It was a night of surprises, of merriment, of revelry, of rivalries; when the bat and owl came out of their hollow, the cat out of its lair, the negro out of his cabin, the ku-klux out of his skin. It was a night that punctuated reconstruction with a red-hot iron, and dropped its dead ashes upon a score of hearth-stones. It was a night that stealthily removed the fifth wheel from the chariot of the bosses and dropped its inert body into the road.
Ah! there were surprises! Corporal Ephraim Gillum was to take unto himself a wife, and Priscilla Pinxly, a spinster, was to take unto herself husband. No doleful Jeremiads in this carnival; no forbidding of banns; no scandal on religion; no trespass on the law. "Ef dat ar white gal is a mine ter jine hersef ter dat cullud gemman, who's ergwine ter hender?"
There were ferns and smilax, hollies and magnolias; there was an altar embellished with carnations, red and white; who shall say it was profaned by this ceremonial? There were heavily groined parlors reposing in velvety carpets, bric-a-brac and rugs. Here were the minions of reconstruction in red, white and blue, the favorites of this institutional era; here were the animated beauties of the town bedizened, bejeweled and beflowered; here was the pompous celebrant in patent-leather slippers and dress coat, Elder Tuttle, paying court to the ladies.
Here was the bride, a very spare lady in the forties, with fishy eyes and gold spectacles. Here was the groom, as black as an antarctic midnight, reposing uncomfortably in a celluloid collar that cut a transverse line through both cheeks, dressed in blue uniform with yellow epaulets upon his shoulders as large as sunflowers; here were the bats and owls, human earth burrowers, who were not wanted at the wedding supper, peeping slyly in the windows; here was Mrs. Parthenia Wiggins in silks and satins, and her lord in satins and silks; here was Joshua an octogenarian in regimentals, looking like a revolutionary drum major in masquerade, greeting the happy hostess with the exclamation:—"Pend pon it, your ladyship, I smelt dat barbeku clean clar to my house fore it was kilt," pausing now and then in his circuit around the supper table, to cut "de pigon whing;" here was old Hannah, in hoops and frills, "er following Joshua, frustated lak, kase some gal or udder mout run erway wid him unbeknownist to her;" here was old Ned "er settin in der chimney corner all by his lone lorn sef;" and then here was a skeleton at the feast, a spectre at the banquet, who greeted neither host, groom or bride——a living knight of the "White Camelia." Then there was a pause; then there was a proclamation by the host: "All hands eround fur de fust kertillien," and there was a voluntary shuffling of slippered, sandalled and booted feet. Then the music struck up and all went merry as a marriage bell. Castanets and cymbals, cornets and trombones, distributed huge chunks of melody, chopped off the "Star Spangled Banner," "Rally around the flag boys," "The Girl I left behind me," and "Brudder Ephrum got de coon and gone on."
As the dance went on and on in the great hall the Kuklux slipped out of the shadows and into the parlor and concealed himself behind the embowered altar. Ned, at his suggestion, stole into the dining room, and taking the cover off of the basted pig, brought it out and gave it to the hideous creature, and still the dance went on. With uplifted hand Mr. Wiggins cried "Tention ladies und gemman's. All you who's inwited to the weddin follow me to the parlor," and the band struck up "Johnny get your gun." "Come parson, you shassay in fust," and the parson struck out in an Irish reel, and the crowd followed like flotsam upon a current of water, tossing here and there, up and down, automatically, to the music.
"Now breddin und sistern," exclaimed the parson in a nasal sing-song, "range erlong side de haltar whilst I spaciate upon dis weddin. Now den, fustly und foremustly, who gin dis bride away?"
"I does" replied Mr. Wiggins, pompously stepping to the front.
"Well, den, I'll persede wid de sallymony. Fustly und foremostly, I'm agwine in my sebenty seben year, please God I lives to see de harvest moon, und I has been a exhauster, und locus preacher, und surkus rider, und slidin elder fust und last, und I've jined black ones und yallow ones und yallow ones und black ones, und now I'm agwine ter jine a white und black one togedder in de yoke of bondage, und in the bonds of purgertory, ef I haint upset fore I gits froo by de kommisserys ob de debbil."
"Land sakes alive!" ejaculated Joshua, as he brought his hollow jaws together with a resounding crash, "Don't talk about de kommissery, parson; I'm hungry rite now."
"Now den, ef der is any pusson or debbil, here or here erbout, who is agwine to nullify dis weddin, I commands dem ter hold dere peace foreber mo."