Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/121

Rh it is considered a bad omen for the married life of the young couple if the wife be separated from her husband on this occasion; therefore it is customary for the young husband to take his stand close by the church-door while his wife is praying within, and then be ready to catch hold of her as soon as she steps outside. For greater precaution, the man often holds her round the waist with both hands during the dance which immediately takes place before the church, and at which they assist merely as spectators, taking no active part, as it is not considered seemly to dance in the church attire.

As commonly several couples are married at the same time, it is usual for each separate wedding-party to bring its own band of music, and dance thus independently of the others. On the occasion of a triple wedding I lately witnessed, it was very amusing to watch the three wedding-parties coming down the street, each accelerating its pace till it came to be a sort of race up to the church-door to secure the best dancing-place. The ground being rough and slanting, there was only one spot where anything like a flat dancing floor could be obtained, and the winning party at once secured this enviable position, while the others had to put up with an inclined plane or a few hillocks accidenting their ball-room floor. The ten to sixteen couples belonging to each wedding-party are inclosed in a ring of bystanders, each rival band of music playing away with heroic disregard for the scorched ears of the listeners. "Polka!" calls out the first group; "Walzer!" roars the second, for it is a point of honor that each party should display a noble independence in taking its own line of action; and if, out of mere coincidence, two of the bands happen to strike up the self-same tune, one of them is sure to change to something totally different as soon as aware of the unfortunate mistake—the caterwauling effect produced by this system baffling all description. "This is nothing at all," said the worthy pastor, from whose garden I was overlooking the scene, laughing at the evident dismay with which I endeavored to stop my ears. "Sometimes we have eight or ten weddings at a time, each with their own fiddlers. That is something worth hearing indeed!" The rest of that day is spent much in the same manner as the former one, only this time in the house of the bridegroom's parents.

Among the customs attached to this first day of wedded life is that of breaking the distaff. If the young matron can succeed in doing so at one stroke across her knee, then she will be sure to have strong and healthy sons. If the reverse, she has only girls to expect.

The third day is called the finishing-up day, each of the two families assembling its own friends and relations to consume the provisions remaining over from the former banquet, and at the same time to wash up the cooking-utensils and the crockery, restoring whatever has been borrowed from neighbors in the shape of plates, wine-jugs, etc., the new-married couple joining the entertainment, now at the one,