"Jumping Jerusalem!" father said, "the heartdisease is washing off!" This made Aunt Laura open her eyes, and by that time Mammy Lou had got a towel and was wiping her face off all over, which seemed to make it look natural again. Not one of us knew what to think of such a strange disease till all of a sudden I remembered Bertha's bad habit! And then I knew it was all off with Aunt Laura and the marrying. It wasn't very long till they all caught on to what it was on her face; and the worst part of it was that Brother Sheffield said he believed she did ita-purpose. He rose up very proud, and looking kinder relieved and said he could never marry a woman who would "defile herself with the trade-mark of Jezebel."
When he commenced throwing up Jezebel to Aunt Laura she threw up Esau to him, which sold himself for a "mess of pottage," though this never did sound lady-like to me, even coming from the pulpit. So Esau went out and drove straight home, and Jezebel went up-stairs and packed her trunk to go home early in themorning, never having been so insulted by relatives before in her life.
So the marrying is off and the baby is disinherited, which will be a relief to it when it gets big enough to understand. But the worst part is that Aunt Laura blames the whole thing on me, for she says I had her ruination in mind when I sicked her on to that little left-handed drawer. Of course it ain't so, but it proves that people ought to raise the blind and be sure it'swhiteningthey're spreading on, even if the baby is asleep.
You remember, my diary, a good many pages back I mentioned in here a pair of Bohemians that were married to each other and were friends of ours and would come to Rufe's every week and we would all do funny things? Well, I couldn't write about them then, for I didn't have any space for married people, wanting to save it purely for folks that loved each other. But now it does seem like Providence that they've come down here to spend the summer in the country, for there's not a single loving soul left to write about, Aunt Laura being gone and Brother Sheffield never very loving when she was here, except chicken.
Their name is Mrs. Marie and Augustus Young. Father says that Adam or the legislatureknew a thing or two when it named themYoung. He is a professor and owns a chair in a college that must either have gold nails in it or sit extra good, for Rufe says it is worth five thousand dollars a year. Mrs. Young sings vocal. I wish she didn't, especially in a parlor. If anybody is singing or reciting a speech on a platform and flowers and electric lights it thrills you and you really enjoy it; but if they do it in a close room, especially if it trills high or has to kneel down and get red in the face, it makes you so ashamed for the one that's doing it, and for yourself, too, that you look straight at the carpet. Even then the blood rushes to your head.
They have built a house with such a wide porch running all around it that it reminds you of a little, tiny boy with a great big hat pulled down over his eyes, which is called a bungalow. They said they had brought a "complete outfit for light housekeeping" along with them, but when mother saw it she laughed considerable onthe outside of the bungalow, for it was fifty-three books, mostly ending in "ology," a hammock and some chairs that lean away back, a guitar apiece, a great many little glass cases that you stick bugs and butterflies in if you can catch them, a picture of the Apostle Hosea, with his head all wrapped up like an old lady with the neuralgia, which they both said they could not live without, and a punching-bag, which they punched a great deal in the city, not having any baby to amuse themselves with, which was a good thing for the baby I reckon. So mother sent them over a great many things and Professor Young said she was the most sensible woman he ever saw, including a biscuit board and a sifter. They have been here a few days now and are delighted with the country air and the green scenery, and, although it does seem proud to say it,me. They thought very highly of me at Cousin Eunice's and said I was the most "interesting revelation of artless juvenile expression" they ever saw, which I wrotedown on paper and when I came home taught it to Mammy Lou to give in at the experience meeting.
One morning early, while mammy was beating the biscuit for breakfast, and I was up in the pear tree right by the kitchen door I nearly fell out with surprise when I saw Professor Young coming around the house with a pretty shirt open at the neck that he admires and twogreat bigdominecker roosters up in his arms which were both squawking very loud. Mammy Lou came to the door to see what all the noise was about, and he said she was the very person he wanted to see.
"Auntie," he commenced, trying to get into his pocket and wipe his face with his handkerchief, which was greatly perspiring, but he couldn't do it for the roosters, "my wife and I are in a quandary. We are both ignorant of the preferred method of inflicting a painless yet instantaneous death upon a fowl."
Mammy's eyes began to shine, for she lovesbig words like she loves watermelons, and without a sign of manners she never even tried to answer his question, but looked up at me in the tree and says:
"Baby, kin you rickollect all that to write it down?"
Professor Young then looked up into the tree too and says: "Why, Mistress Ann, how entirely characteristic!" And then he wanted to know what book I was reading and I told him,John Halifax, Gentleman, which I have had for my favorite book since I was eleven years old; and the roosters continued to squawk. I got down then and asked Professor Young if he wouldn't come into the house, but he said no and asked his question to mammy over again. She looked at me and to save her manners I told her right quick what the meaning of it was, me understanding it on account of being precocious and also at Rufe's last winter, where they use strange words.
"Thar now!Isthatall it's about?" sheasked awfully disappointed, for she thought from the words "painless death" it must be something about preaching. Then in a minute, when she saw that he was still waiting, she turned around to him and said: "Whar is the chickenatthat you want killed?"
He held the roosters away from him and, looking at them as proud as a little boy looks at a bucket of minnows, he said:
"These are they!"
This tickled mammy so, and me too, though I remembered my manners, that she began to laugh, which shook considerable under her apron, and said:
"Well, gentlemen! Whut do you want to killthemfor?"
"For breakfast," he said; and, noticing her laughing, his face got to looking so pitiful all in a minute that it made me just wish that Cinderella's fairy godmother would come along and turn those roosters into nice little pullets all fried and laying on parsley.
"Why, Mr. Professor," mammy told him, "them roosters is so old that they will soon die a natural death if you leave them alone; and they're so big that you might fry 'em frum now till breakfast time on Jedgment Day, and then they wouldn't be fitten!"
When she told him this he did manage to get out his handkerchief, I thought maybe to cry on, he looked so disappointed, but it was just to perspire on.
"I—er, observed that they were unduly large," the poor man told her, "but I—er, thought maybe the larger a country thing was the better!"
I thought of horse-flies and ticks, but was too mannerly to mention them, especially so near breakfast time. Just then mother and father came out of the back door, and when they heard the tale of the roosters they both invited him to come right in and have breakfast with us, and said they would tie their legs together so they could flop around the back yard, but couldn'tget away, and I could run over and bring Mrs. Young.
