Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

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Wiggin Kate Douglas Smith. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

I "WE ARE SEVEN"

II. REBECCA'S RELATIONS

III. A DIFFERENCE IN HEARTS

IV. REBECCA'S POINT OF VIEW

V. WISDOM'S WAYS

VI. SUNSHINE IN A SHADY PLACE

VII. RIVERBORO SECRETS

VIII. COLOR OF ROSE

IX. ASHES OF ROSES

X. RAINBOW BRIDGES

XI "THE STIRRING OF THE POWERS"

XII "SEE THE PALE MARTYR"

XIII. SNOW-WHITE; ROSE-RED

XIV. MR. ALADDIN

XV. THE BANQUET LAMP

XVI. SEASONS OF GROWTH

XVII. GRAY DAYS AND GOLD

XVIII. REBECCA REPRESENTS THE FAMILY

XIX. DEACON ISRAEL'S SUCCESSOR

XX. A CHANGE OF HEART

XXI. THE SKY LINE WIDENS

XXII. CLOVER BLOSSOMS AND SUNFLOWERS

XXIII. THE HILL DIFFICULTY

XXIV. ALADDIN RUBS HIS LAMP

XXV. ROSES OF JOY

XXVI "OVER THE TEACUPS"

XXVII "THE VISION SPLENDID"

XXVIII "TH' INEVITABLE YOKE"

XXIX. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER

XXX. GOOD-BY, SUNNYBROOK

XXXI. AUNT MIRANDA'S APOLOGY

Отрывок из книги

The old stage coach was rumbling along the dusty road that runs from Maplewood to Riverboro. The day was as warm as midsummer, though it was only the middle of May, and Mr. Jeremiah Cobb was favoring the horses as much as possible, yet never losing sight of the fact that he carried the mail. The hills were many, and the reins lay loosely in his hands as he lolled back in his seat and extended one foot and leg luxuriously over the dashboard. His brimmed hat of worn felt was well pulled over his eyes, and he revolved a quid of tobacco in his left cheek.

There was one passenger in the coach,—a small dark-haired person in a glossy buff calico dress. She was so slender and so stiffly starched that she slid from space to space on the leather cushions, though she braced herself against the middle seat with her feet and extended her cotton-gloved hands on each side, in order to maintain some sort of balance. Whenever the wheels sank farther than usual into a rut, or jolted suddenly over a stone, she bounded involuntarily into the air, came down again, pushed back her funny little straw hat, and picked up or settled more firmly a small pink sun shade, which seemed to be her chief responsibility,—unless we except a bead purse, into which she looked whenever the condition of the roads would permit, finding great apparent satisfaction in that its precious contents neither disappeared nor grew less. Mr. Cobb guessed nothing of these harassing details of travel, his business being to carry people to their destinations, not, necessarily, to make them comfortable on the way. Indeed he had forgotten the very existence of this one unnoteworthy little passenger.

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"Near? Why, it must be thousands of miles! We came from Temperance in the cars. Then we drove a long ways to cousin Ann's and went to bed. Then we got up and drove ever so far to Maplewood, where the stage was. Our farm is away off from everywheres, but our school and meeting house is at Temperance, and that's only two miles. Sitting up here with you is most as good as climbing the meeting-house steeple. I know a boy who's been up on our steeple. He said the people and cows looked like flies. We haven't met any people yet, but I'm KIND of disappointed in the cows;—they don't look so little as I hoped they would; still (brightening) they don't look quite as big as if we were down side of them, do they? Boys always do the nice splendid things, and girls can only do the nasty dull ones that get left over. They can't climb so high, or go so far, or stay out so late, or run so fast, or anything."

Mr. Cobb wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and gasped. He had a feeling that he was being hurried from peak to peak of a mountain range without time to take a good breath in between.

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