te of mind began?"

Rebecca Mary girded herself afresh. She had such need of recruiting
strength.

"It's been coming on," she said. "I've felt it. I knew all the time it
was a-coming--and then it came."

It seemed to be all there. Why must she say any more? But still Aunt
Olivia waited, and Rebecca Mary read grim displeasure in capitals across
the gray field of her face. The little figure stiffened more and more.

"I've over-'n'-overed 'leven sheets," the steady little voice went on,
because Aunt Olivia was waiting, and it must, "and you said I did 'em
pretty well. I tried to. I was going to do the other one well, till you
said there was going to be another dozen. I couldn't BEAR another dozen,
Aunt Olivia, so I decided to stop. When Thomas Jefferson crowed I sewed
the hundred-and-oneth stitch. That's all there's ever a-going to be."

Rebecca Mary stepped back a step or two, as if finishing a speech and
retiring from her audience. There was even the effect of a bow in the
sudden collapse of the stiff little body. It was Aunt Olivia's turn now
to respond--and Aunt Olivia responded:

"You've had your say; now I'll have mine. Listen to me, Rebecca Mary
Plummer! Here's this sheet, and here's this needle in it. When you get
good and ready you can go on sewing. You won't have anything to eat till
you do. I've got through."

The grim figure swept right-about face and tramped into the house as
though to the battle-roll of drums. Rebecca Mary stayed behind, face to
face with her fate.

"She's a Plummer, so it'll be SO," Rebecca Mary thought, with the dull
little thud of a weight falling into her heart. Rebecca Mary was a
Plummer too, but she did not think of that, unless the un-swerving
determination in her stout little heart was the unconscious recognition
of it.

"I wonder"--her gaze wandered out towards the currant-bushes and came
to rest absently on Thomas Jefferson's big, white bulk--"I wonder if it
hurts very much." She meant, to starve. A long vista of food-less days
opened before her, and in their contemplation the weight in her heart
grew very heavy indeed.

"We were GOING to have layer-cake for supper. I'm VERY fond of
layer-cake," Rebecca Mary sighed, "I suppose, though, after a few
weeks"--she shuddered--"I shall be glad to have ANYTHING--just common
things, like crackers and skim-milk. Perhaps I shall want to eat
a--horse. I've heard of folks--You get very unparticular when you're
starving."

It was f