Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin

Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm
by Kate Douglas Wiggin
TO MY MOTHER
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.
Wordsworth.
CONTENTS
I. "WE ARE SEVEN"
II. REBECCA'S RELATIONS
III. A DIFFERENCE IN HEARTS
IV. REBECCA'S POINT OF VIEW
V. WISDOM'S WAYS
VI. SUNSHINE IN A SHADY PLACE
VII. RIVERBORO SECRETS
VIII. COLOR OF ROSE
IX ASHES OF ROSES
X. RAINBOW BRIDGES
XI. "THE STIRRING OF THE POWERS"
XII. "SEE THE PALE MARTYR"
XIII. SNOW-WHITE; ROSE-RED
XIV. MR. ALADDIN
XV. THE BANQUET LAMP
XVI. SEASONS OF GROWTH
XVII. GRAY DAYS AND GOLD
XVIII. REBECCA REPRESENTS THE FAMILY
XIX. DEACON ISRAEL'S SUCCESSOR
XX. A CHANGE OF HEART
XXI. THE SKY LINE WIDENS
XXII. CLOVER BLOSSOMS AND SUNFLOWERS
XXIII. THE HILL DIFFICULTY
XXIV. ALADDIN RUBS HIS LAMP
XXV. ROSES OF JOY
XXVI. OVER THE TEACUPS
XXVII. "THE VISION SPLENDID"
XXVIII. "TH' INEVITABLE YOKE"
XXIX. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
XXX. "GOOD-BY, SUNNYBROOK!"
XXXI. AUNT MIRANDA'S APOLOGY
REBECCA
OF SUNNYBROOK FARM
REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM
"WE ARE SEVEN"
The old stage coach was rumbling along
the dusty road that runs from Maplewood
to Riverboro. The day was as warm
as midsummer, though it was only the middle of
May, and Mr. Jeremiah Cobb was favoring the
horses as much as possible, yet never losing sight
of the fact that he carried the mail. The hills were
many, and the reins lay loosely in his hands as he
lolled back in his seat and extended one foot and
leg luxuriously over the dashboard. His brimmed
hat of worn felt was well pulled over his eyes, and
he revolved a quid of tobacco in his left cheek.
There was one passenger in the coach,--a small
dark-haired person in a glossy buff calico dress.
She was so slender and so stiffly starched that
she slid from space to space on the leather cushions,
though she braced herself against the middle
seat with her feet and extended her cotton-gloved
hands on each side, in order to maintain some sort
of balance. Whenever the wheels sank farther than
usual into a rut, or jolted suddenly over a stone,
she bounded involuntarily into the air, came down
again, pushed back her funny little straw hat, and
picked up or settled more firmly a small pink sun
shade, which seemed to be her chief responsibility,
--unless we except a bead purse, into which
she looked whenever the condition of the roads
would permit, finding great apparent satisfaction
in that its precious contents neither disappeared
nor grew less. Mr. Cobb guessed nothing of these
harassing details of travel, his business being to
carry people to their destinations, not, necessarily,
to make them comfortable on the way. Indeed he
had forgotten the very existence of this one
unnoteworthy little passenger.
When he was about to leave the post-office in
Maplewood that morning, a woman had alighted
from a wagon, and coming up to him, inquired
whether this were the Riverboro stage, and if he
were Mr. Cobb. Being answered in the affirmative,
she nodded to a child who was eagerly waiting
for the answer, and who ran towards her as if she
feared to be a moment too late. The child might
have been ten or eleven years old perhaps, but
whatever the number of her summers, she had an
air of being small for her age. Her mother helped
her into the stage coach, deposited a bundle and
a bouquet of lilacs beside her, superintended the
"roping on" behind of an old hair trunk, and finally
paid the fare, counting out the silver with great
care.
"I want you should take her to my sisters'
in Riverboro," she said. "Do you know Mirandy
and Jane Sawyer? They live in the brick
house."
Lord bless your soul, he knew 'em as well as
if he'd made 'em!
"Well, she's going there, and they're expecting
her. Will you keep an eye on her, please? If she
can get out anywhere and get with folks, or get
anybody in to keep her company, she'll do it.
Good-by, Rebecca; try not to get into any mischief,
and sit quiet, so you'll look neat an' nice when
you get there. Don't be any trouble to Mr. Cobb.
--You see, she's kind of excited.--We came on
the cars from Temperance yesterday, slept all night
at my cousin's, and drove from her house--eight
miles it is--this morning."
"Good-by, mother, don't worry; you know it
isn't as if I hadn't traveled before."
The woman gave a short sardonic laugh and said
in an explanatory way to Mr. Cobb, "She's been to
Wareham and stayed over night; that isn't much
to be journey-proud on!"
"It WAS TRAVELING, mother," said the child
eagerly and willfully. "It was leaving the farm, and
putting up lunch in a basket, and a little riding
and a little steam cars, and we carried our nightgowns."
"Don't tell the whole village about it, if we did,"
said the mother, interrupting the reminiscences of
this experienced voyager. "Haven't I told you
before," she whispered, in a last attempt at
discipline, "that you shouldn't talk about night
gowns and stockings and--things like that, in a
loud tone of voice, and especially when there's
men folks round?"
"I know, mother, I know, and I won't. All I
want to say is"--here Mr. Cobb gave a cluck,
slapped the reins, and the horses started sedately
on their daily task--"all I want to say is that it
is a journey when"--the stage was really under
way now and Rebecca had to put her head out of
the window over the door in order to finish her
sentence--"it IS a journey when you carry a
nightgown!"
The objectionable word, uttered in a high treble,
floated back to the offended ears of Mrs. Randall,
who watched the stage out of sight, gathered up
her packages from the bench at the store door,
and stepped into the wagon that had been standing
at the hitching-post. As she turned the horse's
head towards home she rose to her feet for a
moment, and shading her eyes with her hand, looked
at a cloud of dust in the dim distance.
"Mirandy'll have her hands full, I guess," she
said to herself; "but I shouldn't wonder if it would
be the making of Rebecca."
All this had been half an hour ago, and the sun,
the heat, the dust, the contemplation of errands to
be done in the great metropolis of Milltown, had
lulled Mr. Cobb's never active mind into complete
oblivion as to his promise of keeping an eye on
Rebecca.
Suddenly he heard a small voice above the rattle
and rumble of the wheels and the creaking of the
harness. At first he thought it was a cricket, a tree
toad, or a bird, but having determined the direction
from which it came, he turned his head over his
shoulder and saw a small shape hanging as far out
of the window as safety would allow. A long black
braid of hair swung with the motion of the coach;
the child held her hat in one hand and with the
other made ineffectual attempts to stab the driver
with her microscopic sunshade.
"Please let me speak!" she called.
Mr. Cobb drew up the horses obediently.
"Does it cost any more to ride up there with
you?" she asked. "It's so slippery and shiny down
here, and the stage is so much too big for me, that
I rattle round in it till I'm 'most black and blue.
And the windows are so small I can only see pieces
of things, and I've 'most broken my neck stretching
round to find out whether my trunk has fallen
off the back. It's my mother's trunk, and she's
very choice of it."
Mr. Cobb waited until this flow of conversation,
or more properly speaking this flood of criticism,
had ceased, and then said jocularly:--
"You can come up if you want to; there ain't
no extry charge to sit side o' me." Whereupon he
helped her out, "boosted" her up to the front seat,
and resumed his own place.
Rebecca sat down carefully, smoothing her dress
under her with painstaking precision, and putting
her sunshade under its extended folds between the
driver and herself. This done she pushed back her
hat, pulled up her darned white cotton gloves, and
said delightedly:--
"Oh! this is better! This is like traveling! I
am a real passenger now, and down there I felt like
our setting hen when we shut her up in a coop. I
hope we have a long, long ways to go?"
"Oh! we've only just started on it," Mr. Cobb
responded genially; "it's more 'n two hours."
"Only two hours," she sighed "That will be
half past one; mother will be at cousin Ann's, the
children at home will have had their dinner, and
Hannah cleared all away. I have some lunch,
because mother said it would be a bad beginning to get
to the brick house hungry and have aunt Mirandy
have to get me something to eat the first thing.--
It's a good growing day, isn't it?"
"It is, certain; too hot, most. Why don't you
put up your parasol?"
She extended her dress still farther over the
article in question as she said, "Oh dear no! I never
put it up when the sun shines; pink fades awfully,
you know, and I only carry it to meetin' cloudy
Sundays; sometimes the sun comes out all of a
sudden, and I have a dreadful time covering it up;
it's the dearest thing in life to me, but it's an awful
care."
At this moment the thought gradually permeated
Mr. Jeremiah Cobb's slow-moving mind that the
bird perched by his side was a bird of very different
feather from those to which he was accustomed in
his daily drives. He put the whip back in its socket,
took his foot from the dashboard, pushed his hat
back, blew his quid of tobacco into the road, and
having thus cleared his mental decks for action, he took
his first good look at the passenger, a look which
she met with a grave, childlike stare of friendly
curiosity.
The buff calico was faded, but scrupulously clean,
and starched within an inch of its life. From the
little standing ruffle at the neck the child's slender
throat rose very brown and thin, and the head looked
small to bear the weight of dark hair that hung in
a thick braid to her waist. She wore an odd little
vizored cap of white leghorn, which may either have
been the latest thing in children's hats, or some bit
of ancient finery furbished up for the occasion. It
was trimmed with a twist of buff ribbon and a cluster
of black and orange porcupine quills, which hung
or bristled stiffly over one ear, giving her the
quaintest and most unusual appearance. Her face was
without color and sharp in outline. As to features,
she must have had the usual number, though Mr.
Cobb's attention never proceeded so far as nose,
forehead, or chin, being caught on the way and held
fast by the eyes. Rebecca's eyes were like faith,--
"the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen." Under her delicately etched
brows they glowed like two stars, their dancing
lights half hidden in lustrous darkness. Their
glance was eager and full of interest, yet never
satisfied; their steadfast gaze was brilliant and
mysterious, and had the effect of looking directly through
the obvious to something beyond, in the object, in
the landscape, in you. They had never been
accounted for, Rebecca's eyes. The school teacher
and the minister at Temperance had tried and
failed; the young artist who came for the summer
to sketch the red barn, the ruined mill, and the
bridge ended by giving up all these local beauties
and devoting herself to the face of a child,--a
small, plain face illuminated by a pair of eyes carrying
such messages, such suggestions, such hints of
sleeping power and insight, that one never tired of
looking into their shining depths, nor of fancying
that what one saw there was the reflection of one's
own thought.
Mr. Cobb made none of these generalizations;
his remark to his wife that night was simply to the
effect that whenever the child looked at him she
knocked him galley-west.
"Miss Ross, a lady that paints, gave me the
sunshade," said Rebecca, when she had exchanged
looks with Mr. Cobb and learned his face by heart.
"Did you notice the pinked double ruffle and the
white tip and handle? They're ivory. The handle
is scarred, you see. That's because Fanny sucked
and chewed it in meeting when I wasn't looking.
I've never felt the same to Fanny since."
"Is Fanny your sister?"
"She's one of them."
"How many are there of you?"
"Seven. There's verses written about seven
children:--
"`Quick was the little Maid's reply,
O master! we are seven!'
I learned it to speak in school, but the scholars
were hateful and laughed. Hannah is the oldest, I
come next, then John, then Jenny, then Mark, then
Fanny, then Mira."
"Well, that IS a big family!"
"Far too big, everybody says," replied Rebecca
with an unexpected and thoroughly grown-up candor
that induced Mr. Cobb to murmur, "I swan!"
and insert more tobacco in his left cheek.
"They're dear, but such a bother, and cost so
much to feed, you see," she rippled on. "Hannah
and I haven't done anything but put babies to bed
at night and take them up in the morning for years
and years. But it's finished, that's one comfort,
and we'll have a lovely time when we're all grown
up and the mortgage is paid off."
"All finished? Oh, you mean you've come
away?"
"No, I mean they're all over and done with;
our family 's finished. Mother says so, and she always
keeps her promises. There hasn't been any
since Mira, and she's three. She was born the
day father died Aunt Miranda wanted Hannah
to come to Riverboro instead of me, but mother
couldn't spare her; she takes hold of housework
better than I do, Hannah does. I told mother last
night if there was likely to be any more children
while I was away I'd have to be sent for, for when
there's a baby it always takes Hannah and me
both, for mother has the cooking and the farm."
"Oh, you live on a farm, do ye? Where is it?
--near to where you got on?"
"Near? Why, it must be thousands of miles!
We came from Temperance in the cars. Then we
drove a long ways to cousin Ann's and went to bed.
Then we got up and drove ever so far to Maplewood,
where the stage was. Our farm is away off
from everywheres, but our school and meeting
house is at Temperance, and that's only two miles.
Sitting up here with you is most as good as climbing
the meeting-house steeple. I know a boy who's
been up on our steeple. He said the people and
cows looked like flies. We haven't met any people
yet, but I'm KIND of disappointed in the cows;--
they don't look so little as I hoped they would;
still (brightening) they don't look quite as big as
if we were down side of them, do they? Boys always
do the nice splendid things, and girls can only
do the nasty dull ones that get left over. They
can't climb so high, or go so far, or stay out so
late, or run so fast, or anything."
Mr. Cobb wiped his mouth on the back of his
hand and gasped. He had a feeling that he was being
hurried from peak to peak of a mountain range
without time to take a good breath in between.
"I can't seem to locate your farm," he said,
"though I've been to Temperance and used to live
up that way. What's your folks' name?"
"Randall. My mother's name is Aurelia Randall;
our names are Hannah Lucy Randall, Rebecca
Rowena Randall, John Halifax Randall, Jenny
Lind Randall, Marquis Randall, Fanny Ellsler
Randall, and Miranda Randall. Mother named half
of us and father the other half, but we didn't come
out even, so they both thought it would be nice to
name Mira after aunt Miranda in Riverboro; they
hoped it might do some good, but it didn't, and now
we call her Mira. We are all named after somebody
in particular. Hannah is Hannah at the
Window Binding Shoes, and I am taken out of
Ivanhoe; John Halifax was a gentleman in a book;
Mark is after his uncle Marquis de Lafayette that
died a twin. (Twins very often don't live to grow
up, and triplets almost never--did you know that,
Mr. Cobb?) We don't call him Marquis, only Mark.
Jenny is named for a singer and Fanny for a beautiful
dancer, but mother says they're both misfits, for
Jenny can't carry a tune and Fanny's kind of stifflegged.
Mother would like to call them Jane and
Frances and give up their middle names, but she
says it wouldn't be fair to father. She says we
must always stand up for father, because everything
was against him, and he wouldn't have died if he
hadn't had such bad luck. I think that's all there
is to tell about us," she finished seriously.
"Land o' Liberty! I should think it was
enough," ejaculated Mr. Cobb. "There wa'n't
many names left when your mother got through
choosin'! You've got a powerful good memory!
I guess it ain't no trouble for you to learn your
lessons, is it?"
"Not much; the trouble is to get the shoes to
go and learn 'em. These are spandy new I've got
on, and they have to last six months. Mother
always says to save my shoes. There don't seem
to be any way of saving shoes but taking 'em off
and going barefoot; but I can't do that in Riverboro
without shaming aunt Mirandy. I'm going to
school right along now when I'm living with aunt
Mirandy, and in two years I'm going to the seminary
at Wareham; mother says it ought to be the
making of me! I'm going to be a painter like Miss
Ross when I get through school. At any rate, that's
what _I_ think I'm going to be. Mother thinks I'd
better teach."
"Your farm ain't the old Hobbs place, is it?"
"No, it's just Randall's Farm. At least that's
what mother calls it. I call it Sunnybrook Farm."
"I guess it don't make no difference what you
call it so long as you know where it is," remarked
Mr. Cobb sententiously.
Rebecca turned the full light of her eyes upon
him reproachfully, almost severely, as she answered:--
"Oh! don't say that, and be like all the rest! It
does make a difference what you call things. When
I say Randall's Farm, do you see how it looks?"
"No, I can't say I do," responded Mr. Cobb uneasily.
"Now when I say Sunnybrook Farm, what does
it make you think of?"
Mr. Cobb felt like a fish removed from his native
element and left panting on the sand; there was
no evading the awful responsibility of a reply, for
Rebecca's eyes were searchlights, that pierced the
fiction of his brain and perceived the bald spot on
the back of his head.
"I s'pose there's a brook somewheres near it,"
he said timorously.
Rebecca looked disappointed but not quite disheartened.
"That's pretty good," she said
encouragingly. "You're warm but not hot; there's
a brook, but not a common brook. It has young
trees and baby bushes on each side of it, and it's a
shallow chattering little brook with a white sandy
bottom and lots of little shiny pebbles. Whenever
there's a bit of sunshine the brook catches it, and
it's always full of sparkles the livelong day.
Don't your stomach feel hollow? Mine doest I
was so 'fraid I'd miss the stage I couldn't eat any
breakfast."
"You'd better have your lunch, then. I don't
eat nothin' till I get to Milltown; then I get a
piece o' pie and cup o' coffee."
"I wish I could see Milltown. I suppose it's
bigger and grander even than Wareham; more like
Paris? Miss Ross told me about Paris; she bought
my pink sunshade there and my bead purse. You
see how it opens with a snap? I've twenty cents
in it, and it's got to last three months, for stamps
and paper and ink. Mother says aunt Mirandy
won't want to buy things like those when she's
feeding and clothing me and paying for my school
books."
"Paris ain't no great," said Mr. Cobb
disparagingly. "It's the dullest place in the State o'
Maine. I've druv there many a time."
Again Rebecca was obliged to reprove Mr. Cobb,
tacitly and quietly, but none the less surely, though
the reproof was dealt with one glance, quickly sent
and as quickly withdrawn.
"Paris is the capital of France, and you have to
go to it on a boat," she said instructively. "It's in
my geography, and it says: `The French are a gay
and polite people, fond of dancing and light wines.'
I asked the teacher what light wines were, and he
thought it was something like new cider, or maybe
ginger pop. I can see Paris as plain as day by just
shutting my eyes. The beautiful ladies are always
gayly dancing around with pink sunshades and
bead purses, and the grand gentlemen are politely
dancing and drinking ginger pop. But you can see
Milltown most every day with your eyes wide
open," Rebecca said wistfully.
"Milltown ain't no great, neither," replied Mr.
Cobb, with the air of having visited all the cities of
the earth and found them as naught. "Now you
watch me heave this newspaper right onto Mis'
Brown's doorstep."
Piff! and the packet landed exactly as it was
intended, on the corn husk mat in front of the
screen door.
"Oh, how splendid that was!" cried Rebecca
with enthusiasm. "Just like the knife thrower
Mark saw at the circus. I wish there was a long,
long row of houses each with a corn husk mat and
a screen door in the middle, and a newspaper to
throw on every one!"
"I might fail on some of 'em, you know," said
Mr. Cobb, beaming with modest pride. "If your
aunt Mirandy'll let you, I'll take you down to
Milltown some day this summer when the stage
ain't full."
A thrill of delicious excitement ran through
Rebecca's frame, from her new shoes up, up to the
leghorn cap and down the black braid. She pressed
Mr. Cobb's knee ardently and said in a voice choking
with tears of joy and astonishment, "Oh, it
can't be true, it can't; to think I should see
Milltown. It's like having a fairy godmother who asks
you your wish and then gives it to you! Did you
ever read Cinderella, or The Yellow Dwarf, or The
Enchanted Frog, or The Fair One with Golden
Locks?"
"No," said Mr. Cobb cautiously, after a moment's
reflection. "I don't seem to think I ever did read
jest those partic'lar ones. Where'd you get a
chance at so much readin'?"
"Oh, I've read lots of books," answered
Rebecca casually. "Father's and Miss Ross's and all
the dif'rent school teachers', and all in the Sundayschool
library. I've read The Lamplighter, and
Scottish Chiefs, and Ivanhoe, and The Heir of
Redclyffe, and Cora, the Doctor's Wife, and David
Copperfield, and The Gold of Chickaree, and Plutarch's
Lives, and Thaddeus of Warsaw, and Pilgrim's Progress,
and lots more.--What have you read?"
"I've never happened to read those partic'lar
books; but land! I've read a sight in my time!
Nowadays I'm so drove I get along with the
Almanac, the Weekly Argus, and the Maine State
Agriculturist.--There's the river again; this is
the last long hill, and when we get to the top of it
we'll see the chimbleys of Riverboro in the
distance. 'T ain't fur. I live 'bout half a mile beyond
the brick house myself."
Rebecca's hand stirred nervously in her lap and
she moved in her seat. "I didn't think I was going
to be afraid," she said almost under her breath;
"but I guess I am, just a little mite--when you
say it's coming so near."
"Would you go back?" asked Mr. Cobb curiously.
She flashed him an intrepid look and then said
proudly, "I'd never go back--I might be frightened,
but I'd be ashamed to run. Going to aunt
Mirandy's is like going down cellar in the dark.
There might be ogres and giants under the stairs,
--but, as I tell Hannah, there MIGHT be elves and
fairies and enchanted frogs!--Is there a main
street to the village, like that in Wareham?"
"I s'pose you might call it a main street, an'
your aunt Sawyer lives on it, but there ain't no
stores nor mills, an' it's an awful one-horse
village! You have to go 'cross the river an' get on
to our side if you want to see anything goin' on."
"I'm almost sorry," she sighed, "because it
would be so grand to drive down a real main street,
sitting high up like this behind two splendid horses,
with my pink sunshade up, and everybody in town
wondering who the bunch of lilacs and the hair
trunk belongs to. It would be just like the beautiful
lady in the parade. Last summer the circus
came to Temperance, and they had a procession in
the morning. Mother let us all walk in and wheel
Mira in the baby carriage, because we couldn't
afford to go to the circus in the afternoon. And
there were lovely horses and animals in cages, and
clowns on horseback; and at the very end came a
little red and gold chariot drawn by two ponies, and
in it, sitting on a velvet cushion, was the snake
charmer, all dressed in satin and spangles. She was
so beautiful beyond compare, Mr. Cobb, that you
had to swallow lumps in your throat when you
looked at her, and little cold feelings crept up and
down your back. Don't you know how I mean?
Didn't you ever see anybody that made you feel
like that?"
Mr. Cobb was more distinctly uncomfortable at
this moment than he had been at any one time
during the eventful morning, but he evaded the
point dexterously by saying, "There ain't no harm,
as I can see, in our makin' the grand entry in the
biggest style we can. I'll take the whip out, set
up straight, an' drive fast; you hold your bo'quet
in your lap, an' open your little red parasol, an'
we'll jest make the natives stare!"
The child's face was radiant for a moment, but
the glow faded just as quickly as she said, "I forgot--
mother put me inside, and maybe she'd want
me to be there when I got to aunt Mirandy's.
Maybe I'd be more genteel inside, and then I
wouldn't have to be jumped down and my clothes
fly up, but could open the door and step down like
a lady passenger. Would you please stop a minute,
Mr. Cobb, and let me change?"
The stage driver good-naturedly pulled up his
horses, lifted the excited little creature down, opened
the door, and helped her in, putting the lilacs and
the pink sunshade beside her.
"We've had a great trip," he said, "and we've
got real well acquainted, haven't we?--You won't
forget about Milltown?"
"Never!" she exclaimed fervently; "and you're
sure you won't, either?"
"Never! Cross my heart!" vowed Mr. Cobb
solemnly, as he remounted his perch; and as the
stage rumbled down the village street between the
green maples, those who looked from their windows
saw a little brown elf in buff calico sitting primly
on the back seat holding a great bouquet tightly in
one hand and a pink parasol in the other. Had they
been farsighted enough they might have seen, when
the stage turned into the side dooryard of the old
brick house, a calico yoke rising and falling
tempestuously over the beating heart beneath, the red
color coming and going in two pale cheeks, and a
mist of tears swimming in two brilliant dark eyes.
Rebecca's journey had ended.
"There's the stage turnin' into the Sawyer
girls' dooryard," said Mrs. Perkins to her husband.
"That must be the niece from up Temperance way.
It seems they wrote to Aurelia and invited Hannah,
the oldest, but Aurelia said she could spare Rebecca
better, if 't was all the same to Mirandy 'n' Jane;
so it's Rebecca that's come. She'll be good
comp'ny for our Emma Jane, but I don't believe
they'll keep her three months! She looks black
as an Injun what I can see of her; black and kind
of up-an-comin'. They used to say that one o' the
Randalls married a Spanish woman, somebody
that was teachin' music and languages at a boardin'
school. Lorenzo was dark complected, you remember,
and this child is, too. Well, I don't know as
Spanish blood is any real disgrace, not if it's a good
ways back and the woman was respectable."
II
REBECCA'S RELATIONS
They had been called the Sawyer girls when
Miranda at eighteen, Jane at twelve, and
Aurelia at eight participated in the various
activities of village life; and when Riverboro fell
into a habit of thought or speech, it saw no reason
for falling out of it, at any rate in the same century.
So although Miranda and Jane were between fifty
and sixty at the time this story opens, Riverboro
still called them the Sawyer girls. They were
spinsters; but Aurelia, the youngest, had made what
she called a romantic marriage and what her sisters
termed a mighty poor speculation. "There's worse
things than bein' old maids," they said; whether
they thought so is quite another matter.
The element of romance in Aurelia's marriage
existed chiefly in the fact that Mr. L. D. M. Randall
had a soul above farming or trading and was a votary
of the Muses. He taught the weekly singing-school
(then a feature of village life) in half a dozen
neighboring towns, he played the violin and "called off"
at dances, or evoked rich harmonies from church
melodeons on Sundays. He taught certain uncouth
lads, when they were of an age to enter society, the
intricacies of contra dances, or the steps of the
schottische and mazurka, and he was a marked
figure in all social assemblies, though conspicuously
absent from town-meetings and the purely masculine
gatherings at the store or tavern or bridge.
His hair was a little longer, his hands a little
whiter, his shoes a little thinner, his manner a trifle
more polished, than that of his soberer mates;
indeed the only department of life in which he failed
to shine was the making of sufficient money to live
upon. Luckily he had no responsibilities; his father
and his twin brother had died when he was yet a
boy, and his mother, whose only noteworthy achievement
had been the naming of her twin sons Marquis
de Lafayette and Lorenzo de Medici Randall, had
supported herself and educated her child by making
coats up to the very day of her death. She was wont
to say plaintively, "I'm afraid the faculties was too
much divided up between my twins. L. D. M. is
awful talented, but I guess M. D. L. would 'a' ben
the practical one if he'd 'a' lived."
"L. D. M. was practical enough to get the richest
girl in the village," replied Mrs. Robinson.
"Yes," sighed his mother, "there it is again; if
the twins could 'a' married Aurelia Sawyer, 't would
'a' been all right. L. D. M. was talented 'nough to
GET Reely's money, but M. D. L. would 'a' ben practical
'nough to have KEP' it."
Aurelia's share of the modest Sawyer property
had been put into one thing after another by the
handsome and luckless Lorenzo de Medici. He had
a graceful and poetic way of making an investment
for each new son and daughter that blessed their
union. "A birthday present for our child, Aurelia,"
he would say,--"a little nest-egg for the future;"
but Aurelia once remarked in a moment of bitterness
that the hen never lived that could sit on
those eggs and hatch anything out of them.
Miranda and Jane had virtually washed their
hands of Aurelia when she married Lorenzo de
Medici Randall. Having exhausted the resources
of Riverboro and its immediate vicinity, the
unfortunate couple had moved on and on in a steadily
decreasing scale of prosperity until they had reached
Temperance, where they had settled down and
invited fate to do its worst, an invitation which was
promptly accepted. The maiden sisters at home
wrote to Aurelia two or three times a year, and sent
modest but serviceable presents to the children at
Christmas, but refused to assist L. D. M. with the
regular expenses of his rapidly growing family.
His last investment, made shortly before the birth
of Miranda (named in a lively hope of favors which
never came), was a small farm two miles from
Temperance. Aurelia managed this herself, and so
it proved a home at least, and a place for the
unsuccessful Lorenzo to die and to be buried from, a duty
somewhat too long deferred, many thought, which
he performed on the day of Mira's birth.
It was in this happy-go-lucky household that Rebecca
had grown up. It was just an ordinary family;
two or three of the children were handsome and the
rest plain, three of them rather clever, two industrious,
and two commonplace and dull. Rebecca had
her father's facility and had been his aptest pupil.
She "carried" the alto by ear, danced without being
taught, played the melodeon without knowing the
notes. Her love of books she inherited chiefly from
her mother, who found it hard to sweep or cook
or sew when there was a novel in the house.
Fortunately books were scarce, or the children might
sometimes have gone ragged and hungry.
But other forces had been at work in Rebecca,
and the traits of unknown forbears had been wrought
into her fibre. Lorenzo de Medici was flabby and
boneless; Rebecca was a thing of fire and spirit:
he lacked energy and courage; Rebecca was plucky
at two and dauntless at five. Mrs. Randall and
Hannah had no sense of humor; Rebecca possessed
and showed it as soon as she could walk and talk.
She had not been able, however, to borrow her
parents' virtues and those of other generous ancestors
and escape all the weaknesses in the calendar.
She had not her sister Hannah's patience or her
brother John's sturdy staying power. Her will was
sometimes willfulness, and the ease with which she
did most things led her to be impatient of hard tasks
or long ones. But whatever else there was or was
not, there was freedom at Randall's farm. The children
grew, worked, fought, ate what and slept where
they could; loved one another and their parents
pretty well, but with no tropical passion; and
educated themselves for nine months of the year, each
one in his own way.
As a result of this method Hannah, who could
only have been developed by forces applied from
without, was painstaking, humdrum, and limited;
while Rebecca, who apparently needed nothing but
space to develop in, and a knowledge of terms in
which to express herself, grew and grew and grew,
always from within outward. Her forces of one sort
and another had seemingly been set in motion when
she was born; they needed no daily spur, but moved
of their own accord--towards what no one knew,
least of all Rebecca herself. The field for the
exhibition of her creative instinct was painfully small,
and the only use she had made of it as yet was to
leave eggs out of the corn bread one day and milk
another, to see how it would turn out; to part
Fanny's hair sometimes in the middle, sometimes
on the right, and sometimes on the left side; and to
play all sorts of fantastic pranks with the children,
occasionally bringing them to the table as fictitious
or historical characters found in her favorite books.
Rebecca amused her mother and her family generally,
but she never was counted of serious
importance, and though considered "smart" and old for
her age, she was never thought superior in any way.
Aurelia's experience of genius, as exemplified in the
deceased Lorenzo de Medici led her into a greater
admiration of plain, every-day common sense, a quality
in which Rebecca, it must be confessed, seemed
sometimes painfully deficient.
Hannah was her mother's favorite, so far as Aurelia
could indulge herself in such recreations as partiality.
The parent who is obliged to feed and clothe
seven children on an income of fifteen dollars a
month seldom has time to discriminate carefully
between the various members of her brood, but Hannah
at fourteen was at once companion and partner in
all her mother's problems. She it was who kept the
house while Aurelia busied herself in barn and field.
Rebecca was capable of certain set tasks, such as
keeping the small children from killing themselves
and one another, feeding the poultry, picking up
chips, hulling strawberries, wiping dishes; but she
was thought irresponsible, and Aurelia, needing
somebody to lean on (having never enjoyed that
luxury with the gifted Lorenzo), leaned on Hannah.
Hannah showed the result of this attitude somewhat,
being a trifle careworn in face and sharp in manner;
but she was a self-contained, well-behaved, dependable
child, and that is the reason her aunts had invited
her to Riverboro to be a member of their family and
participate in all the advantages of their loftier
position in the world. It was several years since
Miranda and Jane had seen the children, but they
remembered with pleasure that Hannah had not
spoken a word during the interview, and it was
for this reason that they had asked for the pleasure
of her company. Rebecca, on the other hand, had
dressed up the dog in John's clothes, and being
requested to get the three younger children ready
for dinner, she had held them under the pump and
then proceeded to "smack" their hair flat to their
heads by vigorous brushing, bringing them to the
table in such a moist and hideous state of shininess
that their mother was ashamed of their appearance.
Rebecca's own black locks were commonly pushed
smoothly off her forehead, but on this occasion she
formed what I must perforce call by its only name,
a spit-curl, directly in the centre of her brow, an
ornament which she was allowed to wear a very
short time, only in fact till Hannah was able to call
her mother's attention to it, when she was sent
into the next room to remove it and to come back
looking like a Christian. This command she interpreted
somewhat too literally perhaps, because she
contrived in a space of two minutes an extremely
pious style of hairdressing, fully as effective if not
as startling as the first. These antics were solely
the result of nervous irritation, a mood born of Miss
Miranda Sawyer's stiff, grim, and martial attitude.
The remembrance of Rebecca was so vivid that their
sister Aurelia's letter was something of a shock to
the quiet, elderly spinsters of the brick house; for
it said that Hannah could not possibly be spared
for a few years yet, but that Rebecca would come
as soon as she could be made ready; that the offer
was most thankfully appreciated, and that the regular
schooling and church privileges, as well as the
influence of the Sawyer home, would doubtless be
"the making of Rebecca"
III
A DIFFERENCE IN HEARTS
I don' know as I cal'lated to be the makin' of any
child," Miranda had said as she folded Aurelia's
letter and laid it in the light-stand drawer.
"I s'posed, of course, Aurelia would send us the
one we asked for, but it's just like her to palm off
that wild young one on somebody else."
"You remember we said that Rebecca or even
Jenny might come, in case Hannah couldn't,"
interposed Jane.
"I know we did, but we hadn't any notion it would
turn out that way," grumbled Miranda.
"She was a mite of a thing when we saw her
three years ago," ventured Jane; "she's had time
to improve."
"And time to grow worse!"
"Won't it be kind of a privilege to put her on the
right track?" asked Jane timidly.
"I don' know about the privilege part; it'll be
considerable of a chore, I guess. If her mother hain't
got her on the right track by now, she won't take to
it herself all of a sudden."
This depressed and depressing frame of mind had
lasted until the eventful day dawned on which Rebecca
was to arrive.
"If she makes as much work after she comes as
she has before, we might as well give up hope of
ever gettin' any rest," sighed Miranda as she hung
the dish towels on the barberry bushes at the side
door.
"But we should have had to clean house, Rebecca
or no Rebecca," urged Jane; "and I can't see why
you've scrubbed and washed and baked as you have
for that one child, nor why you've about bought out
Watson's stock of dry goods."
"I know Aurelia if you don't," responded
Miranda. "I've seen her house, and I've seen that
batch o' children, wearin' one another's clothes and
never carin' whether they had 'em on right sid' out
or not; I know what they've had to live and dress
on, and so do you. That child will like as not come
here with a passel o' things borrowed from the
rest o' the family. She'll have Hannah's shoes and
John's undershirts and Mark's socks most likely.
I suppose she never had a thimble on her finger in
her life, but she'll know the feelin' o' one before
she's ben here many days. I've bought a piece of
unbleached muslin and a piece o' brown gingham
for her to make up; that'll keep her busy. Of
course she won't pick up anything after herself; she
probably never see a duster, and she'll be as hard
to train into our ways as if she was a heathen."
"She'll make a dif'rence," acknowledged Jane,
"but she may turn out more biddable 'n we think."
"She'll mind when she's spoken to, biddable or
not," remarked Miranda with a shake of the last
towel.
Miranda Sawyer had a heart, of course, but she
had never used it for any other purpose than the
pumping and circulating of blood. She was just,
conscientious, economical, industrious; a regular
attendant at church and Sunday-school, and a member
of the State Missionary and Bible societies, but
in the presence of all these chilly virtues you longed
for one warm little fault, or lacking that, one likable
failing, something to make you sure she was
thoroughly alive. She had never had any education
other than that of the neighborhood district school,
for her desires and ambitions had all pointed to the
management of the house, the farm, and the dairy.
Jane, on the other hand, had gone to an academy,
and also to a boarding-school for young ladies; so
had Aurelia; and after all the years that had elapsed
there was still a slight difference in language and
in manner between the elder and the two younger
sisters.
Jane, too, had had the inestimable advantage of a
sorrow; not the natural grief at the loss of her aged
father and mother, for she had been content to let
them go; but something far deeper. She was engaged
to marry young Tom Carter, who had nothing
to marry on, it is true, but who was sure to have,
some time or other. Then the war broke out. Tom
enlisted at the first call. Up to that time Jane had
loved him with a quiet, friendly sort of affection, and
had given her country a mild emotion of the same
sort. But the strife, the danger, the anxiety of the
time, set new currents of feeling in motion. Life became
something other than the three meals a day,
the round of cooking, washing, sewing, and church
going. Personal gossip vanished from the village
conversation. Big things took the place of trifling
ones,--sacred sorrows of wives and mothers, pangs
of fathers and husbands, self-denials, sympathies,
new desire to bear one another's burdens. Men
and women grew fast in those days of the nation's
trouble and danger, and Jane awoke from the vague
dull dream she had hitherto called life to new hopes,
new fears, new purposes. Then after a year's anxiety,
a year when one never looked in the newspaper
without dread and sickness of suspense, came
the telegram saying that Tom was wounded; and
without so much as asking Miranda's leave, she
packed her trunk and started for the South. She
was in time to hold Tom's hand through hours of
pain; to show him for once the heart of a prim New
England girl when it is ablaze with love and grief;
to put her arms about him so that he could have a
home to die in, and that was all;--all, but it served.
It carried her through weary months of nursing
--nursing of other soldiers for Tom's dear sake; it
sent her home a better woman; and though she had
never left Riverboro in all the years that lay between,
and had grown into the counterfeit presentment of
her sister and of all other thin, spare, New England
spinsters, it was something of a counterfeit, and
underneath was still the faint echo of that wild heartbeat
of her girlhood. Having learned the trick of
beating and loving and suffering, the poor faithful
heart persisted, although it lived on memories
and carried on its sentimental operations mostly in
secret.
"You're soft, Jane," said Miranda once; "you
allers was soft, and you allers will be. If 't wa'n't
for me keeping you stiffened up, I b'lieve you'd
leak out o' the house into the dooryard."
It was already past the appointed hour for Mr.
Cobb and his coach to be lumbering down the
street.
"The stage ought to be here," said Miranda,
glancing nervously at the tall clock for the twentieth
time. "I guess everything 's done. I've
tacked up two thick towels back of her washstand
and put a mat under her slop-jar; but children are
awful hard on furniture. I expect we sha'n't know
this house a year from now."
Jane's frame of mind was naturally depressed
and timorous, having been affected by Miranda's
gloomy presages of evil to come. The only difference
between the sisters in this matter was that
while Miranda only wondered how they could endure
Rebecca, Jane had flashes of inspiration in
which she wondered how Rebecca would endure
them. It was in one of these flashes that she ran
up the back stairs to put a vase of apple blossoms
and a red tomato-pincushion on Rebecca's bureau.
The stage rumbled to the side door of the brick
house, and Mr. Cobb handed Rebecca out like a
real lady passenger. She alighted with great
circumspection, put the bunch of faded flowers in her
aunt Miranda's hand, and received her salute; it
could hardly be called a kiss without injuring the
fair name of that commodity.
"You needn't 'a' bothered to bring flowers,"
remarked that gracious and tactful lady; "the garden
's always full of 'em here when it comes time."
Jane then kissed Rebecca, giving a somewhat
better imitation of the real thing than her sister.
"Put the trunk in the entry, Jeremiah, and we'll
get it carried upstairs this afternoon," she said.
"I'll take it up for ye now, if ye say the word,
girls."
"No, no; don't leave the horses; somebody'll
be comin' past, and we can call 'em in."
"Well, good-by, Rebecca; good-day, Mirandy 'n'
Jane. You've got a lively little girl there. I guess
she'll be a first-rate company keeper."
Miss Sawyer shuddered openly at the adjective
"lively" as applied to a child; her belief being that
though children might be seen, if absolutely necessary,
they certainly should never be heard if she
could help it. "We're not much used to noise, Jane
and me," she remarked acidly.
Mr. Cobb saw that he had taken the wrong tack,
but he was too unused to argument to explain himself
readily, so he drove away, trying to think by
what safer word than "lively" he might have
described his interesting little passenger.
"I'll take you up and show you your room,
Rebecca," Miss Miranda said. "Shut the mosquito
nettin' door tight behind you, so 's to keep the flies
out; it ain't flytime yet, but I want you to start
right; take your passel along with ye and then you
won't have to come down for it; always make your
head save your heels. Rub your feet on that braided
rug; hang your hat and cape in the entry there as
you go past."
"It's my best hat," said Rebecca
"Take it upstairs then and put it in the clothespress;
but I shouldn't 'a' thought you'd 'a' worn
your best hat on the stage."
"It's my only hat," explained Rebecca. "My
everyday hat wasn't good enough to bring. Fanny's
going to finish it."
"Lay your parasol in the entry closet."
"Do you mind if I keep it in my room, please?
It always seems safer."
"There ain't any thieves hereabouts, and if there
was, I guess they wouldn't make for your sunshade,
but come along. Remember to always go up the
back way; we don't use the front stairs on account
o' the carpet; take care o' the turn and don't ketch
your foot; look to your right and go in. When
you've washed your face and hands and brushed
your hair you can come down, and by and by
we'll unpack your trunk and get you settled before
supper. Ain't you got your dress on hind sid' foremost?"
Rebecca drew her chin down and looked at the
row of smoked pearl buttons running up and down
the middle of her flat little chest.
"Hind side foremost? Oh, I see! No, that's all
right. If you have seven children you can't keep
buttonin' and unbuttonin' 'em all the time--they
have to do themselves. We're always buttoned up
in front at our house. Mira's only three, but she's
buttoned up in front, too."
Miranda said nothing as she closed the door, but
her looks were at once equivalent to and more
eloquent than words.
Rebecca stood perfectly still in the centre of the
floor and looked about her. There was a square of
oilcloth in front of each article of furniture and a
drawn-in rug beside the single four poster, which
was covered with a fringed white dimity counterpane.
Everything was as neat as wax, but the ceilings
were much higher than Rebecca was accustomed to.
It was a north room, and the window, which was
long and narrow, looked out on the back buildings
and the barn.
It was not the room, which was far more comfortable
than Rebecca's own at the farm, nor the lack
of view, nor yet the long journey, for she was not
conscious of weariness; it was not the fear of a
strange place, for she loved new places and courted
new sensations; it was because of some curious
blending of uncomprehended emotions that Rebecca
stood her sunshade in the corner, tore off her best
hat, flung it on the bureau with the porcupine quills
on the under side, and stripping down the dimity
spread, precipitated herself into the middle of the
bed and pulled the counterpane over her head.
In a moment the door opened quietly. Knocking
was a refinement quite unknown in Riverboro, and
if it had been heard of would never have been
wasted on a child.
Miss Miranda entered, and as her eye wandered
about the vacant room, it fell upon a white and
tempestuous ocean of counterpane, an ocean breaking
into strange movements of wave and crest and billow.
"REBECCA!"
The tone in which the word was voiced gave it all
the effect of having been shouted from the housetops
A dark ruffled head and two frightened eyes
appeared above the dimity spread.
"What are you layin' on your good bed in the
daytime for, messin' up the feathers, and dirtyin'
the pillers with your dusty boots?"
Rebecca rose guiltily. There seemed no excuse
to make. Her offense was beyond explanation or
apology.
"I'm sorry, aunt Mirandy--something came
over me; I don't know what."
"Well, if it comes over you very soon again we'll
have to find out what 't is. Spread your bed up
smooth this minute, for 'Bijah Flagg 's bringin' your
trunk upstairs, and I wouldn't let him see such a
cluttered-up room for anything; he'd tell it all over
town."
When Mr. Cobb had put up his horses that night
he carried a kitchen chair to the side of his wife,
who was sitting on the back porch.
"I brought a little Randall girl down on the
stage from Maplewood to-day, mother. She's kin to
the Sawyer girls an' is goin' to live with 'em," he
said, as he sat down and began to whittle. "She's
that Aurelia's child, the one that ran away with
Susan Randall's son just before we come here to
live."
"How old a child?"
"'Bout ten, or somewhere along there, an' small
for her age; but land! she might be a hundred to
hear her talk! She kep' me jumpin' tryin' to answer
her! Of all the queer children I ever come
across she's the queerest. She ain't no beauty--
her face is all eyes; but if she ever grows up to
them eyes an' fills out a little she'll make folks
stare. Land, mother! I wish 't you could 'a' heard
her talk."
"I don't see what she had to talk about, a child
like that, to a stranger," replied Mrs. Cobb.
"Stranger or no stranger, 't wouldn't make no
difference to her. She'd talk to a pump or a grindstun;
she'd talk to herself ruther 'n keep still."
