The Ballad of the Sad Café-7

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    The church is no distance from the store so the bride and groom walked home. It is said that on the way Miss Amelia began to talk about some deal she had worked up with a farmer over a load of kindling wood. In fact, she treated her groom ily the same manner she would have used with some er who had e into the store to buy a pint from her. But so far all had goly enough; the town was gratified, as people had seen what this love had doo Marvin Mad hoped that it might also reform his bride. At least, they ted on the marriage to tone down Miss Amelias temper, to put a bit of bride-fat on her, and to ge her at last into a calculable woman.

    They were wrong. The young boys who watched through the window on that night said that this is what actually happehe bride and groom ate a grand supper prepared by Jeff, the old Negro who cooked for Miss Amelia. The bride took sed servings of everything, but the groom picked with his food. Then the bride<tt>?t> went about her ordinary business -- reading the neer, finishing an iory of the sto the store, and so forth. The groom hung about in the doorway with a loose, foolish, blissful fad was not noticed. At eleven oclock the bride took a lamp a upstairs. The groom followed close behind her. So far all had goly enough, but what followed after was unholy.

    Within half an hour Miss Amelia had stomped dowairs in breeches and a khaki jacket. Her face had darkened so that it looked quite black. She slammed the kit door and gave it an ugly kick. Then she trolled herself. She poked up the fire, sat dout her feet up o stove. She read the Farmers Almanac, drank coffee, and had a smoke with her fathers pipe. Her face was hard, stern, and had now whiteo its natural color. Sometimes she paused to jot down some information from the Almana a piece of paper. Toward dawn she went into her offid uncovered her typewriter, wh></a>ich she had retly bought and was only just learning how to run. That was the way in which she spent the whole of her wedding night. At daylight she went out to her yard as though nothing whatsoever had occurred and did some carpentering on a rabbit hutch which she had begun the week before and inteo sell somewhere.

    A groom is in a sorry fix when he is u his well-beloved bride to bed with him, and the whole town knows it. Marvin Macy came down that day still in his wedding finery, and with a sick face. God knows how he had spent the night. He moped about the yard, watg Miss Amelia, but keeping some distance away from her. Then toward noon an idea came to him and he went off in the dire of Society City. He returned with presents -- an opal ring, a pink enamel doreen of the sort which was then in fashion, a silver bracelet with two hearts on it, and a box of dy which had cost two dollars and a half. Miss Amelia looked over these fine gifts and opehe box of dy, for she was hungry. The rest of the presents she judged shrewdly for a moment to sum up their value -- the them in the ter out for sale. The night ent in much the same manner as the preg one -- except that Miss Amelia brought her feather mattress to make a pallet by the kit stove, and she slept fairly well.

    Things went on like this for three days. Miss Amelia went about her business as usual, and took great i in some rumor that a bridge was to be built some ten miles down the road. Marvin Macy still followed her about around the premises, and it lain from his face how he suffered. Then on the fourth day he did aremely simple-mihing: he went to Cheehaw and came back with a lawyer. Then in Miss Amelias office he signed over to her the whole of his worldly goods, which was ten acres of timberland which he had bought with the money he had saved. She studied the paper sternly to make sure there was no possibility of a trid filed it soberly in the drawer of her desk. That afternoon Marvin Macy took a quart bottle of whisky a with it alo in the s while the sun was still shining. Toward evening he came in drunk, went up to Miss Amelia with wet wide eyes, and put his hand on her shoulder. He was trying to tell her something, but before he could open his mouth she had swung oh her fist and hit his face so hard that he was thrown back against the wall and one of his froh was broken.

