บทที่ บทที่ 28 · "TH' INEVITABLE YOKE"

that the

years are so surely bringing them.

Rebecca saw Hannah and her husband in the audience; dear old John and

cousin Ann also, and felt a pang at the absence of her mother, though

she had known there was no possibility of seeing her; for poor Aurelia

was kept at Sunnybrook by cares of children and farm, and lack of money

either for the journey or for suitable dress. The Cobbs she saw too. No

one, indeed, could fail to see uncle Jerry; for he shed tears more than

once, and in the intervals between the essays descanted to his

neighbors concerning the marvelous gifts of one of the graduating class

whom he had known ever since she was a child; in fact, had driven her

from Maplewood to Riverboro when she left her home, and he had told

mother that same night that there wan't nary rung on the ladder o' fame

that that child wouldn't mount before she got through with it.

The Cobbs, then, had come, and there were other Riverboro faces, but

where was aunt Jane, in her black silk made over especially for this

occasion? Aunt Miranda had not intended to come, she knew, but where,

on this day of days, was her beloved aunt Jane? However, this thought,

like all others, came and went in a flash, for the whole morning was

like a series of magic lantern pictures, crossing and recrossing her

field of vision. She played, she sang, she recited Queen Mary's Latin

prayer, like one in a dream, only brought to consciousness by meeting

Mr. Aladdin's eyes as she spoke the last line. Then at the end of the

programme came her class poem, Makers of To-morrow; and there, as on

many a former occasion, her personality played so great a part that she

seemed to be uttering Miltonic sentiments instead of school-girl verse.

Her voice, her eyes, her body breathed conviction, earnestness,

emotion; and when she left the platform the audience felt that they had

listened to a masterpiece. Most of her hearers knew little of Carlyle

or Emerson, or they might have remembered that the one said, "We are

all poets when we read a poem well," and the other, "'T is the good

reader makes the good book."

It was over! The diplomas had been presented, and each girl, after

giving furtive touches to her hair, sly tweaks to her muslin skirts,

and caressing pats to her sash, had gone forward to receive the roll of

parchment with a bow that had been the subject of anxious thought for

weeks. Rounds of applause greeted each graduate at this thrilling

moment, and Jeremiah Cobb's behavior, when Rebecca came forward, was

the talk of Wareham and Riverboro for days. Old Mrs. Webb avowed that

he, in the space of two hours, had worn out her pew more--the carpet,

the cushions, and woodwork--than she had by sitting in it forty years.

Yes, it was over, and after the crowd had thinned a little, Adam Ladd

made his way to the platform. Rebecca turned from speaking to some

strangers and met him in the aisle. "Oh, Mr. Aladdin, I am so glad you

could come! Tell me"--and she looked at him half shyly, for his

approval was dearer to her, and more difficult to win, than that of the

others--"tell me, Mr. Aladdin,--were you satisfied?"

"More than satisfied!" he said; "glad I met the child, proud I know the

girl, longing to meet the woman!"

Chapter 28. "TH' INEVITABLE YOKE"

"TH' INEVITABLE YOKE"

Rebecca's heart beat high at this sweet praise from her hero's lips,

but before she had found words to thank him, Mr. and Mrs. Cobb, who had

been modestly biding their time in a corner, approached her and she

introduced them to Mr. Ladd.

"Where, where is aunt Jane?" she cried, holding aunt Sarah's hand on

one side and uncle Jerry's on the other.

"I'm sorry, lovey, but we've got bad news for you."

"Is aunt Miranda worse? She is; I can see it by your looks;" and

Rebecca's color faded.

"She had a second stroke yesterday morning jest when she was helpin'

Jane lay out her things to come here to-day. Jane said you wan't to

know anything about it till the exercises was all over, and we promised

to keep it secret till then."

"I will go right home with you, aunt Sarah. I must just run to tell

Miss Maxwell, for after I had packed up to-morrow I was going to

Brunswick with her. Poor aunt Miranda! And I have been so gay and happy

all day, except that I was longing for mother and aunt Jane."

"There ain't no harm in bein' gay, lovey; that's what Jane wanted you

to be. And Miranda's got her speech back, for your aunt has just sent a

letter sayin' she's better; and I'm goin' to set up to-night, so you

can stay here and have a good sleep, and get your things together

comfortably to-morrow."

"I'll pack your trunk for you, Becky dear, and attend to all our room

things," 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 "blushing honors" 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.

