A week before the time appointed mother was taken very ill, which made it necessary that the wedding should be postponed, or take place somewhere else.  To the first Mike would not hear, and as good old Parson S——­, whose sermons were never more than two hours long, came regularly every Sunday night to preach in the schoolhouse, Mike proposed that they be married there.  Sally did not like this exactly, but grandmother, who now ruled the household, said it was just the thing, and accordingly it took place there.

The house was filled full, and those who could not obtain seats took their station near the windows.  Our party was early, but I was three times compelled to relinquish my seat in favor of more distinguished persons, and I began to think that if any one was obliged to go home for want of room, it would be me; but I resolutely determined not to go.  I’d climb the chestnut tree first!  At last I was squeezed on a high desk between two old ladies, wearing two old black bonnets, their breath sufficiently tinctured with tobacco smoke to be very disagreeable to me, whose olfactories chanced to be rather aristocratic than otherwise.

To my horror Father S——­ concluded to give us the sermon before he did the bride.  He was afraid some of his audience would leave.  Accordingly there ensued a prayer half an hour long, after which eight verses of a long meter psalm were sung to the tune of Windham.  By this time I gave a slight sign to the two old ladies that I would like to move, but they merely shook their two black bonnets at me, telling me, in fierce whispers, that “I mustn’t stir in meetin’.”  Mustn’t stir!  I wonder how I could stir, squeezed in as I was, unless they chose to let me.  So I sat bolt upright, looking straight ahead at a point where the tips of my red shoes were visible, for my feet were sticking straight out.

All at once my attention was drawn to a spider on the wall, who was laying a net for a fly, and in watching his maneuvers I forgot the lapse of time, until Father S——­ had passed his sixthly and seventhly, and was driving furiously away at the eighthly.  By this time the spider had caught the fly, whose cries sounded to me like the waters of the sawmill; the tips of my red shoes looked like the red berries which grew near the mine; the two old ladies at my side were transformed into two tall black walnut trees, while I seemed to be sliding down-hill.

At this juncture, one of the old ladies moved away from me a foot at least (she could have done so before had she chosen to), and I was precipitated off from the bench, striking my head on the sharp corner of a seat below.  It was a dreadful blow which I received, making the blood gush from my nostrils.  My loud screams brought matters to a focus, and the sermon to an end.  My grandmother and one of the old ladies took me and the water pail outdoors, where I was literally deluged; at the same time they called me “Poor girl!  Poor Mollie!  Little dear,” etc.