Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin (fun books to read for adults TXT) đ
- Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin
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âIâll pack your trunk for you, Becky dear, and attend to all our room things,â said Emma Jane, who had come towards the group and heard the sorrowful news from the brick house.
They moved into one of the quiet side pews, where Hannah and her husband and John joined them. From time to time some straggling acquaintance or old schoolmate would come up to congratulate Rebecca and ask why she had hidden herself in a corner. Then some member of the class would call to her excitedly, reminding her not to be late at the picnic luncheon, or begging her to be early at the class party in the evening. All this had an air of unreality to Rebecca. In the midst of the happy excitement of the last two days, when âblushing honorsâ had been falling thick upon her, and behind the delicious exaltation of the morning, had been the feeling that the condition was a transient one, and that the burden, the struggle, the anxiety, would soon loom again on the horizon. She longed to steal away into the woods with dear old John, grown so manly and handsome, and get some comfort from him.
Meantime Adam Ladd and Mr. Cobb had been having an animated conversation.
âI sâpose up to Boston, girls like that one are as thick as blackbâries?â uncle Jerry said, jerking his head interrogatively in Rebeccaâs direction.
âThey may be,â smiled Adam, taking in the old manâs mood; âonly I donât happen to know one.â
âMy eyesight beinâ poor âs the reason she looked hanâsomest of any girl on the platform, I sâpose?â
âThereâs no failure in my eyes,â responded Adam, âbut that was how the thing seemed to me!â
âWhat did you think of her voice? Anything extry about it?â
âMade the others sound poor and thin, I thought.â
âWell, Iâm glad to hear your opinion, you beinâ a traveled man, for mother says Iâm foolish âbout Rebecky and hev been sence the fust. Mother scolds me for spoilinâ her, but I notice mother ainât fur behind when it comes to spoilinâ. Land! it made me sick, thinkinâ oâ them parents travelinâ miles to see their young ones graduate, and then when they got here hevinâ to compare âem with Rebecky. Good-by, Mr. Ladd, drop in some day when you come to Riverboro.â
âI will,â said Adam, shaking the old manâs hand cordially; âperhaps to-morrow if I drive Rebecca home, as I shall offer to do. Do you think Miss Sawyerâs condition is serious?â
âWell, the doctor donât seem to know; but anyhow sheâs paralyzed, and sheâll never walk fur again, poor soul! She ainât lost her speech; thatâll be a comfort to her.â
Adam left the church, and in crossing the common came upon Miss Maxwell doing the honors of the institution, as she passed from group to group of strangers and guests. Knowing that she was deeply interested in all Rebeccaâs plans, he told her, as he drew her aside, that the girl would have to leave Wareham for Riverboro the next day.
âThat is almost more than I can bear!â exclaimed Miss Maxwell, sitting down on a bench and stabbing the greensward with her parasol. âIt seems to me Rebecca never has any respite. I had so many plans for her this next month in fitting her for her position, and now she will settle down to housework again, and to the nursing of that poor, sick, cross old aunt.â
âIf it had not been for the cross old aunt, Rebecca would still have been at Sunnybrook; and from the standpoint of educational advantages, or indeed advantages of any sort, she might as well have been in the backwoods,â returned Adam.
âThat is true; I was vexed when I spoke, for I thought an easier and happier day was dawning for my prodigy and pearl.â
âOUR prodigy and pearl,â corrected Adam.
âOh, yes!â she laughed. âI always forget that it pleases you to pretend you discovered Rebecca.â
âI believe, though, that happier days are dawning for her,â continued Adam. âIt must be a secret for the present, but Mrs. Randallâs farm will be bought by the new railroad. We must have right of way through the land, and the station will be built on her property. She will receive six thousand dollars, which, though not a fortune, will yield her three or four hundred dollars a year, if she will allow me to invest it for her. There is a mortgage on the land; that paid, and Rebecca self-supporting, the mother ought to push the education of the oldest boy, who is a fine, ambitious fellow. He should be taken away from farm work and settled at his studies.â
âWe might form ourselves into a Randall Protective Agency, Limited,â mused Miss Maxwell. âI confess I want Rebecca to have a career.â
âI donât,â said Adam promptly.
âOf course you donât. Men have no interest in the careers of women! But I know Rebecca better than you.â
âYou understand her mind better, but not necessarily her heart. You are considering her for the moment as prodigy; I am thinking of her more as pearl.â
âWell,â sighed Miss Maxwell whimsically, âprodigy or pearl, the Randall Protective Agency may pull Rebecca in opposite directions, but nevertheless she will follow her saint.â
That will content me,â said Adam gravely.
âParticularly if the saint beckons your way.â And Miss Maxwell looked up and smiled provokingly.
