New Chronicles of Rebecca - Kate Wiggin

Kate Douglas Wiggin

New Chronicles of Rebecca

First Chronicle. JACK OLANTERN

I

Miss Miranda Sawyers old-fashioned garden was the pleasantest spot in Riverboro on a sunny July morning. The rich color of the brick house gleamed and glowed through the shade of the elms and maples. Luxuriant hop-vines clambered up the lightning rods and water spouts, hanging their delicate clusters here and there in graceful profusion. Woodbine transformed the old shed and tool house to things of beauty, and the flower beds themselves were the prettiest and most fragrant in all the countryside. A row of dahlias ran directly around the garden spot,dahlias scarlet, gold, and variegated. In the very centre was a round plot where the upturned faces of a thousand pansies smiled amid their leaves, and in the four corners were triangular blocks of sweet phlox over which the butterflies fluttered unceasingly. In the spaces between ran a riot of portulaca and nasturtiums, while in the more regular, shell-bordered beds grew spirea and gillyflowers, mignonette, marigolds, and clove pinks.

Back of the barn and encroaching on the edge of the hay field was a grove of sweet clover whose white feathery tips fairly bent under the assaults of the bees, while banks of aromatic mint and thyme drank in the sunshine and sent it out again into the summer air, warm, and deliciously odorous.

The hollyhocks were Miss Sawyers pride, and they grew in a stately line beneath the four kitchen windows, their tapering tips set thickly with gay satin circlets of pink or lavender or crimson.

They grow something like steeples, thought little Rebecca Randall, who was weeding the bed, and the flat, round flowers are like rosettes; but steeples wouldnt be studded with rosettes, so if you were writing about them in a composition youd have to give up one or the other, and I think Ill give up the steeples:

Its a pity the hollyhock isnt really little, instead of steepling up to the window top, but I cant say, Gay TALL hollyhock. I might have it Lines to a Hollyhock in May, for then it would be small; but oh, no! I forgot; in May it wouldnt be blooming, and its so pretty to say that its head is sweetly rosetted I wish the teacher wasnt away; she would like sweetly rosetted, and she would like to hear me recite Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! that I learned out of Aunt Janes Byron; the rolls come booming out of it just like the waves at the beach.... I could make nice compositions now, everything is blooming so, and its so warm and sunny and happy outdoors. Miss Dearborn told me to write something in my thought book every single day, and Ill begin this very night when I go to bed.

Rebecca Rowena Randall, the little niece of the brick-house ladies, and at present sojourning there for purposes of board, lodging, education, and incidentally such discipline and chastening as might ultimately produce moral excellence,Rebecca Randall had a passion for the rhyme and rhythm of poetry. From her earliest childhood words had always been to her what dolls and toys are to other children, and now at twelve she amused herself with phrases and sentences and images as her schoolmates played with the pieces of their dissected puzzles. If the heroine of a story took a cursory glance about her apartment, Rebecca would shortly ask her Aunt Jane to take a cursory glance at her oversewing or hemming; if the villain aided and abetted someone in committing a crime, she would before long request the pleasure of aiding and abetting in dishwashing or bedmaking. Sometimes she used the borrowed phrases unconsciously; sometimes she brought them into the conversation with an intense sense of pleasure in their harmony or appropriateness; for a beautiful word or sentence had the same effect upon her imagination as a fragrant nosegay, a strain of music, or a brilliant sunset.

How are you gettin on, Rebecca Rowena? called a peremptory voice from within.

Pretty good, Aunt Miranda; only I wish flowers would ever come up as thick as this pigweed and plantain and sorrel. What MAKES weeds be thick and flowers be thin?I just happened to be stopping to think a minute when you looked out.

You think considerable more than you weed, I guess, by appearances. How many times have you peeked into that humming birds nest? Why dont you work all to once and play all to once, like other folks?

I dont know, the child answered, confounded by the question, and still more by the apparent logic back of it. I dont know, Aunt Miranda, but when Im working outdoors such a Saturday morning as this, the whole creation just screams to me to stop it and come and play.

Well, you neednt go if it does! responded her aunt sharply. It dont scream to me when Im rollin out these doughnuts, and it wouldnt to you if your mind was on your duty.

Rebeccas little brown hands flew in and out among the weeds as she thought rebelliously: Creation WOULDNT scream to Aunt Miranda; it would know she wouldnt come.