"I s'pose up to Boston, girls like that one are as thick as

blackb'ries?" uncle Jerry said, jerking his head interrogatively in

Rebecca's direction.

"They may be," smiled Adam, taking in the old man's mood; "only I don't

happen to know one."

"My eyesight bein' poor 's the reason she looked han'somest of any girl

on the platform, I s'pose?"

"There's no failure in my eyes," responded Adam, "but that was how the

thing seemed to me!"

"What did you think of her voice? Anything extry about it?"

"Made the others sound poor and thin, I thought."

"Well, I'm glad to hear your opinion, you bein' a traveled man, for

mother says I'm foolish 'bout Rebecky and hev been sence the fust.

Mother scolds me for spoilin' her, but I notice mother ain't fur behind

when it comes to spoilin'. Land! it made me sick, thinkin' o' them

parents travelin' miles to see their young ones graduate, and then when

they got here hevin' to compare 'em with Rebecky. Good-by, Mr. Ladd,

drop in some day when you come to Riverboro."

"I will," said Adam, shaking the old man's hand cordially; "perhaps

to-morrow if I drive Rebecca home, as I shall offer to do. Do you think

Miss Sawyer's condition is serious?"

"Well, the doctor don't seem to know; but anyhow she's paralyzed, and

she'll never walk fur again, poor soul! She ain't lost her speech;

that'll be a comfort to her."

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

Rebecca's plans, he told her, as he drew her aside, that the girl would

have to leave Wareham for Riverboro the next day.

"That is almost more than I can bear!" exclaimed Miss Maxwell, sitting

down on a bench and stabbing the greensward with her parasol. "It 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."

"If 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," returned Adam.

"That is true; I was vexed when I spoke, for I thought an easier and

happier day was dawning for my prodigy and pearl."

"OUR prodigy and pearl," corrected Adam.

"Oh, yes!" she laughed. "I always forget that it pleases you to pretend

you discovered Rebecca."

"I believe, though, that happier days are dawning for her," continued

Adam. "It must be a secret for the present, but Mrs. Randall's 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."

"We might form ourselves into a Randall Protective Agency, Limited,"

mused Miss Maxwell. "I confess I want Rebecca to have a career."

"I don't," said Adam promptly.

"Of course you don't. Men have no interest in the careers of women! But

I know Rebecca better than you."

"You 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."

"Well," sighed Miss Maxwell whimsically, "prodigy or pearl, the Randall

Protective Agency may pull Rebecca in opposite directions, but

nevertheless she will follow her saint."

"That will content me," said Adam gravely.

"Particularly if the saint beckons your way." 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 Rebecca's

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. "Were the windfall apples being picked up for sauce; were the

potatoes thick in the hills; was the corn tosselin' out; were they

cuttin' the upper field; were they keepin' fly-paper laid out

everywheres; were there any ants in the dairy; was the kindlin' wood

holdin' out; had the bank sent the cowpons?"

Poor Miranda Sawyer! Hovering on the verge of the great beyond,--her

body "struck" and no longer under control of her iron will,--no 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!--held 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. Miranda's pale, sharp face,

framed in its nightcap, looked haggard on the pillow, and her body was

pitifully still under the counterpane.

"Come in," she said; "I ain't dead yet. Don't mess up the bed with them

flowers, will ye?"

"Oh, no! They're going in a glass pitcher," said Rebecca, turning to

the washstand as she tried to control her voice and stop the tears that

sprang to her eyes.

"Let me look at ye; come closer. What dress are ye wearin'?" said the

old aunt in her cracked, weak voice.

"My blue calico."

"Is your cashmere holdin' its color?"

"Yes, aunt Miranda."

"Do you keep it in a dark closet hung on the wrong side, as I told ye?"

"Always."

"Has your mother made her jelly?"

"She hasn't said."

"She always had the knack o' writin' letters with nothin' in 'em.

What's Mark broke sence I've been sick?"

"Nothing at all, aunt Miranda."

"Why, what's the matter with him? Gittin' lazy, ain't he? How 's John

turnin' out?"

"He's going to be the best of us all."

"I hope you don't slight things in the kitchen because I ain't there.

Do you scald the coffee-pot and turn it upside down on the winder-sill?"

"Yes, aunt Miranda."

"It's always 'yes' with you, and 'yes' with Jane," groaned Miranda,

trying to move her stiffened body; "but all the time I lay here knowin'

there's things done the way I don't like 'em."

There was a long pause, during which Rebecca sat down by the bedside

and timidly touched her aunt's hand, her heart swelling with tender

pity at the gaunt face and closed eyes.

