The Keeping Quilt Read online

  The

  Keeping Quilt

  SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  The

  keeping Qulit

  Patricia Polacco

  When my Great-Gramma Anna came to America

  she wore the same thick overcoat and big boots she

  had worn for farm work. But her family weren’t dirt

  farmers anymore. In New York City her father’s work

  was hauling things on a wagon, and the rest of the

  family made artificial flowers all day.

  Everyone was in a hurry, and it was so crowded,

  not like in backhome Russia. But all the same it was

  their home, and most of their neighbors were just

  like them.

  When Anna went to school,

  English sounded to her like

  pebbles dropping into shallow

  water. Shhhhhh. . . . Shhhhh. . . .

  Shhhhhh. In six months she was

  speaking English. Her parents

  almost never learned, so she

  spoke English for them, too.

  The only things she had left of backhome Russia were her

  dress and the babushka she liked to throw up into the air

  when she was dancing.

  And her dress was getting too

  small. After her mother had sewn

  her a new one, she took her old

  dress and babushka. Then from

  a basket of old clothes she took

  Uncle Vladmir’s shirt, Aunt

  Havalah’s nightdress, and an apron

  of Aunt Natasha’s.

  “We will make a quilt to help us

  always remember home,” Anna’s

  mother said. “It will be like having

  the family in backhome Russia

  dance around us at night.”

  And so it was. Anna’s mother invited all the neighborhood ladies. They cut out animals and

  flowers from the scraps of clothing. Anna kept the needles threaded and handed them to the

  ladies as they needed them. The border of the quilt was made of Anna’s babushka.

  On Friday nights Anna’s mother would say the prayers

  that started the Sabbath. The family ate challah and

  chicken soup. The quilt was the tablecloth.

  Anna grew up and fell in love with Great-Grandpa Sasha.

  To show he wanted to be her husband, he gave

  Anna a gold coin, a dried flower, and a piece of

  rock salt, all tied into a linen handkerchief.

  The gold was for wealth, the flower

  for love, and the salt so their

  lives would have flavor.

  She accepted the hankie.

  They were engaged.

  Under the wedding

  huppa, Anna and

  Sasha promised

  each other love and

  understanding.

  After the wedding,

  the men and women

  celebrated separately.

  When my Grandma Carle was born, Anna wrapped her

  daughter in the quilt to welcome her warmly into the

  world. Carle was given a gift of gold, flower, salt, and

  bread. Gold so she would never know poverty, a flower

  so she would always know love, salt so her life would

  always have flavor, and bread so that she would never

  know hunger.

  Carle learned to keep the Sabbath and to cook and clean

  and do washing.

  “Married you’ll be someday,” Anna told Carle, and. . .

  again the quilt became a

  wedding huppa, this time

  for Carle’s wedding to

  Grandpa George. Men

  and women celebrated

  together, but they still did

  not dance together. In

  Carle’s wedding bouquet

  was a gold coin, bread, and salt.

  Carle and George moved to a farm in Michigan and

  Great-Gramma Anna came to live with them. The quilt

  once again wrapped a new little girl, Mary Ellen.

  Mary Ellen called Anna, Lady Gramma. She had grown very old and was sick a lot

  of the time. The quilt kept her legs warm.

  On Anna’s ninety-eighth birthday, the cake was a kulich,

  a rich cake with raisins and candied fruit in it.

  When Great-Gramma

  Anna died, prayers were

  said to lift her soul to

  heaven. My mother

  Mary Ellen was now

  grown up.

  When Mary Ellen left home, she took the quilt with her.

  When she became a bride, the quilt became her huppa. For the first time, friends who

  were not Jews came to the wedding. My mother wore a suit, but in her bouquet were

  gold, bread, and salt.

  The quilt welcomed me, Patricia, into the world. . .

  and it was the tablecloth for my first birthday party.

  At night I would trace my fingers around the edges of each animal

  on the quilt before I went to sleep. I told my mother stories about the

  animals on the quilt. She told me whose sleeve had made the horse,

  whose apron had made the chicken, whose dress had made the flowers,

  and whose babushka went around the edge of the quilt.

  The quilt was a pretend cape when I was in the bullring,

  or sometimes a tent in the steaming Amazon jungle.

  At my wedding to Enzo-Mario, men and women danced together. In my bouquet were gold,

  bread, and salt—and a sprinkle of wine, so I would always know laughter.

  Twenty years ago I held

  Traci Denise in the

  quilt for the first time.

  Someday she, too, will

  leave home and she will

  take the quilt with her.

 

 

  Patricia Polacco, The Keeping Quilt

  Thanks for reading the books on GrayCity.Net