Oh, such funny, nice things come into my head out here by myself, I do wish I could run up and put them down in my thought book before I forget them, but Aunt Miranda wouldnt like me to leave off weeding:

That wouldnt do because its mean to Aunt Miranda, and anyway it isnt good. I MUST crawl under the syringa shade a minute, its so hot, and anybody has to stop working once in a while, just to get their breath, even if they werent making poetry.

Rebecca was weeding the hollyhock bed When marvelous thoughts came into her head. Miranda was wielding the rolling pin And thoughts at such times seemed to her as a sin.

How pretty the hollyhock rosettes look from down here on the sweet, smelly ground!

Let me see what would go with rosetting. AIDING AND ABETTING, PETTING, HEN-SETTING, FRETTING,theres nothing very nice, but I can make fretting do.

Suddenly the sound of wagon wheels broke the silence and then a voice called outa voice that could not wait until the feet that belonged to it reached the spot: Miss Saw-YER! Fathers got to drive over to North Riverboro on an errand, and please can Rebecca go, too, as its Saturday morning and vacation besides?

Rebecca sprang out from under the syringa bush, eyes flashing with delight as only Rebeccas eyes COULD flash, her face one luminous circle of joyous anticipation. She clapped her grubby hands, and dancing up and down, cried: May I, Aunt Mirandacan I, Aunt Janecan I, Aunt Miranda-Jane? Im more than half through the bed.

If you finish your weeding tonight before sundown I spose you can go, so long as Mr. Perkins has been good enough to ask you, responded Miss Sawyer reluctantly. Take off that gingham apron and wash your hands clean at the pump. You aint ben out o bed but two hours an your head looks as rough as if youd slep in it. That comes from layin on the ground same as a caterpillar. Smooth your hair down with your hands an praps Emma Jane can braid it as you go along the road. Run up and get your second-best hair ribbon out o your upper drawer and put on your shade hat. No, you cant wear your coral chainjewelry aint appropriate in the morning. How long do you callate to be gone, Emma Jane?

I dont know. Fathers just been sent for to see about a sick woman over to North Riverboro. Shes got to go to the poor farm.

This fragment of news speedily brought Miss Sawyer, and her sister Jane as well, to the door, which commanded a view of Mr. Perkins and his wagon. Mr. Perkins, the father of Rebeccas bosom friend, was primarily a blacksmith, and secondarily a selectman and an overseer of the poor, a man therefore possessed of wide and varied information.

Who is it thats sick? inquired Miranda.

A woman over to North Riverboro.

Whats the trouble?

Cant say.

Stranger?

Yes, and no; shes that wild daughter of old Nate Perry that used to live up towards Moderation. You remember she ran away to work in the factory at Milltown and married a donothin fellow by the name o John Winslow?

Yes; well, where is he? Why dont he take care of her?

They aint worked well in double harness. Theyve been rovin round the country, livin a month here and a month there wherever they could get work and house-room. They quarreled a couple o weeks ago and he left her. She and the little boy kind o camped out in an old loggin cabin back in the woods and she took in washin for a spell; then she got terrible sick and aint expected to live.

Whos been nursing her? inquired Miss Jane.

Lizy Ann Dennett, that lives nearest neighbor to the cabin; but I guess shes tired out bein good Samaritan. Anyways, she sent word this mornin that nobody cant seem to find John Winslow; that there aint no relations, and the towns got to be responsible, so Im goin over to see how the land lays. Climb in, Rebecca. You an Emmy Jane crowd back on the cushion an Ill set forrard. Thats the trick! Now were off!

Dear, dear! sighed Jane Sawyer as the sisters walked back into the brick house. I remember once seeing Sally Perry at meeting. She was a handsome girl, and Im sorry shes come to grief.

If shed kep on goin to meetin an hadnt looked at the men folks she might a ben earnin an honest livin this minute, said Miranda. Men folks are at the bottom of everything wrong in this world, she continued, unconsciously reversing the verdict of history.

Then we ought to be a happy and contented community here in Riverboro, replied Jane, as theres six women to one man.

If t was sixteen to one wed be all the safer, responded Miranda grimly, putting the doughnuts in a brown crock in the cellar-way and slamming the door.

