Roxy

28. Evermore

Mrs. Hanzs offered to make a wedding for Roxy. She was quite willing to increase her own social importance by this alliance of Roxy's. But the bride would not have her aunt's fine wedding. She did not want a fine wedding at all. To marry the hero she worshiped and then to start hand in hand with him to the wildest and savagest country they could find, there to live and labor for the rescue of the souls of wicked people, entirely satisfied her ambition.

She did not like to accept a wedding from her aunt, for Roxy's humility was purely a religious humility ; her pride was quick ; to be poor did not trouble her to be patronized was intolerable, most of all to be patronized by Mrs. Hanks. And had Roxy been willing, Adams would have refused ; all his native crookedness was intensified by his antipathy to his sister-in-law. But Roxy accepted from her aunt the loan of Jemima, whose hands rendered an energetic assistance, but whose tongue could not be quite still. Instead of denouncing Mark in particular, she now gave way to philippics against men in general. Roxy's dreams of a lodge in some vast wilderness, with Mark's love to comfort her and a semi-martyrdorn to glorify her, were rudely disturbed by Jemima's incessant exposition of the faithlessness and selfishness of the "male eect," as she called it. '' They can't no more be depended on than a rotten log across a crick. Looks all right kivered over with moss ; but jest try to cross on it onst and the crick 'll come fly in' up in yore face. I wouldn't marry the whole twelve apossils theirselves. Jest look at Simon Peter and Judas Iscariot, fer instance. I tell vou what it is, Roxy, the heart of man is deceitful, and some men's hearts is desp'rate."

Twonnet helped also in the wedding preparations, and she was rather more comfortable than Jemima. For when once a wedding is determined on, one ever hopes for the best. The parson, when he blesses the most ill-starred match, hopes for impossible good luck to give happiness to a couple foreordained to misery. Twonnet showed her solicitude now and then by lapses of sileuce quite unusual. Between the silence of the one and the speech of the other of her helpmates, Roxy wished for Texas.

As Colonel Bonamy considered Mark's marriage with Roxy the surest means of defeating the missionary project, he wished to hasten the wedding, lest something should happen to interfere with his plan. In particular did he appreciate the necessity for haste after his meeting with Nancy. Nancy might appeal to Roxy, or Lathers might get hold of the story and use it to Mark's discredit and his father's annoyance. If he could once get Mark married, he would have placed him in a position of depeudence. However, the colonel had a liking for a good wife as a thing that was sure to be profitable to a man. Roxy probably had no extravagant tastes, would be flattered by her marriage into such a family as the Bonamys, and her influence over Mark would, after a while, be just sufficient to keep him sober and steady at his work. Besides, he feared that, if Nancy had any real hold on Mark, she would find it greatly increased in case both the marriage witli Roxy and the mission to Texas were given up. So it happened, through the planning of the colonel, that the wedding was fixed for th second week following the raid of Nancy.

There was nothing out of the ordinary about Roxy's wedding. There were present her aunt's family and Twonnet's ; Miss Rachel Moore, who was to take her place as mistress of the house the next week, was there, of course, and Colonel Bonamy and his daughters, and as many besides as the old house would hold. Adams had asked Whittaker, but the minister had not come. Jemima stood in the background, the most impressive figure of all. The Methodist presiding elder, a venerable, white-haired man, familiarly called " Uncle Jimmy Jones," conducted the simple service.

I said there was nothing out of the ordinarv. But Bobo was there. For days he had watched the cake-baking and the other preparations. He heard somebody say that Roxy was to be married, anCl he went about the house conning the saying like a lesson, as though he were trying to get some meaning out of it.

"Roxy is going to be married," he would say over and over, from morning till night. When he saw the company gathering, he went into an ecstasy of confused excitement. And when at last Roxy came into the room, in her simple bridal dress, he broke from his mother's side and seized Roxy's disengaged hand. Jemima and his mother made an effort to recapture him, but Roxy turned and said, " Let him come."

" Let him come," echoed Bobo, and walking by the side of the bride and her bridegroom till they halted in front of the minister, he looked up at the stately old man and said with cbildioh glee, " Roxy's going to be married."

This outburst of Bobo's sent the color of Mrs. Hanks's face up to scarlet. What would the BoLamys think ? Jemima put her handkerchief over her mouth to stifle a lau^h, and Amanda Bonamy turned her head. Couldn't they keep the simpleton at home ? The old minister was confused for a moment, but the smile on Roxy's face reassured him. The lad stood still listening to the cere mony and repeating it over in an inaudible whisper. When the minister concluded the benediction with the words : " Be with you evermore," Bobo caught at the last word and cried : " evermore, Roxy, evermore ! "

" Yes, Bobo, dear," said the bride, turning to him and looking down into his wistful eyes. " Yes, evermore and evermore."

Perhaps because they were embarrassed by this unex pected episode, the company were silent, while Bobo for a moment turned over in his mind the word. Then by some association he connected it with the last words of the prayer Roxy had taught him. He went in front of her and looked at her with the awed look he had caught from her in repeating his prayer, he pointed up as she had pointed in teaching him, and said :

" Forever and ever, amen."

" Yes, Bobo, forever and ever, amen, and now you. shall have the very first kiss."

" The very first kiss," chuckled the innocent, as he turned away after Roxy had kissed him.

Through all this interruption Adams stood by the long clock and held on to the lappel of his coat firmly and defiantly. He had a notion that the Bonamys thought that their family lent a luster to Ruxy and he wanted to knock some of them over, but he kept firm hold of his coat and contented himself with looking like a wild beast at bay.

Mrs. Hanks whispered to her husband that she felt as if she could sink through the floor, and, indeed, she was quite flustered when she came to wish the newly married " much joy," and quite thrown out of the fine speech she had prepared for delivery to Mark. Amanda Bonamy kissed Roxy condescendingly as became a well-bred girl ; but when it came to Janet's turn, she kissed Roxy first on one cheek and then on the other, called her a dear, dear sister and said :

" Wasn't that sweet that poor little Bobo said ? It made your wedding so solemn and beautiful just like your wedding ought to be."

And from that moment Roxy took the enthusiastic girl into her heart of hearts. She made her sit by her at the wedding: dinner to make which had exhausted all the skill of Roxy and her helpers, and the whole purse of her father. For the custom of that time did not allow of coffee and sandwiches and cake passed around the room. As for light breakfasts and an immediate departure on a tour to nowhere in particular, that only came in with locomotives and palace cars. In the good old days it cost as much to get married as it does noM T to be buried ; one must then feed one's friends on fried chickens and roast turkeys and all sorts of pies, and pound cake and " floating island," and " peach cobbler," an enormous dish of pastry inclosing whole peaches, pits and all and preserves with cream, and grape jellies, and but this is not a bill of fare.