The wedding was to be a small affair, only a few friends and relatives being invited. Mr. Pinckney’s daughter and her husband would arrive from California a few days beforehand. One or two cousins, the next nearest relatives, would also be there, and Mr. Kirk’s family, his brother who was to be best man, and his mother. Charlotte Loring and Jo Keyes were also down on the list, but the whole number did not exceed twenty-five.
Of course there was much speculation about the best man and the various “in-laws” but there was so much to occupy every minute of the time remaining before the great day, that there was little opportunity for any outside matters. Jack and Jean did find a chance to go to see little Christine Klein, a protégée of theirs and the Pinckneys’. They found the child in the same comfortable apartment where she and her grandfather had been established two or three years before. Her lameness was now scarcely perceptible while good food and comfort had changed the wan little invalid into a much sturdier child. She was going to school and learning rapidly. Her German accent had nearly disappeared and altogether there was a great change in Christine.
It was a wonderful time for Mercedes, who was not allowed to get homesick, and whose struggles with English were constant. She daily came to one of her friends with some problem. “You say me, ‘sit up,’ you say me, ‘sit down’ and it is the same,” she said one day to Mary Lee.
Mary Lee laughed. “They don’t mean the same exactly, for when you sit down you don’t always sit up, though when you sit up you must be sitting down.”
Mercedes lifted her hands with an expressive gesture. “How it is diffikewlt. I no ondtherstandth.”
“I will show you.” Mary Lee took a hunched-up position on a chair, letting her shoulders drop forward. “Now I am sitting down but I am not sitting up. This is sitting up.” She took an erect attitude.
“I see, I see,” cried Mercedes. “That is goodth. What says the conductor when he wish me hurry? I do not know the bordth. I cannot find in the dictionario.”
“What do you think he says? What does it sound like?” asked Mary Lee.
“I think he say ‘ullabore,’ but I cannot find the bordth.”
“You mustn’t say bordth, Mercedes; it is word.” This was one of the most difficult things for her to pronounce. “The conductor says, ‘All aboard,’ but he speaks very rapidly.”