My dictionary is so small it has not many genteel words in it, and I cannot find how to spell Remerniscences, but I remember from the cover of Aunt Jane's book that there was an "s" and a "c" close together in the middle of it, which I thought foolish and not needful. All the girls like their diaries very much, but Minnie Smellie got Alice Robinson's where she had hid it under the school woodpile and read it all through. She said it was no worse than reading anybody's composition, but we told her it was just like peeking through a keyhole, or listening at a window, or opening a bureau drawer. She said she didn't look at it that way, and I told her that unless her eyes got unscealed she would never leave any kind of a sublime footprint on the sands of time. I told her a diary was very sacred as you generally poured your deepest feelings into it expecting nobody to look at it but yourself and your indulgent heavenly Father who seeeth all things. Of course, it would not hurt Persis Watson to show her diary because she has not a sacred plan and this is the way it goes, for she reads it out loud to us: "Arose at six this morning-(you always arise in a diary but you say get up when you talk about it). Ate breakfast at half-past six. Had soda biscuits, coffee, fish hash and doughnuts. Wiped the dishes, fed the hens and made my bed before school. Had a good arithmetic lesson, but went down two in spelling. At half past four played hide and coop in the Sawyer pasture. Fed hens and went to bed at eight." She says she can't put in what doesn't happen, but as I don't think her diary is interesting she will ask her mother to have meat hash instead of fish, and she will feed the hens before breakfast to make a change. We are all going now to try and and make something happen every single day so the diaries wont be so dull and the footprints so common. AN UNCOMMON THOUGHT We dug up our rosecakes to-day, and that gave me a good Remerniscence. The way you make rosecakes is, you take the leaves of full blown roses and mix them with a little cinnamon and as much brown sugar as they will give you, which is never half enough except Persis Watson, whose affectionate parents let her go to the barrel in their store. Then you do up little bits like sedlitz powders, first in soft paper and then in brown, and bury them in the ground and let them stay as long as you possibly can hold out; then dig them up and eat them. Emma Jane and I stick up little signs over the holes in the ground with the date we buried them and when they'll be done enough to dig up, but we never can wait. When Aunt Jane saw us she said it was the first thing for children to learn,— not to be impatient, so when I went to the barn chamber I made a poem. IMPATIENCE We dug our rose cakes up oh! all too soon. It was not that way at all; it was a foggy morning before school, and I should think poets could never possibly get to heaven, for it is so hard to stick to the truth when you are writing poetry. Emma Jane thinks it is nobody's business when we dug the rosecakes up. I like the line about the harvest moon best, but it would give a wrong idea of our lives and characters to the people that read my Thoughts, for they would think we were up late nights, so I have fixed it like this: IMPATIENCE We dug our rose cakes up oh! all too soon, That is just as Aunt Jane said it, and it gave me the thought for the poem. A DREADFUL QUESTION Which has the most benefercent influence on character-punishment or reward? This truly dreadful question was given us by Dr. Moses when he visited school today. He told us we could ask our families what they thought, though he would rather we wouldn't, but we must write our own words and he would hear them next week. After he went out and shut the door the scholars were all plunged in gloom and you could have heard a pin drop. Alice Robinson cried and borrowed my handkerchief, and the boys looked as if the schoolhouse had been struck by lightning. The worst of all was poor Miss Dearborn, who will lose her place if she does not make us brighter and smarter soon, for Dr. Moses has a smart daughter all ready to put right in to the school and she can board at home. Miss Dearborn stared out the window and her mouth and chin shook like Alice's, for she knew, ah! all too well, what the coming week would bring forth. Then I raised my hand for permission to speak, and stood up and said: "Miss Dearborn, don't you mind! Just explain tous what 'benefercent' means and we'll write something real interesting; for all of us know what punishment is, and have seen others get rewards, and it is not so bad a subject as some." And Dick Carter whispered, "Good on your head, Rebecca!" which meant he thought we could write something too. Then teacher smiled and said benefercent meant good or healthy for anybody, and would all rise who thought punishment made the best scholars and men and women; and everybody sat stock still. And then she asked all to stand who believed that rewards produced the finest results and there was a mighty sound like unto the rushing of waters, but really was our feet scraping the floor and the scholars stood up and it looked like an army, though it was only nineteen, because of the strong belief that was in them. Then Miss Dearborn laughed and said she was thankful