University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.
BUSY BEES.

The morning proved Jacob a true prophet,
for it broke with a steady downpour of rain,
of the soft, quiet description, as little likely to
change as the will of those smiling, serene
women, than whom the mountains are less
obstinate

“Now, Mr. Monckton,” said Aunt Rachel, as
the traveller after breakfast approached the
window, “you might as well consent to what
you can't help. The going will be miserable
to-day, and the rain will soak through that
coat of yours like brown paper. Send back
your sleigh to Bloom and make yourself contented
here until to-morrow, when you can
take the stage. We are going to have a bee
to-day, and there will be some gentlemen to
tea; and Beatrice, she isn't of much account
for quilting, and she will keep you company
through the day. You'd better stay.”

“I think so too, sir, and I should be glad of
some one to keep me in countenance among
so many of the more powerful sex,” said the
deacon, with the quiet smile that always suggested
a little good-humored satire in his remarks
upon womankind, and reminded his
hearers that the opinions formed sixty years
ago were less liberal in their appreciation of
the fairer half of mankind than those of to-day

“Oh! yes, he'll stay,” chimed in grandmamma.
“There'll be a plenty of pretty girls
here, even if we hadn't one of our own.”

“And we shall be edified in watching some
new proofs of universal adaptiveness,” said
Beatrice softly.

“How can I choose but stay with so many
temptations, even if my own wishes were not
too powerful to be denied?” said Monckton
gayly; and Miss Rachel slipped out of the
room to give the stable-lad from Bloom a substantial
breakfast, and bid him make ready to
depart alone.

A few hours later the bees began to arrive
in spite of the continued and increasing bad
weather.

“I told you how it'd be,” said Jacob, as he
approached the doorstep where Beatrice was
lingering to enjoy the soft, moist air, while
the guests she had just welcomed were piloted
up-stairs by Miss Rachel.

“Yes, but how will they get home again?”
murmured the young lady, as Jacob took the
horse by the head and began to lead him
toward the barn.

“Oh! that's of no account,” replied he scoffingly.
“They're here, and they a'n't to home,
and that's all they care for.”

“How unlikely such a servant would be in
England!” said Mr. Monckton, who had quietly
approached the open door.

“So familiar, and yet so truly respectful,”
said Beatrice.

“Yes. Here in New-England, a servant is
merely a man who for wages consents to perform
certain service for another man. He retains
his self-respect, and commands the respect
of his employer, and both of them tacitly
confess that some day the employed may
become employer, and even rise to a rank far
above that of his present master. There is
nothing servile, nothing presuming in this
man's manners, but a servant who is born and
will die a servant cannot cease to be servile
without becoming presuming.”

sung Beatrice with a smile; and as another
sleigh, heavily loaded with women, old and
young, one small boy, and several umbrellas,
toiled up to the door, the friends, now really
friends once more, withdrew to the east room,
which was to be left undisturbed for the occupancy
of the old people, and whoever chose to
join them.

“Maybe, Mr. Monckton, if you are not wanted
at the quilting, you would like to look over
some old records and curious papers saved
through two hundred years in our family,”
said the deacon, feebly rising and unlocking
the great brass-bound secretary, whose deep
drawers and pigeon-holed recesses contained
antiquarian wealth enough to set a whole college
mad.

Mr. Monckton, who had the taste to relish
and the training to appreciate these treasures,
accepted the offer with a cordiality which evidently
raised him in the opinion of the old
man, who seldom vouchsafed such an offer to
a stranger, and who valued his family treasures
to their full extent.

With a smile of quiet amusement, Beatrice
watched the preparations of the two convives
as they seated themselves to their feast, and
so soon as they were fairly engrossed, left the
room and joined the throng of workers already
busy in the great parlor.

“How d'y do, Beatryce? How's your health
since you've been to the city?” asked Mrs.
Green, the sturdy, comfortable wife of Doctor
Bliss's rival in Milvor.

“Very good, thank you, Mrs. Green. Let me
help you with that bar.”

“Thanky. You see we thought we'd set up
the best quilt in this room, because it's the
parlor, and birds of a feather had oughter flock
together—don't you see?”

And Mrs. Green looked round upon her coadjutors
for the approving laugh, of which
they did not disappoint her, it being a fortunate
illustration of the law of demand and supply,
that to any persons of small intellectual
average a very little wit goes a great way, or
even no wit at all supplies the place of that
stimulant better than the genuine article.

Beatrice politely joined in the laugh, and
also with more interest in the labor of raising
the heavy quilting-bars upon the backs of four
chairs, and securing them in the form of a
hollow square by means of gimlets kept for
that purpose. Next, the lining of the quilt—
economically composed of a worn and faded
counterpane—was sewed to the border of cloth
tacked to the inner edges of the bars; then
the rolls of cotton-wool were laid upon it, and
a warm discussion as to the proper amount to
be used went round the circle of ladies gathered
about the frame like a congress of crows
considering a prey fallen into their midst.

“Well, every body has their own notions;
but for my part, I don't never want more than
two pound of cotton in a quilt that's going to
lay over me. If you get in more, it's more
heft than warmth,” said Mrs. Green.

“What I say is, if you're going to have a
quilt, why have it, and let it be of some use. I
don't think four pound of cotton a mite too
much, and I haven't got a quilt in the world
with less in, and one I've got for the boys'
bed has got six in it.”

