Produced by Susan L. Farley. HTML version by Al Haines.
THE FLAG-RAISING
by
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
CONTENTS
I. A DIFFERENCE IN HEARTS
II. REBECCA'S POINT OF VIEW
III. WISDOM'S WAYS
IV. THE SAVING OF THE COLORS
V. THE STATE O' MAINE
I
A DIFFERENCE IN HEARTS
"I DON' know as I cal'lated to be the makin' of any child," Miranda had
said as she folded Aurelia's letter and laid it in the light-stand
drawer. "I s'posed of course Aurelia would send us the one we asked
for, but it's just like her to palm off that wild young one on somebody
else."
"You remember we said that Rebecca, or even Jenny might come, in case
Hannah could n't," interposed Jane.
"I know we did, but we hadn't any notion it would turn out that way,"
grumbled Miranda.
"She was a mite of a thing when we saw her three years ago," ventured
Jane; "she's had time to improve."
"And time to grow worse!"
"Won't it be kind of a privilege to put her on the right track?" asked
Jane timidly.
"I don' know about the privilege part; it'll be considerable work, I
guess. If her mother hasn't got her on the right track by now, she
won't take to it herself all of a sudden."
This depressed and depressing frame of mind had lasted until the
eventful day dawned on which Rebecca was to arrive.
"If she makes as much work after she comes as she has before, we might
as well give up hope of ever gettin' any rest," sighed Miranda as she
hung the dish towels on the barberry bushes at the side door.
"But we should have had to clean house, Rebecca or no Rebecca," urged
Jane; "and I can't see why you've scrubbed and washed and baked as you
have for that one child, nor why you've about bought out Watson's stock
of dry goods."
"I know Aurelia if you don't," responded Miranda. "I've seen her house,
and I've seen that batch o' children, wearin' one another's clothes and
never carin' whether they had 'em on right side out or not; I know what
they've had to live and dress on, and so do you. That child will like
as not come here with a bundle o' things borrowed from the rest o' the
family. She'll have Hannah's shoes and John's undershirts and Mark's
socks most likely. I suppose she never had a thimble on her finger in
her life, but she'll know the feelin' o' one before she's been here
many days. I've bought a piece of unbleached muslin and a piece o'
brown gingham for her to make up; that'll keep her busy. Of course she
won't pick up anything after herself; she probably never saw a duster,
and she'll be as hard to train into our ways as if she was a heathen."
"She'll make a dif'rence," acknowledged Jane, "but she may turn out
more biddable than we think."
"She'll mind when she's spoken to, biddable or not," remarked Miranda
with a shake of the last towel.
Miranda Sawyer had a heart, of course, but she had never used it for
any other purpose than the pumping and circulating of blood. She was
just, conscientious, economical, industrious; a regular attendant at
church and Sunday-school, and a member of the State Missionary and
Bible societies, but in the presence of all these chilly virtues you
longed for one warm little fault, or lacking that, one likable failing,
something to make you sure that she was thoroughly alive. She had never
had any education other than that of the neighborhood district school,
for her desires and ambitions had all pointed to the management of the
house, the farm, and the dairy. Jane, on the other hand, had gone to an
academy, and also to a boarding-school for young ladies; so had
Aurelia; and after all the years that had elapsed there was still a
slight difference in language and in manner between the elder and the
two younger sisters.
Jane, too, had had the inestimable advantage of a sorrow; not the
natural grief at the loss of her aged father and mother, for she had
been resigned to let them go; but something far deeper. She was engaged
to marry young, Tom Carter, who had nothing to marry on, it is true,
but who was sure to have, some time or other. Then the war broke out.
Tom enlisted at the first call. Up to that time Jane had loved him with
a quiet, friendly sort of affection, and had given her country a mild
emotion of the same sort. But the strife, the danger, the anxiety of
the time, set new currents of feeling in motion. Life became something
other than the three meals a day, the round of cooking, washing,
sewing, and churchgoing. Personal gossip vanished from the village
conversation. Big things took the place of trifling ones,--sacred
sorrows of wives and mothers, pangs of fathers and husbands,
self-denials, sympathies, new desire to bear one another's burdens. Men
and women grew fast in those days of the nation's trouble and danger,
and Jane awoke from the vague dull dream she had hitherto called life
to new hopes, new fears, new purposes. Then after a year's anxiety, a
year when one never looked in the newspaper without dread and sickness
of suspense, came the telegram saying that Tom was wounded; and without
so much as asking Miranda's leave, she packed her trunk and started for
the South. She was in time to hold Tom's hand through hours of pain; to
show him for once the heart of a prim New England girl when it is
ablaze with love and grief; to put her arms about him so that he could
have a home to die in, and that was all;--all, but it served.
