It looks as if everybody who knows Miss Katherine wants her to be
married from their house. Her brothers want her to be married from
theirs. Her aunt, Mrs. Powhatan Bloodgood, who lives in Loudon County,
and whose husband is as rich as a real lord, begs her to be married in
hers; and everybody in Yorkburg--I mean the coat-of-arms
everybodies--has invited her to have the wedding in their home.
But she just smiles and says no to them all. Says she is going to be
married from her house, which is the Orphan Asylum, though the ceremony
will be at the church. It's going to be in the morning at twelve
o'clock, so they can take the two-o'clock train for Richmond and go on
to New York.
Miss Katherine wants it to be quiet, but it can't be quiet. There's
nothing on human legs that can use them who won't be at the church to
see that wedding take place.
Everybody has been paying her a lot of attention of late. It's real
strange what a difference a man makes in a marriage, even if he isn't
noticed much in person at the time. If he's rich and prominent,
everybody is so pleasant and sociable you'd think they were real
intimate. If he's just good and poor, few take notice.
When Miss Vickie Toones married Mr. Joe Blake they didn't get hardly any
presents. They had a lot of dead relations who used to be rich and
haughty, but their living ones are as poor as the people they didn't
used to know, and hardly anybody gave them anything handsome.
Miss Katherine's presents are just amazing, and my eyes are blistered by
the shine of them. I didn't know before such things were in the world.
People say Uncle Parke has made a lot of money in some mines out West,
besides being a doctor, and that he doesn't have to work. "But a man who
doesn't work hasn't any excuse for living," I heard him tell somebody,
and maybe it's so, though I don't know.
I don't know anything these days. I'm the shape and size of Mary Cary,
but I see and hear so many things I never saw and heard before that I'd
like to borrow a dog to see if he knows whether I am myself or somebody
else. And another thing I'd like to find out is, How do other people
know so much?
Mrs. Philip Creekmore has a cousin whose wife's brother lives in the
same place Uncle Parke does, and Miss Amelia Cokeland wrote out there
and found out all about him. But it doesn't matter whether she truly
knows anything or not. Miss Webb says she is like those fish scientists.
Give her one bone, and she can tell you all the rest. She's had a grand
time telling more things about Uncle Parke than Miss Katherine will ever
learn in this world.
My dress is finished. I'm to be Maiden of Honor. There are no
bridesmaids. Think of it! Me, Mary Cary, once just flesh and blood
mechanical, now a living creature who is to wear a white Swiss dress and
a sash with pink rosebuds on it, and walk up the church aisle with my
arms full of roses. And--magnificent gloriousness! most beautiful of
all!--every girl in this Asylum is to have a white dress and a sash the
color she likes best to wear to the wedding. That's my wedding gift to
the girls. Uncle Parke gave it to me.
Miss Katherine's California brother and his wife have come. I don't like
them. He looks bored to death, and chews the end of his mustache till
you wonder there's any left. As for her, she's the limit. Maybe that's
what's the matter with him.
She seems to be afraid some of us might touch her, and she stares as if
we were figures in a china-shop. No more says good-morning than if we
were.
She wears seven rings on one hand and four on another, and rustles so
when she walks she sounds like a churner out of order. If she isn't a
bulgarian born, she's bought herself into being one, for she oozes
money. It's the only thing you think of when she's around. You can
actually smell it. I think Miss Katherine is sorry they came. She don't
say it, of course, but plenty of things don't have to be said.
Uncle Parke came last night, bringing his best friend and some others.
The best one is Doctor Willwood. He's fine. He and I are going to come
down the aisle together. I reach up to his elbow, and he says he may put
me in his pocket. I wish he would. I know I will be that frightened I'd
be glad to get in it.
He wants to know all about Yorkburg and the people, and to-day Miss Bray
let me take him all around the town and show him the antiquities. He
asked her. I had on the white dress Miss Katherine gave me last summer,
and I looked real nice, for I had on my company manners, too.
You see, he was from the West, and had never been to Virginia before;
and when a man comes such a long way, one ought to put on company
manners and be extra polite. It wouldn't be right not to. I put mine on,
and I guess I did do a lot of talking. I'm by nature a talker, just like
I can't help skipping when my heart is happy and nothing hurts.
I told him about all the places we came to, and about who lived in them,
except the Alden house which the Reagans now possess. When we got there
he stopped in front of it.
"My!" he said, "that's a beautiful old place! Whose is it?"
"Some people by the name of Reagan live there," I said. "I don't know
them." And I started on.
I came near forgetting, and saying, "That is Alden house, where my
grandfather used to live," but I remembered in time. I don't acknowledge
my grandfather, and I knew somebody else would tell him Uncle Parke was
born and lived there until he went West.
We had a grand time. We stayed out over four hours, and I forgot all
about dinner. He didn't want to go in when I suddenly remembered and
told him I must, and then he said I was going to take dinner with him at
the Colonial. He'd asked Miss Bray, and it was all right. And that's
what I did. Took dinner with him at the Colonial!
I tell you, Mary Martha Cary had what you could truly call a Time. And
Doctor Willwood said he never had enjoyed a morning in his life like
that one. Laugh? I never heard a man laugh so hearty. Half the time I
couldn't tell why. I'd be real serious, but he'd look at me and almost
die laughing. I bet I said some things I oughtn't, but I don't remember,
and I couldn't take them back if I did.
* * * * *
It's over. The wedding is over. Everything is after a while in this
life, even death; and time is the only thing that keeps on just the
same.
They're gone. Gone on their bridal tour, and the happiness that's left
Yorkburg would run a family for a long life. I wish everybody could have
seen that wedding. It's going to be long remembered, for the earth and
sky, and birds and flowers, and trees and sunshine all took part.
Everything tried to help, and as for blessings on them, they took away
enough for the human race. But now it's over I feel like my first
balloon looked when I stuck a pin in it to see what would happen. I saw.