VI
SUNSHINE IN A SHADY PLACE
The little schoolhouse on the hill had its moments of triumph as wellas its scenes of tribulation, but it was fortunate that Rebecca had herbooks and her new acquaintances to keep her interested and occupied, orlife would have gone heavily with her that first summer in Riverboro.She tried to like her aunt Miranda (the idea of loving her had beengiven up at the moment of meeting), but failed ignominiously in theattempt. She was a very faulty and passionately human child, with noaspirations towards being an angel of the house, but she had a sense ofduty and a desire to be good,--respectably, decently good. Whenever shefell below this self-imposed standard she was miserable. She did notlike to be under her aunt's roof, eating bread, wearing clothes, andstudying books provided by her, and dislike her so heartily all thetime. She felt instinctively that this was wrong and mean, and wheneverthe feeling of remorse was strong within her she made a desperateeffort to please her grim and difficult relative. But how could shesucceed when she was never herself in her aunt Miranda's presence? Thesearching look of the eyes, the sharp voice, the hard knotty fingers,the thin straight lips, the long silences, the "front-piece" thatdidn't match her hair, the very obvious "parting" that seemed sewed inwith linen thread on black net,--there was not a single item thatappealed to Rebecca. There are certain narrow, unimaginative, andautocratic old people who seem to call out the most mischievous, andsometimes the worst traits in children. Miss Miranda, had she lived ina populous neighborhood, would have had her doorbell pulled, her gatetied up, or "dirt traps" set in her garden paths. The Simpson twinsstood in such awe of her that they could not be persuaded to come tothe side door even when Miss Jane held gingerbread cookies in heroutstretched hands.
It is needless to say that Rebecca irritated her aunt with every breathshe drew. She continually forgot and started up the front stairsbecause it was the shortest route to her bedroom; she left the dipperon the kitchen shelf instead of hanging it up over the pail; she sat inthe chair the cat liked best; she was willing to go on errands, butoften forgot what she was sent for; she left the screen doors ajar, sothat flies came in; her tongue was ever in motion; she sang or whistledwhen she was picking up chips; she was always messing with flowers,putting them in vases, pinning them on her dress, and sticking them inher hat; finally she was an everlasting reminder of her foolish,worthless father, whose handsome face and engaging manner had sodeceived Aurelia, and perhaps, if the facts were known, others besidesAurelia. The Randalls were aliens. They had not been born in Riverboronor even in York County. Miranda would have allowed, on compulsion,that in the nature of things a large number of persons must necessarilybe born outside this sacred precinct; but she had her opinion of them,and it was not a flattering one. Now if Hannah had come--Hannah tookafter the other side of the house; she was "all Sawyer." (Poor Hannah!that was true!) Hannah spoke only when spoken to, instead of first,last, and all the time; Hannah at fourteen was a member of the church;Hannah liked to knit; Hannah was, probably, or would have been, apattern of all the smaller virtues; instead of which here was thisblack-haired gypsy, with eyes as big as cartwheels, installed as amember of the household.
What sunshine in a shady place was aunt Jane to Rebecca! Aunt Jane withher quiet voice, her understanding eyes, her ready excuses, in thesefirst difficult weeks, when the impulsive little stranger was trying tosettle down into the "brick house ways." She did learn them, in part,and by degrees, and the constant fitting of herself to these new anddifficult standards of conduct seemed to make her older than ever forher years.
The child took her sewing and sat beside aunt Jane in the kitchen whileaunt Miranda had the post of observation at the sitting-room window.Sometimes they would work on the side porch where the clematis andwoodbine shaded them from the hot sun. To Rebecca the lengths of browngingham were interminable. She made hard work of sewing, broke thethread, dropped her thimble into the syringa bushes, pricked herfinger, wiped the perspiration from her forehead, could not match thechecks, puckered the seams. She polished her needles to nothing,pushing them in and out of the emery strawberry, but they alwayssqueaked. Still aunt Jane's patience held good, and some small measureof skill was creeping into Rebecca's fingers, fingers that held pencil,paint brush, and pen so cleverly and were so clumsy with the daintylittle needle.
When the first brown gingham frock was completed, the child seized whatshe thought an opportune moment and asked her aunt Miranda if she mighthave another color for the next one.
"I bought a whole piece of the brown," said Miranda laconically."That'll give you two more dresses, with plenty for new sleeves, and topatch and let down with, an' be more economical."
"I know. But Mr. Watson says he'll take back part of it, and let ushave pink and blue for the same price."
"Did you ask him?"
"Yes'm."
"It was none o' your business."
"I was helping Emma Jane choose aprons, and didn't think you'd mindwhich color I had. Pink keeps clean just as nice as brown, and Mr.Watson says it'll boil without fading."
"Mr. Watson 's a splendid judge of washing, I guess. I don't approve ofchildren being rigged out in fancy colors, but I'll see what your auntJane thinks."
"I think it would be all right to let Rebecca have one pink and oneblue gingham," said Jane. "A child gets tired of sewing on one color.It's only natural she should long for a change; besides she'd look likea charity child always wearing the same brown with a white apron. Andit's dreadful unbecoming to her!"
"'Handsome is as handsome does,' say I. Rebecca never'll come to griefalong of her beauty, that's certain, and there's no use in humoring herto think about her looks. I believe she's vain as a peacock now,without anything to be vain of."
"She's young and attracted to bright things--that's all. I rememberwell enough how I felt at her age."
"You was considerable of a fool at her age, Jane."
