WIDE MEADOWS; A GIFT FOR MOLLEY: PICTURED IN THE QUILT (A CONTINUING SERIES)

Editor's note: This is an installment from a chapter of Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960.

Last week: Molly arrived.

So Molly stayed for the canning, and then the threshers came and she stayed on to help cook, and then it was time to put up the peaches. We couldn't pay her much, but she carefully hoarded her money. She was going to have the mole taken off, a new tooth put in, and get some new water-wave combs for her hair. "Of course I could get the combs right away, but they wouldn't help much with this face. Ain't I the ugliest thing you ever saw?" Molly would deride herself, trying to be gay about it and acting as if it didn't matter. But it hurt. You could tell that by the way she'd look at herself in the mirror, fluff her hair out speculatively, and then turn away.

And she appreciated beautiful things. On Sundays, when we used Grandma's rose-sprigged china, she would hold a dish up to the light and say, "Aren't the most beautiful things you ever saw?" She'd wipe the plates lovingly and stack them with tissue paper in between. She loved the silver spoon and the old clock with its jewel-loke pendulum, and she would fondle the rose-in-glass paperweight as a child would a doll. Over Grandma's Passage-of-Time quilts, Molly went into ecstasies.

These quilts were Grandma's way of keeping a history of the family and friends. There were 24 blocks to a quilt, each one depicting in applique and embroidery the most interesting events that happened in our lives as time went by. She drafted her own designs, for she was good at drawing, and sometimes the completed block would be intricate beyond all reason and as complicated as a mosaic tile. Take the time the bull butted Grandpa into the river and jumped in after him. There were three scenes in this one block -- Grandpa standing on the riverbank innocently fishing; Grandpa halfway across the river, the bull in hot pursuit; and Grandpa climbing a tree on the other side, water dripping from his clothing in the form of blue French knots and a satin-stitch blue jay perched in a tree watching.

Sometime we chided Grandma about her drawings. The barn didn't sway in the middle the way ours really did, and in the block where she had me in the swing, the tree was generously foliaged and well proportioned instead of a spindly old walnut.

"Well, I draw them like they look to me," Grandma would say, and that seemed excuse enough.

When relatives gathered, we put these quilts on the beds for spreads, for they provided no end of fun when the incidents pictured were recalled. "Where's that block of Dad getting the skunks out from under the floor?" Uncle Hayden would ask and go around from bed to bed until he found it. He'd stand and laugh until the tears rolled down his cheeks and tell the story all over again to anyone near. Grandma always had as many funny blocks as she could.

Molly would feast her eyes for hours at a time on these quilts. "Just seems like if you'd look at pretty things long enough, and handle them often enough, you'd be bound to soak up a little of their beauty, doesn't it?" she would ask pathetically, fingering the mole on her nose.

When work got slack at our house, Molly went on to Stacey's, McFarlands' and Ritters'. "You folks have been awful kind," she said when she left. "You don't know how it makes me feel. Almost like it didn't matter so much." We knew she meant her face.

"I guess being kind is the most beautiful thing in the world, and you can't even see it." Molly thought about that for a while and looked sad because you couldn't see such a beautiful thing such as kindness. "Maybe that's the kind that you soak up," she added, "the kind you can't see."

After staying a while with all the neighbors, Molly left, and we assumed she had at last saved enough money to have her face "corrected," as she always called it.

She had made sufficient impression, though, to warrant a block in Grandma's quilt. And, as we all liked the funny blocks, we urged Grandma to make one of Molly taking Communion at church with the forgotten pillow pinned over her hips. Molly admired the wasp waists and generous hips of the other ladies, but she was waspy all the way down. Other thin women used discreet padding and crinoline ruffling to make their skirts stand out; but Molly had no time to fix up such trappings for herself and on this particular Sunday she used the simple expedient of a patchwork cushion to correct her figure faults.

"If only she hadn't taken her coat off," deplored the women, who had to listen to much chiding from their menfolk after that. But the old stove in the church had acted up, and Molly, along with many others, took her coat off and marched up the aisle to take Communion, completely oblivious of her "figure correction."

Grandma demurred at making such a block. "Poor, dear girl. I wouldn't poke fun at her for anything," she said. But we continued to insist, assuring Grandma that we'd never hear from Molly Layton again.

But here we had! "Same old Molly," Mrs. Stacey had reported to Grandma over the telephone.

"You mean she didn't get the mole off or the tooth in, as hard as she worked and saved?" Grandma asked.

"No. It seems like a distant cousin of Molly's turned up without any money and needing medicine of some kind. And Molly spent all she had on the cousin getting her straightened out, and didn't have enough left over for herself," Mrs. Stacey said. "Coming back out to go to work again."

And so Grandma was worried. No gift for Molly! Besides, the picture in the quilt!

"I could run her up a little needlecase, I guess," Grandma said, looking at her quilt already stretched in the quilting frame.

We all went out to the kitchen to get the refreshments ready and left Grandma alone while she worked fast on Molly's present.

The house smelled real Christmasy, for we had put the tree up early for the quilting party. Bayberry candles were burning on the mantel, and cinnamon rolls were in the oven. It was snowing softly outside, and the ladies were in a holiday mood as they began arriving.

Molly was the same old Molly, hiding her mouth with her hand when she laughed and hooking her hair behind her ear. If anything, she was even thinner.

"When I heard you had another one of those pretty quilts ready," she said to Grandma, "I sure wanted to come along and help work on it."

"Well, we'll start before long," Grandma said, "but first you ladies warm up with a spot of tea." She passed the tea and let me pass the cinnamon rolls and spoons. I saw to it that Molly got the silver spoon. Then Grandma distributed the presents.

There wasn't anything for Molly but an old thimble of Grandma's that had become too large for her. I felt so sorry for Molly, and even sorrier for Grandma, who hadn't had time after all to make anything suitable for Molly.

But Grandma didn't look at all worried. "Molly," she said, "I've put you in the quilt."

A slow blush of pleasure crept up over Molly's face. She threw back her shoulders and took her hand away from her mouth. I followed her to the quilt to see the picture. Wasn't Grandma doing this all wrong? I wondered. Maybe Molly wouldn't have recognized herself. I watched Molly's face closely. She looked a long time at the block. A softness came into her face and then a glow. Why, Molly looked radiant! I peered down at the block. It wasn't the one of Molly with the cushion at all. It was one of Molly putting flowers into a vase. You could tell it was her by the little maid's ruffle she always wore on her head. Grandma had ripped out the other block and substituted this one while we thought she was making the needle case. I looked at Molly's face again.

Tears were spilling down her cheeks as she lifted her eyes to Grandma's. "But you've made me pretty," she said very softly.

It was true. Grandma had added little lines here and there, and the girl pictured was pretty, but still Molly, all right.

"Well, I just draw them like they look to me," Grandma said.

Somehow, the little thimble Molly had received didn't matter at all. For here, tied in the brightest, shimmering, invisible package, was Grandma's gift to Molly -- the kind you couldn't see at all.

Next week: Good will toward men.