Chapter 2

But Rebecca Mary set her little pointed chin between her little brown palms and pondered, and out of the pondering grew a plan so ambitious and so daring that Rebecca Mary gasped in the throes of it. But she held her ground and entertained it intrepidly. She even grew on friendly terms with it in the end. Here was a way to surprise Aunt 'Livia; Rebecca Mary would do it! That it would entail an almost endless amount of work did not daunt her: Rebecca Mary was a Plummer, and Plummers were not to be daunted. The long vista of patient hours of trying labor that the plan opened up before her set her blood tingling like a warrior's on the eve of battle. What were long, patient hours to a Plummer? Rebecca Mary girded up her loins and went to meet them.

Thereafter at Aunt Olivia's nap times Rebecca Mary disappeared. Day upon day, week upon week, she stole quietly away when the door of Aunt Olivia's bedroom shut. The first time she went oddly loaded down with what would have appeared—if there had been any one for it to “appear” to be a bundle of long sticks. She made two trips into the unknown that first day. The second time the bundle looked much like that one over which her grave blue eyes had peered at the minister's wife when she went to spend the afternoon with her.

It was spring when the mysterious disappearances began. It was summer before Aunt Olivia woke up—not from her nap, but from her inattention. Quite suddenly she came upon the realization that Rebecca Mary was not about the house; nor about the grounds, for she instituted prompt search. She went to all the child's odd little haunts—the grapery, the orchard, the corn-house, even to her own beloved back yard, full of sweet-scented hiding-nooks dear to a child, but sacred ground to Aunt Olivia. Rebecca Mary sometimes did her “stents” there as a special privilege; she might be there now, unprivileged. Aunt Olivia's back yard was almost as full of flowery delights to Rebecca Mary as it was to Aunt Olivia.

The child was not there—not anywhere. Aunt Olivia sought for Thomas Jefferson to inquire of him, but Thomas Jefferson was missing too. She went the rounds again. Where could the child be?

It was a hot, stinging day in late June when Aunt Olivia's suspicions awoke. They had been long in rousing, but, once alert, they developed rapidly into certainties. Her pale eyes glistened, her thin nostrils dilated—Aunt Olivia's whole lean, sharp, unemotional person put on suspicion. The child had gone to see the Tony Trumbullses.

“My land!” ejaculated Aunt Olivia, “after all my forbidding! And she a Plummer!” She sat down suddenly as though a little faint. She had never known a Plummer to disobey before; it was a new experience. It took time to get used to it, and she sat still a long time, rigid and grim, on the edge of the chair. Then as suddenly as she had sat down she got up. It could not be—she refused to entertain the suspicion longer. Rebecca Mary had NOT gone there to that forbidden place; she was in the garden somewhere. Aunt Olivia, a little stiff as if from a chill, went once more in search of the child.

“Rebecca! Rebecca Mary!” she called, at regular intervals. Then sharply, “Rebecca Mary Plummer!” Her voice had thin cadences of suspicion lurking in it against its will.

But there seemed really no doubt. One by one incriminating circumstances occurred to Aunt Olivia. Rebecca Mary had longed to go so much; the Tony Trumbullses, one at a time or in a tumultuous body, had urged her so often; she herself had more than once caught the child gazing wistfully, in passing by, at the bewildering, deafening, frolics of the little Tony Trumbullses. Once Rebecca Mary had asked to go barefoot, as they went. Once she had let out the tight little braids in her neck and rumpled her thin little hair. Once Aunt Olivia had come upon her PLAYING. The remembrance of it now tightened the lines around Aunt Olivia's lips. The child had been running wildly about the yard, shouting in a strange, excited, ridiculous way. When Aunt Olivia in stern displeasure had demanded explanations, she had run on recklessly, calling back over her shoulder: “Don't stop me! I'm a Tony Trumbull!”

“My land!” breathed Aunt Olivia, taking back the suspicion to her breast. “After all my forbidding she's gone down there. She's BEEN going down there dear knows how long. She's waited till I took my naps an' then went. A PLUMMER!”

There was really nowhere else she could have gone. She had never wanted to go anywhere else, except to the minister's, and Rebecca Mary was punctilious and would not think of going THERE again till the minister's wife had returned her visit.

But Aunt Olivia waited. As usual, she went to her room next day at nap time and closed the door behind her. But when a little figure slipped down the road towards the forbidden place a moment later, she was watching behind her blinds. She was groaning as if in pain.

