"But the sewing was good practice for you, Phœbe. Patchwork--seems to me all our life is patchwork: a little here and a little there; one color now, then another; one shape first, then another shape fitted in; and when it is all joined it will be beautiful if we keep the parts straight and the colors and shapes right. It can be a very beautiful rising sun or an equally pretty flower basket, or it can be just a crazy quilt with little of the beautiful about it." "Mother Bab, if I had known that while I was patching I would have loved to patch! I had nothing to make it interesting; it was just stitching, stitching, stitching on seams! But those vivid quilts are all finished and I guess Aunt Maria is as glad about it as I am, for I gave her some worried hours before the end was sighted. Poor Aunt Maria, she should be glad to have me go to the city. I've led her some merry chases, but I must admit she was always equal to them, forged ahead of me many times." "Phœbe, you're a wilful child and I'm afraid I spoil you more." "No you don't! You're my safety valve. If I couldn't come up here and say the things I really feel I'd have to tell it to the Jenny Wrens--Aunt Maria hates to have me talk to myself." "But she's good to you, Phœbe?" "Yes, oh, yes! I appreciate all she has done for me. She has taken care of me since I was a tiny baby. I'll never forget that. It's just that we are so different. I can't make Phœbe Metz be just like Maria Metz, can I?" "No, you must be yourself, even if you are different." "That's it, Mother Bab. I feel I have the right to live my life as I choose, that no person shall say to me I must live it so or so. If I want to study music why shouldn't I do so? My mother left a few hundred dollars for me; it's been on interest and amounts to more than a few hundred, about a thousand dollars, I think. So the money end of my studying music need not worry Aunt Maria. I am determined to do it, wouldn't you?" "I suppose I'd feel the same way." "How did you learn to understand so well, Mother Bab? You have lived all your life on a farm, yet you are not narrow." "I hope I have not grown narrow," the woman said softly. "I have read a great deal. I have read--don't you breathe it to a soul--I have often read when I should have been baking pies or washing windows!" "No wonder David worships you so." "I still enjoy reading," said Mother Bab. "David subscribes for three good magazines and when they come I'm so anxious to look into them that sometimes my cooking burns." "That must be one of the reasons your English is correct. I am ashamed of myself when I mix my v's and w's and use a _t_ for a _d_. I have often wished the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect would have been put aside long ago."