ot
mean her grief. Other people might think Rebecca Mary was crazy--not
Aunt Olivia. But yet she wondered a little and found it hard to wait.

Rebecca Mary washed the breakfast cup and plates, but put the pans and
kettles to soak, and hurried away to her play. There was so much playing
to be done before the sun set on her opportunity. She had made a little
programme on a slip of paper, with approximate times allotted to each
item. As:

Tree climbing... 1 hr.
(Do not tare anything)
Mud pies... 1 hr. and 1/2.
(Do not get anything muddy)
Tea party... 2 hrs.
(Do not break anything)
Skipping... 1/2 hr.

Rebecca Mary had written 1 hr. at first opposite skipping, but it had
rather appalled her to think of skipping for so long a period of time,
and, with a sense of being already out of breath, she had hurriedly
erased the 1 and substituted 1/2. Underneath she had written, ("Do not
tip over anything"). All the items had cautionary parentheses
underneath them, for Rebecca Mary did not wish the celebration to injure
"anything." Not this last day, when all the days of all the years before
it, that had gone to make up her little girlhood, nothing had been torn
or muddied or tipped over.

Rebecca Mary had never climbed trees, had never made mud pies, never had
tea parties, nor skipped. It was with rather a hesitating step that she
went forward to meet them all. She was even a little awed. But she went.
No item on her programme was omitted.

From her rocker on the porch Aunt Olivia watched proceedings with quiet
patience. It was a good vantage point--she could see nearly all of the
celebration. The tree Rebecca Mary climbed was on the edge of the old
orchard next to Aunt Olivia, and there was a providential little rift
through the shrubbery and vines that intervened. This part of the
programme she could see almost too clearly, for it must be confessed
that this part startled Aunt Olivia out of her calm. It--it was so
unexpected. She stopped rocking and leaned forward in her chair to peer
more sharply. What was the child--"She's climbing a tree!" breathed Aunt
Olivia in undisguised astonishment. Even as she breathed it, there came
to her faintly the snapping of twigs and flutter of leaves. Then all was
quite still, but she could discern with her pair of trusty Plummer eyes
two long legs gently dangling.

If Aunt Olivia had known, Rebecca Mary, too, was startled. It--it was so
strange an experience. She w