Polly smiled down at the little girl and said quickly:
“Everything all right, Roxy? Or did you want me for something special?”
“Just to be friends!” said Roxy soberly. “Can you not come in to breakfast, Polly? Do!” she pleaded, and Polly instantly slipped from the saddle and said:
“I told Mother I might spend the day, for it is cloudy all along the mountains and that means rain; and it will be just the day to work on your circus.”
A negro boy led the brown horse to the stable and Polly and Roxy went in the house.
“Polly’s going to spend the day,” Roxy announced, and her visitor was warmly welcomed, and Dulcie brought in plates of steaming waffles, and Polly declared that Mrs. Miller’s bees made the best honey in Maryland as she accepted a liberal helping.
Before breakfast was over it had begun to rain.
“A fine day to put my quilt into the frames,” declared Grandma Miller, “and Roxy can have her first lesson in quilting; there’ll be time for your paper animals this afternoon.”
“Yes, indeed!” Roxy eagerly agreed, “and may I help you mark the pattern, Grandma?”
Grandma Miller nodded. “I think we’ll mark a ‘Rising Sun,’” she said thoughtfully; and as Dulcie now brought the wooden quilting frames into the dining-room, and Mrs. Miller started upstairs for the bed-quilt she had pieced of bits of gingham, calico and cambric, the two girls looked at each other smilingly.
“It will be fun to help quilt,” Polly said, and Roxy watched her admiringly as she helped Mrs. Miller and Dulcie fasten the pretty quilt to the frames, that rested on the backs of four straight-backed chairs.
“Now for the ‘Rising Sun,’” said Grandma, who held a ball of twine which she began to rub with white chalk. “Polly, fasten the end of this twine in that corner,” she directed, and Polly promptly obeyed. “You shall ‘snap’ the chalked twine, Roxy,” Grandma Miller continued, as she drew the twine cornerwise across the quilt, and in a few moments Roxy was running from one side of the quilt to the other, “snapping” the taut chalked twine as Grandma directed, and which left white lines behind each “snap.” These lines ran from the corners and sides of the quilt to the centre, and made a pattern known as the “Rising Sun.”