Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin (fun books to read for adults TXT) đ
- Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin
- Performer: -
Book online «Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin (fun books to read for adults TXT) đ». Author Kate Douglas Wiggin
Rebecca sat down heavily in her chair as she heard the list of her transgressions. How could she have been so careless? The tears began to flow now as she attempted to explain sins that never could be explained or justified.
âOh, Iâm so sorry!â she faltered. âI was trimming the schoolroom, and got belated, and ran all the way home. It was hard getting into my dress alone, and I hadnât time to eat but a mouthful, and just at the last minute, when I honestlyâHONESTLY âwould have thought about clearing away and locking up, I looked at the clock and knew I could hardly get back to school in time to form in the line; and I thought how dreadful it would be to go in late and get my first black mark on a Friday afternoon, with the ministerâs wife and the doctorâs wife and the school committee all there!â
âDonât wail and carry on now; itâs no good cryinâ over spilt milk,â answered Miranda. âAn ounce of good behavior is worth a pound of repentance. Instead of tryinâ to see how little trouble you can make in a house that ainât your own home, it seems as if you tried to see how much you could put us out. Take that rose out oâ your dress and let me see the spot itâs made on your yoke, anâ the rusty holes where the wet pin went in. No, it ainât; but itâs more by luck than forethought. I ainât got any patience with your flowers and frizzled-out hair and furbelows anâ airs anâ graces, for all the world like your Miss-Nancy father.â
Rebecca lifted her head in a flash. âLook here, aunt Mirandy, Iâll be as good as I know how to be. Iâll mind quick when Iâm spoken to and never leave the door unlocked again, but I wonât have my father called names. He was a p-perfectly l-lovely father, thatâs what he was, and itâs MEAN to call him Miss Nancy!â
âDonât you dare answer me back that imperdent way, Rebecca, tellinâ me Iâm mean; your father was a vain, foolish, shiftless man, anâ you might as well hear it from me as anybody else; he spent your motherâs money and left her with seven children to provide for.â
âItâs s-something to leave s-seven nice children,â sobbed Rebecca.
âNot when other folks have to help feed, clothe, and educate âem,â responded Miranda. âNow you step upstairs, put on your nightgown, go to bed, and stay there till to-morrow morninâ. Youâll find a bowl oâ crackers anâ milk on your bureau, anâ I donât want to hear a sound from you till breakfast time. Jane, run anâ take the dish towels off the line and shut the shed doors; weâre goinâ to have a turrible shower.â
âWeâve had it, I should think,â said Jane quietly, as she went to do her sisterâs bidding. âI donât often speak my mind, Mirandy; but you ought not to have said what you did about Lorenzo. He was what he was, and canât be made any different; but he was Rebeccaâs father, and Aurelia always says he was a good husband.â
Miranda had never heard the proverbial phrase about the only âgood Indian,â but her mind worked in the conventional manner when she said grimly, âYes, Iâve noticed that dead husbands are usually good ones; but the truth needs an airinâ now and then, and that child will never amount to a hill oâ beans till she gets some of her father trounced out of her. Iâm glad I said just what I did.â
âI daresay you are,â remarked Jane, with what might be described as one of her annual bursts of courage; âbut all the same, Mirandy, it wasnât good manners, and it wasnât good religion!â
The clap of thunder that shook the house just at that moment made no such peal in Miranda Sawyerâs ears as Janeâs remark made when it fell with a deafening roar on her conscience.
Perhaps after all it is just as well to speak only once a year and then speak to the purpose.
Rebecca mounted the back stairs wearily, closed the door of her bedroom, and took off the beloved pink gingham with trembling fingers. Her cotton handkerchief was rolled into a hard ball, and in the intervals of reaching the more difficult buttons that lay between her shoulder blades and her belt, she dabbed her wet eyes carefully, so that they should not rain salt water on the finery that had been worn at such a price. She smoothed it out carefully, pinched up the white ruffle at the neck, and laid it away in a drawer with an extra little sob at the roughness of life. The withered pink rose fell on the floor. Rebecca looked at it and thought to herself, âJust like my happy day!â Nothing could show more clearly the kind of child she was than the fact that she instantly perceived the symbolism of the rose, and laid it in the drawer with the dress as if she were burying the whole episode with all its sad memories. It was a childâs poetic instinct with a dawning hint of womanâs sentiment in it.
