Even Mrs. Scattergood could not cast gloom over the occasion. She found herself being congratulated after the ceremony by those who could not at first get to the bride and groom to shake hands with them. Everybody seemed to think it was such an eminently fitting wedding that even this opinionated old lady was swept away from the foundations of her former belief.
“Wal, wal!” she sniffed, wiping her eyes, and speaking to Janice. “I guess I don’t know nothin’. I must be gittin’ old. Nobody agrees with me that this is the foolishest marriage that ever happened in this town.”
“I should hope not, Mrs. Scattergood,” cried Janice, gaily. “I think it’s just lovely!”
“I’m behind the times then,” grumbled Mrs. Scattergood, shaking her head. “I’m a-goin’ home and sew up the slit in this dress o’ mine. I’m too old ter foller the fashions. Thank heaven! I didn’t try ter dance with this game leg.”
But Aunt ’Mira did not consider that the wedding made her feel old. She had dragged Uncle Jason out to it, dressed in his old wrinkled black suit. Her own gay apparel made him look particularly shabby.
“It’s his own fault,” she declared to her niece. “He ain’t bought a new suit in ten year. But he’s a-goin’ to now. I’m a-goin’ to liven his old bones up—you see if I don’t!”
Which prophecy seemed likely to be fulfilled when, after the reception in the church, Mr. and Mrs. Day joined the closer friends of the happy pair at the Drugg place. There was supper, and speech-making, and reiterated congratulations.
The floor of the shop had been cleared, and offered a good-sized space for dancing. After the opening number, a square dance, when Hopewell and his bride led the figure, the storekeeper seized his own fiddle and played for the dancers.
There was a sudden explosion of expostulations in a corner and Uncle Jason was heard to announce: “I snum! yeou air bound to make a fule of me, Almiry, as well as of yerself.”
“We both of us hev been foolish long enough, Jason,” declared the heavy lady, with conviction. “We been gittin’ old afore our time. No more of it! Come on! Git up here with yer lawful wife an’ put yer best fut for’ard. Yeou useter be the best dancer in Polktown; now show the folks what yeou kin do.”