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Title: The Garotters

Author: William D. Howells

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*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END*
First Chronicle
Jack O'Lantern

Second Chronicle
Daughters of Zion

Third Chronicle
Rebecca's Thought Book

Fourth Chronicle
A Tragedy in Millinery

Fifth Chronicle
The Saving of the Colors

Sixth Chronicle
The State of Maine Girl

Seventh Chronicle
The Little Prophet

Eighth Chronicle
Abner Simpson's New Leaf

Ninth Chronicle
The Green Isle

Tenth Chronicle
Rebecca's Reminiscences

Eleventh Chronicle
Abijah the Brave and the Fair Emma Jane



First Chronicle
JACK O'LANTERN


I
Miss Miranda Sawyer's old-fashioned garden was the pleasantest spot in Riverboro on a sunny July morning.

The rich color of the brick house gleamed and glowed through the shade of the elms and maples.

Luxuriant hop-vines clambered up the lightning rods and water spouts,
hanging their delicate clusters here and there in graceful profusion.

Woodbine transformed the old shed and tool house
to things of beauty,
and the flower beds themselves were the prettiest and most fragrant in all the countryside.

A row of dahlias ran directly around the garden spot,--dahlias scarlet,
gold,
and variegated.

In the very centre was a round plot where the upturned faces of a thousand pansies smiled amid their leaves,
and in the four corners were triangular blocks of sweet phlox over which the butterflies fluttered unceasingly.

In the spaces between ran a riot of portulaca and nasturtiums,
while in the more regular,
shell-bordered beds grew spirea and gillyflowers,
mignonette,
marigolds,
and clove pinks.

Back of the barn and encroaching on the edge of the hay field was a grove of sweet clover whose white feathery tips fairly bent under the assaults of the bees,
while banks of aromatic mint and thyme drank in the sunshine and sent it out again into the summer air,
warm,
and deliciously odorous.

The hollyhocks were Miss Sawyer's pride,
and they grew in a stately line beneath the four kitchen windows,
their tapering tips set thickly
with gay satin circlets of pink or lavender or crimson.

"They grow something like steeples,"
thought little Rebecca Randall,
who was weeding the bed,
"and the flat,
round flowers are like rosettes;
but steeples wouldn't be studded
with rosettes,
so if you were writing about them in a composition you'd have
to give up one or the other,
and I think I'll give up the steeples:-- Gay little hollyhock Lifting your head,
Sweetly rosetted Out from your bed.

It's a pity the hollyhock isn't really little,
instead of steepling up
to the window top,
but I can't say,
'Gay TALL hollyhock.'

.

.

.

I might have it
'Lines
to a Hollyhock in May,'
for then it would be small;
but oh,
no! I forgot;
in May it wouldn't be blooming,
and it's so pretty
to say that its head is
'sweetly rosetted'
.

.

.

I wish the teacher wasn't away;
she would like
'sweetly rosetted,'
and she would like
to hear me recite
'Roll on,
thou deep and dark blue ocean,
roll!'
that I learned out of Aunt Jane's Byron;
the rolls come booming out of it just like the waves at the beach.

.

.

.

I could make nice compositions now,
everything is blooming so,
and it's so warm and sunny and happy outdoors.

Miss Dearborn told me
to write something in my thought book every single day,
and I'll begin this very night when I go
to bed."

Rebecca Rowena Randall,
the little niece of the brick-house ladies,
and at present sojourning there
for purposes of board,
lodging,
education,
and incidentally such discipline and chastening as might ultimately produce moral excellence,--Rebecca Randall had a passion
for the rhyme and rhythm of poetry.

From her earliest childhood words had always been
to her what dolls and toys are
to other children,
and now at twelve she amused herself
with phrases and sentences and images as her schoolmates played
with the pieces of their dissected puzzles.

If the heroine of a story took a
"cursory glance"
about her
"apartment,"
Rebecca would shortly ask her Aunt Jane
to take a
"cursory glance"
at her oversewing or hemming;
if the villain
"aided and abetted"
someone in committing a crime,
she would before long request the pleasure of
"aiding and abetting"
in dishwashing or bedmaking.

Sometimes she used the borrowed phrases unconsciously;
sometimes she brought them into the conversation
with an intense sense of pleasure in their harmony or appropriateness;
for a beautiful word or sentence had the same effect upon her imagination as a fragrant nosegay,
a strain of music,
or a brilliant sunset.

"How are you gettin'
on,
Rebecca Rowena?"
called a peremptory voice from within.

"Pretty good,
Aunt Miranda;
only I wish flowers would ever come up as thick as this pigweed and plantain and sorrel.

What MAKES weeds be thick and flowers be thin?--I just happened
to be stopping
to think a minute when you looked out."

"You think considerable more than you weed,
I guess,
by appearances.

How many times have you peeked into that humming bird's nest?

Why don't you work all
to once and play all
to once,
like other folks?"
"I don't know,"
the child answered,
confounded by the question,
and still more by the apparent logic back of it.

"I don't know,
Aunt Miranda,
but when I'm working outdoors such a Saturday morning as this,
the whole creation just screams
to me
to stop it and come and play."

"Well,
you needn't go if it does!"
responded her aunt sharply.

"It don't scream
to me when I'm rollin'
out these doughnuts,
and it wouldn't
to you if your mind was on your duty."

Rebecca's little brown hands flew in and out among the weeds as she thought rebelliously:

"Creation WOULDN'T scream
to Aunt Miranda;
it would know she wouldn't come.

Scream on,
thou bright and gay creation,
scream!
'Tis not Miranda that will hear thy cry! Oh,
such funny,
nice things come into my head out here by myself,
I do wish I could run up and put them down in my thought book before I forget them,
but Aunt Miranda wouldn't like me
to leave off weeding:-- Rebecca was weeding the hollyhock bed When wonderful thoughts came into her head.

Her aunt was occupied
with the rolling pin And the thoughts of her mind were common and thin.

That wouldn't do because it's mean
to Aunt Miranda,
and anyway it isn't good.

I MUST crawl under the syringa shade a minute,
it's so hot,
and anybody has
to stop working once in a while,
just
to get their breath,
even if they weren't making poetry.

Rebecca was weeding the hollyhock bed When marvelous thoughts came into her head.

Miranda was wielding the rolling pin And thoughts at such times seemed
to her as a sin.

How pretty the hollyhock rosettes look from down here on the sweet,
smelly ground!
"Let me see what would go
with rosetting.

AIDING AND ABETTING,
PETTING,
HEN-SETTING,
FRETTING,--there's nothing very nice,
but I can make fretting'
do.

Cheered by Rowena's petting,
The flowers are rosetting,
But Aunt Miranda's fretting Doth somewhat cloud the day."

Suddenly the sound of wagon wheels broke the silence and then a voice called out--a voice that could not wait until the feet that belonged
to it reached the spot:

"Miss Saw-YER! Father's got
to drive over
to North Riverboro on an errand,
and please can Rebecca go,
too,
as it's Saturday morning and vacation besides?"
Rebecca sprang out from under the syringa bush,
eyes flashing
with delight as only Rebecca's eyes COULD flash,
her face one luminous circle of joyous anticipation.

She clapped her grubby hands,
and dancing up and down,
cried:

"May I,
Aunt Miranda--can I,
Aunt Jane--can I,
Aunt Miranda-Jane?

I'm more than half through the bed."

"If you finish your weeding tonight before sundown I s'pose you can go,
so long as Mr. Perkins has been good enough
to ask you,"
responded Miss Sawyer reluctantly.

"Take off that gingham apron and wash your hands clean at the pump.

You ain't be'n out o'
bed but two hours an'
your head looks as rough as if you'd slep'
in it.

That comes from layin'
on the ground same as a caterpillar.

Smooth your hair down
with your hands an'
p'r'aps Emma Jane can braid it as you go along the road.

Run up and get your second-best hair ribbon out o'
your upper drawer and put on your shade hat.

No,
you can't wear your coral chain--jewelry ain't appropriate in the morning.

How long do you cal'late
to be gone,
Emma Jane?"
"I don't know.

Father's just been sent for
to see about a sick woman over
to North Riverboro.

She's got
to go
to the poor farm."

This fragment of news speedily brought Miss Sawyer,
and her sister Jane as well,
to the door,
which commanded a view of Mr. Perkins and his wagon.

Mr. Perkins,
the father of Rebecca's bosom friend,
was primarily a blacksmith,
and secondarily a selectman and an overseer of the poor,
a man therefore possessed of wide and varied information.

"Who is it that's sick?"
inquired Miranda.

"A woman over
to North Riverboro."

"What's the trouble?"
"Can't say."

"Stranger?'
"Yes,
and no;
she's that wild daughter of old Nate Perry that used
to live up towards Moderation.

You remember she ran away
to work in the factory at Milltown and married a do--nothin'
fellow by the name o'
John Winslow?"
"Yes;
well,
where is he?

Why don't he take care of her?"
"They ain't worked well in double harness.

They've been rovin'
round the country,
livin'
a month here and a month there wherever they could get work and house-room.

They quarreled a couple o'
weeks ago and he left her.

She and the little boy kind o'
camped out in an old loggin'
cabin back in the woods and she took in washin'
for a spell;
then she got terrible sick and ain't expected
to live."

"Who's been nursing her?"
inquired Miss Jane.

"Lizy Ann Dennett,
that lives nearest neighbor
to the cabin;
but I guess she's tired out bein'
good Samaritan.

Anyways,
she sent word this mornin'
that nobody can't seem
to find John Winslow;
that there ain't no relations,
and the town's got
to be responsible,
so I'm goin'
over
to see how the land lays.

Climb in,
Rebecca.

You an'
Emmy Jane crowd back on the cushion an'
I'll set forrard.

That's the trick! Now we're off!"
"Dear,
dear!"
sighed Jane Sawyer as the sisters walked back into the brick house.

"I remember once seeing Sally Perry at meeting.

She was a handsome girl,
and I'm sorry she's come
to grief."

"If she'd kep'
on goin'
to meetin'
an'
hadn't looked at the men folks she might a'
be'n earnin'
an honest livin'
this minute,"
said Miranda.

"Men folks are at the bottom of everything wrong in this world,"
she continued,
unconsciously reversing the verdict of history.

"Then we ought
to be a happy and contented community here in Riverboro,"
replied Jane,
"as there's six women
to one man."

"If
't was sixteen
to one we'd be all the safer,"
responded Miranda grimly,
putting the doughnuts in a brown crock in the cellar-way and slamming the door.

II The Perkins horse and wagon rumbled along over the dusty country road,
and after a discreet silence,
maintained as long as human flesh could endure,
Rebecca remarked sedately:

"It's a sad errand
for such a shiny morning,
isn't it,
Mr. Perkins?"
"Plenty o'
trouble in the world,
Rebecky,
shiny mornin's an'
all,"
that good man replied.

"If you want a bed
to lay on,
a roof over your head,
an'
food
to eat,
you've got
to work
for em.

If I hadn't a'
labored early an'
late,
learned my trade,
an'
denied myself when I was young,
I might a'
be'n a pauper layin'
sick in a loggin'
cabin,
stead o'
bein'
an overseer o'
the poor an'
selectman drivin'
along
to take the pauper
to the poor farm."

"People that are mortgaged don't have
to go
to the poor farm,
do they,
Mr. Perkins?"
asked Rebecca,
with a shiver of fear as she remembered her home farm at Sunnybrook and the debt upon it;
a debt which had lain like a shadow over her childhood.

"Bless your soul,
no;
not unless they fail
to pay up;
but Sal Perry an'
her husband hadn't got fur enough along in life
to BE mortgaged.

You have
to own something before you can mortgage it."

Rebecca's heart bounded as she learned that a mortgage represented a certain stage in worldly prosperity.

"Well,"
she said,
sniffing in the fragrance of the new-mown hay and growing hopeful as she did so;
"maybe the sick woman will be better such a beautiful day,
and maybe the husband will come back
to make it up and say he's sorry,
and sweet content will reign in the humble habitation that was once the scene of poverty,
grief,
and despair.

That's how it came out in a story I'm reading."

"I hain't noticed that life comes out like stories very much,"
responded the pessimistic blacksmith,
who,
as Rebecca privately thought,
had read less than half a dozen books in his long and prosperous career.

A drive of three or four miles brought the party
to a patch of woodland where many of the tall pines had been hewn the previous winter.

The roof of a ramshackle hut was outlined against a background of young birches,
and a rough path made in hauling the logs
to the main road led directly
to its door.

As they drew near the figure of a woman approached--Mrs. Lizy Ann Dennett,
in a gingham dress,
with a calico apron over her head.

"Good morning,
Mr. Perkins,"
said the woman,
who looked tired and irritable.

"I'm real glad you come right over,
for she took worse after I sent you word,
and she's dead."

Dead! The word struck heavily and mysteriously on the children's ears.

Dead! And their young lives,
just begun,
stretched on and on,
all decked,
like hope,
in living green.

Dead! And all the rest of the world reveling in strength.

Dead!
with all the daisies and buttercups waving in the fields and the men heaping the mown grass into fragrant cocks or tossing it into heavily laden carts.

Dead!
with the brooks tinkling after the summer showers,
with the potatoes and corn blossoming,
the birds singing
for joy,
and every little insect humming and chirping,
adding its note
to the blithe chorus of warm,
throbbing life.

"I was all alone
with her.

She passed away suddenly jest about break o'
day,"
said Lizy Ann Dennett.

"Her soul passed upward
to its God Just at the break of day."

These words came suddenly into Rebecca's mind from a tiny chamber where such things were wont
to lie quietly until something brought them
to the surface.

She could not remember whether she had heard them at a funeral or read them in the hymn book or made them up
"out of her own head,"
but she was so thrilled
with the idea of dying just as the dawn was breaking that she scarcely heard Mrs. Dennett's conversation.

"I sent
for Aunt Beulah Day,
an'
she's be'n here an'
laid her out,"
continued the long suffering Lizy Ann.

"She ain't got any folks,
an'
John Winslow ain't never had any as far back as I can remember.

She belongs
to your town and you'll have
to bury her and take care of Jacky--that's the boy.

He's seventeen months old,
a bright little feller,
the image o'
John,
but I can't keep him another day.

I'm all wore out;
my own baby's sick,
mother's rheumatiz is extry bad,
and my husband's comin'
home tonight from his week's work.

If he finds a child o'
John Winslow's under his roof I can't say what would happen;
you'll have
to take him back
with you
to the poor farm."

"I can't take him up there this afternoon,"
objected Mr. Perkins.

"Well,
then,
keep him over Sunday yourself;
he's good as a kitten.

John Winslow'll hear o'
Sal's death sooner or later,
unless he's gone out of the state altogether,
an'
when he knows the boy's at the poor farm,
I kind o'
think he'll come and claim him.

Could you drive me over
to the village
to see about the coffin,
and would you children be afraid
to stay here alone
for a spell?"
she asked,
turning
to the girls.

"Afraid?"
they both echoed uncomprehendingly.

Lizy Ann and Mr. Perkins,
perceiving that the fear of a dead presence had not entered the minds of Rebecca or Emma Jane,
said nothing,
but drove off together,
counseling them not
to stray far away from the cabin and promising
to be back in an hour.

There was not a house within sight,
either looking up or down the shady road,
and the two girls stood hand in hand,
watching the wagon out of sight;
then they sat down quietly under a tree,
feeling all at once a nameless depression hanging over their gay summer-morning spirits.

It was very still in the woods;
just the chirp of a grasshopper now and then,
or the note of a bird,
or the click of a far-distant mowing machine.

"We're WATCHING!"
whispered Emma Jane.

"They watched
with Gran'pa Perkins,
and there was a great funeral and two ministers.

He left two thousand dollars in the bank and a store full of goods,
and a paper thing you could cut tickets off of twice a year,
and they were just like money."

"They watched
with my little sister Mira,
too,"
said Rebecca.

"You remember when she died,
and I went home
to Sunnybrook Farm?

It was winter time,
but she was covered
with evergreen and white pinks,
and there was singing."

"There won't be any funeral or ministers or singing here,
will there?

Isn't that awful?"
"I s'pose not;
and oh,
Emma Jane,
no flowers either.

We might get those
for her if there's nobody else
to do it."

"Would you dare put them on
to her?"
asked Emma Jane,
in a hushed voice.

"I don't know;
I can't tell;
it makes me shiver,
but,
of course,
we COULD do it if we were the only friends she had.

Let's look into the cabin first and be perfectly sure that there aren't any.

Are you afraid?"
"N-no;
I guess not.

I looked at Gran'pa Perkins,
and he was just the same as ever."

At the door of the hut Emma Jane's courage suddenly departed.

She held back shuddering and refused either
to enter or look in.

Rebecca shuddered too,
but kept on,
drawn by an insatiable curiosity about life and death,
an overmastering desire
to know and feel and understand the mysteries of existence,
a hunger
for knowledge and experience at all hazards and at any cost.

Emma Jane hurried softly away from the felt terrors of the cabin,
and after two or three minutes of utter silence Rebecca issued from the open door,
her sensitive face pale and woe-begone,
the ever-ready tears raining down her cheeks.

She ran toward the edge of the wood,
sinking down by Emma Jane's side,
and covering her eyes,
sobbed
with excitement:

"Oh,
Emma Jane,
she hasn't got a flower,
and she's so tired and sad-looking,
as if she'd been hurt and hurt and never had any good times,
and there's a weeny,
weeny baby side of her.

Oh,
I wish I hadn't gone in!"
Emma Jane blenched
for an instant.

"Mrs. Dennett never said THERE WAS TWO DEAD ONES! ISN'T THAT DREADFUL?

But,"
she continued,
her practical common sense coming
to the rescue,
"you've been in once and it's all over;
it won't be so bad when you take in the flowers because you'll be used
to it.

The goldenrod hasn't begun
to bud,
so there's nothing
to pick but daisies.

Shall I make a long rope of them,
as I did
for the schoolroom?"
"Yes,"
said Rebecca,
wiping her eyes and still sobbing.

"Yes,
that's the prettiest,
and if we put it all round her like a frame,
the undertaker couldn't be so cruel as
to throw it away,
even if she is a pauper,
because it will look so beautiful.

From what the Sunday school lessons say,
she's only asleep now,
and when she wakes up she'll be in heaven."

"THERE'S ANOTHER PLACE,"
said Emma Jane,
in an orthodox and sepulchral whisper,
as she took her ever-present ball of crochet cotton from her pocket and began
to twine the whiteweed blossoms into a rope.

"Oh,
well!"
Rebecca replied
with the easy theology that belonged
to her temperament.

"They simply couldn't send her DOWN THERE
with that little weeny baby.

Who'd take care of it?

You know page six of the catechism says the only companions of the wicked after death are their father the devil and all the other evil angels;
it wouldn't be any place
to bring up a baby."

"Whenever and wherever she wakes up,
I hope she won't know that the big baby is going
to the poor farm.

I wonder where he is?"
"Perhaps over
to Mrs. Dennett's house.

She didn't seem sorry a bit,
did she?"
"No,
but I suppose she's tired sitting up and nursing a stranger.

Mother wasn't sorry when Gran'pa Perkins died;
she couldn't be,
for he was cross all the time and had
to be fed like a child.

Why ARE you crying again,
Rebecca?"
"Oh,
I don't know,
I can't tell,
Emma Jane! Only I don't want
to die and have no funeral or singing and nobody sorry
for me! I just couldn't bear it!"
"Neither could I,"
Emma Jane responded sympathetically;
"but p'r'aps if we're real good and die young before we have
to be fed,
they will be sorry.

I do wish you could write some poetry
for her as you did
for Alice Robinson's canary bird,
only still better,
of course,
like that you read me out of your thought book."

"I could,
easy enough,"
exclaimed Rebecca,
somewhat consoled by the idea that her rhyming faculty could be of any use in such an emergency.

"Though I don't know but it would be kind of bold
to do it.

I'm all puzzled about how people get
to heaven after they're buried.

I can't understand it a bit;
but if the poetry is on her,
what if that should go,
too?

And how could I write anything good enough
to be read out loud in heaven?"
"A little piece of paper couldn't get
to heaven;
it just couldn't,"
asserted Emma Jane decisively.

"It would be all blown
to pieces and dried up.

And nobody knows that the angels can read writing,
anyway."

"They must be as educated as we are,
and more so,
too,"
agreed Rebecca.

"They must be more than just dead people,
or else why should they have wings?

But I'll go off and write something while you finish the rope;
it's lucky you brought your crochet cotton and I my lead pencil."

In fifteen or twenty minutes she returned
with some lines written on a scrap of brown wrapping paper.

Standing soberly by Emma Jane,
she said,
preparing
to read them aloud:

"They're not good;
I was afraid your father'd come back before I finished,
and the first verse sounds exactly like the funeral hymns in the church book.

I couldn't call her Sally Winslow;
it didn't seem nice when I didn't know her and she is dead,
so I thought if I said friend'
it would show she had somebody
to be sorry.

"This friend of ours has died and gone From us
to heaven
to live.

If she has sinned against Thee,
Lord,
We pray Thee,
Lord,
forgive.

"Her husband runneth far away And knoweth not she's dead.

Oh,
bring him back--ere tis too late--
to mourn beside her bed.

"And if perchance it can't be so,
Be
to the children kind;
The weeny one that goes
with her,
The other left behind."

"I think that's perfectly elegant!"
exclaimed Emma Jane,
kissing Rebecca fervently.

"You are the smartest girl in the whole State of Maine,
and it sounds like a minister's prayer.

I wish we could save up and buy a printing machine.

Then I could learn
to print what you write and we'd be partners like father and Bill Moses.

Shall you sign it
with your name like we do our school compositions?"
"No,"
said Rebecca soberly.

"I certainly shan't sign it,
not knowing where it's going or who'll read it.

I shall just hide it in the flowers,
and whoever finds it will guess that there wasn't any minister or singing,
or gravestone,
or anything,
so somebody just did the best they could."

III The tired mother
with the
"weeny baby"
on her arm lay on a long carpenter's bench,
her earthly journey over,
and when Rebecca stole in and placed the flowery garland all along the edge of the rude bier,
death suddenly took on a more gracious and benign aspect.

It was only a child's sympathy and intuition that softened the rigors of the sad moment,
but poor,
wild Sal Winslow,
in her frame of daisies,
looked as if she were missed a little by an unfriendly world;
while the weeny baby,
whose heart had fallen asleep almost as soon as it had learned
to beat,
the weeny baby,
with Emma Jane's nosegay of buttercups in its tiny wrinkled hand,
smiled as if it might have been loved and longed
for and mourned.

"We've done all we can now without a minister,"
whispered Rebecca.

"We could sing,
God is ever good'
out of the Sunday school song book,
but I'm afraid somebody would hear us and think we were gay and happy.

What's that?"
A strange sound broke the stillness;
a gurgle,
a yawn,
a merry little call.

The two girls ran in the direction from which it came,
and there,
on an old coat,
in a clump of goldenrod bushes,
lay a child just waking from a refreshing nap.

"It's the other baby that Lizy Ann Dennett told about!"
cried Emma Jane.

"Isn't he beautiful!"
exclaimed Rebecca.

"Come straight
to me!"
and she stretched out her arms.

The child struggled
to its feet,
and tottered,
wavering,
toward the warm welcome of the voice and eyes.

Rebecca was all mother,
and her maternal instincts had been well developed in the large family in which she was next
to the eldest.

She had always confessed that there were perhaps a trifle too many babies at Sunnybrook Farm,
but,
nevertheless,
had she ever heard it,
she would have stood loyally by the Japanese proverb:

"Whether brought forth upon the mountain or in the field,
it matters nothing;
more than a treasure of one thousand ryo a baby precious is."

"You darling thing!"
she crooned,
as she caught and lifted the child.

"You look just like a Jack-o'-lantern."

The boy was clad in a yellow cotton dress,
very full and stiff.

His hair was of such a bright gold,
and so sleek and shiny,
that he looked like a fair,
smooth little pumpkin.

He had wide blue eyes full of laughter,
a neat little vertical nose,
a neat little horizontal mouth
with his few neat little teeth showing very plainly,
and on the whole Rebecca's figure of speech was not so wide of the mark.

"Oh,
Emma Jane! Isn't he too lovely
to go
to the poor farm?

If only we were married we could keep him and say nothing and nobody would know the difference! Now that the Simpsons have gone away there isn't a single baby in Riverboro,
and only one in Edgewood.

It's a perfect shame,
but I can't do anything;
you remember Aunt Miranda wouldn't let me have the Simpson baby when I wanted
to borrow her just
for one rainy Sunday."

"My mother won't keep him,
so it's no use
to ask her;
she says most every day she's glad we're grown up,
and she thanks the Lord there wasn't but two of us."

"And Mrs. Peter Meserve is too nervous,"
Rebecca went on,
taking the village houses in turn;
"and Mrs. Robinson is too neat."

"People don't seem
to like any but their own babies,"
observed Emma Jane.

"Well,
I can't understand it,"
Rebecca answered.

"A baby's a baby,
I should think,
whose ever it is! Miss Dearborn is coming back Monday;
I wonder if she'd like it?

She has nothing
to do out of school,
and we could borrow it all the time!"
"I don't think it would seem very genteel
for a young lady like Miss Dearborn,
who
'boards round,'
to take a baby from place
to place,"
objected Emma Jane.

"Perhaps not,"
agreed Rebecca despondently,
"but I think if we haven't got any--any--PRIVATE babies in Riverboro we ought
to have one
for the town,
and all have a share in it.

We've got a town hall and a town lamp post and a town watering trough.

Things are so uneven! One house like mine at Sunnybrook,
brimful of children,
and the very next one empty! The only way
to fix them right would be
to let all the babies that ever are belong
to all the grown-up people that ever are,--just divide them up,
you know,
if they'd go round.

Oh,
I have a thought! Don't you believe Aunt Sarah Cobb would keep him?

She carries flowers
to the graveyard every little while,
and once she took me
with her.

There's a marble cross,
and it says:

SACRED
to THE MEMORY OF SARAH ELLEN,
BELOVED CHILD OF SARAH AND JEREMIAH COBB,
AGED 17 MONTHS.

Why,
that's another reason;
Mrs. Dennett says this one is seventeen months.

There's five of us left at the farm without me,
but if we were only nearer
to Riverboro,
how quick mother would let in one more!"
"We might see what father thinks,
and that would settle it,"
said Emma Jane.

"Father doesn't think very sudden,
but he thinks awful strong.

If we don't bother him,
and find a place ourselves
for the baby,
perhaps he'll be willing.

He's coming now;
I hear the wheels."

Lizy Ann Dennett volunteered
to stay and perform the last rites
with the undertaker,
and Jack-o'-lantern,
with his slender wardrobe tied in a bandanna handkerchief,
was lifted into the wagon by the reluctant Mr. Perkins,
and jubilantly held by Rebecca in her lap.

Mr. Perkins drove off as speedily as possible,
being heartily sick of the whole affair,
and thinking wisely that the little girls had already seen and heard more than enough of the seamy side of life that morning.

Discussion concerning Jack-o'-lantern's future was prudently deferred
for a quarter of an hour,
and then Mr. Perkins was mercilessly pelted
with arguments against the choice of the poor farm as a place of residence
for a baby.

"His father is sure
to come back some time,
Mr. Perkins,"
urged Rebecca.

"He couldn't leave this beautiful thing forever;
and if Emma Jane and I can persuade Mrs. Cobb
to keep him a little while,
would you care?"
No;
on reflection Mr. Perkins did not care.

He merely wanted a quiet life and enough time left over from the public service
to attend
to his blacksmith's shop;
so instead of going home over the same road by which they came he crossed the bridge into Edgewood and dropped the children at the long lane which led
to the Cobb house.

Mrs. Cobb,
"Aunt Sarah"
to the whole village,
sat by the window looking
for Uncle Jerry,
who would soon be seen driving the noon stage
to the post office over the hill.

She always had an eye out
for Rebecca,
too,
for ever since the child had been a passenger on Mr. Cobb's stagecoach,
making the eventful trip from her home farm
to the brick house in Riverboro in his company,
she had been a constant visitor and the joy of the quiet household.

Emma Jane,
too,
was a well-known figure in the lane,
but the strange baby was in the nature of a surprise--a surprise somewhat modified by the fact that Rebecca was a dramatic personage and more liable
to appear in conjunction
with curious outriders,
comrades,
and retainers than the ordinary Riverboro child.

She had run away from the too stern discipline of the brick house on one occasion,
and had been persuaded
to return by Uncle Jerry.

She had escorted a wandering organ grinder
to their door and begged a lodging
for him on a rainy night;
so on the whole there was nothing amazing about the coming procession.

The little party toiled up
to the hospitable door,
and Mrs. Cobb came out
to meet them.

Rebecca was spokesman.

Emma Jane's talent did not lie in eloquent speech,
but it would have been a valiant and a fluent child indeed who could have usurped Rebecca's privileges and tendencies in this direction,
language being her native element,
and words of assorted sizes springing spontaneously
to her lips.

"Aunt Sarah,
dear,"
she said,
plumping Jack-o'-lantern down on the grass as she pulled his dress over his feet and smoothed his hair becomingly,
"will you please not say a word till I get through-- as it's very important you should know everything before you answer yes or no?

This is a baby named Jacky Winslow,
and I think he looks like a Jack-o'-lantern.

His mother has just died over
to North Riverboro,
all alone,
excepting
for Mrs. Lizy Ann Dennett,
and there was another little weeny baby that died
with her,
and Emma Jane and I put flowers around them and did the best we could.

The father--that's John Winslow--quarreled
with the mother--that was Sal Perry on the Moderation Road--and ran away and left her.

So he doesn't know his wife and the weeny baby are dead.

And the town has got
to bury them because they can't find the father right off quick,
and Jacky has got
to go
to the poor farm this afternoon.

And it seems an awful shame
to take him up
to that lonesome place
with those old people that can't amuse him,
and if Emma Jane and Alice Robinson and I take most all the care of him we thought perhaps you and Uncle Jerry would keep him just
for a little while.

You've got a cow and a turn-up bedstead,
you know,"
she hurried on insinuatingly,
"and there's hardly any pleasure as cheap as more babies where there's ever been any before,
for baby carriages and trundle beds and cradles don't wear out,
and there's always clothes left over from the old baby
to begin the new one on.

Of course,
we can collect enough things
to start Jacky,
so he won't be much trouble or expense;
and anyway,
he's past the most troublesome age and you won't have
to be up nights
with him,
and he isn't afraid of anybody or anything,
as you can see by his just sitting there laughing and sucking his thumb,
though he doesn't know what's going
to become of him.

And he's just seventeen months old like dear little Sarah Ellen in the graveyard,
and we thought we ought
to give you the refusal of him before he goes
to the poor farm,
and what do you think about it?

Because it's near my dinner time and Aunt Miranda will keep me in the whole afternoon if I'm late,
and I've got
to finish weeding the hollyhock bed before sundown."

IV Mrs. Cobb had enjoyed a considerable period of reflection during this monologue,
and Jacky had not used the time unwisely,
offering several unconscious arguments and suggestions
to the matter under discussion;
lurching over on the greensward and righting himself
with a chuckle,
kicking his bare feet about in delight at the sunshine and groping
for his toes
with arms too short
to reach them,
the movement involving an entire upsetting of equilibrium followed by more chuckles.

Coming down the last of the stone steps,
Sarah Ellen's mother regarded the baby
with interest and sympathy.

"Poor little mite!"
she said;
"that doesn't know what he's lost and what's going
to happen
to him.

Seems
to me we might keep him a spell till we're sure his father's deserted him
for good.

Want
to come
to Aunt Sarah,
baby?"
Jack-o'-lantern turned from Rebecca and Emma Jane and regarded the kind face gravely;
then he held out both his hands and Mrs. Cobb,
stooping,
gathered him like a harvest.

Being lifted into her arms,
he at once tore her spectacles from her nose and laughed aloud.

Taking them from him gently,
she put them on again,
and set him in the cushioned rocking chair under the lilac bushes beside the steps.

Then she took one of his soft hands in hers and patted it,
and fluttered her fingers like birds before his eyes,
and snapped them like castanets,
remembering all the arts she had lavished upon
"Sarah Ellen,
aged seventeen months,"
years and years ago.

Motherless baby and babyless mother,
Bring them together
to love one another.

Rebecca knew nothing of this couplet,
but she saw clearly enough that her case was won.

"The boy must be hungry;
when was he fed last?"
asked Mrs. Cobb.

"Just stay a second longer while I get him some morning's milk;
then you run home
to your dinners and I'll speak
to Mr. Cobb this afternoon.

Of course,
we can keep the baby
for a week or two till we see what happens.

Land! He ain't goin'
to be any more trouble than a wax doll! I guess he ain't been used
to much attention,
and that kind's always the easiest
to take care of."

At six o'clock that evening Rebecca and Emma Jane flew up the hill and down the lane again,
waving their hands
to the dear old couple who were waiting
for them in the usual place,
the back piazza where they had sat so many summers in a blessed companionship never marred by an unloving word.

"Where's Jacky?"
called Rebecca breathlessly,
her voice always outrunning her feet.

"Go up
to my chamber,
both of you,
if you want
to see,"
smiled Mrs. Cobb,
"only don't wake him up."

The girls went softly up the stairs into Aunt Sarah's room.

There,
in the turn-up bedstead that had been so long empty,
slept Jack-o'-lantern,
in blissful unconsciousness of the doom he had so lately escaped.

His nightgown and pillow case were clean and fragrant
with lavender,
but they were both as yellow as saffron,
for they had belonged
to Sarah Ellen.

"I wish his mother could see him!"
whispered Emma Jane.

"You can't tell;
it's all puzzly about heaven,
and perhaps she does,"
said Rebecca,
as they turned reluctantly from the fascinating scene and stole down
to the piazza.

It was a beautiful and a happy summer that year,
and every day it was filled
with blissful plays and still more blissful duties.

On the Monday after Jack-o'-lantern's arrival in Edgewood Rebecca founded the Riverboro Aunts Association.

The Aunts were Rebecca,
Emma Jane,
Alice Robinson,
and Minnie Smellie,
and each of the first three promised
to labor
for and amuse the visiting baby
for two days a week,
Minnie Smellie,
who lived at some distance from the Cobbs,
making herself responsible
for Saturday afternoons.

Minnie Smellie was not a general favorite among the Riverboro girls,
and it was only in an unprecedented burst of magnanimity that they admitted her into the rites of fellowship,
Rebecca hugging herself secretly at the thought,
that as Minnie gave only the leisure time of one day a week,
she could not be called a
"full"
Aunt.

There had been long and bitter feuds between the two children during Rebecca's first summer in Riverboro,
but since Mrs. Smellie had told her daughter that one more quarrel would invite a punishment so terrible that it could only be hinted at vaguely,
and Miss Miranda Sawyer had remarked that any niece of hers who couldn't get along peaceable
with the neighbors had better go back
to the seclusion of a farm where there weren't any,
hostilities had been veiled,
and a suave and diplomatic relationship had replaced the former one,
which had been wholly primitive,
direct,
and barbaric.

Still,
whenever Minnie Smellie,
flaxen-haired,
pink-nosed,
and ferret-eyed,
indulged in fluent conversation,
Rebecca,
remembering the old fairy story,
could always see toads hopping out of her mouth.

It was really very unpleasant,
because Minnie could never see them herself;
and what was more amazing,
Emma Jane perceived nothing of the sort,
being almost as blind,
too,
to the diamonds that fell continually from Rebecca's lips;
but Emma Jane's strong point was not her imagination.

A shaky perambulator was found in Mrs. Perkins's wonderful attic;
shoes and stockings were furnished by Mrs. Robinson;
Miss Jane Sawyer knitted a blanket and some shirts;
Thirza Meserve,
though too young
for an aunt,
coaxed from her mother some dresses and nightgowns,
and was presented
with a green paper certificate allowing her
to wheel Jacky up and down the road
for an hour under the superintendence of a full Aunt.

Each girl,
under the constitution of the association,
could call Jacky
"hers"
for two days in the week,
and great,
though friendly,
was the rivalry between them,
as they washed,
ironed,
and sewed
for their adored nephew.

If Mrs. Cobb had not been the most amiable woman in the world she might have had difficulty in managing the aunts,
but she always had Jacky
to herself the earlier part of the day and after dusk at night.

Meanwhile Jack-o'-lantern grew healthier and heartier and jollier as the weeks slipped away.

Uncle Jerry joined the little company of worshipers and slaves,
and one fear alone stirred in all their hearts;
not,
as a sensible and practical person might imagine,
the fear that the recreant father might never return
to claim his child,
but,
on the contrary,
that he MIGHT do so! October came at length
with its cheery days and frosty nights,
its glory of crimson leaves and its golden harvest of pumpkins and ripened corn.

Rebecca had been down by the Edgewood side of the river and had come up across the pastures
for a good-night play
with Jacky.

Her literary labors had been somewhat interrupted by the joys and responsibilities of vice-motherhood,
and the thought book was less frequently drawn from its hiding place under the old haymow in the barn chamber.

Mrs. Cobb stood behind the screen door
with her face pressed against the wire netting,
and Rebecca could see that she was wiping her eyes.

All at once the child's heart gave one prophetic throb and then stood still.

She was like a harp that vibrated
with every wind of emotion,
whether from another's grief or her own.

She looked down the lane,
around the curve of the stone wall,
red
with woodbine,
the lane that would meet the stage road
to the station.

There,
just mounting the crown of the hill and about
to disappear on the other side,
strode a stranger man,
big and tall,
with a crop of reddish curly hair showing from under his straw hat.

A woman walked by his side,
and perched on his shoulder,
wearing his most radiant and triumphant mien,
as joyous in leaving Edgewood as he had been during every hour of his sojourn there--rode Jack-o'-lantern! Rebecca gave a cry in which maternal longing and helpless,
hopeless jealousy strove
for supremacy.

Then,
with an impetuous movement she started
to run after the disappearing trio.

Mrs. Cobb opened the door hastily,
calling after her,
"Rebecca,
Rebecca,
come back here! You mustn't follow where you haven't any right
to go.

If there'd been anything
to say or do,
I'd a'
done it."

"He's mine! He's mine!"
stormed Rebecca.

