XXIV
ALADDIN RUBS HIS LAMP
"Your esteemed contribution entitled Wareham Wildflowers has beenaccepted for The Pilot, Miss Perkins," said Rebecca, entering the roomwhere Emma Jane was darning the firm's stockings. "I stayed to tea withMiss Maxwell, but came home early to tell you."
"You are joking, Becky!" faltered Emma Jane, looking up from her work.
"Not a bit; the senior editor read it and thought it highlyinstructive; it appears in the next issue."
"Not in the same number with your poem about the golden gates thatclose behind us when we leave school?"--and Emma Jane held her breathas she awaited the reply.
"Even so, Miss Perkins."
"Rebecca," said Emma Jane, with the nearest approach to tragedy thather nature would permit, "I don't know as I shall be able to bear it,and if anything happens to me, I ask you solemnly to bury that numberof The Pilot with me."
Rebecca did not seem to think this the expression of an exaggeratedstate of feeling, inasmuch as she replied, "I know; that's just the wayit seemed to me at first, and even now, whenever I'm alone and take outthe Pilot back numbers to read over my contributions, I almost burstwith pleasure; and it's not that they are good either, for they lookworse to me every time I read them."
"If you would only live with me in some little house when we getolder," mused Emma Jane, as with her darning needle poised in air sheregarded the opposite wall dreamily, "I would do the housework andcooking, and copy all your poems and stories, and take them to thepost-office, and you needn't do anything but write. It would beperfectly elergant!"
"I'd like nothing better, if I hadn't promised to keep house for John,"replied Rebecca.
"He won't have a house for a good many years, will he?"
"No," sighed Rebecca ruefully, flinging herself down by the table andresting her head on her hand. "Not unless we can contrive to pay offthat detestable mortgage. The day grows farther off instead of nearernow that we haven't paid the interest this year."
She pulled a piece of paper towards her, and scribbling idly on it readaloud in a moment or two:--
"Will you pay a little faster?" said the mortgage to the farm; "I confess I'm very tired of this place." "The weariness is mutual," Rebecca Randall cried; "I would I'd never gazed upon your face!"
"A note has a 'face,'" observed Emma Jane, who was gifted inarithmetic. "I didn't know that a mortgage had."
"Our mortgage has," said Rebecca revengefully. "I should know him if Imet him in the dark. Wait and I'll draw him for you. It will be goodfor you to know how he looks, and then when you have a husband andseven children, you won't allow him to come anywhere within a mile ofyour farm."
The sketch when completed was of a sort to be shunned by a timid personon the verge of slumber. There was a tiny house on the right, and aweeping family gathered in front of it. The mortgage was depicted as across between a fiend and an ogre, and held an axe uplifted in his redright hand. A figure with streaming black locks was staying the blow,and this, Rebecca explained complacently, was intended as a likeness ofherself, though she was rather vague as to the method she should use inattaining her end.
"He's terrible," said Emma Jane, "but awfully wizened and small."
"It's only a twelve hundred dollar mortgage," said Rebecca, "and that'scalled a small one. John saw a man once that was mortgaged for twelvethousand."
"Shall you be a writer or an editor?" asked Emma Jane presently, as ifone had only to choose and the thing were done.
"I shall have to do what turns up first, I suppose."
"Why not go out as a missionary to Syria, as the Burches are alwayscoaxing you to? The Board would pay your expenses."
"I can't make up my mind to be a missionary," Rebecca answered. "I'mnot good enough in the first place, and I don't 'feel a call,' as Mr.Burch says you must. I would like to do something for somebody and makethings move, somewhere, but I don't want to go thousands of miles awayteaching people how to live when I haven't learned myself. It isn't asif the heathen really needed me; I'm sure they'll come out all right inthe end."
"I can't see how; if all the people who ought to go out to save themstay at home as we do," argued Emma Jane.
"Why, whatever God is, and wherever He is, He must always be there,ready and waiting. He can't move about and miss people. It may take theheathen a little longer to find Him, but God will make allowances, ofcourse. He knows if they live in such hot climates it must make themlazy and slow; and the parrots and tigers and snakes and bread-fruittrees distract their minds; and having no books, they can't think aswell; but they'll find God somehow, some time."
"What if they die first?" asked Emma Jane.
"Oh, well, they can't be blamed for that; they don't die on purpose,"said Rebecca, with a comfortable theology.
In these days Adam Ladd sometimes went to Temperance on businessconnected with the proposed branch of the railroad familiarly known asthe "York and Yank 'em," and while there he gained an inkling ofSunnybrook affairs. The building of the new road was not yet acertainty, and there was a difference of opinion as to the best routefrom Temperance to Plumville. In one event the way would lead directlythrough Sunnybrook, from corner to corner, and Mrs. Randall would becompensated; in the other, her interests would not be affected eitherfor good or ill, save as all land in the immediate neighborhood mightrise a little in value.
Coming from Temperance to Wareham one day, Adam had a long walk andtalk with Rebecca, whom he thought looking pale and thin, though shewas holding bravely to her self-imposed hours of work. She was wearinga black cashmere dress that had been her aunt Jane's second best. Weare familiar with the heroine of romance whose foot is so exquisitelyshaped that the coarsest shoe cannot conceal its perfections, and onealways cherishes a doubt of the statement; yet it is true thatRebecca's peculiar and individual charm seemed wholly independent ofaccessories. The lines of her figure, the rare coloring of skin andhair and eyes, triumphed over shabby clothing, though, had theadvantage of artistic apparel been given her, the little world ofWareham would probably at once have dubbed her a beauty. The long blackbraids were now disposed after a quaint fashion of her own. They werecrossed behind, carried up to the front, and crossed again, thetapering ends finally brought down and hidden in the thicker part atthe neck. Then a purely feminine touch was given to the hair that wavedback from the face,--a touch that rescued little crests and waveletsfrom bondage and set them free to take a new color in the sun.
