Kitabı oku: «Silver Pitchers: and Independence, a Centennial Love Story», sayfa 18
CHAPTER VI.
PEACE IS DECLARED
The age of miracles is not over yet, and our young people wrought several during those three days; for in love's vocabulary there is no such word as fail.
Dolly "stood to her guns" womanfully, and not only chose to go "home," but prepared for her banishment with an outward meekness and an inward joy which made each hour memorable. Aunt Maria had her suspicions and kept a vigilant watch, she and her maid Cobb mounting guard by turns. Parker, finding that "no surrender" was the countersign, raised the siege and retreated in good order, though a trifle demoralized in dignity when he looked back during the evacuation and saw Tip bolt upright in the end window, with the rebel flag proudly displayed.
John meanwhile was circulating briskly through the city, and showing such ardent interest in the approaching Exposition that his mates christened him "Centennial Harris;" while the higher powers felt that they had done a good thing in giving him the job, and increased his salary to make sure of so excellent a servant. Other arrangements of a private but infinitely more interesting nature were successfully made; and he went about smiling to himself, as if the little parcel done up in silver paper, which he was constantly feeling for in his vest pocket, had been a talisman conferring all good gifts upon its happy owner.
When the third night came, he was at his post long before the time, so great was his impatience; for the four-footed traitor had been discovered and ordered into close confinement, where he suffered, not the fate of André, but the pangs of indigestion for lack of exercise after the feast of tidbits surreptitiously administered by one who never forgot all she owed to her "fat friend."
It seemed as if nine o'clock would never come; and, if a policeman ever was where he should be, the guardian of that beat would have considered John a suspicious character as he paced to and fro in the April starlight. At last the bells began to chime, promptly the light appeared, and, remembering how the bell of the old State House rang out the glad tidings a hundred years ago, John waved his cherished parcel, joyfully exclaiming, "Independence is declared! ring! ring! ring!" then raced across the park like another Paul Revere when the signal light shone in the steeple of the old North Church.
Next morning at an early hour a carriage drove to Aunt Maria's door, and with a stern farewell from her nightcapped relative Dolly was sent forth to banishment, still guarded by the faithful Cobb. The mutinous damsel looked pale and anxious, but departed with a friendly adieu and waved her handkerchief to Tip, disconsolate upon the door-mat. The instant they turned the corner, however, a singular transformation took place in both the occupants of that carriage; for Dolly caught Cobb round the neck and kissed her, while smiles broke loose on either face, as she said gleefully, —
"You dear old thing, what should I have done without you? Am I all right? I do hope it's becoming. I had to give up every thing else, so I was resolved not to be married without a new bonnet."
"It's as sweet as sweet can be, and not a bit the worse for being smuggled home in a market-basket," returned the perjured Cobb, surveying with feminine pride and satisfaction the delicate little bonnet which emerged from the thick veil by which its glories had been prudently obscured.
"Here's a glass to see it in. Such a nice carriage, with white horses, and a tidy driver; so appropriate you know. It's a happy accident, and I'm so pleased," prattled the girl, looking about her with the delight of an escaped prisoner.
"Bless your heart, Miss, it's all Mr. Harris's doings: he's been dodging round the corner ever since daylight; and there he is now, I do declare. I may as well go for a walk till your train is off, so good-by, and the best of lucks, my dear."
There was barely time for this brief but very hearty congratulation, when a remarkably well-dressed highwayman stopped the carriage, without a sign of resistance from the grinning driver. Cobb got out, the ruffian, armed not with a pistol, but a great bouquet of white roses, got in, and the coach went on its way through the quiet streets.
"May day, and here are your flowers, my little queen."
"Oh, John!"
A short answer, but a very eloquent one, when accompanied with full eyes, trembling lips, and a face as sweet and lovely as the roses.
It was quite satisfactory to John; and, having slightly damaged the bridal bonnet without reproof, he, manlike, mingled bliss and business, by saying, in a tone that made poetry of his somewhat confused remarks, —
"Heaven bless my wife! We ought to have had the Governor's coach to-day. Isn't Cobb a trump to get us off so nicely? Never saw a woman yet who could resist the chance of her helping on a wedding. Remembered every thing I told her. That reminds me. Wasn't it lucky that your relics were boxed up in dear Aunt Maria's shed, so all Cobb had to do was to alter the directions and send them off to Philadelphia instead of home?"
"I've been in a tremble for three days, because it seemed as if it couldn't be possible that so much happiness was coming to me. Are you quite sure you want me, John?" asked Dolly, careless for once of her cherished treasures; for she had been busy with hopes and fears, while he was attending to more material affairs.
"So sure, that I've got something here to bind you with. Do you mind trying it on to see if it fits, for I had to guess at the size," answered John, producing his talisman with all a bridegroom's pride and eagerness.
"Please let me wear that as a guard, and use this one to be married with. I've a superstition about it, for it suits us and the year better than any other;" and Dolly laid the little ring of reddish gold beside the heavier one in John's palm.
"So it does, and you shall have it as you like. Do you know, when you showed it to me three months ago, I had a fancy that it would be the proper thing for me to put it on your finger; but I didn't dream I ever should. Are you very certain that you don't regret the advice you gave my friend Jack?" asked the young man, thinking with fond solicitude of the great experiment that lay before them; for he knew by experience how hard this world's ways sometimes are, and longed to smooth the rough places for the confiding little creature at his side.
"Do I look as if I did?" she answered simply, but with a face so full of a true woman's instinctive faith in the power of love to lighten labor, sweeten poverty, and make a heaven of the plainest home, that it was impossible to doubt her courage or fear her disloyalty.
Quite satisfied, John pocketed the rings and buttoned Dolly's gloves, saying, while she buttoned his, both marvellously enjoying this first service for each other, "Almost there now, and in less than half an hour we shall be so safe that all the Aunt Marias in Christendom can't part us any more. George has stood by me like a man and a brother, and promised that every thing should be all right. The church will look a trifle empty, I dare say, with only five of us to fill it; but I shall like it better than being made a spectacle of; so will you, I fancy."
"The church? I thought runaways were married in an office, by a justice, and without much ceremony to make it solemn. I'm very glad it isn't so, for I shall never have but one wedding, and I'd love to have it in a sacred place," faltered Dolly, as a sudden sense of all it meant came over her, filling her girlish heart with tender awe.
"I knew that, dear, and so I did my best to make you feel no lack of love, as I could not give you any splendor. I wish I had a mother to be with you to-day; but George has lent me his, so there will be a woman's arms to cry in, if you want to drop a tear; and fatherly old Dr. King will give you to the happiest man alive. Well, well, my Dolly, if you'd rather, cry here, and then let me dry your tears, as, please Heaven, I will do all your life."
"So kind, John, so very kind! I can't thank you in words, but I'll show by deeds how much I honor, trust, and love my husband;" and nobly Dolly kept her word.
No one saw them as they went in, but the early sunshine made a golden path for them to tread, and the May wind touched them with its balmy kiss. No congratulatory clamor greeted them as they came out; but the friendly sparrows twittered a wedding march, and the jovial George sent them merrily away, by saying, as he gave John's hand a parting grasp, —
"I was right, you see, and there is a Mrs. Harris?"
If any one doubts it, let him look well about him, and he may discover the best thing America could send to her Exposition: an old-fashioned home, and in it an ambitious man who could not be bought, a beautiful woman who would not be sold; a young couple happy in their love and labor, consecrating this centennial year, by practising the old-fashioned virtues, honesty and thrift, independence and content.
