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. Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2012 with fundingfrom 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 http://archive.org/details/newchroniclesofrwigg 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF 
 
 REBECCA 
 
 BY 
 
 KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
COPYRIGHT I906 AND I907 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1907 BY KATE DOUGLAS RIGGS 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published April igo? 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FIRST CHRONICLE 
 JACK O' LANTERN I 
 
 SECOND CHRONICLE 
 DAUGHTERS OF ZION 35 
 
 THIRD CHRONICLE 
 REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 58 
 
 FOURTH CHRONICLE 
 A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY 100 
 
 FIFTH CHRONICLE 
 THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 118 
 
 SIXTH CHRONICLE 
 THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL 151 
 
 SEVENTH CHRONICLE 
 THE LITTLE PROPHET 167 
 
 EIGHTH CHRONICLE 
 ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF 195 
 
 504594 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 NINTH CHRONICLE 
 THE GREEN ISLE 215 
 
 TENTH CHRONICLE 
 REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES 231 
 
 ELEVENTH CHRONICLE 
 ABIJAH THE BRAVE AND THE FAIR EMMA JANE 25* 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
If thou couldst know thine own sweetness, 
 O little one, perfect and sweet, 
 
 Thou wouldst be a child forever ; 
 Completer, whilst incomplete. 
 
 Francis Turner Palgrave 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 First Chronicle 
 JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 MISS MIRANDA SAWYER'S old-fash- 
 ioned garden was the pleasantest spot 
 in Riverboro on a sunny July morning. 
 The rich color of the brick house gleamed and 
 glowed through the shade of the elms and maples. 
 Luxuriant hop-vines clambered up the lightning- 
 rods and water-spouts, hanging their delicate clus- 
 ters here and there in graceful profusion. Woodbine 
 transformed the old shed and tool-house to things 
 of beauty, and the flower-beds themselves were the 
 prettiest and most fragrant in all the countryside. 
 A row of dahlias ran directly around the garden 
 spot, — dahlias scarlet, gold, and variegated. In the 
 very centre was a round plot where the upturned 
 faces of a thousand pansies smiled amid their leaves, 
 and in the four corners were triangular blocks of 
 sweet phlox over which the butterflies fluttered un- 
 ceasingly. In the spaces between ran a riot of por- 
 tulaca and nasturtiums, while in the more regular, 
 
 I 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 shell-bordered beds grew spirea and gillyflowers, 
 mignonette, marigolds, and clove pinks. 
 
 Back of the barn and encroaching on the edge 
 of the hay-field was a grove of sweet clover whose 
 white feathery tips fairly bent under the assaults 
 of the bees, while banks of aromatic mint and 
 thyme drank in the sunshine and sent it out again 
 into the summer air, warm and deliciously odorous. 
 
 The hollyhocks were Miss Sawyer's pride, and 
 they grew in a stately line beneath the four kitchen 
 windows, their tapering tips set thickly with gay 
 satin circlets of pink or lavender or crimson. 
 
 "They grow something like steeples," thought 
 little Rebecca Randall, who was weeding the bed, 
 " and the flat, round flowers are like rosettes ; but 
 steeples would n't be studded with rosettes, so if 
 you were writing about them in a composition 
 you 'd have to give up one or the other, and I think 
 I '11 give up the steeples : — 
 
 Gay little hollyhock 
 
 Lifting your head, 
 Sweetly resetted 
 
 Out from your bed. 
 
 It 's a pity the hollyhock is n't really little, instead 
 of steepling up to the window-top, but I can't say, 
 ' Gay tall hollyhock.' ... I might have it ' Lines 
 to a Hollyhock in May,' for then it would be small ; 
 but oh, no ! I forgot ; in May it would n't be bloom- 
 
 2 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 ing, and it 's so pretty to say that its head is 
 ' sweetly rosetted.' ... I wish the teacher was n't 
 away ; she would like ' sweetly rosetted,' and she 
 would like to hear me recite ' Roll on, thou deep 
 and dark blue ocean, roll ! ' that I learned out of 
 Aunt Jane's Byron ; the rolls come booming out 
 of it just like the waves at the beach. ... I could 
 make nice compositions now, everything is bloom- 
 ing so, and it 's so warm and sunny and happy out- 
 doors. Miss Dearborn told me to write something 
 in my thought book every single day, and I '11 begin 
 this very night when I go to bed." 
 
 Rebecca Rowena Randall, the little niece of the 
 brick-house ladies, and at present sojourning there 
 for purposes of board, lodging, education, and in- 
 cidentally such discipline and chastening as might 
 ultimately produce moral excellence, — Rebecca 
 Randall had a passion for the rhyme and rhythm 
 of poetry. From her earliest childhood words had 
 always been to her what dolls and toys are to other 
 children, and now at twelve she amused herself with 
 phrases and sentences and images as her school- 
 mates played with the pieces of their dissected 
 puzzles. If the heroine of a story took a " cursory 
 glance " about her " apartment," Rebecca would 
 shortly ask her Aunt Jane to take a "cursory 
 glance " at her oversewing or hemming ; if the vil- 
 lain " aided and abetted " some one in committing 
 
 3 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 a crime, she would before long request the pleasure 
 of "aiding and abetting" in dishwashing or bed- 
 making. | Sometimes she used the borrowed phrases 
 unconsciously ; sometimes she brought them into 
 the conversation with an intense sense of pleasure 
 in their harmony or appropriateness ; for a beautiful 
 word or sentence had the same effect upon her im- 
 agination as a fragrant nosegay, a strain of music, 
 or a brilliant sunset. 
 
 "How are you gettin' on, Rebecca Rowena?" 
 called a peremptory voice from within. 
 
 " Pretty good, Aunt Miranda ; only I wish flow- 
 ers would ever come up as thick as this pigweed 
 and plantain and sorrel. What makes weeds be 
 thick and flowers be thin ? — I just happened to be 
 stopping to think a minute when you looked out." 
 
 " You think considerable more than you weed, 
 I guess, by appearances. How many times have 
 you peeked into that hummingbird's nest? Why 
 don't you work all to once and play all to once, like 
 other folks ? " 
 
 " I don't know," the child answered, confounded 
 by the question, and still more by the apparent logic 
 back of it. "I don't know, Aunt Miranda, but when 
 I'm working outdoors such a Saturday morning 
 as this, the whole creation just screams to me to 
 stop it and come and play." 
 
 " Well, you need n't go if it does ! " responded her 
 4 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 aunt sharply. " It don't scream to me when I *m 
 rollin' out these doughnuts, and it would n't to you 
 if your mind was on your duty." 
 
 Rebecca's little brown hands flew in and out 
 among the weeds as she thought rebelliously : " Cre- 
 ation would n't scream to Aunt Miranda ; it would 
 know she would n't come. 
 
 Scream on, thou bright and gay creation, scream ! 
 'T is not Miranda that will hear thy cry I 
 
 Oh, such funny, nice things come into my head 
 out here by myself, I do wish I could run up and 
 put them down in my thought book before I forget 
 them, but Aunt Miranda would n't like me to leave 
 off weeding : — 
 
 Rebecca was weeding the hollyhock bed 
 
 When wonderful thoughts came into her head. 
 
 Her aunt was occupied with the rolling-pin 
 
 And the thoughts of her mind were common and thin. 
 
 That would n't do because it 's mean to Aunt 
 Miranda, and anyway it is n't good. I must crawl 
 under the syringa shade a minute, it 's so hot, and 
 anybody has to stop working once in a while, just 
 to get their breath, even if they were n't making 
 poetry. 
 
 Rebecca was weeding the hollyhock bed 
 
 When marvelous thoughts came into her head. 
 
 Miranda was wielding the rolling-pin 
 
 And thoughts at such times seemed to her as a sin. 
 
 5 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 How pretty the hollyhock rosettes look from down 
 here on the sweet, smelly ground ! 
 
 " Let me see what would go with rosetting. Aid- 
 ing and abetting, petting, hen-setting, fretting, — 
 there's nothing very nice, but I can make 'fret- 
 ting ' do. 
 
 Cheered by Rowena's petting, 
 The flowers are rosetting, 
 But Aunt Miranda's fretting 
 Doth somewhat cloud the day." 
 
 Suddenly the sound of wagon wheels broke the 
 silence and then a voice called out — a voice that 
 could not wait until the feet that belonged to it 
 reached the spot : " Miss Szw-yer/ Father's got to 
 drive over to North Riverboro on an errand, and 
 please can Rebecca go, too, as it 's Saturday morn- 
 ing and vacation besides ? " 
 
 Rebecca sprang out from under the syringa- 
 bush, eyes flashing with delight as only Rebec- 
 ca's eyes could flash, her face one luminous circle 
 of joyous anticipation. She clapped her grubby 
 hands, and dancing up and down, cried : " May I, 
 Aunt Miranda — can I, Aunt Jane — can I, Aunt 
 Miranda-Jane ? I 'm more than half through the 
 bed." 
 
 " If you finish your weeding to-night before 
 sundown I s'pose you can go, so long as Mr. Per- 
 kins has been good enough to ask you," responded 
 
 6 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 Miss Sawyer reluctantly. " Take off that gingham 
 apron and wash your hands clean at the pump. 
 You ain't be'n out o' bed but two hours an' your 
 head looks as rough as if you 'd slep' in it. That 
 comes from layin' on the ground same as a cater- 
 pillar. Smooth your hair down with your hands an' 
 p'r'aps Emma Jane can braid it as you go along the 
 road. Run up and get your second-best hair ribbon 
 out o' your upper drawer and put on your shade- 
 hat. No, you can't wear your coral chain — jewelry 
 ain't appropriate in the morning. How long do you 
 cal'late to be gone, Emma Jane ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Father 's just been sent for to 
 see about a sick woman over to North Riverboro. 
 She 's got to go to the poor-farm." 
 
 This fragment of news speedily brought Miss 
 Sawyer, and her sister Jane as well, to the door, 
 which commanded a view of Mr. Perkins and his 
 wagon. Mr. Perkins, the father of Rebecca's bosom 
 friend, was primarily a blacksmith, and secondarily 
 a selectman and an overseer of the poor, a man 
 therefore possessed of wide and varied informa- 
 tion. 
 
 " Who is it that 's sick ? " inquired Miranda. 
 
 "A woman over to North Riverboro." 
 
 "What's the trouble?" 
 
 " Can't say." 
 
 " Stranger ? " 
 
 7 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 " Yes, and no ; she 's that wild daughter of old 
 Nate Perry that used to live up towards Modera- 
 tion. You remember she ran away to work in the 
 factory at Milltown and married a do-nothin' fellow 
 by the name o' John Winslow ? " 
 
 " Yes ; well, where is he ? Why don't he take 
 care of her ? " 
 
 "They ain't worked well in double harness. 
 They 've been rovin' round the country, livin' a 
 month here and a month there wherever they eould 
 get work and house-room. They quarreled a couple 
 o' weeks ago and he left her. She and the little 
 boy kind o' camped out in an old loggin' cabin back 
 in the woods and she took in washin' for a spell ; 
 then she got terrible sick and ain't expected to 
 live." 
 
 " Who 's been nursing her ? " inquired Miss Jane. 
 
 " Lizy Ann Dennett, that lives nearest neighbor 
 to the cabin ; but I guess she 's tired out bein' good 
 Samaritan. Anyways, she sent word this mornin' 
 that nobody can't seem to find John Winslow ; that 
 there ain't no relations, and the town 's got to be 
 responsible, so I 'm goin' over to see how the land 
 lays. Climb in, Rebecca. You an' Emmy Jane 
 crowd back on the cushion an' I '11 set forrard. 
 That 's the trick ! Now we 're off ! " 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " sighed Jane Sawyer as the sisters 
 walked back into the brick house. " I remember 
 
 8 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 once seeing Sally Perry at meeting. She was a 
 handsome girl, and I 'm sorry she 's come to grief." 
 
 " If she 'd kep' on goin' to meetin' an' had n't 
 looked at the men folks she might 'a' be'n earnin' 
 an honest livin' this minute," said Miranda. "Men 
 folks are at the bottom of everything wrong in this 
 world," she continued, unconsciously reversing the 
 verdict of history. 
 
 " Then we ought to be a happy and contented 
 community here in Riverboro," replied Jane, "as 
 there's six women to one man." 
 
 "If 't was sixteen to one we'd be all the safer," 
 responded Miranda grimly, putting the doughnuts 
 in a brown crock in the cellar-way and slamming 
 the door. 
 
 II 
 
 The Perkins horse and wagon rumbled along 
 over the dusty country road, and after a discreet 
 silence, maintained as long as human flesh could 
 endure, Rebecca remarked sedately : — f 
 
 " It 's a sad errand for such a shiny morning, 
 is n't it, Mr. Perkins ? " 
 
 " Plenty o' trouble in the world, Rebecky, shiny 
 mornin's an' all," that good man replied. " If you 
 want a bed to lay on, a roof over your head, an' 
 food to eat, you 've got to work for 'em. If I 
 had n't 'a' labored early an' late, learned my trade, 
 
 9 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 an' denied myself when I was young, I might 'a' 
 be'n a pauper layin' sick in a loggin' cabin, 'stead 
 o' bein' an overseer o' the poor an' selectman drivin' 
 along to take the pauper to the poor-farm." 
 
 " People that are mortgaged don't have to go to 
 the poor-farm, do they, Mr. Perkins ? " asked Re- 
 becca, with a shiver of fear as she remembered her 
 home farm at Sunnybrook and the debt upon it ; a 
 debt which had lain like a shadow over her child- 
 hood. 
 
 " Bless your soul, no ; not unless they fail to pay 
 up ; but Sal Perry an' her husband had n't got fur 
 enough along in life to be mortgaged. You have to 
 own something before you can mortgage it." 
 
 Rebecca's heart bounded as she learned that a 
 mortgage represented a certain stage in worldly 
 prosperity. 
 
 " Well," she said, sniffing in the fragrance of the 
 new-mown hay and growing hopeful as she did so ; 
 " maybe the sick woman will be better such a beau- 
 tiful day, and maybe the husband will come back 
 to make it up and say he 's sorry, and sweet con- 
 tent will reign in the humble habitation that was 
 once the scene of poverty, grief, and despair. 
 That 's how it came out in a story I 'm reading." 
 
 " I hain't noticed that life comes out like stories 
 very much," responded the pessimistic blacksmith, 
 who, as Rebecca privately thought, had read less 
 
 10 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 than half a dozen books in his long and prosperous 
 career. 
 
 A drive of three or four miles brought the party 
 to a patch of woodland where many of the tall pines 
 had been hewn the previous winter. The roof of a 
 ramshackle hut was outlined against a background 
 of young birches, and a rough path made in hauling 
 the logs to the main road led directly to its door. 
 
 As they drew near the figure of a woman ap- 
 proached — Mrs. Lizy Ann Dennett, in a gingham 
 dress, with a calico apron over her head. 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Perkins," said the woman, 
 who looked tired and irritable. " I 'm real glad you 
 come right over, for she took worse after I sent you 
 word, and she 's dead." 
 
 Dead ! The word struck heavily and mysteri- 
 ously on the children's ears. Dead ! and their 
 young lives, just begun, stretched on and on, all 
 decked, like hope, in living green. Dead ! and all 
 the rest of the world reveling in strength. Dead ! 
 with all the daisies and buttercups waving in the 
 fields and the men heaping the mown grass into 
 fragrant cocks or tossing it into heavily laden carts. 
 Dead ! with the brooks tinkling after the summer 
 showers, with the potatoes and corn blossoming, 
 the birds singing for joy, and every little insect 
 humming and chirping, adding its note to the blithe 
 chorus of warm, throbbing life. 
 
 II 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 " I was all alone with her. She passed away 
 suddenly jest about break o' day," said Lizy Ann 
 Dennett. 
 
 " Her soul passed upward to its God 
 Just at the break of day." 
 
 These words came suddenly into Rebecca's mind 
 from a tiny chamber where such things were wont 
 to lie quietly until something brought them to the 
 surface. She could not remember whether she had 
 heard them at a funeral or read them in the hymn 
 book or made them up "out of her own head," but 
 she was so thrilled with the idea of dying just as 
 the dawn was breaking that she scarcely heard 
 Mrs. Dennett's conversation. 
 
 " I sent for Aunt Beulah Day, an' she 's be'n 
 here an' laid her out," continued the long-suffer- 
 ing Lizy Ann. " She ain't got any folks, an' John 
 Winslow ain't never had any as far back as I can 
 remember. She belongs to your town and you '11 
 have to bury her and take care of Jacky — that 's 
 the boy. He 's seventeen months old, a bright little 
 feller, the image o' John, but I can't keep him an- 
 other day. I 'm all wore out ; my own baby 's sick, 
 mother's rheumatiz is extry bad, and my husband 's 
 comin' home to-night from his week's work. If he 
 finds a child o' John Winslow's under his roof I 
 can't say what would happen ; you '11 have to take 
 him back with you to the poor-farm." 
 
 12 
 
JACK O 5 LANTERN 
 
 " I can't take him up there this afternoon," ob. 
 jected Mr. Perkins. 
 
 "Well, then, keep him over Sunday yourself; 
 he's good as a kitten. John Winslow'll hear o* 
 Sal's death sooner or later, unless he 's gone out o' 
 the state altogether, an' when he knows the boy 's 
 at the poor-farm I kind o' think he '11 come and 
 claim him. Could you drive me over to the village 
 to see about the coffin, and would you children be 
 afraid to stay here alone for a spell ? " she asked, 
 turning to the girls. 
 
 " Afraid ? " they both echoed uncomprehend- 
 ingly. 
 
 Lizy Ann and Mr. Perkins, perceiving that the 
 fear of a dead presence had not entered the minds 
 of Rebecca or Emma Jane, said nothing, but drove 
 off together, counseling them not to stray far away 
 from the cabin and promising to be back in an 
 hour. 
 
 There was not a house within sight, either look- 
 ing up or down the shady road, and the two girls 
 stood hand in hand, watching the wagon out of 
 sight; then they sat down quietly under a tree, 
 feeling all at once a nameless depression hanging 
 over their gay summer-morning spirits. 
 
 It was very still in the woods ; just the chirp of 
 a grasshopper now and then, or the note of a bird, 
 or the click of a far-distant mowing-machine. 
 
 13 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 "We're 'watching'!" whispered Emma Jane. 
 "They watched with Gran'pa Perkins, and there 
 was a great funeral and two ministers. He left 
 two thousand dollars in the bank and a store full 
 of goods, and a paper thing you could cut tickets 
 off of twice a year, and they were just like money." 
 
 " They watched with my little sister Mira, too," 
 said Rebecca. "You remember when she died, 
 and I went home to Sunnybrook Farm ? It was 
 winter-time, but she was covered with evergreen 
 and white pinks, and there was singing." 
 
 "There won't be any funeral or ministers or 
 singing here, will there ? Is n't that awful ? " 
 
 " I s'pose not ; and oh, Emma Jane, no flowers 
 either. We might get those for her if there 's no- 
 body else to do it." 
 
 " Would you dare put them on to her ? " asked 
 Emma Jane, in a hushed voice. 
 
 " I don't know ; I can't tell ; it makes me shiver, 
 but, of course, we could do it if we were the only 
 friends she had. Let 's look into the cabin first and 
 be perfectly sure that there are n't any. Are you 
 afraid ? " 
 
 "N-no; I guess not. I looked at Gran'pa Per- 
 kins, and he was just the same as ever." 
 
 At the door of the hut Emma Jane's courage 
 suddenly departed. She held back shuddering and 
 refused either to enter or look in. Rebecca shud- 
 
 H 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 dered too, but kept on, drawn by an insatiable 
 curiosity about life and death, an overmastering 
 desire to know and feel and understand the mys- 
 teries of existence, a hunger for knowledge and 
 experience at all hazards and at any cost. 
 
 Emma Jane hurried softly away from the felt 
 terrors of the cabin, and after two or three minutes 
 of utter silence Rebecca issued from the open door, 
 her sensitive face pale and woe-begone, the ever- 
 ready tears raining down her cheeks. She ran 
 toward the edge of the wood, sinking down by 
 Emma Jane's side, and covering her eyes, sobbed 
 with excitement : — 
 
 " Oh, Emma Jane, she has n't got a flower, and 
 she 's so tired and sad looking, as if she 'd been 
 hurt and hurt and never had any good times, and 
 there 's a weeny, weeny baby 'side of her. Oh, I 
 wish I had n't gone in ! " 
 
 Emma Jane blenched for an instant. " Mrs. 
 Dennett never said there was two dead ones ! Isn't 
 that dreadful ? But," she continued, her practical 
 common sense coming to the rescue, " you 've been 
 in once and it 's all over ; it won't be so bad when 
 you take in the flowers because you '11 be used to 
 it. The goldenrod has n't begun to bud, so there 's 
 nothing to pick but daisies. Shall I make a long 
 rope of them, as I did for the schoolroom ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Rebecca, wiping her eyes and still 
 IS 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 sobbing. " Yes, that 's the prettiest, and if we 
 put it all round her like a frame the undertaker 
 could n't be so cruel as to throw it away, even if 
 she is a pauper, because it will look so beautiful. 
 From what the Sunday-school lessons say, she's 
 only asleep now, and when she wakes up she '11 be 
 in heaven." 
 
 " There 's another place" said Emma Jane, in an 
 orthodox and sepulchral whisper, as she took her 
 ever-present ball of crochet cotton from her pocket 
 and began to twine the whiteweed blossoms into a 
 rope. 
 
 " Oh, well ! " Rebecca replied with the easy the- 
 ology that belonged to her temperament. "They 
 simply could n't send her down there with that lit- 
 tle weeny baby. Who 'd take care of it ? You 
 know page six of the catechism says the only com- 
 panions of the wicked after death are their father 
 the devil and all the other evil angels ; it would n't 
 be any place to bring up a baby." 
 
 " Whenever and wherever she wakes up, I hope 
 she won't know that the big baby is going to the 
 poor-farm. I wonder where he is ? " 
 
 " Perhaps over to Mrs. Dennett's house. She 
 did n't seem sorry a bit, did she ? " 
 
 " No, but I suppose she 's tired sitting up and 
 nursing a stranger. Mother was n't sorry when 
 Gran'pa Perkins died ; she could n't be, for he was 
 
 16 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 cross all the time and had to be fed like a child. 
 Why are you crying again, Rebecca ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know, I can't tell, Emma Jane ! 
 Only I don't want to die and have no funeral or 
 singing and nobody sorry for me ! I just could n't 
 bear it ! " 
 
 "Neither could I," Emma Jane responded sym- 
 pathetically ; " but p'r'aps if we 're real good and die 
 young before we have to be fed, they will be sorry. 
 I do wish you could write some poetry for her as 
 you did for Alice Robinson's canary-bird, only still 
 better, of course, like that you read me out of your 
 thought book." 
 
 "I could, easy enough," exclaimed Rebecca, some- 
 what consoled by the idea that her rhyming faculty 
 could be of any use in such an emergency. "Though 
 I don't know but it would be kind of bold to do it. 
 I 'm all puzzled about how people get to heaven 
 after they're buried. I can't understand it a bit ; but 
 if the poetry is on her, what if that should go, too ? 
 And how could I write anything good enough to be 
 read out loud in heaven ? " 
 
 " A little piece of paper could n't get to heaven ; 
 it just could n't," asserted Emma Jane decisively. 
 "It would be all blown to pieces and dried up. And 
 nobody knows that the angels can read writing, 
 anyway." 
 
 "They must be as educated as we are, and 
 17 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 more so, too," argued Rebecca. "They must be 
 more than just dead people, or else why should 
 they have wings ? But I '11 go off and write some- 
 thing while you finish the rope ; it 's lucky you 
 brought your crochet cotton and I my lead pencil." 
 In fifteen or twenty minutes she returned with 
 some lines written on a scrap of brown wrapping 
 paper. Standing soberly by Emma Jane, she said, 
 preparing to read them aloud : " They 're not good ; 
 I was afraid your father 'd come back before I fin- 
 ished, and the first verse sounds exactly like the 
 funeral hymns in the church book. I could n't call 
 her Sally Win slow ; it did n't seem nice when I 
 did n't know her and she is dead, so I thought if I 
 said ' friend ' it would show she had somebody to 
 be sorry. 
 
 " This friend of ours has died and gone 
 From us to heaven to live. 
 If she has sinned against Thee, Lord, 
 We pray Thee, Lord, forgive. 
 
 " Her husband runneth far away 
 And knoweth not she 's dead. 
 Oh, bring him back — ere 't is too late — 
 To mourn beside her bed. 
 
 " And if perchance it can't be so, 
 Be to the children kind ; 
 The weeny one that goes with her, 
 The other left behind." 
 
 18 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 " I think that 's perfectly elegant ! " exclaimed 
 Emma Jane, kissing Rebecca fervently. " You are 
 the smartest girl in the whole State of Maine, and 
 it sounds like a minister's prayer. I wish we could 
 save up and buy a printing-machine. Then I could 
 learn to print what you write and we 'd be partners 
 like father and Bill Moses. Shall you sign it with 
 your name like we do our school compositions ?" 
 
 " No," said Rebecca soberly. " I certainly shan't 
 sign it, not knowing where it 's going or who '11 
 read it. I shall just hide it in the flowers, and 
 whoever finds it will guess that there was n't any 
 minister or singing, or gravestone, or anything, so 
 somebody just did the best they could. " 
 
 III 
 
 The tired mother with the " weeny baby" on her 
 arm lay on a long carpenter's bench, her earthly 
 journey over, and when Rebecca stole in and placed 
 the flowery garland all along the edge of the rude 
 bier, death suddenly took on a more gracious and 
 benign aspect. It was only a child's sympathy and 
 intuition that softened the rigors of the sad moment, 
 but poor, wild Sal Winslow, in her frame of daisies, 
 looked as if she were missed a little by an un- 
 friendly world ; while the weeny baby, whose heart 
 had fallen asleep almost as soon as it had learned 
 to beat, the weeny baby, with Emma Jane's nosegay 
 
 19 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 of buttercups in its tiny wrinkled hand, smiled as 
 if it might have been loved and longed for and 
 mourned. 
 
 " We 've done all we can now without a minister/' 
 whispered Rebecca. " We could sing, ' God is ever 
 good ' out of the Sunday-school song-book, but I 'm 
 afraid somebody would hear us and think we were 
 gay and happy. — What 's that ? " 
 
 A strange sound broke the stillness : a gurgle, a 
 yawn, a merry little call. The two girls ran in the 
 direction from which it came, and there, on an old 
 coat, in a clump of goldenrod bushes, lay a child 
 just waking from a refreshing nap. 
 
 " It 's the other baby that Lizy Ann Dennett 
 told about ! " cried Emma Jane. 
 
 " Is n't he beautiful ! " exclaimed Rebecca. 
 " Come straight to me ! " and she stretched out her 
 arms. 
 
 The child struggled to its feet, and tottered, wa- 
 vering, toward the warm welcome of the voice and 
 eyes. Rebecca was all mother, and her maternal 
 instincts had been well developed in the large fam- 
 ily in which she was next to the eldest. She had 
 always confessed that there were perhaps a trifle 
 too many babies at Sunnybrook Farm, but, nev- 
 ertheless, had she ever heard it, she would have 
 stood loyally by the Japanese proverb : " Whether 
 brought forth upon the mountain or in the field, it 
 
 20 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 matters nothing ; more than a treasure of one thou- 
 sand ryo a baby precious is." 
 
 " You darling thing ! " she crooned, as she caught 
 and lifted the child. " You look just like a Jack-o'- 
 lantern." 
 
 The boy was clad in a yellow cotton dress, very 
 full and stiff. His hair was of such a bright gold, 
 and so sleek and shiny, that he looked like a fair, 
 smooth little pumpkin. He had wide blue eyes full 
 of laughter, a neat little vertical nose, a neat little 
 horizontal mouth with his few neat little teeth show- 
 ing very plainly, and on the whole Rebecca's figure 
 of speech was not so wide of the mark. 
 
 " Oh, Emma Jane ! Is n't he too lovely to go to 
 the poor-farm ? If only we were married we could 
 keep him and say nothing and nobody would know 
 the difference ! Now that the Simpsons have gone 
 away there is n't a single baby in Riverboro, and 
 only one in Edgewood. It 's a perfect shame, but 
 I can't do anything ; you remember Aunt Miranda 
 would n't let me have the Simpson baby when 
 I wanted to borrow her just for one rainy Sun- 
 day." 
 
 " My mother won't keep him, so it's no use to 
 ask her ; she says 'most every day she's glad we 're 
 grown up, and she thanks the Lord there was n't 
 but two of us." 
 
 " And Mrs. Peter Meserve is too nervous," Re- 
 21 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 becca went on, taking the village houses in turn ; 
 " and Mrs. Robinson is too neat." 
 
 " People don't seem to like any but their own 
 babies," observed Emma Jane. 
 
 " Well, I can't understand it," Rebecca answered. 
 " A baby 's a baby, I should think, whose ever it 
 is ! Miss Dearborn is coming back Monday ; I 
 wonder if she 'd like it ? She has nothing to do out 
 of school, and we could borrow it all the time ! " 
 
 " I don't think it would seem very genteel for a 
 young lady like Miss Dearborn, who ' boards round,' 
 to take a baby from place to place," objected Emma 
 Jane. 
 
 " Perhaps not," agreed Rebecca despondently, 
 "but I think if we haven't got any — any — pri- 
 vate babies in Riverboro we ought to have one for 
 the town, and all have a share in it. We 've got a 
 town hall and a town lamp-post and a town water- 
 ing-trough. Things are so uneven ! One house like 
 mine at Sunnybrook, brimful of children, and the 
 very next one empty ! The only way to fix them 
 right would be to let all the babies that ever are 
 belong to all the grown-up people that ever are, — 
 just divide them up, you know, if they 'd go round. 
 — Oh, I have a thought ! Don't you believe Aunt 
 Sarah Cobb would keep him ? She carries flowers 
 to the graveyard every little while, and once she 
 took me with her. There 's a marble cross, and it 
 
 22 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 says : Sacred to the memory of Sarah Ellen, be- 
 loved child of Sarah and Jeremiah Cobb, aged I J 
 months. Why, that 's another reason ; Mrs. Den- 
 nett says this one is seventeen months. There 's 
 five of us left at the farm without me, but if we 
 were only nearer to Riverboro, how quick mother 
 would let in one more ! " 
 
 " We might see what father thinks, and that 
 would settle it," said Emma Jane. " Father does n't 
 think very sudden, but he thinks awful strong. If 
 we don't bother him, and find a place ourselves for 
 the baby, perhaps he '11 be willing. He 's coming 
 now ; I hear the wheels." 
 
 Lizy Ann Dennett volunteered to stay and per- 
 form the last rites with the undertaker, and Jack-o'- 
 lantern, with his slender wardrobe tied in a bandanna 
 handkerchief, was lifted into the wagon by the re- 
 luctant Mr. Perkins, and jubilantly held by Rebecca 
 in her lap. Mr. Perkins drove off as speedily as 
 possible, being heartily sick of the whole affair, and 
 thinking wisely that the little girls had already seen 
 and heard more than enough of the seamy side of 
 life that morning. 
 
 Discussion concerning Jack-o'-lantern's future 
 was prudently deferred for a quarter of an hour, 
 and then Mr. Perkins was mercilessly pelted with 
 arguments against the choice of the poor-farm as a 
 place of residence for a baby. 
 
 23 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 " His father is sure to come back some time, 
 Mr. Perkins," urged Rebecca. "He couldn't leave 
 this beautiful thing forever ; and if Emma Jane and 
 I can persuade Mrs. Cobb to keep him a little 
 while, would you care ? " 
 
 No ; on reflection Mr. Perkins did not care. He 
 merely wanted a quiet life and enough time left 
 over from the public service to attend to his black- 
 smith's shop ; so instead of going home over the 
 same road by which they came he crossed the 
 bridge into Edgewood and dropped the children at 
 the long lane which led to the Cobb house. 
 
 Mrs. Cobb, " Aunt Sarah " to the whole village, 
 sat by the window looking for Uncle Jerry, who 
 would soon be seen driving the noon stage to the 
 post-office over the hill. She always had an eye out 
 for Rebecca, too, for ever since the child had been 
 a passenger on Mr. Cobb's stagecoach, making the 
 eventful trip from her home farm to the brick house 
 in Riverboro in his company, she had been a con- 
 stant visitor and the joy of the quiet household. 
 Emma Jane, too, was a well-known figure in the 
 lane, but the strange baby was in the nature of a 
 surprise — a surprise somewhat modified by the fact 
 that Rebecca was a dramatic personage and more 
 liable to appear in conjunction with curious out- 
 riders, comrades, and retainers than the ordinary 
 Riverboro child. She had run away from the too 
 
 24 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 stern discipline of the brick house on one occasion, 
 and had been persuaded to return by Uncle Jerry. 
 She had escorted a wandering organ-grinder to 
 their door and begged a lodging for him on a rainy 
 night ; so on the whole there was nothing amazing 
 about the coming procession. 
 
 The little party toiled up to the hospitable door, 
 and Mrs. Cobb came out to meet them. 
 
 Rebecca was spokesman. Emma Jane's talent 
 did not lie in eloquent speech, but it would have 
 been a valiant and a fluent child indeed who could 
 have usurped Rebecca's privileges and tendencies 
 in this direction, language being her native ele- 
 ment, and words of assorted sizes springing spon- 
 taneously to her lips. 
 
 "Aunt Sarah, dear," she said, plumping Jack-o'- 
 lantern down on the grass as she pulled his dress 
 over his feet and smoothed his hair becomingly, 
 " will you please not say a word till I get through 
 — as it 's very important you should know every- 
 thing before you answer yes or no ? This is a 
 baby named Jacky Winslow, and I think he looks 
 like a Jack-o'-lantern. His mother has just died 
 over to North Riverboro, all alone, excepting for 
 Mrs. Lizy Ann Dennett, and there was another 
 little weeny baby that died with her, and Emma 
 Jane and I put flowers around them and did the 
 best we could. The father — that 's John Winslow 
 
 25 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 — quarreled with the mother — that was Sal Perry 
 on the Moderation Road — and ran away and left 
 her. So he does n't know his wife and the weeny 
 baby are dead. And the town has got to bury 
 them because they can't find the father right off 
 quick, and Jacky has got to go to the poor-farm 
 this afternoon. And it seems an awful shame to 
 take him up to that lonesome place with those old 
 people that can't amuse him, and if Emma Jane 
 and Alice Robinson and I take 'most all the care 
 of him we thought perhaps you and Uncle Jerry 
 would keep him just for a little while. You 've got 
 a cow and a turn-up bedstead, you know," she hur- 
 ried on insinuatingly, "and there 's hardly any plea- 
 sure as cheap as more babies where there 's ever 
 been any before, for baby carriages and trundle- 
 beds and cradles don't wear out, and there 's always 
 clothes left over from the old baby to begin the 
 new one on. Of course, we can collect enough 
 things to start Jacky, so he won't be much trouble 
 or expense ; and anyway, he 's past the most 
 troublesome age and you won't have to be up 
 nights with him, and he is n't afraid of anybody or 
 anything, as you can see by his just sitting there 
 laughing and sucking his thumb, though he does n't 
 know what 's going to become of him. And he 's 
 just seventeen months old like dear little Sarah 
 Ellen in the graveyard, and we thought we ought 
 26 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 te give you the refusal of him before he goes to 
 the poor-farm, and what do you think about it ? 
 Because it 's near my dinner-time and Aunt Mi- 
 randa will keep me in the whole afternoon if I 'm 
 late, and I 've got to finish weeding the hollyhock 
 bed before sundown." 
 
 IV 
 
 Mrs. Cobb had enjoyed a considerable period of 
 reflection during this monologue, and Jacky had 
 not used the time unwisely, offering several un- 
 conscious arguments and suggestions to the matter 
 under discussion ; lurching over on the greensward 
 and righting himself with a chuckle, kicking his 
 bare feet about in delight at the sunshine and 
 groping for his toes with arms too short to reach 
 them, the movement involving an entire upsetting 
 of equilibrium followed by mope chuckles. 
 
 Coming down the last of the stone steps, Sarah 
 Ellen's mother regarded the baby with interest and 
 sympathy. 
 
 " Poor little mite ! " she said ; '■' that does n't 
 know what he 's lost and what 's going to happen 
 to him. Seems to me we might keep him a spell 
 till we 're sure his father 's deserted him for good. 
 Want to come to Aunt Sarah, baby ? " 
 
 Jack-o'-lantern turned from Rebecca and Emma 
 Jane and regarded the kind face gravely ; then he 
 
 27 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 held out both his hands and Mrs. Cobb, stooping, 
 gathered him like a harvest. Being lifted into her 
 arms, he at once tore her spectacles from her nose 
 and laughed aloud. Taking them from him gently, 
 she put them on again, and set him in the cush- 
 ioned rocking-chair under the lilac bushes beside 
 the steps. Then she took one of his soft hands in 
 hers and patted it, and fluttered her fingers like 
 birds before his eyes, and snapped them like casta- 
 nets, remembering all the arts she had lavished 
 upon " Sarah Ellen, aged seventeen months," years 
 and years ago. 
 
 Motherless baby and babyless mother, 
 Bring them together to love one another. 
 
 Rebecca knew nothing of this couplet, but she 
 saw clearly enough that her case was won. 
 
 "The boy must be hungry; when was he fed 
 last ? " asked Mrs. Cobb. " Just stay a second 
 longer while I get him some morning's milk ; then 
 you run home to your dinners and I '11 speak to 
 Mr. Cobb this afternoon. Of course, we can keep 
 the baby for a week or two till we see what hap- 
 pens. Land ! he ain't goin' to be any more trouble 
 than a wax doll ! I guess he ain't been used to 
 much attention, and that kind 's always the easiest 
 to take care of." 
 
 At six o'clock that evening Rebecca and Emma 
 Jane flew up the hill and down the lane again, wav- 
 
 28 
 
GREAT, THOUGH FRIENDLY, WAS THE RIVALRY 
 BETWEEN THEM 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 ing their hands to the dear old couple who were 
 waiting for them in the usual place, the back piazza 
 where they had sat so many summers in a blessed 
 companionship never marred by an unloving word. 
 
 "Where's Jacky?" called Rebecca breathlessly, 
 her voice always outrunning her feet. 
 
 " Go up to my chamber, both of you, if you want 
 to see," smiled Mrs. Cobb, " only don't wake him 
 up." ' 
 
 The girls went softly up the stairs into Aunt 
 Sarah's room. There, in the turn-up bedstead that 
 had been so long empty, slept Jack-o'-lantern, in 
 blissful unconsciousness of the doom he had so 
 lately escaped. His nightgown and pillow-case were 
 clean and fragrant with lavender, but they were 
 both as yellow as saffron, for they had belonged to 
 Sarah Ellen. ' 
 
 " I wish his mother could see him ! " whispered 
 Emma Jane. 
 
 " You can't tell ; it 's all puzzly about heaven, 
 and perhaps she does," said Rebecca, as they turned 
 reluctantly from the fascinating scene and stole 
 down to the piazza. 
 
 It was a beautiful and a happy summer that year, 
 and every day of it was filled with blissful plays 
 and still more blissful duties. On the Monday 
 after Jack-o'-lantern' s arrival in Edgewood Rebecca 
 
 29 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 founded the Riverboro Aunts Association. The 
 Aunts were Rebecca, Emma Jane, Alice Robin- 
 son, and Minnie Smellie, and each of the first three 
 promised to labor for and amuse the visiting baby 
 for two days a week, Minnie Smellie, who lived at 
 some distance from the Cobbs, making herself re- 
 sponsible for Saturday afternoons. 
 
 Minnie Smellie was not a general favorite among 
 the Riverboro girls, and it was only in an unpre- 
 cedented burst of magnanimity that they admitted 
 her into the rites of fellowship, Rebecca hugging 
 herself secretly at the thought, that as Minnie gave 
 only the leisure time of one day a week, she could 
 not be called a "full " Aunt. There had been long 
 and bitter feuds between the two children during 
 Rebecca's first summer in Riverboro, but since 
 Mrs. Smellie had told her daughter that one more 
 quarrel would invite a punishment so terrible that 
 it could only be hinted at vaguely, and Miss Mi- 
 randa Sawyer had remarked that any niece of hers 
 who could n't get along peaceably with the neigh- 
 bors had better go back to the seclusion of a farm 
 where there were n't any, hostilities had been 
 veiled, and a suave and diplomatic relationship had 
 replaced the former one, which had been wholly 
 primitive, direct, and barbaric. Still, whenever 
 Minnie Smellie, flaxed-haired, pink-nosed, and fer- 
 ret-eyed, indulged in fluent conversation, Rebecca, 
 
 30 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 remembering the old fairy story, could always see 
 toads hopping out of her mouth. It was really very 
 unpleasant, because Minnie could never see them 
 herself ; and what was more amazing, Emma Jane 
 perceived nothing of the sort, being almost as 
 blind, too, to the diamonds that fell continually 
 from Rebecca's lips ; but Emma Jane's strong 
 point was not her imagination. 
 
 A shaky perambulator was found in Mrs. Per- 
 kins's wonderful attic ; shoes and stockings were 
 furnished by Mrs. Robinson; Miss Jane Sawyer 
 knitted a blanket and some shirts ; Thirza Me- 
 serve, though too young for an Aunt, coaxed from 
 her mother some dresses and nightgowns, and was 
 presented with a green paper certificate allowing 
 her to wheel Jacky up and down the road for an 
 hour under the superintendence of a full Aunt. 
 Each girl, under the constitution of the associa- 
 tion, could call Jacky " hers " for two days in the 
 week, and great, though friendly, was th£ rivalry 
 between them, as they washed, ironed, and sewed 
 for their adored nephew. 
 
 If Mrs. Cobb had not been the most amiable 
 woman in the world she might have had difficulty 
 in managing the Aunts, but she always had Jacky 
 to herself the earlier part of the day and after dusk 
 at night. 
 
 Meanwhile Jack-o'-lantern grew healthier and 
 31 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 heartier and jollier as the weeks slipped away. 
 Uncle Jerry joined the little company of worshipers 
 and slaves, and one fear alone stirred in all their 
 hearts ; not, as a sensible and practical person 
 might imagine, the fear that the recreant father 
 might never return to claim his child, but, on the 
 contrary, that he might do so ! 
 
 October came at length with its cheery days and 
 frosty nights, its glory of crimson leaves and its 
 golden harvest of pumpkins and ripened corn. Re- 
 becca had been down by the Edgewood side of the 
 river and had come up across the pastures for a 
 good-night play with Jacky. Her literary labors 
 had been somewhat interrupted by the joys and 
 responsibilities of vice-motherhood, and the thought 
 book was less frequently drawn from its hiding 
 place under the old haymow in the barn chamber. 
 
 Mrs. Cobb stood behind the screen door with 
 her face pressed against the wire netting, and Re- 
 becca could see that she was wiping her eyes. 
 
 All at once the child's heart gave one prophetic 
 throb and then stood still. She was like a harp 
 that vibrated with every wind of emotion, whether 
 from another's grief or her own. 
 
 She looked down the lane, around the curve of 
 the stone wall red with woodbine, the lane that 
 would meet the stage road to the station. There, 
 just mounting the crown of the hill and about to 
 
 32 
 
JACK O' LANTERN 
 
 disappear on the other side, strode a stranger man, 
 big and tall, with a crop of reddish curly hair show- 
 ing from under his straw hat. A woman walked by 
 his side, and perched on his shoulder, wearing his 
 most radiant and triumphant mien, as joyous in 
 leaving Edgewood as he had been during every 
 hour of his sojourn there — rode Jack-o'-lantern ! 
 
 Rebecca gave a cry in which maternal longing 
 and helpless, hopeless jealousy strove for suprem- 
 acy. Then, with an impetuous movement she started 
 to run after the disappearing trio. 
 
