0335
YOUNG Jones met Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps at the Forty-Second Street station. The old gentleman had been torn by doubts and grievous misgivings all the way down. What did young Jones' ambiguous message mean? Was Mary dead? Was he bound to a funeral? or a christening? Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps knew that something tremendous had happened. But what?
Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps walked up to young Jones at the station, and without pausing to greet him, remarked:
“Crib or coffin?”
“Crib!” said young Jones.
Then Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps fell into a storm of tears, and began to shake young Jones by the hand for the first time in his life.
The three happiest people in the world that night were Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps, Mary and young Jones. The baby was the one member of the family who did not give way to emotion. He received his grandfather with a stolid phlegm which became a Van Epps.
“And his name is Stuyvesant Van Epps Jones,” said Mary.
Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps kissed Mary again at this cheering news, and shook hands with young Jones for the second time in his life.
That is all there is to a very true story. Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps lives now in New York City, and Albany is shy a second citizen. Mary is happy, young Jones feels like a conqueror, and the infant, Stuyvesant Van Epps Jones, beneath the eye of his grandsire, waxes apace.
Aunt Ann, be we goin' to the spellin' to-night at the Block schoolhouse?”
Jim Lee always called his wife “Aunt Ann.” So did everybody except her daughter Lydia. She called Aunt Ann “Mother.” But to Jim Lee and the other inhabitants of Stowe Township, she was “Aunt Ann Lee.”
As Jim Lee asked Aunt Ann the question, he threw down the armful of maple wood and retreated to the back door to stamp the snow off his boots.
“I want to know,” he said, “so's to do the chores in time.”
Aunt Ann was chopping mince-meat. She was a clean, beautiful woman of the buxom sort. Her eyes were very blue, while her hair was very black with not a strand of silver, for all her forty-seven years. Jim Lee held Aunt Ann in great respect. Aunt Ann on her part was a tender soul and true, although Jim Lee had found her quite firm at times.
“Now and then she's a morsel hard on the bit,” said Jim Lee, descriptively.
Perhaps the two old-maid Spranglers meant the same thing when they said: “There never was a body with blue eyes and black hair who didn't have the snap in 'em.”
“Yes,” replied Aunt Ann to Jim Lee's question “yes, of course we'll go. I've got to see Mrs. Au about some rag carpets she's weavin' for me, and she be there. Better get the Morgan colt and the cutter ready, father; we'll go in that.”
“That'll only hold two,” said Jim Lee. “How Lide goin' to go?”
“Lide's goin' with Ed Church. She's over to Jenn Ruple's now; she and Jen are goin' to choose up for the spellin' bee. But she'll be back in time, and Ed Church is comin' for her at half-past seven.”
Jim Lee's face showed that he didn't like Ed Church He said nothing for five minutes, and pulling off his kip-skin boots began to give them a coat of tallow.
“Where's Ezra?” at last he asked. Ezra was the heir of the house of Lee. His age was eleven; he was twenty.
“Ezra's down cellar sortin' over that bin of peach blows,” said Aunt Ann, busy with her mince-me; and chopping-bowl; “they'd started to rot.”
“I wanted to send him to the Corners for the mail,” suggested Jim Lee, as he kneaded the wax tallow into the instep of his boot to soften the leather.
0341
“You'd better hitch up the colt a mite early,” answered
Aunt Ann, “and go to the Corners before we start to the spellin'. Ezra's got to churn as soon; he's done the peachblows.”
There was another pause. Jim Lee softly drew on his freshly tallowed boots, and then stood up an tried them by raising his heels one after the other bending the boots at the toes as if testing a couple of Damascus sword blades.
“I don't like this here Ed Church sparkin' our Lide,” remarked Jim Lee at last; “bimeby they'll want to get married.”
“Father!” said Aunt Ann, raising her blue eyes with a look of cold criticism from the mince-meat she was massacring.
“Has he asked Lide yet?” said Jim Lee.
