She
kept wondering if the parson's wife would not say, "Mrs. Jennings, is
this your bead bag?" but she did not. She made the call and took leave,
and the bead bag was never mentioned. It was odd, too, that it was not;
for the parson's wife, who had found the bead bag, had taken it with her
on her round of calls that afternoon, partly to show it and find out, if
she could, who had lost it. But here it was driven out of her mind by
the pound-cake and elderberry wine, or else she did not think it likely
that an old lady like Mrs. Jennings could have owned the bag. Younger
ladies than she usually carried them. However it was, she went away with
the bag.
"Why didn't she ask if it was yours?" inquired Ann Lizy, indignant in
spite of her admiration for the parson's wife.
"Hush," said her grandmother. "You mind you don't say a word out about
this, Ann Lizy. I ain't never carried it, and she didn't suspect."
Now, the bead bag was found after this unsatisfactory fashion; but Ann
Lizy never went down the road without looking for the patchwork. She
never dreamed how little Sally Putnam, the minister's wife's niece, was
in the mean-time sewing these four squares over and over, getting them
ready to go into her quilt. It was a month later before she found it
out, and it was strange that she discovered it at all.
It so happened that, one afternoon in the last of August, old Mrs.
Pages:
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76