CHAPTER VII
When Sally Married Peter
"Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble there's no place like home!
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere."
When they began arranging the house for the wedding, it could
be seen that they had been expecting it, and getting ready for
a long time. From all the closets, shelves and chests poured heaps
of new things. First, the walls were cleaned and some of them
freshly papered, then the windows were all washed long before
regular housecleaning time, the floors were scrubbed and new carpet
put down. Mother had some window blinds that Winfield had brought
her from New York in the spring, and she had laid them away; no
one knew why, then. We all knew now. When mother was ready to
put them up, father had a busy day and couldn't help her, and
she was really provoked. She almost cried about it, when Leon
rode in bringing the mail, and said Hannah Dover had some exactly
like ours at her windows, that her son had sent from Illinois.
Father felt badly enough then, for he always did everything he
could to help mother to be first with everything; but so she wouldn't
blame him, he said crosslike that if she had let him put them
up when they came, as he wanted to, she'd have been six months
ahead.
When they finally got ready to hang the blinds no one knew how
they went. They were a beautiful shiny green, plain on one side,
and on the other there was a silver border across the bottom and
one pink rose as big as a pie plate. Mother had neglected to ask
Winfield on which side the rose belonged. Father said from the
way the roll ran, it went inside. Mother said they were rolled
that way to protect the roses, and that didn't prove anything.
Laddie said he would jump on a horse and ride round the section,
and see how Hannah Dover had hers, and exactly opposite would
be right. Everyone laughed, but no one thought he meant it. Mother
had father hold one against the window, and she stepped outside
to see if she could tell from there. When she came in she said
the flower looked mighty pretty, and she guessed that was the
way, so father started hanging them. He had only two up when Laddie
came racing down the Big Hill bareback, calling for him to stop.
"I tell you that's not right, mother!" he said as he
hurried in.
"But I went outside and father held one, and it looked real
pretty," said mother.
"One! Yes!" said Laddie. "But have you stopped
to consider how two rows across the house are going to look? Nine
big pink roses, with the sun shining on them! Anything funnier
than Dovers' front I never saw. And look here!"
Laddie picked up a blind. "See this plain back? It's double
coated like a glaze. That is so the sun shining through glass
won't fade it. The flowers would be gone in a week. They belong
inside, mother, sure as you live."
"Then when the blinds are rolled to the middle sash in the
daytime no one can see them," wailed mother, who was wild
about pink roses.
"But at night, when they are down, you can put the curtains
back enough to let the roses show, and think how pretty they will
look then."
"Laddie is right!" said father, climbing on the barrel
to take down the ones he had fixed.
"What do you think, girls?" asked mother.
"I think the Princess is coming down the Little Hill,"
said Shelley. "Hurry, father! Take them down before she sees!
I'm sure they're wrong."
Father got one all right, but tore the corner of the other. Mother
scolded him dreadfully cross, and he was so flustered he forgot
about being on the barrel, so he stepped back the same as on the
floor, and fell crashing. He might have broken some of his bones,
if Laddie hadn't seen and caught him.
"If you are SURE the flowers go inside, fix one before she
comes!" cried mother.
Father stepped too close the edge of the chair, and by that time
he didn't know how to hang anything, so Laddie climbed up and
had one nailed before the Princess stopped. She came to bring
Sally the handkerchief, and it was the loveliest one any of us
ever had seen. There was a little patch in the middle about four
inches square, and around it a wide ruffle of dainty lace. It
was made to carry in a hand covered with white lace mitts, when
you were wearing a wedding gown of silver silk, lined with white.
Of course it wouldn't have been the slightest use for a funeral
or with a cold in your head. And it had come from across the sea!
From the minute she took it by a pinch in the middle, Sally carried
her head so much higher than she ever had before, that you could
notice the difference.
Laddie went straight on nailing up the blinds, and every one he
fixed he let down full length so the Princess could see the roses
were inside; he was so sure he was right. After she had talked
a few minutes she noticed the blinds going up. Laddie, in a front
window, waved to her from the barrel. She laughed and answered
with her whip, and then she laughed again.
"Do you know," she said, "there is the funniest
thing at Dovers'. I rode past on the way to Groveville this morning
and they have some blinds like those you are putting up."
"Indeed?" inquired my mother. "Winfield sent us
these from New York in the spring, but I thought the hot summer
sun would fade them, so I saved them until the fall cleaning.
The wedding coming on makes us a little early but----"
"Well, they may not be exactly the same," said the Princess.
"I only saw from the highway." She meant road; there
were many things she said differently. "Have yours big pink
roses and silver scrolls inside?"
"Yes," said mother.
The Princess bubbled until it made you think one of those yellow
oriole birds had perched on her saddle. "That poor woman
has gone and put hers up wrong side out. The effect of all those
big pink roses on her white house front is most amusing. It looks
as if the house were covered with a particularly gaudy piece of
comfort calico. Only fancy!"
She laughed again and rode away. Mother came in just gasping.
"Well, for all His mercies, large and small, the Lord be
praised!" she cried piously, as she dropped into the big
rocking chair. "THAT is what I consider escaping by the skin
of your teeth!"
Then father and Laddie laughed, and said they thought so too.
When the blinds were up, the outside looked well, and you should
have seen the inside! The woodwork was enamelled white, and the
wall paper was striped in white and silver. Every so far on the
silver there was a little pink moss rose having green leaves.
The carpet was plum red and green in wide stripes, and the lace
curtains were freshly washed, snowy, and touched the floor. The
big rocker, the straight-backed chairs, and the sofa were beautiful
red mahogany wood, and the seats shining haircloth. If no one
happened to be looking, you could sit on a sofa arm, stick your
feet out and shoot off like riding down a haystack; the landing
was much better. On the sofa you bounced two feet high the first
time; one, the second; and a little way the third. On the haystack,
maybe you hit a soft spot, and maybe you struck a rock. Sometimes
if you got smart, and tried a new place, and your feet caught
in a tangle of weeds and stuck, you came up straight, pitched
over, and landed on your head. THEN if you struck a rock, you
were still, quite a while. I was once. But you never dared let
mother see you--on the sofa, I mean; she didn't care about the
haystack.
