Diadema, wife of Jot¹ Bascom, was sitting at the window of the village watch-tower, so called because it commanded a view of nearly everything that happened in Pleasant River; those details escaping the physical eye being supplied by faith and imagination working in the light of past experience. She sat in the chair of honor, the chair of choice, the high-backed rocker by the southern window, in which her husband's mother, old Mrs. Bascom, had sat for thirty years, applying a still more powerful intellectual telescope to the doings of her neighbors. Diadema's seat had formerly³ been on the less desirable side of the little light-stand, where Priscilla Hollis was now installed.  
Mrs. Bascom was at work on a new fore-room rug, the former one having been transferred to Miss Hollis's chamber⁴; for, as the teacher at the brick schoolhouse, a graduate of a Massachusetts normal school, and the daughter of a deceased judge, she was a boarder of considerable consequence. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, and the two women were alone. It was a pleasant, peaceful sitting-room⁵, as neat as wax in every part. The floor was covered by a cheerful patriotic⁶ rag carpet woven entirely⁷ of red, white, and blue rags, and protected in various exposed localities by button rugs,—red, white, and blue disks superimposed one on the other.
 
Diadema Bascom was a person of some sentiment. When her old father, Captain Dennett, was dying, he drew a wallet from under his pillow, and handed her a twenty-dollar bill to get something to remember him by. This unwonted occurrence burned itself into the daughter's imagination, and when she came as a bride to the Bascom house she refurnished the sitting-room as a kind of monument to the departed soldier, whose sword and musket⁸ were now tied to the wall with neatly⁹ hemmed¹⁰ bows of bright red cotton.
 
The chair cushions were of red-and-white glazed¹¹ patch, the turkey wings that served as hearth¹² brushes were hung against the white-painted chimney-piece with blue skirt braid, and the white shades were finished with home-made scarlet¹³ “tossels.” A little whatnot in one corner was laden¹⁴ with the trophies¹⁵ of battle. The warrior's brass¹⁶ buttons were strung on a red picture cord and hung over his daguerreotype¹⁷ on the upper shelf; there was a tarnished¹⁸ shoulder strap¹⁹, and a flattened²⁰ bullet that the captain's jealous contemporaries swore he never stopped, unless he got it in the rear when he was flying from the foe²¹. There was also a little tin canister in which a charge of powder had been sacredly preserved. The scoffers, again, said that “the cap'n put it in his musket when he went into the war, and kep' it there till he come out.” These objects were tastefully decorated with the national colors. In fact, no modern aesthete²² could have arranged a symbolic²³ symphony of grief and glory with any more fidelity²⁴ to an ideal than Diadema Bascom, in working out her scheme of red, white, and blue.
 
Rows of ripening²⁵ tomatoes lay along the ledges²⁶ of the windows, and a tortoise-shell cat snoozed on one of the broad sills. The tall clock in the corner ticked peacefully. Priscilla Hollis never tired of looking at the jolly red-cheeked moon, the group of stars on a blue ground, the trig little ship, the old house, and the jolly moon again, creeping one after another across the open space at the top.
 
Jot Bascom was out, as usual, gathering²⁷ statistics of the last horse trade; little Jot was building “stickin'” houses in the barn; Priscilla was sewing long strips for braiding; while Diadema sat at the drawing-in frame, hook in hand, and a large basket of cut rags by her side.
 
Not many weeks before she had paid one of her periodical visits to the attic²⁸. No housekeeper²⁹ in Pleasant River save Mrs. Jonathan Bascom would have thought of dusting a garret, washing the window and sweeping³⁰ down the cobwebs once a month, and renewing the camphor bags in the chests twice a year; but notwithstanding this zealous³² care the moths³⁴ had made their way into one of her treasure-houses, the most precious of all,—the old hair trunk that had belonged to her sister Lovice. Once ensconced there, they had eaten through its hoarded³⁵ relics³⁶, and reduced the faded finery to a state best described by Diadema as “reg'lar riddlin' sieves³⁷.” She had brought the tattered³⁸ pile down in to the kitchen, and had spent a tearful afternoon in cutting the good pieces from the perforated garments. Three heaped-up baskets and a full dish-pan were the result; and as she had snipped³⁹ and cut and sorted, one of her sentimental⁴⁰ projects had entered her mind and taken complete possession there.
 
