the colors had run in the rubbing, the pattern was blurred, and there were muddy streaks here and there. As a last resort, it was carefully smoothed with a warm iron, and Rebecca was urged to attire herself, that they might see if the spots showed as much when it was on.
They did, most uncompromisingly, and to the dullest eye. Rebecca gave one searching look, and then said, as she took her hat from a nail in the entry, “I think I’ll be going. Good-night! If I’ve got to have a scolding, I want it quick, and get it over.”
“Poor little onlucky misfortunate thing!” sighed uncle Jerry, as his eyes followed her down the hill. “I wish she could pay some attention to the ground under her feet; but I vow, if she was ourn I’d let her slop paint all over the house before I could scold her. Here’s her poetry she’s left behind. Read it out ag’in, mother. Land!” he continued, chuckling, as he lighted his cob pipe; “I can just see the last flap o’ that boy-editor’s shirt tail as he legs it for the woods, while Rebecky settles down in his revolvin’ cheer! I’m puzzled as to what kind of a job editin’ is, exactly; but she’ll find out, Rebecky will. An’ she’ll just edit for all she’s worth!
“`The thought that God has planned it so Should help us bear the years.’
Land, mother! that takes right holt, kind o’ like the gospel. How do you suppose she thought that out?”
“She couldn’t have thought it out at her age,” said Mrs. Cobb; “she must have just guessed it was that way. We know some things without bein’ told, Jeremiah.”
Rebecca took her scolding (which she richly deserved) like a soldier. There was considerable of it, and Miss Miranda remarked, among other things, that so absent-minded a child was sure to grow up into a driveling idiot. She was bidden to stay away from Alice Robinson’s birthday party, and doomed to wear her dress, stained and streaked as it was, until it was worn out. Aunt Jane six months later mitigated this martyrdom by making her a ruffled dimity pinafore, artfully shaped to conceal all the spots. She was blessedly ready with these mediations between the poor little sinner and the full consequences of her sin.
When Rebecca had heard her sentence and gone to the north chamber she began to think. If there was anything she did not wish to grow into, it was an idiot of any sort, particularly a driveling one; and she resolved to punish herself every time she incurred what she considered to be the righteous displeasure of her virtuous relative. She didn’t mind staying away from Alice Robinson’s. She had told Emma Jane it would be like a picnic in a graveyard, the Robinson house being as near an approach to a tomb as a house can manage to be. Children were commonly brought in at the back door, and requested to stand on newspapers while making their call, so that Alice was begged by her friends to “receive” in the shed or barn whenever possible. Mrs. Robinson was not only “turrible neat,” but “turrible close,” so that the refreshments were likely to be peppermint lozenges and glasses of well water.
After considering the relative values, as penances, of a piece of haircloth worn next the skin, and a pebble in the shoe, she dismissed them both. The haircloth could not be found, and the pebble would attract the notice of the Argus-eyed aunt, besides being a foolish bar to the activity of a person who had to do housework and walk a mile and a half to school.
Her first experimental attempt at martyrdom had not been a distinguished success. She had stayed at home from the Sunday-school concert, a func- tion of which, in ignorance of more alluring ones, she was extremely fond. As a result of her desertion, two infants who relied upon her to prompt them (she knew the verses of all the children better than they did themselves) broke down ignominiously. The class to which she belonged had to read a difficult chapter of Scripture in rotation, and the various members spent an arduous Sabbath afternoon counting out verses according to their seats in the pew, and practicing the ones that would inevitably fall to them. They were too ignorant to realize, when they were called upon, that Rebecca’s absence would make everything come wrong, and the blow descended with crushing force when the Jebusites and Amorites, the Girgashites, Hivites, and Perizzites had to be pronounced by the persons of all others least capable of grappling with them.
Self-punishment, then, to be adequate and proper, must begin, like charity, at home, and unlike charity should end there too. Rebecca looked about the room vaguely as she sat by the window. She must give up something, and truth to tell she possessed little to give, hardly anything but–yes, that would do, the beloved pink parasol. She could not hide it in the attic, for in some moment of weakness she would be sure to take it out again. She feared she had not the moral energy to break it into bits. Her eyes moved from the parasol to the apple-trees in the side yard, and then fell to the well curb. That would do; she would fling her dearest possession into the depths of the water. Action followed quickly upon decision, as usual. She slipped down in the darkness, stole out the front door, approached the place of sacrifice, lifted the cover of the well, gave one unresigned shudder, and flung the parasol downward with all her force. At the crucial instant of renunciation she was greatly helped by the reflection that she closely resembled the heathen mothers who cast their babes to the crocodiles in the Ganges.
She slept well and arose refreshed, as a consecrated spirit always should and sometimes does. But there was great difficulty in drawing water after breakfast. Rebecca, chastened and uplifted, had gone to school. Abijah Flagg was summoned, lifted the well cover, explored, found the inciting cause of trouble, and with the help of Yankee wit succeeded in removing it. The fact was that the ivory hook of the parasol had caught in the chain gear, and when the first attempt at drawing water was made, the little offering of a contrite heart was jerked up, bent, its strong ribs jammed into the well side, and entangled with a twig root. It is needless to say that no sleight-of-hand performer, however expert, unless aided by the powers of darkness, could have accomplished this feat; but a luckless child in the pursuit of virtue had done it with a turn of the wrist.
We will draw a veil over the scene that occurred after Rebecca’s return from school. You who read may be well advanced in years, you may be gifted in rhetoric, ingenious in argument; but even you might quail at the thought of explaining the tortuous mental processes that led you into throwing your beloved pink parasol into Miranda Sawyer’s well. Perhaps you feel equal to discussing the efficacy of spiritual self-chastisement with a person who closes her lips into a thin line and looks at you out of blank, uncomprehending eyes! Common sense, right, and logic were all arrayed on Miranda’s side. When poor Rebecca, driven to the wall, had to avow the reasons lying behind the sacrifice of the sunshade, her aunt said, “Now see here, Rebecca, you’re too big to be whipped, and I shall never whip you; but when you think you ain’t punished enough, just tell me, and I’ll make out to invent a little something more. I ain’t so smart as some folks, but I can do that much; and whatever it is, it’ll be something that won’t punish the whole family, and make ’em drink ivory dust, wood chips, and pink silk rags with their water.”
XIII
SNOW-WHITE; ROSE-RED
Just before Thanksgiving the affairs of the Simpsons reached what might have been called a crisis, even in their family, which had been born and reared in a state of adventurous poverty and perilous uncertainty.
Riverboro was doing its best to return the entire tribe of Simpsons to the land of its fathers, so to speak, thinking rightly that the town which had given them birth, rather than the town of their adoption, should feed them and keep a roof over their heads until the children were of an age for self- support. There was little to eat in the household and less to wear, though Mrs. Simpson did, as always, her poor best. The children managed to satisfy their appetites by sitting modestly outside their neighbors’ kitchen doors when meals were about to be served. They were not exactly popular favorites, but they did receive certain undesirable morsels from the more charitable housewives.
