“So what?” laughed Jane. “You can get another quilt. Only of course, this makes you the tail-ender!”
Miss Gordon, who had heard the girls arguing, came over to ask what was wrong. Veve told her what had happened.
“Why, Jane,” the Brownie leader said in surprise. “I didn’t think you would do a thing like that. It doesn’t seem quite honest or fair.”
“I only wanted to get ahead of Veve,” Jane said, now feeling ashamed of herself. “Oh, well! I’ll give her the old quilt.”
Veve, however, was too proud to accept it.
“No, thank you,” she said. “I will find another one—a much nicer pattern.”
The other Brownies did not tease Veve about being a ‘tail-ender.’ In fact, they very carefully avoided talking about the Ship’s Wheel quilt. Jane knew that the girls felt she had been unfair in taking Veve’s quilt. She was sorry now that she had done it, but she did not know how to make amends.
The girls and their mothers ate lunch under the oak tree. While they rested, Miss Gordon brought out the mysterious package Veve had seen her slip into the car that morning.
“Here’s the surprise,” the Brownie leader announced. “Our quilt—entirely finished!”