Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.
Eliza Calvert Hall
Aunt Janes Album
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[15] 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 aint havin any fair; Im 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. Its 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[16] 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 Janes 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. Ive heard folks say that piecin quilts was nothin but a waste o time, but that aint 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.
Aunt Janes 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. Ive heard folks say that piecin quilts was nothin but a waste o time, but that aint 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 wed be the richest people in the country. Sam was the best-natured man that ever was, or he couldnt a put up with Sarah Janes 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, Id make a block or two o patchwork, and before long Id 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 dont have to sew unless they want to, but when I was a child there warnt 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, Id 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.