Chapter 5 - Will you?

Laughing Bear worked even harder than before now with a goal in sight. He needed to make enough money to buy a ring for Little feet. 

Now that he had decided to marry Little feet, he found that his thoughts revolved more and more round her and he was happy to come home in the evening from fishing so that he could see her again.

Laughing bear had discovered the local gym. He was used to being fit from hunting, but now the main source of their income was fishing and so he spent many hours just standing still. It felt good to be able to be more active.

Once he had the ring the next decision was where to take Little feet to propose to her. On questioning Angel again he had found out that women expected you to propose somewhere special rather than just ask casually over an evening meal. Little feet was not a modern women, but if Angel's sometimes very insightful comments were anything to go by, women had not changed much.

One lovely summer day Laughing bear took Little feet by the hand and told her that today he had planned a trip just the two of them. Although she looked surprised, she followed him without further questions. It took a good half an hours walk to get to the site that Laughing bear had chosen. He talked to her of her garden and of the fish he had caught. He had always found her easy to talk to and an attentive listener.

Then he saw the standing stones over the brow of a hill and taking a deep breath he started to speak using the words he had practised over and over in his head.

"Have you heard of marriage?" he asked her, she shook her head and so he continued, still striding alongside Little feet to the stones.

"Here they believe that if two people want to spend their lives together and bring up children they get married to show their commitment. A man will ask a woman to marry him by producing a ring."

Laughing bear stopped walking, looked Little feet full in the face and got down on one knee.

Producing a ring from inside his pocket he said, "Will you marry me?"

Little feet looked flabberghasted, but accepted the ring from Laughing bear, she seemed unable to speak. Instead she beamed at the ring now on her finger and launched herself into his arms. 

Barely a week later they held the small ceremony at their house, inviting a handful of people.

They even got a wedding cake as Little feet had been so keen when she had heard of this tradition.

Laughing bear as he cuddled up to his new wife that evening felt that life had been very good to him.