NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA

By Kate Douglas Wiggin

CONTENTS

 First Chronicle Jack O'Lantern

 Second Chronicle Daughters of Zion

 Third Chronicle Rebecca's Thought Book

 Fourth Chronicle A Tragedy in Millinery

 Fifth Chronicle The Saving of the Colors

 Sixth Chronicle The State of Maine Girl

 Seventh Chronicle The Little Prophet

 Eighth Chronicle Abner Simpson's New Leaf

 Ninth Chronicle The Green Isle

 Tenth Chronicle Rebecca's Reminiscences

 Eleventh Chronicle Abijah the Brave and the Fair Emma Jane

First Chronicle. JACK O'LANTERN

I

Miss Miranda Sawyer's old-fashioned garden was the pleasantest spot inRiverboro on a sunny July morning. The rich color of the brick housegleamed and glowed through the shade of the elms and maples. Luxurianthop-vines clambered up the lightning rods and water spouts, hangingtheir delicate clusters here and there in graceful profusion. Woodbinetransformed the old shed and tool house to things of beauty, and theflower beds themselves were the prettiest and most fragrant in allthe countryside. A row of dahlias ran directly around the gardenspot, --dahlias scarlet, gold, and variegated. In the very centre was around plot where the upturned faces of a thousand pansies smiled amidtheir leaves, and in the four corners were triangular blocks of sweetphlox over which the butterflies fluttered unceasingly. In the spacesbetween ran a riot of portulaca and nasturtiums, while in the moreregular, 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 agrove of sweet clover whose white feathery tips fairly bent under theassaults of the bees, while banks of aromatic mint and thyme drankin the sunshine and sent it out again into the summer air, warm, anddeliciously odorous. 

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

"They grow something like steeples, " thought little Rebecca Randall, whowas weeding the bed, "and the flat, round flowers are like rosettes; butsteeples wouldn't be studded with rosettes, so if you were writing aboutthem in a composition you'd have to give up one or the other, and Ithink 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 upto the window top, but I can't say, 'Gay TALL hollyhock. '... I mighthave it 'Lines to a Hollyhock in May, ' for then it would be small; butoh, no! I forgot; in May it wouldn't be blooming, and it's so prettyto say that its head is 'sweetly rosetted'... I wish the teacher wasn'taway; she would like 'sweetly rosetted, ' and she would like to hear merecite 'Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!' that I learnedout of Aunt Jane's Byron; the rolls come booming out of it just like thewaves at the beach.... I could make nice compositions now, everythingis blooming so, and it's so warm and sunny and happy outdoors. MissDearborn 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, andat present sojourning there for purposes of board, lodging, education, and incidentally such discipline and chastening as might ultimatelyproduce moral excellence, --Rebecca Randall had a passion for the rhymeand rhythm of poetry. From her earliest childhood words had always beento her what dolls and toys are to other children, and now at twelve sheamused herself with phrases and sentences and images as her schoolmatesplayed with the pieces of their dissected puzzles. If the heroine ofa story took a "cursory glance" about her "apartment, " Rebecca wouldshortly ask her Aunt Jane to take a "cursory glance" at her oversewingor hemming; if the villain "aided and abetted" someone in committinga crime, she would before long request the pleasure of "aiding andabetting" in dishwashing or bedmaking. Sometimes she used the borrowedphrases unconsciously; sometimes she brought them into the conversationwith an intense sense of pleasure in their harmony or appropriateness;for a beautiful word or sentence had the same effect upon herimagination as a fragrant nosegay, a strain of music, or a brilliantsunset. 

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

"Pretty good, Aunt Miranda; only I wish flowers would ever come up asthick as this pigweed and plantain and sorrel. What MAKES weeds be thickand flowers be thin?--I just happened to be stopping to think a minutewhen you looked out. "

"You think considerable more than you weed, I guess, by appearances. Howmany times have you peeked into that humming bird's nest? Why don't youwork all to once and play all to once, like other folks?"

"I don't know, " the child answered, confounded by the question, andstill more by the apparent logic back of it. "I don't know, AuntMiranda, 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'tscream to me when I'm rollin' out these doughnuts, and it wouldn't toyou if your mind was on your duty. "

Rebecca's little brown hands flew in and out among the weeds as shethought rebelliously: "Creation WOULDN'T scream to Aunt Miranda; itwould 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 dowish I could run up and put them down in my thought book before I forgetthem, 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'tgood. I MUST crawl under the syringa shade a minute, it's so hot, andanybody 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 intoher head. Miranda was wielding the rolling pin And thoughts at suchtimes 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 makefretting' 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 voicecalled out--a voice that could not wait until the feet that belonged toit reached the spot: "Miss Saw-YER! Father's got to drive over to NorthRiverboro on an errand, and please can Rebecca go, too, as it's Saturdaymorning and vacation besides?"

Rebecca sprang out from under the syringa bush, eyes flashing withdelight as only Rebecca's eyes COULD flash, her face one luminous circleof joyous anticipation. She clapped her grubby hands, and dancing upand down, cried: "May I, Aunt Miranda--can I, Aunt Jane--can I, AuntMiranda-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 MissSawyer reluctantly. "Take off that gingham apron and wash your handsclean at the pump. You ain't be'n out o' bed but two hours an' your headlooks as rough as if you'd slep' in it. That comes from layin' on theground 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 getyour second-best hair ribbon out o' your upper drawer and put onyour shade hat. No, you can't wear your coral chain--jewelry ain'tappropriate in the morning. How long do you cal'late to be gone, EmmaJane?"

"I don't know. Father's just been sent for to see about a sick womanover to North Riverboro. She's got to go to the poor farm. "

This fragment of news speedily brought Miss Sawyer, and her sister Janeas well, to the door, which commanded a view of Mr. Perkins and hiswagon. Mr. Perkins, the father of Rebecca's bosom friend, was primarilya blacksmith, and secondarily a selectman and an overseer of the poor, aman 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 tolive up towards Moderation. You remember she ran away to work in thefactory at Milltown and married a do--nothin' fellow by the name o' JohnWinslow?"

"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 thecountry, livin' a month here and a month there wherever they could getwork and house-room. They quarreled a couple o' weeks ago and he lefther. She and the little boy kind o' camped out in an old loggin' cabinback in the woods and she took in washin' for a spell; then she gotterrible 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 Iguess she's tired out bein' good Samaritan. Anyways, she sent word thismornin' that nobody can't seem to find John Winslow; that there ain'tno relations, and the town's got to be responsible, so I'm goin' over tosee how the land lays. Climb in, Rebecca. You an' Emmy Jane crowd backon 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 thebrick house. "I remember once seeing Sally Perry at meeting. She was ahandsome 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 folksshe might a' be'n earnin' an honest livin' this minute, " said Miranda. "Men folks are at the bottom of everything wrong in this world, " shecontinued, 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 Mirandagrimly, putting the doughnuts in a brown crock in the cellar-way andslamming 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 couldendure, 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, " thatgood 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 earlyan' late, learned my trade, an' denied myself when I was young, I mighta' be'n a pauper layin' sick in a loggin' cabin, stead o' bein' anoverseer o' the poor an' selectman drivin' along to take the pauper tothe 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 herhome farm at Sunnybrook and the debt upon it; a debt which had lain likea 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. Youhave to own something before you can mortgage it. "

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

"Well, " she said, sniffing in the fragrance of the new-mown hay andgrowing hopeful as she did so; "maybe the sick woman will be better sucha beautiful day, and maybe the husband will come back to make it up andsay he's sorry, and sweet content will reign in the humble habitationthat was once the scene of poverty, grief, and despair. That's how itcame out in a story I'm reading. "

"I hain't noticed that life comes out like stories very much, " respondedthe pessimistic blacksmith, who, as Rebecca privately thought, had readless 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 woodlandwhere many of the tall pines had been hewn the previous winter. The roofof 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 directlyto its door. 

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

"Good morning, Mr. Perkins, " said the woman, who looked tired andirritable. "I'm real glad you come right over, for she took worse afterI 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, alldecked, like hope, in living green. Dead! And all the rest of the worldreveling in strength. Dead! With all the daisies and buttercups wavingin the fields and the men heaping the mown grass into fragrant cocksor tossing it into heavily laden carts. Dead! With the brooks tinklingafter the summer showers, with the potatoes and corn blossoming, thebirds 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 wheresuch things were wont to lie quietly until something brought them to thesurface. She could not remember whether she had heard them at a funeralor read them in the hymn book or made them up "out of her own head, " butshe was so thrilled with the idea of dying just as the dawn was breakingthat 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. Shebelongs to your town and you'll have to bury her and take care ofJacky--that's the boy. He's seventeen months old, a bright littlefeller, the image o' John, but I can't keep him another day. I'm allwore out; my own baby's sick, mother's rheumatiz is extry bad, and myhusband's comin' home tonight from his week's work. If he finds a childo' John Winslow's under his roof I can't say what would happen; you'llhave 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. JohnWinslow'll hear o' Sal's death sooner or later, unless he's gone out ofthe state altogether, an' when he knows the boy's at the poor farm, Ikind o' think he'll come and claim him. Could you drive me over to thevillage to see about the coffin, and would you children be afraid tostay 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 presencehad not entered the minds of Rebecca or Emma Jane, said nothing, butdrove off together, counseling them not to stray far away from the cabinand promising to be back in an hour. 

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

It was very still in the woods; just the chirp of a grasshopper nowand then, or the note of a bird, or the click of a far-distant mowingmachine. 

"We're WATCHING!" whispered Emma Jane. "They watched with Gran'paPerkins, and there was a great funeral and two ministers. He left twothousand dollars in the bank and a store full of goods, and a paperthing you could cut tickets off of twice a year, and they were just likemoney. "

"They watched with my little sister Mira, too, " said Rebecca. "Youremember when she died, and I went home to Sunnybrook Farm? It waswinter time, but she was covered with evergreen and white pinks, andthere 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 thosefor 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, weCOULD do it if we were the only friends she had. Let's look intothe cabin first and be perfectly sure that there aren't any. Are youafraid?"

"N-no; I guess not. I looked at Gran'pa Perkins, and he was just thesame as ever. "

At the door of the hut Emma Jane's courage suddenly departed. Sheheld back shuddering and refused either to enter or look in. Rebeccashuddered too, but kept on, drawn by an insatiable curiosity about lifeand death, an overmastering desire to know and feel and understand themysteries of existence, a hunger for knowledge and experience at allhazards and at any cost. 

Emma Jane hurried softly away from the felt terrors of the cabin, andafter two or three minutes of utter silence Rebecca issued from theopen door, her sensitive face pale and woe-begone, the ever-ready tearsraining down her cheeks. She ran toward the edge of the wood, sinkingdown 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 andsad-looking, as if she'd been hurt and hurt and never had any goodtimes, and there's a weeny, weeny baby side of her. Oh, I wish I hadn'tgone in!"

Emma Jane blenched for an instant. "Mrs. Dennett never said THERE WASTWO DEAD ONES! ISN'T THAT DREADFUL? But, " she continued, her practicalcommon sense coming to the rescue, "you've been in once and it's allover; it won't be so bad when you take in the flowers because you'llbe used to it. The goldenrod hasn't begun to bud, so there's nothingto pick but daisies. Shall I make a long rope of them, as I did for theschoolroom?"

"Yes, " said Rebecca, wiping her eyes and still sobbing. "Yes, that's theprettiest, and if we put it all round her like a frame, the undertakercouldn'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 lessonssay, 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 sepulchralwhisper, as she took her ever-present ball of crochet cotton from herpocket and began to twine the whiteweed blossoms into a rope. 

"Oh, well!" Rebecca replied with the easy theology that belonged to hertemperament. "They simply couldn't send her DOWN THERE with that littleweeny baby. Who'd take care of it? You know page six of the catechismsays the only companions of the wicked after death are their father thedevil and all the other evil angels; it wouldn't be any place to bringup a baby. "

"Whenever and wherever she wakes up, I hope she won't know that the bigbaby 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, didshe?"

"No, but I suppose she's tired sitting up and nursing a stranger. Motherwasn't sorry when Gran'pa Perkins died; she couldn't be, for he wascross all the time and had to be fed like a child. Why ARE you cryingagain, Rebecca?"

"Oh, I don't know, I can't tell, Emma Jane! Only I don't want to die andhave no funeral or singing and nobody sorry for me! I just couldn't bearit!"

"Neither could I, " Emma Jane responded sympathetically; "but p'r'apsif we're real good and die young before we have to be fed, they willbe sorry. I do wish you could write some poetry for her as you did forAlice Robinson's canary bird, only still better, of course, like thatyou read me out of your thought book. "

"I could, easy enough, " exclaimed Rebecca, somewhat consoled by theidea 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 allpuzzled about how people get to heaven after they're buried. I can'tunderstand it a bit; but if the poetry is on her, what if that shouldgo, too? And how could I write anything good enough to be read out loudin 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 anddried 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 havewings? 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 ascrap of brown wrapping paper. Standing soberly by Emma Jane, she said, preparing to read them aloud: "They're not good; I was afraid yourfather'd come back before I finished, and the first verse sounds exactlylike the funeral hymns in the church book. I couldn't call her SallyWinslow; it didn't seem nice when I didn't know her and she is dead, soI 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 Rebeccafervently. "You are the smartest girl in the whole State of Maine, andit sounds like a minister's prayer. I wish we could save up and buy aprinting machine. Then I could learn to print what you write and we'dbe partners like father and Bill Moses. Shall you sign it with your namelike we do our school compositions?"

"No, " said Rebecca soberly. "I certainly shan't sign it, not knowingwhere 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 orsinging, or gravestone, or anything, so somebody just did the best theycould. "

III

The tired mother with the "weeny baby" on her arm lay on a longcarpenter's bench, her earthly journey over, and when Rebecca stolein 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 onlya child's sympathy and intuition that softened the rigors of the sadmoment, but poor, wild Sal Winslow, in her frame of daisies, lookedas if she were missed a little by an unfriendly world; while the weenybaby, whose heart had fallen asleep almost as soon as it had learned tobeat, the weeny baby, with Emma Jane's nosegay of buttercups in its tinywrinkled hand, smiled as if it might have been loved and longed for andmourned. 

"We've done all we can now without a minister, " whispered Rebecca. "Wecould sing, God is ever good' out of the Sunday school song book, butI'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 littlecall. 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 wakingfrom 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 shestretched out her arms. 

The child struggled to its feet, and tottered, wavering, toward the warmwelcome of the voice and eyes. Rebecca was all mother, and her maternalinstincts had been well developed in the large family in which she wasnext to the eldest. She had always confessed that there were perhaps atrifle too many babies at Sunnybrook Farm, but, nevertheless, had sheever heard it, she would have stood loyally by the Japanese proverb:"Whether brought forth upon the mountain or in the field, it mattersnothing; 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 hairwas of such a bright gold, and so sleek and shiny, that he looked likea fair, smooth little pumpkin. He had wide blue eyes full of laughter, a neat little vertical nose, a neat little horizontal mouth with hisfew neat little teeth showing very plainly, and on the whole Rebecca'sfigure 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 wewere married we could keep him and say nothing and nobody would know thedifference! Now that the Simpsons have gone away there isn't a singlebaby in Riverboro, and only one in Edgewood. It's a perfect shame, butI can't do anything; you remember Aunt Miranda wouldn't let me have theSimpson 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 mostevery day she's glad we're grown up, and she thanks the Lord therewasn't but two of us. "

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

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

"Well, I can't understand it, " Rebecca answered. "A baby's a baby, Ishould 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 wecould borrow it all the time!"

"I don't think it would seem very genteel for a young lady like MissDearborn, 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'tgot any--any--PRIVATE babies in Riverboro we ought to have one for thetown, and all have a share in it. We've got a town hall and a town lamppost and a town watering trough. Things are so uneven! One house likemine 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 everare belong to all the grown-up people that ever are, --just dividethem up, you know, if they'd go round. Oh, I have a thought! Don'tyou believe Aunt Sarah Cobb would keep him? She carries flowers to thegraveyard every little while, and once she took me with her. There's amarble cross, and it says: SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF SARAH ELLEN, BELOVEDCHILD OF SARAH AND JEREMIAH COBB, AGED 17 MONTHS. Why, that's anotherreason; Mrs. Dennett says this one is seventeen months. There's five ofus 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 EmmaJane. "Father doesn't think very sudden, but he thinks awful strong. Ifwe don't bother him, and find a place ourselves for the baby, perhapshe'll be willing. He's coming now; I hear the wheels. "

Lizy Ann Dennett volunteered to stay and perform the last rites withthe undertaker, and Jack-o'-lantern, with his slender wardrobe tied ina bandanna handkerchief, was lifted into the wagon by the reluctant Mr. Perkins, and jubilantly held by Rebecca in her lap. Mr. Perkins droveoff as speedily as possible, being heartily sick of the whole affair, and thinking wisely that the little girls had already seen and heardmore than enough of the seamy side of life that morning. 

Discussion concerning Jack-o'-lantern's future was prudently deferredfor a quarter of an hour, and then Mr. Perkins was mercilessly peltedwith arguments against the choice of the poor farm as a place ofresidence 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 Ican persuade Mrs. Cobb to keep him a little while, would you care?"

No; on reflection Mr. Perkins did not care. He merely wanted a quietlife and enough time left over from the public service to attend to hisblacksmith's shop; so instead of going home over the same road by whichthey came he crossed the bridge into Edgewood and dropped the childrenat the long lane which led to the Cobb house. 

Mrs. Cobb, "Aunt Sarah" to the whole village, sat by the window lookingfor Uncle Jerry, who would soon be seen driving the noon stage to thepost 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 inRiverboro in his company, she had been a constant visitor and the joyof the quiet household. Emma Jane, too, was a well-known figure in thelane, but the strange baby was in the nature of a surprise--a surprisesomewhat modified by the fact that Rebecca was a dramatic personage andmore liable to appear in conjunction with curious outriders, comrades, and retainers than the ordinary Riverboro child. She had run away fromthe too stern discipline of the brick house on one occasion, and hadbeen persuaded to return by Uncle Jerry. She had escorted a wanderingorgan grinder to their door and begged a lodging for him on a rainynight; so on the whole there was nothing amazing about the comingprocession. 

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

Rebecca was spokesman. Emma Jane's talent did not lie in eloquentspeech, but it would have been a valiant and a fluent child indeedwho could have usurped Rebecca's privileges and tendencies in thisdirection, language being her native element, and words of assortedsizes springing spontaneously to her lips. 

"Aunt Sarah, dear, " she said, plumping Jack-o'-lantern down on the grassas 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 veryimportant you should know everything before you answer yes or no?This is a baby named Jacky Winslow, and I think he looks like aJack-o'-lantern. His mother has just died over to North Riverboro, allalone, excepting for Mrs. Lizy Ann Dennett, and there was another littleweeny baby that died with her, and Emma Jane and I put flowersaround them and did the best we could. The father--that's JohnWinslow--quarreled with the mother--that was Sal Perry on the ModerationRoad--and ran away and left her. So he doesn't know his wife and theweeny baby are dead. And the town has got to bury them because theycan't find the father right off quick, and Jacky has got to go to thepoor farm this afternoon. And it seems an awful shame to take him up tothat lonesome place with those old people that can't amuse him, andif Emma Jane and Alice Robinson and I take most all the care of him wethought perhaps you and Uncle Jerry would keep him just for a littlewhile. You've got a cow and a turn-up bedstead, you know, " she hurriedon insinuatingly, "and there's hardly any pleasure as cheap as morebabies where there's ever been any before, for baby carriages andtrundle beds and cradles don't wear out, and there's always clothesleft over from the old baby to begin the new one on. Of course, we cancollect enough things to start Jacky, so he won't be much trouble orexpense; and anyway, he's past the most troublesome age and you won'thave to be up nights with him, and he isn't afraid of anybody oranything, as you can see by his just sitting there laughing and suckinghis thumb, though he doesn't know what's going to become of him. Andhe's just seventeen months old like dear little Sarah Ellen in thegraveyard, and we thought we ought to give you the refusal of him beforehe goes to the poor farm, and what do you think about it? Because it'snear my dinner time and Aunt Miranda will keep me in the whole afternoonif I'm late, and I've got to finish weeding the hollyhock bed beforesundown. "

IV

Mrs. Cobb had enjoyed a considerable period of reflection during thismonologue, and Jacky had not used the time unwisely, offering severalunconscious 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 forhis toes with arms too short to reach them, the movement involving anentire upsetting of equilibrium followed by more chuckles. 

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

"Poor little mite!" she said; "that doesn't know what he's lost andwhat's going to happen to him. Seems to me we might keep him a spelltill we're sure his father's deserted him for good. Want to come to AuntSarah, baby?"

Jack-o'-lantern turned from Rebecca and Emma Jane and regarded the kindface 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 toreher spectacles from her nose and laughed aloud. Taking them from himgently, she put them on again, and set him in the cushioned rockingchair under the lilac bushes beside the steps. Then she took one of hissoft hands in hers and patted it, and fluttered her fingers like birdsbefore his eyes, and snapped them like castanets, remembering all thearts she had lavished upon "Sarah Ellen, aged seventeen months, " yearsand 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 thather case was won. 

"The boy must be hungry; when was he fed last?" asked Mrs. Cobb. "Juststay a second longer while I get him some morning's milk; then yourun home to your dinners and I'll speak to Mr. Cobb this afternoon. Ofcourse, 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 heain't been used to much attention, and that kind's always the easiest totake care of. "

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

"Where's Jacky?" called Rebecca breathlessly, her voice alwaysoutrunning 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, inthe turn-up bedstead that had been so long empty, slept Jack-o'-lantern, in blissful unconsciousness of the doom he had so lately escaped. Hisnightgown and pillow case were clean and fragrant with lavender, butthey were both as yellow as saffron, for they had belonged to SarahEllen. 

"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 andstole down to the piazza. 

It was a beautiful and a happy summer that year, and every day it wasfilled with blissful plays and still more blissful duties. On theMonday after Jack-o'-lantern's arrival in Edgewood Rebecca founded theRiverboro Aunts Association. The Aunts were Rebecca, Emma Jane, AliceRobinson, and Minnie Smellie, and each of the first three promisedto labor for and amuse the visiting baby for two days a week, MinnieSmellie, who lived at some distance from the Cobbs, making herselfresponsible for Saturday afternoons. 

Minnie Smellie was not a general favorite among the Riverboro girls, andit was only in an unprecedented burst of magnanimity that they admittedher into the rites of fellowship, Rebecca hugging herself secretly atthe thought, that as Minnie gave only the leisure time of one day aweek, she could not be called a "full" Aunt. There had been long andbitter feuds between the two children during Rebecca's first summer inRiverboro, but since Mrs. Smellie had told her daughter that one morequarrel would invite a punishment so terrible that it could only behinted at vaguely, and Miss Miranda Sawyer had remarked that any nieceof hers who couldn't get along peaceable with the neighbors had bettergo back to the seclusion of a farm where there weren't any, hostilitieshad been veiled, and a suave and diplomatic relationship had replacedthe former one, which had been wholly primitive, direct, and barbaric. Still, whenever Minnie Smellie, flaxen-haired, pink-nosed, andferret-eyed, indulged in fluent conversation, Rebecca, remembering theold fairy story, could always see toads hopping out of her mouth. It wasreally very unpleasant, because Minnie could never see them herself; andwhat was more amazing, Emma Jane perceived nothing of the sort, beingalmost as blind, too, to the diamonds that fell continually fromRebecca's lips; but Emma Jane's strong point was not her imagination. 

A shaky perambulator was found in Mrs. Perkins's wonderful attic; shoesand stockings were furnished by Mrs. Robinson; Miss Jane Sawyer knitteda blanket and some shirts; Thirza Meserve, though too young for an aunt, coaxed from her mother some dresses and nightgowns, and was presentedwith a green paper certificate allowing her to wheel Jacky up and downthe road for an hour under the superintendence of a full Aunt. Eachgirl, under the constitution of the association, could call Jacky "hers"for two days in the week, and great, though friendly, was the rivalrybetween 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 mighthave had difficulty in managing the aunts, but she always had Jacky toherself the earlier part of the day and after dusk at night. 

Meanwhile Jack-o'-lantern grew healthier and heartier and jollier as theweeks slipped away. Uncle Jerry joined the little company of worshipersand slaves, and one fear alone stirred in all their hearts; not, as asensible and practical person might imagine, the fear that the recreantfather might never return to claim his child, but, on the contrary, thathe MIGHT do so!

October came at length with its cheery days and frosty nights, its gloryof crimson leaves and its golden harvest of pumpkins and ripened corn. Rebecca had been down by the Edgewood side of the river and had comeup across the pastures for a good-night play with Jacky. Her literarylabors had been somewhat interrupted by the joys and responsibilities ofvice-motherhood, and the thought book was less frequently drawn from itshiding place under the old haymow in the barn chamber. 

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

All at once the child's heart gave one prophetic throb and then stoodstill. 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 withwoodbine, 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 otherside, strode a stranger man, big and tall, with a crop of reddish curlyhair showing from under his straw hat. A woman walked by his side, andperched on his shoulder, wearing his most radiant and triumphant mien, as joyous in leaving Edgewood as he had been during every hour of hissojourn there--rode Jack-o'-lantern!

Rebecca gave a cry in which maternal longing and helpless, hopelessjealousy strove for supremacy. Then, with an impetuous movement shestarted 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. Ifthere'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'sforget that; and we'd ought to be glad and grateful that John Winslow'scome to his senses an' remembers he's brought a child into the world andought to take care of it. Our loss is his gain and it may make a man ofhim. Come in, and we'll put things away all neat before your Uncle Jerrygets home. "

Rebecca sank in a pitiful little heap on Mrs. Cobb's bedroom floorand sobbed her heart out. "Oh, Aunt Sarah, where shall we get anotherJack-o'-lantern, and how shall I break it to Emma Jane? What if hisfather doesn't love him, and what if he forgets to strain the milk orlets him go without his nap? That's the worst of babies that aren'tprivate--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 neitherrebellion nor repining, as she folded up the sides of the turn-upbedstead preparatory to banishing it a second time to the attic. "Ishall miss Sarah Ellen now more'n ever. Still, Rebecca, we mustn't feelto 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 SquireWinship, whose general chore-boy and farmer's assistant he had been forsome years. 

He passed Emma Jane Perkins's house slowly, as he always did. She wasonly a little girl of thirteen and he a boy of fifteen or sixteen, butsomehow, for no particular reason, he liked to see the sun shine on herthick 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 wouldrather have a sister like Emma Jane Perkins than anything else withinthe power of Providence to bestow. When she herself suggested thisrelationship a few years later he cast it aside with scorn, havingchanged his mind in the interval--but that story belongs to another timeand place. 

Emma Jane was not to be seen in garden, field, or at the window, andAbijah turned his gaze to the large brick house that came next on theother side of the quiet village street. It might have been closed fora funeral. Neither Miss Miranda nor Miss Jane Sawyer sat at theirrespective windows knitting, nor was Rebecca Randall's gypsy face to bediscerned. Ordinarily that will-o'-the wispish little person could beseen, heard, or felt wherever she was. 

"The village must be abed, I guess, " mused Abijah, as he neared theRobinsons' yellow cottage, where all the blinds were closed and no signof life showed on porch or in shed. "No, 't aint, neither, " he thoughtagain, as his horse crept cautiously down the hill, for from thedirection of the Robinsons' barn chamber there floated out into the aircertain burning sentiments set to the tune of "Antioch. " The words, to alad 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 anotherfamiliar 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 learntin singin' school! I wonder what they're actin' out, singin' hymn-tunesup 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 Edgewoodside of the river, till at length he approached the green Common wherethe old Tory Hill meeting-house stood, its white paint and green blindsshowing fair and pleasant in the afternoon sun. Both doors were open, and as Abijah turned into the Wareham road the church melodeon pealedout the opening bars of the Missionary Hymn, and presently a score ofvoices 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, andthe girls wa'n't allowed to come so they held one of their own, and Ibate ye it's the liveliest of the two. "

Abijah Flagg's shrewd Yankee guesses were not far from the truth, thoughhe was not in possession of all the facts. It will be remembered bythose who have been in the way of hearing Rebecca's experiences inRiverboro, that the Rev. And Mrs. Burch, returned missionaries from theFar East, together with some of their children, "all born under Syrianskies, " as they always explained to interested inquirers, spent a day ortwo at the brick house, and gave parlor meetings in native costume. 

