CHAPTER XV
GERTRUDE CHANGES HER NAME
The Club had been prominent figures at Mrs. Schuler's wedding, but that was a very small affair at home, and Miss Gertrude's was to be in the church with a reception afterwards at Dorothy's house. The Club felt that they wanted to do every bit of the work that they could, not only because they loved Miss Gertrude but because she was going to marry the brother of two of the Club members. She had said that she would like to have the church decorated with wild flowers so that she might take away with her the remembrance of the blossoms that she had seen and loved in the Rosemont fields.
The Club held a special meeting to talk over their plans for the wedding. It was at Rose House, for they had become accustomed to meeting there during the summer, when every moment could be utilized for work on something connected with the furnishing of the house while at the same time they could talk as they hammered and measured and screwed and sewed. They were gathered under the tree where the squirrel lived. As they established themselves, he was sitting on a branch above them, twitching his tail and making ready for a descent to search for cookies in their pockets.
Helen called the meeting to order and told them what Miss Gertrude had said about the decorations.
"Has any one any suggestions?" she asked.
"Shall we have all the different kinds of flowers we can find or select one kind?" asked Ethel Brown.
"We can get goldenrod and asters now."
"And cardinals and cat-tails."
"And 'old-maids'."
"And hollyhocks."
"Nobody has said 'Queen Anne's Lace.' I think that's the prettiest of all," urged Ethel Blue. "Wouldn't it be delicate and fairy-like if we trimmed the whole church with it!"
"O, Ethel, I see it in a flash!" cried Delia. "Not banked heavily anywhere, but always in feathery masses."
"On the altar and winding the chancel rail."
"A cluster on the end of each pew."
"Long garlands instead of ribbons to close the ends of the pews."
"An arch about half way up the aisle."
The whole scene grew on them as they talked and they waxed enthusiastic over the details. They had learned that flowers to be used for decoration should be picked the day beforehand and placed in water over night so that the moisture should have time to force itself into the stalks and to drive away the first wilting. They decided to gather all the Queen Anne's Lace that they could find in all Rosemont, accepting the help of all the children who had asked if they might help.
Mrs. Smith was building a new house, and Dorothy and the Ethels had planted a flower garden on the new lot although the house was not yet done. They had arranged to have a succession of pink blossoms. For fear it would not turn out well because they had not been able to have the soil put in as good condition as they wanted on account of the disturbed state of the place with workmen constantly crossing, they had tried another pink garden at Rose House, and the Ethels had planted still another bed in their own yard.
"Among them all I should think we ought to find enough, if all the blossoms don't take it into their heads to fall off the very day before," said Ethel Brown gloomily.
"Don't talk that way!" insisted Ethel Blue. "We'll find lots of pink flowers and Aunt Louise's drawing-room will look lovely."
"We can put some of the feathery white with it."
"And we must find some soft green somewhere. The coloring of the room is so delicate that the pink and white effect will be charming," and Helen leaned back against the tree trunk with a satisfied smile.
"The next point is that Aunt Louise says she'd be very glad if we'd all assist at the reception just as we do at Mother's teas--handing things to eat and being nice to people."
They all nodded their understanding of their duties.
"Are all of you girls going to be dressed alike?" asked Tom.
"No, sir. Delia is to be maid of honor. She's to wear the most delicate shade of pink you can imagine. The Ethels are to have a shade that is just a wee bit darker, and Margaret and I are to come last--"
"Being the tallest."
"--wearing real rose-colored frocks. It's going to be beautiful."
"I can easily believe it," declared James, making an attempt at a bow that was defeated by the fact that he was lying on his back and found the exploit too difficult to achieve. "I also seem to see you flitting around the house under those pink decorations. You'll run the bride hard."
"Edward won't think so," laughed Tom. "Now what are we going to give to Gertrude--"
"Hear him say 'Gertrude'," said Ethel Blue under her breath.
"She asked us to. Of course we call her by her name. She's going to be our sister."
The Ethels looked quite depressed, for calling Miss Gertrude by her first name was a privilege they knew they never should have.
"I was inquiring what we're going to give Gertrude as a Club. We Watkinses are going to give her something as a family, and Delia and I have each picked out a special present from us ourselves--"
"That's the way we're doing," came from the Mortons.
"--but I think it would be nice to give her something from the whole of us, because if it hadn't been for the Club and the Club baby she wouldn't have come here at all."
"Let's put our colossal intellects on it," urged Roger.
"If we could think of something that no one else would give her--"
"And that would remind her of us and the things the Club does."
"The Club makes furniture," laughed Roger, "but I shouldn't suggest that we repeat our latest triumph and give her a sideboard made of old boxes."
They all roared, but James came up with a serious expression after a roll that took him some distance away from his friends.
"Boxes am ree-diculous," he remarked, "but furniture isn't. Isn't there some piece of furniture that they'd like better than anything else we could give them?"
"I've got an idea," announced Roger.
"Quick, quick; catch it!" and Tom tossed over his cap to hold any notions that might trickle away from the main mass.
"Since we've been doing this furniture making for Rose House I've spent a good deal of time in the carpenter shop on Main Street. You know it belongs to the son of those old people down by the bridge, Mr. and Mrs. Atwood."
