spoon with some dishwater out of the back door
(an act never permitted at the brick house), and
putting coffee grounds in the sink. All evidences
of crime having been removed by Rebecca, and damages
repaired in all possible cases, the three entered
the
parlor, where Mr. and Mrs. Cobb and Deacon
and Mrs. Milliken had already appeared.
It was such a pleasant evening! Occasionally
they left the
heathen in his
blindness bowing down
to wood and stone, not for long, but just to give
themselves (and him) time enough to breathe, and
then the Burches told strange, beautiful, marvelous
things. The two smaller children sang together,
and Rebecca, at the
urgent request of Mrs. Burch,
seated herself at the tinkling old piano and gave
"Wild roved an Indian girl, bright Alfarata" with
considerable spirit and style.
At eight o'clock she crossed the room, handed a
palm-leaf fan to her aunt Miranda, ostensibly that
she might shade her eyes from the lamplight; but
it was a piece of
strategy that gave her an opportunity
to
whisper, "How about cookies?"
"Do you think it's worth while?" sibilated Miss
Miranda in answer.
"The Perkinses always do."
"All right. You know where they be."
Rebecca moved quietly towards the door, and the
young Burches cataracted after her as if they could
not bear a second's
separation. In five minutes
they returned, the little ones
bearing plates of thin
caraway wafers,--hearts, diamonds, and circles
daintily sugared, and flecked with caraway seed
raised in the garden behind the house. These were
a specialty of Miss Jane's, and Rebecca carried a
tray with six tiny
crystal glasses filled with
dandelionwine, for which Miss Miranda had been famous in
years gone by. Old Deacon Israel had always had
it passed, and he had bought the glasses himself
in Boston. Miranda admired them greatly, not only
for their beauty but because they held so little.
Before their
advent the
dandelion wine had been served
in sherry glasses.
As soon as these refreshments--commonly
called a "colation" in Riverboro--had been genteelly
partaken of, Rebecca looked at the clock, rose
from her chair in the children's corner, and said
cheerfully, "Come! time for little missionaries to
be in bed!"
Everybody laughed at this, the big missionaries
most of all, as the young people shook hands and
disappeared with Rebecca.
XX
A CHANGE OF HEART
That niece of yours is the most remarkable
girl I have seen in years," said Mr.
Burch when the door closed.
"She seems to be turnin' out smart enough lately,
but she's consid'able heedless," answered Miranda,
"an' most too
lively."
"We must remember that it is deficient, not
excessive
vitality, that makes the greatest trouble in
this world," returned Mr. Burch.
"She'd make a wonderful
missionary," said Mrs.
Burch; "with her voice, and her
magnetism, and her
gift of language."
"If I was to say which of the two she was best
adapted for, I'd say she'd make a better
heathen,"
remarked Miranda curtly.
"My sister don't believe in
flattering children,"
hastily interpolated Jane, glancing toward Mrs.
Burch, who seemed somewhat shocked, and was
about to open her lips to ask if Rebecca was not
a "professor."
Mrs. Cobb had been looking for this question all
the evening and dreading some
allusion to her
favorite as
gifted in prayer. She had taken an
instantaneous and illogical
dislike to the Rev. Mr. Burch
in the afternoon because he called upon Rebecca
to "lead." She had seen the pallor creep into the
girl's face, the hunted look in her eyes, and the
trembling of the lashes on her cheeks, and realized
the
ordeal through which she was passing. Her
prejudice against the
minister had relaxed under his
genial talk and presence, but feeling that Mrs.
Burch was about to tread on dangerous ground, she
hastily asked her if one had to change cars many
times going from Riverboro to Syria. She felt that
it was not a particularly
appropriate question, but it
served her turn.
Deacon Milliken,
meantime, said to Miss Sawyer,
"Mirandy, do you know who Rebecky reminds me
of?"
"I can guess pretty well," she replied.
"Then you've noticed it too! I thought at first,
seein' she favored her father so on the outside, that
she was the same all through; but she ain't, she's
like your father, Israel Sawyer."
"I don't see how you make that out," said
Miranda,
thoroughly astonished.
