"The flies'll git more of this dinner than we'uns, if we don't have something. Why'n't you git me that branch o' leaves, Sylvane?" persisted his sister. "Well, Sis' Roxy, I wanted to finish my axe-helve, so I sub-contracted that order o' yourn," answered Sylvane, deprecatingly. "Sent Ma'-An'-Marth' out to git a small limb." "For the land's sake! An' her not taller than--" began Roxy querulously. But her father put in, with pacific intention, "Here's the chap now with her peach-tree branch. Come on, Pretty; let Gran'pappy put it up 'side o' him at the table. Now sons, now daughter, air ye ready? This is a bountiful meal; and Roxy's cooked it fine as the best; we're mightily favored. We'll ax God's blessing on the food." [88] CHAPTER VI. THE WEDDING. WEDNESDAY came, a glamorous day in early September. A breath of autumn had blown upon the mountains in the night, leaving the air inspiring--tingling cool in the shade, tingling hot in the sun. The white clouds were vagabonds of May time, though the birds were already getting together in flocks, chattering, restless for migration. Now at night instead of the bright come-and-go of fireflies there was a mild and steady lamping of glowworms in the evening grass. The katydids' chorus had dwindled, giving place to the soft chirr of ground and tree-crickets. There was a pleasant, high-pitched rustle in the stiffening leaves; the dew was heavy in the hollows, gray under the moon. All day the woods were silent, except for the mocking whirr of grasshoppers rising into the sunshine, and an occasional squabble of crows in pursuit of a hawk. Wild grapes were ripe--delicious, tart, keen-flavored things. In the pasture hollow a fleece of goldenrod, painted on the purple distance along with the scarlet globes of orchard fruit, was stripped by laughing girls for Callista's wedding [89] decorations. Yes, summer was definitely departed; a new presence was here, an autumn wind in the treetops, an autumn light on the meadow, an autumn haze on the hills--a fine luminous purple, flecked with lights of rose and gold. The Gentry place, with its central house of some pretensions and its numerous outlying cabins, presented on Wednesday afternoon something the appearance of a village undergoing sack. Open doors and windows, heaps of stuff, or bundles of household gear, or sheaves of garments being carried from place to place, suggested this impression, which seemed further warranted by the female figures emerging suddenly now and again from one cabin or another and fleeing with disheveled hair, wild gestures and incoherent babblings as of terror, to some other refuge. The girls had not come in yet from the pasture with their armloads of goldenrod and wild aster; but all three of the Hands sisters--good, faithful souls, neighborhood dependences for extra help at weddings and funerals--were hard at work in the very heart of the turmoil.