 Dramatis Pezone of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas-Wiggin. This is a LibriVax recording. All LibriVax recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVax.org. Narrator. Read by T.J. Burns. Rebecca Randall, read by J.K.76. Miranda Sawyer, read by Christine Layman. Jane Sawyer, read by Laura Riley. Emma Jane Perkins, read by Jasmine Selma. Adam Ladd, read by Will Nestle. Emily Maxwell, read by The Story Girl. Miss Dearborn, read by Hannah Mary. Jeremiah Cobb, read by Greg Giordano. Sarah Cobb, read by pseudonymus Nerd. Aurelia Randall, read by Beth Thomas. Hilda Miserve, read by phone. Mrs. Robinson, read by Fiddlesticks. Reverend Birch, read by Shasta. Mrs. Birch, read by Patty T. Deania Weeks, read by Alice Hastie. Lydia Burnham, read by Bavia. Mrs. Perkins, read by Laura Riley. Martha Miserve, read by J.K.76. Minnie Smelly, read by Rosa Grace. Abner Simpson, read by Donald Gilmore. Clara Bell Simpson, read by Twinkle. Samuel Simpson, read by Thomas Peter. Susan Simpson, read by Sterling Bronwyn. Alice Robinson, read by Leanne Yau. Hannah Randall, read by Leanne Yau. Lorenzo Randall, read by Donald Gilmore. Lorenzo's Mother, read by J.K.76. Deacon Millican, read by Donald Gilmore. Sheriff, read by Thomas Peter. Mr. Robinson, read by Donald Gilmore. Tom Carter, read by Donald Gilmore. Will Melville, read by Ryuken. Minnie Smelly's Mother, read by pseudonymus No. Lady in Window, read by Hannah Mary. Hope, played in April Green. Read by Maria Joy. End of Dermatis Pazzone. Each coach was rumbling along the dusty road that runs from Maplewood to Riverboro. The day was as warm as mid-summer, though it was only the middle of May. And Mr. Jeremiah Cobb was favouring 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 warm felt was 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 of the seat with her feet and extended her cotton-glove hands on each side in order to maintain some sort of balance. Whenever the wheels sank further 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-burrow 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 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 Riverborough," 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. Goodbye, Rebecca. Try not to get into any mischief and sit quiet so you'll look nice and neat when you get there. Don't be any trouble to Mr. Cobb. You see, she's kind of excited. We came on the cars from Temperance yesterday, slept all night at my cousin's and drove from her house, eight miles at his, this morning. Goodbye, mother, don't worry. You know it isn't as if I hadn't travelled before. The woman gave a short, sardonic laugh and said in an explanatory way to Mr. Cobb, ah, she's been to Warham and stayed overnight. That isn't much to be journey-proud on. It was travelling, mother, said the child eagerly and willfully. It was leaving the farm and putting up lunch in a basket and a little riding and a little steam cars and we carried our nightgowns. Don't tell the whole village about it if we did, said the mother, interrupting the reminiscences of this experienced voyager. Haven't I told you before? She whispered in a last attempt at discipline that you shouldn't talk about nightgowns 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 when I won't. All I want to say is... Here Mr. Cobb gave a clock, slapped the reins and the horses started sedately on their daily task. All I want to say is that it is a journey one. The stage was really underway now and Rebecca had put her head out of the window over the door in order to finish her sentence. It is a journey when you carry a nightgown. The objectionable word, uttered in a high treble, floated back to the offended ears of Mrs. Randall who watched the stage out of sight, gathered up her packages from the bench at the store door and stepped into the wagon that had been standing at the hitching post. As she turned the horses head towards home she rose to her feet for a moment and shading her eyes with her hand looked at the 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 half an hour ago and the sun, the heat, the dust, the contemplation of errands to be done in the great metropolis of Milltown had lulled to Mr. Cobb's never-active mind into complete oblivion as to his promise of keeping an eye on Rebecca. Suddenly he heard a small voice above the rattle and rumble of the wheels and the creaking of the harness. At first he thought it was a cricket, a tree toad or a bird, but having determined the direction from which it came he turned his head over his shoulder and saw a small shape hanging as far out of the window as safety would allow. A long black braid of hair swung with the motion of the coach. The child held her hat in one hand and with the other made ineffectual attempts to stab the driver with her microscopic sunshade. Please let me speak. She called. Mr. Cobb drew up the horses obediently. Does it cost any more to ride up there with you? She asked. It's slippery and shiny down here and the stage is so much too big for me that I rattle round in it till I'm most black and blue and the windows are so small I can only see pieces of things and I've most broken my neck stretching round to find out whether my drunk 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, come up if you want to. There ain't no extra charge to sit o'side me. Whereupon he helped her out boosted her up to the front seat and resumed his own place. Rebecca sat down carefully smoothing her dress under her with painstaking precision and putting her sunshade under its extended folds between the driver and herself. This done she pushed back her hat pulled up her darned white cotton gloves and delightedly. Oh, this is better. This is like traveling. I'm a real passenger now and down there I feel like our sitting 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'll be half past one. Mother will be at Cousin Ann's. At home we'll have had their dinner and Hannah cleared all the way. I've had some lunch because Mother said it would be a bad beginning to get to the brick house hungry and have Aunt Miranda get me something to eat the first thing. It's a good growing day, isn't it? It is certain, too hot most. Why don't you put up your parasol? She extended her dress still farther over the article in question, as she said. Oh, dear no. I never put it up when the sun shines. Pink fades awfully, you know, right to meeting cloudy Sundays. Sometimes the sun comes out all of a sudden and I have a dreadful time covering it up. It's the dearest thing in life to me, but it's an awful care. At this moment the thought gradually permeated Mr. Jeremiah Cobb's slow-moving mind that the bird perched by his side was a bird of very different feather from those to which he was accustomed in his daily drives. He put the whip back into its socket, took his foot from the dashboard, pushed his hat back, blew his quid of tobacco into the road and having thus cleared his mental decks for action he took his first good look at the passenger, a look which he 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 bristled stiffly over one ear giving her the quaintest and most unusual appearance. Her face was without color and sharp in outline. As to her 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 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 learned his face by heart. Did you notice the pink double ruffle on the white tip and handle? They're ivory. The handle is scarred, you see. That's because Fanny sucked in shooting and 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 Mira. Well, that is a big family. Far too big, everybody says. Did Rebecca with an unexpected and thoroughly grown-up candor that induced Mr. Cobb to murmur? Ice swan. And insert more tobacco in his left cheek. They're dear, but such a bother and cost so much to feed, you see. She rippled on. Hannah and I haven't done anything but put babies to bed at night and take them up in the morning for years and years. But it's finished, that's one comfort, and we'll have a lovely time when we're all grown up and the mortgage is paid off. All finished? Oh, you mean you've come away? No, I mean they're all over in Denmouth. Our family's finished. Mother says so, and she always keeps her promises. There hasn't been any since Mira, and she's three. She was born the day Father died. Aunt Miranda wanted Hannah to come to Riverborough 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, Dee. 