It carried her through weary months of nursing--nursing of other
soldiers for Tom's dear sake; it sent her home a better woman; and
though she had never left Riverboro in all the years that lay between,
and had grown into the counterfeit presentment of her sister and of all
other thin, spare, New England spinsters, it was something of a
counterfeit, and underneath was still the faint echo of that wild
heartbeat of her girlhood. Having learned the trick of beating and
loving and suffering, the poor faithful heart persisted, although it
lived on memories and carried on its sentimental operations mostly in
secret.
"You're soft, Jane," said Miranda once; "you allers was soft, and you
allers will be. If't wa'n't for me keeping you stiffened up, I b'lieve
you'd leak out o' the house into the dooryard."
It was already past the appointed hour for Mr. Cobb and his coach to be
lumbering down the street.
"The stage ought to be here," said Miranda, glancing nervously at the
tall clock for the twentieth time. "I guess everything's done. I've
tacked up two thick towels back of her washstand and put a mat under
her slop-jar; but children are awful hard on furniture. I expect we
sha'n't know this house a year from now." Jane's frame of mind was
naturally depressed and timorous, having been affected by Miranda's
gloomy presages of evil to come. The only difference between the
sisters in this matter was that while Miranda only wondered how they
could endure Rebecca, Jane had flashes of inspiration in which she
wondered how Rebecca would endure them. It was in one of these flashes
that she ran up the back stairs to put a vase of apple blossoms and a
red tomato-pincushion on Rebecca's bureau.
The stage rumbled to the side door of the brick house, and Mr. Cobb
handed Rebecca out like a real lady passenger. She alighted with great
circumspection, put a bunch of flowers in her aunt Miranda's hand, and
received her salute; it could hardly be called a kiss without injuring
the fair name of that commodity. "You need n't 'a'bothered to bring
flowers," remarked that gracious and tactful lady; "the garden's always
full of 'em here when it comes time."
Jane then kissed Rebecca, giving a somewhat better imitation of the
real thing than her sister.
"Put the trunk in the entry, Jeremiah, and we'll get it carried
upstairs this afternoon," she said.
"I'll take it up for ye now, if ye say the word, girls."
"No, no; don't leave the horses; somebody'll be comin' past, and we can
call 'em in."
"Well, good-by, Rebecca; good-day, Mirandy 'n' Jane. You've got a
lively little girl there. I guess she'll be a first-rate company
keeper."
Miss Sawyer shuddered openly at the adjective "lively" as applied to a
child; her belief being that though children might be seen, if
absolutely necessary, they certainly should never be heard if she could
help it. "We're not much used to noise, Jane and me," she remarked
acidly.
Mr. Cobb saw that he had spoken indiscreetly, but he was too unused to
argument to explain himself readily, so he drove away, trying to think
by what safer word than "lively" he might have described his
interesting little passenger.
"I'll take you up and show you your room, Rebecca," Miss Miranda said.
"Shut the mosquito nettin' door tight behind you, so's to keep the
flies out; it ain't fly time yet, but I want you to start right; take
your parcel along with you and then you won't have to come down for it;
always make your head save your heels. Rub your feet on that braided
rug; hang your hat and cape in the entry as you go past."
"It's my best hat," said Rebecca.
"Take it upstairs then and put it in the clothes-press; but I shouldn't
'a' thought you'd 'a' worn your best hat on the stage."
"It's my only hat," explained Rebecca. "My every-day hat was n't good
enough to bring. Sister Fanny's going to finish it."
"Lay your parasol in the entry closet."
"Do you mind if I keep it in my room, please? It always seems safer."
"There ain't any thieves hereabouts, and if there was, I guess they
wouldn't make for your sunshade; but come along. Remember to always go
up the back way; we don't use the front stairs on account o' the
carpet; take care o' the turn and don't ketch your foot; look to your
right and go in. When you've washed your face and hands and brushed
your hair you can come down, and by and by we'll unpack your trunk and
get you settled before supper. Ain't you got your dress on hind side
foremost?"
Rebecca drew her chin down and looked at the row of smoked pearl
buttons running up and down the middle of her flat little chest. "Hind
side foremost? Oh, I see! No, that's all right. If you have seven
children you can't keep buttonin' and unbuttonin' 'em all the
time--they have to do themselves. We're always buttoned up in front at
our house. Mira's only three, but she's buttoned up in front, too."