II

The Perkins horse and wagon rumbled along over the dusty country road, and after a discreet silence, maintained as long as human flesh could endure, Rebecca remarked sedately:

Its a sad errand for such a shiny morning, isnt it, Mr. Perkins?

Plenty o trouble in the world, Rebecky, shiny mornins an all, that good man replied. If you want a bed to lay on, a roof over your head, an food to eat, youve got to work for em. If I hadnt a labored early an late, learned my trade, an denied myself when I was young, I might a ben a pauper layin sick in a loggin cabin, stead o bein an overseer o the poor an selectman drivin along to take the pauper to the poor farm.

People that are mortgaged dont have to go to the poor farm, do they, Mr. Perkins? asked Rebecca, with a shiver of fear as she remembered her home farm at Sunnybrook and the debt upon it; a debt which had lain like a shadow over her childhood.

Bless your soul, no; not unless they fail to pay up; but Sal Perry an her husband hadnt got fur enough along in life to BE mortgaged. You have to own something before you can mortgage it.

Rebeccas heart bounded as she learned that a mortgage represented a certain stage in worldly prosperity.

Well, she said, sniffing in the fragrance of the new-mown hay and growing hopeful as she did so; maybe the sick woman will be better such a beautiful day, and maybe the husband will come back to make it up and say hes sorry, and sweet content will reign in the humble habitation that was once the scene of poverty, grief, and despair. Thats how it came out in a story Im reading.

I haint noticed that life comes out like stories very much, responded the pessimistic blacksmith, who, as Rebecca privately thought, had read less than half a dozen books in his long and prosperous career.

A drive of three or four miles brought the party to a patch of woodland where many of the tall pines had been hewn the previous winter. The roof of a ramshackle hut was outlined against a background of young birches, and a rough path made in hauling the logs to the main road led directly to its door.

As they drew near the figure of a woman approachedMrs. Lizy Ann Dennett, in a gingham dress, with a calico apron over her head.

Good morning, Mr. Perkins, said the woman, who looked tired and irritable. Im real glad you come right over, for she took worse after I sent you word, and shes dead.

Dead! The word struck heavily and mysteriously on the childrens ears. Dead! And their young lives, just begun, stretched on and on, all decked, like hope, in living green. Dead! And all the rest of the world reveling in strength. Dead! With all the daisies and buttercups waving in the fields and the men heaping the mown grass into fragrant cocks or tossing it into heavily laden carts. Dead! With the brooks tinkling after the summer showers, with the potatoes and corn blossoming, the birds singing for joy, and every little insect humming and chirping, adding its note to the blithe chorus of warm, throbbing life.

I was all alone with her. She passed away suddenly jest about break o day, said Lizy Ann Dennett.

Her soul passed upward to its God Just at the break of day.

These words came suddenly into Rebeccas mind from a tiny chamber where such things were wont to lie quietly until something brought them to the surface. She could not remember whether she had heard them at a funeral or read them in the hymn book or made them up out of her own head, but she was so thrilled with the idea of dying just as the dawn was breaking that she scarcely heard Mrs. Dennetts conversation.

I sent for Aunt Beulah Day, an shes ben here an laid her out, continued the long suffering Lizy Ann. She aint got any folks, an John Winslow aint never had any as far back as I can remember. She belongs to your town and youll have to bury her and take care of Jackythats the boy. Hes seventeen months old, a bright little feller, the image o John, but I cant keep him another day. Im all wore out; my own babys sick, mothers rheumatiz is extry bad, and my husbands comin home tonight from his weeks work. If he finds a child o John Winslows under his roof I cant say what would happen; youll have to take him back with you to the poor farm.

I cant take him up there this afternoon, objected Mr. Perkins.

Well, then, keep him over Sunday yourself; hes good as a kitten. John Winslowll hear o Sals death sooner or later, unless hes gone out of the state altogether, an when he knows the boys at the poor farm, I kind o think hell come and claim him. Could you drive me over to the village to see about the coffin, and would you children be afraid to stay here alone for a spell? she asked, turning to the girls.

Afraid? they both echoed uncomprehendingly.

Lizy Ann and Mr. Perkins, perceiving that the fear of a dead presence had not entered the minds of Rebecca or Emma Jane, said nothing, but drove off together, counseling them not to stray far away from the cabin and promising to be back in an hour.