 CHAPTER III. The Sawyer girl's barn still had its haymow in Rebecca's time, although the hay was a dozen years older more, and, in the opinion of the occasional visiting horse, sadly juiceless and wanting in flavor. It still sheltered two old-deacon Israel Sawyers' cariol and mowing machine, with his pung, his sleigh, and a dozen other survivals of an earlier era, when the broad acres of the brook house went to make one of the finest farms in Riverboro. There were no horses or cows in the stalls nowadays, no pig grunting comfortably of future spare ribs in the sty, no hens to peck the plants in the cherished garden patch. The Sawyer girls were getting on in years, and mindful that Care once killed a cat. They ordered their lives with the view of escaping that particular doom, at least, and succeeded fairly well until Rebecca's advent made existence a trifle more sensational. Once a month, for years upon years Miss Miranda and Miss Jane had put towels over their head, and made a solemn visit to the barn, taking off the enameled cloth coverings, occasionally called Emanuel covers in Riverboro, dusting the ancient implements, and sometimes sweeping the heaviest of the cobwebs from the corners, or giving a brush to the floor. Deacon Israel's tottering ladder still stood in its accustomed place, propped against the haymow and the heavenly stairway leading to eternal glory scarcely looked fairer to Jacob of old than this to Rebecca. By means of its dusty rounds she mounted, mounted, mounted, far away from time and care and maiden ants, far away from childish tasks and childish troubles, to the barn chamber, a place so full of golden dreams, happy reveries, and vague longings, that as her little brown hands clung to the sides of the ladder, and her feet trod the rounds cautiously in her scent, her heart almost stopped beating in the sheer joy of anticipation. Once having gained the heights, the next thing was to unlatch the heavy doors and give them a gentle swing outward. Then oh! ever new paradise! Then oh! ever lovely green and growing world! For Rebecca had that something in her soul that gives to seas and sunset skies the unspent beauty of surprise. At the top of guide-board hill she could see Alice Robinson's barn with its shining weather-vane, a huge burnished fish that swam with the wind and foretold the day to all river-borrow. The meadow with its sunny slope stretching up to the pine woods was sometimes a flowing sheet of shimmering grass, sometimes, when daisies and butter-cups were blooming, a vision of white and gold. Sometimes the shorn stubble would be dotted with the happy hills of hay, and a little later the rock maple on the edge of the pines would stand out like a golden ball against the green, its neighbor, the sugar-maple, glowing beside it, brave and scarlet. It was on one of these autumn days with the wintry nip in the air that Adam Ladd, Rebecca's favorite Mr. Aladdin, after searching for her in field and garden, suddenly noticed the open doors of the barn-chamber and called to her. At the sound of his voice she dropped her precious diary and flew to the edge of the haymow. He never forgot the vision of that startle little poetess, book in one mitten hand, pencil in the other. Dark hair all ruffled with the picturesque addition of an occasional blade of straw. Her cheeks crimson, her eyes shining. A safo in mittens, he cried laughingly, and at her eager question told her to look up the unknown lady in the school encyclopedia when she was admitted to the female seminary at Wareham. Now all being ready, Rebecca went to a corner of the haymow and withdrew a thick blank book with modelled covers. Out of her gingham-apron pocket came a pencil, a bit of rubber, and some pieces of brown paper. Then she seated herself gravely on the floor, and drew an inverted soapbox nearer to her for a table. The book was reverently opened, and there was a serious reading of the extracts already carefully copied therein. Most of them were apparently to the writers' liking, for dimples of pleasure showed themselves now and then, and smiles of an obvious delight played about her face. But once in a while there was a knitting of the brows and a sigh of discouragement, showing that the artist in the child was not wholly satisfied. Then came the crucial moment when the budding author was supposedly to be wracked with the throes of composition, but seemingly there were no throes. Other girls could have wheeled the darning or crochet or knitting needle and send the tatting-shuttle through loops of finest cotton, hemstitch over sew, braid hair in thirteen strands. But the pencil was never obedient to their fingers, and the pen and ink-pot were a horror from early childhood to the end of time. Not so with Rebecca. Her pencil moved as easily as her tongue, and no more striking simile could possibly be used. Her handwriting was not Spinssyrian. She had neither time nor patience, it is to be feared, for copy-book methods, and her unformed characters were frequently the despair of her teachers. But right she could. Right she would. Right she must and did, in season and out, from the time she made pot-hooks at six, till now writing was the easiest of all possible tasks. To be indulged in as solace and balm when the terrors of examples in least common multiple threatened to dethrone the reason, or the rules of grammar loomed huge and unconquerable in the near horizon. As to spelling it came to her in the main by free grace, and not by training. And those she slipped at times from the beaten path, her extraordinary ear and good visual memory kept her from many or flagrant mistakes. It was her intention, especially when saying her prayers at night, to look up all doubtful words in her small dictionary before copping her thoughts into the sacred book for the inspiration of posterity. But when genius burned with a brilliant flame, and particularly when she was in the barn, and the dictionary in the house, impulse as usual carried the day. There sits Rebekah then in the open door the Sawyer's barn chamber, the sunset door. How many a time had her grandfather, the good deacon, sat just underneath in his tipped back chair when Mrs. Israel's temper was uncertain, and the serenity of the barn was in comforting contrast to his own fireside. The open doors swinging out to the peaceful landscape, the solace of the pipe not allowed in the settin' room. How beautifully these simple agents have ministered to the family peace in days agon. If I hadn't had my barn and my stove both, I couldn't never have lived in holy matrimony with Mary Liza once said Mr. Watson feelingly. But the deacon looking on his waving grass fields, his tasseling corn, and his timberlands bright and honest as were his eyes, never saw such visions as Rebekah. The child transplanted from her home farm at Sunnybrook, from the care of the overworked but easygoing mother, and the companionship of the scantily fed, scantily clothed, happy-go-lucky brothers and sisters. She had indeed fallen on shady days in river borough. The blinds were closed in every room of the house but two, and the same might have been said of Miss Miranda's mind and heart, though Miss Jane had a few windows opening to the sun, and Rebekah already had her unconscious hand on several others. Brick house rules were rigid, and many for a little creature so full of life. But Rebekah's gay spirit could not be pinioned in a straight jacket for long at a time. It escaped somewhat, and winged its merry way into the sunshine and free air. If she were not allowed to sing in the orchard like the wild bird she was, she could still sing in the cage like the canary. 