"I was dreadful ashamed to have you graduate in cheesecloth, Rebecca,

but I couldn't help it no-how. You'll hear the reason some time, and

know I tried to make it up to ye. I'm afraid you was a laughin'-stock!"

"No," Rebecca answered. "Ever so many people said our dresses were the

very prettiest; they looked like soft lace. You're not to be anxious

about anything. Here I am all grown up and graduated,--number three in

a class of twenty-two, aunt Miranda,--and 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, I'll take the Edgewood school, so that I can be here nights and

Sundays to help; and if you get better, then I'll go to Augusta,--for

that's a hundred dollars more, with music lessons and other things

beside."

"You listen to me," said Miranda quaveringly. "Take the best place,

regardless o' my sickness. I'd like to live long enough to know you'd

paid off that mortgage, but I guess I shan't."

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 Rebecca's young heart. Aunt Jane

began to "clear starch" 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,--everything that heart could wish or imagination conceive, for

she was to be Miss Emily's 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 Jane's 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 two and three dollars, an unprecedented sum in

Rebecca's experience. The effect of its glories when worn with her

nightdress was dazzling enough, but if ever it appeared in conjunction

with the cheesecloth gown, Rebecca felt that even reverend professors

might regard it with respect. It is probable indeed that any

professorial gaze lucky enough to meet a pair of dark eyes shining

under that white rose garland would never have stopped at respect!

Then, when all was ready and Abijah Flagg at the door, came a telegram

from Hannah: "Come at once. Mother has had bad accident."

In less than an hour Rebecca was started on her way to Sunnybrook, her

heart palpitating with fear as to what might be awaiting her at her

journey's end.

Death, at all events, was not there to meet her; but something that

looked at first only too much like it. Her mother had been standing on

the haymow superintending some changes in the barn, had been seized

with giddiness, they thought, and slipped. The right knee was fractured

and the back strained and hurt, but she was conscious and in no

immediate danger, so Rebecca wrote, when she had a moment to send aunt

Jane the particulars.

"I don' know how 'tis," grumbled Miranda, who was not able to sit up

that day; "but from a child I could never lay abed without Aurelia's

gettin' sick too. I don' know 's she could help fallin', though it

ain't anyplace for a woman,--a haymow; but if it hadn't been that, 't

would 'a' been somethin' else. Aurelia was born unfortunate. Now she'll

probably be a cripple, and Rebecca'll have to nurse her instead of

earning a good income somewheres else."

"Her first duty 's to her mother," said aunt Jane; "I hope she'll

always remember that."

"Nobody remembers anything they'd ought to,--at seventeen," responded

Miranda. "Now that I'm strong again, there's things I want to consider

with you, Jane, things that are on my mind night and day. We've talked

'em over before; now we'll settle 'em. When I'm laid away, do you want

to take Aurelia and the children down here to the brick house? There's

an awful passel of 'em,--Aurelia, Jenny, and Fanny; but I won't have

Mark. Hannah can take him; I won't have a great boy stompin' out the

carpets and ruinin' the furniture, though I know when I'm dead I can't

hinder ye, if you make up your mind to do anything."

"I shouldn't like to go against your feelings, especially in laying out

your money, Miranda," said Jane.

"Don't tell Rebecca I've willed her the brick house. She won't git it

till I'm gone, and I want to take my time 'bout dyin' and not be

hurried off by them that's goin' to profit by it; nor I don't want to

be thanked, neither. I s'pose she'll use the front stairs as common as

the back and like as not have water brought into the kitchen, but mebbe

when I've been dead a few years I shan't mind. She sets such store by

you, she'll want you to have your home here as long's you live, but

anyway I've wrote it down that way; though Lawyer Burns's wills don't

hold more'n half the time. He's cheaper, but I guess it comes out jest

the same in the end. I wan't goin' to have the fust man Rebecca picks

up for a husband turnin' you ou'doors."

There was a long pause, during which Jane knit silently, wiping the

tears from her eyes from time to time, as she looked at the pitiful

figure lying weakly on the pillows. Suddenly Miranda said slowly and

feebly:--

"I don' know after all but you might as well take Mark; I s'pose

there's tame boys as well as wild ones. There ain't a mite o' sense in

havin' so many children, but it's a turrible risk splittin' up families

and farmin' 'em out here 'n' there; they'd never come to no good, an'

everybody would keep rememberin' their mother was a Sawyer. Now if

you'll draw down the curtin, I'll try to sleep."