“Yes,” says Hettie, shy as a rose, but yet like a rose nodding on its stalk, positive.
“And you, Mis’ Fire Chief?” says I.
She nodded behind her hands that covered up her face. “I don’t know what to do,” says she, faint. “Go on ahead—all of you!”
My, if we didn’t have to fly around. They wasn’t no time for dress changing. Hettie was in white muslin and Amos in every-day, but it was all right because she was Hettie and because he looked like a king in anything. And they was so many last things to do that none of us thought of dress anyhow. It was four o’clock by then, and folks had been stomping in “past the bell” and marching up-stairs and laying off their things—being as everybody knows what’s what in Friendship Village and don’t hev to be told where to go, same as some—till, judging by the sound, they had all got there and was clacking in the parlor, and Mis’ Fire Chief’s party had begun. And Mis’ Fire Chief herself revived enough to offer to tie the ribbins around the sandwiches.
“My land!” I says, “we can’t do that. We can’t have black ribbin round the wedding sandwiches.”
But Hettie, she broke in, sweet and dignified, and before her aunt could say a word. “Yes, we can,” she says, “yes, we can. I ain’t superstitious, same as some. Uncle’s centerpiece an’ his willow on the tablecloth an’ his blackribbin sandwiches,” says she, “is goin’ to stay just the way they are, weddin’ or no weddin’,” says she. “Ain’t they, Amos?” she ask’ him.
“You bet you,” says Amos, fervent, just like he would have agreed to anything under heaven that Hettie said. And Mis’ Merriman, she looked at ’em then, grateful and even resigned. And time Amos had gone and got back with the license and the minister we were all ready.
They sent me in to sort of pave the way. I slips in through the hall and stood in the door a minute wondering how I’d tell ’em. There they all was, setting sewing and rocking and gossiping, contented as if they had a hostess in every room. And not one of ’em suspecting. Oh, I loved ’em one and all, and I loved the way they was all used to each other, and talking natural about crochet patterns and recipes for oatmeal cookies and what’s good to keep hands from chapping—not one of ’em putting on or setting their best foot forwards or trying to act their best, same as they might with company, but just being themselves, natural and forgetting. And I was glad, deep down in my heart, that Maria Carpenter hadn’t come near. Not glad that she had broke her wrist, of course—but that she hadn’t come near. And when I stepped out to tell ’em what was going to happen, I was so glad in my throat that I couldn’t say a word only just—
“Friends—listen to me. What do you s’pose is goin’ to happen? Oh, they can’t none of you guess. So look. Look!”
Then I threw open the dining-room door and let ’em in—Hettie and Amos, with Doctor June. And patterns and recipes and lotions all just simmered down into one surprised and glad and loving buzz of wonder. And then Hettie and Amos were married, and the world begun all over again, Garden of Eden style.