""He" or "she" might have been glad because they are masculine and feminine, but could "it" have been glad?" asked Miss Dearborn, who was very fond of splitting hairs.
"Why not?" asked Rebecca.
"Because "it" is neuter gender."
"Could n"t we say, "The kitten might have been glad if it had known it was not going to be drowned"?"
"Ye-es," Miss Dearborn answered hesitatingly, never very sure of herself under Rebecca"s fire; "but though we often speak of a baby, a chicken, or a kitten as "it," they are really masculine or feminine gender, not neuter."
Rebecca reflected a long moment and then asked, "Is a hollyhock neuter?"
"Oh yes, of course it is, Rebecca."
"Well, could n"t we say, "The hollyhock might have been glad to see it rain, but there was a weak little baby bud growing out of its stalk and it was afraid it might be hurt by the storm; so the big hollyhock was kind of afraid, instead of being real glad"?"
Miss Dearborn looked puzzled as she answered, "Of course, Rebecca, hollyhocks could not be sorry, or glad, or afraid, really."
"We can"t tell, I s"pose," replied the child; "but I think they are, anyway. Now what shall I say?"
"The subjunctive mood, past perfect tense of the verb "to know.""
"If I had known If thou hadst known If he had known If we had known If you had known If they had known"
"Oh, it is the saddest tense," sighed Rebecca with a little a little break in her voice; "nothing but ifs, ifs, ifs! And it makes you feel that if they only had known, things might have been better!"
Miss Dearborn had not thought of it before, but on reflection she believed the subjective mood was a "sad" one and "if" rather a sorry "part of speech."
"Give me some examples of the subjective, Rebecca, and that will do for this afternoon," she said.
"If I had not eaten salt mackerel for breakfast I should not have been thirsty," said Rebecca with an April smile, as she closed her grammar.
"If thou hadst love me truly thou wouldst not have stood me up in the corner. If Samuel had not loved wickedness he would not have followed me to the water pail."
"And if Rebecca had loved the rules of the school she would have controlled her thirst," finished Miss Dearborn with a kiss, and the two parted friends.
IV
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS
EVEN when Rebecca had left school, having attained the great age of seventeen and therefore able to look back over a past incredibly long and full, she still reckoned time not by years, but by certain important occurrences. Between these epoch-making events certain other happenings stood out in bold relief against the gray of dull daily life. There was the coming of the new minister, for though many were tried only one was chosen; and finally there was the flag-raising, a festivity that thrilled Riverboro and Edgewood society from centre to circ.u.mference, a festivity that took place just before she entered the Female Seminary at Wareham and said good-by to kind Miss Dearborn and the village school.
There must have been other flag-raisings in history,--even the persons most interested in this particular one would grudgingly have allowed that much,--but it would have seemed to them improbable that any such flag-raising, as theirs could twice glorify the same century. Of some pageants it is tacitly admitted that there can be no duplicates, and the flag-raising at Riverboro Centre was one of these; so that it is small wonder if Rebecca chose it as one of the important dates in her personal almanac. Mrs. Baxter, the new minister"s wife, was the being, under Providence, who had conceived the first idea of the flag. Mrs.
Baxter communicated her patriotic idea of a new flag to the Dorcas Society, proposing that the women should cut and make it themselves.
"It may not be quite as good as those manufactured in the large cities," she said, "but we shall be proud to see our home-made flag flying in the breeze, and it will mean all the more to the young voters growing up, to remember that their mothers made it with their own hands."
"How would it do to let some of the girls help?" modestly asked Miss Dearborn, the Riverboro teacher. "We might chose the best sewers and let them put in at least a few st.i.tches, so that they can feel they have a share in it."
"Just the thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Baxter. "We can cut the stripes and sew them together, and after we have basted on the white stars the girls can apply them to the blue ground. We must have it ready for the campaign rally, and we could n"t christen it at a better time than in this presidential year."
In this way the great enterprise was started, and day by day the preparations went forward in the two villages.
The boys, as future voters and soldiers, demanded an active share in the proceedings, and were organized by Squire Bean into a fife and drum corps, so that by day and night martial but most inharmonious music woke the echoes, and deafened mothers felt their patriotism oozing out at the soles of their shoes. d.i.c.k Carter was made captain, for his grandfather had a gold medal given him by Queen Victoria for rescuing three hundred and twenty-six pa.s.sengers from a sinking British vessel.
Riverboro thought it high time to pay some graceful tribute to Great Britain in return for her handsome, conduct to Captain Nahum Carter, and human imagination could contrive nothing more impressive than a vicarious share in the flag-raising.