Miranda said nothing as she closed the door, but her looks were more
eloquent than words.
Rebecca stood perfectly still in the centre of the floor and looked
about her. There was a square of oilcloth in front of each article of
furniture and a drawn-in rug beside the single four poster, which was
covered with a fringed white dimity counterpane.
Everything was as neat as wax, but the ceilings were much higher than
Rebecca was accustomed to. It was a north room, and the window, which
was long and narrow, looked out on the back buildings and the barn.
It was not the room, which was far more comfortable than Rebecca's own
at Sunnybrook Farm, nor the lack of view, nor yet the long journey, for
she was not conscious of weariness; it was not the fear of a strange
place, for she adored new places and new sensations; it was because of
some curious blending of uncomprehended emotions that Rebecca stood her
beloved pink sunshade in the corner, tore off her best hat, flung it on
the bureau with the porcupine quills on the under side, and stripping
down the dimity spread, precipitated herself into the middle of the bed
and pulled the counterpane over her head.
In a moment the door opened with a clatter of the latch.
Knocking was a refinement quite unknown in Riverboro, and if it had
been heard of, it would never have been wasted on a child. Miss Miranda
entered, and as her eye wandered about the vacant room, it fell upon a
white and tempestuous ocean of counterpane, an ocean breaking into
strange movements of wave and crest and billow.
"Rebecca!"
The tone in which the word was voiced gave it all the effect of having
been shouted from the housetops.
A dark ruffled head and two frightened eyes appeared above the dimity
spread.
"What are you layin' on your good bed in the daytime for, messin' up
the feathers, and dirtyin' the comforter with your dusty boots?"
Rebecca rose guiltily. There seemed no excuse to make. Her offense was
beyond explanation or apology.
"I'm sorry, Aunt Mirandy-something came over me; I don't know what."
"Well, if it comes over you very soon again we'll have to find out what
't is. Spread your bed up smooth this minute, for 'Bijah Flagg's
bringin' your trunk upstairs, and I wouldn't let him see such a
cluttered-up room for anything; he'd tell it all over town."
When Mr. Cobb had put up his horses that night he carried a kitchen
chair to the side of his wife, who was sitting on the back porch.
"I brought a little Randall girl down on the stage from Maplewood
to-day, mother. She's related to the Sawyer girls an' is goin' to live
with 'em," he said, as he sat down and began to whittle. "She's
Aurelia's child, the sister that ran away with Susan Randall's son just
before we come here to live."
"How old a child?"
"Bout ten, or somewhere along there, an' small for her age; but land!
she might be a hundred to hear her talk! She kept me jumpin' tryin' to
answer her! Of all the queer children I ever come across she's the
queerest. She ain't no beauty--her face is all eyes; but if she ever
grows up to them eyes an' fills out a little she'll make folks stare.
Land, mother! I wish 't you could 'a' heard her talk."
"I don't see what she had to talk about, a child like that, to a
stranger," replied Mrs. Cobb.
"Stranger or no stranger, 't would n't make no difference to her. She'd
talk to a pump or a grindstone; she'd talk to herself ruther 'n keep
still."
"What did she talk about?
"Blamed if I can repeat any of it. She kept me so surprised I didn't
have my wits about me. She had a little pink sunshade--it kind o'
looked like a doll's umberella, 'n' she clung to it like a burr to a
woolen stockin'. I advised her to open it up--the sun was so hot; but
she said no, 't would fade, an' she tucked it under her dress. 'It's
the dearest thing in life to me,' says she, 'but it's a dreadful care.'
Them's the very words, an' it's all the words I remember. 'It's the
dearest thing in life to me, but it's an awful care!'"--here Mr. Cobb
laughed aloud as he tipped his chair back against the side of the
house. "There was another thing, but I can't get it right exactly. She
was talkin' 'bout the circus parade an' the snake charmer in a gold
chariot, an' says she, 'She was so beautiful beyond compare, Mr. Cobb,
that it made you have lumps in your throat to look at her.' She'll be
comin' over to see you, mother, an' you can size her up for yourself, I
don' know how she'll git on with Mirandy Sawyer--poor little soul!"
This doubt was more or less openly expressed in Riverboro, which,
however, had two opinions on the subject; one that it was a most
generous thing in the Sawyer girls to take one of Aurelia's children to
educate, the other that the education would be bought at a price wholly
out of proportion to its real value.
