New Chronicles of Rebecca

by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

  Sixth Chronicle. THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL

  I

  The foregoing episode, if narrated in a romance, would undoubtedly havebeen called "The Saving of the Colors," but at the nightly conversazionein Watson's store it was alluded to as the way little Becky Randall gotthe flag away from Slippery Simpson.

  Dramatic as it was, it passed into the limbo of half-forgotten thingsin Rebecca's mind, its brief importance submerged in the glories of thenext day.

  There was a painful prelude to these glories. Alice Robinson came tospend the night with Rebecca, and when the bedroom door closed upon thetwo girls, Alice announced here intention of "doing up" Rebecca's fronthair in leads and rags, and braiding the back in six tight, wettedbraids.

  Rebecca demurred. Alice persisted.

  "Your hair is so long and thick and dark and straight," she said, "thatyou'll look like an Injun!"

  "I am the State of Maine; it all belonged to the Indians once," Rebeccaremarked gloomily, for she was curiously shy about discussing herpersonal appearance.

  "And your wreath of little pine-cones won't set decent without crimps,"continued Alice.

  Rebecca glanced in the cracked looking-glass and met what she consideredan accusing lack of beauty, a sight that always either saddened orenraged her according to circumstances; then she sat down resignedlyand began to help Alice in the philanthropic work of making the State ofMaine fit to be seen at the raising.

  Neither of the girls was an expert hairdresser, and at the end of anhour, when the sixth braid was tied, and Rebecca had given one lastshuddering look in the mirror, both were ready to weep with fatigue.

  The candle was blown out and Alice soon went to sleep, but Rebeccatossed on her pillow, its goose-feathered softness all dented by thecruel lead knobs and the knots of twisted rags. She slipped out of bedand walked to and fro, holding her aching head with both hands. Finallyshe leaned on the window-sill, watching the still weather-vane onAlice's barn and breathing in the fragrance of the ripening apples,until her restlessness subsided under the clear starry beauty of thenight.

  At six in the morning the girls were out of bed, for Alice could hardlywait until Rebecca's hair was taken down, she was so eager to see theresult of her labors.

  The leads and rags were painfully removed, together with much hair, theoperation being punctuated by a series of squeaks, squeals, and shriekson the part of Rebecca and a series of warnings from Alice, who wishedthe preliminaries to be kept secret from the aunts, that they might themore fully appreciate the radiant result.

  Then came the unbraiding, and then--dramatic moment--the "combing out;"a difficult, not to say impossible process, in which the hairs that hadresisted the earlier stages almost gave up the ghost.

  The long front strands had been wound up from various angles and byvarious methods, so that, when released, they assumed the strangest,most obstinate, most unexpected attitudes. When the comb was draggedthrough the last braid, the wild, tortured, electric hairs following,and then rebounding from it in a bristling, snarling tangle.Massachusetts gave one encompassing glance at the State o' Maine's head,and announced her intention of going home to breakfast! She was deeplygrieved at the result of her attempted beautifying, but she felt thatmeeting Miss Miranda Sawyer at the morning meal would not mend mattersin the least, so slipping out of the side door, she ran up Guide Boardhill as fast as her legs could carry her.

  The State o' Maine, deserted and somewhat unnerved, sat down before theglass and attacked her hair doggedly and with set lips, working over ituntil Miss Jane called her to breakfast; then, with a boldness bornof despair, she entered the dining room, where her aunts were alreadyseated at table. To "draw fire" she whistled, a forbidden joy, whichonly attracted more attention, instead of diverting it. There was amoment of silence after the grotesque figure was fully taken in; thencame a moan from Jane and a groan from Miranda.

  "What have you done to yourself?" asked Miranda sternly.

  "Made an effort to be beautiful and failed!" jauntily replied Rebecca,but she was too miserable to keep up the fiction. "Oh, Aunt Miranda,don't scold. I'm so unhappy! Alice and I rolled up my hair to curl itfor the raising. She said it was so straight I looked like an Indian!"

  "Mebbe you did," vigorously agreed Miranda, "but 't any rate you lookedlike a Christian Injun, 'n' now you look like a heathen Injun; that'sall the difference I can see. What can we do with her, Jane, betweenthis and nine o'clock?"

  "We'll all go out to the pump just as soon as we're through breakfast,"answered Jane soothingly. "We can accomplish consid'rable with water andforce."