2. If you had opened the carefully guarded volume with the modelled covers, you would first have seen a wonderful tidal page, constructed apparently on the same lines as an obituary, or the inscription on a tombstone, save for the quantity and variety of information contained in it. Much of the matter would seem to the captious critic better adapted to the body of the book than to the tidal page, but Rebekah was apparently anxious that the principal personages in her chronicles should be well described at the outset. She seems to have had a conviction that heredity plays its part in the evolution of genius, and her belief that the world will be inspired by the possession of her thoughts is too artless to be offensive. She evidently has respect for rich material confided to her teacher, and one can imagine Miss Dearborn's woe had she been confronted by Rebekah's chosen literary executor and bidden to deliver valuable poetry and thoughts, the property of posterity unless carelessly destroyed. Thought Book of Rebekah Rowena Randall, really of Sunnybrook Farm, but temporarily of the Brick House River Borel. Own niece of Miss Miranda and Jane Sawyer, second of seven children of her father, Mr. L. D. M. Randall, now at rest in Temperance Cemetery, and there will be a monument as soon as we pay off the mortgage on the farm. Also of her mother, Miss Aurelia Randall. In case of death, the best of these thoughts may be printed in my remernicenses for the Sunday School Library at Temperance Main, which needs more books fearfully, and I hereby will entestament them to Mr. Adam Ladd, who bought three hundred 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 encourages my writing remernicenses, 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 Rebekah Rowena Randall will be a painter or an author, but after her death it will be known which she has been, if any. From the title page, with its wealth of detail, and its unnecessary and irrelevant information, the book ripples on like a brook, and to the weary reader of problem novels it may have something of the brook's refreshing quality. Our Diaries May 1870 Something All the girls are keeping a diary because Miss Dearborn was very much ashamed when the school trustees told her that most of the girls and all of the boys' compositions were disgraceful, and must be improved upon next term. She asked the boys to write letters to her once a week instead of keeping a diary, which they thought was girlish like playing with dolls. The boys thought it was dreadful to have to write letters every seven days, but she told them it was not half as bad for them as it was for her who had to read them. To make my diary a little different I'm going to call it a thought book, written just like that with capitals. I have thoughts that I never can use unless I write them down, for Aunt Miranda always says, keep your thoughts to yourself. Aunt Jane lets me tell her some, but does not like my queer ones, and my true thoughts are mostly queer. And my Jane does not mind hearing them now and then, and that is my only chance. If Miss Dearborn does not like the name thought book, I will call it remernicenses, written just like that with a capital R. Remernicenses are things you remember about yourself and write down in case you should die. Aunt Jane doesn't like to read any other kind of books, but just lives of interesting dead people. And she says that is what long fellow, who was born in the state of Maine, and we should be very proud of it, and try to write like him, meant in his poem, lives of great men all remind us we should make our lives sublime, and departing leave behind us footprints on the sands of time. I know what this means, because when Emma Jane and I went to the beach with Uncle Jerry Cobb, we ran along the wet sand, and looked at the shapes our boots made, just as if they were stamped in wax. Emma Jane turns in her left foot, splayfoot the boys call it, which is not polite, and Sess Strout has just patched one of my shoes, and it all came out in the sand pictures. When I learned, the Psalm of Life for Friday afternoon speaking, I thought I shouldn't like to leave a patched footprint, nor have Emma Jane's look crooked on the sands of time, and right away I thought, oh, what a splendid thought for my thought-book, when Aunt Jane buys me a fifteen-cent one over to Watson's store. Remernicenses, June 1870 something. I told Aunt Jane I was going to begin my remernicenses, and she says I am full young, but I reminded her that Candace Millican's sister died when she was ten, leaving no footprints, whatever, and if I should die suddenly who would write down my remernicenses? Aunt Miranda says the sun and moon would rise and set just the same, and it was no matter if they didn't get written down, and to go up Attic and find her peace-bag. But I said it would, as there were only one of everybody in the world, and nobody else could do the remernicensing for them. If I should die tonight I know not who would describe me right. Miss Dearborn would say one thing and Brother John another. Emma Jane would try to do me justice, but has no words, and I am glad Aunt Miranda never takes pen in hand. My dictionary is so small it has not many gentile words in it, and I cannot find how to spell remernicenses. But I remember from the cover of Aunt Jane's book that there was an S and a C close together in the middle of it, which I thought foolish and not needful. All the girls liked their diaries very much, but many smelly got Alice Robinson's where she had hid it under the school wood-pile and read it all through. She said it was no worse than reading anybody's composition, but we told her it was just like peeking through a keyhole or listening at a window or opening a bureau drawer. She said she didn't look at it that way, and I told her that unless her eyes got unsealed she would never leave any kind of a sublime footprint on the sands of time. I told her a diary was very sacred, as you generally pour your deepest feelings into it expecting nobody to look at it but yourself and your indulgent Heavenly Father who seeeth all things. Of course it would not hurt Pursus Watson to show her diary because she has not a sacred plan, and this is the way it goes, for she reads it out loud to us. A rose at six this morning. You always arise in a diary, but you say get up when you talk about it. Eight breakfast at half past six, had soda, biscuits, coffee, fish-hash, and donuts, wiped the dishes, fed the hens, and made my bed before school. Had a good arithmetic lesson but went down too in spelling. At half past four played hide and coop in the Sawyer pasture, fed hens and went to bed at eight. She says she can't put in what doesn't happen, but as I don't think her diary is interesting, she will ask her mother to have meat-hash instead of fish with pie when the donuts give out, and she will feed the hens before breakfast to make a change. We are all going to try and make something happen every single day so the diaries won't be so dull and the footprints so common. An Uncommon Thought, July 1870 something. We dug up our rose cakes today, and that gave me a good reminiscence. The way you make rose cakes is you take the leaves of full-blown roses and mix them with a little cinnamon and as much brown sugar as they will give you, which is never half enough except purses Watson, whose affectionate parents let her go to the barrel in their store. Then you do up little bits like cell-dits powders, first in soft paper and then in brown, and bury them in the ground and let them stay as long as you possibly can hold out. Then dig them up and eat them. Emma Jane and I stick up little signs over the holes in the ground with the date we buried them and when they'll be done enough to dig up, but we can never wait. When Aunt Jane saw us she said it was the first thing for children to learn, not to be impatient. So when I went to the barn chamber I made a poem. Impatience. We dug our rose cakes up, oh, all too soon, twas in the orchard just at noon, twas in a bright July four noon, twas in the sunny afternoon, twas underneath the harvest moon. It was not that way at all. It was a foggy morning before school, and I should think poets could never possibly get to heaven, for it is so hard to stick to the truth when you are writing poetry. Emma Jane thinks it's nobody's business when we dug the rose cakes up. I like the line about the harvest moon best, but it would give a wrong idea of our lives and characters to the people that read my thoughts, for they would think we were up late nights, so I have fixed it like this. Impatience. We dug our rose cakes up, oh, all too soon, we thought their sweetness would be such a boon, we ne'er suspicion 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 gnaw? An aged aunt doth say impatience was the reason. She says that youth is ever out of season. That is just as Aunt Jane said it, and it gave me the thought for the poem, which is rather uncommon. A dreadful question, September 1870 something. Which has been the most beneficent influence on character, punishment or reward? This truly dreadful question was given us by Dr. Moses when he visited school today. He is a school committee, not a whole one, but I do not know the singular number of him. He told us we could ask our families what they thought, though he would rather we wouldn't, but we must write our own words and he would hear them next week. After he went out and shut the door the scholars were all plunged in gloom and you could have heard a pin drop. Alice Robinson cried and borrowed my handkerchief, and the boys looked as if the schoolhouse had been struck by lightning. The worst of all was poor Miss Dearborn, who will lose her place as she does not make us better scholars soon. For Dr. Moses has a daughter all ready to put right into the school, and she can board at home and save all her wages. Libby Moses is her name. Miss Dearborn stared out the window, and her mouth and chin shook like Alice Robinson's, for she knew, ah, all too well what the coming week would bring forth. Then I raised my hand for permission to speak and stood up and said, Miss Dearborn, don't you mind, just explain to us what beneficent means and we'll write something real interesting, for all of us know what punishment is and have