Music Welcome to snoozecast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us at snoozecast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by Calico Gingham and Silk. Tonight we'll read the first half to the story, The Quilt of Happiness by Kate Douglas Wigan, originally published in 1901. We'll finish the story next week. Wigan was an American educator, author, and composer. She wrote children's stories, most notably the classic children's novel, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and composed collections of children's songs. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco, and also established a training school for kindergarten teachers with her sister. Kate Wigan devoted her adult life to the welfare of children and an era when children were commonly thought of as cheap labor. If you enjoy this episode, you can also listen to our Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm episode from April of 2020. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed.

Now, take a few deep breaths. Riverboro, that generally assumed an indifferent and semi-recombing attitude when it observed strangers, sat up and took notice the moment that Rebecca Rowena Randall arrived on the the noon stage from up country and a light it at the brick house on the main street of the village. Mrs. Perkins, the nearest neighbor, with her only daughter, Emma Jane, palpitating with interest beside her, watched the cautious descent of the little passenger from the stage, and the particularly tempestuous tweak she gave her headgear as her feet touched the earth. Then they watched with equal interest the lifting of her hair trunk from the back of the stage by Jerry Cobb, the appearance of Miss Jane on the stone steps, and well at the rear, the tall grim figure of Miranda Sawyer. Mrs. Perkins could see Miranda's greeting in the shape of a bony finger directing the child to wipe her dusty feet on the mat. Then the screen door of the brick house slammed behind her, and Rebecca was a member of the brick house family and a citizen of Riverboro. Poor little knight, side Mrs. Perkins. Can I go over and see her now? Asked Emma Jane, already cherishing hopes of intimacy. Of course you can't. Responded her mother briskly, do you suppose Miranda wants the House full company the minute Rebecca gets there. Just me wouldn't make it full.

Objected Emma Jane.

If... once the house full company the minute Rebecca gets there? Just me wouldn't make it full. Objected Emma Jane? It takes precious view to make a house too full to please Miranda Sawyer, and Mrs. Perkins resumed her seat at the window, overlooking the river. You can keep an eye on the gate, and if they let out doors again tonight, you can run over and scrape acquaintance if you want to. Now Rebecca's vivid little personality had been somewhat obscured in the big family of children at Sunnybrook Farm, but in Riverboro it had the effect of a Roman candle suddenly bursting among the lesser fireworks on a 4th of July evening. She was extraordinarily cragarious, and within a year knew everybody on both sides of the river. Anybody'll do for Rebecca so long as it's folks, grumbled her aunt Miranda. Amid her grumblings, Miranda mentioned there had been a positive epidemic of organizations in river boroughs younger set in the last few months. Most of them had died died in early, though natural death, while others had been put out of existence by unfeeling parents and guardians. Missedier born, the village teacher, was really the inspiring force behind the first one. Feeling a lack of common purpose in the school district, she had proposed a club for general improvement and public service of some sort. In order to develop initiative and executive ability, she asked the older girls and boys to meet alone to draft a constitution and choose a name. She was somewhat confused when they issued from their executive session quickly and firmly entitled The Jolly Jumpers, and learned that the officers were to be selected, not for intellectual or moral superiority, but according to the height that they were able to jump over a broomstick. This unintentionally athletic society still had its helpful and noisy meetings now and again, although it never fulfilled Miss Dearborn's ambitions. The guild of ministering sisters could not find anybody who desired its administrations, but one or two secret societies were in a flourishing condition, notably the bouncers. Mr. Perkins, the local blacksmith, had a way of saying to the young people when they had interrupted his horse-shoeing