 Mrs. Cobb opened the door hastily, calling after 
 her, " Rebecca, Rebecca, come back here ! You 
 must n't follow where you have n't any right to 
 go. If there 'd been anything to say or do, I 'd 'a' 
 done it." ' 
 
 " He 's mine ! he 's mine ! " stormed Rebecca. 
 " At least he 's yours and mine ! " 
 
 " He 's his father's first of all," faltered Mrs. 
 Cobb ; " don't let 's forget that ; and we 'd ought to 
 be glad an' grateful that John Winslow 's come to 
 his senses an' remembers he 's brought a child into 
 the world and ought to take care of it. Our loss 
 is his gain and it may make a man of him. Come 
 in, and we '11 put things away all neat before your 
 Uncle Jerry gets home." 
 
 Rebecca sank in a pitiful little heap on Mrs. 
 Cobb's bedroom floor and sobbed her heart out. 
 
 33 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 " Oh, Aunt Sarah, where shall we get 'another 
 Jack-o'-lantern, and how shall I break it to Emma 
 Jane ? What if his father does n't love him, and 
 what if he forgets to strain the milk or lets him go 
 without his nap ? That 's the worst of babies that 
 are n't private — you have to part with them sooner 
 or later ! " 
 
 " Sometimes you have to part with your own, 
 too," said Mrs. Cobb sadly ; and though there were 
 lines of sadness in her face there was neither rebel- 
 lion nor repining, as she folded up the sides of the 
 turn-up bedstead preparatory to banishing it a sec- 
 ond time to the attic. " I shall miss Sarah Ellen 
 now more 'n ever. Still, Rebecca, we must n't feel 
 to complain. It 's the Lord that giveth and the 
 Lord that taketh away : Blessed be the name of 
 the Lord." 
 
Second Chronicle 
 DAUGHTERS OF ZION 
 
 ABIJAH FLAGG was driving over to 
 Wareham on an errand for old Squire 
 Winship, whose general chore-boy and 
 farmer's assistant he had been for some years. 
 
 He passed Emma Jane Perkins's house slowly, 
 as he always did. She was only a little girl of thir- 
 teen and he a boy of fifteen or sixteen, but some- 
 how, for no particular reason, he liked to see the 
 sun shine on her thick braids of reddish-brown hair. 
 He admired her china-blue eyes too, and her ami- 
 able, friendly expression. He was quite alone in 
 the world, and he always thought that if he had 
 anybody belonging to him he would rather have a 
 sister like Emma Jane Perkins than anything else 
 within the power of Providence to bestow. When 
 she herself suggested this relationship a few years 
 later he cast it aside with scorn, having changed 
 his mind in the interval — but that story belongs 
 to another time and place. 
 
 Emma Jane was not to be seen in garden, field, 
 or at the window, and Abijah turned his gaze to 
 
 35 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 the large brick house that came next on' the other 
 side of the quiet village street. It might have been 
 closed for a funeral. Neither Miss Miranda nor 
 Miss Jane Sawyer sat at their respective windows 
 knitting, nor was Rebecca Randall's gypsy face to 
 be discerned. Ordinarily that will-o'-the-wispish 
 little person could be seen, heard, or felt wherever 
 she was. 
 
 " The village must be abed, I guess," mused 
 Abijah, as he neared the Robinsons' yellow cot- 
 tage, where all the blinds were closed and no sign 
 of life showed on porch or in shed. " No, 't ain't, 
 neither," he thought again, as his horse crept cau- 
 tiously down the hill, for from the direction of the 
 Robinsons' barn chamber there floated out into the 
 air certain burning sentiments set to the tune of 
 " Antioch." The words, to a lad brought up in the 
 orthodox faith, were quite distinguishable : — 
 
 ffe» 
 
 fU- 
 
 " Daugh - ter of Zi - on, from the dust, Ex - alt thy fall - en head I " 
 
 Even the most religious youth is stronger on first 
 lines than others, but Abijah pulled up his horse 
 and waited till he caught another familiar verse, 
 beginning : — 
 
 " Rebuild thy walls, thy bounds enlarge, 
 And send thy heralds forth." 
 
 36 
 
DAUGHTERS OF ZION 
 
 " That 's Rebecca carrying the air, and I can 
 hear Emma Jane's alto." 
 
 ^m 
 
 Sill 
 
 i 
 
 ft 
 
 ialp 
 
 =r 
 
 "Say to the North, Give up thy charge, 
 
 ^1 
 
 -m— ■ 
 
 f- 
 
 h— N— N 
 
 i=Ei5j^E§re§^^^P£ 
 
 And hold not back, O South, And hold not back, South," etc. 
 
 " Land ! ain't they smart, seesawin' up and down 
 in that part they learnt in singin' school ! I wonder 
 what they 're actin' out, singin' hymn-tunes up in 
 the barn chamber ? Some o' Rebecca's doin's, I '11 
 be bound ! Git dap, Aleck ! " ' 
 
 Aleck pursued his serene and steady trot up 
 the hills on the Edgewood side of the river, till at 
 length he approached the green Common where 
 the old Tory Hill meeting-house stood, its white 
 paint and green blinds showing fair and pleasant 
 in the afternoon sun. Both doors were open, and 
 as Abijah turned into the Wareham road the church 
 melodeon pealed out the opening bars of the Mis- 
 sionary Hymn, and presently a score of voices sent 
 the good old tune from the choir-loft out to the 
 dusty road : — 
 
 " Shall we whose souls are lighted 
 With wisdom from on high, 
 
 37 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Shall we to men benighted 
 The lamp of life deny ? " 
 
 " Land ! " exclaimed Abijah under his breath. 
 " They 're at it up here, too ! That explains it all. 
 There 's a missionary meeting at the church, and 
 the girls wa'n't allowed to come so they held one 
 o' their own, and I bate ye it 's the liveliest of the 
 two." 
 
 Abijah Flagg's shrewd Yankee guesses were not 
 far from the truth, though he was not in posses- 
 sion of all the facts. It will be remembered by 
 those who have been in the way of hearing Re- 
 becca's experiences in Riverboro, that the Rev. and 
 Mrs. Burch, returned missionaries from the Far 
 East, together with some of their children, — " all 
 born under Syrian skies," as they always explained 
 to interested inquirers, — spent a day or two at 
 the brick house, and gave parlor meetings in native 
 costume. 
 
 These visitors, coming straight from foreign 
 lands to the little Maine village, brought with them 
 a nameless enchantment to the children, and espe- 
 cially to Rebecca, whose imagination always kindled 
 easily. The romance of that visit had never died 
 in her heart, and among the many careers that 
 dazzled her youthful vision was that of converting 
 such Syrian heathen as might continue in idol 
 worship after the Burettes' efforts in their behalf 
 • 38 
 
DAUGHTERS OF ZION 
 
 had ceased. She thought at the age of eighteen 
 she might be suitably equipped for storming some 
 minor citadel of Mohammedanism ; and Mrs. Burch 
 had encouraged her in the idea, not, it is to be 
 feared, because Rebecca showed any surplus of 
 virtue or Christian grace, but because her gift of 
 language, her tact and sympathy, and her musical 
 talent seemed to fit her for the work. 
 
 It chanced that the quarterly meeting of the 
 Maine Missionary Society had been appointed just 
 at the time when a letter from Mrs. Burch to Miss 
 Jane Sawyer suggested that Rebecca should form 
 a children's branch in Riverboro. Mrs. Burch's 
 real idea was that the young people should save 
 their pennies and divert a gentle' stream of finan- 
 cial aid into the parent fund, thus learning early 
 in life to be useful in such work, either at home or 
 abroad. 
 
 The girls themselves, however, read into her let- 
 ter no such modest participation in the conversion 
 of the world, and wishing to effect an organization 
 without delay, they chose an afternoon when every 
 house in the village was vacant, and seized upon the 
 Robinsons' barn chamber as the place of meeting. 
 
 Rebecca, Alice Robinson, Emma Jane Perkins, 
 Candace Milliken, and Persis Watson, each with 
 her hymn-book, had climbed the ladder leading to 
 the haymow a half-hour before Abijah Flagg had 
 
 39 . 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 heard the strains of " Daughter of Zion " floating 
 out to the road. Rebecca, being an executive per- 
 son, had carried, besides her hymn-book, a silver 
 call-bell and pencil and paper. An animated dis- 
 cussion regarding one of two names for the society, 
 The Junior Heralds or The Daughters of Zion, 
 had resulted in a unanimous vote for the latter, 
 and Rebecca had been elected president at an 
 early stage of the meeting. She had modestly sug- 
 gested that Alice Robinson, as the granddaughter 
 of a missionary to China, would be much more 
 eligible. 
 
 "No," said Alice, with entire good nature, "who- 
 ever is elected president, you will be, Rebecca — 
 you 're that kind — so you might as well have the 
 honor; I 'd just as lieves be secretary, anyway." 
 
 " If you should want me to be treasurer, I could 
 be, as well as not," said Persis Watson suggestively; 
 "for you know my father keeps china banks at 
 his store — ones that will hold as much as two dol- 
 lars if you will let them. I think he 'd give us one 
 if I happen to be treasurer." 
 
 The three principal officers were thus elected at 
 one fell swoop and with an entire absence of that 
 red tape which commonly renders organization so 
 tiresome, Candace Milliken suggesting that per- 
 haps she 'd better be vice-president, as Emma Jane 
 Perkins was always so bashful. 
 
 40 
 
DAUGHTERS OF ZION 
 
 " We ought to have more members," she re- 
 minded the other girls, "but if we had invited 
 them the first day they 'd have all wanted to be 
 officers, especially Minnie Smellie, so it 's just as 
 well not to ask them till another time. Is Thirza 
 Meserve too little to join ? " 
 
 "I can't think why anybody named Meserve 
 should have called a baby Thirza," said Rebecca, 
 somewhat out of order, though the meeting was 
 carried on with small recognition of parliamentary 
 laws. " It always makes me want to say : — 
 
 Thirza Meserver, 
 Heaven preserve her ! 
 
 or 
 
 Thirza Meserver ' 
 Do we deserve her ? 
 
 She 's little, but she 's sweet, and absolutely with- 
 out guile. I think we ought to have her." 
 
 "Is 'guile' the same as guilt?" inquired Emma 
 Jane Perkins. 
 
 " Yes," the president answered ; " exactly the 
 same, except one is written and the other spoken 
 language." (Rebecca was rather good at imbibing 
 information, and a master hand at imparting it !) 
 " Written language is for poems and graduations 
 and occasions like this — kind of like a best Sun- 
 day-go-to-meeting dress that you would n't like to 
 go blueberrying in for fear of getting it spotted." 
 4.1 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 "I 'd just as lieves get 'guile' spotted as not," 
 affirmed the unimaginative Emma Jane. " I think 
 it 's an awful foolish word ; but now we 're all 
 named and our officers elected, what do we do 
 first ? It 's easy enough for Mary and Martha 
 Burch ; they just play at missionarying because 
 their folks work at it, same as Living and I used to 
 make believe be blacksmiths when we were little." 
 
 " It must be nicer missionarying in those foreign 
 places," said Persis, "because on 'Afric's shores 
 and India's plains and other spots where Satan 
 reigns ' (that 's father's favorite hymn) there 's 
 always a heathen bowing down to wood and stone. 
 You can take away his idols if he '11 let you and 
 give him a Bible and the beginning 's all made. But 
 who '11 we begin on ? Jethro Small ? " 
 
 "Oh, he's entirely too dirty, and foolish be- 
 sides ! " exclaimed Candace. " Why not Ethan 
 Hunt ? He swears dreadfully." 
 
 " He lives on nuts and is a hermit, and it 's a 
 mile to his camp through the thick woods ; my 
 mother '11 never let me go there," objected Alice. 
 "There 's Uncle Tut Judson." 
 
 " He 's too old ; he 's most a hundred and deaf 
 as a post," complained Emma Jane. " Besides, his 
 married daughter is a Sabbath-school teacher — 
 why does n't she teach him to behave ? I can't 
 think of anybody just right to start on ! " 
 
 42 
 
DAUGHTERS OF ZION 
 
 "Don't talk like that, Emma Jane," and Re- 
 becca's tone had a tinge of reproof in it. " We are 
 a copperated body named the Daughters of Zion, 
 and, of course, we 've got to find something to do. 
 Foreigners are the easiest ; there 's a Scotch fam- 
 ily at North Riverboro, an English one in Edge- 
 wood, and one Cuban man at Milliken's Mills." 
 
 " Have n't foreigners got any religion of their 
 own ? " inquired Persis curiously. 
 
 " Ye-es, I s'pose so ; kind of a one ; but foreign- 
 ers' religions are never right — ours is the only 
 good one." This was from Candace, the deacon's 
 daughter. 
 
 " I do think it must be dreadful, being bom with 
 a religion and growing up with it, and then finding 
 out it 's no use and all your time wasted ! " Here 
 Rebecca sighed, chewed a straw, and looked trou- 
 bled. 
 
 " Well, that 's your punishment for being a hea- 
 then," retorted Candace, who had been brought up 
 strictly. 
 
 " But I can't for the life of me see how you can 
 help being a heathen if you 're born in Africa," 
 persisted Persis, who was well named. 
 
 " You can't." Rebecca was clear on this point. 
 "I had that all out with Mrs. Burch when she was 
 visiting Aunt Miranda. She says they can't help 
 being heathen, but if there 's a single mission sta- 
 
 43 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 tion in the whole of Africa, they 're accountable if 
 they don't go there and get saved." 
 
 "Are there plenty of stages and railroads?" 
 asked Alice ; " because there must be dreadfully 
 long distances, and what if they could n't pay the 
 fare?" 
 
 "That part of it is so dreadfully puzzly we 
 mustn't talk about it, please," said Rebecca, her 
 sensitive face quivering with the force of the prob- 
 lem. Poor little soul ! She did not realize that her 
 superiors in age and intellect had spent many a 
 sleepless night over that same " accountability of 
 the heathen." 
 
 " It 's too bad the Simpsons have moved away," 
 said Candace. " It 's so seldom you can find a real 
 big wicked family like that to save, with only Clara 
 Belle and Susan good in it." 
 
 "And numbers count for so much," continued 
 Alice. " My grandmother says if missionaries can't 
 convert about so many in a year the Board advises 
 them to come back to America and take up some 
 other work." 
 
 " I know," Rebecca corroborated ; "and it 's the 
 same with revivalists. At the Centennial picnic at 
 North Riverboro, a revivalist sat opposite to Mr. 
 Ladd and Aunt Jane and me, and he was telling 
 about his wonderful success in Bangor last winter. 
 He 'd converted a hundred and thirty in a month, 
 
 44 
 
DAUGHTERS OF ZION 
 
 he said, or about four and a third a day. I had 
 just finished fractions, so I asked Mr. Ladd how 
 the third of a man could be converted. He laughed 
 and said it was just the other way; that the man 
 was a third converted. Then he explained that if 
 you were trying to convince a person of his sin on 
 a Monday, and could n't quite finish by sundown, 
 perhaps you would n't want to sit up all night with 
 him, and perhaps he would n't want you to ; so you 'd 
 begin again on Tuesday, and you could n't say just 
 which day he was converted, because it would be 
 two thirds on Monday and one third on Tuesday." 
 
 " Mr. Ladd is always making fun, and the Board 
 could n't expect any great things of us girls, new 
 beginners," suggested Emma Jane, who was being 
 constantly warned against tautology by her teacher. 
 " I think it 's awful rude, anyway, to go right out 
 and try to convert your neighbors ; but if you bor- 
 row a horse and go to Edgewood Lower Corner, or 
 Milliken's Mills, I s'pose that makes it Foreign 
 Missions." 
 
 " Would we each go alone or wait upon them with 
 a committee, as they did when they asked Deacon 
 Tuttle for a contribution for the new hearse ? " asked 
 Persis. 
 
 " Oh ! we must go alone," decided Rebecca ; " it 
 would be much more refined and delicate. Aunt 
 Miranda says that one man alone could never get 
 45 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 a subscription from Deacon Tuttle, and that's the 
 reason they sent a committee. But it seems to me 
 Mrs. Burch could n't mean for us to try and con- 
 vert people when we 're none of us even church- 
 members, except Candace. I think all we can do is 
 to persuade them to go to meeting and Sabbath- 
 school, or give money for the hearse, or the new 
 horse-sheds. Now let 's all think quietly for a min- 
 ute or two who 's the very most heathenish and 
 reperrehensiblest person in Riverboro." 
 
 After a very brief period of silence the words 
 " Jacob Moody " fell from all lips with entire ac- 
 cord. 
 
 " You are right," said the president tersely ; " and 
 after singing hymn number two hundred seventy 
 four, to be found on the sixty-sixth page, we will 
 take up the question of persuading Mr. Moody to 
 attend divine service or the minister's Bible class, 
 he not having been in the meeting-house for lo ! 
 these many years. 
 
 1 Daughter of Zion, the power that hath saved thee 
 Extolled with the harp and the timbrel should be.' 
 
 Sing without reading, if you please, omitting the 
 second stanza. Hymn two seventy four, to be found 
 on the sixty-sixth page of the new hymn-book or 
 on page thirty-two of Emma Jane Perkins's old 
 one." 
 
 46 
 
DAUGHTERS OF ZION 
 
 ii 
 
 It is doubtful if the Rev. Mr. Burch had ever 
 found in Syria a person more difficult to persuade 
 than the already " gospel-hardened " Jacob Moody 
 of Riverboro. . 
 
 Tall, gaunt, swarthy, black-bearded — his masses 
 of grizzled, uncombed hair and the red scar across 
 his nose and cheek added to his sinister appear- 
 ance. His tumble-down house stood on a rocky 
 bit of land back of the Sawyer pasture, and the 
 acres of his farm stretched out on all sides of it. 
 He lived alone, ate alone, plowed, planted, sowed, 
 harvested alone, and was more than willing to die 
 alone, "unwept, unhonored, and unsung." The road 
 that bordered upon his fields was comparatively 
 little used by any one, and notwithstanding the 
 fact that it was thickly set with chokecherry trees 
 and blackberry bushes it had been for years prac- 
 tically deserted by the children. Jacob's Red As- 
 trakhan and Granny Garland trees hung thick 
 with apples, but no Riverboro or Edgewood boy 
 stole them ; for terrifying accounts of the fate that 
 had overtaken one urchin in times agone had been 
 handed along from boy to boy, protecting the 
 Moody fruit far better than any police patrol. 
 
 Perhaps no circumstances could have extenuated 
 the old man's surly manners or his lack of all citi- 
 47 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 zenly graces and virtues ; but his neighbors com- 
 monly rebuked his present way of living and forgot 
 the troubled past that had brought it about : the 
 sharp-tongued wife, the unloving and disloyal sons, 
 the daughter's hapless fate, and all the other sorry 
 tricks that Fortune had played upon him — at least 
 that was the way in which he had always regarded 
 his disappointments and griefs. 
 
 This, then, was the personage whose moral re- 
 habilitation was to be accomplished by the Daugh- 
 ters of Zion. But how ? 
 
 " Who will volunteer to visit Mr. Moody ? " 
 blandly asked the president. 
 
 Visit Mr. Moody ! It was a wonder the roof of 
 the barn chamber did not fall ; it did, indeed, echo 
 the words and in some way make them sound more 
 grim and satirical. 
 
 " Nobody '11 volunteer, Rebecca Rowena Randall, 
 and you know it," said Emma Jane. 
 
 " Why don't we draw lots, when none of us wants 
 to speak to him and yet one of us must ? " 
 
 This suggestion fell from Persis Watson, who 
 had been pale and thoughtful ever since the first 
 mention of Jacob Moody. (She was fond of Granny 
 Garlands ; she had once met Jacob ; and, as to what 
 befell, well, we all have our secret tragedies !) 
 
 " Would n't it be wicked to settle it that way ?" 
 
 "It's gamblers that draw lots." 
 48 
 
DAUGHTERS OF ZION 
 
 " People did it in the Bible ever so often." 
 
 " It does n't seem nice for a missionary meeting." 
 
 These remarks fell all together upon the presi- 
 dent's bewildered ear the while (as she always said 
 in compositions) — " the while " she was trying to 
 adjust the ethics of this unexpected and difficult 
 dilemma. 
 
 " It is a very puzzly question," she said thought- 
 fully. " I could ask Aunt Jane if we had time, but 
 I suppose we have n't. It does n't seem nice to 
 draw lots, and yet how can we settle it without ? 
 We know we mean right, and perhaps it will be. 
 Alice, take this paper and tear off five narrow 
 pieces, all different lengths." 
 
 At this moment a voice from a distance floated 
 up to the haymow — a voice saying plaintively : 
 " Will you let me play with you, girls ? Huldah 
 has gone to ride, and I 'm all alone." 
 
 It was the voice of the absolutely- with out-guile 
 Thirza Meserve, and it came at an opportune mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " If she is going to be a member," said Persis, 
 " why not let her come up and hold the lots ? She 'd 
 be real honest and not favor anybody." 
 
 It seemed an excellent idea, and was followed up 
 so quickly that scarcely three minutes ensued be- 
 fore the guileless one was holding the five scraps 
 in her hot little palm, laboriously changing their 
 49 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 places again and again until they looked exactly 
 alike and all rather soiled and wilted. 
 
 " Come, girls, draw ! " commanded the president. 
 " Thirza, you must n't chew gum at a missionary 
 meeting, it is n't polite nor holy. Take it out and 
 stick it somewhere till the exercises are over." 
 
 The five Daughters of Zion approached the spot 
 so charged with fate, and extended their trembling 
 hands one by one. Then after a moment's silent 
 clutch of their papers they drew nearer to one an- 
 other and compared them. 
 
 Emma Jane Perkins had drawn the short one, 
 becoming thus the destined instrument for Jacob 
 Moody's conversion to a more seemly manner of 
 life ! 
 
 She looked about her despairingly, as if to seek 
 some painless and respectable method of self-de- 
 struction. 
 
 " Do let 's draw over again," she pleaded. " I 'm 
 the worst of all of us. I 'm sure to make a mess of 
 it till I kind o' get trained in." 
 
 Rebecca's heart sank at this frank confession, 
 which only corroborated her own fears. 
 
 "I'm sorry, Emmy, dear," she said, "but our 
 only excuse for drawing lots at all would be to have 
 it sacred. We must think of it as a kind of a sign, 
 almost like God speaking to Moses in the burning 
 bush." 
 
 50 
 
DAUGHTERS OF ZION 
 
 " Oh, I wish there was a burning bush right 
 here ! " cried the distracted and recalcitrant mis- 
 sionary. " How quick I 'd step into it without even 
 stopping to take off my garnet ring ! " 
 
 " Don't be such a scare-cat, Emma Jane ! " ex- 
 claimed Candace bracingly. "Jacob Moody can't 
 kill you, even if he has an awful temper. Trot right 
 along now before you get more frightened. Shall 
 we go 'cross lots with her, Rebecca, and wait at 
 the pasture gate ? Then whatever happens Alice 
 can put it down in the minutes of the meeting." 
 
 In these terrible crises of life time gallops with 
 such incredible velocity that it seemed to Emma 
 Jane only a breath before she was being dragged 
 through the fields by the other Daughters of Zion, 
 the guileless little Thirza panting in the rear. 
 
 At the entrance to the pasture Rebecca gave 
 her an impassioned embrace, and whispering, 
 " Whatever you do, be careful how you lead up" 
 lifted off the top rail and pushed her through the 
 bars. Then the girls turned their backs reluctantly 
 on the pathetic figure, and each sought a tree under 
 whose friendly shade she could watch, and perhaps 
 pray, until the missionary should return from her 
 field of labor. 
 
 Alice Robinson, whose compositions were always 
 marked 96 or 97, — 100 symbolizing such perfec- 
 tion as could be attained in the mortal world of 
 
 5i 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Riverboro, — Alice, not only Daughter, but Scribe 
 of Zion, sharpened her pencil and wrote a few well- 
 chosen words of introduction, to be used when the 
 records of the afternoon had been made by Emma 
 Jane Perkins and Jacob Moody. 
 
 Rebecca's heart beat tumultuously under her 
 gingham dress. She felt that a drama was being 
 enacted, and though unfortunately she was not the 
 central figure, she had at least a modest part in it. 
 The short lot had not fallen to the properest Daugh- 
 ter, that she quite realized ; yet would any one of 
 them succeed in winning Jacob Moody's attention, 
 in engaging him in pleasant conversation, and finally 
 in bringing him to a realization of his mistaken way 
 of life ? She doubted, but at the same moment her 
 spirits rose at the thought of the difficulties involved 
 in the undertaking. 
 
 Difficulties always spurred Rebecca on, but 
 they daunted poor Emma Jane, who had no little 
 thrills of excitement and wonder and fear and long- 
 ing to sustain her lagging soul. That her inter- 
 view was to be entered as " minutes " by a secretary 
 seemed to her the last straw. Her blue eyes looked 
 lighter than usual and had the glaze of china sau- 
 cers ; her usually pink cheeks were pale, but she 
 pressed on, determined to be a faithful Daughter 
 of Zion, and above all to be worthy of Rebecca's 
 admiration and respect. 
 
 52 
 
DAUGHTERS OF ZION 
 
 " Rebecca can do anything," she thought, with 
 enthusiastic loyalty, " and I must n't be any stupider 
 than I can help, or she '11 choose one of the other 
 girls for her most intimate friend." So, mustering 
 all her courage, she turned into Jacob Moody's 
 dooryard, where he was chopping wood. 
 
 " It 's a pleasant afternoon, Mr. Moody," she said 
 in a polite but hoarse whisper, Rebecca's words, 
 " Lead up ! Lead up ! " ringing in clarion tones 
 through her brain. 
 
 Jacob Moody looked at her curiously. " Good 
 enough, I guess," he growled ; " but I don't never 
 have time to look at afternoons." 
 
 Emma Jane seated herself timorously on the 
 end of a large log near the chopping-block, suppos- 
 ing that Jacob, like other hosts, would pause in his 
 tasks and chat. 
 
 " The block is kind of like an idol," she thought ; 
 " I wish I could take it away from him, and then 
 perhaps he 'd talk." 
 
 At this moment Jacob raised his axe and came 
 down on the block with such a stunning blow that 
 Emma Jane fairly leaped into the air. 
 
 " You 'd better look out, Sissy, or you '11 git 
 chips in the eye ! " said Moody, grimly going on 
 with his work. 
 
 The Daughter of Zion sent up a silent prayer 
 for inspiration, but none came, and she sat silent, 
 
 53 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 giving nervous jumps in spite of herself whenever 
 the axe fell upon the log Jacob was cutting. 
 
 Finally, the host became tired of his dumb vis- 
 itor, and leaning on his axe he said, " Look here, 
 Sis, what have you come for ? What 's your errant ? 
 Do you want apples ? or cider ? or what ? Speak 
 out, or git out, one or t' other." 
 
 Emma Jane, who had wrung her handkerchief 
 into a clammy ball, gave it a last despairing wrench, 
 and faltered : " Would n't you like — had n't you 
 better — don't you think you 'd ought to be more 
 constant at meeting and Sabbath-school ? " 
 
 Jacob's axe almost dropped from his nerveless 
 hand, and he regarded the Daughter of Zion with 
 unspeakable rage and disdain. Then, the blood 
 mounting in his face, he gathered himself together, 
 and shouted : " You take yourself off that log and 
 out o' this dooryard double-quick, you imperdent 
 sanct'omus young one ! You just let me ketch Bill 
 Perkins's child trying to teach me where I shall go, 
 at my age ! Scuttle, I tell ye ! And if I see your 
 pious cantin' little mug inside my fence ag'in on 
 sech a business I '11 chase ye down the hill or set 
 the dog on ye ! Scoot, I tell ye ! " 
 
 Emma Jane obeyed orders summarily, taking 
 herself off the log, out the dooryard, and other- 
 wise scuttling and scooting down the hill at a 
 pace never contemplated even by Jacob Moody, 
 
 54 
 
DAUGHTERS OF ZION 
 
 who stood regarding her flying heels with a sar- 
 donic grin. 
 
 Down she stumbled, the tears coursing over her 
 cheeks and mingling with the dust of her flight ; 
 blighted hope, shame, fear, rage, all tearing her 
 bosom in turn, till with a hysterical shriek she 
 fell over the bars and into Rebecca's arms out- 
 stretched to receive her. The other Daughters 
 wiped her eyes and supported her almost fainting 
 form, while Thirza, thoroughly frightened, burst 
 into sympathetic tears, and refused to be com- 
 forted. 
 
 No questions were asked, for it was felt by ail 
 parties that Emma Jane's demeanor was answer- 
 ing them before they could be framed. 
 
 " He threatened to set the dog on me ! " she 
 wailed presently, when, as they neared the Sawyer 
 pasture, she was able to control her voice. " He 
 called me a pious, cantin' young one, and said he 'd 
 chase me out o' the dooryard if I ever came again ! 
 And he '11 tell my father — I know he will, for he 
 hates him like poison." 
 
 All at once the adult point of view dawned upon 
 Rebecca. She never saw it until it was too obvious 
 to be ignored. Had they done wrong in interviewing 
 Jacob Moody ? Would Aunt Miranda be angry, as 
 well as Mr. Perkins ? 
 
 "Why was he so dreadful, Emmy?" she ques- 
 55 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 tioned tenderly. " What did you say first ? How 
 did you lead up to it ? " 
 
 Emma Jane sobbed more convulsively, and wiped 
 her nose and eyes impartially as she tried to think. 
 
 " I guess I never led up at all ; not a mite. I 
 did n't know what you meant. I was sent on an 
 errant, and I went and done it the best I could ! 
 (Emma Jane's grammar always lapsed in moments 
 of excitement.) And then Jake roared at me like 
 Squire Winship's bull. . . . And he called my face 
 a mug. . . . You shut up that secretary book, 
 Alice Robinson ! If you write down a single word 
 I '11 never speak to you again. . . . And I don't 
 want to be a ' member ' another minute for fear of 
 drawing another short lot. I 've got enough of the 
 Daughters of Zion to last me the rest o' my life ! 
 I don't care who goes to meetin' and who don't." 
 
 The girls were at the Perkins's gate by this 
 time, and Emma Jane went sadly into the empty 
 house to remove all traces of the tragedy from her 
 person before her mother should come home from 
 the church. 
 
 The others wended their way slowly down the 
 street, feeling that their promising missionary 
 branch had died almost as soon as it had budded. 
 
 " Good-by," said Rebecca, swallowing lumps of 
 disappointment and chagrin as she saw the whole 
 inspiring plan break and vanish into thin air like 
 
 56 
 
DAUGHTERS OF ZION 
 
 an iridescent bubble. " It 's all over and we won't 
 ever try it again. I 'm going in to do overcasting 
 as hard as I can, because I hate that the worst. 
 Aunt Jane must write to Mrs. Burch that we don't 
 want to be home missionaries. Perhaps we 're not 
 big enough, anyway. I 'm perfectly certain it 's 
 nicer to convert people when they 're yellow or 
 brown or any color but white; and I believe it 
 must be easier to save their souls than it is to 
 make them go to meeting." 
 
Third Chronicle 
 REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 THE " Sawyer girls' " barn still had its 
 haymow in Rebecca's time, although the 
 hay was a dozen years old or more, and, 
 in the opinion of the occasional visiting horse, sadly 
 juiceless and wanting in flavor. It still sheltered, 
 too, old Deacon Israel Sawyer's carryall and mow- 
 ing-machine, with his pung, his sleigh, and a dozen 
 other survivals of an earlier era, when the broad 
 acres of the brick house went to make one of the 
 finest farms in Riverboro. 
 
 There were no horses or cows in the stalls now- 
 adays; no pig grunting comfortably of future 
 spare ribs in the sty ; no hens to peck the plants 
 in the cherished garden patch. The Sawyer girls 
 were getting on in years, and, mindful that care 
 once killed a cat, they ordered their lives with the 
 view of escaping that particular doom, at least, and 
 succeeded fairly well until Rebecca's advent made 
 existence a trifle more sensational. 
 
 Once a month for years upon years, Miss Mi- 
 randa and Miss Jane had put towels over their 
 
 58 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 heads and made a solemn visit to the barn, taking 
 off the enameled cloth coverings (occasionally 
 called "ernmanuel covers" in Riverboro), dusting 
 the ancient implements, and sometimes sweeping 
 the heaviest of the cobwebs from the corners, or 
 giving a brush to the floor. 
 
 Deacon Israel's tottering ladder still stood in its 
 accustomed place, propped against the haymow, 
 and the heavenly stairway leading to eternal glory 
 scarcely looked fairer to Jacob of old than this 
 to Rebecca. By means of its dusty rounds she 
 mounted, mounted, mounted far away from time 
 and care and maiden aunts, far away from childish 
 tasks and childish troubles, to the barn chamber, 
 a place so full of golden dreams, happy reveries,, 
 and vague longings, that, as her little brown hands 
 clung to the sides of the ladder and her feet trod 
 the rounds cautiously in her ascent, her heart almost 
 stopped beating in the sheer joy of anticipation. 
 
 Once having gained the heights, the next thing 
 was to unlatch the heavy doors and give them a 
 gentle swing outward. Then, oh, ever new Para- 
 dise ! then, oh, ever lovely green and growing 
 world! for Rebecca had that something in her soul 
 that 
 
 " Gives to seas and sunset skies 
 The unspent beauty of surprise." 
 
 At the top of Guide Board hill she could see Alice 
 
 59 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Robinson's barn with its shining weather-vane, a 
 huge burnished fish that swam with the wind and 
 foretold the day to all Riverboro. The meadow, 
 with its sunny slopes stretching up to the pine 
 woods, was sometimes a flowing sheet of shimmer- 
 ing grass, sometimes — when daisies and butter^ 
 cups were blooming — a vision of white and gold. 
 Sometimes the shorn stubble would be dotted with 
 " the happy hills of hay," and a little later the 
 rock maple on the edge of the pines would stand 
 out like a golden ball against the green ; its neigh- 
 bor, the sugar maple, glowing beside it, brave in 
 scarlet. 
 
 It was on one of these autumn days with a 
 wintry nip in the air that Adam Ladd (Rebecca's 
 favorite " Mr. Aladdin "), after searching for her in 
 field and garden, suddenly noticed the open doors 
 of the barn chamber, and called to her. At the 
 sound of his voice she dropped her precious diary, 
 and flew to the edge of the haymow. He never for- 
 got the vision of the startled little poetess, book in 
 one mittened hand, pencil in the other, dark hair 
 all ruffled, with the picturesque addition of an occa- 
 sional blade of straw, her cheeks crimson, her eyes 
 shining. 
 
 " A Sappho in mittens ! " he cried laughingly, 
 and at her eager question told her to look up the 
 unknown lady in the school encyclopaedia, when 
 
 60 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 she was admitted to the Female Seminary at Ware- 
 ham. 
 
 Now, all being ready, Rebecca went to a corner 
 of the haymow, and withdrew a thick blank-book 
 with mottled covers. Out of her gingham apron 
 pocket came a pencil, a bit of rubber, and some 
 pieces of brown paper ; then she seated herself 
 gravely on the floor, and drew an inverted soap- 
 box nearer to her for a table. 
 
 The book was reverently opened, and there was 
 a serious reading of the extracts already carefully 
 copied therein. Most of them were apparently to 
 the writer's liking, for dimples of pleasure showed 
 themselves now and then, and smiles of obvious 
 delight played about her face ; but once in a while 
 there was a knitting of the brows and a sigh of dis- 
 couragement, showing that the artist in the child 
 was not wholly satisfied. 
 
 Then came the crucial moment when the budding 
 author was supposedly to be racked with the throes 
 of composition ; but seemingly there were no throes. 
 Other girls could wield the darning or crochet or 
 knitting needle, and send the tatting-shuttle through 
 loops of the finest cotton ; hemstitch, oversew, braid 
 hair in thirteen strands, but the pencil was never 
 obedient in their fingers, and the pen and ink-pot 
 were a horror from early childhood to the end of 
 time. 
 
 61 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Not so with Rebecca ; her pencil moved as easily 
 as her tongue, and no more striking simile could 
 possibly be used. Her handwriting was not Spen- 
 cerian ; she had neither time, nor patience, it is to 
 be feared, for copybook methods, and her unformed 
 characters were frequently the despair of her teach- 
 ers ; but write she could, write she would, write she 
 must and did, in season and out ; from the time she 
 made pothooks at six, till now, writing was the easi- 
 est of all possible tasks ; to be indulged in as solace 
 and balm when the terrors of examples in least com- 
 mon multiple threatened to dethrone the reason, or 
 the rules of grammar loomed huge and unconquer- 
 able in the near horizon. 
 
 As to spelling, it came to her in the main by free 
 grace, and not by training, and though she slipped 
 at times from the beaten path, her extraordinary 
 ear and good visual memory kept her from many 
 or flagrant mistakes. It was her intention, espe- 
 cially when saying her prayers at night, to look up 
 all doubtful words in her small dictionary, before 
 copying her Thoughts into the sacred book for the 
 inspiration of posterity ; but when genius burned 
 with a brilliant flame, and particularly when she 
 was in the barn and the dictionary in the house, 
 impulse as usual carried the day. 
 
 There sits Rebecca, then, in the open door of the 
 Sawyers' barn chamber — the sunset door. How 
 
 62 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 many a time had her grandfather, the good deacon, 
 sat just underneath in his tipped -back chair, when 
 Mrs. Israel's temper was uncertain, and the seren- 
 ity of the barn was in comforting contrast to his 
 own fireside ! 
 
 The open doors swinging out to the peaceful 
 landscape, the solace of the pipe, not allowed in 
 the " settin'-room " — how beautifully these simple 
 agents have ministered to the family peace in days 
 agone ! " If I had n't had my barn and my store 
 both, I could n't never have lived in holy matrimony 
 with Maryliza ! " once said Mr. Watson feelingly. 
 
 But the deacon, looking on his waving grass fields, 
 his tasseling corn and his timber lands, bright and 
 honest as were his eyes, never saw such visions 
 as Rebecca. The child, transplanted from her 
 home-farm at Sunnybrook, from the care of the 
 overworked but easy-going mother, and the com- 
 panionship of the scantily fed, scantily clothed, 
 happy-go-lucky brothers and sisters — she had in- 
 deed fallen on shady days in Riverboro. The blinds 
 were closed in every room of the house but two, 
 and the same might have been said of Miss Miran- 
 da's mind and heart, though Miss Jane had a few 
 windows opening to the sun, and Rebecca already 
 had her unconscious hand on several others. Brick- 
 house rules were rigid and many for a little crea- 
 ture so full of life, but Rebecca's gay spirit could 
 63 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 not be pinioned in a strait-jacket for long at a time ; 
 it escaped somehow and winged its merry way into 
 the sunshine and free air ; if she were not allowed 
 to sing in the orchard, like the wild bird she was, 
 she could still sing in the cage, like the canary. 
 
 II 
 
 If you had opened the carefully guarded volume 
 with the mottled covers, you would first have seen 
 a wonderful title-page, constructed apparently on 
 the same lines as an obituary, or the inscription on 
 a tombstone, save for the quantity and variety of 
 information contained in it. Much of the matter 
 would seem to the captious critic better adapted to 
 the body of the book than to the title-page, but 
 Rebecca was apparently anxious that the principal 
 personages in her chronicle should be well described 
 at the outset. 
 
 She seems to have had a conviction that heredity 
 plays its part in the evolution of genius, and her be- 
 lief that the world will be inspired by the possession 
 of her Thoughts is too artless to be offensive. She 
 evidently has respect for rich material confided to 
 her teacher, and one can imagine Miss Dearborn's 
 woe had she been confronted by Rebecca's chosen 
 literary executor and bidden to deliver certain "Val- 
 uable Poetry and Thoughts," the property of pos- 
 terity "unless carelessly destroyed." 
 
 64 
 
THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 of 
 
 Rebecca Rowena Randall 
 
 Really of 
 
 Sunnybrook Farm 
 
 But Temporily of 
 
 The Brick House Riverboro. 
 
 Own niece of Miss Miranda and Jane Sawyer 
 
 Second of seven children of her father Mr. L. D. M. Randall 
 
 (Now at rest in Temperance cemmetary and there will be a 
 
 monument as soon as we pay off the morgage on the farm) 
 
 Also of her mother Mrs. Aurelia Randall 
 
 ■ i8l'- 
 
 In case of Death the best of these Thoughts 
 
 May be printed in my Remerniscences 
 
 For the Sunday School Library at Temperance, Maine 
 
 Which needs more books fearfully 
 
 And I hereby Will and Testament them 
 
 To Mr. Adam Ladd 
 
 Who bought 300 cakes of soap from me 
 
 And thus secured a premium 
 
 A Greatly Needed Banquet Lamp 
 
 For my friends the Simpsons. 
 
 He is the only one that incourages 
 
 My writing Remerniscences and 
 
 My teacher Miss Dearborn will 
 
 Have much Valuable Poetry and Thoughts 
 
 To give him unless carelessly destroyed. 
 
 The pictures are by the same hand that 
 Wrote the Thoughts. 
 
 It is not now decided whether Rebecca Rowena Randall will be a 
 painter or an author, but after her death it will be known which 
 she has been, if any. 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 From the title-page, with its wealth of detail, 
 and its unnecessary and irrelevant information, the 
 book ripples on like a brook, and to the weary 
 reader of problem novels it may have something of 
 the brook's refreshing quality. 
 
 OUR DIARIES 
 
 May, 187-. 
 
 All the girls are keeping a diary because Miss 
 Dearborn was very much ashamed when the school 
 trustees told her that most of the girls' and all of 
 the boys' compositions were disgraceful, and must 
 be improved upon next term. She asked the boys to 
 write letters to her once a week instead of keeping 
 a diary, which they thought was girlish like play- 
 ing with dolls. The boys thought it was dreadful to 
 have to write letters every seven days, but she told 
 them it was not half as bad for them as it was for 
 her who had to read them. 
 
 To make my diary a little different I am going 
 to call it a Thought Book (written just like that, 
 with capitals). I have thoughts that I never can 
 use unless I write them down, for Aunt Miranda 
 always says, Keep your thoughts to yourself. Aunt 
 Jane lets me tell her some, but does not like my 
 queer ones and my true thoughts are mostly queer. 
 Emma Jane does not mind hearing them now and 
 then, and that is my only chance. 
 
 66 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 If Miss Dearborn does not like the name 
 Thought Book I will call it Remerniscences (writ- 
 ten just like that with a capital R). Remernis- 
 cences are things you remember about yourself 
 and write down in case you should die. Aunt 
 Jane does n't like to read any other kind of books 
 but just lives of interesting dead people and she 
 says that is what Longfellow (who was born in 
 the state of Maine and we should be very proud 
 of it and try to write like him) meant in his 
 poem : — 
 
 " Lives of great men all remind us 
 We should make our lives sublime, 
 And departing, leave behind us 
 Footprints on the sands of time." 
 
 I know what this means because when Emma 
 Jane and I went to the beach with Uncle Jerry 
 Cobb we ran along the wet sand and looked at the 
 shapes our boots made, just as if they were stamped 
 in wax. Emma Jane turns in her left foot (splay- 
 foot the boys call it, which is not polite) and 
 Seth Strout had just patched one of my shoes and 
 it all came out in the sand pictures. When I 
 learned The Psalm of Life for Friday afternoon 
 speaking I thought I should n't like to leave a 
 patched footprint, nor have Emma Jane's look 
 crooked on the sands of time, and right away I 
 thought Oh ! what a splendid thought for my 
 6 7 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Thought Book when Aunt Jane buys me a fifteen- 
 cent one over to Watson's store. 
 
 REMERNISCENCES 
 
 June, 187-. 
 
 I told Aunt Jane I was going to begin my Rem- 
 erniscences, and she says I am full young, but I 
 reminded her that Candace Milliken's sister died 
 when she was ten, leaving no footprints whatever, 
 and if I should die suddenly who would write down 
 my Remerniscences ? Aunt Miranda says the sun 
 and moon would rise and set just the same, and it 
 was no matter if they did n't get written down, and 
 to go up attic and find her piece-bag ; but I said it 
 would, as there was only one of everybody in the 
 world, and nobody else could do their remerniscen- 
 sing for them. If I should die to-night I know not 
 who would describe me right. Miss Dearborn would 
 say one thing and brother John another. Emma Jane 
 would try to do me justice, but has no words ; and I 
 am glad Aunt Miranda never takes the pen in hand. 
 