These visitors, coming straight from foreign lands to the little Mainevillage, brought with them a nameless enchantment to the children, andespecially to Rebecca, whose imagination always kindled easily. Theromance of that visit had never died in her heart, and among the manycareers that dazzled her youthful vision was that of converting suchSyrian heathen as might continue in idol worship after the Burches'efforts in their behalf had ceased. She thought at the age of eighteenshe might be suitably equipped for storming some minor citadel ofMohammedanism; and Mrs. Burch had encouraged her in the idea, not, it isto be feared, because Rebecca showed any surplus of virtue or Christiangrace, but because her gift of language, her tact and sympathy, and hermusical talent seemed to fit her for the work. 

It chanced that the quarterly meeting of the Maine Missionary Societyhad been appointed just at the time when a letter from Mrs. Burch toMiss Jane Sawyer suggested that Rebecca should form a children's branchin Riverboro. Mrs. Burch's real idea was that the young people shouldsave their pennies and divert a gentle stream of financial aid intothe 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 modestparticipation in the conversion of the world, and wishing to effect anorganization without delay, they chose an afternoon when every house inthe village was vacant, and seized upon the Robinsons' barn chamber asthe place of meeting. 

Rebecca, Alice Robinson, Emma Jane Perkins, Candace Milliken, and PersisWatson, each with her hymn book, had climbed the ladder leading tothe haymow a half hour before Abijah Flagg had heard the strainsof "Daughters of Zion" floating out to the road. Rebecca, being anexecutive person, had carried, besides her hymn book, a silver call-belland pencil and paper. An animated discussion regarding one of twonames for the society, The Junior Heralds or The Daughters of Zion, had resulted in a unanimous vote for the latter, and Rebecca had beenelected president at an early stage of the meeting. She had modestlysuggested that Alice Robinson, as the granddaughter of a missionary toChina, would be much more eligible. 

"No, " said Alice, with entire good nature, "whoever is ELECTEDpresident, you WILL be, Rebecca--you're that kind--so you might as wellhave 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 chinabanks at his store--ones that will hold as much as two dollars if youwill 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 swoopand with an entire absence of that red tape which commonly rendersorganization so tiresome, Candace Milliken suggesting that perhaps she'dbetter be vice-president, as Emma Jane Perkins was always so bashful. 

"We ought to have more members, " she reminded the other girls, "but ifwe 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 tillanother time. Is Thirza Meserve too little to join?"

"I can't think why anybody named Meserve should have called a babyThirza, " said Rebecca, somewhat out of order, though the meeting wascarried on with small recognition of parliamentary laws. "It alwaysmakes 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 weought to have her. "

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

"Yes, " the president answered; "exactly the same, except one is writtenand the other spoken language. " (Rebecca was rather good at imbibinginformation, and a master hand at imparting it!) "Written language isfor poems and graduations and occasions like this--kind of like a bestSunday-go-to-meeting dress that you wouldn't like to go blueberrying infor fear of getting it spotted. "

"I'd just as 'lieves get 'guile' spotted as not, " affirmed theunimaginative Emma Jane. "I think it's an awful foolish word; but nowwe're all named and our officers elected, what do we do first? It'seasy enough for Mary and Martha Burch; they just play at missionaryingbecause their folks work at it, same as Living and I used to makebelieve 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 whereSatan reigns' (that's father's favorite hymn) there's always a heathenbowing down to wood and stone. You can take away his idols if he'll letyou and give him a bible and the beginning's all made. But who'll webegin 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 throughthe 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 EmmaJane. "Besides, his married daughter is a Sabbath-school teacher--whydoesn't she teach him to behave? I can't think of anybody just right tostart on!"

"Don't talk like that, Emma Jane, " and Rebecca's tone had a tinge ofreproof 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 theeasiest; there's a Scotch family at North Riverboro, an English one inEdgewood, and one Cuban man at Millkin's Mills. "

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

"Ye-es, I s'pose so; kind of a one; but foreigners' religions are neverright--ours is the only good one. " This was from Candace, the deacon'sdaughter. 

"I do think it must be dreadful, being born with a religion and growingup 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 ifyou're born in Africa, " persisted Persis, who was well named. 

"You can't. " Rebecca was clear on this point. "I had that all out withMrs. Burch when she was visiting Aunt Miranda. She says they can't helpbeing heathen, but if there's a single mission station in the whole ofAfrica, they're accountable if they don't go there and get saved. "

"Are there plenty of stages and railroads?" asked Alice; "because theremust be dreadfully long distances, and what if they couldn't pay thefare?"

"That part of it is so dreadfully puzzly we mustn't talk about it, please, " said Rebecca, her sensitive face quivering with the force ofthe problem. Poor little soul! She did not realize that her superiorsin 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 soseldom you can find a real big wicked family like that to save, withonly Clara Belle and Susan good in it. "

"And numbers count for so much, " continued Alice. "My grandmother saysif missionaries can't convert about so many in a year the Board advisesthem to come back to America and take up some other work. "

"I know, " Rebecca corroborated; "and it's the same with revivalists. Atthe Centennial picnic at North Riverboro, a revivalist sat opposite toMr. Ladd and Aunt Jane and me, and he was telling about his wonderfulsuccess in Bangor last winter. He'd converted a hundred and thirty ina month, he said, or about four and a third a day. I had just finishedfractions, so I asked Mr. Ladd how the third of a man could beconverted. He laughed and said it was just the other way; that the manwas a third converted. Then he explained that if you were trying toconvince a person of his sin on a Monday, and couldn't quite finish bysundown, perhaps you wouldn't want to sit up all night with him, andperhaps he wouldn't want you to; so you'd begin again on Tuesday, andyou couldn't say just which day he was converted, because it would betwo thirds on Monday and one third on Tuesday. "

"Mr. Ladd is always making fun, and the Board couldn't expect any greatthings of us girls, new beginners, " suggested Emma Jane, who was beingconstantly warned against tautology by her teacher. "I think it's awfulrude, anyway, to go right out and try to convert your neighbors; but ifyou 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 didwhen 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 refinedand delicate. Aunt Miranda says that one man alone could never geta subscription from Deacon Tuttle, and that's the reason they sent acommittee. But it seems to me Mrs. Burch couldn't mean for us to tryand convert people when we're none of us even church members, exceptCandace. I think all we can do is to persuade them to go to meeting andSabbath 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 mostheathenish and reperrehensiblest person in Riverboro. "

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

"You are right, " said the president tersely; "and after singing hymnnumber two hundred seventy four, to be found on the sixty-sixth page, we will take up the question of persuading Mr. Moody to attend divineservice or the minister's Bible class, he not having been in themeeting-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. Hymntwo seventy four, to be found on the sixty-sixth page of the new hymnbook 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 personmore difficult to persuade than the already "gospel-hardened" JacobMoody of Riverboro. 

Tall, gaunt, swarthy, black-bearded--his masses of grizzled, uncombedhair and the red scar across his nose and cheek added to his sinisterappearance. His tumble-down house stood on a rocky bit of land back ofthe Sawyer pasture, and the acres of his farm stretched out on all sidesof it. He lived alone, ate alone, plowed, planted, sowed, harvestedalone, and was more than willing to die alone, "unwept, unhonored, andunsung. " The road that bordered upon his fields was comparatively littleused by any one, and notwithstanding the fact that it was thickly setwith chokecherry trees and blackberry bushes it had been for yearspractically deserted by the children. Jacob's Red Astrakhan and GrannyGarland trees hung thick with apples, but no Riverboro or Edgewood boystole them; for terrifying accounts of the fate that had overtaken oneurchin in times agone had been handed along from boy to boy, protectingthe Moody fruit far better than any police patrol. 

Perhaps no circumstances could have extenuated the old man's surlymanners or his lack of all citizenly graces and virtues; but hisneighbors commonly rebuked his present way of living and forgot thetroubled past that had brought it about: the sharp-tongued wife, theunloving and disloyal sons, the daughter's hapless fate, and all theother sorry tricks that fortune had played upon him--at least that wasthe way in which he had always regarded his disappointments and griefs. 

This, then, was the personage whose moral rehabilitation was to beaccomplished 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 notfall; it did, indeed echo the words and in some way make them sound moregrim and satirical. 

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

"Why don't we draw lots, when none of us wants to speak to him and yetone of us must?"

This suggestion fell from Persis Watson, who had been pale andthoughtful ever since the first mention of Jacob Moody. (She was fond ofGranny 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 thewhile (as she always said in compositions)--"the while" she was tryingto adjust the ethics of this unexpected and difficult dilemma. 

"It is a very puzzly question, " she said thoughtfully. "I could ask AuntJane if we had time, but I suppose we haven't. It doesn't seem nice todraw 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 narrowpieces, all different lengths. "

At this moment a voice from a distance floated up to the haymow--a voicesaying plaintively: "Will you let me play with you, girls? Huldah hasgone to ride, and I'm all alone. "

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

"If she is going to be a member, " said Persis, "why not let her come upand hold the lots? She'd be real honest and not favor anybody. "

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

"Come, girls, draw!" commanded the president. "Thirza, you mustn't chewgum at a missionary meeting, it isn't polite nor holy. Take it out andstick it somewhere till the exercises are over. "

The five Daughters of Zion approached the spot so charged with fate, andextended their trembling hands one by one. Then after a moment's silentclutch of their papers they drew nearer to one another and comparedthem. 

Emma Jane Perkins had drawn the short one, becoming thus the destinedinstrument for Jacob Moody's conversion to a more seemly manner of life!

She looked about her despairingly, as if to seek some painless andrespectable 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 corroboratedher own fears. 

"I'm sorry, Emmy, dear, " she said, "but our only excuse for drawing lotsat all would be to have it sacred. We must think of it as a kind of asign, almost like God speaking to Moses in the burning bush. "

"Oh, I WISH there was a burning bush right here!" cried the distractedand recalcitrant missionary. "How quick I'd step into it without evenstopping 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 rightalong now before you get more frightened. Shall we go cross lots withher, Rebecca, and wait at the pasture gate? Then whatever happens Alicecan put it down in the minutes of the meeting. "

In these terrible crises of life time gallops with such incrediblevelocity that it seemed to Emma Jane only a breath before she was beingdragged through the fields by the other Daughters of Zion, the guilelesslittle 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, " liftedoff the top rail and pushed her through the bars. Then the girls turnedtheir backs reluctantly on the pathetic figure, and each sought a treeunder whose friendly shade she could watch, and perhaps pray, until themissionary should return from her field of labor. 

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

Rebecca's heart beat tumultuously under her gingham dress. She feltthat a drama was being enacted, and though unfortunately she was not thecentral figure, she had at least a modest part in it. The short lot hadnot fallen to the properest Daughter, that she quite realized; yet wouldany one of them succeed in winning Jacob Moody's attention, inengaging him in pleasant conversation, and finally in bringing him toa realization of his mistaken way of life? She doubted, but at the samemoment her spirits rose at the thought of the difficulties involved inthe undertaking. 

Difficulties always spurred Rebecca on, but they daunted poor Emma Jane, who had no little thrills of excitement and wonder and fear and longingto sustain her lagging soul. That her interview was to be entered as"minutes" by a secretary seemed to her the last straw. Her blue eyeslooked lighter than usual and had the glaze of china saucers; herusually pink cheeks were pale, but she pressed on, determined to bea faithful Daughter of Zion, and above all to be worthy of Rebecca'sadmiration and respect. 

"Rebecca can do anything, " she thought, with enthusiastic loyalty, "andI mustn't be any stupider than I can help, or she'll choose one ofthe other girls for her most intimate friend. " So, mustering all hercourage, she turned into Jacob Moody's dooryard, where he was choppingwood. 

"It's a pleasant afternoon, Mr. Moody, " she said in a polite but hoarsewhisper, Rebecca's words, "LEAD UP! LEAD UP!" ringing in clarion tonesthrough 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 thechopping block, supposing that Jacob, like other hosts, would pause inhis tasks and chat. 

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

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

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

The Daughter of Zion sent up a silent prayer for inspiration, but nonecame, and she sat silent, giving nervous jumps in spite of herselfwhenever the axe fell upon the log Jacob was cutting. 

Finally, the host became tired of his dumb visitor, and leaning onhis axe he said, "Look here, Sis, what have you come for? What's yourerrant? 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 ita last despairing wrench, and faltered: "Wouldn't you like--hadn't youbetter--don't you think you'd ought to be more constant at meeting andSabbath school?"

Jacob's axe almost dropped from his nerveless hand, and he regardedthe Daughter of Zion with unspeakable rage and disdain. Then, the bloodmounting in his face, he gathered himself together, and shouted: "Youtake yourself off that log and out o' this dooryard double-quick, youimperdent 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 tellye! And if I see your pious cantin' little mug inside my fence ag'in onsech 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 thedooryard, and otherwise scuttling and scooting down the hill at a pacenever contemplated even by Jacob Moody, who stood regarding her flyingheels with a sardonic grin. 

Down she stumbled, the tears coursing over her cheeks and mingling withthe dust of her flight; blighted hope, shame, fear, rage, all tearingher bosom in turn, till with a hysterical shriek she fell over the barsand into Rebecca's arms outstretched to receive her. The other Daughterswiped her eyes and supported her almost fainting form, while Thirza, thoroughly frightened, burst into sympathetic tears, and refused to becomforted. 

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

"He threatened to set the dog on me!" she wailed presently, when, asthey neared the Sawyer pasture, she was able to control her voice. "Hecalled me a pious, cantin' young one, and said he'd chase me out o' thedooryard 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 neversaw it until it was too obvious to be ignored. Had they done wrong ininterviewing Jacob Moody? Would Aunt Miranda be angry, as well as Mr. Perkins?

"Why was he so dreadful, Emmy?" she questioned tenderly. "What did yousay first? How did you lead up to it?"

Emma Jane sobbed more convulsively, and wiped her nose and eyesimpartially as she tried to think. 

"I guess I never led up at all; not a mite. I didn't know what youmeant. 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 thenJake roared at me like Squire Winship's bull.... And he called my facea mug.... You shut up that secretary book, Alice Robinson! If you writedown a single word I'll never speak to you again.... And I don't want tobe a member' another minute for fear of drawing another short lot. I'vegot enough of the Daughters or Zion to last me the rest o' my life! Idon't care who goes to meetin' and who don't. "

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

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

"Goodby, " said Rebecca, swallowing lumps of disappointment and chagrinas she saw the whole inspiring plan break and vanish into thin air likean 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 theworst. Aunt Jane must write to Mrs. Burch that we don't want to behome missionaries. Perhaps we're not big enough, anyway. I'm perfectlycertain it's nicer to convert people when they're yellow or brown orany color but white; and I believe it must be easier to save their soulsthan 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 ofthe occasional visiting horse, sadly juiceless and wanting in flavor. It still sheltered, too, old Deacon Israel Sawyer's carryall andmowing-machine, with his pung, his sleigh, and a dozen other survivalsof an earlier era, when the broad acres of the brick house went to makeone of the finest farms in Riverboro. 

There were no horses or cows in the stalls nowadays; no pig gruntingcomfortably of future spare ribs in the sty; no hens to peck the plantsin the cherished garden patch. The Sawyer girls were getting on inyears, and, mindful that care once killed a cat, they ordered theirlives with the view of escaping that particular doom, at least, andsucceeded fairly well until Rebecca's advent made existence a triflemore sensational. 

Once a month for years upon years, Miss Miranda and Miss Jane had puttowels over their heads and made a solemn visit to the barn, taking offthe enameled cloth coverings (occasionally called "emmanuel covers" inRiverboro), dusting the ancient implements, and sometimes sweepingthe heaviest of the cobwebs from the corners, or giving a brush to thefloor. 

Deacon Israel's tottering ladder still stood in its accustomed place, propped against the haymow, and the heavenly stairway leading to eternalglory scarcely looked fairer to Jacob of old than this to Rebecca. Bymeans of its dusty rounds she mounted, mounted, mounted far awayfrom time and care and maiden aunts, far away from childish tasksand childish troubles, to the barn chamber, a place so full of goldendreams, happy reveries, and vague longings, that, as her little brownhands clung to the sides of the ladder and her feet trod the roundscautiously in her ascent, her heart almost stopped beating in the sheerjoy of anticipation. 

Once having gained the heights, the next thing was to unlatch the heavydoors and give them a gentle swing outward. Then, oh, ever new Paradise!Then, oh, ever lovely green and growing world! For Rebecca had thatsomething 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 withits shining weather vane, a huge burnished fish that swam with the windand foretold the day to all Riverboro. The meadow, with its sunnyslopes stretching up to the pine woods, was sometimes a flowing sheetof shimmering grass, sometimes--when daisies and buttercups wereblooming--a vision of white and gold. Sometimes the shorn stubble wouldbe dotted with "the happy hills of hay, " and a little later the rockmaple on the edge of the pines would stand out like a golden ballagainst 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 thatAdam Ladd (Rebecca's favorite "Mr. Aladdin"), after searching for her infield and garden, suddenly noticed the open doors of the barn chamber, and called to her. At the sound of his vice she dropped her preciousdiary, and flew to the edge of the haymow. He never forgot the visionof the startled little poetess, book in one mittened hand, pencil inthe other, dark hair all ruffled, with the picturesque addition of anoccasional glade of straw, her cheeks crimson, her eyes shining. 

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

Now, all being ready, Rebecca went to a corner of the haymow, andwithdrew a thick blank-book with mottled covers. Out of her ginghamapron pocket came a pencil, a bit of rubber, and some pieces of brownpaper; then she seated herself gravely on the floor, and drew aninverted soapbox nearer to her for a table. 

The book was reverently opened, and there was a serious reading of theextracts already carefully copied therein. Most of them were apparentlyto the writer's liking, for dimples of pleasure showed themselves nowand then, and smiles of obvious delight played about her face; butonce in a while there was a knitting of the brows and a sigh ofdiscouragement, showing that the artist in the child was not whollysatisfied. 

Then came the crucial moment when the budding author was supposedly tobe racked with the throes of composition; but seemingly there wereno throes. Other girls could wield the darning or crochet or knittingneedle, and send the tatting shuttle through loops of the finest cotton;hemstitch, oversew, braid hair in thirteen strands, but the pencil wasnever obedient in their fingers, and the pen and ink-pot were a horrorfrom early childhood to the end of time. 

Not so with Rebecca; her pencil moved as easily as her tongue, and nomore striking simile could possibly be used. Her handwriting was notSpencerian; she had neither time, nor patience, it is to be feared, for copybook methods, and her unformed characters were frequently thedespair of her teachers; but write she could, write she would, write shemust 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 indulgedin as solace and balm when the terrors of examples in least commonmultiple threatened to dethrone the reason, or the rules of grammarloomed huge and unconquerable in the near horizon. 

As to spelling, it came to her in the main by free grace, and not bytraining, and though she slipped at times from the beaten path, herextraordinary ear and good visual memory kept her from many or flagrantmistakes. It was her intention, especially when saying her prayers atnight, to look up all doubtful words in her small dictionary, beforecopying her Thoughts into the sacred book for the inspirationof posterity; but when genius burned with a brilliant flame, andparticularly 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 barnchamber--the sunset door. How many a time had her grandfather, the gooddeacon, sat just underneath in his tipped-back chair, when Mrs. Israel'stemper was uncertain, and the serenity of the barn was in comfortingcontrast to his own fireside!

The open doors swinging out to the peaceful landscape, the solace of thepipe, not allowed in the "settin'-room"--how beautifully these simpleagents have ministered to the family peace in days agone! "If I hadn'thad my barn and my store BOTH, I couldn't never have lived in holymatrimony with Maryliza!" once said Mr. Watson feelingly. 

But the deacon, looking on his waving grass fields, his tasseling cornand his timber lands, bright and honest as were his eyes, never sawsuch visions as Rebecca. The child, transplanted from her home farm atSunnybrook, from the care of the overworked but easy-going mother, andthe companionship of the scantily fed, scantily clothed, happy-go-luckybrothers 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 samemight have been said of Miss Miranda's mind and heart, though MissJane had a few windows opening to the sun, and Rebecca already had herunconscious hand on several others. Brickhouse rules were rigid and manyfor a little creature so full of life, but Rebecca's gay spirit couldnot be pinioned in a strait jacket for long at a time; it escapedsomehow and winged its merry way into the sunshine and free air; if shewere not allowed to sing in the orchard, like the wild bird she was, shecould 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 apparentlyon the same lines as an obituary, or the inscription on a tombstone, save for the quantity and variety of information contained in it. Muchof the matter would seem to the captious critic better adapted to thebody of the book than to the title page, but Rebecca was apparentlyanxious that the principal personages in her chronicle should be welldescribed at the outset. 

She seems to have had a conviction that heredity plays its part in theevolution of genius, and her belief that the world will be inspiredby the possession of her Thoughts is too artless to be offensive. Sheevidently has respect for rich material confided to her teacher, andone can imagine Miss Dearborn's woe had she been confronted by Rebecca'schosen literary executor and bidden to deliver certain "Valuable Poetryand Thoughts, " the property of posterity "unless carelessly destroyed. "

THOUGHT BOOK of Rebecca Rowena Randall Really of Sunnybrook Farm Buttemporily of The Brick House Riverboro. Own niece of Miss Miranda andJane 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 assoon 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 PAINTEROR 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 andirrelevant information, the book ripples on like a brook, and to theweary reader of problem novels it may have something of the brook'srefreshing quality. 

OUR DIARIES May, 187--

All the girls are keeping a diary because Miss Dearborn was very muchashamed when the school trustees told her that most of the girls' andall of the boys' compositions were disgraceful, and must be improvedupon next term. She asked the boys to write letters to her once a weekinstead of keeping a diary, which they thought was girlish like playingwith dolls. The boys thought it was dreadful to have to write lettersevery seven days, but she told them it was not half as bad for them asit 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 nevercan use unless I write them down, for Aunt Miranda always says, Keepyour thoughts to yourself. Aunt Jane lets me tell her some, but does notlike my queer ones and my true thoughts are mostly queer. Emma Jane doesnot 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 itRemerniscences (written just like that with a capital R). Remerniscencesare things you remember about yourself and write down in case you shoulddie. Aunt Jane doesn't like to read any other kind of books but justlives 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 itand 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 beachwith Uncle Jerry Cobb we ran along the wet sand and looked at the shapesour boots made, just as if they were stamped in wax. Emma Jane turns inher left foot (splayfoot the boys call it, which is not polite) and SethStrout had just patched one of my shoes and it all came out in the sandpictures. When I learned The Psalm of Life for Friday afternoon speakingI thought I shouldn't like to leave a patched footprint, nor have EmmaJane'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 afifteen-cent one over to Watson's store. 

* * * * *

REMERNISCENCES

June, 187--

I told Aunt Jane I was going to begin my Remerniscences, and she saysI am full young, but I reminded her that Candace Milliken's sister diedwhen she was ten, leaving no footprints whatever, and if I should diesuddenly who would write down my Remerniscences? Aunt Miranda says thesun and moon would rise and set just the same, and it was no matter ifthey 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 dietonight I know now who would describe me right. Miss Dearborn wouldsay one thing and brother John another. Emma Jane would try to do mejustice, but has no words; and I am glad Aunt Miranda never takes thepen in hand. 

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

All the girls like their dairies very much, but Minnie Smellie got AliceRobinson's where she had hid it under the school wood pile and readit all through. She said it was no worse than reading anybody'scomposition, but we told her it was just like peeking through a keyhole, or listening at a window, or opening a bureau drawer. She said shedidn't look at it that way, and I told her that unless her eyes gotunscealed she would never leave any kind of a sublime footprint onthe sands of time. I told her a diary was very sacred as you generallypoured your deepest feelings into it expecting nobody to look at it butyourself and your indulgent heavenly Father who seeeth all things. 

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

"Arose at six this morning--(you always arise in a diary but you sayget up when you talk about it). Ate breakfast at half past six. Had sodabiscuits, coffee, fish hash and doughnuts. Wiped the dishes, fed thehens and made my bed before school. Had a good arithmetic lesson, butwent down two in spelling. At half past four played hide and coop in theSawyer 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 herdiary is interesting she will ask her mother to have meat hash insteadof fish, with pie when the doughnuts give out, and she will feed thehens before breakfast to make a change. We are all going now to try andmake something happen every single day so the diaries won't be so dulland 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 rosesand mix them with a little cinnamon and as much brown sugar as theywill give you, which is never half enough except Persis Watson, whoseaffectionate parents let her go to the barrel in their store. Then youdo up little bits like sedlitz powders, first in soft paper and thenin brown, and bury them in the ground and let them stay as long as youpossibly can hold out; then dig them up and eat them. Emma Jane andI stick up little signs over the holes in the ground with the date weburied them and when they'll be done enough to dig up, but we can neverwait. When Aunt Jane saw us she said it was the first thing for childrento learn, --not to be impatient, --so when I went to the barn chamber Imade a poem. 

IMPATIENCE

We dug our rose cakes up oh! all too soon. Twas in the orchard just atnoon. Twas in a bright July forenoon. Twas in the sunny afternoon. Twasunderneath the harvest moon. 

It was not that way at all; it was a foggy morning before school, and Ishould think poets could never possibly get to heaven, for it is so hardto stick to the truth when you are writing poetry. Emma Jane thinks itis nobody's business when we dug the rosecakes up. I like the line aboutthe harvest moon best, but it would give a wrong idea of our lives andcharacters to the people that read my Thoughts, for they would think wewere 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 thepoem which is rather uncommon. 

* * * * *

A DREADFUL QUESTION

September, 187--

WHICH HAS BEEN THE MOST BENEFERCENT INFLUENCE ON CHARACTER--PUNISHMENTOR REWARD?

This truly dreadful question was given us by Dr. Moses when he visitedschool today. He is a School Committee; not a whole one but I do notknow the singular number of him. He told us we could ask our familieswhat they thought, though he would rather we wouldn't, but we must writeour own words and he would hear them next week. 

After he went out and shut the door the scholars were all plunged ingloom and you could have heard a pin drop. Alice Robinson cried andborrowed my handkerchief, and the boys looked as if the schoolhouse hadbeen struck by lightning. The worst of all was poor Miss Dearborn, whowill lose her place if she does not make us better scholars soon, forDr. Moses has a daughter all ready to put right in to the school and shecan 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 likeAlice Robinson's, for she knew, ah! all to well, what the coming weekwould 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 knowwhat punishment is, and have seen others get rewards, and it is not sobad 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 foranybody, and would all rise who thought punishment made the bestscholars and men and women; and everybody sat stock still. 

And then she asked all to stand who believed that rewards produced thefinest results, and there was a mighty sound like unto the rushing ofwaters, but really was our feet scraping the floor, and the scholarsstood up, and it looked like an army, though it was only nineteen, because of the strong belief that was in them. Then Miss Dearbornlaughed and said she was thankful for every whipping she had whenshe was a child, and Living Perkins said perhaps we hadn't got to thethankful age, or perhaps her father hadn't used a strap, and she saidoh! no, it was her mother with the open hand; and Dick Carter said hewouldn't call that punishment, and Sam Simpson said so too. 

