membered vaguely that he had meant to bring the
second text to light. For a moment he hesitated, and then, "Well, it's
come true for Natty, anyhow," he thought.

And clumsily using his heavy jackknife, he began to cut the tiny stitches
which had so long hidden from his eyes the joyous exultation of the
escaped prisoner.

THE BEDQUILT

Of all the Elwell family Aunt Mehetabel was certainly the most unimportant
member. It was in the New England days, when an unmarried woman was an old
maid at twenty, at forty was everyone's servant, and at sixty had gone
through so much discipline that she could need no more in the next world.
Aunt Mehetabel was sixty-eight.

She had never for a moment known the pleasure of being important to
anyone. Not that she was useless in her Brother's family; she was
expected, as a matter of course, to take upon herself the most tedious and
uninteresting part of the household labors. On Mondays she accepted as her
share the washing of the men's shirts, heavy with sweat and stiff with
dirt from the fields and from their own hard-working bodies. Tuesdays she
never dreamed of being allowed to iron anything pretty or even
interesting, like the baby's white dresses or the fancy aprons of her
young lady nieces. She stood all day pressing out a tiresome monotonous
succession of dish-cloths and towels and sheets.

In preserving-time she was allowed to have none of the pleasant
responsibility of deciding when the fruit had cooked long enough, nor did
she share in the little excitement of pouring the sweet-smelling stuff
into the stone jars. She sat in a corner with the children and stoned
cherries incessantly, or hulled strawberries until her fingers were dyed
red to the bone.

The Elwells were not consciously unkind to their aunt, they were even in a
vague way fond of her; but she was so utterly insignificant a figure in
their lives that they bestowed no thought whatever on her. Aunt Mehetabel
did not resent this treatment; she took it quite as unconsciously as they
gave it. It was to be expected when one was an old-maid dependent in a
busy family. She gathered what crumbs of comfort she could from their
occasional careless kindnesses and tried to hide the hurt which even yet
pierced her at her brother's rough joking. In the winter when they all sat
before the big hearth, roasted apples, drank mulled cider, and teased the
girls about their beaux and the boys about their sweethearts, she shrank