“No, he ain't,” replied Aunt Ann, “but he's goin' to.”
“How do you know?”
“How do I know?” repeated Aunt Ann, as she set the chopping-bowl on the kitchen table, and turned to put a few select sticks of maple into the oven to the end that they become kiln-dried and highly inflammable; “how do I know Ed Church is goin' to marry Lide? Humph! I can see it.”
“I'm goin' to put a stop to it,” said Jim Lee. “This Church boy is goin' to keep away from Lide.”
“Father, you're goin' to do nothing of the kind,” and Aunt Ann's eyes began to sparkle. “You can run the farm and Ezra, father; I'll run Lide and the house. The only person who's goin' to have a syllable to say about Lide's marryin' when the time comes, is Lide herself. If she wants Ed Church she's goin' to have him.”
“Aunt Ann, I'm s'prised at you upholdin' for this Church boy!” Jim Lee threw into his tone a strain of strong reproof. “Ed Church drinks.”
“Ed Church don't drink,” retorted Aunt Ann sharply.
“How about that time two years ago last summer? Waren't Ed Church drunk over at the Royalton Fair?”
“Yes, he was,” answered Aunt Ann, “and that's the only time. But so was my father drunk once at a barn-raisin' when he was a boy, for I've heerd him tell it; and I guess my father, William H. Pickering, was as good as any Lee who ever greased his boots. One swallow don't make a summer, and one drunk don't make a drunkard. Ed Church told me himself that he ain't took a drop since.”
“I'm goin' to break up this nonsense between him and Lide, at any rate,” said Jim Lee. His mood was dogged, and it served to irritate Aunt Ann.
“All you've got ag'inst Ed Church, father,” said Aunt Ann, “is that his father voted ag'in you for pathmaster, and I'm glad he did. What under the sun you ever wanted to be pathmaster for, and go about ploughin' up good roads to make 'em bad, was more'n I could see. I'm glad you was beat.”
“I'm goin' to stop this Church boy hangin' 'round Lide, jest the same,” was the closing remark of Jim Lee. At this point he went out to the barn to put some straw in the cutter and harness the Morgan colt. Aunt Ann turned again to her duties.
“Father is so exasperatin',” remarked Aunt Ann, as she poured some boiling water over a dozen slices of salt pork to “freshen it,” in the line of preparing them for the evening frying-pan. “He'll find out, though, that I'll have a tolerable lot to say about Lide's marriage.”
At half-past seven, Ed Church swung into Jim Lee's yard, with a horse all bells, and a cutter a billow of buffalo robes. He did not dare leave Grey Eagle, his pet colt, for Grey Eagle was restless with the wintry evening air and wanted to go. So Ed Church notified Lide of his coming by shouting, “House!” with a great voice.
Grey Eagle made a plunge at the sound, but was brought up by the bit.
“How'dy do, Ed,” said Lide, as she came out the side door. She looked rosy and pretty with her muskrat muff and cape.
“Hello, Lide,” said Ed. “You'll have to scramble in yourself. I can hardly hold the colt this weather, when he don't have nothin' to do but eat.”
Lide scrambled in. As Ed Church stood up in the cutter to allow Lide a chance to be seated, her face came close to his. Taking his eyes from Grey Eagle for the mere fraction of a second, he kissed her dexterously. Lide received the caress with the most admirable composure, and Ed Church himself did not act as if the idea was a discovery or the experiment new.
“Let him out, Ed!” said Lide, when they were well into the road.
There was a foot of snow on the ground. The fence corners showed great drifts, while each rail of the fence had a ruffle of its own of cold, white snow. As far as one could see in the moonlight, the fields to each side were like milk. In the background stood the grey woods laced against the sky. Here and there a lamp shone in a neighbour's window like an eye of fire.
