Коллектив авторов
75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

‘You won’t believe that there is nothing to explain – that it was purely second-sight?’

‘No,’ replied Carlyle tersely: ‘I won’t.’

‘You are quite right. And yet the thing is very simple.’

‘They always are – when you know,’ soliloquised the other. ‘That’s what makes them so confoundedly difficult when you don’t.’

‘Here is this one then. In Padua, which seems to be regaining its old reputation as the birthplace of spurious antiques, by the way, there lives an ingenious craftsman named Pietro Stelli. This simple soul, who possesses a talent not inferior to that of Cavino at his best, has for many years turned his hand to the not unprofitable occupation of forging rare Greek and Roman coins. As a collector and student of certain Greek colonials and a specialist in forgeries I have been familiar with Stelli’s workmanship for years. Latterly he seems to have come under the influence of an international crook called – at the moment – Dompierre, who soon saw a way of utilizing Stelli’s genius on a royal scale. Helene Brunesi, who in private life is – and really is, I believe – Madame Dompierre, readily lent her services to the enterprise.’

‘Quite so,’ nodded Mr. Carlyle, as his host paused.

‘You see the whole sequence, of course?’

‘Not exactly – not in detail,’ confessed Mr. Carlyle.

‘Dompierre’s idea was to gain access to some of the most celebrated cabinets of Europe and substitute Stelli’s fabrications for the genuine coins. The princely collection of rarities that he would thus amass might be difficult to dispose of safely, but I have no doubt that he had matured his plans. Helene, in the person of Nina Brun, an Anglicised French parlourmaid – a part which she fills to perfection – was to obtain wax impressions of the most valuable pieces and to make the exchange when the counterfeits reached her. In this way it was obviously hoped that the fraud would not come to light until long after the real coins had been sold, and I gather that she has already done her work successfully in general houses. Then, impressed by her excellent references and capable manner, my housekeeper engaged her, and for a few weeks she went about her duties here. It was fatal to this detail of the scheme, however, that I have the misfortune to be blind. I am told that Helene has so innocently angelic a face as to disarm suspicion, but I was incapable of being impressed and that good material was thrown away. But one morning my material fingers – which, of course, knew nothing of Helene’s angelic face – discovered an unfamiliar touch about the surface of my favourite Euclideas^[77], and, although there was doubtless nothing to be seen, my critical sense of smell reported that wax had been recently pressed against it. I began to make discreet inquiries and in the meantime my cabinets went to the local bank for safety. Helene countered by receiving a telegram from Angiers, calling her to the death-bed of her aged mother. The aged mother succumbed; duty compelled Helene to remain at the side of her stricken patriarchal father, and doubtless The Turrets was written off the syndicate’s operations as a bad debt.’

‘Very interesting,’ admitted Mr. Carlyle; ‘but at the risk of seeming obtuse’ – his manner had become delicately chastened – ‘I must say that I fail to trace the inevitable connexion between Nina Brun and this particular forgery – assuming that it is a forgery.’

‘Set your mind at rest about that, Louis,’ replied Carrados. ‘It is a forgery, and it is a forgery that none but Pietro Stelli could have achieved. That is the essential connexion. Of course, there are accessories. A private detective coming urgently to see me with a notable tetradrachm in his pocket, which he announces to be the clue to a remarkable fraud – well, really, Louis, one scarcely needs to be blind to see through that.’

‘And Lord Seastoke? I suppose you happened to discover that Nina Brun had gone there?’

‘No, I cannot claim to have discovered that, or I should certainly have warned him at once when I found out – only recently – about the gang. As a matter of fact, the last information I had of Lord Seastoke was a line in yesterday’s Morning Post to the effect that he was still at Cairo. But many of these pieces—’ He brushed his finger almost lovingly across the vivid chariot race that embellished the reverse of the coin, and broke off to remark: ‘You really ought to take up the subject, Louis. You have no idea how useful it might prove to you some day.’

‘I really think I must,’ replied Carlyle grimly. ‘Two hundred and fifty pounds the original of this cost, I believe.’

