 CHAPTER 1 OF REBECCA OF SONNY BROOK FARM DEDICATION To my mother, her eyes as stars of twilight fair, like twilight's two hardusky hair, had all things else about her drawn, from maytime and the cheerful dawn, a dancing shape and image gay, to haunt, to startle, and waylay, Wordsworth. REBECCA OF SONNY BROOK FARM By Kate Douglas-Wiggin CHAPTER 1. WE ARE SEVEN The old stagecoach was rumbling along the dusty road that runs from Maplewood to Riverborough. The day was as warm as Midsummer, though it was only the middle of May, and Mr. Jeremiah Cobb was favoring the horses as much as possible, yet never losing sight of the fact that he carried the mail. The hills were many, and the rains lay loosely in his hands as he lulled back in his seat and extended one foot and leg luxuriously over the dashboard. His brimmed hat of worn felt was well pulled over his eyes, and he revolved a quid of tobacco in his left cheek. There was one passenger in the coach, a small, dark-haired person in a glossy buff calico dress. She was so slender and so stiffly starched that she slid from space to space on the leather cushions, though she braced herself against the middle seat with her feet and extended her cotton-gloved hands on each side, in order to maintain some sort of balance. Whenever the wheels sank farther than usual into a rut, or jolted suddenly over a stone, she bounded involuntarily into the air, came down again, pushed back her funny little straw hat, and picked up or settled more firmly a small pink sunshade, which seemed to be her chief responsibility, unless we accept a bead purse into which she looked whenever the condition of the roads would permit, finding great apparent satisfaction in that its precious contents neither disappeared nor grew less. Mr. Cobb guessed nothing of these harassing details of travel, his business being to carry people to their destinations, not necessarily to make them comfortable on the way. Indeed, he had forgotten the very existence of this one, unnoteworthy little passenger. When he was about to leave the post office in Maplewood that morning, a woman had alighted from a wagon and, coming up to him, inquired whether this were the river borough stage and if he were Mr. Cobb. Being answered in the affirmative, she nodded to a child who was eagerly waiting for the answer, and who ran towards her as if she feared to be a moment too late. The child might have been ten or eleven years old, perhaps, but whatever the number of her summers she had an air of being small for her age. Her mother helped her into the stagecoach, deposited a bundle and a bouquet of lilacs beside her, superintended the roping-on behind of an old-hair trunk, and finally paid the fare, counting out the silver with great care. I want you should take her to my sisters in river borough, she said. Do you know Miranda and Jane Sawyer? They live in the Brick House. Lord bless your soul, he knew them as well as if he'd made them. Well, she's going there and they're expecting her. Will you keep an eye on her, please? If she can get out anywhere and get with folks, or get anybody in to keep her company, she'll do it. Good-bye, Rebecca. Try not to get into any mischief and sit quiet, so you'll look neat and nice when you get there. Don't be any trouble to Mr. Cobb. You see, she's kind of excited. We came on the cars from Temperance yesterday, slept all night at my cousins, and drove from her house eight miles it is this morning. Good-bye, mother. Don't worry. You know it isn't as if I hadn't traveled before. The woman gave a short, sardonic laugh, and said, in an explanatory way to Mr. Cobb, she's been to Wareham and stayed overnight. That isn't much to be journey-proud on. It WAS traveling, mother, said the child eagerly and willfully. It was leaving the farm and putting up lunch in a basket and a little riding and a little steam-cars, and we carried our night-gowns. Don't tell the whole village about it if we did, said the mother, interrupting the reminiscences of this experienced voyager. Haven't I told you before, she whispered, in a last attempt at discipline, that you shouldn't talk about night-gowns and stockings and things like that in a loud tone of voice, and especially when there's men folks around? I know, mother, I know, and I won't. All I want to say is, here Mr. Cobb gave a cluck, slapped the reins, and the horses started sedately on their daily task. All I want to say is it is a journey when the stage was really under way now and Rebecca had to put her head out of the window over the door in order to finish her sentence. It IS a journey when you carry a night-gown. The objectionable word, uttered in a high treble, floated back to the offended ears of Mrs. Randall, who watched the stage out of sight, gathered up her packages from the bench at the store door, and stepped into the wagon that had been standing at the hitching-post. As she turned the horse's head towards home, she rose to her feet for a moment, and, shading her eyes with her hand, looked at a cloud of dust in the dim distance. Miranda will have her hands full, I guess, she said to herself, but I shouldn't wonder if it would be the making of Rebecca. All this had been a half an hour ago, and the sun, the heat, the dust, the contemplation of errands to be done in the great metropolis of Miltown had lulled Mr. Cobb's never-active mind into complete oblivion as to his promise of keeping an eye on Rebecca. Suddenly he heard a small voice above the rattle and rumble of the wheels and the creaking of the harness. At first he thought it was a cricket, a treetode, or a bird, but having determined the direction from which it came, he turned his head over his shoulder and saw a small shape hanging as far out of the window as safety would allow. A long, black braid of hair swung with the motion of the coach. The child held her hat in one hand and, with the other, made ineffectual attempts to stab the driver with her microscopic sunshade. Please let me speak, she called. Mr. Cobb drew up the horses obediently. Does it cost any more to ride up there with you? she asked. It's so slippery and shiny down here, and the sage is so much too big for me that I rattle around in it till I'm most black and blue, and the windows are so small I can only see pieces of things, and I've most broke my neck stretching round to find out whether my trunk has fallen off the back. It's my mother's trunk, and she's very choice of it. Mr. Cobb waited until this flow of conversation, or more properly speaking this flood of criticism, had ceased, and then said, jocularly, You can come up if you want to, there ain't no extra charge to sit side of me, whereupon he helped her out, boosted her up to the front seat, and resumed his own place. Rebecca sat down carefully, smoothing her dress under her with painstaking precision, and putting her sunshade under its extended folds between the driver and herself. This done she pushed back her hat, pulled up her darned white gloves, and said delightedly, Oh, this is better, this is like traveling. I am a real passenger now, and down there I felt like our setting hen when we shut her up in a coop. I hope we have a long, long ways to go. Oh, we've only just started on it, Mr. Cobb responded genially. It's more than two hours. Only two hours, she sighed. That will be half-fast one. Mother will be at Cousin Ann's. The children at home will have had their dinner, and Hannah cleared all the way. I have some lunch, because mother said it would be a bad beginning to get to the Brickhouse hungry and have Aunt Miranda have to get me something to eat the first thing. It's a good growing day, isn't it? It is, certain, too hot most. Why don't you put up your parasol? She extended her dress still further over the article in question as she said, Oh, dear no. I never put it up when the sun shines. Pink fades awfully, you know, and I only carry it to meet in cloudy Sundays. Sometimes the sun comes out, all of a sudden, and I have a dreadful time covering it up. It's the dearest thing in life to me, but it's an awful care. At this moment the thought gradually permeated Mr. Jeremiah Kov's slow-moving mind that the bird perched by his side was a bird of a very different feather from those to which he was accustomed in his daily drives. He put the whip back in its socket, took his foot from the dashboard, pushed his hat back, blew his quid of tobacco into the road, and having thus cleared his mental dex for action, he took his first good look at the passenger, a look which she met with a grave, childlike stare of friendly curiosity. The buff calico was faded, but scrupulously clean, and starched within an inch of its life. From the little standing ruffle at the neck the child's slender throat rose very brown and thin, and the head looked small to bear the weight of dark hair that hung in a thick braid to her waist. She wore an odd little visor cap of white leg horn, which may either have been the latest thing in children's hats or some bit of ancient finery fervished up for the occasion. It was trimmed with a twist of buff ribbon and a cluster of black and orange porcupine quills, which hung or bristly, stiffly over one ear, giving her the quaintest and most unusual appearance. Her face was without color and sharp and outline. As to features, she must have had the usual number, though Mr. Cobb's attention never proceeded so far as nose, forehead, or chin, being caught on the way and held fast by the eyes. Rebecca's eyes were like faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Under her delicately etched brows they glowed like two stars, their dancing lights half hidden in lustrous darkness. Their glance was eager and full of interest, yet never satisfied. Their steadfast gaze was brilliant and mysterious, and had the effect of looking directly through the obvious into something beyond, in the object, in the landscape, in you. They had never been accounted for, Rebecca's eyes. The school teacher and the minister at Temperance had tried and failed. The young artist who came for the summer to sketch the red barn, the ruined mill and the bridge, ended by giving up all these local beauties and devoting herself to the face of a child. A small, plain face illuminated by a pair of eyes carrying such messages, such suggestions, such hints of sleeping power and insight, that one never tired of looking into their shining depths, nor fancying that what one saw there was the reflection of one's own thought. Mr. Cobb made none of these generalizations. His remark to his wife that night was simply to the effect that whenever the child looked at him she knocked him galley west. Miss Ross, a lady that paints, gave me the sunshade, said Rebecca when she had exchanged looks with Mr. Cobb and had learned his face by heart. Did you notice the pinked, double ruffle and the white tip and handle? They're ivory. The handle is scarred, you see. That's because Fanny sucked and chewed it in meeting when I wasn't looking. I've never felt the same to Fanny since. Is Fanny your sister? She's one of them. How many are there of you? Seven. There's verses written about seven children. Quick was the little maid's reply. Oh, master, we are seven. I learned to speak it in school, but the scholars were hateful and laughed. Hannah is the oldest. I come next, then John, then Jenny, then Mark, then Fanny, then Myra. Well, that is a big family. Far too big, everybody says, replied Rebecca with an unexpected and thoroughly grown-up candor that induced Mr. Cobb to murmur, I'd swan, and insert more tobacco in his left cheek. They're dear but such a bother, and cost so much to feed, you see, she rippled on. Hannah and I haven't done anything but put babies to bed at night and take them up in the morning for years and years. But it's finished, that's one comfort, and we'll have a lovely time when we're all grown and the mortgages paid off. All finished? Oh, you mean you've come away? No, I mean they're over and done with. Our family's finished. Mother says so, and she always keeps her promises. There hasn't been any since Myra, and she's three. She was born the day father died. Aunt Miranda wanted Hannah to come to Riverboro instead of me, but mother couldn't spare her. She takes hold of housework better than I do, Hannah does. I told mother last night if there was likely to be any more children while I was away I'd have to be sent for. For when there's a baby it always takes Hannah and me both, for mother has the cooking and the farm. Oh, you live on a farm, do ye? Where is it? Near to where you got on? Near? Why, it must be thousands of miles. We came from temperance in the cars. Then we drove a long ways to get to cousin Anne's and went to bed. Then we got up and drove ever so far to Maplewood where the stage was. Our farm is a way off from everywheres, but our school and meeting house is at temperance, and that's only two miles. Sitting up here with you is most as good as climbing the meeting house steeple. I know a boy who's been up on our steeple. He said the people and the cows looked like flies. We haven't met any people yet, but I'm kind of disappointed in the cows. They don't look so little as I'd hoped they would. Still, brightening, they don't look quite as big as if we were down the side of them, do they? Boys always do the nice splendid things and girls can only do the nasty dull ones that get left over. They can't climb so high or go so far or stay out so late or run so fast or anything. Mr. Cobb wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and gasped. He had a feeling that he was being hurried from peak to peak of a mountain range without time to take a good breath in between. I can't seem to locate your farm, he said, though I've been to temperance and used to live up that way. What's your folks' name? Randall. My mother's name is Aurelia Randall. Our names are Hannah Lucy Randall, Rebecca Rowena Randall, John Halifax Randall, Jenny Lynde Randall, Marquise Randall, Fannie Elsler Randall, and Miranda Randall. Mother named half of us and father the other half, but we didn't come out even, so they both thought it would be nice to name Myra after Aunt Miranda and Riverborough. They hoped it might do some good, but it didn't and now we call her Myra. We are all named after somebody in particular. Hannah is Hannah at the windowbinding shoes and I am taken out of Ivanhoe. John Halifax was a gentleman in a book. Mark is after his uncle, Marquise de Lafayette, that died a twin. Twins very often don't live to grow up and triplets almost never. Did you know that, Mr. Cobb? We don't call him Marquise, only Mark. Jenny is named for a singer and Fannie for a beautiful dancer, but Mother says they're both misfits, for Jenny can't carry a tune and Fannie's kind of stiff leg. Mother would like to call them Jane and Francis and give up their middle names, but she says it wouldn't be fair to father. She says we must always stand up for father because everything was against him and he wouldn't have died if he hadn't had such bad luck. I think that's all there is to tell about us. She finished seriously. Land of liberty. I should think it was enough, ejaculated Mr. Cobb. There want many names left when your mother got through choosing. You've got a powerful good memory. I guess it ain't no trouble for you to learn your lessons, is it? Not much. The trouble is to get the shoes to go and learn them. These are spandy new I've got on and they have to last six months. Mother always says to save my shoes. There don't seem to be any way of saving shoes but taking them off and going barefoot. But I can't do that in Riverboro without shaming Aunt Miranda. I'm going to school right along now when I'm living with Aunt Miranda and in two years I'm going to the seminary at Wareham. Mother says it ought to be the making of me. I'm going to be a painter like Miss Ross when I get through school. At any rate that's what I think I'm going to be. Mother thinks I'd better teach. Your farm ain't the old hob's place, is it? No, it's just Randall's Farm. At least that's what Mother calls it. I call it Sunnybrook Farm. I guess it don't make no difference what you call it so long as you know where it is. Remarked Mr. Cobb's intentionally. Rebecca turned the full light of her eyes upon him reproachfully. Almost severely, as she answered. Oh, don't say that and be like all the rest. It does make a difference what you call things. When I say Randall's Farm, do you see how it looks? No, I can't say I do, responded Mr. Cobb uneasily. Now, when I say Sunnybrook Farm, what does it make you think of? Mr. Cobb felt like a fish removed from his native element and left panting on the sand. There was no evading the awful responsibility of a reply for Rebecca's eyes were searchlights that pierced the fiction of his brain and perceived the bald spot on the back of his head. I suppose there's a brook somewhere near it, he said timorously. Rebecca looked disappointed, but not quite disheartened. That's pretty good, she said encouragingly. You're warm but not hot. There's a brook but not a common brook. It has young trees and baby bushes on each side of it. And it's a shallow chattering little brook with a white sandy bottom and lots of little shiny pebbles. Whenever there's a bit of sunshine the brook catches it and it's always full of sparkles the live long day. Don't your stomach feel hollow? Mind dust, I was so afraid I'd miss the stage. I couldn't eat any breakfast. You'd better have your lunch, then. I don't eat nothing till I get to Miltown. Then I get a piece of pie and a cup of coffee. I wish I could see Miltown. I suppose it's bigger and grander even than Warram. More like Paris? Miss Ross told me about Paris. She bought my pink sunshade there and my bead purse. You see how it opens with a snap? I have 20 cents in it and it's got to last three months for stamps and paper and ink. Mother says Aunt Miranda won't want to buy things like those when she's feeding and clothing me and paying for my schoolbooks. Paris ain't no great, said Mr. Cobb disparagingly. It's the dullest place in the state of Maine. I've drugged there many a time. Again, Rebecca was obliged to reprove Mr. Cobb tacitly and quietly, but nonetheless surely though the reproof was dealt with one glance, quickly sent and is quickly withdrawn. Paris is the capital of France and you have to go to it on a boat, she said instructively. It's in my geography and it says, The French are a gay and polite people fond of dancing and light wines. I asked the teacher what light wines were and he thought it was something like new cider or maybe ginger pop. I can see Paris is plain as day by just shutting my eyes. The beautiful ladies are always gaily dancing around with pink sunshades and bead purses and the grand gentlemen are politely dancing and drinking ginger pop. But you can see Milltown most every day with your eyes wide open, Rebecca said wistfully. Milltown ain't no great neither, replied Mr. Cobb with the air of having visited all the cities of the earth and found them as not. Now you watch me heave this newspaper right on to Miss Brown's doorstep. Piff! and the packet landed exactly as it was intended on the corn husk mat in front of the screen door. Oh, how splendid that was! cried Rebecca with enthusiasm. Just like the knife-thrower Mark saw at the circus, I wish there was a long, long row of houses each with a corn husk mat and a screen door in the middle and a newspaper to throw on every one. I might fail on some of them, you know, said Mr. Cobb, beaming with modest pride. If your Aunt Miranda will let you, I'll take you down to Milltown some day this summer when the stage ain't full. A thrill of delicious excitement ran through Rebecca's frame, from her new shoes up, up to the leghorn cap, and down the black braid. She pressed Mr. Cobb's knee ardently and said in a voice choking with tears of joy and astonishment. Oh, it can't be true, it can't, to think I should see Milltown. It's like having a fairy godmother who asks you your wish and then gives it to you. Did you ever read Cinderella or the yellow dwarf or the intanted frog or the fair one with golden locks? No, said Mr. Cobb cautiously after a moment's reflection. I don't seem to think I ever did read just those particular ones. Where'd you get a chance at so much reading? Oh, I've read lots of books, answered Rebecca casually, Fathers and Miss Rosses and all the different school teachers, and all in the Sunday School Library. I've read the lamp lighter and Scottish Chiefs and Ivanhoe and the air of Redcliff and Cora, the doctor's wife and David Copperfield and the gold of Chickery and Plutarch's Lives and Thaddeus of Warsaw and Pilgrim's Progress and lots more. What have you read? I've never happened to read those particular books, but land, I've read a side of my time. Nowadays, I'm so drove I get along with the Almanac, the weekly Argus and the main state agriculturists. There's the river again. This is the last long hill and when we get to the top of it, we'll see the chimblies of Riverbro and the distance. Tate Fer, I live about half a mile beyond the Brick House myself. Rebecca's hand stirred nervously in her lap and she moved in her seat. I didn't think I was going to be afraid, she said, almost under her breath. But I guess I am just a little might when you say it's coming so near. Would you go back? Ask Mr. Cobb, curiously. She flashed him an intrepid look and then said proudly, I'd never go back. I might be frightened, but I'd be ashamed to run. Going to Aunt Miranda's is like going down cellar in the dark. There might be ogres and giants under the stairs. But as I tell Hannah, there might be elves and fairies and enchanted frogs. Is there a main street to the village like that in Warram? I suppose you might call it a main street and your aunt Sawyer lives on it. But there ain't no stores nor mills. And it's an awful one horse village. You have to go across the river and get to our side if you want to see anything going on. I'm almost sorry, she said, because it would be so grand to drive down a real main street, sitting high up like this behind two splendid horses with my pink John's Shade Up and everybody in town wondering who the bunch of lilacs and the hair-trump belongs to. It would be just like the beautiful lady in the parade. Last summer the circus came to temperance and they had a procession in the morning. Mother let us all walk in and wheel Myra in the baby carriage because we couldn't afford to go to the circus in the afternoon. And there were lovely horses and animals and cages and clowns on horseback, and at the very end came a little red and gold chariot drawn by two ponies, and in it sitting on a velvet cushion was the snake-charmer, all dressed in satin and spangles. She was so beautiful beyond compare, Mr. Cobb, that you had to swallow lumps in your throat when you looked at her and little cold feelings crept up and down your back. Don't you know how I mean? Didn't you ever see anybody that made you feel like that? Mr. Cobb was more distinctly uncomfortable at this moment than he had been at any one time during the eventful morning. But he evaded the point dexterously by saying, There ain't no harm, as I can see, and are making the grand entry in the biggest style we can. I'll take the whip out, set up straight and drive fast. You hold your bouquet in your lap, and open your little red parasol, and we'll just make the natives stare. The child's face was radiant for a moment, but the glow faded just as quickly as she said. I forgot. Mother put me inside, and maybe she'll want me to be there when I get to Aunt Miranda's. Maybe I'd be more genteel inside, and then I wouldn't have to be jumped down in my clothes fly up, but could open the door and step down like a lady passenger. Would you please stop for a minute, Mr. Cobb, and let me change? The stage-driver, good-naturedly, pulled up his horses, lifted the excited little creature down, opened the door, and helped her in, putting the lilacs in the pink sunshade beside her. We've had a great trip, he said, and we've got real well acquainted, haven't we? You won't forget about Milltown? Never, she exclaimed fervently, and you're sure you won't either? Never crossed my heart, vowed Mr. Cobb solemnly, as he remounted his perch, and as the stage rumbled down the village street between the green maples, those who looked out from their windows saw a little brown elf in buff calico sitting primly on the back seat, holding a great bouquet tightly in one hand and a pink parasol in the other. Had they been farsighted enough, they might have seen when the stage turned into the side dooryard of the old brick house, a calico yoke rising and falling tempestuously over the beating heart beneath, the red color coming and going in two pale cheeks, and a mist of tears swimming in two brilliant dark eyes. Rebecca's journey had ended. There's the stage turning into the Sawyer girl's dooryard, said Mrs. Perkins to her husband. That must be the niece from up Temperanceway, that seems they wrote to Aurelia and invited Hannah, the oldest, but Aurelia said she could spare Rebecca better if it was all the same to Miranda and Jane. So it's Rebecca that's come. She'll be good company for our Emma Jane, but I don't believe they'll keep her three months. She looks black as an engine, what I can see of her, black and kind of up and coming. They used to say that one of the Randalls married a Spanish woman, somebody that was teaching music and languages at a boarding school. Lorenzo was dark, complexed, you remember, and this child is too. Well, I don't know as Spanish blood is any real disgrace, not if it's a good ways back and the woman was respectable. End of section one, Rebecca of Sunnybrook farm section two. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Rebecca of Sunnybrook farm by Kate Douglas Wiggins. Chapter two, Rebecca's relations. They had been called the Sawyer Girls when Miranda at 18, Jane at 12, and Aurelia at eight participated in the various activities of village life. And when Riverboro fell into a habit of thought or speech, it saw no reason for falling out of it, at any rate in the same century. So although Miranda and Jane were between 50 and 60 at the time the story opens, Riverboro still called them the Sawyer Girls. They were spinsters, but Aurelia, the youngest, had made what she called a romantic marriage in what her sisters termed a mighty poor speculation. There's worse things than being old maids, they said, whether they thought so is quite another matter. The element of romance in Aurelia's marriage existed chiefly in the fact that Mr. L. D. M. Randall had a soul above farming or trading and was a votary of the muses. He taught the weekly singing school, then a feature of village life, in a half a dozen neighboring towns. He played the violin and called off at dances or evoked rich harmonies from church melodians on Sundays. He taught certain uncouth lads when they were of age to enter society the intricacies of contradances, or the steps of the Chatiche and Mazurka, and he was a marked figure in all social assemblies, though conspicuously absent from town meetings and the purely masculine gatherings at the store or tavern or bridge. His hair was a little longer, his hands a little wider, his shoes a little thinner, his manner a trifle more polished than that of his soberer mates. Indeed, the only department of life in which he failed to shine was the making of sufficient money to live upon. Luckily he had no responsibilities. His father and his twin brother had died when he was yet a boy, and his mother, whose only noteworthy achievement had been the naming of her twin sons Marquise de Lafayette and Lorenzo de Medici Randall, had supported herself and educated her child by making coats up to the very day of her death. She was wont to say plaintively, I'm afraid the faculties was too much divided up between my twins. LDM is awful talented, but I guess MDL would have been the practical one if he to lived. LDM was practical enough to get the richest girl in the village replied Mrs. Robinson. Yes, sighed his mother, there it is again, if the twins could have married Aurelia's Sawyer, T' would have been all right. LDM was talented enough to get Relie's money, but MDL would have been practical enough to have kept it. Aurelia's share of the modest Sawyer property had been put into one thing after another by the handsome and luckless Lorenzo de Medici. He had a graceful and poetic way of making an investment for each new son and daughter that blessed their union. A birthday present for our child, Aurelia, he would say, a little nest egg for the future. But Aurelia once remarked in a moment of bitterness that the hen never lived that could sit on those eggs and hatch anything out of them. Miranda and Jane had virtually washed their hands of Aurelia when she married Lorenzo de Medici Randall. Having exhausted the resources of Riverborough and its immediate vicinity, the unfortunate couple had moved on and on in a steadily decreasing scale of prosperity until they had reached temperance, where they had settled down and invited fate to do its worst, an invitation which was promptly accepted. The maiden sisters at home wrote to Aurelia two or three times a year and sent modest but serviceable presents to the children at Christmas, but refused to assist LDM with the regular expenses of his rapidly growing family. His last investment made shortly before the birth of Miranda, named in a lively hope of favors which never came, was a small farm two miles from temperance. Aurelia managed this herself, and so it proved a home at least, and a place for the unsuccessful Lorenzo to die and be buried from, a duty somewhat too long deferred, many thought, which he performed on the day of Myra's birth. It was in this happy-go-lucky household that Rebecca had grown up. It was just an ordinary family, two or three of the children were handsome and the rest plain, two or three of them rather clever, two industrious and two commonplace and dull. Rebecca had her father's facility and had been his aptest pupil. She carried the alto by ear, danced without being taught, played the melodian without knowing the notes. Her love of books she inherited chiefly from her mother, who found it hard to sweep or cook or sew when there was a novel in the house. Fortunately books were scarce, or the children might sometimes have gone ragged and hungry. But other forces had been at work in Rebecca, and the traits of unknown forebears had been wrought into her fiber. Lorenzo de Medici was flabby and boneless, Rebecca was a thing of fire and spirit. He lacked energy and courage, Rebecca was plucky at two and dauntless at five. This Randall and Hannah had no sense of humor. Rebecca possessed and showed it as soon as she could walk and talk. She had not been able, however, to borrow her parents' virtues and those of other generous ancestors and escape all the weaknesses in the calendar. She had not her sister Hannah's patience or her brother John's sturdy staying power. Her will was sometimes willfulness, and the ease with which she did most things led her to be impatient of hard tasks or long ones. But whatever else there was or was not, there was freedom at Randall's farm. The children grew, worked, fought, ate what and slept where they could, loved one another and their parents pretty well but with no tropical passion, and educated themselves for nine months of the year each one in his own way. As a result of this method Hannah, who could only have been developed by forces applied from without, was painstaking, calm-drum and limited. While Rebecca, who apparently needed nothing but a space to develop in and a knowledge of terms in which to express herself, grew and grew and grew, always from within outward. Her forces of one sort and another had seemingly been set in motion when she was born. They needed no daily spur but moved to their own accord, towards what no one knew, least of all Rebecca herself. The field for the exhibition of her creative instinct was painfully small, and the only use she had made of it as yet was to leave eggs out of the cornbread one day and milk another, to see how it would turn out. To part Fanny's hair sometimes in the middle, sometimes on the right, and sometimes on the left side, and to play all sorts of fantastic pranks with the children, occasionally bringing them to the table as fictitious or historical characters found in her favorite books. Rebecca amused her mother and her family generally. But she never was counted of serious importance, and although considered smart and old for her age, she was never thought superior in any way. Aurelia's experience of genius, as exemplified in the deceased Lorenzo de' Medici, led her into a greater admiration of plain, everyday common sense, a quality in which Rebecca, it must be confessed, seemed sometimes painfully deficient. Hannah was her mother's favorite so far as Aurelia could indulge herself in such recreations as partiality. The parent who is obliged to feed and clothe seven children on an income of $15 a month seldom has time to discriminate carefully between the various members of her brood. But Hannah at fourteen was at once companion and partner in all her mother's problems. She it was who kept the house while Aurelia busied herself in barn and field. Rebecca was capable of certain set tasks such as keeping the small children from killing themselves in one another, feeding the poultry, picking up chips, hulling strawberries, wiping dishes. But she was thought irresponsible, and Aurelia needing somebody to lean on, having never enjoyed that luxury with the gifted Lorenzo, leaned on Hannah. Hannah showed the result of this attitude somewhat, being a trifle careworn in face and sharpen manner. But she was a self-contained, well-behaved, dependable child. And that is the reason her aunts had invited her to Riverboro to be a member of their family and participate in all the advantages of their loftier position in the world. It was several years since Miranda and Jane had seen the children, but they remembered with pleasure that Hannah had not spoken a word during the interview, and it was for this reason that they had asked for the pleasure of her company. Rebecca, on the other hand, had dressed up the dog in John's clothes, and being requested to get the three younger children ready for dinner, she had held them under the pump and then proceeded to smack their hair flat to their heads by vigorous brushing, bringing them to the table in such a moist and hideous state of shininess that their mother was ashamed of their appearance. Rebecca's own black locks were commonly pushed smoothly off her forehead, but on this occasion she formed what I must perforce call by its only name, a spit-curl, directly in the center of her brow, an ornament which she was allowed to wear a very short time, only, in fact, till Hannah was able to call her mother's attention to it, when she was sent into the next room to remove it and come back looking like a Christian. This command she interpreted somewhat too literally, perhaps, because she contrived, in a space of two minutes, an extremely pious style of hairdressing, fully as effective, if not as startling as the first. These antics were solely the result of nervous irritation, a mood born of Miss Miranda Sawyer's stiff, grim, and marshal attitude. The remembrance of Rebecca was so vivid that their sister Aurelia's letter was something of a shock to the quiet, elderly spinsters of the Brick House, for it said that Hannah could not possibly be spared for a few years yet, but that Rebecca would come as soon as she could be made ready, that the offer was most thankfully appreciated, and that the regular schooling and church privileges, as well as the influence of the Sawyer home, would doubtless be the making of Rebecca. CHAPTER III. A DIFFERENCE IN HEARTS. I don't know, as I calculated, to be the makin' of any child Miranda had said as she folded Aurelia's letter and laid it in the light stand drawer. I supposed, of course, Aurelia would send us the one we asked for, but it's just like her to palm off that wild young one on somebody else. You remember we said that Rebecca, or even Jenny, might come in case Hannah couldn't interpose Jane. I know we did, but we hadn't any notion it would turn out that way, grumbled Miranda. She was a might of a thing when we saw her three years ago, ventured Jane. She's had time to improve. And time to grow worse. Won't it be kind of a privilege to put her on the right track? asked Jane timidly. I don't know about the privilege part. It'll be considerable of a chore, I guess. If her mother haint got her on the right track by now, she won't take to it herself all of a sudden. This depressed and depressing frame of mind had lasted until the eventful day dawned on which Rebecca was to arrive. If she makes as work after she comes as she has before, we might as well give up hope of ever getting any rest. Side Miranda, as she hung the dish towels on the barberry bushes at the side door. But we should have had to clean house, Rebecca, or know Rebecca, urged Jane, and I can't see why you've scrubbed and washed and baked as you have for that one child, nor why you've about bought out watts and stock of dry goods. I know Aurelia, if you don't, responded Miranda. I've seen her house, and I've seen that batch of children wearing one another's clothes and never caring whether they had them on right side out or not. I know what they've had to live and dress on, and so do you. That child will like us not come here with a parcel of things borrowed from the rest of the family. She'll have Hannah's shoes and John's undershirts and Mark's socks, most likely. I suppose she never had a thimble on her finger in her life. But she'll know the feeling of one before she's been here many days. I've bought a piece of unbleached muslin and a piece of brown gingham for her to make up. That'll keep her busy. Of course she won't pick up anything after herself. She probably never see a duster, and she'll be as hard to train into our ways as if she was a heathen. She'll make a difference, acknowledged Jane, but she may turn out more biddable than we think. She'll mind when she spoken to, biddable or not, remarked Miranda with a shake of the last towel. Miranda Sawyer had a heart, of course, but she had never used it for any other purpose than the pumping and circulating of blood. She was just conscientious, economical, industrious, a regular attendant at church and Sunday school, and a member of the state missionary and Bible societies. But in the presence of all these chilly virtues, you longed for one warm little fault, or lacking that, one likable failing, something to make you sure she was thoroughly alive. She had never had any education other than that of the neighborhood district school, for her desires and ambitions had all pointed to the management of the house, the farm, and the dairy. Jane, on the other hand, had gone to an academy, and also to a boarding school for young ladies. So had Aurelia, and after all the years that had elapsed, there was still a slight difference in language and manner between the elder and the two younger sisters. Jane, too, had had the inestimable advantage of a sorrow, not the natural grief at the loss of her aged father and mother, for she had been content to let them go, but something far deeper. She was engaged to marry young Tom Carter, who had nothing to marry on, it is true, but who was sure to have some time or other. Then the war broke out. Tom enlisted at the first call. Up to that time Jane had loved him with a quiet, friendly sort of affection, and had given her country a mild emotion of the same sort. But the strife, the danger, the anxiety of the time, set new currents of feeling in motion. Life became something other than the three meals a day, the round of cooking, washing, sewing, and church going. Personal gossip vanished from the village conversation. Big things took the place of trifling ones, sacred sorrows of wives and mothers, pangs of fathers and husbands, self-denials, sympathies, new desire to bear one another's burdens. Men and women grew fast in those days of the nation's trouble and danger, and Jane awoke from the vague dull dream she had hitherto called life to new hopes, new fears, new purposes. Then, after a year's