“I declare,” she said, as she drew her hooking-needle in and out, “I wouldn't set in the room with some folks and work on these pieces; for every time I draw in a scrap⁴¹ of cloth Lovice comes up to me for all the world as if she was settin' on the sofy there. I ain't told you my plan, Miss Hollis, and there ain't many I shall tell; but this rug is going to be a kind of a hist'ry of my life and Lovey's wrought⁴² in together, just as we was bound up in one another when she was alive. Her things and mine was laid in one trunk, and the moths sha'n't cheat me out of 'em altogether. If I can't look at 'em wet Sundays, and shake 'em out, and have a good cry over 'em, I'll make 'em up into a kind of dumb show that will mean something to me, if it don't to anybody else.
 
“We was the youngest of thirteen, Lovey and I, and we was twins. There 's never been more 'n half o' me left sence she died. We was born together, played and went to school together, got engaged and married together, and we all but died together, yet we wa'n't a mite⁴³ alike. There was an old lady come to our house once that used to say, 'There's sister Nabby, now: she 'n' I ain't no more alike 'n if we wa'n't two; she 's jest as diff'rent as I am t' other way.' Well, I know what I want to put into my rag story, Miss Hollis, but I don't hardly know how to begin.”
 
Priscilla dropped her needle, and bent⁴⁴ over the frame with interest.
 
“A spray of two roses in the centre,—there 's the beginning; why, don't you see, dear Mrs. Bascom?”
 
“Course I do,” said Diadema, diving to the bottom of the dish-pan. “I've got my start now, and don't you say a word for a minute. The two roses grow out of one stalk; they'll be Lovey and me, though I'm consid'able more like a potato blossom. The stalk 's got to be green, and here is the very green silk mother walked bride in, and Lovey and I had roundabouts of it afterwards. She had the chicken-pox when we was about four years old, and one of the first things I can remember is climbing up and looking over mother's footboard at Lovey, all speckled. Mother had let her slip on her new green roundabout over her nightgown, just to pacify⁴⁶ her, and there she set playing with the kitten Reuben Granger had brought her. He was only ten years old then, but he 'd begun courting Lovice.
 
“The Grangers' farm joined ours. They had eleven children, and mother and father had thirteen, and we was always playing together. Mother used to tell a funny story about that. We were all little young ones and looked pretty much alike, so she didn't take much notice of us in the daytime when we was running out 'n' in; but at night when the turn-up bedstead in the kitchen was taken down and the trundle-beds were full, she used to count us over, to see if we were all there. One night, when she 'd counted thirteen and set down to her sewing, father come in and asked if Moses was all right, for one of the neighbors had seen him playing side of the river about supper-time. Mother knew she 'd counted us straight, but she went round with a candle to make sure. Now, Mr. Granger had a head as red as a shumac bush; and when she carried the candle close to the beds to take another tally⁴⁷, there was thirteen children, sure enough, but if there wa'n't a red-headed Granger right in amongst our boys in the turn-up bedstead! While father set out on a hunt for our Moses, mother yanked the sleepy little red-headed Granger out o' the middle and took him home, and father found Moses asleep on a pile of shavings under the joiner's bench.
 
“They don't have such families nowadays. One time when measles⁴⁸ went all over the village, they never came to us, and Jabe Slocum said there wa'n't enough measles to go through the Dennett family, so they didn't start in on 'em. There, I ain't going to finish the stalk; I'm going to draw in a little here and there all over the rug, while I'm in the sperit of plannin' it, and then it will be plain work of matching colors and filling out.
 
“You see the stalk is mother's dress, and the outside green of the moss⁴⁹ roses is the same goods, only it 's our roundabouts. I meant to make 'em red, when I marked the pattern, and then fill out round 'em with a light color; but now I ain't satisfied with anything but white, for nothing will do in the middle of the rug but our white wedding dresses. I shall have to fill in dark, then, or mixed. Well, that won't be out of the way, if it 's going to be a true rag story; for Lovey's life went out altogether, and mine hasn't been any too gay.
 
