CHAPTER VI
A LITTLE TRAVELER
Industry is another trait which our little Quebec cousin has to her credit.
The interior of Oisette's home was filled with objects which go to prove this. For instance, all the bed clothes, with the exception of the sheets, consist of gay patchwork quilts. French Canadian children learn to sew patchwork when they are very young indeed. Oisette learned to put together red and blue and yellow and white cotton cubes, which were made into wonderful squares of patchwork, just as soon as she could hold a needle that some older person threaded for her. She could thread her own needle long before she knew how to tell what hour it was by the clock.
She knew that to have a quilt one must first make thirty-six of these squares. In the Tremblent household were not only quilts that had been pieced together by a great grandmother who had resided in Quebec City, but bedspreads made by a grandmother who lived across the river in a little village named Chambly, and many made by her own mother when she was a little girl.
Indeed, on Oisette's own bed was a quilt of marvelous pattern made by an aunt for whom Oisette was named. This aunt had since become a cloistered nun, and was shut in from the gay world and spent her time mostly in prayer!
The pattern was known as "The music of the spheres." It consisted of circular bits of red and yellow cotton, which looked like onions floating in a bright blue sky. Right in the center of the counterpane was a big purple star, the long points of this star were tipped with yellow cotton and reached right to the edge of the bedspread.
This comforter was used for the first time when little Oisette Mary was only thirty-six hours old. She was taken by her father and her aunt to the church to be christened; you know a French Canadian child is always christened within three days after birth, and when the tiny babe was put back in its mother's bed the wonderful quilt was spread over the foot of the bedstead and the proud father declared that the little one opened its eyes and noticed the lovely colors even then.
A few months later, when she was old enough to be put down on the floor, she showed a great fancy for the rag rugs, with their gay stripes. These rugs are called Habitant carpets, and are made by the industrious method of sewing together long strips of colored cloth, these strips are rolled into big balls, as large as one's head, and six of these balls, when woven with carpet thread, make a very pretty rug. Most of the convents have looms where they will weave these balls for a small sum of money per yard.
There is something very cheering about the interior of a French Canadian domicile. First of all, there is usually much clean paint, either yellow paint like the clearest sunlight or bright blue paint like a summer sky. Then the window panes sparkle with cleanness, and the window-sills are filled with flowering geraniums and fuchsias, the latter plant being a great favorite in the French Canadian home. These flowers are usually growing in tin cans, but the tin is always very bright and shining. Then the wall papers are never dull or dark in color. Often they are either designs of bright flowers or gold stars. The pictures on the walls are always of interest. First and foremost there is always a picture of the Pope. Then a picture of the Christ, and very often indeed one finds a picture of Madame Albani in all her diamonds and tiara as she appeared when she sung for Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle.