Miss Miranda, full of curiosity, joined the group in the side
entry at this dramatic moment.

"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "Where, and how under the canopy,
did you ever?"

"I was working on the dam at Union Falls yesterday," chuckled
Abijah, with a pleased glance at each of the trio in turn, "an' I
seen this little bunnit skippin' over the water jest as Becky
does over the road. It's shaped kind o' like a boat, an' gorry,
ef it wa'nt sailin' jest like a boat! Where hev I seen that kind
of a bristlin' plume?' thinks I."

("Where indeed!" thought Rebecca stormily.)

"Then it come to me that I'd drove that plume to school and drove
it to meetin' and drove it to the Fair an'drove it most
everywheres on Becky. So I reached out a pole an' ketched it fore
it got in amongst the logs an' come to any damage, an' here it
is! The hat's passed in its checks, I guess; looks kind as if a
wet elephant had stepped on it; but the plume's bout's good as
new! I reely fetched the hat beck for the sake o' the plume."

"It was real good of you, 'Bijah, an' we're all of us obliged to
you," said Miranda, as she poised the hat on one hand and turned
it slowly with the other.

"Well, I do say," she exclaimed, "and I guess I've said it
before, that of all the wearing' plumes that ever I see, that