The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1896-10-30
A WEDDING DAY.
BY MARY T. EARLE.

pine-needles carpeted it, up to the Hill
dreth garden. The crape-myrtles stood
stiff as sentinels beside the gate, but
the walk led up between it's borders
in confident welcome to blank open
space, all gray and powdery, as if it
had never seen the sunlight Cor felt moist
ure. The girl stood breathless, gazing at
it. The last of the spring roses scat
tered their petals lavishly around the
beds, and added their fragrance to the
sweetness of the cape jasmine and the
tiny fluffy balls of the acacias, but the
Hildreth house was gone. The holly
hooks and the high shrubs seemed to
be lifting themselves on tiptoe to look
down at the scar where it had been.
The breeze sighed little through the
great live-oak which had spent years
in spreading wide and generous to shade
the whole south gallery, and the mock
ing birds fitted in and out of its
branches with that swift spreading OF
their wings for fight which makes the
white bars in them always revelation.
After she had seen these things with
widening eyes, the girls hand went up
to her throat, and she gave Il little sob
"Is everything to changer" she asked,
half brokenly. Something in her mood
stood between her and natural sur
prise. She felt as if she had been pre-
pared to find the place like this, but the
tears rose in her eyes as she looked, for
each familiar beauty of it was some
thing bereaved. She opened the gate
and walked between the rose bushes
toward the spot where the house had
been, but when she reached it she
turned away. She threaded all the
bowery paths, and each seemed to hold
something which she must turn away
from, too; but when she stood by the
acacia tree she put out her hand and
touched it timidly. Soon, as it did not
forbid her, she lifted her hand, drew
down q branch, and picked just one OF
the tiny yellow tufts which breathe all
the sweetness of the esweetestdays of love
held it against her cheek for moment
and then, with trembling fingers, hid il
in the dark braids of her hair.
A faint ''yo-heave-o," like the sailors
hauling up an anchor, was waited
through the garden, and the girl raised
her face and looked about her desolate-
ly. Far down Live Oak lane, between
the rounded trees, she saw the Hill
dreth house. 1t seemed to have picked
up its doorsteps and started out across
the village; there was an excited CLEAN
in it's windows, and the sunlight, fall
ing more freely on it's roof than it ever
had done in the garden, gave it the
look of some tenderly shielded old per-
son that has stolen bareheaded away
from loving children, who do not re-
member that ag. has Ss restlessness.
The girl could notice now that way
had been cleared for the house to travel
backward out of the garden, leaving the
flowers courteously, as if they were
royal presence, and she followed in its
path through the opened panel of fence
and on into the lane, where the blue
simmer of the gulf ended the vistas of
light on either side of the house. She
walked eagerly, and her face dimpled
into smiles, yet even as she smiled she
put her hand up to her hair, anu the
depths of her eyes SILL kept their sor-
row. 81 don't see how Mrs. Hildreth
could leave her flowers" she said once
with sigh.
A band of creole woMlmen were pry
ing the house along on it's clumsy roll
ers, and shouting and singing resonant
ly at each slow forward lurch. Their
voices had the sweetness of a summer
land and knowledge of the sea, and they
worked at leisure and gracefully, Their
red or blue shirts shining out against
the greenery which still clung to the
Hildreth house, for it had not laid aside
it's vines, but was carrying their roots
daintily clear of the ground in baskets
Just as another dear old fugitive might
lift her skirts.
a woman with rosy cheeks and
smooth brown hair was sitting by the
window, and as the girl approached she
Ieached down to help her take the long
step from the road to the door-sill
Connie Bainbridge,' she said, II don't
know of anyone L would rather have
come walking in like this to act as
bridesmaid on wedding day" "and she
drew her visitor into q room that was
startlingly unchanged except for the
glory of flowers with which the garden
had said good-by. 1t was hard to re-
member that in the garden they had not
been missed at all.
The girl sank into chair and looked
about her wearily. A long string OF
gulls eggs, creamy and softly fecked,
hung near her on the wall. She took
hold of them as she so often had before,
and PASSED them through her fingers
like a rosary. "Your wedding day?''
she said.
anniversary, of course, l mean,' y
Mrs. Hildreth answered, looking out
through a window that gave glimpse
of the beckoning sea. She smiled mus
ingly as she looked. There was always
something of generous content abou-
her, as if life grew sweeter and broader
with the afternoon sun; and Connie
cambridge remembered that when the
house had stood in its garden she herself
had never lifted the gate latch and
walked in between the roses without
leaving every care behind. But now her
heart had learned a different way. She
took down the great rosary so that she
might bend her head over it. "What
Is happening?" she asked.
Mrs. Hildreth looked at her, noticing
the tone. "You see, we always celebrate
each wedding day" she said. "When
we come to the rounded numbers, we
invite people, and do as they expect us
to; but on the other years, that most
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