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diff --git a/old/1375.txt b/old/1375.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..310bdbb --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1375.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7163 @@ +Project Gutenberg's New Chronicles of Rebecca, by Kate Douglas Wiggin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: New Chronicles of Rebecca + +Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin + +Release Date: July, 1998 [Etext #1375] +Posting Date: November 9, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA *** + + + + +Produced by Theresa Armao + + + + + +NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA + +By Kate Douglas Wiggin + + + +CONTENTS + + First Chronicle + Jack O'Lantern + + Second Chronicle + Daughters of Zion + + Third Chronicle + Rebecca's Thought Book + + Fourth Chronicle + A Tragedy in Millinery + + Fifth Chronicle + The Saving of the Colors + + Sixth Chronicle + The State of Maine Girl + + Seventh Chronicle + The Little Prophet + + Eighth Chronicle + Abner Simpson's New Leaf + + Ninth Chronicle + The Green Isle + + Tenth Chronicle + Rebecca's Reminiscences + + Eleventh Chronicle + Abijah the Brave and the Fair Emma Jane + + + + +First Chronicle. JACK O'LANTERN + + +I + +Miss Miranda Sawyer's old-fashioned garden was the pleasantest spot in +Riverboro on a sunny July morning. The rich color of the brick house +gleamed and glowed through the shade of the elms and maples. Luxuriant +hop-vines clambered up the lightning rods and water spouts, hanging +their delicate clusters here and there in graceful profusion. Woodbine +transformed the old shed and tool house to things of beauty, and the +flower beds themselves were the prettiest and most fragrant in all +the countryside. A row of dahlias ran directly around the garden +spot,--dahlias scarlet, gold, and variegated. In the very centre was a +round plot where the upturned faces of a thousand pansies smiled amid +their leaves, and in the four corners were triangular blocks of sweet +phlox over which the butterflies fluttered unceasingly. In the spaces +between ran a riot of portulaca and nasturtiums, while in the more +regular, shell-bordered beds grew spirea and gillyflowers, mignonette, +marigolds, and clove pinks. + +Back of the barn and encroaching on the edge of the hay field was a +grove of sweet clover whose white feathery tips fairly bent under the +assaults of the bees, while banks of aromatic mint and thyme drank +in the sunshine and sent it out again into the summer air, warm, and +deliciously odorous. + +The hollyhocks were Miss Sawyer's pride, and they grew in a stately line +beneath the four kitchen windows, their tapering tips set thickly with +gay satin circlets of pink or lavender or crimson. + +"They grow something like steeples," thought little Rebecca Randall, who +was weeding the bed, "and the flat, round flowers are like rosettes; but +steeples wouldn't be studded with rosettes, so if you were writing about +them in a composition you'd have to give up one or the other, and I +think I'll give up the steeples:-- + + Gay little hollyhock + Lifting your head, + Sweetly rosetted + Out from your bed. + +It's a pity the hollyhock isn't really little, instead of steepling up +to the window top, but I can't say, 'Gay TALL hollyhock.'... I might +have it 'Lines to a Hollyhock in May,' for then it would be small; but +oh, no! I forgot; in May it wouldn't be blooming, and it's so pretty +to say that its head is 'sweetly rosetted'... I wish the teacher wasn't +away; she would like 'sweetly rosetted,' and she would like to hear me +recite 'Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!' that I learned +out of Aunt Jane's Byron; the rolls come booming out of it just like the +waves at the beach.... I could make nice compositions now, everything +is blooming so, and it's so warm and sunny and happy outdoors. Miss +Dearborn told me to write something in my thought book every single day, +and I'll begin this very night when I go to bed." + +Rebecca Rowena Randall, the little niece of the brick-house ladies, and +at present sojourning there for purposes of board, lodging, education, +and incidentally such discipline and chastening as might ultimately +produce moral excellence,--Rebecca Randall had a passion for the rhyme +and rhythm of poetry. From her earliest childhood words had always been +to her what dolls and toys are to other children, and now at twelve she +amused herself with phrases and sentences and images as her schoolmates +played with the pieces of their dissected puzzles. If the heroine of +a story took a "cursory glance" about her "apartment," Rebecca would +shortly ask her Aunt Jane to take a "cursory glance" at her oversewing +or hemming; if the villain "aided and abetted" someone in committing +a crime, she would before long request the pleasure of "aiding and +abetting" in dishwashing or bedmaking. Sometimes she used the borrowed +phrases unconsciously; sometimes she brought them into the conversation +with an intense sense of pleasure in their harmony or appropriateness; +for a beautiful word or sentence had the same effect upon her +imagination as a fragrant nosegay, a strain of music, or a brilliant +sunset. + +"How are you gettin' on, Rebecca Rowena?" called a peremptory voice from +within. + +"Pretty good, Aunt Miranda; only I wish flowers would ever come up as +thick as this pigweed and plantain and sorrel. What MAKES weeds be thick +and flowers be thin?--I just happened to be stopping to think a minute +when you looked out." + +"You think considerable more than you weed, I guess, by appearances. How +many times have you peeked into that humming bird's nest? Why don't you +work all to once and play all to once, like other folks?" + +"I don't know," the child answered, confounded by the question, and +still more by the apparent logic back of it. "I don't know, Aunt +Miranda, but when I'm working outdoors such a Saturday morning as this, +the whole creation just screams to me to stop it and come and play." + +"Well, you needn't go if it does!" responded her aunt sharply. "It don't +scream to me when I'm rollin' out these doughnuts, and it wouldn't to +you if your mind was on your duty." + +Rebecca's little brown hands flew in and out among the weeds as she +thought rebelliously: "Creation WOULDN'T scream to Aunt Miranda; it +would know she wouldn't come." + + Scream on, thou bright and gay creation, scream! + 'Tis not Miranda that will hear thy cry! + +Oh, such funny, nice things come into my head out here by myself, I do +wish I could run up and put them down in my thought book before I forget +them, but Aunt Miranda wouldn't like me to leave off weeding:-- + + Rebecca was weeding the hollyhock bed + When wonderful thoughts came into her head. + Her aunt was occupied with the rolling pin + And the thoughts of her mind were common and thin. + +That wouldn't do because it's mean to Aunt Miranda, and anyway it isn't +good. I MUST crawl under the syringa shade a minute, it's so hot, and +anybody has to stop working once in a while, just to get their breath, +even if they weren't making poetry. + +Rebecca was weeding the hollyhock bed When marvelous thoughts came into +her head. Miranda was wielding the rolling pin And thoughts at such +times seemed to her as a sin. + +How pretty the hollyhock rosettes look from down here on the sweet, +smelly ground! + +"Let me see what would go with rosetting. AIDING AND ABETTING, PETTING, +HEN-SETTING, FRETTING,--there's nothing very nice, but I can make +fretting' do. + + Cheered by Rowena's petting, + The flowers are rosetting, + But Aunt Miranda's fretting + Doth somewhat cloud the day." + +Suddenly the sound of wagon wheels broke the silence and then a voice +called out--a voice that could not wait until the feet that belonged to +it reached the spot: "Miss Saw-YER! Father's got to drive over to North +Riverboro on an errand, and please can Rebecca go, too, as it's Saturday +morning and vacation besides?" + +Rebecca sprang out from under the syringa bush, eyes flashing with +delight as only Rebecca's eyes COULD flash, her face one luminous circle +of joyous anticipation. She clapped her grubby hands, and dancing up +and down, cried: "May I, Aunt Miranda--can I, Aunt Jane--can I, Aunt +Miranda-Jane? I'm more than half through the bed." + +"If you finish your weeding tonight before sundown I s'pose you can go, +so long as Mr. Perkins has been good enough to ask you," responded Miss +Sawyer reluctantly. "Take off that gingham apron and wash your hands +clean at the pump. You ain't be'n out o' bed but two hours an' your head +looks as rough as if you'd slep' in it. That comes from layin' on the +ground same as a caterpillar. Smooth your hair down with your hands an' +p'r'aps Emma Jane can braid it as you go along the road. Run up and get +your second-best hair ribbon out o' your upper drawer and put on +your shade hat. No, you can't wear your coral chain--jewelry ain't +appropriate in the morning. How long do you cal'late to be gone, Emma +Jane?" + +"I don't know. Father's just been sent for to see about a sick woman +over to North Riverboro. She's got to go to the poor farm." + +This fragment of news speedily brought Miss Sawyer, and her sister Jane +as well, to the door, which commanded a view of Mr. Perkins and his +wagon. Mr. Perkins, the father of Rebecca's bosom friend, was primarily +a blacksmith, and secondarily a selectman and an overseer of the poor, a +man therefore possessed of wide and varied information. + +"Who is it that's sick?" inquired Miranda. + +"A woman over to North Riverboro." + +"What's the trouble?" + +"Can't say." + +"Stranger?' + +"Yes, and no; she's that wild daughter of old Nate Perry that used to +live up towards Moderation. You remember she ran away to work in the +factory at Milltown and married a do--nothin' fellow by the name o' John +Winslow?" + +"Yes; well, where is he? Why don't he take care of her?" + +"They ain't worked well in double harness. They've been rovin' round the +country, livin' a month here and a month there wherever they could get +work and house-room. They quarreled a couple o' weeks ago and he left +her. She and the little boy kind o' camped out in an old loggin' cabin +back in the woods and she took in washin' for a spell; then she got +terrible sick and ain't expected to live." + +"Who's been nursing her?" inquired Miss Jane. + +"Lizy Ann Dennett, that lives nearest neighbor to the cabin; but I +guess she's tired out bein' good Samaritan. Anyways, she sent word this +mornin' that nobody can't seem to find John Winslow; that there ain't +no relations, and the town's got to be responsible, so I'm goin' over to +see how the land lays. Climb in, Rebecca. You an' Emmy Jane crowd back +on the cushion an' I'll set forrard. That's the trick! Now we're off!" + +"Dear, dear!" sighed Jane Sawyer as the sisters walked back into the +brick house. "I remember once seeing Sally Perry at meeting. She was a +handsome girl, and I'm sorry she's come to grief." + +"If she'd kep' on goin' to meetin' an' hadn't looked at the men folks +she might a' be'n earnin' an honest livin' this minute," said Miranda. +"Men folks are at the bottom of everything wrong in this world," she +continued, unconsciously reversing the verdict of history. + +"Then we ought to be a happy and contented community here in Riverboro," +replied Jane, "as there's six women to one man." + +"If 't was sixteen to one we'd be all the safer," responded Miranda +grimly, putting the doughnuts in a brown crock in the cellar-way and +slamming the door. + + +II + +The Perkins horse and wagon rumbled along over the dusty country road, +and after a discreet silence, maintained as long as human flesh could +endure, Rebecca remarked sedately: + +"It's a sad errand for such a shiny morning, isn't it, Mr. Perkins?" + +"Plenty o' trouble in the world, Rebecky, shiny mornin's an' all," that +good man replied. "If you want a bed to lay on, a roof over your head, +an' food to eat, you've got to work for em. If I hadn't a' labored early +an' late, learned my trade, an' denied myself when I was young, I might +a' be'n a pauper layin' sick in a loggin' cabin, stead o' bein' an +overseer o' the poor an' selectman drivin' along to take the pauper to +the poor farm." + +"People that are mortgaged don't have to go to the poor farm, do they, +Mr. Perkins?" asked Rebecca, with a shiver of fear as she remembered her +home farm at Sunnybrook and the debt upon it; a debt which had lain like +a shadow over her childhood. + +"Bless your soul, no; not unless they fail to pay up; but Sal Perry an' +her husband hadn't got fur enough along in life to BE mortgaged. You +have to own something before you can mortgage it." + +Rebecca's heart bounded as she learned that a mortgage represented a +certain stage in worldly prosperity. + +"Well," she said, sniffing in the fragrance of the new-mown hay and +growing hopeful as she did so; "maybe the sick woman will be better such +a beautiful day, and maybe the husband will come back to make it up and +say he's sorry, and sweet content will reign in the humble habitation +that was once the scene of poverty, grief, and despair. That's how it +came out in a story I'm reading." + +"I hain't noticed that life comes out like stories very much," responded +the pessimistic blacksmith, who, as Rebecca privately thought, had read +less than half a dozen books in his long and prosperous career. + +A drive of three or four miles brought the party to a patch of woodland +where many of the tall pines had been hewn the previous winter. The roof +of a ramshackle hut was outlined against a background of young birches, +and a rough path made in hauling the logs to the main road led directly +to its door. + +As they drew near the figure of a woman approached--Mrs. Lizy Ann +Dennett, in a gingham dress, with a calico apron over her head. + +"Good morning, Mr. Perkins," said the woman, who looked tired and +irritable. "I'm real glad you come right over, for she took worse after +I sent you word, and she's dead." + +Dead! The word struck heavily and mysteriously on the children's ears. +Dead! And their young lives, just begun, stretched on and on, all +decked, like hope, in living green. Dead! And all the rest of the world +reveling in strength. Dead! With all the daisies and buttercups waving +in the fields and the men heaping the mown grass into fragrant cocks +or tossing it into heavily laden carts. Dead! With the brooks tinkling +after the summer showers, with the potatoes and corn blossoming, the +birds singing for joy, and every little insect humming and chirping, +adding its note to the blithe chorus of warm, throbbing life. + +"I was all alone with her. She passed away suddenly jest about break o' +day," said Lizy Ann Dennett. + +"Her soul passed upward to its God Just at the break of day." + +These words came suddenly into Rebecca's mind from a tiny chamber where +such things were wont to lie quietly until something brought them to the +surface. She could not remember whether she had heard them at a funeral +or read them in the hymn book or made them up "out of her own head," but +she was so thrilled with the idea of dying just as the dawn was breaking +that she scarcely heard Mrs. Dennett's conversation. + +"I sent for Aunt Beulah Day, an' she's be'n here an' laid her out," +continued the long suffering Lizy Ann. "She ain't got any folks, an' +John Winslow ain't never had any as far back as I can remember. She +belongs to your town and you'll have to bury her and take care of +Jacky--that's the boy. He's seventeen months old, a bright little +feller, the image o' John, but I can't keep him another day. I'm all +wore out; my own baby's sick, mother's rheumatiz is extry bad, and my +husband's comin' home tonight from his week's work. If he finds a child +o' John Winslow's under his roof I can't say what would happen; you'll +have to take him back with you to the poor farm." + +"I can't take him up there this afternoon," objected Mr. Perkins. + +"Well, then, keep him over Sunday yourself; he's good as a kitten. John +Winslow'll hear o' Sal's death sooner or later, unless he's gone out of +the state altogether, an' when he knows the boy's at the poor farm, I +kind o' think he'll come and claim him. Could you drive me over to the +village to see about the coffin, and would you children be afraid to +stay here alone for a spell?" she asked, turning to the girls. + +"Afraid?" they both echoed uncomprehendingly. + +Lizy Ann and Mr. Perkins, perceiving that the fear of a dead presence +had not entered the minds of Rebecca or Emma Jane, said nothing, but +drove off together, counseling them not to stray far away from the cabin +and promising to be back in an hour. + +There was not a house within sight, either looking up or down the shady +road, and the two girls stood hand in hand, watching the wagon out of +sight; then they sat down quietly under a tree, feeling all at once a +nameless depression hanging over their gay summer-morning spirits. + +It was very still in the woods; just the chirp of a grasshopper now +and then, or the note of a bird, or the click of a far-distant mowing +machine. + +"We're WATCHING!" whispered Emma Jane. "They watched with Gran'pa +Perkins, and there was a great funeral and two ministers. He left two +thousand dollars in the bank and a store full of goods, and a paper +thing you could cut tickets off of twice a year, and they were just like +money." + +"They watched with my little sister Mira, too," said Rebecca. "You +remember when she died, and I went home to Sunnybrook Farm? It was +winter time, but she was covered with evergreen and white pinks, and +there was singing." + +"There won't be any funeral or ministers or singing here, will there? +Isn't that awful?" + +"I s'pose not; and oh, Emma Jane, no flowers either. We might get those +for her if there's nobody else to do it." + +"Would you dare put them on to her?" asked Emma Jane, in a hushed voice. + +"I don't know; I can't tell; it makes me shiver, but, of course, we +COULD do it if we were the only friends she had. Let's look into +the cabin first and be perfectly sure that there aren't any. Are you +afraid?" + +"N-no; I guess not. I looked at Gran'pa Perkins, and he was just the +same as ever." + +At the door of the hut Emma Jane's courage suddenly departed. She +held back shuddering and refused either to enter or look in. Rebecca +shuddered too, but kept on, drawn by an insatiable curiosity about life +and death, an overmastering desire to know and feel and understand the +mysteries of existence, a hunger for knowledge and experience at all +hazards and at any cost. + +Emma Jane hurried softly away from the felt terrors of the cabin, and +after two or three minutes of utter silence Rebecca issued from the +open door, her sensitive face pale and woe-begone, the ever-ready tears +raining down her cheeks. She ran toward the edge of the wood, sinking +down by Emma Jane's side, and covering her eyes, sobbed with excitement: + +"Oh, Emma Jane, she hasn't got a flower, and she's so tired and +sad-looking, as if she'd been hurt and hurt and never had any good +times, and there's a weeny, weeny baby side of her. Oh, I wish I hadn't +gone in!" + +Emma Jane blenched for an instant. "Mrs. Dennett never said THERE WAS +TWO DEAD ONES! ISN'T THAT DREADFUL? But," she continued, her practical +common sense coming to the rescue, "you've been in once and it's all +over; it won't be so bad when you take in the flowers because you'll +be used to it. The goldenrod hasn't begun to bud, so there's nothing +to pick but daisies. Shall I make a long rope of them, as I did for the +schoolroom?" + +"Yes," said Rebecca, wiping her eyes and still sobbing. "Yes, that's the +prettiest, and if we put it all round her like a frame, the undertaker +couldn't be so cruel as to throw it away, even if she is a pauper, +because it will look so beautiful. From what the Sunday school lessons +say, she's only asleep now, and when she wakes up she'll be in heaven." + +"THERE'S ANOTHER PLACE," said Emma Jane, in an orthodox and sepulchral +whisper, as she took her ever-present ball of crochet cotton from her +pocket and began to twine the whiteweed blossoms into a rope. + +"Oh, well!" Rebecca replied with the easy theology that belonged to her +temperament. "They simply couldn't send her DOWN THERE with that little +weeny baby. Who'd take care of it? You know page six of the catechism +says the only companions of the wicked after death are their father the +devil and all the other evil angels; it wouldn't be any place to bring +up a baby." + +"Whenever and wherever she wakes up, I hope she won't know that the big +baby is going to the poor farm. I wonder where he is?" + +"Perhaps over to Mrs. Dennett's house. She didn't seem sorry a bit, did +she?" + +"No, but I suppose she's tired sitting up and nursing a stranger. Mother +wasn't sorry when Gran'pa Perkins died; she couldn't be, for he was +cross all the time and had to be fed like a child. Why ARE you crying +again, Rebecca?" + +"Oh, I don't know, I can't tell, Emma Jane! Only I don't want to die and +have no funeral or singing and nobody sorry for me! I just couldn't bear +it!" + +"Neither could I," Emma Jane responded sympathetically; "but p'r'aps +if we're real good and die young before we have to be fed, they will +be sorry. I do wish you could write some poetry for her as you did for +Alice Robinson's canary bird, only still better, of course, like that +you read me out of your thought book." + +"I could, easy enough," exclaimed Rebecca, somewhat consoled by the +idea that her rhyming faculty could be of any use in such an emergency. +"Though I don't know but it would be kind of bold to do it. I'm all +puzzled about how people get to heaven after they're buried. I can't +understand it a bit; but if the poetry is on her, what if that should +go, too? And how could I write anything good enough to be read out loud +in heaven?" + +"A little piece of paper couldn't get to heaven; it just couldn't," +asserted Emma Jane decisively. "It would be all blown to pieces and +dried up. And nobody knows that the angels can read writing, anyway." + +"They must be as educated as we are, and more so, too," agreed Rebecca. +"They must be more than just dead people, or else why should they have +wings? But I'll go off and write something while you finish the rope; +it's lucky you brought your crochet cotton and I my lead pencil." + +In fifteen or twenty minutes she returned with some lines written on a +scrap of brown wrapping paper. Standing soberly by Emma Jane, she said, +preparing to read them aloud: "They're not good; I was afraid your +father'd come back before I finished, and the first verse sounds exactly +like the funeral hymns in the church book. I couldn't call her Sally +Winslow; it didn't seem nice when I didn't know her and she is dead, so +I thought if I said friend' it would show she had somebody to be sorry. + + "This friend of ours has died and gone + From us to heaven to live. + If she has sinned against Thee, Lord, + We pray Thee, Lord, forgive. + + "Her husband runneth far away + And knoweth not she's dead. + Oh, bring him back--ere tis too late-- + To mourn beside her bed. + + "And if perchance it can't be so, + Be to the children kind; + The weeny one that goes with her, + The other left behind." + +"I think that's perfectly elegant!" exclaimed Emma Jane, kissing Rebecca +fervently. "You are the smartest girl in the whole State of Maine, and +it sounds like a minister's prayer. I wish we could save up and buy a +printing machine. Then I could learn to print what you write and we'd +be partners like father and Bill Moses. Shall you sign it with your name +like we do our school compositions?" + +"No," said Rebecca soberly. "I certainly shan't sign it, not knowing +where it's going or who'll read it. I shall just hide it in the flowers, +and whoever finds it will guess that there wasn't any minister or +singing, or gravestone, or anything, so somebody just did the best they +could." + + +III + +The tired mother with the "weeny baby" on her arm lay on a long +carpenter's bench, her earthly journey over, and when Rebecca stole +in and placed the flowery garland all along the edge of the rude bier, +death suddenly took on a more gracious and benign aspect. It was only +a child's sympathy and intuition that softened the rigors of the sad +moment, but poor, wild Sal Winslow, in her frame of daisies, looked +as if she were missed a little by an unfriendly world; while the weeny +baby, whose heart had fallen asleep almost as soon as it had learned to +beat, the weeny baby, with Emma Jane's nosegay of buttercups in its tiny +wrinkled hand, smiled as if it might have been loved and longed for and +mourned. + +"We've done all we can now without a minister," whispered Rebecca. "We +could sing, God is ever good' out of the Sunday school song book, but +I'm afraid somebody would hear us and think we were gay and happy. +What's that?" + +A strange sound broke the stillness; a gurgle, a yawn, a merry little +call. The two girls ran in the direction from which it came, and there, +on an old coat, in a clump of goldenrod bushes, lay a child just waking +from a refreshing nap. + +"It's the other baby that Lizy Ann Dennett told about!" cried Emma Jane. + +"Isn't he beautiful!" exclaimed Rebecca. "Come straight to me!" and she +stretched out her arms. + +The child struggled to its feet, and tottered, wavering, toward the warm +welcome of the voice and eyes. Rebecca was all mother, and her maternal +instincts had been well developed in the large family in which she was +next to the eldest. She had always confessed that there were perhaps a +trifle too many babies at Sunnybrook Farm, but, nevertheless, had she +ever heard it, she would have stood loyally by the Japanese proverb: +"Whether brought forth upon the mountain or in the field, it matters +nothing; more than a treasure of one thousand ryo a baby precious is." + +"You darling thing!" she crooned, as she caught and lifted the child. +"You look just like a Jack-o'-lantern." + +The boy was clad in a yellow cotton dress, very full and stiff. His hair +was of such a bright gold, and so sleek and shiny, that he looked like +a fair, smooth little pumpkin. He had wide blue eyes full of laughter, +a neat little vertical nose, a neat little horizontal mouth with his +few neat little teeth showing very plainly, and on the whole Rebecca's +figure of speech was not so wide of the mark. + +"Oh, Emma Jane! Isn't he too lovely to go to the poor farm? If only we +were married we could keep him and say nothing and nobody would know the +difference! Now that the Simpsons have gone away there isn't a single +baby in Riverboro, and only one in Edgewood. It's a perfect shame, but +I can't do anything; you remember Aunt Miranda wouldn't let me have the +Simpson baby when I wanted to borrow her just for one rainy Sunday." + +"My mother won't keep him, so it's no use to ask her; she says most +every day she's glad we're grown up, and she thanks the Lord there +wasn't but two of us." + +"And Mrs. Peter Meserve is too nervous," Rebecca went on, taking the +village houses in turn; "and Mrs. Robinson is too neat." + +"People don't seem to like any but their own babies," observed Emma +Jane. + +"Well, I can't understand it," Rebecca answered. "A baby's a baby, I +should think, whose ever it is! Miss Dearborn is coming back Monday; +I wonder if she'd like it? She has nothing to do out of school, and we +could borrow it all the time!" + +"I don't think it would seem very genteel for a young lady like Miss +Dearborn, who 'boards round,' to take a baby from place to place," +objected Emma Jane. + +"Perhaps not," agreed Rebecca despondently, "but I think if we haven't +got any--any--PRIVATE babies in Riverboro we ought to have one for the +town, and all have a share in it. We've got a town hall and a town lamp +post and a town watering trough. Things are so uneven! One house like +mine at Sunnybrook, brimful of children, and the very next one empty! +The only way to fix them right would be to let all the babies that ever +are belong to all the grown-up people that ever are,--just divide +them up, you know, if they'd go round. Oh, I have a thought! Don't +you believe Aunt Sarah Cobb would keep him? She carries flowers to the +graveyard every little while, and once she took me with her. There's a +marble cross, and it says: SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF SARAH ELLEN, BELOVED +CHILD OF SARAH AND JEREMIAH COBB, AGED 17 MONTHS. Why, that's another +reason; Mrs. Dennett says this one is seventeen months. There's five of +us left at the farm without me, but if we were only nearer to Riverboro, +how quick mother would let in one more!" + +"We might see what father thinks, and that would settle it," said Emma +Jane. "Father doesn't think very sudden, but he thinks awful strong. If +we don't bother him, and find a place ourselves for the baby, perhaps +he'll be willing. He's coming now; I hear the wheels." + +Lizy Ann Dennett volunteered to stay and perform the last rites with +the undertaker, and Jack-o'-lantern, with his slender wardrobe tied in +a bandanna handkerchief, was lifted into the wagon by the reluctant Mr. +Perkins, and jubilantly held by Rebecca in her lap. Mr. Perkins drove +off as speedily as possible, being heartily sick of the whole affair, +and thinking wisely that the little girls had already seen and heard +more than enough of the seamy side of life that morning. + +Discussion concerning Jack-o'-lantern's future was prudently deferred +for a quarter of an hour, and then Mr. Perkins was mercilessly pelted +with arguments against the choice of the poor farm as a place of +residence for a baby. + +"His father is sure to come back some time, Mr. Perkins," urged Rebecca. +"He couldn't leave this beautiful thing forever; and if Emma Jane and I +can persuade Mrs. Cobb to keep him a little while, would you care?" + +No; on reflection Mr. Perkins did not care. He merely wanted a quiet +life and enough time left over from the public service to attend to his +blacksmith's shop; so instead of going home over the same road by which +they came he crossed the bridge into Edgewood and dropped the children +at the long lane which led to the Cobb house. + +Mrs. Cobb, "Aunt Sarah" to the whole village, sat by the window looking +for Uncle Jerry, who would soon be seen driving the noon stage to the +post office over the hill. She always had an eye out for Rebecca, too, +for ever since the child had been a passenger on Mr. Cobb's stagecoach, +making the eventful trip from her home farm to the brick house in +Riverboro in his company, she had been a constant visitor and the joy +of the quiet household. Emma Jane, too, was a well-known figure in the +lane, but the strange baby was in the nature of a surprise--a surprise +somewhat modified by the fact that Rebecca was a dramatic personage and +more liable to appear in conjunction with curious outriders, comrades, +and retainers than the ordinary Riverboro child. She had run away from +the too stern discipline of the brick house on one occasion, and had +been persuaded to return by Uncle Jerry. She had escorted a wandering +organ grinder to their door and begged a lodging for him on a rainy +night; so on the whole there was nothing amazing about the coming +procession. + +The little party toiled up to the hospitable door, and Mrs. Cobb came +out to meet them. + +Rebecca was spokesman. Emma Jane's talent did not lie in eloquent +speech, but it would have been a valiant and a fluent child indeed +who could have usurped Rebecca's privileges and tendencies in this +direction, language being her native element, and words of assorted +sizes springing spontaneously to her lips. + +"Aunt Sarah, dear," she said, plumping Jack-o'-lantern down on the grass +as she pulled his dress over his feet and smoothed his hair becomingly, +"will you please not say a word till I get through--as it's very +important you should know everything before you answer yes or no? +This is a baby named Jacky Winslow, and I think he looks like a +Jack-o'-lantern. His mother has just died over to North Riverboro, all +alone, excepting for Mrs. Lizy Ann Dennett, and there was another little +weeny baby that died with her, and Emma Jane and I put flowers +around them and did the best we could. The father--that's John +Winslow--quarreled with the mother--that was Sal Perry on the Moderation +Road--and ran away and left her. So he doesn't know his wife and the +weeny baby are dead. And the town has got to bury them because they +can't find the father right off quick, and Jacky has got to go to the +poor farm this afternoon. And it seems an awful shame to take him up to +that lonesome place with those old people that can't amuse him, and +if Emma Jane and Alice Robinson and I take most all the care of him we +thought perhaps you and Uncle Jerry would keep him just for a little +while. You've got a cow and a turn-up bedstead, you know," she hurried +on insinuatingly, "and there's hardly any pleasure as cheap as more +babies where there's ever been any before, for baby carriages and +trundle beds and cradles don't wear out, and there's always clothes +left over from the old baby to begin the new one on. Of course, we can +collect enough things to start Jacky, so he won't be much trouble or +expense; and anyway, he's past the most troublesome age and you won't +have to be up nights with him, and he isn't afraid of anybody or +anything, as you can see by his just sitting there laughing and sucking +his thumb, though he doesn't know what's going to become of him. And +he's just seventeen months old like dear little Sarah Ellen in the +graveyard, and we thought we ought to give you the refusal of him before +he goes to the poor farm, and what do you think about it? Because it's +near my dinner time and Aunt Miranda will keep me in the whole afternoon +if I'm late, and I've got to finish weeding the hollyhock bed before +sundown." + +IV + +Mrs. Cobb had enjoyed a considerable period of reflection during this +monologue, and Jacky had not used the time unwisely, offering several +unconscious arguments and suggestions to the matter under discussion; +lurching over on the greensward and righting himself with a chuckle, +kicking his bare feet about in delight at the sunshine and groping for +his toes with arms too short to reach them, the movement involving an +entire upsetting of equilibrium followed by more chuckles. + +Coming down the last of the stone steps, Sarah Ellen's mother regarded +the baby with interest and sympathy. + +"Poor little mite!" she said; "that doesn't know what he's lost and +what's going to happen to him. Seems to me we might keep him a spell +till we're sure his father's deserted him for good. Want to come to Aunt +Sarah, baby?" + +Jack-o'-lantern turned from Rebecca and Emma Jane and regarded the kind +face gravely; then he held out both his hands and Mrs. Cobb, stooping, +gathered him like a harvest. Being lifted into her arms, he at once tore +her spectacles from her nose and laughed aloud. Taking them from him +gently, she put them on again, and set him in the cushioned rocking +chair under the lilac bushes beside the steps. Then she took one of his +soft hands in hers and patted it, and fluttered her fingers like birds +before his eyes, and snapped them like castanets, remembering all the +arts she had lavished upon "Sarah Ellen, aged seventeen months," years +and years ago. + + Motherless baby and babyless mother, + Bring them together to love one another. + +Rebecca knew nothing of this couplet, but she saw clearly enough that +her case was won. + +"The boy must be hungry; when was he fed last?" asked Mrs. Cobb. "Just +stay a second longer while I get him some morning's milk; then you +run home to your dinners and I'll speak to Mr. Cobb this afternoon. Of +course, we can keep the baby for a week or two till we see what happens. +Land! He ain't goin' to be any more trouble than a wax doll! I guess he +ain't been used to much attention, and that kind's always the easiest to +take care of." + +At six o'clock that evening Rebecca and Emma Jane flew up the hill and +down the lane again, waving their hands to the dear old couple who were +waiting for them in the usual place, the back piazza where they had sat +so many summers in a blessed companionship never marred by an unloving +word. + +"Where's Jacky?" called Rebecca breathlessly, her voice always +outrunning her feet. + +"Go up to my chamber, both of you, if you want to see," smiled Mrs. +Cobb, "only don't wake him up." + +The girls went softly up the stairs into Aunt Sarah's room. There, in +the turn-up bedstead that had been so long empty, slept Jack-o'-lantern, +in blissful unconsciousness of the doom he had so lately escaped. His +nightgown and pillow case were clean and fragrant with lavender, but +they were both as yellow as saffron, for they had belonged to Sarah +Ellen. + +"I wish his mother could see him!" whispered Emma Jane. + +"You can't tell; it's all puzzly about heaven, and perhaps she does," +said Rebecca, as they turned reluctantly from the fascinating scene and +stole down to the piazza. + +It was a beautiful and a happy summer that year, and every day it was +filled with blissful plays and still more blissful duties. On the +Monday after Jack-o'-lantern's arrival in Edgewood Rebecca founded the +Riverboro Aunts Association. The Aunts were Rebecca, Emma Jane, Alice +Robinson, and Minnie Smellie, and each of the first three promised +to labor for and amuse the visiting baby for two days a week, Minnie +Smellie, who lived at some distance from the Cobbs, making herself +responsible for Saturday afternoons. + +Minnie Smellie was not a general favorite among the Riverboro girls, and +it was only in an unprecedented burst of magnanimity that they admitted +her into the rites of fellowship, Rebecca hugging herself secretly at +the thought, that as Minnie gave only the leisure time of one day a +week, she could not be called a "full" Aunt. There had been long and +bitter feuds between the two children during Rebecca's first summer in +Riverboro, but since Mrs. Smellie had told her daughter that one more +quarrel would invite a punishment so terrible that it could only be +hinted at vaguely, and Miss Miranda Sawyer had remarked that any niece +of hers who couldn't get along peaceable with the neighbors had better +go back to the seclusion of a farm where there weren't any, hostilities +had been veiled, and a suave and diplomatic relationship had replaced +the former one, which had been wholly primitive, direct, and barbaric. +Still, whenever Minnie Smellie, flaxen-haired, pink-nosed, and +ferret-eyed, indulged in fluent conversation, Rebecca, remembering the +old fairy story, could always see toads hopping out of her mouth. It was +really very unpleasant, because Minnie could never see them herself; and +what was more amazing, Emma Jane perceived nothing of the sort, being +almost as blind, too, to the diamonds that fell continually from +Rebecca's lips; but Emma Jane's strong point was not her imagination. + +A shaky perambulator was found in Mrs. Perkins's wonderful attic; shoes +and stockings were furnished by Mrs. Robinson; Miss Jane Sawyer knitted +a blanket and some shirts; Thirza Meserve, though too young for an aunt, +coaxed from her mother some dresses and nightgowns, and was presented +with a green paper certificate allowing her to wheel Jacky up and down +the road for an hour under the superintendence of a full Aunt. Each +girl, under the constitution of the association, could call Jacky "hers" +for two days in the week, and great, though friendly, was the rivalry +between them, as they washed, ironed, and sewed for their adored nephew. + +If Mrs. Cobb had not been the most amiable woman in the world she might +have had difficulty in managing the aunts, but she always had Jacky to +herself the earlier part of the day and after dusk at night. + +Meanwhile Jack-o'-lantern grew healthier and heartier and jollier as the +weeks slipped away. Uncle Jerry joined the little company of worshipers +and slaves, and one fear alone stirred in all their hearts; not, as a +sensible and practical person might imagine, the fear that the recreant +father might never return to claim his child, but, on the contrary, that +he MIGHT do so! + +October came at length with its cheery days and frosty nights, its glory +of crimson leaves and its golden harvest of pumpkins and ripened corn. +Rebecca had been down by the Edgewood side of the river and had come +up across the pastures for a good-night play with Jacky. Her literary +labors had been somewhat interrupted by the joys and responsibilities of +vice-motherhood, and the thought book was less frequently drawn from its +hiding place under the old haymow in the barn chamber. + +Mrs. Cobb stood behind the screen door with her face pressed against the +wire netting, and Rebecca could see that she was wiping her eyes. + +All at once the child's heart gave one prophetic throb and then stood +still. She was like a harp that vibrated with every wind of emotion, +whether from another's grief or her own. + +She looked down the lane, around the curve of the stone wall, red with +woodbine, the lane that would meet the stage road to the station. There, +just mounting the crown of the hill and about to disappear on the other +side, strode a stranger man, big and tall, with a crop of reddish curly +hair showing from under his straw hat. A woman walked by his side, and +perched on his shoulder, wearing his most radiant and triumphant mien, +as joyous in leaving Edgewood as he had been during every hour of his +sojourn there--rode Jack-o'-lantern! + +Rebecca gave a cry in which maternal longing and helpless, hopeless +jealousy strove for supremacy. Then, with an impetuous movement she +started to run after the disappearing trio. + +Mrs. Cobb opened the door hastily, calling after her, "Rebecca, Rebecca, +come back here! You mustn't follow where you haven't any right to go. If +there'd been anything to say or do, I'd a' done it." + +"He's mine! He's mine!" stormed Rebecca. "At least he's yours and mine!" + +"He's his father's first of all," faltered Mrs. Cobb; "don't let's +forget that; and we'd ought to be glad and grateful that John Winslow's +come to his senses an' remembers he's brought a child into the world and +ought to take care of it. Our loss is his gain and it may make a man of +him. Come in, and we'll put things away all neat before your Uncle Jerry +gets home." + +Rebecca sank in a pitiful little heap on Mrs. Cobb's bedroom floor +and sobbed her heart out. "Oh, Aunt Sarah, where shall we get another +Jack-o'-lantern, and how shall I break it to Emma Jane? What if his +father doesn't love him, and what if he forgets to strain the milk or +lets him go without his nap? That's the worst of babies that aren't +private--you have to part with them sooner or later!" + +"Sometimes you have to part with your own, too," said Mrs. Cobb sadly; +and though there were lines of sadness in her face there was neither +rebellion nor repining, as she folded