And at last, in late November, there came a day of days when, in an empty chamber at Emma Jane's house (Miranda Sawyer had refused to have the girls bringing in dirt and carrying it up and down the stairs of the brick house), Mrs. Perkins and Aunt Jane stretched the quilt into its frame, suspended on the backs of four wooden chairs. Miss Dearborn, who grew prettier every day and came from the post-office in the afternoons all smiles and beams and dimples, had made the happiness lining herself and featherstitched the seams.
Mrs. Perkins, whose father had been a storekeeper, leaving her enormous riches in the shape of new goods, brought from her attic her contribution of rolls of sheet wadding.
Now the outside, the wadding, and the lining were held carefully in place by hands that were moist with excitement and responsibility, and the tacking of the three smoothly together with bright-colored worsteds proved to be the most difficult task that the girls had yet confronted.
There was a week's work in all this, and two or three afternoons when the binding of the four long sides was done; but, by dint of perseverance, the last stitch was put into the quilt on the day before Christmas, when Aunt Jane had prophesied New Year's as the nearest possible date of completion. The girls gazed at their work with uncontrollable admiration and reverence.
"I'm sick to death of it!" exclaimed Rebecca. "I love it to distraction, and I never want to see another as long as I live! How can anybody make 'em for fun? I could hug it, I'm so fond of it, and slap it, I'm so tired of it!" And the girls echoed her sentiments, though in less picturesque and vigorous language.
"If we give it to her to-day, she'll have something to be thankful for on Christmas Day," the girls decided. "We'll have to lug it up together, and let Rebecca go in with it, while we stay out in the road and wait."
"Don't say 'lug,' and let's go after dark," Rebecca suggested. "I believe I can open the door and put it down softly in, the entry with our letter; then I won't get thanked all by myself, which wouldn't be fair; and we can take turns going up to-morrow to hear what she says."
"Mother's going to send her a big plate of dinner," said Alice.
"Oh, joy!" And Rebecca took out the pink tape from her apron pocket and tied it on a pigtail.
"What is it?" the girls asked breathlessly in chorus.