“You know plenty for two Rebecca Marys,” she triumphed. “Didn't you
appropriate all the honors at college, you selfish boy!”
“It's too late now, dear.” But the minister's eyes thanked her, and the
big clasp of his arms. A minister may be mortal.
“Maybe it is and maybe it isn't,” spoke the minister's wife, in riddles.
“We'll wait and see.”
“But, Felicia—but, dear, they're both them Plummers.”
“Maybe they are and maybe they aren't,” laughed she.
That night Aunt Olivia told Rebecca Mary—after she went to bed, quite
calmly:
“Rebecca Mary, how would you like to go away to school? For I'm going to
send you, my dear.”
“'Away—to school—my dear!'” echoed Rebecca Mary, sitting upright in bed.
Her slight figure stretched up rigid and preternaturally tall in the dim
light.
“Yes; the minister advises it—I left it to him. He thinks you ought to
have advantages.” Aunt Olivia slipped down suddenly beside the little
rigid figure and touched it rather timidly. She felt a little in awe of
the Rebecca Mary who knew more than her teacher did.
“They all seem to think you're—smart, my dear,” Aunt Olivia said, and
she would scarcely have believed it could be so hard to say it. For the
life of her she could not keep the pride from pricking through her tone.
The wild temptation to sell her Plummer birthright for a kiss assailed
her. But she groped in the dimness for Duty's cool touch and found it.
In the Plummer code of laws it was writ, “Thou shalt not kiss.”
“I'm going right to work to make you some new nightgowns,” Aunt Olivia
added, hastily. “I think I shall make them plain,” for it was in the
nature of a reinforcement to her courage to leave off the ruffles.
Rebecca Mary's eyes shone like stars in the dark little room. The child
thought she was glad to be going away to school.
“Shall I study algebra and Latin?” she demanded.
“I suppose so—that'll be what you go for.”
“And French—not FRENCH?”
“Likely.”
Rebecca Mary fell back on the pillows to grasp it. But she was presently
up again.
“And that thing that tells about the air and—and gassy things? And the
one that tells about your bones?”
Aunt Olivia did not recognize chemistry, but she knew bones. She sighed
gently.
“Oh yes; I suppose you'll find out just how you're put together, and
likely it'll scare you so you won't ever dare to breathe deep again.
Maybe learning like that is important—I suppose the minister knows.”
“The minister knows everything,” Rebecca Mary said, solemnly. “If you
let me go away to school, I'll try to learn to know as much as he does,
Aunt Olivia. You don't—you don't think he'd mind, do you?”
In the dark Aunt Olivia smiled. The small person there on the pillows
was, after all, a child. Rebecca Mary had not grown up, after all!
“He won't mind,” promised Aunt Olivia for the minister. She went away
presently and cut out Rebecca Mary's new nightgowns. She sat and
stitched them, far into the night, and stitched her sad little bodings
in, one by one. Already desolation gripped Aunt Olivia's heart.
Rebecca Mary's dreams that night were marvelous ones. She dreamed she
saw herself in a glass after she had learned all the things there were
to learn, and she looked like the minister! When she spoke, her voice
sounded deep and sweet like the minister's voice. Somewhere a voice like
the minister's wife's seemed to be calling “Robert! Robert!”
“Yes?” answered Rebecca Mary, and woke up.
There were many preparations to make. The days sped by busily, and to
Rebecca Mary full of joyous expectancy. Aunt Olivia made no moan. She
worked steadily over the plain little outfit and thrust her Dreads away
with resolute courage, to wait until Rebecca Mary was gone. Time enough
then.
“You're doing right—that ought to comfort you,” encouraged Duty, kindly.
“Clear out!” was what Aunt Olivia cried out, sharply, in answer. “You've
done enough—this is all your work! Don't stand there hugging yourself.
YOU'RE not going to miss Rebecca Mary—”
“I shall miss her,” Duty murmured. “I was awake all night, too, dreading
it. You didn't know, but I was there.”
The last day, when it came, seemed a little—a good deal—like that other
day when Aunt Olivia went away, only it was the other way about this
time. Rebecca Mary was going away on this day. The things packed snugly
in the big valise were her things; it was she, Rebecca Mary, who would
unpack them in a wondrous, strange place. It was Rebecca Mary the
minister's wife and Rhoda came to bid good-bye.
Aunt Olivia went to the station in the stage with the child. She did not
speak much on the way, but sat firmly straight and smiled. Duty had told
her the last thing to smile. But Duty had not trusted her; unseen and
uninvited, Duty had slipped into the jolting old vehicle between Aunt
Olivia and Rebecca Mary.
“She isn't the Plummer she was once,” sighed Duty.
But at the little station, in those few final moments, two Plummers, an
old one and a young one, waited quietly together. Neither of them broke
down nor made ado. Duty retired in palpable chagrin.
“Good-bye, my dear,” Aunt Olivia said, steadily, though her lips were
white.
“Good-bye, Aunt Olivia,” Rebecca Mary Plummer said, steadily. “I'm very
MUCH obliged to you for sending me.”
“You're—welcome. Don't forget to wear your rubbers. I put in some
liniment in case you need it—don't get any in your eyes.”
Outside on the platform Aunt Olivia sought and found Rebecca Mary's
window and stood beside it till the train started. Through the dusty
pane their faces looked oddly unfamiliar to each other, and the two
pairs of eyes that gazed out and in had a startled wistfulness in them
that no Plummer eyes should have. If Duty had staid—
The train shook itself, gave a jerk or two, and plunged down the shining
rails. Aunt Olivia watched it out of sight, then turned patiently to
meet her loneliness. The Dreads came flocking back to her as if she had
beckoned to them. For now was the time.
