The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook

Aliske Webb

Grandma didn’t seem surprised. She just said, “Good. You can come to the church with

me.”

We spent my last Summer evening machine quilting crib quilts for the children’s

ward at the community hospital. Moving with the times, for some of the ladies, sewing

machines had taken over where arthritic fingers could no longer go. That evening we

talked of everything with no taboos. They listened with grace and affection to my talk

of the bright future. They shared town gossip and laughed wickedly at things genteel

little old ladies shouldn’t know anything about. I was appalled and tickled and pleased

that I was finally included in the circle of women.

As I absent-mindedly made iced tea in the worn and badly-painted church

kitchen, I wondered if I would ever see these scandalous ladies ever again. I didn’t

know how to say goodbye to them. I had a sense and secret hope that life was going

to take me off in new and exciting, and far away directions. There were whisperings

and rustlings from the other room as I returned with the tray of ice-tinkling glasses. The

bumpy linoleum floor was cool under my bare feet, on the late Summer eve.

“We never could decide what to give you for graduation or for going away to

college. So here. This is for you,” Grandma said. “From all of us.” She handed me a

wrinkled brown paper grocery bag that was soft and limp with use. In it was a quilt. A

beautiful quilt. An amazing quilt. A quilt for me. It was a friendship quilt with a block

signed by every one of them. They had worked on it all Summer. I cried and hugged

them all.

They, too, were saying goodbye. Goodbye, and we’ll always be here for you.

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Country Cooking