"Mama, how come y'all wound this green paper 'round my arms?"
"They're tree limbs. And your pointed hat is the tip top of the tree. See?" Mama reached over and set my paper hat farther back on my head. "It's got to sit straight up to look right."
I smoothed out the wrinkles at my elbows and fluffed the leaves across my shoulders. Aunt Vic had told me I looked pretty. I thought so too.
Papa didn't know what to think when he finally walked in and saw me sitting there in my shaggy dress. Mama told me to stand up and turn around so he could take a look at me.
"Good gracious, Bandershanks, you're all diked out here tonight!"
"I'm a Christmas tree, Papa!"
"I believe you are!"
Papa sat down on the front bench by us instead of going over to his Sunday place in the corner, where he always sat with Captain Jones and Uncle Dan and the other men.
I noticed Captain Jones wasn't in the men's corner either. He was standing near the organ talking with the schoolteacher and my big sister Bess. As they talked, Captain Jones kept waving his walking stick toward the stage and the curtain. Every time he spoke, his chin jiggled his beard up and down. His beard, I decided, was even longer and whiter than Grandpa Thad's.
The three stood talking only a minute longer. Then Bess sat down on the organ stool and started looking through her hymnbook. Captain Jones leaned on the teacher as they went slowly up the platform steps. Mister Shepherd had to help Captain Jones get seated in the high-backed chair Brother Milligan used on Preaching Sundays.