There were pictures in oval black frames having fancy edges, and
a whatnot where all our Christmas and birthday gifts, almost too
dainty to handle, were kept. You fairly held your breath when
you looked at the nest of spun green glass, with the white dove
in it, that George Washington Mitchell gave to Shelley. Of course
a dove's nest was never deep, and round, and green, and the bird
didn't have red eyes and a black bill. I thought whoever could
blow glass as beautifully as that, might just as easy have made
it right while he was at it; but anyway, it was pretty. There
were pitchers, mugs, and vases, almost too delicate to touch,
and the cloth-covered box with braids of hair coiled in wreaths
from the heads of the little fever and whooping cough sisters.
Laddie asked Sally if she and Peter were going to have the ceremony
performed while they sat on the sofa. Seemed the right place.
They had done all their courting there, even on hot summer days;
but I supposed that was because Sally didn't want to be seen fixing
Peter's tie until she was ready. She made no bones about it then.
She fixed it whenever she pleased; likewise he held her hand.
Shelley said that was disgusting, and you wouldn't catch her.
Leon said he bet a dollar he would; and I said if he knew he'd
get beaten as I did, I bet two dollars he wouldn't tell what he
saw. The mantel was white, with vases of the lovely grasses that
grew beside the stream at the foot of the Big Hill. Mother gathered
the fanciest every fall, dried them, and dipped them in melted
alum coloured with copperas, aniline, and indigo. Then she took
bunches of the colours that went together best and made bouquets
for the big vases. They were pretty in the daytime, but at night
you could watch them sparkle and shimmer forever.
I always thought the sitting-room was nicer than the parlour.
The woodwork was white enamel there too, but the bureau and chairs
were just cherry and not too precious to use. They were every
bit as pretty. The mantel was much larger. I could stand up in
the fireplace, and it took two men to put on an everyday log,
four the Christmas one. On each side were the book shelves above,
and the linen closets below. The mantel set between these, and
mother always used the biggest, most gorgeous bouquets there,
because she had so much room. The hearth was a slab of stone that
came far into the room. We could sit on it and crack nuts, roast
apples, chestnuts, and warm our cider, then sweep all the muss
we made into the fire. The wall paper was white and pale pink
in stripes, and on the pink were little handled baskets filled
with tiny flowers of different colours. We sewed the rags for
the carpet ourselves, and it was the prettiest thing. One stripe
was wide, all gray, brown, and dull colours, and the other was
pink. There were green blinds and lace curtains here also, and
nice braided rugs that all of us worked on of winter evenings.
Everything got spicker and spanner each day.
Mother said there was no use in putting down a carpet in a dining-room
where you constantly fed a host, and the boys didn't clean their
feet as carefully as they should in winter; but there were useful
rags where they belonged, and in our bedroom opening from it also.
The dining-room wall paper had a broad stripe of rich cream with
pink cabbage roses scattered over it and a narrow pink stripe,
while the woodwork was something perfectly marvellous. I didn't
know what kind of wood it was, but a man who could turn his hand
to anything, painted it. First, he put on a pale yellow coat and
let it dry. Then he added wood brown, and while it was wet, with
a coarse toothed comb, a rag, and his fingers, he imitated the
grain, the even wood, and knotholes of dressed lumber, until many
a time I found myself staring steadily at a knot to see if a worm
wouldn't really come working out. You have to see a thing like
that to understand how wonderful it is. You couldn't see why they
washed the bedding, and took the feathers from the pillows and
steamed them in mosquito netting bags and dried them in the shade,
when Sally's was to be a morning wedding, but they did. I even
had to take a bucket and gather from around the walls all the
little heaps of rocks and shells that Uncle Abraham had sent mother
from California, take them out and wash and wipe them, and stack
them back, with the fanciest ones on top. He sent her a ring made
of gold he dug himself. She always kept the ring in a bottle in
her bureau, and she meant to wear it at the wedding, with her
new silk dress. I had a new dress too. I don't know how they got
everything done. All of them worked, until the last few days they
were perfect cross patches.
When they couldn't find another thing indoors to scour, they began
on the yard, orchard, barn and road. Mother even had Leon stack
the wood pile straighter. She said when corded wood leaned at
an angle, it made people seem shiftless; and she never passed
a place where it looked that way that her fingers didn't just
itch to get at it. He had to pull every ragweed on each side of
the road as far as our land reached, and lay every rail straight
in the fences. Father had to take spikes and our biggest maul
and go to the bridges at the foot of the Big and the Little Hill,
and see that every plank was fast, so none of them would rattle
when important guests drove across. She said she just simply wouldn't
have them in such a condition that Judge Pettis couldn't hear
himself think when he crossed; for you could tell from his looks
that it was very important that none of the things he thought
should be lost. There wasn't a single spot about the place inside
or out that wasn't gone over; and to lots of it you never would
have known anything had been done if you hadn't seen, because
the place was always in proper shape anyway; but father said mother
acted just like that, even when her sons were married at other
people's houses; and if she kept on getting worse, every girl
she married off, by the time she reached me, we'd all be scoured
threadbare and she'd be on the verge of the grave. May and I weeded
the flowerbeds, picked all the ripe seed, and pulled up and burned
all the stalks that were done blooming. Father and Laddie went
over the garden carefully; they scraped the walks and even shook
the palings to see if one were going to come loose right at the
last minute, when every one would be so flustrated there would
be no time to fix it.
Then they began to talk about arrangements for the ceremony, whether
we should have our regular minister, or Presiding Elder Lemon,
and what people they were going to invite. Just when we had planned
to ask every one, have the wedding in the church, and the breakfast
at the house, and all drive in a joyous procession to Groveville
to give them a good send-off in walked Sally. She had been visiting
Peter's people, and we planned a lot while she was away.
"What's going on here?" she asked, standing in the doorway,
dangling her bonnet by the ties.
She never looked prettier. Her hair had blown out in little curls
around her face from riding, her cheeks were so pink, and her
eyes so bright.
"We were talking about having the ceremony in the church,
so every one can be comfortably seated, and see and hear well,"
answered mother.
