“It depends upon Abijah's Latin and your pronunciation,” teased Rebecca. “Go on; I will turn my eyes toward the orchard.”
The Fair Emmajane, looking none too old still for the “little harbor,” but almost too young for the “unknown seas,” gathered up her courage and recited like a tremulous parrot the boyish love letter that had so fired her youthful imagination.
“Vale, carissima, carissima puella!” repeated Rebecca in her musical voice. “Oh, how beautiful it sounds! I don't wonder it altered your feeling for Abijah! Upon my word, Emma Jane,” she cried with a sudden change of tone, “if I had suspected for an instant that Abijah the Brave had that Latin letter in him I should have tried to get him to write it to me; and then it would be I who would sit down at my mahogany desk and ask Miss Perkins to come to tea with Mrs. Flagg.”
Emma Jane paled and shuddered openly. “I speak as a church member, Rebecca,” she said, “when I tell you I've always thanked the Lord that you never looked at Abijah Flagg and he never looked at you. If either of you ever had, there never would have been a chance for me, and I've always known it!”
II
The romance alluded to in the foregoing chapter had been going on, so far as Abijah Flagg's part of it was concerned, for many years, his affection dating back in his own mind to the first moment that he saw Emma Jane Perkins at the age of nine.
Emma Jane had shown no sign of reciprocating his attachment until the last three years, when the evolution of the chore-boy into the budding scholar and man of affairs had inflamed even her somewhat dull imagination.
Squire Bean's wife had taken Abijah away from the poorhouse, thinking that she could make him of some little use in her home. Abbie Flagg, the mother, was neither wise nor beautiful; it is to be feared that she was not even good, and her lack of all these desirable qualities, particularly the last one, had been impressed upon the child ever since he could remember. People seemed to blame him for being in the world at all; this world that had not expected him nor desired him, nor made any provision for him. The great battle-axe of poorhouse opinion was forever leveled at the mere little atom of innocent transgression, until he grew sad and shy, clumsy, stiff, and self-conscious. He had an indomitable craving for love in his heart and had never received a caress in his life.
He was more contented when he came to Squire Bean's house. The first year he could only pick up chips, carry pine wood into the kitchen, go to the post-office, run errands, drive the cows, and feed the hens, but every day he grew more and more useful.
His only friend was little Jim Watson, the storekeeper's son, and they were inseparable companions whenever Abijah had time for play.