For a little while longer--as long a while as I could spare from Polly--we talked of the impromptu wedding and arranged for it. Barrett was a brother to me in all that the word implies. He took on all of the "best man's" responsibilities--and more. When I was leaving to walk up the hill he walked to the corner of the side street with me, and at the last moment business intruded.
"I forgot to tell you," he cut in abruptly. "After you left yesterday afternoon a court notice was served upon us. Blackwell's lawyers have taken the Lawrenceburg suit to the Federal court--on the ground of alien ownership--and we've got to show cause all over again why we shouldn't be enjoined for trespass. Benedict seems to be more or less stirred up about it."
"If that is the case, I oughtn't to be going away," I said.
"Yes, you ought; Gifford and I can handle it."
Notwithstanding Barrett's assurance I was vaguely disturbed as I climbed the hill to the Everton cottage. Blackwell had proved to be a veritable bull-dog in the long-drawn-out fight, and the tenacity with which he was holding on was ominous. Why the Lawrenceburg people should make such a determined struggle to wipe us out was beyond my comprehension. It had been proved in the State courts, past a question of doubt, that our title to the Little Clean-Up was unassailable, and still Blackwell hung on. What was the animus?
If I could have had the answer to that question it is conceivable that my one evening as Polly Everton's affianced lover--an evening spent in the seventh heaven of ecstasy before the cheerful coal blaze in the cottage sitting-room--would have been sadly marred.
Our high-noon wedding was in all respects as quiet and unostentatious as we had planned it. The little brown box of a church, bare of decorations because there was neither time nor the group of vicariously interested young people to trim it, was only a few doors from the Everton cottage, and we walked to it; Phineas Everton and I on each side of the plank walk, and Polly between us with an arm for each.
Barrett had told a few of his friends, so there were enough people in the pews to make it look a little less than clandestine. Barrett acted as usher in one aisle and Gifford, very much out of his element but doggedly faithful, did his part in the other. There was even a bit of music; the Wagner as we went in, and a few bars of the Mendelssohn to speed us as we went out. The good-byes were said at the church-door, and the only abnormal thing about the leave-taking was Barrett's gift to the bride, pressed into her hand as we were getting into the carriage to go to the railroad station--a silver filigree hand-bag stuffed heavy with five- and ten-dollar gold pieces, "to be blown in on the wedding journey," as he phrased it.