up the sides of the turn-up +bedstead preparatory to banishing it a second time to the attic. "I +shall miss Sarah Ellen now more'n ever. Still, Rebecca, we mustn't feel +to complain. It's the Lord that giveth and the Lord that taketh away: +Blessed be the name of the Lord." + + + + +Second Chronicle. DAUGHTERS OF ZION + + +I + +Abijah Flagg was driving over to Wareham on an errand for old Squire +Winship, whose general chore-boy and farmer's assistant he had been for +some years. + +He passed Emma Jane Perkins's house slowly, as he always did. She was +only a little girl of thirteen and he a boy of fifteen or sixteen, but +somehow, for no particular reason, he liked to see the sun shine on her +thick braids of reddish-brown hair. He admired her china-blue eyes too, +and her amiable, friendly expression. He was quite alone in the world, +and he always thought that if he had anybody belonging to him he would +rather have a sister like Emma Jane Perkins than anything else within +the power of Providence to bestow. When she herself suggested this +relationship a few years later he cast it aside with scorn, having +changed his mind in the interval--but that story belongs to another time +and place. + +Emma Jane was not to be seen in garden, field, or at the window, and +Abijah turned his gaze to the large brick house that came next on the +other side of the quiet village street. It might have been closed for +a funeral. Neither Miss Miranda nor Miss Jane Sawyer sat at their +respective windows knitting, nor was Rebecca Randall's gypsy face to be +discerned. Ordinarily that will-o'-the wispish little person could be +seen, heard, or felt wherever she was. + +"The village must be abed, I guess," mused Abijah, as he neared the +Robinsons' yellow cottage, where all the blinds were closed and no sign +of life showed on porch or in shed. "No, 't aint, neither," he thought +again, as his horse crept cautiously down the hill, for from the +direction of the Robinsons' barn chamber there floated out into the air +certain burning sentiments set to the tune of "Antioch." The words, to a +lad brought up in the orthodox faith, were quite distinguishable: + +"Daughter of Zion, from the dust, Exalt thy fallen head!" + +Even the most religious youth is stronger on first lines than others, +but Abijah pulled up his horse and waited till he caught another +familiar verse, beginning: + +"Rebuild thy walls, thy bounds enlarge, And send thy heralds forth." + +"That's Rebecca carrying the air, and I can hear Emma Jane's alto." + + "Say to the North, + Give up thy charge, + And hold not back, O South, + And hold not back, O South," etc. + +"Land! ain't they smart, seesawin' up and down in that part they learnt +in singin' school! I wonder what they're actin' out, singin' hymn-tunes +up in the barn chamber? Some o' Rebecca's doins, I'll be bound! Git dap, +Aleck!" + +Aleck pursued his serene and steady trot up the hills on the Edgewood +side of the river, till at length he approached the green Common where +the old Tory Hill meeting-house stood, its white paint and green blinds +showing fair and pleasant in the afternoon sun. Both doors were open, +and as Abijah turned into the Wareham road the church melodeon pealed +out the opening bars of the Missionary Hymn, and presently a score of +voices sent the good old tune from the choir-loft out to the dusty road: + + "Shall we whose souls are lighted + With Wisdom from on high, + Shall we to men benighted + The lamp of life deny?" + +"Land!" exclaimed Abijah under his breath. "They're at it up here, too! +That explains it all. There's a missionary meeting at the church, and +the girls wa'n't allowed to come so they held one of their own, and I +bate ye it's the liveliest of the two." + +Abijah Flagg's shrewd Yankee guesses were not far from the truth, though +he was not in possession of all the facts. It will be remembered by +those who have been in the way of hearing Rebecca's experiences in +Riverboro, that the Rev. and Mrs. Burch, returned missionaries from the +Far East, together with some of their children, "all born under Syrian +skies," as they always explained to interested inquirers, spent a day or +two at the brick house, and gave parlor meetings in native costume. + +These visitors, coming straight from foreign lands to the little Maine +village, brought with them a nameless enchantment to the children, and +especially to Rebecca, whose imagination always kindled easily. The +romance of that visit had never died in her heart, and among the many +careers that dazzled her youthful vision was that of converting such +Syrian heathen as might continue in idol worship after the Burches' +efforts in their behalf had ceased. She thought at the age of eighteen +she might be suitably equipped for storming some minor citadel of +Mohammedanism; and Mrs. Burch had encouraged her in the idea, not, it is +to be feared, because Rebecca showed any surplus of virtue or Christian +grace, but because her gift of language, her tact and sympathy, and her +musical talent seemed to fit her for the work. + +It chanced that the quarterly meeting of the Maine Missionary Society +had been appointed just at the time when a letter from Mrs. Burch to +Miss Jane Sawyer suggested that Rebecca should form a children's branch +in Riverboro. Mrs. Burch's real idea was that the young people should +save their pennies and divert a gentle stream of financial aid into +the parent fund, thus learning early in life to be useful in such work, +either at home or abroad. + +The girls themselves, however, read into her letter no such modest +participation in the conversion of the world, and wishing to effect an +organization without delay, they chose an afternoon when every house in +the village was vacant, and seized upon the Robinsons' barn chamber as +the place of meeting. + +Rebecca, Alice Robinson, Emma Jane Perkins, Candace Milliken, and Persis +Watson, each with her hymn book, had climbed the ladder leading to +the haymow a half hour before Abijah Flagg had heard the strains +of "Daughters of Zion" floating out to the road. Rebecca, being an +executive person, had carried, besides her hymn book, a silver call-bell +and pencil and paper. An animated discussion regarding one of two +names for the society, The Junior Heralds or The Daughters of Zion, +had resulted in a unanimous vote for the latter, and Rebecca had been +elected president at an early stage of the meeting. She had modestly +suggested that Alice Robinson, as the granddaughter of a missionary to +China, would be much more eligible. + +"No," said Alice, with entire good nature, "whoever is ELECTED +president, you WILL be, Rebecca--you're that kind--so you might as well +have the honor; I'd just as lieves be secretary, anyway." + +"If you should want me to be treasurer, I could be, as well as not," +said Persis Watson suggestively; "for you know my father keeps china +banks at his store--ones that will hold as much as two dollars if you +will let them. I think he'd give us one if I happen to be treasurer." + +The three principal officers were thus elected at one fell swoop +and with an entire absence of that red tape which commonly renders +organization so tiresome, Candace Milliken suggesting that perhaps she'd +better be vice-president, as Emma Jane Perkins was always so bashful. + +"We ought to have more members," she reminded the other girls, "but if +we had invited them the first day they'd have all wanted to be officers, +especially Minnie Smellie, so it's just as well not to ask them till +another time. Is Thirza Meserve too little to join?" + +"I can't think why anybody named Meserve should have called a baby +Thirza," said Rebecca, somewhat out of order, though the meeting was +carried on with small recognition of parliamentary laws. "It always +makes me want to say: + + Thirza Meserver + Heaven preserve her! + Thirza Meserver + Do we deserve her? + +She's little, but she's sweet, and absolutely without guile. I think we +ought to have her." + +"Is 'guile' the same as 'guilt?" inquired Emma Jane Perkins. + +"Yes," the president answered; "exactly the same, except one is written +and the other spoken language." (Rebecca was rather good at imbibing +information, and a master hand at imparting it!) "Written language is +for poems and graduations and occasions like this--kind of like a best +Sunday-go-to-meeting dress that you wouldn't like to go blueberrying in +for fear of getting it spotted." + +"I'd just as 'lieves get 'guile' spotted as not," affirmed the +unimaginative Emma Jane. "I think it's an awful foolish word; but now +we're all named and our officers elected, what do we do first? It's +easy enough for Mary and Martha Burch; they just play at missionarying +because their folks work at it, same as Living and I used to make +believe be blacksmiths when we were little." + +"It must be nicer missionarying in those foreign places," said Persis, +"because on 'Afric's shores and India's plains and other spots where +Satan reigns' (that's father's favorite hymn) there's always a heathen +bowing down to wood and stone. You can take away his idols if he'll let +you and give him a bible and the beginning's all made. But who'll we +begin on? Jethro Small?" + +"Oh, he's entirely too dirty, and foolish besides!" exclaimed Candace. +"Why not Ethan Hunt? He swears dreadfully." + +"He lives on nuts and is a hermit, and it's a mile to his camp through +the thick woods; my mother'll never let me go there," objected Alice. +"There's Uncle Tut Judson." + +"He's too old; he's most a hundred and deaf as a post," complained Emma +Jane. "Besides, his married daughter is a Sabbath-school teacher--why +doesn't she teach him to behave? I can't think of anybody just right to +start on!" + +"Don't talk like that, Emma Jane," and Rebecca's tone had a tinge of +reproof in it. "We are a copperated body named the Daughters of Zion, +and, of course, we've got to find something to do. Foreigners are the +easiest; there's a Scotch family at North Riverboro, an English one in +Edgewood, and one Cuban man at Millkin's Mills." + +"Haven't foreigners got any religion of their own?" inquired Persis +curiously. + +"Ye-es, I s'pose so; kind of a one; but foreigners' religions are never +right--ours is the only good one." This was from Candace, the deacon's +daughter. + +"I do think it must be dreadful, being born with a religion and growing +up with it, and then finding out it's no use and all your time wasted!" +Here Rebecca sighed, chewed a straw, and looked troubled. + +"Well, that's your punishment for being a heathen," retorted Candace, +who had been brought up strictly. + +"But I can't for the life of me see how you can help being a heathen if +you're born in Africa," persisted Persis, who was well named. + +"You can't." Rebecca was clear on this point. "I had that all out with +Mrs. Burch when she was visiting Aunt Miranda. She says they can't help +being heathen, but if there's a single mission station in the whole of +Africa, they're accountable if they don't go there and get saved." + +"Are there plenty of stages and railroads?" asked Alice; "because there +must be dreadfully long distances, and what if they couldn't pay the +fare?" + +"That part of it is so dreadfully puzzly we mustn't talk about it, +please," said Rebecca, her sensitive face quivering with the force of +the problem. Poor little soul! She did not realize that her superiors +in age and intellect had spent many a sleepless night over that same +"accountability of the heathen." + +"It's too bad the Simpsons have moved away," said Candace. "It's so +seldom you can find a real big wicked family like that to save, with +only Clara Belle and Susan good in it." + +"And numbers count for so much," continued Alice. "My grandmother says +if missionaries can't convert about so many in a year the Board advises +them to come back to America and take up some other work." + +"I know," Rebecca corroborated; "and it's the same with revivalists. At +the Centennial picnic at North Riverboro, a revivalist sat opposite to +Mr. Ladd and Aunt Jane and me, and he was telling about his wonderful +success in Bangor last winter. He'd converted a hundred and thirty in +a month, he said, or about four and a third a day. I had just finished +fractions, so I asked Mr. Ladd how the third of a man could be +converted. He laughed and said it was just the other way; that the man +was a third converted. Then he explained that if you were trying to +convince a person of his sin on a Monday, and couldn't quite finish by +sundown, perhaps you wouldn't want to sit up all night with him, and +perhaps he wouldn't want you to; so you'd begin again on Tuesday, and +you couldn't say just which day he was converted, because it would be +two thirds on Monday and one third on Tuesday." + +"Mr. Ladd is always making fun, and the Board couldn't expect any great +things of us girls, new beginners," suggested Emma Jane, who was being +constantly warned against tautology by her teacher. "I think it's awful +rude, anyway, to go right out and try to convert your neighbors; but if +you borrow a horse and go to Edgewood Lower Corner, or Milliken's Mills, +I s'pose that makes it Foreign Missions." + +"Would we each go alone or wait upon them with a committee, as they did +when they asked Deacon Tuttle for a contribution for the new hearse?" +asked Persis. + +"Oh! We must go alone," decided Rebecca; "it would be much more refined +and delicate. Aunt Miranda says that one man alone could never get +a subscription from Deacon Tuttle, and that's the reason they sent a +committee. But it seems to me Mrs. Burch couldn't mean for us to try +and convert people when we're none of us even church members, except +Candace. I think all we can do is to persuade them to go to meeting and +Sabbath school, or give money for the hearse, or the new horse sheds. +Now let's all think quietly for a minute or two who's the very most +heathenish and reperrehensiblest person in Riverboro." + +After a very brief period of silence the words "Jacob Moody" fell from +all lips with entire accord. + +"You are right," said the president tersely; "and after singing hymn +number two hundred seventy four, to be found on the sixty-sixth page, +we will take up the question of persuading Mr. Moody to attend divine +service or the minister's Bible class, he not having been in the +meeting-house for lo! these many years. + + 'Daughter of Zion, the power that hath saved thee + Extolled with the harp and the timbrel should be.' + +"Sing without reading, if you please, omitting the second stanza. Hymn +two seventy four, to be found on the sixty-sixth page of the new hymn +book or on page thirty two of Emma Jane Perkins's old one." + +II + +It is doubtful if the Rev. Mr. Burch had ever found in Syria a person +more difficult to persuade than the already "gospel-hardened" Jacob +Moody of Riverboro. + +Tall, gaunt, swarthy, black-bearded--his masses of grizzled, uncombed +hair and the red scar across his nose and cheek added to his sinister +appearance. His tumble-down house stood on a rocky bit of land back of +the Sawyer pasture, and the acres of his farm stretched out on all sides +of it. He lived alone, ate alone, plowed, planted, sowed, harvested +alone, and was more than willing to die alone, "unwept, unhonored, and +unsung." The road that bordered upon his fields was comparatively little +used by any one, and notwithstanding the fact that it was thickly set +with chokecherry trees and blackberry bushes it had been for years +practically deserted by the children. Jacob's Red Astrakhan and Granny +Garland trees hung thick with apples, but no Riverboro or Edgewood boy +stole them; for terrifying accounts of the fate that had overtaken one +urchin in times agone had been handed along from boy to boy, protecting +the Moody fruit far better than any police patrol. + +Perhaps no circumstances could have extenuated the old man's surly +manners or his lack of all citizenly graces and virtues; but his +neighbors commonly rebuked his present way of living and forgot the +troubled past that had brought it about: the sharp-tongued wife, the +unloving and disloyal sons, the daughter's hapless fate, and all the +other sorry tricks that fortune had played upon him--at least that was +the way in which he had always regarded his disappointments and griefs. + +This, then, was the personage whose moral rehabilitation was to be +accomplished by the Daughters of Zion. But how? + +"Who will volunteer to visit Mr. Moody?" blandly asked the president. + +VISIT MR. MOODY! It was a wonder the roof of the barn chamber did not +fall; it did, indeed echo the words and in some way make them sound more +grim and satirical. + +"Nobody'll volunteer, Rebecca Rowena Randall, and you know it," said +Emma Jane. + +"Why don't we draw lots, when none of us wants to speak to him and yet +one of us must?" + +This suggestion fell from Persis Watson, who had been pale and +thoughtful ever since the first mention of Jacob Moody. (She was fond of +Granny Garlands; she had once met Jacob; and, as to what befell, well, +we all have our secret tragedies!) + +"Wouldn't it be wicked to settle it that way?" + +"It's gamblers that draw lots." + +"People did it in the Bible ever so often." + +"It doesn't seem nice for a missionary meeting." + +These remarks fell all together upon the president's bewildered ear the +while (as she always said in compositions)--"the while" she was trying +to adjust the ethics of this unexpected and difficult dilemma. + +"It is a very puzzly question," she said thoughtfully. "I could ask Aunt +Jane if we had time, but I suppose we haven't. It doesn't seem nice to +draw lots, and yet how can we settle it without? We know we mean right, +and perhaps it will be. Alice, take this paper and tear off five narrow +pieces, all different lengths." + +At this moment a voice from a distance floated up to the haymow--a voice +saying plaintively: "Will you let me play with you, girls? Huldah has +gone to ride, and I'm all alone." + +It was the voice of the absolutely-without-guile Thirza Meserve, and it +came at an opportune moment. + +"If she is going to be a member," said Persis, "why not let her come up +and hold the lots? She'd be real honest and not favor anybody." + +It seemed an excellent idea, and was followed up so quickly that +scarcely three minutes ensued before the guileless one was holding the +five scraps in her hot little palm, laboriously changing their places +again and again until they looked exactly alike and all rather soiled +and wilted. + +"Come, girls, draw!" commanded the president. "Thirza, you mustn't chew +gum at a missionary meeting, it isn't polite nor holy. Take it out and +stick it somewhere till the exercises are over." + +The five Daughters of Zion approached the spot so charged with fate, and +extended their trembling hands one by one. Then after a moment's silent +clutch of their papers they drew nearer to one another and compared +them. + +Emma Jane Perkins had drawn the short one, becoming thus the destined +instrument for Jacob Moody's conversion to a more seemly manner of life! + +She looked about her despairingly, as if to seek some painless and +respectable method of self-destruction. + +"Do let's draw over again," she pleaded. "I'm the worst of all of us. +I'm sure to make a mess of it till I kind o' get trained in." + +Rebecca's heart sank at this frank confession, which only corroborated +her own fears. + +"I'm sorry, Emmy, dear," she said, "but our only excuse for drawing lots +at all would be to have it sacred. We must think of it as a kind of a +sign, almost like God speaking to Moses in the burning bush." + +"Oh, I WISH there was a burning bush right here!" cried the distracted +and recalcitrant missionary. "How quick I'd step into it without even +stopping to take off my garnet ring!" + +"Don't be such a scare-cat, Emma Jane!" exclaimed Candace bracingly. +"Jacob Moody can't kill you, even if he has an awful temper. Trot right +along now before you get more frightened. Shall we go cross lots with +her, Rebecca, and wait at the pasture gate? Then whatever happens Alice +can put it down in the minutes of the meeting." + +In these terrible crises of life time gallops with such incredible +velocity that it seemed to Emma Jane only a breath before she was being +dragged through the fields by the other Daughters of Zion, the guileless +little Thirza panting in the rear. + +At the entrance to the pasture Rebecca gave her an impassioned embrace, +and whispering, "WHATEVER YOU DO, BE CAREFUL HOW YOU LEAD UP," lifted +off the top rail and pushed her through the bars. Then the girls turned +their backs reluctantly on the pathetic figure, and each sought a tree +under whose friendly shade she could watch, and perhaps pray, until the +missionary should return from her field of labor. + +Alice Robinson, whose compositions were always marked 96 or 97,--100 +symbolizing such perfection as could be attained in the mortal world of +Riverboro,--Alice, not only Daughter, but Scribe of Zion, sharpened her +pencil and wrote a few well-chosen words of introduction, to be used +when the records of the afternoon had been made by Emma Jane Perkins and +Jacob Moody. + +Rebecca's heart beat tumultuously under her gingham dress. She felt +that a drama was being enacted, and though unfortunately she was not the +central figure, she had at least a modest part in it. The short lot had +not fallen to the properest Daughter, that she quite realized; yet would +any one of them succeed in winning Jacob Moody's attention, in +engaging him in pleasant conversation, and finally in bringing him to +a realization of his mistaken way of life? She doubted, but at the same +moment her spirits rose at the thought of the difficulties involved in +the undertaking. + +Difficulties always spurred Rebecca on, but they daunted poor Emma Jane, +who had no little thrills of excitement and wonder and fear and longing +to sustain her lagging soul. That her interview was to be entered as +"minutes" by a secretary seemed to her the last straw. Her blue eyes +looked lighter than usual and had the glaze of china saucers; her +usually pink cheeks were pale, but she pressed on, determined to be +a faithful Daughter of Zion, and above all to be worthy of Rebecca's +admiration and respect. + +"Rebecca can do anything," she thought, with enthusiastic loyalty, "and +I mustn't be any stupider than I can help, or she'll choose one of +the other girls for her most intimate friend." So, mustering all her +courage, she turned into Jacob Moody's dooryard, where he was chopping +wood. + +"It's a pleasant afternoon, Mr. Moody," she said in a polite but hoarse +whisper, Rebecca's words, "LEAD UP! LEAD UP!" ringing in clarion tones +through her brain. + +Jacob Moody looked at her curiously. "Good enough, I guess," he growled; +"but I don't never have time to look at afternoons." + +Emma Jane seated herself timorously on the end of a large log near the +chopping block, supposing that Jacob, like other hosts, would pause in +his tasks and chat. + +"The block is kind of like an idol," she thought; "I wish I could take +it away from him, and then perhaps he'd talk." + +At this moment Jacob raised his axe and came down on the block with such +a stunning blow that Emma Jane fairly leaped into the air. + +"You'd better look out, Sissy, or you'll git chips in the eye!" said +Moody, grimly going on with his work. + +The Daughter of Zion sent up a silent prayer for inspiration, but none +came, and she sat silent, giving nervous jumps in spite of herself +whenever the axe fell upon the log Jacob was cutting. + +Finally, the host became tired of his dumb visitor, and leaning on +his axe he said, "Look here, Sis, what have you come for? What's your +errant? Do you want apples? Or cider? Or what? Speak out, or GIT out, +one or t'other." + +Emma Jane, who had wrung her handkerchief into a clammy ball, gave it +a last despairing wrench, and faltered: "Wouldn't you like--hadn't you +better--don't you think you'd ought to be more constant at meeting and +Sabbath school?" + +Jacob's axe almost dropped from his nerveless hand, and he regarded +the Daughter of Zion with unspeakable rage and disdain. Then, the blood +mounting in his face, he gathered himself together, and shouted: "You +take yourself off that log and out o' this dooryard double-quick, you +imperdent sanct'omus young one! You just let me ketch Bill Perkins' +child trying to teach me where I shall go, at my age! Scuttle, I tell +ye! And if I see your pious cantin' little mug inside my fence ag'in on +sech a business I'll chase ye down the hill or set the dog on ye! SCOOT, +I TELL YE!" + +Emma Jane obeyed orders summarily, taking herself off the log, out the +dooryard, and otherwise scuttling and scooting down the hill at a pace +never contemplated even by Jacob Moody, who stood regarding her flying +heels with a sardonic grin. + +Down she stumbled, the tears coursing over her cheeks and mingling with +the dust of her flight; blighted hope, shame, fear, rage, all tearing +her bosom in turn, till with a hysterical shriek she fell over the bars +and into Rebecca's arms outstretched to receive her. The other Daughters +wiped her eyes and supported her almost fainting form, while Thirza, +thoroughly frightened, burst into sympathetic tears, and refused to be +comforted. + +No questions were asked, for it was felt by all parties that Emma Jane's +demeanor was answering them before they could be framed. + +"He threatened to set the dog on me!" she wailed presently, when, as +they neared the Sawyer pasture, she was able to control her voice. "He +called me a pious, cantin' young one, and said he'd chase me out o' the +dooryard if I ever came again! And he'll tell my father--I know he will, +for he hates him like poison." + +All at once the adult point of view dawned upon Rebecca. She never +saw it until it was too obvious to be ignored. Had they done wrong in +interviewing Jacob Moody? Would Aunt Miranda be angry, as well as Mr. +Perkins? + +"Why was he so dreadful, Emmy?" she questioned tenderly. "What did you +say first? How did you lead up to it?" + +Emma Jane sobbed more convulsively, and wiped her nose and eyes +impartially as she tried to think. + +"I guess I never led up at all; not a mite. I didn't know what you +meant. I was sent on an errant, and I went and done it the best I could! +(Emma Jane's grammar always lapsed in moments of excitement.) And then +Jake roared at me like Squire Winship's bull.... And he called my face +a mug.... You shut up that secretary book, Alice Robinson! If you write +down a single word I'll never speak to you again.... And I don't want to +be a member' another minute for fear of drawing another short lot. I've +got enough of the Daughters or Zion to last me the rest o' my life! I +don't care who goes to meetin' and who don't." + +The girls were at the Perkins's gate by this time, and Emma Jane went +sadly into the empty house to remove all traces of the tragedy from her +person before her mother should come home from the church. + +The others wended their way slowly down the street, feeling that their +promising missionary branch had died almost as soon as it had budded. + +"Goodby," said Rebecca, swallowing lumps of disappointment and chagrin +as she saw the whole inspiring plan break and vanish into thin air like +an iridescent bubble. "It's all over and we won't ever try it again. +I'm going in to do overcasting as hard as I can, because I hate that the +worst. Aunt Jane must write to Mrs. Burch that we don't want to be +home missionaries. Perhaps we're not big enough, anyway. I'm perfectly +certain it's nicer to convert people when they're yellow or brown or +any color but white; and I believe it must be easier to save their souls +than it is to make them go to meeting." + + + + +Third Chronicle. REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK + + +I + +The "Sawyer girls'" barn still had its haymow in Rebecca's time, +although the hay was a dozen years old or more, and, in the opinion of +the occasional visiting horse, sadly juiceless and wanting in flavor. +It still sheltered, too, old Deacon Israel Sawyer's carryall and +mowing-machine, with his pung, his sleigh, and a dozen other survivals +of an earlier era, when the broad acres of the brick house went to make +one of the finest farms in Riverboro. + +There were no horses or cows in the stalls nowadays; no pig grunting +comfortably of future spare ribs in the sty; no hens to peck the plants +in the cherished garden patch. The Sawyer girls were getting on in +years, and, mindful that care once killed a cat, they ordered their +lives with the view of escaping that particular doom, at least, and +succeeded fairly well until Rebecca's advent made existence a trifle +more sensational. + +Once a month for years upon years, Miss Miranda and Miss Jane had put +towels over their heads and made a solemn visit to the barn, taking off +the enameled cloth coverings (occasionally called "emmanuel covers" in +Riverboro), dusting the ancient implements, and sometimes sweeping +the heaviest of the cobwebs from the corners, or giving a brush to the +floor. + +Deacon Israel's tottering ladder still stood in its accustomed place, +propped against the haymow, and the heavenly stairway leading to eternal +glory scarcely looked fairer to Jacob of old than this to Rebecca. By +means of its dusty rounds she mounted, mounted, mounted far away +from time and care and maiden aunts, far away from childish tasks +and childish troubles, to the barn chamber, a place so full of golden +dreams, happy reveries, and vague longings, that, as her little brown +hands clung to the sides of the ladder and her feet trod the rounds +cautiously in her ascent, her heart almost stopped beating in the sheer +joy of anticipation. + +Once having gained the heights, the next thing was to unlatch the heavy +doors and give them a gentle swing outward. Then, oh, ever new Paradise! +Then, oh, ever lovely green and growing world! For Rebecca had that +something in her soul that + +"Gives to seas and sunset skies The unspent beauty of surprise." + +At the top of Guide Board hill she could see Alice Robinson's barn with +its shining weather vane, a huge burnished fish that swam with the wind +and foretold the day to all Riverboro. The meadow, with its sunny +slopes stretching up to the pine woods, was sometimes a flowing sheet +of shimmering grass, sometimes--when daisies and buttercups were +blooming--a vision of white and gold. Sometimes the shorn stubble would +be dotted with "the happy hills of hay," and a little later the rock +maple on the edge of the pines would stand out like a golden ball +against the green; its neighbor, the sugar maple, glowing beside it, +brave in scarlet. + +It was on one of these autumn days with a wintry nip in the air that +Adam Ladd (Rebecca's favorite "Mr. Aladdin"), after searching for her in +field and garden, suddenly noticed the open doors of the barn chamber, +and called to her. At the sound of his vice she dropped her precious +diary, and flew to the edge of the haymow. He never forgot the vision +of the startled little poetess, book in one mittened hand, pencil in +the other, dark hair all ruffled, with the picturesque addition of an +occasional glade of straw, her cheeks crimson, her eyes shining. + +"A Sappho in mittens!" he cried laughingly, and at her eager question +told her to look up the unknown lady in the school encyclopedia, when +she was admitted to the Female Seminary at Wareham. + +Now, all being ready, Rebecca went to a corner of the haymow, and +withdrew a thick blank-book with mottled covers. Out of her gingham +apron pocket came a pencil, a bit of rubber, and some pieces of brown +paper; then she seated herself gravely on the floor, and drew an +inverted soapbox nearer to her for a table. + +The book was reverently opened, and there was a serious reading of the +extracts already carefully copied therein. Most of them were apparently +to the writer's liking, for dimples of pleasure showed themselves now +and then, and smiles of obvious delight played about her face; but +once in a while there was a knitting of the brows and a sigh of +discouragement, showing that the artist in the child was not wholly +satisfied. + +Then came the crucial moment when the budding author was supposedly to +be racked with the throes of composition; but seemingly there were +no throes. Other girls could wield the darning or crochet or knitting +needle, and send the tatting shuttle through loops of the finest cotton; +hemstitch, oversew, braid hair in thirteen strands, but the pencil was +never obedient in their fingers, and the pen and ink-pot were a horror +from early childhood to the end of time. + +Not so with Rebecca; her pencil moved as easily as her tongue, and no +more striking simile could possibly be used. Her handwriting was not +Spencerian; she had neither time, nor patience, it is to be feared, +for copybook methods, and her unformed characters were frequently the +despair of her teachers; but write she could, write she would, write she +must and did, in season and out; from the time she made pothooks at six, +till now, writing was the easiest of all possible tasks; to be indulged +in as solace and balm when the terrors of examples in least common +multiple threatened to dethrone the reason, or the rules of grammar +loomed huge and unconquerable in the near horizon. + +As to spelling, it came to her in the main by free grace, and not by +training, and though she slipped at times from the beaten path, her +extraordinary ear and good visual memory kept her from many or flagrant +mistakes. It was her intention, especially when saying her prayers at +night, to look up all doubtful words in her small dictionary, before +copying her Thoughts into the sacred book for the inspiration +of posterity; but when genius burned with a brilliant flame, and +particularly when she was in the barn and the dictionary in the house, +impulse as usual carried the day. + +There sits Rebecca, then, in the open door of the Sawyers barn +chamber--the sunset door. How many a time had her grandfather, the good +deacon, sat just underneath in his tipped-back chair, when Mrs. Israel's +temper was uncertain, and the serenity of the barn was in comforting +contrast to his own fireside! + +The open doors swinging out to the peaceful landscape, the solace of the +pipe, not allowed in the "settin'-room"--how beautifully these simple +agents have ministered to the family peace in days agone! "If I hadn't +had my barn and my store BOTH, I couldn't never have lived in holy +matrimony with Maryliza!" once said Mr. Watson feelingly. + +But the deacon, looking on his waving grass fields, his tasseling corn +and his timber lands, bright and honest as were his eyes, never saw +such visions as Rebecca. The child, transplanted from her home farm at +Sunnybrook, from the care of the overworked but easy-going mother, and +the companionship of the scantily fed, scantily clothed, happy-go-lucky +brothers and sisters--she had indeed fallen on shady days in Riverboro. +The blinds were closed in every room of the house but two, and the same +might have been said of Miss Miranda's mind and heart, though Miss +Jane had a few windows opening to the sun, and Rebecca already had her +unconscious hand on several others. Brickhouse rules were rigid and many +for a little creature so full of life, but Rebecca's gay spirit could +not be pinioned in a strait jacket for long at a time; it escaped +somehow and winged its merry way into the sunshine and free air; if she +were not allowed to sing in the orchard, like the wild bird she was, she +could still sing in the cage, like the canary. + +II + +If you had opened the carefully guarded volume with the mottled covers, +you would first have seen a wonderful title page, constructed apparently +on the same lines as an obituary, or the inscription on a tombstone, +save for the quantity and variety of information contained in it. Much +of the matter would seem to the captious critic better adapted to the +body of the book than to the title page, but Rebecca was apparently +anxious that the principal personages in her chronicle should be well +described at the outset. + +She seems to have had a conviction that heredity plays its part in the +evolution of genius, and her belief that the world will be inspired +by the possession of her Thoughts is too artless to be offensive. She +evidently has respect for rich material confided to her teacher, and +one can imagine Miss Dearborn's woe had she been confronted by Rebecca's +chosen literary executor and bidden to deliver certain "Valuable Poetry +and Thoughts," the property of posterity "unless carelessly destroyed." + +THOUGHT BOOK of Rebecca Rowena Randall Really of Sunnybrook Farm But +temporily of The Brick House Riverboro. Own niece of Miss Miranda and +Jane Sawyer Second of seven children of her father, Mr. L. D. M. Randall +(Now at rest in Temperance cemmetary and there will be a monument as +soon as we pay off the mortgage on the farm) Also of her mother Mrs. +Aurelia Randall + + In case of Death the best of these Thoughts + May be printed in my Remerniscences + For the Sunday School Library at Temperance, Maine + Which needs more books fearfully + And I hereby + Will and Testament them to Mr. Adam Ladd + Who bought 300 cakes of soap from me + And thus secured a premium + A Greatly Needed Banquet Lamp + For my friends the Simpsons. + He is the only one that incourages + My writing Remerniscences and + My teacher Miss Dearborn will + Have much valuable Poetry and Thoughts + To give him unless carelessly destroyed. + + The pictures are by the same hand that + Wrote the Thoughts. + +IT IS NOT NOW DECIDED WHETHER REBECCA ROWENA RANDALL WILL BE A PAINTER +OR AN AUTHOR, BUT AFTER HER DEATH IT WILL BE KNOWN WHICH SHE HAS BEEN, +IF ANY. + +FINIS + +From the title page, with its wealth of detail, and its unnecessary and +irrelevant information, the book ripples on like a brook, and to the +weary reader of problem novels it may have something of the brook's +refreshing quality. + +OUR DIARIES May, 187-- + +All the girls are keeping a diary because Miss Dearborn was very much +ashamed when the school trustees told her that most of the girls' and +all of the boys' compositions were disgraceful, and must be improved +upon next term. She asked the boys to write letters to her once a week +instead of keeping a diary, which they thought was girlish like playing +with dolls. The boys thought it was dreadful to have to write letters +every seven days, but she told them it was not half as bad for them as +it was for her who had to read them. + +To make my diary a little different I am going to call it a THOUGHT Book +(written just like that, with capitals). I have thoughts that I never +can use unless I write them down, for Aunt Miranda always says, Keep +your thoughts to yourself. Aunt Jane lets me tell her some, but does not +like my queer ones and my true thoughts are mostly queer. Emma Jane does +not mind hearing them now and then, and that is my only chance. + +If Miss Dearborn does not like the name Thought Book I will call it +Remerniscences (written just like that with a capital R). Remerniscences +are things you remember about yourself and write down in case you should +die. Aunt Jane doesn't like to read any other kind of books but just +lives of interesting dead people and she says that is what Longfellow +(who was born in the state of Maine and we should be very proud of it +and try to write like him) meant in his poem: + + "Lives of great men all remind us + We should make our lives sublime, + And departing, leave behind us + Footprints on the sands of time." + +I know what this means because when Emma Jane and I went to the beach +with Uncle Jerry Cobb we ran along the wet sand and looked at the shapes +our boots made, just as if they were stamped in wax. Emma Jane turns in +her left foot (splayfoot the boys call it, which is not polite) and Seth +Strout had just patched one of my shoes and it all came out in the sand +pictures. When I learned The Psalm of Life for Friday afternoon speaking +I thought I shouldn't like to leave a patched footprint, nor have Emma +Jane's look crooked on the sands of time, and right away I thought Oh! +What a splendid thought for my Thought Book when Aunt Jane buys me a +fifteen-cent one over to Watson's store. + +* * * * * + + +REMERNISCENCES + +June, 187-- + +I told Aunt Jane I was going to begin my Remerniscences, and she says +I am full young, but I reminded her that Candace Milliken's sister died +when she was ten, leaving no footprints whatever, and if I should die +suddenly who would write down my Remerniscences? Aunt Miranda says the +sun and moon would rise and set just the same, and it was no matter if +they didn't get written down, and to go up attic and find her piece-bag; +but I said it would, as there was only one of everybody in the world, +and nobody else could do their remerniscensing for them. If I should die +tonight I know now who would describe me right. Miss Dearborn would +say one thing and brother John another. Emma Jane would try to do me +justice, but has no words; and I am glad Aunt Miranda never takes the +pen in hand. + +My dictionary is so small it has not many genteel words in it, and I +cannot find how to spell Remerniscences, but I remember from the cover +of Aunt Jane's book that there was an "s" and a "c" close together in +the middle of it, which I thought foolish and not needful. + +All the girls like their dairies very much, but Minnie Smellie got Alice +Robinson's where she had hid it under the school wood pile and read +it all through. She said it was no worse than reading anybody's +composition, but we told her it was just like peeking through a keyhole, +or listening at a window, or opening a bureau drawer. She said she +didn't look at it that way, and I told her that unless her eyes got +unscealed she would never leave any kind of a sublime footprint on +the sands of time. I told her a diary was very sacred as you generally +poured your deepest feelings into it expecting nobody to look at it but +yourself and your indulgent heavenly Father who seeeth all things. + +Of course it would not hurt Persis Watson to show her diary because she +has not a sacred plan and this is the way it goes, for she reads it out +loud to us: + +"Arose at six this morning--(you always arise in a diary but you say +get up when you talk about it). Ate breakfast at half past six. Had soda +biscuits, coffee, fish hash and doughnuts. Wiped the dishes, fed the +hens and made my bed before school. Had a good arithmetic lesson, but +went down two in spelling. At half past four played hide and coop in the +Sawyer pasture. Fed hens and went to bed at eight." + +She says she can't put in what doesn't happen, but as I don't think her +diary is interesting she will ask her mother to have meat hash instead +of fish, with pie when the doughnuts give out, and she will feed the +hens before breakfast to make a change. We are all going now to try and +make something happen every single day so the diaries won't be so dull +and the footprints so