XVIII

THE HOMESTEADER’S MARRIAGE AND A LITTLE FUNERAL

     December 2, 1912.

DEAR MRS. CONEY,—­

Every time I get a new letter from you I get a new inspiration, and I am always glad to hear from you.

I have often wished I might tell you all about my Clyde, but have not because of two things.  One is I could not even begin without telling you what a good man he is, and I didn’t want you to think I could do nothing but brag.  The other reason is the haste I married in.  I am ashamed of that.  I am afraid you will think me a Becky Sharp of a person.  But although I married in haste, I have no cause to repent.  That is very fortunate because I have never had one bit of leisure to repent in.  So I am lucky all around.  The engagement was powerfully short because both agreed that the trend of events and ranch work seemed to require that we be married first and do our “sparking” afterward.  You see, we had to chink in the wedding between times, that is, between planting the oats and other work that must be done early or not at all.  In Wyoming ranchers can scarcely take time even to be married in the springtime.  That having been settled, the license was sent for by mail, and as soon as it came Mr. Stewart saddled Chub and went down to the house of Mr. Pearson, the justice of the peace and a friend of long standing.  I had never met any of the family and naturally rather dreaded to have them come, but Mr. Stewart was firm in wanting to be married at home, so he told Mr. Pearson he wanted him and his family to come up the following Wednesday and serve papers on the “wooman i’ the hoose.”  They were astonished, of course, but being such good friends they promised him all the assistance they could render.  They are quite the dearest, most interesting family!  I have since learned to love them as my own.

Well, there was no time to make wedding clothes, so I had to “do up” what I did have.  Isn’t it queer how sometimes, do what you can, work will keep getting in the way until you can’t get anything done?  That is how it was with me those few days before the wedding; so much so that when Wednesday dawned everything was topsy-turvy and I had a very strong desire to run away.  But I always did hate a “piker,” so I stood pat.  Well, I had most of the dinner cooked, but it kept me hustling to get the house into anything like decent order before the old dog barked, and I knew my moments of liberty were limited.  It was blowing a perfect hurricane and snowing like midwinter.  I had bought a beautiful pair of shoes to wear on that day, but my vanity had squeezed my feet a little, so while I was so busy at work I had kept on a worn old pair, intending to put on the new ones later; but when the Pearsons drove up all I thought about was getting them into the house where there was fire, so I forgot all about the old shoes and the apron I wore.