Uncle Zacheus in a dress suit was something of a novelty and the tailor could not repress a smile when it was finished and tried on for the last time, with a cutaway vest to show the shirt front in which there was to be a breast pin at the wedding.
“I look kinder droll and I don’t feel nateral,” Uncle Zacheus said, examining himself in the long glass. “Why, I ain’t much bigger than Tom Thumb. Funny that a swaller tail makes you look so little. I wonder what Dot will think. She’s havin’ a gown made in Worcester,—plum colored satin, with lace.”
Dot, who had never taken kindly to the dress suit, told him he looked like a fool and advised him to wear the coat he was accustomed to wear to church.
“Not by a long shot. I guess I know what is what, and I ain’t goin’ to mortify Craig and Miss Alice,” he said, and his suit was put carefully away in a dressing case, ready for the wedding, which occurred the first of May.
Craig would not wait any longer, and when Alice urged her lack of outfit as one reason for delay he argued that a dress to be married in was all she needed. They were going directly to Paris, where she could shop to her heart’s content with his mother to assist her. No day in early spring could be finer than the day when Craig and Alice were married very quietly, with only a few of the neighbors present. Mrs. Mason and Mr. and Mrs. Taylor had come the day before, as the wedding was to take place at 12 o’clock. Mrs. Mason stopped at the hotel with Craig, while Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were entertained at the farm house, where Uncle Zach made himself perfectly at home and almost master of ceremonies. He had brought his dress suit and long before the hour for the ceremony appeared in it, greatly to the amusement of Craig and Alice, who were glad he wore it he was so proud and so happy that he had beaten the crowd in their Prince Alberts and cutaways. There were a few presents from some of Alice’s scholars and immediate friends; a costly bracelet from Helen, whose letter of congratulations rang true and hearty, and from Mrs. Tracy the diamond pin which had belonged with the ear-rings and which Helen had left at home, as she did not care for it.
“I am pleased to be rid of it,” Mrs. Tracy wrote. “It is a constant reminder of my disgrace, from which I have not recovered and never shall. I am glad for you to have it and glad for you to have Craig, too.”
She had invited the party to stop with her during the few days they were to stay in the city before the Celtic sailed, and had urged her invitation so warmly that they accepted and left for New York on the afternoon train. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor spent another night in Rocky Point and then returned to the Prospect House, where Uncle Zach was never tired talking of the wedding and showing his dress suit,——“the only one there, if you’ll believe it; even Craig wore a common coat. Curis, wasn’t it,” he said to an acquaintance, who prided himself on being frank and outspoken, no matter how much the frankness hurt.
“Not curious at all,” he said. “People don’t wear swallow tails to morning weddings. They are reserved for evening. You were quite out of style.”
“You don’t say so,” Uncle Zach replied, his countenance falling as it began to dawn upon him that he might have made a mistake, “Dot will know,” he thought, and after a while he went to her and said, “John Dickson says they don’t wear swallers to mornin’ weddin’s. Did I make a fool of myself?”
Mrs. Taylor was out of sorts with some kitchen trouble and answered sharply: “Of course you did. I knew it all the time, when nobody else, not even Craig, wore one.”