New Chronicles of Rebecca - Kate Wiggin 6 стр.

The open doors swinging out to the peaceful landscape, the solace of the pipe, not allowed in the settin-roomhow beautifully these simple agents have ministered to the family peace in days agone! If I hadnt had my barn and my store BOTH, I couldnt never have lived in holy matrimony with Maryliza! once said Mr. Watson feelingly.

But the deacon, looking on his waving grass fields, his tasseling corn and his timber lands, bright and honest as were his eyes, never saw such visions as Rebecca. The child, transplanted from her home farm at Sunnybrook, from the care of the overworked but easy-going mother, and the companionship of the scantily fed, scantily clothed, happy-go-lucky brothers and sistersshe had indeed fallen on shady days in Riverboro. The blinds were closed in every room of the house but two, and the same might have been said of Miss Mirandas mind and heart, though Miss Jane had a few windows opening to the sun, and Rebecca already had her unconscious hand on several others. Brickhouse rules were rigid and many for a little creature so full of life, but Rebeccas gay spirit could not be pinioned in a strait jacket for long at a time; it escaped somehow and winged its merry way into the sunshine and free air; if she were not allowed to sing in the orchard, like the wild bird she was, she could still sing in the cage, like the canary.

II

If you had opened the carefully guarded volume with the mottled covers, you would first have seen a wonderful title page, constructed apparently on the same lines as an obituary, or the inscription on a tombstone, save for the quantity and variety of information contained in it. Much of the matter would seem to the captious critic better adapted to the body of the book than to the title page, but Rebecca was apparently anxious that the principal personages in her chronicle should be well described at the outset.

She seems to have had a conviction that heredity plays its part in the evolution of genius, and her belief that the world will be inspired by the possession of her Thoughts is too artless to be offensive. She evidently has respect for rich material confided to her teacher, and one can imagine Miss Dearborns woe had she been confronted by Rebeccas chosen literary executor and bidden to deliver certain Valuable Poetry and Thoughts, the property of posterity unless carelessly destroyed.

THOUGHT BOOK of Rebecca Rowena Randall Really of Sunnybrook Farm But temporily of The Brick House Riverboro. Own niece of Miss Miranda and Jane Sawyer Second of seven children of her father, Mr. L. D. M. Randall (Now at rest in Temperance cemmetary and there will be a monument as soon as we pay off the mortgage on the farm) Also of her mother Mrs. Aurelia Randall

IT IS NOT NOW DECIDED WHETHER REBECCA ROWENA RANDALL WILL BE A PAINTER OR AN AUTHOR, BUT AFTER HER DEATH IT WILL BE KNOWN WHICH SHE HAS BEEN, IF ANY.

FINIS

From the title page, with its wealth of detail, and its unnecessary and irrelevant information, the book ripples on like a brook, and to the weary reader of problem novels it may have something of the brooks refreshing quality.

OUR DIARIES May, 187

All the girls are keeping a diary because Miss Dearborn was very much ashamed when the school trustees told her that most of the girls and all of the boys compositions were disgraceful, and must be improved upon next term. She asked the boys to write letters to her once a week instead of keeping a diary, which they thought was girlish like playing with dolls. The boys thought it was dreadful to have to write letters every seven days, but she told them it was not half as bad for them as it was for her who had to read them.

To make my diary a little different I am going to call it a THOUGHT Book (written just like that, with capitals). I have thoughts that I never can use unless I write them down, for Aunt Miranda always says, Keep your thoughts to yourself. Aunt Jane lets me tell her some, but does not like my queer ones and my true thoughts are mostly queer. Emma Jane does not mind hearing them now and then, and that is my only chance.

If Miss Dearborn does not like the name Thought Book I will call it Remerniscences (written just like that with a capital R). Remerniscences are things you remember about yourself and write down in case you should die. Aunt Jane doesnt like to read any other kind of books but just lives of interesting dead people and she says that is what Longfellow (who was born in the state of Maine and we should be very proud of it and try to write like him) meant in his poem:

I know what this means because when Emma Jane and I went to the beach with Uncle Jerry Cobb we ran along the wet sand and looked at the shapes our boots made, just as if they were stamped in wax. Emma Jane turns in her left foot (splayfoot the boys call it, which is not polite) and Seth Strout had just patched one of my shoes and it all came out in the sand pictures. When I learned The Psalm of Life for Friday afternoon speaking I thought I shouldnt like to leave a patched footprint, nor have Emma Janes look crooked on the sands of time, and right away I thought Oh! What a splendid thought for my Thought Book when Aunt Jane buys me a fifteen-cent one over to Watsons store.

REMERNISCENCES

June, 187

I told Aunt Jane I was going to begin my Remerniscences, and she says I am full young, but I reminded her that Candace Millikens sister died when she was ten, leaving no footprints whatever, and if I should die suddenly who would write down my Remerniscences? Aunt Miranda says the sun and moon would rise and set just the same, and it was no matter if they didnt get written down, and to go up attic and find her piece-bag; but I said it would, as there was only one of everybody in the world, and nobody else could do their remerniscensing for them. If I should die tonight I know now who would describe me right. Miss Dearborn would say one thing and brother John another. Emma Jane would try to do me justice, but has no words; and I am glad Aunt Miranda never takes the pen in hand.

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?