Rebecca's Promise

by Frances R. Sterrett

Joan bounced up and down on the seat beside Granny. "Then it's time to go home," she said with funny solemnity. "When you get what you want it is always time to go home."

They stopped at a farmhouse to telephone to Pierson to have breakfast ready for them, and when they reached the house a most delicious breakfast was waiting in the dining room.

"I'm glad you're back, Mrs. Simmons," Pierson said. "Young Mrs. Simmons and I don't agree about the arrangements for your golden wedding."

"Don't you, Pierson?" smiled Granny. "I wonder if you and I will agree about them. If we don't you must remember that the golden wedding is mine. Gracious, but I am glad to be home again where I can look after things myself! I declare, Rebecca Mary, I can't think now why we ever went away. I must have been in a panic."

"Mr. Simmons came about fifteen minutes after you left, ma'am," explained Pierson, who stood beside Granny, eager to tell her what had happened. "He was quite put out, I can tell you, when I told him you had gone on a motor trip. He wanted to know where——"

"You couldn't tell him that, could you, Pierson?" Granny seemed quite pleased to think that Pierson couldn't. "You didn't know where we were. We haven't been near Seven Pines."

"No, ma'am, I know. Mrs. Swenson called me up to ask where you were. But when Mr. Simmons asked me the way he did he got me all flustered and before I knew it I told him you had gone to the Cabot country place. You often go there, you know, Mrs. Simmons, so it wasn't strange I told him you were probably at Riverside."

Granny put down her knife and fork and stared at her. "You never told him that, Pierson?" She hid her face in her napkin, and her shoulders shook. "What did he say? What did Mr. Simmons say, Pierson?"

"He didn't say anything for a minute, ma'am, and then he laughed in a funny sort of a way. 'At Riverside?' he said, ma'am. 'Well, I'll be darned! The devil she is!' That's exactly what he said. But you often go there as Mr. Simmons knows, and yet he seemed surprised as anything to hear you might have gone there now. But I had to tell him something, Mrs. Simmons, when he asked me like he did."

Granny was laughing so that she almost choked. "Pierson," she said when she could control her voice, "I shall raise your wages. I never suspected that you had an imagination. No wonder Mr. Simmons wasn't surprised to find us at Riverside. I dare say Major Martingale told him, too, and young Peter, in spite of their promise to me. Dear, dear! Mr. Simmons always seems to get the best of me." She shook her head ruefully. "I wonder what he said when he found that we had run away from Riverside."