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 anyone 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 twas 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, twould 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 she has heart trouble."
"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 high-pitched and 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 frequent appeals to his extremely rusty higher feelings.
"I don" know"s I"ve got any partic"lar 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 of us!"
"Land! I wish"t I did! or even a quarter section!" 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, at the 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 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, pa.s.simonious, cheese-parin", hair-splittin", back-bitin", 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 twas your garden, but it was so chock full o" weeks I THOUGHT twas 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 bended 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 go to thunder--n" stay there, 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 Dorcases to take care of it and so it fell to me! You wouldn"t have had me let it out of my sight, would you, and we going to raise it tomorrow 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!""
Sixth Chronicle. THE STATE O" MAINE GIRL
I
The foregoing episode, if narrated in a romance, would undoubtedly have been called "The Saving of the Colors," but at the nightly conversazione 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 pa.s.sed into the limbo 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 here 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-gla.s.s and met what she considered an accusing lack of beauty, a sight that always either saddened or enraged her according to circ.u.mstances; 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 k.n.o.bs 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.
Then came the unbraiding, and then--dramatic moment--the "combing out;"
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 a.s.sumed the strangest, most obstinate, most unexpected att.i.tudes. 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.
Ma.s.sachusetts gave one encompa.s.sing glance at the State o" Maine"s head, and announced her intention of going home to breakfast! She 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 legs could carry her.
The State o" Maine, deserted and somewhat unnerved, sat down before the gla.s.s 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. To "draw fire" she whistled, a forbidden joy, which only attracted more attention, instead of diverting it. 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.