"At least he's yours and mine!"
"He's his father's first of all,"
faltered Mrs. Cobb;
"don't let's forget that;
and we'd ought
to be glad and grateful that John Winslow's come
to his senses an'
remembers he's brought a child into the world and ought
to take care of it.

Our loss is his gain and it may make a man of him.

Come in,
and we'll put things away all neat before your Uncle Jerry gets home."

Rebecca sank in a pitiful little heap on Mrs. Cobb's bedroom floor and sobbed her heart out.

"Oh,
Aunt Sarah,
where shall we get another Jack-o'-lantern,
and how shall I break it
to Emma Jane?

What if his father doesn't love him,
and what if he forgets
to strain the milk or lets him go without his nap?

That's the worst of babies that aren't private--you have
to part
with them sooner or later!"
"Sometimes you have
to part
with your own,
too,"
said Mrs. Cobb sadly;
and though there were lines of sadness in her face there was neither rebellion nor repining,
as she folded up the sides of the turn-up bedstead preparatory
to banishing it a second time
to the attic.

"I shall miss Sarah Ellen now more'n ever.

Still,
Rebecca,
we mustn't feel
to complain.

It's the Lord that giveth and the Lord that taketh away:

Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Second Chronicle DAUGHTERS OF ZION I Abijah Flagg was driving over
to Wareham on an errand
for old Squire Winship,
whose general chore-boy and farmer's assistant he had been
for some years.

He passed Emma Jane Perkins's house slowly,
as he always did.

She was only a little girl of thirteen and he a boy of fifteen or sixteen,
but somehow,
for no particular reason,
he liked
to see the sun shine on her thick braids of reddish-brown hair.

He admired her china-blue eyes too,
and her amiable,
friendly expression.

He was quite alone in the world,
and he always thought that if he had anybody belonging
to him he would rather have a sister like Emma Jane Perkins than anything else within the power of Providence
to bestow.

When she herself suggested this relationship a few years later he cast it aside
with scorn,
having changed his mind in the interval--but that story belongs
to another time and place.

Emma Jane was not
to be seen in garden,
field,
or at the window,
and Abijah turned his gaze
to the large brick house that came next on the other side of the quiet village street.

It might have been closed
for a funeral.

Neither Miss Miranda nor Miss Jane Sawyer sat at their respective windows knitting,
nor was Rebecca Randall's gypsy face
to be discerned.

Ordinarily that will-o'-the wispish little person could be seen,
heard,
or felt wherever she was.

"The village must be abed,
I guess,"
mused Abijah,
as he neared the Robinsons'
yellow cottage,
where all the blinds were closed and no sign of life showed on porch or in shed.

"No,
't aint,
neither,"
he thought again,
as his horse crept cautiously down the hill,
for from the direction of the Robinsons'
barn chamber there floated out into the air certain burning sentiments set
to the tune of
"Antioch."

The words,
to a lad brought up in the orthodox faith,
were quite distinguishable:

"Daughter of Zion,
from the dust,
Exalt thy fallen head!"
Even the most religious youth is stronger on first lines than others,
but Abijah pulled up his horse and waited till he caught another familiar verse,
beginning:

"Rebuild thy walls,
thy bounds enlarge,
And send thy heralds forth."

"That's Rebecca carrying the air,
and I can hear Emma Jane's alto."

"Say
to the North,
Give up thy charge,
And hold not back,
O South,
And hold not back,
O South,"
etc.

"Land! ain't they smart,
seesawin'
up and down in that part they learnt in singin'
school! I wonder what they're actin'
out,
singin'
hymn-tunes up in the barn chamber?

Some o'
Rebecca's doins,
I'll be bound! Git dap,
Aleck!"
Aleck pursued his serene and steady trot up the hills on the Edgewood side of the river,
till at length he approached the green Common where the old Tory Hill meeting-house stood,
its white paint and green blinds showing fair and pleasant in the afternoon sun.

Both doors were open,
and as Abijah turned into the Wareham road the church melodeon pealed out the opening bars of the Missionary Hymn,
and presently a score of voices sent the good old tune from the choir-loft out
to the dusty road:

"Shall we whose souls are lighted
with Wisdom from on high,
Shall we
to men benighted The lamp of life deny?"
"Land!"
exclaimed Abijah under his breath.

"They're at it up here,
too! That explains it all.

There's a missionary meeting at the church,
and the girls wa'n't allowed
to come so they held one of their own,
and I bate ye it's the liveliest of the two."

Abijah Flagg's shrewd Yankee guesses were not far from the truth,
though he was not in possession of all the facts.

It will be remembered by those who have been in the way of hearing Rebecca's experiences in Riverboro,
that the Rev.

and Mrs. Burch,
returned missionaries from the Far East,
together
with some of their children,
"all born under Syrian skies,"
as they always explained
to interested inquirers,
spent a day or two at the brick house,
and gave parlor meetings in native costume.

These visitors,
coming straight from foreign lands
to the little Maine village,
brought
with them a nameless enchantment
to the children,
and especially
to Rebecca,
whose imagination always kindled easily.

The romance of that visit had never died in her heart,
and among the many careers that dazzled her youthful vision was that of converting such Syrian heathen as might continue in idol worship after the Burches'
efforts in their behalf had ceased.

She thought at the age of eighteen she might be suitably equipped
for storming some minor citadel of Mohammedanism;
and Mrs. Burch had encouraged her in the idea,
not,
it is
to be feared,
because Rebecca showed any surplus of virtue or Christian grace,
but because her gift of language,
her tact and sympathy,
and her musical talent seemed
to fit her
for the work.

It chanced that the quarterly meeting of the Maine Missionary Society had been appointed just at the time when a letter from Mrs. Burch
to Miss Jane Sawyer suggested that Rebecca should form a children's branch in Riverboro.

Mrs. Burch's real idea was that the young people should save their pennies and divert a gentle stream of financial aid into the parent fund,
thus learning early in life
to be useful in such work,
either at home or abroad.

The girls themselves,
however,
read into her letter no such modest participation in the conversion of the world,
and wishing
to effect an organization without delay,
they chose an afternoon when every house in the village was vacant,
and seized upon the Robinsons'
barn chamber as the place of meeting.

Rebecca,
Alice Robinson,
Emma Jane Perkins,
Candace Milliken,
and Persis Watson,
each
with her hymn book,
had climbed the ladder leading
to the haymow a half hour before Abijah Flagg had heard the strains of
"Daughters of Zion"
floating out
to the road.

Rebecca,
being an executive person,
had carried,
besides her hymn book,
a silver call-bell and pencil and paper.

An animated discussion regarding one of two names
for the society,
The Junior Heralds or The Daughters of Zion,
had resulted in a unanimous vote
for the latter,
and Rebecca had been elected president at an early stage of the meeting.

She had modestly suggested that Alice Robinson,
as the granddaughter of a missionary
to China,
would be much more eligible.

"No,"
said Alice,
with entire good nature,
"whoever is ELECTED president,
you WILL be,
Rebecca--you're that kind--so you might as well have the honor;
I'd just as lieves be secretary,
anyway."

"If you should want me
to be treasurer,
I could be,
as well as not,"
said Persis Watson suggestively;
"for you know my father keeps china banks at his store--ones that will hold as much as two dollars if you will let them.

I think he'd give us one if I happen
to be treasurer."

The three principal officers were thus elected at one fell swoop and
with an entire absence of that red tape which commonly renders organization so tiresome,
Candace Milliken suggesting that perhaps she'd better be vice-president,
as Emma Jane Perkins was always so bashful.

"We ought
to have more members,"
she reminded the other girls,
"but if we had invited them the first day they'd have all wanted
to be officers,
especially Minnie Smellie,
so it's just as well not
to ask them till another time.

Is Thirza Meserve too little
to join?"
"I can't think why anybody named Meserve should have called a baby Thirza,"
said Rebecca,
somewhat out of order,
though the meeting was carried on
with small recognition of parliamentary laws.

"It always makes me want
to say:

Thirza Meserver Heaven preserve her! Thirza Meserver Do we deserve her?

She's little,
but she's sweet,
and absolutely without guile.

I think we ought
to have her."

"Is
'guile'
the same as
'guilt?"
inquired Emma Jane Perkins.

"Yes,"
the president answered;
"exactly the same,
except one is written and the other spoken language."

(Rebecca was rather good at imbibing information,
and a master hand at imparting it!)
"Written language is
for poems and graduations and occasions like this--kind of like a best Sunday-go-to-meeting dress that you wouldn't like
to go blueberrying in
for fear of getting it spotted."

"I'd just as
'lieves get
'guile'
spotted as not,"
affirmed the unimaginative Emma Jane.

"I think it's an awful foolish word;
but now we're all named and our officers elected,
what do we do first?

It's easy enough
for Mary and Martha Burch;
they just play at missionarying because their folks work at it,
same as Living and I used
to make believe be blacksmiths when we were little."

"It must be nicer missionarying in those foreign places,"
said Persis,
"because on
'Afric's shores and India's plains and other spots where Satan reigns'
(that's father's favorite hymn)
there's always a heathen bowing down
to wood and stone.

You can take away his idols if he'll let you and give him a bible and the beginning's all made.

But who'll we begin on?

Jethro Small?"
"Oh,
he's entirely too dirty,
and foolish besides!"
exclaimed Candace.

"Why not Ethan Hunt?

He swears dreadfully."

"He lives on nuts and is a hermit,
and it's a mile
to his camp through the thick woods;
my mother'll never let me go there,"
objected Alice.

"There's Uncle Tut Judson."

"He's too old;
he's most a hundred and deaf as a post,"
complained Emma Jane.

"Besides,
his married daughter is a Sabbath-school teacher--why doesn't she teach him
to behave?

I can't think of anybody just right
to start on!"
"Don't talk like that,
Emma Jane,"
and Rebecca's tone had a tinge of reproof in it.

"We are a copperated body named the Daughters of Zion,
and,
of course,
we've got
to find something
to do.

Foreigners are the easiest;
there's a Scotch family at North Riverboro,
an English one in Edgewood,
and one Cuban man at Millkin's Mills."

"Haven't foreigners got any religion of their own?"
inquired Persis curiously.

"Ye-es,
I s'pose so;
kind of a one;
but foreigners'
religions are never right--ours is the only good one."

This was from Candace,
the deacon's daughter.

"I do think it must be dreadful,
being born
with a religion and growing up
with it,
and then finding out it's no use and all your time wasted!"
Here Rebecca sighed,
chewed a straw,
and looked troubled.

"Well,
that's your punishment
for being a heathen,"
retorted Candace,
who had been brought up strictly.

"But I can't
for the life of me see how you can help being a heathen if you're born in Africa,"
persisted Persis,
who was well named.

"You can't."

Rebecca was clear on this point.

"I had that all out
with Mrs. Burch when she was visiting Aunt Miranda.

She says they can't help being heathen,
but if there's a single mission station in the whole of Africa,
they're accountable if they don't go there and get saved."

"Are there plenty of stages and railroads?"
asked Alice;
"because there must be dreadfully long distances,
and what if they couldn't pay the fare?"
"That part of it is so dreadfully puzzly we mustn't talk about it,
please,"
said Rebecca,
her sensitive face quivering
with the force of the problem.

Poor little soul! She did not realize that her superiors in age and intellect had spent many a sleepless night over that same
"accountability of the heathen."

"It's too bad the Simpsons have moved away,"
said Candace.

"It's so seldom you can find a real big wicked family like that
to save,
with only Clara Belle and Susan good in it."

"And numbers count
for so much,"
continued Alice.

"My grandmother says if missionaries can't convert about so many in a year the Board advises them
to come back
to America and take up some other work."

"I know,"
Rebecca corroborated;
"and it's the same
with revivalists.

At the Centennial picnic at North Riverboro,
a revivalist sat opposite
to Mr. Ladd and Aunt Jane and me,
and he was telling about his wonderful success in Bangor last winter.

He'd converted a hundred and thirty in a month,
he said,
or about four and a third a day.

I had just finished fractions,
so I asked Mr. Ladd how the third of a man could be converted.

He laughed and said it was just the other way;
that the man was a third converted.

Then he explained that if you were trying
to convince a person of his sin on a Monday,
and couldn't quite finish by sundown,
perhaps you wouldn't want
to sit up all night
with him,
and perhaps he wouldn't want you to;
so you'd begin again on Tuesday,
and you couldn't say just which day he was converted,
because it would be two thirds on Monday and one third on Tuesday."

"Mr. Ladd is always making fun,
and the Board couldn't expect any great things of us girls,
new beginners,"
suggested Emma Jane,
who was being constantly warned against tautology by her teacher.

"I think it's awful rude,
anyway,
to go right out and try
to convert your neighbors;
but if you borrow a horse and go
to Edgewood Lower Corner,
or Milliken's Mills,
I s'pose that makes it Foreign Missions."

"Would we each go alone or wait upon them
with a committee,
as they did when they asked Deacon Tuttle
for a contribution
for the new hearse?"
asked Persis.

"Oh! We must go alone,"
decided Rebecca;
"it would be much more refined and delicate.

Aunt Miranda says that one man alone could never get a subscription from Deacon Tuttle,
and that's the reason they sent a committee.

But it seems
to me Mrs. Burch couldn't mean
for us
to try and convert people when we're none of us even church members,
except Candace.

I think all we can do is
to persuade them
to go
to meeting and Sabbath school,
or give money
for the hearse,
or the new horse sheds.

Now let's all think quietly
for a minute or two who's the very most heathenish and reperrehensiblest person in Riverboro."

After a very brief period of silence the words
"Jacob Moody"
fell from all lips
with entire accord.

"You are right,"
said the president tersely;
"and after singing hymn number two hundred seventy four,
to be found on the sixty-sixth page,
we will take up the question of persuading Mr. Moody
to attend divine service or the minister's Bible class,
he not having been in the meeting-house
for lo! these many years.

'Daughter of Zion,
the power that hath saved thee Extolled
with the harp and the timbrel should be.'
"Sing without reading,
if you please,
omitting the second stanza.

Hymn two seventy four,
to be found on the sixty-sixth page of the new hymn book or on page thirty two of Emma Jane Perkins's old one."

II It is doubtful if the Rev.

Mr. Burch had ever found in Syria a person more difficult
to persuade than the already
"gospel-hardened"
Jacob Moody of Riverboro.

Tall,
gaunt,
swarthy,
black-bearded--his masses of grizzled,
uncombed hair and the red scar across his nose and cheek added
to his sinister appearance.

His tumble-down house stood on a rocky bit of land back of the Sawyer pasture,
and the acres of his farm stretched out on all sides of it.

He lived alone,
ate alone,
plowed,
planted,
sowed,
harvested alone,
and was more than willing
to die alone,
"unwept,
unhonored,
and unsung."

The road that bordered upon his fields was comparatively little used by any one,
and notwithstanding the fact that it was thickly set
with chokecherry trees and blackberry bushes it had been
for years practically deserted by the children.

Jacob's Red Astrakhan and Granny Garland trees hung thick
with apples,
but no Riverboro or Edgewood boy stole them;
for terrifying accounts of the fate that had overtaken one urchin in times agone had been handed along from boy
to boy,
protecting the Moody fruit far better than any police patrol.

Perhaps no circumstances could have extenuated the old man's surly manners or his lack of all citizenly graces and virtues;
but his neighbors commonly rebuked his present way of living and forgot the troubled past that had brought it about:

the sharp-tongued wife,
the unloving and disloyal sons,
the daughter's hapless fate,
and all the other sorry tricks that fortune had played upon him--at least that was the way in which he had always regarded his disappointments and griefs.

This,
then,
was the personage whose moral rehabilitation was
to be accomplished by the Daughters of Zion.

But how?

"Who will volunteer
to visit Mr. Moody?"
blandly asked the president.

VISIT MR. MOODY! It was a wonder the roof of the barn chamber did not fall;
it did,
indeed echo the words and in some way make them sound more grim and satirical.

"Nobody'll volunteer,
Rebecca Rowena Randall,
and you know it,"
said Emma Jane.

"Why don't we draw lots,
when none of us wants
to speak
to him and yet one of us must?"
This suggestion fell from Persis Watson,
who had been pale and thoughtful ever since the first mention of Jacob Moody.

(She was fond of Granny Garlands;
she had once met Jacob;
and,
as
to what befell,
well,
we all have our secret tragedies!)
"Wouldn't it be wicked
to settle it that way?"
"It's gamblers that draw lots."

"People did it in the Bible ever so often."

"It doesn't seem nice
for a missionary meeting."

These remarks fell all together upon the president's bewildered ear the while
(as she always said in compositions)--"the while"
she was trying
to adjust the ethics of this unexpected and difficult dilemma.

"It is a very puzzly question,"
she said thoughtfully.

"I could ask Aunt Jane if we had time,
but I suppose we haven't.

It doesn't seem nice
to draw lots,
and yet how can we settle it without?

We know we mean right,
and perhaps it will be.

Alice,
take this paper and tear off five narrow pieces,
all different lengths."

At this moment a voice from a distance floated up
to the haymow--a voice saying plaintively:

"Will you let me play
with you,
girls?

Huldah has gone
to ride,
and I'm all alone."

It was the voice of the absolutely-without-guile Thirza Meserve,
and it came at an opportune moment.

"If she is going
to be a member,"
said Persis,
"why not let her come up and hold the lots?

She'd be real honest and not favor anybody."

It seemed an excellent idea,
and was followed up so quickly that scarcely three minutes ensued before the guileless one was holding the five scraps in her hot little palm,
laboriously changing their places again and again until they looked exactly alike and all rather soiled and wilted.

"Come,
girls,
draw!"
commanded the president.

"Thirza,
you mustn't chew gum at a missionary meeting,
it isn't polite nor holy.

Take it out and stick it somewhere till the exercises are over."

The five Daughters of Zion approached the spot so charged
with fate,
and extended their trembling hands one by one.

Then after a moment's silent clutch of their papers they drew nearer
to one another and compared them.

Emma Jane Perkins had drawn the short one,
becoming thus the destined instrument
for Jacob Moody's conversion
to a more seemly manner of life! She looked about her despairingly,
as if
to seek some painless and respectable method of self-destruction.

"Do let's draw over again,"
she pleaded.

"I'm the worst of all of us.

I'm sure
to make a mess of it till I kind o'
get trained in."

Rebecca's heart sank at this frank confession,
which only corroborated her own fears.

"I'm sorry,
Emmy,
dear,"
she said,
"but our only excuse
for drawing lots at all would be
to have it sacred.

We must think of it as a kind of a sign,
almost like God speaking
to Moses in the burning bush."

"Oh,
I WISH there was a burning bush right here!"
cried the distracted and recalcitrant missionary.

"How quick I'd step into it without even stopping
to take off my garnet ring!"
"Don't be such a scare-cat,
Emma Jane!"
exclaimed Candace bracingly.

"Jacob Moody can't kill you,
even if he has an awful temper.

Trot right along now before you get more frightened.

Shall we go cross lots
with her,
Rebecca,
and wait at the pasture gate?

Then whatever happens Alice can put it down in the minutes of the meeting."

In these terrible crises of life time gallops
with such incredible velocity that it seemed
to Emma Jane only a breath before she was being dragged through the fields by the other Daughters of Zion,
the guileless little Thirza panting in the rear.

At the entrance
to the pasture Rebecca gave her an impassioned embrace,
and whispering,
"WHATEVER YOU DO,
BE CAREFUL HOW YOU LEAD UP,"
lifted off the top rail and pushed her through the bars.

Then the girls turned their backs reluctantly on the pathetic figure,
and each sought a tree under whose friendly shade she could watch,
and perhaps pray,
until the missionary should return from her field of labor.

Alice Robinson,
whose compositions were always marked 96 or 97,--100 symbolizing such perfection as could be attained in the mortal world of Riverboro,--Alice,
not only Daughter,
but Scribe of Zion,
sharpened her pencil and wrote a few well-chosen words of introduction,
to be used when the records of the afternoon had been made by Emma Jane Perkins and Jacob Moody.

Rebecca's heart beat tumultuously under her gingham dress.

She felt that a drama was being enacted,
and though unfortunately she was not the central figure,
she had at least a modest part in it.

The short lot had not fallen
to the properest Daughter,
that she quite realized;
yet would any one of them succeed in winning Jacob Moody's attention,
in engaging him in pleasant conversation,
and finally in bringing him
to a realization of his mistaken way of life?

She doubted,
but at the same moment her spirits rose at the thought of the difficulties involved in the undertaking.

Difficulties always spurred Rebecca on,
but they daunted poor Emma Jane,
who had no little thrills of excitement and wonder and fear and longing
to sustain her lagging soul.

That her interview was
to be entered as
"minutes"
by a secretary seemed
to her the last straw.

Her blue eyes looked lighter than usual and had the glaze of china saucers;
her usually pink cheeks were pale,
but she pressed on,
determined
to be a faithful Daughter of Zion,
and above all
to be worthy of Rebecca's admiration and respect.

"Rebecca can do anything,"
she thought,
with enthusiastic loyalty,
"and I mustn't be any stupider than I can help,
or she'll choose one of the other girls
for her most intimate friend."

So,
mustering all her courage,
she turned into Jacob Moody's dooryard,
where he was chopping wood.

"It's a pleasant afternoon,
Mr. Moody,"
she said in a polite but hoarse whisper,
Rebecca's words,
"LEAD UP! LEAD UP! ringing in clarion tones through her brain.

Jacob Moody looked at her curiously.

"Good enough,
I guess,"
he growled;
"but I don't never have time
to look at afternoons."

Emma Jane seated herself timorously on the end of a large log near the chopping block,
supposing that Jacob,
like other hosts,
would pause in his tasks and chat.

"The block is kind of like an idol,"
she thought;
"I wish I could take it away from him,
and then perhaps he'd talk."

At this moment Jacob raised his axe and came down on the block
with such a stunning blow that Emma Jane fairly leaped into the air.

"You'd better look out,
Sissy,
or you'll git chips in the eye!"
said Moody,
grimly going on
with his work.

The Daughter of Zion sent up a silent prayer
for inspiration,
but none came,
and she sat silent,
giving nervous jumps in spite of herself whenever the axe fell upon the log Jacob was cutting.

Finally,
the host became tired of his dumb visitor,
and leaning on his axe he said,
"Look here,
Sis,
what have you come for?

What's your errant?

Do you want apples?

Or cider?

Or what?

Speak out,
or GIT out,
one or t'other."

Emma Jane,
who had wrung her handkerchief into a clammy ball,
gave it a last despairing wrench,
and faltered:

"Wouldn't you like--hadn't you better--don't you think you'd ought
to be more constant at meeting and Sabbath school?"
Jacob's axe almost dropped from his nerveless hand,
and he regarded the Daughter of Zion
with unspeakable rage and disdain.

Then,
the blood mounting in his face,
he gathered himself together,
and shouted:

"You take yourself off that log and out o'
this dooryard double-quick,
you imperdent sanct'omus young one! You just let me ketch Bill Perkins'
child trying
to teach me where I shall go,
at my age! Scuttle,
I tell ye! And if I see your pious cantin'
little mug inside my fence ag'in on sech a business I'll chase ye down the hill or set the dog on ye! SCOOT,
I TELL YE!"
Emma Jane obeyed orders summarily,
taking herself off the log,
out the dooryard,
and otherwise scuttling and scooting down the hill at a pace never contemplated even by Jacob Moody,
who stood regarding her flying heels
with a sardonic grin.

Down she stumbled,
the tears coursing over her cheeks and mingling
with the dust of her flight;
blighted hope,
shame,
fear,
rage,
all tearing her bosom in turn,
till
with a hysterical shriek she fell over the bars and into Rebecca's arms outstretched
to receive her.

The other Daughters wiped her eyes and supported her almost fainting form,
while Thirza,
thoroughly frightened,
burst into sympathetic tears,
and refused
to be comforted.

No questions were asked,
for it was felt by all parties that Emma Jane's demeanor was answering them before they could be framed.

"He threatened
to set the dog on me!"
she wailed presently,
when,
as they neared the Sawyer pasture,
she was able
to control her voice.

"He called me a pious,
cantin'
young one,
and said he'd chase me out o'
the dooryard if I ever came again! And he'll tell my father--I know he will,
for he hates him like poison."

All at once the adult point of view dawned upon Rebecca.

She never saw it until it was too obvious
to be ignored.

Had they done wrong in interviewing Jacob Moody?

Would Aunt Miranda be angry,
as well as Mr. Perkins?

"Why was he so dreadful,
Emmy?"
she questioned tenderly.

"What did you say first?

How did you lead up
to it?"
Emma Jane sobbed more convulsively,
and wiped her nose and eyes impartially as she tried
to think.

"I guess I never led up at all;
not a mite.

I didn't know what you meant.

I was sent on an errant,
and I went and done it the best I could!
(Emma Jane's grammar always lapsed in moments of excitement.)
And then Jake roared at me like Squire Winship's bull.

.

.

.

And he called my face a mug.

.

.

.

You shut up that secretary book,
Alice Robinson! If you write down a single word I'll never speak
to you again.

.

.

.

And I don't want
to be a member'
another minute
for fear of drawing another short lot.

I've got enough of the Daughters or Zion
to last me the rest o'
my life! I don't care who goes
to meetin'
and who don't."

The girls were at the Perkins's gate by this time,
and Emma Jane went sadly into the empty house
to remove all traces of the tragedy from her person before her mother should come home from the church.

The others wended their way slowly down the street,
feeling that their promising missionary branch had died almost as soon as it had budded.

"Goodby,"
said Rebecca,
swallowing lumps of disappointment and chagrin as she saw the whole inspiring plan break and vanish into thin air like an iridescent bubble.

"It's all over and we won't ever try it again.

I'm going in
to do overcasting as hard as I can,
because I hate that the worst.

Aunt Jane must write
to Mrs. Burch that we don't want
to be home missionaries.

Perhaps we're not big enough,
anyway.

I'm perfectly certain it's nicer
to convert people when they're yellow or brown or any color but white;
and I believe it must be easier
to save their souls than it is
to make them go
to meeting."

Third Chronicle REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK I The
"Sawyer girls'"
barn still had its haymow in Rebecca's time,
although the hay was a dozen years old or more,
and,
in the opinion of the occasional visiting horse,
sadly juiceless and wanting in flavor.

It still sheltered,
too,
old Deacon Israel Sawyer's carryall and mowing-machine,
with his pung,
his sleigh,
and a dozen other survivals of an earlier era,
when the broad acres of the brick house went
to make one of the finest farms in Riverboro.

There were no horses or cows in the stalls nowadays;
no pig grunting comfortably of future spare ribs in the sty;
no hens
to peck the plants in the cherished garden patch.

The Sawyer girls were getting on in years,
and,
mindful that care once killed a cat,
they ordered their lives
with the view of escaping that particular doom,
at least,
and succeeded fairly well until Rebecca's advent made existence a trifle more sensational.

Once a month
for years upon years,
Miss Miranda and Miss Jane had put towels over their heads and made a solemn visit
to the barn,
taking off the enameled cloth coverings
(occasionally called
"emmanuel covers"
in Riverboro),
dusting the ancient implements,
and sometimes sweeping the heaviest of the cobwebs from the corners,
or giving a brush
to the floor.

Deacon Israel's tottering ladder still stood in its accustomed place,
propped against the haymow,
and the heavenly stairway leading
to eternal glory scarcely looked fairer
to Jacob of old than this
to Rebecca.

By means of its dusty rounds she mounted,
mounted,
mounted far away from time and care and maiden aunts,
far away from childish tasks and childish troubles,
to the barn chamber,
a place so full of golden dreams,
happy reveries,
and vague longings,
that,
as her little brown hands clung
to the sides of the ladder and her feet trod the rounds cautiously in her ascent,
her heart almost stopped beating in the sheer joy of anticipation.

Once having gained the heights,
the next thing was
to unlatch the heavy doors and give them a gentle swing outward.

Then,
oh,
ever new Paradise! Then,
oh,
ever lovely green and growing world!
for Rebecca had that something in her soul that
"Gives
to seas and sunset skies The unspent beauty of surprise."

At the top of Guide Board hill she could see Alice Robinson's barn
with its shining weather vane,
a huge burnished fish that swam
with the wind and foretold the day
to all Riverboro.

The meadow,
with its sunny slopes stretching up
to the pine woods,
was sometimes a flowing sheet of shimmering grass,
sometimes--when daisies and buttercups were blooming--a vision of white and gold.

Sometimes the shorn stubble would be dotted with
"the happy hills of hay,"
and a little later the rock maple on the edge of the pines would stand out like a golden ball against the green;
its neighbor,
the sugar maple,
glowing beside it,
brave in scarlet.

It was on one of these autumn days
with a wintry nip in the air that Adam Ladd
(Rebecca's favorite
"Mr. Aladdin"),
after searching
for her in field and garden,
suddenly noticed the open doors of the barn chamber,
and called
to her.

At the sound of his vice she dropped her precious diary,
and flew
to the edge of the haymow.

He never forgot the vision of the startled little poetess,
book in one mittened hand,
pencil in the other,
dark hair all ruffled,
with the picturesque addition of an occasional glade of straw,
her cheeks crimson,
her eyes shining.

"A Sappho in mittens!"
he cried laughingly,
and at her eager question told her
to look up the unknown lady in the school encyclopedia,
when she was admitted
to the Female Seminary at Wareham.

Now,
all being ready,
Rebecca went
to a corner of the haymow,
and withdrew a thick blank-book
with mottled covers.

Out of her gingham apron pocket came a pencil,
a bit of rubber,
and some pieces of brown paper;
then she seated herself gravely on the floor,
and drew an inverted soapbox nearer
to her
for a table.

The book was reverently opened,
and there was a serious reading of the extracts already carefully copied therein.

Most of them were apparently
to the writer's liking,
for dimples of pleasure showed themselves now and then,
and smiles of obvious delight played about her face;
but once in a while there was a knitting of the brows and a sigh of discouragement,
showing that the artist in the child was not wholly satisfied.

Then came the crucial moment when the budding author was supposedly
to be racked
with the throes of composition;
but seemingly there were no throes.

Other girls could wield the darning or crochet or knitting needle,
and send the tatting shuttle through loops of the finest cotton;
hemstitch,
oversew,
braid hair in thirteen strands,
but the pencil was never obedient in their fingers,
and the pen and ink-pot were a horror from early childhood
to the end of time.

Not so
with Rebecca;
her pencil moved as easily as her tongue,
and no more striking simile could possibly be used.

Her handwriting was not Spencerian;
she had neither time,
nor patience,
it is
to be feared,
for copybook methods,
and her unformed characters were frequently the despair of her teachers;
but write she could,
write she would,
write she must and did,
in season and out;
from the time she made pothooks at six,
till now,
writing was the easiest of all possible tasks;
to be indulged in as solace and balm when the terrors of examples in least common multiple threatened
to dethrone the reason,
or the rules of grammar loomed huge and unconquerable in the near horizon.

As
to spelling,
it came
to her in the main by free grace,
and not by training,
and though she slipped at times from the beaten path,
her extraordinary ear and good visual memory kept her from many or flagrant mistakes.

It was her intention,
especially when saying her prayers at night,
to look up all doubtful words in her small dictionary,
before copying her Thoughts into the sacred book
for the inspiration of posterity;
but when genius burned
with a brilliant flame,
and particularly when she was in the barn and the dictionary in the house,
impulse as usual carried the day.

There sits Rebecca,
then,
in the open door of the Sawyers barn chamber--the sunset door.

How many a time had her grandfather,
the good deacon,
sat just underneath in his tipped-back chair,
when Mrs. Israel's temper was uncertain,
and the serenity of the barn was in comforting contrast
to his own fireside! The open doors swinging out
to the peaceful landscape,
the solace of the pipe,
not allowed in the
"settin'-room"--how beautifully these simple agents have ministered
to the family peace in days agone!
"If I hadn't had my barn and my store BOTH,
I couldn't never have lived in holy matrimony
with Maryliza!"
once said Mr. Watson feelingly.

But the deacon,
looking on his waving grass fields,
his tasseling corn and his timber lands,
bright and honest as were his eyes,
never saw such visions as Rebecca.

The child,
transplanted from her home farm at Sunnybrook,
from the care of the overworked but easy-going mother,
and the companionship of the scantily fed,
scantily clothed,
happy-go-lucky brothers and sisters--she had indeed fallen on shady days in Riverboro.

The blinds were closed in every room of the house but two,
and the same might have been said of Miss Miranda's mind and heart,
though Miss Jane had a few windows opening
to the sun,
and Rebecca already had her unconscious hand on several others.

Brickhouse rules were rigid and many
for a little creature so full of life,
but Rebecca's gay spirit could not be pinioned in a strait jacket
for long at a time;
it escaped somehow and winged its merry way into the sunshine and free air;
if she were not allowed
to sing in the orchard,
like the wild bird she was,
she could still sing in the cage,
like the canary.

II If you had opened the carefully guarded volume
with the mottled covers,
you would first have seen a wonderful title page,
constructed apparently on the same lines as an obituary,
or the inscription on a tombstone,
save
for the quantity and variety of information contained in it.

Much of the matter would seem
to the captious critic better adapted
to the body of the book than
to the title page,
but Rebecca was apparently anxious that the principal personages in her chronicle should be well described at the outset.

She seems
to have had a conviction that heredity plays its part in the evolution of genius,
and her belief that the world will be inspired by the possession of her Thoughts is too artless
to be offensive.

She evidently has respect
for rich material confided
to her teacher,
and one can imagine Miss Dearborn's woe had she been confronted by Rebecca's chosen literary executor and bidden
to deliver certain
"Valuable Poetry and Thoughts,"
the property of posterity
"unless carelessly destroyed."

THOUGHT BOOK of Rebecca Rowena Randall Really of Sunnybrook Farm But temporily of The Brick House Riverboro.

Own niece of Miss Miranda and Jane Sawyer Second of seven children of her father,
Mr. L.

D.

M.

Randall
(Now at rest in Temperance cemmetary and there will be a monument as soon as we pay off the mortgage on the farm)
Also of her mother Mrs. Aurelia Randall In case of Death the best of these Thoughts May be printed in my Remerniscences
for the Sunday School Library at Temperance,
Maine Which needs more books fearfully And I hereby Will and Testament them
to Mr. Adam Ladd Who bought 300 cakes of soap from me And thus secured a premium A Greatly Needed Banquet Lamp
for my friends the Simpsons.

He is the only one that incourages My writing Remerniscences and My teacher Miss Dearborn will Have much valuable Poetry and Thoughts
to give him unless carelessly destroyed.

The pictures are by the same hand that Wrote the Thoughts.

IT IS NOT NOW DECIDED WHETHER REBECCA ROWENA RANDALL WILL BE A PAINTER OR AN AUTHOR,
BUT AFTER HER DEATH IT WILL BE KNOWN WHICH SHE HAS BEEN,
IF ANY.

FINIS From the title page,
with its wealth of detail,
and its unnecessary and irrelevant information,
the book ripples on like a brook,
and
to the weary reader of problem novels it may have something of the brook's refreshing quality.

OUR DIARIES May,
187-- All the girls are keeping a diary because Miss Dearborn was very much ashamed when the school trustees told her that most of the girls'
and all of the boys'
compositions were disgraceful,
and must be improved upon next term.

She asked the boys
to write letters
to her once a week instead of keeping a diary,
which they thought was girlish like playing
with dolls.

The boys thought it was dreadful
to have
to write letters every seven days,
but she told them it was not half as bad
for them as it was
for her who had
to read them.

To make my diary a little different I am going
to call it a THOUGHT Book
(written just like that,
with capitals).

I have thoughts that I never can use unless I write them down,
for Aunt Miranda always says,
Keep your thoughts
to yourself.

Aunt Jane lets me tell her some,
but does not like my queer ones and my true thoughts are mostly queer.

Emma Jane does not mind hearing them now and then,
and that is my only chance.

If Miss Dearborn does not like the name Thought Book I will call it Remerniscences
(written just like that
with a capital R).

Remerniscences are things you remember about yourself and write down in case you should die.

Aunt Jane doesn't like
to read any other kind of books but just lives of interesting dead people and she says that is what Longfellow
(who was born in the state of Maine and we should be very proud of it and try
to write like him)
meant in his poem:

"Lives of great men all remind us We should make our lives sublime,
And departing,
leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time."

I know what this means because when Emma Jane and I went
to the beach
with Uncle Jerry Cobb we ran along the wet sand and looked at the shapes our boots made,
just as if they were stamped in wax.

Emma Jane turns in her left foot
(splayfoot the boys call it,
which is not polite)
and Seth Strout had just patched one of my shoes and it all came out in the sand pictures.

When I learned The Psalm of Life
for Friday afternoon speaking I thought I shouldn't like
to leave a patched footprint,
nor have Emma Jane's look crooked on the sands of time,
and right away I thought Oh! What a splendid thought
for my Thought Book when Aunt Jane buys me a fifteen-cent one over
to Watson's store.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * REMERNISCENCES June,
187-- I told Aunt Jane I was going
to begin my Remerniscences,
and she says I am full young,
but I reminded her that Candace Milliken's sister died when she was ten,
leaving no footprints whatever,
and if I should die suddenly who would write down my Remerniscences?

Aunt Miranda says the sun and moon would rise and set just the same,
and it was no matter if they didn't get written down,
and
to go up attic and find her piece-bag;
but I said it would,
as there was only one of everybody in the world,
and nobody else could do their remerniscensing
for them.

If I should die tonight I know now who would describe me right.

Miss Dearborn would say one thing and brother John another.

Emma Jane would try
to do me justice,
but has no words;
and I am glad Aunt Miranda never takes the pen in hand.

My dictionary is so small it has not many genteel words in it,
and I cannot find how
to spell Remerniscences,
but I remember from the cover of Aunt Jane's book that there was an
"s"
and a
"c"
close together in the middle of it,
which I thought foolish and not needful.

All the girls like their dairies very much,
but Minnie Smellie got Alice Robinson's where she had hid it under the school wood pile and read it all through.

She said it was no worse than reading anybody's composition,
but we told her it was just like peeking through a keyhole,
or listening at a window,
or opening a bureau drawer.

She said she didn't look at it that way,
and I told her that unless her eyes got unscealed she would never leave any kind of a sublime footprint on the sands of time.

I told her a diary was very sacred as you generally poured your deepest feelings into it expecting nobody
to look at it but yourself and your indulgent heavenly Father who seeeth all things.