Life was rather dull and dreary, however, and in the chill and gloom of November weather, with the vision of other people’s turkeys bursting with fat, and other people’s golden pumpkins and squashes and corn being garnered into barns, the young Simpsons groped about for some inexpensive form of excitement, and settled upon the selling of soap for a premium. They had sold enough to their immediate neighbors during the earlier autumn to secure a child’s handcart, which, though very weak on its pins, could be trundled over the country roads. With large business sagacity and an executive capacity which must have been inherited from their father, they now proposed to extend their operations to a larger area and distribute soap to contiguous villages, if these villages could be induced to buy. The Excelsior Soap Company paid a very small return of any kind to its infantile agents, who were scattered through the state, but it inflamed their imaginations by the issue of circulars with highly colored pictures of the premiums to be awarded for the sale of a certain number of cakes. It was at this juncture that Clara Belle and Susan Simpson consulted Rebecca, who threw herself solidly and wholeheartedly into the enterprise, promising her help and that of Emma Jane Perkins. The premiums within their possible grasp were three: a bookcase, a plush reclining chair, and a banquet lamp. Of course the Simpsons had no books, and casting aside, without thought or pang, the plush chair, which might have been of some use in a family of seven persons (not counting Mr. Simpson, who ordinarily sat elsewhere at the town’s expense), they warmed themselves rapturously in the vision of the banquet lamp, which speedily be- came to them more desirable than food, drink, or clothing. Neither Emma Jane nor Rebecca perceived anything incongruous in the idea of the
Simpsons striving for a banquet lamp. They looked at the picture daily and knew that if they themselves were free agents they would toil, suffer, ay sweat, for the happy privilege of occupying the same room with that lamp through the coming winter evenings. It looked to be about eight feet tall in the catalogue, and Emma Jane advised Clara Belle to measure the height of the Simpson ceilings; but a note in the margin of the circular informed them that it stood two and a half feet high when set up in all its dignity and splendor on a proper table, three dollars extra. It was only of polished brass, continued the circular, though it was invariably mistaken for solid gold, and the shade that accompanied it (at least it accompanied it if the agent sold a hundred extra cakes) was of crinkled crepe paper printed in a dozen delicious hues, from which the joy-dazzled agent might take his choice.
Seesaw Simpson was not in the syndicate. Clara Belle was rather a successful agent, but Susan, who could only say “thoap,” never made large returns, and the twins, who were somewhat young to be thoroughly trustworthy, could be given only a half dozen cakes at a time, and were obliged to carry with them on their business trips a brief document stating the price per cake, dozen, and box. Rebecca and Emma Jane offered to go two or three miles in some one direction and see what they could do in the way of stirring up a popular demand for the Snow-White and Rose-Red brands, the former being devoted to laundry purposes and the latter being intended for the toilet.
There was a great amount of hilarity in the preparation for this event, and a long council in Emma Jane’s attic. They had the soap company’s circular from which to arrange a proper speech, and they had, what was still better, the remembrance of a certain patent-medicine vender’s discourse at the Milltown Fair. His method, when once observed, could never be forgotten; nor his manner, nor his vocabulary. Emma Jane practiced it on Rebecca, and Rebecca on Emma Jane.
“Can I sell you a little soap this afternoon? It is called the Snow-White and Rose-Red Soap, six cakes in an ornamental box, only twenty cents for the white, twenty-five cents for the red. It is made from the purest ingredients, and if desired could be eaten by an invalid with relish and profit.”
“Oh, Rebecca, don’t let’s say that!” interposed Emma Jane hysterically. “It makes me feel like a fool.”
“It takes so little to make you feel like a fool, Emma Jane,” rebuked Rebecca, “that sometimes I think that you must BE one I don’t get to feeling like a fool so awfully easy; now leave out that eating part if you don’t like it, and go on.”
“The Snow-White is probably the most remarkable laundry soap ever manufactured. Immerse the garments in a tub, lightly rubbing the more soiled portions with the soap; leave them submerged in water from sunset to sunrise, and then the youngest baby can wash them without the slightest effort.”
“BABE, not baby,” corrected Rebecca from the circular.
“It’s just the same thing,” argued Emma Jane.
“Of course it’s just the same THING; but a baby has got to be called babe or infant in a circular, the same as it is in poetry! Would you rather say infant?”
“No,” grumbled Emma Jane; “infant is worse even than babe. Rebecca, do you think we’d better do as the circular says, and let Elijah or Elisha try the soap before we begin selling?”
“I can’t imagine a babe doing a family wash with ANY soap,” answered Rebecca; “but it must be true or they would never dare to print it, so don’t let’s bother. Oh! won’t it be the greatest fun, Emma Jane? At some of the houses–where they can’t possibly know me–I shan’t be frightened, and I shall reel off the whole rigmarole, invalid, babe, and all. Perhaps I shall say even the last sentence, if I can remember it: `We sound every chord in the great mac-ro-cosm of satisfaction.”
This conversation took place on a Friday afternoon at Emma Jane’s house, where Rebecca, to her unbounded joy, was to stay over Sunday, her aunts having gone to Portland to the funeral of an old friend. Saturday being a holiday, they were going to have the old white horse, drive to North Riverboro three miles away, eat a twelve o’clock dinner with Emma Jane’s cousins, and be back at four o’clock punctually.
When the children asked Mrs. Perkins if they could call at just a few houses coming and going, and sell a little soap for the Simpsons, she at first replied decidedly in the negative. She was an indulgent parent, however, and really had little objection to Emma Jane amusing herself in this unusual way; it was only for Rebecca, as the niece of the difficult Miranda Sawyer, that she raised scruples; but when fully persuaded that the enterprise was a charitable one, she acquiesced.
The girls called at Mr. Watson’s store, and arranged for several large boxes of soap to be charged to Clara Belle Simpson’s account. These were lifted into the back of the wagon, and a happier couple never drove along the country road than Rebecca and her companion. It was a glorious Indian summer day, which suggested nothing of Thanksgiving, near at hand as it was. It was a rustly day, a scarlet and buff, yellow and carmine, bronze and crimson day. There were still many leaves on the oaks and maples, making a goodly show of red and brown and gold. The air was like sparkling cider, and every field had its heaps of yellow and russet good things to eat, all ready for the barns, the mills, and the markets. The horse forgot his twenty years, sniffed the sweet bright air, and trotted like a colt; Nokomis Mountain looked blue and clear in the distance; Rebecca stood in the wagon, and apostrophized the landscape with sudden joy of living:–
“Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World, With the wonderful water round you curled, And the wonderful grass upon your breast, World, you are beautifully drest!”
Dull Emma Jane had never seemed to Rebecca so near, so dear, so tried and true; and Rebecca, to Emma Jane’s faithful heart, had never been so brilliant, so bewildering, so fascinating, as in this visit together, with its intimacy, its freedom, and the added delights of an exciting business enterprise.