Last night when I got home I was too tired to write or anything else, for it was the night of the glorious Fourth! Professor Young and Mrs. Young both kept remarking all day how lovely it was to be able to spend the Fourth of July in a cool ravine instead of in the horrid city where there were so many smells of gunpowder and little boys. They said they must have me go along for the woods wouldn't really be woodsy without me, as I was the genius loci. I didn't know at first what that was, but I know now that it makes you tired and perspiry to be the genius loci of eight miles of woods on the Fourth of July. Rufe and Cousin Eunice couldn't think of half as many peculiar things to do when they were courting as the Youngs.
We ate a number of stuffed eggs which kinder made up for the tiredness, me being very fond of them, but Professor Young is crazyabout Mrs. Young's singing voice and every time we'd come to an extra pretty place he would say: "Marie, my love, sing something just here," so we'd have to stand still on our legs, it often being too snaky to sit down, while she sang. One time she thought up part of a song without a speck of tune to it, and it was in a language across the ocean. All I could make out was "Parsifal," and every once in a while she would stop a minute in the song and say a word that sounded like "Itch," though I don't suppose it was, being in a song. Every time she would say itch he would scratch, for the poor man was covered with ticks.
But the most trying thing was the bugs and butterflies, which being "naturalists" they caught. We had to run all over the ground and sides of the hills for them, and empty our dinner out on a nice, shady rock, so we could use the lunch box to put them in. When we got back we found it all covered with ants, but we were so hungry we thought we'd brushedthem all off, though in the cake we found wehadn't. If a person hasn't ever eaten an ant, my diary, there ain't any use in trying to make them understand what they taste like, so I won't dwell on that. Professor Young said though he was willing to eat them for the sake of his beloved science, though I don't see how it helped science any.
Toward evening we got to a fine place in the branch to wade and Mrs. Young said, oh, let's do it; it would remind us of our childhood days. So we soon had our feet bare, with our thoughts on our childhood days, and never once stopping to remember that we didn't have a thing to wipe them on. Nobody said so much as towel until we got out, and then it was too late, so we were very much pained and annoyed every step of the way home on account of our gritty feet.
Another morning early we decided to go out and see the sun rise, like Thoreau. (They tell me how to spell all the odd words.) We went up to the tiptop of a high hill, and when the sunwas just high enough to make you squint your eyes Mr. Young remarked that he realized his life was "replete with glorious possibilities," and he said in such moments he felt that he could "encompass his heart's desire." He said he fain would be a novelist. Now, this is the only subject they ever fall out about, for he's always wanting to be something that he is not. Last winter when he met Doctor Gordon at Rufe's he decided he wanted to be a doctor, for he said they could always make a living, no matter where they were, while a poor college professor had to stay wherever he had a chair to sit in. So he went to a store where you buy rubber arms and legs and things and bought a long black bag like Doctor Gordon's, full of shiny, scary-looking scissors and knives which cost seventy-five dollars, to lay away till fall when the doctor's school opened up again. In two weeks Mrs. Young had got the store man to take the things back for half price because Professor Young had decided he wanted to study banjoplaying instead of doctoring and had bought a banjo trimmed with silver.
She knew whenever he said he wanted tobeanything it would cost as much as two new dresses, and then have to be exchanged for something else, so she asked him if he would have to buy anything to begin this novel-writing business with. He proudly told her no, for his "Mother Nature had endowed him with a complete equipment," and he thumped his forehead between his eyes and his straw hat. Then she told him to go on. He said it would be a good time to get material from the study of the "primitive creatures" around here in the country.
I hoped these "primitive creatures" were not the kind of insects you would have to empty the lunch box for, nor be careful not to pull off their hind legs while you were catching them, not knowing just what they were.
I was scared good when he said he thought the girl that milked Mrs. Hedges' cows wouldbe a good one to begin on. He said if Marie didn't mind he would go over to the farthest pasture where he could see her then anddraw her out to see what was in her! This sounded terrible to me, knowing that he used some sickly smelling stuff on the bugs that killed them before they had time to say a word, and I thought maybe because Emma Belle was a poor servant girl he was going to do her the same way.
He had always seemed such a kind-hearted man to me, and I saw him and Emma Belle standing at the fence talking and he was not trying to hold anything to her nose, still I didn't feel easy till he got back. Mrs. Young asked him what he had learned, and if his novel would be along "socialistic lines" or a "romance in a simple bucolic setting." That "bucolic" reminded me of Bertha's little innocent baby, and I wished I was at home nursing it even if it did cry, rather than be out sun-rising with such a peculiar man. He said it would be a "pastoral," and that the girl's eyes were exactlylike his first sweetheart's, which was remarkable. Mrs. Young spoke up right quick and said there wasn't anything remarkable inthat, because all common, country girls looked alike and they all had about as much expression as a squash.
We haven't been out early acting like Thoreau any more, for Mrs. Young said it was the most foolish of all the foolish things Augustus had made her do, and he could continue to associate with milkmaids by himself if he wanted to, which he has. This morning she came over to our house early to ask mother if you singed a picked chicken over a blaze or what, and if she didn't think Thoreau was an idiot. Mother said yes, you did, if it had pin feathers on it, and she didn't know much about Thoreau, but she preferred men that paid taxes and ate off of white tablecloths. Mrs. Young said she thought all men that read bugology and admired pictures like Hosea were a little idiotic and she wished she had married a man like father.Mother said well, she better not be too sure, for they all have their faults.
After a good long time Professor Young came in, not finding Marie at the bungalow, looking awful hot and cross. The sight of him seemed to make Mrs. Young feel worse than ever and she told him she had just come over to consult mother about her journey home to-morrow, although she hadn't mentioned it to us before. She went on to say thathemight spend the rest of the summer, or the rest of his life if he wanted to, boarding over at Mrs. Hedges' where he could see Emma Belle morning, noon and night, instead of only in the morning. He said why, he was utterly surprised for she hadn't mentioned such a thing to him before, but she told him he hadn't spent enough time withherlately even to know whether or not she still retained the power of speech. He said right quick, oh, he never doubtedthat! She said, well,shewas going and he needn't argue withher. He said he wasn't going to argue, he was onlytoo glad to leave such a blasted place, for he wanted material for his novel, but the farmer's girl he had talked with thefirstmorning, and theplow-boyshe had been associating with ever since were all such fools he couldn't get any material from them.
