“What’s your hurry!” wheezed that lady, puffing up the steep cinder path to the levee.
“We’re late.”
“Late! Late for what? Nothing to do all day till four, far’s I know.”
“Oh, I just meant—uh—I mean we started kind of late——” her voice trailed off, lamely.
Fifteen minutes later Mis’ Means stood in indecision before a counter crawling with unwound bolts of elastic that twined all about her like garter snakes. The little general store smelled of old apples and broom straw and kerosene and bacon and potatoes and burlap and mice. Sixteen minutes later she turned to ask Magnolia’s advice. White elastic half an inch wide? Black elastic three-quarters of an inch wide? Magnolia had vanished from her side. Mis’ Means peered through the dimness of the fusty little shop. Magnolia! White elastic in one hand, black in the other, Mis’ Means scurried to the door. Magnolia had gone.
Magnolia had gone to be married in her second best dress and her hat with the pink roses. She flew down the street. Mis’ Means certainly could have achieved no such gait; much less could she have bettered it to the extent of overtaking Magnolia. Magnolia made such speed that when her waiting bridegroom, leaning against the white picket fence in front of the minister’s house next the church, espied her and came swiftly to meet her, she was so breathless a bride that he could make nothing out of her panted—“Elastic . . . Mis’ Means . . . ran away . . .”
She leaned against the picket fence to catch her breath, a lovely flushed figure, and not a little frightened. And though it was early April with Easter just gone, there was a dogwood in bridal bloom in the minister’s front yard, and a magnolia as well. And along the inside of the picket fence tulips and jonquils lifted their radiant heads. She looked at Gaylord Ravenal then and smiled her wide and gorgeous smile. “Let’s go,” she said, “and be married. I’ve caught my breath.”
“All right,” said Ravenal. Then he took from his pocket the diamond ring that was much too large for her. “Let’s be engaged first, while we go up the path.” And slipped it on her finger.
“Why, Gay! It’s a diamond! Look what the sun does to it! Gay!”
“That’s nothing compared to what the sun does to you,” he said; and leaned toward her.