Rebecca's first letters to her mother would seem to indicate that she
cordially coincided with the latter view of the situation.
II
REBECCA'S POINT OF VIEW
DEAR MOTHER,--I am safely here. My dress was not much tumbled and Aunt
Jane helped me press it out. I like Mr. Cobb very much. He chews
tobacco but throws newspapers straight up to the doors of the houses. I
rode outside with him a little while, but got inside before I got to
Aunt Miranda's house. I did not want to, but thought you would like it
better. Miranda is such a long word that I think I will say Aunt M. and
Aunt J. in my Sunday letters. Aunt J. has given me a dictionary to look
up all the hard words in. It takes a good deal of time and I am glad
people can talk without stoping to spell. It is much eesier to talk
than write and much more fun. The brick house looks just the same as
you have told us. The parler is splendid and gives YOU creeps and
chills when you look in the door. The furnature is ellergant too, and
all the rooms but there are no good sitting-down places exsept in the
kitchen. The same cat is here but they never save the kittens and the
cat is too old to play with. Hannah told me once you ran away to be
married to father and I can see it would be nice. If Aunt M. would run
away I think I should like to live with Aunt J. She does not hate me as
bad as Aunt M. does. Tell Mark he can have my paint box, but I should
like him to keep the red cake in case I come home again. I hope Hannah
and John do mot get tired doing my work.
Your afectionate friend
REBECCA.
P. S. Please give the piece of poetry to John because he likes my
poetry even when it is not very good. This piece is not very good but
it is true but I hope you won't mind what is in it as you ran away.
This house is dark and dull and dreer
No light doth shine from far or near
Its like the tomb.
And those of us who live herein
Are almost as dead as serrafim
Though not as good.
My guardian angel is asleep
At leest he doth not virgil keep
Ah! Woe is me!
Then give me back my lonely farm
Where none alive did wish me harm
Dear home of youth!
P.S. again. I made the poetry like a piece in a book but could not get
it right at first. You see "tomb" and "good" do not sound well together
but I wanted to say "tomb" dreadfully and as serrafim are always good I
could n't take that out. I have made it over now. It does not say my
thoughts as well but think it is more right. Give the best one to John
as he keeps them in a box with his bird's eggs. This is the best one.
SUNDAY THOUGHTS
BY
REBECCA ROWENA RANDALL
This house is dark and dull and drear
No light doth shine from far or near
Nor ever could.
And those of us who live herein
Are most as dead as seraphim
Though not as good.
My guardian angel is asleep
At least he doth no vigil keep
But far doth roam.
Then give me back my lonely farm
Where none alive did wish me harm,
Dear childhood home!
DEAR MOTHER,--I am thrilling with unhappyness this morning. I got that
out of a book called Cora The Doctor's Wife. Cora's husband's mother
was very cross and unfeeling to her like Aunt M. to me. I wish Hannah
had come instead of me for it was Hannah that Aunt M. wanted and she is
better than I am and does not answer back so quick. Are there any
peaces of my buff calico. Aunt J. wants enough to make a new waste,
button behind, so I wont look so outlandish. The stiles are quite
pretty in Riverboro and those at Meeting quite ellergant, more so than
in Temperance.
This town is stilish, gay and fair,
And full of wellthy riches rare,
But I would pillow on my arm
The thought of my sweet Brookside Farm.
School is pretty good. The Teacher can answer more questions than the
Temperance one but not so many as I can ask. I am smarter than all the
girls but one but not so smart as two boys. Emma Jane can add and
subtract in her head like a streek of lightning and knows the speling
book right through but has no thoughts of any kind. She is in the Third
Reader but does not like stories in books. I am in the Sixth Reader but
just because I cannot say the seven multiplication Table Miss Dearborn
threttens to put me in the baby primer class with Elijah and Elisha
Simpson little twins.
Sore is my heart and bent my stubborn pride,
With Lijah and with Lisha am I tied,
My soul recoyles like Cora Doctor's Wife,
Like her I feer I cannot bare this life.
I am going to try for the speling prize but fear I cannot get it. I
would not care but wrong speling looks dreadful in poetry. Last Sunday
when I found seraphim in the dictionary I was ashamed I had made it
serrafim but seraphim is not a word you can guess at like another long
one, outlandish, in this letter which spells itself. Miss Dearborn says
use the words you can spell and if you cant spell seraphim make angel
do but angels are not just the same as seraphims. Seraphims are
brighter whiter and have bigger wings and I think are older and longer
dead than angels which are just freshly dead and after a long time in
heaven around the great white throne grow to be seraphims.
