removed her white cotton gloves (hastily slipped on outside the door, for ceremony) and pushed back the funny hat with the yellow and black porcupine quills—the hat with which she made her first appearance in Riverboro society.
“You’ve heard the beginning, Mr. Baxter; now will you please tell me if you like the last verse?” she asked, taking out her paper. “I’ve only read it to Alice Robinson, and I think perhaps she can never be a poet, though she’s a splendid writer. Last year when she was twelve she wrote a birthday poem to herself, and she made ‘natal’ rhyme with ‘Milton,’ which, of course, it wouldn’t. I remember every verse ended:—
‘This is my day so natal
And I will follow Milton.’
Another one of hers was written just because she couldn’t help it she said. This was it:—
‘Let me to the hills away,
Give me pen and paper;
I’ll write until the earth will sway
The story of my Maker.’”
The minister could scarcely refrain from smiling, but he controlled himself that he might lose none of Rebecca’s quaint observations. When she was perfectly at ease, unwatched and uncriticised, she was a marvelous companion.
“The name of the poem is going to be ‘My Star,’” she continued, “and Mrs. Baxter gave me all the ideas, but somehow there’s a kind of magicness when they get into poetry, don’t you think so?” (Rebecca always talked to grown people as if she were their age, or, a more subtle and truer distinction, as if they were hers.)
“It has often been so remarked, in different words,” agreed the minister.
“Mrs. Baxter said that each star was a state, and if each state did its best we should have a splendid country. Then once she said that we ought to be glad the war is over and the States are all at peace together; and I thought Columbia must be glad, too, for Miss Dearborn says she’s the mother of all the States. So I’m going to have it end like this: I did n’t write it, I just sewed it while I was working on my star:—
“For it’s your star, my star, all the stars together,
That make our country’s flag so proud
To float in the bright fall weather.
Northern stars, Southern stars, stars of the East and West,
Side by side they lie at peace
On the dear flag’s mother-breast.”
“‘Oh! many are the poets that are sown by Nature,’” thought the minister, quoting Wordsworth to himself. “And I wonder what becomes of them! That’s a pretty idea, little Rebecca, and I don’t know whether you or my wife ought to have the more praise. What made you think of the stars lying on the flag’s ‘mother-breast’? Were did you get that word?”
“Why” (and the young poet looked rather puzzled), “that’s the way it is; the flag is the whole country—the mother—and the stars are the states. The stars had to lie somewhere: ‘lap’ nor ‘arms’ wouldn’t sound well with ‘West,’ so, of course, I said ‘breast,’” Rebecca answered, with some surprise at the question; and the minister put his hand under her chin and kissed her softly on the forehead when he said good-by at the door.
Rebecca walked rapidly along in the gathering twilight, thinking of the eventful morrow.
As she approached the turning on the left, called the old Milltown road, she saw a white horse and wagon, driven by a man with a rakish, flapping, Panama hat, come rapidly around the turn and disappear over the long hills leading down to the falls. There was no mistaking him; there never was another Abner Simpson, with his lean height, his bushy reddish hair, the gay cock of his hat, and the long, piratical, upturned mustaches, which the boys used to say were used as hat-racks by the Simpson children at night. The old Milltown road ran past Mrs. Fogg’s house, so he must have left Clara Belle there, and Rebecca’s heart glowed to think that her poor little friend need not miss the raising.
She began to run now, fearful of being late for supper, and covered the ground to the falls in a brief time. As she crossed the bridge she again saw Abner Simpson’s team, drawn up at the watering-trough.
Coming a little nearer with the view of inquiring for the family, her quick eye caught sight of something unexpected. A gust of wind blew up a corner of a linen lap-robe in the back of the wagon, and underneath it she distinctly saw the white-sheeted bundle that held the flag; the bundle with a tiny, tiny spot of red bunting peeping out at one corner. It is true she had eaten, slept, dreamed red, white, and blue for weeks, but there was no mistaking the evidence of her senses; the idolized flag, longed for, worked for, sewed for, that flag was in the back of Abner Simpson’s wagon, and if so, what would become of the raising?
Acting on blind impulse, she ran toward the watering-trough, calling out in her clear treble “Mr. Simpson! Oh, Mr. Simpson, will you let me ride a little way with you and hear all about Clara Belle? I’m going over to the Centre on an errand.” (So she was; a most important errand,—to recover the flag of her country at present in the hands of the foe!)
Mr. Simpson turned round in his seat and cried heartily, “Certain sure I will!” for he liked the fair sex, young and old, and Rebecca had always been a prime favorite with him. “Climb right in! How’s everybody? Glad to see you! The folks talk ‘bout you from sun-up to sun-down, and Clara Belle can’t hardly wait for a sight of you!”
Rebecca scrambled up, trembling and pale with excitement. She did not in the least know what was going to happen, but she was sure that the flag, when in the enemy’s country, must be at least a little safer with the State of Maine sitting on top of it! Mr. Simpson began a long monologue about Acreville, the house he lived in, the pond in front of it, Mrs. Simpson’s health and various items of news about the children, varied by reports of his personal misfortunes. He put no questions, and asked no replies, so this gave the inexperienced soldier a few seconds to plan a campaign. There were three houses to pass; the Browns’ at the corner, the Millikens’, and the Robinsons’ on the brow of the hill. If Mr. Robinson were in the front yard she might tell Mr. Simpson she wanted to call there and ask Mr. Robinson to hold the horse’s head while she got out of the wagon. Then she might fly to the back before Mr. Simpson could realize the situation, and dragging out the precious bundle, sit on it hard, while Mr. Robinson settled the matter of ownership with Mr. Simpson.
This was feasible, but it meant a quarrel between the two men, who held an ancient grudge against each other, and Mr. Simpson was a valiant fighter, as the various sheriffs who had attempted to arrest him could cordially testify. It also meant that everybody in the village would hear of the incident and poor Clara Belle be branded again as the child of a thief.
Another idea danced into her excited brain; such a clever one she could hardly believe it hers. She might call Mr. Robinson to the wagon, and when he came close to the wheels she might say, suddenly: “Please take the flag out of the back of the wagon, Mr. Robinson. We have brought it here for you to keep overnight.” Then Mr. Simpson might be so surprised that he would give up his prize rather than be suspected of stealing.
But as they neared the Robinsons’ house there was not a sign of life to be seen; so the last plan, ingenious though it was, was perforce abandoned.
The road now lay between thick pine woods with no dwelling in sight. It was growing dusk and Rebecca was driving along
