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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Patchwork, by Anna Balmer Myers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Patchwork
+       A Story of 'The Plain People'
+
+Author: Anna Balmer Myers
+
+Illustrator: Helen Mason Groce
+
+Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22827]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PATCHWORK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Emille and the Booksmiths
+at http://www.eBookForge.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "OH, LOOK AT THIS--AND THIS!"]
+
+
+
+
+PATCHWORK
+
+A STORY OF
+
+"THE PLAIN PEOPLE"
+
+By ANNA BALMER MYERS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+        WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR BY
+        HELEN MASON GROSE
+
+        A. L. BURT COMPANY
+        Publishers         New York
+
+        Published by arrangement with George W. Jacobs & Company
+
+        Copyright, 1920, by
+        GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+        All rights reserved
+        _Printed in U.S.A._
+
+           _To my Mother and Father
+        this book is lovingly inscribed_
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+        CHAPTER                                                    PAGE
+
+             I. CALICO PATCHWORK                                     13
+
+            II. OLD AARON'S FLAG                                     29
+
+           III. LITTLE DUTCHIE                                       40
+
+            IV. THE NEW TEACHER                                      52
+
+             V. THE HEART OF A CHILD                                 70
+
+            VI. THE PRIMA DONNA OF THE ATTIC                         92
+
+           VII. "WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER MEET"                    110
+
+          VIII. BEYOND THE ALPS LIES ITALY                          119
+
+            IX. A VISIT TO MOTHER BAB                               129
+
+             X. AN OLD-FASHIONED COUNTRY SALE                       146
+
+            XI. "THE BRIGHT LEXICON OF YOUTH"                       166
+
+           XII. THE PREACHER'S WOOING                               176
+
+          XIII. THE SCARLET TANAGER                                 189
+
+           XIV. ALADDIN'S LAMP                                      203
+
+            XV. THE FLEDGLING'S FLIGHT                              207
+
+           XVI. PHÅ’BE'S DIARY                                       212
+
+          XVII. DIARY--THE NEW HOME                                 221
+
+         XVIII. DIARY--THE MUSIC MASTER                             226
+
+           XIX. DIARY--THE FIRST LESSON                             229
+
+            XX. DIARY--SEEING THE CITY                              235
+
+           XXI. DIARY--CHRYSALIS                                    240
+
+          XXII. DIARY--TRANSFORMATION                               245
+
+         XXIII. DIARY--PLAIN FOR A NIGHT                            251
+
+          XXIV. DIARY--DECLARATIONS                                 256
+
+           XXV. DIARY--"THE LINK MUST BREAK AND THE LAMP MUST DIE"  261
+
+          XXVI. "HAME'S BEST"                                       268
+
+         XXVII. TRAILING ARBUTUS                                    271
+
+        XXVIII. MOTHER BAB AND HER SON                              284
+
+          XXIX. PREPARATIONS                                        291
+
+           XXX. THE FEAST OF ROSES                                  295
+
+          XXXI. BLINDNESS                                           303
+
+         XXXII. OFF TO THE NAVY                                     310
+
+        XXXIII. THE ONE CHANCE                                      315
+
+         XXXIV. BUSY DAYS                                           319
+
+          XXXV. DAVID'S SHARE                                       327
+
+         XXXVI. DAVID'S RETURN                                      331
+
+        XXXVII. "A LOVE THAT LIFE COULD NEVER TIRE"                 335
+
+
+
+
+Patchwork
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CALICO PATCHWORK
+
+
+THE gorgeous sunshine of a perfect June morning invited to the great
+outdoors. Exquisite perfume from myriad blossoms tempted lovers of
+nature to get away from cramped, man-made buildings, out under the blue
+roof of heaven, and revel in the lavish splendor of the day.
+
+This call of the Junetide came loudly and insistently to a little girl
+as she sat in the sitting-room of a prosperous farmhouse in Lancaster
+County, Pennsylvania, and sewed gaily-colored pieces of red and green
+calico into patchwork.
+
+"Ach, my!" she sighed, with all the dreariness which a ten-year-old is
+capable of feeling, "why must I patch when it's so nice out? I just
+ain't goin' to sew no more to-day!"
+
+She rose, folded her work and laid it in her plaited rush sewing-basket.
+Then she stood for a moment, irresolute, and listened to the sounds
+issuing from the next room. She could hear her Aunt Maria bustle about
+the big kitchen.
+
+"Ach, I ain't afraid!"
+
+The child opened the door and entered the kitchen, where the odor of
+boiling strawberry preserves proclaimed the cause of the aunt's
+activity.
+
+Maria Metz was, at fifty, robust and comely, with black hair very
+slightly streaked with gray, cheeks that retained traces of the rosy
+coloring of her girlhood, and flashing black eyes meeting squarely the
+looks of all with whom she came in contact. She was a member of the
+Church of the Brethren and wore the quaint garb adopted by the women of
+that sect. Her dress of black calico was perfectly plain. The tight
+waist was half concealed by a long, pointed cape which fell over her
+shoulders and touched the waistline back and front, where a full apron
+of blue and white checked gingham was tied securely. Her dark hair was
+parted and smoothly drawn under a cap of white lawn. She was a
+picturesque figure but totally unconscious of it, for the section of
+Pennsylvania in which she lived has been for generations the home of a
+multitude of women similarly garbed--members of the plain sects, as the
+Mennonites, Amish, Brethren in Christ, and Church of the Brethren, are
+commonly called in the communities in which they flourish.
+
+As the child appeared in the doorway her aunt turned.
+
+"So," the woman said pleasantly, "you worked vonderful quick to-day
+once, Phœbe. Why, you got your patches done soon--did you make little
+stitches like I told you?"
+
+"I ain't got 'em done!" The child stood erect, a defiant little figure,
+her blue eyes grown dark with the moment's tenseness. "I ain't goin' to
+sew no more when it's so nice out! I want to be out in the yard, that's
+what I want. I just hate this here patchin' to-day, that's what I do!"
+
+Maria Metz carefully wiped the strawberry juice from her fingers, then
+she stood before the little girl like a veritable tower of amazement and
+strength.
+
+"Phœbe," she said after a moment's struggle to control her wrath, "you
+ain't big enough nor old enough yet to tell me what you ain't goin' to
+do! How many patches did you make?"
+
+"Three."
+
+"And you know I said you shall make four every day still so you get the
+quilt done this summer yet and ready to quilt. You go and finish them."
+
+"I don't want to." Phœbe shook her head stubbornly. "I want to play out
+in the yard."
+
+"When you're done with the patches, not before! You know you must learn
+to sew. Why, Phœbe," the woman changed her tactics, "you used to like to
+sew still. When you was just five years old you cried for goods and
+needle and I pinned the patches on the little sewing-bird that belonged
+to Granny Metz still and screwed the bird on the table and you sewed
+that nice! And now you don't want to do no more patches--how will you
+ever get your big chest full of nice quilts if you don't patch?"
+
+But the child was too thoroughly possessed with the desire to be
+outdoors to be won by any pleading or praise. She pulled savagely at
+the two long braids which hung over her shoulders and cried, "I don't
+want no quilts! I don't want no chests! I don't like red and green
+quilts, anyhow--never, never! I wish my pop would come in; he wouldn't
+make me sew patches, he"--she began to sob--"I wish, I just wish I had a
+mom! She wouldn't make me sew calico when--when I want to play."
+
+Something in the utter unhappiness of the little girl, together with the
+words of yearning for the dead mother, filled the woman with a strange
+tenderness. Though she never allowed sentiment to sway her from doing
+what she considered her duty she did yield to its influence and spoke
+gently to the agitated child.
+
+"I wish, too, your mom was here yet, Phœbe. But I guess if she was she'd
+want you to learn to sew. Ach, it's just that you like to be out, out
+all the time that makes you so contrary, I guess. You're like your pop,
+if you can just be out! Mebbe when you're old as I once and had your
+back near broke often as I had with hoein' and weedin' and plantin' in
+the garden you'll be glad when you can set in the house and sew. Ach,
+now, stop your cryin' and go finish your patchin' and when you're done
+I'll leave you go in to Greenwald for me to the store and to Granny
+Hogendobler."
+
+"Oh"--the child lifted her tear-stained face--"and dare I really go to
+Greenwald when I'm done?"
+
+"Yes. I need some sugar yet and you dare order it. And you can get me
+some thread and then stop at Granny Hogendobler's and ask her to come
+out to-morrow and help with the strawberry jelly. I got so much to make
+and it comes good to Granny if she gets away for a little change."
+
+"Then I'll patch quick!" Phœbe said. The world was a good place again
+for the child as she went back to the sitting-room and resumed her
+sewing.
+
+She was so eager to finish the unpleasant task that she forgot one of
+Aunt Maria's rules, as inexorable as the law of the Medes and
+Persians--the door between the kitchen and the sitting-room _must_ be
+closed.
+
+"Here, Phœbe," the woman called sharply, "make that door shut! Abody'd
+think you was born in a sawmill! The strawberry smell gets all over the
+house."
+
+Phœbe turned alertly and closed the door. Then she soliloquized, "I
+don't see why there has to be doors on the inside of houses. I like to
+smell the good things all over the house, but then it's Aunt Maria's
+boss, not me."
+
+Maria Metz shook her head as she returned to her berries. "If it don't
+beat all and if I won't have my hands full yet with that girl 'fore
+she's growed up! That stubborn she is, like her pop--ach, like all of us
+Metz's, I guess. Anyhow, it ain't easy raising somebody else's child. If
+only her mom would have lived, and so young she was to die, too."
+
+Her thoughts went back to the time when her brother Jacob brought to the
+old Metz farmhouse his gentle, sweet-faced bride. Then the joint
+persuasions of Jacob and his wife induced Maria Metz to continue her
+residence in the old homestead. She relieved the bride of all the brunt
+of manual labor of the farm and in her capable way proved a worthy
+sister to the new mistress of the old Metz place. When, several years
+later, the gentle wife died and left Jacob the legacy of a helpless
+babe, it was Maria Metz who took up the task of mothering the motherless
+child. If she bungled at times in the performance of the mother's
+unfinished task it was not from lack of love, for she loved the fair
+little Phœbe with a passion that was almost abnormal, a passion which
+burned the more fiercely because there was seldom any outlet in
+demonstrative affection.
+
+As soon as the child was old enough Aunt Maria began to teach her the
+doctrines of the plain church and to warn her against the evils of
+vanity, frivolity and all forms of worldliness.
+
+Maria Metz was richly endowed with that admirable love of industry which
+is characteristic of the Pennsylvania Dutch. In accordance with her
+acceptance of the command, "Six days shalt thou labor," she swept,
+scrubbed, and toiled from early morning to evening with Herculean
+persistence. The farmhouse was spotless from cellar to attic, the wooden
+walks and porches scrubbed clean and smooth. Flower beds, vegetable
+gardens and lawns were kept neat and without weeds. Aunt Maria was, as
+she expressed it, "not afraid of work." Naturally she considered it her
+duty to teach little Phœbe to be industrious, to sew neatly, to help
+with light tasks about the house and gardens.
+
+Like many other good foster-mothers Maria Metz tried conscientiously to
+care for the child's spiritual and physical well-being, but in spite of
+her best endeavors there were times when she despaired of the
+tremendous task she had undertaken. Phœbe's spirit tingled with the
+divine, poetic appreciation of all things beautiful. A vivid imagination
+carried the child into realms where the stolid aunt could not follow,
+realms of whose existence the older woman never dreamed.
+
+But what troubled Maria Metz most was the child's frank avowal of
+vanity. Every new dress was a source of intense joy to Phœbe. Every new
+ribbon for her hair, no matter how narrow and dull of color, sent her
+face smiling. The golden hair, which sprang into long curls as Aunt
+Maria combed it, was invariably braided into two thick, tight braids,
+but there were always little wisps that curled about the ears and
+forehead. These wisps were at once the woman's despair and the child's
+freely expressed delight. However, through all the rigid discipline the
+little girl retained her natural buoyancy of childhood, the spontaneous
+interestedness, the cheerfulness and animation, which were a part of her
+goodly heritage.
+
+That June morning the world was changed suddenly from a dismal vale of
+patchwork to a glorious garden of delight. She was still a child and the
+promised walk to Greenwald changed the entire world for her.
+
+She paused once in her sewing to look about the sitting-room. "Ach, I
+vonder now why this room is so ugly to me to-day. I guess it's because
+it's so pretty out. Why, mostly always I think this is a vonderful nice
+room."
+
+The sitting-room of the Metz farm was attractive in its old-fashioned
+furnishing. It was large and well lighted. The gray rag carpet--woven
+from rags sewed by Aunt Maria and Phœbe--was decorated with wide stripes
+of green. Upon the carpet were spread numerous rugs, some made of
+braided rags coiled into large circles, others were hooked rugs gaily
+ornamented with birds and flowers and graceful scroll designs. The
+low-backed chairs were painted dull green and each bore upon the four
+inch panel of its back a hand-painted floral design. On the haircloth
+sofa were several crazy-work cushions. Two deep rocking-chairs matched
+the antique low-backed chairs. A spindle-legged cherry table bore an old
+vase filled with pink and red straw flowers. The large square table,
+covered with a red and green cloth, held a glass lamp, the old Metz
+Bible, several hymn-books and the papers read in that home,--a weekly
+religious paper, the weekly town paper, and a well-known farm journal. A
+low walnut organ which Phœbe's mother brought to the farm and a tall
+walnut grandfather clock, the most cherished heirloom of the Metz
+family, occupied places of honor in the room. Not a single article of
+modern design could be found in the entire room, yet it was an
+interesting and habitable place. Most of the Metz furniture had stood in
+the old homestead for several generations and so long as any piece
+served its purpose and continued to look respectable Aunt Maria would
+have considered it gross extravagance, even a sacrilege, to discard it
+for one of newer design. She was satisfied with her house, her brother
+Jacob was well pleased with the way she kept it--it never occurred to
+her that Phœbe might ever desire new things, and least of all did she
+dream that the girl sometimes spent an interesting hour refurnishing, in
+imagination, the same old sitting-room.
