Sarah's Garden (27 page)
Once everything was settled, Father took the boys in the wagon and said he’d “make himself scarce” since a quilting was women’s work and no place for men to be found. Sarah and
Mamm
waved them off, then returned to check on the food preparations, which had been going on since a week before. Waiting to be enjoyed were delicate chicken and egg salad sandwiches, pear jelly, grape sunshine, rhubarb pie, bread and butter pickles, and mint tea.
The guests began to arrive, some driving their own buggies while others were dropped off by sons or brothers or husbands who were immediately absorbed into the King men’s plans and drove off to some predetermined rendezvous. Father even made sure to wait around for Mr. Bustle, whisking him away before his wife could murmur so much as a word.
Sarah was excited and had made a new pink blouse for the occasion. It matched the faint pink in her cheeks as she greeted each one in turn. The women arrived carrying various needles wrapped in sewing kits or carrying quilting baskets, which held all of the necessary items for a good sewing. Mrs. Bustle, just as
Mamm
expected, came with all equipment ready to go. She greeted Sarah with a smile and a hug.
“Thank you, sweetheart, for having me. Things have been a bit lonely . . . except for the bats.”
Sarah nodded in understanding and pressed the older woman’s hand before leading her to a seat.
Grossmudder
King arrived next, leaning on her cane but moving as spryly as ever. She poked her cane at
Mamm
’s skirts.
“Letty, I swear that you get wider by the season. I remember when Ephraim said he could span your waist with his two hands.”
Mamm
smiled serenely as Sarah steered the old woman to the quilting frame.
“Please take your choice of seats,
Grossmudder
.”
“Sarah King, of course I’ll sit where I like. How old will you be this year? You’d think that this would be a wedding quilting, but maybe you’re particular. Has anyone asked you yet?” Sarah’s smile matched her mother’s as she deposited the old woman into a chair near the bottom of the frame and drifted off without replying.
On the other hand, old Mrs. Kemp entered like the least of all, and Sarah was glad to seat her in what she privately considered the greatest seat in winter, near the woodstove. The others found places, and general comments were expressed over the beauty of the quilt and Sarah’s cleverness of design. Only
Grossmudder
King sniffed at the fancy fabrics.
“In my day, an Amish quilt was known for its simple colors and bold designs. I can’t make here nor there of all of this waterfall nonsense . . . ‘A Patch of Heaven’? Humph. Looks more like a ‘Patch of—’”
“Who would like tea?”
Mamm
interrupted.
“Why, Letty.”
Grossmudder
laughed. “What did you expect I was going to say?”
“I have learned that it’s best to expect anything from anyone,”
Mamm
returned.
Grossmudder
King laughed and the quilting began.
Sharing news about pregnancies and childbirths progressed to the older women reminiscing about quilting lore and days gone by. Aunt Ruth laughed out loud as she thought of something, and Sarah begged to know the reason.
“Ach
, it’s an old story.”
“Those are the best,” Chelsea chimed in.
“All right,” Aunt Ruth agreed, watching her stitches as she spoke. “Have you heard of the Undertaker’s Quilt?”
Sarah’s old school chums giggled and Sarah laughed. “It sounds scary.”
“Ah. It was. It was. For you see, this was a quilt made from the clothes of the dead.”
Grossmudder
King clicked her tongue but still looked interested. “Well, tell it, if you’ve a mind to already, Ruthie,” she snapped.
Aunt Ruth smiled and leaned forward. “Once, long ago, in an
Englisch
town”—here she paused to smile at Mrs. Bustle, who smiled back. “Over two mountains away, it was a common thing for the furniture makers to also be the undertakers, since they were the ones who had the wood to build the coffins. In any case, there was a particular undertaker named Mr. Bones who had a nagging wife. She nagged for this from the stores and she nagged for that. But an undertaker does not make much money, and neither does a furniture maker, if times are hard. Finally, Mrs. Bones began to nag about the fact that she wanted to have fabric squares to make a quilt. She nagged and she whined and she cried, until one day, Mr. Bones had an idea. As the dead came through his shop to be prepared for burial, they were normally dressed in their very best, and since Mr. Bones was the one who laid them in their coffins, and no one but the Lord was going to take them out again, Mr. Bones decided to cut fabric squares from the back ends of their outfits.”
