[VII]
"And about this wedding license, I'll put on my thinking cap," remarked Granny. She went into the bedroom and closed the door.
When Tessie was a little thing and heard Granny talk of her thinking cap, she always visualized the cap as something between the formal Sunday black straw or velvet, and the Monday morning gingham sunbonnet Granny wore when she hung out the washing. And now that Tessie was a big girl, she knew no more of what a thinking cap was like than she had when she was seven, for Granny had never worn one in public. She always closed the door before she put it on.
But as usual, the thinking cap quickly produced results, and in no time at all Granny emerged with half a dozen names scribbled on a piece of paper. They soon found Mrs. Waterman and Mr. Jacob Dassett, who had been at the wedding of John Gilfooly and Teresa Andrews, and could remember the ceremony perfectly. They were thrilled to hear that the inheritance, a kingdom in the Pacific Ocean, of the daughter of John Gilfooly and Teresa Andrews, might hang on their word, and they grew incoherent as they ransacked their memories for recollections of twenty years ago.
"A queen!" exclaimed the astonished Mrs. Waterman. "Can you believe it! And a mighty pretty queen she'll make!" She looked with admiration at Tessie's flushed and dimpled face. "The spitting image of her ma, ain't she, Mrs. Gilfooly? And I tell you, miss, there wasn't a prettier girl in the state than Tessie Andrews when she married John Gilfooly. Ain't I right, Mrs. Gilfooly?"
Granny nodded. "John was a handsome man, too," she declared. "They made a beautiful couple, Tessie. I wish you could have seen them!"
"You bet I remember the wedding of Jack Gilfooly and Tess Andrews!" Mr. Dassett spoke a bit testily that any one should have thought he would have forgotten. "Didn't Sam Horton knock over the lamp and near set the bride on fire? It would have been a bad deal for you, young lady," he smiled at Tessie, "if he had. There wouldn't have been no queens then, you bet!"
Granny's thinking cap produced not only witnesses to the wedding, but also told her where to unearth old Doctor Grannis, who had brought Tessie into the world, and who swore he remembered the six-pound, red-faced mite.