And the excitement of it all. The single-minded, wholesome delight in the thought of this wedding was as refreshing as the crisp breezes of a first bright spring day. To a woman they reveled in the thought. It was the first wedding actually to take place in the village for over seven years. Everybody marrying during that period had elected to seek the consummation of their happiness elsewhere. And as a consequence of this enthusiasm, there was a surplus of help in getting the meeting-room suitably clad for the occasion, and the preparations for the "sociable" and dance which were to follow the ceremony.
Was there ever such a day in Barnriff? the women asked each other. None of them remembered one. Then look at the day itself. True it was the height of summer; but then who had not seen miserable weather in summer? Look at the sun gleaming out of a perfect azure.
Mrs. Crombie, a florid dame of adequate size, if of doubtful dignity to fill her position as spouse of Barnriff's first citizen, dragged Mrs. Horsley, the lay preacher's wife, through the door of the Mission Room, in which, with the others, they were both working at the decorations, to view the sky.
"Look at it, my dear!" she cried enthusiastically. "Was there ever a better omen for the poor dear? Not a cloud _anywhere_. Not one. And it's deep blue, too; none of your steel blues, or one of them fady blues running to white. Say, ain't she lucky? Now, when Crombie took me the heavens was just pouring. Everybody said 'Tears' prompt enough, and with reason. That's what _they_ said. But me and Crombie has never shed a tear; no, not one. We've just laffed our way clear through to this day, we have. Well, I won't say Crombie does a heap of laffing, but you'll take my meaning."
And Carrie Horsley took it. She would have agreed to anything so long as she could get a chance to empty her reservoirs of enthusiasm into the Barnriff sea.
"You sure are a lucky woman, Kate. Maybe the rain wasn't an omen for you at all. Maybe it was for the folks that _didn't_ marry on that day. You see, it's easy reading these things wrong. Now I never read omens wrong, an' the one I see this morning when I was bathin' my little Sammy boy was dead sure. You see, I got to bathe him every morning for his spots, which is a heap better now. And I'm real glad, for Abe has got them spots on his mind. He guessed it was my blood out of order. Said I needed sulphur in my tea. I kicked at that, an' said he'd need to drink it, too. An', as he allowed he'd given up tea on account of his digestion, nothing come of it. Of course I knew Sammy boy's spots was on'y a teething rash, but men is so queer; spechully if the child's the first, and a boy. Now what----"