I sew on brown gingham dresses every afternoon when Emma Jane and the
Simpsons are playing house or running on the Logs when their mothers do
not know it. Their mothers are afraid they will drown and aunt M. is
afraid I will wet my clothes so will not let me either. I can play from
half past four to supper and after supper a little bit and Saturday
afternoons. I am glad our cow has a calf and it is spotted. It is going
to be a good year for apples and hay so you and John will be glad and
we can pay a little more morgage. Miss Dearborn asked us what is the
object of edducation and I said the object of mine was to help pay off
the morgage. She told Aunt M. and I had to sew extra for punishment
because she says a morgage is disgrace like stealing or smallpox and it
will be all over town that we have one on our farm. Emma Jane is not
morgaged nor Richard Carter nor Dr. Winship but the Simpsons are.
Rise my soul, strain every nerve,
Thy morgage to remove,
Gain thy mother's heartfelt thanks
Thy family's grateful love.
Pronounce family quick or it won't sound right.
Your loving little friend
REBECCA.
DEAR JOHN,--YOU remember when we tide the new dog in the barn how he
bit the rope and howled. I am just like him only the brick house is the
barn and I can not bite Aunt M. because I must be grateful and
edducation is going to be the making of me and help you pay off the
mortgage when we grow up.
Your loving
BECKY.
III.
WISDOM'S WAYS
THE day of Rebecca's arrival had been Friday, and on the Monday
following she began her education at the school which was in Riverboro
Centre, about a mile distant. Miss Sawyer borrowed a neighbor's horse
and wagon and drove her to the schoolhouse, interviewing the teacher,
Miss Dearborn, arranging for books, and generally starting the child on
the path that was to lead to boundless knowledge.
Rebecca walked to school after the first morning. She loved this part
of the day's programme. When the dew was not too heavy and the weather
was fair there was a short cut through the woods. She turned off the
main road, crept through Joshua Woodman's bars, waved away Mrs.
Carter's cows, trod the short grass of the pasture, with its well-worn
path running through gardens of buttercups and whiteweed, and groves of
boxberry leaves and sweet fern. She descended a little hill, jumped
from stone to stone across a woodland brook, startling the drowsy
frogs, who were always winking and blinking in the morning sun. Then
came the "woodsy bit," with her feet pressing the slippery carpet of
brown pine needles; the woodsy bit so full of dewy morning
surprises,--fungous growths of brilliant orange and crimson springing
up around the stumps of dead trees, beautiful things born in a single
night; and now and then the miracle of a little clump of waxen Indian
pipes, seen just quickly enough to be saved from her careless tread.
Then she climbed a stile, went through a grassy meadow, slid under
another pair of bars, and came out into the road again, having gained
nearly half a mile.
How delicious it all was! Rebecca clasped her Quackenbos's Grammar and
Greenleaf's Arithmetic with a joyful sense of knowing her lessons. Her
dinner pail swung from her right hand, and she had a blissful
consciousness of the two soda biscuits spread with butter and syrup,
the baked cup-custard, the doughnut, and the square of hard
gingerbread. Sometimes she said whatever "piece" she was going to speak
on the next Friday afternoon.
"A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, There was lack of
woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears."
How she loved the swing and the sentiment of it! How her young voice
quivered whenever she came to the refrain:--
"But we'll meet no more at Bingen, dear Bingen on the Rhine."
It always sounded beautiful in her ears, as she sent her tearful little
treble into the clear morning air.
Another early favorite (for we must remember that Rebecca's only
knowledge of the great world of poetry consisted of the selections in
vogue in the old school Readers) was:--
"Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now."
When Emma Jane Perkins walked through the "short cut" with her, the two
children used to render this with appropriate dramatic action. Emma
Jane always chose to be the woodman because she had nothing to do but
raise on high an imaginary axe. On the one occasion when she essayed
the part of the tree's romantic protector, she represented herself as
feeling "so awful foolish" that she refused to undertake it again, much
to the secret delight of Rebecca, who found the woodman's role much too
tame for her vaulting ambition. She reveled in the impassioned appeal
of the poet, and implored the ruthless woodman to be as brutal as
possible with the axe, so that she might properly put greater spirit
into her lines. One morning, feeling more frisky than usual, she fell
upon her knees and wept in the woodman's petticoat. Curiously enough,
her sense of proportion rejected this as soon as it was done.