A gorgeous leaf blew into the wagon.
“Does color make you sort of dizzy?” asked Rebecca.
“No,” answered Emma Jane after a long pause; “no, it don’t; not a mite.”
“Perhaps dizzy isn’t just the right word, but it’s nearest. I’d like to eat color, and drink it, and sleep in it. If you could be a tree, which one would you choose?”
Emma Jane had enjoyed considerable experience of this kind, and Rebecca had succeeded in unstopping her ears, ungluing her eyes, and loosening her tongue, so that she could “play the game” after a fashion.
“I’d rather be an apple-tree in blossom,–that one that blooms pink, by our pig-pen.”
Rebecca laughed. There was always something unexpected in Emma Jane’s replies. “I’d choose to be that scarlet maple just on the edge of the pond there,”–and she pointed with the whip. “Then I could see so much more than your pink apple-tree by the pig-pen. I could look at all the rest of the woods, see my scarlet dress in my beautiful looking-glass, and watch all the yellow and brown trees growing upside down in the water. When I’m old enough to earn money, I’m going to have a dress like this leaf, all ruby color–thin, you know, with a sweeping train and ruffly, curly edges; then I think I’ll have a brown sash like the trunk of the tree, and where could I be green? Do they have green petticoats, I wonder? I’d like a green petticoat coming out now and then underneath to show what my leaves were like before I was a scarlet maple.”
“I think it would be awful homely,” said Emma Jane. “I’m going to have a white satin with a pink sash, pink stockings, bronze slippers, and a spangled fan.”
XIV
MR. ALADDIN
A single hour’s experience of the vicissitudes incident to a business career clouded
the children’s spirits just the least bit. They did not accompany each other to the doors of their chosen victims, feeling sure that together they could not approach the subject seriously; but they parted at the gate of each house, the one holding the horse while the other took the soap samples and interviewed any one who seemed of a coming-on disposition. Emma Jane had disposed of three single cakes, Rebecca of three small boxes; for a difference in their ability to persuade the public was clearly defined at the start, though neither of them ascribed either success or defeat to anything but the imperious force of circumstances. Housewives looked at Emma Jane and desired no soap; listened to her description of its merits, and still desired none. Other stars in their courses governed Rebecca’s doings. The people whom she interviewed either remembered their present need of soap, or reminded themselves that they would need it in the future; the notable point in the case being that lucky Rebecca accomplished, with almost no effort, results that poor little Emma Jane failed to attain by hard and conscientious labor.
“It’s your turn, Rebecca, and I’m glad, too,” said Emma Jane, drawing up to a gateway and indicating a house that was set a considerable distance from the road. “I haven’t got over trembling from the last place yet.” (A lady had put her head out of an upstairs window and called, “Go away, little girl; whatever you have in your box we don’t want any.”) “I don’t know who lives here, and the blinds are all shut in front. If there’s nobody at home you mustn’t count it, but take the next house as yours.”
Rebecca walked up the lane and went to the side door. There was a porch there, and seated in a rocking-chair, husking corn, was a good-looking young man, or was he middle aged? Rebecca could not make up her mind. At all events he had an air of the city about him,–well-shaven face, well-trimmed mustache, well-fitting clothes. Rebecca was a trifle shy at this unexpected encounter, but there was nothing to be done but explain her presence, so she asked, “Is the lady of the house at home?”
“I am the lady of the house at present,” said the stranger, with a whimsical smile. “What can I do for you?”
“Have you ever heard of the–would you like, or I mean–do you need any soap?” queried Rebecca
“Do I look as if I did?” he responded unexpectedly.
Rebecca dimpled. “I didn’t mean THAT; I have some soap to sell; I mean I would like to introduce to you a very remarkable soap, the best now on the market. It is called the”–
“Oh! I must know that soap,” said the gentleman genially. “Made out of pure vegetable fats, isn’t it?”
“The very purest,” corroborated Rebecca.
“No acid in it?”
“Not a trace.”
“And yet a child could do the Monday washing with it and use no force.”
“A babe,” corrected Rebecca
“Oh! a babe, eh? That child grows younger every year, instead of older–wise child!”
This was great good fortune, to find a customer who knew all the virtues of the article in advance. Rebecca dimpled more and more, and at her new friend’s invitation sat down on a stool at his side near the edge of the porch. The beauties of the ornamental box which held the Rose-Red were disclosed, and the prices of both that and the Snow- White were unfolded. Presently she forgot all about her silent partner at the gate and was talking as if she had known this grand personage all her life.
“I’m keeping house to-day, but I don’t live here,” explained the delightful gentleman. “I’m just on a visit to my aunt, who has gone to Portland. I used to be here as a boy. and I am very fond of the spot.”
“I don’t think anything takes the place of the farm where one lived when one was a child,” observed Rebecca, nearly bursting with pride at having at last successfully used the indefinite pronoun in general conversation.
The man darted a look at her and put down his ear of corn. “So you consider your childhood a thing of the past, do you, young lady?”
“I can still remember it,” answered Rebecca gravely, “though it seems a long time ago.”
“I can remember mine well enough, and a particularly unpleasant one it was,” said the stranger.
“So was mine,” sighed Rebecca. “What was your worst trouble?”
“Lack of food and clothes principally.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Rebecca sympathetically,– “mine was no shoes and too many babies and not enough books. But you’re all right and happy now, aren’t you?” she asked doubtfully, for though he looked handsome, well-fed, and prosperous, any child could see that his eyes were tired and his mouth was sad when he was not speaking.
“I’m doing pretty well, thank you,” said the man, with a delightful smile. “Now tell me, how much soap ought I to buy to-day?”
“How much has your aunt on hand now?” suggested the very modest and inexperienced agent; “and how much would she need?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that; soap keeps, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not certain,” said Rebecca conscientiously, “but I’ll look in the circular–it’s sure to tell;” and she drew the document from her pocket.
“What are you going to do with the magnificent profits you get from this business?”
“We are not selling for our own benefit,” said Rebecca confidentially. “My friend who is holding the horse at the gate is the daughter of a very rich blacksmith, and doesn’t need any money. I am poor, but I live with my aunts in a brick house, and of course they wouldn’t like me to be a peddler. We are trying to get a premium for some friends of ours.”
Rebecca had never thought of alluding to the circumstances with her previous customers, but unexpectedly she found herself describing Mr. Simpson, Mrs. Simpson, and the Simpson family; their poverty, their joyless life, and their abject need of a banquet lamp to brighten their existence.
“You needn’t argue that point,” laughed the man, as he stood up to get a glimpse of the “rich blacksmith’s daughter” at the gate. “I can see that they ought to have it if they want it, and especially if you want them to have it. I’ve known what it was myself to do without a banquet lamp. Now give me the circular, and let’s do some figuring. How much do the Simpsons lack at this moment?”