Sally straightened up and began jerking the roses on her bonnet
far too roughly for artificial flowers. Perhaps I surprised you
with that artificial word, but I can spell and define it; it's
easy divided into syllables. Goodness knows, I have seen enough
flowers made from the hair of the dead, wax, and paper, where
you get the shape, but the colour never is right. These of Sally's
were much too bright, but they were better than the ones made
at our house. Hers were of cloth and bought at a store. You couldn't
tell why, but Sally jerked her roses; I wished she wouldn't, because
I very well knew they would be used to trim my hat the next summer,
and she said: "Well, people don't have to be comfortable
during a wedding ceremony; they can stand up if I can, and as
for seeing and hearing, I'm asking a good many that I don't intend
to have see or hear either one!"
"My soul!" cried mother, and she dropped her hands and
her mouth fell open, like she always told us we never should let
ours, while she stared at Sally.
"I don't care!" said Sally, straightening taller yet;
her eyes began to shine and her lips to quiver, as if she would
cry in a minute; "I don't care----!"
"Which means, my child, that you DO care, very much,"
said father. "Suppose you cease such reckless talk, and explain
to us exactly what it is that you do want."
Sally gave her bonnet an awful jerk. Those roses would look like
sin before my turn to wear them came, and she said: "Well
then, I do care! I care with all my might! The church is all right,
of course; but I want to be married in my very own home! Every
one can think whatever they please about their home, and so can
I, and what I think is, that this is the nicest and the prettiest
place in all the world, and I belong here----"
Father lifted his head, his face began to shine, and his eyes
to grow teary; while mother started toward Sally. She put out
her hand and held mother from her at arm's length, and she turned
and looked behind her through the sitting-room and parlour, and
then at us, and she talked so fast you never could have understood
what she said if you hadn't known all of it anyway, and thought
exactly the same thing yourself.
"I have just loved this house ever since it was built,"
she said, "and I've had as good times here as any girl ever
had. If any one thinks I'm so very anxious to leave it, and you,
and mother, and all the others, why it's a big mistake. Seems
as if a girl is expected to marry and go to a home of her own;
it's drummed into her and things fixed for her from the day of
her birth; and of course I do like Peter, but no home in the world,
not even the one he provides for me, will ever be any dearer to
me than my own home; and as I've always lived in it, I want to
be married in it, and I want to stay here until the very last
second----"
"You shall, my child, you shall!" sobbed mother.
"And as for having a crowd of men that father is planning
to ask, staring at me, because he changes harvest help and wood
chopping with them, or being criticised and clawed over by some
women simply because they'll be angry if they don't get the chance,
I just won't--so there! Not if I have to stand the minister against
the wall, and turn our backs to every one. I think----"
"That will do!" said father, wiping his eyes. "That
will do, Sally! Your mother and I have got a pretty clear understanding
of how you feel, now. Don't excite yourself! Your wedding shan't
be used to pay off our scores. You may ask exactly whom you please,
want, and feel quite comfortable to have around you----"
Then Sally fell on mother's neck and every one cried a while;
then we wiped up, Leon gave Sally his slate, and she came and
sat beside the table and began to make out a list of those she
really wanted to invite. First she put down all of our family,
even many away in Ohio, and all of Peter's, and then his friends,
and hers. Once in the list of girls she stopped and said: "If
I take that beautiful imported handkerchief from Pamela Pryor,
I have just got to invite her "
"And she will outdress and outshine you at your own wedding,"
put in Shelley.
"Let her, if she can!" said Sally calmly. "She'll
have to hump herself if she beats that dress of mine; and as for
looks, I know lots of people who think gray eyes, pink cheeks,
and brown curls far daintier and prettier than red cheeks and
black eyes and curls. If she really is better looking than I am,
it isn't her fault; God made her that way, and He wouldn't like
us to punish her for it; and it would, because any one can see
she wants to be friends; don't you think, mother?"--mother
nodded--"and besides, I think she's better looking than I
am, myself!"
Sally said that, and wrote down the Princess' name in big letters,
and no one cheeped.
Then she began on our neighbourhood, thinking out loud and writing
what she thought. So all of us were as still, and held our breath
in softly and waited, and Sally said slow and musing like, "Of
course we couldn't have anything at THIS house without Sarah Hood.
She dressed most of us when we were born, nursed us when we were
sick, helped with threshing, company, and parties, and she's just
splendid anyway; we better ask all the Hoods"; so she wrote
them down. "And it will be lonely for Widow Willis and the
girls to see every one else here--we must have them; and of course
Deams--Amanda is always such splendid help; and the Widow Fall
is so perfectly lovely, we want her for decorative purposes; and
we could scarcely leave out Shaws; they always have all of us
everything they do; and Dr. Fenner of course; and we'll want Flo
and Agnes Kuntz to wait on table, so their folks might as well
come too----"
So she went on taking up each family we knew, and telling what
they had done for us, or what we had done for them; and she found
some good reason for inviting them, and pretty soon father settled
back in his chair and never took his eyes from Sally's shining
head as she bent over the slate, and then he began pulling his
lower lip, like when it won't behave, and his eyes danced exactly
as I've seen Leon's. I never had noticed that before.
Sally went straight on and at last she came to Freshetts. "I
am going to have all of them, too," she said. "The children
are good children, and it will help them along to see how things
are done when they are right; and I don't care what any one says,
I LIKE Mrs. Freshett. I'll ask her to help work, and that will
keep her from talking, and give the other women a chance to see
that she's clean, and human, and would be a good neighbour if
they'd be friendly. If we ask her, then the others will."
When she finished--as you live--there wasn't a soul she had left
out except Bill Ramsdell, who starved his dog until it sucked
our eggs, and Isaac Thomas, who was so lazy he wouldn't work enough
to keep his wife and children dressed so they ever could go anywhere,
but he always went, even with rags flying, and got his stomach
full just by talking about how he loved the Lord. To save me I
couldn't see Isaac Thomas without beginning to myself:
"'Tis the voice of the sluggard; I hear him complain,
You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again.
I passed by his garden, I saw the wild brier,
The thorn, and the thistle, grow broader and higher;
The clothes that hang on him are turning to rags;
And his money he wastes, till he starves or he begs."