seen others get rewards, and it is not so bad a subject as some. And Dick Carter whispered, good on your head, Rebecca, which meant he was sorry for her too and would try his best but has no words. The teacher smiled and said, beneficent meant good or healthy for anybody, and would all rise who thought punishment made the best scholars and men and women, and everybody sat stock still. And then she asked all to stand who believed their rewards produced the finest results, and there was a mighty sound like unto the rushing of waters, but really was our feet scraping the floor, and the scholars stood up and it looked like an army, though it was only in 1919, because of the strong belief that was in them. Then Miss Dearborn laughed and said she was thankful for every whipping she had when she was a child, and Living Perkins said perhaps we hadn't got to the thankful age, or perhaps her father hadn't used a strap, and she said, oh no, it was her mother with the open hand. And Dick Carter said he wouldn't call that punishment, and Sam Simpson said so too. I am going to write about the subject in my thought book first, and when I make it a composition I can leave out anything about the family or not genteel, as there is much to relate about punishment not pleasant or nice or hardly polite. PUNISHMENT Punishment is a very puzzly thing, but I believe in it when really deserved. Only when I punish myself it does not always turn out well. When I leaned over the new bridge and got my dress all paint, and Aunt Sarah Cobb couldn't get it out, I had to wear it spotted for six months which hurt my pride, but was right. I stayed at home from Alice Robinson's birthday party for a punishment, and went to the circus next day instead. But Alice's parties are very cold and stiff, as Mrs. Robinson makes the boys stand on newspapers if they come inside the door, and the blinds are always shut. And Mrs. Robinson tells me how bad her liver complaint is this year. So I thought to pay for the circus and a few other things I ought to get more punishment, and I threw my pink parasol down the well, as the mothers in the missionary books throw their infants to the crocodiles in the Genghis River. But it got stuck in the chain that holds the bucket, and Aunt Miranda had to get a bite of flag to take out all the broken bits before we could bring up water. I punished myself this way because Aunt Miranda said that unless I improved I would be nothing but a burden and a blight. There was an old man used to go by our farm carrying a lot of broken chairs to bottom, and mother used to say, poor man, his back is too weak for such a burden, and I used to take him out of doughnut, and this is the part I want to go into the reminiscences. Once I told him we were sorry the chairs were so heavy, and he said they didn't seem so heavy when he had et the doughnut. This does not mean that the doughnut was heavier than the chairs, which is what Brother John said, but it is a beautiful thought and shows how the human race should have sympathy and help bear burdens. I know about a blight, for there was a dreadful east wind over at our farm that destroyed all the little young crops just out of the ground, and the farmers called it the blight, and I would rather be hail, sleet, frost or snow than a blight, which is mean and secret, and which is the reason I threw away the dearest thing on earth to me, the pink parasol that Miss Ross brought me from Paris, France. I have also wrapped up my bead purse in three papers and put it away marked not to be open till after my death unless needed for a party. I must not be burden, I must not be blight, the angels in heaven would weep at the sight. Rewards. A good way to find out which has the most beneficent effect would be to try rewards on myself this next week and write my composition the very last day when I see how my character is. It is hard to find rewards for yourself, but perhaps Aunt Jane and some of the girls would each give me one to help out. I could carry my bead purse to school every day or wear my coral chain a little while before I go to sleep at night. I could read Korra or the sorrows of a doctor's wife a little oftener, but that's all the rewards I can think of. I fear Aunt Miranda would say they are wicked, but oh, if they should turn out beneficent how glad and joyful life would be to me. A sweet and beautiful character, beloved by my teacher and schoolmates, admired and petted by my aunts and neighbors, yet carrying my bead purse constantly with perhaps my best hat on Wednesday afternoons as well as Sundays. A great shock. The reason why Alice Robinson could not play was she was being punished for breaking her mother's blue platter. Just before supper my story being finished I went up Guide Ward Hill to see how she was bearing up, and she spoke to me from her window. She said she did not mind being punished because she hadn't been for a long time, and she hoped it would help her with her composition. She thought it would give her thoughts, and tomorrow's the last day for her to have any. This gave me a good idea, and I told her to call her father up and beg him to beat her violently. It would hurt, I said, but perhaps none of the other girls would have a punishment like that, and her composition would be all different and splendid. I would borrow Aunt Miranda's witch hazel and pour it on her wounds like the Samaritan in the Bible. I went up again after supper with Dick Carter to see how it turned out. Alice came to the window and Dick threw up a note tied to a stick. I had written, Demand your punishment to the full, be brave like Delores's mother in the martyrs of Spain. She threw down an answer, and it was, you just be like Delores's mother yourself if you're so smart, then she stamped away from the window and my feelings were hurt. But Dick said perhaps she was hungry and that made her cross. And as Dick and I turned out to go out of the yard we looked back and I saw something I can never forget. The Great Shock Mrs. Robinson was out behind the barn feeding the turkeys. Mr. Robinson came softly out of the side door in the orchard, and looking everywhere's around he stepped to the wire closet and took out a saucer of cold beans with a pickled beet on top, and a big piece of blueberry pie. Then he crept up the back stairs and we could see Alice open her door and take in the supper. Oh! what will become of her composition, and how can she tell anything of the beneficent effects of punishment when she is locked up by one parent and fed by the other? I have forgiven her for the way she snapped me up, for of course you couldn't beg her father to beat you when he was bringing you blueberry pie. Mrs. Robinson makes a kind that leaks out a thick purple juice into the plate and needs a spoon and blacks your mouth, but it is heavenly. A Dream The week is almost up and very soon Dr. Moses will drive up to the schoolhouse like Elijah in the chariot and come in to hear us read. There's a great deal of sickness among us. Some of the boys are not able to come to school just now, but hope to be about again by Monday when Dr. Moses goes away to a convention. It is a very hard composition to write somehow. Last night I dreamed that the river was ink, and I kept dipping into it and writing with a penstock made of a young pine tree. I sliced great slabs of marble off the side of one of the white mountains, the one you see when going to meeting and rode on those. Then I threw them all into the falls not being good enough for Dr. Moses. Dick Carter has a splendid boy to stay over Sunday. He makes the real newspaper named The Pilot published by the boys at Wareham Academy. He says when he talks about himself in writing he calls himself Wee, and it sounds much more like print, besides concealing him more. Our hair was measured this morning and has grown two inches since last time. We have a loose tooth that troubles us very much. Our ink spot that we made by negligence on our only white petticoat we have been able to remove with lemon and milk. Some of our petticoat came out with the spot. I shall try it in my composition sometime, for of course I shall write for the pilot when I go to Wareham Seminary. Uncle Jerry Cobb says that I shall, and thinks that in four years I might rise to be editor if they ever have girls. I have never been more good than since I have been rewarding myself study, even to asking Aunt Miranda kindly to offer me a company jelly tart. Not because I was hungry, but for an experiment I was trying and would explain to her sometime. She said she never thought it was wise to experiment with your stomach, and I said with a queer thrilling look it was not my stomach but my soul that was being tried. Then she gave me the tart and walked away all puzzled and nervous. The new minister has asked me to come and see him any Saturday afternoon as he writes poetry himself, but I would rather not ask him about this composition. Baxter's never believe in rewards and it is useless