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 way to Cousin Ann's and went to bed. Then we got up and drove ever so far to Maplewood where the stage was. Our farm is away off from everywhere, 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 on cows look 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 hope they would. Still, they don't look quite as big as if we were down side of them, do they? Boys always do the nice, splendid things, and girls can only do the nasty dull ones that get left over. They can't climb so high or go so far or stay out so late or run so fast or anything. Mr. Cobb wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and gasped. He had a feeling that he was being hurried from peak to peak of a mountain range without time to take a good breath in between. I can't seem to locate your farm, he said. Though I've been to temperance and used to live up that way. What's your folk's name? Randall. My mother's name is Aurelia Randall. Our names are Hannah Lucy Randall, Rebecca Rowena Randall, John Halifax Randall, Jenny Land Randall, Marquise Randall, Fanny Elson Randall, and Miranda Randall. Mother named half of us and father the other half, but we didn't come out even, so they both thought it would be nice to name Mira after Aunt Miranda in Riverboro. They hoped it might do some good, but it didn't, and now we call her Mira. We're all named after somebody in particular. Hannah is Hannah at the window, binding shoes, and I'm taken out of Ivanhoe. John Halifax was a gentleman in the book. Mark is after his uncle Marquise de Lafayette, the Dive Twin. Twins very often don't live to cure off, 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 Fanny for a beautiful dancer, but mother says they're both misfits, for Jenny can't carry a tune and Fanny's kind of stiff-lugged. Mother would like to call them Jane and Frances and give up their metal 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, old liberty! I should think it was enough. Ejaculated, Mr. Cobb. There weren't 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 was 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. They don't seem any way of saving shoes but taking them off and going barefoot. But I can't do that in Riverboro without shooing 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 Wehrheim. 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 hop'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 sententiously. Rebecca turned the full light of her eyes upon him reproachfully. Almost severely, as she answered. Oh, don't say that and be like all the rest. It does make a difference what you call things. When I say Randall's farm, do you see how it looks? No, I can't say I do. Responded Mr. Cobb uneasily. Now what 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. It'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 bubbles. Whenever there's a bit of sunshine, the brook catches it and it's always full of sparkles on a live long day. Don't your stomach feel hollow? Mine does. I was so afraid I'd miss the stage I couldn't eat any breakfast. You better have your lunch then. I don't eat nothing till I get to Milltown. Then I get a piece of pie and a cup of coffee. I wish I could see Milltown. I suppose it's bigger and grander even than Wareham, more like Paris. Mr. Ross told me about Paris. She brought my pink sunshade there and my bead purse. You see how it opens with a snap? I have twenty cents in it and it's got to last three months for stamps and paper and ink. Mother says Aunt Miranda would want to buy things like those when she's feeding and clothing me and paying for my school books. Paris ain't no great. Said Mr. Cobb disparagingly. It's the dullest place in the state of Maine. I've drove through there many a time. Again Rebecca was obliged to reprove Mr. Cobb. Tessedly and quietly but nonetheless surely though the reproof was dealt with one glance quickly sent and as quickly withdrawn. Paris is the capital of France and you have to go to it on a boat. She said instructively. It's in my geography and it says the French are gay and polite people fond of dancing and light wines. I asked the teacher what light wines were and he thought it was something like new cider or maybe ginger pop. I can see Paris as plain as day by just shedding my eyes. The beautiful ladies are always gaily dancing around with pink sunshades and bead purses and the grand gentlemen are all 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 you're out, Miranda, you'll let you. I'll take you down to Milltown some day this summer when the stage ain't full. A thrill of delicious excitement ran through Rebecca's frame her new shoes up, up to the leghorn cap, and down the back braid. She pressed Mr. Cobb's knee ardently and said in a voice choking with tears of joy and astonishment. Oh it can't be true, it can't. To think I should see Milltown, it's like having a fairy godmother who asks you your wish and then gives it to you. Did you ever read Cinderella or the Yellow Dwarf or the Enchanted Frog or the fair one with golden locks? No. Said Mr. Cobb cautiously after a moment's reflection. I don't seem to think I ever did read just those particular ones. Where'd you get a chance at so much reading? Oh I've read lots of books. I'd said Rebecca casually. Fathers and Miss Rosses and all the different school teachers and all in a Sunday school library. I've read The Lamplighter and Scottish Chiefs and Ivanhoe and the Era of Red Cliff 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 sight in my time. Nowadays I'm so drove I get along with the Almanac, the weekly Argus and the main state agriculturalist. 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 Riverborough in the distance. Tainfer lived 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? Asked Mr. Cobb curiously. Dashed 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 solar in the dark. There might be ogres and giants under the stairs, but as I tell him there might be elves and fairies and enchanted frogs. Is there a main street to the village like that and where him? I suppose you might call the main street and your Aunt Sawyer lives on it. 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 sighed. Because it would be so grand to drive down a real main street sitting high up like this between two splendid horses with my pink sunshade up and everybody in town wondering who the bunch of lilacs in the hair-trunk belongs to. It would be just like the beautiful lady in the parade. Last summer the circus kicked into temperance and they had a procession in the morning. Mother let us all walk in in wheel-mirror and 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 a snake-trimmer all dressed in satin and spingles. She was so beautiful beyond compare, Mr. Cobb, that you had to swallow lumps in your throat when you looked at her and the little cold feelings kept 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, I mean no harm as I can see in our making the grand entry in the biggest style we can. I'll take the whip out, set up straight and dry fast. You'll hold your bouquet in your lap and open your little red parasol and we'll just make the native stare. The child's face was radiant for a moment, but the glow faded just as quickly as she said, I forgot, mother put me inside and maybe she'd want me to be there when I got down to Aunt Miranda's. Maybe I'd be more genteel inside and then I wouldn't have to be jumped down and fly up, but could open the door and step down like a lady passenger. Would you please stop a minute, Mr. Cobb and let me change? The stage driver, good-naturedly, pulled up his horses, lifted the excited little creature down, opened the door and helped her in, putting the lilacs and the pink sunshade beside her. We've had a great trip, he said. And we've got real well acquainted, haven't we? You won't forget about Miltown. She exclaimed fervently, and you're sure you won't either? Never, cross my heart. Vowed Mr. Cobb solemnly as he remounted his perch. And as the stage rumbled down the village street between the green maples, those who looked from their windows saw a little brown elf in buff calico sitting primly on the back seat, holding a great bouquet tightly in one hand and a pink parasol in the other. Had they been far-sighted 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 Temperance Way. It seems they wrote to Aurelia and invited Hannah, the oldest, but Aurelia said she could spare Rebecca better. 