"For goodness' sake, don't ask me to do it!" exclaimed Dum. "Dee is the diplomat and is fully capable of soft-soaping Blanche into thinking that her striped skirt and purple waist are too fine to wear to a mere wedding but must be saved for funerals. I'd do it all wrong and make a mess of it." So Dee consented to be the fashion dictator to the cook if I would go with her and uphold her in her arguments.
"Well, now the generositiness of my employerer is well nigh asphyxiating!" cried the girl. "I have always heard a simplifaction of costumery was the quintillion of excellency. But would it not be more respectful like to Miss Cox if we female maidens adorned of ourselves in more gorgeous affectations?"
"Oh, no! Not at all!" declared Dee quickly. "You see—you see—Miss Cox is going to wear a very simple gown herself—just a traveling dress—and it would not be fair for any of us to dress too finely and—and—attract attention to ourselves when all eyes should be drawn to the bride."
This was a knock-down argument and with a sigh Blanche put away her finery. Donning the plain and appropriate clothes Zebedee had purchased, she made herself ready for what she designated as "the wedding corsage."
I had been to very few weddings, as I believe I have said before. Our part of the country was like the Hereafter in that the inhabitants neither married nor gave in marriage, being composed chiefly of bachelors and old maids, with a sprinkling of widowers and widows who seemed to have found once enough. This wedding was even more exciting to me than my first hop. All of us were nervous except Miss Cox, who was singularly composed. Blanche forgot to put any salt in the batter bread that morning, and Dum came down to breakfast in odd stockings, one black and one tan. As for Zebedee, anyone would think it was his own wedding, he was so upset.
"I don't see why they don't have undertakers for weddings as well as funerals," he exclaimed. "Someone to take all the responsibility and not leave the matter to amateurs! Here I am scared to death for fear the sexton won't remember to open the church in time; that the preacher won't come; that I might lose the ring—by Jove! I have lost it! I told Bob to keep it himself!" and he slapped his pockets frantically and began to turn them inside out. Of course it was in the particular place it should have been, safe in his pocket book; but I know I saw him at least a dozen times go through exactly the same search during the morning, his eyes big with fright and his hands trembling.
I don't know what there is about a wedding to make the masculine gender so panic-stricken, but I am told that there never was a man living who could go through a ceremony (whether it be his own or another's) without showing the white feather. Maybe Brigham Young and Solomon got so used to it they could at least assume composure, but I have my doubts about even those much-married gentlemen.
The trolley was not considered good enough by Mr. Gordon and Zebedee for the wedding party, so we were conveyed to Norfolk in automobiles; and in spite of our host's lugubrious prognostications that we were going to be very late and the preacher would be gone, we arrived many minutes before we were due.
There were a few persons in the church attracted by curiosity and the rumour of a wedding, and Mr. Gordon was waiting for us with his next best man, who had just arrived from South Carolina.
"Gee whiz, I'm glad to see that man!" breathed Zebedee, looking as though a great weight had fallen from him. "Now he can take charge of this confounded ring. This is not in my jurisdiction, anyhow. Whoever heard of the father of the bride having to take care of the ring?" Then he began his usual search for the offending little circlet of gold, crying nervously: "I've lost it! I've lost it this time for sure!" But I reminded him of the pocket book and with a relieved sigh he handed the ring over to the next best man, who assumed the expression of Hercules when Atlas got him to hold the world for a while.