Children's Book Classics - Kate Douglas Wiggin Edition: 11 Novels & 120+ Short Stories for Children. Kate Douglas Wiggin
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in the corner, an’ I git out an’ go to the side door; an’ when I git your aunt Mirandy ‘n’ aunt Jane out int’ the shed to plan for a load o’ wood I’m goin’ to have hauled there this week, you’ll slip out o’ the buggy and go upstairs to bed. The front door won’t be locked, will it?”
“Not this time of night,” Rebecca answered; “not till aunt Mirandy goes to bed; but oh! what if it should be?”
“Well, it won’t; an’ if ‘t is, why we’ll have to face it out; though in my opinion there’s things that won’t bear facin’ out an’ had better be settled comfortable an’ quiet. You see you ain’t run away yet; you’ve only come over here to consult me ‘bout runnin’ away, an’ we’ve concluded it ain’t wuth the trouble. The only real sin you’ve committed, as I figger it out, was in comin’ here by the winder when you’d ben sent to bed. That ain’t so very black, an’ you can tell your aunt Jane ‘bout it come Sunday, when she’s chock full o’ religion, an’ she can advise you when you’d better tell your aunt Mirandy. I don’t believe in deceivin’ folks, but if you’ve hed hard thoughts you ain’t obleeged to own ‘em up; take ‘em to the Lord in prayer, as the hymn says, and then don’t go on hevin’ ‘em. Now come on; I’m all hitched up to go over to the post-office; don’t forget your bundle; ‘it’s always a journey, mother, when you carry a nightgown;’ them ‘s the first words your uncle Jerry ever heard you say! He didn’t think you’d be bringin’ your nightgown over to his house. Step in an’ curl up in the corner; we ain’t goin’ to let folks see little runaway gals, ‘cause they’re goin’ back to begin all over ag’in!”
When Rebecca crept upstairs, and undressing in the dark finally found herself in her bed that night, though she was aching and throbbing in every nerve, she felt a kind of peace stealing over her. She had been saved from foolishness and error; kept from troubling her poor mother; prevented from angering and mortifying her aunts.
Her heart was melted now, and she determined to win aunt Miranda’s approval by some desperate means, and to try and forget the one thing that rankled worst, the scornful mention of her father, of whom she thought with the greatest admiration, and whom she had not yet heard criticised; for such sorrows and disappointments as Aurelia Randall had suffered had never been communicated to her children.
It would have been some comfort to the bruised, unhappy little spirit to know that Miranda Sawyer was passing an uncomfortable night, and that she tacitly regretted her harshness, partly because Jane had taken such a lofty and virtuous position in the matter. She could not endure Jane’s disapproval, although she would never have confessed to such a weakness.
As uncle Jerry drove homeward under the stars, well content with his attempts at keeping the peace, he thought wistfully of the touch of Rebecca’s head on his knee, and the rain of her tears on his hand; of the sweet reasonableness of her mind when she had the matter put rightly before her; of her quick decision when she had once seen the path of duty; of the touching hunger for love and understanding that were so characteristic in her. “Lord A’mighty!” he ejaculated under his breath, “Lord A’mighty! to hector and abuse a child like that one! ‘T ain’t ABUSE exactly, I know, or ‘t wouldn’t be to some o’ your elephant-hided young ones; but to that little tender will-o’-the-wisp a hard word ‘s like a lash. Mirandy Sawyer would be a heap better woman if she had a little gravestun to remember, same’s mother ‘n’ I have.”
“I never see a child improve in her work as Rebecca has to-day,” remarked Miranda Sawyer to Jane on Saturday evening. “That settin’ down I gave her was probably just what she needed, and I daresay it’ll last for a month.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased,” returned Jane. “A cringing worm is what you want, not a bright, smiling child. Rebecca looks to me as if she’d been through the Seven Years’ War. When she came downstairs this morning it seemed to me she’d grown old in the night. If you follow my advice, which you seldom do, you’ll let me take her and Emma Jane down beside the river to-morrow afternoon and bring Emma Jane home to a good Sunday supper. Then if you’ll let her go to Milltown with the Cobbs on Wednesday, that’ll hearten her up a little and coax back her appetite. Wednesday ‘s a holiday on account of Miss Dearborn’s going home to her sister’s wedding, and the Cobbs and Perkinses want to go down to the Agricultural Fair.”
Chapter XI.
“The Stirring of the Powers”
Rebecca’s visit to Milltown was all that her glowing fancy had painted it, except that recent readings about Rome and Venice disposed her to believe that those cities might have an advantage over Milltown in the matter of mere pictorial beauty. So soon does the soul outgrow its mansions that after once seeing Milltown her fancy ran out to the future sight of Portland; for that, having islands and a harbor and two public monuments, must be far more beautiful than Milltown, which would, she felt, take its proud place among the cities of the earth, by reason of its tremendous business activity rather than by any irresistible appeal to the imagination.
It would be impossible for two children to see more, do more, walk more, talk more, eat more, or ask more questions than Rebecca and Emma Jane did on that eventful Wednesday.
“She’s the best company I ever see in all my life,” said Mrs. Cobb to her husband that evening. “We ain’t had a dull minute this day. She’s well-mannered, too; she didn’t ask for anything, and was thankful for whatever she got. Did you watch her face when we went into that tent where they was actin’ out Uncle Tom’s Cabin? And did you take notice of the way she told us about the book when we sat down to have our ice cream? I tell you Harriet Beecher Stowe herself couldn’t ‘a’ done it better justice.”
“I took it all in,” responded Mr. Cobb, who was pleased that “mother” agreed with him about Rebecca. “I ain’t sure but she’s goin’ to turn out somethin’ remarkable,—a singer, or a writer, or a lady doctor like that Miss Parks up to Cornish.”
“Lady doctors are always home’paths, ain’t they?” asked Mrs. Cobb, who, it is needless to say, was distinctly of the old school in medicine.
“Land, no, mother; there ain’t no home’path ‘bout Miss Parks—she drives all over the country.”
“I can’t see Rebecca as a lady doctor, somehow,” mused Mrs. Cobb. “Her gift o’ gab is what’s goin’ to be the makin’ of her; mebbe she’ll lecture, or recite pieces, like that Portland elocutionist that come out here to the harvest supper.”
“I guess she’ll be able to write down her own pieces,” said Mr. Cobb confidently; “she could make ‘em up faster ‘n she could read ‘em out of a book.”
“It’s a pity she’s so plain looking,” remarked Mrs. Cobb, blowing out the candle.
“PLAIN LOOKING, mother?” exclaimed her husband in astonishment. “Look at the eyes of her; look at the hair of her, an’ the smile, an’ that there dimple! Look at Alice Robinson, that’s called the prettiest child on the river, an’ see how Rebecca shines her ri’ down out o’ sight! I hope Mirandy’ll favor her comin’ over to see us real often, for she’ll let off some of her steam here, an’ the brick house’ll be consid’able safer for everybody concerned. We’ve known what it was to hev children, even if ‘t was more ‘n thirty years ago, an’ we can make allowances.”
Notwithstanding the encomiums of Mr. and Mrs. Cobb, Rebecca made a poor hand at composition writing at this time. Miss Dearborn gave her every sort of subject that she had ever been given herself: Cloud Pictures; Abraham Lincoln; Nature; Philanthropy; Slavery; Intemperance; Joy and Duty; Solitude; but with none of them did Rebecca seem to grapple satisfactorily.
“Write as you talk, Rebecca,” insisted poor Miss Dearborn, who secretly knew that she could never manage a good composition herself.