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Gustave le Bon - "The Crowd"

George W. Sands - "Mazelli, and Other Poems"

George Meredith - "The Egoist"

Christoper Marlowe - "The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus"

Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm

K >> Kate Douglas Wiggin >> Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm




"You wear a ring on your engagement finger,
don't you, aunt Jane? Did you ever think about
getting married?"

"Yes, dear, long ago."

"What happened, aunt Jane?"

"He died--just before."

"Oh!" And Rebecca's eyes grew misty.

"He was a soldier and he died of a gunshot
wound, in a hospital, down South."

"Oh! aunt Jane!" softly. "Away from you?"

"No, I was with him."

"Was he young?"

"Yes; young and brave and handsome, Rebecca;
he was Mr. Carter's brother Tom."

"Oh! I'm so glad you were with him! Wasn't
he glad, aunt Jane?"

Jane looked back across the half-forgotten years,
and the vision of Tom's gladness flashed upon her:
his haggard smile, the tears in his tired eyes, his
outstretched arms, his weak voice saying, "Oh, Jenny!
Dear Jenny! I've wanted you so, Jenny!" It was
too much! She had never breathed a word of it
before to a human creature, for there was no one who
would have understood. Now, in a shamefaced way,
to hide her brimming eyes, she put her head down
on the young shoulder beside her, saying, "It was
hard, Rebecca!"

The Simpson baby had cuddled down sleepily in
Rebecca's lap, leaning her head back and sucking
her thumb contentedly. Rebecca put her cheek
down until it touched her aunt's gray hair and softly
patted her, as she said, "I'm sorry, aunt Jane!"

The girl's eyes were soft and tender and the
heart within her stretched a little and grew; grew
in sweetness and intuition and depth of feeling. It
had looked into another heart, felt it beat, and
heard it sigh; and that is how all hearts grow.

Episodes like these enlivened the quiet course of
every-day existence, made more quiet by the departure
of Dick Carter, Living Perkins, and Huldah
Meserve for Wareham, and the small attendance at
the winter school, from which the younger children
of the place stayed away during the cold weather.

Life, however, could never be thoroughly dull
or lacking in adventure to a child of Rebecca's
temperament. Her nature was full of adaptability,
fluidity, receptivity. She made friends everywhere
she went, and snatched up acquaintances in every
corner.

It was she who ran to the shed door to take the
dish to the "meat man" or "fish man;" she who
knew the family histories of the itinerant fruit
venders and tin peddlers; she who was asked to take
supper or pass the night with children in neighboring
villages--children of whose parents her aunts
had never so much as heard. As to the nature of
these friendships, which seemed so many to the
eye of the superficial observer, they were of various
kinds, and while the girl pursued them with
enthusiasm and ardor, they left her unsatisfied and
heart-hungry; they were never intimacies such as
are so readily made by shallow natures. She loved
Emma Jane, but it was a friendship born of propinquity
and circumstance, not of true affinity. It was
her neighbor's amiability, constancy, and devotion
that she loved, and although she rated these qualities
at their true value, she was always searching
beyond them for intellectual treasures; searching
and never finding, for although Emma Jane had
the advantage in years she was still immature.
Huldah Meserve had an instinctive love of fun
which appealed to Rebecca; she also had a fascinating
knowledge of the world, from having visited
her married sisters in Milltown and Portland; but
on the other hand there was a certain sharpness
and lack of sympathy in Huldah which repelled
rather than attracted. With Dick Carter she could
at least talk intelligently about lessons. He was a
very ambitious boy, full of plans for his future, which
he discussed quite freely with Rebecca, but when
she broached the subject of her future his interest
sensibly lessened. Into the world of the ideal Emma
Jane, Huldah, and Dick alike never seemed to have
peeped, and the consciousness of this was always a
fixed gulf between them and Rebecca.

