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Rebecca was climbing down during this torrent of language, but as she turned she flashed one look of knowledge at the false Simpson, a look that went through him from head to foot, as if it were carried by electricity.

He saw that he had not deceived her after all, owing to the angry chatter of Mrs. Meserve. He had been handcuffed twice in his life, but no sheriff had ever discomfited him so thoroughly as this child. Fury mounted to his brain, and as soon as she was safely out from between the wheels he stood up in the wagon and flung the flag out in the road in the midst of the excited group.

“Take it, you pious, stingy, scandal-talkin’, flag-raisin’ crew!” he roared. “Rebecca never took the flag; I found it in the road, I say!”

“You never, no such a thing!” exclaimed Mrs. Meserve. “You found it on the doorsteps in my garden!”

“Mebbe ‘t was your garden, but it was so chock full o’ weeds I thought ‘t was the road,” retorted Abner. “I vow I wouldn’t ‘a’ given the old rag back to one o’ you, not if you begged me on your knees! But Rebecca’s a friend o’ my folks and can do with her flag’s she’s a mind to, and the rest o’ ye can do what ye like an’ go where ye like, for all I care!”

So saying, he made a sharp turn, gave the gaunt white horse a lash and disappeared in a cloud of dust, before the astonished Mr. Brown, the only man in the party, had a thought of detaining him.

“I’m sorry I spoke so quick, Rebecca,” said Mrs. Meserve, greatly mortified at 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 Dorcas ladies to take care of it so it fell to me! You would n’t have had me let it out of my sight, would you, and we going to raise it to-morrow 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!'”

V. THE STATE O’ MAINE GIRL

THE foregoing episode, if narrated in a romance, would undoubtedly have been called “The Saving of the Colors,” but at the nightly chats 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 crowd 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 her 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.