by Lorin Grace
Thomas cleared his throat. “I want to read a few words from the Bible before you vow your love to each other. From Ephesians: ‘Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.’ And also this verse: ‘So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.’ And lastly this one: ‘Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.’
“Your Ma and I have tried to live these words our whole lives. Even though they are addressed to the husbands, much guidance can be found in replacing the word husband with wife. You know I would be lying if I said we’ve never had our troubles. You children have eaten burned porridge enough to know when we don’t always agree.”
Emma blushed as her children turned to her. She had managed to “accidently” scorch meals from time to time when she was at odds with Thomas.
“But she always makes it up to all of us with a tasty cake.” Everyone laughed.
Thomas continued. “I can’t tell you how to run your marriage, so I will leave you with this thought. There is nothing better than waking my dear Emma each morning and knowing she is happy to see me. Samuel, when you wake up each morning, wake Lucy and let her know how happy you are to see her for another day that God has given you. Lucy, find it a blessing to wake up and smile at your husband each morn.”
Though the room was full, Lucy found her heart was missing a few people. How she would love to have Papa Marden standing there, adding his advice. She was sure he would have advised them to pray together often and remember the Lord in all things. Mama would have given her last bits of advice when Lucy had dressed, as Emma had just minutes ago while pinning Lucy’s hair.
“Now, take each other’s hands.” Lucy passed her bouquet to Sarah and placed her hands in Samuel’s. When she looked into his eyes, the rest of the room faded from her view. She listened to Thomas speak and watched as Samuel said yes, his gaze never faltering. When it was her turn to respond, Samuel had to bring her out of her daydreaming with a light squeeze to her fingertips. Carrie and Emma both let tiny giggles escape at her blunder. Apparently Lucy was not much better at saying her vows when conscious.
When Thomas finished, Samuel first drew Lucy’s fingers to his lips, earning him boos from his brothers. Then, stepping closer, he pressed his lips to hers, a cheer went up around the room.
As the sun hastened its descent toward the horizon, Samuel wrapped his arms around his new wife’s waist and kissed her under the mistletoe the twins had hung in the doorway. The entire family laughed. Sarah jumped up and down, clapping and yelling, “Again! Again!” Her exuberance rained bits of dried lavender from her sister’s bouquet around the room. The twins rolled their eyes. One of them hummed the refrain to “No, no, oh, so, no. Oh, oh, poor Samuel.” Little did they know he wasn’t feeling poor at all.
“Best get going, son. The snow is coming down pretty hard. Hate for you two to get stuck in a snowbank.” Thomas winked at them.
Samuel settled Lucy’s cloak over her shoulders, adjusting it to cover all of the new blue dress.
Then they hurried out to the sleigh as snowflakes danced about, covering them like tossed rice.
Tucking the blankets around Lucy, Samuel paused to kiss a snowflake off her nose. Lucy crinkled her nose and blushed to the shouts and whistles of his brothers.
“Go on!” The twins yelled in unison from the porch. Samuel grasped the reins and set them off with a flick of his wrist.
Sarah held Emma’s hand and waved. Samuel would miss the chatterbox this next week. Or maybe not.
Lucy let out a sigh.
“Happy?”
“Yes, it was a perfect day. Do you think Elizabeth is still pouting?” she asked.
Samuel roared with laughter. “She may be recovered by now. I doubt she will repeat any more of her mother’s gossip about you for a long time. It seems as if her father has taken her to task.”
“Yes, I noticed her dress wasn’t very fashionable.”
“Did I mention how beautiful you are in your new dress?” Samuel gave his wife an appreciative look.
Peeking under her lashes, Lucy answered, “You may have mentioned it a time or two.”
Samuel leaned in for a kiss, his lips not quite touching Lucy’s when the sleigh stopped with a jolt, ripping them apart. Old Brown protested, snorting and stomping.
“It would seem we are stuck.” Samuel completed the kiss, ignoring his horse’s protests.
“I wonder if this is how your parents got stuck all those years ago.”
“Hmmm. Maybe so.” He kissed her again. “But since it is daylight and we are on the road, let me see if I can get us out of this.” He leaped from the sleigh. A few pushes and maneuverings later, Samuel and Lucy were once again gliding over the snow and toward home.
Samuel put Old Brown in the barn, rewarding him with two carrots pilfered from Ma’s cellar. All the animals received their nightly feed early. The sun had not yet set, but he had no intention of coming back to the barn tonight or reappearing at the crack of dawn. He gave the animals as much water as their troughs could hold. Nanny had dried up two days ago—a Christmas gift from the goat. Speaking of Christmas, Samuel realized he needed to retrieve a few gifts.
