We sail at eleven o'clock. Love to all, and hearts full for Mary
Cary.
UNCLE PARKE and AUNT KATHERINE.
Well, she's my Aunt now. That's fixed, anyhow, and the marriage that
fixed it was a beauty. Every bird in Yorkburg was singing, every flower
was blooming, and every heart was blessing; and when those fifty-eight
orphans walked in, all in white and two by two, every hand was dropping
roses. And that is what each girl was wishing: Roses, roses all her
life!
After the ushers, I came in all alone by myself; that is, my shape did.
Mary was really inside the altar looking at me coming up slow and easy,
and Martha was ordering me to keep step to the music. "All right, I'm
doing my best," I was saying to both. And I was, but I was thankful when
I got to where I could stop, for my legs were so excited I wouldn't have
been surprised if they'd turned and run out.
Behind me came Miss Katherine, on her Army brother's arm. He's as nice
as the other isn't. He hasn't got the money-making disease. When Uncle
Parke and Doctor Willwood came out of the vestry-room Uncle Parke gave
me one look, just one, but it was so understanding I winked back, and
then he came farther down and stood by Miss Katherine like she was his
until kingdom come, forever more. Amen.
Then the minister began, and the music was so soft you could hear the
birds outside. The breeze through the window blew right on Miss
Katherine's veil, and I was so busy watching it I didn't know the time
had come to pray, and I hardly got my head bent before I had to take it
up again. Then the minister was through, and I was walking down the
aisle with Doctor Willwood, and in just about two minutes more we were
back at the Asylum, and it was all over--the thing we'd been looking
forward to so long.
The Asylum looked real nice that morning. There were bushels and bushels
of flowers in it, for everybody in town who had any sent them. Flowers
cover a multitude of poverties. The reception was grand. That California
Richness called it a breakfast, but that was pure style. Yorkburg don't
have breakfast between twelve and one, and everybody else called it a
reception. As for the people at it, there were more kinds than were ever
in one dining-room before; and every single one had a good time. Every
one.
You see, Miss Katherine, besides being who she was, was what she was.
Having known a great deal about all sorts of people since being a nurse,
and finding out that the plain and the fancy, the rich and the poor,
those who've had a chance and those who haven't, are a heap more alike
than people think, she said she was going to invite to her wedding
whoever she wanted. And she did.
There wasn't one invited who didn't come: the bent and the broke and the
blind (that's true, for old Mr. Forbes is bent, and Mrs. Rowe's hip was
broken and she uses crutches, and Bobbie Anderson is blind); and the
old, that's the high-born coat-of-arms kind; and the new, that's the
Reagans and Hinchmans and some others, and Mr. Pinkert the shoemaker,
who, she says, is a gentleman if he don't remember his grandfather's
name; and Miss Ginnie Grant, who made her underclothes--all were there.
All. It was a different wedding from any that was ever before in
Yorkburg, and if any feelings were hurt it was because they were trying
to be. Some feelings are kept for that purpose.
Of course, Mrs. Christopher Pryor had remarks to make. "Katherine always
was too independent," I heard her tell Miss Queechy Spence. "But I don't
believe in anything of the kind. If you once let people get out of the
place they were born in, there'll be no doing anything with them. You
mark me, if this wedding don't make trouble. Some of these people will
expect to be invited to my house next." And she took another helping of
salad that was enough for three. She's an awful eater.
"Oh no, they won't," said Miss Queechy. "They know better than to expect
anything like that of you," and she gave me a little wink and walked off
with Mr. Morris, who's her beau. I went off, too. It isn't safe for
Martha Cary to be too near Mrs. Pryor, for Mary never knows what she
may do.
And, oh, you ought to have seen Miss Bray! She was stepsister to the
Queen of Sheba. Solomon never had a wife arrayed like she was on that
twenty-seventh day of June. I believe she is engaged to Doctor Rudd. I
really do.
You see, after people got over teasing him about that make-believe
wedding, he got to thinking about her. He's bound to know he isn't much
of a man, and no young girl would have him, so lately he's been ambling
'round Miss Bray. If he can stand her, he'll do well to get her. She's a
grand manager on little.
He was at the wedding, too. His beard was flowinger and redder, and the
part in the back of his head shininger than ever. He had an elegant
time. He was so full of himself you would have thought it was his own
party.
Uncle Parke and Aunt Katherine have been on the ocean three days. I
wonder if they are sick. I don't think I will go to Europe with my
children's father. I was seasick once on land, and there wasn't a human
being I even liked that day. It would be bad to find out so soon that
the very sight of your husband makes you ill. After you know him
better, you could tell him to go off somewhere; but at first I suppose
you have to be polite.
They were awful nice about wanting me to go with them. The bride and
groom were. They said I had to, and they were so surprised when I said I
couldn't that they didn't think I meant it. When they found out I did,
they were dreadfully worried, and didn't know what to do next. There
wasn't anything to do, and here I am. Here I'm going to be, too, until
the first day of October, when they will be back, and we will start for
the West, for Michigan.
I'm going to like Michigan. I've decided before I get there. I know
there will be something to like, there always is in every place and
every person, Miss Katherine says, if you just will see it instead of
the all wrong. I was by nature born critical. There are a lot of things
I don't like in this world, but there's no use in mentioning them. As
for opinions, if they're not pleasant they'd better be kept to yourself.
I learned that early in life and forget it every day.
I'm going to try and think Michigan is a grand place, and next to
Virginia the best to live in. They couldn't, _couldn't_ expect me to
think it was like Virginia!
Perhaps, after a while, Uncle Parke may come back. For over two hundred
years his people have lived here, and sometimes I believe he feels just
like that dog did who had his call in him. The call of the place that
the first dogs came from, that wild, free place, and I think Uncle Parke
wants to come back, wants to be with his own people.
Out West is very convenient, though, Peggy Green says. She has an aunt
who used to live out there, and she told her you could do as you choose
in almost everything. If husbands and wives didn't like each other,
there was no trouble in getting new ones. They could get a divorce and
marry somebody else.
I wonder what a divorce is. We've never had one in Yorkburg, and I never
knew until the other day that when you got married it wasn't really
truly permanent. I thought it was for ever and ever and until death
parted. The prayer-book says so, and I thought it meant it.
By the time I'm grown I guess I'll find a lot of things are said and not
meant. Maybe when I find out I will be all the gladder to come back to
Yorkburg, where people don't seem to know much about these new-fashioned
things. Where they still believe in the old ones, and just live on and
don't hurry, and are kind and polite and dear, if they are slow and
queer and proud a little bit.
It makes me have such a funny feeling in my throat when I think about
going away. I'm trying not to think. But I do. Think all the time. I
want this summer to be the happiest the children ever had. It's the last
for me. That sounds consumptive, but I don't mean that way. I mean it's
my last Orphan summer.
Of course, I'm glad, awful glad; but I'm so sorry the other children
aren't going, too. For them it's prunes and blue-and-white calico to
look forward to until they're eighteen. Year in and year out, prunes and
calico.
But maybe it isn't. If Mary Cary will do her part something nicer may
happen. She doesn't know yet the way to make it happen, having nothing
much to send back but love. Somebody says love finds the way. Oh, Mary
Cary, you and Love _must_ find a way!