Part 6 (1/2)

I ran down into the hall and took up my position in the centre of it; but when I heard the key turn in the latch of the inside door I wanted to run away and hide. I had never felt so beautiful.

My father stopped short when he saw me. 'By the Lord!' he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

'Why, George!'

My mother was on the stairs.

'Well, by the Great Guns then--you're a--a vision, Marty.' I could only grin.

'Here's some more pinkness for you to wear,' he said, producing a long tissue-paper package that he had been holding behind his back. He chuckled as he unwrapped it. 'Twelve, Marty; twelve solid pink carnations. What do you say to 'em? Show your mother.'

I said nothing. I only jiggled on my toes.

'George, dear, what made you? A little child like that can't wear flowers--and they're seventy-five cents a dozen!'

All the chuckle went out of my father's eyes: he looked at me, then at the carnations, then at my mother, just like a little boy who finds that after all he's done the wrong thing. I wanted to run and take his hand; but while I stood, wanting and not daring, my mother had crossed the hall and was putting her arms around his neck.

'They're beautiful, George dear. She can wear three or four of them, anyway. They will make her so happy, and the rest we'll put in her room.

Her room is pink too.'

'So it is.' He kissed my mother and then me. 'Say your piece, Marty--quick! Before we have supper.'

I had learned my piece so thoroughly that the order was like turning on a spigot. Four verses, four lines in each, gushed forth.

My father clapped. 'Now for something to eat,' he said.

Immediately after supper my mother and I set out, leaving my father to shave and come later. It was a cold night with a great many bright stars. At the corner we met Luella and her mother. Luella's mother was carrying over her arm Luella's spring coat, her everyday one, a dark blue reefer.

'Martha ought to have hers along, too,' said my Aunt Emma. 'If the church should be chilly they'll catch their death sitting in thin dresses.'

My mother thought it was probable we would. So I was sent back to hunt for my little reefer. It was like Luella's, dark blue with tarnished gilt anchors on the corners of the sailor collar, and like hers it was second-best and outgrown.

Luella and I parted with our mothers at the door of the Sunday school room.

'Don't forget to take your reefers when you march in,' admonished my Aunt Emma.

'Must we carry them while we march?' I almost wailed.

My mother came to the rescue. 'Hold them down between you and the little girl you march with. Then no one will see.'

'Yes'm.' I was much relieved.

The Sunday school was a hubbub of noise and pink and blue hair-ribbons.

In among the ribbons, and responsible for some of the noise, were close-cropped heads and white collars and very new ties, but you didn't notice them much. There were so many pink and blue ribbons. After a while the room quieted down and we formed in line. Miss Miriam, who even that night wore a black dress and her little gold cross, distributed among us the eight silk banners which, when we weren't marching, always hung on the walls of the Sunday school rooms. There were subdued whispers and last prinkings. Then the piano, which had been moved into the church, gave the signal and we marched in.

We marched with our banners and our pink and blue hair-ribbons up and down the aisles so that all the Mothers-and-Fathers-and-Friends-of-the-School could see us. Whenever we recognized our own special mother or father, we beamed. The marching finally brought us to the pews a.s.signed to our respective cla.s.ses.

Luella's cla.s.s and mine were to sit together that night. I turned round--almost every little girl, after she was seated and had sufficiently smoothed out skirts and sash, turned round--and saw that my mother and aunt were only two pews behind us. I grinned delightedly at them, and they both nodded back. Then I told Luella. After that I settled down.

The church was decorated with ropes of green and with holly wreaths. At either side of the platform was a Christmas tree with bits of cotton-batting scattered over it to represent snow. I had heard that there were to be two Christmas trees, and I had looked forward to a dazzling glitter of colored b.a.l.l.s and tinsel and candles, maybe. The cotton-batting was a little disappointing. It made you feel that it was not a real Christmas tree, but just a church Christmas tree. Church things were seldom real. The Boys Brigade of our church carried interesting-looking cartridge-boxes, that made them look like real soldiers; but when they drilled you found out that the cartridge-boxes were only make-believe. They held Bibles. Still, the cotton-batting did make you think of snow.