That described Isaac to the last tatter, only he couldn't waste
money; he never had any. Once I asked father what he thought Isaac
would do with it, if by some unforeseen working of Divine Providence,
he got ten dollars. Father said he could tell me exactly, because
Isaac once sold some timber and had a hundred all at once. He
went straight to town and bought Mandy a red silk dress and a
brass breastpin, when she had no shoes. He got the children an
organ, when they were hungry; and himself a plug hat. Mandy and
the children cried because he forgot candy and oranges until the
last cent was gone. Father said the only time Isaac ever worked
since he knew him was when he saw how the hat looked with his
rags. He actually helped the men fell the trees until he got enough
to buy a suit, the remains of which he still wore on Sunday. I
asked father why he didn't wear the hat too, and father said the
loss of that hat was a blow, from which Isaac never had recovered.
Once at camp-meeting he laid it aside to pray his longest, most
impressive prayer, and an affectionate cow strayed up and licked
the nap all off before Isaac finished, so he never could wear
it again.
Sally said: "I'll be switched if I'll have that disgusting
creature around stuffing himself on my wedding day; but if you're
not in bed, when it's all over, mother, I do wish you'd send Mandy
and the children a basket."
Mother promised, and father sat and looked on and pulled his lower
lip until his ears almost wiggled. Then Sally said she wanted
Laddie and Shelley to stand at the parlour door and keep it tight
shut, and seat every one in the sitting-room except a special
list she had made out to send in there. She wanted all our family
and Peter's, and only a few very close friends, but it was enough
to fill the room. She said when she and Peter came downstairs
every one could see how they looked when they crossed the sitting-room,
and for all the difference the door would make, it could be left
open then; she would be walled in by people she wanted around
her, and the others could have the fun of being there, seeing
what they could, and getting all they wanted to eat. Father and
mother said that was all right, only to say nothing about the
plan to shut the door; but when the time came just to close it
and everything would be satisfactory.
Then Sally took the slate upstairs to copy the list with ink,
so every one went about something, while mother crossed to father
and he took her on his lap, and they looked at each other the
longest and the hardest, and neither of them said a word. After
a while they cried and laughed, and cried some more, and it was
about as sensible as what a flock of geese say when they are let
out of the barn and start for the meadow in the morning. Then
father, all laughy and criey, said: "Thank God! Oh, thank
God, the girl loves the home we have made for her!"
Just said it over and over, and mother kept putting in: "It
pays, Paul! It pays!"
Next day Sally put on her riding habit and fixed herself as pretty
as ever she could, and went around to have a last little visit
with every one, and invited them herself, and then she wrote letters
to people away. Elizabeth and Lucy came home, and every one began
to work. Father and mother went to the village in the carriage
and brought home the bed full of things to eat, and all we had
was added, and mother began to pack butter, and save eggs for
cakes, and the day before, I thought there wouldn't be a chicken
left on the place. They killed and killed, and Sarah Hood, Amanda
Deam, and Mrs. Freshett picked and picked.
"I'll bet a dollar we get something this time besides ribs
and neck," said Leon. "How do you suppose thigh and
breast would taste?"
"I was always crazy to try the tail," I said.
"Much chance you got," sniggered Leon. "'Member
the time that father asked the Presiding Elder, `Brother Lemon,
what piece of the fowl do you prefer?' and he up and said: `I'm
partial to the rump, Brother Stanton.' There sat father bound
he wouldn't give him mother's piece, so he pretended he couldn't
find it, and forked all over the platter and then gave him the
ribs and the thigh. Gee, how mother scolded him after the preacher
had gone! You notice father hasn't asked that since. Now, he always
says: `Do you prefer light or dark meat?' Much chance you have
of ever tasting a tail, if father won't even give one to the Presiding
Elder!"
"But as many as they are killing----"
"Oh THIS time," said Leon with a flourish, "this
time we are going to have livers, and breast, and thighs, AND
tails, if you are beholden to tail."
"I'd like to know how we are?"
"Well, since you have proved that you can keep your mouth
shut, for a little while, anyway, I'm going to take you in on
this," said Leon. "You keep your eyes on me. When the
wedding gets going good, you watch me, and slip out. That's all!
I'll be fixed to do the rest. But mind this, get out when I do."
"All right," I promised.
They must have wakened about four o'clock on the wedding day;
it wasn't really light when I got up. I had some breakfast in
my night dress, and then I was all fixed up in my new clothes,
and made to sit on a chair, and never move for fear I would soil
my dress, for no one had time to do me over, and there was only
one dress anyway. There was so much to see you could keep interested
just watching, and I was as anxious to look nice before the boys
and girls, and the big people, as any one.
Every mantel and table and bureau was covered with flowers, and
you could have smelled the kitchen a mile away, I know. The dining
table was set for the wedding party, our father and mother, and
Peter's, and the others had to wait. You couldn't have laid the
flat of your hand on that table anywhere, it was so covered with
things to eat. Miss Amelia, in a dress none of us ever had seen
before, a real nice white dress, pranced around it and smirked
at every one, and waved the peacock feather brush to keep the
flies from the jelly, preserves, jam, butter, and things that
were not cooked.
For hours Mrs. Freshett had stood in the kitchen on one side of
the stove frying chicken and heaping it in baking pans in the
oven, and Amanda Deam on the other, frying ham, while Sarah Hood
cooked other things, and made a wash boiler of coffee. Everything
was ready by the time it should have been. I had watched them
until I was tired, when Sally came through the room where I was,
and she said I might come along upstairs and see her dressed.
When we reached the door I wondered where she would put me, but
she pushed clothing together on a bed, and helped me up, and that
was great fun.
She had been bathed and had on her beautiful new linen underclothing
that mother punched full of holes and embroidered in flowers and
vines, and Shelley was brushing her hair when some one called
out: "The Princess is coming!"
I jumped for the window, and all of them, even Sally, crowded
behind. Well, talk about carriages! No one ever had seen THAT
one before. It WAS a carriage. And such horses! The funny "'orse,
'ouse" man who made the Pryor garden was driving. He stopped
at the gate, got out and opened a door, and the Princess' father
stepped down, tall and straight, all in shiny black. He turned
around and held out his hand, bowing double, and the Princess
laid her hand in his and stepped out too. He walked with her to
the gate, made another bow, kissed her hand, and stepped back,
and she came down the walk alone. He got in the carriage, the
man closed the door, and they drove away.
