"Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,Be it ever so humble there's no place like home!
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,Which,seek through the world,is ne'er met with elsewhere."When they began arranging the house for the wedding,it could be seen that they had been expecting it,and getting ready for a long time.From all the closets,shelves and chests poured heaps of new things.First,the walls were cleaned and some of them freshly papered,then the windows were all washed long before regular housecleaning time,the floors were scrubbed and new carpet put down.Mother had some window blinds that Winfield had brought her from New York in the spring,and she had laid them away;no one knew why,then.We all knew now.When mother was ready to put them up,father had a busy day and couldn't help her,and she was really provoked.She almost cried about it,when Leon rode in bringing the mail,and said Hannah Dover had some exactly like ours at her windows,that her son had sent from Illinois.Father felt badly enough then,for he always did everything he could to help mother to be first with everything;but so she wouldn't blame him,he said crosslike that if she had let him put them up when they came,as he wanted to,she'd have been six months ahead.
When they finally got ready to hang the blinds no one knew how they went.They were a beautiful shiny green,plain on one side,and on the other there was a silver border across the bottom and one pink rose as big as a pie plate.Mother had neglected to ask Winfield on which side the rose belonged.Father said from the way the roll ran,it went inside.Mother said they were rolled that way to protect the roses,and that didn't prove anything.
Laddie said he would jump on a horse and ride round the section,and see how Hannah Dover had hers,and exactly opposite would be right.Everyone laughed,but no one thought he meant it.Mother had father hold one against the window,and she stepped outside to see if she could tell from there.When she came in she said the flower looked mighty pretty,and she guessed that was the way,so father started hanging them.He had only two up when Laddie came racing down the Big Hill bareback,calling for him to stop.
"I tell you that's not right,mother!"he said as he hurried in.
"But I went outside and father held one,and it looked real pretty,"said mother.
"One!Yes!"said Laddie."But have you stopped to consider how two rows across the house are going to look?Nine big pink roses,with the sun shining on them!Anything funnier than Dovers' front I never saw.And look here!"Laddie picked up a blind."See this plain back?It's double coated like a glaze.That is so the sun shining through glass won't fade it.The flowers would be gone in a week.They belong inside,mother,sure as you live.""Then when the blinds are rolled to the middle sash in the daytime no one can see them,"wailed mother,who was wild about pink roses.
"But at night,when they are down,you can put the curtains back enough to let the roses show,and think how pretty they will look then.""Laddie is right!"said father,climbing on the barrel to take down the ones he had fixed.
"What do you think,girls?"asked mother.
"I think the Princess is coming down the Little Hill,"said Shelley."Hurry,father!Take them down before she sees!I'm sure they're wrong."Father got one all right,but tore the corner of the other.
Mother scolded him dreadfully cross,and he was so flustered he forgot about being on the barrel,so he stepped back the same as on the floor,and fell crashing.He might have broken some of his bones,if Laddie hadn't seen and caught him.
"If you are SURE the flowers go inside,fix one before she comes!"cried mother.
Father stepped too close the edge of the chair,and by that time he didn't know how to hang anything,so Laddie climbed up and had one nailed before the Princess stopped.She came to bring Sally the handkerchief,and it was the loveliest one any of us ever had seen.There was a little patch in the middle about four inches square,and around it a wide ruffle of dainty lace.It was made to carry in a hand covered with white lace mitts,when you were wearing a wedding gown of silver silk,lined with white.Of course it wouldn't have been the slightest use for a funeral or with a cold in your head.And it had come from across the sea!
From the minute she took it by a pinch in the middle,Sally carried her head so much higher than she ever had before,that you could notice the difference.
Laddie went straight on nailing up the blinds,and every one he fixed he let down full length so the Princess could see the roses were inside;he was so sure he was right.After she had talked a few minutes she noticed the blinds going up.Laddie,in a front window,waved to her from the barrel.She laughed and answered with her whip,and then she laughed again.
"Do you know,"she said,"there is the funniest thing at Dovers'.
I rode past on the way to Groveville this morning and they have some blinds like those you are putting up.""Indeed?"inquired my mother."Winfield sent us these from New York in the spring,but I thought the hot summer sun would fade them,so I saved them until the fall cleaning.The wedding coming on makes us a little early but----""Well,they may not be exactly the same,"said the Princess."I only saw from the highway."She meant road;there were many things she said differently."Have yours big pink roses and silver scrolls inside?""Yes,"said mother.
The Princess bubbled until it made you think one of those yellow oriole birds had perched on her saddle."That poor woman has gone and put hers up wrong side out.The effect of all those big pink roses on her white house front is most amusing.It looks as if the house were covered with a particularly gaudy piece of comfort calico.Only fancy!"She laughed again and rode away.Mother came in just gasping.
