How We Went to the Wedding

"How We Went to the Wedding" is a charming short story by Lucy Maud Montgomery, known for her delightful tales set in the picturesque landscapes of Prince Edward Island. This narrative follows the experiences of the beloved character Anne Shirley and her friends as they navigate the preparations and festivities surrounding a wedding. Through Montgomery's signature blend of humor, whimsy, and heartfelt prose, the story explores themes of friendship, love, and the joy of communal celebration, encapsulating the warmth and beauty of relationships in the close-knit communities of her literary world.

• Short story

								
"If it were to clear up I wouldn't know how to behave, it would seem
so unnatural," said Kate. "Do you, by any chance, remember what the
sun looks like, Phil?"

"Does the sun ever shine in Saskatchewan anyhow?" I asked with assumed
sarcasm, just to make Kate's big, bonny black eyes flash.

They did flash; but Kate laughed immediately after, as she sat down on
a chair in front of me and cradled her long, thin, spirited dark face
in her palms.

"We have more sunny weather in Saskatchewan than in all the rest of
Canada put together, in an average year," she said, clicking her
strong, white teeth and snapping her eyes at me. "But I can't blame
you for feeling sceptical about it, Phil. If I went to a new country
and it rained every day--all day--all night--after I got there for
three whole weeks I'd think things not lawful to be uttered about the
climate too. So, little cousin, I forgive you. Remember that 'into
each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary.' Oh,
if you'd only come to visit me last fall. We had such a bee-yew-tiful
September last year. We were drowned in sunshine. This fall we're
drowned in water. Old settlers tell of a similar visitation in '72,
though they claim even that wasn't quite as bad as this."

I was sitting rather disconsolately by an upper window of Uncle
Kenneth Morrison's log house at Arrow Creek. Below was what in dry
weather--so, at least, I was told--was merely a pretty, grassy little
valley, but which was now a considerable creek of muddy yellow water,
rising daily. Beyond was a cheerless prospect of sodden prairie and
dripping "bluff."

"It would be a golden, mellow land, with purple hazes over the bluffs,
in a normal fall," assured Kate. "Even now if the sun were just to
shine out for a day and a good 'chinook' blow you'd see a surprising
change. I feel like chanting continually that old rhyme I learned in
the first primer,

    'Rain, rain, go away,
    Come again some other day:
    --some other day next summer--
    Phil and Katie want to play.'

Philippa, dear girl, don't look so dismal. It's bound to clear up
sometime."

"I wish the 'sometime' would come soon, then," I said, rather
grumpily.

"You know it hasn't really rained for three days," protested Kate.
"It's been damp and horrid and threatening, but it hasn't rained. I
defy you to say that it has actually rained."

"When it's so wet underfoot that you can't stir out without rubber
boots it might as well be wet overhead too," I said, still grumpily.

"I believe you're homesick, girl," said Kate anxiously.

"No, I'm not," I answered, laughing, and feeling ashamed of my
ungraciousness. "Nobody could be homesick with such a jolly good
fellow as you around, Kate. It's only that this weather is getting on
my nerves a bit. I'm fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. If your
chinook doesn't come soon, Kitty, I'll do something quite desperate."

"I feel that way myself," admitted Kate. "Real reckless, Phil. Anyhow,
let's put on our despised rubber boots and sally out for a wade."

"Here's Jim Nash coming on horseback down the trail," I said. "Let's
wait and see if he's got the mail."

We hurried down, Kate humming, "Somewhere the sun is shining," solely,
I believe, because she knew it aggravated me. At any other time I
should probably have thrown a pillow at her, but just now I was too
eager to see if Jim Nash had brought any mail.

I had come from Ontario, the first of September, to visit Uncle
Kenneth Morrison's family. I had been looking forward to the trip for
several years. My cousin Kate and I had always corresponded since they
had "gone west" ten years before; and Kate, who revelled in the
western life, had sung the praises of her adopted land rapturously and
constantly. It was quite a joke on her that, when I did finally come
to visit her, I should have struck the wettest autumn ever recorded in
the history of the west. A wet September in Saskatchewan is no joke,
however. The country was almost "flooded out." The trails soon became
nearly impassable. All our plans for drives and picnics and
inter-neighbour visiting--at that time a neighbour meant a man who
lived at least six miles away--had to be given up. Yet I was not
lonesome, and I enjoyed my visit in spite of everything. Kate was a
host in herself. She was twenty-eight years old--eight years my
senior--but the difference in our ages had never been any barrier to
our friendship. She was a jolly, companionable, philosophical soul,
with a jest for every situation, and a merry solution for every
perplexity. The only fault I had to find with her was her tendency to
make parodies. Kate's parodies were perfectly awful and always got on
my nerves.

She was dreadfully ashamed of the way the Saskatchewan weather was
behaving after all her boasting. She was thin at the best of times,
but now she grew positively scraggy with the worry of it. I am afraid
I took an unholy delight in teasing her, and abused the western
weather even more than was necessary.

Jim Nash--the lank youth who was hired to look after the place during
Uncle Kenneth's absence on a prolonged threshing expedition--had
brought some mail. Kate's share was a letter, postmarked Bothwell, a
rising little town about one hundred and twenty miles from Arrow
Creek. Kate had several friends there, and one of our plans had been
to visit Bothwell and spend a week with them. We had meant to drive,
of course, since there was no other way of getting there, and equally
of course the plan had been abandoned because of the wet weather.

"Mother," exclaimed Kate, "Mary Taylor is going to be married in a
fortnight's time! She wants Phil and me to go up to Bothwell for the
wedding."

"What a pity you can't go," remarked Aunt Jennie placidly. Aunt Jennie
was always a placid little soul, with a most enviable knack of taking
everything easy. Nothing ever worried her greatly, and when she had
decided that a thing was inevitable it did not worry her at all.

"But I am going," cried Kate. "I will go--I must go. I positively
cannot let Mary Taylor--my own beloved Molly--go and perpetrate
matrimony without my being on hand to see it. Yes, I'm going--and if
Phil has a spark of the old Blair pioneer spirit in her, she'll go
too."

"Of course I'll go if you go," I said.

Aunt Jennie did not think we were in earnest, so she merely laughed at
first, and said, "How do you propose to go? Fly--or swim?"

"We'll drive, as usual," said Kate calmly. "I'd feel more at home in
that way of locomotion. We'll borrow Jim Nash's father's democrat, and
take the ponies. We'll put on old clothes, raincoats, rubber caps and
boots, and we'll start tomorrow. In an ordinary time we could easily
do it in six days or less, but this fall we'll probably need ten or

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