thing
in it. Everything'll be in its right place jest like the squares in
this 'four-patch,' and one piece may be pretty and another one ugly,
but it all looks right when you see it finished and joined together."

Did I say that every pattern was represented? No, there was one
notable omission. Not a single "crazy quilt" was there in the
collection. I called Aunt Jane's attention to this lack.

"Child," she said, "I used to say there wasn't anything I couldn't do
if I made up my mind to it. But I hadn't seen a 'crazy quilt' then.
The first one I ever seen was up at Danville at Mary Frances', and
Henrietta says, 'Now, grandma, you've got to make a crazy quilt;
you've made every other sort that ever was heard of.' And she brought
me the pieces and showed me how to baste 'em on the square, and said
she'd work the fancy stitches around 'em for me. Well, I set there all
the mornin' tryin' to fix up that square, and the more I tried, the
uglier and crookeder the thing looked. And finally I says: 'Here,
child, take your pieces. If I was to make this the way you want me to,
they'd be a crazy quilt and a crazy woman, too.'"

Aunt Jane was laying the folded quilts in neat piles here and there
about the room. There was a look of unspeakable satisfaction on her
face--the look of the creator who sees his completed work and
pronounces it good.

"I've been a hard worker all my life," she said, seating herself and
folding her hands restfully, "but 'most all my work has been the kind
that 'perishes with the usin',' as the Bible says. That's the
discouragin' thing about a woman's work. Milly Amos used to say that
if a woman was to see all the dishes that she had to wash before she
died, piled up before her in one pile, she'd lie down and die right
then and there. I've always had the name o' bein' a good housekeeper,
but when I'm dead and gone there ain't anybody goin' to think o' the
floors I've swept, and the tables I've scrubbed, and the old clothes
I've patched, and the stockin's I've darned. Abram might 'a'
remembered it, but he ain't here. But when one o' my grandchildren or
great-grandchildren sees one o' these quilts, they'll think about Aunt
Jane, and, wherever I am then, I'll know I ain't forgotten.

"I reckon everybody wants to leave somethin' behind that'll last after
they're dead and gone. It don't look like it's worth while to live
unless you can do that. The Bible says folks 'rest from their labors,
and their works do