er expert, unless aided by the powers
of darkness, could have accomplished this feat; but a luckless child in
the pursuit of virtue had done it with a turn of the wrist.

We will draw a veil over the scene that occurred after Rebecca's return
from school. You who read may be well advanced in years, you may be
gifted in rhetoric, ingenious in argument; but even you might quail at
the thought of explaining the tortuous mental processes that led you
into throwing your beloved pink parasol into Miranda Sawyer's well.
Perhaps you feel equal to discussing the efficacy of spiritual
self-chastisement with a person who closes her lips into a thin line
and looks at you out of blank, uncomprehending eyes! Common sense,
right, and logic were all arrayed on Miranda's side. When poor Rebecca,
driven to the wall, had to avow the reasons lying behind the sacrifice
of the sunshade, her aunt said, "Now see here, Rebecca, you're too big
to be whipped, and I shall never whip you; but when you think you ain't
punished enough, just tell me, and I'll make out to invent a little
something more. I ain't so smart as some folks, but I can do that much;
and whatever it is, it'll be something that won't punish the whole
family, and make 'em drink ivory dust, wood chips, and pink silk rags
with their water."

XIII

SNOW-WHITE; ROSE-RED

Just before Thanksgiving the affairs of the Simpsons reached what might
have been called a crisis, even in their family, which had been born
and reared in a state of adventurous poverty and perilous uncertainty.

Riverboro was doing its best to return the entire tribe of Simpsons to
the land of its fathers, so to speak, thinking rightly that the town
which had given them birth, rather than the town of their adoption,
should feed them and keep a roof over their heads until the children
were of an age for self-support. There was little to eat in the
household and less to wear, though Mrs. Simpson did, as always, her
poor best. The children managed to satisfy their appetites by sitting
modestly outside their neighbors' kitchen doors when meals were about
to be served. They were not exactly popular favorites, but they did
receive certain undesirable morsels from the more charitable housewives.

Life was rather dull and dreary, however, and in the chill and gloom of
November weather, with the vision of other people's turkeys bursting
with fat, and other people's golden pumpkins and squashes and corn
being garne