The little figure began to run staidly. Aunt Olivia groaned again. The child was in a hurry to get there—she couldn't wait to walk! There was guilt in every motion of the little figure.

“And she runs like a Plummer,” groaned Aunt Olivia.

The next day, and the next, Aunt Olivia watched behind her blinds. The fourth day she put on her afternoon dress and followed the hurrying little figure. Not at once—Aunt Olivia did not hurry. There was a sad reluctance in every movement. It seemed a terrible thing to be following Rebecca Mary—Rebecca Mary Plummer to a forbidden place.

Afar off Aunt Olivia heard faintly the shoutings that always heralded an approach to the Tony Trumbullses, and shuddered. The tumult kept growing clearer; she thought she detected a wild, excited little shout that might be Rebecca Mary's. Her thin lips set into a stern, straight line.

A splash of red caught Aunt Olivia's eye as she drew nearer the joyous whirl of little children. Rebecca Mary wore a little tight red dress. The coil seemed closing in about the child.

Close to the southern boundary fence of Aunt Olivia's land stood an old empty barn. It had been a place for storing surplus hay, once, when there had been surplus hay. For many years now it had been empty. As Aunt Olivia approached it she noticed that its great sliding door was open. Strange, when for so long it had been shut!

“If that old barn door ain't open!” breathed Aunt Olivia, stopping in her astonishment. “I ain't seen it open before in these ten years. Now, what I want to know is, who opened it? Likely as not those screeching little wild Injuns.” She strode across the stubby grass-ground to the barn and peered into its cool, dim depths. Then Aunt Olivia uttered a little, bewildered cry. Gradually the dimness took on light and the whole startling picture within unfolded itself to her astonished eyes.

Rebecca Mary was quilting. She was stooping earnestly over a gay expanse of purples and reds and greens. Her little tight red back was towards Aunt Olivia; it looked bent and strained. Rebecca Mary's eyes were very close to the gay expanse.

Suddenly Rebecca Mary began to speak, and Aunt Olivia's widened eyes discovered a great, white rooster pecking about under the quilt. His big, snowy bulk stood out distinct in the shadow of it.

“I'm glad we're 'most through. Aren't you, Thomas Jefferson? It's been a pretty LONG quilt. You get sort of tired when you quilt a LONG quilt. It makes your back creak when you unbend it; and when you quilt in a barn, of course you can't see without squinching, and it hurts your eyes to squinch.”

Silence again, except for the industrious peck-peck of the great white rooster. Aunt Olivia stood very still.

“You've been a great help, Thomas Jefferson,” began again the voice of Rebecca Mary, after a little. “I'm very much obliged to you, as I've said before. I don't know what I should have done without you. No, you needn't answer. I couldn't hear a word you said. You can't hear with cotton in both o' your ears,” Rebecca Mary sighed. There was no cotton in Aunt Olivia's ears to shut out the soft little sound. “But of course you have to wear it in, on account o' your conscience. It's conscience cotton, Thomas Jefferson. I've explained before, but I don't know's you understood. It seems a little unpolite to wear it in my ears, with you here keeping me comp'ny. I s'pose you think it's un—unsociable. But Aunt Olivia doesn't allow me to 'sociate with the Tony Trumbullses. Oh, Thomas Jefferson, I wish she'd allow me to 'sociate!”

Aunt Olivia found herself wishing she had conscience cotton in both o' her ears.

“They're such nice, cheerful little children! It makes you want to go right over their fence and hollow too.” Rebecca Mary pronounced it “hollow” with careful precision. Aunt Olivia would not approve of “holler.” “And when you can't, you like to listen. But I s'posed listening to them hollow would be 'sociating. So I put the cotton in.”

The joyous “hollowing” broke in waves of glee on Aunt Olivia's eardrums. It seemed to be assaulting her heart. Oddly, now it did not sound unmannerly and dreadful. It sounded nice and cheerful. A Plummer, even, might be happy like that.

“Cotton is a very strange ex—exper'ence, Thomas Jefferson,” ran on the little voice. “At first you 'most can't stand it, but you get over the worst of it bymeby. Besides, we're getting 'most through now. Ain't that splendid, Thomas Jefferson? And it's pretty lucky, too, because Aunt 'Livia's birthday is getting very near. It—it almost scares me. Doesn't it you? For I don't know how Aunt 'Livia looks when she's pleased—you think she'll look pleased, don't you, Thomas Jefferson? It's such a long quilt, and when you've sewed every stitch yourself—”

If Rebecca Mary had turned round then she would have seen how Aunt Olivia looked when she was pleased. But the little figure at the quilting-frame bent steadily to its task, only another soft sigh stealing into Aunt Olivia's uncottoned ears. Thomas Jefferson pecked his way towards the open door, and the lean figure there started back guiltily; Aunt Olivia did not want to be recognized.