 My dictionary is so small it has not many gen- 
 teel words in it, and I cannot find how to spell 
 Remerniscences, but I remember from the cover of 
 Aunt Jane's book that there was an " s " and a 
 " c " close together in the middle of it, which I 
 thought foolish and not needful. 
 
 68 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 All the girls like their diaries very much, but 
 Minnie Smellie got Alice Robinson's where she 
 had hid it under the school wood-pile and read it 
 all through. She said it was no worse than reading 
 anybody's composition, but we told her it was just 
 like peeking through a keyhole, or listening at a 
 window, or opening a bureau drawer. She said she 
 did n't look at it that way, and I told her that un- 
 less her eyes got unscealed she would never leave 
 any kind of a sublime footprint on the sands of 
 time. I told her a diary was very sacred as you 
 generally poured your deepest feelings into it ex- 
 pecting nobody to look at it but yourself and your 
 indulgent heavenly Father who seeeth all things. 
 
 Of course it would not hurt Persis Watson to 
 show her diary because she has not a sacred plan 
 and this is the way it goes, for she reads it out 
 loud to us : — 
 
 " Arose at six this morning — (you always arise 
 in a diary but you say get up when you talk 
 about it). Ate breakfast at half past six. Had soda 
 biscuits, coffee, fish hash and doughnuts. Wiped 
 the dishes, fed the hens and made my bed before 
 school. Had a good arithmetic lesson, but went 
 down two in spelling. At half past four played hide 
 and coop in the Sawyer pasture. Fed hens and 
 went to bed at eight." 
 
 She says she can't put in what does n't happen, 
 69 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 but as I don't think her diary is interesting she 
 will ask her mother to have meat hash instead of 
 fish, with pie when the doughnuts give out, and 
 she will feed the hens before breakfast to make a 
 change. We are all going now to try and make 
 something happen every single day so the diaries 
 won't be so dull and the footprints so common. 
 
 AN UNCOMMON THOUGHT 
 
 July 187-. 
 
 We dug up our rosecakes to-day, and that gave 
 me a good Remerniscence. The way you make 
 rosecakes is, you take the leaves of full blown roses 
 and mix them with a little cinnamon and as much 
 brown sugar as they will give you, which is never 
 half enough except Persis Watson, whose affection- 
 ate parents let her go to the barrel in their store. 
 Then you do up little bits like sedlitz powders, 
 first in soft paper and then in brown, and bury 
 them in the ground and let them stay as long as 
 you possibly can hold out ; then dig them up and 
 eat them. Emma Jane and I stick up little signs 
 over the holes in the ground with the date we 
 buried them and when they '11 be done enough to 
 dig up, but we can never wait. When Aunt Jane 
 saw us she said it was the first thing for children 
 to learn, — not to be impatient, — so when I went 
 to the barn chamber I made a poem. 
 
 70 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 IMPATIENCE 
 
 We dug our rose cakes up oh ! all too soon. 
 
 'T was in the orchard just at noon. 
 
 'T was in a bright July forenoon. 
 
 'T was in the sunny afternoon. 
 
 'T was underneath the harvest moon. 
 
 It was not that way at all ; it was a foggy morn- 
 ing before school, and I should think poets could 
 never possibly get to heaven, for it is so hard to 
 stick to the truth when you are writing poetry. 
 Emma Jane thinks it is nobody's business when 
 we dug the rosecakes up. I like the line about the 
 harvest moon best, but it would give a wrong idea 
 of our lives and characters to the people that read 
 my Thoughts, for they would think we were up 
 2ate nights, so I have fixed it like this : 
 
 IMPATIENCE 
 
 We dug our rose cakes up oh ! all too soon, 
 We thought their sweetness would be such a boon. 
 We ne'er suspicioned they would not be done 
 After three days of autumn wind and sun. 
 Why did we from the earth our treasures draw ? 
 'T was not for fear that rat or mole might naw, 
 An aged aunt doth say impatience was the reason, 
 She says that youth is ever out of season. 
 
 That is just as Aunt Jane said it, and it gave 
 me the thought for the poem which is rather un 
 common. 
 
 71 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 A DREADFUL QUESTION 
 
 September, 187-. 
 
 Which has been the most Benefercent Influence on 
 Character — Punishment or Reward ? 
 
 This truly dreadful question was given us by 
 Dr. Moses when he visited school to-day. He is a 
 School Committee ; not a whole one but I do not 
 know the singular number of him. He told us we 
 could ask our families what they thought, though he 
 would rather we would n't, but we must write our 
 own words and he would hear them next week. 
 
 After he went out and shut the door the scholars 
 were all plunged in gloom and you could have heard 
 a pin drop. Alice Robinson cried and borrowed my 
 handkerchief, and the boys looked as if the school- 
 house had been struck by lightning. The worst of 
 all was poor Miss Dearborn, who will lose her place 
 if she does not make us better scholars soon, for 
 Dr. Moses has a daughter all ready to put right in 
 to the school and she can board at home and save 
 all her wages. Libby Moses is her name. 
 
 Miss Dearborn stared out the window, and her 
 mouth and chin shook like Alice Robinson's, for 
 she knew, ah ! all too well, what the coming week 
 would bring forth. 
 
 Then I raised my hand for permission to speak, 
 and stood up and said : " Miss Dearborn, don't you 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 mind ! Just explain to us what ' benefercent ' means 
 and we '11 write something real interesting ; for all 
 of us know what punishment is, and have seen oth- 
 ers get rewards, and it is not so bad a subject as 
 some." And Dick Carter whispered, " Good on 
 your head, Rebecca ! " which meant he was sorry 
 for her too, and would try his best, but has no 
 words. 
 
 Then teacher smiled and said benefercent meant 
 good or healthy for anybody, and would all rise who 
 thought punishment made the best scholars and 
 men and women ; and everybody sat stock still. 
 
 And then she asked all to stand who believed 
 that rewards produced the finest results, and there 
 was a mighty sound like unto the rushing of wa- 
 ters, but really was our feet scraping the floor, and 
 the scholars stood up, and it looked like an army, 
 though it was only nineteen, because of the strong 
 belief that was in them. Then Miss Dearborn 
 laughed and said she was thankful for every whip- 
 ping she had when she was a child, and Living 
 Perkins said perhaps we had n't got to the thankful 
 age, or perhaps her father had n't used a strap, and 
 she said oh ! no, it was her mother with the open 
 hand ; and Dick Carter said he would n't call that 
 punishment, and Sam Simpson said so too. 
 
 I am going to write about the subject in my 
 Thought Book first, and when I make it into a com- 
 73 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 position, I can leave out anything about the family 
 or not genteel, as there is much to relate about pun- 
 ishment not pleasant or nice and hardly polite. 
 
 PUNISHMENT 
 
 Punishment is a very puzzly thing, but I believe 
 in it when really deserved, only when I punish my- 
 self it does not always turn out well. When I leaned 
 over the new bridge, and got my dress all paint, 
 and Aunt Sarah Cobb could n't get it out, I had to 
 wear it spotted for six months which hurt my pride, 
 but was right. I stayed at home from Alice Robin- 
 son's birthday party for a punishment, and went to 
 the circus next day instead, but Alice's parties are 
 very cold and stiff, as Mrs. Robinson makes the 
 boys stand on newspapers if they come inside the 
 door, and the blinds are always shut, and Mrs. 
 Robinson tells me how bad her liver complaint is 
 this year. So I thought, to pay for the circus and 
 a few other things, I ought to get more punish- 
 ment, and I threw my pink parasol down the well, 
 as the mothers in the missionary books throw their 
 infants to the crocodiles in the Ganges river. But 
 it got stuck in the chain that holds the bucket, and 
 Aunt Miranda had to get Abijah Flagg to take out 
 all the broken bits before we could bring up water. 
 
 I punished myself this way because Aunt Mi- 
 74 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 randa said that unless I improved I would be no- 
 thing but a Burden and a Blight. 
 
 There was an old man used to go by our farm 
 carrying a lot of broken chairs to bottom, and 
 mother used to say — " Poor man ! his back is too 
 weak for such a burden ! " and I used to take him 
 out a doughnut, and this is the part I want to go 
 into the Remerniscences. Once I told him we were 
 sorry the chairs were so heavy, and he said they 
 did 71 1 seem so heavy when he had et the doughnut. 
 This does not mean that the doughnut was heavier 
 than the chairs which is what brother John said, but 
 it is a beautiful thought and shows how the human 
 race should have sympathy, and help bear burdens. 
 
 I know about a Blight, for there was a dreadful 
 east wind over at our farm that destroyed all the 
 little young crops just out of the ground, and the 
 farmers called it the Blight. And I would rather 
 be hail, sleet, frost, or snow than a Blight, which is 
 mean and secret, and which is the reason I threw 
 away the dearest thing on earth to me, the pink 
 parasol that Miss Ross brought me from Paris, 
 France. I have also wrapped up my bead purse in 
 three papers and put it away marked not to be opened 
 till after my death unless needed for a party. 
 
 I must not be Burden, I must not be Blight, 
 The angels in heaven would weep at the sight. 
 
 75 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 REWARDS 
 
 A good way to find out which has the most be- 
 nefercent effect would be to try rewards on myself 
 this next week and write my composition the very 
 last day, when I see how my character is. It is 
 hard to find rewards for yourself, but perhaps Aunt 
 Jane and some of the girls would each give me 
 one to help out. I could carry my bead purse to 
 school every day, or wear my coral chain a little 
 while before I go to sleep at night. I could read 
 Cora or the Sorrows of a Doctor's Wife a little 
 oftener, but that 's all the rewards I can think of. 
 I fear Aunt Miranda would say they are wicked 
 but oh ! if they should turn out benefercent how 
 glad and joyful life would be to me ! A sweet and 
 beautiful character, beloved by my teacher and 
 schoolmates, admired and petted by my aunts and 
 neighbors, yet carrying my bead purse constantly, 
 with perhaps my best hat on Wednesday after- 
 noons, as well as Sundays ! 
 
 A GREAT SHOCK 
 
 The reason why Alice Robinson could not play 
 was, she was being punished for breaking her 
 mother's blue platter. Just before supper my story 
 being finished I went up Guide Board hill to see 
 
 7 6 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 how she was bearing up and she spoke to me from 
 her window. She said she did not mind being pun- 
 ished because she had n't been for a long time, and 
 she hoped it would help her with her composition. 
 She thought it would give her thoughts, and to- 
 morrow 's the last day for her to have any. This 
 gave me a good idea and I told her to call her 
 father up and beg him to beat her violently. It 
 would hurt, I said, but perhaps none of the other 
 girls would have a punishment like that, and her 
 composition would be all different and splendid. I 
 would borrow Aunt Miranda's witchhayzel and pour 
 it on her wounds like the Sumaritan in the Bible. 
 
 I went up again after supper with Dick Carter to 
 see how it turned out. Alice came to the window 
 and Dick threw up a note tied to a stick. I had 
 written : li Demand your punishment to the full. Be 
 brave like Dolores' mother in the Martyrs of Spain." 
 
 She threw down an answer, and it was : " You 
 just be like Dolores' mother yourself if you're so 
 smart ! " Then she stamped away from the window 
 and my feelings were hurt, but Dick said perhaps 
 she was hungry, and that made her cross. And as 
 Dick and I turned to go out of the yard we looked 
 back and I saw something I can never forget. (The 
 Great Shock) Mrs. Robinson was out behind the 
 barn feeding the turkies. Mr. Robinson came softly 
 out of the side door in the orcherd and looking 
 77 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 everywheres around he stepped to the wire closet 
 and took out a saucer of cold beans with a pickled 
 beet on top, and a big piece of blueberry pie. Then 
 he crept up the back stairs and we could see Alice 
 open her door and take in the supper. 
 
 Oh ! what will become of her composition, and 
 how can she tell anything of the benefercent effects 
 of punishment, when she is locked up by one par- 
 ent, and fed by the other? I have forgiven her 
 for the way she snapped me up for, of course, you 
 could n't beg your father to beat you when he was 
 bringing you blueberry pie. Mrs. Robinson makes 
 a kind that leaks out a thick purple juice into the 
 plate and needs a spoon and blacks your mouth, 
 but is heavenly. 
 
 A DREAM 
 
 The week is almost up and very soon Dr. Moses 
 will drive up to the school house like Elijah in the 
 chariot and come in to hear us read. There is a 
 good deal of sickness among us. Some of the boys 
 are not able to come to school just now, but hope 
 to be about again by Monday, when Dr. Moses goes 
 away to a convention. It is a very hard composition 
 to write, somehow. Last night I dreamed that the 
 river was ink and I kept dipping into it and writing 
 with a penstalk made of a young pine tree. I sliced 
 
 78 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 great slabs of marble off the side of one of the 
 White Mountains, the one you see when going to 
 meeting, and wrote on those. Then I threw them 
 all into the falls, not being good enough for Dr. 
 Moses. 
 
 Dick Carter had a splendid boy to stay over Sun- 
 day. He makes the real newspaper named The 
 Pilot published by the boys at Wareham Academy. 
 He says when he talks about himself in writing he 
 calls himself "we," and it sounds much more like 
 print, besides conscealing him more. 
 
 Example : Our hair was measured this morning 
 and has grown two inches since last time. . . . We 
 have a loose tooth that troubles us very much. . . . 
 Our inkspot that we made by negligence on our 
 only white petticoat we have been able to remove 
 with lemon and milk. Some of our petticoat came 
 out with the spot. 
 
 I shall try it in my composition sometime, for of 
 course I shall write for the Pilot when I go to 
 Wareham Seminary. Uncle Jerry Cobb says that 
 I shall, and thinks that in four years I might rise 
 to be editor if they ever have girls. 
 
 I have never been more good than since I have 
 been rewarding myself steady, even to asking Aunt 
 Miranda kindly to offer me a company jelly-tart, 
 not because I was hungry, but for an experement 
 I was trying, and would explain to her sometime. 
 79 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 She said she never thought it was wise to ex- 
 perement with your stomach, and I said, with a 
 queer thrilling look, it was not my stomach but my 
 soul, that was being tried. Then she gave me the 
 tart and walked away all puzzled and nervous. 
 
 The new minister has asked me to come and see 
 him any Saturday afternoon as he writes poetry 
 himself, but I would rather not ask him about this 
 composition. 
 
 Ministers never believe in rewards, and it is use- 
 less to hope that they will. We had the wrath of 
 God four times in sermons this last summer, but 
 God cannot be angry all the time, — nobody could, 
 especially in summer ; Mr. Baxter is different and 
 calls his wife dear which is lovely and the first time 
 I ever heard it in Riverboro. Mrs. Baxter is another 
 kind of people too, from those that live in Temper- 
 ance. I like to watch her in meeting and see her 
 listen to her husband who is young and handsome 
 for a minister ; it gives me very queer and uncom- 
 mon feelings, when they look at each other, which 
 they always do when not otherwise engaged. 
 
 She has different clothes from anybody else. 
 Aunt Miranda says you must think only of two 
 things : will your dress keep you warm and will it 
 wear well and there is nobody in the world to know 
 how I love pink and red and how I hate drab and 
 green and how I never wear my hat with the black 
 
 80 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 and yellow porkupine quills without wishing it would 
 blow into the river. 
 
 Whene'er I take my walks abroad 
 
 How many quills I see. 
 But as they are not porkupines 
 
 They never come to me. 
 
 COMPOSITION 
 
 Which has the most Benefercent Effect on the 
 Character, Punishment or Reward? 
 by 
 Rebecca Rowena Randall. 
 (This copy not corrected by Miss Dearborn yet.) 
 
 We find ourselves very puzzled in approaching 
 this truly great and national question though we 
 have tried very ernestly to understand it, so as to 
 show how wisely and wonderfully our dear teacher 
 guides the youthful mind, it being her wish that 
 our composition class shall long be remembered in 
 Riverboro Centre. 
 
 We would say first of all that punishment seems 
 more benefercently needed by boys than girls. Boys' 
 sins are very violent, like stealing fruit, profane lan- 
 guage, playing truant, fighting, breaking windows, 
 and killing innocent little flies and bugs. If these 
 were not taken out of them early in life it would be 
 impossible for them to become like our martyred 
 president, Abraham Lincoln. 
 81 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Although we have asked everybody on our street, 
 they think boys' sins can only be whipped out of 
 them with a switch or strap, which makes us feel 
 very sad, as boys when not sinning the dreadful 
 sins mentioned above seem just as good as girls, 
 and never cry when switched, and say it does not 
 hurt much. 
 
 We now approach girls, which we know better, 
 being one. Girls seem better than boys because 
 their sins are not so noisy and showy. They can 
 disobey their parents and aunts, whisper in silent 
 hour, cheat in lessons, say angry things to their 
 schoolmates, tell lies, be sulky and lazy, but all 
 these can be conducted quite ladylike and genteel, 
 and nobody wants to strap girls because their skins 
 are tender and get black and blue very easily. 
 
 Punishments make one very unhappy and re- 
 wards very happy, and one would think when one 
 is happy one would behave the best. We were ac- 
 quainted with a girl who gave herself rewards every 
 day for a week, and it seemed to make her as lovely 
 a character as one could wish ; but perhaps if one 
 went on for years giving rewards to onesself one 
 would become selfish. One cannot tell, one can 
 only fear. 
 
 If a dog kills a sheep we should whip him straight 
 away, and on the very spot where he can see the 
 sheep, or he will not know what we mean, and may 
 
 82 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 forget and kill another. The same is true of the 
 human race. We must be firm and patient in pun- 
 ishing, no matter how much we love the one who 
 has done wrong, and how hungry she is.' It does no 
 good to whip a person with one hand and offer her 
 a pickled beet with the other. This confuses her 
 mind, and she may grow up not knowing right from 
 wrong. 1 
 
 We now respectfully approach the Holy Bible 
 and the people in the Bible were punished the 
 whole time, and that would seem to make it right. 
 Everybody says Whom the Lord loveth he chas- 
 teneth ; but we think ourself, that the Lord is a 
 better punisher than we are, and knows better how 
 and when to do it having attended to it ever since 
 the year b. c. while the human race could not 
 know about it till 1492 A. d., which is when Co- 
 lumbus discovered America. 
 
 We do not believe we can find out all about this 
 truly great and national subject till we get to 
 heaven, where the human race, strapped and un- 
 strapped, if any, can meet together and laying 
 down their harps discuss how they got there. 
 
 And we would gently advise boys to be more 
 
 1 The striking example of the pickled beet was removed from 
 the essay by the refined but ruthless Miss Dearborn, who strove 
 patiently, but vainly, to keep such vulgar images out of her pupils' 
 literary efforts. 
 
 83 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 quiet and genteel in conduct and try rewards to 
 see how they would work. Rewards are not all 
 like the little rosebud merit-cards we receive on 
 Fridays, and which boys sometimes tear up and 
 fling scornfully to the breeze when they get out- 
 side, but girls preserve carefully in an envelope. 
 
 Some rewards are great and glorious, for boys 
 can get to be governor or school trustee or road 
 commissioner or president, while girls can only be 
 wife and mother. But all of us can have the orna- 
 ment of a meek and lowly spirit, especially girls, 
 who have more use for it than boys. 
 
 R. R. R. 
 
 STORIES AND PEOPLE 
 
 October, 187-. 
 There are people in books and people in River- 
 boro, and they are not the same kind. They never 
 talk of chargers and palfreys in the village, nor say 
 How oft and Methinks, and if a Scotchman out of 
 Rob Roy should come to Riverboro and want to 
 marry one of us girls we could not understand 
 him unless he made motions ; though Huldah Me- 
 serve says if a nobleman of high degree should 
 ask her to be his, — one of vast estates with serfs 
 at his bidding, — she would be able to guess his 
 meaning in any language. 
 
 84 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 Uncle Jerry Cobb thinks that Riverboro people 
 would not make a story, but I know that some of 
 them would. 
 
 Jack-o'-lantern, though only a baby, was just 
 like a real story if anybody had written a piece 
 about him : How his mother was dead and his 
 father ran away and Emma Jane and I got Aunt 
 Sarah Cobb to keep him so Mr. Perkins would n't 
 take him to the poor-farm; and about our lovely 
 times with him that summer, and our dreadful loss 
 when his father remembered him in the fall and 
 came to take him away ; and how Aunt Sarah car- 
 ried the trundle bed up attic again and Emma 
 Jane and I heard her crying and stole away. 
 
 Mrs. Peter Meserve says Grandpa Sawyer was a 
 wonderful hand at stories before his spirit was 
 broken by grandmother. She says he was the life 
 of the store and tavern when he was a young man, 
 though generally sober, and she thinks I take after 
 him, because I like compositions better than all the 
 other lessons ; but mother says I take after father, 
 who always could say everything nicely whether 
 he had anything to say or not; so methinks I 
 should be grateful to both of them. They are what 
 is called ancestors and much depends upon whether 
 you have them or not. The Simpsons have not any 
 at all. Aunt Miranda says the reason everybody is 
 so prosperous around here is because their ances- 
 85 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 tors were all first settlers and raised on burnt 
 ground. This should make us very proud. 
 
 Methinks and methought are splendid words for 
 compositions. Miss Dearborn likes them very much, 
 but Alice and I never bring them in to suit her. Me- 
 thought means the same as I thought, but sounds 
 better. Example : If you are telling a dream you 
 had about your aged aunt : — 
 
 Methought I heard her say 
 
 My child you have so useful been 
 
 You need not sew to-day. 
 
 This is a good example one way, but too unlikely, 
 woe is me ! 
 
 This afternoon I was walking over to the store 
 to buy molasses, and as I came off the bridge and 
 turned up the hill, I saw lots and lots of heelprints 
 in the side of the road, — heelprints with little 
 spike-holes in them. 
 
 " Oh ! the river drivers have come from up coun- 
 try," I thought, " and they '11 be breaking the jam 
 at our falls to-morrow." I looked everywhere about 
 and not a man did I see, but still I knew I was not 
 mistaken for the heelprints could not lie. All the 
 way over and back I thought about it, though un- 
 fortunately forgetting the molasses, and Alice Rob- 
 inson not being able to come out, I took playtime 
 to write a story. It is the first grown-up one I ever 
 did, and is intended to be like Cora the Doctor's 
 
 86 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 Wife, not like a school composition. It is written 
 for Mr. Adam Ladd, and people like him who live 
 in Boston, and is the printed kind you get money 
 for, to pay off a morgage. 
 
 LANCELOT OR THE PARTED LOVERS 
 
 A beautiful village maiden was betrothed to a 
 stallwart river driver, but they had high and bitter 
 words and parted, he to weep into the crystal stream 
 as he drove his logs, and she to sigh and moan as 
 she went about her round of household tasks. 
 
 At eventide the maiden was wont to lean over 
 the bridge and her tears also fell into the foaming 
 stream ; so, though the two unhappy lovers did not 
 know it, the river was their friend, the only one to 
 whom they told their secrets and wept into. 
 
 The months crept on and it was the next July 
 when the maiden was passing over the bridge and 
 up the hill. Suddenly she spied footprints on the 
 sands of time. 
 
 "The river drivers have come again ! •' she cried, 
 putting her hand to her side for she had a slight 
 heart trouble like Cora and Mrs. Peter Meserve, that 
 does n't kill. 
 
 " They have come indeed ; especially one you 
 know," said a voice, and out from the alder bushes 
 sprung Lancelot Littlefield, for that was the lover's 
 87 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 name and it was none other than he. His hair was 
 curly and like living gold. His shirt, while of flannel, 
 was new and dry, and of a handsome color, and as 
 the maiden looked at him she could think of nought 
 but a fairy prince. 
 
 "Forgive," she mermered, stretching out her 
 waisted hands. 
 
 " Nay, sweet," he replied. " 'T is I should say that 
 to you," and bending gracefully on one knee he 
 kissed the hem of her dress. It was a rich pink 
 gingham check, ellaborately ornamented with white 
 tape trimming. 
 
 Clasping each other to the heart like Cora and 
 the Doctor, they stood there for a long while, till 
 they heard the rumble of wheels on the bridge and 
 knew they must disentangle. 
 
 The wheels came nearer and verily ! it was the 
 maiden's father. 
 
 " Can I wed with your fair daughter this very 
 moon," asked Lancelot, who will not be called his 
 whole name again in this story. 
 
 " You may," said the father, " for lo ! she has 
 been ready and waiting for many months." This 
 he said not noting how he was shaming the maiden, 
 whose name was Linda Rowenetta. 
 
 Then and there the nuptial day was appointed 
 and when it came, the marriage knot was tied upon 
 the river bank where first they met ; the river bank 
 
 88 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 where they had parted in anger, and where they 
 had again scealed their vows and clasped each other 
 to the heart. And it was very low water that sum- 
 mer, and the river always thought it was because 
 no tears dropped into it but so many smiles that 
 like sunshine they dried it up. R. R. R. 
 
 Finis. 
 
 CAREERS 
 
 November, 187-. 
 
 Long ago when I used to watch Miss Ross paint- 
 ing the old mill at Sunnybrook I thought I would 
 be a painter, for Miss Ross went to Paris France 
 where she bought my bead purse and pink parasol 
 and I thought I would like to see a street with 
 beautiful bright-colored things sparkling and hang- 
 ing in the store windows. 
 
 Then when the missionaries from Syria came to 
 stay at the brick house Mrs. Burch said that after 
 I had experienced religion I must learn music and 
 train my voice and go out to heathen lands and 
 save souls, so I thought that would be my career. 
 But we girls tried to have a branch and be home 
 missionaries and it did not work well. Emma 
 Jane's father would not let her have her birthday 
 party when he found out what she had done and 
 Aunt Jane sent me up to Jake Moody's to tell him 
 
 89 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 we did not mean to be rude when we asked him to 
 go to meeting more often. He said all right, but 
 just let him catch that little dough-faced Perkins 
 young one in his yard once more and she'd have 
 reason to remember the call, which was just as 
 rude and impolite as our trying to lead him to a 
 purer and a better life. 
 
 Then Uncle Jerry and Mr. Aladdin and Miss 
 Dearborn liked my compositions, and I thought 
 I 'd better be a writer, for I must be something 
 the minute I 'm seventeen, or how shall we ever 
 get the morgage off the farm ? But even that hope 
 is taken away from me now, for Uncle Jerry made 
 fun of my story Lancelot Or The Parted Lovers 
 and I have decided to be a teacher like Miss Dear- 
 born. 
 
 The pathetic announcement of a change in the 
 career and life purposes of Rebecca was brought 
 about by her reading the grown-up story to Mr. 
 and Mrs. Jeremiah Cobb after supper in the or- 
 chard. Uncle Jerry was the person who had main- 
 tained all along that Riverboro people would not 
 make a story ; and Lancelot or The Parted Lovers 
 was intended to refute that assertion at once and 
 forever ; an assertion which Rebecca regarded 
 (quite truly) as untenable, though why she cer- 
 tainly never could have explained. Unfortunately 
 - 90 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 Lancelot was a poor missionary, quite unfitted for 
 the high achievements to which he was destined 
 by the youthful novelist, and Uncle Jerry, though 
 a stage-driver and no reading man, at once per- 
 ceived the flabbiness and transparency of the 
 Parted Lovers the moment they were held up to 
 his inspection. 
 
 " You see Riverboro people will make a story ! " 
 asserted Rebecca triumphantly as she finished her 
 reading and folded the paper. "And it all came 
 from my noticing the river drivers' tracks by the 
 roadside, and wondering about them ; and wonder- 
 ing always makes stories ; the minister says so." 
 
 " Ye-es," allowed Uncle Jerry reflectively, tip- 
 ping his chair back against the apple-tree and 
 forcing his slow mind to violent and instantaneous 
 action, for Rebecca was his pride and joy ; a person, 
 in his opinion, of superhuman talent, one therefore 
 to be "whittled into shape" if occasion demanded. 
 
 " It 's a Riverboro story, sure enough, because 
 you've got the river and the bridge and the hill 
 and the drivers all right there in it ; but there 's 
 something awful queer 'bout it ; the folks don't act 
 Riverboro, and don't talk Riverboro, 'cordin' to my 
 notions. I call it a reg'lar book story." 
 
 "But," objected Rebecca, "the people in Cin- 
 derella didn't act like us, and you thought that was 
 a beautiful story when I told it to you." 
 91 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 "I know," replied Uncle Jerry, gaining elo- 
 quence in the heat of argument. " They did n't act 
 like us, but 't any rate they acted like 'emselves ! 
 Somehow they was all of a piece. Cinderella was a 
 little too good, mebbe, and the sisters was most 
 too thunderin' bad to live on the face o' the earth, 
 and that fayry old lady that kep' the punkin' coach 
 up her sleeve — well, anyhow, you jest believe that 
 punkin' coach, rats, mice, and all, when you 're 
 hearin' 'bout it, 'fore ever you stop to think it 
 ain't so. 
 
 " I don' know how 't is, but the folks in that Cin- 
 derella story seem to match together somehow; 
 they're all pow'ful onlikely — the prince feller with 
 the glass slipper, and the hull bunch ; but jest the 
 same you kind o' gulp 'em all down in a lump. 
 But land, Rebecky, nobody 'd swaller that there 
 village maiden o' your'n, and as for what's-his- 
 name Littlefield, that come out o' them bushes, 
 such a feller never 'd 'a' be'n in bushes ! No, 
 Rebecky, you 're the smartest little critter there 
 is in this township, and you beat your Uncle Jerry 
 all holler when it comes to usin' a lead pencil, but 
 I say that ain't no true Riverboro story ! Look at 
 the way they talk! What was that 'bout being 
 'betrothed'?" 
 
 " Betrothed is a genteel word for engaged to be 
 married," explained the crushed and chastened 
 
 92 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 author ; and it was fortunate the doting old man 
 did not notice her eyes in the twilight, or he might 
 have known that tears were not far away. 
 
 "Well, that's all right, then; I'm as ignorant 
 as Cooper's cow when it comes to the dictionary. 
 How about what's-his-name callin' the girl 'Nay- 
 sweet'?" 
 
 " I thought myself that sounded foolish," con- 
 fessed Rebecca ; " but it 's what the Doctor calls 
 Cora when he tries to persuade her not to quarrel 
 with his mother who comes to live with them. I 
 know they don't say it in Riverboro or Temperance, 
 but I thought perhaps it was Boston talk." 
 
 " Well, it ain't ! " asserted Mr. Cobb decisively. 
 " I 've druv Boston men up in the stage from Mill- 
 town many 's the time, and none of 'em ever said 
 Naysweet to me, nor nothin' like it. They talked 
 like folks, every mother's son of 'em ! If I 'd 'a' had 
 that what's-his-name on the ' harricane deck' o' the 
 stage and he tried any naysweetin' on me, I 'd 'a' 
 pitched him into the cornfield, side o' the road. I 
 guess you ain't growed up enough for that kind of 
 a story, Rebecky, for your poetry can't be beat in 
 York County, that 's sure, and your compositions 
 'are good enough to read out loud in town meetin' 
 any day !" 
 
 Rebecca brightened up a little and bade the old 
 couple her usual affectionate good-night, but she 
 93 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 descended the hill in a saddened mood. When she 
 reached the bridge the sun, a ball of red fire, was 
 setting behind Squire Bean's woods. As she looked, 
 it shone full on the broad, still bosom of the river, 
 and for one perfect instant the trees on the shores 
 were reflected, all swimming in a sea of pink. 
 Leaning over the rail, she watched the light fade 
 from crimson to carmine, from carmine to rose, 
 from rose to amber, and from amber to gray. Then 
 withdrawing Lancelot or the Parted Lovers from 
 her apron pocket, she tore the pages into bits and 
 dropped them into the water below with a sigh. 
 
 " Uncle Jerry never said a word about the end- 
 ing ! " she thought ; " and that was so nice ! " 
 
 And she was right ; but while Uncle Jerry was 
 an illuminating critic when it came to the actions 
 and language of his Riverboro neighbors, he had no 
 power to direct the young mariner when she " fol- 
 lowed the gleam," and used her imagination. 
 
 OUR SECRET SOCIETY 
 
 November, 187-. 
 
 Our Secret Society has just had a splendid pic- 
 nic in Candace Milliken's barn. 
 
 Our name is the B. O. S. S., and not a single boy 
 in the village has been able to guess it. It means 
 Braid Over Shoulder Society, and that is the sign. 
 All the members wear one of their braids over the 
 
 94 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 right shoulder in front ; the president's tied with 
 red ribbon (I am the president) and all the rest 
 tied with blue. 
 
 To attract the attention of another member when 
 in company or at a public place we take the braid 
 between the thumb and little finger and stand 
 carelessly on one leg. This is the Secret Signal 
 and the password is Sobb (B. O. S. S. spelled back- 
 wards) which was my idea and is thought rather 
 uncommon. 
 
 One of the rules of the B. O. S. S. is that any 
 member may be required to tell her besetting sin 
 at any meeting, if asked to do so by a majority of 
 the members. 
 
 This was Candace Milliken's idea and much op- 
 posed by everybody, but when it came to a vote so 
 many of the girls were afraid of offending Candace 
 that they agreed because there was nobody else's 
 father and mother who would let us picnic in their 
 barn and use their plow, harrow, grindstone, sleigh, 
 carryall, pung, sled, and wheelbarrow, which we did 
 and injured hardly anything. 
 
 They asked me to tell my besetting sin at the 
 very first meeting, and it nearly killed me to do it 
 because it is such a common greedy one. It is that 
 I can't bear to call the other girls when I have 
 found a thick spot when we are out berrying in the 
 summer time. 
 
 95 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 After I confessed, which made me dreadfully 
 ashamed, every one of the girls seemed surprised 
 and said they had never noticed that one but had 
 each thought of something very different that I 
 would be sure to think was my besetting sin. Then 
 Emma Jane said that rather than tell hers she 
 would resign from the Society and miss the picnic. 
 So it made so much trouble that Candace gave up. 
 We struck out the rule from the constitution and 
 I had told my sin for nothing. 
 
 The reason we named ourselves the B. O. S. S. 
 is, that Minnie Smellie has had her head shaved 
 after scarlet fever and has no braid, so she can't 
 be a member. 
 
 I don't want her for a member but I can't be 
 happy thinking she will feel slighted, and it takes 
 away half the pleasure of belonging to the Society 
 myself and being president. 
 
 That, I think, is the principal trouble about doing 
 mean and unkind things ; that you can't do wrong 
 and feel right, or be bad and feel good. If you 
 only could you could do anything that came into 
 your mind yet always be happy. 
 
 Minnie Smellie spoils everything she comes into 
 but I suppose we other girls must either have our 
 hair shaved and call ourselves The Baldheadians 
 or let her be some kind of a special officer in the 
 B. O. S. S. 
 
 96 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 She might be the B. I. T. U. D. member (Braid 
 in the Upper Drawer), for there is where Mrs. 
 Smellie keeps it now that it is cut off. 
 
 WINTER THOUGHTS 
 
 March, 187-. 
 
 It is not such a cold day for March and I am up 
 in the barn chamber with my coat and hood on 
 and Aunt Jane's waterproof and my mittens. 
 
 After I do three pages I am going to hide away 
 this book in the haymow till spring. 
 
 Perhaps they get made into icicles on the way 
 but I do not seem to have any thoughts in the 
 winter time. The barn chamber is full of thoughts 
 in warm weather. The sky gives them to me, and 
 the trees and flowers, and the birds, and the river ; 
 but now it is always gray and nipping, the branches 
 are bare and the river is frozen. 
 
 It is too cold to write in my bedroom but while 
 we still kept an open fire I had a few thoughts, but 
 now there is an air-tight stove in the dining room 
 where we sit, and we seem so close together, Aunt 
 Miranda, Aunt Jane and I that I don't like to 
 write in my book for fear they will ask me to read 
 out loud my secret thoughts. 
 
 I have just read over the first part of my Thought 
 Book and I have outgrown it all, just exactly as I 
 have outgrown my last year's drab cashmere. 
 97 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 It is very queer how anybody can change so fast 
 in a few months, but I remember that Emma Jane's 
 cat had kittens the day my book was bought at 
 Watson's store. Mrs. Perkins kept the prettiest 
 white one, Abijah Flagg drowning all the others. 
 
 It seems strange to me that cats will go on 
 having kittens when they know what becomes of 
 them ! We were very sad about it, but Mrs. Per- 
 kins said it was the way of the world and how 
 things had to be. 
 
 I cannot help being glad that they do not do the 
 same with children, or John and Jenny Mira Mark 
 and me would all have had stones tied to our necks 
 and been dropped into the deepest part of Sunny 
 Brook, for Hannah and Fanny are the only truly 
 handsome ones in the family. 
 
 Mrs. Perkins says I dress up well, but never 
 being dressed up it does not matter much. At least 
 they did n't wait to dress up the kittens to see how 
 they would improve, before drowning them, but 
 decided right away. 
 
 Emma Jane's kitten that was born the same day 
 this book was is now quite an old cat who knows 
 the way of the world herself, and how things have 
 to be, for she has had one batch of kittens drowned 
 already. 
 
 So perhaps it is not strange that my Thought 
 Book seems so babyish and foolish to me when I 
 
 98 
 
REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK 
 
 think of all I have gone through and the millions 
 of things I have learned, and how much better I 
 spell than I did ten months ago. 
 
 My fingers are cold through the mittens, so 
 good-bye dear Thought Book, friend of my child- 
 hood, now so far far behind me ! 
 
 I will hide you in the haymow where you '11 be 
 warm and cosy all the long winter and where 
 nobody can find you again in the summer time but 
 your affectionate author, 
 
 Rebecca Rowena Randall. 
 
Fourth Chronicle 
 A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY 
 
 EMMA Jane Perkins's new winter dress was a 
 blue and green Scotch plaid poplin, trimmed 
 with narrow green velvet-ribbon and steel 
 nail-heads. She had a gray jacket of thick furry 
 cloth with large steel buttons up the front, a pair of 
 green kid gloves, and a gray felt hat with an encir- 
 cling band of bright green feathers. The band be- 
 gan in front with a bird's head and ended behind 
 with a bird's tail, and angels could have desired no 
 more beautiful toilette. That was her opinion, and 
 it was shared to the full by Rebecca. 
 
 But Emma Jane, as Rebecca had once described 
 her to Mr. Adam Ladd, was a rich blacksmith's 
 daughter, and she, Rebecca, was a little half-orphan 
 from a mortgaged farm " up Temperance way," de- 
 pendent upon her spinster aunts for board, clothes, 
 and schooling. Scotch plaid poplins were mani- 
 festly not for her, but dark-colored woolen stuffs 
 were, and mittens, and last winter's coats and furs. 
 And how about hats ? Was there hope in store 
 for her there ? she wondered, as she walked home 
 ioo 
 
A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY 
 
 from the Perkins house, full of admiration for 
 Emma Jane's winter outfit, and loyally trying to 
 keep that admiration free from wicked envy. Her 
 red-winged black hat was her second best, and al- 
 though it was shabby she still liked it, but it would 
 never do for church, even in Aunt Miranda's 
 strange and never-to-be-comprehended views of 
 suitable raiment. 
 
 There was a brown felt turban in existence, if 
 one could call it existence when it had been rained 
 on, snowed on, and hailed on for two seasons ; but 
 the trimmings had at any rate perished quite off 
 the face of the earth, that was one comfort ! 
 
 Emma Jane had said, rather indiscreetly, that at 
 the village milliner's at Milliken's Mills there was 
 a perfectly elegant pink breast to be had, a breast 
 that began in a perfectly elegant solferino and ter- 
 minated in a perfectly elegant magenta ; two colors 
 much in vogue at that time. If the old brown hat 
 was to be her portion yet another winter, would 
 Aunt Miranda conceal its deficiencies from a carp- 
 ing world beneath the shaded solferino breast ? 
 Would she, that was the question ? 
 
 Filled with these perplexing thoughts, Rebecca 
 entered the brick house, hung up her hood in the 
 entry, and went into the dining-room. 
 
 Miss Jane was not there, but Aunt Miranda sat 
 by the window with her lap full of sewing things, 
 
 IOI 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 and a chair piled with pasteboard boxes by her side. 
 In one hand was the ancient, battered, brown felt 
 turban, and in the other were the orange and black 
 porcupine quills from Rebecca's last summer's hat ; 
 from the hat of the summer before that, and 
 the summer before that, and so on back to prehis- 
 toric ages of which her childish memory kept no 
 specific record, though she was sure that Temper- 
 ance and Riverboro society did. Truly a sight to 
 chill the blood of any eager young dreamer who 
 had been looking at gayer plumage ! 
 
 Miss Sawyer glanced up for a second with a sat- 
 isfied expression and then bent her eyes again upon 
 her work. 
 
 " If I was going to buy a hat trimming," she said, 
 "I couldn't select anything better or more eco- 
 nomical than these quills ! Your mother had them 
 when she was married, and you wore them the day 
 you come to the brick house from the farm ; and 
 I said to myself then that they looked kind of out- 
 landish, but I 've grown to like 'em now I 've got 
 used to 'em. You've been here for goin' on two 
 years and they 've hardly be'n out o' wear, summer 
 or winter, more 'n a month to a time ! I declare 
 they do beat all for service ! It don't seem as if 
 your mother could 'a' chose 'em, — Aurelia was al- 
 ways such a poor buyer! The black spills are 'bout 
 as good as new, but the orange ones are gittin' a 
 1 02 
 
A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY 
 
 little mite faded and shabby. I wonder if I could n't 
 dip all of 'em in shoe blackin' ? It seems real queer 
 to put a porcupine into hat trimmin', though I de- 
 clare I don't know jest what the animiles are like, 
 it 's be'n so long sence I looked at the pictures of 
 'em in a geography. I always thought their quills 
 stood out straight and angry, but these kind o' curls 
 round some at the ends, and that makes 'em stand 
 the wind better. How do you like 'em on the 
 brown felt ? " she asked, inclining her head in a 
 discriminating attitude and poising them awkwardly 
 on the hat with her work-stained hand. 
 
 How did she like them on the brown felt indeed ? 
 
 Miss Sawyer had not been looking at Rebecca, 
 but the child's eyes were flashing, her bosom heav- 
 ing, and her cheeks glowing with sudden rage and 
 despair. All at once something happened. She 
 forgot that she was speaking to an older person ; 
 forgot that she was dependent ; forgot everything 
 but her disappointment at losing the solferino 
 breast, remembering nothing but the enchanting, 
 dazzling beauty of Emma Jane Perkins's winter 
 outfit ; and, suddenly, quite without warning, she 
 burst into a torrent of protest. 
 
 " I will not wear those hateful porcupine quills 
 
 again this winter ! I will not ! It 's wicked, wicked 
 
 to expect me to ! Oh ! how I wish there never had 
 
 been any porcupines in the world, or that all of 
 
 103 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 them had died before silly, hateful people ever 
 thought of trimming hats with them ! They curl 
 round and tickle my ear ! They blow against my 
 cheek and sting it like needles ! They do look out- 
 landish, you said so yourself a minute ago. No- 
 body ever had any but only just me ! The only 
 porcupine was made into the only quills for me and 
 nobody else ! I wish instead of sticking out of the 
 nasty beasts, that they stuck into them, same as 
 they do into my cheek ! I suffer, suffer, suffer, 
 wearing them and hating them, and they will last 
 forever and forever, and when I 'm dead and can't 
 help myself, somebody '11 rip them out of my last 
 year's hat and stick them on my head, and I '11 be 
 buried in them ! Well, when / am buried they will 
 be, that 's one good thing ! Oh, if I ever have a 
 child I '11 let her choose her own feathers and not 
 make her wear ugly things like pigs' bristles and 
 porcupine quills ! " 
 
 With this lengthy tirade Rebecca vanished like 
 a meteor, through the door and down the street, 
 while Miranda Sawyer gasped for breath, and prayed 
 to Heaven to help her understand such human 
 whirlwinds as this Randall niece of hers. 
 
 This was at three o'clock, and at half-past three 
 Rebecca was kneeling on the rag carpet with her 
 head in her aunt's apron, sobbing her contrition. 
 
