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Rebecca Mary By: Annie Hamilton Donnell (1862-) |
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By Annie Hamilton Donnell Contents I. THE HUNDRED AND ONETH II. THE THOUSAND QUILT III. THE BIBLE DREAM IV. THE COOK BOOK DIARY V. THE BEREAVEMENT VI. THE FEEL DOLL VII. THE PLUMMER KIND VIII. ARTICLE SEVEN IX. UN PLUMMERED The Hundred and Oneth Rebecca Mary took another stitch. Then another. "Ninety sevvun,
ninety eight," she counted aloud, her little pointed face gravely
intent. She waited the briefest possible space before she took
ninety nine. It was getting very close to the Time now. "At the hundred
an' oneth," Rebecca Mary whispered. "It's almost it." Her breath came
quicker under her tight little dress. Between her thin, light eyebrows a
crease deepened anxiously. "Ninety n i n e," she counted, "one hun der ed" it was so very close
now! The next stitch would be the hundred and oneth. Rebecca Mary's face
suddenly grew quite white. "I'll wait a m minute," she decided; "I'm just a little scared. When
you've been lookin' head to the hundred and oneth so LONG and you get
the very next door to it, it scares you a little. I'll wait until oh,
until Thomas Jefferson crows, before I sew the hundred and oneth." Thomas Jefferson was prospecting under the currant bushes. Rebecca Mary
could see him distinctly, even with her nearsighted little eyes, for
Thomas Jefferson was snow white. Once in a while he stalked dignifiedly
out of the bushes and crowed. He might do it again any minute now. The great sheet billowed and floated round Rebecca Mary, scarcely whiter
than her face. She held her needle poised, waiting the signal of Thomas
Jefferson. At any minute.... He was coming out now! A fleck of
snow white was pricking the green of the currant leaves. "He's out. Any minute he'll begin to cr " He was already beginning! The
warning signals were out chest expanding, neck elongating, and great
white wing aflap. "I'm just a little scared," breathed the child in the foam of the sheet.
Then Thomas Jefferson crowed. "Hundred and one!" Rebecca Mary cried out, clearly, courage born within
her at the crucial instant. The Time the Time had come. She had taken
her last stitch. "It's over," she panted. "It always was a coming, and it's come. I knew
it would. When it's come, you don't feel quite so scared. I'm glad it's
over." She folded up the great sheet carefully, making all the edges meet with
painful precision. It took time. She had left the needle sticking in the
unfinished seam in the hundred and oneth stitch and close beside it
was a tiny dot of red to "keep the place." "Rebecca! Rebecca Mary!" Aunt Olivia always called like that. If there
had been still another name Rebecca Mary Something Else she would have
called: "Rebecca! Rebecca Mary! Rebecca Mary Something Else!" "Yes'm; I'm here." "Where's 'here'?" sharply. "HERE the grape arbor, I mean." "Have you got your sheet?" "I yes'm." "Is your stent 'most done?" Rebecca Mary rose slowly to her reluctant little feet, and with the
heavy sheet across her arm went to meet the sharp voice. At last the
Time had come. "Well?" Aunt Olivia was waiting for her answer. Rebecca Mary groaned.
Aunt Olivia would not think it was "well." "Well, Rebecca Mary Plummer, you came to fetch my answer, did you? You
got your stent 'most done?" Aunt Olivia's hands were extended for the
folded sheet. "I've got it DONE, Aunt 'Livia," answered little Rebecca Mary, steadily.
Her slender figure, in its quaint, scant dress, looked braced as if to
meet a shock. But Rebecca Mary was terribly afraid. "Every mite o' that seam? Then I guess you can't have done it very well;
that's what I guess! If it ain't done well, you'll have to take it " "Wait please, won't you wait, Aunt 'Livia? I've got to say something.
I mean, I've got all the over 'n' overing I'm ever going to do done.
THAT'S what's done. The hundred and oneth stitch was my stent, and it's
done. I'm not ever going to take the hundred and twoth. I've decided." Understanding filtered drop by drop into Aunt Olivia's bewildered brain... Continue reading book >>
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Fiction |
Literature |
Short stories |
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