Page:Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903).djvu/99

Rh know what I 'll do?' asked Rebecca in a tone of concentrated rage.

"I don't know and I don't care," said Minnie jauntily, though her looks belied her.

"I 'll take that piece of coral away from you, and I think I shall slap you besides!"

"You would n't darst," retorted Minnie. "If you do, I 'll tell my mother and the teacher, so there!"

"I don't care if you tell your mother, my mother, and all your relations, and the president," said Rebecca, gaining courage as the noble words fell from her lips. "I don't care if you tell the town, the whole of York county, the state of Maine and—and the nation!' she finished grandiloquently. "Now you run home and remember what I say. If you do it again, and especially if you say 'Jail Birds,' if I think it's right and my duty, I shall punish you somehow."

The next morning at recess Rebecca observed Minnie telling the tale with variations to Huldah Meserve. "She threatened me," whispered Minnie, "but I never believe a word she says."

The latter remark was spoken with the direct intention of being overheard, for Minnie had spasms of bravery, when well surrounded by the machinery of law and order.

As Rebecca went back to her seat she asked Miss Dearborn if she might pass a note to Minnie