a difficult, not to say impossible process, in which the hairs that had
resisted the earlier stages almost gave up the ghost.
The long front strands had been wound up from various angles and by
various methods, so that, when released, they assumed the strangest,
most obstinate, most unexpected attitudes. When the comb was dragged
through the last braid, the wild, tortured, electric hairs following,
and then rebounding from it in a bristling, snarling tangle,
Massachusetts gave one encompassing glance at the State o' Maine's
head, and announced her intention of going home to breakfast! Alice was
deeply grieved at the result of her attempted beautifying, but she felt
that meeting Miss Miranda Sawyer at the morning meal would not mend
matters in the least, so slipping out of the side door, she ran up
Guide-Board hill as fast as her feet could carry her.
The State o' Maine, deserted and somewhat unnerved, sat down before the
glass and attacked her hair doggedly and with set lips, working over it
until Miss Jane called her to breakfast; then, with a boldness born of
despair, she entered the dining-room, where her aunts were already
seated at table. There was a moment of silence after the grotesque
figure was fully taken in; then came a moan from Jane and a groan from
Miranda.
"What have you done to yourself?" asked Miranda sternly.
"Made an effort to be beautiful and failed!" jauntily replied Rebecca,
but she was too miserable to keep up the fiction. "Oh, Aunt Miranda,
don't scold, I'm so unhappy! Alice and I rolled up my hair to curl it
for the raising. She said it was so straight I looked like an Indian!"
"Mebbe you did," vigorously agreed Miranda, "but 't any rate you looked
like a Christian Injun, 'n' now you look like a heathen Injun; that's
all the difference I can see. What can we do with her, Jane, between
this and nine o'clock?"
"We'll all go out to the pump just as soon as we're through breakfast,"
answered Jane soothingly. "We can accomplish considerable with water
and force."
Rebecca nibbled her corn-cake, her tearful eyes cast on her plate and
her chin quivering.
"Don't you cry and red your eyes up," chided Miranda quite kindly; "the
minute you've eaten enough run up and get your brush and meet us at the
back door."
"I would n't care myself how bad I looked," said Rebecca, "but I can't
bear to be so homely that I shame the State of Maine!"
Oh, what an hour followed this plaint! Did any aspirant for literary or
dramatic honors ever pass to fame through such an antechamber of
horrors? Did poet of the day ever have his head so maltreated? To be
dipped in the rain-water tub, soused again and again; to be held under
the spout and pumped on; to be rubbed furiously with rough roller
towels; to be dried with hot flannels! And is it not well-nigh
incredible that at the close of such an hour the ends of the long hair
should still stand out straight, the braids having been turned up two
inches by Alice, and tied hard in that position with linen thread?
"Get out the skirt-board, Jane," cried Miranda, to whom opposition
served as a tonic, "and move that flat-iron on to the front o' the
stove. Rebecca, set down in that low chair beside the board, and, Jane,
you spread out her hair on it and cover it up with brown paper. Don't
cringe, Rebecca; the worst's over, and you've borne up real good! I'll
be careful not to pull your hair nor scorch you, and oh, how I'd like
to have Alice Robinson acrost my knee and a good slipper in my right
hand! There, you're all ironed out and your Aunt Jane can put on your
white dress and braid your hair up again good and tight. Perhaps you
won't be the homeliest of the States, after all; but when I see you
comin' in to breakfast I said to myself: 'I guess if Maine looked like
that, it would n't never 'a' been admitted into the Union!'"
When Uncle Sam and the stagecoach drew up to the brick house with a
grand swing and a flourish, the Goddess of Liberty and most of the
States were already in their places on the "harricane deck." Words fail
to describe the gallant bearing of the horses, their headstalls gayly
trimmed and their harnesses dotted with little flags. The stage windows
were hung in bunting, and from within beamed Columbia, looking out from
the bright frame as if proud of her freight of loyal children.
Patriotic streamers floated from whip, from dash-board and from rumble,
and the effect of the whole was something to stimulate the most
phlegmatic voter. Rebecca came out on the steps and Aunt Jane brought a
chair to assist in the ascent. Miss Dearborn peeped from the window,
and gave a despairing look at her favorite.
What had happened to her? Who had dressed her? Had her head been put
through a wringing-machine? Why were her eyes red and swollen? Miss
Dearborn determined to take her behind the trees in the pine grove and
give her some finishing touches; touches that her skillful fingers
fairly itched to bestow.