Stowe Township was out that night. The steady beat of the bells could be heard ahead and behind. Ed Church sent Grey Eagle forward with long strides, the cutter following over the hard, packed snow with no more of resistance than a feather. Lide held her muff to her face, so that she might open her mouth to talk without catching any of the flying snowballs from Grey Eagle's nervous hoofs.
“It'll be a big spellin'-school to-night,” said Lide.
“Yes, I guess it will,” replied Ed. “I hear folks are comin' clear from Hammond Corners.”
“If that Gentry girl comes,” said Lide, “mind! you're not to speak to her, Ed. If you do, you can go home alone.”
Ed grinned with an air of pleased superiority.
“Get up,” he said to Grey Eagle. Then to Lide: “Go on! You're jealous!”
“No, I ain't!” said Lide, with a lofty intonation. “Speak to her if you want to! What do I care!”
“I won't speak to her, Lide.”
Ed looked at his sweetheart to see how she received his submission. As the road was level and straight at this point, and Grey Eagle had worn away the wire edge of his appetite to “go,” Ed put his face in behind the muskrat muff and kissed Lide again. The victim abetted the outrage.
“I saw ye!” yelled a happy voice behind. It was Ben Francis with Jennie Ruple. They also were enthroned in a cutter.
“What if you did?” retorted Lide with a toss.
“Do it again if I want to!” shouted Ed Church with much joyous hardihood.
“I never asked you to marry me yet, did I, Lide?” observed Ed Church, after two minutes of silence.
“No, you didn't,” said Lide from behind the muskrat muff. The words would have sounded hard, if it were not for the sudden soft sweetness of the voice, which was half a whisper.
“Well, I'll do it now,” said Ed, with much resolution, but a little shake in the tone. “You'll marry me, Lide, when we get ready?”
“Ed, what do you think father 'll say?”
Ed Church knew Lide's father found no joy in him. The next time his voice took on a moody, half-sullen sound.
“Don't care what he says! I ain't marryin' the hull Lee family.”
“But s'pose he says we can't?”
“If he does, I'll run away with you, Lide,” and Ed Church's tones were touched with storm. “I'm goin* to marry you even if all the Lees in the state stand in the way!”
Lide crowded a bit closer to Ed at this, and, holding the muskrat muff against her face to keep her nose from getting red, said nothing. Lide was thinking what a noble fellow Ed was, and how much she admired him.
The Block schoolhouse was crowded. Lide and Ed made their way toward the back benches. Jim Lee spoke to his daughter and growled gruffly at Ed.
The latter half growled back. Aunt Ann was all smiles and approval of Ed. At this, Ed thought her the best woman on earth except his own mother, and mentally put her next that excellent old lady in his heart.
It was a Mr. Parker who taught at the Block school-house. At 8 o'clock he rapped on the teacher's desk with a ruler, and everybody who was standing up hunted for a seat. Those who could find none—they were all young men and boys—crouched down along the walls of the big school-room and made seats of their heels. Mr. Parker came down from his desk and opened the stove door with the end of the ruler. The stove—a long-bodied air-tight—was raging red hot from the four-foot wood blazing in its interior. When the door was opened the heat almost singed Mr. Parker's eyebrows. At this he started back nervously, and Ben Weld and Will Jenkins, two very small boys, laughed. The stove on its part began to cool off and the cherry colour faded from its hot sides, leaving them brown and rusty.
“Lydia Lee and Jennie Ruple have been selected to choose sides for the spelling contest,” said Mr. Parker.
Lide and Jennie seated themselves side by side on the bench which ran along the rear of the room. It was Lide's first choice.
“Ed Church,” called Lide in a low voice.
Several young persons giggled, while Ed, blushing deeply to have his sweetheart's preference thus forced into prominence, blundered along the aisle and sat down by Lide. It was Jennie's choice. Jennie selected Ben Francis.
“Of course!” said Ada Farr in a loud whisper to
Myrtle Jones, “they'd choose their beaux first, so as to sit by 'em.”
