Mitch Miller | Page 7

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