"Uncle Jerry" and "aunt Sarah" Cobb were
dear friends of quite another sort, a very satisfying
and perhaps a somewhat dangerous one. A visit
from Rebecca always sent them into a twitter of
delight. Her merry conversation and quaint come-
ments on life in general fairly dazzled the old couple,
who hung on her lightest word as if it had been
a prophet's utterance; and Rebecca, though she
had had no previous experience, owned to herself a
perilous pleasure in being dazzling, even to a couple
of dear humdrum old people like Mr. and Mrs. Cobb.
Aunt Sarah flew to the pantry or cellar whenever
Rebecca's slim little shape first appeared on the crest
of the hill, and a jelly tart or a frosted cake was sure
to be forthcoming. The sight of old uncle Jerry's
spare figure in its clean white shirt sleeves, whatever
the weather, always made Rebecca's heart warm
when she saw him peer longingly from the kitchen
window. Before the snow came, many was the time
he had come out to sit on a pile of boards at the
gate, to see if by any chance she was mounting the
hill that led to their house. In the autumn Rebecca
was often the old man's companion while he was
digging potatoes or shelling beans, and now in the
winter, when a younger man was driving the stage,
she sometimes stayed with him while he did his
evening milking. It is safe to say that he was the
only creature in Riverboro who possessed Rebecca's
entire confidence; the only being to whom she
poured out her whole heart, with its wealth of hopes,
and dreams, and vague ambitions. At the brick
house she practiced scales and exercises, but at the
Cobbs' cabinet organ she sang like a bird, improvising
simple accompaniments that seemed to her
ignorant auditors nothing short of marvelous. Here
she was happy, here she was loved, here she was
drawn out of herself and admired and made much
of. But, she thought, if there were somebody who
not only loved but understood; who spoke her language,
comprehended her desires, and responded to
her mysterious longings! Perhaps in the big world
of Wareham there would be people who thought
and dreamed and wondered as she did.

In reality Jane did not understand her niece very
much better than Miranda; the difference between
the sisters was, that while Jane was puzzled, she
was also attracted, and when she was quite in the
dark for an explanation of some quaint or unusual
action she was sympathetic as to its possible motive
and believed the best. A greater change had come
over Jane than over any other person in the brick
house, but it had been wrought so secretly, and
concealed so religiously, that it scarcely appeared to the
ordinary observer. Life had now a motive utterly
lacking before. Breakfast was not eaten in the
kitchen, because it seemed worth while, now that
there were three persons, to lay the cloth in the dining-
room; it was also a more bountiful meal than of
yore, when there was no child to consider. The
morning was made cheerful by Rebecca's start for
school, the packing of the luncheon basket, the final
word about umbrella, waterproof, or rubbers; the
parting admonition and the unconscious waiting at
the window for the last wave of the hand. She found
herself taking pride in Rebecca's improved appearance,
her rounder throat and cheeks, and her better
color; she was wont to mention the length of
Rebecca's hair and add a word as to its remarkable
evenness and lustre, at times when Mrs. Perkins
grew too diffuse about Emma Jane's complexion.
She threw herself wholeheartedly on her niece's side
when it became a question between a crimson or
a brown linsey-woolsey dress, and went through a
memorable struggle with her sister concerning the
purchase of a red bird for Rebecca's black felt hat.
No one guessed the quiet pleasure that lay hidden in
her heart when she watched the girl's dark head bent
over her lessons at night, nor dreamed of her joy it,
certain quiet evenings when Miranda went to prayer
meeting; evenings when Rebecca would read aloud
Hiawatha or Barbara Frietchie, The Bugle Song,
or The Brook. Her narrow, humdrum existence
bloomed under the dews that fell from this fresh
spirit; her dullness brightened under the kindling
touch of the younger mind, took fire from the "vital
spark of heavenly flame" that seemed always to
radiate from Rebecca's presence.

Rebecca's idea of being a painter like her friend
Miss Ross was gradually receding, owing to the
apparently insuperable difficulties in securing any
instruction. Her aunt Miranda saw no wisdom in
cultivating such a talent, and could not conceive that
any money could ever be earned by its exercise,
"Hand painted pictures" were held in little esteem
in Riverboro, where the cheerful chromo or the
dignified steel engraving were respected and valued.
There was a slight, a very slight hope, that Rebecca
might be allowed a few music lessons from Miss
Morton, who played the church cabinet organ, but
this depended entirely upon whether Mrs. Morton
would decide to accept a hayrack in return for a
year's instruction from her daughter. She had the
matter under advisement, but a doubt as to whether
or not she would sell or rent her hayfields kept her
from coming to a conclusion. Music, in common
with all other accomplishments, was viewed by Miss
Miranda as a trivial, useless, and foolish amusement,
but she allowed Rebecca an hour a day for practice
on the old piano, and a little extra time for
lessons, if Jane could secure them without payment of
actual cash.

The news from Sunnybrook Farm was hopeful
rather than otherwise. Cousin Ann's husband had
died, and John, Rebecca's favorite brother, had gone
to be the man of the house to the widowed cousin.
He was to have good schooling in return for his care
of the horse and cow and barn, and what was still
more dazzling, the use of the old doctor's medical
library of two or three dozen volumes. John's whole
heart was set on becoming a country doctor, with
Rebecca to keep house for him, and the vision
seemed now so true, so near, that he could almost
imagine his horse ploughing through snowdrifts on
errands of mercy, or, less dramatic but none the
less attractive, could see a physician's neat turncut
trundling along the shady country roads, a medicine
case between his, Dr. Randall's, feet, and Miss
Rebecca Randall sitting in a black silk dress by his
side.

