The Flag-Raising Part 4

Her life had not been pressed down full to the brim of pleasures, and she had a sort of distrust of joy in the bud. Not until she saw it in full radiance of bloom did she dare embrace it. She had never read any verse but Byron, Felicia Hemans, bits of "Paradise Lost," and the selections in the school readers, but she would have agreed heartily with the poet who said:--

"Not by appointment do we meet delight And joy; they heed not our expectancy; But round some corner in the streets of life They on a sudden clasp us with a smile."

For many nights before the raising, when she went to her bed, she said to herself after she had finished her prayers: "It can't be true that I'm chosen for the State of Maine! It just can't be true! n.o.body could be good enough, but oh, I'll try to be as good as I can! To be going to Wareham Seminary next week and to be the State of Maine too! Oh! I must pray hard to G.o.d to keep me meek and humble!"

The flag was to be raised on a Tuesday, and on the previous Sunday it became known to the children that Clara Belle Simpson was coming back from Acreville, coming to live with Mrs. Fogg and take care of the baby. Clara Belle was one of Miss Dearborn's original flock, and if she were left wholly out of the festivities she would be the only girl of suitable age to be thus slighted; it seemed clear to the juvenile mind, therefore, that neither she nor her descendants would ever recover from such a blow. But, under all the circ.u.mstances, would she be allowed to join in the procession? Even Rebecca, the optimistic, feared not, and the committee confirmed her fears by saying that Abner Simpson's daughter certainly could not take any prominent part in the ceremony, but that they hoped Mrs. Fogg would allow her to witness it.

When Abner Simpson, urged by the town authorities, took his wife and seven children away from Riverboro to Acreville, just over the border in the next county, Riverboro went to bed leaving its barn and shed doors unfastened, and drew long breaths of grat.i.tude to Providence.

Of most winning disposition and genial manners, Mr. Simpson had not that instinctive comprehension of property rights which renders a man a valuable citizen.

Abner was a most unusual thief, and conducted his operations with a tact and neighborly consideration none too common in the profession. He would never steal a man's scythe in haying-time, nor his fur lap-robe in the coldest of the winter. The picking of a lock offered no attractions to him; "he wa'n't no burglar," he would have scornfully a.s.serted. A strange horse and wagon hitched by the roadside was the most flagrant of his thefts; but it was the small things--the hatchet or axe on the chopping-block, the tin pans sunning at the side door, a stray garment bleaching on the gra.s.s, a hoe, rake, shovel, or a bag of early potatoes--that tempted him most sorely; and these appealed to him not so much for their intrinsic value as because they were so excellently adapted to "swapping." The swapping was really the enjoyable part of the procedure, the theft was only a sad but necessary preliminary; for if Abner himself had been a man of sufficient property to carry on his business operations independently, it is doubtful if he would have helped himself so freely to his neighbor's goods.

Riverboro regretted the loss of Mrs. Simpson, who was useful in scrubbing, cleaning, and was.h.i.+ng, and was thought to exercise some influence over her predatory spouse. There was a story of their early life together, when they had a farm; a story to the effect that Mrs.

Simpson always rode on every load of hay that her husband took to Milltown, with the view of keeping him sober through the day. After he turned out of the country road and approached the metropolis, it was said that he used to bury the docile lady in the load. He would then drive on to the scales, have the weight of hay entered in the buyer's book, take his horses to the stable for feed and water, and when a favorable opportunity offered he would a.s.sist the hot and panting Mrs.

Simpson out of the side or back of the rack, and gallantly brush the straw from her person. For this reason it was always a.s.serted that Abner Simpson sold his wife every time he went to Milltown, but the story was never fully substantiated, and at all events it was the only suspected blot on meek Mrs. Simpson's personal reputation.

As for the Simpson children, they were missed chiefly as familiar figures by the roadside; but Rebecca honestly loved Clara Belle, notwithstanding her Aunt Miranda's opposition to the intimacy.

Rebecca's curious taste in friends was a source of continual anxiety to her aunt.

"Anything that's human flesh is good enough for her!" Miranda groaned to Jane. "She'll ride with the rag-sack-and-bottle peddler just as quick as she would with the minister; she always sets beside the barefooted young ones at Sabbath school; and she's forever riggin' and onriggin' that dirty Simpson baby! She reminds me of a puppy that'll always go to everybody that'll have him!"

It was thought very creditable to Mrs. Fogg that she sent for Clara Belle to live with her and go to school part of the year. "She'll be useful," said Mrs. Fogg, "and she'll be out of her father's way, and so keep honest; though she's so awful homely I've no fears for her. A girl with her red hair, freckles, and cross-eyes can't fall into no kind of sin, I don't believe."

Mrs. Fogg requested that Clara Belle should be started on her journey from Acreville by train and come the rest of the way by stage, and she was disturbed to receive word on Sunday that Mr. Simpson had borrowed a horse from a new acquaintance, and would himself drive the girl from Acreville to Riverboro, a distance of thirty-five miles. That he would arrive in their vicinity on the very night before the flag-raising was thought by Riverboro to be a public misfortune, and several residents hastily determined to deny themselves a sight of the festivities and remain watchfully on their own premises.

On Monday afternoon the children were rehearsing their songs at the meeting-house. As Rebecca came out on the broad wooden steps she watched Mrs. Peter Meserve's buggy out of sight, for in front, wrapped in a cotton sheet, lay the precious flag. After a few chattering good-byes and weather prophecies with the other girls, she started on her homeward walk, dropping in at the parsonage to read her verses to the minister.

He welcomed her gladly as she 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 c.o.c.k 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 s.e.x, 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 pa.s.s; 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 owners.h.i.+p 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 the lonely way with a person who was generally called Slippery Simpson.

Not a thought of fear crossed her mind, save the fear of bungling in her diplomacy, and so losing the flag. She knew Mr. Simpson well, and a pleasanter man was seldom to be met. She recalled an afternoon when he came home and surprised the whole school playing the Revolutionary War in his helter-skelter dooryard, and the way in which he had joined the British forces and impersonated General Burgoyne had greatly endeared him to her. The only difficulty was to find proper words for her delicate mission, for, of course, if Mr. Simpson's anger were aroused, he would politely push her out of the wagon and drive away with the flag. Perhaps if she led the conversation in the right direction an opportunity would present itself. Clearing her throat nervously, she began:--

"Is it likely to be fair to-morrow?"

"Guess so; clear as a bell. What's on foot; a picnic?"

"No; we're to have a grand flag-raising!" ("That is," she thought, "if we have any flag to raise!")

"That so? Where?"

"The three villages are to club together and have a rally, and raise the flag at the Centre. There'll be a bra.s.s band, and speakers, and the Mayor of Portland, and the man that will be governor if he's elected, and a dinner in the Grange Hall, and we girls are chosen to raise the flag."

"I want to know! That'll be grand, won't it?" (Still not a sign of consciousness on the part of Abner.)

"I hope Mrs. Fogg will take Clara Belle, for it will be splendid to look at! Mr. Cobb is going to be Uncle Sam and drive us on the stage.

Miss Dearborn--Clara Belle's old teacher, you know is going to be Columbia; the girls will be the States of the Union, and oh, Mr.

Simpson, I am the one to be the State of Maine!" Mr. Simpson flourished the whipstock and gave a loud, hearty laugh. Then he turned in his seat and regarded Rebecca curiously.

"You're kind o' small, ain't ye, for so big a state as this one?" he asked.

"Any of us would be too small," replied Rebecca with dignity, "but the committee asked me, and I am going to try hard to do well."