New Chronicles of Rebecca | Page 4

the conversation with an intense sense of pleasure in their harmony or appropriateness; for a beautiful word or sentence had the same effect upon her imagination as a fragrant nosegay, a strain of music, or a brilliant sunset.
"How are you gettin' on, Rebecca Rowena?" called a peremptory voice from within.
"Pretty good, Aunt Miranda; only I wish flowers would ever come up as thick as this pigweed and plantain and sorrel. What MAKES weeds be thick and flowers be thin?--I just happened to be stopping to think a minute when you looked out."
"You think considerable more than you weed, I guess, by appearances. How many times have you peeked into that humming bird's nest? Why don't you work all to once and play all to once, like other folks?"
"I don't know," the child answered, confounded by the question, and still more by the apparent logic back of it. "I don't know, Aunt Miranda, but when I'm working outdoors such a Saturday morning as this, the whole creation just screams to me to stop it and come and play."
"Well, you needn't go if it does!" responded her aunt sharply. "It don't scream to me when I'm rollin' out these doughnuts, and it wouldn't to you if your mind was on your duty."
Rebecca's little brown hands flew in and out among the weeds as she thought rebelliously: "Creation WOULDN'T scream to Aunt Miranda; it would know she wouldn't come.
Scream on, thou bright and gay creation, scream! 'Tis not Miranda that will hear thy cry!
Oh, such funny, nice things come into my head out here by myself, I do wish I could run up and put them down in my thought book before I forget them, but Aunt Miranda wouldn't like me to leave off weeding:--
Rebecca was weeding the hollyhock bed When wonderful thoughts came into her head. Her aunt was occupied with the rolling pin And the thoughts of her mind were common and thin.
That wouldn't do because it's mean to Aunt Miranda, and anyway it isn't good. I MUST crawl under the syringa shade a minute, it's so hot, and anybody has to stop working once in a while, just to get their breath, even if they weren't making poetry.
Rebecca was weeding the hollyhock bed When marvelous thoughts came into her head. Miranda was wielding the rolling pin And thoughts at such times seemed to her as a sin.
How pretty the hollyhock rosettes look from down here on the sweet, smelly ground!
"Let me see what would go with rosetting. AIDING AND ABETTING, PETTING, HEN-SETTING, FRETTING,--there's nothing very nice, but I can make fretting' do.
Cheered by Rowena's petting, The flowers are rosetting, But Aunt Miranda's fretting Doth somewhat cloud the day."
Suddenly the sound of wagon wheels broke the silence and then a voice called out--a voice that could not wait until the feet that belonged to it reached the spot: "Miss Saw-YER! Father's got to drive over to North Riverboro on an errand, and please can Rebecca go, too, as it's Saturday morning and vacation besides?"
Rebecca sprang out from under the syringa bush, eyes flashing with delight as only Rebecca's eyes COULD flash, her face one luminous circle of joyous anticipation. She clapped her grubby hands, and dancing up and down, cried: "May I, Aunt Miranda--can I, Aunt Jane--can I, Aunt Miranda-Jane? I'm more than half through the bed."
"If you finish your weeding tonight before sundown I s'pose you can go, so long as Mr. Perkins has been good enough to ask you," responded Miss Sawyer reluctantly. "Take off that gingham apron and wash your hands clean at the pump. You ain't be'n out o' bed but two hours an' your head looks as rough as if you'd slep' in it. That comes from layin' on the ground same as a caterpillar. Smooth your hair down with your hands an' p'r'aps Emma Jane can braid it as you go along the road. Run up and get your second-best hair ribbon out o' your upper drawer and put on your shade hat. No, you can't wear your coral chain--jewelry ain't appropriate in the morning. How long do you cal'late to be gone, Emma Jane?"
"I don't know. Father's just been sent for to see about a sick woman over to North Riverboro. She's got to go to the poor farm."
This fragment of news speedily brought Miss Sawyer, and her sister Jane as well, to the door, which commanded a view of Mr. Perkins and his wagon. Mr. Perkins, the father of Rebecca's bosom friend, was primarily a blacksmith, and secondarily a selectman and an overseer of the poor, a man therefore possessed of wide and varied information.
"Who is it that's sick?" inquired Miranda.
"A woman over to North Riverboro."
"What's the trouble?"
"Can't say."
"Stranger?'
"Yes, and no; she's that wild daughter of old Nate Perry that used to live