the whole kit o' you, to come to my house tomorrow morning to see
Rebecca Mary. I'm going to say it over again. Tomorrow morning,
to see Rebecca Mary!" setting apart the syllables with the pointing
finger. "You can play in my back yard," said Aunt Olivia, sublimely
unconscious of slang.




The Bible Dream



Rebecca Mary sat on the kitchen steps, shelling peas and trying not
to listen. She had begun a hummy little tune to help out, but in the
interstices of rattling peas and the verses of the tune she could
distinctly hear some of the things Aunt Olivia and the Caller were
saying. This was one of the things:

"She's offered a reward, but _I_ don't calculate there's much chance
she'll ever see it again."

A sigh followed. The voice was the Caller's, the sigh Aunt Olivia's.

"It's queer where it ever went to!" Aunt Olivia's voice.

"Yes, it's all o' QUEER," the Caller's, with mysterious hints in it
that made Rebecca Mary, out on the doorsteps, shudder suddenly and
forget where she was in the tune. Oh, oh, dear, did they s'pose--
they couldn't s'pose it had been STOLEN?