'"
The minister could scarcely refrain from smiling, but he
controlled himself that he might lose none of Rebecca's quaint
observations. When she was perfectly at ease, unwatched and
uncriticised, she was a marvelous companion.
"The name of the poem is going to be 'My Star,'" she continued,
"and Mrs. Baxter gave me all the ideas, but somehow there's a
kind of magicness when they get into poetry, don't you think so?"
(Rebecca always talked to grown people as if she were their age,
or, a more subtle and truer distinction, as if they were hers.)
"It has often been so remarked, in different words," agreed the
minister.
"Mrs. Baxter said that each star was a state, and if each state
did its best we should have a splendid country. Then once she
said that we ought to be glad the war is over and the States are
all at peace together; and I thought Columbia must be glad, too,
for Miss Dearborn says she's the mother of all the States. So I'm
going to have it end like this: I did n't write it, I just sewed
it while I was working on my star:--
"For it's your star, my star, all the stars together,
That make our country's flag so proud
To float in the bright fall weather.
Northern stars, Southern stars, stars of the East and West,
Side by side they lie at peace
On the dear flag's mother-breast.
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