Burke’s muffled voice called out.
With a twist of the knob Jackson entered the Commander’s office, leaving the Lieutenant to wonder what in the hell had just happened.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Whole Town Came Out
The whole town came out.
The wedding was held under the spreading branches of a huge old oak-like tree in front of the church.
The bride was dressed in her mother’s wedding gown, suitably let out and Hank had a fine new suit of black broadcloth and hat and boots to match, suddenly thirty percent off at Peltham’s. He wore a tie, for the first time in his entire life, and felt queasy in the stomach for days beforehand…
Marty read the service and Abe Peltham, as an old friend of the family, gave the bride away. Missus Morgensen, clearly ailing but as pleased as could be at the fine match her daughter had made and with much of the worry about her child’s future gone now, kept dabbing a fine lacy handkerchief to her eyes. She had a friend at each elbow to hold her up.
She seemed to have a bad case of the sniffles as well.
Most of the women, many of the girls and one or two old codgers wept right along with her. A peculiar hush came over the assembly as they strained to hear the words.
“Do you, Polly Morgensen, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do.”
“And do you, Hank Beveridge, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do.”
The couple held hands and gazed into each other’s eyes. Marty smiled out at the crowd and held up a hand in pause.
“You may now kiss the bride.”
They didn’t need telling twice.
A cheer went up that could have been heard at other end of town although the only ones there to hear it were one or two cripples and anyone fortunate enough to ride into the village at that exact moment. Women bustled off to see to the wedding feast inside the hall behind and the men pulled out their pipes for one last smoke before going in. Children and young girls clustered around the pair of newlyweds. Little boys whooped and hollered and kept throwing stuff. Women came out and loaded trays covered with linen towels into the back of the cart. An old gomer, Tom Higgins, smacking in the cork with the heel of a palm, contributed an earthenware jug of something wet with a special wink at Hank and Polly.
It was a bit of a tradition around here and it saved some time for the bride and groom, no doubt eager to get to know each other a little better. It was all very practical and took into account local conditions.
They were bombarded with bits of paper and dry grains of millet as they headed to the pony-cart that Peltham had loaned for the occasion.
Surrounded by friends, family and well-wishers, the happy pair set off for their homestead four kilometres out the northeast trail, and presumably, lived happily ever after, even though life really doesn’t work that way and they probably did face their own unique challenges.
Quite a few of them, most likely.
End
About Louis Shalako
Louis Shalako began writing for community newspapers and industrial magazines. His stories appear in Perihelion Science Fiction, Bewildering Stories, Aurora Wolf, Ennea, Wonderwaan, Algernon, Nova Fantasia, and Danse Macabre. He lives in southern Ontario and writes full time.
http://shalakopublishing.weebly.com
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