Clouds of feminine wrath were gathering on the other side of the fire.
“We’re goin’ over to see them fixin’s,” announced Mrs. Smetters, with determination. “This is wot I git fer wearin’ my heart on my sleeve!”
I walked along the beach in the hope that I might meet Cal. Sipes went to the shanty and lit the lantern and the candles. The two females led the rest of the party along between the nets. After they entered it took them but a few seconds to fully comprehend the tout ensemble, and then came the event of the evening.
Mrs. McCafferty started to swoon, but suddenly revived when Mrs. Smetters hurled a stove-lid at Sipes, followed by the keg from the altar. The male members of the party beat a rapid retreat through the door into the welcome shadows. Sipes ran in my direction. We stood about a hundred yards away in the darkness, and surveyed the scene.
With the fury of a woman scorned, Elvirey was smashing up the place. With the able help of her bosom friend, every movable breakable thing was being destroyed and thrown out. The window was demolished early in the proceedings, and through the broken sash went wrecked cooking utensils, blankets, guns, cards, bottles, boxes, pieces of the table, and other things, too numerous to mention. Amid loud blows of an axe, the side of the shanty began to give way.
Suddenly we heard piercing shrieks, and the two maddened women fled wildly from the shanty in the direction of the buggy.
“I’ll bet they’ve busted open them insects!” exclaimed Sipes.
We waited a while, and looked for the other members of the party. We called repeatedly, but no answer came out of the gloom. They had been swallowed in the blackness of the night.
We then went to inspect the wreck. All of the old shipmates’ efforts to make the wedding a success had been “love’s labor lost.” The decorations were mingled with fragments of the stove and the splintered bunks. There seemed to be nothing in the place that was breakable that had not been attended to. The “hummin’ locusts” were innocently crawling about the floor and walls.
“We might as well c’lect this music an’ put it out,” said Sipes, ruefully, as he began picking up the locusts. “We wouldn’t ’a’ had no shanty left if it hadn’t been fer them. I guess I must ’a’ started sump’n. After this I’m goin to let ev’ry feller run ’is own business, an’ me an’ Bill’ll flock by ourselves. Look wot I git fer tryin’ to please ev’rybody all the time! Somebody’s always butt’n in an’ spoilin’ ev’rythin’ I try to do. I got hit with too damn many things out o’ the air tonight to be happy. Wot d’ye ’spose become o’ Cal? He’d ’a’ got a lemon if ’e’d ’a’ married that ol’ swivel-eyed sliver-cat. I’m goin’ up in the ravine to sleep, an’ mebbe Bill’ll show up in the mornin’. Say, wot do you think o’ matrimony, anyway? Gosh! but this is rough work. Bill an’ me was in a hurricane once’t out’n the Pacific—the ship’s rudder got busted off an’ we was spun along on the equator fer a thousand miles, but that wasn’t nothin’ ’side o’ this.”