long enough. Now clear out youngins or al-Bounce-ya. The idea of this picturesque name society was that, if any member should be caught cheating in games or lessons, fibbing or tailbearing, or in other misdemeanors of equal magnitude, he or she would find a card on desk or in hat, with this neatly printed phrase on it. You are hereby, bounced. shame and terror of of this card oppress the most callous boy, and his mind reverting to the last sin that he had committed, and wondering how it could have been found out. He promptly turned over a new leaf in order to be reinstated in good society. The success of the Club of June had been a club called the Pantry Rioters. Romeo Smith, a dimpled, wide mouth freckle-faced boy was the founder, and the first members were all of the then-superior sex. The girls, however, discovered the general intentions of the club, and Rebecca drafted such an engaging constitution and bylaws that the boys shiverously widened the gates of membership. Rebecca, whose eligibility as an active member did not admit a shadow of doubt, was constrained to decline all but honorary connection with the pantry rioters, and those who knew the discipline of the brick house admitted the wisdom of her decision. But oh, how I could riot if only I wasn't being fed and clothed and slept and schooled by Aunt Miranda, thought Rebecca passionately, as she carefully copied the bylaws of the pantry rioters. Number 1. No member shall riot in anybody else's pantry but his own. 2. No member shall attack the swing shelf or wire netting box in the cellar as being too easy and not risky enough and not a pantry anyway. 3. No member shall be greedy or really thievish, nor shall he nibble or take away anything that is needed for the next meal, if he knows it. This being not nice, besides making trouble all round. 4. Any member who does a rioting act of great daring right under the eye of the enemy shall be allowed to wear a red button to school. 5. Any member who is caught in the act of rioting and reprimanded and so forth shall wear a blue button to school and describe all the circumstances, however painful, at a meeting of the club where he will receive comfort and sympathy.