A shocked titter ran around the frame as the ladies leaned closer to listen. Sarah smiled to see Aunt Ruth, so like Father, in her element of storytelling.
“It was Mr. Bones’s habit, in any case, to simply half-dress the dead who came his way, meaning he ’d cut a line down the back of the dress or suit or whatever, to make it easier to fit on the body. So Mr. Bones began to bring home, just at first, small squares of fabric . . . a blue-patterned organza here, a bit of tweed there, until Mrs. Bones ceased to nag and began making a quilt. If there was a lull between deaths in the town, Mr. Bones learned to fix the problem by just cutting a bit more cloth from the outfit to make more squares. So by the following spring, Mrs. Bones had created a truly beautiful quilt that held all of the best from every worthy contributor. Mr. Bones was happy because his wife no longer nagged him, and Mrs. Bones was happy because, unbeknownst to her husband, she decided to enter her quilt in the town’s spring fair.”
Here, a collective groan echoed round the frame as needles worked ten stitches per inch in time with the story. Aunt Ruth went on.
“There were many fine quilters among the
Englisch
of this town, who’d spent many long hours at the frame, but none could compare to the quilt of Mrs. Bones, which she ’d innocently titled ‘A Walk among the Lilies.’ It won the blue ribbon and, as was the custom, was displayed for all to see in the exhibition hall of blue ribbon winners, hanging proudly where all who entered could not help but notice it.
“Mr. Bones, being one of the interested passersby that day, did indeed notice the quilt. He ’d not seen it in its entirety, but it was as if each scrap of cloth from the quilt was an accusing face staring at him from above. He hastily tried to lose himself among the jellies while Mrs. Bones preened near her creation with delight. Around about noontime, though, something odd began to happen to certain people as they passed the quilt. They’d stop, stare, then pass on by, shaking their heads, only to return for a second look. Women pushing prams with hot, discontented toddlers would stand in the crowd at the quilt for long minutes, and men, eating popcorn or hotdogs, would also stop, arrested in their movements as they passed the winner for the second or third time. Finally, a tall
Englischer
with a broad moustache pointed an accusing finger at the quilt and bawled out in a loud voice, ‘Hey, that’s my mama’s burying dress color, it is!’ Suddenly, the crowd was electrified as the thing that had eluded them about the quilt’s fascination took shape before their eyes.
“‘And that’s my daddy’s burying tweed suit cloth! We got it sent in special to fit him!’ one hysterical woman cried.
“‘And that’s my aunt’s organdy pink rose that she wanted to meet Jesus in!’
“By now, the crowd was in an uproar, and Mrs. Bones shrank into the background to go and find her husband hiding behind a stack of canned peaches.
“‘Albert Bones, what on earth possessed you?’ she hissed.
“Mr. Bones was speechless. Soon, the tall man with the moustache swept a keen gaze around the exhibition hall and pointed an unerring finger in the direction of Mr. and Mrs. Bones.
“‘There they be!’ The crowd swarmed after him, and Mr. Bones quivered in his boots.
“‘Well, Bones? What’s the idea? Stealing clothes from the innocent dead? Why I ought to . . .’ Mr. Bones’s collar was in the death grip of the mustached man when suddenly he had the only moment of intelligent inspiration in his life. He swallowed and choked out the words.
“He was dropped to the floor and rose shakily. ‘What did you say?’ the greater man growled.
“Mr. Bones spoke for his life. ‘Why, I wanted to have a way for you all to remember them, like. Together—and, living, like in a town of a quilt—the way they once did here.’
“The mustached man pursed his broad lip and he gazed back over at the quilt.
“‘Bones.’ The broad lip quivered. ‘If that don’t beat all. Why it’s like they’re still here at the fair with us.’ He drew a great sniff and pulled out a bright red handkerchief and blew his nose loud and long. The rest of the crowd was weeping as well, ladies dabbing delicately at their eyes and men wiping their noses on their shirtsleeves. The undertaker and his wife were embraced by the entire community, and Mrs. Bones discovered a calling in making memory quilts. The townspeople now found it a distinct privilege to have Mr. Bones cut a square of fabric from the clothes of their beloved dead. And every year the townspeople who died and were buried were remembered in the memory quilt at the spring fair, living together in a town of a quilt, just like the undertaker said.”