"What did she talk about?"
"Blamed if I can repeat any of it. She kep' me
so surprised I didn't have my wits about me. She
had a little pink sunshade--it kind o' looked like a
doll's amberill, 'n' she clung to it like a burr to a
woolen stockin'. I advised her to open it up--the
sun was so hot; but she said no, 't would fade, an'
she tucked it under her dress. `It's the dearest
thing in life to me,' says she, `but it's a dreadful
care.' Them 's the very words, an' it's all the words
I remember. `It's the dearest thing in life to me, but
it's an awful care!' "--here Mr. Cobb laughed aloud
as he tipped his chair back against the side of the
house. "There was another thing, but I can't get
it right exactly. She was talkin' 'bout the circus
parade an' the snake charmer in a gold chariot, an'
says she, `She was so beautiful beyond compare,
Mr. Cobb, that it made you have lumps in your
throat to look at her.' She'll be comin' over to
see you, mother, an' you can size her up for
yourself. I don' know how she'll git on with Mirandy
Sawyer--poor little soul!"
This doubt was more or less openly expressed in
Riverboro, which, however, had two opinions on the
subject; one that it was a most generous thing in
the Sawyer girls to take one of Aurelia's children
to educate, the other that the education would be
bought at a price wholly out of proportion to its
intrinsic value.
Rebecca's first letters to her mother would seem
to indicate that she cordially coincided with the
latter view of the situation.
IV
REBECCA'S POINT OF VIEW
Dear Mother,--I am safely here. My
dress was not much tumbled and Aunt
Jane helped me press it out. I like Mr.
Cobb very much. He chews but throws
newspapers straight up to the doors. I rode outside a
little while, but got inside before I got to Aunt
Miranda's house. I did not want to, but thought
you would like it better. Miranda is such a long
word that I think I will say Aunt M. and Aunt J. in
my Sunday letters. Aunt J. has given me a
dictionary to look up all the hard words in. It takes
a good deal of time and I am glad people can talk
without stoping to spell. It is much eesier to talk
than write and much more fun. The brick house
looks just the same as you have told us. The parler
is splendid and gives you creeps and chills when you
look in the door. The furnature is ellergant too, and
all the rooms but there are no good sitting-down
places exsept in the kitchen. The same cat is here
but they do not save kittens when she has them,
and the cat is too old to play with. Hannah told
me once you ran away with father and I can see it
would be nice. If Aunt M. would run away I think
I should like to live with Aunt J. She does not hate
me as bad as Aunt M. does. Tell Mark he can have
my paint box, but I should like him to keep the red
cake in case I come home again. I hope Hannah
and John do not get tired doing my chores.
Your afectionate friend
Rebecca.
P. S. Please give the piece of poetry to John because
he likes my poetry even when it is not very good.
This piece is not very good but it is true but I hope
you won't mind what is in it as you ran away.
This house is dark and dull and dreer
No light doth shine from far or near
Its like the tomb.
And those of us who live herein
Are most as dead as serrafim
Though not as good.
My gardian angel is asleep
At leest he doth no vigil keep
Ah I woe is me!
Then give me back my lonely farm
Where none alive did wish me harm
Dear home of youth!
P. S. again. I made the poetry like a piece in a
book but could not get it right at first. You see
"tomb" and "good" do not sound well together but
I wanted to say "tomb" dreadfully and as serrafim
are always "good" I couldn't take that out. I
have made it over now. It does not say my thoughts
as well but think it is more right. Give the best one
to John as he keeps them in a box with his birds'
eggs. This is the best one.
SUNDAY THOUGHTS
BY
REBECCA ROWENA RANDALL
This house is dark and dull and drear
No light doth shine from far or near
Nor ever could.
And those of us who live herein
Are most as dead as seraphim
Though not as good.
My guardian angel is asleep
At least he doth no vigil keep
But far doth roam.
Then give me back my lonely farm
Where none alive did wish me harm,
Dear childhood home!
Dear Mother,--I am thrilling with unhappyness
this morning. I got that out of Cora The
Doctor's Wife whose husband's mother was very
cross and unfealing to her like Aunt M. to me. I
wish Hannah had come instead of me for it was
Hannah that was wanted and she is better than
I am and does not answer back so quick. Are
there any peaces of my buff calico. Aunt J. wants
enough to make a new waste button behind so I
wont look so outlandish. The stiles are quite pretty
in Riverboro and those at Meeting quite ellergant
more so than in Temperance.
This town is stilish, gay and fair,
And full of wellthy riches rare,
But I would pillow on my arm
The thought of my sweet Brookside Farm.
School is pretty good. The Teacher can answer
more questions than the Temperance one but not so
many as I can ask. I am smarter than all the girls
but one but not so smart as two boys. Emma Jane
can add and subtract in her head like a streek of
lightning and knows the speling book right through
but has no thoughts of any kind. She is in the
Third Reader but does not like stories in books. I
am in the Sixth Reader but just because I cannot
say the seven multiplication Table Miss Dearborn
threttens to put me in the baby primer class with
Elijah and Elisha Simpson little twins.
Sore is my heart and bent my stubborn pride,
With Lijah and with Lisha am I tied,
My soul recoyles like Cora Doctor's Wife,
Like her I feer I cannot bare this life.
I am going to try for the speling prize but fear
I cannot get it. I would not care but wrong speling
looks dreadful in poetry. Last Sunday when I
found seraphim in the dictionary I was ashamed I
had made it serrafim but seraphim is not a word you
can guess at like another long one outlandish in this
letter which spells itself. Miss Dearborn says use
the words you CAN spell and if you cant spell seraphim
make angel do but angels are not just the same
as seraphims. Seraphims are brighter whiter and
have bigger wings and I think are older and longer
dead than angels which are just freshly dead and
after a long time in heaven around the great white
throne grow to be seraphims.
I sew on brown gingham dresses every afternoon
when Emma Jane and the Simpsons are playing
house or running on the Logs when their mothers
do not know it. Their mothers are afraid they will
drown and Aunt M. is afraid I will wet my clothes
so will not let me either. I can play from half past
four to supper and after supper a little bit and Saturday
afternoons. I am glad our cow has a calf and it
is spotted. It is going to be a good year for apples
and hay so you and John will be glad and we can
pay a little more morgage. Miss Dearborn asked us
what is the object of edducation and I said the object
of mine was to help pay off the morgage. She told
Aunt M. and I had to sew extra for punishment because
she says a morgage is disgrace like stealing
or smallpox and it will be all over town that we have
one on our farm. Emma Jane is not morgaged nor
Richard Carter nor Dr. Winship but the Simpsons
are.
Rise my soul, strain every nerve,
Thy morgage to remove,
Gain thy mother's heartfelt thanks
Thy family's grateful love.
Pronounce family QUICK or it won't sound right
Your loving little friend
Rebecca
Dear John,--You remember when we tide the
new dog in the barn how he bit the rope and
howled I am just like him only the brick house is
the barn and I can not bite Aunt M. because I
must be grateful and edducation is going to be the
making of me and help you pay off the morgage
when we grow up. Your loving
Becky.
V
WISDOM'S WAYS
The day of Rebecca's arrival had been
Friday, and on the Monday following she
began her education at the school which
was in Riverboro Centre, about a mile distant.
Miss Sawyer borrowed a neighbor's horse and
wagon and drove her to the schoolhouse, interviewing
the teacher, Miss Dearborn, arranging for books,
and generally starting the child on the path that
was to lead to boundless knowledge. Miss Dearborn,
it may be said in passing, had had no special
preparation in the art of teaching. It came to her
naturally, so her family said, and perhaps for this
reason she, like Tom Tulliver's clergyman tutor,
"set about it with that uniformity of method and
independence of circumstances which distinguish the
actions of animals understood to be under the
immediate teaching of Nature." You remember the
beaver which a naturalist tells us "busied himself
as earnestly in constructing a dam in a room up
three pair of stairs in London as if he had been laying
his foundation in a lake in Upper Canada. It
was his function to build, the absence of water or of
possible progeny was an accident for which he was
not accountable." In the same manner did Miss
Dearborn lay what she fondly imagined to be
foundations in the infant mind.
Rebecca walked to school after the first morning.
She loved this part of the day's programme. When
the dew was not too heavy and the weather was fair
there was a short cut through the woods. She turned
off the main road, crept through uncle Josh Woodman's
bars, waved away Mrs. Carter's cows, trod the
short grass of the pasture, with its well-worn path
running through gardens of buttercups and whiteweed,
and groves of ivory leaves and sweet fern.
She descended a little hill, jumped from stone to
stone across a woodland brook, startling the drowsy
frogs, who were always winking and blinking in the
morning sun. Then came the "woodsy bit," with
her feet pressing the slippery carpet of brown pine
needles; the "woodsy bit" so full of dewy morning,
surprises,--fungous growths of brilliant orange and
crimson springing up around the stumps of dead
trees, beautiful things born in a single night; and
now and then the miracle of a little clump of waxen
Indian pipes, seen just quickly enough to be saved
from her careless tread. Then she climbed a stile,
went through a grassy meadow, slid under another
pair of bars, and came out into the road again. having
gained nearly half a mile.
How delicious it all was! Rebecca clasped her
Quackenbos's Grammar and Greenleaf's Arithmetic
with a joyful sense of knowing her lessons. Her
dinner pail swung from her right hand, and she
had a blissful consciousness of the two soda biscuits
spread with butter and syrup, the baked cup-custard,
the doughnut, and the square of hard gingerbread.
Sometimes she said whatever "piece" she was going
to speak on the next Friday afternoon.
"A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,
There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of
woman's tears."
How she loved the swing and the sentiment of it!
How her young voice quivered whenever she came to
the refrain:--
"But we'll meet no more at Bingen, dear Bingen on the Rhine."
It always sounded beautiful in her ears, as she
sent her tearful little treble into the clear morning
air. Another early favorite (for we must remember
that Rebecca's only knowledge of the great world
of poetry consisted of the selections in vogue in
school readers) was:--
"Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now."
When Emma Jane Perkins walked through the
"short cut" with her, the two children used to render
this with appropriate dramatic action. Emma
Jane always chose to be the woodman because she
had nothing to do but raise on high an imaginary
axe. On the one occasion when she essayed the
part of the tree's romantic protector, she represented
herself as feeling "so awful foolish" that she
refused to undertake it again, much to the secret
delight of Rebecca, who found the woodman's role
much too tame for her vaulting ambition. She
reveled in the impassioned appeal of the poet, and
implored the ruthless woodman to be as brutal as
possible with the axe, so that she might properly
put greater spirit into her lines. One morning, feeling
more frisky than usual, she fell upon her knees
and wept in the woodman's petticoat. Curiously
enough, her sense of proportion rejected this as
soon as it was done.
"That wasn't right, it was silly, Emma Jane; but
I'll tell you where it might come in--in Give me
Three Grains of Corn. You be the mother, and
I'll be the famishing Irish child. For pity's sake
put the axe down; you are not the woodman any
longer!"
"What'll I do with my hands, then?" asked
Emma Jane.
"Whatever you like," Rebecca answered wearily;
"you're just a mother--that's all. What does
YOUR mother do with her hands? Now here goes!
"`Give me three grains of corn, mother,
Only three grains of corn,
'T will keep the little life I have
Till the coming of the morn.'"
This sort of thing made Emma Jane nervous and
fidgety, but she was Rebecca's slave and hugged her
chains, no matter how uncomfortable they made her.
At the last pair of bars the two girls were
sometimes met by a detachment of the Simpson children,
who lived in a black house with a red door and
a red barn behind, on the Blueberry Plains road.
Rebecca felt an interest in the Simpsons from the
first, because there were so many of them and they
were so patched and darned, just like her own brood
at the home farm.
The little schoolhouse with its flagpole on top and
its two doors in front, one for boys and the other
for girls, stood on the crest of a hill, with rolling
fields and meadows on one side, a stretch of pine
woods on the other, and the river glinting and
sparkling in the distance. It boasted no attractions
within. All was as bare and ugly and uncomfortable
as it well could be, for the villages along the river
expended so much money in repairing and rebuilding
bridges that they were obliged to be very economical
in school privileges. The teacher's desk and chair
stood on a platform in one corner; there was an
uncouth stove, never blackened oftener than once
a year, a map of the United States, two blackboards,
a ten-quart tin pail of water and long-handled dipper
on a corner shelf, and wooden desks and benches
for the scholars, who only numbered twenty in
Rebecca's time. The seats were higher in the back of
the room, and the more advanced and longer-legged
pupils sat there, the position being greatly to be
envied, as they were at once nearer to the windows
and farther from the teacher.
There were classes of a sort, although nobody,
broadly speaking, studied the same book with anybody
else, or had arrived at the same degree of proficiency
in any one branch of learning. Rebecca in
particular was so difficult to classify that Miss Dearborn
at the end of a fortnight gave up the attempt
altogether. She read with Dick Carter and Living
Perkins, who were fitting for the academy; recited
arithmetic with lisping little Thuthan Thimpthon;
geography with Emma Jane Perkins, and grammar
after school hours to Miss Dearborn alone. Full to
the brim as she was of clever thoughts and quaint
fancies, she made at first but a poor hand at composition.
The labor of writing and spelling, with the
added difficulties of punctuation and capitals, interfered
sadly with the free expression of ideas. She
took history with Alice Robinson's class, which
was attacking the subject of the Revolution, while
Rebecca was bidden to begin with the discovery
of America. In a week she had mastered
the course of events up to the Revolution, and in
ten days had arrived at Yorktown, where the class
had apparently established summer quarters. Then
finding that extra effort would only result in her
reciting with the oldest Simpson boy, she deliberately
held herself back, for wisdom's ways were
not those of pleasantness nor her paths those of
peace if one were compelled to tread them in the
company of Seesaw Simpson. Samuel Simpson was
generally called Seesaw, because of his difficulty in
making up his mind. Whether it were a question
of fact, of spelling, or of date, of going swimming
or fishing, of choosing a book in the Sunday-school
library or a stick of candy at the village store, he
had no sooner determined on one plan of action
than his wish fondly reverted to the opposite one.
Seesaw was pale, flaxen haired, blue eyed, round
shouldered, and given to stammering when nervous.
Perhaps because of his very weakness Rebecca's
decision of character had a fascination for him, and
although she snubbed him to the verge of madness,
he could never keep his eyes away from her. The
force with which she tied her shoe when the lacing
came undone, the flirt over shoulder she gave her
black braid when she was excited or warm, her
manner of studying,--book on desk, arms folded,
eyes fixed on the opposite wall,--all had an abiding
charm for Seesaw Simpson. When, having obtained
permission, she walked to the water pail in the
corner and drank from the dipper, unseen forces
dragged Seesaw from his seat to go and drink after
her. It was not only that there was something akin
to association and intimacy in drinking next, but
there was the fearful joy of meeting her in transit
and receiving a cold and disdainful look from her
wonderful eyes.
On a certain warm day in summer Rebecca's
thirst exceeded the bounds of propriety. When she
asked a third time for permission to quench it at the
common fountain Miss Dearborn nodded "yes," but
lifted her eyebrows unpleasantly as Rebecca neared
the desk. As she replaced the dipper Seesaw
promptly raised his hand, and Miss Dearborn
indicated a weary affirmative.
"What is the matter with you, Rebecca?" she
asked.
"I had salt mackerel for breakfast," answered
Rebecca.
There seemed nothing humorous about this reply,
which was merely the statement of a fact, but an
irrepressible titter ran through the school. Miss
Dearborn did not enjoy jokes neither made nor
understood by herself, and her face flushed.
"I think you had better stand by the pail for five
minutes, Rebecca; it may help you to control your
thirst."
Rebecca's heart fluttered. She to stand in the
corner by the water pail and be stared at by all
the scholars! She unconsciously made a gesture
of angry dissent and moved a step nearer her seat,
but was arrested by Miss Dearborn's command in
a still firmer voice.
"Stand by the pail, Rebecca! Samuel, how many
times have you asked for water to-day?"
This is the f-f-fourth."
"Don't touch the dipper, please. The school has
done nothing but drink this afternoon; it has had
no time whatever to study. I suppose you had something
salt for breakfast, Samuel?" queried Miss
Dearborn with sarcasm.
"I had m-m-mackerel, j-just like Reb-b-becca."
(Irrepressible giggles by the school.)
"I judged so. Stand by the other side of the pail,
Samuel."
Rebecca's head was bowed with shame and wrath.
Life looked too black a thing to be endured. The
punishment was bad enough, but to be coupled in
correction with Seesaw Simpson was beyond human
endurance.
Singing was the last exercise in the afternoon,
and Minnie Smellie chose Shall we Gather at the
River? It was a baleful choice and seemed to hold
some secret and subtle association with the situation
and general progress of events; or at any rate there
was apparently some obscure reason for the energy
and vim with which the scholars shouted the choral
invitation again and again:--
"Shall we gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river?"
Miss Dearborn stole a look at Rebecca's bent head
and was frightened. The child's face was pale save
for two red spots glowing on her cheeks. Tears
hung on her lashes; her breath came and went
quickly, and the hand that held her pocket
handkerchief trembled like a leaf.
"You may go to your seat, Rebecca," said Miss
Dearborn at the end of the first song. "Samuel,
stay where you are till the close of school. And let
me tell you, scholars, that I asked Rebecca to stand
by the pail only to break up this habit of incessant
drinking, which is nothing but empty-mindedness
and desire to walk to and fro over the floor. Every
time Rebecca has asked for a drink to-day the whole
school has gone to the pail one after another. She
is really thirsty, and I dare say I ought to have
punished you for following her example, not her for
setting it. What shall we sing now, Alice?"
"The Old Oaken Bucket, please."
"Think of something dry, Alice, and change the
subject. Yes, The Star Spangled Banner if you
like, or anything else."
Rebecca sank into her seat and pulled the singing
book from her desk. Miss Dearborn's public explanation
had shifted some of the weight from her
heart, and she felt a trifle raised in her self-esteem.
Under cover of the general relaxation of singing,
votive offerings of respectful sympathy began to
make their appearance at her shrine. Living Perkins,
who could not sing, dropped a piece of maple
sugar in her lap as he passed her on his way to the
blackboard to draw the map of Maine. Alice Robinson
rolled a perfectly new slate pencil over the
floor with her foot until it reached Rebecca's place,
while her seat-mate, Emma Jane, had made up a
little mound of paper balls and labeled them
"Bullets for you know who."
Altogether existence grew brighter, and when
she was left alone with the teacher for her grammar
lesson she had nearly recovered her equanimity,
which was more than Miss Dearborn had. The last
clattering foot had echoed through the hall, Seesaw's
backward glance of penitence had been met
and answered defiantly by one of cold disdain.
"Rebecca, I am afraid I punished you more than I
meant," said Miss Dearborn, who was only eighteen
herself, and in her year of teaching country schools
had never encountered a child like Rebecca.
"I hadn't missed a question this whole day, nor
whispered either," quavered the culprit; "and I don't
think I ought to be shamed just for drinking."
"You started all the others, or it seemed as if
you did. Whatever you do they all do, whether you
laugh, or miss, or write notes, or ask to leave the
room, or drink; and it must be stopped."
"Sam Simpson is a copycoat!" stormed Rebecca
"I wouldn't have minded standing in the corner
alone--that is, not so very much; but I couldn't
bear standing with him."
"I saw that you couldn't, and that's the reason
I told you to take your seat, and left him in the
corner. Remember that you are a stranger in the
place, and they take more notice of what you do,
so you must be careful. Now let's have our
conjugations. Give me the verb `to be,' potential mood,
past perfect tense."
"I might have been "We might have been
Thou mightst have been You might have been
He might have been They might have been."
"Give me an example, please."
"I might have been glad
Thou mightst have been glad
He, she, or it might have been glad."
"`He' or `she' might have been glad because
they are masculine and feminine, but could `it'
have been glad?" asked Miss Dearborn, who was
very fond of splitting hairs.
"Why not?" asked Rebecca
"Because `it' is neuter gender."
"Couldn't we say, `The kitten might have
been glad if it had known it was not going to be
drowned'?"
"Ye--es," Miss Dearborn answered hesitatingly,
never very sure of herself under Rebecca's fire;
"but though we often speak of a baby, a chicken, or
a kitten as `it,' they are really masculine or feminine
gender, not neuter."
Rebecca reflected a long moment and then asked,
"Is a hollyhock neuter?"
"Oh yes, of course it is, Rebecca"
"Well, couldn't we say, `The hollyhock might
have been glad to see the rain, but there was a weak
little hollyhock bud growing out of its stalk and it
was afraid that that might be hurt by the storm;
so the big hollyhock was kind of afraid, instead of
being real glad'?"
Miss Dearborn looked puzzled as she answered,
"Of course, Rebecca, hollyhocks could not be
sorry, or glad, or afraid, really."
"We can't tell, I s'pose," replied the child; "but
_I_ think they are, anyway. Now what shall I say?"
"The subjunctive mood, past perfect tense of
the verb `to know.'"
"If I had known "If we had known
If thou hadst known If you had known
If he had known If they had known.
"Oh, it is the saddest tense," sighed Rebecca
with a little break in her voice; "nothing but IFS,
IFS, IFS! And it makes you feel that if they only
HAD known, things might have been better!"
Miss Dearborn had not thought of it before,
but on reflection she believed the subjunctive mood
was a "sad" one and "if" rather a sorry "part of
speech."
"Give me some more examples of the subjunctive,
Rebecca, and that will do for this afternoon," she
said.
"If I had not loved mackerel I should not have
been thirsty;" said Rebecca with an April smile,
as she closed her grammar. "If thou hadst loved
me truly thou wouldst not have stood me up in the
corner. If Samuel had not loved wickedness he
would not have followed me to the water pail."
"And if Rebecca had loved the rules of the
school she would have controlled her thirst," finished
Miss Dearborn with a kiss, and the two parted
friends.
VI
SUNSHINE IN A SHADY PLACE
The little schoolhouse on the hill had its
moments of triumph as well as its scenes
of tribulation, but it was fortunate that
Rebecca had her books and her new acquaintances
to keep her interested and occupied, or life would
have gone heavily with her that first summer in
Riverboro. She tried to like her aunt Miranda (the
idea of loving her had been given up at the moment
of meeting), but failed ignominiously in the attempt.
She was a very faulty and passionately human child,
with no aspirations towards being an angel of the
house, but she had a sense of duty and a desire to
be good,--respectably, decently good. Whenever
she fell below this self-imposed standard she was
miserable. She did not like to be under her aunt's
roof, eating bread, wearing clothes, and studying
books provided by her, and dislike her so heartily
all the time. She felt instinctively that this was
wrong and mean, and whenever the feeling of remorse
was strong within her she made a desperate
effort to please her grim and difficult relative. But
how could she succeed when she was never herself in
her aunt Miranda's presence? The searching look
of the eyes, the sharp voice, the hard knotty fingers,
the thin straight lips, the long silences, the "frontpiece"
that didn't match her hair, the very obvious
"parting" that seemed sewed in with linen thread on
black net,--there was not a single item that appealed
to Rebecca. There are certain narrow, unimaginative,
and autocratic old people who seem to call out
the most mischievous, and sometimes the worst
traits in children. Miss Miranda, had she lived in a
populous neighborhood, would have had her doorbell
pulled, her gate tied up, or "dirt traps" set in her
garden paths. The Simpson twins stood in such
awe of her that they could not be persuaded to come
to the side door even when Miss Jane held gingerbread
cookies in her outstretched hands.
It is needless to say that Rebecca irritated her
aunt with every breath she drew. She continually
forgot and started up the front stairs because it was
the shortest route to her bedroom; she left the
dipper on the kitchen shelf instead of hanging it up
over the pail; she sat in the chair the cat liked best;
she was willing to go on errands, but often forgot
what she was sent for; she left the screen doors
ajar, so that flies came in; her tongue was ever in
motion; she sang or whistled when she was picking
up chips; she was always messing with flowers,
putting them in vases, pinning them on her dress,
and sticking them in her hat; finally she was an
everlasting reminder of her foolish, worthless father,
whose handsome face and engaging manner had
so deceived Aurelia, and perhaps, if the facts were
known, others besides Aurelia. The Randalls were
aliens. They had not been born in Riverboro nor
even in York County. Miranda would have allowed,
on compulsion, that in the nature of things a large
number of persons must necessarily be born outside
this sacred precinct; but she had her opinion of
them, and it was not a flattering one. Now if Hannah
had come--Hannah took after the other side of the
house; she was "all Sawyer." (Poor Hannah! that
was true!) Hannah spoke only when spoken to,
instead of first, last, and all the time; Hannah at
fourteen was a member of the church; Hannah liked to
knit; Hannah was, probably, or would have been, a
pattern of all the smaller virtues; instead of which
here was this black-haired gypsy, with eyes as big
as cartwheels, installed as a member of the household.
What sunshine in a shady place was aunt Jane
to Rebecca! Aunt Jane with her quiet voice, her
understanding eyes, her ready excuses, in these first
difficult weeks, when the impulsive little stranger
was trying to settle down into the "brick house
ways." She did learn them, in part, and by degrees,
and the constant fitting of herself to these new and
difficult standards of conduct seemed to make her
older than ever for her years.
The child took her sewing and sat beside aunt
Jane in the kitchen while aunt Miranda had the post
of observation at the sitting-room window. Sometimes
they would work on the side porch where the
clematis and woodbine shaded them from the hot
sun. To Rebecca the lengths of brown gingham
were interminable. She made hard work of sewing,
broke the thread, dropped her thimble into the
syringa bushes, pricked her finger, wiped the
perspiration from her forehead, could not match the
checks, puckered the seams. She polished her needles
to nothing, pushing them in and out of the emery
strawberry, but they always squeaked. Still aunt
Jane's patience held good, and some small measure
of skill was creeping into Rebecca's fingers, fingers
that held pencil, paint brush, and pen so cleverly and
were so clumsy with the dainty little needle.
When the first brown gingham frock was
completed, the child seized what she thought an
opportune moment and asked her aunt Miranda if she
might have another color for the next one.
"I bought a whole piece of the brown," said
Miranda laconically. "That'll give you two more
dresses, with plenty for new sleeves, and to patch
and let down with, an' be more economical."
"I know. But Mr. Watson says he'll take back
part of it, and let us have pink and blue for the
same price."
"Did you ask him?"
"Yes'm."
"It was none o' your business."
"I was helping Emma Jane choose aprons, and
didn't think you'd mind which color I had. Pink
keeps clean just as nice as brown, and Mr. Watson
says it'll boil without fading."
"Mr. Watson 's a splendid judge of washing, I
guess. I don't approve of children being rigged
out in fancy colors, but I'll see what your aunt
Jane thinks."
"I think it would be all right to let Rebecca
have one pink and one blue gingham," said Jane.
"A child gets tired of sewing on one color. It's
only natural she should long for a change; besides
she'd look like a charity child always wearing the
same brown with a white apron. And it's dreadful
unbecoming to her!"
"`Handsome is as handsome does,' say I.
Rebecca never'll come to grief along of her beauty,
that's certain, and there's no use in humoring her
to think about her looks. I believe she's vain as a
peacock now, without anything to be vain of."
"She's young and attracted to bright things--
that's all. I remember well enough how I felt at her
age."
"You was considerable of a fool at her age,
Jane."
"Yes, I was, thank the Lord! I only wish I'd
known how to take a little of my foolishness along
with me, as some folks do, to brighten my declining
years."
There finally was a pink gingham, and when it was
nicely finished, aunt Jane gave Rebecca a delightful
surprise. She showed her how to make a pretty
trimming of narrow white linen tape, by folding it
in pointed shapes and sewing it down very flat with
neat little stitches.
"It'll be good fancy work for you, Rebecca; for
your aunt Miranda won't like to see you always
reading in the long winter evenings. Now if you
think you can baste two rows of white tape round
the bottom of your pink skirt and keep it straight
by the checks, I'll stitch them on for you and trim
the waist and sleeves with pointed tape-trimming,
so the dress'll be real pretty for second best."
Rebecca's joy knew no bounds. "I'll baste
like a house afire!" she exclaimed. "It's a thousand
yards round that skirt, as well I know, having
hemmed it; but I could sew pretty trimming on if
it was from here to Milltown. Oh! do you think
aunt Mirandy'll ever let me go to Milltown with
Mr. Cobb? He's asked me again, you know; but
one Saturday I had to pick strawberries, and another
it rained, and I don't think she really approves of
my going. It's TWENTY-NINE minutes past four, aunt
Jane, and Alice Robinson has been sitting under
the currant bushes for a long time waiting for me.
Can I go and play?"
"Yes, you may go, and you'd better run as far as
you can out behind the barn, so 't your noise won't
distract your aunt Mirandy. I see Susan Simpson
and the twins and Emma Jane Perkins hiding behind
the fence."
Rebecca leaped off the porch, snatched Alice
Robinson from under the currant bushes, and,
what was much more difficult, succeeded, by means
of a complicated system of signals, in getting Emma
Jane away from the Simpson party and giving them
the slip altogether. They were much too small for
certain pleasurable activities planned for that
afternoon; but they were not to be despised, for they
had the most fascinating dooryard in the village. In
it, in bewildering confusion, were old sleighs, pungs,
horse rakes, hogsheads, settees without backs, bedsteads
without heads, in all stages of disability, and
never the same on two consecutive days. Mrs.
Simpson was seldom at home, and even when she
was, had little concern as to what happened on the
premises. A favorite diversion was to make the
house into a fort, gallantly held by a handful of
American soldiers against a besieging force of the
British army. Great care was used in apportioning
the parts, for there was no disposition to let
anybody win but the Americans. Seesaw Simpson
was usually made commander-in-chief of the British
army, and a limp and uncertain one he was, capable,
with his contradictory orders and his fondness
for the extreme rear, of leading any regiment to
an inglorious death. Sometimes the long-suffering
house was a log hut, and the brave settlers defeated
a band of hostile Indians, or occasionally were
massacred by them; but in either case the Simpson
house looked, to quote a Riverboro expression, "as
if the devil had been having an auction in it."
Next to this uncommonly interesting playground,
as a field of action, came, in the children's opinion,
the "secret spot." There was a velvety stretch
of ground in the Sawyer pasture which was full of
fascinating hollows and hillocks, as well as verdant
levels, on which to build houses. A group of trees
concealed it somewhat from view and flung a grateful
shade over the dwellings erected there. It had
been hard though sweet labor to take armfuls of
"stickins" and "cutrounds" from the mill to this
secluded spot, and that it had been done mostly
after supper in the dusk of the evenings gave it
a still greater flavor. Here in soap boxes hidden
among the trees were stored all their treasures:
wee baskets and plates and cups made of burdock
balls, bits of broken china for parties, dolls, soon
to be outgrown, but serving well as characters in
all sorts of romances enacted there,--deaths,
funerals, weddings, christenings. A tall, square house
of stickins was to be built round Rebecca this
afternoon, and she was to be Charlotte Corday
leaning against the bars of her prison.
It was a wonderful experience standing inside the
building with Emma Jane's apron wound about her
hair; wonderful to feel that when she leaned her
head against the bars they seemed to turn to cold
iron; that her eyes were no longer Rebecca Randall's
but mirrored something of Charlotte Corday's
hapless woe.
"Ain't it lovely?" sighed the humble twain, who
had done most of the labor, but who generously
admired the result.
"I hate to have to take it down," said Alice,
"it's been such a sight of work."
"If you think you could move up some stones
and just take off the top rows, I could step out
over," suggested Charlotte Corday. "Then leave
the stones, and you two can step down into the
prison to-morrow and be the two little princes in
the Tower, and I can murder you."
"What princes? What tower?" asked Alice and
Emma Jane in one breath. "Tell us about them."
"Not now, it's my supper time." (Rebecca was
a somewhat firm disciplinarian.)
"It would be elergant being murdered by you,"
said Emma Jane loyally, "though you are awful
real when you murder; or we could have Elijah and
Elisha for the princes."
"They'd yell when they was murdered," objected
Alice; "you know how silly they are at plays, all
except Clara Belle. Besides if we once show them
this secret place, they'll play in it all the time, and
perhaps they'd steal things, like their father."
"They needn't steal just because their father
does," argued Rebecca; "and don't you ever talk
about it before them if you want to be my secret,
partic'lar friends. My mother tells me never to say
hard things about people's own folks to their face.
She says nobody can bear it, and it's wicked to shame
them for what isn't their fault. Remember Minnie
Smellie!"
Well, they had no difficulty in recalling that
dramatic episode, for it had occurred only a few days
before; and a version of it that would have melted
the stoniest heart had been presented to every girl
in the village by Minnie Smellie herself, who,
though it was Rebecca and not she who came off
victorious in the bloody battle of words, nursed her
resentment and intended to have revenge.
VII
RIVERBORO SECRETS
Mr. Simpson spent little time with his
family, owing to certain awkward methods
of horse-trading, or the "swapping"
of farm implements and vehicles of various kinds,--
operations in which his customers were never long
suited. After every successful trade he generally
passed a longer or shorter term in jail; for when a
poor man without goods or chattels has the inveterate
habit of swapping, it follows naturally that he
must have something to swap; and having nothing
of his own, it follows still more naturally that he
must swap something belonging to his neighbors.
Mr. Simpson was absent from the home circle
for the moment because he had exchanged the
Widow Rideout's sleigh for Joseph Goodwin's
plough. Goodwin had lately moved to North
Edgewood and had never before met the urbane
and persuasive Mr. Simpson. The Goodwin plough
Mr. Simpson speedily bartered with a man "over
Wareham way," and got in exchange for it an old
horse which his owner did not need, as he was
leaving town to visit his daughter for a year,
Simpson fattened the aged animal, keeping him for
several weeks (at early morning or after nightfall) in
one neighbor's pasture after another, and then
exchanged him with a Milltown man for a top buggy.
It was at this juncture that the Widow Rideout
missed her sleigh from the old carriage house.
She had not used it for fifteen years and might
not sit in it for another fifteen, but it was
property, and she did not intend to part with it
without a struggle. Such is the suspicious nature of
the village mind that the moment she discovered
her loss her thought at once reverted to Abner
Simpson. So complicated, however, was the nature
of this particular business transaction, and so
tortuous the paths of its progress (partly owing to the
complete disappearance of the owner of the horse,
who had gone to the West and left no address),
that it took the sheriff many weeks to prove Mr.
Simpson's guilt to the town's and to the Widow
Rideout's satisfaction. Abner himself avowed his
complete innocence, and told the neighbors how
a red-haired man with a hare lip and a pepper-andsalt
suit of clothes had called him up one morning
about daylight and offered to swap him a good
sleigh for an old cider press he had layin' out in
the dooryard. The bargain was struck, and he,
Abner, had paid the hare-lipped stranger four dollars
and seventy-five cents to boot; whereupon the
mysterious one set down the sleigh, took the press
on his cart, and vanished up the road, never to be
seen or heard from afterwards.
"If I could once ketch that consarned old thief,"
exclaimed Abner righteously, "I'd make him
dance,--workin' off a stolen sleigh on me an'
takin' away my good money an' cider press, to say
nothin' o' my character!"
"You'll never ketch him, Ab," responded the
sheriff. "He's cut off the same piece o' goods as
that there cider press and that there character and
that there four-seventy-five o' yourn; nobody ever
see any of 'em but you, and you'll never see 'em
again!"
Mrs. Simpson, who was decidedly Abner's better
half, took in washing and went out to do days'
cleaning, and the town helped in the feeding and
clothing of the children. George, a lanky boy of
fourteen, did chores on neighboring farms, and
the others, Samuel, Clara Belle, Susan, Elijah, and
Elisha, went to school, when sufficiently clothed
and not otherwise more pleasantly engaged.
There were no secrets in the villages that lay
along the banks of Pleasant River. There were
many hard-working people among the inhabitants,
but life wore away so quietly and slowly that there
was a good deal of spare time for conversation,--
under the trees at noon in the hayfield; hanging
over the bridge at nightfall; seated about the
stove in the village store of an evening. These
meeting-places furnished ample ground for the
discussion of current events as viewed by the masculine
eye, while choir rehearsals, sewing societies,
reading circles, church picnics, and the like, gave
opportunity for the expression of feminine opinion.
All this was taken very much for granted, as a
rule, but now and then some supersensitive person
made violent objections to it, as a theory of life.
Delia Weeks, for example, was a maiden lady
who did dressmaking in a small way; she fell ill,
and although attended by all the physicians in
the neighborhood, was sinking slowly into a
decline when her cousin Cyrus asked her to come and
keep house for him in Lewiston. She went, and in
a year grew into a robust, hearty, cheerful woman.
Returning to Riverboro on a brief visit, she was
asked if she meant to end her days away from
home.
"I do most certainly, if I can get any other
place to stay," she responded candidly. "I was
bein' worn to a shadder here, tryin' to keep my
little secrets to myself, an' never succeedin'. First
they had it I wanted to marry the minister, and
when he took a wife in Standish I was known to
be disappointed. Then for five or six years they
suspicioned I was tryin' for a place to teach school,
and when I gave up hope, an' took to dressmakin',
they pitied me and sympathized with me for that.
When father died I was bound I'd never let anybody
know how I was left, for that spites 'em
worse than anything else; but there's ways o'
findin' out, an' they found out, hard as I fought
'em! Then there was my brother James that went
to Arizona when he was sixteen. I gave good news
of him for thirty years runnin', but aunt Achsy
Tarbox had a ferretin' cousin that went out to
Tombstone for her health, and she wrote to a
postmaster, or to some kind of a town authority, and
found Jim and wrote back aunt Achsy all about
him and just how unfortunate he'd been. They
knew when I had my teeth out and a new set
made; they knew when I put on a false frontpiece;
they knew when the fruit peddler asked
me to be his third wife--I never told 'em, an' you
can be sure HE never did, but they don't NEED to be
told in this village; they have nothin' to do but
guess, an' they'll guess right every time. I was
all tuckered out tryin' to mislead 'em and deceive
'em and sidetrack 'em; but the minute I got where
I wa'n't put under a microscope by day an' a
telescope by night and had myself TO myself without
sayin' `By your leave,' I begun to pick up. Cousin
Cyrus is an old man an' consid'able trouble, but he
thinks my teeth are handsome an' says I've got
a splendid suit of hair. There ain't a person in
Lewiston that knows about the minister, or father's
will, or Jim's doin's, or the fruit peddler; an' if
they should find out, they wouldn't care, an' they
couldn't remember; for Lewiston 's a busy place,
thanks be!"
Miss Delia Weeks may have exaggerated matters
somewhat, but it is easy to imagine that Rebecca
as well as all the other Riverboro children
had heard the particulars of the Widow Rideout's
missing sleigh and Abner Simpson's supposed
connection with it.
There is not an excess of delicacy or chivalry in
the ordinary country school, and several choice
conundrums and bits of verse dealing with the Simpson
affair were bandied about among the scholars,
uttered always, be it said to their credit, in
undertones, and when the Simpson children were not in
the group.
Rebecca Randall was of precisely the same stock,
and had had much the same associations as her
schoolmates, so one can hardly say why she so hated
mean gossip and so instinctively held herself aloof
from it.
Among the Riverboro girls of her own age was a
certain excellently named Minnie Smellie, who was
anything but a general favorite. She was a ferreteyed,
blond-haired, spindle-legged little creature
whose mind was a cross between that of a parrot
and a sheep. She was suspected of copying answers
from other girls' slates, although she had
never been caught in the act. Rebecca and Emma
Jane always knew when she had brought a tart or
a triangle of layer cake with her school luncheon,
because on those days she forsook the cheerful
society of her mates and sought a safe solitude in
the woods, returning after a time with a jocund
smile on her smug face.
After one of these private luncheons Rebecca
had been tempted beyond her strength, and when
Minnie took her seat among them asked, "Is your
headache better, Minnie? Let me wipe off that
strawberry jam over your mouth."
There was no jam there as a matter of fact,
but the guilty Minnie's handkerchief went to her
crimson face in a flash.
Rebecca confessed to Emma Jane that same
afternoon that she felt ashamed of her prank. "I
do hate her ways," she exclaimed, "but I'm sorry
I let her know we 'spected her; and so to make
up, I gave her that little piece of broken coral I
keep in my bead purse; you know the one?"
"It don't hardly seem as if she deserved that,
and her so greedy," remarked Emma Jane.
"I know it, but it makes me feel better," said
Rebecca largely; "and then I've had it two years,
and it's broken so it wouldn't ever be any real
good, beautiful as it is to look at."
The coral had partly served its purpose as a
reconciling bond, when one afternoon Rebecca,
who had stayed after school for her grammar lesson
as usual, was returning home by way of the
short cut. Far ahead, beyond the bars, she espied
the Simpson children just entering the woodsy
bit. Seesaw was not with them, so she hastened
her steps in order to secure company on her homeward
walk. They were speedily lost to view, but
when she had almost overtaken them she heard,
in the trees beyond, Minnie Smellie's voice lifted
high in song, and the sound of a child's sobbing.
Clara Belle, Susan, and the twins were running
along the path, and Minnie was dancing up and
down, shrieking:--
"`What made the sleigh love Simpson so?'
The eager children cried;
`Why Simpson loved the sleigh, you know,'
The teacher quick replied."
The last glimpse of the routed Simpson tribe,
and the last Rutter of their tattered garments,
disappeared in the dim distance. The fall of one small
stone cast by the valiant Elijah, known as "the fighting
twin," did break the stillness of the woods for
a moment, but it did not come within a hundred
yards of Minnie, who shouted "Jail Birds" at the
top of her lungs and then turned, with an agreeable
feeling of excitement, to meet Rebecca, standing
perfectly still in the path, with a day of reckoning
plainly set forth in her blazing eyes.
Minnie's face was not pleasant to see, for a coward
detected at the moment of wrongdoing is not
an object of delight.
"Minnie Smellie, if ever--I--catch--you--
singing--that--to the Simpsons again--do you
know what I'll do?" asked Rebecca in a tone of
concentrated rage.
"I don't know and I don't care," said Minnie
jauntily, though her looks belied her.
"I'll take that piece of coral away from you, and
I THINK I shall slap you besides!"
"You wouldn't darst," retorted Minnie. "If
you do, I'll tell my mother and the teacher, so
there!"
"I don't care if you tell your mother, my mother,
and all your relations, and the president," said
Rebecca, gaining courage as the noble words fell from
her lips. "I don't care if you tell the town, the
whole of York county, the state of Maine and--
and the nation!" she finished grandiloquently.
"Now you run home and remember what I say.
If you do it again, and especially if you say `Jail
Birds,' if I think it's right and my duty, I shall
punish you somehow."
The next morning at recess Rebecca observed
Minnie telling the tale with variations to Huldah
Meserve. "She THREATENED me," whispered Minnie,
"but I never believe a word she says."
The latter remark was spoken with the direct
intention of being overheard, for Minnie had spasms
of bravery, when well surrounded by the machinery
of law and order.
As Rebecca went back to her seat she asked
Miss Dearborn if she might pass a note to Minnie
Smellie and received permission. This was the note:--
Of all the girls that are so mean
There's none like Minnie Smellie.
I'll take away the gift I gave
And pound her into jelly.
_P. S. Now do you believe me?_
R. Randall.
The effect of this piece of doggerel was entirely
convincing, and for days afterwards whenever Minnie
met the Simpsons even a mile from the brick
house she shuddered and held her peace.
VIII
COLOR OF ROSE
On the very next Friday after this
"dreadfullest fight that ever was seen," as
Bunyan says in Pilgrim's Progress, there were
great doings in the little schoolhouse on the hill.
Friday afternoon was always the time chosen for
dialogues, songs, and recitations, but it cannot be
stated that it was a gala day in any true sense of
the word. Most of the children hated "speaking
pieces;" hated the burden of learning them,
dreaded the danger of breaking down in them.
Miss Dearborn commonly went home with a headache,
and never left her bed during the rest of the
afternoon or evening; and the casual female parent
who attended the exercises sat on a front bench
with beads of cold sweat on her forehead, listening
to the all-too-familiar halts and stammers. Sometimes
a bellowing infant who had clean forgotten his
verse would cast himself bodily on the maternal
bosom and be borne out into the open air, where he
was sometimes kissed and occasionally spanked;
but in any case the failure added an extra dash
of gloom and dread to the occasion. The advent
of Rebecca had somehow infused a new spirit
into these hitherto terrible afternoons. She had
taught Elijah and Elisha Simpson so that they
recited three verses of something with such comical
effect that they delighted themselves, the teacher,
and the school; while Susan, who lisped, had been
provided with a humorous poem in which she
impersonated a lisping child. Emma Jane and
Rebecca had a dialogue, and the sense of companionship
buoyed up Emma Jane and gave her selfreliance.
