Chapter I

Riverboro, that generally assumed an indifferent and semi-recumbent attitude when it observed strangers, sat up and took notice the moment that Rebecca Rowena Randall arrived on the noon stage from up-country and alighted at the brick house on the main street of the village. Mrs. Perkins, the nearest neighbor, with her only daughter, Emma Jane, palpitating with interest beside her, watched the cautious descent of the little passenger from the stage and the particularly tempestuous tweak she gave her headgear as her feet touched the earth. Then they watched with equal interest the lifting of her hair trunk from the back of the stage by Jerry Cobb; the appearance of Miss Jane on the stone steps; and well at the rear, the tall, grim figure of Miranda Sawyer.

Mrs. Perkins could see Miranda's greeting in the shape of a bony finger directing the child to wipe her dusty feet on the mat; then the screen door of the brick house slammed behind her, and Rebecca was a member of the brick-house family and a citizen of Riverboro.

"Poor little mite!" sighed Mrs. Perkins.

"Can I go over and see her now?" asked Emma Jane, already cherishing hopes of intimacy.

"Of course you can't!" responded her mother briskly. "Do you s'pose Mirandy wants the house full o' comp'ny the minute Rebecca gits there?"

"Just me wouldn't make it full," objected Emma Jane.

"It takes precious few to make a house too full to please Mirandy Sawyer!" and Mrs. Perkins resumed her seat at the window overlooking the river. "You can keep an eye on the gate, an' if they let her ou'doors again to-night you can run over and scrape acquaintance, if you want to."

Now Rebecca's vivid little personality had been somewhat obscured in the big family of children at Sunnybrook Farm, but in Riverboro it had the effect of a Roman candle suddenly bursting among the lesser fireworks on a Fourth-of-July evening. She was extraordinarily gregarious and within a year knew everybody on both sides of the river. "Anybody'll do for Rebecca so long's it's folks!" grumbled her Aunt Miranda. "This street is gen'ally chock-full o' young ones nowadays, and Rebecca's always eggin' 'em on to somethin' new. When she asks me if she can borrer the silver call bell an' I see her makin' off with a lead pencil an' paper, I always suspicion she's organizin' somethin'."

Miranda was right. There had been a positive epidemic of organizations in Riverboro's "younger set" in the last few months. Most of them had died an early, though natural, death, while others had been put out of existence by unfeeling parents and guardians. Miss Dearborn, the village teacher, was really the inspiring force behind the first one. Feeling a lack of com- mon purpose in the district school, she had proposed a club for general improvement and public service of some sort. In order to develop initiative and executive ability, she asked the older girls and boys to meet alone to draft a constitution and choose a name. She was somewhat confused when they issued from their executive session quickly and firmly entitled The Jolly Jumpers, and learned that the officers were to be selected, not for intellectual or moral superiority, but according to the height that they were able to jump over a broomstick. This unintentionally athletic society still had its healthful and noisy meetings now and again, although it never fulfilled Miss Dearborn's ambitions.

The Guild of Ministering Sisters could not find anybody who desired its ministrations, but one or two secret societies were in a flourishing condition, notably The Bouncers. Mr. Perkins, the local blacksmith, had a way of saying to the young people, when they had interrupted his horse-shoeing long enough: "Now clear out, young ones, or I'll bounce ye!" The idea of this picturesquely named society was that, if any member should be caught cheating in games or lessons, fibbing or tale-bearing, or in other misdemeanors of equal magnitude, he--or she--would find a card on desk, or in hat, with this neatly printed phrase on it:

YOU ARE HEREBY BOUNCED

The shame and terror of this card oppressed the most callous boy, and, his mind reverting to the last sin that he had committed and wondering how it could have been found out, he promptly turned over a new leaf in order to be reinstated in good society.

The success of the month of June had been a club called The Pantry Rioters. Romeo Smith, a dimpled, wide-mouthed, freckle-faced boy was the founder, and the first members were all of the (then) superior sex. The girls, however, discovered the general intentions of the club, and Rebecca drafted such an engaging constitution and by-laws that the boys chivalrously widened the gates of membership. Rebecca, whose eligibility as an active member did not admit a shadow of doubt, was constrained to decline all but honorary connection with The Pantry Rioters; and those who knew the discipline of the brick house admitted the wisdom of her decision. "But oh, how I could riot if only I wasn't being fed and clothed and slept and schooled by Aunt Miranda!" thought Rebecca passionately, as she carefully copied the by-laws of The Pantry Rioters:

"1. No member shall riot in anybody's else pantry but his own.

"2. No member shall attack the swing-shelf or wire netting box in the cellar as being too easy and not risky enough, and not a pantry anyway.

"3. No member shall be greedy or really thievish, nor shall he nibble or take away anything that is needed for the next meal, if he knows it; this being not nice, besides making trouble all round.

"4. Any member who does a rioting act of great daring right under the eye of the enemy shall be allowed to wear a red button to school.

"5. Any member who is caught in the act of rioting and reprimanded, and so forth, shall wear a blue button to school and describe all the circumstances, however painful, at a meeting of the club, where he will receive comfort and sympathy.

"6. Any little titbit subtracted from the pantry may be shared with another member, thus removing any suspicion of evil from rioting; the idea being to show that a person could take a tart, doughnut, frosted cake, or spoonful of preserves at any time if only he was not so good and honest."

Oh, how delicious were the last school days of the June term when The Pantry Rioters first came into being! Who could forget the morning when Romeo Smith arrived at school flushed and panting and took his place in the line within one minute of being tardy? And there, in the button-hole of his coat lapel, gleamed the red badge of courage, the button covered by the girls with scarlet ribbon, but never worn before!

At ten o'clock Miss Dearborn remarked: "Romeo Smith is well prepared with his lessons and is behaving himself with perfect propriety, except for a perpetual grin, for which I can see no reason. However, as many of the scholars cannot help staring at him, I would ask him please to remove the red button he is wearing and place it in his vest pocket."

In the reading lesson when Sam Simpson came to the phrase, "The spy gave a paltry excuse," he read it, "pantry excuse," and there was such a flood of laughter let loose in the schoolroom that Miss Dearborn was obliged to say: "Did no one ever mistake a word before? It is not polite to make fun of another scholar. You may be the next one yourself."

And then, after school, to hear from Romeo's lips that his mother, in passing out of the pantry with a colander full of fresh doughnuts under her left arm, had paused to lean from the window and speak to her husband; whereupon Romeo, with magnificent audacity--grandmother in adjacent kitchen, mother holding pan, and father outside window--had seized a hot doughnut and, mindful of the red button, had further tempted fate by taking the knife from the cheese plate and carving off a piece two inches wide! With this rich booty, avoiding the safe side door, he went through the living-room, passing a visiting aunt and two younger brothers of highly suspicious disposition, and sped to school in time to avoid the tardy mark.

"How perfectly elegant!" ejaculated Emma Jane Perkins.

"Where is the doughnut?" asked Rebecca, mindful of the sixth by-law.

"I had nowheres to keep it but under my hat, so I et it up; but you can see the place where it was." And Romeo exhibited the shiny circular spot on the top of his head where the hot doughnut had lain.