Hannah now wore her hair in a coil and her
dresses a trifle below her ankles, these concessions
being due to her extreme height. Mark had broken
his collar bone, but it was healing well. Little Mira
was growing very pretty. There was even a rumor
that the projected railroad from Temperance to
Plumville might go near the Randall farm, in which
case land would rise in value from nothing-at-all an
acre to something at least resembling a price. Mrs.
Randall refused to consider any improvement in
their financial condition as a possibility. Content to
work from sunrise to sunset to gain a mere
subsistence for her children, she lived in their future,
not in her own present, as a mother is wont to do
when her own lot seems hard and cheerless.



XVII

GRAY DAYS AND GOLD

When Rebecca looked back upon the
year or two that followed the Simpsons'
Thanksgiving party, she could see only
certain milestones rising in the quiet pathway of
the months.

The first milestone was Christmas Day. It was
a fresh, crystal morning, with icicles hanging like
dazzling pendants from the trees and a glaze of
pale blue on the surface of the snow. The Simpsons'
red barn stood out, a glowing mass of color in
the white landscape. Rebecca had been busy for
weeks before, trying to make a present for each of
the seven persons at Sunnybrook Farm, a somewhat
difficult proceeding on an expenditure of fifty
cents, hoarded by incredible exertion. Success had
been achieved, however, and the precious packet
had been sent by post two days previous. Miss
Sawyer had bought her niece a nice gray squirrel
muff and tippet, which was even more unbecoming
if possible, than Rebecca's other articles of wearing
apparel; but aunt Jane had made her the loveliest
dress of green cashmere, a soft, soft green like
that of a young leaf. It was very simply made, but
the color delighted the eye. Then there was a
beautiful "tatting" collar from her mother, some
scarlet mittens from Mrs. Cobb, and a handkerchief
from Emma Jane.

Rebecca herself had fashioned an elaborate tea-
cosy with a letter "M" in outline stitch, and a
pretty frilled pincushion marked with a "J," for her
two aunts, so that taken all together the day would
have been an unequivocal success had nothing else
happened; but something else did.

There was a knock at the door at breakfast time,
and Rebecca, answering it, was asked by a boy if
Miss Rebecca Randall lived there. On being told
that she did, he handed her a parcel bearing her
name, a parcel which she took like one in a dream
and bore into the dining-room.

"It's a present; it must be," she said, looking
at it in a dazed sort of way; "but I can't think
who it could be from."

"A good way to find out would be to open it,"
remarked Miss Miranda.

The parcel being untied proved to have two
smaller packages within, and Rebecca opened with
trembling fingers the one addressed to her. Anybody's
fingers would have trembled. There was a
case which, when the cover was lifted, disclosed a
long chain of delicate pink coral beads,--a chain
ending in a cross made of coral rosebuds. A card
with "Merry Christmas from Mr. Aladdin" lay
under the cross.

"Of all things!" exclaimed the two old ladies,
rising in their seats. "Who sent it?"

"Mr. Ladd," said Rebecca under her breath.

"Adam Ladd! Well I never! Don't you remember
Ellen Burnham said he was going to send
Rebecca a Christmas present? But I never supposed
he'd think of it again," said Jane. "What's
the other package?"

It proved to be a silver chain with a blue enamel
locket on it, marked for Emma Jane. That added
the last touch--to have him remember them both!
There was a letter also, which ran:--


Dear Miss Rebecca Rowena,--My idea of a
Christmas present is something entirely unnecessary
and useless. I have always noticed when I
give this sort of thing that people love it, so I
hope I have not chosen wrong for you and your
friend. You must wear your chain this afternoon,
please, and let me see it on your neck, for I am
coming over in my new sleigh to take you both to
drive. My aunt is delighted with the soap.

Sincerely your friend,

Adam Ladd.


"Well, well!" cried Miss Jane, "isn't that kind
of him? He's very fond of children, Lyddy Burnham
says. Now eat your breakfast, Rebecca, and
after we've done the dishes you can run over to
Emma's and give her her chain-- What's the matter,
child?"

Rebecca's emotions seemed always to be stored,
as it were, in adjoining compartments, and to be
continually getting mixed. At this moment, though
her joy was too deep for words, her bread and butter
almost choked her, and at intervals a tear stole
furtively down her cheek.