In fact, Miss Dearborn announced on
this particular Friday morning that the exercises
promised to be so interesting that she had invited
the doctor's wife, the minister's wife, two members
of the school committee, and a few mothers. Living
Perkins was asked to decorate one of the blackboards
and Rebecca the other. Living, who was
the star artist of the school, chose the map of North
America. Rebecca liked better to draw things
less realistic, and speedily, before the eyes of the
enchanted multitude, there grew under her skillful
fingers an American flag done in red, white,
and blue chalk, every star in its right place, every
stripe fluttering in the breeze. Beside this
appeared a figure of Columbia, copied from the top
of the cigar box that held the crayons.
Miss Dearborn was delighted. "I propose we
give Rebecca a good hand-clapping for such a
beautiful picture--one that the whole school may
well be proud of!"
The scholars clapped heartily, and Dick Carter,
waving his hand, gave a rousing cheer.
Rebecca's heart leaped for joy, and to her
confusion she felt the tears rising in her eyes. She
could hardly see the way back to her seat, for in
her ignorant lonely little life she had never been
singled out for applause, never lauded, nor crowned,
as in this wonderful, dazzling moment. If "nobleness
enkindleth nobleness," so does enthusiasm
beget enthusiasm, and so do wit and talent enkindle
wit and talent. Alice Robinson proposed that
the school should sing Three Cheers for the Red,
White, and Blue! and when they came to the
chorus, all point to Rebecca's flag. Dick Carter
suggested that Living Perkins and Rebecca Randall
should sign their names to their pictures, so
that the visitors would know who drew them. Huldah
Meserve asked permission to cover the largest
holes in the plastered walls with boughs and fill the
water pail with wild flowers. Rebecca's mood was
above and beyond all practical details. She sat
silent, her heart so full of grateful joy that she
could hardly remember the words of her dialogue.
At recess she bore herself modestly, notwithstanding
her great triumph, while in the general atmosphere
of good will the Smellie-Randall hatchet was
buried and Minnie gathered maple boughs and covered
the ugly stove with them, under Rebecca's
direction.
Miss Dearborn dismissed the morning session
at quarter to twelve, so that those who lived near
enough could go home for a change of dress.
Emma Jane and Rebecca ran nearly every step of
the way, from sheer excitement, only stopping to
breathe at the stiles.
"Will your aunt Mirandy let you wear your best,
or only your buff calico?" asked Emma Jane.
"I think I'll ask aunt Jane," Rebecca replied.
"Oh! if my pink was only finished! I left aunt
Jane making the buttonholes!"
"I'm going to ask my mother to let me wear
her garnet ring," said Emma Jane. "It would look
perfectly elergant flashing in the sun when I point
to the flag. Good-by; don't wait for me going
back; I may get a ride."
Rebecca found the side door locked, but she
knew that the key was under the step, and so of
course did everybody else in Riverboro, for they
all did about the same thing with it. She unlocked
the door and went into the dining-room to find her
lunch laid on the table and a note from aunt Jane
saying that they had gone to Moderation with Mrs.
Robinson in her carryall. Rebecca swallowed a
piece of bread and butter, and flew up the front
stairs to her bedroom. On the bed lay the pink
gingham dress finished by aunt Jane's kind hands.
Could she, dare she, wear it without asking? Did
the occasion justify a new costume, or would her
aunts think she ought to keep it for the concert?
"I'll wear it," thought Rebecca. "They're not
here to ask, and maybe they wouldn't mind a bit;
it's only gingham after all, and wouldn't be so
grand if it wasn't new, and hadn't tape trimming
on it, and wasn't pink."
She unbraided her two pigtails, combed out the
waves of her hair and tied them back with a ribbon,
changed her shoes, and then slipped on the
pretty frock, managing to fasten all but the three
middle buttons, which she reserved for Emma Jane.
Then her eye fell on her cherished pink sunshade,
the exact match, and the girls had never seen it.
It wasn't quite appropriate for school, but she
needn't take it into the room; she would wrap it
in a piece of paper, just show it, and carry it coming
home. She glanced in the parlor looking-glass
downstairs and was electrified at the vision. It
seemed almost as if beauty of apparel could go no
further than that heavenly pink gingham dress!
The sparkle of her eyes, glow of her cheeks, sheen
of her falling hair, passed unnoticed in the allconquering
charm of the rose-colored garment. Goodness!
it was twenty minutes to one and she would
be late. She danced out the side door, pulled a pink
rose from a bush at the gate, and covered the mile
between the brick house and the seat of learning
in an incredibly short time, meeting Emma Jane,
also breathless and resplendent, at the entrance.
"Rebecca Randall!" exclaimed Emma Jane,
"you're handsome as a picture!"
"I?" laughed Rebecca "Nonsense! it's only
the pink gingham."
"You're not good looking every day," insisted
Emma Jane; "but you're different somehow. See
my garnet ring; mother scrubbed it in soap and
water. How on earth did your aunt Mirandy let
you put on your bran' new dress?"
"They were both away and I didn't ask,"
Rebecca responded anxiously. "Why? Do you think
they'd have said no?"
"Miss Mirandy always says no, doesn't she?"
asked Emma Jane.
"Ye--es; but this afternoon is very special--
almost like a Sunday-school concert."
"Yes," assented Emma Jane, "it is, of course;
with your name on the board, and our pointing to
your flag, and our elergant dialogue, and all that."
The afternoon was one succession of solid
triumphs for everybody concerned. There were no
real failures at all, no tears, no parents ashamed
of their offspring. Miss Dearborn heard many
admiring remarks passed upon her ability, and
wondered whether they belonged to her or partly,
at least, to Rebecca. The child had no more to
do than several others, but she was somehow in
the foreground. It transpired afterwards at various
village entertainments that Rebecca couldn't
be kept in the background; it positively refused
to hold her. Her worst enemy could not have
called her pushing. She was ready and willing
and never shy; but she sought for no chances
of display and was, indeed, remarkably lacking in
self-consciousness, as well as eager to bring others
into whatever fun or entertainment there was.
If wherever the MacGregor sat was the head of
the table, so in the same way wherever Rebecca
stood was the centre of the stage. Her clear high
treble soared above all the rest in the choruses,
and somehow everybody watched her, took note
of her gestures, her whole-souled singing, her
irrepressible enthusiasm.
Finally it was all over, and it seemed to Rebecca
as if she should never be cool and calm again, as
she loitered on the homeward path. There would
be no lessons to learn to-night, and the vision of
helping with the preserves on the morrow had no
terrors for her--fears could not draw breath in
the radiance that flooded her soul. There were
thick gathering clouds in the sky, but she took no
note of them save to be glad that she could raise
her sunshade. She did not tread the solid ground
at all, or have any sense of belonging to the common
human family, until she entered the side yard
of the brick house and saw her aunt Miranda
standing in the open doorway. Then with a rush
she came back to earth.
IX
ASHES OF ROSES
There she is, over an hour late; a little
more an' she'd 'a' been caught in a thunder
shower, but she'd never look ahead,"
said Miranda to Jane; "and added to all her other
iniquities, if she ain't rigged out in that new dress,
steppin' along with her father's dancin'-school steps,
and swingin' her parasol for all the world as if she
was play-actin'. Now I'm the oldest, Jane, an' I
intend to have my say out; if you don't like it you
can go into the kitchen till it's over. Step right
in here, Rebecca; I want to talk to you. What did
you put on that good new dress for, on a school
day, without permission?"
"I had intended to ask you at noontime, but you
weren't at home, so I couldn't," began Rebecca.
"You did no such a thing; you put it on because
you was left alone, though you knew well enough
I wouldn't have let you."
"If I'd been CERTAIN you wouldn't have let me
I'd never have done it," said Rebecca, trying to
be truthful; "but I wasn't CERTAIN, and it was worth
risking. I thought perhaps you might, if you knew
it was almost a real exhibition at school."
"Exhibition!" exclaimed Miranda scornfully;
"you are exhibition enough by yourself, I should
say. Was you exhibitin' your parasol?"
"The parasol WAS silly," confessed Rebecca,
hanging her head; "but it's the only time in my
whole life when I had anything to match it, and
it looked so beautiful with the pink dress! Emma
Jane and I spoke a dialogue about a city girl and
a country girl, and it came to me just the minute
before I started how nice it would come in for the
city girl; and it did. I haven't hurt my dress a
mite, aunt Mirandy."
"It's the craftiness and underhandedness of
your actions that's the worst," said Miranda
coldly. "And look at the other things you've
done! It seems as if Satan possessed you! You
went up the front stairs to your room, but you
didn't hide your tracks, for you dropped your
handkerchief on the way up. You left the screen
out of your bedroom window for the flies to come
in all over the house. You never cleared away
your lunch nor set away a dish, AND YOU LEFT THE
SIDE DOOR UNLOCKED from half past twelve to three
o'clock, so 't anybody could 'a' come in and stolen
what they liked!"
Rebecca sat down heavily in her chair as she
heard the list of her transgressions. How could
she have been so careless? The tears began to
flow now as she attempted to explain sins that
never could be explained or justified.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she faltered. "I was trimming
the schoolroom, and got belated, and ran all
the way home. It was hard getting into my dress
alone, and I hadn't time to eat but a mouthful,
and just at the last minute, when I honestly--HONESTLY
--would have thought about clearing away
and locking up, I looked at the clock and knew I
could hardly get back to school in time to form in
the line; and I thought how dreadful it would be
to go in late and get my first black mark on a Friday
afternoon, with the minister's wife and the
doctor's wife and the school committee all there!"
"Don't wail and carry on now; it's no good
cryin' over spilt milk," answered Miranda. "An
ounce of good behavior is worth a pound of repentance.
Instead of tryin' to see how little trouble
you can make in a house that ain't your own home,
it seems as if you tried to see how much you could
put us out. Take that rose out o' your dress and
let me see the spot it's made on your yoke, an' the
rusty holes where the wet pin went in. No, it ain't;
but it's more by luck than forethought. I ain't got
any patience with your flowers and frizzled-out hair
and furbelows an' airs an' graces, for all the world
like your Miss-Nancy father."
Rebecca lifted her head in a flash. "Look here,
aunt Mirandy, I'll be as good as I know how to be.
I'll mind quick when I'm spoken to and never
leave the door unlocked again, but I won't have
my father called names. He was a p-perfectly
l-lovely father, that's what he was, and it's MEAN
to call him Miss Nancy!"
"Don't you dare answer me back that imperdent
way, Rebecca, tellin' me I'm mean; your father
was a vain, foolish, shiftless man, an' you might as
well hear it from me as anybody else; he spent
your mother's money and left her with seven children
to provide for."
"It's s-something to leave s-seven nice
children," sobbed Rebecca.
"Not when other folks have to help feed, clothe,
and educate 'em," responded Miranda. "Now you
step upstairs, put on your nightgown, go to bed,
and stay there till to-morrow mornin'. You'll find
a bowl o' crackers an' milk on your bureau, an' I
don't want to hear a sound from you till breakfast
time. Jane, run an' take the dish towels off the
line and shut the shed doors; we're goin' to have
a turrible shower."
"We've had it, I should think," said Jane
quietly, as she went to do her sister's bidding.
"I don't often speak my mind, Mirandy; but you
ought not to have said what you did about Lorenzo.
He was what he was, and can't be made
any different; but he was Rebecca's father, and
Aurelia always says he was a good husband."
Miranda had never heard the proverbial phrase
about the only "good Indian," but her mind worked
in the conventional manner when she said grimly,
"Yes, I've noticed that dead husbands are usually
good ones; but the truth needs an airin' now and
then, and that child will never amount to a hill o'
beans till she gets some of her father trounced out
of her. I'm glad I said just what I did."
"I daresay you are," remarked Jane, with what
might be described as one of her annual bursts of
courage; "but all the same, Mirandy, it wasn't
good manners, and it wasn't good religion!"
The clap of thunder that shook the house just at
that moment made no such peal in Miranda Sawyer's
ears as Jane's remark made when it fell with
a deafening roar on her conscience.
Perhaps after all it is just as well to speak only
once a year and then speak to the purpose.
Rebecca mounted the back stairs wearily, closed
the door of her bedroom, and took off the beloved
pink gingham with trembling fingers. Her cotton
handkerchief was rolled into a hard ball, and in the
intervals of reaching the more difficult buttons that
lay between her shoulder blades and her belt, she
dabbed her wet eyes carefully, so that they should
not rain salt water on the finery that had been
worn at such a price. She smoothed it out carefully,
pinched up the white ruffle at the neck, and
laid it away in a drawer with an extra little sob at
the roughness of life. The withered pink rose fell
on the floor. Rebecca looked at it and thought to
herself, "Just like my happy day!" Nothing could
show more clearly the kind of child she was than
the fact that she instantly perceived the symbolism
of the rose, and laid it in the drawer with the dress
as if she were burying the whole episode with all
its sad memories. It was a child's poetic instinct
with a dawning hint of woman's sentiment in it.
She braided her hair in the two accustomed pigtails,
took off her best shoes (which had happily
escaped notice), with all the while a fixed resolve
growing in her mind, that of leaving the brick
house and going back to the farm. She would not
be received there with open arms,--there was no
hope of that,--but she would help her mother
about the house and send Hannah to Riverboro in
her place. "I hope she'll like it!" she thought in
a momentary burst of vindictiveness. She sat by
the window trying to make some sort of plan,
watching the lightning play over the hilltop and
the streams of rain chasing each other down the
lightning rod. And this was the day that had
dawned so joyfully! It had been a red sunrise,
and she had leaned on the window sill studying
her lesson and thinking what a lovely world it
was. And what a golden morning! The changing
of the bare, ugly little schoolroom into a bower of
beauty; Miss Dearborn's pleasure at her success
with the Simpson twins' recitation; the privilege
of decorating the blackboard; the happy thought
of drawing Columbia from the cigar box; the
intoxicating moment when the school clapped her!
And what an afternoon! How it went on from
glory to glory, beginning with Emma Jane's telling
her, Rebecca Randall, that she was as "handsome
as a picture."
She lived through the exercises again in
memory, especially her dialogue with Emma Jane and
her inspiration of using the bough-covered stove
as a mossy bank where the country girl could sit
and watch her flocks. This gave Emma Jane a feeling
of such ease that she never recited better;
and how generous it was of her to lend the garnet
ring to the city girl, fancying truly how it would
flash as she furled her parasol and approached the
awe-stricken shepherdess! She had thought aunt
Miranda might be pleased that the niece invited
down from the farm had succeeded so well at
school; but no, there was no hope of pleasing her
in that or in any other way. She would go to
Maplewood on the stage next day with Mr. Cobb
and get home somehow from cousin Ann's. On
second thoughts her aunts might not allow it.
Very well, she would slip away now and see if she
could stay all night with the Cobbs and be off next
morning before breakfast.
Rebecca never stopped long to think, more 's the
pity, so she put on her oldest dress and hat and
jacket, then wrapped her nightdress, comb, and
toothbrush in a bundle and dropped it softly out
of the window. Her room was in the L and her
window at no very dangerous distance from the
ground, though had it been, nothing could have
stopped her at that moment. Somebody who had
gone on the roof to clean out the gutters had left
a cleat nailed to the side of the house about halfway
between the window and the top of the back
porch. Rebecca heard the sound of the sewing
machine in the dining-room and the chopping of
meat in the kitchen; so knowing the whereabouts
of both her aunts, she scrambled out of the window,
caught hold of the lightning rod, slid down to the
helpful cleat, jumped to the porch, used the woodbine
trellis for a ladder, and was flying up the road
in the storm before she had time to arrange any
details of her future movements.
Jeremiah Cobb sat at his lonely supper at the
table by the kitchen window. "Mother," as he
with his old-fashioned habits was in the habit of
calling his wife, was nursing a sick neighbor. Mrs.
Cobb was mother only to a little headstone in the
churchyard, where reposed "Sarah Ann, beloved
daughter of Jeremiah and Sarah Cobb, aged seventeen
months;" but the name of mother was better
than nothing, and served at any rate as a reminder
of her woman's crown of blessedness.
The rain still fell, and the heavens were dark,
though it was scarcely five o'clock. Looking up
from his "dish of tea," the old man saw at the
open door a very figure of woe. Rebecca's face
was so swollen with tears and so sharp with misery
that for a moment he scarcely recognized her.
Then when he heard her voice asking, "Please
may I come in, Mr. Cobb?" he cried, "Well I
vow! It's my little lady passenger! Come to call
on old uncle Jerry and pass the time o' day, hev
ye? Why, you're wet as sops. Draw up to the
stove. I made a fire, hot as it was, thinkin' I
wanted somethin' warm for my supper, bein' kind
o' lonesome without mother. She's settin' up with
Seth Strout to-night. There, we'll hang your
soppy hat on the nail, put your jacket over the
chair rail, an' then you turn your back to the stove
an' dry yourself good."
Uncle Jerry had never before said so many
words at a time, but he had caught sight of the
child's red eyes and tear-stained cheeks, and his
big heart went out to her in her trouble, quite
regardless of any circumstances that might have
caused it.
Rebecca stood still for a moment until uncle
Jerry took his seat again at the table, and then,
unable to contain herself longer, cried, "Oh, Mr.
Cobb, I've run away from the brick house, and I
want to go back to the farm. Will you keep me
to-night and take me up to Maplewood in the
stage? I haven't got any money for my fare, but
I'll earn it somehow afterwards."
"Well, I guess we won't quarrel 'bout money, you
and me," said the old man; "and we've never had
our ride together, anyway, though we allers meant
to go down river, not up."
"I shall never see Milltown now!" sobbed Rebecca.
"Come over here side o' me an' tell me all about
it," coaxed uncle Jerry. "Jest set down on that
there wooden cricket an' out with the whole story."
Rebecca leaned her aching head against Mr.
Cobb's homespun knee and recounted the history
of her trouble. Tragic as that history seemed to
her passionate and undisciplined mind, she told it
truthfully and without exaggeration.
X
RAINBOW BRIDGES
Uncle Jerry coughed and stirred in his
chair a good deal during Rebecca's recital,
but he carefully concealed any undue
feeling of sympathy, just muttering, "Poor little soul!
We'll see what we can do for her!"
"You will take me to Maplewood, won't you, Mr.
Cobb?" begged Rebecca piteously.
"Don't you fret a mite," he answered, with a
crafty little notion at the back of his mind; "I'll
see the lady passenger through somehow. Now
take a bite o' somethin' to eat, child. Spread some
o' that tomato preserve on your bread; draw up to
the table. How'd you like to set in mother's place
an' pour me out another cup o' hot tea?"
Mr. Jeremiah Cobb's mental machinery was
simple, and did not move very smoothly save when
propelled by his affection or sympathy. In the
present case these were both employed to his
advantage, and mourning his stupidity and praying
for some flash of inspiration to light his path, he
blundered along, trusting to Providence.
Rebecca, comforted by the old man's tone, and
timidly enjoying the dignity of sitting in Mrs. Cobb's
seat and lifting the blue china teapot, smiled faintly,
smoothed her hair, and dried her eyes.
"I suppose your mother'll be turrible glad to
see you back again?" queried Mr. Cobb.
A tiny fear--just a baby thing--in the bottom
of Rebecca's heart stirred and grew larger the moment
it was touched with a question.
"She won't like it that I ran away, I s'pose, and
she'll be sorry that I couldn't please aunt Mirandy;
but I'll make her understand, just as I did you."
"I s'pose she was thinkin' o' your schoolin',
lettin' you come down here; but land! you can go to
school in Temperance, I s'pose?"
"There's only two months' school now in
Temperance, and the farm 's too far from all the other
schools."
"Oh well! there's other things in the world
beside edjercation," responded uncle Jerry, attacking
a piece of apple pie.
"Ye--es; though mother thought that was going
to be the making of me," returned Rebecca sadly,
giving a dry little sob as she tried to drink her tea.
"It'll be nice for you to be all together again
at the farm--such a house full o' children!"
remarked the dear old deceiver, who longed for
nothing so much as to cuddle and comfort the poor
little creature.
"It's too full--that's the trouble. But I'll
make Hannah come to Riverboro in my place."
"S'pose Mirandy 'n' Jane'll have her? I should
be 'most afraid they wouldn't. They'll be kind o'
mad at your goin' home, you know, and you can't
hardly blame 'em."
This was quite a new thought,--that the brick
house might be closed to Hannah, since she, Rebecca,
had turned her back upon its cold hospitality.
"How is this school down here in Riverboro
--pretty good?" inquired uncle Jerry, whose brain
was working with an altogether unaccustomed
rapidity,--so much so that it almost terrified him.
"Oh, it's a splendid school! And Miss
Dearborn is a splendid teacher!"
"You like her, do you? Well, you'd better believe
she returns the compliment. Mother was down to
the store this afternoon buyin' liniment for Seth
Strout, an' she met Miss Dearborn on the bridge.
They got to talkin' 'bout school, for mother has
summer-boarded a lot o' the schoolmarms, an' likes
'em. `How does the little Temperance girl git
along?' asks mother. `Oh, she's the best scholar
I have!' says Miss Dearborn. `I could teach school
from sun-up to sun-down if scholars was all like
Rebecca Randall,' says she."
"Oh, Mr. Cobb, DID she say that?" glowed
Rebecca, her face sparkling and dimpling in an instant.
"I've tried hard all the time, but I'll study the
covers right off of the books now."
"You mean you would if you'd ben goin' to
stay here," interposed uncle Jerry. "Now ain't it
too bad you've jest got to give it all up on account
o' your aunt Mirandy? Well, I can't hardly blame
ye. She's cranky an' she's sour; I should think
she'd ben nussed on bonny-clabber an' green
apples. She needs bearin' with; an' I guess you
ain't much on patience, be ye?"
"Not very much," replied Rebecca dolefully.
"If I'd had this talk with ye yesterday," pursued
Mr. Cobb, "I believe I'd have advised ye different.
It's too late now, an' I don't feel to say you've
ben all in the wrong; but if 't was to do over again,
I'd say, well, your aunt Mirandy gives you clothes
and board and schoolin' and is goin' to send you
to Wareham at a big expense. She's turrible hard
to get along with, an' kind o' heaves benefits at
your head, same 's she would bricks; but they're
benefits jest the same, an' mebbe it's your job to
kind o' pay for 'em in good behavior. Jane's a
leetle bit more easy goin' than Mirandy, ain't she,
or is she jest as hard to please?"
"Oh, aunt Jane and I get along splendidly,"
exclaimed Rebecca; "she's just as good and kind
as she can be, and I like her better all the time.
I think she kind of likes me, too; she smoothed
my hair once. I'd let her scold me all day long,
for she understands; but she can't stand up for me
against aunt Mirandy; she's about as afraid of
her as I am."
"Jane'll be real sorry to-morrow to find you've
gone away, I guess; but never mind, it can't be
helped. If she has a kind of a dull time with Mirandy,
on account o' her bein' so sharp, why of course
she'd set great store by your comp'ny. Mother was
talkin' with her after prayer meetin' the other night.
`You wouldn't know the brick house, Sarah,' says
Jane. `I'm keepin' a sewin' school, an' my scholar
has made three dresses. What do you think o'
that,' says she, `for an old maid's child? I've
taken a class in Sunday-school,' says Jane, `an'
think o' renewin' my youth an' goin' to the picnic
with Rebecca,' says she; an' mother declares she
never see her look so young 'n' happy."
There was a silence that could be felt in the little
kitchen; a silence only broken by the ticking of
the tall clock and the beating of Rebecca's heart,
which, it seemed to her, almost drowned the voice
of the clock. The rain ceased, a sudden rosy light
filled the room, and through the window a rainbow
arch could be seen spanning the heavens like
a radiant bridge. Bridges took one across difficult
places, thought Rebecca, and uncle Jerry seemed
to have built one over her troubles and given her
strength to walk.
"The shower 's over," said the old man, filling
his pipe; "it's cleared the air, washed the face o'
the airth nice an' clean, an' everything to-morrer
will shine like a new pin--when you an' I are
drivin' up river."
Rebecca pushed her cup away, rose from the
table, and put on her hat and jacket quietly. "I'm
not going to drive up river, Mr. Cobb," she said.
"I'm going to stay here and--catch bricks; catch
'em without throwing 'em back, too. I don't know
as aunt Mirandy will take me in after I've run
away, but I'm going back now while I have the
courage. You wouldn't be so good as to go with
me, would you, Mr. Cobb?"
"You'd better b'lieve your uncle Jerry don't
propose to leave till he gits this thing fixed up,"
cried the old man delightedly. "Now you've had
all you can stan' to-night, poor little soul, without
gettin' a fit o' sickness; an' Mirandy'll be sore
an' cross an' in no condition for argyment; so my
plan is jest this: to drive you over to the brick
house in my top buggy; to have you set back in
the corner, an' I git out an' go to the side door;
an' when I git your aunt Mirandy 'n' aunt Jane
out int' the shed to plan for a load o' wood I'm
goin' to have hauled there this week, you'll slip
out o' the buggy and go upstairs to bed. The front
door won't be locked, will it?"
"Not this time of night," Rebecca answered;
"not till aunt Mirandy goes to bed; but oh! what
if it should be?"
"Well, it won't; an' if 't is, why we'll have to
face it out; though in my opinion there's things
that won't bear facin' out an' had better be settled
comfortable an' quiet. You see you ain't run away
yet; you've only come over here to consult me
'bout runnin' away, an' we've concluded it ain't
wuth the trouble. The only real sin you've
committed, as I figger it out, was in comin' here by the
winder when you'd ben sent to bed. That ain't so
very black, an' you can tell your aunt Jane 'bout
it come Sunday, when she's chock full o' religion,
an' she can advise you when you'd better tell your
aunt Mirandy. I don't believe in deceivin' folks,
but if you've hed hard thoughts you ain't obleeged
to own 'em up; take 'em to the Lord in prayer, as
the hymn says, and then don't go on hevin' 'em.
Now come on; I'm all hitched up to go over to
the post-office; don't forget your bundle; `it's
always a journey, mother, when you carry a nightgown;'
them 's the first words your uncle Jerry
ever heard you say! He didn't think you'd be
bringin' your nightgown over to his house. Step
in an' curl up in the corner; we ain't goin' to let
folks see little runaway gals, 'cause they're goin'
back to begin all over ag'in!"
When Rebecca crept upstairs, and undressing in
the dark finally found herself in her bed that night,
though she was aching and throbbing in every
nerve, she felt a kind of peace stealing over her.
She had been saved from foolishness and error;
kept from troubling her poor mother; prevented
from angering and mortifying her aunts.
Her heart was melted now, and she determined
to win aunt Miranda's approval by some desperate
means, and to try and forget the one thing that
rankled worst, the scornful mention of her father,
of whom she thought with the greatest admiration,
and whom she had not yet heard criticised; for
such sorrows and disappointments as Aurelia Randall
had suffered had never been communicated to
her children.
It would have been some comfort to the bruised,
unhappy little spirit to know that Miranda Sawyer
was passing an uncomfortable night, and that
she tacitly regretted her harshness, partly because
Jane had taken such a lofty and virtuous position
in the matter. She could not endure Jane's disapproval,
although she would never have confessed to
such a weakness.
As uncle Jerry drove homeward under the stars,
well content with his attempts at keeping the peace,
he thought wistfully of the touch of Rebecca's head
on his knee, and the rain of her tears on his hand;
of the sweet reasonableness of her mind when she
had the matter put rightly before her; of her quick
decision when she had once seen the path of duty;
of the touching hunger for love and understanding
that were so characteristic in her. "Lord
A'mighty!" he ejaculated under his breath, "Lord
A'mighty! to hector and abuse a child like that
one! 'T ain't ABUSE exactly, I know, or 't wouldn't
be to some o' your elephant-hided young ones; but
to that little tender will-o'-the-wisp a hard word 's
like a lash. Mirandy Sawyer would be a heap better
woman if she had a little gravestun to remember,
same's mother 'n' I have."
"I never see a child improve in her work as
Rebecca has to-day," remarked Miranda Sawyer to
Jane on Saturday evening. "That settin' down I
gave her was probably just what she needed, and
I daresay it'll last for a month."
"I'm glad you're pleased," returned Jane. "A
cringing worm is what you want, not a bright, smiling
child. Rebecca looks to me as if she'd been
through the Seven Years' War. When she came
downstairs this morning it seemed to me she'd
grown old in the night. If you follow my advice,
which you seldom do, you'll let me take her and
Emma Jane down beside the river to-morrow afternoon
and bring Emma Jane home to a good Sunday
supper. Then if you'll let her go to Milltown with
the Cobbs on Wednesday, that'll hearten her up
a little and coax back her appetite. Wednesday 's a
holiday on account of Miss Dearborn's going home
to her sister's wedding, and the Cobbs and Perkinses
want to go down to the Agricultural Fair."
XI
"THE STIRRING OF THE POWERS"
Rebecca's visit to Milltown was all that her
glowing fancy had painted it, except that
recent readings about Rome and Venice
disposed her to believe that those cities might
have an advantage over Milltown in the matter
of mere pictorial beauty. So soon does the soul
outgrow its mansions that after once seeing
Milltown her fancy ran out to the future sight of
Portland; for that, having islands and a harbor
and two public monuments, must be far more
beautiful than Milltown, which would, she felt, take
its proud place among the cities of the earth, by
reason of its tremendous business activity rather
than by any irresistible appeal to the imagination.
It would be impossible for two children to see
more, do more, walk more, talk more, eat more, or
ask more questions than Rebecca and Emma Jane
did on that eventful Wednesday.
"She's the best company I ever see in all my
life," said Mrs. Cobb to her husband that evening.
"We ain't had a dull minute this day. She's wellmannered,
too; she didn't ask for anything, and
was thankful for whatever she got. Did you watch
her face when we went into that tent where they
was actin' out Uncle Tom's Cabin? And did you
take notice of the way she told us about the book
when we sat down to have our ice cream? I tell you
Harriet Beecher Stowe herself couldn't 'a' done
it better justice."
"I took it all in," responded Mr. Cobb, who was
pleased that "mother" agreed with him about
Rebecca. "I ain't sure but she's goin' to turn out
somethin' remarkable,--a singer, or a writer, or a
lady doctor like that Miss Parks up to Cornish."
"Lady doctors are always home'paths, ain't
they?" asked Mrs. Cobb, who, it is needless to say,
was distinctly of the old school in medicine.
"Land, no, mother; there ain't no home'path
'bout Miss Parks--she drives all over the country."
"I can't see Rebecca as a lady doctor, somehow,"
mused Mrs. Cobb. "Her gift o' gab is what's
goin' to be the makin' of her; mebbe she'll lecture,
or recite pieces, like that Portland elocutionist that
come out here to the harvest supper."
"I guess she'll be able to write down her own
pieces," said Mr. Cobb confidently; "she could
make 'em up faster 'n she could read 'em out of a
book."
"It's a pity she's so plain looking," remarked
Mrs. Cobb, blowing out the candle.
"PLAIN LOOKING, mother?" exclaimed her husband
in astonishment. "Look at the eyes of her;
look at the hair of her, an' the smile, an' that
there dimple! Look at Alice Robinson, that's
called the prettiest child on the river, an' see how
Rebecca shines her ri' down out o' sight! I hope
Mirandy'll favor her comin' over to see us real
often, for she'll let off some of her steam here, an'
the brick house'll be consid'able safer for everybody
concerned. We've known what it was to hev
children, even if 't was more 'n thirty years ago,
an' we can make allowances."
Notwithstanding the encomiums of Mr. and Mrs.
Cobb, Rebecca made a poor hand at composition
writing at this time. Miss Dearborn gave her
every sort of subject that she had ever been given
herself: Cloud Pictures; Abraham Lincoln; Nature;
Philanthropy; Slavery; Intemperance; Joy
and Duty; Solitude; but with none of them did
Rebecca seem to grapple satisfactorily.
"Write as you talk, Rebecca," insisted poor Miss
Dearborn, who secretly knew that she could never
manage a good composition herself.
"But gracious me, Miss Dearborn! I don't talk
about nature and slavery. I can't write unless I
have something to say, can I?"
"That is what compositions are for," returned
Miss Dearborn doubtfully; "to make you have
things to say. Now in your last one, on solitude, you
haven't said anything very interesting, and you've
made it too common and every-day to sound well.
There are too many `yous' and `yours' in it; you
ought to say `one' now and then, to make it seem
more like good writing. `One opens a favorite
book;' `One's thoughts are a great comfort in
solitude,' and so on."
"I don't know any more about solitude this week
than I did about joy and duty last week," grumbled
Rebecca.
"You tried to be funny about joy and duty,"
said Miss Dearborn reprovingly; "so of course you
didn't succeed."
"I didn't know you were going to make us read
the things out loud," said Rebecca with an embarrassed
smile of recollection.
"Joy and Duty" had been the inspiring subject
given to the older children for a theme to be written
in five minutes.
Rebecca had wrestled, struggled, perspired in
vain. When her turn came to read she was obliged
to confess she had written nothing.
"You have at least two lines, Rebecca," insisted
the teacher, "for I see them on your slate."
"I'd rather not read them, please; they are not
good," pleaded Rebecca.
"Read what you have, good or bad, little or
much; I am excusing nobody."
Rebecca rose, overcome with secret laughter
dread, and mortification; then in a low voice she
read the couplet:--
When Joy and Duty clash
Let Duty go to smash.
Dick Carter's head disappeared under the desk,
while Living Perkins choked with laughter.
Miss Dearborn laughed too; she was little more
than a girl, and the training of the young idea seldom
appealed to the sense of humor.
"You must stay after school and try again,
Rebecca," she said, but she said it smilingly. "Your
poetry hasn't a very nice idea in it for a good little
girl who ought to love duty."
"It wasn't MY idea," said Rebecca apologetically.
"I had only made the first line when I saw you were
going to ring the bell and say the time was up. I
had `clash' written, and I couldn't think of anything
then but `hash' or `rash' or `smash.' I'll
change it to this:--
When Joy and Duty clash,
'T is Joy must go to smash."
"That is better," Miss Dearborn answered,
"though I cannot think `going to smash' is a pretty
expression for poetry."
Having been instructed in the use of the indefinite
pronoun "one" as giving a refined and elegant touch
to literary efforts, Rebecca painstakingly rewrote
her composition on solitude, giving it all the benefit
of Miss Dearborn's suggestion. It then appeared in
the following form, which hardly satisfied either
teacher or pupil:--
SOLITUDE
It would be false to say that one could ever be
alone when one has one's lovely thoughts to comfort
one. One sits by one's self, it is true, but one thinks;
one opens one's favorite book and reads one's favorite
story; one speaks to one's aunt or one's brother,
fondles one's cat, or looks at one's photograph album.
There is one's work also: what a joy it is to one, if
one happens to like work. All one's little household
tasks keep one from being lonely. Does one ever
feel bereft when one picks up one's chips to light
one's fire for one's evening meal? Or when one
washes one's milk pail before milking one's cow?
One would fancy not.
R. R. R.
"It is perfectly dreadful," sighed Rebecca when
she read it aloud after school. "Putting in `one' all
the time doesn't make it sound any more like a
book, and it looks silly besides."
"You say such queer things," objected Miss
Dearborn. "I don't see what makes you do it.
Why did you put in anything so common as picking
up chips?"
"Because I was talking about `household tasks'
in the sentence before, and it IS one of my household
tasks. Don't you think calling supper `one's evening meal'
is pretty? and isn't `bereft' a nice word?"
"Yes, that part of it does very well. It is the cat,
the chips, and the milk pail that I don't like."
"All right!" sighed Rebecca. "Out they go;
Does the cow go too?"
"Yes, I don't like a cow in a composition," said
the difficult Miss Dearborn.
The Milltown trip had not been without its tragic
consequences of a small sort; for the next week
Minnie Smellie's mother told Miranda Sawyer that
she'd better look after Rebecca, for she was given
to "swearing and profane language;" that she had
been heard saying something dreadful that very
afternoon, saying it before Emma Jane and Living
Perkins, who only laughed and got down on all
fours and chased her.
Rebecca, on being confronted and charged with
the crime, denied it indignantly, and aunt Jane
believed her.
"Search your memory, Rebecca, and try to think
what Minnie overheard you say," she pleaded.
"Don't be ugly and obstinate, but think real hard.
When did they chase you up the road, and what
were you doing?"
A sudden light broke upon Rebecca's darkness.
"Oh! I see it now," she exclaimed. "It had
rained hard all the morning, you know, and the
road was full of puddles. Emma Jane, Living, and
I were walking along, and I was ahead. I saw the
water streaming over the road towards the ditch, and
it reminded me of Uncle Tom's Cabin at Milltown,
when Eliza took her baby and ran across the Mississippi
on the ice blocks, pursued by the bloodhounds.
We couldn't keep from laughing after we came out
of the tent because they were acting on such a small
platform that Eliza had to run round and round, and
part of the time the one dog they had pursued her,
and part of the time she had to pursue the dog. I
knew Living would remember, too, so I took off my
waterproof and wrapped it round my books for a
baby; then I shouted, `MY GOD! THE RIVER!' just
like that--the same as Eliza did in the play; then
I leaped from puddle to puddle, and Living and
Emma Jane pursued me like the bloodhounds. It's
just like that stupid Minnie Smellie who doesn't
know a game when she sees one. And Eliza wasn't
swearing when she said `My God! the river!' It
was more like praying."
"Well, you've got no call to be prayin', any more
than swearin', in the middle of the road," said
Miranda; "but I'm thankful it's no worse. You're
born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, an' I'm
afraid you allers will be till you learn to bridle your
unruly tongue."
"I wish sometimes that I could bridle Minnie's,"
murmured Rebecca, as she went to set the table for
supper.
"I declare she IS the beatin'est child!" said
Miranda, taking off her spectacles and laying down
her mending. "You don't think she's a leetle mite
crazy, do you, Jane?"
"I don't think she's like the rest of us,"
responded Jane thoughtfully and with some anxiety
in her pleasant face; "but whether it's for the
better or the worse I can't hardly tell till she grows
up. She's got the making of 'most anything in her,
Rebecca has; but I feel sometimes as if we were
not fitted to cope with her."
"Stuff an' nonsense!" said Miranda "Speak
for yourself. I feel fitted to cope with any child
that ever was born int' the world!"
"I know you do, Mirandy; but that don't MAKE
you so," returned Jane with a smile.
The habit of speaking her mind freely was
certainly growing on Jane to an altogether terrifying
extent.
XII
"SEE THE PALE MARTYR"
It was about this time that Rebecca, who had been
reading about the Spartan boy, conceived the
idea of some mild form of self-punishment to
be applied on occasions when she was fully convinced
in her own mind that it would be salutary.
The immediate cause of the decision was a somewhat
sadder accident than was common, even in a
career prolific in such things.
Clad in her best, Rebecca had gone to take tea
with the Cobbs; but while crossing the bridge she
was suddenly overcome by the beauty of the river
and leaned over the newly painted rail to feast her
eyes on the dashing torrent of the fall. Resting her
elbows on the topmost board, and inclining her little
figure forward in delicious ease, she stood there
dreaming.
The river above the dam was a glassy lake with
all the loveliness of blue heaven and green shore
reflected in its surface; the fall was a swirling wonder
of water, ever pouring itself over and over inexhaustibly
in luminous golden gushes that lost themselves
in snowy depths of foam. Sparkling in the sunshine,
gleaming under the summer moon, cold and gray
beneath a November sky, trickling over the dam
in some burning July drought, swollen with turbulent
power in some April freshet, how many young
eyes gazed into the mystery and majesty of the
falls along that river, and how many young hearts
dreamed out their futures leaning over the bridge
rail, seeing "the vision splendid" reflected there and
often, too, watching it fade into "the light of
common day."
Rebecca never went across the bridge without
bending over the rail to wonder and to ponder, and
at this special moment she was putting the finishing
touches on a poem.
Two maidens by a river strayed
Down in the state of Maine.
The one was called Rebecca,
The other Emma Jane.
"I would my life were like the stream,"
Said her named Emma Jane,
"So quiet and so very smooth,
So free from every pain."
"I'd rather be a little drop
In the great rushing fall!
I would not choose the glassy lake,
'T would not suit me at all!"
(It was the darker maiden spoke
The words I just have stated,
The maidens twain were simply friends
And not at all related.)
But O! alas I we may not have
The things we hope to gain;
The quiet life may come to me,
The rush to Emma Jane!
"I don't like `the rush to Emma Jane,' and I
can't think of anything else. Oh! what a smell of
paint! Oh! it is ON me! Oh! it's all over my best
dress! Oh I what WILL aunt Miranda say!"
With tears of self-reproach streaming from her
eyes, Rebecca flew up the hill, sure of sympathy,
and hoping against hope for help of some sort.
Mrs. Cobb took in the situation at a glance, and
professed herself able to remove almost any stain
from almost any fabric; and in this she was
corroborated by uncle Jerry, who vowed that mother
could git anything out. Sometimes she took the
cloth right along with the spot, but she had a sure
hand, mother had!
The damaged garment was removed and partially
immersed in turpentine, while Rebecca graced the
festal board clad in a blue calico wrapper of Mrs.
Cobb's.
"Don't let it take your appetite away," crooned
Mrs. Cobb. "I've got cream biscuit and honey for
you. If the turpentine don't work, I'll try French
chalk, magneshy, and warm suds. If they fail, father
shall run over to Strout's and borry some of the
stuff Marthy got in Milltown to take the currant pie
out of her weddin' dress."
"I ain't got to understandin' this paintin' accident
yet," said uncle Jerry jocosely, as he handed
Rebecca the honey. "Bein' as how there's `Fresh
Paint' signs hung all over the breedge, so 't a blind
asylum couldn't miss 'em, I can't hardly account
for your gettin' int' the pesky stuff."
"I didn't notice the signs," Rebecca said
dolefully. "I suppose I was looking at the falls."
"The falls has been there sence the beginnin'
o' time, an' I cal'late they'll be there till the end
on 't; so you needn't 'a' been in sech a brash to git
a sight of 'em. Children comes turrible high, mother,
but I s'pose we must have 'em!" he said, winking
at Mrs. Cobb.
When supper was cleared away Rebecca insisted
on washing and wiping the dishes, while Mrs. Cobb
worked on the dress with an energy that plainly
showed the gravity of the task. Rebecca kept leaving
her post at the sink to bend anxiously over
the basin and watch her progress, while uncle Jerry
offered advice from time to time.
"You must 'a' laid all over the breedge, deary,"
said Mrs. Cobb; "for the paint 's not only on your
elbows and yoke and waist, but it about covers
your front breadth."
As the garment began to look a little better
Rebecca's spirits took an upward turn, and at length
she left it to dry in the fresh air, and went into the
sitting-room.
"Have you a piece of paper, please?" asked
Rebecca. "I'll copy out the poetry I was making
while I was lying in the paint."
Mrs. Cobb sat by her mending basket, and uncle
Jerry took down a gingham bag of strings and occupied
himself in taking the snarls out of them,--a
favorite evening amusement with him.
Rebecca soon had the lines copied in her round
schoolgirl hand, making such improvements as
occurred to her on sober second thought.
THE TWO WISHES
BY
REBECCA RANDALL
Two maidens by a river strayed,
'T was in the state of Maine.
Rebecca was the darker one,
The fairer, Emma Jane.
The fairer maiden said, "I would
My life were as the stream;
So peaceful, and so smooth and still,
So pleasant and serene."
"I'd rather be a little drop
In the great rushing fall;
I'd never choose the quiet lake;
'T would not please me at all."
(It was the darker maiden spoke
The words we just have stated;
The maidens twain were simply friends,
Not sisters, or related.)
But O! alas! we may not have
The things we hope to gain.
The quiet life may come to me,
The rush to Emma Jane!
She read it aloud, and the Cobbs thought it not only
surpassingly beautiful, but a marvelous production
"I guess if that writer that lived on Congress
Street in Portland could 'a' heard your poetry he'd
'a' been astonished," said Mrs. Cobb. "If you ask
me, I say this piece is as good as that one o' his,
`Tell me not in mournful numbers;' and consid'able
clearer."
"I never could fairly make out what `mournful
numbers' was," remarked Mr. Cobb critically.
"Then I guess you never studied fractions!"
flashed Rebecca. "See here, uncle Jerry and aunt
Sarah, would you write another verse, especially for
a last one, as they usually do--one with `thoughts'
in it--to make a better ending?"
"If you can grind 'em out jest by turnin' the
crank, why I should say the more the merrier; but
I don't hardly see how you could have a better
endin'," observed Mr. Cobb.