+
+"Yes," Phœbe was saying to herself, "sometimes this room is vonderful to
+me. Only I wished the organ was a piano, like the one Mary Warner got to
+play on. But, ach, I must hurry once and make this patch done. Funny
+thing patchin' is, cuttin' up big pieces of good calico in little ones
+and then sewin' them up in big ones again! I don't like it"--she spoke
+very softly for she knew her aunt disapproved of the habit of talking to
+one's self--"I don't like patchin' and I for certain don't like red and
+green quilts! I got one on my bed now and it hurts my eyes still in the
+morning when I get awake. I'd like a pretty blue and white one for my
+bed. Mebbe Aunt Maria will leave me make one when I get this one sewed.
+But now my patch is done and I dare to go to Greenwald. That's a
+vonderful nice walk."
+
+A moment later she stood again in the big kitchen.
+
+"See," she said, "now I got them all done. And little stitches, too, so
+nobody won't catch their toes in 'em when they sleep, like you used to
+tell me still when I first begun to sew."
+
+The woman smiled. "Now you're a good girl, Phœbe. Put your patches away
+nice and you dare go to Greenwald."
+
+"Where all shall I go?"
+
+"Go first to Granny Hogendobler; that's right on the way to the store.
+You ask her to come out to-morrow morning early if she wants to help
+with the berries."
+
+"Dare I stay a little?"
+
+"If you want. But don't you go bringin' any more slips of flowers to
+plant or any seeds. The flower beds are that full now abody can hardly
+get in to weed 'em still."
+
+"All right, I won't. But I think it's nice to have lots and lots of
+flowers. When I have a garden once I'll have it full----"
+
+"Talk of that some other day," said her aunt. "Get ready now for town
+once. You go to the store and ask 'em to send out twenty pounds of
+granulated sugar. Jonas, one of the clerks, comes out this way still
+when he goes home and he can just as good fetch it along on his home
+road. Your pop is too busy to hitch up and go in for it and I have no
+time neither to-day and I want it early in the morning, and what I have
+is almost all. And then you can buy three spools of white thread number
+fifty. And when you're done you dare look around a little in the store
+if you don't touch nothing. On the home road you better stop in the
+post-office and ask if there's anything. Nobody was in yesterday."
+
+"All right--and--Aunt Maria, dare I wear my hat?"
+
+"Ach, no. Abody don't wear Sunday clothes on a Wednesday just to go to
+Greenwald to the store. Only when you go to Lancaster and on a Sunday
+you wear your hat. You're dressed good enough; just get your sunbonnet,
+for it's sunny on the road."
+
+Phœbe took a small ruffled sunbonnet of blue checked gingham from a hook
+behind the kitchen door and pressed it lightly on her head.
+
+"Ach, bonnets are vonderful hot things!" she exclaimed. "A nice parasol
+like Mary Warner's got would be lots nicer. Where's the money?" she
+asked as she saw a shadow of displeasure on her aunt's face.
+
+"Here it is, enough for the sugar and the thread. Don't lose the
+pocketbook, and be sure to count the change so they don't make no
+mistake."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And don't touch things in the store."
+
+"No." The child walked to the door, impatient to be off.
+
+"And be careful crossin' over the streets. If a horse comes, or a
+bicycle, wait till it's past, or an automobile----"
+
+"Ach, yes, I'll be careful," Phœbe answered.
+
+A moment later she went down the boardwalk that led through the yard to
+the little green gate at the country road. There she paused and looked
+back at the farm with its old-fashioned house, her birthplace and home.
+
+The Metz homestead, erected in the days of home-grown flax and
+spinning-wheels, was plain and unpretentious. Built of gray, rough-hewn
+quarry stone it hid like a demure Quakeress behind tall evergreen trees
+whose branches touched and interlaced in so many places that the
+traveler on the country road caught but mere glimpses of the big gray
+house.
+
+The old home stood facing the road that led northward to the little town
+of Greenwald. Southward the road curved and wound itself about a steep
+hill, sent its branches right and left to numerous farms while it, still
+twisting and turning, went on to the nearest city, Lancaster, ten miles
+distant.
+
+The Metz farm was just outside the southern limits of the town of
+Greenwald. The spacious red barn stood on the very bank of Chicques
+Creek, the boundary line.
+
+"It's awful pretty here to-day," Phœbe said aloud as she looked from the
+house with its sheltering trees to the flower garden with its roses,
+larkspur and other old-fashioned flowers, then to the background of
+undulating fields and hills. "It's just vonderful pretty here to-day.
+But, ach, I guess it's pretty most anywheres on a day like this--but not
+in the house. Ugh, that patchin'! I want to forget it."
+
+As she closed the gate and entered the country road she caught sight of
+a familiar figure just ahead.
+
+"Hello," she called. "Wait once, David! Is that you?"
+
+"No, it ain't me, it's my shadow!" came the answer as a boy, several
+years older than Phœbe, turned and waited for her.
+
+"Ach, David Eby," she giggled, "you're just like Aunt Maria says still
+you are--always cuttin' up and talkin' so abody don't know if you mean
+it or what. Goin' in to town, too, once?"
+
+"Um-uh. Say, Phœbe, you want a rose to pin on?" he asked, turning to
+her with a pink damask rose.
+
+"Why, be sure I do! I just like them roses vonderful much. We got 'em
+too, big bushes of 'em, but Aunt Maria won't let me pull none off.
+Where'd you get yourn?"
+
+"We got lots. Mom lets me pull off all I want. You pin it on and be
+decorated for Greenwald. Where all you going, Phœbe?"
+
+"And I say thanks, too, David, for the rose," she said as she pinned the
+rose to her dress. "Um, it smells good! Where am I goin'?" she
+remembered his question. "Why, to the store and to Granny Hogendobler
+and the post-office----"
+
+"Jimminy Crickets!" The boy stood still. "That's where I'm to go! Me and
+mom both forgot about it. Mom wants a money order and said I'm to get it
+the first time I go to town and here I am without the money. It's home
+up the hill again for me."
+
+"Ach, David, don't you know that it's vonderful bad luck to go back for
+something when you got started once?"
+
+The boy laughed. "It _is_ bad luck to have to climb that hill again. But
+mom'll say what I ain't got in my head I got to have in my feet. They're
+big enough to hold a lot, too, Phœbe, ain't they?"
+
+She giggled, then laughed merrily. "Ach," she said, "you say funny
+things. You just make me laugh all the time. But it's mean, now, that
+you are so dumb to forget and have to go back. I thought I'd have nice
+company all the ways in, but mebbe I'll see you in Greenwald."
+
+"Mebbe. Goo'bye," said the boy and turned to the hill again.
+
+Phœbe stood a moment and looked after him. "My," she said to herself,
+"but David Eby is a vonderful nice boy!" Then she started down the road,
+a quaint, interesting little figure in her brown chambray dress with its
+full, gathered skirt and its short, plain waist. But the face that
+looked out from the blue sunbonnet was even more interesting. The blue
+eyes, golden hair and fair coloring of the cheeks held promise of an
+abiding beauty, but more than mere beauty was bounded by the ruffled
+sunbonnet. There was an eagerness of expression, an alert understanding
+in the deep eyes, a tender fluttering of the long lashes, an ever
+varying animation in the child face, as though she were standing on
+tiptoe to catch all the sunshine and glory of the great, beautiful world
+about her.
+
+Phœbe went decorously down the road, across the wooden bridge over the
+Chicques, then she began to skip. Her full skirt fluttered in the light
+wind, her sunbonnet slipped back from her head and flapped as she hopped
+along the half mile stretch of country road bordered by green fields and
+meadows.
+
+"There's no houses here so I dare skip," she panted gleefully. "Aunt
+Maria don't think it looks nice for girls to skip, but I like to do it.
+I could just skip and skip and skip----"
+
+She stopped suddenly. In a meadow to her right a tangle of bulrushes
+edged a small pond and, perched on a swaying reed, a red-winged
+blackbird was calling his clear, "Conqueree, conqueree."
+
+"Oh, you pretty thing!" Phœbe cried as she leaned on the fence and
+watched the bird. "You're just the prettiest thing with them red and
+yellow spots on your wings. And you ain't afraid of me, not a bit. I
+guess mebbe you know you got wings and I ain't. Such pretty wings you
+got, too, and the rest of you is all black as coal. Mebbe God made you
+black all over like a crow and then got sorry for you and put some
+pretty spots on your wings. I wonder now"--her face sobered--"I just
+wonder now why Aunt Maria says still that it's bad to fix up pretty with
+curls and things like that and to wear fancy dresses. Why, many of the
+birds are vonderful fine in gay feathers and the flowers are fancy and
+the butterflies--ach, mebbe when I'm big I'll understand it better, or
+mebbe I'll dress up pretty then too."
+
+With that cheering thought she turned again to the road and resumed her
+walk, but the skipping mood had fled. She pulled her sunbonnet to its
+proper place and walked briskly along, still enjoying thoroughly, though
+less exuberantly, the beauty of the June morning.
+
+The scent of pink clover mingled with the odor of grasses and the
+delicate perfume of sweetbrier. Wood sorrel nestled in the grassy
+corners near the crude rail fences, daisies and spiked toad-flax grew
+lavishly among the weeds of the roadside. In the meadows tall milkweed
+swayed its clusters of pink and lavender, marsh-marigolds dotted the
+grass with discs of pure gold, and Queen Anne's lace lifted its
+parasols of exquisite loveliness. Phœbe reveled in it all; her cheeks
+were glowing as she left the beauty of the country behind her and came
+at last to the little town of Greenwald.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+OLD AARON'S FLAG
+
+
+GREENWALD is an old town but it is a delightfully interesting one. It
+does not wear its antiquity as an excuse for sinking into mouldering
+uselessness. It presents, rather, a strange mingling of the quaint,
+romantic and historic with the beautiful, progressive and modern. Though
+it clings reverently to honored traditions it is ever mindful of the
+fact that the welfare of its inhabitants is dependent upon reasonable
+progress in its religious, educational and industrial life.
+
+The charming stamp of its antiquity is revealed in its great old trees;
+its wide Market Square from which narrower streets branch to the east,
+west, north and south; its numerous houses of the plain, substantial
+type of several generations ago; its occasional little, low houses which
+have withstood the march of modern building and stand squarely beside
+houses of more elaborate and later design; but chiefly in its
+old-fashioned gardens. All the old-time flowers are favorites there and
+refuse to be displaced by any newcomer. Sweet alyssum and candytuft
+spread carpets of bloom along the neat garden walks, hollyhocks and
+dahlias look boldly out to the streets, while the old-fashioned
+sweet-scented roses grow on great bushes which have been undisturbed for
+three or more generations.
+
+To Phœbe Metz, Greenwald, with its two thousand inhabitants, its several
+churches, post-office and numerous stores, seemed a veritable city. She
+delighted in walking on its brick sidewalks, looking at its different
+houses and entering its stores. How many attractions these stores held
+for the little country girl! There was the big one on the Square which
+had in one of its windows a great lemon tree on which grew real lemons.
+Another store had a large Santa Claus in its window every Christmas--not
+that Phœbe Metz had ever been taught to believe in that patron saint of
+the children--oh, no! Maria Metz would have considered it foolish, even
+sinful, to lie to a child about any mythical Santa Claus coming down the
+chimney Christmas Eve! Nevertheless, the smiling, rotund face of the
+red-habited Santa in the store window seemed so real and so emanative of
+cheer that Phœbe delighted in him each year and felt sure there must be
+a Santa Claus somewhere in the world, even though Aunt Maria knew
+nothing about him.
+
+Most little towns can boast of one or more persons like Granny
+Hogendobler, well-nigh community owned, certainly community
+appropriated. Did any one need a helper in garden or kitchen or sewing
+room, Granny Hogendobler was glad to serve. Did a housewife remember
+that a rose geranium leaf imparts to apple jelly a delicious flavor,
+Granny Hogendobler was able and willing to furnish the leaf. Did a lover
+of flowers covet a new phlox or dahlia or other old-fashioned flower,
+Granny Hogendobler was ready to give of her stock. Should a young wife
+desire a recipe for crullers, shoo-fly pie, or other delectable dish,
+Granny had a wealth of reliable recipes at her tongue's end. This
+admirable desire to serve found ample opportunities for exercise in the
+constant demands from her friends and neighbors. But Granny's greatest
+joy lay in the fond ministrations for her husband, Old Aaron, as the
+town people called him, half pityingly, half accusingly. For some said
+Old Aaron was plain shiftless, had always been so, would remain so
+forever, so long as he had Granny to do for him. Others averred that the
+Confederate bullets that had shattered his leg into splinters and
+necessitated its amputation must have gone astray and struck his
+liver--leastways, that was the kindest explanation they could give for
+his laziness.
+
+Granny stoutly refuted all these charges--gossip travels in circles in
+small towns and sooner or later reaches those most concerned--"Aaron
+lazy! I-to-goodness no! Why, he's old and what for should he go out and
+work every day, I wonder. He helps me with the garden and so, and when I
+go out to help somebody for a day or two he gets his own meals and tends
+the chickens still. Some people thought a few years ago that he might
+get work in the foundry, but I said I want him at home with me. He gets
+a pension and we can live good on what we have without him slaving his
+last years away, and him with one leg lost at Gettysburg!" she ended
+proudly.
+
+So Old Aaron continued to live his life as pleased his mate and himself.
+He pottered about the house and garden and spent long hours musing under
+the grape arbor. But there was one day in every year when Old Aaron
+came into his own. Every Memorial Day he dressed in his venerated blue
+uniform and carried the flag down the dusty streets of Greenwald, out to
+the dustier road to a spot a mile from the heart of the town, where, on
+a sunny hilltop, some of his comrades rested in the Silent City.
