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 it _never_ will
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 all her 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 as _those_," she said behind his back one day. But I don't
think Marcella better be calling Bertha a _milksop_ just 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 owns _acres_
and _acres_ of English landed gentry.
Miss Cis had that experience with the _name_ of 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 then told her that he was a
very old friend of his and was a fine civil engineer. I used to think
a civil engineer was a _polite_ man 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 very _real_. An old
bachelor, thirty-seven years, stern and precise; and he considers
every woman on earth as a frivolous and _un_necessary evil."
"The kind of man I adore," Miss Cis said joyfully, though anybody that
knew her well could 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 very
_un_civil 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
in _him_ for he is one of the tallest gentlemen I ever saw with
trousers so smoothly creased 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 never _seemed_ to 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 he _beautiful_!" she said all out of breath. "I'm just crazy
about him! Did you ever see such Gibsony feet and legs in your
_life_?" 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 (narcissi _they_ called 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'll _do_," I heard her saying, while Miss Cis was telling her to
"s-s-sh, Mr. MacDonald would hear her."
"He'll _do_," 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, he _is_ tolerable
_po_-faced, which ain't no good sign in marryin'. If thar's anybody
better experienced in that business than _me_ and 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's _fat 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's
_one_ thing 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're _ours_, 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 household _goods_.
"Gentle-_men_!" said Mammy Lou when I told the words to her, "if he
thinks up such names as _them_ for his fu'niture what _will_ he 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 the _very 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 the biscuits with a haughty
look, "you just oughter a _saw_ me 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 a bridesmaid. 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 the side 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 be
_such_ a 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 started to 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 where they 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 to _you_," 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 follow _their_ example. "What do men in your situation
usually do? Why, propose to her!"
"But _she'd_ never marry _me_," 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, "the _most_
absurd 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 appear ladylike 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 I _might_ have 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 was _him_ getting 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.
[Illustration: He followed her up though _Page 138_]
All this was nice enough to watch, but is cramping to write about,
and anyhow, the main thing with me was to see whether she was going to
accept him or not. I stayed close to their heels all day, but he
didn't get a chance to propose until just after dark, down by the
front gate, with nobody around except me and a calecanthus bush
and--well, you just ought to have _seen_ her accepting him!