 CHAPTER 17 GRAY DAYS AND GOLD When Rebecca looked back upon the year or two that followed the Simpsons Thanksgiving Party, she could see only certain milestones rising in the quiet pathway of the months. The first milestone was Christmas Day. It was a fresh, crystal morning, with icicles hanging like dazzling pendants from the trees, and a glaze of pale blue on the surface of the snow. The Simpsons red barn stood out, a glowing mass of color in the white landscape. Rebecca had been busy for weeks before trying to make a present for each of the seven persons at Sunnybrook Farm, a somewhat difficult proceeding on an expenditure of fifty cents, hoarded by incredible exertion. Success had been achieved, however, and the precious packet had been sent by post two days previous. Miss Sawyer had bought her niece a nice grey squirrel muff and tippet, which was even more unbecoming, if possible, than Rebecca's other articles of wearing apparel. But Aunt Jane had made of the loveliest dress of green cashmere, a soft, soft green like that of a young leaf. It was very simply made, but the color delighted the eye. Then there was a beautiful, tatting collar from her mother, some scarlet mittens from Mrs. Cobb, and a handkerchief from Emma Jane. Rebecca herself had fashioned an elaborate tea-cozy with a letter M in outline stitch, and a pretty frilled pin-cushion marked with a J for her two aunts, so that taken all together the day would have been an unequivocal success had nothing else happened, but something else did. There was a knock at the door at breakfast time, and Rebecca, answering it, was asked by a boy if Miss Rebecca Randall lived there. On being told that she did, he handed her a parcel bearing her name, a parcel which she took, like one in a dream and bore into the dining-room. It's a present, it must be, she said, looking at it in a day's sort of way, but I can't think who it could be from. A good way to find out would be to open it, remarked Miss Miranda. The parcel, being untied, proved to have two similar packages within, and Rebecca opened with trembling fingers the one addressed to her. These fingers would have trembled. There was a case which, when the cover was lifted, disclosed a long chain of delicate pink coral beads, a chain ending in a cross made of coral rose-buds. A card, with Merry Christmas from Mr. Aladdin, lay under the cross. Of all things, exclaimed the two old ladies, rising in their seats, who sent it? Mr. Ladd, said Rebecca under her breath. Adam Ladd? Well, I never. Don't you remember Ellen Burnham said he was going to send Rebecca a Christmas present? But I never supposed he'd think of it again, said Jane. What's the other package? It proved to be a silver chain with a blue enamel locket on it, marked for Emma Jane. That added the last touch, to have him remember them both. There was a letter also which ran. Dear Rebecca Rowena, my idea of a Christmas present is something entirely unnecessary and useless. I have always noticed, when I give this sort of thing, that people love it, so I hope I have not chosen wrong for you and your friend. You must wear your chain this afternoon, please, and let me see it on your neck, for I am coming over in my new sleigh to take you both to drive. My aunt is delighted with the soap. Sincerely, your friend, Adam Ladd. Well, well, cried Miss Jane, isn't that kind of him? He's very fond of children, Liddy Burnham says. Now eat your breakfast, Rebecca, and after we've done the dishes you can run over to Emma's and give her her chain. What's the matter, child? Rebecca's emotions seemed always to be stored, as it were, in adjoining compartments, and to be continually getting mixed. At this moment, though her joy was too deep for words, her bread and butter almost choked her, and at intervals a tear stole furtively down her cheek. Mr. Ladd called, as he promised, and made the acquaintance of the aunts, understanding them both in five minutes as well as if he had known them for years. On a footstool near the open fire sat Rebecca, silent and shy, so conscious of her fine apparel, and the presence of Aunt Miranda that she could not utter a word. It was one of her beauty days. Happiness, excitement, the colour of the green dress, and the touch of lovely pink in the coral necklace had transformed a little brown wren for the time into a bird of plumage, and Adam Ladd watched her with evident satisfaction. Then there was the sleigh ride, during which she found her tongue and chattered away like any magpie, and so ended that glorious Christmas day. And many and many a night thereafter did Rebecca go to sleep with the precious coral chain under her pillow, one hand always upon it to be certain that it was safe. Another milestone was the departure of the Simpsons from Riverboro, bag and baggage, the banquet lamp being their most conspicuous possession. It was delightful to be rid of Seesaw's hateful presence, but otherwise the loss of several playmates at one fell swoop made rather a gap in Riverboro's younger set. And Rebecca was obliged to make friends with the Robinson baby, he being the only long-closed child in the village that winter. The faithful Seesaw had called at the side door of the brick house on the evening before his departure. And when Rebecca answered his knock, stammered solemnly, Can I keep company with you when you grow up? Certainly not, replied Rebecca, closing the door somewhat too speedily upon her precocious swaying. Mr. Simpson had come home in time to move his wife and children back to the town that had given them birth, a town by no means waiting with open arms to receive them. The Simpsons' moving was presided over by the village authorities and somewhat anxiously watched by the entire neighborhood. But in spite of all precautions, a pulpit chair, several kerosene lamps, and a small stove disappeared from the church and were successfully swapped in the course of Mr. Simpson's driving tour from the old home to the new. It gave Rebecca and Emma Jane some hours of sorrow to learn that a certain village in the wake of Abner Simpson's line of progress had acquired, through the medium of an ambitious young minister, a magnificent lamp for its new church parlors. No money changed hands in the operation, for the minister succeeded in getting the lamp in return for an old bicycle. The only pleasant feature of the whole affair was that Mr. Simpson, wholly unable to console his offspring for the loss of the beloved object, mounted the bicycle and rode away on it, not to be seen or heard of again for many a long day. The year was notable also as being the one in which Rebecca shot up like a young tree. She had seemingly never grown an inch since she was ten years old. But once she started she attended to growing precisely as she did other things. With such energy that Miss Jane did nothing for months but lengthened skirts, sleeves, and wastes. In spite of all the arts known to a thrifty New England woman, the limit of letting down and piecing down was reached at last and the dresses were sent to Sunnybrook Farm to be made over for Jenny. There was another milestone, a sad one, marking a little grave under a willow tree at Sunnybrook Farm. Mira, the baby of the Randall family, died and Rebecca went home for a fortnight's visit. The sight of the small still shape that had been Mira, the baby who had been her special charge ever since her birth, woke into being a host of new thoughts and wonderments. For it is sometimes the mystery of death that brings one to a consciousness of the still greater mystery of life. It was a sorrowful homecoming for Rebecca. The death of Mira, the absence of John, who had been her special comrade, the sadness of her mother, the isolation of the little house, and the pinching economies that went on within it, all conspired to depress a child who is so sensitive to beauty and harmony as Rebecca. Hannah seemed to have grown into a woman during Rebecca's absence. There had always been a strange, unchild-like air about Hannah, but in certain ways she now appeared older than Aunt Jane, soberer and more settled. She was pretty, though in a colourless fashion, pretty and capable. Rebecca walked through all the old playgrounds and favourite haunts of her early childhood, all her familiar, her secret places, some of them known to John, some to herself alone. There was the spot where the Indian pipes grew, the particular bit of marshy ground where the fringe gensions used to be largest and bluest, the rock maple where she found the Orioles' nest, the hedge where the field mice lived, the moss stump where the white told stools were want to spring up as if by magic, the hole at the root of the old pine where an ancient and honourable toad made his home. These were the landmarks of her childhood, and she looked at them as across an immeasurable distance. The dear little Sunnybrook, her chief companion after John, was sorry company at this season. There was no laughing water sparkling in the sunshine. In summer the merry stream had danced over white pebbles on its way to deep pools where it could be still and think. Now, like Mira, it was cold and quiet, wrapped in its shroud of snow. But Rebecca knelt by the brink, and putting her ear to the glaze of ice, fancied, where it used to be deepest, she could hear a faint tinkling sound. It was all right. Sunnybrook would sing again in the spring. Perhaps Mira too would have her singing time somewhere. She wondered where and how. In the course of these lonely rambles she was ever thinking, thinking of one subject. Hannah had never had a chance, never been freed from the daily care and worker the farm. She, Rebecca, had enjoyed all the privileges thus far. Life at the Brick House had not been, by any means, a path of roses. But there had been comfort, and the companionship of other children, as well as chances for study and reading. Riverboro had not been the world itself, but it had been a glimpse of it through a tiny peephole that was infinitely better than nothing. Rebecca shed more than one quiet tear before she could trust herself to offer up as a sacrifice, that which she so much desired for herself. Then one morning, as her visit neared its end, she plunged into the subject boldly and said, Hannah, after this term I'm going to stay at home and let you go away. Aunt Miranda has always wanted you, and it's only fair you should have your turn. Hannah was darning stockings, and she threaded her needle and snipped off the yarn before she answered, No thank you, Becky, mother couldn't do without me, and I hate going to school. I can read and write in cypher as well as anybody now, and that's enough for me. I'd die rather than teach school for living. The winter will go fast, for Will Melville is going to lend me his mother's sewing machine, and I'm going to make white petticoats out of the piece of muslin Aunt Jane sent, and have them just solid with tucks. Then there's going to be a singing school and a social circle in temperance after new years. And I shall have a real good time now I'm grown up. I'm not one to be lonesome, Becky, Hannah ended with a blush. I love this place. Hannah ended with a blush. I love this place. Rebecca saw that she was speaking the truth. But she did not understand the blush till a year or two later. CHAPTER 18 OF REBECCA OF SONNY BROOK FARM This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. RECORDING by Mary Anderson REBECCA OF SONNY BROOK FARM by Kate Douglas Wigan CHAPTER 18 REBECCA REPRESENTS THE FAMILY There was another milestone. It was more than that. IT was an EVENT. An event that made a deep impression in several quarters and left a wake of smaller events in its train. This was the coming to river-borrow of the reverend Amos Birch and wife, returned missionaries from Syria. The Aid Society had called its meeting for a certain Wednesday in March of the year in which Rebecca ended her river-borrow school days and began her studies at Warrum. It was a raw blustering day, snow on the ground, and a look in the sky of more to follow. Both Miranda and Jane had taken cold and decided that they could not leave the house in such weather. And this deflection from the path