Mary Emma & Company by Ralph Moody Page B

with the sound of a dozen little pigs at a trough.
    It took us nearly an hour to get that piece of paper folded so that the two ends met, and so that all the accordion folds on each side were even. But when we had it finished it looked real neat, lying there on the table in twin bundles. Mother wiped her hands on her apron and said, “There! That was a lot of work, but we’ve learned by it. Well, let’s get it up on the ceiling. Ralph, suppose you set up the plank now, and Gracie, we’ll put this first strip right along the top of this wall.”
    As Mother spoke, she pulled a gooey end a few inches out of the bundle and said, “Now, Gracie, if you start with this edge square against the end wall I don’t think you’ll have a bit of difficulty. I’ll put a clean cloth over the broom and help you with it as soon as you have the strip started.”
    Grace needed at least six hands when she tried to get the end of the strip stuck into the corner of the ceiling. She couldn’t lift the limp end up without using both hands, and if she did that she couldn’t hold onto the bundle of folds. So she held the bundle against the wall with her chest, then tried to make a quick stab into the corner with the pasted end. It didn’t work worth a cent.
    Grace made the stab so fast that when she reached the end of the first fold, the whole bundle flipped over between her chest and the wall. It kicked her backwards as if it had been a mule. Mother was standing right below her and caught her, but Grace kept a tight hold on the end of the paper, and, of course, the pasted side was toward her. Her arms must have kept on going when Mother caught her, because she wrapped that paper around her face and head so tight it looked like a hornet’s nest.

    â€œThat’s enough, dear,” Mother told her as they wiped some of the paste out of Grace’s hair and eyebrows. “We’ll let it go for tonight. Maybe tomorrow we might find a paper hanger who wouldn’t charge us too much if we hired him to do the ceilings only. I still think we could manage the walls ourselves, but these big, high ceilings are doubtlessly a little too difficult for us.”
    Mother didn’t seem to be at all provoked about the trouble we’d been having, but Grace was furious. And when Grace was furious nothing but a straight out-and-out order from Mother could stop her. She swiped the paste off her lips with the back of her hand, spit it off the end of her tongue angrily, and snapped, “No, they’re not! If it took brains to hang paper on a ceiling there wouldn’t be so much of it done, and if other people can do it we can do it!”
    â€œDon’t be . . .” And then Mother stopped herself without saying, “impertinent.” I guess she felt sort of proud of Grace’s spunk, just as I did.
    Nobody said a word for three or four minutes, but we all stared up at the corner and tried to figure out how we could get the paper started in it. “Well,” Grace said at last, “I know how we can do it. It won’t be the way a paper hanger would do it, but I’ll bet a cookie it will work. Ralph, you pick up the mess, and we’ll put it back together again in a bundle of folds. Then I want you to stand tight in the corner, facing out and holding the bundle as high as you can in your arms. I’ll hold the end into the corner, and, Mother, you can reach over our heads and sweep the paper against the ceiling with the broom.”
    â€œHmmmmm, that doesn’t sound exactly professional, does it?” Mother said, “though I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Let’s try it.”
    I think Grace’s idea might have worked if it hadn’t been for two or three things: Mother was only a couple of inches over five feet tall and the ceiling was ten feet high, so she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach it with a broom. Then, too, we didn’t