"It is horrid!" grumbled Rebecca. "I ought not
to have put that `me' in. I'm writing the poetry.
Nobody ought to know it IS me standing by the
river; it ought to be `Rebecca,' or `the darker
maiden;' and `the rush to Emma Jane' is simply
dreadful. Sometimes I think I never will try poetry,
it's so hard to make it come right; and other times
it just says itself. I wonder if this would be better?
But O! alas! we may not gain
The good for which we pray
The quiet life may come to one
Who likes it rather gay,
I don't know whether that is worse or not. Now for
a new last verse!"
In a few minutes the poetess looked up, flushed
and triumphant. "It was as easy as nothing. Just
hear!" And she read slowly, with her pretty,
pathetic voice:--
Then if our lot be bright or sad,
Be full of smiles, or tears,
The thought that God has planned it so
Should help us bear the years.
Mr. and Mrs. Cobb exchanged dumb glances of
admiration; indeed uncle Jerry was obliged to turn
his face to the window and wipe his eyes furtively
with the string-bag.
"How in the world did you do it?" Mrs. Cobb
exclaimed.
"Oh, it's easy," answered Rebecca; "the hymns
at meeting are all like that. You see there's a
school newspaper printed at Wareham Academy
once a month. Dick Carter says the editor is always
a boy, of course; but he allows girls to try and write
for it, and then chooses the best. Dick thinks I can
be in it."
"IN it!" exclaimed uncle Jerry. "I shouldn't
be a bit surprised if you had to write the whole
paper; an' as for any boy editor, you could lick
him writin', I bate ye, with one hand tied behind ye."
"Can we have a copy of the poetry to keep in
the family Bible?" inquired Mrs. Cobb respectfully.
"Oh! would you like it?" asked Rebecca. "Yes
indeed! I'll do a clean, nice one with violet ink
and a fine pen. But I must go and look at my poor
dress."
The old couple followed Rebecca into the kitchen.
The frock was quite dry, and in truth it had been
helped a little by aunt Sarah's ministrations; but
the colors had run in the rubbing, the pattern was
blurred, and there were muddy streaks here and
there. As a last resort, it was carefully smoothed
with a warm iron, and Rebecca was urged to attire
herself, that they might see if the spots showed as
much when it was on.
They did, most uncompromisingly, and to the
dullest eye. Rebecca gave one searching look, and
then said, as she took her hat from a nail in the
entry, "I think I'll be going. Good-night! If I've
got to have a scolding, I want it quick, and get it
over."
"Poor little onlucky misfortunate thing!" sighed
uncle Jerry, as his eyes followed her down the hill.
"I wish she could pay some attention to the ground
under her feet; but I vow, if she was ourn I'd let
her slop paint all over the house before I could
scold her. Here's her poetry she's left behind.
Read it out ag'in, mother. Land!" he continued,
chuckling, as he lighted his cob pipe; "I can just
see the last flap o' that boy-editor's shirt tail as he
legs it for the woods, while Rebecky settles down in
his revolvin' cheer! I'm puzzled as to what kind of
a job editin' is, exactly; but she'll find out, Rebecky
will. An' she'll just edit for all she's worth!
"`The thought that God has planned it so
Should help us bear the years.'
Land, mother! that takes right holt, kind o' like
the gospel. How do you suppose she thought that out?"
"She couldn't have thought it out at her age,"
said Mrs. Cobb; "she must have just guessed it
was that way. We know some things without bein'
told, Jeremiah."
Rebecca took her scolding (which she richly
deserved) like a soldier. There was considerable of it,
and Miss Miranda remarked, among other things,
that so absent-minded a child was sure to grow up
into a driveling idiot. She was bidden to stay away
from Alice Robinson's birthday party, and doomed to
wear her dress, stained and streaked as it was, until
it was worn out. Aunt Jane six months later mitigated
this martyrdom by making her a ruffled dimity
pinafore, artfully shaped to conceal all the spots.
She was blessedly ready with these mediations
between the poor little sinner and the full consequences
of her sin.
When Rebecca had heard her sentence and gone
to the north chamber she began to think. If there
was anything she did not wish to grow into, it was
an idiot of any sort, particularly a driveling one;
and she resolved to punish herself every time she
incurred what she considered to be the righteous
displeasure of her virtuous relative. She didn't
mind staying away from Alice Robinson's. She
had told Emma Jane it would be like a picnic in
a graveyard, the Robinson house being as near an
approach to a tomb as a house can manage to be.
Children were commonly brought in at the back
door, and requested to stand on newspapers while
making their call, so that Alice was begged by her
friends to "receive" in the shed or barn whenever
possible. Mrs. Robinson was not only "turrible
neat," but "turrible close," so that the refreshments
were likely to be peppermint lozenges and glasses
of well water.
After considering the relative values, as penances,
of a piece of haircloth worn next the skin, and a
pebble in the shoe, she dismissed them both. The
haircloth could not be found, and the pebble would
attract the notice of the Argus-eyed aunt, besides
being a foolish bar to the activity of a person who
had to do housework and walk a mile and a half to
school.
Her first experimental attempt at martyrdom had
not been a distinguished success. She had stayed
at home from the Sunday-school concert, a function
of which, in ignorance of more alluring ones,
she was extremely fond. As a result of her desertion,
two infants who relied upon her to prompt
them (she knew the verses of all the children better
than they did themselves) broke down ignominiously.
The class to which she belonged had to read
a difficult chapter of Scripture in rotation, and the
various members spent an arduous Sabbath afternoon
counting out verses according to their seats
in the pew, and practicing the ones that would
inevitably fall to them. They were too ignorant to
realize, when they were called upon, that Rebecca's
absence would make everything come wrong, and
the blow descended with crushing force when the
Jebusites and Amorites, the Girgashites, Hivites,
and Perizzites had to be pronounced by the persons
of all others least capable of grappling with them.
Self-punishment, then, to be adequate and proper,
must begin, like charity, at home, and unlike charity
should end there too. Rebecca looked about the
room vaguely as she sat by the window. She must
give up something, and truth to tell she possessed
little to give, hardly anything but--yes, that would
do, the beloved pink parasol. She could not hide it
in the attic, for in some moment of weakness she
would be sure to take it out again. She feared she
had not the moral energy to break it into bits. Her
eyes moved from the parasol to the apple-trees in
the side yard, and then fell to the well curb. That
would do; she would fling her dearest possession into
the depths of the water. Action followed quickly
upon decision, as usual. She slipped down in the
darkness, stole out the front door, approached the
place of sacrifice, lifted the cover of the well, gave one
unresigned shudder, and flung the parasol downward
with all her force. At the crucial instant of
renunciation she was greatly helped by the reflection that
she closely resembled the heathen mothers who cast
their babes to the crocodiles in the Ganges.
She slept well and arose refreshed, as a
consecrated spirit always should and sometimes does.
But there was great difficulty in drawing water after
breakfast. Rebecca, chastened and uplifted, had
gone to school. Abijah Flagg was summoned, lifted
the well cover, explored, found the inciting cause of
trouble, and with the help of Yankee wit succeeded
in removing it. The fact was that the ivory hook of
the parasol had caught in the chain gear, and when
the first attempt at drawing water was made, the
little offering of a contrite heart was jerked up, bent,
its strong ribs jammed into the well side, and
entangled with a twig root. It is needless to say that
no sleight-of-hand performer, however expert, unless
aided by the powers of darkness, could have accomplished
this feat; but a luckless child in the pursuit
of virtue had done it with a turn of the wrist.
We will draw a veil over the scene that occurred
after Rebecca's return from school. You who read
may be well advanced in years, you may be gifted in
rhetoric, ingenious in argument; but even you might
quail at the thought of explaining the tortuous mental
processes that led you into throwing your beloved
pink parasol into Miranda Sawyer's well. Perhaps
you feel equal to discussing the efficacy of spiritual
self-chastisement with a person who closes her lips
into a thin line and looks at you out of blank,
uncomprehending eyes! Common sense, right, and logic
were all arrayed on Miranda's side. When poor Rebecca,
driven to the wall, had to avow the reasons
lying behind the sacrifice of the sunshade, her aunt
said, "Now see here, Rebecca, you're too big to be
whipped, and I shall never whip you; but when you
think you ain't punished enough, just tell me, and
I'll make out to invent a little something more. I
ain't so smart as some folks, but I can do that much;
and whatever it is, it'll be something that won't
punish the whole family, and make 'em drink ivory
dust, wood chips, and pink silk rags with their
water."
XIII
SNOW-WHITE; ROSE-RED
Just before Thanksgiving the affairs of the
Simpsons reached what might have been called
a crisis, even in their family, which had been
born and reared in a state of adventurous poverty and
perilous uncertainty.
Riverboro was doing its best to return the entire
tribe of Simpsons to the land of its fathers, so to
speak, thinking rightly that the town which had
given them birth, rather than the town of their
adoption, should feed them and keep a roof over their
heads until the children were of an age for selfsupport.
There was little to eat in the household and
less to wear, though Mrs. Simpson did, as always,
her poor best. The children managed to satisfy their
appetites by sitting modestly outside their neighbors'
kitchen doors when meals were about to be
served. They were not exactly popular favorites, but
they did receive certain undesirable morsels from the
more charitable housewives.
Life was rather dull and dreary, however, and in
the chill and gloom of November weather, with the
vision of other people's turkeys bursting with fat,
and other people's golden pumpkins and squashes
and corn being garnered into barns, the young
Simpsons groped about for some inexpensive form
of excitement, and settled upon the selling of soap
for a premium. They had sold enough to their
immediate neighbors during the earlier autumn to
secure a child's handcart, which, though very weak
on its pins, could be trundled over the country roads.
With large business sagacity and an executive capacity
which must have been inherited from their father,
they now proposed to extend their operations
to a larger area and distribute soap to contiguous
villages, if these villages could be induced to buy. The
Excelsior Soap Company paid a very small return of
any kind to its infantile agents, who were scattered
through the state, but it inflamed their imaginations
by the issue of circulars with highly colored pictures
of the premiums to be awarded for the sale of a certain
number of cakes. It was at this juncture that
Clara Belle and Susan Simpson consulted Rebecca,
who threw herself solidly and wholeheartedly into the
enterprise, promising her help and that of Emma
Jane Perkins. The premiums within their possible
grasp were three: a bookcase, a plush reclining chair,
and a banquet lamp. Of course the Simpsons had
no books, and casting aside, without thought or pang,
the plush chair, which might have been of some
use in a family of seven persons (not counting Mr.
Simpson, who ordinarily sat elsewhere at the town's
expense), they warmed themselves rapturously in
the vision of the banquet lamp, which speedily became
to them more desirable than food, drink, or
clothing. Neither Emma Jane nor Rebecca perceived
anything incongruous in the idea of the
Simpsons striving for a banquet lamp. They looked
at the picture daily and knew that if they themselves
were free agents they would toil, suffer, ay sweat,
for the happy privilege of occupying the same room
with that lamp through the coming winter evenings.
It looked to be about eight feet tall in the catalogue,
and Emma Jane advised Clara Belle to measure the
height of the Simpson ceilings; but a note in the
margin of the circular informed them that it stood
two and a half feet high when set up in all its dignity
and splendor on a proper table, three dollars extra.
It was only of polished brass, continued the circular,
though it was invariably mistaken for solid gold, and
the shade that accompanied it (at least it accompanied
it if the agent sold a hundred extra cakes)
was of crinkled crepe paper printed in a dozen
delicious hues, from which the joy-dazzled agent might
take his choice.
Seesaw Simpson was not in the syndicate. Clara
Belle was rather a successful agent, but Susan, who
could only say "thoap," never made large returns,
and the twins, who were somewhat young to be thoroughly
trustworthy, could be given only a half dozen
cakes at a time, and were obliged to carry with them
on their business trips a brief document stating the
price per cake, dozen, and box. Rebecca and Emma
Jane offered to go two or three miles in some one
direction and see what they could do in the way of
stirring up a popular demand for the Snow-White and
Rose-Red brands, the former being devoted to laundry
purposes and the latter being intended for the toilet.
There was a great amount of hilarity in the
preparation for this event, and a long council in Emma
Jane's attic. They had the soap company's circular
from which to arrange a proper speech, and they
had, what was still better, the remembrance of a
certain patent-medicine vender's discourse at the
Milltown Fair. His method, when once observed,
could never be forgotten; nor his manner, nor his
vocabulary. Emma Jane practiced it on Rebecca,
and Rebecca on Emma Jane.
"Can I sell you a little soap this afternoon? It
is called the Snow-White and Rose-Red Soap, six
cakes in an ornamental box, only twenty cents for
the white, twenty-five cents for the red. It is made
from the purest ingredients, and if desired could be
eaten by an invalid with relish and profit."
"Oh, Rebecca, don't let's say that!" interposed
Emma Jane hysterically. "It makes me feel like a
fool."
"It takes so little to make you feel like a fool,
Emma Jane," rebuked Rebecca, "that sometimes I
think that you must BE one I don't get to feeling
like a fool so awfully easy; now leave out that eating
part if you don't like it, and go on."
"The Snow-White is probably the most remarkable
laundry soap ever manufactured. Immerse the
garments in a tub, lightly rubbing the more soiled
portions with the soap; leave them submerged in
water from sunset to sunrise, and then the youngest
baby can wash them without the slightest effort."
"BABE, not baby," corrected Rebecca from the circular.
"It's just the same thing," argued Emma Jane.
"Of course it's just the same THING; but a baby
has got to be called babe or infant in a circular,
the same as it is in poetry! Would you rather say infant?"
"No," grumbled Emma Jane; "infant is worse
even than babe. Rebecca, do you think we'd better
do as the circular says, and let Elijah or Elisha try
the soap before we begin selling?"
"I can't imagine a babe doing a family wash with
ANY soap," answered Rebecca; "but it must be true
or they would never dare to print it, so don't let's
bother. Oh! won't it be the greatest fun, Emma
Jane? At some of the houses--where they can't
possibly know me--I shan't be frightened, and I
shall reel off the whole rigmarole, invalid, babe, and
all. Perhaps I shall say even the last sentence, if I
can remember it: `We sound every chord in the
great mac-ro-cosm of satisfaction."
This conversation took place on a Friday afternoon
at Emma Jane's house, where Rebecca, to her
unbounded joy, was to stay over Sunday, her aunts
having gone to Portland to the funeral of an old
friend. Saturday being a holiday, they were going
to have the old white horse, drive to North Riverboro
three miles away, eat a twelve o'clock dinner
with Emma Jane's cousins, and be back at four
o'clock punctually.
When the children asked Mrs. Perkins if they
could call at just a few houses coming and going,
and sell a little soap for the Simpsons, she at first
replied decidedly in the negative. She was an
indulgent parent, however, and really had little
objection to Emma Jane amusing herself in this unusual
way; it was only for Rebecca, as the niece of the
difficult Miranda Sawyer, that she raised scruples;
but when fully persuaded that the enterprise was a
charitable one, she acquiesced.
The girls called at Mr. Watson's store, and
arranged for several large boxes of soap to be charged
to Clara Belle Simpson's account. These were
lifted into the back of the wagon, and a happier
couple never drove along the country road than
Rebecca and her companion. It was a glorious
Indian summer day, which suggested nothing of
Thanksgiving, near at hand as it was. It was a
rustly day, a scarlet and buff, yellow and carmine,
bronze and crimson day. There were still many
leaves on the oaks and maples, making a goodly
show of red and brown and gold. The air was like
sparkling cider, and every field had its heaps of
yellow and russet good things to eat, all ready for the
barns, the mills, and the markets. The horse forgot
his twenty years, sniffed the sweet bright air, and
trotted like a colt; Nokomis Mountain looked blue
and clear in the distance; Rebecca stood in the
wagon, and apostrophized the landscape with sudden
joy of living:--
"Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World,
With the wonderful water round you curled,
And the wonderful grass upon your breast,
World, you are beautifully drest!"
Dull Emma Jane had never seemed to Rebecca
so near, so dear, so tried and true; and Rebecca,
to Emma Jane's faithful heart, had never been so
brilliant, so bewildering, so fascinating, as in this
visit together, with its intimacy, its freedom, and
the added delights of an exciting business enterprise.
A gorgeous leaf blew into the wagon.
"Does color make you sort of dizzy?" asked Rebecca.
"No," answered Emma Jane after a long pause;
"no, it don't; not a mite."
"Perhaps dizzy isn't just the right word, but it's
nearest. I'd like to eat color, and drink it, and
sleep in it. If you could be a tree, which one
would you choose?"
Emma Jane had enjoyed considerable experience
of this kind, and Rebecca had succeeded in unstopping
her ears, ungluing her eyes, and loosening her
tongue, so that she could "play the game" after
a fashion.
"I'd rather be an apple-tree in blossom,--that
one that blooms pink, by our pig-pen."
Rebecca laughed. There was always something
unexpected in Emma Jane's replies. "I'd choose
to be that scarlet maple just on the edge of the
pond there,"--and she pointed with the whip.
"Then I could see so much more than your pink
apple-tree by the pig-pen. I could look at all the
rest of the woods, see my scarlet dress in my beautiful
looking-glass, and watch all the yellow and brown
trees growing upside down in the water. When
I'm old enough to earn money, I'm going to have
a dress like this leaf, all ruby color--thin, you
know, with a sweeping train and ruffly, curly edges;
then I think I'll have a brown sash like the trunk
of the tree, and where could I be green? Do they
have green petticoats, I wonder? I'd like a green
petticoat coming out now and then underneath to
show what my leaves were like before I was a scarlet maple."
"I think it would be awful homely," said Emma
Jane. "I'm going to have a white satin with a pink
sash, pink stockings, bronze slippers, and a spangled
fan."
XIV
MR. ALADDIN
A single hour's experience of the vicissitudes
incident to a business career clouded
the children's spirits just the least bit.
They did not accompany each other to the doors
of their chosen victims, feeling sure that together
they could not approach the subject seriously;
but they parted at the gate of each house, the
one holding the horse while the other took the
soap samples and interviewed any one who seemed
of a coming-on disposition. Emma Jane had disposed
of three single cakes, Rebecca of three small
boxes; for a difference in their ability to persuade
the public was clearly defined at the start, though
neither of them ascribed either success or defeat to
anything but the imperious force of circumstances.
Housewives looked at Emma Jane and desired no
soap; listened to her description of its merits, and
still desired none. Other stars in their courses
governed Rebecca's doings. The people whom she
interviewed either remembered their present need
of soap, or reminded themselves that they would
need it in the future; the notable point in the case
being that lucky Rebecca accomplished, with almost
no effort, results that poor little Emma Jane failed
to attain by hard and conscientious labor.
"It's your turn, Rebecca, and I'm glad, too,"
said Emma Jane, drawing up to a gateway and
indicating a house that was set a considerable
distance from the road. "I haven't got over
trembling from the last place yet." (A lady had put her
head out of an upstairs window and called, "Go
away, little girl; whatever you have in your box we
don't want any.") "I don't know who lives here,
and the blinds are all shut in front. If there's
nobody at home you mustn't count it, but take the
next house as yours."
Rebecca walked up the lane and went to the
side door. There was a porch there, and seated in
a rocking-chair, husking corn, was a good-looking
young man, or was he middle aged? Rebecca
could not make up her mind. At all events he had
an air of the city about him,--well-shaven face,
well-trimmed mustache, well-fitting clothes.
Rebecca was a trifle shy at this unexpected encounter,
but there was nothing to be done but explain her
presence, so she asked, "Is the lady of the house
at home?"
"I am the lady of the house at present," said
the stranger, with a whimsical smile. "What can I
do for you?"
"Have you ever heard of the--would you like, or
I mean--do you need any soap?" queried Rebecca
"Do I look as if I did?" he responded
unexpectedly.
Rebecca dimpled. "I didn't mean THAT; I have
some soap to sell; I mean I would like to introduce
to you a very remarkable soap, the best now
on the market. It is called the"--
"Oh! I must know that soap," said the gentleman
genially. "Made out of pure vegetable fats,
isn't it?"
"The very purest," corroborated Rebecca.
"No acid in it?"
"Not a trace."
"And yet a child could do the Monday washing
with it and use no force."
"A babe," corrected Rebecca
"Oh! a babe, eh? That child grows younger
every year, instead of older--wise child!"
This was great good fortune, to find a customer
who knew all the virtues of the article in advance.
Rebecca dimpled more and more, and at her new
friend's invitation sat down on a stool at his side
near the edge of the porch. The beauties of the
ornamental box which held the Rose-Red were
disclosed, and the prices of both that and the Snow-
White were unfolded. Presently she forgot all
about her silent partner at the gate and was talking
as if she had known this grand personage all her
life.
"I'm keeping house to-day, but I don't live here,"
explained the delightful gentleman. "I'm just on
a visit to my aunt, who has gone to Portland.
I used to be here as a boy. and I am very fond of
the spot."
"I don't think anything takes the place of the
farm where one lived when one was a child,"
observed Rebecca, nearly bursting with pride at having
at last successfully used the indefinite pronoun in
general conversation.
The man darted a look at her and put down his
ear of corn. "So you consider your childhood a
thing of the past, do you, young lady?"
"I can still remember it," answered Rebecca
gravely, "though it seems a long time ago."
"I can remember mine well enough, and a
particularly unpleasant one it was," said the stranger.
"So was mine," sighed Rebecca. "What was
your worst trouble?"
"Lack of food and clothes principally."
"Oh!" exclaimed Rebecca sympathetically,--
"mine was no shoes and too many babies and not
enough books. But you're all right and happy
now, aren't you?" she asked doubtfully, for though
he looked handsome, well-fed, and prosperous, any
child could see that his eyes were tired and his
mouth was sad when he was not speaking.
"I'm doing pretty well, thank you," said the
man, with a delightful smile. "Now tell me, how
much soap ought I to buy to-day?"
"How much has your aunt on hand now?"
suggested the very modest and inexperienced agent;
"and how much would she need?"
"Oh, I don't know about that; soap keeps,
doesn't it?"
"I'm not certain," said Rebecca conscientiously,
"but I'll look in the circular--it's sure to tell;"
and she drew the document from her pocket.
"What are you going to do with the magnificent
profits you get from this business?"
"We are not selling for our own benefit," said
Rebecca confidentially. "My friend who is holding
the horse at the gate is the daughter of a very
rich blacksmith, and doesn't need any money. I
am poor, but I live with my aunts in a brick house,
and of course they wouldn't like me to be a
peddler. We are trying to get a premium for some
friends of ours."
Rebecca had never thought of alluding to the
circumstances with her previous customers, but
unexpectedly she found herself describing Mr. Simpson,
Mrs. Simpson, and the Simpson family; their poverty,
their joyless life, and their abject need of a
banquet lamp to brighten their existence.
"You needn't argue that point," laughed the
man, as he stood up to get a glimpse of the "rich
blacksmith's daughter" at the gate. "I can see that
they ought to have it if they want it, and especially
if you want them to have it. I've known what it was
myself to do without a banquet lamp. Now give me
the circular, and let's do some figuring. How much
do the Simpsons lack at this moment?"
"If they sell two hundred more cakes this month
and next, they can have the lamp by Christmas,"
Rebecca answered, "and they can get a shade by
summer time; but I'm afraid I can't help very much
after to-day, because my aunt Miranda may not like
to have me."
"I see. Well, that's all right. I'll take three
hundred cakes, and that will give them shade and
all."
Rebecca had been seated on a stool very near to
the edge of the porch, and at this remark she made
a sudden movement, tipped over, and disappeared
into a clump of lilac bushes. It was a very short
distance, fortunately, and the amused capitalist picked
her up, set her on her feet, and brushed her off.
"You should never seem surprised when you have
taken a large order," said he; "you ought to have
replied `Can't you make it three hundred and fifty?'
instead of capsizing in that unbusinesslike way."
"Oh, I could never say anything like that!"
exclaimed Rebecca, who was blushing crimson at her
awkward fall. "But it doesn't seem right for you
to buy so much. Are you sure you can afford it?"
"If I can't, I'll save on something else," returned
the jocose philanthropist.
"What if your aunt shouldn't like the kind of
soap?" queried Rebecca nervously.
"My aunt always likes what I like," he returned
"Mine doesn't!" exclaimed Rebecca
"Then there's something wrong with your aunt!"
"Or with me," laughed Rebecca.
"What is your name, young lady?"
"Rebecca Rowena Randall, sir."
"What?" with an amused smile. "BOTH? Your
mother was generous."
"She couldn't bear to give up either of the
names she says."
"Do you want to hear my name?"
"I think I know already," answered Rebecca, with
a bright glance. "I'm sure you must be Mr. Aladdin
in the Arabian Nights. Oh, please, can I run
down and tell Emma Jane? She must be so tired
waiting, and she will be so glad!"
At the man's nod of assent Rebecca sped down
the lane, crying irrepressibly as she neared the
wagon, "Oh, Emma Jane! Emma Jane! we are sold
out!"
Mr. Aladdin followed smilingly to corroborate
this astonishing, unbelievable statement; lifted all
their boxes from the back of the wagon, and taking
the circular, promised to write to the Excelsior
Company that night concerning the premium.
"If you could contrive to keep a secret,--you
two little girls,--it would be rather a nice surprise
to have the lamp arrive at the Simpsons' on Thanksgiving
Day, wouldn't it?" he asked, as he tucked
the old lap robe cosily over their feet.
They gladly assented, and broke into a chorus of
excited thanks during which tears of joy stood in
Rebecca's eyes.
"Oh, don't mention it!" laughed Mr. Aladdin,
lifting his hat. "I was a sort of commercial traveler
myself once,--years ago,--and I like to see
the thing well done. Good-by Miss Rebecca Rowena!
Just let me know whenever you have anything
to sell, for I'm certain beforehand I shall want it."
"Good-by, Mr. Aladdin! I surely will!" cried
Rebecca, tossing back her dark braids delightedly
and waving her hand.
"Oh, Rebecca!" said Emma Jane in an awestruck
whisper. "He raised his hat to us, and we
not thirteen! It'll be five years before we're
ladies."
"Never mind," answered Rebecca; "we are the
BEGINNINGS of ladies, even now."
"He tucked the lap robe round us, too,"
continued Emma Jane, in an ecstasy of reminiscence.
"Oh! isn't he perfectly elergant? And wasn't it
lovely of him to buy us out? And just think of
having both the lamp and the shade for one day's
work! Aren't you glad you wore your pink gingham
now, even if mother did make you put on
flannel underneath? You do look so pretty in pink
and red, Rebecca, and so homely in drab and
brown!"
"I know it," sighed Rebecca "I wish I was
like you--pretty in all colors!" And Rebecca
looked longingly at Emma Jane's fat, rosy cheeks;
at her blue eyes, which said nothing; at her neat
nose, which had no character; at her red lips, from
between which no word worth listening to had ever
issued.
"Never mind!" said Emma Jane comfortingly.
"Everybody says you're awful bright and smart, and
mother thinks you'll be better looking all the time
as you grow older. You wouldn't believe it, but I
was a dreadful homely baby, and homely right along
till just a year or two ago, when my red hair began
to grow dark. What was the nice man's name?"
"I never thought to ask!" ejaculated Rebecca.
"Aunt Miranda would say that was just like me,
and it is. But I called him Mr. Aladdin because he
gave us a lamp. You know the story of Aladdin and
the wonderful lamp?"
"Oh, Rebecca! how could you call him a nickname
the very first time you ever saw him?"
"Aladdin isn't a nickname exactly; anyway, he
laughed and seemed to like it."
By dint of superhuman effort, and putting such
a seal upon their lips as never mortals put before,
the two girls succeeded in keeping their wonderful
news to themselves; although it was obvious to all
beholders that they were in an extraordinary and
abnormal state of mind.
On Thanksgiving the lamp arrived in a large
packing box, and was taken out and set up by Seesaw
Simpson, who suddenly began to admire and
respect the business ability of his sisters. Rebecca
had heard the news of its arrival, but waited until
nearly dark before asking permission to go to the
Simpsons', so that she might see the gorgeous
trophy lighted and sending a blaze of crimson
glory through its red crepe paper shade.
XV
THE BANQUET LAMP
There had been company at the brick
house to the bountiful Thanksgiving
dinner which had been provided at one
o'clock,--the Burnham sisters, who lived between
North Riverboro and Shaker Village, and who for
more than a quarter of a century had come to pass
the holiday with the Sawyers every year. Rebecca
sat silent with a book after the dinner dishes were
washed, and when it was nearly five asked if she
might go to the Simpsons'.
"What do you want to run after those Simpson
children for on a Thanksgiving Day?" queried Miss
Miranda. "Can't you set still for once and listen
to the improvin' conversation of your elders? You
never can let well enough alone, but want to be forever
on the move."
"The Simpsons have a new lamp, and Emma
Jane and I promised to go up and see it lighted,
and make it a kind of a party."
"What under the canopy did they want of a
lamp, and where did they get the money to pay for
it? If Abner was at home, I should think he'd been
swappin' again," said Miss Miranda.
"The children got it as a prize for selling soap,"
replied Rebecca; "they've been working for a year,
and you know I told you that Emma Jane and I
helped them the Saturday afternoon you were in
Portland."
"I didn't take notice, I s'pose, for it's the first
time I ever heard the lamp mentioned. Well, you
can go for an hour, and no more. Remember it's
as dark at six as it is at midnight Would you like
to take along some Baldwin apples? What have
you got in the pocket of that new dress that makes
it sag down so?"
"It's my nuts and raisins from dinner," replied
Rebecca, who never succeeded in keeping the most
innocent action a secret from her aunt Miranda;
"they're just what you gave me on my plate."
"Why didn't you eat them?"
"Because I'd had enough dinner, and I thought
if I saved these, it would make the Simpsons'
party better," stammered Rebecca, who hated to
be scolded and examined before company.
"They were your own, Rebecca," interposed
aunt Jane, "and if you chose to save them to give
away, it is all right. We ought never to let this day
pass without giving our neighbors something to be
thankful for, instead of taking all the time to think
of our own mercies."
The Burnham sisters nodded approvingly as
Rebecca went out, and remarked that they had never
seen a child grow and improve so fast in so short a
time.
"There's plenty of room left for more improvement,
as you'd know if she lived in the same house
with you," answered Miranda. "She's into every
namable thing in the neighborhood, an' not only
into it, but generally at the head an' front of it,
especially when it's mischief. Of all the foolishness
I ever heard of, that lamp beats everything; it's
just like those Simpsons, but I didn't suppose the
children had brains enough to sell anything."
"One of them must have," said Miss Ellen
Burnham, "for the girl that was selling soap at the
Ladds' in North Riverboro was described by Adam
Ladd as the most remarkable and winning child he
ever saw."
"It must have been Clara Belle, and I should
never call her remarkable," answered Miss Miranda.
"Has Adam been home again?"
"Yes, he's been staying a few days with his aunt.
There's no limit to the money he's making, they
say; and he always brings presents for all the
neighbors. This time it was a full set of furs for
Mrs. Ladd; and to think we can remember the
time he was a barefoot boy without two shirts to his
back! It is strange he hasn't married, with all his
money, and him so fond of children that he always
has a pack of them at his heels."
"There's hope for him still, though," said Miss
Jane smilingly; "for I don't s'pose he's more than
thirty."
"He could get a wife in Riverboro if he was a
hundred and thirty," remarked Miss Miranda.
"Adam's aunt says he was so taken with the little
girl that sold the soap (Clara Belle, did you say her
name was?), that he declared he was going to bring
her a Christmas present," continued Miss Ellen.
"Well, there's no accountin' for tastes," exclaimed
Miss Miranda. "Clara Belle's got cross-eyes and
red hair, but I'd be the last one to grudge her a
Christmas present; the more Adam Ladd gives to
her the less the town'll have to."
"Isn't there another Simpson girl?" asked Miss
Lydia Burnham; "for this one couldn't have been
cross-eyed; I remember Mrs. Ladd saying Adam
remarked about this child's handsome eyes. He said
it was her eyes that made him buy the three hundred
cakes. Mrs. Ladd has it stacked up in the shed
chamber."
"Three hundred cakes!" ejaculated Miranda.
"Well, there's one crop that never fails in Riverboro!"
"What's that?" asked Miss Lydia politely.
"The fool crop," responded Miranda tersely, and
changed the subject, much to Jane's gratitude, for
she had been nervous and ill at ease for the last fifteen
minutes. What child in Riverboro could be
described as remarkable and winning, save Rebecca?
What child had wonderful eyes, except the same
Rebecca? and finally, was there ever a child in the
world who could make a man buy soap by the hundred
cakes, save Rebecca?
Meantime the "remarkable" child had flown up
the road in the deepening dusk, but she had not
gone far before she heard the sound of hurrying
footsteps, and saw a well-known figure coming in
her direction. In a moment she and Emma Jane
met and exchanged a breathless embrace.
"Something awful has happened," panted Emma
Jane.
"Don't tell me it's broken," exclaimed Rebecca.
"No! oh, no! not that! It was packed in straw,
and every piece came out all right; and I was there,
and I never said a single thing about your selling
the three hundred cakes that got the lamp, so that
we could be together when you told."
"OUR selling the three hundred cakes," corrected
Rebecca; "you did as much as I."
"No, I didn't, Rebecca Randall. I just sat at the
gate and held the horse."
"Yes, but WHOSE horse was it that took us to
North Riverboro? And besides, it just happened
to be my turn. If you had gone in and found Mr.
Aladdin you would have had the wonderful lamp
given to you; but what's the trouble?"
"The Simpsons have no kerosene and no wicks.
I guess they thought a banquet lamp was something
that lighted itself, and burned without any
help. Seesaw has gone to the doctor's to try if he
can borrow a wick, and mother let me have a pint
of oil, but she says she won't give me any more.
We never thought of the expense of keeping up
the lamp, Rebecca."
"No, we didn't, but let's not worry about that
till after the party. I have a handful of nuts and
raisins and some apples."
"I have peppermints and maple sugar," said
Emma Jane. "They had a real Thanksgiving dinner;
the doctor gave them sweet potatoes and cranberries
and turnips; father sent a spare-rib, and Mrs.
Cobb a chicken and a jar of mince-meat."
At half past five one might have looked in at
the Simpsons' windows, and seen the party at its
height. Mrs. Simpson had let the kitchen fire die
out, and had brought the baby to grace the festal
scene. The lamp seemed to be having the party,
and receiving the guests. The children had taken
the one small table in the house, and it was placed
in the far corner of the room to serve as a pedestal.
On it stood the sacred, the adored, the long-desired
object; almost as beautiful, and nearly half as large
as the advertisement. The brass glistened like gold,
and the crimson paper shade glowed like a giant
ruby. In the wide splash of light that it flung upon
the floor sat the Simpsons, in reverent and solemn
silence, Emma Jane standing behind them, hand in
hand with Rebecca. There seemed to be no desire
for conversation; the occasion was too thrilling and
serious for that. The lamp, it was tacitly felt by
everybody, was dignifying the party, and providing
sufficient entertainment simply by its presence;
being fully as satisfactory in its way as a pianola or
a string band.
"I wish father could see it," said Clara Belle
loyally.
"If he onth thaw it he'd want to thwap it,"
murmured Susan sagaciously.
At the appointed hour Rebecca dragged herself
reluctantly away from the enchanting scene.
"I'll turn the lamp out the minute I think you
and Emma Jane are home," said Clara Belle.
"And, oh! I'm so glad you both live where you
can see it shine from our windows. I wonder how
long it will burn without bein' filled if I only keep
it lit one hour every night?"
"You needn't put it out for want o' karosene,"
said Seesaw, coming in from the shed, "for there's
a great kag of it settin' out there. Mr. Tubbs
brought it over from North Riverboro and said
somebody sent an order by mail for it."
Rebecca squeezed Emma Jane's arm, and Emma
Jane gave a rapturous return squeeze. "It was Mr.
Aladdin," whispered Rebecca, as they ran down
the path to the gate. Seesaw followed them and
handsomely offered to see them "apiece" down
the road, but Rebecca declined his escort with
such decision that he did not press the matter, but
went to bed to dream of her instead. In his dreams
flashes of lightning proceeded from both her eyes,
and she held a flaming sword in either hand.
Rebecca entered the home dining-room joyously.
The Burnham sisters had gone and the two aunts
were knitting.
"It was a heavenly party," she cried, taking off
her hat and cape.
"Go back and see if you have shut the door
tight, and then lock it," said Miss Miranda, in her
usual austere manner.
"It was a heavenly party," reiterated Rebecca,
coming in again, much too excited to be easily
crushed, "and oh! aunt Jane, aunt Miranda, if
you'll only come into the kitchen and look out of
the sink window, you can see the banquet lamp
shining all red, just as if the Simpsons' house was
on fire."
"And probably it will be before long," observed
Miranda. "I've got no patience with such foolish
goin's-on."
Jane accompanied Rebecca into the kitchen.
Although the feeble glimmer which she was able
to see from that distance did not seem to her a
dazzling exhibition, she tried to be as enthusiastic
as possible.
"Rebecca, who was it that sold the three
hundred cakes of soap to Mr. Ladd in North Riverboro?"
"Mr. WHO?" exclaimed Rebecca
"Mr. Ladd, in North Riverboro."
"Is that his real name?" queried Rebecca in
astonishment. "I didn't make a bad guess;" and
she laughed softly to herself.
"I asked you who sold the soap to Adam
Ladd?" resumed Miss Jane.
"Adam Ladd! then he's A. Ladd, too; what fun!"
"Answer me, Rebecca."
"Oh! excuse me, aunt Jane, I was so busy
thinking. Emma Jane and I sold the soap to Mr.
Ladd."
"Did you tease him, or make him buy it?"
"Now, aunt Jane, how could I make a big
grown-up man buy anything if he didn't want to?
He needed the soap dreadfully as a present for his
aunt."
Miss Jane still looked a little unconvinced,
though she only said, "I hope your aunt Miranda
won't mind, but you know how particular she is,
Rebecca, and I really wish you wouldn't do
anything out of the ordinary without asking her first,
for your actions are very queer."
"There can't be anything wrong this time,"
Rebecca answered confidently. "Emma Jane sold
her cakes to her own relations and to uncle Jerry
Cobb, and I went first to those new tenements near
the lumber mill, and then to the Ladds'. Mr. Ladd
bought all we had and made us promise to keep
the secret until the premium came, and I've been
going about ever since as if the banquet lamp was
inside of me all lighted up and burning, for everybody
to see."
Rebecca's hair was loosened and falling over her
forehead in ruffled waves; her eyes were brilliant,
her cheeks crimson; there was a hint of everything
in the girl's face,--of sensitiveness and delicacy
as well as of ardor; there was the sweetness
of the mayflower and the strength of the young
oak, but one could easily divine that she was one of
"The souls by nature pitched too high,
By suffering plunged too low."
"That's just the way you look, for all the world
as if you did have a lamp burning inside of you,"
sighed aunt Jane. "Rebecca! Rebecca! I wish
you could take things easier, child; I am fearful
for you sometimes."
XVI
SEASONS OF GROWTH
The days flew by; as summer had melted
into autumn so autumn had given place to
winter. Life in the brick house had gone
on more placidly of late, for Rebecca was honestly
trying to be more careful in the performance of her
tasks and duties as well as more quiet in her plays,
and she was slowly learning the power of the soft
answer in turning away wrath.
Miranda had not had, perhaps, quite as many
opportunities in which to lose her temper, but it is
only just to say that she had not fully availed herself
of all that had offered themselves.
There had been one outburst of righteous wrath
occasioned by Rebecca's over-hospitable habits,
which were later shown in a still more dramatic and
unexpected fashion.
On a certain Friday afternoon she asked her aunt
Miranda if she might take half her bread and milk
upstairs to a friend.
"What friend have you got up there, for pity's
sake?" demanded aunt Miranda.
"The Simpson baby, come to stay over Sunday;
that is, if you're willing, Mrs. Simpson says she is.
Shall I bring her down and show her? She's dressed
in an old dress of Emma Jane's and she looks sweet."
"You can bring her down, but you can't show
her to me! You can smuggle her out the way you
smuggled her in and take her back to her mother.
Where on earth do you get your notions, borrowing
a baby for Sunday!"
"You're so used to a house without a baby you
don't know how dull it is," sighed Rebecca resignedly,
as she moved towards the door; "but at the
farm there was always a nice fresh one to play with
and cuddle. There were too many, but that's not
half as bad as none at all. Well, I'll take her back.
She'll be dreadfully disappointed and so will Mrs.
Simpson. She was planning to go to Milltown."
"She can un-plan then," observed Miss Miranda.
"Perhaps I can go up there and take care of the
baby?" suggested Rebecca. "I brought her home
so 't I could do my Saturday work just the same."
"You've got enough to do right here, without
any borrowed babies to make more steps. Now, no
answering back, just give the child some supper and
carry it home where it belongs."
"You don't want me to go down the front way,
hadn't I better just come through this room and
let you look at her? She has yellow hair and big
blue eyes! Mrs. Simpson says she takes after her
father."
Miss Miranda smiled acidly as she said she
couldn't take after her father, for he'd take any
thing there was before she got there!
Aunt Jane was in the linen closet upstairs, sorting
out the clean sheets and pillow cases for Saturday,
and Rebecca sought comfort from her.
"I brought the Simpson baby home, aunt Jane,
thinking it would help us over a dull Sunday, but
aunt Miranda won't let her stay. Emma Jane has
the promise of her next Sunday and Alice Robinson
the next. Mrs. Simpson wanted I should have her
first because I've had so much experience in babies.
Come in and look at her sitting up in my bed, aunt
Jane! Isn't she lovely? She's the fat, gurgly
kind, not thin and fussy like some babies, and I
thought I was going to have her to undress and
dress twice each day. Oh dear! I wish I could
have a printed book with everything set down in it
that I COULD do, and then I wouldn't get disappointed
so often."
"No book could be printed that would fit you,
Rebecca," answered aunt Jane, "for nobody could
imagine beforehand the things you'd want to do.
Are you going to carry that heavy child home in
your arms?"
"No, I'm going to drag her in the little
soap-wagon. Come, baby! Take your thumb out of
your mouth and come to ride with Becky in your
go-cart." She stretched out her strong young arms
to the crowing baby, sat down in a chair with the
child, turned her upside down unceremoniously,
took from her waistband and scornfully flung away
a crooked pin, walked with her (still in a highly
reversed position) to the bureau, selected a large
safety pin, and proceeded to attach her brief red
flannel petticoat to a sort of shirt that she wore.
Whether flat on her stomach, or head down, heels
in the air, the Simpson baby knew she was in the
hands of an expert, and continued gurgling placidly
while aunt Jane regarded the pantomime with a
kind of dazed awe.
"Bless my soul, Rebecca," she ejaculated, "it
beats all how handy you are with babies!"
"I ought to be; I've brought up three and a
half of 'em," Rebecca responded cheerfully, pulling
up the infant Simpson's stockings.
"I should think you'd be fonder of dolls than
you are," said Jane.
"I do like them, but there's never any change
in a doll; it's always the same everlasting old doll,
and you have to make believe it's cross or sick, or
it loves you, or can't bear you. Babies are more
trouble, but nicer."
Miss Jane stretched out a thin hand with a slender,
worn band of gold on the finger, and the baby
curled her dimpled fingers round it and held it fast.
"You wear a ring on your engagement finger,
don't you, aunt Jane? Did you ever think about
getting married?"
"Yes, dear, long ago."
"What happened, aunt Jane?"
"He died--just before."
"Oh!" And Rebecca's eyes grew misty.
"He was a soldier and he died of a gunshot
wound, in a hospital, down South."
"Oh! aunt Jane!" softly. "Away from you?"
"No, I was with him."
"Was he young?"
"Yes; young and brave and handsome, Rebecca;
he was Mr. Carter's brother Tom."
"Oh! I'm so glad you were with him! Wasn't
he glad, aunt Jane?"
Jane looked back across the half-forgotten years,
and the vision of Tom's gladness flashed upon her:
his haggard smile, the tears in his tired eyes, his
outstretched arms, his weak voice saying, "Oh, Jenny!
Dear Jenny! I've wanted you so, Jenny!" It was
too much! She had never breathed a word of it
before to a human creature, for there was no one who
would have understood. Now, in a shamefaced way,
to hide her brimming eyes, she put her head down
on the young shoulder beside her, saying, "It was
hard, Rebecca!"
The Simpson baby had cuddled down sleepily in
Rebecca's lap, leaning her head back and sucking
her thumb contentedly. Rebecca put her cheek
down until it touched her aunt's gray hair and softly
patted her, as she said, "I'm sorry, aunt Jane!"