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 if Spanish blood is any real disgrace, not if it's a good way's back, and the woman was respectable. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas-Wiggin Chapter Two Rebecca's Relations They had been called the Sawyer Girls when Miranda at 18, Jane at 12, and Aurelia at 8 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 this story opens, Riverboro still called them the Sawyer Girls. They were spinsters, but Aurelia, the youngest, had made what she called a romantic marriage and what her sisters termed a mighty poor speculation. There's worse things than 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 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 an age to enter society the intricacies of contra-dances or the steps of the Scottish and Mozerca and he was a marked figure in all social assemblies though conspicuously absent from the 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 Marquis de Lafayette and Lorenzo de Medici, Randall had supported herself and educated her child by making coats up to the very day of her death. She was wont to say plaintively I'm afraid the faculties was too much divided up between my twins. LDM is often talented but I guess MDL would have been the practical one if he had a lit. He was practical enough to get the richest girl in the village. Replied Mrs. Robinson. Yes. There it is again. If the twins could have married Aurelia Sawyer it would have been alright. LDM was talented enough to get Aurelia's money but MDL would have been practical enough to have Kevin. Aurelia's share of the modest Sawyer property had been put into one thing after another by the handsome and luckless Lorenzo de Medici. Aurelia was a peaceful 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 having exhausted the resources of river borough 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 on 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 and to be buried from a duty somewhat too long deferred many thought which he performed on the day of Mira's birth. It was in this happy-go-lucky household that Rebecca had grown up. It was just an ordinary family two or three of the children were handsome and the rest plain three of them rather clever too industrious and too commonplace and dull. Rebecca had her father's facility and had been his aptus 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 her own 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 Mrs. Randall and Hannah had no sense of humor Rebecca possessed and showed it as soon as she could walk and talk she had not been able however to borrow her parents' virtues and those of other generous ancestors and escape all the weaknesses in the calendar she had not her sister Hannah's patience or her brother John's sturdy staying power her will was sometimes willfulness and the ease with which she did most things led her to be impatient of hard tasks or long ones but whatever else there was or was not there was freedom at Randall's farm the children grew worked fought ate what and slept where they could loved one another and their parents pretty well but with no tropical passion and educated themselves for nine months of the year each one in his own way as a result of this method Hannah who could only have been developed by forces applied from without was painstaking humdrum and limited while Rebecca who apparently needed nothing but space to develop had been and a knowledge of terms in which to express herself grew and grew and grew always from within outward her forces of one sword and another had seemingly been set in motion when she was born they needed no daily spur but moved of their own accord towards what no one knew least of all Rebecca herself the field for the exhibition of her creative instinct was painfully small and the only use she had made 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 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 di 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 14 was at once companion and partner in all her mother's problems she it was who kept the house while Aurelia busied herself in barn and field Rebecca was capable of certain set tasks such as keeping the small children from killing themselves and one another feeding the poultry, picking up chips hauling 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 care worn in face and sharp in manner 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 vigorously 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 to come back looking like a Christian this command she interpreted somewhat too literally perhaps because she contrived in a space of two minutes an extremely pious style of hair dressing fully as effective if not as startling as the first these antics were solely the result of nervous irritation a mood born of Miss Miranda Sawyer's stiff, grim and martial attitude the remembrance of Rebecca was so vivid that their sister Aurelia's letter was something of a shock to the quiet, elderly spinsters of the brick house for it said that Hannah could not possibly be spared for a few years yet but that Rebecca would come as soon as she could be made ready that the offer was most thankfully appreciated and that the regular schooling and church privileges as well as the influence of the Sawyer home would doubtlessly be the making of Rebecca I don't know as I cowlated to be the making 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 youngin' on somebody else You remember, we said that Rebecca would come as soon as she could be made ready that the offer was most likely to be made ready that the offer was most likely to be made ready You remember, we said that Rebecca or even Jenny might come in case Hannah couldn't Interposed Jane I know we did but we hadn't any notion it would turn out that way Grumbled Miranda She was a 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 ain't got her on the right track by now she won't take it to herself all of a sudden This depressed and depressing frame of mind had lasted until the eventful day dawned on which Rebecca was to arrive If she makes as much work after she comes as she has before we might as well give up hope of ever getting any rest Said Miranda as she hung the dish towels on the Barbary bushes at the side door But we should have had to clean house Rebecca or no Rebecca Urged Jane And I can't see why you've scrubbed and washed and baked as you have for that one child nor why you've about bought out Watson's stock of dry goods I know Aurelia if you don't Responded Miranda I've seen her house and I've seen that batch of children one another's clothes and never Karen 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 has not come here with a parcel of things borrowed from the rest of the family She'll have Hannah's shoes and John's under shirts 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 seen a duster and she'll be as hard to train in 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's spoken to biddable or not Remarked Miranda with a shake of the last towel Miranda Sawyer had a heart of course but she had never used it for any other purpose than the pumping and circulating of blood She was just conscientious economical industrious a regular attendant at church and Sunday school and a member of the state missionary and bible societies but in the presence of all these chilly virtues you longed for one warm little fault or lacking that one likable failing something to make you sure she was thoroughly alive She had never had any education other than that of the neighborhood