In a few minutes the poetess looked up, flushed and triumphant. "It was
as easy as nothing. Just hear!" And she read slowly, with her pretty,
pathetic voice:--
Then if our lot be bright or sad,
Be full of smiles, or tears,
The thought that God has planned it so
Should help us bear the years.
Mr. and Mrs. Cobb exchanged dumb glances of admiration; indeed uncle
Jerry was obliged to turn his face to the window and wipe his eyes
furtively with the string-bag.
"How in the world did you do it?" Mrs. Cobb exclaimed.
"Oh, it's easy," answered Rebecca; "the hymns at meeting are all like
that. You see there's a school newspaper printed at Wareham Academy
once a month. Dick Carter says the editor is always a boy, of course;
but he allows girls to try and write for it, and then chooses the best.
Dick thinks I can be in it."
"IN it!" exclaimed uncle Jerry. "I shouldn't be a bit surprised if you
had to write the whole paper; an' as for any boy editor, you could lick
him writin', I bate ye, with one hand tied behind ye."
"Can we have a copy of the poetry to keep in the family Bible?"
inquired Mrs. Cobb respectfully.
"Oh! would you like it?" asked Rebecca. "Yes indeed! I'll do a clean,
nice one with violet ink and a fine pen. But I must go and look at my
poor dress."
The old couple followed Rebecca into the kitchen. The frock was quite
dry, and in truth it had been helped a little by aunt Sarah's
ministrations; but the colors had run in the rubbing, the pattern was
blurred, and there were muddy streaks here and there. As a last resort,
it was carefully smoothed with a warm iron, and Rebecca was urged to
attire herself, that they might see if the spots showed as much when it
was on.
They did, most uncompromisingly, and to the dullest eye. Rebecca gave
one searching look, and then said, as she took her hat from a nail in
the entry, "I think I'll be going. Good-night! If I've got to have a
scolding, I want it quick, and get it over."
"Poor little onlucky misfortunate thing!" sighed uncle Jerry, as his
eyes followed her down the hill. "I wish she could pay some attention
to the ground under her feet; but I vow, if she was ourn I'd let her
slop paint all over the house before I could scold her. Here's her
poetry she's left behind. Read it out ag'in, mother. Land!" he
continued, chuckling, as he lighted his cob pipe; "I can just see the
last flap o' that boy-editor's shirt tail as he legs it for the woods,
while Rebecky settles down in his revolvin' cheer! I'm puzzled as to
what kind of a job editin' is, exactly; but she'll find out, Rebecky
will. An' she'll just edit for all she's worth!
"'The thought that God has planned it so
Should help us bear the years.'
Land, mother! that takes right holt, kind o' like the gospel. How do
you suppose she thought that out?"
"She couldn't have thought it out at her age," said Mrs. Cobb; "she
must have just guessed it was that way. We know some things without
bein' told, Jeremiah."
Rebecca took her scolding (which she richly deserved) like a soldier.
There was considerable of it, and Miss Miranda remarked, among other
things, that so absent-minded a child was sure to grow up into a
driveling idiot. She was bidden to stay away from Alice Robinson's
birthday party, and doomed to wear her dress, stained and streaked as
it was, until it was worn out. Aunt Jane six months later mitigated
this martyrdom by making her a ruffled dimity pinafore, artfully shaped
to conceal all the spots. She was blessedly ready with these mediations
between the poor little sinner and the full consequences of her sin.
When Rebecca had heard her sentence and gone to the north chamber she
began to think. If there was anything she did not wish to grow into, it
was an idiot of any sort, particularly a driveling one; and she
resolved to punish herself every time she incurred what she considered
to be the righteous displeasure of her virtuous relative. She didn't
mind staying away from Alice Robinson's. She had told Emma Jane it
would be like a picnic in a graveyard, the Robinson house being as near
an approach to a tomb as a house can manage to be. Children were
commonly brought in at the back door, and requested to stand on
newspapers while making their call, so that Alice was begged by her
friends to "receive" in the shed or barn whenever possible. Mrs.
