draw you up behind me on my pillion”—
“And Emma Jane, too,” Rebecca interrupted.
“I think I didn’t mention Emma Jane,” argued Mr. Aladdin. “Three on a pillion is very uncomfortable. I think Emma Jane leaps on the back of a prancing chestnut, and we all go off to my castle in the forest.”
“Emma Jane never leaps, and she’d be afraid of a prancing chestnut,” objected Rebecca.
“Then she shall have a gentle cream-colored pony; but now, without any explanation, you ask me to buy you a wedding ring, which shows plainly that you are planning to ride off on a snow white—I mean coal black—charger with somebody else.”
Rebecca dimpled and laughed with joy at the nonsense. In her prosaic world no one but Adam Ladd played the game and answered the fool according to his folly. Nobody else talked delicious fairy-story twaddle but Mr. Aladdin.
“The ring isn’t for ME!” she explained carefully. “You know very well that Emma Jane nor I can’t be married till we’re through Quackenbos’s Grammar, Greenleaf’s Arithmetic, and big enough to wear long trails and run a sewing machine. The ring is for a friend.”
“Why doesn’t the groom give it to his bride himself?”
“Because he’s poor and kind of thoughtless, and anyway she isn’t a bride any more; she has three step and three other kind of children.”
Adam Ladd put the whip back in the socket thoughtfully, and then stooped to tuck in the rug over Rebecca’s feet and his own. When he raised his head again he asked: “Why not tell me a little more, Rebecca? I’m safe!”
Rebecca looked at him, feeling his wisdom and strength, and above all his sympathy. Then she said hesitatingly: “You remember I told you all about the Simpsons that day on your aunt’s porch when you bought the soap because I told you how the family were always in trouble and how much they needed a banquet lamp? Mr. Simpson, Clara Belle’s father, has always been very poor, and not always very good,—a little bit THIEVISH, you know—but oh, so pleasant and nice to talk to! And now he’s turning over a new leaf. And everybody in Riverboro liked Mrs. Simpson when she came here a stranger, because they were sorry for her and she was so patient, and such a hard worker, and so kind to the children. But where she lives now, though they used to know her when she was a girl, they’re not polite to her and don’t give her scrubbing and washing; and Clara belle heard our teacher say to Mrs. Fogg that the Acreville people were stiff, and despised her because she didn’t wear a wedding ring, like all the rest. And Clara Belle and I thought if they were so mean as that, we’d love to give her one, and then she’d be happier and have more work; and perhaps Mr. Simpson if he gets along better will buy her a breast-pin and earrings, and she’ll be fitted out like the others. I know Mrs. Peter Meserve is looked up to by everybody in Edgewood on account of her gold bracelets and moss agate necklace.”
Adam turned again to meet the luminous, innocent eyes that glowed under the delicate brows and long lashes, feeling as he had more than once felt before, as if his worldly-wise, grown-up thoughts had been bathed in some purifying spring.
“How shall you send the ring to Mrs. Simpson?” he asked, with interest.
“We haven’t settled yet; Clara Belle’s afraid to do it, and thinks I could manage better. Will the ring cost much? Because, of course, if it does, I must ask Aunt Jane first. There are things I have to ask Aunt Miranda, and others that belong to Aunt Jane.”
“It costs the merest trifle. I’ll buy one and bring it to you, and we’ll consult about it; but I think as you’re great friends with Mr. Simpson you’d better send it to him in a letter, letters being your strong point! It’s a present a man ought to give his own wife, but it’s worth trying, Rebecca. You and Clara Belle can manage it between you, and I’ll stay in the background where nobody will see me.”
Ninth Chronicle.
The Green Isle
Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep sea of misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on
Day and night and night and day,
Drifting on his weary way.
—Shelley
Meantime in these frosty autumn days life was crowded with events in the lonely Simpson house at Acreville.
The tumble-down dwelling stood on the edge of Pliney’s Pond; so called because old Colonel Richardson left his lands to be divided in five equal parts, each share to be chosen in turn by one of his five sons, Pliny, the eldest, having priority of choice.
Pliny Richardson, having little taste for farming, and being ardently fond of fishing, rowing, and swimming, acted up to his reputation of being “a little mite odd,” and took his whole twenty acres in water—hence Pliny’s Pond.
The eldest Simpson boy had been working on a farm in Cumberland County for two years. Samuel, generally dubbed “see-saw,” had lately found a humble place in a shingle mill and was partially self-supporting. Clara Belle had been adopted by the Foggs; thus there were only three mouths to fill, the capacious ones of Elijah and Elisha, the twin boys, and of lisping, nine-year-old Susan, the capable houseworker and mother’s assistant, for the baby had died during the summer; died of discouragement at having been born into a family unprovided with food or money or love or care, or even with desire for, or appreciation of, babies.
There was no doubt that the erratic father of the house had turned over a new leaf. Exactly when he began, or how, or why, or how long he would continue the praiseworthy process,—in a word whether there would be more leaves turned as the months went on,—Mrs. Simpson did not know, and it is doubtful if any authority lower than that of Mr. Simpson’s Maker could have decided the matter. He had stolen articles for swapping purposes for a long time, but had often avoided detection, and always escaped punishment until the last few years. Three fines imposed for small offenses were followed by several arrests and two imprisonments for brief periods, and he found himself wholly out of sympathy with the wages of sin. Sin itself he did not especially mind, but the wages thereof were decidedly unpleasant and irksome to him. He also minded very much the isolated position in the community which had lately become his; for he was a social being and would ALMOST rather not steal from a neighbor than have him find it out and cease intercourse! This feeling was working in him and rendering him unaccountably irritable and depressed when he took his daughter over to Riverboro at the time of the great flag-raising.
There are seasons of refreshment, as well as seasons of drought, in the spiritual, as in the natural world, and in some way or other dews and rains of grace fell upon Abner Simpson’s heart during that brief journey. Perhaps the giving away of a child that he could not support had made the soil of his heart a little softer and readier for planting than usual; but when he stole the new flag off Mrs. Peter Meserve’s doorsteps, under the impression that the cotton-covered bundle contained freshly washed clothes, he unconsciously set certain forces in operation.
It will be remembered that Rebecca saw an inch of red bunting peeping from the back of his wagon, and asked the pleasure of a drive with him. She was no daughter of the regiment, but she proposed to follow
