at table. To "draw fire" she whistled, a forbidden joy, which
only attracted more attention, instead of diverting it. There was a
moment of silence after the grotesque figure was fully taken in; then
came a moan from Jane and a groan from Miranda.

"What have you done to yourself?" asked Miranda sternly.

"Made an effort to be beautiful and failed!" jauntily replied Rebecca,
but she was too miserable to keep up the fiction. "Oh, Aunt Miranda,
don't scold. I'm so unhappy! Alice and I rolled up my hair to curl it
for the raising. She said it was so straight I looked like an Indian!"

"Mebbe you did," vigorously agreed Miranda, "but 't any rate you looked
like a Christian Injun, 'n' now you look like a heathen Injun; that's
all the difference I can see. What can we do with her, Jane, between
this and nine o'clock?"

"We'll all go out to the pump just as soon as we're through breakfast,"
answered Jane soothingly. "We can accomplish consid'rable with water and
force."

Rebecca nibbled her corn-cake, her tearful eyes cast on her plate and
her chin quivering.

"Don't you cry and red your eyes up," chided Miranda quite kindly; "the
minute you've eat enough run up and get your brush and comb and meet us
at the back door."

"I wouldn't care myself how bad I looked," said Rebecca, "but I can't
bear to be so homely that I shame the State of Maine!"

Oh, what an hour followed this plaint! Did any aspirant for literary
or dramatic honors ever pass to fame through such an antechamber of
horrors? Did poet of the day ever have his head so maltreated? To be
dipped in the rain-water tub, soused again and again; to be held under
the spout and pumped on; to be rubbed furiously with rough roller
towels; to be dried with hot flannels! And is it not well-nigh
incredible that at the close of such an hour the ends of the long hair
should still stand out straight, the braids having been turned up two
inches by Alice, and tied hard in that position with linen thread?

"Get out the skirt-board, Jane," cried Miranda, to whom opposition
served as a tonic, "and move that flat-iron on to the front o' the
stove. Rebecca, set down in that low chair beside the board, and Jane,
you spread out her hair on it and cover it up with brown paper. Don't
cringe, Rebecca; the worst's over, and you've borne up real good! I'll
be careful not to pull your hair nor scorch you, and oh, HOW I'd like
to have Alice Robinson acrost my knee and a good strip o' shi