Of course it would not hurt Persis Watson
to show her diary because she has not a sacred plan and this is the way it goes,
for she reads it out loud
to us:

"Arose at six this morning--(you always arise in a diary but you say get up when you talk about it).

Ate breakfast at half past six.

Had soda biscuits,
coffee,
fish hash and doughnuts.

Wiped the dishes,
fed the hens and made my bed before school.

Had a good arithmetic lesson,
but went down two in spelling.

At half past four played hide and coop in the Sawyer pasture.

Fed hens and went
to bed at eight."

She says she can't put in what doesn't happen,
but as I don't think her diary is interesting she will ask her mother
to have meat hash instead of fish,
with pie when the doughnuts give out,
and she will feed the hens before breakfast
to make a change.

We are all going now
to try and make something happen every single day so the diaries won't be so dull and the footprints so common.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * AN UNCOMMON THOUGHT July 187-- We dug up our rosecakes today,
and that gave me a good Remerniscence.

The way you make rose cakes is,
you take the leaves of full blown roses and mix them
with a little cinnamon and as much brown sugar as they will give you,
which is never half enough except Persis Watson,
whose affectionate parents let her go
to the barrel in their store.

Then you do up little bits like sedlitz powders,
first in soft paper and then in brown,
and bury them in the ground and let them stay as long as you possibly can hold out;
then dig them up and eat them.

Emma Jane and I stick up little signs over the holes in the ground
with the date we buried them and when they'll be done enough
to dig up,
but we can never wait.

When Aunt Jane saw us she said it was the first thing
for children
to learn,--not
to be impatient,--so when I went
to the barn chamber I made a poem.

IMPATIENCE We dug our rose cakes up oh! all too soon.

Twas in the orchard just at noon.

Twas in a bright July forenoon.

Twas in the sunny afternoon.

Twas underneath the harvest moon.

It was not that way at all;
it was a foggy morning before school,
and I should think poets could never possibly get
to heaven,
for it is so hard
to stick
to the truth when you are writing poetry.

Emma Jane thinks it is nobody's business when we dug the rosecakes up.

I like the line about the harvest moon best,
but it would give a wrong idea of our lives and characters
to the people that read my Thoughts,
for they would think we were up late nights,
so I have fixed it like this:

IMPATIENCE We dug our rose cakes up oh! all too soon,
We thought their sweetness would be such a boon.

We ne'er suspicioned they would not be done After three days of autumn wind and sun.

Why did we from the earth our treasures draw?

Twas not
for fear that rat or mole might naw,
An aged aunt doth say impatience was the reason,
She says that youth is ever out of season.

That is just as Aunt Jane said it,
and it gave me the thought
for the poem which is rather uncommon.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * A DREADFUL QUESTION September,
187-- WHICH HAS BEEN THE MOST BENEFERCENT INFLUENCE ON CHARACTER-- PUNISHMENT OR REWARD?

This truly dreadful question was given us by Dr. Moses when he visited school today.

He is a School Committee;
not a whole one but I do not know the singular number of him.

He told us we could ask our families what they thought,
though he would rather we wouldn't,
but we must write our own words and he would hear them next week.

After he went out and shut the door the scholars were all plunged in gloom and you could have heard a pin drop.

Alice Robinson cried and borrowed my handkerchief,
and the boys looked as if the schoolhouse had been struck by lightning.

The worst of all was poor Miss Dearborn,
who will lose her place if she does not make us better scholars soon,
for Dr. Moses has a daughter all ready
to put right in
to the school and she can board at home and save all her wages.

Libby Moses is her name.

Miss Dearborn stared out the window,
and her mouth and chin shook like Alice Robinson's,
for she knew,
ah! all
to well,
what the coming week would bring forth.

Then I raised my hand
for permission
to speak,
and stood up and said:

"Miss Dearborn,
don't you mind! Just explain
to us what benefercent'
means and we'll write something real interesting;
for all of us know what punishment is,
and have seen others get rewards,
and it is not so bad a subject as some."

And Dick Carter whispered,
"GOOD ON YOUR HEAD,
REBECCA!"
which mean he was sorry
for her too,
and would try his best,
but has no words.

Then teacher smiled and said benefercent meant good or healthy
for anybody,
and would all rise who thought punishment made the best scholars and men and women;
and everybody sat stock still.

And then she asked all
to stand who believed that rewards produced the finest results,
and there was a mighty sound like unto the rushing of waters,
but really was our feet scraping the floor,
and the scholars stood up,
and it looked like an army,
though it was only nineteen,
because of the strong belief that was in them.

Then Miss Dearborn laughed and said she was thankful
for every whipping she had when she was a child,
and Living Perkins said perhaps we hadn't got
to the thankful age,
or perhaps her father hadn't used a strap,
and she said oh! no,
it was her mother
with the open hand;
and Dick Carter said he wouldn't call that punishment,
and Sam Simpson said so too.

I am going
to write about the subject in my Thought Book first,
and when I make it into a composition,
I can leave out anything about the family or not genteel,
as there is much
to relate about punishment not pleasant or nice and hardly polite.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * PUNISHMENT Punishment is a very puzzly thing,
but I believe in it when really deserved,
only when I punish myself it does not always turn out well.

When I leaned over the new bridge,
and got my dress all paint,
and Aunt Sarah Cobb couldn't get it out,
I had
to wear it spotted
for six months which hurt my pride,
but was right.

I stayed at home from Alice Robinson's birthday party
for a punishment,
and went
to the circus next day instead,
but Alice's parties are very cold and stiff,
as Mrs. Robinson makes the boys stand on newspapers if they come inside the door,
and the blinds are always shut,
and Mrs. Robinson tells me how bad her liver complaint is this year.

So I thought,
to pay
for the circus and a few other things,
I ought
to get more punishment,
and I threw my pink parasol down the well,
as the mothers in the missionary books throw their infants
to the crocodiles in the Ganges river.

But it got stuck in the chain that holds the bucket,
and Aunt Miranda had
to get Abijah Flagg
to take out all the broken bits before we could ring up water.

I punished myself this way because Aunt Miranda said that unless I improved I would be nothing but a Burden and a Blight.

There was an old man used
to go by our farm carrying a lot of broken chairs
to bottom,
and mother used
to say--"Poor man! His back is too weak
for such a burden!"
and I used
to take him out a doughnut,
and this is the part I want
to go into the Remerniscences.

Once I told him we were sorry the chairs were so heavy,
and he said THEY DIDN'T SEEM SO HEAVY WHEN HE HAD ET THE DOUGHNUT.

This does not mean that the doughnut was heavier than the chairs which is what brother John said,
but it is a beautiful thought and shows how the human race should have sympathy,
and help bear burdens.

I know about a Blight,
for there was a dreadful east wind over at our farm that destroyed all the little young crops just out of the ground,
and the farmers called it the Blight.

And I would rather be hail,
sleet,
frost,
or snow than a Blight,
which is mean and secret,
and which is the reason I threw away the dearest thing on earth
to me,
the pink parasol that Miss Ross brought me from Paris,
France.

I have also wrapped up my bead purse in three papers and put it away marked not
to be opened till after my death unless needed
for a party.

I must not be Burden,
I must not be Blight,
The angels in heaven would weep at the sight.

* * * * * * * * * * * * REWARDS A good way
to find out which has the most benefercent effect would be
to try rewards on myself this next week and write my composition the very last day,
when I see how my character is.

It is hard
to find rewards
for yourself,
but perhaps Aunt Jane and some of the girls would each give me one
to help out.

I could carry my bead purse
to school every day,
or wear my coral chain a little while before I go
to sleep at night.

I could read Cora or the Sorrows of a Doctor's Wife a little oftener,
but that's all the rewards I can think of.

I fear Aunt Miranda would say they are wicked but oh! if they should turn out benefercent how glad and joyful life would be
to me! A sweet and beautiful character,
beloved by my teacher and schoolmates,
admired and petted by my aunts and neighbors,
yet carrying my bead purse constantly,
with perhaps my best hat on Wednesday afternoons,
as well as Sundays! * * * * * * * * * * * * * A GREAT SHOCK The reason why Alice Robinson could not play was,
she was being punished
for breaking her mother's blue platter.

Just before supper my story being finished I went up Guide Board hill
to see how she was bearing up and she spoke
to me from her window.

She said she did not mind being punished because she hadn't been
for a long time,
and she hoped it would help her
with her composition.

She thought it would give her thoughts,
and tomorrow's the last day
for her
to have any.

This gave me a good idea and I told her
to call her father up and beg him
to beat her violently.

It would hurt,
I said,
but perhaps none of the other girls would have a punishment like that,
and her composition would be all different and splendid.

I would borrow Aunt Miranda's witchhayzel and pour it on her wounds like the Samaritan in the Bible.

I went up again after supper
with Dick Carter
to see how it turned out.

Alice came
to the window and Dick threw up a note tied
to a stick.

I had written:

"DEMAND YOUR PUNISHMENT
to THE FULL.

BE BRAVE LIKE DOLORES'
MOTHER IN THE Martyrs of Spain."

She threw down an answer,
and it was:

"YOU JUST BE LIKE DOLORES'
MOTHER YOURSELF IF YOU'RE SO SMART!"
Then she stamped away from the window and my feelings were hurt,
but Dick said perhaps she was hungry,
and that made her cross.

And as Dick and I turned
to go out of the yard we looked back and I saw something I can never forget.

(The Great Shock)
Mrs. Robinson was out behind the barn feeding the turkies.

Mr. Robinson came softly out of the side door in the orchard and looking everywheres around he stepped
to the wire closet and took out a saucer of cold beans
with a pickled beet on top,
and a big piece of blueberry pie.

Then he crept up the back stairs and we could see Alice open her door and take in the supper.

Oh! What will become of her composition,
and how can she tell anything of the benefercent effects of punishment,
when she is locked up by one parent,
and fed by the other?

I have forgiven her
for the way she snapped me up for,
of course,
you couldn't beg your father
to beat you when he was bringing you blueberry pie.

Mrs. Robinson makes a kind that leaks out a thick purple juice into the plate and needs a spoon and blacks your mouth,
but is heavenly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * A DREAM The week is almost up and very soon Dr. Moses will drive up
to the school house like Elijah in the chariot and come in
to hear us read.

There is a good deal of sickness among us.

Some of the boys are not able
to come
to school just now,
but hope
to be about again by Monday,
when Dr. Moses goes away
to a convention.

It is a very hard composition
to write,
somehow.

Last night I dreamed that the river was ink and I kept dipping into it and writing
with a penstalk made of a young pine tree.

I sliced great slabs of marble off the side of one of the White Mountains,
the one you see when going
to meeting,
and wrote on those.

Then I threw them all into the falls,
not being good enough
for Dr. Moses.

Dick Carter had a splendid boy
to stay over Sunday.

He makes the real newspaper named The Pilot published by the boys at Wareham Academy.

He says when he talks about himself in writing he calls himself
"we,"
and it sounds much more like print,
besides conscealing him more.

Example:

Our hair was measured this morning and has grown two inches since last time .

.

.

.

We have a loose tooth that troubles us very much .

.

.

Our inkspot that we made by negligence on our only white petticoat we have been able
to remove
with lemon and milk.

Some of our petticoat came out
with the spot.

I shall try it in my composition sometime,
for of course I shall write
for the Pilot when I go
to Wareham Seminary.

Uncle Jerry Cobb says that I shall,
and thinks that in four years I might rise
to be editor if they ever have girls.

I have never been more good than since I have been rewarding myself steady,
even
to asking Aunt Miranda kindly
to offer me a company jelly tart,
not because I was hungry,
but
for an experement I was trying,
and would explain
to her sometime.

She said she never thought it was wise
to experement
with your stomach,
and I said,
with a queer thrilling look,
it was not my stomach but my soul,
that was being tried.

Then she gave me the tart and walked away all puzzled and nervous.

The new minister has asked me
to come and see him any Saturday afternoon as he writes poetry himself,
but I would rather not ask him about this composition.

Ministers never believe in rewards,
and it is useless
to hope that they will.

We had the wrath of God four times in sermons this last summer,
but God cannot be angry all the time,--nobody could,
especially in summer;
Mr. Baxter is different and calls his wife dear which is lovely and the first time I ever heard it in Riverboro.

Mrs. Baxter is another kind of people too,
from those that live in Temperance.

I like
to watch her in meeting and see her listen
to her husband who is young and handsome
for a minister;
it gives me very queer and uncommon feelings,
when they look at each other,
which they always do when not otherwise engaged.

She has different clothes from anybody else.

Aunt Miranda says you must think only of two things:

will your dress keep you warm and will it wear well and there is nobody in the world
to know how I love pink and red and how I hate drab and green and how I never wear my hat
with the black and yellow porkupine quills without wishing it would blow into the river.

Whene'er I take my walks abroad How many quills I see.

But as they are not porkupines They never come
to me.

COMPOSITION WHICH HAS THE MOST BENEFERCENT EFFECT ON THE CHARACTER,
PUNISHMENT OR REWARD?

By Rebecca Rowena Randall
(This copy not corrected by Miss Dearborn yet.)
We find ourselves very puzzled in approaching this truly great and national question though we have tried very ernestly
to understand it,
so as
to show how wisely and wonderfully our dear teacher guides the youthful mind,
it being her wish that our composition class shall long be remembered in Riverboro Centre.

We would say first of all that punishment seems more benefercently needed by boys than girls.

Boys'
sins are very violent,
like stealing fruit,
profane language,
playing truant,
fighting,
breaking windows,
and killing innocent little flies and bugs.

If these were not taken out of them early in life it would be impossible
for them
to become like our martyred president,
Abraham Lincoln.

Although we have asked everybody on our street,
they think boys'
sins can only be whipped out of them
with a switch or strap,
which makes us feel very sad,
as boys when not sinning the dreadful sins mentioned above seem just as good as girls,
and never cry when switched,
and say it does not hurt much.

We now approach girls,
which we know better,
being one.

Girls seem better than boys because their sins are not so noisy and showy.

They can disobey their parents and aunts,
whisper in silent hour,
cheat in lessons,
say angry things
to their schoolmates,
tell lies,
be sulky and lazy,
but all these can be conducted quite ladylike and genteel,
and nobody wants
to strap girls because their skins are tender and get black and blue very easily.

Punishments make one very unhappy and rewards very happy,
and one would think when one is happy one would behave the best.

We were acquainted
with a girl who gave herself rewards every day
for a week,
and it seemed
to make her as lovely a character as one could wish;
but perhaps if one went on
for years giving rewards
to onesself one would become selfish.

One cannot tell,
one can only fear.

If a dog kills a sheep we should whip him straight away,
and on the very spot where he can see the sheep,
or he will not know what we mean,
and may forget and kill another.

The same is true of the human race.

We must be firm and patient in punishing,
no matter how much we love the one who has done wrong,
and how hungry she is.

It does no good
to whip a person
with one hand and offer her a pickled beet
with the other.

This confuses her mind,
and she may grow up not knowing right from wrong.

(The striking example of the pickled beet was removed from the essay by the refined but ruthless Miss Dearborn,
who strove patiently,
but vainly,
to keep such vulgar images out of her pupils'
literary efforts.)
We now respectfully approach the Holy Bible and the people in the Bible were punished the whole time,
and that would seem
to make it right.

Everybody says Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth;
but we think ourself,
that the Lord is a better punisher than we are,
and knows better how and when
to do it having attended
to it ever since the year B.C.

while the human race could not know about it till 1492 A.D.,
which is when Columbus discovered America.

We do not believe we can find out all about this truly great and national subject till we get
to heaven,
where the human race,
strapped and unstrapped,
if any,
can meet together and laying down their harps discuss how they got there.

And we would gently advise boys
to be more quiet and genteel in conduct and try rewards
to see how they would work.

Rewards are not all like the little rosebud merit cards we receive on Fridays,
and which boys sometimes tear up and fling scornfully
to the breeze when they get outside,
but girls preserve carefully in an envelope.

Some rewards are great and glorious,
for boys can get
to be governor or school trustee or road commissioner or president,
while girls can only be wife and mother.

But all of us can have the ornament of a meek and lowly spirit,
especially girls,
who have more use
for it than boys.

R.R.R.

* * * * * * * * * * * * STORIES AND PEOPLE October,
187-- There are people in books and people in Riverboro,
and they are not the same kind.

They never talk of chargers and palfreys in the village,
nor say How oft and Methinks,
and if a Scotchman out of Rob Roy should come
to Riverboro and want
to marry one of us girls we could not understand him unless he made motions;
though Huldah Meserve says if a nobleman of high degree should ask her
to be his,--one of vast estates
with serfs at his bidding,--she would be able
to guess his meaning in any language.

Uncle Jerry Cobb thinks that Riverboro people would not make a story,
but I know that some of them would.

Jack-o'-lantern,
though only a baby,
was just like a real story if anybody had written a piece about him:

How his mother was dead and his father ran away and Emma Jane and I got Aunt Sarah Cobb
to keep him so Mr. Perkins wouldn't take him
to the poor farm;
and about our lovely times
with him that summer,
and our dreadful loss when his father remembered him in the fall and came
to take him away;
and how Aunt Sarah carried the trundle bed up attic again and Emma Jane and I heard her crying and stole away.

Mrs. Peter Meserve says Grandpa Sawyer was a wonderful hand at stories before his spirit was broken by grandmother.

She says he was the life of the store and tavern when he was a young man,
though generally sober,
and she thinks I take after him,
because I like compositions better than all the other lessons;
but mother says I take after father,
who always could say everything nicely whether he had anything
to say or not;
so methinks I should be grateful
to both of them.

They are what is called ancestors and much depends upon whether you have them or not.

The Simpsons have not any at all.

Aunt Miranda says the reason everybody is so prosperous around here is because their ancestors were all first settlers and raised on burnt ground.

This should make us very proud.

Methinks and methought are splendid words
for compositions.

Miss Dearborn likes them very much,
but Alice and I never bring them in
to suit her.

Methought means the same as I thought,
but sounds better.

Example:

If you are telling a dream you had about your aged aunt:

Methought I heard her say My child you have so useful been You need not sew today.

This is a good example one way,
but too unlikely,
woe is me! This afternoon I was walking over
to the store
to buy molasses,
and as I came off the bridge and turned up the hill,
I saw lots and lots of heelprints in the side of the road,
heelprints
with little spike holes in them.

"Oh! The river drivers have come from up country,"
I thought,
"and they'll be breaking the jam at our falls tomorrow."

I looked everywhere about and not a man did I see,
but still I knew I was not mistaken
for the heelprints could not lie.

All the way over and back I thought about it,
though unfortunately forgetting the molasses,
and Alice Robinson not being able
to come out,
I took playtime
to write a story.

It is the first grown-up one I ever did,
and is intended
to be like Cora the Doctor's Wife,
not like a school composition.

It is written
for Mr. Adam Ladd,
and people like him who live in Boston,
and is the printed kind you get money for,
to pay off a mortgage.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * LANCELOT OR THE PARTED LOVERS A beautiful village maiden was betrothed
to a stallwart river driver,
but they had high and bitter words and parted,
he
to weep into the crystal stream as he drove his logs,
and she
to sigh and moan as she went about her round of household tasks.

At eventide the maiden was wont
to lean over the bridge and her tears also fell into the foaming stream;
so,
though the two unhappy lovers did not know it,
the river was their friend,
the only one
to whom they told their secrets and wept into.

The months crept on and it was the next July when the maiden was passing over the bridge and up the hill.

Suddenly she spied footprints on the sands of time.

"The river drivers have come again!"
she cried,
putting her hand
to her side
for she had a slight heart trouble like Cora and Mrs. Peter Meserve,
that doesn't kill.

"They HAVE come indeed;
ESPECIALLY ONE YOU KNOW,"
said a voice,
and out from the alder bushes sprung Lancelot Littlefield,
for that was the lover's name and it was none other than he.

His hair was curly and like living gold.

His shirt,
white of flannel,
was new and dry,
and of a handsome color,
and as the maiden looked at him she could think of nought but a fairy prince.

"Forgive,"
she mermered,
stretching out her waisted hands.

"Nay,
sweet,"
he replied.

"'Tis I should say that
to you,"
and bending gracefully on one knee he kissed the hem of her dress.

It was a rich pink gingham check,
ellaborately ornamented
with white tape trimming.

Clasping each other
to the heart like Cora and the Doctor,
they stood there
for a long while,
till they heard the rumble of wheels on the bridge and knew they must disentangle.

The wheels came nearer and verily! it was the maiden's father.

"Can I wed
with your fair daughter this very moon,"
asked Lancelot,
who will not be called his whole name again in this story.

"You may,"
said the father,
"for lo! she has been ready and waiting
for many months."

This he said not noting how he was shaming the maiden,
whose name was Linda Rowenetta.

Then and there the nuptial day was appointed and when it came,
the marriage knot was tied upon the river bank where first they met;
the river bank where they had parted in anger,
and where they had again scealeld their vows and clasped each other
to the heart.

And it was very low water that summer,
and the river always thought it was because no tears dropped into it but so many smiles that like sunshine they dried it up.

R.R.R.

Finis * * * * * * * * * * * * CAREERS November,
187-- Long ago when I used
to watch Miss Ross painting the old mill at Sunnybrook I thought I would be a painter,
for Miss Ross went
to Paris France where she bought my bead purse and pink parasol and I thought I would like
to see a street
with beautiful bright-colored things sparkling and hanging in the store windows.

Then when the missionaries from Syria came
to stay at the brick house Mrs. Burch said that after I had experienced religion I must learn music and train my voice and go out
to heathen lands and save souls,
so I thought that would be my career.

But we girls tried
to have a branch and be home missionaries and it did not work well.

Emma Jane's father would not let her have her birthday party when he found out what she had done and Aunt Jane sent me up
to Jake Moody's
to tell him we did not mean
to be rude when we asked him
to go
to meeting more often.

He said all right,
but just let him catch that little dough-faced Perkins young one in his yard once more and she'd have reason
to remember the call,
which was just as rude and impolite as our trying
to lead him
to a purer and a better life.

Then Uncle Jerry and Mr. Aladdin and Miss Dearborn liked my compositions,
and I thought I'd better be a writer,
for I must be something the minute I'm seventeen,
or how shall we ever get the mortgage off the farm?

But even that hope is taken away from me now,
for Uncle Jerry made fun of my story Lancelot Or The Parted Lovers and I have decided
to be a teacher like Miss Dearborn.

The pathetic announcement of a change in the career and life purposes of Rebecca was brought about by her reading the grown-up story
to Mr. and Mrs. Jeremiah Cobb after supper in the orchard.

Uncle Jerry was the person who had maintained all along that Riverboro people would not make a story;
and Lancelot or The Parted Lovers was intended
to refute that assertion at once and forever;
an assertion which Rebecca regarded
(quite truly)
as untenable,
though why she certainly never could have explained.

Unfortunately Lancelot was a poor missionary,
quite unfitted
for the high achievements
to which he was destined by the youthful novelist,
and Uncle Jerry,
though a stage-driver and no reading man,
at once perceived the flabbiness and transparency of the Parted Lovers the moment they were held up
to his inspection.

"You see Riverboro people WILL make a story!"
asserted Rebecca triumphantly as she finished her reading and folded the paper.

"And it all came from my noticing the river drivers'
tracks by the roadside,
and wondering about them;
and wondering always makes stories;
the minister says so."

"Ye-es,"
allowed Uncle Jerry reflectively,
tipping his chair back against the apple tree and forcing his slow mind
to violent and instantaneous action,
for Rebecca was his pride and joy;
a person,
in his opinion,
of superhuman talent,
one therefore
to be
"whittled into shape"
if occasion demanded.

"It's a Riverboro story,
sure enough,
because you've got the river and the bridge and the hill and the drivers all right there in it;
but there's something awful queer bout it;
the folks don't act Riverboro,
and don't talk Riverboro,
cordin'
to my notions.

I call it a reg'lar book story."

"But,"
objected Rebecca,
"the people in Cinderella didn't act like us,
and you thought that was a beautiful story when I told it
to you."

"I know,"
replied Uncle Jerry,
gaining eloquence in the heat of argument.

"They didn't act like us,
but
't any rate they acted like
'emselves! Somehow they was all of a piece.

Cinderella was a little too good,
mebbe,
and the sisters was most too thunderin'
bad
to live on the face o'
the earth,
and that fayry old lady that kep'
the punkin'
coach up her sleeve--well,
anyhow,
you jest believe that punkin'
coach,
rats,
mice,
and all,
when you're hearin'
bout it,
fore ever you stop
to think it ain't so.

"I don'
know how tis,
but the folks in that Cinderella story seem
to match together somehow;
they're all pow'ful onlikely--the prince feller
with the glass slipper,
and the hull bunch;
but jest the same you kind o'
gulp em all down in a lump.

But land,
Rebecky,
nobody'd swaller that there village maiden o'
your'n,
and as
for what's-his-name Littlefield,
that come out o'
them bushes,
such a feller never
'd a'
be'n IN bushes! No,
Rebecky,
you're the smartest little critter there is in this township,
and you beat your Uncle Jerry all holler when it comes
to usin'
a lead pencil,
but I say that ain't no true Riverboro story! Look at the way they talk! What was that'
bout being BETROTHED'?"
"Betrothed is a genteel word
for engaged
to be married,"
explained the crushed and chastened author;
and it was fortunate the doting old man did not notice her eyes in the twilight,
or he might have known that tears were not far away.

"Well,
that's all right,
then;
I'm as ignorant as Cooper's cow when it comes
to the dictionary.

How about what's-his-name callin'
the girl
'Naysweet'?"
"I thought myself that sounded foolish,:"
confessed Rebecca;
"but it's what the Doctor calls Cora when he tries
to persuade her not
to quarrel
with his mother who comes
to live
with them.

I know they don't say it in Riverboro or Temperance,
but I thought perhaps it was Boston talk."

"Well,
it ain't!"
asserted Mr. Cobb decisively.

"I've druv Boston men up in the stage from Milltown many's the time,
and none of em ever said Naysweet
to me,
nor nothin'like it.

They talked like folks,
every mother's son of em! If I'd a'
had that what's-his-name on the harricane deck'
o'
the stage and he tried any naysweetin'
on me,
I'd a'
pitched him into the cornfield,
side o'
the road.

I guess you ain't growed up enough
for that kind of a story,
Rebecky,
for your poetry can't be beat in York County,
that's sure,
and your compositions are good enough
to read out loud in town meetin'
any day!"
Rebecca brightened up a little and bade the old couple her usual affectionate good night,
but she descended the hill in a saddened mood.

When she reached the bridge the sun,
a ball of red fire,
was setting behind Squire Bean's woods.

As she looked,
it shone full on the broad,
still bosom of the river,
and
for one perfect instant the trees on the shores were reflected,
all swimming in a sea of pink.

Leaning over the rail,
she watched the light fade from crimson
to carmine,
from carmine
to rose,
from rose
to amber,
and from amber
to gray.

Then withdrawing Lancelot or the Parted Lovers from her apron pocket,
she tore the pages into bits and dropped them into the water below
with a sigh.

"Uncle Jerry never said a word about the ending!"
she thought;
"and that was so nice!"
And she was right;
but while Uncle Jerry was an illuminating critic when it came
to the actions and language of his Riverboro neighbors,
he had no power
to direct the young mariner when she
"followed the gleam,"
and used her imagination.

OUR SECRET SOCIETY November,
187-- Our Secret society has just had a splendid picnic in Candace Milliken's barn.

Our name is the B.O.S.S.,
and not a single boy in the village has been able
to guess it.

It means Braid Over Shoulder Society,
and that is the sign.

All the members wear one of their braids over the right shoulder in front;
the president's tied
with red ribbon
(I am the president)
and all the rest tied
with blue.

To attract the attention of another member when in company or at a public place we take the braid between the thumb and little finger and stand carelessly on one leg.

This is the Secret Signal and the password is Sobb
(B.O.S.S.

spelled backwards)
which was my idea and is thought rather uncommon.

One of the rules of the B.O.S.S.

is that any member may be required
to tell her besetting sin at any meeting,
if asked
to do so by a majority of the members.

This was Candace Milliken's idea and much opposed by everybody,
but when it came
to a vote so many of the girls were afraid of offending Candace that they agreed because there was nobody else's father and mother who would let us picnic in their barn and use their plow,
harrow,
grindstone,
sleigh,
carryall,
pung,
sled,
and wheelbarrow,
which we did and injured hardly anything.

They asked me
to tell my besetting sin at the very first meeting,
and it nearly killed me
to do it because it is such a common greedy one.

It is that I can't bear
to call the other girls when I have found a thick spot when we are out berrying in the summer time.

After I confessed,
which made me dreadfully ashamed,
every one of the girls seemed surprised and said they had never noticed that one but had each thought of something very different that I would be sure
to think was my besetting sin.

Then Emma Jane said that rather than tell hers she would resign from the Society and miss the picnic.

So it made so much trouble that Candace gave up.

We struck out the rule from the constitution and I had told my sin
for nothing.

The reason we named ourselves the B.O.S.S.

is that Minnie Smellie has had her head shaved after scarlet fever and has no braid,
so she can't be a member.

I don't want her
for a member but I can't be happy thinking she will feel slighted,
and it takes away half the pleasure of belonging
to the Society myself and being president.

That,
I think,
is the principal trouble about doing mean and unkind things;
that you can't do wrong and feel right,
or be bad and feel good.

If you only could you could do anything that came into your mind yet always be happy.

Minnie Smellie spoils everything she comes into but I suppose we other girls must either have our hair shaved and call ourselves The Baldheadians or let her be some kind of a special officer in the B.O.S.S.

She might be the B.I.T.U.D.

member
(Braid in the Upper Drawer),
for there is where Mrs. Smellie keeps it now that it is cut off.

WINTER THOUGHTS March,
187-- It is not such a cold day
for March and I am up in the barn chamber
with my coat and hood on and Aunt Jane's waterproof and my mittens.

After I do three pages I am going
to hide away this book in the haymow till spring.

Perhaps they get made into icicles on the way but I do not seem
to have any thoughts in the winter time.

The barn chamber is full of thoughts in warm weather.

The sky gives them
to me,
and the trees and flowers,
and the birds,
and the river;
but now it is always gray and nipping,
the branches are bare and the river is frozen.

It is too cold
to write in my bedroom but while we still kept an open fire I had a few thoughts,
but now there is an air-tight stove in the dining room where we sit,
and we seem so close together,
Aunt Miranda,
Aunt Jane and I that I don't like
to write in my book
for fear they will ask me
to read out loud my secret thoughts.

I have just read over the first part of my Thought Book and I have outgrown it all,
just exactly as I have outgrown my last year's drab cashmere.

It is very queer how anybody can change so fast in a few months,
but I remember that Emma Jane's cat had kittens the day my book was bought at Watson's store.

Mrs. Perkins kept the prettiest white one,
Abijah Flagg drowning all the others.

It seems strange
to me that cats will go on having kittens when they know what becomes of them! We were very sad about it,
but Mrs. Perkins said it was the way of the world and how things had
to be.

I cannot help being glad that they do not do the same
with children,
or John and Jenny Mira Mark and me would all have had stones tied
to our necks and been dropped into the deepest part of Sunny Brook,
for Hannah and Fanny are the only truly handsome ones in the family.

Mrs. Perkins says I dress up well,
but never being dressed up it does not matter much.

At least they didn't wait
to dress up the kittens
to see how they would improve,
before drowning them,
but decided right away.

Emma Jane's kitten that was born the same day this book was is now quite an old cat who knows the way of the world herself,
and how things have
to be,
for she has had one batch of kittens drowned already.

So perhaps it is not strange that my Thought Book seems so babyish and foolish
to me when I think of all I have gone through and the millions of things I have learned,
and how much better I spell than I did ten months ago.

My fingers are cold through the mittens,
so good-bye dear Thought Book,
friend of my childhood,
now so far far behind me! I will hide you in the haymow where you'll be warm and cosy all the long winter and where nobody can find you again in the summer time but your affectionate author,
Rebecca Rowena Randall.

Fourth Chronicle A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY I Emma Jane Perkins's new winter dress was a blue and green Scotch plaid poplin,
trimmed
with narrow green velvet-ribbon and steel nail-heads.

She had a gray jacket of thick furry cloth
with large steel buttons up the front,
a pair of green kid gloves,
and a gray felt hat
with an encircling band of bright green feathers.

The band began in front
with a bird's head and ended behind
with a bird's tail,
and angels could have desired no more beautiful toilette.

That was her opinion,
and it was shared
to the full by Rebecca.

But Emma Jane,
as Rebecca had once described her
to Mr. Adam Ladd,
was a rich blacksmith's daughter,
and she,
Rebecca,
was a little half-orphan from a mortgaged farm
"up Temperance way,"
dependent upon her spinster aunts
for board,
clothes,
and schooling.

Scotch plaid poplins were manifestly not
for her,
but dark-colored woolen stuffs were,
and mittens,
and last winter's coats and furs.

And how about hats?

Was there hope in store
for her there?

she wondered,
as she walked home from the Perkins house,
full of admiration
for Emma Jane's winter outfit,
and loyally trying
to keep that admiration free from wicked envy.

Her red-winged black hat was her second best,
and although it was shabby she still liked it,
but it would never do
for church,
even in Aunt Miranda's strange and never-to-be-comprehended views of suitable raiment.

There was a brown felt turban in existence,
if one could call it existence when it had been rained on,
snowed on,
and hailed on
for two seasons;
but the trimmings had at any rate perished quite off the face of the earth,
that was one comfort! Emma Jane had said,
rather indiscreetly,
that at the village milliner's at Milliken's Mills there was a perfectly elegant pink breast
to be had,
a breast that began in a perfectly elegant solferino and terminated in a perfectly elegant magenta;
two colors much in vogue at that time.

If the old brown hat was
to be her portion yet another winter,
would Aunt Miranda conceal its deficiencies from a carping world beneath the shaded solferino breast?

WOULD she,
that was the question?

Filled
with these perplexing thoughts,
Rebecca entered the brick house,
hung up her hood in the entry,
and went into the dining-room.

Miss Jane was not there,
but Aunt Miranda sat by the window
with her lap full of sewing things,
and a chair piled
with pasteboard boxes by her side.

In one hand was the ancient,
battered,
brown felt turban,
and in the other were the orange and black porcupine quills from Rebecca's last summer's hat;
from the hat of the summer before that,
and the summer before that,
and so on back
to prehistoric ages of which her childish memory kept no specific record,
though she was sure that Temperance and Riverboro society did.

Truly a sight
to chill the blood of any eager young dreamer who had been looking at gayer plumage! Miss Sawyer glanced up
for a second
with a satisfied expression and then bent her eyes again upon her work.

"If I was going
to buy a hat trimming,"
she said,
"I couldn't select anything better or more economical than these quills! Your mother had them when she was married,
and you wore them the day you come
to the brick house from the farm;
and I said
to myself then that they looked kind of outlandish,
but I've grown
to like em now I've got used
to em.

You've been here
for goin'
on two years and they've hardly be'n out o'wear,
summer or winter,
more'n a month
to a time! I declare they do beat all
for service! It don't seem as if your mother could a'
chose em,--Aurelia was always such a poor buyer! The black spills are bout as good as new,
but the orange ones are gittin'
a little mite faded and shabby.

I wonder if I couldn't dip all of em in shoe blackin'?

It seems real queer
to put a porcupine into hat trimmin',
though I declare I don't know jest what the animiles are like,
it's be'n so long sence I looked at the pictures of em in a geography.

I always thought their quills stood out straight and angry,
but these kind o'
curls round some at the ends,
and that makes em stand the wind better.

How do you like em on the brown felt?"
she asked,
inclining her head in a discriminating attitude and poising them awkwardly on the hat
with her work-stained hand.

How did she like them on the brown felt indeed?

Miss Sawyer had not been looking at Rebecca,
but the child's eyes were flashing,
her bosom heaving,
and her cheeks glowing
with sudden rage and despair.

All at once something happened.

She forgot that she was speaking
to an older person;
forgot that she was dependent;
forgot everything but her disappointment at losing the solferino breast,
remembering nothing but the enchanting,
dazzling beauty of Emma Jane Perkins's winter outfit;
and suddenly,
quite without warning,
she burst into a torrent of protest.

"I will NOT wear those hateful porcupine quills again this winter! I will not! It's wicked,
WICKED
to expect me to! Oh! How I wish there never had been any porcupines in the world,
or that all of them had died before silly,
hateful people ever thought of trimming hat
with them! They curl round and tickle my ear! They blow against my cheek and sting it like needles! They do look outlandish,
you said so yourself a minute ago.

Nobody ever had any but only just me! The only porcupine was made into the only quills
for me and nobody else! I wish instead of sticking OUT of the nasty beasts,
that they stuck INTO them,
same as they do into my cheek! I suffer,
suffer,
suffer,
wearing them and hating them,
and they will last forever and forever,
and when I'm dead and can't help myself,
somebody'll rip them out of my last year's hat and stick them on my head,
and I'll be buried in them! Well,
when I am buried THEY will be,
that's one good thing! Oh,
if I ever have a child I'll let her choose her own feathers and not make her wear ugly things like pigs'
bristles and porcupine quills!'
With this lengthy tirade Rebecca vanished like a meteor,
through the door and down the street,
while Miranda Sawyer gasped
for breath,
and prayed
to Heaven
to help her understand such human whirlwinds as this Randall niece of hers.

This was at three o'clock,
and at half-past three Rebecca was kneeling on the rag carpet
with her head in her aunt's apron,
sobbing her contrition.

"Oh! Aunt Miranda,
do forgive me if you can.

It's the only time I've been bad
for months! You know it is! You know you said last week I hadn't been any trouble lately.

Something broke inside of me and came tumbling out of my mouth in ugly words! The porcupine quills make me feel just as a bull does when he sees a red cloth;
nobody understands how I suffer
with them!"
Miranda Sawyer had learned a few lessons in the last two years,
lessons which were making her
(at least on her
"good days")
a trifle kinder,
and at any rate a juster woman than she used
to be.

When she alighted on the wrong side of her four-poster in the morning,
or felt an extra touch of rheumatism,
she was still grim and unyielding;
but sometimes a curious sort of melting process seemed
to go on within her,
when her whole bony structure softened,
and her eyes grew less vitreous.

