e
handiwork of the three women. Aunt Jane saw my look of incredulity.

"Now, child," she said, earnestly, "you think I'm foolin' you, but,
la! there's jest as much difference in folks' sewin' as there is in
their handwritin'. Milly made a fine stitch, but she couldn't keep on
the line to save her life; Maria never could make a reg'lar stitch,
some'd be long and some short, and Sally Ann's was reg'lar, but all of
'em coarse. I can see 'em now stoopin' over the quiltin' frames--Milly
talkin' as hard as she sewed, Sally Ann throwin' in a word now and
then, and Maria never openin' her mouth except to ask for the thread
or the chalk. I ricollect they come over after dinner, and we got the
quilt out o' the frames long before sundown, and the next day I begun
bindin' it, and I got the premium on it that year at the Fair.

"I hardly ever showed a quilt at the Fair that I didn't take the
premium, but here's one quilt that Sarah Jane Mitchell beat me on."

And Aunt Jane dragged out a ponderous, red-lined affair, the very
antithesis of the silken, down-filled comfortable that rests so
lightly on the couch of the modern dame.

"It makes me laugh jest to think o' that time, and how happy Sarah
Jane was. It was way back yonder in the fifties. I ricollect we had a
mighty fine Fair that year. The crops was all fine that season, and
such apples and pears and grapes you never did see. The Floral Hall
was full o' things, and the whole county turned out to go to the
Fair. Abram and me got there the first day bright and early, and we
was walkin' around the amp'itheater and lookin' at the townfolks and
the sights, and we met Sally Ann. She stopped us, and says she, 'Sarah
Jane Mitchell's got a quilt in the Floral Hall in competition with
yours and Milly Amos'.' Says I, 'Is that all the competition there
is?' And Sally Ann says, 'All that amounts to anything. There's one
more, but it's about as bad a piece o' sewin' as Sarah Jane's, and
that looks like it'd hardly hold together till the Fair's over. And,'
says she, 'I don't believe there'll be any more. It looks like this
was an off year on that particular kind o' quilt. I didn't get mine
done,' says she, 'and neither did Maria Petty, and maybe it's a good
thing after all.'

"Well, I saw in a minute what Sally Ann was aimin' at. And I says to
Abram, 'Abram, haven't you got somethin' to do with app'intin' the
judges for the women's things?' And he says, 'Yes.' And I says, 'Well,
you see