tingling like a warrior's on the eve of battle. What were long,
patient hours to a Plummer? Rebecca Mary girded up her loins and
went to meet them.

Thereafter at Aunt Olivia's nap times Rebecca Mary disappeared.
Day upon day, week upon week, she stole quietly away when the door
of Aunt Olivia's bedroom shut. The first time she went oddly loaded
down with what would have appeared--if there had been any one for
it to "appear" to be a bundle of long sticks. She made two trips
into the unknown that first day. The second time the bundle looked
much like that one over which her grave blue eyes had peered at the
minister's wife when she went to spend the afternoon with her.

It was spring when the mysterious disappearances began. It was
summer before Aunt Olivia woke up--not from her nap, but from her
inattention. Quite suddenly she came upon the realization that
Rebecca Mary was not about the house; nor about the grounds, for
she instituted prompt search. She went to all the child's odd
little haunts--the grapery, the orchard, the corn-house, even to
her own beloved back yard, full of sweet-scented hiding-nooks
dear to a child, but sacred ground to Aunt Olivia. Rebecca Mary
sometimes did her "stents" there as a special privilege; she might
be there now, unprivileged. Aunt Olivia's back yard was almost as
full of flowery delights to Rebecca Mary as it was to Aunt Olivia.

The child was not there--not anywhere. Aunt Olivia sought for
Thomas Jefferson to inquire of him, but Thomas Jefferson was
missing too. She went the rounds again. Where could the child be?

It was a hot, stinging day in late June when Aunt Olivia's