‘Cheap, too; it would make five hundred pounds in New York to-day. As I was saying, many are literally unique. This gem by Kimon is – here is his signature, you see; Peter is particularly good at lettering – and as I handled the genuine tetradrachm about two years ago, when Lord Seastoke exhibited it at a meeting of our society in Albemarle Street, there is nothing at all wonderful in my being able to fix the locale of your mystery. Indeed, I feel that I ought to apologize for it all being so simple.’

‘I think,’ remarked Mr. Carlyle, critically examining the loose threads on his left boot, ‘that the apology on that head would be more appropriate from me.’

Aunt Jane’s Album (Eliza Calvert Hall)

They were a bizarre mass of color on the sweet spring landscape, those patchwork quilts, swaying in a long line under the elms and maples. The old orchard made a blossoming background for them, and farther off on the horizon rose the beauty of fresh verdure and purple mist on those low hills, or ‘knobs’, that are to the heart of the Kentuckian^[78] as the Alps to the Swiss or the sea to the sailor.

I opened the gate softly and paused for a moment between the blossoming lilacs that grew on each side of the path. The fragrance of the white and the purple blooms was like a resurrection-call over the graves of many a dead spring; and as I stood, shaken with thoughts as the flowers are with the winds, Aunt Jane came around from the back of the house, her black silk cape fluttering from her shoulders, and a calico sunbonnet hiding her features in its cavernous depth. She walked briskly to the clothes-line and began patting and smoothing the quilts where the breeze had disarranged them.

‘Aunt Jane,’ I called out, ‘are you having a fair all by yourself?’

She turned quickly, pushing back the sunbonnet from her eyes.

‘Why, child,’ she said, with a happy laugh, ‘you come pretty nigh skeerin’ me. No, I ain’t havin’ any fair; I’m jest givin’ my quilts their spring airin’. Twice a year I put ’em out in the sun and wind; and this mornin’ the air smelt so sweet, I thought it was a good chance to freshen ’em up for the summer. It’s about time to take ’em in now.’

She began to fold the quilts and lay them over her arm, and I did the same. Back and forth we went from the clothes-line to the house, and from the house to the clothes-line, until the quilts were safely housed from the coming dewfall and piled on every available chair in the front room. I looked at them in sheer amazement. There seemed to be every pattern that the ingenuity of woman could devise and the industry of woman put together, – ‘four-patches,’ ‘nine-patches,’ ‘log-cabins,’ ‘wild-goose chases,’ ‘rising suns,’ hexagons, diamonds, and only Aunt Jane knows what else. As for color, a Sandwich Islander^[79] would have danced with joy at the sight of those reds, purples, yellows, and greens.

‘Did you really make all these quilts, Aunt Jane?’ I asked wonderingly.

Aunt Jane’s eyes sparkled with pride.

‘Every stitch of ’em, child,’ she said, ‘except the quiltin’. The neighbors used to come in and help some with that. I’ve heard folks say that piecin’ quilts was nothin’ but a waste o’ time, but that ain’t always so. They used to say that Sarah Jane Mitchell would set down right after breakfast and piece till it was time to git dinner, and then set and piece till she had to git supper, and then piece by candle-light till she fell asleep in her cheer.

‘I ricollect goin’ over there one day, and Sarah Jane was gittin’ dinner in a big hurry, for Sam had to go to town with some cattle, and there was a big basket o’ quilt pieces in the middle o’ the kitchen floor, and the house lookin’ like a pigpen, and the children runnin’ around half naked. And Sam he laughed, and says he, “Aunt Jane, if we could wear quilts and eat quilts we’d be the richest people in the country.” Sam was the best-natured man that ever was, or he couldn’t ’a’ put up with Sarah Jane’s shiftless ways. Hannah Crawford said she sent Sarah Jane a bundle o’ caliker once by Sam, and Sam always declared he lost it. But Uncle Jim Matthews said he was ridin’ along the road jest behind Sam, and he saw Sam throw it into the creek jest as he got on the bridge. I never blamed Sam a bit if he did.