The minute he said that she seemed to feel better and change her mind. She said Augustus ought to be ashamed to talk that way about poor ignorant things which never had any opportunities! He said he wanted to go back to the city anyway where there was a bath-tub, but she told him he was very foolish to think about leaving such a cool, "Arcadian" spot; their friends would all laugh at them for coming back so soon. She said she had merely mentioned going back forhispleasure, for all the world knew how shelovedthe country. He finally said he loved it too, so they would stay, but he would be forced to give up novel-writing because the country people around here are all fools.
I've heard Professor Young talk about sitting in a college chair being a hard life, and Doctor Gordon says doctoring is a hard life, and Rufe says that editing is a hard life, but, my diary, between you and me, from the looks of things this morning, I kinder believe that marrying is a hard life, too.
Did you ever think what a dear old thing anybody's black mammy is, my diary, especially when she's done all the cooking (and raised you) for twenty-five years? Mammy Lou has belonged to us just like father and mother ever since we've been at housekeeping, and my heart almost breaks to-night when I think of the fire in our stove that won't burn and the dasher in our churn that is still. Ever since I've been keeping a diary I've been awfully glad to hear about anybody being in love, and took great pleasure in watching them and writing it all out, for I couldalwaysimagine it wasmethat was the lady. But I would rather never keep a diary another day than to have such a thing happen to Mammy Lou.
When mother heard about it she said not to be an old fool, but Mammy Lou said, "either Marse Shakespeare or Marse Solomon said a old fool was the biggest fool and she wasn't going to make him out no lie. So marry that Yankee nigger she was!"
Bill Williams first came here to teach school, being very proud and educated. Then he got to be Dilsey's beau and they expected to marry. When he first commenced going to see Dilsey Mammy Lou would cook the nicest kind of things for her to take to picnics, hoping to help her catch him in a motherly way. But when he started to promising to give Dilsey a rocking-chair and take her to "George Washington" if she would marry him, Mammy Lou changed about. She had always wanted to see a large cityherself, and she thought it wasn't any use of letting Dilsey get all the best things in life, even if she was her child.
Pretty soon she commenced wearing red ribbon around her neck and having her hair wrappedfresh once a week. Then she told him she was the good cook that cooked all the picnic things, and ironed all of Dilsey's clean dresses; also that she had seventy-five dollars saved up that she would be willing to spend on a grand bridal trip the next time she got married. Mammy Lou is a smart old thing, and so she talked to him until he said, well, he would just as soon marry her as Dilsey, if she would stop cooking for us, and cook forhimand ironhisshirts all the time. She promised him she would do this, like people always do when they're trying to marry a person, although it looks very different afterward. None of mammy's other husbands had been so proud.Theywould not only let her cook, but would come around every meal time, in the friendliest kind of way, and help her draw a bucket of water. This is why the whole family's heart is breaking and we feel so hungry to-night. She's quit, and the wedding is to-morrow.
This morning early she came up to the houseto ask mother if it would be excusable to take off her widow's bonnet, not being divorced from Uncle Mose but four months; also how she had better carry her money to keep Bill from getting "a holt" of it. She said she wouldn't trust any white Yankee with a half a dollar that she ever saw, much less a coffee-colored one. Mother was so mad at her, and so troubled about the sad biscuits and the watery gravy at breakfast that she said she hoped he would steal every cent of the seventy-five dollars before the ceremony was over, and maybethatwould bring her to her senses.
"And me not to get to go to George Washington!" mammy said in a hurt-like voice. "Why, Mis' Mary!"
"Where is this George Washington?" mother took time to ask, thinking mammy would know she was just poking fun at her, but she didn't.
"Law! Ain't it surprising how little my white folks do know! Why, it's the place where the president and his wife lives. Mr. Williams ismighty well acquainted with the president and says he's shore I could git a job cooking for the fambly if I was 'round lookin' for jobs. But I ain't to cook for nobody buthimfrom now on."
Mother didn't encourage her to talk about her love and matrimony any, so she took me by the hand and we went out and sat down on the kitchen doorstep and had a long conversation. She seemed mighty sad at the notion of leaving us, but was so delighted at the idea of marrying a young man (as anybody naturallywould be) that she couldn't think of giving that up. Pretty soon in our conversation she commenced telling me about the things that happened many years ago, when I was a little child, like they say folks do when they're going on a long journey or die.
She began from the time I was born, and said I was such a brown little thing that I looked like I had tobacco-juice running through me instead of blood. And I made use of a bottle until Iwas four years old. Because I was the only one of mother's and father's children that lived and was born to them like Isaac (Idon't know of any special way that Isaac was born, but two of mammy's husbands have been preachers, sosheknows what she's talking about) they let me keep the bottle to humor me. It had a long rubber thing to it so I would find it more convenient. Mammy said the old muley cow was just laid aside for my benefit, they thought so much of me, and when I got big enough to walk I'd go with her into the cow-lot every hour in the day and drag my bottle behind me to be milked into. I enjoyed being milked into my mouth, too, if my bottle was too dirty to hold it just then.
Mammy said I always admired the sunshine so much that I would sit out in it on hot days till my milk bottle would clabber, which was one cause of my brownness. When I found out I couldn't draw anything up through the rubber, being all clabbered, I'd begin to cry and run with my bottle to mammy. And she would quietme by digging out all the clabber with a little twig and feed it to the chickens. They got to knowing the sound of me and my bottle rattling over the gravels so well that they'd all come a running like they do when they hear you scrape the plates.
This, of course, was very touching to us both and we nearly cried when she talked about going off to Washington where the people are too stylish to keep a muley cow. They won't even keep a baby in the families there, but the ladies keep little dogs and get divorces.
Mother wouldn't go to the wedding, for dinner and supper were worse than breakfast. The rest of the family all went except Dilsey, who didn't much like the way her mother had treated her about Bill. Professor and Mrs. Young went, being still down there and a great pleasure to us all. They were delighted, being raised up North, and wanted to take pictures of everything. Whenever we would pass a cabin door with a nigger and his guitar sitting in it andpicking on it they would stop and say that it was so "picturesque." And the real old uncles with white hair and the mammies with their heads tied up they said reminded them of "Aunty Bellum days."
Everything went off as nice as could be expected under the circumstances until the preacher said, "Salute your bride." Then, when Bill started to kiss her, Mammy Lou laid her hand against the side of his head so hard you could have heard the pop up to the big house and said she would show him how to be impudent to a woman of sixty, even if he was a Yankee and educated. Everybody passed it off as a joke, but the slap didn't seem to set very well with Bill, being nineteen years old and not used to such. We left right after the ceremony and Mammy Lou and the others walked on down to her house to wait for the twelve o'clock train that they were going to leave on.
