“Yes; I'll have board, and clothes, and school, and be named Fogg, and” (here her voice sank to an awed whisper) “the upper farm if I should ever get married; Miss Dearborn told me that herself, when she was persuading me not to mind being given away.”
“Clara Belle Simpson!” exclaimed Rebecca in a transport. “Who'd have thought you'd be a female hero and an heiress besides? It's just like a book story, and it happened in Riverboro. I'll make Uncle Jerry Cobb allow there CAN be Riverboro stories, you see if I don't.”
“Of course I know it's all right,” Clara Belle replied soberly. “I'll have a good home and father can't keep us all; but it's kind of dreadful to be given away, like a piano or a horse and carriage!”
Rebecca's hand went out sympathetically to Clara Belle's freckled paw. Suddenly her own face clouded and she whispered:
“I'm not sure, Clara Belle, but I'm given away too—do you s'pose I am? Poor father left us in debt, you see. I thought I came away from Sunnybrook to get an education and then help pay off the mortgage; but mother doesn't say anything about my coming back, and our family's one of those too-big ones, you know, just like yours.”
“Did your mother sign papers to your aunts?'
“If she did I never heard anything about it; but there's something pinned on to the mortgage that mother keeps in the drawer of the bookcase.”
“You'd know it if twas adoption papers; I guess you're just lent,” Clara Belle said cheeringly. “I don't believe anybody'd ever give YOU away! And, oh! Rebecca, father's getting on so well! He works on Daly's farm where they raise lots of horses and cattle, too, and he breaks all the young colts and trains them, and swaps off the poor ones, and drives all over the country. Daly told Mr. Fogg he was splendid with stock, and father says it's just like play. He's sent home money three Saturday nights.”
“I'm so glad!” exclaimed Rebecca sympathetically. “Now your mother'll have a good time and a black silk dress, won't she?”
“I don't know,” sighed Clara Belle, and her voice was grave. “Ever since I can remember she's just washed and cried and cried and washed. Miss Dearborn has been spending her vacation up to Acreville, you know, and she came yesterday to board next door to Mrs. Fogg's. I heard them talking last night when I was getting the baby to sleep—I couldn't help it, they were so close—and Miss Dearborn said mother doesn't like Acreville; she says nobody takes any notice of her, and they don't give her any more work. Mrs. Fogg said, well, they were dreadful stiff and particular up that way and they liked women to have wedding rings.”