In silence they passed out--walking
toward the edge of the clearing. Half-way she paused. He lifted his hat and
held out his hand. She laid hers in it and they gave each other the long
clinging grasp of affection."Always be a good man," she said, tightening her
grasp and turning her face away.
As he was hurrying off, she called to him in a voice full of emotion:
"Come back!"
He wheeled and walked towards her blindly.
She scanned his face, feature by feature.
"Take off your hat!" she said with a tremulous little laugh. He did so and
she looked at his forehead and his hair.
"Go now, dear friend!" she said calmly but quickly.
XXI
It was the morning of the wedding.
According to the usage of the time the marriage ceremony was to take place
early in the forenoon, in order that the guests, gathered in from distant
settlements of the wilderness, might have a day for festivity and still
reach home before night. Late in the afternoon the bridal couple, escorted
by many friends, were to ride into town to Joseph's house, and in the
evening there was to be a house-warming.
The custom of the backwoods country ran that a man must not be left to build
his house alone; and one day some weeks before this wagons had begun to roll
in from this direction and that
direction out of the forest, hauling the logs for Joseph's cabin.
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