Two fine soft blankets came first, then an eiderdown
comfort, and then--something wrapped in a square of time-yellowed
linen, and smelling faintly of lavender.
"What under the canopy!" he muttered, beginning to unfold it. "Well,
I'll be--jiggered!" he exclaimed, as the familiar squares of faded
patchwork met his eye. "It's that old quilt I made for mother!" He had
forgotten its existence, but now, as he spread it out full length,
smiling at the well-known object, it seemed only yesterday that he
had been at work upon it. Rob's old teasing rhyme came back to him:
"This is the patchwork all forlorn,
Made by the boys in Marshall's barn."
[Illustration: "THE FAMILIAR SQUARES OF FADED PATCHWORK MET HIS EYE"]
"It _was_ funny," he thought, "the way I farmed out those two hundred
blocks to the other boys. Why, here's a piece of one of those little
striped waists I used to wear, and there's a piece of Rob's checked
shirt and Rhoda's apron. I wouldn't have imagined that I could have
recognized them after all these years, but they look as natural as
life. And this,"--his finger was resting on a square of dotted blue
calico,--"mother wore this.
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