At such moments Rebecca used
to feel as if a superincumbent iron pot had been lifted off her head,
allowing her
to breath freely and enjoy the sunshine.

"Well,"
she said finally,
after staring first at Rebecca and then at the porcupine quills,
as if
to gain some insight into the situation,
"well,
I never,
sence I was born int'
the world,
heerd such a speech as you've spoke,
an'
I guess there probably never was one.

You'd better tell the minister what you said and see what he thinks of his prize Sunday-school scholar.

But I'm too old and tired
to scold and fuss,
and try
to train you same as I did at first.

You can punish yourself this time,
like you used to.

Go fire something down the well,
same as you did your pink parasol! You've apologized and we won't say no more about it today,
but I expect you
to show by extry good conduct how sorry you be! You care altogether too much about your looks and your clothes
for a child,
and you've got a temper that'll certainly land you in state's prison some o'
these days!"
Rebecca wiped her eyes and laughed aloud.

"No,
no,
Aunt Miranda,
it won't,
really! That wasn't temper;
I don't get angry
with PEOPLE;
but only,
once in a long while,
with things;
like those,-- cover them up quick before I begin again! I'm all right! Shower's over,
sun's out!"
Miss Miranda looked at her searchingly and uncomprehendingly.

Rebecca's state of mind came perilously near
to disease,
she thought.

"Have you seen me buyin'
any new bunnits,
or your Aunt Jane?"
she asked cuttingly.

"Is there any particular reason why you should dress better than your elders?

You might as well know that we're short of cash just now,
your Aunt Jane and me,
and have no intention of riggin'
you out like a Milltown fact'ry girl."

"Oh-h!"
cried Rebecca,
the quick tears starting again
to her eyes and the color fading out of her cheeks,
as she scrambled up from her knees
to a seat on the sofa beside her aunt.

"Oh-h! How ashamed I am! Quick,
sew those quills on
to the brown turban while I'm good! If I can't stand them I'll make a neat little gingham bag and slip over them!"
And so the matter ended,
not as it customarily did,
with cold words on Miss Miranda's part and bitter feelings on Rebecca's,
but
with a gleam of mutual understanding.

Mrs. Cobb,
who was a master hand at coloring,
dipped the offending quills in brown dye and left them
to soak in it all night,
not only making them a nice warm color,
but somewhat weakening their rocky spines,
so that they were not quite as rampantly hideous as before,
in Rebecca's opinion.

Then Mrs. Perkins went
to her bandbox in the attic and gave Miss Dearborn some pale blue velvet,
with which she bound the brim of the brown turban and made a wonderful rosette,
out of which the porcupine's defensive armor sprang,
buoyantly and gallantly,
like the plume of Henry of Navarre.

Rebecca was resigned,
if not greatly comforted,
but she had grace enough
to conceal her feelings,
now that she knew economy was at the root of some of her aunt's decrees in matters of dress;
and she managed
to forget the solferino breast,
save in sleep,
where a vision of it had a way of appearing
to her,
dangling from the ceiling,
and dazzling her so
with its rich color that she used
to hope the milliner would sell it that she might never be tempted
with it when she passed the shop window.

One day,
not long afterward,
Miss Miranda borrowed Mr. Perkins's horse and wagon and took Rebecca
with her on a drive
to Union,
to see about some sausage meat and head cheese.

She intended
to call on Mrs. Cobb,
order a load of pine wood from Mr. Strout on the way,
and leave some rags
for a rug
with old Mrs. Pease,
so that the journey could be made as profitable as possible,
consistent
with the loss of time and the wear and tear on her second-best black dress.

The red-winged black hat was forcibly removed from Rebecca's head just before starting,
and the nightmare turban substituted.

"You might as well begin
to wear it first as last,"
remarked Miranda,
while Jane stood in the side door and sympathized secretly
with Rebecca.

"I will!"
said Rebecca,
ramming the stiff turban down on her head
with a vindictive grimace,
and snapping the elastic under her long braids;
"but it makes me think of what Mr. Robinson said when the minister told him his mother-in-law would ride in the same buggy
with him at his wife's funeral."

"I can't see how any speech of Mr. Robinson's,
made years an'
years ago,
can have anything
to do
with wearin'
your turban down
to Union,"
said Miranda,
settling the lap robe over her knees.

"Well,
it can;
because he said:

Have it that way,
then,
but it'll spile the hull blamed trip
for me!'
"
Jane closed the door suddenly,
partly because she experienced a desire
to smile
(a desire she had not felt
for years before Rebecca came
to the brick house
to live),
and partly because she had no wish
to overhear what her sister would say when she took in the full significance of Rebecca's anecdote,
which was a favorite one
with Mr. Perkins.

It was a cold blustering day
with a high wind that promised
to bring an early fall of snow.

The trees were stripped bare of leaves,
the ground was hard,
and the wagon wheels rattled noisily over the thank-you-ma'ams.

"I'm glad I wore my Paisley shawl over my cloak,"
said Miranda.

"Be you warm enough,
Rebecca?

Tie that white rigolette tighter round your neck.

The wind fairly blows through my bones.

I most wish t we'd waited till a pleasanter day,
for this Union road is all up hill or down,
and we shan't get over the ground fast,
it's so rough.

Don't forget,
when you go into Scott's,
to say I want all the trimmin's when they send me the pork,
for mebbe I can try out a little mite o'
lard.

The last load o'
pine's gone turrible quick;
I must see if
"Bijah Flagg can't get us some cut-rounds at the mills,
when he hauls
for Squire Bean next time.

Keep your mind on your drivin',
Rebecca,
and don't look at the trees and the sky so much.

It's the same sky and same trees that have been here right along.

Go awful slow down this hill and walk the hoss over Cook's Brook bridge,
for I always suspicion it's goin'
to break down under me,
an'
I shouldn't want
to be dropped into that fast runnin'
water this cold day.

It'll be froze stiff by this time next week.

Hadn't you better get out and lead"-- The rest of the sentence was very possibly not vital,
but at any rate it was never completed,
for in the middle of the bridge a fierce gale of wind took Miss Miranda's Paisley shawl and blew it over her head.

The long heavy ends whirled in opposite directions and wrapped themselves tightly about her wavering bonnet.

Rebecca had the whip and the reins,
and in trying
to rescue her struggling aunt could not steady her own hat,
which was suddenly torn from her head and tossed against the bridge rail,
where it trembled and flapped
for an instant.

"My hat! Oh! Aunt Miranda,
my hateful hat!"
cried Rebecca,
never remembering at the instant how often she had prayed that the
"fretful porcupine"
might some time vanish in this violent manner,
since it refused
to die a natural death.

She had already stopped the horse,
so,
giving her aunt's shawl one last desperate twitch,
she slipped out between the wagon wheels,
and darted in the direction of the hated object,
the loss of which had dignified it
with a temporary value and importance.

The stiff brown turban rose in the air,
then dropped and flew along the bridge;
Rebecca pursued;
it danced along and stuck between two of the railings;
Rebecca flew after it,
her long braids floating in the wind.

"Come back"! Come back! Don't leave me alone
with the team.

I won't have it! Come back,
and leave your hat!"
Miranda had at length extricated herself from the submerging shawl,
but she was so blinded by the wind,
and so confused that she did not measure the financial loss involved in her commands.

Rebecca heard,
but her spirit being in arms,
she made one more mad scramble
for the vagrant hat,
which now seemed possessed
with an evil spirit,
for it flew back and forth,
and bounded here and there,
like a living thing,
finally distinguishing itself by blowing between the horse's front and hind legs,
Rebecca trying
to circumvent it by going around the wagon,
and meeting it on the other side.

It was no use;
as she darted from behind the wheels the wind gave the hat an extra whirl,
and scurrying in the opposite direction it soared above the bridge rail and disappeared into the rapid water below.

"Get in again!"
cried Miranda,
holding on her bonnet.

"You done your best and it can't be helped,
I only wish't I'd let you wear your black hat as you wanted to;
and I wish't we'd never come such a day! The shawl has broke the stems of the velvet geraniums in my bonnet,
and the wind has blowed away my shawl pin and my back comb.

I'd like
to give up and turn right back this minute,
but I don't like
to borrer Perkins's hoss again this month.

When we get up in the woods you can smooth your hair down and tie the rigolette over your head and settle what's left of my bonnet;
it'll be an expensive errant,
this will!"
* * * * * * * * * * * * II It was not till next morning that Rebecca's heart really began its song of thanksgiving.

Her Aunt Miranda announced at breakfast,
that as Mrs. Perkins was going
to Milliken's Mills,
Rebecca might go too,
and buy a serviceable hat.

"You mustn't pay over two dollars and a half,
and you mustn't get the pink bird without Mrs. Perkins says,
and the milliner says,
that it won't fade nor moult.

Don't buy a light-colored felt because you'll get sick of it in two or three years same as you did the brown one.

I always liked the shape of the brown one,
and you'll never get another trimmin'
that'll wear like them quills."

"I hope not!"
thought Rebecca.

"If you had put your elastic under your chin,
same as you used to,
and not worn it behind because you think it's more grown-up an'
fash'onable,
the wind never'd a'
took the hat off your head,
and you wouldn't a'
lost it;
but the mischief's done and you can go right over
to Mis'
Perkins now,
so you won't miss her nor keep her waitin'.

The two dollars and a half is in an envelope side o'
the clock."

Rebecca swallowed the last spoonful of picked-up codfish on her plate,
wiped her lips,
and rose from her chair happier than the seraphs in Paradise.

The porcupine quills had disappeared from her life,
and without any fault or violence on her part.

She was wholly innocent and virtuous,
but nevertheless she was going
to have a new hat
with the solferino breast,
should the adored object prove,
under rigorous examination,
to be practically indestructible.

"Whene'er I take my walks abroad,
How many hats I'll see;
But if they're trimmed
with hedgehog quills They'll not belong
to me!"
So she improvised,
secretly and ecstatically,
as she went towards the side entry.

"There's
'Bijah Flagg drivin'
in,"
said Miss Miranda,
going
to the window.

"Step out and see what he's got,
Jane;
some passel from the Squire,
I guess.

It's a paper bag and it may be a punkin,
though he wouldn't wrop up a punkin,
come
to think of it! Shet the dinin'
room door,
Jane;
it's turrible drafty.

Make haste,
for the Squire's hoss never stan's still a minute cept when he's goin'!"
Abijah Flagg alighted and approached the side door
with a grin.

"Guess what I've got
for ye,
Rebecky?"
No throb of prophetic soul warned Rebecca of her approaching doom.

"Nodhead apples?"
she sparkled,
looking as bright and rosy and satin-skinned as an apple herself.

"No;
guess again."

"A flowering geranium?"
"Guess again!"
"Nuts?

Oh! I can't,
"
Bijah;
I'm just going
to Milliken's Mills on an errand,
and I'm afraid of missing Mrs. Perkins.

Show me quick! Is it really
for me,
or
for Aunt Miranda?

"Reely
for you,
I guess!"
and he opened the large brown paper bag and drew from it the remains of a water-soaked hat! They WERE remains,
but there was no doubt of their nature and substance.

They had clearly been a hat in the past,
and one could even suppose that,
when resuscitated,
they might again assume their original form in some near and happy future.

Miss Miranda,
full of curiosity,
joined the group in the side entry at this dramatic moment.

"Well,
I never!"
she exclaimed.

"Where,
and how under the canopy,
did you ever?"
"I was working on the dam at Union Falls yesterday,"
chuckled Abijah,
with a pleased glance at each of the trio in turn,
"an'
I seen this little bunnit skippin'
over the water jest as Becky does over the road.

It's shaped kind o'
like a boat,
an'
gorry,
ef it wa'nt sailin'
jest like a boat! Where hev I seen that kind of a bristlin'
plume?'
thinks I."

("Where indeed!"
thought Rebecca stormily.)
"Then it come
to me that I'd drove that plume
to school and drove it
to meetin'
and drove it
to the Fair an'drove it most everywheres on Becky.

So I reached out a pole an'
ketched it fore it got in amongst the logs an'
come
to any damage,
an'
here it is! The hat's passed in its checks,
I guess;
looks kind as if a wet elephant had stepped on it;
but the plume's bout's good as new! I reely fetched the hat beck
for the sake o'
the plume."

"It was real good of you,
'Bijah,
an'
we're all of us obliged
to you,"
said Miranda,
as she poised the hat on one hand and turned it slowly
with the other.

"Well,
I do say,"
she exclaimed,
"and I guess I've said it before,
that of all the wearing'
plumes that ever I see,
that one's the wearin'est! Seems though it just wouldn't give up.

Look at the way it's held Mis'
Cobb's dye;
it's about as brown's when it went int'
the water."

"Dyed,
but not a mite dead,"
grinned Abijah,
who was somewhat celebrated
for his puns.

"And I declare,"
Miranda continued,
"when you think o'
the fuss they make about ostriches,
killin'
em off by hundreds
for the sake o'
their feathers that'll string out and spoil in one hard rainstorm,--an'
all the time lettin'
useful porcupines run round
with their quills on,
why I can't hardly understand it,
without milliners have found out jest how good they do last,
an'
so they won't use em
for trimmin'.

'Bijah's right;
the hat ain't no more use,
Rebecca,
but you can buy you another this mornin'--any color or shape you fancy--an'
have Miss Morton sew these brown quills on
to it
with some kind of a buckle or a bow,
jest
to hide the roots.

Then you'll be fixed
for another season,
thanks to
'Bijah."

Uncle Jerry and Aunt Sarah Cobb were made acquainted before very long
with the part that destiny,
or Abijah Flagg,
had played in Rebecca's affairs,
for,
accompanied by the teacher,
she walked
to the old stage driver's that same afternoon.

Taking off her new hat
with the venerable trimming,
she laid it somewhat ostentatiously upside down on the kitchen table and left the room,
dimpling a little more than usual.

Uncle Jerry rose from his seat,
and,
crossing the room,
looked curiously into the hat and found that a circular paper lining was neatly pinned in the crown,
and that it bore these lines,
which were read aloud
with great effect by Miss Dearborn,
and
with her approval were copied in the Thought Book
for the benefit of posterity:

"It was the bristling porcupine,
As he stood on his native heath,
He said,
I'll pluck me some immortelles And make me up a wreath.

For tho'
I may not live myself
to more than a hundred and ten,
My quills will last till crack of doom,
And maybe after then.

They can be colored blue or green Or orange,
brown,
or red,
But often as they may be dyed They never will be dead.'

And so the bristling porcupine As he stood on his native heath,
Said,
I think I'll pluck me some immmortelles And make me up a wreath.'

R.R.R."

Fifth Chronicle THE SAVING OF THE COLORS I Even when Rebecca had left school,
having attained the great age of seventeen and therefore able
to look back over a past incredibly long and full,
she still reckoned time not by years,
but by certain important occurrences.

There was the year her father died;
the year she left Sunnybrook Farm
to come
to her aunts in Riverboro;
the year Sister Hannah became engaged;
the year little Mira died;
the year Abijah Flagg ceased
to be Squire Bean's chore-boy,
and astounded Riverboro by departing
for Limerick Academy in search of an education;
and finally the year of her graduation,
which,
to the mind of seventeen,
seems rather the culmination than the beginning of existence.

Between these epoch-making events certain other happenings stood out in bold relief against the gray of dull daily life.

There was the day she first met her friend of friends,
"Mr. Aladdin,"
and the later,
even more radiant one when he gave her the coral necklace.

There was the day the Simpson family moved away from Riverboro under a cloud,
and she kissed Clara Belle fervently at the cross-roads,
telling her that she would always be faithful.

There was the visit of the Syrian missionaries
to the brick house.

That was a bright,
romantic memory,
as strange and brilliant as the wonderful little birds'
wings and breasts that the strangers brought from the Far East.

She remembered the moment they asked her
to choose some
for herself,
and the rapture
with which she stroked the beautiful things as they lay on the black haircloth sofa.

Then there was the coming of the new minister,
for though many were tried only one was chosen;
and finally there was the flag-raising,
a festivity that thrilled Riverboro and Edgewood society from centre
to circumference,
a festivity that took place just before she entered the Female Seminary at Wareham and said good-by
to kind Miss Dearborn and the village school.

There must have been other flag-raisings in history,--even the persons most interested in this particular one would grudgingly have allowed that much,--but it would have seemed
to them improbable that any such flag-raising as theirs,
either in magnitude of conception or brilliancy of actual performance,
could twice glorify the same century.

Of some pageants it is tacitly admitted that there can be no duplicates,
and the flag-raising at Riverboro Centre was one of these;
so that it is small wonder if Rebecca chose it as one of the important dates in her personal almanac.

The new minister's wife was the being,
under Providence,
who had conceived the germinal idea of the flag.

At this time the parish had almost settled down
to the trembling belief that they were united on a pastor.

In the earlier time a minister was chosen
for life,
and if he had faults,
which was a probably enough contingency,
and if his congregation had any,
which is within the bounds of possibility,
each bore
with the other
(not quite without friction),
as old-fashioned husbands and wives once did,
before the easy way out of the difficulty was discovered,
or at least before it was popularized.

The faithful old parson had died after thirty years'
preaching,
and perhaps the newer methods had begun
to creep in,
for it seemed impossible
to suit the two communities most interested in the choice.

The Rev.

Mr. Davis,
for example,
was a spirited preacher,
but persisted in keeping two horses in the parsonage stable,
and in exchanging them whenever he could get faster ones.

As a parochial visitor he was incomparable,
dashing from house
to house
with such speed that he could cover the parish in a single afternoon.

This sporting tendency,
which would never have been remarked in a British parson,
was frowned upon in a New England village,
and Deacon Milliken told Mr. Davis,
when giving him what he alluded
to as his
"walking papers,"
that they didn't want the Edgewood church run by hoss power! The next candidate pleased Edgewood,
where morning preaching was held,
but the other parish,
which had afternoon service,
declined
to accept him because he wore a wig--an ill-matched,
crookedly applied wig.

Number three was eloquent but given
to gesticulation,
and Mrs. Jere Burbank,
the president of the Dorcas Society,
who sat in a front pew,
said she couldn't bear
to see a preacher scramble round the pulpit hot Sundays.

Number four,
a genial,
handsome man,
gifted in prayer,
was found
to be a Democrat.

The congregation was overwhelmingly Republican in its politics,
and perceived something ludicrous,
if not positively blasphemous,
in a Democrat preaching the gospel.

("Ananias and Beelzebub'll be candidatin'
here,
first thing we know!"
exclaimed the outraged Republican nominee
for district attorney.)
Number five had a feeble-minded child,
which the hiring committee prophesied,
would always be standing in the parsonage front yard,
making talk
for the other denominations.

Number six was the Rev.

Judson Baxter,
the present incumbent;
and he was voted
to be as near perfection as a minister can be in this finite world.

His young wife had a small income of her own,
a distinct and unusual advantage,
and the subscription committee hoped that they might not be eternally driving over the country
to get somebody's fifty cents that had been over-due
for eight months,
but might take their onerous duties a little more easily.

"It does seem as if our ministers were the poorest lot!"
complained Mrs. Robinson.

"If their salary is two months behindhand they begin
to be nervous! Seems as though they might lay up a little before they come here,
and not live from hand
to mouth so! The Baxters seem quite different,
and I only hope they won't get wasteful and run into debt.

They say she keeps the parlor blinds open bout half the time,
and the room is lit up so often evenin's that the neighbors think her and Mr. Baxter must set in there.

It don't seem hardly as if it could be so,
but Mrs. Buzzell says tis,
and she says we might as well say good-by
to the parlor carpet,
which is church property,
for the Baxters are living all over it!"
This criticism was the only discordant note in the chorus of praise,
and the people gradually grew accustomed
to the open blinds and the overused parlor carpet,
which was just completing its twenty-fifth year of honest service.

Mrs. Baxter communicated her patriotic idea of a new flag
to the Dorcas Society,
proposing that the women should cut and make it themselves.

"It may not be quite as good as those manufactured in the large cities,"
she said,
"but we shall be proud
to see our home-made flag flying in the breeze,
and it will mean all the more
to the young voters growing up,
to remember that their mothers made it
with their own hands."

"How would it do
to let some of the girls help?"
modestly asked Miss Dearborn,
the Riverboro teacher.

"We might choose the best sewers and let them put in at least a few stitches,
so that they can feel they have a share in it."

"Just the thing!"
exclaimed Mrs. Baxter.

"We can cut the stripes and sew them together,
and after we have basted on the white stars the girls can apply them
to the blue ground.

We must have it ready
for the campaign rally,
and we couldn't christen it at a better time than in this presidential year."

II In this way the great enterprise was started,
and day by day the preparations went forward in the two villages.

The boys,
as future voters and fighters,
demanded an active share in the proceedings,
and were organized by Squire Bean into a fife and drum corps,
so that by day and night martial but most inharmonious music woke the echoes,
and deafened mothers felt their patriotism oozing out at the soles of their shoes.

Dick Carter was made captain,
for his grandfather had a gold medal given him by Queen Victoria
for rescuing three hundred and twenty-six passengers from a sinking British vessel.

Riverboro thought it high time
to pay some graceful tribute
to Great Britain in return
for her handsome conduct
to Captain Nahum Carter,
and human imagination could contrive nothing more impressive than a vicarious share in the flag raising.

Living Perkins tried
to be happy in the ranks,
for he was offered no official position,
principally,
Mrs. Smellie observed,
because
"his father's war record wa'nt clean."

"Oh,
yes! Jim Perkins went
to the war,"
she continued.

"He hid out behind the hencoop when they was draftin',
but they found him and took him along.

He got into one battle,
too,
somehow or nother,
but he run away from it.

He was allers cautious,
Jim was;
if he ever see trouble of any kind comin'
towards him,
he was out o'
sight fore it got a chance
to light.

He said eight dollars a month,
without bounty,
wouldn't pay HIM
to stop bullets for.

He wouldn't fight a skeeter,
Jim wouldn't,
but land! we ain't
to war all the time,
and he's a good neighbor and a good blacksmith."

Miss Dearborn was
to be Columbia and the older girls of the two schools were
to be the States.

Such trade in muslins and red,
white,
and blue ribbons had never been known since
"Watson kep'
store,"
and the number of brief white petticoats hanging out
to bleach would have caused the passing stranger
to imagine Riverboro a continual dancing school.

Juvenile virtue,
both male and female,
reached an almost impossible height,
for parents had only
to lift a finger and say,
"you shan't go
to the flag raising!"
and the refractory spirit at once armed itself
for new struggles toward the perfect life.

Mr. Jeremiah Cobb had consented
to impersonate Uncle Sam,
and was
to drive Columbia and the States
to the
"raising"
on the top of his own stage.

Meantime the boys were drilling,
the ladies were cutting and basting and stitching,
and the girls were sewing on stars;
for the starry part of the spangled banner was
to remain
with each of them in turn until she had performed her share of the work.

It was felt by one and all a fine and splendid service indeed
to help in the making of the flag,
and if Rebecca was proud
to be of the chosen ones,
so was her Aunt Jane Sawyer,
who had taught her all her delicate stitches.

On a long-looked-for afternoon in August the minister's wife drove up
to the brick house door,
and handed out the great piece of bunting
to Rebecca,
who received it in her arms
with as much solemnity as if it had been a child awaiting baptismal rites.

"I'm so glad!"
she sighed happily.

"I thought it would never come my turn!"
"You should have had it a week ago,
but Huldah Meserve upset the ink bottle over her star,
and we had
to baste on another one.

You are the last,
though,
and then we shall sew the stars and stripes together,
and Seth Strout will get the top ready
for hanging.

Just think,
it won't be many days before you children will be pulling the rope
with all your strength,
the band will be playing,
the men will be cheering,
and the new flag will go higher and higher,
till the red,
white,
and blue shows against the sky!"
Rebecca's eyes fairly blazed.

"Shall I fell on'
my star,
or buttonhole it?"
she asked.

"Look at all the others and make the most beautiful stitches you can,
that's all.

It is your star,
you know,
and you can even imagine it is your state,
and try and have it the best of all.

If everybody else is trying
to do the same thing
with her state,
that will make a great country,
won't it?"
Rebecca's eyes spoke glad confirmation of the idea.

"My star,
my state!"
she repeated joyously.

"Oh,
Mrs. Baxter,
I'll make such fine stitches you'll think the white grew out of the blue!"
The new minister's wife looked pleased
to see her spark kindle a flame in the young heart.

"You can sew so much of yourself into your star,"
she went on in the glad voice that made her so winsome,
"that when you are an old lady you can put on your specs and find it among all the others.

Good-by! Come up
to the parsonage Saturday afternoon;
Mr. Baxter wants
to see you."

"Judson,
help that dear little genius of a Rebecca all you can!"
she said that night,
when they were cosily talking in their parlor and living
"all over"
the parish carpet.

"I don't know what she may,
or may not,
come to,
some day;
I only wish she were ours! If you could have seen her clasp the flag tight in her arms and put her cheek against it,
and watched the tears of feeling start in her eyes when I told her that her star was her state! I kept whispering
to myself,
Covet not thy neighbor's child!'
"
Daily at four o'clock Rebecca scrubbed her hands almost
to the bone,
brushed her hair,
and otherwise prepared herself in body,
mind,
and spirit
for the consecrated labor of sewing on her star.

All the time that her needle cautiously,
conscientiously formed the tiny stitches she was making rhymes
"in her head,"
her favorite achievement being this:

"Your star,
my star,
all our stars together,
They make the dear old banner proud
to float in the bright fall weather."

There was much discussion as
to which of the girls should impersonate the State of Maine,
for that was felt
to be the highest honor in the gift of the committee.

Alice Robinson was the prettiest child in the village,
but she was very shy and by no means a general favorite.

Minnie Smellie possessed the handsomest dress and a pair of white slippers and open-work stockings that nearly carried the day.

Still,
as Miss Delia Weeks well said,
she was so stupid that if she should suck her thumb in the very middle of the exercises nobody'd be a dite surprised! Huldah Meserve was next voted upon,
and the fact that if she were not chosen her father might withdraw his subscription
to the brass band fund was a matter
for grave consideration.

"I kind o'
hate
to have such a giggler
for the State of Maine;
let her be the Goddess of Liberty,"
proposed Mrs. Burbank,
whose patriotism was more local than national.

"How would Rebecca Randall do
for Maine,
and let her speak some of her verses?"
suggested the new minister's wife,
who,
could she have had her way,
would have given all the prominent parts
to Rebecca,
from Uncle Sam down.

So,
beauty,
fashion,
and wealth having been tried and found wanting,
the committee discussed the claims of talent,
and it transpired that
to the awe-stricken Rebecca fell the chief plum in the pudding.

It was a tribute
to her gifts that there was no jealousy or envy among the other girls;
they readily conceded her special fitness
for the role.

Her life had not been pressed down full
to the brim of pleasures,
and she had a sort of distrust of joy in the bud.

Not until she saw it in full radiance of bloom did she dare embrace it.

She had never read any verse but Byron,
Felicia Hemans,
bits of
"Paradise Lost,"
and the selections in the school readers,
but she would have agreed heartily
with the poet who said:

"Not by appointment do we meet delight And joy;
they heed not our expectancy;
But round some corner in the streets of life They on a sudden clasp us
with a smile."

For many nights before the raising,
when she went
to her bed she said
to herself,
after she had finished her prayers:

"It can't be true that I'm chosen
for the State of Maine! It just CAN'T be true! Nobody could be good ENOUGH,
but oh,
I'll try
to be as good as I can!
to be going
to Wareham Seminary next week and
to be the State of Maine too! Oh! I must pray HARD
to God
to keep me meek and humble!"
III The flag was
to be raised on a Tuesday,
and on the previous Sunday it became known
to the children that Clara Belle Simpson was coming back from Acreville,
coming
to live
with Mrs. Fogg and take care of the baby,
called by the neighborhood boys
"the Fogg horn,"
on account of his excellent voice production.

Clara Belle was one of Miss Dearborn's original flock,
and if she were left wholly out of the festivities she would be the only girl of suitable age
to be thus slighted;
it seemed clear
to the juvenile mind,
therefore,
that neither she nor her descendants would ever recover from such a blow.

But,
under all the circumstances,
would she be allowed
to join in the procession?

Even Rebecca,
the optimistic,
feared not,
and the committee confirmed her fears by saying that Abner Simpson's daughter certainly could not take any prominent part in the ceremony,
but they hoped that Mrs. Fogg would allow her
to witness it.

When Abner Simpson,
urged by the town authorities,
took his wife and seven children away from Riverboro
to Acreville,
just over the border in the next county,
Riverboro went
to bed leaving its barn and shed doors unfastened,
and drew long breaths of gratitude
to Providence.

Of most winning disposition and genial manners,
Mr. Simpson had not that instinctive comprehension of property rights which renders a man a valuable citizen.

Squire Bean was his nearest neighbor,
and he conceived the novel idea of paying Simpson five dollars a year not
to steal from him,
a method occasionally used in the Highlands in the early days.

The bargain was struck,
and adhered
to religiously
for a twelve-month,
but on the second of January Mr. Simpson announced the verbal contract as formally broken.

"I didn't know what I was doin'
when I made it,
Squire,"
he urged.

"In the first place,
it's a slur on my reputation and an injury
to my self-respect.

Secondly,
it's a nervous strain on me;
and thirdly,
five dollars don't pay me!"
Squire Bean was so struck
with the unique and convincing nature of these arguments that he could scarcely restrain his admiration,
and he confessed
to himself afterward,
that unless Simpson's mental attitude could be changed he was perhaps a fitter subject
for medical science than the state prison.

Abner was a most unusual thief,
and conducted his operations
with a tact and neighborly consideration none too common in the profession.

He would never steal a man's scythe in haying-time,
nor his fur lap-robe in the coldest of the winter.

The picking of a lock offered no attractions
to him;
"he wa'n't no burglar,"
he would have scornfully asserted.

A strange horse and wagon hitched by the roadside was the most flagrant of his thefts;
but it was the small things--the hatchet or axe on the chopping-block,
the tin pans sunning at the side door,
a stray garment bleaching on the grass,
a hoe,
rake,
shovel,
or a bag of early potatoes,
that tempted him most sorely;
and these appealed
to him not so much
for their intrinsic value as because they were so excellently adapted
to swapping.

The swapping was really the enjoyable part of the procedure,
the theft was only a sad but necessary preliminary;
for if Abner himself had been a man of sufficient property
to carry on his business operations independently,
it is doubtful if he would have helped himself so freely
to his neighbor's goods.

Riverboro regretted the loss of Mrs. Simpson,
who was useful in scrubbing,
cleaning,
and washing,
and was thought
to exercise some influence over her predatory spouse.

There was a story of their early married life,
when they had a farm;
a story
to the effect that Mrs. Simpson always rode on every load of hay that her husband took
to Milltown,
with the view of keeping him sober through the day.

After he turned out of the country road and approached the metropolis,
it was said that he used
to bury the docile lady in the load.

He would then drive on
to the scales,
have the weight of the hay entered in the buyer's book,
take his horses
to the stable
for feed and water,
and when a favorable opportunity offered he would assist the hot and panting Mrs. Simpson out of the side or back of the rack,
and gallantly brush the straw from her person.

For this reason it was always asserted that Abner Simpson sold his wife every time he went
to Milltown,
but the story was never fully substantiated,
and at all events it was the only suspected blot on meek Mrs. Simpson's personal reputation.

As
for the Simpson children,
they were missed chiefly as familiar figures by the roadside;
but Rebecca honestly loved Clara Belle,
notwithstanding her Aunt Miranda's opposition
to the intimacy.

Rebecca's
"taste
for low company"
was a source of continual anxiety
to her aunt.

"Anything that's human flesh is good enough
for her!"
Miranda groaned
to Jane.

"She'll ride
with the rag-sack-and-bottle peddler just as quick as she would
with the minister;
she always sets beside the St. Vitus'
dance young one at Sabbath school;
and she's forever riggin'
and onriggin'
that dirty Simpson baby! She reminds me of a puppy that'll always go
to everybody that'll have him!"
It was thought very creditable
to Mrs. Fogg that she sent
for Clara Belle
to live
with her and go
to school part of the year.

"She'll be useful"
said Mrs. Fogg,
"and she'll be out of her father's way,
and so keep honest;
though she's no awful hombly I've no fears
for her.

A girl
with her red hair,
freckles,
and cross-eyes can't fall into no kind of sin,
I don't believe."

Mrs. Fogg requested that Clara Belle should be started on her journey from Acreville by train and come the rest of the way by stage,
and she was disturbed
to receive word on Sunday that Mr. Simpson had borrowed a
"good roader"
from a new acquaintance,
and would himself drive the girl from Acreville
to Riverboro,
a distance of thirty-five miles.

That he would arrive in their vicinity on the very night before the flag-raising was thought by Riverboro
to be a public misfortune,
and several residents hastily determined
to deny themselves a sight of the festivities and remain watchfully on their own premises.

On Monday afternoon the children were rehearsing their songs at the meeting-house.

As Rebecca came out on the broad wooden steps she watched Mrs. Peter Meserve's buggy out of sight,
for in front,
wrapped in a cotton sheet,
lay the previous flag.

After a few chattering good-bys and weather prophecies
with the other girls,
she started on her homeward walk,
dropping in at the parsonage
to read her verses
to the minister.

He welcomed her gladly as she removed her white cotton gloves
(hastily slipped on outside the door,
for ceremony)
and pushed back the funny hat
with the yellow and black porcupine quills-- the hat
with which she made her first appearance in Riverboro society.

"You've heard the beginning,
Mr. Baxter;
now will you please tell me if you like the last verse?"
she asked,
taking out her paper.

"I've only read it
to Alice Robinson,
and I think perhaps she can never be a poet,
though she's a splendid writer.

Last year when she was twelve she wrote a birthday poem
to herself,
and she made natal'
rhyme
with Milton,.'

which,
of course,
it wouldn't.

I remember every verse ended:

'This is my day so natal And I will follow Milton.'

Another one of hers was written just because she couldn't help it,
she said.

This was it:

'Let me
to the hills away,
Give me pen and paper;
I'll write until the earth will sway The story of my Maker.'
"
The minister could scarcely refrain from smiling,
but he controlled himself that he might lose none of Rebecca's quaint observations.

When she was perfectly at ease,
unwatched and uncriticised,
she was a marvelous companion.

"The name of the poem is going
to be My Star,'"
she continued,
"and Mrs. Baxter gave me all the ideas,
but somehow there's a kind of magicness when they get into poetry,
don't you think so?"
(Rebecca always talked
to grown people as if she were their age,
or,
a more subtle and truer distinction,
as if they were hers.)
"It has often been so remarked,
in different words,"
agreed the minister.

"Mrs. Baxter said that each star was a state,
and if each state did its best we should have a splendid country.

Then once she said that we ought
to be glad the war is over and the States are all at peace together;
and I thought Columbia must be glad,
too,
for Miss Dearborn says she's the mother of all the States.

So I'm going
to have it end like this:

I didn't write it,
I just sewed it while I was working on my star:

For it's your star,
my star,
all the stars together,
That make our country's flag so proud
to float in the bright fall weather.

Northern stars,Southern stars,
stars of the East and West,
Side by side they lie at peace On the dear flag's mother-breast."

"'Oh! many are the poets that are sown by nature,'"
thought the minister,
quoting Wordsworth
to himself.

"And I wonder what becomes of them! That's a pretty idea,
little Rebecca,
and I don't know whether you or my wife ought
to have the more praise.

What made you think of the stars lying on the flag's mother-breast'?

Where did you get that word?"
"Why"
(and the young poet looked rather puzzled),
"that's the way it is;
the flag is the whole country--the mother--and the stars are the states.

The stars had
to lie somewhere:

'LAP'
nor
'ARMS'
wouldn't sound well
with West,'
so,
of course,
I said
'BREAST,'"
Rebecca answered,
with some surprise at the question;
and the minister put his hand under her chin and kissed her softly on the forehead when he said good-by at the door.

IV Rebecca walked rapidly along in the gathering twilight,
thinking of the eventful morrow.

As she approached the turning on the left called the old Milltown road,
she saw a white horse and wagon,
driven by a man
with a rakish,
flapping,
Panama hat,
come rapidly around the turn and disappear over the long hills leading down
to the falls.

There was no mistaking him;
there never was another Abner Simpson,
with his lean height,
his bushy reddish hair,
the gay cock of his hat,
and the long piratical,
upturned mustaches,
which the boys used
to say were used as hat-racks by the Simpson children at night..

The old Milltown road ran past Mrs. Fogg's house,
so he must have left Clara Belle there,
and Rebecca's heart glowed
to think that her poor little friend need not miss the raising.

She began
to run now,
fearful of being late
for supper,
and covered the ground
to the falls in a brief time.

As she crossed the bridge she again saw Abner Simpson's team,
drawn up at the watering trough.

Coming a little nearer,
with the view of inquiring
for the family,
her quick eye caught sight of something unexpected.

A gust of wind blew up a corner of a linen lap-robe in the back of the wagon,
and underneath it she distinctly saw the white-sheeted bundle that held the flag;
the bundle
with a tiny,
tiny spot of red bunting peeping out at one corner.

It is true she had eaten,
slept,
dreamed red,
white,
and blue
for weeks,
but there was no mistaking the evidence of her senses;
the idolized flag,
longed for,
worked for,
sewed for,
that flag was in the back of Abner Simpson's wagon,
and if so,
what would become of the raising?

Acting on blind impulse,
she ran toward the watering-trough,
calling out in her clear treble:

"Mr. Simpson! Oh,
Mr. Simpson,
will you let me ride a piece
with you and hear all about Clara Belle?

I'm going part way over
to the Centre on an errand."

(So she was;
a most important errand,--to recover the flag of her country at present in the hands of the foe!)
Mr. Simpson turned round in his seat and cried heartily,
"Certain sure I will!"
for he liked the fair sex,
young and old,
and Rebecca had always been a prime favorite
with him.

"Climb right in! How's everybody?

Glad
to see ye! The folks talk bout ye from sun-up
to sun-down,
and Clara Belle can't hardly wait
for a sight of ye!"
Rebecca scrambled up,
trembling and pale
with excitement.

She did not in the least know what was going
to happen,
but she was sure that the flag,
when in the enemy's country,
must be at least a little safer
with the State of Maine sitting on top of it! Mr. Simpson began a long monologue about Acreville,
the house he lived in,
the pond in front of it,
Mrs. Simpson's health,
and various items of news about the children,
varied by reports of his personal misfortunes.

