Heart of the Sandhills Read Online Free PDF Page B

last fall. She said all the women back there are using it.” Gen self-consciously folded the quilt back up.
    Harriet demanded, “Let me see it.” ‘When Gen handed the bundle over, Harriet turned back a corner and leaned over, peering at the quilt’s surface through the glasses perched on the end of her nose. “Who did you say taught you to quilt?”
    “First, Mrs. Dane up at Lac Qui Parle Mission.” Gen accepted a cup of coffee from Marjorie, but remained standing. When Harriet only harrumphed a response, Gen added nervously, “I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good student. I didn’t like sewing ‘very much. Then the Danes lost their house in a fire and we had to move to Hope Station. One of the mission teachers—Miss Jane Williams—and I used to sit out on her porch and quilt in the evenings. I—I pretended to be interested at first, and then one day I realized I really was interested. After a while I decided I even enjoyed it.”
    “Nice stitching,” Harriet said, thrusting the quilt back at Gen, who nearly spilled her coffee before managing to wrap her arm around the bundle and return it to the basket.
    Gen mumbled her thanks and perched on the edge of Marjorie’s chair. Once again, an awkward silence reigned. With nervous glances at one another, Violet, Harriet, and Lydia picked up their needles and began to quilt. Gen noticed for the first time that Violet’s odd, stoop-shouldered posture was forced by a melon-sized hump between her shoulders.
    Marjorie settled into a chair at the opposite end of the quilt between Lydia and Harriet. “You can see we’re just crosshatching. I thought I’d read a bit while you women quilt, if you don’t mind.” She beamed at them. “I’m so thankful the Lord gave us this break in the weather. And I mean to thoroughly enjoy it … heaven only knows when we’ll all be able to do this again.”
    Violet glanced timidly at Harriet and croaked that she too was grateful for Jeb’s sleigh bringing the women for a day’s quilting and that she, for one, had been so lonely this winter—and wouldn’t it be lovely if Marjorie were to read to them for a while?
    Harriet opened her mouth to comment but shut it again firmly when Marjorie produced her Bible and, with trembling fingers, began to flip pages. With a distressed glance in Nancy’s direction, Gen concentrated on threading her needle. Tying a single knot in the end of the thread, she slipped the needle between the layers of the fabric sandwich, popped the knot beneath the top layer, slipped the needle back on top, and began to rock her needle back and forth, back and forth as she quilted small, even stitches a quarter of an inch from the seam in the quilt.
    “I been reading straight through the New Testament all this winter,” Marjorie said quietly. “I’ll just start where I left off in Galatians.” She began to read about the law and grace, about things Gen didn’t understand. But then Marjorie read a passage that made Gen and Nancy duck their heads and quilt furiously.
    For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus .
    Harriet shifted in her chair. Lydia got up and refilled her coffee cup, rattling the cup and saucer noisily. Violet paused and reached up to rub her neck, grimacing slightly and leaning back as best she could against the hump on her back. The aroma of fresh-baked bread wafted through the room. Still, Marjorie read . . .
    Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself . . . As we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith . . . And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy . . .
    Marjorie