‘But there never was any time wasted on my quilts, child. I can look at every one of ’em with a clear conscience. I did my work faithful; and then, when I might ’a’ set and held my hands, I’d make a block or two o’ patchwork, and before long I’d have enough to put together in a quilt. I went to piecin’ as soon as I was old enough to hold a needle and a piece o’ cloth, and one o’ the first things I can remember was settin’ on the back door-step sewin’ my quilt pieces, and mother praisin’ my stitches. Nowadays folks don’t have to sew unless they want to, but when I was a child there warn’t any sewin’-machines, and it was about as needful for folks to know how to sew as it was for ’em to know how to eat; and every child that was well raised could hem and run and backstitch and gether and overhand by the time she was nine years old. Why, I’d pieced four quilts by the time I was nineteen years old, and when me and Abram set up housekeepin’ I had bedclothes enough for three beds.

‘I’ve had a heap o’ comfort all my life makin’ quilts, and now in my old age I wouldn’t take a fortune for ’em. Set down here, child, where you can see out o’ the winder and smell the lilacs, and we’ll look at ’em all. You see, some folks has albums to put folks’ pictures in to remember ’em by, and some folks has a book and writes down the things that happen every day so they won’t forgit ’em; but, honey, these quilts is my albums and my di’ries, and whenever the weather’s bad and I can’t git out to see folks, I jest spread out my quilts and look at ’em and study over ’em, and it’s jest like goin’ back fifty or sixty years and livin’ my life over agin.

‘There ain’t nothin’ like a piece o’ caliker for bringin’ back old times, child, unless it’s a flower or a bunch o’ thyme or a piece o’ pennyroy’l – anything that smells sweet. Why, I can go out yonder in the yard and gether a bunch o’ that purple lilac and jest shut my eyes and see faces I ain’t seen for fifty years, and somethin’ goes through me like a flash o’ lightnin’, and it seems like I’m young agin jest for that minute.’

Aunt Jane’s hands were stroking lovingly a ‘nine-patch’ that resembled the coat of many colors.

‘Now this quilt, honey,’ she said, ‘I made out o’ the pieces o’ my children’s clothes, their little dresses and waists and aprons. Some of ’em’s dead, and some of ’em’s grown and married and a long way off from me, further off than the ones that’s dead, I sometimes think. But when I set down and look at this quilt and think over the pieces, it seems like they all come back, and I can see ’em playin’ around the floors and goin’ in and out, and hear ’em cryin’ and laughin’ and callin’ me jest like they used to do before they grew up to men and women, and before there was any little graves o’ mine out in the old buryin’-ground over yonder.’

Wonderful imagination of motherhood that can bring childhood back from the dust of the grave and banish the wrinkles and gray hairs of age with no other talisman than a scrap of faded calico!

The old woman’s hands were moving tremulously over the surface of the quilt as if they touched the golden curls of the little dream children who had vanished from her hearth so many years ago. But there were no tears either in her eyes or in her voice. I had long noticed that Aunt Jane always smiled when she spoke of the people whom the world calls ‘dead,’ or the things it calls ‘lost’ or ‘past.’ These words seemed to have for her higher and tenderer meanings than are placed on them by the sorrowful heart of humanity.

But the moments were passing, and one could not dwell too long on any quilt, however well beloved. Aunt Jane rose briskly, folded up the one that lay across her knees, and whisked out another from the huge pile in an old splint-bottomed chair.