He put no questions,
and asked no replies,
so this gave the inexperienced soldier a few seconds
to plan a campaign.

There were three houses
to pass;
the Browns'
at the corner,
the Millikens',
and the Robinsons'
on the brow of the hill.

If Mr. Robinson were in the front yard she might tell Mr. Simpson she wanted
to call there and ask Mr. Robinson
to hold the horse's head while she got out of the wagon.

Then she might fly
to the back before Mr. Simpson could realize the situation,
and dragging out the precious bundle,
sit on it hard,
while Mr. Robinson settled the matter of ownership
with Mr. Simpson.

This was feasible,
but it meant a quarrel between the two men,
who held an ancient grudge against each other,
and Mr. Simpson was a valiant fighter as the various sheriffs who had attempted
to arrest him could cordially testify.

It also meant that everybody in the village would hear of the incident and poor Clara Belle be branded again as the child of a thief.

Another idea danced into her excited brain;
such a clever one she could hardly believe it hers.

She might call Mr. Robinson
to the wagon,
and when he came close
to the wheels she might say,
"all of a sudden":

"Please take the flag out of the back of the wagon,
Mr. Robinson.

We have brought it here
for you
to keep overnight."

Mr. Simpson might be so surprised that he would give up his prize rather than be suspected of stealing.

But as they neared the Robinsons'
house there was not a sign of life
to be seen;
so the last plan,
ingenious though it was,
was perforce abandoned.

The road now lay between thick pine woods
with no dwelling in sight.

It was growing dusk and Rebecca was driving along the lonely way
with a person who was generally called Slippery Simpson.

Not a thought of fear crossed her mind,
save the fear of bungling in her diplomacy,
and so losing the flag.

She knew Mr. Simpson well,
and a pleasanter man was seldom
to be met.

She recalled an afternoon when he came home and surprised the whole school playing the Revolutionary War in his helter-skelter dooryard,
and the way in which he had joined the British forces and impersonated General Burgoyne had greatly endeared him
to her.

The only difficulty was
to find proper words
for her delicate mission,
for,
of course,
if Mr. Simpson's anger were aroused,
he would politely push her out of the wagon and drive away
with the flag.

Perhaps if she led the conversation in the right direction an opportunity would present itself.

She well remembered how Emma Jane Perkins had failed
to convert Jacob Moody,
simply because she failed to
"lead up"
to the delicate question of his manner of life.

Clearing her throat nervously,
she began:

"Is it likely
to be fair tomorrow?"
"Guess so;
clear as a bell.

What's on foot;
a picnic?"
"No;
we're
to have a grand flag-raising!"
("That is,"
she thought,
"if we have any flag
to raise!"
)
"That so?

Where?"
"The three villages are
to club together and have a rally,
and raise the flag at the Centre.

There'll be a brass band,
and speakers,
and the Mayor of Portland,
and the man that will be governor if he's elected,
and a dinner in the Grange Hall,
and we girls are chosen
to raise the flag."

"I want
to know! That'll be grand,
won't it?"
(Still not a sign of consciousness on the part of Abner.)
"I hope Mrs. Fogg will take Clara Belle,
for it will be splendid
to look at! Mr. Cobb is going
to be Uncle Sam and drive us on the stage.

Miss Dearborn--Clara Belle's old teacher,
you know--is going
to be Columbia;
the girls will be the States of the Union,
and oh,
Mr. Simpson,
I am the one
to be the State of Maine!"
(This was not altogether
to the point,
but a piece of information impossible
to conceal.)
Mr. Simpson flourished the whipstock and gave a loud,
hearty laugh.

Then he turned in his seat and regarded Rebecca curiously.

"You're kind of small,
hain't ye,
for so big a state as this one?"
he asked.

"Any of us would be too small,"
replied Rebecca
with dignity,
"but the committee asked me,
and I am going
to try hard
to do well."

The tragic thought that there might be no occasion
for anybody
to do anything,
well or ill,
suddenly overcame her here,
and putting her hand on Mr. Simpson's sleeve,
she attacked the subject practically and courageously.

"Oh,
Mr. Simpson,
dear Mr. Simpson,
it's such a mortifying subject I can't bear
to say anything about it,
but please give us back our flag! Don't,
DON'T take it over
to Acreville,
Mr. Simpson! We've worked so long
to make it,
and it was so hard getting the money
for the bunting! Wait a minute,
please;
don't be angry,
and don't say no just yet,
till I explain more.

It'll be so dreadful
for everybody
to get there tomorrow morning and find no flag
to raise,
and the band and the mayor all disappointed,
and the children crying,
with their muslin dresses all bought
for nothing! O dear Mr. Simpson,
please don't take our flag away from us!"
The apparently astonished Abner pulled his mustaches and exclaimed:

"But I don't know what you're drivin'
at! Who's got yer flag?

I hain't!"
Could duplicity,
deceit,
and infamy go any further,
Rebecca wondered,
and her soul filling
with righteous wrath,
she cast discretion
to the winds and spoke a little more plainly,
bending her great swimming eyes on the now embarrassed Abner,
who looked like an angle-worm,
wriggling on a pin.

"Mr. Simpson,
how can you say that,
when I saw the flag in the back of your wagon myself,
when you stopped
to water the horse?

It's wicked of you
to take it,
and I cannot bear it!"
(Her voice broke now,
for a doubt of Mr. Simpson's yielding suddenly darkened her mind.)
"If you keep it,
you'll have
to keep me,
for I won't be parted from it! I can't fight like the boys,
but I can pinch and scratch,
and I WILL scratch,
just like a panther--I'll lie right down on my star and not move,
if I starve
to death!"
"Look here,
hold your hosses n'
don't cry till you git something
to cry for!"
grumbled the outraged Abner,
to whom a clue had just come;
and leaning over the wagon-back he caught hold of a corner of white sheet and dragged up the bundle,
scooping off Rebecca's hat in the process,
and almost burying her in bunting.

She caught the treasure passionately
to her heart and stifled her sobs in it,
while Abner exclaimed:

"I swan
to man,
if that hain't a flag! Well,
in that case you're good n'
welcome
to it! Land! I seen that bundle lyin'
in the middle o'
the road and I says
to myself,
that's somebody's washin'
and I'd better pick it up and leave it at the post-office
to be claimed;
n'
all the time it was a flag!"
This was a Simpsonian version of the matter,
the fact being that a white-covered bundle lying on the Meserves'
front steps had attracted his practiced eye,
and slipping in at the open gate he had swiftly and deftly removed it
to his wagon on general principles;
thinking if it were clean clothes it would be extremely useful,
and in any event there was no good in passing by something flung into your very arms,
so
to speak.

He had had no leisure
to examine the bundle,
and indeed took little interest in it.

Probably he stole it simply from force of habit,
and because there was nothing else in sight
to steal,
everybody's premises being preternaturally tidy and empty,
almost as if his visit had been expected! Rebecca was a practical child,
and it seemed
to her almost impossible that so heavy a bundle should fall out of Mrs. Meserve's buggy and not be noticed;
but she hoped that Mr. Simpson was telling the truth,
and she was too glad and grateful
to doubt anyone at the moment.

"Thank you,
thank you ever so much,
Mr. Simpson.

You're the nicest,
kindest,
politest man I ever knew,
and the girls will be so pleased you gave us back the flag,
and so will the Dorcas Society;
they'll be sure
to write you a letter of thanks;
they always do."

"Tell em not
to bother bout any thanks,"
said Simpson,
beaming virtuously.

"But land! I'm glad twas me that happened
to see that bundle in the road and take the trouble
to pick it up."

(Jest
to think of it's bein'
a flag!"
he thought;
"if ever there was a pesky,
wuthless thing
to trade off,
twould be a great,
gormin'
flag like that!"
)
"Can I get out now,
please?"
asked Rebecca.

"I want
to go back,
for Mrs. Meserve will be dreadfully nervous when she finds out she dropped the flag,
and she has heart trouble."

"No,
you don't,"
objected Mr. Simpson gallantly,
turning the horse.

"Do you think I'd let a little creeter like you lug that great heavy bundle?

I hain't got time
to go back
to Meserve's,
but I'll take you
to the corner and dump you there,
flag n'
all,
and you can get some o'
the men-folks
to carry it the rest o'
the way.

You'll wear it out,
huggin'
it so!"
"I helped make it and I adore it!"
said Rebecca,
who was in a high-pitched and grandiloquent mood.

"Why don't YOU like it?

It's your country's flag."

Simpson smiled an indulgent smile and looked a trifle bored at these frequent appeals
to his extremely rusty higher feelings.

"I don'
know's I've got any partic'lar int'rest in the country,"
he remarked languidly.

"I know I don't owe nothin'
to it,
nor own nothin'
in it!"
"You own a star on the flag,
same as everybody,"
argued Rebecca,
who had been feeding on patriotism
for a month;
"and you own a state,
too,
like all of us!"
"Land! I wish't I did! or even a quarter section!"
sighed Mr. Simpson,
feeling somehow a little more poverty-stricken and discouraged than usual.

As they approached the corner and the watering-trough where four cross-roads met,
the whole neighborhood seemed
to be in evidence,
and Mr. Simpson suddenly regretted his chivalrous escort of Rebecca;
especially when,
as he neared the group,
an excited lady,
wringing her hands,
turned out
to be Mrs. Peter Meserve,
accompanied by Huldah,
the Browns,
Mrs. Milliken,
Abijah Flagg,
and Miss Dearborn.

"Do you know anything about the new flag,
Rebecca?"
shrieked Mrs. Meserve,
too agitated,
at the moment,
to notice the child's companion.

"It's right here in my lap,
all safe,"
responded Rebecca joyously.

"You careless,
meddlesome young one,
to take it off my steps where I left it just long enough
to go round
to the back and hunt up my door-key! You've given me a fit of sickness
with my weak heart,
and what business was it of yours?

I believe you think you OWN the flag! Hand it over
to me this minute!"
Rebecca was climbing down during this torrent of language,
but as she turned she flashed one look of knowledge at the false Simpson,
a look that went through him from head
to foot,
as if it were carried by electricity.

He had not deceived her after all,
owing
to the angry chatter of Mrs. Meserve.

He had been handcuffed twice in his life,
but no sheriff had ever discomfited him so thoroughly as this child.

Fury mounted
to his brain,
and as soon as she was safely out from between the wheels he stood up in the wagon and flung the flag out in the road in the midst of the excited group.

"Take it,
you pious,
passimonious,
cheese-parin',
hair-splittin',
back-bitin',
flag-raisin'
crew!"
he roared.

"Rebecca never took the flag;
I found it in the road,
I say!"
"You never,
no such a thing!"
exclaimed Mrs. Meserve.

"You found it on the doorsteps in my garden!"
"Mebbe twas your garden,
but it was so chock full o'
weeks I THOUGHT twas the road,"
retorted Abner.

"I vow I wouldn't a'
given the old rag back
to one o'
YOU,
not if you begged me on your bended knees! But Rebecca's a friend o'
my folks and can do
with her flag's she's a mind to,
and the rest o'
ye can go
to thunder-- n'
stay there,
for all I care!"
So saying,
he made a sharp turn,
gave the gaunt white horse a lash and disappeared in a cloud of dust,
before the astonished Mr. Brown,
the only man in the party,
had a thought of detaining him.

"I'm sorry I spoke so quick,
Rebecca,"
said Mrs. Meserve,
greatly mortified at the situation.

"But don't you believe a word that lyin'
critter said! He did steal it off my doorstep,
and how did you come
to be ridin'
and consortin'
with him! I believe it would kill your Aunt Miranda if she should hear about it!"
The little school-teacher put a sheltering arm round Rebecca as Mr. Brown picked up the flag and dusted and folded it.

"I'm willing she should hear about it,"
Rebecca answered.

"I didn't do anything
to be ashamed of! I saw the flag in the back of Mr. Simpson's wagon and I just followed it.

There weren't any men or any Dorcases
to take care of it and so it fell
to me! You wouldn't have had me let it out of my sight,
would you,
and we going
to raise it tomorrow morning?"
"Rebecca's perfectly right,
Mrs. Meserve!"
said Miss Dearborn proudly.

"And it's lucky there was somebody quick-witted enough
to ride and consort'
with Mr. Simpson! I don't know what the village will think,
but seems
to me the town clerk might write down in his book,
THIS DAY THE STATE OF MAINE SAVED THE FLAG!'
"
Sixth Chronicle THE STATE O'
MAINE GIRL I The foregoing episode,
if narrated in a romance,
would undoubtedly have been called
"The Saving of the Colors,"
but at the nightly conversazione in Watson's store it was alluded
to as the way little Becky Randall got the flag away from Slippery Simpson.

Dramatic as it was,
it passed into the limbo of half-forgotten things in Rebecca's mind,
its brief importance submerged in the glories of the next day.

There was a painful prelude
to these glories.

Alice Robinson came
to spend the night
with Rebecca,
and when the bedroom door closed upon the two girls,
Alice announced here intention of
"doing up"
Rebecca's front hair in leads and rags,
and braiding the back in six tight,
wetted braids.

Rebecca demurred.

Alice persisted.

"Your hair is so long and thick and dark and straight,"
she said,
"that you'll look like an Injun!"
"I am the State of Maine;
it all belonged
to the Indians once,"
Rebecca remarked gloomily,
for she was curiously shy about discussing her personal appearance.

"And your wreath of little pine-cones won't set decent without crimps,"
continued Alice.

Rebecca glanced in the cracked looking-glass and met what she considered an accusing lack of beauty,
a sight that always either saddened or enraged her according
to circumstances;
then she sat down resignedly and began
to help Alice in the philanthropic work of making the State of Maine fit
to be seen at the raising.

Neither of the girls was an expert hairdresser,
and at the end of an hour,
when the sixth braid was tied,
and Rebecca had given one last shuddering look in the mirror,
both were ready
to weep
with fatigue.

The candle was blown out and Alice soon went
to sleep,
but Rebecca tossed on her pillow,
its goose-feathered softness all dented by the cruel lead knobs and the knots of twisted rags.

She slipped out of bed and walked
to and fro,
holding her aching head
with both hands.

Finally she leaned on the window-sill,
watching the still weather-vane on Alice's barn and breathing in the fragrance of the ripening apples,
until her restlessness subsided under the clear starry beauty of the night.

At six in the morning the girls were out of bed,
for Alice could hardly wait until Rebecca's hair was taken down,
she was so eager
to see the result of her labors.

The leads and rags were painfully removed,
together
with much hair,
the operation being punctuated by a series of squeaks,
squeals,
and shrieks on the part of Rebecca and a series of warnings from Alice,
who wished the preliminaries
to be kept secret from the aunts,
that they might the more fully appreciate the radiant result.

Then came the unbraiding,
and then--dramatic moment--the
"combing out;"
a difficult,
not
to say impossible process,
in which the hairs that had resisted the earlier stages almost gave up the ghost.

The long front strands had been wound up from various angles and by various methods,
so that,
when released,
they assumed the strangest,
most obstinate,
most unexpected attitudes.

When the comb was dragged through the last braid,
the wild,
tortured,
electric hairs following,
and then rebounding from it in a bristling,
snarling tangle.

Massachusetts gave one encompassing glance at the State o'
Maine's head,
and announced her intention of going home
to breakfast! She was deeply grieved at the result of her attempted beautifying,
but she felt that meeting Miss Miranda Sawyer at the morning meal would not mend matters in the least,
so slipping out of the side door,
she ran up Guide Board hill as fast as her legs could carry her.

The State o'
Maine,
deserted and somewhat unnerved,
sat down before the glass and attacked her hair doggedly and
with set lips,
working over it until Miss Jane called her
to breakfast;
then,
with a boldness born of despair,
she entered the dining room,
where her aunts were already seated at table.

To
"draw fire"
she whistled,
a forbidden joy,
which only attracted more attention,
instead of diverting it.

There was a moment of silence after the grotesque figure was fully taken in;
then came a moan from Jane and a groan from Miranda.

"What have you done
to yourself?"
asked Miranda sternly.

"Made an effort
to be beautiful and failed!"
jauntily replied Rebecca,
but she was too miserable
to keep up the fiction.

"Oh,
Aunt Miranda,
don't scold.

I'm so unhappy! Alice and I rolled up my hair
to curl it
for the raising.

She said it was so straight I looked like an Indian!"
"Mebbe you did,"
vigorously agreed Miranda,
"but
't any rate you looked like a Christian Injun,
'n'
now you look like a heathen Injun;
that's all the difference I can see.

What can we do
with her,
Jane,
between this and nine o'clock?"
"We'll all go out
to the pump just as soon as we're through breakfast,"
answered Jane soothingly.

"We can accomplish consid'rable
with water and force."

Rebecca nibbled her corn-cake,
her tearful eyes cast on her plate and her chin quivering.

"Don't you cry and red your eyes up,"
chided Miranda quite kindly;
"the minute you've eat enough run up and get your brush and comb and meet us at the back door."

"I wouldn't care myself how bad I looked,"
said Rebecca,
"but I can't bear
to be so homely that I shame the State of Maine!"
Oh,
what an hour followed this plaint! Did any aspirant
for literary or dramatic honors ever pass
to fame through such an antechamber of horrors?

Did poet of the day ever have his head so maltreated?

To be dipped in the rain-water tub,
soused again and again;
to be held under the spout and pumped on;
to be rubbed furiously
with rough roller towels;
to be dried
with hot flannels! And is it not well-nigh incredible that at the close of such an hour the ends of the long hair should still stand out straight,
the braids having been turned up two inches by Alice,
and tied hard in that position
with linen thread?

"Get out the skirt-board,
Jane,"
cried Miranda,
to whom opposition served as a tonic,
"and move that flat-iron on
to the front o'
the stove.

Rebecca,
set down in that low chair beside the board,
and Jane,
you spread out her hair on it and cover it up
with brown paper.

Don't cringe,
Rebecca;
the worst's over,
and you've borne up real good! I'll be careful not
to pull your hair nor scorch you,
and oh,
HOW I'd like
to have Alice Robinson acrost my knee and a good strip o'
shingle in my right hand! There,
you're all ironed out and your Aunt Jane can put on your white dress and braid your hair up again good and tight.

Perhaps you won't be the hombliest of the states,
after all;
but when I see you comin'
in
to breakfast I said
to myself:

I guess if Maine looked like that,
it wouldn't never a'
been admitted into the Union!'
"
When Uncle Sam and the stagecoach drew up
to the brick house
with a grand swing and a flourish,
the goddess of Liberty and most of the States were already in their places on the
"harricane deck."

Words fail
to describe the gallant bearing of the horses,
their headstalls gayly trimmed and their harnesses dotted
with little flags.

The stage windows were hung in bunting,
and from within beamed Columbia,
looking out from the bright frame as if proud of her freight of loyal children.

Patriotic streamers floated from whip,
from dash-board and from rumble,
and the effect of the whole was something
to stimulate the most phlegmatic voter.

Rebecca came out on the steps and Aunt Jane brought a chair
to assist in the ascent.

Miss Dearborn peeped from the window,
and gave a despairing look at her favorite.

What had happened
to her?

Who had dressed her?

Had her head been put through a wringing-machine?

Why were her eyes red and swollen?

Miss Dearborn determined
to take her behind the trees in the pine grove and give her some finishing touches;
touches that her skillful fingers fairly itched
to bestow.

The stage started,
and as the roadside pageant grew gayer and gayer,
Rebecca began
to brighten and look prettier,
for most of her beautifying came from within.

The people,
walking,
driving,
or standing on their doorsteps,
cheered Uncle Sam's coach
with its freight of gossamer-muslined,
fluttering-ribboned girls,
and just behind,
the gorgeously decorated haycart,
driven by Abijah Flagg,
bearing the jolly but inharmonious fife-and-drum corps.

Was ever such a golden day! Such crystal air! Such mellow sunshine! Such a merry Uncle Sam! The stage drew up at an appointed spot near a pine grove,
and while the crowd was gathering,
the children waited
for the hour
to arrive when they should march
to the platform;
the hour toward which they seemed
to have been moving since the dawn of creation.

As soon as possible Miss Dearborn whispered
to Rebecca:

"Come behind the trees
with me;
I want
to make you prettier!"
Rebecca thought she had suffered enough from that process already during the last twelve hours,
but she put out an obedient hand and the two withdrew.

Now Miss Dearborn was,
I fear,
a very indifferent teacher.

Dr. Moses always said so,
and Libbie Moses,
who wanted her school,
said it was a pity she hadn't enjoyed more social advantages in her youth.

Libbie herself had taken music lessons in Portland;
and spent a night at the Profile House in the White Mountains,
and had visited her sister in Lowell,
Massachusetts.

These experiences gave her,
in her own mind,
and in the mind of her intimate friends,
a horizon so boundless that her view of smaller,
humbler matters was a trifle distorted.

Miss Dearborn's stock in trade was small,
her principal virtues being devotion
to children and ability
to gain their love,
and a power of evolving a schoolroom order so natural,
cheery,
serene,
and peaceful that it gave the beholder a certain sense of being in a district heaven.

She was poor in arithmetic and weak in geometry,
but if you gave her a rose,
a bit of ribbon,
and a seven-by-nine looking-glass she could make herself as pretty as a pink in two minutes.

Safely sheltered behind the pines,
Miss Dearborn began
to practice mysterious feminine arts.

She flew at Rebecca's tight braids,
opened the strands and rebraided them loosely;
bit and tore the red,
white,
and blue ribbon in two and tied the braids separately.

Then
with nimble fingers she pulled out little tendrils of hair behind the ears and around the nape of the neck.

After a glance of acute disapproval directed at the stiff balloon skirt she knelt on the ground and gave a strenuous embrace
to Rebecca's knees,
murmuring,
between her hugs,
"Starch must be cheap at the brick house!"
This particular line of beauty attained,
there ensued great pinchings of ruffles,
her fingers that could never hold a ferrule nor snap children's ears being incomparable fluting-irons.

Next the sash was scornfully untied and tightened
to suggest something resembling a waist.

The chastened bows that had been squat,
dowdy,
spiritless,
were given tweaks,
flirts,
bracing little pokes and dabs,
till,
acknowledging a master hand,
they stood up,
piquant,
pert,
smart,
alert! Pride of bearing was now infused into the flattened lace at the neck,
and a pin
(removed at some sacrifice from her own toilette)
was darned in at the back
to prevent any cowardly lapsing.

The short white cotton gloves that called attention
to the tanned wrist and arms were stripped off and put in her own pocket.

Then the wreath of pine-cones was adjusted at a heretofore unimagined angle,
the hair was pulled softly into a fluffy frame,
and finally,
as she met Rebecca's grateful eyes she gave her two approving,
triumphant kisses.

In a second the sensitive face lighted into happiness;
pleased dimples appeared in the cheeks,
the kissed mouth was as red as a rose,
and the little fright that had walked behind the pine-tree stepped out on the other side Rebecca the lovely.

As
to the relative value of Miss Dearborn's accomplishments,
the decision must be left
to the gentle reader;
but though it is certain that children should be properly grounded in mathematics,
no heart of flesh could bear
to hear Miss Dearborn's methods vilified who had seen her patting,
pulling,
squeezing Rebecca from ugliness into beauty.

The young superintendent of district schools was a witness of the scene,
and when later he noted the children surrounding Columbia as bees a honeysuckle,
he observed
to Dr. Moses:

"She may not be much of a teacher,
but I think she'd be considerable of a wife!"
and subsequent events proved that he meant what he said! II Now all was ready;
the moment of fate was absolutely at hand;
the fife-and-drum corps led the way and the States followed;
but what actually happened Rebecca never knew;
she lived through the hours in a waking dream.

Every little detail was a facet of light that reflected sparkles,
and among them all she was fairly dazzled.

The brass band played inspiring strains;
the mayor spoke eloquently on great themes;
the people cheered;
then the rope on which so much depended was put into the children's hands,
they applied superhuman strength
to their task,
and the flag mounted,
mounted,
smoothly and slowly,
and slowly unwound and stretched itself until its splendid size and beauty were revealed against the maples and pines and blue New England sky.

Then after cheers upon cheers and after a patriotic chorus by the church choirs,
the State of Maine mounted the platform,
vaguely conscious that she was
to recite a poem,
though
for the life of her she could not remember a single word.

"Speak up loud and clear,
Rebecky,"
whispered Uncle Sam in the front row,
but she could scarcely hear her own voice when,
tremblingly,
she began her first line.

After that she gathered strength and the poem
"said itself,"
while the dream went on.

She saw Adam Ladd leaning against a tree;
Aunt Jane and Aunt Miranda palpitating
with nervousness;
Clara Belle Simpson gazing cross-eyed but adoring from a seat on the side;
and in the far,
far distance,
on the very outskirts of the crowd,
a tall man standing in a wagon--a tall,
loose-jointed man
with red upturned mustaches,
and a gaunt white horse headed toward the Acreville road.

Loud applause greeted the state of Maine,
the slender little white-clad figure standing on the mossy boulder that had been used as the centre of the platform.

The sun came up from behind a great maple and shone full on the star-spangled banner,
making it more dazzling than ever,
so that its beauty drew all eyes upward.

Abner Simpson lifted his vagrant shifting gaze
to its softy fluttering folds and its splendid massing of colors,
thinking:

"I don't know's anybody'd ought
to steal a flag--the thunderin'
idjuts seem
to set such store by it,
and what is it,
anyway?

Nothin;
but a sheet o'
buntin!"
Nothing but a sheet of bunting?

He looked curiously at the rapt faces of the mothers,
their babies asleep in their arms;
the parted lips and shining eyes of the white-clad girls;
at Cap'n Lord,
who had been in Libby prison ,
and Nat Strout,
who had left an arm at Bull Run;
at the friendly,
jostling crowd of farmers,
happy,
eager,
absorbed,
their throats ready
to burst
with cheers.

Then the breeze served,
and he heard Rebecca's clear voice saying:

"For it's your star,
my star,
all the stars together,
That make our country's flag so proud
to float in the bright fall weather!"
"Talk about stars! She's got a couple of em right in her head,"
thought Simpson.

.

.

.

"If I ever seen a young one like that lyin;
on anybody's doorstep I'd hook her quicker'n a wink,
though I've got plenty
to home,
the Lord knows! And I wouldn't swap her off neither.

.

.

.

Spunky little creeter,
too;
settin;
up in the wagon lookin'
bout's big as a pint o'
cider,
but keepin'
right after the goods! .

.

.

I vow I'm bout sick o'
my job! Never
with the crowd,
allers JEST on the outside,
s if I wa'n't as good's they be! If it paid well,
mebbe I wouldn't mind,
but they're so thunderin'
stingy round here,
they don't leave anything decent out
for you
to take from em,
yet you're reskin'
your liberty n'
reputation jest the same! .

.

.

Countin'
the poor pickin's n'
the time I lose in jail I might most's well be done
with it n'
work out by the day,
as the folks want me to;
I'd make bout's much n'
I don't know's it would be any harder!"
He could see Rebecca stepping down from the platform,
while his own red-headed little girl stood up on her bench,
waving her hat
with one hand,
her handkerchief
with the other,
and stamping
with both feet.

Now a man sitting beside the mayor rose from his chair and Abner heard him call:

"Three cheers
for the women who made the flag!"
"HIP,
HIP,
HURRAH!"
"Three cheers
for the State of Maine!"
"HIP,
HIP,
HURRAH!"
"Three cheers
for the girl that saved the flag from the hands of the enemy!"
"HIP,
HIP,
HURRAH! HIP,
HIP,
HURRAH!"
It was the Edgewood minister,
whose full,
vibrant voice was of the sort
to move a crowd.

His words rang out into the clear air and were carried from lip
to lip.

Hands clapped,
feet stamped,
hats swung,
while the loud huzzahs might almost have wakened the echoes on old Mount Ossipee.

The tall,
loose-jointed man sat down in the wagon suddenly and took up the reins.

"They're gettin'
a little mite personal,
and I guess it's bout time
for you
to be goin',
Simpson!"
The tone was jocular,
but the red mustaches drooped,
and the half-hearted cut he gave
to start the white mare on her homeward journey showed that he was not in his usual devil-may-care mood.

"Durn his skin!"
he burst out in a vindictive undertone,
as the mare swung into her long gait.

"It's a lie! I thought twas somebody's wash! I hain't an enemy!"
While the crowd at the raising dispersed in happy family groups
to their picnics in the woods;
while the Goddess of Liberty,
Uncle Sam,
Columbia,
and the proud States lunched grandly in the Grange hall
with distinguished guests and scarred veterans of two wars,
the lonely man drove,
and drove,
and drove through silent woods and dull,
sleepy villages,
never alighting
to replenish his wardrobe or his stock of swapping material.

At dusk he reached a miserable tumble-down house on the edge of a pond.

The faithful wife
with the sad mouth and the habitual look of anxiety in her faded eyes came
to the door at the sound of wheels and went doggedly
to the horse-shed
to help him unharness.

"You didn't expect
to see me back tonight,
did ye?"
he asked satirically;
"leastwise not
with this same horse?

Well,
I'm here! You needn't be scairt
to look under the wagon seat,
there hain't nothin'
there,
not even my supper,
so I hope you're suited
for once! No,
I guess I hain't goin'
to be an angel right away,
neither.

There wa'n't nothin'
but flags layin'
roun'
loose down Riverboro way,
n'
whatever they say,
I hain't sech a hound as
to steal a flag!"
It was natural that young Riverboro should have red,
white,
and blue dreams on the night after the new flag was raised.

A stranger thing,
perhaps,
is the fact that Abner Simpson should lie down on his hard bed
with the flutter of bunting before his eyes,
and a whirl of unaccustomed words in his mind.

"For it's your star,
my star,
all our stars together."

"I'm sick of goin'
it alone,"
he thought;
"I guess I'll try the other road
for a spell;"
and
with that he fell asleep.

Seventh Chronicle THE LITTLE PROPHET I
"I guess York County will never get red of that Simpson crew!"
exclaimed Miranda Sawyer
to Jane.

"I thought when the family moved
to Acreville we'd seen the last of em,
but we ain't! The big,
cross-eyed,
stutterin'
boy has got a place at the mills in Maplewood;
that's near enough
to come over
to Riverboro once in a while of a Sunday mornin'
and set in the meetin'
house starin'
at Rebecca same as he used
to do,
only it's reskier now both of em are older.

Then Mrs. Fogg must go and bring back the biggest girl
to help her take care of her baby,--as if there wa'n't plenty of help nearer home! Now I hear say that the youngest twin has come
to stop the summer
with the Cames up
to Edgewood Lower Corner."

"I thought two twins were always the same age,"
said Rebecca,
reflectively,
as she came into the kitchen
with the milk pail.

"So they be,"
snapped Miranda,
flushing and correcting herself.

"But that pasty-faced Simpson twin looks younger and is smaller than the other one.

He's meek as Moses and the other one is as bold as a brass kettle;
I don't see how they come
to be twins;
they ain't a mite alike."

"Elijah was always called the fighting twin'
at school,"
said Rebecca,
"and Elisha's other name was Nimbi-Pamby;
but I think he's a nice little boy,
and I'm glad he has come back.

He won't like living
with Mr. Came,
but he'll be almost next door
to the minister's,
and Mrs. Baxter is sure
to let him play in her garden."

"I wonder why the boy's stayin'
with Cassius Came,"
said Jane.

"To be sure they haven't got any of their own,
but the child's too young
to be much use."

"I know why,"
remarked Rebecca promptly,
"for I heard all about it over
to Watson's when I was getting the milk.

Mr. Came traded something
with Mr. Simpson two years ago and got the best of the bargain,
and Uncle Jerry says he's the only man that ever did,
and he ought
to have a monument put up
to him.

So Mr. Came owes Mr. Simpson money and won't pay it,
and Mr. Simpson said he'd send over a child and board part of it out,
and take the rest in stock--a pig or a calf or something."

"That's all stuff and nonsense,"
exclaimed Miranda;
"nothin'
in the world but store-talk.

You git a clump o'
men-folks settin'
round Watson's stove,
or out on the bench at the door,
an'
they'll make up stories as fast as their tongues can wag.

The man don't live that's smart enough
to cheat Abner Simpson in a trade,
and who ever heard of anybody's owin'
him money?

Tain't supposable that a woman like Mrs. Came would allow her husband
to be in debt
to a man like Abner Simpson.

It's a sight likelier that she heard that Mrs. Simpson was ailin'
and sent
for the boy so as
to help the family along.

She always had Mrs. Simpson
to wash
for her once a month,
if you remember Jane?"
There are some facts so shrouded in obscurity that the most skillful and patient investigator cannot drag them into the light of day.

There are also
(but only occasionally)
certain motives,
acts,
speeches,
lines of conduct,
that can never be wholly and satisfactorily explained,
even in a village post-office or on the loafers'
bench outside the tavern door.

Cassius Came was a close man,
close of mouth and close of purse;
and all that Riverboro ever knew as
to the three months'
visit of the Simpson twin was that it actually occurred.

Elisha,
otherwise Nimbi-Pamby,
came;
Nimbi-Pamby stayed;
and Nimbi-Pamby,
when he finally rejoined his own domestic circle,
did not go empty-handed
(so
to speak),
for he was accompanied on his homeward travels by a large,
red,
bony,
somewhat truculent cow,
who was tied on behind the wagon,
and who made the journey a lively and eventful one by her total lack of desire
to proceed over the road from Edgewood
to Acreville.

But that,
the cow's tale,
belongs
to another time and place,
and the coward's tale must come first;
for Elisha Simpson was held
to be sadly lacking in the manly quality of courage.

It was the new minister's wife who called Nimbi-Pamby the Little Prophet.

His full name was Elisha Jeremiah Simpson,
but one seldom heard it at full length,
since,
if he escaped the ignominy of Nimbi-Pamby,
Lishe was quite enough
for an urchin just in his first trousers and those assumed somewhat prematurely.

He was
"
Lishe,"
therefore,
to the village,
but the Little Prophet
to the young minister's wife.

Rebecca could see the Cames'
brown farmhouse from Mrs. Baxter's sitting-room window.

The little-traveled road
with strips of tufted green between the wheel tracks curled dustily up
to the very doorstep,
and inside the screen door of pink mosquito netting was a wonderful drawn-in rug,
shaped like a half pie,
with
"Welcome"
in saffron letters on a green ground.

Rebecca liked Mrs. Cassius Came,
who was a friend of her Aunt Miranda's and one of the few persons who exchanged calls
with that somewhat unsociable lady.

The Came farm was not a long walk from the brick house,
for Rebecca could go across the fields when haying-time was over,
and her delight at being sent on an errand in that direction could not be measured,
now that the new minister and his wife had grown
to be such a resource in her life.

She liked
to see Mrs. Came shake the Welcome rug,
flinging the cheery word out into the summer sunshine like a bright greeting
to the day.

She liked
to see her go
to the screen door a dozen times in a morning,
open it a crack and chase an imaginary fly from the sacred precincts within.

She liked
to see her come up the cellar steps into the side garden,
appearing mysteriously as from the bowels of the earth,
carrying a shining pan of milk in both hands,
and disappearing through the beds of hollyhocks and sunflowers
to the pig-pen or the hen-house.

Rebecca was not fond of Mr. Came,
and neither was Mrs. Baxter,
nor Elisha,
for that matter;
in fact Mr. Came was rather a difficult person
to grow fond of,
with his fiery red beard,
his freckled skin,
and his gruff way of speaking;
for there were no children in the brown house
to smooth the creases from his forehead or the roughness from his voice.

II The new minister's wife was sitting under the shade of her great maple early one morning,
when she first saw the Little Prophet.

A tiny figure came down the grass-grown road leading a cow by a rope.

If it had been a small boy and a small cow,
a middle-sized boy and an ordinary cow,
or a grown man and a big cow,
she might not have noticed them;
but it was the combination of an infinitesimal boy and a huge cow that attracted her attention.

She could not guess the child's years,
she only knew that he was small
for his age,
whatever it was.

The cow was a dark red beast
with a crumpled horn,
a white star on her forehead,
and a large surprised sort of eye.

She had,
of course,
two eyes,
and both were surprised,
but the left one had an added hint of amazement in it by virtue of a few white hairs lurking accidentally in the centre of the eyebrow.

The boy had a thin sensitive face and curtly brown hair,
short trousers patched on both knees,
and a ragged straw hat on the back of his head.

He pattered along behind the cow,
sometimes holding the rope
with both hands,
and getting over the ground in a jerky way,
as the animal left him no time
to think of a smooth path
for bare feet.

The Came pasture was a good half-mile distant,
and the cow seemed in no hurry
to reach it;
accordingly she forsook the road now and then,
and rambled in the hollows,
where the grass was sweeter
to her way of thinking.

She started on one of these exploring expeditions just as she passed the minister's great maple,
and gave Mrs. Baxter time
to call out
to the little fellow,
"Is that your cow?"
Elisha blushed and smiled,
and tried
to speak modestly,
but there was a quiver of pride in his voice as he answered suggestively:

"It's--nearly my cow."

"How is that?"
asked Mrs. Baxter.

"Why,
Mr. Came says when I drive her twenty-nine more times
to pasture thout her gettin'
her foot over the rope or thout my bein'
afraid,
she's goin'
to be my truly cow.

Are you fraid of cows?"
"Ye-e-es,"
Mrs. Baxter confessed,
"I am,
just a little.

You see,
I am nothing but a woman,
and boys can't understand how we feel about cows."

"I can! They're awful big things,
aren't they?"
"Perfectly enormous! I've always thought a cow coming towards you one of the biggest things in the world."

"Yes;
me,
too.

Don't let's think about it.

Do they hook people so very often?"
"No indeed,
in fact one scarcely ever hears of such a case."

"If they stepped on your bare foot they'd scrunch it,
wouldn't they?"
"Yes,
but you are the driver;
you mustn't let them do that;
you are a free-will boy,
and they are nothing but cows."

"I know;
but p'raps there is free-will cows,
and if they just WOULD do it you couldn't help being scrunched,
for you mustn't let go of the rope nor run,
Mr. Came says.

"No,
of course that would never do."