Although I always enjoy going to places with the Youngs on account of the curiouswords and the camera they use, and although it was the sixth marriage of my old nurse, which you don't get a chance to seeeveryday, still when I think of breakfast, I must say it was the saddest wedding I ever witnessed.
This morning when I first woke up and heard that regular old tune,Play on Your Harp, Little David, coming so natural and lifelike from the kitchen I thought surely it must be a dream, mammy being hundreds of miles away in Washington. The song kept on, though, just like it has done every morning for twenty-five years, mother says:
"Shad-rach,Me-shach,Abed-ne-go,TheLordhaswashedmewhiteassnow,"
"Shad-rach,Me-shach,Abed-ne-go,
TheLordhaswashedmewhiteassnow,"
so I got up. It never does take me a minute to wash my face of a morning, and this morning it took even less time. I hopped into my clothes and flew down-stairs. It wasn't any dream!There was mammy, not looking like she was married nor anything, and a good, cheerful fire in the stove, and the bacon smelling like you were nearly starved. I didn't ask any questions, but just said, "Mammy," and she said, "Baby," and there I was hugging her fit to turn over the churn. I asked her if mother knew that she come back and she said no, she had been easy and not made any noise, so as to surprise us all. I reckon mother and father are so used to having Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego wake them up of a morning that they thought it was a dream, too. Pretty soon they heard us talking though and came in. Mother came first, for it is the gentleman's place to let the lady go first into the kitchen, especially when they think that breakfast is to be got.
Mother said, "What are you doing here?" and Mammy Lou said, "Getting breakfast, Mis' Mary," which was about as straightforward as they could have been with each other. Mother asked her if she wasn't still married,and she said no, for she had "had occasion to give that uppish Yankee nigger a good whippin' las' night." And then she went on to say that she told Dilseyshecould have him if she still wanted him, and said she hoped Dilsey would take him for she would justadmireto be mother-in-law to that nigger.
Just then father came in, hearing the last remark about "that nigger," and asked Mammy Lou what the trouble was between her and her new husband. Mammy was breaking eggs into the big yellow bowl which she was going to scramble for breakfast, and as she commenced telling us about her marrying troubles she began to beat them very hard, which seemed to ease her. It is a great help to people to think of their enemies when they are beating things, for it makes them beat all the harder and don't really hurt the enemies.
Mammy said when they got home from the wedding she started to change her white dress and veil and put on her good cashmere dress toride on the train in. Just about that time Mr. Williams spoke up and said he was sleepy and wanted to get a good night's rest so he was going to bed, but he wanted mammy to have him a nice rare steak for his breakfast. Mammy then asked him if he had been born a fool or just turned that way since he had married so far above his station. He said he would mighty soon find out who thefoolwas in that family—and she better have good beaten biscuits to go with the steak. When he said this mammy gave him another sample of her strength like she did in the church and told him to get out of there and change his clothes to go to George Washington. Then he gave a big ha! ha! laugh in her face, right before Dilsey and the neighbors and said why, didn't she know that George Washington had been dead and buried behind the church door for a hundred years? He kept on laughing and said the "ignorance of country niggers is really amusable."
Mammy said she hated to do it with her veilon, being a new veil and she hadn't used it but twice, but she couldn't wait to take it off, him grinning like a picture-taking man at his funny joke. All his teeth were showing, and, as mammy had always admired them for being so big and white, she decided she would keep a handful to remember him by; so she gave him one good lick in the mouth with her wedding slipper, which was large and easy to come off. This broke a good half of his front tooth, she said, besides drawing a lot of blood to relieve her feelings. While he was busy wiping away the blood and trying to open his eyes enough to see candle-light again, mammy sat down by him, and, before he knew it, she had dragged him across her lap and was paddling him like he was her own dear son instead of her husband. Then she called Dilsey and told her she might feel safe about marrying him now, if she still wanted him, for he had better sense than to try to fool with any member ofthatfamily again. Mammy Lou said of courseshecouldn't stay married toa man she could paddle. She was too much of a lady. But Dilsey turned up her nose and said she wouldn't have any second-hand nigger, much less a whipped one.
Father spoke up then and said she couldn't give Bill to Dilsey without getting a divorce from him first. Mammy Lou said, well, Marse Sheriff might arrest her and Marse Judge might fine her, but she would see them all in the place that was prepared for them before she would waste twenty-five dollars for justthatlittle speck of marrying!
Father went on out to feed the chickens and mother went to wake up Bertha (but not the baby) for breakfast, and Mammy Lou scraped the eggs into the dish I had brought her.
"Divorcenothin'," I heard her remark as she soused the hot skillet into water that sizzled, "I done bought a hundred dollars' worth o' divorcesalready, and if the lawyers wasn't all scribes and Pharisees they'd letthatrun me the rest o' my days."
"Yuletide in the Southland" is what Professor Young calls it, but you would never know from the sound how nice it really is. It means that the Youngs have come down to the bungalow to spend Christmas and have brought his brother, Julius, to spend it too. Now, I admire Mr. Julius Young, both his name and his ways. He noticed me the minute he got off the train and said I would have to be his sweetheart. Although I have learned, from being so deceived by Doctor Gordon's remarks like that, you mustn't depend on what they say, still you can't help but like a person when they say it to you.
He is not a college professor like his brother, but he makes his living drawing pictures. Now,the bad part about making your living out of poetry or art is that sooftenyou don't do it. This is the way with Julius. He draws fully as good as other artists, but he never has been able to get people to notice it. Professor Young says his work lacks "the divine spark," and so the poor young man has to heat his coffee over the gas-jet, like they always have to do in pitiful magazine stories. So much poetry and art have made him real thin, with strange flannel shirts, and he looks half like a writing person and half like a hero which was raised out West. He doesn't act as peculiar as he looks, though, laughing as jolly as Mr. Parkes if anything funny happens. And he knows so much about horses, having traveled considerable, that father thinks he is very clever. Father says you can excuse an artist with horse sense better than you can just a plain artist.
Rufe and Cousin Eunice are down in the country too, partly at our house and partly at Rufe's folks'. This makes a nice reunion forthem, being as Marcella, Rufe's sister, is home for the first time in three Christmases, having been off studying how to play on the piano.