district school for her desires and ambitions had all pointed to the management of the house the farm and the dairy Jane on the other hand had gone to an academy and also to a boarding school for young ladies so had Aurelia and after all the years that had elapsed there was still a slight difference in language and in manner between the elder and the two younger sisters Jane too had had the inestimable advantage of a sorrow not the natural grief at the loss of her aged father and mother for she had been content to let them go but something far deeper She was engaged to marry young Tom Carter who had nothing to marry on it is true but 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 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 a blaze with love and grief to put her arms about him so that he could have a home to die in and that was all all, but it served it carried her through weary months of nursing nursing of other soldiers for Tom's dear sake it sent her home a better woman and though she had never left Riverboro in all the years that lay between and had grown into the counterfeit presentment of her sister and of all other thin spare New England spinsters it was something of a counterfeit and underneath was still the faint echo of that wild 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 aulas were soft and you aulas will be if Twant for me keepin' you stiffened up I believe you'd leak out of the house into the door yard 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 wash stand 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 needing a bother to bring flowers remarked at 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 will be coming past and we can call them in well good bye Rebecca good day Miranda and Jane you've got a lively little girl there I guess she'll be a first rate company keeper Miss Sawyer shuddered openly at the adjective lively as applied to a child her belief being that though children might be seen if absolutely necessary they certainly should never be heard if she could help it we're not much used to noise Jane and me she remarked acidly Mr. Cobb saw that he had taken the wrong tack but he was too unused to argument to explain himself readily so he drove away trying to think by what safer word than lively he might have described his interesting little passenger I'll take you up and show you your room Rebecca Miss Miranda said shut the mosquito 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 wouldn't have thought you'd have worn your best hat on the stage it's my only hat explained Rebecca my everyday hat wasn't good enough to bring Fanny's gonna 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 here abouts 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 alright if you have seven children you can't keep buttoning and unbuttoning them all the time they have to do them themselves we're always buttoned up in front at our house Mira's only three but she's buttoned up in front too Miranda said nothing as she closed the door but her looks were at once equivalent to and more eloquent than words Rebecca stood perfectly still in the center of the floor and looked about her there was a square of oil cloth in front of each article of furniture and a drawn in rug beside the single four poster which was covered with the fringed white dimity counterpane everything was as neat as wax but the ceilings were much higher than Rebecca was accustomed to it was a north room and the window which was long and narrow looked out on the back buildings and the barn it was not the room which was far more comfortable than Rebecca's own at the farm nor the lack of view nor yet the long journey or she was not conscious of weariness it was not the fear of a strange place for she loved new places and courted new sensations it was because of some curious blending of uncomprehended emotions that Rebecca stood her sunshade in the corner tore off her best hat flung it on the bureau with the porcupine quills on the underside and stripping down the dimity spread precipitated herself into the middle of the bed and pulled the counterpane over her head in a moment the door opened quietly knocking was a refinement quite unknown in river borough and if it had been heard of would never have been wasted on a child Miss Miranda entered and as her eye wandered about the vacant room it fell upon a white and tempestuous ocean of counterpane an ocean breaking into strange movements of wave and crest and billow Rebecca the tone in which the word was voiced gave it all the effect of having been shouted from the housetops a dark ruffled head and two frightened eyes appeared above the dimity spread what are you 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 to 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 is spread your bed up smooth this minute for Baisha flags bringing your trunk upstairs and I wouldn't let him see such a cluttered up room for anything he'd tell it all over town when Mr. Cobb had put up his horses that night he carried a kitchen chair to the side of his wife who was sitting on the back porch I brought a little Randall girl down on the stage for 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 Ariela's child the one that ran away with Susan Randall's son just before we came here to live oh oh the child about ten or somewhere along there and small for her age 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 came across she's the quearest she ain't no beauty her face is all eyes but if she ever grows up to them eyes and feels odd little she'll make folks stare land mother I wished 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 to it 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 here Mr. Cobb laughed aloud as he tipped his chair back against the side of the house blamed if I can repeat any of it she kept me so surprised I didn't have my wits about me she had little pink sunshade kind of looked like a doll's ambril and she clunked to it like a bird to a woolen stockin I advised her to open it up the sun was so hot but she said no it would 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 words and it's all the words I remember it's the dearest thing in life to me but it's an awful care now 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 gold chariot says she she was so beautiful beyond compare Mr. Cobb that it made you have lumps in your throat to look at her she'll be coming over to see your 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 End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 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 Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas-Wigan Chapter 4 Rebecca's Point of View Dear mother I am safely here My dress was not much tumbled and Aunt Jane helped me press it out I like Mr. Cobb very much He chews but throws newspapers straight up to the doors I wrote outside a little while but got inside before I got to Aunt Miranda's house I did not want to but I thought she 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'm 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 parlour 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 she ran away with father and I can see it would be nice When she ran 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 I hope you won't mind what is in it as you run away The house is dark and dull and dreary No light doth shine from far or near It's like the tomb and those of us who live herein are most as dead as seraphim though not as good My guardian angel is asleep at least he doth no vigil keep Ah, woe is me Then give me back my lonely farm where none alive did wish me harm Dear home of you P.S. again I made the poetry like a piece in a book but could not get it right at first You see, tomb and good do not sound well together but I wanted to say tomb dreadfully and as seraphim or all was good I couldn't take that out I've made it over now It does not say my thoughts as well but I think it is more right Give the best one to John as he keeps him in a box with his bird tags This is the best one Sunday Thoughts by Rebecca Rowena Randall This house is dark and dull and dreary No light doth shine