"That wasn't right, it was silly, Emma Jane; but I'll tell you where it
might come in--in 'Give me Three Grains of Corn.' You be the mother,
and I'll be the famishing Irish child. For pity's sake put the axe
down; you are not the woodman any longer!"
"What'll I do with my hands, then?" asked Emma Jane.
"Whatever you like," Rebecca answered wearily; "you're just a
mother--that's all. What does your mother do with her hands? Nowhere
goes!
"'Give me three grains of corn, mother,
Only three grains of corn,
It will keep the little life I have
Till the coming of the morn.'"
This sort of thing made Emma Jane nervous and fidgety, but she was
Rebecca's slave and obeyed her lightest commands. At the last pair of
bars the two girls were sometimes met by a detachment of the Simpson
children, who lived in a black house with a red door and a red barn
behind, on the Blueberry Plains road. Rebecca felt an interest in the
Simpsons from the first, because there were so many of them and they
were so patched and darned, just like her own brood at the home farm.
The little schoolhouse with its flagpole on top and its two doors in
front, one for boys and the other for girls, stood on the crest of a
hill, with rolling fields and meadows on one side, a stretch of pine
woods on the other, and the river glinting and sparkling in the
distance. It boasted no attractions within. All was as bare and ugly
and uncomfortable as it well could be, for the villages along the river
expended so much money in repairing and rebuilding bridges that they
were obliged to be very economical in school privileges. The teacher's
desk and chair stood on a platform in one corner; there was an uncouth
stove, never blackened oftener than once a year, a map of the United
States, two blackboards, a ten-quart tin pail of water and long-handled
dipper on a corner shelf, and wooden desks and benches for the
scholars, who only numbered twenty in Rebecca's time. The seats were
higher in the back of the room, and the more advanced and longer-legged
pupils sat there, the position being greatly to be envied, as they were
at once nearer to the windows and farther from the teacher.
There were classes of a sort, although nobody, broadly speaking,
studied the same book with anybody else, or had arrived at the same
degree of proficiency in any one branch of learning. Rebecca in
particular was so difficult to classify that Miss Dearborn at the end
of a fortnight gave up the attempt altogether. She read with Dick
Carter and Living Perkins, who were fitting for the academy; recited
arithmetic with lisping little "Thuthan Thimpthon;" geography with Emma
Jane Perkins, and grammar after school hours to Miss Dearborn alone.
Full to the brim as she was of clever thoughts and quaint fancies, she
made at first but a poor hand at composition. The labor of writing and
spelling, with the added difficulties of punctuation and capitals,
interfered sadly with the free expression of ideas. She took history
with Alice Robinson's class, which was attacking the subject of the
Revolution, while Rebecca was bidden to begin with the discovery of
America. In a week she had mastered the course of events up to the
Revolution, and in ten days had arrived at Yorktown, where the class
had apparently established summer quarters. Then finding that extra
effort would only result in her reciting with the oldest Simpson boy,
she deliberately held herself back, for wisdom's ways were not those of
pleasantness nor her paths those of peace if one were compelled to
tread them in the company of Seesaw Simpson. Samuel Simpson was
generally called Seesaw, because of his difficulty in making up his
mind. Whether it were a question of fact, of spelling, or of date, of
going swimming or fishing, of choosing a book in the Sunday-school
library or a stick of candy at the village store, he had no sooner
determined on one plan of action than his wish fondly reverted to the
opposite one. Seesaw was pale, flaxen haired, blue eyed, round
shouldered, and given to stammering when nervous. Perhaps because of
his very weakness, Rebecca's decision of character had a fascination
for him, and although she snubbed him to the verge of madness, he could
never keep his eyes away from her. The force with which she tied her
shoe when the lacing came undone, the flirt over shoulder she gave her
black braid when she was excited or warm, her manner of studying,--book
on desk, arms folded, eyes fixed on the opposite wall,--all had an
abiding charm for Seesaw Simpson. When, having obtained permission, she
walked to the water pail in the corner and drank from the dipper,
unseen forces dragged Seesaw from his seat to go and drink after her.
It was not only that there was something akin to association and
intimacy in drinking next, but there was the fearful joy of meeting her
in transit and receiving a cold and disdainful look from her wonderful
eyes.
