It was four o’clock when the ceremony was over
and the carriages began to arrive. There had
been a crowd following all the way, owing to the exuberance
of Marija Berczynskas. The occasion rested heavily
upon Marija’s broad shoulders—it
was her task to see that all things went in due form,
and after the best home traditions; and, flying wildly
hither and thither, bowling every one out of the way,
and scolding and exhorting all day with her tremendous
voice, Marija was too eager to see that others conformed
to the proprieties to consider them herself. She
had left the church last of all, and, desiring to arrive
first at the hall, had issued orders to the coachman
to drive faster. When that personage had developed
a will of his own in the matter, Marija had flung
up the window of the carriage, and, leaning out, proceeded
to tell him her opinion of him, first in Lithuanian,
which he did not understand, and then in Polish, which
he did. Having the advantage of her in altitude,
the driver had stood his ground and even ventured to
attempt to speak; and the result had been a furious
altercation, which, continuing all the way down Ashland
Avenue, had added a new swarm of urchins to the cortege
at each side street for half a mile.
This was unfortunate, for already there was a throng
before the door. The music had started up, and
half a block away you could hear the dull “broom,
broom” of a cello, with the squeaking of two
fiddles which vied with each other in intricate and
altitudinous gymnastics. Seeing the throng, Marija
abandoned precipitately the debate concerning the
ancestors of her coachman, and, springing from the
moving carriage, plunged in and proceeded to clear
a way to the hall. Once within, she turned and
began to push the other way, roaring, meantime, “Eik!
Eik! Uzdaryk-duris!” in tones which made
the orchestral uproar sound like fairy music.
“Z. Graiczunas, Pasilinksminimams darzas.
Vynas. Sznapsas. Wines and Liquors.
Union Headquarters”—that was the way
the signs ran. The reader, who perhaps has never
held much converse in the language of far-off Lithuania,
will be glad of the explanation that the place was
the rear room of a saloon in that part of Chicago known
as “back of the yards.” This information
is definite and suited to the matter of fact; but
how pitifully inadequate it would have seemed to one
who understood that it was also the supreme hour of
ecstasy in the life of one of God’s gentlest
creatures, the scene of the wedding feast and the
joy-transfiguration of little Ona Lukoszaite!