of duty worried Miranda, since she was an officer of the Society. After making the breakfast table sufficiently uncomfortable and wishing plaintively that Jane wouldn't always insist on being sick at the same time she was, she decided that Rebecca must go to the meeting in their stead. You'll be better than nobody, Rebecca, she said, flatteringly. Your Aunt Jane shall write an excuse from afternoon school for you. You can wear your rubber boots and come home by the way of the meeting-house. This Mr. Birch, if I remember right, used to know your grandfather Sawyer and stayed here once when he was candidatin. He'll maybe look for us there, and you must just go and represent the family and give him our respects. Be careful how you behave. Bow your head in prayer, sing all the hymns, but not too loud and bold. Ask after Miss Strout's boy. Tell everybody what awful colds we've got. If you see a good chance, take your pocket handkerchief and wipe the dust off the Melodian before the meeting begins, and get twenty-five cents out of the sitting-room matchbox in case there should be a collection. Rebecca willingly assented. Anything interested her. Even a village missionary meeting. And the idea of representing the family was rather intoxicating. The service was held in the Sunday school room, and although the Reverend Mr. Birch was on the platform when Rebecca entered, there were only a dozen persons present. Feeling a little shy and considerably too young for this assemblage, Rebecca sought the shelter of a friendly face, and seeing Mrs. Robinson in one of the side seats near the front, she walked up the aisle and sat beside her. Both my aunts had bad cold, she said softly, and sent me to represent the family. That's Mrs. Birch on the platform with her husband, whispered Mrs. Robinson. She's awful tanned up, ain't she? If you're going to save souls, seems like you have to part with your complexion. You doxy Morton ain't come yet. I hope to the land she will, or Miss Deacon, Millican will pitch the tunes where we can't reach him with a ladder. Can't you pitch, before she gets her breath and clears her throat? Mrs. Birch was a slim frail little woman with dark hair, a broad low forehead, and patient mouth. She was dressed in a well-worn black silk, and looked so tired that Rebecca's heart went out to her. Poor as Job's turkey, whispered Mrs. Robinson. But if you give him anything, irrigation up to Parsonfield, club together, and give him that gold, I suppose he had handed that over too. Only heathens always tell time by the sun, and don't need watches. You doxy ain't coming. Now for a massy's sake, Rebecca do get ahead of Miss Deacon, Millican, and pitch real low. The meeting began with prayer, and then the Reverend Mr. Birch announced to the tune of Menden, Church of our God, I arise and shine, Bright with the beams of truth divine, Then shall thy radiant stream afar, Wide as the heathen nations are. Gentiles and kings, thy light shall view, And shall admire and love thee, too. They come like clouds across the sky, As doves that to their windows fly. Is there anyone present who will assist us at the instrument, he asked unexpectedly? Everybody looked at everybody else, and nobody moved. And then there came a voice out of a far corner saying informally, Rebecca, why don't you? It was Mrs. Cobb. Rebecca could have played Menden in the dark, so she went to the Melodian and did so without any adieu. No member of her family being present to give her self-consciousness. The talk that ensued was much the usual sort of thing. Mr. Birch made impassioned appeals for the spreading of the gospel, and added his entreaties that all who were prevented from visiting in person, the peoples who sat in darkness, should contribute liberally to the support of others who could. But he did more than this. He was a pleasant earnest speaker, and he interwoven his discourse with stories of life in a foreign land, of the manners, the customs, the speech, the point of view, even giving glimpses of the daily round, the common task of his own household, the work of his devoted helpmate, and their little group of children all born under Syrian skies. Rebecca sat entranced, having been given the key of another world. River Borough had faded, the Sunday school room, with Mrs. Robinson's red plaid shawl, and Deacon Millican's wig on crooked, the bare benches and torn hymn books, the hanging texts and maps, were no longer visible, and she saw blue skies and burning stars, white turbans and gay colors. Mr. Birch had not said so, but perhaps there were mosques and temples and minarets and date-palms. What stories they must know, those children born under Syrian skies? Then she was called upon to play, Jesus shall reign, where ere the sun. The contribution box was passed, and Mr. Birch prayed. As he opened his eyes and gave out the last hymn, he looked at the handful of people, at the scattered pennies and dimes in the contribution box, and reflected that his mission was not only to gather funds for the building of his church, but to keep alive, in all these remote and lonely neighborhoods, that love for the cause, which was its only hope in the years to come. If any of the sisters will provide entertainment, he said, Mrs. Birch and I will remain among you tonight and tomorrow. In that event we could hold a parlor meeting. My wife and one of my children would wear the native costume. We would display some specimens of Syrian handiwork, and give an account of our educational methods with the children. These informal parlor meetings, admitting of questions or conversation, are often the means of interesting those not commonly found at church services. So I repeat, if any member of the congregation desires it, and offers her hospitality, we will gladly stay and tell you more of the Lord's work. A pall of silence settled over the little assembly. There was some cogent reason why every sister there was disinclined for company. Some had no spare room. Some had a larder, less well-stocked than usual. Some had sickness in the family. Some were unequally yoked together with unbelievers, who disliked strange ministers. Mrs. Birch's thin hands fingered her black silk nervously. Would no one speak, thought Rebecca? Her heart fluttering with sympathy. Mrs. Robinson leaned over and whispered significantly. The missionaries always used to be entertained at the Brick House. Your grandfather never would let him sleep anywhere else when he was alive. She meant this for a stab at Miss Miranda's parsimony, remembering the four spare chambers closed from January to December. But Rebecca thought it was intended as a suggestion. If it had been a former custom, perhaps her aunts would want her to do the right thing. For what else was she representing the family? So delighted that duty lay in so pleasant a direction, she rose from her seat and said in the pretty voice, and with the quaint manner that so separated her from all the other young people in the village. My aunts, Miss Miranda and Miss Jane Sawyer, would be very happy to have you visit them at the Brick House. As the ministers always used to do when their father was alive, they sent their respects by me. The respects might have been the freedom of the city, or an equestrian statue, when presented in this way. And the aunts would have shuttered could they have foreseen the manner of delivery. But it was vastly impressive to the audience who concluded that Miranda Sawyer must be making her way uncommonly fast to mansions in the sky. Else what meant this abrupt change of heart? Mr. Birch bowed courteously, accepted the invitation, in the same spirit in which it was offered, and asked Brother Millican to lead in prayer. If the eternal ear could ever tire, it would have ceased long air this to listen to Deacon Millican, who had wafted to the throne of Grace the same prayer with very slight variations for forty years. Mrs. Perkins followed. She had several petitions at her command, good sincere ones too, but a little cut and dried, made of scripture texts laboriously woven together. Rebecca wondered why she always ended at the most peaceful sessions with the form. Do thou be with us, God of battles, while we strive onward like Christian soldiers, marching as to war? But everything sounded real to her today. She was in a devout mood, and many things Mr. Birch had said had moved her strangely. As she lifted her head the minister looked directly at her and said, Will our young sister close the service by leading us in prayer? Every drop of blood in Rebecca's body seemed to stand still, and her heart almost stopped beating. Mrs. Cobb's excited breathing could be heard distinctly in the silence. There was nothing extraordinary in Mr. Birch's request. In his journeyings among country congregations, he was constantly in the habit of meeting young members who had experienced religion and joined the church when nine or ten years old. Rebecca was now thirteen. She had played the melodian, led the singing, delivered her aunt's invitation with an air of great worldly wisdom. And he, concluding that she must be a youthful pillar of the church, called upon her with the utmost simplicity. Rebecca's plight was pathetic. How could she refuse? How could she explain she was not a member? How could she pray before all these elderly women? John Rogers at the stake hardly suffered more than this poor child. For the moment as she rose to her feet, forgetting that ladies prayed sitting, while deacons stood in prayer. Her mind was a maze of pictures that the revered Mr. Birch had flung on the screen. She knew the conventional phraseology, of course. What New England child accustomed to Wednesday evening meetings does not. But her own secret prayers were different. However, she began slowly and tremulously. Our Father who art in heaven, thou art God in Syria just the same as in Maine. Over there today are blue skies and yellow stars and burning suns. The great trees are waving in the warm air, while here the snow lies thick under our feet. But no distance is too far for God to travel, and so he is with us here as he is with them there. And our thoughts rise to him as doves that to their windows fly. We cannot all be missionaries teaching people to be good. Some of us have not learned yet how to be good ourselves. But if thy kingdom is to come and thy will is to be done on earth as it is in heaven, everybody must try and everybody must help. Those who are old and tired and those who are young and strong. The little children of whom we have heard, those born under Syrian skies, have strange and interesting work to do for thee. And some of us would like to travel in far lands and do wonderful brave things for the heathen, and gently take away their idols of wooden stone. But perhaps we have to stay at home and do what is given us to do. Sometimes even things we dislike. But that must be what it means in the hymn we saying, when it talked about the sweet perfume that rises with every morning sacrifice. This is the way that God teaches us to be meek and patient, and the thought that he has willed it so should rob us of our fears and help us bear the years. Amen. Poor little ignorant fantastic child, her petition was simply a succession of lines from the various hymns and images the minister had used in his sermon. But she had her own way of recombining and applying these things, even of using them in a new connection, so that they had a curious effect of belonging to her. The words of some people might generally be written with the minus sign after them. The minus meaning that the personality of the speaker subtracted from rather than added to their weight. But Rebecca's words might always have borne the plus sign. The amen said she sat down, or presumed she sat down, on what she believed to be a bench, and there was a benediction. In a moment or two, when the room ceased spinning, she went up to Mrs. Birch who kissed her affectionately and said, My dear, how glad I am that we are going to stay with you. Will half-past-five be too late for us to come? It is three now, and we have to go to the station for a valise, and for our children. We left them there, being uncertain whether we should go back or stop here. Rebecca said that half-past-five was their supper-hour, and then accepted an invitation to drive home with Mrs. Cobb. Her face was flushed, and her lip quivered in a way that Aunt Sarah had learned to know. So the homeward drive was taken almost in silence. The bleak wind and Aunt Sarah's quieting presence brought her back to herself, however, and she entered the brick-house cheerily. Being too full of news to wait in the side entry to take off her rubber boots, she carefully lifted a braided rug into the sitting-room and stood on that while she opened her budget. There are your shoes warming by the fire, said Aunt Jane. Slip them right on while you talk. End of Chapter 18. Chapter 19 of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mary Anderson. