“Wouldn’t you ladies like to come up and see the bride?” she asked. “She’s just simply a dream. Why, if I looked as pretty in wedding clothes as Peggy does, I’d turn Mormon.”
Jim Wheeler watched them go up the stairs and heard their exclamations of astonishment. Out in the kitchen an improvised quartet was singing “Wait till the clouds roll by, Jennie.” Jim Wheeler shook his head sadly.
“Don’t seem to mind losing your daughter,” he muttered.
Oh, but he did mind it. She would live in her own home. Her mother had been dead ten years. After her death it seemed to Jim Wheeler that nothing could ever fill that void. But Peggy had grown to womanhood, filling the old ranch-house with her joyful presence, and Jim Wheeler had thanked God for a daughter like her. Now she would go away to a home of her own.
“Nobody but me and Wong Lee left,” said Wheeler sadly. “And he’s only a ⸺ Chinaman.”
Some one was knocking on the door, breaking in on Wheeler’s thoughts. He opened the door for the minister of the Tumbling River country. Henry Lake was a tall, lean-faced man, near-sighted, dressed in a rusty suit of black. Weddings, funerals or Sunday sermons, he had worn that suit as long as any of them could remember.
He peered closely at Jim Wheeler, shoving out a bony hand. “Howdy, Jim,” he said pleasantly.
“Hello, Henry. Got here at last, eh?”
The minister nodded slowly.
“My old horse isn’t as fast as she used to be, Jim. We’re both getting old, it seems. But—” he looked at his watch—“I’m near enough on time. Where’s everybody?”