The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1889-12-13
HER LAST CARPET.

The clothes-line, stretched from the June
apple-tree to the mulberry-tree, and on to
the great ox-heart cherry-tree in Mrs.
Gideon Huffs backyard, had for several
days Haunted strips of bright green, orange
yellow and dark crimson cotton, newly
dyed.
On Monday there appeared several yards
of pale blue, and OH Tuesday a strip of
bright red. When Mrs. Huff hung the last
strip on the line, she stepped back with her
bare, round, red arms akimbo, nodded her
pink sunbonneted head to and fro in an
approving manner, and said:
well, I've had good luck with ov,ry
single piece. If I'd made the aniline dye
a leetle mite darker, it'd mebbe looked bet
ter along with the green an yeller in the
twisted stripe | callate on having, but it'll
look mighty purity as tits. l must git my
logwood an copperas ready for the rest of
my rags, an git EN- all ready for the rag
sewin' Friday, for they've got to 60 to the
weaver a-Sattaday."
Mrs. Huffgs rag carpets had taken the
first premium at the county fair every au-
tumu for three years, and she was laying
her plans again this year to capture the
blue ribbon and the ive-dollar prize.
She had a way of getting up twisted
stripes, and c~oloring and warping the
chain, that no one could initiate. Her
%neighbors often said that they would rather
have one of Harriet Huffs's striped rag
carpets than a two-ply ingram. She made
a great point of having her rags cut very
fine, and sometimes lay awake at night
planning something new in the way of
shit. an'-miss film
"sShe cuts up our buds fer carpet rags
fore we've half worn 'em out. said Mr..
Gideon Huff, a little irritably. when
a woman gifts to maxim rag carpets, a
mans red ~fiannins amt safe a minute, un-
less he puts 'em in the bank in his own
name, an my blue overalls gin'rally go in
to a ball of carpet rags fore I've wore 'em
a dozen times
The carpet Mrs. Huff was row making
was to eclipse all of her former efforts.
She had actually dreamed of something
new in twisted stripes, and had risen in the
middle of the night to make fast and safe
the dream-sent idea by winding the eolors
in the right order around a strip of paste
board. Then she went back to bed, say
ing to herself:
"Now i'll could only dream of some
thing new in hllin'..'
But such a dream did not come, although
she was a great dreamer, and stoutly main
tanned that she often dreamed out things, .
and that her dreams came true. Being
thus a firm believer in dreams, she oc-
casionally even invited dreams by overload
her stomach at night.
IF l eat an ordinary light supper" she
said, II don't dream much; but if l eat
pickles and cheese and cake, and a lot Of
stuff of that kind, l dream a sight. which
was no doubt true.
She ''made a rag-sewin' that week TO
finish up her hit-and-miss rags, but the
rags for that wonderful stripe were all to
be sewed with her own hands. Eight or
ten of her neighbors came to the rag
sewin'." Each of them brought her nee
die and thimble, and sewed carpet rags and
laughed and gossiped in the most agreeable
way all the afternoon, and in the evening
their husbands came to supper.
Not even to these ladies did Mrs. HUFF
disclose the pattern of her ''d~reamed-out''
stripe, although she informed them that
they could confidently expect to see such..a
rag carpet as they'd never before seen, when
the fair opened two weeks later.
Her household duties occupied her time
more than usual at that season ofthe year,
SO that she could sew only at night, and
each night she sat up until very late sew
ing on the green and crimson and yellow
and blue and black and white rags for the
stripe in her carpet.
1t was after midnight on Friday when
the last ball was sewed and wound and
weighed, and ready to go TO the weaver's
on the morrow.
"The stripe can't be improved on l jest
know SAID Mrs. HUFF, as she put the rags
away ia stout grain bags, aud tied them
up. But | can't decide just how 30 have
the colors in the chain warped, or whether TO
have the light and dark rags all mixed up,
or sep'rate in the hit-an'-miss. | do won-
der if amt dream it out tonight? Pm
all tired out, and | dream best when I'm
that way. Mebbe If I eat a big piece of
gooseberry pie and a piece of cheese fore |
go to bed, I'll dream something uncommon.
| read the other day of a great poet who
wrote half a poem, and couldn't finish it to
suit him, and he went to bed and dreamed
the other half all out plain as day, and got
up in his ~nightgown and finished up. I'm
sure if a person could dream out a fine
poem, I'd ought to be able to dream ont a
common rag carpet pattern"
Thus reasoning to herself, Mrs. Huff ate
her pie and cheese and went to bed, and,
being very tired, soon dropped asleep.
She was sleeping heavily when her hus-
band called her in the morning. Her first
words when she arose we're:
"Well it didn't do any good. | didn't
dream anything about that carpet, al
though | did dream OF forty other things.
mnst hurry mn NV work. and ave Gideon