from far or near nor ever could And those of us who live herein are most as dead as seraphim though not as good My guardian angel is asleep at least he doth no vigil keep but far doth roam Then give me back my lonely farm where none alive did wish me harm Dear childhood home Dear mother I'm 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 at-em to me for it was handed 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 Jay wants enough to make a new waist button behind so I won't look so outlandish The styles are quite pretty in Riverborough 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 I 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 this fun 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 that seven multiplication table Miss Steerborn threatens to put me in the baby primer class with Leija and Alicia Simpson little twins sores my heart and bent my stubborn pride with Leija and Alicia and my tide my soul recoils like Cora 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 Sarah from in the dictionary I was ashamed I had made it Sarah Phim but Sarah Phim is not a word you can guess at like another long one outlandish in this letter which spells itself Miss Steerborn says use the words you can spell and if you can't spell Sarah Phim make angel do but angels are not just the same as Sarah Phim Sarah Phim 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 Sarah Phim I sew on brown gam dresses every afternoon when Emma and 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 Emma 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'm 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 Steerborn asked us what is the object of education and I said the object of mine was to help pay off the mortgage she told Anne M and I had to sew extra for punishment because the mortgage is a disgrace like stealing or smallpox and it will be all over town that we have one on our farm Emma Jane is not mortgage 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 I hide the new dog in the barn how he fit the rope and howled I'm just like him only the brick house is the barn and I cannot buy Anne 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 Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin Chapter 5 Wisdom's Ways The day of Rebecca's arrival had been Friday and on the Monday following she began her education at the school which was in Riverboro Center about a mile distant Miss Sawyer borrowed a neighbor's horse and wagon and drove her to the school house interviewing the teacher Miss Dearborn was working 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 no special preparation in the art of teaching it came to her naturally so her family said and perhaps for this reason she, like Tom Tulliver's clergyman tutor said about it with that uniformity of method and independence of circumstances which distinguish the actions of animals understood to be under the immediate teaching of nature you remember the beaver which a naturalist tells us visit himself as earnestly in constructing a dam in a room up three pair of stairs in London as if he had been laying his foundation in a lake in Upper Canada it was his function to build the absence of water or of possible progeny an accident for which he was not accountable in the same manner did Miss Dearborn lay what she fondly imagined to be foundations in the infant mind Rebecca walked to school after that 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 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 waxen Indian pipes seen just quickly enough waved from her careless tread then she climbed a stile went through a grassy meadow slid under another pair of bars and came out into the road again having gained nearly half a mile how delicious it all was Rebecca clasped her quaken bows grammar and green leaf arithmetic with a joyful sense of knowing her lessons her dinner pail swung 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 our chairs there was lack of women's nursing there was dearth of women's tears and the wing and the sentiment of it how her young voice quivered whenever she came to the refrain but we'll meet no more at Vingen dear Vingen on the Rhine it always sounded beautiful in her ears as she sent her tearful little treble into the clear morning air another early favorite for we must remember that Rebecca's only knowledge of the great world of poetry consisted of the selections in vogue in school readers was woodmen 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 woodmen because she had nothing to do but raise on high an imaginary axe on the one occasion when she essayed the part to protect her 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 woodmen's role much too tame for her vaulting ambition she reveled in the impassioned appeal of the poet and implored the ruthless woodmen to be as brutal as possible with the axe so that she might properly put cement into her lines one morning feeling more frisky than usual she fell upon her knees and wept in the woodmen'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 axe down you are not the woodman any longer what'll I do with my hands then? asked Emma Jane whatever you like Rebecca answered weirdly 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 we'll keep the little life I have till the coming of the morning this sort of thing made Emma Jane nervous and fidgety but she was Rebecca's slave and hugged her chains and comfortable they made her at the last pair of bars the two girls were sometimes met by a detachment of the Simpson children who lived in a black house with a red door and a red barn behind on the blueberry plains road Rebecca felt an interest in the Simpsons from the first because there were so many of them and they were so patched and darned just like her own brood at the home farm the little schoolhouse with its flagpole on top and its two doors in front one for boys and the other for girls stood on the crest of a hill with rolling fields and meadows on one side a stretch of pine woods on the other and the river glinting and sparkling in the distance it posted 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 as they were at once nearer to the windows and farther from the teacher there were classes of a sort although nobody, broadly speaking studied the same book with anybody else or had arrived at the same degree of proficiency in any one branch of learning Rebecca in particular was so difficult to classify that Miss Dearborn at the end of a fortnight gave up the attempt altogether she read with Dick Carter and Living Perkins who were fitting for the academy recited arithmetic with lisping little thufthun thymthun geography with Emma Jane Perkins and grammar after school hours to Miss Dearborn alone full to the brim as she was of clever thoughts and quaint fancies she made at first but a poor hand at composition the labor of writing and spelling with the added difficulties of punctuation and capitals interfered sadly with the free expression of ideas she took history with Alice Robinson's class which was attacking the subject of the revolution while Rebecca was bitten to begin with the discovery of America in a week she had mastered the course of events up to the revolution and in 10 days had arrived at Yorktown where the class had apparently established summer quarters then finding that extra effort would only result in her reciting with the oldest Simpson boy she deliberately held herself back for wisdom's ways were not those of pleasantness nor her paths those of peace if one were compelled to tread them in the company of Seesaw Simpson Samuel Simpson was generally called Seesaw because of his difficulty in making up his mind whether it were a question of fact of spelling or of date of going swimming or fishing of choosing a book in the Sunday school library or a stick of candy at the village store he had no sooner determined on one plan of action than his wish fondly reverted to the opposite one Seesaw was pale, flaxen-haired blue-eyed, round-shouldered and given to stammering when nervous perhaps because of his very weakness Rebecca's decision of character had a fascination for him and although she