第44章 CHAPTER XIV.(1)

POMONA TAKES A BRIDAL TRIP.

Our life at Rudder Grange seemed to be in no way materially changed by my becoming a vestryman. The cow gave about as much milk as before, and the hens laid the usual number of eggs. Euphemia went to church with a little more of an air, perhaps, but as the wardens were never absent, and I was never, therefore, called upon to assist in taking up the collection, her sense of my position was not inordinately manifested.

For a year or two, indeed, there was no radical change in anything about Rudder Grange, except in Pomona. In her there was a change.

She grew up.

She performed this feat quite suddenly. She was a young girl when she first came to us, and we had never considered her as anything else, when one evening she had a young man to see her. Then we knew she had grown up.

We made no objections to her visitors,--she had several, from time to time,--"for," said Euphemia, "suppose my parents had objected to your visits." I could not consider the mere possibility of anything like this, and we gave Pomona all the ordinary opportunities for entertaining her visitors. To tell the truth, Ithink we gave her more than the ordinary opportunities. I know that Euphemia would wait on herself to almost any extent, rather than call upon Pomona, when the latter was entertaining an evening visitor in the kitchen or on the back porch.

"Suppose my mother," she once remarked, in answer to a mild remonstrance from me in regard to a circumstance of this nature,--"suppose my mother had rushed into our presence when we were plighting our vows, and had told me to go down into the cellar and crack ice!"It was of no use to talk to Euphemia on such subjects; she always had an answer ready.

"You don't want Pomona to go off and be married, do you?" I asked, one day as she was putting up some new muslin curtains in the kitchen. "You seem to be helping her to do this all you can, and yet I don't know where on earth you will get another girl who will suit you so well.""I don't know, either," replied Euphemia, with a tack in her mouth, and I'm sure I don't want her to go. But neither do I want winter to come, or to have to wear spectacles; but I suppose both of these things will happen, whether I like it or not."For some time after this Pomona had very little company, and we began to think that there was no danger of any present matrimonial engagement on her part,--a thought which was very gratifying to us, although we did not wish in any way to interfere with her prospects,--when, one afternoon, she quietly went up into the village and was married.

Her husband was a tall young fellow, a son of a farmer in the county, who had occasionally been to see her, but whom she must have frequently met on her "afternoons out."When Pomona came home and told us this news we were certainly well surprised.

"What on earth are we to do for a girl?" cried Euphemia.

"You're to have me till you can get another one," said Pomona quietly. "I hope you don't think I'd go 'way, and leave you without anybody.""But a wife ought to go to her husband," said Euphemia, "especially so recent a bride. Why didn't you let me know all about it? Iwould have helped to fit you out. We would have given you the nicest kind of a little wedding.""I know that," said Pomona; "you're jus' good enough. But I didn't want to put you to all that trouble--right in preserving-time too.

An' he wanted it quiet, for he's awful backward about shows. An'

as I'm to go to live with his folks,--at least in a little house on the farm,--I might as well stay here as anywhere, even if I didn't want to, for I can't go there till after frost.""Why not?" I asked.

"The chills and fever," said she. "They have it awful down in that valley. Why, he had a chill while we was bein' married, right at the bridal altar.""You don't say so!" exclaimed Euphemia. "How dreadful!""Yes, indeed," said Pomona. "He must 'a' forgot it was his chill-day, and he didn't take his quinine, and so it come on him jus' as he was apromisin' to love an' pertect. But he stuck it out, at the minister's house, and walked home by his-self to finish his chill.""And you didn't go with him?" cried Euphemia, indignantly.

"He said, no. It was better thus. He felt it weren't the right thing to mingle the agur with his marriage vows. He promised to take sixteen grains to-morrow, and so I came away. He'll be all right in a month or so, an' then we'll go an' keep house. You see it aint likely I could help him any by goin' there an' gettin' it myself.""Pomona," said Euphemia, "this is dreadful. You ought to go and take a bridal tour and get him rid of those fearful chills.""I never thought of that," said Pomona, her face lighting up wonderfully.

Now that Euphemia had fallen upon this happy idea, she never dropped it until she had made all the necessary plans, and had put them into execution. In the course of a week she had engaged another servant, and had started Pomona and her husband off on a bridal-tour, stipulating nothing but that they should take plenty of quinine in their trunk.

It was about three weeks after this, and Euphemia and I were sitting on our front steps,--I had come home early, and we had been potting some of the tenderest plants,--when Pomona walked in at the gate. She looked well, and had on a very bright new dress.

Euphemia noticed this the moment she came in. We welcomed her warmly, for we felt a great interest in this girl, who had grown up in our family and under our care.

"Have you had your bridal trip?" asked Euphemia.

"Oh yes!" said Pomona. "It's all over an' done with, an' we're settled in our house.""Well, sit right down here on the steps and tell us all about it,"said Euphemia, in a glow of delightful expectancy, and Pomona, nothing loth, sat down and told her tale.