Part 16 (1/2)

I don't know anything these days. I'm the shape and size of Mary Cary, but I see and hear so many things I never saw and heard before that I'd like to borrow a dog to see if he knows whether I am myself or somebody else. And another thing I'd like to find out is, How do other people know so much?

Mrs. Philip Creekmore has a cousin whose wife's brother lives in the same place Uncle Parke does, and Miss Amelia c.o.keland wrote out there and found out all about him. But it doesn't matter whether she truly knows anything or not. Miss Webb says she is like those fish scientists.

Give her one bone, and she can tell you all the rest. She's had a grand time telling more things about Uncle Parke than Miss Katherine will ever learn in this world.

My dress is finished. I'm to be Maiden of Honor. There are no bridesmaids. Think of it! Me, Mary Cary, once just flesh and blood mechanical, now a living creature who is to wear a white Swiss dress and a sash with pink rosebuds on it, and walk up the church aisle with my arms full of roses. And--magnificent gloriousness! most beautiful of all!--every girl in this Asylum is to have a white dress and a sash the color she likes best to wear to the wedding. That's my wedding gift to the girls. Uncle Parke gave it to me.

Miss Katherine's California brother and his wife have come. I don't like them. He looks bored to death, and chews the end of his mustache till you wonder there's any left. As for her, she's the limit. Maybe that's what's the matter with him.

She seems to be afraid some of us might touch her, and she stares as if we were figures in a china-shop. No more says good-morning than if we were.

She wears seven rings on one hand and four on another, and rustles so when she walks she sounds like a churner out of order. If she isn't a bulgarian born, she's bought herself into being one, for she oozes money. It's the only thing you think of when she's around. You can actually smell it. I think Miss Katherine is sorry they came. She don't say it, of course, but plenty of things don't have to be said.

Uncle Parke came last night, bringing his best friend and some others.

The best one is Doctor Willwood. He's fine. He and I are going to come down the aisle together. I reach up to his elbow, and he says he may put me in his pocket. I wish he would. I know I will be that frightened I'd be glad to get in it.

He wants to know all about Yorkburg and the people, and to-day Miss Bray let me take him all around the town and show him the antiquities. He asked her. I had on the white dress Miss Katherine gave me last summer, and I looked real nice, for I had on my company manners, too.

You see, he was from the West, and had never been to Virginia before; and when a man comes such a long way, one ought to put on company manners and be extra polite. It wouldn't be right not to. I put mine on, and I guess I did do a lot of talking. I'm by nature a talker, just like I can't help skipping when my heart is happy and nothing hurts.

I told him about all the places we came to, and about who lived in them, except the Alden house which the Reagans now possess. When we got there he stopped in front of it.

”My!” he said, ”that's a beautiful old place! Whose is it?”

”Some people by the name of Reagan live there,” I said. ”I don't know them.” And I started on.

I came near forgetting, and saying, ”That is Alden house, where my grandfather used to live,” but I remembered in time. I don't acknowledge my grandfather, and I knew somebody else would tell him Uncle Parke was born and lived there until he went West.

We had a grand time. We stayed out over four hours, and I forgot all about dinner. He didn't want to go in when I suddenly remembered and told him I must, and then he said I was going to take dinner with him at the Colonial. He'd asked Miss Bray, and it was all right. And that's what I did. Took dinner with him at the Colonial!

I tell you, Mary Martha Cary had what you could truly call a Time. And Doctor Willwood said he never had enjoyed a morning in his life like that one. Laugh? I never heard a man laugh so hearty. Half the time I couldn't tell why. I'd be real serious, but he'd look at me and almost die laughing. I bet I said some things I oughtn't, but I don't remember, and I couldn't take them back if I did.

It's over. The wedding is over. Everything is after a while in this life, even death; and time is the only thing that keeps on just the same.

They're gone. Gone on their bridal tour, and the happiness that's left Yorkburg would run a family for a long life. I wish everybody could have seen that wedding. It's going to be long remembered, for the earth and sky, and birds and flowers, and trees and suns.h.i.+ne all took part.

Everything tried to help, and as for blessings on them, they took away enough for the human race. But now it's over I feel like my first balloon looked when I stuck a pin in it to see what would happen. I saw.

I had a telegram from them to-day. It said:

We sail at eleven o'clock. Love to all, and hearts full for Mary Cary.

UNCLE PARKE and AUNT KATHERINE.

Well, she's my Aunt now. That's fixed, anyhow, and the marriage that fixed it was a beauty. Every bird in Yorkburg was singing, every flower was blooming, and every heart was blessing; and when those fifty-eight orphans walked in, all in white and two by two, every hand was dropping roses. And that is what each girl was wis.h.i.+ng: Roses, roses all her life!

After the ushers, I came in all alone by myself; that is, my shape did.

Mary was really inside the altar looking at me coming up slow and easy, and Martha was ordering me to keep step to the music. ”All right, I'm doing my best,” I was saying to both. And I was, but I was thankful when I got to where I could stop, for my legs were so excited I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd turned and run out.