A Quilt for Jenna Read Online Free PDF

evening, a job she thoroughly enjoyed. Like most farm children, she liked being alone. In those days, before World War II, the fields around Apple Creek were open to the horizon, and there were many stands of trees with small creeks and ponds. Jerusha found great comfort in the simplicity of her life as she wandered through the fields and woods. Every so often she would hear the train chugging along the tracks to parts unknown, its mournful whistle seeming to warn of the dangers and sorrows of a complicated modern world.
    At these times Jerusha would kneel down on the earth and touch the grass or stop by a cold clear brook and dip her hands in the water, feeling the coolness on her skin and letting her thoughts focus on the God who could create such beauty with a spoken word. She didn’t comprehend the deeper theological issues that surrounded her faith, nor did they really interest her. She only knew that at some time in the past, wise men had led her people away from the traps and pitfalls of a world that catered to men’s basest natures and distracted them from this God of wonders who revealed Himself to her in every wooded path and every spring flower.
    Many days, after her chores were done, Jerusha found her way to the old red barn and climbed up the wooden rungs into the sweet-smelling hayloft. She would lie on her back in a soft mound of hay and fix her thoughts on the psalms and prayers that were the staple of her people’s life and daily work. Often she brought her family’s copy of the Ausbund , the ancient Amish hymnal, and read the lyrics to herself. There was no musical notation in the book, but the melodies had been passed down from generation to generation and were as familiar to her as the stars of the night sky. Her favorite was the Loblied , the praise song, which was sung every time the people gathered for church, and her sweet voice would lift in praise to her God. As she sang, she often felt that she was wrapped in God’s comforting arms. Often her father, passing by on his way to some part of the farm, would stop and listen as Jerusha’s clear soprano floated down out of the hayloft like a sweet angel voice singing the praises of God.
    â€œ Kumme, dochter , there is work to be done,” he would call up to her, yet the tone of his voice would let her know that he took comfort in a daughter so grounded in the faith.
    Jerusha would climb down and walk with her father in silence. He did not often speak of tender things, but a gentle hand on her shoulder would fill her heart with acceptance and love.
    The days of her young life invited a future that, while unknown, need not be feared, but rather welcomed. This life, uncomplicated and innocent, was all she knew, and it held her secure just as a mother’s tender arms hold a newborn. Time was not to be counted in hours and minutes, but rather in revelations and discoveries, in long dreamy summer days that never seemed to end and cold winter nights sitting by a warm fire, watching her mother and grandmother at the quilting frame.
    And so it was that when she was ten years old her grandmother brought her into the dawdy house where she had lived since Grossdaadi ’s death.
    â€œ Kumme, Jerusha,” she said, “it is time for you to learn to quilt. See here now, onest.” And she began to teach Jerusha.
    â€œThe first thing that needs to be done before any quilt is made is to decide which kind of design we will use,” she had said. “We must know in our heart what the quilt will look like when it is finished, because it can take anywhere from four hundred to six hundred hours to put together just one quilt. You can sew the most perfect stitch, but without a good design it means nothing. If the design is not pleasing to the eye from the start, that’s wasted time, and to waste time is to try God’s patience.”
    Sitting at her grandmother’s side, she watched her sketch out what she called a