Pat beat eggs and stirred innumerable cakes, taking turns with Sid in eating the savory scrapings from the bowls. The house was full of delicious smells from morning till night. And everywhere it was “Pat, come here,” and “Pat, run there,” till she was fairly bewildered.
“Aisy now,” remonstrated Judy. “Make yer head save yer heels, darlint. ‘Tis a great lesson to learn. Iverything’ll sort itsilf out in God’s good time. They do be imposing on ye a bit but Judy’ll see yer not put upon too much. Sure and I don’t see how we’d iver get yer Aunt Hazel married widout ye.”
They wouldn’t have got the wedding butter without her, that was certain. Judy had kept the blue cow’s milk back for a week from the factory and the day before the wedding she started to churn it in the old-fashioned crank churn which she would never surrender for anything more modern. Judy churned and churned until Pat, going down into the cool, cobwebby cellar in mid-forenoon, found her “clane distracted.”
“The crame’s bewitched,” said Judy in despair. “Me arms are fit to drop off at the roots and niver a sign av butter yet.”
It was not to be thought of that mother should churn and Aunt Hazel was busy with a hundred things. Dad was sent for from the barn and agreed to have a whirl at it. But after churning briskly for half an hour he gave it up as a bad job.
“You may as well give the cream to the pigs, Judy,” he said. “We’ll have to buy the butter at the store.”
This was absolute disgrace for Judy. To buy the butter from the store and only the Good Man Above knowing who made it! She went to get the dinner, feeling that the green wedding was at the bottom of it.
Pat slipped off the apple barrel where she had been squatted, and began to churn. It was great fun. She had always wanted to churn and Judy would never let her because if the cream were churned too slow or too fast the butter would be too hard or too soft. But now it didn’t matter and she could churn to her heart’s content. Splash … splash … splash! Flop … flop … flop! Thud … thud … thud! Swish … swish … swish! The business of turning the crank had grown gradually harder and Pat had just decided that for once in her life she had got all the churning she wanted when it suddenly grew lighter and Judy came down to call her to dinner.
“I’ve churned till I’m all in a sweat, Judy.”
Judy was horrified.
“A sweat, is it? Niver be using such a word, girleen. Remimber the Binnies may sweat but the Gardiners perspire. And now I s’pose I’ll have to be giving the crame to the pigs. ‘Tis a burning shame, that it is … the blue cow’s crame and all … and bought butter for a Silver Bush widding! But what wud ye ixpect wid grane dresses? I’m asking ye. Inny one might av known …”
Judy had lifted the cover from the churn and her eyes nearly popped out of her head.
“If the darlint hasn’t brought the butter! Here it is, floating round in the buttermilk, as good butter as was iver churned. And wid her liddle siven-year-old arms, whin nather meself nor Long Alec cud come be it. Oh, oh, just let me be after telling the whole fam’ly av it!”
Probably Pat never had such another moment of triumph in her whole life.
Chapter 7
Here Comes the Bride
1
The wedding day came at last.
Pat had been counting dismally towards it for a week. Only four more days to have Aunt Hazel at Silver Bush … only three … only two — only one. Pat had the good fortune to sleep with Judy the night before, because her bedroom was needed for the guests who came from afar. So she wakened with Judy before sunrise and slipped down anxiously to see what kind of a day it was going to be.
“Quane’s weather!” said Judy in a tone of satisfaction. “I was a bit afraid last night we’d have rain, bekase there was a ring around the moon and it’s ill-luck for the bride the rain falls on, niver to mintion all the mud and dirt tracked in. Now I’ll just slip out and tell the sun to come up and thin I’ll polish off the heft av the milking afore yer dad gets down. The poor man’s worn to the bone wid all the ruckus.”
“Wouldn’t the sun come up if you didn’t tell it, Judy?”
“I’m taking no chances on a widding day, me jewel.”
While Judy was out milking Pat prowled about Silver Bush. How queer a house was in the early morning before people were up! Just as if it were watching for something. Of course all the rooms had an unfamiliar look on account of the wedding. The Big Parlour had been filled with a flame of autumn leaves and chrysanthemums. The new curtains were so lovely that Pat felt a fierce regret the Binnies were not to be among the guests at the house. Just fancy May’s face if she saw them! The Little Parlour was half full of wedding presents. The table had been laid in the dining-room the night before. How pretty it looked, with its sparkling glass and its silver candlesticks and tall slender candles like moonbeams and the beautiful colours of the jellies.
Pat ran outside. The sun, obedient to Judy’s mandate, was just coming up. The air was the amber honey of autumn. Every birch and poplar in the silver bush had become a golden maiden. The garden was tired of growing and had sat down to rest but the gorgeous hollyhocks were flaunting over the old stone dyke. A faint, lovely morning haze hung over the Hill of the Mist and trembled away before the sun. What a lovely world to be alive in!
Then Pat turned and saw a lank, marauding, half-eared cat … an alien to Silver Bush … lapping up the milk in the saucer that had been left for the fairies. So that was how it went! She had always suspected it but to know it was bitter. Was there no real magic left in the world?
“Judy,” … Pat was almost tearful when Judy came to the well with her pails of milk … “the fairies don’t drink the milk. It’s a cat … just as Sidney always said.”
“Oh, oh, and if the fairies didn’t nade it last night why shudn’t a poor cat have it, I’m asking. Hasn’t he got to live? I niver said they come ivery night. They’ve other pickings no doubt.”
“Judy, did you ever really see a fairy drinking the milk? Cross your heart?”
“Oh, oh, what if I didn’t? Sure the grandmother of me did. Minny’s the time I’ve heard her tell it. A leprachaun wid the liddle ears av him wriggling as he lapped it up. And she had her leg bruk nixt day, that she had. Ye may be thankful if ye niver see any av the Grane Folk. They don’t be liking it and that I’m tellin ye.”
2
It was a day curiously compounded of pain and pleasure for Pat. Silver Bush buzzed with excitement, especially when Snicklefritz got stung on the eyelid by a wasp and had to be shut up in the church barn. And then everybody was getting dressed. Oh, weddings were exciting things … Sid was right. Mother wore the loveliest new dress, the colour of a golden-brown chrysanthemum, and Pat was so proud of her it hurt.
“It’s so nice