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wigan Chapter 19 Deacon Israel's Successor It was a very small meeting at Miranda, began Rebecca, and the missionary and his wife are lovely people, and they are coming here to stay all night and to-morrow with you. I hope you won't mind. Coming here, exclaimed Miranda, letting her knitting fall in her lap, and taking her spectacles off as she always did in moments of extreme excitement, did they invite themselves? No, Rebecca answered. I had to invite them for you, but I thought you'd like to have such interesting company. It was this way. Stop your explaining and tell me first when they'll be here, right away? No, not for two hours, about half past five. Then you can explain, if you can, who gave you any authority to invite a parcel of strangers to stop here overnight, when you know we ain't had any company for twenty years, and don't intend to have any for another twenty, or at any rate while I'm the head of the house. Don't blame her, Miranda, till you've heard her story, said Jane. It was in my mind right along, if we went to the meeting. Some such thing might happen on account of Mr. Birch knowing father. The meeting was a small one, began Rebecca. I gave all your messages, and everybody was disappointed you couldn't come, for the precedent wasn't there, and Mrs. Matthews took the chair, which was a pity, for the seat wasn't nearly big enough for her. And she reminded me of a line in a hymn we sang, Why does he the nations are? And she wore that kind of a beaver garden-hat that always gets on one side. And Mr. Birch talked beautifully about the Syrian heathen, and the singing went real well, and there looked to be about forty cents in the basket that was passed on our side, and that wouldn't save even a heathen baby, would it? Then Mr. Birch said, if any sister would offer entertainment, they would pass the night and have a parlor meeting in Riverboro tomorrow. With Mrs. Birch and Syrian costume, and lovely foreign things to show. Then he waited and waited, and nobody said a word. I was so mortified I didn't know what to do. And then he repeated what he said, and explained why he wanted to stay, and you could see he thought it was his duty. Just then Mrs. Robinson whispered to me and said the missionaries always used to go to the Brick House when grandfather was alive, and that he never would let them sleep anywhere else. I didn't know you had stopped having them because no traveling ministers have been here, except just for a Sunday morning, since I came to Riverboro, so I thought I ought to invite them as you weren't there to do it for yourself, and you told me to represent the family. What did you do? Go up and introduce yourself as folks was going out? No, I stood right up in meeting. I had to, for Mr. Birch's feelings were getting hurt and nobody speaking. So I said, my aunts, Miss Miranda, and Miss Jane Sawyer would be happy to have you visit at the Brick House, just as the missionaries always did when their father was alive, and they sent the respects by me. Then I sat down, and Mr. Birch prayed for grandfather and called him a man of God, and thanked her heavenly father that his spirit was still alive in his descendants, that was you, and that the good old house where so many of the brethren had been cheered and helped, and from which so many had gone out strengthened for the fight, was still hospitably open for the stranger and wayfarer. Sometimes when the heavenly bodies are in just the right conjunction, nature seems to be the most perfect art. The word or the deed coming straight from the heart without any thought of the effect seems inspired. A certain gateway in Miranda Sawyer's soul had been closed for years. Not all it once had it been done, but gradually, and without her full knowledge. If Rebecca had plotted for days, and with the utmost cunning, she could not have affected an entrance into that forbidden country, and now, unknown to both of them, the gate swung on its stiff and rusty hinges, and the favouring wind of opportunity opened it wider and wider as time went on. All things had worked together amazingly for good. The memory of old days had been evoked, and the daily life of a pious and venerated father called to mind. The Sawyer name had been publicly dignified and praised. Rebecca had comported herself as the granddaughter of deacon Israel Sawyer should, and showed conclusively that she was not all Randall as had been supposed. Miranda was rather mollified by and pleased with the turn of events, although she did not intend to show it or give anybody any reason to expect that this expression of hospitality was to serve for a precedent on any subsequent occasion. Well, I see you did only what you was obliged to do, Rebecca, she said, and you worded your invitation as nice as anybody could have done. I wish your Aunt Jane and me wasn't both so worthless with these colds, but it only shows the good of having a clean house with every room and order, whether open or shut, and enough victuals cooked so that you can't be surprised and belittled by anybody whatever happens. There was half a dozen there that might have entertained the birches as easy as not if they hadn't been too mean or lazy. Why didn't your missionaries come right along with you? They had to go to the station for their release and their children. Are their children grown Miranda? Yes, Aunt Miranda, all born under Syrian skies. Syrian grandmother ejaculated Miranda, and it was not a fact. How many? I didn't think to ask, but I will get two rooms ready, and if there are any over I'll take them into my bed, said Rebecca, secretly hoping that this would be the case. Now, as you're both half-sick, couldn't you trust me just once to get ready for the company? You can come up when I call, will you? I believe I will— sighed Miranda reluctantly. I'll lay down side of Jane in our bedroom and see if I can get strength to cook supper. It's half past three. Don't you let me lay a minute past five. I kept a good fire in the kitchen stove. I don't know, I'm sure, why I should have baked a pot of beans in the middle of the week, but they'll come in handy. Father used to say there was nothing that went right to the spot with return missionaries, like pork and beans and brown bread. Fix up the two south chambers, Rebecca. Rebecca, given a free hand for the only time in her life, dashed upstairs like a whirlwind. Every room in the brick-house was as neat as wax, and she had only to pull up the shades, go over the floors with a whisk-broom, and dust the furniture. The ants could hear her scurrying to and fro, beating up pillows and feather-beds, flapping towels, jingling crockery, singing meanwhile in her clear voice. In vain with lavish kindness the gifts of God are strone, the heathen in his blindness bows down to wooden stone. She had grown to be a handy little creature, and tasks she was capable of doing at all, she did like a flash, so that when she called her aunts at five o'clock to pass judgment, she had accomplished wonders. There were fresh towels on bureaus and wash stands, the beds were fair and smooth, the pictures were filled, and soap and matches were laid out. Newspaper, kindling and wood were in the boxes, and a large stick burned slowly in each airtight stove. I thought I'd better just take the chill off, she explained, as they're right from Syria. And that reminds me, I must look it up in the geography before they get here. There was nothing to disapprove, so the two sisters went downstairs to make some slight changes in their dress. As they passed the parlor door, Miranda thought she heard a crackle and looked in. The shades were up, there was a cheerful blaze in the open stove in the front parlor, and a fire laid on the hearth in the back room. Rebecca's own lamp, her second Christmas present for Mr. Aladdin, stood on a marble top table in the corner, the light that came softly through its iris-colored shade, transforming the stiff and gloomy ugliness of the room into a place where one could sit and love one's neighbor. For Massey's sake, Rebecca, called Miss Miranda up the stairs, did you think we'd better open the parlor? Rebecca came out on the landing, braiding her hair. We did on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I thought this was about as great an occasion, she said. I moved the wax flowers off the mantelpiece so they wouldn't melt, and put the shells, the coral, and the green-stuffed bird on top of the wet knot, so the children wouldn't ask to play with them. Brother Millican's coming over to see Mrs. de Birch about business, and I shouldn't wonder if Brother and Sister Cobb happened in. Don't go down cellar, I'll be there in a minute to do the running. Miranda and Jane exchanged glances. Ain't she the beatinous creature that ever was born into the world, exclaimed Miranda, but she can turn off work when she's got a mind to. At quarter-past five everything was ready, and the neighbors, those at least who were within sight of the brick-house, a prominent object in the landscape when there was no leaves on the trees, were curious almost to desperation. Shades up in both parlors, shades up in the two south bedrooms, and fires, if human vision was to be relied upon, fires in about every room. If it had not been for the kind offices of a lady who had been at the meeting and who charitably called in at one or two houses and explained the reason of all this preparation, there would have been no sleep in many families. The missionary party arrived promptly, and there were but two children, seven or eight having been left with the brethren in Portland, to diminish traveling expenses. Jane escorted them all upstairs, while Miranda watched the cooking of the supper. But Rebecca promptly took the two little girls away from their mother, divested them of their wraps, smoothed their hair, and brought them down to the kitchen to smell the beans. There was a bountiful supper, and the presence of the young people robbed it of all possible stiffness. Aunt Jane helps clear the table and put away the food, while Miranda entertained in the parlor. But Rebecca and the infant birches washed the dishes and held high carnival in the kitchen, doing only trifling damage, breaking a cup and plate that had been cracked before, emptying a silver spoon with some dish water out of the back door, an act never permitted at the brick house, and putting coffee grounds in the sink. All evidences of crime having been removed by Rebecca and damages repaired in all possible cases. The three entered the parlor, where Mr. and Mrs. Cobb and Deacon and Mrs. Millican had already appeared. It was such a pleasant evening. Occasionally they left the heathen in his blindness bowing down to wooden stone, not for long, but just to give themselves and him, time enough to breathe. And then the birches told strange, beautiful, marvelous things. The two smaller children sang together, and Rebecca, at the urgent request of Mrs. Birch, seated herself at the tinkling old piano, and gave, wild, roved, an Indian girl, bright ala ferrata, with considerable spirit and style. At eight o'clock she crossed the room, handed a palm leaf fan to her aunt Miranda, ostensibly that she might shade her eyes from the lamplight. But it was a piece of strategy that gave her an opportunity to whisper, How about cookies? Do you think it's worthwhile, civilated Miss Miranda in answer? The Perkinsons always do. All right, you know where they be. Rebecca moved quietly towards the door, and the young birches cataracted after her as if they could not bear a second separation. In five minutes they returned, the little ones bearing plates of thin, caraway wafers, hearts, diamonds, and circles, daintily sugared and flecked with caraway seed, raised in the garden behind the house. These were a speciality of Miss Jane's, and Rebecca carried a tray with six tiny crystal glasses filled with dandelion wine, for which Miss Miranda had been famous in years gone by. Old Deacon Israel had always had it passed, and he had bought the glasses himself in Boston. Miranda admired them greatly, not only for their beauty, but because they held so little. Before their advent the dandelion wine had been served in sherry glasses. As soon as these refreshments, commonly called a collation, in Riverboro, had been gentilly partaken of, Rebecca looked at the clock, rose from her chair in the children's corner, and said cheerfully, Come, time for little missionaries to be in bed. Everybody laughed at this, the big missionaries most of all, as the young people shook hands and disappeared with Rebecca. