We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn't eat collards and pork was unclean.Wangero,though,went on through the chitlins and corn bread,the greens and everything else.She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes.Everything delighted her.Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn't afford to buy chairs.
"Oh,Mama!"she cried.Then turned to Hakim-a-barber."I never knew how lovely these benches are.You can feel the rump prints,"she said,running her hands underneath her and along the bench.Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee's butter dish."That's it!"she said."I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have."She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner where the churn stood,the milk in it clabber by now.She looked at the churn and looked at it.
"This churn top is what I need,"she said."Didn't Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all used to have?"
"Yes,"I said.
"Uh huh,"she said happily."And I want the dasher,too."
"Uncle Buddy whittle that,too?"asked the barber.
Dee（Wangero）looked up at me.
"Aunt Dee's first husband whittled the dash,"said Maggie so low you almost couldn't hear her."His name was Henry,but they called him Stash."
"Maggie's brain is like an elephants,"Wanglero said,laughing."I can use the churn top as a centerpiece for the alcove table,"she said,sliding a plate over the churn,"and I'll think of something artistic to do with the dasher."
When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out.I took it for a moment in my hands.You didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood.In fact,there were a lot of small sinks;you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood.It was beautiful light yellow wood,from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived.
After dinner Dee（Wangero）went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and started rifling through it.Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan.Out came Wangero with two quilts.They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them.One was in the Lone Star pattern.The other was Walk Around the Mountain.In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago.Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's Paisley shirts.And one teeny faded blue piece,about the size of a penny matchbox,that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War.
"Mama,"Wangero said sweet as a bird."Can I have these old quilts?"
I heard something fall in the kitchen,and a minute later the kitchen door slammed.
"Why don't you take one or two of the others?"I asked."These old things was just done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died."
"No,"said Wangero."I don't want those.They are stitched around the borders by machine."
"That'll make them last better,"I said.
"That's not the point,"said Wanglero."These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear.She did all this stitching by hand.Imagine!"She held the quilts securely in her arms,stroking them.
"Some of the pieces,like those lavender ones,come from old clothes her mother handed down to her,"I said,moving up to touch the quilts.Dee（Wangero）moved back just enough so that I couldn't reach the quilts.They already belonged to her."Imagine!"she breathed again,clutching them closely to her bosom.
"The truth is,"I said,"I promised to give them quilts to Maggie,for when she marries John Thomas."
She gasped like a bee had stung her.
"Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!"she said."She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use."
"I reckon she would,"I said."God knows I been savin'em for long enough with nobody using'em.I hope she will!"I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee（Wangero）a quilt when she went away to college.Then she had told me they were old-fashioned,out of style.
"But they're priceless!"she was saying now,furiously;for she has a temper."Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags.Less than that!""She can always make some more,"I said."Maggie knows how to quilt."
Dee（Wangero）looked at me with hatred."You just will not understand.The point is these quilts,these quilts!"
"Well,"I said,stumped."What would you do with them?"
"Hang them,"she said.As it that was the only thing you could do with quilts.
Maggie by now was standing in the door.I could almost hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other.
"She can have them,Mama,"she said like somebody used to never winning anything,or having anything reserved for her."I can'member Grandma Dee without the quilts."
I looked at her hard.She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff and it gave her face a kind of dopey,hangdog look.It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself.She stood there with her scarred hands hidden in the folds of her skirt.She looked at her sister with something like fear but she wasn't mad at her.This was Maggie's portion.This was the way she knew God to work.
When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet.Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout.I did something I never had done before:hugged Maggie to me,then dragged her on into the room,snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero's hands and dumped them into Maggie's lap.Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open.
"Take one or two of the others,"I said to Dee.
But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim-a-barber.
"You just don't understand,"she said,as Maggie and I came out to the car.
"What don't I under stand?"I wanted to know.
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