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

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

PUNISHMENT

Punishment is a very puzzly thing, but I believe in it when reallydeserved, 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 AuntSarah Cobb couldn't get it out, I had to wear it spotted for sixmonths which hurt my pride, but was right. I stayed at home from AliceRobinson's birthday party for a punishment, and went to the circusnext day instead, but Alice's parties are very cold and stiff, as Mrs. Robinson makes the boys stand on newspapers if they come inside thedoor, and the blinds are always shut, and Mrs. Robinson tells me how badher liver complaint is this year. So I thought, to pay for the circusand a few other things, I ought to get more punishment, and I threw mypink parasol down the well, as the mothers in the missionary books throwtheir infants to the crocodiles in the Ganges river. But it got stuckin the chain that holds the bucket, and Aunt Miranda had to get AbijahFlagg to take out all the broken bits before we could ring up water. 

I punished myself this way because Aunt Miranda said that unless Iimproved 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 brokenchairs to bottom, and mother used to say--"Poor man! His back is tooweak for such a burden!" and I used to take him out a doughnut, and thisis the part I want to go into the Remerniscences. Once I told him wewere sorry the chairs were so heavy, and he said THEY DIDN'T SEEM SOHEAVY WHEN HE HAD ET THE DOUGHNUT. This does not mean that the doughnutwas heavier than the chairs which is what brother John said, but it is abeautiful thought and shows how the human race should have sympathy, andhelp bear burdens. 

I know about a Blight, for there was a dreadful east wind over at ourfarm 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 thereason I threw away the dearest thing on earth to me, the pink parasolthat Miss Ross brought me from Paris, France. I have also wrapped up mybead purse in three papers and put it away marked not to be opened tillafter my death unless needed for a party. 

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

 * * * * *

REWARDS

A good way to find out which has the most benefercent effect would be totry rewards on myself this next week and write my composition the verylast day, when I see how my character is. It is hard to find rewards foryourself, but perhaps Aunt Jane and some of the girls would each giveme 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. Icould read Cora or the Sorrows of a Doctor's Wife a little oftener, butthat's all the rewards I can think of. I fear Aunt Miranda would saythey are wicked but oh! if they should turn out benefercent how glad andjoyful life would be to me! A sweet and beautiful character, belovedby my teacher and schoolmates, admired and petted by my aunts andneighbors, yet carrying my bead purse constantly, with perhaps my besthat on Wednesday afternoons, as well as Sundays!

* * * * *

A GREAT SHOCK

The reason why Alice Robinson could not play was, she was being punishedfor breaking her mother's blue platter. Just before supper my storybeing finished I went up Guide Board hill to see how she was bearingup and she spoke to me from her window. She said she did not mind beingpunished because she hadn't been for a long time, and she hoped it wouldhelp 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 goodidea and I told her to call her father up and beg him to beat herviolently. It would hurt, I said, but perhaps none of the other girlswould have a punishment like that, and her composition would be alldifferent and splendid. I would borrow Aunt Miranda's witchhayzel andpour 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. Ihad 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' MOTHERYOURSELF IF YOU'RE SO SMART!" Then she stamped away from the window andmy feelings were hurt, but Dick said perhaps she was hungry, and thatmade her cross. And as Dick and I turned to go out of the yard we lookedback and I saw something I can never forget. (The Great Shock) Mrs. Robinson was out behind the barn feeding the turkies. Mr. Robinsoncame softly out of the side door in the orchard and looking everywheresaround he stepped to the wire closet and took out a saucer of cold beanswith a pickled beet on top, and a big piece of blueberry pie. Then hecrept up the back stairs and we could see Alice open her door and takein the supper. 

Oh! What will become of her composition, and how can she tell anythingof the benefercent effects of punishment, when she is locked up byone parent, and fed by the other? I have forgiven her for the way shesnapped me up for, of course, you couldn't beg your father to beat youwhen he was bringing you blueberry pie. Mrs. Robinson makes a kind thatleaks out a thick purple juice into the plate and needs a spoon andblacks your mouth, but is heavenly. 

* * * * *

A DREAM

The week is almost up and very soon Dr. Moses will drive up to theschool 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 ableto come to school just now, but hope to be about again by Monday, whenDr. Moses goes away to a convention. It is a very hard composition towrite, somehow. Last night I dreamed that the river was ink and I keptdipping into it and writing with a penstalk made of a young pine tree. Isliced 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 threwthem all into the falls, not being good enough for Dr. Moses. 

Dick Carter had a splendid boy to stay over Sunday. He makes the realnewspaper named The Pilot published by the boys at Wareham Academy. Hesays when he talks about himself in writing he calls himself "we, " andit sounds much more like print, besides conscealing him more. 

Example: Our hair was measured this morning and has grown two inchessince last time.... We have a loose tooth that troubles us very much... Our inkspot that we made by negligence on our only white petticoat wehave been able to remove with lemon and milk. Some of our petticoat cameout with the spot. 

I shall try it in my composition sometime, for of course I shall writefor the Pilot when I go to Wareham Seminary. Uncle Jerry Cobb says thatI shall, and thinks that in four years I might rise to be editor if theyever have girls. 

I have never been more good than since I have been rewarding myselfsteady, even to asking Aunt Miranda kindly to offer me a company jellytart, not because I was hungry, but for an experement I was trying, andwould 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 mysoul, that was being tried. Then she gave me the tart and walked awayall puzzled and nervous. 

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

Ministers never believe in rewards, and it is useless to hope that theywill. We had the wrath of God four times in sermons this last summer, but God cannot be angry all the time, --nobody could, especially insummer; Mr. Baxter is different and calls his wife dear which is lovelyand the first time I ever heard it in Riverboro. Mrs. Baxter is anotherkind of people too, from those that live in Temperance. I like towatch her in meeting and see her listen to her husband who is young andhandsome for a minister; it gives me very queer and uncommon feelings, when they look at each other, which they always do when not otherwiseengaged. 

She has different clothes from anybody else. Aunt Miranda says you mustthink only of two things: will your dress keep you warm and will it wearwell and there is nobody in the world to know how I love pink and redand how I hate drab and green and how I never wear my hat with theblack and yellow porkupine quills without wishing it would blow into theriver. 

Whene'er I take my walks abroad How many quills I see. But as they arenot porkupines They never come to me. 

COMPOSITION

WHICH HAS THE MOST BENEFERCENT EFFECT ON THE CHARACTER, PUNISHMENT ORREWARD?

By Rebecca Rowena Randall

(This copy not corrected by Miss Dearborn yet. )

We find ourselves very puzzled in approaching this truly great andnational question though we have tried very ernestly to understand it, so as to show how wisely and wonderfully our dear teacher guides theyouthful mind, it being her wish that our composition class shall longbe remembered in Riverboro Centre. 

We would say first of all that punishment seems more benefercentlyneeded by boys than girls. Boys' sins are very violent, like stealingfruit, profane language, playing truant, fighting, breaking windows, andkilling innocent little flies and bugs. If these were not taken out ofthem early in life it would be impossible for them to become like ourmartyred president, Abraham Lincoln. 

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

We now approach girls, which we know better, being one. Girls seembetter than boys because their sins are not so noisy and showy. Theycan disobey their parents and aunts, whisper in silent hour, cheat inlessons, say angry things to their schoolmates, tell lies, be sulky andlazy, but all these can be conducted quite ladylike and genteel, andnobody wants to strap girls because their skins are tender and get blackand blue very easily. 

Punishments make one very unhappy and rewards very happy, and one wouldthink when one is happy one would behave the best. We were acquaintedwith a girl who gave herself rewards every day for a week, and it seemedto make her as lovely a character as one could wish; but perhaps if onewent 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 veryspot where he can see the sheep, or he will not know what we mean, andmay forget and kill another. The same is true of the human race. We mustbe firm and patient in punishing, no matter how much we love the one whohas done wrong, and how hungry she is. It does no good to whip a personwith one hand and offer her a pickled beet with the other. This confusesher mind, and she may grow up not knowing right from wrong. (Thestriking example of the pickled beet was removed from the essay by therefined but ruthless Miss Dearborn, who strove patiently, but vainly, tokeep such vulgar images out of her pupils' literary efforts. )

We now respectfully approach the Holy Bible and the people in the Biblewere 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 andwhen to do it having attended to it ever since the year B. C. Whilethe human race could not know about it till 1492 A. D. , which is whenColumbus discovered America. 

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

And we would gently advise boys to be more quiet and genteel in conductand try rewards to see how they would work. Rewards are not all likethe little rosebud merit cards we receive on Fridays, and which boyssometimes tear up and fling scornfully to the breeze when they getoutside, but girls preserve carefully in an envelope. 

Some rewards are great and glorious, for boys can get to be governor orschool trustee or road commissioner or president, while girls can onlybe wife and mother. But all of us can have the ornament of a meek andlowly 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 thesame kind. They never talk of chargers and palfreys in the village, norsay How oft and Methinks, and if a Scotchman out of Rob Roy should cometo Riverboro and want to marry one of us girls we could not understandhim unless he made motions; though Huldah Meserve says if a nobleman ofhigh degree should ask her to be his, --one of vast estates with serfs athis 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 ifanybody had written a piece about him: How his mother was dead and hisfather ran away and Emma Jane and I got Aunt Sarah Cobb to keep him soMr. Perkins wouldn't take him to the poor farm; and about our lovelytimes with him that summer, and our dreadful loss when his fatherremembered him in the fall and came to take him away; and how Aunt Sarahcarried the trundle bed up attic again and Emma Jane and I heard hercrying and stole away. 

Mrs. Peter Meserve says Grandpa Sawyer was a wonderful hand at storiesbefore his spirit was broken by grandmother. She says he was the lifeof 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 thanall the other lessons; but mother says I take after father, who alwayscould say everything nicely whether he had anything to say or not; somethinks I should be grateful to both of them. They are what is calledancestors and much depends upon whether you have them or not. TheSimpsons have not any at all. Aunt Miranda says the reason everybodyis so prosperous around here is because their ancestors were all firstsettlers and raised on burnt ground. This should make us very proud. 

Methinks and methought are splendid words for compositions. MissDearborn likes them very much, but Alice and I never bring them in tosuit 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 asI came off the bridge and turned up the hill, I saw lots and lots ofheelprints in the side of the road, heelprints with little spike holesin them. 

"Oh! The river drivers have come from up country, " I thought, "andthey'll be breaking the jam at our falls tomorrow. " I looked everywhereabout and not a man did I see, but still I knew I was not mistaken forthe heelprints could not lie. All the way over and back I thought aboutit, though unfortunately forgetting the molasses, and Alice Robinsonnot being able to come out, I took playtime to write a story. It isthe first grown-up one I ever did, and is intended to be like Cora theDoctor's Wife, not like a school composition. It is written for Mr. AdamLadd, and people like him who live in Boston, and is the printed kindyou 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 thecrystal stream as he drove his logs, and she to sigh and moan as shewent about her round of household tasks. 

At eventide the maiden was wont to lean over the bridge and her tearsalso fell into the foaming stream; so, though the two unhappy lovers didnot know it, the river was their friend, the only one to whom they toldtheir secrets and wept into. 

The months crept on and it was the next July when the maiden was passingover the bridge and up the hill. Suddenly she spied footprints on thesands of time. 

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

"They HAVE come indeed; ESPECIALLY ONE YOU KNOW, " said a voice, andout from the alder bushes sprung Lancelot Littlefield, for that was thelover's name and it was none other than he. His hair was curly and likeliving gold. His shirt, white of flannel, was new and dry, and of ahandsome color, and as the maiden looked at him she could think ofnought but a fairy prince. 

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

"Nay, sweet, " he replied. "'Tis I should say that to you, " and bendinggracefully on one knee he kissed the hem of her dress. It was a richpink gingham check, ellaborately ornamented with white tape trimming. 

Clasping each other to the heart like Cora and the Doctor, they stoodthere for a long while, till they heard the rumble of wheels on thebridge 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, whowill not be called his whole name again in this story. 

"You may, " said the father, "for lo! she has been ready and waiting formany 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, themarriage knot was tied upon the river bank where first they met; theriver bank where they had parted in anger, and where they had againscealeld their vows and clasped each other to the heart. And it was verylow water that summer, and the river always thought it was because notears dropped into it but so many smiles that like sunshine they driedit up. 

R. R. R. 

Finis

* * * * *

CAREERS

November, 187--

Long ago when I used to watch Miss Ross painting the old mill atSunnybrook I thought I would be a painter, for Miss Ross went to ParisFrance where she bought my bead purse and pink parasol and I thoughtI would like to see a street with beautiful bright-colored thingssparkling and hanging in the store windows. 

Then when the missionaries from Syria came to stay at the brick houseMrs. Burch said that after I had experienced religion I must learn musicand train my voice and go out to heathen lands and save souls, so Ithought that would be my career. But we girls tried to have a branch andbe home missionaries and it did not work well. Emma Jane's father wouldnot let her have her birthday party when he found out what she had doneand Aunt Jane sent me up to Jake Moody's to tell him we did not meanto be rude when we asked him to go to meeting more often. He said allright, but just let him catch that little dough-faced Perkins young onein his yard once more and she'd have reason to remember the call, whichwas just as rude and impolite as our trying to lead him to a purer and abetter life. 

Then Uncle Jerry and Mr. Aladdin and Miss Dearborn liked mycompositions, and I thought I'd better be a writer, for I must besomething the minute I'm seventeen, or how shall we ever get themortgage 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 Ihave decided to be a teacher like Miss Dearborn. 

The pathetic announcement of a change in the career and life purposes ofRebecca was brought about by her reading the grown-up story to Mr. AndMrs. Jeremiah Cobb after supper in the orchard. Uncle Jerry was theperson who had maintained all along that Riverboro people would not makea story; and Lancelot or The Parted Lovers was intended to refute thatassertion at once and forever; an assertion which Rebecca regarded(quite truly) as untenable, though why she certainly never could haveexplained. Unfortunately Lancelot was a poor missionary, quite unfittedfor the high achievements to which he was destined by the youthfulnovelist, and Uncle Jerry, though a stage-driver and no reading man, atonce perceived the flabbiness and transparency of the Parted Lovers themoment they were held up to his inspection. 

"You see Riverboro people WILL make a story!" asserted Rebeccatriumphantly as she finished her reading and folded the paper. "And itall came from my noticing the river drivers' tracks by the roadside, andwondering about them; and wondering always makes stories; the ministersays so. "

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

"It's a Riverboro story, sure enough, because you've got the riverand the bridge and the hill and the drivers all right there in it; butthere'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'larbook 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 ofargument. "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 toogood, mebbe, and the sisters was most too thunderin' bad to live on theface o' the earth, and that fayry old lady that kep' the punkin' coachup 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 thinkit ain't so. 

"I don' know how tis, but the folks in that Cinderella story seem tomatch together somehow; they're all pow'ful onlikely--the prince fellerwith the glass slipper, and the hull bunch; but jest the same you kindo' gulp em all down in a lump. But land, Rebecky, nobody'd swaller thatthere 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 thistownship, and you beat your Uncle Jerry all holler when it comes tousin' a lead pencil, but I say that ain't no true Riverboro story! Lookat the way they talk! What was that' bout being BETROTHED'?"

"Betrothed is a genteel word for engaged to be married, " explained thecrushed and chastened author; and it was fortunate the doting old mandid not notice her eyes in the twilight, or he might have known thattears were not far away. 

"Well, that's all right, then; I'm as ignorant as Cooper's cow whenit comes to the dictionary. How about what's-his-name callin' the girl'Naysweet'?"

"I thought myself that sounded foolish, :" confessed Rebecca; "but it'swhat the Doctor calls Cora when he tries to persuade her not to quarrelwith his mother who comes to live with them. I know they don't say it inRiverboro or Temperance, but I thought perhaps it was Boston talk. "

"Well, it ain't!" asserted Mr. Cobb decisively. "I've druv Boston menup in the stage from Milltown many's the time, and none of em eversaid Naysweet to me, nor nothin'like it. They talked like folks, everymother's son of em! If I'd a' had that what's-his-name on the harricanedeck' o' the stage and he tried any naysweetin' on me, I'd a' pitchedhim into the cornfield, side o' the road. I guess you ain't growed upenough for that kind of a story, Rebecky, for your poetry can't be beatin York County, that's sure, and your compositions are good enough toread out loud in town meetin' any day!"

Rebecca brightened up a little and bade the old couple her usualaffectionate good night, but she descended the hill in a saddened mood. When she reached the bridge the sun, a ball of red fire, was settingbehind 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 theshores were reflected, all swimming in a sea of pink. Leaning over therail, she watched the light fade from crimson to carmine, from carmineto rose, from rose to amber, and from amber to gray. Then withdrawingLancelot or the Parted Lovers from her apron pocket, she tore the pagesinto bits and dropped them into the water below with a sigh. 

"Uncle Jerry never said a word about the ending!" she thought; "and thatwas so nice!"

And she was right; but while Uncle Jerry was an illuminating critic whenit came to the actions and language of his Riverboro neighbors, he hadno power to direct the young mariner when she "followed the gleam, " andused her imagination. 

OUR SECRET SOCIETY

November, 187--

Our Secret society has just had a splendid picnic in Candace Milliken'sbarn. 

Our name is the B. O. S. S. , and not a single boy in the village has beenable to guess it. It means Braid Over Shoulder Society, and that is thesign. All the members wear one of their braids over the right shoulderin front; the president's tied with red ribbon (I am the president) andall the rest tied with blue. 

To attract the attention of another member when in company or at apublic place we take the braid between the thumb and little finger andstand carelessly on one leg. This is the Secret Signal and the passwordis Sobb (B. O. S. S. Spelled backwards) which was my idea and is thoughtrather uncommon. 

One of the rules of the B. O. S. S. Is that any member may be required totell her besetting sin at any meeting, if asked to do so by a majorityof the members. 

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

They asked me to tell my besetting sin at the very first meeting, and itnearly killed me to do it because it is such a common greedy one. It isthat I can't bear to call the other girls when I have found a thick spotwhen we are out berrying in the summer time. 

After I confessed, which made me dreadfully ashamed, every one of thegirls seemed surprised and said they had never noticed that one but hadeach thought of something very different that I would be sure to thinkwas my besetting sin. Then Emma Jane said that rather than tell hers shewould resign from the Society and miss the picnic. So it made somuch trouble that Candace gave up. We struck out the rule from theconstitution and I had told my sin for nothing. 

The reason we named ourselves the B. O. S. S. Is that Minnie Smellie hashad her head shaved after scarlet fever and has no braid, so she can'tbe a member. 

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

That, I think, is the principal trouble about doing mean and unkindthings; 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 yetalways be happy. 

Minnie Smellie spoils everything she comes into but I suppose weother girls must either have our hair shaved and call ourselves TheBaldheadians or let her be some kind of a special officer in theB. O. S. S. 

She might be the B. I. T. U. D. Member (Braid in the Upper Drawer), forthere 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 withmy 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 haymowtill spring. 

Perhaps they get made into icicles on the way but I do not seem to haveany thoughts in the winter time. The barn chamber is full of thoughts inwarm weather. The sky gives them to me, and the trees and flowers, andthe birds, and the river; but now it is always gray and nipping, thebranches are bare and the river is frozen. 

It is too cold to write in my bedroom but while we still kept an openfire I had a few thoughts, but now there is an air-tight stove in thedining 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 willask me to read out loud my secret thoughts. 

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

It is very queer how anybody can change so fast in a few months, but Iremember that Emma Jane's cat had kittens the day my book was bought atWatson's store. Mrs. Perkins kept the prettiest white one, Abijah Flaggdrowning all the others. 

It seems strange to me that cats will go on having kittens when theyknow what becomes of them! We were very sad about it, but Mrs. Perkinssaid 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, orJohn and Jenny Mira Mark and me would all have had stones tied to ournecks and been dropped into the deepest part of Sunny Brook, for Hannahand Fanny are the only truly handsome ones in the family. 

Mrs. Perkins says I dress up well, but never being dressed up it doesnot matter much. At least they didn't wait to dress up the kittens tosee how they would improve, before drowning them, but decided rightaway. 

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

So perhaps it is not strange that my Thought Book seems so babyish andfoolish to me when I think of all I have gone through and the millionsof things I have learned, and how much better I spell than I did tenmonths 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 longwinter and where nobody can find you again in the summer time but youraffectionate author, Rebecca Rowena Randall. 

Fourth Chronicle. A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY

I

Emma Jane Perkins's new winter dress was a blue and green Scotch plaidpoplin, trimmed with narrow green velvet-ribbon and steel nail-heads. She had a gray jacket of thick furry cloth with large steel buttonsup the front, a pair of green kid gloves, and a gray felt hat with anencircling band of bright green feathers. The band began in front witha bird's head and ended behind with a bird's tail, and angels could havedesired no more beautiful toilette. That was her opinion, and it wasshared to the full by Rebecca. 

But Emma Jane, as Rebecca had once described her to Mr. Adam Ladd, wasa rich blacksmith's daughter, and she, Rebecca, was a little half-orphanfrom a mortgaged farm "up Temperance way, " dependent upon her spinsteraunts for board, clothes, and schooling. Scotch plaid poplins weremanifestly not for her, but dark-colored woolen stuffs were, andmittens, 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 EmmaJane's winter outfit, and loyally trying to keep that admiration freefrom wicked envy. Her red-winged black hat was her second best, andalthough it was shabby she still liked it, but it would never do forchurch, even in Aunt Miranda's strange and never-to-be-comprehendedviews of suitable raiment. 

There was a brown felt turban in existence, if one could call itexistence when it had been rained on, snowed on, and hailed on for twoseasons; but the trimmings had at any rate perished quite off the faceof the earth, that was one comfort!

Emma Jane had said, rather indiscreetly, that at the village milliner'sat 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 aperfectly elegant magenta; two colors much in vogue at that time. Ifthe old brown hat was to be her portion yet another winter, would AuntMiranda conceal its deficiencies from a carping world beneath the shadedsolferino 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 lapfull of sewing things, and a chair piled with pasteboard boxes by herside. In one hand was the ancient, battered, brown felt turban, and inthe other were the orange and black porcupine quills from Rebecca's lastsummer's hat; from the hat of the summer before that, and the summerbefore that, and so on back to prehistoric ages of which her childishmemory kept no specific record, though she was sure that Temperance andRiverboro society did. Truly a sight to chill the blood of any eageryoung dreamer who had been looking at gayer plumage!

Miss Sawyer glanced up for a second with a satisfied expression and thenbent her eyes again upon her work. 

"If I was going to buy a hat trimming, " she said, "I couldn't selectanything better or more economical than these quills! Your mother hadthem when she was married, and you wore them the day you come to thebrick house from the farm; and I said to myself then that they lookedkind 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 outo'wear, summer or winter, more'n a month to a time! I declare they dobeat all for service! It don't seem as if your mother could a' choseem, --Aurelia was always such a poor buyer! The black spills are boutas good as new, but the orange ones are gittin' a little mite faded andshabby. I wonder if I couldn't dip all of em in shoe blackin'? It seemsreal queer to put a porcupine into hat trimmin', though I declare Idon't know jest what the animiles are like, it's be'n so long senceI looked at the pictures of em in a geography. I always thought theirquills stood out straight and angry, but these kind o' curls round someat the ends, and that makes em stand the wind better. How do you likeem on the brown felt?" she asked, inclining her head in a discriminatingattitude and poising them awkwardly on the hat with her work-stainedhand. 

How did she like them on the brown felt indeed?

Miss Sawyer had not been looking at Rebecca, but the child's eyes wereflashing, her bosom heaving, and her cheeks glowing with sudden rageand despair. All at once something happened. She forgot that she wasspeaking to an older person; forgot that she was dependent; forgoteverything but her disappointment at losing the solferino breast, remembering nothing but the enchanting, dazzling beauty of Emma JanePerkins's winter outfit; and suddenly, quite without warning, she burstinto a torrent of protest. 

"I will NOT wear those hateful porcupine quills again this winter! Iwill not! It's wicked, WICKED to expect me to! Oh! How I wish therenever had been any porcupines in the world, or that all of them had diedbefore silly, hateful people ever thought of trimming hat with them!They curl round and tickle my ear! They blow against my cheek and stingit like needles! They do look outlandish, you said so yourself a minuteago. Nobody ever had any but only just me! The only porcupine was madeinto the only quills for me and nobody else! I wish instead of stickingOUT of the nasty beasts, that they stuck INTO them, same as they do intomy cheek! I suffer, suffer, suffer, wearing them and hating them, andthey will last forever and forever, and when I'm dead and can't helpmyself, somebody'll rip them out of my last year's hat and stick themon my head, and I'll be buried in them! Well, when I am buried THEYwill be, that's one good thing! Oh, if I ever have a child I'll let herchoose 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 thedoor and down the street, while Miranda Sawyer gasped for breath, andprayed to Heaven to help her understand such human whirlwinds as thisRandall niece of hers. 

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

"Oh! Aunt Miranda, do forgive me if you can. It's the only time I'vebeen bad for months! You know it is! You know you said last week Ihadn't been any trouble lately. Something broke inside of me and cametumbling out of my mouth in ugly words! The porcupine quills make mefeel just as a bull does when he sees a red cloth; nobody understandshow I suffer with them!"

Miranda Sawyer had learned a few lessons in the last two years, lessonswhich were making her (at least on her "good days") a trifle kinder, andat any rate a juster woman than she used to be. When she alighted on thewrong side of her four-poster in the morning, or felt an extra touch ofrheumatism, she was still grim and unyielding; but sometimes a curioussort of melting process seemed to go on within her, when her whole bonystructure softened, and her eyes grew less vitreous. At such momentsRebecca used to feel as if a superincumbent iron pot had been lifted offher head, allowing her to breath freely and enjoy the sunshine. 

"Well, " she said finally, after staring first at Rebecca and then at theporcupine 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'vespoke, an' I guess there probably never was one. You'd better tell theminister what you said and see what he thinks of his prize Sunday-schoolscholar. But I'm too old and tired to scold and fuss, and try to trainyou same as I did at first. You can punish yourself this time, likeyou used to. Go fire something down the well, same as you did your pinkparasol! You've apologized and we won't say no more about it today, butI expect you to show by extry good conduct how sorry you be! You carealtogether too much about your looks and your clothes for a child, andyou'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, itwon't, really! That wasn't temper; I don't get angry with PEOPLE; butonly, once in a long while, with things; like those, --cover them upquick before I begin again! I'm all right! Shower's over, sun's out!"

Miss Miranda looked at her searchingly and uncomprehendingly. Rebecca'sstate of mind came perilously near to disease, she thought. 

"Have you seen me buyin' any new bunnits, or your Aunt Jane?" she askedcuttingly. "Is there any particular reason why you should dress betterthan your elders? You might as well know that we're short of cash justnow, your Aunt Jane and me, and have no intention of riggin' you outlike a Milltown fact'ry girl. "

"Oh-h!" cried Rebecca, the quick tears starting again to her eyes andthe color fading out of her cheeks, as she scrambled up from her kneesto 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 standthem 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 onMiss Miranda's part and bitter feelings on Rebecca's, but with a gleamof mutual understanding. 

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

Then Mrs. Perkins went to her bandbox in the attic and gave MissDearborn some pale blue velvet, with which she bound the brim of thebrown turban and made a wonderful rosette, out of which the porcupine'sdefensive armor sprang, buoyantly and gallantly, like the plume of Henryof Navarre. 

Rebecca was resigned, if not greatly comforted, but she had grace enoughto conceal her feelings, now that she knew economy was at the rootof some of her aunt's decrees in matters of dress; and she managed toforget the solferino breast, save in sleep, where a vision of it had away of appearing to her, dangling from the ceiling, and dazzling herso with its rich color that she used to hope the milliner would sell itthat she might never be tempted with it when she passed the shop window. 

One day, not long afterward, Miss Miranda borrowed Mr. Perkins's horseand wagon and took Rebecca with her on a drive to Union, to see aboutsome 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 somerags for a rug with old Mrs. Pease, so that the journey could be madeas profitable as possible, consistent with the loss of time and the wearand tear on her second-best black dress. 