to hope that they will. We had the wrath of God four times in sermons this last summer, but God cannot be angry all the time, nobody could, especially in summer. Mr. Baxter is different and calls his wife dear, which is lovely, and the first time I ever heard it in River Borough. Mrs. Baxter is another kind of people too, from those that live in temperance. I like to watch her in meeting and see her listen to her husband, who is young and handsome for a minister. It gives me very queer and uncommon feelings when they look at each other, which they always do when not otherwise engaged. She has different clothes from anybody else. Aunt Miranda said you must think only of two things, will your dress keep you warm and will it wear well, and there is nobody in the world to know how I love pink and red and how I hate drab and green and how I never wear my hat with the black and yellow porcupine quills without wishing it would blow into the river. When ere I take my walks abroad how many quills I see, but as they are not porcupines they never come to me. Composition Which has the most beneficent effect on the character, punishment or reward, by Rebecca Rowena Randall. This copy not corrected by Miss Dearborn yet. We find ourselves very puzzled in approaching this truly great and national question that we have tried very earnestly to understand it, so as to show how wisely and wonderfully our dear teacher guides the youthful mind, it being her wish that our composition class should long be remembered in Riverboro Center. We would say first of all that punishment seems more beneficently needed by boys than girls. Boys' sins are very violent, like stealing fruit, profane language, playing truant, fighting, breaking windows, and killing innocent little flies and bugs. If these were not taken out of them early in life, it would be impossible for them to become like our martyred president, Abraham Lincoln. Although we have asked everybody on our street, they think boys' sins can only be whipped out of them with a switch or a strap, which makes us feel very sad. As boys, when not sinning the dreadful sins mentioned above, seem just as good as girls, and never cry when switched, and say it does not hurt much. We now approach girls, which we know better being one. Girls seem better than boys, because their sins are not so noisy and showy. They can disobey their parents and aunts, whisper in silent hour, cheat in lessons, say angry things to their schoolmates, tell lies, be sulky and lazy. But all these can be conducted quite ladylike and genteel, and nobody wants to strap girls because their skins are tender and get black and blue very easily. Punishments make one very unhappy, and rewards very happy. And one would think, when one is happy, one would behave the best. We were acquainted with a girl who gave herself rewards every day for a week, and it seemed to make her as lovely a character as one could wish. But perhaps, if one went on for years giving rewards to oneself, one would become selfish. One cannot tell, one can only fear. If a dog kills a sheep, we should whip him straight away, and on the very spot where he can see the sheep, or he will not know what we mean, and may forget and kill another. The same is true of the human race. We must be firm and patient in punishing, no matter how much we love the one who has done wrong and how hungry she is. It does no good to whip a person with one hand and offer her a pickled beet with the other. This confuses her mind, and she may grow up not knowing right from wrong. Footnote number one. The striking example of the pickled beet was removed from the essay by the refined, but Ruthless Miss Dearborn, who strove patiently but vainly to keep such vulgar images out of her pupils' literary efforts. Back to composition. We now respectfully approach the Holy Bible, and the people in the Bible were punished the whole time, and that would seem to make it right. Everybody says, whom the Lord loveth, he chaseneth. But we think, ourselves, that the Lord is a better punisher than we are, and knows better how and when to do it, having attended to it ever since the year B.C., while the human race could not know about it till 1492 A.D., which is when Columbus discovered America. We do not believe we can find out all about this truly great and national subject till we get to heaven, where the human race strapped and unstrapped, if any can meet together and laying down their harps, discuss how they got there. And we would gently advise boys to be more quiet and genteel in conduct, and try rewards to see how they would work. Rewards are not all like the little rosebud merit cards we receive on Fridays, in which boys sometimes tear up and fling scornfully to the breeze when they get outside, but girls preserve carefully in an envelope. Some rewards are great and glorious, for boys can get to be governor or school trustee or road commissioner or president, while girls can only be wife and mother. But all of us can have the ornament of a meek and lowly spirit, especially girls, who have more use for it than boys. R.R.R., Stories and People, October 1870-something. There are people in books and people in river borough, and they are not the same kind. They never talk of chargers and polfries in the village, nor say how oft and me thinks. And if a scotchman out of Rob Roy should come to river borough and want to marry one of us girls, we could not understand him unless he made motions. Though Holda Mieserv says, if a nobleman of high degree should ask her to be his, one of the vast estates with serfs at his bidding, she would be able to guess his meaning in any language. Uncle Jerry Cobb thinks that river borough people would not make a story, but I know that some of them would. Jack O'Lantern, though only a baby, was just like a real story if anybody had written a piece about him, how his mother was dead and his father ran away, and Emma Jane and I got Aunt Sarah Cobb to keep him so Mr. Perkins wouldn't take him to the poor farm. And about are lovely times with him that summer, and are dreadful loss when his father remembered him in the fall and came to take him away. And how Aunt Sarah carried the trundle bed up Attic again, and Emma Jane and I heard her crying and stole away. Mrs. Peter Mieserv says Grandpa Sawyer was a wonderful hand at stories before his spirit was broken by grandmother. She says he was the life of the store and tavern when he was a young man, though generally sober. And she thinks I take after him because I like compositions better than all the other lessons. But mother says I take after father, who always could say everything nicely whether he had anything to say or not. So me thinks I should be grateful to both of them. They are what is called ancestors and much depends upon whether you have them or not. The Simpsons have not any at all. Aunt Miranda says the reason everybody is so prosperous around here is because their ancestors were all first settlers and raised on burnt ground. This should make us very proud. Me thinks and me thought are splendid words for compositions. Miss Dearborn likes them very much, but Alice and I never bring them in to suit her. Me thought means the same as I thought, but sounds better. Example, if you are telling a dream you had about your agent aunt, me thought I heard her say, my child you have so useful been, you need not so today. This is a good example one way, but too unlikely, woe is me. This afternoon I was walking over to the store to buy molasses, and as I came off the bridge and turned up the hill, I saw lots and lots of heel prints in the side of the road, heel prints with little spike holes in them. Oh, the river drivers have come from upcountry, I thought, and they'll be breaking the jam at our falls tomorrow. I looked everywhere about and not a man did I see, but still I knew I was not mistaken for the heel prints could not lie. All the way over and back I thought about it, though unfortunately forgetting the molasses, and Alice Robinson not being able to come out, I took playtime to write a story. It is the first grown-up one I ever did, and is intended to be like Cora, the doctor's wife, not like a school composition. It is written for Mr. Adam Ladd, and people like him who live in Boston, and is the printed kind you get money for to pay off a mortgage. Lance a lot or the parted lovers. A beautiful village maiden was betrothed to a stalwart river driver, but they had high and bitter words and parted, he to weep into the crystal stream as he drove his logs, and she to sigh and moan as she went about her round of household tasks. At eventide the maiden was wont to lean over the bridge and her tears also fell into the foaming stream, so though the two unhappy lovers did not know it, the river was their friend, the only one to whom they told their secrets and wept into. The months crept on and it was the next July when the maiden was passing over the bridge and up the hill. Suddenly she spied