Amanda married Martin that May, when the cherry blossoms transformed
the orchard into a sea of white.
To the rear of the farmhouse stood a plot of ground planted with cherry
trees. Low grass under the trees and little paths worn into it led like
aisles up and down. There, near the centre of the plot, Amanda and
Martin chose the place for the ceremony. The march to and from that
spot would lead through a white-arched aisle sweet with the breath of
thousands of cherry blossoms.
Amanda selected for her wedding a dress of white silk. "I do want a
wedding dress I can pack away in an old box on the attic and keep for
fifty years and take out and look at when it's yellow and old," she
said, romance still burning in her heart.
"Uh," said practical Millie. "Why, there ain't no attic in that house
you're goin' to! Them bungalows ain't the kind I like. I like a real
house."
"Well, there's no garret like ours, but there is a little raftered room
with a slanting ceiling and little windows and I intend to put trunks
and boxes in it and take my spinning-wheel that Granny gave me and put
it there."
"A spinning-wheel! What under the sun will you do with that?"
"Look at it," was the strange reply, at which Millie shook her head and
went off to her work.
"Are you going to carry flowers, and have a real wedding?" Philip asked
his sister the day before the wedding.
"I don't need any, with the whole outdoors a mass of bloom. If the pink
moccasins were blooming I'd carry some."
"Pink--with your red hair!" The boy exercised his brotherly prerogative
of frankness.
"Yes, pink! Whose wedding is this? I'd carry pink moccasins and wear my
red hair if they--if the two curdled! But I'll have to find some other
wild flowers."
He laughed. "Then I'll help you pick them."
"Martin and I are going for them, thanks."
"Oh, don't mention it! I wouldn't spoil that party!" He began whistling
his old greeting whistle. He had forgotten it for several years but
some chord of memory flashed it back to him at that moment.
At the sound of the old melody Amanda stepped closer to the boy.
"Phil," she said tenderly, "you make me awful mad sometimes but I like
you a lot. I hope you'll be as happy as I am some day."
"Ah," he blinked, half ashamed of any outward show of emotion. "You're
all right, Sis. When I find a girl like you I'll do the wedding ring
stunt, too. Now, since we've thrown bouquets at each other let's get to
work. What may I do if I'm debarred from the flower hunt?"
"Go ask Millie."