“Whose heart has a look southward, and is open
To the great noon of nature.”
Aunt Sally had her quilt up in her landlord’s east room, for her own house was too small. However, at about eleven she called us over to dinner; for people who have breakfasted at five or six have an appetite at eleven.
We found on the table beefsteaks, boiled pork, sweet potatoes, kohl-slaw,[4] pickled tomatoes, cucumbers, and red beets (thus the “Dutch” accent lies), apple-butter and preserved peaches, pumpkin- and apple-pie, with sponge-cake and coffee.
After dinner came our next neighbors, “the maids,” Susy and Katy Groff, who live in single blessedness and great neatness. They wore pretty, clear-starched Mennist caps, very plain. Katy is a sweet-looking woman; and, although she is more than sixty years old, her forehead is almost unwrinkled, and her fine fair hair is still brown. It was late when the farmer’s wife came,—three o’clock; for she had been to Lancaster. She wore hoops, and was of the “world’s people.” These women all spoke “Dutch;” for “the maids,” whose ancestor came here probably one hundred and fifty years ago, do not yet speak English with fluency.
The first subject of conversation was the fall house-cleaning; and I heard mention of “die carpet hinaus an der fence,” and “die fenshter und die porch;” and the exclamation, “My goodness, es war schlimm” (it was bad). I quilted faster than Katy Groff, who showed me her hands, and said, “You have not been corn-husking, as I have.”
So we quilted and rolled, talked and laughed, got one quilt done, and put in another. The work was not fine; we laid it out by chalking around a small plate. Aunt Sally’s desire was rather to get her quilting finished upon this great occasion, than for us to put in a quantity of needlework.
About five o’clock we were called to supper. I need not tell you all the particulars of this plentiful meal. But the stewed chicken was tender, and we had coffee again.
Polly M.’s husband now came over the creek in the boat, to take her home, and he warned her against the evening dampness. The rest of us quilted a while by candle and lamp, and got the second quilt done at about seven.