‘Here’s a piece o’ one o’ Sally Ann’s purple caliker dresses. Sally Ann always thought a heap o’ purple caliker. Here’s one o’ Milly Amos’ ginghams – that pink-and-white one. And that piece o’ white with the rosebuds in it, that’s Miss Penelope’s. She give it to me the summer before she died. Bless her soul! That dress jest matched her face exactly. Somehow her and her clothes always looked alike, and her voice matched her face, too. One o’ the things I’m lookin’ forward to, child, is seein’ Miss Penelope agin and hearin’ her sing. Voices and faces is alike; there’s some that you can’t remember, and there’s some you can’t forgit. I’ve seen a heap o’ people and heard a heap o’ voices, but Miss Penelope’s face was different from all the rest, and so was her voice. Why, if she said “Good morning” to you, you’d hear that “Good mornin’” all day, and her singin’ – I know there never was anything like it in this world. My grandchildren all laugh at me for thinkin’ so much o’ Miss Penelope’s singin’, but then they never heard her, and I have: that’s the difference. My grandchild Henrietta was down here three or four years ago, and says she, “Grandma, don’t you want to go up to Louisville with me and hear Patti sing?” And says I, “Patty who, child?” Says I, “If it was to hear Miss Penelope sing, I’d carry these old bones o’ mine clear from here to New York. But there ain’t anybody else I want to hear sing bad enough to go up to Louisville or anywhere else. And some o’ these days,” says I, “I’m goin’ to hear Miss Penelope sing.”’

Aunt Jane laughed blithely, and it was impossible not to laugh with her.

‘Honey,’ she said, in the next breath, lowering her voice and laying her finger on the rosebud piece, ‘honey, there’s one thing I can’t git over. Here’s a piece o’ Miss Penelope’s dress, but where’s Miss Penelope? Ain’t it strange that a piece o’ caliker’ll outlast you and me? Don’t it look like folks ought ‘o hold on to their bodies as long as other folks holds on to a piece o’ the dresses they used to wear?’

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^[80] 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.’

The old lady’s eyes sparkled, and she laughed with pure pleasure.

‘That’s what everybody says,’ she exclaimed, jumping up and spreading the favored quilt over two laden chairs, where its merits became more apparent and striking. ‘There ain’t another quilt like this in the State o’ Kentucky, or the world, for that matter. My granddaughter Henrietta, Mary Frances’ youngest child, brought me this pattern from Europe.’

She spoke the words as one might say, ‘from Paradise,’ or ‘from Olympus^[81],’ or ‘from the Lost Atlantis^[82].’ ‘Europe’ was evidently a name to conjure with, a country of mystery and romance unspeakable. I had seen many things from many lands beyond the sea, but a quilt pattern from Europe! Here at last was something new under the sun. In what shop of London or Paris were quilt patterns kept on sale for the American tourist?

‘You see,’ said Aunt Jane, ‘Henrietta married a mighty rich man, and jest as good as he’s rich, too, and they went to Europe on their bridal trip. When she come home she brought me the prettiest shawl you ever saw. She made me stand up and shut my eyes, and she put it on my shoulders and made me look in the lookin’-glass, and then she says, “I brought you a new quilt pattern, too, grandma, and I want you to piece one quilt by it and leave it to me when you die.” And then she told me about goin’ to a town over yonder they call Florence^[83], and how she went into a big church that was built hundreds o’ years before I was born. And she said the floor was made o’ little pieces o’ colored stone, all laid together in a pattern, and they called it mosaic. And says I, “Honey, has it got anything to do with Moses and his law?” You know the Commandments^[84] was called the Mosaic Law^[85], and was all on tables o’ stone. And Henrietta jest laughed, and says she: “No, grandma; I don’t believe it has. But,” says she, “the minute I stepped on that pavement I thought about you, and I drew this pattern off on a piece o’ paper and brought it all the way to Kentucky for you to make a quilt by.” Henrietta bought the worsted for me, for she said it had to be jest the colors o’ that pavement over yonder, and I made it that very winter.’

Aunt Jane was regarding the quilt with worshipful eyes, and it really was an effective combination of color and form.

‘Many a time while I was piecin’ that,’ she said, ‘I thought about the man that laid the pavement in that old church, and wondered what his name was, and how he looked, and what he’d think if he knew there was a old woman down here in Kentucky usin’ his patterns to make a bed quilt.’

It was indeed a far cry from the Florentine artisan of centuries ago to this humble worker in calico and worsted, but between the two stretched a cord of sympathy that made them one – the eternal aspiration after beauty.

‘Honey,’ said Aunt Jane, suddenly, ‘did I ever show you my premiums?’