common. + +* * * * * + + +AN UNCOMMON THOUGHT + +July 187-- + +We dug up our rosecakes today, and that gave me a good Remerniscence. +The way you make rose cakes is, you take the leaves of full blown roses +and mix them with a little cinnamon and as much brown sugar as they +will give you, which is never half enough except Persis Watson, whose +affectionate parents let her go to the barrel in their store. Then you +do up little bits like sedlitz powders, first in soft paper and then +in brown, and bury them in the ground and let them stay as long as you +possibly can hold out; then dig them up and eat them. Emma Jane and +I stick up little signs over the holes in the ground with the date we +buried them and when they'll be done enough to dig up, but we can never +wait. When Aunt Jane saw us she said it was the first thing for children +to learn,--not to be impatient,--so when I went to the barn chamber I +made a poem. + +IMPATIENCE + +We dug our rose cakes up oh! all too soon. Twas in the orchard just at +noon. Twas in a bright July forenoon. Twas in the sunny afternoon. Twas +underneath the harvest moon. + +It was not that way at all; it was a foggy morning before school, and I +should think poets could never possibly get to heaven, for it is so hard +to stick to the truth when you are writing poetry. Emma Jane thinks it +is nobody's business when we dug the rosecakes up. I like the line about +the harvest moon best, but it would give a wrong idea of our lives and +characters to the people that read my Thoughts, for they would think we +were up late nights, so I have fixed it like this: + + IMPATIENCE + + We dug our rose cakes up oh! all too soon, + We thought their sweetness would be such a boon. + We ne'er suspicioned they would not be done + After three days of autumn wind and sun. + Why did we from the earth our treasures draw? + Twas not for fear that rat or mole might naw, + An aged aunt doth say impatience was the reason, + She says that youth is ever out of season. + +That is just as Aunt Jane said it, and it gave me the thought for the +poem which is rather uncommon. + +* * * * * + + +A DREADFUL QUESTION + +September, 187-- + +WHICH HAS BEEN THE MOST BENEFERCENT INFLUENCE ON CHARACTER--PUNISHMENT +OR REWARD? + +This truly dreadful question was given us by Dr. Moses when he visited +school today. He is a School Committee; not a whole one but I do not +know the singular number of him. He told us we could ask our families +what they thought, though he would rather we wouldn't, but we must write +our own words and he would hear them next week. + +After he went out and shut the door the scholars were all plunged in +gloom and you could have heard a pin drop. Alice Robinson cried and +borrowed my handkerchief, and the boys looked as if the schoolhouse had +been struck by lightning. The worst of all was poor Miss Dearborn, who +will lose her place if she does not make us better scholars soon, for +Dr. Moses has a daughter all ready to put right in to the school and she +can board at home and save all her wages. Libby Moses is her name. + +Miss Dearborn stared out the window, and her mouth and chin shook like +Alice Robinson's, for she knew, ah! all to well, what the coming week +would bring forth. + +Then I raised my hand for permission to speak, and stood up and said: +"Miss Dearborn, don't you mind! Just explain to us what benefercent' +means and we'll write something real interesting; for all of us know +what punishment is, and have seen others get rewards, and it is not so +bad a subject as some." And Dick Carter whispered, "GOOD ON YOUR HEAD, +REBECCA!" which mean he was sorry for her too, and would try his best, +but has no words. + +Then teacher smiled and said benefercent meant good or healthy for +anybody, and would all rise who thought punishment made the best +scholars and men and women; and everybody sat stock still. + +And then she asked all to stand who believed that rewards produced the +finest results, and there was a mighty sound like unto the rushing of +waters, but really was our feet scraping the floor, and the scholars +stood up, and it looked like an army, though it was only nineteen, +because of the strong belief that was in them. Then Miss Dearborn +laughed and said she was thankful for every whipping she had when +she was a child, and Living Perkins said perhaps we hadn't got to the +thankful age, or perhaps her father hadn't used a strap, and she said +oh! no, it was her mother with the open hand; and Dick Carter said he +wouldn't call that punishment, and Sam Simpson said so too. + +I am going to write about the subject in my Thought Book first, and when +I make it into a composition, I can leave out anything about the family +or not genteel, as there is much to relate about punishment not pleasant +or nice and hardly polite. + +* * * * * * * * * * * * * + +PUNISHMENT + +Punishment is a very puzzly thing, but I believe in it when really +deserved, only when I punish myself it does not always turn out well. +When I leaned over the new bridge, and got my dress all paint, and Aunt +Sarah Cobb couldn't get it out, I had to wear it spotted for six +months which hurt my pride, but was right. I stayed at home from Alice +Robinson's birthday party for a punishment, and went to the circus +next day instead, but Alice's parties are very cold and stiff, as Mrs. +Robinson makes the boys stand on newspapers if they come inside the +door, and the blinds are always shut, and Mrs. Robinson tells me how bad +her liver complaint is this year. So I thought, to pay for the circus +and a few other things, I ought to get more punishment, and I threw my +pink parasol down the well, as the mothers in the missionary books throw +their infants to the crocodiles in the Ganges river. But it got stuck +in the chain that holds the bucket, and Aunt Miranda had to get Abijah +Flagg to take out all the broken bits before we could ring up water. + +I punished myself this way because Aunt Miranda said that unless I +improved I would be nothing but a Burden and a Blight. + +There was an old man used to go by our farm carrying a lot of broken +chairs to bottom, and mother used to say--"Poor man! His back is too +weak for such a burden!" and I used to take him out a doughnut, and this +is the part I want to go into the Remerniscences. Once I told him we +were sorry the chairs were so heavy, and he said THEY DIDN'T SEEM SO +HEAVY WHEN HE HAD ET THE DOUGHNUT. This does not mean that the doughnut +was heavier than the chairs which is what brother John said, but it is a +beautiful thought and shows how the human race should have sympathy, and +help bear burdens. + +I know about a Blight, for there was a dreadful east wind over at our +farm that destroyed all the little young crops just out of the ground, +and the farmers called it the Blight. And I would rather be hail, sleet, +frost, or snow than a Blight, which is mean and secret, and which is the +reason I threw away the dearest thing on earth to me, the pink parasol +that Miss Ross brought me from Paris, France. I have also wrapped up my +bead purse in three papers and put it away marked not to be opened till +after my death unless needed for a party. + +I must not be Burden, I must not be Blight, The angels in heaven would +weep at the sight. + + * * * * * + +REWARDS + +A good way to find out which has the most benefercent effect would be to +try rewards on myself this next week and write my composition the very +last day, when I see how my character is. It is hard to find rewards for +yourself, but perhaps Aunt Jane and some of the girls would each give +me one to help out. I could carry my bead purse to school every day, +or wear my coral chain a little while before I go to sleep at night. I +could read Cora or the Sorrows of a Doctor's Wife a little oftener, but +that's all the rewards I can think of. I fear Aunt Miranda would say +they are wicked but oh! if they should turn out benefercent how glad and +joyful life would be to me! A sweet and beautiful character, beloved +by my teacher and schoolmates, admired and petted by my aunts and +neighbors, yet carrying my bead purse constantly, with perhaps my best +hat on Wednesday afternoons, as well as Sundays! + +* * * * * + +A GREAT SHOCK + +The reason why Alice Robinson could not play was, she was being punished +for breaking her mother's blue platter. Just before supper my story +being finished I went up Guide Board hill to see how she was bearing +up and she spoke to me from her window. She said she did not mind being +punished because she hadn't been for a long time, and she hoped it would +help her with her composition. She thought it would give her thoughts, +and tomorrow's the last day for her to have any. This gave me a good +idea and I told her to call her father up and beg him to beat her +violently. It would hurt, I said, but perhaps none of the other girls +would have a punishment like that, and her composition would be all +different and splendid. I would borrow Aunt Miranda's witchhayzel and +pour it on her wounds like the Samaritan in the Bible. + +I went up again after supper with Dick Carter to see how it turned out. +Alice came to the window and Dick threw up a note tied to a stick. I +had written: "DEMAND YOUR PUNISHMENT TO THE FULL. BE BRAVE LIKE DOLORES' +MOTHER IN THE Martyrs of Spain." + +She threw down an answer, and it was: "YOU JUST BE LIKE DOLORES' MOTHER +YOURSELF IF YOU'RE SO SMART!" Then she stamped away from the window and +my feelings were hurt, but Dick said perhaps she was hungry, and that +made her cross. And as Dick and I turned to go out of the yard we looked +back and I saw something I can never forget. (The Great Shock) Mrs. +Robinson was out behind the barn feeding the turkies. Mr. Robinson +came softly out of the side door in the orchard and looking everywheres +around he stepped to the wire closet and took out a saucer of cold beans +with a pickled beet on top, and a big piece of blueberry pie. Then he +crept up the back stairs and we could see Alice open her door and take +in the supper. + +Oh! What will become of her composition, and how can she tell anything +of the benefercent effects of punishment, when she is locked up by +one parent, and fed by the other? I have forgiven her for the way she +snapped me up for, of course, you couldn't beg your father to beat you +when he was bringing you blueberry pie. Mrs. Robinson makes a kind that +leaks out a thick purple juice into the plate and needs a spoon and +blacks your mouth, but is heavenly. + +* * * * * + +A DREAM + +The week is almost up and very soon Dr. Moses will drive up to the +school house like Elijah in the chariot and come in to hear us read. +There is a good deal of sickness among us. Some of the boys are not able +to come to school just now, but hope to be about again by Monday, when +Dr. Moses goes away to a convention. It is a very hard composition to +write, somehow. Last night I dreamed that the river was ink and I kept +dipping into it and writing with a penstalk made of a young pine tree. I +sliced great slabs of marble off the side of one of the White Mountains, +the one you see when going to meeting, and wrote on those. Then I threw +them all into the falls, not being good enough for Dr. Moses. + +Dick Carter had a splendid boy to stay over Sunday. He makes the real +newspaper named The Pilot published by the boys at Wareham Academy. He +says when he talks about himself in writing he calls himself "we," and +it sounds much more like print, besides conscealing him more. + +Example: Our hair was measured this morning and has grown two inches +since last time.... We have a loose tooth that troubles us very much... +Our inkspot that we made by negligence on our only white petticoat we +have been able to remove with lemon and milk. Some of our petticoat came +out with the spot. + +I shall try it in my composition sometime, for of course I shall write +for the Pilot when I go to Wareham Seminary. Uncle Jerry Cobb says that +I shall, and thinks that in four years I might rise to be editor if they +ever have girls. + +I have never been more good than since I have been rewarding myself +steady, even to asking Aunt Miranda kindly to offer me a company jelly +tart, not because I was hungry, but for an experement I was trying, and +would explain to her sometime. + +She said she never thought it was wise to experement with your stomach, +and I said, with a queer thrilling look, it was not my stomach but my +soul, that was being tried. Then she gave me the tart and walked away +all puzzled and nervous. + +The new minister has asked me to come and see him any Saturday afternoon +as he writes poetry himself, but I would rather not ask him about this +composition. + +Ministers never believe in rewards, and it is useless to hope that they +will. We had the wrath of God four times in sermons this last summer, +but God cannot be angry all the time,--nobody could, especially in +summer; Mr. Baxter is different and calls his wife dear which is lovely +and the first time I ever heard it in Riverboro. Mrs. Baxter is another +kind of people too, from those that live in Temperance. I like to +watch her in meeting and see her listen to her husband who is young and +handsome for a minister; it gives me very queer and uncommon feelings, +when they look at each other, which they always do when not otherwise +engaged. + +She has different clothes from anybody else. Aunt Miranda says you must +think only of two things: will your dress keep you warm and will it wear +well and there is nobody in the world to know how I love pink and red +and how I hate drab and green and how I never wear my hat with the +black and yellow porkupine quills without wishing it would blow into the +river. + +Whene'er I take my walks abroad How many quills I see. But as they are +not porkupines They never come to me. + + +COMPOSITION + +WHICH HAS THE MOST BENEFERCENT EFFECT ON THE CHARACTER, PUNISHMENT OR +REWARD? + +By Rebecca Rowena Randall + +(This copy not corrected by Miss Dearborn yet.) + +We find ourselves very puzzled in approaching this truly great and +national question though we have tried very ernestly to understand it, +so as to show how wisely and wonderfully our dear teacher guides the +youthful mind, it being her wish that our composition class shall long +be remembered in Riverboro Centre. + +We would say first of all that punishment seems more benefercently +needed by boys than girls. Boys' sins are very violent, like stealing +fruit, profane language, playing truant, fighting, breaking windows, and +killing innocent little flies and bugs. If these were not taken out of +them early in life it would be impossible for them to become like our +martyred president, Abraham Lincoln. + +Although we have asked everybody on our street, they think boys' sins +can only be whipped out of them with a switch or strap, which makes +us feel very sad, as boys when not sinning the dreadful sins mentioned +above seem just as good as girls, and never cry when switched, and say +it does not hurt much. + +We now approach girls, which we know better, being one. Girls seem +better than boys because their sins are not so noisy and showy. They +can disobey their parents and aunts, whisper in silent hour, cheat in +lessons, say angry things to their schoolmates, tell lies, be sulky and +lazy, but all these can be conducted quite ladylike and genteel, and +nobody wants to strap girls because their skins are tender and get black +and blue very easily. + +Punishments make one very unhappy and rewards very happy, and one would +think when one is happy one would behave the best. We were acquainted +with a girl who gave herself rewards every day for a week, and it seemed +to make her as lovely a character as one could wish; but perhaps if one +went on for years giving rewards to onesself one would become selfish. +One cannot tell, one can only fear. + +If a dog kills a sheep we should whip him straight away, and on the very +spot where he can see the sheep, or he will not know what we mean, and +may forget and kill another. The same is true of the human race. We must +be firm and patient in punishing, no matter how much we love the one who +has done wrong, and how hungry she is. It does no good to whip a person +with one hand and offer her a pickled beet with the other. This confuses +her mind, and she may grow up not knowing right from wrong. (The +striking example of the pickled beet was removed from the essay by the +refined but ruthless Miss Dearborn, who strove patiently, but vainly, to +keep such vulgar images out of her pupils' literary efforts.) + +We now respectfully approach the Holy Bible and the people in the Bible +were punished the whole time, and that would seem to make it right. +Everybody says Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth; but we think ourself, +that the Lord is a better punisher than we are, and knows better how and +when to do it having attended to it ever since the year B.C. while +the human race could not know about it till 1492 A.D., which is when +Columbus discovered America. + +We do not believe we can find out all about this truly great and +national subject till we get to heaven, where the human race, strapped +and unstrapped, if any, can meet together and laying down their harps +discuss how they got there. + +And we would gently advise boys to be more quiet and genteel in conduct +and try rewards to see how they would work. Rewards are not all like +the little rosebud merit cards we receive on Fridays, and which boys +sometimes tear up and fling scornfully to the breeze when they get +outside, but girls preserve carefully in an envelope. + +Some rewards are great and glorious, for boys can get to be governor or +school trustee or road commissioner or president, while girls can only +be wife and mother. But all of us can have the ornament of a meek and +lowly spirit, especially girls, who have more use for it than boys. + +R.R.R. + +* * * * * + + +STORIES AND PEOPLE + +October, 187-- + +There are people in books and people in Riverboro, and they are not the +same kind. They never talk of chargers and palfreys in the village, nor +say How oft and Methinks, and if a Scotchman out of Rob Roy should come +to Riverboro and want to marry one of us girls we could not understand +him unless he made motions; though Huldah Meserve says if a nobleman of +high degree should ask her to be his,--one of vast estates with serfs at +his bidding,--she would be able to guess his meaning in any language. + +Uncle Jerry Cobb thinks that Riverboro people would not make a story, +but I know that some of them would. + +Jack-o'-lantern, though only a baby, was just like a real story if +anybody had written a piece about him: How his mother was dead and his +father ran away and Emma Jane and I got Aunt Sarah Cobb to keep him so +Mr. Perkins wouldn't take him to the poor farm; and about our lovely +times with him that summer, and our dreadful loss when his father +remembered him in the fall and came to take him away; and how Aunt Sarah +carried the trundle bed up attic again and Emma Jane and I heard her +crying and stole away. + +Mrs. Peter Meserve says Grandpa Sawyer was a wonderful hand at stories +before his spirit was broken by grandmother. She says he was the life +of the store and tavern when he was a young man, though generally sober, +and she thinks I take after him, because I like compositions better than +all the other lessons; but mother says I take after father, who always +could say everything nicely whether he had anything to say or not; so +methinks I should be grateful to both of them. They are what is called +ancestors and much depends upon whether you have them or not. The +Simpsons have not any at all. Aunt Miranda says the reason everybody +is so prosperous around here is because their ancestors were all first +settlers and raised on burnt ground. This should make us very proud. + +Methinks and methought are splendid words for compositions. Miss +Dearborn likes them very much, but Alice and I never bring them in to +suit her. Methought means the same as I thought, but sounds better. +Example: If you are telling a dream you had about your aged aunt: + + Methought I heard her say + My child you have so useful been + You need not sew today. + +This is a good example one way, but too unlikely, woe is me! + +This afternoon I was walking over to the store to buy molasses, and as +I came off the bridge and turned up the hill, I saw lots and lots of +heelprints in the side of the road, heelprints with little spike holes +in them. + +"Oh! The river drivers have come from up country," I thought, "and +they'll be breaking the jam at our falls tomorrow." I looked everywhere +about and not a man did I see, but still I knew I was not mistaken for +the heelprints could not lie. All the way over and back I thought about +it, though unfortunately forgetting the molasses, and Alice Robinson +not being able to come out, I took playtime to write a story. It is +the first grown-up one I ever did, and is intended to be like Cora the +Doctor's Wife, not like a school composition. It is written for Mr. Adam +Ladd, and people like him who live in Boston, and is the printed kind +you get money for, to pay off a mortgage. + +* * * * * + +LANCELOT OR THE PARTED LOVERS + +A beautiful village maiden was betrothed to a stallwart river driver, +but they had high and bitter words and parted, he to weep into the +crystal stream as he drove his logs, and she to sigh and moan as she +went about her round of household tasks. + +At eventide the maiden was wont to lean over the bridge and her tears +also fell into the foaming stream; so, though the two unhappy lovers did +not know it, the river was their friend, the only one to whom they told +their secrets and wept into. + +The months crept on and it was the next July when the maiden was passing +over the bridge and up the hill. Suddenly she spied footprints on the +sands of time. + +"The river drivers have come again!" she cried, putting her hand to +her side for she had a slight heart trouble like Cora and Mrs. Peter +Meserve, that doesn't kill. + +"They HAVE come indeed; ESPECIALLY ONE YOU KNOW," said a voice, and +out from the alder bushes sprung Lancelot Littlefield, for that was the +lover's name and it was none other than he. His hair was curly and like +living gold. His shirt, white of flannel, was new and dry, and of a +handsome color, and as the maiden looked at him she could think of +nought but a fairy prince. + +"Forgive," she mermered, stretching out her waisted hands. + +"Nay, sweet," he replied. "'Tis I should say that to you," and bending +gracefully on one knee he kissed the hem of her dress. It was a rich +pink gingham check, ellaborately ornamented with white tape trimming. + +Clasping each other to the heart like Cora and the Doctor, they stood +there for a long while, till they heard the rumble of wheels on the +bridge and knew they must disentangle. + +The wheels came nearer and verily! it was the maiden's father. + +"Can I wed with your fair daughter this very moon," asked Lancelot, who +will not be called his whole name again in this story. + +"You may," said the father, "for lo! she has been ready and waiting for +many months." This he said not noting how he was shaming the maiden, +whose name was Linda Rowenetta. + +Then and there the nuptial day was appointed and when it came, the +marriage knot was tied upon the river bank where first they met; the +river bank where they had parted in anger, and where they had again +scealeld their vows and clasped each other to the heart. And it was very +low water that summer, and the river always thought it was because no +tears dropped into it but so many smiles that like sunshine they dried +it up. + +R.R.R. + +Finis + +* * * * * + + +CAREERS + +November, 187-- + +Long ago when I used to watch Miss Ross painting the old mill at +Sunnybrook I thought I would be a painter, for Miss Ross went to Paris +France where she bought my bead purse and pink parasol and I thought +I would like to see a street with beautiful bright-colored things +sparkling and hanging in the store windows. + +Then when the missionaries from Syria came to stay at the brick house +Mrs. Burch said that after I had experienced religion I must learn music +and train my voice and go out to heathen lands and save souls, so I +thought that would be my career. But we girls tried to have a branch and +be home missionaries and it did not work well. Emma Jane's father would +not let her have her birthday party when he found out what she had done +and Aunt Jane sent me up to Jake Moody's to tell him we did not mean +to be rude when we asked him to go to meeting more often. He said all +right, but just let him catch that little dough-faced Perkins young one +in his yard once more and she'd have reason to remember the call, which +was just as rude and impolite as our trying to lead him to a purer and a +better life. + +Then Uncle Jerry and Mr. Aladdin and Miss Dearborn liked my +compositions, and I thought I'd better be a writer, for I must be +something the minute I'm seventeen, or how shall we ever get the +mortgage off the farm? But even that hope is taken away from me now, +for Uncle Jerry made fun of my story Lancelot Or The Parted Lovers and I +have decided to be a teacher like Miss Dearborn. + +The pathetic announcement of a change in the career and life purposes of +Rebecca was brought about by her reading the grown-up story to Mr. and +Mrs. Jeremiah Cobb after supper in the orchard. Uncle Jerry was the +person who had maintained all along that Riverboro people would not make +a story; and Lancelot or The Parted Lovers was intended to refute that +assertion at once and forever; an assertion which Rebecca regarded +(quite truly) as untenable, though why she certainly never could have +explained. Unfortunately Lancelot was a poor missionary, quite unfitted +for the high achievements to which he was destined by the youthful +novelist, and Uncle Jerry, though a stage-driver and no reading man, at +once perceived the flabbiness and transparency of the Parted Lovers the +moment they were held up to his inspection. + +"You see Riverboro people WILL make a story!" asserted Rebecca +triumphantly as she finished her reading and folded the paper. "And it +all came from my noticing the river drivers' tracks by the roadside, and +wondering about them; and wondering always makes stories; the minister +says so." + +"Ye-es," allowed Uncle Jerry reflectively, tipping his chair back +against the apple tree and forcing his slow mind to violent and +instantaneous action, for Rebecca was his pride and joy; a person, in +his opinion, of superhuman talent, one therefore to be "whittled into +shape" if occasion demanded. + +"It's a Riverboro story, sure enough, because you've got the river +and the bridge and the hill and the drivers all right there in it; but +there's something awful queer bout it; the folks don't act Riverboro, +and don't talk Riverboro, cordin' to my notions. I call it a reg'lar +book story." + +"But," objected Rebecca, "the people in Cinderella didn't act like us, +and you thought that was a beautiful story when I told it to you." + +"I know," replied Uncle Jerry, gaining eloquence in the heat of +argument. "They didn't act like us, but 't any rate they acted like +'emselves! Somehow they was all of a piece. Cinderella was a little too +good, mebbe, and the sisters was most too thunderin' bad to live on the +face o' the earth, and that fayry old lady that kep' the punkin' coach +up her sleeve--well, anyhow, you jest believe that punkin' coach, rats, +mice, and all, when you're hearin' bout it, fore ever you stop to think +it ain't so. + +"I don' know how tis, but the folks in that Cinderella story seem to +match together somehow; they're all pow'ful onlikely--the prince feller +with the glass slipper, and the hull bunch; but jest the same you kind +o' gulp em all down in a lump. But land, Rebecky, nobody'd swaller that +there village maiden o' your'n, and as for what's-his-name Littlefield, +that come out o' them bushes, such a feller never 'd a' be'n IN bushes! +No, Rebecky, you're the smartest little critter there is in this +township, and you beat your Uncle Jerry all holler when it comes to +usin' a lead pencil, but I say that ain't no true Riverboro story! Look +at the way they talk! What was that' bout being BETROTHED'?" + +"Betrothed is a genteel word for engaged to be married," explained the +crushed and chastened author; and it was fortunate the doting old man +did not notice her eyes in the twilight, or he might have known that +tears were not far away. + +"Well, that's all right, then; I'm as ignorant as Cooper's cow when +it comes to the dictionary. How about what's-his-name callin' the girl +'Naysweet'?" + +"I thought myself that sounded foolish,:" confessed Rebecca; "but it's +what the Doctor calls Cora when he tries to persuade her not to quarrel +with his mother who comes to live with them. I know they don't say it in +Riverboro or Temperance, but I thought perhaps it was Boston talk." + +"Well, it ain't!" asserted Mr. Cobb decisively. "I've druv Boston men +up in the stage from Milltown many's the time, and none of em ever +said Naysweet to me, nor nothin'like it. They talked like folks, every +mother's son of em! If I'd a' had that what's-his-name on the harricane +deck' o' the stage and he tried any naysweetin' on me, I'd a' pitched +him into the cornfield, side o' the road. I guess you ain't growed up +enough for that kind of a story, Rebecky, for your poetry can't be beat +in York County, that's sure, and your compositions are good enough to +read out loud in town meetin' any day!" + +Rebecca brightened up a little and bade the old couple her usual +affectionate good night, but she descended the hill in a saddened mood. +When she reached the bridge the sun, a ball of red fire, was setting +behind Squire Bean's woods. As she looked, it shone full on the broad, +still bosom of the river, and for one perfect instant the trees on the +shores were reflected, all swimming in a sea of pink. Leaning over the +rail, she watched the light fade from crimson to carmine, from carmine +to rose, from rose to amber, and from amber to gray. Then withdrawing +Lancelot or the Parted Lovers from her apron pocket, she tore the pages +into bits and dropped them into the water below with a sigh. + +"Uncle Jerry never said a word about the ending!" she thought; "and that +was so nice!" + +And she was right; but while Uncle Jerry was an illuminating critic when +it came to the actions and language of his Riverboro neighbors, he had +no power to direct the young mariner when she "followed the gleam," and +used her imagination. + +OUR SECRET SOCIETY + +November, 187-- + +Our Secret society has just had a splendid picnic in Candace Milliken's +barn. + +Our name is the B.O.S.S., and not a single boy in the village has been +able to guess it. It means Braid Over Shoulder Society, and that is the +sign. All the members wear one of their braids over the right shoulder +in front; the president's tied with red ribbon (I am the president) and +all the rest tied with blue. + +To attract the attention of another member when in company or at a +public place we take the braid between the thumb and little finger and +stand carelessly on one leg. This is the Secret Signal and the password +is Sobb (B.O.S.S. spelled backwards) which was my idea and is thought +rather uncommon. + +One of the rules of the B.O.S.S. is that any member may be required to +tell her besetting sin at any meeting, if asked to do so by a majority +of the members. + +This was Candace Milliken's idea and much opposed by everybody, but when +it came to a vote so many of the girls were afraid of offending Candace +that they agreed because there was nobody else's father and mother +who would let us picnic in their barn and use their plow, harrow, +grindstone, sleigh, carryall, pung, sled, and wheelbarrow, which we did +and injured hardly anything. + +They asked me to tell my besetting sin at the very first meeting, and it +nearly killed me to do it because it is such a common greedy one. It is +that I can't bear to call the other girls when I have found a thick spot +when we are out berrying in the summer time. + +After I confessed, which made me dreadfully ashamed, every one of the +girls seemed surprised and said they had never noticed that one but had +each thought of something very different that I would be sure to think +was my besetting sin. Then Emma Jane said that rather than tell hers she +would resign from the Society and miss the picnic. So it made so +much trouble that Candace gave up. We struck out the rule from the +constitution and I had told my sin for nothing. + +The reason we named ourselves the B.O.S.S. is that Minnie Smellie has +had her head shaved after scarlet fever and has no braid, so she can't +be a member. + +I don't want her for a member but I can't be happy thinking she will +feel slighted, and it takes away half the pleasure of belonging to the +Society myself and being president. + +That, I think, is the principal trouble about doing mean and unkind +things; that you can't do wrong and feel right, or be bad and feel good. +If you only could you could do anything that came into your mind yet +always be happy. + +Minnie Smellie spoils everything she comes into but I suppose we +other girls must either have our hair shaved and call ourselves The +Baldheadians or let her be some kind of a special officer in the +B.O.S.S. + +She might be the B.I.T.U.D. member (Braid in the Upper Drawer), for +there is where Mrs. Smellie keeps it now that it is cut off. + +WINTER THOUGHTS + +March, 187-- + +It is not such a cold day for March and I am up in the barn chamber with +my coat and hood on and Aunt Jane's waterproof and my mittens. + +After I do three pages I am going to hide away this book in the haymow +till spring. + +Perhaps they get made into icicles on the way but I do not seem to have +any thoughts in the winter time. The barn chamber is full of thoughts in +warm weather. The sky gives them to me, and the trees and flowers, and +the birds, and the river; but now it is always gray and nipping, the +branches are bare and the river is frozen. + +It is too cold to write in my bedroom but while we still kept an open +fire I had a few thoughts, but now there is an air-tight stove in the +dining room where we sit, and we seem so close together, Aunt Miranda, +Aunt Jane and I that I don't like to write in my book for fear they will +ask me to read out loud my secret thoughts. + +I have just read over the first part of my Thought Book and I have +outgrown it all, just exactly as I have outgrown my last year's drab +cashmere. + +It is very queer how anybody can change so fast in a few months, but I +remember that Emma Jane's cat had kittens the day my book was bought at +Watson's store. Mrs. Perkins kept the prettiest white one, Abijah Flagg +drowning all the others. + +It seems strange to me that cats will go on having kittens when they +know what becomes of them! We were very sad about it, but Mrs. Perkins +said it was the way of the world and how things had to be. + +I cannot help being glad that they do not do the same with children, or +John and Jenny Mira Mark and me would all have had stones tied to our +necks and been dropped into the deepest part of Sunny Brook, for Hannah +and Fanny are the only truly handsome ones in the family. + +Mrs. Perkins says I dress up well, but never being dressed up it does +not matter much. At least they didn't wait to dress up the kittens to +see how they would improve, before drowning them, but decided right +away. + +Emma Jane's kitten that was born the same day this book was is now quite +an old cat who knows the way of the world herself, and how things have +to be, for she has had one batch of kittens drowned already. + +So perhaps it is not strange that my Thought Book seems so babyish and +foolish to me when I think of all I have gone through and the millions +of things I have learned, and how much better I spell than I did ten +months ago. + +My fingers are cold through the mittens, so good-bye dear Thought Book, +friend of my childhood, now so far far behind me! + +I will hide you in the haymow where you'll be warm and cosy all the long +winter and where nobody can find you again in the summer time but your +affectionate author, + +Rebecca Rowena Randall. + + + + +Fourth Chronicle. A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY + + +I + +Emma Jane Perkins's new winter dress was a blue and green Scotch plaid +poplin, trimmed with narrow green velvet-ribbon and steel nail-heads. +She had a gray jacket of thick furry cloth with large steel buttons +up the front, a pair of green kid gloves, and a gray felt hat with an +encircling band of bright green feathers. The band began in front with +a bird's head and ended behind with a bird's tail, and angels could have +desired no more beautiful toilette. That was her opinion, and it was +shared to the full by Rebecca. + +But Emma Jane, as Rebecca had once described her to Mr. Adam Ladd, was +a rich blacksmith's daughter, and she, Rebecca, was a little half-orphan +from a mortgaged farm "up Temperance way," dependent upon her spinster +aunts for board, clothes, and schooling. Scotch plaid poplins were +manifestly not for her, but dark-colored woolen stuffs were, and +mittens, and last winter's coats and furs. + +And how about hats? Was there hope in store for her there? she wondered, +as she walked home from the Perkins house, full of admiration for Emma +Jane's winter outfit, and loyally trying to keep that admiration free +from wicked envy. Her red-winged black hat was her second best, and +although it was shabby she still liked it, but it would never do for +church, even in Aunt Miranda's strange and never-to-be-comprehended +views of suitable raiment. + +There was a brown felt turban in existence, if one could call it +existence when it had been rained on, snowed on, and hailed on for two +seasons; but the trimmings had at any rate perished quite off the face +of the earth, that was one comfort! + +Emma Jane had said, rather indiscreetly, that at the village milliner's +at Milliken's Mills there was a perfectly elegant pink breast to be had, +a breast that began in a perfectly elegant solferino and terminated in a +perfectly elegant magenta; two colors much in vogue at that time. If +the old brown hat was to be her portion yet another winter, would Aunt +Miranda conceal its deficiencies from a carping world beneath the shaded +solferino breast? WOULD she, that was the question? + +Filled with these perplexing thoughts, Rebecca entered the brick house, +hung up her hood in the entry, and went into the dining-room. + +Miss Jane was not there, but Aunt Miranda sat by the window with her lap +full of sewing things, and a chair piled with pasteboard boxes by her +side. In one hand was the ancient, battered, brown felt turban, and in +the other were the orange and black porcupine quills from Rebecca's last +summer's hat; from the hat of the summer before that, and the summer +before that, and so on back to prehistoric ages of which her childish +memory kept no specific record, though she was sure that Temperance and +Riverboro society did. Truly a sight to chill the blood of any eager +young dreamer who had been looking at gayer plumage! + +Miss Sawyer glanced up for a second with a satisfied expression and then +bent her eyes again upon her work. + +"If I was going to buy a hat trimming," she said, "I couldn't select +anything better or more economical than these quills! Your mother had +them when she was married, and you wore them the day you come to the +brick house from the farm; and I said to myself then that they looked +kind of outlandish, but I've grown to like em now I've got used to em. +You've been here for goin' on two years and they've hardly be'n out +o'wear, summer or winter, more'n a month to a time! I declare they do +beat all for service! It don't seem as if your mother could a' chose +em,--Aurelia was always such a poor buyer! The black spills are bout +as good as new, but the orange ones are gittin' a little mite faded and +shabby. I wonder if I couldn't dip all of em in shoe blackin'? It seems +real queer to put a porcupine into hat trimmin', though I declare I +don't know jest what the animiles are like, it's be'n so long sence +I looked at the pictures of em in a geography. I always thought their +quills stood out straight and angry, but these kind o' curls round some +at the ends, and that makes em stand the wind better. How do you like +em on the brown felt?" she asked, inclining her head in a discriminating +attitude and poising them awkwardly on the hat with her work-stained +hand. + +How did she like them on the brown felt indeed? + +Miss Sawyer had not been looking at Rebecca, but the child's eyes were +flashing, her bosom heaving, and her cheeks glowing with sudden rage +and despair. All at once something happened. She forgot that she was +speaking to an older person; forgot that she was dependent; forgot +everything but her disappointment at losing the solferino breast, +remembering nothing but the enchanting, dazzling beauty of Emma Jane +Perkins's winter outfit; and suddenly, quite without warning, she burst +into a torrent of protest. + +"I will NOT wear those hateful porcupine quills again this winter! I +will not! It's wicked, WICKED to expect me to! Oh! How I wish there +never had been any porcupines in the world, or that all of them had died +before silly, hateful people ever thought of trimming hat with them! +They curl round and tickle my ear! They blow against my cheek and sting +it like needles! They do look outlandish, you said so yourself a minute +ago. Nobody ever had any but only just me! The only porcupine was made +into the only quills for me and nobody else! I wish instead of sticking +OUT of the nasty beasts, that they stuck INTO them, same as they do into +my cheek! I suffer, suffer, suffer, wearing them and hating them, and +they will last forever and forever, and when I'm dead and can't help +myself, somebody'll rip them out of my last year's hat and stick them +on my head, and I'll be buried in them! Well, when I am buried THEY +will be, that's one good thing! Oh, if I ever have a child I'll let her +choose her own feathers and not make her wear ugly things like pigs' +bristles and porcupine quills!" + +With this lengthy tirade Rebecca vanished like a meteor, through the +door and down the street, while Miranda Sawyer gasped for breath, and +prayed to Heaven to help her understand such human whirlwinds as this +Randall niece of hers. + +This was at three o'clock, and at half-past three Rebecca was kneeling +on the rag carpet with her head in her aunt's apron, sobbing her +contrition. + +"Oh! Aunt Miranda, do forgive me if you can. It's the only time I've +been bad for months! You know it is! You know you said last week I +hadn't been any trouble lately. Something broke inside of me and came +tumbling out of my mouth in ugly words! The porcupine quills make me +feel just as a bull does when he sees a red cloth; nobody understands +how I suffer with them!" + +Miranda Sawyer