  Rebecca nibbled her corn-cake, her tearful eyes cast on her plate andher chin quivering.

  "Don't you cry and red your eyes up," chided Miranda quite kindly; "theminute you've eat enough run up and get your brush and comb and meet usat the back door."

  "I wouldn't care myself how bad I looked," said Rebecca, "but I can'tbear to be so homely that I shame the State of Maine!"

  Oh, what an hour followed this plaint! Did any aspirant for literaryor dramatic honors ever pass to fame through such an antechamber ofhorrors? Did poet of the day ever have his head so maltreated? To bedipped in the rain-water tub, soused again and again; to be held underthe spout and pumped on; to be rubbed furiously with rough rollertowels; to be dried with hot flannels! And is it not well-nighincredible that at the close of such an hour the ends of the long hairshould still stand out straight, the braids having been turned up twoinches by Alice, and tied hard in that position with linen thread?

  "Get out the skirt-board, Jane," cried Miranda, to whom oppositionserved as a tonic, "and move that flat-iron on to the front o' thestove. Rebecca, set down in that low chair beside the board, and Jane,you spread out her hair on it and cover it up with brown paper. Don'tcringe, Rebecca; the worst's over, and you've borne up real good! I'llbe careful not to pull your hair nor scorch you, and oh, HOW I'd liketo have Alice Robinson acrost my knee and a good strip o' shingle in myright hand! There, you're all ironed out and your Aunt Jane can put onyour white dress and braid your hair up again good and tight. Perhapsyou won't be the hombliest of the states, after all; but when I see youcomin' in to breakfast I said to myself: I guess if Maine looked likethat, it wouldn't never a' been admitted into the Union!'"

  When Uncle Sam and the stagecoach drew up to the brick house with agrand swing and a flourish, the goddess of Liberty and most of theStates were already in their places on the "harricane deck."

  Words fail to describe the gallant bearing of the horses, theirheadstalls gayly trimmed and their harnesses dotted with little flags.The stage windows were hung in bunting, and from within beamed Columbia,looking out from the bright frame as if proud of her freight of loyalchildren. Patriotic streamers floated from whip, from dash-board andfrom rumble, and the effect of the whole was something to stimulate themost phlegmatic voter.

  Rebecca came out on the steps and Aunt Jane brought a chair to assist inthe ascent. Miss Dearborn peeped from the window, and gave a despairinglook at her favorite.

  What had happened to her? Who had dressed her? Had her head been putthrough a wringing-machine? Why were her eyes red and swollen? MissDearborn determined to take her behind the trees in the pine groveand give her some finishing touches; touches that her skillful fingersfairly itched to bestow.

  The stage started, and as the roadside pageant grew gayer and gayer,Rebecca began to brighten and look prettier, for most of her beautifyingcame from within. The people, walking, driving, or standing ontheir doorsteps, cheered Uncle Sam's coach with its freight ofgossamer-muslined, fluttering-ribboned girls, and just behind, thegorgeously decorated haycart, driven by Abijah Flagg, bearing the jollybut inharmonious fife-and-drum corps.

  Was ever such a golden day! Such crystal air! Such mellow sunshine! Sucha merry Uncle Sam!

  The stage drew up at an appointed spot near a pine grove, and while thecrowd was gathering, the children waited for the hour to arrive whenthey should march to the platform; the hour towar
d which they seemed tohave been moving since the dawn of creation.

  As soon as possible Miss Dearborn whispered to Rebecca: "Come behind thetrees with me; I want to make you prettier!"

  Rebecca thought she had suffered enough from that process already duringthe last twelve hours, but she put out an obedient hand and the twowithdrew.

  Now Miss Dearborn was, I fear, a very indifferent teacher. Dr. Mosesalways said so, and Libbie Moses, who wanted her school, said it wasa pity she hadn't enjoyed more social advantages in her youth. Libbieherself had taken music lessons in Portland; and spent a night at theProfile House in the White Mountains, and had visited her sister inLowell, Massachusetts. These experiences gave her, in her own mind, andin the mind of her intimate friends, a horizon so boundless that herview of smaller, humbler matters was a trifle distorted.

  Miss Dearborn's stock in trade was small, her principal virtues beingdevotion to children and ability to gain their love, and a power ofevolving a schoolroom order so natural, cheery, serene, and peacefulthat it gave the beholder a certain sense of being in a district heaven.She was poor in arithmetic and weak in geometry, but if you gave her arose, a bit of ribbon, and a seven-by-nine looking-glass she could makeherself as pretty as a pink in two minutes.