There was no gainsaying the Farr girl's statement. The “choosing up,” however, went on. At last everybody, young and old, from the grey-headed grandpa to the five-year-old just sent to his first school that winter, had been chosen by Lide or Jennie. Then Mr. Parker began to give out the words.
Ed Church failed on the first word. It was “emphasis.” Ed thought there was an “f” in it. He straightway sat down and spelled no more that night. Lide made a better showing, and lasted through five words. She tripped on “suet” upon which she conferred an “i.” Lide then joined Ed among the silenced ones.
“Lide Lee missed on purpose,” whispered the Farr girl to her neighbour Myrtle Jones, “so she could sit and talk with Ed.”
Jim Lee spelled well, but fell a prey to “moustache.”
At last only three were left standing—Nellie Brad-dock, a girl from Hammond Corners, and Aunt Ann. Mr. Parker turned over to the back part of the spelling book where the hard words lived. Nellie Braddock fell before “umbrageous.”
The struggle between the girl from Hammond Corners and Aunt Ann was a battle of the giantesses. The girl from Hammond Corners was the champion speller of her region, and had spelled down every school so far that winter. The interest was intense, as first to Aunt Ann and then to the girl from Hammond Corners, Mr. Parker put out:
“Fantasy.”
“Autobiographer.”
“Thaumaturgie.”
“Cosmography.”
At last the girl from Hammond Corners tripped on:
“Sibylline.”
She made it “syb.” Mr. Parker had to show her the spelling book to convince the girl from Hammond Corners that she had missed. She glanced in the spelling book where Mr. Parker's finger pointed, and then burst into tears. At this an unknown young man, presumably from Hammond Corners, got up and excitedly declared the book to be wrong. Nobody took any notice of him, however, and Aunt Ann Lee was named the victor. She had spelled down the school.
Ed CHURCH left Lide talking with the girls in the schoolhouse while he went back to the waggon shed to get Grey Eagle and bring him and the cutter to the door. As Ed was in the entry of the schoolhouse he was stopped by little Joe Barnes.
“Say! Fan Brown's out there waitin' for you.”
“What about Fan Brown?” asked Ed Church.
Fan Brown was the bully of Hinckley. He boasted that he could thrash any man between Bath Lakes and the Hinckley Ridge.
“He says he's goin' to wallop you for shootin' his dawg last summer,” said little Joe Barnes.
“Joe, will you do something for me?” asked Ed.
“Yep!”
“You go and tell Lide Lee in there that I'm goin' over to Square Chanler's to get a neck-yoke he borrowed and I'll be right back. Tell her to wait in the school-house till I come.”
“He's afraid of Fan Brown and is runnin' over to Square Chanler's to get the constable,” said little Joe Barnes to himself. For this he despised Ed Church very much, but went in and delivered the message.
“All right!” said Lide, and then went on gossiping with the girls.
Ed Church stepped out of the schoolhouse and started for the horse-sheds.
He noticed a knot of men standing at the rear corner of the building; among them he discerned the stocky, bull-necked bully of Hinckley, Fan Brown.
“Here he comes now!” said one, as Ed approached.
“Let him come!” gritted the bully; “I'll fix him! I'll show him whose dog he's been shootin! As fine a coon dog, boys, as ever went into a corn field. He shot him, and I ain't goin' back to Hinckley till I mash his face.”
“What's the row here?” said Ed Church, walking straight to the little huddle about Fan Brown. His tones were brittle and bold; a note of ready war ran through them. Not at all the voice in which he talked to Lide. “I understand somebody's lookin' for me. Who is it?”
“It's me, by G—d! You killed my dog last summer, and I'm goin'——”
“No, you ain't,” said Ed, interrupting; “you ain't goin' to do a thing. You may be the bully of Hinckley, Fan Brown, but you can't scare me. Your dog was killin' sheep; he was a good deal like you; but bein' a dog I could shoot him.”
“Yes, and I ain't goin' back to Hinckley until I maul you so you won't shoot another dog as long as you live.”
