"It'll be nice for you to be all together again at the farm--such a house full o' children!" remarked the dear old deceiver, who longed for nothing so much as to cuddle and comfort the poor little creature.
"It's too full--that's the trouble. But I'll make Hannah come to Riverboro in my place."
"S'pose Mirandy 'n' Jane'll have her? I should be 'most afraid they wouldn't. They'll be kind o' mad at your goin' home, you know, and you can't hardly blame 'em."
This was quite a new thought,--that the brick house might be closed to Hannah, since she, Rebecca, had turned her back upon its cold hospitality.
"How is this school down here in Riverboro --pretty good?" inquired uncle Jerry, whose brain was working with an altogether unaccustomed rapidity,--so much so that it almost terrified him.
"Oh, it's a splendid school! And Miss Dearborn is a splendid teacher!"
"You like her, do you? Well, you'd better believe she returns the compliment. Mother was down to the store this afternoon buyin' liniment for Seth Strout, an' she met Miss Dearborn on the bridge.
They got to talkin' 'bout school, for mother has summer-boarded a lot o' the schoolmarms, an' likes 'em. `How does the little Temperance girl git along?' asks mother. `Oh, she's the best scholar I have!' says Miss Dearborn. `I could teach school from sun-up to sun-down if scholars was all like Rebecca Randall,' says she."
"Oh, Mr. Cobb, DID she say that?" glowed Rebecca, her face sparkling and dimpling in an instant.
"I've tried hard all the time, but I'll study the covers right off of the books now."
"You mean you would if you'd ben goin' to stay here," interposed uncle Jerry. "Now ain't it too bad you've jest got to give it all up on account o' your aunt Mirandy? Well, I can't hardly blame ye. She's cranky an' she's sour; I should think she'd ben nussed on bonny-clabber an' green apples. She needs bearin' with; an' I guess you ain't much on patience, be ye?"