New Chronicles of Rebecca

by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

  Fourth Chronicle. A TRAGEDY IN MILLINERY

  I

  Emma Jane Perkins's new winter dress was a blue and green Scotch plaidpoplin, trimmed with narrow green velvet-ribbon and steel nail-heads.She had a gray jacket of thick furry cloth with large steel buttonsup the front, a pair of green kid gloves, and a gray felt hat with anencircling band of bright green feathers. The band began in front witha bird's head and ended behind with a bird's tail, and angels could havedesired no more beautiful toilette. That was her opinion, and it wasshared to the full by Rebecca.

  But Emma Jane, as Rebecca had once described her to Mr. Adam Ladd, wasa rich blacksmith's daughter, and she, Rebecca, was a little half-orphanfrom a mortgaged farm "up Temperance way," dependent upon her spinsteraunts for board, clothes, and schooling. Scotch plaid poplins weremanifestly not for her, but dark-colored woolen stuffs were, andmittens, and last winter's coats and furs.

  And how about hats? Was there hope in store for her there? she wondered,as she walked home from the Perkins house, full of admiration for EmmaJane's winter outfit, and loyally trying to keep that admiration freefrom wicked envy. Her red-winged black hat was her second best, andalthough it was shabby she still liked it, but it would never do forchurch, even in Aunt Miranda's strange and never-to-be-comprehendedviews of suitable raiment.

  There was a brown felt turban in existence, if one could call itexistence when it had been rained on, snowed on, and hailed on for twoseasons; but the trimmings had at any rate perished quite off the faceof the earth, that was one comfort!

  Emma Jane had said, rather indiscreetly, that at the village milliner'sat Milliken's Mills there was a perfectly elegant pink breast to be had,a breast that began in a perfectly elegant solferino and terminated in aperfectly elegant magenta; two colors much in vogue at that time. Ifthe old brown hat was to be her portion yet another winter, would AuntMiranda conceal its deficiencies from a carping world beneath the shadedsolferino breast? WOULD she, that was the question?

  Filled with these perplexing thoughts, Rebecca entered the brick house,hung up her hood in the entry, and went into the dining-room.

  Miss Jane was not there, but Aunt Miranda sat by the window with her lapfull of sewing things, and a chair piled with pasteboard boxes by herside. In one hand was the ancient, battered, brown felt turban, and inthe other were the orange and black porcupine quills from Rebecca's lastsummer's hat; from the hat of the summer before that, and the summerbefore that, and so on back to prehistoric ages of which her childishmemory kept no specific record, though she was sure that Temperance andRiverboro society did. Truly a sight to chill the blood of any eageryoung dreamer who had been looking at gayer plumage!

  Miss Sawyer glanced up for a second with a satisfied expression and thenbent her eyes again upon her work.

  "If I was going to buy a hat trimming," she said, "I couldn't selectanything better or more economical than these quills! Your mother hadthem when she was married, and you wore them the day you come to thebrick house from the farm; and I said to myself then that they lookedkind of outlandish, but I've grown to like em now I've got used to em.You've been here for goin' on two years and they've hardly be'n outo'wear, summer or winter, more'n a month to a time! I declare they dobeat all for service! It don't seem as if your mother could a' choseem,--Aurelia was always such a poor buyer! The black spills are boutas good as new, but the orange ones are gittin' a little mite faded andshabby. I wonder if I couldn't dip all of em in shoe blackin'? It seemsreal queer to put a porcupine into hat trimmin', though I declare Idon't know jest what the animiles are like, it's be'n so long senceI looked at the pictures of em in a geography. I always thought theirquills stood out straight and angry, but these kind o' curls round someat the ends, and that makes em stand the wind better. How do you likeem on the brown felt?" she asked, inclining her head in a discriminatingattitude and poising them awkwardly on the hat with her work-stainedhand.

  How did she like them on the brown felt indeed?

  Miss Sawyer had not been looking at Rebecca, but the child's eyes wereflashing, her bosom heaving, and her cheeks glowing with sudden rageand despair. All at once something happened. She forgot that she wasspeaking to an older person; forgot that she was dependent; forgoteverything but her disappointment at losing the solferino breast,remembering nothing but the enchanting, dazzling beauty of Emma JanePerkins's winter outfit; and suddenly, quite without warning, she burstinto a torrent of protest.