footprints on the sands of time. The river drivers have come again, she cried, putting her hand to her side, for she had a slight heart trouble like Cora, and Mrs. Peter Meeserv that doesn't kill. They have come indeed, especially one you know, said a voice, and out from the alder bushes sprung Lancelot Littlefield, for that was the lover's name, and it was none other than he. His hair was curly and like living gold, his shirt, while a flannel, was new and dry, and of a handsome color, and as the maiden looked at him, she thought of not but a fairy prince. Forgive, she murmured, stretching out her wasted hands. Nay, sweet, he replied, tis I should say that to you. In bending gracefully on one knee he kissed the hem of her dress. It was a rich pink gingham check, elaborately ornamented with white tape trimming. Classming each other to the heart like Cora and the doctor, they stood there for a long while till they heard the rumble of wheels on the bridge and knew they must disentangle. The wheels came nearer and verily it was the maiden's father. Can I wed with your fair daughter this very moon, asked Lancelot, who will not be called his whole name again in this story. You may, said the father, for lo, she has been ready and waiting for many months. This he said not noting how he was shaming the maiden, whose name was Linda Rowenetta. Then in there the nuptial day was appointed and when it came the marriage knot was tied upon the riverbank where first they met, the riverbank where they had parted in anger and where they had sealed their vows and clasped each other to the heart. And it was very low water that summer and the river always thought it was because no tears dropped into it but so many smiles that like sunshine they dried it up. R. R. R. Finney. Careers. November, 1870 something. Long ago when I used to watch Miss Ross painting the old mill at Sunnybrook, I thought I would be a painter. For Miss Ross went to Paris, France where she bought my bead purse and pink parasol and I thought I would like to see a street with beautiful bright colored things sparkling and hanging in the store windows. Then when the missionaries from Syria came to stay at the brick house, Mrs. Birch said that after I had experienced religion I must learn music and train my voice and go out to heathen lands and save souls. So I thought that would be my career. But we girls tried to have a branch and be home missionaries and it did not work well. Emma Jane's father would not let her have her birthday party when he found out what she had done and Aunt Jane sent me up to Jake Moody's to tell him we did not mean to be rude when we asked him to go to meeting more often. He said all right but just let him catch that little doe-faced perkins young one in his yard once more and she'd have reason to remember the call which was just as rude and impolite as our trying to lead him to a purer and a better life. Then Uncle Jerry and Mr. Aladdin and Miss Dearborn liked my compositions and I thought I'd better be a writer for I must be something the minute I'm seventeen or how shall we ever get the mortgage off the farm? But even that hope is taken away from me now for Uncle Jerry made fun of my story, Lancelot or the parted lovers and I have decided to be a teacher like Miss Dearborn. The pathetic announcement of a change in the career and life purposes of Rebecca was brought about by her reading the grown-up story to Mr. and Mrs. Jeremiah Cobb after supper in the orchard. Uncle Jerry was the person who had maintained all along that Riverboro people would not make a story and Lancelot or the parted lovers was intended to refute that assertion at once and forever. An assertion which Rebecca regarded quite truly as untenable, though why she certainly never could have explained. Unfortunately Lancelot was a poor missionary quite unfitted for the high achievements to which he was destined by the youthful novelist. And Uncle Jerry though a stage driver and no reading man at once perceived the flabbiness and transparency of the parted lovers the moment they were held up to his inspection. You see Riverboro people will make a story asserted Rebecca triumphantly as she finished her reading and folded the paper and it all came from my noticing the River drivers tracks by the roadside and wondering about them and wondering always make stories. The minister says so. Yes, allowed Uncle Jerry reflectively tipping his chair back against the apple tree and forcing his slow mind to violent and instantaneous action. For Rebecca was his pride and joy a person in his opinion of superhuman talent one therefore to be whittled into shape if occasion demanded. It's a Riverboro story sure enough because you've got the river and the bridge and the hill and the drivers all right there in it but there's something awful queer about it the folks don't act Riverboro and don't talk Riverboro according to my notions I call it a regular book story but objected Rebecca. The people in Cinderella didn't act like us and you thought that was a beautiful story when I told it to you. I know replied Uncle Jerry gaining eloquence in the heat of argument they didn't act like us but any rate they acted like themselves. Somehow they was all of a piece. Cinderella was a little too good maybe and the sisters was most too thunder and bad to live on the face of the earth and that fairy old lady that kept the pumpkin coach up her sleeve well anyhow you just believe that pumpkin coach rats mice and all when you're hearing about it forever you stop to think it ain't so and I don't know how tis but the folks in that Cinderella story seem to match together somehow they're all powerful unlikely the Princefeller with the glass slipper and the whole bunch but just the same you kind of gulp them all down at a lump but land Rebecky nobody'd swallow that there village maid in a urine and as for what his name Littlefield that come out of them bushes such as a feller Netter have been in bushes no Rebecky you're the smartest little creedor there is in this township and you beat your Uncle Jerry all hollow when it comes to using a lead pencil but I say that ain't no true river borough story look at the way they talk what was that about them being betrothed betrothed is a genteel word for engaged to be married explain the crushed and chastened author and it was fortunate the doting old man did not notice her eyes in the twilight or he might have known that tears were not far away well that's all right then I'm as ignorant as Cooper's cow when it comes to the dictionary how about what's his name calling the girl nay sweet I thought myself that sounded foolish confessed Rebecky but it's what the doctor calls Cora when he tries to persuade her not to quarrel with her's mother who comes to live with them I know they don't say it in river borough or temperance but I thought perhaps it was Boston talk well it ain't asserted Mr. Cobb decisively I've drove Boston men up in the stage from milltown minis the time and none of them ever said nay sweet to me nor nothing like it they talked like folks every mother's son of them if I'd have had what's his name on the hurricane deck of the stage and he tried any nay sweet none me I'd have pitched him into the cornfield side of the road I guess you ain't grown up enough for that kind of a story Rebecky for your poetry can't be beaten New York County that's sure and your compositions are good enough to read out loud in town meeting any day Rebecky brightened up a little and bade the old couple her usual affection at good night but descended the hill in a saddened mood when she reached the bridge the sun a ball of red fire was setting behind squire beans woods as she looked it's shown full on the broad still bosom of the river and for one perfect instant the trees on the shores were reflected all swimming in a sea of pink leaning over the rail she watched the light fade from crimson to Carmine from Carmine to Rose from Rose to Amber and from Amber to Gray then with drawing Lancelot or the parted lovers from her apron pocket she tore the pages into bits and dropped them into the water below with a sigh Uncle Jerry never said a word about the ending she thought and that was so nice and she was right but while Uncle Jerry was an illuminating critic when it came to the actions and language of his riverboro neighbors he had no power to direct the young mariner when she followed the gleam and used her imagination our secret society November 1870 something our secret society has just had a splendid picnic in Candace Millican's barn our name is the capital B, capital O, capital S, capital S B-O-S-S and not a single boy in the village has been able to guess it it means braid over shoulder society and that is the sign all the members were one of their braids over the right shoulder in front the presidents tied with red ribbon I am the president and all the rest tied with blue to attract the attention of another member when in company or at a public place we