“Enough said!” replied Ed, “come right down in the hollow back of the horse sheds, where the folks won't see, and do it.”
Just then a small, meagre man approached. He walked with a lounging gait, and when he spoke he had a thin, mealy voice.
“What's the matter here?” piped the meagre little man.
His name was Dick Bond. He was renowned widely as a wrestler. Gladiators had come from far and near, and at town meetings and barn raisings, wrestled with little Dick Bond. Where a hundred tried not one succeeded.
He had not lost a “fall” for four years. His skill had given birth to a half proverb, and when somebody said he would do something, and somebody else doubted it, the latter would observe with laughing scorn: “Yes; you'll do it when somebody throws Dick Bond.”
Such was the fell repute of this invincible little man that when his shrill, light voice made the inquiry chronicled, a silence fell on the crowd and no one answered.
“Who's goin' to fight?” asked Dick Bond more pointedly.
“I'm goin' to fight Fan Brown,” said Ed.
There was a load of ferocity in the way he said it, which showed that Ed, himself, had a latent hunger for battle.
“I guess I'll go 'long and see it,” said Dick Bond pipingly.
“How do you want to fight?” asked Ed of Fan Brown when each had buttoned up his coat tight to the chin. “Stand up, or rough and tumble?”
“Rough and tumble,” said Fan Brown savagely.
“All right!”
“Now, boys,” said Dick Bond when all was ready, “I'll give the word and then you're goin' to fight until one of you says 'enough.' And remember! there's no bitin' no gougin', no scratchin'.”
“Bitin' goes?” declared Fan Brown, in a fashion of savage interrogatory.
“Bitin' don't go!” replied the lean little referee, “and if you offer to bite or gouge, Fan Brown, I'll break your neck. You'll never go back to Hinckley short of being carried in a blanket.”
0353
The battle was brief and bloody. It didn't last ten minutes. When it was over, Ed Church, bleeding, but victorious, walked back to the sheds to get Grey Eagle. Fan Brown was unable to rise from the snow without help. His face was beaten badly, and he was a thoroughly whipped person. Dick Bond expressed great satisfaction, and in his high voice said it was a splendid fight.
“But, Brown,” said Dick Bond to the beaten one, “I can't see how you got it into your head you could lick Ed Church. Why, man! he was all over you like a panther.”
The news of the fight ran like wildfire. Everybody knew of it before an hour passed. It was a source of general satisfaction that Ed Church had whipped Fan Brown, the Hinckley bully, yet no one failed to stamp the whole proceeding as disgraceful; that is, among the older men at least.
Lide, however, when she heard of the valour of her lover felt a great tenderness for him, and was never kinder than when they drove Grey Eagle back from the Block schoolhouse spelling-bee that crisp winter night.
MOTHER,” sobbed Lide, as she threw herself down on the chintz lounge without pausing to take off her hat or cape, “father has just told Ed never to come to the house nor speak to me again.”
Jim Lee and Aunt Ann got home before the lovers. The news of the broil overtook them, however. Jim Lee declared it a scandal and a scorn.
“Now you see,” he said to Aunt Ann, “what sort of ruffian the Church boy is!”
“Well, I'm glad he whipped that miserable Fan Brown,” said Aunt Ann. “He's done nothin' for ten years but come over here to Stowe Township and raise a fuss. I'm glad somebody's at last spunked up and thrashed him. I'd done it years ago if I had been a man.”
“Aunt Ann Lee!” said Jim Lee, hitting the Morgan colt a blow with the whip which set that sprightly animal almost astride the thills—“Aunt Ann, do you tell me you approve of Ed Church lickin' Fan Brown?”
“Yes, I do,” retorted Aunt Ann, stoutly, “and so will Lide. If you imagine, father, a woman finds fault with a man because he'll fight other men you don't know the sex.”
Jim Lee moaned. Absolutely! for the first time in his life Aunt Ann had shocked him. Not another word was spoken by Jim Lee all the way home.
