Prayers for Sale
water.
    “Just think, running water,” Nit said. Hennie felt a tenderness toward the girl, for hauling water was hard work. Maybe that young fellow Nit was married to hauled it for her. He surely did seem to dote on his wife. The two reminded her of Billy and herself.
    Hennie laughed and explained that she had to wrap the pipe with strips torn from old quilts and keep the water turned on a little in the cold months so that it didn’t freeze up, and even then, in January and February and March, the water wasn’t reliable. “Still, I live nice,” Hennie said, sighing. She chattered as the water boiled and she poured it over the grounds in a brown and white speckled pot. Then she transferred the brew into a silver coffee server that was only a little battered and took down her own good cups and saucers. She placed everything on the table with the pie plate ofcookies. Hennie went to her cupboard for a clear-glass spooner shaped like a log cabin and told Nit there was sugar in the bowl beside the condiments caddy in the center of the table.
    The two sat and chatted about the weather while the sun crept through the big windows, spreading its warmth across the floor. She did have it nice there, snug as a harbornated bear, Hennie thought with contentment. Few people got to live in such a nice house for going on seventy years. She hoped Nit had such a fine house one day. Maybe she would, since Dick Spindle was a worker. So was Nit. That was something else the two had in common with Hennie and Billy.
    The old woman picked up her cup, knocking her thimble against it, and laughed. “You’d think I’d remember to take this off, but Billy gave it to me for a present, and it fits me like a wedding ring. I have a dozen thimbles, but I’ve used the same one since I came here. I guess I must have pushed about a million stitches through the fabric with it.”
    “Didn’t your other husband ever give you one?”
    “Why no,” Hennie said, thinking that no, Jake Comfort had not been sensible of her quilting the way Billy was. She didn’t often compare the two men, but now she thought how the husbands had complemented each other, one weak in a way the other was strong. If Jake didn’t pay attention to the quilts, he was proud of her gardening, how she grew the biggest and longest-lasting roses in Middle Swan and was the first in the spring to pick her lettuce and spinach. Billy took care of her as if she were a little girl, which, come to think of it, she had been when they were married. Jake encouraged her to be self-reliant. Her first husband was assunny as the day, while dark spells like a winter storm came on her second. But both had loved her fiercely, and she’d loved them right back.
    They finished their coffee, and Hennie stood up. So did the girl, picking up her cup and saucer to carry them to the sink. “Leave be. We’ll go to quilting,” Hennie said. “Grab you a needle, and go to work.”
    Nit carried a straight-backed chair to the frame, and the two women sat down beside each other at the quilt. The girl took out a needle stuck in a piece of flannel tied to the end of the frame and threaded it. Then she chose a thimble from a cup on the table. “You sure you want me to do this, Mrs. Comfort? My stitches aren’t as fine as yours. They are every one too big.”
    Hennie waved away the objection, although she knew she might take out Nit’s work later. Nobody else would notice the girl’s big stitches, but Hennie would know that they were there, and she was too proud to let her quilts be anything but near-perfect. Not for anything would she tell her guest not to quilt, however. Why, she wouldn’t insult even Mrs. Franks that way, Hennie thought, glad that Mrs. Franks didn’t sew.
    The two quilted quietly for a few moments, Hennie thinking how nice it was that women gathered over a quilt frame for companionship and gossip, but they could be content with the silence, too. After a few minutes, Hennie got up and opened

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