"This is the young lady, is it?" said he,
reaching for Susan's rising but listless hand. "She is indeed a
_young_ lady!"
The two Warham men stood, shifting uneasily from leg to leg and
rubbing their faces from time to time. Sallie Warham was
standing also, her big unhealthy face twitching fantastically.
Jeb alone was seated--chair tilted back, hands in trousers
pockets, a bucolic grin of embarrassment giving an expression of
pain to his common features. A strained silence, then Zeke
Warham said:
"I reckon we might as well go ahead."
The preacher took a small black-bound book from the inside
pocket of his limp and dusty coat, cleared his throat, turned
over the pages. That rustling, the creaking of his collar on his
overstarched shirt band, and the buzzing of the mud daubers
round the windows were the only sounds. The preacher found the
place, cleared his throat again.
"Mr. Ferguson----"
Jeb, tall, spare, sallow, rose awkwardly.
"--You and Miss Lenox will take your places here----" and he
indicated a position before him.
Susan was already in place; Jeb shuffled up to stand at her
left. Sallie Warham hid her face in her apron. The preacher
cleared his throat vigorously, began--"Dearly beloved"--and so on
and on. When he put the questions to Susan and Jeb he told them
what answer was expected, and they obeyed him, Jeb muttering,
Susan with a mere, movement of the lips.
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