Mary gets Married

Mary stepped out the screen door and closed it quietly. She looked up the dirt road toward Elbridge for a glimpse of a wagon or just a cloud of dust.

"Would he come?"

She pulled at her collar then, glancing down, smoothed the sides of her clean cotton dress. She felt the small wad of bills in the patch pocket, money saved from picking cotton.

"That won't be enough money to start a house whole."
" Oh well," she thought, "Will may have called the whole thing off without even talking it over with me. Was this even a wise thing for a fifteen year old girl to do? "

She reached for the small bag at her feet. "Most girls her age were marrying, but that didn't mean she had to. Will was so melancholy, so quiet. He was a farmer unlike the loggers she had grown up with." She glanced back into the house through the screen door. Her mother stood over the kitchen table with her back to the door.

"She knows I'm getting married," Mary thought, emotions pulling her both ways.

Her mother, Winnie Virginia, had been widowed twice and now eked out a living by moving her family from one logging camp to another, doing their laundry and cooking.

Mary reached for the handle on the screen door just as Will pulled into the yard in a wagon pulled by a couple of mules. Dust rose in a choking cloud and blew toward the house engulfing Mary. Chickens scattered, squawking and waddling clumsily on their short spider legs toward shelter under the porch.

Will was handsome in a clean white shirt and a thin black tie. At the sight of Mary, he removed his hat. His slim face, tanned by the sun and wind showed a tattle-tale white forehead, a farmer's tan. Indian summer had arrived in the foothills of Tennessee and his one and only jacket lay beside him on the wagon seat.

The day was warm with a soft breeze rustling the dry leaves still clinging to the trees and rearranging those blown into the fence row. The grass and weeds were brown but still held fogs of grasshoppers and mosquitoes seeping the last possible moisture from the hollow stems.

Mary yelled goodby to her mother. Without turning from the oil-cloth covered table, Winnie whispered, "Goodby," and continued to wipe the table, mingling her tears with every stroke.

Life had been hard for Mary's family. She and her older sisters had helped their mother with  laundry and cooking in the logging camps for years. Selina had since married and moved away, escaping the hard work and stigma of a widowed family. Versy was little help. She was cronically ill and needed help herself.

"What would she do without Mary?"

Payment for her labor was food for the family, most of the time after the loggers had eaten, kerosene for the lamps and wood for the stove. Winnie carefully guarded and rationed the flour, sugar and canned vegetables gathered from family gardens.

"I'll be back soon." Mary yelled to her mother, holding the small bag in front of her and hoping her mother didn't notice it.

Will helped Mary onto the wagon. Will, a man of few words, smiled and Mary could not remember if he complimented her or even if he said anything at all.

They rode in silence for a few minutes. Mary's mind was racing. Doubts, fears and second thoughts crowded her mind. "Can you trust men at all?" She glanced at Will. "I guess he's a man. I think he is 21, maybe 22. I don't know. Where will we live? How will we get by? Will I be widowed with children like Mama?"

Mary glanced back in the direction of the house. "Will, stop this wagon right now!"

"What!"

"Stop! Stop now?"

Will pulled the mules to a stop, wondering how hard it would be to get them going again.

"I want to see that paper right now!" I"m getting off this wagon if you don't have the papers."

She was referring to the marriage license. Will pulled the marriage license from his back pocket. Mary looked it over, reading every line, folded it, gave it back to Will and said, "Ok then." And they were off to Hornbeak, Tennessee where they were married by Squire Fields on October 12th 1912.