Unsound Politics and Unaccompanied Bridesmaids

(I've taken to casting Important Articles of Clothing in my stories... in
case anyone's interested, these are the bridesmaid dresses from The Rochesters)

... in other words, Snippets again!

She knew them as soon as she saw them, even though she’d never seen pictures nor had any idea of how they looked. But there was only one group under the station roof that contained four girls of various sizes sporting matching hats, two hatless boys industriously pummeling each other, a book-toting father wearing a winter fedora and a fervently wagging golden retriever with no hat whatsoever.

~The Rochesters

Timmy scrambled into the front seat next to Alice. “What’s an ink wisition?”

“It’s when the government kills you if you aren’t Catholic.” Mark jammed Pumblechook around Francie’s feet, squeezed into what was left of the back seat and slammed the car door.

“Is the government going to kill us because we’re Baptists?” Instead of looking frightened, Timmy seemed merely intrigued.

“Of course not,” said Uncle Gregory, finally sitting down and turning the key in the ignition. “Government neither desires nor dares to interfere in such matters.”

“There must be murder, and the government cares not how much,” replied Alice quite gravely as the car lurched out of the parking lot, and she and Francie and Celia and Uncle Gregory all laughed.

Sylvia had heard quite a bit about Communists in her social studies class, and she began to wonder if perhaps Uncle Gregory had rather unsound ideas about politics.

~The Rochesters

“What difference does it make if you don’t have a groomsman?” Celia inquired. “Mark was probably going to end up walking with me anyways because I’m not as tall as you are. You’ll get George’s cousin just like you were supposed to.”
“Then you’ll be all by yourself,” Francie pointed out.
“I don’t care. Then I don’t have to worry about Mark stepping on me.”
“You aren’t dancing; you’re just walking, for Pete’s sake.”
“Mark steps on people no matter what.”
“He wouldn’t step on you if you didn’t have such big feet—”
“Hush up, can’t you?”
“Ladies!” Alice smacked both hands down on the quilt. “You’re acting like a pair of toddlers. Look, the issue at stake is not that a bridesmaid will walk unaccompanied. Celia can take Pumblechook for all I care.”
“Hey,” complained Celia, miffed.

~The Rochesters

Patsy was poring over a rather blurry picture in the middle section of the newspaper. It depicted a person in a monkey suit of doubtful origin, raising his arms over his head at what was presumably a football game but might have been a Ladies’ Auxiliary Meeting, for all Sylvia could see. The background rather resembled a mishmash of black and white shapes.

“That’s the President,” Patsy remarked, startling Sylvia, who thought Patsy had not noticed her presence.

~The Rochesters

“I’ll give you a leg up.” Bernard clasped his hands to form a stirrup. “Fina, you and Mareta stay here while I take Margot out and teach her Ezekiel’s tricks, and then you can have a turn.”

Doubt threatened to smother Fina’s smile, but she took Mareta’s hand obligingly and stepped aside. Margot was inclined to follow. She had no desire to ride a mule, nor to learn anything about the “tricks” he might possess. Cooking over a spattering fire began to sound far more appealing than it had this morning, and she was tempted to refuse Bernard and flee back to Magali.

~The Color of the Sky

Mareta’s gaze shifted to Fina, on the ground not far away, holding little Zacharias on her lap. The two seemed equally enamored of each other: Zacharias charmed by the attention showered upon him and Fina satisfied with this child who saw nothing different in her, no inadequacy or deficiency. Mareta smiled as she watched them together and Margot found herself smiling too.

How long has it been since I’ve smiled thus?

~The Color of the Sky

It was the girl’s near lack of eyebrows, Margot decided, that brought her eyes into such focus.   You could not help but look at them, without the distraction of the dark lines above that most people had.  

~The Color of the Sky