Sally must have arranged before that the Princess was to come
early, for she came straight upstairs. She wore a soft white silk
dress with big faded pink roses in it, and her hair was fastened
at each ear with a bunch of little pink roses. She was lovely,
but she didn't "outdress or outshine" Sally one bit,
and she never even glanced at the mirror to see how she looked;
she began helping with Sally's hair, and to dress her. When Bess
Kuntz prinked so long she made every one disgusted, the Princess
said: "Oh save your trouble. No one will look at you when
there's a bride in the house."
There was a roll almost as thick as your arm of garters that all
the other girls wanted Sally to wear for them so they would get
a chance to marry that year, and Agnes Kuntz's was so large it
went twice around, and they just laughed about it. They put a
blue ribbon on Sally's stays for luck, and she borrowed Peter's
sister Mary's comb to hold her back hair. They had the most fun,
and when she was all ready except her dress they went away, and
Sally stood in the middle of the room trembling a little. Outside
you could hear carriage wheels rolling, the beat of horses' hoofs,
and voices crying greetings. "There was a sound of revelry,"
by day. Mother came in hurriedly. She wore her new brown silk,
with a lace collar pinned at the throat with the pin that had
a brown goldstone setting in it, and her precious ring was on
her finger. She was dainty and pretty enough to have been a bride
herself. She turned Sally around slowly, touching her hair a little
and her skirts; then she went to the closet, took out the wedding
dress, put the skirt over Sally's head, and she came up through
the whiteness, pink and glowing. She slipped her arms into the
sleeves, and mother fastened it, shook out the skirt, saw that
the bead fringe hung right, and the lace collar lay flat, then
she took Sally in her arms, held her tight and said: "God
bless you, dear, and keep you always. Amen."
Then she stepped to the door, and Peter, all shining and new,
came in. He hugged Sally and kissed her like it didn't make the
least difference whether she had on calico or a wedding dress,
and he just stared, and stared at her, and never said a word,
so at last she asked: "Well Peter, do you like my dress?"
And the idiot said: "Why Sally, I hadn't even seen it!"
Then both of them laughed, and the Presiding Elder came.
I never liked to look at him very well because something had happened,
and he had only one eye. I always wondered if he had "plucked
it out" because it had "offended" him; but if you
could forget his eye, and just listen to his voice, it was like
the sweetest music. He married those two people right there in
the bedroom, all but about three words at the end. I heard and
saw every bit of it. Then Sally said it was time for me to go
to mother, but she followed me into the boys' room and shut the
door. Then she knelt in her beautiful silver dress, and put her
arms around me and said: "Honest, Little Sister, aren't you
going to kiss me goodbye?"
"Oh I can if you want me to," I said, but I didn't look
at her; I looked out of the window.
She laughed a breathless little catchy sort of laugh and said:
"That's exactly what I do want."
"You didn't even want me, to begin with," I reminded
her.
"There isn't a doubt but whoever told you that, could have
been in better business," said Sally, angry-like. "I
was much younger then, and there were many things I didn't understand,
and it wasn't you I didn't want; it was just no baby at all. I
wouldn't have wanted a boy, or any other girl a bit more. I foolishly
thought we had children enough in this house. I see now very plainly
that we didn't, for this family never could get along without
you, and I'm sorry I ever thought so, and I'd give anything if
I hadn't struck you and----"
"Oh be still, and go on and get married!" I said. I
could just feel a regular beller coming in my throat. "I
was only fooling to pay you up. I meant all the time to kiss you
good-bye when the others did. I'll nearly die being lonesome when
you're gone----"
Then I ran for downstairs, and when I reached the door, where
the steps went into the sitting-room, I stopped, scared at all
the people. It was like camp-meeting. You could see the yard full
through the windows. Just as I was thinking I'd go back to the
boys' room, and from there into the garret, and down the back
stairway, Laddie went and saw me. He came over, led me to the
parlour door, put me inside, and there mother took my hand and
held me tight, and I couldn't see Leon anywhere.
I was caught, but they didn't have him. Mother never hung on as
she did that day. I tried and tried to pull away, and she held
tight. It was only a minute until the door opened, people crowded
back, and the Presiding Elder, followed by Sally and Peter, came
into the room, and they began being married all over again.
If it hadn't grown so solemn my mother sprung a tear, I never
would have made it. She just had to let me go to sop her face,
because tears are salty, and they would turn her new brown silk
front yellow. The minute my hand was free, I slipped between the
people and looked at the parlour door. It was wedged full and
more standing on chairs behind them. No one could get out there.
I thought I would fail Leon sure, and then I remembered the parlour
bedroom. I got through that door easy as anything, and it was
no trick at all to slip behind the blind, raise the window, and
drop into mother's room from the sill. From there I reached the
back dining-room door easy enough, went around to the kitchen,
and called Leon softly. He opened the door at once and I slipped
in. He had just got there. We looked all around and couldn't see
where to begin at first. There was enough cooked food there to
load two wagons.
An old pillow-case that had dried sage in it was lying across
a chair and Leon picked it up and poured the sage into the wood-
box, and handed the case to me. He went over and knelt before
the oven, while I followed and held open the case. Leon rolled
his eyes to the ceiling and said so exactly like father when he
is serving company that not one of us could have told the difference:
"Which part of the fowl do you prefer, Brother Lemon?"
It was so funny it made me snigger, but I straightened up and
answered as well as I could: "I'm especially fond of the
rump, Brother Stanton."
Leon stirred the heap and piled four or five tails in the case.
I thought that was all I could manage before they would spoil,
so I said: "Do you prefer light or dark meat, Sister Abigail?"
