Rebecca Mary

The Plummer Kind

The doll's name was Olivicia.

Rebecca Mary had evolved the name from her inner consciousness and her intense gratitude to Aunt Olivia and the minister's wife. She had put Aunt Olivia first with instinctive loyalty, though in the secret little closet of her soul she had longed to call the beautiful being Felicia, intact and sweet. She did not know the meaning of Felicia, but she knew that the doll, as it lay in the loving cradle of her arms, gazing upward with changeless placidity and graciousness, looked as one should look whose name was Felicia. Greater compliment than this Rebecca Mary could not have paid the minister's wife.

“Olivicia,” she had placed the being on the sill of the attic window, stood confronting, addressing it: “Olivicia, it's coming—it is very near to! Sit there and listen and smile—oh yes, smile, SMILE. I don't wonder! I would too, only I'm too glad. When you're TOO glad you can't smile. I've been waiting for it to come. Olivicia, seems as if I'd been waiting a thousan' years. You're so young, you've only lived such little while, of course I don't expect you understand the deep-downness inside o' me when I think—”

The address fluttered and came to a standstill here. Rebecca Mary was suddenly minded that Olivicia was in the dark; must be enlightened before she could smile understandingly.

“Why, you poor dear!—why, you don't know what it is that's coming and that's near to! It's the—city, Olivicia,” enlightened Rebecca Mary, gently, to insure against shock. “Aunt Olivia's going—to—the—city.”

In Rebecca Mary's dreamings it had always been THE city. It did not need local habitation and a name; enough that it had streets upon streets, houses upon houses upon houses, a dazzling swirl of men, women, and little children—noise, glitter, glory. In her dreamings the city was something so wondrous and grand that Heaven might have been its name. The streets upon streets were not paved with gold, of course—of course she knew they were not paved with gold! But in spite of herself she knew that she would be disappointed if they did not shine.

Aunt Olivia had said it that morning. At breakfast—quite matter-of-factly. Think of saying it matter-of-factly!

“I'm going to the city soon, Rebecca Mary,” she had said, between sips of her tea. “Perhaps by Friday week, but I haven't set the day, really. There's a good deal to do.”

Rebecca Mary had been helping do it all day. Now it was nearly time for the pageant of red and gold in the west that Rebecca Mary loved, and she had come up here with the beautiful being to watch it through the tiny panes of the attic window, but more to ease the aching rapture in her soul by speech. She must say it out loud. The city—the city—to the city of streets and houses and men and wonders upon wonders!

Olivicia had come in the capacity of calm listener; for nothing excited Olivicia.

“I,” Aunt Olivia had said, but Aunt Olivia usually said “I.” There was no discouragement in that to Rebecca Mary. It did not for a moment occur to her that “I” did not mean “we.”

The valise they had got down from its cobwebby niche was roomy; it would hold enough for two. Rebecca Mary knew that, because she had packed it so many times in her dreamings. She wished Aunt Olivia would let her pack it now. She knew just where she would put everything—her best dress and Aunt Olivia's (for of course they would wear their second-bests), their best hats and shoes and gloves. Their nightgowns she would roll tightly and put in one end, for it doesn't hurt nightgowns to be rolled tightly. Of course she would not put anything heavy, like hair brushes and shoes and things, on top of anything—unless it was the nightgowns, for it doesn't hurt—

“Oh, Olivicia—oh, Olivicia, how I hope she'll say, 'Rebecca Mary, you may pack the valise'! I could do it with my eyes shut, I've done it so many, many times!”

But Aunt Olivia did not say it. One day and then another went by without her saying it, and then one morning Rebecca Mary knew by the plump, well-fed aspect of the valise that it was packed. Aunt Olivia had packed it in the night.

There was no one else in the room when Rebecca Mary made her disappointing little discovery. She went over to the plump valise and prodded it gently with her finger. But it is so difficult to tell in that way whether your own best dress, your own best hat, best shoes, best gloves, are in there. Rebecca Mary hurried upstairs and looked in her closet and in her “best” bureau drawer.

They were not there! In her relief she caught up the beautiful being and strained her hard, lifeless little body to her own warm breast. If she had not been Rebecca Mary, she would have danced about the room.

“Oh, I'm so relieved, Olivicia!” she laughed, softly. “If they're not up here, THEY'RE DOWN THERE. They've got to be somewhere. They're in that valise—valise—vali-i-ise!”