“If they sell two hundred more cakes this month and next, they can have the lamp by Christmas,” Rebecca answered, “and they can get a shade by summer time; but I’m afraid I can’t help very much after to-day, because my aunt Miranda may not like to have me.”
“I see. Well, that’s all right. I’ll take three hundred cakes, and that will give them shade and all.”
Rebecca had been seated on a stool very near to the edge of the porch, and at this remark she made a sudden movement, tipped over, and disappeared into a clump of lilac bushes. It was a very short distance, fortunately, and the amused capitalist picked her up, set her on her feet, and brushed her off. “You should never seem surprised when you have taken a large order,” said he; “you ought to have replied `Can’t you make it three hundred and fifty?’ instead of capsizing in that unbusinesslike way.”
“Oh, I could never say anything like that!” exclaimed Rebecca, who was blushing crimson at her awkward fall. “But it doesn’t seem right for you to buy so much. Are you sure you can afford it?”
“If I can’t, I’ll save on something else,” returned the jocose philanthropist.
“What if your aunt shouldn’t like the kind of soap?” queried Rebecca nervously.
“My aunt always likes what I like,” he returned
“Mine doesn’t!” exclaimed Rebecca
“Then there’s something wrong with your aunt!”
“Or with me,” laughed Rebecca.
“What is your name, young lady?”
“Rebecca Rowena Randall, sir.”
“What?” with an amused smile. “BOTH? Your mother was generous.”
“She couldn’t bear to give up either of the names she says.”
“Do you want to hear my name?”
“I think I know already,” answered Rebecca, with a bright glance. “I’m sure you must be Mr. Aladdin in the Arabian Nights. Oh, please, can I run down and tell Emma Jane? She must be so tired waiting, and she will be so glad!”
At the man’s nod of assent Rebecca sped down the lane, crying irrepressibly as she neared the wagon, “Oh, Emma Jane! Emma Jane! we are sold out!”
Mr. Aladdin followed smilingly to corroborate this astonishing, unbelievable statement; lifted all their boxes from the back of the wagon, and taking the circular, promised to write to the Excelsior Company that night concerning the premium.
“If you could contrive to keep a secret,–you two little girls,–it would be rather a nice surprise to have the lamp arrive at the Simpsons’ on Thanksgiving Day, wouldn’t it?” he asked, as he tucked the old lap robe cosily over their feet.
They gladly assented, and broke into a chorus of excited thanks during which tears of joy stood in Rebecca’s eyes.
“Oh, don’t mention it!” laughed Mr. Aladdin, lifting his hat. “I was a sort of commercial traveler myself once,–years ago,–and I like to see the thing well done. Good-by Miss Rebecca Rowena! Just let me know whenever you have anything to sell, for I’m certain beforehand I shall want it.”
“Good-by, Mr. Aladdin! I surely will!” cried Rebecca, tossing back her dark braids delightedly and waving her hand.
“Oh, Rebecca!” said Emma Jane in an awe- struck whisper. “He raised his hat to us, and we not thirteen! It’ll be five years before we’re ladies.”
“Never mind,” answered Rebecca; “we are the BEGINNINGS of ladies, even now.”
“He tucked the lap robe round us, too,” continued Emma Jane, in an ecstasy of reminiscence. “Oh! isn’t he perfectly elergant? And wasn’t it lovely of him to buy us out? And just think of having both the lamp and the shade for one day’s work! Aren’t you glad you wore your pink gingham now, even if mother did make you put on
flannel underneath? You do look so pretty in pink and red, Rebecca, and so homely in drab and brown!”
“I know it,” sighed Rebecca “I wish I was like you–pretty in all colors!” And Rebecca looked longingly at Emma Jane’s fat, rosy cheeks; at her blue eyes, which said nothing; at her neat nose, which had no character; at her red lips, from between which no word worth listening to had ever issued.
“Never mind!” said Emma Jane comfortingly. “Everybody says you’re awful bright and smart, and mother thinks you’ll be better looking all the time as you grow older. You wouldn’t believe it, but I was a dreadful homely baby, and homely right along till just a year or two ago, when my red hair began to grow dark. What was the nice man’s name?”
“I never thought to ask!” ejaculated Rebecca. “Aunt Miranda would say that was just like me, and it is. But I called him Mr. Aladdin because he gave us a lamp. You know the story of Aladdin and the wonderful lamp?”
“Oh, Rebecca! how could you call him a nickname the very first time you ever saw him?”
“Aladdin isn’t a nickname exactly; anyway, he laughed and seemed to like it.”
By dint of superhuman effort, and putting such a seal upon their lips as never mortals put before, the two girls succeeded in keeping their wonderful news to themselves; although it was obvious to all beholders that they were in an extraordinary and abnormal state of mind.
On Thanksgiving the lamp arrived in a large packing box, and was taken out and set up by See- saw Simpson, who suddenly began to admire and respect the business ability of his sisters. Rebecca had heard the news of its arrival, but waited until nearly dark before asking permission to go to the Simpsons’, so that she might see the gorgeous trophy lighted and sending a blaze of crimson glory through its red crepe paper shade.
XV
THE BANQUET LAMP
There had been company at the brick
house to the bountiful Thanksgiving dinner which had been provided at one
o’clock,–the Burnham sisters, who lived between North Riverboro and Shaker Village, and who for more than a quarter of a century had come to pass the holiday with the Sawyers every year. Rebecca sat silent with a book after the dinner dishes were washed, and when it was nearly five asked if she might go to the Simpsons’.
“What do you want to run after those Simpson children for on a Thanksgiving Day?” queried Miss Miranda. “Can’t you set still for once and listen to the improvin’ conversation of your elders? You never can let well enough alone, but want to be forever on the move.”
“The Simpsons have a new lamp, and Emma Jane and I promised to go up and see it lighted, and make it a kind of a party.”
“What under the canopy did they want of a lamp, and where did they get the money to pay for it? If Abner was at home, I should think he’d been swappin’ again,” said Miss Miranda.
“The children got it as a prize for selling soap,” replied Rebecca; “they’ve been working for a year, and you know I told you that Emma Jane and I helped them the Saturday afternoon you were in Portland.”
“I didn’t take notice, I s’pose, for it’s the first time I ever heard the lamp mentioned. Well, you can go for an hour, and no more. Remember it’s as dark at six as it is at midnight Would you like to take along some Baldwin apples? What have you got in the pocket of that new dress that makes it sag down so?”
“It’s my nuts and raisins from dinner,” replied Rebecca, who never succeeded in keeping the most innocent action a secret from her aunt Miranda; “they’re just what you gave me on my plate.”
“Why didn’t you eat them?”
“Because I’d had enough dinner, and I thought if I saved these, it would make the Simpsons’ party better,” stammered Rebecca, who hated to be scolded and examined before company.