“You there under the quilt, Thomas Jefferson?” The little voice put on tenderness. “Because I'm a-going to tell you something. Once Aunt 'Livia gave ME a birthday present and it was YOU. Such a little mite of a yellow chicken! That's why I'm making the quilt for Aunt 'Livia. It was three years ago; I've loved you ever since,” added Rebecca Mary, simply.

For an instant Aunt Olivia stopped being a Plummer. A sob crept into her throat. “Rebecca! Rebecca Mary! Rebecca Mary Plummer!” she cried, involuntarily. Then she stepped back hastily, glad for the cotton in Rebecca Mary's ears. For the surprise—she must not spoil the child's hard-earned surprise. And, besides, Aunt Olivia wanted to be surprised.

It was a relief to get away. She could not look any longer at the picture in the great cobwebby barn—the gorgeous quilt spread out to its full extent, the empty scaffolds above Rebecca Mary stooping to her work, Thomas Jefferson pecking about the floor. Aunt Olivia was not old; through all the years ahead of her she would remember that picture.

She went straight to the southern boundary fence and looked across at the jubilant little Tony Trumbullses. The one in a red dress like Rebecca Mary's she singled out with a pointing finger. “YOU come here,” she called. “I won't hurt you; no need to look scairt. Do you know who I am? I'm Rebecca Mary's aunt. You know who Rebecca Mary is, don't you?”

“Gracious!” shrilled the little red Tony Trumbull, which Aunt Olivia took for yes.

“Well, then, you know where I live. You see here—I want you all, the whole kit o' you, to come to my house tomorrow morning to see Rebecca Mary. I'm going to say it over again. Tomorrow morning, to see Rebecca Mary!” setting apart the syllables with the pointing finger. “You can play in my back yard,” said Aunt Olivia, sublimely unconscious of slang.

The Bible Dream

Rebecca Mary sat on the kitchen steps, shelling peas and trying not to listen. She had begun a hummy little tune to help out, but in the interstices of rattling peas and the verses of the tune she could distinctly hear some of the things Aunt Olivia and the Caller were saying. This was one of the things:

“She's offered a reward, but I don't calculate there's much chance she'll ever see it again.”

A sigh followed. The voice was the Caller's, the sigh Aunt Olivia's.

“It's queer where it ever went to!” Aunt Olivia's voice.

“Yes, it's all o' QUEER,” the Caller's, with mysterious hints in it that made Rebecca Mary, out on the doorsteps, shudder suddenly and forget where she was in the tune. Oh, oh, dear, did they s'pose—they couldn't s'pose it had been STOLEN?

Rebecca Mary's little hard brown hand stopped halfway to the pea-basket and fell limply at her side on the doorstep. It made a little thud as it fell. Rebecca Mary's horrified gaze wandered out into the glare of sunshine where wandered Thomas Jefferson, stepping daintily, hunting bugs. That was his day's work. Thomas Jefferson was a hard worker.

The voices went on, but Rebecca Mary did not heed them now; she was looking at Thomas Jefferson, but she did not see him. Not until—it happened. On a sudden Thomas Jefferson, forgetful of dignity, made a swoop for something that glittered in the grass. Then Rebecca Mary saw him—then started to her feet with an inarticulate little cry, while in her honest brown eyes the horror grew. Oh, oh, dear, what was that Thomas Jefferson had swooped for? For a brief instant it had glittered in the grass—Rebecca Mary knew in her soul that it had glittered.

Thomas Jefferson stretched his sheeny neck, curved it ridiculously, and crowed. It sounded like a crow of triumph; that was the way he crowed when the bug had been a delicious one.

The Caller was coming out, Aunt Olivia with her. Rebecca Mary could hear the crackle of their starched skirts; Aunt Olivia's crackled loudest. Rebecca Mary had always had a queer feeling that Aunt Olivia herself was starched. There had never been a time when she could not remember her carrying her head very stiffly and straight and never bending her back. Nobody else in the world, Rebecca Mary reflected proudly, could pick up a pin without bending. SHE couldn't, herself, even after she had privately practiced a good deal.

