Poor Donna! She was proud and happy in the knowledge that her husband
had proved himself equal to the task, but she found it hard, very hard,
to be a Pagan on her wedding day.
Bob brought their baggage and set it by her side. “Watch it for a few
minutes, Donna, please” he said. “I forgot something.”
He found a seat for her and she waited until his return.
“Have you got that six hundred with you, Donna?” he asked gravely.
She opened her hand-bag and showed him a roll of twenty dollar pieces.
“Good,” he replied, in the same grave, even tones. “Here is my
promissory note, at seven per cent, for the amount, payable one day
after date, and this other document is an assignment of a one-half
interest in my water-right, to secure the payment of my note.”
He handed them to her. In silence she gave him the money.
“Are you quite ready, Donna? I think we had better start now” he said.
She nodded. She could not trust herself to speak for the sobs that
crowded in her throat. He observed the tears and stooped over her
tenderly.
“Why, what's the matter, little wife?”
“It's--it's--a little hard--to have to give up--our honeymoon” she
quavered.
“Why, Mrs. Donna Corblay Robert McGraw! Is that the trouble? Well,
you're a model Pagan and I'm proud of you, but you don't know the Big
Chief Pagan after all! Why, we're not going back to San Pasqual for a
week or ten days. I was so busy thinking of all I have to do that I must
have forgotten to tell you that we're going up to the Yosemite Valley
on our honeymoon. I want to show my wife some mountains with grass
and trees on them--the meadows and the Merced river and the wonderful
waterfalls, the birds and the bees and all the other wonderful sights
she's been dreaming of all her life.”
She carefully tore the promissory note and the assignment of interest
into little bits and let them flutter to the floor. The tears were still
quivering on her beautiful lashes, but they were tears of joy, now, and
her sense of humor had come to her rescue.
“Foolish man” she retorted, “don't you realize that one cannot mix
sentiment and business? Be sensible, my tall husband. You're so
impulsive. Please register and have that baggage sent up to our room,
and then let me have a hundred dollars. I want to spend it on a
dandy tailored suit and some other things that I shall require on our
honeymoon. In all my life I have never been shopping, and I want to be
happy to-day--all day.”
“Tell you what we'll do” he suggested. “Let's not think of the future at
all. I'm tired of this to-morrow bugaboo.”
“I'm not. We're going honeymooning to-morrow.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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