Free High Sorcery by Andre Norton Page A

“This world is wide—” Her arms went out as if to encircle all which lay beyond the tower walls.
    Craike drew her back to him jealously. “For that there is more than (imp enough. This is an hour for something else, even in a warlock's world.”

THROUGH THE NEEDLE'S EYE
    I T WAS NOT her strange reputation which attracted me to old Miss Ruthevan, though there were stories to excite a solitary child's morbid taste. Rather it was what she was able to create, opening a whole new world to the crippled girl I was thirty years ago.
    Two years before I made that momentous visit to Cousin Althea I suffered an attack of what was then known as infantile paralysis. In those days, before Salk, there was no cure. I was fourteen when I met Miss Ruthevan, and I had been told for weary months that I was lucky to be able to walk at all, even though I must do so with a heavy brace on my right leg. I might accept that verdict outwardly, but the me imprisoned in the thin adolescent's body was a rebel.
    Cousin Althea's house was small, and on the wrong side of the wrong street to claim gentility. (Cramwell did not have a railroad to separate the comfortable, smug sheep from the aspiring goats.) But her straggling back garden ran to a wall of mellow, red brick patterned by green moss, and in one place a section of this barrier had broken down so one could hitch up to look into the tangled mat of vine and brier which now covered most of the Ruthevan domain.
    Three-fourths of that garden had reverted to the wild, but around the bulk of the house it was kept in some order. The fat, totally deaf old woman who ruled Miss Ruthevan's domestic concerns could often he seen poking about, snipping off flowers or leaves, after examining each with the care of a cautious shopper or filling a pan with wizened berries. Birds loved the Ruthevan garden and built whole colonies of nests in its unpruned trees. Bees and butterflies were thick in the undisturbed peace. Though I longed to explore, I never quite dared, until the day of the quilt
    That had been a day of disappointment. There was a Sunday school picnic to which Ruth. Cousin Althea's daughter, and T were invited. I knew that it was not for one unable to play ball, race or swim. Proudly I refused to go giving the mendacious excuse that my leg ached. Filled with bitterenvy, I watched Ruth leave. I refused Cousin Althea's offer to let me make candy, matching off, lurch-push to perch on the wall.
    There was something new in the garden beyond. An expanse of color Flapped languidly from a clothes line, giving tantalizing glimpses of it. Before I knew it, I tumbled over the wall, acquiring a goodly number” of scrapes and bruises on the way, and struggled through a straggle of briers to see better.
    It was worth my straggle. Cousin Althea had quilts in plenty, mostly made by Grandma Moss, who was considered by the family to be an artist at needlework. But what I viewed now was as clearly above the best efforts of Grandma as a Rembrandt above an inn sign.
    This was applique work, each block of a different pattern; though, after some study, I became aware that the whole was to be a panorama of autumn. There were flowers, fruits, berries and nuts, each with their attendant clusters of leaves, while the border was an interwoven wreath of maple and oak foliage in the richest coloring. Not only was the appliqué so perfect one could not detect a single stitch, but the quiltinc over-pattern was as delicate as lace. It was old; its once white background had been time-dyed cream; and it was the most beautiful tiling I had ever seen.
    â€œWell, what do you think of it?”
    I lurched as I tried to turn quickly, catching for support at the trunk of a gnarled apple tree. On the brick walk from the house stood old Miss Ruthevan. She was tall and held herself stiffly straight, the masses of her thick, white hair built into a formal coil which, by rights, should have supported a tiara. From throat