take the braid between the thumb and little finger and stand carelessly on one leg this is the secret signal and the password is S-O-B-B B-O-S-S spelled backwards which was my idea and is thought rather uncommon one of the rules of the B-O-S-S is that any member may be required to tell her besetting sin at any meeting if asked to do so by a majority of the members this was Candace Millican's idea and much opposed by everybody but when it came to a vote so many of the girls were afraid of a fending Candace that they agreed because there was nobody else's father and mother who would let us picnic in their barn and use their plow, harrow, grindstone, sleigh, cariol, pung, sled, and wheelbarrow which we did and injured hardly anything they asked me to tell my besetting sin at the very first meeting and it nearly killed me to do it because it is such a common greedy one it is that I can't bear to call the other girls when I have found a thick spot when we are outbearing in the summer time after I confessed which made me dreadfully ashamed every one of the girls seemed surprised and said they had never noticed that one but had each thought of something very different that I would be sure to think was my besetting sin then Emma Jane said that rather than tell hers she would resign from society and miss the picnic so it made so much trouble that Candace gave up we struck out the rule from the Constitution and I had told my sin for nothing the reason we named ourselves the BOSS is that many smelly has had her head shaved after scarlet fever and has no braid so she can't be a member I don't want her for a member but I can't be happy thinking she will feel slighted and it takes away half the pleasure of belonging to the society myself and being president that I think is the principal trouble about doing mean and unkind things that you can't do wrong and feel right or be bad and feel good if you only could you could do anything that came into your mind yet always be happy many smelly spoils everything she comes into but I suppose we other girls must either have our hair shaved and call ourselves the bald headions or let her be some kind of special officer in the BOSS she might be the BITUD member braid in the upper drawer for there is where Mrs. Smelly keeps it now that it is cut off winter thoughts March 1870 something it is not such a cold day for March and I am up in the barn chamber with my coat and hood on and Aunt Jane's waterproof and my mittens after I do three pages I'm going to hide away this book in the Hamo till spring perhaps they get made into icicles on the way but I do not seem to have any thoughts in the winter time barn chamber is full of thoughts and warm weather the sky gives them to me and the trees and flowers and the birds and the river but now it is always gray and nipping the branches are bare and the river is frozen it is too cold to write in my bedroom but while we still kept an open fire I had a few thoughts but now there is an airtight stove in the dining room where we sit and we seem so close together Aunt Miranda, Aunt Jane and I that I don't like to write in my book for fear they will ask me to read out loud my secret thoughts I have just read over the first part of my thought book and I have outgrown it all just exactly as I have outgrown my last year's drab cashmere it is very queer how anybody can change so fast in a few months but I remember that Emma Jane's cat had kittens the day my book was bought at Watson's store Mrs. Perkins kept the prettiest white one a bija flag drowning all the others it seems strange to me that cats will go on having kittens when they know what becomes of them we were very sad about it but Mrs. Perkins said it was the way of the world and how things had to be I cannot help being glad that they do not do the same with children or John and Jenny Mira, Mark and me would all have had stones tied to our necks and been dropped into the deepest part of Sunnybrook for Hannah and Fanny are the only truly handsome ones in the family Mrs. Perkins says I dress up well but never being dressed up it does not matter much at least they didn't wait to dress up the kittens to see how they would improve before drowning them but decided right away Emma Jane's kitten that was born the same day this book was is now quite an old cat who knows the way of the world herself and how things have to be for she has had one batch of kittens drowned already so perhaps it is not strange that my thought book seems so babyish and foolish to me when I think of all I have gone through and the millions of things I have learned and how much better I spell than I did ten months ago my fingers are cold through the mittens so goodbye 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 cozy all the long winter and where nobody can find you again in the summertime but your affectionate author Rebekah Rowena Randall End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of the New Chronicles of Rebekah this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Mary Anderson New Chronicles of Rebekah by Kate Douglas-Wiggin Fourth Chronicle, A Tragedy in Millinary 1. Emma Jane Perkins' New Winter Dress was a blue and green scotch plaid poplin trimmed with narrow green velvet ribbon and steel nail heads she had a grey jacket of thick furry cloth with large steel buttons up the front a pair of green kid gloves and a grey felt hat with an encircling band of bright green feathers the band began in front with a bird's head and ended behind with a bird's tail and angels could have desired no more beautiful toilette that was her opinion and it was shared to the full by Rebekah but Emma Jane as Rebekah had once described her to Mr. Adam Ladd was a rich blacksmith's daughter and she, Rebekah, was a little half orphan from a mortgage farm up Temperance Way depended upon her spinster aunts for board, clothes, and schooling scotch plaid poplins were manifestly not for her but dark-colored woolen stuffs were and mittens and last winter's coats and furs and how about hats? Was there hope in store for her there? she wondered as she walked home from the Perkins' House full of admiration for Emma Jane's winter outfit and loyally trying to keep that admiration free from wicked envy her red-winged black hat was her second best and although it was shabby she still liked it but it would never do for church even in Aunt Miranda's strange and never-to-be-comprehended views of suitable raiment there was a brown-felt turban in existence if one could call it existence when it had been rained on, snowed on, and hailed on for two seasons but the trimmings had at any rate perished quite off the face of the earth that was one comfort Emma Jane had said rather indiscreetly that at the village milleners at Millican's Mills there was a perfectly elegant pink breast to be had a breast that began in a perfectly elegant and terminated in a perfectly elegant magenta two colors much in vogue at that time if the old brown hat was to be her portion yet another winter would Aunt Miranda conceal its deficiencies from a carping world beneath the shaded solferino breast would she that was the question filled with these perplexing thoughts Rebecca entered the brick house hung up her hood in the entry and went into the dining room Miss Jane was not there but Aunt Miranda sat by the window with her lap full of sewing things and a chair piled with paste board boxes by her side in one hand was the ancient battered brown felt turban and in the other where the orange and black porcupine quills from Rebecca's last summer hat from the hat of the summer before that and the summer before that and so on back to prehistoric ages of which her childish memory kept no specific record though she was sure that temperance and river borough society did truly a site to chill the blood of any eager young dreamer who had been looking at gayer plumage Miss Sawyer glanced up for a second with a satisfied expression and then bent her eyes again upon her work if I was going to buy a hat trimming she said I couldn't select anything better or more economical than these quills your mother had them when she was married and you wore them the day you came to the brick house from the farm and I said to myself then that they looked kind of outlandish but I've grown to like him now I've got used to him you've been here for going on two years and they've hardly been out aware summer or winter more in a month to a time I declare they do beat all for service you don't seem as if your mother could have chose him Aurelia was always such a poor buyer the black spills are about as good as new but the orange ones are getting a little might faded and shabby I wonder if I couldn't dip all of them in shoe blacken it seems real queer to put a porcupine into hat trimming though I declare I don't know just what the animals are like it's been so long since I looked at the pictures of them in a geography I always thought their quills stood out straight and angry