+
+Only the infirm and the ill of the town failed to run to look as the
+little procession passed down the street. There were boys in khaki, the
+town band playing its best, volunteer firemen clad in vivid red shirts,
+a low, hand-drawn wagon filled with flowers, an old cannon, also
+hand-drawn, whose shots over the graves of the dead veterans would
+thrill as they thrilled every May thirtieth--all received attention and
+admiration from the watchers of the procession. But the real honors of
+the day were accorded the "thin blue line of heroes," and Old Aaron was
+one of these. To Granny Hogendobler, who walked with the crowd of
+cheering children and adults and kept step on the sidewalk with the step
+of the marchers on the street, it was evident that the standard bearer
+was growing old. The steep climb near the cemetery entrance left him
+breathless and flushed and each year Granny thought, "It's getting too
+much for him to carry that flag." But each returning year she would have
+spurned as earnestly as he any suggestion that another one be chosen to
+carry that flag. And so every three hundred and sixty-fifth day the lean
+straight figure of Old Aaron marched directly under the fluttering folds
+of Old Glory and the soldier became a subject worthy of veneration,
+then with customary nonchalance the little town forgot him again or
+spoke of him as Old Aaron, a little lazy, a little shiftless, a little
+childish, and Granny Hogendobler became the more important figure of
+that household.
+
+Granny was fifteen years younger than her husband and was undeniably
+rotund of hips and face, the former rotundity increased by her full
+skirts, the latter accentuated by her style of wearing her hair combed
+back into a tight knot near the top of her head and held in place by a
+huge black back-comb.
+
+From this style of hair dressing it is evident that Granny was not a
+member of any plain sect. She was, as she said, "An Evangelical, one of
+the old kind yet. I can say Amen to the preacher's sermon and stand up
+in prayer-meeting and tell how the Lord has blessed me."
+
+There were some who doubted the rich blessing of which Granny spoke. "I
+wouldn't think the Lord blessed me so much," whispered one, "if I had a
+man like Old Aaron, though I guess he's good enough to her. And that boy
+of theirs never comes home; he must have a funny streak in him too."
+"But think of this," one would answer, "how the Lord keeps her cheerful,
+kind and faithful through all her troubles."
+
+Granny's was a wonderful garden. She and Old Aaron lived in a little
+gray cube of a house that had its front face set straight to the edge of
+Charlotte Street. However, the north side of the cube looked into a
+great green yard where tall spruce trees, overrun with trumpet vines and
+woodbine, shaded long beds of flowers that love semi-shady places. The
+rear of the house overlooked an old-fashioned garden enclosed with a
+white-washed picket fence. Always were there flowers at Granny's house.
+In the cold days of winter blooming masses of geraniums, primroses and
+gloxinias crowded against the little square panes of the windows and
+looked defiantly out at the snow; while all the old favorites grew in
+the garden, from the first March snowdrop to the late November
+chrysanthemum. In June, therefore, the garden was a "Lovesome spot"
+indeed.
+
+"It vonders me now if Granny's home," thought Phœbe as she opened the
+wooden gate and entered the yard.
+
+"Here I am," called Granny. "Back in the garden. I-to-goodness, Phœbe,
+did you come once! I just said yesterday to Aaron that I didn't see none
+of you folks for long, and here you come! You haven't seen the flowers
+for a while."
+
+"Oh!" Phœbe breathed an ecstatic little word of delight. "Oh, your
+garden is just vonderful pretty!"
+
+"Ain't," agreed Granny. "Aaron and me's been working pretty hard in it
+these weeks. There he is, out in the potato patch; see him?"
+
+Phœbe stood on tiptoe and looked where Granny's finger pointed to the
+extreme end of the long vegetable garden, where the white head of Old
+Aaron was bending over his hoeing.
+
+"He's hoeing the potatoes," Granny explained. "He don't see you. But
+he'll soon be done and come in."
+
+"What were you doin'?" asked the child.
+
+"Weeding the flag."
+
+"Weedin' the flag--what do you mean?" Phœbe's eyes lighted with
+eagerness. "I guess you mean mendin' the flag, Granny." She looked
+toward the porch as if in search of Old Glory.
+
+"I said weeding the flag," the woman insisted. "It's an idea of Aaron's
+and I guess I'll tell you about it, seeing your eyes are open so wide.
+See the poppies, that long stretch of them in the middle of the garden?"
+
+"Um-uh," nodded Phœbe.
+
+"Well, that patch at the back is all red poppies, the buds just coming
+on them nice and big. Then right in front of them is another patch of
+white poppies; the buds are thick on them, too. And right in front of
+them--you see what's there!"
+
+"Larkspur, blue larkspur!" cried Phœbe. "Oh, I see--it's red, white and
+blue! You'll have it all summer in your garden!"
+
+"Yes. When it blooms it'll be a grand sight. I said to Aaron that we'll
+have all the children of Greenwald in looking at his flag and he said he
+hopes so, for they couldn't look at anything better than the colors of
+Old Glory. Aaron's crazy about the flag."
+
+"'Cause he fought for it, mebbe."
+
+"Yes, I guess. His father died for it at Gettysburg, the same place
+where Aaron lost his leg. . . . The only thing is, the larkspur's
+getting ahead of the poppies--seems like the larkspur couldn't
+wait"--her voice continued low--"I always love to see the larkspur
+come."
+
+"I too," said the child. "I like to pull out the little slippers from
+the middle of the flowers and fit 'em into each other and make circles
+with 'em. I made a lot last summer and pressed 'em in a book, but Aunt
+Maria made me stop."
+
+"That's just what Nason used to do. I have some pressed in the big Bible
+yet that he made when he was a little boy." She spoke half-absently, as
+though momentarily forgetful of the child's presence.
+
+"Who's Nason?" asked Phœbe.
+
+Granny started. "I-to-goodness, Phœbe, I forgot! You don't know him,
+never heard of him, I guess. He's our boy. We had a little girl, too,
+but she died."
+
+"Did the boy die too, Granny?"
+
+"No, ach no! You wouldn't understand. He's living in the city. He writes
+to me often but he don't come home. He and his pop fell out about the
+flag once when Nason was young and foolish and they're both too stubborn
+to forget it."
+
+"But he'll come back some day and live with you, of course, won't he?"
+Phœbe comforted her.
+
+"Yes--some day they'll see things different. But now don't you bother
+that head of yourn with such things. You forget all about Nason. Come
+now, sit on the bench a little under the arbor."
+
+"Just a little. I must go to the store yet."
+
+"You have lots to do."
+
+"Yes. And I almost forgot what I come for. Aunt Maria wants you should
+come out to our place to-morrow early and help with the strawberries if
+you can."
+
+"I'll come. I like to come to your place. Your Aunt Maria is so straight
+out, nothing false about her. I like her. But now I bet you're thinking
+of how many berries you can eat," she added as she noted the child's
+abstracted look.
+
+"No--I was thinkin'--I was just thinkin' what a funny name Nason is,
+like you tried to say Nathan and got your tongue twisted."
+
+"It's a real name, but you must forget all about it."
+
+"If I can. Sometimes Aunt Maria tells me to forget things, like wantin'
+curls and fancy things and pretty dresses but I don't see how I can
+forget when I remember, do you?"
+
+"It's hard," Granny said, a deeper meaning in her words than the child
+could comprehend. "It's the hardest thing in the world to forget what
+you want to forget. But here comes Aaron----"
+
+"Well, well, if here ain't Phœbe Metz with her eyes shining and a pink
+rose pinned to her waist and matching the roses in her cheeks!" the old
+soldier said as he joined the two under the arbor. "Whew! Mebbe it ain't
+hot hoeing potatoes!"
+
+"You're all heated up, Aaron," said Granny. His fifteen years seniority
+warranted a solicitous watchfulness over him, she thought. "Now you get
+cooled off a little and I'll make some lemonade. It'll taste good to me
+and Phœbe, too."
+
+"All right, Ma," Aaron sighed in relaxation. "You know how to touch the
+spot. Did you tell Phœbe about the flag?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, I think it's fine!" cried the child. "I can't wait till all the
+flowers bloom. I want to see it."
+
+"You'll see it," promised the man. "And you bring all the boys and girls
+in too."
+
+"And then will you tell us about the war and the Battle of Gettysburg?
+David Eby says he heard you once tell about it. I think it was at some
+school celebration. And he says it was grand, just like being there
+yourself."
+
+"A little safer," laughed the old soldier. "But, yes, when the poppies
+bloom you bring the children in and I'll tell you about the war and the
+flag."
+
+"I'll remember. I love to hear about the war. Old Johnny Schlegelmilch
+from way up the country comes to our place still to sell brooms, and
+once last summer he came and it began to thunder and storm and pop said
+he shall stay till it's over and then he told me all about the war. He
+said our flag's the prettiest in the whole world."
+
+"So it is," solemnly affirmed Old Aaron.
+
+"I wonder if anybody it belongs to could help liking it," said the
+child, remembering Granny's words.
+
+"Well," the veteran answered slowly, "I knew a young fellow once, a nice
+fellow he seemed, too, and his father a soldier who fought for the flag.
+Well, the father was always talking about the flag and what it means and
+how every man should be ready to fight for it. And one day the boy said
+that he would never fight for it and be shot to pieces, that the old
+flag made him sick, and one soldier in the family was enough."
+
+"Oh!" Phœbe opened her eyes wide in surprise and horror.
+
+"And the father told the boy," the old man went on in a fixed voice as
+though the veriest details of the story were vividly before him, "that
+if he would not take back those words he never wanted to see him again.
+It was better to have no son, than such a son, a coward who hated the
+flag."
+
+Here Granny appeared with the lemonade and the story was abruptly ended.
+Phœbe refrained from questioning the man about the story but as she sat
+under the arbor and afterwards, as she started up the street of the
+little town, she wondered over and over how a boy could be the son of a
+soldier and hate the flag, and whether the story Old Aaron told her was
+the story of himself and Nason.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+LITTLE DUTCHIE
+
+
+"AUNT MARIA said I dare look around a little," thought Phœbe as she
+neared the big store on the Square. Her heart beat more quickly as she
+turned the knob of the heavy door--little things still thrilled her,
+going to the store in Greenwald was an event!
+
+The clerk's courteous, "What can I do for you?" bewildered her for an
+instant but she swallowed hard and said, "Why, we want twenty pounds of
+granulated sugar; ourn is almost all and Aunt Maria wants to make some
+strawberry jelly to-morrow. She said for Jonas to fetch it along on his
+home road."
+
+"All right. Out to Jacob Metz?"
+
+"Yes, he's my pop."
+
+"I see. Anything else?"
+
+"Three spools white thread, number fifty."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+She shook her head as she handed him the money. "No, that's all for
+to-day. But Aunt Maria said I dare look around a little if I don't touch
+things."
+
+"Look all you want," said the clerk and turned away, smiling.
+
+Phœbe began a slow tramp about the big store. There was the same glass
+case filled with jewelry. The rings and pins rested on satin that had
+faded long since, the jewelry itself was tarnished but it held Phœbe's
+interest with its meagre glistening. One little ring with a tiny
+turquoise aroused her desire but she realized that she was longing for
+the impossible, so she moved away from the coveted treasures and paused
+before the ribbons. Some of those same ribbons had been in the tall
+revolving case ever since she could remember going to that store. The
+pale sea-green and the crushed-strawberry were faded horribly, yet she
+looked at them with longing. "Suppose," she thought, "I dared pick out
+any ribbon I want for a sash--guess I'd take that funny pink one, or
+mebbe that nice blue one. But I kinda think I'd rather have a set of
+dishes or a doll. But then I got that rag doll at home and that pretty
+one that pop got for me in Lancaster and that Aunt Maria won't leave me
+play with. That's funny now, that she says still I daren't play with it
+for I might break it, that I shall keep it till I'm big. But when I'm
+big I won't want a doll, and then I vonder what! What will I do with it
+then?"
+
+She stood a long time before a table crowded with a motley gathering of
+toys, dolls and books. With so much coveted treasure before her it was
+hard to remember Aunt Maria's injunction to refrain from touching.
+
+"Well, anyhow," she decided finally, "I won't need any of these things
+to play with now, for I'm going to be out in the garden and the yard
+with the flowers and birds. So I guess my old rag doll will be plenty
+for playin' with. But I mustn't look too long else Aunt Maria won't
+leave me come in soon again. I'll walk down the other side of the store
+now yet and then I must go."
+
+She passed slowly along, her keen eyes noticing the varied assortment of
+articles displayed for sale. A long line of red handkerchiefs was
+fastened to a cord high above one counter. Long shelves were stacked
+high with ginghams, calicoes and finer dress materials. There were gaudy
+rugs and blankets tacked to the walls near the ceiling. Counters were
+filled with glassware, china and crockery; other counters were laden
+with umbrellas, hats, shoes----
+
+"Ach," she sighed as she went out to the street, "I think this goin' to
+Greenwald to the store is vonderful nice! It's most as much fun as goin'
+in to Lancaster, only there I go in a trolley and I see black
+niggers"--she spoke the word with a little shiver, for Greenwald had no
+negro residents--"and once in there me and Aunt Maria saw a Chinaman
+with a long plait like a girl's hangin' down his back!"
+
+After asking for the mail at the post-office she turned homeward,
+feeling like singing from sheer happiness. Then she looked down at her
+pink damask rose--it was withered.
+
+"I'm goin' home now so I guess I won't be decorated no more." She
+unpinned the flower, clasped its short stem in her hand and raised the
+blossom to her face.
+
+"Um-m-m!" She drew deep breaths of the rose's perfume. "Um-m!"
+
+"Does it smell good?"
+
+Phœbe turned her head at the voice and looked into the face of a young
+woman who sat on the porch of a near-by house.
+
+"Does it smell good?" The question came again, accompanied by a broad
+smile.
+
+Quickly the hand holding the flower dropped to the child's side, her
+eyes were cast down to the brick pavement and she went hurriedly down
+the street. But not so hurriedly that she failed to hear the words,
+"LITTLE DUTCHIE" and a merry laugh from the young woman.
+
+"She--she laughed at me!" Phœbe murmured to herself under the blue
+sunbonnet. "I don't know who she is, but that was at Mollie Stern's
+house that she sat--that lady that laughed at me. She called me a
+Dutchie!"
+
+The child stabbed a fist into one eye and then into the other to fight
+back the tears. She felt sure that the appellation of Dutchie was not
+complimentary. Hadn't she heard the boys at school tease each other by
+calling, "Dutchie, Dutchie, sauer kraut!" But no one had ever called her
+that before! Her heart ached as she went down the street of the little
+town. She had planned to look at all the gardens of the main street as
+she walked home but the glory of the June day was spoiled for her. She
+did not care to look at any gardens. The laughing words, "Does it smell
+good?" rang in her ears. The name, "Little Dutchie," sent her heart
+throbbing.
