probable cause of the strain that was beginning to show around the edges of their lives. Today the strain seemed to have gone. It promised to be a grand day.
The churchyard was filled with noisy Garners. Waving a greeting to the Grays, Mabel Garner yelled, 'Ain't this some day? Somebody said there was a weddin' here today so I come along, but damned if I know whose 'tis. Can't be none of my own, 'cause I sure ain't feelin' old enough to be a mother-in-law yet!'
Uncle Garner was spit-shined and smiling, proud of the robust woman on his arm. 'Mother, you don't look old enough,' he said, and for once her bellowing was silenced. There was a pleased gleam in her eye as Uncle Garner ushered her toward the church door.
The vows were spoken. Catherine was radiant and Michael was nervous and Mary cried. The church was crowded and stuffy. Women fanned themselves with gloves and prayer books. Toward the end of the service Mary felt the closeness become dizzying. But then the service ended and the back doors opened to let the air flow in. The new bride and groom ran out, followed by their parents and the rest of the congreg- ation, their ears buffeted by Mabel Garner's voice even before they reached the doors.
Everyone repaired to the bride's home, the line of wagons, carriages, and calashes raising dust down the gravel road all the way from the church to the Garner farm four miles away. When all the guests had arrived, the yard was dotted thickly with wagons. The horses were turned into the near, fenced pasture, for they would spend a long day here. Their wedding feast would be the lush June grass. It was a day for children to pick up a prized penny or two by unhitching horses for the arriving guests or fetching horses from the pasture when a guest left. At a gathering like this, the kids outnumbered the adults, and the yard swarmed with them. Ladies were kept busy mixing lemonade and nectar at the well to keep the thirsty young horde happy. As the day wore on, some would be sick from too much sweet stuff and some would be tipsy from the beer they'd nipped when glasses were left unattended by grownups.
Uncle Garner had tapped the beer kegs under a shady tree and by the end of the day the grass would be flattened there, the mud smelling yeasty where the spigots had dripped. In another spot in the yard, ice cream was being frozen, and the call went up for another able-bodied man to turn the crank. Children ran past the washtub and stole any ice they could lay a hand on, considering it nearly as big a treat as the ice cream would be. Ice was a precious commodity in June. Uncle Garner had chopped it from a frozen pond in March, hauled it from there to his ice house, packed it with insulating sawdust, and kept it frozen all these weeks.
Mabel Garner's front parlor was converted to a gift room, and the packages were left there. Most gifts were wrapped in brown paper or newspaper, but many were not wrapped at all. Since brides were not showered with gifts beforehand, the collection in the parlor was impressive. A good share of these were homemade: quilts, dish towels, feather ticks, doilies, pillows, and small pieces of furniture. There was also a large assortment of kitchenware, enough to set any new household on its feet. Dishes, crocks, porcel- ain and iron cookware, churns, paddles, mason jars (most of them filled with home-canned foods), silverware, and a variety of small kitchen tools-Catherine would need all of these.
She cried upon entering the gift room, moved by the magnitude of Bohemian generosity.
But the kitchen was the center of activity as a raft of cooks worked to feed the guests in shifts, starting first with the impatient children. Customarily, the bride's mother was ex- cused from kitchen duty after the week of hectic preparations she'd seen to, but Mabel Garner blustered her way in and out, saying, 'That'll be the day, when a bunch of whipper- snappers put me out of my own kitchen!' And she helped serve the food she and her girls had been readying all week.
There were platters piled high with kolacky, rich, fruit-filled breads; mushroom-shaped kulich; roasters filled with meat- stuffed cabbage rolls, called sarma; and the ever-present dumplings, studded with caraway seeds and swimming in chicken-cream gravy. Mountains of mashed potatoes were carried to the tables in the yard. Ham in thick raisin sauce raised expressions of ap proval and made the children's tongues circle their lips in anticipation. Coffee was brewed in two-gallon pots, the freshly ground beans mixed with raw eggs, shell and all, for Mabel Garner claimed the shells made it clear.
When the first shift of adults came to take their places at the table, the coffee had reached perfection. The children's plates and silverware were being washed for the shift of adults who'd be seated at the table next. And the food kept coming.