had learned a few lessons in the last two years, lessons +which were making her (at least on her "good days") a trifle kinder, and +at any rate a juster woman than she used to be. When she alighted on the +wrong side of her four-poster in the morning, or felt an extra touch of +rheumatism, she was still grim and unyielding; but sometimes a curious +sort of melting process seemed to go on within her, when her whole bony +structure softened, and her eyes grew less vitreous. At such moments +Rebecca used to feel as if a superincumbent iron pot had been lifted off +her head, allowing her to breath freely and enjoy the sunshine. + +"Well," she said finally, after staring first at Rebecca and then at the +porcupine quills, as if to gain some insight into the situation, "well, +I never, sence I was born int' the world, heerd such a speech as you've +spoke, an' I guess there probably never was one. You'd better tell the +minister what you said and see what he thinks of his prize Sunday-school +scholar. But I'm too old and tired to scold and fuss, and try to train +you same as I did at first. You can punish yourself this time, like +you used to. Go fire something down the well, same as you did your pink +parasol! You've apologized and we won't say no more about it today, but +I expect you to show by extry good conduct how sorry you be! You care +altogether too much about your looks and your clothes for a child, and +you've got a temper that'll certainly land you in state's prison some o' +these days!" + +Rebecca wiped her eyes and laughed aloud. "No, no, Aunt Miranda, it +won't, really! That wasn't temper; I don't get angry with PEOPLE; but +only, once in a long while, with things; like those,--cover them up +quick before I begin again! I'm all right! Shower's over, sun's out!" + +Miss Miranda looked at her searchingly and uncomprehendingly. Rebecca's +state of mind came perilously near to disease, she thought. + +"Have you seen me buyin' any new bunnits, or your Aunt Jane?" she asked +cuttingly. "Is there any particular reason why you should dress better +than your elders? You might as well know that we're short of cash just +now, your Aunt Jane and me, and have no intention of riggin' you out +like a Milltown fact'ry girl." + +"Oh-h!" cried Rebecca, the quick tears starting again to her eyes and +the color fading out of her cheeks, as she scrambled up from her knees +to a seat on the sofa beside her aunt. "Oh-h! How ashamed I am! Quick, +sew those quills on to the brown turban while I'm good! If I can't stand +them I'll make a neat little gingham bag and slip over them!" + +And so the matter ended, not as it customarily did, with cold words on +Miss Miranda's part and bitter feelings on Rebecca's, but with a gleam +of mutual understanding. + +Mrs. Cobb, who was a master hand at coloring, dipped the offending +quills in brown dye and left them to soak in it all night, not only +making them a nice warm color, but somewhat weakening their rocky +spines, so that they were not quite as rampantly hideous as before, in +Rebecca's opinion. + +Then Mrs. Perkins went to her bandbox in the attic and gave Miss +Dearborn some pale blue velvet, with which she bound the brim of the +brown turban and made a wonderful rosette, out of which the porcupine's +defensive armor sprang, buoyantly and gallantly, like the plume of Henry +of Navarre. + +Rebecca was resigned, if not greatly comforted, but she had grace enough +to conceal her feelings, now that she knew economy was at the root +of some of her aunt's decrees in matters of dress; and she managed to +forget the solferino breast, save in sleep, where a vision of it had a +way of appearing to her, dangling from the ceiling, and dazzling her +so with its rich color that she used to hope the milliner would sell it +that she might never be tempted with it when she passed the shop window. + +One day, not long afterward, Miss Miranda borrowed Mr. Perkins's horse +and wagon and took Rebecca with her on a drive to Union, to see about +some sausage meat and head cheese. She intended to call on Mrs. Cobb, +order a load of pine wood from Mr. Strout on the way, and leave some +rags for a rug with old Mrs. Pease, so that the journey could be made +as profitable as possible, consistent with the loss of time and the wear +and tear on her second-best black dress. + +The red-winged black hat was forcibly removed from Rebecca's head just +before starting, and the nightmare turban substituted. + +"You might as well begin to wear it first as last," remarked Miranda, +while Jane stood in the side door and sympathized secretly with Rebecca. + +"I will!" said Rebecca, ramming the stiff turban down on her head with a +vindictive grimace, and snapping the elastic under her long braids; "but +it makes me think of what Mr. Robinson said when the minister told him +his mother-in-law would ride in the same buggy with him at his wife's +funeral." + +"I can't see how any speech of Mr. Robinson's, made years an' years ago, +can have anything to do with wearin' your turban down to Union," said +Miranda, settling the lap robe over her knees. + +"Well, it can; because he said: Have it that way, then, but it'll spile +the hull blamed trip for me!'" + +Jane closed the door suddenly, partly because she experienced a desire +to smile (a desire she had not felt for years before Rebecca came to +the brick house to live), and partly because she had no wish to overhear +what her sister would say when she took in the full significance of +Rebecca's anecdote, which was a favorite one with Mr. Perkins. + +It was a cold blustering day with a high wind that promised to bring an +early fall of snow. The trees were stripped bare of leaves, the +ground was hard, and the wagon wheels rattled noisily over the +thank-you-ma'ams. + +"I'm glad I wore my Paisley shawl over my cloak," said Miranda. "Be you +warm enough, Rebecca? Tie that white rigolette tighter round your neck. +The wind fairly blows through my bones. I most wish t we'd waited till +a pleasanter day, for this Union road is all up hill or down, and we +shan't get over the ground fast, it's so rough. Don't forget, when you +go into Scott's, to say I want all the trimmin's when they send me the +pork, for mebbe I can try out a little mite o' lard. The last load o' +pine's gone turrible quick; I must see if "Bijah Flagg can't get us some +cut-rounds at the mills, when he hauls for Squire Bean next time. Keep +your mind on your drivin', Rebecca, and don't look at the trees and the +sky so much. It's the same sky and same trees that have been here right +along. Go awful slow down this hill and walk the hoss over Cook's Brook +bridge, for I always suspicion it's goin' to break down under me, an' I +shouldn't want to be dropped into that fast runnin' water this cold day. +It'll be froze stiff by this time next week. Hadn't you better get out +and lead"-- + +The rest of the sentence was very possibly not vital, but at any rate +it was never completed, for in the middle of the bridge a fierce gale +of wind took Miss Miranda's Paisley shawl and blew it over her head. The +long heavy ends whirled in opposite directions and wrapped themselves +tightly about her wavering bonnet. Rebecca had the whip and the reins, +and in trying to rescue her struggling aunt could not steady her own +hat, which was suddenly torn from her head and tossed against the bridge +rail, where it trembled and flapped for an instant. + +"My hat! Oh! Aunt Miranda, my hateful hat!" cried Rebecca, never +remembering at the instant how often she had prayed that the "fretful +porcupine" might some time vanish in this violent manner, since it +refused to die a natural death. + +She had already stopped the horse, so, giving her aunt's shawl one last +desperate twitch, she slipped out between the wagon wheels, and darted +in the direction of the hated object, the loss of which had dignified it +with a temporary value and importance. + +The stiff brown turban rose in the air, then dropped and flew along the +bridge; Rebecca pursued; it danced along and stuck between two of the +railings; Rebecca flew after it, her long braids floating in the wind. + +"Come back! Come back! Don't leave me alone with the team. I won't have +it! Come back, and leave your hat!" + +Miranda had at length extricated herself from the submerging shawl, but +she was so blinded by the wind, and so confused that she did not measure +the financial loss involved in her commands. + +Rebecca heard, but her spirit being in arms, she made one more mad +scramble for the vagrant hat, which now seemed possessed with an evil +spirit, for it flew back and forth, and bounded here and there, like +a living thing, finally distinguishing itself by blowing between the +horse's front and hind legs, Rebecca trying to circumvent it by going +around the wagon, and meeting it on the other side. + +It was no use; as she darted from behind the wheels the wind gave the +hat an extra whirl, and scurrying in the opposite direction it soared +above the bridge rail and disappeared into the rapid water below. + +"Get in again!" cried Miranda, holding on her bonnet. "You done your +best and it can't be helped, I only wish't I'd let you wear your black +hat as you wanted to; and I wish't we'd never come such a day! The shawl +has broke the stems of the velvet geraniums in my bonnet, and the wind +has blowed away my shawl pin and my back comb. I'd like to give up and +turn right back this minute, but I don't like to borrer Perkins's hoss +again this month. When we get up in the woods you can smooth your hair +down and tie the rigolette over your head and settle what's left of my +bonnet; it'll be an expensive errant, this will!" + + * * * * * + +II + +It was not till next morning that Rebecca's heart really began its song +of thanksgiving. Her Aunt Miranda announced at breakfast, that as Mrs. +Perkins was going to Milliken's Mills, Rebecca might go too, and buy a +serviceable hat. + +"You mustn't pay over two dollars and a half, and you mustn't get the +pink bird without Mrs. Perkins says, and the milliner says, that it +won't fade nor moult. Don't buy a light-colored felt because you'll get +sick of it in two or three years same as you did the brown one. I always +liked the shape of the brown one, and you'll never get another trimmin' +that'll wear like them quills." + +"I hope not!" thought Rebecca. + +"If you had put your elastic under your chin, same as you used to, and +not worn it behind because you think it's more grown-up an' fash'onable, +the wind never'd a' took the hat off your head, and you wouldn't a' lost +it; but the mischief's done and you can go right over to Mis' Perkins +now, so you won't miss her nor keep her waitin'. The two dollars and a +half is in an envelope side o' the clock." + +Rebecca swallowed the last spoonful of picked-up codfish on her plate, +wiped her lips, and rose from her chair happier than the seraphs in +Paradise. + +The porcupine quills had disappeared from her life, and without any +fault or violence on her part. She was wholly innocent and virtuous, but +nevertheless she was going to have a new hat with the solferino breast, +should the adored object prove, under rigorous examination, to be +practically indestructible. + +"Whene'er I take my walks abroad, How many hats I'll see; But if they're +trimmed with hedgehog quills They'll not belong to me!" + +So she improvised, secretly and ecstatically, as she went towards the +side entry. + +"There's 'Bijah Flagg drivin' in," said Miss Miranda, going to the +window. "Step out and see what he's got, Jane; some passel from the +Squire, I guess. It's a paper bag and it may be a punkin, though he +wouldn't wrop up a punkin, come to think of it! Shet the dinin' room +door, Jane; it's turrible drafty. Make haste, for the Squire's hoss +never stan's still a minute cept when he's goin'!" + +Abijah Flagg alighted and approached the side door with a grin. + +"Guess what I've got for ye, Rebecky?" + +No throb of prophetic soul warned Rebecca of her approaching doom. + +"Nodhead apples?" she sparkled, looking as bright and rosy and +satin-skinned as an apple herself. + +"No; guess again." + +"A flowering geranium?" + +"Guess again!" + +"Nuts? Oh! I can't, Bijah; I'm just going to Milliken's Mills on an +errand, and I'm afraid of missing Mrs. Perkins. Show me quick! Is it +really for me, or for Aunt Miranda?" + +"Reely for you, I guess!" and he opened the large brown paper bag and +drew from it the remains of a water-soaked hat! + +They WERE remains, but there was no doubt of their nature and substance. +They had clearly been a hat in the past, and one could even suppose +that, when resuscitated, they might again assume their original form in +some near and happy future. + +Miss Miranda, full of curiosity, joined the group in the side entry at +this dramatic moment. + +"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "Where, and how under the canopy, did +you ever?" + +"I was working on the dam at Union Falls yesterday," chuckled Abijah, +with a pleased glance at each of the trio in turn, "an' I seen this +little bunnit skippin' over the water jest as Becky does over the road. +It's shaped kind o' like a boat, an' gorry, ef it wa'nt sailin' jest +like a boat! Where hev I seen that kind of a bristlin' plume?' thinks +I." + +("Where indeed!" thought Rebecca stormily.) + +"Then it come to me that I'd drove that plume to school and drove it to +meetin' and drove it to the Fair an'drove it most everywheres on Becky. +So I reached out a pole an' ketched it fore it got in amongst the logs +an' come to any damage, an' here it is! The hat's passed in its checks, +I guess; looks kind as if a wet elephant had stepped on it; but the +plume's bout's good as new! I reely fetched the hat beck for the sake o' +the plume." + +"It was real good of you, 'Bijah, an' we're all of us obliged to you," +said Miranda, as she poised the hat on one hand and turned it slowly +with the other. + +"Well, I do say," she exclaimed, "and I guess I've said it before, that +of all the wearing' plumes that ever I see, that one's the wearin'est! +Seems though it just wouldn't give up. Look at the way it's held Mis' +Cobb's dye; it's about as brown's when it went int' the water." + +"Dyed, but not a mite dead," grinned Abijah, who was somewhat celebrated +for his puns. + +"And I declare," Miranda continued, "when you think o' the fuss they +make about ostriches, killin' em off by hundreds for the sake o' their +feathers that'll string out and spoil in one hard rainstorm,--an' all +the time lettin' useful porcupines run round with their quills on, why +I can't hardly understand it, without milliners have found out jest +how good they do last, an' so they won't use em for trimmin'. 'Bijah's +right; the hat ain't no more use, Rebecca, but you can buy you another +this mornin'--any color or shape you fancy--an' have Miss Morton sew +these brown quills on to it with some kind of a buckle or a bow, jest +to hide the roots. Then you'll be fixed for another season, thanks to +'Bijah." + +Uncle Jerry and Aunt Sarah Cobb were made acquainted before very long +with the part that destiny, or Abijah Flagg, had played in Rebecca's +affairs, for, accompanied by the teacher, she walked to the old stage +driver's that same afternoon. Taking off her new hat with the venerable +trimming, she laid it somewhat ostentatiously upside down on the kitchen +table and left the room, dimpling a little more than usual. + +Uncle Jerry rose from his seat, and, crossing the room, looked curiously +into the hat and found that a circular paper lining was neatly pinned +in the crown, and that it bore these lines, which were read aloud with +great effect by Miss Dearborn, and with her approval were copied in the +Thought Book for the benefit of posterity: + +"It was the bristling porcupine, As he stood on his native heath, He +said, 'I'll pluck me some immortelles And make me up a wreath. For tho' +I may not live myself To more than a hundred and ten, My quills will +last till crack of doom, And maybe after then. They can be colored blue +or green Or orange, brown, or red, But often as they may be dyed They +never will be dead.' And so the bristling porcupine As he stood on his +native heath, Said, I think I'll pluck me some immmortelles And make me +up a wreath.' + +"R.R.R." + + + + +Fifth Chronicle. THE SAVING OF THE COLORS + + +I + +Even when Rebecca had left school, having attained the great age of +seventeen and therefore able to look back over a past incredibly long +and full, she still reckoned time not by years, but by certain important +occurrences. + +There was the year her father died; the year she left Sunnybrook Farm to +come to her aunts in Riverboro; the year Sister Hannah became engaged; +the year little Mira died; the year Abijah Flagg ceased to be Squire +Bean's chore-boy, and astounded Riverboro by departing for Limerick +Academy in search of an education; and finally the year of her +graduation, which, to the mind of seventeen, seems rather the +culmination than the beginning of existence. + +Between these epoch-making events certain other happenings stood out in +bold relief against the gray of dull daily life. + +There was the day she first met her friend of friends, "Mr. Aladdin," +and the later, even more radiant one when he gave her the coral +necklace. There was the day the Simpson family moved away from Riverboro +under a cloud, and she kissed Clara Belle fervently at the cross-roads, +telling her that she would always be faithful. There was the visit of +the Syrian missionaries to the brick house. That was a bright, romantic +memory, as strange and brilliant as the wonderful little birds' wings +and breasts that the strangers brought from the Far East. She remembered +the moment they asked her to choose some for herself, and the rapture +with which she stroked the beautiful things as they lay on the black +haircloth sofa. Then there was the coming of the new minister, for +though many were tried only one was chosen; and finally there was the +flag-raising, a festivity that thrilled Riverboro and Edgewood society +from centre to circumference, a festivity that took place just before +she entered the Female Seminary at Wareham and said good-by to kind Miss +Dearborn and the village school. + +There must have been other flag-raisings in history,--even the persons +most interested in this particular one would grudgingly have allowed +that much,--but it would have seemed to them improbable that any such +flag-raising as theirs, either in magnitude of conception or brilliancy +of actual performance, could twice glorify the same century. Of some +pageants it is tacitly admitted that there can be no duplicates, and the +flag-raising at Riverboro Centre was one of these; so that it is small +wonder if Rebecca chose it as one of the important dates in her personal +almanac. + +The new minister's wife was the being, under Providence, who had +conceived the germinal idea of the flag. + +At this time the parish had almost settled down to the trembling belief +that they were united on a pastor. In the earlier time a minister was +chosen for life, and if he had faults, which was a probably enough +contingency, and if his congregation had any, which is within the bounds +of possibility, each bore with the other (not quite without friction), +as old-fashioned husbands and wives once did, before the easy way out of +the difficulty was discovered, or at least before it was popularized. + +The faithful old parson had died after thirty years' preaching, +and perhaps the newer methods had begun to creep in, for it seemed +impossible to suit the two communities most interested in the choice. + +The Rev. Mr. Davis, for example, was a spirited preacher, but persisted +in keeping two horses in the parsonage stable, and in exchanging +them whenever he could get faster ones. As a parochial visitor he was +incomparable, dashing from house to house with such speed that he could +cover the parish in a single afternoon. This sporting tendency, which +would never have been remarked in a British parson, was frowned upon in +a New England village, and Deacon Milliken told Mr. Davis, when giving +him what he alluded to as his "walking papers," that they didn't want +the Edgewood church run by hoss power! + +The next candidate pleased Edgewood, where morning preaching was held, +but the other parish, which had afternoon service, declined to accept +him because he wore a wig--an ill-matched, crookedly applied wig. + +Number three was eloquent but given to gesticulation, and Mrs. Jere +Burbank, the president of the Dorcas Society, who sat in a front pew, +said she couldn't bear to see a preacher scramble round the pulpit hot +Sundays. + +Number four, a genial, handsome man, gifted in prayer, was found to be +a Democrat. The congregation was overwhelmingly Republican in its +politics, and perceived something ludicrous, if not positively +blasphemous, in a Democrat preaching the gospel. ("Ananias and +Beelzebub'll be candidatin' here, first thing we know!" exclaimed the +outraged Republican nominee for district attorney.) + +Number five had a feeble-minded child, which the hiring committee +prophesied, would always be standing in the parsonage front yard, making +talk for the other denominations. + +Number six was the Rev. Judson Baxter, the present incumbent; and he +was voted to be as near perfection as a minister can be in this finite +world. His young wife had a small income of her own, a distinct and +unusual advantage, and the subscription committee hoped that they might +not be eternally driving over the country to get somebody's fifty cents +that had been over-due for eight months, but might take their onerous +duties a little more easily. + +"It does seem as if our ministers were the poorest lot!" complained Mrs. +Robinson. "If their salary is two months behindhand they begin to be +nervous! Seems as though they might lay up a little before they come +here, and not live from hand to mouth so! The Baxters seem quite +different, and I only hope they won't get wasteful and run into debt. +They say she keeps the parlor blinds open bout half the time, and the +room is lit up so often evenin's that the neighbors think her and Mr. +Baxter must set in there. It don't seem hardly as if it could be so, but +Mrs. Buzzell says tis, and she says we might as well say good-by to the +parlor carpet, which is church property, for the Baxters are living all +over it!" + +This criticism was the only discordant note in the chorus of praise, and +the people gradually grew accustomed to the open blinds and the overused +parlor carpet, which was just completing its twenty-fifth year of honest +service. + +Mrs. Baxter communicated her patriotic idea of a new flag to the Dorcas +Society, proposing that the women should cut and make it themselves. + +"It may not be quite as good as those manufactured in the large cities," +she said, "but we shall be proud to see our home-made flag flying in the +breeze, and it will mean all the more to the young voters growing up, to +remember that their mothers made it with their own hands." + +"How would it do to let some of the girls help?" modestly asked Miss +Dearborn, the Riverboro teacher. "We might choose the best sewers and +let them put in at least a few stitches, so that they can feel they have +a share in it." + +"Just the thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Baxter. "We can cut the stripes and sew +them together, and after we have basted on the white stars the girls can +apply them to the blue ground. We must have it ready for the campaign +rally, and we couldn't christen it at a better time than in this +presidential year." + +II + +In this way the great enterprise was started, and day by day the +preparations went forward in the two villages. + +The boys, as future voters and fighters, demanded an active share in +the proceedings, and were organized by Squire Bean into a fife and drum +corps, so that by day and night martial but most inharmonious music woke +the echoes, and deafened mothers felt their patriotism oozing out at the +soles of their shoes. + +Dick Carter was made captain, for his grandfather had a gold medal +given him by Queen Victoria for rescuing three hundred and twenty-six +passengers from a sinking British vessel. Riverboro thought it high time +to pay some graceful tribute to Great Britain in return for her handsome +conduct to Captain Nahum Carter, and human imagination could contrive +nothing more impressive than a vicarious share in the flag raising. + +Living Perkins tried to be happy in the ranks, for he was offered no +official position, principally, Mrs. Smellie observed, because "his +father's war record wa'nt clean." "Oh, yes! Jim Perkins went to the +war," she continued. "He hid out behind the hencoop when they was +draftin', but they found him and took him along. He got into one battle, +too, somehow or nother, but he run away from it. He was allers cautious, +Jim was; if he ever see trouble of any kind comin' towards him, he was +out o' sight fore it got a chance to light. He said eight dollars a +month, without bounty, wouldn't pay HIM to stop bullets for. He wouldn't +fight a skeeter, Jim wouldn't, but land! we ain't to war all the time, +and he's a good neighbor and a good blacksmith." + +Miss Dearborn was to be Columbia and the older girls of the two schools +were to be the States. Such trade in muslins and red, white, and blue +ribbons had never been known since "Watson kep' store," and the number +of brief white petticoats hanging out to bleach would have caused the +passing stranger to imagine Riverboro a continual dancing school. + +Juvenile virtue, both male and female, reached an almost impossible +height, for parents had only to lift a finger and say, "you shan't go +to the flag raising!" and the refractory spirit at once armed itself for +new struggles toward the perfect life. + +Mr. Jeremiah Cobb had consented to impersonate Uncle Sam, and was to +drive Columbia and the States to the "raising" on the top of his own +stage. Meantime the boys were drilling, the ladies were cutting and +basting and stitching, and the girls were sewing on stars; for the +starry part of the spangled banner was to remain with each of them in +turn until she had performed her share of the work. + +It was felt by one and all a fine and splendid service indeed to help +in the making of the flag, and if Rebecca was proud to be of the chosen +ones, so was her Aunt Jane Sawyer, who had taught her all her delicate +stitches. + +On a long-looked-for afternoon in August the minister's wife drove up +to the brick house door, and handed out the great piece of bunting to +Rebecca, who received it in her arms with as much solemnity as if it had +been a child awaiting baptismal rites. + +"I'm so glad!" she sighed happily. "I thought it would never come my +turn!" + +"You should have had it a week ago, but Huldah Meserve upset the ink +bottle over her star, and we had to baste on another one. You are the +last, though, and then we shall sew the stars and stripes together, and +Seth Strout will get the top ready for hanging. Just think, it won't +be many days before you children will be pulling the rope with all your +strength, the band will be playing, the men will be cheering, and the +new flag will go higher and higher, till the red, white, and blue shows +against the sky!" + +Rebecca's eyes fairly blazed. "Shall I fell on' my star, or buttonhole +it?" she asked. + +"Look at all the others and make the most beautiful stitches you can, +that's all. It is your star, you know, and you can even imagine it is +your state, and try and have it the best of all. If everybody else +is trying to do the same thing with her state, that will make a great +country, won't it?" + +Rebecca's eyes spoke glad confirmation of the idea. "My star, my state!" +she repeated joyously. "Oh, Mrs. Baxter, I'll make such fine stitches +you'll think the white grew out of the blue!" + +The new minister's wife looked pleased to see her spark kindle a flame +in the young heart. "You can sew so much of yourself into your star," +she went on in the glad voice that made her so winsome, "that when you +are an old lady you can put on your specs and find it among all the +others. Good-by! Come up to the parsonage Saturday afternoon; Mr. Baxter +wants to see you." + +"Judson, help that dear little genius of a Rebecca all you can!" she +said that night, when they were cosily talking in their parlor and +living "all over" the parish carpet. "I don't know what she may, or may +not, come to, some day; I only wish she were ours! If you could have +seen her clasp the flag tight in her arms and put her cheek against it, +and watched the tears of feeling start in her eyes when I told her +that her star was her state! I kept whispering to myself, Covet not thy +neighbor's child!'" + +Daily at four o'clock Rebecca scrubbed her hands almost to the bone, +brushed her hair, and otherwise prepared herself in body, mind, and +spirit for the consecrated labor of sewing on her star. All the time +that her needle cautiously, conscientiously formed the tiny stitches she +was making rhymes "in her head," her favorite achievement being this: + +"Your star, my star, all our stars together, They make the dear old +banner proud To float in the bright fall weather." + +There was much discussion as to which of the girls should impersonate +the State of Maine, for that was felt to be the highest honor in the +gift of the committee. + +Alice Robinson was the prettiest child in the village, but she was very +shy and by no means a general favorite. + +Minnie Smellie possessed the handsomest dress and a pair of white +slippers and open-work stockings that nearly carried the day. Still, as +Miss Delia Weeks well said, she was so stupid that if she should +suck her thumb in the very middle of the exercises nobody'd be a dite +surprised! + +Huldah Meserve was next voted upon, and the fact that if she were not +chosen her father might withdraw his subscription to the brass band fund +was a matter for grave consideration. + +"I kind o' hate to have such a giggler for the State of Maine; let her +be the Goddess of Liberty," proposed Mrs. Burbank, whose patriotism was +more local than national. + +"How would Rebecca Randall do for Maine, and let her speak some of her +verses?" suggested the new minister's wife, who, could she have had her +way, would have given all the prominent parts to Rebecca, from Uncle Sam +down. + +So, beauty, fashion, and wealth having been tried and found wanting, the +committee discussed the claims of talent, and it transpired that to +the awe-stricken Rebecca fell the chief plum in the pudding. It was a +tribute to her gifts that there was no jealousy or envy among the other +girls; they readily conceded her special fitness for the role. + +Her life had not been pressed down full to the brim of pleasures, and +she had a sort of distrust of joy in the bud. Not until she saw it in +full radiance of bloom did she dare embrace it. She had never read +any verse but Byron, Felicia Hemans, bits of "Paradise Lost," and the +selections in the school readers, but she would have agreed heartily +with the poet who said: + +"Not by appointment do we meet delight And joy; they heed not our +expectancy; But round some corner in the streets of life They on a +sudden clasp us with a smile." + +For many nights before the raising, when she went to her bed she said to +herself, after she had finished her prayers: "It can't be true that I'm +chosen for the State of Maine! It just CAN'T be true! Nobody could be +good ENOUGH, but oh, I'll try to be as good as I can! To be going to +Wareham Seminary next week and to be the State of Maine too! Oh! I must +pray HARD to God to keep me meek and humble!" + +III + +The flag was to be raised on a Tuesday, and on the previous Sunday it +became known to the children that Clara Belle Simpson was coming back +from Acreville, coming to live with Mrs. Fogg and take care of the +baby, called by the neighborhood boys "the Fogg horn," on account of his +excellent voice production. + +Clara Belle was one of Miss Dearborn's original flock, and if she +were left wholly out of the festivities she would be the only girl of +suitable age to be thus slighted; it seemed clear to the juvenile mind, +therefore, that neither she nor her descendants would ever recover from +such a blow. But, under all the circumstances, would she be allowed to +join in the procession? Even Rebecca, the optimistic, feared not, +and the committee confirmed her fears by saying that Abner Simpson's +daughter certainly could not take any prominent part in the ceremony, +but they hoped that Mrs. Fogg would allow her to witness it. + +When Abner Simpson, urged by the town authorities, took his wife and +seven children away from Riverboro to Acreville, just over the border in +the next county, Riverboro went to bed leaving its barn and shed doors +unfastened, and drew long breaths of gratitude to Providence. + +Of most winning disposition and genial manners, Mr. Simpson had not +that instinctive comprehension of property rights which renders a man a +valuable citizen. + +Squire Bean was his nearest neighbor, and he conceived the novel idea +of paying Simpson five dollars a year not to steal from him, a method +occasionally used in the Highlands in the early days. + +The bargain was struck, and adhered to religiously for a twelve-month, +but on the second of January Mr. Simpson announced the verbal contract +as formally broken. + +"I didn't know what I was doin' when I made it, Squire," he urged. +"In the first place, it's a slur on my reputation and an injury to my +self-respect. Secondly, it's a nervous strain on me; and thirdly, five +dollars don't pay me!" + +Squire Bean was so struck with the unique and convincing nature of +these arguments that he could scarcely restrain his admiration, and he +confessed to himself afterward, that unless Simpson's mental attitude +could be changed he was perhaps a fitter subject for medical science +than the state prison. + +Abner was a most unusual thief, and conducted his operations with a tact +and neighborly consideration none too common in the profession. He would +never steal a man's scythe in haying-time, nor his fur lap-robe in the +coldest of the winter. The picking of a lock offered no attractions +to him; "he wa'n't no burglar," he would have scornfully asserted. A +strange horse and wagon hitched by the roadside was the most flagrant +of his thefts; but it was the small things--the hatchet or axe on the +chopping-block, the tin pans sunning at the side door, a stray garment +bleaching on the grass, a hoe, rake, shovel, or a bag of early potatoes, +that tempted him most sorely; and these appealed to him not so much for +their intrinsic value as because they were so excellently adapted to +swapping. The swapping was really the enjoyable part of the procedure, +the theft was only a sad but necessary preliminary; for if Abner +himself had been a man of sufficient property to carry on his business +operations independently, it is doubtful if he would have helped himself +so freely to his neighbor's goods. + +Riverboro regretted the loss of Mrs. Simpson, who was useful in +scrubbing, cleaning, and washing, and was thought to exercise some +influence over her predatory spouse. There was a story of their early +married life, when they had a farm; a story to the effect that Mrs. +Simpson always rode on every load of hay that her husband took to +Milltown, with the view of keeping him sober through the day. After he +turned out of the country road and approached the metropolis, it was +said that he used to bury the docile lady in the load. He would then +drive on to the scales, have the weight of the hay entered in the +buyer's book, take his horses to the stable for feed and water, and when +a favorable opportunity offered he would assist the hot and panting Mrs. +Simpson out of the side or back of the rack, and gallantly brush the +straw from her person. For this reason it was always asserted that Abner +Simpson sold his wife every time he went to Milltown, but the story was +never fully substantiated, and at all events it was the only suspected +blot on meek Mrs. Simpson's personal reputation. + +As for the Simpson children, they were missed chiefly as familiar +figures by the roadside; but Rebecca honestly loved Clara Belle, +notwithstanding her Aunt Miranda's opposition to the intimacy. Rebecca's +"taste for low company" was a source of continual anxiety to her aunt. + +"Anything that's human flesh is good enough for her!" Miranda groaned to +Jane. "She'll ride with the rag-sack-and-bottle peddler just as quick as +she would with the minister; she always sets beside the St. Vitus' dance +young one at Sabbath school; and she's forever riggin' and onriggin' +that dirty Simpson baby! She reminds me of a puppy that'll always go to +everybody that'll have him!" + +It was thought very creditable to Mrs. Fogg that she sent for Clara +Belle to live with her and go to school part of the year. + +"She'll be useful" said Mrs. Fogg, "and she'll be out of her father's +way, and so keep honest; though she's no awful hombly I've no fears for +her. A girl with her red hair, freckles, and cross-eyes can't fall into +no kind of sin, I don't believe." + +Mrs. Fogg requested that Clara Belle should be started on her journey +from Acreville by train and come the rest of the way by stage, and she +was disturbed to receive word on Sunday that Mr. Simpson had borrowed a +"good roader" from a new acquaintance, and would himself drive the girl +from Acreville to Riverboro, a distance of thirty-five miles. That he +would arrive in their vicinity on the very night before the flag-raising +was thought by Riverboro to be a public misfortune, and several +residents hastily determined to deny themselves a sight of the +festivities and remain watchfully on their own premises. + +On Monday afternoon the children were rehearsing their songs at the +meeting-house. As Rebecca came out on the broad wooden steps she watched +Mrs. Peter Meserve's buggy out of sight, for in front, wrapped in a +cotton sheet, lay the previous flag. After a few chattering good-bys +and weather prophecies with the other girls, she started on her homeward +walk, dropping in at the parsonage to read her verses to the minister. + +He welcomed her gladly as she removed her white cotton gloves (hastily +slipped on outside the door, for ceremony) and pushed back the funny hat +with the yellow and black porcupine quills--the hat with which she made +her first appearance in Riverboro society. + +"You've heard the beginning, Mr. Baxter; now will you please tell me if +you like the last verse?" she asked, taking out her paper. "I've only +read it to Alice Robinson, and I think perhaps she can never be a poet, +though she's a splendid writer. Last year when she was twelve she wrote +a birthday poem to herself, and she made natal' rhyme with Milton,.' +which, of course, it wouldn't. I remember every verse ended: + + 'This is my day so natal + And I will follow Milton.' + +Another one of hers was written just because she couldn't help it, she +said. This was it: + + 'Let me to the hills away, + Give me pen and paper; + I'll write until the earth will sway + The story of my Maker.'" + +The minister could scarcely refrain from smiling, but he controlled +himself that he might lose none of Rebecca's quaint observations. +When she was perfectly at ease, unwatched and uncriticised, she was a +marvelous companion. + +"The name of the poem is going to be My Star,'" she continued, "and Mrs. +Baxter gave me all the ideas, but somehow there's a kind of magicness +when they get into poetry, don't you think so?" (Rebecca always talked +to grown people as if she were their age, or, a more subtle and truer +distinction, as if they were hers.) + +"It has often been so remarked, in different words," agreed the +minister. + +"Mrs. Baxter said that each star was a state, and if each state did its +best we should have a splendid country. Then once she said that we ought +to be glad the war is over and the States are all at peace together; and +I thought Columbia must be glad, too, for Miss Dearborn says she's +the mother of all the States. So I'm going to have it end like this: I +didn't write it, I just sewed it while I was working on my star: + + For it's your star, my star, all the stars together, + That make our country's flag so proud + To float in the bright fall weather. + Northern stars, Southern stars, stars of the East and West, + Side by side they lie at peace + On the dear flag's mother-breast." + +"'Oh! many are the poets that are sown by nature,'" thought the +minister, quoting Wordsworth to himself. "And I wonder what becomes of +them! That's a pretty idea, little Rebecca, and I don't know whether +you or my wife ought to have the more praise. What made you think of the +stars lying on the flag's mother-breast'? Where did you get that word?" + +"Why" (and the young poet looked rather puzzled), "that's the way it is; +the flag is the whole country--the mother--and the stars are the states. +The stars had to lie somewhere: 'LAP' nor 'ARMS' wouldn't sound well +with West,' so, of course, I said 'BREAST,'" Rebecca answered, with some +surprise at the question; and the minister put his hand under her chin +and kissed her softly on the forehead when he said good-by at the door. + +IV + +Rebecca walked rapidly along in the gathering twilight, thinking of the +eventful morrow. + +As she approached the turning on the left called the old Milltown +road, she saw a white horse and wagon, driven by a man with a rakish, +flapping, Panama hat, come rapidly around the turn and disappear over +the long hills leading down to the falls. There was no mistaking him; +there never was another Abner Simpson, with his lean height, his bushy +reddish hair, the gay cock of his hat, and the long piratical, upturned +mustaches, which the boys used to say were used as hat-racks by the +Simpson children at night.. The old Milltown road ran past Mrs. Fogg's +house, so he must have left Clara Belle there, and Rebecca's heart +glowed to think that her poor little friend need not miss the raising. + +She began to run now, fearful of being late for supper, and covered the +ground to the falls in a brief time. As she crossed the bridge she again +saw Abner Simpson's team, drawn up at the watering trough. + +Coming a little nearer, with the view of inquiring for the family, her +quick eye caught sight of something unexpected. A gust of wind blew up +a corner of a linen lap-robe in the back of the wagon, and underneath +it she distinctly saw the white-sheeted bundle that held the flag; the +bundle with a tiny, tiny spot of red bunting peeping out at one corner. +It is true she had eaten, slept, dreamed red, white, and blue for weeks, +but there was no mistaking the evidence of her senses; the idolized +flag, longed for, worked for, sewed for, that flag was in the back of +Abner Simpson's wagon, and if so, what would become of the raising? + +Acting on blind impulse, she ran toward the watering-trough, calling out +in her clear treble: "Mr. Simpson! Oh, Mr. Simpson, will