+
+After the first hurt a feeling of wrath rose in her. "Anyhow," she
+thought, "it's no disgrace to be a Dutchie! Nobody needn't laugh at me
+for that. But I just hate that lady that laughed at me! I hate everybody
+that pokes fun at me. And I ain't goin' to always be a Dutchie. You see
+once if I don't be something else when I grow up!"
+
+"Hello, Phœbe," a cheery voice rang out, followed by a deeper
+exclamation, "Phœbe!" as she came to the last intersection of streets in
+the town and turned to enter the country road.
+
+She turned a sober little face to the speakers, David Eby and his
+cousin, Phares Eby.
+
+"Hello," she answered listlessly.
+
+"What's wrong?" asked the older boy as they joined her.
+
+Both were plainly country boys accustomed to hard farm work, but their
+tanned faces were frank and honest under broad straw hats. Each bore
+marked family resemblances in their big frames, dark eyes and
+well-shaped heads, but there was a distinct line drawn between their
+personalities. Phares Eby at sixteen was grave, studious and dignified;
+his cousin, David, two years younger, was a cheery, laughing, sociable
+boy, fond of boyish sports, delighting in teasing his schoolmates and
+enjoying their retaliation, preferring a tramp through the woods to the
+best book ever written.
+
+The boys lived on adjacent farms and had long been the nearest neighbors
+of the Metz family; thus they had become Phœbe's playmates. Then, too,
+the Eby families were members of the Church of the Brethren, the mothers
+of the boys were old friends of Maria Metz, and a deep friendship
+existed among them all. Phœbe and the two boys attended the same little
+country school and had become frankly fond of each other.
+
+"What's wrong?" asked Phares again as Phœbe hung her head and remained
+silent.
+
+"Ach," laughed David, "somebody's broke her dolly."
+
+"Nobody ain't not broke my dolly, David Eby!" she said crossly. "I
+wouldn't cry for _that_!"
+
+"What's wrong then?--come on, Phœbe." He pushed the sunbonnet back and
+patted her roguishly on the head. But she drew away from him.
+
+"Don't you touch me," she cried. "I'm a Dutchie!"
+
+"What?"
+
+She tossed her head and became silent again.
+
+"Come on, tell me," coaxed David. "I want to know what's wrong. Why, if
+you don't tell me I'll be so worried I won't be able to eat any dinner,
+and I'm so hungry now I could eat nails."
+
+The girl laughed suddenly in spite of herself--"Ach, David, you're awful
+simple! Abody has to laugh at you. I was mad, for when I was in
+Greenwald I was smellin' a rose, that pink rose you gave me, and some
+lady on Mollie Stern's porch laughed at me and called me a LITTLE
+DUTCHIE! Now wouldn't you got mad for that?"
+
+But David threw back his head and laughed. "And you were ready to cry at
+that?" he said. "Why, I'm a Dutchie, so is Phares, so's most of the
+people round here. Ain't so, Phares?"
+
+"Yes, guess so," the older boy assented, his eyes still upon Phœbe.
+"D'ye know," he said, addressing her, "when you were cross a few minutes
+ago your eyes were almost black. You shouldn't get so angry still,
+Phœbe."
+
+"I don't care," she retorted quickly, "I don't care if my eyes was
+purple!"
+
+"But you should care," persisted the boy gravely. "I don't like you so
+angry."
+
+"Ach," she flashed an indignant look at him--"Phares Eby, you're by far
+too bossy! I like David best; he don't boss me all the time like you
+do!"
+
+David laughed but Phares appeared hurt.
+
+Phœbe was quick to note it. "Now I hurt you like that lady hurt me,
+ain't, Phares?" she said contritely. "But I didn't mean to hurt you,
+Phares, honest."
+
+"But you like me best," said David gaily. "You can't take that back,
+remember."
+
+She gave him a scornful look. Then she remembered the flag in the
+Hogendobler garden and became happy and eager again as she said, "Oh,
+Phares, David, I know the best secret!"
+
+"Can't keep it, I bet!" challenged David.
+
+"Can't I?" she retorted saucily. "Now for that I won't tell you till you
+get good and anxious. But then it's not really a secret." The flag of
+growing flowers was too glorious a thing to keep; she compromised--"I'll
+tell you, because it's not a real secret." And she proceeded to unfold
+with earnest gesticulations the story about the flowers of red and white
+and blue and the invitation for all who cared to come and see the
+colors of Old Glory growing in the garden of Old Aaron and Granny, and
+of the added pleasure of hearing Old Aaron tell his thrilling story of
+the battle of Gettysburg.
+
+"I won't want to hear about any battle," said Phares. "I think war is
+horrible, awful, wicked."
+
+"Mebbe so," said the girl, "but the poor men who fight in wars ain't
+always awful, horrible, wicked. You needn't turn your nose up at the old
+soldiers. Folks call Old Aaron lazy, I heard 'em a'ready, lots of times,
+but I bet some of them wouldn't have fought like he did and left a leg
+at Gettysburg and--ach, I think Old Aaron is just vonderful grand!" she
+ended in an impulsive burst of eloquence.
+
+"Hooray!" shouted David. "So do I! When he carries the flag out the pike
+every Decoration Day he's somebody, all right."
+
+"Ain't now!" agreed Phœbe.
+
+"Been in the stores?" David asked her, feeling that a change of subject
+might be wise.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"See anything pretty?"
+
+"Ach, yes. A lots of things. I saw the prettiest finger ring with a blue
+stone in. I wish I had it."
+
+"What would Aunt Maria say to that?" wondered David.
+
+"Ach, she'd say that so long as my finger ain't broke I don't need a
+band on it. But I looked at the ring at any rate and wished I had it."
+
+"You dare never wear gold rings," Phares told her.
+
+"Not now," she returned, "but some day when I'm older mebbe I'll wear a
+lot of 'em if I want."
+
+The words set the boys thinking. Each wondered what manner of woman
+their little playmate would become.
+
+"I bet she'll be a good-looking one," thought David. "She'd look swell
+dressed up fine like some of the people I see in town."
+
+"Of course she'll turn plain some day like her aunt," thought the other
+boy. "She'll look nice in the plain dress and the white cap."
+
+Phœbe, ignorant of the visions her innocent words had called to the
+hearts of her comrades, chattered on until they reached the little green
+gate of the Metz farm.
+
+"Now you two must climb the hill yet. I'm glad I'm home. I'm hungry."
+
+"And me," the boys answered, and with good-byes were off on the winding
+road up the hill.
+
+As Phœbe turned the corner of the big gray house she came face to face
+with her father.
+
+"So here you are, Phœbe," he said, smiling at sight of her. "Your Aunt
+Maria sent me out to look if you were coming. It's time to eat. Been to
+the store, ain't?"
+
+"Yes, pop. I went alone."
+
+"So? Why, you're getting a big girl, now you can go to Greenwald alone."
+
+"Ach," she laughed. "Why, it's just straight road."
+
+They crossed the porch and entered the kitchen hand-in-hand, the
+sunbonneted little girl and the big farmer. Jacob Metz was also a member
+of the Church of the Brethren and bore the distinctive mark: hair parted
+in the middle and combed straight back over his ears and cut so that the
+edge of it almost touched his collar. A heavy black beard concealed his
+chin, mild brown eyes gleamed beneath a pair of heavy black brows. Only
+in the wide, high forehead and the resolute mouth could be seen any
+resemblance between him and the fair child by his side.
+
+When they entered the kitchen Maria Metz turned from the stove, where
+she had been stirring the contents of a big iron pan.
+
+"So you got back safe, after all, Phœbe," she said with a sigh of
+relief. "I was afraid mebbe something happened to you, with so many
+streets to go across and so many teams all the time and the
+automobiles."
+
+"Ach, I look both ways still before I start over. Granny Hogendobler
+said she'll get out early."
+
+"So. What did she have to say?"
+
+"Ach, lots. She showed me her flowers. Ain't it too bad, now, that her
+little girl died and her boy went away?"
+
+"Well, she spoiled that boy. He grew up to be not much account if he
+stays away just because he and his pop had words once."
+
+"But he'll come back some day. Granny knows he will." The child echoed
+the old mother's confidence.
+
+"Not much chance of that," said Aunt Maria with her usual decisiveness.
+"When a man goes off like that he mostly always stays off. He writes to
+her she says and I guess she's just as good off with that as if he come
+home to live. She's lived this long without him."
+
+"But," argued Phœbe, the maternal in her over-sweeping all else, "he's
+her boy and she wants him back!"
+
+"Ach," the aunt said impatiently, "you talk too much. Were you at the
+store?"
+
+"Yes. I got the thread and ordered the sugar and counted the change and
+there was nothing in the post-office for us."
+
+"Did you enjoy your trip to town?" asked the father.
+
+"Yes--but----"
+
+"But what?" demanded Aunt Maria. "Did you break anything in the store
+now?"
+
+"No. I just got mad. It was this way"--and she told the story of her
+pink rose.
+
+Maria Metz frowned. "David Eby should leave his mom's roses on the
+stalks where they belong. Anyhow, I guess you did look funny if you
+poked your nose in it like you do still here."
+
+"But she had no business to laugh at me, had she, pop?"
+
+"You're too touchy," he said kindly. "But did you say the lady was on
+Mollie Stern's porch?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I guess it was her cousin from Philadelphia, the one that was
+elected to teach the school on the hill for next winter."
+
+"Oh, pop, not our school?"
+
+"Yes. Anyhow, her cousin was elected yesterday to teach your school. It
+seems she wanted to teach in the country and Mollie's pop is friends
+with a lot of our directors and they voted her in."
+
+"I ain't goin' to school then!" Phœbe almost sobbed. "I don't like her,
+I don't want to go to her school; she laughed at me."
+
+"Come, come," the father laid his hands on her head and spoke gently yet
+in a tone that she respected. "You mustn't get worked up over it. She's
+a nice young lady, and it will be something new to have a teacher from
+Philadelphia. Anyhow, it's a long ways yet till school begins."
+
+"I'm glad it is."
+
+"Come," interrupted the aunt, "help now to dish up. It's time to eat
+once. We're Pennsylvania Dutch, so what's the use gettin' cross when
+we're called that?"
+
+"Yes," Phœbe's father said, smiling, "I'm a Dutchie too, but I'm a big
+Dutchie."
+
+Phœbe smiled, but all through the meal and during the days that followed
+she thought often of the rose. Her heart was bitter toward the new
+teacher and she resolved never, never to like her!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE NEW TEACHER
+
+
+THE first Monday in September was the opening day of the rural school on
+the hill. Phœbe woke that morning before daylight. At four she heard her
+Aunt Maria tramp about in heavy shoes. It was Monday and wash-day and to
+Maria Metz the two words were so closely linked that nothing less than
+serious illness or death could part them.
+
+"Ach, my," Phœbe sighed as she turned again under her red and green
+quilt, "this is the first day of school! Wish Aunt Maria'd forget to
+call me till it's too late to go."
+
+At five-thirty she heard her father go down-stairs and soon after that
+came her aunt's loud call, "Phœbe, it's time to get up. Get up now and
+get down for I have breakfast made."
+
+"Yes," came the dreary answer.
+
+"Now don't you go asleep again."
+
+"No, I'm awake. Shall I dress right aways for school?"
+
+"No. Put on your old brown gingham once."
+
+Phœbe made a wry face. "Ugh, that ugly brown gingham! What for did
+anybody ever buy brown when there are such pretty colors in the stores?"
+
+A moment later she pushed back the gay quilt and sat on the edge of the
+bed. The first gleams of day-break sent bright streaks of light into her
+room as she sat on the high walnut bed and swung her bare feet back and
+forth.
+
+"It's the first time I wasn't glad for school," she soliloquized softly.
+"I used to could hardly wait still, and I'd be glad this time if we
+didn't have that teacher from Phildelphy. Miss Virginia Lee her name is,
+and she's pretty like the name, but I don't like her! Guess she's that
+stuck up, comin' from the city, that she'll laugh all the time at us
+country people. I don't like people that poke fun at me, you bet I
+don't! I vonder now, mebbe I am funny to look at, that she laughed at
+me. But if I was I think somebody would 'a' told me long ago. I don't
+see what for she laughed so at me."
+
+She sprang from the bed and ran to the window, pulled the cord of the
+green shade and sent it rattling to the top. Then she stood on tiptoe
+before the mirror in the walnut bureau, but the glass was hung too high
+for a satisfactory scrutiny of her features. She pushed a cane-seated
+chair before the bureau, knelt upon it and brought her face close to the
+glass.
+
+"Um," she surveyed herself soberly. "Well, now, mebbe if my hair was
+combed I'd look better."
+
+She pulled the tousled braids, opened them and shook her head until the
+golden hair hung about her face in all its glory.
+
+"Why"--she gasped at the sudden change she had wrought, then laughed
+aloud from sheer childish happiness in her own miracle--"Why," she said
+gladly, "I ain't near so funny lookin' with my hair opened and down
+instead of pulled back in two tight plaits! But I wish Aunt Maria'd
+leave me have curls. I'd have a lot, and long ones, longer'n Mary
+Warner's."
+
+"Phœbe!" Aunt Maria's voice startled the little girl. "What in the world
+are you doing lookin' in that glass so? And your knees on a cane-bottom
+chair! You know better than that. What for are you lookin' at yourself
+like that? You ought to be ashamed to be so vain."
+
+Phœbe left the chair and looked at her aunt.
+
+"Why," she said in an amazed voice, "I wasn't being vain! I was just
+lookin' to see if I am funny lookin' that it made Miss Lee laugh at me.
+And I found out that I'm much nicer to look at with my hair open than in
+plaits. You say still I mustn't have curls, but can't you see how much
+nicer I look this way----"
+
+"Ach," interrupted her aunt, "don't talk so dumb! I guess you ain't any
+funnier lookin' than other people, and if you was it wouldn't matter
+long as you're a good girl."
+
+"But I wouldn't be a good girl if I looked like some people I saw
+a'ready. If I had such big ears and crooked nose and big mouth----"
+
+"Phœbe, you talk vonderful! Where do you get such nonsense put in your
+head?"
+
+"I just think it and then I say it. But was that bad? I didn't mean it
+for bad."
