Read Online Life With Mother Superior by Jane Trahey - Free Book Online Page A

vases which would hold our selection of flowers.
    The procession of Lillian, Ramona and Florence would come in the back door of the classroom, go all around the room, while we sang hymns. Finally, they would stand in front of the statue until we hit the line, “Oh Mary we crown thee with blossoms today”—then the crown bearer would hand the crown to the queen and she would put it on the head of the statue.
    “Where on earth will we ever get any flowers? I haven’t got any money, and it’s so cold, the bushes still have snow on them.” It was true that spring came later that year than I could ever remember.
    At first Mary and I tried to get the rest of the class to chip in or at least pledge us a few pennies from their next allowance for some flowers. We couldn’t raise a penny. Roughhouse had cleaned out the entire class with her last chocolate éclair sale for the Missions. She had a sister who was a missionary in Tanganyika, and Roughhouse had it straight from the missionaries’ mouth that Africa and “the bush” was a depraved situation. Whenever she had a letter from her sister, she produced a boxful of éclairs and sold them to us any Religion period. We never minded this form of blackmail, as she usually read us her sister’s letters which were, to say the least, gory. Even at nine-thirty we would wolf down éclairs—and feel ill all morning over both the rich cream and the disgusting tales of tribal rites.
    We simply hit a dead-end street with the class when we asked for money. Everyone agreed that Roughhouse had no right to expect flowers as she had held two Mission bake-outs in one week and we were not only broke, but we all had severe acne. She simply couldn’t have Missions and a May crowning in the same week.
    “Let’s try Sister Gardener,” Mary suggested. “She might lend us some leaves or something.”
    We sought out the only one at St. Marks who officially had a green thumb.
    “Sister Hedwig,” we began tentatively, “would you by any chance have any old flowers that are going to waste?”
    “No.” She was potting a pineapple.
    She grew flowers mainly for the altar, and vegetables and herbs for herself—none of which, I am convinced, ever saw the student menu. She was enchanted with bromeliads and grew them in her spare time. The poor greenhouse of the Midwest had a strange tropical look.
    “Don’t you even have any leaves?” we asked pitifully.
    “What do you think this is—miracle time?” she asked sarcastically. “Look, it’s snowing.”
    “Well, what on earth will we do for some flowers for the May crowning?”
    “I’ll be happy to sell you some vegetables.”
    “Oh Sister, couldn’t we just borrow some of these pretty things?”
    “They wouldn’t last five minutes in her cold classrooms.”
    It was true. Whenever Roughhouse Rosie couldn’t raise her Mission money, she opened all the windows. If we didn’t kick in on the next basket-passing, they stayed open. She simply got all our allowances by her own form of cold war.
    We worried and fretted for the rest of the week and begged the day students to at least bring grass, if nothing else.
    The morning of May first was one of the bleakest, coldest mornings I ever saw. We had lights on at Mass, lights on at breakfast, and all the halls were lit. And when Mother Superior turned on the hall lights, it was dangerously dark.
    “We can’t just tell Roughhouse there aren’t any flowers,” Mary wailed.
    “Wait,” I said inspirationally, “I have an idea. Come with me.” I slipped down the back convent steps three at a time and headed for the chapel with Mary at my heels.
    I peered into the chapel. It was gloomy and dark, only the votive lights before St. Mark’s statue and in front of the Little Flower gave light to the altar. It was empty except for Sister Gertruda who was the oldest living member of the community.
    “C’mon, let’s go around the back and come in through the sacristy.” By using this door, we