neatly pinned in the crown, and that it bore these lines, which
were read aloud with great effect by Miss Dearborn, and with her
approval were copied in the Thought Book for the benefit of
posterity:

"It was the bristling porcupine, As he stood on his native heath,
He said, I'll pluck me some immortelles And make me up a wreath.
For tho' I may not live myself To more than a hundred and ten, My
quills will last till crack of doom, And maybe after then. They
can be colored blue or green Or orange, brown, or red, But often
as they may be dyed They never will be dead.' And so the
bristling porcupine As he stood on his native heath, Said, I
think I'll pluck me some immmortelles And make me up a wreath.'

R.R.R."



Fifth Chronicle
THE SAVING OF THE COLORS

I

Even when Rebecca had left school, having attained the great age
of seventeen and therefore able to look back over a past
incredibly long and full, she still reckoned time not by years,
but by certain important occurrences.

There was the year her father died; the year she left Sunnybrook
Farm to come to her aunts in Riverboro; the year Sister Hannah