The girl's eyes were soft and tender and the
heart within her stretched a little and grew; grew
in sweetness and intuition and depth of feeling. It
had looked into another heart, felt it beat, and
heard it sigh; and that is how all hearts grow.
Episodes like these enlivened the quiet course of
every-day existence, made more quiet by the departure
of Dick Carter, Living Perkins, and Huldah
Meserve for Wareham, and the small attendance at
the winter school, from which the younger children
of the place stayed away during the cold weather.
Life, however, could never be thoroughly dull
or lacking in adventure to a child of Rebecca's
temperament. Her nature was full of adaptability,
fluidity, receptivity. She made friends everywhere
she went, and snatched up acquaintances in every
corner.
It was she who ran to the shed door to take the
dish to the "meat man" or "fish man;" she who
knew the family histories of the itinerant fruit
venders and tin peddlers; she who was asked to take
supper or pass the night with children in neighboring
villages--children of whose parents her aunts
had never so much as heard. As to the nature of
these friendships, which seemed so many to the
eye of the superficial observer, they were of various
kinds, and while the girl pursued them with
enthusiasm and ardor, they left her unsatisfied and
heart-hungry; they were never intimacies such as
are so readily made by shallow natures. She loved
Emma Jane, but it was a friendship born of propinquity
and circumstance, not of true affinity. It was
her neighbor's amiability, constancy, and devotion
that she loved, and although she rated these qualities
at their true value, she was always searching
beyond them for intellectual treasures; searching
and never finding, for although Emma Jane had
the advantage in years she was still immature.
Huldah Meserve had an instinctive love of fun
which appealed to Rebecca; she also had a fascinating
knowledge of the world, from having visited
her married sisters in Milltown and Portland; but
on the other hand there was a certain sharpness
and lack of sympathy in Huldah which repelled
rather than attracted. With Dick Carter she could
at least talk intelligently about lessons. He was a
very ambitious boy, full of plans for his future, which
he discussed quite freely with Rebecca, but when
she broached the subject of her future his interest
sensibly lessened. Into the world of the ideal Emma
Jane, Huldah, and Dick alike never seemed to have
peeped, and the consciousness of this was always a
fixed gulf between them and Rebecca.
"Uncle Jerry" and "aunt Sarah" Cobb were
dear friends of quite another sort, a very satisfying
and perhaps a somewhat dangerous one. A visit
from Rebecca always sent them into a twitter of
delight. Her merry conversation and quaint comements
on life in general fairly dazzled the old couple,
who hung on her lightest word as if it had been
a prophet's utterance; and Rebecca, though she
had had no previous experience, owned to herself a
perilous pleasure in being dazzling, even to a couple
of dear humdrum old people like Mr. and Mrs. Cobb.
Aunt Sarah flew to the pantry or cellar whenever
Rebecca's slim little shape first appeared on the crest
of the hill, and a jelly tart or a frosted cake was sure
to be forthcoming. The sight of old uncle Jerry's
spare figure in its clean white shirt sleeves, whatever
the weather, always made Rebecca's heart warm
when she saw him peer longingly from the kitchen
window. Before the snow came, many was the time
he had come out to sit on a pile of boards at the
gate, to see if by any chance she was mounting the
hill that led to their house. In the autumn Rebecca
was often the old man's companion while he was
digging potatoes or shelling beans, and now in the
winter, when a younger man was driving the stage,
she sometimes stayed with him while he did his
evening milking. It is safe to say that he was the
only creature in Riverboro who possessed Rebecca's
entire confidence; the only being to whom she
poured out her whole heart, with its wealth of hopes,
and dreams, and vague ambitions. At the brick
house she practiced scales and exercises, but at the
Cobbs' cabinet organ she sang like a bird, improvising
simple accompaniments that seemed to her
ignorant auditors nothing short of marvelous. Here
she was happy, here she was loved, here she was
drawn out of herself and admired and made much
of. But, she thought, if there were somebody who
not only loved but understood; who spoke her language,
comprehended her desires, and responded to
her mysterious longings! Perhaps in the big world
of Wareham there would be people who thought
and dreamed and wondered as she did.
In reality Jane did not understand her niece very
much better than Miranda; the difference between
the sisters was, that while Jane was puzzled, she
was also attracted, and when she was quite in the
dark for an explanation of some quaint or unusual
action she was sympathetic as to its possible motive
and believed the best. A greater change had come
over Jane than over any other person in the brick
house, but it had been wrought so secretly, and
concealed so religiously, that it scarcely appeared to the
ordinary observer. Life had now a motive utterly
lacking before. Breakfast was not eaten in the
kitchen, because it seemed worth while, now that
there were three persons, to lay the cloth in the diningroom;
it was also a more bountiful meal than of
yore, when there was no child to consider. The
morning was made cheerful by Rebecca's start for
school, the packing of the luncheon basket, the final
word about umbrella, waterproof, or rubbers; the
parting admonition and the unconscious waiting at
the window for the last wave of the hand. She found
herself taking pride in Rebecca's improved appearance,
her rounder throat and cheeks, and her better
color; she was wont to mention the length of
Rebecca's hair and add a word as to its remarkable
evenness and lustre, at times when Mrs. Perkins
grew too diffuse about Emma Jane's complexion.
She threw herself wholeheartedly on her niece's side
when it became a question between a crimson or
a brown linsey-woolsey dress, and went through a
memorable struggle with her sister concerning the
purchase of a red bird for Rebecca's black felt hat.
No one guessed the quiet pleasure that lay hidden in
her heart when she watched the girl's dark head bent
over her lessons at night, nor dreamed of her joy it,
certain quiet evenings when Miranda went to prayer
meeting; evenings when Rebecca would read aloud
Hiawatha or Barbara Frietchie, The Bugle Song,
or The Brook. Her narrow, humdrum existence
bloomed under the dews that fell from this fresh
spirit; her dullness brightened under the kindling
touch of the younger mind, took fire from the "vital
spark of heavenly flame" that seemed always to
radiate from Rebecca's presence.
Rebecca's idea of being a painter like her friend
Miss Ross was gradually receding, owing to the
apparently insuperable difficulties in securing any
instruction. Her aunt Miranda saw no wisdom in
cultivating such a talent, and could not conceive that
any money could ever be earned by its exercise,
"Hand painted pictures" were held in little esteem
in Riverboro, where the cheerful chromo or the
dignified steel engraving were respected and valued.
There was a slight, a very slight hope, that Rebecca
might be allowed a few music lessons from Miss
Morton, who played the church cabinet organ, but
this depended entirely upon whether Mrs. Morton
would decide to accept a hayrack in return for a
year's instruction from her daughter. She had the
matter under advisement, but a doubt as to whether
or not she would sell or rent her hayfields kept her
from coming to a conclusion. Music, in common
with all other accomplishments, was viewed by Miss
Miranda as a trivial, useless, and foolish amusement,
but she allowed Rebecca an hour a day for practice
on the old piano, and a little extra time for
lessons, if Jane could secure them without payment of
actual cash.
The news from Sunnybrook Farm was hopeful
rather than otherwise. Cousin Ann's husband had
died, and John, Rebecca's favorite brother, had gone
to be the man of the house to the widowed cousin.
He was to have good schooling in return for his care
of the horse and cow and barn, and what was still
more dazzling, the use of the old doctor's medical
library of two or three dozen volumes. John's whole
heart was set on becoming a country doctor, with
Rebecca to keep house for him, and the vision
seemed now so true, so near, that he could almost
imagine his horse ploughing through snowdrifts on
errands of mercy, or, less dramatic but none the
less attractive, could see a physician's neat turncut
trundling along the shady country roads, a medicine
case between his, Dr. Randall's, feet, and Miss
Rebecca Randall sitting in a black silk dress by his
side.
Hannah now wore her hair in a coil and her
dresses a trifle below her ankles, these concessions
being due to her extreme height. Mark had broken
his collar bone, but it was healing well. Little Mira
was growing very pretty. There was even a rumor
that the projected railroad from Temperance to
Plumville might go near the Randall farm, in which
case land would rise in value from nothing-at-all an
acre to something at least resembling a price. Mrs.
Randall refused to consider any improvement in
their financial condition as a possibility. Content to
work from sunrise to sunset to gain a mere
subsistence for her children, she lived in their future,
not in her own present, as a mother is wont to do
when her own lot seems hard and cheerless.
XVII
GRAY DAYS AND GOLD
When Rebecca looked back upon the
year or two that followed the Simpsons'
Thanksgiving party, she could see only
certain milestones rising in the quiet pathway of
the months.
The first milestone was Christmas Day. It was
a fresh, crystal morning, with icicles hanging like
dazzling pendants from the trees and a glaze of
pale blue on the surface of the snow. The Simpsons'
red barn stood out, a glowing mass of color in
the white landscape. Rebecca had been busy for
weeks before, trying to make a present for each of
the seven persons at Sunnybrook Farm, a somewhat
difficult proceeding on an expenditure of fifty
cents, hoarded by incredible exertion. Success had
been achieved, however, and the precious packet
had been sent by post two days previous. Miss
Sawyer had bought her niece a nice gray squirrel
muff and tippet, which was even more unbecoming
if possible, than Rebecca's other articles of wearing
apparel; but aunt Jane had made her the loveliest
dress of green cashmere, a soft, soft green like
that of a young leaf. It was very simply made, but
the color delighted the eye. Then there was a
beautiful "tatting" collar from her mother, some
scarlet mittens from Mrs. Cobb, and a handkerchief
from Emma Jane.
Rebecca herself had fashioned an elaborate teacosy
with a letter "M" in outline stitch, and a
pretty frilled pincushion marked with a "J," for her
two aunts, so that taken all together the day would
have been an unequivocal success had nothing else
happened; but something else did.
There was a knock at the door at breakfast time,
and Rebecca, answering it, was asked by a boy if
Miss Rebecca Randall lived there. On being told
that she did, he handed her a parcel bearing her
name, a parcel which she took like one in a dream
and bore into the dining-room.
"It's a present; it must be," she said, looking
at it in a dazed sort of way; "but I can't think
who it could be from."
"A good way to find out would be to open it,"
remarked Miss Miranda.
The parcel being untied proved to have two
smaller packages within, and Rebecca opened with
trembling fingers the one addressed to her. Anybody's
fingers would have trembled. There was a
case which, when the cover was lifted, disclosed a
long chain of delicate pink coral beads,--a chain
ending in a cross made of coral rosebuds. A card
with "Merry Christmas from Mr. Aladdin" lay
under the cross.
"Of all things!" exclaimed the two old ladies,
rising in their seats. "Who sent it?"
"Mr. Ladd," said Rebecca under her breath.
"Adam Ladd! Well I never! Don't you remember
Ellen Burnham said he was going to send
Rebecca a Christmas present? But I never supposed
he'd think of it again," said Jane. "What's
the other package?"
It proved to be a silver chain with a blue enamel
locket on it, marked for Emma Jane. That added
the last touch--to have him remember them both!
There was a letter also, which ran:--
Dear Miss Rebecca Rowena,--My idea of a
Christmas present is something entirely unnecessary
and useless. I have always noticed when I
give this sort of thing that people love it, so I
hope I have not chosen wrong for you and your
friend. You must wear your chain this afternoon,
please, and let me see it on your neck, for I am
coming over in my new sleigh to take you both to
drive. My aunt is delighted with the soap.
Sincerely your friend,
Adam Ladd.
"Well, well!" cried Miss Jane, "isn't that kind
of him? He's very fond of children, Lyddy Burnham
says. Now eat your breakfast, Rebecca, and
after we've done the dishes you can run over to
Emma's and give her her chain-- What's the matter,
child?"
Rebecca's emotions seemed always to be stored,
as it were, in adjoining compartments, and to be
continually getting mixed. At this moment, though
her joy was too deep for words, her bread and butter
almost choked her, and at intervals a tear stole
furtively down her cheek.
Mr. Ladd called as he promised, and made the
acquaintance of the aunts, understanding them both
in five minutes as well as if he had known them
for years. On a footstool near the open fire sat
Rebecca, silent and shy, so conscious of her fine
apparel and the presence of aunt Miranda that she
could not utter a word. It was one of her "beauty
days." Happiness, excitement, the color of the
green dress, and the touch of lovely pink in the
coral necklace had transformed the little brown
wren for the time into a bird of plumage, and Adam
Ladd watched her with evident satisfaction. Then
there was the sleigh ride, during which she found
her tongue and chattered like any magpie, and so
ended that glorious Christmas Day; and many and
many a night thereafter did Rebecca go to sleep
with the precious coral chain under her pillow, one
hand always upon it to be certain that it was safe.
Another milestone was the departure of the
Simpsons from Riverboro, bag and baggage, the
banquet lamp being their most conspicuous possession.
It was delightful to be rid of Seesaw's hateful
presence; but otherwise the loss of several
playmates at one fell swoop made rather a gap
in Riverboro's "younger set," and Rebecca was
obliged to make friends with the Robinson baby,
he being the only long-clothes child in the village
that winter. The faithful Seesaw had called at the
side door of the brick house on the evening before
his departure, and when Rebecca answered his
knock, stammered solemnly, "Can I k-keep comp'ny
with you when you g-g-row up?" "Certainly NOT,"
replied Rebecca, closing the door somewhat
too speedily upon her precocious swain.
Mr. Simpson had come home in time to move
his wife and children back to the town that had
given them birth, a town by no means waiting with
open arms to receive them. The Simpsons' moving
was presided over by the village authorities and
somewhat anxiously watched by the entire
neighborhood, but in spite of all precautions a pulpit
chair, several kerosene lamps, and a small stove
disappeared from the church and were successfully
swapped in the course of Mr. Simpson's
driving tour from the old home to the new. It gave
Rebecca and Emma Jane some hours of sorrow to
learn that a certain village in the wake of Abner
Simpson's line of progress had acquired, through
the medium of an ambitious young minister, a
magnificent lamp for its new church parlors. No money
changed hands in the operation; for the minister
succeeded in getting the lamp in return for an old
bicycle. The only pleasant feature of the whole
affair was that Mr. Simpson, wholly unable to console
his offspring for the loss of the beloved object,
mounted the bicycle and rode away on it, not to
be seen or heard of again for many a long day.
The year was notable also as being the one in
which Rebecca shot up like a young tree. She had
seemingly never grown an inch since she was ten
years old, but once started she attended to growing
precisely as she did other things,--with such
energy, that Miss Jane did nothing for months but
lengthen skirts, sleeves, and waists. In spite of all
the arts known to a thrifty New England woman,
the limit of letting down and piecing down was
reached at last, and the dresses were sent to Sunnybrook
Farm to be made over for Jenny.
There was another milestone, a sad one, marking
a little grave under a willow tree at Sunnybrook
Farm. Mira, the baby of the Randall family,
died, and Rebecca went home for a fortnight's
visit. The sight of the small still shape that had
been Mira, the baby who had been her special
charge ever since her birth, woke into being a host
of new thoughts and wonderments; for it is sometimes
the mystery of death that brings one to a
consciousness of the still greater mystery of life.
It was a sorrowful home-coming for Rebecca. The
death of Mira, the absence of John, who had been
her special comrade, the sadness of her mother, the
isolation of the little house, and the pinching
economies that went on within it, all conspired to
depress a child who was so sensitive to beauty and
harmony as Rebecca.
Hannah seemed to have grown into a woman
during Rebecca's absence. There had always been
a strange unchildlike air about Hannah, but in
certain ways she now appeared older than aunt Jane
--soberer, and more settled. She was pretty,
though in a colorless fashion; pretty and capable.
Rebecca walked through all the old playgrounds
and favorite haunts of her early childhood; all her
familiar, her secret places; some of them known to
John, some to herself alone. There was the spot
where the Indian pipes grew; the particular bit of
marshy ground where the fringed gentians used to
be largest and bluest; the rock maple where she
found the oriole's nest; the hedge where the field
mice lived; the moss-covered stump where the
white toadstools were wont to spring up as if by
magic; the hole at the root of the old pine where an
ancient and honorable toad made his home; these
were the landmarks of her childhood, and she looked
at them as across an immeasurable distance. The
dear little sunny brook, her chief companion after
John, was sorry company at this season. There
was no laughing water sparkling in the sunshine.
In summer the merry stream had danced over white
pebbles on its way to deep pools where it could be
still and think. Now, like Mira, it was cold and
quiet, wrapped in its shroud of snow; but Rebecca
knelt by the brink, and putting her ear to the glaze
of ice, fancied, where it used to be deepest, she could
hear a faint, tinkling sound. It was all right! Sunnybrook
would sing again in the spring; perhaps Mira
too would have her singing time somewhere--she
wondered where and how. In the course of these
lonely rambles she was ever thinking, thinking,
of one subject. Hannah had never had a chance;
never been freed from the daily care and work of
the farm. She, Rebecca, had enjoyed all the privileges
thus far. Life at the brick house had not been
by any means a path of roses, but there had been
comfort and the companionship of other children, as
well as chances for study and reading. Riverboro
had not been the world itself, but it had been a
glimpse of it through a tiny peephole that was
infinitely better than nothing. Rebecca shed more
than one quiet tear before she could trust herself to
offer up as a sacrifice that which she so much desired
for herself. Then one morning as her visit neared
its end she plunged into the subject boldly and
said, "Hannah, after this term I'm going to stay
at home and let you go away. Aunt Miranda has
always wanted you, and it's only fair you should
have your turn."
Hannah was darning stockings, and she threaded
her needle and snipped off the yarn before she
answered, "No, thank you, Becky. Mother couldn't
do without me, and I hate going to school. I can
read and write and cipher as well as anybody now,
and that's enough for me. I'd die rather than teach
school for a living. The winter'll go fast, for Will
Melville is going to lend me his mother's sewing
machine, and I'm going to make white petticoats
out of the piece of muslin aunt Jane sent, and have
'em just solid with tucks. Then there's going to
be a singing-school and a social circle in Temperance
after New Year's, and I shall have a real good
time now I'm grown up. I'm not one to be lonesome,
Becky," Hannah ended with a blush; "I love
this place."
Rebecca saw that she was speaking the truth, but
she did not understand the blush till a year or two
later.
XVIII
REBECCA REPRESENTS THE FAMILY
There was another milestone; it was more
than that, it was an "event;" an event
that made a deep impression in several
quarters and left a wake of smaller events in its
train. This was the coming to Riverboro of the
Reverend Amos Burch and wife, returned missionaries
from Syria.
The Aid Society had called its meeting for a
certain Wednesday in March of the year in which
Rebecca ended her Riverboro school days and
began her studies at Wareham. It was a raw,
blustering day, snow on the ground and a look in
the sky of more to follow. Both Miranda and Jane
had taken cold and decided that they could not
leave the house in such weather, and this deflection
from the path of duty worried Miranda, since she
was an officer of the society. After making the
breakfast table sufficiently uncomfortable and wishing
plaintively that Jane wouldn't always insist on
being sick at the same time she was, she decided
that Rebecca must go to the meeting in their
stead. "You'll be better than nobody, Rebecca,"
she said flatteringly; "your aunt Jane shall write
an excuse from afternoon school for you; you can
wear your rubber boots and come home by the
way of the meetin' house. This Mr. Burch, if I
remember right, used to know your grandfather
Sawyer, and stayed here once when he was
candidatin'. He'll mebbe look for us there, and you
must just go and represent the family, an' give him
our respects. Be careful how you behave. Bow
your head in prayer; sing all the hymns, but not
too loud and bold; ask after Mis' Strout's boy;
tell everybody what awful colds we've got; if you
see a good chance, take your pocket handkerchief
and wipe the dust off the melodeon before the
meetin' begins, and get twenty-five cents out of the
sittin' room match-box in case there should be a
collection."
Rebecca willingly assented. Anything interested
her, even a village missionary meeting, and the idea
of representing the family was rather intoxicating.
The service was held in the Sunday-school room,
and although the Rev. Mr. Burch was on the platform
when Rebecca entered, there were only a
dozen persons present. Feeling a little shy and
considerably too young for this assemblage, Rebecca
sought the shelter of a friendly face, and seeing
Mrs. Robinson in one of the side seats near the
front, she walked up the aisle and sat beside her.
"Both my aunts had bad colds," she said softly,
"and sent me to represent the family."
"That's Mrs. Burch on the platform with her
husband," whispered Mrs. Robinson. "She's awful
tanned up, ain't she? If you're goin' to save souls
seems like you hev' to part with your complexion.
Eudoxy Morton ain't come yet; I hope to the land
she will, or Mis' Deacon Milliken'll pitch the tunes
where we can't reach 'em with a ladder; can't
you pitch, afore she gits her breath and clears her
throat?"
Mrs. Burch was a slim, frail little woman with
dark hair, a broad low forehead, and patient mouth.
She was dressed in a well-worn black silk, and
looked so tired that Rebecca's heart went out to
her.
"They're poor as Job's turkey," whispered Mrs.
Robinson; "but if you give 'em anything they'd
turn right round and give it to the heathen. His
congregation up to Parsonsfield clubbed together
and give him that gold watch he carries; I s'pose
he'd 'a' handed that over too, only heathens always
tell time by the sun 'n' don't need watches. Eudoxy
ain't comin'; now for massy's sake, Rebecca, do
git ahead of Mis' Deacon Milliken and pitch real
low."
The meeting began with prayer and then the
Rev. Mr. Burch announced, to the tune of Mendon:--
"Church of our God I arise and shine,
Bright with the beams of truth divine:
Then shall thy radiance stream afar,
Wide as the heathen nations are.
"Gentiles and kings thy light shall view,
And shall admire and love thee too;
They come, like clouds across the sky,
As doves that to their windows fly."
"Is there any one present who will assist us at
the instrument?" he asked unexpectedly.
Everybody looked at everybody else, and nobody
moved; then there came a voice out of a far corner
saying informally, "Rebecca, why don't you?" It
was Mrs. Cobb. Rebecca could have played Mendon
in the dark, so she went to the melodeon and
did so without any ado, no member of her family
being present to give her self-consciousness.
The talk that ensued was much the usual sort of
thing. Mr. Burch made impassioned appeals for the
spreading of the gospel, and added his entreaties
that all who were prevented from visiting in
person the peoples who sat in darkness should
contribute liberally to the support of others who could.
But he did more than this. He was a pleasant,
earnest speaker, and he interwove his discourse with
stories of life in a foreign land,--of the manners,
the customs, the speech, the point of view; even
giving glimpses of the daily round, the common
task, of his own household, the work of his
devoted helpmate and their little group of children,
all born under Syrian skies.
Rebecca sat entranced, having been given the
key of another world. Riverboro had faded; the
Sunday-school room, with Mrs. Robinson's red plaid
shawl, and Deacon Milliken's wig, on crooked, the
bare benches and torn hymn-books, the hanging
texts and maps, were no longer visible, and she
saw blue skies and burning stars, white turbans
and gay colors; Mr. Burch had not said so, but
perhaps there were mosques and temples and minarets
and date-palms. What stories they must know,
those children born under Syrian skies! Then
she was called upon to play "Jesus shall reign
where'er the sun."
The contribution box was passed and Mr. Burch
prayed. As he opened his eyes and gave out the
last hymn he looked at the handful of people, at the
scattered pennies and dimes in the contribution box,
and reflected that his mission was not only to gather
funds for the building of his church, but to keep
alive, in all these remote and lonely neighborhoods,
that love for the cause which was its only hope in
the years to come.
"If any of the sisters will provide entertainment,"
he said, "Mrs. Burch and I will remain among you
to-night and to-morrow. In that event we could
hold a parlor meeting. My wife and one of my
children would wear the native costume, we would
display some specimens of Syrian handiwork, and
give an account of our educational methods with the
children. These informal parlor meetings, admitting
of questions or conversation, are often the means
of interesting those not commonly found at church
services so I repeat, if any member of the congregation
desires it and offers her hospitality, we will
gladly stay and tell you more of the Lord's work."
A pall of silence settled over the little assembly.
There was some cogent reason why every "sister"
there was disinclined for company. Some had no
spare room, some had a larder less well stocked than
usual, some had sickness in the family, some were
"unequally yoked together with unbelievers" who
disliked strange ministers. Mrs. Burch's thin hands
fingered her black silk nervously. "Would no one
speak!" thought Rebecca, her heart fluttering with
sympathy. Mrs. Robinson leaned over and whispered
significantly, "The missionaries always used
to be entertained at the brick house; your grandfather
never would let 'em sleep anywheres else
when he was alive." She meant this for a stab at
Miss Miranda's parsimony, remembering the four
spare chambers, closed from January to December;
but Rebecca thought it was intended as a suggestion.
If it had been a former custom, perhaps her
aunts would want her to do the right thing; for
what else was she representing the family? So,
delighted that duty lay in so pleasant a direction,
she rose from her seat and said in the pretty voice
and with the quaint manner that so separated her
from all the other young people in the village, "My
aunts, Miss Miranda and Miss Jane Sawyer, would
be very happy to have you visit them at the brick
house, as the ministers always used to do when their
father was alive. They sent their respects by me."
The "respects" might have been the freedom of
the city, or an equestrian statue, when presented in
this way, and the aunts would have shuddered could
they have foreseen the manner of delivery; but it
was vastly impressive to the audience, who concluded
that Mirandy Sawyer must be making her
way uncommonly fast to mansions in the skies, else
what meant this abrupt change of heart?
Mr. Burch bowed courteously, accepted the
invitation "in the same spirit in which it was offered,"
and asked Brother Milliken to lead in prayer.
If the Eternal Ear could ever tire it would have
ceased long ere this to listen to Deacon Milliken,
who had wafted to the throne of grace the same
prayer, with very slight variations, for forty years.
Mrs. Perkins followed; she had several petitions
at her command, good sincere ones too, but a little
cut and dried, made of scripture texts laboriously
woven together. Rebecca wondered why she always
ended, at the most peaceful seasons, with the form,
"Do Thou be with us, God of Battles, while we
strive onward like Christian soldiers marching as
to war;" but everything sounded real to her to-day,
she was in a devout mood, and many things Mr.
Burch had said had moved her strangely. As she
lifted her head the minister looked directly at her
and said, "Will our young sister close the service
by leading us in prayer?"
Every drop of blood in Rebecca's body seemed to
stand still, and her heart almost stopped beating.
Mrs. Cobb's excited breathing could be heard distinctly
in the silence. There was nothing extraordinary
in Mr. Burch's request. In his journeyings
among country congregations he was constantly
in the habit of meeting young members who had
"experienced religion" and joined the church when
nine or ten years old. Rebecca was now thirteen;
she had played the melodeon, led the singing,
delivered her aunts' invitation with an air of great
worldly wisdom, and he, concluding that she must
be a youthful pillar of the church, called upon her
with the utmost simplicity.
Rebecca's plight was pathetic. How could she
refuse; how could she explain she was not a
"member;" how could she pray before all those elderly
women! John Rogers at the stake hardly suffered
more than this poor child for the moment as she
rose to her feet, forgetting that ladies prayed
sitting, while deacons stood in prayer. Her mind was
a maze of pictures that the Rev. Mr. Burch had
flung on the screen. She knew the conventional
phraseology, of course; what New England child,
accustomed to Wednesday evening meetings, does
not? But her own secret prayers were different.
However, she began slowly and tremulously:--
"Our Father who art in Heaven, . . . Thou art
God in Syria just the same as in Maine; . . . over
there to-day are blue skies and yellow stars and
burning suns . . . the great trees are waving in the
warm air, while here the snow lies thick under our
feet, . . . but no distance is too far for God to travel
and so He is with us here as He is with them
there, . . . and our thoughts rise to Him `as doves
that to their windows fly.'. . .
"We cannot all be missionaries, teaching people
to be good, . . . some of us have not learned yet
how to be good ourselves, but if thy kingdom is
to come and thy will is to be done on earth as it
is in heaven, everybody must try and everybody
must help, . . . those who are old and tired and
those who are young and strong. . . . The little
children of whom we have heard, those born under
Syrian skies, have strange and interesting work to
do for Thee, and some of us would like to travel
in far lands and do wonderful brave things for the
heathen and gently take away their idols of wood
and stone. But perhaps we have to stay at home
and do what is given us to do . . . sometimes even
things we dislike, . . . but that must be what it
means in the hymn we sang, when it talked about
the sweet perfume that rises with every morning
sacrifice. . . . This is the way that God teaches us
to be meek and patient, and the thought that He
has willed it so should rob us of our fears and help
us bear the years. Amen."
Poor little ignorant, fantastic child! Her petition
was simply a succession of lines from the various
hymns, and images the minister had used in his
sermon, but she had her own way of recombining
and applying these things, even of using them in a
new connection, so that they had a curious effect
of belonging to her. The words of some people
might generally be written with a minus sign after
them, the minus meaning that the personality of
the speaker subtracted from, rather than added to,
their weight; but Rebecca's words might always
have borne the plus sign.
The "Amen" said, she sat down, or presumed
she sat down, on what she believed to be a bench,
and there was a benediction. In a moment or two,
when the room ceased spinning, she went up to
Mrs. Burch, who kissed her affectionately and said,
"My dear, how glad I am that we are going to stay
with you. Will half past five be too late for us to
come? It is three now, and we have to go to the
station for our valise and for our children. We left
them there, being uncertain whether we should go
back or stop here."
Rebecca said that half past five was their supper
hour, and then accepted an invitation to drive home
with Mrs. Cobb. Her face was flushed and her lip
quivered in a way that aunt Sarah had learned to
know, so the homeward drive was taken almost in
silence. The bleak wind and aunt Sarah's quieting
presence brought her back to herself, however, and
she entered the brick house cheerily. Being too
full of news to wait in the side entry to take off her
rubber boots, she carefully lifted a braided rug into
the sitting-room and stood on that while she opened
her budget.
"There are your shoes warming by the fire,"
said aunt Jane. "Slip them right on while you talk."
XIX
DEACON ISRAEL'S SUCCESSOR
It was a very small meeting, aunt Miranda,"
began Rebecca, "and the missionary and his
wife are lovely people, and they are coming
here to stay all night and to-morrow with you. I
hope you won't mind."
"Coming here!" exclaimed Miranda, letting her
knitting fall in her lap, and taking her spectacles
off, as she always did in moments of extreme
excitement. "Did they invite themselves?"
"No," Rebecca answered. "I had to invite them
for you; but I thought you'd like to have such
interesting company. It was this way"--
"Stop your explainin', and tell me first when
they'll be here. Right away?"
"No, not for two hours--about half past five."
"Then you can explain, if you can, who gave you
any authority to invite a passel of strangers to stop
here over night, when you know we ain't had any
company for twenty years, and don't intend to have
any for another twenty,--or at any rate while I'm
the head of the house."
"Don't blame her, Miranda, till you've heard
her story," said Jane. "It was in my mind right
along, if we went to the meeting, some such thing
might happen, on account of Mr. Burch knowing
father."
"The meeting was a small one," began Rebecca
"I gave all your messages, and everybody was
disappointed you couldn't come, for the president
wasn't there, and Mrs. Matthews took the chair, which
was a pity, for the seat wasn't nearly big enough for
her, and she reminded me of a line in a hymn we
sang, `Wide as the heathen nations are,' and she
wore that kind of a beaver garden-hat that always
gets on one side. And Mr. Burch talked beautifully
about the Syrian heathen, and the singing went
real well, and there looked to be about forty cents
in the basket that was passed on our side. And
that wouldn't save even a heathen baby, would it?
Then Mr. Burch said, if any sister would offer
entertainment, they would pass the night, and have
a parlor meeting in Riverboro to-morrow, with Mrs.
Burch in Syrian costume, and lovely foreign things
to show. Then he waited and waited, and nobody
said a word. I was so mortified I didn't know what
to do. And then he repeated what he said, an
explained why he wanted to stay, and you could see
he thought it was his duty. Just then Mrs.
Robinson whispered to me and said the missionaries
always used to go to the brick house when
grandfather was alive, and that he never would let them
sleep anywhere else. I didn't know you had stopped
having them. because no traveling ministers have
been here, except just for a Sunday morning, since
I came to Riverboro. So I thought I ought to
invite them, as you weren't there to do it for yourself,
and you told me to represent the family."
"What did you do--go up and introduce
yourself as folks was goin' out?"
"No; I stood right up in meeting. I had to, for
Mr. Burch's feelings were getting hurt at nobody's
speaking. So I said, `My aunts, Miss Miranda and
Miss Jane Sawyer would be happy to have you
visit at the brick house, just as the missionaries
always did when their father was alive, and they
sent their respects by me.' Then I sat down; and
Mr. Burch prayed for grandfather, and called him a
man of God, and thanked our Heavenly Father that
his spirit was still alive in his descendants (that was
you), and that the good old house where so many
of the brethren had been cheered and helped, and
from which so many had gone out strengthened for
the fight, was still hospitably open for the stranger
and wayfarer."
Sometimes, when the heavenly bodies are in
just the right conjunction, nature seems to be the
most perfect art. The word or the deed coming
straight from the heart, without any thought of
effect, seems inspired.
A certain gateway in Miranda Sawyer's soul had
been closed for years; not all at once had it been
done, but gradually, and without her full knowledge.
If Rebecca had plotted for days, and with the utmost
cunning, she could not have effected an entrance
into that forbidden country, and now, unknown to
both of them, the gate swung on its stiff and rusty
hinges, and the favoring wind of opportunity opened
it wider and wider as time went on. All things had
worked together amazingly for good. The memory
of old days had been evoked, and the daily life
of a pious and venerated father called to mind;
the Sawyer name had been publicly dignified and
praised; Rebecca had comported herself as the
granddaughter of Deacon Israel Sawyer should, and
showed conclusively that she was not "all Randall,"
as had been supposed. Miranda was rather
mollified by and pleased with the turn of events,
although she did not intend to show it, or give anybody
any reason to expect that this expression of
hospitality was to serve for a precedent on any
subsequent occasion.
"Well, I see you did only what you was obliged
to do, Rebecca," she said, "and you worded your
invitation as nice as anybody could have done. I
wish your aunt Jane and me wasn't both so worthless
with these colds; but it only shows the good
of havin' a clean house, with every room in order,
whether open or shut, and enough victuals cooked
so 't you can't be surprised and belittled by
anybody, whatever happens. There was half a dozen
there that might have entertained the Burches as
easy as not, if they hadn't 'a' been too mean
or lazy. Why didn't your missionaries come right
along with you?"
"They had to go to the station for their valise
and their children."
"Are there children?" groaned Miranda.
"Yes, aunt Miranda, all born under Syrian
skies."
"Syrian grandmother!" ejaculated Miranda (and
it was not a fact). "How many?"
"I didn't think to ask; but I will get two rooms
ready, and if there are any over I'll take 'em into
my bed," said Rebecca, secretly hoping that this
would be the case. "Now, as you're both half sick,
couldn't you trust me just once to get ready for the
company? You can come up when I call. Will
you?"
"I believe I will," sighed Miranda reluctantly.
"I'll lay down side o' Jane in our bedroom and see
if I can get strength to cook supper. It's half past
three--don't you let me lay a minute past five. I
kep' a good fire in the kitchen stove. I don't know,
I'm sure, why I should have baked a pot o' beans
in the middle of the week, but they'll come in
handy. Father used to say there was nothing that
went right to the spot with returned missionaries
like pork 'n' beans 'n' brown bread. Fix up the two
south chambers, Rebecca."
Rebecca, given a free hand for the only time in her
life, dashed upstairs like a whirlwind. Every room
in the brick house was as neat as wax, and she had
only to pull up the shades, go over the floors with
a whisk broom, and dust the furniture. The aunts
could hear her scurrying to and fro, beating up
pillows and feather beds, flapping towels, jingling
crockery, singing meanwhile in her clear voice:--
"In vain with lavish kindness
The gifts of God are strown;
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone."
She had grown to be a handy little creature, and
tasks she was capable of doing at all she did like
a flash, so that when she called her aunts at five
o'clock to pass judgment, she had accomplished
wonders. There were fresh towels on bureaus and
washstands, the beds were fair and smooth, the
pitchers were filled, and soap and matches were
laid out; newspaper, kindling, and wood were in the
boxes, and a large stick burned slowly in each airtight
stove. "I thought I'd better just take the
chill off," she explained, "as they're right from
Syria; and that reminds me, I must look it up in
the geography before they get here."
There was nothing to disapprove, so the two
sisters went downstairs to make some slight changes
in their dress. As they passed the parlor door
Miranda thought she heard a crackle and looked in.
The shades were up, there was a cheerful blaze in
the open stove in the front parlor, and a fire laid
on the hearth in the back room. Rebecca's own
lamp, her second Christmas present from Mr. Aladdin,
stood on a marble-topped table in the corner,
the light that came softly through its rose-colored
shade transforming the stiff and gloomy ugliness of
the room into a place where one could sit and love
one's neighbor.
"For massy's sake, Rebecca," called Miss
Miranda up the stairs, "did you think we'd better
open the parlor?"
Rebecca came out on the landing braiding her
hair.
"We did on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I
thought this was about as great an occasion," she
said. "I moved the wax flowers off the mantelpiece
so they wouldn't melt, and put the shells, the coral,
and the green stuffed bird on top of the what-not,
so the children wouldn't ask to play with them.
Brother Milliken's coming over to see Mr. Burch
about business, and I shouldn't wonder if Brother
and Sister Cobb happened in. Don't go down
cellar, I'll be there in a minute to do the running."
Miranda and Jane exchanged glances.
"Ain't she the beatin'est creetur that ever was
born int' the world!" exclaimed Miranda; "but she
can turn off work when she's got a mind to!"
At quarter past five everything was ready, and
the neighbors, those at least who were within sight
of the brick house (a prominent object in the
landscape when there were no leaves on the trees),
were curious almost to desperation. Shades up in
both parlors! Shades up in the two south bedrooms!
And fires--if human vision was to be relied
on--fires in about every room. If it had not
been for the kind offices of a lady who had been at
the meeting, and who charitably called in at one or
two houses and explained the reason of all this
preparation, there would have been no sleep in many
families.
The missionary party arrived promptly, and there
were but two children, seven or eight having been
left with the brethren in Portland, to diminish
traveling expenses. Jane escorted them all upstairs,
while Miranda watched the cooking of the supper;
but Rebecca promptly took the two little girls away
from their mother, divested them of their wraps,
smoothed their hair, and brought them down to the
kitchen to smell the beans.
There was a bountiful supper, and the presence
of the young people robbed it of all possible stiffness.
Aunt Jane helped clear the table and put
away the food, while Miranda entertained in the
parlor; but Rebecca and the infant Burches washed
the dishes and held high carnival in the kitchen,
doing only trifling damage--breaking a cup and
plate that had been cracked before, emptying a silver
spoon with some dishwater out of the back door
(an act never permitted at the brick house), and
putting coffee grounds in the sink. All evidences
of crime having been removed by Rebecca, and damages
repaired in all possible cases, the three entered
the parlor, where Mr. and Mrs. Cobb and Deacon
and Mrs. Milliken had already appeared.
It was such a pleasant evening! Occasionally
they left the heathen in his blindness bowing down
to wood and stone, not for long, but just to give
themselves (and him) time enough to breathe, and
then the Burches told strange, beautiful, marvelous
things. The two smaller children sang together,
and Rebecca, at the urgent request of Mrs. Burch,
seated herself at the tinkling old piano and gave
"Wild roved an Indian girl, bright Alfarata" with
considerable spirit and style.
At eight o'clock she crossed the room, handed a
palm-leaf fan to her aunt Miranda, ostensibly that
she might shade her eyes from the lamplight; but
it was a piece of strategy that gave her an opportunity
to whisper, "How about cookies?"
"Do you think it's worth while?" sibilated Miss
Miranda in answer.
"The Perkinses always do."
"All right. You know where they be."
Rebecca moved quietly towards the door, and the
young Burches cataracted after her as if they could
not bear a second's separation. In five minutes
they returned, the little ones bearing plates of thin
caraway wafers,--hearts, diamonds, and circles
daintily sugared, and flecked with caraway seed
raised in the garden behind the house. These were
a specialty of Miss Jane's, and Rebecca carried a
tray with six tiny crystal glasses filled with dandelion
wine, for which Miss Miranda had been famous in
years gone by. Old Deacon Israel had always had
it passed, and he had bought the glasses himself
in Boston. Miranda admired them greatly, not only
for their beauty but because they held so little.
Before their advent the dandelion wine had been served
in sherry glasses.
As soon as these refreshments--commonly
called a "colation" in Riverboro--had been genteelly
partaken of, Rebecca looked at the clock, rose
from her chair in the children's corner, and said
cheerfully, "Come! time for little missionaries to
be in bed!"
Everybody laughed at this, the big missionaries
most of all, as the young people shook hands and
disappeared with Rebecca.
XX
A CHANGE OF HEART
That niece of yours is the most remarkable
girl I have seen in years," said Mr.
Burch when the door closed.
"She seems to be turnin' out smart enough lately,
but she's consid'able heedless," answered Miranda,
"an' most too lively."
"We must remember that it is deficient, not
excessive vitality, that makes the greatest trouble in
this world," returned Mr. Burch.
"She'd make a wonderful missionary," said Mrs.
Burch; "with her voice, and her magnetism, and her
gift of language."
"If I was to say which of the two she was best
adapted for, I'd say she'd make a better heathen,"
remarked Miranda curtly.
"My sister don't believe in flattering children,"
hastily interpolated Jane, glancing toward Mrs.
Burch, who seemed somewhat shocked, and was
about to open her lips to ask if Rebecca was not
a "professor."
Mrs. Cobb had been looking for this question all
the evening and dreading some allusion to her
favorite as gifted in prayer. She had taken an
instantaneous and illogical dislike to the Rev. Mr. Burch
in the afternoon because he called upon Rebecca
to "lead." She had seen the pallor creep into the
girl's face, the hunted look in her eyes, and the
trembling of the lashes on her cheeks, and realized
the ordeal through which she was passing. Her
prejudice against the minister had relaxed under his
genial talk and presence, but feeling that Mrs.
Burch was about to tread on dangerous ground, she
hastily asked her if one had to change cars many
times going from Riverboro to Syria. She felt that
it was not a particularly appropriate question, but it
served her turn.
Deacon Milliken, meantime, said to Miss Sawyer,
"Mirandy, do you know who Rebecky reminds me
of?"
"I can guess pretty well," she replied.
"Then you've noticed it too! I thought at first,
seein' she favored her father so on the outside, that
she was the same all through; but she ain't, she's
like your father, Israel Sawyer."
"I don't see how you make that out," said
Miranda, thoroughly astonished.
"It struck me this afternoon when she got up
to give your invitation in meetin'. It was kind o'
cur'ous, but she set in the same seat he used to
when he was leader o' the Sabbath-school. You
know his old way of holdin' his chin up and throwin'
his head back a leetle when he got up to say
anything? Well, she done the very same thing; there
was more'n one spoke of it."
The callers left before nine, and at that hour (an
impossibly dissipated one for the brick house) the
family retired for the night. As Rebecca carried
Mrs. Burch's candle upstairs and found herself
thus alone with her for a minute, she said shyly,
"Will you please tell Mr. Burch that I'm not a
member of the church? I didn't know what to do
when he asked me to pray this afternoon. I hadn't
the courage to say I had never done it out loud
and didn't know how. I couldn't think; and I was
so frightened I wanted to sink into the floor. It
seemed bold and wicked for me to pray before all
those old church members and make believe I was
better than I really was; but then again, wouldn't
God think I was wicked not to be willing to pray
when a minister asked me to?"
The candle light fell on Rebecca's flushed, sensitive
face. Mrs. Burch bent and kissed her goodnight.
"Don't be troubled," she said. "I'll tell
Mr. Burch, and I guess God will understand."
Rebecca waked before six the next morning, so
full of household cares that sleep was impossible.
She went to the window and looked out; it was
still dark, and a blustering, boisterous day.
"Aunt Jane told me she should get up at half
past six and have breakfast at half past seven," she
thought; "but I daresay they are both sick with
their colds, and aunt Miranda will be fidgety with
so many in the house. I believe I'll creep down
and start things for a surprise."
She put on a wadded wrapper and slippers and
stole quietly down the tabooed front stairs,
carefully closed the kitchen door behind her so that no
noise should waken the rest of the household, busied
herself for a half hour with the early morning routine
she knew so well, and then went back to her room
to dress before calling the children.
Contrary to expectation, Miss Jane, who the
evening before felt better than Miranda, grew worse
in the night, and was wholly unable to leave her bed
in the morning. Miranda grumbled without ceasing
during the progress of her hasty toilet, blaming
everybody in the universe for the afflictions she had
borne and was to bear during the day; she even
castigated the Missionary Board that had sent the
Burches to Syria, and gave it as her unbiased opinion
that those who went to foreign lands for the purpose
of saving heathen should stay there and save
'em, and not go gallivantin' all over the earth with
a passel o' children, visitin' folks that didn't want
'em and never asked 'em.
