Aunt Olivia sighed. It was the third time since she had begun to let Rebecca Mary down. The third sigh was the longest one. Oh, this letting down of children who would grow up!
“I won't do it!” Aunt Olivia rebelled, fiercely, but she took up her scissors again at Duty's nudge.
“You don't want people laughing at her, do you?” Duty said, sensibly. “Well, then, rip out that hem and face up that skirt and stop sighing. What can't be cured must be endur—”
“I'm ripping it out,” Aunt Olivia interrupted, crisply. But Duty was not to be silenced.
“You ought to have done it before,” dictatorially. “You've known all along that Rebecca Mary was growing up.”
Aunt Olivia, like the proverbial worm, turned.
“I didn't know till Rebecca Mary told me,” she retorted; then the rebellion died out of her thin face and tenderness came and took its place. Aunt Olivia was thinking of the time when Rebecca Mary told her. She gazed past Duty, past the skirt across her knees, out through the porch vines, and saw Rebecca Mary coming to tell her. She saw the shawl the child was bringing, felt it laid on her shoulders, and something else laid on her hair, soft and smooth like a little, lean, brown cheek. The memory was so pleasant that Aunt Olivia closed her eyes to make it stay. When she opened them some one was coming along the path, but it was not Rebecca Mary.
“Good afternoon!” some one said. Aunt Olivia stiffened into a Plummer again with hurried embarrassment. She did not recognize the voice nor the pleasant young face that followed it through the vines.
“It's Rebecca Mary's aunt, isn't it?” The stranger smiled. “I should know it by the family resemblance.”
“We're both Plummers,” Aunt Olivia answered, gravely. “Won't you come up on the porch and take a seat?”
“No, I'll sit down here on the steps—I'd rather. I think I'll sit on the lowest step for I've come on a very humble errand! I'm Rebecca Mary's teacher.”
“Oh!” It was all Aunt Olivia could manage, for a sudden horror had come upon her. She had a distinct remembrance of being at the Tony Trumbullses when the school teacher came to call.
“It's—it's rather hard to say it.” The young person on the lowest step laughed nervously. “I'd a good deal rather not. But I think so much of Rebecca Mary—”
The horror grew in Aunt Olivia's soul. It was something terribly like that the Tony Trumbullses' teacher had said. And like this:
“It hurts—there! But I made up my mind it was my duty to come up here and say it, and so I've come. I'm sorry to have to say—”
“Don't!” ejaculated Aunt Olivia, trembling on her Plummer pedestal. For she was laboring with the impulse to refuse to listen to this intruder, to drive her away—to say: “I won't believe a word you say! You may as well go home.”
“Hoity-toity!” breathed Duty in her ear. It saved her.
“Well?” she said, gently. “Go on.”
“I'm sorry to say I can't teach Rebecca Mary any more, Miss Plummer. That's what I came to tell you—”
This was awful—awful! But hot rebellion rose in Aunt Olivia's heart. There was some mistake—it was some other Rebecca Mary this person meant. She would never believe it was HERS—the Plummer one!
“Because I've taught her all I know. There! Do you wonder I chose the lowest step to sit on? But it's the truth, honest,” the little teacher laughed girlishly, but there were shame spots on her cheeks—“Rebecca Mary is the smartest scholar I've got, and I've taught her all I know.” In her voice there was confession to having taught Rebecca Mary a little more than that. The shame spots flickered in a halo of humble honesty.
“She's been from Percentage through the arithmetic four times—Rebecca Mary's splendid in arithmetic. And she knows the geography and grammar by heart.”
The look on Aunt Olivia's face! The transition from horror to pride was overwhelming, transfiguring.
“Rebecca Mary's smart,” added the honest one on the doorstep. “I think she ought to have a chance. There! That's all I came for, so I'll be going. Only, I don't suppose—you don't think you'll have to tell Rebecca Mary, do you? About—about me, I mean?”
“No, I don't,” Aunt Olivia assured her, warmly. Her thin, lined hand met and held for a moment the small, plump one—long enough to say, “You're a good girl—I like you,” in its own way. The little teacher went away in some sort comforted for having taught Rebecca Mary all she knew. She even hummed a relieved little tune on her way home, because of the pleasant tingle in the hand that Rebecca Mary's aunt had squeezed. After all, no matter how much you dreaded doing it, it was better to tell the truth.
Aunt Olivia hummed no relieved little tune. The pride in her heart battled with the Dread there and went down. Aunt Olivia did not call the Dread by any other name. It was Duty who dared.
Confronting Aunt Olivia: “I suppose you know what it means? I suppose you know it means you've got to give Rebecca Mary a chance? When are you going to send her away to school?”