+
+She looked so like a cherub of absolute innocency with her deep blue
+eyes opened wide in wonder, her golden hair tumbled about her face and
+streaming over the shoulders of her white muslin nightgown, that Aunt
+Maria, though she had never heard of Reynolds' cherubs, was moved by the
+adorable picture.
+
+"I know, Phœbe," she said kindly, "that you want to be a good girl. But
+you say such funny things still that I vonder sometimes if I'm raisin'
+you the right way. Come, hurry, now get dressed. Your pop's goin' way
+over to the field near Snavely's and you want to give him good-bye
+before he goes to work."
+
+"I'll hurry, Aunt Maria, honest I will," the child promised and began to
+dress.
+
+A little while later when she appeared in the big kitchen her father and
+Aunt Maria were already eating breakfast. With her hair drawn back into
+one uneven braid and a rusty brown dress upon her she seemed little like
+the adorable figure of the looking-glass, but her father's face lighted
+as he looked at her.
+
+"So, Phœbe," he said, a teasing twinkle in his eyes, "I see you get up
+early to go to school."
+
+"But I ain't glad to go." She refused to smile at his words.
+
+"Ach, yes," he coaxed, "you be a good girl and like your new teacher.
+She's nice. I guess you'll like her when you know her once."
+
+"Mebbe so," was the unpromising answer as she slipped the straps of a
+blue checked apron over her shoulders, buttoned it in the back and took
+her place at the table.
+
+Breakfast at the Metz farm was no light meal. Between the early morning
+meal and the twelve o'clock dinner much hard work was generally
+accomplished and Maria Metz felt that a substantial foundation was
+necessary. Accordingly, she carried to the big, square cherry table in
+the kitchen an array of well-filled dishes. There was always a glass
+dish of stewed prunes or seasonable fresh fruit; a plate piled high with
+thick slices of home-made bread; several dishes of spreadings, as the
+jellies, preserves or apple-butter of that community are called. There
+was a generous square of home-made butter, a platter of home-cured ham
+or sausage, a dish of fried or creamed potatoes, a smaller dish of
+pickles or beets, and occasionally a dome of glistening cup cheese. The
+meal would have been considered incomplete without a liberal supply of
+cake or cookies, coffee in huge cups and yellow cream in an
+old-fashioned blue pitcher.
+
+That morning Aunt Maria had prepared an extra treat, a platter of golden
+slices of fried mush.
+
+The two older people partook heartily of the food before them but the
+child ate listlessly. Her aunt soon exclaimed, "Now, Phœbe, you must eat
+or you'll get hungry till recess. You know this is the first day of
+school and you can't run for a cookie if you get hungry. You ain't
+eatin'; you feel bad?"
+
+"No, but I ain't hungry."
+
+"Come now," urged her father, as he poured a liberal helping of molasses
+on his sixth piece of mush, "you must eat. You surely don't feel that
+bad about going to school!"
+
+"Ach, pop," she burst out, "I don't hate the school part, the learnin'
+in books; that part is easy. But I don't like the teacher, and I guess
+she laughed at my tight braids. Mebbe if I dared wear curls---- Oh,
+pop, daren't I have curls? I'd like to show her that I look nice that
+way. Say I dare, then I won't be so funny lookin' no more!"
+
+Jacob Metz looked at his offspring--what did the child mean? Why, he
+thought she was right sweet and surely her aunt kept her clean and tidy.
+But before he could answer his sister spoke authoritatively.
+
+"Jacob, I wish you'd tell her once that she daren't have curls! She just
+plagues me all the time for 'em. Her hair was made to be kept back and
+not hangin' all over."
+
+"Why then," Phœbe asked soberly, "did God make my hair curly if I
+daren't have curls?" She spoke with a sense of knowing that she had
+propounded an unanswerable question.
+
+"That part don't matter," evaded Aunt Maria. "You ask your pop once how
+he wants you to have your hair fixed."
+
+The child looked up expectantly but she read the answer in her father's
+face.
+
+"I like your hair back in plaits, Phœbe. You look nice that way."
+
+"Ach," her nose wrinkled in disgust, "not so very, I guess. Mary Warner
+has curls, always she has curls!"
+
+"Come," said the father as he rose from his chair, "you be a good girl
+now to-day. I'm going now."
+
+"All right, pop. I'll tell you to-night how I like the teacher."
+
+After the breakfast dishes were washed and the other morning tasks
+accomplished Phœbe brought her comb and ribbons to her aunt and sat
+patiently on a spindle-legged kitchen chair while the woman carefully
+parted the long light hair and formed it into two braids, each tied at
+the end with a narrow brown ribbon.
+
+"Now," Aunt Maria said as she unbuttoned the despised brown dress, "you
+dare put on your blue chambray dress if you take care and not get it
+dirty right aways."
+
+"Oh, I'm glad for that. I like that dress best of all I have. It's not
+so long in the body or tight or long in the skirt like my other dresses.
+And blue is a prettier color than brown. I'll hurry now and get
+dressed."
+
+She ran up the wide stairs, her hands skimming lightly the white
+hand-rail, and entered the little room known as the clothes-room, where
+the best clothes of the family were hung on heavy hooks fastened along
+the entire length of the four walls. She soon found the blue chambray
+dress. It was extremely simple. The plain gathered skirt was fastened to
+the full waist by a wide belt of the chambray. But the dress bore one
+distinctive feature. Instead of the usual narrow band around the neck it
+was adorned with a wide round collar which lay over the shoulders. Phœbe
+knew that the collar was vastly becoming and the knowledge always had a
+soothing effect upon her.
+
+When the call of the school bell floated down the hill to the gray
+farmhouse Phœbe picked up her school bag and her tin lunch kettle and
+started off, outwardly in happier mood yet loath to go to the old
+schoolhouse for the first session of school.
+
+From the Metz farm the road to the school began to ascend. Gradually it
+curved up-hill, then suddenly stretched out in a long, steep climb
+until, upon the summit of the hill, it curved sharply to the west to a
+wide clearing. It was to this clearing the little country schoolhouse
+with its wide porch and snug bell-tower called the children back to
+their studies.
+
+Goldenrod and asters grew along the road, dogwood branches hung their
+scarlet berries over the edge of the woods, but Phœbe would have scorned
+to gather any of the flowers she loved and carry them to the new
+teacher. "I ain't bringing _her_ any flowers," she soliloquized.
+
+She trudged soberly ahead. As she reached the summit of the hill several
+children called to her. From three roads came other children, most of
+them carrying baskets or kettles filled with the noon lunch. All were
+eager for the opening of school, anxious to "see the new teacher once."
+
+From the farm nearest the schoolhouse Phares Eby had come for his last
+year in the rural school. From the little cottage on the adjoining farm
+David Eby came whistling down the road.
+
+"Hello, Phœbe," he called as he drew near to her. "Glad for school?"
+
+"I ain't!" She flung the words at him. "You know good enough I ain't."
+
+"Ha, ha," he laughed, "don't be cranky, Phœbe. Here comes Phares and
+he'll tell you that your eyes are black when you're cross. Won't you,
+Phares?"
+
+"I----" began the sober youth, but Phœbe rudely interrupted.
+
+"I don't care. I don't like the new teacher."
+
+"You must like everybody," said Phares.
+
+"Well, I just guess I won't! There's Mary Warner with her white dress
+and her black curls with a pink bow on them--you don't think I'm likin'
+her when she's got what I want and daren't have? Come on, it's time to
+go in," she added as Phares would have remonstrated with her for her
+frank avowal of jealousy. "Let's go in and see what the teacher's got
+on."
+
+"Gee," whistled David, "girls are always thinking of clothes."
+
+Phœbe gave him a disdainful look, but he laughed and walked by her side,
+up the three steps, across the porch and into the schoolhouse.
+
+The red brick schoolhouse on the hill was a typical country school of
+Lancaster County. It had one large room with four rows of double desks
+and seats facing the teacher's desk and a long blackboard with its
+border of A B C. A stove stood in one of the corners in the front of the
+room. In the rear numerous hooks in the wall waited for the children's
+wraps and a low bench stood ready to receive their lunch baskets and
+kettles. Each detail of the little schoolhouse was reproduced in scores
+of other rural schools of that community. And yet, somehow, many of the
+older children felt on that first Monday a hope that their school would
+be different that year, that the teacher from Philadelphia would change
+many of the old ways and teach them, what Youth most desires, new ways,
+new manners, new things. It is only as the years bring wisdom that men
+and women appreciate the old things of life, as well as the new.
+
+The new teacher became at once the predominating spirit of that little
+group. The interest of all the children, from the shy little beginners
+in the Primer class to the tall ones in the A class, was centered about
+her.
+
+Miss Lee stood by her desk as Phœbe and the two boys entered. It was
+still that delightful period, before-school, when laughter could be
+released and voices raised without a fear of "keep quiet." The children
+moved to the teacher's desk as though drawn by magnetic force. Mary
+Warner, her dark curls hanging over her shoulders, appeared already
+acquainted with her. Several tiny beginners stood near the desk, a few
+older scholars were bravely offering their services to fetch water from
+Eby's "whenever it's all or you want some fresh," or else stay and clap
+the erasers clean.
+
+When the second tug at the bell-rope gave the final call for the opening
+of school there was an air of gladness in the room. The new teacher
+possessed enough of the elusive "something" the country children felt
+belonged to a teacher from a big city like Philadelphia. The way she
+conducted the opening exercises, led the singing, and then proceeded
+with the business of arranging classes and assigning lessons served to
+intensify the first feelings of satisfaction. When recess came the
+children ran outdoors, ostensibly to play, but rather to gather into
+little groups and discuss the merits of the new teacher. The general
+verdict was, "She's all right."
+
+"Ain't she all right?" David Eby asked Phœbe as they stood in the brown
+grasses near the school porch.
+
+"Ach, don't ask me that so often!"
+
+"But honest now, Phœbe, don't you like her?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"When will you know?"
+
+"I don't know," came the tantalizing answer.
+
+"Ach, sometimes, Phœbe, you make me mad! You act dumb just like the
+other girls sometimes."
+
+"Then keep away from me if you don't like me," she retorted.
+
+"Sassbox!" said the boy and walked away from her.
+
+The little tilt with David did not improve the girl's humor. She entered
+the schoolroom with a sulky look on her face, her blue eyes dark and
+stormy. Accordingly, when Mary Warner shook her enviable curls and
+leaned forward to whisper ecstatically, "Phœbe, don't you just love the
+new teacher?" Phœbe replied very decidedly, "I do not! I don't like her
+at all!"
+
+For a moment Mary held her breath, then a surprised "Oh!" came from her
+lips and she raised her hand and waved it frantically to attract the
+teacher's attention.
+
+"What is it, Mary?"
+
+"Why, Miss Lee, Phœbe Metz says she don't like you at all!"
+
+"Did she ask you to tell me?" A faint flush crept into the face of the
+teacher.
+
+"No--but----"
+
+"Then that will do, Mary."
+
+But Phœbe Metz did not dismiss the matter so easily. She turned in her
+seat and gave one of Mary's obnoxious curls a vigorous yank.
+
+"Tattle-tale!" she hurled out madly. "Big tattle-tale!"
+
+"Yank 'em again," whispered David, seated a few seats behind the girls,
+but Phares called out a soft, "Phœbe, stop that."
+
+It all occurred in a moment--the yank, the outcry of Mary, the whispers
+of the two boys and the subsequent pause in the matter of teaching and
+the centering of every child's attention upon the exciting incident and
+wondering what Miss Lee would do with the disturbers of the peace.
+
+"Phœbe," the teacher's voice was controlled and forceful, "you may fold
+your hands. You do not seem to know what to do with them."
+
+Phœbe folded her hands and bowed her head in shame. She hadn't meant to
+create a disturbance. What would her father say when he knew she was
+scolded the first day of school!
+
+The teacher's voice went on, "Mary Warner, you may come to me at noon. I
+want to tell you a few things about tale-bearing. Phœbe may remain after
+the others leave this afternoon."
+
+"Kept in!" thought Phœbe disconsolately. She was going to be kept in the
+first day! Never before had such punishment been meted out to her! The
+disgrace almost overwhelmed her.
+
+"Now I won't ever, ever, ever like her!" she thought as she bent her
+head to hide the tears.
+
+The remainder of the day was like a blurred page to her. She was glad
+when the other children picked up their books and empty baskets and
+kettles and started homeward.
+
+"Cheer up," whispered David as he passed out, but she was too miserable
+to smile or answer.
+
+"Come on, David," urged Phares when the two cousins reached outdoors and
+the younger one seemed reluctant to go home. "Don't stay here to pet
+Phœbe when she comes out."
+
+"Ach, the poor kid"--David was all sympathy and tenderness.
+
+"Let her get punished. Pulling Mary's hair like that!"
+
+"Well, Mary tattled. I was wishing Phœbe'd yank that darned kid's hair
+half off."
+
+"Mary just told the truth. You think everything Phœbe does is right and
+you help her along in her temper. She needs to be punished sometimes."
+
+"Ach, you make me tired, standing up for a tattle-tale! Anyhow, you go
+on home. I'm goin' to hang round a while and see if Miss Lee does
+anything mean."
+
+Phares went on alone and the other boy stole to a window and crouched to
+the ground.
+
+Inside the room Phœbe waited tremblingly for the teacher to speak. It
+seemed ages before Miss Lee walked down the aisle and stood by the low
+desk.
+
+Phœbe raised her head--the look in the dark eyes of the teacher filled
+her with a sudden reversion of feeling. How could she go on hating any
+one so beautiful!
+
+"Phœbe, I'm sorry--I'm so sorry there has been any trouble the first day
+and that you have been the cause of it."
+
+"I--ach, Miss Lee," the child blurted out half-sobbingly, "Mary, she
+tattled on me."
+
+"That was wrong, of course. I made her understand that at noon. But
+don't you think that pulling her hair and creating a disturbance was
+equally wrong?"
+
+"I guess so, mebbe. But I didn't mean to make no fuss. I--I--why, I just
+get so mad still! I hadn't ought to pull her hair, for that hurts
+vonderful much."
+
+"Then you might tell her to-morrow how sorry you are about it."