“They were your own, Rebecca,” interposed aunt Jane, “and if you chose to save them to give away, it is all right. We ought never to let this day pass without giving our neighbors something to be thankful for, instead of taking all the time to think of our own mercies.”
The Burnham sisters nodded approvingly as Rebecca went out, and remarked that they had never seen a child grow and improve so fast in so short a time.
“There’s plenty of room left for more improvement, as you’d know if she lived in the same house with you,” answered Miranda. “She’s into every namable thing in the neighborhood, an’ not only into it, but generally at the head an’ front of it, especially when it’s mischief. Of all the foolishness I ever heard of, that lamp beats everything; it’s just like those Simpsons, but I didn’t suppose the children had brains enough to sell anything.”
“One of them must have,” said Miss Ellen Burnham, “for the girl that was selling soap at the Ladds’ in North Riverboro was described by Adam Ladd as the most remarkable and winning child he ever saw.”
“It must have been Clara Belle, and I should never call her remarkable,” answered Miss Miranda. “Has Adam been home again?”
“Yes, he’s been staying a few days with his aunt. There’s no limit to the money he’s making, they say; and he always brings presents for all the neighbors. This time it was a full set of furs for Mrs. Ladd; and to think we can remember the time he was a barefoot boy without two shirts to his back! It is strange he hasn’t married, with all his money, and him so fond of children that he always has a pack of them at his heels.”
“There’s hope for him still, though,” said Miss Jane smilingly; “for I don’t s’pose he’s more than thirty.”
“He could get a wife in Riverboro if he was a hundred and thirty,” remarked Miss Miranda.
“Adam’s aunt says he was so taken with the little girl that sold the soap (Clara Belle, did you say her name was?), that he declared he was going to bring her a Christmas present,” continued Miss Ellen.
“Well, there’s no accountin’ for tastes,” exclaimed Miss Miranda. “Clara Belle’s got cross-eyes and red hair, but I’d be the last one to grudge her a Christmas present; the more Adam Ladd gives to her the less the town’ll have to.”
“Isn’t there another Simpson girl?” asked Miss Lydia Burnham; “for this one couldn’t have been cross-eyed; I remember Mrs. Ladd saying Adam remarked about this child’s handsome eyes. He said it was her eyes that made him buy the three hundred cakes. Mrs. Ladd has it stacked up in the shed chamber.”
“Three hundred cakes!” ejaculated Miranda. “Well, there’s one crop that never fails in Riverboro!”
“What’s that?” asked Miss Lydia politely.
“The fool crop,” responded Miranda tersely, and changed the subject, much to Jane’s gratitude, for she had been nervous and ill at ease for the last fifteen minutes. What child in Riverboro could be described as remarkable and winning, save Rebecca? What child had wonderful eyes, except the same Rebecca? and finally, was there ever a child in the world who could make a man buy soap by the hundred cakes, save Rebecca?
Meantime the “remarkable” child had flown up the road in the deepening dusk, but she had not gone far before she heard the sound of hurrying footsteps, and saw a well-known figure coming in her direction. In a moment she and Emma Jane met and exchanged a breathless embrace.
“Something awful has happened,” panted Emma Jane.
“Don’t tell me it’s broken,” exclaimed Rebecca.
“No! oh, no! not that! It was packed in straw, and every piece came out all right; and I was there, and I never said a single thing about your selling the three hundred cakes that got the lamp, so that we could be together when you told.”
“OUR selling the three hundred cakes,” corrected Rebecca; “you did as much as I.”
“No, I didn’t, Rebecca Randall. I just sat at the gate and held the horse.”
“Yes, but WHOSE horse was it that took us to North Riverboro? And besides, it just happened to be my turn. If you had gone in and found Mr. Aladdin you would have had the wonderful lamp given to you; but what’s the trouble?”
“The Simpsons have no kerosene and no wicks. I guess they thought a banquet lamp was something that lighted itself, and burned without any help. Seesaw has gone to the doctor’s to try if he can borrow a wick, and mother let me have a pint of oil, but she says she won’t give me any more. We never thought of the expense of keeping up the lamp, Rebecca.”
“No, we didn’t, but let’s not worry about that till after the party. I have a handful of nuts and raisins and some apples.”
“I have peppermints and maple sugar,” said Emma Jane. “They had a real Thanksgiving dinner; the doctor gave them sweet potatoes and cranberries and turnips; father sent a spare-rib, and Mrs. Cobb a chicken and a jar of mince-meat.”
At half past five one might have looked in at the Simpsons’ windows, and seen the party at its height. Mrs. Simpson had let the kitchen fire die out, and had brought the baby to grace the festal scene. The lamp seemed to be having the party, and receiving the guests. The children had taken the one small table in the house, and it was placed in the far corner of the room to serve as a pedestal. On it stood the sacred, the adored, the long-desired object; almost as beautiful, and nearly half as large as the advertisement. The brass glistened like gold, and the crimson paper shade glowed like a giant ruby. In the wide splash of light that it flung upon the floor sat the Simpsons, in reverent and solemn silence, Emma Jane standing behind them, hand in hand with Rebecca. There seemed to be no desire for conversation; the occasion was too thrilling and serious for that. The lamp, it was tacitly felt by everybody, was dignifying the party, and providing sufficient entertainment simply by its presence; being fully as satisfactory in its way as a pianola or a string band.
“I wish father could see it,” said Clara Belle loyally.
“If he onth thaw it he’d want to thwap it,” murmured Susan sagaciously.
At the appointed hour Rebecca dragged herself reluctantly away from the enchanting scene.
“I’ll turn the lamp out the minute I think you and Emma Jane are home,” said Clara Belle. “And, oh! I’m so glad you both live where you can see it shine from our windows. I wonder how long it will burn without bein’ filled if I only keep it lit one hour every night?”
“You needn’t put it out for want o’ karosene,” said Seesaw, coming in from the shed, “for there’s a great kag of it settin’ out there. Mr. Tubbs brought it over from North Riverboro and said somebody sent an order by mail for it.”
Rebecca squeezed Emma Jane’s arm, and Emma Jane gave a rapturous return squeeze. “It was Mr. Aladdin,” whispered Rebecca, as they ran down the path to the gate. Seesaw followed them and handsomely offered to see them “apiece” down the road, but Rebecca declined his escort with such decision that he did not press the matter, but went to bed to dream of her instead. In his dreams flashes of lightning proceeded from both her eyes, and she held a flaming sword in either hand.
Rebecca entered the home dining-room joyously. The Burnham sisters had gone and the two aunts were knitting.
“It was a heavenly party,” she cried, taking off her hat and cape.
“Go back and see if you have shut the door tight, and then lock it,” said Miss Miranda, in her usual austere manner.
“It was a heavenly party,” reiterated Rebecca, coming in again, much too excited to be easily crushed, “and oh! aunt Jane, aunt Miranda, if you’ll only come into the kitchen and look out of the sink window, you can see the banquet lamp shining all red, just as if the Simpsons’ house was on fire.”
