Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin · English · Gutenberg #498 · 430,641 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Author: Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
Release date: April 1, 1996 [eBook #498]
Most recently updated: November 20, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/498
Credits: Produced by Charles Keller. HTML version by Al Haines.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM ***
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
I
"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
stiff-legged. 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 dis-heartened. "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
Sunday-school 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
heart-beat 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 clothes-press; but I shouldn't
'a' thought you'd 'a' worn your best hat on the stage."
"It's my only hat," explained Rebecca. "My every-day 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 grind-stun; 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! 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 white-weed, 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 black-boards, 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 "front-piece" 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,
bed-steads 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-and-salt 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 front-piece; 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 ferret-eyed, 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 futter 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 self-reliance. 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 black-boards 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 pig-tails, 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
all-conquering 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 pig-tails, 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
well-mannered, 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! 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 school-girl 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 to 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 self-support. 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 awe-struck 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
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