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"I wonder," he continued, with forced cheerfulness, "why people always cry at weddings and engagements and such things? A husband or wife is the only relative we are permitted to choose we even have very little to say when it comes to a mother-in-law.
You know how much I love you; do me the favor of no longer repulsing me as you have done hitherto! If you would be kind, how charming it would be to celebrate the two weddings on the same day. One church, one ceremony, one splendid feast would unite two happy couples. Is there nothing in this picture to entice you?"
It doesn't soothe me as it ought to; I fall too easily into the habit of pulling my neighbor's mind into pieces. Gossip and weddings and funerals; your reputation in shreds, your best girl married, your best friend dead. I find myself nearer Heaven when I'm alone in the fields. But I've been thinking, Aunty." "About what?" "About coming home to stay."
One of the weddings of that season happened to take place in the house of the richest peasant of the village, one of those peasants who try to rise above their class. It goes without saying that among the invited guests was the very cream of the village society: the few Government officials, the village elder, the clerk of the village, our sergeant, etc.
And the years would go swiftly as the days and there would be the weddings of their sons and daughters and then the children of their children. And the woman who that night knew that she was a woman the woman whose heart, as she sat alone before the fire, was even as an empty room a room that is furnished and ready but without a tenant what, this woman asked herself, would the years bring her?
They had come out together from the Homeland years and years ago. They had borne each other's burdens, and shared each other's confidences, through all the days of their pilgrimage. Their thoughts of each other were mingled with all the memories of their courtships, their weddings, and their earlier struggles.
It was a whimsical idea, and must have been a cold, comfortless, clammy affair; but the feelings and sentiment about weddings totally differ in America from our European notions on the subject, rarely is it a joyous merry-making, rather the reverse, as I have mentioned in a former chapter.
She had not been told, and it was her prerogative to know everything. She always made a point of being on hand early at all funerals and weddings, especially in the family circle, and learning the utmost details, which she dispensed at her discretion to late comers in fine sepulchral whispers. Now she sat silent, disgraced, unable to explain a thing.
The work was not hard, it was done in common, in the open air, and for the children it was a long, delightful picnic; here the young men met the maidens; in the long evenings when work was over they wandered about the lanes, making love; and the hopping season was generally followed by weddings.
It is surprising how much alcoholic beverages entered into the daily life, the business, and the pleasures of the people in those days. No bargain could be made without them. Christenings, weddings, funerals all called for the pouring out of strong drink. If a lady called, the port and sherry decanters were produced, and the cake basket. If a gentleman, probably it was the spirit decanter.
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