"Where you used
to live did all the cows go down into the boggy places when you drove em
to pasture,
or did some walk in the road?"
"There weren't any cows or any pastures where I used
to live;
that's what makes me so foolish;
why does your cow need a rope?"
"She don't like
to go
to pasture,
Mr. Came says.

Sometimes she'd druther stay
to home,
and so when she gets part way she turns round and comes backwards."

"Dear me!"
thought Mrs. Baxter,
"what becomes of this boy-mite if the cow has a spell of going backwards?--Do you like
to drive her?"
she asked.

"N-no,
not erzackly;
but you see,
it'll be my cow if I drive her twenty-nine more times thout her gettin'
her foot over the rope and thout my bein'
afraid,"
and a beaming smile gave a transient brightness
to his harassed little face.

"Will she feed in the ditch much longer?"
he asked.

"Shall I say Hurrap'?

That's what Mr. Came says-- HURRAP!'
like that,
and it means
to hurry up."

It was rather a feeble warning that he sounded and the cow fed on peacefully.

The little fellow looked up at the minister's wife confidingly,
and then glanced back at the farm
to see if Cassius Came were watching the progress of events.

"What shall we do next?"
he asked.

Mrs. Baxter delighted in that warm,
cosy little
'WE;'
it took her into the firm so pleasantly.

She was a weak prop indeed when it came
to cows,
but all the courage in her soul rose
to arms when Elisha said,
"What shall WE do next?"
She became alert,
ingenious,
strong,
on the instant.

"What is the cow's name?"
she asked,
sitting up straight in the swing-chair.

"Buttercup;
but she don't seem
to know it very well.

She ain't a mite like a buttercup."

"Never mind;
you must shout
'Buttercup!'
at the top of your voice,
and twitch the rope HARD;
then I'll call,
'Hurrap!'
with all my might at the same moment.

And if she starts quickly we mustn't run nor seem frightened!"
They did this;
it worked
to a charm,
and Mrs. Baxter looked affectionately after her Little Prophet as the cow pulled him down Tory Hill.

The lovely August days wore on.

Rebecca was often at the parsonage and saw Elisha frequently,
but Buttercup was seldom present at their interviews,
as the boy now drove her
to the pasture very early in the morning,
the journey thither being one of considerable length and her method of reaching the goal being exceedingly roundabout.

Mr. Came had pointed out the necessity of getting her into the pasture at least a few minutes before she had
to be taken out again at night,
and though Rebecca didn't like Mr. Came,
she saw the common sense of this remark.

Sometimes Mrs. Baxter and Rebecca caught a glimpse of the two at sundown,
as they returned from the pasture
to the twilight milking,
Buttercup chewing her peaceful cud,
her soft white bag of milk hanging full,
her surprised eye rolling in its accustomed
"fine frenzy."

The frenzied roll did not mean anything,
they used
to assure Elisha;
but if it didn't,
it was an awful pity she had
to do it,
Rebecca thought;
and Mrs. Baxter agreed.

To have an expression of eye that meant murder,
and yet
to be a perfectly virtuous and well-meaning animal,
this was a calamity indeed.

Mrs. Baxter was looking at the sun one evening as it dropped like a ball of red fire into Wilkins's woods,
when the Little Prophet passed.

"It's the twenty-ninth night,"
he called joyously.

"I am so glad,"
she answered,
for she had often feared some accident might prevent his claiming the promised reward.

"Then tomorrow Buttercup will be your own cow?"
"I guess so.

That's what Mr. Came said.

He's off
to Acreville now,
but he'll be home tonight,
and father's going
to send my new hat by him.

When Buttercup's my own cow I wish I could change her name and call her Red Rover,
but p'r'aps her mother wouldn't like it.

When she b'longs
to me,
mebbe I won't be so fraid of gettin'
hooked and scrunched,
because she'll know she's mine,
and she'll go better.

I haven't let her get snarled up in the rope one single time,
and I don't show I'm afraid,
do I?"
"I should never suspect it
for an instant,"
said Mrs. Baxter encouragingly.

"I've often envied you your bold,
brave look!"
Elisha appeared distinctly pleased.

"I haven't cried,
either,
when she's dragged me over the pasture bars and peeled my legs.

Bill Petes's little brother Charlie says he ain't afraid of anything,
not even bears.

He says he would walk right up close and cuff em if they dared
to yip;
but I ain't like that! He ain't scared of elephants or tigers or lions either;
he says they're all the same as frogs or chickens
to him!"
Rebecca told her Aunt Miranda that evening that it was the Prophet's twenty-ninth night,
and that the big red cow was
to be his on the morrow.

"Well,
I hope it'll turn out that way,"
she said.

"But I ain't a mite sure that Cassius Came will give up that cow when it comes
to the point.

It won't be the first time he's tried
to crawl out of a bargain
with folks a good deal bigger than Lisha,
for he's terrible close,
Cassius is.

To be sure he's stiff in his joints and he's glad enough
to have a boy
to take the cow
to the pasture in summer time,
but he always has hired help when it comes harvestin'.

So Lisha'll be no use from this on;
and I dare say the cow is Abner Simpson's anyway.

If you want a walk tonight,
I wish you'd go up there and ask Mis'
Came if she'll lend me an'
your Aunt Jane half her yeast-cake.

Tell her we'll pay it back when we get ours a Saturday.

Don't you want
to take Thirza Meserve
with you?

She's alone as usual while Huldy's entertainin'
beaux on the side porch.

Don't stay too long at the parsonage!"
III Rebecca was used
to this sort of errand,
for the whole village of Riverboro would sometimes be rocked
to the very centre of its being by simultaneous desire
for a yeast-cake.

As the nearest repository was a mile and a half distant,
as the yeast-cake was valued at two cents and wouldn't keep,
as the demand was uncertain,
being dependent entirely on a fluctuating desire for
"riz bread,"
the storekeeper refused
to order more than three yeast-cakes a day at his own risk.

Sometimes they remained on his hands a dead loss;
sometimes eight or ten persons would
"hitch up"
and drive from distant farms
for the coveted article,
only
to be met
with the flat,
"No,
I'm all out o'
yeast-cake;
Mis'
Simmons took the last;
mebbe you can borry half o'
hern,
she hain't much of a bread-eater."

So Rebecca climbed the hills
to Mrs. Came's,
knowing that her daily bread depended on the successful issue of the call.

Thirza was barefooted,
and tough as her little feet were,
the long walk over the stubble fields tired her.

When they came within sight of the Came barn,
she coaxed Rebecca
to take a short cut through the turnips growing in long,
beautifully weeded rows.

"You know Mr. Came is awfully cross,
Thirza,
and can't bear anybody
to tread on his crops or touch a tree or a bush that belongs
to him.

I'm kind of afraid,
but come along and mind you step softly in between the rows and hold up your petticoat,
so you can't possibly touch the turnip plants.

I'll do the same.

Skip along fast,
because then we won't leave any deep footprints."

The children passed safely and noiselessly along,
their pleasure a trifle enhanced by the felt dangers of their progress.

Rebecca knew that they were doing no harm,
but that did not prevent her hoping
to escape the gimlet eye of Mr. Came.

As they neared the outer edge of the turnip patch they paused suddenly,
petticoats in air.

A great clump of elderberry bushes hid them from the barn,
but from the other side of the clump came the sound of conversation:

the timid voice of the Little Prophet and the gruff tones of Cassius Came.

Rebecca was afraid
to interrupt,
and too honest
to wish
to overhear.

She could only hope the man and the boy would pass on
to the house as they talked,
so she motioned
to the paralyzed Thirza
to take two more steps and stand
with her behind the elderberry bushes.

But no! In a moment they heard Mr. Came drag a stool over beside the grindstone as he said:

"Well,
now Elisha Jeremiah,
we'll talk about the red cow.

You say you've drove her a month,
do ye?

And the trade between us was that if you could drive her a month,
without her getting the rope over her foot and without bein'
afraid,
you was
to have her.

That's straight,
ain't it?"
The Prophet's face burned
with excitement,
his gingham shirt rose and fell as if he were breathing hard,
but he only nodded assent and said nothing.

"Now,"
continued Mr. Came,
"have you made out
to keep the rope from under her feet?"
"She ain't got t-t-tangled up one s-single time,"
said Elisha,
stuttering in his excitement,
but looking up
with some courage from his bare toes,
with which he was assiduously threading the grass.

"So far,
so good.

Now bout bein'
afraid.

As you seem so certain of gettin'
the cow,
I suppose you hain't been a speck scared,
hev you?

Honor bright,
now!"
"I--I--not but just a little mite.

I"--
"Hold up a minute.

Of course you didn't SAY you was afraid,
and didn't SHOW you was afraid,
and nobody knew you WAS afraid,
but that ain't the way we fixed it up.

You was
to call the cow your'n if you could drive her
to the pasture
for a month without BEIN'
afraid.

Own up square now,
hev you be'n afraid?"
A long pause,
then a faint,
"Yes."

"Where's your manners?"
"I mean yes,
sir."

"How often?

If it hain't be'n too many times mebbe I'll let ye off,
though you're a reg'lar girl-boy,
and'll be runnin'
away from the cat bimeby.

Has it be'n--twice?"
"Yes,"
and the Little Prophet's voice was very faint now,
and had a decided tear in it.

"Yes what?"
"Yes,
sir."

"Has it be'n four times?"
"Y-es,
sir."

More heaving of the gingham shirt.

"Well,
you AIR a thunderin'
coward! How many times?

Speak up now."

More digging of the bare toes in the earth,
and one premonitory tear drop stealing from under the downcast lids,
then,--
"A little,
most every day,
and you can keep the cow,"
wailed the Prophet,
as he turned abruptly and fled behind the shed,
where he flung himself into the green depths of a tansy bed,
and gave himself up
to unmanly sobs.

Cassius Came gave a sort of shamefaced guffaw at the abrupt departure of the boy,
and went on into the house,
while Rebecca and Thirza made a stealthy circuit of the barn and a polite and circumspect entrance through the parsonage front gate.

Rebecca told the minister's wife what she could remember of the interview between Cassius Came and Elisha Simpson,
and tender-hearted Mrs. Baxter longed
to seek and comfort her Little Prophet sobbing in the tansy bed,
the brand of coward on his forehead,
and what was much worse,
the fear in his heart that he deserved it.

Rebecca could hardly be prevented from bearding Mr. Came and openly espousing the cause of Elisha,
for she was an impetuous,
reckless,
valiant creature when a weaker vessel was attacked or threatened unjustly.

Mrs. Baxter acknowledged that Mr. Came had been true,
in a way,
to his word and bargain,
but she confessed that she had never heard of so cruel and hard a bargain since the days of Shylock,
and it was all the worse
for being made
with a child.

Rebecca hurried home,
her visit quite spoiled and her errand quite forgotten till she reached the brick house door,
where she told her aunts,
with her customary picturesqueness of speech,
that she would rather eat buttermilk bread till she died than partake of food mixed
with one of Mr. Came's yeast-cakes;
that it would choke her,
even in the shape of good raised bread.

"That's all very fine,
Rebecky,"
said her Aunt Miranda,
who had a pin-prick
for almost every bubble;
"but don't forget there's two other mouths
to feed in this house,
and you might at least give your aunt and me the privilege of chokin'
if we feel
to want to!"
IV Mrs. Baxter finally heard from Mrs. Came,
through whom all information was sure
to filter if you gave it time,
that her husband despised a coward,
that he considered Elisha a regular mother's-apron-string boy,
and that he was
"learnin'"
him
to be brave.

Bill Peters,
the hired man,
now drove Buttercup
to pasture,
though whenever Mr. Came went
to Moderation or Bonnie Eagle,
as he often did,
Mrs. Baxter noticed that Elisha took the hired man's place.

She often joined him on these anxious expeditions,
and,
a like terror in both their souls,
they attempted
to train the red cow and give her some idea of obedience.

"If she only wouldn't look at us that way we would get along real nicely
with her,
wouldn't we?"
prattled the Prophet,
straggling along by her side;
"and she is a splendid cow;
she gives twenty-one quarts a day,
and Mr. Came says it's more'n half cream."

The minister's wife assented
to all this,
thinking that if Buttercup would give up her habit of turning completely round in the road
to roll her eyes and elevate her white-tipped eyebrow,
she might indeed be an enjoyable companion;
but in her present state of development her society was not agreeable,
even did she give sixty-one quarts of milk a day.

Furthermore,
when Mrs. Baxter discovered that she never did any of these reprehensible things
with Bill Peters,
she began
to believe cows more intelligent creatures than she had supposed them
to be,
and she was indignant
to think Buttercup could count so confidently on the weakness of a small boy and a timid woman.

One evening,
when Buttercup was more than usually exasperating,
Mrs. Baxter said
to the Prophet,
who was bracing himself
to keep from being pulled into a wayside brook where Buttercup loved
to dabble,
"Elisha,
do you know anything about the superiority of mind over matter?"
No,
he didn't,
though it was not a fair time
to ask the question,
for he had sat down in the road
to get a better purchase on the rope.

"Well,
it doesn't signify.

What I mean is that we can die but once,
and it is a glorious thing
to die
for a great principle.

Give me that rope.

I can pull like an ox in my present frame of mind.

You run down on the opposite side of the brook,
take that big stick wade right in--you are barefooted,--brandish the stick,
and,
if necessary,
do more than brandish.

I would go myself,
but it is better she should recognize you as her master,
and I am in as much danger as you are,
anyway.

She may try
to hook you,
of course,
but you must keep waving the stick,--die brandishing,
Prophet,
that's the idea! She may turn and run
for me,
in which case I shall run too;
but I shall die running,
and the minister can bury us under our favorite sweet-apple tree!"
The Prophet's soul was fired by the lovely lady's eloquence.

Their spirits mounted simultaneously,
and they were flushed
with a splendid courage in which death looked a mean and paltry thing compared
with vanquishing that cow.

She had already stepped into the pool,
but the Prophet waded in towards her,
moving the alder branch menacingly.

She looked up
with the familiar roll of the eye that had done her such good service all summer,
but she quailed beneath the stern justice and the new valor of the Prophet's gaze.

In that moment perhaps she felt ashamed of the misery she had caused the helpless mite.

At any rate,
actuated by fear,
surprise,
or remorse,
she turned and walked back into the road without a sign of passion or indignation,
leaving the boy and the lady rather disappointed at their easy victory.

To be prepared
for a violent death and receive not even a scratch made them fear that they might possibly have overestimated the danger.

They were better friends than ever after that,
the young minister's wife and the forlorn little boy from Acreville,
sent away from home he knew not why,
unless it were that there was little
to eat there and considerably more at the Cash Cames',
as they were called in Edgewood.

Cassius was familiarly known as Uncle Cash,
partly because there was a disposition in Edgewood
to abbreviate all Christian names,
and partly because the old man paid cash,
and expected
to be paid cash,
for everything.

The late summer grew into autumn,
and the minister's great maple flung a flaming bough of scarlet over Mrs. Baxter's swing-chair.

Uncle Cash found Elisha very useful at picking up potatoes and apples,
but the boy was going back
to his family as soon as the harvesting was over.

One Friday evening Mrs. Baxter and Rebecca,
wrapped in shawls and
"fascinators,"
were sitting on Mrs. Came's front steps enjoying the sunset.

Rebecca was in a tremulous state of happiness,
for she had come directly from the Seminary at Wareham
to the parsonage,
and as the minister was absent at a church conference,
she was
to stay the night
with Mrs. Baxter and go
with her
to Portland next day.

They were
to go
to the Islands,
have ice cream
for luncheon,
ride on a horse-car,
and walk by the Longfellow house,
a programme that so unsettled Rebecca's never very steady mind that she radiated flashes and sparkles of joy,
making Mrs. Baxter wonder if flesh could be translucent,
enabling the spirit-fires within
to shine through?

Buttercup was being milked on the grassy slope near the shed door.

As she walked
to the barn,
after giving up her pailfuls of yellow milk,
she bent her neck and snatched a hasty bite from a pile of turnips lying temptingly near.

In her haste she took more of a mouthful than would be considered good manners even among cows,
and as she disappeared in the barn door they could see a forest of green tops hanging from her mouth,
while she painfully attempted
to grind up the mass of stolen material without allowing a single turnip
to escape.

It grew dark soon afterward and they went into the house
to see Mrs. Came's new lamp lighted
for the first time,
to examine her last drawn-in rug
(a wonderful achievement produced entirely from dyed flannel petticoats),
and
to hear the doctor's wife play
"Oft in the Still Night,"
on the dulcimer.

As they closed the sitting-room door opening on the piazza facing the barn,
the women heard the cow coughing and said
to one another:

"Buttercup was too greedy,
and now she has indigestion."

Elisha always went
to bed at sundown,
and Uncle Cash had gone
to the doctor's
to have his hand dressed,
for he had hurt it is some way in the threshing-machine.

Bill Peters,
the hired man,
came in presently and asked
for him,
saying that the cow coughed more and more,
and it must be that something was wrong,
but he could not get her
to open her mouth wide enough
for him
to see anything.

"She'd up an'
die ruther
'n obleege anybody,
that tarnal,
ugly cow would!"
he said.

When Uncle Cash had driven into the yard,
he came in
for a lantern,
and went directly out
to the barn.

After a half-hour or so,
in which the little party had forgotten the whole occurrence,
he came in again.

"I'm blamed if we ain't goin'
to lose that cow,"
he said.

"Come out,
will ye,
Hannah,
and hold the lantern?

I can't do anything
with my right hand in a sling,
and Bill is the stupidest critter in the country."

Everybody went out
to the barn accordingly,
except the doctor's wife,
who ran over
to her house
to see if her brother Moses had come home from Milltown,
and could come and take a hand in the exercises.

Buttercup was in a bad way;
there was no doubt of it.

Something,
one of the turnips,
presumably,
had lodged in her throat,
and would move neither way,
despite her attempts
to dislodge it.

Her breathing was labored,
and her eyes bloodshot from straining and choking.

Once or twice they succeeded in getting her mouth partly open,
but before they could fairly discover the cause of trouble she had wrested her head away.

"I can see a little tuft of green sticking straight up in the middle,"
said Uncle Cash,
while Bill Peters and Moses held a lantern on each side of Buttercup's head;
"but,
land! It's so far down,
and such a mite of a thing,
I couldn't git it,
even if I could use my right hand.

S'pose you try,
Bill."

Bill hemmed and hawed,
and confessed he didn't care
to try.

Buttercup's grinders were of good size and excellent quality,
and he had no fancy
for leaving his hand within her jaws.

He said he was no good at that kind of work,
but that he would help Uncle Cash hold the cow's head;
that was just as necessary,
and considerable safer.

Moses was more inclined
to the service of humanity,
and did his best,
wrapping his wrist in a cloth,
and making desperate but ineffectual dabs at the slippery green turnip-tops in the reluctantly opened throat.

But the cow tossed her head and stamped her feet and switched her tail and wriggled from under Bill's hands,
so that it seemed altogether impossible
to reach the seat of the trouble.

Uncle Cash was in despair,
fuming and fretting the more because of his own crippled hand.

"Hitch up,
Bill,:"
he said,
"and,
Hannah,
you drive over
to Milliken's Mills
for the horse-doctor.

I know we can git out that turnip if we can hit on the right tools and somebody
to manage em right;
but we've got
to be quick about it or the critter'll choke
to death,
sure! Your hand's so clumsy,
Mose,
she thinks her time's come when she feels it in her mouth,
and your fingers are so big you can't ketch holt o'
that green stuff thout its slippin'!"
"Mine ain't big;
let me try,"
said a timid voice,
and turning round,
they saw little Elisha Simpson,
his trousers pulled on over his night-shirt,
his curly hair ruffled,
his eyes vague
with sleep.

Uncle Cash gave a laugh of good-humored derision.

"You--that's afraid
to drive a cow
to pasture?

No,
sir;
you hain't got sand enough
for this job,
I guess!"
Buttercup just then gave a worse cough than ever,
and her eyes rolled in her head as if she were giving up the ghost.

"I'd rather do it than see her choke
to death!"
cried the boy,
in despair.

"Then,
by ginger,
you can try it,
sonny!"
said Uncle Cash.

"Now this time we'll tie her head up.

Take it slow,
and make a good job of it."

Accordingly they pried poor Buttercup's jaws open
to put a wooden gag between them,
tied her head up,
and kept her as still as they could while the women held the lanterns.

"Now,
sonny,
strip up your sleeve and reach as fur down's you can! Wind your little fingers in among that green stuff stickin'
up there that ain't hardly big enough
to call green stuff,
give it a twist,
and pull
for all you're worth.

Land! What a skinny little pipe stem!"
The Little Prophet had stripped up his sleeve.

It was a slender thing,
his arm;
but he had driven the red cow all summer,
borne her tantrums,
protected her from the consequences of her own obstinacy,
taking
(as he thought)
a future owner's pride in her splendid flow of milk--grown fond of her,
in a word,
and now she was choking
to death.

A skinny little pipe stem is capable of a deal at such a time,
and only a slender hand and arm could have done the work.

Elisha trembled
with nervousness,
but he made a dexterous and dashing entrance into the awful cavern of Buttercup's mouth;
descended upon the tiny clump of green spills or spikes,
wound his little fingers in among them as firmly as he could,
and then gave a long,
steady,
determined pull
with all the strength in this body.

That was not so much in itself,
to be sure,
but he borrowed a good deal more from some reserve quarter,
the location of which nobody knows anything about,
but upon which everybody draws in time of need.

Such a valiant pull you would never have expected of the Little Prophet.

Such a pull it was that,
to his own utter amazement,
he suddenly found himself lying flat on his back on the barn floor
with a very slippery something in his hand,
and a fair-sized but rather dilapidated turnip at the end of it.

"That's the business!"
cried Moses.

"I could
'a'
done it as easy as nothin'
if my arm had been a leetle mite smaller,"
said Bill Peters.

"You're a trump,
sonny!"
exclaimed Uncle Cash,
as he helped Moses untie Buttercup's head and took the gag out.

"You're a trump,
Lisha,
and,
by ginger,
the cow's your'n;
only don't you let your blessed pa drink none of her cream!"
The welcome air rushed into Buttercup's lungs and cooled her parched,
torn throat.

She was pretty nearly spent,
poor thing,
and bent her head
(rather gently
for her)
over the Little Prophet's shoulder as he threw his arms joyfully about her neck,
and whispered,
"You're my truly cow now,
ain't you,
Buttercup?"
"Mrs. Baxter,
dear,"
said Rebecca,
as they walked home
to the parsonage together under the young harvest moon;
"there are all sorts of cowards,
aren't there,
and don't you think Elisha is one of the best kind."

"I don't quite know what
to think about cowards,
Rebecca Rowena,"
said the minister's wife hesitatingly.

"The Little Prophet is the third coward I have known in my short life who turned out
to be a hero when the real testing time came.

Meanwhile the heroes themselves--or the ones that were taken
for heroes--were always busy doing something,
or being somewhere,
else."

Eighth Chronicle ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF Rebecca had now cut the bonds that bound her
to the Riverboro district school,
and had been
for a week a full-fledged pupil at the Wareham Seminary,
towards which goal she had been speeding ever since the memorable day when she rode into Riverboro on the top of Uncle Jerry Cobb's stagecoach,
and told him that education was intended
to be
"the making of her."

She went
to and fro,
with Emma Jane and the other Riverboro boys and girls,
on the morning and evening trains that ran between the academy town and Milliken's Mills.

The six days had passed like a dream!--a dream in which she sat in corners
with her eyes cast down;
flushed whenever she was addressed;
stammered whenever she answered a question,
and nearly died of heart failure when subjected
to an examination of any sort.

She delighted the committee when reading at sight from
"King Lear,"
but somewhat discouraged them when she could not tell the capital of the United States.

She admitted that her former teacher,
Miss Dearborn,
might have mentioned it,
but if so she had not remembered it.

In these first weeks among strangers she passed
for nothing but an interesting-looking,
timid,
innocent,
country child,
never revealing,
even
to the far-seeing Emily Maxwell,
a hint of her originality,
facility,
or power in any direction.

Rebecca was fourteen,
but so slight,
and under the paralyzing new conditions so shy,
that she would have been mistaken
for twelve had it not been
for her general advancement in the school curriculum.

Growing up in the solitude of a remote farm house,
transplanted
to a tiny village where she lived
with two elderly spinsters,
she was still the veriest child in all but the practical duties and responsibilities of life;
in those she had long been a woman.

It was Saturday afternoon;
her lessons
for Monday were all learned and she burst into the brick house sitting-room
with the flushed face and embarrassed mien that always foreshadowed a request.

Requests were more commonly answered in the negative than in the affirmative at the brick house,
a fact that accounted
for the slight confusion in her demeanor.

"Aunt Miranda,"
she began,
"the fishman says that Clara Belle Simpson wants
to see me very much,
but Mrs. Fogg can't spare her long at a time,
you know,
on account of the baby being no better;
but Clara Belle could walk a mile up,
and I a mile down the road,
and we could meet at the pink house half way.

Then we could rest and talk an hour or so,
and both be back in time
for our suppers.

I've fed the cat;
she had no appetite,
as it's only two o'clock and she had her dinner at noon,
but she'll go back
to her saucer,
and it's off my mind.

I could go down cellar now and bring up the cookies and the pie and doughnuts
for supper before I start.

Aunt Jane saw no objection;
but we thought I'd better ask you so as
to run no risks."

Miranda Sawyer,
who had been patiently waiting
for the end of this speech,
laid down her knitting and raised her eyes
with a half-resigned expression that meant:

Is there anything unusual in heaven or earth or the waters under the earth that this child does not want
to do?

Will she ever settle down
to plain,
comprehensible Sawyer ways,
or will she
to the end make these sudden and radical propositions,
suggesting at every turn the irresponsible Randall ancestry?

"You know well enough,
Rebecca,
that I don't like you
to be intimate
with Abner Simpson's young ones,"
she said decisively.

"They ain't fit company
for anybody that's got Sawyer blood in their veins,
if it's ever so little.

I don't know,
I'm sure,
how you're goin'
to turn out! The fish peddler seems
to be your best friend,
without it's Abijah Flagg that you're everlastingly talkin'
to lately.

I should think you'd rather read some improvin'
book than
to be chatterin'
with Squire Bean's chore-boy!"
"He isn't always going
to be a chore-boy,"
explained Rebecca,
"and that's what we're considering.

It's his career we talk about,
and he hasn't got any father or mother
to advise him.

Besides,
Clara Belle kind of belongs
to the village now that she lives
with Mrs. Fogg;
and she was always the best behaved of all the girls,
either in school or Sunday-school.

Children can't help having fathers!"
"Everybody says Abner is turning over a new leaf,
and if so,
the family'd ought
to be encouraged every possible way,"
said Miss Jane,
entering the room
with her mending basket in hand.

"If Abner Simpson is turnin'
over a leaf,
or anythin'
else in creation,
it's only
to see what's on the under side!"
remarked Miss Miranda promptly.

"Don't talk
to me about new leaves! You can't change that kind of a man;
he is what he is,
and you can't make him no different!"
"The grace of God can do consid'rable,"
observed Jane piously.

"I ain't sayin'
but it can if it sets out,
but it has
to begin early and stay late on a man like Simpson."

"Now,
Mirandy,
Abner ain't more'n forty! I don't know what the average age
for repentance is in men-folks,
but when you think of what an awful sight of em leaves it
to their deathbeds,
forty seems real kind of young.

Not that I've heard Abner has experienced religion,
but everybody's surprised at the good way he's conductin'
this fall."

"They'll be surprised the other way round when they come
to miss their firewood and apples and potatoes again,"
affirmed Miranda.

"Clara Belle don't seem
to have inherited from her father,"
Jane ventured again timidly.

"No wonder Mrs. Fogg sets such store by the girl.

If it hadn't been
for her,
the baby would have been dead by now."

"Perhaps tryin'
to save it was interferin'
with the Lord's will,"
was Miranda's retort.

"Folks can't stop
to figure out just what's the Lord's will when a child has upset a kettle of scalding water on
to himself,"
and as she spoke Jane darned more excitedly.

"Mrs. Fogg knows well enough she hadn't ought
to have left that baby alone in the kitchen
with the stove,
even if she did see Clara Belle comin'
across lots.

She'd ought
to have waited before drivin'
off;
but of course she was afraid of missing the train,
and she's too good a woman
to be held accountable."

"The minister's wife says Clara Belle is a real--I can't think of the word!"
chimed in Rebecca.

"What's the female of hero?

Whatever it is,
that's what Mrs. Baxter called her!"
"Clara Belle's the female of Simpson;
that's what she is,"
Miss Miranda asserted;
"but she's been brought up
to use her wits,
and I ain't sayin'
but she used em."

"I should say she did!"
exclaimed Miss Jane;
"to put that screaming,
suffering child in the baby-carriage and run all the way
to the doctor's when there wasn't a soul on hand
to advise her! Two or three more such actions would make the Simpson name sound consid'rable sweeter in this neighborhood."

"Simpson will always sound like Simpson
to me!"
vouchsafed the elder sister,
"but we've talked enough about em an'
to spare.

You can go along,
Rebecca;
but remember that a child is known by the company she keeps."

"All right,
Aunt Miranda;
thank you!"
cried Rebecca,
leaping from the chair on which she had been twisting nervously
for five minutes.

"And how does this strike you?

Would you be in favor of my taking Clara Belle a company-tart?"
"Don't Mrs. Fogg feed the young one,
now she's taken her right into the family?"
"Oh,
yes,"
Rebecca answered,
"she has lovely things
to eat,
and Mrs. Fogg won't even let her drink skim milk;
but I always feel that taking a present lets the person know you've been thinking about them and are extra glad
to see them.

Besides,
unless we have company soon,
those tarts will have
to be eaten by the family,
and a new batch made;
you remember the one I had when I was rewarding myself last week?

That was queer--but nice,"
she added hastily.

"Mebbe you could think of something of your own you could give away without taking my tarts!"
responded Miranda tersely;
the joints of her armor having been pierced by the fatally keen tongue of her niece,
who had insinuated that company-tarts lasted a long time in the brick house.

This was a fact;
indeed,
the company-tart was so named,
not from any idea that it would ever be eaten by guests,
but because it was too good
for every-day use.

Rebecca's face crimsoned
with shame that she had drifted into an impolite and,
what was worse,
an apparently ungrateful speech.

"I didn't mean
to say anything not nice,
Aunt Miranda,"
she stammered.

"Truly the tart was splendid,
but not exactly like new,
that's all.

And oh! I know what I can take Clara Belle! A few chocolate drops out of the box Mr. Ladd gave me on my birthday."

"You go down cellar and get that tart,
same as I told you,"
commanded Miranda,
"and when you fill it don't uncover a new tumbler of jelly;
there's some dried-apple preserves open that'll do.

Wear your rubbers and your thick jacket.

After runnin'
all the way down there--for your legs never seem
to be rigged
for walkin'
like other girls'--you'll set down on some damp stone or other and ketch your death o'
cold,
an'
your Aunt Jane n'
I'll be kep'
up nights nursin'
you and luggin'
your meals upstairs
to you on a waiter."

Here Miranda leaned her head against the back of her rocking chair,
dropped her knitting and closed her eyes wearily,
for when the immovable body is opposed by the irresistible force there is a certain amount of jar and disturbance involved in the operation.

Rebecca moved toward the side door,
shooting a questioning glance at Aunt Jane as she passed.

The look was full of mysterious suggestion and was accompanied by an almost imperceptible gesture.

Miss Jane knew that certain articles were kept in the entry closet,
and by this time she had become sufficiently expert in telegraphy
to know that Rebecca's unspoken query meant:

"COULD YOU PERMIT THE HAT
with THE RED WINGS,
IT BEING SATURDAY,
FINE SETTLED WEATHER,
AND A PLEASURE EXCURSION?"
These confidential requests,
though fraught
with embarrassment when Miranda was in the room,
gave Jane much secret joy;
there was something about them that stirred her spinster heart--they were so gay,
so appealing,
so un-Sawyer-,
un-Riverboro-like.

The longer Rebecca lived in the brick house the more her Aunt Jane marveled at the child.

What made her so different from everybody else.

Could it be that her graceless popinjay of a father,
Lorenzo de Medici Randall,
had bequeathed her some strange combination of gifts instead of fortune?

Her eyes,
her brows,
the color of her lips,
the shape of her face,
as well as her ways and words,
proclaimed her a changeling in the Sawyer tribe;
but what an enchanting changeling;
bringing wit and nonsense and color and delight into the gray monotony of the dragging years! There was frost in the air,
but a bright cheery sun,
as Rebecca walked decorously out of the brick house yard.

Emma Jane Perkins was away over Sunday on a visit
to a cousin in Moderation;
Alice Robinson and Candace Milliken were having measles,
and Riverboro was very quiet.

Still,
life was seldom anything but a gay adventure
to Rebecca,
and she started afresh every morning
to its conquest.

She was not exacting;
the Asmodean feat of spinning a sand heap into twine was,
poetically speaking,
always in her power,
so the mile walk
to the pink-house gate,
and the tryst
with freckled,
red-haired Clara Belle Simpson,
whose face Miss Miranda said looked like a raw pie in a brick oven,
these commonplace incidents were sufficiently exhilarating
to brighten her eye and quicken her step.

As the great bare horse-chestnut near the pink-house gate loomed into view,
the red linsey-woolsey speck going down the road spied the blue linsey-woolsey speck coming up,
and both specks flew over the intervening distance and,
meeting,
embraced each other ardently,
somewhat
to the injury of the company-tart.

"Didn't it come out splendidly?"
exclaimed Rebecca.

"I was so afraid the fishman wouldn't tell you
to start exactly at two,
or that one of us would walk faster than the other;
but we met at the very spot! It was a very uncommon idea,
wasn't it?

Almost romantic!"
"And what do you think?"
asked Clara Belle proudly.

"Look at this! Mrs. Fogg lent me her watch
to come home by!"
"Oh,
Clara Belle,
how wonderful! Mrs. Fogg gets kinder and kinder
to you,
doesn't she?

You're not homesick any more,
are you?"
"No-o;
not really;
only when I remember there's only little Susan
to manage the twins;
though they're getting on real well without me.

But I kind of think,
Rebecca,
that I'm going
to be given away
to the Foggs
for good."

"Do you mean adopted?"
"Yes;
I think father's going
to sign papers.

You see we can't tell how many years it'll be before the poor baby outgrows its burns,
and Mrs. Fogg'll never be the same again,
and she must have somebody
to help her."

"You'll be their real daughter,
then,
won't you,
Clara Belle?

And Mr. Fogg is a deacon,
and a selectman,
and a road commissioner,
and everything splendid."

"Yes;
I'll have board,
and clothes,
and school,
and be named Fogg,
and
"(here her voice sank
to an awed whisper)
"the upper farm if I should ever get married;
Miss Dearborn told me that herself,
when she was persuading me not
to mind being given away."

"Clara Belle Simpson!"
exclaimed Rebecca in a transport.

"Who'd have thought you'd be a female hero and an heiress besides?

It's just like a book story,
and it happened in Riverboro.

I'll make Uncle Jerry Cobb allow there CAN be Riverboro stories,
you see if I don't."

"Of course I know it's all right,"
Clara Belle replied soberly.

"I'll have a good home and father can't keep us all;
but it's kind of dreadful
to be given away,
like a piano or a horse and carriage!"
Rebecca's hand went out sympathetically
to Clara Belle's freckled paw.

Suddenly her own face clouded and she whispered:

"I'm not sure,
Clara Belle,
but I'm given away too--do you s'pose I am?

Poor father left us in debt,
you see.

I thought I came away from Sunnybrook
to get an education and then help pay off the mortgage;
but mother doesn't say anything about my coming back,
and our family's one of those too-big ones,
you know,
just like yours."

"Did your mother sign papers
to your aunts?'
"If she did I never heard anything about it;
but there's something pinned on
to the mortgage that mother keeps in the drawer of the bookcase."

"You'd know it if twas adoption papers;
I guess you're just lent,"
Clara Belle said cheeringly.

"I don't believe anybody'd ever give YOU away! And,
oh! Rebecca,
father's getting on so well! He works on Daly's farm where they raise lots of horses and cattle,
too,
and he breaks all the young colts and trains them,
and swaps off the poor ones,
and drives all over the country.

Daly told Mr. Fogg he was splendid
with stock,
and father says it's just like play.

He's sent home money three Saturday nights."

"I'm so glad!"
exclaimed Rebecca sympathetically.

"Now your mother'll have a good time and a black silk dress,
won't she?"
"I don't know,"
sighed Clara Belle,
and her voice was grave.

"Ever since I can remember she's just washed and cried and cried and washed.

Miss Dearborn has been spending her vacation up
to Acreville,
you know,
and she came yesterday
to board next door
to Mrs. Fogg's.

I heard them talking last night when I was getting the baby
to sleep--I couldn't help it,
they were so close-- and Miss Dearborn said mother doesn't like Acreville;
she says nobody takes any notice of her,
and they don't give her any more work.

Mrs. Fogg said,
well,
they were dreadful stiff and particular up that way and they liked women
to have wedding rings."

"Hasn't your mother got a wedding ring?"
asked Rebecca,
astonished.

"Why,
I thought everybody HAD
to have them,
just as they do sofas and a kitchen stove!"
"I never noticed she didn't have one,
but when they spoke I remembered mother's hands washing and wringing,
and she doesn't wear one,
I know.

She hasn't got any jewelry,
not even a breast-pin."

"Rebecca's tone was somewhat censorious,
"your father's been so poor perhaps he couldn't afford breast-pins,
but I should have thought he'd have given your mother a wedding ring when they were married;
that's the time
to do it,
right at the very first."

"They didn't have any real church dress-up wedding,"
explained Clara Belle extenuatingly.

"You see the first mother,
mine,
had the big boys and me,
and then she died when we were little.

Then after a while this mother came
to housekeep,
and she stayed,
and by and by she was Mrs. Simpson,
and Susan and the twins and the baby are hers,
and she and father didn't have time
for a regular wedding in church.

They don't have veils and bridesmaids and refreshments round here like Miss Dearborn's sister did."

"Do they cost a great deal--wedding rings?"
asked Rebecca thoughtfully.

"They're solid gold,
so I s'pose they do.

If they were cheap we might buy one.

I've got seventy-four cents saved up;
how much have you?"
"Fifty-three,"
Clara Belle responded,
in a depressing tone;
"and anyway there are no stores nearer than Milltown.

