THE THREE LITTLE LIBRARIANS CELEBRATE ANNIE

Book One of the Celebration Stories featuring
THE THREE LITTLE LIBRARIANS
Copyright October 2015

[part3]

          As a treat for the WMU ladies, and because lavenders were part of the craft, the group would be taking a few moments right before starting on the craft to sing Lavenders Blue, Dilly Dilly. The WMU ladies were old enough to remember the song as a ballad from the 1950’s, and Mrs. Cloar--ever eager to include French in every way possible—would explain to the girls how, in the 17^th century when the song was first sung in England and France, the words “dilly, dilly” had really been “dit-il, dit-elle” (DEE-TILL, DEE-TELL), or “he said, she said.” The WMU ladies were absolute artists when it came to giving weddings at the church, and were ever mindful of the influence on the dreams of the girls that a song about weddings could have. Of course, the language references couldn’t hurt either, since the missionaries on tonight’s Prayer Calendar—listed on the missionaries’ birthdays—would often be serving in lands where another language would be absolutely necessary and certainly more difficult than French.

          Mrs. Cloar looked out one of the large windows, which she loved because they made the Fellowship Hall as light and cheerful as a solarium, and saw Mr. Cloar arriving with the lavender copy paper he had picked up in Greeneville on the way home from school. She still had to print the folded bulletin which would be beside each plate. Called Señor Cloar at South Greene High School where he taught Spanish, Mr. Cloar had hurried home from school to the northern part of Greene County where the church was located, knowing his wife would be “running late” about getting everything ready.

          He walked up the outdoor steps on the front of the Fellowship Hall just as Barbara Southerland, a beloved retired classroom teacher, was walking up with a Tupperware box of delicate pimento cheese sandwiches for the tea party. It was a tradition to always include pimento cheese sandwiches—made from the Neufchatel (NOOF-SHAH-TELL) recipe by Kraft and sold in tiny glasses. In French it can refer to a new product from a chateau, especially something new from the Châtel
resort in the Haute-Savoie area of the Alps where, presumably, the recipe originated. Barbara’s mother, revered long-time President of the WMU, Emma Ruth Woolsey, had started bringing these sandwiches to WMU meetings long ago, and the ladies always remembered her fondly as they took each bite.

          Usually, Barbara and Mr. Cloar talked about school when they ran into each other, but tonight both were worried about the weather and consulting their cell phones which linked them to The Weather Channel. There were tornadoes being reported in states just south of Tennessee, and older folks at South Greene had been saying all day that this looked like one of those rare times when a tornado could head north into Greene County. If one came to South Greene, it could keep heading north into northern Greene County. Meanwhile, the Cloar’s older daughter, Alice, who had always loved the intricacies of weather, was now beginning to leave messages on her Dad’s phone that said the Knoxville TV stations had actually mentioned a possible tornado danger for Baileyton. What a night for a tea party!

          The girls didn’t usually dress up for the annual party, because it could be the first night at church for someone new who might feel awkward if unprepared, so many of the girls were wearing shorts as they arrived, celebrating the sunshine that had arrived for spring. Barbara kept the evening moving along, and—sure enough—the adults at prayer meeting in the sanctuary decided to disband early to get the girls home. The girls left, clutching their tussie mussies and bulletins, and humming Lavenders Blue as they hugged Mrs. Cloar and Miss Barbara goodbye. 

          Then Miss Barbara faced the hardest part of the evening, getting Mrs. Cloar out the door quickly. The two put all the refreshments quickly into the Fellowship Hall’s large refrigerators, saving out a few choice tidbits for Mr. Cloar and Mr. Southerland, and made sure the left-over flowers had enough water to last until Sunday. A tornado did come that way about an hour later but, thankfully, missed the church. When talking about it all later, the girls and the WMU ladies always reminded each other of the saying that trusting in God is like being in the “eye” of a tornado, which is always calm. All in all, it’s the only safe place in a storm.

(THE THREE LITTLE LIBRARIANS CELEBRATE ANNIE is a fictional book based on true events and real characters.)