Elm Creek Quilts [10] The Quilter's Homecoming Read Online Free Page A

these?” Lucinda touched several red squares arranged diagonally across one block. “As long as these home fires keep burning, Elizabeth will always have more joys than sorrows.”
    Little Sylvia’s brow furrowed as she studied the quilt. Suddenly she brightened. “The red squares are keeping the sorrow part away from the light part.”
    “That’s exactly right,” Great-Aunt Lucinda praised. “What a bright little girl you are.”
    Pleased, Sylvia snuggled closer to her great-aunt. “I still don’t like the sorrow part.”
    “None of us do. Let’s hope that Elizabeth finds all the joy she deserves, and only enough sorrow to nurture an empathetic heart.”
    When Great-Aunt Lucinda gave Elizabeth the quilt the day before the wedding, she said nothing of the quilt’s symbolism or how much Elizabeth would be missed. Lucinda had stitched her farewells and hopes for her grandniece into the quilt, and as Elizabeth held the soft folds of cloth to her heart, she understood everything Lucinda could not say. For a fleeting moment she feared that leaving Pennsylvania would be a terrible mistake, bringing down upon her all the sorrows that Great-Aunt Lucinda wanted the fires of home to protect her from. Then she thought of Henry, and how in all her hopes of future happiness, she imagined herself by his side. She knew she could not stay behind.
    She wrapped their new china in the precious quilts for protection and placed them in her sturdiest trunk, a gift from Lawrence. Then, at last, all was ready.
    The wedding itself passed in a blur. She had always heard that a wedding day was the happiest in a young woman’s life, but she was sure she would remember hers only in glimpses: her mother helping her arrange her golden hair into long corkscrew curls swept back from her face by her headpiece and veil, her father walking her down the aisle of the same church her parents had married in, Henry’s encouraging smile as she murmured her vows, a whirl of celebration back at the manor. She could not swallow more than a few bites of the delicious feast her mother and aunts had prepared, but her first dance with Henry as husband and wife filled her with the warmth of pure happiness. She knew with a certainty she could not explain that she and Henry would weather whatever storms came their way—not that they were likely to face many in sunny southern California.

    1875
    Isabel ran up and down the length of the front porch, her bare feet padding on the smooth oaken boards, pausing only briefly when Mami and Abuelo crossed her path carrying boxes from the house to the wagon. Abuela waited on the front seat, holding Isabel’s little sister on her lap. Her back was tall and straight, and she would not turn around no matter how often Isabel called out to her to look, to see how fast she could run.
    Swinging her doll by the arm as she darted back and forth, Isabel stumbled and ran headlong into her mother’s legs. “Will someone keep this child out of my way?” her mother cried. And she was crying. Horrified, Isabel watched as her mother struggled to balance a box of dishes on her hip while wiping tears from her eyes.
    “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” said Isabel. She did not think she had struck her mother so hard. She had not hurt herself even one little bit.
    “You didn’t, mija. ” Mami forced a smile and continued down the porch steps to the wagon. “Go and play for a little while longer.”
    Worried, Isabel wandered away from their cabin home and into the backyard, wishing her brother would come and play, but he had gone with Papi up to the big farmhouse to collect Papi’s pay. Her father would come home happy. He always did on paydays. Sometimes he brought her little treats, too—candy or a ribbon for her hair.
    She sat on a rock drawing patterns in the dirt with a stick, listening to her mother and grandfather loading the wagon, unseen on the other side of the cabin. They had been working all morning, and everyone was sad