 " Oh ! Aunt Miranda, do forgive me if you can. 
 104 
 
A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY 
 
 It 's the only time I 've been bad for months ! You 
 know it is ! You know you said last week I had n't 
 been any trouble lately. Something broke inside 
 of me and came tumbling out of my mouth in ugly 
 words ! The porcupine quills make me feel just as 
 a bull does when he sees a red cloth ; nobody 
 understands how I suffer with them ! " 
 
 Miranda Sawyer had learned a few lessons in the 
 last two years, lessons which were making her (at 
 least on her " good days ") a trifle kinder, and at 
 any rate a juster woman than she used to be. When 
 she alighted on the wrong side of her four-poster 
 in the morning, or felt an extra touch of rheuma- 
 tism, she was still grim and unyielding ; but some- 
 times a curious sort of melting process seemed 
 to go on within her, when her whole bony structure 
 softened, and her eyes grew less vitreous. At such 
 moments Rebecca used to feel as if a superincum- 
 bent iron pot had been lifted off her head, allowing 
 her to breathe freely and enjoy the sunshine. 
 
 " Well," she said finally, after staring first at 
 Rebecca and then at the porcupine quills, as if to 
 gain some insight into the situation, — " well, I 
 never, sence I was born int' the world, heerd such a 
 speech as you 've spoke, an' I guess there probably 
 never was one. You 'd better tell the minister what 
 you said and see what he thinks of his prize Sun- 
 day-school scholar. But I 'm too old and tired to 
 K05 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 scold and fuss, and try to train you same as I did 
 at first. You can punish yourself this time, like you 
 used to. Go fire something down the well, same as 
 you did your pink parasol ! You 've apologized and 
 we won't say no more about it to-day, but I expect 
 you to show by extry good conduct how sorry you 
 be! You care altogether too much about your 
 looks and your clothes for a child, and you 've got a 
 temper that '11 certainly land you in state's prison 
 some o' these days ! " 
 
 Rebecca wiped her eyes and laughed aloud. " No, 
 no, Aunt Miranda, it won't, really ! That was n't 
 temper ; I don't get angry with people ; but only, 
 once in a long while, with things ; like those, — 
 cover them up quick before I begin again ! I' m all 
 right ! Shower 's over, sun 's out ! " 
 
 Miss Miranda looked at her searchingly and un- 
 comprehendingly. Rebecca's state of mind came 
 perilously near to disease, she thought. 
 
 " Have you seen me buyin' any new bunnits, or 
 your Aunt Jane ? " she asked cuttingly. " Is there 
 any particular reason why you should dress better 
 than your elders ? You might as well know that 
 we 're short of cash just now, your Aunt Jane and 
 me, and have no intention of riggin' you out like a 
 Milltown fact'ry girl." 
 
 " Oh-h ! " cried Rebecca, the quick tears start- 
 ing again to her eyes and the color fading out 
 
A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY 
 
 of her cheeks, as she scrambled up from her knees 
 to a seat on the sofa beside her aunt. " Oh-h ! 
 how ashamed I am ! Quick, sew those quills on to 
 the brown turban while I 'm good ! If I can't stand 
 them I '11 make a neat little gingham bag and slip 
 over them ! " 
 
 And so the matter ended, not as it customarily 
 did, with cold words on Miss Miranda's part and 
 bitter feelings on Rebecca's, but with a gleam of 
 mutual understanding. 
 
 Mrs. Cobb, who was a master hand at coloring, 
 dipped the offending quills in brown dye and left 
 them to soak in it all night, not only making them 
 a nice warm color, but somewhat weakening their 
 rocky spines, so that they were not quite as ram- 
 pantly hideous as before, in Rebecca's opinion. 
 
 Then Mrs. Perkins went to her bandbox in the 
 attic and gave Miss Dearborn some pale blue vel- 
 vet, with which she bound the brim of the brown 
 turban and made a wonderful rosette, out of which 
 the porcupine's defensive armor sprang, buoyantly 
 and gallantly, like the plume of Henry of Navarre. 
 
 Rebecca was resigned, if not greatly com- 
 forted, but she had grace enough to conceal her 
 feelings, now that she knew economy was at the 
 root of some of her aunt's decrees in matters of 
 dress ; and she managed to forget the solferino 
 breast, save in sleep, where a vision of it had a way 
 107 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 of appearing to her, dangling from the ceiling, and 
 dazzling her so with its rich color that she used 
 to hope the milliner would sell it that she might 
 never be tempted with it when she passed the 
 shop window. 
 
 One day, not long afterward, Miss Miranda bor- 
 rowed Mr. Perkins's horse and wagon and took Re- 
 becca with her on a drive to Union, to see about 
 some sausage meat and head cheese. She intended 
 to call on Mrs. Cobb, order a load of pine wood 
 from Mr. Strout on the way, and leave some rags 
 for a rug with old Mrs. Pease, so that the journey 
 could be made as profitable as possible, consistent 
 with the loss of time and the wear and tear on her 
 second-best black dress. 
 
 The red-winged black hat was forcibly removed 
 from Rebecca's head just before starting, and the 
 nightmare turban substituted. 
 
 " You might as well begin to wear it first as 
 last," remarked Miranda, while Jane stood in the 
 side door and sympathized secretly with Rebecca. 
 
 " I will ! " said Rebecca, ramming the stiff turban 
 down on her head with a vindictive grimace, and 
 snapping the elastic under her long braids ; " but 
 it makes me think of what Mr. Robinson said when 
 the minister told him his mother-in-law would ride 
 in the same buggy with him at his wife's funeral." 
 
 " I can't see how any speech of Mr. Robinson's* 
 108 
 
A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY 
 
 made years an' years ag«J, can have anything to do 
 with wearin' your turban down to Union," said Mi- 
 randa, settling the lap robe over her knees. 
 
 "Well, it can; because he said: 'Have it that 
 way, then, but it '11 spile the hull blamed trip for 
 me!'" 
 
 Jane closed the door suddenly, partly because 
 she experienced a desire to smile (a desire she had 
 not felt for years before Rebecca came to the brick 
 house to live), and partly because she had no wish 
 to overhear what her sister would say when she 
 took in the full significance of Rebecca's anecdote, 
 which was a favorite one with Mr. Perkins. 
 
 It was a cold blustering day, with a high wind 
 that promised to bring an early fall of snow. The 
 trees were stripped bare of leaves, the ground was 
 hard, and the wagon wheels rattled noisily over the 
 thank-you-ma'ams. 
 
 " I 'm glad I wore my Paisley shawl over my 
 cloak," said Miranda. " Be you warm enough, Re- 
 becca ? Tie that white rigolette tighter round your 
 neck. The wind fairly blows through my bones. I 
 most wish 't we 'd waited till a pleasanter day, for 
 this Union road is all up hill or down, and we shan't 
 get over the ground fast, it 's so rough. Don't for- 
 get, when you go into Scott's, to say I want all the 
 trimmin's when they send me the pork, for mebbe 
 I can try out a little mite o' lard. The last load o' 
 109 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 pine's gone tumble quick; I must see if 'Bijah 
 Fiagg can't get us some cut-rounds at the Mills, 
 when he hauls for Squire Bean next time. Keep 
 your mind on your drivin', Rebecca, and don't look 
 at the trees and the sky so much. It 's the same 
 sky and same trees that have been here right along. 
 Go awful slow down this hill and walk the hoss over 
 Cook's Brook bridge, for I always suspicion it 's 
 goin' to break down under me, an' I should n't want 
 to be dropped into that fast runnin' water this cold 
 day. It'll be froze stiff by this time next week. 
 Had n't you better get out and lead " — 
 
 The rest of the sentence was very possibly not 
 vital, but at any rate it was never completed, for in 
 the middle of the bridge a fierce gale of wind took 
 Miss Miranda's Paisley shawl and blew it over her 
 head. The long heavy ends whirled in opposite di- 
 rections and wrapped themselves tightly about her 
 wavering bonnet. Rebecea had the whip and the 
 reins, and in trying to rescue her struggling aunt 
 could not steady her own hat, which was suddenly 
 torn from her head and tossed against the bridge 
 rail, where it trembled and flapped for an instant. 
 
 " My hat ! oh ! Aunt Miranda, my hateful hat ! " 
 cried Rebecca, never remembering at the instant 
 how often she had prayed that the " fretful por- 
 cupine " might some time vanish in this violent 
 manner, since it refused to die a natural death. 
 no 
 
A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY 
 
 She had already stopped the horse, so, giving her 
 aunt's shawl one last desperate twitch, she slipped 
 out between the wagon wheels, and darted in the 
 direction of the hated object, the loss of which had 
 dignified it with a temporary value and importance. 
 
 The stiff brown turban rose in the air, then 
 dropped and flew along the bridge ; Rebecca pur- 
 sued ; it danced along and stuck between two of 
 the railings ; Rebecca flew after it, her long braids 
 floating in the wind. 
 
 " Come back ! Come back ! Don't leave me 
 alone with the team. I won't have it ! Come back, 
 and leave your hat ! " 
 
 Miranda had at length extricated herself from 
 the submerging shawl, but she was so blinded by 
 the wind, and so confused that she did not measure 
 the financial loss involved in her commands. 
 
 Rebecca heard, but her spirit being in arms, she 
 made one more mad scramble for the vagrant hat, 
 which now seemed possessed with an evil spirit, for 
 it flew back and forth, and bounded here and there, 
 like a living thing, finally distinguishing itself by 
 blowing between the horse's front and hind legs, 
 Rebecca trying to circumvent it by going around 
 the wagon, and meeting it on the other side. 
 
 It was no use; as she darted from behind the 
 wheels the wind gave the hat an extra whirl, and 
 scurrying in the opposite direction it soared above 
 in 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 the bridge rail and disappeared into the rapid water 
 below. 
 
 " Get in again ! " cried Miranda, holding on her 
 bonnet " You done your best and it can't be helped, 
 I only wish 't I 'd let you wear your black hat as you 
 wanted to ; and I wish 't we 'd never come such a 
 day ! The shawl has broke the stems of the velvet 
 geraniums in my bonnet, and the wind has blowed 
 away my shawl pin and my back comb. I 'd like 
 to give up and turn right back this minute, but 
 I don't like to borrer Perkins's hoss again this 
 month. When we get up in the woods you can 
 smooth your hair down and tie the rigolette over 
 your head and settle what 's left of my bonnet ; 
 it '11 be an expensive errant, this will ! " 
 
 ******** 
 
 II 
 
 It was not till next morning that Rebecca's heart 
 really began its song of thanksgiving. Her Aunt 
 Miranda announced at breakfast, that as Mrs. Per- 
 kins was going to Milliken's Mills, Rebecca might 
 go too, and buy a serviceable hat. 
 
 " You must n't pay over two dollars and a half, 
 and you mustn't get the pink bird without Mrs. 
 Perkins says, and the milliner says, that it won't 
 fade nor moult. Don't buy a light-colored felt be- 
 cause you '11 get sick of it in two or three years, 
 
 112 
 
A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY 
 
 same as you did the brown one. I always liked the 
 shape of the brown one, and you'll never get an- 
 other trimmin' that '11 wear you like them quills." 
 
 "I hope not!" thought Rebecca. 
 
 " If you had put your elastic under your chin, 
 same as you used to, and not worn it behind because 
 you think it 's more grown-up an' fash'onable, the 
 wind never 'd 'a' took the hat off your head, and you 
 wouldn't 'a' lost it; but the mischief's done and 
 you can go right over to Mis' Perkins now, so you 
 won't miss her nor keep her waitin'. The two dol- 
 lars and a half is in an envelope side o' the clock." 
 
 Rebecca swallowed the last spoonful of picked-up 
 codfish on her plate, wiped her lips, and rose from 
 her chair happier than the seraphs in Paradise. 
 
 The porcupine quills had disappeared from her 
 life, and without any fault or violence on her part. 
 She was wholly innocent and virtuous, but never- 
 theless she was going to have a new hat with the 
 solferino breast, should the adored object prove, 
 under rigorous examination, to be practically inde- 
 structible. 
 
 " Whene'er I take my walks abroad, 
 How many hats I '11 see ; 
 But if they 're trimmed with hedgehog quills 
 They '11 not belong to me ! " 
 
 So she improvised, secretly and ecstatically, as 
 she went towards the side entry. 
 "3 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 "There's 'Bijah Flagg drivin' in," said Miss 
 Miranda, going to the window. " Step out and see 
 what he 's got, Jane ; some passel from the Squire, 
 I guess. It 's a paper bag and it may be a punkin, 
 though he wouldn't wrop up a punkin, come to 
 think of it ! Shet the dinin' room door, Jane ; it 's 
 turrible drafty. Make haste, for the Squire's hoss 
 never stan's still a minute 'cept when he 's goin' ! " 
 
 Abijah Flagg alighted and approached the side 
 door with a grin. 
 
 " Guess what I 've got for ye, Rebecky ? " 
 
 No throb of prophetic soul warned Rebecca of 
 her approaching doom. 
 
 "Nodhead apples?" she sparkled, looking as 
 bright and rosy and satin-skinned as an apple her- 
 self. 
 
 "No; guess again." 
 
 " A flowering geranium ? " 
 
 " Guess again ! " 
 
 " Nuts ? Oh ! I can't, 'Bijah ; I 'm just going to 
 Milliken's Mills on an errand, and I 'm afraid of 
 missing Mrs. Perkins. Show me quick ! Is it really 
 for me, or for Aunt Miranda ? " 
 
 " Reely for you, I guess ! " and he opened the 
 large brown paper bag and drew from it the remains 
 of a water-soaked hat ! 
 
 They were remains, but there was no doubt of 
 their nature and substance. They had clearly been 
 114 
 
A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY 
 
 h hat in the past, and one could even suppose that, 
 when resuscitated, they might again assume their 
 original form in some near and happy future. 
 
 Miss Miranda, full of curiosity, joined the group 
 in the side entry at this dramatic moment. 
 
 "Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "Where, and 
 how under the canopy, did you ever ? " — 
 
 " I was working on the dam at Union Falls yes- 
 terday," chuckled Abijah, with a pleased glance at 
 each of the trio in turn, " an' I seen this little bun- 
 nit skippin' over the water j est as Becky does over 
 the road. It 's shaped kind o' like a boat, an' gorry, 
 ef it wa'n't sailin' jest like a boat ! ' Where hev I 
 seen that kind of a bristlin' plume ? ' thinks I." 
 
 (" Where indeed ! " thought Rebecca stormily.) 
 
 " Then it come to me that I 'd drove that plume 
 to school and drove it to meetin' an' drove it to the 
 Fair an' drove it most everywheres on Becky. So 
 I reached out a pole an' ketched it 'fore it got in 
 amongst the logs an' come to any damage, an' here 
 it is ! The hat 's passed in its checks, I guess ; 
 looks kind as if a wet elephant had stepped on it ; 
 but the plume's 'bout's good as new! I reely 
 fetched the hat back for the sake o' the plume." 
 
 "It was real good of you, 'Bijah, an' we 're all of 
 us obliged to you," said Miranda, as she poised the 
 hat on one hand and turned it slowly with the 
 other. 
 
 115 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 "Well, I do say," she exclaimed, "and I guess 
 I 've said it before, that of all the wearin' plumes 
 that ever I see, that one's the wearin'est! Seems 
 though it just would n't give up. Look at the way 
 it 's held Mis' Cobb's dye ; it 's about as brown 's 
 when it went int' the water." 
 
 " Dyed, but not a mite dead," grinned Abijah, 
 who was somewhat celebrated for his puns. 
 
 "And I declare," Miranda continued, "when you 
 think o' the fuss they make about ostriches, killin' 
 'em off by hundreds for the sake o' their feathers 
 that '11 string out and spoil in one hard rainstorm, 
 — an' all the time lettin' useful porcupines run 
 round with their quills on, why I can't hardly un- 
 derstand it, without milliners have found out jest 
 how good they do last, an' so they won't use 'em 
 for trimmin'. 'Bijah 's right ; the hat ain't no more 
 use, Rebecca, but you can buy you another this 
 mornin' — any color or shape you fancy — an' have 
 Miss Morton sew these brown quills on to it with 
 some kind of a buckle or a bow, jest to hide the 
 roots. Then you '11 be fixed for another season, 
 thanks to 'Bijah." 
 
 Uncle Jerry and Aunt Sarah Cobb were made 
 acquainted before very long with the part that des- 
 tiny, or Abijah Flagg, had played in Rebecca's 
 affairs, for, accompanied by the teacher, she walked 
 116 
 
A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY 
 
 to the old stage-driver's that same afternoon. Tak- 
 ing off her new hat with the venerable trimming, 
 she laid it somewhat ostentatiously upside down 
 on the kitchen table and left the room, dimpling a 
 little more than usual. 
 
 Uncle Jerry rose from his seat, and, crossing 
 the room, looked curiously into the hat and found 
 that a circular paper lining was neatly pinned in 
 the crown, and that it bore these lines, which were 
 read aloud with great effect by Miss Dearborn, and 
 with her approval were copied in the Thought Book 
 for the benefit of posterity : — 
 
 " It was the bristling porcupine, 
 
 As he stood on his native heath, 
 He said, ' I '11 pluck me some immortelles 
 
 And make me up a wreath. 
 For tho' I may not live myself 
 
 To more than a hundred and ten, 
 My quills will last till crack of doom, 
 
 And maybe after then. 
 They can be colored blue or green 
 
 Or orange, brown, or red, 
 But often as they may be dyed 
 
 They never will be dead.' 
 And so the bristling porcupine 
 
 As he stood on his native heath, 
 Said, ' I think I '11 pluck me some immortelles 
 
 And make me up a wreath.' 
 
 R. R. R." 
 
Fifth Chronicle 
 THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 EVEN when Rebecca had left school, having 
 attained the great age of seventeen and 
 therefore able to look back over a past in- 
 credibly long and full, she still reckoned time not by 
 years, but by certain important occurrences. 
 
 There was the year her father died ; the year she 
 left Sunnybrook Farm to come to her aunts in 
 Riverboro; the year Sister Hannah became en- 
 gaged ; the year little Mira died ; the year Abijah 
 Flagg ceased to be Squire Bean's chore-boy, and 
 astounded Riverboro by departing for Limerick 
 Academy in search of an education ; and finally 
 the year of her graduation, which, to the mind of 
 seventeen, seems rather the culmination than the 
 beginning of existence. 
 
 Between these epoch-making events certain other 
 happenings stood out in bold relief against the gray 
 of dull daily life. 
 
 There was the day she first met her friend of 
 friends, " Mr. Aladdin," and the later, even more 
 118 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 radiant one when he gave her the coral necklace. 
 There was the day the Simpson family moved away 
 from Riverboro under a cloud, and she kissed Clara 
 Belle fervently at the cross-roads, telling her that 
 she would always be faithful. There was the visit 
 of the Syrian missionaries to the brick house. 
 That was a bright, romantic memory, as strange 
 and brilliant as the wonderful little birds' wings 
 and breasts that the strangers brought from the 
 Far East. She remembered the moment they 
 asked her to choose some for herself, and the rap- 
 ture with which she stroked the beautiful things 
 as they lay on the black haircloth sofa. Then there 
 was the coming of the new minister, for though 
 many were tried only one was chosen ; and finally 
 there was the flag-raising, a festivity that thrilled 
 Riverboro and Edgewood society from centre to 
 circumference, a festivity that took place just be- 
 fore she entered the Female Seminary at Wareham 
 and said good-by to kind Miss Dearborn and the 
 village school. 
 
 There must have been other flag-raisings in his- 
 tory, — even the persons most interested in this 
 particular one would grudgingly have allowed that 
 much, — but it would have seemed to them improb- 
 able that any such flag-raising as theirs, either in 
 magnitude of conception or brilliancy of actual per- 
 formance, could twice glorify the same century. 
 119 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Of some pageants it is tacitly admitted that there 
 can be no duplicates, and the flag-raising at River- 
 boro Centre was one of these ; so that it is small 
 wonder if Rebecca chose it as one of the important 
 dates in her personal almanac. 
 
 The new minister's wife was the being, under 
 Providence, who had conceived the germinal idea 
 of the flag. 
 
 At this time the parish had almost settled down 
 to the trembling belief that they were united on a 
 pastor. In the earlier time a minister was chosen 
 for life, and if he had faults, which was a probable 
 enough contingency, and if his congregation had 
 any, which is within the bounds of possibility, each 
 bore with the other (not quite without friction), as 
 old-fashioned husbands and wives once did, before 
 the easy way out of the difficulty was discovered, 
 or at least before it was popularized. 
 
 The faithful old parson had died after thirty 
 years' preaching, and perhaps the newer methods 
 had begun to creep in, for it seemed impossible to 
 suit the two communities most interested in the 
 choice. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Davis, for example, was a spirited 
 preacher, but persisted in keeping two horses in 
 the parsonage stable, and in exchanging them when- 
 ever he could get faster ones. As a parochial vis- 
 itor he was incomparable, dashing from house to 
 1 20 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 house with such speed that he could cover the par- 
 ish in a single afternoon. This sporting tendency, 
 which would never have been remarked in a British 
 parson, was frowned upon in a New England vil- 
 lage, and Deacon Milliken told Mr. Davis, when 
 giving him what he alluded to as his "walking 
 papers," that they didn't want the Edgewood 
 church run by hoss power ! 
 
 The next candidate pleased Edgewood, where 
 morning preaching was held, but the other parish, 
 which had afternoon service, declined to accept 
 him because he wore a wig — an ill-matched, crook- 
 edly applied wig. 
 
 Number three was eloquent but given to gesticu- 
 lation, and Mrs. Jere Burbank, the president of the 
 Dorcas Society, who sat in a front pew, said she 
 could n't bear to see a preacher scramble round the 
 pulpit hot Sundays. 
 
 Number four, a genial, handsome man, gifted in 
 prayer, was found to be a Democrat. The congrega- 
 tion was overwhelmingly Republican in its politics, 
 and perceived something ludicrous, if not positively 
 blasphemous, in a Democrat preaching the gospel. 
 (" Ananias and Beelzebub '11 be candidatin' here, 
 first thing we know ! " exclaimed the outraged Re- 
 publican nominee for district attorney.) 
 
 Number five had a feeble-minded child, which 
 the hiring committee prophesied would always be 
 121 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 standing in the parsonage front yard, making talk 
 for the other denominations. 
 
 Number six was the Rev. Judson Baxter, the 
 present incumbent ; and he was voted to be as near 
 perfection as a minister can be in this finite world. 
 His young wife had a small income of her own, a 
 distinct and unusual advantage, and the subscrip- 
 tion committee hoped that they might not be eter- 
 nally driving over the country to get somebody's 
 fifty cents that had been over-due for eight months, 
 but might take their onerous duties a little more 
 easily. 
 
 " It does seem as if our ministers were the poor- 
 est lot ! " complained Mrs. Robinson. " If their 
 salary is two months behindhand they begin to be 
 nervous ! Seems as though they might lay up a 
 little before they come here, and not live from hand 
 to mouth so ! The Baxters seem quite different, 
 and I only hope they won't get wasteful and run 
 into debt. They say she keeps the parlor blinds 
 open 'bout half the time, and the room is lit up 
 so often evenin's that the neighbors think her and 
 Mr. Baxter must set in there. It don't seem hardly 
 as if it could be so, but Mrs. Buzzell says 't is, and 
 she says we might as well say good-by to the par- 
 lor carpet, which is church property, for the Bax- 
 ters are living all over it ! " 
 
 This criticism was the only discordant note in 
 
 122 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 the chorus of praise, and the people gradually 
 grew accustomed to the open blinds and the over- 
 used parlor carpet, which was just completing its 
 twenty-fifth year of honest service. 
 
 Mrs. Baxter communicated her patriotic idea of 
 a new flag to the Dorcas Society, proposing that 
 the women should cut and make it themselves. 
 
 " It may not be quite as good as those manufac- 
 tured in the large cities," she said, " but we shall 
 be proud to see our home-made flag flying in the 
 breeze, and it will mean all the more to the young 
 voters growing up, to remember that their mothers 
 made it with their own hands." 
 
 " How would it do to let some of the girls help? " 
 modestly asked Miss Dearborn, the Riverboro 
 teacher. " We might choose the best sewers and 
 let them put in at least a few stitches, so that they 
 can feel they have a share in it." 
 
 " Just the thing ! " exclaimed Mrs. Baxter. 
 " We can cut the stripes and sew them together, 
 and after we have basted on the white stars the 
 girls can apply them to the blue ground. We 
 must have it ready for the campaign rally, and we 
 could n't christen it at a better time than in this 
 presidential year." 
 
 123 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 ii 
 
 In this way the great enterprise was started, and 
 day by day the preparations went forward in the 
 two villages. 
 
 The boys, as future voters and fighters, de- 
 manded an active share in the proceedings, and 
 were organized by Squire Bean into a fife and 
 drum corps, so that by day and night martial but 
 most inharmonious music woke the echoes, and 
 deafened mothers felt their patriotism oozing out 
 at the soles of their shoes. 
 
 Dick Carter was made captain, for his grand- 
 father had a gold medal given him by Queen Vic- 
 toria for rescuing three hundred and twenty-six 
 passengers from a sinking British vessel. River- 
 boro thought it high time to pay some graceful 
 tribute to Great Britain in return for her handsome 
 conduct to Captain Nahum Carter, and human im- 
 agination could contrive nothing more impressive 
 than a vicarious share in the flag-raising. 
 
 Living Perkins tried to be happy in the ranks, 
 for he was offered no official position, principally, 
 Mrs. Smellie observed, because " his father's war 
 record wa'n't clean." " Oh, yes ! Jim Perkins went 
 to the war," she continued. " He hid out behind 
 the hencoop when they was draftin', but they 
 found him and took him along. He got into one 
 124 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 battle, too, somehow or 'nother, but he run away 
 from it. He was allers cautious, Jim was ; if he 
 ever see trouble of any kind comin' towards him, 
 he was out o' sight 'fore it got a chance to light. 
 He said eight dollars a month, without bounty, 
 would n't pay him to stop bullets for. He would n't 
 fight a skeeter, Jim would n't, but land ! we ain't 
 to war all the time, and he 's a good neighbor and 
 a good blacksmith." 
 
 Miss Dearborn was to be Columbia and the older 
 girls of the two schools were to be the States. Such 
 trade in muslins and red, white, and blue ribbons 
 had never been known since " Watson kep' store," 
 and the number of brief white petticoats hanging 
 out to bleach would have caused the passing stranger 
 to imagine Riverboro a continual dancing-school. 
 
 Juvenile virtue, both male and female, reached 
 an almost impossible height, for parents had only 
 to lift a finger and say, "You shan't go to the 
 flag-raising ! " and the refractory spirit at once 
 armed itself for new struggles toward the perfect 
 life. 
 
 Mr. Jeremiah Cobb had consented to impersonate 
 Uncle Sam, and was to drive Columbia and the 
 States to the " raising " on the top of his own stage. 
 Meantime the boys were drilling, the ladies were 
 cutting and basting and stitching, and the girls were 
 sewing on stars ; for the starry part of the spangled 
 125 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 banner was to remain with each of them in turn 
 until she had performed her share of the work. 
 
 It was felt by one and all a fine and splendid ser- 
 vice indeed to help in the making of the flag, and if 
 Rebecca was proud to be of the chosen ones, so 
 was her Aunt Jane Sawyer, who had taught her all 
 her delicate stitches. 
 
 On a long-looked-for afternoon in August the 
 minister's wife drove up to the brick-house door, 
 and handed out the great piece of bunting to 
 Rebecca, who received it in her arms with as much 
 solemnity as if it had been a child awaiting bap- 
 tismal rites. 
 
 " I 'm so glad ! " she sighed happily. " I thought 
 it would never come my turn ! " 
 
 "You should have had it a week ago, but 
 Huldah Meserve upset the ink bottle over her star, 
 and we had to baste on another one. You are the 
 last, though, and then we shall sew the stars and 
 stripes together, and Seth Strout will get the top 
 ready for hanging. Just think, it won't be many 
 days before you children will be pulling the rope 
 with all your strength, the band will be playing, 
 the men will be cheering, and the new flag will go 
 higher and higher, till the red, white, and blue 
 shows against the sky ! " 
 
 Rebecca's eyes fairly blazed. " Shall I ' fell on ' 
 my star, or buttonhole it ? " she asked. 
 126 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 "Look at all the others and make the most 
 beautiful stitches you can, that 's all. It is your 
 star, you know, and you can even imagine it is 
 your state, and try and have it the best of all. If 
 everybody else is trying to do the same thing with 
 her state, that will make a great country, won't 
 it? " 
 
 Rebecca's eyes spoke glad confirmation of the 
 idea. " My star, my state ! " she repeated joyously. 
 "Oh, Mrs. Baxter, I'll make such fine stitches you'll 
 think the white grew out of the blue ! " 
 
 The new minister's wife looked pleased to see 
 her spark kindle a flame in the young heart. " You 
 can sew so much of yourself into your star," she 
 went on in the glad voice that made her so win- 
 some, " that when you are an old lady you can put 
 on your specs and find it among all the others. 
 Good-by ! Come up to the parsonage Saturday 
 afternoon ; Mr. Baxter wants to see you." 
 
 "Judson, help that dear little genius of a Re- 
 becca all you can ! " she said that night, when they 
 were cosily talking in their parlor and living " all 
 over " the parish carpet. " I don't know what she 
 may, or may not, come to, some day ; I only wish 
 she were ours ! If you could have seen her clasp 
 the flag tight in her arms and put her cheek against 
 it, and watched the tears of feeling start in her 
 eyes when I told her that her star was her state ! 
 127 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 I kept whispering to myself, ' Covet not thy neigh- 
 bor's child ! "' 
 
 Daily at four o'clock Rebecca scrubbed her hands 
 almost to the bone, brushed her hair, and otherwise 
 prepared herself in body, mind, and spirit for the 
 consecrated labor of sewing on her star. All the 
 time that her needle cautiously, conscientiously 
 formed the tiny stitches she was making rhymes 
 "in her head," her favorite achievement being 
 this : — 
 
 " Your star, my star, all our stars together, 
 They make the dear old banner proud 
 To float in the bright fall weather." 
 
 There was much discussion as to which of the 
 girls should impersonate the State of Maine, for 
 that was felt to be the highest honor in the gift 
 of the committee. 
 
 Alice Robinson was the prettiest child in the 
 village, but she was very shy and by no means a 
 general favorite. 
 
 Minnie Smellie possessed the handsomest dress 
 and a pair of white slippers and open-work stock- 
 ings that nearly carried the day. Still, as Miss 
 Delia Weeks well said, she was so stupid that if 
 she should suck her thumb in the very middle of 
 the exercises nobody 'd be a dite surprised ! 
 
 Huldah Meserve was next voted upon, and the 
 fact that if she were not chosen her father might 
 128 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 withdraw his subscription to the brass band fund 
 was a matter for grave consideration. 
 
 " I kind o' hate to have such a giggler for the 
 State of Maine ; let her be the Goddess of Liberty," 
 proposed Mrs. Burbank, whose patriotism was more 
 local than national. 
 
 " How would Rebecca Randall do for Maine, and 
 let her speak some of her verses ? " suggested the 
 new minister's wife, who, could she have had her 
 way, would have given all the prominent parts to 
 Rebecca, from Uncle Sam down. 
 
 So, beauty, fashion, and wealth having been tried 
 and found wanting, the committee discussed the 
 claims of talent, and it transpired that to the awe- 
 stricken Rebecca fell the chief plum in the pud- 
 ding. It was a tribute to her gifts that there was 
 no jealousy or envy among the other girls; they 
 readily conceded her special fitness for the r61e. 
 
 Her life had not been pressed down full to the 
 brim of pleasures, and she had a sort of distrust of 
 joy in the bud. Not until she saw it in full radiance 
 of bloom did she dare embrace it. She had never 
 read any verse but Byron, Felicia Hemans, bits of 
 " Paradise Lost," and the selections in the school 
 readers, but she would have agreed heartily with 
 the poet who said : — 
 
 " Not by appointment do we meet delight 
 And joy ; they heed not our expectancy; 
 129 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 But round some corner in the streets of life 
 They on a sudden clasp us with a smile." 
 
 For many nights before the raising, when she 
 went to her bed she said to herself, after she had 
 finished her prayers : " It can't be true that I 'm 
 chosen for the State of Maine ! It just cant be 
 true ! Nobody could be good enough, but oh, I '11 
 try to be as good as I can ! To be going to Ware- 
 ham Seminary next week and to be the State of 
 Maine too ! Oh ! I must pray hard to God to keep 
 me meek and humble ! " 
 
 III 
 
 The flag was to be raised on a Tuesday, and on 
 the previous Sunday it became known to the chil- 
 dren that Clara Belle Simpson was coming back 
 from Acreville, coming to live with Mrs. Fogg and 
 take care of the baby, called by the neighborhood 
 boys " the Fogg horn," on account of his excellent 
 voice production. 
 
 Clara Belle was one of Miss Dearborn's original 
 flock, and if she were left wholly out of the festivi- 
 ties she would be the only girl of suitable age to be 
 thus slighted ; it seemed clear to the juvenile mind, 
 therefore, that neither she nor her descendants 
 would ever recover from such a blow. But, under 
 all the circumstances, would she be allowed to join 
 in the procession ? Even Rebecca, the optimistic, 
 130 
 
'MV STAR, MY STATE!" SHE REPEATED JOYOUSLY 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 feared not, and the committee confirmed her fears 
 by saying that Abner Simpson's daughter certainly 
 could not take any prominent part in the ceremony, 
 but they hoped that Mrs. Fogg would allow her to 
 witness it. 
 
 When Abner Simpson, urged by the town author- 
 ities, took his wife and seven children away from 
 Riverboro to Acreville, just over the border in the 
 next county, Riverboro went to bed leaving its barn 
 and shed doors unfastened, and drew long breaths 
 of gratitude to Providence. 
 
 Of most winning disposition and genial manners, 
 Mr. Simpson had not that instinctive comprehen- 
 sion of property rights which renders a man a valu- 
 able citizen. 
 
 Squire Bean was his nearest neighbor, and he 
 conceived the novel idea of paying Simpson five 
 dollars a year not to steal from him, a method oc- 
 casionally used in the Highlands in early days. 
 
 The bargain was struck, and adhered to reli- 
 giously for a twelve-month, but on the second of 
 January Mr. Simpson announced the verbal con- 
 tract as formally broken. 
 
 " I did n't know what I was doin' when I made 
 it, Squire," he urged. " In the first place, it's a slur 
 on my reputation and an injury to my self-respect. 
 Secondly, it 's a nervous strain on me ; and thirdly, 
 five dollars don't pay me!" 
 I3i 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Squire Bean was so struck with the unique and 
 convincing nature of these arguments that he could 
 scarcely restrain his admiration, and he confessed 
 to himself afterward, that unless Simpson's men- 
 tal attitude could be changed he was perhaps a 
 fitter subject for medical science than the state 
 prison. 
 
 Abner was a most unusual thief, and conducted 
 his operations with a tact and neighborly considera- 
 tion none too common in the profession. He would 
 never steal a man's scythe in haying-time, nor his 
 fur lap-robe in the coldest of the winter. The 
 picking of a lock offered no attractions to him; 
 "hewa'n't no burglar," he would have scornfully 
 asserted. A strange horse and wagon hitched by 
 the roadside was the most flagrant of his thefts ; 
 but it was the small things — the hatchet or axe 
 on the chopping-block, the tin pans sunning at the 
 side door, a stray garment bleaching on the grass, 
 a hoe, rake, shovel, or a bag of early potatoes, — 
 that tempted him most sorely ; and these appealed 
 to him not so much for their intrinsic value as be- 
 cause they were so excellently adapted to swapping. 
 The swapping was really the enjoyable part of the 
 procedure, the theft was only a sad but necessary 
 preliminary ; for if Abner himself had been a man 
 of sufficient property to carry on his business oper- 
 ations independently, it is doubtful if he would 
 132 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 have helped himself so freely to his neighbor's 
 goods. 
 
 Riverboro regretted the loss of Mrs. Simpson, 
 who was useful in scrubbing, cleaning, and wash- 
 ing, and was thought to exercise some influence 
 over her predatory spouse. There was a story of 
 their early married life, when they had a farm ; a 
 story to the effect that Mrs. Simpson always rode 
 on every load of hay that her husband took to 
 Milltown, with the view of keeping him sober 
 through the day. After he turned out of the coun- 
 try road and approached the metropolis, it was said 
 that he used to bury the docile lady in the load. 
 He would then drive on to the scales, have the 
 weight of hay entered in the buyer's book, take 
 his horses to the stable for feed and water, and 
 when a favorable opportunity offered he would 
 assist the hot and panting Mrs. Simpson out of the 
 side or back of the rack, and gallantly brush the 
 straw from her person. For this reason it was 
 always asserted that Abner Simpson sold his wife 
 every time he went to Milltown, but the story was 
 never fully substantiated, and at all events it was 
 the only suspected blot on meek Mrs. Simpson's 
 personal reputation. 
 
 As for the Simpson children, they were missed 
 chiefly as familiar figures by the roadside ; but Re- 
 becca honestly loved Clara Belle, notwithstanding 
 
 133 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 her Aunt Miranda's opposition to the intimacy. 
 Rebecca's "taste for low company" was a source 
 of continual anxiety to her aunt. 
 
 "Anything that 's human flesh is good enough 
 for her ! " Miranda groaned to Jane. " She '11 ride 
 with the rag-sack-and-bottle peddler just as quick 
 as she would with the minister; she always sets 
 beside the St. Vitus' dance young one at Sabbath 
 school ; and she 's forever riggin' and onriggin' that 
 dirty Simpson baby ! She reminds me of a puppy 
 that '11 always go to everybody that '11 have him ! " 
 
 It was thought very creditable to Mrs. Fogg that 
 she sent for Clara Belle to live with her and go to 
 school part of the year. 
 
 "She'll be useful," said Mrs. Fogg, "and she'll 
 be out of her father's way, and so keep honest ; 
 though she 's so awful hombly I 've no fears for 
 her. A girl with her red hair, freckles, and cross- 
 eyes can't fall into no kind of sin, I don't be- 
 lieve." 
 
 Mrs. Fogg requested that Clara Belle should be 
 started on her journey from Acreville by train and 
 come the rest of the way by stage, and she was 
 disturbed to receive word on Sunday that Mr. 
 Simpson had borrowed a "good roader" from a 
 new acquaintance, and would himself drive the girl 
 from Acreville to Riverboro, a distance of thirty 
 134 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 five miles. That he would arrive in their vicinity 
 on the very night before the flag-raising was thought 
 by Riverboro to be a public misfortune, and several 
 residents hastily determined to deny themselves a 
 sight of the festivities and remain watchfully on 
 their own premises. 
 
 On Monday afternoon the children were rehears- 
 ing their songs at the meeting-house. As Rebecca 
 came out on the broad wooden steps she watched 
 Mrs. Peter Meserve's buggy out of sight, for in 
 front, wrapped in a cotton sheet, lay the precious 
 flag. After a few chattering good-bys and weather 
 prophecies with the other girls, she started on her 
 homeward walk, dropping in at the parsonage to 
 read her verses to the minister. 
 
 He welcomed her gladly as she removed her 
 white cotton gloves (hastily slipped on outside the 
 door, for ceremony) and pushed back the funny hat 
 with the yellow and black porcupine quills — the 
 hat with which she made her first appearance in 
 Riverboro society. 
 
 " You 've heard the beginning, Mr. Baxter ; now 
 will you please tell me if you like the last verse ? " 
 she asked, taking out her paper. " I 've only read 
 it to Alice Robinson, and I think perhaps she can 
 never be a poet, though she 's a splendid writer. 
 Last year when she was twelve she wrote a birth- 
 day poem to herself, and she made ' natal ' rhyme 
 135 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 with ' Milton,' which, of course, it would n't. I re- 
 member every verse ended : — 
 
 ' This is my day so natal 
 And I will follow Milton.' 
 
 Another one of hers was written just because she 
 could n't help it, she said. This was it : — 
 
 ' Let me to the hills away, 
 Give me pen and paper; 
 I '11 write until the earth will sway 
 The story of my Maker.' " 
 
 The minister could scarcely refrain from smiling, 
 but he controlled himself that he might lose none 
 of Rebecca's quaint observations. When she was 
 perfectly at ease, unwatched and uncriticised, she 
 was a marvelous companion. 
 
 "The name of the poem is going to be 'My 
 Star,' " she continued, "and Mrs. Baxter gave me 
 all the ideas, but somehow there 's a kind of magic- 
 ness when they get into poetry, don't you think 
 so ? " (Rebecca always talked to grown people as 
 if she were their age, or, a more subtle and truer 
 distinction, as if they were hers.) 
 
 "It has often been so remarked, in different 
 words," agreed the minister. 
 
 " Mrs. Baxter said that each star was a state, and 
 
 if each state did its best we should have a splendid 
 
 country. Then once she said that we ought to be 
 
 glad the war is over and the States are all at peace 
 
 136 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 together ; and I thought Columbia must be glad, 
 too, for Miss Dearborn says she 's the mother of all 
 the States. So I 'm going to have it end like this : 
 I didn't write it, I just sewed it while I was work- 
 ing on my star : — 
 
 For it 's your star, my star, all the stars together, 
 
 That make our country's flag so proud 
 To float in the bright fall weather. 
 Northern stars, Southern stars, stars of the East and West, 
 
 Side by side they lie at peace 
 On the dear flag's mother-breast." 
 
 " ' Oh ! many are the poets that are sown by 
 Nature,' " thought the minister, quoting Words- 
 worth to himself. " And I wonder what becomes 
 of them ! That 's a pretty idea, little Rebecca, and 
 I don't know whether you or my wife ought to 
 have the more praise. What made you think of the 
 stars lying on the flag's ' mother-breast ' ? Where 
 did you get that word ? " 
 
 "Why " (and the young poet looked rather puz- 
 zled), " that 's the way it is ; the flag is the whole 
 country — the mother — and the stars are the states. 
 The stars had to lie somewhere : ' lap ' nor ' arms ' 
 would n't sound well with ' West,' so, of course, I 
 said ' breast, " Rebecca answered, with some sur- 
 prise at the question ; and the minister put his 
 hand under her chin and kissed her softly on the 
 forehead when he said good-by at the door. 
 137 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 IV 
 
 Rebecca walked rapidly along in the gathering 
 twilight, thinking of the eventful morrow. 
 
 As she approached the turning on the left called 
 the old Milltown road, she saw a white horse and 
 wagon, driven by a man with a rakish, flapping, 
 Panama hat, come rapidly around the turn and dis- 
 appear over the long hills leading down to the 
 falls. There was no mistaking him ; there never 
 was another Abner Simpson, with his lean height, 
 his bushy reddish hair, the gay cock of his hat, and 
 the long, piratical, upturned mustaches, which the 
 boys used to say were used as hat-racks by the 
 Simpson children at night. The old Milltown road 
 ran past Mrs. Fogg's house, so he must have left 
 Clara Belle there, and Rebecca's heart glowed to 
 think that her poor little friend need not miss the 
 raising. 
 
 She began to run now, fearful of being late for 
 supper, and covered the ground to the falls in a 
 brief time. As she crossed the bridge she again 
 saw Abner Simpson's team, drawn up at the water- 
 ing trough. 
 
 Coming a little nearer, with the view of inquiring 
 for the family, her quick eye caught sight of some- 
 thing unexpected. A gust of wind blew up a corner 
 of a linen lap-robe in the back of the wagon, and 
 138 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 underneath it she distinctly saw the white-sheeted 
 bundle that held the flag ; the bundle with a tiny, 
 tiny spot of red bunting peeping out at one corner. 
 It is true she had eaten, slept, dreamed red, white, 
 and blue for weeks, but there was no mistaking 
 the evidence of her senses ; the idolized flag, longed 
 for, worked for, sewed for, that flag was in the back 
 of Abner Simpson's wagon, and if so, what would 
 become of the raising ? 
 
 Acting on blind impulse, she ran toward the 
 watering-trough, calling out in her clear treble : 
 " Mr. Simpson ! Oh, Mr. Simpson, will you let 
 me ride a piece with you and hear all about Clara 
 Belle? I'm going part way over to the Centre on 
 an errand." (So she was ; a most important errand, 
 — to recover the flag of her country at present in 
 the hands of the foe !) 
 