Miss Dearborn was to be Columbia and the older girls of the two schools were to be the States. Such trade in muslins and red, white, and blue ribbons had never been known since "Watson kep" store," and the number of brief white petticoats hanging out to bleach would leave caused the pa.s.sing stranger to imagine Riverboro a continual dancing-school.
Juvenile virtue, both male and female, reached an almost impossible height, for parents had only to lift a finger and say, "You shan"t go to the flag-raising!" and the refractory spirit at once armed itself for new struggles toward the perfect life. Mr. Jeremiah Cobb had consented to impersonate Uncle Sam, and was to drive Columbia and the States to the "raising" on the top of his own stage. Meantime the boys were drilling, the ladies were cutting and basting and st.i.tching, and the girls were sewing on stars; for the starry part of the spangled banner was to remain with each of them in turn until she had performed her share of the work.
It was felt by one and all a fine and splendid service indeed to help in the making of the flag, and if Rebecca was proud to be of the chosen ones, so was her Aunt Jane Sawyer, who had taught her all her delicate st.i.tches.
On a long-looked-for afternoon in August the minister"s wife drove up to the brick-house door, and handed out the great piece of bunting to Rebecca, who received it in her arms with as much solemnity as if it had been a child awaiting baptismal rites.
"I"m so glad!" she sighed happily. "I thought it would never come my turn!"
"You should have had it a week ago, but Huldah Meserve upset the ink bottle over her star, and we had to baste on another one. You are the last, though, and then we shall sew the stars and stripes together, and Seth Strout will get the top ready for hanging. Just think, it won"t be many days before you children will be pulling the rope with all your strength, the band will be playing, the men will be cheering, and the new flag will go higher and higher, till the red, white, and blue shows against the sky!"
Rebecca"s eyes fairly blazed. "Shall I "hem on" my star, or b.u.t.tonhole it?" she asked.
"Look at all the others and make the most beautiful st.i.tches you can, that"s all. It is your star, you know, and you can even imagine it is your state, and try and have it the best of all. If everybody else is trying to do the same thing with her state, that will make a great country, won"t it?"
Rebecca"s eyes spoke glad confirmation of the idea. "My star, my state!" she repeated joyously. "Oh, Mrs. Baxter, I"ll make such fine st.i.tches you"ll, think the white grew out of the blue!"
The new minister"s wife looked pleased to see her spark kindle a flame in the young heart. "You can sew so much of yourself into your star,"
she went on in the glad voice that made her so winsome, "that when you are an old lady you can put on your specs and find it among all the others. Good-by! Come up to the parsonage Sat.u.r.day afternoon; Mr.
Baxter wants to see you."
"Judson, help that dear little genius of a Rebecca all you can!" she said that night. "I don"t know what she may, or may not, come to, some day; I only wish she were ours! If you could have seen her clasp the flag tight in her arms and put her cheek against it, and watched the tears of feeling start in her eyes when I told her that her star was her state! I kept whispering to myself, ""Covet not thy neighbor"s child!
Daily at four o"clock Rebecca scrubbed her hands almost to the bone, brushed her hair, and otherwise prepared herself in body, mind, and spirit for the consecrated labor of sewing on her star. All the time that her needle cautiously, conscientiously formed the tiny st.i.tches she was making rhymes "in her head," her favorite achievement being this:--
"Your star, my star, all our stars together, They make the dear old banner proud To float in the bright fall weather."
There was much discussion as to which of the girls should impersonate the State of Maine, for that was felt to be the highest honor in the gift of the committee.
Alice Robinson was the prettiest child in the village, but she was very shy and by no means a general favorite.
Minnie Smellie possessed the handsomest dress and a pair of white slippers and open-work stockings that nearly carried the day, but she was not at all the person to select for the central figure on the platform.
Huldah Meserve was next voted upon, and the fact that if she were not chosen her father might withdraw his subscription to the bra.s.s band fund was a matter for grave consideration.
"I kind of hate to have such a giggler for the State of Maine; let Huldah be the G.o.ddess of Liberty," proposed Mrs. Burbank, whose patriotism was more local than national.
"How would Rebecca Randall do for Maine, and let her speak some of her verses?" suggested the new minister"s wife, who, could she have had her way, would have given all the prominent parts to Rebecca, from Uncle Sam down.
So, beauty, fashion, and wealth having been tried and found wanting, the committee discussed the claims of talent, and it transpired that to the awestricken Rebecca fell the chief plum in the pudding. It was a tribute to her gifts that there was no jealousy or envy among the other girls; they readily conceded her special fitness for the role.