you let me ride +a piece with you and hear all about Clara Belle? I'm going part way over +to the Centre on an errand." (So she was; a most important errand,--to +recover the flag of her country at present in the hands of the foe!) + +Mr. Simpson turned round in his seat and cried heartily, "Certain sure I +will!" for he liked the fair sex, young and old, and Rebecca had always +been a prime favorite with him. "Climb right in! How's everybody? Glad +to see ye! The folks talk bout ye from sun-up to sun-down, and Clara +Belle can't hardly wait for a sight of ye!" + +Rebecca scrambled up, trembling and pale with excitement. She did not in +the least know what was going to happen, but she was sure that the flag, +when in the enemy's country, must be at least a little safer with the +State of Maine sitting on top of it! + +Mr. Simpson began a long monologue about Acreville, the house he lived +in, the pond in front of it, Mrs. Simpson's health, and various items of +news about the children, varied by reports of his personal misfortunes. +He put no questions, and asked no replies, so this gave the +inexperienced soldier a few seconds to plan a campaign. There were +three houses to pass; the Browns' at the corner, the Millikens', and the +Robinsons' on the brow of the hill. If Mr. Robinson were in the front +yard she might tell Mr. Simpson she wanted to call there and ask Mr. +Robinson to hold the horse's head while she got out of the wagon. +Then she might fly to the back before Mr. Simpson could realize the +situation, and dragging out the precious bundle, sit on it hard, while +Mr. Robinson settled the matter of ownership with Mr. Simpson. + +This was feasible, but it meant a quarrel between the two men, who held +an ancient grudge against each other, and Mr. Simpson was a valiant +fighter as the various sheriffs who had attempted to arrest him could +cordially testify. It also meant that everybody in the village would +hear of the incident and poor Clara Belle be branded again as the child +of a thief. + +Another idea danced into her excited brain; such a clever one she could +hardly believe it hers. She might call Mr. Robinson to the wagon, and +when he came close to the wheels she might say, "all of a sudden": +"Please take the flag out of the back of the wagon, Mr. Robinson. We +have brought it here for you to keep overnight." Mr. Simpson might be +so surprised that he would give up his prize rather than be suspected of +stealing. + +But as they neared the Robinsons' house there was not a sign of life +to be seen; so the last plan, ingenious though it was, was perforce +abandoned. + +The road now lay between thick pine woods with no dwelling in sight. +It was growing dusk and Rebecca was driving along the lonely way with a +person who was generally called Slippery Simpson. + +Not a thought of fear crossed her mind, save the fear of bungling in +her diplomacy, and so losing the flag. She knew Mr. Simpson well, and a +pleasanter man was seldom to be met. She recalled an afternoon when he +came home and surprised the whole school playing the Revolutionary War +in his helter-skelter dooryard, and the way in which he had joined the +British forces and impersonated General Burgoyne had greatly endeared +him to her. The only difficulty was to find proper words for her +delicate mission, for, of course, if Mr. Simpson's anger were aroused, +he would politely push her out of the wagon and drive away with the +flag. Perhaps if she led the conversation in the right direction an +opportunity would present itself. She well remembered how Emma Jane +Perkins had failed to convert Jacob Moody, simply because she failed to +"lead up" to the delicate question of his manner of life. Clearing her +throat nervously, she began: "Is it likely to be fair tomorrow?" + +"Guess so; clear as a bell. What's on foot; a picnic?" + +"No; we're to have a grand flag-raising!" ("That is," she thought, "if +we have any flag to raise!") + +"That so? Where?" + +"The three villages are to club together and have a rally, and raise +the flag at the Centre. There'll be a brass band, and speakers, and the +Mayor of Portland, and the man that will be governor if he's elected, +and a dinner in the Grange Hall, and we girls are chosen to raise the +flag." + +"I want to know! That'll be grand, won't it?" (Still not a sign of +consciousness on the part of Abner.) + +"I hope Mrs. Fogg will take Clara Belle, for it will be splendid to look +at! Mr. Cobb is going to be Uncle Sam and drive us on the stage. Miss +Dearborn--Clara Belle's old teacher, you know--is going to be Columbia; +the girls will be the States of the Union, and oh, Mr. Simpson, I am the +one to be the State of Maine!" (This was not altogether to the point, +but a piece of information impossible to conceal.) + +Mr. Simpson flourished the whipstock and gave a loud, hearty laugh. Then +he turned in his seat and regarded Rebecca curiously. "You're kind of +small, hain't ye, for so big a state as this one?" he asked. + +"Any of us would be too small," replied Rebecca with dignity, "but the +committee asked me, and I am going to try hard to do well." + +The tragic thought that there might be no occasion for anybody to do +anything, well or ill, suddenly overcame her here, and putting her +hand on Mr. Simpson's sleeve, she attacked the subject practically and +courageously. + +"Oh, Mr. Simpson, dear Mr. Simpson, it's such a mortifying subject I +can't bear to say anything about it, but please give us back our flag! +Don't, DON'T take it over to Acreville, Mr. Simpson! We've worked so +long to make it, and it was so hard getting the money for the bunting! +Wait a minute, please; don't be angry, and don't say no just yet, till +I explain more. It'll be so dreadful for everybody to get there tomorrow +morning and find no flag to raise, and the band and the mayor all +disappointed, and the children crying, with their muslin dresses all +bought for nothing! O dear Mr. Simpson, please don't take our flag away +from us!" + +The apparently astonished Abner pulled his mustaches and exclaimed: "But +I don't know what you're drivin' at! Who's got yer flag? I hain't!" + +Could duplicity, deceit, and infamy go any further, Rebecca wondered, +and her soul filling with righteous wrath, she cast discretion to the +winds and spoke a little more plainly, bending her great swimming eyes +on the now embarrassed Abner, who looked like an angle-worm, wriggling +on a pin. + +"Mr. Simpson, how can you say that, when I saw the flag in the back of +your wagon myself, when you stopped to water the horse? It's wicked of +you to take it, and I cannot bear it!" (Her voice broke now, for a doubt +of Mr. Simpson's yielding suddenly darkened her mind.) "If you keep it, +you'll have to keep me, for I won't be parted from it! I can't fight +like the boys, but I can pinch and scratch, and I WILL scratch, just +like a panther--I'll lie right down on my star and not move, if I starve +to death!" + +"Look here, hold your hosses n' don't cry till you git something to cry +for!" grumbled the outraged Abner, to whom a clue had just come; and +leaning over the wagon-back he caught hold of a corner of white sheet +and dragged up the bundle, scooping off Rebecca's hat in the process, +and almost burying her in bunting. + +She caught the treasure passionately to her heart and stifled her sobs +in it, while Abner exclaimed: "I swan to man, if that hain't a flag! +Well, in that case you're good n' welcome to it! Land! I seen that +bundle lyin' in the middle o' the road and I says to myself, that's +somebody's washin' and I'd better pick it up and leave it at the +post-office to be claimed; n' all the time it was a flag!" + +This was a Simpsonian version of the matter, the fact being that a +white-covered bundle lying on the Meserves' front steps had attracted +his practiced eye, and slipping in at the open gate he had swiftly and +deftly removed it to his wagon on general principles; thinking if it +were clean clothes it would be extremely useful, and in any event there +was no good in passing by something flung into your very arms, so to +speak. He had had no leisure to examine the bundle, and indeed took +little interest in it. Probably he stole it simply from force of habit, +and because there was nothing else in sight to steal, everybody's +premises being preternaturally tidy and empty, almost as if his visit +had been expected! + +Rebecca was a practical child, and it seemed to her almost impossible +that so heavy a bundle should fall out of Mrs. Meserve's buggy and not +be noticed; but she hoped that Mr. Simpson was telling the truth, and +she was too glad and grateful to doubt anyone at the moment. + +"Thank you, thank you ever so much, Mr. Simpson. You're the nicest, +kindest, politest man I ever knew, and the girls will be so pleased you +gave us back the flag, and so will the Dorcas Society; they'll be sure +to write you a letter of thanks; they always do." + +"Tell em not to bother bout any thanks," said Simpson, beaming +virtuously. "But land! I'm glad twas me that happened to see that bundle +in the road and take the trouble to pick it up." ("Jest to think of it's +bein' a flag!" he thought; "if ever there was a pesky, wuthless thing to +trade off, twould be a great, gormin' flag like that!") + +"Can I get out now, please?" asked Rebecca. "I want to go back, for Mrs. +Meserve will be dreadfully nervous when she finds out she dropped the +flag, and she has heart trouble." + +"No, you don't," objected Mr. Simpson gallantly, turning the horse. "Do +you think I'd let a little creeter like you lug that great heavy bundle? +I hain't got time to go back to Meserve's, but I'll take you to the +corner and dump you there, flag n' all, and you can get some o' the +men-folks to carry it the rest o' the way. You'll wear it out, huggin' +it so!" + +"I helped make it and I adore it!" said Rebecca, who was in a +high-pitched and grandiloquent mood. "Why don't YOU like it? It's your +country's flag." + +Simpson smiled an indulgent smile and looked a trifle bored at these +frequent appeals to his extremely rusty higher feelings. + +"I don' know's I've got any partic'lar int'rest in the country," he +remarked languidly. "I know I don't owe nothin' to it, nor own nothin' +in it!" + +"You own a star on the flag, same as everybody," argued Rebecca, who had +been feeding on patriotism for a month; "and you own a state, too, like +all of us!" + +"Land! I wish't I did! or even a quarter section!" sighed Mr. Simpson, +feeling somehow a little more poverty-stricken and discouraged than +usual. + +As they approached the corner and the watering-trough where four +cross-roads met, the whole neighborhood seemed to be in evidence, +and Mr. Simpson suddenly regretted his chivalrous escort of Rebecca; +especially when, as he neared the group, an excited lady, wringing her +hands, turned out to be Mrs. Peter Meserve, accompanied by Huldah, the +Browns, Mrs. Milliken, Abijah Flagg, and Miss Dearborn. + +"Do you know anything about the new flag, Rebecca?" shrieked Mrs. +Meserve, too agitated, at the moment, to notice the child's companion. + +"It's right here in my lap, all safe," responded Rebecca joyously. + +"You careless, meddlesome young one, to take it off my steps where +I left it just long enough to go round to the back and hunt up my +door-key! You've given me a fit of sickness with my weak heart, and what +business was it of yours? I believe you think you OWN the flag! Hand it +over to me this minute!" + +Rebecca was climbing down during this torrent of language, but as she +turned she flashed one look of knowledge at the false Simpson, a look +that went through him from head to foot, as if it were carried by +electricity. + +He had not deceived her after all, owing to the angry chatter of Mrs. +Meserve. He had been handcuffed twice in his life, but no sheriff had +ever discomfited him so thoroughly as this child. Fury mounted to his +brain, and as soon as she was safely out from between the wheels he +stood up in the wagon and flung the flag out in the road in the midst of +the excited group. + +"Take it, you pious, passimonious, cheese-parin', hair-splittin', +back-bitin', flag-raisin' crew!" he roared. "Rebecca never took the +flag; I found it in the road, I say!" + +"You never, no such a thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Meserve. "You found it on +the doorsteps in my garden!" + +"Mebbe twas your garden, but it was so chock full o' weeks I THOUGHT +twas the road," retorted Abner. "I vow I wouldn't a' given the old +rag back to one o' YOU, not if you begged me on your bended knees! But +Rebecca's a friend o' my folks and can do with her flag's she's a mind +to, and the rest o' ye can go to thunder--n' stay there, for all I +care!" + +So saying, he made a sharp turn, gave the gaunt white horse a lash and +disappeared in a cloud of dust, before the astonished Mr. Brown, the +only man in the party, had a thought of detaining him. + +"I'm sorry I spoke so quick, Rebecca," said Mrs. Meserve, greatly +mortified at the situation. "But don't you believe a word that lyin' +critter said! He did steal it off my doorstep, and how did you come to +be ridin' and consortin' with him! I believe it would kill your Aunt +Miranda if she should hear about it!" + +The little school-teacher put a sheltering arm round Rebecca as Mr. +Brown picked up the flag and dusted and folded it. + +"I'm willing she should hear about it," Rebecca answered. "I didn't do +anything to be ashamed of! I saw the flag in the back of Mr. Simpson's +wagon and I just followed it. There weren't any men or any Dorcases to +take care of it and so it fell to me! You wouldn't have had me let it +out of my sight, would you, and we going to raise it tomorrow morning?" + +"Rebecca's perfectly right, Mrs. Meserve!" said Miss Dearborn proudly. +"And it's lucky there was somebody quick-witted enough to ride and +consort' with Mr. Simpson! I don't know what the village will think, but +seems to me the town clerk might write down in his book, THIS DAY THE +STATE OF MAINE SAVED THE FLAG!'" + + + + +Sixth Chronicle. THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL + + +I + +The foregoing episode, if narrated in a romance, would undoubtedly have +been called "The Saving of the Colors," but at the nightly conversazione +in Watson's store it was alluded to as the way little Becky Randall got +the flag away from Slippery Simpson. + +Dramatic as it was, it passed into the limbo of half-forgotten things +in Rebecca's mind, its brief importance submerged in the glories of the +next day. + +There was a painful prelude to these glories. Alice Robinson came to +spend the night with Rebecca, and when the bedroom door closed upon the +two girls, Alice announced here intention of "doing up" Rebecca's front +hair in leads and rags, and braiding the back in six tight, wetted +braids. + +Rebecca demurred. Alice persisted. + +"Your hair is so long and thick and dark and straight," she said, "that +you'll look like an Injun!" + +"I am the State of Maine; it all belonged to the Indians once," Rebecca +remarked gloomily, for she was curiously shy about discussing her +personal appearance. + +"And your wreath of little pine-cones won't set decent without crimps," +continued Alice. + +Rebecca glanced in the cracked looking-glass and met what she considered +an accusing lack of beauty, a sight that always either saddened or +enraged her according to circumstances; then she sat down resignedly +and began to help Alice in the philanthropic work of making the State of +Maine fit to be seen at the raising. + +Neither of the girls was an expert hairdresser, and at the end of an +hour, when the sixth braid was tied, and Rebecca had given one last +shuddering look in the mirror, both were ready to weep with fatigue. + +The candle was blown out and Alice soon went to sleep, but Rebecca +tossed on her pillow, its goose-feathered softness all dented by the +cruel lead knobs and the knots of twisted rags. She slipped out of bed +and walked to and fro, holding her aching head with both hands. Finally +she leaned on the window-sill, watching the still weather-vane on +Alice's barn and breathing in the fragrance of the ripening apples, +until her restlessness subsided under the clear starry beauty of the +night. + +At six in the morning the girls were out of bed, for Alice could hardly +wait until Rebecca's hair was taken down, she was so eager to see the +result of her labors. + +The leads and rags were painfully removed, together with much hair, the +operation being punctuated by a series of squeaks, squeals, and shrieks +on the part of Rebecca and a series of warnings from Alice, who wished +the preliminaries to be kept secret from the aunts, that they might the +more fully appreciate the radiant result. + +Then came the unbraiding, and then--dramatic moment--the "combing out;" +a difficult, not to say impossible process, in which the hairs that had +resisted the earlier stages almost gave up the ghost. + +The long front strands had been wound up from various angles and by +various methods, so that, when released, they assumed the strangest, +most obstinate, most unexpected attitudes. When the comb was dragged +through the last braid, the wild, tortured, electric hairs following, +and then rebounding from it in a bristling, snarling tangle. +Massachusetts gave one encompassing glance at the State o' Maine's head, +and announced her intention of going home to breakfast! She was deeply +grieved at the result of her attempted beautifying, but she felt that +meeting Miss Miranda Sawyer at the morning meal would not mend matters +in the least, so slipping out of the side door, she ran up Guide Board +hill as fast as her legs could carry her. + +The State o' Maine, deserted and somewhat unnerved, sat down before the +glass and attacked her hair doggedly and with set lips, working over it +until Miss Jane called her to breakfast; then, with a boldness born +of despair, she entered the dining room, where her aunts were already +seated at table. To "draw fire" she whistled, a forbidden joy, which +only attracted more attention, instead of diverting it. There was a +moment of silence after the grotesque figure was fully taken in; then +came a moan from Jane and a groan from Miranda. + +"What have you done to yourself?" asked Miranda sternly. + +"Made an effort to be beautiful and failed!" jauntily replied Rebecca, +but she was too miserable to keep up the fiction. "Oh, Aunt Miranda, +don't scold. I'm so unhappy! Alice and I rolled up my hair to curl it +for the raising. She said it was so straight I looked like an Indian!" + +"Mebbe you did," vigorously agreed Miranda, "but 't any rate you looked +like a Christian Injun, 'n' now you look like a heathen Injun; that's +all the difference I can see. What can we do with her, Jane, between +this and nine o'clock?" + +"We'll all go out to the pump just as soon as we're through breakfast," +answered Jane soothingly. "We can accomplish consid'rable with water and +force." + +Rebecca nibbled her corn-cake, her tearful eyes cast on her plate and +her chin quivering. + +"Don't you cry and red your eyes up," chided Miranda quite kindly; "the +minute you've eat enough run up and get your brush and comb and meet us +at the back door." + +"I wouldn't care myself how bad I looked," said Rebecca, "but I can't +bear to be so homely that I shame the State of Maine!" + +Oh, what an hour followed this plaint! Did any aspirant for literary +or dramatic honors ever pass to fame through such an antechamber of +horrors? Did poet of the day ever have his head so maltreated? To be +dipped in the rain-water tub, soused again and again; to be held under +the spout and pumped on; to be rubbed furiously with rough roller +towels; to be dried with hot flannels! And is it not well-nigh +incredible that at the close of such an hour the ends of the long hair +should still stand out straight, the braids having been turned up two +inches by Alice, and tied hard in that position with linen thread? + +"Get out the skirt-board, Jane," cried Miranda, to whom opposition +served as a tonic, "and move that flat-iron on to the front o' the +stove. Rebecca, set down in that low chair beside the board, and Jane, +you spread out her hair on it and cover it up with brown paper. Don't +cringe, Rebecca; the worst's over, and you've borne up real good! I'll +be careful not to pull your hair nor scorch you, and oh, HOW I'd like +to have Alice Robinson acrost my knee and a good strip o' shingle in my +right hand! There, you're all ironed out and your Aunt Jane can put on +your white dress and braid your hair up again good and tight. Perhaps +you won't be the hombliest of the states, after all; but when I see you +comin' in to breakfast I said to myself: I guess if Maine looked like +that, it wouldn't never a' been admitted into the Union!'" + +When Uncle Sam and the stagecoach drew up to the brick house with a +grand swing and a flourish, the goddess of Liberty and most of the +States were already in their places on the "harricane deck." + +Words fail to describe the gallant bearing of the horses, their +headstalls gayly trimmed and their harnesses dotted with little flags. +The stage windows were hung in bunting, and from within beamed Columbia, +looking out from the bright frame as if proud of her freight of loyal +children. Patriotic streamers floated from whip, from dash-board and +from rumble, and the effect of the whole was something to stimulate the +most phlegmatic voter. + +Rebecca came out on the steps and Aunt Jane brought a chair to assist in +the ascent. Miss Dearborn peeped from the window, and gave a despairing +look at her favorite. + +What had happened to her? Who had dressed her? Had her head been put +through a wringing-machine? Why were her eyes red and swollen? Miss +Dearborn determined to take her behind the trees in the pine grove +and give her some finishing touches; touches that her skillful fingers +fairly itched to bestow. + +The stage started, and as the roadside pageant grew gayer and gayer, +Rebecca began to brighten and look prettier, for most of her beautifying +came from within. The people, walking, driving, or standing on +their doorsteps, cheered Uncle Sam's coach with its freight of +gossamer-muslined, fluttering-ribboned girls, and just behind, the +gorgeously decorated haycart, driven by Abijah Flagg, bearing the jolly +but inharmonious fife-and-drum corps. + +Was ever such a golden day! Such crystal air! Such mellow sunshine! Such +a merry Uncle Sam! + +The stage drew up at an appointed spot near a pine grove, and while the +crowd was gathering, the children waited for the hour to arrive when +they should march to the platform; the hour toward which they seemed to +have been moving since the dawn of creation. + +As soon as possible Miss Dearborn whispered to Rebecca: "Come behind the +trees with me; I want to make you prettier!" + +Rebecca thought she had suffered enough from that process already during +the last twelve hours, but she put out an obedient hand and the two +withdrew. + +Now Miss Dearborn was, I fear, a very indifferent teacher. Dr. Moses +always said so, and Libbie Moses, who wanted her school, said it was +a pity she hadn't enjoyed more social advantages in her youth. Libbie +herself had taken music lessons in Portland; and spent a night at the +Profile House in the White Mountains, and had visited her sister in +Lowell, Massachusetts. These experiences gave her, in her own mind, and +in the mind of her intimate friends, a horizon so boundless that her +view of smaller, humbler matters was a trifle distorted. + +Miss Dearborn's stock in trade was small, her principal virtues being +devotion to children and ability to gain their love, and a power of +evolving a schoolroom order so natural, cheery, serene, and peaceful +that it gave the beholder a certain sense of being in a district heaven. +She was poor in arithmetic and weak in geometry, but if you gave her a +rose, a bit of ribbon, and a seven-by-nine looking-glass she could make +herself as pretty as a pink in two minutes. + +Safely sheltered behind the pines, Miss Dearborn began to practice +mysterious feminine arts. She flew at Rebecca's tight braids, opened +the strands and rebraided them loosely; bit and tore the red, white, +and blue ribbon in two and tied the braids separately. Then with nimble +fingers she pulled out little tendrils of hair behind the ears and +around the nape of the neck. After a glance of acute disapproval +directed at the stiff balloon skirt she knelt on the ground and gave +a strenuous embrace to Rebecca's knees, murmuring, between her hugs, +"Starch must be cheap at the brick house!" + +This particular line of beauty attained, there ensued great pinchings of +ruffles, her fingers that could never hold a ferrule nor snap children's +ears being incomparable fluting-irons. + +Next the sash was scornfully untied and tightened to suggest something +resembling a waist. The chastened bows that had been squat, dowdy, +spiritless, were given tweaks, flirts, bracing little pokes and dabs, +till, acknowledging a master hand, they stood up, piquant, pert, smart, +alert! + +Pride of bearing was now infused into the flattened lace at the neck, +and a pin (removed at some sacrifice from her own toilette) was darned +in at the back to prevent any cowardly lapsing. The short white cotton +gloves that called attention to the tanned wrist and arms were stripped +off and put in her own pocket. Then the wreath of pine-cones was +adjusted at a heretofore unimagined angle, the hair was pulled softly +into a fluffy frame, and finally, as she met Rebecca's grateful eyes +she gave her two approving, triumphant kisses. In a second the sensitive +face lighted into happiness; pleased dimples appeared in the cheeks, the +kissed mouth was as red as a rose, and the little fright that had walked +behind the pine-tree stepped out on the other side Rebecca the lovely. + +As to the relative value of Miss Dearborn's accomplishments, the +decision must be left to the gentle reader; but though it is certain +that children should be properly grounded in mathematics, no heart of +flesh could bear to hear Miss Dearborn's methods vilified who had seen +her patting, pulling, squeezing Rebecca from ugliness into beauty. + +The young superintendent of district schools was a witness of the scene, +and when later he noted the children surrounding Columbia as bees +a honeysuckle, he observed to Dr. Moses: "She may not be much of a +teacher, but I think she'd be considerable of a wife!" and subsequent +events proved that he meant what he said! + +II + +Now all was ready; the moment of fate was absolutely at hand; the +fife-and-drum corps led the way and the States followed; but what +actually happened Rebecca never knew; she lived through the hours in a +waking dream. Every little detail was a facet of light that reflected +sparkles, and among them all she was fairly dazzled. The brass band +played inspiring strains; the mayor spoke eloquently on great themes; +the people cheered; then the rope on which so much depended was put into +the children's hands, they applied superhuman strength to their task, +and the flag mounted, mounted, smoothly and slowly, and slowly unwound +and stretched itself until its splendid size and beauty were revealed +against the maples and pines and blue New England sky. + +Then after cheers upon cheers and after a patriotic chorus by the church +choirs, the State of Maine mounted the platform, vaguely conscious +that she was to recite a poem, though for the life of her she could not +remember a single word. + +"Speak up loud and clear, Rebecky," whispered Uncle Sam in the front +row, but she could scarcely hear her own voice when, tremblingly, she +began her first line. After that she gathered strength and the poem +"said itself," while the dream went on. + +She saw Adam Ladd leaning against a tree; Aunt Jane and Aunt Miranda +palpitating with nervousness; Clara Belle Simpson gazing cross-eyed but +adoring from a seat on the side; and in the far, far distance, on the +very outskirts of the crowd, a tall man standing in a wagon--a tall, +loose-jointed man with red upturned mustaches, and a gaunt white horse +headed toward the Acreville road. + +Loud applause greeted the state of Maine, the slender little white-clad +figure standing on the mossy boulder that had been used as the centre of +the platform. The sun came up from behind a great maple and shone full +on the star-spangled banner, making it more dazzling than ever, so that +its beauty drew all eyes upward. + +Abner Simpson lifted his vagrant shifting gaze to its softy fluttering +folds and its splendid massing of colors, thinking: + +"I don't know's anybody'd ought to steal a flag--the thunderin' idjuts +seem to set such store by it, and what is it, anyway? Nothin; but a +sheet o' buntin!" + +Nothing but a sheet of bunting? He looked curiously at the rapt faces +of the mothers, their babies asleep in their arms; the parted lips and +shining eyes of the white-clad girls; at Cap'n Lord, who had been in +Libby prison, and Nat Strout, who had left an arm at Bull Run; at the +friendly, jostling crowd of farmers, happy, eager, absorbed, their +throats ready to burst with cheers. Then the breeze served, and he heard +Rebecca's clear voice saying: + +"For it's your star, my star, all the stars together, That make our +country's flag so proud To float in the bright fall weather!" + +"Talk about stars! She's got a couple of em right in her head," thought +Simpson.... "If I ever seen a young one like that lyin; on anybody's +doorstep I'd hook her quicker'n a wink, though I've got plenty to home, +the Lord knows! And I wouldn't swap her off neither.... Spunky little +creeter, too; settin; up in the wagon lookin' bout's big as a pint o' +cider, but keepin' right after the goods!... I vow I'm bout sick o' my +job! Never WITH the crowd, allers JEST on the outside, s if I wa'n't as +good's they be! If it paid well, mebbe I wouldn't mind, but they're so +thunderin' stingy round here, they don't leave anything decent out for +you to take from em, yet you're reskin' your liberty n' reputation jest +the same!... Countin' the poor pickin's n' the time I lose in jail I +might most's well be done with it n' work out by the day, as the folks +want me to; I'd make bout's much n' I don't know's it would be any +harder!" + +He could see Rebecca stepping down from the platform, while his own +red-headed little girl stood up on her bench, waving her hat with one +hand, her handkerchief with the other, and stamping with both feet. + +Now a man sitting beside the mayor rose from his chair and Abner heard +him call: + +"Three cheers for the women who made the flag!" + +"HIP, HIP, HURRAH!" + +"Three cheers for the State of Maine!" + +"HIP, HIP, HURRAH!" + +"Three cheers for the girl that saved the flag from the hands of the +enemy!" + +"HIP, HIP, HURRAH! HIP, HIP, HURRAH!" + +It was the Edgewood minister, whose full, vibrant voice was of the sort +to move a crowd. His words rang out into the clear air and were carried +from lip to lip. Hands clapped, feet stamped, hats swung, while the loud +huzzahs might almost have wakened the echoes on old Mount Ossipee. + +The tall, loose-jointed man sat down in the wagon suddenly and took up +the reins. + +"They're gettin' a little mite personal, and I guess it's bout time for +you to be goin', Simpson!" + +The tone was jocular, but the red mustaches drooped, and the +half-hearted cut he gave to start the white mare on her homeward journey +showed that he was not in his usual devil-may-care mood. + +"Durn his skin!" he burst out in a vindictive undertone, as the mare +swung into her long gait. "It's a lie! I thought twas somebody's wash! I +hain't an enemy!" + +While the crowd at the raising dispersed in happy family groups to their +picnics in the woods; while the Goddess of Liberty, Uncle Sam, +Columbia, and the proud States lunched grandly in the Grange hall with +distinguished guests and scarred veterans of two wars, the lonely +man drove, and drove, and drove through silent woods and dull, sleepy +villages, never alighting to replenish his wardrobe or his stock of +swapping material. + +At dusk he reached a miserable tumble-down house on the edge of a pond. + +The faithful wife with the sad mouth and the habitual look of anxiety in +her faded eyes came to the door at the sound of wheels and went doggedly +to the horse-shed to help him unharness. + +"You didn't expect to see me back tonight, did ye?" he asked +satirically; "leastwise not with this same horse? Well, I'm here! You +needn't be scairt to look under the wagon seat, there hain't nothin' +there, not even my supper, so I hope you're suited for once! No, I guess +I hain't goin' to be an angel right away, neither. There wa'n't nothin' +but flags layin' roun' loose down Riverboro way, n' whatever they say, I +hain't sech a hound as to steal a flag!" + +It was natural that young Riverboro should have red, white, and blue +dreams on the night after the new flag was raised. A stranger thing, +perhaps, is the fact that Abner Simpson should lie down on his hard bed +with the flutter of bunting before his eyes, and a whirl of unaccustomed +words in his mind. + +"For it's your star, my star, all our stars together." + +"I'm sick of goin' it alone," he thought; "I guess I'll try the other +road for a spell;" and with that he fell asleep. + + + + +Seventh Chronicle. THE LITTLE PROPHET + + +I + +"I guess York County will never get red of that Simpson crew!" exclaimed +Miranda Sawyer to Jane. "I thought when the family moved to Acreville +we'd seen the last of em, but we ain't! The big, cross-eyed, stutterin' +boy has got a place at the mills in Maplewood; that's near enough to +come over to Riverboro once in a while of a Sunday mornin' and set in +the meetin' house starin' at Rebecca same as he used to do, only it's +reskier now both of em are older. Then Mrs. Fogg must go and bring back +the biggest girl to help her take care of her baby,--as if there wa'n't +plenty of help nearer home! Now I hear say that the youngest twin has +come to stop the summer with the Cames up to Edgewood Lower Corner." + +"I thought two twins were always the same age," said Rebecca, +reflectively, as she came into the kitchen with the milk pail. + +"So they be," snapped Miranda, flushing and correcting herself. "But +that pasty-faced Simpson twin looks younger and is smaller than the +other one. He's meek as Moses and the other one is as bold as a brass +kettle; I don't see how they come to be twins; they ain't a mite alike." + +"Elijah was always called the fighting twin' at school," said Rebecca, +"and Elisha's other name was Nimbi-Pamby; but I think he's a nice little +boy, and I'm glad he has come back. He won't like living with Mr. Came, +but he'll be almost next door to the minister's, and Mrs. Baxter is sure +to let him play in her garden." + +"I wonder why the boy's stayin' with Cassius Came," said Jane. "To be +sure they haven't got any of their own, but the child's too young to be +much use." + +"I know why," remarked Rebecca promptly, "for I heard all about it over +to Watson's when I was getting the milk. Mr. Came traded something with +Mr. Simpson two years ago and got the best of the bargain, and Uncle +Jerry says he's the only man that ever did, and he ought to have a +monument put up to him. So Mr. Came owes Mr. Simpson money and won't +pay it, and Mr. Simpson said he'd send over a child and board part of it +out, and take the rest in stock--a pig or a calf or something." + +"That's all stuff and nonsense," exclaimed Miranda; "nothin' in the +world but store-talk. You git a clump o' men-folks settin' round +Watson's stove, or out on the bench at the door, an' they'll make up +stories as fast as their tongues can wag. The man don't live that's +smart enough to cheat Abner Simpson in a trade, and who ever heard of +anybody's owin' him money? Tain't supposable that a woman like Mrs. Came +would allow her husband to be in debt to a man like Abner Simpson. It's +a sight likelier that she heard that Mrs. Simpson was ailin' and sent +for the boy so as to help the family along. She always had Mrs. Simpson +to wash for her once a month, if you remember Jane?" + +There are some facts so shrouded in obscurity that the most skillful and +patient investigator cannot drag them into the light of day. There are +also (but only occasionally) certain motives, acts, speeches, lines of +conduct, that can never be wholly and satisfactorily explained, even in +a village post-office or on the loafers' bench outside the tavern door. + +Cassius Came was a close man, close of mouth and close of purse; and all +that Riverboro ever knew as to the three months' visit of the Simpson +twin was that it actually occurred. Elisha, otherwise Nimbi-Pamby, came; +Nimbi-Pamby stayed; and Nimbi-Pamby, when he finally rejoined his own +domestic circle, did not go empty-handed (so to speak), for he was +accompanied on his homeward travels by a large, red, bony, somewhat +truculent cow, who was tied on behind the wagon, and who made the +journey a lively and eventful one by her total lack of desire to proceed +over the road from Edgewood to Acreville. But that, the cow's tale, +belongs to another time and place, and the coward's tale must come +first; for Elisha Simpson was held to be sadly lacking in the manly +quality of courage. + +It was the new minister's wife who called Nimbi-Pamby the Little +Prophet. His full name was Elisha Jeremiah Simpson, but one seldom heard +it at full length, since, if he escaped the ignominy of Nimbi-Pamby, +Lishe was quite enough for an urchin just in his first trousers and +those assumed somewhat prematurely. He was "Lishe," therefore, to the +village, but the Little Prophet to the young minister's wife. + +Rebecca could see the Cames' brown farmhouse from Mrs. Baxter's +sitting-room window. The little-traveled road with strips of tufted +green between the wheel tracks curled dustily up to the very doorstep, +and inside the screen door of pink mosquito netting was a wonderful +drawn-in rug, shaped like a half pie, with "Welcome" in saffron letters +on a green ground. + +Rebecca liked Mrs. Cassius Came, who was a friend of her Aunt Miranda's +and one of the few persons who exchanged calls with that somewhat +unsociable lady. The Came farm was not a long walk from the brick house, +for Rebecca could go across the fields when haying-time was over, and +her delight at being sent on an errand in that direction could not be +measured, now that the new minister and his wife had grown to be such a +resource in her life. She liked to see Mrs. Came shake the Welcome rug, +flinging the cheery word out into the summer sunshine like a bright +greeting to the day. She liked to see her go to the screen door a dozen +times in a morning, open it a crack and chase an imaginary fly from the +sacred precincts within. She liked to see her come up the cellar steps +into the side garden, appearing mysteriously as from the bowels of the +earth, carrying a shining pan of milk in both hands, and disappearing +through the beds of hollyhocks and sunflowers to the pig-pen or the +hen-house. + +Rebecca was not fond of Mr. Came, and neither was Mrs. Baxter, nor +Elisha, for that matter; in fact Mr. Came was rather a difficult person +to grow fond of, with his fiery red beard, his freckled skin, and his +gruff way of speaking; for there were no children in the brown house to +smooth the creases from his forehead or the roughness from his voice. + +II + +The new minister's wife was sitting under the shade of her great maple +early one morning, when she first saw the Little Prophet. A tiny figure +came down the grass-grown road leading a cow by a rope. If it had been a +small boy and a small cow, a middle-sized boy and an ordinary cow, or a +grown man and a big cow, she might not have noticed them; but it was the +combination of an infinitesimal boy and a huge cow that attracted her +attention. She could not guess the child's years, she only knew that he +was small for his age, whatever it was. + +The cow was a dark red beast with a crumpled horn, a white star on her +forehead, and a large surprised sort of eye. She had, of course, two +eyes, and both were surprised, but the left one had an added hint of +amazement in it by virtue of a few white hairs lurking accidentally in +the centre of the eyebrow. + +The boy had a thin sensitive face and curtly brown hair, short trousers +patched on both knees, and a ragged straw hat on the back of his head. +He pattered along behind the cow, sometimes holding the rope with both +hands, and getting over the ground in a jerky way, as the animal left +him no time to think of a smooth path for bare feet. + +The Came pasture was a good half-mile distant, and the cow seemed in no +hurry to reach it; accordingly she forsook the road now and then, +and rambled in the hollows, where the grass was sweeter to her way of +thinking. She started on one of these exploring expeditions just as she +passed the minister's great maple, and gave Mrs. Baxter time to call out +to the little fellow, "Is that your cow?" + +Elisha blushed and smiled, and tried to speak modestly, but there was a +quiver of pride in his voice as he answered suggestively: + +"It's--nearly my cow." + +"How is that?" asked Mrs. Baxter. + +"Why, Mr. Came says when I drive her twenty-nine more times to pasture +thout her gettin' her foot over the rope or thout my bein' afraid, she's +goin' to be my truly cow. Are you fraid of cows?" + +"Ye-e-es," Mrs. Baxter confessed, "I am, just a little. You see, I am +nothing but a woman, and boys can't understand how we feel about cows." + +"I can! They're awful big things, aren't they?" + +"Perfectly enormous! I've always thought a cow coming towards you one of +the biggest things in the world." + +"Yes; me, too. Don't let's think about it. Do they hook people so very +often?" + +"No indeed, in fact one scarcely ever hears of such a case." + +"If they stepped on your bare foot they'd scrunch it, wouldn't they?" + +"Yes, but you are the driver; you mustn't let them do that; you are a +free-will boy, and they are nothing but cows." + +"I know; but p'raps there is free-will cows, and if they just WOULD do +it you couldn't help being scrunched, for you mustn't let go of the rope +nor run, Mr. Came says. + +"No, of course that would never do." + +"Where you used to live did all the cows go down into the boggy places +when you drove em to pasture, or did some walk in the road?" + +"There weren't any cows or any pastures where I used to live; that's +what makes me so foolish; why does your cow need a rope?" + +"She don't like to go to pasture, Mr. Came says. Sometimes she'd druther +stay to home, and so when she gets part way she turns round and comes +backwards." + +"Dear me!" thought Mrs. Baxter, "what becomes of this boy-mite if the +cow has a spell of going backwards?