Weddings were always home affairs among the strictly country folk, by common consent and custom, no matter to what denomination the people belonged. Those with contracted houses went quietly to parsonage or rectory with a few near friends; others were married at the bride's home, the ceremony followed by more or less merrymaking. A church wedding was regarded as so great a strain upon the families that the young people had no right to ask it, even if they so desired.
That has passed, at least for the time being, and all eyes are fixed upon the movements of the Bluff people, and many feet are stumbling along in their supposed footsteps. It would be really funny if it were not half pitiful. The dear simple folk are so terribly in earnest that they do not see that they are losing their own individuality and gaining nothing to replace it.
The Whirlpoolers, though only here for the between seasons, are constantly entertaining among themselves, and hardly a day passes but a coaching party drives up from town with week-end golfers for whom a dance is given, or stops en route to the Berkshires or some farther point. A few outsiders are sometimes asked to the more general of these festivities, friends of city friends who have places hereabout, the clergy and their wives, and, alas, the Doctor's daughter; but society-colonies do not intend associating with the-natives except purely for their own convenience, and when they do, pay no heed to the code they enforce among themselves.
It is not harsh judgment in me, I feel sure, when I say that Evan would not be asked so often to the Bluffs to dinner if he were not a well-known landscape architect whose advice has a commercial value. They always manage to obtain enough of it in the guise of after-dinner conversation and the discussion of garden plans to make him more than earn his fare. For the Whirlpoolers are very thrifty, the richer the more so, especially those of Dutch trading blood, and they are not above stopping father on the road, engaging in easy converse, praising the boys, and then asking his opinion about a supposititious case, rather than send for him in the regular way and pay his modest fee.
In fact, Mrs. Ponsonby asked me to a luncheon last autumn, and it quickly transpired afterward, that she had an open trap for sale suitable for one horse; she knew that Evan was looking for such a vehicle for me, and suggested that I might like this one.
A bulky and curious correspondence grew up around the transaction, and the letters are now lying in my desk marked "Mrs. Ponsonby, and the road cart." Finally I took the vehicle out on a trial trip. I noticed that it had a peculiar gait, and stopping at the blacksmith's, called him to examine the running gear. He gave one look and burst into a guffaw: "Land alive, Mrs. Evan, that's Missis Ponsonby's cart, that stood so long in the city stable, with the wheels on, that they're off the circle and no good. I told her she'd have to get new ones; but her coachman allowed she'd sell it to some Jay. You ain't bought it, hev yer?"
Good-natured Mrs. Jenks-Smith, the pioneer of the Bluffs, was the first one to throw open her grounds, when completed, for an afternoon and evening reception, with all the accompaniments of music, electric lit fountains, and unlimited refreshments. Everybody went, and satisfaction reigned for the time; but when another season it was found that she had no intention of returning calls, great disappointment was felt. Others in turn exhibited their grounds for the benefit of the different churches, while the Ponsonbys gave a lawn party for the orphan asylum, and considering that they had done their duty, straightway forgot the village.
The village did not forget; it had observed and has begun to put in practice. The first symptom was noticed by Evan. Last summer several family horses of respectable mien and Roman noses appeared with their tails banged. Not docked, mind you, but squared-off as closely as might be without resorting to cruelty; while their venerable heads, accustomed to turn freely and look their drivers in the face reproachfully if kept standing too long, were held in place by overdraw checks. At the same time the driver's seat in the buggy or runabout was raised from beneath so as to tilt the occupant forward into an almost standing posture. This worked well enough in an open wagon, but in a buggy the view was apt to be cut off by the hood, if the driving lady (it was always a woman) was tall.
The second sign was when Mrs. Barton—a widow of some sixty odd years, with some pretensions to breeding, but who had been virtually driven from several villages where she had located since her widowhood, owing to inaccuracy of speech, beside which the words of the Village Liar and the Emporium were quite harmless—contracted inflammatory rheumatism by chaperoning her daughters' shore party and first wetting her lower half in clamming and then the upper via a thunder shower. The five "Barton girls" range from twenty-five to forty, and are so mentally and physically unattractive and maladroit that it would be impossible to regard them as in any danger if they went unattended to the uttermost parts of the earth. On this particular occasion the party consisted of two dozen people, ranging from twenty to fifty, which it would seem afforded ample protection.
To be chaperoned was the swell thing, however, and chaperoned the "Barton girls" would be.