"I wish to choose breast," said Leon, simpering just
like that silly Abigail Webster. He put in six breasts. Then we
found them hidden away back in the oven in a pie pan, for the
bride's table, I bet, and we took two livers apiece; we didn't
dare take more for fear they had been counted. Then he threw in
whatever he came to that was a first choice big piece, until I
was really scared, and begged him to stop; but he repeated what
the fox said in the story of the "Quarrelsome Cocks"--"Poco
was very good, but I have not had enough yet," so he piled
in pieces until I ran away with the pillow-case; then he slid
in a whole plateful of bread, another of cake, and put the plates
in a tub of dishes under the table. Then we took some of everything
that wasn't too runny. Just then the silence broke in the front
part of the house, and we scooted from the back door, closing
it behind us, ran to the wood house and climbed the ladder to
the loft over the front part. There we were safe as could be,
we could see to the road, hear almost everything said in the kitchen,
and "eat our bites in peace," like Peter Justice told
the Presiding Elder at the church trial that he wanted his wife
to, the time he slapped her. Before very long, they began calling
us, and called, and called. We hadn't an idea what they wanted,
so we ate away. We heard them first while I was holding over a
back to let Leon taste kidney, and it made him blink when he got
it good.
"Well my soul!" he said. "No wonder father didn't
want to feed that to another man when mother isn't very well,
and likes it! No wonder!" Then he gave me a big bite of breast.
It was sort of dry and tasteless; I didn't like it.
"Why, I think neck or back beats that all to pieces!"
I said in surprise.
"Fact is, they do!" said Leon. "I guess the people
who `wish to choose breast,' do it to get the biggest piece."
I never had thought of it before, but of course that would be
the reason.
"Allow me, Sister Stanton," said Leon, holding out a
piece of thigh.
That was really chicken! Then we went over the backs and picked
out all the kidneys, and ate the little crusty places, and all
the cake we could swallow; then Leon fixed up the bag the best
he could, and set it inside an old cracked churn and put on the
lid.
He said that would do almost as well as the cellar, and the food
would keep until to-morrow. I wanted to slip down and put it in
the Underground Station; but Leon said father must be spending
a lot of money right now, and he might go there to get some, so
that wouldn't be safe. Then he cleaned my face, and I told him
when he got his right, and we slipped from the back door, crossed
the Lawton blackberry patch, and went to the house from the orchard.
Leon took an apple and broke it in two, and we went in eating
as if we were starving. When father asked us where in this world
we had been, Leon told him we thought it would be so awful long
before the fourth or fifth table, and we hadn't had much breakfast,
and we were so hungry we went and hunted something to eat.
"If you'd only held your horses a minute," said father;
"they were calling you to take places at the bride's table."
Well for land's sake! Our mouths dropped open until it's a wonder
the cake and chicken didn't show, and we never said a word. There
didn't seem to be anything to say, for Leon loved to be with grown
folks, and to have eaten at the bride's table would have been
the biggest thing that ever happened to me. At last, when I could
speak, I asked who had taken our places, and bless your heart
if it wasn't that mealy-faced little sister of Peter's, and one
of the aunts from Ohio. They had finished, and Sally was upstairs
putting on her travelling dress, while the guests were eating,
when I heard Laddie ask the Princess to ride with him and Sally's
other friends, who were going to escort her to the depot.
"You'll want all your horses. What could I ride?"
"If I find you a good horse and saddle will you go?"
"I will. I think it would be fine sport."
Laddie turned and went from sight that minute. The Princess laughed
and kept on making friends with every one, helping wait on people,
thinking of nice things to do, and just as the carriage was at
the gate for father and mother, and Sally and Peter, and every
one else was untying their horses to ride in the procession to
the village, from where I was standing on the mounting block I
saw something coming down the Little Hill. I took one look, ran
to the Princess, and almost dragged her.
Up raced Laddie, his face bright, his eyes snapping with fun.
He rode Flos, was leading the Princess' horse Maud, and carrying
a big bundle under his arm. He leaped from the saddle and fastened
both horses.
"Gracious Heaven! What have you done?" gasped the Princess.
"Brought your mount," said Laddie, quite as if he were
used to going to Pryors' after the sausage grinder or the grain
sacks. But the Princess was pale and trembling. She stepped so
close she touched him, and he immediately got a little closer.
You couldn't get ahead of Laddie, and he didn't seem to care who
saw, and neither did she.
"Tell me exactly what occurred," she said, just as father
does when he means to whale us completely.
"I rapped at the front door," said Laddie.
"And who opened it?" cried the Princess.
"Your father!"
"My father?"
"Yes, your father!" said Laddie. "And because I
was in such a hurry, I didn't wait for him to speak. I said: `Good
morning, Mr. Pryor. I'm one of the Stanton boys, and I came for
Miss Pryor's mount and habit. All the young people who are on
horseback are going to ride an escort to the village, around my
sister's bridal carriage, and Miss Pryor thinks she would enjoy
going. Please excuse such haste, but we only this minute made
the plan, and the train won't wait.'"
"And he?"
"He said: `Surely! Hold one minute.' I stood on the step
and waited, and I could hear him give the order to some one to
get your riding habit quickly, and then he blew a shrill whistle,
and your horse was at the gate the fastest of anything I ever
saw."
"Did he do or say----"
"Nothing about `clods, and clowns, and grossness!' Every
other word he spoke was when I said, `Thank you, and good morning,'
and was turning away. He asked: `Did Miss Pryor say whether she
preferred to ride home, or shall I escort her in the carriage?'"
"`She did not,' I answered. `The plan was so sudden she had
no time to think that far. But since she will have her horse and
habit, why not allow my father to escort her?' So you see, I'm
going to take you home," exulted Laddie.
"But you told him your FATHER," said the Princess.
"And thereby created the urgent necessity," said Laddie
with a flourish, "for speaking to him again, and telling
him that my father had visitors from Ohio, and couldn't leave
them. We will get all the fun from the day that we can; but before
dusk, too early for them to have any cause for cavil, `the gross
country clod' is going to take you home!"
One at a time, Laddie pounded those last words into the hitching
post, with his doubled fist.
"Suppose he sets the dogs on you! You know he keeps two dreadful
ones."
Laddie just roared. He leaned closer.
"Beaucheous Lady," he said, "I have fed those same
dogs and rubbed their ears so many nights lately, he'll get the
surprise of his life if he tries that."
The Princess drew away and stared at Laddie the funniest.
"On my life!" she said at last. "Well for a country
clod----!"
