Rebecca's Promise

by Frances R. Sterrett

Rebecca Mary blushed, for when Miss Weir asked her she discovered that she knew very very little about the Beforts.

"Joan's mother is dead, and she and her father live with an old woman who keeps house for them." Rebecca Mary tried her best to make a complete garment out of her very small pattern. "Joan is devoted to her father. He took her to the Waloo for tea the other afternoon. It was Joan's birthday, and she gave me the violets her father had given her." Rebecca Mary's chin tilted a bit as she told her principal that she, too, had been at the popular Waloo for tea. "Joan is an odd child, different from the others. It isn't only that she is a foreigner, you know she has only been in this country a short time, and she has picked up a very American way of expressing herself, but underneath—underneath—" she floundered helplessly.

"Yes?" Miss Weir waited for her to explain that "underneath," and when Rebecca Mary just stammered on she said gently, but, oh, so firmly: "That is why I ask you to visit the homes, so that you can understand the 'underneath.'"

"Yes," murmured Rebecca Mary meekly, but when Miss Weir had gone with Disapproval shouting, "Fie, fie, Rebecca Mary Wyman," from her unbending back Rebecca Mary was anything but meek. She stamped her foot and threw a book on the floor and murmured rebelliously that the days would have to be three times as long as they were if she were to get "underneath" the forty children in her room.

She found the house, a modest frame cottage, in a block which held only one other house. Joan was sitting on the steps, and she looked very small and very forlorn until she saw Rebecca Mary. She jumped to her feet and stood waiting, her arms full of what Rebecca Mary naturally thought were playthings. She wore her hat and had a suit case on the steps beside her.

"Oh dear Miss Wyman!" she called joyously. "I thought you'd never come. Mrs. Lee, over there," she nodded toward the next house, "said you couldn't be here a minute before half-past three." She looked at the small silver clock which was one of the things she held and shook it for the clock said plainly that in its opinion it was a quarter to four. "This must be an ignorant clock," she decided with a frown, "for I know you wouldn't wait a minute when you knew I wanted you. It doesn't matter now, and I'm to tell you that I'm to be your little girl!" She was quite enchanted by the prospect, and she expected Rebecca Mary to be enchanted, too.

"My goodness gracious!" And Rebecca Mary frowned. Old habits are hard to break. "What do you mean, Joan?"

Joan was only too ready to explain. "You see my father has gone away for a long long time, we don't know how long, and Mrs. Muldoon, who keeps our house for us, has gone, too. She said I was to stay with you until she came back because at Mrs. Lee's they have scarlet fever upstairs and the mumps downstairs." Rebecca Mary could see for herself that Mrs. Lee had scarlet fever. A card on the house was actually red in the face with its efforts to tell her that Mrs. Lee had scarlet fever. "Mrs. Muldoon said she guessed my teacher was an all right person to leave me with, and so she's loaned me to you. Yes, she has!" as Rebecca Mary seemed unable to believe it. "I'm loaned to you until my father or Mrs. Muldoon comes home again. Aren't you glad?" Her lip quivered for Rebecca Mary looked anything but glad.

Rebecca Mary couldn't say she was glad, either. She seemed to have lost her tongue for she just stood there and looked down at black-haired, black-eyed Joan and wondered what in the world she would do if Joan's absurd story was true.

"Are you Joan's teacher?" called Mrs. Lee from next door. "Mrs. Muldoon was sure that you would look after Joan while she was away. Her son in Kansas City is sick. She went as soon as she got the telegram, and she said she didn't know a living soul who would look after Joan until she thought of you. I'd be glad to take her in here if the health officer would let me. If you can't look after her I suppose the Associated Charities could find some one," she suggested.