Chapter III. The Marriage of Anka - Page 2

To Anka it seemed an unnecessary and foolish sacrifice to the demands of decency that she should forego the joy of a real czardas to the music of Arnud accompanying the usual violins.

"Ye can have it," sniffed Mrs. Fitzpatrick with emphatic disdain; all the more emphatic that she was conscious, distinctly conscious, of a strong desire to witness this special feature of the festivities. "I've nothing agin you, Anka, for it's a good gurrl ye are, but me and me family is respectable, an' that father Mulligan can tell ye, for his own mother's cousin was married till the brother of me father's uncle, an' niver a fut of me will go beyant the dure of that scut, Paulina." And Mrs. Fitzpatrick, resting her hands upon her hips, stood the living embodiment of hostility to any suggested compromise with sin.

But while determined to maintain at all costs this attitude toward Paulina and her doings, her warmhearted interest in Anka's wedding made her very ready with offers of assistance in preparing for the feast.

"It's not much I know about y're Polak atin'," she said, "but I can make a batch of pork pies that wud tempt the heart of the lowly Moses himsilf, an' I can give ye a bilin' of pitaties that Timothy can fetch to the house for ye."

This generous offer Anka gladly accepted, for Mrs. Fitzpatrick's pork pies, she knew from experience, were such as might indeed have tempted so respectable a patriarch as Moses himself to mortal sin. The "bilin' of pitaties," which Anka knew would be prepared in no ordinary pot, but in Mrs. Fitzpatrick's ample wash boiler, was none the less acceptable, for Anka could easily imagine how effective such a contribution would be in the early stages of the feast in dulling the keen edge of the Galician appetite.

The preparation for the wedding feast, which might be prolonged for the greater part of three days, was in itself an undertaking requiring careful planning and no small degree of executive ability; for the popularity of both bride and groom would be sufficient to insure the presence of the whole colony, but especially the reputed wealth of the bride, who, it was well known, had been saving with careful economy her wages at the New West Hotel for the past three years, would most certainly create a demand for a feast upon a scale of more than ordinary magnificence, and Anka was determined that in providing for the feast this demand should be fully satisfied.

For a long time she was torn between two conflicting desires: on the one hand she longed to appear garbed in all the glory of the Western girl's most modern bridal attire; on the other she coveted the honour of providing a feast that would live for years in the memory of all who might be privileged to be present. Both she could not accomplish, and she wisely chose the latter; for she shrewdly reasoned that, while the Western bridal garb would