Robinson was not only "turrible neat," but "turrible close," so that
the refreshments were likely to be peppermint lozenges and glasses of
well water.
After considering the relative values, as penances, of a piece of
haircloth worn next to the skin, and a pebble in the shoe, she dismissed
them both. The haircloth could not be found, and the pebble would
attract the notice of the Argus-eyed aunt, besides being a foolish bar
to the activity of a person who had to do housework and walk a mile and
a half to school.
Her first experimental attempt at martyrdom had not been a
distinguished success. She had stayed at home from the Sunday-school
concert, a function of which, in ignorance of more alluring ones, she
was extremely fond. As a result of her desertion, two infants who
relied upon her to prompt them (she knew the verses of all the children
better than they did themselves) broke down ignominiously. The class to
which she belonged had to read a difficult chapter of Scripture in
rotation, and the various members spent an arduous Sabbath afternoon
counting out verses according to their seats in the pew, and practicing
the ones that would inevitably fall to them. They were too ignorant to
realize, when they were called upon, that Rebecca's absence would make
everything come wrong, and the blow descended with crushing force when
the Jebusites and Amorites, the Girgashites, Hivites, and Perizzites
had to be pronounced by the persons of all others least capable of
grappling with them.
Self-punishment, then, to be adequate and proper, must begin, like
charity, at home, and unlike charity should end there too. Rebecca
looked about the room vaguely as she sat by the window. She must give
up something, and truth to tell she possessed little to give, hardly
anything but--yes, that would do, the beloved pink parasol. She could
not hide it in the attic, for in some moment of weakness she would be
sure to take it out again. She feared she had not the moral energy to
break it into bits. Her eyes moved from the parasol to the apple-trees
in the side yard, and then fell to the well curb. That would do; she
would fling her dearest possession into the depths of the water. Action
followed quickly upon decision, as usual. She slipped down in the
darkness, stole out the front door, approached the place of sacrifice,
lifted the cover of the well, gave one unresigned shudder, and flung
the parasol downward with all her force. At the crucial instant of
renunciation she was greatly helped by the reflection that she closely
resembled the heathen mothers who cast their babes to the crocodiles in
the Ganges.
She slept well and arose refreshed, as a consecrated spirit always
should and sometimes does. But there was great difficulty in drawing
water after breakfast. Rebecca, chastened and uplifted, had gone to
school. Abijah Flagg was summoned, lifted the well cover, explored,
found the inciting cause of trouble, and with the help of Yankee wit
succeeded in removing it. The fact was that the ivory hook of the
parasol had caught in the chain gear, and when the first attempt at
drawing water was made, the little offering of a contrite heart was
jerked up, bent, its strong ribs jammed into the well side, and
entangled with a twig root. It is needless to say that no
sleight-of-hand performer, however expert, unless aided by the powers
of darkness, could have accomplished this feat; but a luckless child in
the pursuit of virtue had done it with a turn of the wrist.
We will draw a veil over the scene that occurred after Rebecca's return
from school. You who read may be well advanced in years, you may be
gifted in rhetoric, ingenious in argument; but even you might quail at
the thought of explaining the tortuous mental processes that led you
into throwing your beloved pink parasol into Miranda Sawyer's well.
Perhaps you feel equal to discussing the efficacy of spiritual
self-chastisement with a person who closes her lips into a thin line
and looks at you out of blank, uncomprehending eyes! Common sense,
right, and logic were all arrayed on Miranda's side. When poor Rebecca,
driven to the wall, had to avow the reasons lying behind the sacrifice
of the sunshade, her aunt said, "Now see here, Rebecca, you're too big
to be whipped, and I shall never whip you; but when you think you ain't
punished enough, just tell me, and I'll make out to invent a little
something more. I ain't so smart as some folks, but I can do that much;
and whatever it is, it'll be something that won't punish the whole
family, and make 'em drink ivory dust, wood chips, and pink silk rags
with their water."