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin Chapter 20 A Change of Heart That niece of yours is the most remarkable girl I have seen in years, said Mr. Birch, when the door closed. She seems to be turning out smart enough lately, but she's considerable headless, answered Miranda, and most too lively. We must remember that it is deficient, not excessive vitality that makes the greatest trouble in this world, returned Mr. Birch. She'd make a wonderful missionary, said Mrs. Birch, with her voice and her magnetism, and her gift of language. If I was to say which of the two she was best adapted for, I'd say she'd make a better heathen, remarked Miranda curtly. My sister don't believe in flattering children, hastily interpolated Jane, glancing towards Mrs. Birch, who seemed somewhat shocked, and was about to open her lips to ask if Rebecca was not a professor. Mrs. Cobb had been looking for this question all the evening, and dreading some allusion to her favourite as gifted in prayer. She had taken an instantaneous and illogical dislike to the reverend Mr. Birch in the afternoon, because he called upon Rebecca to lead. She had seen the pallor creep into the girl's face, the hunted luck in her eyes, and the trembling of the lashes on her cheeks, and realised the ordeal through which she was passing. Her prejudice against the minister had relaxed under his genial talk and presence, but feeling that Mrs. Birch was about to tread on dangerous ground, she hastily asked her if one had to change cars many times, going from Riverborough to Syria. She felt that it was not a particularly appropriate question, but it served her turn. Deacon Millican, meantime, said to Mrs. Sawyer, Miranda, do you know who Rebecca reminds me of? I can guess pretty well, she replied. Then you've noticed it too. I thought at first, seeing she favoured her father so on the outside, that she was the same all through, but she ain't. She's like your father, Israel Sawyer. I don't know how you make that out, said Miranda, thoroughly astonished. It struck me this afternoon when she got up to give your invitation in meeting. It was kind of curious, but she sat in the same seat he used to when he was leader at the Sabbath school. You know his old way of holding his chin up and throwing his head back a little when he got up to say anything. Well, she'd done the very same thing. There was more on one spoke of it. The callers left before nine, and at that hour, an impossibly dissipated one for the brick house, the family retired for the night. As Rebecca carried Mrs. Birch's candle upstairs, and found herself thus alone with her for a minute, she said shyly, will you please tell Mr. Birch that I am not a member of the church? I didn't know what to do when he asked me to pray this afternoon. I hadn't the courage to say I had never done it out loud and didn't know how. I couldn't think, and I was so frightened I wanted to sink into the floor. It seemed bold and wicked for me to pray before all those old church members and make believe I was better than I really was. But then again, wouldn't God think I was wicked not to be willing to pray when a minister asked me to? The candlelight fell on Rebecca's flushed, sensitive face. Mrs. Birch bent and kissed her good night. Don't be troubled, she said. I'll tell Mr. Birch, and I guess God will understand. Rebecca waked before six the next morning, so full of household cares that sleep was impossible. She went to the window and looked out. It was still dark and a blustering, boisterous day. Aunt Jane told me she should get up at half past six and have breakfast at half past seven, she thought. But I dare say they are both sick with their colds, and Aunt Miranda will be fidgety with so many in the house. I believe I'll creep down and start things for a surprise. She put on a wadded wrapper and slippers, and stole quietly down the tabooed front stairs, carefully closed the kitchen door behind her so that no noise should waken the rest of the household, busied herself for half an hour, with the early morning routine she knew so well, and then went back to her room to dress before calling the children. Contrary to expectation, Miss Jane, who the evening before felt better than Miranda, grew worse in the night, and was wholly unable to leave her bed in the morning. Miranda grumbled without ceasing during the progress of her hasty toilet, blaming everybody in the universe for the afflictions she had born, and was to bear during the day. She even castigated the missionary board that had sent the birches to Syria, and gave it as her unbiased opinion that those who went to foreign lands for the purpose of saving heathen should stay there and save them and not go gallivanting all over the earth, with the passola children visiting folks that didn't want them and never asked them. Jane lay anxiously and restlessly in bed with a feverish headache, wondering how her cystic of managed without her. Miranda walked stiffly through the dining room, tying a shawl over her head to keep the draughts away, intending to start the breakfast fire, and then call Rebecca down, set her to work, and tell her, meanwhile, a few plain facts concerning the proper way of representing the family at a missionary meeting. She opened the kitchen door and stared vaguely about her, wondering whether she had strayed into the wrong house by mistake. The shades were up, and there was a roaring fire in the stove. The tea kettle was singing and bubbling as it sent out a cloud of steam, and pushed over its capacious nose was a half sheet of note paper with compliments of Rebecca, scrawled on it. The coffee pot was scalding, the coffee was measured out in a bowl, and broken eggshells for the settling process were standing near. The cold potatoes and corned beef were in the wooden tray, and, regardless of Rebecca, stuck on the chopping knife. The brown loaf was out, the white loaf was out, the toast rack was out, the donuts were out, the milk was skimmed, the butter had been brought from the dairy. Miranda removed the shawl from her head, and sank into the kitchen rocker, ejaculating under her breath. She is the beatenest child, I declare, she's all soya. The day and the evening passed off with credit and honour to everybody concerned, even to Jane, who had the discretion to recover instead of growing worse, and acting as a damper to the general enjoyment. The birches left with lively regrets, and the little missionaries, bathed in tears, swore eternal friendship with Rebecca, who pressed into their hands at parting a poem composed before breakfast. To Martha and Mary Birch Born under Syrian skies, neath hotter suns than ours, the children grew and bloomed, like little tropic flowers. When they first saw the light, it was in a heathen land, not Greenland's icy mountains, nor India's coral strand. But some mysterious country, where men are nearly black, and where of true religion there is a painful lack. Then let us hasten helping the missionary board, seek dark-skinned unbelievers, and teach them of their Lord, Rebecca Rowena Randall. It can readily be seen that this visit of the returned missionaries to Rivabra was not without somewhat far-reaching results. Mr. and Mrs. Birch themselves looked back on it as one of the rarest pleasures of their half-year at home. The neighbourhood extracted considerable eager conversation from it, argument, rebuttal, suspicion, certainty, retrospect, and prophecy. Deacon Millican gave ten dollars towards the conversion of Syria to congregationalism, and Mrs. Millican had a spell of sickness over her husband's rash generosity. It would be pleasant to state that Miranda Sawyer was an entirely changed woman afterwards, but that is not the fact. The tree that has been getting a twist for twenty years cannot be straightened in the twinkling of an eye. It is certain, however, that although the difference to the outward eye was very small, it nevertheless existed, and she was less censurious in her treatment of Rebecca, less harsh in her judgments, more hopeful of final salvation for her. This had come about largely from her sudden vision that Rebecca, after all, inherited something from the Sawyer side of the house instead of belonging, mind, body, and soul to the despised Randall stock. Everything that was interesting in Rebecca, and every evidence of power, capability, or talent afterwards displayed by her, Miranda ascribed to the Brick House training, and this gave her a feeling of honest pride, the pride of a master workman who has built success out of the most unpromising material. But never, to the very end, even when the waning of her bodily strength relaxed her iron grip and weakened her power of repression, never once did she show that pride, or make a single demonstration of affection. Poor, misplaced, belittled Lorenzo de Medici Randall thought ridiculous and good for naught by his associates because he resembled them in nothing. If Riverborough could have been suddenly emptied into a larger community, with different and more flexible opinions, he was, perhaps, the only personage in the entire population who would have attracted the smallest attention. It was fortunate for his daughter that she had been dowered with a little practical ability from her mother's family. But if Lorenzo had never done anything else in the world, he might have glorified himself that he had prevented Rebecca from being all soya. Failure as he was, complete and entire, he had generously handed down to her all that was best in himself, and prudently retained all that was unworthy. Few fathers are capable of such delicate discrimination. The brickhouse did not speedily become a sort of wayside in, a place of innocent revelry and joy is welcome. But the missionary company was an entering wedge, and Miranda allowed one spare bed to be made up, in case anything should happen, while the crystal glasses were kept on the second from the top, instead of the top shelf, in the china closet. Rebecca had had to stand on a chair to reach them, now she could do it by stretching, and this is symbolic of the way in which she unconsciously scaled the walls of Miss Miranda's dogmatism and prejudice. Miranda went so far as to say that she wouldn't mind if the birches came every once in a while, but she was afraid he'd spread abroad the fact of his visit, and missionaries' families would be underfoot the whole continual time. As a case in point, she gracefully cited the fact that if a tramp got a good meal at anybody's back door, it was said that he'd leave some kind of a sign, so that all other tramps would know where they were likely to receive the same treatment. It is to be feared that there is some truth in this homely illustration, and Miss Miranda's dread as to her future responsibilities had some foundation, though not of the precise sort she had in mind. The soul grows into lovely habits, as easily as into ugly ones, and the moment