anxiety, a year when one never looked in the newspaper without dread and sickness of suspense, came the telegram saying that Tom was wounded. And without so much as asking Miranda's leave, she packed her trunk and started for the South. She was in time to hold Tom's hand through hours of pain, to show him for once the heart of a prim New England girl when it is ablaze with love and grief, to put her arms about him so that he could have a home to die in, and that was all. All, but it served. It carried her through weary months of nursing, nursing of other soldiers for Tom's dear sake. It sent her home a better woman, and though she had never left Riverborough in all the years that lay between, and had grown into the counterfeit presentment of her sister and of all other thin, spare New England spinsters, it was something of a counterfeit, and underneath was still the faint echo of that wild heartbeat of her girlhood. Having learned the trick of beating and loving and suffering, the poor faithful heart persisted, although it lived on memories and carried on its sentimental operations mostly in secret. You're soft, Jane, said Miranda once. You always was soft, and you allers will be. If twat for me keepin' you stiffened up, I believe you'd leak out of the house into the dooryard. It was already past the appointed hour for Mr. Cobb and his coach to be lumbering down the street. The stage ought to be here, said Miranda, glancing nervously at the tall clock for the twentieth time. I guess everything's done. I've tacked up two thick towels back of her washstand and put a mat under her slop jar, but children are awful hard on furniture. I expect we shan't know this house a year from now. Jane's frame of mind was naturally depressed and timorous, having been affected by Miranda's gloomy presages of evil to come. The only difference between the sisters in this matter was that while Miranda only wondered how they could endure Rebecca, Jane had flashes of inspiration in which she wondered how Rebecca would endure them. It was in one of these flashes that she ran up the back stairs to put a vase of apple blossoms and a red tomato-pin cushion on Rebecca's bureau. The stage rumbled to the side door of the brick house, and Mr. Cobb handed Rebecca out like a real lady passenger. She alighted with great circumspection, put the bunch of faded flowers in her Aunt Miranda's hand, and received her salute. It could hardly be called a kiss without injuring the fair name of that commodity. You needn't have bothered to bring flowers, remarked that gracious and tactful lady. The garden's always full of them here when it comes time. Jane then kissed Rebecca, giving a somewhat better imitation of the real thing than her sister. Put the trunk in the entry, Jeremiah, and we'll get it carried upstairs this afternoon, she said. I'll take it up for you now, if you say the word, girls. No, no, don't leave the horses. Somebody'll be coming past, and we can call them in. Well, goodbye, Rebecca. Good day, Miranda and Jane. You've got a lively little girl there. I guess she'll be a first-rate company-keeper. Ms. Sawyer shuddered openly at the adjective lively as applied to a child, her belief being that though children might be seen, if absolutely necessary, they certainly should never be heard if she could help it. We're not much used to noise, Jane and me, she remarked acidly. Mr. Cobb saw that he had taken the wrong tack, but he was too unused argument to explain himself readily, so he drove away, trying to think by what safer word than lively he might have described his interesting little passenger. I'll take you up and show you your room, Rebecca, Ms. Miranda said. Shut the mosquito net and door tight behind you, so as to keep the flies out. It ain't fly time yet, but I want you to start right. Take your parcel along with you, and then you won't have to come down for it. Always make your head save your heels. Rub your feet on that braided rug, hang your hat and cape in the entry there as you go past. It's my best hat, said Rebecca. Take it upstairs, then, and put it in the close press, but I shouldn't have thought you to warn your best hat on the stage. It's my only hat, explained Rebecca. My everyday hat wasn't good enough to bring. Fanny's going to finish it. Lay your parasol in the entry closet. Do you mind if I keep it in my room, please? It always seems safer. There ain't any thieves hereabouts, and if there was, I guess they wouldn't make for your sunshade, but come along. Remember to always go up the back way. We don't use the front stairs on account of the carpet. Take care of the turn and don't catch your foot. Look to your right and go in. When you've washed your face and hands and brushed your hair, you can come down, and by and by we'll unpack your trunk and get you settled before supper. Ain't you got your dress on, hindsight foremost? Rebecca drew her chin down and looked at the row of smoked pearl buttons running up and down the middle of her flat little chest. Hindsight foremost? Oh, I see. No, that's all right. If you have seven children, you can't keep buttoning and unbuttoning them all the time. They have to do themselves. We're always buttoned up in front of our house. Myra's only three, but she's buttoned up the front too. Miranda said nothing as she closed the door, but her looks were at once equivalent to and more eloquent than words. Rebecca stood perfectly still in the center of the floor and looked about her. There was a square of oilcloth in front of each article of furniture and a dry-in rug beside the single-four poster, which was covered with a fringed white demony counterpaint. Everything was as neat as wax, but the ceilings were much higher than Rebecca was accustomed to. It was a north room and the window, which was long and narrow, looked out on the back buildings and the barn. It was not the room, which was far more comfortable than Rebecca's own at the farm, nor the lack of view, nor yet the long journey, for she was conscious of weariness. It was not the fear of a strange place, for she loved new places and courted new sensations. It was because of some curious blending of uncomprehended emotions that Rebecca stood her sunshade in the corner, tore off her best hat, flung it on the bureau with the porcupine quills on the underside, and stripping down the demedy spread precipitated herself into the middle of the bed and pulled the counterpaint over her head. In a moment the door opened quietly. Knocking was a refinement quite unknown in Riverborough, and if it had been heard of would never have been wasted on a child. Miss Miranda entered, and as her eye wandered about the vacant room it fell upon a white and tempestuous ocean of counterpaint, an ocean breaking into strange movements of wave and crest and billow. Rebecca, the tone in which the word was voiced, gave it all the effect of having been shouted from the housetops. A dark, ruffled head and two frightened eyes appeared above the demedy spread. What are you laying on your good bed in the daytime for, messing up the feathers and dirty in the pillars with your dusty boots? Rebecca rose guiltily. There seemed no excuse to make. Her offense was beyond explanation or apology. I'm sorry, Aunt Miranda. Something came over me. I don't know what. Well, if it comes over you very soon again we'll have to find out what it is. Spread your bed up smooth this minute for buys you flags, bring in your trunk upstairs, and I wouldn't let him see such a cluttered up room for anything. He'd tell it all over town. When Mr. Cobbett put up his horses that night he carried a kitchen chair to the side of his wife, who was sitting on the back porch. I brought a little Randall girl down on the stage from Maplewood today, mother. She's kin to the Sawyer girls and is going to live with them, he said, as he sat down and began to whittle. She's that Aurelia's child, the one that ran away with Susan Randall's son just before we came here to live. How old a child? About ten, or somewhere along there in small foreage, but land. She might be a hundred to hear her talk. She kept me jumping, trying to answer her. Of all the queer children I ever come across she's the queerest. She ain't no beauty, her face is all lies, but if she ever grows up to them eyes and fills out a little she'll make folks stare. Land, mother, I wish you could have heard her talk. I don't see what she had to talk about, a child like that, to a stranger, replied Mrs. Cobb. Stranger or no stranger, twidn't make no difference to her. She talked to a pump or a grindstone. She talked to herself rather than keep still. What did she talk about? Blamed if I can repeat any of it. She kept me so surprised I didn't have my wits about me. She had a little pink sunshade. It kind of looked like a doll's ambrel, and she clung to it like a burr to a woollen stocking. I advised her to open it up. The sun was so hot, but she said no, twid fade, and she tucked it under her dress. It's the dearest thing in life to me, says she, but it's a dreadful care. Them's the very word, and it's all the words I remember. It's the dearest thing in life to me, but it's an awful care. Here Mr. Cobb laughed aloud as he tipped his chair back against the side of the house. There was another thing, but I can't get it right exactly. She was talking about the circus parade and the snake charmer and a golden chariot. And says she—she was so beautiful beyond compare, Mr. Cobb, that it made you have lumps come up in your throat to look at her. She'll be coming over to see you, mother, and you can size her up for yourself. I don't know how she'll get on with Miranda Sawyer, poor little soul. This doubt was more or less openly expressed in Riverboro, which, however, had two opinions on the subject. One, that it was a most generous thing in the Sawyer girls to take one of Aurelia's children to educate. The other, that the education would be bought at a price wholly out of proportion to its intrinsic value. Rebecca's first letters to her mother would seem to indicate that she cordially coincided with the latter view of the situation. CHAPTER IV DEAR MOTHER, I AM SAFELY HERE. My dress was not much tumbled, and Aunt Jane helped me press it out. I like Mr. Cobb very much. He chews, but throws newspapers straight up to the doors. I rode outside a little while, but got inside before I got to Aunt Miranda's house. I did not want to, but thought you would like it better. Miranda is such a long word that I think I will say Aunt M and Aunt J in my Sunday letters. Aunt J has given me a dictionary to look up all the hard words in. It takes a good deal of time, and I am glad people can talk without stopping to spell. It is much easier to talk than write, and much more fun. The brick house looks just the same as you have told us. The parlor is splendid and gives you creeps and chills when you look in the door. The furniture is elegant too, and all the rooms, but there are no good sitting down places except in the kitchen. The same cat is here, but they do not save kittens when she has them, and the cat is too old to play with. Hannah told me once you ran away with father, and I can see it would be nice. If Aunt M would run away, I think I should like to live with Aunt J. She does not hate me as bad as Aunt M does. Tell Mark he can have my paint box, but I should like him to keep the red cake in case I come home again. I hope Hannah and John do not get tired doing my chores. Your affectionate friend, Rebecca. P.S. Please give the piece of poetry to John because he likes my poetry even when it is not very good. This piece is not very good, but it is true, but I hope you won't mind what is in it as you run away. This house is dark and dull and drear. No light doth shine from far or near. It's like the tomb. And those of us who live herein are most as dead and seraphim, though not as good. My guardian angel is asleep. At least he doth no vigil keep. Ah, I woe is me. Then give me back my lovely farm where none alive did wish me harm, dear home of youth. P.S. again. I made the poetry like a piece in a book, but could not get it right at first. You see, tomb and good do not sound well together, but I wanted to say tomb dreadfully, and a seraphim are always good. I couldn't take that out. I have made it over now. It does not say my thoughts as well, but think it is more right. Give the best one to John as he keeps them in a box with his bird's eggs. This is the best one. Sunday Thoughts by Rebecca Rowena Randall. This house is dark and dull and drear. No light doth shine from far or near. Nor ever could. And those of us who live herein are most as dead as seraphim, though not as good. My guardian angel is asleep, at least he doth not vigil keep, but far doth roam. Then give me back my lovely farm where none alive did wish me harm, dear childhood home. Dear mother, I am thrilling with unhappiness this morning. I got that out of Cora, the doctor's wife, whose husband's mother was very cross and unfeeling to her, like Aunt M. to me. I wish Hannah had come instead of me, for it was Hannah that was wanted and she is better than I am, and does not answer back so quick. Are there any pieces of my buff calico? Aunt J. wants enough to make a new waist button behind, so I won't look so outlandish. The styles are quite pretty in Riverboro, and those at meeting quite elegant. More so than in Temperance. This town is stylish, gay and fair, and full of wealthy riches rare. But I would pillow on