The Rural Voice, 2003-12, Page 46The Mary Dress
It was such an honour to be chosen to plag Mary
in the school Christmas pageant. Wouldn't just the
right dress make it even better?
By Barbara Weiler
My four-year-old grand-
daughters always start their
stories "When I was a little
girl...." and so I shall start this one.
When I was a little girl, I walked
the country roads to a brick one room
schoolhouse where our teacher was
like a second mother, as she helped
the little ones with their outdoor
clothes, fed the hungry maw of the
wood burning furnace, supervised the
preparation of hot lunches, and
organized the lessons for as many as
eight grades. The year had its own
rhythms as we pressed leaves in the
fall, dressed up for the Halloween
party and late in November began
42 THE RURAL VOICE
preparations for the Christmas
concert. It was the most anticipated
event in the year, a time when all the
people in the community came
together for the annual Christmas
performance.
Teacher was expected to act as
producer, director, stage and props
manager as well as costume designer
for this event. The parents were of
course enlisted to help with all this,
but there was no phone in the school,
so notes and oral messages flew back
and forth. "My Mom says you can
have those three housecoats we used
last year for the shepherds" or "Dad
can help out with the stage Thursday
after school"
Every one of the 18 students,
ranging in age from six to 16, took
their place for the Christmas carols
and the choral readings.
All the older children had multiple
roles in plays and even the littlest
child had a recitation to say. The
concert always included a nativity
play.
One Christmas when I was nine or
10, I flushed with excitement when
teacher assigned me the part of Mary.
This was an important but relatively
undemanding role, kneeling beside
Joseph, lifting a baby doll gently out
of the straw in the manger, cradling it
lovingly as the choir sang "Silent
Night" and the shepherds nudged
each other with their crooks. Still, I
had my worries as I walked home
with my brothers, scuffing along the
snow-covered gravel road in our
galoshes and heavy wool snow pants.
Mary always wore a white sheet or
tablecloth pinned around her head,
which would be easy. But what dress
would I wear underneath? It should
be blue, because everyone knows that
Mary wore nothing but blue and
white, ever.
I burst into the back kitchen,
pulling at my galoshes, anxious to
tell my mother the news "I'm going
to be Mary, Mom", I blurted.
"That's nice, dear. When is the
concert?" I had expected more
enthusiasm from my mother, a
former school teacher herself.
I rushed upstairs to change out of
my school clothes and to ransack the
old trunk in the unheated upstairs
hallway for something, anything,
blue that might be transformed into a
"Mary dress". Nothing even
remotely blue presented itself.
My mother had made me a green
plaid flannel dress that fall. It had a
flaring skirt and pretty buttons and I
liked it very well, but it wasn't in the
nature of a party dress. I had already
worn it to school and it certainly
wasn't blue. I figured I would have to
keep that tablecloth ctutched so
firmly around my skinny body that
the green plaid wouldn't show. I
considered asking for a new dress,
but there wasn't much time left and
Mom would have to take Dad away
from his chores to drive 20 miles to
town to buy the material. There was
the cost to consider too. No, the