Rebecca Mary had never been to a city, and within her remembrance Aunt Olivia had never been. Curiosity was not a Plummer trait, hence Rebecca Mary had never asked many questions about the remote period before her own advent into Aunt Olivia's life. The same Plummer restraint kept her now from asking questions. There was nothing to do but wait, but the waiting was illumined by her joyous anticipations.

Oddly enough, Aunt Olivia seemed to have no anticipations—at least joyous ones. Her, thin, grave face may even have looked a little thinner and graver, IF Rebecca Mary had thought to notice.

The night the lean old valise took on plumpness, Aunt Olivia went often into Mary's little room. Many of the times she came out very shortly with the child's “best” things trailing from her arms, but once or twice she stayed rather long—long enough to stand beside a little white bed and look down on a flushed little face. A pair of wide-open eyes watched her smilingly from the pillows, but they were not Rebecca Mary's eyes, and Olivicia was altogether trustworthy.

An odd thing happened—but Olivicia never told. Why should she publish abroad that she had lain there and seen Aunt Olivia bend once—bend twice—over Rebecca Mary and kiss her?

Softly, patiently, very wearily, Aunt Olivia went in and out. The things she brought out in her arms she folded carefully and packed, but not in the lank old valise. She put them all with tender painstaking into a quaint little carpetbag. When the work was done she set the bag away out of sight, and went about packing her own things in the old valise.

The day before, she had been to see the minister and the minister's wife. She called for them both, and sat down gravely and made her proposition. It was startling only because of the few words it took to make it. Otherwise it was very pleasant, and the minister and the minister's wife received it with nods and smiles.

“Of course, Miss Olivia—why, certainly!” smiled and nodded the minister.

“Why, it will be delightful—and Rhoda will be so pleased!” nodded and smiled the minister's wife. But after their caller had gone she faced the minister with indignant eyes.

“Why did you let her?” she demanded. “Why did you spoil it all by that?”

“Because she was Miss Olivia,” he answered, gently.

“Yes—yes, I suppose so,” reluctantly; “but, anyway, you needn't have let her do it in advance. Actually it made me blush, Robert!”

The minister rubbed his cheeks tentatively. “Made me, too,” he admitted, “but I respect Miss Olivia so much—”

The minister's wife tacked abruptly to her other source of indignation.

“Why doesn't she TAKE Rebecca Mary? Robert, wait! You know it isn't because—You know better!”

“It isn't because, dear—I know better,” he hurried, assuringly. The minister was used to her little indignations and loved them for being hers. They were harmless, too, and wont to have a good excuse for being. This one, now—the minister in his heart wondered that Miss Olivia did not take Rebecca Mary.

“It would be such a treat. Robert, you think what a treat it would be to Rebecca Mary!”

“Still, dear—”

“I don't want to be still! I want Rebecca Mary to have that treat!” But she kissed him in token of being willing to drop it there—it was her usual token—and ran away to get a little room ready. There was not a device known to the minister's wife that she did not use to make that room pleasant.

“Shall I take your pincushion, Rhoda?” Rhoda had come up to help.

“Yes,” eagerly, “and I'll write Welcome with the pins.”

“And the little fan to put on the wall—the pink one?”

“Yes, yes; let me spread it out, mamma!”

“That's grand. Now if we only had a pink quilt—”

“I 'only have' one!” laughed Rhoda, hurrying after it.

The whole little room when they left, like the pins in the pincushion, spelled “WELCOME.”

Aunt Olivia got up earlier than usual one day and went about the house for a survey. The valise and the little carpetbag she carried downstairs and out on to the front steps. Her face was whitened as if by a long night's vigil. When she called Rebecca Mary it was with a voice strained hoarse. The beautiful being Olivicia watched her with intent, unwinking gaze. Could it be Olivicia understood?

“Hurry and dress, Rebecca Mary; there's a good deal to do,” Aunt Olivia said at the door. She did not go in. “Yes, in your second-best—don't you see I've put it out. You can wear that every day now, till—for a while.” Something in the voice startled Rebecca Mary out of her subdued ecstasy and sent her down to breakfast with a nameless fear tugging at her heart.

“You're going to stay at the minister's—I've paid your board in advance,” Aunt Olivia said, monotonously, as if it were her lesson. She did not look at Rebecca Mary. “I've put in your long-sleeve aprons so you can help do up the dishes. There's plenty of handkerchiefs to last. You mustn't forget your rubbers when it's wet, or to make up your bed yourself. I don't want you to make the minister's wife any more trouble than you can help.”