but these kind of curls round some of the ends and that makes them stand the wind better how do you like them on the brown felt she asked inclining her head in a discriminating attitude and poising them awkwardly on the hat with their work stained hand how did she like them on the brown felt indeed Miss Sawyer had not been looking at Rebecca but the child's eyes were flashing her bosom heaving and her cheeks glowing with sudden rage and despair all at once something happened she forgot that she was speaking to an older person forgot that she was dependent forgot everything but her disappointment at losing this soul for Reno breast remembering nothing but the enchanting dazzling beauty of Emma Jane Perkins winter outfit and suddenly quite without warning she burst into a torrent of protest I will not wear those hateful porcupine quills again this winter I will not it's wicked wicked to expect me to how I wish there never had been any porcupines in the world or that all of them had died before silly hateful people ever thought of trimming hats with them they curl round and tickle my ear they blow against my cheek and sting it like needles they do look outlandish you said so yourself a minute ago nobody ever had any but only just me the only porcupine was made into the only quills for me and nobody else I wish instead of sticking out of the nasty beasts that they had stuck into them same as they do into my cheek I suffer suffer suffer wearing them and hating them and they will last forever and forever and when I'm dead and can't help myself somebody'll rip them out of my last year's hat and stick them on my head and I'll be buried in them well when I am buried they will be that's one good thing oh if I ever have a child I'll let her choose her own feathers and not make her wear ugly things like pigs bristles and porcupine quills with this lengthy tirade Rebecca vanished like a meteor through the door and down the street while Miranda Sawyer gasped for breath and prayed to heaven to help her understand such human whirlwinds as this Randall niece of hers this was at three o'clock and at half past three Rebecca was kneeling on the rag carpet with her head and her aunt's apron sobbing her contrition oh Aunt Miranda do forgive me if you can it's the only time I've been bad for months you know it is you know you said last week I hadn't been any trouble lately something broke inside of me and came tumbling out of my mouth in ugly words the porcupine quills make me feel just as a bull does when he sees a red cloth nobody understands how I suffer with them Miranda Sawyer had learned a few lessons in the last two years lessons which were making her at least on her good days a trifle kinder and at any rate a jester woman than she used to be when she alighted on the wrong side of her foreposter in the morning or felt an extra touch of rheumatism she was still grim and unyielding but sometimes a curious sort of melting process seemed to go on within her when her whole bony structure softened and her eyes grew less vitrious at such moments Rebecca used to feel as if a super incumbent iron pot had been lifted off her head allowing her to breathe freely and enjoy the sunshine well she said finally after staring first at Rebecca and then at the porcupine quills as if to gain some insight into the situation well I never since I was born into the world heard such a speech as you spoke and I guess there probably never was one you'd better tell the minister what you said and see what he thinks of his prize Sunday school scholar but I'm too old and tired to scold and fuss and try to train you same as I did at first you can punish yourself this time like you used to go fire something down the well same as you did your pink parasol you've apologized and we won't say no more about it today but I expect you to show by extra good conduct how sorry you be you care all together too much about your looks and your clothes for a child and you've got a temper that'll certainly land you in a state's prison some of these days Rebecca wiped her eyes and laughed out loud no no Aunt Miranda it won't really that wasn't temper I don't get angry with people but only once in a long while with things like these cover them up quick before I begin again I'm all right showers over suns out Miss Miranda looked at her searchingly and uncomprehendingly Rebecca's state of mind came perilously near to disease she thought have you seen me buying any new bunnets or your Aunt Jane she asked cuttingly is there any particular reason why you should dress better than your elders you might as well know that we're short of cash just now your Aunt Jane and me and have no intention of rigging you out like a milltown factory girl oh cried Rebecca the quick tears starting again to her eyes and the color fading out of her cheeks as she scrambled up from her knees to a seat on the sofa beside her aunt oh how ashamed I am quick sell those quills onto the brown turban while I'm good if I can't stand them I'll make a neat little gingham bag and slip over them and so the matter ended not as it customarily did with cold words on Miss Miranda's part and bitter feelings on Rebecca's but with a gleam of mutual understanding Mrs Cobb who was a master hand at coloring dipped the offending quills in brown dye and left them to soak in it all night not only making them a nice warm color but somewhat weakening their rocky spines so that they were not quite as rampantly hideous as before in Rebecca's opinion then Mrs Perkins went to her band box in the attic and gave Miss Dearborn some pale blue velvet with which she bound the brim of the brown turban and made a wonderful rosette out of which the porcupine's defensive armor sprang buoyantly and gallantly like the plume of Henry of Nevere Rebecca was resigned if not greatly comforted but she had grace enough to conceal her feelings now that she knew economy was at the root of summer for ants to crease in matters of dress and she managed to forget the sulferino breast save in sleep where a vision of it had a way of appearing to her dangling from the ceiling and dazzling her so with its rich color that she used to hope the milliner would sell it that she might never be tempted with it when she passed the shop window one day not long afterward Miss Miranda borrowed Mr Perkins' horse and wagon and took Rebecca with her on a drive to Union to see about some sausage meat and head cheese she intended to call on Mrs Cobb order a load of pine wood for Mr Strout on the way and leave some rags for a rug with old Mrs Peace so that the journey could be made as profitable as possible consistent with the loss of time and the wear and tear on her second best black dress the red-winged black hat was forcibly removed from Rebecca's head just before starting and the nightmare turban substituted you might as well begin to wear it first as last remarked Miranda while Jane stood in the side door and sympathized secretly with Rebecca I will said Rebecca ramming the stiff turban down on her head with a vindictive grimace and snapping the elastic under her long braids but it makes me think of what Mr Robinson said when the minister told him his mother-in-law would ride in the same buggy with him at his wife's funeral I can't see how any speech of Mr Robinson's made years and years ago can have anything to do with wearing your turban down to Union said Miranda settling the laprobe over her knees well it can because he said have it that way then but it'll spoil the whole blame trip for me Jane closed the door suddenly partly because she experienced a desire to smile a desire she had not felt for years before Rebecca came to that brick house to live and partly because she had no wish to overhear what her sister would say when she took in the full significance of Rebecca's anecdote which was a favorite one with Mr Perkins it was a cold blustering day with a high wind that promised to bring an early fall of snow the trees were stripped bare of leaves the ground was hard and the wagon wheels rattled noisily over the thank you mams I'm glad I wore my paisley shawl over my cloak said Miranda be you warm enough for Becca tie that white rigolette tighter around your neck the wind fairly blows through my bones I most wished we'd waited till a pleasanter day for this union road is all uphill or down and we shan't get over the ground fast it's so rough don't forget when you go into scots to say I want all the trimmings when they send me the pork for maybe I can try out a little mitam blard the last load of pines gone terrible quick I must see if by Jaflag can't get us some cut rounds at the mills when he hauls for squire bean next time keep your mind in your driving Rebecca and don't look at the trees in the sky so much it's the same sky and same trees that have been here right along go awful slow down this hill and walk the house over cooksbrook bridge for I always suspicion it's going to break down under me and I shouldn't want to be dropped