and cobwebs and caterpillars, and little boys in Mother
Hubbard dresses! You may well call 'em _crazy_ quilts! I don't believe
there was ever anything crazier, unless it was the lunatic who first
invented them!"

"Why, Fred!" said Linda, again. "Now, I think they are too pretty for
anything!"

"Pretty!" snorted Fred. "They're made out of the last things that you'd
suppose anybody would ever think of putting into a bed-quilt. I can't
get a chance to wear a neck-tie half out before somebody wants it. Kate
Graham spoke for my last new one the next day after I bought it. And I
hardly dare to put my hat down, where there's a girl around, for fear
she'll capture my hat-band!"

By this time, Linda was laughing outright.

"Oh, you are so funny, Fred! But you only just ought to see Kate
Graham's crazy quilt. I _know_ you couldn't help calling it lovely. She
has got pieces of ever so many wedding dresses in it; but I don't know
who would give _me_ any. Aunt Mary never will get married, nor Cousin
Susie, nor our Bridget, unless Pat hurries up with his courting--and
there's nobody else. Besides, they are all making crazy quilts of their
own. I would start one with papa's old silk handkerchief and his
Association badge, if I thought I could ever get pieces enough to finish
it; but I don't see how I could."

"Bess Hartley told me that she was going to send off somewhere and get a
lot of pieces that are put up to sell. You get a whole package of
assorted colors for a dollar," suggested Fred.

"Oh, that would make it cost too much! Mamma would not let me do that,"
said Linda, shaking her head. "She says it is well enough to use up odd
bits of silk in that way, if one happens to have them; but she doesn't
think it right to spend money in such a manner, instead of using it for
better purposes--and I don't suppose it is."

"Well, I am sure I don't know what you are going to do," was Fred's
consoling observation. "You'd be as crazy as the rest of the girls if
you began to piece a quilt; and I don't know but you will go crazy if
you can't."

With which conclusion, Fred walked off whistling, and left Linda to read
her Cousin Dell's letter over again, and wish that Patrick O'Brien would
propose to Bridget, if he was ever going to, so that she could get
married, and have a new silk dress for her wedding.

However, Linda was not the girl to fret and worry after things which
were unattainable.

Fred would have his joke, but she was