Free Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery

the crank had grown gradually harder and Pat had just decided that for once in her life she had got all the churning she wanted when it suddenly grew lighter and Judy came down to call her to dinner.
    â€œI’ve churned till I’m all in a sweat, Judy.”
    Judy was horrified.
    â€œA sweat, is it? Niver be ye using such a word, girleen. Remimber the Binnies may sweat but the Gardiners perspire. And now I s’pose I’ll have to be giving the crame to the pigs. Tis a burning shame, that it is…the blue cow’s crame and all…and bought butter for a Silver Bush widding! But what wud ye ixpect wid grane dresses? I’m asking ye. Inny one might ave known…”
    Judy had lifted the cover from the churn and her eyes nearly popped out of her head.
    â€œIf the darlint hasn’t brought the butter! Here it is, floating round in the buttermilk, as good butter as was iver churned. And wid her liddle siven-year-old arms, whin nather meself nor Long Alec cud come be it. Oh, oh, just let me be after telling the whole fam’ly av it!”
    Probably Pat never had such another moment of triumph in her whole life.

CHAPTER 7
Here Comes the Bride
    The wedding day came at last. Pat had been counting dismally towards it for a week. Only four more days to have Aunt Hazel at Silver Bush…only three…only two—only one. Pat had the good fortune to sleep with Judy the night before, because her bedroom was needed for the guests who came from afar. So she wakened with Judy before sunrise and slipped down anxiously to see what kind of a day it was going to be.
    â€œQuane’s weather!” said Judy in a tone of satisfaction. “I was a bit afraid last night we’d have rain, bekase there was a ring around the moon and it’s ill-luck for the bride the rain falls on, niver to mintion all the mud and dirt tracked in. Now I’ll just slip out and tell the sun to come up and thin I’ll polish off the heft av the milking afore yer dad gets down. The poor man’s worn to the bone wid all the ruckus.”
    â€œWouldn’t the sun come up if you didn’t tell it, Judy?”
    â€œI’m taking no chances on a widding day, me jewel.”
    While Judy was out milking Pat prowled about Silver Bush. How queer a house was in the early morning before people were up! Just as if it were watching for something. Of course all the rooms had an unfamiliar look on account of the wedding. The Big Parlor had been filled with a flame of autumn leaves and chrysanthemums. The new curtains were so lovely that Pat felt a fierce regret the Binnies were not to be among the guests at the house. Just fancy May’s face if she saw them! The Little Parlor was half full of wedding presents. The table had been laid in the dining-room the night before. How pretty it looked, with its sparkling glass and its silver candlesticks and tall slender candles like moonbeams and the beautiful colors of the jellies.
    Pat ran outside. The sun, obedient to Judy’s mandate, was just coming up. The air was the amber honey of autumn. Every birch and poplar in the silver bush had become a golden maiden. The garden was tired of growing and had sat down to rest but the gorgeous hollyhocks were flaunting over the old stone dyke. A faint, lovely morning haze hung over the Hill of the Mist and trembled away before the sun. What a lovely world to be alive in!
    Then Pat turned and saw a lank, marauding, half-eared cat…an alien to Silver Bush…lapping up the milk in the saucer that had been left for the fairies. So that was how it went! She had always suspected it but to know it was bitter. Was there no real magic left in the world?
    â€œJudy,”…Pat was almost tearful when Judy came to the well with her pails of milk…“the fairies don’t drink the milk. It’s a cat…just as Sidney always said.”
    â€œOh, oh, and if the fairies didn’t nade it last night why