Miranda and Jane Sawyer of Riverboro were two spinster sisters with money, a big brick house, and land. Their younger sister, Aurelia Randall, married for love, and didn’t consider that a man who taught a weekly singing class and played the violin at country dances might not earn enough to support a family. Aurelia’s husband Lorenzo used his wife’s share of the Sawyer money on various unprofitable investments, and when the man died she was left with seven children and a mortgaged farm.
The Sawyer spinsters said they’d take in Aurelia’s oldest daughter, Hannah, and give her a good education, but Aurelia couldn’t spare sensible hard-working Hannah, and sent eleven-year-old Rebecca instead. Rebecca took after her father in her love of music, her imagination, and sense of humor, plus her sparse amount of common sense. She was the one who renamed the plain old Randall Farm as Sunnybrook Farm, for she preferred cheerful names.
Jeremiah Cobb was the quiet and slow-thinking stage driver who brought Rebecca to Riverboro, and when the girl asked to ride up top with him, and began talking nonstop, Mr. Cobb didn’t know how to respond to her questions, but he liked listening to her. He and his wife had been parents to a girl who died before she was two years old so listening to a girl’s chatter filled a void in his life. He said that if Rebecca’s aunts allowed it he’d take her for a visit to Milltown, where he and his wife lived.
He had a much higher opinion of the girl than her eldest aunt did. “Miranda Sawyer had a heart, of course, but she had never used it for any other purpose than the pumping and circulating of blood.” Aunt Jane did know about grieving hearts and love, for she’d been engaged to Tom Carter, who’d enlisted in the army and was killed during the Civll War. Miranda thought her younger sister soft, and in need of Miranda to be strong for her. Jane usually – but not always – remained silent, and let her sister have her own way in decision making.
When Rebecca arrived the girl discovered there were a lot of rules to remember to keep her Aunt Miranda from scolding her. For one thing, even though the front stairs went right up to her room, she was to always use the backstairs, so as not to step on the front stairs carpeting.
The girl enjoyed going to school, and loved her teacher, Miss Dearborn, who encouraged her budding interest in writing. She took an interest in her classmates, the Simpson children, for there were so many of them, and they were all “patched and darned” just like her own family at Sunnybrook Farm. Mr. Simpson made his living by horse-trading and “swapping” of various items, and his business transactions often ended with him spending time in the local jail.
At home Rebecca liked sitting beside patient Aunt Jane, who taught her how to sew brown gingham dresses. When the first one was done Rebecca asked Aunt Miranda if the next one could be of pink or blue gingham, but Miranda had bought an entire bolt of cloth, so Rebecca ended up with three brown dresses all the same, with plenty of cloth left over for patching.
Finally the day came when Rebecca was allowed to have a pink gingham dress, and Aunt Jane even showed her how to make pretty trimming for the special dress. The girl loved her new garment, but it caused a great deal of sorrow.
Fridays were the day for schoolchildren to memorize and recite poems or prose pieces and, in the past, it was a disaster. But Rebecca had the knack of encouraging schoolmates, and she could pick out just the right piece for those with special problems reciting. One week the teacher decided to invite some school board members, plus other special guests, to hear the recitations. Rebecca was asked to decorate a black board, which she did by drawing a beautiful flag waving in the wind. For the first time in her life Rebecca was praised for her work, and that was a glorious moment.
When she went home for lunch Rebecca planned to ask if she could wear her new pink dress for the special occasion, but discovered both of her aunts were away for the afternoon. Well, the dress was only made of gingham, so she decided to wear it. She unbraided her hair and wore her curly tresses loose. It was nearly time for school to start, so she rushed off without being as careful as she should have been.
The recitations were a great success, and some of the guests complimented her on her good work. It was the finest day ever – until she got home, for Aunt Miranda had a long list of complaints. She had no right to wear the new dress to school, her loose hair was all “frizzled” and looked dreadful, she’d left the back door unlocked so anyone could have stolen their belongings, and she’d gone up the forbidden carpeted front stairs (a dropped handkerchief betrayed her). If that wasn’t bad enough, Aunt Miranda said she was just like her no-account, shiftless father. When Rebecca defended her father as a good man Miranda doubled down on insulting him. She ordered Rebecca to go up to her room, and stay there until morning, then told Jane to take the towels off the line and close the shed doors, for a storm was coming.
