It was four o’clock when the ceremony was over and the carriages began
to arrive. There had been a crowd following all the way, owing to the
exuberance of Marija Berczynskas. The occasion rested heavily upon
Marija’s broad shoulders—it was her task to see that all things went in
due form, and after the best home traditions; and, flying wildly hither
and thither, bowling every one out of the way, and scolding and
exhorting all day with her tremendous voice, Marija was too eager to
see that others conformed to the proprieties to consider them herself.
She had left the church last of all, and, desiring to arrive first at
the hall, had issued orders to the coachman to drive faster. When that
personage had developed a will of his own in the matter, Marija had
flung up the window of the carriage, and, leaning out, proceeded to
tell him her opinion of him, first in Lithuanian, which he did not
understand, and then in Polish, which he did. Having the advantage of
her in altitude, the driver had stood his ground and even ventured to
attempt to speak; and the result had been a furious altercation, which,
continuing all the way down Ashland Avenue, had added a new swarm of
urchins to the cortege at each side street for half a mile.
This was unfortunate, for already there was a throng before the door.
The music had started up, and half a block away you could hear the dull
“broom, broom” of a cello, with the squeaking of two fiddles which vied
with each other in intricate and altitudinous gymnastics. Seeing the
throng, Marija abandoned precipitately the debate concerning the
ancestors of her coachman, and, springing from the moving carriage,
plunged in and proceeded to clear a way to the hall. Once within, she
turned and began to push the other way, roaring, meantime, “_Eik! Eik!
Uzdaryk-duris!_” in tones which made the orchestral uproar sound like
fairy music.
“Z. Graiczunas, Pasilinksminimams darzas. Vynas. Sznapsas. Wines and
Liquors. Union Headquarters”—that was the way the signs ran. The
reader, who perhaps has never held much converse in the language of
far-off Lithuania, will be glad of the explanation that the place was
the rear room of a saloon in that part of Chicago known as “back of the
yards.” This information is definite and suited to the matter of fact;
but how pitifully inadequate it would have seemed to one who understood
that it was also the supreme hour of ecstasy in the life of one of
God’s gentlest creatures, the scene of the wedding feast and the
joy-transfiguration of little Ona Lukoszaite!
She stood in the doorway, shepherded by Cousin Marija, breathless from
pushing through the crowd, and in her happiness painful to look upon.
There was a light of wonder in her eyes and her lids trembled, and her
otherwise wan little face was flushed. She wore a muslin dress,
conspicuously white, and a stiff little veil coming to her shoulders.
There were five pink paper roses twisted in the veil, and eleven bright
green rose leaves. There were new white cotton gloves upon her hands,
and as she stood staring about her she twisted them together
feverishly. It was almost too much for her—you could see the pain of
too great emotion in her face, and all the tremor of her form. She was
so young—not quite sixteen—and small for her age, a mere child; and she
had just been married—and married to Jurgis,[1] of all men, to Jurgis
Rudkus, he with the white flower in the buttonhole of his new black
suit, he with the mighty shoulders and the giant hands.
[1] Pronounced Yoorghis
Ona was blue-eyed and fair, while Jurgis had great black eyes with
beetling brows, and thick black hair that curled in waves about his
ears—in short, they were one of those incongruous and impossible
married couples with which Mother Nature so often wills to confound all
prophets, before and after. Jurgis could take up a
two-hundred-and-fifty-pound quarter of beef and carry it into a car
without a stagger, or even a thought; and now he stood in a far corner,
frightened as a hunted animal, and obliged to moisten his lips with his
tongue each time before he could answer the congratulations of his
friends.
Gradually there was effected a separation between the spectators and
the guests—a separation at least sufficiently complete for working
purposes. There was no time during the festivities which ensued when
there were not groups of onlookers in the doorways and the corners; and
if any one of these onlookers came sufficiently close, or looked
sufficiently hungry, a chair was offered him, and he was invited to the
feast. It was one of the laws of the veselija that no one goes
hungry; and, while a rule made in the forests of Lithuania is hard to
apply in the stockyards district of Chicago, with its quarter of a
million inhabitants, still they did their best, and the children who
ran in from the street, and even the dogs, went out again happier. A
charming informality was one of the characteristics of this
celebration. The men wore their hats, or, if they wished, they took
them off, and their coats with them; they ate when and where they
pleased, and moved as often as they pleased. There were to be speeches
and singing, but no one had to listen who did not care to; if he
wished, meantime, to speak or sing himself, he was perfectly free. The
resulting medley of sound distracted no one, save possibly alone the
babies, of which there were present a number equal to the total
possessed by all the guests invited. There was no other place for the
babies to be, and so part of the preparations for the evening consisted
of a collection of cribs and carriages in one corner. In these the
babies slept, three or four together, or wakened together, as the case
might be. Those who were still older, and could reach the tables,
marched about munching contentedly at meat bones and bologna sausages.
The room is about thirty feet square, with whitewashed walls, bare save
for a calendar, a picture of a race horse, and a family tree in a
gilded frame. To the right there is a door from the saloon, with a few
loafers in the doorway, and in the corner beyond it a bar, with a
presiding genius clad in soiled white, with waxed black mustaches and a
carefully oiled curl plastered against one side of his forehead. In the
opposite corner are two tables, filling a third of the room and laden
with dishes and cold viands, which a few of the hungrier guests are
already munching. At the head, where sits the bride, is a snow-white
cake, with an Eiffel tower of constructed decoration, with sugar roses
and two angels upon it, and a generous sprinkling of pink and green and
yellow candies. Beyond opens a door into the kitchen, where there is a
glimpse to be had of a range with much steam ascending from it, and
many women, old and young, rushing hither and thither. In the corner to
the left are the three musicians, upon a little platform, toiling
heroically to make some impression upon the hubbub; also the babies,
similarly occupied, and an open window whence the populace imbibes the
sights and sounds and odors.
Suddenly some of the steam begins to advance, and, peering through it,
you discern Aunt Elizabeth, Ona’s stepmother—Teta Elzbieta, as they
call her—bearing aloft a great platter of stewed duck. Behind her is
Kotrina, making her way cautiously, staggering beneath a similar
burden; and half a minute later there appears old Grandmother
Majauszkiene, with a big yellow bowl of smoking potatoes, nearly as big
as herself. So, bit by bit, the feast takes form—there is a ham and a
dish of sauerkraut, boiled rice, macaroni, bologna sausages, great
piles of penny buns, bowls of milk, and foaming pitchers of beer. There
is also, not six feet from your back, the bar, where you may order all
you please and do not have to pay for it. “Eiksz! Graicziau!” screams
Marija Berczynskas, and falls to work herself—for there is more upon
the stove inside that will be spoiled if it be not eaten.
So, with laughter and shouts and endless badinage an