And she said she had jest finished a crazy quilt with seven thousand pieces of silk in it, and each piece trimmed with seven hundred stitches of feather stitchin’—she’d counted ’em. And then I remembered seein’ it. There wuz a petition fer wimmen’s rights and I remember Ardelia couldn’t sign it for lack of time. She wanted to, but she hadn’t got the quilt more than half done. It took the biggest heft of two years to do it. And so less important things had to be put aside. And Ardelia’s mother wanted to sign it, but she couldn’t owin’ to a bed-spread she wuz makin’. She wuz quiltin’ in Noah’s Ark and all the animals on a Turkey red quilt. I remember she wuz quiltin’ the camel that day and couldn’t be disturbed, so we didn’t git the names. It took the old lady three years, and when it wuz done it wuz a sight to behold, though I wouldn’t want to sleep under so many animals. But folks went from fur and near to see it, and I enjoyed lookin’ at it that day. Zebulin Coon wanted me to carry a new hen coop of hisen to git patented. And I thought to myself I wonder if they will ask me to carry a cow. And sure enough Elnathan Purdy wanted me to dicker for a calf from Mount Vernon, swop one of his yearlin’s for it. But the errents Serepta Pester sent wuz fur more hefty and momentous than all the rest put together, calves, hen coop, cow and all. And when she told ’em over to me, and I meditated on her reasons for sendin’ ’em and her need of havin’ ’em done, I felt that I would do the errents for her if a breath wuz left in my body. She come for a all day’s visit; and though she is a vegetable widow and humbly, I wuz middlin’ glad to see her. But thinkses I as I carried her things into my bedroom, “She’ll want to send some errent by me”; and I wondered what it would be. And so it didn’t surprise me when she asked me if I would lobby a little for her in Washington. I spozed it wuz some new kind of tattin’ or fancy work. I told her I shouldn’t have much time but would try to git her some if I could. And she said she wanted me to lobby myself. And then I thought mebby it wuz a new kind of dance and told her, “I wuz too old to lobby, I hadn’t lobbied a step since I wuz married.” And then she explained she wanted me to canvas some of the Senators. And I hung back and asked her in a cautious tone, “How many she wanted canvassed, and how much canvas it would take?” I had a good many things to buy for my tower, and though I wanted to obleege Serepta, I didn’t feel like runnin’ into any great expense for canvas. And then she broke off from that subject, and said she wanted her rights and wanted the Whiskey Ring broke up.