“Oh, you!” he impatiently answered, “but Emily, now!” I thought of those quilts upstairs, while he went on: “See this thing, now!” He pointed to the small quilt over his knees. I required no invitation, goodness knows! for the ugly, ill-made thing had forced my attention long ago. No two pieces matched in length; they were puckered and stretched (the old man called them “we-wahed”). “That’s _her_ cutting,” he announced! I was about to explain, when I saw Emily behind him in the kitchen-door frantically signing me to keep quiet. “Oh, dear!” I moaned to myself, “what about those quilts upstairs?” “Yes;” he went on, “that’s a woman’s cuttin’ out! Yes (argumentatively), I saw her do it! And think of those quilts upstairs! (Ah, I thought!) Why, Emily says she would have had enough for herself and for her daughters’ marrying, if she could have got her first husband to cut her pieces for her! (O, Emily!) but she had to beg and beg, and he wouldn’t cut a single piece for a whole year sometimes. She says he was ashamed to do it, she reckons! Well!” he hotly ejaculated, “I’m not ashamed to do _anything_ for _my_ wife, unless”--he cooled suddenly again--“unless she’s only making believe so as to give me employment!” “Well,” I said, “if you choose to doubt your wife, after looking at that awful quilt, you may. But you can’t well suspect _me_, and if you will cut pieces for one quilt for me I’ll give you silk enough for a quilt for yourself. Will you do it?” The last suspicion faded! He threw back his head and laughed: “Will I? You’ll see! Say, lass, just step over to the sta’board side of that sewing machine and hand me up that cuttin’ board, and I’ll show you what’s the matter with the ‘cuttin’ out’ of all you women. You see,”--he spoke with an air of growing authority as he unrolled some bits of calico--“you will just have your pattern cut out of a bit of cotton or delaine, and then you smack that down onto, perhaps, _several pieces_ of goods together, never mind whether bias or straight, just to save time. Great guns! save time! Look at _that_ thing over my knees! Well, _I_ take the ‘sun observation,’ and I get my pattern all right, and _then_ I cuts her out in good, stiff pasteboard, ma’am, and if it’s a hard pattern, like ‘bride in the mist’ or ‘the risin’ sun,’ I have the thing cut out of a thin sheet of tin. A--a--ho! I don’t make no mistakes, even with ‘brides in the mist,’ when I’ve a good, tin pattern to work by!” As so often happens, enthusiasm was too much for his grammar. He talked and planned all through tea and right along to bed time, and I carried the big Bible to him and placed it open upon his lap. His hand instinctively began to turn the leaves in the front of the volume, but I rested my hand on the place I had selected, and, laughing, I said: “You have chosen for three whole years, _I’m company_ to-night, and you must let me choose!”