It was four o'clock when the ceremony was over and the carriages began to arrive.

There had been a crowd following all the way, owing to the exuberance of Marija

Berczynskas.

The occasion rested heavily upon Marija's broad shoulders--it was her task to see

that all things went in due form, and after the best home traditions; and, flying

wildly hither and thither, bowling every

one out of the way, and scolding and exhorting all day with her tremendous

voice, Marija was too eager to see that others conformed to the proprieties to

consider them herself.

She had left the church last of all, and, desiring to arrive first at the hall, had

issued orders to the coachman to drive faster.

When that personage had developed a will of his own in the matter, Marija had flung up

the window of the carriage, and, leaning out, proceeded to tell him her opinion of

him, first in Lithuanian, which he did not

understand, and then in Polish, which he did.

Having the advantage of her in altitude, the driver had stood his ground and even

ventured to attempt to speak; and the result had been a furious altercation,

which, continuing all the way down Ashland

Avenue, had added a new swarm of urchins to the cortege at each side street for half a

mile. This was unfortunate, for already there was

a throng before the door.

The music had started up, and half a block away you could hear the dull "broom, broom"

of a cello, with the squeaking of two fiddles which vied with each other in

intricate and altitudinous gymnastics.

Seeing the throng, Marija abandoned precipitately the debate concerning the

ancestors of her coachman, and, springing from the moving carriage, plunged in and

proceeded to clear a way to the hall.

Once within, she turned and began to push the other way, roaring, meantime, "Eik!

Eik! Uzdaryk-duris!" in tones which made the orchestral uproar sound like fairy

music.

"Z. Graiczunas, Pasilinksminimams darzas. Vynas.

Sznapsas. Wines and Liquors.

Union Headquarters"--that was the way the signs ran.

The reader, who perhaps has never held much converse in the language of far-off

Lithuania, will be glad of the explanation that the place was the rear room of a

saloon in that part of Chicago known as "back of the yards."

This information is definite and suited to the matter of fact; but how pitifully

inadequate it would have seemed to one who understood that it was also the supreme

hour of ecstasy in the life of one of God's

gentlest creatures, the scene of the wedding feast and the joy-transfiguration

of little Ona Lukoszaite!

She stood in the doorway, shepherded by Cousin Marija, breathless from pushing

through the crowd, and in her happiness painful to look upon.

There was a light of wonder in her eyes and her lids trembled, and her otherwise wan

little face was flushed.

She wore a muslin dress, conspicuously white, and a stiff little veil coming to

her shoulders.

There were five pink paper roses twisted in the veil, and eleven bright green rose

leaves.

There were new white cotton gloves upon her hands, and as she stood staring about her

she twisted them together feverishly.

It was almost too much for her--you could see the pain of too great emotion in her

face, and all the tremor of her form.

She was so young--not quite sixteen--and small for her age, a mere child; and she

had just been married--and married to Jurgis,* (*Pronounced Yoorghis) of all men,

to Jurgis Rudkus, he with the white flower

in the buttonhole of his new black suit, he with the mighty shoulders and the giant

hands.

Ona was blue-eyed and fair, while Jurgis had great black eyes with beetling brows,

and thick black hair that curled in waves about his ears--in short, they were one of

those incongruous and impossible married

couples with which Mother Nature so often wills to confound all prophets, before and

after.

Jurgis could take up a two-hundred-and- fifty-pound quarter of beef and carry it

into a car without a stagger, or even a thought; and now he stood in a far corner,

frightened as a hunted animal, and obliged

to moisten his lips with his tongue each time before he could answer the

congratulations of his friends.

Gradually there was effected a separation between the spectators and the guests--a

separation at least sufficiently complete for working purposes.

There was no time during the festivities which ensued when there were not groups of

onlookers in the doorways and the corners; and if any one of these onlookers came

sufficiently close, or looked sufficiently

hungry, a chair was offered him, and he was invited to the feast.

It was one of the laws of the veselija that no one goes hungry; and, while a rule made

in the forests of Lithuania is hard to apply in the stockyards district of

Chicago, with its quarter of a million

inhabitants, still they did their best, and the children who ran in from the street,

and even the dogs, went out again happier. A charming informality was one of the

characteristics of this celebration.

The men wore their hats, or, if they wished, they took them off, and their coats

with them; they ate when and where they pleased, and moved as often as they

pleased.

There were to be speeches and singing, but no one had to listen who did not care to;

if he wished, meantime, to speak or sing himself, he was perfectly free.

The resulting medley of sound distracted no one, save possibly alone the babies, of

which there were present a number equal to the total possessed by all the guests

invited.

There was no other place for the babies to be, and so part of the preparations for the

evening consisted of a collection of cribs and carriages in one corner.

In these the babies slept, three or four together, or wakened together, as the case

might be.

Those who were still older, and could reach the tables, marched about munching

contentedly at meat bones and bologna sausages.

The room is about thirty feet square, with whitewashed walls, bare save for a

calendar, a picture of a race horse, and a family tree in a gilded frame.

To the right there is a door from the saloon, with a few loafers in the doorway,

and in the corner beyond it a bar, with a presiding genius clad in soiled white, with

waxed black mustaches and a carefully oiled

curl plastered against one side of his forehead.

In the opposite corner are two tables, filling a third of the room and laden with

dishes and cold viands, which a few of the hungrier guests are already munching.

