The Moffat Museum (8 page)

By now, Jane had filled all the bags she had with her and had to run home for more bags and to store the filled-up ones on Rufus's shelf.

Then back she went to the next house. "Such a sweet girl, and so bright, and to be marrying the curate, the curate of the church! And she, so young!"

Jane heard that many times. Now she crossed the street to the home of her friend, Mr. Buckle. His daughter, when she heard Jane's request, seemed reluctant. She liked Jane. Her father liked Jane and played double solitaire with her. She was not a mean lady like Mrs. Mudge.

But it came out. The reason she didn't want Jane to gather her rose petals was she saved them herself. Not for anybody's wedding, but to put them in little jars along with various spices and herbs. By Christmas she had made potpourris out of these, tied ribbons around the top, and so always had something special to give away for presents.

"Oh, dear!" said Jane. "Excuse me! I didn't know about potpourris. I won't take one single petal, I promise," and she backed down the steps. Now Jane began to worry. Supposing all the ladies on the block had really secretly wanted to save their petals and make potpourris, too? Instead, they had given them to her, not to seem stingy. She hadn't thought about potpourris for Christmas when it was June now. And she wasn't sure what a potpourri was, anyway. Pots for the poor maybe?

But she felt happier when Mr. Buckle beckoned to her from his porch. She crossed the street. He handed her a little red, white, and blue-striped paper bag that peppermints had come in at the drugstore. It had bright red rose petals in it.

Mr. Buckle opened it up so she could see them well. "The Buckles must be represented," he said. "There are special rose petals in here to shower on Sylvie, or she could keep them as a remembrance, for they are from a special rosebush. Miss Nellie will tell you about it."

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Buckle!" said Jane. She held the little bag in her hand, not dropping it helter-skelter into the big brown one, and just then Miss Nellie Buckle appeared at the front door. She was smiling. "I didn't like having to say no to you, Jane. But Father is right. The rose petals of the Buckles must be represented at the wedding. And another thing. I have written our name on this little bag of petals, for they have fallen from a special rosebush named after me, the Nellie B. Buckle rosebush. This bush was planted right here, in our very own garden, on the occasion of the opening of the Panama Canal, for that happened also to be my birthday. Historic petals! That's why the little bag is labeled."

Jane was stunned. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Buckle and Miss Buckle. Thank you both! My! Panama Canal petals!" And she backed down the walk, waving.

Now Jane was uneasy all over again. Labeling petals!

Thank goodness,
she thought,
nobody else told me to label their petals! When they flutter down, all will get mixed together anyway. Anyone who wants to can say, "Did you see my Mrs. Perkins's rose petals land on the bride? On her wedding veil?" And someone else might say, "You think so? I thought they were mine!
"

Jane decided to put the special little bag of Panama Canal rose petals under Rufus's wax face, where it wouldn't get mixed up with ordinary Ashbellows Place petals. Maybe tomorrow she would wear it inside her flat hat, tuck the little bag over her left ear, handy for whatever she wanted to do with the petals when the time came.

When she came up out of the cellar, there was Sylvie, hot and breathless ... and excited!

"Jane!" she said. "Ray decided we should have a rehearsal for the wedding right now in church. At first we weren't going to have anyone in the wedding ... just him and me and the minister. Then he let me have you in it. Who knows what Ray will think of next! He's sort of excited. That's why the rehearsal. I've been looking all over for you. In the apple tree, on the fences, behind the raspberry bushes! Look at your hands! Look at them! And your face! Scratches all over you! Oh, wash them! Hurry!"

Jane washed her face and hands. Mama didn't put iodine on the scratches because Jane then would have looked worse than ever. She just daubed them with peroxide. It stung a little and fizzled nicely.

Then Jane and Sylvie flew off to the church, where the Reverend Mr. Abbot was pacing, pacing, at the door.

"Ah, at last!" he said in relief. "The Reverend Mr. Gandy is here to tell us what to do and what to say when. Naturally, I, being a minister, already know. But now we have the bride here and the flower girl and myself. But let's see. If we're going to have a flower girl, we ought to have somebody to give the bride away. Not me. I'm not giving her away ever!"

He gave Sylvie a reassuring hug right there in church with the door wide open.