--Do you like to drive her?" she +asked. + +"N-no, not erzackly; but you see, it'll be my cow if I drive her +twenty-nine more times thout her gettin' her foot over the rope and +thout my bein' afraid," and a beaming smile gave a transient brightness +to his harassed little face. "Will she feed in the ditch much longer?" +he asked. "Shall I say Hurrap'? That's what Mr. Came says--HURRAP!' like +that, and it means to hurry up." + +It was rather a feeble warning that he sounded and the cow fed +on peacefully. The little fellow looked up at the minister's wife +confidingly, and then glanced back at the farm to see if Cassius Came +were watching the progress of events. + +"What shall we do next?" he asked. + +Mrs. Baxter delighted in that warm, cosy little 'WE;' it took her into +the firm so pleasantly. She was a weak prop indeed when it came to cows, +but all the courage in her soul rose to arms when Elisha said, "What +shall WE do next?" She became alert, ingenious, strong, on the instant. + +"What is the cow's name?" she asked, sitting up straight in the +swing-chair. + +"Buttercup; but she don't seem to know it very well. She ain't a mite +like a buttercup." + +"Never mind; you must shout 'Buttercup!' at the top of your voice, and +twitch the rope HARD; then I'll call, 'Hurrap!' with all my might at +the same moment. And if she starts quickly we mustn't run nor seem +frightened!" + +They did this; it worked to a charm, and Mrs. Baxter looked +affectionately after her Little Prophet as the cow pulled him down Tory +Hill. + +The lovely August days wore on. Rebecca was often at the parsonage +and saw Elisha frequently, but Buttercup was seldom present at their +interviews, as the boy now drove her to the pasture very early in the +morning, the journey thither being one of considerable length and her +method of reaching the goal being exceedingly roundabout. + +Mr. Came had pointed out the necessity of getting her into the pasture +at least a few minutes before she had to be taken out again at night, +and though Rebecca didn't like Mr. Came, she saw the common sense of +this remark. Sometimes Mrs. Baxter and Rebecca caught a glimpse of +the two at sundown, as they returned from the pasture to the twilight +milking, Buttercup chewing her peaceful cud, her soft white bag of milk +hanging full, her surprised eye rolling in its accustomed "fine frenzy." +The frenzied roll did not mean anything, they used to assure Elisha; but +if it didn't, it was an awful pity she had to do it, Rebecca thought; +and Mrs. Baxter agreed. To have an expression of eye that meant murder, +and yet to be a perfectly virtuous and well-meaning animal, this was a +calamity indeed. + +Mrs. Baxter was looking at the sun one evening as it dropped like a ball +of red fire into Wilkins's woods, when the Little Prophet passed. + +"It's the twenty-ninth night," he called joyously. + +"I am so glad," she answered, for she had often feared some accident +might prevent his claiming the promised reward. "Then tomorrow Buttercup +will be your own cow?" + +"I guess so. That's what Mr. Came said. He's off to Acreville now, but +he'll be home tonight, and father's going to send my new hat by him. +When Buttercup's my own cow I wish I could change her name and call her +Red Rover, but p'r'aps her mother wouldn't like it. When she b'longs to +me, mebbe I won't be so fraid of gettin' hooked and scrunched, because +she'll know she's mine, and she'll go better. I haven't let her get +snarled up in the rope one single time, and I don't show I'm afraid, do +I?" + +"I should never suspect it for an instant," said Mrs. Baxter +encouragingly. "I've often envied you your bold, brave look!" + +Elisha appeared distinctly pleased. "I haven't cried, either, when she's +dragged me over the pasture bars and peeled my legs. Bill Petes's little +brother Charlie says he ain't afraid of anything, not even bears. He +says he would walk right up close and cuff em if they dared to yip; +but I ain't like that! He ain't scared of elephants or tigers or lions +either; he says they're all the same as frogs or chickens to him!" + +Rebecca told her Aunt Miranda that evening that it was the Prophet's +twenty-ninth night, and that the big red cow was to be his on the +morrow. + +"Well, I hope it'll turn out that way," she said. "But I ain't a mite +sure that Cassius Came will give up that cow when it comes to the point. +It won't be the first time he's tried to crawl out of a bargain with +folks a good deal bigger than Lisha, for he's terrible close, Cassius +is. To be sure he's stiff in his joints and he's glad enough to have +a boy to take the cow to the pasture in summer time, but he always has +hired help when it comes harvestin'. So Lisha'll be no use from this +on; and I dare say the cow is Abner Simpson's anyway. If you want a walk +tonight, I wish you'd go up there and ask Mis' Came if she'll lend me +an' your Aunt Jane half her yeast-cake. Tell her we'll pay it back when +we get ours a Saturday. Don't you want to take Thirza Meserve with you? +She's alone as usual while Huldy's entertainin' beaux on the side porch. +Don't stay too long at the parsonage!" + +III + +Rebecca was used to this sort of errand, for the whole village of +Riverboro would sometimes be rocked to the very centre of its being by +simultaneous desire for a yeast-cake. As the nearest repository was a +mile and a half distant, as the yeast-cake was valued at two cents and +wouldn't keep, as the demand was uncertain, being dependent entirely on +a fluctuating desire for "riz bread," the storekeeper refused to order +more than three yeast-cakes a day at his own risk. Sometimes they +remained on his hands a dead loss; sometimes eight or ten persons would +"hitch up" and drive from distant farms for the coveted article, only to +be met with the flat, "No, I'm all out o' yeast-cake; Mis' Simmons +took the last; mebbe you can borry half o' hern, she hain't much of a +bread-eater." + +So Rebecca climbed the hills to Mrs. Came's, knowing that her daily +bread depended on the successful issue of the call. + +Thirza was barefooted, and tough as her little feet were, the long walk +over the stubble fields tired her. When they came within sight of the +Came barn, she coaxed Rebecca to take a short cut through the turnips +growing in long, beautifully weeded rows. + +"You know Mr. Came is awfully cross, Thirza, and can't bear anybody to +tread on his crops or touch a tree or a bush that belongs to him. I'm +kind of afraid, but come along and mind you step softly in between the +rows and hold up your petticoat, so you can't possibly touch the turnip +plants. I'll do the same. Skip along fast, because then we won't leave +any deep footprints." + +The children passed safely and noiselessly along, their pleasure a +trifle enhanced by the felt dangers of their progress. Rebecca knew that +they were doing no harm, but that did not prevent her hoping to escape +the gimlet eye of Mr. Came. + +As they neared the outer edge of the turnip patch they paused suddenly, +petticoats in air. + +A great clump of elderberry bushes hid them from the barn, but from the +other side of the clump came the sound of conversation: the timid voice +of the Little Prophet and the gruff tones of Cassius Came. + +Rebecca was afraid to interrupt, and too honest to wish to overhear. She +could only hope the man and the boy would pass on to the house as they +talked, so she motioned to the paralyzed Thirza to take two more steps +and stand with her behind the elderberry bushes. But no! In a moment +they heard Mr. Came drag a stool over beside the grindstone as he said: + +"Well, now Elisha Jeremiah, we'll talk about the red cow. You say you've +drove her a month, do ye? And the trade between us was that if you +could drive her a month, without her getting the rope over her foot and +without bein' afraid, you was to have her. That's straight, ain't it?" + +The Prophet's face burned with excitement, his gingham shirt rose and +fell as if he were breathing hard, but he only nodded assent and said +nothing. + +"Now," continued Mr. Came, "have you made out to keep the rope from +under her feet?" + +"She ain't got t-t-tangled up one s-single time," said Elisha, +stuttering in his excitement, but looking up with some courage from his +bare toes, with which he was assiduously threading the grass. + +"So far, so good. Now bout bein' afraid. As you seem so certain of +gettin' the cow, I suppose you hain't been a speck scared, hev you? +Honor bright, now!" + +"I--I--not but just a little mite. I"-- + +"Hold up a minute. Of course you didn't SAY you was afraid, and didn't +SHOW you was afraid, and nobody knew you WAS afraid, but that ain't the +way we fixed it up. You was to call the cow your'n if you could drive +her to the pasture for a month without BEIN' afraid. Own up square now, +hev you be'n afraid?" + +A long pause, then a faint, "Yes." + +"Where's your manners?" + +"I mean yes, sir." + +"How often? If it hain't be'n too many times mebbe I'll let ye off, +though you're a reg'lar girl-boy, and'll be runnin' away from the cat +bimeby. Has it be'n--twice?" + +"Yes," and the Little Prophet's voice was very faint now, and had a +decided tear in it. + +"Yes what?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Has it be'n four times?" + +"Y-es, sir." More heaving of the gingham shirt. + +"Well, you AIR a thunderin' coward! How many times? Speak up now." + +More digging of the bare toes in the earth, and one premonitory tear +drop stealing from under the downcast lids, then,-- + +"A little, most every day, and you can keep the cow," wailed the +Prophet, as he turned abruptly and fled behind the shed, where he flung +himself into the green depths of a tansy bed, and gave himself up to +unmanly sobs. + +Cassius Came gave a sort of shamefaced guffaw at the abrupt departure +of the boy, and went on into the house, while Rebecca and Thirza made +a stealthy circuit of the barn and a polite and circumspect entrance +through the parsonage front gate. + +Rebecca told the minister's wife what she could remember of the +interview between Cassius Came and Elisha Simpson, and tender-hearted +Mrs. Baxter longed to seek and comfort her Little Prophet sobbing in the +tansy bed, the brand of coward on his forehead, and what was much worse, +the fear in his heart that he deserved it. + +Rebecca could hardly be prevented from bearding Mr. Came and openly +espousing the cause of Elisha, for she was an impetuous, reckless, +valiant creature when a weaker vessel was attacked or threatened +unjustly. + +Mrs. Baxter acknowledged that Mr. Came had been true, in a way, to his +word and bargain, but she confessed that she had never heard of so cruel +and hard a bargain since the days of Shylock, and it was all the worse +for being made with a child. + +Rebecca hurried home, her visit quite spoiled and her errand quite +forgotten till she reached the brick house door, where she told her +aunts, with her customary picturesqueness of speech, that she would +rather eat buttermilk bread till she died than partake of food mixed +with one of Mr. Came's yeast-cakes; that it would choke her, even in the +shape of good raised bread. + +"That's all very fine, Rebecky," said her Aunt Miranda, who had a +pin-prick for almost every bubble; "but don't forget there's two other +mouths to feed in this house, and you might at least give your aunt and +me the privilege of chokin' if we feel to want to!" + +IV + +Mrs. Baxter finally heard from Mrs. Came, through whom all information +was sure to filter if you gave it time, that her husband despised a +coward, that he considered Elisha a regular mother's-apron-string boy, +and that he was "learnin'" him to be brave. + +Bill Peters, the hired man, now drove Buttercup to pasture, though +whenever Mr. Came went to Moderation or Bonnie Eagle, as he often did, +Mrs. Baxter noticed that Elisha took the hired man's place. She often +joined him on these anxious expeditions, and, a like terror in both +their souls, they attempted to train the red cow and give her some idea +of obedience. + +"If she only wouldn't look at us that way we would get along real nicely +with her, wouldn't we?" prattled the Prophet, straggling along by her +side; "and she is a splendid cow; she gives twenty-one quarts a day, and +Mr. Came says it's more'n half cream." + +The minister's wife assented to all this, thinking that if Buttercup +would give up her habit of turning completely round in the road to roll +her eyes and elevate her white-tipped eyebrow, she might indeed be an +enjoyable companion; but in her present state of development her society +was not agreeable, even did she give sixty-one quarts of milk a day. +Furthermore, when Mrs. Baxter discovered that she never did any of these +reprehensible things with Bill Peters, she began to believe cows more +intelligent creatures than she had supposed them to be, and she was +indignant to think Buttercup could count so confidently on the weakness +of a small boy and a timid woman. + +One evening, when Buttercup was more than usually exasperating, Mrs. +Baxter said to the Prophet, who was bracing himself to keep from being +pulled into a wayside brook where Buttercup loved to dabble, "Elisha, do +you know anything about the superiority of mind over matter?" + +No, he didn't, though it was not a fair time to ask the question, for he +had sat down in the road to get a better purchase on the rope. + +"Well, it doesn't signify. What I mean is that we can die but once, and +it is a glorious thing to die for a great principle. Give me that rope. +I can pull like an ox in my present frame of mind. You run down on the +opposite side of the brook, take that big stick wade right in--you +are barefooted,--brandish the stick, and, if necessary, do more than +brandish. I would go myself, but it is better she should recognize you +as her master, and I am in as much danger as you are, anyway. She may +try to hook you, of course, but you must keep waving the stick,--die +brandishing, Prophet, that's the idea! She may turn and run for me, in +which case I shall run too; but I shall die running, and the minister +can bury us under our favorite sweet-apple tree!" + +The Prophet's soul was fired by the lovely lady's eloquence. Their +spirits mounted simultaneously, and they were flushed with a splendid +courage in which death looked a mean and paltry thing compared with +vanquishing that cow. She had already stepped into the pool, but the +Prophet waded in towards her, moving the alder branch menacingly. She +looked up with the familiar roll of the eye that had done her such good +service all summer, but she quailed beneath the stern justice and the +new valor of the Prophet's gaze. + +In that moment perhaps she felt ashamed of the misery she had caused the +helpless mite. At any rate, actuated by fear, surprise, or remorse, +she turned and walked back into the road without a sign of passion or +indignation, leaving the boy and the lady rather disappointed at their +easy victory. To be prepared for a violent death and receive not even a +scratch made them fear that they might possibly have overestimated the +danger. + +They were better friends than ever after that, the young minister's wife +and the forlorn little boy from Acreville, sent away from home he +knew not why, unless it were that there was little to eat there and +considerably more at the Cash Cames', as they were called in Edgewood. +Cassius was familiarly known as Uncle Cash, partly because there was a +disposition in Edgewood to abbreviate all Christian names, and partly +because the old man paid cash, and expected to be paid cash, for +everything. + +The late summer grew into autumn, and the minister's great maple flung +a flaming bough of scarlet over Mrs. Baxter's swing-chair. Uncle Cash +found Elisha very useful at picking up potatoes and apples, but the boy +was going back to his family as soon as the harvesting was over. + +One Friday evening Mrs. Baxter and Rebecca, wrapped in shawls and +"fascinators," were sitting on Mrs. Came's front steps enjoying the +sunset. Rebecca was in a tremulous state of happiness, for she had +come directly from the Seminary at Wareham to the parsonage, and as the +minister was absent at a church conference, she was to stay the night +with Mrs. Baxter and go with her to Portland next day. + +They were to go to the Islands, have ice cream for luncheon, ride on +a horse-car, and walk by the Longfellow house, a programme that so +unsettled Rebecca's never very steady mind that she radiated flashes +and sparkles of joy, making Mrs. Baxter wonder if flesh could be +translucent, enabling the spirit-fires within to shine through? + +Buttercup was being milked on the grassy slope near the shed door. As +she walked to the barn, after giving up her pailfuls of yellow milk, +she bent her neck and snatched a hasty bite from a pile of turnips lying +temptingly near. In her haste she took more of a mouthful than would be +considered good manners even among cows, and as she disappeared in the +barn door they could see a forest of green tops hanging from her mouth, +while she painfully attempted to grind up the mass of stolen material +without allowing a single turnip to escape. + +It grew dark soon afterward and they went into the house to see Mrs. +Came's new lamp lighted for the first time, to examine her last drawn-in +rug (a wonderful achievement produced entirely from dyed flannel +petticoats), and to hear the doctor's wife play "Oft in the Still +Night," on the dulcimer. + +As they closed the sitting-room door opening on the piazza facing +the barn, the women heard the cow coughing and said to one another: +"Buttercup was too greedy, and now she has indigestion." + +Elisha always went to bed at sundown, and Uncle Cash had gone to the +doctor's to have his hand dressed, for he had hurt it is some way in +the threshing-machine. Bill Peters, the hired man, came in presently and +asked for him, saying that the cow coughed more and more, and it must +be that something was wrong, but he could not get her to open her mouth +wide enough for him to see anything. "She'd up an' die ruther 'n obleege +anybody, that tarnal, ugly cow would!" he said. + +When Uncle Cash had driven into the yard, he came in for a lantern, and +went directly out to the barn. After a half-hour or so, in which the +little party had forgotten the whole occurrence, he came in again. + +"I'm blamed if we ain't goin' to lose that cow," he said. "Come out, +will ye, Hannah, and hold the lantern? I can't do anything with my right +hand in a sling, and Bill is the stupidest critter in the country." + +Everybody went out to the barn accordingly, except the doctor's wife, +who ran over to her house to see if her brother Moses had come home from +Milltown, and could come and take a hand in the exercises. + +Buttercup was in a bad way; there was no doubt of it. Something, one +of the turnips, presumably, had lodged in her throat, and would move +neither way, despite her attempts to dislodge it. Her breathing was +labored, and her eyes bloodshot from straining and choking. Once or +twice they succeeded in getting her mouth partly open, but before they +could fairly discover the cause of trouble she had wrested her head +away. + +"I can see a little tuft of green sticking straight up in the middle," +said Uncle Cash, while Bill Peters and Moses held a lantern on each side +of Buttercup's head; "but, land! It's so far down, and such a mite of a +thing, I couldn't git it, even if I could use my right hand. S'pose you +try, Bill." + +Bill hemmed and hawed, and confessed he didn't care to try. Buttercup's +grinders were of good size and excellent quality, and he had no fancy +for leaving his hand within her jaws. He said he was no good at that +kind of work, but that he would help Uncle Cash hold the cow's head; +that was just as necessary, and considerable safer. + +Moses was more inclined to the service of humanity, and did his best, +wrapping his wrist in a cloth, and making desperate but ineffectual dabs +at the slippery green turnip-tops in the reluctantly opened throat. But +the cow tossed her head and stamped her feet and switched her tail +and wriggled from under Bill's hands, so that it seemed altogether +impossible to reach the seat of the trouble. + +Uncle Cash was in despair, fuming and fretting the more because of his +own crippled hand. + +"Hitch up, Bill," he said, "and, Hannah, you drive over to Milliken's +Mills for the horse-doctor. I know we can git out that turnip if we can +hit on the right tools and somebody to manage em right; but we've got to +be quick about it or the critter'll choke to death, sure! Your hand's so +clumsy, Mose, she thinks her time's come when she feels it in her mouth, +and your fingers are so big you can't ketch holt o' that green stuff +thout its slippin'!" + +"Mine ain't big; let me try," said a timid voice, and turning round, +they saw little Elisha Simpson, his trousers pulled on over his +night-shirt, his curly hair ruffled, his eyes vague with sleep. + +Uncle Cash gave a laugh of good-humored derision. "You--that's afraid +to drive a cow to pasture? No, sir; you hain't got sand enough for this +job, I guess!" + +Buttercup just then gave a worse cough than ever, and her eyes rolled in +her head as if she were giving up the ghost. + +"I'd rather do it than see her choke to death!" cried the boy, in +despair. + +"Then, by ginger, you can try it, sonny!" said Uncle Cash. "Now this +time we'll tie her head up. Take it slow, and make a good job of it." + +Accordingly they pried poor Buttercup's jaws open to put a wooden gag +between them, tied her head up, and kept her as still as they could +while the women held the lanterns. + +"Now, sonny, strip up your sleeve and reach as fur down's you can! Wind +your little fingers in among that green stuff stickin' up there that +ain't hardly big enough to call green stuff, give it a twist, and pull +for all you're worth. Land! What a skinny little pipe stem!" + +The Little Prophet had stripped up his sleeve. It was a slender thing, +his arm; but he had driven the red cow all summer, borne her tantrums, +protected her from the consequences of her own obstinacy, taking (as he +thought) a future owner's pride in her splendid flow of milk--grown fond +of her, in a word, and now she was choking to death. A skinny little +pipe stem is capable of a deal at such a time, and only a slender hand +and arm could have done the work. + +Elisha trembled with nervousness, but he made a dexterous and dashing +entrance into the awful cavern of Buttercup's mouth; descended upon the +tiny clump of green spills or spikes, wound his little fingers in among +them as firmly as he could, and then gave a long, steady, determined +pull with all the strength in this body. That was not so much in itself, +to be sure, but he borrowed a good deal more from some reserve quarter, +the location of which nobody knows anything about, but upon which +everybody draws in time of need. + +Such a valiant pull you would never have expected of the Little Prophet. +Such a pull it was that, to his own utter amazement, he suddenly found +himself lying flat on his back on the barn floor with a very slippery +something in his hand, and a fair-sized but rather dilapidated turnip at +the end of it. + +"That's the business!" cried Moses. + +"I could 'a' done it as easy as nothin' if my arm had been a leetle mite +smaller," said Bill Peters. + +"You're a trump, sonny!" exclaimed Uncle Cash, as he helped Moses untie +Buttercup's head and took the gag out. + +"You're a trump, Lisha, and, by ginger, the cow's your'n; only don't you +let your blessed pa drink none of her cream!" + +The welcome air rushed into Buttercup's lungs and cooled her parched, +torn throat. She was pretty nearly spent, poor thing, and bent her head +(rather gently for her) over the Little Prophet's shoulder as he threw +his arms joyfully about her neck, and whispered, "You're my truly cow +now, ain't you, Buttercup?" + +"Mrs. Baxter, dear," said Rebecca, as they walked home to the parsonage +together under the young harvest moon; "there are all sorts of cowards, +aren't there, and don't you think Elisha is one of the best kind." + +"I don't quite know what to think about cowards, Rebecca Rowena," said +the minister's wife hesitatingly. "The Little Prophet is the third +coward I have known in my short life who turned out to be a hero when +the real testing time came. Meanwhile the heroes themselves--or the ones +that were taken for heroes--were always busy doing something, or being +somewhere, else." + + + + +Eighth Chronicle. ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF + + +Rebecca had now cut the bonds that bound her to the Riverboro district +school, and had been for a week a full-fledged pupil at the Wareham +Seminary, towards which goal she had been speeding ever since the +memorable day when she rode into Riverboro on the top of Uncle Jerry +Cobb's stagecoach, and told him that education was intended to be "the +making of her." + +She went to and fro, with Emma Jane and the other Riverboro boys and +girls, on the morning and evening trains that ran between the academy +town and Milliken's Mills. + +The six days had passed like a dream!--a dream in which she sat in +corners with her eyes cast down; flushed whenever she was addressed; +stammered whenever she answered a question, and nearly died of heart +failure when subjected to an examination of any sort. She delighted +the committee when reading at sight from "King Lear," but somewhat +discouraged them when she could not tell the capital of the United +States. She admitted that her former teacher, Miss Dearborn, might have +mentioned it, but if so she had not remembered it. + +In these first weeks among strangers she passed for nothing but an +interesting-looking, timid, innocent, country child, never revealing, +even to the far-seeing Emily Maxwell, a hint of her originality, +facility, or power in any direction. Rebecca was fourteen, but so +slight, and under the paralyzing new conditions so shy, that she +would have been mistaken for twelve had it not been for her general +advancement in the school curriculum. + +Growing up in the solitude of a remote farm house, transplanted to a +tiny village where she lived with two elderly spinsters, she was still +the veriest child in all but the practical duties and responsibilities +of life; in those she had long been a woman. + +It was Saturday afternoon; her lessons for Monday were all learned and +she burst into the brick house sitting-room with the flushed face and +embarrassed mien that always foreshadowed a request. Requests were more +commonly answered in the negative than in the affirmative at the brick +house, a fact that accounted for the slight confusion in her demeanor. + +"Aunt Miranda," she began, "the fishman says that Clara Belle Simpson +wants to see me very much, but Mrs. Fogg can't spare her long at a time, +you know, on account of the baby being no better; but Clara Belle could +walk a mile up, and I a mile down the road, and we could meet at the +pink house half way. Then we could rest and talk an hour or so, and both +be back in time for our suppers. I've fed the cat; she had no appetite, +as it's only two o'clock and she had her dinner at noon, but she'll go +back to her saucer, and it's off my mind. I could go down cellar now +and bring up the cookies and the pie and doughnuts for supper before I +start. Aunt Jane saw no objection; but we thought I'd better ask you so +as to run no risks." + +Miranda Sawyer, who had been patiently waiting for the end of this +speech, laid down her knitting and raised her eyes with a half-resigned +expression that meant: Is there anything unusual in heaven or earth or +the waters under the earth that this child does not want to do? Will she +ever settle down to plain, comprehensible Sawyer ways, or will she to +the end make these sudden and radical propositions, suggesting at every +turn the irresponsible Randall ancestry? + +"You know well enough, Rebecca, that I don't like you to be intimate +with Abner Simpson's young ones," she said decisively. "They ain't fit +company for anybody that's got Sawyer blood in their veins, if it's ever +so little. I don't know, I'm sure, how you're goin' to turn out! The +fish peddler seems to be your best friend, without it's Abijah Flagg +that you're everlastingly talkin' to lately. I should think you'd +rather read some improvin' book than to be chatterin' with Squire Bean's +chore-boy!" + +"He isn't always going to be a chore-boy," explained Rebecca, "and +that's what we're considering. It's his career we talk about, and he +hasn't got any father or mother to advise him. Besides, Clara Belle kind +of belongs to the village now that she lives with Mrs. Fogg; and she +was always the best behaved of all the girls, either in school or +Sunday-school. Children can't help having fathers!" + +"Everybody says Abner is turning over a new leaf, and if so, the +family'd ought to be encouraged every possible way," said Miss Jane, +entering the room with her mending basket in hand. + +"If Abner Simpson is turnin' over a leaf, or anythin' else in creation, +it's only to see what's on the under side!" remarked Miss Miranda +promptly. "Don't talk to me about new leaves! You can't change that kind +of a man; he is what he is, and you can't make him no different!" + +"The grace of God can do consid'rable," observed Jane piously. + +"I ain't sayin' but it can if it sets out, but it has to begin early and +stay late on a man like Simpson." + +"Now, Mirandy, Abner ain't more'n forty! I don't know what the average +age for repentance is in men-folks, but when you think of what an awful +sight of em leaves it to their deathbeds, forty seems real kind +of young. Not that I've heard Abner has experienced religion, but +everybody's surprised at the good way he's conductin' this fall." + +"They'll be surprised the other way round when they come to miss their +firewood and apples and potatoes again," affirmed Miranda. + +"Clara Belle don't seem to have inherited from her father," Jane +ventured again timidly. "No wonder Mrs. Fogg sets such store by the +girl. If it hadn't been for her, the baby would have been dead by now." + +"Perhaps tryin' to save it was interferin' with the Lord's will," was +Miranda's retort. + +"Folks can't stop to figure out just what's the Lord's will when a child +has upset a kettle of scalding water on to himself," and as she spoke +Jane darned more excitedly. "Mrs. Fogg knows well enough she hadn't +ought to have left that baby alone in the kitchen with the stove, even +if she did see Clara Belle comin' across lots. She'd ought to have +waited before drivin' off; but of course she was afraid of missing the +train, and she's too good a woman to be held accountable." + +"The minister's wife says Clara Belle is a real--I can't think of the +word!" chimed in Rebecca. "What's the female of hero? Whatever it is, +that's what Mrs. Baxter called her!" + +"Clara Belle's the female of Simpson; that's what she is," Miss Miranda +asserted; "but she's been brought up to use her wits, and I ain't sayin' +but she used em." + +"I should say she did!" exclaimed Miss Jane; "to put that screaming, +suffering child in the baby-carriage and run all the way to the doctor's +when there wasn't a soul on hand to advise her! Two or three more such +actions would make the Simpson name sound consid'rable sweeter in this +neighborhood." + +"Simpson will always sound like Simpson to me!" vouchsafed the elder +sister, "but we've talked enough about em an' to spare. You can go +along, Rebecca; but remember that a child is known by the company she +keeps." + +"All right, Aunt Miranda; thank you!" cried Rebecca, leaping from the +chair on which she had been twisting nervously for five minutes. "And +how does this strike you? Would you be in favor of my taking Clara Belle +a company-tart?" + +"Don't Mrs. Fogg feed the young one, now she's taken her right into the +family?" + +"Oh, yes," Rebecca answered, "she has lovely things to eat, and Mrs. +Fogg won't even let her drink skim milk; but I always feel that taking +a present lets the person know you've been thinking about them and are +extra glad to see them. Besides, unless we have company soon, those +tarts will have to be eaten by the family, and a new batch made; you +remember the one I had when I was rewarding myself last week? That was +queer--but nice," she added hastily. + +"Mebbe you could think of something of your own you could give away +without taking my tarts!" responded Miranda tersely; the joints of her +armor having been pierced by the fatally keen tongue of her niece, who +had insinuated that company-tarts lasted a long time in the brick house. +This was a fact; indeed, the company-tart was so named, not from any +idea that it would ever be eaten by guests, but because it was too good +for every-day use. + +Rebecca's face crimsoned with shame that she had drifted into an +impolite and, what was worse, an apparently ungrateful speech. + +"I didn't mean to say anything not nice, Aunt Miranda," she stammered. +"Truly the tart was splendid, but not exactly like new, that's all. And +oh! I know what I can take Clara Belle! A few chocolate drops out of the +box Mr. Ladd gave me on my birthday." + +"You go down cellar and get that tart, same as I told you," commanded +Miranda, "and when you fill it don't uncover a new tumbler of jelly; +there's some dried-apple preserves open that'll do. Wear your rubbers +and your thick jacket. After runnin' all the way down there--for your +legs never seem to be rigged for walkin' like other girls'--you'll set +down on some damp stone or other and ketch your death o' cold, an' your +Aunt Jane n' I'll be kep' up nights nursin' you and luggin' your meals +upstairs to you on a waiter." + + Here Miranda leaned her head against the back of her rocking +chair, dropped her knitting and closed her eyes wearily, for when the +immovable body is opposed by the irresistible force there is a certain +amount of jar and disturbance involved in the operation. + +Rebecca moved toward the side door, shooting a questioning glance at +Aunt Jane as she passed. The look was full of mysterious suggestion and +was accompanied by an almost imperceptible gesture. Miss Jane knew that +certain articles were kept in the entry closet, and by this time she had +become sufficiently expert in telegraphy to know that Rebecca's unspoken +query meant: "COULD YOU PERMIT THE HAT WITH THE RED WINGS, IT BEING +SATURDAY, FINE SETTLED WEATHER, AND A PLEASURE EXCURSION?" + +These confidential requests, though fraught with embarrassment when +Miranda was in the room, gave Jane much secret joy; there was something +about them that stirred her spinster heart--they were so gay, so +appealing, so un-Sawyer-, un-Riverboro-like. The longer Rebecca lived in +the brick house the more her Aunt Jane marveled at the child. What made +her so different from everybody else. Could it be that her graceless +popinjay of a father, Lorenzo de Medici Randall, had bequeathed her some +strange combination of gifts instead of fortune? Her eyes, her brows, +the color of her lips, the shape of her face, as well as her ways and +words, proclaimed her a changeling in the Sawyer tribe; but what an +enchanting changeling; bringing wit and nonsense and color and delight +into the gray monotony of the dragging years! + +There was frost in the air, but a bright cheery sun, as Rebecca walked +decorously out of the brick house yard. Emma Jane Perkins was away over +Sunday on a visit to a cousin in Moderation; Alice Robinson and Candace +Milliken were having measles, and Riverboro was very quiet. Still, life +was seldom anything but a gay adventure to Rebecca, and she started +afresh every morning to its conquest. She was not exacting; the Asmodean +feat of spinning a sand heap into twine was, poetically speaking, always +in her power, so the mile walk to the pink-house gate, and the tryst +with freckled, red-haired Clara Belle Simpson, whose face Miss Miranda +said looked like a raw pie in a brick oven, these commonplace incidents +were sufficiently exhilarating to brighten her eye and quicken her step. + +As the great bare horse-chestnut near the pink-house gate loomed into +view, the red linsey-woolsey speck going down the road spied the +blue linsey-woolsey speck coming up, and both specks flew over the +intervening distance and, meeting, embraced each other ardently, +somewhat to the injury of the company-tart. + +"Didn't it come out splendidly?" exclaimed Rebecca. "I was so afraid +the fishman wouldn't tell you to start exactly at two, or that one of us +would walk faster than the other; but we met at the very spot! It was a +very uncommon idea, wasn't it? Almost romantic!" + +"And what do you think?" asked Clara Belle proudly. "Look at this! Mrs. +Fogg lent me her watch to come home by!" + +"Oh, Clara Belle, how wonderful! Mrs. Fogg gets kinder and kinder to +you, doesn't she? You're not homesick any more, are you?" + +"No-o; not really; only when I remember there's only little Susan to +manage the twins; though they're getting on real well without me. But I +kind of think, Rebecca, that I'm going to be given away to the Foggs for +good." + +"Do you mean adopted?" + +"Yes; I think father's going to sign papers. You see we can't tell how +many years it'll be before the poor baby outgrows its burns, and Mrs. +Fogg'll never be the same again, and she must have somebody to help +her." + +"You'll be their real daughter, then, won't you, Clara Belle? And +Mr. Fogg is a deacon, and a selectman, and a road commissioner, and +everything splendid." + +"Yes; I'll have board, and clothes, and school, and be named Fogg, and" +(here her voice sank to an awed whisper) "the upper farm if I should +ever get married; Miss Dearborn told me that herself, when she was +persuading me not to mind being given away." + +"Clara Belle Simpson!" exclaimed Rebecca in a transport. "Who'd have +thought you'd be a female hero and an heiress besides? It's just like +a book story, and it happened in Riverboro. I'll make Uncle Jerry Cobb +allow there CAN be Riverboro stories, you see if I don't." + +"Of course I know it's all right," Clara Belle replied soberly. "I'll +have a good home and father can't keep us all; but it's kind of dreadful +to be given away, like a piano or a horse and carriage!" + +Rebecca's hand went out sympathetically to Clara Belle's freckled paw. +Suddenly her own face clouded and she whispered: + +"I'm not sure, Clara Belle, but I'm given away too--do you s'pose I +am? Poor father left us in debt, you see. I thought I came away from +Sunnybrook to get an education and then help pay off the mortgage; but +mother doesn't say anything about my coming back, and our family's one +of those too-big ones, you know, just like yours." + +"Did your mother sign papers to your aunts?' + +"If she did I never heard anything about it; but there's something +pinned on to the mortgage that mother keeps in the drawer of the +bookcase." + +"You'd know it if twas adoption papers; I guess you're just lent," Clara +Belle said cheeringly. "I don't believe anybody'd ever give YOU away! +And, oh! Rebecca, father's getting on so well! He works on Daly's farm +where they raise lots of horses and cattle, too, and he breaks all the +young colts and trains them, and swaps off the poor ones, and drives +all over the country. Daly told Mr. Fogg he was splendid with stock, +and father says it's just like play. He's sent home money three Saturday +nights." + +"I'm so glad!" exclaimed Rebecca sympathetically. "Now your mother'll +have a good time and a black silk dress, won't she?" + +"I don't know," sighed Clara Belle, and her voice was grave. "Ever since +I can remember she's just washed and cried and cried and washed. Miss +Dearborn has been spending her vacation up to Acreville, you know, +and she came yesterday to board next door to Mrs. Fogg's. I heard them +talking last night when I was getting the baby to sleep--I couldn't +help it, they were so close--and Miss Dearborn said mother doesn't like +Acreville; she says nobody takes any notice of her, and they don't give +her any more work. Mrs. Fogg said, well, they were dreadful stiff and +particular up that way and they liked women to have wedding rings." + +"Hasn't your mother got a wedding ring?" asked Rebecca, astonished. +"Why, I thought everybody HAD to have them, just as they do sofas and a +kitchen stove!" + +"I never noticed she didn't have one, but when they spoke I remembered +mother's hands washing and wringing, and she doesn't wear one, I know. +She hasn't got any jewelry, not even a breast-pin." + +Rebecca's tone was somewhat censorious, "your father's been so poor +perhaps he couldn't afford breast-pins, but I should have thought he'd +have given your mother a wedding ring when they were married; that's the +time to do it, right at the very first." + +"They didn't have any real church dress-up wedding," explained Clara +Belle extenuatingly. "You see the first mother, mine, had the big boys +and me, and then she died when we were little. Then after a while this +mother came to housekeep, and she stayed, and by and by she was Mrs. +Simpson, and Susan and the twins and the baby are hers, and she and +father didn't have time for a regular wedding in church. They don't have +veils and bridesmaids and refreshments round here like Miss Dearborn's +sister did." + +"Do they cost a great deal--wedding rings?" asked Rebecca thoughtfully. +"They're solid gold, so I s'pose they do. If they were cheap we might +buy one. I've got seventy-four cents saved up; how much have you?" + +"Fifty-three," Clara Belle responded, in a depressing tone; "and anyway +there are no stores nearer than Milltown. We'd have to buy it secretly, +for I wouldn't make father angry, or shame his pride, now he's got +steady work; and mother would know I had spent all my savings." + +Rebecca looked nonplussed. "I declare," she said, "I think the Acreville +people must be perfectly horrid not to call on your mother only because +she hasn't got any jewelry. You wouldn't dare tell your father what Miss +Dearborn heard, so he'd save up and buy the ring?" + +"No; I certainly would not!" and Clara Belle's lips closed tightly and +decisively. + +Rebecca sat quietly for a few moments, then she exclaimed jubilantly: +"I know where we could get it! From Mr. Aladdin, and then I needn't tell +him who it's for! He's coming to stay over tomorrow with his aunt, and +I'll ask him to buy a ring for us in Boston. I won't explain anything, +you know; I'll just say I need a wedding ring." + +"That would be perfectly lovely," replied Clara Belle, a look of hope +dawning in her eyes; "and we can think afterwards how to get it over to +mother. Perhaps you could send it to father instead, but I wouldn't dare +to do it myself. You won't tell anybody, Rebecca?" + +"Cross my heart!" Rebecca exclaimed dramatically; and then with a +reproachful look, "you know I couldn't repeat a sacred secret like +that! Shall we meet next Saturday afternoon, and I tell you what's +happened?