"He makes you work for nothing!"
Jube looked down at his brawny frame, and laughed again.
"Come, cuff, make haste!" cried the man whose wagon was waiting, "you"ve no time to lose. They"ll be coming out soon, and then it"s all day with your chance."
In his eager philanthropy, the man put his arm through Jube"s, and attempted to drag him toward the willow tree, where his horse was fastened, but Jube shook him off.
"Jube ride behind young ma.s.ser and Miss Rose. He happy there."
"Poor fellow," said the man, in a broken-hearted voice. "He don"t know what freedom is. Let him go. It"s too late now; they"re coming."
True enough, Paul De Varney and his bride were walking down the broad aisle of the church--he with a smile on his lips, and she with a warm flush of roses on her cheeks. Behind them came Hutchins and his family.
A carriage was drawn up at the door, ready to carry the bridal pair to Tom Hutchins" house, in the pine woods. Jube sprang forward to open the carriage door, and held his arm down to save that snowy bridal dress from a contact with the wheels.
Rose smiled upon him as she entered the carriage, and touched his shoulder, as if for support, which brought a blessing upon her in Jube"s broken English.
When Paul took his seat, Jube seized his hand and kissed it, thus giving his congratulations before those who would have lured him away in the kindness of their ignorance. The faithful fellow felt as if his master had been slandered when these men called him a slave, and so he was.
Directly after the carriage drove off, a smart, little one-horse wagon, yellow as an orange, took its place, and over the wheel leaped our friend Tom Hutchins, who waited, with the reins in his hand, till a little woman, with an infant on each arm, came out of the crowd. Tom took the boy baby in one arm, and held his horse with the other, till the little woman clambered over the front wheel to her seat. Then, after smoothing down its complication of garments, he settled the little trooper, as he called it, by its twin in their young mother"s lap, gave a leap to her side, and, with an old-fashioned crack of the whip, dashed after the wedding carriage.
Not till most of the congregation had left the church did Nelson Thrasher come forth with his wife, circled, as it were, by the old people, and supported by Captain Rice.
The bishop left his vestry and came with them, talking in a low, kind voice to Katharine for some moments on the steps of the church, when he left her with a fatherly shake of the hand. Several of the matrons and girls who had held aloof till then, came up and gave both Nelson and herself a cordial greeting. It was known that they had been invited to join the wedding party, and that young De Varney had left Thrasher in charge of his property during his proposed absence in Europe. This proof of confidence had a wonderful effect on the old neighbors, and quite a little group gathered around the husband and wife, giving them generous G.o.d speed.
Neither Katharine or her husband cared to join that bridal party down in the pine woods. The day had been too impressive and solemn for that. But with serene faces and hearts full of grat.i.tude, they entered the one-horse wagon that waited for them and followed the old folks slowly over the Bungy hills.
THE END.