“Your names sound awfully familiar to me,” he puzzled. “Where you from? Capital City? Say, you’re the kids that got into a row with a farmer and busted his leg, ain’t you?”
Sally pressed close to David, her hands locking tightly over his arm, but David, as if he did not understand her signal, answered the clerk in a steady voice: “Yes, we are.”
“I read all about you in the papers,” the clerk went on in a strangely friendly voice. “I reckon your story made a deep impression on me because I was raised in an orphans’ home myself and ran away when I was fourteen. I hoped at the time that you kids would make a clean get-away. I see the young lady’s had a couple of birthdays in the last month,” he grinned and winked. “Eighteen now, eh?”
“Yes,” Sally quavered and then laughed, the lid of her right eye fluttering slowly down until the two fringes of black lashes met and entangled.
The clerk’s pen scratched busily. “All right, youngsters. Here you are. Justice of the peace wedding?”
“We’d rather be married by a minister,” David answered as he laid a $20 bill under the wicket and reached for the marriage license.
“That’s easy,” the clerk assured him heartily. “Like every county seat, Canfield’s got her ‘marrying parson.’ Name of Greer. He’s building a new church out of the fees that the eloping couples pay him. Lives on Chestnut street. White church and parsonage. Five blocks up Main street and turn to your right, then walk a block and a half. You can’t miss it. And good luck, kids. You’ll need lots of it.”
David thrust a hand beneath the wicket and the two young men shook hands, David flushed and embarrassed but smiling, the clerk grinning good-naturedly.
“Hey, don’t forget your change,” their new friend called as David and Sally were turning away. “Marriage licenses in this state cost only $1.50. If you’ve got any spare change, give it to Parson Greer.”
“Oh, he was sweet!” Sally cried, between laughter and tears, as they walked out of the courthouse. “I thought I would faint when he asked us that awful question. But everything’s all right now.”