"I had nowheres to keep it but under my hat, so I et it up; but you can see the place where it was." And Romeo exhibited the shiny circular spot on the top of his head where the hot doughnut had lain.
II
School had been closed for two weeks now, and one afternoon Rebecca leaned over her gate and surveyed the landscape. Emma Jane Perkins was watching from her doorway, and Alice Robinson from hers, while several other girls were concealed behind board-piles or clumps of trees, waiting for the hour of play to arrive. Suddenly all hearts leaped with gladness, for Rebecca was seen to remove the brown ribbon from one of her braids and put it in her apron pocket, and to substitute a piece of bright pink, legal tape.
"What are you doing to your hair, Rebecca?" asked Aunt Jane, coming to the door unexpectedly.
"Changing one of my ribbons, Aunt Jane."
"What for, child?"
"Well, it's a secret, Aunt Jane, but I don't mind telling you a little bit: it's a signal. I can't fire a cannon or build a bonfire on the heights, so this is just a way of telling the girls I've got an idea."
"I should think they might guess that, any time, without your decking yourself out like a horse at a cattle fair," smiled Aunt Jane.
Rebecca laughed and shook her long braids. "But it's such a nice, ladylike, romantic way of signaling, Aunt Jane!"
"Well, maybe it is; but take it off before you come in the house, won't you?"