for every whipping she had when she was a child, and Living Perkins said perhaps we hadn't got to the thankful age, or perhaps her father hadn't used a strap, and she said oh! no, it was her mother with the open hand, and Dick Carter said he wouldn't call that punishment and Sam Simpson said so too. I am going to write about the subject in my Thought Book first, and when I make it into a composition I can leave out anything about the family or not genteel. PUNISHMENT Punishment is a very puzzly thing but I believe in it when really deserved, only when I punish myself it does not always turn out well. When I leaned over the new bridge and got my dress all paint and Aunt Sarah Cobb couldn't get it out, I had to wear it spotted for six months which hurt my pride, but was right. I stayed at home from Alice Robinson's birthday party for a punishment and went to the circus next day instead, but Alice's parties are very cold and stiff, as Mrs. Robinson makes the boys stand on newspapers if they come inside the door, and the blinds are always shut, and Mrs. Robinson tells me how bad her liver complaint is this year. So I thought, to pay for the circus and a few other things, I ought to get more punishment, and I threw my pink parasol down the well, as the mothers in the missionary books throw their infants to the crocodiles in the Ganges river. But it got stuck in the chain that holds the bucket and Aunt Miranda had to get Abijah Flagg to take out all the broken bits before we could bring up water. I punished myself this way because Aunt Miranda said unless I improved I would be nothing but a Burden and a Blight. There was an old old man used to go by our farm carrying a lot of broken chairs to bottom, and mother used to say-"Poor man! his back is too weak for such a burden!" and I used to take him out a doughnut, and this is the part I want to go into the Remerniscences. Once I told him we were sorry the chairs were so heavy, and he said they didn't seem so heavy when he had et the doughnut. This is a beautiful thought and shows how the human race should have sympathy, and help bear burdens. I know about a Blight, for there was a dreadful east wind over at our farm that destroyed all the little young crops just out of the ground, and the farmers called it the Blight. And I would rather be hail, sleet, frost, or snow, than a Blight, which is mean and secret, and which is the reason I threw away the dearest thing on earth to me, the pink parasol that Miss Ross brought me from Paris, France. I have also wrapped up my bead purse in three papers and put it away marked not to be opened till after my death unless needed for a party. I must not be Burden, I must not be Blight, The angels in heaven would weep at the sight. REWARDS A good way to find out which has the most benefercent effect would be to try rewards on myself this next week and write my composition the very last day, when I see how my character is. It is hard to find rewards for yourself, but perhaps Aunt Jane and some of the girls would each give me one to help out. I could carry my bead purse to school every day, or wear my coral chain a little while before I go to sleep at night. I could read Cora or the Sorrows of a Doctor's Wife a little oftener, but that's all the rewards I can think of. I fear Aunt Miranda would say they are wicked but oh! if they should turn out benefercent how glad and joyful life would be to me! A sweet and beautiful character, beloved by my teacher and schoolmates, admired and petted by my aunts and neighbors, yet carrying my bead purse constantly, with perhaps my best hat on Wednesday afternoons, as well as Sundays! STORIES AND PEOPLE There are people in books and people in Riverboro, and they are not the same kind. They never talk of chargers and palfreys in the village, nor say How oft and Methinks, and if a Scotchman out of Rob Roy should come to Riverboro and want to marry one of us girls we could not understand him unless he made motions; though Huldah Meserve says if a nobleman of high degree should ask her to be his,-one of vast estates with serfs at his bidding-she would be able to guess his meaning in any language. Uncle Jerry Cobb thinks that Riverboro people would not make a story, but I know that some of them would. Jack o' Lantern, though only a baby, was just like a real story if anybody had written a piece about him: How his mother was dead and his father ran away and Emma Jane and I got Aunt Sarah Cobb to keep him so Mr. Perkins wouldn't take him to the poor farm; and about our lovely times with him all summer, and our dreadful loss when his father remembered him in the fall and came to take him away; and how Aunt Sarah carried the trundle bed up attic again and Emma Jane and I heard her crying and stole away. Mrs. Peter Meserve says Grandpa Sawyer was a wonderful hand at stories before his spirit was broken by grandmother. She says he was the life of the store and tavern when he was a young man, though always sober, and she thinks I take after him, because I like compositions better than all the other lessons; but mother says I take after father, who always could say everything nicely whether he had anything to say or not; so methinks I should be grateful to both of them. They are what is called ancestors and much depends upon whether you