Mrs. Trabue's big upper room,
where the quilt, already "swung," was awaiting them.

To Polly Hinkson, who was considered highly accomplished in such
matters, was accorded the honor of marking the quilt into the pattern
previously decided upon, an elaborate and intricate design known as
"bird-at-the-window." The marking done, women and girls seated
themselves around the quilt, and began to work, taking care to make the
stitches short and even, and to keep strictly to the chalk line
defining the pattern.

With an accompaniment of laughter, jest, good-natured gossip and
innocent rivalry, the work went merrily forward all afternoon until the
evening shadows began to gather in the upper room. Then the nearly
finished quilt was rolled upon its frames; and the older women repaired
to the kitchen to assist the hostess and her dusky handmaidens in
supper preparations, while the girls doffed aprons and reticules,
smoothed out Sunday merinoes or bombazines, and readjusted combs and
fillets, to be ready for the evening gayeties; for by this time the
beaux were arriving.

In the kitchen, with its smoke-begrimed walls and its blackened
rafters, from which dangled sides of meat, bunches of herbs, and
strings of pepper, the supper was spread. Keeping guard at one end of
the long table was the roast pig, brown, crisp and juicy, stuffed with
sage dressing; around its neck a garland of sausage, in its mouth a
turnip. At the other end of the table, facing the pig, was a turkey
replete with gravy and rich stuffing, and garnished with parsley. Down
each side of the board stretched a long line of edibles--sparerib,
potatoes, cabbage, beans and hominy, pitchers of milk and of cider;
within this double line, another of pies, white loaf bread, corn pone,
flakey biscuit, pickles, honey and apple-butter. In the center of the
board rested the masterpiece of culinary art, the tall "stack cake"
shaped like a pyramid, and at its apex a wreath of myrtle. Ranged
around this pyramid stood glasses of foaming, yellow "float."

Immediately after supper the entire company assembled in the barn for
the shucking bout. Several scaffolds had been erected at suitable
intervals in the barn, their tops covered with dirt and rocks on which
were big billets of blazing hickory to furnish light for the workers.
The corn was apportioned as equally as possible, and then at a given
signal a lively contest began.

"You don't seem to be trying for the championship," l