--Why, Clara Belle, isn't that Mr. Ladd watering his horse at +the foot of the hill this very minute? It is; and he's driven up from +Milltown stead of coming on the train from Boston to Edgewood. He's all +alone, and I can ride home with him and ask him about the ring right +away!" + +Clara Belle kissed Rebecca fervently, and started on her homeward +walk, while Rebecca waited at the top of the long hill, fluttering her +handkerchief as a signal. + +"Mr. Aladdin! Mr. Aladdin!" she cried, as the horse and wagon came +nearer. + +Adam Ladd drew up quickly at the sound of the eager young voice. + +"Well, well; here is Rebecca Rowena fluttering along the highroad like a +red-winged blackbird! Are you going to fly home, or drive with me?" + +Rebecca clambered into the carriage, laughing and blushing with delight +at his nonsense and with joy at seeing him again. + +"Clara Belle and I were just talking about you this minute, and I'm so +glad you came this way, for there's something very important to ask you +about," she began, rather breathlessly. + +"No doubt," laughed Adam Ladd, who had become, in the course of his +acquaintance with Rebecca, a sort of high court of appeals; "I hope the +premium banquet lamp doesn't smoke as it grows older?" + +"Now, Mr. Aladdin, you WILL not remember nicely. Mr. Simpson swapped off +the banquet lamp when he was moving the family to Acreville; it's not +the lamp at all, but once, when you were here last time, you said you'd +make up your mind what you were going to give me for Christmas." + +"Well," and "I do remember that much quite nicely." + +"Well, is it bought?" + +"No, I never buy Christmas presents before Thanksgiving." + +"Then, DEAR Mr. Aladdin, would you buy me something different, something +that I want to give away, and buy it a little sooner than Christmas?" + +"That depends. I don't relish having my Christmas presents given away. +I like to have them kept forever in little girls' bureau drawers, all +wrapped in pink tissue paper; but explain the matter and perhaps I'll +change my mind. What is it you want?" + +"I need a wedding ring dreadfully," said Rebecca, "but it's a sacred +secret." + +Adam Ladd's eyes flashed with surprise and he smiled to himself with +pleasure. Had he on his list of acquaintances, he asked himself, a +person of any age or sex so altogether irresistible and unique as this +child? Then he turned to face her with the merry teasing look that made +him so delightful to young people. + +"I thought it was perfectly understood between us," he said, "that if +you could ever contrive to grow up and I were willing to wait, that I +was to ride up to the brick house on my snow white"-- + +"Coal black," corrected Rebecca, with a sparkling eye and a warning +finger. + +"Coal black charger; put a golden circlet on your lily white finger, +draw you up behind me on my pillion"-- + +"And Emma Jane, too," Rebecca interrupted. + +"I think I didn't mention Emma Jane," argued Mr. Aladdin. "Three on a +pillion is very uncomfortable. I think Emma Jane leaps on the back of a +prancing chestnut, and we all go off to my castle in the forest." + +"Emma Jane never leaps, and she'd be afraid of a prancing chestnut," +objected Rebecca. + +"Then she shall have a gentle cream-colored pony; but now, without any +explanation, you ask me to buy you a wedding ring, which shows +plainly that you are planning to ride off on a snow white--I mean coal +black--charger with somebody else." + +Rebecca dimpled and laughed with joy at the nonsense. In her prosaic +world no one but Adam Ladd played the game and answered the fool +according to his folly. Nobody else talked delicious fairy-story twaddle +but Mr. Aladdin. + +"The ring isn't for ME!" she explained carefully. "You know very well +that Emma Jane nor I can't be married till we're through Quackenbos's +Grammar, Greenleaf's Arithmetic, and big enough to wear long trails and +run a sewing machine. The ring is for a friend." + +"Why doesn't the groom give it to his bride himself?" + +"Because he's poor and kind of thoughtless, and anyway she isn't a bride +any more; she has three step and three other kind of children." + +Adam Ladd put the whip back in the socket thoughtfully, and then stooped +to tuck in the rug over Rebecca's feet and his own. When he raised his +head again he asked: "Why not tell me a little more, Rebecca? I'm safe!" + +Rebecca looked at him, feeling his wisdom and strength, and above all +his sympathy. Then she said hesitatingly: "You remember I told you all +about the Simpsons that day on your aunt's porch when you bought the +soap because I told you how the family were always in trouble and how +much they needed a banquet lamp? Mr. Simpson, Clara Belle's father, has +always been very poor, and not always very good,--a little bit THIEVISH, +you know--but oh, so pleasant and nice to talk to! And now he's turning +over a new leaf. And everybody in Riverboro liked Mrs. Simpson when she +came here a stranger, because they were sorry for her and she was so +patient, and such a hard worker, and so kind to the children. But where +she lives now, though they used to know her when she was a girl, they're +not polite to her and don't give her scrubbing and washing; and Clara +belle heard our teacher say to Mrs. Fogg that the Acreville people were +stiff, and despised her because she didn't wear a wedding ring, like all +the rest. And Clara Belle and I thought if they were so mean as that, +we'd love to give her one, and then she'd be happier and have more +work; and perhaps Mr. Simpson if he gets along better will buy her a +breast-pin and earrings, and she'll be fitted out like the others. I +know Mrs. Peter Meserve is looked up to by everybody in Edgewood on +account of her gold bracelets and moss agate necklace." + +Adam turned again to meet the luminous, innocent eyes that glowed under +the delicate brows and long lashes, feeling as he had more than once +felt before, as if his worldly-wise, grown-up thoughts had been bathed +in some purifying spring. + +"How shall you send the ring to Mrs. Simpson?" he asked, with interest. + +"We haven't settled yet; Clara Belle's afraid to do it, and thinks I +could manage better. Will the ring cost much? Because, of course, if it +does, I must ask Aunt Jane first. There are things I have to ask Aunt +Miranda, and others that belong to Aunt Jane." + +"It costs the merest trifle. I'll buy one and bring it to you, and we'll +consult about it; but I think as you're great friends with Mr. Simpson +you'd better send it to him in a letter, letters being your strong +point! It's a present a man ought to give his own wife, but it's worth +trying, Rebecca. You and Clara Belle can manage it between you, and I'll +stay in the background where nobody will see me." + + + + +Ninth Chronicle. THE GREEN ISLE + + Many a green isle needs must be + In the deep sea of misery, + Or the mariner, worn and wan, + Never thus could voyage on + Day and night and night and day, + Drifting on his weary way. + + --Shelley + + +Meantime in these frosty autumn days life was crowded with events in the +lonely Simpson house at Acreville. + +The tumble-down dwelling stood on the edge of Pliney's Pond; so called +because old Colonel Richardson left his lands to be divided in five +equal parts, each share to be chosen in turn by one of his five sons, +Pliny, the eldest, having priority of choice. + +Pliny Richardson, having little taste for farming, and being ardently +fond of fishing, rowing, and swimming, acted up to his reputation +of being "a little mite odd," and took his whole twenty acres in +water--hence Pliny's Pond. + +The eldest Simpson boy had been working on a farm in Cumberland County +for two years. Samuel, generally dubbed "see-saw," had lately found a +humble place in a shingle mill and was partially self-supporting. Clara +Belle had been adopted by the Foggs; thus there were only three mouths +to fill, the capacious ones of Elijah and Elisha, the twin boys, and +of lisping, nine-year-old Susan, the capable houseworker and +mother's assistant, for the baby had died during the summer; died of +discouragement at having been born into a family unprovided with food +or money or love or care, or even with desire for, or appreciation of, +babies. + +There was no doubt that the erratic father of the house had turned over +a new leaf. Exactly when he began, or how, or why, or how long he would +continue the praiseworthy process,--in a word whether there would be +more leaves turned as the months went on,--Mrs. Simpson did not know, +and it is doubtful if any authority lower than that of Mr. Simpson's +Maker could have decided the matter. He had stolen articles for swapping +purposes for a long time, but had often avoided detection, and always +escaped punishment until the last few years. Three fines imposed for +small offenses were followed by several arrests and two imprisonments +for brief periods, and he found himself wholly out of sympathy with +the wages of sin. Sin itself he did not especially mind, but the wages +thereof were decidedly unpleasant and irksome to him. He also minded +very much the isolated position in the community which had lately become +his; for he was a social being and would ALMOST rather not steal from a +neighbor than have him find it out and cease intercourse! This feeling +was working in him and rendering him unaccountably irritable and +depressed when he took his daughter over to Riverboro at the time of the +great flag-raising. + +There are seasons of refreshment, as well as seasons of drought, in the +spiritual, as in the natural world, and in some way or other dews +and rains of grace fell upon Abner Simpson's heart during that brief +journey. Perhaps the giving away of a child that he could not support +had made the soil of his heart a little softer and readier for planting +than usual; but when he stole the new flag off Mrs. Peter Meserve's +doorsteps, under the impression that the cotton-covered bundle +contained freshly washed clothes, he unconsciously set certain forces in +operation. + +It will be remembered that Rebecca saw an inch of red bunting peeping +from the back of his wagon, and asked the pleasure of a drive with him. +She was no daughter of the regiment, but she proposed to follow the +flag. When she diplomatically requested the return of the sacred +object which was to be the glory of the "raising" next day, and he thus +discovered his mistake, he was furious with himself for having slipped +into a disagreeable predicament; and later, when he unexpectedly faced +a detachment of Riverboro society at the cross-roads, and met not only +their wrath and scorn, but the reproachful, disappointed glance of +Rebecca's eyes, he felt degraded as never before. + +The night at the Centre tavern did not help matters, nor the jolly +patriotic meeting of the three villages at the flag-raising next +morning. He would have enjoyed being at the head and front of the +festive preparations, but as he had cut himself off from all such +friendly gatherings, he intended at any rate to sit in his wagon on the +very outskirts of the assembled crowd and see some of the gayety; for, +heaven knows, he had little enough, he who loved talk, and song, and +story, and laughter, and excitement. + +The flag was raised, the crowd cheered, the little girl to whom he had +lied, the girl who was impersonating the State of Maine, was on the +platform "speaking her piece," and he could just distinguish some of the +words she was saying: + +"For it's your star, my star, all the stars together, That makes our +country's flag so proud To float in the bright fall weather." + +Then suddenly there was a clarion voice cleaving the air, and he saw +a tall man standing in the centre of the stage and heard him crying: +"THREE CHEERS FOR THE GIRL THAT SAVED THE FLAG FROM THE HANDS OF THE +ENEMY!" + +He was sore and bitter enough already; lonely, isolated enough; with +no lot nor share in the honest community life; no hand to shake, no +neighbor's meal to share; and this unexpected public arraignment smote +him between the eyes. With resentment newly kindled, pride wounded, +vanity bleeding, he flung a curse at the joyous throng and drove toward +home, the home where he would find his ragged children and meet the +timid eyes of a woman who had been the loyal partner of his poverty and +disgraces. + +It is probable that even then his (extremely light) hand was already on +the "new leaf." The angels, doubtless, were not especially proud of the +matter and manner of his reformation, but I dare say they were glad to +count him theirs on any terms, so difficult is the reformation of this +blind and foolish world! They must have been; for they immediately +flung into his very lap a profitable, and what is more to the point, an +interesting and agreeable situation where money could be earned by doing +the very things his nature craved. There were feats of daring to be +performed in sight of admiring and applauding stable boys; the horses +he loved were his companions; he was OBLIGED to "swap," for Daly, his +employer, counted on him to get rid of all undesirable stock; power and +responsibility of a sort were given him freely, for Daly was no Puritan, +and felt himself amply capable of managing any number of Simpsons; +so here were numberless advantages within the man's grasp, and wages +besides! + +Abner positively felt no temptation to steal; his soul expanded with +pride, and the admiration and astonishment with which he regarded +his virtuous present was only equaled by the disgust with which he +contemplated his past; not so much a vicious past, in his own generous +estimation of it, as a "thunderin' foolish" one. + +Mrs. Simpson took the same view of Abner's new leaf as the angels. +She was thankful for even a brief season of honesty coupled with the +Saturday night remittance; and if she still washed and cried and cried +and washed, as Clara Belle had always seen her, it was either because of +some hidden sorrow, or because her poor strength seemed all at once to +have deserted her. + +Just when employment and good fortune had come to the step-children, and +her own were better fed and clothed than ever before, the pain that had +always lurked, constant but dull, near her tired heart, grew fierce +and triumphantly strong; clutching her in its talons, biting, gnawing, +worrying, leaving her each week with slighter powers of resistance. +Still hope was in the air and a greater content than had ever been hers +was in her eyes; a content that came near to happiness when the doctor +ordered her to keep her bed and sent for Clara Belle. She could not wash +any longer, but there was the ever new miracle of the Saturday night +remittance for household expenses. + +"Is your pain bad today, mother," asked Clara Belle, who, only lately +given away, was merely borrowed from Mrs. Fogg for what was thought to +be a brief emergency. + +"Well, there, I can't hardly tell, Clara Belle," Mrs. Simpson replied, +with a faint smile. "I can't seem to remember the pain these days +without it's extra bad. The neighbors are so kind; Mrs. Little has sent +me canned mustard greens, and Mrs. Benson chocolate ice cream and mince +pie; there's the doctor's drops to make me sleep, and these blankets +and that great box of eatables from Mr. Ladd; and you here to keep me +comp'ny! I declare I'm kind o' dazed with comforts. I never expected to +see sherry wine in this house. I ain't never drawed the cork; it does +me good enough jest to look at Mr. Ladd's bottle settin' on the +mantel-piece with the fire shinin' on the brown glass." + +Mr. Simpson had come to see his wife and had met the doctor just as he +was leaving the house. + +"She looks awful bad to me. Is she goin' to pull through all right, same +as the last time?" he asked the doctor nervously. + +"She's going to pull right through into the other world," the doctor +answered bluntly; "and as there don't seem to be anybody else to take +the bull by the horns, I'd advise you, having made the woman's life +about as hard and miserable as you could, to try and help her to die +easy!" + +Abner, surprised and crushed by the weight of this verbal chastisement, +sat down on the doorstep, his head in his hands, and thought a while +solemnly. Thought was not an operation he was wont to indulge in, and +when he opened the gate a few minutes later and walked slowly toward +the barn for his horse, he looked pale and unnerved. It is uncommonly +startling, first to see yourself in another man's scornful eyes, and +then, clearly, in your own. + +Two days later he came again, and this time it was decreed that he +should find Parson Carll tying his piebald mare at the post. + +Clara Belle's quick eye had observed the minister as he alighted from +his buggy, and, warning her mother, she hastily smoothed the bedclothes, +arranged the medicine bottles, and swept the hearth. + +"Oh! Don't let him in!" wailed Mrs. Simpson, all of a flutter at the +prospect of such a visitor. "Oh, dear! They must think over to the +village that I'm dreadful sick, or the minister wouldn't never think +of callin'! Don't let him in, Clara Belle! I'm afraid he will say hard +words to me, or pray to me; and I ain't never been prayed to since I was +a child! Is his wife with him?" + +"No; he's alone; but father's just drove up and is hitching at the shed +door." + +"That's worse than all!" and Mrs. Simpson raised herself feebly on her +pillows and clasped her hands in despair. "You mustn't let them two +meet, Clara Belle, and you must send Mr. Carll away; your father +wouldn't have a minister in the house, nor speak to one, for a thousand +dollars!" + +"Be quiet, mother! Lie down! It'll be all right! You'll only fret +yourself into a spell! The minister's just a good man; he won't say +anything to frighten you. Father's talking with him real pleasant, and +pointing the way to the front door." + +The parson knocked and was admitted by the excited Clara Belle, who +ushered him tremblingly into the sickroom, and then betook herself to +the kitchen with the children, as he gently requested her. + +Abner Simpson, left alone in the shed, fumbled in his vest pocket and +took out an envelope which held a sheet of paper and a tiny packet +wrapped in tissue paper. The letter had been read once before and ran as +follows: + +Dear Mr. Simpson: + +This is a secret letter. I heard that the Acreville people weren't nice +to Mrs. Simpson because she didn't have any wedding ring like all the +others. + +I know you've always been poor, dear Mr. Simpson, and troubled with a +large family like ours at the farm; but you really ought to have given +Mrs. Simpson a ring when you were married to her, right at the very +first; for then it would have been over and done with, as they are solid +gold and last forever. And probably she wouldn't feel like asking you +for one, because ladies are just like girls, only grown up, and I know +I'd be ashamed to beg for jewelry when just board and clothes cost +so much. So I send you a nice, new wedding ring to save your buying, +thinking you might get Mrs. Simpson a bracelet or eardrops for +Christmas. It did not cost me anything, as it was a secret present from +a friend. + +I hear Mrs. Simpson is sick, and it would be a great comfort to her +while she is in bed and has so much time to look at it. When I had +the measles Emma Jane Perkins lent me her mother's garnet ring, and it +helped me very much to put my wasted hand outside the bedclothes and see +the ring sparkling. + +Please don't be angry with me, dear Mr. Simpson, because I like you +so much and am so glad you are happy with the horses and colts; and I +believe now perhaps you DID think the flag was a bundle of washing +when you took it that day; so no more from your Trusted friend, Rebecca +Rowena Randall. + +Simpson tore the letter slowly and quietly into fragments and scattered +the bits on the woodpile, took off his hat, and smoothed his hair; +pulled his mustaches thoughtfully, straightened his shoulders, and then, +holding the tiny packet in the palm of his hand, he went round to the +front door, and having entered the house stood outside the sickroom for +an instant, turned the knob and walked softly in. + +Then at last the angels might have enjoyed a moment of unmixed joy, for +in that brief walk from shed to house Abner Simpson;'s conscience waked +to life and attained sufficient strength to prick and sting, to provoke +remorse, to incite penitence, to do all sorts of divine and beautiful +things it was meant for, but had never been allowed to do. + +Clara Belle went about the kitchen quietly, making preparations for the +children's supper. She had left Riverboro in haste, as the change for +the worse in Mrs. Simpson had been very sudden, but since she had come +she had thought more than once of the wedding ring. She had wondered +whether Mr. Ladd had bought it for Rebecca, and whether Rebecca would +find means to send it to Acreville; but her cares had been so many and +varied that the subject had now finally retired to the background of her +mind. + +The hands of the clock crept on and she kept hushing the strident tones +of Elijah and Elisha, opening and shutting the oven door to look at +the corn bread, advising Susan as to her dishes, and marveling that the +minister stayed so long. + +At last she heard a door open and close and saw the old parson come +out, wiping his spectacles, and step into the buggy for his drive to the +village. + +Then there was another period of suspense, during which the house was +as silent as the grave, and presently her father came into the kitchen, +greeted the twins and Susan, and said to Clara Belle: "Don't go in there +yet!" jerking his thumb towards Mrs. Simpson's room; "she's all beat out +and she's just droppin' off to sleep. I'll send some groceries up from +the store as I go along. Is the doctor makin' a second call tonight?" + +"Yes; he'll be here pretty soon, now," Clara Belle answered, looking at +the clock. + +"All right. I'll be here again tomorrow, soon as it's light, and if she +ain't picked up any I'll send word back to Daly, and stop here with you +for a spell till she's better." + +It was true; Mrs. Simpson was "all beat out." It had been a time of +excitement and stress, and the poor, fluttered creature was dropping off +into the strangest sleep--a sleep made up of waking dreams. The pain, +that had encompassed her heart like a band of steel, lessened its cruel +pressure, and finally left her so completely that she seemed to see it +floating above her head; only that it looked no longer like a band of +steel, but a golden circle. + +The frail bark in which she had sailed her life voyage had been rocking +on a rough and tossing ocean, and now it floated, floated slowly into +smoother waters. + +As long as she could remember, her boat had been flung about in storm +and tempest, lashed by angry winds, borne against rocks, beaten, torn, +buffeted. Now the waves had subsided; the sky was clear; the sea was +warm and tranquil; the sunshine dried the tattered sails; the air was +soft and balmy. + +And now, for sleep plays strange tricks, the bark disappeared from the +dream, and it was she, herself, who was floating, floating farther and +farther away; whither she neither knew nor cared; it was enough to be at +rest, lulled by the lapping of the cool waves. + +Then there appeared a green isle rising from the sea; an isle so radiant +and fairy-like that her famished eyes could hardly believe its reality; +but it was real, for she sailed nearer and nearer to its shores, and at +last her feet skimmed the shining sands and she floated through the +air as disembodied spirits float, till she sank softly at the foot of a +spreading tree. + +Then she saw the green isle was a flowering isle. Every shrub and bush +was blooming; the trees were hung with rosy garlands, and even the earth +was carpeted with tiny flowers. The rare fragrances, the bird songs, +soft and musical, the ravishment of color, all bore down upon her +swimming senses at once, taking them captive so completely that she +remembered no past, was conscious of no present, looked forward to no +future. She seemed to leave the body and the sad, heavy things of the +body. The humming in her ears ceased, the light faded, the birds songs +grew fainter and more distant, the golden circle of pain receded farther +and farther until it was lost to view; even the flowering island gently +drifted away, and all was peace and silence. + +It was time for the doctor now, and Clara Belle, too anxious to wait +longer, softly turned the knob of her mother's door and entered the +room. The glow of the open fire illumined the darkest side of the poor +chamber. There were no trees near the house, and a full November moon +streamed in at the unblinded, uncurtained windows, lighting up the bare +interior--the unpainted floor, the gray plastered walls, and the white +counterpane. + +Her mother lay quite still, her head turned and drooping a little on +the pillow. Her left hand was folded softly up against her breast, the +fingers of the right partly covering it, as if protecting something +precious. + +Was it the moonlight that made the patient brow so white, and where were +the lines of anxiety and pain? The face of the mother who had washed +and cried and cried and washed was as radiant as if the closed eye were +beholding heavenly visions. + +"Something must have cured her!" thought Clara Belle, awed and almost +frightened by the whiteness and the silence. + +She tiptoed across the floor to look more closely at the still, smiling +shape, and bending over it saw, under the shadow of the caressing right +hand, a narrow gold band gleaming on the work-stained finger. + +"Oh, the ring came, after all!" she said in a glad whisper, "and perhaps +it was that that made her better!" + +She put her hand on her mother's gently. A terrified shiver, a warning +shudder, shook the girl from head to foot at the chilling touch. A dread +presence she had never met before suddenly took shape. It filled the +room; stifled the cry on her lips; froze her steps to the floor, stopped +the beating of her heart. + +Just then the door opened. + +"Oh, doctor! Come quick!" she sobbed, stretching out her hand for +help, and then covering her eyes. "Come close! Look at mother! Is she +better--or is she dead?" + +The doctor put one hand on the shoulder of the shrinking child, and +touched the woman with the other. + +"She is better!" he said gently, "and she is dead." + + + + +Tenth Chronicle. REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES + + +Rebecca was sitting by the window in her room at the Wareham Female +Seminary. She was alone, as her roommate, Emma Jane Perkins, was +reciting Latin down below in some academic vault of the old brick +building. + +A new and most ardent passion for the classics had been born in Emma +Jane's hitherto unfertile brain, for Abijah Flagg, who was carrying off +all the prizes at Limerick Academy, had written her a letter in Latin, a +letter which she had been unable to translate for herself, even with the +aid of a dictionary, and which she had been apparently unwilling that +Rebecca, her bosom friend, confidant, and roommate, should render into +English. + +An old-fashioned Female Seminary, with its allotment of one medium-sized +room to two medium sized young females, gave small opportunities for +privacy by night or day, for neither the double washstand, nor the thus +far unimagined bathroom, nor even indeed the humble and serviceable +screen, had been realized, in these dark ages of which I write. +Accordingly, like the irrational ostrich, which defends itself by the +simple process of not looking at its pursuers, Emma Jane had kept her +Latin letter in her closed hand, in her pocket, or in her open book, +flattering herself that no one had noticed her pleased bewilderment at +its only half-imagined contents. + +All the fairies were not present at Rebecca's cradle. A goodly number of +them telegraphed that they were previously engaged or unavoidably absent +from town. The village of Temperance, Maine, where Rebecca first saw the +light, was hardly a place on its own merits to attract large throngs of +fairies. But one dear old personage who keeps her pocket full of Merry +Leaves from the Laughing Tree, took a fancy to come to the little +birthday party; and seeing so few of her sister-fairies present, she +dowered the sleeping baby more richly than was her wont, because of its +apparent lack of wealth in other directions. So the child grew, and the +Merry Leaves from the Laughing Tree rustled where they hung from the +hood of her cradle, and, being fairy leaves, when the cradle was +given up they festooned themselves on the cribside, and later on blew +themselves up to the ceilings at Sunnybook Farm and dangled there, +making fun for everybody. They never withered, even at the brick house +in Riverboro, where the air was particularly inimical to fairies, +for Miss Miranda Sawyer would have scared any ordinary elf out of her +seventeen senses. They followed Rebecca to Wareham, and during Abijah +Flagg's Latin correspondence with Emma Jane they fluttered about that +young person's head in such a manner that Rebecca was almost afraid that +she would discover them herself, although this is something, as a matter +of fact, that never does happen. + +A week had gone by since the Latin missive had been taken from +the post-office by Emma Jane, and now, by means of much midnight +oil-burning, by much cautious questioning of Miss Maxwell, by such +scrutiny of the moods and tenses of Latin verbs as wellnigh destroyed +her brain tissue, she had mastered its romantic message. If it was +conventional in style, Emma Jane never suspected it. If some of the +similes seemed to have been culled from the Latin poets, and some of the +phrases built up from Latin exercises, Emma Jane was neither scholar +nor critic; the similes, the phrases, the sentiments, when finally +translated and written down in black-and-white English, made, in her +opinion, the most convincing and heart-melting document ever sent +through the mails: + +Mea cara Emma: + +Cur audeo scribere ad te epistulam? Es mihi dea! Semper es in mea anima. +Iterum et iterum es cum me in somnis. Saepe video tuas capillos auri, +tuos pulchros oculos similes caelo, tuas genas, quasi rubentes rosas +in nive. Tua vox est dulcior quam cantus avium aut murmur rivuli in +montibus. + +Cur sum ego tam miser et pauper et indignus, et tu tam dulcis et bona et +nobilis? + +Si cogitabis de me ero beatus. Tu es sola puella quam amo, et semper +eris. Alias puellas non amavi. Forte olim amabis me, sed sum indignus. +Sine te sum miser, cum tu es prope mea vita omni est goddamn. + +Vale, carissima, carissima puella! + +De tuo fideli servo A.F. + +My dear Emma: + +Why dare I write to you a letter? You are to me a goddess! Always you +are in my heart. Again and again you are with me in dreams. Often I see +your locks of gold, your beautiful eyes like the sky, your cheeks, as +red roses in snow. Your voice is sweeter than the singing of birds or +the murmur of the stream in the mountains. + +Why am I so wretched and poor and unworthy, and you so sweet and good +and noble? + +If you will think of me I shall be happy. You are the only girl that I +love and always will be. Other girls I have not loved. Perhaps sometime +you will love me, but I am unworthy. Without you, I am wretched, when +you are near my life is all joy. + +Farewell, dearest, dearest girl! + +From your faithful slave A.F. + +Emma Jane knew the letter by heart in English. She even knew it in +Latin, only a few days before a dead language to her, but now one filled +with life and meaning. From beginning to end the epistle had the effect +upon her as of an intoxicating elixir. Often, at morning prayers, or +while eating her rice pudding at the noon dinner, or when sinking off +to sleep at night, she heard a voice murmuring in her ear, "Vale, +carissima, carissima puella!" As to the effect on her modest, +countrified little heart of the phrases in which Abijah stated she was +a goddess and he her faithful slave, that quite baffles description; for +it lifted her bodily out of the scenes in which she moved, into a new, +rosy, ethereal atmosphere in which even Rebecca had no place. + +Rebecca did not know this, fortunately; she only suspected, and waited +for the day when Emma Jane would pour out her confidences, as she always +did, and always would until the end of time. At the present moment +she was busily employed in thinking about her own affairs. A shabby +composition book with mottled board covers lay open on the table before +her, and sometimes she wrote in it with feverish haste and absorption, +and sometimes she rested her chin in the cup of her palm, and with the +pencil poised in the other hand looked dreamily out on the village, its +huddle of roofs and steeples all blurred into positive beauty by the +fast-falling snowflakes. + +It was the middle of December and the friendly sky was softly dropping +a great white mantle of peace and good-will over the little town, making +all ready within and without for the Feast o' the Babe. + +The main street, that in summer was made dignified by its splendid +avenue of shade trees, now ran quiet and white between rows of stalwart +trunks, whose leafless branches were all hanging heavy under their +dazzling burden. + +The path leading straight up the hill to the Academy was broken only by +the feet of the hurrying, breathless boys and girls who ran up and down, +carrying piles of books under their arms; books which they remembered +so long as they were within the four walls of the recitation room, and +which they eagerly forgot as soon as they met one another in the living, +laughing world, going up and down the hill. + +"It's very becoming to the universe, snow is!" thought Rebecca, looking +out of the window dreamily. "Really there's little to choose between the +world and heaven when a snowstorm is going on. I feel as if I ought to +look at it every minute. I wish I could get over being greedy, but it +still seems to me at sixteen as if there weren't waking hours enough +in the day, and as if somehow I were pressed for time and continually +losing something. How well I remember mother's story about me when I +was four. It was at early breakfast on the farm, but I called all meals +dinner' then, and when I had finished I folded up my bib and sighed: O, +dear! Only two more dinners, play a while and go to bed!' This was at +six in the morning--lamplight in the kitchen, snowlight outside! + + Powdery, powdery, powdery snow, + Making things lovely wherever you go! + Merciful, merciful, merciful snow, + Masking the ugliness hidden below. + +Herbert made me promise to do a poem for the January 'Pilot,' but I +mustn't take the snow as a subject; there has been too great competition +among the older poets!" And with that she turned in her chair and began +writing again in the shabby book, which was already three quarters +filled with childish scribblings, sometimes in pencil, and sometimes in +violet ink with carefully shaded capital letters." + +* * * * * + +Squire Bean has had a sharp attack of rheumatism and Abijah Flagg came +back from Limerick for a few days to nurse him. One morning the Burnham +sisters from North Riverboro came over to spend the day with Aunt +Miranda, and Abijah went down to put up their horse. ("'Commodatin' +'Bijah" was his pet name when we were all young.) + +He scaled the ladder to the barn chamber--the dear old ladder that +used to be my safety valve!--and pitched down the last forkful of +grandfather's hay that will ever be eaten by any visiting horse. They +WILL be delighted to hear that it is all gone; they have grumbled at it +for years and years. + +What should Abijah find at the bottom of the heap but my Thought Book, +hidden there two or three years ago and forgotten! + +When I think of what it was to me, the place it filled in my life, the +affection I lavished on it, I wonder that I could forget it, even in +all the excitement of coming to Wareham to school. And that gives me +"an uncommon thought" as I used to say! It is this: that when we finish +building an air castle we seldom live in it after all; we sometimes even +forget that we ever longed to! Perhaps we have gone so far as to +begin another castle on a higher hilltop, and this is so +beautiful,--especially while we are building, and before we live in +it!--that the first one has quite vanished from sight and mind, like the +outgrown shell of the nautilus that he casts off on the shore and never +looks at again. (At least I suppose he doesn't; but perhaps he takes one +backward glance, half-smiling, half-serious, just as I am doing at my +old Thought Book, and says, "WAS THAT MY SHELL! GOODNESS GRACIOUS! HOW +DID I EVER SQUEEZE MYSELF INTO IT!") + +That bit about the nautilus sounds like an extract from a school theme, +or a "Pilot" editorial, or a fragment of one of dear Miss Maxwell's +lectures, but I think girls of sixteen are principally imitations of the +people and things they love and admire; and between editing the "Pilot," +writing out Virgil translations, searching for composition subjects, and +studying rhetorical models, there is very little of the original +Rebecca Rowena about me at the present moment; I am just a member of +the graduating class in good and regular standing. We do our hair alike, +dress alike as much as possible, eat and drink alike, talk alike,--I am +not even sure that we do not think alike; and what will become of the +poor world when we are all let loose upon it on the same day of June? +Will life, real life, bring our true selves back to us? Will love and +duty and sorrow and trouble and work finally wear off the "school stamp" +that has been pressed upon all of us until we look like rows of shining +copper cents fresh from the mint? + +Yet there must be a little difference between us somewhere, or why does +Abijah Flagg write Latin letters to Emma Jane, instead of to me? There +is one example on the other side of the argument,--Abijah Flagg. He +stands out from all the rest of the boys like the Rock of Gibraltar in +the geography pictures. Is it because he never went to school until he +was sixteen? He almost died of longing to go, and the longing seemed to +teach him more than going. He knew his letters, and could read simple +things, but it was I who taught him what books really meant when I was +eleven and he thirteen. We studied while he was husking corn or cutting +potatoes for seed, or shelling beans in the Squire's barn. His beloved +Emma Jane didn't teach him; her father wold not have let her be friends +with a chore-boy! It was I who found him after milking-time, summer +nights, suffering, yes dying, of Least Common Multiple and Greatest +Common Divisor; I who struck the shackles from the slave and told him to +skip it all and go on to something easier, like Fractions, Percentage, +and Compound Interest, as I did myself. Oh! How he used to smell of the +cows when I was correcting his sums on warm evenings, but I don't regret +it, for he is now the joy of Limerick and the pride of Riverboro, and I +suppose has forgotten the proper side on which to approach a cow if you +wish to milk her. This now unserviceable knowledge is neatly inclosed in +the outgrown shell he threw off two or three years ago. His gratitude +to me knows no bounds, but--he writes Latin letters to Emma Jane! But as +Mr. Perkins said about drowning the kittens (I now quote from myself at +thirteen), "It is the way of the world and how things have to be!" + +Well, I have read the Thought Book all through, and when I want to +make Mr. Aladdin laugh, I shall show him my composition on the relative +values of punishment and reward as builders of character. + +I am not at all the same Rebecca today at sixteen that I was then, +at twelve and thirteen. I hope, in getting rid of my failings, that I +haven't scrubbed and rubbed so hard that I have taken the gloss off the +poor little virtues that lay just alongside of the faults; for as I read +the foolish doggerel and the funny, funny "Remerniscences," I see on the +whole a nice, well-meaning, trusting, loving heedless little creature, +that after all I'd rather build on than outgrow altogether, because she +is Me; the Me that was made and born just a little different from all +the rest of the babies in my birthday year. + +One thing is alike in the child and the girl. They both love to set +thoughts down in black and white; to see how they look, how they sound, +and how they make one feel when one reads them over. + +They both love the sound of beautiful sentences and the tinkle of +rhyming words, and in fact, of the three great R's of life, they adore +Reading and Riting, as much as they abhor 'Rithmetic. + +The little girl in the old book is always thinking of what she is "going +to be." + +Uncle Jerry Cobb spoiled me a good deal in this direction. I remember +he said to everybody when I wrote my verses for the flag-raising: "Nary +rung on the ladder o' fame but that child'll climb if you give her +time!"