 Mr. Simpson turned round in his seat and cried 
 heartily, "Certain sure I will!" for he liked the 
 fair sex, young and old, and Rebecca had always 
 been a prime favorite with him. "Climb right in ! 
 How's everybody? Glad to see ye ! The folks talk 
 'bout ye from sun-up to sun-down, and Clara Belle 
 can't hardly wait for a sight of ye ! " 
 
 Rebecca scrambled up, trembling and pale with 
 
 excitement. She did not in the least know what 
 
 was going to happen, but she was sure that the 
 
 flag, when in the enemy's country, must be at least 
 
 139 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 a little safer with the State of Maine sitting on top 
 of it ! 
 
 Mr. Simpson began a long monologue about 
 Acreville, the house he lived in, the pond in front 
 of it, Mrs. Simpson's health, and various items of 
 news about the children, varied by reports of his 
 personal misfortunes. He put no questions, and 
 asked no replies, so this gave the inexperienced 
 soldier a few seconds to plan a campaign. There 
 were three houses to pass ; the Browns' at the cor- 
 ner, the Millikens', and the Robinsons' on the brow 
 of the hill. If Mr. Robinson were in the front yard 
 she might tell Mr. Simpson she wanted to call there 
 and ask Mr. Robinson to hold the horse's head 
 while she got out of the wagon. Then she might 
 fly to the back before Mr. Simpson could realize 
 the situation, and dragging out the precious bundle, 
 sit on it hard, while Mr. Robinson settled the mat- 
 ter of ownership with Mr. Simpson. 
 
 This was feasible, but it meant a quarrel between 
 the two men, who held an ancient grudge against 
 each other, and Mr. Simpson was a valiant fighter, 
 as the various sheriffs who had attempted to arrest 
 him could cordially testify. It also meant that 
 everybody in the village would hear of the incident 
 and poor Clara Belle be branded again as the child 
 of a thief. 
 
 Another idea danced into her excited brain ; 
 140 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 such a clever one she could hardly believe it hers. 
 She might call Mr. Robinson to the wagon, and 
 when he came close to the wheels she might say, 
 " all of a sudden " : " Please take the flag out of 
 the back of the wagon, Mr. Robinson. We have 
 brought it here for you to keep overnight." Mr. 
 Simpson might be so surprised that he would give 
 up his prize rather than be suspected of stealing. 
 
 But as they neared the Robinsons' house there 
 was not a sign of life to be seen ; so the last plan, 
 ingenious though it was, was perforce abandoned. 
 
 The road now lay between thick pine woods with 
 no dwelling in sight. It was growing dusk and Re- 
 becca was driving along the lonely way with a per- 
 son who was generally called Slippery Simpson. 
 
 Not a thought of fear crossed her mind, save the 
 fear of bungling in her diplomacy, and so losing the 
 flag. She knew Mr. Simpson well, and a pleasanter 
 man was seldom to be met. She recalled an after- 
 noon when he came home and surprised the whole 
 school playing the Revolutionary War in his helter- 
 skelter dooryard, and the way in which he had 
 joined the British forces and impersonated General 
 Burgoyne had greatly endeared him to her. The 
 only difficulty was to find proper words for her del- 
 icate mission, for, of course, if Mr. Simpson's anger 
 were aroused, he would politely push her out of the 
 wagon and drive away with the flag. Perhaps if 
 141 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 she led the conversation in the right direction an 
 opportunity would present itself. She well remem- 
 bered how Emma Jane Perkins had failed to con- 
 vert Jacob Moody, simply because she failed to 
 " lead up " to the delicate question of his manner 
 of life. Clearing her throat nervously, she began : 
 " Is it likely to be fair to-morrow ? " 
 " Guess so ; clear as a bell. What 's on foot ; a 
 
 picnic 
 
 " No ; we 're to have a grand flag-raising ! " 
 (" That is," she thought, " if we have any flag to 
 raise ! ") 
 
 "That so? Where?" 
 
 " The three villages are to club together and 
 have a rally, and raise the flag at the Centre. 
 There '11 be a brass band, and speakers, and the 
 Mayor of Portland, and the man that will be gov- 
 ernor if he 's elected, and a dinner in the Grange 
 Hall, and we girls are chosen to raise the flag." 
 
 " I want to know ! That '11 be grand, won't 
 it ? " (Still not a sign of consciousness on the part 
 of Abner.) 
 
 " I hope Mrs. Fogg will take Clara Belle, for it 
 will be splendid to look at ! Mr. Cobb is going to 
 be Uncle Sam and drive us on the stage. Miss 
 Dearborn — Clara Belle's old teacher, you know — 
 is going to be Columbia ; the girls will be the 
 States of the Union, and oh, Mr. Simpson, I am 
 142 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 the one to be the State of Maine ! " (This was not 
 altogether to the point, but a piece of information 
 impossible to conceal.) 
 
 Mr. Simpson flourished the whipstock and gave 
 a loud, hearty laugh. Then he turned in his seat 
 and regarded Rebecca curiously. " You 're kind o' 
 small, hain't ye, for so big a state as this one ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Any of us would be too small," replied Re- 
 becca with dignity, "but the committee asked me, 
 and I am going to try hard to do well." 
 
 The tragic thought that there might be no oc- 
 casion for anybody to do anything, well or ill, sud- 
 denly overcame her here, and putting her hand on 
 Mr. Simpson's sleeve, she attacked the subject 
 practically and courageously. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Simpson, dear Mr. Simpson, it 's such 
 a mortifying subject I can't bear to say anything 
 about it, but please give us back our flag ! Don't, 
 don't take it over to Acreville, Mr. Simpson ! 
 We 've worked so long to make it, and it was so 
 hard getting the money for the bunting ! Wait a 
 minute, please; don't be angry, and don't say no 
 just yet, till I explain more. It '11 be so dreadful 
 for everybody to get there to-morrow morning and 
 find no flag to raise, and the band and the mayor 
 all disappointed, and the children crying, with their 
 muslin dresses all bought for nothing ! O dear 
 143 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Mr. Simpson, please don't take our flag away from 
 us!" 
 
 The apparently astonished Abner pulled his mus- 
 taches and exclaimed : " But I don't know what 
 you 're drivin' at ! Who 's got yer flag ? / hain't ! " 
 
 Could duplicity, deceit, and infamy go any fur- 
 ther, Rebecca wondered, and her soul filling with 
 righteous wrath, she cast discretion to the winds 
 and spoke a little more plainly, bending her great 
 swimming eyes on the now embarrassed Abner, 
 who looked like an angle-worm wriggling on a 
 pin. 
 
 " Mr. Simpson, how can you say that, when I saw 
 the flag in the back of your wagon myself, when 
 you stopped to water the horse ? It 's wicked of 
 you to take it, and I cannot bear it ! " (Her voice 
 broke now, for a doubt of Mr. Simpson's yielding 
 suddenly darkened her mind.) "If you keep it, 
 you '11 have to keep me, for I won't be'parted from 
 it ! I can't fight like the boys, but I can pinch and 
 scratch, and I will scratch, just like a panther — 
 I '11 lie right down on my star and not move, if I 
 starve to death ! " s 
 
 " Look here, hold your hosses 'n' don't cry till 
 you git something to cry for ! " grumbled the out- 
 raged Abner, to whom a clue had just come; and 
 leaning over the wagon-back he caught hold of a 
 corner of white sheet and dragged up the bundle, 
 144 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 scooping off Rebecca's hat in the process, and 
 almost burying her in bunting. 
 
 She caught the treasure passionately to her heart 
 and stifled her sobs in it, while Abner exclaimed : 
 " I swan to man, if that hain't a flag ! Well, in that 
 case you 're good 'n' welcome to it ! Land ! I seen 
 that bundle lyin' in the middle o' the road and I 
 says to myself, that 's somebody's washin' and I 'd , 
 better pick it up and leave it at the post-office to 
 be claimed ; 'n' all the time it was a flag ! " 
 
 This was a Simpsonian version of the matter, 
 the fact being that a white-covered bundle lying 
 on the Meserves' front steps had attracted his prac- 
 ticed eye, and slipping in at the open gate he had 
 swiftly and deftly removed it to his wagon on gen- 
 eral principles ; thinking if it were clean clothes it 
 would be extremely useful, and in any event there 
 was no good in passing by something flung into 
 your very arms, so to speak. He had had no lei- 
 sure to examine the bundle, and indeed took little 
 interest in it. Probably he stole it simply from 
 force of habit, and because there was nothing else 
 in sight to steal, everybody's premises being pre- 
 ternaturally tidy and empty, almost as if his visit 
 had been expected ! 
 
 Rebecca was a practical child, and it seemed to 
 her almost impossible that so heavy a bundle should 
 fall out of Mrs. Meserve's buggy and not be no- 
 145 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 ticed ; but she hoped that Mr. Simpson was telling 
 the truth, and she was too glad and grateful to 
 doubt any one at the moment. 
 
 " Thank you, thank you ever so much, Mr. Simp- 
 son. You're the nicest, kindest, politest man I 
 ever knew, and the girls will be so pleased you gave 
 us back the flag, and so will the Dorcas Society ; 
 they'll be sure to write you a letter of thanks; 
 they always do." 
 
 "Tell 'em not to bother 'bout any thanks," said 
 Simpson, beaming virtuously. " But land ! I 'm 
 glad 'twas me that happened to see that bundle 
 in the road and take the trouble to pick it up." 
 ("Jest to think of it's bein' a flag!" he thought; 
 " if ever there was a pesky, wuthless thing to trade 
 off, 't would be a great, gormin' flag like that ! ") 
 
 " Can I get out now, please ? " asked Rebecca. 
 "I want to go back, for Mrs. Meserve will be 
 dreadfully nervous when she finds out she dropped 
 the flag, and she has heart trouble." 
 
 "No, you don't," objected Mr. Simpson gallantly, 
 turning the horse. " Do you think I 'd let a little 
 creeter like you lug that great heavy bundle? I 
 hain't got time to go back to Meserve's, but I '11 
 take you to the corner and dump you there, flag 'n' 
 all, and you can get some o' the men-folks to carry 
 it the rest o' the way. You '11 wear it out, huggin' 
 it so ! " 
 
 146 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 " I helped make it and I adore it ! " said Rebecca, 
 who was in a high-pitched and grandiloquent mood. 
 " Why don't you like it ? It 's your country's flag." 
 
 Simpson smiled an indulgent smile and looked a 
 trifle bored at these frequent appeals to his ex- 
 tremely rusty higher feelings. 
 
 " I don' know 's I 've got any partic'lar int'rest 
 in the country," he remarked languidly. " I know 
 I don't owe nothin' to it, nor own nothin' in 
 it!" 
 
 " You own a star on the flag, same as everybody," 
 argued Rebecca, who had been feeding on patriot- 
 ism for a month ; " and you own a state, too, like 
 all of us ! " 
 
 " Land ! I wish 't I did ! or even a quarter sec- 
 tion ! " sighed Mr. Simpson, feeling somehow a 
 little more poverty-stricken and discouraged than 
 usual. 
 
 As they approached the corner and the water- 
 ing-trough where four cross-roads met, the whole 
 neighborhood seemed to be in evidence, and Mr. 
 Simpson suddenly regretted his chivalrous escort 
 of Rebecca; especially when, as he neared the 
 group, an excited lady, wringing her hands, turned 
 out to be Mrs. Peter Meserve, accompanied by 
 Huldah, the Browns, Mrs. Milliken, Abijah Flagg, 
 and Miss Dearborn. 
 
 "Do you know anything about the new flag, 
 147 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Rebecca?" shrieked Mrs. Meserve, too agitated, 
 at the moment, to notice the child's companion. 
 
 " It 's right here in my lap, all safe," responded 
 Rebecca joyously. 
 
 "You careless, meddlesome young one, to take 
 it off my steps where I left it just long enough to 
 go round to the back and hunt up my door-key ! 
 You 've given me a fit of sickness with my weak 
 heart, and what business was it of yours ? I believe 
 you think you own the flag ! Hand it over to me 
 this minute ! " 
 
 Rebecca was climbing down during this torrent 
 of language, but as she turned she flashed one look 
 of knowledge at the false Simpson, a look that 
 went through him from head to foot, as if it were 
 carried by electricity. 
 
 He had not deceived her after all, owing to the 
 angry chatter of Mrs. Meserve. He had been hand- 
 cuffed twice in his life, but no sheriff had ever dis- 
 comfited him so thoroughly as this child. Fury 
 mounted to his brain, and as soon as she was safely 
 out from between the wheels he stood up in the 
 wagon and flung the flag out in the road in the 
 midst of the excited group. 
 
 "Take it, you pious, passimonious, cheese-parin', 
 hair-splittin', back-bitin', flag-raisin' crew ! " he 
 roared. " Rebecca never took the flag ; I found it 
 in the road, I say ! " 
 
 148 
 
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS 
 
 " You never, no such a thing ! " exclaimed Mrs. 
 Meserve. " You found it on the doorsteps in my 
 garden ! " 
 
 " Mebbe 't was your garden, but it was so chock 
 full o' weeds I thought 't was the road," retorted 
 Abner. " I vow I would n't 'a' given the old rag 
 back to one o' you, not if you begged me on your 
 bended knees ! But Rebecca 's a friend o' my folks 
 and can do with her flag 's she 's a mind to, and the 
 rest o' ye can go to thunder — 'n' stay there, for 
 all I care ! " 
 
 So saying, he made a sharp turn, gave the gaunt 
 white horse a lash and disappeared in a cloud of 
 dust, before the astonished Mr. Brown, the only 
 man in the party, had a thought of detaining him. 
 
 " I 'm sorry I spoke so quick, Rebecca," said 
 Mrs. Meserve, greatly mortified at the situation. 
 " But don't you believe a word that lyin' critter 
 said ! He did steal it off my doorstep, and how did 
 you come to be ridin' and consortin' with him ? I 
 believe it would kill your Aunt Miranda if she 
 should hear about it! " 
 
 The little school-teacher put a sheltering arm 
 round Rebecca as Mr. Brown picked up the flag 
 and dusted and folded it. 
 
 "I 'm willing she should hear about it," Rebecca 
 answered. " I did n't do anything to be ashamed 
 of ! I saw the flag in the back of Mr. Simpson's 
 149 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 wagon and I just followed it. There weren't any 
 men or any Dorcases to take care of it and so it 
 fell to me ! You would n't have had me let it out 
 of my sight, would you, and we going to raise it 
 to-morrow morning ? " 
 
 " Rebecca 's perfectly right, Mrs. Meserve ! " 
 said Miss Dearborn proudly. " And it 's lucky 
 there was somebody quick-witted enough to ' ride 
 and consort ' with Mr. Simpson ! I don't know what 
 the village will think, but seems to me the town 
 clerk might write down in his book, ' This day the 
 State of Maine saved the flag /'" 
 
Sixth Chronicle 
 THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL 
 
 THE foregoing episode, if narrated in a 
 romance, would undoubtedly have been 
 called *'The Saving of the Colors," but 
 at the nightly conversazione in Watson's store it 
 was alluded to as the way little Becky Randall got 
 the flag away from Slippery Simpson. 
 
 Dramatic as it was, it passed into the limbo 
 of half-forgotten things in Rebecca's mind, its 
 brief importance submerged in the glories of the 
 next day. 
 
 There was a painful prelude to these glories. 
 Alice Robinson came to spend the night with 
 Rebecca, and when the bedroom door closed upon 
 the two girls, Alice announced her intention of 
 "doing up" Rebecca's front hair in leads and 
 rags, and braiding the back in six tight, wetted 
 braids. 
 
 Rebecca demurred. Alice persisted. 
 
 "Your hair is so long and thick and dark and 
 straight," she said, " that you '11 look like an In- 
 jun!" 
 
 I5i 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 "I am the State of Maine; it all belonged to 
 the Indians once," Rebecca remarked gloomily, 
 for she was curiously shy about discussing her per- 
 sonal appearance. 
 
 "And your wreath of little pine-cones won't set 
 decent without crimps," continued Alice. 
 
 Rebecca glanced in the cracked looking-glass 
 and met what she considered an accusing lack of 
 beauty, a sight that always either saddened or en- 
 raged her according to circumstances ; then she 
 sat down resignedly and began to help Alice in 
 the philanthropic work of making the State of 
 Maine fit to be seen at the raising. 
 
 Neither of the girls was an expert hairdresser, 
 and at the end of an hour, when the sixth braid 
 was tied, and Rebecca had given one last shudder- 
 ing look in the mirror, both were ready to weep 
 with fatigue. 
 
 The candle was blown out and Alice soon went 
 to sleep, but Rebecca tossed on her pillow, its 
 goose-feathered softness all dented by the cruel 
 lead knobs and the knots of twisted rags. She 
 slipped out of bed and walked to and fro, holding 
 her aching head with both hands. Finally she leaned 
 on the window-sill, watching the still weather-vane 
 on Alice's barn and breathing in the fragrance of 
 the ripening apples, until her restlessness subsided 
 under the clear starry beauty of the night. 
 152 
 
THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL 
 
 At six in the morning the girls were out of bed, 
 for Alice could hardly wait until Rebecca's hair 
 was taken down, she was so eager to see the result 
 of her labors. 
 
 The leads and rags were painfully removed, to- 
 gether with much hair, the operation being punctu- 
 ated by a series of squeaks, squeals, and shrieks on 
 the part of Rebecca and a series of warnings from 
 Alice, who wished the preliminaries to be kept 
 secret from the aunts, that they might the more 
 fully appreciate the radiant result. 
 
 Then came the unbraiding, and then — dramatic 
 moment — the "combing out ;" a difficult, not to 
 say impossible process, in which the hairs that had 
 resisted the earlier stages almost gave up the 
 ghost. 
 
 The long front strands had been wound up from 
 various angles and by various methods, so that, when 
 released, they assumed the strangest, most obsti- 
 nate, most unexpected attitudes. When the comb 
 was dragged through the last braid, the wild, tor- 
 tured, electric hairs following, and then rebounding 
 from it in a bristling, snarling tangle, Massachu- 
 setts gave one encompassing glance at the State 
 o' Maine's head, and announced her intention of 
 going home to breakfast ! She was deeply grieved 
 at the result of her attempted beautifying, but she 
 felt that meeting Miss Miranda Sawyer at the morn- 
 153 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 ing meal would not mend matters in the least, so 
 slipping out of the side door, she ran up Guide- 
 Board hill as fast as her legs could carry her. 
 
 The State o' Maine, deserted and somewhat un- 
 nerved, sat down before the glass and attacked her 
 hair doggedly and with set lips, working over it 
 until Miss Jane called her to breakfast ; then, with 
 a boldness born of despair, she entered the dining- 
 room, where her aunts were already seated at ta- 
 ble. To " draw fire " she whistled, a forbidden joy, 
 which only attracted more attention, instead of di- 
 verting it. There was a moment of silence after 
 the grotesque figure was fully taken in ; then came 
 a moan from Jane and a groan from Miranda. 
 
 "What have you done to yourself?" asked Mi- 
 randa sternly. 
 
 " Made an effort to be beautiful and failed ! " 
 jauntily replied Rebecca, but she was too miserable 
 to keep up the fiction. " Oh, Aunt Miranda, don't 
 scold. I 'm so unhappy ! Alice and I rolled up my 
 hair to curl it for the raising. She said it was so 
 straight I looked like an Indian ! " 
 
 "Mebbe you did," vigorously agreed Miranda, 
 " but 't any rate you looked like a Christian Injun, 
 'n' now you look like a heathen Injun ; that 's all 
 the difference I can see. What can we do with her, 
 Jane, between this and nine o'clock ? " 
 
 "We'll all go out to the pump just as soon as 
 154 
 
THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL 
 
 we 're through breakfast," answered Jane sooth- 
 ingly. " We can accomplish consid'rable with wa- 
 ter and force." 
 
 Rebecca nibbled her corn-cake, her tearful eyes 
 cast on her plate and her chin quivering. 
 
 " Don't you cry and red your eyes up," chided 
 Miranda quite kindly ; " the minute you 've eat 
 enough run up and get your brush and comb and 
 meet us at the back door." 
 
 " I would n't care myself how bad I looked," said 
 Rebecca, " but I can't bear to be so homely that I 
 shame the State of Maine ! " 
 
 Oh, what an hour followed this plaint ! Did any 
 aspirant for literary or dramatic honors ever pass 
 to fame through such an antechamber of horrors ? 
 Did poet of the day ever have his head so mal- 
 treated ? To be dipped in the rain-water tub, soused 
 again and again ; to be held under the spout and 
 pumped on ; to be rubbed furiously with rough 
 roller towels ; to be dried with hot flannels ! And 
 is it not well-nigh incredible that at the close of 
 such an hour the ends of the long hair should still 
 stand out straight, the braids having been turned 
 up two inches by Alice, and tied hard in that posi- 
 tion with linen thread ? 
 
 " Get out the skirt-board, Jane," cried Miranda, to 
 whom opposition served as a tonic, " and move that 
 flat-iron on to the front o' the stove. Rebecca, set 
 155 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 down in that low chair beside the board, and Jane, 
 you spread out her hair on it and cover it up with 
 brown paper. Don't cringe, Rebecca ; the worst 's 
 over, and you 've borne up real good ! I '11 be care- 
 ful not to pull your hair nor scorch you, and oh, how 
 I 'd like to have Alice Robinson acrost my knee 
 and a good strip o' shingle in my right hand ! 
 There, you 're all ironed out and your Aunt Jane 
 can put on your white dress and braid your hair up 
 again good and tight. Perhaps you won't be the 
 hombliest of the States, after all ; but when I see 
 you comin' in to breakfast I said to myself : ' I guess 
 if Maine looked like that, it would n't never 'a' been 
 admitted into the Union ! ' " 
 
 When Uncle Sam and the stagecoach drew up 
 to the brick house with a grand swing and a flourish, 
 the Goddess of Liberty and most of the States were 
 already in their places on the " harricane deck." 
 
 Words fail to describe the gallant bearing of the 
 horses, their headstalls gayly trimmed and their 
 harnesses dotted with little flags. The stage win- 
 dows were hung in bunting, and from within beamed 
 Columbia, looking out from the bright frame as 
 if proud of her freight of loyal children. Patriotic 
 streamers floated from whip, from dash-board and 
 from rumble, and the effect of the whole was some- 
 thing to stimulate the most phlegmatic voter. 
 
 Rebecca came out on the steps and Aunt Jane 
 156 
 
THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL 
 
 brought a chair to assist in the ascent. Miss Dear- 
 born peeped from the window, and gave a despair- 
 ing look at her favorite. 
 
 What had happened to her ? Who had dressed 
 her ? Had her head been put through a wringing- 
 machine ? Why were her eyes red and swollen ? 
 Miss Dearborn determined to take her behind the 
 trees in the pine grove and give her some finishing 
 touches ; touches that her skillful fingers fairly 
 itched to bestow. 
 
 The stage started, and as the roadside pageant 
 grew gayer and gayer, Rebecca began to brighten 
 and look prettier, for most of her beautifying came 
 from within. The people, walking, driving, or 
 standing on their doorsteps, cheered Uncle Sam's 
 coach with its freight of gossamer-muslined, flutter- 
 ing-ribboned girls, and just behind, the gorgeously 
 decorated haycart, driven by Abijah Flagg, bearing 
 the jolly but inharmonious fife-and-drum corps. 
 
 Was ever such a golden day ! Such crystal air ! 
 Such mellow sunshine ! Such a merry Uncle Sam ! 
 
 The stage drew up at an appointed spot near a 
 pine grove, and while the crowd was gathering, 
 the children waited for the hour to arrive when 
 they should march to the platform ; the hour 
 toward which they seemed to have been moving 
 since the dawn of creation. 
 
 As soon as possible Miss Dearborn whispered to 
 157 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Rebecca : " Come behind the trees with me ; I 
 want to make you prettier ! " 
 
 Rebecca thought she had suffered enough from 
 that process already during the last twelve hours, 
 but she put out an obedient hand and the two 
 withdrew. 
 
 Now Miss Dearborn was, I fear, a very indif- 
 ferent teacher. Dr. Moses always said so, and 
 Libbie Moses, who wanted her school, said it was 
 a pity she had n't enjoyed more social advantages 
 in her youth. Libbie herself had taken music 
 lessons in Portland ; had spent a night at the 
 Profile House in the White Mountains, and had 
 visited her sister in Lowell, Massachusetts. These 
 experiences gave her, in her own mind, and in the 
 mind of her intimate friends, a horizon so bound- 
 less that her view of smaller, humbler matters was 
 a trifle distorted. 
 
 Miss Dearborn's stock in trade was small, her 
 principal virtues being devotion to children and 
 ability to gain their love, and a power of evolving 
 a schoolroom order so natural, cheery, serene, and 
 peaceful that it gave the beholder a certain sense 
 of being in a district heaven. She was poor in arith- 
 metic and weak in geometry, but if you gave her a 
 rose, a bit of ribbon, and a seven-by-nine looking- 
 glass she could make herself as pretty as a pink in 
 two minutes. 
 
 158 
 
THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL 
 
 Safely sheltered behind the pines, Miss Dear- 
 born began to practice mysterious feminine arts. 
 She flew at Rebecca's tight braids, opened the 
 strands and rebraided them loosely ; bit and tore 
 the red, white, and blue ribbon in two and tied 
 the braids separately. Then with nimble fingers 
 she pulled out little tendrils of hair behind the 
 ears and around the nape of the neck. After a 
 glance of acute disapproval directed at the stiff 
 balloon skirt she knelt on the ground and gave a 
 strenuous embrace to Rebecca's knees, murmur- 
 ing, between her hugs, " Starch must be cheap at 
 the brick house ! " 
 
 This particular line of beauty attained, there en- 
 sued great pinchings of ruffles ; her fingers that 
 could never hold a ferrule nor snap children's ears 
 being incomparable fluting-irons. 
 
 Next the sash was scornfully untied and tight- 
 ened to suggest something resembling a waist 
 The chastened bows that had been squat, dowdy, 
 spiritless, were given tweaks, flirts, bracing little 
 pokes and dabs, till, acknowledging a master hand, 
 they stood up, piquant, pert, smart, alert ! 
 
 Pride of bearing was now infused into the flat- 
 tened lace at the neck, and a pin (removed at some 
 sacrifice from her own toilette) was darned in at the 
 back to prevent any cowardly lapsing. The short 
 white cotton gloves that called attention to the 
 159 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 tanned wrist and arms were stripped off and put in 
 her own pocket. Then the wreath of pine-cones was 
 adjusted at a heretofore unimagined angle, the hair 
 was pulled softly into a fluffy frame, and finally, as 
 she met Rebecca's grateful eyes she gave her two 
 approving, triumphant kisses. In a second the 
 sensitive face lighted into happiness ; pleased dim- 
 ples appeared in the cheeks, the kissed mouth was 
 as red as a rose, and the little fright that had walked 
 behind the pine-tree stepped out on the other side 
 Rebecca the lovely. 
 
 As to the relative value of Miss Dearborn's ac- 
 complishments, the decision must be left to the 
 gentle reader; but though it is certain that children 
 should be properly grounded in mathematics, no 
 heart of flesh could bear to hear Miss Dearborn's 
 methods vilified who had seen her patting, pulling, 
 squeezing Rebecca from ugliness into beauty. 
 
 The young superintendent of district schools was 
 a witness of the scene, and when later he noted the 
 children surrounding Columbia as bees a honey- 
 suckle, he observed to Dr. Moses : " She may not 
 be much of a teacher, but I think she 'd be consid- 
 erable of a wife ! " and subsequent events proved 
 that he meant what he said ! 
 
 160 
 
THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL 
 
 ii 
 
 Now all was ready ; the moment of fate was ab- 
 solutely at hand ; the fife-and-drum corps led the 
 way and the States followed ; but what actually 
 happened Rebecca never knew ; she lived through 
 the hours in a waking dream. Every little detail 
 was a facet of light that reflected sparkles, and 
 among them all she was fairly dazzled. The brass 
 band played inspiring strains; the mayor spoke 
 eloquently on great themes ; the people cheered ; 
 then the rope on which so much depended was put 
 into the children's hands, they applied superhuman 
 strength to their task, and the flag mounted, 
 mounted, smoothly and slowly, and slowly unwound 
 and stretched itself until its splendid size and 
 beauty were revealed against the maples and pines 
 and blue New England sky. 
 
 Then after cheers upon cheers and after a patri- 
 otic chorus by the church choirs, the State of Maine 
 mounted the platform, vaguely conscious that she 
 was to recite a poem, though for the life of her she 
 could not remember a single word. 
 
 " Speak up loud and clear, Rebecky," whispered 
 Uncle Sam in the front row, but she could scarcely 
 hear her own voice when, tremblingly, she began 
 her first line. After that she gathered strength and 
 the poem "said itself," while the dream went on. 
 161 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 She saw Adam Ladd leaning against a tree ; Aunt 
 Jane and Aunt Miranda palpitating with nervous- 
 ness; Clara Belle Simpson gazing cross-eyed but 
 adoring from a seat on the side ; and in the far, far 
 distance, on the very outskirts of the crowd, a tall 
 man standing in a wagon — a tall, loose-jointed 
 man with red upturned mustaches, and a gaunt 
 white horse headed toward the Acreville road. 
 
 Loud applause greeted the State of Maine, the 
 slender little white-clad figure standing on the mossy 
 boulder that had been used as the centre of the 
 platform. The sun came up from behind a great 
 maple and shone full on the star-spangled banner, 
 making it more dazzling than ever, so that its 
 beauty drew all eyes upward. 
 
 Abner Simpson lifted his vagrant shifting gaze 
 to its softly fluttering folds and its splendid mass- 
 ing of colors, thinking : — 
 
 " I don't know 's anybody 'd ought to steal a flag 
 — the thunderin' idjuts seem to set such store by 
 it, and What is it, anyway? Nothin' but a sheet o' 
 buntin' ! " 
 
 Nothing but a sheet of bunting ? He looked cu- 
 riously at the rapt faces of the mothers, their babies 
 asleep in their arms ; the parted lips and shining 
 eyes of the white-clad girls ; at Cap'n Lord, who 
 had been in Libby prison, and Nat Strout, who had 
 left an arm at Bull Run ; at the friendly, jostling 
 
 162 
 
THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL 
 
 crowd of farmers, happy, eager, absorbed, their 
 throats ready to burst with cheers. Then the 
 breeze served, and he heard Rebecca's clear voice 
 saying : — 
 
 " For it 's your star, my star, all the stars together, 
 That make our country's flag so proud 
 To float in the bright fall weather ! " 
 
 " Talk about stars ! She 's got a couple of 'em 
 right in her head," thought Simpson. ... "If I 
 ever seen a young one like that lyin' on anybody's 
 doorstep I 'd hook her quicker 'n a wink, though 
 I 've got plenty to home, the Lord knows ! And 
 I wouldn't swap her off neither. . . . Spunky little 
 creeter, too ; settin' up in the wagon lookin' 'bout 's 
 big as a pint o' cider, but keepin' right after the 
 goods ! . . . I vow I 'm 'bout sick o' my job ! Never 
 with the crowd, allers jest on the outside, 's if I 
 wa'n't as good 's they be ! If it paid well, mebbe I 
 would n't mind, but they 're so thunderin' stingy 
 round here, they don't leave anything decent out 
 for you to take from 'em, yet you're reskin' your 
 liberty 'n' reputation jest the same! . . . Countin' 
 the poor pickin's 'n' the time I lose in jail I might 
 most 's well be done with it 'n' work out by the day, 
 as the folks want me to; I 'd make 'bout 's much, 
 'n' I don' know's it would be any harder! " 
 
 He could see Rebecca stepping down from the 
 platform, while his own red-headed little girl stood 
 163 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 up on her bench, waving her hat with one hand, her 
 handkerchief with the other, and stamping with 
 both feet. 
 
 Now a man sitting beside the mayor rose from 
 his chair and Abner heard him call : — 
 
 "Three cheers for the women who made the 
 flag!" 
 
 " Hip, hip, hurrah ! " 
 
 " Three cheers for the State of Maine ! " 
 
 " Hip, hip, hurrah ! " 
 
 "Three cheers for the girl that saved the flag 
 from the hands of the enemy ! " 
 
 " Hip, hip, hurrah ! Hip, hip, hurrah ! " 
 
 It was the Edgewood minister, whose full, vibrant 
 voice was of the sort to move a crowd. His words 
 rang out into the clear air and were carried from 
 lip to lip. Hands clapped, feet stamped, hats 
 swung, while the loud huzzahs might almost have 
 wakened the echoes on old Mount Ossipee. 
 
 The tall, loose-jointed man sat down in the wagon 
 suddenly and took up the reins. 
 
 "They're gettin' a little mite personal, and I guess 
 it 's 'bout time for you to be goin', Simpson ! " 
 
 The tone was jocular, but the red mustaches 
 drooped, and the half-hearted cut he gave to start 
 the white mare on her homeward journey showed 
 that he was not in his usual devil-may-care mood. 
 
 " Durn his skin ! " he burst out in a vindictive 
 164 
 
THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL 
 
 undertone, as the mare swung into her long gait. 
 " It 's a lie ! I thought 't was somebody's wash ! I 
 hain't an enemy ! " 
 
 While the crowd at the raising dispersed in happy 
 family groups to their picnics in the woods ; while 
 the Goddess of Liberty, Uncle Sam, Columbia, and 
 the proud States lunched grandly in the Grange 
 hall with distinguished guests and scarred veterans 
 of two wars, the lonely man drove, and drove, and 
 drove through silent woods and dull, sleepy vil- 
 lages, never alighting to replenish his wardrobe 
 or his stock of swapping material. 
 
 At dusk he reached a miserable tumble-down 
 house on the edge of a pond. 
 
 The faithful wife with the sad mouth and the 
 habitual look of anxiety in her faded eyes came to 
 the door at the sound of wheels and went doggedly 
 to the horse-shed to help him unharness. 
 
 "You didn't expect to see me back to-night, did 
 ye ? " he asked satirically ; " leastwise not with this 
 same horse ? Well, I 'm here ! You need n't be 
 scairt to look under the wagon-seat, there hain't 
 nothin' there, not even my supper, so I hope you 're 
 suited for once ! No, I guess I hain't goin' to be 
 an angel right away, neither. There wa'n't nothin' 
 but flags layin' roun* loose down Riverboro way, 'n' 
 whatever they say, I hain't sech a hound as to steal 
 a flag ! " 
 
 165 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 It was natural that young Riverboro should have 
 red, white, and blue dreams on the night after the 
 new flag was raised. A stranger thing, perhaps, is 
 the fact that Abner Simpson should lie down on 
 his hard bed with the flutter of bunting before his 
 eyes, and a whirl of unaccustomed words in his 
 mind. 
 
 " For it 's your star, my star, all our stars together." 
 
 " I 'm sick of goin' it alone," he thought ; " I 
 guess I '11 try the other road for a spell; " and with 
 that he fell asleep. 
 
Seventh Chronicle 
 THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 I GUESS York County will never get red of 
 that Simpson crew ! " exclaimed Miranda Saw- 
 yer to Jane. " I thought when the family 
 moved to Acreville we 'd seen the last of 'em, but 
 we ain't ! The big, cross-eyed, stutterin' boy has 
 got a place at the mills in Maplewood ; that 's near 
 enough to come over to Riverboro once in a while 
 of a Sunday mornin' and set in the meetin' house 
 starin' at Rebecca same as he used to do, only it 's 
 reskier now both of 'em are older. Then Mrs. Fogg 
 must go and bring back the biggest girl to help her 
 take care of her baby, — as if there wa'n't plenty of 
 help nearer home ! Now I hear say that the young- 
 est twin has come to stop the summer with the 
 Cames up to Edgewood Lower Corner." 
 
 " I thought two twins were always the same 
 age," said Rebecca reflectively, as she came into 
 the kitchen with the milk pail. 
 
 " So they be," snapped Miranda, flushing and 
 correcting herself. " But that pasty-faced Simpson 
 twin looks younger and is smaller than the other 
 167 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 one. He 's meek as Moses and the other one is as 
 bold as a brass kettle ; I don't see how they come 
 to be twins ; they ain't a mite alike." 
 
 " Elijah was always called the ' fighting twin ' 
 at school," said Rebecca, "and Elisha's other name 
 was Namby-Pamby ; but I think he 's a nice little 
 boy, and I 'm glad he has come back. He won't 
 like living with Mr. Came, but he '11 be almost next 
 door to the minister's, and Mrs. Baxter is sure to 
 let him play in her garden." 
 
 " I wonder why the boy 's stayin* with Cassius 
 Came," said Jane. " To be sure they have n't got 
 any of their own, but the child 's too young to be 
 much use." 
 
 "I know why," remarked Rebecca promptly, 
 " for I heard all about it over to Watson's when I 
 was getting the milk. Mr. Came traded something 
 with Mr. Simpson two years ago and got the best 
 of the bargain, and Uncle Jerry says he 's the 
 only man that ever did, and he ought to have a 
 monument put up to him. So Mr. Came owes 
 Mr. Simpson money and won't pay it, and Mr. 
 Simpson said he 'd send over a child and board 
 part of it out, and take the rest in stock — a pig or 
 a calf or something." 
 
 " That 's all stuff and nonsense," exclaimed Mi- 
 randa ; " nothin' in the world but store-talk. You 
 git a clump o' men-folks settin' round Watson's 
 168 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 stove, or out on the bench at the door, an' they '11 
 make up stories as fast as their tongues can wag. 
 The man don't live that 's smart enough to cheat 
 Abner Simpson in a trade, and who ever heard of 
 anybody's owin' him money ? 'T ain't supposable 
 that a woman like Mrs. Came would allow her hus- 
 band to be in debt to a man like Abner Simpson. 
 It 's a sight likelier that she heard that Mrs. Simp- 
 son was ailin' and sent for the boy so as to help 
 the family along. She always had Mrs. Simpson to 
 wash for her once a month, if you remember, Jane ?" 
 
 There are some facts so shrouded in obscurity 
 that the most skillful and patient investigator can- 
 not drag them into the light of day. There are 
 also (but only occasionally) certain motives, acts, 
 speeches, lines of conduct, that can never be wholly 
 and satisfactorily explained, even in a village post- 
 office or on the loafers' bench outside the tavern 
 door. 
 
 Cassius Came was a close man, close of mouth 
 and close of purse; and all that Riverboro ever 
 knew as to the three months' visit of the Simpson 
 twin was that it actually occurred. Elisha, other- 
 wise Namby-Pamby, came ; Namby-Pamby stayed ; 
 and Namby-Pamby, when he finally rejoined his 
 own domestic circle, did not go empty-handed (so 
 to speak), for he was accompanied on his home- 
 ward travels by a large, red, bony, somewhat trucu- 
 169 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 lent cow, who was tied on behind the wagon, and 
 who made the journey a lively and eventful one by 
 her total lack of desire to proceed over the road 
 from Edgewood to Acreville. But that, the cow's 
 tale, belongs to another time and place, and the 
 coward's tale must come first ; for Elisha Simpson 
 was held to be sadly lacking in the manly quality 
 of courage. 
 
 It was the new minister's wife who called Namby- 
 Pamby the Little Prophet. His full name was Elisha 
 Jeremiah Simpson, but one seldom heard it at full 
 length, since, if he escaped the ignominy of Namby- 
 Pamby, 'Lishe was quite enough for an urchin just 
 in his first trousers and those assumed somewhat 
 prematurely. He was "'Lishe," therefore, to the 
 village, but the Little Prophet to the young minis- 
 ter's wife. 
 
 Rebecca could see the Cames' brown farmhouse 
 from Mrs. Baxter's sitting-room window. The lit- 
 tle-traveled road with strips of tufted green be- 
 tween the wheel tracks curled dustily up to the 
 very doorstep, and inside the screen door of pink 
 mosquito netting was a wonderful drawn-in rug, 
 shaped like a half pie, with " Welcome " in saffron 
 letters on a green ground. 
 
 Rebecca liked Mrs. Cassius Came, who was a 
 friend of her Aunt Miranda's and one of the few 
 
 170 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 persons who exchanged calls with that somewhat 
 unsociable lady. The Came farm was not a long 
 walk from the brick house, for Rebecca could go 
 across the fields when haying-time was over, and 
 her delight at being sent on an errand in that di- 
 rection could not be measured, now that the new 
 minister and his wife had grown to be such a re- 
 source in her life. She liked to see Mrs. Came 
 shake the Welcome rug, flinging the cheery word 
 out into the summer sunshine like a bright greeting 
 to the day. She liked to see her go to the screen 
 door a dozen times in a morning, open it a crack 
 and chase an imaginary fly from the sacred pre- 
 cincts within. She liked to see her come up the 
 cellar steps into the side garden, appearing mys- 
 teriously as from the bowels of the earth, carrying 
 a shining pan of milk in both hands, and disappear- 
 ing through the beds of hollyhocks and sunflowers 
 to the pig-pen or the hen-house. 
 
 Rebecca was not fond of Mr. Came, and neither 
 was Mrs. Baxter, nor Elisha, for that matter; in 
 fact Mr. Came was rather a difficult person to 
 grow fond of, with his fiery red beard, his freckled 
 skin, and his gruff way of speaking ; for there were 
 no children in the brown house to smooth the 
 creases from his forehead or the roughness from 
 his voice. 
 
 171 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 ii 
 
 The new minister's wife was sitting under the 
 shade of her great maple early one morning, when 
 she first saw the Little Prophet. A tiny figure came 
 down the grass-grown road leading a cow by a rope. 
 If it had been a small boy and a small cow, a mid- 
 dle-sized boy and an ordinary cow, or a grown man 
 and a big cow, she might not have noticed them ; 
 but it was the combination of an infinitesimal boy 
 and a huge cow that attracted her attention. She 
 could not guess the child's years, she only knew 
 that he was small for his age, whatever it was. 
 
 The cow was a dark red beast with a crumpled 
 horn, a white star on her forehead, and a large sur- 
 prised sort of eye. She had, of course, two eyes, 
 and both were surprised, but the left one had an 
 added hint of amazement in it by virtue of a few 
 white hairs lurking accidentally in the centre of 
 the eyebrow. 
 
 The boy had a thin sensitive face and curly brown 
 hair, short trousers patched on both knees, and a 
 ragged straw hat on the back of his head. He pat- 
 tered along behind the cow, sometimes holding the 
 rope with both hands, and getting over the ground 
 in a jerky way, as the animal left him no time to 
 think of a smooth path for bare feet. 
 
 The Came pasture was a good half-mile distant, 
 172 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 and the cow seemed in no hurry to reach it ; ac- 
 cordingly she forsook the road now and then, and 
 rambled in the hollows, where the grass was sweeter 
 to her way of thinking. She started on one of these 
 exploring expeditions just as she passed the minis- 
 ter's great maple, and gave Mrs. Baxter time to call 
 out to the little fellow, " Is that your cow ? " 
 
 Elisha blushed and smiled, and tried to speak 
 modestly, but there was a quiver of pride in his 
 voice as he answered suggestively : — . 
 
 " It 's — nearly my cow." 
 
 " How is that ? " asked Mrs. Baxter. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Came says when I drive her twenty- 
 nine more times to pasture 'thout her gettin' her 
 foot over the rope or 'thout my bein' afraid, she 's 
 goin' to be my truly cow. Are you 'fraid of 
 cows ? " 
 
 " Ye-e-es," Mrs. Baxter confessed, " I am, just a 
 little. You see, I am nothing but a woman, and 
 boys can't understand how we feel about cows." 
 
 "I can ! They 're awful big things, are n't they ?" 
 
 " Perfectly enormous ! I 've always thought a 
 cow coming towards you one of the biggest things 
 in the world." 
 
 " Yes ; me, too. Don't let 's think about it. Do 
 they hook people so very often ? " 
 
 " No indeed, in fact one scarcely ever hears of 
 such a case." 
 
 173 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 " If they stepped on your bare foot they 'd 
 scrunch it, would n't they ? " 
 
 " Yes, but you are the driver ; you must n't let 
 them do that ; you are a free-will boy, and they are 
 nothing but cows." 
 
 " I know ; but p'r'aps there is free-will cows, 
 and if they just would do it you could n't help being 
 scrunched, for you must n't let go of the rope nor 
 run, Mr. Came says." 
 
 " No, of course that would never do." 
 
