The Moffat Museum (12 page)

While people stood around and talked and ate some of the good things, Sylvie disappeared into the little room by the kitchen and changed her clothes. She put on her periwinkle blue suit. Mama was in there helping her, and she put the wedding dress in Joey's long-pants suit box. Mama kissed Sylvie good-bye and she kissed Ray, and Sylvie and Ray slipped away.

Mama joined Rufus and Jane and Joey, and they went outside. Someone had written JUST MARRIED in white chalk on Sam Doody's car. Others had tied pink-and-white crepe-paper streamers to the back. Sylvie and Ray stepped into the back seat. Ray had Sylvie's little brown satchel, and he put that on the front seat with Sam.

Mama and Jane and Joey and Rufus stood beside the car. People rushed out of the Parish House to say good-bye and to wave! Just in time, Jane remembered the little candy bag filled with the Nellie B. Buckle red rose petals. She handed them to Sylvie, said they were special petals from a rosebush in the oldest inhabitant's garden. Sylvie

tucked them in the brim of her hat. "Thank him! Tell him I'll save them always!" she cried, for now she was really crying a little.

"Write to me! Write to me! The petals were so lovely ... beautiful ... thank you all!" She blew a kiss to Joey, who was standing a little apart. "My big little giver-away-of-the-bride brother! Good-bye!" she called out to him loudly, for Sam Doody was cranking up the car now. With a shudder the engine caught on, and slowly the car started up.

Then many of the ladies of Ashbellows Place who had brought little bags of petals for this very moment threw them at the bride and groom. So off they went in a shower of petals caught in the breeze and seeming to scamper after the car as it went slowly down the street.

"Much nicer than throwing rice," said Judge Bell. "I always thought, my, what a terrible waste! Throwing away good rice with so many people starving in the world ... everywhere..."

Sam drove slowly so people could follow them down Church Street to the corner, crying, "Good-bye! Good-bye! Happiness always..."

Then Sam turned to the left onto Campbell Avenue, and with much tooting and honking he drove down the avenue on the way to the Cranbury depot to catch the three-fifteen train to New York City.

People began to drift away. Some children were scooping up the new shower of petals. "To make a bed for my dolly..." said Noonie Bell. Her hat had been found. It had fallen on the baptismal font, but not in it.

More and more people, after shaking hands with Mama and Joey, telling Jane how pretty she looked, left. Soon all had left.

Now, just Mama and Rufus and Joey and Jane were standing alone at the curb. Joey went into the Parish House to get Sylvie's wedding dress and quickly came back to stand with his family. They were straining their necks for one last glimpse of Sylvie that they might get when Sam drove past the White Church on the Green.

They did see her! Sam Doody honked his horn loudly to show that Sylvie and Ray had seen Mama and all of them, too. Then he stepped on the gas, and now they were out of sight.

The Moffats stayed for a few minutes longer, slowly letting their waving arms drop to their sides. Then quietly they walked across the Green and went home. They were trying to get used to the idea that Sylvie had really left home. No one said a word.

In the house, Jane took her flower-girl hat off right away. But she kept her pink dress on. Mama took her hat off, too. But she kept her pretty dress on, too. There were still petals in her hair and in Jane's.

The boys had disappeared upstairs as fast as possible to change into their khaki shorts. Maybe Mr. Price would get the hose out later and cool them off?

Mama and Jane didn't know what to do. They just sat. And the wedding seemed like a dream.

The wonderful long days of summer were slipping by with swimming, hiking up the Sleeping Giant, picnics up on Peter's Rock in Montowese or at Lighthouse Point, just walking around town looking for things for The Moffat Museum, or just plain seeing the sights: fireworks on the Green or over the Long Island Sound in Savin Rock. There were so many things to do in Savin Rock, especially to hear the famous band of John Philip Sousa on some Sunday afternoons. Sometimes even Mama went to hear Sousa, too.

But now Jane was going to see some sights somewhere else. A little while ago Mama had said, "Jane, how would you like to take a little trip? Go down to New Rochelle and visit Sylvie and Ray, see the pretty little house they live in, and the little wooden church where Ray is the minister. See all the sights around their town: the woods, the brooks, the river, the amusement park at Rye Beach, not far away from them."

"O-o-oh!" cried Jane. "And how would I get there?"

"On the train," said Mama. "All by yourself. Tomorrow."

"Me? On the train? All by myself?" asked Jane. "Tomorrow?"

"Uh-hm-m," said Mama. "All by yourself and stay for a whole week. Sylvie is lonesome and wants to see her little sister."

"Just me?" repeated Jane.

"Uh-hm-m," said Mama. "Just you this time. Another time the boys will go, when Joey is not so busy as he is now. It's nice at Sylvie's. You'll like it. You know how much I loved my visit there."

"And I cooked the dinner here that night," said Jane.

"Yes," said Mama. "Sylvie and Ray now have a car, exactly like Sam Doody's. They call it Wheezy. Takes it quite a while to get going, lots of cranking ups, but then it catches its breath and away you go for a little joy ride!"

"Oh, my!" said Jane.

Mama said, "They might meet you at the station in Wheezy. But if not, you take a trolley marked 'South Third Street,' even though it will be going north. Coming back to the station, it
will
be coming south. See?"

"Confusing!" said Jane.

She went outdoors in a daze and climbed up on Mrs. Price's fence to think this trip over, to get it straight in her mind. Tomorrow! Sylvie had sent the money for her train tickets. It had just come. Mama showed it to her. It was true.

