The Moffat Museum (7 page)

Still, you couldn't count on this crafty old cat staying even in that favorite spot for long. So "Don't let her in! Don't let her in!" remained the common warning in the Moffats' house. Even non-Moffats had been alerted to this peril. Mrs. Price would gather her skirt tightly around her ankles lest Catherine ride in on her long petticoat.

Jane laughed aloud as she thought of these funny things about their great old cat. But now here came Sylvie, the bride-to-be, walking up the path in the haphazard sort of lilting gait she had ... like a small wave rippling sideways onto the shore.

"Hi!" she said. She stood in front of Jane and looked at her for a moment. "My little flower-girl sister!" she said. Then she took in a deep breath. "O-o-oh! Smell the roses!"

"Smell my rose," said Jane. She smiled as she watched Sylvie breathe in deeply and long its soft fragrance.

"Ah-h-h-h!" said Sylvie. "How lovely!" She tucked it in her hair.

A gentle breeze blew some petals onto Sylvie. Some of them landed in her curly brown hair, caught together in back with a narrow black velvet ribbon. "My!" she said. She laughed and shook her head. "There's a whole shower of rose petals!"

Then Sylvie went inside to try on her dress, remembering about Catherine and closing the door firmly behind her.

Until now Jane had not really taken in that there would not be many more times when she, sitting here on the porch, would see Sylvie come walking up the path in her pretty lilting way. Maybe never after tomorrow, after her wedding in the little granite church on the Green. Sylvie and Ray were going to move away from Cranbury, live in another town, in another state. The name of the town was New Rochelle. The state, New York.

Jane brushed away some tears. There had always been four of them; now there would be just three.

There came another gentle breeze. More of the fragrant petals floated over the fence and onto her. Suddenly Jane cheered up. "A shower of petals!" That's what Sylvie had said.

"Flower girl!" mused Jane.

So far no one had had time to tell her what she was supposed to do, being the flower girl. Anyway, it was a sort of afterthought, having a flower girl. But Mama had quickly made a dress for her, and she would put that on. Then what? Of course, she had the sense to know she would carry flowers. But what about her hat? Would it stay on? Mama had made her a hat, a special flower-girl hat that she might never wear again and could put in the museum ... tack it on the wall above the middle bear's head.

Jane didn't like this hat. It was a flat hat with roses, not real ones, fake ones, twined around a wire brim that Mama had covered with the same pink voile as her dress.

"How can a flat hat like that stay on my head?" This worried Jane.

Once her friend Nancy Stokes had said, "You know what, Jane? You have a head that is a perfect oval, shaped exactly like an egg!"

"Now," Jane asked the air, "how can a flat hat stay on an egg-shaped head? Can you answer me that?"

Supposing it flew off in church and landed on somebody else's head? The minister's head, the Reverend Mr. Gandy's head, perhaps. It would spoil the wedding. People trying not to laugh! Sylvie, weeping, might flee from the church, not get married, as people chased a flat hat like a hoop up one aisle and down another!

Sylvie should have chosen someone else, a cousin of theirs, any little girl with a head that was flat, to be her flower girl.

This morning, finally, she had mustered up the courage to ask Mama about a flat hat on a round head. "How will it stay on?" she had demanded.

"Don't worry," Mama had said. "You are a pretty girl, and you will be a very pretty flower girl. I'll put an elastic on your hat that will go under your chin. Then your hat will not blow off."

"Your hat will not blow off." Jane repeated these reassuring words to herself now. Even so, she was still worried.

But then, again, the soft summer breeze rustled through the rosebushes and scattered more petals into the air. Jane had moved to the side of the porch near the fence, and now many of the pale pink petals floated down onto her hair, on her eyelashes, in her lap, and even some in her wide open hands.

"A shower of petals!"

All of a sudden the petals gave Jane the answer as to what she, the flower girl, must do. Ah-h! The part she must play as the flower girl was to gather, as Rufus might say, circa MMMMM number of petals and strew them all the way down the aisle from the altar to the door. What a pretty sight that would be! Sylvie in her long white wedding dress lilting her way daintily down the aisle on a soft carpet of rose petals!

"Oh, my!" breathed Jane, dazzled at the thought.

She might need some help. Rufus and Joey might have to help with the strewing.

Jane looked at the petals in her hands. How soft they were! How cool! How fragrant! First, petals had flown into Sylvie's hair, then into her own, calming her fears, telling her what a flower girl must do.

The picture of a petal wedding, a rose-petal wedding, took shape in Jane's mind. Petals in the aisle, petals in the air, petals from somewhere above, fluttering down on Sylvie! She smiled, for she had a plan.

She went indoors ... no sign of Catherine. It must be her snooze time in the sleigh under the rug with the hump. Taking no more than a quick peek into the dining room, where she could scarcely see Sylvie or Mama for the clouds of gauze and lace, she went swiftly though the little green wall-papered parlor and through the kitchen to the back entryway.

Sturdy brown bags from the grocery store were stored here. She took one of these, perfect to put rose petals in; for that is what she was going to do ... fill many, many bags with rose petals. Out the back door she went.