We'd have
to buy it secretly,
for I wouldn't make father angry,
or shame his pride,
now he's got steady work;
and mother would know I had spent all my savings."

Rebecca looked nonplussed.

"I declare,"
she said,
"I think the Acreville people must be perfectly horrid not
to call on your mother only because she hasn't got any jewelry.

You wouldn't dare tell your father what Miss Dearborn heard,
so he'd save up and buy the ring?"
"No;
I certainly would not!"
and Clara Belle's lips closed tightly and decisively.

Rebecca sat quietly
for a few moments,
then she exclaimed jubilantly:

"I know where we could get it! From Mr. Aladdin,
and then I needn't tell him who it's for! He's coming
to stay over tomorrow
with his aunt,
and I'll ask him
to buy a ring
for us in Boston.

I won't explain anything,
you know;
I'll just say I need a wedding ring."

"That would be perfectly lovely,"
replied Clara Belle,
a look of hope dawning in her eyes;
"and we can think afterwards how
to get it over
to mother.

Perhaps you could send it
to father instead,
but I wouldn't dare
to do it myself.

You won't tell anybody,
Rebecca?"
"Cross my heart!"
Rebecca exclaimed dramatically;
and then
with a reproachful look,
"you know I couldn't repeat a sacred secret like that! Shall we meet next Saturday afternoon,
and I tell you what's happened?--Why,
Clara Belle,
isn't that Mr. Ladd watering his horse at the foot of the hill this very minute?

It is;
and he's driven up from Milltown stead of coming on the train from Boston
to Edgewood.

He's all alone,
and I can ride home
with him and ask him about the ring right away!"
Clara Belle kissed Rebecca fervently,
and started on her homeward walk,
while Rebecca waited at the top of the long hill,
fluttering her handkerchief as a signal.

"Mr. Aladdin! Mr. Aladdin!"
she cried,
as the horse and wagon came nearer.

Adam Ladd drew up quickly at the sound of the eager young voice.

"Well,
well;
here is Rebecca Rowena fluttering along the highroad like a red-winged blackbird! Are you going
to fly home,
or drive
with me?"
Rebecca clambered into the carriage,
laughing and blushing
with delight at his nonsense and
with joy at seeing him again.

"Clara Belle and I were just talking about you this minute,
and I'm so glad you came this way,
for there's something very important
to ask you about,"
she began,
rather breathlessly.

"No doubt,"
laughed Adam Ladd,
who had become,
in the course of his acquaintance
with Rebecca,
a sort of high court of appeals;
"I hope the premium banquet lamp doesn't smoke as it grows older?"
"Now,
Mr. Aladdin,
you WILL not remember nicely.

Mr. Simpson swapped off the banquet lamp when he was moving the family
to Acreville;
it's not the lamp at all,
but once,
when you were here last time,
you said you'd make up your mind what you were going
to give me
for Christmas."

"Well,"
and
"I do remember that much quite nicely."

"Well,
is it bought?"
"No,
I never buy Christmas presents before Thanksgiving."

"Then,
DEAR Mr. Aladdin,
would you buy me something different,
something that I want
to give away,
and buy it a little sooner than Christmas?"
"That depends.

I don't relish having my Christmas presents given away.

I like
to have them kept forever in little girls'
bureau drawers,
all wrapped in pink tissue paper;
but explain the matter and perhaps I'll change my mind.

What is it you want?"
"I need a wedding ring dreadfully,"
said Rebecca,
"but it's a sacred secret."

Adam Ladd's eyes flashed
with surprise and he smiled
to himself
with pleasure.

Had he on his list of acquaintances,
he asked himself,
a person of any age or sex so altogether irresistible and unique as this child?

Then he turned
to face her
with the merry teasing look that made him so delightful
to young people.

"I thought it was perfectly understood between us,"
he said,
"that if you could ever contrive
to grow up and I were willing
to wait,
that I was
to ride up
to the brick house on my snow white"--
"Coal black,"
corrected Rebecca,
with a sparkling eye and a warning finger.

"Coal black charger;
put a golden circlet on your lily white finger,
draw you up behind me on my pillion"--
"And Emma Jane,
too,"
Rebecca interrupted.

"I think I didn't mention Emma Jane,"
argued Mr. Aladdin.

"Three on a pillion is very uncomfortable.

I think Emma Jane leaps on the back of a prancing chestnut,
and we all go off
to my castle in the forest."

"Emma Jane never leaps,
and she'd be afraid of a prancing chestnut,"
objected Rebecca.

"Then she shall have a gentle cream-colored pony;
but now,
without any explanation,
you ask me
to buy you a wedding ring,
which shows plainly that you are planning
to ride off on a snow white -- I mean coal black--charger
with somebody else."

Rebecca dimpled and laughed
with joy at the nonsense.

In her prosaic world no one but Adam Ladd played the game and answered the fool according
to his folly.

Nobody else talked delicious fairy-story twaddle but Mr. Aladdin.

"The ring isn't
for ME!"
she explained carefully.

"You know very well that Emma Jane nor I can't be married till we're through Quackenbos's Grammar,
Greenleaf's Arithmetic,
and big enough
to wear long trails and run a sewing machine.

The ring is
for a friend."

"Why doesn't the groom give it
to his bride himself?"
"Because he's poor and kind of thoughtless,
and anyway she isn't a bride any more;
she has three step and three other kind of children."

Adam Ladd put the whip back in the socket thoughtfully,
and then stooped
to tuck in the rug over Rebecca's feet and his own.

When he raised his head again he asked:

"Why not tell me a little more,
Rebecca?

I'm safe!"
Rebecca looked at him,
feeling his wisdom and strength,
and above all his sympathy.

Then she said hesitatingly:

"You remember I told you all about the Simpsons that day on your aunt's porch when you bought the soap because I told you how the family were always in trouble and how much they needed a banquet lamp?

Mr. Simpson,
Clara Belle's father,
has always been very poor,
and not always very good,--a little bit THIEVISH,
you know--but oh,
so pleasant and nice
to talk to! And now he's turning over a new leaf.

And everybody in Riverboro liked Mrs. Simpson when she came here a stranger,
because they were sorry
for her and she was so patient,
and such a hard worker,
and so kind
to the children.

But where she lives now,
though they used
to know her when she was a girl,
they're not polite
to her and don't give her scrubbing and washing;
and Clara belle heard our teacher say
to Mrs. Fogg that the Acreville people were stiff,
and despised her because she didn't wear a wedding ring,
like all the rest.

And Clara Belle and I thought if they were so mean as that,
we'd love
to give her one,
and then she'd be happier and have more work;
and perhaps Mr. Simpson if he gets along better will buy her a breast-pin and earrings,
and she'll be fitted out like the others.

I know Mrs. Peter Meserve is looked up
to by everybody in Edgewood on account of her gold bracelets and moss agate necklace."

Adam turned again
to meet the luminous,
innocent eyes that glowed under the delicate brows and long lashes,
feeling as he had more than once felt before,
as if his worldly-wise,
grown-up thoughts had been bathed in some purifying spring.

"How shall you send the ring
to Mrs. Simpson?"
he asked,
with interest.

"We haven't settled yet;
Clara Belle's afraid
to do it,
and thinks I could manage better.

Will the ring cost much?

Because,
of course,
if it does,
I must ask Aunt Jane first.

There are things I have
to ask Aunt Miranda,
and others that belong
to Aunt Jane."

"It costs the merest trifle.

I'll buy one and bring it
to you,
and we'll consult about it;
but I think as you're great friends
with Mr. Simpson you'd better send it
to him in a letter,
letters being your strong point! It's a present a man ought
to give his own wife,
but it's worth trying,
Rebecca.

You and Clara Belle can manage it between you,
and I'll stay in the background where nobody will see me."

Ninth Chronicle THE GREEN ISLE Many a green isle needs must be In the deep sea of misery,
Or the mariner,
worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on Day and night and night and day,
Drifting on his weary way.

Shelley Meantime in these frosty autumn days life was crowded
with events in the lonely Simpson house at Acreville.

The tumble-down dwelling stood on the edge of Pliney's Pond;
so called because old Colonel Richardson left his lands
to be divided in five equal parts,
each share
to be chosen in turn by one of his five sons,
Pliny,
the eldest,
having priority of choice.

Pliny Richardson,
having little taste
for farming,
and being ardently fond of fishing,
rowing,
and swimming,
acted up
to his reputation of being
"a little mite odd,"
and took his whole twenty acres in water--hence Pliny's Pond.

The eldest Simpson boy had been working on a farm in Cumberland County
for two years.

Samuel,
generally dubbed
"see-saw,"
had lately found a humble place in a shingle mill and was partially self-supporting.

Clara Belle had been adopted by the Foggs;
thus there were only three mouths
to fill,
the capacious ones of Elijah and Elisha,
the twin boys,
and of lisping,
nine-year-old Susan,
the capable houseworker and mother's assistant,
for the baby had died during the summer;
died of discouragement at having been born into a family unprovided
with food or money or love or care,
or even
with desire for,
or appreciation of,
babies.

There was no doubt that the erratic father of the house had turned over a new leaf.

Exactly when he began,
or how,
or why,
or how long he would continue the praiseworthy process,--in a word whether there would be more leaves turned as the months went on,--Mrs. Simpson did not know,
and it is doubtful if any authority lower than that of Mr. Simpson's Maker could have decided the matter.

He had stolen articles
for swapping purposes
for a long time,
but had often avoided detection,
and always escaped punishment until the last few years.

Three fines imposed
for small offenses were followed by several arrests and two imprisonments
for brief periods,
and he found himself wholly out of sympathy
with the wages of sin.

Sin itself he did not especially mind,
but the wages thereof were decidedly unpleasant and irksome
to him.

He also minded very much the isolated position in the community which had lately become his;
for he was a social being and would ALMOST rather not steal from a neighbor than have him find it out and cease intercourse! This feeling was working in him and rendering him unaccountably irritable and depressed when he took his daughter over
to Riverboro at the time of the great flag-raising.

There are seasons of refreshment,
as well as seasons of drought,
in the spiritual,
as in the natural world,
and in some way or other dews and rains of grace fell upon Abner Simpson's heart during that brief journey.

Perhaps the giving away of a child that he could not support had made the soil of his heart a little softer and readier
for planting than usual;
but when he stole the new flag off Mrs. Peter Meserve's doorsteps,
under the impression that the cotton-covered bundle contained freshly washed clothes,
he unconsciously set certain forces in operation.

It will be remembered that Rebecca saw an inch of red bunting peeping from the back of his wagon,
and asked the pleasure of a drive
with him.

She was no daughter of the regiment,
but she proposed
to follow the flag.

When she diplomatically requested the return of the sacred object which was
to be the glory of the
"raising"
next day,
and he thus discovered his mistake,
he was furious
with himself
for having slipped into a disagreeable predicament;
and later,
when he unexpectedly faced a detachment of Riverboro society at the cross-roads,
and met not only their wrath and scorn,
but the reproachful,
disappointed glance of Rebecca's eyes,
he felt degraded as never before.

The night at the Centre tavern did not help matters,
nor the jolly patriotic meeting of the three villages at the flag-raising next morning.

He would have enjoyed being at the head and front of the festive preparations,
but as he had cut himself off from all such friendly gatherings,
he intended at any rate
to sit in his wagon on the very outskirts of the assembled crowd and see some of the gayety;
for,
heaven knows,
he had little enough,
he who loved talk,
and song,
and story,
and laughter,
and excitement.

The flag was raised,
the crowd cheered,
the little girl
to whom he had lied,
the girl who was impersonating the State of Maine,
was on the platform
"speaking her piece,"
and he could just distinguish some of the words she was saying:

"For it's your star,
my star,
all the stars together,
That makes our country's flag so proud
to float in the bright fall weather."

Then suddenly there was a clarion voice cleaving the air,
and he saw a tall man standing in the centre of the stage and heard him crying:

"THREE CHEERS
for THE GIRL THAT SAVED THE FLAG FROM THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY!"
He was sore and bitter enough already;
lonely,
isolated enough;
with no lot nor share in the honest community life;
no hand
to shake,
no neighbor's meal
to share;
and this unexpected public arraignment smote him between the eyes.

With resentment newly kindled,
pride wounded,
vanity bleeding,
he flung a curse at the joyous throng and drove toward home,
the home where he would find his ragged children and meet the timid eyes of a woman who had been the loyal partner of his poverty and disgraces.

It is probable that even then his
(extremely light)
hand was already on the
"new leaf."

The angels,
doubtless,
were not especially proud of the matter and manner of his reformation,
but I dare say they were glad
to count him theirs on any terms,
so difficult is the reformation of this blind and foolish world! They must have been;
for they immediately flung into his very lap a profitable,
and what is more
to the point,
an interesting and agreeable situation where money could be earned by doing the very things his nature craved.

There were feats of daring
to be performed in sight of admiring and applauding stable boys;
the horses he loved were his companions;
he was OBLIGED to
"swap,"
for Daly,
his employer,
counted on him
to get rid of all undesirable stock;
power and responsibility of a sort were given him freely,
for Daly was no Puritan,
and felt himself amply capable of managing any number of Simpsons;
so here were numberless advantages within the man's grasp,
and wages besides! Abner positively felt no temptation
to steal;
his soul expanded
with pride,
and the admiration and astonishment
with which he regarded his virtuous present was only equaled by the disgust
with which he contemplated his past;
not so much a vicious past,
in his own generous estimation of it,
as a
"thunderin'
foolish"
one.

Mrs. Simpson took the same view of Abner's new leaf as the angels.

She was thankful
for even a brief season of honesty coupled
with the Saturday night remittance;
and if she still washed and cried and cried and washed,
as Clara Belle had always seen her,
it was either because of some hidden sorrow,
or because her poor strength seemed all at once
to have deserted her.

Just when employment and good fortune had come
to the step-children,
and her own were better fed and clothed than ever before,
the pain that had always lurked,
constant but dull,
near her tired heart,
grew fierce and triumphantly strong;
clutching her in its talons,
biting,
gnawing,
worrying,
leaving her each week
with slighter powers of resistance.

Still hope was in the air and a greater content than had ever been hers was in her eyes;
a content that came near
to happiness when the doctor ordered her
to keep her bed and sent
for Clara Belle.

She could not wash any longer,
but there was the ever new miracle of the Saturday night remittance
for household expenses.

"Is your pain bad today,
mother,"
asked Clara Belle,
who,
only lately given away,
was merely borrowed from Mrs. Fogg
for what was thought
to be a brief emergency.

"Well,
there,
I can't hardly tell,
Clara Belle,"
Mrs. Simpson replied,
with a faint smile.

"I can't seem
to remember the pain these days without it's extra bad.

The neighbors are so kind;
Mrs. Little has sent me canned mustard greens,
and Mrs. Benson chocolate ice cream and mince pie;
there's the doctor's drops
to make me sleep,
and these blankets and that great box of eatables from Mr. Ladd;
and you here
to keep me comp'ny! I declare I'm kind o'
dazed
with comforts.

I never expected
to see sherry wine in this house.

I ain't never drawed the cork;
it does me good enough jest
to look at Mr. Ladd's bottle settin'
on the mantel-piece
with the fire shinin'
on the brown glass."

Mr. Simpson had come
to see his wife and had met the doctor just as he was leaving the house.

"She looks awful bad
to me.

Is she goin'
to pull through all right,
same as the last time?"
he asked the doctor nervously.

"She's going
to pull right through into the other world,"
the doctor answered bluntly;
"and as there don't seem
to be anybody else
to take the bull by the horns,
I'd advise you,
having made the woman's life about as hard and miserable as you could,
to try and help her
to die easy!"
Abner,
surprised and crushed by the weight of this verbal chastisement,
sat down on the doorstep,
his head in his hands,
and thought a while solemnly.

Thought was not an operation he was wont
to indulge in,
and when he opened the gate a few minutes later and walked slowly toward the barn
for his horse,
he looked pale and unnerved.

It is uncommonly startling,
first
to see yourself in another man's scornful eyes,
and then,
clearly,
in your own.

Two days later he came again,
and this time it was decreed that he should find Parson Carll tying his piebald mare at the post.

Clara Belle's quick eye had observed the minister as he alighted from his buggy,
and,
warning her mother,
she hastily smoothed the bedclothes,
arranged the medicine bottles,
and swept the hearth.

"Oh! Don't let him in!"
wailed Mrs. Simpson,
all of a flutter at the prospect of such a visitor.

"Oh,
dear! They must think over
to the village that I'm dreadful sick,
or the minister wouldn't never think of callin'! Don't let him in,
Clara Belle! I'm afraid he will say hard words
to me,
or pray
to me;
and I ain't never been prayed
to since I was a child! Is his wife
with him?"
"No;
he's alone;
but father's just drove up and is hitching at the shed door."

"That's worse than all!"
and Mrs. Simpson raised herself feebly on her pillows and clasped her hands in despair.

"You mustn't let them two meet,
Clara Belle,
and you must send Mr. Carll away;
your father wouldn't have a minister in the house,
nor speak
to one,
for a thousand dollars!"
"Be quiet,
mother! Lie down! It'll be all right! You'll only fret yourself into a spell! The minister's just a good man;
he won't say anything
to frighten you.

Father's talking
with him real pleasant,
and pointing the way
to the front door."

The parson knocked and was admitted by the excited Clara Belle,
who ushered him tremblingly into the sickroom,
and then betook herself
to the kitchen
with the children,
as he gently requested her.

Abner Simpson,
left alone in the shed,
fumbled in his vest pocket and took out an envelope which held a sheet of paper and a tiny packet wrapped in tissue paper.

The letter had been read once before and ran as follows:

Dear Mr. Simpson:

This is a secret letter.

I heard that the Acreville people weren't nice
to Mrs. Simpson because she didn't have any wedding ring like all the others.

I know you've always been poor,
dear Mr. Simpson,
and troubled
with a large family like ours at the farm;
but you really ought
to have given Mrs. Simpson a ring when you were married
to her,
right at the very first;
for then it would have been over and done with,
as they are solid gold and last forever.

And probably she wouldn't feel like asking you
for one,
because ladies are just like girls,
only grown up,
and I know I'd be ashamed
to beg
for jewelry when just board and clothes cost so much.

So I send you a nice,
new wedding ring
to save your buying,
thinking you might get Mrs. Simpson a bracelet or eardrops
for Christmas.

It did not cost me anything,
as it was a secret present from a friend.

I hear Mrs. Simpson is sick,
and it would be a great comfort
to her while she is in bed and has so much time
to look at it.

When I had the measles Emma Jane Perkins lent me her mother's garnet ring,
and it helped me very much
to put my wasted hand outside the bedclothes and see the ring sparkling.

Please don't be angry
with me,
dear Mr. Simpson,
because I like you so much and am so glad you are happy
with the horses and colts;
and I believe now perhaps you DID think the flag was a bundle of washing when you took it that day;
so no more from your Trusted friend,
Rebecca Rowena Randall.

Simpson tore the letter slowly and quietly into fragments and scattered the bits on the woodpile,
took off his hat,
and smoothed his hair;
pulled his mustaches thoughtfully,
straightened his shoulders,
and then,
holding the tiny packet in the palm of his hand,
he went round
to the front door,
and having entered the house stood outside the sickroom
for an instant,
turned the knob and walked softly in.

Then at last the angels might have enjoyed a moment of unmixed joy,
for in that brief walk from shed
to house Abner Simpson;'s conscience waked
to life and attained sufficient strength
to prick and sting,
to provoke remorse,
to incite penitence,
to do all sorts of divine and beautiful things it was meant for,
but had never been allowed
to do.

Clara Belle went about the kitchen quietly,
making preparations
for the children's supper.

She had left Riverboro in haste,
as the change
for the worse in Mrs. Simpson had been very sudden,
but since she had come she had thought more than once of the wedding ring.

She had wondered whether Mr. Ladd had bought it
for Rebecca,
and whether Rebecca would find means
to send it
to Acreville;
but her cares had been so many and varied that the subject had now finally retired
to the background of her mind.

The hands of the clock crept on and she kept hushing the strident tones of Elijah and Elisha,
opening and shutting the oven door
to look at the corn bread,
advising Susan as
to her dishes,
and marveling that the minister stayed so long.

At last she heard a door open and close and saw the old parson come out,
wiping his spectacles,
and step into the buggy
for his drive
to the village.

Then there was another period of suspense,
during which the house was as silent as the grave,
and presently her father came into the kitchen,
greeted the twins and Susan,
and said
to Clara Belle:

"Don't go in there yet!"
jerking his thumb towards Mrs. Simpson's room;
"she's all beat out and she's just droppin'
off
to sleep.

I'll send some groceries up from the store as I go along.

Is the doctor makin'
a second call tonight?"
"Yes;
he'll be here pretty soon,
now,"
Clara Belle answered,
looking at the clock.

"All right.

I'll be here again tomorrow,
soon as it's light,
and if she ain't picked up any I'll send word back
to Daly,
and stop here
with you
for a spell till she's better."

It was true;
Mrs. Simpson was
"all beat out."

It had been a time of excitement and stress,
and the poor,
fluttered creature was dropping off into the strangest sleep--a sleep made up of waking dreams.

The pain,
that had encompassed her heart like a band of steel,
lessened its cruel pressure,
and finally left her so completely that she seemed
to see it floating above her head;
only that it looked no longer like a band of steel,
but a golden circle.

The frail bark in which she had sailed her life voyage had been rocking on a rough and tossing ocean,
and now it floated,
floated slowly into smoother waters.

As long as she could remember,
her boat had been flung about in storm and tempest,
lashed by angry winds,
borne against rocks,
beaten,
torn,
buffeted.

Now the waves had subsided;
the sky was clear;
the sea was warm and tranquil;
the sunshine dried the tattered sails;
the air was soft and balmy.

And now,
for sleep plays strange tricks,
the bark disappeared from the dream,
and it was she,
herself,
who was floating,
floating farther and farther away;
whither she neither knew nor cared;
it was enough
to be at rest,
lulled by the lapping of the cool waves.

Then there appeared a green isle rising from the sea;
an isle so radiant and fairy-like that her famished eyes could hardly believe its reality;
but it was real,
for she sailed nearer and nearer
to its shores,
and at last her feet skimmed the shining sands and she floated through the air as disembodied spirits float,
till she sank softly at the foot of a spreading tree.

Then she saw the green isle was a flowering isle.

Every shrub and bush was blooming;
the trees were hung
with rosy garlands,
and even the earth was carpeted
with tiny flowers.

The rare fragrances,
the bird songs,
soft and musical,
the ravishment of color,
all bore down upon her swimming senses at once,
taking them captive so completely that she remembered no past,
was conscious of no present,
looked forward
to no future.

She seemed
to leave the body and the sad,
heavy things of the body.

The humming in her ears ceased,
the light faded,
the birds songs grew fainter and more distant,
the golden circle of pain receded farther and farther until it was lost
to view;
even the flowering island gently drifted away,
and all was peace and silence.

It was time
for the doctor now,
and Clara Belle,
too anxious
to wait longer,
softly turned the knob of her mother's door and entered the room.

The glow of the open fire illumined the darkest side of the poor chamber.

There were no trees near the house,
and a full November moon streamed in at the unblinded,
uncurtained windows,
lighting up the bare interior--the unpainted floor,
the gray plastered walls,
and the white counterpane.

Her mother lay quite still,
her head turned and drooping a little on the pillow.

Her left hand was folded softly up against her breast,
the fingers of the right partly covering it,
as if protecting something precious.

Was it the moonlight that made the patient brow so white,
and where were the lines of anxiety and pain?

The face of the mother who had washed and cried and cried and washed was as radiant as if the closed eye were beholding heavenly visions.

"Something must have cured her!"
thought Clara Belle,
awed and almost frightened by the whiteness and the silence.

She tiptoed across the floor
to look more closely at the still,
smiling shape,
and bending over it saw,
under the shadow of the caressing right hand,
a narrow gold band gleaming on the work-stained finger.

"Oh,
the ring came,
after all!"
she said in a glad whisper,
"and perhaps it was that that made her better!"
She put her hand on her mother's gently.

A terrified shiver,
a warning shudder,
shook the girl from head
to foot at the chilling touch.

A dread presence she had never met before suddenly took shape.

It filled the room;
stifled the cry on her lips;
froze her steps
to the floor,
stopped the beating of her heart.

Just then the door opened.

"Oh,
doctor! Come quick!"
she sobbed,
stretching out her hand
for help,
and then covering her eyes.

"Come close! Look at mother! Is she better--or is she dead?"
The doctor put one hand on the shoulder of the shrinking child,
and touched the woman
with the other.

"She is better!"
he said gently,
"and she is dead."

Tenth Chronicle REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES Rebecca was sitting by the window in her room at the Wareham Female Seminary.

She was alone,
as her roommate,
Emma Jane Perkins,
was reciting Latin down below in some academic vault of the old brick building.

A new and most ardent passion
for the classics had been born in Emma Jane's hitherto unfertile brain,
for Abijah Flagg,
who was carrying off all the prizes at Limerick Academy,
had written her a letter in Latin,
a letter which she had been unable
to translate
for herself,
even
with the aid of a dictionary,
and which she had been apparently unwilling that Rebecca,
her bosom friend,
confidant,
and roommate,
should render into English.

An old-fashioned Female Seminary,
with its allotment of one medium-sized room
to two medium sized young females,
gave small opportunities
for privacy by night or day,
for neither the double washstand,
nor the thus far unimagined bathroom,
nor even indeed the humble and serviceable screen,
had been realized,
in these dark ages of which I write.

Accordingly,
like the irrational ostrich,
which defends itself by the simple process of not looking at its pursuers,
Emma Jane had kept her Latin letter in her closed hand,
in her pocket,
or in her open book,
flattering herself that no one had noticed her pleased bewilderment at its only half-imagined contents.

All the fairies were not present at Rebecca's cradle.

A goodly number of them telegraphed that they were previously engaged or unavoidably absent from town.

The village of Temperance,
Maine,
where Rebecca first saw the light,
was hardly a place on its own merits
to attract large throngs of fairies.

But one dear old personage who keeps her pocket full of Merry Leaves from the Laughing Tree,
took a fancy
to come
to the little birthday party;
and seeing so few of her sister-fairies present,
she dowered the sleeping baby more richly than was her wont,
because of its apparent lack of wealth in other directions.

So the child grew,
and the Merry Leaves from the Laughing Tree rustled where they hung from the hood of her cradle,
and,
being fairy leaves,
when the cradle was given up they festooned themselves on the cribside,
and later on blew themselves up
to the ceilings at Sunnybook Farm and dangled there,
making fun
for everybody.

They never withered,
even at the brick house in Riverboro,
where the air was particularly inimical
to fairies,
for Miss Miranda Sawyer would have scared any ordinary elf out of her seventeen senses.

They followed Rebecca
to Wareham,
and during Abijah Flagg's Latin correspondence
with Emma Jane they fluttered about that young person's head in such a manner that Rebecca was almost afraid that she would discover them herself,
although this is something,
as a matter of fact,
that never does happen.

A week had gone by since the Latin missive had been taken from the post-office by Emma Jane,
and now,
by means of much midnight oil-burning,
by much cautious questioning of Miss Maxwell,
by such scrutiny of the moods and tenses of Latin verbs as wellnigh destroyed her brain tissue,
she had mastered its romantic message.

If it was conventional in style,
Emma Jane never suspected it.

If some of the similes seemed
to have been culled from the Latin poets,
and some of the phrases built up from Latin exercises,
Emma Jane was neither scholar nor critic;
the similes,
the phrases,
the sentiments,
when finally translated and written down in black-and-white English,
made,
in her opinion,
the most convincing and heart-melting document ever sent through the mails:

Mea cara Emma:

Cur audeo scribere ad te epistulam?

Es mihi dea! Semper es in mea anima.

Iterum et iterum es cum me in somnis.

Saepe video tuas capillos auri,
tuos pulchros oculos similes caelo,
tuas genas,
quasi rubentes rosas in nive.

Tua vox est dulcior quam cantus avium aut murmur rivuli in montibus.

Cur sum ego tam miser et pauper et indignus,
et tu tam dulcis et bona et nobilis?

Si cogitabis de me ero beatus.

Tu es sola puella quam amo,
et semper eris.

Alias puellas non amavi.

Forte olim amabis me,
sed sum indignus.

Sine te sum miser,
cum tu es prope mea vita omni est goddamn.

Vale,
carissima,
carissima puella! De tuo fideli servo A.F.

My dear Emma:

Why dare I write
to you a letter?

You are
to me a goddess! Always you are in my heart.

Again and again you are
with me in dreams.

Often I see your locks of gold,
your beautiful eyes like the sky,
your cheeks,
as red roses in snow.

Your voice is sweeter than the singing of birds or the murmur of the stream in the mountains.

Why am I so wretched and poor and unworthy,
and you so sweet and good and noble?

If you will think of me I shall be happy.

You are the only girl that I love and always will be.

Other girls I have not loved.

Perhaps sometime you will love me,
but I am unworthy.

Without you,
I am wretched,
when you are near my life is all joy.

Farewell,
dearest,
dearest girl! From your faithful slave A.F.

Emma Jane knew the letter by heart in English.

She even knew it in Latin,
only a few days before a dead language
to her,
but now one filled
with life and meaning.

From beginning
to end the epistle had the effect upon her as of an intoxicating elixir.

Often,
at morning prayers,
or while eating her rice pudding at the noon dinner,
or when sinking off
to sleep at night,
she heard a voice murmuring in her ear,
"Vale,
carissima,
carissima puella!"
As
to the effect on her modest,
countrified little heart of the phrases in which Abijah stated she was a goddess and he her faithful slave,
that quite baffles description;
for it lifted her bodily out of the scenes in which she moved,
into a new,
rosy,
ethereal atmosphere in which even Rebecca had no place.

Rebecca did not know this,
fortunately;
she only suspected,
and waited
for the day when Emma Jane would pour out her confidences,
as she always did,
and always would until the end of time.

At the present moment she was busily employed in thinking about her own affairs.

A shabby composition book
with mottled board covers lay open on the table before her,
and sometimes she wrote in it
with feverish haste and absorption,
and sometimes she rested her chin in the cup of her palm,
and
with the pencil poised in the other hand looked dreamily out on the village,
its huddle of roofs and steeples all blurred into positive beauty by the fast-falling snowflakes.

It was the middle of December and the friendly sky was softly dropping a great white mantle of peace and good-will over the little town,
making all ready within and without
for the Feast o'
the Babe.

The main street,
that in summer was made dignified by its splendid avenue of shade trees,
now ran quiet and white between rows of stalwart trunks,
whose leafless branches were all hanging heavy under their dazzling burden.

The path leading straight up the hill
to the Academy was broken only by the feet of the hurrying,
breathless boys and girls who ran up and down,
carrying piles of books under their arms;
books which they remembered so long as they were within the four walls of the recitation room,
and which they eagerly forgot as soon as they met one another in the living,
laughing world,
going up and down the hill.

"It's very becoming
to the universe,
snow is!"
though Rebecca,
looking out of the window dreamily.

"Really there's little
to choose between the world and heaven when a snowstorm is going on.

I feel as if I ought
to look at it every minute.

I wish I could get over being greedy,
but it still seems
to me at sixteen as if there weren't waking hours enough in the day,
and as if somehow I were pressed
for time and continually losing something.

How well I remember mother's story about me when I was four.

It was at early breakfast on the farm,
but I called all meals dinner'
then,
and when I had finished I folded up my bib and sighed:

O,
dear! Only two more dinners,
play a while and go
to bed!'
This was at six in the morning--lamplight in the kitchen,
snowlight outside! Powdery,
powdery,
powdery snow,
Making things lovely wherever you go! Merciful,
merciful,
merciful snow,
Masking the ugliness hidden below.

Herbert made me promise
to do a poem
for the January
'Pilot,'
but I mustn't take the snow as a subject;
there has been too great competition among the older poets!"
And
with that she turned in her chair and began writing again in the shabby book,
which was already three quarters filled
with childish scribblings,
sometimes in pencil,
and sometimes in violet ink
with carefully shaded capital letters.

* * * * * * * * * * * * Squire Bean has had a sharp attack of rheumatism and Abijah Flagg came back from Limerick
for a few days
to nurse him.

One morning the Burnham sisters from North Riverboro came over
to spend the day
with Aunt Miranda,
and Abijah went down
to put up their horse.

("'Commodatin'
'Bijah"
was his pet name when we were all young.)
He scaled the ladder
to the barn chamber--the dear old ladder that used
to be my safety valve!--and pitched down the last forkful of grandfather's hay that will ever be eaten by any visiting horse.

They WILL be delighted
to hear that it is all gone;
they have grumbled at it
for years and years.

What should Abijah find at the bottom of the heap but my Thought Book,
hidden there two or three years ago and forgotten! When I think of what it was
to me,
the place it filled in my life,
the affection I lavished on it,
I wonder that I could forget it,
even in all the excitement of coming
to Wareham
to school.

And that gives me
"an uncommon thought"
as I used
to say! It is this:

that when we finish building an air castle we seldom live in it after all;
we sometimes even forget that we ever longed to! Perhaps we have gone so far as
to begin another castle on a higher hilltop,
and this is so beautiful,-- especially while we are building,
and before we live in it!--that the first one has quite vanished from sight and mind,
like the outgrown shell of the nautilus that he casts off on the shore and never looks at again.

(At least I suppose he doesn't;
but perhaps he takes one backward glance,
half-smiling,
half-serious,
just as I am doing at my old Thought Book,
and says,
"WAS THAT MY SHELL! GOODNESS GRACIOUS! HOW DID I EVER SQUEEZE MYSELF INTO IT!"
That bit about the nautilus sounds like an extract from a school theme,
or a
"Pilot"
editorial,
or a fragment of one of dear Miss Maxwell's lectures,
but I think girls of sixteen are principally imitations of the people and things they love and admire;
and between editing the
"Pilot,"
writing out Virgil translations,
searching
for composition subjects,
and studying rhetorical models,
there is very little of the original Rebecca Rowena about me at the present moment;
I am just a member of the graduating class in good and regular standing.

We do our hair alike,
dress alike as much as possible,
eat and drink alike,
talk alike,--I am not even sure that we do not think alike;
and what will become of the poor world when we are all let loose upon it on the same day of June?

Will life,
real life,
bring our true selves back
to us?

Will love and duty and sorrow and trouble and work finally wear off the
"school stamp"
that has been pressed upon all of us until we look like rows of shining copper cents fresh from the mint?

Yet there must be a little difference between us somewhere,
or why does Abijah Flagg write Latin letters
to Emma Jane,
instead of
to me?

There is one example on the other side of the argument,--Abijah Flagg.

He stands out from all the rest of the boys like the Rock of Gibraltar in the geography pictures.

Is it because he never went
to school until he was sixteen?

He almost died of longing
to go,
and the longing seemed
to teach him more than going.

He knew his letters,
and could read simple things,
but it was I who taught him what books really meant when I was eleven and he thirteen.

We studied while he was husking corn or cutting potatoes
for seed,
or shelling beans in the Squire's barn.

His beloved Emma Jane didn't teach him;
her father wold not have let her be friends
with a chore-boy! It was I who found him after milking-time,
summer nights,
suffering,
yes dying,
of Least Common Multiple and Greatest Common Divisor;
I who struck the shackles from the slave and told him
to skip it all and go on
to something easier,
like Fractions,
Percentage,
and Compound Interest,
as I did myself.

Oh! How he used
to smell of the cows when I was correcting his sums on warm evenings,
but I don't regret it,
for he is now the joy of Limerick and the pride of Riverboro,
and I suppose has forgotten the proper side on which
to approach a cow if you wish
to milk her.

This now unserviceable knowledge is neatly inclosed in the outgrown shell he threw off two or three years ago.

His gratitude
to me knows no bounds,
but--he writes Latin letters
to Emma Jane! But as Mr. Perkins said about drowning the kittens
(I now quote from myself at thirteen),
"It is the way of the world and how things have
to be!"
Well,
I have read the Thought Book all through,
and when I want
to make Mr. Aladdin laugh,
I shall show him my composition on the relative values of punishment and reward as builders of character.

I am not at all the same Rebecca today at sixteen that I was then,
at twelve and thirteen.

I hope,
in getting rid of my failings,
that I haven't scrubbed and rubbed so hard that I have taken the gloss off the poor little virtues that lay just alongside of the faults;
for as I read the foolish doggerel and the funny,
funny
"Remerniscences,"
I see on the whole a nice,
well-meaning,
trusting,
loving heedless little creature,
that after all I'd rather build on than outgrow altogether,
because she is Me;
the Me that was made and born just a little different from all the rest of the babies in my birthday year.

One thing is alike in the child and the girl.

They both love
to set thoughts down in black and white;
to see how they look,
how they sound,
and how they make one feel when one reads them over.

They both love the sound of beautiful sentences and the tinkle of rhyming words,
and in fact,
of the three great R's of life,
they adore Reading and Riting,
as much as they abhor
"Rithmetic.

The little girl in the old book is always thinking of what she is
"going
to be."

Uncle Jerry Cobb spoiled me a good deal in this direction.

I remember he said
to everybody when I wrote my verses
for the flag-raising:

"Nary rung on the ladder o'
fame but that child'll climb if you give her time!"
--poor Uncle Jerry! He will be so disappointed in me as time goes on.

And still he would think I have already climbed two rungs on the ladder,
although it is only a little Wareham ladder,
for I am one of the
"Pilot"
editors,
the first
"girl editor"--and I have taken a fifty dollar prize in composition and paid off the interest on a twelve hundred dollar mortgage
with it.

"High is the rank we now possess,
But higher we shall rise;
Though what we shall hereafter be Is hid from mortal eyes."

This hymn was sung in meeting the Sunday after my election,
and Mr. Aladdin was there that day and looked across the aisle and smiled at me.

Then he sent me a sheet of paper from Boston the next morning
with just one verse in the middle of it.

"She made the cleverest people quite ashamed;
And ev'n the good
with inward envy groan,
Finding themselves so very much exceeded,
In their own way by all the things that she did."

Miss Maxwell says it is Byron,
and I wish I had thought of the last rhyme before Byron did;
my rhymes are always so common.

I am too busy doing,
nowadays,
to give very much thought
to being.