"But," he added, "now the wedding party is growing ... flower girl ... Maybe we should have a 'giver-away' of the bride. Whoever that may be should be here, too, along with us, to practice the giving-away of the bride."

"Oh!" said Sylvie. "Who? Could Joey?" she said. "My brother Joey?"

"Joey!" Ray studied the idea. "How old is Joey?"

"Fifteen now. But he will be sixteen in September. And he is taller than I am," said Sylvie.

"I'll ask the rector," Ray said.

Jane thought,
Maybe Sylvie can't get married if they don't let Joey give her away
. Then, what about the rose petals so fresh and sweet and cool in the cellarway?

But, thank goodness! Ray came back from his conference with the Reverend Mr. Gandy, who had looked in the baptism records and said that yes, Joseph Moffat had been baptized almost sixteen years ago, and a few months this side or that side of sixteen should not matter. In his opinion, Joey could be the man who would give his sister away in holy matrimony.

"So," said Ray happily, "hurry home, Jane, and tell Joey to come here as fast as he can on his bike. You can ride on the handlebars. Oh, and tell him to wear long pants. He'll look older then than he does in his knickers. We're pushing in an under-sixteen fellow to be the giver-away of the bride."

"But," said Jane, aghast for Joey, "he doesn't own any long pants!"

"Never mind for now," said Ray. "He can practice in his knickers, pull them down a little at the knees. By tomorrow, I'm sure this problem will be solved. By then he will have long pants. He could probably fit into an old pair of mine. I'm putting on weight!"

As she left the church, Jane thought,
Wait till I tell Joey about the long pants!
She grew pensive when she envisioned how Joey was going to take all of this. The man who giveth his sister away was next in importance to the bride, the groom, and almost the minister, certainly more important than her, just a little flower girl!

She'd put it to him this way. "When you think about it, Joey, isn't it nice that three of the Moffats, Sylvie, Joey, and myself, will be in the wedding?" But Rufus ... well ... Rufus ... well ... petals ... Then an idea about the connection between Rufus and petals began to simmer in her mind.

Now, as she rounded the corner into Ashbellows Place, she spotted her two brothers coming from the other direction. She could tell they were happy. Joey was riding with one hand, holding something carefully in the other, a little polliwog, maybe. Perhaps this one will turn itself into a frog. Rufus was holding something in his tight little fist, but she couldn't guess what. He was on the handlebars.

Jane ran to meet them. "Guess what, Joey!" she said as though a wonderful surprise awaited him. "Guess what! You are going to be in Sylvie's wedding. They weren't going to have anybody in it at first. Then they added me and now you. Isn't that nice?"

No answer from Joey.

"You're going to be the man who 'giveth' his sister away!" Jane added. "How do you like that?"

A terrible cloud settled over Joey's face. He still said nothing.

Jane said pleadingly, "It has to be you, Joey, it has to be you!"

"I'm not giving my sister away," said Joey. "Once a sister, always a sister."

"It's just for the wedding that you give her away. It's part of the wedding, like a play. You have to," said Jane desperately. "They're waiting for us..."

"I'm not old enough," said Joey. "I'm not even sixteen. Get Sam Doody, a friend, a tall friend, who can give sisters away better than me."

"No!" said Jane. "Ray Abbot asked the Reverend Gandy. He said you can be the giver-away because you will be sixteen in September. They like a member of the family, a relative, not a friend, not even a tall friend. Only thing is, you have to wear long pants."

"Well, ha-ha!" said Joey. "That really lets me out. I don't own any long pants. Go away. Ask Sam Doody. Pretend he is a distant relative. He might be for all we know..."

Jane felt near to crying. She visualized Sylvie, Ray Abbot, and Mr. Gandy standing at the door of the church, peering out, scanning all roads, impatient. She said, "Joey, forget Sam Doody. He has to take Mama and other people in the wedding to the church."

Rufus had listened to all this in silence. Then he said calmly, "I'll do it. I'm a brother, a real brother, not a made-up relative from ancient times. Besides"—he laughed—"I own long pants. My sailor suit pants that Mama made for the boys of the Junior Naval Reserve. I was too little to be in that, but she made me a sailor suit, anyway. I can be a midget giver-away of my big sister named Sylvie Moffat."

Jane laughed. Even Joey had to laugh. But Jane said, "Well, Rufus, you really are too little. There's no way out, Joey. We have to hurry. They're there, waitin', hearts pounding..."

