Part 30 (2/2)

”Sugar, it's not the mourner's bench, except during protracted Meeting time.”

Mama and I sat down and waited-and waited.

All the school kids, ganged up in the corner behind the stage curtain, were getting noisy. It sounded like fun, but we heard Aunt Vic ask them to please be quiet.

Mama wanted me to be still. ”Quit twisting around, Bandershanks!” she said. ”You'll tear up your costume!”

I hadn't been doing any twisting, except when I slid down to the far end of the bench to watch the folks hang gifts on the tree, or when I looked back to find out who else was coming in the door, or when I turned so I could see everybody sitting behind us. Mama should have known that bit of twisting around wouldn't hurt my walking-tree dress.

Mama turned sideways herself to see what Ginger was gonna do, as he kept trotting up and down the aisle. She said he was trying to find Aunt Vic.

Instead of looking behind the curtain, Ginger kept going down to the bench where he sat by Aunt Vic on Sundays. Finally he gave up his looking and his trotting and lay down by the wood box.

I stretched both my arms out straight.

”Mama, how come y'all wound this green paper 'round my arms?”

”They're tree limbs. And your pointed hat is the tip top of the tree. See?” Mama reached over and set my paper hat farther back on my head. ”It's got to sit straight up to look right.”

I smoothed out the wrinkles at my elbows and fluffed the leaves across my shoulders. Aunt Vic had told me I looked pretty.

I thought so too.

Papa didn't know what to think when he finally walked in and saw me sitting there in my s.h.a.ggy dress. Mama told me to stand up and turn around so he could take a look at me.

”Good gracious, Bandershanks, you're all diked out here tonight!”

”I'm a Christmas tree, Papa!”

”I believe you are!”

Papa sat down on the front bench by us instead of going over to his Sunday place in the corner, where he always sat with Captain Jones and Uncle Dan and the other men.

I noticed Captain Jones wasn't in the men's corner either. He was standing near the organ talking with the schoolteacher and my big sister Bess. As they talked, Captain Jones kept waving his walking stick toward the stage and the curtain. Every time he spoke, his chin jiggled his beard up and down. His beard, I decided, was even longer and whiter than Grandpa Thad's.

The three stood talking only a minute longer. Then Bess sat down on the organ stool and started looking through her hymnbook.

Captain Jones leaned on the teacher as they went slowly up the platform steps. Mister Shepherd had to help Captain Jones get seated in the high-backed chair Brother Milligan used on Preaching Sundays.

”My, Nannie, what a crowd!” Papa had turned to look over the church.

”Seems like everybody in the settlement is here, yet I see folks are still coming in.”

”I'm afraid Doctor Elton won't make it. He said when he pa.s.sed the store that there's a regular outbreak of influenza down below the State Line Road.”

”I hope and pray it don't spread up here!” Mama pulled her cape closer around her shoulders. ”Wind must be rising. Every time that front door opens, I feel it.”

”Yeah,” Papa told her, ”the wind has come up. A pretty night, though. Stars out. The moon full. Perfect for Christmas Eve.”

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