"ONE HEART MADE O' TWO"
Amanda married Martin that May, when the cherry blossoms transformed
the orchard into a sea of white.
To the rear of the farmhouse stood a plot of ground planted with cherry
trees. Low grass under the trees and little paths worn into it led like
aisles up and down. There, near the centre of the plot, Amanda and
Martin chose the place for the ceremony. The march to and from that
spot would lead through a white-arched aisle sweet with the breath of
thousands of cherry blossoms.
Amanda selected for her wedding a dress of white silk. "I do want a
wedding dress I can pack away in an old box on the attic and keep for
fifty years and take out and look at when it's yellow and old," she
said, romance still burning in her heart.
"Uh," said practical Millie. "Why, there ain't no attic in that house
you're goin' to! Them bungalows ain't the kind I like. I like a real
house."
"Well, there's no garret like ours, but there is a little raftered room
with a slanting ceiling and little windows and I intend to put trunks
and boxes in it and take my spinning-wheel that Granny gave me and put
it there."
"A spinning-wheel! What under the sun will you do with that?"
"Look at it," was the strange reply, at which Millie shook her head and
went off to her work.
"Are you going to carry flowers, and have a real wedding?" Philip asked
his sister the day before the wedding.
"I don't need any, with the whole outdoors a mass of bloom. If the pink
moccasins were blooming I'd carry some."
"Pink--with your red hair!" The boy exercised his brotherly prerogative
of frankness.
"Yes, pink! Whose wedding is this? I'd carry pink moccasins and wear my
red hair if they--if the two curdled! But I'll have to find some other
wild flowers."
He laughed. "Then I'll help you pick them."
"Martin and I are going for them, thanks."
"Oh, don't mention it! I wouldn't spoil that party!" He began whistling
his old greeting whistle. He had forgotten it for several years but
some chord of memory flashed it back to him at that moment.
At the sound of the old melody Amanda stepped closer to the boy.
"Phil," she said tenderly, "you make me awful mad sometimes but I like
you a lot. I hope you'll be as happy as I am some day."
"Ah," he blinked, half ashamed of any outward show of emotion. "You're
all right, Sis. When I find a girl like you I'll do the wedding ring
stunt, too. Now, since we've thrown bouquets at each other let's get to
work. What may I do if I'm debarred from the flower hunt?"
"Go ask Millie."
"Gee, Sis, have a heart! She's been love struck, too. Regular epidemic
at Reists'!" But he went off to offer his services to the hired girl.
As Amanda dressed in her white silk gown she wished she were beautiful.
"Every girl ought to have beauty once in her life," she thought. "Even
for just one hour on her wedding day it would be a boon. But then, love
is supposed to be blind, so perhaps Martin will think I am beautiful
to-day."
She was not beautiful, but her eyes shone soft and her face was
expressive of the joy in her heart as she stood ready for the ceremony
which was the consummation of her love for the knight of her girlhood's
dreams.
It would be impossible to find a more beautiful setting for a wedding
than the Reist cherry orchard that May day. There were rows of trees,
with their fresh young green and their canopies of lacy bloom through
which the warm May sunshine trickled like gold. As Amanda and Martin
stood before the waiting clergyman and in the presence of relatives,
friends and neighbors, faint breezes stirred the branches and fugitive
little petals loosened from the hearts of the blossoms and fell upon
the happy people gathered under the white glory of the orchard.
Several robins with nests already built on broad crotches of the cherry
trees hovered about, their black eyes peering questioningly down at the
unwonted visitors to the place. Once during the marriage service a
Baltimore oriole flashed into a tree near by, his golden plumage made
more intense against the white blossoms. With proud assurance he
demonstrated his appreciation of the orchard and perched fearlessly on
an outer bough while he whistled his insistent, imperious, "Here, here,
come here!"
As the words, "Until death do us part"--the old, inadequate mortal
expression for love that is deathless--sounded in that white-arched
temple Amanda thought of Riley's "Song of the Road" and its
"To Heaven's door, and _through_, my lad,
O I will walk with you."
After the ceremony the strains of a Wedding March fell upon the ears of
the people gathered in the orchard.
Amanda's lips parted in pleasure. "That's Phil's work!" she cried and
ran behind the clump of bushes from where the music seemed to come.
Philip was stooping to grind the motor of Landis's Victrola.
"Phil, you dear!"
"Aren't I though!" he said frivolously. "I had the heck of a time
getting this thing here while you were dressing and keeping it hidden.
I had to bribe little Charlie twice to keep him from telling you. He
was so sure you'd want to know all about it."
"It's just the last touch we needed to make this perfect."
"Leave it to your devoted brother. Now go back and receive the best
wishes or congratulations or whatever it is they give the bride."
Later there was supper out under the trees. A supper at which Millie,
trim in her new gray Mennonite garb and white cap, was able to show her
affection for the bride, but at which the bride was so riotously happy
that she scarcely knew what she was eating.
Of course there was a real bride's cake with white icing. Amanda had to
cut it and hand out pieces for the young people to dream upon.
After a while the bride slipped away, took off her white dress and put
on a dark suit. Then she and Martin dodged rice and were whirled away
in a big automobile.
The other members of the household had much to occupy their hands for
the next hour, setting things to rights, as Millie said, the while
their hearts and thoughts were speeding after the two who had smiled
and looked as though no other mortals had ever known such love.
When the place was once more in order and the Landis family, the last
guests, had gone off in the darkness, the children flinging back loud
good-nights, Mrs. Reist, Philip, Millie and Uncle Amos sat alone on the
porch and talked things over.
"It was some wedding, Mother," was the opinion of the boy.
"Yes." "Prettiest thing I ever seen," said the hired girl.
"Yes, so it was," Uncle Amos agreed. "But say, Millie, it's dandy and
moonlight. What d'you say to a little walk down the road? Or are you
too tired?"
"Ach, I'm not tired." And the two went off in the soft spring night for
a stroll along the lane, Millie in her gray Mennonite dress, Uncle Amos
in his plain suit of the faith. The two on the porch saw her homely
face transfigured by a smile as she looked up into the countenance of
the man who had brought romance into her life, then they saw Uncle Amos
draw the hand of Millie through his arm and in that fashion they walked
along in the moonlight, the man, contented and happy, holding the hand
of the woman warmly in his grasp. To them, no less than to the youthful
lovers, was given the promise of happiness and in their hearts was
ringing Amanda's and Martin's pledge:
"Sure, I will walk with you, my lad,
As love ordains me to,--
To Heaven's door, and _through_, my lad,
O I will walk with you."