Mr. Ladd called as he promised, and made the
acquaintance of the aunts, understanding them both
in five minutes as well as if he had known them
for years. On a footstool near the open fire sat
Rebecca, silent and shy, so conscious of her fine
apparel and the presence of aunt Miranda that she
could not utter a word. It was one of her "beauty
days." Happiness, excitement, the color of the
green dress, and the touch of lovely pink in the
coral necklace had transformed the little brown
wren for the time into a bird of plumage, and Adam
Ladd watched her with evident satisfaction. Then
there was the sleigh ride, during which she found
her tongue and chattered like any magpie, and so
ended that glorious Christmas Day; and many and
many a night thereafter did Rebecca go to sleep
with the precious coral chain under her pillow, one
hand always upon it to be certain that it was safe.

Another milestone was the departure of the
Simpsons from Riverboro, bag and baggage, the
banquet lamp being their most conspicuous posses-
sion. It was delightful to be rid of Seesaw's hateful
presence; but otherwise the loss of several
playmates at one fell swoop made rather a gap
in Riverboro's "younger set," and Rebecca was
obliged to make friends with the Robinson baby,
he being the only long-clothes child in the village
that winter. The faithful Seesaw had called at the
side door of the brick house on the evening before
his departure, and when Rebecca answered his
knock, stammered solemnly, "Can I k-keep comp'ny
with you when you g-g-row up?" "Certainly NOT,"
replied Rebecca, closing the door somewhat
too speedily upon her precocious swain.

Mr. Simpson had come home in time to move
his wife and children back to the town that had
given them birth, a town by no means waiting with
open arms to receive them. The Simpsons' moving
was presided over by the village authorities and
somewhat anxiously watched by the entire
neighborhood, but in spite of all precautions a pulpit
chair, several kerosene lamps, and a small stove
disappeared from the church and were successfully
swapped in the course of Mr. Simpson's
driving tour from the old home to the new. It gave
Rebecca and Emma Jane some hours of sorrow to
learn that a certain village in the wake of Abner
Simpson's line of progress had acquired, through
the medium of an ambitious young minister, a
magnificent lamp for its new church parlors. No money
changed hands in the operation; for the minister
succeeded in getting the lamp in return for an old
bicycle. The only pleasant feature of the whole
affair was that Mr. Simpson, wholly unable to console
his offspring for the loss of the beloved object,
mounted the bicycle and rode away on it, not to
be seen or heard of again for many a long day.

The year was notable also as being the one in
which Rebecca shot up like a young tree. She had
seemingly never grown an inch since she was ten
years old, but once started she attended to growing
precisely as she did other things,--with such
energy, that Miss Jane did nothing for months but
lengthen skirts, sleeves, and waists. In spite of all
the arts known to a thrifty New England woman,
the limit of letting down and piecing down was
reached at last, and the dresses were sent to Sunnybrook
Farm to be made over for Jenny.

There was another milestone, a sad one, marking
a little grave under a willow tree at Sunnybrook
Farm. Mira, the baby of the Randall family,
died, and Rebecca went home for a fortnight's
visit. The sight of the small still shape that had
been Mira, the baby who had been her special
charge ever since her birth, woke into being a host
of new thoughts and wonderments; for it is sometimes
the mystery of death that brings one to a
consciousness of the still greater mystery of life.

It was a sorrowful home-coming for Rebecca. The
death of Mira, the absence of John, who had been
her special comrade, the sadness of her mother, the
isolation of the little house, and the pinching
economies that went on within it, all conspired to
depress a child who was so sensitive to beauty and
harmony as Rebecca.

Hannah seemed to have grown into a woman
during Rebecca's absence. There had always been
a strange unchildlike air about Hannah, but in
certain ways she now appeared older than aunt Jane
--soberer, and more settled. She was pretty,
though in a colorless fashion; pretty and capable.

