Peter awoke the next morning surprised that the sky was overcast. How could it be this dreary when his heart was so happy?
The Armstrongs met him at the church after breakfast.
“You seem especially happy this morning,” the presiding elder said to him.
Peter tried to keep the grin off his face, but it kept popping back into place. “Yes, I am.”
Mrs. Armstrong smiled. “Could it have anything to do with the charming woman we met yesterday?”
“Yes, it could.” Peter straightened the already-neat altar banner.
“If you’d like to share something with us …,” she began.
“She said yes!” he interrupted happily. “She said she’d marry me!”
“Lovely choice,” Mrs. Armstrong said, and her husband agreed.
A thought came to him—a wild, crazy thought—but maybe, just maybe … “Would you do us the honor, Reverend Armstrong, of performing the wedding? My parents, you might remember, have gone on to be with the Lord. Having you perform the ceremony would mean so much to me.”
The presiding elder’s face broke into a wide smile. “Why, I’d be honored.” His brow wrinkled. “But I’ll be out of the country for the next year. We’re leaving right after we return from this visit.”
“Could you marry us before you leave?”
“Well, I could. But bear in mind that I’m only in this region for two weeks, so this wedding would have to take place soon.”
Peter briefly considered that. Certainly he and Brigit hadn’t known each other long, and he hadn’t given any thought to a quite abbreviated engagement, but an early wedding shouldn’t present any problem.
“We can do that,” he said.
Mrs. Armstrong tugged on her husband’s sleeve. “Might I suggest something?” she asked softly.
“Of course,” Peter answered.
“Could we discuss this with Brigit? She might have something to say about it. A woman does only have one wedding in her lifetime, you know.” Her eyes lit with a soft love for her husband as she looked at him.
“Did I hear my name?” Brigit spoke from the doorway of the church.
Peter’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of her unruly hair, which was, even at this early hour, escaping the pins that vainly tried to hold some kind of a bun arrangement in place. He crossed to the door and took her hands in his and led her to where the Armstrongs stood.
“Brigit, I’ve told the Armstrongs that you accepted my proposal last night,” he began, “and—”
Mrs. Armstrong gave Brigit a quick hug. “I’m delighted for you,” she said. Then with a meaningful glance at her husband, she added, “I think that Charles and I would like to take a walk in the fresh air before we return to the dusty world of church records. We’ll leave you two alone for a bit.”
“But I thought—”
“Didn’t you want to—”
Both men spoke at once and were promptly hushed by Mrs. Armstrong, who looped her arm through her husband’s. “Come along, now.”
Brigit looked befuddled as the Armstrongs left the church, a slightly confused look on the presiding elder’s face. “What was that about?”
Peter drew her close and kissed her gently. “I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Reverend Armstrong to perform our wedding ceremony.”
The thought that he was going to spend the rest of his life with her was almost too much to bear. She was so beautiful, so free-spirited. What a delightful experience life was going to be with her.
“That’s fine with me,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder. “I hadn’t thought about it, but I suppose you can’t perform your own wedding.”
“So it’s all right with you to have him officiate?”
“Of course. It would be an honor.” She leaned her head back and ran her finger down the side of his face. “Shouldn’t we set a date then? I don’t know anything about weddings, but I can ask Mary Rose. She’s an expert.”
Finally his brain clicked into place. Weddings. They took time. “How long has Mary Rose been engaged?” he asked, trying to sound casual, but he dreaded the answer.
“She’s been working on it since Christmas, but she’s marrying Gregory Lester, and there are Lesters all throughout this part of the territory. Their wedding is going to be the event of the year.”
“So our engagement doesn’t have to be that long, right?”
“Oh, not at all.”
He took a deep breath. “So, how does two weeks sound?”
She jerked out of his arms. “Two weeks? Two weeks?”
“Too long?” His bad attempt at humor warranted golden sparks in her light green eyes.
“Two weeks?” she repeated. “Two weeks?”
Brigit rode down the row of poplars. Fulton looked over his shoulder as if to ask, Why aren’t we running? But she needed the time to sort through her thoughts.
This was going much faster than it should. She still had to come to grips with being a pastor’s wife. Could she do that and get married—in two weeks?
God, I’m turning to Thee again, she prayed silently. Once again haste is my enemy. I’ve never paid attention to much in life, just rushed pell-mell forward, and somehow Thou hast always caught me when I might have fallen. What should I do?
There was no answer except the soft sound of the wind in the poplars and the soft neigh from Fulton as he again questioned why they weren’t running.
When she was a pastor’s wife, would she have to forgo these cleansing rides on Fulton’s back? Or making poplar leaf whistles?
“Come on, boy. Let’s go!” She urged him forward, and together they raced against the day.
By the time she had Fulton stabled for the night, she had her answer. She loved Peter, and she was going to marry him whether it was in a year or a day.
Later that evening, she lay in bed wide awake. Too much was happening for sleep to come. In less than two weeks, she’d be married to Peter. She’d be Mrs. Collins, Mrs. Peter Collins! Brigit Collins. She tried the name on for size and found it fit very nicely.
She sat up in bed, startled, as a sudden thought came into her mind with the force of a prairie whirlwind. Getting married in two weeks wasn’t going to be a problem. She couldn’t be expected to put on a fancy wedding with that little time. She and Peter would quietly get married with no folderol.
