Mary Emma & Company by Ralph Moody

woodwork? And we’ll need a paintbrush.”
    It sounded to me as if that much paper and paste and other things would be more than Mother could handle, so I asked, “Hadn’t I better go along and help you carry it, Mother?”
    As I looked up to ask, Grace was standing on the stepladder above Mother. She scowled down at me and shook her head hard, then nodded it when Mother said, “Oh, I think I shall be able to manage it all right, Son. It would help more if you could get this mess on the floor cleared up while I’m gone.”
    As soon as Mother was down the steps I asked Grace, “What’s the matter with you anyway? Don’t you know that you told Mother to bring more stuff than a stout mule could carry? Why were you shaking your head when I asked if I could go along to help her?”
    â€œDon’t be a ninny!” she told me. “If you went with her she’d have to walk both ways, because there wouldn’t be any more than the two of you could carry. This way she won’t have to walk home or carry anything. The paint man will bring her back in his delivery wagon. I know he’s got one, because it went past Uncle Frank’s house just the other day. Now hurry up and get that floor cleaned; you’ll have to go somewhere and find me some long boards and a couple of boxes to make a table out of. Wallpaper has to be pasted on the back, and we’ll need a long table to do it on.”

9
    Not a Bit Professional
    G RACE had been right when she sent Mother off after the paper alone. I’d barely finished cleaning the floor, and hadn’t had any chance to go hunting for boards and boxes, when the paint man brought Mother home. And besides bringing the things Grace had told her to get, he brought a long folding table and several different kinds of brushes, a knife with a little curved blade, and a couple of smoothing wheels. “You can keep these till you’re finished with your paper-hanging,” he told Mother. Then he asked, “You’ve hung it before, haven’t you?”
    Mother smiled and said, “I’ve helped my husband with it several times, and am sure we won’t have any trouble.” Then she thanked him for bringing her home and for offering to let us use his table and tools.
    As soon as he had gone she rubbed her hand over the smooth table top, and said, “Wasn’t it nice of Mr. Evans to offer us the use of all his professional equipment? My! This will certainly make our task much easier! I was worried about our trying to put up wallpaper without the proper things to do it with. While I’m changing my clothes, Gracie, you might whack up some sandwiches and put water on to boil for tea. I think we’d better eat before we tackle this papering job; we won’t want to stop right in the middle of it.”
    It’s a good thing we did eat first, and that Mother let both Grace and me have tea with our sandwiches. And when she said, “tackle this papering job,” she picked just the right words.
    While we were eating, Mother and Grace decided that we’d better start with the ceiling. Then they talked about whether it would be better to trim the edges off the paper and butt it, or whether it would be best to overlap it. At last Mother said, “Let’s overlap it. The design is watered silk, so the overlaps won’t show badly. We must remember that we’re not experts at paper-hanging, and if we should fail to trim the edges exactly even we might have a little difficulty in making the strips butt together nicely. Well, let’s clear things up here and get started; I’m anxious to see how it’s going to look.”
    â€œGracie, I’ll do the measuring, we’ll let Ralph paint the paste on, and you may do the actual hanging; you’re much handier on top of that stepladder than I. Let me think a moment. . . . It seems to me that Father used to fold his paper in