+
+"Yes." Phœbe looked up at the lovely face of the teacher. She felt that
+some explanation of Mary's tale was necessary. "Why, now," she
+stammered, "you know--you know that Mary said I said I don't like you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, this summer once, early in June it was"--the child hung her head
+and spoke almost inaudibly--"you laughed at me and called me a LITTLE
+DUTCHIE!" She looked up bravely then and spoke faster, "And for that,
+it's just for that I don't like you like all the others do a'ready."
+
+"Laughed at you!" Miss Lee was perplexed. "You must be mistaken."
+
+But Phœbe shook her head resolutely and told the story of the pink rose.
+Miss Lee listened at first with an incredulous smile upon her face, then
+with dawning remembrance.
+
+"You dear child!" she cried as Phœbe ended her quaint recital. "So you
+are the little girl of the sunbonnet and the rose! I thought this
+morning I had seen you before. But you don't understand! I didn't laugh
+at you in the way you think. Why, I laughed at you just as we laugh at a
+dear little baby, because we love it and because it is so dear and
+sweet. And DUTCHIE was just a pet name. Can't you understand? You were
+so quaint and interesting in your sunbonnet and with the pink rose
+pressed to your face. Can't you understand?"
+
+Phœbe smiled radiantly, her face beaming with happiness.
+
+"Ach, ain't that simple now of me, Miss Lee?" she said in her
+old-fashioned manner. "I was so dumb and thought you was makin' fun of
+me, and just for that all summer I was wishin' school would not start
+ever. And I was sayin' all the time I ain't goin' to like you. But now I
+do like you," she added softly.
+
+"I am glad we understand each other, Phœbe."
+
+Miss Lee was genuinely interested in the child, attracted by the
+charming personality of the country girl. Of the thirty children of that
+school she felt that Phœbe Metz, in spite of her old-fashioned dress
+and older-fashioned ways, was the preëminent figure. It would be a
+delight to teach a child whose face could light with so much animation.
+
+"Now, Phœbe," she said, "since we understand each other and have become
+friends, gather your books and hurry home. Your mother may be anxious
+about you."
+
+"Not my mother," Phœbe replied soberly. "I ain't got no mom. It's my
+Aunt Maria and my pop takes care of me. My mom's dead long a'ready. But
+I'm goin' now," she ended brightly before Miss Lee could answer. "And
+the road's all down-hill so it won't take me long."
+
+So she gathered her books and kettle, said good-bye to Miss Lee and
+hurried from the schoolhouse. When she was fairly on the road she broke
+into her habit of soliloquy: "Ach, if she ain't the nicest lady! So
+pretty she is and so kind! She was vonderful kind after what I done. The
+teacher we had last year, now, he would 'a' slapped my hands with a
+ruler, he was awful for rulers! But she just looked at me and I was so
+sorry for bein' bad that I could 'a' cried. And when she touched my
+hands--her hands is soft like the milkweed silk we find still in the
+fall--I just had to like her. I like her now and I'm goin' to be a good
+girl for her and when I grow up I wish I'd be just like her, just
+esactly like her."
+
+David Eby waited until he was certain no harm was coming to Phœbe. He
+heard her say, "Now I do like you" and knew that the matter was being
+settled satisfactorily. Relieved, yet ashamed of his eavesdropping, he
+ran down the road toward his home.
+
+"That teacher's all right," he thought. "But Jimminy, girls is funny
+things!"
+
+He went on, whistling, but stopped suddenly as he turned a curve in the
+road and saw Phares sitting on the grass in the shelter of a clump of
+bushes.
+
+The older boy rose. "David," he said sternly, "you're spoiling Phœbe
+Metz with your petting and fooling around her. What for need you pity
+her when she gets kept in for being bad? She was bad!"
+
+"She was not bad!" David defended staunchly. "That Mary Warner makes me
+sick. Phœbe's got some sense, anyhow, and she's not bad. There's nothing
+bad in her."
+
+"Um," said Phares tauntingly, "mebbe you like her already and next
+you'll want her for your girl. You give her pink roses and you stay to
+lick the teacher for her if----"
+
+But the sentence was never finished. At the first words David's eyes
+flashed, his hands doubled into hard fists and, as his cousin paid no
+heed to the warning, he struck out suddenly, then partially restraining
+his rage, he unclenched his right hand and gave Phares a smarting slap
+upon the mouth.
+
+"I'll learn you," he growled, "to meddle in my business! You mind your
+own, d'ye hear?"
+
+"Why"--Phares knew no words to answer the insult--"why, David," he
+stammered, wiping his smarting lips.
+
+But his silence added fuel to the other's wrath.
+
+"You butt in too much, that's what!" said David. "It's just like Phœbe
+says, you boss too much. I ain't going to take it no more from you."
+
+"I--now--mebbe I do," admitted Phares.
+
+At the words David's anger cooled. He laid a hand on the older boy's
+arm, as older men might have gripped hands in reconciliation. "Come on,
+Phares," he said in natural, friendly tones. "I hadn't ought to hit you.
+Let's forget all about it. You and me mustn't fight over Phœbe."
+
+"That's so," agreed Phares, but both were thoughtful and silent as they
+went down the lane.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE HEART OF A CHILD
+
+
+PHÅ’BE'S aspiration to become like her teacher did not lessen as the days
+went on. Her profound admiration for Miss Lee developed into intense
+devotion, a devotion whose depth she carefully guarded from discovery.
+
+To her father's interested questioning she answered a mere, "Why, I like
+her, for all, pop. She didn't laugh to make fun at me. I think she's
+nice." But secretly the little girl thought of her new teacher in the
+most extravagant superlatives. Her heart was experiencing its first
+"hero" worship; the poetic, imaginative soul of the child was attracted
+by the magnetic personality of Miss Lee. The teacher's smiles,
+mannerisms, dress, and above all, her English, were objects worthy of
+emulation, thought the child. At times Phœbe despaired of ever becoming
+like Miss Lee, then again she felt certain she had within her
+possibilities to become like the enviable, wonderful Virginia Lee. But
+she breathed to none her ambitions and hopes except at night as she
+knelt by her high old-fashioned bed and bent her head to say the prayer
+Aunt Maria had taught her in babyhood. Then to the prayer, "Now I lay me
+down to sleep," she added an original petition, "And please let me get
+like my teacher, Miss Lee. Amen."
+
+"Aunt Maria, church is on the hill Sunday, ain't it?" she asked one day
+after several weeks of school.
+
+"Yes. And I hope it's nice, for we make ready for a lot of company
+always when we have church here."
+
+"Why," the child asked eagerly, "dare I ask Miss Lee to come here for
+dinner too that Sunday? Mary Warner's mom had her for dinner last
+Sunday."
+
+"Ach, yes, I don't care. You ask her. Mebbe she ain't been in a plain
+church yet and would like to go with us and then come home for dinner
+here. You ask her once."
+
+Phœbe trembled a bit as she invited the teacher to the gray farmhouse.
+"Miss Lee--why--we have church here on the hill this Sunday and Aunt
+Maria thought perhaps you'd like to come out and go with us and then
+come to our house for dinner. We always have a lot of people for
+dinner."
+
+"I'd love to, Phœbe, thank you," answered Miss Lee.
+
+The plain sects of that community were all novel to her. She was eager
+to attend a service in the meeting-house on the hill and especially
+eager to meet Phœbe's people and study the unusual child in the intimate
+circle of home.
+
+"Tell your aunt I shall be very glad to go to the service with you," she
+said as Phœbe stood speechless with joy. "Will you go?"
+
+"Ach, yes, I go always," with a surprised widening of the blue eyes.
+
+"And your aunt, too?"
+
+"Why be sure, yes! Abody don't stay home from church when it's so near.
+That would look like we don't want company. There's church on the hill
+only every six weeks and the other Sundays it's at other churches. Then
+we drive to those other churches and people what live near ask us to
+come to their house for dinner, and we go. Then when it's here on the
+hill we must ask people that live far off to come to us for dinner. That
+way everybody has a place to go. It makes it nice to go away and to have
+company still. We always have a lot when church is here. Aunt Maria
+cooks so good."
+
+She spoke the last words innocently and looked up with an expression of
+wonder as she heard Miss Lee laugh gaily--now what was funny? Surely
+Miss Lee laughed when there was nothing at all to laugh about!
+
+"What time does your service begin?" asked the teacher. "What time do
+you leave the house?"
+
+"It takes in at nine o'clock----"
+
+Miss Lee smothered an ejaculation of surprise.
+
+"But we leave the house a little after half-past eight. Then we can go
+easy up the hill and have time to walk around on the graveyard a little
+and get in church early and watch the people come in."
+
+"I'll stop for you and go with you, Phœbe."
+
+Sunday morning at the Metz farm was no time for prolonged slumber. With
+the first crowing of roosters Aunt Maria rose. After the early breakfast
+there were numerous tasks to be performed before the departure for the
+meeting-house. There was the milking to be done and the cans of milk
+placed in the cool spring-house; the chickens and cattle to be fed; each
+room of the big house to be dusted; vegetables to be prepared for a
+hasty boiling after the return from the service; preserves and canned
+fruits to be brought from the cellar, placed into glass dishes and set
+in readiness.
+
+At eight-fifteen Phœbe was ready. She wore her favorite blue chambray
+dress and delighted in the fact that Sunday always brought her the
+privilege of wearing her hat. The little sailor hat with its narrow
+ribbon and little bow was certainly not the hat she would have chosen if
+she might have had that pleasure, but it was the only hat she owned, so
+was not to be despised. She felt grateful that Aunt Maria allowed her to
+wear a hat. Many little girls, some smaller than she, came to church
+every Sunday wearing silk bonnets like their elders!--she felt grateful
+for her hat--any hat!
+
+Tugging at the elastic under her chin, then smoothing her handkerchief
+and placing it in her sleeve--she had seen Miss Lee dispose of a
+handkerchief in that way--she walked to the little green gate and
+watched the road leading from Greenwald.
+
+Her heart leaped when she saw the teacher come down the long road. She
+opened the gate to go to meet her, then suddenly stood still. Miss Lee
+as she appeared in the schoolroom, in white linen dress or trim serge
+skirt and tailored waist, was attractive enough to cause Phœbe's heart
+to flutter with admiration a dozen times a day; but Miss Lee in Sunday
+morning church attire was so irresistibly sweet that the vision sent the
+little girl's heart pounding and caused a strange shyness to possess
+her. The semi-tailored dress of dark blue taffeta, the sheer white
+collar, the small black hat with its white wings, the silver coin purse
+in the gloved hand--no detail escaped the keen eyes of the child. She
+looked down at her cotton dress--it had seemed so pretty just a moment
+ago. But, of course, such dresses and gloves and hats were for
+grown-ups! "But just you wait," she thought, "when I grow up I'll look
+like that, too, see if I don't!"
+
+Miss Lee, smiling, never knew the depths she stirred in the heart of the
+little girl.
+
+"Am I late, Phœbe?"
+
+"Ach, no. Just on time. Pop, he went a'ready, though. He goes early
+still to open the meeting-house. We'll go right away, as soon as Aunt
+Maria locks up. But what for did you bring a pocketbook?"
+
+"For the offering."
+
+"Offering?"
+
+"The church offering, Phœbe. Surely you know what that is if you go to
+church every Sunday. Don't you have collection plates or baskets passed
+about in your church for everybody to put their offerings on them?"
+
+"Why, no, we don't have that in our church! What for do they do that in
+any church?"
+
+"To pay the preachers' salaries and----"
+
+"Goodness," Phœbe laughed, "it would take a vonderful lot to pay all the
+preachers that preach at our church. Sometimes three or four preach at
+one meeting. They have to work week-days and get their money just like
+other men do. Men come around to the house sometimes for money for the
+poor, and when the meeting-house needs a new roof or something like
+that, everybody helps to pay for it, but we don't take no collections in
+church, like you say. That's a funny way----"
+
+The appearance of Maria Metz prevented further discussion of church
+collections. With a large, fringed shawl pinned over her plain gray
+dress and a stiff black silk bonnet tied under her chin, she was ready
+for church. She was putting the big iron key of the kitchen door into a
+deep pocket of her full skirt as she came down the walk.
+
+"That way, now we're ready," she said affably. "I guess you're Phœbe's
+teacher, ain't? I see you go past still."
+
+"Yes. I am very glad to meet you, Miss Metz. It is very kind of you to
+invite me to go with you."
+
+"Ach, that's nothing. You're welcome enough. We always have much company
+when church is on the hill. This is a nice day, so I guess church will
+be full. I hope so, anyway, for I got ready for company for dinner. But
+how do you like Greenwald?"
+
+"Very well, indeed. It is beautiful here."
+
+"Ain't! But I guess it's different from Phildelphy. I was there once, in
+the Centennial, and it was so full everywheres. I like the country best.
+Can't anything beat this now, can it?"
+
+They reached the summit of the hill and paused.
+
+"No," said Miss Lee, "this is hard to beat. I love the view from this
+hill."
+
+"Ain't now"--Aunt Maria smiled in approval--"this here is about the
+nicest spot around Greenwald. There's the town so plain you could almost
+count the houses, only the trees get in the road. And there's the
+reservoir with the white fence around, and the farms and the pretty
+country around them--it's a pretty place."
+
+"I like this hill," said Phœbe. "When I grow up I'm goin' to have a farm
+on this hill, when I'm married, I mean."
+
+"That's too far off yet, Phœbe," said her aunt. "You must eat bread and
+butter yet a while before you think of such things."
+
+"Anyhow, I changed my mind. I'm not goin' to live in the country when I
+grow up; I'm going to be a fine lady and live in the city."
+
+"Phœbe, stop that dumb talk, now!" reproved her aunt sternly. "You turn
+round and walk up the hill. We'll go on now, Miss Lee. Mebbe you'd like
+to go on the graveyard a little?"
+
+"I don't mind."
+
+"Then come." Aunt Maria led the way, past the low brick meeting-house,
+through the gateway into the old burial ground. They wandered among the
+marble slabs and read the inscriptions, some half obliterated by years
+of mountain storms, others freshly carved.
+
+"The epitaphs are interesting," said Miss Lee.
+
+"What's them?" asked Phœbe.
+
+"The verses on the tombstones. Here is one"--she read the inscription
+on the base of a narrow gray stone--"'After life's fitful fever she
+sleeps well.'"
