Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley Part 31

Mrs. Jenkins lost a finger-nail by an injudicious use of the hammer. Bud sat down in the paint pot, and had to go to bed while his clothes were cleaned. In fact Lily Rose was the only one of the whole family circle to suffer no injury, but the Boarder guided her so tenderly over every part and plank of the Annex that there was no chance for mishap.

When the lathing and plastering were completed, the little bride-elect began to tremble with timidity and happiness at the consciousness of the nearness of her approaching transfer to the Home.

The plan of the Boarder had been to leave the walls rough and unfinished till their settling process should be accomplished, but Amarilly, absorbed heart and soul in this first experience of making a nesting place, pleaded for paper--"quiet, pretty paper with soft colors," she implored, Derry's teachings now beginning to bear fruit in Amarilly's development of the artistic.

"Amarilly, we can't hev everything to onct," he rebuked solemnly. "The paper'll crack as sure as fate, if you put it on now."

"Let it crack!" defied Amarilly. "Then you can put on more. You're away nearly all day, and the rest of us are at work, but if Lily Rose has to sit here all day and look at these white walls that look just like sour bread that hasn't riz"--Derry had not yet discovered this word in Amarilly's vocabulary--"she'll go mad."

"Amarilly," sighed the Boarder, "you'll hev me in the poorhouse yit!"

"Oh, dear!" sighed Amarilly. "I'll have to let you into another secret.

Mr. Meredith is going to give you and Lily Rose a handsome centre-table and an easy-chair. There won't be any surprises left for you by the time the wedding is over, but you're so set, I have to keep giving things away to you."

"That makes me think," remarked the Boarder. "I was going to ask you what I'd orter give the preacher fer marryin' Lily Rose and me. The fireman of Number Six told me he give two dollars when he was spliced, but you see Mr. Meredith is so swell, I'd orter give more."

Amarilly gazed reflectively into s.p.a.ce while she grappled with this proposition.

"Do you know," she said presently, with the rare insight that was her birthright, "I don't think Mr. Meredith would like money--not from you-- for Lily Rose. You see he's a sort of a friend, and you'd better give him a present because money, unless it was a whole lot, wouldn't mean anything to him."

"That's so," admitted the Boarder, "but what kin I give him?"

Amarilly had another moment of thought.

"Make him a bookrack. Mr. Derry will draw you the design, and you can carve it out. You can do it noons after you eat your luncheon, then you won't lose any time building the house."

"That's jest what I'll do. So with the fee saved and the cheer and table out, I kin paper the rooms. You find out what kind Lily Rose wants and help her pick it out."

"She'll choose blue," lamented Amarilly, "and that fades quick."

Lily Rose was easily persuaded to let Derry be consulted. He promptly volunteered to tint the walls, having studied interior decorations at one time in his career. He wrought a marvellous effect in soft grays and browns with bordering graceful vines.

Lily Rose by taking advantage of a bargain sale on suits saved enough from her trousseau to curtain the windows in dainty blue and white muslin.

Derry then diverted the appropriation for an ingrain carpet to an expenditure for sh.e.l.lac and paint with which he showed Amarilly how to do the floors. Some cheap but pretty rugs were selected in place of the carpet.

At last the Annex was ready for painting. Lily Rose wistfully stated that she had always longed to live in a white house, so despite the fact that the Jenkins house proper was a sombre red, the new part was painted white.

"'Twill liven the place up," Amarilly consoled herself, while Colette breathed a sigh of relief that the Annex was not to be entirely conventional.

At Amarilly's suggestion, the woodwork was also painted white.

"Hard to keep clean," warned Amarilly, divided in her trend of practicality and her loyalty to St. John's favorite color. White won.

The moment the paint was dry and the Annex announced "done," the Boarder took Lily Rose to view their prospective domicile. They were unaccompanied by any of the family, but it took the combined efforts of Mrs. Jenkins, Amarilly, and Flamingus, whose recent change in voice and elongation of trousers gave him an air of authority, to prevent a stampede by the younger members.

Lily Rose returned wet-eyed, sweetly smiling, and tremulous of voice, but the Boarder stood erect, proud in his possessions.

Colette vetoed the plan for Amarilly to settle in the absence of the groom and bride.

"If you have it all furnished beforehand," she argued, "there will be just so much more room to entertain in on the night of the wedding."

And then Lily Rose confessed that "she'd love to be 'to hum' in her own place."

"But they won't be furnished," argued Amarilly.

"Oh, yes, they will," a.s.sured Colette. "It's etiquette--" she paused to note Amarilly writing the word down in a little book she carried--"for people to send their presents before they come, and you can settle as fast as they come in."

The wedding gifts all arrived the day before the wedding. The base- burner, though not needed for some months, was set up, because the Boarder said he would not feel at home until he could put his feet on his own hearth. John Meredith sent an oaken library table and an easy-chair. Derry's offering was in the shape of a beautiful picture and a vase for the table.

The best man, who fortunately had appealed to Amarilly for guidance, gave a couch. The Jenkins family, a.s.sessed in proportion to their respective incomes, provided a bedroom set. Lily Rose's landlady sent a willow rocker; the girl friends at the factory a gilt clock; the railroad hands, six silver spoons and an equal number of forks. Lily Rose's Sunday-school teacher presented a lamp. A heterogeneous a.s.sortment of articles came from the neighbors.

These presents were all arranged in the new rooms by Lily Rose, and the elegance of the new apartment was overwhelming in effect to the household.

"It looks most too fine to feel to hum in," gasped the Boarder. "It makes me feel strange!"

"It won't look strange to you," a.s.sured the bride-elect, looking shyly into his adoring eyes, "when you come home and find me sitting here in my blue dress waiting for you, will it?"

"No!" agreed the Boarder with a quick intake of breath, "'Twill be home and heaven, Lily Rose."

CHAPTER XXIII

Shyly and perversely Lily Rose had postponed the trying on of her borrowed wedding waist until the day preceding the great event.

"There won't be time to fit it," pleaded Amarilly.

And Lily Rose had smiled a faraway smile and said her veil would cover it anyway. But finally Amarilly's pleas prevailed and the beloved garment was brought forth.

Amarilly took it reverently from its wrappings and held it up to view.

After many exclamations of wonder and admiration, Lily Rose, who had removed her dress, essayed to try it on.

"Why, Amarilly," she said, struggling to get her arm into the sleeve, "there's something the matter! It's sewed together, or something."

Amarilly hastened to investigate.

"Oh!" she gasped, after thrusting her hand within, "to think it should be in here, for I am sure this is what Miss King has been looking for so long. Wait until I go and ask ma about it."

She hurried to the kitchen precinct of the house.

"Oh, Ma, do you know how this came in Miss King's lace waist? The one that was here through the fever?"

"Why, didn't you ever take that home?"

"Yes," informed Amarilly, "but she made me a present of it, and I put it away to keep till I was--grown up. And I want to lend it to Lily Rose to be married in. And when she went to try it on, she found this in the sleeve."