Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_03 Read Online Free PDF Page A

with silver metallic thread.
    Godwin was arranging it in a shallow box draped with silver tissue paper.
    â€œYou’re not going to hang it?” asked Betsy.
    â€œI haven’t decided yet,” said Godwin. “John and I exchange gifts on Christmas eve morning, because he goes home Christmas eve and stays till late Christmas day. I suppose we could hang it after he opens it, but then I’d be tempted to put something in it, and I don’t want to stretch it out.”
    â€œDo you have someplace to go to celebrate Christmas?” asked Betsy.
    â€œI just told you about my Christmas.” Godwin saw the start of compassion in Betsy’s eyes and said crisply, “We have our own private and very happy Christmas, and then we do something truly brilliant for New Year’s Eve. So please, don’t feel sorry for me.”
    â€œDon’t you have parents or a brother or sister?” persisted Betsy.
    â€œMy father and mother are—well, never mind. I don’t think my darkening their doorstep would brighten the holidays for any of us.”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    Godwin shrugged. “Their loss.”
    Indeed, thought Betsy, still miffed on his behalf. She reached under the table for the counted cross stitch Christmas tree ornament she was working on. It was a hippopotamus wearing a Santa Claus hat, fifth in a series of a dozen animals she’d ordered from a catalog. Betsy had nearly decided she didn’t like counted cross stitch. Those customers who claimed it relaxed them were a breed apart; for Betsy, doing counted cross stitch was aggravating, frustrating, and full of traps for the unwary.
    Still, it’s very attractive when it comes out right, she thought, looking complacently at the grinning hippo.
    In a while she sold one skein of DMC 725 perle cotton floss to the browser and eight hanks of bright pink knitting wool to a man who had signed up for the January knitting class and was needlessly afraid someone else would buy his choice of color. His purchase reminded Betsy, and she added her own name to the class list. Rosemary had brought a finished example of the sweater she was going to teach her class to knit, and Betsy had always wondered how knitters got that twist of cable into their patterns.
    Soon after the knitter left, a woman came in with a child about twelve years old and bought a yard of sixteen count canvas, two needles and a threader, a dozen DMC perle cotton colors, six needlepoint wool colors, and a copy of The Needlepoint Book. Betsy thought the child was the woman’s daughter until the child addressed her as Aunt Jay.
    â€œThis is half your Christmas present,” Aunt Jay said, handing the weighty blue plastic bag with Crewel World printed on it in little Xs to the beaming child. “The other half is me teaching you how to do the stitches in the book. Your present to me is your first sampler, which I will hold in trust for whichever of your daughters gets the needlework gene.”
    Two more customers came in to pick up finished projects, and then it was noon. Betsy put on her long, dark gray coat and the bright red scarf and hat she’d knitted herself. The hat fit a little loosely because she’d figured the gauge—how many stitches to the inch—on size six needles and then knit it on seven, but that was all right, because now she didn’t get hat hair. She put the wool samples in her purse and set off for the church.
    The wind had let up, the sun was shining, and it didn’t feel all that cold out. No challenge to the walk today. She went into the darkened arcade, heard distant voices, and followed them down the stairs and into the hall.
    A half dozen volunteers were carrying huge cooking pots and boxes of utensils, what looked like parts of an early-model gas stove, and—proverbially—an old, stained, porcelain kitchen sink. Three others carried boxes of books, coat hangers, and unidentifiable junk.
    Father