"And if Rebecca had loved the rules of the school she would have controlled her thirst," finished Miss Dearborn with a kiss, and the two parted friends. IV THE SAVING OF THE COLORS EVEN when Rebecca had left school, having attained the great age of seventeen and therefore able to look back over a past incredibly long and full, she still reckoned time not by years, but by certain important occurrences. Between these epoch-making events certain other happenings stood out in bold relief against the gray of dull daily life. There was the coming of the new minister, for though many were tried only one was chosen; and finally there was the flag-raising, a festivity that thrilled Riverboro and Edgewood society from centre to circumference, a festivity that took place just before she entered the Female Seminary at Wareham and said good-by to kind Miss Dearborn and the village school. There must have been other flag-raisings in history,--even the persons most interested in this particular one would grudgingly have allowed that much,--but it would have seemed to them improbable that any such flag-raising, as theirs could twice glorify the same century. Of some pageants it is tacitly admitted that there can be no duplicates, and the flag-raising at Riverboro Centre was one of these; so that it is small wonder if Rebecca chose it as one of the important dates in her personal almanac. Mrs. Baxter, the new minister's wife, was the being, under Providence, who had conceived the first idea of the flag. Mrs. Baxter communicated her patriotic idea of a new flag to the Dorcas Society, proposing that the women should cut and make it themselves. "It may not be quite as good as those manufactured in the large cities," she said, "but we shall be proud to see our home-made flag flying in the breeze, and it will mean all the more to the young voters growing up, to remember that their mothers made it with their own hands." "How would it do to let some of the girls help?" modestly asked Miss Dearborn, the Riverboro teacher. "We might chose the best sewers and let them put in at least a few stitches, so that they can feel they have a share in it." "Just the thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Baxter. "We can cut the stripes and sew them together, and after we have basted on the white stars the girls can apply them to the blue ground. We must have it ready for the campaign rally, and we could n't christen it at a better time than in this presidential year." In this way the great enterprise was started, and day by day the preparations went forward in the two villages.