snubbed him to the verge of madness he could never keep his eyes away from her the force with which she tied her shoe when the lacing came undone the 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 an 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 but lifted her eyebrows unpleasantly and Rebecca neared the desk as she replaced the dipper Seesaw promptly raised his hand and Miss Dearborn indicated a weary affirmative what is the matter with you Rebecca? she asked I had salt mackerel for breakfast answered Rebecca there seemed nothing humorous about this reply which was merely the statement of a fact but an irrepressible titter ran through the school Miss Dearborn did not enjoy jokes neither made nor understood by herself and her face flushed I think you had better stand by the pale for five minutes Rebecca it may help you to control your thirst Rebecca's heart flooded she to stand in the corner by the water pale and be stared at by all the scholars she unconsciously made a gesture of angry descent and moved a step nearer to her seat but was arrested by Miss Dearborn's command still firmer voice stand by the pale 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 mackerel just like Rebecca irrepressible giggles by the school I judged so stand by the other side of the pale 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 sea sauce simpson was beyond human endurance singing was the last exercise in the afternoon Miss Melly chose shall we gather at the river it was a baleful choice and seemed to hold some secret and subtle association with the situation and general progress of events or at any rate there was apparently some obscure reason for the energy and vim with which the scholar shouted the choral invitation again and again shall we gather at the river at the 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 Rebecca distanced by the pale 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 pale 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 sprinkled banner if you like or anything else Rebecca sank into her seat and pulled the singing book from her desk Miss Dearborn's public explanation had shifted some of the weight from her heart and she felt a trifle raised in her self-esteem under cover of the general relaxation of singing votive offerings of respectful sympathy began to make their appearance at her shrine living Perkins who could not sing dropped a piece of maple sugar in her lap as he passed her on his way to the blackboard to draw the map of Maine Alice Robinson rolled a perfectly new slate pencil over the floor with her foot until it reached Rebecca's place while her seat mate, Emma Jane had made up a little mound of paper balls and labeled them bullets for you know who altogether existence grew brighter and when she was left alone with the teacher for her grammar lesson she had nearly recovered her equanimity which was more than Miss Dearborn had the last clattering foot had echoed through the hall Seesaw's backward glance of penitence had been met and answered defiantly by one of cold disdain Rebecca I'm afraid I punished you more than I meant said Miss Dearborn who was only 18 herself and in her year of teaching country schools had never encountered a child like Rebecca I hadn't missed a question this whole day nor whispered either quavered the culprit and I don't think I ought to be shamed just for drinking you started all the others or it seemed as if you did whatever you do they all do whether you laugh or miss or write notes or ask to leave the room or drink and it must be stopped Sam Simpson is a copy cat stormed Rebecca I wouldn't have mind standing in the corner alone that is not so very much but I couldn't bear standing with him I saw that you couldn't and that's the reason I told you to take your seat and left him in the corner remember that you are a stranger in the place and they take more notice of what you do so you must be careful now let's have our conjugations give me the verb to be potential mood past perfect tense I might have been thou mightst have been he might have been we might have been you might have been give me an example please I might have been glad thou mightst have been glad he, she, or it might have been glad he or she might have been glad because they are masculine and feminine but could it have been glad asked Mr. Bourne who was very fond of splitting hairs why not asked Rebecca 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 Mr. Bourne answered hesitatingly never very sure of herself under Rebecca's fire but though we often speak of a baby a chicken or a kitten as it, they are really masculine or feminine gender not neuter Rebecca reflected a long moment and then asked oh yes of course it is Rebecca well couldn't we say the hollyhock might have been glad to see the rain but there was a weak little hollyhock bud growing out of its stalk and it was afraid that it might be hurt by the storm so the big hollyhock was kind of afraid instead of being real glad Mr. Bourne looked puzzled as she answered of course Rebecca hollyhocks could not be sorry or glad or afraid really we can't tell I suppose replied the child I don't think they are anyway now what shall I say the subjunctive mood past perfect tense of the verb to know if I had known if thou had known if he had known if we had known if you had known if they had known oh what is the saddest tense sighed Rebecca with a little break in her voice nothing but ifs ifs ifs and it makes you feel that you have 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 had loved me truly thou wouldst not have stood me up in the corner if samuel had not loved wickedness she would have not followed me to the water pail and if Rebecca had loved the rules of the school she would have controlled her thirst finished Miss Dearborn with a kiss and the two parted friends 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 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 for her that first summer in Riverboro she tried to like her Aunt Miranda the idea of loving her had been given up at the moment of meeting but failed ignominiously in the attempt she was a very faulty and passionately human child with no aspirations towards being an angel of the house but she had a sense of duty and a desire to be good respectively decently good whenever she felt below the self-imposed standard she was miserable she did not like to be under her aunt's roof eating bread wearing clothes and studying books provided by her and dislike her so heartily all the time she felt instinctively that this was wrong and mean and whenever the feeling of remorse was strong within her she made a desperate effort to please her grim relative but how could she succeed when she was never herself in her Aunt Miranda's presence the searching look of the eyes the sharp voice the hard knotty fingers the thin straight lips the long silences the front piece that didn't match her hair the very obvious parting that seemed sewed in with linen thread on black net there was not a single item that appealed to Rebecca there are certain narrow unimaginative and autocratic old people who seem to call out the most mischievous and sometimes the worst traits in children Miss Miranda had she lived in a populous neighborhood would have had her doorbell pulled her gate tied up or dirt traps set in her garden paths the Simpson twins stood in such awe of her she could not be persuaded to come to the side door even when Miss Jane held gingerbread cookies in her outstretched hands it is needless to say that Rebecca irritated her Aunt with every breath she drew she continually forgot and started up the front stairs because it was the shortest route to her bedroom she left the dipper on the kitchen shelf instead of hanging it up over the pail she sat in the chair the cat liked best she was willing to go on errands but often forgot what she was sent for she left the screen doors ajar so that flies came in her tongue was ever in motion she sang or whistled when she was picking up chips she was always messing with flowers putting them in vases pinning them on her dress and sticking them in her hat finally she was an everlasting reminder of