"Oh, yes, I know, I know just what to do--it came to me in a flash!"
exclaimed the singer lady with pink-cheeked enthusiasm over the
inspiration that had risen from the depths at the call of Mrs. Pratt
and brought her up to the surface of life with it for a moment anyway.
"I saw a wedding once in rural England. All the children in the village
in a double line along the path to the church, each with baskets of
flowers from which they threw posies in front of the bride as she came
by them! Let's get all the children together and mix them up and let
them stand along the walk to the church door. It will just make a
beautiful picture with no--no thought of--of who belongs to anybody.
Everybody from Pattie and Buck down to little Bettie and Martin Luther!
Won't it be lovely? I can show them just how to march, down the road
with their baskets in their arms, and Mrs. Pratt, you can come from
your house with the Deacon and Mr. Hoover can come out of the back of
the store--with--with, who is going to be his groomsman?"
"Lawsy me, I hadn't thought of that," answered the widow. "I'll tell
you, Mr. Pratt's brother is coming over from Bolivar to the wedding,
and as he is a-going to be a kinder relation in law by two marriages
with Mr. Hoover, I think it would be nice to ask him."
"Er--yes," assented the singer lady, controlling a desire to smile at
this mix-up of the bride's present and past relations to life. "The
little girls ought to have white dresses and the boys--well, what could
the little boys wear?" Miss Wingate felt reasonably sure that white
dresses for all the feminine youth of Providence would be forthcoming,
but she hesitated at suggesting a costume for the small boys.
"Yes, all the little girls have got white dresses and ribbons and
fixings, but dressing up a herd of boys is another thing," answered
Mother Mayberry. "If just blue jeans britches could be made to do we
might make out to get the top of them rigged out in a white shirt
apiece; couldn't we, Bettie?"
"That we can," answered the bride heartily. "Give me a good day at the
sewing-machine, with somebody to cut and somebody to baste, and I will
get 'em all turned out by sundown. But they feet! Mis' Mayberry, could
we get Jem into shoes, do you reckon? About how many bad stumped toes
is they in Providence now?"
"Well," answered Mother Mayberry reflectively, "I don't know about but
two, but we can ask 'Liza Pike. Thank you for your plan, honey-bird,
and we're a-going to put it through so as to be a credit to you.
Children are sorter going out of style these days and I'm proud to make
a show of our'n. Women's leaving babies outen they calculations is
kinder like cutting buds offen the tree of life, and I'm glad no sech
fashion have struck Harpeth Hills yet."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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