“Oh, it is very simple and pretty. We make it a festive occasion throughout the whole community, no work being done on that day except what is necessary. The young people stand up before Mr. McCoy, who has a licence to marry people, and he joins hands pronouncing them man and wife in the sight of God and of all the people. They take one another for husband and wife and they are thus made one. Then we have singing, very much singing and praising God. But before the marriage everybody has helped to build a house and prepare a piece of land for the couple so that they have a place to themselves, I was going to say of their own, but we don’t understand anything being our own as other folks do. The idea of having anything which we will not share with others is not known among us.”
“But how about wedding garments?” queried Mary, with a touch of true femininity.
“Well, as you know,” replied C. B., “we are not troubled with many clothes, but we put on the best we have, as we do on Sunday when we all meet at stated hours to worship God in company. And the girls wear flowers in their hair, which makes them look pretty.”
Mr. Stewart here interposed, saying—
“I don’t think I’d pursue the subject any further if I were you, Mary. We can be as simple as C. B.’s folk if we like and I think we had better. As we are going to live like this I think it would be foolish not to begin as early as we can, and I suggest that we go to a parson and let him marry you just as is done in the country by eloping couples,” and he laughed aloud, saying immediately after: “Don’t think me unfeeling, but the thought of hefty Jim Stewart’s daughter getting spliced in such a hole and corner fashion as this makes me. I reckon in the ordinary way your nuptials would have run me into a couple of hundred thousand dollars at the very least, and we’d a made the Pacific Slope hum.” For a moment he looked regretful and then his face cleared and he added, “But I hope we’ve left that costly kind o’ tomfoolery behind us for ever, darling, and I’m sure we’ll be happier.”
Therefore it came about that the next day, after judicious inquiries made by Mr. Stewart, that the three went over to Brooklyn to a quiet Manse, where Mary Stewart and Christmas Bounty Adams were made one by an aged minister, who behaved as if he fully realized the solemn nature of the ceremony and was in full sympathy with the comely pair. And when Mr. Stewart, with a touch of past lavishness would have pressed a fifty-dollar bill on him as a fee, he refused firmly, saying, “My fee is five dollars, and I would not take that but that I have to live. Do not tempt me with much money, friend, for it brings a snare as I know full well.” Then he gave them his blessing and they returned to the Everett House, Mr. Stewart introducing the newly wedded pair to the proprietor as Mr. and Mrs. Adams, in order to save explanations and invidious remarks.
The rest of the afternoon was devoted to clearing up Mr. Stewart’s business affairs, a task of no great difficulty, in which he was aided by his daughter. It mainly consisted in surrendering all he possessed, except a sum of twenty thousand dollars or four thousand pounds, to the receivers of his estate. That sum he considered would suffice for all their needs in their new life, and for everything else preliminary to commencing it. And this being all put in train the old gentleman rose with a sigh of relief, collected his papers and put them away. Then he said—
“Love and business are all very well in their way, but we must also eat; and now I vote that we go down to the restaurant and do so. It is early for the regular diners, so that we shall not be crowded.”