The Quilt Walk by Sandra Dallas Read Free Book Online

out a ribbon for your braids.”
    “Truly?” I asked. I had not brought hair ribbons with me.
    “Of course. I have a little money of my own, and I expect to spend it frivolously. Who knows when I’ll ever have a chance to be carefree again? Choose a ribbon for Waxy, too.”
    I went through the ribbons carefully, narrowing my choice to a yellow that was the color of the morning sun and a blue the color of the late afternoon sky. “Blue. It won’t show the dirt,” Aunt Catherine said when I asked her opinion. “But I believe Waxy would like the yellow.”
    A clerk cut the ribbons for us, and Aunt Catherine added a packet of pins and a piece of red calico for Ma.
    “What about the thread?” I asked as we left the store.
    “Thread?” She looked confused. “I have plenty of thread. We don’t need any more thread.”
    “But you said you needed some.”
    “Oh, I did, didn’t I?” She smiled at me. “I guess your ma won’t mind that little fib. Bother about thread! Now, let’s go sit down in real chairs and have real tea,” she said, looking approvingly at the Patee House, a fine brick hotel across the street. “Surely they have a ladies ordinary.”
    “A what?” I asked.
    “It’s a tea room reserved for women, a place where we can sit and relax. There is one at the Quincy House at home.” She took my hand and led me across the street, through the lobby of the hotel into a room that was fitted with fragile chairs and tables. I felt out of place, because I still wore three dresses, but Aunt Catherine moved like a queen past the ladies in their fashionable frocks and bonnets. When I glanced around, I saw other women dressed in traveling clothes.
    Aunt Catherine ordered tea and tiny cakes, and I perched on my chair trying to act ladylike and not put the entire cake into my mouth at one time.
    “Going west are you?” asked a lady at the table next to us.
    “We are,” Aunt Catherine replied. “And you?”
    The woman nodded. “This is my wedding trip. I don’t suppose I’ll find tea and pastries in Denver.”
    “We are going to Golden. We leave in two days,” Aunt Catherine told her.
    “Why, maybe we’ll be on the same train.” The woman wiped her fingers on her napkin. Her hands were already brown and rough. “I am Lucy Bonner.”
    Aunt Catherine told her our names, and the two of them chatted, but not for long. We had to return to the wagon before Pa and Uncle Will got back. So we took our leave. Aunt Catherine ordered three little cakes to take with us and put them into her bag.
    Ma smiled when she saw the cakes, and the three of us sat on the wagon tongue, and we took tiny bites to make them last longer. We ate every crumb.
    “Do you think we should have gotten cakes for Pa and Uncle Will?” I asked.
    “No,” Ma and Aunt Catherine said together. Then the three of us began to laugh. I knew without their telling me that I should not mention our outing. That night, I told Waxy that I was learning something about how women keep secrets.

Chapter Eight
    CROSSING THE MISSOURI

    T he Missouri wasn’t as wide as the Mississippi, but we still took a ferry to cross it. Pa said some people might let their oxen swim across, pulling the wagons, but he didn’t want to take a chance we’d overturn.
    “Isn’t a ferry just as liable to tip over as a wagon?” Aunt Catherine asked.
    “The ferries are stable,” Uncle Will told her. “Don’t you remember we took the ferry across the Mississippi?”
    “I had my eyes closed the whole time,” she said.
    “We’ll float across some of the smaller rivers later on,” Pa said. “That’s why we spread tar on the bottoms of the wagons before we left. They are tight as washbasins. We’ll be as dry as if we were on a steamboat.”
    Early in the morning, we gathered with the other members of our wagon train. Ma nodded at some of the women, and Pa greeted one or two men he’d already met, but there wasn’t time to talk. We had to get across the Missouri,