Rebecca entered the home dining-room joyously. The Burnham sisters had gone and the two aunts were knitting.
“It was a heavenly party,” she cried, taking off her hat and cape.
“Go back and see if you have shut the door tight, and then lock it,” said Miss Miranda, in her usual austere manner.
“It was a heavenly party,” reiterated Rebecca, coming in again, much too excited to be easily crushed, “and oh! aunt Jane, aunt Miranda, if you’ll only come into the kitchen and look out of the sink window, you can see the banquet lamp shining all red, just as if the Simpsons’ house was on fire.”
“And probably it will be before long,” observed Miranda. “I’ve got no patience with such foolish goin’s-on.”
Jane accompanied Rebecca into the kitchen. Although the feeble glimmer which she was able to see from that distance did not seem to her a dazzling exhibition, she tried to be as enthusiastic as possible.
“Rebecca, who was it that sold the three hundred cakes of soap to Mr. Ladd in North Riverboro?”
“Mr. WHO?” exclaimed Rebecca.
“Mr. Ladd, in North Riverboro.”
“Is that his real name?” queried Rebecca in astonishment. “I didn’t make a bad guess;” and she laughed softly to herself.
“I asked you who sold the soap to Adam Ladd?” resumed Miss Jane.
“Adam Ladd! then he’s A. Ladd, too; what fun!”
“Answer me, Rebecca.”
“Oh! excuse me, aunt Jane, I was so busy thinking. Emma Jane and I sold the soap to Mr. Ladd.”
“Did you tease him, or make him buy it?”
“Now, aunt Jane, how could I make a big grown-up man buy anything if he didn’t want to? He needed the soap dreadfully as a present for his aunt.”
Miss Jane still looked a little unconvinced, though she only said, “I hope your aunt Miranda won’t mind, but you know how particular she is, Rebecca, and I really wish you wouldn’t do anything out of the ordinary without asking her first, for your actions are very queer.”
“There can’t be anything wrong this time,” Rebecca answered confidently. “Emma Jane sold her cakes to her own relations and to uncle Jerry Cobb, and I went first to those new tenements near the lumber mill, and then to the Ladds’. Mr. Ladd bought all we had and made us promise to keep the secret until the premium came, and I’ve been going about ever since as if the banquet lamp was inside of me all lighted up and burning, for everybody to see.”
Rebecca’s hair was loosened and falling over her forehead in ruffled waves; her eyes were brilliant, her cheeks crimson; there was a hint of everything in the girl’s face,—of sensitiveness and delicacy as well as of ardor; there was the sweetness of the mayflower and the strength of the young oak, but one could easily divine that she was one of
“The souls by nature pitched too high,
By suffering plunged too low.”
“That’s just the way you look, for all the world as if you did have a lamp burning inside of you,” sighed aunt Jane. “Rebecca! Rebecca! I wish you could take things easier, child; I am fearful for you sometimes.”
Chapter XVI.
Seasons of Growth
The days flew by; as summer had melted into autumn so autumn had given place to winter. Life in the brick house had gone on more placidly of late, for Rebecca was honestly trying to be more careful in the performance of her tasks and duties as well as more quiet in her plays, and she was slowly learning the power of the soft answer in turning away wrath.
Miranda had not had, perhaps, quite as many opportunities in which to lose her temper, but it is only just to say that she had not fully availed herself of all that had offered themselves.
There had been one outburst of righteous wrath occasioned by Rebecca’s over-hospitable habits, which were later shown in a still more dramatic and unexpected fashion.
On a certain Friday afternoon she asked her aunt Miranda if she might take half her bread and milk upstairs to a friend.
“What friend have you got up there, for pity’s sake?” demanded aunt Miranda.
“The Simpson baby, come to stay over Sunday; that is, if you’re willing, Mrs. Simpson says she is. Shall I bring her down and show her? She’s dressed in an old dress of Emma Jane’s and she looks sweet.”
“You can bring her down, but you can’t show her to me! You can smuggle her out the way you smuggled her in and take her back to her mother. Where on earth do you get your notions, borrowing a baby for Sunday!”
“You’re so used to a house without a baby you don’t know how dull it is,” sighed Rebecca resignedly, as she moved towards the door; “but at the farm there was always a nice fresh one to play with and cuddle. There were too many, but that’s not half as bad as none at all. Well, I’ll take her back. She’ll be dreadfully disappointed and so will Mrs. Simpson. She was planning to go to Milltown.”
“She can un-plan then,” observed Miss Miranda.
“Perhaps I can go up there and take care of the baby?” suggested Rebecca. “I brought her home so ‘t I could do my Saturday work just the same.”
“You’ve got enough to do right here, without any borrowed babies to make more steps. Now, no answering back, just give the child some supper and carry it home where it belongs.”
“You don’t want me to go down the front way, hadn’t I better just come through this room and let you look at her? She has yellow hair and big blue eyes! Mrs. Simpson says she takes after her father.”
Miss Miranda smiled acidly as she said she couldn’t take after her father, for he’d take any thing there was before she got there!
Aunt Jane was in the linen closet upstairs, sorting out the clean sheets and pillow cases for Saturday, and Rebecca sought comfort from her.
“I brought the Simpson baby home, aunt Jane, thinking it would help us over a dull Sunday, but aunt Miranda won’t let her stay. Emma Jane has the promise of her next Sunday and Alice Robinson the next. Mrs. Simpson wanted I should have her first because I’ve had so much experience in babies. Come in and look at her sitting up in my bed, aunt Jane! Isn’t she lovely? She’s the fat, gurgly kind, not thin and fussy like some babies, and I thought I was going to have her to undress and dress twice each day. Oh dear! I wish I could have a printed book with everything set down in it that I COULD do, and then I wouldn’t get disappointed so often.”
“No book could be printed that would fit you, Rebecca,” answered aunt Jane, “for nobody could imagine beforehand the things you’d want to do. Are you going to carry that heavy child home in your arms?”
“No, I’m going to drag her in the little soap-wagon. Come, baby! Take your thumb out of your mouth and come to ride with Becky in your go-cart.” She stretched out her strong young arms to the crowing baby, sat down in a chair with the child, turned her upside down unceremoniously, took from her waistband and scornfully flung away a crooked pin, walked with her (still