Rebecca did not see her aunt Miranda till she had been at the brick house for several days. Miranda steadily refused to have any one but Jane in the room until her face had regained its natural look, but her door was always ajar, and Jane fancied she liked to hear Rebeccaâs quick, light step. Her mind was perfectly clear now, and, save that she could not move, she was most of the time quite free from pain, and alert in every nerve to all that was going on within or without the house. âWere the windfall apples being picked up for sauce; were the potatoes thick in the hills; was the corn tosselinâ out; were they cuttinâ the upper field; were they keepinâ fly-paper laid out everywheres; were there any ants in the dairy; was the kindlinâ wood holdinâ out; had the bank sent the cowpons?â
Poor Miranda Sawyer! Hovering on the verge of the great beyond,âher body âstruckâ and no longer under control of her iron will,âno divine visions floated across her tired brain; nothing but petty cares and sordid anxieties. Not all at once can the soul talk with God, be He ever so near. If the heavenly language never has been learned, quick as is the spiritual sense in seizing the facts it needs, then the poor soul must use the words and phrases it has lived on and grown into day by day. Poor Miss Miranda!âheld fast within the prison walls of her own nature, blind in the presence of revelation because she had never used the spiritual eye, deaf to angelic voices because she had not used the spiritual ear.
There came a morning when she asked for Rebecca. The door was opened into the dim sick-room, and Rebecca stood there with the sunlight behind her, her hands full of sweet peas. Mirandaâs pale, sharp face, framed in its nightcap, looked haggard on the pillow, and her body was pitifully still under the counterpane.
âCome in,â she said; âI ainât dead yet. Donât mess up the bed with them flowers, will ye?â
âOh, no! Theyâre going in a glass pitcher,â said Rebecca, turning to the washstand as she tried to control her voice and stop the tears that sprang to her eyes.
âLet me look at ye; come closer. What dress are ye wearinâ?â said the old aunt in her cracked, weak voice.
âMy blue calico.â
âIs your cashmere holdinâ its color?â
âYes, aunt Miranda.â
âDo you keep it in a dark closet hung on the wrong side, as I told ye?â
âAlways.â
âHas your mother made her jelly?â
âShe hasnât said.â
âShe always had the knack oâ writinâ letters with nothinâ in âem. Whatâs Mark broke sence Iâve been sick?â
âNothing at all, aunt Miranda.â
âWhy, whatâs the matter with him? Gittinâ lazy, ainât he? How âs John turninâ out?â
âHeâs going to be the best of us all.â
âI hope you donât slight things in the kitchen because I ainât there. Do you scald the coffee-pot and turn it upside down on the winder-sill?â
âYes, aunt Miranda.â
âItâs always `yesâ with you, and `yesâ with Jane,â groaned Miranda, trying to move her stiffened body; âbut all the time I lay here knowinâ thereâs things done the way I donât like âem.â
There was a long pause, during which Rebecca sat down by the bedside and timidly touched her auntâs hand, her heart swelling with tender pity at the gaunt face and closed eyes.
âI was dreadful ashamed to have you graduate in cheesecloth, Rebecca, but I couldnât help it no-how. Youâll hear the reason some time, and know I tried to make it up to ye. Iâm afraid you was a laughinâ-stock!â
âNo,â Rebecca answered. âEver so many people said our dresses were the very prettiest; they looked like soft lace. Youâre not to be anxious about anything. Here I am all grown up and graduated,â number three in a class of twenty-two, aunt Miranda,âand good positions offered me already. Look at me, big and strong and young, all ready to go into the world and show what you and aunt Jane have done for me. If you want me near, Iâll take the Edgewood school, so that I can be here nights and Sundays to help; and if you get better, then Iâll go to Augusta,âfor thatâs a hundred dollars more, with music lessons and other things beside.â
âYou listen to me,â said Miranda quaveringly. âTake the best place, regardless oâ my sickness. Iâd like to live long enough to know youâd paid off that mortgage, but I guess I shanât.â
Here she ceased abruptly, having talked more than she had for weeks; and Rebecca stole out of the room, to cry by herself and wonder if old age must be so grim, so hard, so unchastened and unsweetened, as it slipped into the valley of the shadow.
The days went on, and Miranda grew stronger and stronger; her will seemed unassailable, and before long she could be moved into a chair by the window, her dominant thought being to arrive at such a condition of improvement that the doctor need not call more than once a week, instead of daily; thereby diminishing the bill, that was mounting to such a terrifying sum that it haunted her thoughts by day and dreams by night.
Little by little hope stole back into Rebeccaâs young heart. Aunt Jane began to âclear starchâ her handkerchiefs and collars and purple muslin dress, so that she might be ready to go to Brunswick at any moment when the doctor pronounced Miranda well on the road to recovery. Everything beautiful was to happen in Brunswick if she could be there by August,âeverything that heart could wish or imagination conceive, for she was to be Miss Emilyâs very own visitor, and sit at table with college professors and other great men.
At length the day dawned when the few clean, simple dresses were packed in the hair trunk, together with her beloved coral necklace, her cheesecloth graduating dress, her class pin, aunt Janeâs lace cape, and the one new hat, which she tried on every night before going to bed. It was of white chip with a wreath of cheap white roses and green leaves, and cost between
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