Twin Star Quilts and Peppermint Tea

Her mother always told her she stitched too quickly, but Eliza never cared. Her mother told her many things about herself she had long since learned were false. But now that she had her own household, it did not matter how quickly she stitched and how she pinned her hair and what she cooked and how much work she did every day.

She liked to believe she was more industrious than her mother, but as soon as that thought pleasured her mind, she pricked her finger with a needle and she was reminded of the sinfulness of pride.

"Serves you right, you arrogant woman," she chided herself, sucking on the injured finger so it did not stain her precious linen backing. That was something else her mother would scold her about if she saw. But at least Eliza could point out that she had two twin star quilts and her mother had none, because her mother could hardly sew a button.

"And there's pride again," she sighed, taking a sip of peppermint tea.

It was grown in her own garden, a lovely little sunny spot of the yard she had planted her first year of marriage. Will had teased her over it.

"Flowers and frippery all of it," he snorted. "Not even a vegetable garden."

But after he came down with a horrid influenza and Eliza stayed up every night nursing him with teas made from the very herbs in that "frippery," he said not a word against it again. He even helped her with it, which pleased Eliza indeed. Once she'd even heard him boasting of it in town to the other men.

"My wife's the smartest woman in the county," he said. "Has a garden full of herbs for any illness. Saved my life during the flu of '09."

Will was a fine man. He didn't smoke nor chew like the other men in town, and he never drank and he read the Word every day and led his household like a real man. He took fine care of her, too. Eliza always pitied the women at the quilting group who bemoaned their men who never came home for supper and who drank their money away and slept till the noon while the women did all the work. No, Will worked hard—harder than she did—and if they ever were short of food it was he who silently snuck the last tidbits onto her plate and refused seconds, even if Eliza argued that he needed it more for the plowing and the care of stock.

"You're my wife, and you're more important than I, love, so don't you try to persuade me out of it," he'd laugh, and give her a kiss.

And now he had even more excuse, for the baby inside her he had to protect as well as her, so Eliza had given up protesting. But they weren't short of food much anymore since their work had paid off and the farm prospered; only in the last days of winter when the storage was running low did they have to watch the servings.

But there would always be herbs a-plenty, and fresh peppermint for warm summer days like this one when she wanted a refreshing tea to keep her sharp for the complicated task of making her second twin star quilt.

The first she had made for her hope chest, not so long ago, when she was expecting to be married. It was blue and cream, since both she and Will favored blue, and it sat on their bed now. It was beautiful enough, though more juvenile work, the stitching somewhat untidy and a few of the corners not quite matched. But still Eliza saw it with pride, because it carried the hopes of a girl waiting to be married to the love of her life, hopes that had matured into the contentedness of a woman happy with her husband and her hearth and her home.

She fanned herself with a copy of the ladies' magazine after she finished the last stitch of a square. The summer sun seemed to stifle her in the house, and she wondered whether it would be better outside.

"Likely not," she thought with another sip of peppermint tea, the tanginess making her think of spicy autumn days and pumpkins and golden corn ready for harvest. The baby would be born then, too, right after the harvest. She hoped it would not be so close to the harvest; she didn't want to make herself a nuisance and set Will to fretting when he needed to be working. But she'd counted back and she suspected it would be near the harvest.

"I despise being a bother," she groaned, taking another swig of tea to settle her nervous stomach at the though. The baby kicked as if in protest, and she patted her stomach, leaning back with a sigh. "You're not the bother; I'm the bother if I'll be abed all through harvest with everyone fussing over me and your papa fretting every moment about such things that he knows nothing about."

But she smiled nonetheless, at the thought of a baby in the cradle before winter, a baby to see the vibrancy of autumn, to laugh and cry and make the house a bit fuller than it was before. This thought calmed her, and she curled up in the chair for a rest, her eyes drifting shut wearily as she waited and the sweet smells of linen and sweet summer grass and tangy peppermint tea lulling her to sleep.