Ever since during the chestnuts getting ripe Marcella has been good friends with me, for she loves the outdoors, and there wasn't anybody but me that had the time to spare to go with her through the woods. She felt sorry for me, too, not getting to go back to school in the city this fall, and so she has taught me a lot. Mother and father said they just couldn't spare me, being the only one that lived, and born to them in their old age. It looks like if my brothers and sisters had known how inconvenient it was for me to be the only child they would have tried a little harder to live.
Marcella is not pretty in a blonde-headed way, like Ann Lisbeth and Bertha, but her hair and eyes are as dark as chocolate candy when you've grated a whole half a cake in it, and her skin looks like cream does when it's nearly ready to churn. She wouldn't go with me and Rufe andCousin Eunice to meet the Youngs at the train, being ashamed on Julius' account, I reckon, both being single. Butwewent and Professor and Mrs. Young said they were too happy for anything to be back in the country again for a regular old-fashioned Christmas. They said they were going to do everything just like it used to be in old England, which Professor Young had brought a book along to read about. They said this book would "infuse a genuine Yule spirit," but if they had scraped as many cake pans and seeded as many raisins as I have they would have more of that spirit now than they could hold without a dose of cordial.
Well, this morning we collected on the other side of the creek to go after holly to decorate the bungalow with, me, the Youngs, and Rufe and Cousin Eunice. Julius said a good many compliments about the nature you could see all over the hills, but Rufe said shucks, if he hadplowedover that nature as often ashehad it wouldn't look so pretty.
Cousin Eunice said let's go straight up through the woods and maybe we would meet Marcella coming back from a poor person's house where she had been to carry sick folks' things to. This plan must have been made up between them, for, sure enough, when we got to the tip-top of the hill we found Marcella sitting under some cedar trees resting, and leaning back against one, just like it was done for a purpose. She had on her red hat and her little red jacket, which set off her pale looks considerable, and if shediddo it for the sake of Julius she knew the right way to get on the good side of an artist, for he commenced acting impressed from the start. If a person is trying to be romantic it is a better plan to meet a man under a cedar tree with a tired expression than it is to sprain your ankle so they will have to carry you home in their arms, like they do in books. I don't knowwhyauthors sprain so many of their characters' ankles, and then let them make love smelling of liniment.
For the sake of JuliusFor the sake of Julius
For the sake of Julius
Mother says in olden times people married each other because the ladies were pretty and could make good cakes and the young men were able to take care of them, but nowadays they marry because they "feel" the same way about things. This is called congenial, and anoverlycongenial person is an "affinity." Cousin Eunice and Rufe felt the same way about Keats and married. Doctor Gordon and Ann Lisbeth both loved white hyacinths and married, and this morning I heard Marcella and Julius say they felt the same way about music. Marcella was playing on the piano in our parlor and we were all listening when Julius remarked:
"Oh, isn't it rare to find a woman who can properly interpret Beethoven?"
Father was in the room and spoke up. "Yes," he said, "and rarer still, in these days, to find one who can properly interpret thebake-oven."
Marcella thinks the world and all of Beethoven and Wagner and other persons whose names are not spelt the way you would think.
Later, when there wasn't anybody present but just those two, I heard Julius ask Marcella if she would "sit" to him. I thought at first he must be proposing, for the folks around here say that Widow Hollis is "setting up to" anybody when she's trying to marry. But Marcella said right away that she would be delighted, which I knew couldn't mean marrying, for when a young lady gets proposed to she never evenlets onhow glad she is, much less saysdelightedright out in plain words. He said her face was the purest Greek he ever saw, which didn't make her mad, although it would me, for a Greek is a smiling, oily-looking person which runs a candy kitchen.
When he mentioned her face looking like a Greek's face she acted so pleased that he went on to tell her he had never been so impressed with anybody's looks in his life as he was with hers that first day under the cedar tree. He said oh, if he had such a model he could doanything, for he was sure she had soul as well as beauty.The idea of him telling her she had a soul—as if anybody but foreign heathens didn't have! She said she thought it would be a noble life to be a model and inspiration to a man of lofty ideals—like Dan T. Gabriel Rosetty's wife was, only sometimes thewomanwas starved. If I'd been Marcella I'd been ashamed to mention such a thing as not getting enough to eat, but it seemed to please Julius, for he got over closer and commenced making a sketch of her on the back of an envelope.
This morning early Mrs. and Professor Young came over to ask father where they could find a Yule log and a peacock. They said in the "eternal fitness of things" they must have a log to burn all Christmas night and a peafowl to serve with "brilliant plumage" at the dinner table. Mrs. Young went around to the kitchen to ask Mammy Lou if she knew how to prepare the peacock the way they wanted it and brought to the table in its feathers with the tail spread.Mammy wasn't a speck more polite than she was last summer about the roosters.
"No,ma'am," she told her, "Mis' Mary won't let even so much as a pin feather come on her table, much less a whole crittur covered with 'em. Looks likethatwould turn a nigger's stomach, let alone white folks; but there ain't no 'countin' for the taste o'Yankees."
Professor Young tried to explain that he was cooked without the feathers which was put on afterward and an old English custom, but that wouldn't pacify mammy.
"Well, all I can say for the old English is that they must have stomachs on 'em likebuzzards," mammy told them.
The Yule log was easier and so they got that, but it isn't to be lit till to-morrow night with ceremony.
Julius and Marcella had a long walk through the woods after sarsaparilla vines this afternoon, and talked a good deal about how they would like a house furnished if they were goingto furnish one. They never got as far as the kitchen and smokehouse, but they both agreed that they would love better than anything in the world to have a dark green library with dull brass jardinieres. (I had aterribletime with that word.) Julius then spoke up and saidanykind of a library that had her in it would be artistic enough forhim, which I thought was saying a great deal, for artists make out like they can't live without their "atmosphere," meaning battered-up tea-kettles and dirty curtains from Persia. Marcella must have thought he meant something by it, too, for she turned as red as when you have a breaking out.
I helped mother and mammy considerable this morning by tasting all the things to see if they were just right, for we are going to have a big dinner to-morrow and invite them all.
To-night we all went over to the bungalow to hear Professor Young read about how they used to do Christmas things in England before the Pilgrim Fathers. It sounded awful nice aboutthe waifs singing, "God rest you, merry gentlemen," on the outside of your window, and the servants at dinner bringing in the boar's head, singing too. Professor Young said he thought these old customs ought to be revived, especially in the South, where we had old-timey houses and old family servants. Father laughed and said, well, wemightget Mammy Lou to bring in the turkey to-morrow to the tune of "Therewuzer moanin' lady, shelivedin er moanin' lan'," which was all the tune she knew besides Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, one being about as Christmasy as the other.
