“Talk to her,” groaned Aunt Olivia, in her agony. “Tell her what her duty is. Rebecca Mary might listen to the minister. All she's got to do is to take just one stitch to show her submission. It won't take but an instant. I've got supper all out on the kitchen table—I don't care if it's ten o'clock at night!”
“It isn't a case for the minister. It's a case for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children!” fumed the minister's kind little wife inwardly. And she stole away in the twilight to deal with little Rebecca Mary herself. She came back to the minister by and by, red-eyed and fierce.
“You needn't go over; I've been. It won't do any good, Robert. That poor, stiff-willed, set little thing is starving by inches!”
“I think her aunt is, too!”
“Well, perhaps—I can't help it, Robert, perhaps the—aunt—ought—to.”
“My dear!—Felicia!”
“I told you I couldn't help it. She is so hungry, Robert! If you had seen her—What do you think she was doing when I got there?”
“Crying?”
“Crying! She was laughing. I cried. She sat there under some grapevines watching a great white rooster eat his supper. His name, I think, is Thomas Jefferson.”
“Yes, Thomas Jefferson,” agreed the minister, with the assurance of acquaintance. For Thomas Jefferson was one of his parishioners.