Aunt Graves surrendered—and all this within two months after the death of Mrs. Longbow. The Squire cast off his weeds, and made violent preparations for matrimony; and on a certain night—I shall never forget it—the affair came off.
There was a great gathering at the Squire's—a sort of general invitation had been extended far and near—the Swipeses and Beagles, Aunt Sonora, and all. Great preparations had been made in the way of eatables. The Squire was rigged in a new suit of "home-made," (made by Mrs. Longbow, too, in her life-time),—a white vest, and he wore a cotton bandana neck-handkerchief, with heavy bows, that buried his chin, and a pair of pumps and clouded blue stockings. Aunt Graves' dress cannot be described. She was a mass of fluttering ribbons, and she looked as though she would take wings and fly away.
Bigelow Van Slyck and Ike Turtle conducted the marriage ceremony—the one took the ecclesiastical, the other the civil management. When the couple were ready, Turtle sat down in front of them with the statutes under his arm, with Bigelow at his right hand.
Turtle examined the statutes amid profound silence for some time, turning down one leaf here and another there, until he found himself thoroughly prepared for the solemn occasion. Finally, he arose, and with a gravity that no man ever put on before or since, exclaimed,—
"Miss Graves, hold up your right hand and swear."
Miss Graves said "she was a member of the church, and dar'sent swear."
Ike said it was "legal swearing he wanted, 'cording to the staterts—not the wicked sort—he wanted her to swear that she was over fourteen years of age—hadn't got no husband living, nowhere—warn't goin' to practise no fraud nor nothin' on Squire Longbow—and that she'd jest as good a right to get married now as she ever had."
Miss Graves looked blank.
Squire Longbow said "he'd run the risk of the fourteen years of age and the fraud, and finally he would of the whole on't. The staterts was well enough, but it warn't to be presumed that a justice of the peace would run agin 'em. Some folks didn't know 'em—he did."
Ike said "there was something another in the statert about wimin's doing things 'without any fear or compulsion of anybody,' and he guessed he'd take Miss Graves into another room, and examine her separately and apart from her intended husband." This was a joke of Turtle's.