my arm the thought of my sweet Brookside farm. School is pretty good. The teacher can answer more questions than the Temperance one, but not so many as I can ask. I am smarter than all the girls but one, but not so smart as two boys. Emma Jane can add and subtract in her head like a streak of lightning and knows the spelling book right through, but has no thoughts of any kind. She is in the third reader, but does not like stories and books. I am in the sixth reader, but just because I cannot say the seven multiplication tables, Miss Dearborn threatens to put me in the baby primer class with Elijah and Alicia Simpson, little twins. Sore is my heart and bent my stubborn pride, with Elijah and with Alicia am I tied. My soul recoils like a quarry doctor's wife. Like her I fear I cannot bear this life. I am going to try for the spelling prize, but fear I cannot get it. I would not care, but wrong spelling looks dreadful in poetry. Last Sunday, when I found Seraphim in the dictionary, I was ashamed I had made it Seraphim—note spelled with an F. But Seraphim—note spelled with a P-H—is not a word you can guess at like another long one outlandish in this letter which spells itself. Miss Dearborn says, use the words you can spell, and if you can't spell Seraphim, make Angel do, but Angels are not just the same as Seraphims. Seraphims are brighter, whiter, and have bigger wings, and I think are older and longer dead than Angels, which are just freshly dead, and after a long time in heaven, around the great white throne grow to be Seraphims. I sew on brown gingham dresses every afternoon when Emma Jane and the Simpsons are playing house, or running on the logs when their mothers do not know it. Their mothers are afraid they will drown, and Aunt M is afraid I will wet my clothes, so will not let me either. I can play from half past four to supper and after supper a little bit, and Saturday afternoons. I am glad our cow has a calf and it is spotted. It is going to be a good year for apples and hay, so you and John will be glad, and we can pay a little more mortgage. Miss Dearborn asked us what is the object of education, and I said the object of mine was to help pay off the mortgage. She told Aunt M, and I had to sew extra for punishment, because she says a mortgage is disgrace, like stealing or smallpox, and it will be all over town that we have one on our farm. Emma Jane is not mortgaged, nor Richard Carter, nor Dr. Winship, but the Simpsons are. Rise my soul, strain every nerve, thy mortgage to remove, gain thy mother's heartfelt thanks, thy family's grateful love. Pronounce family quick, or it won't sound right. Your loving little friend, Rebecca. Dear John, you remember when we tied the new dog in the barn, how he bit the rope and howled? I am just like him, only the brick house is the barn, and I cannot bite Aunt M, because I must be grateful, and education is going to be the making of me, and help you pay off the mortgage when we grow up. Your loving Becky. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read and recorded by Betsy Bush, Marquette Michigan, June 2007. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wigan. Chapter Five, Wisdom's Ways. The day of Rebecca's arrival had been Friday, and on the Monday following she began her education at the school, which was in River Burl Center, about a mile distant. Miss Sawyer borrowed a neighbor's horse and wagon and drove her to the schoolhouse, interviewing the teacher, Miss Dearborn, arranging for books and generally starting the child on the path that was to lead to boundless knowledge. Miss Dearborn, it may be said in passing, had had no special preparation in the art of teaching, so her family said, and perhaps for this reason she, like Tom Tulever's clergyman tutor, said about it with that uniformity of method and independence of circumstances which distinguished the actions of animals understood to be under the immediate teaching of nature. You remember the beaver, which a naturalist tells us busied himself as earnestly in constructing a dam in a room up three pairs of stairs in London as if he had been laying his foundation in a lake in Upper Canada. It was his function to build, the absence of water or of possible progeny was an accident for which he was not countable. In the same manner, did Miss Dearborn lay what she fondly imagined to be foundations in the infant mind. Rebecca walked to school after the first morning. She loved this part of the day's program. When the dew was not too heavy and the weather was fair, there was a shortcut through the woods. She turned off the main road, crept through Uncle Josh Woodman's bars, waved away Mrs. Carter's cows, trod the short grass of the pasture with its well-worn path running through gardens of buttercups and whiteweed, and groves of ivory leaves and sweet fern. She descended a little hill, jumped from stone to stone across a woodland brook, startling the drowsy frogs, who were always winking and blinking in the morning sun. Then came the woodsy bit, with her feet pressing the slippery carpet of brown pine needles, the woodsy bit, so full of dewy morning surprises, fungus growths of brilliant orange and crimson springing up around the stumps of dead trees, beautiful things born in a single night, and now and then the miracle of a little clump of wax and Indian pipes, seen just quickly enough to be saved from her careless tread. Then she climbed a stile, went through a grassy meadow, slid under another pair of bars, and came out into the road again, having gained herself half a mile. How delicious it all was! Rebecca clasked her quaken boss's grammar and green leaf's arithmetic with a joyful sense of knowing her lessons. Her dinner pale swung from her right hand, and she had a blissful consciousness of the two soda biscuits spread with butter and syrup, the baked cup custard, the doughnut, and the square of hard gingerbread. Sometimes she said whatever peace she was going to speak on the next Friday afternoon. A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers. There was lack of women's nursing. There was dearth of women's tears. How she loved the swing and the sentiment of it. How her young voice quivered whenever she came to the refrain. But we'll meet no more on bingen, dear bingen on the Rhine. It always sounded beautiful in her ears as she sent her tearful little trouble into the clear morning air. Another early favorite, for we must remember that Rebecca's only knowledge of the great world of poetry consisted of the selections in vogue in school readers, was, Woodman, spare that tree. Touch not a single bow. In youth it sheltered me, and I'll protect it now. When Emma Jane Perkins walked through the shortcut with her, the two children used to render this with appropriate dramatic action. Emma Jane always chose to be the Woodman, because she had nothing to do but raise on high in imaginary acts. On the one occasion when she essayed the part of the tree's romantic protector, she represented herself as feeling so awful foolish that she refused to undertake it again, much to the secret delight of Rebecca, who found the Woodman's role much too tame for her vaulting ambition. She reveled in the impassioned appeal of the poet, and implored the ruthless Woodman to be as brutal as possible with the acts so that she might properly put greater spirit into her lines. One morning, feeling more frisky than usual, she fell upon her knees and wept in the Woodman's petticoat. Curiously enough, her sense of proportion rejected this as soon as it was done. That wasn't right. It was silly, Emma Jane, but I'll tell you where it might come in. And give me three grains of corn. You be the mother, and I'll be the famishing Irish child. For pity's sake, put the acts down. You are not the Woodman any longer. What'll I do with my hands, then? asked Emma Jane. Whatever you like, Rebecca answered wearily. You're just a mother. That's all. What does your mother do with her hands? Now here goes. Give me three grains of corn, mother. Only three grains of corn. To keep the little life I have till the coming of the morn. This sort of thing made Emma Jane nervous and fidgety, but she was Rebecca's slave and hugged her chains, no matter how uncomfortable they made her. At the last pair of bars the two girls were sometimes met by a detachment of the Simpson children, who lived in a black house with a red door and a red barn behind on the Blueberry Plains Road. Rebecca felt an interest in the Simpsons from the first, because there were so many of them and they were so patched and darned, just like her own brood at the home farm. The little schoolhouse with its flagpole on top and its two doors in front, one for boys and the other for girls, stood on the crust of a hill with rolling fields and meadows on one side, a stretch of pine woods on the other, and the river glinting and sparkling in the distance. It boasted no attractions within, all was as bare and ugly and uncomfortable as it well could be, for the villages along the river expended so much money in repairing and rebuilding bridges that they were obliged to be very economical in school privileges. The teacher's desk and chair stood on a platform in one corner. There was an uncouth stove, never blackened oftener than once a year, a map of the United States, two blackboards, a ten-quart tin pail of water and long-handled dipper on a corner shelf, and wooden desks and benches for the scholars, who only numbered twenty in Rebecca's time. The seats were higher in the back of the room, and the more advanced and longer-legged pupils sat there, the position being greatly to be envied, and they were at once nearer to the windows and farther from the teacher. There were classes of a sort, although nobody broadly speaking studied the same book with anybody else, or had arrived at the same degree of proficiency in any one branch of learning. Rebecca in particular was so difficult to classify that Miss Dearborn at the end of a fortnight gave up the attempt altogether. She read with Dick Carter and living Perkins, who were fitting for the academy, recited arithmetic with Lisping Little Thooth and Thimphen, geography with Emma Jane Perkins, and grammar after school hours to Miss Dearborn alone. Full to the brim as she was of clever thoughts and quaint fancies, she made it first but a poor hand at composition. The labor of writing and spelling with the added difficulties of punctuation and capitals interfered sadly with the free expression of ideas. She took history with Alice Robinson's class, which was attacking the subject of the revolution, while Rebecca was bidden to begin with the discovery of America. In a week she had mastered the course of events up to the revolution, and in ten days had arrived at Yorktown, where the class had apparently established summer quarters. Then finding that extra effort would only result in her reciting with the oldest Simpson boy, she deliberately held herself back, for Wisdom's ways were not those of pleasantness, nor her paths those of peace if one were compelled to tread them in the company of Seesaw Simpson. Samuel Simpson was generally called a Seesaw because of his difficulty in making up his mind. Whether it were a question of fact, of spelling, or of date, of going swimming or fishing, of choosing a book in the Sunday School Library or a stick of candy at the village store, he had no sooner determined on one plan of action than his wish fondly reverted to the opposite one. Seesaw was pale, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, round-shouldered, and given to stammering when nervous. Perhaps because of his very weakness, Rebecca's decision of character had a fascination for him, and although she snubbed him to the verge of madness, he could never keep his eyes away from her. The force with which she tied her shoe in the lacing came undone. The flirt over shoulder she gave her black braid when she was excited or warm. Her manner of studying, book on desk, arms folded, eyes fixed on the opposite wall, all had an abiding charm for Seesaw Simpson. When having obtained permission she walked to the water pail in the corner and drank from the dipper. Unseen forces dragged Seesaw from his seat to go and drink after her. It was not only that there was something akin to association and intimacy in drinking next, but there was the fearful joy of meeting her in transit and receiving a cold and disdainful look from her wonderful eyes. On a certain warm day in summer, Rebecca's thirst exceeded the bounds of propriety. When she asked a third time for permission to quench it at the common fountain, Miss Dearborn nodded yes, but lifted her eyebrows unpleasantly as Rebecca neared the desk. As she replaced the dipper, Seesaw promptly raised his hand, and Miss Dearborn indicated a weary affirmative. What is the matter with you, Rebecca? she asked. I had salt mackerel for breakfast, answered Rebecca. There seemed nothing humorous about this reply, which was merely the statement of a fact, but an irresistible titter ran through the school. Miss Dearborn did not enjoy jokes, neither made, nor understood by herself, and her face flushed. I think you had better stand by the pail for five minutes, Rebecca. It may help you to control your thirst. Rebecca's heart fluttered. She to stand in the corner by the water pail and be stared at by all the scholars. She unconsciously made a gesture of angry dissent and moved a step nearer her seat, but was arrested