Free Julia's Hope by Leisha Kelly

now. Nothin’ ’bout me to be scared of. You know Albert?”
    “Uh, no, ma’am. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind me asking about your farm.”
    I watched her slide my thread through the needle on the first try, but I couldn’t say nothing for a minute. The farm? I shoulda known to expect something like that. What else would anybody want with an old lady?
    I took back the needle, knotted the thread, and swallowed down the tightness in m’ throat. I didn’t much care to talk about this. I weren’t even ready to be thinking on somebody else wantin’ the farm. It was my home, and there was too much of my life wrapped up in it. I didn’t near want to turn it loose.
    I could just see the old place come summer, prospering under the golden sun. And I could see m’self back there too, working in the strawberry patch or weavin’ a little purple and yeller chain of violas to lay across Willard’s gravestone. I had to take me a deep breath and think on the quiltin’. I wasn’t ready to talk about the farm. Not yet.
    “You sew, do ya, Mrs. Wortham?”
    “Y—yes. A little. But I’ve never done a quilt. This is beautiful.”
    “Well, you ain’t examined m’ stitchin’ to speak of, that’s all. I can’t see to put two together like I used to! Be a shame to hang it ’longside one a’ Trudy Welty’s!” I tried smoothin’ the cloth a little. “Don’t be lookin’ too close at the underside, now! There prob’ly ain’t a row a’ stitches the same size.”
    Right away, she done the opposite of what I told her, turnin’ up the edge of m’ quilt and runnin’ her fingers over all m’ lines.
    “Mrs. Graham,” she said, “I think it’s wonderful. I wish I could do something so well.”
    I stretched the quilt out a little more. “This un’s a double weddin’ ring pattern. First time I ever used so much paisley.”
    She kept on looking at the quilt, tracing over the interlocking circles. She sure was a nice young lady to be takin’ such an interest when she plainly had something else on her mind. I knew I should let her get back to that, but I wasn’t anxious to be no disappointment. I couldn’t sell that farm no more than I could sell my grandmother. Or my own right elbow.
    I took a deep breath. “It’s a good enough quilt, I s’pose, but I’d be embarrassed for some a’ m’ friends to see it,” I told her. “They’d be wantin’ to rip stitches an’ do it right.”
    Mrs. Wortham smiled. “I’d be proud of it, if I were you. It’s one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen.”
    I looked her in the eye for just a minute, but she dropped her gaze. “Mrs. Graham, about your farm . . .”
    I swallowed. “Rita said you come all the way from Pennsylvaney. New married, is ya? Lookin’ to buy ’round here?”
    Mrs. Wortham dropped the quilt out of her hands and looked up like she was hurtin’ over something. Then she spoke all in a rush. “Mrs. Graham, we’ve got no money to buy! My husband lost his job. We came to Illinois on the promise of another one, but the plant’s closing. We have two children, and we were stranded along the road with a storm coming. We had nowhere else to go. If it weren’t for your house, I don’t know what we’d have done! Forgive us for staying, but we’ve got nothing right now, and I was hoping, I was just hoping—”
    The stream of words come to a sudden stop.
    “You been stayin’ at m’ farm?” My heart was pounding. “For how long?”
    “Two nights.” Mrs. Wortham looked down at her lap again, huggin’ at the quilt edge with her skinny fingers. “I’m so sorry. But we covered the broken windows and got the door to close again as it should. I—I cleaned up a little for you while it was raining.”
    I started at a stitch again but could scarcely look at it. How was I s’posed to feel about this? It was likely true, just like she said. There had been some weather. But I couldn’t be thinkin’ on their trespass long, for wonderin’ on the shape