At the head, where sits the bride, is a snow-white cake, with an Eiffel tower of

constructed decoration, with sugar roses and two angels upon it, and a generous

sprinkling of pink and green and yellow candies.

Beyond opens a door into the kitchen, where there is a glimpse to be had of a range

with much steam ascending from it, and many women, old and young, rushing hither and

thither.

In the corner to the left are the three musicians, upon a little platform, toiling

heroically to make some impression upon the hubbub; also the babies, similarly

occupied, and an open window whence the

populace imbibes the sights and sounds and odors.

Suddenly some of the steam begins to advance, and, peering through it, you

discern Aunt Elizabeth, Ona's stepmother-- Teta Elzbieta, as they call her--bearing

aloft a great platter of stewed duck.

Behind her is Kotrina, making her way cautiously, staggering beneath a similar

burden; and half a minute later there appears old Grandmother Majauszkiene, with

a big yellow bowl of smoking potatoes, nearly as big as herself.

So, bit by bit, the feast takes form--there is a ham and a dish of sauerkraut, boiled

rice, macaroni, bologna sausages, great piles of penny buns, bowls of milk, and

foaming pitchers of beer.

There is also, not six feet from your back, the bar, where you may order all you please

and do not have to pay for it. "Eiksz!

Graicziau!" screams Marija Berczynskas, and falls to work herself--for there is more

upon the stove inside that will be spoiled if it be not eaten.

So, with laughter and shouts and endless badinage and merriment, the guests take

their places.

The young men, who for the most part have been huddled near the door, summon their

resolution and advance; and the shrinking Jurgis is poked and scolded by the old

folks until he consents to seat himself at the right hand of the bride.

The two bridesmaids, whose insignia of office are paper wreaths, come next, and

after them the rest of the guests, old and young, boys and girls.

The spirit of the occasion takes hold of the stately bartender, who condescends to a

plate of stewed duck; even the fat policeman--whose duty it will be, later in

the evening, to break up the fights--draws up a chair to the foot of the table.

And the children shout and the babies yell, and every one laughs and sings and

chatters--while above all the deafening clamor Cousin Marija shouts orders to the

musicians.

The musicians--how shall one begin to describe them?

All this time they have been there, playing in a mad frenzy--all of this scene must be

read, or said, or sung, to music.

It is the music which makes it what it is; it is the music which changes the place

from the rear room of a saloon in back of the yards to a fairy place, a wonderland, a

little corner of the high mansions of the sky.

The little person who leads this trio is an inspired man.

His fiddle is out of tune, and there is no rosin on his bow, but still he is an

inspired man--the hands of the muses have been laid upon him.

He plays like one possessed by a demon, by a whole horde of demons.

You can feel them in the air round about him, capering frenetically; with their

invisible feet they set the pace, and the hair of the leader of the orchestra rises

on end, and his eyeballs start from their sockets, as he toils to keep up with them.

Tamoszius Kuszleika is his name, and he has taught himself to play the violin by

practicing all night, after working all day on the "killing beds."

He is in his shirt sleeves, with a vest figured with faded gold horseshoes, and a

pink-striped shirt, suggestive of peppermint candy.

A pair of military trousers, light blue with a yellow stripe, serve to give that

suggestion of authority proper to the leader of a band.

He is only about five feet high, but even so these trousers are about eight inches

short of the ground.

You wonder where he can have gotten them or rather you would wonder, if the excitement

of being in his presence left you time to think of such things.

For he is an inspired man.

Every inch of him is inspired--you might almost say inspired separately.

He stamps with his feet, he tosses his head, he sways and swings to and fro; he

has a wizened-up little face, irresistibly comical; and, when he executes a turn or a

flourish, his brows knit and his lips work

and his eyelids wink--the very ends of his necktie bristle out.

And every now and then he turns upon his companions, nodding, signaling, beckoning

frantically--with every inch of him appealing, imploring, in behalf of the

muses and their call.

For they are hardly worthy of Tamoszius, the other two members of the orchestra.

The second violin is a Slovak, a tall, gaunt man with black-rimmed spectacles and

the mute and patient look of an overdriven mule; he responds to the whip but feebly,

and then always falls back into his old rut.

The third man is very fat, with a round, red, sentimental nose, and he plays with

his eyes turned up to the sky and a look of infinite yearning.

He is playing a bass part upon his cello, and so the excitement is nothing to him; no

matter what happens in the treble, it is his task to saw out one long-drawn and

lugubrious note after another, from four

o'clock in the afternoon until nearly the same hour next morning, for his third of

the total income of one dollar per hour.

Before the feast has been five minutes under way, Tamoszius Kuszleika has risen in

his excitement; a minute or two more and you see that he is beginning to edge over

toward the tables.

His nostrils are dilated and his breath comes fast--his demons are driving him.

He nods and shakes his head at his companions, jerking at them with his

violin, until at last the long form of the second violinist also rises up.

In the end all three of them begin advancing, step by step, upon the

banqueters, Valentinavyczia, the cellist, bumping along with his instrument between

notes.

Finally all three are gathered at the foot of the tables, and there Tamoszius mounts

upon a stool. Now he is in his glory, dominating the

scene.

Some of the people are eating, some are laughing and talking--but you will make a

great mistake if you think there is one of them who does not hear him.

His notes are never true, and his fiddle buzzes on the low ones and squeaks and

scratches on the high; but these things they heed no more than they heed the dirt