by Miss Dearborn's command in a still, firmer voice. Stand by the pail, Rebecca. Samuel, how many times have you asked for water today? This is the fourth. Don't touch the dipper, please. The school has done nothing but drink this afternoon. It has had no time whatever to study. I suppose you had something salt for breakfast, Samuel? queried Miss Dearborn with sarcasm. I had m-m-mackerel just like Rebecca. Irresistible giggles by the school. I judged so. Stand by the other side of the pail, Samuel. Rebecca's head was bowed with shame and wrath. Life looked too black a thing to be endured. The punishment was bad enough, but to be coupled in correction with C-sauce Simpson was beyond human endurance. Singing was the last exercise in the afternoon, and many smelly chose shall we gather at the river. It was a baleful choice, and seemed to hold some secret and subtle association with the situation and general progress of the events. Or at any rate, there was apparently some obscure reason for the energy and vim with which the scholars shouted the choral invitation again and again. Shall we gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river? Miss Dearborn stole a look at Rebecca's bent head and was frightened. The child's face was pale, save for two red spots glowing on her cheeks. Tears hung on her lashes. Her breath came and went quickly, and the hand that held her pocket handkerchief trembled like a leaf. You may go to your seat, Rebecca, said Miss Dearborn at the end of the first song. Samuel, stay where you are till the close of school, and let me tell you, scholars, that I asked Rebecca to stand by the pail only to break up this habit of incessant drinking, which is nothing but empty-mindedness and desire to walk to and fro over the floor. Every time Rebecca has asked for a drink today, the whole school has gone to the pail one after another. She is really thirsty, and I dare say I ought to have punished you for following her example, not her for setting it. What shall we sing now, Alice? The old oaken bucket, please. Think of something dry, Alice, and change the subject. Yes, the star-spangled banner, if you like, or anything else. Rebecca sank into her seat and pulled the singing-book from her desk. Miss Dearborn's public explanation had shifted some of the weight from her heart, and she felt a trifle raised in her self-esteem. Under cover of the general relaxation of singing, votive offerings of respectful sympathy began to make their appearance at her shrine. Living Perkins, who could not sing, dropped a piece of maple sugar in her lap as he passed her on his way to the blackboard to draw the map of Maine. Alice Robinson rolled a perfectly new slate-pencil over the floor with her foot until it reached Rebecca's place, while her seatmate, Emma Jane, had made up a little mound of paper-balls and labeled them bullets for you know who. Altogether existence grew brighter, and when she was left alone with the teacher for her grammar lesson, she had nearly recovered her equanimity, which was more than Miss Dearborn had. The last clattering foot had echoed through the hall. Seesaw's backward glance of penitence had been met and answered defiantly by one of cold disdain. Rebecca, I am afraid I punished you more than I meant, said Miss Dearborn, who was only eighteen herself, and in her year of teaching country school she had never encountered a child like Rebecca. I hadn't missed a question this whole day, nor whispered either, quavered the culprit, and I don't think I ought to be shamed just for drinking. You started all the others, or it seemed as if you did. Whatever you do, they all do, whether you laugh or miss or write notes, or ask to leave the room or drink, and it must be stopped. Sam Simpson is a copycat, stormed Rebecca. I wouldn't have minded standing in the corner alone, that is, not so very much, but I couldn't bear standing with him. I saw that you couldn't, and that's the reason I told you to take your seat and left him in the corner. Remember that you are a stranger in the place, and they take more notice of what you do, so you must be careful. Now let's have our conjunctions, give me the verb to be, potential mood, past, present, tense. I must have been, thou mightest have been, he might have been. We might have been, you might have been, they might have been. Give me an example, please. I might have been glad, thou mightest have been glad. He, she, or it might have been glad. He or she might have been glad, because they are masculine and feminine, but could it have been glad? asked Miss Dearborn, who was very fond of splitting hairs. Why not? asked Rebecca. Because it is neuter gender. Couldn't we say the kitten might have been glad if it had known it was not going to be drowned? Yes, Miss Dearborn answered hesitantly, never very sure of herself under Rebecca's fire. But though we often speak of a baby, a chicken, or a kitten as it, they are really masculine or feminine gender, not neuter. Rebecca reflected a long moment and then asked, Is a Hollyhawk neuter? Oh yes, of course it is, Rebecca. Well, why couldn't we say the Hollyhawk might have been glad to see the rain, but there was a weak little Hollyhawk bud growing out of its stalk and it was afraid that that might be hurt by the storm, so the big Hollyhawk was kind of afraid, instead of being real glad. Miss Dearborn looked puzzled, as she answered. Of course, Rebecca, Hollyhawks could not be sorry or glad or afraid, really. We can't tell, I suppose, replied the child. But I think they are anyway. Now what shall I say? The subjunctive mood passed present tense of the verb to know. If I had known, if thou had known, if he had known, if we had known, if you had known, if they had known. Oh, it is the saddest tense, sighed Rebecca, with a little break in her voice. Nothing but ifs, ifs, ifs, and it makes you feel that if you only had known, things might have been better. Miss Dearborn had not thought of it before, but on reflection, she believed the subjunctive mood was a sad one, and if, rather a sorry part of speech. Give me some more examples of the subjunctive, Rebecca, and that will do for this afternoon, she said. If I had not loved Mackerel, I should not have been thirsty, said Rebecca, with an April smile as she closed her grammar. If thou hadst loved me truly, thou wouldst not have stood me in the corner. If Samuel had not loved Whickness, he would not have followed me to the water-pale. And if Rebecca had loved the rules of the school, she would have controlled her thirst. Finished Miss Dearborn with a kiss and the two-parted friends. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Lori Hebel. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas-Wiggin. Chapter 6 Sunshine in a Shady Place. The little schoolhouse on the hill had its moments of triumph as well as its scenes of tribulation, but it was fortunate that Rebecca had her books and her new acquaintances to keep her interested and occupied, or life would have gone heavily with her that first summer in Riverboro. She tried to like her Aunt Miranda. The idea of loving her had been given up the moment of meeting, but failed agnominously in the attempt. She was a very faulty and passionately human child, with no aspirations toward being an angel of the house. But she had a sense of duty and a desire to be good, respectively decently good. Whenever she fell below this self-imposed standard she was miserable. She did not like to be under her aunt's roof, eating bread, wearing clothes and studying books provided by her, and disliked her so heartily all the time. She felt instinctively that this was wrong and mean, and whenever the feeling of remorse was strong within her she made a desperate effort to please her grim and difficult relative. But how could she succeed when she was never herself and her Aunt Miranda's presence? The searching look of the eyes, the sharp voice, the hard, knotty fingers, the thin straight lips, the long silences, the front piece that didn't match her hair, the very obvious parting that seemed sewn in with linen thread on black net. There was not a single item that appealed to Rebecca. There are certain narrow, unimaginative and autocratic old people who seem to call out the most mischievous and sometimes the worst traits in children. Miss Miranda, had she lived in a populous neighborhood, would have had her doorbell pulled, her gate tied up, or dirt traps set in her garden paths. The Simpson twins stood in such awe of her that they could not be persuaded to come to the side door. Even when Miss Jane held gingerbread cookies in her outstretched hands. It is needless to say that Rebecca irritated her aunt with every breath she drew. She continually forgot and started up the front stairs because it was the shortest route to her bedroom. She left the dipper on the kitchen shelf instead of hanging it up over the pail. She sat in the chair the cat like best. She was willing to go on errands but often forgot what she was sent for. She left the screen doors a jar so that flies came in. Her tongue was ever in motion. She sang or whistled when she was picking up chips. She was always messing with flowers, putting them in vases, pinning them on her dress, and sticking them in her hat. Finally, she was an everlasting reminder of her foolish, worthless father, whose handsome face and engaging manner had so deceived Aurelia, and perhaps if the facts were known others besides Aurelia. The Randalls were aliens. They had not been born in Riverboro or even in York County. Miranda would have allowed on compulsion that in the nature of things a large number of persons must necessarily be born outside this sacred precinct. But she had her opinion of them and it was not a flattering one. Now if Hannah had come, Hannah took after the other side of the house. She was all soyer. Poor Hannah, that was true. Hannah spoke only when spoken to instead of first, last, and all the time. Hannah at fourteen was a member of the church. Hannah liked to knit. Hannah was probably or would have been a pattern of all the smaller virtues, instead of which here was this black-haired gypsy, with eyes as big as cartwheels installed as a member of the household. What sunshine in a shady place was Aunt Jane to Rebecca? Aunt Jane with her quiet voice, her understanding eyes, her ready excuses in these first difficult weeks, when the impulsive little stranger was trying to settle down into the brick-house ways. She did learn them, in part and by degrees, and the constant fitting of herself to these new and difficult standards of conduct seemed to make her older than ever for her years. The child took her sewing and sat beside Aunt Jane in the kitchen, while Aunt Morandy had the post of observation at the sitting room window. Sometimes they would work on the side porch, where the chlamydus and the wood-bind shaded them from the hot sun. To Rebecca, the lengths of round gingham were interminable. She made hard work of sewing, broke the thread, dropped her thimble into those syringe bushes, pricked her finger, wiped the perspiration from her forehead, could not match the checks, puckered the seams. She polished her needles to nothing, pushing them in and out of the Emery strawberry, but they always squeaked. Still Aunt Jane's patience held good, and some small measure of skill was creeping into Rebecca's fingers. Fingers that held pencil, paintbrush, and pens so cleverly, and were so clumsy with a dainty little needle. When the first brown gingham frock was completed, the child seized what she thought an opportune moment and asked her Aunt Miranda if she might have another color for the next one. I bought a whole piece of the brown, said Miranda leconically. That'll give you two more dresses with plenty for new sleeves, and a patch and let down with and be more economical. I know, but Mr. Watson says he'll take back part of it, and let us have pink and blue for the same price. Did you ask him? Yes, um. It was none of your business. I was helping Emma Jane choose aprons, and I didn't think you'd mind what color I had. Pink capes clean just as nice as brown, and Mr. Watson says it'll boil without fading. Mr. Watson's a splendid judge of washing, I guess. I don't approve of children being rigged out in fancy colors, but I'll see what your Aunt Jane thinks. I think it would be our right to let Rebecca have one pink and one blue gingham, said Jane. A child gets tired of sewing on one color. It's only natural she should long for a change. Besides, she'd look like a charity case always wearing the same brown with the white apron, and it's dreadful unbecoming to her. Handsome is as handsome does, say I. Rebecca'll never come to grief along of her beauty, that's certain, and there's no use in humoring her to think about her looks. I believe she's vain as a peacock now without anything to be vain of. She's young and attracted bright things, that's all. I remember well enough how I felt at her age. You was considerable of a fool at her age, Jane. Yes, I was, thank the Lord. I only wish I'd known how to take a little of my foolishness along with me, as some folks do, to brighten my declining years. There finally was a pink gingham, and when it was nicely finished, Aunt Jane gave Rebecca a delightful surprise. She showed her how to make a pretty trimming of narrow white linen tape by folding it in pointed shapes and sewing it down very flat with neat little stitches. It'll be good fancy work for