"How are you gettin' on, Rebecca Rowena?" called a peremptory
voice from within.

"Pretty good, Aunt Miranda; only I wish flowers would ever come
up as thick as this pigweed and plantain and sorrel. What MAKES
weeds be thick and flowers be thin?--I just happened to be
stopping to think a minute when you looked out."

"You think considerable more than you weed, I guess, by
appearances. How many times have you peeked into that humming
bird's nest? Why don't you work all to once and play all to once,
like other folks?"

"I don't know," the child answered, confounded by the question,
and still more by the apparent logic back of it. "I don't know,
Aunt Miranda, but when I'm working outdoors such a Saturday
morning as this, the whole creation just screams to me to stop it
and come and play."

"Well, you needn't go if it does!" responded her aunt sharply.
"It don't scream to me when I'm rollin' out these doughnuts, and
it wouldn't to you if your mind was on your duty."

Rebecca's little brown hands flew in and out among the weeds as
she thought rebelliously: "Creation WOULDN'T scream to Aunt
Miranda; it would know she wouldn't come.

Scream on, thou bright and gay creation, scream!
'Tis not Miranda that will hear thy cry!