He reached inside of the tack room and pulled Lucy’s gifts off the top shelf. She’d nearly discovered them yesterday. He could not believe it when she’d stepped into the room to inspect it. He had hidden her Christmas and wedding gifts in there just that morning. He’d joined her and blocked her view of the carved mortar and pestle with a kiss. Then, with his arms around her, he’d twirled her out of the little white room before she’d noticed the small jewelry box. He smiled. The kisses had been full of promises from both of them. Lucy would dream different dreams of the tack room now.
Lucy smoothed the new yellow-and-blue star quilt Emma had given her on the day of their first wedding over the new linen sheets. She paced, wondering if she’d forgotten anything. A dinner of leftovers was tucked in the oven, kept warm if they decided to eat later. She wore a new shift made of fine muslin, one her husband had not seen, under her dress. She fiddled with her hair. Should she take it down?
She sat at the dressing table, her fingers hovering over the first hairpin, when she heard the door close. Samuel fastened the bolt with a thunk, closing out the world. Lucy’s hand froze over her hair. Her husband was coming.
“I hope you are not going to deny me the privilege of removing those pins myself and brushing your hair.”
Lucy let her hand drop to her lap. “Never.”
Samuel dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck and pulled out the first pin. What he whispered in her ear, she never told. The mirror reflected her blush. He reached for the second pin.
As the golden fingers of dawn crept in the window that Christmas morning, Samuel woke Lucy with a kiss. Lucy opened her eyes, and a smile bloomed. To Samuel, it was more radiant than the sunrise beyond their window.
Reaching up, she stroked her husband’s cheek, coaxing him to give her a second kiss. After several more, Lucy nestled into his side.
“This is how I always want to wake up.”
With another kiss, Samuel promised her she always would.
The End
Historical Notes
Modern readers may be confused at colonial meal times. The term lunch was not commonly used, though it first appeared in a London play in 1786. The 1810 edition of Webster’s dictionary defined lunch as “a large piece of food.” The noon meal was referred to as “dinner” and the evening meal as “supper.” The larger meal was served at noon, and often leftovers were served for the evening and breakfast meals. Drinking water was considered unhealthy, and depending on the source, this was generally true. Germ theory was not yet known, and often
the same water that provided drink for one family had been fouled upstream by another. Weak ale, beer, and hardened cider, along with boiled drinks such as tea, chocolate, and coffee made up the majority of colonial beverages.
Marriage laws and practices varied widely throughout New England both before and after the Revolutionary War. As colonists, the citizens were subject to British common law. For example, a woman could not be forced to wed without her consent or own property independent of her husband in most cases. However, each colony was run semi-independently, and common law was oftentimes ignored, giving women far greater freedoms than allowed in England.
Throughout all the colonies, common-law marriage, also know by the Latin verba de praesenti, was practiced by couples exchanging vows in front of witnesses and others not. This was particularly true in smaller settlements on the edges of the frontier. There are anecdotal stories of young women secreting friends in closets or other places so that the groom could not plead misunderstanding a few months later. Even Benjamin Franklin, who courted his wife for some time, never had an official ceremony and lived in a common-law marriage.[1]
Puritans in Massachusetts viewed marriage as a secular matter. They are credited with requiring the first marriage “licenses” in the Americas. The term license is perhaps a misnomer, as the local clerk was paid three pence, the 1644 price, per entry in the court register, making it a marriage registration rather than what we consider a license. This system of recordings did not follow that of England and seems to have been a new invention of the Colonists.[2] Massachusetts marriages during the early colonial period were most often carried out by a magistrate or justice of the peace, and usually at the bride’s home.
By the time of the Revolution, Massachusetts lawmakers also required a fifteen-day waiting period when “intentions” were posted either over the pulpit or by written notice in a public place, such as the post office. The colony of New Hampshire offered same-day marriages for two shillings as a way to expand their prerevolutionary coffers. Meanwhile, New York, which included modern-day Vermont, recognized common-law marriages for some years after the war for independence.
I took the liberty of combining these traditions in the unconventional marriage of Emma and Thomas Wilson, which took place before America’s independence. In Massachusetts, they could have been fined for fornication as well as for failure to register their wedding—thus their claim that they had been in New York.