into that fast running water this cold day it'll be froze stiff by this time next week hadn't you better get out and lead the rest of the sentence was very possibly not vital but at any rate it was never completed for in the middle of the bridge a fierce gale of wind took Miss Miranda's paisley shawl and blew it over her head the long heavy ends world in opposite directions and wrapped themselves tightly about her wavering bonnet Rebecca had the whip and the reins and in trying to rescue her struggling aunt could not steady her own hat which was suddenly torn from her head and tossed against the bridge rail where it trembled and flapped for an instant my hat oh aunt Miranda my hateful hat cried Rebecca never remembering at the instant how often she had prayed that the fretful porcupine might sometime vanish in this violent manner since it refused to die a natural death she had already stopped the horse so giving her aunt's shawl one last desperate twitch she slipped out between the wagon wheels and darted in the direction of the hated object the loss of which had dignified it with a temporary value and importance the stiff brown turbine rose in the air then dropped and flew along the bridge Rebecca pursued it danced along and struck between two of the railings Rebecca flew after it her long braids floating in the wind come back come back don't leave me alone with the team i won't have it come back and leave your hat Miranda had at length extricated herself from the submerging shawl but she was so blinded by the wind and so confused that she did not measure the financial loss involved in her commands Rebecca heard but her spirit being in arms she made one more mad scramble for the vagrant hat which now seemed possessed was an evil spirit for it flew back and forth and bounded here and there like a living thing finally distinguishing itself by blowing between the horse's front and hind legs Rebecca trying to circumvent it by going around the wagon and meeting it on the other side it was no use as she darted from behind the wheels the wind gave the hat an extra whirl and scurrying in the opposite direction it soared above the bridge rail and disappeared into the rapid water below get in again cried Miranda holding on her bonnet you've done your best and it can't be helped i only wished i'd let you wear your black hat as you wanted to and i wished we'd never come such a day the shawl has broke the stems of the velvet geraniums in my bonnet and the wind has blowed away my shawl pin and my back comb i'd like to give up and turn right back this minute but i don't like to borrow Perkins Haas again this month when we get up in the woods you can smooth your hair down and tie the rigolette over your head and settle what's left of my bonnet it'll be an expensive errant this will too it was not till next morning that Rebecca's heart really began its song of thanksgiving her aunt Miranda announced at breakfast that as mrs. Perkins was going to Millican's mills Rebecca might go to and buy a serviceable hat you mustn't pay over two dollars and a half and you mustn't get the pink bird without mrs. Perkins says and the milliner says that it won't fade nor molt don't buy a light colored felt because you'll get sick of it in two or three years same as you did the brown one i always like the shape of the brown one and you'll never get another trimmin that'll wear like them quills i hope not thought Rebecca if you had put your elastic under your chin same as you used to and not worn it behind because you think it's more grown up and fashionable the wind never took the hat off your head and you wouldn't have lost it but the miss just done and you can go right over to mrs. Perkins now so you won't miss her nor keep her waiting the two dollars and a half is in an envelope side of the clock Rebecca swallowed the last spoonful of picked up codfish on her plate wiped her lips and rose from her chair happier than the seraphs in paradise the porcupine quills had disappeared from her life and without any fault or violence on her part she was wholly innocent and virtuous but nevertheless she was going to have a new hat with a sulferino breast should the adored object prove under rigorous examination to be practically indestructible when error i take my walks abroad how many hats i'll see but if they're trimmed with hedgehog quills they'll not belong to me so she improvised secretly and ecstatically as she went towards the side entry there's byge a flag driving in said mrs. Miranda going to the window step out and see what he's got jane some parcel from the squire i guess it's a paper bag and it may be a pumpkin though he wouldn't wrap up a pumpkin come to think of it shit the dining room door jane it's terrible drafty may case for the squire's house never stands still a minute except when he's going a byge a flag alighted and approached the side door with a grin guess what i've got for you rebecca no throb of prophetic soul warned rebecca of her approaching doom nod head apple she sparkled looking as bright and rosy and satin skinned as an apple herself no guess again a flowering geranium guess again nuts oh i can't byge i'm just going to millican mills on an errand and i'm afraid of missing mrs. perkins show me quick is it really for me or for ant maranda really for you i guess and he opened the large brown paper bag and drew from it the remains of a water-soaked hat there were remains but there was no doubt of their nature and substance they had clearly been a hat in the past and one could even suppose that when resuscitated they might again assume their original form in some near and happy future mrs. meranda full of curiosity joined the group in the side entry at this dramatic moment well i never she exclaimed where and how under the canopy did you ever i was working on the dam at union falls yesterday chuckle the byge with a pleased glance at each of the trio in turn and i seen this little bunnet skipping over the water just as becky does over the road it's shaped kind of like a boat and gory if it weren't sailing just like a boat well have i seen that kind of bristle and plume thinks i where indeed thought rebecca stormily then it come to me that i drove that plume to school and drove it to meet and drove it to the fair and drove it most everywhere is on becky so i reached out a pole and catched it for it got in amongst the logs and come to any damage and here it is the hats passed on its checks i guess looks kind as if wet elephant had stepped on it but the plume spouts good as new i really fetched the hat back for the sake of the plume it was real good of you by jah and where all of us obliged to you said meranda as she poised the hat on one hand and turned it slowly with the other well i do say she exclaimed and i guess i've said it before that of all the wear and plumes that ever i see that one's the wearingest seems though it just wouldn't give up look at the way it's held miss cobs die it's about as browns when it went into water died but not a mite dead grinda by jah who was somewhat celebrated for his puns and i declare meranda continued when you think of the fuss they make about ostriches killing them off by hundreds for the sake of their feathers that'll string out and spoil in one hard rainstorm and all the time letting useful porcupines run round with their quills on but i can't hardly understand it without milleners have found out just how good they do last and so they won't use them for trimming by jah's right the hat ain't no more use rebecca but you can buy you another this morning any color or shape you fancy and have miss morton sew these brown quills onto it with some kind of a buckle or a bow just to hide the roots then you'll be fixed for another season thanks to a by jah uncle jerry and aunt sarah cob were made acquainted before very long with the part that destiny or a by jah flag had played in rebecca's affairs for accompanied by the teacher she walked to the old stage drivers that same afternoon taking off her new hat with the venerable trimming she laid it somewhat ostentatiously upside down in the kitchen table and left the room dimpling a little more than usual uncle jerry rose from his seat and crossing the room looked curiously into the hat and found that a circular paper lining was neatly pinned in the crown and that it bore these lines which were read aloud with great effect by miss dearborn and with her approval were copied in the thought book for the benefit of posterity it was the bristling porcupine as he stood on his native heath he said i'll pluck me some immortellus and make me up a wreath for though i may not live myself to more than 110 my quills will last till crack of doom and maybe after then they can be colored blue or green or orange brown or red but often as they may be died they never will be dead and so the bristling porcupine as he stood on his native heath said i think i'll pluck me some immortellus and make me up a wreath r r r end of chapter four