Jane was excited. She wished Nancy were home so she could tell her, discuss this amazing event with her. But Nancy was still away in Maine. If she were here, she would rehearse with Jane all steps of the journey. Nancy had once gone all by herself to Camp Minnetonka ... train, horse-and-wagon, what-all...

Anyway, Mrs. Price's high fence was a good place for her to rehearse by herself all stages of the coming journey.
First,
she told herself. Ah, but then, what luck! At that moment Mrs. Price came out of her back door with a large wicker basket filled with wet clothes. Maybe she would be interested and would discuss a trip like this with Jane?

Tomorrow! Jane thought that when you went on a trip, you ought to pack at least one whole week in advance. She'd talk this over with Mrs. Price. Mrs. Price had told her how to cook the dinner that time when Mama went away for the day. She was always helping. The trip could be like a lesson in geography. You get on a train that goes west. You get off at New Rochelle. You get on a trolley marked South Third Street, but it will be going north. Coming back to the station, vice versa, still marked South Third Street, but really coming south now, coming back to the New Rochelle railroad station.

Jane wondered if Mrs. Price was good in geography. As for her, Jane, she got an A on her report card every month in geography. She could still remember, even though it was vacation time, where the Housatonic River rose and where it ended up. In Long Island Sound!

She studied Mrs, Price, who plumped her basket of wet clothes on the grass and made ready to hang them up. She wore an apron, blue-checked like Mama's, but her apron had a big pocket in front to hold the clothespins. So Mrs. Price's apron was really more like the dandelion lady's apron. Mrs. Price, for the fun of it, if she wanted to, could go up and down Ashbellows Place and dig up dandelion plants and pretend she was the dandelion lady herself grown skinny.

Mrs. Price didn't do that. She put one of her clothespins in her mouth, ready for when she needed it. It might be thought of as the beginner, that clothespin, a captain clothespin.

Mrs. Price did not notice Jane sitting up there on the fence watching her. She must have thought she was alone in the whole world, for when she didn't have a clothespin in her mouth, she said something out loud, nodded her head, and answered it, whatever it was. She seemed to agree with everything she was saying. There were no frowns or angry shakes of her head. She was in a good mood, enjoying herself.

But,
thought Jane,
maybe she is lonesome, talking to herself that way, laughing, nodding her head as though she has an imaginary companion and they are sharing a joke or some new piece of news. Maybe she'd like a real live companion, like me. Maybe she would like to hear about the plan of my trip tomorrow, first train, then trolley, then walk. Maybe she would like to pretend that she is the teacher and I am a member of her class in geography. Or maybe it should be vice versa, me be the teacher, she a member of the class. We'll see how it goes. I'll start from the beginning,
thought Jane,
and talk fast before she reaches the far end of the clothesline.

Jane said, "Hello, Mrs. Price!"

It was lucky it wasn't vice versa here, for had Mrs. Price been the one sitting on the fence, she might have fallen off. She was that much taken by surprise to hear a human voice when all along she had thought no one else was around.

"You sittin' on the fence there, Jane, and I never knew it," she said. She gave a friendly nod, put her clothespin back in her mouth, and smiled on one side of her mouth. It had to be a crooked smile with that clothespin there.

"I'm going on a trip tomorrow," said Jane. "A train trip!"

Mrs. Price nodded her head up and down and raised her eyebrows, indicating she had absorbed that piece of information and what next?

"All by myself," said Jane.

Mrs. Price opened her eyes wide and looked Jane straight in the face. She raised her eyebrows again, and this seemed to ask the question "Where?"

"I'll tell you," said Jane. "But, Mrs. Price, would you like to pretend you are my teacher and that you call on me in geography class and you ask me this question, 'How do you get from Cranbury, Connecticut—Twelve Ashbellows Place, to be exact—to a little town in New York named New Rochelle—Five-oh-nine South Third Street, to be exact.' And then I would tell you and maybe you would give me an A for giving the right answer?"

Mrs. Price nodded.

Jane persisted. "This could be like a rehearsal, you know."

Mrs. Price nodded again. "Let the rehearsal begin!" she said. This time her captain clothespin fell out of her mouth, but landed neatly in the pouch pocket of her apron. She fished it out.
She likes that one,
thought Jane, and Mrs. Price chewed on it the way a man chews on a cigar.

"All right," said Jane. "Now, I'll begin the rehearsal, the story from the beginning, the way it is supposed to happen anyway. All the steps of the journey."

"First," prompted Mrs. Price.

"First," said Jane, "Joey is going to ride me on the crossbar of his bike from Twelve Ashbellows Place to the Cranbury depot."

"Don't need to know much geography to know where that depot is," said Mrs. Price with a laugh. "You get an A so far."

Jane laughed, too. "No," she said. "Well, once there, I am to catch the eight-fifteen train to New York. The eight-fifteen is not the Bankers' Express. That important train does not stop in Cranbury."

"Cranbury is important," objected Mrs. Price.

"Yes, but not to bankers," said Jane. "But, remember this, Mrs. Price. I am not a banker going to New York. I am a girl going to New Rochelle!"

"Sounds like a cheese!" observed Mrs. Price.

"Yes," agreed Jane. "Sounds like a cheese. But I must take the eight-fifteen and not make a mistake and take a train that doesn't stop there, because Sylvie and Ray Abbot live there now, and I don't want to be on a train that goes whizzing by their New Rochelle depot and land in New York with the bankers."

"Right!" said Mrs. Price.

"
My
train, the eight-fifteen, stops everywhere all along the way from here to New York City, every possible place between here and New Rochelle."