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diff --git a/old/old/tncor10.txt b/old/old/tncor10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c802a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/tncor10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7529 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Etext of New Chronicles of Rebecca by Wiggin +#7 in our series by Kate Douglas Wiggin + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was typed by Theresa Armao of Albany, NY. + + + + + +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!" though 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 the Project Gutenberg Etext of New Chronicles of Rebecca + diff --git a/old/old/tncor10.zip b/old/old/tncor10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..605d29d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/tncor10.zip |