The wedding guests soon began to arrive. “Catfish John,” with a large package under his arm, accompanied by Holy Zeke, were the first comers, after the fire was lighted. They had walked a long distance, and sat down wearily on the sand, after the conventional greetings. John’s package probably contained some smoked fish which he intended as a present for the bride. Sipes sniffed at it with evident approval.
In a few minutes Mrs. Smetters arrived with her friend Mrs. McCafferty, who carried the cake in a basket. Mrs. McCafferty lived in the sleepy village, several miles away. She was to act as bridesmaid, and was to “give the bride away,” which Sipes declared she would “do anyhow afterwards if she didn’t do it now.” She was a buxom Irish widow, with a fighting record, and a mind of her own. She had brought Mrs. Smetters to the wedding with her buggy and gray horse, which had been left where the sloping road ended in the beach sand. It was her custom to attend all of Elvirey’s weddings in the same capacity. She was her bosom friend and confidante.
Mrs. Smetters was attired in a new white muslin dress, with a bountiful corsage bouquet of white peonies. She was bareheaded, and lilies of the valley accented the bricky red of her hair. As at all weddings, “the bride was very beautiful.”
We rose and greeted the ladies cordially. Mrs. Smetters looked inquiringly around for Cal, but he had not yet arrived. She then seated herself on the shawl which Mrs. McCafferty carefully spread out on the sand. No reference was made to the stormy scene of the interrupted wooing of a few days before. Bill was still nursing his sore head, but made no unpleasant allusions.
The hour had arrived, but the party was still incomplete. Happy Cal was conspicuously absent.
“Mebbe he’s doin’ a lot o’ fixin’ up an’ can’t find ’is perfumery, er mebbe he’s fergot about the wedd’n,” observed Sipes.
An angry glance from Mrs. Smetters was the only response to this sally.
The ladies looked curiously at the shanty, and Sipes had much difficulty in keeping them away from it. He announced that “they wasn’t goin’ to be no rubberin’ ’round the place ’till the wedd’n.” They started several times, but were persuaded to wait until Cal came.
An hour slipped by, and the delinquent did not appear.
“Lo, the bridegroom cometh not,” said Holy Zeke, solemnly.