Jane lay anxiously and restlessly in bed with a
feverish headache, wondering how her sister could
manage without her.
Miranda walked stiffly through the dining-room,
tying a shawl over her head to keep the draughts
away, intending to start the breakfast fire and then
call Rebecca down, set her to work, and tell her,
meanwhile, a few plain facts concerning the proper
way of representing the family at a missionary
meeting.
She opened the kitchen door and stared vaguely
about her, wondering whether she had strayed into
the wrong house by mistake.
The shades were up, and there was a roaring fire
in the stove; the teakettle was singing and bubbling
as it sent out a cloud of steam, and pushed
over its capacious nose was a half sheet of note
paper with "Compliments of Rebecca" scrawled
on it. The coffee pot was scalding, the coffee was
measured out in a bowl, and broken eggshells for
the settling process were standing near. The cold
potatoes and corned beef were in the wooden tray,
and "Regards of Rebecca" stuck on the chopping
knife. The brown loaf was out, the white loaf was
out, the toast rack was out, the doughnuts were out,
the milk was skimmed, the butter had been brought
from the dairy.
Miranda removed the shawl from her head and
sank into the kitchen rocker, ejaculating under her
breath, "She is the beatin'est child! I declare she's
all Sawyer!"
The day and the evening passed off with credit
and honor to everybody concerned, even to Jane,
who had the discretion to recover instead of growing
worse and acting as a damper to the general
enjoyment. The Burches left with lively regrets,
and the little missionaries, bathed in tears, swore
eternal friendship with Rebecca, who pressed into
their hands at parting a poem composed before
breakfast.
TO MARY AND MARTHA BURCH
Born under Syrian skies,
'Neath hotter suns than ours;
The children grew and bloomed,
Like little tropic flowers.
When they first saw the light,
'T was in a heathen land.
Not Greenland's icy mountains,
Nor India's coral strand,
But some mysterious country
Where men are nearly black
And where of true religion,
There is a painful lack.
Then let us haste in helping
The Missionary Board,
Seek dark-skinned unbelievers,
And teach them of their Lord.
Rebecca Rowena Randall.
It can readily be seen that this visit of the
returned missionaries to Riverboro was not without
somewhat far-reaching results. Mr. and Mrs. Burch
themselves looked back upon it as one of the rarest
pleasures of their half year at home. The neighborhood
extracted considerable eager conversation
from it; argument, rebuttal, suspicion, certainty,
retrospect, and prophecy. Deacon Milliken gave ten
dollars towards the conversion of Syria to
Congregationalism, and Mrs. Milliken had a spell of
sickness over her husband's rash generosity.
It would be pleasant to state that Miranda
Sawyer was an entirely changed woman afterwards, but
that is not the fact. The tree that has been getting
a twist for twenty years cannot be straightened
in the twinkling of an eye. It is certain, however,
that although the difference to the outward eye
was very small, it nevertheless existed, and she was
less censorious in her treatment of Rebecca, less
harsh in her judgments, more hopeful of final
salvation for her. This had come about largely from
her sudden vision that Rebecca, after all, inherited
something from the Sawyer side of the house instead
of belonging, mind, body, and soul, to the despised
Randall stock. Everything that was interesting in
Rebecca, and every evidence of power, capability,
or talent afterwards displayed by her, Miranda
ascribed to the brick house training, and this gave
her a feeling of honest pride, the pride of a master
workman who has built success out of the most
unpromising material; but never, to the very end,
even when the waning of her bodily strength relaxed
her iron grip and weakened her power of repression,
never once did she show that pride or make a
single demonstration of affection.
Poor misplaced, belittled Lorenzo de Medici Randall,
thought ridiculous and good-for-naught by his
associates, because he resembled them in nothing!
If Riverboro could have been suddenly emptied into
a larger community, with different and more flexible
opinions, he was, perhaps, the only personage in
the entire population who would have attracted the
smallest attention. It was fortunate for his daughter
that she had been dowered with a little practical
ability from her mother's family, but if Lorenzo
had never done anything else in the world, he might
have glorified himself that he had prevented Rebecca
from being all Sawyer. Failure as he was, complete
and entire, he had generously handed down to her
all that was best in himself, and prudently retained
all that was unworthy. Few fathers are capable of
such delicate discrimination.
The brick house did not speedily become a sort
of wayside inn, a place of innocent revelry and
joyous welcome; but the missionary company was an
entering wedge, and Miranda allowed one spare bed
to be made up "in case anything should happen,"
while the crystal glasses were kept on the second
from the top, instead of the top shelf, in the china
closet. Rebecca had had to stand on a chair to reach
them; now she could do it by stretching; and this
is symbolic of the way in which she unconsciously
scaled the walls of Miss Miranda's dogmatism and
prejudice.
Miranda went so far as to say that she wouldn't
mind if the Burches came every once in a while, but
she was afraid he'd spread abroad the fact of his
visit, and missionaries' families would be underfoot
the whole continual time. As a case in point, she
gracefully cited the fact that if a tramp got a good
meal at anybody's back door, 't was said that he'd
leave some kind of a sign so that all other tramps
would know where they were likely to receive the
same treatment.
It is to be feared that there is some truth in this
homely illustration, and Miss Miranda's dread as
to her future responsibilities had some foundation,
though not of the precise sort she had in mind.
The soul grows into lovely habits as easily as into
ugly ones, and the moment a life begins to blossom
into beautiful words and deeds, that moment a new
standard of conduct is established, and your eager
neighbors look to you for a continuous manifestation
of the good cheer, the sympathy, the ready wit, the
comradeship, or the inspiration, you once showed
yourself capable of. Bear figs for a season or two,
and the world outside the orchard is very unwilling
you should bear thistles.
The effect of the Burches' visit on Rebecca is not
easily described. Nevertheless, as she looked back
upon it from the vantage ground of after years, she
felt that the moment when Mr. Burch asked her to
"lead in prayer" marked an epoch in her life.
If you have ever observed how courteous and
gracious and mannerly you feel when you don a
beautiful new frock; if you have ever noticed the
feeling of reverence stealing over you when you
close your eyes, clasp your hands, and bow your
head; if you have ever watched your sense of
repulsion toward a fellow creature melt a little under
the exercise of daily politeness, you may understand
how the adoption of the outward and visible sign
has some strange influence in developing the inward
and spiritual state of which it is the expression.
It is only when one has grown old and dull that
the soul is heavy and refuses to rise. The young
soul is ever winged; a breath stirs it to an upward
flight. Rebecca was asked to bear witness to a
state of mind or feeling of whose existence she had
only the vaguest consciousness. She obeyed, and as
she uttered words they became true in the uttering;
as she voiced aspirations they settled into realities.
As "dove that to its window flies," her spirit
soared towards a great light, dimly discovered at
first, but brighter as she came closer to it. To
become sensible of oneness with the Divine heart
before any sense of separation has been felt, this is
surely the most beautiful way for the child to find
God.
XXI
THE SKY LINE WIDENS
The time so long and eagerly waited for
had come, and Rebecca was a student at
Wareham. Persons who had enjoyed the
social bewilderments and advantages of foreign
courts, or had mingled freely in the intellectual
circles of great universities, might not have looked
upon Wareham as an extraordinary experience;
but it was as much of an advance upon Riverboro
as that village had been upon Sunnybrook Farm.
Rebecca's intention was to complete the four
years' course in three, as it was felt by all the
parties concerned that when she had attained the ripe
age of seventeen she must be ready to earn her
own living and help in the education of the younger
children. While she was wondering how this could
be successfully accomplished, some of the other
girls were cogitating as to how they could meander
through the four years and come out at the end
knowing no more than at the beginning. This
would seem a difficult, well-nigh an impossible task,
but it can be achieved, and has been, at other seats
of learning than modest little Wareham.
Rebecca was to go to and fro on the cars daily
from September to Christmas, and then board in
Wareham during the three coldest months. Emma
Jane's parents had always thought that a year or
two in the Edgewood high school (three miles from
Riverboro) would serve every purpose for their
daughter and send her into the world with as fine
an intellectual polish as she could well sustain.
Emma Jane had hitherto heartily concurred in
this opinion, for if there was any one thing that
she detested it was the learning of lessons. One
book was as bad as another in her eyes, and she
could have seen the libraries of the world sinking
into ocean depths and have eaten her dinner cheerfully
the while; but matters assumed a different
complexion when she was sent to Edgewood and
Rebecca to Wareham. She bore it for a week--
seven endless days of absence from the beloved
object, whom she could see only in the evenings
when both were busy with their lessons. Sunday
offered an opportunity to put the matter before
her father, who proved obdurate. He didn't
believe in education and thought she had full enough
already. He never intended to keep up "blacksmithing"
for good when he leased his farm and
came into Riverboro, but proposed to go back to
it presently, and by that time Emma Jane would
have finished school and would be ready to help
her mother with the dairy work.
Another week passed. Emma Jane pined visibly
and audibly. Her color faded, and her appetite
(at table) dwindled almost to nothing.
Her mother alluded plaintively to the fact that
the Perkinses had a habit of going into declines;
that she'd always feared that Emma Jane's
complexion was too beautiful to be healthy; that some
men would be proud of having an ambitious daughter,
and be glad to give her the best advantages;
that she feared the daily journeys to Edgewood
were going to be too much for her own health,
and Mr. Perkins would have to hire a boy to drive
Emma Jane; and finally that when a girl had such
a passion for learning as Emma Jane, it seemed
almost like wickedness to cross her will.
Mr. Perkins bore this for several days until his
temper, digestion, and appetite were all sensibly
affected; then he bowed his head to the inevitable,
and Emma Jane flew, like a captive set free, to the
loved one's bower. Neither did her courage flag,
although it was put to terrific tests when she entered
the academic groves of Wareham. She passed in
only two subjects, but went cheerfully into the
preparatory department with her five "conditions,"
intending to let the stream of education play gently
over her mental surfaces and not get any wetter than
she could help. It is not possible to blink the truth
that Emma Jane was dull; but a dogged, unswerving
loyalty, and the gift of devoted, unselfish loving,
these, after all, are talents of a sort, and may
possibly be of as much value in the world as a sense
of numbers or a faculty for languages.
Wareham was a pretty village with a broad main
street shaded by great maples and elms. It had an
apothecary, a blacksmith, a plumber, several shops
of one sort and another, two churches, and many
boarding-houses; but all its interests gathered about
its seminary and its academy. These seats of learning
were neither better nor worse than others of
their kind, but differed much in efficiency, according
as the principal who chanced to be at the head was
a man of power and inspiration or the reverse.
There were boys and girls gathered from all parts
of the county and state, and they were of every
kind and degree as to birth, position in the world,
wealth or poverty. There was an opportunity for a
deal of foolish and imprudent behavior, but on the
whole surprisingly little advantage was taken of it.
Among the third and fourth year students there
was a certain amount of going to and from the
trains in couples; some carrying of heavy books
up the hill by the sterner sex for their feminine
schoolmates, and occasional bursts of silliness on
the part of heedless and precocious girls, among
whom was Huldah Meserve. She was friendly
enough with Emma Jane and Rebecca, but grew
less and less intimate as time went on. She was
extremely pretty, with a profusion of auburn hair,
and a few very tiny freckles, to which she
constantly alluded, as no one could possibly detect
them without noting her porcelain skin and her
curling lashes. She had merry eyes, a somewhat
too plump figure for her years, and was popularly
supposed to have a fascinating way with her.
Riverboro being poorly furnished with beaux, she
intended to have as good a time during her four
years at Wareham as circumstances would permit.
Her idea of pleasure was an ever-changing circle
of admirers to fetch and carry for her, the more
publicly the better; incessant chaff and laughter
and vivacious conversation, made eloquent and
effective by arch looks and telling glances. She
had a habit of confiding her conquests to less
fortunate girls and bewailing the incessant havoc and
damage she was doing; a damage she avowed
herself as innocent of, in intention, as any new-born
lamb. It does not take much of this sort of thing
to wreck an ordinary friendship, so before long
Rebecca and Emma Jane sat in one end of the
railway train in going to and from Riverboro, and
Huldah occupied the other with her court.
Sometimes this was brilliant beyond words, including
a certain youthful Monte Cristo, who on Fridays
expended thirty cents on a round trip ticket and
traveled from Wareham to Riverboro merely to be
near Huldah; sometimes, too, the circle was reduced
to the popcorn-and-peanut boy of the train, who
seemed to serve every purpose in default of better
game.
Rebecca was in the normally unconscious state
that belonged to her years; boys were good comrades,
but no more; she liked reciting in the same
class with them, everything seemed to move better;
but from vulgar and precocious flirtations she was
protected by her ideals. There was little in the
lads she had met thus far to awaken her fancy, for
it habitually fed on better meat. Huldah's schoolgirl
romances, with their wealth of commonplace
detail, were not the stuff her dreams were made of,
when dreams did flutter across the sensitive plate of
her mind.
Among the teachers at Wareham was one who
influenced Rebecca profoundly, Miss Emily Maxwell,
with whom she studied English literature and
composition. Miss Maxwell, as the niece of one
of Maine's ex-governors and the daughter of one of
Bowdoin's professors, was the most remarkable
personality in Wareham, and that her few years of
teaching happened to be in Rebecca's time was the
happiest of all chances. There was no indecision or
delay in the establishment of their relations;
Rebecca's heart flew like an arrow to its mark, and
her mind, meeting its superior, settled at once into
an abiding attitude of respectful homage.
It was rumored that Miss Maxwell "wrote,"
which word, when uttered in a certain tone, was
understood to mean not that a person had command
of penmanship, Spencerian or otherwise, but that
she had appeared in print.
"You'll like her; she writes," whispered Huldah
to Rebecca the first morning at prayers, where the
faculty sat in an imposing row on the front seats.
"She writes; and I call her stuck up."
Nobody seemed possessed of exact information
with which to satisfy the hungry mind, but there was
believed to be at least one person in existence who
had seen, with his own eyes, an essay by Miss
Maxwell in a magazine. This height of achievement
made Rebecca somewhat shy of her, but she looked
her admiration; something that most of the class
could never do with the unsatisfactory organs of
vision given them by Mother Nature. Miss
Maxwell's glance was always meeting a pair of eager
dark eyes; when she said anything particularly
good, she looked for approval to the corner of the
second bench, where every shade of feeling she
wished to evoke was reflected on a certain sensitive
young face.
One day, when the first essay of the class was
under discussion, she asked each new pupil to bring
her some composition written during the year before,
that she might judge the work, and know precisely
with what material she had to deal. Rebecca
lingered after the others, and approached the desk
shyly.
"I haven't any compositions here, Miss Maxwell,
but I can find one when I go home on Friday.
They are packed away in a box in the attic."
"Carefully tied with pink and blue ribbons?"
asked Miss Maxwell, with a whimsical smile.
"No," answered Rebecca, shaking her head
decidedly; "I wanted to use ribbons, because all the
other girls did, and they looked so pretty, but I
used to tie my essays with twine strings on
purpose; and the one on solitude I fastened with an
old shoelacing just to show it what I thought of
it!"
"Solitude!" laughed Miss Maxwell, raising her
eyebrows. "Did you choose your own subject?"
"No; Miss Dearborn thought we were not old
enough to find good ones."
"What were some of the others?"
"Fireside Reveries, Grant as a Soldier, Reflections
on the Life of P. T. Barnum, Buried Cities;
I can't remember any more now. They were all bad,
and I can't bear to show them; I can write poetry
easier and better, Miss Maxwell."
"Poetry!" she exclaimed. "Did Miss Dearborn
require you to do it?"
"Oh, no; I always did it even at the farm. Shall
I bring all I have? It isn't much."
Rebecca took the blank-book in which she kept
copies of her effusions and left it at Miss Maxwell's
door, hoping that she might be asked in and thus
obtain a private interview; but a servant answered
her ring, and she could only walk away, disappointed.
A few days afterward she saw the black-covered
book on Miss Maxwell's desk and knew that the
dreaded moment of criticism had come, so she was
not surprised to be asked to remain after class.
The room was quiet; the red leaves rustled in
the breeze and flew in at the open window, bearing
the first compliments of the season. Miss Maxwell
came and sat by Rebecca's side on the bench.
"Did you think these were good?" she asked,
giving her the verses.
"Not so very," confessed Rebecca; "but it's
hard to tell all by yourself. The Perkinses and the
Cobbs always said they were wonderful, but when
Mrs. Cobb told me she thought they were better
than Mr. Longfellow's I was worried, because I
knew that couldn't be true."
This ingenuous remark confirmed Miss Maxwell's
opinion of Rebecca as a girl who could hear the
truth and profit by it.
"Well, my child," she said smilingly, "your
friends were wrong and you were right; judged by
the proper tests, they are pretty bad."
"Then I must give up all hope of ever being a
writer!" sighed Rebecca, who was tasting the
bitterness of hemlock and wondering if she could
keep the tears back until the interview was over.
"Don't go so fast," interrupted Miss Maxwell.
"Though they don't amount to anything as poetry,
they show a good deal of promise in certain directions.
You almost never make a mistake in rhyme
or metre, and this shows you have a natural sense
of what is right; a `sense of form,' poets would
call it. When you grow older, have a little more
experience,--in fact, when you have something
to say, I think you may write very good verses.
Poetry needs knowledge and vision, experience and
imagination, Rebecca. You have not the first three
yet, but I rather think you have a touch of the last."
"Must I never try any more poetry, not even
to amuse myself?"
"Certainly you may; it will only help you to
write better prose. Now for the first composition.
I am going to ask all the new students to write a
letter giving some description of the town and a
hint of the school life."
"Shall I have to be myself?" asked Rebecca.
"What do you mean?"
"A letter from Rebecca Randall to her sister
Hannah at Sunnybrook Farm, or to her aunt Jane
at the brick house, Riverboro, is so dull and stupid,
if it is a real letter; but if I could make believe I was
a different girl altogether, and write to somebody
who would be sure to understand everything I said,
I could make it nicer."
"Very well; I think that's a delightful plan,"
said Miss Maxwell; "and whom will you suppose
yourself to be?"
"I like heiresses very much," replied Rebecca
contemplatively. "Of course I never saw one, but
interesting things are always happening to
heiresses, especially to the golden-haired kind. My
heiress wouldn't be vain and haughty like the
wicked sisters in Cinderella; she would be noble
and generous. She would give up a grand school
in Boston because she wanted to come here where
her father lived when he was a boy, long before he
made his fortune. The father is dead now, and she
has a guardian, the best and kindest man in the
world; he is rather old of course, and sometimes
very quiet and grave, but sometimes when he is
happy, he is full of fun, and then Evelyn is not afraid
of him. Yes, the girl shall be called Evelyn
Abercrombie, and her guardian's name shall be Mr. Adam
Ladd."
"Do you know Mr. Ladd?" asked Miss Maxwell
in surprise.
"Yes, he's my very best friend," cried Rebecca
delightedly. "Do you know him too?"
"Oh, yes; he is a trustee of these schools, you
know, and often comes here. But if I let you
`suppose' any more, you will tell me your whole letter
and then I shall lose a pleasant surprise."
What Rebecca thought of Miss Maxwell we
already know; how the teacher regarded the pupil
may be gathered from the following letter written
two or three months later.
Wareham, December 1st
My Dear Father,--As you well know, I have
not always been an enthusiast on the subject of
teaching. The task of cramming knowledge into
these self-sufficient, inefficient youngsters of both
sexes discourages me at times. The more stupid they
are, the less they are aware of it. If my department
were geography or mathematics, I believe I should
feel that I was accomplishing something, for in those
branches application and industry work wonders;
but in English literature and composition one yearns
for brains, for appreciation, for imagination! Month
after month I toil on, opening oyster after oyster,
but seldom finding a pearl. Fancy my joy this term
when, without any violent effort at shell-splitting,
I came upon a rare pearl; a black one, but of satin
skin and beautiful lustre! Her name is Rebecca,
and she looks not unlike Rebekah at the Well in our
family Bible; her hair and eyes being so dark as
to suggest a strain of Italian or Spanish blood. She
is nobody in particular. Man has done nothing for
her; she has no family to speak of, no money, no
education worthy the name, has had no advantages
of any sort; but Dame Nature flung herself into
the breach and said:--
"This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine and I will make
A Lady of my own."
Blessed Wordsworth! How he makes us understand!
And the pearl never heard of him until now!
Think of reading Lucy to a class, and when you
finish, seeing a fourteen-year-old pair of lips
quivering with delight, and a pair of eyes brimming with
comprehending tears!
You poor darling! You, too, know the
discouragement of sowing lovely seed in rocky earth,
in sand, in water, and (it almost seems sometimes)
in mud; knowing that if anything comes up at all
it will be some poor starveling plant. Fancy the joy
of finding a real mind; of dropping seed in a soil
so warm, so fertile, that one knows there are sure
to be foliage, blossoms, and fruit all in good time!
I wish I were not so impatient and so greedy of
results! I am not fit to be a teacher; no one is
who is so scornful of stupidity as I am. . . . The
pearl writes quaint countrified little verses,
doggerel they are; but somehow or other she always
contrives to put in one line, one thought, one image,
that shows you she is, quite unconsciously to herself,
in possession of the secret. . . . Good-by; I'll bring
Rebecca home with me some Friday, and let you
and mother see her for yourselves.
Your affectionate daughter,
Emily.
XXII
CLOVER BLOSSOMS AND SUNFLOWERS
How d' ye do, girls?" said Huldah Meserve,
peeping in at the door. "Can you
stop studying a minute and show me your
room? Say, I've just been down to the store
and bought me these gloves, for I was bound I
wouldn't wear mittens this winter; they're
simply too countrified. It's your first year here, and
you're younger than I am, so I s'pose you don't
mind, but I simply suffer if I don't keep up some
kind of style. Say, your room is simply too cute for
words! I don't believe any of the others can begin
to compare with it! I don't know what gives it that
simply gorgeous look, whether it's the full curtains,
or that elegant screen, or Rebecca's lamp; but you
certainly do have a faculty for fixing up. I like a
pretty room too, but I never have a minute to
attend to mine; I'm always so busy on my clothes that
half the time I don't get my bed made up till noon;
and after all, having no callers but the girls, it don't
make much difference. When I graduate, I'm going
to fix up our parlor at home so it'll be simply regal.
I've learned decalcomania, and after I take up lustre
painting I shall have it simply stiff with drapes and
tidies and placques and sofa pillows, and make mother
let me have a fire, and receive my friends there
evenings. May I dry my feet at your register? I
can't bear to wear rubbers unless the mud or the
slush is simply knee-deep, they make your feet look
so awfully big. I had such a fuss getting this pair
of French-heeled boots that I don't intend to spoil
the looks of them with rubbers any oftener than I
can help. I believe boys notice feet quicker than
anything. Elmer Webster stepped on one of mine
yesterday when I accidentally had it out in the
aisle, and when he apologized after class, he said he
wasn't so much to blame, for the foot was so little
he really couldn't see it! Isn't he perfectly great?
Of course that's only his way of talking, for after
all I only wear a number two, but these French
heels and pointed toes do certainly make your foot
look smaller, and it's always said a high instep helps,
too. I used to think mine was almost a deformity,
but they say it's a great beauty. Just put your feet
beside mine, girls, and look at the difference; not
that I care much, but just for fun."
"My feet are very comfortable where they are,"
responded Rebecca dryly. "I can't stop to measure
insteps on algebra days; I've noticed your habit
of keeping a foot in the aisle ever since you had
those new shoes, so I don't wonder it was stepped
on."
"Perhaps I am a little mite conscious of them,
because they're not so very comfortable at first, till
you get them broken in. Say, haven't you got a
lot of new things?"
"Our Christmas presents, you mean," said Emma
Jane. "The pillow-cases are from Mrs. Cobb, the
rug from cousin Mary in North Riverboro, the
scrap-basket from Living and Dick. We gave each
other the bureau and cushion covers, and the screen
is mine from Mr. Ladd."
"Well, you were lucky when you met him!
Gracious! I wish I could meet somebody like that.
The way he keeps it up, too! It just hides your
bed, doesn't it, and I always say that a bed takes
the style off any room--specially when it's not
made up; though you have an alcove, and it's the
only one in the whole building. I don't see how
you managed to get this good room when you're
such new scholars," she finished discontentedly.
"We shouldn't have, except that Ruth Berry
had to go away suddenly on account of her father's
death. This room was empty, and Miss Maxwell
asked if we might have it," returned Emma Jane.
"The great and only Max is more stiff and
standoffish than ever this year," said Huldah. "I've
simply given up trying to please her, for there's
no justice in her; she is good to her favorites, but
she doesn't pay the least attention to anybody else,
except to make sarcastic speeches about things
that are none of her business. I wanted to tell her
yesterday it was her place to teach me Latin, not
manners."
"I wish you wouldn't talk against Miss Maxwell
to me," said Rebecca hotly. "You know how I
feel."
"I know; but I can't understand how you can
abide her."
"I not only abide, I love her!" exclaimed
Rebecca. "I wouldn't let the sun shine too hot on
her, or the wind blow too cold. I'd like to put a
marble platform in her class-room and have her sit
in a velvet chair behind a golden table!"
"Well, don't have a fit!--because she can sit
where she likes for all of me; I've got something
better to think of," and Huldah tossed her head.
"Isn't this your study hour?" asked Emma
Jane, to stop possible discussion.
"Yes, but I lost my Latin grammar yesterday;
I left it in the hall half an hour while I was having
a regular scene with Herbert Dunn. I haven't
spoken to him for a week and gave him back his
class pin. He was simply furious. Then when I
came back to the hall, the book was gone. I had
to go down town for my gloves and to the principal's
office to see if the grammar had been handed
in, and that's the reason I'm so fine."
Huldah was wearing a woolen dress that had
once been gray, but had been dyed a brilliant blue.
She had added three rows of white braid and large
white pearl buttons to her gray jacket, in order to
make it a little more "dressy." Her gray felt hat
had a white feather on it, and a white tissue veil
with large black dots made her delicate skin look
brilliant. Rebecca thought how lovely the knot of
red hair looked under the hat behind, and how the
color of the front had been dulled by incessant
frizzing with curling irons. Her open jacket
disclosed a galaxy of souvenirs pinned to the
background of bright blue,--a small American flag, a
button of the Wareham Rowing Club, and one or
two society pins. These decorations proved her
popularity in very much the same way as do the
cotillion favors hanging on the bedroom walls of
the fashionable belle. She had been pinning and
unpinning, arranging and disarranging her veil
ever since she entered the room, in the hope that
the girls would ask her whose ring she was wearing
this week; but although both had noticed the new
ornament instantly, wild horses could not have
drawn the question from them; her desire to be
asked was too obvious. With her gay plumage,
her "nods and becks and wreathed smiles," and her
cheerful cackle, Huldah closely resembled the
parrot in Wordsworth's poem:--
"Arch, volatile, a sportive bird,
By social glee inspired;
Ambitious to be seen or heard,
And pleased to be admired!"
"Mr. Morrison thinks the grammar will be
returned, and lent me another," Huldah continued.
"He was rather snippy about my leaving a book in
the hall. There was a perfectly elegant gentleman
in the office, a stranger to me. I wish he was a new
teacher, but there's no such luck. He was too
young to be the father of any of the girls, and too
old to be a brother, but he was handsome as a
picture and had on an awful stylish suit of clothes.
He looked at me about every minute I was in the
room. It made me so embarrassed I couldn't hardly
answer Mr. Morrison's questions straight."
"You'll have to wear a mask pretty soon, if
you're going to have any comfort, Huldah," said
Rebecca. "Did he offer to lend you his class pin,
or has it been so long since he graduated that he's
left off wearing it? And tell us now whether the
principal asked for a lock of your hair to put in his
watch?"
This was all said merrily and laughingly, but
there were times when Huldah could scarcely make
up her mind whether Rebecca was trying to be
witty, or whether she was jealous; but she
generally decided it was merely the latter feeling,
rather natural in a girl who had little attention.
"He wore no jewelry but a cameo scarf pin and
a perfectly gorgeous ring,--a queer kind of one
that wound round and round his finger. Oh dear,
I must run! Where has the hour gone? There's
the study bell!"
Rebecca had pricked up her ears at Huldah's
speech. She remembered a certain strange ring,
and it belonged to the only person in the world (save
Miss Maxwell) who appealed to her imagination,--
Mr. Aladdin. Her feeling for him, and that of Emma
Jane, was a mixture of romantic and reverent admiration
for the man himself and the liveliest gratitude
for his beautiful gifts. Since they first met him
not a Christmas had gone by without some remembrance
for them both; remembrances chosen with
the rarest taste and forethought. Emma Jane had
seen him only twice, but he had called several times
at the brick house, and Rebecca had learned to
know him better. It was she, too, who always wrote
the notes of acknowledgment and thanks, taking
infinite pains to make Emma Jane's quite different
from her own. Sometimes he had written from
Boston and asked her the news of Riverboro, and
she had sent him pages of quaint and childlike gossip,
interspersed, on two occasions, with poetry,
which he read and reread with infinite relish. If
Huldah's stranger should be Mr. Aladdin, would he
come to see her, and could she and Emma Jane
show him their beautiful room with so many of his
gifts in evidence?
When the girls had established themselves in
Wareham as real boarding pupils, it seemed to
them existence was as full of joy as it well could
hold. This first winter was, in fact, the most
tranquilly happy of Rebecca's school life,--a winter
long to be looked back upon. She and Emma
Jane were room-mates, and had put their modest
possessions together to make their surroundings
pretty and homelike. The room had, to begin with,
a cheerful red ingrain carpet and a set of maple
furniture. As to the rest, Rebecca had furnished
the ideas and Emma Jane the materials and labor,
a method of dividing responsibilities that seemed
to suit the circumstances admirably. Mrs. Perkins's
father had been a storekeeper, and on his death
had left the goods of which he was possessed to
his married daughter. The molasses, vinegar, and
kerosene had lasted the family for five years, and
the Perkins attic was still a treasure-house of
ginghams, cottons, and "Yankee notions." So at
Rebecca's instigation Mrs. Perkins had made full
curtains and lambrequins of unbleached muslin,
which she had trimmed and looped back with
bands of Turkey red cotton. There were two table
covers to match, and each of the girls had her
study corner. Rebecca, after much coaxing, had
been allowed to bring over her precious lamp,
which would have given a luxurious air to any
apartment, and when Mr. Aladdin's last Christmas
presents were added,--the Japanese screen for
Emma Jane and the little shelf of English Poets
for Rebecca,--they declared that it was all quite
as much fun as being married and going to housekeeping.
The day of Huldah's call was Friday, and on
Fridays from three to half past four Rebecca was
free to take a pleasure to which she looked forward
the entire week. She always ran down the snowy
path through the pine woods at the back of the
seminary, and coming out on a quiet village street,
went directly to the large white house where Miss
Maxwell lived. The maid-of-all-work answered her
knock; she took off her hat and cape and hung
them in the hall, put her rubber shoes and
umbrella carefully in the corner, and then opened the
door of paradise. Miss Maxwell's sitting-room was
lined on two sides with bookshelves, and Rebecca
was allowed to sit before the fire and browse
among the books to her heart's delight for an hour
or more. Then Miss Maxwell would come back
from her class, and there would be a precious half
hour of chat before Rebecca had to meet Emma
Jane at the station and take the train for Riverboro,
where her Saturdays and Sundays were
spent, and where she was washed, ironed, mended,
and examined, approved and reproved, warned and
advised in quite sufficient quantity to last her the
succeeding week.
On this Friday she buried her face in the blooming
geraniums on Miss Maxwell's plant-stand, selected
Romola from one of the bookcases, and sank
into a seat by the window with a sigh of infinite
content, She glanced at the clock now and then,
remembering the day on which she had been so
immersed in David Copperfield that the Riverboro
train had no place in her mind. The distracted
Emma Jane had refused to leave without her, and
had run from the station to look for her at Miss
Maxwell's. There was but one later train, and that
went only to a place three miles the other side
of Riverboro, so that the two girls appeared at their
respective homes long after dark, having had a
weary walk in the snow.
When she had read for half an hour she glanced
out of the window and saw two figures issuing from
the path through the woods. The knot of bright
hair and the coquettish hat could belong to but
one person; and her companion, as the couple
approached, proved to be none other than Mr. Aladdin.
Huldah was lifting her skirts daintily and
picking safe stepping-places for the high-heeled
shoes, her cheeks glowing, her eyes sparkling under
the black and white veil.
Rebecca slipped from her post by the window to
the rug before the bright fire and leaned her head
on the seat of the great easy-chair. She was frightened
at the storm in her heart; at the suddenness
with which it had come on, as well as at the strangeness
of an entirely new sensation. She felt all at
once as if she could not bear to give up her share
of Mr. Aladdin's friendship to Huldah: Huldah so
bright, saucy, and pretty; so gay and ready, and
such good company! She had always joyfully
admitted Emma Jane into the precious partnership,
but perhaps unconsciously to herself she had
realized that Emma Jane had never held anything but
a secondary place in Mr. Aladdin's regard; yet who
was she herself, after all, that she could hope to be
first?
Suddenly the door opened softly and somebody
looked in, somebody who said: "Miss Maxwell
told me I should find Miss Rebecca Randall here."
Rebecca started at the sound and sprang to her
feet, saying joyfully, "Mr. Aladdin! Oh! I knew
you were in Wareham, and I was afraid you
wouldn't have time to come and see us."
"Who is `us'? The aunts are not here, are
they? Oh, you mean the rich blacksmith's daughter,
whose name I can never remember. Is she
here?"
"Yes, and my room-mate," answered Rebecca,
who thought her own knell of doom had sounded,
if he had forgotten Emma Jane's name.
The light in the room grew softer, the fire
crackled cheerily, and they talked of many things,
until the old sweet sense of friendliness and
familiarity crept back into Rebecca's heart. Adam
had not seen her for several months, and there was
much to be learned about school matters as viewed
from her own standpoint; he had already inquired
concerning her progress from Mr. Morrison.
"Well, little Miss Rebecca," he said, rousing
himself at length, "I must be thinking of my drive
to Portland. There is a meeting of railway
directors there to-morrow, and I always take this
opportunity of visiting the school and giving my
valuable advice concerning its affairs, educational
and financial."
"It seems funny for you to be a school trustee,"
said Rebecca contemplatively. "I can't seem to
make it fit."
"You are a remarkably wise young person and
I quite agree with you," he answered; "the fact
is," he added soberly, "I accepted the trusteeship
in memory of my poor little mother, whose last
happy years were spent here."
"That was a long time ago!"
"Let me see, I am thirty-two; only thirty-two,
despite an occasional gray hair. My mother was
married a month after she graduated, and she lived
only until I was ten; yes, it is a long way back to
my mother's time here, though the school was fifteen
or twenty years old then, I believe. Would
you like to see my mother, Miss Rebecca?"
The girl took the leather case gently and opened
it to find an innocent, pink-and-white daisy of a
face, so confiding, so sensitive, that it went straight
to the heart. It made Rebecca feel old, experienced,
and maternal. She longed on the instant to comfort
and strengthen such a tender young thing.
"Oh, what a sweet, sweet, flowery face!" she
whispered softly.
"The flower had to bear all sorts of storms," said
Adam gravely. "The bitter weather of the world
bent its slender stalk, bowed its head, and dragged
it to the earth. I was only a child and could do
nothing to protect and nourish it, and there was no
one else to stand between it and trouble. Now I
have success and money and power, all that would
have kept her alive and happy, and it is too late.
She died for lack of love and care, nursing and
cherishing, and I can never forget it. All that has
come to me seems now and then so useless, since I
cannot share it with her!"
This was a new Mr. Aladdin, and Rebecca's heart
gave a throb of sympathy and comprehension. This
explained the tired look in his eyes, the look that
peeped out now and then, under all his gay speech
and laughter.
"I'm so glad I know," she said, "and so glad I
could see her just as she was when she tied that
white muslin hat under her chin and saw her yellow
curls and her sky-blue eyes in the glass. Mustn't
she have been happy! I wish she could have been
kept so, and had lived to see you grow up strong
and good. My mother is always sad and busy, but
once when she looked at John I heard her say, `He
makes up for everything.' That's what your mother
would have thought about you if she had lived,
and perhaps she does as it is."
"You are a comforting little person, Rebecca,"
said Adam, rising from his chair.
As Rebecca rose, the tears still trembling on her
lashes, he looked at her suddenly as with new vision.
"Good-by!" he said, taking her slim brown
hands in his, adding, as if he saw her for the first
time, "Why, little Rose-Red-Snow-White is making
way for a new girl! Burning the midnight oil and
doing four years' work in three is supposed to dull
the eye and blanch the cheek, yet Rebecca's eyes
are bright and she has a rosy color! Her long braids
are looped one on the other so that they make a
black letter U behind, and they are tied with grand
bows at the top! She is so tall that she reaches
almost to my shoulder. This will never do in the
world! How will Mr. Aladdin get on without his
comforting little friend! He doesn't like grown-up
young ladies in long trains and wonderful fine
clothes; they frighten and bore him!"
"Oh, Mr. Aladdin!" cried Rebecca eagerly,
taking his jest quite seriously; "I am not fifteen
yet, and it will be three years before I'm a young
lady; please don't give me up until you have to!"
"I won't; I promise you that," said Adam.
"Rebecca," he continued, after a moment's pause,
"who is that young girl with a lot of pretty red
hair and very citified manners? She escorted me
down the hill; do you know whom I mean?"
"It must be Huldah Meserve; she is from Riverboro."
Adam put a finger under Rebecca's chin and
looked into her eyes; eyes as soft, as clear, as
unconscious, and childlike as they had been when she
was ten. He remembered the other pair of challenging
blue ones that had darted coquettish glances
through half-dropped lids, shot arrowy beams from
under archly lifted brows, and said gravely, "Don't
form yourself on her, Rebecca; clover blossoms
that grow in the fields beside Sunnybrook mustn't
be tied in the same bouquet with gaudy sunflowers;
they are too sweet and fragrant and wholesome."
XXIII
THE HILL DIFFICULTY
The first happy year at Wareham, with
its widened sky-line, its larger vision, its
greater opportunity, was over and gone.
Rebecca had studied during the summer vacation,
and had passed, on her return in the autumn,
certain examinations which would enable her, if she
carried out the same programme the next season,
to complete the course in three instead of four
years. She came off with no flying colors,--that
would have been impossible in consideration of her
inadequate training; but she did wonderfully well
in some of the required subjects, and so brilliantly
in others that the average was respectable. She
would never have been a remarkable scholar under
any circumstances, perhaps, and she was easily outstripped
in mathematics and the natural sciences
by a dozen girls, but in some inexplicable way she
became, as the months went on, the foremost figure
in the school. When she had entirely forgotten the
facts which would enable her to answer a question
fully and conclusively, she commonly had some
original theory to expound; it was not always
correct, but it was generally unique and sometimes
amusing. She was only fair in Latin or French
grammar, but when it came to translation, her freedom,
her choice of words, and her sympathetic
understanding of the spirit of the text made her the
delight of her teachers and the despair of her rivals.
"She can be perfectly ignorant of a subject,'
said Miss Maxwell to Adam Ladd, "but entirely
intelligent the moment she has a clue. Most of the
other girls are full of information and as stupid as
sheep."
Rebecca's gifts had not been discovered save by
the few, during the first year, when she was adjusting
herself quietly to the situation. She was distinctly
one of the poorer girls; she had no fine
dresses to attract attention, no visitors, no friends
in the town. She had more study hours, and less
time, therefore, for the companionship of other girls,
gladly as she would have welcomed the gayety of
that side of school life. Still, water will find its own
level in some way, and by the spring of the second
year she had naturally settled into the same sort of
leadership which had been hers in the smaller
community of Riverboro. She was unanimously elected
assistant editor of the Wareham School Pilot, being
the first girl to assume that enviable, though somewhat
arduous and thankless position, and when her
maiden number went to the Cobbs, uncle Jerry and
aunt Sarah could hardly eat or sleep for pride.
"She'll always get votes," said Huldah Meserve,
when discussing the election, "for whether she
knows anything or not, she looks as if she did, and
whether she's capable of filling an office or not, she
looks as if she was. I only wish I was tall and dark
and had the gift of making people believe I was
great things, like Rebecca Randall. There's one
thing: though the boys call her handsome, you
notice they don't trouble her with much attention."
It was a fact that Rebecca's attitude towards the
opposite sex was still somewhat indifferent and
oblivious, even for fifteen and a half! No one could
look at her and doubt that she had potentialities of
attraction latent within her somewhere, but that side
of her nature was happily biding its time. A human
being is capable only of a certain amount of activity
at a given moment, and it will inevitably satisfy
first its most pressing needs, its most ardent desires,
its chief ambitions. Rebecca was full of small
anxieties and fears, for matters were not going well
at the brick house and were anything but hopeful
at the home farm. She was overbusy and overtaxed,
and her thoughts were naturally drawn towards the
difficult problems of daily living.
It had seemed to her during the autumn and
winter of that year as if her aunt Miranda had
never been, save at the very first, so censorious and
so fault-finding. One Saturday Rebecca ran upstairs
and, bursting into a flood of tears, exclaimed,
"Aunt Jane, it seems as if I never could stand her
continual scoldings. Nothing I can do suits aunt
Miranda; she's just said it will take me my whole
life to get the Randall out of me, and I'm not
convinced that I want it all out, so there we are!"
Aunt Jane, never demonstrative, cried with
Rebecca as she attempted to soothe her.
"You must be patient," she said, wiping first her
own eyes and then Rebecca's. "I haven't told you,
for it isn't fair you should be troubled when you're
studying so hard, but your aunt Miranda isn't well.
One Monday morning about a month ago, she had
a kind of faint spell; it wasn't bad, but the doctor
is afraid it was a shock, and if so, it's the beginning
of the end. Seems to me she's failing right along,
and that's what makes her so fretful and easy vexed.
She has other troubles too, that you don't know
anything about, and if you're not kind to your aunt
Miranda now, child, you'll be dreadful sorry some
time."
All the temper faded from Rebecca's face, and
she stopped crying to say penitently, "Oh! the poor
dear thing! I won't mind a bit what she says now.
She's just asked me for some milk toast and I
was dreading to take it to her, but this will make
everything different. Don't worry yet, aunt Jane,
for perhaps it won't be as bad as you think."
So when she carried the toast to her aunt a little
later, it was in the best gilt-edged china bowl, with
a fringed napkin on the tray and a sprig of geranium
lying across the salt cellar.
"Now, aunt Miranda," she said cheerily, "I expect
you to smack your lips and say this is good; it's not
Randall, but Sawyer milk toast."
"You've tried all kinds on me, one time an'
another," Miranda answered. "This tastes real
kind o' good; but I wish you hadn't wasted that
nice geranium."
"You can't tell what's wasted," said Rebecca
philosophically; "perhaps that geranium has been
hoping this long time it could brighten somebody's
supper, so don't disappoint it by making believe you
don't like it. I've seen geraniums cry,--in the very
early morning!"
The mysterious trouble to which Jane had alluded
was a very real one, but it was held in profound
secrecy. Twenty-five hundred dollars of the small
Sawyer property had been invested in the business
of a friend of their father's, and had returned them
a regular annual income of a hundred dollars. The
family friend had been dead for some five years,
but his son had succeeded to his interests and all
went on as formerly. Suddenly there came a letter
saying that the firm had gone into bankruptcy,
that the business had been completely wrecked, and
that the Sawyer money had been swept away with
everything else.
The loss of one hundred dollars a year is a very
trifling matter, but it made all the difference between
comfort and self-denial to the two old spinsters
Their manner of life had been so rigid and careful
that it was difficult to economize any further, and the
blow had fallen just when it was most inconvenient,
for Rebecca's school and boarding expenses, small
as they were, had to be paid promptly and in cash.
"Can we possibly go on doing it? Shan't we
have to give up and tell her why?" asked Jane
tearfully of the elder sister.
"We have put our hand to the plough, and we
can't turn back," answered Miranda in her grimmest
tone; "we've taken her away from her mother
and offered her an education, and we've got to keep
our word. She's Aurelia's only hope for years to
come, to my way o' thinkin'. Hannah's beau takes
all her time 'n' thought, and when she gits a
husband her mother'll be out o' sight and out o' mind.
John, instead of farmin', thinks he must be a doctor,--
as if folks wasn't gettin' unhealthy enough
these days, without turnin' out more young doctors
to help 'em into their graves. No, Jane; we'll skimp
'n' do without, 'n' plan to git along on our interest
money somehow, but we won't break into our principal,
whatever happens."
