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Two women were hauling a small tree-top to their door to chop for night-wood. The feet of these poor women were exposed to the mud and snow, which was melting. O, what squalid wretchedness was here! Not a bed, chair, table, or whole dish in this gloomy abode! I inquired how they slept. I was shown a rag-carpet on the fence, which they obtained for washing for one of the neighbors.
I gave to each of those twenty women a suit of men's clothing that day to help them out of this intense suffering. I gave them also three rag-carpet blankets out of the four that were sent me by a woman who took up a new rag-carpet she had just put down, and cut it into four pieces after listening to the recital of the great suffering in these camps.
For ten minutes, that seemed longer, he surveyed the plainly furnished sitting-room, with open fireplace, a many colored rag-carpet on the floor, old-fashioned chairs, and dozens of pictures on the walls.
It was hard to tell sometimes which to choose, whether the kitchen, where the family were gathered round the cheerful logs blazing brightly in the big fire-place, or a stretch on the soft rag-carpet beside the box stove in grandmother's room. This room was also a sanctuary to which we often fled to escape punishment after doing some mischief.
In the growing darkness their expressions were imperfectly visible; but I could see that most of them were weary, and hungry, and all were depressed and ashamed. Some were wrapped in blankets of rag-carpet, and others wore shoes of rough, untanned hide. Others were without either shoes or jackets, and their heads were bound with red handkerchiefs.
Then, as the girl tripped away, Vesta found a piece of paper, and wrote her father a note, telling him to come to her; and to the girl, when she returned, her mistress said: "I want you to get a roll of new rag-carpet at Teackle Hall, and have it brought here, to spread upon this floor. Send me, too, a pair of our brass andirons, and pack in a basket some glass, table-ware, and linen.
On the floor, at the bedside and before the bureau, were two oval rag-carpet rugs. In the corners of the room were muddy boots, a McClellan saddle, a surveyor's transit, an empty coal-hod and a box of iron bolts and nuts.
The planks of the floor were more to him than other planks; something else than sunshine had often shone in to him through the little panes, he touched them gently; he walked softly over the rag-carpet on the aisle. The LORD was in His holy temple.
Plumfield stepped forward to ask after the old lady's health; and while she talked and listened, Fleda's eyes noted the spotless condition of the room the white table, the nice rag-carpet, the bright many-coloured patchwork counterpane on the bed, the brilliant cleanliness of the floor, where the small carpet left the boards bare, the tidy look of the two women; and she made up her mind that she could get along with Miss Barbara very well.
The plush bodice she had worn that day danced before her eyes. She knew how horribly ugly it was. Her fingers ran over the patchwork quilt on her bed; and although she could not see it, she loathed it, because she knew it was a painful mess of colours. With a little touch of dramatic extravagance, she leaned over and down, and drew her fingers contemptuously along the rag-carpet on the floor.