Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Page 13
XIII
SNOW-WHITE; ROSE-RED
Just before Thanksgiving the affairs of the Simpsons reached what mighthave been called a crisis, even in their family, which had been bornand reared in a state of adventurous poverty and perilous uncertainty.
Riverboro was doing its best to return the entire tribe of Simpsons tothe land of its fathers, so to speak, thinking rightly that the townwhich had given them birth, rather than the town of their adoption,should feed them and keep a roof over their heads until the childrenwere of an age for self-support. There was little to eat in thehousehold and less to wear, though Mrs. Simpson did, as always, herpoor best. The children managed to satisfy their appetites by sittingmodestly outside their neighbors' kitchen doors when meals were aboutto be served. They were not exactly popular favorites, but they didreceive certain undesirable morsels from the more charitable housewives.
Life was rather dull and dreary, however, and in the chill and gloom ofNovember weather, with the vision of other people's turkeys burstingwith fat, and other people's golden pumpkins and squashes and cornbeing garnered into barns, the young Simpsons groped about for someinexpensive form of excitement, and settled upon the selling of soapfor a premium. They had sold enough to their immediate neighbors duringthe earlier autumn to secure a child's handcart, which, though veryweak on its pins, could be trundled over the country roads. With largebusiness sagacity and an executive capacity which must have beeninherited from their father, they now proposed to extend theiroperations to a larger area and distribute soap to contiguous villages,if these villages could be induced to buy. The Excelsior Soap Companypaid a very small return of any kind to its infantile agents, who werescattered through the state, but it inflamed their imaginations by theissue of circulars with highly colored pictures of the premiums to beawarded for the sale of a certain number of cakes. It was at thisjuncture that Clara Belle and Susan Simpson consulted Rebecca, whothrew herself solidly and wholeheartedly into the enterprise, promisingher help and that of Emma Jane Perkins. The premiums within theirpossible grasp were three: a bookcase, a plush reclining chair, and abanquet lamp. Of course the Simpsons had no books, and casting aside,without thought or pang, the plush chair, which might have been of someuse in a family of seven persons (not counting Mr. Simpson, whoordinarily sat elsewhere at the town's expense), they warmed themselvesrapturously in the vision of the banquet lamp, which speedily became tothem more desirable than food, drink, or clothing. Neither Emma Janenor Rebecca perceived anything incongruous in the idea of the Simpsonsstriving for a banquet lamp. They looked at the picture daily and knewthat if they themselves were free agents they would toil, suffer, aysweat, for the happy privilege of occupying the same room with thatlamp through the coming winter evenings. It looked to be about eightfeet tall in the catalogue, and Emma Jane advised Clara Belle tomeasure the height of the Simpson ceilings; but a note in the margin ofthe circular informed them that it stood two and a half feet high whenset up in all its dignity and splendor on a proper table, three dollarsextra. It was only of polished brass, continued the circular, though itwas invariably mistaken for solid gold, and the shade that accompaniedit (at least it accompanied it if the agent sold a hundred extra cakes)was of crinkled crepe paper printed in a dozen delicious hues, fromwhich the joy-dazzled agent might take his choice.
Seesaw Simpson was not in the syndicate. Clara Belle was rather asuccessful agent, but Susan, who could only say "thoap," never madelarge returns, and the twins, who were somewhat young to be thoroughlytrustworthy, could be given only a half dozen cakes at a time, and wereobliged to carry with them on their business trips a brief documentstating the price per cake, dozen, and box. Rebecca and Emma Janeoffered to go two or three miles in some one direction and see whatthey could do in the way of stirring up a popular demand for theSnow-White and Rose-Red brands, the former being devoted to laundrypurposes and the latter being intended for the toilet.
There was a great amount of hilarity in the preparation for this event,and a long council in Emma Jane's attic. They had the soap company'scircular from which to arrange a proper speech, and they had, what wasstill better, the remembrance of a certain patent-medicine vender'sdiscourse at the Milltown Fair. His method, when once observed, couldnever be forgotten; nor his manner, nor his vocabulary. Emma Janepracticed it on Rebecca, and Rebecca on Emma Jane.
"Can I sell you a little soap this afternoon? It is called theSnow-White and Rose-Red Soap, six cakes in an ornamental box, onlytwenty cents for the white, twenty-five cents for the red. It is madefrom the purest ingredients, and if desired could be eaten by aninvalid with relish and profit."
"Oh, Rebecca, don't let's say that!" interposed Emma Jane hysterically."It makes me feel like a fool."
"It takes so little to make you feel like a fool, Emma Jane," rebukedRebecca, "that sometimes I think that you must BE one I don't get tofeeling like a fool so awfully easy; now leave out that eating part ifyou don't like it, and go on."
