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 disappear 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 watering trough.
Coming a little nearer, with the view of inquiring for the family, her
quick eye caught sight of something unexpected. A gust of wind blew up
a corner of a linen lap-robe in the back of the wagon, and 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 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 corner, 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 matter 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; 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 Rebecca was driving along the lonely way with a
person 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 afternoon 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
delicate 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 she led the conversation in the right direction an
opportunity would present itself. She well remembered how Emma Jane
Perkins had failed to convert 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 tomorrow?”
“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'll be a brass band, and speakers, and the
Mayor of Portland, and the man that will be governor 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'll 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 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 Rebecca 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 occasion for anybody to do
anything, well or ill, suddenly 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'll be so dreadful for everybody to get there tomorrow
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 Mr. Simpson, please don't take our flag away
from us!”
The apparently astonished Abner pulled his mustaches and exclaimed: “But
I don't know what you're drivin' at! Who's got yer flag? _I_ hain't!”
Could duplicity, deceit, and infamy go any further, 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'll 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'll lie right down on my star and not move, if I starve
to death!”
“Look here, hold your hosses 'n' don't cry till you git something to cry
for!” grumbled the outraged 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, 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 practiced eye, and slipping in at the open gate he had swiftly and
deftly removed it to his wagon on general 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 leisure 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 preternaturally 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 noticed; but she hoped that Mr. Simpson was telling the truth, and
she was too glad and grateful to doubt anyone at the moment.
“Thank you, thank you ever so much, Mr. Simpson. 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, 'twould 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'll 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'll wear it out, huggin'
it so!”
“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 extremely 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 patriotism for a month; “and you own a state, too, like
all of us!”
“Land! I wish't I did! or even a quarter section!” sighed Mr. Simpson,
feeling somehow a little more poverty-stricken and discouraged than
usual.
As they approached the corner and the watering-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, 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 handcuffed twice in his life, but no sheriff had
ever discomfited 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!”
“You never, no such a thing!” exclaimed Mrs. Meserve. “You found it on
the doorsteps in my garden!”
“Mebbe 'twas your garden, but it was so chock full o' weeds I _thought_
'twas the road,” retorted Abner. “I vow I wouldn'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 didn't do
anything to be ashamed of! I saw the flag in the back of Mr. Simpson's
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 wouldn't have had me let it
out of my sight, would you, and we going to raise it tomorrow 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!_'”