“This is our family fancy-work,” said Tante. “I found it up in the garret of our old house when I was a little girl. My mother said as a tiny child she remembered it half finished. She added a few squares herself in a half-hearted way, she said. It must have been begun by some girl in our family before the Revolution, and has been growing gradually ever since, square by square. But we are not much of a fancy-work family, I fear. I meant to finish the quilt before I was married. But I never did; just as my mother never did. So I gave it to Nancy. She works on it sometimes, I believe.”
“I have made four squares in fifteen years!” laughed Nancy, “those with my blue-and-white gingham in. But it takes a lot of time. I’d rather write stories.”
“As family fancy-work it seems likely to last for a good many generations,” said Mrs. Batchelder. “We use it now chiefly as a notebook for stories.”
Seeing that Gilda looked puzzled, Freddie explained by putting his thumb in the middle of a black square nearest to him, as the quilt lay spread on the floor. “That was a pirate story,” he said. “And the blue one with stars on it was about a sea-captain and a stowaway. And the little mousy-grey square was the girl-Pilgrim who came over in the Mayflower and was Mother’s own ancestress.” A howl from Eddie interrupted him.
“Freddie! You’re burning up the pop-corn!” Sure enough. A dubious smell reminded Freddie of his forgotten duty. The pop-corn had hopped as fast as it could, when he forgot to shake it; but it could not hop fast enough to keep its feet from getting scorched. Freddie looked ruefully at the charred black men, and according to the rules of the game, handed over the popper to Eddie, who took it importantly, and after refilling it began to jiggle it with great care.
“Speaking of your little grey Mayflower maid, Freddie,” said Tante, “she had just five kernels of parched corn for her first American meal, they say. I hope they weren’t so black as these of yours, Sonny!” Tante was looking at the quilt thoughtfully, and Norma called out: “Story! Story!”
“Well,” said Tante, “I am thinking of another sort of story—not that one. Once upon a time there was a great, big Patchwork Quilt, 3000 miles wide, made up of ever so many little ‘squares’ of irregular shape. Not one of them was really square; any more than are the ‘squares’ in our cities. Every square was itself made up of all sorts of little patches and pieces and scraps. Some of the pieces came from the North where it is cold; and some from the South where it is hot. They were all different—no two just alike in color or material or quality. Some came from the East with its strange wonder and brightness; and some were of the West, rough and serviceable. There were fine and precious squares, and others of flimsy or even shoddy goods; many were coarse, and some were worn pretty thin. But pieced together and backed and quilted, sewed with unbreakable thread, they became strong and durable. It made a firm, warm quilt without any rips or holes. The chief beauty of the quilt was this wholeness, this keeping together in an unbroken pattern of squares.”
Some of the group were looking puzzled. “What does Mother mean, Hugh?” asked Freddie who was leaning against his big brother’s knee, critically watching his Twin’s efforts with the pop-corn. Gilda listened eagerly for Hugh’s answer. “America!” he whispered under his breath, and he looked across at Victor, who nodded, squaring his shoulders. They had both fought for America, and loved her name.
“If this quilt had been all of one kind of material,” Tante went on, “it would have been old-fashioned, like the other quilts, some of which were very beautiful, but badly worn. Some of them were tattered and rent into bits. You can see them on the map, painted one solid color; but that doesn’t show how frayed they are at the edges where they have been torn or snipped away by cruel shears.”
“‘Shears’ means wars,” explained Victor under his breath. “Cruel they are! The old quilts are the old kingdoms of Europe, Freddie.”