The letters Rebecca Mary wrote were formally correct and brief. There
was no homesickness in them. It was pleasant at the school, that book
about bones was going to be very interesting. Aunt Olivia was not to
worry about the rubbers, and Rebecca Mary would never forget to air her
clothes when they came from the wash. Yes, she had aired the nightgown
that Aunt Olivia ironed the last thing. No, she hadn't needed any
liniment yet, but she wouldn't get any in her eyes.
Aunt Olivia's letters were to the point and calm, as though Duty stood
peering over her shoulder as she wrote. She was glad Rebecca Mary liked
the bones, but she was a little surprised. She was glad about the
rubbers and the wash; she was glad there had been no need yet for the
liniment. It was a good thing to rub on a sore throat. The minister's
wife had been over with her work she said Rhoda missed Rebecca Mary.
Yes, the little, white cat was well—no, she hadn't caught any mice. The
calla lily had two buds, the Northern Spy tree was not going to bear
very well.
“Robert, I've been to see Miss Olivia,” the minister's wife said at tea.
“Yes?” The minister waited. He knew it was coming.
“She was knitting stockings for Rebecca Mary. Robert, she sat there and
smiled till I had to come home to cry!”
“My dear!—do you want me to cry, too?”
“I'm a-going to,” sniffed Rhoda. “I feel it coming.”
“She is so lonely, Robert! It would break your heart to see her smile.
How do I know she is? Oh no—no, she didn't say she was! But I saw her
eyes and she let the little, white cat get up in her lap!”
“Proof enough,” the minister said, gently.
Between the two of them—the child at school and Aunt Olivia at
home—letters came and went for six weeks. Aunt Olivia wrote six, Rebecca
Mary six. All the letters were terse and brief and unemotional. Weather,
bones, little white cats, liniment—everything in them but loneliness or
love. Rebecca Mary began all hers “Dear Aunt Olivia,” and ended them all
“Respectfully your niece, Rebecca Mary Plummer.”
“Dear Rebecca Mary,” began Aunt Olivia's. “Your aff. aunt, Olivia
Plummer,” they closed. Yet both their hearts were breaking. Some hearts
break quicker than others; Plummer hearts hold out splendidly, but in
the end—
In the end Aunt Olivia went to see the minister and was closeted with
him for a little. The minister's wife could hear them talking—mostly the
minister—but she could not hear what they said.
“It's come,” she nodded, sagely. “I was sure it would. That's what the
little, white cat purred when she rubbed against my skirts, 'She can't
stand it much longer. She doesn't sleep nights nor eat days—she's giving
out.' Poor Miss Olivia!—but I can't understand Rebecca Mary.”
“It's the Plummer in her,” the little, white cat would have purred. “You
wait!”
Aunt Olivia turned back at the minister's study door. “Then you will?”
she said, eagerly. “You're perfectly willing to? I don't want to feel—”
“You needn't feel,” the minister smiled. “I'm more than willing. I'm
delighted. But in the matter of—er—remuneration, I cannot let you—”
“You needn't let me,” smiled Miss Olivia; “I'll do it without.” She was
gently radiant. Her pitifully thin face, so transfigured, touched the
big heart of the minister. He went to his window and watched the slight
figure hurry away. He would scarcely have been surprised to see it turn
down the road that led towards the railway station.
“Oh, Robert!” It was the minister's wife at his elbow. “You dear boy, I
know you've promised! You needn't tell me a thing—didn't I suggest it in
the first place? Dear Miss Olivia—I'm so glad, Robert! So are you glad,
you minister!” But they were neither of them thinking of little,
stubbed-out shoes that would be easier to buy.
Aunt Olivia turned down the station road the next morning, in the
swaying old stage. Her eager gaze never left the plodding horses, as if
by looking at them she could make them go faster.
“They're pretty slow, aren't they?” she said.
“Slow—THEM? Well, I guess you weren't never a stage horse!” chuckled the
old man at the reins.
“No,” admitted Aunt Olivia, “I never was, but I know I'd go faster
today.”
At the Junction, halfway to Rebecca Mary, she descended alertly from the
train and crossed the platform. She must wait here, they told her, an
hour and twenty minutes. On the other side of the station a train was
just slowing up, and she stood a moment to scan idly the thin stream of
people that trickled from the cars. There were old women—did any of
them, she wondered, feel as happy as she did? There were tall children,
too. There was one—Aunt Olivia started a little and fumbled in her soft
hair, under the roses in her bonnet brim, for her glasses. There was one
tall child—she was coming this way—she was coming fast—she was running!
Her arms were out—
“Aunt Olivia! Aunt Olivia!” the Tall Child was crying out, joyously,
“Oh, Aunt Olivia!”
“Rebecca Mary!—my dear, my dear!”
They were in each other's arms. The roses on Aunt Olivia's bonnet brim
slipped to one side—the two of them, not Plummers any more, but a
common, glad old woman and a common, glad, tall child, were kissing each
other as though they would never stop. The stream of people reached them
and flowed by on either side. Trains came and went, and still they stood
like that.
“Hoity-toity!” muttered Aunt Olivia's Duty, and slipped past with the
stream. A Plummer to the end, what use to stay any longer there?
“I was coming home,” cried Rebecca Mary. “I couldn't bear it another
minute!”
“I was coming after you—my dear, my DEAR, I couldn't bear it another
minute!”