Predestination: Part One

[Although the typewritten copy of this story is undated, the events took place in Wadesboro, North Carolina when VMM was a teenager. That puts the date around 1940, give or take a few years.]

Mr. Tom Austin, the jeweler who took clocks apart and did not get the parts all back in (leaving the striking element out of ours, for instance) carried an excellent selection of wedding gifts. Although his carelessness about clock repair led one male customer to express his dissatisfaction so pointedly that both of them ended up with black eyes, Mr. Austin was unfailingly polite to the women who patronized his shop for china and crystal.

The protocol in our small North Carolina town was to select a gift from the bride's pattern and have it delivered well before the ceremony, thus allowing the bride a chance to display her gifts in her parents' home and creating a social opportunity known as "the viewing." The bride or her mother, but preferably the bride, would conduct this event, a kind of open house, for weeks before the wedding. If there were a large number of gifts, the family might give over a whole room such as what was then called the "rumpus room"; and the ping pong table would be covered with an elegant white cloth to suitably set off the gifts. The bride herself would show her appreciation by remembering the giver of every gift and by expressing as much pleasure and gratitude for the hand-embroidered pillow cases edged with tatting as for the heavy sterling serving pieces in her chosen pattern.

Imagine my mother's dismay when she went for the viewing of an old and dear friend's daughter and found that the carefully-selected cream and sugar set she had ordered several weeks before from Mr. Austin's store was not on display.

She called Mr. Austin immediately.

"We have never failed to make a delivery," he said acidly. "Of course, some brides don't get their notes written right away if at all. Remember Annie Eaton. Remember her. I got a lot of complaints on her account."

The case of Annie Eaton was well known to my mother as well as to the rest of the community. Annie was able to get off only a weekend from medical school in which to be married; and although she was of a prominent family and very well brought up, she failed to acknowledge any of the numerous gifts sent from Mr. Austin's store. Needless to say, she never intended to set foot again in her hometown. Indeed, her new husband was from some state such as Pennsylvania; and, as was to be expected, they later divorced.

Knowing Mr. Austin's reputation for testiness, my mother apologized for giving the impression that he was in any way at fault.

She patiently watched for the mail, delivered twice a day in those faraway times by Mr. Hector Bennett, a notorious card sharp, who might go so far as to stop along his route to take a hand in a front-porch game of Set Back; but such as was dispersed did not yield the expected note of thanks.

Only my mother and I ever knew the end of the sugar and creamer story. I think about it every time the question of predestination comes up.

[First installment of an undated story by Virginia McKinnon Mann. Click here for the second installment.]