+
+"Ach," Aunt Maria said tartly, "I guess her man knowed why he put that
+on. That poor woman had three husbands and eleven children, so I guess
+she had fitful fever enough."
+
+Phœbe laughed loud as she saw the smile on the face of her teacher, but
+next moment she sobered under the chiding of Aunt Maria. "Phœbe, now you
+keep quiet! Abody don't laugh and act so on a graveyard!"
+
+"Ugh," the child said a moment later, "Miss Lee, just read this one. It
+always gives me shivers when I read it still.
+
+        "'Remember, man, as you pass by,
+          What you are now that once was I.
+          What I am now that you will be;
+          Prepare for death and follow me.'"
+
+"That is rather startling," said Miss Lee.
+
+Phœbe smiled and asked, "Don't you think this is a pretty graveyard?"
+
+"Yes. How well cared for the graves are. Not a weed on most of them."
+
+"Well," Aunt Maria explained, "the people who have dead here mostly take
+care of the graves. We come up every two weeks or so and sometimes we
+bring a hoe and fix our graves up nice and even. But some people are too
+lazy to keep the graves clean. I hoed some pig-ears out a few graves
+last week; I was ashamed of 'em, even if the graves didn't belong to
+us."
+
+In the corner near the road the aunt stopped before a plain gray
+boulder.
+
+"Phœbe's mom," she said, pointing to the inscription.
+
+              "_PHÅ’BE
+           beloved wife of
+              Jacob Metz
+        aged twenty-two years
+            and one month.
+        Souls of the righteous
+        are in the hand of God._"
+
+"I'm glad," said the child as they stood by her mother's grave, "that
+they put that last on, for when I come here still I like to know that my
+mom ain't under all this dirt but that she's up in the Good Place like
+it says there."
+
+Miss Lee clasped the little hand in hers--what words were adequate to
+express her feeling for the motherless child!
+
+"Come on," Maria Metz said crisply, "or we'll be late." But Miss Lee
+read in the brusqueness a strong feeling of sorrow for the child.
+
+Silently the three walked through the green aisles of the old graveyard,
+Aunt Maria leading the way, alone; Phœbe's hand still in the hand of her
+teacher.
+
+To Miss Lee, whose hours of public worship had hitherto been spent in an
+Episcopal church in Philadelphia, the extreme plainness of the
+meeting-house on the hill brought a sense of acute wonderment. The
+contrast was so marked. There, in the city, was the large, high-vaulted
+church whose in-streaming light was softened by exquisite stained
+windows and revealed each detail of construction and color harmoniously
+consistent. Here, in the country, was the square, low-ceilinged
+meeting-house through whose open windows the glaring light relentlessly
+intensified the whiteness of the walls and revealed more plainly each
+flaw and knot in the unpainted pine benches. Yet the meeting-house on
+the hill was strangely, strongly representative of the frank, honest,
+unpretentious people who worshipped there, and after the first wave of
+surprise a feeling of interest and reverence held her.
+
+It was a unique sight for the city girl. The rows of white-capped women
+were separated from the rows of bearded men by a low partition built
+midway down the body of the church. Each sex entered the meeting-house
+through a different door and sat in its apportioned half of the
+building. On each side of the room rows of black hooks were set into the
+walls. On these hooks the sisters hung their bonnets and the shawls and
+the brethren placed their hats and overcoats during the service.
+
+The preachers, varying in number from two to six, sat before a long
+table in the front part of the meeting-house. When the duty of preaching
+devolved upon one of them he simply rose from his seat and delivered his
+message.
+
+As Aunt Maria and her two followers took their seats on a bench near the
+front of the church a preacher rose.
+
+"Let us join in singing--has any one a choice?"
+
+Miss Lee started as a woman's voice answered, "Number one hundred
+forty-seven." However, her surprise merged into other emotions as the
+old hymn rose in the low-ceilinged room. There was no accompaniment of
+any musical instrument, just a harmonious blending of the deep-toned
+voices of the brethren with the sweet voices of the sisters. The music
+swelled in full, deliberate rhythm, its calm earnestness bearing witness
+to the fact that every word of the hymn was uttered in a spirit of
+worship.
+
+Maria Metz sang very softly, but Phœbe's young voice rose clearly in the
+familiar words, "Jesus, Lover of my soul."
+
+Miss Lee listened a moment to the sweet voice of the child by her side,
+then she, too, joined in the singing--feeling the words, as she had
+never before felt them, to be the true expression of millions of mortals
+who have sung, are singing, and shall continue to sing them.
+
+When the hymn was ended another preacher arose and opened the service
+with a few remarks, then asked all to kneel in prayer.
+
+Every one--men, women, children--turned and knelt upon the bare floor
+while the preacher's voice rose in a simple prayer. As the Amen fell
+from his lips Miss Lee started to rise, but Phœbe laid a restraining
+hand upon her and whispered, "There's yet one."
+
+For a moment there was silence in the meeting-house. Then the voice of
+another preacher rose in the universal prayer, "Our Father, which art in
+heaven." Every extemporaneous prayer in the Church of the Brethren is
+complemented by the model prayer the Master taught His disciples.
+
+There was another hymn, reading of the Scriptures, and then the sermon
+proper was preached.
+
+Aunt Maria nodded approvingly as the preacher read, "Whose adorning let
+it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of
+gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the
+heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and
+quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price."
+
+"You listen good now to what the preacher says," the woman whispered to
+Phœbe.
+
+The child looked Up solemnly at her aunt, about her at the many
+white-capped women, then up at Miss Lee's pretty hat with its white
+Mercury wings--she was endeavoring to justify the pleasure and beauty
+her aunt pronounced vanity. Was Miss Lee really wicked when she wore
+clothes like that? Surely, no! After a few moments the child sighed,
+folded her hands and looked steadfastly at the tall bearded man who was
+preaching.
+
+The clergy among these plain sects receive no remuneration for their
+preaching. With them the mercenary and the pecuniary are ever distinct
+from the religious. Six days in the week the preacher follows the plow
+or works at some other worthy occupation; upon the seventh day he
+preaches the Gospel. There is, therefore, no elaborate preparation for
+the sermon; the preacher has abundant faith in the old admonition, "Take
+no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that
+same hour what ye shall speak, for it is not ye that speak but the
+spirit of the Father that speaketh in you." Thus it is that, while the
+sermons usually lack the blandishments of fine rhetoric and the rhythmic
+ease arising from oratorical ability, they seldom fail in deep sincerity
+and directness of appeal.
+
+The one who delivered the message that September morning told of the joy
+of those who have overcome the desire for the vanities of the world,
+extolled the virtue of a simple life, till Miss Lee felt convinced that
+there must be something real in a religion that could hold its followers
+to so simple, wholesome a life.
+
+She looked about, at the serried rows of white-capped women--how gentle
+and calm they appeared in their white caps and plain dresses; she looked
+across the partition at the lines of men--how strong and honest their
+faces were; and the children--she had never before seen so many children
+at a church service--would they all, in time, wear the garb of their
+people and enter the church of their parents? The child at her
+side--vivacious, untiring, responsive Phœbe--would she, too, wear the
+plain dress some day and live the quiet life of her people?
+
+The eagerness of the child's face as Miss Lee looked at her denoted
+intense interest in the sermon, but none could know the real cause of
+that eagerness.
+
+"I won't, I just won't dress plain!" she was thinking. "Anyway, not till
+I'm old like Aunt Maria. I want to look like Miss Lee when I grow up.
+And that preacher just said that it ain't good to plait the hair, I mean
+he read it out the Bible. Mebbe now Aunt Maria will leave me have
+curls. I hope she heard him say that."
+
+She sighed in relief as the sermon was concluded and the next preacher
+rose and added a few remarks. When the third man rose to add his few
+remarks Phœbe looked up at Miss Lee and whispered, "Guess he's the last
+one once!"
+
+Miss Lee smiled. The service was rather long, but it was drawing to a
+close. There was another prayer, another hymn and the service ended.
+
+Immediately the white-capped women rose and began to bestow upon each
+other the holy kiss; upon the opposite side of the church the brethren
+greeted each other in like fashion. Everywhere there were greetings and
+profferings of dinner invitations.
+
+Maria Metz and her brother did not fail in their duty. In a few minutes
+they had invited a goodly number to make the gray farmhouse their
+stopping-place. Then Aunt Maria hurried home, eager to prepare for her
+guests. Soon the Metz barnyard was filled with carriages and automobiles
+and the gray house resounded with happy voices. Some of the women helped
+Maria in the kitchen, others wandered about in the old-fashioned garden,
+where dahlias, sweet alyssum, marigolds, ladies' breastpin and
+snapdragons still bloomed in the bright September sunshine.
+
+Miss Lee, guided by Phœbe, examined every nook of the big garden, peered
+into the deserted wren-house and listened to the child's story of the
+six baby wrens reared in the box that summer. Finally Phœbe suggested
+sitting on a bench half screened by rose-bushes and honeysuckle. There,
+in that green spot, Miss Lee tactfully coaxed the child to unfold her
+charming personality, all serenely unconscious of the fact that inside
+the gray house the white-capped women were discussing the new teacher as
+they prepared the dinner.
+
+"She seems vonderful nice and common," volunteered Aunt Maria. "Not
+stuck up, for a Phildelphy lady."
+
+"Well, why should she be stuck up?" argued one. "Ain't she just Mollie
+Stern's cousin? Course, Mollie's nice, but nothing tony."
+
+"Anyhow, the children all like her," spoke up another woman. "My Enos
+learns good this year."
+
+"I guess she's all right," said another, "but Amande, my sister, says
+that she's after her Lizzie all the time for the way she talks. The
+teacher tells her all the time not to talk so funny, not to get her t's
+and d's and her v's and w's mixed. Goodness knows, them letters is near
+enough alike to get them mixed sometimes. I mix them myself. Manda don't
+want her Lizzie made high-toned, for then nothing will be good enough
+for her any more."
+
+"Ach, I guess Miss Lee won't do that," said Aunt Maria. "I know I'm glad
+the teacher ain't the kind to put on airs. When I heard they put in a
+teacher from Phildelphy I was afraid she'd be the kind to teach the
+children a lot of dumb notions and that Phœbe would be spoiled---- Here,
+Sister Minnich, is the holder for that pan. I guess the ham is fried
+enough. Yes, ain't the chicken smells good! I roasted it yesterday, so
+it needs just a good heating to-day."
+
+"Shall I take the sweet potatoes off, Maria?"
+
+"Yes, they're brown enough, and the coffee's about done, and plenty of
+it, too."
+
+"And it smells good, too," chorused several women.
+
+"It's just twenty-eight cent coffee; I get it in Greenwald. I guess the
+things can be put out now. Call the men, Susan."
+
+In quick order the long table in the dining-room--used only upon
+occasions like this--was filled with smoking, savory dishes, the men
+called from the porches and yard and everybody, except the two women who
+helped Aunt Maria to serve, seated about the board. All heads were bowed
+while one of the brethren said a long grace and then the feast began.
+
+True to the standards set by the majority of the Pennsylvania Dutch, the
+meal was fit for the finest. There was no attempt to serve it according
+to the rules of the latest book of etiquette. All the food was placed
+upon the table and each one helped herself and himself and passed the
+dish to the nearest neighbor. Occasionally the services of the three
+women were required to bring in water, bread or coffee, or to replenish
+the dishes and platters. Everybody was in good humor, especially when
+one of the brethren suddenly found himself with a platter of chicken in
+one hand and a pitcher of gravy in the other.
+
+"Hold on, here!" he said laughingly, "it's coming both ways. I can't
+manage it."
+
+"Now, Isaac," chided one of the women, "you went and started the gravy
+the wrong way around. And here, Elam, start that apple-butter round
+once. Maria always has such good apple-butter."
+
+Miss Lee's ready adaptability proved a valuable asset that day.
+Everybody was so cordial and friendly that, although she was the only
+woman without the white cap, there was no shadow of any holier-than-thou
+spirit. She was accepted as a friend; as a lady from Philadelphia she
+became invested with a charm and interest which the frank country people
+did not try to conceal. They spoke freely to her of her work in the
+school, inquired about the children and listened with interest as she
+answered their questions about her home city.
+
+When the dinner was ended heads were bowed again and thanks rendered to
+God for the blessings received. Then the men went outdoors, where the
+beehives, poultry houses, barns and orchards of the farm afforded
+several hours of inspection and discussion.
+
+Indoors some of the women began to wash dishes while Aunt Maria and her
+helpers ate their belated dinner; others went to the sitting-room and
+entertained themselves by rocking and talking or looking at the pictures
+in the big red plush album which lay upon a small table.
+
+Later, when everything was once more in order in the big kitchen, Maria
+stood in the doorway of the sitting-room.
+
+"Now," she said, "I guess we better go up-stairs and see the rugs before
+the men come in. Susan said she wants to see my new rugs once when she
+comes. So come on, everybody that wants to."
+
+"You come," Phœbe invited Miss Lee. "I'll show you some of the things in
+my chest."
+
+Maria led the way to the spare-room on the second floor, a large square
+room furnished in old-fashioned country style: a rag carpet, rag rugs,
+heavy black walnut bureau and wash-stand, the latter with an antique
+bowl and pitcher of pink and white, and a splasher of white linen
+outlined in turkey red cotton. A framed cross-stitch sampler hung on the
+wall; four cane-seated chairs and a great wooden chest completed the
+furnishing of the room.
+
+The chest became the centre of attraction as Aunt Maria opened it and
+began to show the hooked rugs she had made.
+
+Phœbe waited until her teacher had seen and admired several, then she
+tugged at the silk sleeve ever so gently and whispered, "D'ye want to
+see some of the things I made?"
+
+Miss Lee smiled and nodded and the two stole away to the child's room.
+
+Phœbe closed the door.
+
+"This is my room and this is my Hope Chest," she said proudly.
+
+Among many of the Pennsylvania Dutch the Hope Chest has long been
+considered an important part of a girl's belongings. During her early
+childhood a large chest is secured and the stocking of it becomes a
+pleasant duty. Into it are laid the girl's discarded infant clothes;
+patchwork quilts and comfortables pieced by herself or by some fond
+grandmother or mother or aunt; homespun sheets and towels that have been
+handed down from other generations; ginghams, linens and minor household
+articles that might be useful in her own home. When the girl leaves the
+old nest for one of her own building the Hope Chest goes with her as a
+valuable portion of her dowry.
