Heart of the Sandhills Read Online Free PDF Page A

quilting.” The men exchanged knowing grins as Gen scooped up her basket of finished quilt blocks and packed her sewing kit. In less than an hour the women were ensconced in Marjorie’s kitchen, chattering away while Marjorie hand-cranked her sewing machine at top speed to finish the quilt top Gen was making for twelve-year-old Meg Dane.
    “I can’t believe how many pieces you have in these blocks,” Marjorie said as she finished the last row. “Where did you get the idea?”
    Gen smiled. “When my Papa made me leave home and go to school at the Danes’ mission, he told me to look at the moon every night. He said he would be looking at that same moon, knowing it would bring us closer. Ever since then, when I’m lonely for someone, I look at the moon and imagine them doing the same.” She paused. “Even now that Papa is gone, and so many other people I love are in heaven, I like to look at the moon and imagine them doing the same—from the other side.” She hurried to finish. “More than once I’ve looked up and prayed for Meg, imagining her in the rose garden we planted together before I left New York.” She blushed. “I wanted to do something to represent the moon. But just plain circles don’t make a very pretty quilt. Daniel was teasing me one day and said I should put two stars inside each moon. ‘When I tried it, this is what happened.”
    “It’s beautiful,” Marjorie said.
    “I hope Aaron isn’t jealous,” Gen worried aloud. “I did a simple nine-patch hoping he could include it in his bedroll when he’s a soldier.”
    “Well, you made Aaron’s while we were harvesting the garden and doing all that canning and preserving last fall,” Nancy interjected. “If there had been three feet of snow on the ground, you could have made him a Two Stars pattern!” She added, “Aaron won’t mind. Men don’t care about things like that.”
    “Done!” Marjorie called out, holding up Gen’s completed quilt top.
    After lunch, the women lowered Marjorie’s quilting frame from the kitchen ceiling where it hovered over the table when not in use. With four iron C-shaped clamps they anchored each corner of the large frame to a chair back. Then they stretched out the backing fabric, a collage of odd-shaped pieces of tan fabric gleaned from worn-out skirts and shirts. Once the backing was basted to the thin strips of ticking nailed to each of the quilting frame boards, the women spread a flannel sheet and the newly finished quilt top over it to complete the fabric sandwich.
    “I can’t reach the center!” Nancy panted as she strained to reach across her pregnant belly to baste her section of the quilt together. The women laughed while they ran extra-long stitches from the center to the edges of the quilt so the calico would remain in place without bubbles or bumps while the women quilted with smaller stitches.
    While the women worked, Jeb, Daniel, and Robert came and went, stomping in to thaw out, leaving to haul feed to the horses or to shovel steaming piles of manure out of the barns. They dug tunnels to Marjorie’s chicken coop and came in to report the loss of five hens—not to the cold, but to a fox. They set traps near the chicken coop and then headed for the pond to harvest ice. Marjorie’s two-year-old twins, Lee and Sherman, fell asleep beneath the quilt. When Gen offered to help her carry them up to bed, Marjorie grinned. “Let them sleep. Won’t do any harm and then I won’t have to worry about them waking up and raising a ruckus upstairs.”
    She went upstairs and came back with a thick tied comforter that she set on the open oven door to warm.
    “Let me,” Gen said, when the comforter was warm. She bent down and ducked beneath the table. Tucking the warm blanket around the twins, she watched them sleep, caressing first one, and then the second little head and sighing.
    “In God’s time, my sister,” Nancy said gently, peering beneath the edge of the quilt at Gen.
    With a wistful