"Can you make out what it's meant for?" she inquired eagerly. Then, for fear Callista should attempt and fail, "I aimed it for a Tree of Life, with a angel sorter peerched on it, an' one standin' un'neath. But," deprecatingly, "hit looks mo' like a jimpson weed to me. An' pears like I 'don't never have no luck with angels." Callista's absent gaze rested upon the unsatisfactory sprigged calico and striped seersucker version of members of the heavenly host. "Them Jacob's-ladder angels--you hain't never seen them, Callisty, sence I sorter tinkered they' wings. Look! 'Pears to me like it's he'ped 'em powerful. But these--I vow, I don't know what is the matter of 'em, without it's the goods. That thar stuff, is 'most too coarse for angels, I reckon. Or it might be the color. 'Warshed whiter'n snow--without spot or, stain--' that's what the Good Book says, whilst all these is spotted and figured. But ye see white on white wouldn't never show. I might 'a' used blue-and-white stripe. And then again, the sayin' is, 'Chastised with many stripes'--that'd never be angels, no how." [220] Once more Callista made an effort to bring her mind to the problem in hand. "The sky is blue," Roxy adduced somewhat lamely. "Do you reckon blue angels would be more better?" "Maybe purple," hesitated the visitor. "The Bible names purple a heap in regards to Heaven--purple and gold. I've got a piece of purple calico at--at home." Her voice trailed and faltered huskily over the words. Then she set her lips hard, crested her head in the old fashion, and went on evenly. "I've got a piece of mighty pretty purple, and one as near gold as ever goods was, that you're welcome to, Sis' Roxy, if--if you or Polly would go over and get 'em." Again thought of where those treasured rolls of calico were to be found lowered the clear, calm, defiant voice. Roxy noted it; but the magnum opus, brought out to cheer and divert Callista, had laid its unfailing spell upon the widow; the lust for quilt pieces, rampant in all mountain women, wakened in her, aggravated in her case by the peculiar needs, the more exacting demands of her own superior artistry. "Yes--shore, honey; I'll be glad to go any time," she said, "ef you'll jest tell me where to look." So life went on at the Kimbro Cleaverage place, a curious interlude, and still no word was said to [221] Callista of the strangeness of her advent, and no explanation vouchsafed, till on the evening of the third day the girl herself sought her father-in-law and opened the matter haltingly, timidly. They were out at the chip-pile where Kimbro was cutting the next day's wood for Roxy's use. He dropped his axe to the chopping log and stood leaning on it, peering at her with mild, faded, near-sighted eyes.