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Your grandmother used to make us sew patchwork; and before I was your age, I had pieced up three bedquilts, one rising-sun, one fox-chase, and the other just plain boxes." "I don't care," Polly interrupted saucily; "I never could see the use of cutting up yards and yards of calico, just for the sake of sewing it together again. Wouldn't you rather have me make you a pretty apron, Jerusalem?"
"There it is again!" screamed Flossie. "Oh, mamma, mamma, come in my room quick!" Sandy grabbed hold of Freddie. "We're all right," whispered the brave little Freddie. "It's only the girls that's hollering." Then they both put their curls under the bedquilts. "Someone's playing the piano," Bert said to Harry; and, sure enough, a nocturnal solo was coming up in queer chunks from the parlor.
And I sez, "Then you had ruther go there all tired out, had you?" sez I. "Seems to me I had ruther go to the World's Fair fresh and strong, and ready to learn and enjoy, even if I let my borrow-and-lend bedquilt go till another year. For," sez I, "bedquilts will be protracted fur beyend the time of seein' the World's Fair and I believe in livin' up to my priveleges."
"A poor preacher's wife should be willing to go anywhere even to Greensburg; but that is not our appointment, dear; we move to Swan Neck." Then the fun begins in earnest. The church people come to look at our contribution bedquilts, and help us pack up the blue earthenware.
The captain looked on in surprise when Marcy took the flag from his valise, and shook it out so that he could see it. "I should think your rebel neighbors, if you have any, would destroy that banner," said he. "We have plenty of that sort of neighbors, sir, but they never saw this flag," answered Marcy. "I keep it hidden in one of my bedquilts, and sleep under it every night."
It was then decided that all the company should be taken to Aspinwall by the United States vessels, and their boats and ours were at once put to service in transferring the people from the island; who, as they gathered up such fragments of their property as had been rescued from the wreck, and tied it up in bedquilts or blankets, shouldered their bundles, and moved slowly down to the point of departure, their garments weather-stained and crab-eaten, some of them without shoes or hats, and all with much-bronzed faces, presented a picturesque and beggarly appearance, in striking contrast to their aspect before the wreck.
Many other gifts were also showered upon them, from medical cases, cameras, clocks, and bedquilts, to books and dainty handkerchiefs.
The farmers' wives brought samples of their needlework, such as bedquilts, lace or embroidery, and samples of their cooking and preserving. The farm boys and girls made things or raised something to exhibit at the fair. Besides this there were new kinds of machinery for the farmers to look at, such as windmills and plows and electrical appliances to be used on the farms.
There's one of you standing in plain sight of me right now who took the fancy bedquilts your wife and daughters pieced last winter and sold them to get money to pay his taxes, though he is worth five thousand dollars! You needn't dodge!" she laughed shrilly. "I'll not call your name if you keep quiet and behave.
It rained so hard her address was deferred till the next day, as it had to be delivered out of doors, so she visited the "art" and "culinary" departments of the fair, and records in her diary: "I have just put an extra paragraph in my speech on bedquilts and bad cooking."
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