The lesson went monotonously on, but Rebecca Mary scarcely heard. She had heard the first sentence—her sentence, poor child! “You're going to stay at the minister's—stay at the minister's—stay at the minister's.” It said itself over and over again in her ears. In her need for somebody to lean on, her startled gaze sought the beautiful being across the room in agonized appeal.

But Olivicia was staring smilingly at Aunt Olivia. ET TU, OLIVICIA!

If Rebecca Mary had noticed, there was an appealing, wistful look in Aunt Olivia's eyes too, in odd contrast to the firm lips that moved steadily on with their lesson:

“You can walk to school with Rhoda, you'll enjoy that. You've never had folks to walk with. And you can stay with her, only you mustn't forget your stents. I've put in some towels to hem. Maybe the minister's wife has got something; if so, hem hers first. You'll be like one o' the family, and they're nice folks, but I want you to keep right on being a Plummer.”

Years afterwards Rebecca Mary remembered the dizzy dance of the bottles in the caster—they seemed to join hands and sway and swing about their silver circlet and how Aunt Olivia's buttons marched and countermarched up and down Aunt Olivia's alpaca dress. She did not look above the buttons—she did not dare to. If she was to keep right on being a Plummer, she must not cry.

“That's all,” she heard through the daze and dizziness, “except that I can't tell when I'll be back. It—ain't decided. Likely I shan't be able—there won't be much chance to write, and you needn't expect me to. No need to write me either. That's all, I guess.”

The stage that came for Aunt Olivia dropped the little carpetbag and Rebecca Mary at the minister's. In the brief interval between the start and the dropping, Rebecca Mary sat, stiff and numb, on the edge of the high seat and gazed out unfamiliarly at the familiar landmarks they lurched past. At any other time the knowledge that she was going to the minister's to stay—to live—would have filled her with staid joy. At any other time—but THIS time only a dull ache filled her little dreary world. Everything seemed to ache—the munching cows in the Trumbull pasture, the cats on the doorsteps, the dog loping along beside the stage, the stage driver's stooping old back. Aunt Olivia was going to the city—Rebecca Mary wasn't going to the city. There was no room in the world for anything but that and the ache.

Rebecca Mary's indignation was not born till night. Then, lying in the dainty bed under Rhoda's pink quilt, her mood changed. Until then she had only been disappointed. But then she sat up suddenly and said bitter things about Aunt Olivia.

“She's gone to have a good time all to herself—and she might have taken me. She didn't, she didn't, and she might've. She wanted all the good time herself! She didn't want me to have any!”

“Rebecca Mary!—did you speak, dear?” It was the gentle voice of the minister's wife outside the door. Rebecca Mary's red little hands unwrung and dropped on the pink quilt.

“No'm, I did—I mean yes'm, I didn't—I mean—”

“You don't feel sick? There isn't anything the matter, dear?”

“No'm—oh, yes'm, yes'm!” for there was something the matter. It was Aunt Olivia. But she must not say it—must not cry—must keep right on being a Plummer.

“Robert, I didn't go in—I couldn't,” the minister's wife said, back in the cheery sitting room. “I suppose you think I'd have gone in and comforted her, taken her right in my arms and comforted her the Rhoda way, but I didn't.”

“No?” The minister's voice was a little vague on account of the sermon on his knees.

“I seemed to know—something told me right through that door—that she'd rather I wouldn't. Robert, if the child is homesick, it's a different kind of homesickness.”

“The Plummer kind,” he suggested. The minister was coming to.

“Yes, the Plummer kind, I suppose, Plummers are such—such PLUMMERY persons, Robert!”

Upstairs under the pink quilt the rigid little figure relaxed just enough to admit of getting out of bed and fumbling in the little carpetbag. With her diary in her hand—for Aunt Olivia had remembered her diary—Rebecca Mary went to the window and sat down. She had to hold the cookbook up at a painful angle and peer at it sharply, for the moonlight that filtered into the little room through the vines was dim and soft.

“Aunt Olivia has gone to the city and I haven't,” painfully traced Rebecca Mary. “She wanted the good time all to herself. I shall never forgive Aunt Olivia the Lord have mercy on her.” Then Rebecca Mary went back to bed. She dreamed that the cars ran off the track and they brought Aunt Olivia's pieces home to her. In the dreadful dream she forgave Aunt Olivia.

