“No,” she said. “But we will be. Now stop that and tell me what he said.”
THE ONLY interesting particular I recall now about the wedding was the thing that happened just afterwards. The wedding was over; we had promised our mutual I do’s; Mavis and I were coming down the church steps to get inside my paint-smeared car and away from all the thrown rice. People were gathered in two rows along the steps and sidewalk—her folks; my mother and her last husband, Wilbur Cox; Edith and Lyman Goodnough; a crowd of others, friends. We had just about reached the safety of my car when Vince Higgims, Junior, one of my drinking partners from the Holt Tavern, grabbed Mavis up in his arms and started to run with her. She still had that white dress on and that collection of stiff petticoats, all of which swooped up so high in his arms that you could see her garters and clear to Denver if you wanted to. Vince Jr. was about smothered. I believe his idea was to kidnap her, spirit her away so that I would have to come look for her. Which might have been funny, only Vince didn’t know Mavis enough. In no time Mavis worked one arm free and jammed Vince so hard in the Adam’s apple with her elbow that he dropped down cold like he’d been shot with both barrels. Her white dress and stockinged legs were all over him, the two of them sprawled out on the church curb, so that after they were eventually untangled somebody had to take old Vince over to Doc Schmidt to determine how much damage he had suffered to his throat. It turned out he was lucky; he just had to stay off solids for a week. Vince said it was enough to scare him off weddings altogether.
When I was sure he was going to at least be able to drink again, Mavis and I got in the car and drove off for the honeymoon. We went across the Continental Divide to Glenwood Springs on the Western Slope and stayed a few days in the great old Hotel Colorado, where Teddy Roosevelt had once spent some time, and we swam with the tourists and arthritic patients in the block-long hot pool that smelled of sulphur. Later we drove up the valley to Aspen and spent an afternoon and an evening amongst the wealthy summer crowd. Then we came home again to this house. Mavis was still working as a nurse at the hospital, but when she wasn’t changing bedpans or taking blood pressures she was remaking our house to please her, and I went back to farming and ranching, cultivating corn, baling hay, and cutting calves. It was nice coming in for supper and finding her still there every evening waiting for me. She looked good and cool and fresh after I’d been outside in the sun away from her all day. After supper we often had the Goodnoughs over to play Rook or went to their place, and about twice a month the four of us went to the Legion dances on Saturday night. Mavis and Edith got to be good friends. She could tell you some things about Edith that I can’t.