The red-winged black hat was forcibly removed from Rebecca's head justbefore 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 avindictive grimace, and snapping the elastic under her long braids; "butit makes me think of what Mr. Robinson said when the minister told himhis mother-in-law would ride in the same buggy with him at his wife'sfuneral. "

"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, " saidMiranda, settling the lap robe over her knees. 

"Well, it can; because he said: Have it that way, then, but it'll spilethe hull blamed trip for me!'"

Jane closed the door suddenly, partly because she experienced a desireto smile (a desire she had not felt for years before Rebecca came tothe brick house to live), and partly because she had no wish to overhearwhat her sister would say when she took in the full significance ofRebecca's anecdote, which was a favorite one with Mr. Perkins. 

It was a cold blustering day with a high wind that promised to bring anearly fall of snow. The trees were stripped bare of leaves, theground was hard, and the wagon wheels rattled noisily over thethank-you-ma'ams. 

"I'm glad I wore my Paisley shawl over my cloak, " said Miranda. "Be youwarm enough, Rebecca? Tie that white rigolette tighter round your neck. The wind fairly blows through my bones. I most wish t we'd waited tilla pleasanter day, for this Union road is all up hill or down, and weshan't get over the ground fast, it's so rough. Don't forget, when yougo into Scott's, to say I want all the trimmin's when they send me thepork, 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 somecut-rounds at the mills, when he hauls for Squire Bean next time. Keepyour mind on your drivin', Rebecca, and don't look at the trees and thesky so much. It's the same sky and same trees that have been here rightalong. Go awful slow down this hill and walk the hoss over Cook's Brookbridge, for I always suspicion it's goin' to break down under me, an' Ishouldn'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 outand lead"--

The rest of the sentence was very possibly not vital, but at any rateit was never completed, for in the middle of the bridge a fierce galeof wind took Miss Miranda's Paisley shawl and blew it over her head. Thelong heavy ends whirled in opposite directions and wrapped themselvestightly about her wavering bonnet. Rebecca had the whip and the reins, and in trying to rescue her struggling aunt could not steady her ownhat, which was suddenly torn from her head and tossed against the bridgerail, where it trembled and flapped for an instant. 

"My hat! Oh! Aunt Miranda, my hateful hat!" cried Rebecca, neverremembering at the instant how often she had prayed that the "fretfulporcupine" might some time vanish in this violent manner, since itrefused to die a natural death. 

She had already stopped the horse, so, giving her aunt's shawl one lastdesperate twitch, she slipped out between the wagon wheels, and dartedin the direction of the hated object, the loss of which had dignified itwith a temporary value and importance. 

The stiff brown turban rose in the air, then dropped and flew along thebridge; Rebecca pursued; it danced along and stuck between two of therailings; 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 haveit! Come back, and leave your hat!"

Miranda had at length extricated herself from the submerging shawl, butshe was so blinded by the wind, and so confused that she did not measurethe financial loss involved in her commands. 

Rebecca heard, but her spirit being in arms, she made one more madscramble for the vagrant hat, which now seemed possessed with an evilspirit, for it flew back and forth, and bounded here and there, likea living thing, finally distinguishing itself by blowing between thehorse's front and hind legs, Rebecca trying to circumvent it by goingaround the wagon, and meeting it on the other side. 

It was no use; as she darted from behind the wheels the wind gave thehat an extra whirl, and scurrying in the opposite direction it soaredabove the bridge rail and disappeared into the rapid water below. 

"Get in again!" cried Miranda, holding on her bonnet. "You done yourbest and it can't be helped, I only wish't I'd let you wear your blackhat as you wanted to; and I wish't we'd never come such a day! The shawlhas broke the stems of the velvet geraniums in my bonnet, and the windhas blowed away my shawl pin and my back comb. I'd like to give up andturn right back this minute, but I don't like to borrer Perkins's hossagain this month. When we get up in the woods you can smooth your hairdown and tie the rigolette over your head and settle what's left of mybonnet; it'll be an expensive errant, this will!"

 * * * * *

II

It was not till next morning that Rebecca's heart really began its songof thanksgiving. Her Aunt Miranda announced at breakfast, that as Mrs. Perkins was going to Milliken's Mills, Rebecca might go too, and buy aserviceable hat. 

"You mustn't pay over two dollars and a half, and you mustn't get thepink bird without Mrs. Perkins says, and the milliner says, that itwon't fade nor moult. Don't buy a light-colored felt because you'll getsick of it in two or three years same as you did the brown one. I alwaysliked 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, andnot 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' lostit; but the mischief's done and you can go right over to Mis' Perkinsnow, so you won't miss her nor keep her waitin'. The two dollars and ahalf 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 inParadise. 

The porcupine quills had disappeared from her life, and without anyfault or violence on her part. She was wholly innocent and virtuous, butnevertheless she was going to have a new hat with the solferino breast, should the adored object prove, under rigorous examination, to bepractically indestructible. 

"Whene'er I take my walks abroad, How many hats I'll see; But if they'retrimmed with hedgehog quills They'll not belong to me!"

So she improvised, secretly and ecstatically, as she went towards theside entry. 

"There's 'Bijah Flagg drivin' in, " said Miss Miranda, going to thewindow. "Step out and see what he's got, Jane; some passel from theSquire, I guess. It's a paper bag and it may be a punkin, though hewouldn't wrop up a punkin, come to think of it! Shet the dinin' roomdoor, Jane; it's turrible drafty. Make haste, for the Squire's hossnever 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 andsatin-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 anerrand, and I'm afraid of missing Mrs. Perkins. Show me quick! Is itreally for me, or for Aunt Miranda?"

"Reely for you, I guess!" and he opened the large brown paper bag anddrew 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 supposethat, when resuscitated, they might again assume their original form insome near and happy future. 

Miss Miranda, full of curiosity, joined the group in the side entry atthis dramatic moment. 

"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "Where, and how under the canopy, didyou 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 thislittle 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' jestlike a boat! Where hev I seen that kind of a bristlin' plume?' thinksI. "

("Where indeed!" thought Rebecca stormily. )

"Then it come to me that I'd drove that plume to school and drove it tomeetin' 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 logsan' 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 theplume'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 slowlywith the other. 

"Well, I do say, " she exclaimed, "and I guess I've said it before, thatof 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 celebratedfor his puns. 

"And I declare, " Miranda continued, "when you think o' the fuss theymake about ostriches, killin' em off by hundreds for the sake o' theirfeathers that'll string out and spoil in one hard rainstorm, --an' allthe time lettin' useful porcupines run round with their quills on, whyI can't hardly understand it, without milliners have found out jesthow good they do last, an' so they won't use em for trimmin'. 'Bijah'sright; the hat ain't no more use, Rebecca, but you can buy you anotherthis mornin'--any color or shape you fancy--an' have Miss Morton sewthese brown quills on to it with some kind of a buckle or a bow, jestto 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 longwith the part that destiny, or Abijah Flagg, had played in Rebecca'saffairs, for, accompanied by the teacher, she walked to the old stagedriver's that same afternoon. Taking off her new hat with the venerabletrimming, she laid it somewhat ostentatiously upside down on the kitchentable and left the room, dimpling a little more than usual. 

Uncle Jerry rose from his seat, and, crossing the room, looked curiouslyinto the hat and found that a circular paper lining was neatly pinnedin the crown, and that it bore these lines, which were read aloud withgreat effect by Miss Dearborn, and with her approval were copied in theThought Book for the benefit of posterity:

"It was the bristling porcupine, As he stood on his native heath, Hesaid, '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 willlast till crack of doom, And maybe after then. They can be colored blueor green Or orange, brown, or red, But often as they may be dyed Theynever will be dead. ' And so the bristling porcupine As he stood on hisnative heath, Said, I think I'll pluck me some immmortelles And make meup a wreath. '

"R. R. R. "

Fifth Chronicle. THE SAVING OF THE COLORS

I

Even when Rebecca had left school, having attained the great age ofseventeen and therefore able to look back over a past incredibly longand full, she still reckoned time not by years, but by certain importantoccurrences. 

There was the year her father died; the year she left Sunnybrook Farm tocome to her aunts in Riverboro; the year Sister Hannah became engaged;the year little Mira died; the year Abijah Flagg ceased to be SquireBean's chore-boy, and astounded Riverboro by departing for LimerickAcademy in search of an education; and finally the year of hergraduation, which, to the mind of seventeen, seems rather theculmination than the beginning of existence. 

Between these epoch-making events certain other happenings stood out inbold 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 coralnecklace. There was the day the Simpson family moved away from Riverborounder a cloud, and she kissed Clara Belle fervently at the cross-roads, telling her that she would always be faithful. There was the visit ofthe Syrian missionaries to the brick house. That was a bright, romanticmemory, as strange and brilliant as the wonderful little birds' wingsand breasts that the strangers brought from the Far East. She rememberedthe moment they asked her to choose some for herself, and the rapturewith which she stroked the beautiful things as they lay on the blackhaircloth sofa. Then there was the coming of the new minister, forthough many were tried only one was chosen; and finally there was theflag-raising, a festivity that thrilled Riverboro and Edgewood societyfrom centre to circumference, a festivity that took place just beforeshe entered the Female Seminary at Wareham and said good-by to kind MissDearborn and the village school. 

There must have been other flag-raisings in history, --even the personsmost interested in this particular one would grudgingly have allowedthat much, --but it would have seemed to them improbable that any suchflag-raising as theirs, either in magnitude of conception or brilliancyof actual performance, could twice glorify the same century. Of somepageants it is tacitly admitted that there can be no duplicates, and theflag-raising at Riverboro Centre was one of these; so that it is smallwonder if Rebecca chose it as one of the important dates in her personalalmanac. 

The new minister's wife was the being, under Providence, who hadconceived the germinal idea of the flag. 

At this time the parish had almost settled down to the trembling beliefthat they were united on a pastor. In the earlier time a minister waschosen for life, and if he had faults, which was a probably enoughcontingency, and if his congregation had any, which is within the boundsof possibility, each bore with the other (not quite without friction), as old-fashioned husbands and wives once did, before the easy way out ofthe 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 seemedimpossible to suit the two communities most interested in the choice. 

The Rev. Mr. Davis, for example, was a spirited preacher, but persistedin keeping two horses in the parsonage stable, and in exchangingthem whenever he could get faster ones. As a parochial visitor he wasincomparable, dashing from house to house with such speed that he couldcover the parish in a single afternoon. This sporting tendency, whichwould never have been remarked in a British parson, was frowned upon ina New England village, and Deacon Milliken told Mr. Davis, when givinghim what he alluded to as his "walking papers, " that they didn't wantthe 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 accepthim because he wore a wig--an ill-matched, crookedly applied wig. 

Number three was eloquent but given to gesticulation, and Mrs. JereBurbank, 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 hotSundays. 

Number four, a genial, handsome man, gifted in prayer, was found to bea Democrat. The congregation was overwhelmingly Republican in itspolitics, and perceived something ludicrous, if not positivelyblasphemous, in a Democrat preaching the gospel. ("Ananias andBeelzebub'll be candidatin' here, first thing we know!" exclaimed theoutraged Republican nominee for district attorney. )

Number five had a feeble-minded child, which the hiring committeeprophesied, would always be standing in the parsonage front yard, makingtalk for the other denominations. 

Number six was the Rev. Judson Baxter, the present incumbent; and hewas voted to be as near perfection as a minister can be in this finiteworld. His young wife had a small income of her own, a distinct andunusual advantage, and the subscription committee hoped that they mightnot be eternally driving over the country to get somebody's fifty centsthat had been over-due for eight months, but might take their onerousduties 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 benervous! Seems as though they might lay up a little before they comehere, and not live from hand to mouth so! The Baxters seem quitedifferent, 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 theroom 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, butMrs. Buzzell says tis, and she says we might as well say good-by to theparlor carpet, which is church property, for the Baxters are living allover it!"

This criticism was the only discordant note in the chorus of praise, andthe people gradually grew accustomed to the open blinds and the overusedparlor carpet, which was just completing its twenty-fifth year of honestservice. 

Mrs. Baxter communicated her patriotic idea of a new flag to the DorcasSociety, 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 thebreeze, and it will mean all the more to the young voters growing up, toremember that their mothers made it with their own hands. "

"How would it do to let some of the girls help?" modestly asked MissDearborn, the Riverboro teacher. "We might choose the best sewers andlet them put in at least a few stitches, so that they can feel they havea share in it. "

"Just the thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Baxter. "We can cut the stripes and sewthem together, and after we have basted on the white stars the girls canapply them to the blue ground. We must have it ready for the campaignrally, and we couldn't christen it at a better time than in thispresidential year. "

II

In this way the great enterprise was started, and day by day thepreparations went forward in the two villages. 

The boys, as future voters and fighters, demanded an active share inthe proceedings, and were organized by Squire Bean into a fife and drumcorps, so that by day and night martial but most inharmonious music wokethe echoes, and deafened mothers felt their patriotism oozing out at thesoles of their shoes. 

Dick Carter was made captain, for his grandfather had a gold medalgiven him by Queen Victoria for rescuing three hundred and twenty-sixpassengers from a sinking British vessel. Riverboro thought it high timeto pay some graceful tribute to Great Britain in return for her handsomeconduct to Captain Nahum Carter, and human imagination could contrivenothing more impressive than a vicarious share in the flag raising. 

Living Perkins tried to be happy in the ranks, for he was offered noofficial position, principally, Mrs. Smellie observed, because "hisfather's war record wa'nt clean. " "Oh, yes! Jim Perkins went to thewar, " she continued. "He hid out behind the hencoop when they wasdraftin', 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 wasout o' sight fore it got a chance to light. He said eight dollars amonth, without bounty, wouldn't pay HIM to stop bullets for. He wouldn'tfight 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 schoolswere to be the States. Such trade in muslins and red, white, and blueribbons had never been known since "Watson kep' store, " and the numberof brief white petticoats hanging out to bleach would have caused thepassing stranger to imagine Riverboro a continual dancing school. 

Juvenile virtue, both male and female, reached an almost impossibleheight, for parents had only to lift a finger and say, "you shan't goto the flag raising!" and the refractory spirit at once armed itself fornew struggles toward the perfect life. 

Mr. Jeremiah Cobb had consented to impersonate Uncle Sam, and was todrive Columbia and the States to the "raising" on the top of his ownstage. Meantime the boys were drilling, the ladies were cutting andbasting and stitching, and the girls were sewing on stars; for thestarry part of the spangled banner was to remain with each of them inturn until she had performed her share of the work. 

It was felt by one and all a fine and splendid service indeed to helpin the making of the flag, and if Rebecca was proud to be of the chosenones, so was her Aunt Jane Sawyer, who had taught her all her delicatestitches. 

On a long-looked-for afternoon in August the minister's wife drove upto the brick house door, and handed out the great piece of bunting toRebecca, who received it in her arms with as much solemnity as if it hadbeen a child awaiting baptismal rites. 

"I'm so glad!" she sighed happily. "I thought it would never come myturn!"

"You should have had it a week ago, but Huldah Meserve upset the inkbottle over her star, and we had to baste on another one. You are thelast, though, and then we shall sew the stars and stripes together, andSeth Strout will get the top ready for hanging. Just think, it won'tbe many days before you children will be pulling the rope with all yourstrength, the band will be playing, the men will be cheering, and thenew flag will go higher and higher, till the red, white, and blue showsagainst the sky!"

Rebecca's eyes fairly blazed. "Shall I fell on' my star, or buttonholeit?" 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 isyour state, and try and have it the best of all. If everybody elseis trying to do the same thing with her state, that will make a greatcountry, 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 stitchesyou'll think the white grew out of the blue!"

The new minister's wife looked pleased to see her spark kindle a flamein 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 youare an old lady you can put on your specs and find it among all theothers. Good-by! Come up to the parsonage Saturday afternoon; Mr. Baxterwants to see you. "

"Judson, help that dear little genius of a Rebecca all you can!" shesaid that night, when they were cosily talking in their parlor andliving "all over" the parish carpet. "I don't know what she may, or maynot, come to, some day; I only wish she were ours! If you could haveseen 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 herthat her star was her state! I kept whispering to myself, Covet not thyneighbor'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, andspirit for the consecrated labor of sewing on her star. All the timethat her needle cautiously, conscientiously formed the tiny stitches shewas making rhymes "in her head, " her favorite achievement being this:

"Your star, my star, all our stars together, They make the dear oldbanner proud To float in the bright fall weather. "

There was much discussion as to which of the girls should impersonatethe State of Maine, for that was felt to be the highest honor in thegift of the committee. 

Alice Robinson was the prettiest child in the village, but she was veryshy and by no means a general favorite. 

Minnie Smellie possessed the handsomest dress and a pair of whiteslippers and open-work stockings that nearly carried the day. Still, asMiss Delia Weeks well said, she was so stupid that if she shouldsuck her thumb in the very middle of the exercises nobody'd be a ditesurprised!

Huldah Meserve was next voted upon, and the fact that if she were notchosen her father might withdraw his subscription to the brass band fundwas a matter for grave consideration. 

"I kind o' hate to have such a giggler for the State of Maine; let herbe the Goddess of Liberty, " proposed Mrs. Burbank, whose patriotism wasmore local than national. 

"How would Rebecca Randall do for Maine, and let her speak some of herverses?" suggested the new minister's wife, who, could she have had herway, would have given all the prominent parts to Rebecca, from Uncle Samdown. 

So, beauty, fashion, and wealth having been tried and found wanting, thecommittee discussed the claims of talent, and it transpired that tothe awe-stricken Rebecca fell the chief plum in the pudding. It was atribute to her gifts that there was no jealousy or envy among the othergirls; they readily conceded her special fitness for the role. 

Her life had not been pressed down full to the brim of pleasures, andshe had a sort of distrust of joy in the bud. Not until she saw it infull radiance of bloom did she dare embrace it. She had never readany verse but Byron, Felicia Hemans, bits of "Paradise Lost, " and theselections in the school readers, but she would have agreed heartilywith the poet who said:

"Not by appointment do we meet delight And joy; they heed not ourexpectancy; But round some corner in the streets of life They on asudden clasp us with a smile. "

For many nights before the raising, when she went to her bed she said toherself, after she had finished her prayers: "It can't be true that I'mchosen for the State of Maine! It just CAN'T be true! Nobody could begood ENOUGH, but oh, I'll try to be as good as I can! To be going toWareham Seminary next week and to be the State of Maine too! Oh! I mustpray HARD to God to keep me meek and humble!"

III

The flag was to be raised on a Tuesday, and on the previous Sunday itbecame known to the children that Clara Belle Simpson was coming backfrom Acreville, coming to live with Mrs. Fogg and take care of thebaby, called by the neighborhood boys "the Fogg horn, " on account of hisexcellent voice production. 

Clara Belle was one of Miss Dearborn's original flock, and if shewere left wholly out of the festivities she would be the only girl ofsuitable age to be thus slighted; it seemed clear to the juvenile mind, therefore, that neither she nor her descendants would ever recover fromsuch a blow. But, under all the circumstances, would she be allowed tojoin in the procession? Even Rebecca, the optimistic, feared not, and the committee confirmed her fears by saying that Abner Simpson'sdaughter 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 andseven children away from Riverboro to Acreville, just over the border inthe next county, Riverboro went to bed leaving its barn and shed doorsunfastened, and drew long breaths of gratitude to Providence. 

Of most winning disposition and genial manners, Mr. Simpson had notthat instinctive comprehension of property rights which renders a man avaluable citizen. 

Squire Bean was his nearest neighbor, and he conceived the novel ideaof paying Simpson five dollars a year not to steal from him, a methodoccasionally 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 contractas 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 myself-respect. Secondly, it's a nervous strain on me; and thirdly, fivedollars don't pay me!"

Squire Bean was so struck with the unique and convincing nature ofthese arguments that he could scarcely restrain his admiration, and heconfessed to himself afterward, that unless Simpson's mental attitudecould be changed he was perhaps a fitter subject for medical sciencethan the state prison. 

Abner was a most unusual thief, and conducted his operations with a tactand neighborly consideration none too common in the profession. He wouldnever steal a man's scythe in haying-time, nor his fur lap-robe in thecoldest of the winter. The picking of a lock offered no attractionsto him; "he wa'n't no burglar, " he would have scornfully asserted. Astrange horse and wagon hitched by the roadside was the most flagrantof his thefts; but it was the small things--the hatchet or axe on thechopping-block, the tin pans sunning at the side door, a stray garmentbleaching 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 fortheir intrinsic value as because they were so excellently adapted toswapping. The swapping was really the enjoyable part of the procedure, the theft was only a sad but necessary preliminary; for if Abnerhimself had been a man of sufficient property to carry on his businessoperations independently, it is doubtful if he would have helped himselfso freely to his neighbor's goods. 

Riverboro regretted the loss of Mrs. Simpson, who was useful inscrubbing, cleaning, and washing, and was thought to exercise someinfluence over her predatory spouse. There was a story of their earlymarried 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 toMilltown, with the view of keeping him sober through the day. After heturned out of the country road and approached the metropolis, it wassaid that he used to bury the docile lady in the load. He would thendrive on to the scales, have the weight of the hay entered in thebuyer's book, take his horses to the stable for feed and water, and whena favorable opportunity offered he would assist the hot and panting Mrs. Simpson out of the side or back of the rack, and gallantly brush thestraw from her person. For this reason it was always asserted that AbnerSimpson sold his wife every time he went to Milltown, but the story wasnever fully substantiated, and at all events it was the only suspectedblot on meek Mrs. Simpson's personal reputation. 

As for the Simpson children, they were missed chiefly as familiarfigures 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 toJane. "She'll ride with the rag-sack-and-bottle peddler just as quick asshe would with the minister; she always sets beside the St. Vitus' danceyoung 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 toeverybody that'll have him!"

It was thought very creditable to Mrs. Fogg that she sent for ClaraBelle 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'sway, and so keep honest; though she's no awful hombly I've no fears forher. A girl with her red hair, freckles, and cross-eyes can't fall intono kind of sin, I don't believe. "

Mrs. Fogg requested that Clara Belle should be started on her journeyfrom Acreville by train and come the rest of the way by stage, and shewas disturbed to receive word on Sunday that Mr. Simpson had borrowed a"good roader" from a new acquaintance, and would himself drive the girlfrom Acreville to Riverboro, a distance of thirty-five miles. That hewould arrive in their vicinity on the very night before the flag-raisingwas thought by Riverboro to be a public misfortune, and severalresidents hastily determined to deny themselves a sight of thefestivities and remain watchfully on their own premises. 

On Monday afternoon the children were rehearsing their songs at themeeting-house. As Rebecca came out on the broad wooden steps she watchedMrs. Peter Meserve's buggy out of sight, for in front, wrapped in acotton sheet, lay the previous flag. After a few chattering good-bysand weather prophecies with the other girls, she started on her homewardwalk, dropping in at the parsonage to read her verses to the minister. 

He welcomed her gladly as she removed her white cotton gloves (hastilyslipped on outside the door, for ceremony) and pushed back the funny hatwith the yellow and black porcupine quills--the hat with which she madeher first appearance in Riverboro society. 

"You've heard the beginning, Mr. Baxter; now will you please tell me ifyou like the last verse?" she asked, taking out her paper. "I've onlyread 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 wrotea 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, shesaid. 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 controlledhimself that he might lose none of Rebecca's quaint observations. When she was perfectly at ease, unwatched and uncriticised, she was amarvelous 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 magicnesswhen they get into poetry, don't you think so?" (Rebecca always talkedto grown people as if she were their age, or, a more subtle and truerdistinction, as if they were hers. )

"It has often been so remarked, in different words, " agreed theminister. 

"Mrs. Baxter said that each star was a state, and if each state did itsbest we should have a splendid country. Then once she said that we oughtto be glad the war is over and the States are all at peace together; andI thought Columbia must be glad, too, for Miss Dearborn says she'sthe mother of all the States. So I'm going to have it end like this: Ididn'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 theminister, quoting Wordsworth to himself. "And I wonder what becomes ofthem! That's a pretty idea, little Rebecca, and I don't know whetheryou or my wife ought to have the more praise. What made you think of thestars 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 wellwith West, ' so, of course, I said 'BREAST, '" Rebecca answered, with somesurprise at the question; and the minister put his hand under her chinand 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 theeventful morrow. 

As she approached the turning on the left called the old Milltownroad, she saw a white horse and wagon, driven by a man with a rakish, flapping, Panama hat, come rapidly around the turn and disappear overthe long hills leading down to the falls. There was no mistaking him;there never was another Abner Simpson, with his lean height, his bushyreddish hair, the gay cock of his hat, and the long piratical, upturnedmustaches, which the boys used to say were used as hat-racks by theSimpson children at night.. The old Milltown road ran past Mrs. Fogg'shouse, so he must have left Clara Belle there, and Rebecca's heartglowed 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 theground to the falls in a brief time. As she crossed the bridge she againsaw Abner Simpson's team, drawn up at the watering trough. 

Coming a little nearer, with the view of inquiring for the family, herquick eye caught sight of something unexpected. A gust of wind blew upa corner of a linen lap-robe in the back of the wagon, and underneathit she distinctly saw the white-sheeted bundle that held the flag; thebundle 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 idolizedflag, longed for, worked for, sewed for, that flag was in the back ofAbner Simpson's wagon, and if so, what would become of the raising?

Acting on blind impulse, she ran toward the watering-trough, calling outin her clear treble: "Mr. Simpson! Oh, Mr. Simpson, will you let me ridea piece with you and hear all about Clara Belle? I'm going part way overto the Centre on an errand. " (So she was; a most important errand, --torecover 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 Iwill!" for he liked the fair sex, young and old, and Rebecca had alwaysbeen a prime favorite with him. "Climb right in! How's everybody? Gladto see ye! The folks talk bout ye from sun-up to sun-down, and ClaraBelle can't hardly wait for a sight of ye!"

Rebecca scrambled up, trembling and pale with excitement. She did not inthe 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 theState of Maine sitting on top of it!

Mr. Simpson began a long monologue about Acreville, the house he livedin, the pond in front of it, Mrs. Simpson's health, and various items ofnews about the children, varied by reports of his personal misfortunes. He put no questions, and asked no replies, so this gave theinexperienced soldier a few seconds to plan a campaign. There werethree houses to pass; the Browns' at the corner, the Millikens', and theRobinsons' on the brow of the hill. If Mr. Robinson were in the frontyard 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 thesituation, and dragging out the precious bundle, sit on it hard, whileMr. Robinson settled the matter of ownership with Mr. Simpson. 

This was feasible, but it meant a quarrel between the two men, who heldan ancient grudge against each other, and Mr. Simpson was a valiantfighter as the various sheriffs who had attempted to arrest him couldcordially testify. It also meant that everybody in the village wouldhear of the incident and poor Clara Belle be branded again as the childof a thief. 

Another idea danced into her excited brain; such a clever one she couldhardly believe it hers. She might call Mr. Robinson to the wagon, andwhen 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. Wehave brought it here for you to keep overnight. " Mr. Simpson might beso surprised that he would give up his prize rather than be suspected ofstealing. 

But as they neared the Robinsons' house there was not a sign of lifeto be seen; so the last plan, ingenious though it was, was perforceabandoned. 

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 aperson who was generally called Slippery Simpson. 

Not a thought of fear crossed her mind, save the fear of bungling inher diplomacy, and so losing the flag. She knew Mr. Simpson well, and apleasanter man was seldom to be met. She recalled an afternoon when hecame home and surprised the whole school playing the Revolutionary Warin his helter-skelter dooryard, and the way in which he had joined theBritish forces and impersonated General Burgoyne had greatly endearedhim to her. The only difficulty was to find proper words for herdelicate mission, for, of course, if Mr. Simpson's anger were aroused, he would politely push her out of the wagon and drive away with theflag. Perhaps if she led the conversation in the right direction anopportunity would present itself. She well remembered how Emma JanePerkins had failed to convert Jacob Moody, simply because she failed to"lead up" to the delicate question of his manner of life. Clearing herthroat 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, "ifwe have any flag to raise!")