It was very pleasant at the minister's and the minister's wife's. Rebecca Mary felt the warmth and pleasantness of it in every fibre of her body and soul. But she was not happy nor warm. She thought it was indignation against Aunt Olivia—she did not know she was homesick. She did not know why she went to the old home every day after school and wandered through Aunt Olivia's flower garden, and sat with little brown chin palm-deep on the doorsteps. Gradually the indignation melted out of existence and only the homesickness was left. It sat on her small, lean face like a little spectre. It troubled the minister's wife.

“What can we do, Robert?” she asked.

“What?” he echoed; for the minister, too, was troubled.

“She wanders about like a little lost soul. When she plays with the children it's only the outside of her that plays.”

“Only the outside,” he nodded.

“Last night I went in, Robert, and—and tried the Rhoda way. I think she liked it, but it didn't comfort her. I am sure now that it is homesickness, Robert.” They were both sure, but the grim little spectre sat on, undaunted by all their kindnesses.

“When thy father and thy mother forsake the,” wrote Rebecca Mary in the cookbook diary, “and thy Aunt Olivia for I know it means and thy Aunt Olivia then the Lord will take the up, but I dont feal as if anyboddy had taken me up. The ministers wife did once but of course she had to put me down again rite away. She is a beutiful person and I love her but she is differunt from thy father and thy mother and thy Aunt Olivia. Ide rather have Aunt Olivia take me up than to have the Lord.”

It was when she shut the battered little book this time that Rebecca Mary remembered one or two things that had happened the morning Aunt Olivia went away. It was queer how she HADN'T remembered them before.

She remembered that Aunt Olivia had taken her sharp little face between her own hands and looked down wistfully at it—wistfully, Rebecca Mary remembered now, though she did not call it by that name. She remembered Aunt Olivia had said, “You needn't hem anything unless it's for the minister's wife—never mind the towels I put in.” That was almost the last thing she had said. She had put her head out of the stage door to say it. Rebecca Mary had hemmed a towel each day. There were but two left, and she resolved to hem both of those tomorrow. A sudden little longing was born within her for more towels to hem for Aunt Olivia.

It was nearly three weeks after Rebecca Mary's entrance into the minister's family when the letter came. It was directed to Rebecca Mary, and lay on her plate when she came home from school.

“Oh, look, you've got a letter, Rebecca Mary!” heralded Rhoda, joyfully. Then her face fell, for maybe the letter would say Aunt Olivia was coming home.

“Is it from your aunt Olivia?” she asked, anxiously.

“No,” Rebecca Mary said, in slow surprise. “The writing isn't, anyway, and the name is another one—”

“Oh! Oh! Maybe she's got mar—”

“Rhoda!” cautioned the minister.

This is the letter Rebecca Mary read:

“Dear Rebecca Mary,—You see I know your name from your aunt. She talked about you all the time, but I am writing you of my own accord. She does not know it. I think you will like to know that at last we are feeling very hopeful about your aunt. We have been very anxious since the operation, she had so little strength to rally with. But now if she keeps on as well as this you will have her home again in a little while. The doctors say three weeks. She is the patientest patient in the ward. Yours very truly, Sara Ellen Nesbitt, Nurse” Ward A, Emmons Hospital

That was the letter. Rebecca Mary's face grew a little whiter at every line of it. At every line understanding grew clearer, till at the end she knew it all. She gave a little cry, and ran out of the room. Love and remorse and sympathy fought for first place in her laboring little breast. In the next few minutes she lived so long a time and thought so many thoughts! But above everything else towered joy that Aunt Olivia was coming home.

Rebecca Mary's eyes blazed with pride at being a Plummer. This kind of courage was the Plummer kind. The child's lank little figure seemed to grow taller and straighter. She held up her head splendidly and exulted. She felt like going up on the minister's housetop and proclaiming: “She's my aunt Olivia! She's mine! She's mine—I'm a Plummer, too! All o' you listen, she's my aunt Olivia, and she's coming home!”

Suddenly the child flung out her arms towards the south where Aunt Olivia was. And though she stood quite still, something within her seemed to spring away and go hurrying through the clear air.

“I shouldn't suppose Aunt Olivia would ever forgive me, but she's Aunt Olivia and she will,” wrote Rebecca Mary that night, her small, dark face full of a solemn peace—it seemed so long since she had been full of peace before. She wrote on eagerly:

“When she gets home Ime going to hug her I can't help it if it wont be keeping right on.”