6. Any little tidbit subtracted from the pantry may be shared with another member, thus removing any suspicion of evil from rioting. The idea being to show that a person could take a heart, donut, frosted cake, or spoonful of preserves at any time if only he was not so good and honest. Oh, how delicious were the last school days of the June term when the pantry raiders first came into being? Who could forget the morning when Romeo Smith arrived at school flushed and panting and took his place in the line without one minute of being tardy? And there, in the buttonhole of his coat lapel, gleamed the red badge of courage. The button covered by the girls with scarlet ribbon, but never worn before. At ten o'clock Miss Dearborn remarked, Romeo Smith is well prepared with his lessons and is behaving himself with perfect propriety, except for a perpetual grin, for which I can see no reason. However, as many of the scholars cannot help staring at him, I would ask him please to remove the red button he is wearing and place it in his vest pocket. In the reading lesson when Sam Simpson came to the phrase, the spy gave a paltry excuse. He read it, pantry excuse. And there was such a flood of laughter let loose in the schoolroom that Miss Dearborn was obliged to say, to no one ever mistake a word before, it's not polite to make fun of another scholar, you may be the next one yourself. And then, after school, to hear from Romeo's lips that his mother in passing out of the pantry with a callender full of fresh donuts under her left arm, had paused to lean from the window and speak to her husband, whereupon Romeo, with magnificent audacity, grandmother in the the Jason Kitchen, mother holding pan and father outside window, had seized a hot doughnut and, mindful of the red button, had further tempted fate by taking the knife from the cheese plate and carving off a piece two inches wide. With this rich booty, avoiding the safe side door, he went through the living room, passing a visiting aunt and two younger brothers of highly suspicious disposition, and sped to school in time to avoid the tardy mark. How perfectly elegant, ejaculated Emma Jane Perkins. Where's the donut? Asked Rebecca, mindful of the sixth bylaw. I had no where to keep it, but under my hat, so I ate it up, but you can see the place where it was. And Romeo exhibited the shiny, circular spot on the top of his head where the hot doughnut had lain. 2. School had been closed for two weeks now, and one afternoon Rebecca leaned over her gate and surveyed the landscape. Emma Jane Perkins was watching from her doorway, and Alice Robinson from hers, while several other girls were concealed behind board piles or clumps of trees, waiting for the hour of play to arrive. Suddenly, all hearts leaped with gladness, for Rebecca was seen to remove the brown ribbon from one of her braids and put it in her apron pocket and to substitute a piece of bright pink legal tape. What are you doing to your hair Rebecca? Asked Aunt Jane, coming to the door unexpectedly? Changing one of my ribbons on Jane? What for child? Well, it's a secret Aunt Jane, but I don't mind telling you a little bit. It's a signal. I can't fire a cannon or build a bonfire on the heights, so this is just a way of telling the girls I've got an idea. I should think they might guess that any time without your decking yourself out like a horse at a cattle fare, smiled Aunt Jane. Rebecca laughed and shook her long braids, but it's such a nice lady-like romantic way of signaling Aunt Jane? Well, maybe it is, but take it off before you come in the house, won't you? As if I wouldn't, aren't you, and anyway, my idea is new, but it joins on to something you and Aunt Miranda know about already. Miss Roxie's quilt. Oh, Sidemiss Jane comfortably. If it's nothing worse than that, I won't worry. It's a beautiful idea. And Rebecca glowed. The girls will love it. And Miss Dearborn and the minister's wife, and you would too, but I mustn't show partiality between you and Aunt Miranda. The mothers will think it's silly, so it's got to be kept secret. I don't know. They all approved of your making extra patchwork, and if you're any happier to put your work together so that it will amount to something, and if you want to give it away, why? It's all to your credit, and it doesn't cost anyone family much. You'd better give up the notion of quilting at Rebecca. Oh why, Aunt Jane? Because you five girls could never finish it by cold weather. I'll put it in the frame for you and teach you how to tack it. We all know how to quilt. Objected Rebecca? Yes, but you don't know what it is to take those thousands of little stitches all in even rows. You can't break your thread or make knots or pucker the quilt and the part near the edges of the frame is very hard to do neatly. Have you chosen your pattern? No, we'll choose the pattern this afternoon. We've looked at all the spare bedroom quilts there are in Riverboro. There's Mrs. Perkins, Goose Chase, and Mrs. Robinson's Church Steps. Mrs. Milliken's Rising Sun. Mrs. Watson's Job's Trou Mrs. Miserves ducks foot in the mud, and Mrs. Jane put her fingers in her ears. Goodness gracious, Rebecca, how you do run on. I hope you don't forget your Aunt Miranda's Johnny round the corner, but don't you girls fly too high or you'll come down heavy. You can get gay pretty pieces and put four in a square and then join your square corner to corner with plain ones in between. Perhaps Mrs. Perkins will have some new goods to help you out and that'll set off the patchwork. Now, it's four o'clock and you can go and play Rebecca. Rebecca sped like an arrow shot from a bow. Emma Jane sped contemporaneously. Alice Robinson, Candice Milliken, and Pursus Watson appeared as suddenly as if they had been concealed in woodchuck holes. Miss Jane looked wistfully after the five slim little figures disappearing with arms about one another's wastes and heads close together. A child makes a wonderful difference, she thought. I don't know what Orrelli's other children are like, but I can't think how she could part with Rebecca even to get her educated. Anyhow, it's put the sun back into the sky for me. 3. Miss Roxana Lyman lived half a mile up the River Road and an eighth of a mile up a lane that led from it and stopped at her door yard. Why the house was ever built was a mystery to put it there. If you were a stranger in Riverboro and were walking up to play with the Simpson children and found everybody away from home and had spied high-bush blueberries a little farther on and choke cherry trees and full bearing in a green lane, that you had never noticed before, and had strayed along the grass-scrown road that had known hardly a wagon wheel for years. You would finally have passed an obscuring clump of trees, and come suddenly upon Miss Roxy's little black house. At least that was what Rebecca did. The door was open and sitting in a rocking chair in the tiny entry was as Rebecca reported to Miss Jane later. The very most sorrowfulest old lady anyone had ever seen. No one could have told her age. She was slight and spare. She was huddled in a gray shawl, the wrinkles in her face. Fairly made a lattice work on the skin. You knew by looking at her that no one had gone out from the black house in the morning and no one was coming back to it at night. Rebecca had heard of her and instantly asked, Are you Miss Roxy Lyman? Please excuse me for stumbling right into your door yard. I didn't see there was one till I was in it. Yes, I'm Roxy Lyman," said the old lady, and a voice that trembled with surprise, and suggested the rarity of call colors. Won't you set down a spell? Rebecca needed no second invitation to embark on a new experience. She sank down on the step, flung her hat on the grass and pushed the hair back from her warm forehead. I'm Rebecca Rowena Randall. She explained fluently. My home is at Sunnybrook Farm, up Temperance Way, but I'm living with my two aunts' soirs at the brick house so as to get educated.