"That so? Where?"

"The three villages are to club together and have a rally, and raisethe flag at the Centre. There'll be a brass band, and speakers, and theMayor 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 theflag. "

"I want to know! That'll be grand, won't it?" (Still not a sign ofconsciousness on the part of Abner. )

"I hope Mrs. Fogg will take Clara Belle, for it will be splendid to lookat! Mr. Cobb is going to be Uncle Sam and drive us on the stage. MissDearborn--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 theone 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. Thenhe turned in his seat and regarded Rebecca curiously. "You're kind ofsmall, 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 thecommittee asked me, and I am going to try hard to do well. "

The tragic thought that there might be no occasion for anybody to doanything, well or ill, suddenly overcame her here, and putting herhand on Mr. Simpson's sleeve, she attacked the subject practically andcourageously. 

"Oh, Mr. Simpson, dear Mr. Simpson, it's such a mortifying subject Ican'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 solong 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, tillI explain more. It'll be so dreadful for everybody to get there tomorrowmorning and find no flag to raise, and the band and the mayor alldisappointed, and the children crying, with their muslin dresses allbought for nothing! O dear Mr. Simpson, please don't take our flag awayfrom us!"

The apparently astonished Abner pulled his mustaches and exclaimed: "ButI 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 thewinds and spoke a little more plainly, bending her great swimming eyeson the now embarrassed Abner, who looked like an angle-worm, wrigglingon a pin. 

"Mr. Simpson, how can you say that, when I saw the flag in the back ofyour wagon myself, when you stopped to water the horse? It's wicked ofyou to take it, and I cannot bear it!" (Her voice broke now, for a doubtof 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 fightlike the boys, but I can pinch and scratch, and I WILL scratch, justlike a panther--I'll lie right down on my star and not move, if I starveto death!"

"Look here, hold your hosses n' don't cry till you git something to cryfor!" grumbled the outraged Abner, to whom a clue had just come; andleaning over the wagon-back he caught hold of a corner of white sheetand 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 sobsin 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 thatbundle lyin' in the middle o' the road and I says to myself, that'ssomebody's washin' and I'd better pick it up and leave it at thepost-office to be claimed; n' all the time it was a flag!"

This was a Simpsonian version of the matter, the fact being that awhite-covered bundle lying on the Meserves' front steps had attractedhis practiced eye, and slipping in at the open gate he had swiftly anddeftly removed it to his wagon on general principles; thinking if itwere clean clothes it would be extremely useful, and in any event therewas no good in passing by something flung into your very arms, so tospeak. He had had no leisure to examine the bundle, and indeed tooklittle interest in it. Probably he stole it simply from force of habit, and because there was nothing else in sight to steal, everybody'spremises being preternaturally tidy and empty, almost as if his visithad been expected!

Rebecca was a practical child, and it seemed to her almost impossiblethat so heavy a bundle should fall out of Mrs. Meserve's buggy and notbe noticed; but she hoped that Mr. Simpson was telling the truth, andshe 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 yougave us back the flag, and so will the Dorcas Society; they'll be sureto write you a letter of thanks; they always do. "

"Tell em not to bother bout any thanks, " said Simpson, beamingvirtuously. "But land! I'm glad twas me that happened to see that bundlein the road and take the trouble to pick it up. " ("Jest to think of it'sbein' a flag!" he thought; "if ever there was a pesky, wuthless thing totrade 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 theflag, and she has heart trouble. "

"No, you don't, " objected Mr. Simpson gallantly, turning the horse. "Doyou 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 thecorner and dump you there, flag n' all, and you can get some o' themen-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 ahigh-pitched and grandiloquent mood. "Why don't YOU like it? It's yourcountry's flag. "

Simpson smiled an indulgent smile and looked a trifle bored at thesefrequent appeals to his extremely rusty higher feelings. 

"I don' know's I've got any partic'lar int'rest in the country, " heremarked 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 hadbeen feeding on patriotism for a month; "and you own a state, too, likeall 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 thanusual. 

As they approached the corner and the watering-trough where fourcross-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 herhands, turned out to be Mrs. Peter Meserve, accompanied by Huldah, theBrowns, 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 whereI left it just long enough to go round to the back and hunt up mydoor-key! You've given me a fit of sickness with my weak heart, and whatbusiness was it of yours? I believe you think you OWN the flag! Hand itover to me this minute!"

Rebecca was climbing down during this torrent of language, but as sheturned she flashed one look of knowledge at the false Simpson, a lookthat went through him from head to foot, as if it were carried byelectricity. 

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 hadever discomfited him so thoroughly as this child. Fury mounted to hisbrain, and as soon as she was safely out from between the wheels hestood up in the wagon and flung the flag out in the road in the midst ofthe excited group. 

"Take it, you pious, passimonious, cheese-parin', hair-splittin', back-bitin', flag-raisin' crew!" he roared. "Rebecca never took theflag; I found it in the road, I say!"

"You never, no such a thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Meserve. "You found it onthe doorsteps in my garden!"

"Mebbe twas your garden, but it was so chock full o' weeks I THOUGHTtwas the road, " retorted Abner. "I vow I wouldn't a' given the oldrag back to one o' YOU, not if you begged me on your bended knees! ButRebecca's a friend o' my folks and can do with her flag's she's a mindto, and the rest o' ye can go to thunder--n' stay there, for all Icare!"

So saying, he made a sharp turn, gave the gaunt white horse a lash anddisappeared in a cloud of dust, before the astonished Mr. Brown, theonly man in the party, had a thought of detaining him. 

"I'm sorry I spoke so quick, Rebecca, " said Mrs. Meserve, greatlymortified 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 tobe ridin' and consortin' with him! I believe it would kill your AuntMiranda 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 doanything to be ashamed of! I saw the flag in the back of Mr. Simpson'swagon and I just followed it. There weren't any men or any Dorcases totake care of it and so it fell to me! You wouldn't have had me let itout 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 andconsort' with Mr. Simpson! I don't know what the village will think, butseems to me the town clerk might write down in his book, THIS DAY THESTATE OF MAINE SAVED THE FLAG!'"

Sixth Chronicle. THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL

I

The foregoing episode, if narrated in a romance, would undoubtedly havebeen called "The Saving of the Colors, " but at the nightly conversazionein Watson's store it was alluded to as the way little Becky Randall gotthe flag away from Slippery Simpson. 

Dramatic as it was, it passed into the limbo of half-forgotten thingsin Rebecca's mind, its brief importance submerged in the glories of thenext day. 

There was a painful prelude to these glories. Alice Robinson came tospend the night with Rebecca, and when the bedroom door closed upon thetwo girls, Alice announced here intention of "doing up" Rebecca's fronthair in leads and rags, and braiding the back in six tight, wettedbraids. 

Rebecca demurred. Alice persisted. 

"Your hair is so long and thick and dark and straight, " she said, "thatyou'll look like an Injun!"

"I am the State of Maine; it all belonged to the Indians once, " Rebeccaremarked gloomily, for she was curiously shy about discussing herpersonal 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 consideredan accusing lack of beauty, a sight that always either saddened orenraged her according to circumstances; then she sat down resignedlyand began to help Alice in the philanthropic work of making the State ofMaine fit to be seen at the raising. 

Neither of the girls was an expert hairdresser, and at the end of anhour, when the sixth braid was tied, and Rebecca had given one lastshuddering look in the mirror, both were ready to weep with fatigue. 

The candle was blown out and Alice soon went to sleep, but Rebeccatossed on her pillow, its goose-feathered softness all dented by thecruel lead knobs and the knots of twisted rags. She slipped out of bedand walked to and fro, holding her aching head with both hands. Finallyshe leaned on the window-sill, watching the still weather-vane onAlice's barn and breathing in the fragrance of the ripening apples, until her restlessness subsided under the clear starry beauty of thenight. 

At six in the morning the girls were out of bed, for Alice could hardlywait until Rebecca's hair was taken down, she was so eager to see theresult of her labors. 

The leads and rags were painfully removed, together with much hair, theoperation being punctuated by a series of squeaks, squeals, and shriekson the part of Rebecca and a series of warnings from Alice, who wishedthe preliminaries to be kept secret from the aunts, that they might themore 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 hadresisted the earlier stages almost gave up the ghost. 

The long front strands had been wound up from various angles and byvarious methods, so that, when released, they assumed the strangest, most obstinate, most unexpected attitudes. When the comb was draggedthrough 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 deeplygrieved at the result of her attempted beautifying, but she felt thatmeeting Miss Miranda Sawyer at the morning meal would not mend mattersin the least, so slipping out of the side door, she ran up Guide Boardhill as fast as her legs could carry her. 

The State o' Maine, deserted and somewhat unnerved, sat down before theglass and attacked her hair doggedly and with set lips, working over ituntil Miss Jane called her to breakfast; then, with a boldness bornof despair, she entered the dining room, where her aunts were alreadyseated at table. To "draw fire" she whistled, a forbidden joy, whichonly attracted more attention, instead of diverting it. There was amoment of silence after the grotesque figure was fully taken in; thencame 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 itfor the raising. She said it was so straight I looked like an Indian!"

"Mebbe you did, " vigorously agreed Miranda, "but 't any rate you lookedlike a Christian Injun, 'n' now you look like a heathen Injun; that'sall the difference I can see. What can we do with her, Jane, betweenthis 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 andforce. "

Rebecca nibbled her corn-cake, her tearful eyes cast on her plate andher chin quivering. 

"Don't you cry and red your eyes up, " chided Miranda quite kindly; "theminute you've eat enough run up and get your brush and comb and meet usat the back door. "

"I wouldn't care myself how bad I looked, " said Rebecca, "but I can'tbear to be so homely that I shame the State of Maine!"

Oh, what an hour followed this plaint! Did any aspirant for literaryor dramatic honors ever pass to fame through such an antechamber ofhorrors? Did poet of the day ever have his head so maltreated? To bedipped in the rain-water tub, soused again and again; to be held underthe spout and pumped on; to be rubbed furiously with rough rollertowels; to be dried with hot flannels! And is it not well-nighincredible that at the close of such an hour the ends of the long hairshould still stand out straight, the braids having been turned up twoinches by Alice, and tied hard in that position with linen thread?

"Get out the skirt-board, Jane, " cried Miranda, to whom oppositionserved as a tonic, "and move that flat-iron on to the front o' thestove. 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'tcringe, Rebecca; the worst's over, and you've borne up real good! I'llbe careful not to pull your hair nor scorch you, and oh, HOW I'd liketo have Alice Robinson acrost my knee and a good strip o' shingle in myright hand! There, you're all ironed out and your Aunt Jane can put onyour white dress and braid your hair up again good and tight. Perhapsyou won't be the hombliest of the states, after all; but when I see youcomin' in to breakfast I said to myself: I guess if Maine looked likethat, it wouldn't never a' been admitted into the Union!'"

When Uncle Sam and the stagecoach drew up to the brick house with agrand swing and a flourish, the goddess of Liberty and most of theStates were already in their places on the "harricane deck. "

Words fail to describe the gallant bearing of the horses, theirheadstalls 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 loyalchildren. Patriotic streamers floated from whip, from dash-board andfrom rumble, and the effect of the whole was something to stimulate themost phlegmatic voter. 

Rebecca came out on the steps and Aunt Jane brought a chair to assist inthe ascent. Miss Dearborn peeped from the window, and gave a despairinglook at her favorite. 

What had happened to her? Who had dressed her? Had her head been putthrough a wringing-machine? Why were her eyes red and swollen? MissDearborn determined to take her behind the trees in the pine groveand give her some finishing touches; touches that her skillful fingersfairly 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 beautifyingcame from within. The people, walking, driving, or standing ontheir doorsteps, cheered Uncle Sam's coach with its freight ofgossamer-muslined, fluttering-ribboned girls, and just behind, thegorgeously decorated haycart, driven by Abijah Flagg, bearing the jollybut inharmonious fife-and-drum corps. 

Was ever such a golden day! Such crystal air! Such mellow sunshine! Sucha merry Uncle Sam!

The stage drew up at an appointed spot near a pine grove, and while thecrowd was gathering, the children waited for the hour to arrive whenthey should march to the platform; the hour toward which they seemed tohave been moving since the dawn of creation. 

As soon as possible Miss Dearborn whispered to Rebecca: "Come behind thetrees with me; I want to make you prettier!"

Rebecca thought she had suffered enough from that process already duringthe last twelve hours, but she put out an obedient hand and the twowithdrew. 

Now Miss Dearborn was, I fear, a very indifferent teacher. Dr. Mosesalways said so, and Libbie Moses, who wanted her school, said it wasa pity she hadn't enjoyed more social advantages in her youth. Libbieherself had taken music lessons in Portland; and spent a night at theProfile House in the White Mountains, and had visited her sister inLowell, Massachusetts. These experiences gave her, in her own mind, andin the mind of her intimate friends, a horizon so boundless that herview of smaller, humbler matters was a trifle distorted. 

Miss Dearborn's stock in trade was small, her principal virtues beingdevotion to children and ability to gain their love, and a power ofevolving a schoolroom order so natural, cheery, serene, and peacefulthat 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 arose, a bit of ribbon, and a seven-by-nine looking-glass she could makeherself as pretty as a pink in two minutes. 

Safely sheltered behind the pines, Miss Dearborn began to practicemysterious feminine arts. She flew at Rebecca's tight braids, openedthe strands and rebraided them loosely; bit and tore the red, white, and blue ribbon in two and tied the braids separately. Then with nimblefingers she pulled out little tendrils of hair behind the ears andaround the nape of the neck. After a glance of acute disapprovaldirected at the stiff balloon skirt she knelt on the ground and gavea 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 ofruffles, her fingers that could never hold a ferrule nor snap children'sears being incomparable fluting-irons. 

Next the sash was scornfully untied and tightened to suggest somethingresembling 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 darnedin at the back to prevent any cowardly lapsing. The short white cottongloves that called attention to the tanned wrist and arms were strippedoff and put in her own pocket. Then the wreath of pine-cones wasadjusted at a heretofore unimagined angle, the hair was pulled softlyinto a fluffy frame, and finally, as she met Rebecca's grateful eyesshe gave her two approving, triumphant kisses. In a second the sensitiveface lighted into happiness; pleased dimples appeared in the cheeks, thekissed mouth was as red as a rose, and the little fright that had walkedbehind the pine-tree stepped out on the other side Rebecca the lovely. 

As to the relative value of Miss Dearborn's accomplishments, thedecision must be left to the gentle reader; but though it is certainthat children should be properly grounded in mathematics, no heart offlesh could bear to hear Miss Dearborn's methods vilified who had seenher 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 beesa honeysuckle, he observed to Dr. Moses: "She may not be much of ateacher, but I think she'd be considerable of a wife!" and subsequentevents proved that he meant what he said!

II

Now all was ready; the moment of fate was absolutely at hand; thefife-and-drum corps led the way and the States followed; but whatactually happened Rebecca never knew; she lived through the hours in awaking dream. Every little detail was a facet of light that reflectedsparkles, and among them all she was fairly dazzled. The brass bandplayed inspiring strains; the mayor spoke eloquently on great themes;the people cheered; then the rope on which so much depended was put intothe children's hands, they applied superhuman strength to their task, and the flag mounted, mounted, smoothly and slowly, and slowly unwoundand stretched itself until its splendid size and beauty were revealedagainst the maples and pines and blue New England sky. 

Then after cheers upon cheers and after a patriotic chorus by the churchchoirs, the State of Maine mounted the platform, vaguely consciousthat she was to recite a poem, though for the life of her she could notremember a single word. 

"Speak up loud and clear, Rebecky, " whispered Uncle Sam in the frontrow, but she could scarcely hear her own voice when, tremblingly, shebegan 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 Mirandapalpitating with nervousness; Clara Belle Simpson gazing cross-eyed butadoring from a seat on the side; and in the far, far distance, on thevery outskirts of the crowd, a tall man standing in a wagon--a tall, loose-jointed man with red upturned mustaches, and a gaunt white horseheaded toward the Acreville road. 

Loud applause greeted the state of Maine, the slender little white-cladfigure standing on the mossy boulder that had been used as the centre ofthe platform. The sun came up from behind a great maple and shone fullon the star-spangled banner, making it more dazzling than ever, so thatits beauty drew all eyes upward. 

Abner Simpson lifted his vagrant shifting gaze to its softy flutteringfolds and its splendid massing of colors, thinking:

"I don't know's anybody'd ought to steal a flag--the thunderin' idjutsseem to set such store by it, and what is it, anyway? Nothin; but asheet o' buntin!"

Nothing but a sheet of bunting? He looked curiously at the rapt facesof the mothers, their babies asleep in their arms; the parted lips andshining eyes of the white-clad girls; at Cap'n Lord, who had been inLibby prison, and Nat Strout, who had left an arm at Bull Run; at thefriendly, jostling crowd of farmers, happy, eager, absorbed, theirthroats ready to burst with cheers. Then the breeze served, and he heardRebecca's clear voice saying:

"For it's your star, my star, all the stars together, That make ourcountry'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, " thoughtSimpson.... "If I ever seen a young one like that lyin; on anybody'sdoorstep 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 littlecreeter, 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' myjob! Never WITH the crowd, allers JEST on the outside, s if I wa'n't asgood's they be! If it paid well, mebbe I wouldn't mind, but they're sothunderin' stingy round here, they don't leave anything decent out foryou to take from em, yet you're reskin' your liberty n' reputation jestthe same!... Countin' the poor pickin's n' the time I lose in jail Imight most's well be done with it n' work out by the day, as the folkswant me to; I'd make bout's much n' I don't know's it would be anyharder!"

He could see Rebecca stepping down from the platform, while his ownred-headed little girl stood up on her bench, waving her hat with onehand, her handkerchief with the other, and stamping with both feet. 

Now a man sitting beside the mayor rose from his chair and Abner heardhim 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 theenemy!"

"HIP, HIP, HURRAH! HIP, HIP, HURRAH!"

It was the Edgewood minister, whose full, vibrant voice was of the sortto move a crowd. His words rang out into the clear air and were carriedfrom lip to lip. Hands clapped, feet stamped, hats swung, while the loudhuzzahs might almost have wakened the echoes on old Mount Ossipee. 

The tall, loose-jointed man sat down in the wagon suddenly and took upthe reins. 

"They're gettin' a little mite personal, and I guess it's bout time foryou to be goin', Simpson!"

The tone was jocular, but the red mustaches drooped, and thehalf-hearted cut he gave to start the white mare on her homeward journeyshowed that he was not in his usual devil-may-care mood. 

"Durn his skin!" he burst out in a vindictive undertone, as the mareswung into her long gait. "It's a lie! I thought twas somebody's wash! Ihain't an enemy!"

While the crowd at the raising dispersed in happy family groups to theirpicnics in the woods; while the Goddess of Liberty, Uncle Sam, Columbia, and the proud States lunched grandly in the Grange hall withdistinguished guests and scarred veterans of two wars, the lonelyman drove, and drove, and drove through silent woods and dull, sleepyvillages, never alighting to replenish his wardrobe or his stock ofswapping 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 inher faded eyes came to the door at the sound of wheels and went doggedlyto the horse-shed to help him unharness. 

"You didn't expect to see me back tonight, did ye?" he askedsatirically; "leastwise not with this same horse? Well, I'm here! Youneedn'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 guessI 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, Ihain't sech a hound as to steal a flag!"

It was natural that young Riverboro should have red, white, and bluedreams 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 bedwith the flutter of bunting before his eyes, and a whirl of unaccustomedwords 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 otherroad 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!" exclaimedMiranda Sawyer to Jane. "I thought when the family moved to Acrevillewe'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 tocome over to Riverboro once in a while of a Sunday mornin' and set inthe meetin' house starin' at Rebecca same as he used to do, only it'sreskier now both of em are older. Then Mrs. Fogg must go and bring backthe biggest girl to help her take care of her baby, --as if there wa'n'tplenty of help nearer home! Now I hear say that the youngest twin hascome 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. "Butthat pasty-faced Simpson twin looks younger and is smaller than theother one. He's meek as Moses and the other one is as bold as a brasskettle; 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 littleboy, 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 sureto let him play in her garden. "

"I wonder why the boy's stayin' with Cassius Came, " said Jane. "To besure they haven't got any of their own, but the child's too young to bemuch use. "

"I know why, " remarked Rebecca promptly, "for I heard all about it overto Watson's when I was getting the milk. Mr. Came traded something withMr. Simpson two years ago and got the best of the bargain, and UncleJerry says he's the only man that ever did, and he ought to have amonument put up to him. So Mr. Came owes Mr. Simpson money and won'tpay it, and Mr. Simpson said he'd send over a child and board part of itout, and take the rest in stock--a pig or a calf or something. "

"That's all stuff and nonsense, " exclaimed Miranda; "nothin' in theworld but store-talk. You git a clump o' men-folks settin' roundWatson's stove, or out on the bench at the door, an' they'll make upstories as fast as their tongues can wag. The man don't live that'ssmart enough to cheat Abner Simpson in a trade, and who ever heard ofanybody's owin' him money? Tain't supposable that a woman like Mrs. Camewould allow her husband to be in debt to a man like Abner Simpson. It'sa sight likelier that she heard that Mrs. Simpson was ailin' and sentfor the boy so as to help the family along. She always had Mrs. Simpsonto wash for her once a month, if you remember Jane?"

There are some facts so shrouded in obscurity that the most skillful andpatient investigator cannot drag them into the light of day. There arealso (but only occasionally) certain motives, acts, speeches, lines ofconduct, that can never be wholly and satisfactorily explained, even ina 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 allthat Riverboro ever knew as to the three months' visit of the Simpsontwin was that it actually occurred. Elisha, otherwise Nimbi-Pamby, came;Nimbi-Pamby stayed; and Nimbi-Pamby, when he finally rejoined his owndomestic circle, did not go empty-handed (so to speak), for he wasaccompanied on his homeward travels by a large, red, bony, somewhattruculent cow, who was tied on behind the wagon, and who made thejourney a lively and eventful one by her total lack of desire to proceedover the road from Edgewood to Acreville. But that, the cow's tale, belongs to another time and place, and the coward's tale must comefirst; for Elisha Simpson was held to be sadly lacking in the manlyquality of courage. 

It was the new minister's wife who called Nimbi-Pamby the LittleProphet. His full name was Elisha Jeremiah Simpson, but one seldom heardit at full length, since, if he escaped the ignominy of Nimbi-Pamby, Lishe was quite enough for an urchin just in his first trousers andthose assumed somewhat prematurely. He was "Lishe, " therefore, to thevillage, but the Little Prophet to the young minister's wife. 

Rebecca could see the Cames' brown farmhouse from Mrs. Baxter'ssitting-room window. The little-traveled road with strips of tuftedgreen between the wheel tracks curled dustily up to the very doorstep, and inside the screen door of pink mosquito netting was a wonderfuldrawn-in rug, shaped like a half pie, with "Welcome" in saffron letterson a green ground. 

Rebecca liked Mrs. Cassius Came, who was a friend of her Aunt Miranda'sand one of the few persons who exchanged calls with that somewhatunsociable 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, andher delight at being sent on an errand in that direction could not bemeasured, now that the new minister and his wife had grown to be such aresource in her life. She liked to see Mrs. Came shake the Welcome rug, flinging the cheery word out into the summer sunshine like a brightgreeting to the day. She liked to see her go to the screen door a dozentimes in a morning, open it a crack and chase an imaginary fly from thesacred precincts within. She liked to see her come up the cellar stepsinto the side garden, appearing mysteriously as from the bowels of theearth, carrying a shining pan of milk in both hands, and disappearingthrough the beds of hollyhocks and sunflowers to the pig-pen or thehen-house. 

Rebecca was not fond of Mr. Came, and neither was Mrs. Baxter, norElisha, for that matter; in fact Mr. Came was rather a difficult personto grow fond of, with his fiery red beard, his freckled skin, and hisgruff way of speaking; for there were no children in the brown house tosmooth 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 mapleearly one morning, when she first saw the Little Prophet. A tiny figurecame down the grass-grown road leading a cow by a rope. If it had been asmall boy and a small cow, a middle-sized boy and an ordinary cow, or agrown man and a big cow, she might not have noticed them; but it was thecombination of an infinitesimal boy and a huge cow that attracted herattention. She could not guess the child's years, she only knew that hewas small for his age, whatever it was. 

The cow was a dark red beast with a crumpled horn, a white star on herforehead, and a large surprised sort of eye. She had, of course, twoeyes, and both were surprised, but the left one had an added hint ofamazement in it by virtue of a few white hairs lurking accidentally inthe centre of the eyebrow. 

The boy had a thin sensitive face and curtly brown hair, short trouserspatched 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 bothhands, and getting over the ground in a jerky way, as the animal lefthim 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 nohurry to reach it; accordingly she forsook the road now and then, and rambled in the hollows, where the grass was sweeter to her way ofthinking. She started on one of these exploring expeditions just as shepassed the minister's great maple, and gave Mrs. Baxter time to call outto the little fellow, "Is that your cow?"

Elisha blushed and smiled, and tried to speak modestly, but there was aquiver 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 pasturethout her gettin' her foot over the rope or thout my bein' afraid, she'sgoin' to be my truly cow. Are you fraid of cows?"

"Ye-e-es, " Mrs. Baxter confessed, "I am, just a little. You see, I amnothing 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 ofthe biggest things in the world. "

"Yes; me, too. Don't let's think about it. Do they hook people so veryoften?"

"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 afree-will boy, and they are nothing but cows. "

"I know; but p'raps there is free-will cows, and if they just WOULD doit you couldn't help being scrunched, for you mustn't let go of the ropenor 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 placeswhen 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'swhat 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 drutherstay to home, and so when she gets part way she turns round and comesbackwards. "

"Dear me!" thought Mrs. Baxter, "what becomes of this boy-mite if thecow has a spell of going backwards?--Do you like to drive her?" sheasked. 

"N-no, not erzackly; but you see, it'll be my cow if I drive hertwenty-nine more times thout her gettin' her foot over the rope andthout my bein' afraid, " and a beaming smile gave a transient brightnessto 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!' likethat, and it means to hurry up. "

It was rather a feeble warning that he sounded and the cow fedon peacefully. The little fellow looked up at the minister's wifeconfidingly, and then glanced back at the farm to see if Cassius Camewere watching the progress of events. 

"What shall we do next?" he asked. 

Mrs. Baxter delighted in that warm, cosy little 'WE;' it took her intothe 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, "Whatshall WE do next?" She became alert, ingenious, strong, on the instant. 

"What is the cow's name?" she asked, sitting up straight in theswing-chair. 

"Buttercup; but she don't seem to know it very well. She ain't a mitelike a buttercup. "

"Never mind; you must shout 'Buttercup!' at the top of your voice, andtwitch the rope HARD; then I'll call, 'Hurrap!' with all my might atthe same moment. And if she starts quickly we mustn't run nor seemfrightened!"

They did this; it worked to a charm, and Mrs. Baxter lookedaffectionately after her Little Prophet as the cow pulled him down ToryHill. 

The lovely August days wore on. Rebecca was often at the parsonageand saw Elisha frequently, but Buttercup was seldom present at theirinterviews, as the boy now drove her to the pasture very early in themorning, the journey thither being one of considerable length and hermethod of reaching the goal being exceedingly roundabout. 

Mr. Came had pointed out the necessity of getting her into the pastureat 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 ofthis remark. Sometimes Mrs. Baxter and Rebecca caught a glimpse ofthe two at sundown, as they returned from the pasture to the twilightmilking, Buttercup chewing her peaceful cud, her soft white bag of milkhanging full, her surprised eye rolling in its accustomed "fine frenzy. "The frenzied roll did not mean anything, they used to assure Elisha; butif 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 acalamity indeed. 

Mrs. Baxter was looking at the sun one evening as it dropped like a ballof 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 accidentmight prevent his claiming the promised reward. "Then tomorrow Buttercupwill be your own cow?"

