Read Online A Quilt for Christmas by Sandra Dallas - Free Book Online Page B

there was rain, a hard wild rain that washed away the dirt over his grave.
    Will had loved the snow, the cleanness of it, the quiet, the sense of peace it brought, had loved it even though winter meant hard chores. Eliza was not aware of the cold as she stepped outside, one hand clutching Will’s letter, the other raised to catch the falling flakes. They covered her hand and the white night dress as she stepped off the porch. She remembered how Will had looked when he came in from the barn in a snowstorm, the pale flakes on his dark hair, his face cold as he hugged her against him, savoring her warmth. She remembered he’d once tied a rope between the house and the barn so that he wouldn’t get lost in a blizzard. Eliza thought about death in that pure white cold, a cleansing death. She would simply go to sleep and never wake. She remembered something else, too.
    Eliza moved into the yard and raised her head, as if she were looking up at Will. Then slowly, she took a step forward, raised her arms, and began to dance.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
    March 31, 1865
    â€œMy, such pretty pieces and perfectly put together,” Ettie Espy observed, running her hand over the quilt top. The five women were seated around Eliza’s quilt frame, stitching on a top that she and Missouri Ann had pieced during the winter.
    Missouri Ann had found the cut out pieces after they learned of Will’s death and taken them out and given them to Eliza, saying quilting would help her with her sorrow. Eliza had worked on her sewing as if by rote, stitching together the pieces that Missouri Ann laid out for her. Her tears had dropped onto the fabric strips, as she realized Will would never sleep under one of her quilts again. She used the half-finished top to wipe her eyes, then Missouri Ann took it from her and ironed the damp places between her fingers. Eliza wondered how Missouri Ann could be so much more accepting of her own husband’s death, but maybe the girl was just grateful to be away from the Starks.
    Although it was only March, the women had moved the frame outside so that they could sit in the shade of the apple trees that were budding in the orchard. The light was better there, and they could pretend to smell blossoms, a scent that meant spring after a long and lonely winter. Not that the women weren’t aware that it was spring.
    In fact, they should have been planting and tending to other duties on their farms, but they had taken a break for a day. The five called themselves “war widows,” although only Eliza, Missouri Ann, and Mercy Eagles had lost their men. The husbands of the other two were off fighting the war, and the women had been left behind to care for farms and children. Farming was hard enough with the men at home, but it was time-consuming, backbreaking work for women with only their children to help them—and all their normal household duties to attend to. Nonetheless, they had plowed and planted, sometimes joining forces to help each other, for there were no men to hire and no money to pay them even if they could be found. The women should have been attending to farm duties that day, but they had decided just after Christmas that they would meet one day each month, no matter how wasteful of their time it might seem, to share their lives over the quilt frame. At first, she had refused to attend the quiltings, saying she was in mourning, but the others had insisted. Now, Eliza was grateful her friends were there, would make her put away her sorrow for a few hours. Because of them, she might go five or ten minutes without thinking about Will.
    Four of the five had quilted together for years. They thought to put aside sewing bees when their husbands joined the Union army but decided they needed the day with each other. Talking about fears and hardships made them realize they were not alone in their troubles. Telling each other about their small joys—the letters from the camps and