The Secret Bliss of Calliope Ipswich (29 page)

Still, as Rowdy winked at her, smiled, and drew her hand to his lips to place a kiss to the back of it, she felt soothed. The Tom Thumb play had been her conceived delight before winning Rowdy’s heart. And now that she had somehow managed to capture his feelings and affections, she wasn’t so sad that the play would soon be over.

Nigel Gardener appeared first, walking down the aisle and toward the stage as stiff and as solemn as any clergyman ever was. His long, white, flowing robe reached to the floor, and the small yoke at his neck and shoulders was gathered to quite a fullness. His sleeves were large and billowy, and a broad band of black fabric fit about his neck and extended all the way down his front to the floor.

Nigel stepped up onto the stage and took his place center back, turned
, and faced the crowd.

The ushers
-turned-groomsmen, Willis and Albert Chesterfield, marched to the stage next, taking their place to the audience right on stage.

Lena Chesterfield slowly marched up the aisle and onto the stage. Her butter
-yellow dress was lovely, and the way her mother had affixed lilac sprigs in her coifed hair became her perfectly. Calliope noticed the way her pretty bouquet of Dora Montrose’s yellow roses and Kizzy’s lilac sprigs quivered as she held it. Thus, she offered an encouraging nod to the maid of honor.

Mamie and Effie Longfellow walked slowly down the ai
sle then, their sweet little yellow dresses making them look like fairies scattering yellow rose petals along their way.

Next came Warren Ackerman.

“Ah, the groom himself,” Rowdy whispered.

Calliope bit her lip to keep from giggling as
Warren marched straight and tall, down the aisle to the stage. He looked so serious and yet just like a Tom Thumb groom. He was perfect.

As everyone in the audience turned then, quiet exclamations of delight were h
eard escaping everyone as Shay appeared on the arm of her father, Judge Lawson Ipswich.

“Oh
, Kizzy! It’s perfect,” Calliope heard Amoretta tell their stepmother. “She’s a living doll!”

And indeed she was. As Shay gracefully glided down the aisle with her father, even Calliope was amazed at her beauty—of how perfectly the albeit miniature but very elaborate wedding gown and veil fit her. She was the most perfect Tom Thumb
wedding bride ever bedecked! Calliope was certain of it.

Once everyone was in position, Lawson took his seat next to Kizzy, Eva finished playing the
“Bridal Chorus,” and Meadowlark Lake’s first Tom Thumb wedding began.

“Dearly
beloved,” Nigel the clergyman began, “we are gathered here today in the company of this assemblage of lovely ladies and courageous men, to witness the joining together of Junie Bee Junebride and Tom Thumb in the bonds of pretended matrimony.”

Calliope again bit her lip with delight. “Isn’t this just too adorable, Rowdy?” she asked the handsome man at her side.

“It’s entertainin’ all right,” Rowdy agreed, smiling at her.

“If there be any among you who can show just cause that this man and this woman should not be joined, let him speak now, or forever hold his peace,” Nigel continued. He put one hand to one side of his mouth, adding, “And if anyone
does
object, my mama will swat ’em hard with a willow switch out behind the barn later on this afternoon.”

Everyone laughed
, and Calliope wondered how many folks thought it was Nigel speaking his own thoughts, unaware that he had been directed to say it.

Turning to Warren, Nigel asked, “Tom Thumb
, wilt thou take this woman to be thy pretendedly beloved wife? Wilt though pretendedly love her, protect her, and carry her across stream beds and wet bridges so that she will never soak her slippers clean through? Wilt though assist her in carving out pumpkins to serve as jack-o’-lanterns on All Hallow’s Eve, and willingly tromp deep into the woods to cut a pine each December 15 to serve as a Christmas tree in her parlor?”

“I will,”
Warren strongly affirmed.

Turning to Shay then, Nigel the clergyman asked, “And Junie Bee Junebride
, wilt thou take this man to be thy pretendedly beloved husband? Wilt though pretendedly love him, soothe him, and bake him a cake each Saturday night? Wilt thou always prepare bacon for his breakfast and never admit he has lost a hair from his head even though he may grow to be as bald as a goose egg?”