Rebecca walked through all the old playgrounds
and favorite haunts of her early childhood; all her
familiar, her secret places; some of them known to
John, some to herself alone. There was the spot
where the Indian pipes grew; the particular bit of
marshy ground where the fringed gentians used to
be largest and bluest; the rock maple where she
found the oriole's nest; the hedge where the field
mice lived; the moss-covered stump where the
white toadstools were wont to spring up as if by
magic; the hole at the root of the old pine where an
ancient and honorable toad made his home; these
were the landmarks of her childhood, and she looked
at them as across an immeasurable distance. The
dear little sunny brook, her chief companion after
John, was sorry company at this season. There
was no laughing water sparkling in the sunshine.
In summer the merry stream had danced over white
pebbles on its way to deep pools where it could be
still and think. Now, like Mira, it was cold and
quiet, wrapped in its shroud of snow; but Rebecca
knelt by the brink, and putting her ear to the glaze
of ice, fancied, where it used to be deepest, she could
hear a faint, tinkling sound. It was all right! Sunnybrook
would sing again in the spring; perhaps Mira
too would have her singing time somewhere--she
wondered where and how. In the course of these
lonely rambles she was ever thinking, thinking,
of one subject. Hannah had never had a chance;
never been freed from the daily care and work of
the farm. She, Rebecca, had enjoyed all the privileges
thus far. Life at the brick house had not been
by any means a path of roses, but there had been
comfort and the companionship of other children, as
well as chances for study and reading. Riverboro
had not been the world itself, but it had been a
glimpse of it through a tiny peephole that was
infinitely better than nothing. Rebecca shed more
than one quiet tear before she could trust herself to
offer up as a sacrifice that which she so much desired
for herself. Then one morning as her visit neared
its end she plunged into the subject boldly and
said, "Hannah, after this term I'm going to stay
at home and let you go away. Aunt Miranda has
always wanted you, and it's only fair you should
have your turn."

Hannah was darning stockings, and she threaded
her needle and snipped off the yarn before she
answered, "No, thank you, Becky. Mother couldn't
do without me, and I hate going to school. I can
read and write and cipher as well as anybody now,
and that's enough for me. I'd die rather than teach
school for a living. The winter'll go fast, for Will
Melville is going to lend me his mother's sewing
machine, and I'm going to make white petticoats
out of the piece of muslin aunt Jane sent, and have
'em just solid with tucks. Then there's going to
be a singing-school and a social circle in Temperance
after New Year's, and I shall have a real good
time now I'm grown up. I'm not one to be lonesome,
Becky," Hannah ended with a blush; "I love
this place."

Rebecca saw that she was speaking the truth, but
she did not understand the blush till a year or two
later.



XVIII

REBECCA REPRESENTS THE FAMILY

There was another milestone; it was more
than that, it was an "event;" an event
that made a deep impression in several
quarters and left a wake of smaller events in its
train. This was the coming to Riverboro of the
Reverend Amos Burch and wife, returned missionaries
from Syria.

The Aid Society had called its meeting for a
certain Wednesday in March of the year in which
Rebecca ended her Riverboro school days and
began her studies at Wareham. It was a raw,
blustering day, snow on the ground and a look in
the sky of more to follow. Both Miranda and Jane
had taken cold and decided that they could not
leave the house in such weather, and this deflection
from the path of duty worried Miranda, since she
was an officer of the society. After making the
breakfast table sufficiently uncomfortable and wishing
plaintively that Jane wouldn't always insist on
being sick at the same time she was, she decided
that Rebecca must go to the meeting in their
stead. "You'll be better than nobody, Rebecca,"
she said flatteringly; "your aunt Jane shall write
an excuse from afternoon school for you; you can
wear your rubber boots and come home by the
way of the meetin' house. This Mr. Burch, if I
remember right, used to know your grandfather
Sawyer, and stayed here once when he was
candidatin'. He'll mebbe look for us there, and you
must just go and represent the family, an' give him
our respects. Be careful how you behave. Bow
your head in prayer; sing all the hymns, but not
too loud and bold; ask after Mis' Strout's boy;
tell everybody what awful colds we've got; if you
see a good chance, take your pocket handkerchief
and wipe the dust off the melodeon before the
meetin' begins, and get twenty-five cents out of the
sittin' room match-box in case there should be a
collection."

Rebecca willingly assented. Anything interested
her, even a village missionary meeting, and the idea
of representing the family was rather intoxicating.

The service was held in the Sunday-school room,
and although the Rev. Mr. Burch was on the platform
when Rebecca entered, there were only a
dozen persons present. Feeling a little shy and
considerably too young for this assemblage, Rebecca
sought the shelter of a friendly face, and seeing
Mrs. Robinson in one of the side seats near the
front, she walked up the aisle and sat beside her.

"Both my aunts had bad colds," she said softly,
"and sent me to represent the family."

"That's Mrs. Burch on the platform with her
husband," whispered Mrs. Robinson. "She's awful
tanned up, ain't she? If you're goin' to save souls
seems like you hev' to part with your complexion.
Eudoxy Morton ain't come yet; I hope to the land
she will, or Mis' Deacon Milliken'll pitch the tunes
where we can't reach 'em with a ladder; can't
you pitch, afore she gits her breath and clears her
throat?"

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