Mr. Rosenfeld had arrived home and was making up arrears of rest and
recreation.
"Huh!" he said. "Suppose it don't rain. What then?" His Jewish father
spoke in him.
"And another policeman at the church!" said Mrs. Rosenfeld triumphantly.
"Why do they ask 'em if they don't trust 'em?"
But the mention of the policemen had been unfortunate. It recalled to him
many things that were better forgotten. He rose and scowled at his wife.
"You tell Johnny something for me," he snarled. "You tell him when he sees
his father walking down street, and he sittin' up there alone on that
automobile, I want him to stop and pick me up when I hail him. Me walking,
while my son swells around in a car! And another thing." He turned
savagely at the door. "You let me hear of him road-housin', and I'll kill
him!"
The wedding was to be at five o'clock. This, in itself, defied all
traditions of the Street, which was either married in the very early
morning at the Catholic church or at eight o'clock in the evening at the
Presbyterian. There was something reckless about five o'clock. The Street
felt the dash of it. It had a queer feeling that perhaps such a marriage
was not quite legal.
The question of what to wear became, for the men, an earnest one. Dr. Ed
resurrected an old black frock-coat and had a "V" of black cambric set in
the vest. Mr. Jenkins, the grocer, rented a cutaway, and bought a new
Panama to wear with it. The deaf-and-dumb book agent who boarded at
McKees', and who, by reason of his affliction, was calmly ignorant of the
excitement around him, wore a borrowed dress-suit, and considered himself
to the end of his days the only properly attired man in the church.
The younger Wilson was to be one of the ushers. When the newspapers came
out with the published list and this was discovered, as well as that Sidney
was the maid of honor, there was a distinct quiver through the hospital
training-school. A probationer was authorized to find out particulars. It
was the day of the wedding then, and Sidney, who had not been to bed at
all, was sitting in a sunny window in the Dormitory Annex, drying her hair.
The probationer was distinctly uneasy.
"I--I just wonder," she said, "if you would let some of the girls come in
to see you when you're dressed?"
"Why, of course I will."