"The ones we gave a 'show' for?" asked Delia.
"The same people. The son was pleased at our going there and he hasn't minded my fooling round his place and he's given me a lot of points. He makes good furniture himself."
"As good as yours?" asked James dryly.
"Go on!" retorted Roger. "He's a real joiner rather than a carpenter, but there isn't any chance for a joiner in a town like Rosemont, so he does any kind of carpentering."
"Go ahead, Roger. We don't care for the gentleman's biography."
"Yes, you do; it has some bearing on what I'm going to propose."
"Let her shoot, then."
"Mr. Atwood has a whole heap of splendid mahogany planks in his shop. I came across them one day and asked him about them. He's been collecting them a long time and they're splendidly seasoned and he's just waiting for a chance to make them into something."
"A light begins to break. We'll have him make our present. Are you sure he'll make it well enough? It's got to be a crackerjack to be suitable for Miss Gertrude."
"This is what I thought. The doctor and Miss Gertrude both like open bookcases. I heard them say once they liked to be able to take out a book without having to bother with a door."
"Me, too," agreed Margaret. "And I never could see the use of a back."
"That's what I say," said Helen. "I'd rather dust the books more carefully and not have the extra weight added to the bookcase."
"You know the furniture they call 'knockdown'?"
Everybody nodded. They had all become familiar with various makes of furniture since their attention had been called to the subject by their summer's interests.
"I think Mr. Atwood can make us a bookcase that will consist of two upright end pieces with holes through them where each shelf is to go. The shelves will have two extensions on each end that will go through these square holes and they will be held in place by wedges driven through these extensions on the outside of the uprights. Get me?"
They all said they did.
"That's all there is to the bookcase. It can be taken to pieces in ten minutes and packed flat and shipped from Rosemont to Oklahoma with some chance of its reaching there unbroken; and it can be set up in another ten minutes. What do you say?"
There wasn't a dissenting voice, and they were so pleased with the scheme that they went to Mr. Atwood's that very afternoon, looked at the wood, talked over the finish, and left the order. It was so simple that the maker thought that he could have it done before the wedding and he agreed to take it apart and pack it for shipment so that there would be no danger of its not making its journey safely.
The wedding day was a trifle too warm, Dorothy thought as she gazed out early in the morning and considered the flowers that must be set in place several hours before the time when they were to be seen.
"We must take care not to have them look like those dandelions in the book wedding that began so joyously and ended all in a wizzle," she murmured, and she was more than ever glad that they had taken the precaution to pick them the day before and have them in water.
By early afternoon all was in readiness and the girls were resting. Miss Gertrude had not been allowed to help but had stayed quietly in her room.
The wedding was at half past four, and at that hour the little church, which looked perfectly lovely in the opinion of the decorators, was pleasantly filled with murmuring groups of Rosemont people, who agreed that the feathery decorations proved yet another plume in the caps of the Club members, and of New York people who gazed at the modest country chapel and found it charming.
There was a happy brrrr of pleasant comment while the organ played softly. Roger and James were two of the ushers. Friends of Edward's, young doctors, were the other two.
As the organ broke into the Lohengrin march and Edward, with Tom for his best man, appeared at the chancel, Gertrude came down the aisle from the other end of the church. She wore a simple white trailing dress of soft silk, clasped at the breast with the ancient brilliant-framed miniature of another Gertrude Merriam. A pearl pendant, a gift from Ayleesabet, hung from her neck. On her ungloved right hand the older Gertrude Merriam's ring blazed beside Edward's more modest offering.
The Ethels held each others' hands as they stood behind the bride, wreaths of Queen Anne's Lace over their arms, and a delicate blossom or two tucked under a pale blue ribbon in each filmy white hat. It seemed but a moment to them and it was all over and Miss Gertrude was no longer "Miss Gertrude" but "Mrs. Edward." The doctor seemed to have put on new dignity and the girls found themselves wondering if they should ever call him "Edward" again.
Gertrude swept by them with her eyes full of happiness, but when she reached the back of the church she gave a lovely smile to the women and children of Rose House seated in the last pews.
"I want every one to see my lovely presents," Miss Gertrude had said, so the guests exclaimed over the pretty things grouped in the library.
It was all simple and happy, and a bit of pathos at the end of the afternoon brought no depression. Gertrude was just about to go upstairs to change her dress and she stood with her maids and ushers, around her, exchanging a laughing word or two with them, when a little procession made its way toward her from the dining-room. It consisted of all the women and children from Rose House, dressed in the fresh clothes which the women had made for themselves and the children during the summer. They were all so smiling that they could hardly have been recognized as the forlorn creatures who had come to Rosemont early in July. Each woman held in her hand a centrepiece, embroidered in the characteristic work of her country.
Mrs. Vereshchagin led the way, because she could speak English a little better than the others, but her English failed her when she came face to face with the bride.
"We love you," she said simply, making a sweeping gesture that included the bridegroom and all the U. S. C. members who were standing about. "We give you these embroideries of our lands. We love all of you."
And all the women and children cried in chorus, "We love all of you."