Chapter XXVI: The Last Act of Part One

Mrs. Wood’s supper, prepared with so much care, was near being spoiled, it waited so long for Craig and Alice, who did not reach the house until after six o’clock. To Craig it did not matter what he ate. Nothing mattered except Alice, with whom he grew more and more in love each moment he spent with her. Of the farmhouse and its appointments he scarcely thought at all except as a kind of Elysium which held his divinity. Uncle Ephraim and Aunt Mary he knew were plain country people, but they belonged to Alice and so belonged to him and he once caught himself about to address Mrs. Wood as Aunt Mary in the familiar conversation which ensued after supper was over and he had made his errand known. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Wood were insensible to the good fortune which had come to Alice, and though it would be hard parting with her they did not withhold their consent and accepted Craig readily as their future nephew.

All preliminaries were settled as far as they could be until Craig saw his mother, and the next morning he left Rocky Point, promising to come again within a few days and saying he should stop in Ridgefield with the news. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were just sitting down to their tea when Craig walked in upon them and unceremoniously drew up to the table in spite of Mrs. Taylor’s protestations that he must not till she brought down the silver forks and got him a china plate. At the farm house he had not thought whether he was eating from the choicest Dresden or the coarsest of delft, and it made no difference here. The light of a great happiness was in his heart and after supper was over and he was alone with his host and hostess he said to them laughingly, “Guess what I have done.”

“I know. You let me tell,” Uncle Zach exclaimed, waving his hand towards his wife, who was about to speak. “You have offered yourself to Miss Alice. Ain’t I right?”

“Yes, and she has accepted,” Craig replied.

“My boy, I congratulate you. Yes, sir, I do, and I’m most as pleased as I should be if it was I instead of you,” Uncle Zach exclaimed.

“Zacheus, I’m ashamed of you,—putting yourself in Mr. Mason’s place, and you an old married man,” Mrs. Taylor said reprovingly, but her husband did not see the point, and answered her, “There’s nothin’ to be ashamed of, if I be a married man. I’ve been through the mill and know all about it and I am glad for ’em. When is it to be?”

“Some time in May,” Craig said, “and you and Mrs. Taylor are to attend the wedding.”

This diverted Zacheus’s thoughts into another channel, and after Craig left the next morning he began to wonder if he ought not to have a dress coat for the occasion and if the tailor in town could make it, or should he buy it in Worcester. He finally decided upon the tailor in town and drove him wild with his directions and suggestions and fears that it would not be right.

“I want it O. K., the finest of broadcloth and made up to snuff,” he said, and he went every day to see how it was progressing.

Uncle Zacheus in a dress suit was something of a novelty and the tailor could not repress a smile when it was finished and tried on for the last time, with a cutaway vest to show the shirt front in which there was to be a breast pin at the wedding.

“I look kinder droll and I don’t feel nateral,” Uncle Zacheus said, examining himself in the long glass. “Why, I ain’t much bigger than Tom Thumb. Funny that a swaller tail makes you look so little. I wonder what Dot will think. She’s havin’ a gown made in Worcester,—plum colored satin, with lace.”

Dot, who had never taken kindly to the dress suit, told him he looked like a fool and advised him to wear the coat he was accustomed to wear to church.

“Not by a long shot. I guess I know what is what, and I ain’t goin’ to mortify Craig and Miss Alice,” he said, and his suit was put carefully away in a dressing case, ready for the wedding, which occurred the first of May.

Craig would not wait any longer, and when Alice urged her lack of outfit as one reason for delay he argued that a dress to be married in was all she needed. They were going directly to Paris, where she could shop to her heart’s content with his mother to assist her. No day in early spring could be finer than the day when Craig and Alice were married very quietly, with only a few of the neighbors present. Mrs. Mason and Mr. and Mrs. Taylor had come the day before, as the wedding was to take place at 12 o’clock. Mrs. Mason stopped at the hotel with Craig, while Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were entertained at the farm house, where Uncle Zach made himself perfectly at home and almost master of ceremonies. He had brought his dress suit and long before the hour for the ceremony appeared in it, greatly to the amusement of Craig and Alice, who were glad he wore it he was so proud and so happy that he had beaten the crowd in their Prince Alberts and cutaways. There were a few presents from some of Alice’s scholars and immediate friends; a costly bracelet from Helen, whose letter of congratulations rang true and hearty, and from Mrs. Tracy the diamond pin which had belonged with the ear-rings and which Helen had left at home, as she did not care for it.

“I am pleased to be rid of it,” Mrs. Tracy wrote. “It is a constant reminder of my disgrace, from which I have not recovered and never shall. I am glad for you to have it and glad for you to have Craig, too.”

She had invited the party to stop with her during the few days they were to stay in the city before the Celtic sailed, and had urged her invitation so warmly that they accepted and left for New York on the afternoon train. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor spent another night in Rocky Point and then returned to the Prospect House, where Uncle Zach was never tired talking of the wedding and showing his dress suit,——“the only one there, if you’ll believe it; even Craig wore a common coat. Curis, wasn’t it,” he said to an acquaintance, who prided himself on being frank and outspoken, no matter how much the frankness hurt.

“Not curious at all,” he said. “People don’t wear swallow tails to morning weddings. They are reserved for evening. You were quite out of style.”

“You don’t say so,” Uncle Zach replied, his countenance falling as it began to dawn upon him that he might have made a mistake, “Dot will know,” he thought, and after a while he went to her and said, “John Dickson says they don’t wear swallers to mornin’ weddin’s. Did I make a fool of myself?”

Mrs. Taylor was out of sorts with some kitchen trouble and answered sharply: “Of course you did. I knew it all the time, when nobody else, not even Craig, wore one.”

This hurt worse than John Dickson’s words had done.

“I felt so fine and looked so foolish. What must Craig and Alice and Miss Mason have thought of me?” he said to himself. “Yes, I was a fool,—a dum fool, and I looked like a fool in ’em. Dot said so, she knows, and I’ll never wear ’em again. I’ll put ’em out of sight, where nobody can see the old man’s folly, and mabby, bimeby, when they send a box to the heathen, I’ll put ’em in. Pity to have ’em et with moths when they cost so much, and only wore once.”

He carried them to the attic,—gave one long regretful look at them and packed them away in the hair trunk with Taylor’s Tavern and Johnny’s blanket.

A few days later there came a line from Alice written on board the ship. The next day there was a letter from Helen, telling of her house and the dinners and lunches and receptions she was attending and giving. She spoke also of Jeff, who was doing well in school, and of Mark, the best husband in the world.

“I’m glad on’t,” Uncle Zach said, as Dot read the letter to him. “It seems as if they was my children, Alice and Craig, Mark and Helen, and Jeff. I’m glad they are so happy.”

Mrs. Taylor had not her husband’s hopeful nature. If the sun shone bright in the morning she wanted to see what the weather was at noon before admitting that it was fine, and now she answered, “Wait a few years and see what happens.”

“I shan’t wait. I’m glad they are happy now,” Uncle Zach replied, resolutely keeping his eyes on the present, and never dreaming of the drama which the future was to unroll and in which his so called children were to take an active part.

END OF PART I.