"I guess so. That's what Mr. Came said. He's off to Acreville now, buthe'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 herRed Rover, but p'r'aps her mother wouldn't like it. When she b'longs tome, mebbe I won't be so fraid of gettin' hooked and scrunched, becauseshe'll know she's mine, and she'll go better. I haven't let her getsnarled up in the rope one single time, and I don't show I'm afraid, doI?"

"I should never suspect it for an instant, " said Mrs. Baxterencouragingly. "I've often envied you your bold, brave look!"

Elisha appeared distinctly pleased. "I haven't cried, either, when she'sdragged me over the pasture bars and peeled my legs. Bill Petes's littlebrother Charlie says he ain't afraid of anything, not even bears. Hesays 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 lionseither; 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'stwenty-ninth night, and that the big red cow was to be his on themorrow. 

"Well, I hope it'll turn out that way, " she said. "But I ain't a mitesure 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 withfolks a good deal bigger than Lisha, for he's terrible close, Cassiusis. To be sure he's stiff in his joints and he's glad enough to havea boy to take the cow to the pasture in summer time, but he always hashired help when it comes harvestin'. So Lisha'll be no use from thison; and I dare say the cow is Abner Simpson's anyway. If you want a walktonight, I wish you'd go up there and ask Mis' Came if she'll lend mean' your Aunt Jane half her yeast-cake. Tell her we'll pay it back whenwe 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 ofRiverboro would sometimes be rocked to the very centre of its being bysimultaneous desire for a yeast-cake. As the nearest repository was amile and a half distant, as the yeast-cake was valued at two cents andwouldn't keep, as the demand was uncertain, being dependent entirely ona fluctuating desire for "riz bread, " the storekeeper refused to ordermore than three yeast-cakes a day at his own risk. Sometimes theyremained on his hands a dead loss; sometimes eight or ten persons would"hitch up" and drive from distant farms for the coveted article, only tobe met with the flat, "No, I'm all out o' yeast-cake; Mis' Simmonstook the last; mebbe you can borry half o' hern, she hain't much of abread-eater. "

So Rebecca climbed the hills to Mrs. Came's, knowing that her dailybread depended on the successful issue of the call. 

Thirza was barefooted, and tough as her little feet were, the long walkover the stubble fields tired her. When they came within sight of theCame barn, she coaxed Rebecca to take a short cut through the turnipsgrowing in long, beautifully weeded rows. 

"You know Mr. Came is awfully cross, Thirza, and can't bear anybody totread on his crops or touch a tree or a bush that belongs to him. I'mkind of afraid, but come along and mind you step softly in between therows and hold up your petticoat, so you can't possibly touch the turnipplants. I'll do the same. Skip along fast, because then we won't leaveany deep footprints. "

The children passed safely and noiselessly along, their pleasure atrifle enhanced by the felt dangers of their progress. Rebecca knew thatthey were doing no harm, but that did not prevent her hoping to escapethe 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 theother side of the clump came the sound of conversation: the timid voiceof the Little Prophet and the gruff tones of Cassius Came. 

Rebecca was afraid to interrupt, and too honest to wish to overhear. Shecould only hope the man and the boy would pass on to the house as theytalked, so she motioned to the paralyzed Thirza to take two more stepsand stand with her behind the elderberry bushes. But no! In a momentthey 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'vedrove her a month, do ye? And the trade between us was that if youcould drive her a month, without her getting the rope over her foot andwithout bein' afraid, you was to have her. That's straight, ain't it?"

The Prophet's face burned with excitement, his gingham shirt rose andfell as if he were breathing hard, but he only nodded assent and saidnothing. 

"Now, " continued Mr. Came, "have you made out to keep the rope fromunder 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 hisbare toes, with which he was assiduously threading the grass. 

"So far, so good. Now bout bein' afraid. As you seem so certain ofgettin' 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'tSHOW you was afraid, and nobody knew you WAS afraid, but that ain't theway we fixed it up. You was to call the cow your'n if you could driveher 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 catbimeby. Has it be'n--twice?"

"Yes, " and the Little Prophet's voice was very faint now, and had adecided 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 teardrop stealing from under the downcast lids, then, --

"A little, most every day, and you can keep the cow, " wailed theProphet, as he turned abruptly and fled behind the shed, where he flunghimself into the green depths of a tansy bed, and gave himself up tounmanly sobs. 

Cassius Came gave a sort of shamefaced guffaw at the abrupt departureof the boy, and went on into the house, while Rebecca and Thirza madea stealthy circuit of the barn and a polite and circumspect entrancethrough the parsonage front gate. 

Rebecca told the minister's wife what she could remember of theinterview between Cassius Came and Elisha Simpson, and tender-heartedMrs. Baxter longed to seek and comfort her Little Prophet sobbing in thetansy 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 openlyespousing the cause of Elisha, for she was an impetuous, reckless, valiant creature when a weaker vessel was attacked or threatenedunjustly. 

Mrs. Baxter acknowledged that Mr. Came had been true, in a way, to hisword and bargain, but she confessed that she had never heard of so crueland hard a bargain since the days of Shylock, and it was all the worsefor being made with a child. 

Rebecca hurried home, her visit quite spoiled and her errand quiteforgotten till she reached the brick house door, where she told heraunts, with her customary picturesqueness of speech, that she wouldrather eat buttermilk bread till she died than partake of food mixedwith one of Mr. Came's yeast-cakes; that it would choke her, even in theshape of good raised bread. 

"That's all very fine, Rebecky, " said her Aunt Miranda, who had apin-prick for almost every bubble; "but don't forget there's two othermouths to feed in this house, and you might at least give your aunt andme the privilege of chokin' if we feel to want to!"

IV

Mrs. Baxter finally heard from Mrs. Came, through whom all informationwas sure to filter if you gave it time, that her husband despised acoward, 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, thoughwhenever Mr. Came went to Moderation or Bonnie Eagle, as he often did, Mrs. Baxter noticed that Elisha took the hired man's place. She oftenjoined him on these anxious expeditions, and, a like terror in boththeir souls, they attempted to train the red cow and give her some ideaof obedience. 

"If she only wouldn't look at us that way we would get along real nicelywith her, wouldn't we?" prattled the Prophet, straggling along by herside; "and she is a splendid cow; she gives twenty-one quarts a day, andMr. Came says it's more'n half cream. "

The minister's wife assented to all this, thinking that if Buttercupwould give up her habit of turning completely round in the road to rollher eyes and elevate her white-tipped eyebrow, she might indeed be anenjoyable companion; but in her present state of development her societywas not agreeable, even did she give sixty-one quarts of milk a day. Furthermore, when Mrs. Baxter discovered that she never did any of thesereprehensible things with Bill Peters, she began to believe cows moreintelligent creatures than she had supposed them to be, and she wasindignant to think Buttercup could count so confidently on the weaknessof 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 beingpulled into a wayside brook where Buttercup loved to dabble, "Elisha, doyou 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 hehad 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, andit 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 theopposite side of the brook, take that big stick wade right in--youare barefooted, --brandish the stick, and, if necessary, do more thanbrandish. I would go myself, but it is better she should recognize youas her master, and I am in as much danger as you are, anyway. She maytry to hook you, of course, but you must keep waving the stick, --diebrandishing, Prophet, that's the idea! She may turn and run for me, inwhich case I shall run too; but I shall die running, and the ministercan bury us under our favorite sweet-apple tree!"

The Prophet's soul was fired by the lovely lady's eloquence. Theirspirits mounted simultaneously, and they were flushed with a splendidcourage in which death looked a mean and paltry thing compared withvanquishing that cow. She had already stepped into the pool, but theProphet waded in towards her, moving the alder branch menacingly. Shelooked up with the familiar roll of the eye that had done her such goodservice all summer, but she quailed beneath the stern justice and thenew valor of the Prophet's gaze. 

In that moment perhaps she felt ashamed of the misery she had caused thehelpless mite. At any rate, actuated by fear, surprise, or remorse, she turned and walked back into the road without a sign of passion orindignation, leaving the boy and the lady rather disappointed at theireasy victory. To be prepared for a violent death and receive not even ascratch made them fear that they might possibly have overestimated thedanger. 

They were better friends than ever after that, the young minister's wifeand the forlorn little boy from Acreville, sent away from home heknew not why, unless it were that there was little to eat there andconsiderably more at the Cash Cames', as they were called in Edgewood. Cassius was familiarly known as Uncle Cash, partly because there was adisposition in Edgewood to abbreviate all Christian names, and partlybecause the old man paid cash, and expected to be paid cash, foreverything. 

The late summer grew into autumn, and the minister's great maple flunga flaming bough of scarlet over Mrs. Baxter's swing-chair. Uncle Cashfound Elisha very useful at picking up potatoes and apples, but the boywas 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 thesunset. Rebecca was in a tremulous state of happiness, for she hadcome directly from the Seminary at Wareham to the parsonage, and as theminister was absent at a church conference, she was to stay the nightwith Mrs. Baxter and go with her to Portland next day. 

They were to go to the Islands, have ice cream for luncheon, ride ona horse-car, and walk by the Longfellow house, a programme that sounsettled Rebecca's never very steady mind that she radiated flashesand sparkles of joy, making Mrs. Baxter wonder if flesh could betranslucent, enabling the spirit-fires within to shine through?

Buttercup was being milked on the grassy slope near the shed door. Asshe 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 lyingtemptingly near. In her haste she took more of a mouthful than would beconsidered good manners even among cows, and as she disappeared in thebarn door they could see a forest of green tops hanging from her mouth, while she painfully attempted to grind up the mass of stolen materialwithout 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-inrug (a wonderful achievement produced entirely from dyed flannelpetticoats), and to hear the doctor's wife play "Oft in the StillNight, " on the dulcimer. 

As they closed the sitting-room door opening on the piazza facingthe 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 thedoctor's to have his hand dressed, for he had hurt it is some way inthe threshing-machine. Bill Peters, the hired man, came in presently andasked for him, saying that the cow coughed more and more, and it mustbe that something was wrong, but he could not get her to open her mouthwide enough for him to see anything. "She'd up an' die ruther 'n obleegeanybody, that tarnal, ugly cow would!" he said. 

When Uncle Cash had driven into the yard, he came in for a lantern, andwent directly out to the barn. After a half-hour or so, in which thelittle 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 righthand 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 fromMilltown, and could come and take a hand in the exercises. 

Buttercup was in a bad way; there was no doubt of it. Something, oneof the turnips, presumably, had lodged in her throat, and would moveneither way, despite her attempts to dislodge it. Her breathing waslabored, and her eyes bloodshot from straining and choking. Once ortwice they succeeded in getting her mouth partly open, but before theycould fairly discover the cause of trouble she had wrested her headaway. 

"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 sideof Buttercup's head; "but, land! It's so far down, and such a mite of athing, I couldn't git it, even if I could use my right hand. S'pose youtry, Bill. "

Bill hemmed and hawed, and confessed he didn't care to try. Buttercup'sgrinders were of good size and excellent quality, and he had no fancyfor leaving his hand within her jaws. He said he was no good at thatkind 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 dabsat the slippery green turnip-tops in the reluctantly opened throat. Butthe cow tossed her head and stamped her feet and switched her tailand wriggled from under Bill's hands, so that it seemed altogetherimpossible to reach the seat of the trouble. 

Uncle Cash was in despair, fuming and fretting the more because of hisown crippled hand. 

"Hitch up, Bill, " he said, "and, Hannah, you drive over to Milliken'sMills for the horse-doctor. I know we can git out that turnip if we canhit on the right tools and somebody to manage em right; but we've got tobe quick about it or the critter'll choke to death, sure! Your hand's soclumsy, 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 stuffthout 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 hisnight-shirt, his curly hair ruffled, his eyes vague with sleep. 

Uncle Cash gave a laugh of good-humored derision. "You--that's afraidto drive a cow to pasture? No, sir; you hain't got sand enough for thisjob, I guess!"

Buttercup just then gave a worse cough than ever, and her eyes rolled inher head as if she were giving up the ghost. 

"I'd rather do it than see her choke to death!" cried the boy, indespair. 

"Then, by ginger, you can try it, sonny!" said Uncle Cash. "Now thistime 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 gagbetween them, tied her head up, and kept her as still as they couldwhile the women held the lanterns. 

"Now, sonny, strip up your sleeve and reach as fur down's you can! Windyour little fingers in among that green stuff stickin' up there thatain't hardly big enough to call green stuff, give it a twist, and pullfor 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 hethought) a future owner's pride in her splendid flow of milk--grown fondof her, in a word, and now she was choking to death. A skinny littlepipe stem is capable of a deal at such a time, and only a slender handand arm could have done the work. 

Elisha trembled with nervousness, but he made a dexterous and dashingentrance into the awful cavern of Buttercup's mouth; descended upon thetiny clump of green spills or spikes, wound his little fingers in amongthem as firmly as he could, and then gave a long, steady, determinedpull 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 whicheverybody 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 foundhimself lying flat on his back on the barn floor with a very slipperysomething in his hand, and a fair-sized but rather dilapidated turnip atthe 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 mitesmaller, " said Bill Peters. 

"You're a trump, sonny!" exclaimed Uncle Cash, as he helped Moses untieButtercup's head and took the gag out. 

"You're a trump, Lisha, and, by ginger, the cow's your'n; only don't youlet 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 threwhis arms joyfully about her neck, and whispered, "You're my truly cownow, ain't you, Buttercup?"

"Mrs. Baxter, dear, " said Rebecca, as they walked home to the parsonagetogether 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, " saidthe minister's wife hesitatingly. "The Little Prophet is the thirdcoward I have known in my short life who turned out to be a hero whenthe real testing time came. Meanwhile the heroes themselves--or the onesthat were taken for heroes--were always busy doing something, or beingsomewhere, else. "

Eighth Chronicle. ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF

Rebecca had now cut the bonds that bound her to the Riverboro districtschool, and had been for a week a full-fledged pupil at the WarehamSeminary, towards which goal she had been speeding ever since thememorable day when she rode into Riverboro on the top of Uncle JerryCobb's stagecoach, and told him that education was intended to be "themaking of her. "

She went to and fro, with Emma Jane and the other Riverboro boys andgirls, on the morning and evening trains that ran between the academytown and Milliken's Mills. 

The six days had passed like a dream!--a dream in which she sat incorners with her eyes cast down; flushed whenever she was addressed;stammered whenever she answered a question, and nearly died of heartfailure when subjected to an examination of any sort. She delightedthe committee when reading at sight from "King Lear, " but somewhatdiscouraged them when she could not tell the capital of the UnitedStates. She admitted that her former teacher, Miss Dearborn, might havementioned it, but if so she had not remembered it. 

In these first weeks among strangers she passed for nothing but aninteresting-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 soslight, and under the paralyzing new conditions so shy, that shewould have been mistaken for twelve had it not been for her generaladvancement in the school curriculum. 

Growing up in the solitude of a remote farm house, transplanted to atiny village where she lived with two elderly spinsters, she was stillthe veriest child in all but the practical duties and responsibilitiesof life; in those she had long been a woman. 

It was Saturday afternoon; her lessons for Monday were all learned andshe burst into the brick house sitting-room with the flushed face andembarrassed mien that always foreshadowed a request. Requests were morecommonly answered in the negative than in the affirmative at the brickhouse, a fact that accounted for the slight confusion in her demeanor. 

"Aunt Miranda, " she began, "the fishman says that Clara Belle Simpsonwants 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 couldwalk a mile up, and I a mile down the road, and we could meet at thepink house half way. Then we could rest and talk an hour or so, and bothbe 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 goback to her saucer, and it's off my mind. I could go down cellar nowand bring up the cookies and the pie and doughnuts for supper before Istart. Aunt Jane saw no objection; but we thought I'd better ask you soas to run no risks. "

Miranda Sawyer, who had been patiently waiting for the end of thisspeech, laid down her knitting and raised her eyes with a half-resignedexpression that meant: Is there anything unusual in heaven or earth orthe waters under the earth that this child does not want to do? Will sheever settle down to plain, comprehensible Sawyer ways, or will she tothe end make these sudden and radical propositions, suggesting at everyturn the irresponsible Randall ancestry?

"You know well enough, Rebecca, that I don't like you to be intimatewith Abner Simpson's young ones, " she said decisively. "They ain't fitcompany for anybody that's got Sawyer blood in their veins, if it's everso little. I don't know, I'm sure, how you're goin' to turn out! Thefish peddler seems to be your best friend, without it's Abijah Flaggthat you're everlastingly talkin' to lately. I should think you'drather read some improvin' book than to be chatterin' with Squire Bean'schore-boy!"

"He isn't always going to be a chore-boy, " explained Rebecca, "andthat's what we're considering. It's his career we talk about, and hehasn't got any father or mother to advise him. Besides, Clara Belle kindof belongs to the village now that she lives with Mrs. Fogg; and shewas always the best behaved of all the girls, either in school orSunday-school. Children can't help having fathers!"

"Everybody says Abner is turning over a new leaf, and if so, thefamily'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 Mirandapromptly. "Don't talk to me about new leaves! You can't change that kindof 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 andstay late on a man like Simpson. "

"Now, Mirandy, Abner ain't more'n forty! I don't know what the averageage for repentance is in men-folks, but when you think of what an awfulsight of em leaves it to their deathbeds, forty seems real kindof young. Not that I've heard Abner has experienced religion, buteverybody's surprised at the good way he's conductin' this fall. "

"They'll be surprised the other way round when they come to miss theirfirewood and apples and potatoes again, " affirmed Miranda. 

"Clara Belle don't seem to have inherited from her father, " Janeventured again timidly. "No wonder Mrs. Fogg sets such store by thegirl. 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, " wasMiranda's retort. 

"Folks can't stop to figure out just what's the Lord's will when a childhas upset a kettle of scalding water on to himself, " and as she spokeJane darned more excitedly. "Mrs. Fogg knows well enough she hadn'tought to have left that baby alone in the kitchen with the stove, evenif she did see Clara Belle comin' across lots. She'd ought to havewaited before drivin' off; but of course she was afraid of missing thetrain, 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 theword!" 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 Mirandaasserted; "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'swhen there wasn't a soul on hand to advise her! Two or three more suchactions would make the Simpson name sound consid'rable sweeter in thisneighborhood. "

"Simpson will always sound like Simpson to me!" vouchsafed the eldersister, "but we've talked enough about em an' to spare. You can goalong, Rebecca; but remember that a child is known by the company shekeeps. "

"All right, Aunt Miranda; thank you!" cried Rebecca, leaping from thechair on which she had been twisting nervously for five minutes. "Andhow does this strike you? Would you be in favor of my taking Clara Bellea company-tart?"

"Don't Mrs. Fogg feed the young one, now she's taken her right into thefamily?"

"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 takinga present lets the person know you've been thinking about them and areextra glad to see them. Besides, unless we have company soon, thosetarts will have to be eaten by the family, and a new batch made; youremember the one I had when I was rewarding myself last week? That wasqueer--but nice, " she added hastily. 

"Mebbe you could think of something of your own you could give awaywithout taking my tarts!" responded Miranda tersely; the joints of herarmor having been pierced by the fatally keen tongue of her niece, whohad 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 anyidea that it would ever be eaten by guests, but because it was too goodfor every-day use. 

Rebecca's face crimsoned with shame that she had drifted into animpolite 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. Andoh! I know what I can take Clara Belle! A few chocolate drops out of thebox Mr. Ladd gave me on my birthday. "

"You go down cellar and get that tart, same as I told you, " commandedMiranda, "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 rubbersand your thick jacket. After runnin' all the way down there--for yourlegs never seem to be rigged for walkin' like other girls'--you'll setdown on some damp stone or other and ketch your death o' cold, an' yourAunt Jane n' I'll be kep' up nights nursin' you and luggin' your mealsupstairs to you on a waiter. "

 Here Miranda leaned her head against the back of her rockingchair, dropped her knitting and closed her eyes wearily, for when theimmovable body is opposed by the irresistible force there is a certainamount of jar and disturbance involved in the operation. 

Rebecca moved toward the side door, shooting a questioning glance atAunt Jane as she passed. The look was full of mysterious suggestion andwas accompanied by an almost imperceptible gesture. Miss Jane knew thatcertain articles were kept in the entry closet, and by this time she hadbecome sufficiently expert in telegraphy to know that Rebecca's unspokenquery meant: "COULD YOU PERMIT THE HAT WITH THE RED WINGS, IT BEINGSATURDAY, FINE SETTLED WEATHER, AND A PLEASURE EXCURSION?"

These confidential requests, though fraught with embarrassment whenMiranda was in the room, gave Jane much secret joy; there was somethingabout them that stirred her spinster heart--they were so gay, soappealing, so un-Sawyer-, un-Riverboro-like. The longer Rebecca lived inthe brick house the more her Aunt Jane marveled at the child. What madeher so different from everybody else. Could it be that her gracelesspopinjay of a father, Lorenzo de Medici Randall, had bequeathed her somestrange 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 andwords, proclaimed her a changeling in the Sawyer tribe; but what anenchanting changeling; bringing wit and nonsense and color and delightinto the gray monotony of the dragging years!

There was frost in the air, but a bright cheery sun, as Rebecca walkeddecorously out of the brick house yard. Emma Jane Perkins was away overSunday on a visit to a cousin in Moderation; Alice Robinson and CandaceMilliken were having measles, and Riverboro was very quiet. Still, lifewas seldom anything but a gay adventure to Rebecca, and she startedafresh every morning to its conquest. She was not exacting; the Asmodeanfeat of spinning a sand heap into twine was, poetically speaking, alwaysin her power, so the mile walk to the pink-house gate, and the trystwith freckled, red-haired Clara Belle Simpson, whose face Miss Mirandasaid looked like a raw pie in a brick oven, these commonplace incidentswere sufficiently exhilarating to brighten her eye and quicken her step. 

As the great bare horse-chestnut near the pink-house gate loomed intoview, the red linsey-woolsey speck going down the road spied theblue linsey-woolsey speck coming up, and both specks flew over theintervening 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 afraidthe fishman wouldn't tell you to start exactly at two, or that one of uswould walk faster than the other; but we met at the very spot! It was avery 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 toyou, doesn't she? You're not homesick any more, are you?"

"No-o; not really; only when I remember there's only little Susan tomanage the twins; though they're getting on real well without me. But Ikind of think, Rebecca, that I'm going to be given away to the Foggs forgood. "

"Do you mean adopted?"

"Yes; I think father's going to sign papers. You see we can't tell howmany 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 helpher. "

"You'll be their real daughter, then, won't you, Clara Belle? AndMr. Fogg is a deacon, and a selectman, and a road commissioner, andeverything 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 shouldever get married; Miss Dearborn told me that herself, when she waspersuading me not to mind being given away. "

"Clara Belle Simpson!" exclaimed Rebecca in a transport. "Who'd havethought you'd be a female hero and an heiress besides? It's just likea book story, and it happened in Riverboro. I'll make Uncle Jerry Cobballow there CAN be Riverboro stories, you see if I don't. "

"Of course I know it's all right, " Clara Belle replied soberly. "I'llhave a good home and father can't keep us all; but it's kind of dreadfulto 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 Iam? Poor father left us in debt, you see. I thought I came away fromSunnybrook to get an education and then help pay off the mortgage; butmother doesn't say anything about my coming back, and our family's oneof 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 somethingpinned on to the mortgage that mother keeps in the drawer of thebookcase. "

"You'd know it if twas adoption papers; I guess you're just lent, " ClaraBelle 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 farmwhere they raise lots of horses and cattle, too, and he breaks all theyoung colts and trains them, and swaps off the poor ones, and drivesall 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 Saturdaynights. "

"I'm so glad!" exclaimed Rebecca sympathetically. "Now your mother'llhave a good time and a black silk dress, won't she?"

"I don't know, " sighed Clara Belle, and her voice was grave. "Ever sinceI can remember she's just washed and cried and cried and washed. MissDearborn has been spending her vacation up to Acreville, you know, and she came yesterday to board next door to Mrs. Fogg's. I heard themtalking last night when I was getting the baby to sleep--I couldn'thelp it, they were so close--and Miss Dearborn said mother doesn't likeAcreville; she says nobody takes any notice of her, and they don't giveher any more work. Mrs. Fogg said, well, they were dreadful stiff andparticular 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 akitchen stove!"

"I never noticed she didn't have one, but when they spoke I rememberedmother'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 poorperhaps he couldn't afford breast-pins, but I should have thought he'dhave given your mother a wedding ring when they were married; that's thetime to do it, right at the very first. "

"They didn't have any real church dress-up wedding, " explained ClaraBelle extenuatingly. "You see the first mother, mine, had the big boysand me, and then she died when we were little. Then after a while thismother 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 andfather didn't have time for a regular wedding in church. They don't haveveils and bridesmaids and refreshments round here like Miss Dearborn'ssister 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 mightbuy one. I've got seventy-four cents saved up; how much have you?"

"Fifty-three, " Clara Belle responded, in a depressing tone; "and anywaythere 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 gotsteady work; and mother would know I had spent all my savings. "

Rebecca looked nonplussed. "I declare, " she said, "I think the Acrevillepeople must be perfectly horrid not to call on your mother only becauseshe hasn't got any jewelry. You wouldn't dare tell your father what MissDearborn heard, so he'd save up and buy the ring?"

"No; I certainly would not!" and Clara Belle's lips closed tightly anddecisively. 

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 tellhim who it's for! He's coming to stay over tomorrow with his aunt, andI'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 hopedawning in her eyes; "and we can think afterwards how to get it over tomother. Perhaps you could send it to father instead, but I wouldn't dareto do it myself. You won't tell anybody, Rebecca?"

"Cross my heart!" Rebecca exclaimed dramatically; and then with areproachful look, "you know I couldn't repeat a sacred secret likethat! Shall we meet next Saturday afternoon, and I tell you what'shappened?--Why, Clara Belle, isn't that Mr. Ladd watering his horse atthe foot of the hill this very minute? It is; and he's driven up fromMilltown stead of coming on the train from Boston to Edgewood. He's allalone, and I can ride home with him and ask him about the ring rightaway!"

Clara Belle kissed Rebecca fervently, and started on her homewardwalk, while Rebecca waited at the top of the long hill, fluttering herhandkerchief as a signal. 

"Mr. Aladdin! Mr. Aladdin!" she cried, as the horse and wagon camenearer. 

Adam Ladd drew up quickly at the sound of the eager young voice. 

"Well, well; here is Rebecca Rowena fluttering along the highroad like ared-winged blackbird! Are you going to fly home, or drive with me?"

Rebecca clambered into the carriage, laughing and blushing with delightat his nonsense and with joy at seeing him again. 

"Clara Belle and I were just talking about you this minute, and I'm soglad you came this way, for there's something very important to ask youabout, " she began, rather breathlessly. 

"No doubt, " laughed Adam Ladd, who had become, in the course of hisacquaintance with Rebecca, a sort of high court of appeals; "I hope thepremium banquet lamp doesn't smoke as it grows older?"

"Now, Mr. Aladdin, you WILL not remember nicely. Mr. Simpson swapped offthe banquet lamp when he was moving the family to Acreville; it's notthe lamp at all, but once, when you were here last time, you said you'dmake 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, somethingthat 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, allwrapped in pink tissue paper; but explain the matter and perhaps I'llchange my mind. What is it you want?"

"I need a wedding ring dreadfully, " said Rebecca, "but it's a sacredsecret. "

Adam Ladd's eyes flashed with surprise and he smiled to himself withpleasure. Had he on his list of acquaintances, he asked himself, aperson of any age or sex so altogether irresistible and unique as thischild? Then he turned to face her with the merry teasing look that madehim so delightful to young people. 

"I thought it was perfectly understood between us, " he said, "that ifyou could ever contrive to grow up and I were willing to wait, that Iwas to ride up to the brick house on my snow white"--

"Coal black, " corrected Rebecca, with a sparkling eye and a warningfinger. 