 " Where you used to live did all the cows go 
 down into the boggy places when you drove 'em 
 to pasture, or did some walk in the road ? " 
 
 " There were n't any cows or any pastures where 
 I used to live ; that 's what makes me so foolish ; 
 why does your cow need a rope ? " 
 
 " She don't like to go to pasture, Mr. Came says. 
 Sometimes she 'd druther stay to home, and so 
 when she gets part way she turns round and comes 
 backwards." 
 
 "Dear me!" thought Mrs. Baxter, "what be- 
 comes of this boy-mite if the cow has a spell of 
 going backwards? — Do you like to drive her?" 
 she asked. 
 
 " N-no, not erzackly ; but, you see, it '11 be my 
 cow if I drive her twenty-nine more times 'thout 
 her gettin' her foot over the rope and 'thout my 
 bein' afraid," and a beaming smile gave a transient 
 
 174 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 brightness to his harassed little face. " Will she 
 feed in the ditch much longer?" he asked. "Shall 
 I say 'Hurrap'? That's what Mr. Came says — 
 ' Hurrap /' like that, and it means to hurry up." 
 
 It was rather a feeble warning that he sounded, 
 and the cow fed on peacefully. The little fellow 
 looked up at the minister's wife confidingly, and 
 then glanced back at the farm to see if Cassius 
 Came were watching the progress of events. 
 
 " What shall we do next ? " he asked. 
 
 Mrs. Baxter delighted in that warm, cosy little 
 " we ; " it took her into the firm so pleasantly. She 
 was a weak prop indeed when it came to cows, but 
 all the courage in her soul rose to arms when Elisha 
 said, "What shall we do next ?" She became alert, 
 ingenious, strong, on the instant. 
 
 "What is the cow's name?" she asked, sitting 
 up straight in the swing-chair. 
 
 " Buttercup ; but she don't seem to know it very 
 well. She ain't a mite like a buttercup." 
 
 " Never mind ; you must shout ' Buttercup ! ' at 
 the top of your voice, and twitch the rope hard ; 
 then I '11 call, ' Hurrap ! ' with all my might at the 
 same moment. And if she starts quickly we must n't 
 run nor seem frightened ! " 
 
 They did this ; it worked to a charm, and Mrs. 
 Baxter looked affectionately after her Little Pro- 
 phet as the cow pulled him down Tory Hill. 
 175 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 The lovely August days wore on. Rebecca was 
 often at the parsonage and saw Elisha frequently, but 
 Buttercup was seldom present at their interviews, 
 as the boy now drove her to the pasture very early 
 in the morning, the journey thither being one of 
 considerable length and her method of reaching the 
 goal being exceedingly roundabout. 
 
 Mr. Came had pointed out the necessity of get- 
 ting her into the pasture at least a few minutes 
 before she had to be taken out again at night, and 
 though Rebecca did n't like Mr. Came, she saw 
 the common sense of this remark. Sometimes Mrs. 
 Baxter and Rebecca caught a glimpse of the two at 
 sundown, as they returned from the pasture to the 
 twilight milking, Buttercup chewing her peaceful 
 cud, her soft white bag of milk hanging full, her 
 surprised eye rolling in its accustomed "fine 
 frenzy." The frenzied roll did not mean anything, 
 they used to assure Elisha ; but if it did n't, it was 
 an awful pity she had to do it, Rebecca thought ; 
 and Mrs. Baxter agreed. To have an expression of 
 eye that meant murder, and yet to be a perfectly 
 virtuous and well-meaning animal, this was a 
 calamity indeed. 
 
 Mrs. Baxter was looking at the sun one evening 
 as it dropped like a ball of red fire into Wilkins's 
 Woods, when the Little Prophet passed. 
 
 " It 's the twenty-ninth night," he called joyously. 
 176 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 " I am so glad," she answered, for she had often 
 feared some accident might prevent his claiming 
 the promised reward. " Then to-morrow Buttercup 
 will be your own cow ? " 
 
 " I guess so. That 's what Mr. Came said. He 's 
 off to Acreville now, but he '11 be home to-night, 
 and father's going to send my new hat by him. 
 When Buttercup's my own cow I wish I could 
 change her name and call her Red Rover, but 
 p'r'aps her mother would n't like it. When she 
 b'longs to me, mebbe I won't be so 'fraid of gettin' 
 hooked and scrunched, because she '11 know she 's 
 mine, and she '11 go better. I have n't let her get 
 snarled up in the rope one single time, and I don't 
 show I 'm afraid, do I ? " 
 
 " I should never suspect it for an instant," said 
 Mrs. Baxter encouragingly. " I 've often envied you 
 your bold, brave look ! " 
 
 Elisha appeared distinctly pleased. "I haven't 
 cried, either, when she 's dragged me over the pas- 
 ture bars and peeled my legs. Bill Peters's little 
 brother Charlie says he ain't afraid of anything, 
 not even bears. He says he would walk right up 
 close and cuff 'em if they dared to yip ; but I ain't 
 like that ! He ain't scared of elephants or tigers 
 or lions either ; he says they 're all the same as 
 frogs or chickens to him ! " 
 
 Rebecca told her Aunt Miranda that evening 
 177 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 that it was the Prophet's twenty-ninth night, and 
 that the big red cow was to be his on the morrow. 
 "Well, I hope it'll turn out that way," she said. 
 " But I ain't a mite sure that Cassius Came will 
 give up that cow when it comes to the point. It 
 won't be the first time he 's tried to crawl out of a 
 bargain with folks a good deal bigger than 'Lisha, 
 for he 's terrible close, Cassius is. To be sure he 's 
 stiff in his joints and he 's glad enough to have a 
 boy to take the cow to the pasture in summer-time, 
 but he always has hired help when it comes har- 
 vestin'. So 'Lisha '11 be no use from this on ; and 
 I dare say the cow is Abner Simpson's anyway. 
 If you want a walk to-night, I wish you 'd go up 
 there and ask Mis' Came if she '11 lend me an' your 
 Aunt Jane half her yeast-cake. Tell her we '11 pay 
 it back when we get ours a Saturday. Don't you 
 want to take Thirza Meserve with you ? She 's 
 alone as usual while Huldy 's entertainin' beaux on 
 the side porch. Don't stay too long at the parson- 
 age ! " 
 
 III 
 
 Rebecca was used to this sort of errand, for the 
 whole village of Riverboro would sometimes be 
 rocked to the very centre of its being by simulta- 
 neous desire for a yeast-cake. As the nearest re 
 pository was a mile and a half distant, as the yeast 
 i 7 8 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 cake was valued at two cents and would n't keep, 
 as the demand was uncertain, being dependent en- 
 tirely on a fluctuating desire for "riz bread," the 
 storekeeper refused to order more than three yeast- 
 cakes a day at his own risk. Sometimes they re- 
 mained on his hands a dead loss ; sometimes eight 
 or ten persons would "hitch up" and drive from 
 distant farms for the coveted article, only to be 
 met with the fiat, " No, I 'm all out o' yeast-cake ; 
 Mis' Simmons took the last ; mebbe you can borry 
 half o' hern, she hain't much of a bread-eater." 
 
 So Rebecca climbed the hills to Mrs. Came's, 
 knowing that her daily bread depended on the 
 successful issue of the call. 
 
 Thirza was barefooted, and tough as her little 
 feet were, the long walk over the stubble fields 
 tired her. When they came within sight of the 
 Came barn, she coaxed Rebecca to take a short 
 cut through the turnips growing in long, beautifully 
 weeded rows. 
 
 " You know Mr. Came is awfully cross, Thirza, 
 and can't bear anybody to tread on his crops or 
 touch a tree or a bush that belongs to him. I 'm 
 kind of afraid, but come along and mind you step 
 softly in between the rows and hold up your petti- 
 coat, so you can't possibly touch the turnip plants. 
 I '11 do the same. Skip along fast, because then we 
 won't leave any deep footprints." 
 179 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 The children passed safely and noiselessly along, 
 their pleasure a trifle enhanced by the felt dangers 
 of their progress. Rebecca knew that they were 
 doing no harm, but that did not prevent her hoping 
 to escape the gimlet eye of Mr. Came. 
 
 As they neared the outer edge of the turnip 
 patch they paused suddenly, petticoats in air. 
 
 A great clump of elderberry bushes hid them 
 from the barn, but from the other side of the clump 
 came the sound of conversation : the timid voice 
 of the Little Prophet and the C'ruff tones of Cas- 
 sius Came. 
 
 Rebecca was afraid to interrupt, and too honest 
 to wish to overhear. She could only hope the man 
 and the boy would pass on to the house as they 
 talked, so she motioned to the paralyzed Thirza to 
 take two more steps and stand with her behind the 
 elderberry bushes. But no ! in a moment they 
 heard Mr. Came drag a stool over beside the grind- 
 stone as he said : — 
 
 "Well, now, Elisha Jeremiah, we'll talk about 
 the red cow. You say you've drove her a month, 
 do ye ? And the trade between us was that if you 
 could drive her a month, without her getting the 
 rope over her foot and without bein' afraid, you was 
 to have her. That 's straight, ain't it ? " 
 
 The Prophet's face burned with excitement, his 
 gingham shirt rose and fell as if he were breathing 
 
 1 80 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 hard, but he only nodded assent and said no- 
 thing. 
 
 "Now," continued Mr. Came, "have you made 
 out to keep the rope from under her feet ? " 
 
 " She ain't got t-t-tangled up one s-single time," 
 said Elisha, stuttering in his excitement, but 
 looking up with some courage from his bare 
 toes, with which he was assiduously threading the 
 grass. 
 
 " So far, so good. Now 'bout bein' afraid. As you 
 seem so certain of gettin' the cow, I suppose you 
 hain't been a speck scared, hev you ? Honor bright, 
 now ! " 
 
 " I — I — not but just a little mite. I " — 
 
 " Hold up a minute. Of course you did n't say 
 you was afraid, and did n't show you was afraid, and 
 nobody knew you was afraid, but that ain't the way 
 we fixed it up. You was to call the cow your 'n if 
 you could drive her to the pasture for a month 
 without beht afraid. Own up square now, hev you 
 be'n afraid?" 
 
 A long pause, then a faint, "Yes." 
 
 " Where 's your manners ? " 
 
 " I mean yes, sir." 
 
 " How often ? If it hain't be'n too many times 
 mebbe I '11 let ye off, though you 're a reg'lar girl- 
 boy, and '11 be runnin' away from the cat bimeby. 
 Has it be'n — twice ?" 
 
 181 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 " Yes," and the Little Prophet's voice was very 
 faint now, and had a decided tear in it. 
 
 " Yes what ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Has it be'n four times ? " 
 
 " Y-es, sir." More heaving of the gingham shirt. 
 
 " Well, you air a thunderin' coward ! How many 
 times? Speak up now." 
 
 More digging of the bare toes in the earth, and 
 one premonitory tear drop stealing from under the 
 downcast lids, then, — 
 
 " A little, most every day, and you can keep the 
 cow," wailed the Prophet, as he turned abruptly 
 and fled behind the shed, where he flung himself 
 into the green depths of a tansy bed, and gave 
 himself up to unmanly sobs. 
 
 Cassius Came gave a sort of shamefaced guffaw 
 at the abrupt departure of the boy, and went on 
 into the house, while Rebecca and Thirza made a 
 stealthy circuit of the barn and a polite and circum- 
 spect entrance through the parsonage front gate. 
 
 Rebecca told the minister's wife what she could 
 remember of the interview between Cassius Came 
 and Elisha Simpson, and tender-hearted Mrs. Bax- 
 ter longed to seek and comfort her Little Prophet 
 sobbing in the tansy bed, the brand of coward on 
 his forehead, and what was much worse, the fear 
 in his heart that he deserved it. 
 182 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 Rebecca could hardly be prevented from beard- 
 ing Mr. Came and openly espousing the cause of 
 Elisha, for she was an impetuous, reckless, valiant 
 creature when a weaker vessel was attacked or 
 threatened unjustly. 
 
 Mrs. Baxter acknowledged that Mr. Came had 
 been true, in a way, to his word and bargain, but 
 she confessed that she had never heard of so cruel 
 and hard a bargain since the days of Shylock, 
 and it was all the worse for being made with a 
 child. 
 
 Rebecca hurried home, her visit quite spoiled 
 and her errand quite forgotten till she reached the 
 brick-house door, where she told her aunts, with 
 her customary picturesqueness of speech, that she 
 would rather eat buttermilk bread till she died than 
 partake of food mixed with one of Mr. Came's yeast- 
 cakes ; that it would choke her, even in the shape 
 of good raised bread. 
 
 " That 's all very fine, Rebecky," said her Aunt 
 Miranda, who had a pin-prick for almost every 
 bubble ; " but don't forget there 's two other 
 mouths to feed in this house, and you might at 
 least give your aunt and me the privilege of chokin' 
 if we feel to want to ! " 
 
 183 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 IV 
 
 Mrs. Baxter finally heard from Mrs. Came, 
 through whom all information was sure to filter 
 if. you gave it time, that her husband despised 
 a coward, that he considered Elisha a regular 
 mother's-apron-string boy, and that he was " learn- 
 in' " him to be brave. 
 
 Bill Peters, the hired man, now drove Buttercup 
 to pasture, though whenever Mr. Came went to 
 Moderation or Bonnie Eagle, as he often did, Mrs. 
 Baxter noticed that Elisha took the hired man's 
 place. She often joined him on these anxious ex- 
 peditions, and, a like terror in both their souls, they 
 attempted to train the red cow and give her some 
 idea of obedience. 
 
 " If she only would n't look at us that way we 
 would get along real nicely with her, wouldn't 
 we ? " prattled the Prophet, straggling along by 
 her side; "and she is a splendid cow; she gives 
 twenty-one quarts a day, and Mr. Came says it 's 
 more 'n half cream." 
 
 The minister's wife assented to all this, thinking 
 that if Buttercup would give up her habit of turn- 
 ing completely round in the road to roll her eyes 
 and elevate her white-tipped eyebrow, she might 
 indeed be an enjoyable companion ; but in her 
 present state of development her society was not 
 184 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 agreeable, even did she give sixty-one quarts of 
 milk a day. Furthermore, when Mrs. Baxter dis- 
 covered that she never did any of these reprehen- 
 sible things with Bill Peters, she began to believe 
 cows more intelligent creatures than she had sup- 
 posed them to be, and she was indignant to think 
 Buttercup could count so confidently on the weak- 
 ness of a small boy and a timid woman. 
 
 One evening, when Buttercup was more than 
 usually exasperating, Mrs. Baxter said to the 
 Prophet, who was bracing himself to keep from 
 being pulled into a wayside brook where Buttercup 
 loved to dabble, "Elisha, do you know anything 
 about the superiority of mind over matter ? " 
 
 No, he did n't, though it was not a fair time to 
 ask the question, for he had sat down in the road 
 to get a better purchase on the rope. 
 
 " Well, it does n't signify. What I mean is that 
 we can die but once, and it is a glorious thing to 
 die for a great principle. Give me that rope. I 
 can pull like an ox in my present frame of mind. 
 You run down on the opposite side of the brook, 
 take that big stick, wade right in, — you are bare- 
 footed, — brandish the stick, and, if necessary, do 
 more than brandish. I would go myself, but it is 
 better she should recognize you as her master, and 
 I am in as much danger as you are, anyway. She 
 may try to hook you, of course, but you must keep 
 IBs 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 waving the stick, — die brandishing, Prophet, that 's 
 the idea ! She may turn and run for me, in which 
 case I shall run too ; but I shall die running, and 
 the minister can bury us under our favorite sweet- 
 apple tree ! " 
 
 The Prophet's soul was fired by the lovely lady's 
 eloquence. Their spirits mounted simultaneously, 
 and they were flushed with a splendid courage in 
 which death looked a mean and paltry thing com- 
 pared with vanquishing that cow. She had already 
 stepped into the pool, but the Prophet waded in 
 towards her, moving the alder branch menacingly. 
 She looked up with the familiar roll of the eye 
 that had done her such good service all summer, 
 but she quailed beneath the stern justice and the 
 new valor of the Prophet's gaze. 
 
 In that moment perhaps she felt ashamed of the 
 misery she had caused the helpless mite. At any 
 rate, actuated by fear, surprise, or remorse, she 
 turned and walked back into the road without a 
 sign of passion or indignation, leaving the boy and 
 the lady rather disappointed at their easy victory. 
 To be prepared for a violent death and receive 
 not even a scratch made them fear that they might 
 possibly have overestimated the danger. 
 
 They were better friends than ever after that, 
 the young minister's wife and the forlorn little boy 
 from Acreville, sent away from home he knew not 
 1 86 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 why, unless it were that there was little to eat 
 there and considerably more at the Cash Cames', as 
 they were called in Edgewood. Cassius was famil- 
 iarly known as Uncle Cash, partly because there 
 was a disposition in Edgewood to abbreviate all 
 Christian names, and partly because the old man 
 paid cash, and expected to be paid cash, for every- 
 thing. 
 
 The late summer grew into autumn, and the 
 minister's great maple flung a flaming bough of 
 scarlet over Mrs. Baxter's swing-chair. Uncle Cash 
 found Elisha very useful at picking up potatoes 
 and apples, but the boy was going back to his 
 family as soon as the harvesting was over. 
 
 One Friday evening Mrs. Baxter and Rebecca, 
 wrapped in shawls and "fascinators," were sitting 
 on Mrs. Came's front steps enjoying the sunset. 
 Rebecca was in a tremulous state of happiness, for 
 she had come directly from the Seminary at Ware- 
 ham to the parsonage, and as the minister was 
 absent at a church conference, she was to stay the 
 night with Mrs. Baxter and go with her to Portland 
 next day. 
 
 They were to go to the Islands, have ice cream 
 for luncheon, ride on a horse-car, and walk by the 
 Longfellow house, a programme that so unsettled 
 Rebecca's never very steady mind that she radiated 
 flashes and sparkles of joy, making Mrs. Baxter 
 187 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 wonder if flesh could be translucent, enabling the 
 spirit-fires within to shine through ? 
 
 Buttercup was being milked on the grassy slope 
 near the shed door. As she walked to the barn, 
 after giving up her pailfuls of yellow milk, she 
 bent her neck and snatched a hasty bite from a 
 pile of turnips lying temptingly near. In her haste 
 she took more of a mouthful than would be consid- 
 ered good manners even among cows, and as she 
 disappeared in the barn door they could see a forest 
 of green tops hanging from her mouth, while she 
 painfully attempted to grind up the mass of stolen 
 material without allowing a single turnip to escape. 
 
 It grew dark soon afterward and they went into 
 the house to see Mrs. Came's new lamp lighted for 
 the first time, to examine her last drawn-in rug 
 (a wonderful achievement produced entirely from 
 dyed flannel petticoats), and to hear the doctor's 
 wife play " Oft in the Stilly Night," on the dul- 
 cimer. 
 
 As they closed the sitting-room door opening on 
 the piazza facing the barn, the women heard the cow 
 coughing and said to one another: " Buttercup was 
 too greedy, and now she has indigestion." 
 
 Elisha always went to bed at sundown, and 
 Uncle Cash had gone to the doctor's to have his 
 hand dressed, for he had hurt it in some way in the 
 threshing-machine. Bill Peters, the hired man, came 
 
 188 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 in presently and asked for him, saying that the 
 cow coughed more and more, and it must be that 
 something was wrong, but he could not get her to 
 open her mouth wide enough for him to see any- 
 thing. "She'd up an' die ruther 'n obleege any- 
 body, that tarnal ugly cow would ! " he said. 
 
 When Uncle Cash had driven into the yard, he 
 came in for a lantern, and went directly out to the 
 barn. After a half-hour or so, in which the little 
 party had forgotten the whole occurrence, he came 
 in again. 
 
 "I 'm blamed if we ain't goin' to lose that cow," 
 he said. " Come out, will ye, Hannah, and hold the 
 lantern ? I can't do anything with my right hand 
 in a sling, and Bill is the stupidest critter in the 
 country." 
 
 Everybody went out to the barn accordingly, 
 except the doctor's wife, who ran over to her house 
 to see if her brother Moses had come home from 
 Milltown, and could come and take a hand in the 
 exercises. 
 
 Buttercup was in a bad way ; there was no doubt 
 of it. Something, one of the turnips, presumably, 
 had lodged in her throat, and would move neither 
 way, despite her attempts to dislodge it. Hei 
 breathing was labored, and her eyes bloodshot from 
 straining and choking. Once or twice they suc- 
 ceeded in getting her mouth partly open, but before 
 189 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 they could fairly discover the cause of trouble she 
 had wrested her head away. 
 
 " I can see a little tuft of green sticking straight 
 up in the middle," said Uncle Cash, while Bill 
 Peters and Moses held a lantern on each side of 
 Buttercup's head; "but, land! it's so far down, 
 and such a mite of a thing, I could n't git it, even 
 if I could use my right hand. S'pose you try, 
 Bill." 
 
 Bill hemmed and hawed, and confessed he did n't 
 care to try. Buttercup's grinders were of good size 
 and excellent quality, and he had no fancy for 
 leaving his hand within her jaws. He said he was 
 no good at that kind of work, but that he would 
 help Uncle Cash hold the cow's head ; that was 
 just as necessary, and considerable safer. 
 
 Moses was more inclined to the service of hu- 
 manity, and did his best, wrapping his wrist in a 
 cloth, and making desperate but ineffectual dabs 
 at the slippery green turnip-tops in the reluctantly 
 opened throat. But the cow tossed her head and 
 stamped her feet and switched her tail and wriggled 
 from under Bill's hands, so that it seemed alto- 
 gether impossible to reach the seat of the trouble. 
 
 Uncle Cash was in despair, fuming and fretting 
 the more because of his own crippled hand. 
 
 "Hitch up, Bill," he said, "and, Hannah, you 
 drive over to Milliken's Mills for the horse-doctor. 
 190 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 I know we can git out that turnip if we can hit on 
 the right tools and somebody to manage 'em right ; 
 but we 've got to be quick about it or the critter '11 
 choke to death, sure ! Your hand 's so clumsy, 
 Mose, she thinks her time 's come when she feels 
 it in her mouth, and your fingers are so big you 
 can't ketch holt o' that green stuff 'thout its slip- 
 pin'!" 
 
 " Mine ain't big ; let me try," said a timid voice, 
 and turning round, they saw little Elisha Simpson, 
 his trousers pulled on over his night-shirt, his curly 
 hair ruffled, his eyes vague with sleep. 
 
 Uncle Cash gave a laugh of good-humored de- 
 rision. " You — that 's afraid to drive a cow to pas- 
 ture ? No, sir ; you hain't got sand enough for this 
 job, I guess ! " 
 
 Buttercup just then gave a worse cough than 
 ever, and her eyes rolled in her head as if she were 
 giving up the ghost. 
 
 " I 'd rather do it than see her choke to death!" 
 cried the boy, in despair. 
 
 "Then, by ginger, you can try it, sonny! " said 
 Uncle Cash. " Now this time we '11 tie her head 
 up. Take it slow, and make a good job of it." 
 
 Accordingly they pried poor Buttercup's jaws 
 open to put a wooden gag between them, tied her 
 head up, and kept her as still as they could, while 
 the women held the lanterns. 
 191 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 " Now, sonny, strip up your sleeve and reach as 
 fur down 's you can ! Wind your little fingers in 
 among that green stuff stickin' up there that ain't 
 hardly big enough to call green stuff, give it a twist, 
 and pull for all you 're worth. Land ! what a skinny 
 little pipe stem ! " 
 
 The Little Prophet had stripped up his sleeve. 
 It was a slender thing, his arm ; but he had driven 
 the red cow all summer, borne her tantrums, pro- 
 tected her from the consequences of her own obsti- 
 nacy, taking (as he thought) a future owner's pride 
 in her splendid flow of milk — grown fond of her, 
 in a word, and now she was choking to death. A 
 skinny little pipe stem is capable of a deal at such 
 a time, and only a slender hand and arm could have 
 done the work. 
 
 Elisha trembled with nervousness, but he made 
 a dexterous and dashing entrance into the awful 
 cavern of Buttercup's mouth ; descended upon the 
 tiny clump of green spills or spikes, wound his little 
 fingers in among them as firmly as he could, and 
 then gave a long, steady, determined pull with all 
 the strength in his body. That was not so much 
 in itself, to be sure, but he borrowed a good deal 
 more from some reserve quarter, the location of 
 which nobody knows anything about, but upon 
 which everybody draws in time of need. 
 
 Such a valiant pull you would never have expected 
 192 
 
THE LITTLE PROPHET 
 
 of the Little Prophet. Such a pull it was that, to 
 his own utter amazement, he suddenly found him- 
 self lying flat on his back on the barn floor with a 
 very slippery something in his hand, and a fair- 
 sized but rather dilapidated turnip at the end of it. 
 
 "That 's the business ! " cried Moses. 
 
 " I could 'a' done it as easy as nothin' if my arm 
 had been a leetle mite smaller," said Bill Peters. 
 
 "You're a trump, sonny!" exclaimed Uncle 
 Cash, as he helped Moses untie Buttercup's head 
 and took the gag out. 
 
 "You're a trump, 'Lisha, and, by ginger, the 
 cow's your'n; only don't you let your blessed pa 
 drink none of her cream ! " 
 
 The welcome air rushed into Buttercup's lungs 
 and cooled her parched, torn throat. She was pretty 
 nearly spent, poor thing, and bent her head (rather 
 gently for her) over the Little Prophet's shoulder 
 as he threw his arms joyfully about her neck, and 
 whispered, " You 're my truly cow now, ain't you„ 
 Buttercup ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Baxter, dear," said Rebecca, as they walked 
 home to the parsonage together under the young 
 harvest moon; "there are all sorts of coward^, 
 are n't there, and don't you think Elisha is one of 
 the best kind." 
 
 " I don't quite know what to think about cowards, 
 Rebecca Rowena," said the minister's wife hesitat- 
 193 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 ingly. "The Little Prophet is the third coward I 
 have known in my short life who turned out to be 
 a hero when the real testing time came. Meanwhile 
 the heroes themselves — or the ones that were 
 taken for heroes — were always busy doing some- 
 thing, or being somewhere, else." 
 
Eighth Chronicle 
 ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF 
 
 REBECCA had now cut the bonds that 
 bound her to the Riverboro district school, 
 and had been for a week a full-fledged pu- 
 pil at the Wareham Seminary, towards which goal 
 she had been speeding ever since the memorable 
 day when she rode into Riverboro on the top of 
 Uncle Jerry Cobb's stagecoach, and told him that 
 education was intended to be "the making of her." 
 
 She went to and fro, with Emma Jane and the 
 other Riverboro boys and girls, on the morning and 
 evening trains that ran between the academy town 
 and Milliken's Mills. 
 
 The six days had passed like a dream ! — a dream 
 in which she sat in corners with her eyes cast down ; 
 flushed whenever she was addressed ; stammered 
 whenever she answered a question, and nearly died 
 of heart failure when subjected to an examination 
 of any sort. She delighted the committee when 
 reading at sight from " King Lear," but somewhat 
 discouraged them when she could not tell the capi- 
 tal of the United States. She admitted that her 
 195 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 former teacher, Miss Dearborn, might have men- 
 tioned it, but if so she had not remembered it. 
 
 In these first weeks among strangers she passed 
 for nothing but an interesting-looking, timid, inno- 
 cent, country child, never revealing, even to the 
 far-seeing Emily Maxwell, a hint of her originality, 
 facility, or power in any direction. Rebecca was 
 fourteen, but so slight, and under the paralyzing 
 new conditions so shy, that she would have been 
 mistaken for twelve had it not been for her gen- 
 eral advancement in the school curriculum. 
 
 Growing up in the solitude of a remote farm- 
 house, transplanted to a tiny village where she lived 
 with two elderly spinsters, she was still the veriest 
 child in all but the practical duties and responsibili- 
 ties of life ; in those she had long been a woman. 
 
 It was Saturday afternoon ; her lessons for Mon- 
 day were all learned and she burst into the brick- 
 house sitting-room with the flushed face and em- 
 barrassed mien that always foreshadowed a request. 
 Requests were more commonly answered in the 
 negative than in the affirmative at the brick house, 
 a fact that accounted for the slight confusion in 
 her demeanor. 
 
 "Aunt Miranda," she began, "the fishman says 
 
 that Clara Belle Simpson wants to see me very 
 
 much, but Mrs. Fogg can't spare her long at a 
 
 time, you know, on account of the baby being no 
 
 196 
 
ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF 
 
 better ; but Clara Belle could walk a mile up, and 
 I a mile down the road, and we could meet at the 
 pink house half way. Then we could rest and talk 
 an hour or so, and both be back in time for our 
 suppers. I 've fed the cat ; she had no appetite, as 
 it 's only two o'clock and she had her dinner at 
 noon, but she '11 go back to her saucer, and it 's off 
 my mind. I could go down cellar now and bring up 
 the cookies and the pie and doughnuts for supper 
 before I start. Aunt Jane saw no objection; but 
 we thought I 'd better ask you so as to run no 
 risks." 
 
 Miranda Sawyer, who had been patiently waiting 
 for the end of this speech, laid down her knitting 
 and raised her eyes with a half-resigned expression 
 that meant: Is there anything unusual in heaven 
 or earth or the waters under the earth that this 
 child does not want to do ? Will she ever settle 
 down to plain, comprehensible Sawyer ways, or will 
 she to the end make these sudden and radical pro- 
 positions, suggesting at every turn the irresponsi- 
 ble Randall ancestry ? 
 
 " You know well enough, Rebecca, that I don't 
 like you to be intimate with Abner Simpson's 
 young ones," she said decisively. " They ain't fit 
 company for anybody that's got Sawyer blood in 
 their veins, if it 's ever so little. I don't know, I 'm 
 sure, how you 're goin' to turn out ! The fish peddler 
 197 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 seems to be your best friend, without it's Abijah 
 Flagg that you 're everlastingly talkin' to lately. I 
 should think you'd rather read some improvin' book 
 than to be chatterin' with Squire Bean's chore-boy ! " 
 
 " He is n't always going to be a chore-boy," ex- 
 plained Rebecca, " and that 's what we 're consider- 
 ing. It 's his career we talk about, and he has n't 
 got any father or mother to advise him. Besides, 
 Clara Belle kind of belongs to the village now that 
 she lives with Mrs. Fogg ; and she was always the 
 best behaved of all the girls, either in school or 
 Sunday-school. Children can't help having fa- 
 thers ! " 
 
 " Everybody says Abner is turning over a new 
 leaf, and if so, the family 'd ought to be encouraged 
 every possible way," said Miss Jane, entering the 
 room with her mending basket in hand. 
 
 " If Abner Simpson is turnin' over a leaf, or any- 
 thin' else in creation, it 's only to see what 's on the 
 under side ! " remarked Miss Miranda promptly. 
 " Don't talk to me about new leaves ! You can't 
 change that kind of a man ; he is what he is, and 
 you can't make him no different ! " 
 
 " The grace of God can do consid'rable," ob- 
 served Jane piously. 
 
 " I ain't sayin' but it can if it sets out, but it has 
 to begin early and stay late on a man like Simp- 
 son." 
 
 198 
 
ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF 
 
 " Now, Mirandy, Abner ain't more 'n forty ! I 
 don't know what the average age for repentance 
 is in men-folks, but when you think of what an 
 awful sight of 'em leaves it to their deathbeds, 
 forty seems real kind of young. Not that I 've 
 heard Abner has experienced religion, but every- 
 body 's surprised at the good way he 's conductin' 
 this fall." 
 
 " They '11 be surprised the other way round when 
 they come to miss their firewood and apples and 
 potatoes again," affirmed Miranda. 
 
 " Clara Belle don't seem to have inherited from 
 her father," Jane ventured again timidly. "No 
 wonder Mrs. Fogg sets such store by the girl. If 
 it had n't been for her, the baby would have been 
 dead by now." 
 
 " Perhaps tryin' to save it was interferin' with 
 the Lord's will," was Miranda's retort. 
 
 "Folks can't stop to figure out just what's the 
 Lord's will when a child has upset a kettle of 
 scalding water on to himself," and as she spoke Jane 
 darned more excitedly. "Mrs. Fogg knows well 
 enough she had n't ought to have left that baby 
 alone in the kitchen with the stove, even if she did 
 see Clara Belle comin' across lots. She 'd ought to 
 have waited before drivin' off ; but of course she 
 was afraid of missing the train, and she 's too good 
 a woman to be held accountable." 
 199 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 "The minister's wife says Clara Belle is a real — 
 I can't think of the word ! " chimed in Rebecca. 
 " What 's the female of hero ? Whatever it is, that 's 
 what Mrs. Baxter called her !" 
 
 " Clara Belle 's the female of Simpson ; that 's 
 what she is," Miss Miranda asserted : " but she 's 
 been brought up to use her wits, and I ain't sayin' 
 but she used 'em." 
 
 " I should say she did ! " exclaimed Miss Jane ; 
 "to put that screaming, suffering child in the 
 baby-carriage and run all the way to the doctor's 
 when there was n't a soul on hand to advise her ! 
 Two or three more such actions would make the 
 Simpson name sound consid'rable sweeter in this 
 neighborhood." 
 
 "Simpson will always sound like Simpson to 
 me ! " vouchsafed the elder sister, " but we 've talked 
 enough about 'em an' to spare. You can go along, 
 Rebecca ; but remember that a child is known by 
 the company she keeps." 
 
 "All right, Aunt Miranda; thank you!" cried 
 Rebecca, leaping from the chair on which she had 
 been twisting nervously for five minutes. " And 
 how does this strike you ? Would you be in favor 
 of my taking Clara Belle a company-tart ? " 
 
 " Don't Mrs. Fogg feed the young one, now she 's 
 taken her right into the family ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes," Rebecca answered, "she has lovely 
 200 
 
ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF 
 
 things to eat, and Mrs. Fogg won't even let her 
 drink skim milk ; but I always feel that taking a 
 present lets the person know you 've been thinking 
 about them and are extra glad to see them. Besides, 
 unless we have company soon, those tarts will have 
 to be eaten by the family, and a new batch made ; 
 you remember the one I had when I was rewarding 
 myself last week? That was queer — but nice," 
 she added hastily. 
 
 " Mebbe you could think of something of your 
 own you could give away without taking my tarts ! " 
 responded Miranda tersely ; the joints of her armor 
 having been pierced by the fatally keen tongue of 
 her niece, who had insinuated that company-tarts 
 lasted a long time in the brick house. This was a 
 fact ; indeed, the company-tart was so named, not 
 from any idea that it would ever be eaten by guests, 
 but because it was too good for every-day use. 
 
 Rebecca's face crimsoned with shame that she 
 had drifted into an impolite and, what was worse, 
 an apparently ungrateful speech. 
 
 " I did n't mean v;o say anything not nice, Aunt 
 Miranda," she stammered. "Truly the tart was 
 splendid, but not exactly like new, that 's all. And 
 oh ! I know what I can take Clara Belle ! A few 
 chocolate drops out of the box Mr. Ladd gave me 
 on my birthday." 
 
 " You go down cellar and get that tart, same as 
 201 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 I told you," commanded Miranda, "and when you 
 fill it don't uncover a new tumbler of jelly ; there 's 
 some dried-apple preserves open that '11 do. Wear 
 your rubbers and your thick jacket. After runnin' 
 all the way down there — for your legs never seem 
 to be rigged for walkin' like other girls' — you '11 set 
 down on some damp stone or other and ketch your 
 death o' cold, an' your Aunt Jane 'n' I '11 be kep' 
 up nights nursin' you and luggin' your meals up- 
 stairs to you on a waiter." 
 
 Here Miranda leaned her head against the back 
 of her rocking-chair, dropped her knitting and 
 closed her eyes wearily ; for when the immovable 
 body is opposed by the irresistible force there is a 
 certain amount of jar and disturbance involved in 
 the operation. 
 
 Rebecca moved toward the side door, shooting 
 a questioning glance at Aunt Jane as she passed. 
 The look was full of mysterious suggestion and 
 was accompanied by an almost imperceptible ges- 
 ture. Miss Jane knew that certain articles were 
 kept in the entry closet, and by this time she had 
 become sufBciently expert in telegraphy to know 
 that Rebecca's unspoken query meant : " Could you 
 permit the hat with the red wings, it being Satur- 
 day, fine settled weather, and a pleasure excursion f" 
 
 These confidential requests, though fraught with 
 embarrassment when Miranda was in the room, 
 
 202 
 
ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF 
 
 gave Jane much secret joy ; there was something 
 about them that stirred her spinster heart — they 
 were so gay, so appealing, so un-Sawyer-, un-River- 
 boro-like. The longer Rebecca lived in the brick 
 house the more her Aunt Jane marveled at the 
 child. What made her so different from everybody 
 else. Could it be that her graceless popinjay of a 
 father, Lorenzo de Medici Randall, had bequeathed 
 her some strange combination of gifts instead of 
 fortune ? Her eyes, her brows, the color of her 
 lips, the shape of her face, as well as her ways and 
 words, proclaimed her a changeling in the Sawyer 
 tribe ; but what an enchanting changeling ; bring- 
 ing wit and nonsense and color and delight into 
 the gray monotony of the dragging years ! 
 
 There was frost in the air, but a bright, cheery 
 sun, as Rebecca walked decorously out of the brick- 
 house yard. Emma Jane Perkins was away over 
 Sunday on a visit to a cousin in Moderation ; Alice 
 Robinson and Candace Milliken were having mea- 
 sles, and Riverboro was very quiet. Still, life was 
 seldom anything but a gay adventure to Rebecca, 
 and she started afresh every morning to its con- 
 quest. She was not exacting ; the Asmodean feat 
 of spinning a sand heap into twine was, poetically 
 speaking, always in her power, so the mile walk to 
 the pink-house gate, and the tryst with freckled, 
 red-haired Clara Belle Simpson, whose face Miss 
 203 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Miranda said looked like a raw pie in a brick oven, 
 these commonplace incidents were sufficiently ex- 
 hilaratingto brighten her eye and quicken her step. 
 
 As the great bare horse-chestnut near the pink- 
 house gate loomed into view, the red linsey-woolsey 
 speck going down the road spied the blue linsey- 
 woolsey speck coming up, and both specks flew 
 over the intervening distance and, meeting, em- 
 braced each other ardently, somewhat to the injury 
 of the company-tart. 
 
 " Did n't it come out splendidly ? " exclaimed Re- 
 becca. " I was so afraid the fishman would n't tell 
 you to start exactly at two, or that one of us would 
 walk faster than the other ; but we met at the very 
 spot ! It was a very uncommon idea, was n't it ? 
 Almost romantic ! " 
 
 "And what do you think?" asked Clara Belle 
 proudly. " Look at this ! Mrs. Fogg lent me her 
 watch to come home by ! " 
 
 " Oh, Clara Belle, how wonderful ! Mrs. Fogg 
 gets kinder and kinder to you, does n't she ? You 're 
 not homesick any more, are you ? " 
 
 " No-o ; not really ; only when I remember 
 there 's only little Susan to manage the twins : 
 though they're getting on real well without me. 
 But I kind of think, Rebecca, that I 'm going to be 
 given away to the Foggs for good." 
 
 " Do you mean adopted ? " 
 204 
 
ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF 
 
 "Yes; I think father's going to sign papers. 
 You see we can't tell how many years it '11 be be- 
 fore the poor baby outgrows its burns, and Mrs. 
 Fogg '11 never be the same again, and she must 
 have somebody to help her." 
 
 " You '11 be their real daughter, then, won't you, 
 Clara Belle ? And Mr. Fogg is a deacon, and a 
 selectman, and a road commissioner, and every- 
 thing splendid." 
 
 " Yes ; I '11 have board, and clothes, and school, 
 and be named Fogg, and " (here her voice sank to 
 an awed whisper) "the upper farm if I should 
 ever get married ; Miss Dearborn told me that 
 herself, when she was persuading me not to mind 
 being given away." 
 
 " Clara Belle Simpson ! " exclaimed Rebecca in 
 a transport. " Who 'd have thought you 'd be a 
 female hero and an heiress besides? It's just like 
 a book story, and it happened in Riverboro. I '11 
 make Uncle Jerry Cobb allow there can be River- 
 boro stories, you see if I don't." 
 
 "Of course I know it's all right," Clara Belle 
 replied soberly. " I '11 have a good home and father 
 can't keep us all ; but it 's kind of dreadful to be 
 given away, like a piano or a horse and carriage ! " 
 
 Rebecca's hand went out sympathetically to Clara 
 Belle's freckled paw. Suddenly her own face clouded 
 and she whispered: — 
 
 205 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 " I 'm not sure, Clara Belle, but I 'm given away 
 too — do you s'pose I am ? Poor father left us in 
 debt, you see. I thought I came away from Sunny- 
 brook to get an education and then help pay off the 
 mortgage ; but mother does n't say anything about 
 my coming back, and our family 's one of those too- 
 big ones, you know, just like yours." 
 
 " Did your mother sign papers to your aunts ? " 
 
 " If she did I never heard anything about it ; 
 but there 's something pinned on to the mortgage 
 that mother keeps in the drawer of the bookcase." 
 
 "You'd know it if 'twas adoption papers; I 
 guess you 're just lent," Clara Belle said cheeringly. 
 " I don't believe anybody 'd ever give you away ! 
 And, oh ! Rebecca, father 's getting on so well ! 
 He works on Daly's farm where they raise lots of 
 horses and cattle, too, and he breaks all the young 
 colts and trains them, and swaps off the poor ones, 
 and drives all over the country. Daly told Mr. 
 Fogg he was splendid with stock, and father says 
 it's just like play. He's sent home money three 
 Saturday nights." 
 
 " I 'm so glad ! " exclaimed Rebecca sympatheti- 
 cally. " Now your mother '11 have a good time and 
 a black silk dress, won't she ? " 
 
 " I don't know," sighed Clara Belle, and her voice 
 was grave. " Ever since I can remember she 's just 
 washed and cried and cried and washed. Miss 
 206 
 
ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF 
 
 Dearborn has been spending her vacation up to 
 Acreville, you know, and she came yesterday to 
 board next door to Mrs. Fogg's. I heard them 
 talking last night when I was getting the baby to 
 sleep — I couldn't help it, they were so close — 
 and Miss Dearborn said mother doesn't like Acre- 
 ville ; she says nobody takes any notice of her, and 
 they don't give her any more work. Mrs. Fogg said, 
 well, they were dreadful stiff and particular up that 
 way and they liked women to have wedding-rings." 
 
 " Has n't your mother got a wedding-ring ? " 
 asked Rebecca, astonished. "Why, I thought every- 
 body had to have them, just as they do sofas and 
 a kitchen stove ! " 
 
 " I never noticed she did n't have one, but when 
 they spoke I remembered mother's hands washing 
 and wringing, and she does n't wear one, I know. 
 She hasn't got any jewelry, not even a breast- 
 pin. 
 
 "Well," and Rebecca's tone was somewhat cen- 
 sorious, "your father's been so poor perhaps he 
 could n't afford breast-pins, but I should have 
 thought he 'd have given your mother a wedding- 
 ring when they were married ; that 's the time to 
 do it, right at the very first." 
 
 " They did n't have any real church dress-up wed- 
 ding," explained Clara Belle extenuatingly. " You 
 see the first mother, mine, had the big boys and 
 207 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 me, and then she died when we were little. Then 
 after a while this mother came to housekeep, and she 
 stayed, and by and by she was Mrs. Simpson, and 
 Susan and the twins and the baby are hers, and she 
 and father did n't have time for a regular wedding 
 in church. They don't have veils and bridesmaids 
 and refreshments round here like Miss Dearborn's 
 sister did." 
 
 " Do they cost a great deal — wedding-rings ? " 
 asked Rebecca thoughtfully. " They 're solid gold, 
 so I s'pose they do. If they were cheap we might 
 buy one. I 've got seventy-four cents saved up ; 
 how much have you ? " 
 
 "Fifty-three," Clara Belle responded, in a depress- 
 ing tone; "and anyway there are no stores nearer 
 than Milltown. We 'd have to buy it secretly, for I 
 wouldn't make father angry, or shame his pride, 
 now he 's got steady work ; and mother would know 
 I had spent all my savings." 
 
