LITMIR.BIZ

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to a man in a long black coat with all his white shirt showin', and diamonds in the shirt and a white tie. She looked very smilin' and different than when she talked to pa. Mitch's pa and ma warn't there, not bein' invited. The orchestra was playin' wonderful music; and finally all the people quit talkin'; the room got still, and the orchestra began to play somethin' very beautiful; and pretty soon Nellie Bennett came in holdin' the arm of Mr. Bennett, all in her veil and white satin, but I couldn't see the buckles on her shoes. And then the man she was goin' to marry—his name was Richard Hedges from Chicago—stepped out, and they both stepped in front of the minister, who was from Jacksonville, wearin' a black robe with white sash around his neck; and the orchestra stopped playin'. But just then we heard a twig or somethin' snap and we looked around quick and there was Doc Lyon who read the Bible all the time and acted queer. My pa thought he was crazy. And he began to say: "She doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians, her neighbors, which were clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses. I will take away thy nose and thy ears; and thy residue shall fall by the sword. They shall also strip thee of thy clothes and take away thy fair jewels."

      Doc Lyon's voice sounded like he was talkin' out of a cistern, and I grew sick at my stomach I was so scared. But both Mitch and me forgot the wedding for the time and turned our heads. And pretty soon we saw Doc Lyon kind of rolling a pistol over in his hand. We could see it. It glittered in the light; but Mitch and me were lyin' in the shadow there, and I don't believe he knew we were there. At least until I kind of lost my balance and fell over against Mitch and bumped him against the house, makin' a noise. We were scared to death, for we was afraid Doc Lyon could now see us, and know us, and would come over to us, and do something to us. Everybody was afraid of him, especially the boys. Well, probably he didn't know who it was, or but what maybe it was a big dog. So he stood a minute and then began to back off and finally turned and ran away into the darkness. Then we looked in again, and by now the minister was readin' from a book; and finally Mr. Hedges put a ring on Nellie's finger; then they knelt down and the minister prayed. Then they got up and kissed and the music started; and everybody stood in line to shake Nellie's hand and Mr. Hedges' hand, and kiss Nellie. And there was a lot of talk and laughin' and they began to dance. And Mitch whispered to me we'd better go; that we'd seen it and we could get to my house so as to let Delia go out and maybe square everything. So we took a different way from what Doc Lyon did, and ran as fast as we could, lookin' out for corners we turned, and got home. Delia was awful mad; it was about 9 o'clock now and she couldn't go out. She said this wedding was no wedding anyway; that Nellie Bennett was a heathen, havin' never been baptized and that people that got married without bein' baptized committed a sin. She was mad; but we edged around her, and finally she made some butter scotch for us and promised not to tell on us; and so did Myrtle and Little Billie.

      Then Mitch and me began to talk about Doc Lyon and whether I shouldn't tell my pa so as to have him arrested; that he was a dangerous character. But how could I tell him without lettin' him know that we had been to the weddin', and our havin' Delia fixed? Then Mitch thought if we told and got my pa to arrest Doc Lyon and he got out, he would come for us, or maybe do somethin' to my pa. Anyhow Myrtle broke her word and told; but pa didn't say nothin' or do nothin'; he didn't talk much sometimes and nobody knew what he was thinkin' about.