“Oh—don't!” pleaded Aunt Olivia. “You don't give me any time. There's no need of hurry—”
“I'm still a Plummer, if you're not,” broke in Duty, with ironic sharpness. “The Plummers were never afraid to look their duty in the face.”
“I'm—I'm looking at you,” groaned Aunt Olivia, climbing painfully back on to her pedestal. “Go ahead and say it. I'm ready—only I guess you've forgot how long I've had Rebecca Mary. When you've brought a child up—”
“I brought her up myself,” calmly. “I ought to know. She wouldn't have been Rebecca Mary, would she, if I hadn't been right on hand? Who was it taught her to sew patchwork before she was four years old? And make sheets—and beds—and bread? Who was it kept her from being a little tomboy like the minister's girl? Who taught her to walk instead of run, and eat with her fork, and be a lady? Who was it—”
“Oh, you—you!” sighed Aunt Olivia, trembling for her balance. “You did 'em all. I never could've alone.”
“Then”—Duty was justly complacent—“Then perhaps you'll be willing to leave Rebecca Mary's going away to school to me. She must go at once, as soon as you can get her read—”
Aunt Olivia tumbled off. She did not wait to pick herself up before she turned upon this Duty that delighted in torturing her.
“You better get her ready yourself! You better let her down and make her some nightgowns and count her pocket-handkerchiefs! You think you can do anything—no, I'M talking now! I guess it's my turn. I guess I've waited long enough. Maybe you brought Rebecca Mary up, but I'm not going to leave it to you whether she'd ought to go away to school. She's my Rebecca Mary, isn't she? Well? It's me that loves her, isn't it—not you? If I can't love her and stay a Plummer, then I'll—love her. I'm going to leave it to the minister.”
The minister was a little embarrassed. The wistful look in Aunt Olivia's eyes said, “Say no” so plainly. And he knew he must say yes—the minister's Duty was imperative, too.
“If she can't get any more good out of the school here—” he began.
“She can't,” said Aunt Olivia's Duty for her. “The teacher says she can't. Rebecca Mary's smart.” Then Duty, too, was proud of Rebecca Mary!
“I know she is,” said the minister, heartily. “My Rhoda—you ought to hear my Rhoda set her up. She thinks Rebecca Mary knows more than the teacher does.”
“Rhoda's smart, too,” breathed Duty in Aunt Olivia's ear.
“So you see, dear Miss Olivia, the child would make good use of any advantage—”
“You mean I ought to send her away? Well, I'm ready to—I said I'd leave it to you. Where shall I send her? If there was only—I don't suppose there's some place near to? Children go home Friday nights sometimes, don't they?”
“There is no school near enough for that, I'm afraid,” the minister said, gently. He could not bear the look in Miss Olivia's eyes.
“It hurt,” he told his wife afterwards. “I wish she hadn't asked me, Felicia.”
“I know, dear, but it's the penalty of being a minister. Ministers' hearts ought to be coated with—with asbestos or something, so the looks in people's eyes wouldn't burn through. I'm glad she didn't ask ME!”
“It will nearly kill them both,” ran on the minister's thoughts, aloud. “You know how it was when Miss Olivia was at the hospital.”
“Robert!”—the minister's wife's tone was reproachful—“you're talking in the future tense! You said 'will.' Then you advised her to send Rebecca Mary away!”
“Guilty,” pleaded the minister. “What else could I do?”
“You could have offered to teach her yourself”—with prompt inspiration. “Oh, Robert, why didn't you?”
“Felicia!—my dear!”—for the minister was modest.
“You know plenty for two Rebecca Marys,” she triumphed. “Didn't you appropriate all the honors at college, you selfish boy!”
“It's too late now, dear.” But the minister's eyes thanked her, and the big clasp of his arms. A minister may be mortal.
“Maybe it is and maybe it isn't,” spoke the minister's wife, in riddles. “We'll wait and see.”
“But, Felicia—but, dear, they're both them Plummers.”
“Maybe they are and maybe they aren't,” laughed she.
That night Aunt Olivia told Rebecca Mary—after she went to bed, quite calmly:
“Rebecca Mary, how would you like to go away to school? For I'm going to send you, my dear.”
“'Away—to school—my dear!'” echoed Rebecca Mary, sitting upright in bed. Her slight figure stretched up rigid and preternaturally tall in the dim light.
“Yes; the minister advises it—I left it to him. He thinks you ought to have advantages.” Aunt Olivia slipped down suddenly beside the little rigid figure and touched it rather timidly. She felt a little in awe of the Rebecca Mary who knew more than her teacher did.
“They all seem to think you're—smart, my dear,” Aunt Olivia said, and she would scarcely have believed it could be so hard to say it. For the life of her she could not keep the pride from pricking through her tone. The wild temptation to sell her Plummer birthright for a kiss assailed her. But she groped in the dimness for Duty's cool touch and found it. In the Plummer code of laws it was writ, “Thou shalt not kiss.”