 Rebecca looked nonplussed. " I declare," she 
 said, " I think the Acreville people must be per- 
 fectly horrid not to call on your mother only be- 
 cause she hasn't got any jewelry. You would n't 
 dare tell your father what Miss Dearborn heard, 
 so he 'd save up and buy the ring ? " 
 
 "No ; I certainly would not ! " and Clara Belle's 
 lips closed tightly and decisively. 
 
 Rebecca sat quietly for a few moments, then she 
 208 
 
ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF 
 
 exclaimed jubilantly : " I know where we could 
 get it ! From Mr. Aladdin, and then I need n't tell 
 him who it 's for ! He's coming to stay over to- 
 morrow with his aunt, and I '11 ask him to buy a 
 ring for us in Boston. I won't explain anything, 
 you know ; I '11 just say I need a wedding-ring." 
 
 " That would be perfectly lovely," replied Clara 
 Belle, a look of hope dawning in her eyes ; " and 
 we can think afterwards how to get it over to 
 mother. Perhaps you could send it to father in- 
 stead, but I would n't dare to do it myself. You 
 won't tell anybody, Rebecca ? " 
 
 "Cross my heart!" Rebecca exclaimed dramati- 
 cally ; and then with a reproachful look, "you know 
 I could n't repeat a sacred secret like that ! Shall 
 we meet next Saturday afternoon, and I tell you 
 what 's happened ? — Why, Clara Belle, is n't that 
 Mr. Ladd watering his horse at the foot of the hill 
 this very minute ? It is ; and he 's driven up from 
 Milltown 'stead of coming on the train from Boston 
 to Edgewood. He 's all alone, and I can ride home 
 with him and ask him about the ring right away ! " 
 
 Clara Belle kissed Rebecca fervently, and started 
 on her homeward walk, while Rebecca waited at 
 the top of the long hill, fluttering her handkerchief 
 as a signal. 
 
 " Mr. Aladdin I Mr. Aladdin ! " she cried, as the 
 horse and wagon came nearer. 
 209 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Adam Ladd drew up quickly at the sound of the 
 eager young voice. 
 
 " Well, well ; here is Rebecca Rowena fluttering 
 along the highroad like a red-winged blackbird ! 
 Are you going to fly home, or drive with me ? " 
 
 Rebecca clambered into the carriage, laughing 
 and blushing with delight at his nonsense and with 
 joy at seeing him again. 
 
 " Clara Belle and I were just talking about you 
 this minute, and I 'm so glad you came this way, for 
 there 's something very important to ask you about," 
 she began, rather breathlessly. 
 
 "No doubt," laughed Adam Ladd, who had be- 
 come, in the course of his acquaintance with 
 Rebecca, a sort of high court of appeals ; " I hope 
 the premium banquet lamp does n't smoke as it 
 grows older ? " 
 
 "Now, Mr. Aladdin, you will not remember 
 nicely. Mr. Simpson swapped off the banquet lamp 
 when he was moving the family to Acreville; it's 
 not the lamp at all, but once, when you were here 
 last time, you said you 'd make up your mind what 
 you were going to give me for Christmas." 
 
 "I do remember that much quite nicely." 
 
 " Well, is it bought ? " 
 
 "No, I never buy Christmas presents before 
 Thanksgiving." 
 
 " Then, dear Mr. Aladdin, would you buy me 
 210 
 
ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF 
 
 something different, something that I want to give 
 away, and buy it a little sooner than Christmas ? " 
 
 " That depends. I don't relish having my Christ- 
 mas presents given away. I like to have them kept 
 forever in little girls' bureau drawers, all wrapped 
 in pink tissue paper; but explain the matter and 
 perhaps I '11 change my mind. What is it you 
 want ? " 
 
 "I need a wedding-ring dreadfully," said Re- 
 becca, " but it 's a sacred secret." 
 
 Adam Ladd's eyes flashed with surprise and he 
 smiled to himself with pleasure. Had he on his list 
 of acquaintances, he asked himself, a person of any 
 age or sex so altogether irresistible and unique as 
 this child ? Then he turned to face her with the 
 merry teasing look that made him so delightful to 
 young people. 
 
 " I thought it was perfectly understood between 
 us," he said, "that if you could ever contrive to 
 grow up and I were willing to wait, that I was to 
 ride up to the brick house on my snow white " — 
 
 " Coal black," corrected Rebecca, with a spar- 
 kling eye and a warning finger. 
 
 " Coal black charger ; put a golden circlet on 
 your lily white finger, draw you up behind me on 
 my pillion " — 
 
 "And Emma Jane, too," Rebecca interrupted. 
 
 "I think I didn't mention Emma Jane," argued 
 
 211 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Mr. Aladdin. " Three on a pillion is very uncom- 
 fortable. I think Emma Jane leaps on the back of 
 a prancing chestnut, and we all go off to my castle 
 in the forest." 
 
 " Emma Jane never leaps, and she'd be afraid of 
 a prancing chestnut," objected Rebecca. 
 
 "Then she shall have a gentle cream-colored 
 pony ; but now, without any explanation, you ask 
 me to buy you a wedding-ring, which shows plainly 
 that you are planning to ride off on a snow white 
 — I mean coal black — charger with somebody 
 else." 
 
 Rebecca dimpled and laughed with joy at the 
 nonsense. In her prosaic world no one but Adam 
 Ladd played the game and answered the fool ac- 
 cording to his folly. Nobody else talked delicious 
 fairy-story twaddle but Mr. Aladdin. 
 
 " The ring is n't for me / " she explained carefully. 
 " You know very well that Emma Jane nor I can't 
 be married till we're through Quackenbos's Gram- 
 mar, Greenleaf's Arithmetic, and big enough to 
 wear long trails and run a sewing-machine. The 
 ring is for a friend." 
 
 " Why does n't the groom give it to his bride 
 himself?" 
 
 " Because he 's poor and kind of thoughtless, and 
 anyway she isn't a bride any more ; she has three 
 step and three other kind of children." 
 
 212 
 
ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF 
 
 Adam Ladd put the whip back in the socket 
 thoughtfully, and then stooped to tuck in the rug 
 over Rebecca's feet and his own. When he raised 
 his head again he asked : " Why not tell me a little 
 more, Rebecca ? I 'm safe ! " 
 
 Rebecca looked at him, feeling his wisdom and 
 strength, and above all his sympathy. Then she 
 said hesitatingly : " You remember I told you all 
 about the Simpsons that day on your aunt's porch 
 when you bought the soap because I told you how 
 the family were always in trouble and how much 
 they needed a banquet lamp? Mr. Simpson, Clara 
 Belle's father, has always been very poor, and not 
 always very good, — a little bit thievish, you know, 
 — but oh, so pleasant and nice to talk to ! and now 
 he 's turning over a new leaf. And everybody in 
 Riverboro liked Mrs. Simpson when she came here 
 a stranger, because they were sorry for her and she 
 was so patient, and such a hard worker, and so kind 
 to the children. But where she lives now, though 
 they used to know her when she was a girl, they 're 
 not polite to her and don't give her scrubbing and 
 washing ; and Clara Belle heard our teacher say to 
 Mrs. Fogg that the Acreville people were stiff, and 
 despised her because she didn't wear a wedding- 
 ring, like all the rest. And Clara Belle and I 
 thought if they were so mean as that, we 'd love to 
 give her one, and then she 'd be happier and have 
 213 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 more work; and perhaps Mr. Simpson if he gets 
 along better will buy her a breast-pin and earrings, 
 and she'll be fitted out like the others. I know 
 Mrs. Peter Meserve is looked up to by everybody 
 in Edgewood on account of her gold bracelets and 
 moss agate necklace." 
 
 Adam turned again to meet the luminous, inno- 
 cent eyes that glowed under the delicate brows and 
 long lashes, feeling as he had more than once felt 
 before, as if his worldly-wise, grown-up thoughts 
 had been bathed in some purifying spring. 
 
 " How shall you send the ring to Mrs. Simp- 
 son ? " he asked, with interest. 
 
 " We have n't settled yet ; Clara Belle 's afraid to 
 do it, and thinks I could manage better. Will the 
 ring cost much ? because, of course, if it does, I 
 must ask Aunt Jane first. There are things I have 
 to ask Aunt Miranda, and others that belong to 
 Aunt Jane." 
 
 " It costs the merest trifle. I '11 buy one and 
 bring it to you, and we '11 consult about it ; but I 
 think as you 're great friends with Mr. Simpson 
 you 'd better send it to him in a letter, letters 
 being your strong point ! It's a present a man 
 ought to give his own wife, but it's worth trying, 
 Rebecca. You and Clara Belle can manage it 
 between you, and I '11 stay in the background where 
 nobody will see me." 
 
Ninth Chronicle 
 THE GREEN ISLE 
 
 Many a green isle needs must be 
 In the deep sea of misery, 
 Or the mariner, worn and wan, 
 Never thus could voyage on 
 Day and night and night and day, 
 Drifting on his weary way. 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 MEANTIME in these frosty autumn days 
 life was crowded with events in the 
 lonely Simpson house at Acreville. 
 The tumble-down dwelling stood on the edge of 
 Pliny's Pond ; so called because old Colonel Rich- 
 ardson left his lands to be divided in five equal 
 parts, each share to be chosen in turn by one of 
 his five sons, Pliny, the eldest, having priority of 
 choice. 
 
 Pliny Richardson, having little taste for farming, 
 and being ardently fond of fishing, rowing, and 
 swimming, acted up to his reputation of being "a 
 little mite odd," and took his whole twenty acres 
 in water — hence Pliny's Pond. 
 
 The eldest Simpson boy had been working on a 
 farm in Cumberland County for two years. Samuel, 
 215 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 generally dubbed "See-saw," had lately found a 
 humble place in a shingle mill and was partially 
 self-supporting. Clara Belle had been adopted by 
 the Foggs ; thus there were only three mouths to 
 fill, the capacious ones of Elijah and Elisha, the 
 twin boys, and d lisping, nine-year-old Susan, the 
 capable houseworker and mother's assistant, for 
 the baby had died during the summer ; died of dis- 
 couragement at having been born into a family 
 unprovided with food or money or love or care, or 
 even with desire for, or appreciation of, babies. 
 
 There was no doubt that the erratic father of 
 the house had turned over a new leaf. Exactly 
 when he began, or how, or why, or how long he 
 would continue the praiseworthy process, — in a 
 word whether there would be more leaves turned 
 as the months went on, — Mrs. Simpson did not 
 know, and it is doubtful if any authority lower than 
 that of Mr. Simpson's Maker could have decided 
 the matter. He had stolen articles for swapping 
 purposes for a long time, but had often avoided 
 detection, and always escaped punishment until 
 the last few years. Three fines imposed for small 
 offenses were followed by several arrests and two 
 imprisonments for brief periods, and he found him- 
 self wholly out of sympathy with the wages of sin. 
 Sin itself he did not especially mind, but the wages 
 thereof were decidedly unpleasant and irksome to 
 216 
 
THE GREEN ISLE 
 
 him. He also minded very much the isolated posi- 
 tion in the community which had lately become 
 his ; for he was a social being and would almost 
 rather not steal from a neighbor than have him 
 find it out and cease intercourse ! This feeling was 
 working in him and rendering him unaccountably 
 irritable and depressed when he took his daughter 
 over to Riverboro at the time of the great flag- 
 raising. 
 
 There are seasons of refreshment, as well as 
 seasons of drought, in the spiritual, as in the 
 natural world, and in some way or other dews and 
 rains of grace fell upon Abner Simpson's heart 
 during that brief journey. Perhaps the giving 
 away of a child that he could not support had 
 made the soil of his heart a little softer and readier 
 for planting than usual ; but when he stole the 
 new flag off Mrs. Peter's Meserve's doorsteps, 
 under the impression that the cotton-covered 
 bundle contained freshly washed clothes, he uncon- 
 sciously set certain forces in operation. 
 
 It will be remembered that Rebecca saw an 
 inch of red bunting peeping from the back of his 
 wagon, and asked the pleasure of a drive with him. 
 She was no daughter of the regiment, but she pro- 
 posed to follow the flag. When she diplomatically 
 requested the return of the sacred object which 
 was to be the glory of the "raising " next day, and 
 217 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 he thus discovered his mistake, he was furious 
 with himself for having slipped into a disagreeable 
 predicament ; and later, when he unexpectedly 
 faced a detachment of Riverboro society at the 
 cross-roads, and met not only their wrath and 
 scorn, but the reproachful, disappointed glance of 
 Rebecca's eyes, he felt degraded as never before. 
 
 The night at the Centre Tavern did not help 
 matters, nor the jolly patriotic meeting of the three 
 villages at the flag-raising next morning. He would 
 have enjoyed being at the head and front of the 
 festive preparations, but as he had cut himself off 
 from all such friendly gatherings, he intended at 
 any rate to sit in his wagon on the very outskirts 
 of the assembled crowd and see some of the gayety ; 
 for, heaven knows, he had little enough, he who 
 loved talk, and song, and story, and laughter, and 
 excitement. 
 
 The flag was raised, the crowd cheered, the little 
 girl to whom he had lied, the girl who was imper- 
 sonating the State of Maine, was on the platform 
 "speaking her piece," and he could just distinguish 
 some of the words she was saying : — 
 
 " For it 's your star, my star, all the stars together, 
 That makes our country's flag so proud 
 To float in the bright fall weather." 
 
 Then suddenly there was a clarion voice cleaving 
 
 the air, and he saw a tall man standing in the 
 
 2X3 
 
THE GREEN ISLE 
 
 centre of the stage and heard him crying : " Three 
 cheers for the girl that saved the flag from the hands 
 of the enemy ! " 
 
 He was sore and bitter enough already ; lonely, 
 isolated enough ; with no lot nor share in the honest 
 community life ; no hand to shake, no neighbor's 
 meal to share ; and this unexpected public arraign- 
 ment smote him between the eyes. With resent- 
 ment newly kindled, pride wounded, vanity bleeding, 
 he flung a curse at the joyous throng and drove 
 toward home, the home where he would find his 
 ragged children and meet the timid eyes of a 
 woman who had been the loyal partner of his pov- 
 erty and disgraces. 
 
 It is probable that even then his (extremely 
 light) hand was already on the " new leaf." The 
 angels, doubtless, were not especially proud of the 
 matter and manner of his reformation, but I dare 
 say they were glad to count him theirs on any 
 terms, so difficult is the reformation of this blind 
 and foolish world ! They must have been ; for they 
 immediately flung into his very lap a profitable, 
 and what is more to the point, an interesting and 
 agreeable situation where money could be earned 
 by doing the very things his nature craved. There 
 were feats of daring to be performed in sight of 
 admiring and applauding stable boys ; the horses 
 he loved were his companions ; he was obliged to 
 219 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 "swap," for Daly, his employer, counted on him to 
 get rid of all undesirable stock ; power and respon- 
 sibility of a sort were given him freely, for Daly 
 was no 'Puritan, and felt himself amply capable of 
 managing any number of Simpsons ; so here were 
 numberless advantages within the man's grasp, 
 and wages besides ! 
 
 Abner positively felt no temptation to steal ; his 
 soul expanded with pride, and the admiration and 
 astonishment with which he regarded his virtuous 
 present was only equaled by the disgust with 
 which he contemplated his past ; not so much a 
 vicious past, in his own generous estimation of it, 
 as a "thunderin' foolish" one. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson took the same view of Abner's 
 new leaf as the angels. She was thankful for even 
 a brief season of honesty coupled with the Satur- 
 day night remittance ; and if she still washed and 
 cried and cried and washed, as Clara Belle had 
 always seen her, it was either because of some hid- 
 den sorrow, or because her poor strength seemed 
 all at once to have deserted her. 
 
 Just when employment and good fortune had 
 come to the step-children, and her own were 
 better fed and clothed than ever before, the pain 
 that had always lurked, constant but dull, near her 
 tired heart, grew fierce and triumphantly strong ; 
 clutching her in its talons, biting, gnawing, worry- 
 220 
 
THE GREEN ISLE 
 
 ing, leaving her each week with slighter powers of 
 resistance. Still hope was in the air and a greater 
 content than had ever been hers was in her eyes ; 
 a content that came near to happiness when the 
 doctor ordered her to keep her bed and sent for 
 Clara Belle. She could not wash any longer, but 
 there was the ever new miracle of the Saturday 
 night remittance for household expenses. 
 
 " Is your pain bad to-day, mother ? " asked Clara 
 Belle, who, only lately given away, was merely bor- 
 rowed from Mrs. Fogg for what was thought to be 
 a brief emergency. 
 
 " Well, there, I can't hardly tell, Clara Belle," 
 Mrs. Simpson replied, with a faint smile. " I can't 
 seem to remember the pain these days without it 's 
 extra bad. The neighbors are so kind ; Mrs. Little 
 has sent me canned mustard greens, and Mrs. Ben- 
 son chocolate ice-cream and mince pie ; there 's 
 the doctor's drops to make me sleep, and these 
 blankets and that great box of eatables from Mr. 
 Ladd ; and you here to keep me comp'ny ! I declare 
 I 'm kind o' dazed with comforts. I never expected 
 to see sherry wine in this house. I ain't never 
 drawed the cork; it does me good enough jest to 
 look at Mr. Ladd's bottle settin' on the mantel- 
 piece with the fire shinin' on the brown glass." 
 
 Mr. Simpson had come to see his wife and had 
 met the doctor just as he was leaving the house. 
 
 221 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 " She looks awful bad to me. Is she goin' to pull 
 through all right, same as the last time ? " he asked 
 the doctor nervously. 
 
 " She 's going to pull right through into the other 
 world," the doctor answered bluntly ; " and as there 
 don't seem to be anybody else to take the bull by 
 the horns, I 'd advise you, having made the wo- 
 man's life about as hard and miserable as you could, 
 to try and help her to die easy ! " 
 
 Abner, surprised and crushed by the weight of 
 this verbal chastisement, sat down on the doorstep, 
 his head in his hands, and thought a while sol- 
 emnly. Thought was not an operation he was wont 
 to indulge in, and when he opened the gate a few 
 minutes later and walked slowly toward the barn 
 for his horse, he looked pale and unnerved. It is 
 uncommonly startling, first to see yourself in an- 
 other man's scornful eyes, and then, clearly, in 
 your own. 
 
 Two days later he came again, and this time it 
 was decreed that he should find Parson Carll tying 
 his piebald mare at the post. 
 
 Clara Belle's quick eye had observed the minis- 
 ter as he alighted from his buggy, and, warning her 
 mother, she hastily smoothed the bedclothes, ar- 
 ranged the medicine bottles, and swept the hearth. 
 
 " Oh ! don't let him in ! "• wailed Mrs. Simpson, 
 all of a flutter at the prospect of such a visitor. 
 222 
 
THE GREEN ISLE 
 
 " Oh, dear ! they must think over to the village 
 that I 'm dreadful sick, or the minister would n't 
 never think of callin' ! Don't let him in, Clara 
 Belle ! I 'm afraid he will say hard words to me, 
 or pray to me ; and I ain't never been prayed to 
 since I was a child ! Is his wife with him ? " 
 
 " No ; he 's alone ; but father 's just drove up 
 and is hitching at the shed door." 
 
 " That 's worse than all ! " and Mrs. Simpson 
 raised herself feebly on her pillows and clasped her 
 hands in despair. " You must n't let them two 
 meet, Clara Belle, and you must send Mr. Carll 
 away ; your father would n't have a minister in the 
 house, nor speak to one, for a thousand dollars ! " 
 
 " Be quiet, mother ! Lie down ! It '11 be all 
 right ! You '11 only fret yourself into a spell ! The 
 minister 's just a good man; he won't say anything 
 to frighten you. Father 's talking with him real 
 pleasant, and pointing the way to the front door." 
 
 The parson knocked and was admitted by the 
 excited Clara Belle, who ushered him tremblingly 
 into the sickroom, and then betook herself to the 
 kitchen with the children, as he gently requested her. 
 
 Abner Simpson, left alone in the shed, fumbled 
 in his vest pocket and took out an envelope which 
 held a sheet of paper and a tiny packet wrapped in 
 tissue paper. The letter had been read once before 
 and ran as follows : — 
 
 223 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Dear Mr. Simpson: 
 
 This is a secret letter. I heard that the Acreville 
 people were n't nice to Mrs. Simpson because she 
 did n't have any wedding-ring like all the others. 
 
 I know you 've always been poor, dear Mr. Simp- 
 son, and troubled with a large family like ours at 
 the farm ; but you really ought to have given Mrs. 
 Simpson a ring when you were married to her, right 
 at the very first ; for then it would have been over 
 and done with, as they are solid gold and last for- 
 ever. And probably she wouldn't feel like asking 
 you for one, because ladies are just like girls, only 
 grown up, and I know I 'd be ashamed to beg for 
 jewelry when just board and clothes cost so much. 
 So I send you a nice, new wedding-ring to save 
 your buying, thinking you might get Mrs. Simpson 
 a bracelet or eardrops for Christmas. It did not 
 cost me anything, as it was a secret present from 
 a friend. 
 
 I hear Mrs. Simpson is sick, and it would be a 
 great comfort to her while she is in bed and has so 
 much time to look at it. When I had the measles 
 Emma Jane Perkins lent me her mother's garnet 
 ring, and it helped me very much to put my wasted 
 hand outside the bedclothes and see the ring spar- 
 kling. 
 
 Please don't be angry with me, dear Mr. Simpson, 
 because I like you so much and am so glad you are 
 224 
 
THE GREEN ISLE 
 
 happy with the horses and colts ; and I believe now 
 perhaps you did think the flag was a bundle of 
 washing when you took it that day ; so no more 
 from your 
 
 Trusted friend, 
 
 Rebecca Rowena Randall. 
 
 Simpson tore the letter slowly and quietly into 
 fragments and scattered the bits on the woodpile, 
 took off his hat, and smoothed his hair ; pulled his 
 mustaches thoughtfully, straightened his shoulders, 
 and then, holding the tiny packet in the palm of his 
 hand, he went round to the front door, and having 
 entered the house stood outside the sickroom for an 
 instant, turned the knob and walked softly in. 
 
 Then at last the angels might have enjoyed a 
 moment of unmixed joy, for in that brief walk from 
 shed to house Abner Simpson's conscience waked 
 to life and attained sufficient strength to prick and 
 sting, to provoke remorse, to incite penitence, to 
 do all sorts of divine and beautiful things it was 
 meant for, but had never been allowed to do. 
 
 Clara Belle went about the kitchen quietly, mak- 
 ing preparations for the children's supper. She had 
 left River boro in haste, as the change for the 
 worse in Mrs. Simpson had been very sudden, 
 but since she had come she had thought more 
 than once of the wedding-ring. She had wondered 
 225 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 whether Mr. Ladd had bought it for Rebecca, and 
 whether Rebecca would find means to send it to 
 Acreville; but her cares had been so many and 
 varied that the subject had now finally retired to 
 the background of her mind. 
 
 The hands of the clock crept on and she kept 
 hushing the strident tones of Elijah and Elisha, 
 opening and shutting the oven door to look at the 
 corn bread, advising Susan as to her dishes, and 
 marveling that the minister stayed so long. 
 
 At last she heard a door open and close, and saw 
 the old parson come out, wiping his spectacles, 
 and step into the buggy for his drive to the village. 
 
 Then there was another period of suspense, 
 during which the house was as silent as the grave, 
 and presently her father came into the kitchen, 
 greeted the twins and Susan, and said to Clara 
 Belle : " Don't go in there yet ! " jerking his thumb 
 towards Mrs. Simpson's room ; " she 's all beat out 
 and she's just droppin' off to sleep. I'll send 
 some groceries up from the store as I go along. 
 Is the doctor makin' a second call to-night ? " 
 
 " Yes ; he '11 be here pretty soon, now," Clara 
 Belie answered, looking at the clock. 
 
 " All right. I '11 be here again to-morrow, soon 
 as it 's light, and if she ain't picked up any I '11 
 send word back to Daly, and stop here with you 
 for a spell till she 's better." 
 226 
 
THE GREEN ISLE 
 
 It was true ; Mrs. Simpson was " all beat out." 
 It had been a time of excitement and stress, and 
 the poor, fluttered creature was dropping off into 
 the strangest sleep — a sleep made up of waking 
 dreams. The pain, that had encompassed her heart 
 like a band of steel, lessened its cruel pressure, and 
 finally left her so completely that she seemed to 
 see it floating above her head ; only that it looked 
 no longer like a band of steel, but a golden circle. 
 
 The frail bark in which she had sailed her life- 
 voyage had been rocking on a rough and tossing 
 ocean, and now it floated, floated slowly into 
 smoother waters. 
 
 As long as she could remember, her boat had 
 been flung about in storm and tempest, lashed by 
 angry winds, borne against rocks, beaten, torn, 
 buffeted. Now the waves had subsided ; the sky 
 was clear ; the sea was warm and tranquil ; the 
 sunshine dried the tattered sails ; the air was soft 
 and balmy. 
 
 And now, for sleep plays strange tricks, the 
 bark disappeared from the dream, and it was she, 
 herself, who was floating, floating farther and 
 farther away ; whither she neither knew nor cared ; 
 it was enough to be at rest, lulled by the lapping 
 of the cool waves. 
 
 Then there appeared a green isle rising from the 
 sea ; an isle so radiant and fairy-like that her faro 
 227 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 .ished eyes could hardly believe its reality ; but it 
 was real, for she sailed nearer and nearer to its 
 shores, and at last her feet skimmed the shining 
 sands and she floated through the air as disem- 
 bodied spirits float, till she sank softly at the foot 
 of a spreading tree. 
 
 Then she saw that the green isle was a flowering 
 isle. Every shrub and bush was blooming ; the trees 
 were hung with rosy garlands, and even the earth 
 was carpeted with tiny flowers. The rare fragrances, 
 the bird songs, soft and musical, the ravishment of 
 color, all bore down upon her swimming senses at 
 once, taking them captive so completely that she 
 remembered no past, was conscious of no present, 
 looked forward to no future. She seemed to leave 
 the body and the sad, heavy things of the body. 
 The humming in her ears ceased, the light faded, 
 the birds' songs grew fainter and more distant, the 
 golden circle of pain receded farther and farther 
 until it was lost to view ; even the flowering island 
 gently drifted away, and all was peace and silence. 
 
 It was time for the doctor now, and Clara Belle, 
 too anxious to wait longer, softly turned the knob 
 of her mother's door and entered the room. The 
 glow of the open fire illumined the darkest side of 
 the poor chamber. There were no trees near the 
 house, and a full November moon streamed in at 
 the unblinded, uncurtained windows, lighting up 
 228 
 
THE GREEN ISLE 
 
 the bare interior — the unpainted floor, the gray 
 plastered walls, and the white counterpane. 
 
 Her mother lay quite still, her head turned and 
 drooping a little on the pillow. Her left hand was 
 folded softly up against her breast, the fingers of 
 the right partly covering it, as if protecting some- 
 thing precious. 
 
 Was it the moonlight that made the patient brow 
 so white, and where were the lines of anxiety and 
 pain ? The face of the mother who had washed and 
 cried and cried and washed was as radiant as if the 
 closed eye were beholding heavenly visions. 
 
 " Something must have cured her ! " thought 
 Clara Belle, awed and almost frightened by the 
 whiteness and the silence. 
 
 She tiptoed across the floor to look more closely 
 at the still, smiling shape, and bending over it saw, 
 under the shadow of the caressing right hand, a 
 narrow gold band gleaming on the work-stained 
 finger. 
 
 " Oh, the ring came, after all ! " she said in a 
 glad whisper, " and perhaps it was that that made 
 her better ! " 
 
 She put her hand on her mother's gently. A 
 terrified shiver, a warning shudder, shook the girl 
 from head to foot at the chilling touch. A dread 
 presence she had never met before suddenly took 
 shape. It filled the room ; stifled the cry on her 
 229 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 lips ; froze her steps to the floor ; stopped the beat- 
 ing of her heart. 
 
 Just then the door opened. 
 
 " Oh, doctor ! come quick ! " she sobbed, stretch- 
 ing out her hand for help, and then covering her 
 eyes. " Come close ! Look at mother ! Is she bet- 
 ter — or is she dead ? " 
 
 The doctor put one hand on the shoulder of the 
 shrinking child, and touched the woman with the 
 other. 
 
 " She is better ! " he said gently, " and she is 
 dead." 
 
Tenth Chronicle 
 REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES 
 
 REBECCA was sitting by the window in her 
 room at the Wareham Female Seminary. 
 She was alone, as her roommate, Emma 
 Jane Perkins, was reciting Latin down below in 
 some academic vault of the old brick building. 
 
 A new and most ardent passion for the classics 
 had been born in Emma Jane's hitherto unfertile 
 brain, for Abijah Flagg, who was carrying off all 
 the prizes at Limerick Academy, had written her 
 a letter in Latin, a letter which she had been unable 
 to translate for herself, even with the aid of a dic- 
 tionary, and which she had been apparently unwill- 
 ing that Rebecca, her bosom friend, confidant, and 
 roommate, should render into English. 
 
 An old-fashioned Female Seminary, with its allot- 
 ment of one medium-sized room to two medium- 
 sized young females, gave small opportunities 
 for privacy by night or day, for neither the double 
 washstand, nor the thus far unimagined bathroom, 
 nor even indeed the humble and serviceable 
 screen, had been realized, in these dark ages 
 of which I write. Accordingly, like the irrational 
 231 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 ostrich, which defends itself by the simple process 
 of not looking at its pursuers, Emma Jane had kept 
 her Latin letter in her closed hand, in her pocket, 
 or in her open book, flattering herself that no one 
 had noticed her pleased bewilderment at its only 
 half-imagined contents. 
 
 All the fairies were not present at Rebecca's 
 cradle. A goodly number of them telegraphed that 
 they were previously engaged or unavoidably ab- 
 sent from town. The village of Temperance, 
 Maine, where Rebecca first saw the light, was 
 hardly a place on its own merits to attract large 
 throngs of fairies. But one dear old personage who 
 keeps her pocket full of Merry Leaves from the 
 Laughing Tree, took a fancy to come to the little 
 birthday party ; and seeing so few of her sister- 
 fairies present, she dowered the sleeping baby more 
 richly than was her wont, because of its apparent 
 lack of wealth in other directions. So the child grew, 
 and the Merry Leaves from the Laughing Tree 
 rustled where they hung from the hood of her 
 cradle, and, being fairy leaves, when the cradle was 
 given up they festooned themselves on the cribside, 
 and later on blew themselves up to the ceilings at 
 Sunnybrook Farm and dangled there, making fun 
 for everybody. They never withered, even at the 
 brick house in Riverboro, where the air was par- 
 ticularly inimical to fairies, for Miss Miranda Saw- 
 232 
 
REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES 
 
 yer would have scared any ordinary elf out of her 
 seventeen senses. They followed Rebecca to Ware- 
 ham, and during Abijah Flagg's Latin correspond- 
 ence with Emma Jane they fluttered about that 
 young person's head in such a manner that Re- 
 becca was almost afraid that she would discover 
 them herself, although this is something, as a 
 matter of fact, that never does happen. 
 
 A week had gone by since the Latin missive had 
 been taken from the post-office by Emma Jane, and 
 now, by means of much midnight oil-burning, by 
 much cautious questioning of Miss Maxwell, by 
 such scrutiny of the moods and tenses of Latin 
 verbs as wellnigh destroyed her brain tissue, she 
 had mastered its romantic message. If it was con- 
 ventional in style, Emma Jane never suspected it. 
 If some of the similes seemed to have been culled 
 from the Latin poets, and some of the phrases 
 built up from Latin exercises, Emma Jane was 
 neither scholar nor critic ; the similes, the phrases, 
 the sentiments, when finally translated and writ- 
 ten down in black-and-white English, made, in her 
 opinion, the most convincing and heart-melting 
 document ever sent through the mails : — 
 
 Mea cara Emma : 
 
 Cur audeo scribere ad te epistulam ? Es mihi 
 dea ! Semper es in mea anima. Iterum et iterum 
 233 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 es cum me in somnis. Saepe video tuas capillos 
 auri, tuos pulchros oculos similes caelo, tuas genas, 
 quasi rubentes rosas in nive. Tua vox est dulcior 
 quam cantus avium aut murmur rivuli in montibus. 
 
 Cur sum ego tarn miser et pauper et indignus, et 
 tu tarn dulcis et bona et nobilis ? 
 
 Si cogitabis de me ero beatus. Tu es sola puella 
 quam amo, et semper eris. Alias puellas non amavi. 
 Forte olim amabis me, sed sum indignus. Sine te 
 sum miser, cum tu es prope mea vita omnis est 
 gaudium. 
 
 Vale, carissima, carissima puella ! 
 
 De tuo fideli servo 
 
 A. R 
 My dear Emma: 
 
 Why dare I write to you a letter ? You are to me 
 a goddess ! Always you are in my heart. Again 
 and again you are with me in dreams. Often I see 
 your locks of gold, your beautiful eyes like the sky, 
 your cheeks, as red roses in snow. Your voice is 
 sweeter than the singing of birds or the murmur 
 of the stream in the mountains. 
 
 Why am I so wretched and poor and unworthy, 
 and you so sweet and good and noble ? 
 
 If you will think of me I shall be happy. You 
 
 are the only girl that I love and always will be. 
 
 Other girls I have not loved. Perhaps sometime 
 
 you will love me, but I am unworthy. Without 
 
 234 
 
REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES 
 
 you I am wretched, when you are near my life is 
 all joy. 
 
 Farewell, dearest, dearest girl ! 
 
 From your faithful slave 
 
 A. F. 
 
 Emma Jane knew the letter by heart in English. 
 She even knew it in Latin, only a few days before 
 a dead language to her, but now one filled with 
 life and meaning. From beginning to end the 
 epistle had the effect upon her as of an intoxicat- 
 ing elixir. Often, at morning prayers, or while eat- 
 ing her rice pudding at the noon dinner, or when 
 sinking off to sleep at night, she heard a voice 
 murmuring in her ear, " Vale, carissima, carissima, 
 puella ! " As to the effect on her modest, coun- 
 trified little heart of the phrases in which Abijah 
 stated she was a goddess and he her faithful slave, 
 that quite baffles description ; for it lifted her 
 bodily out of the scenes in which she moved, into 
 a new, rosy, ethereal atmosphere in which even 
 Rebecca had no place. 
 
 Rebecca did not know this, fortunately ; she 
 only suspected, and waited for the day when 
 Emma Jane would pour out her confidences, as 
 she always did, and always would until the end 
 of time. At the present moment she was busily 
 employed in thinking about her own affairs. A 
 235 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 shabby composition-book with mottled board cov- 
 ers lay open on the table before her, and some- 
 times she wrote in it with feverish haste and ab- 
 sorption, and sometimes she rested her chin in the 
 cup of her palm, and with the pencil poised in the 
 other hand looked dreamily out on the village, its 
 huddle of roofs and steeples all blurred into posi- 
 tive beauty by the fast-falling snowflakes. 
 
 It was the middle of December and the friendly 
 sky was softly dropping a great white mantle of 
 peace and good-will over the little town, making 
 all ready within and without for the Feast o' the 
 Babe. 
 
 The main street, that in summer was made dig- 
 nified by its splendid avenue of shade trees, now 
 ran quiet and white between rows of stalwart 
 trunks, whose leafless branches were all hanging 
 heavy under their dazzling burden. 
 
 The path leading straight up the hill to the 
 Academy was broken only by the feet of the hurry- 
 ing, breathless boys and girls who ran up and 
 down, carrying piles of books under their arms ; 
 books which they remembered so long as they 
 were within the four walls of the recitation room, 
 and which they eagerly forgot as soon as they met 
 one another in the living, laughing world, going 
 up and down the hill. 
 
 " It's very becoming to the universe, snow is ! " 
 236 
 
REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES 
 
 thought Rebecca, looking out of the window dream- 
 ily. " Really there 's little to choose between the 
 world and heaven when a snowstorm is going on. 
 I feel as if I ought to look at it every minute. I 
 wish I could get over being greedy, but it still 
 seems to me at sixteen as if there were n't waking 
 hours enough in the day, and as if somehow I were 
 pressed for time and continually losing something. 
 How well I remember mother's story about me 
 when I was four. It was at early breakfast on the 
 farm, but I called all meals 'dinner' then, and 
 when I had finished I folded up my bib and sighed : 
 ' Oh, dear ! Only two more dinners, play a while 
 and go to bed ! ' This was at six in the morning 
 — lampligh: in the kitchen, snowlight outside! 
 
 Powdery, powdery, powdery snow, 
 Making things lovely wherever you go 1 
 Merciful, merciful, merciful snow, 
 Masking the ugliness hidden below. 
 
 Herbert made me promise to do a poem for the Jan- 
 uary ' Pilot,' but I must n't take the snow as a sub- 
 ject ; there has been too great competition among 
 the older poets ! " And with that she turned in her 
 chair and began writing again in the shabby book, 
 which was already three quarters filled with childish 
 scribblings, sometimes in pencil, and sometimes in 
 violet ink with carefully shaded capital letters. 
 
 237 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Squire Bean has had a sharp attack of rheuma- 
 tism and Abijah Flagg came back from Limerick 
 for a few days to nurse him. One morning the 
 Burnham sisters from North Riverboro came over 
 to spend the day with Aunt Miranda, and Abijah 
 went down to put up their horse. ("'Commodatin' 
 'Bijah " was his pet name when we were all young.) 
 He scaled the ladder to the barn chamber — the 
 dear old ladder that used to be my safety valve ! — 
 and pitched down the last forkful of grandfather's 
 hay that will ever be eaten by any visiting horse. 
 They will be delighted to hear that it is all gone; 
 they have grumbled at it for years and years. 
 
 What should Abijah find at the bottom of the 
 heap but my Thought Book, hidden there two or 
 three years ago and forgotten ! 
 
 When I think of what it was to me, the place it 
 filled in my life, the affection I lavished on it, I 
 wonder that I could forget it, even in all the ex- 
 citement of coming to Wareham to school. And 
 that gives me " an uncommon thought " as I used 
 to say ! It is this : that when we finish building an 
 air castle we seldom live in it after all ; we some- 
 times even forget that we ever longed to ! Perhaps 
 we have gone so far as to begin another castle on 
 a higher hilltop, and this is so beautiful, — espe- 
 cially while we are building, and before we live in 
 it ! — that the first one has quite vanished from 
 238 
 
REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES 
 
 sight and mind, like the outgrown shell of the nau- 
 tilus that he casts off on the shore and never looks 
 at again. (At least I suppose he does n't ; but per- 
 haps he takes one backward glance, half-smiling, 
 half-serious, just as I am doing at my old Thought 
 Book, and says, " Was that my shell ! Goodness 
 gracious ! how did I ever squeeze myself into it ! ") 
 That bit about the nautilus sounds like an ex- 
 tract from a school theme, or a " Pilot" editorial, or 
 a fragment of one of dear Miss Maxwell's lectures, 
 — but I think girls of sixteen are principally imita- 
 tions of the people and things they love and admire ; 
 and between editing the " Pilot," writing out Virgil 
 translations, searching for composition subjects, and 
 studying rhetorical models, there is very little of the 
 original Rebecca Rowena about me at the present 
 moment; I am just a member of the graduating 
 class in good and regular standing. We do our 
 hair alike, dress alike as much as possible, eat and 
 drink alike, talk alike, — I am not even sure that 
 we do not think alike : and what will become of the 
 poor world when we are all let loose upon it on 
 the same day of June ? Will life, real life, bring our 
 true selves back to us ? Will love and duty and 
 sorrow and trouble and work finally wear off the 
 " school stamp " that has been pressed upon all of 
 us until we look like rows of shining copper cents 
 fresh from the mint ? 
 
 239 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Yet there must be a little difference between us 
 somewhere, or why does Abijah Flagg write Latin 
 letters to Emma Jane, instead of to me? There 
 is one example on the other side of the argument, 
 — Abijah Flagg. He stands out from all the rest 
 of the boys like the Rock of Gibraltar in the geo- 
 graphy pictures. Is it because he never went to 
 school until he was sixteen ? He almost died of 
 longing to go, and the longing seemed to teach him 
 more than going. He knew his letters, and could 
 read simple things, but it was I who taught him what 
 books really meant when I was eleven and he thir- 
 teen. We studied while he was husking corn or 
 cutting potatoes for seed, or shelling beans in the 
 Squire's barn. His beloved Emma Jane did n't teach 
 him ; her father would not have let her be friends 
 with a chore-boy ! It was I who found him after milk- 
 ing-time, summer nights, suffering, yes dying, of 
 Least Common Multiple and Greatest Common Di- 
 visor ; I who struck the shackles from the slave and 
 told him to skip it all and go on to something easier, 
 like Fractions, Percentage, and Compound Inter- 
 est, as I did myself. Oh ! how he used to smell of 
 the cows when I was correcting his sums on warm 
 evenings, but I don't regret it, for he is now the 
 joy of Limerick and the pride of Riverboro, and I 
 suppose has forgotten the proper side on which to 
 approach a cow if you wish to milk her. This now 
 240 
 
REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES 
 
 unserviceable knowledge is neatly inclosed in the 
 outgrown shell he threw off two or three years ago. 
 His gratitude to me knows no bounds, but — he 
 writes Latin letters to Emma Jane ! But as Mr. 
 Perkins said about drowning the kittens (I now 
 quote from myself at thirteen), " It is the way of 
 the world and how things have to be ! " 
 
 Well, I have read the Thought Book all through, 
 and when I want to make Mr. Aladdin laugh, I shall 
 show him my composition on the relative values of 
 punishment and reward as builders of character. 
 
 I am not at all the same Rebecca to-day at six- 
 teen that I was then, at twelve and thirteen. I 
 hope, in getting rid of my failings, that I have n't 
 scrubbed and rubbed so hard that I have taken the 
 gloss off the poor little virtues that lay just along- 
 side of the faults ; for as I read the foolish doggerel 
 and the funny, funny " Remerniscences," I see on 
 the whole a nice, well-meaning, trusting, loving 
 heedless little creature, that after all I 'd rather 
 build on than outgrow altogether, because she is 
 Me ; the Me that was made and born just a little 
 different from all the rest of the babies in my birth- 
 day year. 
 
 One thing is alike in the child and the girl. They 
 
 both love to set thoughts down in black and white ; 
 
 to see how they look, how they sound, and how 
 
 they make one feel when one reads them over. 
 
 241 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 They both love the sound of beautiful sentences 
 and the tinkle of rhyming words, and in fact, of the 
 three great R's of life, they adore Reading and 
 'Riting, as much as they abhor 'Rithmetic. 
 
 The little girl in the old book is always thinking 
 of what she is "going to be." 
 
 Uncle Jerry Cobb spoiled me a good deal in this 
 direction. I remember he said to everybody when 
 I wrote my verses for the flag-raising : " Nary rung 
 on the ladder o' fame but that child '11 climb if you 
 give her time! " — poor Uncle Jerry ! he will be so 
 disappointed in me as time goes on. And still he 
 would think I have already climbed two rungs on 
 the ladder, although it is only a little Wareham 
 ladder, for I am one of the " Pilot " editors, the first 
 "girl editor" — and I have taken a fifty dollar prize 
 in composition and paid off the interest on a twelve 
 hundred dollar mortgage with it. 
 
 " High is the rank we now possess, 
 But higher we shall rise ; 
 Though what we shall hereafter be 
 Is hid from mortal eyes." 
 
 This hymn was sung in meeting the Sunday 
 after my election, and Mr. Aladdin was there that 
 day and looked across the aisle and smiled at me. 
 Then he sent me a sheet of paper from Boston the 
 next morning with just one verse in the middle 
 of it. 
 
 242 
 
REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES 
 
 "She made the cleverest people quite ashamed; 
 And ev'n the good with inward envy groan, 
 Finding themselves so very much exceeded, 
 In their own way by all the things that she did." 
 
 Miss Maxwell says it is Byron, and I wish I had 
 thought of the last rhyme before Byron did; my 
 rhymes are always so common. 
 
 I am too busy doing, nowadays, to give very much 
 thought to being. Mr. Aladdin was teasing me one 
 day about what he calls my "cast-off careers." 
 
