第27章 IN SIGHT OF THE BLUE WALL ONCE MORE(5)

Polly Ann was radiant in a white linen gown, woven and sewed by her own hands.It was not such a gown as Mrs.Temple, Nick's mother, would have worn, and yet she was to me an hundred times more beautiful than that lady in all her silks.Peeping out from under it were the little blue-beaded moccasins which Tom himself had brought across the mountains in the bosom of his hunting shirt.Polly Ann was radiant, and yet at times so rapturously shy that when the preacher announced himself ready to tie the knot she ran into the house and hid in the cupboard--for Polly Ann was a child of nature.Thence, coloring like a wild rose, she was dragged by a boisterous bevy of girls in linsey-woolsey to the spreading maple of the forest that stood on the high bank over the stream.

The assembly fell solemn, and not a sound was heard save the breathing of Nature in the heyday of her time.

And though I was happy, the sobs rose in my throat.

There stood Polly Ann, as white now as the bleached linen she wore, and Tom McChesney, tall and spare and broad, as strong a figure of a man as ever I laid eyes on.God had truly made that couple for wedlock in His leafy temple.

The deep-toned words of the preacher in prayer broke the stillness.They were made man and wife.And then began a day of merriment, of unrestraint, such as the backwoods alone knows.The feast was spread out in the long grass under the trees--sides of venison, bear meat, corn-pone fresh baked by Mrs.McChesney and Polly Ann herself, and all the vegetables in the patch.There was no stint, either, of maple beer and rum and ``Black Betty,''

and toasts to the bride and groom amidst gusts of laughter ``that they might populate Kaintuckee.'' And Polly Ann would have it that I should sit by her side under the maple.

The fiddlers played, and there were foot races and shooting matches.Ay, and wrestling matches in the severe manner of the backwoods between the young bucks, more than one of which might have ended seriously were it not for the high humor of the crowd.Tom McChesney himself was in most of them, a hot favorite.By a trick he had learned in the Indian country he threw Chauncey Dike (no mean adversary) so hard that the backwoods dandy lay for a moment in sleep.Contrary to the custom of many, Tom was not in the habit of crowing on such occasions, nor did he even smile as he helped Chauncey to his feet.But Polly Ann knew, and I knew, that he was thinking of what Chauncey had said to her.

So the long summer afternoon wore away into twilight, and the sun fell behind the blue ridges we were to cross.

Pine knots were lighted in the big room, the fiddlers set to again, and then came jigs and three and four handed reels that made the puncheons rattle,--chicken-flutter and cut-the-buckle,--and Polly Ann was the leader now, the young men flinging the girls from fireplace to window in the reels, and back again; and when, panting and perspiring, the lass was too tired to stand longer, she dropped into the hospitable lap of the nearest buck who was perched on the bench along the wall awaiting his chance.

For so it went in the backwoods in those days, and long after, and no harm in it that ever I could see.

Well, suddenly, as if by concert, the music stopped, and a shout of laughter rang under the beams as Polly Ann flew out of the door with the girls after her, as swift of foot as she.They dragged her, a struggling captive, to the bride-chamber which made the other end of the house, and when they emerged, blushing and giggling and subdued, the fun began with Tom McChesney.He gave the young men a pretty fight indeed, and long before they had him conquered the elder guests had made their escape through door and window.

All night the reels and jigs went on, and the feasting and drinking too.In the fine rain that came at dawn to hide the crests, the company rode wearily homeward through the notches.