Life was good, very good.
The Armstrongs handed their baggage to the boy loading it onto the train. “We’ll be back in two weeks for the wedding then,” Reverend Armstrong said.
“I’ve enjoyed this visit,” Mrs. Armstrong confided to Brigit, “but the wedding is going to be joyous indeed.”
She handed Brigit a small, tissue-wrapped package. “I hope this can make the day a bit brighter for you.”
“What is it?”
“Open it, dear, and find out.”
Brigit unwrapped the packet, and a neatly folded length of material spilled across her hands, as soft and delicate as a baby’s breath.
“It’s lovely.” The words didn’t begin to express how much the gift touched her.
Mrs. Armstrong smiled and held the material against Brigit’s face. “As I thought. The green matches your eyes.”
Impulsively Brigit threw her arms around the older woman’s shoulders. “Thank you so much!”
“I never had a daughter of my own,” Mrs. Armstrong said, “only one boy, and he’s not big on spring green dresses. It would be an honor if you would wear a dress made out of this fabric on your wedding day.”
“I will, I will,” Brigit promised, nearly beyond words as she held the incredible material. “I will.”
Mrs. Armstrong dropped a kiss on Brigit’s cheek. “I’ll look forward to seeing what you do with this. I just know that any woman Peter has selected will be a true Proverbs 31 wife.”
Proverbs 31 wife? What did that mean?
She watched the Armstrongs board the train and numbly waved good-bye as the train pulled away, its wheels chugging out the message: Two weeks, two weeks.
Peter hooked his arm around hers, and together they walked back to Fulton and the wagon. She couldn’t linger today, for the harvest was in full swing, and her father needed her help.
“What did Mrs. Armstrong give you?” he asked.
She showed him the swath of fabric. “She thinks it would make a lovely dress to be married in, and I agree. What do you think?”
He squeezed her hand and helped her into the wagon. “I think you’d be the most beautiful bride in the Dakota Territory if you were dressed in Fulton’s feedbag.”
Brigit laughed. “Now that’s something the people of Archer Falls would be talking about for years!”
Mr. Streeter was hard at work in the field, and he motioned to Brigit. “Mary Rose came by to see you. She’ll stop by tonight after supper. Meanwhile, can you take over here? I have to run into town to get a part for the baler.”
She loved the harvest. The smell of the wheat as it fell to the blade, the warmth of the sun upon her shoulders, the glorious azure sky overhead—all of these made this time exciting.
Plus it gave her time with her thoughts. This year she had plenty to consider. She was about to marry the man she loved. What was she supposed to be doing? There had to be something besides making her wedding dress.
The thought nearly stopped her mid-step. Making her wedding dress? It was insane. She couldn’t sew. She couldn’t!
She was the only young woman her age who couldn’t sew. Whenever something needed mending, her father actually took up needle and thread.
As far as her dresses went, her friends’ mothers had always taken pity upon the poor motherless child and tried to help her with making her dresses. But despite their best efforts, Brigit had never learned. Was there ever a duller subject? While the enterprising mothers had talked of needles and seams and selvages, she’d daydreamed of racing Fulton through the fields.
Oh, why hadn’t she paid attention—not just to sewing, but to the whole realm of the household arts? She was getting married in two weeks and had only the vaguest idea of how to cook a dinner and certainly no concept of how to entertain or make a dress or even mend a ripped seam.
What a foolish choice she was for Peter. There was no way for her to learn what she didn’t know in two weeks.
That evening she unfolded the delicate material and spread it out. How long she sat there, the material around her like a pool of pastel green, she had no idea. At last a sound at the door made her look up.
“Daughter, what are you doing?”
“I’m making a dress.” She didn’t sound at all convinced of the fact, but she bravely smiled for her father.
He came and knelt beside her. “Where’s your pattern?”
“Pattern?”
“You’re going to need a pattern to tell you where to cut. What is this material for, anyway? Why don’t you wait for one of the women in town to make it for you?”
She buried her face in her hands. She was not a crying woman, and she wasn’t about to start now, but this project had vexed her beyond her capabilities.
“Why are you doing this?” he repeated.
“It’s my wedding dress. Or it’s supposed to be.”
Mr. Streeter smoothed her tangled hair, as if by doing so he could smooth her tangled thoughts. “I think you should wait for someone to help you.”
“How can I?” She looked up at him with worried eyes. “They’re all busy with the harvest. I barely have time as it is to work on it myself. Mary Rose is in Chicago this week, looking at shoes of all things. That’s what she wanted to see me about today, to tell me that. So she can’t help me.”
“I can help.”
“Papa, I need to make the dress myself. Mrs. Armstrong expects, and Peter expects, and I—”
“And you expect,” he finished for her. “I understand. Might you take some advice from an old farmer? The wheat grows straighter if you line up the seeds.”
Brigit gaped at him. He had clearly spent too much time in the sun.
“Plan before you cut, dearest daughter. Plan before you cut.”
She studied the cloth a bit more. She could see the imagery. The fabric as the land. The scissors as the plow. The needle and thread were like planting.
Her soul began to rise, ready to take on this next challenge. She could do it.
After all, how hard could it be to make a dress?