I
Even when Rebecca had left school, having attained the great age of
seventeen and therefore able to look back over a past incredibly 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 engaged;
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 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 rapture
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 before
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 history,--even the persons
most interested in this particular one would grudgingly have allowed
that much,--but it would have seemed to them improbable that any such
flag-raising as theirs, either in magnitude of conception or brilliancy
of actual performance, could twice glorify the same century. Of some
pageants it is tacitly admitted that there can be no duplicates, and the
flag-raising at Riverboro 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 probably 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 whenever he could get faster ones. As a parochial visitor he was
incomparable, dashing from house to house with such speed that he could
cover the parish in a single afternoon. This sporting tendency, which
would never have been remarked in a British parson, was frowned upon in
a New England village, 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, crookedly applied wig.
Number three was eloquent but given to gesticulation, and Mrs. Jere
Burbank, the president of the Dorcas Society, who sat in a front pew,
said she couldn'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 congregation was overwhelmingly Republican in its
politics, and perceived something ludicrous, if not positively
blasphemous, in a Democrat preaching the gospel. (“Ananias and
Beelzebub'll be candidatin' here, first thing we know!” exclaimed the
outraged Republican nominee for district attorney.)
Number five had a feeble-minded child, which the hiring committee
prophesied, would always be 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 subscription committee hoped that they might
not be eternally 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 poorest 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 'tis, and she says we might as well say good-by to the
parlor carpet, which is church property, for the Baxters are living all
over it!”
This criticism was the only discordant note in the chorus of praise, and
the people gradually grew accustomed to the open blinds and the overused
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 manufactured 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 couldn't christen it at a better time than in this
presidential year.”