'That truck holds a lot more than you'd think,' Dad said, as we waved good-bye to Cousin Leon and stood surveying Mrs. Waterston's backyard.
'I'll say,' Michael replied, no doubt wondering whether we'd ever succeed in hauling all of it down to our house and getting it hung up.
'I'll go call the volunteers,' Dad said. 'We'll all meet at Pam's house and come down here as soon as Meg calls us to let us know that her mother has gone to the beauty parlor.'
'It's going to take quite a while,' I said. 'Maybe I should arrange with Jake to keep her out all afternoon, too.'
I waited until Mother had settled in for a nice long after-dinner gossip with Mrs. Fenniman and several of the visiting aunts and then snuck down to Jake's.
I knocked on his door. He opened the door a crack and peered out.
'Yes?'
'It's Meg.'
'Yes, I see.' He didn't open the door any wider. I could have told him that he didn't have to worry, I'd already seen his depleted possessions and his shoddy bachelor housekeeping.
'I was wondering if you could keep Mother away from the house tomorrow afternoon while we hang some Spanish moss in the backyard.'
It took quite a while to explain it to him, and at the end, I still wasn't sure he believed me.
What if Dad's idea of a wedding present made him think we were too crazy to cope with? What if he called off the wedding?
Well, I could always hope.
Thursday, July 28
I got up in time to see Mother and Mrs. Fenniman getting ready to leave. Mother seemed a little depressed. Or was she perhaps not feeling well? She seemed preoccupied, anyway, which was a good thing. Dad kept popping into the kitchen every five minutes with an air of badly suppressed excitement. He looked at his watch; he made highly visible (though incomprehensible) hand signals to me; he all but shouted, 'Is she gone yet?'
'Go back to Pam's and wait,' I hissed at him. 'I'll call you.'
That kept him out of our hair. For about ten minutes.
Finally, Mother and Mrs. Fenniman drove off. I was lifting the phone to call Pam when I saw four wheelbarrows dash into the yard, propelled by four of Pam's kids. Three ladders followed, carried by Dad, Michael, Rob, and Pam's husband and sons. Neighbors and relatives began arriving. More ladders appeared. The wheelbarrows disgorged their loads and were trundled off for a refill. Cousin Horace's pickup pulled into the driveway, laden with Spanish moss. I sighed, and went out to grab a pitchfork and help them unload.
Everyone had a lot of fun for the first hour or two, chattering happily as they hauled or hung moss. Things got a little quieter as it began to dawn on everyone how very much moss there was to be hung and how determined Dad was to get it all hung. By noon, the less hardy souls were beginning to sneak away. Not a disaster; the lower, easily reachable limbs were almost too thoroughly covered, and we were down to a dozen diehards on ladders, trimming the middle and upper branches. And of course the kids, who trundled doggedly back and forth from the moss pile to the ladders, keeping the hangers supplied. Mrs. Fenniman arrived back, having turned over to Jake the duty of keeping Mother away. In the middle of the afternoon, I drove the pickup back for another load and realized that there was a highly visible trail of moss leading from Michael's mother's house to ours. One glance at that and Mother would know something was up. I grabbed a few of the slackers who'd snuck away and set them to work sweeping the street and policing the neighborhood.
Late in the day, Jake called to say they were on the way home. We hadn't even finished the backyard, so we decided to try to keep Mother from looking out and drag her away from the house tomorrow as well, so we could finish the rest of the yard Friday. I did another spot inspection for stray bits of moss and sent everyone off to shower and change.
I then corralled my nephews and got Mother interested in rearranging the furniture again, which kept all of them out of trouble till bedtime.
Friday, July 29
Jake claimed to have important errands Friday morning. He positively put his foot down and insisted that he couldn't haul Mother around for another day. I was so pleased to detect some sign that he had a backbone I almost didn't resent inheriting the task of keeping her distracted. As luck would have it, she made my job easier by coming up with eight or ten absolutely urgent errands that had to be done before the wedding. Pam managed to keep her from wandering out into the backyard until I was awake enough for us to get on our way. I took the cellular phone along so I could call home from time to time during the day to check on the progress of the moss- hanging effort.
'Don't worry, we're getting along just fine without you,' Pam would say every time I called. Translation: for heaven's sake, don't come home yet; we're nowhere near finished.
I saw Jake once, in passing, coming out of the local branch bank and heading into the travel agency. Well, at least he was presumably doing something useful about the honeymoon. I had no idea where they were going; Mother had assigned him the job of arranging the honeymoon and surprising her. Presumably she had dropped enough not-so-subtle hints that it would be a welcome surprise.
At about seven in the evening, I called from the candy store and hinted that they'd better wrap things up.
'We're going to be finished soon,' I said.
'For heaven's sake, we still have a lot of moss left; can't you stall her some more?'
'No, we're not going to be much longer, don't worry,' I said.
'Drat. Well, don't forget to pick up the cake.'
'The what?'
'The cake,' Pam repeated.
I glanced at Mother. She was absorbed in selecting boxes of chocolates to send to various relatives too ill or too far away to come to the wedding; I put as much space between us as possible.
'What do you mean, the cake?' I hissed into the phone. 'We don't want the wedding cake till tomorrow.'
'No, no; this is cake for the rehearsal party. Didn't I tell you the last time you called? Cousin Millie was going to deliver it, but her van broke down.'
'Well how am I supposed to get it home? I'm keeping Mother out of the way, remember? Whither I goeth, she goeth, and she's not blind.'
'Well you've got to think of something! I can't find anyone else who can get down there.'
I thought of something.
'Have Cousin Millie take it to the garden store. It's just two doors down from her shop. I'll pick it up there. I'll tell Mother that Dad wants me to pick something up. Some manure; she won't want to come inside and help with that.'
'Okay. Can you sneak it into the house when you get home?'
Can't anybody but me do anything?
As I expected, Mother was irritated at having to stop at the garden store.
'Why can't your father run his own errands?' she complained. 'Whatever does he want now?'
'Some manure,' I said. 'You know how he is when he gets his heart set on putting down some manure. And he can't pick it up because he's mowing the lawn for your party tonight.'
'He's not going to put manure on the yard today!' she gasped in horror.
'No, it's for Pam's vegetable garden, next week. But the sale ends today. I don't suppose you want to help