of life begins to blossom into beautiful words and deeds. That moment a new standard of conduct is established, and your eager neighbours look to you for a continuous manifestation of the good cheer, the sympathy, the ready wit, the comrade-ship, or the inspiration you once showed yourself capable of. Bearfix for a season or two, and the world outside the orchard is very unwilling you should bear thistles. The effect of the birch's visit on Rebecca is not easily described. Nevertheless, as she looked back upon it from the vantage ground of after years, she felt that the moment when Mr. Birch asked her to lead in prayer marked an epoch in her life. If you have ever observed how courteous and gracious and manly you feel when you don a beautiful new frock, if you have ever noticed the feeling of reverence stealing over you when you close your eyes, clasp your hands, and bow your head, if you have ever watched your sense of repulsion towards a fellow creature melt a little under the exercise of daily politeness. You may understand how the adoption of the outward and visible sign has some strange influence in developing the inward and spiritual states of which it is the expression. It is only when one has grown old and dull that the soul is heavy and refuses to rise. The young soul is ever winged, a breath stares it to an upward flight. Rebecca was asked to bear witness to a state of mind or feeling of whose existence she had only the vaguest consciousness. She obeyed, and as she uttered words, they became true in the uttering. As she voiced aspirations, they settled into realities. As dove that to its window flies, her spirit soared towards a great light, dimly discovered at first, but brighter as she came closer to it. To become sensible of oneness with the divine heart, before any sense of separation has been felt, this is surely the most beautiful way for the child to find God. Chapter 21 The Skyline Widens The time so long and eagerly awaited for her had come, and Rebecca was a student at Wareham. Persons who had enjoyed the social bewilderments and advantages of foreign courts, who had mingled freely in delinquent intellectual circles of great universities, might not have looked upon Wareham as an extraordinary experience. But it was as much of an advance upon Riverboro as that village had been upon Sunnybrook Farm. Rebecca's intention was to complete the four years course in three, as it was felt by all the parties concerned that when she had attained the ripe age of seventeen, she must be ready to earn her own living and help in the education of the younger children. While she was wondering how this could be successfully accomplished, some of the other girls were cogitating as to how they could mender through the four years and come out at the end knowing no more than at the beginning. This would seem a difficult, well-nigh and an impossible task, but it can be achieved and has been at other states of learning than mother's little Wareham. Rebecca was to go and throw on the cars daily from September to Christmas, and then board in Wareham during the three coldest months. Emma Jane's parents had always thought that a year or two in the Edgewood High School, three months from Riverboro, would serve every purpose for their daughter and send her into the world with as fine an intellectual polish as she could well sustain. Emma Jane had either though heartily concurred in this opinion, for if there was any one thing that she detested, it was the learning of lessons. One book was as bad as another in her eyes, and she could have seen the libraries of the world sinking into ocean's depth and have eaten her dinner cheerfully the while. But matters assumed a different complexion when she was sent to Edgewood and Rebecca to Wareham. She bore it for a week, seven endless days of absence from the beloved object whom she could see only in the evenings when both were busy with their lessons. Sunday offered an opportunity to put the matter before her father, who proved objure it. He didn't believe in education and thought she had full enough already. He never intended to keep up blacksmithing for good when he leased his farm and came into Riverboro, but proposed to go back to it presently, and by that time Emma Jane would have finished school and would be ready to help her mother with the dairy work. Another week passed, Emma Jane pinned visibly and audibly. Her collar faded, and her appetite at table dwindled almost to nothing. Her mother alluded plaintively to the fact that the Perkinses had a habit of going to the clients, that she'd always feared that Emma Jane's complexion was too beautiful to be healthy, that some men would be proud of having an ambitious daughter and be glad to give her the best advantages that she feared the daily journeys to Edgewood were going to be too much for her own health, and Mr. Perkins would have to hire a boy to drive Emma Jane. And finally, that when a girl had such a passion for learning as Emma Jane, he seemed almost like wickedness to cross her will. Mr. Perkins bore this for several days, until his temper, digestion, and appetite were all sensibly affected. Then he bowed his head to the inevitable, and Emma Jane flew like a captive set free to the loved one's bower. Neither did her courage flag, although it was put to terrific tests when she entered the academic groups over where him. She passed in only two subjects, but went cheerfully into the preparatory department with her five conditions intending to let the stream of education play gently over her mental surfaces, and not get any wetter than she could help. It is not possible to blink the truth that Emma Jane was dull, but a dog's unswerving loyalty and the gift of devoted and selfish loving, these, after all, are talents of a sort, and may possibly be of as much value in the world as a sense of numbers or faculty for languages. Wareham was a pre-village with a broad main street shaded by great maples and alms. It had an apothecary, a blacksmith, a plumber, several shops of one source, and another, two churches and many boarding houses, but all its interests gathered about its seminary and its academic. These seeds of learning were neither better nor worse than others of their kind, but differed much in efficiency according as the principal, who chanced to be as they had was a man of power, an inspiration or the reverse. There were boys and girls gathered from all parts of the country and say in state, and they were of every kind and degree as to both position in the world wealth or poverty. There was an opportunity for a deal of foolish and imprudent behavior, but on the whole surprisingly little advantage was taken of it. Among the third and fourth year students, there was a certain amount of going to and from the trains in couples, some carrying of heavy books up the hill by the sternest sex for their feminine schoolmates, and occasional births of silliness on the part of the heedless and precocious girls, among whom was Holder Meserv. She was friendly enough with Emma Jane and Rebecca, but grew less and less intimate at this time went on. She was extremely pretty, with a perfusion of urban hair and a few very tight freckles, to which she constantly eluded as no one could possibly detect them without noting her porcelain skin and their curling lashes. She had merry eyes, a somewhat too plump figure for her ears, and was popularly supposed to have a fascinating way with her. With a borrow being poorly furnished with boo, she endeavored to have as good a time during her four years at Wehrhem as circumstances would permit. Her idea of pleasure was an ever-changing circle of admirers to fetch and carry for her, but more publicly the better. Incessant shaft and lauder, laughter, and vivacious conversation made eloquent and effective by arch-schlucks and telling glances. She had a habit of confiding her conquests to less fortunate girls and bewailing the incessant havoc and damage she was doing. A damage she avowed herself as innocent of, in intention, as any newborn lamb. It does not take much of this sort of thing to reckon ordinary friendship, so before long Rebecca and Emma Jane sat in one end of the railway train in going to and from Riverboro, and Holder occupied the other with her court. Sometimes this was brilliant beyond words, including a certain youthful Montecristo, who on Fridays expended 30 cents on a round-trip ticket and traveled from Wehrhem to Riverboro merely to be near Holder. Sometimes too, the circle was reduced, to the popcorn and peanut boy of the train, who seemed to serve every purpose in default of better game. Rebecca was in the normally unconscious state that belonged to her years. Boys were good comrades, but not more. She liked residing in the same class with them. Everything seemed to move better, but from vulgar and precocious flirtations she was protected by her ideals. There was little in delights she had met thus far to awaken her fancy, for it actually fed on better meat. All the schoolgirls' romances, with their wealth of commonplace detail, were not the stuff her dreams were made of, when dreams did flutter across a sensitive plate of her mind. Among the teachers at Wehrhem was one who influenced Rebecca profoundly, Miss Emily Maxwell, with whom she studied English literature and composition. Miss Maxwell, as the niece of one of Main's ex-governors and the daughter of one of Boydorn's professors, was the most remarkable personality in Wehrhem, and that her few years of teaching happened to be in Rebecca's time was the happiest of all chances. There was no indecision or delay in the establishment of their relations. Rebecca's heart flew like an arrow to its mark, and her mind, meeting its superior, settled at once into an abiding attitude of respectful homage. It was rumoured that Miss Maxwell wrote, which word, when it was uttered in a certain tone, was understood to me not that a person had command of penmanship, spencerian or otherwise, but that she had appeared in print. You like her, she writes, whispered hold of to Rebecca the first morning at press, where the faculty sat in an opposing row on the front seats. She writes, and I call her stuck up. Nobody seemed to possess of exact information with which to satisfy the hungry mind, but there was believed to be at least one person in existence who had seen with his own eyes an essay by Miss Maxwell in a magazine. This height of achievement made Rebecca somewhat shy of her, but she looked her admiration, something that most of the class could never do with the unsatisfactory gorgons of vision given them by mother nature. Miss Maxwell's glance was always meeting a pair of eager dark eyes when she said anything particularly good. She looked for approval to the corner of the second bench, where every shade of feeling she wished to evoke was reflected on a certain sensitive young face. One day, when the first essay of the class was under discussion, she asked each new pupil to bring her some composition written during the year before, that she might judge the work and know precisely with what material she had to do. Rebecca lingered after the others and approached the desks shyly. I haven't any compositions here, Miss Maxwell, but I can find one when I go home on Friday. They are packed away in a box in the attic. Carefully tied with pink and blue ribbons, asked Miss Maxwell with a whimsical smile. No, answered Rebecca, shaking her head, decidedly. I wanted to use ribbons because all the other girls did and they looked so pretty, but I used to tie my essays with twine strings on the purpose and the one on Solitude I fastened with an old shoe lacing just to show it what I thought of it. Solitudes loved Miss Maxwell raising her eyebrows. Did you choose your own subject? No, Miss Dearborn thought we were not old enough to find good ones. That were some of the others, fireside reveries, grant as a soldier, reflections of the life of P.T. Barnon, buried cities. I can't remember any more now. They were all bad and I can't bear to show them. I can write poetry easier and better, Miss Maxwell. Poetry, she has claimed. Did Miss Dearborn require you to do it? Oh