“I never expected but what you knew that here was where the Lord had sot me,” said Loveday, with a surprised, almost an injured expression of countenance. “Why, land sake! I don’t expect I could live nowheres but at Groundnut Hill Farm as long as there was such a place. There is creturs that sheds their skins, they say, but the Lord never made me one of that kind.
“Hiram he’s of a rovin’ disposition. He always was and he always will be. If there ain’t no objection ’twill come kind of handy for him to come here between times, or when he has a tunin’ spell and I can patch and button and better him. Hiram was always one that needed being looked after reg’lar—same as I always have.”
“It will be beautiful! Just as if you were not married at all,” we said, with intense relief, and if we wondered that Hiram could be trusted again after the wedding tour it was only vaguely, for Loveday’s ideas were not always easy to follow.
Hiram appeared the next day in very high spirits. As difficult as it was for Loveday to write letters, she had evidently informed her loyal lover that it was her sovereign behest to name the day. She snubbed him for his gaiety, nevertheless. In spite of her strange choice of a wedding day, it was evident that Loveday felt keenly the troubles that overshadowed the family.
Photography was the business that came next in order in Hiram’s “combernation,” but his bride elected that essence-peddling should be continued for the wedding journey. The photograph wagon was too slow and cumbersome, she said, for a wedding tour. It was “her way to do things up kind of spry.”
Hiram insisted upon re-painting his wagon for the occasion, although there was a fear that the paint would not be dry, and the picture of himself, which adorned the side, was painted with the brilliant purple necktie which he meant to wear at his wedding. Loveday was not willing that we should even go to the minister’s with her, but we lay in ambush behind Mr. Grover’s willow hedge, and all of us, even Cyrus—Alice Yorke was with us,—threw rice and old shoes after the wedding carriage that is, the essence wagon, which, with its new and brilliant coat of paint, looked as festal as befitted the occasion.
Loveday, who disapproved of such demonstrations, sat grimly disregarding, while we followed on with cheers, until the last Palmyra corner, the post road, was reached. Then she relented and turned toward us a bashful, becomingly tearful face, that was hardly to be recognized as Loveday’s.
Notices of the coming bankruptcy sale were posted upon the Palmyra fences. They stared at us shamelessly, sickeningly on all the dear, familiar roads, turning spring’s verdant delights into a mockery. Even on the banks of our beautiful river were these hideous signs, printed large, that they might be read from steamer and vessel. As far away as the port the dreadful announcement flaunted at every corner. We were forced to invent pretexts to prevent grandma from taking her accustomed drives, lest they should be read by even her dim, old eyes, so large were the letters.
Only a few days before the one which was set for the auction sale, “Evelyn Marchmont” came home. It was I who brought from the post-office the dreadful, bulky package that represented so much labor and effort and hope.
None of the trite sayings are so true as that misfortunes never come singly. To carry it to Octavia was almost more than I could bear to do just now!