And then, with pleasant excitement in her manner, she arose, fumbled in her deep pocket for an ancient bunch of keys, and unlocked a cupboard on one side of the fireplace. One by one she drew them out, unrolled the soft yellow tissue-paper that enfolded them, and ranged them in a stately line on the old cherry center-table – nineteen sterling silver cups and goblets. ‘Abram took some of ’em on his fine stock, and I took some of ’em on my quilts and salt-risin’ bread and cakes,’ she said, impressively.

To the artist his medals, to the soldier his cross of the Legion of Honor^[86], and to Aunt Jane her silver cups. All the triumph of a humble life was symbolized in these shining things. They were simple and genuine as the days in which they were made. A few of them boasted a beaded edge or a golden lining, but no engraving or embossing marred their silver purity. On the bottom of each was the stamp: ‘John B. Akin, Danville, Ky.’ There they stood,

‘Filled to the brim with precious memories,’ – memories of the time when she and Abram had worked together in field or garden or home, and the County Fair brought to all a yearly opportunity to stand on the height of achievement and know somewhat the taste of Fame’s enchanted cup.

‘There’s one for every child and every grandchild,’ she said, quietly, as she began wrapping them in the silky paper, and storing them carefully away in the cupboard, there to rest until the day when children and grandchildren would claim their own, and the treasures of the dead would come forth from the darkness to stand as heirlooms on fashionable sideboards and damask^[87]-covered tables.

‘Did you ever think, child,’ she said, presently, ‘how much piecin’ a quilt’s like livin’ a life? And as for sermons, why, they ain’t no better sermon to me than a patchwork quilt, and the doctrines is right there a heap plainer’n they are in the catechism^[88]. Many a time I’ve set and listened to Parson Page preachin’ about predestination and free-will, and I’ve said to myself, “Well, I ain’t never been through Centre College up at Danville, but if I could jest git up in the pulpit with one of my quilts, I could make it a heap plainer to folks than parson’s makin’ it with all his big words.” You see, you start out with jest so much caliker; you don’t go to the store and pick it out and buy it, but the neighbors will give you a piece here and a piece there, and you’ll have a piece left every time you cut out a dress, and you take jest what happens to come. And that’s like predestination. But when it comes to the cuttin’ out, why, you’re free to choose your own pattern. You can give the same kind o’ pieces to two persons, and one’ll make a “nine-patch” and one’ll make a “wild-goose chase,” and there’ll be two quilts made out o’ the same kind o’ pieces, and jest as different as they can be. And that is jest the way with livin’. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut ’em out and put ’em together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there’s a heap more in the cuttin’ out and the sewin’ than there is in the caliker. The same sort o’ things comes into all lives, jest as the Apostle says, “There hath no trouble taken you but is common to all men.”

‘The same trouble’ll come into two people’s lives, and one’ll take it and make one thing out of it, and the other’ll make somethin’ entirely different. There was Mary Harris and Mandy Crawford. They both lost their husbands the same year; and Mandy set down and cried and worried and wondered what on earth she was goin’ to do, and the farm went to wrack and the children turned out bad, and she had to live with her son-in-law in her old age. But Mary, she got up and went to work, and made everybody about her work, too; and she managed the farm better’n it ever had been managed before, and the boys all come up steady, hard-workin’ men, and there wasn’t a woman in the county better fixed up than Mary Harris. Things is predestined to come to us, honey, but we’re jest as free as air to make what we please out of ’em. And when it comes to puttin’ the pieces together, there’s another time when we’re free. You don’t trust to luck for the caliker to put your quilt together with; you go to the store and pick it out yourself, any color you like. There’s folks that always looks on the bright side and makes the best of everything, and that’s like puttin’ your quilt together with blue or pink or white or some other pretty color; and there’s folks that never see anything but the dark side, and always lookin’ for trouble, and treasurin’ it up after they git it, and they’re puttin’ their lives together with black, jest like you would put a quilt together with some dark, ugly color. You can spoil the prettiest quilt pieces that ever was made jest by puttin’ ’em together with the wrong color, and the best sort o’ life is miserable if you don’t look at things right and think about ’em right.