ses, prairie
shacks, or remote villages. In reality, there are more idle, listless
hands in the hearts of crowded bustling cities than in the quiet
country. City women, surrounded by many enticing distractions, are
turning more and more to patchwork as a fascinating yet nerve-soothing
occupation. Not only is there a sort of companionship between the
maker and the quilt, but there is also the great benefit derived from
having found a new interest in life, something worth while that can be
built up by one's own efforts.

An anecdote is told of a woman living in a quiet little New England
village who complained of her loneliness there, where the quilting
bees were the only saving features of an otherwise colourless
existence. She told the interested listener that in this
out-of-the-way hamlet she did not mind the monotony much because there
were plenty of "quiltings," adding that she had helped that winter at
more than twenty-five quilting bees; besides this, she had made a
quilt for herself and also helped on some of those of her immediate
neighbours.

[Illustration: THE WILD ROSE

That loves to grow in fragrant, tangled masses by the
roadside was made to march in prim rows on this child's
quilt]

American women rarely think of quilts as being made or used outside of
their own country. In reality quilts are made in almost every land on
the face of the earth. Years ago, when the first New England
missionaries were sent to the Hawaiian Islands, the native women were
taught to piece quilts, which they continue to do down to this day.
These Hawaiian women treasure their handiwork greatly, and some very
old and beautiful quilts are to be found among these islands. In
creating their patchwork they have wandered from the Puritanical
designs of their teachers, and have intermingled with the conventional
figures the gorgeous flowers that bloom beside their leaf-thatched,
vine-covered huts. To these women, also, patchwork fills a place. It
affords a means of expression for individuality and originality in the
same way that it does for the lonely New England women and for the
isolated mountaineers of Kentucky.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, immortalized by "Uncle Tom's Cabin," produced
other stories, not now so familiar to us as to our countrymen of the
Civil War period, which showed an intimate knowledge of the home life
of the American people as well as the vital questions of her day. In
her novel entitled the "Mi