wasn't there neither, an' the more fidgety people got the more they
caught their corners on Mrs. Dill. I just saved her from Mr. Kimball,
an' Amelia saw her goin' as a result o' Judge Fitch an' hardly had time
for a jump. The minister himself was beginnin' to cough when, all of a
sudden, some one cried as the Sperrits was there.

"Well, we all squeezed to the window, an' such a sight you never saw.
They was gettin' Gran'ma Mullins out an' Hiram was tryin' to keep her
from runnin' the color of his cravat all down his shirt while she was
sobbin' 'Hi-i-i-i-ram, Hi-i-i-i-i-ram,' in a voice as would wring your
very heart dry. They got her out an' got her in an' got her upstairs,
an' we all sat down an' begin to get ready while Amelia played 'Lead,
Kindly Light' and 'The Joyous Farmer' alternate, 'cause she'd mislaid
her Weddin' March.

"Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you never knowed nothin' like it!--we waited,
_an'_ we waited, _an'_ we waited, an' the minister most coughed himself
into consumption, an' Mrs. Dill got caught on so often that Mr. Kimball
told Ed to stand back of her an' hold her to the easel every minute.
Amelia was just beginning over again for the seventeenth time when at
last we heard 'em bumpin' along downstairs. Seems as all the delay come
from Lucy's idea o' wantin' to walk with her father an' have a weddin'
procession, instid o' her an' Hiram comin' in together like Christians
an' lettin' Mr. Dill hold Gran'ma Mullins up anywhere. Polly says she
never see such a time as they had of it; she says fightin' wolves was
layin' lambs beside the way they talked. Hiram said frank an' open as
the reason he didn't want to walk in with his mother was he was sure she
wouldn't let him out to get married, but Lucy was dead set on the
procession idea. So in the end they done it so, an' Gran'ma Mullins's
sobs fairly shook the house as they come through the dinin'-room door.