She had to hurry before all the petals that were ready to fall blew away into the clouds. Naturally, she decided to begin next door at Mrs. Price's, for it had been
her
rose petals that had wafted down first on Sylvie and then on her.

Jane stood in front of Mrs. Price's house. Suddenly she felt timid. An idea inside one's head is quite different from putting it into practice. Still, why should she feel timid? Mrs. Price was a very good friend of the Moffats. So was Mr. Price. He showered them with his hose on hot days. Mrs. Price had given the Moffats many things besides Sylvie's easel. What about the little organ in the green parlor?

Bolstering herself with these thoughts, Jane walked up to the front door and rang the bell.
Take courage, Jane,
she told herself.
Courage.
She was so brave, you'd'a' thought she was Nancy Stokes!

When Mrs. Price opened the door, Jane said, "Mrs. Price, your rosebushes are so pretty! But petals are falling off and floating away into the air. Would you mind if I picked up the fallen-off petals?"

Mrs. Price was a little deaf. It had taken a few minutes for her to answer the doorbell. It took longer for her to understand what Jane was asking.

"They, the petals, your petals, would be in Sylvie's wedding tomorrow," Jane explained.

A wide smile spread over Mrs. Price's thin and wrinkled face. She was so delighted that she rushed through the house and out the back door and met Jane at a rosebush. She shook it gently, and a shower of soft pink petals fluttered down. These, plus what were already on the ground,

filled Jane's big brown bag, for they did not press the petals in. They dropped them in as gently as the summer breezes had made them fall.

"We have another rosebush on t'other fence," Mrs. Price said. "They are white ones, very delicate. I'll get another bag." This she did and shook the white rosebush gently, too. So now Jane had two big bags filled with rose petals. "Oh," said Jane. "Don't shake them all off!"

"There'll be more tomorrow," Mrs. Price said cheerfully. "They are at their height."

Mrs. Price wanted to store the bags in her cellar. "It's as cold as Greenland's icy mountains down there," she said. "They will stay fresh there."

But Jane said she and her brothers would have to get to the church very early and Mrs. Price might not be up. "Besides," said Jane, "our cellar is very cool, too. So far, Rufus's waxworks face hasn't melted. It's just a tiny bit out of shape; the mouth seems to be laughing, that's all."

Mrs. Price folded her hands. She smiled. "Yes. You are right. The petals must get to the church on time for Sylvie's wedding!" she exclaimed.

"It's because I am to be the flower girl!" Jane explained. "That's why I need lots of petals."

"Oh, I'll be there. I'm coming to the wedding all right." Mrs. Price gasped with wonderment at the whole idea. "Why, I'll see my rose petals in a wedding! Flowers before, yes! But petals, never!"

"Thank you, thank you!" said Jane as Mrs. Price went indoors, closed the strong oak door to keep the heat out, and made a note in her Line-a-Day book. "Gathered rose petals for Jane Moffat to strew at Sylvie Moffat's wedding tomorrow. Two bags full!" That made her laugh, that "two bags full."

What a wonderful beginning!
Jane thought. She held her two precious bags lightly, not to crush the petals. She went around her house to the back door and put them on the wide and deep shelf where Rufus's waxworks mask lay on a newspaper ... empty eye sockets staring at the dusty wooden beams above.

It was not as cold as Greenland's icy mountains down here, but it seemed cool enough to keep the petals fresh until tomorrow, the great wedding day.

Jane took some more of the sturdy brown grocery bags, and spurred on by Mrs. Price's generous donation and her delight in having her rose petals in a wedding, Jane sauntered up the street. Where next?

Practically every little house on Ashbellows Place had roses of one sort and color or another. Jane decided to ring the doorbell of every house where there were roses. She needed many, many bags of petals to have the church become all a-flutter with them.

There was only one house she decided to skip. There was a lady in that house named Mrs. Mudge, and she did not like children or many grown-ups. She didn't even like an old lady who came in the dandelion season, going from one lawn to the next digging out the dandelion plants with a little trowel. She wore a wide-checked apron that had a huge pouch in front—a kangaroo apron—and she put the dandelion plants in this.

Most people did not mind. "She probably makes dandelion wine," said Mama. "Or maybe cooks and eats the greens."

But Mrs. Mudge did not like the dandelion lady and shooed her away as though she were a chicken.

My!
thought Jane as she skipped past Mrs. Mudge's house.
Wouldn't it have been handy if I had a big kangaroo pouch of an apron to put the petals in?
Still, the big store bags were more sensible, especially when the time came to take them to the church.

She rang the doorbell of the house next to Mrs. Mudge. This lady said, "Of course, Jane. Pick up all the petals on the ground that you want."

"I won't shake the bushes," Jane promised her as she did all the other ladies. All were delighted to think their rose petals would be in a wedding and be showered down onto the bride!

Some of the ladies came out themselves and gave their bushes a little shake as Mrs. Price had done so more loose petals would fall. "They will fall tonight anyway, in the heavy dew," one lady said.