t the situation. "But don't you believe a word that lyin'
critter said! He did steal it off my doorstep, and how did you come to
be ridin' and consortin' with him! I believe it would kill your Aunt
Miranda if she should hear about it!"

The little school-teacher put a sheltering arm round Rebecca as Mr.
Brown picked up the flag and dusted and folded it.

"I'm willing she should hear about it," Rebecca answered. "I didn't do
anything to be ashamed of! I saw the flag in the back of Mr. Simpson's
wagon and I just followed it. There weren't any men or any Dorcases to
take care of it and so it fell to me! You wouldn't have had me let it
out of my sight, would you, and we going to raise it tomorrow morning?"

"Rebecca's perfectly right, Mrs. Meserve!" said Miss Dearborn proudly.
"And it's lucky there was somebody quick-witted enough to ride and
consort' with Mr. Simpson! I don't know what the village will think, but
seems to me the town clerk might write down in his book, THIS DAY THE
STATE OF MAINE SAVED THE FLAG!'"

Sixth Chronicle. THE STATE O' MAINE GIRL

I

The foregoing episode, if narrated in a romance, would undoubtedly have
been called "The Saving of the Colors," but at the nightly conversazione
in Watson's store it was alluded to as the way little Becky Randall got
the flag away from Slippery Simpson.

Dramatic as it was, it passed into the limbo of half-forgotten things
in Rebecca's mind, its brief importance submerged in the glories of the
next day.

There was a painful prelude to these glories. Alice Robinson came to
spend the night with Rebecca, and when the bedroom door closed upon the
two girls, Alice announced here intention of "doing up" Rebecca's front
hair in leads and rags, and braiding the back in six tight, wetted
braids.

Rebecca demurred. Alice persisted.

"Your hair is so long and thick and dark and straight," she said, "that
you'll look like an Injun!"

"I am the State of Maine; it all belonged to the Indians once," Rebecca
remarked gloomily, for she was curiously shy about discussing her
personal appearance.

"And your wreath of little pine-cones won't set decent without crimps,"
continued Alice.

Rebecca glanced in the cracked looking-glass and met what she considered
an accusing lack of beauty, a sight that always either saddened or
enraged her according to circumstances; then she sat down resignedly
and began to help Alice in the philanthropic work of making the State of