Then she turned with the habit bundle, and ran into the house.
Father and mother came from the front door arm in arm and walked
to the carriage, and Sally and Peter followed. My, but they looked
fine! The Princess had gone to the garden and gathered flowers
and lined all the children in rows down each side of the walk.
They were loaded with blooms to throw at Sally; but when she came
out, in her beautiful gray poplin travelling dress, trimmed in
brown ribbon, the same shade as her curls, her face all pink,
her eyes shining, and the ties of her little brown bonnet waving
to her waist, she was so perfectly beautiful, every single child
watched her open mouthed, gripped its flowers, and forgot to throw
them at all.
And this you scarcely will believe after what she had said the
day she made her list, and when all of us knew her heart was all
torn up, Sally just swept along smiling at every one and calling
"good-bye" to those who had no way to ride to the village,
as if leaving didn't amount to much. At the carriage, a little
white, but still smiling, she turned and took one long look at
everything, and then she got in and called for me, right out loud
before every one, so I got to hold up my head as high as it would
go, and step in too, and ride all the way to Groveville between
her and Peter, and instead of holding his hand, she held mine,
just gripped it tight. She gripped so hard she squeezed all the
soreness at her from my heart, and when she kissed me good-bye
the very last of all, I whispered in her ear that I wouldn't ever
be angry any more, and I wasn't, because after she had explained
I saw how it had been. It wasn't ME she didn't want; it was just
no baby.
After our carriage came Peter's people, then one father borrowed
for the Ohio relatives, then the other children, and all the neighbours
followed, and when we reached the high hill where you turn beside
the woods, I saw father gather up the lines and brace himself,
for Ned and Jo were what he called "mettlesome." "Then
came a burst of thunder sound," as it says in "Casablanca,"
and the horseback riders came sweeping around us, Laddie and the
Princess leading. These two rode ahead of us, and the others lined
three deep on either side, and the next carriage dropped back
and let them close in behind, so Sally and Peter were "in
the midst thereof." Instead of throwing old shoes, as always
had been done, the Princess coaxed them to throw rice and roses,
and every other flower pulled from the bouquets at home, and from
the gardens we had passed. Every one was out watching us go by,
and when William Justus rode beside the fences crying, "Flowers
for the bride! Give us flowers for the bride!" some of the
women were so excited they pulled things up by the roots and gave
him armloads, and he rode ahead and supplied Laddie and the Princess,
and they kept scattering them in the road until every foot of
the way to Groveville was covered with flowers, "the fair
young flowers that lately sprang and stood." He even made
side-cuts into swampy places and gathered armloads of those perfectly
lovely, fringy blue gentians, caught up, and filled the carriage
and scattered them in a wicked way, because you should only take
a few of those rare, late flowers that only grow from seed.
Sally looked just as if she had come into her own and was made
for it; I never did see her look so pretty, but Peter sweated
and acted awful silly. Father had a time with the team. Ned and
Jo became excited and just ranted. They simply danced. Laddie
had braided their manes and tails, and they waved like silken
floss in the sunshine, and the carriage was freshly washed and
the patent leather and brass shone, and we rode flower-covered.
Ahead, Laddie and the Princess fairly tried themselves. She hadn't
put on her hat or habit after all. When Laddie told her they were
going to lead, she said: "Very well! Then I shall go as I
am. The dress makes no difference. It's the first time I've had
a chance to spoil one since I left England."
When the other girls saw what she was going to do, nearly every
one of them left off their hats and riding skirts. Every family
had saddle horses those days, and when the riders came racing
up they looked like flying flowers, they were all laughing, bloom
ladened, singing and calling jokes. Ahead, Laddie and the Princess
just plain showed off. Her horse came from England with them,
and Laddie said it had Arab blood in it, like the one in the Fourth
Reader poem, "Fret not to roam the desert now, With all thy
winged speed," and the Princess loved her horse more than
that man did his. She said she'd starve before she'd sell it,
and if her family were starving, she'd go to work and earn food
for them, and keep her horse. Laddie's was a Kentucky thoroughbred
he'd saved money for years to buy; and he took a young one and
trained it himself, almost like a circus horse. Both of them COULD
ride; so that day they did. They ran those horses neck and neck,
right up the hill approaching Groveville, until they were almost
from sight, then they whirled and came sweeping back fast as the
wind. The Princess' eyes were like dead coals, and her black curls
streamed, the thin silk dress wrapped tight around her and waved
back like a gossamer web such as spiders spin in October. Laddie's
hair was blowing, his cheeks and eyes were bright, and with one
eye on the Princess-- she didn't need it--and one on the road,
he cut curves, turned, wheeled, and raced, and as he rode, so
did she.
"Will they break their foolish necks?" wailed mother.
"They are the handsomest couple I ever have seen in my life!"
said father.
"Yes, and you two watch out, or you'll strike trouble right
there," said Sally, leaning forward.
I gave her an awful nudge. It made me so happy I could have screamed
to see them flying away together like that.
"Well, if that girl represents trouble," said father,
"God knows it never before came in such charming guise."
"You can trust a man to forget his God and his immortal soul
if a sufficiently beautiful woman comes along," said my mother
dryly, and all of them laughed.
She didn't mean that to be funny, though. You could always tell
by the set of her lips and the light in her eyes.
Just this side of Groveville we passed a man on horseback. He
took off his hat and drew his horse to one side when Laddie and
the Princess rode toward him. He had a big roll of papers under
his arm, to show that he had been for his mail. But I knew, so
did Laddie and the Princess, that he had been compelled to saddle
and ride like mad, to reach town and come that far back in time
to watch us pass; for it was the Princess' father, and WATCH was
exactly what he was doing; he wanted to see for himself. Laddie
and the Princess rode straight at him, neck and neck, and then
both of them made their horses drop on their knees and they waved
a salute, and then they were up and away. Of course father and
mother saw, so mother bowed, and father waved his whip as we passed.
