"Will the six-ten express get us in the city too late?" she wanted to know.
And when I had agreed to the six-ten express:
"It's all right then," she said in relief. "They can hev it a little earlier and take the six-ten themselves instead of the accommodation. Hannah and Henry's going to get married a' Wednesday," she explained. "I hev to be here for that."
Then she told me of the simple plan for Hannah Hager's marriage to her good-looking giant. Naturally, Grandma Hawley could not think of "giving Hannah a wedding," so these poor little plans had been for some time wandering about unparented.
"I wanted," Calliope said, "she should be married in the church with Virginia creeper on the pew arms, civilized. But Hannah said that'd be putting on airs and she'd be so scairt she couldn't be solemn. Mis' Postmaster Sykes, she invited her real cordial to be married in her sitting-room, but Hannah spunked up and wouldn't. 'A sitting-room weddin',' s' she to me, private, ''d be like bein' baptized in the pantry. A parlor,' s' she, ''s the only true place for a wedding. And I haven't no parlor, so we'll go to the minister's and stand up in his parlor. Do you think,' s' she to me, real pitiful, 'Henry can respec' me with no place to set m' foot in to be married but jus' the public parsonage?' Poor little thing! Her wedding-dress is nothing but a last year's mull with a sprig in, either. And her traveling-dress to go to the city is her reg'lar brown Sunday suit."
"And they are going to the minister's?" I asked.
"Well, no," Calliope answered apologetically. "I asked them to be married at my house. I never thought about the opera when I done it. I never thought about anything but that poor child. I guess you'll think I'm real flighty. But I always think when two's married in the parsonage and the man pays the minister, it's like the bride is just the groom's guest at the cer'mony. And it ain't real dignified for her, seems though."
I knew well what this meant: That Calliope would have "asked in a few" and "stirred up" this and that delectable, and gone to no end of trouble and an expense which she could ill afford. Unless, as she was wont to say: "When it comes to doing for other people there ain't such a word as 'afford.' You just go ahead and do it and keep some rational yourself, and the afford 'll sort o' bloom out right, same's a rose."
So for Hannah, Calliope had caused things to "bloom right, same's a rose," as one knew by Hannah's happy face. On Tuesday she was helping at my house ("Brides always like extry money," Calliope had advanced when I had questioned the propriety of asking her to iron on the day before her marriage) and, on going unexpectedly to the kitchen I came on Hannah with a patent flat-iron in one hand and a piece of beeswax in the other, and Henry, her good-looking giant, was there also and was frankly holding her in his arms. I liked him for his manly way when he saw me and most of all that he did not wholly release her but, with one arm about her, contrived a kind of bow to me. But it was Hannah who spoke.
"Oh, ma'am," she said shyly, "I hope you'll overlook. We've hed an awful time findin' any place to keep company, only walkin' 'round the high-school yard!"