"And you know I said you shall make four every day still so you get the quilt done this summer yet and ready to quilt. You go and finish them."
"I don't want to." Phœbe shook her head stubbornly. "I want to play out in the yard."
"When you're done with the patches, not before! You know you must learn to sew. Why, Phœbe," the woman changed her tactics, "you used to like to sew still. When you was just five years old you cried for goods and needle and I pinned the patches on the little sewing-bird that belonged to Granny Metz still and screwed the bird on the table and you sewed that nice! And now you don't want to do no more patches—how will you ever get your big chest full of nice quilts if you don't patch?"
But the child was too thoroughly possessed with the desire to be outdoors to be won by any pleading or praise. She pulled savagely at the two long braids which hung over her shoulders and cried, "I don't want no quilts! I don't want no chests! I don't like red and green quilts, anyhow—never, never! I wish my pop would come in; he wouldn't make me sew patches, he"—she began to sob—"I wish, I just wish I had a mom! She wouldn't make me sew calico when—when I want to play."
Something in the utter unhappiness of the little girl, together with the words of yearning for the dead mother, filled the woman with a strange tenderness. Though she never allowed sentiment to sway her from doing what she considered her duty she did yield to its influence and spoke gently to the agitated child.
"I wish, too, your mom was here yet, Phœbe. But I guess if she was she'd want you to learn to sew. Ach, it's just that you like to be out, out all the time that makes you so contrary, I guess. You're like your pop, if you can just be out! Mebbe when you're old as I once and had your back near broke often as I had with hoein' and weedin' and plantin' in the garden you'll be glad when you can set in the house and sew. Ach, now, stop your cryin' and go finish your patchin' and when you're done I'll leave you go in to Greenwald for me to the store and to Granny Hogendobler."
"Oh"—the child lifted her tear-stained face—"and dare I really go to Greenwald when I'm done?"
"Yes. I need some sugar yet and you dare order it. And you can get me some thread and then stop at Granny Hogendobler's and ask her to come out to-morrow and help with the strawberry jelly. I got so much to make and it comes good to Granny if she gets away for a little change."
"Then I'll patch quick!" Phœbe said. The world was a good place again for the child as she went back to the sitting-room and resumed her sewing.
She was so eager to finish the unpleasant task that she forgot one of Aunt Maria's rules, as inexorable as the law of the Medes and Persians—the door between the kitchen and the sitting-room must be closed.