After a while Mrs. Young started up the chafing-dish and called Julius from over in the corner where he and Marcella were talking very easy, to help her with the coffee. She hadn't more than said coffee when Professor Young picked up his book again.
"Why, Marie, my love," he interrupted her, "coffee is not at all a drink in keeping with the season. To preserve the unities we ought tohave a wassail bowl." Then he read us how easy it was to make up the wassail. All you have to do is to take wine, or ale, and sugar and nutmeg, mixed with ginger and spice, then have apples and toast and roasted crabs floating around in it. You must mix it up in an old silver bowl that has been in your family a hundred years with the coat of arms on it. A coat of arms is two peculiar animals standing on their hind legs pawing at each other.
Mrs. Young said she was as anxious to preserve the unities as Augustus, but how could she when there wasn't any wine or ale or ginger or crabs, to say nothing of the silver bowl with the coat of arms marked on it. Rufe said not to worry, for we might find it hard, along toward midnight and day, to preserve much unity between wassail and Welsh rabbit, if we ate them together, so the wassail bowl was dropped.
All during my diary there hasn't been a thing as thrilling to happen as what happened to-day,Christmas Day, to Julius and Marcella. Getting your arm broken and carried to the hospital by your future husband wasn't anything to compare with this.
Everybody was happy at the dinner table, me especially, for besides all the books I wanted I got a pyrography set and a pearl ring. I don't think any girl is complete without a pearl ring. The company all praised mammy's cooking and Julius remarked that after such a dinner as that it would be pretty tough on a fellow to go back to town the next day and live on coffee heated over the gas-jet and crackers. We laughed considerable over the gas-jet, all but Marcella, who didn't look funny.
Just as we got the plum pudding burning and Julius had said he wished he could paint a picture of it Dilsey came into the dining-room with a telegram addressed to Mr. Julius Young. This excited Mammy Lou, who admires him very much, so she nearly spilt all the sauce, saying, "Thar! I jes'knowit's some of yo' folks dead!"
Julius laughed and told her he reckoned not, as all the folks he had on earth were right there at the table, and he looked at Marcella when he said it in preference to his own brother! Much to all of our disappointment Julius never even opened his telegram and read it, although we didn't say anything about it. He put it in his pocket and went on eating pudding like it wasn't any more to be proud of than just a plain mail letter.
After dinner father took them all out in the garden to look at some new hotbeds he was having made and Julius and Marcella went into the parlor. I stayed in the hall by the door, not being wanted in the parlor and not admiring hotbeds much. They didn't sit down, but went over and stood by the piano and all of a sudden Marcella said nervous-like:
"Why don't you read your telegram? It might contain good news."
"Itisgood news, I feel sure," he told her, "and I wanted you to be the first one to know it—that'sthe reason I didn't mention it at the table."
She said well hurry up and tell her, so he did. He said the day he saw her leaning against the cedar tree he thought she was so beautiful that he went straight back to the bungalow and made a picture of her like she was then and sent it to a large magazine up North which had promised to give five thousand dollars to the person which sent them the best picture by Christmas, and he believed the telegram was to say that his was it. Marcella told him well, he had a high opinion of his work to take it for granted that it had won such a prize asthat.
"Not at all," he said, catching her hand in his, "for it was a picture ofyou."
This sounded so loving that I wasn't prepared for what came next. I heard them tear open the telegram and Marcella said, "Good-ness;" and he said, "Well, I'll be—I wasn't looking for this!" and it made me so interested that before I knew it I was in the parlor, though so easyand it nearly dark that I don't think they saw me.
As near as I could make out the telegram told Julius they thought his picture was so good they were not only going to give him the prize like they promised, but wanted to engage him to draw for them all the next year and how much salary would he do it for.
"Why, you can have your green library and brass jardinieresnow," Marcella said, still holding hands and her voice like it was about to cry. He just looked at her and looked a long time without saying a word. Finally he put both hands on her shoulders and looked down into her eyes.
"I can have nothing without you," he said in the most devoted voice I ever heard. "It is your beauty that has made my picture succeed. If I amount to anything you will have to come with me—will you?"
"You want me for your model?" she asked very quivery and making out like she didn'tknow what he was driving at, but she put her hands up on his shoulders too, which was enough to give her away.
"True, I can not draw without you for my model," he said so grand and sweet that it made you feel very strange listening to it, "but I can notlivewithout you for my wife."
This won her. It was enough to winanybody, coming from an artist, and good looking at that.
Being in love with Marcella weighed so on Julius' mind that he couldn't stay in New York but one week where the magazine is that he draws for, so he came back and has been here ever since, loving and drawing and sending them the jobs by mail. Right away they set the wedding for the eleventh of April, which seems like itneverwill come, me being in a big hurry for it. Poor Julius gets more and more delighted every day, talking a heap about what a happy home they're going to have, not realizing that Chopin and dish-pan don't go together. He stays around and advises Marcella about her clothes and such-like all day long. He says she reminds him of a narcissus, being tall and creamy-skinned, so he wants allher dresses to be either white or light green, the color of right young lettuce. But she knows when really to take his advice and when just to make like she's taking it, the way most ladies do with men.
"Why, it would take a little pink milksop like Bertha Parkes to wear such colors asthose," she said behind his back one day. But I don't think Marcella better be calling Bertha amilksopjust because she has to handle baby-bottles all the time, for a person never can tell what might happen to them.
One of the nicest things about the wedding is the bridesmaids. They consist of girls born partly here in the country, partly in the cities Marcella has visited and made friends with. The one I like best is Miss Cicely Reeves, though most people around here call her Cis, being very small, with fluffy hair and cute ways and dimples. She has a good many lovers of different kinds, but don't seem to like one above another. She is a great hand to act romantic,such as falling in love with a man in a streetcar, or expecting her future husband to be a certain size and comb his hair a certain way and things like that. This often keeps young ladies from getting married a long time, for mother says you oughtn't to be too choice about size and hair, but I can't help being on that order myself. I do hope I can marry a man on a jet-black charger named Sir Reginald de Beverley who ownsacresandacresof English landed gentry.
