Juvenile virtue, both male and female, reached an almost impossible height, for parents had only to lift a finger and say, “you shan't go to the flag raising!” and the refractory spirit at once armed itself for new struggles toward the perfect life. Mr. Jeremiah Cobb had consented to impersonate Uncle Sam, and was to drive Columbia and the States to the “raising” on the top of his own stage. Meantime the boys were drilling, the ladies were cutting and basting and stitching, and the girls were sewing on stars; for the starry part of the spangled banner was to remain with each of them in turn until she had performed her share of the work. It was felt by one and all a fine and splendid service indeed to help in the making of the flag, and if Rebecca was proud to be of the chosen ones, so was her Aunt Jane Sawyer, who had taught her all her delicate stitches. On a long-looked-for afternoon in August the minister's wife drove up to the brick house door, and handed out the great piece of bunting to Rebecca, who received it in her arms with as much solemnity as if it had been a child awaiting baptismal rites. “I'm so glad!” she sighed happily. “I thought it would never come my turn!” “You should have had it a week ago, but Huldah Meserve upset the ink bottle over her star, and we had to baste on another one. You are the last, though, and then we shall sew the stars and stripes together, and Seth Strout will get the top ready for hanging. Just think, it won't be many days before you children will be pulling the rope with all your strength, the band will be playing, the men will be cheering, and the new flag will go higher and higher, till the red, white, and blue shows against the sky!” Rebecca's eyes fairly blazed. “Shall I 'fell on' my star, or buttonhole it?” she asked. “Look at all the others and make the most beautiful stitches you can, that's all. It is your star, you know, and you can even imagine it is your state, and try and have it the best of all. If everybody else is trying to do the same thing with her state, that will make a great country, won't it?” Rebecca's eyes spoke glad confirmation of the idea. “My star, my state!” she repeated joyously. “Oh, Mrs. Baxter, I'll make such fine stitches you'll think the white grew out of the blue!” The new minister's wife looked pleased to see her spark kindle a flame in the young heart. “You can sew so much of yourself into your star,” she went on in the glad voice that made her so winsome, “that when you are an old lady you can put on your specs and find it among all the others. Good-by! Come up to the parsonage Saturday afternoon; Mr. Baxter wants to see you.”