"I'll go along with you," said Rufus. "I'll help you, Joey. Do anything you say. Could be worse, you know. Could be you was the one that was getting married. Instead, you're just giving Sylvie away. It's as though it's in the syllable at school."

"Syllabus," corrected Joey.

Rufus continued as though he had not been interrupted. "And I'll stand right beside you and help you hand her over, if you want me to. Sylvie weighs ninety-eight pounds. Between the two of us we can manage."

Joey was silent. Then he said, "What about long pants?"

Jane said, "Ray Abbot says he has a pair of long pants that might fit you ... too snug for him now," she said. "They're probably black. He always wears black."

Joey's gloom deepened. "Black!" he exclaimed.

Rufus said, "Why don't you wear your Junior Reserve Navy uniform? Nice and white and with a middy blouse that has an anchor on it. If the pants are too short, Mama will lengthen 'em. If they're too tight, she'll let 'em out."

Somewhat cheered, Joey said, "Okay."

First they went in the house and put Joey's polliwog in a basin of water. What Rufus had in his fist was a tiny turtle. "To keep the polliwog company," he said cheerfully. "When they're a little older, we'll put them back in the reservoir with their cousins and sisters and brothers, uncles, too."

Then off they rode to the church, Rufus on the handlebars, Jane on the crossbar, and Joey pedaling as fast as he could with this big passenger load. On the way, Jane said, "Rufus, maybe you shouldn't come 'cause you're not in it."

"Church is church!" said Rufus. "Church is always open. I'll go up the winding stairway to the balcony, sit in the front row, watch the proceedings, and be a stand-in (Isn't that what you call them in plays?) in case someone faints. No one will know I'm up there."

And that was what Rufus did. He slipped into church, went up the narrow stairway, and sat down in the middle of the front pew of the balcony.

Sylvie and Ray Abbot were sitting downstairs in the back pew. Their heads were craned toward the door, hoping that the rest of the wedding party would come soon. Meanwhile, they tried to pay attention to what Mr. Gandy in the pew in front was telling them about his latest trip; he was a great traveler. He did not seem impatient. He liked the quiet little chat he was having.

Then he interrupted himself. "Ah..." he said. "Here they are, the rest of the wedding party. Now, we'll commence the rehearsal."

Mrs. Peale, the organist, who had been playing hymns, practicing for both the wedding tomorrow and the Sunday service the day after, fluffed up the red velvet cushion she was sitting on and awaited the cue.

The Reverend Gandy had gone to the front of the church. He held his hand up. The cue. Mrs. Peale burst into "Here Comes the Bride!" and the wedding party proceeded solemnly to the front of the church beside the pulpit, in the formation they would repeat tomorrow.

Too bad,
Joey thought,
that this couldn't be the real thing,
that they would have to do it all over again tomorrow in front of people and him with long pants of some sort or other....

Jane couldn't help it. Tears rolled down her cheeks when the organist played "Here Comes the Bride." It was as though this
were
the real thing. She must be sure to bring a handkerchief tomorrow.

They went through the service very quickly. And as the organist struck up the final triumphant march and the rehearsed wedding party turned to go back down the aisle, Jane thought that this was the moment the strewing of the petals should commence tomorrow.

Right then she spotted Rufus leaning on the railing up there in the balcony in the middle of the front pew. The sun shining through the round stained-glass window behind him cast a golden glow on his curly hair. Indeed, the late afternoon sun spread a lovely luminous glow over the entire church. Suddenly she envisioned clearly just how it would happen tomorrow.

All the bags of petals would be up there with Rufus, some under the pew on one side of him, some on the other. When one bag was emptied, he could reach for another. Rufus, the petal-strewer! Petals falling, falling on Sylvie, the bride, on the procession, on the ministers ... the one doing the marrying, the other one, Ray, the one being married ... on her, Jane, on everybody, and fall onto the aisle so Sylvie would have a soft carpet of rose petals to tread on lightly.

Wait till she told Rufus! And to Sylvie, who of course knew nothing of this, it would be a surprise. How did she look now after the rehearsal? Had she seen Rufus?

No, Sylvie saw nothing. Her face had that radiance on it that Mama called "Sylvie's special glow."