“And probably it will be before long,” observed Miranda. “I’ve got no patience with such foolish goin’s-on.”
Jane accompanied Rebecca into the kitchen. Although the feeble glimmer which she was able to see from that distance did not seem to her a dazzling exhibition, she tried to be as enthusiastic as possible.
“Rebecca, who was it that sold the three hundred cakes of soap to Mr. Ladd in North Riverboro?”
“Mr. WHO?” exclaimed Rebecca
“Mr. Ladd, in North Riverboro.”
“Is that his real name?” queried Rebecca in astonishment. “I didn’t make a bad guess;” and she laughed softly to herself.
“I asked you who sold the soap to Adam Ladd?” resumed Miss Jane.
“Adam Ladd! then he’s A. Ladd, too; what fun!”
“Answer me, Rebecca.”
“Oh! excuse me, aunt Jane, I was so busy thinking. Emma Jane and I sold the soap to Mr. Ladd.”
“Did you tease him, or make him buy it?”
“Now, aunt Jane, how could I make a big grown-up man buy anything if he didn’t want to? He needed the soap dreadfully as a present for his aunt.”
Miss Jane still looked a little unconvinced, though she only said, “I hope your aunt Miranda won’t mind, but you know how particular she is, Rebecca, and I really wish you wouldn’t do anything out of the ordinary without asking her first, for your actions are very queer.”
“There can’t be anything wrong this time,” Rebecca answered confidently. “Emma Jane sold her cakes to her own relations and to uncle Jerry Cobb, and I went first to those new tenements near the lumber mill, and then to the Ladds’. Mr. Ladd bought all we had and made us promise to keep the secret until the premium came, and I’ve been going about ever since as if the banquet lamp was inside of me all lighted up and burning, for everybody to see.”
Rebecca’s hair was loosened and falling over her forehead in ruffled waves; her eyes were brilliant, her cheeks crimson; there was a hint of everything in the girl’s face,–of sensitiveness and delicacy as well as of ardor; there was the sweetness of the mayflower and the strength of the young oak, but one could easily divine that she was one of
“The souls by nature pitched too high, By suffering plunged too low.”
“That’s just the way you look, for all the world as if you did have a lamp burning inside of you,” sighed aunt Jane. “Rebecca! Rebecca! I wish you could take things easier, child; I am fearful for you sometimes.”
XVI
SEASONS OF GROWTH
The days flew by; as summer had melted into autumn so autumn had given place to winter. Life in the brick house had gone on more placidly of late, for Rebecca was honestly trying to be more careful in the performance of her tasks and duties as well as more quiet in her plays, and she was slowly learning the power of the soft answer in turning away wrath.
Miranda had not had, perhaps, quite as many opportunities in which to lose her temper, but it is only just to say that she had not fully availed herself of all that had offered themselves.
There had been one outburst of righteous wrath occasioned by Rebecca’s over-hospitable habits, which were later shown in a still more dramatic and unexpected fashion.
On a certain Friday afternoon she asked her aunt Miranda if she might take half her bread and milk upstairs to a friend.
“What friend have you got up there, for pity’s sake?” demanded aunt Miranda.
“The Simpson baby, come to stay over Sunday; that is, if you’re willing, Mrs. Simpson says she is. Shall I bring her down and show her? She’s dressed in an old dress of Emma Jane’s and she looks sweet.”
“You can bring her down, but you can’t show her to me! You can smuggle her out the way you smuggled her in and take her back to her mother. Where on earth do you get your notions, borrowing a baby for Sunday!”
“You’re so used to a house without a baby you don’t know how dull it is,” sighed Rebecca resignedly, as she moved towards the door; “but at the farm there was always a nice fresh one to play with and cuddle. There were too many, but that’s not half as bad as none at all. Well, I’ll take her back. She’ll be dreadfully disappointed and so will Mrs. Simpson. She was planning to go to Milltown.”
“She can un-plan then,” observed Miss Miranda.
“Perhaps I can go up there and take care of the baby?” suggested Rebecca. “I brought her home so ‘t I could do my Saturday work just the same.”
“You’ve got enough to do right here, without any borrowed babies to make more steps. Now, no answering back, just give the child some supper and carry it home where it belongs.”
“You don’t want me to go down the front way, hadn’t I better just come through this room and let you look at her? She has yellow hair and big blue eyes! Mrs. Simpson says she takes after her father.”
Miss Miranda smiled acidly as she said she couldn’t take after her father, for he’d take any thing there was before she got there!
Aunt Jane was in the linen closet upstairs, sorting out the clean sheets and pillow cases for Saturday, and Rebecca sought comfort from her.
“I brought the Simpson baby home, aunt Jane, thinking it would help us over a dull Sunday, but aunt Miranda won’t let her stay. Emma Jane has the promise of her next Sunday and Alice Robinson the next. Mrs. Simpson wanted I should have her first because I’ve had so much experience in babies. Come in and look at her sitting up in my bed, aunt Jane! Isn’t she lovely? She’s the fat, gurgly kind, not thin and fussy like some babies, and I thought I was going to have her to undress and dress twice each day. Oh dear! I wish I could have a printed book with everything set down in it that I COULD do, and then I wouldn’t get disappointed so often.”
“No book could be printed that would fit you, Rebecca,” answered aunt Jane, “for nobody could imagine beforehand the things you’d want to do. Are you going to carry that heavy child home in your arms?”
“No, I’m going to drag her in the little soap-wagon. Come, baby! Take your thumb out of your mouth and come to ride with Becky in your go-cart.” She stretched out her strong young arms to the crowing baby, sat down in a chair with the child, turned her upside down unceremoniously, took from her waistband and scornfully flung away a crooked pin, walked with her (still in a highly reversed position) to the bureau, selected a large safety pin, and proceeded to attach her brief red flannel petticoat to a sort of shirt that she wore. Whether flat on her stomach, or head down, heels in the air, the Simpson baby knew she was in the hands of an expert, and continued gurgling placidly while aunt Jane regarded the pantomime with a kind of dazed awe.
“Bless my soul, Rebecca,” she ejaculated, “it beats all how handy you are with babies!”
“I ought to be; I’ve brought up three and a half of ’em,” Rebecca responded cheerfully, pulling up the infant Simpson’s stockings.
“I should think you’d be fonder of dolls than you are,” said Jane.
“I do like them, but there’s never any change in a doll; it’s always the same everlasting old doll, and you have to make believe it’s cross or sick, or it loves you, or can’t bear you. Babies are more trouble, but nicer.”
Miss Jane stretched out a thin hand with a slender, worn band of gold on the finger, and the baby curled her dimpled fingers round it and held it fast.
“You wear a ring on your engagement finger, don’t you, aunt Jane? Did you ever think about getting married?”
“Yes, dear, long ago.”
“What happened, aunt Jane?”
“He died–just before.”