“I'm going right to work to make you some new nightgowns,” Aunt Olivia added, hastily. “I think I shall make them plain,” for it was in the nature of a reinforcement to her courage to leave off the ruffles.
Rebecca Mary's eyes shone like stars in the dark little room. The child thought she was glad to be going away to school.
“Shall I study algebra and Latin?” she demanded.
“I suppose so—that'll be what you go for.”
“And French—not FRENCH?”
“Likely.”
Rebecca Mary fell back on the pillows to grasp it. But she was presently up again.
“And that thing that tells about the air and—and gassy things? And the one that tells about your bones?”
Aunt Olivia did not recognize chemistry, but she knew bones. She sighed gently.
“Oh yes; I suppose you'll find out just how you're put together, and likely it'll scare you so you won't ever dare to breathe deep again. Maybe learning like that is important—I suppose the minister knows.”
“The minister knows everything,” Rebecca Mary said, solemnly. “If you let me go away to school, I'll try to learn to know as much as he does, Aunt Olivia. You don't—you don't think he'd mind, do you?”
In the dark Aunt Olivia smiled. The small person there on the pillows was, after all, a child. Rebecca Mary had not grown up, after all!
“He won't mind,” promised Aunt Olivia for the minister. She went away presently and cut out Rebecca Mary's new nightgowns. She sat and stitched them, far into the night, and stitched her sad little bodings in, one by one. Already desolation gripped Aunt Olivia's heart.
Rebecca Mary's dreams that night were marvelous ones. She dreamed she saw herself in a glass after she had learned all the things there were to learn, and she looked like the minister! When she spoke, her voice sounded deep and sweet like the minister's voice. Somewhere a voice like the minister's wife's seemed to be calling “Robert! Robert!”
“Yes?” answered Rebecca Mary, and woke up.
There were many preparations to make. The days sped by busily, and to Rebecca Mary full of joyous expectancy. Aunt Olivia made no moan. She worked steadily over the plain little outfit and thrust her Dreads away with resolute courage, to wait until Rebecca Mary was gone. Time enough then.
“You're doing right—that ought to comfort you,” encouraged Duty, kindly.
“Clear out!” was what Aunt Olivia cried out, sharply, in answer. “You've done enough—this is all your work! Don't stand there hugging yourself. YOU'RE not going to miss Rebecca Mary—”
“I shall miss her,” Duty murmured. “I was awake all night, too, dreading it. You didn't know, but I was there.”
The last day, when it came, seemed a little—a good deal—like that other day when Aunt Olivia went away, only it was the other way about this time. Rebecca Mary was going away on this day. The things packed snugly in the big valise were her things; it was she, Rebecca Mary, who would unpack them in a wondrous, strange place. It was Rebecca Mary the minister's wife and Rhoda came to bid good-bye.
Aunt Olivia went to the station in the stage with the child. She did not speak much on the way, but sat firmly straight and smiled. Duty had told her the last thing to smile. But Duty had not trusted her; unseen and uninvited, Duty had slipped into the jolting old vehicle between Aunt Olivia and Rebecca Mary.
“She isn't the Plummer she was once,” sighed Duty.
But at the little station, in those few final moments, two Plummers, an old one and a young one, waited quietly together. Neither of them broke down nor made ado. Duty retired in palpable chagrin.
“Good-bye, my dear,” Aunt Olivia said, steadily, though her lips were white.
“Good-bye, Aunt Olivia,” Rebecca Mary Plummer said, steadily. “I'm very MUCH obliged to you for sending me.”
“You're—welcome. Don't forget to wear your rubbers. I put in some liniment in case you need it—don't get any in your eyes.”
Outside on the platform Aunt Olivia sought and found Rebecca Mary's window and stood beside it till the train started. Through the dusty pane their faces looked oddly unfamiliar to each other, and the two pairs of eyes that gazed out and in had a startled wistfulness in them that no Plummer eyes should have. If Duty had staid—
The train shook itself, gave a jerk or two, and plunged down the shining rails. Aunt Olivia watched it out of sight, then turned patiently to meet her loneliness. The Dreads came flocking back to her as if she had beckoned to them. For now was the time.
The letters Rebecca Mary wrote were formally correct and brief. There was no homesickness in them. It was pleasant at the school, that book about bones was going to be very interesting. Aunt Olivia was not to worry about the rubbers, and Rebecca Mary would never forget to air her clothes when they came from the wash. Yes, she had aired the nightgown that Aunt Olivia ironed the last thing. No, she hadn't needed any liniment yet, but she wouldn't get any in her eyes.
