tact and neighborly consideration none too common in the profession. He
would never steal a man's scythe in haying-time, nor his fur lap-robe
in the coldest of the winter. The picking of a lock offered no
attractions to him; "he wa'n't no burglar," he would have scornfully
asserted. A strange horse and wagon hitched by the roadside was the
most flagrant of his thefts; but it was the small things--the hatchet
or axe on the chopping-block, the tin pans sunning at the side door, a
stray garment bleaching on the grass, a hoe, rake, shovel, or a bag of
early potatoes--that tempted him most sorely; and these appealed to him
not so much for their intrinsic value as because they were so
excellently adapted to "swapping." The swapping was really the
enjoyable part of the procedure, the theft was only a sad but necessary
preliminary; for if Abner himself had been a man of sufficient property
to carry on his business operations independently, it is doubtful if he
would have helped himself so freely to his neighbor's goods.
Riverboro regretted the loss of Mrs. Simpson, who was useful in
scrubbing, cleaning, and washing, and was thought to exercise some
influence over her predatory spouse. There was a story of their early
life together, when they had a farm; a story to the effect that Mrs.
Simpson always rode on every load of hay that her husband took to
Milltown, with the view of keeping him sober through the day. After he
turned out of the country road and approached the metropolis, it was
said that he used to bury the docile lady in the load. He would then
drive on to the scales, have the weight of hay entered in the buyer's
book, take his horses to the stable for feed and water, and when a
favorable opportunity offered he would assist the hot and panting Mrs.
Simpson out of the side or back of the rack, and gallantly brush the
straw from her person. For this reason it was always asserted that
Abner Simpson sold his wife every time he went to Milltown, but the
story was never fully substantiated, and at all events it was the only
suspected blot on meek Mrs. Simpson's personal reputation.
As for the Simpson children, they were missed chiefly as familiar
figures by the roadside; but Rebecca honestly loved Clara Belle,
notwithstanding her Aunt Miranda's opposition to the intimacy.
Rebecca's curious taste in friends was a source of continual anxiety to
her aunt.
"Anything that's human flesh is good enough for her!" Miranda groaned
to Jane. "She'll ride with the rag-sack-and-bottle peddler just as
quick as she would with the minister; she always sets beside the
barefooted young ones at Sabbath school; and she's forever riggin' and
onriggin' that dirty Simpson baby! She reminds me of a puppy that'll
always go to everybody that'll have him!"
It was thought very creditable to Mrs. Fogg that she sent for Clara
Belle to live with her and go to school part of the year. "She'll be
useful," said Mrs. Fogg, "and she'll be out of her father's way, and so
keep honest; though she's so awful homely I've no fears for her. A girl
with her red hair, freckles, and cross-eyes can't fall into no kind of
sin, I don't believe."
Mrs. Fogg requested that Clara Belle should be started on her journey
from Acreville by train and come the rest of the way by stage, and she
was disturbed to receive word on Sunday that Mr. Simpson had borrowed a
horse from a new acquaintance, and would himself drive the girl from
Acreville to Riverboro, a distance of thirty-five miles. That he would
arrive in their vicinity on the very night before the flag-raising was
thought by Riverboro to be a public misfortune, and several residents
hastily determined to deny themselves a sight of the festivities and
remain watchfully on their own premises.
On Monday afternoon the children were rehearsing their songs at the
meeting-house. As Rebecca came out on the broad wooden steps she
watched Mrs. Peter Meserve's buggy out of sight, for in front, wrapped
in a cotton sheet, lay the precious flag. After a few chattering
good-byes and weather prophecies with the other girls, she started on
her homeward walk, dropping in at the parsonage to read her verses to
the minister.
He welcomed her gladly as she removed her white cotton gloves (hastily
slipped on outside the door, for ceremony) and pushed back the funny
hat with the yellow and black porcupine quills--the hat with which she
made her first appearance in Riverboro society.
"You've heard the beginning, Mr. Baxter; now will you please tell me if
you like the last verse?" she asked, taking out her paper. "I've only
read it to Alice Robinson, and I think perhaps she can never be a poet,
though she's a splendid writer. Last year when she was twelve she wrote
a birthday poem to herself, and she made 'natal' rhyme with 'Milton,'
which, of course, it wouldn't. I remember every verse ended:--
'This is my day so natal
And I will follow Milton.'
Another one of hers was written just because she couldn't help it she
said. This was it:--
'Let me to the hills away,
Give me pen and paper;
I'll write until the earth will sway
The story of my Maker.'"
The minister could scarcely refrain from smiling, but he controlled
himself that he might lose none of Rebecca's quaint observations. When
she was perfectly at ease, unwatched and uncriticised, she was a
marvelous companion.
"The name of the poem is going to be 'My Star,'" she continued, "and
Mrs. Baxter gave me all the ideas, but somehow there's a kind of
magicness when they get into poetry, don't you think so?" (Rebecca
always talked to grown people as if she were their age, or, a more
subtle and truer distinction, as if they were hers.)
