The rehearsal was perfect.
“That’s fine!” Rouke exclaimed.
“Naw, suh, ’tain’t!” Sour Sudds growled. “Don’t de preacher be allowed to say no words?”
“Sure!” Rouke told him, “but it is not necessary in a rehearsal!”
“Now, I tells you dis:” Sour Sudds responded in belligerent tones, “when de picture is took ef Elder Atts ain’t ’lowed to say all de words jes’ like dis wus a real weddin’, I ain’t gwine hab nothin’ to do wid it!”
“He’ll say ’em all right, Sour,” Rouke assured him. “Keep your shirt on—don’t disarrange your linen! Now we’re ready for the picture! Vinegar, you marry these people just like you would in a church at a sure-enough wedding. Ready—action—go!”
Sour Sudds laid his hand upon the elbow of Reverend Vinegar Atts and the two marched into the picture. Sudds was trembling all over and his lips twitched with nervousness so great that he constantly strove to wipe the emotion away by scraping the back of his hand across his mouth.
The wedding guests moved into the picture, taking their locations behind the little writing table, and Skeeter Butts established himself in full view, his battered, swollen face—a result of the fracas at the fishing camp the day before—successfully “registering” all the emotions of pain, chagrin, anger, and sorrow at his loss of the beautiful bride.
Hitch Diamond came into the picture with the bride on his arm—or rather, by the arm. Hitch was regal in his walk and manner, and his widespread, grinning mouth demonstrated beyond a doubt that he was delighted to give the bride away; while Lalla Cordona, shy, drooping, taking embarrassed glances from side to side, sometimes giving vent to an insane snicker, was a perfect imitation of the real thing in dusky brides.
She wore the proverbial bridal veil, wore it loosely, sloppily, resembling a wet dishrag thrown over the top of a post. Her bridal dress was popped open in the back where the buttons had burst, the lace at the bottom of her skirt had been torn by her walk to the church through the weeds.