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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.
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