Miss Cis had that experience with thenameof Julius' best man. It happened that we were all sitting on the front step one day when Julius pulled a letter out of his pocket and told Marcella that he had just heard from Malcolm Macdonald, and that he was going to be his best man.
"Who?" asked Miss Cis right quick, looking up from the sprig of bridal wreath she was pulling the flowers off of.
Julius told her the name over again and thentold her that he was a very old friend of his and was a fine civil engineer. I used to think a civil engineer was apoliteman who ran the trains, but I know now he is a man that gets in the middle of the street with a string and a three-legged thing and measures the road.
"Is he married?" Miss Cis asked a heap quicker than she had asked who.
"No, and not likely to be," Julius answered, still looking over the letter absent-mindedly.
"The name sounds good," Miss Cis commenced, her eyes sparkling. "I never heard anything Scotchier. Something tells me he must be my ideal."
"Then 'something' must be telling you a lie," Julius said laughing, "for he couldn't be any woman's ideal. He is veryreal. An old bachelor, thirty-seven years, stern and precise; and he considers every woman on earth as a frivolous andunnecessary evil."
"The kind of man I adore," Miss Cis said joyfully, though anybody that knew her wellcould tell she was fooling. "My life will be a blank until he comes!"
"It would be a blankety-blank if you had to live with him, for you are the kind of woman to torment such a man to death."
"All the more reason for his falling in love with me, as I have fallen in love with his name, and if he doesn't I shall consider him a veryuncivil engineer." Which was just her way of talking. This happened fully two months ago, but they have talked about it off and on ever since. And now he is coming to stay with Julius till the wedding, to cheer him up I suppose.
Sure enough he did come to-day, although lots of times I imagine that I never will get to see a person I have heard spoken of so often and in such high tones—and sometimes I wish I hadn't. But it wasn't that way with Mr. Macdonald. Nobody on earth could have been disappointed inhimfor he is one of the tallest gentlemen I ever saw with trousers so smoothlycreased that they look like somebody had ironed them after he put them on. He takes his own time about saying things, being very careful about saying "of whom" and "by which" like the grammar tells you to.
Julius brought him over to Marcella's this afternoon so he could be making friends with her and the bridesmaids that were collected there. Remembering how they had been teasing Miss Cis about him I kept my eye on her from the minute he walked through the door. I was greatly disappointed though, for she neverseemedto notice him. I guess she took a better look at him than I imagined though, for the minute they were gone she jumped clear across the room to where Marcella was standing and grabbed her and danced up and down.
"Isn't hebeautiful!" she said all out of breath. "I'm just crazy about him! Did you ever see such Gibsony feet and legs in yourlife?" Which mortified her mother, it being impolite to mention feet and legs in her days.
Julius is romantic, too, for a man, and says he doesn't want any flowers used in connection with his wedding except the sweet, early spring ones that favor Marcella so much. We have a yard full of them and so mother told them this morning that they better come over and gather them, knowing that young folks enjoy picking flowers together and they will stay fresh for several days if you put a little salt in the water.
It was the most beautiful morning you ever saw, with birds and peach blossoms and the smell of plowed ground all making curious feelings inside of you. Marcella, being a musician, noticed the birds, and Julius, being an artist, noticed the peach blossoms, but Mr. Macdonald, being just a man, noticed Miss Cis. She would walk along without noticing him and take a seat in the farthest corner away from him, but anyhow she seemed to do the work, which taught me a lesson; that if you're trying to get a man to notice you it is the best plan not to notice them except when they ain't looking.
They sat down on the porch and rested a while after they came while the narcissuses (narcissitheycalled them, which sounds stuck up to me) smelled very sweet from the yard. Julius remarked he wished they had made Rufe come along with them so he could have said poetry out of Keats, as it was just the kind of day to make you feel Keatsy; and pretty soon he and Marcella got on to their favorite subject, "The Ruby Yacht," which they say is a piece of poetry from Persia. They talked and talked, which made me very sleepy and pretty soon I noticed that Mr. Macdonald was getting sleepy too. He leaned over to Miss Cis and said, kinder whispery:
"I don't understand poetry, do you?"
"No, I don't," she answered back, with a smile on her face which I knew she meant to be "congenial." I knew this was a story, for she talks about "The Ruby Yacht" as much as anybody when he ain't around, but I didn't blame her for telling one in a case like this.
"I never could discover what the deuced Ruby Yacht was about, in the first place," he said.
"It looks like, from the name," I said speaking up, "that it would be about a red ship," but before I could get any further they began to laugh and tell my remark to Julius and Marcella, which was mortifying. This broke up the poetry talk and they began gathering the flowers, Miss Cis and Mr. Macdonald picking in pairs, by which I knew they were getting affinityfied.
After they had picked till their backs were tired Mammy Lou came out on the porch bringing a waiter with some of her best white cake and a bottle of her year-before-last-before-that's wine setting on it and her finest ruffled cap, very proud. She was curious to see the young man "Miss Cis was settin' up to, to see whether the match was a fittin' one or not." She took a good look at him, then called Miss Cis into the hall to speak her opinion.
"He'lldo," I heard her saying, while Miss Ciswas telling her to "s-s-sh, Mr. MacDonald would hear her."
"He'lldo," mammy kept on, not paying any attention to what was told her, like she always don't. "He must be all right, for bein' a frien' o' Mr. Juliuses would pass 'im.' But, honey, heistolerablepo-faced, which ain't no good sign in marryin'. If thar's anybody better experienced in that business thanmeand King Solomon I'd like to see the whites o' ther eyes; an' I tell you every time, if you want to get a good-natured, wood-cuttin', baby-tendin' husban' choose one that'sfat in the face!"
A good many wedding presents commenced to coming in this morning, which was a sign that the invitations got to the people all right. You often hear of things being worth their weight in silver, but there'sonething you can count on it's being true about and that is wedding invitations. You never saw such delighted people as Julius and Marcella. They were laid out on tables in the parlor and greatly admired.
"They'reours, dearest," he said, squeezing her hand right before everybody, "yours and mine! Our Lares and Penates."
This greatly impressed me and I looked it up in the back of the dictionary when I got home, which is a very useful place to find strange words. It said: "Lares et Penates, household gods," which didn't make sense, so I knew the dictionary man must have made a mistake and meant to say householdgoods.
"Gentle-men!" said Mammy Lou when I told the words to her, "if he thinks up such names asthemfor his fu'niture whatwillhe do when he gets to his chil'en?"