Aunt Ruth finished in triumph and the ladies applauded, even
Grossmudder
King, who begrudged, “
Ach
, Ruthie, you always could tell a good tale, even if it’s the oddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Well, I loved it,” Sarah declared. “And now it’s time for lunch.”
T
he ladies took their plates to the large kitchen table and shared tidbits about recipes, seed ordering, their husbands and children. John Kemp Jr., the only baby there, was passed about and admired until he found a tender place to nap against
Mamm
’s comfortable shoulder. Sarah moved about refilling teacups and offering more sandwiches and had a good time until
Grossmudder
King spoke up once more.
“Sarah, I may be back in the woods, but the news still gets to me just the same. What’s this I’ve hear about you and that
Englisch
vet taking up together?”
Sarah set the pitcher on the table and ignored the sudden, uncomfortable silence around the table. She glanced at
Mamm
and Chelsea, who both looked ready to do battle on her behalf and then at Mrs. Bustle, who wore the look of a mother lion.
“You misheard,
Grossmudder
. It was just idle talk; nothing more.”
“I’m glad to hear it just the same; no granddaughter of mine will ever marry an
Englischer
, and that’s for certain.”
Mrs. Bustle shifted ominously in her seat, but Sarah gave her a pleading glance, then spoke.
“Really? I would have thought by your interest in marriage that marrying an
Englischer
would be better than not marrying at all.”
Sarah felt as surprised at herself as the other women looked, but
Mamm
had gotten up from the table with the excuse of changing the baby’s
windel
while
Grossmudder
King gasped for air and voice.
“Have some more tea,
Grossmudder
,” Sarah offered. “Although it is an
Englisch
blend.”
“You are a sassy girl,”
Grossmudder
King snapped, when she found her voice.
Sarah smiled. “So I’ve been told.”
S
arah curled in her bed that night with a pencil and her journal. She wanted to recapture the day’s events with a poem but wasn’t sure she could make it all fit. She especially thought of Aunt Ruth’s story about the undertaker’s quilt and thought how much truth was woven into the humorous tale. A quilt was indeed like a community, and one that endured, like the promise of renewed life. She thought of the faces of the women sewing, even her grandmother’s, and dear Mrs. Bustle holding back her temper. Sarah knew that God must quilt their lives, blending and matching each piece, each hope and problem, until the pattern was as He desired. She chewed on the pencil tip, then began to write.
“TO KEEP AND NOT FORSAKE”
Quilting as one,
But one by one.
Together we seem a united front
Able to face an army past
But each woman carries her own needle
Stitches in her own time.
Do we unite?
Each silver point a sword tip?
I can edge it toward my sister,
If I’m not careful.
I want no blood
On my quilting.
She took a deep breath when she was done and realized that
Grossmudder
King’s sharp words had wounded today and must be haunting the back of her mind. It seemed that there were many ways to age, she thought as she closed her journal—like
Grossmudder
King, full of tartness, or like John Kemp’s mother, full of gentleness. She snuggled beneath her quilt and decided to choose in advance which she would be, if the Lord so blessed her with long life.
T
he cold days of late January and February lengthened with relentless weather and even the extra minute or so of sunshine each afternoon did little to cheer her once the joy of the quilting was done. Though, when Easter came, Sarah found great pleasure in collecting extra eggs and sitting with
Mamm
to paint them in the afternoons.
They used colors made from vegetable dyes and decorated the eggs in the traditional fashion, spending painstaking hours painting flowers and miniature scenes on each of the eggshells, once they’d used a pin to blow out the yolks and the whites.
Sarah thought for a long time about what to paint as she looked at eggs from the past, which the boys had brought down from the attics in crates of hay. The eggs were painted and then lacquered to protect them, and she could study eggs made by
Mamm
when she was young as well as those of other relatives from throughout the years.
Sarah chose a small flat brush and began to put a blue and crimson wash over the entire egg as her base coat. It looked like the morning sky, as she had hoped. She then added greenery, a rose of Sharon bush, and the gray of a rock-hewn tomb. She painted the rolled-away stone, lying on its side, and a rich light radiating from within the cave of a tomb. She added tiny dabs of birds and then the silhouettes of three women as they approached the tomb. She showed
Mamm
.
