Chapter Twenty-Two

While unpacking her belongings the next morning, Belle savored each piece and for good reason. These few items are all I own. Her fingertips followed the pattern of tiny stitches on the lily quilt she and her mother had quilted together. She relished the images, forever branded in her memory, of more pleasant times. Spreading the colorful quilt on a four-poster bed, she hoped it might make the borrowed bedroom look more like home.

Removing the wedding quilt with its bright red hearts caused the familiar moistness in Belle’s eyes again. She folded the colorful quilt and placed it on the back of her grandmother’s rocking chair and smoothed out the wrinkles.

How sweet of the Campbells to bring my things to River Bend. These are the only quilts left from my dowry. I’m fortunate to have any.

Her other quilts decorated the hotel and these two, had they not been at the Campbell’s for drafting patterns, would have succumbed to destruction at the dugout along with her other possessions.

Thankful she and Johnathan were away from home when its sparse contents were stolen and mutilated, she knew angels protected her. She had reclaimed her only surviving trunk, now empty after the hotel purchased three more quilts this spring. For sentimental reasons as well as rational ones, she had not sold the bride’s quilt or the lily quilt. Johnathan and she would need these to keep them warm until she could make new ones.

Once Johnathan was old enough to travel well, Belle had worked at Margaret’s, quilting for the Campbell clan. Busy Margaret had her hands full caring for her large family. If Margaret had any time for handwork, she was plagued by a multitude of clothing repairs that neither she, nor the older girls, seemed able to conquer.

Spending nearly every day at their small home, Belle had enjoyed the company of the pleasant group while she quilted and taught the younger girls how to sew. She had moved the rocking chair there for convenience with Johnathan and to sit in while quilting with a round hoop.

So now, I have sweet Johnathan, two quilts, a hoop, only one precious needle, an empty trunk, and grandmother’s rocking chair. As of last night, I am so thankful to have Father’s Bible again. She paused to remember the people she loved now permanently missing from her life. After a few moments, she considered how many things she no longer possessed but decided not to dwell on them. I’m blessed with an abundance of fond memories.

To close the trunk, she grasped its lid and spied a small packet tucked neatly into one of its corners. Puzzled, she pulled out a packet of fabric, similar to others she had received. The bright and cheery cloth of those was gone, and she had nothing to remind her of the many happy hours she had spent, cutting and appliqueing those intriguing textiles.

This one almost shouts, Pick me. Pick me. Brilliant shades of blue and red calico and linsey-woolsey of bright turquoise and deep magenta spilled from the packet as if an exotic bird fluttered its wings.

“Where did you come from?” The packet, like those before it, bore her name but no address. Some packets had appeared on her doorstep at the dugout while others had been delivered to the hotel by someone they said looked like a mountain man. No one called him by name, and he would give no information as to where the packets came from. He said it was his duty to deliver them, and from there, it didn’t matter who took them to Mrs. Strong or if she picked them up when she came to town for supplies.

Belle studied the packet before opening it. “Belle Strong. That’s all this says. It’s written in very good penmanship but unrecognizable as to the hand that penned it.” It must be someone who knew her and knew of her love for quilting. He, or she, must also know how desperate she was for fabric on the frontier.

“It has to be a woman. No man would take the time to search out such an assortment, nor would he know what types of fabrics to use for quilting.” She searched her memory for any woman who would know where she was living and might send them, but no name surfaced.

Fabric was practically nonexistent and at a premium. Except for homespun, which was used for everything from clothing to window coverings, but it was heavy and coarse, making it too hard to quilt. It could break a woman’s few remaining needles, another treasured commodity on the frontier. Because of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, the English refused to ship fabric of any kind to this country. States in the deep south had fabric, and Belle had few problems getting it when she lived in the Carolinas, but they didn’t seem to have enough to freight out to remote outposts.

But this fabric is of excellent quality. Whitney’s Gin improved its calico over the last few years but not to these standards. Whitney does not make these. But where are they coming from?

Enchanted by the lush colors, she caressed the fine fabrics, wishing she could express her appreciation for the gift. She decided to start a new quilt right away, using this remaining packet. Glad to have her hoop, she could quilt a large bedcover with it if she had to.

Maybe, I can pay someone to make me a new quilt frame before long with the small amount of money I have left from the sale of my last quilts to the hotel. She put the fabric packet away, delighted it had not been in the dugout which was now a mass of dirt clods.

The next morning, Belle woke to a beautiful Texas sunrise, the horizon glowing with shades of peach, amber, and mauve. As the light spilled through the windowpanes of the magnificent house, roosters crowed to signal the start of a new day. She, too, felt aglow with a radiance greeting her when she looked into a mirror.

Hearing the clatter of a horse’s hooves on the natural red sandstone that bordered the house and separated it from lush, green lawns, Belle looked out the window in time to see Stephen headed toward the settlement. She wished she could have told him how wonderful and alive she was feeling, but he never looked toward her window.

Johnathan’s loud cries alerted her to his immediate needs. She hurried to the nursery to change his wet clothing, cooing and telling him how fast he was growing while picking him up and carrying him to the rocking chair that had once belonged to his great-grandmother. When they were seated, Belle held him to her full breast to suckle, covering them both against the early morning chill with a corner of the bride’s quilt from the back of the rocker.

With Johnathan nursing and content, she studied the quilting stitches and found no broken threads. According to superstition, nothing terrible should have happened to the married couple, but it had. Michael’s gone. Though they had never experienced a true love, they had cared for one another for a brief period of time. Perhaps, she cared more because she continued to hold onto a part of Michael—their sweet babe.

Brushing copper tendrils away from her face, she sighed, wishing she could brush away the pain of the past and the uncertainties of the future. She transferred Johnathan to her other breast and held him snugly.

“Little one,” she whispered, “you won’t get to know your father when you grow up. Life deals us harsh and strange blows sometimes. I’m saddened he won’t get to see you when you are big and strong, but remember, your name is Strong. How can you be anything else?”