When they began arranging the house for the wedding, it could be seen that they had been expecting it, and getting ready for a long time. From all the closets, shelves and chests poured heaps of new things. First, the walls were cleaned and some of them freshly papered, then the windows were all washed long before regular housecleaning time, the floors were scrubbed and new carpet put down. Mother had some window blinds that Winfield had brought her from New York in the spring, and she had laid them away; no one knew why, then. We all knew now. When mother was ready to put them up, father had a busy day and couldn't help her, and she was really provoked. She almost cried about it, when Leon rode in bringing the mail, and said Hannah Dover had some exactly like ours at her windows, that her son had sent from Illinois. Father felt badly enough then, for he always did everything he could to help mother to be first with everything; but so she wouldn't blame him, he said crosslike that if she had let him put them up when they came, as he wanted to, she'd have been six months ahead. When they finally got ready to hang the blinds no one knew how they went. They were a beautiful shiny green, plain on one side, and on the other there was a silver border across the bottom and one pink rose as big as a pie plate. Mother had neglected to ask Winfield on which side the rose belonged. Father said from the way the roll ran, it went inside. Mother said they were rolled that way to protect the roses, and that didn't prove anything. Laddie said he would jump on a horse and ride round the section, and see how Hannah Dover had hers, and exactly opposite would be right. Everyone laughed, but no one thought he meant it. Mother had father hold one against the window, and she stepped outside to see if she could tell from there. When she came in she said the flower looked mighty pretty, and she guessed that was the way, so father started hanging them. He had only two up when Laddie came racing down the Big Hill bareback, calling for him to stop. "I tell you that's not right, mother!" he said as he hurried in. "But I went outside and father held one, and it looked real pretty," said mother. "One! Yes!" said Laddie. "But have you stopped to consider how two rows across the house are going to look? Nine big pink roses, with the sun shining on them! Anything funnier than Dovers' front I never saw. And look here!" Laddie picked up a blind. "See this plain back? It's double coated like a glaze. That is so the sun shining through glass won't fade it. The flowers would be gone in a week. They belong inside, mother, sure as you live." "Then when the blinds are rolled to the middle sash in the daytime no one can see them," wailed mother, who was wild about pink roses. "But at night, when they are down, you can put the curtains back enough to let the roses show, and think how pretty they will look then."