  "I will NOT wear those hateful porcupine quills again this winter! Iwill not! It's wicked, WICKED to expect me to! Oh! How I wish therenever had been any porcupines in the world, or that all of them had diedbefore silly, hateful people ever thought of trimming hat with them!They curl round and tickle my ear! They blow against my cheek and stingit like needles! They do look outlandish, you said so yourself a minuteago. Nobody ever had any but only just me! The only porcupine was madeinto the only quills for me and nobody else! I wish instead of stickingOUT of the nasty beasts, that they stuck INTO them, same as they do intomy cheek! I suffer, suffer, suffer, wearing them and hating them, andthey will last forever and forever, and when I'm dead and can't helpmyself, somebody'll rip them out of my last year's hat and stick themon my head, and I'll be buried in them! Well, when I am buried THEYwill be, that's one good thing! Oh, if I ever have a child I'll let herchoose her own feathers and not make her wear ugly things like pigs'bristles and porcupine quills!"

  With this lengthy tirade Rebecca vanished like a meteor, through thedoor and down the street, while Miranda Sawyer gasped for breath, andprayed to Heaven to help her understand such human whirlwinds as thisRandall niece of hers.

  This was at three o'clock, and at half-past three Rebecca was kneelingon the rag carpet with her head in her aunt's apron, sobbing hercontrition.

  "Oh! Aunt Miranda, do forgive me if you can. It's the only time I'vebeen bad for months! You know it is! You know you said last week Ihadn't been any trouble lately. Something broke inside of me and cametumbling out of my mouth in ugly words! The porcupine quills make mefeel just as a bull does when he sees a red cloth; nobody understandshow I suffer with them!"

  Miranda Sawyer had learned a few lessons in the last two years, lessonswhich were making her (at least on her "good days") a trifle kinder, andat any rate a juster woman than she used to be. When she alighted on thewrong side of her four-poster in the morning, or felt an extra touch ofrheumatism, she was still grim and unyielding; but sometimes a curioussort of melting process seemed to go on within her, when her whole bonystructure softened, and her eyes grew less vitreous. At such momentsRebecca used to feel as if a superincumbent iron pot had been lifted offher head, allowing her to breath freely and enjoy the sunshine.

  "Well," she said finally, after staring first at Rebecca and then at theporcupine quills, as if to gain some insight into the situation, "well,I never, sence I was born int' the world, heerd such a speech as you'vespoke, an' I guess there probably never was one. You'd better tell theminister what you said and see what he thinks of his prize Sunday-schoolscholar. But I'm too old and tired to scold and fuss, and try to trainyou same as I did at first. You can punish yourself this time, likeyou used to. Go fire something down the well, same as you did your pinkparasol! You've apologized and we won't say no more about it today, butI expect you to show by extry good conduct how sorry you be! You carealtogether too much about your looks and your clothes for a child, andyou've got a temper that'll certainly land you in state's prison some o'these days!"

  Rebecca wiped her eyes and laughed aloud. "No, no, Aunt Miranda, itwon't, really! That wasn't temper; I don't get angry with PEOPLE; butonly, once in a long while, with things; like those,--cover them upquick before I begin again! I'm all right! Shower's over, sun's out!"

  Miss Miranda looked at her searchingly and uncomprehendingly. Rebecca'sstate of mind came perilously near to disease, she thought.

  "Have you seen me buyin' any new bunnits, or your Aunt Jane?" she askedcuttingly. "Is there any particular reason why you
should dress betterthan your elders? You might as well know that we're short of cash justnow, your Aunt Jane and me, and have no intention of riggin' you outlike a Milltown fact'ry girl."

  "Oh-h!" cried Rebecca, the quick tears starting again to her eyes andthe color fading out of her cheeks, as she scrambled up from her kneesto a seat on the sofa beside her aunt. "Oh-h! How ashamed I am! Quick,sew those quills on to the brown turban while I'm good! If I can't standthem I'll make a neat little gingham bag and slip over them!"