  Safely sheltered behind the pines, Miss Dearborn began to practicemysterious feminine arts. She flew at Rebecca's tight braids, openedthe strands and rebraided them loosely; bit and tore the red, white,and blue ribbon in two and tied the braids separately. Then with nimblefingers she pulled out little tendrils of hair behind the ears andaround the nape of the neck. After a glance of acute disapprovaldirected at the stiff balloon skirt she knelt on the ground and gavea strenuous embrace to Rebecca's knees, murmuring, between her hugs,"Starch must be cheap at the brick house!"

  This particular line of beauty attained, there ensued great pinchings ofruffles, her fingers that could never hold a ferrule nor snap children'sears being incomparable fluting-irons.

  Next the sash was scornfully untied and tightened to suggest somethingresembling a waist. The chastened bows that had been squat, dowdy,spiritless, were given tweaks, flirts, bracing little pokes and dabs,till, acknowledging a master hand, they stood up, piquant, pert, smart,alert!

  Pride of bearing was now infused into the flattened lace at the neck,and a pin (removed at some sacrifice from her own toilette) was darnedin at the back to prevent any cowardly lapsing. The short white cottongloves that called attention to the tanned wrist and arms were strippedoff and put in her own pocket. Then the wreath of pine-cones wasadjusted at a heretofore unimagined angle, the hair was pulled softlyinto a fluffy frame, and finally, as she met Rebecca's grateful eyesshe gave her two approving, triumphant kisses. In a second the sensitiveface lighted into happiness; pleased dimples appeared in the cheeks, thekissed mouth was as red as a rose, and the little fright that had walkedbehind the pine-tree stepped out on the other side Rebecca the lovely.

  As to the relative value of Miss Dearborn's accomplishments, thedecision must be left to the gentle reader; but though it is certainthat children should be properly grounded in mathematics, no heart offlesh could bear to hear Miss Dearborn's methods vilified who had seenher patting, pulling, squeezing Rebecca from ugliness into beauty.

  The young superintendent of district schools was a witness of the scene,and when later he noted the children surrounding Columbia as beesa honeysuckle, he observed to Dr. Moses: "She may not be much of ateacher, but I think she'd be considerable of a wife!" and subsequentevents proved that he meant what he said!

  II

  Now all was ready; the moment of fate was absolutely at hand; thefife-and-drum corps led the way and the States followed; but whatactually happened Rebecca never knew; she lived through the hours in awaking dream. Every little detail was a facet of light that reflectedsparkles, and among them all she was fairly dazzled. The brass bandplayed inspiring strains; the mayor spoke eloquently on great themes;the people cheered; then the rope on which so much depended was put intothe children's hands, they applied superhuman strength to their task,and the flag mounted, mounted, smoothly and slowly, and slowly unwoundand stretched itself until its splendid size and beauty were revealedagainst the maples and pines and blue New England sky.

  Then after cheers upon cheers and after a patriotic chorus by the churchchoirs, the State of Maine mounted the platform, vaguely consciousthat she was to recite a poem, though for the life of her she could notremember a single word.

  "Speak up loud and clear, Rebecky," whispered Uncle Sam in the frontrow, but she could scarcely hear her own voice when, tremblingly, shebegan her first line. After that she gathered strength and the poem"said itself," while the dream went on.

  She saw Adam Ladd leaning against a tree; Aunt Jane and Aunt Mirandapalpitating with nervousness; Clara Belle Simpson gazing cross-eyed butadoring from a seat on the side; and in the far, far distance, on thevery outskirts of the crowd, a tall man standing in a wagon--a tall,loose-jointed man with red upturned mustaches, and a gaunt white horseheaded toward the Acreville road.

  Loud applause greeted the state of Maine, the slender little white-cladfigure standing on the mossy boulder that had been used as the centre ofthe platform. The sun came up from behind a great maple and shone fullon the star-spangled banner, making it more dazzling than ever, so thatits beauty drew all eyes upward.

  Abner Simpson lifted his vagrant shifting gaze to its softy flutteringfolds and its splendid massing of colors, thinking:

  "I don't know's anybody'd ought to steal a flag--the thunderin' idjutsseem to set such store by it, and what is it, anyway? Nothin; but asheet o' buntin!"