Rebecca went up to her room. She changed into her oldest dress, braided her hair, and decided to go home to Sunnybrook Farm and let Hannah come and stay with mean Aunt Miranda. It was raining hard, but she climbed out her bedroom window, determined to walk to Mr. and Mrs. Cobb’s house, spend the night there, then have Mr. Cobb drive her home in his stage.
Mrs. Cobb had gone to nurse a sick friend, so Jeremiah Cobb was alone when his door opened, and Rebecca, soaked to the skin, asked if she could come in. “Uncle Jerry” had her take off her coat and hat, and sit by the stove to dry off as she told him her tale of woe. His “mental machinery was simple,” but he prayed for inspiration to say the right things.
He asked simple questions, and got Rebecca to admit that maybe her mother wouldn’t be happy with her running away. Mr. Cobb told how his wife had heard Miss Dearborn say Rebecca was her favorite scholar, and Jane Sawyer had told Mrs. Cobb that its so much better at home with Rebecca there to brighten up the days. Then he said that, even if Miranda was hard to get along with, she was spending money on her niece, and maybe it would be a good idea to try extra hard to get along with her, to pay her back for the opportunity to receive a good education.
The rain had stopped, and Mr. Cobb said he would be taking his top buggy over to the brick house and talk to Miranda and Jane about a load of firewood they wanted him to deliver. Rebecca could hide in the corner of the buggy, then sneak into the house, get up to her room and go to bed early, as she was told to do. Then come Sunday, she could confess to her Aunt Jane, after she’d been to church, and was “chock full of religion.”
Rebecca made it up to her room without being caught, and vowed to try harder to be obedient to Aunt Miranda. The next day Miranda told Jane that she was pleased with the change in Rebecca, and felt that the scolding she’d given her had a good effect. Jane stated “A cringing worm is what you want, not a bright, smiling child.” That upset Miranda for, even though she’d never admit it, she hated when her sister disapproved of her actions.
Soon after Rebecca’s attempt to run away the poverty-stricken Simpson children decided to sell soap door-to-door to earn a banquet lamp shown in the prize catalog. Rebecca and her best friend, Emma Jane, said they’d visit a few houses to try and sell some soap for the Simpsons. Rebecca went to a house where the lady homeowner’s nephew was visiting. He was so amused by Rebecca reciting from the sales literature that he bought 300 bars so the Simpsons could get their lamp. (The man’s aunt, who was much nicer than Aunt Miranda, filled up a storage shed with the soap.) Rebecca didn’t ask the man’s name, but called him Mr. Aladdin because he provided a “magic” lamp. She later learned his name was Adam Ladd, and he became a good, and generous, friend.
Rebecca finished her lessons at the one-room school house at Riverboro, and Aunt Miranda paid for her to attend high school at nearby Wareham. The plan was for her to complete the four-year high school course in three years, and graduate with the credentials needed to become a teacher. She did well in school, and met a new teacher who helped her to improve her writing.
High school was completed in three years and, at only seventeen, she received two job offers, to start when schools opened in the fall. As soon as Rebecca started earning money the Sunnybrook Farm mortgage could be paid off, for her struggling mother had only been able to pay the interest each year. But then Aunt Miranda became ill. When she recovered enough for her niece to pack for her school job, word came that Rebecca’s mother had been seriously injured. Paid work had to be cast aside as Rebecca rushed to care for her mother, and take care of the housework, since her older sister Hannah had married and had her own house to look away.
Will bright, imaginative Rebecca be doomed to a life of impoverished drudgery? Will wealthy “Mr. Aladdin” be able to help out without appearing to be handing out charity? And what if Aunt Miranda’s health takes a turn for the worst?
In many ways Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm reminds me of Anne of Green Gables (written five years later) since both books have a chatterbox of a girl being driven to her new home by a shy quiet man who delights in her cheerful personality. There’s a strict spinster finding fault, a quest for education, and a girl’s knack for making up stories to amuse others. But the characters found in the two novels are different and, while Anne had no biological family, Rebecca has too many kinfolk she feels compelled to take care of.
I enjoyed reading about Rebecca’s adventures, though I was left wondering if Adam Ladd was to become more to the heroine than just a very good friend. If you’d like to read author Kate Douglas Wiggin’s Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm it can be downloaded, free of charge, at: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/498
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