There's no education and temperance, just plain teaching,

and only a few months a year.

Sometimes we didn't have any lessons at all,

because when there were big boys,

it took all teachers' time to make them behave.

Down here, Miss Dearborn can manage a big boy

as easy as anything. So of course course we have nothing to do but learn. This was only the natural beginning of a cataract of conversation. And the acquaintance between Rebecca and Miss Roxy Lyman was now well-started. Rebecca proceeded to open her mind on a dozen subjects of passionate interest to herself. Classping her knees with her hands, she rippled on in a way never permitted at the brick house. I like the way your house is set. She said, side end to the road, looking down over the fields and seeing the river flowing ways. I think a black house with fines growing over it is nice too. A white one is always so stary. The river splendid company, don't you think so? It's all I have. Was the reply? I don't look at it much nowadays. I get tired of looking at the same old hat, but I never get used to the old river somehow, But perhaps it isn't quite enough company all by itself. Of course, there's the trees. They ain't leave out the year round." Said Miss Roxy. No. But you're sure they will leave out. All this time Rebecca had had stolen little side-glances at Miss Roxy. I suppose you read when you're not doing housework? She ventured. I've read all my books over and over so I just said and think. And Miss Roxy's eyes wandered from Rebecca as if she had already outlived the experience of meeting a new face and hearing a new voice. Well, all he was going to say is said Rebecca, rising to her feet at this warning signal, that there was a very sick lady, sick and old, that lived half a mile from our farm, and mother always had me go over and tell her the news once or twice a week. Mother says everybody ought to know what's going on, or they get lo and sum. I've come away from that lady, so I think I'd better take you in her place if you'd like to have me. There's such a lot happens down our way. Offly interesting things too, that I can reel it off by the yard this minute. Only you seem tired. And I've got two books of my own to lend you, so I'll come soon again if Aunt Miranda let me. Shall I? Rebecca's demeanor and tone were modest and innocent, but Miss Roxy felt herself in the grip of a master hand, and feebly ascented. I don't mind if you do," she said, making an effort, and bringing her eyes back to the quaint, vivid little creature standing in front of her on the greensward. Maybe you'll liven me up. Oh, I would.

And Rebecca's tone was full of confidence. Aunt Miranda says I'll stir up a cemetery, but that isn't a compliment. She doesn't like being stirred up, but I'd be real careful with you, being a stranger and not very well, goodbye. And Rebecca flew down the lane. Her long, dark braids flying out behind her. While Miss Roxy, in spite of herself, rose to her feet by the rocking chair and watched the child out of sight. There were many meetings after that. times Rebecca took one of the other girls and they carried a bouquet of wild flowers to put in a tumbler on the kitchen table or some apples or berries or nuts that they had picked on the road. But it was easy to see that one collar at a time was all that Miss Roxie fancied. She had very little to eat and very little fuel, though she was known to receive ten dollars a month from a nephew in Salem, so that River Burrow was comfortably sure that she could not starve. And as for Firewood, the same nephew had a load, all sawed and split deposited in her shed twice a year. These mercies gave assurance of existence if not luxury. And anyway, Riverboro could not waste its time, overing incurably cold, strange, silent woman, like Roxana Alignment. Even if her family had been one of the best, in former years. Once Rebecca had knocked at Miss Roxie's door without receiving an answer, and peeping into the window of the downstairs chamber where she slept, had seen her lying on her bed with the gray shawl around her shoulders and a man's military coat over her feet.

Like lightning, the thought flashed through the child's mind.

Why not make a quilt for Miss Roxy? you