"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 apillion is very uncomfortable. I think Emma Jane leaps on the back of aprancing 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 anyexplanation, you ask me to buy you a wedding ring, which showsplainly that you are planning to ride off on a snow white--I mean coalblack--charger with somebody else. "

Rebecca dimpled and laughed with joy at the nonsense. In her prosaicworld no one but Adam Ladd played the game and answered the foolaccording to his folly. Nobody else talked delicious fairy-story twaddlebut Mr. Aladdin. 

"The ring isn't for ME!" she explained carefully. "You know very wellthat Emma Jane nor I can't be married till we're through Quackenbos'sGrammar, Greenleaf's Arithmetic, and big enough to wear long trails andrun 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 brideany more; she has three step and three other kind of children. "

Adam Ladd put the whip back in the socket thoughtfully, and then stoopedto tuck in the rug over Rebecca's feet and his own. When he raised hishead 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 allhis sympathy. Then she said hesitatingly: "You remember I told you allabout the Simpsons that day on your aunt's porch when you bought thesoap because I told you how the family were always in trouble and howmuch they needed a banquet lamp? Mr. Simpson, Clara Belle's father, hasalways 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 turningover a new leaf. And everybody in Riverboro liked Mrs. Simpson when shecame here a stranger, because they were sorry for her and she was sopatient, and such a hard worker, and so kind to the children. But whereshe lives now, though they used to know her when she was a girl, they'renot polite to her and don't give her scrubbing and washing; and Clarabelle heard our teacher say to Mrs. Fogg that the Acreville people werestiff, and despised her because she didn't wear a wedding ring, like allthe 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 morework; and perhaps Mr. Simpson if he gets along better will buy her abreast-pin and earrings, and she'll be fitted out like the others. Iknow Mrs. Peter Meserve is looked up to by everybody in Edgewood onaccount of her gold bracelets and moss agate necklace. "

Adam turned again to meet the luminous, innocent eyes that glowed underthe delicate brows and long lashes, feeling as he had more than oncefelt before, as if his worldly-wise, grown-up thoughts had been bathedin 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 Icould manage better. Will the ring cost much? Because, of course, if itdoes, I must ask Aunt Jane first. There are things I have to ask AuntMiranda, and others that belong to Aunt Jane. "

"It costs the merest trifle. I'll buy one and bring it to you, and we'llconsult about it; but I think as you're great friends with Mr. Simpsonyou'd better send it to him in a letter, letters being your strongpoint! It's a present a man ought to give his own wife, but it's worthtrying, Rebecca. You and Clara Belle can manage it between you, and I'llstay 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 thelonely Simpson house at Acreville. 

The tumble-down dwelling stood on the edge of Pliney's Pond; so calledbecause old Colonel Richardson left his lands to be divided in fiveequal 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 ardentlyfond of fishing, rowing, and swimming, acted up to his reputationof being "a little mite odd, " and took his whole twenty acres inwater--hence Pliny's Pond. 

The eldest Simpson boy had been working on a farm in Cumberland Countyfor two years. Samuel, generally dubbed "see-saw, " had lately found ahumble place in a shingle mill and was partially self-supporting. ClaraBelle had been adopted by the Foggs; thus there were only three mouthsto fill, the capacious ones of Elijah and Elisha, the twin boys, andof lisping, nine-year-old Susan, the capable houseworker andmother's assistant, for the baby had died during the summer; died ofdiscouragement at having been born into a family unprovided with foodor 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 overa new leaf. Exactly when he began, or how, or why, or how long he wouldcontinue the praiseworthy process, --in a word whether there would bemore 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'sMaker could have decided the matter. He had stolen articles for swappingpurposes for a long time, but had often avoided detection, and alwaysescaped punishment until the last few years. Three fines imposed forsmall offenses were followed by several arrests and two imprisonmentsfor brief periods, and he found himself wholly out of sympathy withthe wages of sin. Sin itself he did not especially mind, but the wagesthereof were decidedly unpleasant and irksome to him. He also mindedvery much the isolated position in the community which had lately becomehis; for he was a social being and would ALMOST rather not steal from aneighbor than have him find it out and cease intercourse! This feelingwas working in him and rendering him unaccountably irritable anddepressed when he took his daughter over to Riverboro at the time of thegreat flag-raising. 

There are seasons of refreshment, as well as seasons of drought, in thespiritual, as in the natural world, and in some way or other dewsand rains of grace fell upon Abner Simpson's heart during that briefjourney. Perhaps the giving away of a child that he could not supporthad made the soil of his heart a little softer and readier for plantingthan usual; but when he stole the new flag off Mrs. Peter Meserve'sdoorsteps, under the impression that the cotton-covered bundlecontained freshly washed clothes, he unconsciously set certain forces inoperation. 

It will be remembered that Rebecca saw an inch of red bunting peepingfrom 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 theflag. When she diplomatically requested the return of the sacredobject which was to be the glory of the "raising" next day, and he thusdiscovered his mistake, he was furious with himself for having slippedinto a disagreeable predicament; and later, when he unexpectedly faceda detachment of Riverboro society at the cross-roads, and met not onlytheir wrath and scorn, but the reproachful, disappointed glance ofRebecca's eyes, he felt degraded as never before. 

The night at the Centre tavern did not help matters, nor the jollypatriotic meeting of the three villages at the flag-raising nextmorning. He would have enjoyed being at the head and front of thefestive preparations, but as he had cut himself off from all suchfriendly gatherings, he intended at any rate to sit in his wagon on thevery outskirts of the assembled crowd and see some of the gayety; for, heaven knows, he had little enough, he who loved talk, and song, andstory, and laughter, and excitement. 

The flag was raised, the crowd cheered, the little girl to whom he hadlied, the girl who was impersonating the State of Maine, was on theplatform "speaking her piece, " and he could just distinguish some of thewords she was saying:

"For it's your star, my star, all the stars together, That makes ourcountry's flag so proud To float in the bright fall weather. "

Then suddenly there was a clarion voice cleaving the air, and he sawa 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 THEENEMY!"

He was sore and bitter enough already; lonely, isolated enough; withno lot nor share in the honest community life; no hand to shake, noneighbor's meal to share; and this unexpected public arraignment smotehim between the eyes. With resentment newly kindled, pride wounded, vanity bleeding, he flung a curse at the joyous throng and drove towardhome, the home where he would find his ragged children and meet thetimid eyes of a woman who had been the loyal partner of his poverty anddisgraces. 

It is probable that even then his (extremely light) hand was already onthe "new leaf. " The angels, doubtless, were not especially proud of thematter and manner of his reformation, but I dare say they were glad tocount him theirs on any terms, so difficult is the reformation of thisblind and foolish world! They must have been; for they immediatelyflung into his very lap a profitable, and what is more to the point, aninteresting and agreeable situation where money could be earned by doingthe very things his nature craved. There were feats of daring to beperformed in sight of admiring and applauding stable boys; the horseshe loved were his companions; he was OBLIGED to "swap, " for Daly, hisemployer, counted on him to get rid of all undesirable stock; power andresponsibility 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 wagesbesides!

Abner positively felt no temptation to steal; his soul expanded withpride, and the admiration and astonishment with which he regardedhis virtuous present was only equaled by the disgust with which hecontemplated his past; not so much a vicious past, in his own generousestimation 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 theSaturday night remittance; and if she still washed and cried and criedand washed, as Clara Belle had always seen her, it was either because ofsome hidden sorrow, or because her poor strength seemed all at once tohave deserted her. 

Just when employment and good fortune had come to the step-children, andher own were better fed and clothed than ever before, the pain that hadalways lurked, constant but dull, near her tired heart, grew fierceand 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 herswas in her eyes; a content that came near to happiness when the doctorordered her to keep her bed and sent for Clara Belle. She could not washany longer, but there was the ever new miracle of the Saturday nightremittance for household expenses. 

"Is your pain bad today, mother, " asked Clara Belle, who, only latelygiven away, was merely borrowed from Mrs. Fogg for what was thought tobe 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 dayswithout it's extra bad. The neighbors are so kind; Mrs. Little has sentme canned mustard greens, and Mrs. Benson chocolate ice cream and mincepie; there's the doctor's drops to make me sleep, and these blanketsand that great box of eatables from Mr. Ladd; and you here to keep mecomp'ny! I declare I'm kind o' dazed with comforts. I never expected tosee sherry wine in this house. I ain't never drawed the cork; it doesme good enough jest to look at Mr. Ladd's bottle settin' on themantel-piece with the fire shinin' on the brown glass. "

Mr. Simpson had come to see his wife and had met the doctor just as hewas leaving the house. 

"She looks awful bad to me. Is she goin' to pull through all right, sameas the last time?" he asked the doctor nervously. 

"She's going to pull right through into the other world, " the doctoranswered bluntly; "and as there don't seem to be anybody else to takethe bull by the horns, I'd advise you, having made the woman's lifeabout as hard and miserable as you could, to try and help her to dieeasy!"

Abner, surprised and crushed by the weight of this verbal chastisement, sat down on the doorstep, his head in his hands, and thought a whilesolemnly. Thought was not an operation he was wont to indulge in, andwhen he opened the gate a few minutes later and walked slowly towardthe barn for his horse, he looked pale and unnerved. It is uncommonlystartling, first to see yourself in another man's scornful eyes, andthen, clearly, in your own. 

Two days later he came again, and this time it was decreed that heshould find Parson Carll tying his piebald mare at the post. 

Clara Belle's quick eye had observed the minister as he alighted fromhis 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 theprospect of such a visitor. "Oh, dear! They must think over to thevillage that I'm dreadful sick, or the minister wouldn't never thinkof callin'! Don't let him in, Clara Belle! I'm afraid he will say hardwords to me, or pray to me; and I ain't never been prayed to since I wasa child! Is his wife with him?"

"No; he's alone; but father's just drove up and is hitching at the sheddoor. "

"That's worse than all!" and Mrs. Simpson raised herself feebly on herpillows and clasped her hands in despair. "You mustn't let them twomeet, Clara Belle, and you must send Mr. Carll away; your fatherwouldn't have a minister in the house, nor speak to one, for a thousanddollars!"

"Be quiet, mother! Lie down! It'll be all right! You'll only fretyourself into a spell! The minister's just a good man; he won't sayanything to frighten you. Father's talking with him real pleasant, andpointing the way to the front door. "

The parson knocked and was admitted by the excited Clara Belle, whoushered him tremblingly into the sickroom, and then betook herself tothe kitchen with the children, as he gently requested her. 

Abner Simpson, left alone in the shed, fumbled in his vest pocket andtook out an envelope which held a sheet of paper and a tiny packetwrapped in tissue paper. The letter had been read once before and ran asfollows:

Dear Mr. Simpson:

This is a secret letter. I heard that the Acreville people weren't niceto Mrs. Simpson because she didn't have any wedding ring like all theothers. 

I know you've always been poor, dear Mr. Simpson, and troubled with alarge family like ours at the farm; but you really ought to have givenMrs. Simpson a ring when you were married to her, right at the veryfirst; for then it would have been over and done with, as they are solidgold and last forever. And probably she wouldn't feel like asking youfor one, because ladies are just like girls, only grown up, and I knowI'd be ashamed to beg for jewelry when just board and clothes costso much. So I send you a nice, new wedding ring to save your buying, thinking you might get Mrs. Simpson a bracelet or eardrops forChristmas. It did not cost me anything, as it was a secret present froma friend. 

I hear Mrs. Simpson is sick, and it would be a great comfort to herwhile she is in bed and has so much time to look at it. When I hadthe measles Emma Jane Perkins lent me her mother's garnet ring, and ithelped me very much to put my wasted hand outside the bedclothes and seethe ring sparkling. 

Please don't be angry with me, dear Mr. Simpson, because I like youso much and am so glad you are happy with the horses and colts; and Ibelieve now perhaps you DID think the flag was a bundle of washingwhen you took it that day; so no more from your Trusted friend, RebeccaRowena Randall. 

Simpson tore the letter slowly and quietly into fragments and scatteredthe 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 thefront door, and having entered the house stood outside the sickroom foran instant, turned the knob and walked softly in. 

Then at last the angels might have enjoyed a moment of unmixed joy, forin that brief walk from shed to house Abner Simpson;'s conscience wakedto life and attained sufficient strength to prick and sting, to provokeremorse, to incite penitence, to do all sorts of divine and beautifulthings it was meant for, but had never been allowed to do. 

Clara Belle went about the kitchen quietly, making preparations for thechildren's supper. She had left Riverboro in haste, as the change forthe worse in Mrs. Simpson had been very sudden, but since she had comeshe had thought more than once of the wedding ring. She had wonderedwhether Mr. Ladd had bought it for Rebecca, and whether Rebecca wouldfind means to send it to Acreville; but her cares had been so many andvaried that the subject had now finally retired to the background of hermind. 

The hands of the clock crept on and she kept hushing the strident tonesof Elijah and Elisha, opening and shutting the oven door to look atthe corn bread, advising Susan as to her dishes, and marveling that theminister stayed so long. 

At last she heard a door open and close and saw the old parson comeout, wiping his spectacles, and step into the buggy for his drive to thevillage. 

Then there was another period of suspense, during which the house wasas 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 thereyet!" jerking his thumb towards Mrs. Simpson's room; "she's all beat outand she's just droppin' off to sleep. I'll send some groceries up fromthe 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 atthe clock. 

"All right. I'll be here again tomorrow, soon as it's light, and if sheain't picked up any I'll send word back to Daly, and stop here with youfor a spell till she's better. "

It was true; Mrs. Simpson was "all beat out. " It had been a time ofexcitement and stress, and the poor, fluttered creature was dropping offinto the strangest sleep--a sleep made up of waking dreams. The pain, that had encompassed her heart like a band of steel, lessened its cruelpressure, and finally left her so completely that she seemed to see itfloating above her head; only that it looked no longer like a band ofsteel, but a golden circle. 

The frail bark in which she had sailed her life voyage had been rockingon a rough and tossing ocean, and now it floated, floated slowly intosmoother waters. 

As long as she could remember, her boat had been flung about in stormand tempest, lashed by angry winds, borne against rocks, beaten, torn, buffeted. Now the waves had subsided; the sky was clear; the sea waswarm and tranquil; the sunshine dried the tattered sails; the air wassoft and balmy. 

And now, for sleep plays strange tricks, the bark disappeared from thedream, and it was she, herself, who was floating, floating farther andfarther away; whither she neither knew nor cared; it was enough to be atrest, lulled by the lapping of the cool waves. 

Then there appeared a green isle rising from the sea; an isle so radiantand 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 atlast her feet skimmed the shining sands and she floated through theair as disembodied spirits float, till she sank softly at the foot of aspreading tree. 

Then she saw the green isle was a flowering isle. Every shrub and bushwas blooming; the trees were hung with rosy garlands, and even the earthwas carpeted with tiny flowers. The rare fragrances, the bird songs, soft and musical, the ravishment of color, all bore down upon herswimming senses at once, taking them captive so completely that sheremembered no past, was conscious of no present, looked forward to nofuture. She seemed to leave the body and the sad, heavy things of thebody. The humming in her ears ceased, the light faded, the birds songsgrew fainter and more distant, the golden circle of pain receded fartherand farther until it was lost to view; even the flowering island gentlydrifted away, and all was peace and silence. 

It was time for the doctor now, and Clara Belle, too anxious to waitlonger, softly turned the knob of her mother's door and entered theroom. The glow of the open fire illumined the darkest side of the poorchamber. There were no trees near the house, and a full November moonstreamed in at the unblinded, uncurtained windows, lighting up the bareinterior--the unpainted floor, the gray plastered walls, and the whitecounterpane. 

Her mother lay quite still, her head turned and drooping a little onthe pillow. Her left hand was folded softly up against her breast, thefingers of the right partly covering it, as if protecting somethingprecious. 

Was it the moonlight that made the patient brow so white, and where werethe lines of anxiety and pain? The face of the mother who had washedand cried and cried and washed was as radiant as if the closed eye werebeholding heavenly visions. 

"Something must have cured her!" thought Clara Belle, awed and almostfrightened by the whiteness and the silence. 

She tiptoed across the floor to look more closely at the still, smilingshape, and bending over it saw, under the shadow of the caressing righthand, a narrow gold band gleaming on the work-stained finger. 

"Oh, the ring came, after all!" she said in a glad whisper, "and perhapsit was that that made her better!"

She put her hand on her mother's gently. A terrified shiver, a warningshudder, shook the girl from head to foot at the chilling touch. A dreadpresence she had never met before suddenly took shape. It filled theroom; stifled the cry on her lips; froze her steps to the floor, stoppedthe beating of her heart. 

Just then the door opened. 

"Oh, doctor! Come quick!" she sobbed, stretching out her hand forhelp, and then covering her eyes. "Come close! Look at mother! Is shebetter--or is she dead?"

The doctor put one hand on the shoulder of the shrinking child, andtouched 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 FemaleSeminary. She was alone, as her roommate, Emma Jane Perkins, wasreciting Latin down below in some academic vault of the old brickbuilding. 

A new and most ardent passion for the classics had been born in EmmaJane's hitherto unfertile brain, for Abijah Flagg, who was carrying offall the prizes at Limerick Academy, had written her a letter in Latin, aletter which she had been unable to translate for herself, even with theaid of a dictionary, and which she had been apparently unwilling thatRebecca, her bosom friend, confidant, and roommate, should render intoEnglish. 

An old-fashioned Female Seminary, with its allotment of one medium-sizedroom to two medium sized young females, gave small opportunities forprivacy by night or day, for neither the double washstand, nor the thusfar unimagined bathroom, nor even indeed the humble and serviceablescreen, had been realized, in these dark ages of which I write. Accordingly, like the irrational ostrich, which defends itself by thesimple process of not looking at its pursuers, Emma Jane had kept herLatin letter in her closed hand, in her pocket, or in her open book, flattering herself that no one had noticed her pleased bewilderment atits only half-imagined contents. 

All the fairies were not present at Rebecca's cradle. A goodly number ofthem telegraphed that they were previously engaged or unavoidably absentfrom town. The village of Temperance, Maine, where Rebecca first saw thelight, was hardly a place on its own merits to attract large throngs offairies. But one dear old personage who keeps her pocket full of MerryLeaves from the Laughing Tree, took a fancy to come to the littlebirthday party; and seeing so few of her sister-fairies present, shedowered the sleeping baby more richly than was her wont, because of itsapparent lack of wealth in other directions. So the child grew, and theMerry Leaves from the Laughing Tree rustled where they hung from thehood of her cradle, and, being fairy leaves, when the cradle wasgiven up they festooned themselves on the cribside, and later on blewthemselves up to the ceilings at Sunnybook Farm and dangled there, making fun for everybody. They never withered, even at the brick housein Riverboro, where the air was particularly inimical to fairies, for Miss Miranda Sawyer would have scared any ordinary elf out of herseventeen senses. They followed Rebecca to Wareham, and during AbijahFlagg's Latin correspondence with Emma Jane they fluttered about thatyoung person's head in such a manner that Rebecca was almost afraid thatshe would discover them herself, although this is something, as a matterof fact, that never does happen. 

A week had gone by since the Latin missive had been taken fromthe post-office by Emma Jane, and now, by means of much midnightoil-burning, by much cautious questioning of Miss Maxwell, by suchscrutiny of the moods and tenses of Latin verbs as wellnigh destroyedher brain tissue, she had mastered its romantic message. If it wasconventional in style, Emma Jane never suspected it. If some of thesimiles seemed to have been culled from the Latin poets, and some of thephrases built up from Latin exercises, Emma Jane was neither scholarnor critic; the similes, the phrases, the sentiments, when finallytranslated and written down in black-and-white English, made, in heropinion, the most convincing and heart-melting document ever sentthrough 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 rosasin nive. Tua vox est dulcior quam cantus avium aut murmur rivuli inmontibus. 

Cur sum ego tam miser et pauper et indignus, et tu tam dulcis et bona etnobilis?

Si cogitabis de me ero beatus. Tu es sola puella quam amo, et sempereris. 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 youare in my heart. Again and again you are with me in dreams. Often I seeyour locks of gold, your beautiful eyes like the sky, your cheeks, asred roses in snow. Your voice is sweeter than the singing of birds orthe murmur of the stream in the mountains. 

Why am I so wretched and poor and unworthy, and you so sweet and goodand noble?

If you will think of me I shall be happy. You are the only girl that Ilove and always will be. Other girls I have not loved. Perhaps sometimeyou will love me, but I am unworthy. Without you, I am wretched, whenyou 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 inLatin, only a few days before a dead language to her, but now one filledwith life and meaning. From beginning to end the epistle had the effectupon her as of an intoxicating elixir. Often, at morning prayers, orwhile eating her rice pudding at the noon dinner, or when sinking offto 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 wasa goddess and he her faithful slave, that quite baffles description; forit 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 waitedfor the day when Emma Jane would pour out her confidences, as she alwaysdid, and always would until the end of time. At the present momentshe was busily employed in thinking about her own affairs. A shabbycomposition book with mottled board covers lay open on the table beforeher, 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 thepencil poised in the other hand looked dreamily out on the village, itshuddle of roofs and steeples all blurred into positive beauty by thefast-falling snowflakes. 

It was the middle of December and the friendly sky was softly droppinga great white mantle of peace and good-will over the little town, makingall ready within and without for the Feast o' the Babe. 

The main street, that in summer was made dignified by its splendidavenue of shade trees, now ran quiet and white between rows of stalwarttrunks, whose leafless branches were all hanging heavy under theirdazzling burden. 

The path leading straight up the hill to the Academy was broken only bythe feet of the hurrying, breathless boys and girls who ran up and down, carrying piles of books under their arms; books which they rememberedso long as they were within the four walls of the recitation room, andwhich they eagerly forgot as soon as they met one another in the living, laughing world, going up and down the hill. 

"It's very becoming to the universe, snow is!" thought Rebecca, lookingout of the window dreamily. "Really there's little to choose between theworld and heaven when a snowstorm is going on. I feel as if I ought tolook at it every minute. I wish I could get over being greedy, but itstill seems to me at sixteen as if there weren't waking hours enoughin the day, and as if somehow I were pressed for time and continuallylosing something. How well I remember mother's story about me when Iwas four. It was at early breakfast on the farm, but I called all mealsdinner' 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 atsix 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 Imustn't take the snow as a subject; there has been too great competitionamong the older poets!" And with that she turned in her chair and beganwriting again in the shabby book, which was already three quartersfilled with childish scribblings, sometimes in pencil, and sometimes inviolet ink with carefully shaded capital letters. "

* * * * *

Squire Bean has had a sharp attack of rheumatism and Abijah Flagg cameback from Limerick for a few days to nurse him. One morning the Burnhamsisters from North Riverboro came over to spend the day with AuntMiranda, 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 thatused to be my safety valve!--and pitched down the last forkful ofgrandfather's hay that will ever be eaten by any visiting horse. TheyWILL be delighted to hear that it is all gone; they have grumbled at itfor 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, theaffection I lavished on it, I wonder that I could forget it, even inall 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 finishbuilding an air castle we seldom live in it after all; we sometimes evenforget that we ever longed to! Perhaps we have gone so far as tobegin another castle on a higher hilltop, and this is sobeautiful, --especially while we are building, and before we live init!--that the first one has quite vanished from sight and mind, like theoutgrown shell of the nautilus that he casts off on the shore and neverlooks at again. (At least I suppose he doesn't; but perhaps he takes onebackward glance, half-smiling, half-serious, just as I am doing at myold Thought Book, and says, "WAS THAT MY SHELL! GOODNESS GRACIOUS! HOWDID 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'slectures, but I think girls of sixteen are principally imitations of thepeople and things they love and admire; and between editing the "Pilot, "writing out Virgil translations, searching for composition subjects, andstudying rhetorical models, there is very little of the originalRebecca Rowena about me at the present moment; I am just a member ofthe 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 amnot even sure that we do not think alike; and what will become of thepoor 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 andduty 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 shiningcopper cents fresh from the mint?

Yet there must be a little difference between us somewhere, or why doesAbijah Flagg write Latin letters to Emma Jane, instead of to me? Thereis one example on the other side of the argument, --Abijah Flagg. Hestands out from all the rest of the boys like the Rock of Gibraltar inthe geography pictures. Is it because he never went to school until hewas sixteen? He almost died of longing to go, and the longing seemed toteach him more than going. He knew his letters, and could read simplethings, but it was I who taught him what books really meant when I waseleven and he thirteen. We studied while he was husking corn or cuttingpotatoes for seed, or shelling beans in the Squire's barn. His belovedEmma Jane didn't teach him; her father wold not have let her be friendswith a chore-boy! It was I who found him after milking-time, summernights, suffering, yes dying, of Least Common Multiple and GreatestCommon Divisor; I who struck the shackles from the slave and told him toskip 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 thecows when I was correcting his sums on warm evenings, but I don't regretit, for he is now the joy of Limerick and the pride of Riverboro, and Isuppose has forgotten the proper side on which to approach a cow if youwish to milk her. This now unserviceable knowledge is neatly inclosed inthe outgrown shell he threw off two or three years ago. His gratitudeto me knows no bounds, but--he writes Latin letters to Emma Jane! But asMr. Perkins said about drowning the kittens (I now quote from myself atthirteen), "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 tomake Mr. Aladdin laugh, I shall show him my composition on the relativevalues 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 Ihaven't scrubbed and rubbed so hard that I have taken the gloss off thepoor little virtues that lay just alongside of the faults; for as I readthe foolish doggerel and the funny, funny "Remerniscences, " I see on thewhole a nice, well-meaning, trusting, loving heedless little creature, that after all I'd rather build on than outgrow altogether, because sheis Me; the Me that was made and born just a little different from allthe rest of the babies in my birthday year. 

One thing is alike in the child and the girl. They both love to setthoughts 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 ofrhyming words, and in fact, of the three great R's of life, they adoreReading and Riting, as much as they abhor 'Rithmetic. 

The little girl in the old book is always thinking of what she is "goingto be. "

Uncle Jerry Cobb spoiled me a good deal in this direction. I rememberhe said to everybody when I wrote my verses for the flag-raising: "Naryrung on the ladder o' fame but that child'll climb if you give hertime!"--poor Uncle Jerry! He will be so disappointed in me as time goeson. And still he would think I have already climbed two rungs on theladder, although it is only a little Wareham ladder, for I am one ofthe "Pilot" editors, the first "girl editor"--and I have taken a fiftydollar prize in composition and paid off the interest on a twelvehundred 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 justone verse in the middle of it. 

"She made the cleverest people quite ashamed; And ev'n the good withinward envy groan, Finding themselves so very much exceeded, In theirown way by all the things that she did. "

Miss Maxwell says it is Byron, and I wish I had thought of the lastrhyme 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-offcareers. "

"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 generallyfind themselves in the bull's eye. "

I think one reason that I have always dreamed of what I should be, whenI grew up, was, that even before father died mother worried about themortgage 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, butoh! it was harder still on poor dear mother, who had seven of us thento think of, and still has three at home to feed and clothe out of thefarm. 

Aunt Jane says I am young for my age, Aunt Miranda is afraid that I willnever really "grow up, " Mr. Aladdin says that I don't know the world anybetter than the pearl inside of the oyster. They none of them know theold, old thoughts I have, some of them going back years and years; forthey are never ones that I can speak about. 

I remember how we children used to admire father, he was so handsome andgraceful and amusing, never cross like mother, or too busy to play withus. He never did any work at home because he had to keep his hands nicefor 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'tthe 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 withstarched bosoms. He was very particular about them and mother used tostitch and stitch on the pleats, and press and press the bosoms andcollar and cuffs, sometimes late at night. 

