الفصل الفصل 6 · SUNSHINE IN A SHADY PLACE

. SUNSHINE IN A SHADY PLACE

SUNSHINE IN A SHADY PLACE

The little schoolhouse on the hill had its moments of triumph as well

as its scenes of tribulation, but it was fortunate that Rebecca had her

books and her new acquaintances to keep her interested and occupied, or

life would have gone heavily with her that first summer in Riverboro.

She tried to like her aunt Miranda (the idea of loving her had been

given up at the moment of meeting), but failed ignominiously in the

attempt. She was a very faulty and passionately human child, with no

aspirations towards being an angel of the house, but she had a sense of

duty and a desire to be good,--respectably, decently good. Whenever she

fell below this self-imposed standard she was miserable. She did not

like to be under her aunt's roof, eating bread, wearing clothes, and

studying books provided by her, and dislike her so heartily all the

time. She felt instinctively that this was wrong and mean, and whenever

the feeling of remorse was strong within her she made a desperate

effort to please her grim and difficult relative. But how could she

succeed when she was never herself in her aunt Miranda's presence? The

searching look of the eyes, the sharp voice, the hard knotty fingers,

the thin straight lips, the long silences, the "front-piece" that

didn't match her hair, the very obvious "parting" that seemed sewed in

with linen thread on black net,--there was not a single item that

appealed to Rebecca. There are certain narrow, unimaginative, and

autocratic old people who seem to call out the most mischievous, and

sometimes the worst traits in children. Miss Miranda, had she lived in

a populous neighborhood, would have had her doorbell pulled, her gate

tied up, or "dirt traps" set in her garden paths. The Simpson twins

stood in such awe of her that they could not be persuaded to come to

the side door even when Miss Jane held gingerbread cookies in her

outstretched hands.

It is needless to say that Rebecca irritated her aunt with every breath

she drew. She continually forgot and started up the front stairs

because it was the shortest route to her bedroom; she left the dipper

on the kitchen shelf instead of hanging it up over the pail; she sat in

the chair the cat liked best; she was willing to go on errands, but

often forgot what she was sent for; she left the screen doors ajar, so

that flies came in; her tongue was ever in motion; she sang or whistled

when she was picking up chips; she was always messing with flowers,

putting them in vases, pinning them on her dress, and sticking them in

her hat; finally she was an everlasting reminder of her foolish,

worthless father, whose handsome face and engaging manner had so

deceived Aurelia, and perhaps, if the facts were known, others besides

Aurelia. The Randalls were aliens. They had not been born in Riverboro

nor even in York County. Miranda would have allowed, on compulsion,

that in the nature of things a large number of persons must necessarily

be born outside this sacred precinct; but she had her opinion of them,

and it was not a flattering one. Now if Hannah had come--Hannah took

after the other side of the house; she was "all Sawyer." (Poor Hannah!

that was true!) Hannah spoke only when spoken to, instead of first,

last, and all the time; Hannah at fourteen was a member of the church;

Hannah liked to knit; Hannah was, probably, or would have been, a

pattern of all the smaller virtues; instead of which here was this

black-haired gypsy, with eyes as big as cartwheels, installed as a

member of the household.

What sunshine in a shady place was aunt Jane to Rebecca! Aunt Jane with

her quiet voice, her understanding eyes, her ready excuses, in these

first difficult weeks, when the impulsive little stranger was trying to

settle down into the "brick house ways." She did learn them, in part,

and by degrees, and the constant fitting of herself to these new and

difficult standards of conduct seemed to make her older than ever for

her years.

The child took her sewing and sat beside aunt Jane in the kitchen while

aunt Miranda had the post of observation at the sitting-room window.

Sometimes they would work on the side porch where the clematis and

woodbine shaded them from the hot sun. To Rebecca the lengths of brown

gingham were interminable. She made hard work of sewing, broke the

thread, dropped her thimble into the syringa bushes, pricked her

finger, wiped the perspiration from her forehead, could not match the

checks, puckered the seams. She polished her needles to nothing,

pushing them in and out of the emery strawberry, but they always

squeaked. Still aunt Jane's patience held good, and some small measure

of skill was creeping into Rebecca's fingers, fingers that held pencil,

paint brush, and pen so cleverly and were so clumsy with the dainty

little needle.

When the first brown gingham frock was completed, the child seized what

she thought an opportune moment and asked her aunt Miranda if she might

have another color for the next one.

"I bought a whole piece of the brown," said Miranda laconically.

"That'll give you two more dresses, with plenty for new sleeves, and to

patch and let down with, an' be more economical."

"I know. But Mr. Watson says he'll take back part of it, and let us

have pink and blue for the same price."

"Did you ask him?"

"Yes'm."

"It was none o' your business."

"I was helping Emma Jane choose aprons, and didn't think you'd mind

which color I had. Pink keeps clean just as nice as brown, and Mr.

Watson says it'll boil without fading."

"Mr. Watson 's a splendid judge of washing, I guess. I don't approve of

children being rigged out in fancy colors, but I'll see what your aunt

Jane thinks."

"I think it would be all right to let Rebecca have one pink and one

blue gingham," said Jane. "A child gets tired of sewing on one color.

It's only natural she should long for a change; besides she'd look like

a charity child always wearing the same brown with a white apron. And

it's dreadful unbecoming to her!"

"'Handsome is as handsome does,' say I. Rebecca never'll come to grief

along of her beauty, that's certain, and there's no use in humoring her

to think about her looks. I believe she's vain as a peacock now,

without anything to be vain of."

"She's young and attracted to bright things--that's all. I remember

well enough how I felt at her age."

