ore to be a little girl in, and then she would grow up. But that
one day--Rebecca Mary got up hastily and went to find Aunt Olivia.

"Aunt Olivia," she began, without preamble--Rebecca Mary never
preambled--"Aunt Olivia, may I have a holiday tomorrow?"

Aunt Olivia was rocking in her easy chair on the porch. It had taken her
sixty-two years to learn to sit in an easy chair and rock. Even now, and
she had been home from the hospital many months, she felt a little
as though the friendly birds that perched on the porch railing were
twittering tauntingly, "Plummer! Plummer! Plummer!--rocking in an easy
chair!"

"May I, Aunt Olivia?" It was an unusual occurrence for Rebecca Mary to
ask again so soon. But this was an unusual occurrence. Aunt Olivia's
thin face turned affectionately towards the child.

"School doesn't begin again tomorrow, does it?" she said in surprise.
Weren't all Rebecca Mary's days now holidays?

"Oh no---no'm. But I mean may I skip my stents? And--and may I soak the
kettles and pans? Just tomorrow."

"Just tomorrow," repeated bewildered Aunt Olivia--"soak your--stents--"

"Because it's going to be a pretty busy day. It's going to be a--a
celebration," Rebecca Mary said, softly. There was a strangely exalted
look on her face. Oddly enough she was not afraid that Aunt Olivia would
say no.

Aunt Olivia said yes. She did not ask any questions about the
celebration, on account of the exalted look. She could wait. But the
bewildered look stayed for a while on her thin face. Rebecca Mary was
a queer child, a queer child--but she was a dear child. Dearness atoned
for queerness in Aunt Olivia's creed.

The celebration began early the next morning before Aunt Olivia was up.
She lay in bed and heard it begin. Rebecca Mary out in the dewy garden
was singing at the top of her voice. Aunt Olivia had never heard her
sing like that before--not at the top. Her sweet, shrill voice sounded
rather unacquainted with such free heights as that, and the woman in the
bed wondered with a staid little smile if it did not make Rebecca Mary
feel as she felt when she sat in the easy chair rocking.

Rebecca Mary sang hymns mostly, but interspersed in her programme were
bits of Mother Goose set to original tunes--she had learned the Mother
Goose of the minister's Littlest Little Boy--and original bits set to
familiar tunes. It was a wild little orgy of song.

"My grief!" Aunt Olivia ejaculated under her breath; but she did n