The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty - Eudora Welty [181]
A second piano had to be rented from the Presbyterian Sunday School (through the Starks), hauled over in time for rehearsing the quartet all together, and of course tuned. There were programs to be printed (through the Morrisons), elaborate enough to include the opus numbers, the first, middle, and last name of each pupil, and flowing across the top in a script which resembled, as if for a purpose, Miss Eckhart's writing in the monthly bills, the full name of Miss Lotte Elisabeth Eckhart. Some little untalented Maloney would give the programs out at the door from a pink fruit plate.
On the day, gladiolas or carnations in princess-baskets were expected to arrive for each child, duly ordered from some Loomis florist-connections in Vicksburg and kept in buckets of water on the MacLains' shady back porch. They would be presented at the proper time—immediately after the bow—by Miss Eckhart. The pupil could hold the basket for the count of three—this had been rehearsed, using a black umbrella—then present it back to Miss Eckhart, who had in mind a crescent moon design on the floor which she would fill in basket by basket on the night. Jinny Love Stark always received a bouquet of Parma violets in a heart of leaves, and had to be allowed to keep it. She said, "Ta-ta." She never did give it up a single year, which hurt the effect.
For the recital was, after all, a ceremony. Better than school's being let out—for that presupposed examinations—or the opening political fireworks—the recital celebrated June. Both dread and delight were to come down on little girls that special night, when only certain sashes and certain flowers could possibly belong, and with only smart, pretty little girls to carry things out.
And Miss Eckhart pushed herself to quite another level of life for it. A blushing sensitivity sprang up in her every year at the proper time like a flower of the season, like the Surprise Lilies that came up with no leaves and overnight in Miss Nell's yard. Miss Eckhart stirred here and there, utterly carried away by matters that at other times interested her least—dresses and sashes, prominence and precedence, smiles and bows. It was strange, exciting. She called up the pictures on those little square party invitations, the brown bear in a frill and the black poodle standing on a chair to shave at a mirror....
With recital night over, the sensitivity and the drive too would be over and gone. But then all trials would be ended. The limitless part of vacation would have come. Girls and boys could go barefooted alike in the mornings.
The night of the recital was always clear and hot; everyone came. The prospective audience turned out in full oppression.
Miss Eckhart and her pupils were not yet to be visible. It was up to Miss Snowdie MacLain to be at the door, and she was at the door, staunchly, as if she'd been in on things the whole time. She welcomed all female Morgana there in perfect innocence. By eight o'clock the studio was packed.
Miss Katie Rainey would always come early. She trembled with delight, like a performer herself, and she had milked with that hat on. She laughed with pleasure as she grew accustomed to it all, and through the recital she would stay much in evidence, the first to clap when a piece was over, and pleased equally with the music she listened to and the gold chair she sat on. And Old Man Fate Rainey, the buttermilk man, was the only father who came. He remained standing. Miss Perdita Mayo, who had made most of the recital dresses, was always on the front row to see that the bastings had all been pulled out after the dresses got home, and beside her was Miss Hattie Mayo, her quiet sister who helped her.