“Good afternoon, Rebecca Mary; you out here?” the Caller nodded pleasantly. Folks had such queer ways of saying things. How could you say good afternoon to anybody if she WASN'T here?

“Didn't you hear Mrs. Dixey, Rebecca Mary? I guess you've forgot your manners,” came in Aunt Olivia's crisp tones.

“Oh yes'm, I have. I mean I DID. Yes'm, thank you, I'm out here,” quavered Rebecca Mary. She was not afraid of the Caller and she had never been afraid of Aunt Olivia, but the horror that was settling round her heart made her clear little voice unsteady. Her eyes were still following Thomas Jefferson on his mincing travels about the yard. The sunshine was on his splendid white coat, but Rebecca Mary felt no pride in him.

“Ain't that the han'somest rooster! You ought to show him at the fair, I declare! See how his feathers glisten in the sun!”

“Thomas Jefferson belongs to Rebecca Mary,” Aunt Olivia said, briefly. “She raised him.”

“My! Well, he's han'some enough. Ain't it amusing how a nice-feeling rooster like that will go stepping round as if he felt about too toppy to live! He'd ought to wear diamonds.”

“Oh, oh, dear, please don't!” breathed Rebecca Mary, softly, but neither of the women heard her.

“Well, well, I must be going. I've made a regular visit. But I tell John when I get away from home, it feels so good I STAY! 'I don't get away any too often,' I says, 'and I guess I've earnt the right.' Well, I must be going if I'm ever going to! Good-bye, Miss Plummer—good-bye, Rebecca Mary. All is, I hope Mis' Avery's boarder'll find her diamond, don't you? But I don't calculate she will. Well, good afternoon. She hadn't ought to have wore the ring, when she knew it was loose in the setting like that. Some folks are just that careless! Well—”

But Rebecca Mary did not hear the rest of the Caller's leave-taking. She had slipped away to Thomas Jefferson out in the sun.

“Oh, come here—come here with me!” she cried, intensely. “Come out behind the barn where we can talk. I've got to say something to you that's awful! I've GOT to, you've got to listen, Thomas Jefferson.”

It was still and terribly hot in the treeless glare behind the barn, but it was all in the day's work to Thomas Jefferson. Behind the barn was a beautiful place for bugs.

“Listen! Oh, you poor dear, you've got to listen!” Rebecca Mary cried. “You've got to stop hunting for bugs—and don't you dare to crow! If you crow, Thomas Jefferson, it will break my heart. I don't s'pose you know what you've done—I don't know as you've done it—but there's something awful happened. Oh, Thomas Jefferson, it glittered—I saw it glitter!” Suddenly Rebecca Mary stooped and gathered Thomas Jefferson into her arms. She held him with a passionate clasp against her flat little calico breast. He was HERS. He was all the intimate friend she had ever had. He had been her little downy baby and slept in her hand. She had fed him and watched him grow and been proud of him. He was her all.

“Oh, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, what was it that glittered in the grass? Tell me and I'll believe you. Say it was a little piece o' glass and I'll put you down and go get you some corn, and we'll never speak of it again. But don't look at me like that—don't look at me like that! You look—GUILTY!”

She rocked him in her arms. In her soul she knew what it was that had glittered. But in Thomas Jefferson's soul—oh, they could not blame Thomas Jefferson!

“You haven't got any soul, poor dear; poor dear, you haven't got any soul, and you can't be guilty without a soul. They couldn't—hang—you.” Her voice sank to the merest whisper. She tightened her clasp on the great, soft body and smoothed the soft feathers with a tender, tremulous little hand.

“The Lord didn't put anything in you but a stomach and a—a gizzard. He left your soul out and you're not to blame for that. I don't blame you, Thomas Jefferson, and of course the Lord don't. But Mrs. Avery's boarder—oh, oh, dear, I'm afraid Mrs. Avery's boarder will! You mustn't tell—I mean I mustn't. Nobody must know what it was that glittered in the grass. Do you want to be—searched?

“You know 'xactly where she sat over to this house yesterday morning, when she went by—and how she said you were too sweet for anything—and how she flew her hand round with—with IT on it. You know as well as I do. And it was loose, the di'mond-stone was loose. We didn't either of us know that. We're not to blame if things are loose, and you're not to blame for not having any soul. But oh, oh, dear, how dreadfully it makes us both feel! You'd better give up crowing, Thomas Jefferson; I feel just as if you'd let it out if you crew.”

