Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1883 — The Crazy Quilt Craze. [ARTICLE]

The Crazy Quilt Craze.

A number of gentlemen sat in the Plankington house reading-room, when a man came in apparently very much agitated. “What’s the matter?” asked an acquaintance. “Matter? Well, I should say there was matter enough. I don’t expect to get out of Milwaukee with a whole suit of clothes. It fact everything I’ve got on begins to look like the remnants of an antiquated porous plaster. Never had any experience with a lot of ladies who have got an attack of crazy bed-quilt? Of course not. I might have known better than to have asked, as it never strikes any but good-looking old bachelors like myself. When a man has been there once he is satisfied, unless he is a hog. The reason they call these new f angled quilts crazy, is because everybody for twelve miles around a house where one of ’em is started is set crazy b y the lady demanding a piece of silk. Tonight I thought I’d go out to see some ladies, old friends. I hadn’t more than got into the door, before one of them, with a pair of scissors in her hand, sn itched my hat and made a dive for the lining. She got left. She handed the hat back with a disappointed look, as she realized that somebody had got in their work ahead of her. Why do I keep my coat buttoned up to my chin? Well, when she found the lining of the hat gone made a dive for my neck scarf. There’s nothing left but the collar-button and a piece of the scarf about the size of a 10-cent piece.” The man-who-had-been-there then took out his silk handkerchief to blow his nose, but his hand missed the mark as it went through a hole big enough for a cat to jump through. “Well, I’ll be blamed, if those women haven’t carved my blower. They even raided the sleeve lining to my overcoat. In fact I haven’t a whole garment on me. lam crazy, so they’ll have a crazy quilt sure. Why, they get the lining out of every hat they can lay hand onto. It isn’t safe to leave your hat in the hall, if you expect to get it again in as sound condition as when you hung it on the rack. A man who has had any experience feels like taking to the woods every time he sees a lady coming, especially if she looks smiling. It’s not so rough on a man to take his hat lining, but if ever highbuttoned vests go out of style, ninetenths of the young men will have their reputation for sobriety and peacefulness ruined all on account of the dilapidated condition of their neckties, so many samples being cut out of them by the ladies for these crazy quilts. Why they even cut the lining out of a claw-hammer coat! It’s a mighty good thing that bridesmaids go into church first or the grooms coat-tails would look like a ragged signal of distress. There wouldn’t be enough of the lining left by the time he reached the altar to make the tails of his coat hang in any sort pf shape.” And the much-sampled man asked for the key of his room and went to bed to dream how “per eetly lovely” his contributions of silk looked in a crazy quilt.— Peck's Sun.