The Pageant

"We were just saying, Charlotte dear, that this absurd school affair has
completely overshadowed your wedding day," said Mrs. Cockrell, as she
rocked back and forth in tune with her Irish point rose she was
constructing. "It seems to me a wedding ought to come before a school
festivity."

"Social law requires that marriage take precedence of schooling," said
Mrs. Sproul, as her mischievous old eyes snapped at Mrs. Cockrell's
placid conventionality. "The correct order is for women to take husbands
and then school children should be the inevitable outcome. They are not,
however, in this day and generation, which is about to be the last, I'm
thinking."

"There will be thirty-nine kiddies from the Settlement and eleven from
the Town to feast on reason and flow soul together in the new school," I
laughed, as I sat down between them. "Also I'm thinking that a lot more
will be forthcoming from the Settlement by next week. Young Charlotte
and Mother Spurlock clothed as far as they could, but they will keep at
it, I feel sure. I feel guilty at the idea of taking three trunks of
clothes away from the watchful eye of Mother Elsie, only I'm leaving the
accumulation of years for her distribution."

"The passport to Elsie Spurlock's heart is a condition composed of rags,
hunger and unhappiness. She has no sympathy or time for a sanitary and
contented friend," said Mrs. Sproul with a decided tartness that was
only a reflex of the deep affection she bore the mistress of the Little
House, which had existed since childhood and would endure.