She pulled the folds about, to get at the period of the deluge.
"'Course I see now jest what it was intentioned for," Ellen professed eagerly. "If I'd looked right good I could 'a' made out the angels goin' up an' down. How"—she hesitated, but the resolve to retrieve herself overcame all timidity—"how nateral them loaves an' fishes does look!"
"That thar's the ark," explained the widow, putting her finger on the supposed loaf. There was a moment of depressed silence; then Roxy, willing to let bygones be bygones, observed,
"Over here is the whale and Joney." These twin objects were 173 undoubtedly what Ellen had taken for the fishes.
"Ye see I had to make the whale some littler than life," the artist deprecated. "I sort o' drawed him in, as a body may say, 'caze 'course I couldn't git him all on my quilt without. I didn't aim to git Joney quite so big, but that thar sprigged percale that he's made outen was so pretty, and the piece I had was just that length, an' I hated to throw away what wouldn't be good for anything, an' I'd already got my whale, so I sort o' len'thened the beast's tail with a few stitches. Would you call a whale a beast or a fish?"
"Well, I should sure call anything that could swaller a man a beast," opined Little Liza.
"An' yit he's sorter built like a fish," suggested Ellen.
"That's true; an' he lives in the water," admitted her sister.
"Here's a right good big open place," observed Ellen. "Ef you was a-goin' to make—whatever—out of that turkey red, hit could come in here."
"It could that," said the widow thoughtfully. "Did you-all have any idee as to what it would suit best for?"