"Why don't you like it? It's your country's
flag."
Simpson smiled an indulgent smile and looked a trifle bored at
these appeals to his extremely rusty better feelings.
"I don' know's I've got any particular int'rest in the country,"
he remarked languidly. "I know I don't owe nothin' to it, nor own
nothin' in it!"
"You own a star on the flag, same as everybody," argued Rebecca,
who had been feeding on patriotism for a month; "and you own a
state, too, like all the rest of us!"
"Land! I wish't I did! or even a quarter section of one!" sighed
Mr. Simpson, feeling somehow a little more poverty-stricken and
discouraged than usual.
As they approached the corner and the watering-trough where four
cross-roads met, the whole neighborhood seemed to be in evidence,
and Mr. Simpson suddenly regretted his chivalrous escort of
Rebecca; especially when, as he neared the group, an excited
lady, wringing her hands, turned out to be Mrs. Peter Mescrve,
accompanied by Huldah, the Browns, Mrs. Milliken, Abijah Flagg,
and Miss Dearborn. "Do you know anything about the new flag,
Rebecca?" shrieked Mrs. Meserve, too agitated, for a moment, to
notice the child's companion.
"It's right here in my lap, all safe," responded Rebecca
joyously.
"You careless, meddlesome young one, to take it off my steps
where I left it just long enough to go round to the back and hunt
up my door-key! You've given me a fit of sickness with my weak
heart, and what business was it of yours? I believe you think you
own the flag! Hand it over to me this minute!"
Rebecca was climbing down during this torrent of language, but as
she turned she flashed one look of knowledge at the false
Simpson, a look that went through him from head to foot, as if it
were carried by electricity.
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