that we laid Mrs. Lane in her grave.”
    â€œShe was a fine woman,” Jody said, a small smile of remembrance playing on her face. “She used to teach my Sunday school.”
    â€œHer boys used to help us out around the place,” Mary said. “Big, fine boys, both of them.”
    â€œI didn’t know she had any children, Miss Mary,” Lou Ann said.
    â€œThat was back before your