no, I always did it even at the farm. Shall I bring all I have? It isn't much. Rebecca took the blank book in which she kept copies of her effusions and left it at Miss Maxwell's door, hoping that she might be asked in and thus obtain a private interview. But a servant answered her ring and she could only walk away disappointed. A few days afterward she saw the black-covered book on Miss Maxwell's desk and knew that she dreaded moment of criticism had come. So she was not surprised to be asked to remain after class. The room was quiet, the red leaves rustled in the breeze and flew in at the open window, bearing the first compliments of the season. Miss Maxwell came and sat by Rebecca's side on the bench. Did you think these were good? she asked, giving her the verses. Not so very, confessed Rebecca. But it's hard to tell all by herself. The Parkinson's and the comps always said they were wonderful, but when Mrs. Cobb told me she thought they were better than Mr. Longfellow's, I was worried, because I knew that couldn't be true. This ingenious remark confirmed Miss Maxwell's opinion of Rebecca as a girl who could hear the truth and profit by it. Well, my child, she said smilingly, your friends were wrong and you were right, judged by the proper tests, they are pretty bad. Then I must give up all hope of ever being a writer, said Rebecca, who was tasting the bitterness of hemlock and wondering if she could keep the tears back until the interview was over. Don't go so fast, interrupted Miss Maxwell. Though they don't amount to anything as poetry, they show a good deal of promise in certain directions. You almost never made a mistake in rhyme or matter, and this shows you have a natural sense of what is right, a sense of form. Poets would call it. When you grow older, have a little more experience, in fact, when you have something to say, I think you might write very good verses. Poetry needs knowledge and vision, experience and imagination, Rebecca. You have not the first three yet, but I rather think you have a touch of the last. Must I never try any more poetry, not even to amuse myself? Certainly you may, if you're only happy to write better prose. Now, for the first composition, I'm going to ask all the new students to write a letter giving some description of the town and a hint of the school life. Shall I have to be myself? asked Rebecca. What do you mean? A letter from Rebecca Randall to her sister Hannah at Sonnybrook Farm or to her aunt Jane at the Brighouse Riverboro is so dull and stupid, if it is a real letter. But if I could make believe I was a different girl all together and write to somebody who would be sure to understand everything I said, I could make it nicer. Very well. I think that's a delightful plan, said Miss Maxwell. And whom will you suppose yourself to be? I like heresies very much, replied Rebecca contemplatively. Of course I never saw one, but interesting things are always happening to heresies, especially to the golden-haired kind. My heresies would be vain and hearty like the wicked sisters in Cinderella. She would be noble and generous. She would give up her grand school in Boston because she wanted to come here where her father lived, when he was a boy, long before he made his fortune. The father is dead now, and she has a guardian, the best and kindest man in the world. He is rather old, of course, and sometimes very quiet and grave, but sometimes when he is happy he is full of fun, and then Evelyn is not afraid of him. Yes, the girl shall be called Evelyn, Abercrombie, and her guardian's name shall be Mr. Evelyn Ladd. Do you know Mr. Ladd? asked Miss Maxwell in surprise. Yes, he is my very best friend, cried Rebecca delightedly. Do you know him too? Oh yes, he is a trustee of these schools. You know and often comes here, but if I let you suppose any more, you will tell me your whole letter and then I shall lose a pleasant surprise. What Rebecca thought of Miss Maxwell we already know. How the teacher regarded the pupil may be gathered for the following letter, written two or three months later. Where hem December first. My dear father, as you well know, I have not always been an enthusiast on the subject of teaching. The task of cramming knowledge into these self-sufficient and efficient youngsters of both sexes discourages me at times. The most stupid they are, the less they are aware of it. If my department for geography or mathematics, I believe I should feel that I was accomplishing something, for in those branches application and industry work wonders. But in English literature, in composition, one year is for brains, for appreciation, for imagination, month after month I toil on, opening oyster after oyster, but tell them finding a pearl. Fancy my joy this term, when, without any violent efforts, I took a shell splitting, I came upon a rare pearl, a black one, but of satin skin and beautiful looser. Her name is Rebecca, and she looks not unlike Rebecca at the well, in our family Bible. Her hair and eyes being so dark as to suggest a strain of Italian or Spanish blood. She is nobody in particular. Man has done nothing for her. He has no family to speak of, no money, no education worthy the name, has had no advantages of any sort. But Dame Nature flunk herself into the bridge and said, This child I to myself will take. She shall be mine and I will make a lady of my own. Blessed Wordsworth, how he makes us understand, and the pearl never heard of him until now. Think of reading Lucy to a class, and when you finish seeing a fourteen-year-old pair of lips quivering with the light, and a pair of eyes brimming with comprehending tears. You poor darling, you too know the discouragement of sowing lovely seed in rocky earth, in sand, in water, and it almost seems sometimes in mud, knowing that if anything comes up at all, it will be some poor starvelling plant. Fancy the joy of finding a real mind of dropping seed in a soil so warm, so fertile, that one knows there are sure to be foliage, blossoms, and fruits all in good time. I wish I were not so impatient and so greedy of results. I am not fit to be a teacher, knowing is who is so scornful of stupidity as I am. The pearl writes quaint, contraffied little verses, dog-girl they are. But somehow or other she always contrives to put in one line, one thought, one image, that shows you she is quite unconsciously to herself in possession of the secret. Good-bye. I'll bring Rebeca home with me some Friday, and let you and your mother see her for yourselves. Your affectionate daughter, Emily. End of Chapter 21 Chapter 22 of Rebeca of Sunnybrook Farm This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Mary Anderson. Rebeca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wigan Chapter 22 Clover Blossoms and Sunflowers How'd you do, girls? said Holden Mazerv, peeping in at the door. Can you stop studying a minute and show me your room? Say, I've just been down to the store and bought me these gloves. For I was bound I wouldn't wear mittens this winter. They're simply too country-fied. It's your first year here, and you're younger than I am. So I suppose you don't mind. But I simply suffer if I don't keep up some kind of style. Say, your room is simply too cute for words. I don't believe any of the others can begin to compare with it. I don't know what gives it that simply gorgeous look, whether it's the full curtains or that elegant screen, or Rebeca's lamp. But you certainly do have a faculty for fixing up. I like a pretty room too, but I never have a minute to attend to mine. I'm always so busy on my clothes that half the time I don't get my bed made up till noon. And after all, having no collars but the girls, it don't make much difference. When I graduate I'm going to fix up our parlor at home, so it'll be simply regal. I've learned Delca comania. And after I take up luster painting I shall have it simply stiff with drapes and tidies and plaques and sofa pillows and make mother let me have a fire and receive my friends there evenings. May I dry my feet at your register? I can't bear to wear rubbers unless the mud or the slush is simply knee-deep. They make your feet look so awfully big. I had such a fuss getting this pair of French heeled boots that I don't intend to spoil the looks of them with rubbers any oftener than I can help. I believe boys notice feet quicker than anything. Elmer Webster stepped on one of mine yesterday when I accidentally had it out in the aisle. And when he apologized after class he said he wasn't so much to blame, for the foot was so little he really couldn't see it. Isn't he perfectly great? Of course that's only his way of talking, for after all I only wear a number two, but these French heels and pointed toes do certainly make your foot look smaller, and it's always said a high instep helps too. I used to think mine was almost a deformity, but they say it's a great beauty. Just put your feet beside mine girls and look at the difference. Not that I care much, but just for fun. My feet are very comfortable where they are, responded Rebecca Dryley. I can't stop to measure insteps on algebra days. I've noticed your habit of keeping a foot in the aisle ever since you had those new shoes, so I don't wonder it was stepped on. Perhaps I am a little might conscious of them, because they're not so very comfortable at first, till you get them broken in. Say, haven't you got a lot of new things? Our Christmas presents you mean, said Emma Jane. The pillowcases are for Mrs. Cobb, the rug from Cousin Mary in North Riverboro, the scrap basket from Living and Dick. We gave each other the bureau and cushion covers, and the screen is mine for Mr. Lad. Well, you were lucky when you met him. Gracious. I wish I could meet somebody like that. The way he keeps it up, too, just hides your bed, doesn't it? And I always say that a bed takes the style off any room, especially when it's not made up. Though you have an alcove, and it's the only one in the whole building. I don't see how you managed to get this good room. When you're such new scholars, she finished discontentedly. We shouldn't have, except that Ruth Berry had to go away suddenly on account of her father's death. This room was empty, and Miss Maxwell asked if we might have it, returned Emma Jane. The great and only Max is more stiff and standoffish than ever this year, said Holda. I've simply given up trying to please her, for there's no justice in her. She is good to her favourites, but she doesn't pay the least attention to anybody else, except to make sarcastic speeches about things that are none of her business. I wanted to tell her yesterday it was her place to teach me Latin, not Manners. I wish you wouldn't talk against Miss Maxwell to me, said Rebecca Hotley. You know how I feel. I know, but I can't understand how you can abide her. I not only abide, I love her, exclaimed Rebecca. I wouldn't let the sunshine too hot on her, or the wind blow too cold. I'd like to put a marble platform in her classroom and have her sit in a velvet chair behind a golden table. Well, don't have a fit, because she can sit where she likes for all of me. I've got something better to think of. And Holda tossed her head. Isn't this your study hour, asked Emma Jane to stop possible discussion? Yes, but I lost my Latin grammar yesterday. I left it in the hall half an hour while I was having a regular scene with Herbert Dunn. I haven't spoken to him for a week, and gave him back his class pin. He was simply furious. Then when I came back to the hall the book was gone. I had to go downtown for my gloves into the principal's office to see if the grammar had been handed in, and that's the reason I'm so fine. Holda was wearing a woolen dress that had once been gray, but had been dyed a brilliant blue. She had added three rows of white braid and large white pearl buttons to her gray jacket in order to make it a little more dressy. Her gray felt hat had a white feather on it, and a white tissue veil with large black dots made her delicate skin look brilliant. Rebecca thought how lovely the knot of red hair looked under the hat behind, and how the color of the front had been dulled by incessant frizzing