Part 8

"Swing your pardner!" he whooped.

Andy P. Symes slipped his arm about Essie Tisdale's waist and the dance moved fast and furious.

"Join your hands and circle to the left!"

Around they went in a giddy whirl and starched petticoats stood out like hoopskirts.

"First lady swing with the right hand round with the right hand gent!"

The train of Mrs. Abe Tutts's diaphanous "tea-gown" laid out on the breeze, thereby revealing the fact that she was wearing Congress gaiters, comfortable but not "dressy."

"Pardner with your left with your left hand round!"

Andy P. Symes held Essie Tisdale's hand in a lingering clasp and whispered in foolish flattery:

"Terpsichore herself outdone!"

"Swing in the centre and seven hands around. Birdie hop out and crow hop in! Take holt of paddies and run around agin!"

Abe Tutts executed a double shuffle on the corner.

"Allemande Joe! Eight hand to pardner and around you go! Balance to corners, don't be slack! Turn right around and take a back track! When you git home, don't be afraid. Swing her agin and all promenade!"

It was a glorious dance and it moved unflaggingly to the end; but when it was done and the dancers laughing and exhausted sought their seats, it was discovered that Snake River Jim had fallen to weeping because he said it was his unhappy lot to work while others danced.

Therefore Sylvanus Starr suggested that out of a delicate regard for an artist's feelings, and no one could deny but Snake River Jim was that, the dance be temporarily suspended while the bridegroom and others expressed their sentiments and delight in the occasion by a few remarks, Sylvanus Starr himself setting the example by bursting into an eulogy which had the impassioned fervor of inspiration.

The vocabulary of laudatory adjectives gleaned in many years' experience in the obituary department of an eastern newspaper were ejected like volcanic matter, red hot and unrestrained, running over and around the name of Symes to harden into sentences of which "a magnificent specimen of manhood, a physical and intellectual giant, gallantly snatching from our midst the fairest flower that ever bloomed upon a desert waste," only moderately illustrates the editor's gift of language.

When Andy P. Symes stood on a chair and faced the expectant throng the few trite remarks which he had in mind all but fled when his eyes fell for the first time upon his bride buttoned into her "going away gown." As he mounted the chair his face wore the set smile of the man who means to die a nervy death on the gallows. His voice sounded strained and unnatural to himself as he began:

"Ladies and gentlemen."

"Wee-hee!" squealed a youth in a leather collar and a rattleskin necktie.

"This is the happiest moment of my life!"

"Wee-ough! It ought to be!" yelled the "Sheep King of Poison Crick" as he pressed the arms of the Misses Starr gently and impartially against his sides.

"Also the proudest moment." He looked at his bride, noting that she wore a broach which might have belonged on a set of harness.

"Yip! Yip! Yee-ough!"

"I am deeply conscious of my own unworthiness and not insensible to the fact that the gods have singled me out for special favor----"

Any reference to the gods was considered a mark of learning and eloquence, so Symes's humble admission was loudly applauded.

"Love, the Wise Ones say, 'is blind.' If this is true it is my earnest wish that I may remain so, for I desire to continue to regard my wife as the most beautiful, attractive, charming of her sex." He bowed elaborately toward the grotesque figure whose adoring eyes were fixed upon his face.

The guests howled in ecstasy at this flight of sentiment and only Dr. Harpe caught the sneering note beneath the commonplaces he uttered with such convincing fervor.

"What a cad," she thought, yet she looked in something like admiration at his towering figure. "If only he had brains in proportion to his body he might accomplish great things here," she murmured. Shrugging her shoulder, she added: "I envy him his chance."

It did not occur to any person present that this wedding was an important, far-reaching event to any save the principals; but to Essie Tisdale and to Dr. Harpe it was a turning point in their careers. It meant waning triumphs to the merry little belle of Crowheart, while it spread a fallow field before Dr. Harpe the planting of which in deeds of good or evil was as surely in her hands as is the seed the farmer sows for his ultimate harvest. Which it was to be, can be surmised from the fact that already she was considering how soon, and in what way, she might utilize her knowledge after Symes's return from his wedding journey.