“I should think your boys would be
smashed down flat under it, Miss Williams,”
suggested another matron,slightly flushed with
the heat of argument; and at this moment, fortunately
for the harmony of her party, Miss
Rachel entered the room. The question was at
once referred to her, and decided with a dove-and-serpent
wisdom which excited the admiration
of her niece, who had become a little
alarmed.

“Why, to my mind, it depends altogether
on where the quilt is to be used,” said Miss
Rachel. “For a cold, windy room—up garret,
say—I like a good thick quilt, or may be a comforter,
and if the wool is good and clean, I
don't believe four or five pounds would be
too heavy; but in a warm room, I think it is
better to have your quilts lighter and more of
them, so that you can throw them off and put
them on, as you like. My mother, now, has
four quilts on her bed besides the blankets,
and I don't believe there is more than a pound
apiece in them. So, seems to me, I wouldn't
put more than two pounds in this quilt, and
after we get it out, we'll tack a comforter, and
put five pounds in. Then they could go on
one bed together, and whoever slept there
could turn one or the other off as they were a
mind to.”

“Yes, it's well to suit all tastes when you
can; and some folks like to lie warm, and
some not so warm,” said an old lady soothingly.
And the two pounds of cotton were
laid in, with no more discussion.

The next operation was to adjust the cover
or upper crust of this cotton-wool pie. This
was patchwork, composed of small octagonal

squares of brightly-colored calico, alternated
with large octagons of solid colored cambrics,
and had been Miss Rachel's fancy-work during
the last month.

It now received many encomiums and a
minute examination, sweet to the vanity of
the laborious artist.

“There's a piece of your lilac calico,” and
“Where did you get that rosy piece?” or
“These pretty cambrics was your morning-gowns,
Beatryce, wasn't they?” and “What
a lot of work to get them all together, and how
nice you set off the colors one against another!”
were some of the ejaculations. And
Miss Rachel modestly deprecating the praise
she felt richly merited, helped to lay the
cover evenly upon the cotton, and to sew it to
the edges of the bars.

“Now, what pattern be we going to do it
in?” asked Mrs. Green, producing a ball of
hard white cord and a piece of chalk from
her pocket

“Herring-bone is about as pretty as any
way, a'n't it?” asked Mrs. Williams.

“I like di'monds, inch-square di'monds,”
said another lady positively.

“Shell-pattern is pretty,” remarked one.

“Waves are prettier,” suggested another.

“How do you do waves?”

“Why, lay down a small plate or a saucer,
if you want them small, and chalk round half
the edge. Just like shell-pattern, only you
do that with a teacup”

“It's pretty to have double parallel lines,
each pair about ten inches from the next, and
then waves in between each pair,” said quiet
Mrs. Phelps, the minister's wife.

“Like skeins of yarn drying on a clothes-horse,”
whispered Mrs. Green, who never approved
any other person's suggestion, and yet
dared not openly contradict the minister's
wife, whose proposed pattern was at once
adopted by Miss Rachel.

“First we must mark out the lines,” said
Mrs. Phelps, looking about her. “Mrs. Green,
will you chalk your cord, and lay it on where
you think it ought to go?”

Mrs. Green thus called to the front, graciously
obeyed, and first drawing the cord
over the lump of chalk, laid it across one
side of the quilt, and held it firmly at one end,
while Mrs. Phelps drew the other tight.

“Now, Miss Rachel, you must snap it, for
the sake of the sign,” said Mrs. Green; and
Rachel, with a prim smile, took the middle of
the cord between her thumb and forefinger,
raised it a little, and let it fall with a smart
snap, striking out a line of chalk-dust.

“What is the sign?” asked Beatrice.

“Why, the one that snaps the first line on a
bed-quilt will lay under a wedding bed-quilt
first of any one in the room,” said Mrs. Green
mysteriously, as she and the minister's wife
moved their chalked cord about an inch, had
a line snapped there, and then removed it ten
inches further inlaid, and chalked another pair
of parallel lines, while Mrs. Bruce, with an inverted
breakfast-plate and a piece of chalk
sharpened to a crayon, proceeded to draw the
“waves” between the two.

Leaving them thus engaged, Beatrice stole
away and up-stairs, where in the room overhead
she found another group of ladies similarly
employed over a “comforter,” already in the
frame, and ready to be “tied” in diamonds, a
process effected by pushing a needle filled
with soft thread down through cover, cotton,
and lining, and drawing it up again nearly
in the same place, a little bunch of bright
colored wools being tied into the knot thus
formed. But in the other front chamber, the
guest-chamber, a knot of matrons, working in
secrect conclave, were preparing the crowning
glory of the day—Miss Rachel herself being
rigidly excluded from the room, and Beatrice
only allowed to enter under promise of inviolable
secrecy.

This was an album bed-quilt, the gift of
Miss Barstow's widest circle of Milvor acquaintance,
each octagon composed by a different
person—the only point of harmony insisted
upon being the size, and a small white square
in the middle, bearing the name of the donor,
either written in indelible ink, or fairly
wrought in cross-stitch, according to her taste
or ability. Below the name was generally a
date, and frequently a couplet, either original
or selected—as:

Beatrice gravely read these and many
similar effusions, admired the taste displayed
in the various squares, some of which were
very pretty, and was just about to assume her
place among the needle-women already busily
at work, when her aunt's voice summoned
her into the hall, and she obeyed, first renewing
her promise of secrecy.