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while?”
    “Yes, well . . . sorry. I wasn’t trying to horn in.” After an awkward pause, Carrie said, “I’m getting really excited, and so proud of you! It’s a big honor to be chosen as an exhibitor at the War Eagle Fair.”
    “Well, I am a mite proud, but woman, if we keep talking you’ll never get that pot filled. Finish your recipe and come on down.”
    “Yes-um.”
     
    Carrie had seen many of Shirley’s sewing creations and admired them, but she stopped and gasped a squawky “Oh,” when she walked into their dairy farm’s workshop thirty minutes later. The shop floor looked like it had been scrubbed, and Shirley’s display booth mock-up stood in the middle. Chalk lines on the floor marked the size booth she would have at the craft fair, and three walls made of white-painted hog wire stapled to wooden frames outlined that area. A few of Shirley’s baby quilts were already fastened on the wire with wooden clothes pins painted in bright colors. Carrie’s favorite quilt, the cow munching grass, was there, along with a sheep and a red Mack truck. A few small squishy-soft blankets made from polyester fleece were clipped on the wrought iron Christmas card tree Carrie had brought down a few days earlier. A sign near the top of the tree said, “Baby Cuddlys, $35.00.”
    “Wow, these are fabulous,” Carrie said, stroking the fabric.
    Ignoring her comment, Shirley said, “Okay, let’s go to work.” She pointed to a stack of quilts laid on a sheet on the floor. “How can we show off all these different kinds? I’ve got ten of the cows here, shall we start with them?”
    Carrie was still fingering a Baby Cuddly. “This is impossibly soft, but it looks like it will wear longer than Rob’s blankie did. I think every little kid needs one of these. Baby Cuddly . I love the name.”
    “They’re made to last, I don’t do junk. I think most little ones like a blanket to cuddle up to. When I felt of that polyester fleece in the store, I thought how good it would be for babies. I favor the name, too. I registered it in Arkansas. It belongs to me now.”
    “Smart idea. Shirley, what are these loops at the corners for? Look like fat belt loops.”
    “For the baby to chew on or hold to.”
    “You think of everything. Oh, how I wish I had a grandchild.”
    Shirley sighed. “If Junior marries the Tummelton gal I’ll get a ready-made grandson, but her boy is too old for my Cuddlys.”
    “Who says they can’t have more children?”
    “Not me,” Shirley said. “Now, about those quilts. How am I going to show them all off?”
     
    Three hours later Carrie and Shirley were eating chocolate chip cookies and admiring their work. Carrie had made one trip home to check on her stew, which was filling the house with a marvelous smell, and to dig out the box of curtain rings she had tucked away. They were designed to turn flat fabric into curtains, and each ring had a clip attached. Looping the rings through the hog wire and clipping a baby quilt on each one made it possible to layer quilts so people could look through the selection and decide whether they wanted a brown flowered cow, a tan cow with polka-dots, or one with a black and white pattern, much like Roger and Shirley’s real dairy cows. A parade of other animals marched across the back and sides of the hog wire frame, led by red trucks, green trucks, and blue trucks.
    “When Jason brings the wrought-iron plant stands,” Carrie said, “We can use your colored yarn to fasten Baby Cuddlys to the iron scallops that surround the pot platforms. I think I remember a dozen or so of those around each platform, so we can put quite a few Cuddlys there. What are you going to put where the flower pots are supposed to sit, though?”
    “Got a surprise for that,” Shirley said, going to a box in the corner. She pulled out a Teddy bear made from the same polyester fleece as the Cuddlys. I’ll sit a bear in each pot holder.”
    Carrie smiled as she stroked the