  And so the matter ended, not as it customarily did, with cold words onMiss Miranda's part and bitter feelings on Rebecca's, but with a gleamof mutual understanding.

  Mrs. Cobb, who was a master hand at coloring, dipped the offendingquills in brown dye and left them to soak in it all night, not onlymaking them a nice warm color, but somewhat weakening their rockyspines, so that they were not quite as rampantly hideous as before, inRebecca's opinion.

  Then Mrs. Perkins went to her bandbox in the attic and gave MissDearborn some pale blue velvet, with which she bound the brim of thebrown turban and made a wonderful rosette, out of which the porcupine'sdefensive armor sprang, buoyantly and gallantly, like the plume of Henryof Navarre.

  Rebecca was resigned, if not greatly comforted, but she had grace enoughto conceal her feelings, now that she knew economy was at the rootof some of her aunt's decrees in matters of dress; and she managed toforget the solferino breast, save in sleep, where a vision of it had away of appearing to her, dangling from the ceiling, and dazzling herso with its rich color that she used to hope the milliner would sell itthat she might never be tempted with it when she passed the shop window.

  One day, not long afterward, Miss Miranda borrowed Mr. Perkins's horseand wagon and took Rebecca with her on a drive to Union, to see aboutsome sausage meat and head cheese. She intended to call on Mrs. Cobb,order a load of pine wood from Mr. Strout on the way, and leave somerags for a rug with old Mrs. Pease, so that the journey could be madeas profitable as possible, consistent with the loss of time and the wearand tear on her second-best black dress.

  The red-winged black hat was forcibly removed from Rebecca's head justbefore starting, and the nightmare turban substituted.

  "You might as well begin to wear it first as last," remarked Miranda,while Jane stood in the side door and sympathized secretly with Rebecca.

  "I will!" said Rebecca, ramming the stiff turban down on her head with avindictive grimace, and snapping the elastic under her long braids; "butit makes me think of what Mr. Robinson said when the minister told himhis mother-in-law would ride in the same buggy with him at his wife'sfuneral."

  "I can't see how any speech of Mr. Robinson's, made years an' years ago,can have anything to do with wearin' your turban down to Union," saidMiranda, settling the lap robe over her knees.

  "Well, it can; because he said: Have it that way, then, but it'll spilethe hull blamed trip for me!'"

  Jane closed the door suddenly, partly because she experienced a desireto smile (a desire she had not felt for years before Rebecca came tothe brick house to live), and partly because she had no wish to overhearwhat her sister would say when she took in the full significance ofRebecca's anecdote, which was a favorite one with Mr. Perkins.

  It was a cold blustering day with a high wind that promised to bring anearly fall of snow. The trees were stripped bare of leaves, theground was hard, and the wagon wheels rattled noisily over thethank-you-ma'ams.

  "I'm glad I wore my Paisley shawl over my cloak," said Miranda. "Be youwarm enough, Rebecca? Tie that white rigolette tighter round your neck.The wind fairly blows through my bones. I most wish t we'd waited tilla pleasanter day, for this Union road is all up hill or down, and weshan't get over the ground fast, it's so rough. Don't forget, when yougo into Scott's, to say I want all the trimmin's when they send me thepork, for mebbe I can try out a little mite o' lard. The last load o'pine's gone turrible quick; I must see if "Bijah Flagg can't get us somecut-rounds at the mills, when he hauls for Squire Bean next time. Keepyour mind on your drivin', Rebecca, and don't look at the trees and thesky so much. It's the same sky and same trees that have been here rightalong. Go awful slow down this hill and walk the hoss over Cook's Brookbridge, for I always suspicion it's goin' to break down under me, an' Ishouldn't want to be dropped into that fast runnin' water this cold day.It'll be froze stiff by this time next week. Hadn't you better get outand lead"--

  The rest of the sentence was very possibly not vital, but at any rateit was never completed, for in the middle of the bridge a fierce galeof wind took Miss Miranda's Paisley shawl and blew it over her head. Thelong heavy ends whirled in opposite directions and wrapped themselvestightly about her wavering bonnet. Rebecca had the whip and the reins,and in trying to rescue her struggling aunt could not steady her ownhat, which was suddenly torn from her head and tossed against the bridgerail, where it trembled and flapped for an instant.