with curling irons. Her open jacket disclosed a galaxy of souvenirs pinned to the background of bright blue, a small American flag, a button of the Warehem rowing club, and one or two society pins. These decorations proved her popularity in very much the same way as do the Cotillion favors hanging on the bedroom walls of the fashionable bell. She had been pinning and unpinning, arranging and disarranging her veil ever since she entered the room in the hope that the girls would ask her whose ring she was wearing this week. But although both had noticed the new ornament instantly, wild horses could not have drawn the question from them. Her desire to be asked was too obvious. With her gay plumage, her nods and becks and wreathed smiles, and her cheerful cackle, Holda closely resembled the parrot in Wordsworth's poem. Arch, volatile, a sportive bird, by social glee inspired, ambitious to be seen or heard and pleased to be admired. Mr. Morrison thinks the grammar will be returned and let me another Holda continued. He was rather snippy about my leaving a book in the hall. There was a perfectly elegant gentleman in the office, a stranger to me. I wish he was a new teacher, but there's no such luck. He was too young to be the father of any of the girls and too old to be a brother. But he was handsome as a picture and had on an awful stylish suit of clothes. He looked at me about every minute I was in the room. It made me so embarrassed I couldn't hardly answer Mr. Morrison's questions straight. You'll have to wear a mask pretty soon if you're going to have any comfort, Holda, said Rebecca. Did he offer to lend you his class pin, or has it been so long since he graduated that he's left off wearing it? And tell us now whether the principal asked for a lock of your hair to put in his watch. This was all said merrily and laughingly, but there were times when Holda could scarcely make up her mind whether Rebecca was trying to be witty or whether she was jealous. But she generally decided it was merely the latter feeling, rather natural in a girl who had little attention. He wore no jewelry but a cameo scarf pin and a perfectly gorgeous ring, a queer kind of one that wound round and round his finger. Oh, dear, I must run! Where has the hour gone? There's the study-bell! Rebecca had pricked up her ears at Holda's speech. She remembered a certain strange ring, and it belonged to the only person in the world, save Miss Maxwell, who appealed to her imagination, Mr. Aladdin. Her feeling for him and that of Emma Jane was a mixture of romantic and reverent admiration for the man himself and the liveliest gratitude for his beautiful gifts. Since they first met him, not a Christmas had gone by without some remembrance for them both. Remembrances chosen with the rarest taste and forethought. Emma Jane had seen him only twice, but he had called several times at the Brick House, and Rebecca had learned to know him better. It was she, too, who always wrote the notes of acknowledgement and thanks, tanking infinite pains to make Emma Jane's quite different from her own. Sometimes he had written from Boston and asked her the news of Riverboro, and she had sent him pages of quaint and childlike gossip interspersed on two occasions with poetry, which he read and reread with infinite relish. If Holda's strangers should be Mr. Aladdin, would he come to see her? And could she and Emma Jane show him their beautiful room with so many of his gifts and evidence? When the girls had established themselves and wear them as real boarding pupils, it seemed to them existence was as full of joy as it well could hold. This first winter was, in fact, the most tranquilly happy of Rebecca's school life. A winter long to be looked back upon. She and Emma Jane were roommates, and had put their modest possessions together to make their surroundings pretty and home-like. The room had, to begin with, a cheerful red ingrained carpet and a set of maple furniture. As to the rest, Rebecca had furnished the ideas and Emma Jane the materials and labour. A method of dividing responsibilities seemed to suit the circumstances admirably. Mrs. Perkins' father had been a storekeeper, and on his death had left the goods of which he was possessed to his married daughter. The molasses, vinegar, and kerosene had lasted the family for five years, and the Perkins' attic was still a treasure-house of ginghams, cottons, and Yankee notions, so at Rebecca's instigation Mrs. Perkins had made full curtains and lambroquins of unbleached muslin, which she had trimmed and looped back with bands of turkey-red cotton. There were two table covers to match, and each of the girls had her study corner. Rebecca, after much coaxing, had been allowed to bring over her precious lamp, which would have given a luxurious air to any apartment. And when Mr. Aladdin's last Christmas presents were added, the Japanese screened for Emma Jane and the little shelf of English poets for Rebecca, they declared that it was all quite as much fun as being married and going to housekeeping. The day of Holda's call was Friday, and on Fridays from three to half-past four, Rebecca was free to take a pleasure to which she looked forward the entire week. She always ran down the snowy path through the pine woods at the back of the seminary, and coming out on a quiet village street went directly to the large white house where Miss Maxwell lived. The maid of all work answered her knock. She took off her hat and cape and hung them in the hall, put her rubber shoes and umbrella carefully in the corner, and then opened the door of Paradise. Miss Maxwell's sitting-room was lined on two sides with bookshelves, and Rebecca was allowed to sit before the fire and browse among the books to her heart's delight for an hour or more. Then Miss Maxwell would come back from her class, and there would be a precious half-hour of chat before Rebecca had to meet Emma Jane at the station and take the train for Riverboro, where her Saturdays and Sundays were spent, and where she was washed, ironed, mended, and examined, approved and reproved, warned and advised in quite sufficient quantity to last her this exceeding week. On this Friday she buried her face in the blooming geraniums on Miss Maxwell's plant stand, selected remola from one of the bookcases, and sank into a seat by the window with a sigh of infinite content. She glanced at the clock now and then remembering the day on which she had been so immersed in David Copperfield that the Riverboro train had no place in her mind. The distracted Emma Jane had refused to leave without her, and had run from the station to look for her at Miss Maxwell's. There was but one later train, and that went only to a place three miles to the other side of Riverboro, so that the two girls appeared at their respective homes long after dark, having had a weary walk in the snow. When she had read for half an hour she glanced out of the window and saw two figures issuing from the path through the woods. The knot of bright hair and the coquettish hat could belong to but one person, and her companion, as the couple approached, proved to be none other than Mr. Aladdin. Holda was lifting her skirts daintily and picking safe-stepping places for the high-heeled shoes. Her cheeks glowing, her eyes sparkling under the black-and-white veil. Rebecca slipped from her post by the window to the rug before the bright fire, and leaned her head on the seat of the great easy chair. She was frightened at the storm in her heart, at the suddenness with which it had come on, as well as at the strangeness of an entirely new sensation. She felt all at once as if she could not bear to give up her share of Mr. Aladdin's friendship to Holda. Holda so bright, saucy and pretty, so gay and ready and such good company. She had always joyfully admitted Emma Jane into the precious partnership, but perhaps unconsciously to herself she had realized that Emma Jane had never held anything but a secondary place in Mr. Aladdin's regard. Yet who was she herself, after all, that she could hope to be first? Suddenly the door opened softly and somebody looked in. Somebody who said, Miss Maxwell told me I should find Miss Rebecca Randall here. Rebecca started at the sound, and sprang to her feet saying joyfully, Mr. Aladdin, oh I knew you were in wear'em, and I was afraid you wouldn't have time to come and see us. Who is us? The ants are not here, are they? Oh you mean the rich blacksmith's daughter, whose name I can never remember. Is she here? Yes, and my roommate answered Rebecca, who thought her own knell of doom had sounded, if he had forgotten Emma Jane's name. The light in the room grew softer, the fire crackled cheerily, and they talked of many things, until the old sweet sense of friendliness and familiarity crept back into Rebecca's heart. Adam had not seen her for several months, and there was much to be learned about school matters as viewed from her own standpoint. He had already inquired concerning her progress for Mr. Morrison. Well, little Miss Rebecca, he said, rousing himself at length, I must be thinking of my drive to Portland. There is a meeting of railway directors there tomorrow, and I always take the opportunity of visiting the school and giving my valuable advice concerning its affairs, educational and financial. It seems funny for you to be a school trustee, said Rebecca contemplatively. I can't seem to make it fit. You are a remarkably wise young person, and I quite agree with you, he answered. The fact is, he added soberly, I accepted the trustee's ship in memory of my poor little mother, whose last happy years were spent here. That was a long time ago. Let me see, I am thirty-two, only thirty-two, despite an occasional gray hair. My mother was married a month after she graduated, and she lived only until I was ten. Yes, it is a long way back to my mother's time here, though the school was fifteen or twenty years old then, I believe. Would you like to see my mother, Miss Rebecca? The girl took the leather case gently and opened it to find an innocent, pink and white daisy of a face, so confiding, so sensitive, that I went straight to her heart. It made Rebecca feel old, experienced, and maternal. She longed on the instant to comfort and strengthen such a tender young thing. Oh, what a sweet, sweet, flowery face she whispered softly. The flower had to bear all sorts of storms, said Adam Gravely. The bitter weather of the world bent its slender stalk, bowed its head, and dragged it to the earth. I was only a child and could do nothing to protect and nourish it, and there was no one else to stand between it and trouble. Now I have success and money and power, all that it would have kept her alive and happy, and it is too late. She died for lack of love and care, nursing and cherishing, and I can never forget it. All that it has come to me seems now and then so useless since I cannot share it with her. This was a new Mr. Aladdin, and Rebecca's heart gave a throb of sympathy and comprehension. This explained the tired look in his eyes, the look that peeped out now and then under all his gay speech and laughter. I'm so glad I know, she said, and so glad I could see her, just as she was when she tied that white muslin hat under her chin and saw her yellow curls and her sky blue eyes in the glass. Mustn't she have been happy? I wish she could have been kept so, and have lived to see you grow up strong and good. My mother is always sad and busy, but once when she looked at John I heard her say, He makes up for everything. That's what your mother would have thought about you if she had lived, and perhaps she does as it is. You are a comforting little person, Rebecca, said Adam, rising from his chair. As Rebecca rose, the tears still trembling on her lashes, he looked at her suddenly as with new vision. Good-bye, he said, taking her slim brown hand in his, adding as if he saw her for the first time. Why little rose-red snow-white is making way for a new girl. Burning the midnight oil and doing four years work in three is supposed to dull the eye and blanch the cheek. Yet Rebecca's eyes are bright and she has a rosy color. Her long braids are looped