Chapter 45
Three weeks after their secret plan was put into motion, Seth hustled Jacob upstairs after he’d dropped by his old home for a visit. Lilly had stayed home to do some extra school preparations.
“You’d better sit down.”
Jacob dropped to his brother’s bed and stretched.
“Now what’s the matter?”
Seth tossed a stack of thick envelopes at him, then slid into a chair at the end of the bed, propping up his long legs.
“Letters from ladies for you, dear bruder. It seems that your brilliant idea for me to send out requests for quilt squares for your wife and a possible wedding quilting—hosted by us men—got circulated around. And, by the evidence, it has endeared you to the hearts of Amish women everywhere. All those letters have quilt squares and you’re going to have to listen to each note because women will be able to tell whether or not you have read them.”
Jacob picked up a handful of envelopes. “Women? How many? How many requests did you write? Only a handful of people will fit around the frame, right?”
“Besides the fact that this is going to be the oddest quilting party in the area yet—being given by two men—I’d say we’re going to have to have revolving seats for the quilters, because there are a lot of women who want to quilt.” He stretched and scooped up a handful of the letters.
“Ach, here we go. One of my favorites—the lyrics to an Englisch quilting song, apparently from the late 1800s and dedicated to you by a Miss Lena Christner. I will not sing it, but I’ll recite it later— much later.” He rambled on. “Miss Lena also includes a patchwork square.” Seth waved the fabric. “And, she wishes you the best in life and love and so on.”
Jacob stretched out on the bed and yawned. “Keep going. I’m listening.”
“You’d better be. Now we have a novel quilting technique from our local postmistress, a ‘yo-yo’ square.”
“Like the toy?”
“Yeah, that will fit real comfortably into a bed quilt. No— circles of fabric are gathered into flat pouches and sewn together. See? It’s like a bunch of little colorful circles; I like this one.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ve learned enough about quilting that I feel like I ought to wear a skirt.”
“You’d look good in anything.”
“I’ll ignore that comment.” Seth pulled another square out of an envelope. “I guess this one is called ‘applique.’ You see? This smaller piece of cloth is cut into a shape and sewn onto a larger piece.”
Jacob stared at his narrish bruder.
“Then we have the French Knot—”
Jacob laid back on the bed, feeling his eyes drift closed. A moment later, the sudden weight of his brother centered on his chest.
“Get off,” he gasped.
“Nope. Not until you listen.”
“But it’s boring, Seth.”
“It was your idea. Now get up, gather your love letters and quilt squares, and go down and tell Mamm what you’ve done. She’s the only one who can sew these all together in time to make the quilt top.”
“The … quilt … top?” Jacob feigned ignorance to bait his brother.
“The quilt top! The thing that fastens to the frame that the ladies quilt on. I’m telling you this is the last time that I will ever—” It was probably Jacob’s hiccup of swallowed laughter that clued Seth in. He gave a tremendous heave and landed his brother on the floor with a loud thump. A shower of envelopes followed.
“Boys!” Mamm’s admonishing voice floated upstairs from the kitchen, just like when they’d been kinner. “What’s all the racket?”
Jacob sat up and lifted a pretty pink rose square from the litter around him. “This is nice.”
Seth narrowed his eyes. “You mock it now, but remember, this is important to your fraa. You can’t make fun of things that are important to her.” He shook his head. “Don’t you know anything about marriage?”
“All right. I’ll go talk to Mamm. But clean up the mess, Seth, and stop getting so involved in every little thing I ask you to do.”
He was too fast for the long leg that shot out to trip him and laughed out loud on his way down the stairs.