  "My hat! Oh! Aunt Miranda, my hateful hat!" cried Rebecca, neverremembering at the instant how often she had prayed that the "fretfulporcupine" might some time vanish in this violent manner, since itrefused to die a natural death.

  She had already stopped the horse, so, giving her aunt's shawl one lastdesperate twitch, she slipped out between the wagon wheels, and dartedin the direction of the hated object, the loss of which had dignified itwith a temporary value and importance.

  The stiff brown turban rose in the air, then dropped and flew along thebridge; Rebecca pursued; it danced along and stuck between two of therailings; Rebecca flew after it, her long braids floating in the wind.

  "Come back! Come back! Don't leave me alone with the team. I won't haveit! Come back, and leave your hat!"

  Miranda had at length extricated herself from the submerging shawl, butshe was so blinded by the wind, and so confused that she did not measurethe financial loss involved in her commands.

  Rebecca heard, but her spirit being in arms, she made one more madscramble for the vagrant hat, which now seemed possessed with an evilspirit, for it flew back and forth, and bounded here and there, likea living thing, finally distinguishing itself by blowing between thehorse's front and hind legs, Rebecca trying to circumvent it by goingaround the wagon, and meeting it on the other side.

  It was no use; as she darted from behind the wheels the wind gave thehat an extra whirl, and scurrying in the opposite direction it soaredabove the bridge rail and disappeared into the rapid water below.

  "Get in again!" cried Miranda, holding on her bonnet. "You done yourbest and it can't be helped, I only wish't I'd let you wear your blackhat as you wanted to; and I wish't we'd never come such a day! The shawlhas broke the stems of the velvet geraniums in my bonnet, and the windhas blowed away my shawl pin and my back comb. I'd like to give up andturn right back this minute, but I don't like to borrer Perkins's hossagain this month. When we get up in the woods you can smooth your hairdown and tie the rigolette over your head and settle what's left of mybonnet; it'll be an expensive errant, this will!"

  * * * * *

  II

  It was not till next morning that Rebecca's heart really began its songof thanksgiving. Her Aunt Miranda announced at breakfast, that as Mrs.Perkins was going to Milliken's Mills, Rebecca might go too, and buy aserviceable hat.

  "You mustn't pay over two dollars and a half, and you mustn't get thepink bird without Mrs. Perkins says, and the milliner says, that itwon't fade nor moult. Don't buy a light-colored felt because you'll getsick of it in two or three years same as you did the brown one. I alwaysliked the shape of the brown one, and you'll never get another trimmin'that'll wear like them quills."

  "I hope not!" thought Rebecca.

  "If you had put your elastic under your chin, same as you used to, andnot worn it behind because you think it's more grown-up an' fash'onable,the wind never'd a' took the hat off your head, and you wouldn't a' lostit; but the mischief's done and you can go right over to Mis' Perkinsnow, so you won't miss her nor keep her waitin'. The two dollars and ahalf is in an e
nvelope side o' the clock."

  Rebecca swallowed the last spoonful of picked-up codfish on her plate,wiped her lips, and rose from her chair happier than the seraphs inParadise.

  The porcupine quills had disappeared from her life, and without anyfault or violence on her part. She was wholly innocent and virtuous, butnevertheless she was going to have a new hat with the solferino breast,should the adored object prove, under rigorous examination, to bepractically indestructible.

  "Whene'er I take my walks abroad, How many hats I'll see; But if they'retrimmed with hedgehog quills They'll not belong to me!"

  So she improvised, secretly and ecstatically, as she went towards theside entry.

  "There's 'Bijah Flagg drivin' in," said Miss Miranda, going to thewindow. "Step out and see what he's got, Jane; some passel from theSquire, I guess. It's a paper bag and it may be a punkin, though hewouldn't wrop up a punkin, come to think of it! Shet the dinin' roomdoor, Jane; it's turrible drafty. Make haste, for the Squire's hossnever stan's still a minute cept when he's goin'!"

  Abijah Flagg alighted and approached the side door with a grin.