Aunt Olivia's letters were to the point and calm, as though Duty stood peering over her shoulder as she wrote. She was glad Rebecca Mary liked the bones, but she was a little surprised. She was glad about the rubbers and the wash; she was glad there had been no need yet for the liniment. It was a good thing to rub on a sore throat. The minister's wife had been over with her work she said Rhoda missed Rebecca Mary. Yes, the little, white cat was well—no, she hadn't caught any mice. The calla lily had two buds, the Northern Spy tree was not going to bear very well.
“Robert, I've been to see Miss Olivia,” the minister's wife said at tea.
“Yes?” The minister waited. He knew it was coming.
“She was knitting stockings for Rebecca Mary. Robert, she sat there and smiled till I had to come home to cry!”
“My dear!—do you want me to cry, too?”
“I'm a-going to,” sniffed Rhoda. “I feel it coming.”
“She is so lonely, Robert! It would break your heart to see her smile. How do I know she is? Oh no—no, she didn't say she was! But I saw her eyes and she let the little, white cat get up in her lap!”
“Proof enough,” the minister said, gently.
Between the two of them—the child at school and Aunt Olivia at home—letters came and went for six weeks. Aunt Olivia wrote six, Rebecca Mary six. All the letters were terse and brief and unemotional. Weather, bones, little white cats, liniment—everything in them but loneliness or love. Rebecca Mary began all hers “Dear Aunt Olivia,” and ended them all “Respectfully your niece, Rebecca Mary Plummer.”
“Dear Rebecca Mary,” began Aunt Olivia's. “Your aff. aunt, Olivia Plummer,” they closed. Yet both their hearts were breaking. Some hearts break quicker than others; Plummer hearts hold out splendidly, but in the end—
In the end Aunt Olivia went to see the minister and was closeted with him for a little. The minister's wife could hear them talking—mostly the minister—but she could not hear what they said.
“It's come,” she nodded, sagely. “I was sure it would. That's what the little, white cat purred when she rubbed against my skirts, 'She can't stand it much longer. She doesn't sleep nights nor eat days—she's giving out.' Poor Miss Olivia!—but I can't understand Rebecca Mary.”
“It's the Plummer in her,” the little, white cat would have purred. “You wait!”
Aunt Olivia turned back at the minister's study door. “Then you will?” she said, eagerly. “You're perfectly willing to? I don't want to feel—”
“You needn't feel,” the minister smiled. “I'm more than willing. I'm delighted. But in the matter of—er—remuneration, I cannot let you—”
“You needn't let me,” smiled Miss Olivia; “I'll do it without.” She was gently radiant. Her pitifully thin face, so transfigured, touched the big heart of the minister. He went to his window and watched the slight figure hurry away. He would scarcely have been surprised to see it turn down the road that led towards the railway station.
“Oh, Robert!” It was the minister's wife at his elbow. “You dear boy, I know you've promised! You needn't tell me a thing—didn't I suggest it in the first place? Dear Miss Olivia—I'm so glad, Robert! So are you glad, you minister!” But they were neither of them thinking of little, stubbed-out shoes that would be easier to buy.
Aunt Olivia turned down the station road the next morning, in the swaying old stage. Her eager gaze never left the plodding horses, as if by looking at them she could make them go faster.
“They're pretty slow, aren't they?” she said.
“Slow—THEM? Well, I guess you weren't never a stage horse!” chuckled the old man at the reins.
“No,” admitted Aunt Olivia, “I never was, but I know I'd go faster today.”
At the Junction, halfway to Rebecca Mary, she descended alertly from the train and crossed the platform. She must wait here, they told her, an hour and twenty minutes. On the other side of the station a train was just slowing up, and she stood a moment to scan idly the thin stream of people that trickled from the cars. There were old women—did any of them, she wondered, feel as happy as she did? There were tall children, too. There was one—Aunt Olivia started a little and fumbled in her soft hair, under the roses in her bonnet brim, for her glasses. There was one tall child—she was coming this way—she was coming fast—she was running! Her arms were out—
“Aunt Olivia! Aunt Olivia!” the Tall Child was crying out, joyously, “Oh, Aunt Olivia!”
“Rebecca Mary!—my dear, my dear!”
They were in each other's arms. The roses on Aunt Olivia's bonnet brim slipped to one side—the two of them, not Plummers any more, but a common, glad old woman and a common, glad, tall child, were kissing each other as though they would never stop. The stream of people reached them and flowed by on either side. Trains came and went, and still they stood like that.
“Hoity-toity!” muttered Aunt Olivia's Duty, and slipped past with the stream. A Plummer to the end, what use to stay any longer there?
“I was coming home,” cried Rebecca Mary. “I couldn't bear it another minute!”
“I was coming after you—my dear, my DEAR, I couldn't bear it another minute!”
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg