On the one
occasion when she essayed the part of the tree's romantic
protector, she represented herself as feeling "so awful foolish"
that she refused to undertake it again, much to the secret
delight of Rebecca, who found the woodman's role much too tame
for her vaulting ambition. She reveled in the impassioned appeal
of the poet, and implored the ruthless woodman to be as brutal as
possible with the axe, so that she might properly put greater
spirit into her lines. One morning, feeling more frisky than
usual, she fell upon her knees and wept in the woodman's
petticoat. Curiously enough, her sense of proportion rejected
this as soon as it was done.
"That wasn't right, it was silly, Emma Jane; but I'll tell you
where it might come in--in 'Give me Three Grains of Corn.' You be
the mother, and I'll be the famishing Irish child. For pity's
sake put the axe down; you are not the woodman any longer!"
"What'll I do with my hands, then?" asked Emma Jane.
"Whatever you like," Rebecca answered wearily; "you're just a
mother--that's all. What does your mother do with her hands?
Nowhere goes!
"'Give me three grains of corn, mother,
Only three grains of corn,
It will keep the little life I have
Till the coming of the morn.'"
This sort of thing made Emma Jane nervous and fidgety, but she
was Rebecca's slave and obeyed her lightest commands.
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