  "Guess what I've got for ye, Rebecky?"

  No throb of prophetic soul warned Rebecca of her approaching doom.

  "Nodhead apples?" she sparkled, looking as bright and rosy andsatin-skinned as an apple herself.

  "No; guess again."

  "A flowering geranium?"

  "Guess again!"

  "Nuts? Oh! I can't, Bijah; I'm just going to Milliken's Mills on anerrand, and I'm afraid of missing Mrs. Perkins. Show me quick! Is itreally for me, or for Aunt Miranda?"

  "Reely for you, I guess!" and he opened the large brown paper bag anddrew from it the remains of a water-soaked hat!

  They WERE remains, but there was no doubt of their nature and substance.They had clearly been a hat in the past, and one could even supposethat, when resuscitated, they might again assume their original form insome near and happy future.

  Miss Miranda, full of curiosity, joined the group in the side entry atthis dramatic moment.

  "Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "Where, and how under the canopy, didyou ever?"

  "I was working on the dam at Union Falls yesterday," chuckled Abijah,with a pleased glance at each of the trio in turn, "an' I seen thislittle bunnit skippin' over the water jest as Becky does over the road.It's shaped kind o' like a boat, an' gorry, ef it wa'nt sailin' jestlike a boat! Where hev I seen that kind of a bristlin' plume?' thinksI."

  ("Where indeed!" thought Rebecca stormily.)

  "Then it come to me that I'd drove that plume to school and drove it tomeetin' and drove it to the Fair an'drove it most everywheres on Becky.So I reached out a pole an' ketched it fore it got in amongst the logsan' come to any damage, an' here it is! The hat's passed in its checks,I guess; looks kind as if a wet elephant had stepped on it; but theplume's bout's good as new! I reely fetched the hat beck for the sake o'the plume."

  "It was real good of you, 'Bijah, an' we're all of us obliged to you,"said Miranda, as she poised the hat on one hand and turned it slowlywith the other.

  "Well, I do say," she exclaimed, "and I guess I've said it before, thatof all the wearing' plumes that ever I see, that one's the wearin'est!Seems though it just wouldn't give up. Look at the way it's held Mis'Cobb's dye; it's about as brown's when it went int' the water."

  "Dyed, but not a mite dead," grinned Abijah, who was somewhat celebratedfor his puns.

  "And I declare," Miranda continued, "when you think o' the fuss theymake about ostriches, killin' em off by hundreds for the sake o' theirfeathers that'll string out and spoil in one hard rainstorm,--an' allthe time lettin' useful porcupines run round with their quills on, whyI can't hardly understand it, without milliners have found out jesthow good they do last, an' so they won't use em for trimmin'. 'Bijah'sright; the hat ain't no more use, Rebecca, but you can buy you anotherthis mornin'--any color or shape you fancy--an' have Miss Morton sewthese brown quills on to it with some kind of a buckle or a bow, jestto hide the roots. Then you'll be fixed for another season, thanks to'Bijah."

  Uncle Jerry and Aunt Sarah Cobb were made acquainted before very longwith the part that destiny, or Abijah Flagg, had played in Rebecca'saffairs, for, accompanied by the teacher, she walked to the old stagedriver's that same afternoon. Taking off her new hat with the venerabletrimming, she laid it somewhat ostentatiously upside down on the kitchentable and left the room, dimpling a little more than usual.

  Uncle Jerry rose from his seat, and, crossing the room, looked curiouslyinto the hat and found that a circular paper lining was neatly pinnedin the crown, and that it bore these lines, which were read aloud withgreat effect by Miss Dearborn, and with her approval were copied in theThought Book for the benefit of posterity:

  "It was the bristling porcupine, As he stood on his native heath, Hesaid, 'I'll pluck me some immortelles And make me up a wreath. For tho'I may not live myself To more than a hundred and ten, My quills willlast till crack of doom, And maybe after then. They can be colored blueor green Or orange, brown, or red, But often as they may be dyed Theynever will be dead.' And so the bristling porcupine As he stood on hisnative heath, Said, I think I'll pluck me some immmortelles And make meup a wreath.'

  "R.R.R."