Blue Shadows Farm: A Novel

36. Quilting Bee—November 1885

215 November 1885 Each winter the neighborhood farm women living on this side of Link Lake gathered on several Saturdays to sew on their quilts. They took turns hosting, moving the quilting bee from farm to farm; this month they worked at Silas and Sophia’s cabin. Although it was a bit small for this sort of activity, they found room to put up the quilt frame on one side of the cabin and leave it there for several weeks, until they had completed new quilts for each of the women. They supported the frame on the backs of four chairs, so they could work around the quilt, pulling the yarn through two layers of cloth with a thick filling between. They tied the yarn, usually a color that contrasted with the quilt’s many colors, into neat knots every four inches in each direction. Quilt tying was time-consuming work—all of quilt making, from cutting out the patches and sewing them together to finishing off the quilt with a carefully sewn border, was meticulous work. But this was also an artistic activity, a way for women to demonstrate their creative abilities and at the same time make something that was practical and much appreciated during the long, cold, 36 Quilting Bee Wisconsin winters. Their husbands never complained when they made quilts; these practical men may not have understood artistic creation, but they knew the value of a warm bed on a cold winter night. The women of the quilting bee included Sophia’s mother, Amelia Reinert; Hope Meadows; Ella Hanson; and Sophia. Ella Hanson brought along her eighteen-month-old daughter, Faith, and, because it was a Saturday, nine-year-old Abe was also home. Abe had a little rubber ball and he rolled it toward Faith, who giggled when it hit her. He repeated the game again and again, much to the amusement of the baby. “Will you look at that?” Ella Hanson said as she glanced toward Abe and her daughter playing on the floor. “Quite a young man he is becoming.” She remembered when but a few years ago he ran naked along the country road, flinging stones at passing teams and wagons. Sophia remembered those times; she also recalled the incident with the kittens but did not mention it to her friends, especially when Abe was present. Besides, she and Silas had not completely agreed that Abe had done the terrible deed. “I just don’t think our little boy is capable of such an act,” Sophia had said. Silas didn’t agree. As they worked, the women talked. Beyond the creativity and the practical outcome of their work, a quilting bee was a social event. Farm life for women could be terribly lonely, especially during the long, dark winters. The men saw each other regularly, on their weekly trips to the gristmill in town, and daily at the Link Lake Cheese Factory, where they delivered their milk. While they sat in line to unload their grain at the mill and when they waited to dump their cans of milk at the cheese factory, the men chatted. About the only time women saw each other was every two weeks in winter, when they and their husbands came to the mercantile to trade their eggs for groceries. 216 Quilting Bee—November 1885 217 Quilting Bee—November 1885 “I see your husband . . . has built more fences,” Ella Hanson said. She talked with a Norwegian accent similar to her husband’s, with the word inflections moving up and down as she spoke. “He likes fences, I guess,” Sophia answered. “But . . . so much work,” Ella said. “He never complains, just keeps at it whenever he can.” “Do you think it has anything to do with his war injury?” Hope Meadows asked. Others had asked Sophia this same question many times. She resented the implications—that somehow her husband, her beloved Silas, may have a mental problem caused by the confederate minié ball that creased his head many years ago. “I don’t think so,” Sophia said, coldly. “He is still finding arrowheads.” For a moment the room was quiet, except for the crackling of the wood in the fireplace, and the laughter of the children playing on the floor. “How’s Wolfgang . . . feeling these days? Heard he’s been . . . under the weather,” Ella Hanson said. “Ja, ja, he had a bad cold. He’s better...