have them or not. The Simpsons have not any at all. Aunt Miranda says the reason everybody is so smart around here is because their ancestors were all first settlers and raised on burnt ground. This should make us very proud. Methinks and methought are splendid words for compositions. likes them very much, but Alice and I never bring them in to suit her. Methought means the same as I thought but sounds better. Example: If you are telling a dream you had about your aged aunt: Miss Dearborn Methought I heard her say My child you have so useful been This is a good example one way, but too unlikely, woe is me! This afternoon I was walking over to the store to buy molasses, and as I came off the bridge and turned up the hill, I saw lots and lots of heelprints in the side of the road,— heelprints with little spike-holes in them. "Oh! the river drivers have come from up country," I thought, "and they'll be breaking the jam at our falls to-morrow." I looked everywhere about and not a man did I see, but still I knew I was not mistaken for the heelprints could not lie. All the way over and back I thought about it, though forgetting the molasses, and Alice Robinson not being able to come out I took playtime to write a story. It is the first grown-up one I ever did, and is intended to be like Cora the Doctor's Wife, not like a school composition. It is written for Mr. Adam Ladd, and people like him who live in Boston, and is the printed kind you get money for, to pay off a morgage. LANCELOT OR THE PARTED LOVERS A beautiful village maiden was betrothed to a stallwart river driver, but they had high and bitter words and parted, he to weep into the crystal stream as he drove his logs, and she to sigh and moan as she went about her round of household tasks. At eventide the maiden was wont to lean over the bridge and her tears also fell into the foaming stream; so, though the two unhappy lovers did not know it, the river was their friend, the only one to whom they told before supper my story being finished I went their secrets and wept into. The months crept on and it was the next July when the maiden was passing over the bridge and up the hill. Suddenly she spied footprints on the sands of time. "The river drivers have come again!" she cried, putting her hand to her side for she had a slight heart trouble like Cora and Mrs. Peter Meserve, that doesn't kill. "They have come indeed; especially one you know," said a voice, and out from the alder bushes sprung Lancelot Littlefield, for that was the lover's name and it was none other than he. His hair was curly and of living gold. His shirt, while of flannel, was new and dry, and of a handsome color, and as the maiden looked at him she could think of naught but a fairy prince. "Forgive," she murmured, stretching out her waisted hands. "Nay, sweet," he replied. ""Tis I should say that to you," and bending gracefully on one knee he kissed the hem of her dress. It was a rich pink gingham check, ellaborately ornamented with white tape trimming. Clasping each other to the heart like Cora and the Doctor, they stood there for a long while, till they heard the rumble of wheels on the bridge and knew they must disentangle. The wheels came nearer and lo! it was the maiden's father. "Can I wed with your fair daughter this very moon," asked Lancelot, who will not be called his whole name again in this story. "You may," said the father, "for lo! she has been ready and waiting for many months." This he said not noticing how he was shaming the maiden. Then and there the nuptial day was appointed and when it came, the marriage knot was tied upon the river bank where first they met; the river bank where they had parted in anger, and where they had again scealed their vows and clasped each other to the heart. And it was very low water that summer, and the river always thought it was because no tears dropped into it but so many smiles that like sunshine they dried it up. R. R. R. Finis. A GREAT SHOCK The reason why Alice Robinson could not play was, she was being punished for breaking her mother's blue platter. Just up Guide Board hill to see how she was bearing up and she spoke to me from her window. She said she did not mind being punished because she hadn't been for a long time, and she hoped it would help her with her composition. She thought it would give her thoughts, and to-morrow's the last day for her to have any. This gave me a good idea and I told her to call her father up and beg him to beat her violently. It would hurt, I said, but perhaps none of the other girls would have a punishment like that, and her composition would be all different and splendid. I would borrow Aunt Miranda's witchhayzel and pour it on her wounds like the Sumaritan in the Bible. I went up again after supper with Dick Carter to see how it turned out. Alice came to the window and Dick threw up a note tied to a stick. I had written: "Demand your punishment to the full. Be brave, like Dolores' mother in the Martyrs of Spain." She threw down an answer and it was: "You just be like Dolores' mother yourself if you're so smart!" Then she stamped away from the window and my feelings were hurt, but Dick said perhaps she was hungry. And as Dick and I turned to go out of the yard we looked back and I saw something I can never forget. (The Great