Beverly banner. [volume] (Beverly, N.J.) 1877-1964, 1890-01-18
HER LAST CARPET.


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 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 APP
proving manner, and said:
"Well, I've had good luck with
ev'ry single piece. If I'd make the
aniline dye a leetle mite darker, it'd
mebbe looked better along with the
green an yeller in the twisted stripe
callate on having, but it'll look mighty
purity as It's. l must git my logwood
an copperas ready for the rest of my
rags, an git 'em all ready for the rag
SEWN 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 a 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 Huffs 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 hit and-miss film"
'sShe cuts up our buds fer carpet
rags fore we've half wore 'em out, u
said Mr. Gideon Huff, a little irritably.
when woman gifts to maxim rag
carpets mans red hannins amt safe
a minute unless he puts EN- 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 1 could only dream OF
something new in fillin'!"
But such a dream did not come,
although she was great dreamer, and
stoutly maintained that she often
dreamed out things" and that he1
dreams came true Being thus a firm
believer in dreams, she occasionally
even invited dreams by overlooking
her stomach at night.
''If | eat an ordinary light supper,
she said, II don't dream much; but il
eat pickles and cheese and cake, and
lot of stuff of that kind, l dream a
sight" which was no doubt true.
She ''made a rag SEWN 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 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 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
of the year, so thatshe 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
lest know" said Mrs. Huff, as she put
the rags away in stout grain bags, and
tied them up. But | can't decide
lust how to have the colors in the
chain warped, or whether to have the
light and dark rags all mixed up or
separate in the hit an miss part. l dc
wonder if l can't dream it out to
night9 I'm all tired out, and | dream
best when I'm that way. Mebbe if
eat big piece of gooseberry pie and q
piece of cheese fore | go to bed, I'll
dream something uncommon.
81 read the other day of great poet
who wrote half a poem, and couldn' I
finish it to suit him, and he went to
bed and dreamed the other half all
out as plain as day, and got up in his
nightgown and finished up. I'm sure
if a person could dream out fine
poem, I'd ought to be able to dream
out 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
husband called her in the morning.
Her first words when she arose were:
''Well, it didn't do any good.
didn't dream anything about that car
pet, although 1 did dream of forty
other things / must hurry up my
work, and have Gideon take me and
the rags over to the Widow Watts,
and see myself that she understands
just how that carpets got to be wove. y
But when, two hours later, she went
into her little sewing room to get her
rags and chain, they were not to be
found
Gideon, she called to her husband,
who was putting the horses to the
light wagon in the barnyard, shave
you carried them rags out to the
wagon9"
NO" called back Mr. Huff; II ain't
seen your old rags. I'll be glad when
! have seen the last of 'em. e"d vo"'vf