"The Snow-White is probably the most remarkable laundry soap evermanufactured. Immerse the garments in a tub, lightly rubbing the moresoiled portions with the soap; leave them submerged in water fromsunset to sunrise, and then the youngest baby can wash them without theslightest effort."
"BABE, not baby," corrected Rebecca from the circular.
"It's just the same thing," argued Emma Jane.
"Of course it's just the same THING; but a baby has got to be calledbabe or infant in a circular, the same as it is in poetry! Would yourather say infant?"
"No," grumbled Emma Jane; "infant is worse even than babe. Rebecca, doyou think we'd better do as the circular says, and let Elijah or Elishatry the soap before we begin selling?"
"I can't imagine a babe doing a family wash with ANY soap," answeredRebecca; "but it must be true or they would never dare to print it, sodon't let's bother. Oh! won't it be the greatest fun, Emma Jane? Atsome of the houses--where they can't possibly know me--I shan't befrightened, and I shall reel off the whole rigmarole, invalid, babe,and all. Perhaps I shall say even the last sentence, if I can rememberit: 'We sound every chord in the great mac-ro-cosm of satisfaction."
This conversation took place on a Friday afternoon at Emma Jane'shouse, where Rebecca, to her unbounded joy, was to stay over Sunday,her aunts having gone to Portland to the funeral of an old friend.Saturday being a holiday, they were going to have the old white horse,drive to North Riverboro three miles away, eat a twelve o'clock dinnerwith Emma Jane's cousins, and be back at four o'clock punctually.
When the children asked Mrs. Perkins if they could call at just a fewhouses coming and going, and sell a little soap for the Simpsons, sheat first replied decidedly in the negative. She was an indulgentparent, however, and really had little objection to Emma Jane amusingherself in this unusual way; it was only for Rebecca, as the niece ofthe difficult Miranda Sawyer, that she raised scruples; but when fullypersuaded that the enterprise was a charitable one, she acquiesced.
The girls called at Mr. Watson's store, and arranged for several largeboxes of soap to be charged to Clara Belle Simpson's account. Thesewere lifted into the back of the wagon, and a happier couple neverdrove along the country road than Rebecca and her companion. It was aglorious Indian summer day, which suggested nothing of Thanksgiving,near at hand as it was. It was a rustly day, a scarlet and buff, yellowand carmine, bronze and crimson day. There were still many leaves onthe oaks and maples, making a goodly show of red and brown and gold.The air was like sparkling cider, and every field had its heaps ofyellow and russet good things to eat, all ready for the barns, themills, and the markets. The horse forgot his twenty years, sniffed thesweet bright air, and trotted like a colt; Nokomis Mountain looked blueand clear in the distance; Rebecca stood in the wagon, andapostrophized the landscape with sudden joy of living:--
"Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World, With the wonderful water round you curled, And the wonderful grass upon your breast, World, you are beautifully drest!"
Dull Emma Jane had
never seemed to Rebecca so near, so dear, so triedand true; and Rebecca, to Emma Jane's faithful heart, had never been sobrilliant, so bewildering, so fascinating, as in this visit together,with its intimacy, its freedom, and the added delights of an excitingbusiness enterprise.
A gorgeous leaf blew into the wagon.
"Does color make you sort of dizzy?" asked Rebecca.
"No," answered Emma Jane after a long pause; "no, it don't; not a mite."
"Perhaps dizzy isn't just the right word, but it's nearest. I'd like toeat color, and drink it, and sleep in it. If you could be a tree, whichone would you choose?"
Emma Jane had enjoyed considerable experience of this kind, and Rebeccahad succeeded in unstopping her ears, ungluing her eyes, and looseningher tongue, so that she could "play the game" after a fashion.
"I'd rather be an apple-tree in blossom,--that one that blooms pink, byour pig-pen."
Rebecca laughed. There was always something unexpected in Emma Jane'sreplies. "I'd choose to be that scarlet maple just on the edge of thepond there,"--and she pointed with the whip. "Then I could see so muchmore than your pink apple-tree by the pig-pen. I could look at all therest of the woods, see my scarlet dress in my beautiful looking-glass,and watch all the yellow and brown trees growing upside down in thewater. When I'm old enough to earn money, I'm going to have a dresslike this leaf, all ruby color--thin, you know, with a sweeping trainand ruffly, curly edges; then I think I'll have a brown sash like thetrunk of the tree, and where could I be green? Do they have greenpetticoats, I wonder? I'd like a green petticoat coming out now andthen underneath to show what my leaves were like before I was a scarletmaple."
"I think it would be awful homely," said Emma Jane. "I'm going to havea white satin with a pink sash, pink stockings, bronze slippers, and aspangled fan."