“They'll never think to look up here, will they?” said one of the brothers Sherwood anxiously as we peered out along the vista of track. “The pear trees are in the way.”
“We might just step outside the window,” said Barbara resourcefully. “The piazza roof is perfectly safe. Then they couldn't help seeing us.”
Wrapping our best clothes about us, we crept out through the window one by one, and went cautiously along the tin roof to a vantage-point beyond the pear trees. When a company of grown people goes walking on a tin roof, there are moments of shock when the tin bubbles snap and crackle, making a sound nothing short of terrifying, like the reverberations of season-cracks in the ice on a pond. We ranged ourselves in a row near the eaves-pipe, just in time. The train went hooting by. They saw us. We waved the wedding flowers, and they waved back. We saw them laughing. We waved until the end of the train disappeared around the curve. And as we assisted each other politely one by one through the window again, we had a comfortable sensation of having wound up the affair with a finish and completeness that had been lacking after the first farewell.
Still feeling a little uplifted with excitement, we went up the street to report events to our grandmother.
“You mean to say that you went up on to the roof to wave?” said our grandmother.
“Well,” said Barbara thoughtfully, “it didn't seem quite like going up on the roof at the time. It all happened so gradually. We just stepped out.”
“And they saw you?” inquired Grandmother.
“Oh, yes. Nobody could help it. Everybody saw us.” Barbara glowed reminiscently.
“And you waved the wedding flowers?”
“Yes,” said Barbara happily. “Father Sherwood gave us each an armful.”