[piosenniel]

‘Oh, aye, there’s a booth for quilts, Violet. And I’ve no doubt there’ll be room for your quilts. Lovely patterns you use, as I recall.’ Cook smiled and nodded her head. ‘I remember trading for one of your little ones one year. All blue like the sky in summer . . . that was the borders. And daisies in all sorts of colors quilted in the blocks.’ Vinca chuckled, her eyes glinting as if the quilt hung in the space before them. ‘An all over you’d quilted little ladybugs in your fine stitching, trailing from one block over another. And scatterings of leaves as I recall.’ Her gaze moistened a bit, then blinked back to normal. ‘Gave that one to my little granddaughter.’

She poured them each a small swallow of dandelion wine, taking out two of her small thin crystal flutes to do so. The ladies held the glasses up to the light from the kitchen’s window. It swam through the sweet, golden liquid in a lazy way, just as summer sun light does through a summer’s day thick with promise.

‘To last summer!’ said Cook, clinking the rim of her glass lightly against Violet’s. ‘And to the next!’ laughed Violet, lifting the glass to her lips.

Cook sat down for a few moments – her cookie dough could wait for the while. The ladies fell to talking about previous fairs, gossip mostly, and not all of the favorable sort.