Then she was tired and thin and gray, with no time to sew on new dressesfor herself, and no time to wear them, because she was always takingcare of the babies; and father was happy and well and handsome. Butwe children never thought much about it until once, after father hadmortgaged the farm, there was going to be a sociable in Temperancevillage. Mother could not go as Jenny had whooping-cough and Mark hadjust broken his arm, and when she was tying father's necktie, the lastthing before he started, he said: "I wish, Aurelia, that you cared alittle about YOUR appearance and YOUR dress; it goes a long way with aman like me. "

Mother had finished the tie, and her hands dropped suddenly. I looked ather eyes and mouth while she looked at father and in a minute I was everso 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 hewas 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 wasalways the favorite when we were little, he was so interesting, andI wonder sometimes if we don't remember interesting people longer andbetter than we do those who are just good and patient. If so it seemsvery cruel. 

As I look back I see that Miss Ross, the artist who brought me mypink parasol from Paris, sowed the first seeds in me of ambition to dosomething 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 notknow that "Ease is the lovely result of forgotten toil. "

Miss Ross sat out of doors and painted lovely things, and everybody saidhow wonderful they were, and bought them straight away; and she tookcare of a blind father and two brothers, and traveled wherever shewished. It comes back to me now, that summer when I was ten and MissRoss painted me sitting by the mill-wheel while she talked to me offoreign countries!

The other day Miss Maxwell read something from Browning's poems to thegirls of her literature class. It was about David the shepherd boywho used to lie in his hollow watching one eagle "wheeling slow as insleep. " 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 thesky;" for he lay in a hollow. 

I told Mr. Baxter about it the next day, which was the Saturday beforeI joined the church. I asked him if it was wicked to long to see as muchas 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 boydid; but wherever you lie, that little strip you see 'twixt the hilland the sky' is able to hold all of earth and all of heaven, if only youhave the right sort of vision. "

I was a long, long time about "experiencing religion. " I remember Sundayafternoons at the brick house the first winter after I went there; whenI used to sit in the middle of the dining-room as I was bid, silent andstill, 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 couldgive a glance into the street now and then without being positivelywicked. 

Aunt Jane used to read the "Pilgrim's Progress. " The fire burned low;the tall clock ticked, ticked, so slowly and steadily, that the picturesswam 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 thatI could hardly learn my weekly hymns, especially the sad, long onebeginning:

 "My thoughts on awful subjects roll, Damnation and the dead. "

It was brother John for whom I was chiefly homesick on Sundayafternoons, because at Sunnybrook Farm father was dead and mother wasalways busy, and Hannah never liked to talk. 

Then the next year the missionaries from Syria came to Riverboro; andat the meeting Mr. Burch saw me playing the melodeon, and thought I wasgrown 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 thinkingout loud, I found I could talk to God a great deal easier than to AuntMiranda or even to Uncle Jerry Cobb. There were things I could say toHim that I could never say to anybody else, and saying them always mademe happy and contented. 

When Mr. Baxter asked me last year about joining the church, I told himI was afraid I did not understand God quite well enough to be a realmember. 

"So you don't quite understand God, Rebecca?" he asked, smiling. "Well, there is something else much more important, which is, thatHe understands you! He understands your feeble love, your longings, desires, hopes, faults, ambitions, crosses; and that, after all, is whatcounts! Of course you don't understand Him! You are overshadowed by Hislove, His power, His benignity, His wisdom; that is as it should be!Why, Rebecca, dear, if you could stand erect and unabashed in God'spresence, as one who perfectly comprehended His nature or His purposes, it would be sacrilege! Don't be puzzled out of your blessed inheritanceof faith, my child; accept God easily and naturally, just as He acceptsyou!"

"God never puzzled me, Mr. Baxter; it isn't that, " I said; "but thedoctrines do worry me dreadfully. "

"Let them alone for the present, " Mr Baxter said. "Anyway, Rebecca, youcan never prove God; you can only find Him!"

"Then do you think I have really experienced religion, Mr. Baxter?" Iasked. "Am I the beginnings of a Christian?"

"You are a dear child of the understanding God!" Mr. Baxter said; "and Isay 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 therush and whirlwind of work that comes before graduation. The bell forphilosophy class will ring in ten minutes, and as I have been writingfor nearly two hours, I must learn my lesson going up the Academyhill. It will not be the first time; it is a grand hill for learning! Isuppose after fifty years or so the very ground has become soaked withknowledge, and every particle of air in the vicinity is crammed withuseful 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 writein a Thought Book; but oh, if only something would happen worth puttingdown; something strange; something unusual; something different from thethings that happen every day in Riverboro and Edgewood!

Graduation will surely take me a little out of "the hollow, "--make mea little more like the soaring eagle, gazing at the whole wide worldbeneath 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. Baxtersaid, that the little strip that I see "twixt the hill and the sky" isable to hold all of earth and all of heaven, if only I have the eyes tosee 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 andlong-desired age she wondered if, after all, it was destined to be aturning point in her quiet existence. Her eleventh year, for instance, had been a real turning-point, since it was then that she had leftSunnybrook Farm and come to her maiden aunts in Riverboro. AureliaRandall may have been doubtful as to the effect upon her spinstersisters of the irrepressible child, but she was hopeful from the firstthat the larger opportunities of Riverboro would be the "making" ofRebecca herself. 

The next turning-point was her fourteenth year, when she left thedistrict school for the Wareham Female Seminary, then in the hey-dayof its local fame. Graduation (next to marriage, perhaps, the mostthrilling episode in the life of a little country girl) happened atseventeen, and not long afterward her Aunt Miranda's death, sudden andunexpected, changed not only all the outward activities and conditionsof her life, but played its own part in her development. 

The brick house looked very homelike and pleasant on a June morningnowadays with children's faces smiling at the windows and youthfulfootsteps sounding through the halls; and the brass knocker on thered-painted front door might have remembered Rebecca's prayer of a yearbefore, when she leaned against its sun-warmed brightness and whispered:"God bless Aunt Miranda; God bless the brick house that was; God blessthe brick house that's going to be!"

All the doors and blinds were open to the sun and air as they had neverbeen in Miss Miranda Sawyer's time. The hollyhock bed that had been herchief pride was never neglected, and Rebecca liked to hear the neighborssay that there was no such row of beautiful plants and no such varietyof beautiful colors in Riverboro as those that climbed up and peeped inat the kitchen windows where old Miss Miranda used to sit. 

Now that the place was her very own Rebecca felt a passion of pride inits smoothly mown fields, its carefully thinned-out woods, its bloominggarden spots, and its well-weeded vegetable patch; felt, too whenevershe looked at any part of it, a passion of gratitude to the stern oldaunt who had looked upon her as the future head of the family, as wellas a passion of desire to be worthy of that trust. 

It had been a very difficult year for a girl fresh from school: thedeath of her aunt, the nursing of Miss Jane, prematurely enfeebled bythe shock, the removal of her own invalid mother and the rest of thelittle family from Sunnybrook Farm. But all had gone smoothly; and whenonce the Randall fortunes had taken an upward turn nothing seemed ableto stop their intrepid ascent. 

Aurelia Randall renewed her youth in the companionship of her sisterJane and the comforts by which her children were surrounded; themortgage was no longer a daily terror, for Sunnybrook had been sold tothe new railroad; Hannah, now Mrs. Will Melville, was happily situated;John, at last, was studying medicine; Mark, the boisterous and unluckybrother, had broken no bones for several months; while Jenny and Fannywere doing well at the district school under Miss Libby Moses, MissDearborn's successor. 

"I don't feel very safe, " thought Rebecca, remembering all theseunaccustomed mercies as she sat on the front doorsteps, with her tattingshuttle flying in and out of the fine cotton like a hummingbird. "It'sjust like one of those too beautiful July days that winds up with athundershower before night! Still, when you remember that the Randallsnever had anything but thunder and lightning, rain, snow, and hail, intheir family history for twelve or fifteen years, perhaps it is onlynatural that they should enjoy a little spell of settled weather. If itreally turns out to BE settled, now that Aunt Jane and mother are strongagain I must be looking up one of what Mr. Aladdin calls my cast-offcareers. "--"There comes Emma Jane Perkins through her front gate; shewill be here in a minute, and I'll tease her!" and Rebecca ran in thedoor and seated herself at the old piano that stood between the openwindows in the parlor. 

Peeping from behind the muslin curtains, she waited until Emma Janewas on the very threshold and then began singing her version of an oldballad, made that morning while she was dressing. The ballad was a greatfavorite of hers, and she counted on doing telling execution with it inthe present instance by the simple subterfuge of removing the originalhero and heroine, Alonzo and Imogene, and substituting Abijah the Braveand the Fair Emmajane, leaving the circumstances in the first threeverses unaltered, because in truth they seemed to require no alteration. 

Her high, clear voice, quivering with merriment, floated through thewindows 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 canhear it over to my house!"

"Then, if she can, I must sing the third verse, just to clear yourreputation from the cloud cast upon it in the second, " laughed hertormentor, going on with the song:

"'Oh, hush these suspicions!' Fair Emmajane said, 'So hurtful to loveand 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 pianostool and confronted her friend, who was carefully closing the parlorwindows:--

"Emma Jane Perkins, it is an ordinary Thursday afternoon at four o'clockand you have on your new blue barege, although there is not even achurch sociable in prospect this evening. What does this mean? Is Abijahthe 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 whennot dressed up. Right, my Fair Emmajane; so would I. Not that it makesany difference to poor me, wearing my fourth best black and white calicoand expecting nobody. 

"Oh, well, YOU! There's something inside of you that does instead ofpretty dresses, " cried Emma Jane, whose adoration of her friend hadnever altered nor lessened since they met at the age of eleven. "Youknow you are as different from anybody else in Riverboro as a princessin a fairy story. Libby Moses says they would notice you in Lowell, Massachusetts!"

"Would they? I wonder, " speculated Rebecca, rendered almost speechlessby this tribute to her charms. "Well, if Lowell, Massachusetts, couldsee me, or if you could see me, in my new lavender muslin with theviolet sash, it would die of envy, and so would you!"

"If I had been going to be envious of you, Rebecca, I should have diedyears 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 bothways, " teased Rebecca, and then, softening her tone, she said: "Howis it getting on, Emmy? Tell me what's happened since I've been inBrunswick. "

"Nothing much, " confessed Emma Jane. "He writes to me, but I don't writeto 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 seemto write in Latin. I saw him at the Masonic picnic in the grove, but hewon't say anything REAL to me till he gets more pay and dares to speakto mother and father. He IS brave in all other ways, but I ain't surehe'll ever have the courage for that, he's so afraid of them and alwayshas been. Just remember what's in his mind all the time, Rebecca, thatmy folks know all about what his mother was, and how he was born on thepoor-farm. Not that I care; look how he's educated and worked himselfup! I think he's perfectly elegant, and I shouldn't mind if he had beenborn in the bulrushes, like Moses. "

Emma Jane's every-day vocabulary was pretty much what it had been beforeshe went to the expensive Wareham Female Seminary. She had acquireda certain amount of information concerning the art of speech, but inmoments of strong feeling she lapsed into the vernacular. She grewslowly in all directions, did Emma Jane, and, to use Rebecca's favoritenautilus figure, she had left comparatively few outgrown shells on theshores of "life's unresting sea. "

"Moses wasn't born in the bulrushes, Emmy dear, " corrected Rebeccalaughingly. "Pharaoh's daughter found him there. It wasn't quite asromantic a scene--Squire Bean's wife taking little Abijah Flagg from thepoorhouse 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 willwrite notes stating that Mrs. Abijah Flagg requests the pleasure of MissRebecca 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 andthe turquoise carryall!"

Emma Jane laughed at the ridiculous prophecy, and answered: "If I everwrite the invitation I shan't be addressing it to Miss Randall, I'm sureof that; it'll be to Mrs. -----"

"Don't!" cried Rebecca impetuously, changing color and putting her handover Emma Jane's lips. "If you won't I'll stop teasing. I couldn't beara 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--somethingthat you have always consulted me about of your own accord, and Abijahtoo. "

"Don't get excited, " replied Emma Jane, "I was only going to say youwere sure to be Mrs. Somebody in course of time. "

"Oh, " said Rebecca with a relieved sigh, her color coming back; "ifthat's all you meant, just nonsense; but I thought, I thought--I don'treally 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 ofmy coming birthday and said that Squire Bean would give me the deed ofthe brick house. That made me feel very old and responsible; and when Icame out on the steps this afternoon it was just as if pictures of theold years were moving up and down the road. Everything is so beautifultoday! Doesn't the sky look as if it had been dyed blue and the fieldspainted pink and green and yellow this very minute?"

"It's a perfectly elegant day!" responded Emma Jane with a sigh. "Ifonly my mind was at rest! That's the difference between being young andgrown-up. We never used to think and worry. "

"Indeed we didn't! Look, Emmy, there's the very spot where Uncle JerryCobb stopped the stage and I stepped out with my pink parasol and mybouquet of purple lilacs, and you were watching me from your bedroomwindow and wondering what I had in mother's little hair trunk strappedon behind. Poor Aunt Miranda didn't love me at first sight, and oh, howcross she was the first two years! But now every hard thought I ever hadcomes back to me and cuts like a knife!"

"She was dreadful hard to get along with, and I used to hate her likepoison, " confessed Emma Jane; "but I am sorry now. She was kinder towardthe last, anyway, and then, you see children know so little! We neversuspected she was sick or that she was worrying over that lost interestmoney. "

"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 forgeteverything but our own angry speeches; somehow we never remember theirs. And oh, Emma Jane, there's another such a sweet little picture out therein the road. The next day after I came to Riverboro, do you remember, Istole out of the brick house crying, and leaned against the front gate. You pushed your little fat pink-and-white face through the pickets andsaid: Don't cry! I'll kiss you if you will me!'"

Lumps rose suddenly in Emma Jane's throat, and she put her arm aroundRebecca's waist as they sat together side by side. 

"Oh, I do remember, " she said in a choking voice. "And I can see the twoof us driving over to North Riverboro and selling soap to Mr. AdamLadd; and lighting up the premium banquet lamp at the Simpson party; andlaying the daisies round Jacky Winslow's mother when she was dead inthe cabin; and trundling Jacky up and down the street in our old babycarriage!"

"And I remember you, " continued Rebecca, "being chased down the hillby Jacob Moody, when we were being Daughters of Zion and you had beenchosen to convert him!"

"And I remember you, getting the flag back from Mr. Simpson; and how youlooked when you spoke your verses at the flag-raising. "

"And have you forgotten the week I refused to speak to Abijah Flaggbecause he fished my turban with the porcupine quills out of the riverwhen I hoped at last that I had lost it! Oh, Emma Jane, we had dear goodtimes together in the little harbor. '"

"I always thought that was an elegant composition of yours--thatfarewell to the class, " said Emma Jane. 

"The strong tide bears us on, out of the little harbor of childhood intothe unknown seas, " recalled Rebecca. "It is bearing you almost out ofmy sight, Emmy, these last days, when you put on a new dress in theafternoon and look out of the window instead of coming across thestreet. Abijah Flagg never used to be in the little harbor with the restof us; when did he first sail in, Emmy?"

Emma Jane grew a deeper pink and her button-hole of a mouth quiveredwith delicious excitement. 

"It was last year at the seminary, when he wrote me his first Latinletter from Limerick Academy, " she said in a half whisper. 

"I remember, " laughed Rebecca. "You suddenly began the study of the deadlanguages, and the Latin dictionary took the place of the crochet needlein 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, "andI think I really ought to say it to you, because it's the only way youwill ever know how perfectly elegant Abijah is. Look the other way, Rebecca. Shall I have to translate it for you, do you think, because itseems 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 andrecited like a tremulous parrot the boyish love letter that had so firedher youthful imagination. 

"Vale, carissima, carissima puella!" repeated Rebecca in her musicalvoice. "Oh, how beautiful it sounds! I don't wonder it altered yourfeeling for Abijah! Upon my word, Emma Jane, " she cried with a suddenchange of tone, "if I had suspected for an instant that Abijah the Bravehad that Latin letter in him I should have tried to get him to write itto me; and then it would be I who would sit down at my mahogany desk andask 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 thatyou never looked at Abijah Flagg and he never looked at you. If eitherof you ever had, there never would have been a chance for me, and I'vealways known it!"

II

The romance alluded to in the foregoing chapter had been going on, sofar as Abijah Flagg's part of it was concerned, for many years, hisaffection dating back in his own mind to the first moment that he sawEmma Jane Perkins at the age of nine. 

Emma Jane had shown no sign of reciprocating his attachment until thelast three years, when the evolution of the chore-boy into thebudding scholar and man of affairs had inflamed even her somewhat dullimagination. 

Squire Bean's wife had taken Abijah away from the poorhouse, thinkingthat she could make him of some little use in her home. Abbie Flagg, themother, was neither wise nor beautiful; it is to be feared that shewas not even good, and her lack of all these desirable qualities, particularly the last one, had been impressed upon the child ever sincehe could remember. People seemed to blame him for being in the world atall; this world that had not expected him nor desired him, nor made anyprovision for him. The great battle-axe of poorhouse opinion was foreverleveled at the mere little atom of innocent transgression, until he grewsad and shy, clumsy, stiff, and self-conscious. He had an indomitablecraving for love in his heart and had never received a caress in hislife. 

He was more contented when he came to Squire Bean's house. The firstyear he could only pick up chips, carry pine wood into the kitchen, goto the post-office, run errands, drive the cows, and feed the hens, butevery day he grew more and more useful. 

His only friend was little Jim Watson, the storekeeper's son, and theywere inseparable companions whenever Abijah had time for play. 

One never-to-be-forgotten July day a new family moved into the whitecottage between Squire Bean's house and the Sawyers'. Mr. Perkins hadsold his farm beyond North Riverboro and had established a blacksmith'sshop in the village, at the Edgewood end of the bridge. This fact was ofno special interest to the nine-year-old Abijah, but what really was ofimportance, was the appearance of a pretty little girl of seven in thefront 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 cameover like David, to visit his favorite Jonathan. His Jonathan met himat the top of the hill, pleaded a pressing engagement, curtly sent himhome, and then went back to play with his new idol, with whom hehad already scraped acquaintance, her parents being exceedingly busysettling the new house. 

After the noon dinner Jimmy again yearned to resume friendly relations, and, forgetting his rebuff, again toiled up the hill and appearedunexpectedly at no great distance from the Perkins premises, wearing thebroad and beaming smile of one who is confident of welcome. 

His morning call had been officious and unpleasant and unsolicited, buthis afternoon visit could only be regarded as impudent, audacious, and positively dangerous; for Abijah and Emma Jane were cosily playinghouse, the game of all others in which it is particularly desirable tohave 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 ofground between himself and his dreaded rival, and seizing small stonesand 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 Janeinside and strode up and down in front of the edifice like an Indianbrave. At such an early age does woman become a distracting anddisturbing influence in man's career!

Time went on, and so did the rivalry between the poorhouse boy and theson of wealth, but Abijah's chances of friendship with Emma Jane grewfewer and fewer as they both grew older. He did not go to school, sothere was no meeting-ground there, but sometimes, when he saw the knotof boys and girls returning in the afternoon, he would invite Elijah andElisha, the Simpson twins, to visit him, and take pains to be in SquireBean's front yard, doing something that might impress his inamorata asshe passed the premises. 

As Jimmy Watson was particularly small and fragile, Abijah generallychose feats of strength and skill for these prearranged performances. 

Sometimes he would throw his hat up into the elm trees as far as hecould and, when it came down, catch it on his head. Sometimes he wouldwalk on his hands, with his legs wriggling in the air, or turn a doublesomersault, or jump incredible distances across the extended arms ofthe Simpson twins; and his bosom swelled with pride when the girlsexclaimed, "Isn't he splendid!" although he often heard his rival murmurscornfully, "SMARTY ALECK!"--a scathing allusion of unknown origin. 

Squire Bean, although he did not send the boy to school (thinking, ashe was of no possible importance in the universe, it was not worthwhile bothering about his education), finally became impressed with hisability, lent him books, and gave him more time to study. These were allhe needed, books and time, and when there was an especially hard knot tountie, Rebecca, as the star scholar of the neighborhood, helped him tountie it. 

When he was sixteen he longed to go away from Riverboro and be somethingbetter than a chore boy. Squire Bean had been giving him small wagesfor three or four years, and when the time of parting came presented himwith a ten-dollar bill and a silver watch. 

Many a time had he discussed his future with Rebecca and asked heropinion. 

This was not strange, for there was nothing in human form that she couldnot and did not converse with, easily and delightedly. She had ideason every conceivable subject, and would have cheerfully advised theminister if he had asked her. The fishman consulted her when he couldn'tendure his mother-in-law another minute in the house; Uncle JerryCobb didn't part with his river field until he had talked it over withRebecca; and as for Aunt Jane, she couldn't decide whether to wear herblack 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 aboutgoing far away and then coming back all changed. "

This was precisely Abijah's unspoken thought. Limerick knew nothing ofAbbie Flagg's worthlessness, birth, and training, and the awful stigmaof his poorhouse birth, so that he would start fair. He could have goneto Wareham and thus remained within daily sight of the beloved EmmaJane; but no, he was not going to permit her to watch him in the processof "becoming, " but after he had "become" something. He did not proposeto 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 thefamily nor Mrs. Perkins allow in the house, he would neither return toRiverboro 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 forone thing, --useless kinds and all, --going to have good clothes, and agood income. Everything that was in his power should be right, becausethere would always be lurking in the background the things he nevercould help--the mother and the poorhouse. 

So he went away, and, although at Squire Bean's invitation he came backthe first year for two brief visits at Christmas and Easter, he waslittle seen in Riverboro, for Mr. Ladd finally found him a place wherehe could make his vacations profitable and learn bookkeeping at the sametime. 

The visits in Riverboro were tantalizing rather than pleasant. Hewas invited to two parties, but he was all the time conscious of hisshirt-collar, and he was sure that his "pants" were not the properthing, for by this time his ideals of dress had attained an almostunrealizable height. As for his shoes, he felt that he walked on carpetsas if they were furrows and he were propelling a plow or a harrow beforehim. 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 JamesWatson's unworthy and over-ambitious lips on Emma Jane's pink cheekalmost destroyed his faith in an overruling Providence. 

After the parties were over he went back to his old room in SquireBean's shed chamber. As he lay in bed his thoughts fluttered aboutEmma Jane as swallows circle around the eaves. The terrible sickness ofhopeless handicapped love kept him awake. Once he crawled out of bed inthe night, lighted the lamp, and looked for his mustache, rememberingthat he had seen a suspicion of down on his rival's upper lip. He roseagain half an hour later, again lighted the lamp, put a few drops of oilon his hair, and brushed it violently for several minutes. Then he wentback to bed, and after making up his mind that he would buy a dulcimerand 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, hefinally sank into a troubled slumber. 

Those days, so full of hope and doubt and torture, seemed mercifullyunreal now, they lay so far back in the past--six or eight years, infact, which is a lifetime to the lad of twenty--and meantime he hadconquered many of the adverse circumstances that had threatened to cloudhis career. 

Abijah Flagg was a true child of his native State. Something of the sametimber that Maine puts into her forests, something of the same strengthand resisting power that she works into her rocks, goes into her sonsand daughters; and at twenty Abijah was going to take his fate in hishand and ask Mr. Perkins, the rich blacksmith, if, after a suitableperiod of probation (during which he would further prepare himself forhis exalted destiny), he might marry the fair Emma Jane, sole heiress ofthe Perkins house and fortunes. 

III

This was boy and girl love, calf love, perhaps, though even that maydevelop into something larger, truer, and finer; but not so far awaywere other and very different hearts growing and budding, each in itsown way. There was little Miss Dearborn, the pretty school teacher, drifting into a foolish alliance because she did not agree with herstepmother 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 herheart bestowed in the wrong quarter. She was toiling on at the Warehamschool, living as unselfish a life as a nun in a convent; lavishing themind 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 motheringtheir own little twos and threes, God must be grateful to them fortheir mothering of the hundreds which make them so precious in Hisregenerating purposes. 

Then there was Adam Ladd, waiting at thirty-five for a girl to grow alittle older, simply because he could not find one already grown whosuited his somewhat fastidious and exacting tastes. 

"I'll not call Rebecca perfection, " he quoted once, in a letter to EmilyMaxwell, --"I'll not call her perfection, for that's a post, afraid tomove. But she's a dancing sprig of the tree next it. "

When first she appeared on his aunt's piazza in North Riverboro andinsisted on selling him a large quantity of very inferior soap in orderthat her friends, the Simpsons, might possess a premium in the shape ofa greatly needed banquet lamp, she had riveted his attention. He thoughtall the time that he enjoyed talking with her more than with any womanalive, and he had never changed his opinion. She always caught whathe said as if it were a ball tossed to her, and sometimes her mind, asthrough it his thoughts came back to him, seemed like a prism which haddyed them with deeper colors. 

Adam Ladd always called Rebecca in his heart his little Spring. Hisboyhood had been lonely and unhappy. That was the part of life he hadmissed, and although it was the full summer of success and prosperitywith 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 freshand joyous beyond all explaining?

Have you lain with half-closed eyes where the flickering of sunlightthrough young leaves, the song of birds and brook and the fragrance ofwild flowers combined to charm your senses, and you felt the sweetnessand grace of nature as never before?

Rebecca was springtide to Adam's thirsty heart. She was blithe youthincarnate; she was music--an Aeolian harp that every passing breezewoke to some whispering little tune; she was a changing, iridescentjoy-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 init and evoked life where none was before. 

And Rebecca herself?

She had been quite unconscious of all this until very lately, and evennow she was but half awakened; searching among her childish instinctsand her girlish dreams for some Ariadne thread that should guide hersafely through the labyrinth of her new sensations. 

For the moment she was absorbed, or thought she was, in the little lovestory of Abijah and Emma Jane, but in reality, had she realized it, thatlove story served chiefly as a basis of comparison for a possible one ofher own, later on. 

She liked and respected Abijah Flagg, and loving Emma Jane was a habitcontracted early in life; but everything that they did or said, orthought or wrote, or hoped or feared, seemed so inadequate, so painfullyshort of what might be done or said, or thought or written, or hoped orfeared, under easily conceivable circumstances, that she almost felt adisposition to smile gently at the fancy of the ignorant young couplethat 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 inbed; 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 vestalbosom 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 disportedthemselves so gayly. 

A little open vehicle came in sight, and in it sat Abijah Flagg. Thewagon was so freshly painted and so shiny that Rebecca thought that hemust have alighted at the bridge and given it a last polish. The creasesin his trousers, too, had an air of having been pressed in only a fewminutes before. The whip was new and had a yellow ribbon on it; thegray suit of clothes was new, and the coat flourished a flower in itsbutton-hole. The hat was the latest thing in hats, and the intrepidswain wore a seal-ring on the little finger of his right hand. AsRebecca remembered that she had guided it in making capital G's in hiscopy-book, she felt positively maternal, although she was two yearsyounger than Abijah the Brave. 

He drove up to the Perkins gate and was so long about hitching the horsethat Rebecca's heart beat tumultuously at the thought of Emma Jane'sheart waiting under the blue barege. Then he brushed an imaginary speckoff his sleeve, then he drew on a pair of buff kid gloves, then he wentup the path, rapped at the knocker, and went in. 

"Not all the heroes go to the wars, " thought Rebecca. "Abijah has laidthe ghost of his father and redeemed the memory of his mother, for noone will dare say again that Abbie Flagg's son could never amount toanything!"

The minutes went by, and more minutes, and more. The tranquil dusksettled down over the little village street and the young moon came outjust behind the top of the Perkins pine tree. 

The Perkins front door opened and Abijah the Brave came out hand in handwith his Fair Emma Jane. 

They walked through the orchard, the eyes of the old couple followingthem from the window, and just as they disappeared down the green slopethat led to the riverside the gray coat sleeve encircled the blue baregewaist. 

Rebecca, quivering with instant sympathy and comprehension, hid her facein her hands. 

"Emmy has sailed away and I am all alone in the little harbor, " shethought. 

It was as if childhood, like a thing real and visible, were slippingdown the grassy river banks, after Abijah and Emma Jane, anddisappearing 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 carryme out to sea!"