The minister and his wife stood back in his little study behind the
pulpit, watching their two with loving eyes, and down by the front door
stood Billy in a new suit with his hair very wet and licked back from
an almost crimson countenance, waiting the word to fling open the door
and let the congregation in.
"Tum, diddydum--Diddydum--diddydum--
Diddydum--diddydum--Diddydum--dum--dum--
Dum--Dum--Dum!" began the organ and Billy flung the portals wide and
stood aside on the steps to let the throng pass in, his eyes shining as
if they would say, "Aw Gee! Ain't this great?"
And just at that moment, wallowing through the snow, with the air of
having come from the North Pole there arrived a great car and drew up
to the door, and Laurie Shafton jumped anxiously out and flung open the
door for his passengers.
"Aw Gee! That Fish! Whadde wantta come here for? The great
chump! Don't he know he ain't in it?"
Billy watched in lofty scorn from his high step and decided to hurry in
and not have to show any honors to that sissy-guy.
Then out from the car issued Opal, done in furs from brow to shoe and
looking eagerly about her, and following her a big handsome sporty man
almost twice her age, looking curiously interested, as if he had come
to a shrine to worship, Opal's husband. Billy stared, and then
remembering that the wedding march was almost over and that he might be
missing something: "Aw, Gee! Whadduw I care? He ain't little apples now, anyhow. He
couldn'ta bought her with barrels of roses, an' he knows it too,
the poor stiff. He must be a pretty good scout after all, takin' his
medicine straight!"
Then Billy slid in and the quiet little ceremony began.
The organ hushed into nothing. Marilyn arose, took Mark's arm, and
together they stepped down and stood in front of the minister, who had
come down the steps of the pulpit and was awaiting them, with Marilyn's
mother sitting only a step away on the front seat.
It was all so quiet and homey, without fuss or marching or any such
thing, and when the ceremony was over the bride and groom turned about
in front of the bank of hemlock and roses and their friends swarmed up
to congratulate them. Then everybody went into the parsonage, where the
ladies of the church had prepared a real country wedding breakfast with
Christmas turkey and fixings for a foundation and going on from that.
It wasn't every day in the year that Sabbath Valley got its minister's
daughter married, and what if the parsonage was small and only
fifty could sit down at once, everybody was patient, and it was all the
more fun!