m, it fell upon a
white and tempestuous ocean of counterpane, an ocean breaking into
strange movements of wave and crest and billow.

"Rebecca!"

The tone in which the word was voiced gave it all the effect of having
been shouted from the housetops.

A dark ruffled head and two frightened eyes appeared above the dimity
spread.

"What are you layin' on your good bed in the daytime for, messin' up
the feathers, and dirtyin' the comforter with your dusty boots?"

Rebecca rose guiltily. There seemed no excuse to make. Her offense was
beyond explanation or apology.

"I'm sorry, Aunt Mirandy-something came over me; I don't know what."

"Well, if it comes over you very soon again we'll have to find out what
't is. Spread your bed up smooth this minute, for 'Bijah Flagg's
bringin' your trunk upstairs, and I wouldn't let him see such a
cluttered-up room for anything; he'd tell it all over town."

When Mr. Cobb had put up his horses that night he carried a kitchen
chair to the side of his wife, who was sitting on the back porch.

"I brought a little Randall girl down on the stage from Maplewood
to-day, mother. She's related to the Sawyer girls an' is goin' to live
with 'em," he said, as he sat down and began to whittle. "She's
Aurelia's child, the sister that ran away with Susan Randall's son just
before we come here to live."

"How old a child?"

"Bout ten, or somewhere along there, an' small for her age; but land!
she might be a hundred to hear her talk! She kept me jumpin' tryin' to
answer her! Of all the queer children I ever come across she's the
queerest. She ain't no beauty--her face is all eyes; but if she ever
grows up to them eyes an' fills out a little she'll make folks stare.
Land, mother! I wish 't you could 'a' heard her talk."

"I don't see what she had to talk about, a child like that, to a
stranger," replied Mrs. Cobb.

"Stranger or no stranger, 't would n't make no difference to her. She'd
talk to a pump or a grindstone; she'd talk to herself ruther 'n keep
still."

"What did she talk about?

"Blamed if I can repeat any of it. She kept me so surprised I didn't
have my wits about me. She had a little pink sunshade--it kind o'
looked like a doll's umberella, 'n' she clung to it like a burr to a
woolen stockin'. I advised her to open it up--the sun was so hot; but
she said no, 't would fade, an' she tucked it under her dress. 'It's
the dearest thing in life to me,' says she, 'but it's a dreadfu