Adam Ladd looked at her in a way that made her put her hands over herface and laugh through them shyly as she said: "I know what you arethinking, Mr. Aladdin,--that my dress is an inch longer than last year,and my hair different; but I'm not nearly a young lady yet; truly I'mnot. Sixteen is a month off still, and you promised not to give me uptill my dress trails. If you don't like me to grow old, why don't yougrow young? Then we can meet in the halfway house and have nice times.Now that I think about it," she continued, "that's just what you'vebeen doing all along. When you bought the soap, I thought you weregrandfather Sawyer's age; when you danced with me at the flag-raising,you seemed like my father; but when you showed me your mother'spicture, I felt as if you were my John, because I was so sorry for you."
"That will do very well," smiled Adam; "unless you go so swiftly thatyou become my grandmother before I really need one. You are studyingtoo hard, Miss Rebecca Rowena!"
"Just a little," she confessed. "But vacation comes soon, you know."
"And are you going to have a good rest and try to recover your dimples?They are really worth preserving."
A shadow crept over Rebecca's face and her eyes suffused. "Don't bekind, Mr. Aladdin, I can't bear it;--it's--it's not one of my dimplydays!" and she ran in at the seminary gate, and disappeared with afarewell wave of her hand.
Adam Ladd wended his way to the principal's office in a thoughtfulmood. He had come to Wareham to unfold a plan that he had beenconsidering for several days. This year was the fiftieth anniversary ofthe foundi
ng of the Wareham schools, and he meant to tell Mr. Morrisonthat in addition to his gift of a hundred volumes to the referencelibrary, he intended to celebrate it by offering prizes in Englishcomposition, a subject in which he was much interested. He wished theboys and girls of the two upper classes to compete; the award to bemade to the writers of the two best essays. As to the nature of theprizes he had not quite made up his mind, but they would be substantialones, either of money or of books.
This interview accomplished, he called upon Miss Maxwell, thinking ashe took the path through the woods, "Rose-Red-Snow-White needs thehelp, and since there is no way of my giving it to her without causingremark, she must earn it, poor little soul! I wonder if my money isalways to be useless where most I wish to spend it!"
He had scarcely greeted his hostess when he said: "Miss Maxwell,doesn't it strike you that our friend Rebecca looks wretchedly tired?"
"She does indeed, and I am considering whether I can take her away withme. I always go South for the spring vacation, traveling by sea to OldPoint Comfort, and rusticating in some quiet spot near by. I shouldlike nothing better than to have Rebecca for a companion."
"The very thing!" assented Adam heartily; "but why should you take thewhole responsibility? Why not let me help? I am greatly interested inthe child, and have been for some years."
"You needn't pretend you discovered her," interrupted Miss Maxwellwarmly, "for I did that myself."
"She was an intimate friend of mine long before you ever came toWareham," laughed Adam, and he told Miss Maxwell the circumstances ofhis first meeting with Rebecca. "From the beginning I've tried to thinkof a way I could be useful in her development, but no reasonablesolution seemed to offer itself."
"Luckily she attends to her own development," answered Miss Maxwell."In a sense she is independent of everything and everybody; she followsher saint without being conscious of it. But she needs a hundredpractical things that money would buy for her, and alas! I have aslender purse."
"Take mine, I beg, and let me act through you," pleaded Adam. "I couldnot bear to see even a young tree trying its best to grow without lightor air,--how much less a gifted child! I interviewed her aunts a yearago, hoping I might be permitted to give her a musical education. Iassured them it was a most ordinary occurrence, and that I was willingto be repaid later on if they insisted, but it was no use. The elderMiss Sawyer remarked that no member of her family ever had lived oncharity, and she guessed they wouldn't begin at this late day."
"I rather like that uncompromising New England grit," exclaimed MissMaxwell, "and so far, I don't regret one burden that Rebecca has borneor one sorrow that she has shared. Necessity has only made her brave;poverty has only made her daring and self-reliant. As to her presentneeds, there are certain things only a woman ought to do for a girl,and I should not like to have you do them for Rebecca; I should feelthat I was wounding her pride and self-respect, even though she wereignorant; but there is no reason why I may not do them if necessary andlet you pay her traveling expenses. I would accept those for herwithout the slightest embarrassment, but I agree that the matter wouldbetter be kept private between us."
"You are a real fairy godmother!" exclaimed Adam, shaking her handwarmly. "Would it be less trouble for you to invite her room-matetoo,--the pink-and-white inseparable?"
"No, thank you, I prefer to have Rebecca all to myself," said MissMaxwell.
"I can understand that," replied Adam absent-mindedly; "I mean, ofcourse, that one child is less trouble than two. There she is now."
Here Rebecca appeared in sight, walking down the quiet street with alad of sixteen. They were in animated conversation, and were apparentlyreading something aloud to each other, for the black head and the curlybrown one were both bent over a sheet of letter paper. Rebecca keptglancing up at her companion, her eyes sparkling with appreciation.
"Miss Maxwell," said Adam, "I am a trustee of this institution, butupon my word I don't believe in coeducation!"
"I have my own occasional hours of doubt," she answered, "but surelyits disadvantages are reduced to a minimum with--children! That is avery impressive sight which you are privileged to witness, Mr. Ladd.The folk in Cambridge often gloated on the spectacle of Longfellow andLowell arm in arm. The little school world of Wareham palpitates withexcitement when it sees the senior and the junior editors of The Pilotwalking together!"