one on the other so that they make a black letter U behind, and they are tied with grand bows at the top. She is so tall that she reaches almost to my shoulder. This will never do in the world. How will Mr. Aladdin get on without his comforting little friend? He doesn't like grown-up young ladies in long trains and wonderful fine clothes. They frighten and bore him. Oh, Mr. Aladdin cried Rebecca eagerly, taking his jest quite seriously. I am not fifteen yet, and it will be three years before I'm a young lady. Please don't give me up until you have to. I won't, I promise you that, said Adam. Rebecca, he continued after a moment's pause. Who is that young girl with a lot of pretty red hair and very acidified manners? She escorted me down the hill. Do you know whom I mean? It must behold of me serve. She is from river borough. Adam put a finger under Rebecca's chin and looked into her eyes, eyes as soft, as clear, as unconscious and childlike as they had been when she was ten. He remembered the other pair of challenging blue ones that had darted coquettish glances through half-dropped lids, shot airy beams from under archly lifted brows, and said gravely, Don't form yourself on her, Rebecca. Clover blossoms that grow in the fields beside Sunnybrook mustn't be tied in the same bouquet with gaudy sunflowers. They are too sweet and fragrant and wholesome. Chapter 23 of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mary Anderson Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin Chapter 23 The Hill Difficulty The first happy year at Warrum, with its widened skyline, its larger vision, its greater opportunity, was over and gone. Rebecca had studied during the summer vacation and had passed, on her return in the autumn, certain examinations which would enable her, if she carried out the same program the next season, to complete the course in three instead of four years. She came off with no flying colors. That would have been impossible in consideration of her inadequate training. But she did wonderfully well in some of the required subjects and so brilliantly in others that the average was respectable. She would never have been a remarkable scholar under any circumstances, perhaps, and she was easily outstripped in mathematics and the natural sciences by a dozen girls. But in some inexplicable way she became, as the months went on, the foremost figure in the school. When she had entirely forgotten the facts which would enable her to answer a question fully and conclusively, she commonly had some original theory to expound. It was not always correct, but it was generally unique and sometimes amusing. She was only fair in Latin or French grammar, but when it came to translation, her freedom, her choice of words, and her sympathetic understanding of the spirit of the text made her the delight of her teachers and the despair of her rivals. She can be perfectly ignorant of a subject, said Miss Maxwell to Adam Lad, but entirely intelligent the moment she has a clue. Most of the other girls are full of information and as stupid as sheep. Rebecca's gifts had not been discovered saved by the few during the first year, when she was adjusting herself quietly to the situation. She was distinctly one of the poorer girls. She had no fine dresses to attract attention, no visitors, no friends in the town. She had more study hours and less time therefore for the companionship of other girls. Gladly as she would have welcomed the gaiety of that sight of school life. Still water will find its own level in some way, and by the spring of the second year she had naturally settled into the same sort of leadership which had been hers in the smaller community of Riverboro. She was unanimously elected assistant editor of the Wareham School pilot, being the first girl to assume that enviable, though somewhat arduous and thankless position. And when her maiden number went to the cobs, Uncle Jerry and Aunt Sarah could hardly eat or sleep for pride. She'll always get votes at hold of me-serve, when discussing the election. For whether she knows anything or not she looks as if she did, and whether she's capable of filling an office or not she looks as if she was. I only wish I was tall and dark and had the gift of making people believe I was great things like Rebecca Randall. There's one thing, though the boys call her handsome, you notice they don't trouble her with much attention. It was a fact that Rebecca's attitude towards the opposite sex was still somewhat indifferent and oblivious, even for fifteen and a half. No one could look at her and doubt that she had potentialities of attraction latent within her somewhere, but that sight of her nature was happily biding its time. A human being is capable only of a certain amount of activity at a given moment, and it will inevitably satisfy first its most pressing needs, its most ardent desires, its chief ambitions. Rebecca was full of small anxieties and fears, for matters were not going well at the brick house and were anything but hopeful at the home farm. She was over-busy and over-taxed, and her thoughts were naturally drawn towards the difficult problems of daily living. It had seemed to her during the autumn and winter of that year, as if her Aunt Miranda had never been, save at the very first, so censorous and so fault-finding. One Saturday Rebecca ran upstairs and bursting into a flood of tears exclaimed, Aunt Jane, it seems as if I never could stand her continual scoldings. Nothing I can do suits Aunt Miranda. She's just said it will take my whole life to get the Randall out of me, and I'm not convinced that I want it all out, so there we are. Aunt Jane, never demonstrative, cried with Rebecca as she attempted to soothe her. You must be patient, she said, wiping first her own eyes and then Rebecca's. I haven't told you, for it isn't fair you should be troubled when you're studying so hard, but your Aunt Miranda isn't well. One Sunday morning about a month ago she had kind of a faint spell. It wasn't bad, but the doctor is afraid it was a shock, and if so it's the beginning of the end. Seems to me she's failing right along, and that's what makes her so fretful and easily vexed. She has other troubles, too, that you don't know anything about, and if you're not kind to your Aunt Miranda now, child, you'll be dreadful sorry sometime. All the temper faded from Rebecca's face, and she stopped crying to say penitently, oh, the poor dear thing. I won't mind a bit what she says now. She's just asked me for some milk toast, and I was dreading to take it to her. But this will make everything different. Don't worry yet, Aunt Jane, for perhaps it won't be as bad as you think. So when she carried the toast to her aunt a little later, it was in the best guilt-edge china bowl with a fringed napkin on the tray, and a sprig of geranium lying across the salt cellar. Now Aunt Miranda, she said cheerily, I expect you to smack your lips and say this is good. It's not randle, but so your milk toast. You've tried all kinds on me, one time and another, Miranda answered. This tastes real kind of good, but I wish you hadn't wasted that nice geranium. You can't tell what's wasted, said Rebecca philosophically. Perhaps that geranium has been hoping this long time it could brighten somebody's supper, so don't disappoint it by making believe you don't like it. I've seen geraniums cry in the very early morning. The mysterious trouble to which Jane had eluded was a very real one, but it was held in profound secrecy. Twenty-five hundred dollars of the small Sawyer property had been invested in the business of a friend of their fathers, and had returned them a regular annual income of a hundred dollars. The family friend had been dead for some five years, but his son had succeeded to his interests and all went on as formerly. Suddenly there came a letter saying that the firm had gone into bankruptcy, that the business had been completely wrecked, and that the Sawyer money had been swept away with everything else. The loss of one hundred dollars a year is a very trifling matter, but it made all the difference between comfort and self-denial to the two old spinsters. Their manner of life had been so rigid and careful that it was difficult to economize any further, and the blow had fallen just when it was most inconvenient. For Rebecca's school and boarding expenses, small as they were, had to be paid promptly and in cash. Can we possibly go on doing it? Shouldn't we have to give up and tell her why, asked Jane tearfully of the elder sister? We have put our hand to the plow, and we can't turn back, answered Miranda, in her grimace tone. We've taken her away from her mother and offered her an education, and we've got to keep our word. She's Aurelia's only hope for years to come, to my way of thinking. Hannah's bow takes all her time and thought, and when she gets a husband her mother will be out of sight and out of mind. John, instead of Farman, thinks he must be a doctor, as if folks wasn't getting unhealthy enough these days without turning out more young doctors to help them into their graves. No Jane will skimp and do without and plan to get along on our interest money somehow, but we won't break into our principal whatever happens. Breaking into the principal was, in the minds of most thrifty New England women, a sin only second to arson, theft, or murder. And though the rule was occasionally carried too far for common sense, as in this case, where two elderly women of sixty might reasonably have drawn something from their little hoard in time of special need, it doubtless wrought more of good than evil in the community. Rebecca, who knew nothing of their business affairs, merely saw her aunts grow more and more saving, pinching here and there, cutting off this and that relentlessly. Less meat and fish were bought. The woman who had lately been coming two days a week for washing, ironing, and scrubbing was dismissed. The old bonnets of the season before were brushed up and retrimmed. There were no drives to moderation or trips to Portland. Economy was carried to its very extreme. But though Miranda was well nigh as gloomy and uncompromising in her manner and conversation as a woman could well be, she at least never twitted her niece of being a burden. So Rebecca's share of the Sawyer's misfortunes considered only in wearing her old dresses, hats, and jackets, without any apparent hope of a change. There was, however, no concealing the state of things at Sunnybrook, where chapters of accidents had unfolded themselves in a sort of serial story that had run through the year. The potato crop had failed. There were no apples to speak of. The hay had been poor. Aurelia had turns of dizziness in her head. Mark had broken his ankle. As this was his fourth offense, Miranda inquired how many bones there were in the human body. Soat they'd know when Mark got through breaking them. The time for paying the interest on the mortgage, that incubus that had crushed all the joy out of the Randall household had come and gone. And there was no possibility for the first time in fourteen years of paying the required forty-eight dollars. The only bright spot in the horizon was Hannah's engagement to Will Melville, a young farmer whose land joined Sunnybrook, who had a good house, was alone in the world, and his own master. Hannah was so satisfied with her own unexpectedly radiant prospects that she hardly realized her mother's anxieties. She had made a visit of a week at the Brick House, and Miranda's impression, conveyed in a privacy to Jane, was that Hannah was close as the bark of a tree, and considerable selfish too. That when she'd climb as fur as she could in the world, she'd kick the ladder out from under her, everlasting quick, that, on being sounded as to her ability to be of use to the younger children in the future, she said she guessed she'd done her share already, and she wasn't going to burden Will with her poor relations. She's Susan Randall through and through ejaculated Miranda. I was glad to see her face turn towards temperance. If that mortgage is ever cleared from the farm, won't be Hannah that'll do it, it'll be Rebecca or me.