He went away at the end of the week, but he came back for Christmas and again at Easter and again in the latter part of May. And soon after that, on a day in early June, he stood, with Sam Keith at his elbow, in the parlor of the white house by the sh.o.r.e, while Edna Keith played "Here Comes the Bride" on the piano which had been hired for the occasion; and, with her hand in Zoeth's arm, and with Captain Shadrach and Barbara Howe just behind, Mary walked between the two lines of smiling, teary friends to meet him.

It was a lovely wedding; everyone said so, and as there probably never was a wedding which was not p.r.o.nounced lovely by friends and relatives, we may be doubly certain of the loveliness of this. And there never was a more beautiful bride. All brides are beautiful, more or less, but this one was more. Isaiah, who had been favored with a peep at the rehearsal on the previous evening, was found later on by Shadrach in the kitchen in a state of ecstatic incoherence.

"I swan to G.o.dfreys!" cried Isaiah. "Ain't--ain't she an angel, though!

Did you ever see anything prettier'n she is in them clothes and with that--that moskeeter net on her head? An angel--yes, sir-ee! one of them cherrybins out of the Bible, that's what she is. And to think it's our Mary-'Gusta! Say, Cap'n Shad, will checkered pants be all right to wear with my blue coat tomorrow? I burnt a hole in my lavender ones tryin' to press the wrinkles out of 'em. And I went down to the wharf in 'em last Sunday and they smell consider'ble of fish, besides."

The wedding company was small, but select. Judge Baxter and his wife were there and the Keiths--Mrs. Keith condescended to ornament the occasion; some of the "best people" had seen fit to make much of Mary Lathrop and Mrs. Keith never permitted herself to be very far behind the best people in anything--and Mrs. Wyeth was there, and Miss Pease, and Mr. Green who had received an invitation and had come from Boston, and Doctor Harley, and Simeon Crocker and his "steady company," one of the tea-room young ladies, and Annabel and--and--well, a dozen or fifteen more.

When the minister asked, "Who giveth this woman to this man?" Zoeth answered, bravely, "I do--that is, me and Shadrach." But no one laughed, because Zoeth himself was trying to smile and making rather wet weather of it. As for the Captain, his expression during the ceremony was a sort of fixed grin which he had a.s.sumed before entering the room and had evidently determined to wear to the finish, no matter what his emotions might be. But Miss Pease, always susceptible, had a delightful cry all to herself, and Isaiah, retiring to the hall, blew his nose with a vigor which, as Captain Shad said afterwards, "had the Pollack Rip foghorn soundin' like a deef and dumb sign."

Mary had managed everything, of course. Her uncles had tried to remonstrate with her, telling her there were plenty of others to arrange the flowers and attend to what the local newspaper would, in its account of the affair, be sure to call the "collation," and to make the hundred and one preparations necessary for even so small and simple a wedding as this. But she only laughed at their remonstrances.

"I wouldn't miss it for anything," she said. "I have always wanted to manage someone's wedding and I am certainly not going to let anyone else manage mine. I don't care a bit whether it is the proper thing or not.

This isn't going to be a formal affair; I won't have it so. Uncle Shad, if you want to say 'Jumpin' fire' when Crawford drops the ring, as he is almost sure to do, you have my permission."

But Crawford did not drop the ring, and so the Captain's favorite exclamation was not uttered, being unnecessary. In fact there were no mishaps, everything went exactly as it should, reception and "collation"

included, and, to quote from the South Harniss local once more, "A good time was had by all."

And when the bride and groom, dressed in their traveling costumes, came down the stairs to the carriage which was to take them to the station, Mary ran back, amid the shower of rice and confetti, to kiss Uncle Zoeth and Uncle Shad once more and whisper in their ears not to feel that she had really gone, because she hadn't but would be back in just a little while.

"And I have told Isaiah about your rubbers and oilskins when it rains,"

she added, in Shadrach's ear, "and he is not to forget Uncle Zoeth's medicine. Good-by. Good-by. Don't be lonesome. Promise that you won't."

But to promise is easy and to keep that promise is often hard, as Shadrach observed when he and Zoeth were alone in the sitting-room that evening. "I feel as if the whole vitals of this place had gone away on that afternoon train," the Captain admitted. "And yet I know it's awful foolish, 'cause she'll only be gone a couple of weeks."

"I'm glad that question about the name is settled," mused Zoeth. "That kind of troubled me, that did."

The partners had worried not a little over the question of whether Crawford's name was legally Smith or Farmer. If it were Farmer and he must be so called in South Harniss, they feared the revival of the old scandal and all its miserable gossip. But when they asked Crawford he rea.s.sured them.

"I consulted my lawyer about that," he said. "My father's middle name was Smith; that is why he took it, I suppose. Edwin Smith is not so very different from Edgar Smith Farmer, shorter, that's all. He and my mother were married under the name of Smith. Mother never knew he had had another name. I was born Smith and christened Smith and my lawyer tells me that Smith I am. If there had been any question I should have pet.i.tioned to have the name changed."

So that question was settled and Shadrach and Zoeth felt easier because of it.

"Zoeth," observed Shadrach, after replying to his friend's remark concerning the name, "do you know what I kind of felt as if we'd ought to have had here this afternoon?"

"No, Shadrach," replied Zoeth, "I don't. What was it?"

"Seemed to me we'd ought to had one of them music box chairs. I'd like to have put it under that Keith woman and seen her face when the Campbells started to come. Ho, ho!"

"What in the world made you think of that?" demanded his partner.

"Oh, I don't know. Thinkin' about Mary-'Gusta, I cal'late, set me to rememberin' how we fust met her and about Marcellus's funeral and all.

That made me think of the chair, you see. I ain't thought of it afore for years."

Zoeth nodded. "Shadrach," he said, "that was a blessed day for you and me, the day when we brought that child home in our old buggy. The Lord put her there, Shadrach."

"Well, I guess likely He did, maybe, in a way of speakin'. Does seem so, that's a fact."

"Our lives was pretty sot and narrow afore she came. She's changed everything."

"That's so. h.e.l.lo! What's that noise? I declare if it ain't Isaiah liftin' up his voice in song! In a hymn tune! What do you think of that?"

From the kitchen, above the rattle of dishes, Mr. Chase's nasal falsetto quavered shrilly:

"There shall be showers of blessin's--"

The Captain interrupted.

"Hi, you--what's your name--Jennie Lind--come in here," he hailed.

Mr. Chase appeared, his arms dripping soapsuds. "What do you want, callin' me out of my name?" he demanded.

"Want to know what started you singin' about blessin's? Fust I thought 'twas the weathervane squeakin'. What tuned you up, eh?"

Isaiah looked rather foolish, but he grinned.

"I was thinkin' about Mary-'Gusta," he said.

"You was, eh? Well, she's been a blessin' to us, there's no doubt about that."

"Indeed she has," concurred Zoeth.

But Isaiah had the final word.

"Huh!" he declared, "she's more'n one blessin', she's a whole shower.

That's what set me to singin' about 'em."

He departed for the kitchen once more, the falsetto rising triumphant:

"There shall be showers of blessin's, Send 'em upon us, oh Lord!"

Captain Shad looked after him. Then he turned to his friend and partner and said earnestly:

"Do you know, Isaiah's gettin' real kind of sensible in his old age."