“Oh!” And Rebecca’s eyes grew misty.
“He was a soldier and he died of a gunshot wound, in a hospital, down South.”
“Oh! aunt Jane!” softly. “Away from you?”
“No, I was with him.”
“Was he young?”
“Yes; young and brave and handsome, Rebecca; he was Mr. Carter’s brother Tom.”
“Oh! I’m so glad you were with him! Wasn’t he glad, aunt Jane?”
Jane looked back across the half-forgotten years, and the vision of Tom’s gladness flashed upon her: his haggard smile, the tears in his tired eyes, his outstretched arms, his weak voice saying, “Oh, Jenny! Dear Jenny! I’ve wanted you so, Jenny!” It was too much! She had never breathed a word of it before to a human creature, for there was no one who would have understood. Now, in a shamefaced way, to hide her brimming eyes, she put her head down on the young shoulder beside her, saying, “It was hard, Rebecca!”
The Simpson baby had cuddled down sleepily in Rebecca’s lap, leaning her head back and sucking her thumb contentedly. Rebecca put her cheek down until it touched her aunt’s gray hair and softly patted her, as she said, “I’m sorry, aunt Jane!”
The girl’s eyes were soft and tender and the heart within her stretched a little and grew; grew in sweetness and intuition and depth of feeling. It had looked into another heart, felt it beat, and heard it sigh; and that is how all hearts grow.
Episodes like these enlivened the quiet course of every-day existence, made more quiet by the departure of Dick Carter, Living Perkins, and Huldah Meserve for Wareham, and the small attendance at the winter school, from which the younger children of the place stayed away during the cold weather.
Life, however, could never be thoroughly dull or lacking in adventure to a child of Rebecca’s temperament. Her nature was full of adaptability, fluidity, receptivity. She made friends everywhere she went, and snatched up acquaintances in every corner.
It was she who ran to the shed door to take the dish to the “meat man” or “fish man;” she who knew the family histories of the itinerant fruit venders and tin peddlers; she who was asked to take supper or pass the night with children in neighboring villages–children of whose parents her aunts had never so much as heard. As to the nature of these friendships, which seemed so many to the eye of the superficial observer, they were of various kinds, and while the girl pursued them with enthusiasm and ardor, they left her unsatisfied and heart-hungry; they were never intimacies such as are so readily made by shallow natures. She loved Emma Jane, but it was a friendship born of propinquity and circumstance, not of true affinity. It was her neighbor’s amiability, constancy, and devotion that she loved, and although she rated these qualities at their true value, she was always searching beyond them for intellectual treasures; searching and never finding, for although Emma Jane had the advantage in years she was still immature. Huldah Meserve had an instinctive love of fun which appealed to Rebecca; she also had a fascinating knowledge of the world, from having visited her married sisters in Milltown and Portland; but on the other hand there was a certain sharpness and lack of sympathy in Huldah which repelled rather than attracted. With Dick Carter she could at least talk intelligently about lessons. He was a very ambitious boy, full of plans for his future, which he discussed quite freely with Rebecca, but when she broached the subject of her future his interest sensibly lessened. Into the world of the ideal Emma Jane, Huldah, and Dick alike never seemed to have peeped, and the consciousness of this was always a fixed gulf between them and Rebecca.
“Uncle Jerry” and “aunt Sarah” Cobb were dear friends of quite another sort, a very satisfying and perhaps a somewhat dangerous one. A visit from Rebecca always sent them into a twitter of delight. Her merry conversation and quaint come- ments on life in general fairly dazzled the old couple, who hung on her lightest word as if it had been a prophet’s utterance; and Rebecca, though she had had no previous experience, owned to herself a perilous pleasure in being dazzling, even to a couple of dear humdrum old people like Mr. and Mrs. Cobb. Aunt Sarah flew to the pantry or cellar whenever Rebecca’s slim little shape first appeared on the crest of the hill, and a jelly tart or a frosted cake was sure to be forthcoming. The sight of old uncle Jerry’s spare figure in its clean white shirt sleeves, whatever the weather, always made Rebecca’s heart warm when she saw him peer longingly from the kitchen window. Before the snow came, many was the time he had come out to sit on a pile of boards at the gate, to see if by any chance she was mounting the hill that led to their house. In the autumn Rebecca was often the old man’s companion while he was digging potatoes or shelling beans, and now in the winter, when a younger man was driving the stage, she sometimes stayed with him while he did his evening milking. It is safe to say that he was the only creature in Riverboro who possessed Rebecca’s entire confidence; the only being to whom she poured out her whole heart, with its wealth of hopes, and dreams, and vague ambitions. At the brick house she practiced scales and exercises, but at the Cobbs’ cabinet organ she sang like a bird, improvising simple accompaniments that seemed to her ignorant auditors nothing short of marvelous. Here she was happy, here she was loved, here she was drawn out of herself and admired and made much of. But, she thought, if there were somebody who not only loved but understood; who spoke her language, comprehended her desires, and responded to her mysterious longings! Perhaps in the big world of Wareham there would be people who thought and dreamed and wondered as she did.
In reality Jane did not understand her niece very much better than Miranda; the difference between the sisters was, that while Jane was puzzled, she was also attracted, and when she was quite in the dark for an explanation of some quaint or unusual action she was sympathetic as to its possible motive and believed the best. A greater change had come over Jane than over any other person in the brick house, but it had been wrought so secretly, and concealed so religiously, that it scarcely appeared to the ordinary observer. Life had now a motive utterly lacking before. Breakfast was not eaten in the kitchen, because it seemed worth while, now that there were three persons, to lay the cloth in the dining- room; it was also a more bountiful meal than of yore, when there was no child to consider. The morning was made cheerful by Rebecca’s start for school, the packing of the luncheon basket, the final word about umbrella, waterproof, or rubbers; the parting admonition and the unconscious waiting at the window for the last wave of the hand. She found herself taking pride in Rebecca’s improved appearance, her rounder throat and cheeks, and her better color; she was wont to mention the length of Rebecca’s hair and add a word as to its remarkable evenness and lustre, at times when Mrs. Perkins grew too diffuse about Emma Jane’s complexion. She threw herself wholeheartedly on her niece’s side when it became a question between a crimson or a brown linsey-woolsey dress, and went through a memorable struggle with her sister concerning the purchase of a red bird for Rebecca’s black felt hat. No one guessed the quiet pleasure that lay hidden in her heart when she watched the girl’s dark head bent over her lessons at night, nor dreamed of her joy it, certain quiet evenings when Miranda went to prayer meeting; evenings when Rebecca would read aloud Hiawatha or Barbara Frietchie, The Bugle Song, or The Brook. Her narrow, humdrum existence bloomed under the dews that fell from this fresh spirit; her dullness brightened under the kindling touch of the younger mind, took fire from the “vital spark of heavenly flame” that seemed always to radiate from Rebecca’s presence.
