I’ve spent the past month in my hometown and the memories have flooded back as I’ve cross-crossed the side roads of the Beaver Valley. If you’re a Globe reader, perhaps you read my nostalgic piece last week?

 Here’s another “Valley Story.” It’s about a wedding, a family farm, a young bride and her penniless friends.

I was twenty-one the year we got married, some might say my husband robbed the cradle, but as the years go by the gap in our age has shrunk. (I still find him quite immature!) The August we married, my parents, fiancé, three brothers and various cousins all lived together on the family farm, an apple orchard. The house, which had for years held six of us together, now heaved and groaned under the pressure of twelve. The well ran dry and we took to bathing in the bay each day after the work on the farm was done.