Shock) Mrs. Robinson was out behind the barn feeding the turkies. Mr. Robinson came softly out of the side door in the orcherd and looking everywheres around he stepped to the wire closet and took out a saucer of cold beans with a pickled beet on top, and a big piece of blueberry pie. Then he crept up the back stairs and we could see Alice open her door and take in the supper! Oh! what will become of her composition, and how can she tell anything of the benefercent effects of punishment, when she is locked up by one parent, and fed by the other? I have forgiven her for the way she snapped me up for, of course, you couldn't beg your father to beat you when he was bringing you blueberry pie. Mrs. Robinson makes a kind that leaks out a thick purple juice into the plate and needs a spoon, and blacks your mouth, but is heavenly. A DREAM The week is almost up and very soon Dr. Moses will drive up to the school house like Elijah in the chariot and come in to hear us read. There is a good deal of sickness among us. Some of the boys are not able to come to school just now, but hope to be about again by Monday, when Dr. Moses goes away to a convention. It is a very hard composition to write, somehow. Last night I dreamed that the river was ink and I kept dipping into it and writing with a penstalk made of a young pine tree. I sliced great slabs of marble off the side of one of the White Mountains, the one you see when going to meeting, and wrote on those. Then I threw them all into the falls, not being good enough for Dr. Moses. Dick Carter had a splendid boy to stay over Sunday. He makes the real newspaper named The Pilot published by the boys at Wareham Academy. He says when he talks about himself in writing he calls himself "we," and it sounds much more like print, besides conscealing him more. Example: Our hair was measured this morning and has grown two inches since last time.. We have a loose tooth that troubles us very much. . . . Our inkspot that we made by negligence on our only white petticoat we have been able to remove with lemon and milk. I shall try it in my composition sometime for of course I shall write for The Pilot when I go to Wareham Seminary. I have never been more good than since I have been rewarding myself steady, even to asking Aunt Miranda kindly to offer me a company jelly-tart, not because I was hungry but for an experement I was trying, and would explain to her sometime. She said she never thought it was wise to experement with your stomach, and I said, with a queer thrilling look, it was not my stomach but my soul, that was being tried. Then she gave me the tart and walked away all puzzled. The new minister has asked me to come and see him any Saturday afternoon as he writes poetry himself, but I would rather not ask him about this composition. Ministers never believe in rewards, and it is useless to hope that they will. We had the wrath of God four times in sermons this last summer, but he cannot be angry all the time, -nobody could, especially in summer. MY CAREER . Miss Ross. Uncle Jerry did not like my story Lancelot or The Parted Lovers. (The pathetic announcement of a change in the career and life purpose of Rebecca was brought about by her reading the grown-up story to Mr. and Mrs. Jeremiah Cobb after supper in the orchard. Uncle Jerry was the person who had maintained all along that Riverboro people would not make a story; and Lancelot or The Parted Lovers was intended to refute that assertion at once and forever; an assertion, which Rebecca regarded (quite truly) as untenable, though why, she certainly never could have explained. Unfortunately Lancelot was a poor missionary, quite unfitted for the high achievements to which he was destined by the youthful novelist, and Uncle Jerry, though a stage-driver and no reading man, at once perceived the flabbiness and transparency of the Parted Lovers the moment they were held up to his inspection. "You see Riverboro people will make a story!" asserted Rebecca triumphantly as she finished her reading and folded the paper. "And it all came from my noticing the river drivers' tracks by the roadside, and wondering about them; and wondering always makes stories, the minister says so.' "Ye-es," allowed Uncle Jerry reflectively, tipping his chair back against the appletree and forcing his slow mind to violent and instantaneous action, for Rebecca was his pride and joy; a person, in his opinion, of superhuman talent, one therefore to be "whittled into shape" if occasion demanded. "It's a Riverboro story, sure enough, because you've got the river and the bridge and the hill, and the drivers all right there in it; but there's something awful queer 'bout it; the folks don't act Riverboro, and don't talk Riverboro, 'cordin' to my notions. I call it a reg'lar book story." "But," objected Rebecca, "the people in Cinderella didn't act like us, and you thought that was a beautiful story when I told it to you." "I know," replied Uncle Jerry, gaining eloquence in the heat of argument. "They didn't act like us, but 't any rate they acted like 'emselves! Somehow they was all of a piece. Cinderella was a little too good, mebbe, and the sisters was most too thunerin' bad to live on the face o' the earth, and N. B. I have decided to be a painter like that there old lady that kep' the punkin' |