New Chronicles of Rebecca | Page 9

let me have the Simpson baby when I wanted to borrow her just for one
rainy Sunday."
"My mother won't keep him, so it's no use to ask her; she says most
every day she's glad we're grown up, and she thanks the Lord there
wasn't but two of us."

"And Mrs. Peter Meserve is too nervous," Rebecca went on, taking the
village houses in turn; "and Mrs. Robinson is too neat."
"People don't seem to like any but their own babies," observed Emma
Jane.
"Well, I can't understand it," Rebecca answered. "A baby's a baby, I
should think, whose ever it is! Miss Dearborn is coming back Monday;
I wonder if she'd like it? She has nothing to do out of school, and we
could borrow it all the time!"
"I don't think it would seem very genteel for a young lady like Miss
Dearborn, who 'boards round,' to take a baby from place to place,"
objected Emma Jane.
"Perhaps not," agreed Rebecca despondently, "but I think if we haven't
got any--any--PRIVATE babies in Riverboro we ought to have one for
the town, and all have a share in it. We've got a town hall and a town
lamp post and a town watering trough. Things are so uneven! One
house like mine at Sunnybrook, brimful of children, and the very next
one empty! The only way to fix them right would be to let all the
babies that ever are belong to all the grown-up people that ever
are,--just divide them up, you know, if they'd go round. Oh, I have a
thought! Don't you believe Aunt Sarah Cobb would keep him? She
carries flowers to the graveyard every little while, and once she took
me with her. There's a marble cross, and it says: SACRED TO THE
MEMORY OF SARAH ELLEN, BELOVED CHILD OF SARAH
AND JEREMIAH COBB, AGED 17 MONTHS. Why, that's another
reason; Mrs. Dennett says this one is seventeen months. There's five of
us left at the farm without me, but if we were only nearer to Riverboro,
how quick mother would let in one more!"
"We might see what father thinks, and that would settle it," said Emma
Jane. "Father doesn't think very sudden, but he thinks awful strong. If
we don't bother him, and find a place ourselves for the baby, perhaps
he'll be willing. He's coming now; I hear the wheels."
Lizy Ann Dennett volunteered to stay and perform the last rites with

the undertaker, and Jack-o'-lantern, with his slender wardrobe tied in a
bandanna handkerchief, was lifted into the wagon by the reluctant Mr.
Perkins, and jubilantly held by Rebecca in her lap. Mr. Perkins drove
off as speedily as possible, being heartily sick of the whole affair, and
thinking wisely that the little girls had already seen and heard more
than enough of the seamy side of life that morning.
Discussion concerning Jack-o'-lantern's future was prudently deferred
for a quarter of an hour, and then Mr. Perkins was mercilessly pelted
with arguments against the choice of the poor farm as a place of
residence for a baby.
"His father is sure to come back some time, Mr. Perkins," urged
Rebecca. "He couldn't leave this beautiful thing forever; and if Emma
Jane and I can persuade Mrs. Cobb to keep him a little while, would
you care?"
No; on reflection Mr. Perkins did not care. He merely wanted a quiet
life and enough time left over from the public service to attend to his
blacksmith's shop; so instead of going home over the same road by
which they came he crossed the bridge into Edgewood and dropped the
children at the long lane which led to the Cobb house.
Mrs. Cobb, "Aunt Sarah" to the whole village, sat by the window
looking for Uncle Jerry, who would soon be seen driving the noon
stage to the post office over the hill. She always had an eye out for
Rebecca, too, for ever since the child had been a passenger on Mr.
Cobb's stagecoach, making the eventful trip from her home farm to the
brick house in Riverboro in his company, she had been a constant
visitor and the joy of the quiet household. Emma Jane, too, was a
well-known figure in the lane, but the strange baby was in the nature of
a surprise--a surprise somewhat modified by the fact that Rebecca was
a dramatic personage and more liable to appear in conjunction with
curious outriders, comrades, and retainers than the ordinary Riverboro
child. She had run away from the too stern discipline of the brick house
on one occasion, and had been persuaded to return by Uncle Jerry. She
had escorted a wandering organ grinder to their door and begged a
lodging for him on a rainy night; so on the