you, Rebecca, for your Aunt Miranda won't like to see you always reading in the long winter evenings. Now, if you think you can baste two rows of white tape around the bottom of your pink skirt and keep it straight by the checks, I'll stitch them on for you and trim the waist and sleeves with pointed tape trimming, so the dress will be real pretty for second best. Rebecca's joy knew no bounds. I'll baste like a house of fire, she exclaimed. It's a thousand yards around that skirt as well I know, having hymned it, but I could sew pretty trimming on it if it was from here to Milltown. Oh, do you think Aunt Miranda will ever let me go to Milltown with Mr. Cobb? He's asked me again, you know, but one Saturday I had to pick strawberries and another it rained, and I don't think she really approves of my going. It's 29 minutes past four Aunt Jane and Alice Robinson has been sitting out under the current bushes for a long time waiting for me. Can I go play? Yes, you may go and you better run as far as you can out behind the barn so your noise won't distract your Aunt Miranda. I see Susan Simpson and the twins and Emma Jane Perkins hiding behind the fence. Rebecca leaped off the porch, snatched Alice Robinson from under the current bushes, and what was much more difficult succeeded by means of a complicated system of signals and getting Emma Jane away from the Simpson party and giving them the slip altogether. They were much too small for certain pleasurable activities planned for that afternoon, but they were not to be despised, for they had the most fascinating dooryard in the village. In it, in bewildering confusion, were old slays, pungs, horse rakes, hog sheds, cities without backs, bedsteads without heads, and all stages of disability and never the same on two consecutive days. Mrs. Simpson was seldom at home, and even when she was, had little concern as to what happened on the premises. A favorite diversion was to make the house into a fort, gallantly held by a handful of American soldiers against the besieging force of the British Army. Great care was used in apportioning the parts, for there was no disposition to let anybody win but the Americans. C. S. Simpson was usually made Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, and a limp and uncertain when he was, capable with his contradictory orders and his fondness for the extreme rear of leading any regiment to an inglorious death. Sometimes the long-suffering house was a log hut, and the brave settlers defended a band of hostile Indians, or occasionally were massacred by them. But in either case, the Simpson house looked to quote a Riverbro expression as if the devil had been at having an auction in it. Next to this uncommonly interesting playground, as a field of action came in the children's opinion, the secret spot. There was a velvety stretch of ground in the Sawyer pasture, which was full of fascinating hollows and hill-cocks, as well as verdant levels on which to build houses. A group of trees concealed it somewhat from view, and flung a grateful shade over the dwellings erected there. It had been hard through sweet labor to take armfuls of stick-ins and cut-rounds from the mill to this secluded spot, and that had been done mostly after supper in the dusk of evenings gave it a still greater flavor. Here in soap boxes hidden among the trees were stored all of their treasures. We baskets and plates and cups made of burdock balls, bits of broken china for parties, dolls soon to be outgrown, but serving well as characters in all sorts of romances enacted there. Deaths, funerals, weddings, christenings. A tall square house of stick-ins was to be built around Rebecca this afternoon, and she was to be Charlotte Corday leaning against the bars of her prison. It was a wonderful experience standing inside the building with Emma Jane's apron wound about her hair. Wonderful to feel when she leaned her head against the bars they seemed to turn to cold iron, that her eyes were no longer Rebecca Randalls, but mirrored something of Charlotte Corday's hapless woe. Ain't it lovely, sighed the humble twain who had done most of the labor, but who generously admire the result. I hate to have to take it down, said Alice. It has been such a sight of work. If you think you could move up some stones, and just take off the top rows I could step over, suggested Charlotte Corday. Then leave the stones, and you two can step down into the prison tomorrow, and be the two little princes in the tower, and I can murder you. What princes? What tower? asked Alice and Emma Jane in one breath. Tell us about them. Not now. It's my supper time. Rebecca was a somewhat firm disciplinarian. It would be elegant being murdered by you, said Emma Jane Loyally, though you were awful real when you murder. Or we could have Elijah and Elisha for the princess. They'd yell when they was murdered, objected Alice. You know how silly they are at plays, all except Clara Bell. Besides, if we once showed them the secret place, they'll play in it all the time, and perhaps they'd steal things like their father. They didn't steal anything They didn't steal just because their father does, argued Rebecca, and don't you ever talk about it before them if you want to be my secret particular friends. My mother tells me never to say hard things about people's own folks to their face. She says nobody can bear it, and it's wicked to shame them for what isn't their fault. Remember Minnie Smelly? Well, they had no difficulty in recalling that dramatic episode, for it had occurred only a few days before, and a version of it that would have melted the stonious heart had been presented to every girl in the village by Minnie Smelly herself. Who, though it was Rebecca, and not she, who came off victorious in the bloody battle of words, nursed her resentment and intended to have revenge. End of Chapter 6 Recorded by Laurie Hebel Emmitsburg, Iowa Chapter 7 of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recorded by Laurie Hebel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wigan Chapter 7 River Borough Secrets Mr. Simpson spent little time with his family, owing to certain awkward methods of horse trading, or the swapping of farm implements and vehicles of various kinds, operations in which his customers were never long suited. After every successful trade, he generally passed a longer or shorter term in jail. For when a poor man without goods or chattels has the in-veteran tab at a swapping, it follows naturally that he must have something to swap, and having nothing of his own, it follows still more naturally that he must swap something belonging to his neighbors. Mr. Simpson was absent from the home circle for the moment, because he had exchanged the widow-rideout slave for Joseph Goodwin's plow. Goodwin had lately moved to north Edgewood and had never before met the urbane and persuasive Mr. Simpson. The Goodwin plow, Mr. Simpson speedily bartered with a man over Wareham Way and got in exchange for it an old horse, which his owner did not need as he was leaving town to visit his daughter for a year. Simpson fattened the aged animal, keeping him for several weeks at early morning or after nightfall, and one neighbor's pasture after another, and then exchanged him with the milltown man for a top buggy. It was at this juncture that the widow-rideout Mr. Slave from the old carriage house. She had not used it for fifteen years and might not sit in it for another fifteen, but it was property and she did not intend to part with it without a struggle. Such is the suspicious nature of the village mind that the moment she discovered her loss, her thought at once reverted to Abner Simpson. So complicated, however, was the nature of this particular business transaction, and so torturous the paths of its progress, partly owing to the complete disappearance of the owner of the horse who had gone to the west and left no address, that it took the sheriff many weeks to prove Mr. Simpson's guilt to the towns and to the widow-rideout satisfaction. Abner himself avowed his complete innocence and told the neighbors how a red-haired man with a hair-lip and a pepper and salt suit of clothes had called him up one morning about daylight and offered to swap him a good sleigh for an old cider-press he had lay now in the door-yard. The bargain was struck and he, Abner, had paid the hair-lip stranger four dollars and seventy-five cents to boot, whereupon the mysterious one set down the sleigh took the press on his cart and vanished up the road never to be seen or heard from afterwards. If I could once catch that concerned old thief exclaimed Abner righteously, I'd make him dance, working off a stolen sleigh on me and taking away my good money and cider-press to say nothing on my character. You'll never catch him, Ab, respond to the sheriff. He's cut out of the same piece of goods as that there cider-press and that there character and that there four seventy-five a yarn. Nobody ever seen any of them but you and you'll never see him again. Mrs. Simpson, who was decidedly Abner's better half, took in washing and went out to do day's cleaning and the town helped during the feeding and clothing of the children. George, a lanky boy of 14, did chores on neighboring farms and the others, Samuel, Claribel, Susan, Elijah, and Elisha went to school when sufficiently clothed and not otherwise more pleasantly engaged. There were no secrets in the villages that lay along the banks of Pleasant River. There were many hardworking people among the inhabitants but life wore away so quietly and slowly that there was a good deal of spare time for conversation. Under the trees at noon in the hayfield, hanging over the bridge at nightfall, seated about the stove in the village store of an evening. These meeting places furnished ample ground for the discussion of current events as viewed by the masculine eye. While the choir rehearsals sowing societies, reading circles, church picnics, and the like, gave opportunity for the expression of feminine opinion. All of this was taken very much for granted as a rule but now and then some super sensitive person made violent objections to it as a theory of life. Delilah Weeks, for example, was a maiden lady who did dress making in a small way. She fell ill and although attended by all the physicians in the neighborhood was sinking slowly into a decline when her cousin Cyrus asked her to come and keep house for him in Lewistown. She went and in a year grew into a robust, hearty, cheerful woman. Returning to Riverboro on a brief visit, she was asked if she meant to end her days away from home. I do most certainly if I can get any other place to stay, she responded candidly. I was being worn to a shatter here trying to keep my little secrets to myself and never succeeding. First they had it I wanted to marry the minister and when he took a wife in Standish I was known to be disappointed. Then for five or six years they suspicioned I was trying for a place to teach school. And when I gave a hub hope and took to dress making they pitted me and sympathized with me for that. When father died I was bound I'd never let anyone know how I was left for that spiked some worse than anything else. But there's ways of finding out and they found out hard as I fought them. Then there was my brother James that went to Arizona when he was sixteen. I gave good news of him for thirty years running but Aunt Ashi Tarbox had a ferret and cousin that went to Tombstone for her health and she wrote to a post master or some kind of town authority and found Jim and wrote back Aunt Ashi all about him and just how unfortunate he'd been. They knew when I had my teeth out and a new set made they knew when I put on a false front piece they knew when the fruit peddler asked me to be his third wife. I never told him and you can be sure he never did but they don't need to be told in this village. They have nothing to do but guess and they'll guess right every time. I was all tuckered out trying to mislead him and to seed him and sidetrack him but in the minute I got where I wasn't being put under a microscope by day and a telescope by night and had myself to myself without saying by your leave I began to pick up. Cousin Cyrus is an old man and considerable trouble but he thinks my teeth are handsome and says I've got a splendid suit of hair. There ain't a person in Lewistown that knows about the minister or father's will or Jim's doing or the fruit peddler and if they should find out they wouldn't care and they couldn't remember for Lewistown's a busy place thanks Miss Delilah Weeks may have exaggerated matters somewhat but it is easy to imagine that Rebecca as well as all the other riverworld children had heard the particulars of the widow ride-outs missing slay and Abner Simpson's supposed connection with it. There is not an excess of delicacy or shiverly in the ordinary country school and several choice conundrums and bits of verse dealing with the Simpson Affair were bandied about the scholars uttered always to be said to their credit in undertones and when the Simpson children were not in the group. Rebecca Randall was of precisely the same stock and had had much of the same associations as her schoolmates so one can hardly say why she so hated mean gossip and so instinctively held herself aloof from it. Among the riverbrawl girls of her own age was a certainly excellently named Minnie Smelly who was anything but a general favorite. She was a