Uncle Jerry coughed and stirred in
his chair a good deal during Rebecca’s recital,
but he carefully concealed any undue feeling of sympathy,
just muttering, “Poor little soul! We’ll
see what we can do for her!”
“You will take me to Maplewood,
won’t you, Mr. Cobb?” begged Rebecca piteously.
“Don’t you fret a mite,”
he answered, with a crafty little notion at the back
of his mind; “I’ll see the lady passenger
through somehow. Now take a bite o’ somethin’
to eat, child. Spread some o’ that tomato
preserve on your bread; draw up to the table.
How’d you like to set in mother’s place
an’ pour me out another cup o’ hot tea?”
Mr. Jeremiah Cobb’s mental machinery
was simple, and did not move very smoothly save when
propelled by his affection or sympathy. In the
present case these were both employed to his advantage,
and mourning his stupidity and praying for some flash
of inspiration to light his path, he blundered along,
trusting to Providence.
Rebecca, comforted by the old man’s
tone, and timidly enjoying the dignity of sitting
in Mrs. Cobb’s seat and lifting the blue china
teapot, smiled faintly, smoothed her hair, and dried
her eyes.
“I suppose your mother’ll
be turrible glad to see you back again?” queried
Mr. Cobb.
A tiny fear just a baby
thing in the bottom of Rebecca’s heart
stirred and grew larger the moment it was touched with
a question.
“She won’t like it that
I ran away, I s’pose, and she’ll be sorry
that I couldn’t please aunt Mirandy; but I’ll
make her understand, just as I did you.”
“I s’pose she was thinkin’
o’ your schoolin’, lettin’ you come
down here; but land! you can go to school in Temperance,
I s’pose?”
“There’s only two months’
school now in Temperance, and the farm ’s too
far from all the other schools.”
“Oh well! there’s other
things in the world beside edjercation,” responded
uncle Jerry, attacking a piece of apple pie.
“Ye es; though
mother thought that was going to be the making of me,”
returned Rebecca sadly, giving a dry little sob as
she tried to drink her tea.
“It’ll be nice for you
to be all together again at the farm such
a house full o’ children!” remarked the
dear old deceiver, who longed for nothing so much
as to cuddle and comfort the poor little creature.
“It’s too full that’s
the trouble. But I’ll make Hannah come to
Riverboro in my place.”
“S’pose Mirandy ‘n’
Jane’ll have her? I should be ’most
afraid they wouldn’t. They’ll be
kind o’ mad at your goin’ home, you know,
and you can’t hardly blame ’em.”
This was quite a new thought, that
the brick house might be closed to Hannah, since she,
Rebecca, had turned her back upon its cold hospitality.
“How is this school down here
in Riverboro pretty good?” inquired
uncle Jerry, whose brain was working with an altogether
unaccustomed rapidity, so much so that
it almost terrified him.
“Oh, it’s a splendid school!
And Miss Dearborn is a splendid teacher!”
“You like her, do you?
Well, you’d better believe she returns the compliment.
Mother was down to the store this afternoon buyin’
liniment for Seth Strout, an’ she met Miss Dearborn
on the bridge. They got to talkin’ ‘bout
school, for mother has summer-boarded a lot o’
the schoolmarms, an’ likes ’em. ’How
does the little Temperance girl git along?’
asks mother. ‘Oh, she’s the best scholar
I have!’ says Miss Dearborn. ’I could
teach school from sun-up to sun-down if scholars was
all like Rebecca Randall,’ says she.”
“Oh, Mr. Cobb, did she
say that?” glowed Rebecca, her face sparkling
and dimpling in an instant. “I’ve
tried hard all the time, but I’ll study the
covers right off of the books now.”
“You mean you would if you’d
ben goin’ to stay here,” interposed
uncle Jerry. “Now ain’t it too bad
you’ve jest got to give it all up on account
o’ your aunt Mirandy? Well, I can’t
hardly blame ye. She’s cranky an’
she’s sour; I should think she’d ben
nussed on bonny-clabber an’ green apples.
She needs bearin’ with; an’ I guess you
ain’t much on patience, be ye?”
“Not very much,” replied Rebecca dolefully.
“If I’d had this talk
with ye yesterday,” pursued Mr. Cobb, “I
believe I’d have advised ye different.
It’s too late now, an’ I don’t feel
to say you’ve ben all in the wrong; but
if ’t was to do over again, I’d say, well,
your aunt Mirandy gives you clothes and board and schoolin’
and is goin’ to send you to Wareham at a big
expense. She’s turrible hard to get along
with, an’ kind o’ heaves benefits at your
head, same ‘s she would bricks; but they’re
benefits jest the same, an’ mebbe it’s
your job to kind o’ pay for ’em in good
behavior. Jane’s a leetle bit more easy
goin’ than Mirandy, ain’t she, or is she
jest as hard to please?”
“Oh, aunt Jane and I get along
splendidly,” exclaimed Rebecca; “she’s
just as good and kind as she can be, and I like her
better all the time. I think she kind of likes
me, too; she smoothed my hair once. I’d
let her scold me all day long, for she understands;
but she can’t stand up for me against aunt Mirandy;
she’s about as afraid of her as I am.”
“Jane’ll be real sorry
to-morrow to find you’ve gone away, I guess;
but never mind, it can’t be helped. If
she has a kind of a dull time with Mirandy, on account
o’ her bein’ so sharp, why of course she’d
set great store by your comp’ny. Mother
was talkin’ with her after prayer meetin’
the other night. ‘You wouldn’t know
the brick house, Sarah,’ says Jane. ‘I’m
keepin’ a sewin’ school, an’ my scholar
has made three dresses. What do you think o’
that,’ says she, ’for an old maid’s
child? I’ve taken a class in Sunday-school,’
says Jane, ‘an’ think o’ renewin’
my youth an’ goin’ to the picnic with Rebecca,’
says she; an’ mother declares she never see
her look so young ‘n’ happy.”
There was a silence that could be
felt in the little kitchen; a silence only broken
by the ticking of the tall clock and the beating of
Rebecca’s heart, which, it seemed to her, almost
drowned the voice of the clock. The rain ceased,
a sudden rosy light filled the room, and through the
window a rainbow arch could be seen spanning the heavens
like a radiant bridge. Bridges took one across
difficult places, thought Rebecca, and uncle Jerry
seemed to have built one over her troubles and given
her strength to walk.
“The shower ’s over,”
said the old man, filling his pipe; “it’s
cleared the air, washed the face o’ the airth
nice an’ clean, an’ everything to-morrer
will shine like a new pin when you an’
I are drivin’ up river.”
Rebecca pushed her cup away, rose
from the table, and put on her hat and jacket quietly.
“I’m not going to drive up river, Mr. Cobb,”
she said. “I’m going to stay here
and catch bricks; catch ’em without
throwing ’em back, too. I don’t know
as aunt Mirandy will take me in after I’ve run
away, but I’m going back now while I have the
courage. You wouldn’t be so good as to
go with me, would you, Mr. Cobb?”
“You’d better b’lieve
your uncle Jerry don’t propose to leave till
he gits this thing fixed up,” cried the old
man delightedly. “Now you’ve had
all you can stan’ to-night, poor little soul,
without gettin’ a fit o’ sickness; an’
Mirandy’ll be sore an’ cross an’
in no condition for argyment; so my plan is jest this:
to drive you over to the brick house in my top buggy;
to have you set back 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.”