The stage started, and as the roadside pageant grew gayer and gayer,
Rebecca began to brighten and look prettier, for most of her
beautifying came from within. The people, walking, driving, or standing
on their doorsteps, cheered Uncle Sam's coach with its freight of
gossamer-muslined, fluttering-ribboned girls, and just behind, the
gorgeously decorated haycart, driven by Abijah Flagg, bearing the jolly
but inharmonious fife and drum corps. Was ever such a golden day; such
crystal air; such mellow sunshine; such a merry Uncle Sam!
The stage drew up at an appointed spot near a pine grove, and while the
crowd was gathering, the children waited for the hour to arrive when
they should march to the platform; the hour toward which they seemed to
have been moving since the dawn of creation. As soon as possible Miss
Dearborn whispered to Rebecca: "Come behind the trees with me; I want
to make you prettier!"
Rebecca thought she had suffered enough from that process already
during the last twelve hours, but she put out an obedient hand and the
two withdrew.
Now Miss Dearborn was, I fear, a very indifferent teacher. Her stock in
trade was small, her principal virtues being devotion to children and
ability to gain their love, and a power of evolving a schoolroom order
so natural, cheery, serene, and peaceful that it gave the beholder a
certain sense of being in a district heaven. She was poor in
arithmetic and weak in geometry, but if you gave her a rose, a bit of
ribbon, and a seven-by-nine looking-glass she could make herself as
pretty as a pink in two minutes.
Safely sheltered behind the pines, Miss Dearborn began to practice
mysterious feminine arts. She flew at Rebecca's tight braids, opened
the strands and rebraided them loosely; bit and tore the red, white,
and blue ribbon in two and tied the braids separately. Then with
nimble fingers she pulled out little tendrils of hair behind the ears
and around the nape of the neck. After a glance of acute disapproval
directed at the stiff balloon skirt she knelt on the ground and gave a
strenuous embrace to Rebecca's knees, murmuring, between her hugs,
"Starch must be cheap at the brick house!"
This particular line of beauty attained, there ensued great pinchings
of ruffles; the fingers that could never hold a ferule nor snap
children's ears being incomparable fluting-irons. Next the sash was
scornfully untied, and tightened to suggest something resembling a
waist. The chastened bows that had been squat, dowdy, spiritless, were
given tweaks, flirts, bracing little pokes and dabs, till,
acknowledging a master hand, they stood up, piquant, pert, smart, alert!
Pride of bearing was now infused into the flattened lace at the neck,
and a pin (removed at some sacrifice from her own toilette) was darned
in at the back to prevent any cowardly lapsing. The short white cotton
gloves that called attention to the tanned wrists and arms were
stripped off and put in her own pocket. Then the wreath of pine-cones
was adjusted at a heretofore unimagined angle, the hair was pulled
softly into a fluffy frame, and finally, as she met Rebecca's grateful
eyes, she gave her two approving, triumphant kisses. In a second the
sensitive face lighted into happiness; pleased dimples appeared in the
cheeks, the kissed mouth was as red as a rose, and the little fright
that had walked behind the pine-tree stepped out on the other side
Rebecca, the lovely.
As to the relative value of Miss Dearborn's accomplishments, the
decision must be left to the gentle reader; but though it is certain
that children should be properly grounded in mathematics, no heart of
flesh could bear to hear Miss Dearborn's methods vilified who had seen
her patting, pulling, squeezing Rebecca from ugliness into beauty.
Now all was ready; the moment of fate was absolutely at hand; the fife
and drum corps led the way and the States followed; but what actually
happened Rebecca never knew; she lived through the hours in a waking
dream. Every little detail was a facet of light that reflected
sparkles, and among them all she was fairly dazzled. The brass band
played inspiring strains; the mayor spoke eloquently on great themes;
the people cheered; then the rope on which so much depended was put
into the children's hands, they applied superhuman strength to their
task, and the flag mounted, mounted, smoothly and slowly, and slowly
unwound and stretched itself until its splendid size and beauty were
revealed against the maples and pines and blue New England sky.
Then after cheers upon cheers and after a patriotic chorus by the
church choirs, the State of Maine mounted the platform, vaguely
conscious that she was to recite a poem, though for the life of her she
could not remember a single word.
"Speak up loud and clear, Rebecky," whispered Uncle Sam in the front
row, but she could scarcely hear her own voice when, tremblingly, she
began her first line. After that she gathered strength, and the poem
"said itself," while the dream went on. She saw her friend Adam Ladd
leaning against a tree; Aunt Jane and Aunt Miranda palpitating with
nervousness; Clara Belle Simpson gazing cross-eyed but adoring from a
seat on the side; and in the far, far distance, on the very outskirts
of the crowd, a tall man standing in a wagon--a tall, loose-jointed man
with red upturned mustaches, and a gaunt white horse whose head was
turned toward the Acreville road.