At tea Rebecca Mary played with her spoon, while her berries swam, untasted, in their yellow sea of cream. Aunt Olivia remonstrated.

“Why don't you eat your supper, child?” she asked, sharply. Rebecca Mary was always glad when she said child instead of Rebecca Mary, for then the sharpness did not cut. She was feeling now for the glasses up in her thin gray hair. Aunt Olivia could see everything through those glasses and it made Rebecca Mary tremble to think—oh, oh, dear, suppose she should see the secret hidden in Rebecca Mary's soul! It seemed as if Aunt Olivia trained the glasses directly upon the corner where the secret glittered in the gra—was hidden in Rebecca Mary's troubled little soul. But this is what Aunt Olivia said:

“It's your stomach. What you need is a good dose of camomile tea to tone you up. I didn't give you any this spring, for a wonder. Now you go right up to bed and I'll set some to steeping. Does it hurt you any?”

“Oh yes'm,” murmured Rebecca Mary, sadly, but she meant her soul and Aunt Olivia meant her stomach. She mounted the steep stairs to her little eavesdropping room and slipped her small spare body out of her clothes into her scant little nightgown. It was rather a relief to go to bed. If she could have been sure that Thomas Jefferson—but, no, Thomas Jefferson was not in bed. As Rebecca Mary lay and waited for her camomile tea she was certain she could hear him stepping about under the window. Once he came directly under and “crew,” and then Rebecca Mary hid her head in the pillow for he was letting it out.

“Cock-a-doodle-do—ooo, did-you-see-me-swoo-oo-OOP-it-up?” crowed Thomas Jefferson, under the window. Rebecca Mary with her eyes pillow-deep could see him stretching his neck and letting it out. It seemed to her everybody could hear him—Aunt Olivia downstairs, steeping camomile 'blows, and Mrs. Avery's boarder across the fields.

“Aunt Olivia,” whispered Rebecca Mary, while she sipped her bitter tea a little later, “how much—I suppose precious things cost a great deal, don't they?”

“My grief!” Aunt Olivia set down the bowl and felt of Rebecca Mary's temples, then of her wrists. The child was out of her head.

“Di'mond-stones like—like that boarder's—I suppose those cost a great deal? As much as—how much as, Aunt Olivia?”

“My grief, don't you worry about any di'mond-stones! YOU haven't lost any. What you'll lose will be your health, if you don't swallow down the rest o' this tea and go right to sleep like a good girl! No, no, I'm not going to answer any questions. Drink this; swallow it down.”

Rebecca Mary swallowed it down, but she did not go right to sleep like a good girl. She lay on the hard little bed and thought of many things, or of one thing many times. Over and over, wearily, drearily, until the sin of Thomas Jefferson became her sin. She adopted it.

When at last she dropped to sleep it was to dream a Bible dream. Usually Rebecca Mary liked to dream Bible dreams, but not this one. This one was different. This one was of Abraham and Isaac. She thought she was right there and saw Abraham build the little altar and offer up—no, it wasn't Isaac! It was Thomas Jefferson. And the Abraham in her dream was turning into HER. The flowing white robes were dwindling to a little scant white nightgown. She stood a little way off and saw herself offering up Thomas Jefferson. It was a dreadful dream.

The night was a perfectly black one, the kind that Rebecca Mary was afraid of. It was the only thing in the world she had ever been afraid of—a black night. But after the dream she got up stealthily and slipped through the blackness, out to Thomas Jefferson. It was only out to the little lean-to shed, but it seemed a very long way to Rebecca Mary. The blackness pressed up against her, she put out her little, trembling hands and pushed through it.

“Thomas Jefferson! Thomas Jefferson!” she called softly. But he was a sound sleeper, she remembered; she would have to find him and wake him. In the darkness she felt about on Thomas Jefferson's perch for Thomas Jefferson. When the little groping hand came upon something very soft and warm, the other hand went up to join it, and together they lifted Thomas Jefferson down. He gave a protesting croak, and then, because he was acquainted with the clasp of the two small hands, and night or day liked it, he went back to his interrupted dreams and said not another word. Thomas Jefferson had never dreamed a Bible dream—never heard of Abraham or Isaac, had no soul to be disquieted.

With her burden against her breast Rebecca Mary pushed back through the darkness, up to the black little room under the eaves. She felt about for her little carpet-covered shoe box and gently crowded the great white bulk into it. Then she crept back into bed and lay on the outer edge with her loving, light little hand on Thomas Jefferson's feathers. The trouble in her burdened soul poured itself out.