She braided her hair in the two accustomed pigtails, took off her best shoes (which had happily escaped notice), with all the while a fixed resolve growing in her mind, that of leaving the brick house and going back to the farm. She would not be received there with open arms,âthere was no hope of that,âbut she would help her mother about the house and send Hannah to Riverboro in her place. âI hope sheâll like it!â she thought in a momentary burst of vindictiveness. She sat by the window trying to make some sort of plan, watching the lightning play over the hilltop and the streams of rain chasing each other down the lightning rod. And this was the day that had dawned so joyfully! It had been a red sunrise, and she had leaned on the window sill studying her lesson and thinking what a lovely world it was. And what a golden morning! The changing of the bare, ugly little schoolroom into a bower of beauty; Miss Dearbornâs pleasure at her success with the Simpson twinsâ recitation; the privilege of decorating the blackboard; the happy thought of drawing Columbia from the cigar box; the intoxicating moment when the school clapped her! And what an afternoon! How it went on from glory to glory, beginning with Emma Janeâs telling her, Rebecca Randall, that she was as âhandsome as a picture.â
She lived through the exercises again in memory, especially her dialogue with Emma Jane and her inspiration of using the bough-covered stove as a mossy bank where the country girl could sit and watch her flocks. This gave Emma Jane a feeling of such ease that she never recited better; and how generous it was of her to lend the garnet ring to the city girl, fancying truly how it would flash as she furled her parasol and approached the awe-stricken shepherdess! She had thought aunt Miranda might be pleased that the niece invited down from the farm had succeeded so well at school; but no, there was no hope of pleasing her in that or in any other way. She would go to Maplewood on the stage next day with Mr. Cobb and get home somehow from cousin Annâs. On second thoughts her aunts might not allow it. Very well, she would slip away now and see if she could stay all night with the Cobbs and be off next morning before breakfast.
Rebecca never stopped long to think, more âs the pity, so she put on her oldest dress and hat and jacket, then wrapped her nightdress, comb, and toothbrush in a bundle and dropped it softly out of the window. Her room was in the L and her window at no very dangerous distance from the ground, though had it been, nothing could have stopped her at that moment. Somebody who had gone on the roof to clean out the gutters had left a cleat nailed to the side of the house about halfway between the window and the top of the back porch. Rebecca heard the sound of the sewing machine in the dining-room and the chopping of meat in the kitchen; so knowing the whereabouts of both her aunts, she scrambled out of the window, caught hold of the lightning rod, slid down to the helpful cleat, jumped to the porch, used the woodbine trellis for a ladder, and was flying up the road in the storm before she had time to arrange any details of her future movements.
Jeremiah Cobb sat at his lonely supper at the table by the kitchen window. âMother,â as he with his old-fashioned habits was in the habit of calling his wife, was nursing a sick neighbor. Mrs. Cobb was mother only to a little headstone in the churchyard, where reposed âSarah Ann, beloved daughter of Jeremiah and Sarah Cobb, aged seventeen months;â but the name of mother was better than nothing, and served at any rate as a reminder of her womanâs crown of blessedness.
The rain still fell, and the heavens were dark, though it was scarcely five oâclock. Looking up from his âdish of tea,â the old man saw at the open door a very figure of woe. Rebeccaâs face was so swollen with tears and so sharp with misery that for a moment he scarcely recognized her. Then when he heard her voice asking, âPlease may I come in, Mr. Cobb?â he cried, âWell I vow! Itâs my little lady passenger! Come to call on old uncle Jerry and pass the time oâ day, hev ye? Why, youâre wet as sops. Draw up to the stove. I made a fire, hot as it was, thinkinâ I wanted somethinâ warm for my supper, beinâ kind oâ lonesome without mother. Sheâs settinâ up with Seth Strout to-night. There, weâll hang your soppy hat on the nail, put your jacket over the chair rail, anâ then you turn your back to the stove anâ dry yourself good.â
Uncle Jerry had never before said so many words at a time, but he had caught sight of the childâs red eyes and tear-stained cheeks, and his big heart went out to her in her trouble, quite regardless of any circumstances that might have caused it.
Rebecca stood still for a moment until uncle Jerry took his seat again at the table, and then, unable to contain herself longer, cried, âOh, Mr. Cobb, Iâve run away from the brick house, and I want to go back to the farm. Will you keep me to-night and take me up to Maplewood in the stage? I havenât got any money for my fare, but Iâll earn it somehow afterwards.â
âWell, I guess we wonât quarrel âbout money, you and me,â said the old man; âand weâve never had our ride together, anyway, though we allers meant to go down river, not up.â
âI shall never see Milltown now!â sobbed Rebecca.
âCome over here side oâ me anâ tell me all about it,â coaxed uncle Jerry. âJest set down on that there wooden cricket anâ out with the whole story.â
Rebecca leaned her aching head against Mr. Cobbâs homespun knee and recounted the history of her trouble. Tragic as that history seemed to her passionate and undisciplined mind, she told it truthfully and without exaggeration.
X RAINBOW BRIDGESUncle Jerry coughed and stirred in his chair a good
Comments (0)