There was such a strong inflection of triumphant joy in Miss Clegg's voice as she called the momentous news to her friend that it would have been at once—and most truthfully—surmised that the getting of Hiram had been a more than slight labor.
Mrs. Lathrop was waiting by the fence, impatience written with a wandering reflection all over the serenity of her every-day expression. Susan only waited to lay aside her bonnet and mitts and then hastened to the fence herself.
"Mrs. Lathrop, you never saw nor heard the like of this weddin' day in all your own days to be or to come, and I don't suppose there ever will be anything like it again, for Lucy Dill didn't cut no figger in her own weddin' a-tall,—the whole thing was Gran'ma Mullins first, last and forever hereafter. I tell you it looked once or twice as if it wouldn't be a earthly possibility to marry Hiram away from his mother, and now that it's all over people can't do anything but say as after all Lucy ought to consider herself very lucky as things turned out, for if things hadn't turned out as they did turn out I don't believe anything on earth could have unhooked that son, and I'm willin' to swear that anywhere to any one.
"Do you know, Mrs. Lathrop, that Gran'ma Mullins was so bad off last night as they had to put a mustard plaster onto her while Hiram went to see Lucy for the last time, an' Mrs. Macy says as she never hear the beat o' her memory, for she says she'll take her Bible oath as Gran'ma Mullins told her what Hiram said and done every minute o' his life while he was gone to see Lucy Dill. And she cried, too, and took on the whole time she was talkin' an' said Heaven help her, for nobody else could, an' she just knowed Lucy'd get tired o' Hiram's story an' he can't be happy a whole day without he tells it, an' she's most sure Lucy won't like his singin' 'Marchin' Through Georgia' after the first month or two, an' it's the only tune as Hiram has ever really took to. Mrs. Macy says she soon found she couldn't do nothin' to stem the tide except to drink tea an' listen, so she drank an' listened till Hiram come home about eleven. Oh, my, but she says they had the time then! Gran'ma Mullins let him in herself, and just as soon as he was in she bu'st into floods of tears an' wouldn't let him loose under no consideration. She says Hiram managed to get his back to the wall for a brace 'cause Gran'ma Mullins nigh to upset him every fresh time as Lucy come over her, an' Mrs. Macy says she couldn't but wonder what the end was goin' to be when, toward midnight, Hiram just lost patience and dodged out under her arm and run up the ladder to the roof-room an' they couldn't get him to come down again. She says when Gran'ma Mullins realized as he wouldn't come down she most went mad over the notion of her only son's spendin' the Christmas Eve to his own weddin' sleepin' on the floor o' the attic and she wanted to poke the cot up to him but Mrs. Macy says she drew the line at cot-pokin' when the cot was all she'd have to sleep on herself, and in the end they poked quilts up, an' pillows an' doughnuts an' cider an' blankets, an' Hiram made a bed on the floor an' they all got to sleep about three o'clock.
"Well, Mrs. Lathrop, what do you think? What do you think? They was so awful tired that none of 'em woke till Mrs. Sperrit come at eleven next day to take 'em to the weddin'! Mrs. Macy says she hopes she'll be put forward all her back-slidin's if she ever gets such a start again. She says when she peeked out between the blinds an' see Mrs. Sperrit's Sunday bonnet an' realized her own state she nearly had a fit. Mrs. Sperrit had to come in an' be explained to, an' the worst of it was as Hiram couldn't be woke nohow. He'd pulled the ladder up after him an' put the lid on the hole so's to feel safe, an' there he was snug as a bug in a rug an' where no human bein' could get at him. They hollered an' banged doors an' sharpened the carvin' knife an' poured grease on the stove an' did anything they could think of, but he never budged. Mrs. Macy says she never was so close beside herself in all her life before, for Gran'ma Mullins cried worse 'n ever each minute an' Hiram seemed like the very dead couldn't wake him.