  Nothing but a sheet of bunting? He looked curiously at the rapt facesof the mothers, their babies asleep in their arms; the parted lips andshining eyes of the white-clad girls; at Cap'n Lord, who had been inLibby prison, and Nat Strout, who had left an arm at Bull Run; at thefriendly, jostling crowd of farmers, happy, eager, absorbed, theirthroats ready to burst with cheers. Then the breeze served, and he heardRebecca's clear voice saying:

  "For it's your star, my star, all the stars together, That make ourcountry's flag so proud To float in the bright fall weather!"

  "Talk about stars! She's got a couple of em right in her head," thoughtSimpson.... "If I ever seen a young one like that lyin; on anybody'sdoorstep I'd hook her quicker'n a wink, though I've got plenty to home,the Lord knows! And I wouldn't swap her off neither.... Spunky littlecreeter, too; settin; up in the wagon lookin' bout's big as a pint o'cider, but keepin' right after the goods!... I vow I'm bout sick o' myjob! Never WITH the crowd, allers JEST on the outside, s if I wa'n't asgood's they be! If it paid well, mebbe I wouldn't mind, but they're sothunderin' stingy round here, they don't leave anything decent out foryou to take from em, yet you're reskin' your liberty n' reputation jestthe same!... Countin' the poor pickin's n' the time I lose in jail Imight most's well be done with it n' work out by the day, as the folkswant me to; I'd make bout's much n' I don't know's it would be anyharder!"

  He could see Rebecca stepping down from the platform, while his ownred-headed little girl stood up on her bench, waving her hat with onehand, her handkerchief with the other, and stamping with both feet.

  Now a man sitting beside the mayor rose from his chair and Abner heardhim call:

  "Three cheers for the women who made the flag!"

  "HIP, HIP, HURRAH!"

  "Three cheers for the State of Maine!"

  "HIP, HIP, HURRAH!"

  "Three cheers for the girl that saved the flag from the hands of theenemy!"

  "HIP, HIP, HURRAH! HIP, HIP, HURRAH!"

  It was the Edgewood minister, whose full, vibrant voice was of the sortto move a crowd. His words rang out into the clear air and were carriedfrom lip to lip. Hands clapped, feet stamped, hats swung, while the loudhuzzahs might almost have wakened the echoes on old Mount Ossipee.

  The tall, loose-jointed man sat down in the wagon suddenly and took upthe reins.

  "They're gettin' a little
mite personal, and I guess it's bout time foryou to be goin', Simpson!"

  The tone was jocular, but the red mustaches drooped, and thehalf-hearted cut he gave to start the white mare on her homeward journeyshowed that he was not in his usual devil-may-care mood.

  "Durn his skin!" he burst out in a vindictive undertone, as the mareswung into her long gait. "It's a lie! I thought twas somebody's wash! Ihain't an enemy!"

  While the crowd at the raising dispersed in happy family groups to theirpicnics in the woods; while the Goddess of Liberty, Uncle Sam,Columbia, and the proud States lunched grandly in the Grange hall withdistinguished guests and scarred veterans of two wars, the lonelyman drove, and drove, and drove through silent woods and dull, sleepyvillages, never alighting to replenish his wardrobe or his stock ofswapping material.

  At dusk he reached a miserable tumble-down house on the edge of a pond.

  The faithful wife with the sad mouth and the habitual look of anxiety inher faded eyes came to the door at the sound of wheels and went doggedlyto the horse-shed to help him unharness.

  "You didn't expect to see me back tonight, did ye?" he askedsatirically; "leastwise not with this same horse? Well, I'm here! Youneedn't be scairt to look under the wagon seat, there hain't nothin'there, not even my supper, so I hope you're suited for once! No, I guessI hain't goin' to be an angel right away, neither. There wa'n't nothin'but flags layin' roun' loose down Riverboro way, n' whatever they say, Ihain't sech a hound as to steal a flag!"

  It was natural that young Riverboro should have red, white, and bluedreams on the night after the new flag was raised. A stranger thing,perhaps, is the fact that Abner Simpson should lie down on his hard bedwith the flutter of bunting before his eyes, and a whirl of unaccustomedwords in his mind.

  "For it's your star, my star, all our stars together."

  "I'm sick of goin' it alone," he thought; "I guess I'll try the otherroad for a spell;" and with that he fell asleep.