“I will,” Shay agreed with a giggle.

Looking to Calliope’s father then, Nigel called out, “Who gives this tiny bride to this man-one-day?”

“Her mother and I do,” Judge Ipswich said
, somehow managing not to break into amused laughter.

“Well then, Tom Thumb and Junie Bee Jun
ebride, please join hands and gaze pretendedly lovingly into each other’s eyes,” Nigel continued. “Tom, repeat after me: I, Tom Thumb, take thee, Junie Bee, to be my pretendedly wedded wife. I promise to pretendedly love thee and protect thee from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for most likely poorer, as long as your mama doesn’t come to visit more than once a year, and when she does stays less than two nights.”

Everyone laughed wholeheartedly. And when the laughter had subsided enough,
Warren repeated.

Nigel turned to Shay then and said, “Junie Bee
, repeat after me. I, Junie Bee, take thee, Tom Thumb, to be my pretendedly wedded husband. I promise to pretendedly love thee and swoon over thee from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer of for most likely poorer, as long as you keep your toenails tidily trimmed and your handkerchief folded neatly.”

Again the guests of the wedding laughed with merriment. And when they had once again settled down, Shay repeated
her carefully rehearsed lines, concentrating so as not to giggle.

Taking one of Shay’s hands and one of Warren
’s, Nigel tied them together at the wrist with a lovely yellow ribbon and said, “I now pronounce you the cutest little couple this side of the Mississippi…
and
pretendedly man and wife! You may kiss the bride, Tom Thumb!”

Calliope held her breath, quickly exchanging worried glances with Amoretta and Evangeline. All the weeks before, Warren Ackerman had been more than happy to chase Shay hither and yon, catch her
, and plant a quick kiss to her lips. But all three of Shay’s older sisters feared that Warren might not be so keen on kissing a girl in front of the whole town.

Yet when Calliope looked back to the tiny bride and groom on the stage, her mouth fell agape when Warren Ackerman unexpectedly wrapped his arms around Shay and smashed his mouth to hers in one big, smacking kiss!

“Thata boy, Warren!” Rowdy shouted as all the guests applauded with approval.

As Eva Chesterfield began to play Mendelssohn’s
“Wedding March” as the recessional piece, everyone stood and applauded, calling out their approval of the play the children had just performed. As Shay and Warren and all the other children on the stage bowed with appreciation, the joy in the Ackermans’ barn was a tangible matter.

Calliope wiped tears of happiness from her cheeks as she applauded the children
’s incredible performance. Naturally there were refreshments to be had, cake to be served, and just plain camaraderie to be enjoyed. Yet Calliope’s favorite part of the event had just ended. And so she sighed with a bit of the disappointment one feels when something they’ve anticipated for so long and enjoyed so much is at an end.

“So it’s over,” she mumbled.

Rowdy looked to her, and she could see the compassion in his eyes.

“You’re sad it’s over, aren’t you?” he asked.

“A bit,” she admitted.

Rowdy took her hands in his then, raised them
, and kissed each one on the back. “It doesn’t have to be over quite yet, Calliope,” he said.

“Oh, I know,” she told him. “There’s still the food, the cake
, and of course the photographer we asked to come and take the wedding party’s photograph.”

“No, I mean…there can be a bit more weddin’ to all this, today,” he said.

The look on Rowdy’s face was so sincere, so filled with an expression of love, desire, and promise, that Calliope didn’t even notice that the applauding had stopped and that everyone in the Ackermans’ barn was now watching her and Rowdy and smiling from ear to ear.

“What do you mean?” she asked him. And then, as Rowdy Gates kept hold of her hands, as he dropped to one kne
e before her there in the Ackermans’ barn, realization washed over her like an epiphany.

“Calliope Ipswich,” Rowdy began
, “will you be my wife? Will you marry me right here, right now, today?”

