ntrepidly. She even grew on friendly
terms with it in the end. Here was a way to surprise Aunt 'Livia;
Rebecca Mary would do it! That it would entail an almost endless amount
of work did not daunt her: Rebecca Mary was a Plummer, and Plummers were
not to be daunted. The long vista of patient hours of trying labor that
the plan opened up before her set her blood tingling like a warrior's on
the eve of battle. What were long, patient hours to a Plummer? Rebecca
Mary girded up her loins and went to meet them.

Thereafter at Aunt Olivia's nap times Rebecca Mary disappeared. Day
upon day, week upon week, she stole quietly away when the door of Aunt
Olivia's bedroom shut. The first time she went oddly loaded down with
what would have appeared--if there had been any one for it to "appear"
to be a bundle of long sticks. She made two trips into the unknown that
first day. The second time the bundle looked much like that one over
which her grave blue eyes had peered at the minister's wife when she
went to spend the afternoon with her.

It was spring when the mysterious disappearances began. It was summer
before Aunt Olivia woke up--not from her nap, but from her inattention.
Quite suddenly she came upon the realization that Rebecca Mary was
not about the house; nor about the grounds, for she instituted prompt
search. She went to all the child's odd little haunts--the grapery,
the orchard, the corn-house, even to her own beloved back yard, full of
sweet-scented hiding-nooks dear to a child, but sacred ground to Aunt
Olivia. Rebecca Mary sometimes did her "stents" there as a special
privilege; she might be there now, unprivileged. Aunt Olivia's back yard
was almost as full of flowery delights to Rebecca Mary as it was to Aunt
Olivia.

The child was not there--not anywhere. Aunt Olivia sought for Thomas
Jefferson to inquire of him, but Thomas Jefferson was missing too. She
went the rounds again. Where could the child be?

It was a hot, stinging day in late June when Aunt Olivia's suspicions
awoke. They had been long in rousing, but, once alert, they developed
rapidly into certainties. Her pale eyes glistened, her thin nostrils
dilated--Aunt Olivia's whole lean, sharp, unemotional person put on
suspicion. The child had gone to see the Tony Trumbullses.

"My land!" ejaculated Aunt Olivia, "after all my forbidding! And she a
Plummer!" She sat down suddenly as though a little faint. She had never
known a Plummer to disobey before;