that bundle in the road and take the trouble to pick it up." ("
Jest to think of it's bein' a flag!" he thought; "if ever there
was a pesky, wuthless thing to trade off, 't would be a great,
gormin' flag like that!")
"Can I get out now, please?" asked Rebecca. "I want to go back,
for Mrs. Meserve will be dreadfully nervous when she finds out
she dropped the flag, and it hurts her health to be nervous."
"No, you don't," objected Mr. Simpson gallantly,turning the
horse. "Do you think I'd let a little creeter like you lug that
great heavy bundle? I hain't got time to go back to Meserve's,
but I'll take you to the corner and dump you there, flag'n' all,
and you can get some o' the men-folks to carry it the rest o' the
way. You'll wear it out, huggin' it so!"
"I helped make it and I adore it!" said Rebecca, who was in a
grandiloquent mood. "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