"Breaking into the principal" was, in the minds
of most thrifty New England women, a sin only
second to arson, theft, or murder; and, though the
rule was occasionally carried too far for common
sense,--as in this case, where two elderly women
of sixty might reasonably have drawn something
from their little hoard in time of special need,--it
doubtless wrought more of good than evil in the
community.
Rebecca, who knew nothing of their business
affairs, merely saw her aunts grow more and more
saving, pinching here and there, cutting off this
and that relentlessly. Less meat and fish were
bought; the woman who had lately been coming
two days a week for washing, ironing, and scrubbing
was dismissed; the old bonnets of the season
before were brushed up and retrimmed; there were
no drives to Moderation or trips to Portland. Economy
was carried to its very extreme; but though
Miranda was well-nigh as gloomy and uncompromising
in her manner and conversation as a woman could
well be, she at least never twitted her niece of being
a burden; so Rebecca's share of the Sawyers'
misfortunes consisted only in wearing her old dresses,
hats, and jackets, without any apparent hope of a
change.
There was, however, no concealing the state of
things at Sunnybrook, where chapters of accidents
had unfolded themselves in a sort of serial story that
had run through the year. The potato crop had
failed; there were no apples to speak of; the hay
had been poor; Aurelia had turns of dizziness in
her head; Mark had broken his ankle. As this was
his fourth offense, Miranda inquired how many
bones there were in the human body, "so 't they'd
know when Mark got through breakin' 'em." The
time for paying the interest on the mortgage, that
incubus that had crushed all the joy out of the
Randall household, had come and gone, and there
was no possibility, for the first time in fourteen
years, of paying the required forty-eight dollars.
The only bright spot in the horizon was Hannah's
engagement to Will Melville,--a young farmer
whose land joined Sunnybrook, who had a good
house, was alone in the world, and his own master.
Hannah was so satisfied with her own unexpectedly
radiant prospects that she hardly realized her mother's
anxieties; for there are natures which flourish,
in adversity, and deteriorate when exposed to sudden
prosperity. She had made a visit of a week at
the brick house; and Miranda's impression, conveyed
in privacy to Jane, was that Hannah was close
as the bark of a tree, and consid'able selfish too;
that when she'd clim' as fur as she could in the
world, she'd kick the ladder out from under her,
everlastin' quick; that, on being sounded as to her
ability to be of use to the younger children in the
future, she said she guessed she'd done her share
a'ready, and she wan't goin' to burden Will with
her poor relations. "She's Susan Randall through
and through!" ejaculated Miranda. "I was glad to
see her face turned towards Temperance. If that
mortgage is ever cleared from the farm, 't won't be
Hannah that'll do it; it'll be Rebecca or me!"
XXIV
ALADDIN RUBS HIS LAMP
Your esteemed contribution entitled Wareham
Wildflowers has been accepted for
The Pilot, Miss Perkins," said Rebecca,
entering the room where Emma Jane was darning
the firm's stockings. "I stayed to tea with Miss
Maxwell, but came home early to tell you."
"You are joking, Becky!" faltered Emma Jane,
looking up from her work.
"Not a bit; the senior editor read it and thought
it highly instructive; it appears in the next issue."
"Not in the same number with your poem about
the golden gates that close behind us when we leave
school?"--and Emma Jane held her breath as she
awaited the reply.
"Even so, Miss Perkins."
"Rebecca," said Emma Jane, with the nearest
approach to tragedy that her nature would permit,
"I don't know as I shall be able to bear it, and if
anything happens to me, I ask you solemnly to bury
that number of The Pilot with me."
Rebecca did not seem to think this the expression
of an exaggerated state of feeling, inasmuch as
she replied, "I know; that's just the way it seemed
to me at first, and even now, whenever I'm alone
and take out the Pilot back numbers to read over
my contributions, I almost burst with pleasure; and
it's not that they are good either, for they look
worse to me every time I read them."
"If you would only live with me in some little
house when we get older," mused Emma Jane, as
with her darning needle poised in air she regarded
the opposite wall dreamily, "I would do the housework
and cooking, and copy all your poems and
stories, and take them to the post-office, and you
needn't do anything but write. It would be
perfectly elergant!"
"I'd like nothing better, if I hadn't promised to
keep house for John," replied Rebecca.
"He won't have a house for a good many years,
will he?"
"No," sighed Rebecca ruefully, flinging herself
down by the table and resting her head on her hand.
"Not unless we can contrive to pay off that detestable
mortgage. The day grows farther off instead
of nearer now that we haven't paid the interest
this year."
She pulled a piece of paper towards her, and
scribbling idly on it read aloud in a moment or two:--
"Will you pay a little faster?" said the mortgage to the farm;
"I confess I'm very tired of this place."
"The weariness is mutual," Rebecca Randall cried;
"I would I'd never gazed upon your face!"
"A note has a `face,'" observed Emma Jane, who
was gifted in arithmetic. "I didn't know that a
mortgage had."
"Our mortgage has," said Rebecca revengefully.
"I should know him if I met him in the dark. Wait
and I'll draw him for you. It will be good for you
to know how he looks, and then when you have a
husband and seven children, you won't allow him to
come anywhere within a mile of your farm."
The sketch when completed was of a sort to be
shunned by a timid person on the verge of slumber.
There was a tiny house on the right, and a weeping
family gathered in front of it. The mortgage was
depicted as a cross between a fiend and an ogre,
and held an axe uplifted in his red right hand. A
figure with streaming black locks was staying the
blow, and this, Rebecca explained complacently, was
intended as a likeness of herself, though she was
rather vague as to the method she should use in
attaining her end.
"He's terrible," said Emma Jane, "but awfully
wizened and small."
"It's only a twelve hundred dollar mortgage,"
said Rebecca, "and that's called a small one. John
saw a man once that was mortgaged for twelve
thousand."
"Shall you be a writer or an editor?" asked
Emma Jane presently, as if one had only to choose
and the thing were done.
"I shall have to do what turns up first, I suppose."
"Why not go out as a missionary to Syria, as the
Burches are always coaxing you to? The Board
would pay your expenses."
"I can't make up my mind to be a missionary,"
Rebecca answered. "I'm not good enough in the
first place, and I don't `feel a call,' as Mr. Burch
says you must. I would like to do something for
somebody and make things move, somewhere, but
I don't want to go thousands of miles away teaching
people how to live when I haven't learned myself.
It isn't as if the heathen really needed me; I'm
sure they'll come out all right in the end."
"I can't see how; if all the people who ought to
go out to save them stay at home as we do," argued
Emma Jane.
"Why, whatever God is, and wherever He is,
He must always be there, ready and waiting. He
can't move about and miss people. It may take
the heathen a little longer to find Him, but God
will make allowances, of course. He knows if they
live in such hot climates it must make them lazy
and slow; and the parrots and tigers and snakes
and bread-fruit trees distract their minds; and
having no books, they can't think as well; but
they'll find God somehow, some time."
"What if they die first?" asked Emma Jane.
"Oh, well, they can't be blamed for that; they
don't die on purpose," said Rebecca, with a
comfortable theology.
In these days Adam Ladd sometimes went to
Temperance on business connected with the proposed
branch of the railroad familiarly known
as the "York and Yank 'em," and while there he
gained an inkling of Sunnybrook affairs. The
building of the new road was not yet a certainty, and
there was a difference of opinion as to the best
route from Temperance to Plumville. In one event
the way would lead directly through Sunnybrook,
from corner to corner, and Mrs. Randall would be
compensated; in the other, her interests would not
be affected either for good or ill, save as all land in
the immediate neighborhood might rise a little in
value.
Coming from Temperance to Wareham one day,
Adam had a long walk and talk with Rebecca,
whom he thought looking pale and thin, though
she was holding bravely to her self-imposed hours
of work. She was wearing a black cashmere dress
that had been her aunt Jane's second best. We are
familiar with the heroine of romance whose foot is
so exquisitely shaped that the coarsest shoe cannot
conceal its perfections, and one always cherishes a
doubt of the statement; yet it is true that Rebecca's
peculiar and individual charm seemed wholly
independent of accessories. The lines of her figure,
the rare coloring of skin and hair and eyes,
triumphed over shabby clothing, though, had the
advantage of artistic apparel been given her, the
little world of Wareham would probably at once
have dubbed her a beauty. The long black braids
were now disposed after a quaint fashion of her
own. They were crossed behind, carried up to the
front, and crossed again, the tapering ends finally
brought down and hidden in the thicker part at the
neck. Then a purely feminine touch was given to
the hair that waved back from the face,--a touch
that rescued little crests and wavelets from bondage
and set them free to take a new color in the sun.
Adam Ladd looked at her in a way that made
her put her hands over her face and laugh through
them shyly as she said: "I know what you are
thinking, Mr. Aladdin,--that my dress is an inch
longer than last year, and my hair different; but
I'm not nearly a young lady yet; truly I'm not.
Sixteen is a month off still, and you promised not
to give me up till my dress trails. If you don't like
me to grow old, why don't you grow young? Then
we can meet in the halfway house and have nice
times. Now that I think about it," she continued,
"that's just what you've been doing all along.
When you bought the soap, I thought you were
grandfather Sawyer's age; when you danced with
me at the flag-raising, you seemed like my father;
but when you showed me your mother's picture, I
felt as if you were my John, because I was so sorry
for you."
"That will do very well," smiled Adam; "unless
you go so swiftly that you become my grandmother
before I really need one. You are studying too
hard, Miss Rebecca Rowena!"
"Just a little," she confessed. "But vacation
comes soon, you know."
"And are you going to have a good rest and try
to recover your dimples? They are really worth
preserving."
A shadow crept over Rebecca's face and her eyes
suffused. "Don't be kind, Mr. Aladdin, I can't bear
it;--it's--it's not one of my dimply days!" and
she ran in at the seminary gate, and disappeared
with a farewell wave of her hand.
Adam Ladd wended his way to the principal's
office in a thoughtful mood. He had come to Wareham
to unfold a plan that he had been considering
for several days. This year was the fiftieth
anniversary of the founding of the Wareham schools,
and he meant to tell Mr. Morrison that in addition
to his gift of a hundred volumes to the reference
library, he intended to celebrate it by offering prizes
in English composition, a subject in which he was
much interested. He wished the boys and girls of
the two upper classes to compete; the award to be
made to the writers of the two best essays. As to
the nature of the prizes he had not quite made up
his mind, but they would be substantial ones, either
of money or of books.
This interview accomplished, he called upon Miss
Maxwell, thinking as he took the path through the
woods, "Rose-Red-Snow-White needs the help, and
since there is no way of my giving it to her without
causing remark, she must earn it, poor little soul!
I wonder if my money is always to be useless where
most I wish to spend it!"
He had scarcely greeted his hostess when he
said: "Miss Maxwell, doesn't it strike you that
our friend Rebecca looks wretchedly tired?"
"She does indeed, and I am considering whether
I can take her away with me. I always go South
for the spring vacation, traveling by sea to Old
Point Comfort, and rusticating in some quiet spot
near by. I should like nothing better than to have
Rebecca for a companion."
"The very thing!" assented Adam heartily;
"but why should you take the whole responsibility?
Why not let me help? I am greatly interested in
the child, and have been for some years."
"You needn't pretend you discovered her,"
interrupted Miss Maxwell warmly, "for I did that
myself."
"She was an intimate friend of mine long before
you ever came to Wareham," laughed Adam, and
he told Miss Maxwell the circumstances of his first
meeting with Rebecca. "From the beginning I've
tried to think of a way I could be useful in her
development, but no reasonable solution seemed to
offer itself."
"Luckily she attends to her own development,"
answered Miss Maxwell. "In a sense she is
independent of everything and everybody; she follows
her saint without being conscious of it. But she
needs a hundred practical things that money would
buy for her, and alas! I have a slender purse."
"Take mine, I beg, and let me act through you,"
pleaded Adam. "I could not bear to see even a
young tree trying its best to grow without light or
air,--how much less a gifted child! I interviewed
her aunts a year ago, hoping I might be permitted
to give her a musical education. I assured them it
was a most ordinary occurrence, and that I was willing
to be repaid later on if they insisted, but it was
no use. The elder Miss Sawyer remarked that no
member of her family ever had lived on charity,
and she guessed they wouldn't begin at this late
day."
"I rather like that uncompromising New England
grit," exclaimed Miss Maxwell, "and so far, I
don't regret one burden that Rebecca has borne or
one sorrow that she has shared. Necessity has only
made her brave; poverty has only made her daring
and self-reliant. As to her present needs, there
are certain things only a woman ought to do for a
girl, and I should not like to have you do them for
Rebecca; I should feel that I was wounding her
pride and self-respect, even though she were ignorant;
but there is no reason why I may not do them
if necessary and let you pay her traveling expenses.
I would accept those for her without the slightest
embarrassment, but I agree that the matter would
better be kept private between us."
"You are a real fairy godmother!" exclaimed
Adam, shaking her hand warmly. "Would it be
less trouble for you to invite her room-mate too,--
the pink-and-white inseparable?"
"No, thank you, I prefer to have Rebecca all to
myself," said Miss Maxwell.
"I can understand that," replied Adam absentmindedly;
"I mean, of course, that one child is less
trouble than two. There she is now."
Here Rebecca appeared in sight, walking down
the quiet street with a lad of sixteen. They were in
animated conversation, and were apparently reading
something aloud to each other, for the black head
and the curly brown one were both bent over a sheet
of letter paper. Rebecca kept glancing up at her
companion, her eyes sparkling with appreciation.
"Miss Maxwell," said Adam, "I am a trustee of
this institution, but upon my word I don't believe in
coeducation!"
"I have my own occasional hours of doubt," she
answered, "but surely its disadvantages are reduced
to a minimum with--children! That is a very impressive
sight which you are privileged to witness,
Mr. Ladd. The folk in Cambridge often gloated
on the spectacle of Longfellow and Lowell arm in
arm. The little school world of Wareham palpitates
with excitement when it sees the senior and
the junior editors of The Pilot walking together!"
XXV
ROSES OF JOY
The day before Rebecca started for the
South with Miss Maxwell she was in the
library with Emma Jane and Huldah,
consulting dictionaries and encyclopaedias. As they
were leaving they passed the locked cases containing
the library of fiction, open to the teachers and
townspeople, but forbidden to the students.
They looked longingly through the glass, getting
some little comfort from the titles of the volumes,
as hungry children imbibe emotional nourishment
from the pies and tarts inside a confectioner's window.
Rebecca's eyes fell upon a new book in the
corner, and she read the name aloud with delight:
"_The Rose of Joy_. Listen, girls; isn't that lovely?
_The Rose of Joy_. It looks beautiful, and it sounds
beautiful. What does it mean, I wonder?"
"I guess everybody has a different rose," said
Huldah shrewdly. "I know what mine would be,
and I'm not ashamed to own it. I'd like a year
in a city, with just as much money as I wanted
to spend, horses and splendid clothes and amusements
every minute of the day; and I'd like above
everything to live with people that wear low
necks." (Poor Huldah never took off her dress without
bewailing the fact that her lot was cast in
Riverboro, where her pretty white shoulders could
never be seen.)
"That would be fun, for a while anyway," Emma
Jane remarked. "But wouldn't that be pleasure
more than joy? Oh, I've got an idea!"
"Don't shriek so!" said the startled Huldah.
"I thought it was a mouse."
"I don't have them very often," apologized Emma
Jane,--"ideas, I mean; this one shook me like
a stroke of lightning. Rebecca, couldn't it be success?"
"That's good," mused Rebecca; "I can see that
success would be a joy, but it doesn't seem to me
like a rose, somehow. I was wondering if it could
be love?"
"I wish we could have a peep at the book! It
must be perfectly elergant!" said Emma Jane.
"But now you say it is love, I think that's the best
guess yet."
All day long the four words haunted and possessed
Rebecca; she said them over to herself continually.
Even the prosaic Emma Jane was affected
by them, for in the evening she said, "I don't
expect you to believe it, but I have another idea,--
that's two in one day; I had it while I was putting
cologne on your head. The rose of joy might be
helpfulness."
"If it is, then it is always blooming in your dear
little heart, you darlingest, kind Emmie, taking
such good care of your troublesome Becky!"
"Don't dare to call yourself troublesome! You're
--you're--you're my rose of joy, that's what you
are!" And the two girls hugged each other affectionately.
In the middle of the night Rebecca touched
Emma Jane on the shoulder softly. "Are you very
fast asleep, Emmie?" she whispered.
"Not so very," answered Emma Jane drowsily.
"I've thought of something new. If you sang or
painted or wrote,--not a little, but beautifully, you
know,--wouldn't the doing of it, just as much as
you wanted, give you the rose of joy?"
"It might if it was a real talent," answered Emma
Jane, "though I don't like it so well as love. If you
have another thought, Becky, keep it till morning."
"I did have one more inspiration," said Rebecca
when they were dressing next morning, "but I
didn't wake you. I wondered if the rose of joy
could be sacrifice? But I think sacrifice would be
a lily, not a rose; don't you?"
The journey southward, the first glimpse of the
ocean, the strange new scenes, the ease and delicious
freedom, the intimacy with Miss Maxwell,
almost intoxicated Rebecca. In three days she was
not only herself again, she was another self, thrilling
with delight, anticipation, and realization. She
had always had such eager hunger for knowledge,
such thirst for love, such passionate longing for the
music, the beauty, the poetry of existence! She
had always been straining to make the outward
world conform to her inward dreams, and now life
had grown all at once rich and sweet, wide and full.
She was using all her natural, God-given outlets;
and Emily Maxwell marveled daily at the inexhaustible
way in which the girl poured out and gathered
in the treasures of thought and experience that
belonged to her. She was a lifegiver, altering the
whole scheme of any picture she made a part of,
by contributing new values. Have you never seen
the dull blues and greens of a room changed,
transfigured by a burst of sunshine? That seemed to
Miss Maxwell the effect of Rebecca on the groups of
people with whom they now and then mingled; but
they were commonly alone, reading to each other
and having quiet talks. The prize essay was very
much on Rebecca's mind. Secretly she thought
she could never be happy unless she won it. She
cared nothing for the value of it, and in this case
almost nothing for the honor; she wanted to please
Mr. Aladdin and justify his belief in her.
"If I ever succeed in choosing a subject, I must
ask if you think I can write well on it; and then
I suppose I must work in silence and secret, never
even reading the essay to you, nor talking about it."
Miss Maxwell and Rebecca were sitting by a little
brook on a sunny spring day. They had been in a
stretch of wood by the sea since breakfast, going
every now and then for a bask on the warm white
sand, and returning to their shady solitude when
tired of the sun's glare.
"The subject is very important," said Miss
Maxwell, "but I do not dare choose for you. Have you
decided on anything yet?"
"No," Rebecca answered; "I plan a new essay
every night. I've begun one on What is Failure?
and another on He and She. That would be a
dialogue between a boy and girl just as they were
leaving school, and would tell their ideals of life.
Then do you remember you said to me one day,
`Follow your Saint'? I'd love to write about that.
I didn't have a single thought in Wareham, and
now I have a new one every minute, so I must try
and write the essay here; think it out, at any rate,
while I am so happy and free and rested. Look at
the pebbles in the bottom of the pool, Miss Emily,
so round and smooth and shining."
"Yes, but where did they get that beautiful
polish, that satin skin, that lovely shape, Rebecca?
Not in the still pool lying on the sands. It was
never there that their angles were rubbed off and
their rough surfaces polished, but in the strife and
warfare of running waters. They have jostled
against other pebbles, dashed against sharp rocks,
and now we look at them and call them beautiful."
"If Fate had not made somebody a teacher,
She might have been, oh! such a splendid preacher!"
rhymed Rebecca. "Oh! if I could only think and
speak as you do!" she sighed. "I am so afraid I
shall never get education enough to make a good
writer."
"You could worry about plenty of other things
to better advantage," said Miss Maxwell, a little
scornfully. "Be afraid, for instance, that you won't
understand human nature; that you won't realize
the beauty of the outer world; that you may lack
sympathy, and thus never be able to read a heart;
that your faculty of expression may not keep pace
with your ideas,--a thousand things, every one of
them more important to the writer than the knowledge
that is found in books. AEsop was a Greek
slave who could not even write down his wonderful
fables; yet all the world reads them."
"I didn't know that," said Rebecca, with a half
sob. "I didn't know anything until I met you!"
"You will only have had a high school course, but
the most famous universities do not always succeed
in making men and women. When I long to go
abroad and study, I always remember that there
were three great schools in Athens and two in
Jerusalem, but the Teacher of all teachers came out of
Nazareth, a little village hidden away from the bigger,
busier world."
"Mr. Ladd says that you are almost wasted on
Wareham." said Rebecca thoughtfully.
"He is wrong; my talent is not a great one, but
no talent is wholly wasted unless its owner chooses
to hide it in a napkin. Remember that of your own
gifts, Rebecca; they may not be praised of men, but
they may cheer, console, inspire, perhaps, when and
where you least expect. The brimming glass that
overflows its own rim moistens the earth about it."
"Did you ever hear of The Rose of Joy?" asked
Rebecca, after a long silence.
"Yes, of course; where did you see it?"
"On the outside of a book in the library."
"I saw it on the inside of a book in the library,"
smiled Miss Maxwell. "It is from Emerson, but
I'm afraid you haven't quite grown up to it,
Rebecca, and it is one of the things impossible to
explain."
"Oh, try me, dear Miss Maxwell!" pleaded
Rebecca. "Perhaps by thinking hard I can guess a
little bit what it means."
"`In the actual--this painful kingdom of time
and chance--are Care, Canker, and Sorrow; with
thought, with the Ideal, is immortal hilarity--the
rose of Joy; round it all the Muses sing,'" quoted
Miss Maxwell.
Rebecca repeated it over and over again until she
had learned it by heart; then she said, "I don't
want to be conceited, but I almost believe I do
understand it, Miss Maxwell. Not altogether, perhaps,
because it is puzzling and difficult; but a little,
enough to go on with. It's as if a splendid shape
galloped past you on horseback; you are so surprised
and your eyes move so slowly you cannot
half see it, but you just catch a glimpse as it whisks
by, and you know it is beautiful. It's all settled.
My essay is going to be called The Rose of Joy.
I've just decided. It hasn't any beginning, nor any
middle, but there will be a thrilling ending,
something like this: let me see; joy, boy, toy, ahoy,
decoy, alloy:--
Then come what will of weal or woe
(Since all gold hath alloy),
Thou 'lt bloom unwithered in this heart,
My Rose of Joy!
Now I'm going to tuck you up in the shawl and
give you the fir pillow, and while you sleep I am
going down on the shore and write a fairy story for
you. It's one of our `supposing' kind; it flies far,
far into the future, and makes beautiful things happen
that may never really all come to pass; but
some of them will,--you'll see! and then you'll
take out the little fairy story from your desk and
remember Rebecca."
"I wonder why these young things always choose
subjects that would tax the powers of a great
essayist!" thought Miss Maxwell, as she tried to sleep.
"Are they dazzled, captivated, taken possession of,
by the splendor of the theme, and do they fancy
they can write up to it? Poor little innocents, hitching
their toy wagons to the stars! How pretty this
particular innocent looks under her new sunshade!"
Adam Ladd had been driving through Boston
streets on a cold spring day when nature and the
fashion-mongers were holding out promises which
seemed far from performance. Suddenly his vision
was assailed by the sight of a rose-colored parasol
gayly unfurled in a shop window, signaling the
passer-by and setting him to dream of summer
sunshine. It reminded Adam of a New England appletree
in full bloom, the outer covering of deep pink
shining through the thin white lining, and a fluffy,
fringe-like edge of mingled rose and cream dropping
over the green handle. All at once he remembered
one of Rebecca's early confidences,--the little pink
sunshade that had given her the only peep into the
gay world of fashion that her childhood had ever
known; her adoration of the flimsy bit of finery and
its tragic and sacrificial end. He entered the shop,
bought the extravagant bauble, and expressed it to
Wareham at once, not a single doubt of its
appropriateness crossing the darkness of his masculine
mind. He thought only of the joy in Rebecca's
eyes; of the poise of her head under the apple-blossom
canopy. It was a trifle embarrassing to return
an hour later and buy a blue parasol for Emma Jane
Perkins, but it seemed increasingly difficult, as the
years went on, to remember her existence at all
the proper times and seasons.
This is Rebecca's fairy story, copied the next day
and given to Emily Maxwell just as she was going to
her room for the night. She read it with tears in her
eyes and then sent it to Adam Ladd, thinking he had
earned a share in it, and that he deserved a glimpse
of the girl's budding imagination, as well as of her
grateful young heart.
A FAIRY STORY
There was once a tired and rather povertystricken
Princess who dwelt in a cottage on the
great highway between two cities. She was not as
unhappy as thousands of others; indeed, she had
much to be grateful for, but the life she lived and
the work she did were full hard for one who was
fashioned slenderly.
Now the cottage stood by the edge of a great
green forest where the wind was always singing
in the branches and the sunshine filtering through
the leaves.
And one day when the Princess was sitting by the
wayside quite spent by her labor in the fields, she
saw a golden chariot rolling down the King's Highway,
and in it a person who could be none other than
somebody's Fairy Godmother on her way to the
Court. The chariot halted at her door, and though
the Princess had read of such beneficent personages,
she never dreamed for an instant that one of them
could ever alight at her cottage.
"If you are tired, poor little Princess, why do you
not go into the cool green forest and rest?" asked
the Fairy Godmother.
"Because I have no time," she answered. "I
must go back to my plough."
"Is that your plough leaning by the tree, and is
it not too heavy?"
"It is heavy," answered the Princess, "but I love
to turn the hard earth into soft furrows and know
that I am making good soil wherein my seeds may
grow. When I feel the weight too much, I try to
think of the harvest."
The golden chariot passed on, and the two talked
no more together that day; nevertheless the King's
messengers were busy, for they whispered one word
into the ear of the Fairy Godmother and another
into the ear of the Princess, though so faintly that
neither of them realized that the King had spoken.
The next morning a strong man knocked at the
cottage door, and doffing his hat to the Princess
said: "A golden chariot passed me yesterday, and
one within it flung me a purse of ducats, saying:
`Go out into the King's Highway and search until
you find a cottage and a heavy plough leaning against
a tree near by. Enter and say to the Princess whom
you will find there: "I will guide the plough and
you must go and rest, or walk in the cool green
forest; for this is the command of your Fairy
Godmother."'"
And the same thing happened every day, and
every day the tired Princess walked in the green
wood. Many times she caught the glitter of the
chariot and ran into the Highway to give thanks
to the Fairy Godmother; but she was never fleet
enough to reach the spot. She could only stand
with eager eyes and longing heart as the chariot
passed by. Yet she never failed to catch a smile,
and sometimes a word or two floated back to her,
words that sounded like: "I would not be thanked.
We are all children of the same King, and I am only
his messenger."
Now as the Princess walked daily in the green
forest, hearing the wind singing in the branches and
seeing the sunlight filter through the lattice-work of
green leaves, there came unto her thoughts that had
lain asleep in the stifling air of the cottage and the
weariness of guiding the plough. And by and by
she took a needle from her girdle and pricked the
thoughts on the leaves of the trees and sent them
into the air to float hither and thither. And it came
to pass that people began to pick them up, and holding
them against the sun, to read what was written
on them, and this was because the simple little
words on the leaves were only, after all, a part of
one of the King's messages, such as the Fairy Godmother
dropped continually from her golden chariot.
But the miracle of the story lies deeper than all this.
Whenever the Princess pricked the words upon
the leaves she added a thought of her Fairy Godmother,
and folding it close within, sent the leaf out
on the breeze to float hither and thither and fall
where it would. And many other little Princesses
felt the same impulse and did the same thing. And
as nothing is ever lost in the King's Dominion, so
these thoughts and wishes and hopes, being full
of love and gratitude, had no power to die, but took
unto themselves other shapes and lived on forever.
They cannot be seen, our vision is too weak; nor
heard, our hearing is too dull; but they can sometimes
be felt, and we know not what force is stirring
our hearts to nobler aims.
The end of the story is not come, but it may be
that some day when the Fairy Godmother has a message
to deliver in person straight to the King, he will
say: "Your face I know; your voice, your thoughts,
and your heart. I have heard the rumble of your
chariot wheels on the great Highway, and I knew
that you were on the King's business. Here in my
hand is a sheaf of messages from every quarter of
my kingdom. They were delivered by weary and
footsore travelers, who said that they could never
have reached the gate in safety had it not been for
your help and inspiration. Read them, that you
may know when and where and how you sped the
King's service."
And when the Fairy Godmother reads them, it
may be that sweet odors will rise from the pages,
and half-forgotten memories will stir the air; but
in the gladness of the moment nothing will be half
so lovely as the voice of the King when he said:
"Read, and know how you sped the King's service."
Rebecca Rowena Randall
XXVI
"OVER THE TEACUPS"
The summer term at Wareham had ended,
and Huldah Meserve, Dick Carter, and
Living Perkins had finished school, leaving
Rebecca and Emma Jane to represent Riverboro
in the year to come. Delia Weeks was at home
from Lewiston on a brief visit, and Mrs. Robinson
was celebrating the occasion by a small and select
party, the particular day having been set because
strawberries were ripe and there was a rooster that
wanted killing. Mrs. Robinson explained this to her
husband, and requested that he eat his dinner on
the carpenter's bench in the shed, as the party was
to be a ladies' affair.
"All right; it won't be any loss to me," said Mr.
Robinson. "Give me beans, that's all I ask. When
a rooster wants to be killed, I want somebody else
to eat him, not me!"
Mrs. Robinson had company only once or twice
a year, and was generally much prostrated for several
days afterward, the struggle between pride and
parsimony being quite too great a strain upon her.
It was necessary, in order to maintain her standing
in the community, to furnish a good "set out," yet
the extravagance of the proceeding goaded her from
the first moment she began to stir the marble cake
to the moment when the feast appeared upon the
table.
The rooster had been boiling steadily over a slow
fire since morning, but such was his power of resistance
that his shape was as firm and handsome in
the pot as on the first moment when he was lowered
into it.
"He ain't goin' to give up!" said Alice, peering
nervously under the cover, "and he looks like a
scarecrow."
"We'll see whether he gives up or not when I
take a sharp knife to him," her mother answered;
"and as to his looks, a platter full o' gravy makes
a sight o' difference with old roosters, and I'll put
dumplings round the aidge; they're turrible fillin',
though they don't belong with boiled chicken."
The rooster did indeed make an impressive showing,
lying in his border of dumplings, and the dish
was much complimented when it was borne in by
Alice. This was fortunate, as the chorus of admiration
ceased abruptly when the ladies began to eat
the fowl.
"I was glad you could git over to Huldy's
graduation, Delia," said Mrs. Meserve, who sat at the
foot of the table and helped the chicken while Mrs.
Robinson poured coffee at the other end. She was
a fit mother for Huldah, being much the most stylish
person in Riverboro; ill health and dress were,
indeed, her two chief enjoyments in life. It was
rumored that her elaborately curled "front piece"
had cost five dollars, and that it was sent into Portland
twice a year to be dressed and frizzed; but
it is extremely difficult to discover the precise facts
in such cases, and a conscientious historian always
prefers to warn a too credulous reader against
imbibing as gospel truth something that might be
the basest perversion of it. As to Mrs. Meserve's
appearance, have you ever, in earlier years, sought
the comforting society of the cook and hung over
the kitchen table while she rolled out sugar
gingerbread? Perhaps then, in some unaccustomed
moment of amiability, she made you a dough lady,
cutting the outline deftly with her pastry knife, and
then, at last, placing the human stamp upon it by
sticking in two black currants for eyes. Just call to
mind the face of that sugar gingerbread lady and
you will have an exact portrait of Huldah's mother,
--Mis' Peter Meserve, she was generally called,
there being several others.
"How'd you like Huldy's dress, Delia?" she
asked, snapping the elastic in her black jet bracelets
after an irritating fashion she had.
"I thought it was about the handsomest of any,"
answered Delia; "and her composition was first
rate. It was the only real amusin' one there was,
and she read it so loud and clear we didn't miss
any of it; most o' the girls spoke as if they had
hasty pudtin' in their mouths."
"That was the composition she wrote for Adam
Ladd's prize," explained Mrs. Meserve, "and they
do say she'd 'a' come out first, 'stead o' fourth,
if her subject had been dif'rent. There was three
ministers and three deacons on the committee, and
it was only natural they should choose a serious
piece; hers was too lively to suit 'em."
Huldah's inspiring theme had been Boys, and she
certainly had a fund of knowledge and experience
that fitted her to write most intelligently upon it. It
was vastly popular with the audience, who enjoyed
the rather cheap jokes and allusions with which it
coruscated; but judged from a purely literary standpoint,
it left much to be desired.
"Rebecca's piece wan't read out loud, but the
one that took the boy's prize was; why was that?"
asked Mrs. Robinson.
"Because she wan't graduatin'," explained Mrs.
Cobb, "and couldn't take part in the exercises;
it'll be printed, with Herbert Dunn's, in the school
paper."
"I'm glad o' that, for I'll never believe it was
better 'n Huldy's till I read it with my own eyes;
it seems as if the prize ought to 'a' gone to one of
the seniors."
"Well, no, Marthy, not if Ladd offered it to any
of the two upper classes that wanted to try for it,"
argued Mrs. Robinson. "They say they asked him
to give out the prizes, and he refused, up and down.
It seems odd, his bein' so rich and travelin' about
all over the country, that he was too modest to git
up on that platform."
"My Huldy could 'a' done it, and not winked an
eyelash," observed Mrs. Meserve complacently; a
remark which there seemed no disposition on the
part of any of the company to controvert.
"It was complete, though, the governor happening
to be there to see his niece graduate," said Delia
Weeks. "Land! he looked elegant! They say he's
only six feet, but he might 'a' been sixteen, and he
certainly did make a fine speech."
"Did you notice Rebecca, how white she was,
and how she trembled when she and Herbert Dunn
stood there while the governor was praisin' 'em?
He'd read her composition, too, for he wrote the
Sawyer girls a letter about it." This remark was
from the sympathetic Mrs. Cobb.
"I thought 't was kind o' foolish, his makin' so
much of her when it wan't her graduation,"
objected Mrs. Meserve; "layin' his hand on her head
'n' all that, as if he was a Pope pronouncin' benediction.
But there! I'm glad the prize come to Riverboro
't any rate, and a han'somer one never was
give out from the Wareham platform. I guess there
ain't no end to Adam Ladd's money. The fifty dollars
would 'a' been good enough, but he must needs
go and put it into those elegant purses."
"I set so fur back I couldn't see 'em fairly,"
complained Delia, "and now Rebecca has taken
hers home to show her mother."
"It was kind of a gold net bag with a chain," said
Mrs. Perkins, "and there was five ten-dollar gold
pieces in it. Herbert Dunn's was put in a fine
leather wallet."
"How long is Rebecca goin' to stay at the farm?"
asked Delia.
"Till they get over Hannah's bein' married, and
get the house to runnin' without her," answered
Mrs. Perkins. "It seems as if Hannah might 'a'
waited a little longer. Aurelia was set against her
goin' away while Rebecca was at school, but she's
obstinate as a mule, Hannah is, and she just took
her own way in spite of her mother. She's been
doin' her sewin' for a year; the awfullest coarse
cotton cloth she had, but she's nearly blinded herself
with fine stitchin' and rufflin' and tuckin'. Did
you hear about the quilt she made? It's white, and
has a big bunch o' grapes in the centre, quilted by
a thimble top. Then there's a row of circle-borderin'
round the grapes, and she done them the size
of a spool. The next border was done with a sherry
glass, and the last with a port glass, an' all outside
o' that was solid stitchin' done in straight rows;
she's goin' to exhibit it at the county fair."
"She'd better 'a' been takin' in sewin' and earnin'
money, 'stead o' blindin' her eyes on such foolishness
as quilted counterpanes," said Mrs. Cobb.
"The next thing you know that mortgage will be
foreclosed on Mis' Randall, and she and the children
won't have a roof over their heads."
"Don't they say there's a good chance of the
railroad goin' through her place?" asked Mrs.
Robinson. "If it does, she'll git as much as the farm
is worth and more. Adam Ladd 's one of the stockholders,
and everything is a success he takes holt
of. They're fightin' it in Augusty, but I'd back
Ladd agin any o' them legislaters if he thought he
was in the right."
"Rebecca'll have some new clothes now," said
Delia, "and the land knows she needs 'em. Seems
to me the Sawyer girls are gittin' turrible near!"
"Rebecca won't have any new clothes out o' the
prize money," remarked Mrs. Perkins, "for she sent
it away the next day to pay the interest on that
mortgage."
"Poor little girl!" exclaimed Delia Weeks.
"She might as well help along her folks as spend
it on foolishness," affirmed Mrs. Robinson. "I think
she was mighty lucky to git it to pay the interest
with, but she's probably like all the Randalls; it
was easy come, easy go, with them."
"That's more than could be said of the Sawyer
stock," retorted Mrs. Perkins; "seems like they
enjoyed savin' more'n anything in the world, and
it's gainin' on Mirandy sence her shock."
"I don't believe it was a shock; it stands to
reason she'd never 'a' got up after it and been so
smart as she is now; we had three o' the worst
shocks in our family that there ever was on this
river, and I know every symptom of 'em better'n
the doctors." And Mrs. Peter Meserve shook her
head wisely.
"Mirandy 's smart enough," said Mrs. Cobb,
"but you notice she stays right to home, and she's
more close-mouthed than ever she was; never took
a mite o' pride in the prize, as I could see, though
it pretty nigh drove Jeremiah out o' his senses. I
thought I should 'a' died o' shame when he cried
`Hooray!' and swung his straw hat when the governor
shook hands with Rebecca. It's lucky he
couldn't get fur into the church and had to stand
back by the door, for as it was, he made a spectacle
of himself. My suspicion is"--and here every lady
stopped eating and sat up straight--"that the
Sawyer girls have lost money. They don't know a
thing about business 'n' never did, and Mirandy's
too secretive and contrairy to ask advice."
"The most o' what they've got is in gov'ment
bonds, I always heard, and you can't lose money
on them. Jane had the timber land left her, an'
Mirandy had the brick house. She probably took
it awful hard that Rebecca's fifty dollars had to be
swallowed up in a mortgage, 'stead of goin' towards
school expenses. The more I think of it, the more
I think Adam Ladd intended Rebecca should have
that prize when he gave it." The mind of Huldah's
mother ran towards the idea that her daughter's
rights had been assailed.
"Land, Marthy, what foolishness you talk!"
exclaimed Mrs. Perkins; "you don't suppose he
could tell what composition the committee was
going to choose; and why should he offer another
fifty dollars for a boy's prize, if he wan't interested
in helpin' along the school? He's give Emma Jane
about the same present as Rebecca every Christmas
for five years; that's the way he does."
"Some time he'll forget one of 'em and give to
the other, or drop 'em both and give to some new
girl!" said Delia Weeks, with an experience born
of fifty years of spinsterhood.
"Like as not," assented Mrs. Peter Meserve,
"though it's easy to see he ain't the marryin' kind.
There's men that would marry once a year if their
wives would die fast enough, and there's men that
seems to want to live alone."
"If Ladd was a Mormon, I guess he could have
every woman in North Riverboro that's a suitable
age, accordin' to what my cousins say," remarked
Mrs. Perkins.
"'T ain't likely he could be ketched by any North
Riverboro girl," demurred Mrs. Robinson; "not
when he prob'bly has had the pick o' Boston. I
guess Marthy hit it when she said there's men
that ain't the marryin' kind."
"I wouldn't trust any of 'em when Miss Right
comes along!" laughed Mrs. Cobb genially. "You
never can tell what 'n' who 's goin' to please 'em.
You know Jeremiah's contrairy horse, Buster? He
won't let anybody put the bit into his mouth if he
can help it. He'll fight Jerry, and fight me, till he
has to give in. Rebecca didn't know nothin' about
his tricks, and the other day she went int' the
barn to hitch up. I followed right along, knowing
she'd have trouble with the headstall, and I declare
if she wan't pattin' Buster's nose and talkin' to
him, and when she put her little fingers into his
mouth he opened it so fur I thought he'd swaller
her, for sure. He jest smacked his lips over the bit
as if 't was a lump o' sugar. `Land, Rebecca,' I
says, `how'd you persuade him to take the bit?'
`I didn't,' she says, `he seemed to want it; perhaps
he's tired of his stall and wants to get out in
the fresh air.'"
XXVII
"THE VISION SPLENDID"
A year had elapsed since Adam Ladd's
prize had been discussed over the teacups
in Riverboro. The months had come and
gone, and at length the great day had dawned for
Rebecca,--the day to which she had been looking
forward for five years, as the first goal to be reached
on her little journey through the world. Schooldays
were ended, and the mystic function known
to the initiated as "graduation" was about to be
celebrated; it was even now heralded by the sun
dawning in the eastern sky. Rebecca stole softly
out of bed, crept to the window, threw open the
blinds, and welcomed the rosy light that meant a
cloudless morning. Even the sun looked different
somehow,--larger, redder, more important than
usual; and if it were really so, there was no member
of the graduating class who would have thought
it strange or unbecoming, in view of all the
circumstances. Emma Jane stirred on her pillow,
woke, and seeing Rebecca at the window, came and
knelt on the floor beside her. "It's going to be
pleasant!" she sighed gratefully. "If it wasn't
wicked, I could thank the Lord, I'm so relieved in
mind! Did you sleep?"
"Not much; the words of my class poem kept
running through my head, and the accompaniments
of the songs; and worse than anything, Mary
Queen of Scots' prayer in Latin; it seemed as if
"`Adoro, imploro,
Ut liberes me!'
were burned into my brain."
No one who is unfamiliar with life in rural
neighborhoods can imagine the gravity, the importance,
the solemnity of this last day of school. In
the matter of preparation, wealth of detail, and general
excitement it far surpasses a wedding; for that
is commonly a simple affair in the country, sometimes
even beginning and ending in a visit to the
parsonage. Nothing quite equals graduation in the
minds of the graduates themselves, their families,
and the younger students, unless it be the inauguration
of a governor at the State Capitol. Wareham,
then, was shaken to its very centre on this
day of days. Mothers and fathers of the scholars,
as well as relatives to the remotest generation, had
been coming on the train and driving into the town
since breakfast time; old pupils, both married and
single, with and without families, streamed back to
the dear old village. The two livery stables were
crowded with vehicles of all sorts, and lines of buggies
and wagons were drawn up along the sides of
the shady roads, the horses switching their tails in
luxurious idleness. The streets were filled with
people wearing their best clothes, and the fashions
included not only "the latest thing," but the well
preserved relic of a bygone day. There were all
sorts and conditions of men and women, for there
were sons and daughters of storekeepers, lawyers,
butchers, doctors, shoemakers, professors, ministers,
and farmers at the Wareham schools, either
as boarders or day scholars. In the seminary building
there was an excitement so deep and profound
that it expressed itself in a kind of hushed silence,
a transient suspension of life, as those most interested
approached the crucial moment. The feminine
graduates-to-be were seated in their own
bedrooms, dressed with a completeness of detail
to which all their past lives seemed to have been
but a prelude. At least, this was the case with their
bodies; but their heads, owing to the extreme heat
of the day, were one and all ornamented with leads,
or papers, or dozens of little braids, to issue later
in every sort of curl known to the girl of that
period. Rolling the hair on leads or papers was a
favorite method of attaining the desired result, and
though it often entailed a sleepless night, there
were those who gladly paid the price. Others, in
whose veins the blood of martyrs did not flow,
substituted rags for leads and pretended that they
made a more natural and less woolly curl. Heat,
however, will melt the proudest head and reduce
to fiddling strings the finest product of the wavingpin;
so anxious mothers were stationed over
their offspring, waving palm-leaf fans, it having
been decided that the supreme instant when the
town clock struck ten should be the one chosen
for releasing the prisoners from their self-imposed
tortures.
Dotted or plain Swiss muslin was the favorite
garb, though there were those who were steaming
in white cashmere or alpaca, because in some cases
such frocks were thought more useful afterwards.
Blue and pink waist ribbons were lying over the
backs of chairs, and the girl who had a Roman
sash was praying that she might be kept from
vanity and pride.
The way to any graduating dress at all had not
seemed clear to Rebecca until a month before.