On a certain warm day in summer Rebecca's thirst exceeded the bounds of
propriety. When she asked a third time for permission to quench it at
the common fountain Miss Dearborn nodded "yes," but lifted her eyebrows
unpleasantly as Rebecca neared the desk. As she replaced the dipper
Seesaw promptly raised his hand, and Miss Dearborn indicated a weary
affirmative.
"What is the matter with you, Rebecca?" she asked.
"It is a very thirsty morning," answered Rebecca.
There seemed nothing humorous about this reply, which was merely the
statement of a fact, but an irrepressible titter ran through the
school. Miss Dearborn did not enjoy jokes neither made nor understood
by herself, and her face flushed.
"I think you had better stand by the pail for five minutes, Rebecca; it
may help you to control your thirst."
Rebecca's heart fluttered. She to stand in the corner by the water pail
and be stared at by all the scholars! She unconsciously made a gesture
of angry dissent and moved a step nearer her seat, but was arrested by
Miss Dearborn's command in a still firmer voice.
"Stand by the pail, Rebecca!--Samuel Simpson how many times have you
asked for water already?"
"This is the f-f-fourth."
"Don't touch the dipper, please. The school has done nothing but drink
all day; it has had no time whatever to study. What is the matter with
you, Samuel?"
"It is a v-very thirsty m-morning," remarked Samuel, looking at Rebecca
while the school tittered.
"I judged so. Stand by the other side of the pail, with Rebecca."
Rebecca's head was bowed with shame and wrath. Life looked too black a
thing to be endured. The punishment was bad enough, but to be coupled
in correction with Seesaw Simpson was beyond human endurance.
Singing was the last exercise in the afternoon, and Minnie Smellie
chose "Shall we Gather at the River?" It was a curious choice and
seemed to hold some secret association with the situation and general
progress of events; or at any rate there was apparently some obscure
reason for the energy and vim with which the scholars looked at the
empty water pail as they shouted the choral invitation again and
again:--
"Shall we gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river?"
Miss Dearborn stole a look at Rebecca's bent head, and was frightened.
The child's face was pale save for two red spots glowing on her checks.
Tears hung on her lashes; her breath came and went quickly, and the
hand that held her pocket handkerchief trembled like a leaf.
"You may go to your seat, Rebecca," said Miss Dearborn at the end of
the first song. "Samuel, stay where you are till the close of school.
And let me tell you, scholars, that I asked Rebecca to stand by the
pail only to break up this habit of incessant drinking, which is
nothing but empty-mindedness and desire to walk to and fro over the
floor. Every time Rebecca has asked for a drink to-day the whole school
has gone to the pail like a regiment. She is really thirsty, and I dare
say I ought to have punished you for following her example, not her for
setting it. What shall we sing now, Alice?"
"'The Old Oaken Bucket,' please."
"Think of something dry, Alice, and change the subject. Yes, 'The Star
Spangled Banner' if you like, or anything else." Rebecca sank into her
seat and pulled the singing book from her desk. Miss Dearborn's public
explanation had shifted some of the weight from her heart, and she felt
a trifle raised in her self-esteem.
Under cover of the general relaxation of singing, offerings of
respectful sympathy began to make their appearance at her shrine.
Living Perkins, who could not sing, dropped a piece of maple sugar in
her lap as he passed her on his way to the blackboard to draw the map
of Maine, while Alice Robinson rolled a perfectly new slate pencil over
the floor with her foot until it reached Rebecca's place.
Altogether existence grew brighter, and when she was left alone with
the teacher for her grammar lesson she had nearly recovered her
equanimity, which was more than Miss Dearborn had. The last clattering
foot had echoed through the hall, Seesaw's backward glance of penitence
had been met and answered defiantly by one of cold disdain.
"Rebecca, I am afraid I punished you more than I meant," said Miss
Dearborn, who was only eighteen herself, and in her year of teaching
country schools had never encountered a child like Rebecca.
"I had n't missed a question this whole day, nor whispered either,"
quavered the culprit; "and I don't think I ought to be shamed just for
drinking."
"You started all the others, or it seemed as if you did. Whatever you
do they all do, whether you laugh, or write notes, or ask to leave the
room, or drink; and it must be stopped."
"Sam Simpson is a copycoat!" stormed Rebecca. "I would n't have minded
standing in the corner alone--that is, not so very much; but I couldn't
bear standing with him."
"I saw that you could n't, and that's the reason I told you to take
your seat, and left him in the corner. Remember that you are a stranger
in the place, and they take more notice of what you do, so you must be
careful. Now let's have our conjugations. Give me the verb 'to be,'
potential mood, past perfect tense."
