MARY! MARY!

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1938, Page 20

MARY! MARY!

Mary had been invited to a fancydress party and wanted to go yeryX very much. But Mother said, "I don't see how you can, for I can't afford to buy you a dress." So Mary sat do A^and thought and thought". Yet no ideas came until Brother Tom, spade in hand, popped his : head in at the window, saying, "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" "It doesn't" answered Mary; "but you've given, me an ideal" And she ran to aisk her motiier if she might borrow some things out of the big trunk in the attic. Mother said "Yes," and Mary darted upstairs." Out of the trunk she pulled an old-1 fashioned green frock, a black silk I shawl, an apron, a; pair of mittens, and ! some bits of flowered cretonne;. "There!" she said to herself. "These will do," and banged down the trunk lid and ran downstairs. "Mother!" she cried excitedly. "I'm going as Mary, Mary, quite contrary. I'll cut the flowers from the cretonne and make a border round the hem of the frock, and as I'm contrary I'll wear my apron back to front and my shawl awry."; "You ridiculous child!" laughed Mother. "And oh, Tom," exclaimed Mary, as her brother came in, "I want silver bells and cockle-shells!" Tom thought a moment, then he said, "We could twist silver paper from tea packets into cones for, bells, with, beads to-weigh them down, and cut cockle-shells from thick paper and .paint them—-like pilgrims wore in their hats." , 7"Of course,"'-agreed Mary; "and .they would go round the-flowers for a border." "I'll help," said Tom. So they spent a busy evening. Suddenly as they were working Tom started to laugh. "Couldn't you curl one side of your hair and wear the other straight?" he suggested. Mary giggled. "Yes, I could," she nodded. "And 1 could wear odd shoes, too." - When the afternoon of the party came Mary dressed with care and went off happily, carrying Contrary Mary's watering-can and very odd shoes in a bag. ] In the evening an excited and gay little girl burst in on Mother and Tom. "It was a lovely party," cried Mary. "And there was a prize for the best fancy dress; and my dress won it because the judge said it showed great! ingenuity!" |