Ann Lizy would have been very happy had it not been for the
patchwork. She had already pieced one patchwork quilt, and her
grandmother displayed it to people with pride, saying, "Ann Lizy pieced
that before she was eight years old."
Ann Lizy had not as much ambition as her grandmother, now she was
engaged upon her second quilt, and it looked to her like a checked and
besprigged calico mountain. She kept dwelling upon those four squares,
over and over, until she felt as if each side were as long as the Green
Mountains. She calculated again and again how little time she would have
to play with Jane--only about an hour, for she must allow a half-hour
for tea. She was not a swift sewer when she sewed fine and even
stitches, and she knew she could not finish those squares before four
o'clock. One hour!--and she and Jane wanted to play dolls, and make
wreaths out of oak-leaves, and go down in the lane after thimbleberries,
and in the garden for gooseberries--there would be no time for anything!
Ann Lizy's delicate little face under the straw flat grew more and more
sulky and distressed, her forehead wrinkled, and her mouth pouted. She
forgot to swing her muslin delaine skirts gracefully, and flounced
along hitting the dusty meadowsweet bushes.
Ann Lizy was about half-way to Jane Baxter's house, in a lonely part of
the road, when she opened her bead bag and drew out her
pocket-handkerchief--her grandmother had tucked that in with the
patchwork--and wiped her eyes.
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