Loud applause greeted the State of Maine, the slender little white-clad
figure standing on the mossy boulder that had been used as the centre
of the platform. The sun came up from behind a great maple and shone
full on the star-spangled banner, making it more dazzling than ever, so
that its beauty drew all eyes upward.
Abner Simpson lifted his vagrant shifting gaze to its softly fluttering
folds and its splendid massing of colors, thinking:--
"I don't know's anybody'd ought to steal a flag, the thunderin' idjuts
seem to set such store by it, and what is it, anyway? Nothin' but a
sheet o' buntin'!'"
Nothing but a sheet of bunting? He looked curiously at the rapt faces
of the mothers, their babies asleep in their arms; the parted lips and
shining eyes of the white-clad girls; at Cap'n Lord, who had been in
Libby Prison, and Nat Strout, who had left an arm at Bull Run; at the
friendly, jostling crowd of farmers, happy, eager, absorbed, their
throats ready to burst with cheers. Then the breeze served, and he
heard Rebecca's clear voice saying:--
"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!"
"Talk about stars! She's got a couple of 'em right in her head,"
thought Simpson. "If I ever seen a young one like that layin' on
anybody's doorstep I'd hook her quicker'n a wink, though I've got
plenty to home, the Lord knows! And I wouldn't swap her off
neither.--Spunky little creeter, too; settin' up in the wagon lookin'
'bout's big as a pint o' cider, but keepin' right after the flag!--I
vow I'm 'bout sick o' my job! Never with the crowd, allers jest on the
outside, 's if I wa'n't as good's they be! If it paid well, mebbe would
n't mind, but they're so thunderin' stingy round here, they don't leave
out anything decent for you to take from 'em, yet you're reskin' your
liberty 'n' reputation jest the same!--Countin' the poor pickin's 'n'
the time I lose in jail I might most's well be done with it 'n' work
out by the day, as the folks want me to; I'd make 'bout's much, n' I
don' know's it would be any harder!"
He could see Rebecca stepping down from the platform, while his own
red-headed little girl stood up on her bench, waving her hat with one
hand, her handkerchief with the other, and stamping with both feet.
Now a man sitting beside the mayor rose from his chair and Abner heard
him call:--
"Three cheers for the women who made the flag!"
"Hip, hip, hurrah!"
"Three cheers for the State of Maine!"
"Hip, hip, hurrah!"
"Three cheers for the girl who saved the flag from the hands of the
enemy!"
"Hip, hip, hurrah!"
It was the Edgewood minister, whose full, vibrant voice was of the sort
to move a crowd. His words rang out into the clear air and were carried
from lip to lip. Hands clapped, feet stamped, hats swung, while the
loud huzzahs might almost have wakened the echoes on old Mount Ossipee.
The tall, loose-jointed man sat down in the wagon suddenly and took up
the reins.
"They're gettin' a little mite personal, and I guess it's 'bout time
for you to be goin', Simpson!"
The tone was jocular, but the red mustaches drooped, and the
half-hearted cut he gave to start the white mare on her homeward
journey showed that he was not in his usual reckless mood.
"It's a lie!" he burst out in a vindictive undertone, as the mare swung
into her long gait. "It's a lie! I thought 't was somebody's wash! I
ain't an enemy!"
While the crowd at the raising dispersed in happy family groups to
their picnics in the woods; while the Goddess of Liberty, Uncle Sam,
Columbia, and the proud States lunched grandly in the Grange Hall with
distinguished guests and scarred veterans of two wars, the lonely man
drove, and drove, and drove through silent woods and dull, sleepy
villages, never alighting to replenish his wardrobe or his stock of
swapping material.
At dusk he reached a miserable tumble-down house on the edge of a pond.
The faithful wife with the sad mouth and the habitual look of anxiety
in her faded eyes came to the door at the sound of wheels and went
doggedly to the horse-shed to help him unharness. "You did n't expect
to see me back to-night, did you?" he asked satirically; "leastwise not
with this same horse? Well, I'm here! You need n't be scairt to look
under the wagon-seat, there ain't nothin' there, not even my supper, so
I hope you're suited for once! No, I guess I ain't goin' to be an angel
right away, neither. There wa'n't nothin' but flags layin' roun' loose
down Riverboro way, 'n' whatever they say, I ain't sech a hound as to
steal a flag!"
It was natural that young Riverboro should have red, white, and blue
dreams on the night after the new flag was raised. A stranger thing,
perhaps, is the fact that Abner Simpson should lie down on his hard bed
with the flutter of bunting before his eyes, and a whirl of
unaccustomed words in his mind.
"For it is your star, my star, all our stars together."
"I'm sick of goin' it alone," he thought; "I guess I'll try the other
road for a spell;" and with that he fell asleep.