--poor Uncle Jerry! He will be so disappointed in me as time goes +on. And still he would think I have already climbed two rungs on the +ladder, although it is only a little Wareham ladder, for I am one of +the "Pilot" editors, the first "girl editor"--and I have taken a fifty +dollar prize in composition and paid off the interest on a twelve +hundred dollar mortgage with it. + + "High is the rank we now possess, + But higher we shall rise; + Though what we shall hereafter be + Is hid from mortal eyes." + +This hymn was sung in meeting the Sunday after my election, and Mr. +Aladdin was there that day and looked across the aisle and smiled at me. +Then he sent me a sheet of paper from Boston the next morning with just +one verse in the middle of it. + +"She made the cleverest people quite ashamed; And ev'n the good with +inward envy groan, Finding themselves so very much exceeded, In their +own way by all the things that she did." + +Miss Maxwell says it is Byron, and I wish I had thought of the last +rhyme before Byron did; my rhymes are always so common. + +I am too busy doing, nowadays, to give very much thought to being. +Mr. Aladdin was teasing me one day about what he calls my "cast-off +careers." + +"What makes you aim at any mark in particular, Rebecca?" he asked, +looking at Miss Maxwell and laughing. "Women never hit what they aim at, +anyway; but if they shut their eyes and shoot in the air they generally +find themselves in the bull's eye." + +I think one reason that I have always dreamed of what I should be, when +I grew up, was, that even before father died mother worried about the +mortgage on the farm, and what would become of us if it were foreclosed. + +It was hard on children to be brought up on a mortgage that way, but +oh! it was harder still on poor dear mother, who had seven of us then +to think of, and still has three at home to feed and clothe out of the +farm. + +Aunt Jane says I am young for my age, Aunt Miranda is afraid that I will +never really "grow up," Mr. Aladdin says that I don't know the world any +better than the pearl inside of the oyster. They none of them know the +old, old thoughts I have, some of them going back years and years; for +they are never ones that I can speak about. + +I remember how we children used to admire father, he was so handsome and +graceful and amusing, never cross like mother, or too busy to play with +us. He never did any work at home because he had to keep his hands nice +for playing the church melodeon, or the violin or piano for dances. + +Mother used to say: "Hannah and Rebecca, you must hull the strawberries, +your father cannot help." "John, you must milk next year for I haven't +the time and it would spoil your father's hands." + +All the other men in Temperance village wore calico, or flannel shirts, +except on Sundays, but Father never wore any but white ones with +starched bosoms. He was very particular about them and mother used to +stitch and stitch on the pleats, and press and press the bosoms and +collar and cuffs, sometimes late at night. + +Then she was tired and thin and gray, with no time to sew on new dresses +for herself, and no time to wear them, because she was always taking +care of the babies; and father was happy and well and handsome. But +we children never thought much about it until once, after father had +mortgaged the farm, there was going to be a sociable in Temperance +village. Mother could not go as Jenny had whooping-cough and Mark had +just broken his arm, and when she was tying father's necktie, the last +thing before he started, he said: "I wish, Aurelia, that you cared a +little about YOUR appearance and YOUR dress; it goes a long way with a +man like me." + +Mother had finished the tie, and her hands dropped suddenly. I looked at +her eyes and mouth while she looked at father and in a minute I was ever +so old, with a grown-up ache in my heart. It has always stayed there, +although I admired my handsome father and was proud of him because he +was so talented; but now that I am older and have thought about things, +my love for mother is different from what it used to be. Father was +always the favorite when we were little, he was so interesting, and +I wonder sometimes if we don't remember interesting people longer and +better than we do those who are just good and patient. If so it seems +very cruel. + +As I look back I see that Miss Ross, the artist who brought me my +pink parasol from Paris, sowed the first seeds in me of ambition to do +something special. Her life seemed so beautiful and so easy to a child. +I had not been to school then, or read George Macdonald, so I did not +know that "Ease is the lovely result of forgotten toil." + +Miss Ross sat out of doors and painted lovely things, and everybody said +how wonderful they were, and bought them straight away; and she took +care of a blind father and two brothers, and traveled wherever she +wished. It comes back to me now, that summer when I was ten and Miss +Ross painted me sitting by the mill-wheel while she talked to me of +foreign countries! + +The other day Miss Maxwell read something from Browning's poems to the +girls of her literature class. It was about David the shepherd boy +who used to lie in his hollow watching one eagle "wheeling slow as in +sleep." He used to wonder about the wide world that the eagle beheld, +the eagle that was stretching his wings so far up in the blue, while he, +the poor shepherd boy, could see only the "strip twixt the hill and the +sky;" for he lay in a hollow. + +I told Mr. Baxter about it the next day, which was the Saturday before +I joined the church. I asked him if it was wicked to long to see as much +as the eagle saw? + +There was never anybody quite like Mr. Baxter. "Rebecca dear," he said, +"it may be that you need not always lie in a hollow, as the shepherd boy +did; but wherever you lie, that little strip you see 'twixt the hill +and the sky' is able to hold all of earth and all of heaven, if only you +have the right sort of vision." + +I was a long, long time about "experiencing religion." I remember Sunday +afternoons at the brick house the first winter after I went there; when +I used to sit in the middle of the dining-room as I was bid, silent and +still, with the big family Bible on my knees. Aunt Miranda had Baxter's +"Saints' Rest," but her seat was by the window, and she at least could +give a glance into the street now and then without being positively +wicked. + +Aunt Jane used to read the "Pilgrim's Progress." The fire burned low; +the tall clock ticked, ticked, so slowly and steadily, that the pictures +swam before my eyes and I almost fell asleep. + +They thought by shutting everything else out that I should see God; +but I didn't, not once. I was so homesick for Sunnybook and John that +I could hardly learn my weekly hymns, especially the sad, long one +beginning: + + "My thoughts on awful subjects roll, + Damnation and the dead." + +It was brother John for whom I was chiefly homesick on Sunday +afternoons, because at Sunnybrook Farm father was dead and mother was +always busy, and Hannah never liked to talk. + +Then the next year the missionaries from Syria came to Riverboro; and +at the meeting Mr. Burch saw me playing the melodeon, and thought I was +grown up and a church member, and so he asked me to lead in prayer. + +I didn't dare to refuse, and when I prayed, which was just like thinking +out loud, I found I could talk to God a great deal easier than to Aunt +Miranda or even to Uncle Jerry Cobb. There were things I could say to +Him that I could never say to anybody else, and saying them always made +me happy and contented. + +When Mr. Baxter asked me last year about joining the church, I told him +I was afraid I did not understand God quite well enough to be a real +member. + +"So you don't quite understand God, Rebecca?" he asked, smiling. +"Well, there is something else much more important, which is, that +He understands you! He understands your feeble love, your longings, +desires, hopes, faults, ambitions, crosses; and that, after all, is what +counts! Of course you don't understand Him! You are overshadowed by His +love, His power, His benignity, His wisdom; that is as it should be! +Why, Rebecca, dear, if you could stand erect and unabashed in God's +presence, as one who perfectly comprehended His nature or His purposes, +it would be sacrilege! Don't be puzzled out of your blessed inheritance +of faith, my child; accept God easily and naturally, just as He accepts +you!" + +"God never puzzled me, Mr. Baxter; it isn't that," I said; "but the +doctrines do worry me dreadfully." + +"Let them alone for the present," Mr Baxter said. "Anyway, Rebecca, you +can never prove God; you can only find Him!" + +"Then do you think I have really experienced religion, Mr. Baxter?" I +asked. "Am I the beginnings of a Christian?" + +"You are a dear child of the understanding God!" Mr. Baxter said; "and I +say it over to myself night and morning so that I can never forget it." + +* * * * * + +The year is nearly over and the next few months will be lived in the +rush and whirlwind of work that comes before graduation. The bell for +philosophy class will ring in ten minutes, and as I have been writing +for nearly two hours, I must learn my lesson going up the Academy +hill. It will not be the first time; it is a grand hill for learning! I +suppose after fifty years or so the very ground has become soaked with +knowledge, and every particle of air in the vicinity is crammed with +useful information. + +I will put my book into my trunk (having no blessed haymow hereabouts) +and take it out again,--when shall I take it out again? + +After graduation perhaps I shall be too grown up and too busy to write +in a Thought Book; but oh, if only something would happen worth putting +down; something strange; something unusual; something different from the +things that happen every day in Riverboro and Edgewood! + +Graduation will surely take me a little out of "the hollow,"--make me +a little more like the soaring eagle, gazing at the whole wide world +beneath him while he wheels "slow as in sleep." But whether or not, +I'll try not to be a discontented shepherd, but remember what Mr. Baxter +said, that the little strip that I see "twixt the hill and the sky" is +able to hold all of earth and all of heaven, if only I have the eyes to +see it. + +Rebecca Rowena Randall. + +Wareham Female Seminary, December 187--. + + + + +Eleventh Chronicle. ABIJAH THE BRAVE AND THE FAIR EMMAJANE + + +I + + "A warrior so bold and a maiden so bright + Conversed as they sat on the green. + They gazed at each other in tender delight. + Alonzo the brave was the name of the knight, + And the maid was the fair Imogene. + + "Alas!' said the youth, 'since tomorrow I go + To fight in a far distant land, + Your tears for my absence soon ceasing to flow, + Some other will court you, and you will bestow + On a wealthier suitor your hand.' + + 'Oh, hush these suspicions!' Fair Imogene said, + "So hurtful to love and to me! + For if you be living, or if you be dead, + I swear by the Virgin that none in your stead + Shall the husband of Imogene be!' + +Ever since she was eight years old Rebecca had wished to be eighteen, +but now that she was within a month of that awe-inspiring and +long-desired age she wondered if, after all, it was destined to be a +turning point in her quiet existence. Her eleventh year, for instance, +had been a real turning-point, since it was then that she had left +Sunnybrook Farm and come to her maiden aunts in Riverboro. Aurelia +Randall may have been doubtful as to the effect upon her spinster +sisters of the irrepressible child, but she was hopeful from the first +that the larger opportunities of Riverboro would be the "making" of +Rebecca herself. + +The next turning-point was her fourteenth year, when she left the +district school for the Wareham Female Seminary, then in the hey-day +of its local fame. Graduation (next to marriage, perhaps, the most +thrilling episode in the life of a little country girl) happened at +seventeen, and not long afterward her Aunt Miranda's death, sudden and +unexpected, changed not only all the outward activities and conditions +of her life, but played its own part in her development. + +The brick house looked very homelike and pleasant on a June morning +nowadays with children's faces smiling at the windows and youthful +footsteps sounding through the halls; and the brass knocker on the +red-painted front door might have remembered Rebecca's prayer of a year +before, when she leaned against its sun-warmed brightness and whispered: +"God bless Aunt Miranda; God bless the brick house that was; God bless +the brick house that's going to be!" + +All the doors and blinds were open to the sun and air as they had never +been in Miss Miranda Sawyer's time. The hollyhock bed that had been her +chief pride was never neglected, and Rebecca liked to hear the neighbors +say that there was no such row of beautiful plants and no such variety +of beautiful colors in Riverboro as those that climbed up and peeped in +at the kitchen windows where old Miss Miranda used to sit. + +Now that the place was her very own Rebecca felt a passion of pride in +its smoothly mown fields, its carefully thinned-out woods, its blooming +garden spots, and its well-weeded vegetable patch; felt, too whenever +she looked at any part of it, a passion of gratitude to the stern old +aunt who had looked upon her as the future head of the family, as well +as a passion of desire to be worthy of that trust. + +It had been a very difficult year for a girl fresh from school: the +death of her aunt, the nursing of Miss Jane, prematurely enfeebled by +the shock, the removal of her own invalid mother and the rest of the +little family from Sunnybrook Farm. But all had gone smoothly; and when +once the Randall fortunes had taken an upward turn nothing seemed able +to stop their intrepid ascent. + +Aurelia Randall renewed her youth in the companionship of her sister +Jane and the comforts by which her children were surrounded; the +mortgage was no longer a daily terror, for Sunnybrook had been sold to +the new railroad; Hannah, now Mrs. Will Melville, was happily situated; +John, at last, was studying medicine; Mark, the boisterous and unlucky +brother, had broken no bones for several months; while Jenny and Fanny +were doing well at the district school under Miss Libby Moses, Miss +Dearborn's successor. + +"I don't feel very safe," thought Rebecca, remembering all these +unaccustomed mercies as she sat on the front doorsteps, with her tatting +shuttle flying in and out of the fine cotton like a hummingbird. "It's +just like one of those too beautiful July days that winds up with a +thundershower before night! Still, when you remember that the Randalls +never had anything but thunder and lightning, rain, snow, and hail, in +their family history for twelve or fifteen years, perhaps it is only +natural that they should enjoy a little spell of settled weather. If it +really turns out to BE settled, now that Aunt Jane and mother are strong +again I must be looking up one of what Mr. Aladdin calls my cast-off +careers."--"There comes Emma Jane Perkins through her front gate; she +will be here in a minute, and I'll tease her!" and Rebecca ran in the +door and seated herself at the old piano that stood between the open +windows in the parlor. + +Peeping from behind the muslin curtains, she waited until Emma Jane +was on the very threshold and then began singing her version of an old +ballad, made that morning while she was dressing. The ballad was a great +favorite of hers, and she counted on doing telling execution with it in +the present instance by the simple subterfuge of removing the original +hero and heroine, Alonzo and Imogene, and substituting Abijah the Brave +and the Fair Emmajane, leaving the circumstances in the first three +verses unaltered, because in truth they seemed to require no alteration. + +Her high, clear voice, quivering with merriment, floated through the +windows into the still summer air: + + "'A warrior so bold and a maiden so bright + Conversed as they sat on the green. + They gazed at each other in tender delight. + Abijah the Brave was the name of the knight, + And the maid was the Fair Emmajane.'" + +"Rebecca Randall, stop! Somebody'll hear you!" + +"No, they won't--they're making jelly in the kitchen, miles away." + + "'Alas!' said the youth, since tomorrow I go + To fight in a far distant land, + Your tears for my absence soon ceasing to flow, + Some other will court you, and you will bestow + On a wealthier suitor your hand.'" + +"Rebecca, you can't THINK how your voice carries! I believe mother can +hear it over to my house!" + +"Then, if she can, I must sing the third verse, just to clear your +reputation from the cloud cast upon it in the second," laughed her +tormentor, going on with the song: + +"'Oh, hush these suspicions!' Fair Emmajane said, 'So hurtful to love +and to me! For if you be living, or if you be dead, I swear, my Abijah, +that none in your stead, Shall the husband of Emmajane be!'" + +After ending the third verse Rebecca wheeled around on the piano +stool and confronted her friend, who was carefully closing the parlor +windows:-- + +"Emma Jane Perkins, it is an ordinary Thursday afternoon at four o'clock +and you have on your new blue barege, although there is not even a +church sociable in prospect this evening. What does this mean? Is Abijah +the Brave coming at last?" + +"I don't know certainly, but it will be some time this week." + +"And of course you'd rather be dressed up and not seen, than seen when +not dressed up. Right, my Fair Emmajane; so would I. Not that it makes +any difference to poor me, wearing my fourth best black and white calico +and expecting nobody. + +"Oh, well, YOU! There's something inside of you that does instead of +pretty dresses," cried Emma Jane, whose adoration of her friend had +never altered nor lessened since they met at the age of eleven. "You +know you are as different from anybody else in Riverboro as a princess +in a fairy story. Libby Moses says they would notice you in Lowell, +Massachusetts!" + +"Would they? I wonder," speculated Rebecca, rendered almost speechless +by this tribute to her charms. "Well, if Lowell, Massachusetts, could +see me, or if you could see me, in my new lavender muslin with the +violet sash, it would die of envy, and so would you!" + +"If I had been going to be envious of you, Rebecca, I should have died +years ago. Come, let's go out on the steps where it's shady and cool." + +"And where we can see the Perkins front gate and the road running both +ways," teased Rebecca, and then, softening her tone, she said: "How +is it getting on, Emmy? Tell me what's happened since I've been in +Brunswick." + +"Nothing much," confessed Emma Jane. "He writes to me, but I don't write +to him, you know. I don't dare to, till he comes to the house." + +"Are his letters still in Latin?" asked Rebecca, with a twinkling eye. + +"Oh, no! Not now, because--well, because there are things you can't seem +to write in Latin. I saw him at the Masonic picnic in the grove, but he +won't say anything REAL to me till he gets more pay and dares to speak +to mother and father. He IS brave in all other ways, but I ain't sure +he'll ever have the courage for that, he's so afraid of them and always +has been. Just remember what's in his mind all the time, Rebecca, that +my folks know all about what his mother was, and how he was born on the +poor-farm. Not that I care; look how he's educated and worked himself +up! I think he's perfectly elegant, and I shouldn't mind if he had been +born in the bulrushes, like Moses." + +Emma Jane's every-day vocabulary was pretty much what it had been before +she went to the expensive Wareham Female Seminary. She had acquired +a certain amount of information concerning the art of speech, but in +moments of strong feeling she lapsed into the vernacular. She grew +slowly in all directions, did Emma Jane, and, to use Rebecca's favorite +nautilus figure, she had left comparatively few outgrown shells on the +shores of "life's unresting sea." + +"Moses wasn't born in the bulrushes, Emmy dear," corrected Rebecca +laughingly. "Pharaoh's daughter found him there. It wasn't quite as +romantic a scene--Squire Bean's wife taking little Abijah Flagg from the +poorhouse when his girl-mother died, but, oh, I think Abijah's splendid! +Mr. Ladd says Riverboro'll be proud of him yet, and I shouldn't wonder, +Emmy dear, if you had a three-story house with a cupola on it, some day; +and sitting down at your mahogany desk inlaid with garnets, you will +write notes stating that Mrs. Abijah Flagg requests the pleasure of Miss +Rebecca Randall's company to tea, and that the Hon. Abijah Flagg, M.C., +will call for her on his way from the station with a span of horses and +the turquoise carryall!" + +Emma Jane laughed at the ridiculous prophecy, and answered: "If I ever +write the invitation I shan't be addressing it to Miss Randall, I'm sure +of that; it'll be to Mrs.-----" + +"Don't!" cried Rebecca impetuously, changing color and putting her hand +over Emma Jane's lips. "If you won't I'll stop teasing. I couldn't bear +a name put to anything, I couldn't, Emmy dear! I wouldn't tease you, +either, if it weren't something we've both known ever so long--something +that you have always consulted me about of your own accord, and Abijah +too." + +"Don't get excited," replied Emma Jane, "I was only going to say you +were sure to be Mrs. Somebody in course of time." + +"Oh," said Rebecca with a relieved sigh, her color coming back; "if +that's all you meant, just nonsense; but I thought, I thought--I don't +really know just what I thought!" + +"I think you thought something you didn't want me to think you thought," +said Emma Jane with unusual felicity. + +"No, it's not that; but somehow, today, I have been remembering things. +Perhaps it was because at breakfast Aunt Jane and mother reminded me of +my coming birthday and said that Squire Bean would give me the deed of +the brick house. That made me feel very old and responsible; and when I +came out on the steps this afternoon it was just as if pictures of the +old years were moving up and down the road. Everything is so beautiful +today! Doesn't the sky look as if it had been dyed blue and the fields +painted pink and green and yellow this very minute?" + +"It's a perfectly elegant day!" responded Emma Jane with a sigh. "If +only my mind was at rest! That's the difference between being young and +grown-up. We never used to think and worry." + +"Indeed we didn't! Look, Emmy, there's the very spot where Uncle Jerry +Cobb stopped the stage and I stepped out with my pink parasol and my +bouquet of purple lilacs, and you were watching me from your bedroom +window and wondering what I had in mother's little hair trunk strapped +on behind. Poor Aunt Miranda didn't love me at first sight, and oh, how +cross she was the first two years! But now every hard thought I ever had +comes back to me and cuts like a knife!" + +"She was dreadful hard to get along with, and I used to hate her like +poison," confessed Emma Jane; "but I am sorry now. She was kinder toward +the last, anyway, and then, you see children know so little! We never +suspected she was sick or that she was worrying over that lost interest +money." + +"That's the trouble. People seem hard and unreasonable and unjust, +and we can't help being hurt at the time, but if they die we forget +everything but our own angry speeches; somehow we never remember theirs. +And oh, Emma Jane, there's another such a sweet little picture out there +in the road. The next day after I came to Riverboro, do you remember, I +stole out of the brick house crying, and leaned against the front gate. +You pushed your little fat pink-and-white face through the pickets and +said: Don't cry! I'll kiss you if you will me!'" + +Lumps rose suddenly in Emma Jane's throat, and she put her arm around +Rebecca's waist as they sat together side by side. + +"Oh, I do remember," she said in a choking voice. "And I can see the two +of us driving over to North Riverboro and selling soap to Mr. Adam +Ladd; and lighting up the premium banquet lamp at the Simpson party; and +laying the daisies round Jacky Winslow's mother when she was dead in +the cabin; and trundling Jacky up and down the street in our old baby +carriage!" + +"And I remember you," continued Rebecca, "being chased down the hill +by Jacob Moody, when we were being Daughters of Zion and you had been +chosen to convert him!" + +"And I remember you, getting the flag back from Mr. Simpson; and how you +looked when you spoke your verses at the flag-raising." + +"And have you forgotten the week I refused to speak to Abijah Flagg +because he fished my turban with the porcupine quills out of the river +when I hoped at last that I had lost it! Oh, Emma Jane, we had dear good +times together in the little harbor.'" + +"I always thought that was an elegant composition of yours--that +farewell to the class," said Emma Jane. + +"The strong tide bears us on, out of the little harbor of childhood into +the unknown seas," recalled Rebecca. "It is bearing you almost out of +my sight, Emmy, these last days, when you put on a new dress in the +afternoon and look out of the window instead of coming across the +street. Abijah Flagg never used to be in the little harbor with the rest +of us; when did he first sail in, Emmy?" + +Emma Jane grew a deeper pink and her button-hole of a mouth quivered +with delicious excitement. + +"It was last year at the seminary, when he wrote me his first Latin +letter from Limerick Academy," she said in a half whisper. + +"I remember," laughed Rebecca. "You suddenly began the study of the dead +languages, and the Latin dictionary took the place of the crochet needle +in your affections. It was cruel of you never to show me that letter, +Emmy!" + +"I know every word of it by heart," said the blushing Emma Jane, "and +I think I really ought to say it to you, because it's the only way you +will ever know how perfectly elegant Abijah is. Look the other way, +Rebecca. Shall I have to translate it for you, do you think, because it +seems to me I could not bear to do that!" + +"It depends upon Abijah's Latin and your pronunciation," teased Rebecca. +"Go on; I will turn my eyes toward the orchard." + +The Fair Emmajane, looking none too old still for the "little harbor," +but almost too young for the "unknown seas," gathered up her courage and +recited like a tremulous parrot the boyish love letter that had so fired +her youthful imagination. + +"Vale, carissima, carissima puella!" repeated Rebecca in her musical +voice. "Oh, how beautiful it sounds! I don't wonder it altered your +feeling for Abijah! Upon my word, Emma Jane," she cried with a sudden +change of tone, "if I had suspected for an instant that Abijah the Brave +had that Latin letter in him I should have tried to get him to write it +to me; and then it would be I who would sit down at my mahogany desk and +ask Miss Perkins to come to tea with Mrs. Flagg." + +Emma Jane paled and shuddered openly. "I speak as a church member, +Rebecca," she said, "when I tell you I've always thanked the Lord that +you never looked at Abijah Flagg and he never looked at you. If either +of you ever had, there never would have been a chance for me, and I've +always known it!" + +II + +The romance alluded to in the foregoing chapter had been going on, so +far as Abijah Flagg's part of it was concerned, for many years, his +affection dating back in his own mind to the first moment that he saw +Emma Jane Perkins at the age of nine. + +Emma Jane had shown no sign of reciprocating his attachment until the +last three years, when the evolution of the chore-boy into the +budding scholar and man of affairs had inflamed even her somewhat dull +imagination. + +Squire Bean's wife had taken Abijah away from the poorhouse, thinking +that she could make him of some little use in her home. Abbie Flagg, the +mother, was neither wise nor beautiful; it is to be feared that she +was not even good, and her lack of all these desirable qualities, +particularly the last one, had been impressed upon the child ever since +he could remember. People seemed to blame him for being in the world at +all; this world that had not expected him nor desired him, nor made any +provision for him. The great battle-axe of poorhouse opinion was forever +leveled at the mere little atom of innocent transgression, until he grew +sad and shy, clumsy, stiff, and self-conscious. He had an indomitable +craving for love in his heart and had never received a caress in his +life. + +He was more contented when he came to Squire Bean's house. The first +year he could only pick up chips, carry pine wood into the kitchen, go +to the post-office, run errands, drive the cows, and feed the hens, but +every day he grew more and more useful. + +His only friend was little Jim Watson, the storekeeper's son, and they +were inseparable companions whenever Abijah had time for play. + +One never-to-be-forgotten July day a new family moved into the white +cottage between Squire Bean's house and the Sawyers'. Mr. Perkins had +sold his farm beyond North Riverboro and had established a blacksmith's +shop in the village, at the Edgewood end of the bridge. This fact was of +no special interest to the nine-year-old Abijah, but what really was of +importance, was the appearance of a pretty little girl of seven in the +front yard; a pretty little fat doll of a girl, with bright fuzzy hair, +pink cheeks, blue eyes, and a smile of almost bewildering continuity. +Another might have criticised it as having the air of being glued on, +but Abijah was already in the toils and never wished it to move. + +The next day being the glorious Fourth and a holiday, Jimmy Watson came +over like David, to visit his favorite Jonathan. His Jonathan met him +at the top of the hill, pleaded a pressing engagement, curtly sent him +home, and then went back to play with his new idol, with whom he +had already scraped acquaintance, her parents being exceedingly busy +settling the new house. + +After the noon dinner Jimmy again yearned to resume friendly relations, +and, forgetting his rebuff, again toiled up the hill and appeared +unexpectedly at no great distance from the Perkins premises, wearing the +broad and beaming smile of one who is confident of welcome. + +His morning call had been officious and unpleasant and unsolicited, but +his afternoon visit could only be regarded as impudent, audacious, +and positively dangerous; for Abijah and Emma Jane were cosily playing +house, the game of all others in which it is particularly desirable to +have two and not three participants. + +At that moment the nature of Abijah changed, at once and forever. +Without a pang of conscience he flew over the intervening patch of +ground between himself and his dreaded rival, and seizing small stones +and larger ones, as haste and fury demanded, flung them at Jimmy Watson, +and flung and flung, till the bewildered boy ran down the hill howling. +Then he made a "stickin'" door to the play-house, put the awed Emma Jane +inside and strode up and down in front of the edifice like an Indian +brave. At such an early age does woman become a distracting and +disturbing influence in man's career! + +Time went on, and so did the rivalry between the poorhouse boy and the +son of wealth, but Abijah's chances of friendship with Emma Jane grew +fewer and fewer as they both grew older. He did not go to school, so +there was no meeting-ground there, but sometimes, when he saw the knot +of boys and girls returning in the afternoon, he would invite Elijah and +Elisha, the Simpson twins, to visit him, and take pains to be in Squire +Bean's front yard, doing something that might impress his inamorata as +she passed the premises. + +As Jimmy Watson was particularly small and fragile, Abijah generally +chose feats of strength and skill for these prearranged performances. + +Sometimes he would throw his hat up into the elm trees as far as he +could and, when it came down, catch it on his head. Sometimes he would +walk on his hands, with his legs wriggling in the air, or turn a double +somersault, or jump incredible distances across the extended arms of +the Simpson twins; and his bosom swelled with pride when the girls +exclaimed, "Isn't he splendid!" although he often heard his rival murmur +scornfully, "SMARTY ALECK!"--a scathing allusion of unknown origin. + +Squire Bean, although he did not send the boy to school (thinking, as +he was of no possible importance in the universe, it was not worth +while bothering about his education), finally became impressed with his +ability, lent him books, and gave him more time to study. These were all +he needed, books and time, and when there was an especially hard knot to +untie, Rebecca, as the star scholar of the neighborhood, helped him to +untie it. + +When he was sixteen he longed to go away from Riverboro and be something +better than a chore boy. Squire Bean had been giving him small wages +for three or four years, and when the time of parting came presented him +with a ten-dollar bill and a silver watch. + +Many a time had he discussed his future with Rebecca and asked her +opinion. + +This was not strange, for there was nothing in human form that she could +not and did not converse with, easily and delightedly. She had ideas +on every conceivable subject, and would have cheerfully advised the +minister if he had asked her. The fishman consulted her when he couldn't +endure his mother-in-law another minute in the house; Uncle Jerry +Cobb didn't part with his river field until he had talked it over with +Rebecca; and as for Aunt Jane, she couldn't decide whether to wear her +black merino or her gray thibet unless Rebecca cast the final vote. + +Abijah wanted to go far away from Riverboro, as far as Limerick Academy, +which was at least fifteen miles; but although this seemed extreme, +Rebecca agreed, saying pensively: "There IS a kind of magicness about +going far away and then coming back all changed." + +This was precisely Abijah's unspoken thought. Limerick knew nothing of +Abbie Flagg's worthlessness, birth, and training, and the awful stigma +of his poorhouse birth, so that he would start fair. He could have gone +to Wareham and thus remained within daily sight of the beloved Emma +Jane; but no, he was not going to permit her to watch him in the process +of "becoming," but after he had "become" something. He did not propose +to take any risks after all these years of silence and patience. Not he! +He proposed to disappear, like the moon on a dark night, and as he was, +at present, something that Mr. Perkins would by no means have in the +family nor Mrs. Perkins allow in the house, he would neither return to +Riverboro nor ask any favors of them until he had something to offer. +Yes, sir. He was going to be crammed to the eyebrows with learning for +one thing,--useless kinds and all,--going to have good clothes, and a +good income. Everything that was in his power should be right, because +there would always be lurking in the background the things he never +could help--the mother and the poorhouse. + +So he went away, and, although at Squire Bean's invitation he came back +the first year for two brief visits at Christmas and Easter, he was +little seen in Riverboro, for Mr. Ladd finally found him a place where +he could make his vacations profitable and learn bookkeeping at the same +time. + +The visits in Riverboro were tantalizing rather than pleasant. He +was invited to two parties, but he was all the time conscious of his +shirt-collar, and he was sure that his "pants" were not the proper +thing, for by this time his ideals of dress had attained an almost +unrealizable height. As for his shoes, he felt that he walked on carpets +as if they were furrows and he were propelling a plow or a harrow before +him. They played Drop the Handkerchief and Copenhagen at the parties, +but he had not had the audacity to kiss Emma Jane, which was bad enough, +but Jimmy had and did, which was infinitely worse! The sight of James +Watson's unworthy and over-ambitious lips on Emma Jane's pink cheek +almost destroyed his faith in an overruling Providence. + +After the parties were over he went back to his old room in Squire +Bean's shed chamber. As he lay in bed his thoughts fluttered about +Emma Jane as swallows circle around the eaves. The terrible sickness of +hopeless handicapped love kept him awake. Once he crawled out of bed in +the night, lighted the lamp, and looked for his mustache, remembering +that he had seen a suspicion of down on his rival's upper lip. He rose +again half an hour later, again lighted the lamp, put a few drops of oil +on his hair, and brushed it violently for several minutes. Then he went +back to bed, and after making up his mind that he would buy a dulcimer +and learn to play on it so that he would be more attractive at parties, +and outshine his rival in society as he had aforetime in athletics, he +finally sank into a troubled slumber. + +Those days, so full of hope and doubt and torture, seemed mercifully +unreal now, they lay so far back in the past--six or eight years, in +fact, which is a lifetime to the lad of twenty--and meantime he had +conquered many of the adverse circumstances that had threatened to cloud +his career. + +Abijah Flagg was a true child of his native State. Something of the same +timber that Maine puts into her forests, something of the same strength +and resisting power that she works into her rocks, goes into her sons +and daughters; and at twenty Abijah was going to take his fate in his +hand and ask Mr. Perkins, the rich blacksmith, if, after a suitable +period of probation (during which he would further prepare himself for +his exalted destiny), he might marry the fair Emma Jane, sole heiress of +the Perkins house and fortunes. + +III + +This was boy and girl love, calf love, perhaps, though even that may +develop into something larger, truer, and finer; but not so far away +were other and very different hearts growing and budding, each in its +own way. There was little Miss Dearborn, the pretty school teacher, +drifting into a foolish alliance because she did not agree with her +stepmother at home; there was Herbert Dunn, valedictorian of his class, +dazzled by Huldah Meserve, who like a glowworm "shone afar off bright, +but looked at near, had neither heat nor light." + +There was sweet Emily Maxwell, less than thirty still, with most of her +heart bestowed in the wrong quarter. She was toiling on at the Wareham +school, living as unselfish a life as a nun in a convent; lavishing the +mind and soul of her, the heart and body of her, on her chosen work. +How many women give themselves thus, consciously and unconsciously; +and, though they themselves miss the joys and compensations of mothering +their own little twos and threes, God must be grateful to them for +their mothering of the hundreds which make them so precious in His +regenerating purposes. + +Then there was Adam Ladd, waiting at thirty-five for a girl to grow a +little older, simply because he could not find one already grown who +suited his somewhat fastidious and exacting tastes. + +"I'll not call Rebecca perfection," he quoted once, in a letter to Emily +Maxwell,--"I'll not call her perfection, for that's a post, afraid to +move. But she's a dancing sprig of the tree next it." + +When first she appeared on his aunt's piazza in North Riverboro and +insisted on selling him a large quantity of very inferior soap in order +that her friends, the Simpsons, might possess a premium in the shape of +a greatly needed banquet lamp, she had riveted his attention. He thought +all the time that he enjoyed talking with her more than with any woman +alive, and he had never changed his opinion. She always caught what +he said as if it were a ball tossed to her, and sometimes her mind, as +through it his thoughts came back to him, seemed like a prism which had +dyed them with deeper colors. + +Adam Ladd always called Rebecca in his heart his little Spring. His +boyhood had been lonely and unhappy. That was the part of life he had +missed, and although it was the full summer of success and prosperity +with him now, he found his lost youth only in her. + +She was to him--how shall I describe it? + +Do you remember an early day in May with budding leaf, warm earth, +tremulous air, and changing, willful sky--how new it seemed? How fresh +and joyous beyond all explaining? + +Have you lain with half-closed eyes where the flickering of sunlight +through young leaves, the song of birds and brook and the fragrance of +wild flowers combined to charm your senses, and you felt the sweetness +and grace of nature as never before? + +Rebecca was springtide to Adam's thirsty heart. She was blithe youth +incarnate; she was music--an Aeolian harp that every passing breeze +woke to some whispering little tune; she was a changing, iridescent +joy-bubble; she was the shadow of a leaf dancing across a dusty floor. +No bough of his thought could be so bare but she somehow built a nest in +it and evoked life where none was before. + +And Rebecca herself? + +She had been quite unconscious of all this until very lately, and even +now she was but half awakened; searching among her childish instincts +and her girlish dreams for some Ariadne thread that should guide her +safely through the labyrinth of her new sensations. + +For the moment she was absorbed, or thought she was, in the little love +story of Abijah and Emma Jane, but in reality, had she realized it, that +love story served chiefly as a basis of comparison for a possible one of +her own, later on. + +She liked and respected Abijah Flagg, and loving Emma Jane was a habit +contracted early in life; but everything that they did or said, or +thought or wrote, or hoped or feared, seemed so inadequate, so painfully +short of what might be done or said, or thought or written, or hoped or +feared, under easily conceivable circumstances, that she almost felt a +disposition to smile gently at the fancy of the ignorant young couple +that they had caught a glimpse of the great vision. + +She was sitting under the sweet apple tree at twilight. Supper was over; +Mark's restless feet were quiet, Fanny and Jenny were tucked safely in +bed; her aunt and her mother were stemming currants on the side porch. + +A blue spot at one of the Perkins windows showed that in one vestal +bosom hope was not dead yet, although it was seven o'clock. + +Suddenly there was the sound of a horse's feet coming up the quiet road; +plainly a steed hired from some metropolis like Milltown or Wareham, +as Riverboro horses when through with their day's work never disported +themselves so gayly. + +A little open vehicle came in sight, and in it sat Abijah Flagg. The +wagon was so freshly painted and so shiny that Rebecca thought that he +must have alighted at the bridge and given it a last polish. The creases +in his trousers, too, had an air of having been pressed in only a few +minutes before. The whip was new and had a yellow ribbon on it; the +gray suit of clothes was new, and the coat flourished a flower in its +button-hole. The hat was the latest thing in hats, and the intrepid +swain wore a seal-ring on the little finger of his right hand. As +Rebecca remembered that she had guided it in making capital G's in his +copy-book, she felt positively maternal, although she was two years +younger than Abijah the Brave. + +He drove up to the Perkins gate and was so long about hitching the horse +that Rebecca's heart beat tumultuously at the thought of Emma Jane's +heart waiting under the blue barege. Then he brushed an imaginary speck +off his sleeve, then he drew on a pair of buff kid gloves, then he went +up the path, rapped at the knocker, and went in. + +"Not all the heroes go to the wars," thought Rebecca. "Abijah has laid +the ghost of his father and redeemed the memory of his mother, for no +one will dare say again that Abbie Flagg's son could never amount to +anything!" + +The minutes went by, and more minutes, and more. The tranquil dusk +settled down over the little village street and the young moon came out +just behind the top of the Perkins pine tree. + +The Perkins front door opened and Abijah the Brave came out hand in hand +with his Fair Emma Jane. + +They walked through the orchard, the eyes of the old couple following +them from the window, and just as they disappeared down the green slope +that led to the riverside the gray coat sleeve encircled the blue barege +waist. + +Rebecca, quivering with instant sympathy and comprehension, hid her face +in her hands. + +"Emmy has sailed away and I am all alone in the little harbor," she +thought. + +It was as if childhood, like a thing real and visible, were slipping +down the grassy river banks, after Abijah and Emma Jane, and +disappearing like them into the moon-lit shadows of the summer night. + +"I am all alone in the little harbor," she repeated; "and oh, I wonder, +I wonder, shall I be afraid to leave it, if anybody ever comes to carry +me out to sea!" + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's New Chronicles of Rebecca, by Kate Douglas Wiggin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA *** + +***** This file should be named 1375.txt or 1375.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/7/1375/ + +Produced by Theresa Armao + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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