eyes, for Thomas Jefferson was snow-white. Once in a while he
stalked dignifiedly out of the bushes and crowed. He might do it
again any minute now.

The great sheet billowed and floated round Rebecca Mary, scarcely
whiter than her face. She held her needle poised, waiting the
signal of Thomas Jefferson. At any ***[min--?]***min He was coming
out now! A fleck of snow-white was pricking the green of the
currant leaves.

"He's out. Any minute he'll begin to cr--" He was already
beginning! The warning signals were out--chest expanding, neck
elongating, and great white wing aflap.

"I'm just a little scared," breathed the child in the foam of the
sheet. Then Thomas Jefferson crowed.

"Hundred and one!" Rebecca Mary cried out, clearly, courage born
within her at the crucial instant. The Time--the Time--had come.
She had taken her last stitch.

"It's over," she panted. "It always was a-coming, and it's come.
I knew it would. When it's come, you don't feel quite so scared.
I'm glad it's over."

She folded up the great sheet carefully, making all the edges meet
with painful precision. It took time. She had left the needle
sticking in the unfinished seam--in the hundred-and-oneth stitch--
and close beside it was a tiny dot of red to "keep the place."