    The rest of this affair  only be mentioned in bare outline. After this first blow Miss Amelia hit him whenever he came within arms reach of her, and whenever he was drunk. At last she turned him off the premises altogether, and he was forced to suffer publicly. During the day he hung around just outside the boundary line of Miss Amelias property and sometimes with a drawn crazy look he would fetch his rifle and sit there ing it, peering at Miss Amelia steadily. If she was afraid she did not show it, but her face was sterhan ever, and often she spat on the ground. His last foolish effort was to climb in the window of her store one night and to sit there in the dark, for no purpose whatsoever, until she came dowairs  m. For this Miss Amelia set off immediately to the courthouse in Cheehaw with some notion that she could get him locked in the peiary for trespassing. Marvin Macy left the town that day, and no one saw him go, or knew just where he went. On leavi a long curious letter, partly written in pencil and partly with ink, beh Miss Amelias door. It was a wild love letter -- but in it were also included threats, and he swore that in his life he would get even with her. His marriage had lasted for ten days. An<u>.９9ｌiｂ?</u>d the towhe special satisfa that people feel when someone has been thhly done in by some sdalous and terrible means.

    Miss Amelia was left with everything that Marvin Macy had ever owned -- his timberwood, his gilt watch, every one of his possessions. But she seemed to attach little value to them and that spring she cut up his Klansmans robe to cover her tobacco plants. So all that he had ever done was to make her richer and t her love. But, strao say, she never spoke of him but with a terrible and spiteful bitterness. She never once referred to him by  always mentioned him sfully as &quot;that loom-fixer I was married to.&quot;

    And later, when horrifying rumors ing Marvin Macy reached the town, Miss Amelia was very pleased. For the true character of Marvin Macy finally revealed itself, once he had freed himself of his love. He became a criminal whose picture and whose name were in all the papers iate. He robbed three filling stations and held up the A &amp; P store of Society City with a sawed-off gun. He was suspected of the murder of Slit-Eye Sam who was a noted highjacker. All these crimes were ected with the name of Marvin Macy, so that his evil became famous through many tries. Then finally the latured him, drunk, on the floor of a tourist , his guitar by his side, and fifty-seven dollars in his right shoe. He was tried, sentenced, a off to the peiary near Atlanta. Miss Amelia was deeply gratified.

    Well, all this happened a long time ago, and it is the story of Miss Amelias marriage. The town laughed a long time over this grotesque affair. But though the outward facts of this love are indeed sad and ridiculous, it must be remembered that the real story was that which took pla the soul of the lover himself. So who but God  be the final judge of this or any other love? On the very first night of the café there were several who suddenly thought of this broken bridegroom, locked in the gloomy peiary, many miles away. And in the years that followed, Marvin Macy was not altogether fotten iown. His name was never mentioned in the preseniss Amelia or the hunchback. But the memory of his passion and his crimes, and the thought of him trapped in his cell in the peiary, was like a troubling uoh the happy love of Miss Amelia and the gaiety of the café. So do not fet this Marvin Macy, as he is to act a terrible part iory which is yet to e.

    During the four years in which the store became a café the rooms upstairs were not ged. This part of the premises remaily as it had been all of Miss Amelias life, as it was iime of her father, and most likely his father before him. The three rooms, it is already known, were immaculately . The smallest object had its exact place, and everything was wiped and dusted by Jeff, the servant of Miss Amelia, each m. The front room beloo Cousin Lymon -- it was the room where Marvin Macy had stayed during the few nights he was allowed on the premises, and before that it was the bedroom of Miss Amelias father. The room was furnished with a large chifforobe, a bureau covered with a stiff white linen cloth crocheted at the edges, and a marble-topped table. The bed was immense, an old fourposter made of carved, dark rosewood. On it were two feather mattresses, bolsters, and a number of handmade forts. The bed was so high that beh it were two wooden steps -- no oct had ever used these steps before, but Cousin Lymohem out eaight and walked up in state. Beside the steps, but pushed modestly out of view, there was a a chamber-pot painted with pink roses. N covered the dark, polished floor and the curtains were of some white stuff, also crocheted at the ed<samp>?９9ｌib.</samp>ges.

    Oher side of the parlor was Miss Amelias bedroom, and it was smaller and very simple. The bed was narrow and made of pihere was a bureau for her breeches, shirts, and Sunday dress, and she had hammered two nails in the closet wall on which to hang her s boots. There were no curtains, rugs, or ors of any kind.

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