“I'll begin on Lovey's rose first. She was the prettiest and the liveliest girl in the village, and she had more beaux than you could shake a stick at. I generally had to take what she left over. Reuben Granger was crazy about her from the time she was knee-high; but when he went away to Bangor to study for the ministry⁵⁰, the others had it all their own way. She was only seventeen; she hadn't ever experienced religion, and she was mischeevous as a kitten.
 
“You remember you laughed, this morning, when Mr. Bascom told about Hogshead Jowett? Well, he used to want to keep company with Lovey; but she couldn't abide⁵¹ him, and whenever he come to court her she clim' into a hogshead, and hid till after he 'd gone. The boys found it out, and used to call him 'Hogshead Jowett.” He was the biggest fool in Foxboro' Four Corners; and that 's saying consid'able, for Foxboro' is famous for its fools, and always has been. There was thirteen of 'em there one year. They say a man come out from Portland, and when he got as fur as Foxboro' he kep' inquiring the way to Dunstan; and I declare if he didn't meet them thirteen fools, one after another, standing³¹ in their front dooryards ready to answer questions. When he got to Dunstan, says he, 'For the Lord's sake, what kind of a village is that I've just went through? Be they all fools there?'
 
“Hogshead was scairt to death whenever he come to see Lovice. One night, when he 'd been there once, and she 'd hid, as she always done, he come back a second time, and she went to the door, not mistrusting it was him. 'Did you forget anything?' says she, sparkling out at him through a little crack. He was all taken aback by seeing her, and he stammered⁵² out, 'Yes, I forgot my han'k'chief; but it don't make no odds⁵³, for I didn't pay out but fifteen cents for it two year ago, and I don't make no use of it 'ceptins to wipe my nose on.' How we did laugh over that! Well, he had a conviction of sin pretty soon afterwards, and p'r'aps it helped his head some; at any rate he quit farming, and become a Bullockite preacher.
 
“It seems odd, when Lovice wa'n't a perfessor herself, she should have drawed the most pious⁵⁴ young men in the village, but she did: she had good Orthodox beaux, Free and Close Baptists, Millerites and Adventists, all on her string together; she even had one Cochranite, though the sect⁵⁵ had mostly died out. But when Reuben Granger come home, a full-feathered-out minister, he seemed to strike her fancy as he never had before, though they were always good friends from children. He had light hair and blue eyes and fair skin (his business being under cover kep' him bleached⁵⁶ out), and he and Lovey made the prettiest couple you ever see; for she was dark complected, and her cheeks no otherways than scarlit the whole durin' time. She had a change of heart that winter; in fact she had two of 'em, for she changed hers for Reuben's, and found a hope at the same time. 'T was a good honest conversion⁵⁷, too, though she did say to me she was afraid that if Reuben hadn't taught her what love was or might be, she 'd never have found out enough about it to love God as she 'd ought to.
 
“There, I've begun both roses, and hers is 'bout⁴⁵ finished. I sha'n't have more 'n enough white alapaca. It's lucky the moths spared one breadth of the wedding dresses; we was married on the same day, you know, and dressed just alike. Jot wa'n't quite ready to be married, for he wa'n't any more forehanded 'bout that than he was 'bout other things; but I told him Lovey and I had kept up with each other from the start, and he 'd got to fall into line or drop out o' the percession.—Now what next?”
 
“Wasn't there anybody at the wedding but you and Lovice?” asked Priscilla, with an amused smile.
 
“Land, yes! The meeting-house was cram⁵⁹ jam full. Oh, to be sure! I know what you 're driving at! Well, I have to laugh to think I should have forgot the husbands! They'll have to be worked into the story, certain; but it'll be consid'able of a chore, for I can't make flowers out of coat and pants stuff, and there ain't any more flowers on this branch anyway.”
 
Diadema sat for a few minutes in rapt thought, and then made a sudden inspired dash upstairs, where Miss Hollis presently heard her rummaging⁶⁰ in an old chest. She soon came down, triumphant⁶¹.
 
“Wa'n't it a providence⁶² I saved Jot's and Reuben's wedding ties! And here they are,—one yellow and green mixed, and one brown. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to draw in a butterfly hovering⁶³ over them two roses, and make it out of the neckties,—............