The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1889-10-25
HER LAST CARPET.

The clothes line, stretched from the
June apple tree to the mulberry tree,
and on to the great oxheart cherry
tree in Mrs. Gideon Huff's back yard,
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 on Tuesday q
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 APP
proving manner, and said
swell, I've had good luck with
ev'ry single piece. If I'd make the
anilfne dye a leetie mite darker, it'd
mebbe looked better along with the
green an yeller in the twisted stripe 1
callate on having, but it'll look mighty
purity as It's. must git my logwood
an copperas ready for the rest of my
rags. an git 'em all ready for the rag
sewin' Friday, for they've got to go to
the weaver a-Sattaday."
Mrs. Huff's rag carpets had taken
the first premium at the county fair
every autumn for three years, and she
was laying her plans again this year
to capture the blue ribbon and the five
dollar prize. She had way of get
ting up twisted stripes" and coloring
and warping the chain that no one
could initiate Her neighbors often
said that they would rather have one
of Harriet Huff's striped rag carpets
than two ply ingram. She made
great point of having her rags cut
very fine, and sometimes lay awake at
night planning something new in the
way of 'hit-and-miss film"
1'She cuts up our buds fer carpet
rags fore we've half wore 'em out"
said Mr.. Gideon Huff, little irritably.
when a woman gifts to maxim rag
carpets mans red flannins amt safe
a minute unless he puts 'em in the
bank in his own name, an my blue
overalls gin'rally go into a ball of
carpet rags fore I've wore 'em dozen
times"
The carpet Mrs Huff was now max.
ing 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 colors in the right
order around a strip of pasteboard.
Then she went back to bed, saying to
herself:
"Now, if I could only dream of
something new in fillin'W
But such dream did not come,
although she was great dreamer, and
stoutly maintained that she often
dreamed out things" and that her
dreams came true. Being thus a firm
believer in dreams, she occasionally
even invited dreams by overlooking
her stomach at night.
eff eat an ordinary light supper"
she said, II don't dream much; but if
/ eat pickles and cheese and cake, and
a lot of stuff of that kind, dream a
sight" which was no doubt true.
She made rag sewin'" that week
10 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 needle 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
dreamed out" stripe, although she in
formed them that they could conf
IDENTIFY expect to see such a rag carpet
rs they'd never before seen, when the
fair opened two weeks later.
Her household duties occupied her
time more than usual at that season
of the year, so that she could sew only
at night, and each night she sat up
until very late sewing 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 I
Jest know, said Mrs. Huff, as she put
the rags away in stout grain bags, and
tied them up. "But / can't decide
just how to have the colors in the
chain warped, or whether to have the
hight and dark rags all mixed up or
sep'rate in the hit an miss part I do
wonder if / can't dream it out to-
night9 I'm all tired out, and dream
best when I'm that way. Mebbe If I
eat big piece of gooseberry pie and q
piece of cheese fore I go to bed, I'll
dream something uncommon.
II read the other day of great poet
who wrote half poem, and couldn't
fnish it to suit him, and he went tQ
bed and dreamed the other half al