"They was all hoppin' around half crazy when Mr. Sperrit come along on his way to the weddin' an' his wife run out an' told him what was the matter an' he come right in an' looked up at the matter. It didn't take long for him to unsettle Hiram, Mrs. Macy says. He got a sulphur candle an' tied it to a stick an' h'isted the lid with another stick, an' in less 'n two minutes they could all hear Hiram sneezin' an' comin' to. An' Mrs. Macy says when they hollered what time it was she wishes the whole town might have been there to see Hiram Mullins come down to earth. Mr. Sperrit didn't hardly have time to get out o' the way an' he didn't give his mother no show for one single grab,—he just bounced into his room and you could have heard him gettin' dressed on the far side o' the far bridge.
"O' course, us at Lucy's didn't know anythin' a-tall about Mrs. Macy's troubles. We had our own, Heaven help us, an' they was enough, for the very first thing of all Mr. Dill caught his pocket on the corner of Mrs. Dill an' come within a ace of pullin' her off her easel. That would have been a pretty beginnin' to Lucy's weddin' day if her father had smashed her mother to bits, I guess, but it couldn't have made Lucy any worse; for I will say, Mrs. Lathrop, as I never see no one in all my born life act foolisher than Lucy Dill this day. First she'd laugh an' then she'd cry an' then she'd lose suthin' as we'd got to have to work with. An' when it come to dressin' her!—well, if she'd known as Hiram was sleepin' a sleep as next to knowed no wakin' she couldn't have put on more things wrong side out an' hind side before! She wasn't dressed till most every one was there an' I was gettin' pretty anxious, for Hiram wasn't there neither, an' the more fidgety people got the more they caught their corners on Mrs. Dill. I just saved her from Mr. Kimball, an' Amelia saw her goin' as a result o' Judge Fitch an' hardly had time for a jump. The minister himself was beginnin' to cough when, all of a sudden, some one cried as the Sperrits was there.
"Well, we all squeezed to the window, an' such a sight you never saw. They was gettin' Gran'ma Mullins out an' Hiram was tryin' to keep her from runnin' the color of his cravat all down his shirt while she was sobbin' 'Hi-i-i-i-ram, Hi-i-i-i-i-ram,' in a voice as would wring your very heart dry. They got her out an' got her in an' got her upstairs, an' we all sat down an' begin to get ready while Amelia played 'Lead, Kindly Light' and 'The Joyous Farmer' alternate, 'cause she'd mislaid her Weddin' March.
"Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you never knowed nothin' like it!—we waited, an' we waited, an' we waited, an' the minister most coughed himself into consumption, an' Mrs. Dill got caught on so often that Mr. Kimball told Ed to stand back of her an' hold her to the easel every minute. Amelia was just beginning over again for the seventeenth time when at last we heard 'em bumpin' along downstairs. Seems as all the delay come from Lucy's idea o' wantin' to walk with her father an' have a weddin' procession, instid o' her an' Hiram comin' in together like Christians an' lettin' Mr. Dill hold Gran'ma Mullins up anywhere. Polly says she never see such a time as they had of it; she says fightin' wolves was layin' lambs beside the way they talked. Hiram said frank an' open as the reason he didn't want to walk in with his mother was he was sure she wouldn't let him out to get married, but Lucy was dead set on the procession idea. So in the end they done it so, an' Gran'ma Mullins's sobs fairly shook the house as they come through the dinin'-room door. Lucy was first with her father an' they both had their heads turned backward lookin' at Hiram an' his mother.
"Well, Mrs. Lathrop, it was certainly a sight worth seem'! The way that Gran'ma Mullins was glued on! All I can say is as octopuses has got their backs turned in comparison to the way that Hiram seemed to be all wrapped up in her. It looked like wild horses, not to speak of Lucy Dill, wouldn't never be able to get him loose enough to marry him. The minister was scared; we was all scared. I never see a worse situation to be in.