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

could come in behind the altar. Though Sister Gertruda was deep in prayer, if she saw us sneaking up on the altar, she would be quite liable to either ask us “why” or send us away.
    “All we have to do is get a couple of the vases off the altar from the back, take enough flowers for the crown and get back upstairs.”
    “Thank heavens there are carnations,” Mary said. “The stems bend.”
    We scooted around the back, went through the sacristy and crept through the priests’ entrance to the altar, staying behind it. Mary tried to reach for a vase.
    “Wait a minute, I’ll find a stool or a chair.” The only chair on the altar was a great-grandfather chair that the priest sat in at High Mass. It had a medieval look and weight to it.
    The sacristy had a prie-dieu in it and that would just have to do. Mary climbed up on the arm rest and handed down the vase. There were six vases in all across the back of the altar and in between the niches. We took a few carnations from each one. Poor Sister Gertruda, after the third vase had been lifted down and put back up, thought she was having a vision and fell to her knees. Before she came out of her trance, I felt it would be wise to take all the carnations from the last vase and get out as fast as we could. As we ran out we saw poor ancient Sister Gertruda peering over the altar rail, her half blind eyes trying to determine the veracity of the miracle or at least establish a motive.
    We raced down the hall clutching the dripping carnations and flew into the bathroom.
    “Here, put them here,” I said, pointing to the washbasin.
    “Thank God, we at least have a crown,” Mary said.
    We started tying the stems together and in ten minutes of silent therapy we had something round, something fresh and something resembling a May crown. By the time we raced to the classroom, Mary was so upset that she had both her hands wrapped in handkerchiefs—it was a bad attack of the drips.
    We both blanched when we saw that Roughhouse had borrowed extra vases to house our bouquets and bowers.
    “Sister, everyone let us down. There are no flowers. But we do have a crown,” I said.
    “A fresh crown,” Mary added.
    Roughhouse looked at us as if we were entirely responsible for bringing the Inquisition about. “Let us crown the Virgin, then, without any flowers.”
    We went to the back door and filed into place. Mary put the crown on Florence’s pillow, where it tilted perilously.
    “Hold on to it,” Mary shouted at her. Florence clung to the crown and the pillow as best she could.
    We filed into the room—all except the three queens. They had to wait in the hall. The bell rang and the ritual started.
    “Good morning girls,” the reedlike voice of Roughhouse cracked with sorrow.
    “Good morning, Sister.”
    “Let us pray.”
    We all knelt in our seats—facing the back of the room. Roughhouse had had Margaret O’Shaughnessy, the top artist in the school, do the scenes of Our Lady’s life. Other than the fact that all the animals far outscaled the human figures, it wasn’t a bad mural.
    “We will now sing the Mission song and then proceed with the May crowning.” Roughhouse’s voice absolutely broke on the word crowning .
     
    Kaifang, East Honan, China, Oriental Providence,
Kaifang, East Land of Promise, to you our best we send.
Kaifang, East Honan, China, may the Lord keep you in love.
Kaifang, East Land of Promise, the Mission’s own white dove.
     
    It was quite a song—the lyricist, of course, had been French Indo-Chinese, and her idea of English was not necessarily as good as it could have been. Nevertheless, we sang it in true Chinese rhythmic chant.
    I began to feel terribly depressed about our failure when the May songs began.
     
    Bring flowers of the rarest,
Bring flowers of the fairest,
From garland and woodland and hillside and dale.
Our young hearts are swelling,
Our glad voices telling
The praise of the loveliest Rose of the Dale.
     
    Throughout this song, the