But no, Mrs. Decker was resolved; she could not let them go unless Nettie would go with them and bring them home. "I let one child run the streets," she said with a heavy sigh, "and I have lived to most wish he had died when he was a baby, before I did it; and I said then I would never let another one go out of my sight as long as I had control; I can't go; but I would just as soon they would be with you as with me; and unless you go, they can't stir a step, and that's the whole of it." Mrs. Decker was a very determined woman when she set out to be; and Nettie looked the picture of dismay. It did not seem possible to her to go to a flower party; and on the other hand it seemed really dreadful to thwart Miss Sherrill. Jerry sat listening, saying little, but the word he put in now and then, was on Mrs. Decker's side; he owned to himself that he never so entirely approved of her as at that moment. He wanted Nettie to go to the flower party.
"But I have nothing to wear?" said Nettie, blushing, and almost weeping.
"Nothing to wear!" repeated Mrs. Decker in honest astonishment. "Why, what do you wear on Sundays, I should like to know? I'm sure you look as neat and nice as any girl I ever saw, in your gingham. I was watching you last Sunday and thinking how pretty it was."
"Yes; but, mother, they all wear white at such places; and I cut up my white dress, you know, for the little girls; it was rather short for me anyway; but I should feel queer in any other color."
"O, well," said Mrs. Decker in some irritation, "if they go to such places to show their clothes, why, I suppose you must stay at home, if you have none that you want to show. I thought, being it was a church, it didn't matter, so you were neat and clean; but churches are like everything else, it seems, places for show."
Jerry looked grave disapproval at Nettie, but she felt injured and could have cried. Was it fair to accuse her of going to church to show her clothes, or of being over-particular, when she went every Sunday in a blue and white gingham such as no other girl in her class would wear even to school? This was not church, it was a party. It was hard that she must be blamed for pride, when she was only too glad to stay at home from it.
"I can't go in my blue dress, and that is the whole of it," she said at last, a good deal of decision in her voice.
"Very well," said Mrs Decker. "Then we'll say no more about it; as for the little girls going without you, they sha'n't do it. When I set my foot down, it's down."
Jerry instinctively looked down at her foot as she spoke. It was a good-sized one, and looked as though it could set firmly on any question on which it was put. His heart began to fail him; the flower party and certain things which he hoped to accomplish thereby, were fading. He took refuge with Mrs. Smith to hide his disappointment, and also to learn wisdom about this matter of dress.
"Do clothes make such a very great difference to girls?" was his first question.