Above the voices in the farmyard rang the sound of horseshoes. Children had begun making darts of corncobs, sinking long chicken feathers into the soft pith centers and hurling them in contests of distance and accuracy, the corncobs spiraling through the air in perfect balance. In the crowd were master storytellers and comedians. Two buffoons appeared from downyard, one crawling on hands and knees, harnessed in Uncle Garner's horses' gear, pulling a plow manned by his friend. The crowd milled around, and their impromptu comedy gained momentum from the hoots of laughter and knee-slapping of those gathered around.
Again Mabel Garner's voice rang out above all those around her, as she called to the man holding the reins, 'Seth Adams, you could plow your fields faster with the nag you're steering there than with those two old pieces of crow bait you call horses!'
And surprisingly, Uncle Garner raised his voice to tease, 'Never mind her, Seth. It takes one old piece of crow bait to recognize another!'
And Mabel's laughter swooped while her fist shook in her husband's direction.
It was in the middle of this merriment, as Aaron was en- joying the antics along with everyone else, that he felt a tug and, looking down, found Newt Volence pulling on his arm. 'Hi, Aaron,' said Newt.
In a spontaneous action, Aaron scooped the little boy up in his arm, and Newt gave the man a big hug, pasting his sticky face against Aaron's as he did. 'How's my boy?' Aaron asked, feeling a keen pleasure at seeing the rapscallion again. 'My belly kinda hurts,' the imp confessed. 'Well, I think I know why,' Aaron kidded. 'If your belly's filled with half as much food as your face is, it's bound to hurt!'
Newt proceeded to rub a grimy hand across a cheek and a corner of his mouth, leaving a smear of dirt plastered where only the food had been before. 'How come you never come to see me no more, Aaron?'
Much as he liked holding the boy, Aaron feared for his suit coat under Newt's grimy paws, so he set the mite down and squatted beside him. 'Been mighty busy with the planting. I had to help my brother get the crops in, you know.' 'Aw, shoot, plantin's done a long time ago. How come you ain't come since then?' 'Well, I've been meaning to, but I just haven't gotten around to it lately, I guess.' Then Aaron asked, 'How're you getting along with that new baby?'
'Aww, he ain't no fun. He can't play with me, and every- body yells at me not to get too close to him, and I can't make no noise in the house or nothin',' the child confided. But he wasn't to be sidetracked. 'Why don't you come to my house no more, Aaron? I like you better'n that old baby, anyway.' 'Well, I've just been too busy. You know Jonathan went clear down to Minneapolis on the train and bought a real special little bull calf, and we've been busy building a fence for him.' 'Aw, shucks, Aaron, one little bull calf don't take much fencin'.'
The child was dauntless, and as Aaron stood up, laughing, he replied, 'Shucks is right! I guess Jonathan and I should have thought of that ourselves, Newt.'
But just then Priscilla approached, and when she got to Newt she scolded, 'Ma was wondering where you were. She said to tell you she saw you snitchin' somebody's beer and you are not to drink any more of it, you hear?' 'I hear,' Newt said, scuffling a foot in the dirt, his face downcast.
Pris looked up at Aaron then, squinting into the sun. 'Hello, Pris. How have you been?' 'Howdy, Aaron. I'm fine. Busier than ever, helping Ma around the house with the new baby and all.' 'I says Aaron should come to see us again,' Newt put in here, looking up at the couple standing high above him. 'Huh, Pris?' he asked when she made no reply.
'Yeah, sure. We'd all love it, Aaron. We really would.' But her voice was noncommittal.
He looked down at her pretty face and felt a lonesomeness for something she or he had missed, something they had missed together, and answered, 'I'll do that again someday soon.' He was sorry Newt heard it, for the little fellow would take him at his word and undoubtedly wait for the visit that would not come.
Pris gave her little brother a nudge. 'Come on. Ma says she wants to talk to you and she can't leave the baby.' As she herded the little boy away in front of her, he turned to wave a sticky farewell to Aaron. Aaron then heard Newt ask, his face turned up to his sister as he hurried along with her, 'Hey, whatsa matter with you and
