But, perhaps, of the whole list of omens that happened that morning, Pretty Wilkes, the baker’s wife, held the greatest interest for them all. She was a woman whose austerity was renowned in the village, and Wilkes was generally considered something of a hero. Her man had won seventy dollars at poker the previous night, and had got very drunk in the process. And being well aware of the vagaries of his wife’s sense of conjugal honor, had, with a desperate drunken cunning, bestowed it over night in the coal-box, well knowing that it was one of his many domestic pleasures to have the honor of lighting the cook-stove for his spouse every morning. “And would you believe it, girls?” she cried ecstatically. “If it hadn’t have been Eve’s wedding-day, and I’d got to bake cakes for the sociable, and so had to be up at three this very morning, while he was still dreaming he was a whiskey trust or some other drunken delusion, I’d sure never have seen that wad nor touched five cents of it, he’s that close. Say, girls,” she beamed, “I never said a word to Jake for getting soused, not a word. And I let him sleep right on, an’ when he woke to light fires, and start baking, I just give him a real elegant breakfast with cream in his coffee, an’ asked him if he’d like a bottle of rye for his head. But say, I never see him shovel coal harder in 124 my life than he did in that coal-box after breakfast. I’d like to gamble he’s still shovelin’ it.”
It certainly was a gala day in Barnriff. The festivity had even penetrated to the veins of Silas Rocket, and possessed him of an atmosphere which “let him in” to the extent of three rounds of drinks to the boys before eleven o’clock. The men for the most part took a long time with their morning ablutions. But the effect was really impressive and quite worth the extra trouble. The result so lightened up the dingy village, that some of them, one realized, had considerable pretensions to good looks. And a further curious thing about this cleansing process was that it affected their attitude toward each other. Their talk became less familiar, a wave of something almost like politeness set in. It suggested a clean starched shirt just home from the laundry. They walked about without their customary slouch, and each man radiated an atmosphere of conscious rectitude that became almost importance. Peter Blunt, talking to Doc Crombie, said he’d never seen so many precise creases in broadcloth since he’d lived in Barnriff.
There was no business to be done that day. Even Smallbones was forced to keep his doors shut, though not without audible protest. He asserted loudly that Congress should be asked to pass a law preventing marriages taking place in mercantile centres.
No one saw the bride and bridegroom that morning except Peter Blunt and Annie Gay. Annie was acting as Eve’s maid for the occasion. She positively refused to let the girl dress herself, and though she could not be her bridesmaid, had expressed her deliberate intention of being her strong support. She and Eve had worked together on 125 the wedding dress, which was of simple white lawn. They had discussed together the trousseau, and made it. They had talked and talked together over the whole thing for two months, and she had handed Eve so much advice out of her store of connubial wisdom, that she was not going to give up her place now.
So it was arranged that Gay was to give Eve away, and Annie was to be ready at the girl’s elbow. That was how Annie put it. And no one but herself knew quite what she meant. However, it seemed to be perfectly satisfactory to Eve, and their preparations continued, a whirl of delight to them both.
Peter Blunt was Will’s best man. And he found himself left with nothing much to do but smile upon inquirers after the bridegroom on the eventful day. His other duties were wrested from him by anybody and everybody in the place, which was a matter of considerable relief, although he was willing enough. But there was one other duty which could not be snatched from him, and it was one that weighed seriously on his kindly mind. It was the care of the wedding-ring. That, and the fear lest he should not produce it at exactly the right moment, gave him much cause for anxiety. Mrs. Gay had done her duty by him. She had marked the place in the service which he must study. And he had studied earnestly. But as the hour of the wedding approached his nerves tried him, and between fingering the ring in his waistcoat pocket and repeating his “cues” over to himself, he reached a painful condition of mental confusion which bordered closely on a breakdown.
At half-past eleven the village was abustle with people emerging from their houses. It was Gay who sighed as 126 he surveyed the throng. Not a soul but had a broad smile on his or her face. And what with that, and the liberal use of soap, such an atmosphere of health had been arrived at that he pictured in his mind the final winding up of his affairs as an undertaker.
Then came the saunter over to the Mission Room. Everybody sauntered; it was as if they desired to prolong the sensation. Besides, the women required to look about them––at other women––and the men followed in their wake, feeling that in all such affairs they acknowledged the feminine leadership. They felt that somehow they were there only on sufferance, a necessary evil to be pushed into the background, like any other domestic skeleton.
The Mission Room was packed, and the rustle of starched skirts, and the cleanly laundry atmosphere that pervaded the place was wonderfully wholesome. The gathering suggested nothing so much as simple human nature dipped well in the purifying soap-suds of sympathy, rubbed out on the washing board of religious emotion, and ironed and goffered to a proper sheen of wholesome curiosity. They were assembled there to witness the launching of a sister’s bark upon the matrimonial waters, and in each and every woman’s mind there were thoughts picturing themselves in a similar position. The married women reflected on past scenes, while the maids among them possibly contemplated the time when that ceremonial would be performed with them as the central interest.
The happiness was not all Eve’s, it was probably shared by the majority of the women present. She was the object that conjured their minds from the dull 127 monotony of their daily routine to realms of happy fancy. And the picture was drawn in a setting of Romance, with Love well in the foreground, and the guardian angel of Perfect Happiness hovering over all. No doubt somewhere in the picture a man was skulking, but even in the light of matrimonial experience this was not sufficient to spoil the full enjoyment of those moments.