her foolish worthless father whose handsome face and engaging manner had so deceived Aurelia and perhaps if the facts were known others besides Aurelia the Randalls were aliens they had not been born in Riverboro nor even in York County Miranda would have allowed on compulsion that in the nature of things a large number of persons must necessarily be born outside this sacred precinct but she had her opinion of them and it was not a flattering one now if Hannah had come Hannah took after the other side of the house she was all Sawyer poor Hannah, that was true Hannah spoke only when spoken to instead of first last and all the time Hannah at fourteen was a member of the church Hannah liked to knit Hannah was probably or would have been a pattern of all the smaller virtues instead of which here was this black haired gypsy with eyes as big as cartwheels installed as a member of the household what sunshine in a shady place was Aunt Jane to Rebecca Aunt Jane with her quiet voice her understanding eyes her ready excuses in these first difficult weeks when the impulsive little stranger was trying to settle down into the brick house ways she did learn them in part and by degrees and the constant fitting of herself to these new and difficult standards of conduct seemed to make her older than ever for her years the child took her sewing and sat beside Aunt Jane in the kitchen while Aunt Miranda had the post of observation at the sitting room window sometimes they would work on the side porch where the clematis and woodbind shaded them from the hot sun to Rebecca the lengths of brown gingham were interminable she made hard work of sewing broke the thread dropped her thimble into the syringa bushes pricked her finger wiped the perspiration from her forehead could not match the checks puckered the seams to nothing pushing them in and out of the emory 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 pen so cleverly and were so clumsy with the dainty little needle when the first brown gingham frack was completed the child seized what she thought for a 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 to patch and let down with and be more economical I know, 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? Donna, your business I was helping Emma Jane choose aprons and didn't think you'd mind which color I had pink keeps clean just as nice as brown and Mr. Watson says it'll boil without fading Mr. Watson's a splendid judge of washing, I guess I don't approve a children being rigged out in fancy colors but I'll see what your Aunt Jane thinks I think it would be all right to let Rebecca have one pink and one blue gingham said Jane it's tired of sewing on one color it's only natural she should long for a change besides, she'd look like a charity child always wearing the same brown with a white apron and it's dreadful on becoming to her handsome is, as handsome does, say I Rebecca never'll come to grief along of her beauty, that's certain and there's no use in humor in her to think about her looks I believe she's vain as a peacock now without anything to be vain of she's young and attracted to bright things that's all I remember well enough how I felt at her age you was considerable of a fool at her age Jane yes I was thank the lord I only wish I'd known how to take a little of my foolishness along with me as some folks do to brighten my declining years there finally was a pink gingham nicely finished and Jane gave Rebecca a delightful surprise she showed her how to make 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 face like a house of fire she exclaimed it's a thousand yards around that skirt as well I know having hemmed it but I could so pretty trimming on it if it was from here to Milltown 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 twenty nine minutes past four Aunt Jane and Alice Robinson has been sitting under the current bushes for a long time waiting for me can I go and play yes you may go and you better run as far as you can out behind the barn so to 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 in getting Emma Jane away from the Simpson party and giving them the slip all together 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 door yard in the village in it, in bewildering confusion were old slays pungs, horse rakes hogs heads satis without backs bedsteads without heads in all stages of disability and never the same on two consecutive days Mrs. Simpson was seldom at home even when she was had little concern as to what happened on the premises a favorite diversion was to make the house into a fort gallantly held by a handful of American soldiers against a besieging force of the British army great care was used in apportioning the parts for there was no disposition to let anybody win but the Americans Seesaw Simpson was usually made commander in chief of the British army and a limp and uncertain one he was capable with his contradictory orders and his fondness for the extreme rear of leading any regiment to an inglorious death sometimes the long-suffering house was a law cut and the brave settlers defeated a band of hostile Indians or occasionally were massacred by them but in either case the house looked to quote a river borough expression as if the devil had been having an auction in it next to this uncommonly interesting playground as a field of action came in the children's opinion the secret spot there was a velvety stretch of ground in the Sawyer pasture which was full of fascinating hollows and hillocks as well as verdant levels a group of trees concealed it somewhat from view and flung a grateful shade over the dwellings erected there it had been hard though sweet labor to take armfuls of stick-ins and cut-rounds from the mill to this secluded spot and that it had been done mostly after supper in the dusk of the evenings gave it a still greater flavor here in the soapboxes hidden among the trees all their treasures wee baskets and plates and cups made of burdock balls bits of broken china for parties dowels 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 that when she leaned her head against the bars they seemed to turn to cold iron that her eyes were no longer Rebecca Randall's but mirrored something of Charlotte Corday's hapless woe ain't it lovely sighed the humble twain who had done most of the labor but who generously admired the result I hate to have to take it down said Alice it's been such a sight of work if you think you could move up some stones and just take off the top rose I could step out 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 my separate harm 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 Alisha for the princes be yell when they was murdered objected Alice you know how silly they are at plays all except Clara Bell besides if we once show them they'll play in it all the time and perhaps they'd steal things like their father they needn't steal just because their father does argued Rebecca and don't you ever talk about it before them if you want to be my secret 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 only a few days before and a version of it that would have melted the stoniest heart had been presented to every girl in the village by Minnie Smelly herself who though it was Rebecca and not she who came off victorious in the bloody battle of words nursed to resentment and intended to have revenge End of Chapter 6 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 Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas-Wiggin 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 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 invertebrate habit of swapping it follows naturally that he must have something to swap and having nothing of his own it follows still more naturally that he must swap something belonging to his neighbors Mr. Simpson was absent from the home circle for the moment because he had exchanged the widow ride-outs sleigh 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 to visit his daughter for a year Simpson fattened the aged animal keeping him for several weeks at early morning or after nightfall in one neighbor's pasture after another and then exchanged him with