"You was considerable of a fool at her age, Jane."

"Yes, I was, thank the Lord! I only wish I'd known how to take a little

of my foolishness along with me, as some folks do, to brighten my

declining years."

There finally was a pink gingham, and when it was nicely finished, aunt

Jane gave Rebecca a delightful surprise. She showed her how to make a

pretty trimming of narrow white linen tape, by folding it in pointed

shapes and sewing it down very flat with neat little stitches.

"It'll be good fancy work for you, Rebecca; for your aunt Miranda won't

like to see you always reading in the long winter evenings. Now if you

think you can baste two rows of white tape round the bottom of your

pink skirt and keep it straight by the checks, I'll stitch them on for

you and trim the waist and sleeves with pointed tape-trimming, so the

dress'll be real pretty for second best."

Rebecca's joy knew no bounds. "I'll baste like a house afire!" she

exclaimed. "It's a thousand yards round that skirt, as well I know,

having hemmed it; but I could sew pretty trimming on if it was from

here to Milltown. Oh! do you think aunt Mirandy'll ever let me go to

Milltown with Mr. Cobb? He's asked me again, you know; but one Saturday

I had to pick strawberries, and another it rained, and I don't think

she really approves of my going. It's TWENTY-NINE minutes past four,

aunt Jane, and Alice Robinson has been sitting under the currant bushes

for a long time waiting for me. Can I go and play?"

"Yes, you may go, and you'd better run as far as you can out behind the

barn, so 't your noise won't distract your aunt Mirandy. I see Susan

Simpson and the twins and Emma Jane Perkins hiding behind the fence."

Rebecca leaped off the porch, snatched Alice Robinson from under the

currant bushes, and, what was much more difficult, succeeded, by means

of a complicated system of signals, in getting Emma Jane away from the

Simpson party and giving them the slip altogether. They were much too

small for certain pleasurable activities planned for that afternoon;

but they were not to be despised, for they had the most fascinating

dooryard in the village. In it, in bewildering confusion, were old

sleighs, pungs, horse rakes, hogsheads, settees without backs,

bed-steads without heads, in all stages of disability, and never the

same on two consecutive days. Mrs. Simpson was seldom at home, and even

when she was, had little concern as to what happened on the premises. A

favorite diversion was to make the house into a fort, gallantly held by

a handful of American soldiers against a besieging force of the British

army. Great care was used in apportioning the parts, for there was no

disposition to let anybody win but the Americans. Seesaw Simpson was

usually made commander-in-chief of the British army, and a limp and

uncertain one he was, capable, with his contradictory orders and his

fondness for the extreme rear, of leading any regiment to an inglorious

death. Sometimes the long-suffering house was a log hut, and the brave

settlers defeated a band of hostile Indians, or occasionally were

massacred by them; but in either case the Simpson house looked, to

quote a Riverboro expression, "as if the devil had been having an

auction in it."

Next to this uncommonly interesting playground, as a field of action,

came, in the children's opinion, the "secret spot." There was a velvety

stretch of ground in the Sawyer pasture which was full of fascinating

hollows and hillocks, as well as verdant levels, on which to build

houses. A group of trees concealed it somewhat from view and flung a

grateful shade over the dwellings erected there. It had been hard

though sweet labor to take armfuls of "stickins" and "cutrounds" from

the mill to this secluded spot, and that it had been done mostly after

supper in the dusk of the evenings gave it a still greater flavor. Here

in soap boxes hidden among the trees were stored all their treasures:

wee baskets and plates and cups made of burdock balls, bits of broken

china for parties, dolls, soon to be outgrown, but serving well as

characters in all sorts of romances enacted there,--deaths, funerals,

weddings, christenings. A tall, square house of stickins was to be

built round Rebecca this afternoon, and she was to be Charlotte Corday

leaning against the bars of her prison.

It was a wonderful experience standing inside the building with Emma

Jane's apron wound about her hair; wonderful to feel that when she

leaned her head against the bars they seemed to turn to cold iron; that

her eyes were no longer Rebecca Randall's but mirrored something of

Charlotte Corday's hapless woe.

"Ain't it lovely?" sighed the humble twain, who had done most of the

labor, but who generously admired the result.

"I hate to have to take it down," said Alice, "it's been such a sight

of work."

"If you think you could move up some stones and just take off the top

rows, I could step out over," suggested Charlotte Corday. "Then leave

the stones, and you two can step down into the prison to-morrow and be

the two little princes in the Tower, and I can murder you."

"What princes? What tower?" asked Alice and Emma Jane in one breath.

"Tell us about them."

"Not now, it's my supper time." (Rebecca was a somewhat firm

disciplinarian.)

"It would be elergant being murdered by you," said Emma Jane loyally,

"though you are awful real when you murder; or we could have Elijah and

Elisha for the princes."

"They'd yell when they was murdered," objected Alice; "you know how

silly they are at plays, all except Clara Belle. Besides if we once

show them this secret place, they'll play in it all the time, and

perhaps they'd steal things, like their father."

"They needn't steal just because their father does," argued Rebecca;

"and don't you ever talk about it before them if you want to be my

secret, partic'lar friends. My mother tells me never to say hard things

about people's own folks to their face. She says nobody can bear it,

and it's wicked to shame them for what isn't their fault. Remember

Minnie Smellie!"

Well, they had no difficulty in recalling that dramatic episode, for it

had occurred only a few days before; and a version of it that would

have melted the stoniest heart had been presented to every girl in the

village by Minnie Smellie herself, who, though it was Rebecca and not

she who came off victorious in the bloody battle of words, nursed her

resentment and intended to have revenge.