The Massachusetts Justice, written in 1795 by Samuel Freeman, was an invaluable tool in determining laws not only for marriage but for swearing, nonattendance at church, and other misdemeanors that do not exist today. The section on marriage included the forms the clerk would have needed to use to post intentions and record marriages. Curiously, the bride and groom did not sign these documents. The Boston Library has digitized several “intention to marry” notices that have survived until today. I suppose some brides kept them as keepsakes.
People in Massachusetts were slow to give up their Puritan traditions. Rings, which had not been exchanged at Puritan weddings, slowly came into vogue. John Hancock did give his wife, Dorothy, a plain gold band on the occasion of their wedding in 1775. However, he was one of the richest merchants in Massachusetts, and it is unlikely that those not of the same class had rings to exchange.
The majority of weddings continued to be officiated by magistrates in homes well into the nineteenth century. Ministers of the various religions performed weddings depending mostly on the sect’s views on marriage and were required to report these weddings to the courts. Since the parish ministers were funded in part by local taxes through the early 1830s, one could say most marriages were performed by public officials.
For the marriage of Samuel and Lucy, I chose a more traditional religious marriage but took the wording from The Massachusetts Justice, which stipulated that the bride and groom hold hands. It did not, however, stipulate a kiss.
Though weddings were quiet, home-based affairs, the celebrations spilled over into the public eye. Brides were allowed to choose the text for the first sermon given after their marriage, and they often used great ingenuity in choosing these texts. Abigail Smith, who married John Adams, decided upon the text: “John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say he hath a devil.” In some congregations, it was also tradition for the newlyweds to stand and display their wedding finery during the sermon.
The folk song “Lavender’s Blue” first appeared in print in the 1600s and was a popular tavern song with several bawdy verses. By the early 1800s it was sanitized for a children’s rhyme. In the last fifty years, the song has been modified by Burl Ives and the movie industry to be family friendly. Having been a bachelor at Harvard and having been to various local pubs, Samuel would have been familiar with the racier verses, which would never make the cut for a G-rated movie or this book.
[1] Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 75.
[2] Robert René Kuczynski, “The Registration Laws in the Colonies of Massachusetts Bay and New Plymouth,” Publications of the American Statistical Association, vol. 7, no. 51 (September 1900), 1–9.
Acknowledgments
There are not enough ways to thank those who helped me bring about this first book. I dedicated this book to my eleventh grade English/Humanities teacher, Marie Lindsley Rinard, because she had faith in me all those years ago and started me on a thirty-year journey. I will say no more here as curious readers will find that story on my blog.
Anita and Tammy have been there for years encouraging, alpha reading, beta reading and re-reading and then talking me into not giving up and assisting in photo shoots of daughters (Araceli and Amaya), Massachusetts blizzards and cabins. I know I would have quit without both of you cheering me on.
Huge thanks to my first beta readers; Michelle, Julie, Naomi, Nanette and Erin. I hope you recognize the book. The writer friends I picked up on the way especially Sally, Nicole and Cindy, whose critics and input have been invaluable. Thanks to all the writers in Cache Valley League of Utah writers, and iWriteNetwork, each of you have made me a better writer. Thank you for your part in my growth as a fledging writer.
Nancy, Stephani and Yvonne thanks for describing the taste of wine to this Mormon girl.
Kami H. thank you for your advice to rewrite sections in adherence with Commonwealth laws of 1795.
Thanks also to Michele at Eschler Editing for the edits and finding oh so many little things to fix, any mistakes left in this book are not her fault.
My family, especially my mother, Bonnie, who read and spell corrected all four hundred versions of the manuscript. To my children Kendon, Dallin, Katelyn, and Eileen for sharing their home with the fictional characters who often got fed better than they did. And my husband who encouraged me every crazy step of the way, and who is my example for every love story I dream up. The real one is better.
And to my Father in Heaven for putting these wonderful people, and any I may have forgotten to mention, in my life. I am grateful for every experience and blessing I have been granted to form my life
Waking Lucy
is the recipient of the2017 Recommended Read Award
in the League of Utah Writers
published book contest
.
About the Author
Lorin Grace was born in Colorado and has been moving around the country ever since, living in eight states and several imaginary worlds. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Graphic Design.
Currently she lives in northern Utah with her husband, four children, and a dog who is insanely jealous of her laptop. When not writing Lorin enjoys creating graphics, visiting historical sites, museums, and reading.
Lorin is an active member of the League of Utah Writers and was awarded Honorable Mention in their 2016 creati
ve writing contest short romance story category. Her debut novel, Waking Lucy, was awarded a 2017 Recommend Read award in the LUW Published book contest.
You can learn more about her at loringrace.com
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