The Chronicles of Rhoda Part 19

He picked up one of his little shoes by the side of the bed, and threw it at Trixie. There was an immediate wail from the next crib. d.i.c.k was always a good shot.

"Oh, children, children!" my mother cried, in despair. "d.i.c.k, go to sleep this moment. Trixie, Trixie, dear, you are not really hurt."

"But her feelings are, mother," I protested.

I knew that the littlest things hurt just as much as the big.

My mother settled down, disconsolately, in her rocking chair, with a small, weeping burden in her arms, and rocked and sang.

"This is a dreadful family," she said, in between verses. "There is always a fuss."

As for d.i.c.k he made one more triumphant discovery before he finally subsided for the night.

"Girls are soft things," he declared, jealously, from his crib. "They are! They are!"

"d.i.c.k!" my father called from downstairs, "you stop that!"

Which settled the subject for the time being.

There was just one person in the family who was not upset, and that was my grandmother Harcourt. She read her Bible as usual, and watched us with grave eyes. She watched grandmother Lawrence buying pretty dresses by the dozen for Auntie May, and scolding violently, because they were not worn, and she watched granddad going about, with a perplexed face and a heavy heart, and even my own father laboriously concocting funny stories at which n.o.body laughed. When grandmother spoke her remarks were oracular.

"Those whom G.o.d hath joined together let no man put asunder," she said, with dignity.

And one day when things were at their very worst, and Auntie May had come to our house, "to cry in peace," as she said, grandmother Harcourt laid a small white note in her hand.

"Go out in the garden, dear," she said, impressively. "Behind the lilac bush. Quick!"

Away flew Auntie May, and I after her.

Now behind the lilac bush was my own particular domain. It was where I made my little mudpies in beautiful clam sh.e.l.ls, and once I had had a caterpillar colony there, all pretty brown and yellow ones, and some few with neat tufted backs and red whiskers. And Jeremiah John, the wandering turtle, lived there. But no grown-up person ever ventured behind the lilac bush, so it was a surprise to find Burton Raymond, with cobwebs on his coat and a pale face, waiting for us.

"You!" Auntie May cried.

She said it almost in a shriek. She put her arms about him and clung to him.

"You!" she said again, with infinite content.

They didn't appear to mind me in the least, and they nearly killed Jeremiah John, who had gone to sleep in the sun.

Burton Raymond had seemed frightened at first; but when he saw how Auntie May cried and clung to him, his head went up, and his eyes grew dark, and he looked every inch a crusader. They talked together in whispers. He was persuading her to do something.

"Oh, no, no!" she cried.

She looked down at her clothes.

"What! In this dress!" she exclaimed, hotly.

He whispered again, and little by little she stopped shaking her head, and grew a trifle rosy and confused, and, at last, it seemed to me that she said, "yes." It must have been something very terrible to which she had agreed, for she faltered afterwards, and had to be encouraged some more. Then she picked a bunch of the lilacs and pinned it in her belt, and they went on toward the gate together. Her hand was on the latch before she remembered me.

"Oh, there's Rhoda!" she said.

Her eyes questioned mine, anxiously.

"Will you come, too, Rhoda?" she asked.

Somehow I felt that she would be glad to have one of the family with her, so I went.

Of course I knew that it was an elopement. Auntie May was running away, just like a princess in a fairy tale! I knew whole pages and pages of fairy tales, and I had always liked the ones best where the princess ran away; but I had never expected to be in a fairy tale myself. The sun was so bright, and the air was golden with mystery. The gate shut with a soft click. I felt that it would never betray us. It was very exciting afterwards. We turned around a corner, and there was a horse and buggy waiting for us in quite a magical fashion, and in a moment we were in and off.

"Oh, make him go fast, Burton," Auntie May prayed.

She was frightened again.

"Oh, make him go very fast!" she cried.

The houses whisked past us. The people in the streets looked at us, strangely, and one old man, a lifelong friend of my grandfather's, ran out to the curb, and held up his cane, imperatively, for us to stop. On we went, with a clatter and a bounce, right through the town, and out into the quiet country beyond, where there were daisies in the fields, and cows to regard us with astonishment, and dogs to bark as we went along. We were all quite pale by now, I fancy, and wild-eyed. At least the prince and the princess were, and they held hands as if they had been lost and had found each other. And, then, away off in the distance I saw the steeple of a tiny church. It grew taller and taller.

Always when I had thought of being Auntie May's bridesmaid, I had expected to wear a white dress and carry flowers, and walk right down the aisle with all the golden and red and blue ladies in the church windows watching me; but now when the time came I concluded that I liked this new way best of all. The minister was out in his front yard when we drove up, and I thought that he looked at our bridal party rather pityingly. And I also thought that he considered us a joke. We walked up to him trembling, and stood about the bed which he was digging.

"We'd like to be married, sir," Burton announced, awkwardly.

The minister regarded us all through big, benevolent, silver-rimmed spectacles. He left off his digging to smile at us. He had a geranium in one hand, and a shovel in the other.

"I thought you were a christening party," he said.

He pointed his shovel at me.

"Who's that?" he demanded, beaming.

"I'm the bridesmaid," I told him.

Then I felt a sudden confidence in him. I pulled at his sleeve.

"They're running away," I confided, anxiously. "Won't you marry them? If you don't poor Auntie May will never be married at all!"

"We've only got a few moments' start, sir," Burton explained, breathlessly. "There's a carriage after us. Listen!"

Far in the direction of town we could hear the sound of coming wheels.

While we listened they seemed to redouble their speed.

"Oh, if you'd please hurry, sir!" Auntie May begged, in a panic.

"They'll take me home again! I know they will. Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!"

She looked about with wild eyes as though for somewhere to hide.

The minister himself seemed to catch fire a bit at that, and he did hurry. He had us all in the parsonage parlor in a moment, and went off upstairs calling for "Dora." He was back again immediately in his surplice, with his wife following him, and there, standing before a sunny window, the wilted lilacs still pinned in her belt, Auntie May became Mrs. Burton Raymond.

She looked so pretty! Her eyes were full of tears, and her cheeks were pink. She trembled a little still from agitation. After it was all over she turned to Burton, and held out her hands to him in a frightened way.