Mr. Aladdin was teasing me one day about what he calls my
"cast-off careers."

"What makes you aim at any mark in particular,
Rebecca?"
he asked,
looking at Miss Maxwell and laughing.

"Women never hit what they aim at,
anyway;
but if they shut their eyes and shoot in the air they generally find themselves in the bull's eye."

I think one reason that I have always dreamed of what I should be,
when I grew up,
was,
that even before father died mother worried about the mortgage on the farm,
and what would become of us if it were foreclosed.

It was hard on children
to be brought up on a mortgage that way,
but oh! it was harder still on poor dear mother,
who had seven of us then
to think of,
and still has three at home
to feed and clothe out of the farm.

Aunt Jane says I am young
for my age,
Aunt Miranda is afraid that I will never really
"grow up,"
Mr. Aladdin says that I don't know the world any better than the pearl inside of the oyster.

They none of them know the old,
old thoughts I have,
some of them going back years and years;
for they are never ones that I can speak about.

I remember how we children used
to admire father,
he was so handsome and graceful and amusing,
never cross like mother,
or too busy
to play
with us.

He never did any work at home because he had
to keep his hands nice
for playing the church melodeon,
or the violin or piano
for dances.

Mother used
to say:

"Hannah and Rebecca,
you must hull the strawberries,
your father cannot help."

"John,
you must milk next year
for I haven't the time and it would spoil your father's hands."

All the other men in Temperance village wore calico,
or flannel shirts,
except on Sundays,
but Father never wore any but white ones
with starched bosoms.

He was very particular about them and mother used
to stitch and stitch on the pleats,
and press and press the bosoms and collar and cuffs,
sometimes late at night.

Then she was tired and thin and gray,
with no time
to sew on new dresses
for herself,
and no time
to wear them,
because she was always taking care of the babies;
and father was happy and well and handsome.

But we children never thought much about it until once,
after father had mortgaged the farm,
there was going
to be a sociable in Temperance village.

Mother could not go as Jenny had whooping-cough and Mark had just broken his arm,
and when she was tying father's necktie,
the last thing before he started,
he said:

"I wish,
Aurelia,
that you cared a little about YOUR appearance and YOUR dress;
it goes a long way
with a man like me."

Mother had finished the tie,
and her hands dropped suddenly.

I looked at her eyes and mouth while she looked at father and in a minute I was ever so old,
with a grown-up ache in my heart.

It has always stayed there,
although I admired my handsome father and was proud of him because he was so talented;
but now that I am older and have thought about things,
my love
for mother is different from what it used
to be.

Father was always the favorite when we were little,
he was so interesting,
and I wonder sometimes if we don't remember interesting people longer and better than we do those who are just good and patient.

If so it seems very cruel.

As I look back I see that Miss Ross,
the artist who brought me my pink parasol from Paris,
sowed the first seeds in me of ambition
to do something special.

Her life seemed so beautiful and so easy
to a child.

I had not been
to school then,
or read George Macdonald,
so I did not know that
"Ease is the lovely result of forgotten toil."

Miss Ross sat out of doors and painted lovely things,
and everybody said how wonderful they were,
and bought them straight away;
and she took care of a blind father and two brothers,
and traveled wherever she wished.

It comes back
to me now,
that summer when I was ten and Miss Ross painted me sitting by the mill-wheel while she talked
to me of foreign countries! The other day Miss Maxwell read something from Browning's poems
to the girls of her literature class.

It was about David the shepherd boy who used
to lie in his hollow watching one eagle
"wheeling slow as in sleep."

He used
to wonder about the wide world that the eagle beheld,
the eagle that was stretching his wings so far up in the blue,
while he,
the poor shepherd boy,
could see only the
"strip twixt the hill and the sky;"
for he lay in a hollow.

I told Mr. Baxter about it the next day,
which was the Saturday before I joined the church.

I asked him if it was wicked
to long
to see as much as the eagle saw?

There was never anybody quite like Mr. Baxter.

"Rebecca dear,"
he said,
"it may be that you need not always lie in a hollow,
as the shepherd boy did;
but wherever you lie,
that little strip you see
'twixt the hill and the sky'
is able
to hold all of earth and all of heaven,
if only you have the right sort of vision."

I was a long,
long time about
"experiencing religion."

I remember Sunday afternoons at the brick house the first winter after I went there;
when I used
to sit in the middle of the dining-room as I was bid,
silent and still,
with the big family Bible on my knees.

Aunt Miranda had Baxter's
"Saints'
Rest,"
but her seat was by the window,
and she at least could give a glance into the street now and then without being positively wicked.

Aunt Jane used
to read the
"Pilgrim's Progress."

The fire burned low;
the tall clock ticked,
ticked,
so slowly and steadily,
that the pictures swam before my eyes and I almost fell asleep.

They thought by shutting everything else out that I should see God;
but I didn't,
not once.

I was so homesick
for Sunnybook and John that I could hardly learn my weekly hymns,
especially the sad,
long one beginning:

"My thoughts on awful subjects roll,
Damnation and the dead."

It was brother John
for whom I was chiefly homesick on Sunday afternoons,
because at Sunnybrook Farm father was dead and mother was always busy,
and Hannah never liked
to talk.

Then the next year the missionaries from Syria came
to Riverboro;
and at the meeting Mr. Burch saw me playing the melodeon,
and thought I was grown up and a church member,
and so he asked me
to lead in prayer.

I didn't dare
to refuse,
and when I prayed,
which was just like thinking out loud,
I found I could talk
to God a great deal easier than
to Aunt Miranda or even
to Uncle Jerry Cobb.

There were things I could say
to Him that I could never say
to anybody else,
and saying them always made me happy and contented.

When Mr. Baxter asked me last year about joining the church,
I told him I was afraid I did not understand God quite well enough
to be a real member.

"So you don't quite understand God,
Rebecca?'
he asked,
smiling.

"Well,
there is something else much more important,
which is,
that He understands you! He understands your feeble love,
your longings,
desires,
hopes,
faults,
ambitions,
crosses;
and that,
after all,
is what counts! Of course you don't understand Him! You are overshadowed by His love,
His power,
His benignity,
His wisdom;
that is as it should be! Why,
Rebecca,
dear,
if you could stand erect and unabashed in God's presence,
as one who perfectly comprehended His nature or His purposes,
it would be sacrilege! Don't be puzzled out of your blessed inheritance of faith,
my child;
accept God easily and naturally,
just as He accepts you!"
"God never puzzled me,
Mr. Baxter;
it isn't that,"
I said;
"but the doctrines do worry me dreadfully."

"Let them alone
for the present,"
Mr Baxter said.

"Anyway,
Rebecca,
you can never prove God;
you can only find Him!"
"Then do you think I have really experienced religion,
Mr. Baxter?"
I asked.

"Am I the beginnings of a Christian?"
"You are a dear child of the understanding God!"
Mr. Baxter said;
and I say it over
to myself night and morning so that I can never forget it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * The year is nearly over and the next few months will be lived in the rush and whirlwind of work that comes before graduation.

The bell
for philosophy class will ring in ten minutes,
and as I have been writing
for nearly two hours,
I must learn my lesson going up the Academy hill.

It will not be the first time;
it is a grand hill
for learning! I suppose after fifty years or so the very ground has become soaked
with knowledge,
and every particle of air in the vicinity is crammed
with useful information.

I will put my book into my trunk
(having no blessed haymow hereabouts)
and take it out again,-- when shall I take it out again?

After graduation perhaps I shall be too grown up and too busy
to write in a Thought Book;
but oh,
if only something would happen worth putting down;
something strange;
something unusual;
something different from the things that happen every day in Riverboro and Edgewood! Graduation will surely take me a little out of
"the hollow,"--make me a little more like the soaring eagle,
gazing at the whole wide world beneath him while he wheels
"slow as in sleep."

But whether or not,
I'll try not
to be a discontented shepherd,
but remember what Mr. Baxter said,
that the little strip that I see
"
twixt the hill and the sky"
is able
to hold all of earth and all of heaven,
if only I have the eyes
to see it.

Rebecca Rowena Randall.

Wareham Female Seminary,
December 187--.

Eleventh Chronicle ABIJAH THE BRAVE AND THE FAIR EMMAJANE I
"A warrior so bold and a maiden so bright Conversed as they sat on the green.

They gazed at each other in tender delight.

Alonzo the brave was the name of the knight,
And the maid was the fair Imogene.

"Alas!'
said the youth,
'since tomorrow I go
to fight in a far distant land,
Your tears
for my absence soon ceasing
to flow,
Some other will court you,
and you will bestow On a wealthier suitor your hand.'

'Oh,
hush these suspicions!'
Fair Imogene said,
"So hurtful
to love and
to me!
for if you be living,
or if you be dead,
I swear by the Virgin that none in your stead Shall the husband of Imogene be!'
Ever since she was eight years old Rebecca had wished
to be eighteen,
but now that she was within a month of that awe-inspiring and long-desired age she wondered if,
after all,
it was destined
to be a turning point in her quiet existence.

Her eleventh year,
for instance,
had been a real turning-point,
since it was then that she had left Sunnybrook Farm and come
to her maiden aunts in Riverboro.

Aurelia Randall may have been doubtful as
to the effect upon her spinster sisters of the irrepressible child,
but she was hopeful from the first that the larger opportunities of Riverboro would be the
"making"
of Rebecca herself.

The next turning-point was her fourteenth year,
when she left the district school
for the Wareham Female Seminary,
then in the hey-day of its local fame.

Graduation
(next
to marriage,
perhaps,
the most thrilling episode in the life of a little country girl)
happened at seventeen,
and not long afterward her Aunt Miranda's death,
sudden and unexpected,
changed not only all the outward activities and conditions of her life,
but played its own part in her development.

The brick house looked very homelike and pleasant on a June morning nowadays
with children's faces smiling at the windows and youthful footsteps sounding through the halls;
and the brass knocker on the red-painted front door might have remembered Rebecca's prayer of a year before,
when she leaned against its sun-warmed brightness and whispered:

"God bless Aunt Miranda;
God bless the brick house that was;
God bless the brick house that's going
to be!"
All the doors and blinds were open
to the sun and air as they had never been in Miss Miranda Sawyer's time.

The hollyhock bed that had been her chief pride was never neglected,
and Rebecca liked
to hear the neighbors say that there was no such row of beautiful plants and no such variety of beautiful colors in Riverboro as those that climbed up and peeped in at the kitchen windows where old Miss Miranda used
to sit.

Now that the place was her very own Rebecca felt a passion of pride in its smoothly mown fields,
its carefully thinned-out woods,
its blooming garden spots,
and its well-weeded vegetable patch;
felt,
too whenever she looked at any part of it,
a passion of gratitude
to the stern old aunt who had looked upon her as the future head of the family,
as well as a passion of desire
to be worthy of that trust.

It had been a very difficult year
for a girl fresh from school:

the death of her aunt,
the nursing of Miss Jane,
prematurely enfeebled by the shock,
the removal of her own invalid mother and the rest of the little family from Sunnybrook Farm.

But all had gone smoothly;
and when once the Randall fortunes had taken an upward turn nothing seemed able
to stop their intrepid ascent.

Aurelia Randall renewed her youth in the companionship of her sister Jane and the comforts by which her children were surrounded;
the mortgage was no longer a daily terror,
for Sunnybrook had been sold
to the new railroad;
Hannah,
now Mrs. Will Melville,
was happily situated;
John,
at last,
was studying medicine;
Mark,
the boisterous and unlucky brother,
had broken no bones
for several months;
while Jenny and Fanny were doing well at the district school under Miss Libby Moses,
Miss Dearborn's successor.

"I don't feel very safe,"
thought Rebecca,
remembering all these unaccustomed mercies as she sat on the front doorsteps,
with her tatting shuttle flying in and out of the fine cotton like a hummingbird.

"It's just like one of those too beautiful July days that winds up
with a thundershower before night! Still,
when you remember that the Randalls never had anything but thunder and lightning,
rain,
snow,
and hail,
in their family history
for twelve or fifteen years,
perhaps it is only natural that they should enjoy a little spell of settled weather.

If it really turns out
to BE settled,
now that Aunt Jane and mother are strong again I must be looking up one of what Mr. Aladdin calls my cast-off careers."

--There comes Emma Jane Perkins through her front gate;
she will be here in a minute,
and I'll tease her!"
and Rebecca ran in the door and seated herself at the old piano that stood between the open windows in the parlor.

Peeping from behind the muslin curtains,
she waited until Emma Jane was on the very threshold and then began singing her version of an old ballad,
made that morning while she was dressing.

The ballad was a great favorite of hers,
and she counted on doing telling execution
with it in the present instance by the simple subterfuge of removing the original hero and heroine,
Alonzo and Imogene,
and substituting Abijah the Brave and the Fair Emmajane,
leaving the circumstances in the first three verses unaltered,
because in truth they seemed
to require no alteration.

Her high,
clear voice,
quivering
with merriment,
floated through the windows into the still summer air:

"'A warrior so bold and a maiden so bright Conversed as they sat on the green.

They gazed at each other in tender delight.

Abijah the Brave was the name of the knight,
And the maid was the Fair Emmajane.'
"
"Rebecca Randall,
stop! Somebody'll hear you!"
"No,
they won't--they're making jelly in the kitchen,
miles away."

"'Alas!'
said the youth,
since tomorrow I go
to fight in a far distant land,
Your tears
for my absence soon ceasing
to flow,
Some other will court you,
and you will bestow On a wealthier suitor your hand.'
"
"Rebecca,
you can't THINK how your voice carries! I believe mother can hear it over
to my house!"
"Then,
if she can,
I must sing the third verse,
just
to clear your reputation from the cloud cast upon it in the second,"
laughed her tormentor,
going on
with the song:

"'Oh,
hush these suspicions!'
Fair Emmajane said,
'So hurtful
to love and
to me!
for if you be living,
or if you be dead,
I swear,
my Abijah,
that none in your stead,
Shall the husband of Emmajane be!'
"
After ending the third verse Rebecca wheeled around on the piano stool and confronted her friend,
who was carefully closing the parlor windows:--
"Emma Jane Perkins,
it is an ordinary Thursday afternoon at four o'clock and you have on your new blue barege,
although there is not even a church sociable in prospect this evening.

What does this mean?

Is Abijah the Brave coming at last?"
"I don't know certainly,
but it will be some time this week."

"And of course you'd rather be dressed up and not seen,
than seen when not dressed up.

Right,
my Fair Emmajane;
so would I.

Not that it makes any difference
to poor me,
wearing my fourth best black and white calico and expecting nobody.

"Oh,
well,
YOU! There's something inside of you that does instead of pretty dresses,"
cried Emma Jane,
whose adoration of her friend had never altered nor lessened since they met at the age of eleven.

"You know you are as different from anybody else in Riverboro as a princess in a fairy story.

Libby Moses says they would notice you in Lowell,
Massachusetts!"
"Would they?

I wonder,"
speculated Rebecca,
rendered almost speechless by this tribute
to her charms.

"Well,
if Lowell,
Massachusetts,
could see me,
or if you could see me,
in my new lavender muslin
with the violet sash,
it would die of envy,
and so would you!"
"If I had been going
to be envious of you,
Rebecca,
I should have died years ago.

Come,
let's go out on the steps where it's shady and cool."

"And where we can see the Perkins front gate and the road running both ways,"
teased Rebecca,
and then,
softening her tone,
she said:

"How is it getting on,
Emmy?

Tell me what's happened since I've been in Brunswick."

"Nothing much,"
confessed Emma Jane.

"He writes
to me,
but I don't write
to him,
you know.

I don't dare to,
till he comes
to the house."

"Are his letters still in Latin?"
asked Rebecca,
with a twinkling eye.

"Oh,
no! Not now,
because--well,
because there are things you can't seem
to write in Latin.

I saw him at the Masonic picnic in the grove,
but he won't say anything REAL
to me till he gets more pay and dares
to speak
to mother and father.

He IS brave in all other ways,
but I ain't sure he'll ever have the courage
for that,
he's so afraid of them and always has been.

Just remember what's in his mind all the time,
Rebecca,
that my folks know all about what his mother was,
and how he was born on the poor-farm.

Not that I care;
look how he's educated and worked himself up! I think he's perfectly elegant,
and I shouldn't mind if he had been born in the bulrushes,
like Moses."

Emma Jane's every-day vocabulary was pretty much what it had been before she went
to the expensive Wareham Female Seminary.

She had acquired a certain amount of information concerning the art of speech,
but in moments of strong feeling she lapsed into the vernacular.

She grew slowly in all directions,
did Emma Jane,
and,
to use Rebecca's favorite nautilus figure,
she had left comparatively few outgrown shells on the shores of
"life's unresting sea."

"Moses wasn't born in the bulrushes,
Emmy dear,"
corrected Rebecca laughingly.

"Pharaoh's daughter found him there.

It wasn't quite as romantic a scene--Squire Bean's wife taking little Abijah Flagg from the poorhouse when his girl-mother died,
but,
oh,
I think Abijah's splendid! Mr. Ladd says Riverboro'll be proud of him yet,
and I shouldn't wonder,
Emmy dear,
if you had a three-story house
with a cupola on it,
some day;
and sitting down at your mahogany desk inlaid
with garnets,
you will write notes stating that Mrs. Abijah Flagg requests the pleasure of Miss Rebecca Randall's company
to tea,
and that the Hon.

Abijah Flagg,
M.C.,
will call
for her on his way from the station
with a span of horses and the turquoise carryall!"
Emma Jane laughed at the ridiculous prophecy,
and answered:

"If I ever write the invitation I shan't be addressing it
to Miss Randall,
I'm sure of that;
it'll be
to Mrs. -----"
"Don't!"
cried Rebecca impetuously,
changing color and putting her hand over Emma Jane's lips.

"If you won't I'll stop teasing.

I couldn't bear a name put
to anything,
I couldn't,
Emmy dear! I wouldn't tease you,
either,
if it weren't something we've both known ever so long--something that you have always consulted me about of your own accord,
and Abijah too."

"Don't get excited,"
replied Emma Jane,
"I was only going
to say you were sure
to be Mrs. Somebody in course of time."

"Oh,"
said Rebecca
with a relieved sigh,
her color coming back;
"if that's all you meant,
just nonsense;
but I thought,
I thought--I don't really know just what I thought!"
"I think you thought something you didn't want me
to think you thought,"
said Emma Jane
with unusual felicity.

"No,
it's not that;
but somehow,
today,
I have been remembering things.

Perhaps it was because at breakfast Aunt Jane and mother reminded me of my coming birthday and said that Squire Bean would give me the deed of the brick house.

That made me feel very old and responsible;
and when I came out on the steps this afternoon it was just as if pictures of the old years were moving up and down the road.

Everything is so beautiful today! Doesn't the sky look as if it had been dyed blue and the fields painted pink and green and yellow this very minute?"
"It's a perfectly elegant day!"
responded Emma Jane
with a sigh.

"If only my mind was at rest! That's the difference between being young and grown-up.

We never used
to think and worry."

"Indeed we didn't!"
Look,
Emmy,
there's the very spot where Uncle Jerry Cobb stopped the stage and I stepped out
with my pink parasol and my bouquet of purple lilacs,
and you were watching me from your bedroom window and wondering what I had in mother's little hair trunk strapped on behind.

Poor Aunt Miranda didn't love me at first sight,
and oh,
how cross she was the first two years! But now every hard thought I ever had comes back
to me and cuts like a knife!"
"She was dreadful hard
to get along with,
and I used
to hate her like poison,"
confessed Emma Jane;
"but I am sorry now.

She was kinder toward the last,
anyway,
and then,
you see children know so little! We never suspected she was sick or that she was worrying over that lost interest money."

"That's the trouble.

People seem hard and unreasonable and unjust,
and we can't help being hurt at the time,
but if they die we forget everything but our own angry speeches;
somehow we never remember theirs.

And oh,
Emma Jane,
there's another such a sweet little picture out there in the road.

The next day after I came
to Riverboro,
do you remember,
I stole out of the brick house crying,
and leaned against the front gate.

You pushed your little fat pink-and-white face through the pickets and said:

Don't cry! I'll kiss you if you will me!'
"
Lumps rose suddenly in Emma Jane's throat,
and she put her arm around Rebecca's waist as they sat together side by side.

"Oh,
I do remember,"
she said in a choking voice.

"And I can see the two of us driving over
to North Riverboro and selling soap
to Mr. Adam Ladd;
and lighting up the premium banquet lamp at the Simpson party;
and laying the daisies round Jacky Winslow's mother when she was dead in the cabin;
and trundling Jacky up and down the street in our old baby carriage!"
"And I remember you,"
continued Rebecca,
"being chased down the hill by Jacob Moody,
when we were being Daughters of Zion and you had been chosen
to convert him!"
"And I remember you,
getting the flag back from Mr. Simpson;
and how you looked when you spoke your verses at the flag-raising."

"And have you forgotten the week I refused
to speak
to Abijah Flagg because he fished my turban
with the porcupine quills out of the river when I hoped at last that I had lost it! Oh,
Emma Jane,
we had dear good times together in the little harbor.'
"
"I always thought that was an elegant composition of yours--that farewell
to the class,"
said Emma Jane.

"The strong tide bears us on,
out of the little harbor of childhood into the unknown seas,"
recalled Rebecca.

"It is bearing you almost out of my sight,
Emmy,
these last days,
when you put on a new dress in the afternoon and look out of the window instead of coming across the street.

Abijah Flagg never used
to be in the little harbor
with the rest of us;
when did he first sail in,
Emmy?"
Emma Jane grew a deeper pink and her button-hole of a mouth quivered
with delicious excitement.

"It was last year at the seminary,
when he wrote me his first Latin letter from Limerick Academy,"
she said in a half whisper.

"I remember,"
laughed Rebecca.

"You suddenly began the study of the dead languages,
and the Latin dictionary took the place of the crochet needle in your affections.

It was cruel of you never
to show me that letter,
Emmy!"
"I know every word of it by heart,"
said the blushing Emma Jane,
"and I think I really ought
to say it
to you,
because it's the only way you will ever know how perfectly elegant Abijah is.

Look the other way,
Rebecca.

Shall I have
to translate it
for you,
do you think,
because it seems
to me I could not bear
to do that!"
"It depends upon Abijah's Latin and your pronunciation,"
teased Rebecca.

"Go on;
I will turn my eyes toward the orchard."

The Fair Emmajane,
looking none too old still
for the
"little harbor,"
but almost too young
for the
"unknown seas,"
gathered up her courage and recited like a tremulous parrot the boyish love letter that had so fired her youthful imagination.

"Vale,
carissima,
carissima puella!"
repeated Rebecca in her musical voice.

"Oh,
how beautiful it sounds! I don't wonder it altered your feeling
for Abijah! Upon my word,
Emma Jane,"
she cried
with a sudden change of tone,
"if I had suspected
for an instant that Abijah the Brave had that Latin letter in him I should have tried
to get him
to write it
to me;
and then it would be I who would sit down at my mahogany desk and ask Miss Perkins
to come
to tea
with Mrs. Flagg."

Emma Jane paled and shuddered openly.

"I speak as a church member,
Rebecca,"
she said,
"when I tell you I've always thanked the Lord that you never looked at Abijah Flagg and he never looked at you.

If either of you ever had,
there never would have been a chance
for me,
and I've always known it!"
II The romance alluded
to in the foregoing chapter had been going on,
so far as Abijah Flagg's part of it was concerned,
for many years,
his affection dating back in his own mind
to the first moment that he saw Emma Jane Perkins at the age of nine.

Emma Jane had shown no sign of reciprocating his attachment until the last three years,
when the evolution of the chore-boy into the budding scholar and man of affairs had inflamed even her somewhat dull imagination.

Squire Bean's wife had taken Abijah away from the poorhouse,
thinking that she could make him of some little use in her home.

Abbie Flagg,
the mother,
was neither wise nor beautiful;
it is
to be feared that she was not even good,
and her lack of all these desirable qualities,
particularly the last one,
had been impressed upon the child ever since he could remember.

People seemed
to blame him
for being in the world at all;
this world that had not expected him nor desired him,
nor made any provision
for him.

The great battle-axe of poorhouse opinion was forever leveled at the mere little atom of innocent transgression,
until he grew sad and shy,
clumsy,
stiff,
and self-conscious.

He had an indomitable craving
for love in his heart and had never received a caress in his life.

He was more contented when he came
to Squire Bean's house.

The first year he could only pick up chips,
carry pine wood into the kitchen,
go
to the post-office,
run errands,
drive the cows,
and feed the hens,
but every day he grew more and more useful.

His only friend was little Jim Watson,
the storekeeper's son,
and they were inseparable companions whenever Abijah had time
for play.

One never-to-be-forgotten July day a new family moved into the white cottage between Squire Bean's house and the Sawyers'.

Mr. Perkins had sold his farm beyond North Riverboro and had established a blacksmith's shop in the village,
at the Edgewood end of the bridge.

This fact was of no special interest
to the nine-year-old Abijah,
but what really was of importance,
was the appearance of a pretty little girl of seven in the front yard;
a pretty little fat doll of a girl,
with bright fuzzy hair,
pink cheeks,
blue eyes,
and a smile of almost bewildering continuity.

Another might have criticised it as having the air of being glued on,
but Abijah was already in the toils and never wished it
to move.

The next day being the glorious Fourth and a holiday,
Jimmy Watson came over like David,
to visit his favorite Jonathan.

His Jonathan met him at the top of the hill,
pleaded a pressing engagement,
curtly sent him home,
and then went back
to play
with his new idol,
with whom he had already scraped acquaintance,
her parents being exceedingly busy settling the new house.

After the noon dinner Jimmy again yearned
to resume friendly relations,
and,
forgetting his rebuff,
again toiled up the hill and appeared unexpectedly at no great distance from the Perkins premises,
wearing the broad and beaming smile of one who is confident of welcome.

His morning call had been officious and unpleasant and unsolicited,
but his afternoon visit could only be regarded as impudent,
audacious,
and positively dangerous;
for Abijah and Emma Jane were cosily playing house,
the game of all others in which it is particularly desirable
to have two and not three participants.

At that moment the nature of Abijah changed,
at once and forever.

Without a pang of conscience he flew over the intervening patch of ground between himself and his dreaded rival,
and seizing small stones and larger ones,
as haste and fury demanded,
flung them at Jimmy Watson,
and flung and flung,
till the bewildered boy ran down the hill howling.

Then he made a
"stickin'"
door
to the play-house,
put the awed Emma Jane inside and strode up and down in front of the edifice like an Indian brave.

At such an early age does woman become a distracting and disturbing influence in man's career! Time went on,
and so did the rivalry between the poorhouse boy and the son of wealth,
but Abijah's chances of friendship
with Emma Jane grew fewer and fewer as they both grew older.

He did not go
to school,
so there was no meeting-ground there,
but sometimes,
when he saw the knot of boys and girls returning in the afternoon,
he would invite Elijah and Elisha,
the Simpson twins,
to visit him,
and take pains
to be in Squire Bean's front yard,
doing something that might impress his inamorata as she passed the premises.

As Jimmy Watson was particularly small and fragile,
Abijah generally chose feats of strength and skill
for these prearranged performances.

Sometimes he would throw his hat up into the elm trees as far as he could and,
when it came down,
catch it on his head.

Sometimes he would walk on his hands,
with his legs wriggling in the air,
or turn a double somersault,
or jump incredible distances across the extended arms of the Simpson twins;
and his bosom swelled
with pride when the girls exclaimed,
"Isn't he splendid!"
although he often heard his rival murmur scornfully,
"SMARTY ALECK!"
--a scathing allusion of unknown origin.

Squire Bean,
although he did not send the boy
to school
(thinking,
as he was of no possible importance in the universe,
it was not worth while bothering about his education),
finally became impressed
with his ability,
lent him books,
and gave him more time
to study.

These were all he needed,
books and time,
and when there was an especially hard knot
to untie,
Rebecca,
as the star scholar of the neighborhood,
helped him
to untie it.

When he was sixteen he longed
to go away from Riverboro and be something better than a chore boy.

Squire Bean had been giving him small wages
for three or four years,
and when the time of parting came presented him
with a ten-dollar bill and a silver watch.

Many a time had he discussed his future
with Rebecca and asked her opinion.

This was not strange,
for there was nothing in human form that she could not and did not converse with,
easily and delightedly.

She had ideas on every conceivable subject,
and would have cheerfully advised the minister if he had asked her.

The fishman consulted her when he couldn't endure his mother-in-law another minute in the house;
Uncle Jerry Cobb didn't part
with his river field until he had talked it over
with Rebecca;
and as
for Aunt Jane,
she couldn't decide whether
to wear her black merino or her gray thibet unless Rebecca cast the final vote.

Abijah wanted
to go far away from Riverboro,
as far as Limerick Academy,
which was at least fifteen miles;
but although this seemed extreme,
Rebecca agreed,
saying pensively:

"There IS a kind of magicness about going far away and then coming back all changed."

This was precisely Abijah's unspoken thought.

Limerick knew nothing of Abbie Flagg's worthlessness,
birth,
and training,
and the awful stigma of his poorhouse birth,
so that he would start fair.

He could have gone
to Wareham and thus remained within daily sight of the beloved Emma Jane;
but no,
he was not going
to permit her
to watch him in the process of
"becoming,"
but after he had
"become"
something.

He did not propose
to take any risks after all these years of silence and patience.

Not he! He proposed
to disappear,
like the moon on a dark night,
and as he was,
at present,
something that Mr. Perkins would by no means have in the family nor Mrs. Perkins allow in the house,
he would neither return
to Riverboro nor ask any favors of them until he had something
to offer.

Yes,
sir.

He was going
to be crammed
to the eyebrows
with learning
for one thing,--useless kinds and all,--going
to have good clothes,
and a good income.

Everything that was in his power should be right,
because there would always be lurking in the background the things he never could help--the mother and the poorhouse.

So he went away,
and,
although at Squire Bean's invitation he came back the first year
for two brief visits at Christmas and Easter,
he was little seen in Riverboro,
for Mr. Ladd finally found him a place where he could make his vacations profitable and learn bookkeeping at the same time.

The visits in Riverboro were tantalizing rather than pleasant.

He was invited
to two parties,
but he was all the time conscious of his shirt-collar,
and he was sure that his
"pants"
were not the proper thing,
for by this time his ideals of dress had attained an almost unrealizable height.

As
for his shoes,
he felt that he walked on carpets as if they were furrows and he were propelling a plow or a harrow before him.

They played Drop the Handkerchief and Copenhagen at the parties,
but he had not had the audacity
to kiss Emma Jane,
which was bad enough,
but Jimmy had and did,
which was infinitely worse! The sight of James Watson's unworthy and over-ambitious lips on Emma Jane's pink cheek almost destroyed his faith in an overruling Providence.

After the parties were over he went back
to his old room in Squire Bean's shed chamber.

As he lay in bed his thoughts fluttered about Emma Jane as swallows circle around the eaves.

The terrible sickness of hopeless handicapped love kept him awake.

Once he crawled out of bed in the night,
lighted the lamp,
and looked
for his mustache,
remembering that he had seen a suspicion of down on his rival's upper lip.

He rose again half an hour later,
again lighted the lamp,
put a few drops of oil on his hair,
and brushed it violently
for several minutes.

Then he went back
to bed,
and after making up his mind that he would buy a dulcimer and learn
to play on it so that he would be more attractive at parties,
and outshine his rival in society as he had aforetime in athletics,
he finally sank into a troubled slumber.

Those days,
so full of hope and doubt and torture,
seemed mercifully unreal now,
they lay so far back in the past--six or eight years,
in fact,
which is a lifetime
to the lad of twenty--and meantime he had conquered many of the adverse circumstances that had threatened
to cloud his career.

Abijah Flagg was a true child of his native State.

Something of the same timber that Maine puts into her forests,
something of the same strength and resisting power that she works into her rocks,
goes into her sons and daughters;
and at twenty Abijah was going
to take his fate in his hand and ask Mr. Perkins,
the rich blacksmith,
if,
after a suitable period of probation
(during which he would further prepare himself
for his exalted destiny),
he might marry the fair Emma Jane,
sole heiress of the Perkins house and fortunes.

III This was boy and girl love,
calf love,
perhaps,
though even that may develop into something larger,
truer,
and finer;
but not so far away were other and very different hearts growing and budding,
each in its own way.

There was little Miss Dearborn,
the pretty school teacher,
drifting into a foolish alliance because she did not agree
with her stepmother at home;
there was Herbert Dunn,
valedictorian of his class,
dazzled by Huldah Meserve,
who like a glowworm
"shone afar off bright,
but looked at near,
had neither heat nor light."

There was sweet Emily Maxwell,
less than thirty still,
with most of her heart bestowed in the wrong quarter.

She was toiling on at the Wareham school,
living as unselfish a life as a nun in a convent;
lavishing the mind and soul of her,
the heart and body of her,
on her chosen work.

How many women give themselves thus,
consciously and unconsciously;
and,
though they themselves miss the joys and compensations of mothering their own little twos and threes,
God must be grateful
to them
for their mothering of the hundreds which make them so precious in His regenerating purposes.

Then there was Adam Ladd,
waiting at thirty-five
for a girl
to grow a little older,
simply because he could not find one already grown who suited his somewhat fastidious and exacting tastes.

"I'll not call Rebecca perfection,"
he quoted once,
in a letter
to Emily Maxwell,--"I'll not call her perfection,
for that's a post,
afraid
to move.

But she's a dancing sprig of the tree next it."

When first she appeared on his aunt's piazza in North Riverboro and insisted on selling him a large quantity of very inferior soap in order that her friends,
the Simpsons,
might possess a premium in the shape of a greatly needed banquet lamp,
she had riveted his attention.

He thought all the time that he enjoyed talking
with her more than
with any woman alive,
and he had never changed his opinion.

She always caught what he said as if it were a ball tossed
to her,
and sometimes her mind,
as through it his thoughts came back
to him,
seemed like a prism which had dyed them
with deeper colors.

Adam Ladd always called Rebecca in his heart his little Spring.

His boyhood had been lonely and unhappy.

That was the part of life he had missed,
and although it was the full summer of success and prosperity
with him now,
he found his lost youth only in her.

She was
to him--how shall I describe it?

Do you remember an early day in May
with budding leaf,
warm earth,
tremulous air,
and changing,
willful sky--how new it seemed?

How fresh and joyous beyond all explaining?

Have you lain
with half-closed eyes where the flickering of sunlight through young leaves,
the song of birds and brook and the fragrance of wild flowers combined
to charm your senses,
and you felt the sweetness and grace of nature as never before?

Rebecca was springtide
to Adam's thirsty heart.

She was blithe youth incarnate;
she was music--an Aeolian harp that every passing breeze woke
to some whispering little tune;
she was a changing,
iridescent joy-bubble;
she was the shadow of a leaf dancing across a dusty floor.

No bough of his thought could be so bare but she somehow built a nest in it and evoked life where none was before.

And Rebecca herself?

She had been quite unconscious of all this until very lately,
and even now she was but half awakened;
searching among her childish instincts and her girlish dreams
for some Ariadne thread that should guide her safely through the labyrinth of her new sensations.

For the moment she was absorbed,
or thought she was,
in the little love story of Abijah and Emma Jane,
but in reality,
had she realized it,
that love story served chiefly as a basis of comparison
for a possible one of her own,
later on.

She liked and respected Abijah Flagg,
and loving Emma Jane was a habit contracted early in life;
but everything that they did or said,
or thought or wrote,
or hoped or feared,
seemed so inadequate,
so painfully short of what might be done or said,
or thought or written,
or hoped or feared,
under easily conceivable circumstances,
that she almost felt a disposition
to smile gently at the fancy of the ignorant young couple that they had caught a glimpse of the great vision.

She was sitting under the sweet apple tree at twilight.

Supper was over;
Mark's restless feet were quiet,
Fanny and Jenny were tucked safely in bed;
her aunt and her mother were stemming currants on the side porch.

A blue spot at one of the Perkins windows showed that in one vestal bosom hope was not dead yet,
although it was seven o'clock.

Suddenly there was the sound of a horse's feet coming up the quiet road;
plainly a steed hired from some metropolis like Milltown or Wareham,
as Riverboro horses when through
with their day's work never disported themselves so gayly.

A little open vehicle came in sight,
and in it sat Abijah Flagg.

The wagon was so freshly painted and so shiny that Rebecca thought that he must have alighted at the bridge and given it a last polish.

The creases in his trousers,
too,
had an air of having been pressed in only a few minutes before.

The whip was new and had a yellow ribbon on it;
the gray suit of clothes was new,
and the coat flourished a flower in its button-hole.

The hat was the latest thing in hats,
and the intrepid swain wore a seal-ring on the little finger of his right hand.

As Rebecca remembered that she had guided it in making capital G's in his copy-book,
she felt positively maternal,
although she was two years younger than Abijah the Brave.

He drove up
to the Perkins gate and was so long about hitching the horse that Rebecca's heart beat tumultuously at the thought of Emma Jane's heart waiting under the blue barege.

Then he brushed an imaginary speck off his sleeve,
then he drew on a pair of buff kid gloves,
then he went up the path,
rapped at the knocker,
and went in.

"Not all the heroes go
to the wars,"
thought Rebecca.

"Abijah has laid the ghost of his father and redeemed the memory of his mother,
for no one will dare say again that Abbie Flagg's son could never amount
to anything!"
The minutes went by,
and more minutes,
and more.

The tranquil dusk settled down over the little village street and the young moon came out just behind the top of the Perkins pine tree.

The Perkins front door opened and Abijah the Brave came out hand in hand
with his Fair Emma Jane.

They walked through the orchard,
the eyes of the old couple following them from the window,
and just as they disappeared down the green slope that led
to the riverside the gray coat sleeve encircled the blue barege waist.

Rebecca,
quivering
with instant sympathy and comprehension,
hid her face in her hands.

"Emmy has sailed away and I am all alone in the little harbor,"
she thought.

It was as if childhood,
like a thing real and visible,
were slipping down the grassy river banks,
after Abijah and Emma Jane,
and disappearing like them into the moon-lit shadows of the summer night.

"I am all alone in the little harbor,"
she repeated;
"and oh,
I wonder,
I wonder,
shall I be afraid
to leave it,
if anybody ever comes
to carry me out
to sea!"
End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of New Chronicles of Rebecca