a Milton man for a top buggy it was at this juncture that the widow ride-out missed her sleigh from the old carriage-house she had not used it for fifteen years and might not sit in it for another fifteen but it was property and she did not intend to part with it without a struggle such is the suspicious nature of the village mind that the moment she discovered her loss her thought at once reverted to Abner Simpson so complicated however was the nature of this particular business transaction and so torturous the paths of its progress partly owing to the complete disappearance of the owner 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 ride-outs 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 laying out 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 sat 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 consordinate old thief exclaimed Abner righteously I'd make him dance working off a stolen sleigh on me and taking away my good money in cider-press to say nothing on my character you'll never catch him, Ab responded the sheriff he's cut off the same piece of goods as that of their cider-press and that their character and that their four seventy-five yarn nobody ever seen any of them but you 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 in the feeding and clothing of the children George, a lanky boy of fourteen did chores on neighboring farms and the others Samuel, Clarabelle, Susan, Elijah and Elisha went to school win 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 hay field hanging over the bridge at nightfall seated about the stove in the village store of an evening these meeting places furnished ample ground for the discussion of current events as viewed by the masculine eye while choir rehearsals sewing societies reading circles church picnics and the like gave opportunity for the expression of feminine opinion all this was taken very much for granted as a rule but now and then some super sensitive person made violent objections to it as a theory of life Delia Weeks, for example was a maiden lady who did dressmaking in a small way she fell ill and though attended by all the physicians in the neighborhood was sinking slowly into a decline when her cousin Cyrus asked her to come and keep house for him in Lewiston she went and in a year grew into a robust hearty, cheerful woman returning to Riverboro on a brief visit she was asked if she meant to end her days away from home or you do most certainly if I can get another place to stay she responded candidly I was being warned to a shatter here trying to keep my little secrets to myself and never succeeding first they added I wanted to marry the minster and when he took a wife in standish I was known to be disappointed then for five or six years they suspicious I was trying for a place to teach school and when I gave up hope and took to dressmaking they pitted me and sympathized with me for that when father died I was bound and never let anybody know how I was left for that spiked some worse than anything else but there's ways of finding out and they found out or as I fought them then there was my brother James that went to Arizona when he was 16 I gave good news him for 30 years running but Aunt Axie Tarbox had a ferretin cousin that went out to Tombstone for her health and she wrote to a postmaster or to some kind of a town authority and found him and root back Aunt Axie 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 had 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 them and see them and sidetrack them but the moment I got where I want put under a microscope by day and a telescope by night and add myself to myself without saying by your leave I had begun 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 air there ain't a person in Lewiston that knows about the Minster or Father's Will or Jim's Dewins or the fruit peddler well they wouldn't care and they couldn't remember for Lewiston's a busy place thanks B Mystelia Weeks may have exaggerated matters somewhat but it is easy to imagine that Rebecca as well as all the other river borough children had heard the particulars of the widow write-outs Missing Slay and Abner Simpson's supposed connection with it there is not an excess of delicacy or chivalry in the ordinary country's school and several choice conundrums and bits of verse dealing with the Simpson affair were bandied about among the scholars uttered always, be it said to their credit in undertones and when the Simpson children were not in the group Rebecca Randall was precisely of the same stock and had had much the same associations as her schoolmates so one can hardly say why she so hated Mean Gossip and so instinctively held herself aloof from it among the river borough girls of her own age was a certain excellently named Minnie Smelly who was anything but a general favorite she was a ferretide blond haired spindle-legged little creature whose mind was a cross between that of a parrot and a sheep she was suspected of copying answers from other girls slates although she had never been caught in the act Rebecca and Emma Jane always knew when she had brought a tart or a triangle of layer cake with her school luncheon because on those days she forsook the cheerful society of her mates and saw 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 there was no jam there as a matter of fact but the guilty Minnie's handkerchief went to her crimson face in a flash Rebecca confessed to Emma Jane that same afternoon that she felt ashamed of her prank I do hate her ways she exclaimed and her so greedy remarked Emma Jane I know but makes me feel better said Rebecca largely and then I've had it two years and it's broken so it wouldn't ever be any real good beautiful as it is to look at the coral had partly served its purpose as a reconciling bond when one afternoon Rebecca who had stayed after school for her grammar lesson as usual was returning home by way of the shortcut far ahead she opened the bars she aspired 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 a view but when she had almost overtaken them she heard in the trees beyond Minnie Smelly's voice lifted high in song and the sound of a child sobbing Clarabelle, Susan and the twins were running along the path Minnie was dancing up and down shrieking what made the slay love Simpson so the eager children cried why Simpson love the slay you know the teacher quickly cried the last glimpse of the routed Simpson tribe and the last flutter of their tattered garments disappeared in the dim distance the fall of one small stone cast by the valiant Elijah known as the fighting twin did break the stillness of the woods but it did not come within a hundred yards of Minnie who shouted at the top of her lungs and then turned with an agreeable feeling of excitement to meet Rebecca standing perfectly still in the path with a day of reckoning plainly set forth in her blazing eyes Minnie's face was not pleasant to see for a coward detected at the moment what she was doing is not an object of delight Minnie smelling if ever I catch you singing that to the Simpsons again do you know what I'll do asked Rebecca in a tone of concentrated rage I don't know and I don't care said Minnie jauntily though her looks belied her I'll take that piece of core away from you and I think I shall slap you besides 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 your country 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 and my duty I shall punish you somehow here in Harrisess Rebecca observed Minnie telling the tale with variations to Huldem reserve she threatened me whispered Minnie but I never relied ever where she sees the lottery mark was spoken with the direct intention of being overheard for Minnie had spasms of bravery when well surrounded by the machinery of law and order as Rebecca went back to her seat she asked Miss Dearborn if she might pass a note to Minnie Smelly 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? R. Randall. The effect of this piece of dog-eryl was entirely convincing, and for days afterwards, whenever Minnie met the Simpsons even a mile from the brick house, she shuddered and held her peace. End of chapter 7.