Aunt Ann went into the house when they arrived, while Jim Lee remained to put up the Morgan colt. He was busy in the barn when Ed and Lide drove into the yard.
“Father came up to Ed,” sobbed Lide, as she lay on the lounge, “and called him a brawler and a drunkard, and said he'd got to keep away from me.”
“What did Ed say?” asked Aunt Ann, as she sat down by her daughter and began, with kind hands, to take off her hat and cape. Every touch was full of motherly love and tenderness.
“Oh! Ed didn't say much,” said Lide, giving way to long-drawn sighs; a fashion of dead swell following the storm of sobs. “He said he'd marry me whether father was willing or not. Then he drove away.”
Aunt Ann smiled.
“I guess Ed Church is pretty high strung,” said Aunt Ann, “but that won't hurt him any.”
Jim Lee came in at that moment, looking a bit sheepish and guilty; but over it all an atmosphere of victory.
“That Church boy will stay away now, I guess!” said Jim Lee, as he got the bootjack and began pulling off his boots.
“Jim Lee, you're an awful fool!” observed Aunt Ann with the air of a sibyl settling all things. “You're the biggest numbskull in Stowe Township!”
“Why?” asked Jim Lee.
He was disturbed because Aunt Ann addressed him by his full name. Experience had taught him that defeat ever followed hard on the heels of his full name, when Aunt Ann made use of it.
“Never mind why!” said Aunt Ann.
And not another word could Jim Lee get from her.
It was a month after the spelling-school. Stowe Township was decorating the Church for Christmas. For time out of mind Stowe Township had had a Christmas tree at the Church, and everybody, rich or poor, high or low, young or old, great or small, got a present if it were nothing but a gauze stocking full of painted popcorn.
Aunt Ann, as usual, was at the head of the decorating committee. The Church was full of long strings of evergreen, which Aunt Ann's satellites were festooning about the walls, and to that end there was much climbing of step-ladders, much standing on tip-toe, much pounding of thumbs with caitiff tack-hammers, vilely wielded by girlish hands. Occasionally some fair step-ladder maid gave the public a glimpse of a well-filled woollen stocking as she went up and down, or stood on her toes on the top step. At this, the young men present always blushed, while the maidens tittered. Most people don't know it, but the male of our species is more modest, more easily embarrassed, than the female.
The Christmas tree had just arrived. It had been contributed by “Square” Chanler. The tree was a noble hemlock; thick and feathery of bough, perfect of general outline. Old Curl, the Rip Van Winkle of Stowe, had cut it down and hauled it to the church on “Square” Chanler's bob-sleds. All the smallfry of the Corners had gone with Old Curl after the Christmas tree, and were faithful to him to the last. Every one of them was clamorously forward in unloading the tree and getting it into the Church.
Then it was taken charge of by Aunt Ann, who put the smallfry to flight. They were to be beneficiaries of the tree, and it was held that their joy would be enhanced if they were not allowed to remain while the tree was decorated, and were debarred all sight thereof until Christmas Eve, when the presents would be cut from the boughs and bestowed upon their owners.
One little boy had a cold, and Aunt Ann let him remain in the Church. This little boy perched himself in a window where his fellows outside might see and envy him. There was a three-cornered hole in the window pane near him, and the little boy was wont every few moments to place his mouth to this crevice and say to the boys outside:
“My! but you ought to see what Aunt Ann's tyin' on the tree now!”
“What is it?” would chorus the outside boys.
“Can't tell you!”
The boy with the cold became the most unpopular child in Stowe Township, and several of his fellows outside in their agony threatened him with personal violence.
“I'll lick you when I ketch you!” shouted children in the rabble rout to the lucky child with the cold.
“I don't care!” said the child inside, “you just ought to see the tree now!”
Lide Lee was aiding the others to festoon the church. Under the maternal direction she was fitting tawdry little wax candles among the branches of the Christmas tree, and tying on Barlow knives for all the little boys, and “Housewives” for all the little girls.
