Maine fit to be seen at the raising.

Neither of the girls was an expert hairdresser, and at the end of an
hour, when the sixth braid was tied, and Rebecca had given one last
shuddering look in the mirror, both were ready to weep with fatigue.

The candle was blown out and Alice soon went to sleep, but Rebecca
tossed on her pillow, its goose-feathered softness all dented by the
cruel lead knobs and the knots of twisted rags. She slipped out of bed
and walked to and fro, holding her aching head with both hands. Finally
she leaned on the window-sill, watching the still weather-vane on
Alice's barn and breathing in the fragrance of the ripening apples,
until her restlessness subsided under the clear starry beauty of the
night.

At six in the morning the girls were out of bed, for Alice could hardly
wait until Rebecca's hair was taken down, she was so eager to see the
result of her labors.

The leads and rags were painfully removed, together with much hair, the
operation being punctuated by a series of squeaks, squeals, and shrieks
on the part of Rebecca and a series of warnings from Alice, who wished
the preliminaries to be kept secret from the aunts, that they might the
more fully appreciate the radiant result.

Then came the unbraiding, and then--dramatic moment--the "combing out;"
a difficult, not to say impossible process, in which the hairs that had
resisted the earlier stages almost gave up the ghost.

The long front strands had been wound up from various angles and by
various methods, so that, when released, they assumed the strangest,
most obstinate, most unexpected attitudes. When the comb was dragged
through the last braid, the wild, tortured, electric hairs following,
and then rebounding from it in a bristling, snarling tangle.
Massachusetts gave one encompassing glance at the State o' Maine's head,
and announced her intention of going home to breakfast! She was deeply
grieved at the result of her attempted beautifying, but she felt that
meeting Miss Miranda Sawyer at the morning meal would not mend matters
in the least, so slipping out of the side door, she ran up Guide Board
hill as fast as her legs could carry her.

The State o' Maine, deserted and somewhat unnerved, sat down before the
glass and attacked her hair doggedly and with set lips, working over it
until Miss Jane called her to breakfast; then, with a boldness born
of despair, she entered the dining room, where her aunts were already
seated