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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
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