"It struck me this afternoon when she got up
to give your
invitation in meetin'. It was kind o'
cur'ous, but she set in the same seat he used to
when he was leader o' the Sabbath-school. You
know his old way of holdin' his chin up and throwin'
his head back a leetle when he got up to say
anything? Well, she done the very same thing; there
was more'n one spoke of it."
The callers left before nine, and at that hour (an
impossibly dissipated one for the brick house) the
family
retired for the night. As Rebecca carried
Mrs. Burch's candle
upstairs and found herself
thus alone with her for a minute, she said shyly,
"Will you please tell Mr. Burch that I'm not a
member of the church? I didn't know what to do
when he asked me to pray this afternoon. I hadn't
the courage to say I had never done it out loud
and didn't know how. I couldn't think; and I was
so frightened I wanted to sink into the floor. It
seemed bold and
wicked for me to pray before all
those old church members and make believe I was
better than I really was; but then again, wouldn't
God think I was
wicked not to be
willing to pray
when a
minister asked me to?"
The candle light fell on Rebecca's flushed, sensitive
face. Mrs. Burch bent and kissed her good-
night. "Don't be troubled," she said. "I'll tell
Mr. Burch, and I guess God will understand."
Rebecca waked before six the next morning, so
full of household cares that sleep was impossible.
She went to the window and looked out; it was
still dark, and a blustering,
boisterous day.
"Aunt Jane told me she should get up at half
past six and have breakfast at half past seven," she
thought; "but I daresay they are both sick with
their colds, and aunt Miranda will be fidgety with
so many in the house. I believe I'll creep down
and start things for a surprise."
She put on a wadded wrapper and slippers and
stole quietly down the tabooed front stairs,
carefully closed the kitchen door behind her so that no
noise should waken the rest of the household, busied
herself for a half hour with the early morning routine
she knew so well, and then went back to her room
to dress before
calling the children.
Contrary to
expectation, Miss Jane, who the
evening before felt better than Miranda, grew worse
in the night, and was
whollyunable to leave her bed
in the morning. Miranda grumbled without ceasing
during the progress of her hasty
toilet, blaming
everybody in the
universe for the afflictions she had
borne and was to bear during the day; she even
castigated the Missionary Board that had sent the
Burches to Syria, and gave it as her unbiased opinion
that those who went to foreign lands for the purpose
of saving
heathen should stay there and save
'em, and not go gallivantin' all over the earth with
a passel o' children, visitin' folks that didn't want
'em and never asked 'em.
Jane lay
anxiously and
restlessly in bed with a
feverish
headache, wondering how her sister could
manage without her.
Miranda walked
stiffly through the dining-room,
tying a shawl over her head to keep the draughts
away, intending to start the breakfast fire and then
call Rebecca down, set her to work, and tell her,
meanwhile, a few plain facts
concerning the proper
way of representing the family at a
missionarymeeting.
She opened the kitchen door and stared vaguely
about her, wondering whether she had strayed into
the wrong house by mistake.
The shades were up, and there was a roaring fire
in the stove; the teakettle was singing and bubbling
as it sent out a cloud of steam, and pushed
over its
capacious nose was a half sheet of note
paper with "Compliments of Rebecca" scrawled
on it. The coffee pot was scalding, the coffee was
measured out in a bowl, and broken eggshells for
the settling process were
standing near. The cold
potatoes and corned beef were in the
wooden tray,
and "Regards of Rebecca" stuck on the chopping
knife. The brown loaf was out, the white loaf was
out, the toast rack was out, the doughnuts were out,
the milk was skimmed, the butter had been brought
from the dairy.
Miranda removed the shawl from her head and
sank into the kitchen rocker, ejaculating under her
breath, "She is the beatin'est child! I declare she's
all Sawyer!"
The day and the evening passed off with credit
and honor to everybody
concerned, even to Jane,
who had the
discretion to recover instead of growing
worse and
acting as a damper to the general
enjoyment. The Burches left with
lively regrets,
and the little missionaries, bathed in tears, swore
eternal friendship with Rebecca, who pressed into
their hands at
parting a poem
composed before
breakfast.
TO MARY AND MARTHA BURCH
Born under Syrian skies,
'Neath hotter suns than ours;