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The officiating minister was not Parson Ranson after all, but a Reverend Cleotus Haidus, the presiding elder of that circuit of the Afro-American Methodist Church, whose duties happened to call him to Hooker's Bend that day. So, notwithstanding Cissie's efforts at simplicity, the wedding, after all, was resolved into an affair.
No woman's reputation, nobody's shame or misery or even life, would stand between Jim Pink and what he considered a joke. The buffoon was the crudest thing in this world a man who thought himself a wit. Peter could imagine all the endless tweaks to Cissie's pride Niggertown would give the octoroon. She had asked Peter to marry her and had been refused. She had humbled herself for naught.
She tried hard to save her sprig of rosemary: she begged Miss Rowe to let her keep it, and said she'd put it away in her drawer, and never bring it to class again; but Miss Rowe said she wouldn't encourage such nonsense, and the best place for it was the fire." "It was just like Miss Rowe," said Enid; "she always uses what my father calls 'drastic measures'. Cissie's tired of Keats now.
Then he thought of Cissie Dildine who did understand him. This thought might have been Cissie's cue to enter the stage of Peter's mind. Her oval, creamy face floated between Peter's eyes and the dog-eared primer. He thought of Cissie wistfully, and of her lonely fight for good English, good manners, and good taste. There was a pathos about Cissie.
Peter walked a little distance, but finally came to a stand in the dust, looking at the negro cabins, not knowing where to go or what to do. Cissie's confession had destroyed all his plans. It had left him as adynamic as had his mother's death. It seemed to Peter that there was a certain similarity between the two events; both were sudden and desolating.
It was only after Peter was lost in the dust-cloud that the mulatto really divined what was meant by Cissie's strange appearance with the constable, her chalky face, her frightened brown eyes. The significance of the scene grew in his mind. He stood with eyes screwed to slits staring into the apricot-colored dust in the direction of the vanishing noise.
"Ever'thing a young man's got to say to a gal is ve'y important, Peter." It seemed to Peter a poor time for a jest; his face warmed faintly. "It it's about some of the details of our our wedding." "If you'll excuse her to-day, Peter, an' come after supper " Peter hesitated, and was about to go away when Cissie's voice came from an inner room, telling her mother to admit him.
Suppose a beastly lump of shell or something whacked him on the head.... I had a dream of him looking strange about the eyes and not knowing me. That, you know, really may have happened.... It would be beastly, of course...." Cissie's eyes were critical, but she had nothing ready to say. There were some moments of silence. "Oh! bed," said Letty. "Though I shall just lie scheming." Section 2
"Miss Rowe knew perfectly well this morning that you dropped your atlas on purpose, and that it was you who tied Cissie's hair ribbon to her desk." "Miss Rowe can be quite nice sometimes," said Patty. "When we were on the common yesterday, she found two new orchises, and gave them to me to press." "Oh, you always manage to say something for everybody!" said Enid. "You're too good-natured, Patty.
"Because " "That's because you've been to Nashville." "Oh, well " A chair was moved over a bare floor. A little later footsteps came to the entrance, the door opened, and Cissie's withered yellow mother stood before him. Vannie offered her hand and inquired after Peter's health with a stopped voice that instantly recalled his mother's death.
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