Rebecca’s idea of being a painter like her friend Miss Ross was gradually receding, owing to the apparently insuperable difficulties in securing any instruction. Her aunt Miranda saw no wisdom in cultivating such a talent, and could not conceive that any money could ever be earned by its exercise, “Hand painted pictures” were held in little esteem in Riverboro, where the cheerful chromo or the dignified steel engraving were respected and valued. There was a slight, a very slight hope, that Rebecca might be allowed a few music lessons from Miss Morton, who played the church cabinet organ, but this depended entirely upon whether Mrs. Morton would decide to accept a hayrack in return for a year’s instruction from her daughter. She had the matter under advisement, but a doubt as to whether or not she would sell or rent her hayfields kept her from coming to a conclusion. Music, in common with all other accomplishments, was viewed by Miss Miranda as a trivial, useless, and foolish amusement, but she allowed Rebecca an hour a day for practice on the old piano, and a little extra time for lessons, if Jane could secure them without payment of actual cash.
The news from Sunnybrook Farm was hopeful rather than otherwise. Cousin Ann’s husband had died, and John, Rebecca’s favorite brother, had gone to be the man of the house to the widowed cousin. He was to have good schooling in return for his care of the horse and cow and barn, and what was still more dazzling, the use of the old doctor’s medical library of two or three dozen volumes. John’s whole heart was set on becoming a country doctor, with Rebecca to keep house for him, and the vision seemed now so true, so near, that he could almost imagine his horse ploughing through snowdrifts on errands of mercy, or, less dramatic but none the less attractive, could see a physician’s neat turncut trundling along the shady country roads, a medicine case between his, Dr. Randall’s, feet, and Miss Rebecca Randall sitting in a black silk dress by his side.
Hannah now wore her hair in a coil and her dresses a trifle below her ankles, these concessions being due to her extreme height. Mark had broken his collar bone, but it was healing well. Little Mira was growing very pretty. There was even a rumor that the projected railroad from Temperance to Plumville might go near the Randall farm, in which case land would rise in value from nothing-at-all an acre to something at least resembling a price. Mrs. Randall refused to consider any improvement in their financial condition as a possibility. Content to work from sunrise to sunset to gain a mere subsistence for her children, she lived in their future, not in her own present, as a mother is wont to do when her own lot seems hard and cheerless.
XVII
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 gray squirrel muff and tippet, which was even more unbecoming if possible, than Rebecca’s other articles of wearing apparel; but aunt Jane had made her 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- cosy with a letter “M” in outline stitch, and a pretty frilled pincushion 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 dazed 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 smaller packages within, and Rebecca opened with trembling fingers the one addressed to her. Anybody’s 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 rosebuds. 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 Miss 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, Lyddy 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 color of the green dress, and the touch of lovely pink in the coral necklace had transformed the 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 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 posses- sion. 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-clothes 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 k-keep comp’ny with you when you g-g-row up?” “Certainly NOT,” replied Rebecca, closing the door somewhat too speedily upon her precocious swain.
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 started she attended to growing precisely as she did other things,–with such energy, that Miss Jane did nothing for months but lengthen skirts, sleeves, and waists. 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 home-coming 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 was 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 unchildlike air about Hannah, but in certain ways she now appeared older than aunt Jane –soberer, and more settled. She was pretty, though in a colorless fashion; pretty and capable.
Rebecca walked through all the old playgrounds and favorite 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 fringed gentians used to be largest and bluest; the rock maple where she found the oriole’s nest; the hedge where the field mice lived; the moss-covered stump where the white toadstools were wont to spring up as if by magic; the hole at the root of the old pine where an ancient and honorable toad made his home; these were the landmarks of her childhood, and she looked at them as across an immeasurable distance. The dear little sunny brook, 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 work of 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 and cipher as well as anybody now, and that’s enough for me. I’d die rather than teach school for a living. The winter’ll 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 ’em just solid with tucks. Then there’s going to be a singing-school and a social circle in Temperance after New Year’s, 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.”
Rebecca saw that she was speaking the truth, but she did not understand the blush till a year or two later.
XVIII
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 Riverboro of the Reverend Amos Burch 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 Riverboro school days and began her studies at Wareham. 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 meetin’ house. This Mr. Burch, if I remember right, used to know your grandfather Sawyer, and stayed here once when he was candidatin’. He’ll mebbe look for us there, and you must just go and represent the family, an’ 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 Mis’ 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 melodeon before the meetin’ begins, and get twenty-five cents out of the sittin’ room match-box 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 Rev. Mr. Burch 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 colds,” she said softly, “and sent me to represent the family.”
“That’s Mrs. Burch on the platform with her husband,” whispered Mrs. Robinson. “She’s awful tanned up, ain’t she? If you’re goin’ to save souls seems like you hev’ to part with your complexion. Eudoxy Morton ain’t come yet; I hope to the land she will, or Mis’ Deacon Milliken’ll pitch the tunes where we can’t reach ’em with a ladder; can’t you pitch, afore she gits her breath and clears her throat?”
Mrs. Burch 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.
“They’re poor as Job’s turkey,” whispered Mrs. Robinson; “but if you give ’em anything they’d turn right round and give it to the heathen. His congregation up to Parsonsfield clubbed together and give him that gold watch he carries; I s’pose he’d ‘a’ handed that over too, only heathens always tell time by the sun ‘n’ don’t need watches. Eudoxy ain’t comin’; now for massy’s sake, Rebecca, do git ahead of Mis’ Deacon Milliken and pitch real low.”
The meeting began with prayer and then the Rev. Mr. Burch announced, to the tune of Mendon:–
“Church of our God I arise and shine, Bright with the beams of truth divine:
Then shall thy radiance 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 any one present who will assist us at the instrument?” he asked unexpectedly.
Everybody looked at everybody else, and nobody moved; 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 Mendon in the dark, so she went to the melodeon and did so without any ado, no member of her family being present to give her self-consciousness.
The talk that ensued was much the usual sort of thing. Mr. Burch 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 interwove 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. Riverboro had faded; the Sunday-school room, with Mrs. Robinson’s red plaid shawl, and Deacon Milliken’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. Burch 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’er the sun.”
The contribution box was passed and Mr. Burch 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. Burch and I will remain among you to-night and to-morrow. 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. Burch’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 grand- father never would let ’em sleep anywheres 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 shuddered could they have foreseen the manner of delivery; but it was vastly impressive to the audience, who concluded that Mirandy Sawyer must be making her
way uncommonly fast to mansions in the skies, else what meant this abrupt change of heart?
Mr. Burch bowed courteously, accepted the invitation “in the same spirit in which it was offered,” and asked Brother Milliken to lead in prayer.
If the Eternal Ear could ever tire it would have ceased long ere this to listen to Deacon Milliken, 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 seasons, 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 to-day, she was in a devout mood, and many things Mr. Burch 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. Burch’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 melodeon, led the singing, delivered her aunts’ invitation with an air of great