 " What makes you aim at any mark in particular, 
 Rebecca ? " he asked, looking at Miss Maxwell and 
 laughing. "Women never hit what they aim at, 
 anyway ; but if they shut their eyes and shoot in 
 the air they generally find themselves in the bull's 
 eye." 
 
 I think one reason that I have always dreamed 
 of what I should be, when I grew up, was, that 
 even before father died mother worried about the 
 mortgage on the farm, and what would become of 
 us if it were foreclosed. 
 
 It was hard on children to be brought up on a 
 mortgage that way, but oh ! it was harder still on 
 poor dear mother, who had seven of us then to 
 think of, and still has three at home to feed and 
 clothe out of the farm. 
 
 Aunt Jane says I am young for my age, Aunt 
 Miranda is afraid that I will never really " grow 
 243 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 up," Mr. Aladdin says that I don't know the world 
 any better than the pearl inside of the oyster. 
 They none of them know the old, old thoughts I 
 have, some of them going back years and years ; 
 for they are never ones that I can speak about. 
 
 I remember how we children used to admire 
 father, he was so handsome and graceful and amus- 
 ing, never cross like mother, or too busy to play 
 with us. He never did any work at home because 
 he had to keep his hands nice for playing the 
 church melodeon, or the violin or piano for dances. 
 
 Mother used to say: "Hannah and Rebecca, 
 you must hull the strawberries, your father cannot 
 help." "John, you must milk next year for I 
 have n't the time and it would spoil your father's 
 hands." 
 
 All the other men in Temperance village wore 
 calico, or flannel shirts, except on Sundays, but 
 father never wore any but white ones with starched 
 bosoms. He was very particular about them and 
 mother used to stitch and stitch on the pleats, and 
 press and press the bosoms and collar and cuffs, 
 sometimes late at night. 
 
 Then she was tired and thin and gray, with no 
 time to sew on new dresses for herself, and no 
 time to wear them, because she was always taking 
 care of the babies ; and father was happy and well 
 and handsome. But we children never thought 
 244 
 
REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES 
 
 much about it until once, after father had mort- 
 gaged the farm, there was going to be a sociable 
 in Temperance village. Mother could not go as 
 Jenny had whooping-cough and Mark had just 
 broken his arm, and when she was tying father's 
 necktie, the last thing before he started, he said : 
 "I wish, Aurelia, that you cared a little about your 
 appearance and your dress : it goes a long way with 
 a man like me." 
 
 Mother had finished the tie, and her hands 
 dropped suddenly. I looked at her eyes and mouth 
 while she looked at father and in a minute I was 
 ever so old, with a grown-up ache in my heart. It 
 has always stayed there, although I admired my 
 handsome father and was proud of him because he 
 was so talented ; but now that I am older and have 
 thought about things, my love for mother is differ- 
 ent from what it used to be. Father was always 
 the favorite when we were little, he was so inter- 
 esting, and I wonder sometimes if we don't remem- 
 ber interesting people longer and better than we 
 do those who are just good and patient. If so it 
 seems very cruel. 
 
 As I look back I see that Miss Ross, the artist 
 who brought me my pink parasol from Paris, sowed 
 the first seeds in me of ambition to do something 
 special. Her life seemed so beautiful and so easy 
 to a child. I had not been to school then, or read 
 245 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 George Macdonald, so I did not know that " Ease 
 is the lovely result of forgotten toil." 
 
 Miss Ross sat out of doors and painted lovely 
 things, and everybody said how wonderful they 
 were, and bought them straight away ; and she 
 took care of a blind father and two brothers, and 
 traveled wherever she wished. It comes back to 
 me now, that summer when I was ten and Miss 
 Ross painted me sitting by the mill-wheel while 
 she talked to me of foreign countries ! 
 
 The other day Miss Maxwell read something 
 from Browning's poems to the girls of her literature 
 class. It was about David the shepherd boy who 
 used to lie in his hollow watching one eagle " wheel- 
 ing slow as in sleep." He used to wonder about 
 the wide world that the eagle beheld, the eagle that 
 was stretching his wings so far up in the blue, 
 while he, the poor shepherd boy, could see only the 
 "strip 'twixt the hill and the sky ; " for he lay in a 
 hollow. 
 
 I told Mr. Baxter about it the next day, which 
 was the Saturday before I joined the church. I 
 asked him if it was wicked to long to see as much 
 as the eagle saw ? 
 
 There was never anybody quite like Mr. Baxter. 
 
 " Rebecca dear," he said, " it may be that you 
 need not always lie in a hollow, as the shepherd 
 boy did ; but wherever you lie, that little strip you 
 246 
 
REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES 
 
 see ' 'twixt the hill and the sky ' is able to hold all 
 of earth and all of heaven, if only you have the 
 right sort of vision." 
 
 I was a long, long time about " experiencing re- 
 ligion." I remember Sunday afternoons at the brick 
 house the first winter after I went there ; when I 
 used to sit in the middle of the dining-room as 
 I was bid, silent and still, with the big family Bible 
 on my knees. Aunt Miranda had Baxter's " Saints' 
 Rest," but her seat was by the window, and she at 
 least could give a glance into the street now and 
 then without being positively wicked. 
 
 Aunt Jane used to read the " Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress." The fire burned low; the tall clock ticked, 
 ticked, so slowly and steadily, that the pictures 
 swam before my eyes and I almost fell asleep. 
 
 They thought by shutting everything else out 
 that I should see God ; but I did n't, not once. I 
 was so homesick for Sunnybrook and John that 
 I could hardly learn my weekly hymns, especially 
 the sad, long one beginning : — 
 
 " My thoughts on awful subjects roll, 
 Damnation and the dead." 
 
 It was brother John for whom I was chiefly 
 homesick on Sunday afternoons, because at Sunny- 
 brook Farm father was dead and mother was always 
 busy, and Hannah never liked to talk. 
 
 Then the next year the missionaries from Syria 
 247 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 came to Riverboro ; and at the meeting Mr. Burch 
 saw me playing the melodeon, and thought I was 
 grown up and a church member, and so he asked 
 me to lead in prayer. 
 
 I did n't dare to refuse, and when I prayed, which 
 was just like thinking out loud, I found I could talk 
 to God a great deal easier than to Aunt Miranda 
 or even to Uncle Jerry Cobb. There were things 
 I could say to Him that I could never say to any- 
 body else, and saying them always made me happy 
 and contented. 
 
 When Mr. Baxter asked me last year about join- 
 ing the church, I told him I was afraid I did not 
 understand God quite well enough to be a real 
 member. 
 
 " So you don't quite understand God, Rebecca ? " 
 he asked, smiling. " Well, there is something else 
 much more important, which is, that He under- 
 stands you ! He understands your feeble love, your 
 longings, desires, hopes, faults, ambitions, crosses ; 
 and that, after all, is what counts ! Of course you 
 don't understand Him ! You are overshadowed by 
 His love, His power, His benignity, His wisdom ; 
 that is as it should be ! Why, Rebecca, dear, if 
 you could stand erect and unabashed in God's pre- 
 sence, as one who perfectly comprehended His na- 
 ture or His purposes, it would be sacrilege! Don't 
 be puzzled out of your blessed inheritance of faith, 
 248 
 
REBECCA'S REMINISCENCES 
 
 my child ; accept God easily and naturally, just as 
 He accepts you ! " 
 
 "God never puzzled me, Mr. Baxter; it isn't 
 that," I said; "but the doctrines do worry me 
 dreadfully." 
 
 " Let them alone for the present," Mr. Baxter 
 said. "Anyway, Rebecca, you can never prove 
 God ; you can only find Him ! " 
 
 " Then do you think I have really experienced 
 religion, Mr. Baxter?" I asked. "Am I the begin- 
 nings of a Christian ? " 
 
 " You are a dear child of the understanding 
 God ! " Mr. Baxter said ; and I say it over to my- 
 self night and morning so that I can never for- 
 get it. 
 
 The year is nearly over and the next few months 
 will be lived in the rush and the whirlwind of work 
 that comes before graduation. The bell for philo- 
 sophy class will ring in ten minutes, and as I have 
 been writing for nearly two hours, I must learn my 
 lesson going up the Academy hill. It will not be 
 the first time ; it is a grand hill for learning ! I 
 suppose after fifty years or so the very ground has 
 become soaked with knowledge, and every particle 
 of air in the vicinity is crammed with useful infor- 
 mation. 
 
 I will put my book into my trunk (having no 
 249 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 blessed haymow hereabouts) and take it out again, 
 — when shall I take it out again ? 
 
 After graduation perhaps I shall be too grown 
 up and too busy to write in a Thought Book ; but 
 oh, if only something would happen worth putting 
 down ; something strange ; something unusual ; 
 something different from the things that happen 
 every day in Riverboro and Edgewood ! 
 
 Graduation will surely take me a little out of 
 "the hollow," — make me a little more like the 
 soaring eagle, gazing at the whole wide world be- 
 neath him while he wheels "slow as in sleep." But 
 whether or no, I '11 try not to be a discontented 
 shepherd, but remember what Mr. Baxter said, 
 that the little strip that I see " 'twixt the hill and 
 the sky" is able to hold all of earth and all of hea= 
 ven, if only I have the eyes to see it. 
 
 Rebecca Rowena Randall. 
 
 Wareham Female Seminary, December 187-. 
 
Eleventh Chronicle 
 
 ABIJAH THE BRAVE AND THE 
 FAIR EMMAJANE 
 
 " A warrior so bold and a maiden so bright 
 
 Conversed as they sat on the green. 
 They gazed at each other in tender delight. 
 Alonzo the brave was the name of the knight, 
 
 And the maid was the fair Imogene. 
 
 " ' Alas 1 ' said the youth, ' since tomorrow I go 
 
 To fight in a far distant land, 
 Your tears for my absence soon ceasing to flow, 
 Some other will court you, and you will bestow 
 
 On a wealthier suitor your hand.' 
 
 " ' Oh, hush these suspicions ! ' Fair Imogene said, 
 
 ' So hurtful to love and to ine ! 
 For if you be living, or if you be dead, 
 I swear by the Virgin that none in your stead 
 
 Shall the husband of Imogene be I '" 
 
 EVER since she was eight years old Rebecca 
 had wished to be eighteen, but now that 
 she was within a month of that awe-inspir- 
 ing and long-desired age she wondered if, after all, 
 it was destined to be a turning-point in her quiet 
 existence. Her eleventh year, for instance, had 
 been a real turning-point, since it was then that 
 251 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 she had left Sunnybrook Farm and come to her 
 maiden aunts in Riverboro. Aurelia Randall may 
 have been doubtful as to the effect upon her spin- 
 ster sisters of the irrepressible child, but she was 
 hopeful from the first that the larger opportunities 
 of Riverboro would be the " making " of Rebecca 
 herself. 
 
 The next turning-point was her fourteenth year, 
 when she left the district school for the Wareham 
 Female Seminary, then in the hey-day of its local 
 fame. Graduation (next to marriage, perhaps, the 
 most thrilling episode in the life of a little country 
 girl) happened at seventeen, and not long after- 
 ward her Aunt Miranda's death, sudden and un- 
 expected, changed not only all the outward activities 
 and conditions of her life, but played its own part 
 in her development. 
 
 The brick house looked very homelike and pleas- 
 ant on a June morning nowadays, with children's 
 faces smiling at the windows and youthful footsteps 
 sounding through the halls : and the brass knocker 
 on the red-painted front door might have remem- 
 bered Rebecca's prayer of a year before, when she 
 leaned against its sun-warmed brightness and 
 whispered : " God bless Aunt Miranda ; God bless 
 the brick house that was ; God bless the brick 
 house that 's going to be ! " 
 
 All the doors and blinds were open to the sun and 
 252 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 air as they had never been in Miss Miranda Saw- 
 yer's time. The hollyhock bed that had been her 
 chief pride was never neglected, and Rebecca liked 
 to hear the neighbors say that there was no such 
 row of beautiful plants and no such variety of beau- 
 tiful colors in Riverboro, as those that climbed up 
 and peeped in at the kitchen windows where old 
 Miss Miranda used to sit. 
 
 Now that the place was her very own Rebecca felt 
 a passion of pride in its smoothly mown fields, its 
 carefully thinned-out woods, its blooming garden 
 spots, and its well-weeded vegetable patch ; felt, too, 
 whenever she looked at any part of it, a passion of 
 gratitude to the stern old aunt who had looked 
 upon her as the future head of the family, as well as 
 a passion of desire to be worthy of that trust. 
 
 It had been a very difficult year for a girl fresh 
 from school : the death of her aunt, the nursing of 
 Miss Jane, prematurely enfeebled by the shock, the 
 removal of her own invalid mother and the rest of 
 the little family from Sunnybrook Farm. But all 
 had gone smoothly; and when once the Randall 
 fortunes had taken an upward turn nothing seemed 
 able to stop their intrepid ascent. 
 
 Aurelia Randall renewed her youth in the com- 
 panionship of her sister Jane and the comforts by 
 which her children were surrounded ; the mort- 
 gage was no longer a daily terror, for Sunnybrook 
 353 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 had been sold to the new railroad ; Hannah, now 
 Mrs. Will Melville, was happily situated ; John, at 
 last, was studying medicine ; Mark, the boisterous 
 and unlucky brother, had broken no bones for sev- 
 eral months ; while Jenny and Fanny were doing 
 well at the district school under Miss Libby Moses, 
 Miss Dearborn's successor. 
 
 " I don't feel very safe," thought Rebecca, 
 remembering all these unaccustomed mercies as 
 she sat on the front doorsteps, with her tatting 
 shuttle flying in and out of the fine cotton like a 
 hummingbird. "It's just like one of those too 
 beautiful July days that winds up with a thunder- 
 shower before night ! Still, when you remember 
 that the Randalls never had anything but thunder 
 and lightning, rain, snow, and hail, in their family 
 history for twelve or fifteen years, perhaps it is 
 only natural that they should enjoy a little spell of 
 settled weather. If it really turns out to be settled, 
 now that Aunt Jane and mother are strong again I 
 must be looking up one of what Mr. Aladdin calls 
 my 'cast-off careers.' — There comes Emma Jane 
 Perkins through her front gate ; she will be here in 
 a minute, and I '11 tease her ! " and Rebecca ran 
 in the door and seated herself at the old piano that 
 stood between the open windows in the parlor. 
 
 Peeping from behind the muslin curtains, she 
 waited until Emma Jane was on the very threshold 
 254 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 and then began singing her version of an old bal- 
 lad, made that morning while she was dressing. 
 The ballad was a great favorite of hers, and she 
 counted on doing telling execution with it in the 
 present instance by the simple subterfuge of re- 
 moving the original hero and heroine, Alonzo and 
 Imogene, and substituting Abijah the Brave and 
 the Fair Emmajane, leaving the circumstances in 
 the first three verses unaltered, because in truth 
 they seemed to require no alteration. 
 
 Her high, clear voice, quivering with merriment, 
 floated through the windows into the still summer air : 
 
 " A warrior so bold and a maiden so bright 
 
 Conversed as they sat on the green. 
 They gazed at each other in tender delight. 
 Abijah the Brave was the name of the knight, 
 
 And the maid was the Fair Emmajane." 
 
 " Rebecca Randall, stop ! Somebody '11 hear 
 you ! " 
 
 "No, they won't — they're making jelly in the 
 kitchen, miles away." 
 
 " • Alas ! ' said the youth, ' since to-morrow I go 
 To fight in a far distant land, 
 Your tears for my absence soon ceasing to flow, 
 Some other will court you, and you will bestow 
 On a wealthier suitor your hand.' " 
 
 " Rebecca, you can't think how your voice car- 
 ries ! I believe mother can hear it over to my 
 house ! " 
 
 255 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 " Then, if she can, I must sing the third verse, 
 just to clear your reputation from the cloud cast 
 upon it in the second," laughed her tormentor, 
 going on with the song : — 
 
 " • Oh, hush these suspicions ! ' Fair Emmajane said, 
 ' So hurtful to love and to me I 
 For if you be living, or if you be dead, 
 I swear, my Abijah, that none in your stead, 
 Shall the husband of Emmajane be ! ' " 
 
 After ending the third verse Rebecca wheeled 
 around on the piano-stool and confronted her friend, 
 who was carefully closing the parlor windows : — 
 
 "Emma Jane Perkins, it is an ordinary Thurs- 
 day afternoon at four o'clock and you have on 
 your new blue barege, although there is not even 
 a church sociable in prospect this evening. What 
 does this mean ? Is Abijah the Brave coming at 
 last?" 
 
 " I don't know certainly, but it will be some time 
 this week." 
 
 "And of course you'd rather be dressed up and 
 not seen, than seen when not dressed up. Right, 
 my Fair Emmajane ; so would I. Not that it makes 
 any difference to poor me, wearing my fourth best 
 black and white calico and expecting nobody." 
 
 " Oh, well, you ! There 's something inside of you 
 that does instead of pretty dresses," cried Emma 
 Jane, whose adoration of her friend had never al- 
 256 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 tered nor lessened since they met at the age of 
 eleven. "You know you are as different from 
 anybody else in Riverboro as a princess in a fairy 
 story. Libby Moses says they would notice you in 
 Lowell, Massachusetts ! " 
 
 " Would they ? I wonder," speculated Rebecca, 
 rendered almost speechless by this tribute to her 
 charms. "Well, if Lowell, Massachusetts, could see 
 me, or if you could see me, in my new lavender 
 muslin with the violet sash, it would die of envy, 
 and so would you ! " 
 
 " If I had been going to be envious of you, Re- 
 becca, I should have died years ago. Come, let 's go 
 out on the steps where it 's shady and cool." 
 
 " And where we can see the Perkins front gate 
 and the road running both ways," teased Rebecca, 
 and then, softening her tone, she said : " How is it 
 getting on, Emmy ? Tell me what 's happened 
 since I 've been in Brunswick." 
 
 "Nothing much," confessed Emma Jane. "He 
 writes to me, but I don't write to him, you know. 
 I don't dare to, till he comes to the house." 
 
 " Are his letters still in Latin ? " asked Rebecca, 
 with a twinkling eye. 
 
 "Oh, no! not now, because — well, because there 
 
 are things you can't seem to write in Latin. I saw 
 
 him at the Masonic picnic in the grove, but he 
 
 won't say anything real to me till he gets more pay 
 
 257 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 and dares to speak to mother and father. He is 
 brave in all other ways, but I ain't sure he '11 ever 
 have the courage for that, he 's so afraid of them 
 and always has been. Just remember what 's in his 
 mind all the time, Rebecca, that my folks know all 
 about what his mother was, and how he was born 
 on the poor-farm. Not that I care; look how he 's 
 educated and worked himself up ! I think he 's per- 
 fectly elegant, and I should n't mind if he had been 
 born in the bulrushes, like Moses." 
 
 Emma Jane's every-day vocabulary was pretty 
 much what it had been before she went to the 
 expensive Wareham Female Seminary. She had 
 acquired a certain amount of information concern- 
 ing the art of speech, but in moments of strong 
 feeling she lapsed into the vernacular. She grew 
 slowly in all directions, did Emma Jane, and, to 
 use Rebecca's favorite nautilus figure, she had left 
 comparatively few outgrown shells on the shores of 
 "life's unresting sea." 
 
 "Moses wasn't born in the bulrushes, Emmy 
 dear," corrected Rebecca laughingly. "Pharaoh's 
 daughter found him there. It was n't quite as ro- 
 mantic a scene — Squire Bean's wife taking little 
 Abijah Flagg from the poorhouse when his girl- 
 mother died, but, oh, I think Abijah's splendid ! Mr. 
 Ladd says Riverboro '11 be proud of him yet, and I 
 shouldn't wonder, Emmy dear, if you had a three- 
 258 
 
IS AIUJAH THE P.RAVE COMING AT LAST ? : 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 story house with a cupola on it, some day; and, 
 sitting down at your mahogany desk inlaid with 
 garnets, you will write notes stating that Mrs. 
 Abijah Flagg requests the pleasure of Miss Re- 
 becca Randall's company to tea, and that the Hon. 
 Abijah Flagg, M. C, will call for her on his way 
 from the station with a span of horses and the tur- 
 quoise carryall !" 
 
 Emma Jane laughed at the ridiculous prophecy, 
 and answered : " If I ever write the invitation I 
 shan't be addressing it to Miss Randall, I 'm sure 
 of that ; it '11 be to Mrs. " 
 
 " Don't ! " cried Rebecca impetuously, changing 
 color and putting her hand over Emma Jane's lips. 
 " If you won't I '11 stop teasing. I could n't bear a 
 name put to anything, I could n't, Emmy dear ! I 
 would n't tease you, either, if it were n't something 
 we 've both known ever so long — something that 
 you have always consulted me about of your own 
 accord, and Abijah too." 
 
 "Don't get excited," replied Emma Jane, "I was 
 only going to say you were sure to be Mrs. Some- 
 body in course of time." 
 
 " Oh," said Rebecca with a relieved sigh, her 
 color coming back ; " if that 's all you meant, just 
 nonsense ; but I thought, I thought — I don't really 
 know just what I thought ! " 
 
 " I think you thought something you did n't want 
 259 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 me to think you thought," said Emma Jane with 
 unusual felicity. 
 
 " No, it 's not that ; but somehow, to-day, I have 
 been remembering things. Perhaps it was because 
 at breakfast Aunt Jane and mother reminded me 
 of my coming birthday and said that Squire Bean 
 would give me the deed of the brick house. That 
 made me feel very old and responsible ; and when 
 I came out on the steps this afternoon it was just 
 as if pictures of the old years were moving up 
 and down the road. Everything is so beautiful 
 to-day ! Does n't the sky look as if it had been 
 dyed blue and the fields painted pink and green 
 and yellow this very minute ? " 
 
 "It 's a perfectly elegant day ! " responded Emma 
 Jane with a sigh. " If only my mind was at rest ! 
 That 's the difference between being young and 
 grown-up. We never used to think and worry." 
 
 " Indeed we did n't ! Look, Emmy, there 's the 
 very spot where Uncle Jerry Cobb stopped the 
 stage and I stepped out with my pink parasol and 
 my bouquet of purple lilacs, and you were watching 
 me from your bedroom window and wondering 
 what I had in mother's little hair trunk strapped 
 on behind. Poor Aunt Miranda did n't love me at 
 first sight, and oh, how cross she was the first two 
 years ! But now every hard thought I ever had 
 comes back to me and cuts like a knife ! " 
 260 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 " She was dreadful hard to get along with, and 
 I used to hate her like poison," confessed Emma 
 Jane ; " but I am sorry now. She was kinder to- 
 ward the last, anyway, and then, you see children 
 know so little ! We never suspected she was sick 
 or that she was worrying over that lost interest 
 money." 
 
 " That 's the trouble. People seem hard and un- 
 reasonable and unjust, and we can't help being hurt 
 at the time, but if they die we forget everything 
 but our own angry speeches ; somehow we never 
 remember theirs. And oh, Emma Jane, there 's 
 another such a sweet little picture out there in the 
 road. The next day after I came to Riverboro, do 
 you remember, I stole out of the brick house cry- 
 ing, and leaned against the front gate. You pushed 
 your little fat pink -and -white face through the 
 pickets and said : ' Don't cry ! I '11 kiss you if you 
 will me!'" 
 
 Lumps rose suddenly in Emma Jane's throat, 
 and she put her arm around Rebecca's waist as they 
 sat together side by side. 
 
 " Oh, I do remember," she said in a choking 
 voice. " And I can see the two of us driving over 
 to North Riverboro and selling soap to Mr. Adam 
 Ladd ; and lighting up the premium banquet-lamp 
 at the Simpson party ; and laying the daisies round 
 Jacky Winslow's mother when she was dead in the 
 261 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 cabin ; and trundling Jacky up and down the 
 street in our old baby-carriage ! " 
 
 "And I remember you," continued Rebecca, 
 " being chased down the hill by Jacob Moody, 
 when we were being Daughters of Zion and you 
 had been chosen to convert him ! " 
 
 "And I remember you, getting the flag back 
 from Mr. Simpson ; and how you looked when you 
 spoke your verses at the flag-raising." 
 
 " And have you forgotten the week I refused to 
 speak to Abijah Flagg because he fished my turban 
 with the porcupine quills out of the river when I 
 hoped at last that I had lost it ! Oh, Emma Jane, 
 we had dear good times together in the 'little 
 harbor.' " 
 
 " I always thought that was an elegant composi- 
 tion of yours — that farewell to the class," said 
 Emma Jane. 
 
 "The strong tide bears us on, out of the little 
 harbor of childhood into the unknown seas," re- 
 called Rebecca. "It is bearing you almost out of; 
 my sight, Emmy, these last days, when you put 
 on a new dress in the afternoon and look out of 
 the window instead of coming across the street. 
 Abijah Flagg never used to be in the little harbor 
 with the rest of us ; when did he first sail in, 
 Emmy ? " 
 
 Emma Jane grew a deeper pink and her button- 
 262 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 hole of a mouth quivered with delicious excite- 
 ment. 
 
 " It was last year at the seminary, when he wrote 
 me his first Latin letter from Limerick Academy," 
 she said in a half whisper. 
 
 "I remember," laughed Rebecca. "You sud- 
 denly began the study of the dead languages, and 
 the Latin dictionary took the place of the crochet- 
 needle in your affections. It was cruel of you never 
 to show me that letter, Emmy ! " 
 
 "I know every word of it by heart," said the 
 blushing Emma Jane, " and I think I really ought 
 to say it to you, because it 's the only way you will 
 ever know how perfectly elegant Abijah is. Look 
 the other way, Rebecca. Shall I have to translate 
 it for you, do you think, because it seems to me I 
 could not bear to do that ! " 
 
 " It depends upon Abijah's Latin and your pro- 
 nunciation," teased Rebecca. "Go on; I will turn 
 my eyes toward the orchard." 
 
 The Fair Emmajane, looking none too old still 
 for the "little harbor," but almost too young for 
 the "unknown seas," gathered up her courage and 
 recited like a tremulous parrot the boyish love- 
 letter that had so fired her youthful imagination : 
 
 "Vale, carissima, carissima puella!" repeated 
 Rebecca in her musical voice. " Oh, how beau- 
 tiful it sounds ! I don't wonder it altered your 
 263 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 feeling for Abijah ! Upon my word, Emma Jane," 
 she cried with a sudden change of tone, " if I had 
 suspected for an instant that Abijah the Brave 
 had that Latin letter in him I should have tried to 
 get him to write it to me ; and then it would be I 
 who would sit down at my mahogany desk and ask 
 Miss Perkins to come to tea with Mrs. Flagg." 
 
 Emma Jane paled and shuddered openly. "I 
 speak as a church member, Rebecca," she said, 
 "when I tell you I 've always thanked the Lord that 
 you never looked at Abijah Flagg and he never 
 looked at you. If either of you ever had, there 
 never would have been a chance for me, and I 've 
 always known it ! " 
 
 II 
 
 The romance alluded to in the foregoing chapter 
 had been going on, so far as Abijah Flagg's part 
 of it was concerned, for many years, his affection 
 dating back in his own mind to the first moment 
 that he saw Emma Jane Perkins at the age of nine. 
 
 Emma Jane had shown no sign of reciprocating 
 his attachment until the last three years, when the 
 evolution of the chore-boy into the budding scholar 
 and man of affairs had inflamed even her some- 
 what dull imagination. 
 
 Squire Bean's wife had taken Abijah away from 
 the poorhouse, thinking that she could make him 
 264 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 of some little use in her home. Abbie Flagg, the 
 mother, was neither wise nor beautiful ; it is to be 
 feared that she was not even good, and her lack of 
 all these desirable qualities, particularly the last 
 one, had been impressed upon the child ever since 
 he could remember. People seemed to blame 
 him for being in the world at all ; this world that 
 had not expected him nor desired him, nor made 
 any provision for him. The great battle-axe of 
 poorhouse opinion was forever leveled at the mere 
 little atom of innocent transgression, until he grew 
 sad and shy, clumsy, stiff, and self-conscious. He 
 had an indomitable craving for love in his heart 
 and had never received a caress in his life. 
 
 He was more contented when he came to Squire 
 Bean's house. The first year he could only pick up 
 chips, carry pine wood into the kitchen, go to the 
 post-office, run errands, drive the cows, and feed 
 the hens, but every day he grew more and more 
 useful. 
 
 His only friend was little Jim Watson, the store- 
 keeper's son, and they were inseparable companions 
 whenever Abijah had time for play. 
 
 One never-to-be-forgotten July day a new family 
 moved into the white cottage between Squire 
 Bean's house and the Sawyers'. Mr. Perkins had 
 sold his farm beyond North Riverboro and had es- 
 tablished a blacksmith's shop in the village, at the 
 265 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 Edgewood end of the bridge. This fact was of no 
 special interest to the nine-year-old Abijah, but 
 what really was of importance, was the appearance 
 of a pretty little girl of seven in the front yard ; a 
 pretty little fat doll of a girl, with bright fuzzy hair, 
 pink cheeks, blue eyes, and a smile of almost be- 
 wildering continuity. Another might have criticised 
 it as having the air of being glued on, but Abijah 
 was already in the toils and never wished it to 
 move. 
 
 The next day being the glorious Fourth and a 
 holiday, Jimmy Watson came over like David, to 
 visit his favorite Jonathan. His Jonathan met 
 him at the top of the hill, pleaded a pressing en- 
 gagement, curtly sent him home, and then went 
 back to play with his new idol, with whom he had 
 already scraped acquaintance, her parents being ex- 
 ceedingly busy settling the new house. 
 
 After the noon dinner Jimmy again yearned to 
 resume friendly relations, and, forgetting his rebuff, 
 again toiled up the hill and appeared unexpectedly 
 at no great distance from the Perkins premises, 
 wearing the broad and beaming smile of one who 
 is confident of welcome. 
 
 His morning call had been officious and unpleas- 
 ant and unsolicited, but his afternoon visit could 
 only be regarded as impudent, audacious, and posi- 
 tively dangerous ; for Abijah and Emma Jane were 
 266 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 cosily playing house, the game of all others in which 
 it is particularly desirable to have two and not three 
 participants. 
 
 At that moment the nature of Abijah changed, 
 at once and forever. Without a pang of conscience 
 he flew over the intervening patch of ground be- 
 tween himself and his dreaded rival, and seizing 
 small stones and larger ones, as haste and fury de- 
 manded, flung them at Jimmy Watson, and flung 
 and flung, till the bewildered boy ran down the hill 
 howling. Then he made a " stickin' " door to the 
 play-house, put the awed Emma Jane inside, and 
 strode up and down in front of the edifice like an 
 Indian brave. At such an early age does woman 
 become a distracting and disturbing influence in 
 man's career! 
 
 Time went on, and so did the rivalry between 
 the poorhouse boy and the son of wealth, but Abi- 
 jah's chances of friendship with Emma Jane grew 
 fewer and fewer as they both grew older. He did 
 not go to school, so there was no meeting-ground 
 there, but sometimes, when he saw the knot of 
 boys and girls returning in the afternoon, he would 
 invite Elijah and Elisha, the Simpson twins, to 
 visit him, and take pains to be in Squire Bean's 
 front yard doing something that might impress his 
 inamorata as she passed the premises. 
 
 As Jimmy Watson was particularly small and 
 267 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 fragile, Abijah generally chose feats of strength 
 and skill for these prearranged performances. 
 
 Sometimes he would throw his hat up into the 
 elm-trees as far as he could and, when it came 
 down, catch it on his head. Sometimes he would 
 walk on his hands, with his legs wriggling in the 
 air, or turn a double somersault, or jump incredi- 
 ble distances across the extended arms of the 
 Simpson twins ; and his bosom swelled with pride 
 when the girls exclaimed, "Isn't he splendid!" 
 although he often heard his rival murmur scornfully, 
 " Smarty Aleck / " — a scathing allusion of unknown 
 origin. 
 
 Squire Bean, although he did not send the boy 
 to school (thinking, as he was of no possible im- 
 portance in the universe, it was not worth while 
 bothering about his education), finally became im- 
 pressed with his ability, lent him books, and gave 
 him more time to study. These were all he needed, 
 books and time, and when there was an especially 
 hard knot to untie, Rebecca, as the star scholar of 
 the neighborhood, helped him to untie it. 
 
 When he was sixteen he longed to go away from 
 Riverboro and be something better than a chore- 
 boy. Squire Bean had been giving him small wages 
 for three or four years, and when the time of part- 
 ing came presented him with a ten-dollar bill and 
 a silver watch. 
 
 268 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 Many a time had he discussed his future with 
 Rebecca and asked her opinion. 
 
 This was not strange, for there was nothing in 
 human form that she could not and did not con- 
 verse with, easily and delightedly. She had ideas 
 on every conceivable subject, and would have cheer- 
 fully advised the minister if he had asked her. The 
 fishman consulted her when he could n't endure 
 his mother-in-law another minute in the house; 
 Uncle Jerry Cobb did n't part with his river field 
 until he had talked it over with Rebecca ; and as 
 for Aunt Jane, she could n't decide whether to 
 wear her black merino or her gray thibet unless 
 Rebecca cast the final vote. 
 
 Abijah wanted to go far away from Riverboro, 
 as far as Limerick Academy, which was at least 
 fifteen miles; but although this seemed extreme, 
 Rebecca agreed, saying pensively: "There is a 
 kind of magicness about going far away and then 
 coming back all changed." 
 
 This was precisely Abijah's unspoken thought. 
 Limerick knew nothing of Abbie Flagg's worth- 
 lessness, birth, and training, and the awful stigma of 
 his poorhouse birth, so that he would start fair. He 
 could have gone to Wareham and thus remained 
 within daily sight of the beloved Emma Jane ; but 
 no, he was not going to permit her to watch him in 
 the process of "becoming," but after he had "be- 
 269 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 come " something. He did not propose to take any 
 risks after all these years of silence and patience. 
 Not he ! He proposed to disappear, like the moon 
 on a dark night, and as he was, at present, some- 
 thing that Mr. Perkins would by no means have in 
 the family nor Mrs. Perkins allow in the house, he 
 would neither return to Riverboro nor ask any fa- 
 vors of them until he had something to offer. Yes, 
 sir. He was going to be crammed to the eyebrows 
 with learning for one thing, — useless kinds and all, 
 — going to have good clothes, and a good income. 
 Everything that was in his power should be right, 
 because there would always be lurking in the back- 
 ground the things he never could help — the 
 mother and the poorhouse. 
 
 So he went away, and although at Squire Bean's 
 invitation he came back the first year for two brief 
 visits at Christmas and Easter, he was little seen 
 in Riverboro, for Mr. Ladd finally found him a 
 place where he could make his vacations profitable 
 and learn bookkeeping at the same time. 
 
 The visits in Riverboro were tantalizing rather 
 than pleasant. He was invited to two parties, but 
 he was all the time conscious of his shirt-collar, and 
 he was sure that his "pants" were not the proper 
 thing, for by this time his ideals of dress had at- 
 tained an almost unrealizable height. As for his 
 shoes, he felt that he walked on carpets as if they 
 270 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 were furrows and he were propelling a plow or a 
 harrow before him. They played Drop the Hand- 
 kerchief and Copenhagen at the parties, but he 
 had not had the audacity to kiss Emma Jane, which 
 was bad enough, but Jimmy had and did, which was 
 infinitely worse ! The sight of James Watson's un- 
 worthy and over-ambitious lips on Emma Jane's 
 pink cheek almost destroyed his faith in an over- 
 ruling Providence. 
 
 After the parties were over he went back to his 
 old room in Squire Bean's shed chamber. As he 
 lay in bed his thoughts fluttered about Emma Jane 
 as swallows circle around the eaves. The terrible 
 sickness of hopeless handicapped love kept him 
 awake. Once he crawled out of bed in the night, 
 lighted the lamp, and looked for his mustache, 
 remembering that he had seen a suspicion of down 
 on his rival's upper lip. He rose again half an hour 
 later, again lighted the lamp, put a few drops of oil 
 on his hair, and brushed it violently for several 
 minutes. Then he went back to bed, and after 
 making up his mind that he would buy a dulcimer 
 and learn to play on it so that he would be more 
 attractive at parties, and outshine his rival in so- 
 ciety as he had aforetime in athletics, he finally 
 sank into a troubled slumber. 
 
 Those days, so full of hope and doubt and tor- 
 ture, seemed mercifully unreal now, they lay so far 
 271 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 back in the past — six or eight years, in fact, which 
 is a lifetime to the lad of twenty — and meantime 
 he had conquered many of the adverse circum- 
 stances that had threatened to cloud his career. 
 
 Abijah Flagg was a true child of his native State. 
 Something of the same timber that Maine puts into 
 her forests, something of the same strength and 
 resisting power that she works into her rocks, goes 
 into her sons and daughters ; and at twenty Abijah 
 was going to take his fate in his hand and ask Mr. 
 Perkins, the rich blacksmith, if, after a suitable 
 period of probation (during which he would further 
 prepare himself for his exalted destiny), he might 
 marry the fair Emma Jane, sole heiress of the Per- 
 kins house and fortunes. 
 
 Ill 
 
 This was boy and girl love, calf love, perhaps, 
 though even that may develop into something 
 larger, truer, and finer; but not so far away were 
 other and very different hearts growing and bud- 
 ding, each in its own way. There was little Miss 
 Dearborn, the pretty school-teacher, drifting into a 
 foolish alliance because she did not agree with 
 her stepmother at home ; there was Herbert Dunn, 
 valedictorian of his class, dazzled by Huldah Me- 
 serve, who like a glowworm " shone afar off bright, 
 but looked at near, had neither heat nor light." 
 272 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 There was sweet Emily Maxwell, less than thirty 
 still, with most of her heart bestowed in the wrong 
 quarter. She was toiling on at the Wareham school, 
 living as unselfish a life as a nun in a convent ; 
 lavishing the mind and soul of her, the heart and 
 body of her, on her chosen work. How many 
 women give themselves thus, consciously and un- 
 consciously ; and, though they themselves miss the 
 joys and compensations of mothering their own lit- 
 tle twos and threes, God must be grateful to them 
 for their mothering of the hundreds which make 
 them so precious in His regenerating purposes. 
 
 Then there was Adam Ladd, waiting at thirty- 
 five for a girl to grow a little older, simply be- 
 cause he could not find one already grown who 
 suited his somewhat fastidious and exacting tastes. 
 
 " I '11 not call Rebecca perfection," he quoted 
 once, in a letter to Emily Maxwell, — "I '11 not call 
 her perfection, for that 's a post, afraid to move. 
 But she 's a dancing sprig of the tree next it." 
 
 When first she appeared on his aunt's piazza 
 in North Riverboro and insisted on selling him a 
 large quantity of very inferior soap in order that 
 her friends, the Simpsons, might possess a pre- 
 mium in the shape of a greatly needed banquet 
 lamp, she had riveted his attention. He thought 
 at the time that he enjoyed talking with her more 
 
 than with any woman alive, and he had never 
 273 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 changed his opinion. She always caught what he 
 said as if it were a ball tossed to her, and some- 
 times her mind, as through it his thoughts came 
 back to him, seemed like a prism which had dyed 
 them with deeper colors. 
 
 Adam Ladd always called Rebecca in his heart 
 his little Spring. His boyhood had been lonely and 
 unhappy. That was the part of life he had missed, 
 and although it was the full summer of success 
 and prosperity with him now, he found his lost 
 youth only in her. 
 
 She was to him — how shall I describe it ? 
 
 Do you remember an early day in May with 
 budding leaf, warm earth, tremulous air, and 
 changing, willful sky — how new it seemed ? how 
 fresh and joyous beyond all explaining? 
 
 Have you lain with half-closed eyes where the 
 flickering of sunlight through young leaves, the 
 song of birds and brook and the fragrance of wild 
 flowers combined to charm your senses, and you 
 felt the sweetness and grace of nature as never 
 before ? 
 
 Rebecca was springtide to Adam's thirsty heart. 
 She was blithe youth incarnate ; she was music — 
 an iEolian harp that every passing breeze woke 
 to some whispering little tune ; she was a chan- 
 ging, iridescent joy-bubble ; she was the shadow 
 of a leaf dancing across a dusty floor. No bough 
 274 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 of his thought could be so bare but she somehow 
 built a nest in it and evoked life where none was 
 before. 
 
 And Rebecca herself ? 
 
 She had been quite unconscious of all this until 
 very lately, and even now she was but half awak- 
 ened; searching among her childish instincts and 
 her girlish dreams for some Ariadne thread that 
 should guide her safely through the labyrinth of her 
 new sensations. 
 
 For the moment she was absorbed, or thought 
 she was, in the little love story of Abijah and Emma 
 Jane, but in reality, had she realized it, that love 
 story served chiefly as a basis of comparison for a 
 possible one of her own, later on. 
 
 She liked and respected Abijah Flagg, and lov- 
 ing Emma Jane was a habit contracted early in life; 
 but everything that they did or said, or thought or 
 wrote, or hoped or feared, seemed so inadequate, so 
 painfully short of what might be done or said, or 
 thought or written, or hoped or feared, under easily 
 conceivable circumstances, that she almost felt a 
 disposition to smile gently at the fancy of the igno- 
 rant young couple that they had caught a glimpse 
 of the great vision. 
 
 She was sitting under the sweet-apple tree at 
 twilight. Supper was over; Mark's restless feet 
 were quiet, Fanny and Jenny were tucked safely in 
 275 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 bed ; her aunt and her mother were stemming cur- 
 rants on the side porch. 
 
 A blue - spot at one of the Perkins windows 
 showed that in one vestal bosom hope was not dead 
 yet, although it was seven o'clock. 
 
 Suddenly there was the sound of a horse's feet 
 coming up the quiet road ; plainly a steed hired 
 from some metropolis like Milltown or Wareham, 
 as Riverboro horses when through with their day's 
 work never disported themselves so gayly. 
 
 A little open vehicle came in sight, and in it sat 
 Abijah Flagg. The wagon was so freshly painted 
 and so shiny that Rebecca thought that he must 
 have alighted at the bridge and given it a last 
 polish. The creases in his trousers, too, had an air 
 of having been pressed in only a few minutes be- 
 fore. The whip was new and had a yellow ribbon 
 on it ; the gray suit of clothes was new, and the 
 coat flourished a flower in its button-hole. The 
 hat was the latest thing in hats, and the intrepid 
 swain wore a seal-ring on the little finger of his 
 right hand. As Rebecca remembered that she had 
 guided it in making capital G's in his copy-book, 
 she felt positively maternal, although she was two 
 years younger than Abijah the Brave. 
 
 He drove up to the Perkins gate and was so long 
 about hitching the horse that Rebecca's heart beat 
 tumultuously at the thought of Emma Jane's heart 
 276 
 
ABIJAH THE BRAVE 
 
 waiting under the blue barege. Then he brushed 
 an imaginary speck off his sleeve, then he drew on 
 a pair of buff kid gloves, then he went up the path, 
 rapped at the knocker, and went in. 
 
 " Not all the heroes go to the wars," thought 
 Rebecca. " Abijah has laid the ghost of his father 
 and redeemed the memory of his mother, for no 
 one will dare say again that Abbie Flagg's son 
 could never amount to anything ! " 
 
 The minutes went by, and more minutes, and 
 more. The tranquil dusk settled down over the 
 little village street and the young moon came out 
 just behind the top of the Perkins pine-tree. 
 
 The Perkins front door opened and Abijah the 
 Brave came out hand in hand with his Fair Emma- 
 jane. 
 
 They walked through the orchard, the eyes of 
 the old couple following them from the window, 
 and just as they disappeared down the green slope 
 that led to the riverside the gray coat-sleeve en- 
 circled the blue barege waist. 
 
 Rebecca, quivering with instant sympathy and 
 comprehension, hid her face in her hands. 
 
 " Emmy has sailed away and I am all alone in 
 the little harbor," she thought. 
 
 It was as if childhood, like a thing real and vis- 
 ible, were slipping down the grassy river-banks, 
 after Abijah and Emma Jane, and disappearing 
 277 
 
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA 
 
 like them into the moon-lit shadows of the summer 
 night, 
 
 "I am all alone in the little harbor," she re- 
 peated; "and oh, I wonder, I wonder, shall I be 
 afraid to leave it, if anybody ever comes to cany 
 me out to sea!" 
 
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