“I don’t have to do that,” Nessa said. “When I was a kid, I came here every summer for a couple of weeks and usually cried myself to sleep every night for weeks when I went back to the Texas Panhandle.”

“Miz Lucy said you’re a teacher,” Jackson said. “Are you planning to look for a job around here?”

“Maybe, but what I’d like to do is make quilts and pick up Nanny Lucy’s business where she left it off,” Nessa said.

“She made a great living that way. We used to go to craft shows together, and we always had a really good time. She would sell whatever she had made up, and she always took along boxes of patterns and quilt pieces already cut out so folks could make their own,” Jackson said.

“When are the fairs?” Nessa asked. “I’m totally new to this thing, but I love to quilt. There’s something both soothing and satisfying about the job.”

“Starting in September, there will be several each weekend. Miz Lucy, Uncle D. J., and I went to the ones closest to home, for the most part, but we always had good sales at one down near Waxahachie, so we tended to go there, even though it meant staying in a hotel overnight,” he said. “Get a couple of quilts made up and some boxes ready, and you can go with me. I’ll show you the ropes.”

“You’d do that for me?” Nessa was amazed.

“Sure, we’re neighbors.” Jackson’s smile lit up the whole porch. “Besides, I’ve never been to a fair by myself, and I’d appreciate the company. I’ve got an enclosed trailer that we use to transport our wares.”

“How many quilts should I have ready to go by the first fair?” Nessa was already doing the math in her head. She had three weeks left in June and the whole months of July and August to work. If she used the time to make a simple pattern and had a few of the more complicated quilts cut out and ready to sell as do-it-yourself projects, she might have a few things to show. She and her mother had made quilted throws for shut-ins and for the members of her dad’s congregation who had moved to nursing homes, and she’d always loved the work.

“That’s up to you,” Jackson said. “Miz Lucy seldom brought anything home from a fair. She sold her quilts for anywhere from six hundred to two thousand, depending on how much detail was in them, and the kits started at two hundred.”

If she sold just two quilts a week and the kits, Nessa thought, she’d be making far more than she ever had teaching.