"
"'Oh! many are the poets that are sown by Nature,'" thought the
minister, quoting Wordsworth to himself. "And I wonder what
becomes of them! That's a pretty idea, little Rebecca, and I
don't know whether you or my wife ought to have the more praise.
What made you think of the stars lying on the flag's 'mother-
breast'? Were did you get that word?"
"Why" (and the young poet looked rather puzzled),"that's the way
it is; the flag is the whole country--the mother--and the stars
are the states. The stars had to lie somewhere: 'lap' nor 'arms'
wouldn't sound well with 'West,' so, of course, I said
'breast,'" Rebecca answered, with some surprise at the question;
and the minister put his hand under her chin and kissed her
softly on the forehead when he said good-by at the door.
Rebecca walked rapidly along in the gathering twilight, thinking
of the eventful morrow.
As she approached the turning on the left, called the old
Milltown road, she saw a white horse and wagon, driven by a man
with a rakish, flapping, Panama hat, come rapidly around the turn
and disappear over the long hills leading down to the falls.
There was no mistaking him; there never was another Abner
Simpson, with his lean height, his bushy reddish hair, the gay
cock of his hat, and the long, piratical, upturned mustaches,
which the boys used to say were used as hat-racks by the Simpson
children at night.
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