"It has often been so remarked, in different words," agreed the
minister.
"Mrs. Baxter said that each star was a state, and if each state did its
best we should have a splendid country. Then once she said that we
ought to be glad the war is over and the States are all at peace
together; and I thought Columbia must be glad, too, for Miss Dearborn
says she's the mother of all the States. So I'm going to have it end
like this: I did n't write it, I just sewed it while I was working on
my star:--
"For it's your star, my star, all the stars together,
That make our country's flag so proud
To float in the bright fall weather.
Northern stars, Southern stars, stars of the East and West,
Side by side they lie at peace
On the dear flag's mother-breast."
"'Oh! many are the poets that are sown by Nature,'" thought the
minister, quoting Wordsworth to himself. "And I wonder what becomes of
them! That's a pretty idea, little Rebecca, and I don't know whether
you or my wife ought to have the more praise. What made you think of
the stars lying on the flag's 'mother-breast'? Were did you get that
word?"
"Why" (and the young poet looked rather puzzled), "that's the way it
is; the flag is the whole country--the mother--and the stars are the
states. The stars had to lie somewhere: 'lap' nor 'arms' wouldn't sound
well with 'West,' so, of course, I said 'breast,'" Rebecca answered,
with some surprise at the question; and the minister put his hand under
her chin and kissed her softly on the forehead when he said good-by at
the door.
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 little way with you and hear all about Clara Belle? I'm going
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 you! The folks talk 'bout you from sun-up to
sun-down, and Clara Belle can't hardly wait for a sight of you!"
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, suddenly: "Please take
the flag out of the back of the wagon, Mr. Robinson. We have brought it
here for you to keep overnight." Then 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. Clearing her throat nervously, she
began:--
"Is it likely to be fair to-morrow?"
"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!" 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, ain'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
to-morrow 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! Oh, 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 declare 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 one's 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 any one
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 't was 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, 't would 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 it hurts her health to be nervous."
"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
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
appeals to his extremely rusty better feelings. "I don' know's I've got
any particular 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 the rest of us!"
"Land! I wish't I did! or even a quarter section of one!" 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, for a 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 saw that 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, stingy, scandal-talkin', 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 't was your garden, but it was so chock full o' weeds I thought
't was 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 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 do what ye like an' go where ye like, 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 Dorcas
ladies to take care of it so it fell to me! You would n't have had me
let it out of my sight, would you, and we going to raise it to-morrow
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!'"
V.
THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL
THE foregoing episode, if narrated in a romance, would undoubtedly have
been called "The Saving of the Colors," but at the nightly chats in
Watson's store it was alluded to as the way little Becky Randall got
the flag away from Slippery Simpson. Dramatic as it was, it passed into
the crowd of half-forgotten things in Rebecca's mind, its brief
importance submerged in the glories of the next day.
There was a painful prelude to these glories. Alice Robinson came to
spend the night with Rebecca, and when the bedroom door closed upon the
two girls, Alice announced her intention of "doing up" Rebecca's front
hair in leads and rags, and braiding the back in six tight, wetted
braids.
Rebecca demurred. Alice persisted.
"Your hair is so long and thick and dark and straight," she said, "that
you'll look like an Injun!"
"I am the State of Maine; it all belonged to the Indians once," Rebecca
remarked gloomily, for she was curiously shy about discussing her
personal appearance.
"And your wreath of little pine-cones won't set decent without crimps,"
continued Alice.
Rebecca glanced in the cracked looking-glass and met what she
considered an accusing lack of beauty, a sight that always either
saddened or enraged her according to circumstances; then she sat down
resignedly and began to help Alice in the philanthropic work of making
the State of Maine fit to be seen at the raising.
Neither of the girls was an expert hairdresser, and at the end of an
hour, when the sixth braid was tied, and Rebecca had given one last
shuddering look in the mirror, both were ready to weep with fatigue.
The candle was blown out and Alice soon went to sleep, but Rebecca
tossed on her pillow, its goose-feathered softness all dented by the
cruel lead knobs and the knots of twisted rags. She slipped out of bed
and walked to and fro, holding her aching head with both hands. Finally
she leaned on the window-sill, watching the still weather-vane on
Alice's barn and breathing in the fragrance of the ripening apples,
until her restlessness subsided under the clear starry beauty of the
night.
At six in the morning the girls were out of bed, for Alice could hardly
wait until Rebecca's hair was taken down, she was so eager to see the
result of her labors.
The leads and rags were painfully removed, together with much hair, the
operation being punctuated by a series of squeaks, squeals, and shrieks
on the part of Rebecca and a series of warnings from Alice, who wished
the preliminaries to be kept secret from the aunts, that they might the
more fully appreciate the radiant result.