Frontier and pioneer life -- Southern States -- Fiction; Love stories; Mountain people -- Southern States -- Fiction
When they were alone she said to David: "Hit's a right quare way o'
doin' things--gitt'n married in bed, but if Bishop Towahs do hit, hit
sure must be all right--leastways Cassandry'll think so."
David took the superintendence of the arrangement of his cabin upon
himself, and Hoke Belew, with the bishop's aid, carried out his
directions. One side of his canvas room was rolled to the top, leaving
the place open to the hills and the beauty without. His bed was placed
so that he might face the open space, and that Cassandra could kneel at
his right side. His writing-table, draped with a white cloth and covered
with green hemlock boughs, formed the altar. It was all very quickly and
simply done, and then David lay quiet, with closed eyes, listening to
his musicians in the tree-tops, fluting their own gladness, while Hoke
Belew went down below, and the bishop sat out on the rock and meditated.
Cassandra came up to the cabin alone and sat with David, while the
bishop donned his priestly vestments, and the wedding procession wound
slowly up the trail from the Fall Place, decorously and gravely, clad in
their best. Azalea and Betty came, side by side, the mother rode Sally's
speckled white horse, and little Hoyle ran on ahead; Hoke carried his
baby in his arms. Behind them all rode Uncle Jerry Carew, full of the
liveliest interest and curiosity.
Said David: "This is May-day. I know what they're doing at home now, if
the weather will let them. They're having gay times with out-of-door
fêtes. The country girls are wearing their prettiest gowns, and the men
are wearing sprigs of May in their buttonholes. Where did you get your
roses?"
"Azalie brought them."
"And who put them in your hair?"
"Mrs. Towahs did that. Do you like me this way, David?"
"You are the loveliest being my eyes ever rested on."
"This was my best dress last year. I did it up and mended it this
morning. It's home-woven like the one I--like the other one you said you
liked."
David smiled, looking up into the gray eyes with the green lights and
blue depths in them. How serene and poised her manner was, on the verge
of the momentous step she was about to take, while his own heart was
beating high. He wondered if she really comprehended the change it was
to make in her life, that she showed no apprehension or fear.
"Cassandra, do you realize that in fifteen minutes you will be my wife?
It will be a great change for you, dearest. In spite of all I can do,
you may be sad sometimes, and I may ask of you things you don't want to
do."
"I've been sad already in my life, and done things I didn't want to do.
I don't guess you could change that--only God could."
"And you don't feel in the least disturbed? Your heart doesn't beat any
harder nor your breath come quicker? Tell me how you feel."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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