“You’re an old Hyphen!” laughed Hugh. “It’s the Hyphens who make most of the trouble in this country. They think more about the land from which their ancestors came than about this one that claims their whole allegiance.”
“Hyphen yourself!” retorted Dick. “You think a lot more about ancestors than I do. I’m a hundred percent. American, I am; though I do come from the opposite side of the Continent, 3000 miles from the Hub. And anyone who says I’m not had better look out! If I had been a few years older I’d have been a war-veteran too, with a brass star to make me feel smart. Or maybe I’d have been a dead hero, with a medal!”
Tante hastened to soothe Dick’s troubled spirit, saying that Hugh was only joking when he spoke of the hyphen. For nearly everybody in this country has some foreign blood in his veins, of which he ought to be proud, unless it makes him the less American in loyalty. Then to change the subject Tante pointed out in the quilt the colors that might represent Poland with its gifts of music; the blue and white of Greece, with its tradition of beauty. In one square she saw the faith of the Jews, loyal to what they held true and pure; in another was Armenian patience and skill of hand. This purple suggested the heather of Scotland, thrift and grit and honesty on which America had builded firm structures. A bright pink square she declared must be from Bohemia, the home of fairy-tales. And so on. What would America do without all these gifts from the older lands?
“This looks like a green English meadow,” said Cicely picking out a vivid square.
“What are we, Mother?” asked Nancy presently, “we who are just Yankees and nothing else, since we left off being English one Fourth of July?”
“I think the tiny patch of greenish-grey represents us, Nancy,” laughed her mother. “English with a difference. There isn’t so conspicuously much of us in the patchwork, for the brighter colors crowd close about us. But you see a lot of squares have grey in the background, with polka dots and checks, stripes, figures, invisible brocade, and changeable effects. The Yankee spirit is pretty well scattered over the old quilt from border to border. We furnished a good deal of the thread that sewed the squares together, too.
“Well, my part of the story is done,” finished Tante. “You have all helped to tell it. But the quilt is full of many more thrilling tales, I know.”
“Dick is crazy to tell one,” said Beverly mischievously.
“Well, I know a story that might be a western square of the quilt,” said Dick modestly. “It’s very short and it’s very true. Father told it to me.”
“Let’s hear it, Dick,” said Tante. And looking sly, Dick began.