Lide had not seen Ed save once since the spelling-school, and then she met him in the village drug-store by chance. But they wrote to each other, and some progress in this way had been made toward an elopement which was scheduled for the coming Spring. Aunt Ann in the depths of her sagacity, suspected the arrangement, but it gave her no alarm. As for Jim Lee, so fatuous was he that he believed he had ended all ties between his daughter and Ed Church.
While decorations were in progress in the church, Jim Lee suddenly drove up.
“Aunt Ann,” said Jim Lee, after pausing to admire the garish display, “Aunt Ann, I've just got a line from Ludlow, and there's goin' to be a special meetin' of the board of directors of our Ice Company, and I've got to mosey into the city.”
Jim Lee had an air of importance. He liked to appear before Aunt Ann in the attitude of a much-sought-for man of business.
“Pshaw! father, that's too bad!” said Aunt Ann. “Can't you be back by Christmas Eve?”
“No; Christmas Eve is only day after to-morrow, and the Ice Company business ought to last a week, so Ludlow says.”
“Well!” said Aunt Ann, “if you must go, you must. Ezra can do most of the chores while you're away, and I'll have Old Curl come and do the heaviest of 'em.”
So Jim Lee kissed Aunt Ann, and then kissed Lide. This latter caress was a trifle strained, for Jim Lee felt guilty when he looked at his daughter; and Lide hadn't half forgiven him his actions toward her idolised Ed. Since Ed had been forbidden her society, Lide loved him much better than before.
Thus started Jim Lee for the city on Ice Company matters, Tuesday afternoon. Christmas Eve was the following Thursday. Jim Lee would return on the Monday or Tuesday after. He was fated to find some startling changes on his coming back.
AUNT Ann found much to occupy her during the hours before Christmas Eve. There were forty-eight of these hours. Aunt Ann needed them all.
For one matter she made Ezra drive her over to the County Seat. She wanted to see her brother, Will Pickering, who was Probate Judge of the County. Aunt Ann also dispatched a letter by trusty messenger to her sister, Mary Newton, who lived at Eastern Crossroads, some seven miles from Stowe. As a last assignment, Aunt Ann told Ezra to go over and ask Ed to come up to the house.
“You'll be at the Christmas tree at the church tonight, won't you, Ed?” asked Aunt Ann, after making some excuse for sending for him. She put the question quite casually.
“Well! be sure and come, Ed,” said Aunt Ann. “And more'n that, be sure and dress yourself up. I think I'll need you to help me get things off the high limbs.”
Aunt Ann, as she led Lide to his side. “Now, Brother Crandall, if you will perform the ceremony—the short form, please, and leave out the word 'obey'—the distribution will be complete.”
“But the licence!” gasped the Rev. Crandall.
“There it is,” said Aunt Ann, “with my brother Will's seal and signature as Probate Judge on it. You don't s'pose I had Ezra drive me clear to the County Seat in the dead of winter for nothing?”
The ceremony was over. Ed and Lide were “Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Church;” and the entire population of Stowe, some in tears, all in earnest, were kissing the bride and shaking hearty hands with the groom. That latter young gentleman was dazed and happy, and looked both.
“Now, Ed,” said Aunt Ann, after kissing him and then kissing Lide, “I'm your mother; and I'll begin to tell you what to do. You put Lide in your cutter and head Grey Eagle for Eastern Cross-roads. I sent Mary word you were coming, and there's a trunk full of Lide's things gone over. Stay a week. If you need collars, or shirts or anything, Mary will give you some of John's. Stay a week and then come home. Father will be back from the Ice Company Tuesday, and by Thursday of next week, when you return, I'll have him fully convinced that all is ordered for the best, and whatever is, is right. So kiss your mother again, children, and start. I hear Grey Eagle's bells a-jingling, where Dick Bond's brought him to the door.”