"Yes, I was, thank the Lord! I only wish I'd known how to take a littleof my foolishness along with me, as some folks do, to brighten mydeclining years."
There finally was a pink gingham, and when it was nicely finished, auntJane gave Rebecca a delightful surprise. She showed her how to make apretty trimming of narrow white linen tape, by folding it in pointedshapes and sewing it down very flat with neat little stitches.
"It'll be good fancy work for you, Rebecca; for your aunt Miranda won'tlike to see you always reading in the long winter evenings. Now if youthink you can baste two rows of white tape round the bottom of yourpink skirt and keep it straight by the checks, I'll stitch them on foryou and trim the waist and sleeves with pointed tape-trimming, so thedress'll be real pretty for second best."
Rebecca's joy knew no bounds. "I'll baste like a house afire!" sheexclaimed. "It's a thousand yards round that skirt, as well I know,having hemmed it; but I could sew pretty trimming on if it was fromhere to Milltown. Oh! do you think aunt Mirandy'll ever let me go toMilltown with Mr. Cobb? He's asked me again, you know; but one SaturdayI had to pick strawberries, and another it rained, and I don't thinkshe really approves of my going. It's TWENTY-NINE minutes past four,aunt Jane, and Alice Robinson has been sitting under the currant bushesfor a long time waiting for me. Can I go and play?"
"Yes, you may go, and you'd better run as far as you can out behind thebarn, so 't your noise won't distract your aunt Mirandy. I see SusanSimpson and the twins and Emma Jane Perkins hiding behind the fence."
Rebecca leaped off the porch, snatched Alice Robinson from under thecurrant bushes, and, what was much more difficult, succeeded, by meansof a complicated system of signals, in getting Emma Jane away from theSimpson party and giving them the slip altogether. They were much toosmall for certain pleasurable activities planned for that afternoon;but they were not to be despised, for they had the most fascinatingdooryard in the village. In it, in bewildering confusion, were oldsleighs, pungs, horse rakes, hogsheads, settees without backs,bed-steads without heads, in all stages of disability, and never thesame on two consec
utive days. Mrs. Simpson was seldom at home, and evenwhen she was, had little concern as to what happened on the premises. Afavorite diversion was to make the house into a fort, gallantly held bya handful of American soldiers against a besieging force of the Britisharmy. Great care was used in apportioning the parts, for there was nodisposition to let anybody win but the Americans. Seesaw Simpson wasusually made commander-in-chief of the British army, and a limp anduncertain one he was, capable, with his contradictory orders and hisfondness for the extreme rear, of leading any regiment to an ingloriousdeath. Sometimes the long-suffering house was a log hut, and the bravesettlers defeated a band of hostile Indians, or occasionally weremassacred by them; but in either case the Simpson house looked, toquote a Riverboro expression, "as if the devil had been having anauction in it."
Next to this uncommonly interesting playground, as a field of action,came, in the children's opinion, the "secret spot." There was a velvetystretch of ground in the Sawyer pasture which was full of fascinatinghollows and hillocks, as well as verdant levels, on which to buildhouses. A group of trees concealed it somewhat from view and flung agrateful shade over the dwellings erected there. It had been hardthough sweet labor to take armfuls of "stickins" and "cutrounds" fromthe mill to this secluded spot, and that it had been done mostly aftersupper in the dusk of the evenings gave it a still greater flavor. Herein soap boxes hidden among the trees were stored all their treasures:wee baskets and plates and cups made of burdock balls, bits of brokenchina for parties, dolls, soon to be outgrown, but serving well ascharacters in all sorts of romances enacted there,--deaths, funerals,weddings, christenings. A tall, square house of stickins was to bebuilt round Rebecca this afternoon, and she was to be Charlotte Cordayleaning against the bars of her prison.
It was a wonderful experience standing inside the building with EmmaJane's apron wound about her hair; wonderful to feel that when sheleaned her head against the bars they seemed to turn to cold iron; thather eyes were no longer Rebecca Randall's but mirrored something ofCharlotte Corday's hapless woe.
"Ain't it lovely?" sighed the humble twain, who had done most of thelabor, but who generously admired the result.
"I hate to have to take it down," said Alice, "it's been such a sightof work."
"If you think you could move up some stones and just take off the toprows, I could step out over," suggested Charlotte Corday. "Then leavethe stones, and you two can step down into the prison to-morrow and bethe two little princes in the Tower, and I can murder you."
"What princes? What tower?" asked Alice and Emma Jane in one breath."Tell us about them."
"Not now, it's my supper time." (Rebecca was a somewhat firmdisciplinarian.)
"It would be elergant being murdered by you," said Emma Jane loyally,"though you are awful real when you murder; or we could have Elijah andElisha for the princes."
"They'd yell when they was murdered," objected Alice; "you know howsilly they are at plays, all except Clara Belle. Besides if we onceshow them this secret place, they'll play in it all the time, andperhaps they'd steal things, like their father."
"They needn't steal just because their father does," argued Rebecca;"and don't you ever talk about it before them if you want to be mysecret, partic'lar friends. My mother tells me never to say hard thingsabout people's own folks to their face. She says nobody can bear it,and it's wicked to shame them for what isn't their fault. RememberMinnie Smellie!"
Well, they had no difficulty in recalling that dramatic episode, for ithad occurred only a few days before; and a version of it that wouldhave melted the stoniest heart had been presented to every girl in thevillage by Minnie Smellie herself, who, though it was Rebecca and notshe who came off victorious in the bloody battle of words, nursed herresentment and intended to have revenge.
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm Page 6