The cat ’Zekiel in _The Old Peabody Pew_:
“’Zekiel had lost his tail in a mowing-machine; ’Zekiel had the asthma, and the immersion of his nose in milk made him sneeze, so he was wont to slip his paw in and out of the dish and lick it patiently for five minutes together. Nancy often watched him pityingly, giving him kind and gentle words to sustain his fainting spirit, but to-night she paid no heed to him, although he sneezed violently to attract her attention.”
The sensation when, after the ringing of the last bell, Nancy Wentworth walked up the aisle on Justin Peabody’s arm, is conveyed by some parentheses of the comment later in the day. The two had taken their seats side by side in the old family pew.
“(‘And consid’able close, too, though there was plenty o’ room!’)
“(‘And no one that I ever heard of so much as suspicioned that they had ever kept company!’)
“(‘And do you s’pose she knew Justin was expected back when she scrubbed his pew a-Friday?’)
“(‘And this explains the empty pulpit vases!’)
“(‘And I always said that Nancy would make a real handsome couple if she ever got anybody to couple with!’)”
The boastful old man, Turrible Wiley, in _Rose o’ the River_:
“‘I remember once I was smokin’ my pipe when a jam broke under me. ’Twas a small jam, or what we call a small jam on the Kennebec,--only about three hundred thousand pine logs. The first thing I knowed, I was shootin’ back an’ forth in the b’ilin’ foam, hangin’ on t’ the end of a log like a spider. My hands was clasped round the log, and I never lost control o’ my pipe. They said I smoked right along, jest as cool an’ placid as a pond-lily.’
“‘Why’d you quit drivin’?’ inquired Ivory.
“‘My strength wa’n’t ekal to it,’ Mr. Wiley responded sadly. ‘I was all skin, bones, an’ nerve....
“‘I’ve tried all kinds o’ labor. Some of ’em don’t suit my liver, some disagrees with my stomach, and the rest of ’em has vibrations.’”
In January, 1911, over 2,000,000 copies of Mrs. Wiggin’s books had been sold; to-day the total is probably approaching 3,000,000. The most popular of her books is _Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm_, which has been likened, in explanation of its popularity, to _Little Women_. But no explanation is necessary. Rebecca is entirely, naturally human. Whether she is perplexing her aunts or telling Miss Dearborn that she can’t write about nature and slavery, having really nothing to say about either; whether she is making her report on the missionaries’ children “all born under Syrian skies,” or aweing Emma Jane with original ideas, or helping the Simpsons, with the aid of Mr. Aladdin, to acquire a wonderful lamp;--at all times, at every moment Rebecca Rowena Randall reminds us of the youngsters we have known, and perhaps, a little, of the youngsters we were once ourselves.