"I might have been
Thou mightst have been
He might have been
We might have been
You might have been
They might have been"
"Give me an example, please."
"I might have been glad
Thou mightst have been glad
He, she, or it might have been glad"
"'He' or 'she' might have been glad because they are masculine and
feminine, but could 'it' have been glad?" asked Miss Dearborn, who was
very fond of splitting hairs.
"Why not?" asked Rebecca.
"Because 'it' is neuter gender."
"Could n't we say, 'The kitten might have been glad if it had known it
was not going to be drowned'?"
"Ye-es," Miss Dearborn answered hesitatingly, never very sure of
herself under Rebecca's fire; "but though we often speak of a baby, a
chicken, or a kitten as 'it,' they are really masculine or feminine
gender, not neuter."
Rebecca reflected a long moment and then asked, "Is a hollyhock neuter?"
"Oh yes, of course it is, Rebecca."
"Well, could n't we say, 'The hollyhock might have been glad to see it
rain, but there was a weak little baby bud growing out of its stalk and
it was afraid it might be hurt by the storm; so the big hollyhock was
kind of afraid, instead of being real glad'?"
Miss Dearborn looked puzzled as she answered, "Of course, Rebecca,
hollyhocks could not be sorry, or glad, or afraid, really."
"We can't tell, I s'pose," replied the child; "but I think they are,
anyway. Now what shall I say?"
"The subjunctive mood, past perfect tense of the verb 'to know.'"
"If I had known
If thou hadst known
If he had known
If we had known
If you had known
If they had known"
"Oh, it is the saddest tense," sighed Rebecca with a little a little
break in her voice; "nothing but ifs, ifs, ifs! And it makes you feel
that if they only had known, things might have been better!"
Miss Dearborn had not thought of it before, but on reflection she
believed the subjective mood was a "sad" one and "if" rather a sorry
"part of speech."
"Give me some examples of the subjective, Rebecca, and that will do for
this afternoon," she said.
"If I had not eaten salt mackerel for breakfast I should not have been
thirsty," said Rebecca with an April smile, as she closed her grammar.
"If thou hadst love me truly thou wouldst not have stood me up in the
corner. If Samuel had not loved wickedness he would not have followed
me to the water pail."
"And if Rebecca had loved the rules of the school she would have
controlled her thirst," finished Miss Dearborn with a kiss, and the two
parted friends.
IV
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 incredibly long
and full, she still reckoned time not by years, but by certain
important occurrences. Between these epoch-making events certain other
happenings stood out in bold relief against the gray of dull daily
life. 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 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. Mrs. Baxter, the new minister's wife, was the being,
under Providence, who had conceived the first idea of the flag. 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 chose 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."
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 soldiers, demanded 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
grandfather had a gold medal given him by Queen Victoria for rescuing
three hundred and twenty-six passengers from a sinking British vessel.
Riverboro thought it high time to pay some graceful tribute to Great
Britain in return for her handsome, conduct to Captain Nahum Carter,
and human imagination could contrive nothing more impressive than a
vicarious share in the flag-raising.
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 leave 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
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 service 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 baptismal 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 'hem on' my star, or buttonhole
it?" she asked.
"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 winsome, "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 Rebecca all you can!" she
said that night. "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! I kept whispering to myself, "'Covet not thy neighbor'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 stockings that nearly carried the day, but she
was not at all the person to select for the central figure on the
platform.
Huldah Meserve was next voted upon, and the fact that if she were not
chosen her father might withdraw his subscription to the brass band
fund was a matter for grave consideration.
"I kind of hate to have such a giggler for the State of Maine; let
Huldah 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 awestricken Rebecca fell the chief plum in the pudding. 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 role.
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;
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 can't be true! Nobody could
be good enough, but oh, I'll try to be as good as I can! To be going to
Wareham Seminary next week and to be the State of Maine too! Oh! I must
pray hard to God to keep me meek and humble!"
The flag was to be raised on a Tuesday, and on the previous Sunday it
became known to the children that Clara Belle Simpson was coming back
from Acreville, coming to live with Mrs. Fogg and take care of the
baby. Clara Belle was one of Miss Dearborn's original flock, and if she
were left wholly out of the festivities 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, 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 that they hoped Mrs. Fogg would allow her to witness it.
When Abner Simpson, urged by the town authorities, 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 comprehension of property rights which renders a man a
valuable citizen.