ferret-eyed, lawn-haired, spindle-laid little creature whose mind was a cross between that of a parrot and a sheep. She was suspective copying answers from other girl slates although she had never been caught in the act. Rebecca and Emma Jane always knew when she had brought a tart or triangle of layer cake with her in her school luncheon because on those days she forstook the cheerful society of her mates and sought a safe solitude in the woods returning after a time with a jock and smile on her smug face. After one of these private luncheons Rebecca had been tempted beyond her strength and when Minnie took her seat among them she asked, is your headache better Minnie? Let me wipe off that strawberry jam over your mouth. There was no jam as a matter of fact but the guilty Minnie's handkerchief went to her crimson face in a flash. Rebecca confessed to Emma Jane that same afternoon that she felt ashamed of her prank. I do hate her ways she exclaimed but I'm sorry I let her know we expected her and so to make up I gave her that little piece of broken coral I keep in my bead purse. You know the one? It don't hardly seem as if she deserved that and her so greedy remarked Emma Jane. I know it but it makes me feel better said Rebecca largely and then I've had it two years and it's broken so it wouldn't ever be any real good beautiful as it is to look at. The coral had partly served its purpose as a reconciling bond when one afternoon Rebecca who had stayed after school for a grammar lesson as usual was returning home by way of the shortcut. Far ahead beyond the bars she spied the Simpson children just entering the woodsy bit. Seesaw was not with them so she hastened her steps in order to secure company on her homeward walk. They were speedily lost to view but when she had almost overtaken them in the trees beyond Minnie Smilly's voice lifted high in song and the sound of a child sobbing. Clara Bell, Susan and the twins were running along the path and Minnie was dancing up and down shrinking. What made the sleigh love Simpson so the eager children cried? Why Simpson loved the sleigh you know the teacher quick replied. The last glimpse of the routed Simpson tribe and the last rudder of their tattered garments disappeared in the dim distance. The fall of one small stone cast by the valent Elijah known as the fighting twin did break the stillness of the woods for a moment but it did not come within a hundred yards of Minnie who shouted jail birds at the top of her lungs and then turned with an agreeable feeling of excitement to meet Rebecca standing perfectly still in the path of the day of reckoning plainly set forth in her blazing eyes. Minnie's face was not pleasant to see for a coward detected at the moment of wrongdoing is not an object of delight. Minnie Smilly if I ever catch you singing that to the Simpsons again do you know what I'll do? asked Rebecca in a tone of concentrated rage I don't know and I don't care said Minnie Johnnolly though her looks belied her. I'll take that piece of coral away from you and I think I shall slap you besides. You wouldn't darest retorted Minnie if you do I'll tell my mother and the teacher so there I don't care if you tell your mother my mother and all your relations and the president said Rebecca gaining courage as the noble words fell from her lips I don't care if you tell the town the whole of York County the state of Maine and the nation she finished grand eloquently. Now you run home and remember what I say if you do it again and especially if you say jailbirds if I think it's right in my duty I shall punish you somehow. The next morning at recess Rebecca observed Minnie telling the tale with variations to hold a reserve she threatened me whispered Minnie but I never believe a word she says the latter remark was spoken with the direct intention of being overheard for Minnie had spasms of bravery one well surrounded by the machinery of law and order as Rebecca went back to her seat she asked Ms. Dearborn if she might pass a note to Minnie Smelly and receive permission this was the note of all the girls that are so mean there's none like Minnie Smelly I'll take away the gift I gave and pound her into jelly P.S. now do you believe me are Randall the effect of this piece of dog girl was entirely convincing and for days afterwards whenever Minnie meant the Simpsons even a mile from the brick house she shuddered and held her piece End of Chapter 7 Recorded by Lori Hebel Emmitsburg, Iowa Chapter 8 of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm 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 Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wigan Chapter 8 Color of Rose On the very next Friday after this dreadfulest fight that ever was seen as Bunyan says in Pilgrim's Progress there were great doings in the little schoolhouse on the hill Friday afternoon was always the time chosen for dialogues songs and recitations but it cannot be stated that it was a gala day in any true sense of the word most of the children hated speaking pieces hated the burden of learning them dreaded the danger of breaking down in them Miss Dearborn commonly went home with a headache and never left her bed during the rest of the afternoon or evening and the casual female parent who attended the exercises sat on a front bench with beads of cold sweat on her forehead listening to the all too familiar halts and stammers sometimes a bellowing infant who had clean forgotten his verse would cast himself bodily on the maternal bosom and be borne out into the open air where he was sometimes kissed and occasionally spanked but in any case the failure added an extra dash of gloom and dread to the occasion the advent of Rebecca had somehow infused a new spirit into these hitherto terrible afternoons she had taught Elijah and Elisha Simpson so that they recited three verses of something with such comical effect that they delighted themselves the teacher and the school while Susan who lisp had been provided with a humorous poem in which she had impersonated a lisping child Emma Jane and Rebecca had a dialogue and the sense of companionship buoyed up Emma Jane and gave her self-reliance in fact Miss Dearborn announced on this particular Friday morning that the exercises promised to be so interesting that she had invited the doctor's wife the minister's wife two members of the school committee and a few mothers living Perkins was asked to decorate one of the blackboards and Rebecca the other living who is the star artist of the school chose the map of North America Rebecca liked better to draw things less realistic and speedily before the eyes of the enchanted multitude there grew under her skillful fingers an American flag done in red white and blue chalk every star in its right place every stripe fluttering in the breeze beside this appeared a figure of Columbia copied from the top of the cigar box that held the crayons Miss Dearborn was delighted I propose we give Rebecca a good hand clapping for such a beautiful picture one that the whole school may well be proud of the scholars clapped heartily and Dick Carter waving his hand gave a rousing cheer Rebecca's heart leaped for joy and to her confusion she felt tears rising in her eyes she could hardly see the way back to her seat for in her ignorant lonely little life she had never been singled out for applause never lauded nor crowned as in this wonderful dazzling moment if nobleness and kindlith nobleness so does enthusiasm beget enthusiasm and so do wit and talent and kindl wit and talent Alice Robinson proposed that the school should sing three cheers for the rest of her life red, white, and blue and when they came to the chorus all point to Rebecca's flag Dick Carter suggested that living Perkins and Rebecca Randall should sign their names to their pictures so that visitors would know who drew them Holda Messerv asked permission to cover the largest holes in the plastered walls with bows and fill the water pail with wildflowers Rebecca's mood was above and beyond all practical details she sat silent her heart so full of grateful joy that she could hardly remember the words of her dialogue at recess she bore herself modestly notwithstanding her great triumph while in the general atmosphere of goodwill the smelly Randall hatchet was buried and many gathered maple bows and covered the ugly stove with them under Rebecca's direction Miss Dearborn dismissed the morning session at quarter to twelve so that those who lived near enough could go home for a change of dress Emma Jane and Rebecca ran nearly every step of the way from sheer excitement only stopping to breathe at the styles Will your Aunt Miranda let you wear your best or only your Buff Calico asked Emma Jane I think I'll ask Aunt Jane Rebecca replied Oh, if my pink was only finished I left Aunt Jane making the buttonholes I'm going to ask my mother to let me wear her garnet rings said Emma Jane it would look perfectly elegant flashing in the sun when I point to the flag Goodbye, don't wait for me going back I may get a ride Rebecca found the side door locked but she knew that the key was under the step and so of course did everybody else in Riverboro for they all did about the same thing with it she unlocked the door and went into the dining room to find her lunch laid on the table and a note from Aunt Jane saying that they had gone to moderation with Mrs. Robinson in her carry-all Rebecca swallowed a piece of bread and butter and flew up the front stairs to her bedroom on the bed lay the pink kingdom dress finished by Aunt Jane's kind hands could she dare she wear it without asking did the occasion justify a new costume or would her aunts think she ought to keep it for the concert I'll wear it, thought Rebecca they're not here to ask and maybe they wouldn't mind a bit it's only gingham after all and wouldn't be so grand if it wasn't new and hadn't taped trimming on it and wasn't pink she unbraided her two pigtails combed out the waves of her hair and tied them back with the ribbon changed her shoes and then slipped on the pretty frock managing to fasten all but the three middle buttons which she reserved for Emma Jane then her eye fell on her cherished pink sunshade the exact match and the girls had never seen it it wasn't quite appropriate for school but she needn't take it into the room she would wrap it in a piece of paper just show it and carry it coming home she glanced in the parlor looking glass downstairs and was electrified at the vision it seemed almost as if beauty of apparel could go no farther than that heavenly pink gingham dress the sparkle of her eyes glow of her cheeks sheen of her falling hair passed unnoticed in the all-conquering charm of the rose-colored garment goodness it was twenty minutes to one and she would be late she danced out the side door pulled a pink rose from a bush at the gate and covered the mile between the brick house and the seat of learning in an incredibly short time meeting Emma Jane also breathless and resplendent at the entrance Rebecca Randall exclaimed Emma Jane you're handsome as a picture I laughed Rebecca nonsense it's only the pink gingham you're not good looking every day insisted Emma Jane but you're different somehow see my garnet ring mother scrubbed it in soap and water how on earth did your Aunt Miranda let you put on your brand new dress they were both away and I didn't ask Rebecca responded anxiously why do you think they'd have said no Miss Miranda always says no doesn't she asked Emma Jane yes but this afternoon is very special almost like a sunday school concert yes a certain Emma Jane it is of course with your name on the board and our pointing to your flag and our elegant dialogue and all that the afternoon was one succession of solid triumphs for everybody concerned there were no real failures at all no tears no parents ashamed of their offspring Miss Dearborn heard many admiring remarks passed upon her ability and wondered whether they belonged to her or partly at least to Rebecca the child had no more to do than several others but she was somehow in the foreground it transpired afterwards at various village entertainments that Rebecca couldn't be kept in the background it positively refused to hold her her worst enemy could not have called her pushing she was ready and willing and never shy but she sought for no chances of display and was indeed remarkably lacking in self-consciousness as well as eager to bring others into whatever fun or entertainment there was if wherever the McGregor sat was the head of the table so in the same way wherever Rebecca stood was the center of the stage her clear high trebles sort of above all the rest in the choruses and somehow everybody watched her took note of her gestures her whole soul singing her irrepressible enthusiasm finally it was all over and it seemed to Rebecca as if she should never be cool and calm again as she loitered on the homeward path there would be no lessons to learn tonight and the vision of helping with the preserves on the morrow had no terrors for her fears could not draw breath in the radiance that flooded her soul there were the thick gathering clouds in the sky but she took no note of them saved to be glad that she could raise her sunshade she did not tread the solid ground at all or have any sense of belonging to the common human family until she entered the side yard of the brick house and saw her Aunt Miranda standing in the open doorway then with a rush she came back to earth