Then, in company with Emma Jane, she visited the
Perkins attic, found piece after piece of white buttermuslin
or cheesecloth, and decided that, at a
pinch, it would do. The "rich blacksmith's daughter"
cast the thought of dotted Swiss behind her,
and elected to follow Rebecca in cheesecloth as
she had in higher matters; straightway devising
costumes that included such drawing of threads,
such hemstitching and pin-tucking, such insertions
of fine thread tatting that, in order to be finished,
Rebecca's dress was given out in sections,--the
sash to Hannah, waist and sleeves to Mrs. Cobb,
and skirt to aunt Jane. The stitches that went
into the despised material, worth only three or
four pennies a yard, made the dresses altogether
lovely, and as for the folds and lines into which
they fell, they could have given points to satins
and brocades.
The two girls were waiting in their room alone,
Emma Jane in rather a tearful state of mind. She
kept thinking that it was the last day that they
would be together in this altogether sweet and
close intimacy. The beginning of the end seemed
to have dawned, for two positions had been offered
Rebecca by Mr. Morrison the day before: one in
which she would play for singing and calisthenics,
and superintend the piano practice of the younger
girls in a boarding-school; the other an assistant's
place in the Edgewood High School. Both were
very modest as to salary, but the former included
educational advantages that Miss Maxwell thought
might be valuable.
Rebecca's mood had passed from that of excitement
into a sort of exaltation, and when the first
bell rang through the corridors announcing that in
five minutes the class would proceed in a body to
the church for the exercises, she stood motionless
and speechless at the window with her hand on
her heart.
"It is coming, Emmie," she said presently; "do
you remember in The Mill on the Floss, when
Maggie Tulliver closed the golden gates of childhood
behind her? I can almost see them swing;
almost hear them clang; and I can't tell whether I
am glad or sorry."
"I shouldn't care how they swung or clanged,"
said Emma Jane, "if only you and I were on the
same side of the gate; but we shan't be, I know
we shan't!"
"Emmie, don't dare to cry, for I'm just on the
brink myself! If only you were graduating with
me; that's my only sorrow! There! I hear the
rumble of the wheels! People will be seeing our
grand surprise now! Hug me once for luck, dear
Emmie; a careful hug, remembering our buttermuslin
frailty!"
Ten minutes later, Adam Ladd, who had just
arrived from Portland and was wending his way to
the church, came suddenly into the main street and
stopped short under a tree by the wayside, riveted
to the spot by a scene of picturesque loveliness
such as his eyes had seldom witnessed before. The
class of which Rebecca was president was not
likely to follow accepted customs. Instead of marching
two by two from the seminary to the church,
they had elected to proceed thither by royal chariot.
A haycart had been decked with green vines and
bunches of long-stemmed field daisies, those gay
darlings of New England meadows. Every inch of
the rail, the body, even the spokes, all were twined
with yellow and green and white. There were two
white horses, flower-trimmed reins, and in the floral
bower, seated on maple boughs, were the twelve
girls of the class, while the ten boys marched on
either side of the vehicle, wearing buttonhole
bouquets of daisies, the class flower.
Rebecca drove, seated on a green-covered bench
that looked not unlike a throne. No girl clad
in white muslin, no happy girl of seventeen, is
plain; and the twelve little country maids, from
the vantage ground of their setting, looked
beautiful, as the June sunlight filtered down on their
uncovered heads, showing their bright eyes, their
fresh cheeks, their smiles, and their dimples.
Rebecca, Adam thought, as he took off his hat
and saluted the pretty panorama,--Rebecca, with
her tall slenderness, her thoughtful brow, the fire
of young joy in her face, her fillet of dark braided
hair, might have been a young Muse or Sibyl; and
the flowery hayrack, with its freight of blooming
girlhood, might have been painted as an allegorical
picture of The Morning of Life. It all passed him,
as he stood under the elms in the old village street
where his mother had walked half a century ago,
and he was turning with the crowd towards the
church when he heard a little sob. Behind a hedge
in the garden near where he was standing was a
forlorn person in white, whose neat nose, chestnut
hair, and blue eyes he seemed to know. He stepped
inside the gate and said, "What's wrong, Miss
Emma?"
"Oh, is it you, Mr. Ladd? Rebecca wouldn't
let me cry for fear of spoiling my looks, but I must
have just one chance before I go in. I can be as
homely as I like, after all, for I only have to sing
with the school; I'm not graduating, I'm just
leaving! Not that I mind that; it's only being
separated from Rebecca that I never can stand!"
The two walked along together, Adam comforting
the disconsolate Emma Jane, until they reached
the old meeting-house where the Commencement
exercises were always held. The interior, with
its decorations of yellow, green, and white, was
crowded, the air hot and breathless, the essays and
songs and recitations precisely like all others that
have been since the world began. One always fears
that the platform may sink under the weight of
youthful platitudes uttered on such occasions; yet
one can never be properly critical, because the sight
of the boys and girls themselves, those young and
hopeful makers of to-morrow, disarms one's scorn.
We yawn desperately at the essays, but our hearts
go out to the essayists, all the same, for "the vision
splendid" is shining in their eyes, and there is no
fear of "th' inevitable yoke" that the years are so
surely bringing them.
Rebecca saw Hannah and her husband in the
audience; dear old John and cousin Ann also, and
felt a pang at the absence of her mother, though
she had known there was no possibility of seeing
her; for poor Aurelia was kept at Sunnybrook by
cares of children and farm, and lack of money
either for the journey or for suitable dress. The
Cobbs she saw too. No one, indeed, could fail to
see uncle Jerry; for he shed tears more than once,
and in the intervals between the essays descanted
to his neighbors concerning the marvelous gifts
of one of the graduating class whom he had known
ever since she was a child; in fact, had driven her
from Maplewood to Riverboro when she left her
home, and he had told mother that same night that
there wan't nary rung on the ladder o' fame that
that child wouldn't mount before she got through
with it.
The Cobbs, then, had come, and there were
other Riverboro faces, but where was aunt Jane,
in her black silk made over especially for this
occasion? Aunt Miranda had not intended to come,
she knew, but where, on this day of days, was her
beloved aunt Jane? However, this thought, like
all others, came and went in a flash, for the whole
morning was like a series of magic lantern
pictures, crossing and recrossing her field of vision.
She played, she sang, she recited Queen Mary's
Latin prayer, like one in a dream, only brought to
consciousness by meeting Mr. Aladdin's eyes as
she spoke the last line. Then at the end of the
programme came her class poem, Makers of Tomorrow;
and there, as on many a former occasion,
her personality played so great a part that she
seemed to be uttering Miltonic sentiments instead
of school-girl verse. Her voice, her eyes, her body
breathed conviction, earnestness, emotion; and
when she left the platform the audience felt that
they had listened to a masterpiece. Most of her
hearers knew little of Carlyle or Emerson, or they
might have remembered that the one said, "We
are all poets when we read a poem well," and the
other, "'T is the good reader makes the good
book."
It was over! The diplomas had been presented,
and each girl, after giving furtive touches to her
hair, sly tweaks to her muslin skirts, and caressing
pats to her sash, had gone forward to receive the
roll of parchment with a bow that had been the
subject of anxious thought for weeks. Rounds of
applause greeted each graduate at this thrilling
moment, and Jeremiah Cobb's behavior, when
Rebecca came forward, was the talk of Wareham and
Riverboro for days. Old Mrs. Webb avowed that
he, in the space of two hours, had worn out her
pew more--the carpet, the cushions, and woodwork--
than she had by sitting in it forty years.
Yes, it was over, and after the crowd had thinned
a little, Adam Ladd made his way to the platform.
Rebecca turned from speaking to some strangers
and met him in the aisle. "Oh, Mr. Aladdin,
I am so glad you could come! Tell me"--and she
looked at him half shyly, for his approval was dearer
to her, and more difficult to win, than that of the
others--"tell me, Mr. Aladdin,--were you satisfied?"
"More than satisfied!" he said; "glad I met
the child, proud I know the girl, longing to meet
the woman!"
XXVIII
"TH' INEVITABLE YOKE"
Rebecca's heart beat high at this sweet
praise from her hero's lips, but before she
had found words to thank him, Mr. and
Mrs. Cobb, who had been modestly biding their
time in a corner, approached her and she introduced
them to Mr. Ladd.
"Where, where is aunt Jane?" she cried, holding
aunt Sarah's hand on one side and uncle Jerry's
on the other.
"I'm sorry, lovey, but we've got bad news for
you."
"Is aunt Miranda worse? She is; I can see it
by your looks;" and Rebecca's color faded.
"She had a second stroke yesterday morning
jest when she was helpin' Jane lay out her things
to come here to-day. Jane said you wan't to know
anything about it till the exercises was all over, and
we promised to keep it secret till then."
"I will go right home with you, aunt Sarah. I
must just run to tell Miss Maxwell, for after I had
packed up to-morrow I was going to Brunswick with
her. Poor aunt Miranda! And I have been so gay
and happy all day, except that I was longing for
mother and aunt Jane."
"There ain't no harm in bein' gay, lovey; that's
what Jane wanted you to be. And Miranda's got
her speech back, for your aunt has just sent a letter
sayin' she's better; and I'm goin' to set up to-night,
so you can stay here and have a good sleep, and get
your things together comfortably to-morrow."
"I'll pack your trunk for you, Becky dear, and
attend to all our room things," said Emma Jane,
who had come towards the group and heard the
sorrowful news from the brick house.
They moved into one of the quiet side pews,
where Hannah and her husband and John joined
them. From time to time some straggling acquaintance
or old schoolmate would come up to congratulate
Rebecca and ask why she had hidden herself
in a corner. Then some member of the class would
call to her excitedly, reminding her not to be late
at the picnic luncheon, or begging her to be early
at the class party in the evening. All this had an
air of unreality to Rebecca. In the midst of the
happy excitement of the last two days, when
"blushing honors" had been falling thick upon her, and
behind the delicious exaltation of the morning, had
been the feeling that the condition was a transient
one, and that the burden, the struggle, the anxiety,
would soon loom again on the horizon. She longed
to steal away into the woods with dear old John,
grown so manly and handsome, and get some comfort
from him.
Meantime Adam Ladd and Mr. Cobb had been
having an animated conversation.
"I s'pose up to Boston, girls like that one are as
thick as blackb'ries?" uncle Jerry said, jerking his
head interrogatively in Rebecca's direction.
"They may be," smiled Adam, taking in the old
man's mood; "only I don't happen to know one."
"My eyesight bein' poor 's the reason she looked
han'somest of any girl on the platform, I s'pose?"
"There's no failure in my eyes," responded Adam,
"but that was how the thing seemed to me!"
"What did you think of her voice? Anything
extry about it?"
"Made the others sound poor and thin, I
thought."
"Well, I'm glad to hear your opinion, you bein'
a traveled man, for mother says I'm foolish 'bout
Rebecky and hev been sence the fust. Mother
scolds me for spoilin' her, but I notice mother ain't
fur behind when it comes to spoilin'. Land! it
made me sick, thinkin' o' them parents travelin'
miles to see their young ones graduate, and then
when they got here hevin' to compare 'em with Rebecky.
Good-by, Mr. Ladd, drop in some day when
you come to Riverboro."
"I will," said Adam, shaking the old man's hand
cordially; "perhaps to-morrow if I drive Rebecca
home, as I shall offer to do. Do you think Miss
Sawyer's condition is serious?"
"Well, the doctor don't seem to know; but anyhow
she's paralyzed, and she'll never walk fur
again, poor soul! She ain't lost her speech; that'll
be a comfort to her."
Adam left the church, and in crossing the common
came upon Miss Maxwell doing the honors
of the institution, as she passed from group to
group of strangers and guests. Knowing that
she was deeply interested in all Rebecca's plans, he
told her, as he drew her aside, that the girl would
have to leave Wareham for Riverboro the next
day.
"That is almost more than I can bear!" exclaimed
Miss Maxwell, sitting down on a bench and stabbing
the greensward with her parasol. "It seems to me
Rebecca never has any respite. I had so many
plans for her this next month in fitting her for her
position, and now she will settle down to housework
again, and to the nursing of that poor, sick,
cross old aunt."
"If it had not been for the cross old aunt,
Rebecca would still have been at Sunnybrook; and
from the standpoint of educational advantages, or
indeed advantages of any sort, she might as well
have been in the backwoods," returned Adam.
"That is true; I was vexed when I spoke, for I
thought an easier and happier day was dawning for
my prodigy and pearl."
"OUR prodigy and pearl," corrected Adam.
"Oh, yes!" she laughed. "I always forget that
it pleases you to pretend you discovered Rebecca."
"I believe, though, that happier days are dawning
for her," continued Adam. "It must be a secret
for the present, but Mrs. Randall's farm will be
bought by the new railroad. We must have right
of way through the land, and the station will be
built on her property. She will receive six thousand
dollars, which, though not a fortune, will yield her
three or four hundred dollars a year, if she will
allow me to invest it for her. There is a mortgage
on the land; that paid, and Rebecca self-supporting,
the mother ought to push the education of the oldest
boy, who is a fine, ambitious fellow. He should
be taken away from farm work and settled at his
studies."
"We might form ourselves into a Randall
Protective Agency, Limited," mused Miss Maxwell. "I
confess I want Rebecca to have a career."
"I don't," said Adam promptly.
"Of course you don't. Men have no interest in
the careers of women! But I know Rebecca better
than you."
"You understand her mind better, but not
necessarily her heart. You are considering her for the
moment as prodigy; I am thinking of her more as
pearl."
"Well," sighed Miss Maxwell whimsically, "prodigy
or pearl, the Randall Protective Agency may
pull Rebecca in opposite directions, but nevertheless
she will follow her saint."
That will content me," said Adam gravely.
"Particularly if the saint beckons your way."
And Miss Maxwell looked up and smiled provokingly.
Rebecca did not see her aunt Miranda till she
had been at the brick house for several days.
Miranda steadily refused to have any one but Jane in
the room until her face had regained its natural
look, but her door was always ajar, and Jane fancied
she liked to hear Rebecca's quick, light step. Her
mind was perfectly clear now, and, save that she
could not move, she was most of the time quite free
from pain, and alert in every nerve to all that was
going on within or without the house. "Were the
windfall apples being picked up for sauce; were the
potatoes thick in the hills; was the corn tosselin'
out; were they cuttin' the upper field; were they
keepin' fly-paper laid out everywheres; were there
any ants in the dairy; was the kindlin' wood holdin'
out; had the bank sent the cowpons?"
Poor Miranda Sawyer! Hovering on the verge
of the great beyond,--her body "struck" and no
longer under control of her iron will,--no divine
visions floated across her tired brain; nothing but
petty cares and sordid anxieties. Not all at once
can the soul talk with God, be He ever so near. If
the heavenly language never has been learned,
quick as is the spiritual sense in seizing the facts it
needs, then the poor soul must use the words and
phrases it has lived on and grown into day by day.
Poor Miss Miranda!--held fast within the prison
walls of her own nature, blind in the presence of
revelation because she had never used the spiritual
eye, deaf to angelic voices because she had not used
the spiritual ear.
There came a morning when she asked for
Rebecca. The door was opened into the dim sickroom,
and Rebecca stood there with the sunlight
behind her, her hands full of sweet peas. Miranda's
pale, sharp face, framed in its nightcap, looked
haggard on the pillow, and her body was pitifully still
under the counterpane.
"Come in," she said; "I ain't dead yet. Don't
mess up the bed with them flowers, will ye?"
"Oh, no! They're going in a glass pitcher," said
Rebecca, turning to the washstand as she tried to
control her voice and stop the tears that sprang
to her eyes.
"Let me look at ye; come closer. What dress
are ye wearin'?" said the old aunt in her cracked,
weak voice.
"My blue calico."
"Is your cashmere holdin' its color?"
"Yes, aunt Miranda."
"Do you keep it in a dark closet hung on the
wrong side, as I told ye?"
"Always."
"Has your mother made her jelly?"
"She hasn't said."
"She always had the knack o' writin' letters with
nothin' in 'em. What's Mark broke sence I've been
sick?"
"Nothing at all, aunt Miranda."
"Why, what's the matter with him? Gittin'
lazy, ain't he? How 's John turnin' out?"
"He's going to be the best of us all."
"I hope you don't slight things in the kitchen
because I ain't there. Do you scald the coffee-pot
and turn it upside down on the winder-sill?"
"Yes, aunt Miranda."
"It's always `yes' with you, and `yes' with
Jane," groaned Miranda, trying to move her stiffened
body; "but all the time I lay here knowin'
there's things done the way I don't like 'em."
There was a long pause, during which Rebecca
sat down by the bedside and timidly touched her
aunt's hand, her heart swelling with tender pity at
the gaunt face and closed eyes.
"I was dreadful ashamed to have you graduate
in cheesecloth, Rebecca, but I couldn't help it nohow.
You'll hear the reason some time, and know
I tried to make it up to ye. I'm afraid you was a
laughin'-stock!"
"No," Rebecca answered. "Ever so many people
said our dresses were the very prettiest; they looked
like soft lace. You're not to be anxious about
anything. Here I am all grown up and graduated,--
number three in a class of twenty-two, aunt
Miranda,--and good positions offered me already.
Look at me, big and strong and young, all ready to
go into the world and show what you and aunt
Jane have done for me. If you want me near, I'll
take the Edgewood school, so that I can be here
nights and Sundays to help; and if you get better,
then I'll go to Augusta,--for that's a hundred
dollars more, with music lessons and other things
beside."
"You listen to me," said Miranda quaveringly.
"Take the best place, regardless o' my sickness.
I'd like to live long enough to know you'd paid off
that mortgage, but I guess I shan't."
Here she ceased abruptly, having talked more
than she had for weeks; and Rebecca stole out of
the room, to cry by herself and wonder if old age
must be so grim, so hard, so unchastened and
unsweetened, as it slipped into the valley of the
shadow.
The days went on, and Miranda grew stronger
and stronger; her will seemed unassailable, and
before long she could be moved into a chair by the
window, her dominant thought being to arrive at
such a condition of improvement that the doctor
need not call more than once a week, instead of
daily; thereby diminishing the bill, that was mounting
to such a terrifying sum that it haunted her
thoughts by day and dreams by night.
Little by little hope stole back into Rebecca's
young heart. Aunt Jane began to "clear starch"
her handkerchiefs and collars and purple muslin
dress, so that she might be ready to go to Brunswick
at any moment when the doctor pronounced
Miranda well on the road to recovery. Everything
beautiful was to happen in Brunswick if she
could be there by August,--everything that heart
could wish or imagination conceive, for she was to
be Miss Emily's very own visitor, and sit at table
with college professors and other great men.
At length the day dawned when the few clean,
simple dresses were packed in the hair trunk,
together with her beloved coral necklace, her cheesecloth
graduating dress, her class pin, aunt Jane's
lace cape, and the one new hat, which she tried on
every night before going to bed. It was of white
chip with a wreath of cheap white roses and green
leaves, and cost between two and three dollars, an
unprecedented sum in Rebecca's experience. The
effect of its glories when worn with her nightdress
was dazzling enough, but if ever it appeared in
conjunction with the cheesecloth gown, Rebecca felt
that even reverend professors might regard it with
respect. It is probable indeed that any professorial
gaze lucky enough to meet a pair of dark eyes shining
under that white rose garland would never have
stopped at respect!
Then, when all was ready and Abijah Flagg at
the door, came a telegram from Hannah: "Come
at once. Mother has had bad accident."
In less than an hour Rebecca was started on her
way to Sunnybrook, her heart palpitating with fear
as to what might be awaiting her at her journey's
end.
Death, at all events, was not there to meet her;
but something that looked at first only too much
like it. Her mother had been standing on the
haymow superintending some changes in the barn,
had been seized with giddiness, they thought, and
slipped. The right knee was fractured and the back
strained and hurt, but she was conscious and in no
immediate danger, so Rebecca wrote, when she had
a moment to send aunt Jane the particulars.
"I don' know how 'tis," grumbled Miranda, who
was not able to sit up that day; "but from a child
I could never lay abed without Aurelia's gettin' sick
too. I don' know 's she could help fallin', though
it ain't anyplace for a woman,--a haymow; but
if it hadn't been that, 't would 'a' been somethin'
else. Aurelia was born unfortunate. Now she'll
probably be a cripple, and Rebecca'll have to nurse
her instead of earning a good income somewheres
else."
"Her first duty 's to her mother," said aunt Jane;
"I hope she'll always remember that."
"Nobody remembers anything they'd ought to,
--at seventeen," responded Miranda. "Now that
I'm strong again, there's things I want to consider
with you, Jane, things that are on my mind night
and day. We've talked 'em over before; now we'll
settle 'em. When I'm laid away, do you want to
take Aurelia and the children down here to the brick
house? There's an awful passel of 'em,--Aurelia,
Jenny, and Fanny; but I won't have Mark. Hannah
can take him; I won't have a great boy stompin'
out the carpets and ruinin' the furniture, though
I know when I'm dead I can't hinder ye, if you
make up your mind to do anything."
"I shouldn't like to go against your feelings,
especially in laying out your money, Miranda," said
Jane.
"Don't tell Rebecca I've willed her the brick
house. She won't git it till I'm gone, and I want to
take my time 'bout dyin' and not be hurried off by
them that's goin' to profit by it; nor I don't want to
be thanked, neither. I s'pose she'll use the front
stairs as common as the back and like as not have
water brought into the kitchen, but mebbe when
I've been dead a few years I shan't mind. She sets
such store by you, she'll want you to have your home
here as long's you live, but anyway I've wrote it
down that way; though Lawyer Burns's wills don't
hold more'n half the time. He's cheaper, but I
guess it comes out jest the same in the end. I
wan't goin' to have the fust man Rebecca picks up
for a husband turnin' you ou'doors."
There was a long pause, during which Jane knit
silently, wiping the tears from her eyes from time
to time, as she looked at the pitiful figure lying
weakly on the pillows. Suddenly Miranda said slowly
and feebly:--
"I don' know after all but you might as well
take Mark; I s'pose there's tame boys as well as
wild ones. There ain't a mite o' sense in havin'
so many children, but it's a turrible risk splittin' up
families and farmin' 'em out here 'n' there; they'd
never come to no good, an' everybody would keep
rememberin' their mother was a Sawyer. Now if
you'll draw down the curtin, I'll try to sleep."
XXIX
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
Two months had gone by,--two months of
steady, fagging work; of cooking, washing,
ironing; of mending and caring for
the three children, although Jenny was fast becoming
a notable little housewife, quick, ready, and
capable. They were months in which there had
been many a weary night of watching by Aurelia's
bedside; of soothing and bandaging and rubbing;
of reading and nursing, even of feeding and bathing.
The ceaseless care was growing less now, and
the family breathed more freely, for the mother's
sigh of pain no longer came from the stifling
bedroom, where, during a hot and humid August,
Aurelia had lain, suffering with every breath she
drew. There would be no question of walking for
many a month to come, but blessings seemed to
multiply when the blinds could be opened and the
bed drawn near the window; when mother, with
pillows behind her, could at least sit and watch the
work going on, could smile at the past agony and
forget the weary hours that had led to her present
comparative ease and comfort.
No girl of seventeen can pass through such an
ordeal and come out unchanged; no girl of Rebecca's
temperament could go through it without
some inward repining and rebellion. She was doing
tasks in which she could not be fully happy,--heavy
and trying tasks, which perhaps she could never
do with complete success or satisfaction; and like
promise of nectar to thirsty lips was the vision of
joys she had had to put aside for the performance
of dull daily duty. How brief, how fleeting,
had been those splendid visions when the universe
seemed open for her young strength to battle
and triumph in! How soon they had faded into
the light of common day! At first, sympathy and
grief were so keen she thought of nothing but
her mother's pain. No consciousness of self interposed
between her and her filial service; then, as
the weeks passed, little blighted hopes began to stir
and ache in her breast; defeated ambitions raised
their heads as if to sting her; unattainable delights
teased her by their very nearness; by the narrow
line of separation that lay between her and their
realization. It is easy, for the moment, to tread the
narrow way, looking neither to the right nor left,
upborne by the sense of right doing; but that first
joy of self-denial, the joy that is like fire in the
blood, dies away; the path seems drearier and the
footsteps falter. Such a time came to Rebecca, and
her bright spirit flagged when the letter was
received saying that her position in Augusta had been
filled. There was a mutinous leap of the heart then,
a beating of wings against the door of the cage, a
longing for the freedom of the big world outside.
It was the stirring of the powers within her, though
she called it by no such grand name. She felt as
if the wind of destiny were blowing her flame
hither and thither, burning, consuming her, but
kindling nothing. All this meant one stormy night
in her little room at Sunnybrook, but the clouds
blew over, the sun shone again, a rainbow stretched
across the sky, while "hope clad in April green"
smiled into her upturned face and beckoned her on,
saying:--
"Grow old along with me,
The best is yet to be."
Threads of joy ran in and out of the gray tangled
web of daily living. There was the attempt at odd
moments to make the bare little house less bare by
bringing in out-of-doors, taking a leaf from Nature's
book and noting how she conceals ugliness wherever
she finds it. Then there was the satisfaction of being
mistress of the poor domain; of planning, governing,
deciding; of bringing order out of chaos; of
implanting gayety in the place of inert resignation to
the inevitable. Another element of comfort was the
children's love, for they turned to her as flowers to
the sun, drawing confidently on her fund of stories,
serene in the conviction that there was no limit to
Rebecca's power of make-believe. In this, and in
yet greater things, little as she realized it, the law
of compensation was working in her behalf, for in
those anxious days mother and daughter found and
knew each other as never before. A new sense was
born in Rebecca as she hung over her mother's bed
of pain and unrest,--a sense that comes only of
ministering, a sense that grows only when the strong
bend toward the weak. As for Aurelia, words could
never have expressed her dumb happiness when the
real revelation of motherhood was vouchsafed her.
In all the earlier years when her babies were young,
carking cares and anxieties darkened the fireside
with their brooding wings. Then Rebecca had gone
away, and in the long months of absence her mind
and soul had grown out of her mother's knowledge,
so that now, when Aurelia had time and strength
to study her child, she was like some enchanting
changeling. Aurelia and Hannah had gone on in
the dull round and the common task, growing duller
and duller; but now, on a certain stage of life's
journey, who should appear but this bewildering
being, who gave wings to thoughts that had only
crept before; who brought color and grace and
harmony into the dun brown texture of existence.
You might harness Rebecca to the heaviest
plough, and while she had youth on her side, she
would always remember the green earth under her
feet and the blue sky over her head. Her physical
eye saw the cake she was stirring and the loaf she
was kneading; her physical ear heard the kitchen
fire crackling and the teakettle singing, but ever
and anon her fancy mounted on pinions, rested
itself, renewed its strength in the upper air. The
bare little farmhouse was a fixed fact, but she had
many a palace into which she now and then withdrew;
palaces peopled with stirring and gallant figures
belonging to the world of romance; palaces
not without their heavenly apparitions too, breathing
celestial counsel. Every time she retired to her
citadel of dreams she came forth radiant and
refreshed, as one who has seen the evening star, or
heard sweet music, or smelled the rose of joy.
Aurelia could have understood the feeling of
a narrow-minded and conventional hen who has
brought a strange, intrepid duckling into the world;
but her situation was still more wonderful, for she
could only compare her sensations to those of some
quiet brown Dorking who has brooded an ordinary
egg and hatched a bird of paradise. Such an idea
had crossed her mind more than once during the
past fortnight, and it flashed to and fro this mellow
October morning when Rebecca came into the room
with her arms full of goldenrod and flaming autumn
leaves.
"Just a hint of the fall styles, mother," she said,
slipping the stem of a gorgeous red and yellow
sapling between the mattress and the foot of the bed.
"This was leaning over the pool, and I was afraid
it would be vain if I left it there too long looking
at its beautiful reflection, so I took it away from
danger; isn't it wonderful? How I wish I could
carry one to poor aunt Miranda to-day! There's
never a flower in the brick house when I'm
away."
It was a marvelous morning. The sun had climbed
into a world that held in remembrance only a
succession of golden days and starlit nights. The air
was fragrant with ripening fruit, and there was a
mad little bird on a tree outside the door nearly
bursting his throat with joy of living. He had
forgotten that summer was over, that winter must ever
come; and who could think of cold winds, bare
boughs, or frozen streams on such a day? A painted
moth came in at the open window and settled on
the tuft of brilliant leaves. Aurelia heard the bird
and looked from the beauty of the glowing bush to
her tall, splendid daughter, standing like young
Spring with golden Autumn in her arms.
Then suddenly she covered her eyes and cried,
"I can't bear it! Here I lie chained to this bed,
interfering with everything you want to do. It's all
wasted! All my saving and doing without; all your
hard study; all Mirandy's outlay; everything that
we thought was going to be the making of you!"
"Mother, mother, don't talk so, don't think
so!" exclaimed Rebecca, sitting down impetuously
on the floor by the bed and dropping the goldenrod
by her side. "Why, mother, I'm only a little past
seventeen! This person in a purple calico apron
with flour on her nose is only the beginnings of me!
Do you remember the young tree that John transplanted?
We had a dry summer and a cold winter
and it didn't grow a bit, nor show anything of all
we did for it; then there was a good year and it
made up for lost time. This is just my little
`rooting season,' mother, but don't go and believe my
day is over, because it hasn't begun! The old
maple by the well that's in its hundredth year had
new leaves this summer, so there must be hope for
me at seventeen!"
"You can put a brave face on it," sobbed
Aurelia, "but you can't deceive me. You've lost your
place; you'll never see your friends here, and
you're nothing but a drudge!"
"I look like a drudge," said Rebecca mysteriously,
with laughing eyes, "but I really am a princess;
you mustn't tell, but this is only a disguise;
I wear it for reasons of state. The king and queen
who are at present occupying my throne are very
old and tottering, and are going to abdicate shortly
in my favor. It's rather a small kingdom, I suppose,
as kingdoms go, so there isn't much struggle
for it in royal circles, and you mustn't expect to
see a golden throne set with jewels. It will probably
be only of ivory with a nice screen of peacock
feathers for a background; but you shall have a
comfortable chair very near it, with quantities of
slaves to do what they call in novels your `lightest
bidding.'"
Aurelia smiled in spite of herself, and though not
perhaps wholly deceived, she was comforted.
"I only hope you won't have to wait too long for
your thrones and your kingdoms, Rebecca," she
said, "and that I shall have a sight of them before
I die; but life looks very hard and rough to me,
what with your aunt Miranda a cripple at the brick
house, me another here at the farm, you tied hand
and foot, first with one and then with the other,
to say nothing of Jenny and Fanny and Mark!
You've got something of your father's happy
disposition, or it would weigh on you as it does on
me."
"Why, mother!" cried Rebecca, clasping her
knees with her hands; "why, mother, it's enough
joy just to be here in the world on a day like this;
to have the chance of seeing, feeling, doing, becoming!
When you were seventeen, mother, wasn't it
good just to be alive? You haven't forgotten?"
"No," said Aurelia, "but I wasn't so much alive
as you are, never in the world."
"I often think," Rebecca continued, walking to
the window and looking out at the trees,--"I often
think how dreadful it would be if I were not here
at all. If Hannah had come, and then, instead of
me, John; John and Jenny and Fanny and the
others, but no Rebecca; never any Rebecca! To
be alive makes up for everything; there ought to
be fears in my heart, but there aren't; something
stronger sweeps them out, something like a wind.
Oh, see! There is Will driving up the lane,
mother, and he ought to have a letter from the
brick house."
XXX
GOOD-BY, SUNNYBROOK
Will Melville drove up to the window
and, tossing a letter into Rebecca's
lap, went off to the barn on an errand.
"Sister 's no worse, then," sighed Aurelia
gratefully, "or Jane would have telegraphed. See what
she says."
Rebecca opened the envelope and read in one
flash of an eye the whole brief page:--
Your aunt Miranda passed away an hour ago.
Come at once, if your mother is out of danger. I
shall not have the funeral till you are here. She
died very suddenly and without any pain. Oh,
Rebecca! I long for you so!
Aunt Jane.
The force of habit was too strong, and even
in the hour of death Jane had remembered that
a telegram was twenty-five cents, and that Aurelia
would have to pay half a dollar for its delivery.
Rebecca burst into a passion of tears as she
cried, "Poor, poor aunt Miranda! She is gone
without taking a bit of comfort in life, and I
couldn't say good-by to her! Poor lonely aunt
Jane! What can I do, mother? I feel torn in two,
between you and the brick house."
"You must go this very instant," said Aurelia;
starting from her pillows. "If I was to die while
you were away, I would say the very same thing.
Your aunts have done everything in the world for
you,--more than I've ever been able to do,--and
it is your turn to pay back some o' their kindness
and show your gratitude. The doctor says I've
turned the corner and I feel I have. Jenny can
make out somehow, if Hannah'll come over once
a day."
"But, mother, I CAN'T go! Who'll turn you in
bed?" exclaimed Rebecca, walking the floor and
wringing her hands distractedly.
"It don't make any difference if I don't get
turned," replied Aurelia stoically. "If a woman
of my age and the mother of a family hasn't got
sense enough not to slip off haymows, she'd ought
to suffer. Go put on your black dress and pack your
bag. I'd give a good deal if I was able to go to
my sister's funeral and prove that I've forgotten
and forgiven all she said when I was married. Her
acts were softer 'n her words, Mirandy's were, and
she's made up to you for all she ever sinned
against me 'n' your father! And oh, Rebecca," she
continued with quivering voice, "I remember so
well when we were little girls together and she took
such pride in curling my hair; and another time,
when we were grown up, she lent me her best blue
muslin: it was when your father had asked me to
lead the grand march with him at the Christmas
dance, and I found out afterwards she thought he'd
intended to ask her!"
Here Aurelia broke down and wept bitterly; for
the recollection of the past had softened her heart
and brought the comforting tears even more effectually
than the news of her sister's death.
There was only an hour for preparation. Will
would drive Rebecca to Temperance and send
Jenny back from school. He volunteered also to
engage a woman to sleep at the farm in case Mrs.
Randall should be worse at any time in the night.
Rebecca flew down over the hill to get a last pail
of spring water, and as she lifted the bucket from
the crystal depths and looked out over the glowing
beauty of the autumn landscape, she saw a company
of surveyors with their instruments making
calculations and laying lines that apparently crossed
Sunnybrook at the favorite spot where Mirror Pool
lay clear and placid, the yellow leaves on its surface
no yellower than its sparkling sands.
She caught her breath. "The time has come!"
she thought. "I am saying good-by to Sunnybrook,
and the golden gates that almost swung together
that last day in Wareham will close forever
now. Good-by, dear brook and hills and meadows;
you are going to see life too, so we must be hopeful
and say to one another:--
"`Grow old along with me,
The best is yet to be.'"
Will Melville had seen the surveyors too, and
had heard in the Temperance post-office that morning
the probable sum that Mrs. Randall would receive
from the railway company. He was in good
spirits at his own improved prospects, for his farm
was so placed that its value could be only increased
by the new road; he was also relieved in mind
that his wife's family would no longer be in dire
poverty directly at his doorstep, so to speak. John
could now be hurried forward and forced into the
position of head of the family several years sooner
than had been anticipated, so Hannah's husband
was obliged to exercise great self-control or he
would have whistled while he was driving Rebecca
to the Temperance station. He could not understand
her sad face or the tears that rolled silently
down her cheeks from time to time; for Hannah
had always represented her aunt Miranda as an
irascible, parsimonious old woman, who would be
no loss to the world whenever she should elect to
disappear from it.
"Cheer up, Becky!" he said, as he left her at the
depot. "You'll find your mother sitting up when
you come back, and the next thing you know the
whole family'll be moving to some nice little house
wherever your work is. Things will never be so
bad again as they have been this last year; that's
what Hannah and I think;" and he drove away to
tell his wife the news.
Adam Ladd was in the station and came up to
Rebecca instantly, as she entered the door looking
very unlike her bright self.
"The Princess is sad this morning," he said,
taking her hand. "Aladdin must rub the magic
lamp; then the slave will appear, and these tears
be dried in a trice."
He spoke lightly, for he thought her trouble
was something connected with affairs at Sunnybrook,
and that he could soon bring the smiles by
telling her that the farm was sold and that her
mother was to receive a handsome price in return.
He meant to remind her, too, that though she must
leave the home of her youth, it was too remote a
place to be a proper dwelling either for herself or
for her lonely mother and the three younger
children. He could hear her say as plainly as if it were
yesterday, "I don't think one ever forgets the spot
where one lived as a child." He could see the quaint
little figure sitting on the piazza at North Riverboro
and watch it disappear in the lilac bushes when he
gave the memorable order for three hundred cakes
of Rose-Red and Snow-White soap.
A word or two soon told him that her grief was
of another sort, and her mood was so absent, so
sensitive and tearful, that he could only assure her
of his sympathy and beg that he might come soon
to the brick house to see with his own eyes how
she was faring.
Adam thought, when he had put her on the train
and taken his leave, that Rebecca was, in her sad
dignity and gravity, more beautiful than he had ever
seen her,--all-beautiful and all-womanly. But in that
moment's speech with her he had looked into her
eyes and they were still those of a child; there was
no knowledge of the world in their shining depths,
no experience of men or women, no passion, nor
comprehension of it. He turned from the little country
station to walk in the woods by the wayside until
his own train should be leaving, and from time to
time he threw himself under a tree to think and
dream and look at the glory of the foliage. He
had brought a new copy of The Arabian Nights for
Rebecca, wishing to replace the well-worn old one
that had been the delight of her girlhood; but
meeting her at such an inauspicious time, he had
absently carried it away with him. He turned the
pages idly until he came to the story of Aladdin
and the Wonderful Lamp, and presently, in spite
of his thirty-four years, the old tale held him
spellbound as it did in the days when he first read it as
a boy. But there were certain paragraphs that
especially caught his eye and arrested his attention,--
paragraphs that he read and reread, finding in them
he knew not what secret delight and significance.
These were the quaintly turned phrases describing
the effect on the once poor Aladdin of his
wonderful riches, and those descanting upon the beauty
and charm of the Sultan's daughter, the Princess
Badroulboudour:--
_Not only those who knew Aladdin when he
played in the streets like a vagabond did not know
him again; those who had seen him but a little
while before hardly knew him, so much were his
features altered; such were the effects of the lamp,
as to procure by degrees to those who possessed it,
perfections agreeable to the rank the right use of it
advanced them to._
_The Princess was the most beautiful brunette in
the world; her eyes were large, lively, and sparkling;
her looks sweet and modest; her nose was of
a just proportion and without a fault; her mouth
small, her lips of a vermilion red, and charmingly
agreeable symmetry; in a word, all the features of
her face were perfectly regular. It is not therefore
surprising that Aladdin, who had never seen, and
was a stranger to, so many charms, was dazzled.
With all these perfections the Princess had so delicate
a shape, so majestic an air, that the sight of her
was sufficient to inspire respect._
_"Adorable Princess," said Aladdin to her, accosting
her, and saluting her respectfully, "if I have the
misfortune to have displeased you by my boldness in
aspiring to the possession of so lovely a creature, I
must tell you that you ought to blame your bright
eyes and charms, not me."
"Prince," answered the Princess, "it is enough
for me to have seen you, to tell you that I obey without
reluctance."_
XXXI
AUNT MIRANDA'S APOLOGY
When Rebecca alighted from the train
at Maplewood and hurried to the postoffice
where the stage was standing,
what was her joy to see uncle Jerry Cobb holding
the horses' heads.
"The reg'lar driver 's sick," he explained, "and
when they sent for me, thinks I to myself, my
drivin' days is over, but Rebecky won't let the grass
grow under her feet when she gits her aunt Jane's
letter, and like as not I'll ketch her to-day; or, if
she gits delayed, to-morrow for certain. So here I
be jest as I was more 'n six year ago. Will you be
a real lady passenger, or will ye sit up in front
with me?"
Emotions of various sorts were all struggling
together in the old man's face, and the two or
three bystanders were astounded when they saw
the handsome, stately girl fling herself on Mr.
Cobb's dusty shoulder crying like a child. "Oh,
uncle Jerry!" she sobbed; "dear uncle Jerry! It's
all so long ago, and so much has happened, and
we've grown so old, and so much is going to happen
that I'm fairly frightened."
"There, there, lovey," the old man whispered
comfortingly, "we'll be all alone on the stage, and
we'll talk things over 's we go along the road an'
mebbe they won't look so bad."
Every mile of the way was as familiar to Rebecca
as to uncle Jerry; every watering-trough, grindstone,
red barn, weather-vane, duck-pond, and sandy
brook. And all the time she was looking backward
to the day, seemingly so long ago, when she sat on
the box seat for the first time, her legs dangling in
the air, too short to reach the footboard. She could
smell the big bouquet of lilacs, see the pink-flounced
parasol, feel the stiffness of the starched buff calico
and the hated prick of the black and yellow porcupine
quills. The drive was taken almost in silence,
but it was a sweet, comforting silence both to
uncle Jerry and the girl.
Then came the sight of Abijah Flagg shelling
beans in the barn, and then the Perkins attic windows
with a white cloth fluttering from them. She
could spell Emma Jane's loving thought and welcome
in that little waving flag; a word and a message
sent to her just at the first moment when
Riverboro chimneys rose into view; something to
warm her heart till they could meet.
The brick house came next, looking just as of
yore; though it seemed to Rebecca as if death
should have cast some mysterious spell over it.
There were the rolling meadows, the stately elms,
all yellow and brown now; the glowing maples,
the garden-beds bright with asters, and the hollyhocks,
rising tall against the parlor windows; only
in place of the cheerful pinks and reds of the
nodding stalks, with their gay rosettes of bloom,
was a crape scarf holding the blinds together, and
another on the sitting-room side, and another on
the brass knocker of the brown-painted door.
"Stop, uncle Jerry! Don't turn in at the side;
hand me my satchel, please; drop me in the road
and let me run up the path by myself. Then drive
away quickly."
At the noise and rumble of the approaching
stage the house door opened from within, just as
Rebecca closed the gate behind her. Aunt Jane
came down the stone steps, a changed woman,
frail and broken and white. Rebecca held out her
arms and the old aunt crept into them feebly, as
she did on that day when she opened the grave of
her buried love and showed the dead face, just for
an instant, to a child. Warmth and strength and
life flowed into the aged frame from the young one.
"Rebecca," she said, raising her head, "before
you go in to look at her, do you feel any bitterness
over anything she ever said to you?"
Rebecca's eyes blazed reproach, almost anger, as
she said chokingly: "Oh, aunt Jane! Could you
believe it of me? I am going in with a heart brimful
of gratitude!"
"She was a good woman, Rebecca; she had a
quick temper and a sharp tongue, but she wanted
to do right, and she did it as near as she could.
She never said so, but I'm sure she was sorry for
every hard word she spoke to you; she didn't take
'em back in life, but she acted so 't you'd know her
feeling when she was gone."
"I told her before I left that she'd been the making
of me, just as mother says," sobbed Rebecca
"She wasn't that," said Jane. "God made you
in the first place, and you've done considerable yourself
to help Him along; but she gave you the wherewithal
to work with, and that ain't to be despised;
specially when anybody gives up her own luxuries
and pleasures to do it. Now let me tell you something,
Rebecca. Your aunt Mirandy 's willed all this
to you,--the brick house and buildings and furniture,
and the land all round the house, as far 's you
can see."
Rebecca threw off her hat and put her hand to
her heart, as she always did in moments of intense
excitement. After a moment's silence she said:
"Let me go in alone; I want to talk to her; I want
to thank her; I feel as if I could make her hear and
feel and understand!"
Jane went back into the kitchen to the inexorable
tasks that death has no power, even for a day, to
blot from existence. He can stalk through dwelling
after dwelling, leaving despair and desolation behind
him, but the table must be laid, the dishes washed,
the beds made, by somebody.
Ten minutes later Rebecca came out from the
Great Presence looking white and spent, but chastened
and glorified. She sat in the quiet doorway,
shaded from the little Riverboro world by the
overhanging elms. A wide sense of thankfulness and
peace possessed her, as she looked at the autumn
landscape, listened to the rumble of a wagon on the
bridge, and heard the call of the river as it dashed
to the sea. She put up her hand softly and touched
first the shining brass knocker and then the red
bricks, glowing in the October sun.
It was home; her roof, her garden, her green
acres, her dear trees; it was shelter for the little
family at Sunnybrook; her mother would have once
more the companionship of her sister and the friends
of her girlhood; the children would have teachers
and playmates.
And she? Her own future was close-folded still;
folded and hidden in beautiful mists; but she leaned
her head against the sun-warmed door, and closing
her eyes, whispered, just as if she had been a
child saying her prayers: "God bless aunt Miranda;
God bless the brick house that was; God bless the
brick house that is to be!"