This remark seemed to put an idea into her head, for Lovie, mammy's other daughter besides Dilsey, has got a pair of two little twins that have been going around for the last five years in need of a name just because Mammy Lou and Ike, their father, can't ever agree on one—a name nor anything else.
"Them's the very names for the little angels,"Mammy said, washing the dinner dishes deep in thought, "for the twins bein' boys and girls and the names bein' able to accommodate therselves to ary sect proves that they're thevery thing." She studied over it for a good while, I guess on account of Ike, although mammy is usually what she calls very plain-spoken with him. A plain-spoken person is one that says nasty things to your face and expects you not to get mad. When they say them behind your back they're "diplomatic." But finally she started off to name them, and, having had so much trouble already with Ike, I saw her slip her heavy-soled slippers into her pocket before she started. She stayed away a long, long time, but when she got back she held her head so high and acted so stuck-up that I just knew she had got to use both the names and the slippers.
"Did you name 'em?" I asked her, going to the kitchen to get some tea-cakes, supper being very late.
"Did I?" she answered back, cutting out thebiscuits with a haughty look, "you just oughter asawme namin' 'em!"
"Which did you name which?" I asked.
"I named the precious boy Penates, because I most know these common niggers roun' here'll shorten it to 'Peanuts' which would be hurtin' to a little girl's feelin's."
"Well," I said, continuing to show a friendly interest, "ain't you glad they're named at last, so's if they die you could have a tombstone for them?"
"Glad!" she answered, putting the biscuits in the pan (but her mind still on the twins), and sticking holes in the top of them with a fork, "glad ain't no name for it! Why, I ain't had as much enjoyment out o' nothin' as I had out o' this namin' sence the night I married Bill Williams!"
It's a very thrilling and exciting thing to be a bride and if you can't be a bride you can still manage to get a good many thrills out of just abridesmaid. All of Marcella's have talked about how nervous and timid they are going to be—when the men are around—and some say they nearly faint when a great crowd stares at them, others say they bet folks will think they've got St. Vituses' dance from trembling so; anyhow, they're all very modest. But Miss Cis, I believe, ain't putting on, for all she claims toward modestness is that her knees get so weak that they nearly let her drop when she acts a bridesmaid, which is the way a good many persons feel. The maids have laughed a good deal over her knees among themselves, never dreaming that the men would catch on to them, but they did in the following manner:
Miss Cis stayed all night at Marcella's last night to tell secrets for the last time, for after a lady is married you can't be too careful about telling her your secrets; and early this morning I ran over and saw her dressed in a pretty blue kimono, which set off her good looks greatly, down by the woodpile which they keep in theside yard. There is a hedge of honeysuckle which runs between the garden and the yard and she appeared to be searching on the ground for something close to this hedge. I went up to where she was, admiring her company, and she smiled when she saw me.
"Ann," she said, very pleasantly, "can you help me find two nice, little, smooth, thin boards?"
I complimented her on her kimono and said yes'm to the board question, then asked her what she wanted with them.
"My knees," she answered laughing, "they're so idiotic that when I get excited they threaten to let me drop. If I could strap two nice little boards to them, at the back, you know, it would prop them up and besucha help!"
"You couldn't walk very good," I told her, but she said oh, yes she could; and to prove it she commenced whistling the wedding march and walking stiff-kneed away from the woodpile to the tune of it. She looked so funny that I startedto laugh, when just then I heard another laugh on the other side of the honeysuckle vines. I found a place where I could peep through and saw it was Julius and Mr. Macdonald who had come out to view Mr. Clayborne's hotbeds, and greatly complimenting them, Julius knowing that it's a fine thing to stay on the good side of your father-in-law in case you lose your job.
I knew they heard what Miss Cis had said, for they were laughing very hard, which caused Mr. Macdonald to look real young, being as his eyes can twinkle. I knew it would be mortifying for her to see that they had heard her, so I hollered and told her that I heard Marcella calling her from the up-stairs window, so she ran right on in without coming back to the woodpile. I started to go on after her, but just as I got to the kitchen door I remembered that I had left my pretty white sunbonnet that Mammy Lou had freshly ironed for me on the woodpile and ran back to get it.
Julius and Mr. Macdonald were right wherethey were, only looking in the other direction and talking very seriously, so I stayed a minute out of friendly interest.
"Although so bright and amusing she is never silly," I heard Mr. Macdonald's long, slow voice saying. "She is a very lovely, fascinating little woman." So I took a seat on the woodpile.
"You'd better fall in love with her," Julius said, cutting the briers off of a long switch he held in his hand, and talking careless like, as if he wasn't paying much attention.
"Your advice comes too late," Mr. Macdonald said, his voice so solemn that Julius looked up in surprise.
"What!" Julius remarked.
"Yes," Mr. Macdonald said, sounding very devoted, "I did that very thing the first moment I looked at her dear, sweet face."
Julius stared at him a minute, then laughed a tickled laugh; and I moved my seat right up to the hedge so I could get a good look at them—it was the next best thing to a proposal.
"That's the funniest thing I ever heard of," Julius said after he had quit laughing.
"It's devilish funny toyou," poor Mr. Macdonald said, looking like he didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. "But—what am I to do?"
"Do?" said Julius very businesslike, like folks talk when they're telling you to followtheirexample. "What do men in your situation usually do? Why, propose to her!"
"Butshe'dnever marryme," he said looking right pitiful, for he spoke as humble as if he wasn't any taller than me, and him over six feet tall. "It would be the most absurd thing in the world for a man like me to propose to a woman like her!"
"No, you're wrong," Julius told him, still half laughing, "themostabsurd thing would be that she would accept you!"
I'm awfully tired to-night and it would cramp my hand nearly to death to write all about the wedding—how Julius looked happy up to the last, and how Marcella cried just enough to appearladylike on her lace handkerchief; and how the family relatives cried a little too. Weddings are all alike, but proposals are all different, and I think I'd better use more space on them in my diary, so my grandchildren won't get sleepy over the sameness. But it would be a waste of handwriting to tell how Miss Cis tormented poor Mr. Macdonald all day, making him chase around after her trying to get in a private, loving word; and me just crazy to see whether she really was going to accept him or not, although Imighthave known!
He followed her up though, looking so brave and determined that he reminded me of "The boy stood on the burning deck." She worried him so that all through the ceremony he looked so pale and troubled that you'd have thought it washimgetting married. Finally, just before it was time for the train that he was going back to town on to blow she changed about and commenced acting sweet.