      Well, finally, Delia took Myrtle and Little Billie up to bed, and Mitch began to ask me if I knew about marriage. I had never seen anybody married before, but I knew about it because when I was only 6, the first day I went to school, a boy told me all about it, and it made me so shamed I didn't know what to do. And I didn't believe it; and when I told my ma, she said not to let boys tell me dirty lies, and to walk away from 'em. But since that time I had thought about it, and heard other things. I had heard my pa and ma say that Mrs. Rainey was in love with Temple Scott and wanted to marry him, although already married to Joe Rainey, her husband; and then you saw a lot of writin' on fences and sidewalks and on the schoolhouse walls; and some of the girls and boys said funny things sometimes. All the time it was plain enough that there couldn't be a family without a father as well as a mother; the father havin' to earn money, and the mother havin' to take care of the children, and of course no children where there were no father and mother, except orphans and things like that. Mitch and me talked this over and he said that if any boy said any dirty thing to me, to hit him one; and that if I'd come up some night, his pa would explain to me about flowers and plants and show me what a wonderful thing flowers are and how they mean everything when understood. And then he began to talk of Zueline Hasson, and how she made him feel so happy and so in love with everything, just because she was so beautiful, and her friendship was so beautiful to him.

      Then Mitch wanted to know if I'd heard that this Mr. Hedges was marryin' Nellie Bennett for her money, and had come down from Chicago to get her for her pa's money. I had heard my pa say that; and Mitch said, "I believe it—there was too much splurge over there, and why wasn't some man right here in this town good enough for Nellie?" After a while pa and ma came home, and Mitch hearin' 'em slipped out, and I was up-stairs by the time they came up, with my light out. So I heard pa and ma talk in the next room.

      Pa said: "Yep, you'll see it before six months. Mr. Bennett don't know any more about runnin' a store than the man who got his farm knows about runnin' a farm, which is nothin'. When men change their game, this way, they always lose. And that ain't all. Mr. Bennett is topplin' now. His house is mortgaged and he's hard up. But a fine house is always a bait to young men; and old folks always put out a bait in order to marry their daughters off."

      Ma said: "Nothin' of the kind. They don't have to put out any bait. Look at you—was there any bait about me?"

      "No," says pa.

      "Of course there wasn't," said ma. "And you went around sayin' it would kill you if I didn't marry you—and besides I have your letters for it."

      "Oh, well," says pa, "a fellow always does that."

      "Yes," ma said, "you're right, a fellow always does that, bait or no bait. And I think the way you talk about marriage sometimes is just awful, and if the children heard you, you'd be raisin' up children that suspicions marriage and every holy thing." And she went on to say that there was something wrong with pa and with lots of men, who went around cryin' and pretendin' to die, and then after they got the girl, talked about baits, and about bein' fooled.

      And pa said: "Do you know what a woman is?"

      And ma said: "I don't know what you think she is."

      "A woman," says pa, "is a bottle of wine. If you look at it and leave it alone, never open it, the wine is as harmless as water. And if you leave a woman alone, she can't do nothin' to you. She's just there on the table or the shelf—harmless and just a woman, just like the bottle of wine is just a bottle of wine. But if you get in love with her, that's like drinkin' the wine; she gets hold of you, and you begin to talk and tell your secrets, and make promises, and give your money away, just like a drunk man. Then if you marry her, that's like getting over the wine; you wake up and find you've been drunk and you wonder what you've said, and if you remember, you smile at yourself, and your wife throws up to you what you said and that you wrote her letters. And the man who put wine, women and song together, put three things that was just the same together."

      And ma says: "No, a woman ain't a bottle of wine at all; a woman is a bird."

      "What kind?" says pa.

      And ma says: "I don't know the name of the bird, but it roosts on the back of the hippopotamus. The hippopotamus is big and clumsy like a man and can't see very well, just like a man, and has lots of enemies like a man; so when enemies come this here bird sets up an awful clatter and squawkin' and that warns the hippopotamus and so he can run or defend himself. And if it wasn't for women, men couldn't get along, because they have to be warned and told things all the time, and given pointers what to do and how to act, and what is goin' on around—and the fact is women is brains, and men is just muscle."

      And pa says, "How does this bird live, if it's on the back of the hippopotamus all the time?" That kind of got ma, for she knew if the bird got off the back of the hippopotamus to eat, it couldn't warn the hippopotamus, and as the bird has to live, ma was kind of stumped, and she says—"Oh, well the bird lives all right, it catches things that flies by."

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