“R-Rowdy,” Calliope began as tears streamed over her cheeks. “Really? Do you really want me for you
r wife?”

Rowdy nodded. “I’ve only ever wanted you
, Calliope…from the minute I first saw you.” He paused a moment, kissed the back of one of her hands, and then said, “Will you marry me? After all, you went to all this work and got everyone in town under the same roof. It’d be a shame not to give them a bit more to be happy about.”

“Of course I’ll marry you, Rowdy Gates,” Calliope wept. “And I’ll marry you here and now!”

“Good thing I brought the county judge along with me, ain’t it?” Rowdy said as he rose to his feet and gathered Calliope into his arms.

Everyone in the Ackermans
’ barn created the most joyous uproar Calliope had ever heard—applauding and well-wishing so profusely radiant, heaven itself couldn’t miss it.

“I-I’m not wearing a wedding dress though,” she told Rowdy.

“That’s all right,” he said. “I like this blue one. But if you’d rather, Amoretta brought hers along.”

“Amoretta?” Calliope exclaimed as she turned to look back at her sister. “How did you…I mean…how…
?”

“Rowdy wrote to me and asked me to bring it…just in case you really did agree to marry him today,” Amoretta explained as she hugged her sister.

Evangeline was there too—and Shay—and her father and Kizzy—all of them hugging her and telling her how happy they were for her and Rowdy.

*

A mere twenty minutes later, the citizens of Meadowlark Lake were once again sitting in their mismatched chairs in the Ackermans’ barn. Judge Lawson Ipswich had taken the place of Nigel Gardener in the center of the stage. Evangeline, Amoretta, Blanche Gardener, Winnie Montrose, and Sallie Ackerman had joined Lena Chesterfield as bridesmaids. Brake McClendon, Fox Montrose, and Dex Longfellow stood near to the groom as groomsmen.

As Calliope and Rowdy exchanged much different vows than Shay and
Warren had, Calliope found that her heart was so full of love and happiness she could hardly contain expressing it by shouting to the stars of it. Rowdy Gates had made so many of her dreams of him come true—and this was indeed his finest hour in that. Somehow Rowdy had known she would love nothing more than to marry him as part of the event everyone had worked so hard to present to the town. Somehow he’d known that she’d secretly daydreamed about it on more than one occasion.

And as she heard her own father’s voice speak the words
—“I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride”—Rowdy completed the dream come true by taking her in his arms and kissing her the way she most liked to be kissed, careless of the fact the entire town was witness to it.

“I love you, my beautiful blue-eyed Calliope,” Rowdy mumbled against her mouth as the audience cheered for them.

“And I love you, my handsome Rowdy Gates,” she said.

*

“Well, the play’s over, I guess. What now?” Warren asked Shay as they watched Rowdy and Calliope accepting the congratulations of everyone who had witnessed their marriage.

“Seems like life will go back to just plain ol’ life
, I guess.”

“I’m so glad Calliope wore her blue dress for her weddin,” Shay said, smiling. Taking
Warren’s hand in her own, she pulled him along to walking with her as she began to sing the song she so loved to hear her father sing.

There were three little girls dressed in blue.

Then one married and left only two.

Then one fell in love with a boy,

Who loved her and gave her much joy.

Then the last little girl had a dream,

And she dreamed she was saying, “I do.”

And when she awoke it was true!

Happy three little girls dressed in blue.

“Well
, that’s a sappy song,” Warren said as he continued to walk with Shay—continued to hold her hand.

Shay shrugged. “Maybe, but I like it.”

“Hey,” Warren began then. “You know how you say you’ve got some gypsy ways, Shay Ipswich?”

“Yes,” Shay admitted.

“Well, prove it to me. Tell me somethin’ about the future usin’ your gypsy ways.”

Shay giggled, stopped
, and looked directly into Warren’s eyes. “All right, Warren Ackerman. I’ll tell you this. It will be years and years from now, but someday, you’re gonna kiss me the way Rowdy Gates just kissed my sister back there in the barn.”