“So Uncle Henry hitched up his fat white horse to the buggy, and him and Aunt Mollie drove round the country for three days, inviting folks to their wedding.  Aunt Mollie had the time of her life.  It seemed as if there wasn’t no way whatever to get a sense of shame into that brazen old hussy.  And when this job was done she got busy with her trousseau, which consisted of a bridge gown in blue organdie, and a pair of high white shoes.  She didn’t know what a bridge gown was for, but she liked the looks of one in a pattern book and sent down to Red Gap for Miss Gunslaugh to bring up the stuff and make it.  And she’d always had this secret yearning for a pair of high white shoes; so they come up, too.

“Furthermore, Aunt Mollie had read the city paper for years and knew about wedding breakfasts; so she was bound to have one of those.  It looked like a good time was going to be had by all present except the lady who started it.  Mrs. Julia was more malignantly scandalized by these festal preparations than she had been by the original crime; but she had to go through with it now.

“The date had been set and we was within three days of it when Aunt Mollie postponed it three days more because Dave Pickens couldn’t be there until this later day.  Mrs. Julia made a violent protest, because she had made her plans to leave for larger fields of crime; but Aunt Mollie was stubborn.  She said Dave Pickens was one of the oldest neighbours and she wouldn’t have a wedding he couldn’t attend; and besides, marriage was a serious step and she wasn’t going to be hurried into it.

“So Mrs. Julia went to a lot of trouble about her ticket and reservations, and stayed over.  She was game enough not to run out before Uncle Henry had made Aunt Mollie a lady.  I was a good deal puzzled about this postponement.  Dave Pickens was nothing to postpone anything for.  There never was any date that he couldn’t be anywhere—­at least, unless he had gone to work after losing his fiddle, which was highly ridiculous.

“The date held this time.  We get word the wedding is to be held in the evening and that everyone must stay there overnight.  This was surprising, but simple after Aunt Mollie explained it.  The guests, of course, had to stay over for the wedding breakfast.  Aunt Mollie had figured it all out.  A breakfast is something you eat in the morning, about six-thirty or seven; so a wedding breakfast must be held the morning after the wedding.  You couldn’t fool Aunt Mollie on social niceties.

“Anyway, there we all was at the wedding; Uncle Henry in his black suit and his shiny new teeth, and Aunt Mollie in her bridge gown and white shoes, and this young minister that wore a puzzled look from start to finish.  I guess he never did know what kind of a game he was helping out in.  But he got through with the ceremony.  There proved to be not a soul present knowing any reason why this pair shouldn’t be joined together in holy wedlock, though Mrs. Julia looked more severe than usual at this part of the ceremony.  Uncle Henry and Aunt Mollie was firm in their responses and promised to cling to each other till death did them part.  They really sounded as if they meant it.