He sat there like he'd turned the same on horseback as Sabethany
had in her coffin; but he had to see almost a mile of us driving
our best horses and carriages, wearing our wedding garments and
fine raiment, and all that "cavalcade," father called
it, of young, reckless riders. You'd have thought if there were
a hint of a smile in his whole being it would have shown when
Sally leaned from the carriage to let him see that her face and
clothes were as good as need be and smiled a lovely smile on him,
and threw him a rose. He did leave his hat off and bow low, and
then Shelley, always the very dickens for daring, rode right up
to him and laughed in his face, and she leaned and thrust a flower
into his bony hands; you would have thought he would have been
simply forced to smile then, but he looked far more as if he would
tumble over and roll from the saddle. My heart ached for a man
in trouble like that. I asked the Lord to preserve us from secrets
we couldn't tell the neighbours!
At the station there wasn't a thing those young people didn't
do.
They tied flowers and ribbons all over Sally's satchel and trunk.
They sowed rice as if it were seeding time in a wheatfield. They
formed a circle around Sally and Peter and as mushy as ever they
could they sang, "As sure as the grass grows around the stump,
You are my darling sugar lump," while they danced. They just
smiled all the time no matter what was done to them. Some of it
made me angry, but I suppose to be pleasant was the right way.
Sally was strong on always doing the right thing, so she just
laughed, and so did all of us. Going home it was wilder yet, for
all of them raced and showed how they could ride.
At the house people were hungry again, so the table was set and
they ate up every scrap in sight, and Leon and I ate with them
that time and saved ours. Then one by one the carriages, spring
wagons, and horseback riders went away, all the people saying
Sally was the loveliest bride, and hers had been the prettiest
wedding they'd ever seen, and the most good things to eat, and
Laddie and the Princess went with them. When the last one was
gone, and only the relatives from Ohio were left, mother pitched
on the bed, gripped her hands and cried as if she'd go to pieces,
and father cried too, and all of us, even Mrs. Freshett, who stayed
to wash up the dishes. She was so tickled to be there, and see,
and help, that mother had hard work to keep her from washing the
linen that same night. She did finish the last dish, scrub the
kitchen floor, black the stove, and pack all the borrowed china
in tubs, ready to be taken home, and things like that. Mother
said it was a burning shame for any neighbourhood to let a woman
get so starved out and lonesome she'd act that way. She said enough
was enough, and when Mrs. Freshett had cooked all day, and washed
dishes until the last skillet was in place, she had done as much
as any neighbour ought to do, and the other things she went on
and did were a rebuke to us.
I felt sore, weepy, and tired out. It made me sick to think of
the sage bag in the cracked churn, so I climbed my very own catalpa
tree in the corner, watched up the road for Laddie, and thought
things over. If I ever get married I want a dress, and a wedding
exactly like that, but I would like a man quite different from
Peter; like Laddie would suit me better. When he rode under the
tree, I dropped from a limb into his arms, and went with him to
the barn. He asked me what was going on at the house, and I told
him about Mrs. Freshett being a rebuke to us; and Laddie said
she was, and he didn't believe one word against her. When I told
him mother was in bed crying like anything, he said: "I knew
that had to come when she kept up so bravely at the station.
Thank the Lord, she showed her breeding by holding in until she
got where she had a right to cry if she pleased."
Then I whispered for fear Leon might be around: "Did he set
the dogs on you?"
"He did not," said Laddie, laughing softly.
"Did he call you names again?"
"He did!" said Laddie, "but I started it. You see,
when we got there, Thomas was raking the grass and he came to
take the Princess' horse. Her father was reading on a bench under
a tree.
I helped her down, and walked with her to the door and said good-
bye, and thanked her for the pleasure she had added to the day
for us, loudly enough that he could hear; then I went over to
him and said: `Good evening, Mr. Pryor. If my father knew anything
about it, he would very much regret that company from Ohio detained
him and compelled me to escort your daughter home. He would greatly
have enjoyed the privilege, but I honestly believe that I appreciated
it far more than he could.'"
"Oh Laddie, what did he say?"
"He arose and glared at me, and choked on it, and he tried
several times, until I thought the clods were going to fly again,
but at last he just spluttered: `You blathering rascal, you!'
That was such a compliment compared with what I thought he was
going to say that I had to laugh. He tried, but he couldn't keep
from smiling himself, and then I said: `Please think it over,
Mr. Pryor, and if you find that Miss Pryor has had an agreeable,
entertaining day, won't you give your consent for her to come
among us again? Won't you allow me to come here, if it can be
arranged in such a way that I intrude on no one?'"
"Oh Laddie!"
"He exploded in a kind of a snarl that meant, I'll see you
in the Bad Place first. So I said to him: `Thank you very much
for to- day, anyway. I'm sure Miss Pryor has enjoyed this day,
and it has been the happiest of my life--one to be remembered
always. Of course I won't come here if I am unwelcome, but I am
in honour bound to tell you that I intend to meet your daughter
elsewhere, whenever I possibly can. I thought it would be a better
way for you to know and have us where you could see what was going
on, if you chose, than for us to meet without your knowledge."
"Oh Laddie," I wailed, "now you've gone and ruined
everything!"
"Not so bad as that, Little Sister," laughed Laddie.
"Not half so bad! He exploded in another growl, and he shook
his walking stick at me, and he said--guess what he said."
"That he would kill you," I panted, clinging to him.
"Right!" said Laddie. "You have it exactly. He
said: `Young man, I'll brain you with my walking stick if ever
I meet you anywhere with my daughter, when you have not come to
her home and taken her with my permission.'"
"What!" I stammered. "What! Oh Laddie, say it over!
Does it mean----?"
"It means," said Laddie, squeezing me until I was near
losing my breath, "it means, Little Sister, that I shall
march to his door and ask him squarely, and if it is anywhere
the Princess wants to go, I shall take her."
"Like, `See the conquering hero comes?'"
"Exactly!" laughed Laddie.
"What will mother say?"
"She hasn't made up her mind yet," answered Laddie.
"Do you mean----?" I gasped again.
"Of course!" said Laddie. "I wasn't going to let
a girl get far ahead of me. The minute I knew she had told her
mother, I told mine the very first chance."
"Mother knows that you feel about the Princess as father
does about her?"
"Mother knows," answered Laddie, "and so does father.
I told both of them."
Both of them knew! And it hadn't made enough difference that any
one living right with them every day could have told it. Time
and work will be needed to understand grown people.