+
+"Hope Chest," echoed Miss Lee. "Do you have a Hope Chest?"
+
+"Ach, yes, long already! Aunt Maria says it's for when I grow up and get
+married and live in my own home, but I--why, I don't know at all yet if
+I want to get married. When I say that to her she says still that I can
+be glad I have the chest anyhow, for old maids need covers and aprons
+and things too."
+
+"You dear child," Miss Lee said, laughing, "you do say the funniest
+things!"
+
+"But"--Phœbe raised her flushed face--"you ain't laughing at me to make
+fun?"
+
+"Oh, Phœbe, I love you too much for that. It's just that you are
+different."
+
+"Ach, but I'm glad! And that's why I want to show you my things."
+
+She opened the lid of her chest and brought out a quilt, then another,
+and another.
+
+"This is all mine. And I finished another one this summer that Aunt
+Maria is going to quilt this fall yet. Then I'll have nine already.
+Ain't--isn't that a lot?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," laughed the teacher. "Just nine more than I have."
+
+"Why"--Phœbe stared in surprise--"don't you have quilts in your Hope
+Chest?"
+
+"I haven't even the Hope Chest."
+
+"No Hope Chest! Now, that's funny! I thought every girl that could have
+a chest for the money had a Hope Chest!"
+
+"I never heard of a Hope Chest before I came to Greenwald."
+
+"Now don't it beat all!" The child was very serious. "We ain't at all
+like other people, I believe. I wonder why we are so different from you
+people. Oh, I know we talk different from you, and mostly look different
+from you and I guess we do things a lot different from you--do you
+think, Miss Lee, oh, do you think that I could _ever_ get like you?"
+
+"Yes----" Miss Lee showed hesitancy.
+
+"For sure?" Phœbe asked, quick to note the slight delay in the answer.
+
+"Yes, I am sure you could, dear. You can learn to dress, speak and act
+as people do in the great cities--but are you sure that you want to do
+so?"
+
+"Want to! Why, I want to so bad that it hurts! I don't want to just go
+to country school and Greenwald High School and then live on a farm all
+the rest of my life and never get anywhere but to the store in
+Greenwald, to Lancaster several times a year, and to church every
+Sunday. I want to do some things other people in the other parts of the
+country do, that's what I want. I'd like best of all to be a great
+singer and to look and dress and talk like you. I can sing good, pop
+says I can."
+
+"I have noticed you have a sweet voice."
+
+"Ain't!" The child's voice rang with gladness. "I'm so glad I have. And
+David, he's glad too, for he says that he thinks it's a gift from God to
+have a voice that can sing as nice as the birds. David and Phares are
+just like my brothers. David's mom is awful nice. I like her"--she
+whispered--"I like her almost better than my Aunt Maria because she's
+so--ach, you know what I mean! She's so much like my own mom would be. I
+like David better than Phares, too, because Phares bosses me too much
+and he is wonderful strict and thinks everything is bad or foolish. He
+preaches a lot. He says it's bad to be a big singer and sing for the
+people and get money for it, in oprays, he means--is it?"
+
+Miss Lee was startled by the ambition of the child before her and amazed
+at the determination revealed in her young pupil. Before she could
+answer wisely Phœbe went on:
+
+"Now David says still I could be a big opray singer some day mebbe, and
+_he_ don't think it's bad. I think still that singin' is about like
+havin' curls--if God don't want you to use your singin' and your curls
+what did He give 'em to you for?"
+
+Much to the teacher's relief she was spared the difficulty of answering
+the child. The aunt was bringing the visitors to Phœbe's room.
+
+"Come in and see my things," Phœbe invited cordially, as though curls
+and operatic careers had never troubled her. In the excitement of
+displaying her quilts she apparently forgot the vital problems she had
+so lately discussed. But Miss Lee made a mental comment as she stood
+apart and watched the child among the white-capped women, "That little
+girl will do things before she settles into the simple, monotonous life
+these women lead."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE PRIMA DONNA OF THE ATTIC
+
+
+"AUNT MARIA, dare I go without sewing just this one Saturday?"
+
+It was Saturday afternoon in early October. All the week-end work of the
+farmhouse was done: the walks and porches scrubbed, the entire house
+cleaned, the shelves in the cellar filled with pies and cakes. Maria
+Metz stood by the wooden frame in which she had sewed Phœbe's latest
+quilt and chalked lines and half-moons upon the calico, preliminary to
+the actual work of quilting.
+
+Phœbe's face was eloquent as her aunt turned and looked down.
+
+"Why?" asked the woman calmly.
+
+"Ach, because it's my birthday, eleven I am to-day. And pop's going to
+bring me new hair-ribbons from Greenwald, pretty blue ones, I asked him
+to bring, and nice and wide"--she opened her hands in imaginary
+picturing of the width of the new ribbons--"but most of all," she
+hastened to add as she saw an expression of displeasure on her aunt's
+face, "I'd like to have a party all to myself. I thought that so long as
+you're going to have women in to help you quilt, and that is like a
+party, only you don't call it so, why I could have a party for me alone.
+I'd like to play all afternoon instead of sewing first like I do still.
+Dare I, I mean may I?"--in conscientious endeavor to speak as Miss Lee
+was trying to teach her.
+
+Maria Metz smiled at the little girl's idea of a party, and after a
+moment's hesitation replied, "Ach, yes well, Phœbe, I don't care."
+
+"In the garret, oh, dare I go in the garret and play?" she asked
+excitedly.
+
+"Yes, I guess. If you put everything away nice when you are done
+playin'."
+
+"I will."
+
+She started off gleefully.
+
+"And be careful of the steps. I'm always afraid you'll fall down when
+you go up there, the steps are so narrow."
+
+"Ach, I won't fall. I'll be careful. I'll play a while and then shall I
+help to quilt?" she offered magnanimously in return for the privilege of
+playing in the garret.
+
+"No, I don't need you. But you can quilt nice, too. The last time you
+took littler stitches than Lizzie from the Home, but she don't see so
+good. But you needn't help to-day, for so many can't get round the frame
+good. Phares's mom and David's mom and Lyddy and Granny Hogendobler and
+Susan are comin', and that's enough for one quilt. You go play."
+
+In a moment Phœbe was off, up the broad stairs to the second floor.
+There she paused for breath--"Oh, it's like going to a castle somewhere
+in a strange country, goin' to the garret! I'm always a little scared at
+first, goin' to the garret."
+
+With a laugh she turned into a small room, opened a latched door, closed
+it securely behind her, and stood upon the lower step of the attic
+stairs. She looked about a moment. Above her were the stained rafters of
+the attic, where a dim light invested it with a strange, half fearful
+interest.
+
+"Ach, now, don't be a baby," she admonished herself. "Go right up the
+stairs. You're a queen--no, I know!--You're a primer donner going up the
+platform steps to sing!"
+
+With that helpful delusion she started bravely up the stairs and never
+paused until she reached the top step. She ran to a small window and
+threw it wide open so that the October sunshine could stream in and make
+the place less ghostly.
+
+"Now it's fine up here," she cried. "And I dare--I may--talk to myself
+all I want. Aunt Maria says it's simple to talk to yourself, but
+goodness, when abody has no other boys or girls to talk to half the time
+like I don't, what else can abody do but talk to your own self? Anyhow,
+I'm up here now and dare talk out loud all I want. I'll hunt first for
+robbers."
+
+She ran about the big attic, peered behind every old trunk and box, even
+inside an old yellow cupboard, though she knew it was filled with old
+school-books and older hymn-books.
+
+"Not a robber here, less he's back under the eaves."
+
+She crept into the low nook under the slanting roof but found nothing
+more exciting than a spider. "Huh, it's no fun hunting for robbers.
+Guess I'll spin a while."
+
+With quick variability she drew a low stool near an old spinning-wheel,
+placed her foot on the slender treadle and twisted the golden flax in
+imitation of the way Aunt Maria had once taught her.
+
+"I'll weave a new dress for myself--oh, goody!" she cried, springing
+from the stool. "Now I know what I'll do! I'll dress up in the old
+clothes in that old trunk! That'll be the very best party I can have."
+
+She skipped to a far corner of the attic, where a long, leather-covered
+trunk stood among some boxes. In a moment the clasps were unfastened,
+the lid raised, a protecting cloth lifted from the top and the contents
+of the trunk exposed.
+
+The child, kneeling before the trunk, clasped her hands and uttered an
+ecstatic, "Oh, I'll be a primer donner now! I remember there used to be
+a wonderful fine dress in here somewhere."
+
+With childish feverishness, yet with tenderness and reverence for the
+relics of a long dead past, she lifted the old garments from the trunk.
+
+"The baby clothes my mom wore--my mother, Miss Lee always says, and I
+like that name better, too. My, but they're little! Such tweeny, weeny
+sleeves! I wonder how a baby ever got into anything so tiny. I bet she
+was cunning--Miss Lee says babies are cunning. And here's the dress and
+cap and a pair of white woolen stockings I wore. Aunt Maria told me so
+the last time we cleaned house and I helped to carry all these things
+down-stairs and hang them out in the air so they don't spoil here in the
+trunk all locked up tight. I wish I could see how I looked when I wore
+these things. I wonder if I was a nice baby--but, ach, all babies are
+nice. I could squeeze every one I see, only when they're not clean I'd
+want to wash 'em first. And here's my mom--mother's wedding dress, a
+gray silk one. Ain't it too bad, now, it's going in holes! And this
+satin jacket Aunt Maria said my grandpap wore at his wedding; it has a
+silver buckle at the neck in front. And next comes the dress I like. It
+was my mother's mother's, and it's awful old. But I think it's fine,
+with the little pink rosebuds and the lace shawl round the neck and the
+long skirt. That's the dress I must wear now to play I'm a primer
+donner."
+
+She held out the old-fashioned pink-sprigged muslin, yellowed with age,
+yet possessing the charm of old, well-preserved garments. The short,
+puffed sleeves, lace fichu and full, puffed skirt proclaimed it of a
+bygone generation.
+
+"It's pretty," the child exulted as she shook out the soft folds. "Guess
+I can slip it on over my other dress, it's plenty big. It must button in
+the front, for that's the way the lace shawl goes. Um--it's long"--she
+looked down as she fastened the last little button. "Oh, I know! I'll
+tuck it up in the front and leave the long back for a trail! How's that,
+I wonder."
+
+She unearthed an old mirror, hung it on a nail in the wall and surveyed
+herself in the glass.
+
+"Um, I don't look so bad--but my hair ain't right. I don't know how
+primer donners wear their hair, but I know they don't wear it in two
+plaits like mine."
+
+She pulled the narrow brown ribbons from her braids, opened the braids
+and shook her head vigorously until her curls tumbled about her head and
+over her shoulders. Then she knotted the two ribbons together and bound
+them across her hair in a fillet, tying them in a bow under her flowing
+curls.
+
+"Now, I guess it's as good as I can fix it. I wish Miss Lee could see me
+now. I wish most of all my mom--mother could see me. Mebbe she'd say,
+'Precious child,' like they say in stories, and then I'd say back,
+'Mother dear, mother dear'"--she lingered over the words--"'Mother
+dear.' But mebbe she is saying that to me right now, seeing it's my
+birthday. I'll make believe so, anyhow."
+
+She was silent for a moment, a puzzled expression on her face.
+
+"I just don't see," she spoke aloud suddenly, "I don't see why I
+shouldn't make believe I have a mother, just adopt one like people do
+children sometimes. Aunt Maria says it's a risk to adopt some one's
+child, but I don't see that it would be a risk to adopt a mother. Let me
+see now--of all the women I know, who do I want to adopt? Not Mary
+Warner's mom--she's stylish and wears nice dresses, but I don't think
+I'd like her to keep. Not Granny Hogendobler, though she's nice and I
+like her a lot, a whole lot, and I wish her Nason would come back, but I
+don't see how I could take her for my mother; she's too old and she
+don't wear a white cap and my mother did, so I must take one that does.
+I don't want Phares's mom, either. Now, David's mom I like--yes, I like
+her. Most everybody calls her Aunty Bab and I'm just goin' to ask her
+if I dare call her Mother Bab! Mother Bab--I like that vonderful much!
+And I like her. When we go over to her house she's so nice and talks to
+me kind and the last time I was there she kissed me and said what pretty
+hair I got. Yes, I want David's mom for mine. I guess he won't care. He
+always gives me apples and chestnuts and things and he shows me birds'
+nests and I think he'll leave me have his mom, so long as he can have
+her too. I'll ask him once when I see him. I wonder who's goin' on the
+road to Greenwald."
+
+She gathered up her long skirt and stepped grandly across the bare floor
+of the attic. As she stood by the window a boyish whistle floated up to
+her. She leaned over the narrow sill and peered through the evergreen
+trees at the road.
+
+"That's David now, I bet! Sounds like his whistle. Oo-oo, David," she
+called as the boy came swinging down the road.
+
+"Hello, Phœbe. Where you at?"
+
+He turned in at the gate and looked around.
+
+"Whew," he whistled as he glanced up and saw her at the little window of
+the attic. "What you doing up there?"
+
+"Playin' primer donner. I just look something grand. Wait, I'll come
+down."
+
+"Sure, come on down and let me see you. I'm going to hang around a
+while. Mom's here quilting, ain't she?"
+
+"Sh!" Phœbe raised a warning finger, then placed her hands to her mouth
+to shut the sound of her voice from the people in the gray house. "You
+sneak round to the kitchen door, to the back one, so they can't hear
+you, and I'll come down. Aunt Maria mightn't like my hair and dress, and
+I don't want to make her cross on my birthday. Be careful, don't make no
+noise."
+
+"Ha," laughed the boy. "Bet you're sneaking things, you little rascal."
+
+Phœbe lifted her finger, shook her head, then smiled and turned from the
+window. She tiptoed down the dark attic stairs, then down the narrow
+back stairs to the kitchen and slipped quietly to the little porch at
+the very rear of the house.
+
+"Gee whiz!" exclaimed David. "You're a swell in that dress!"
+
+"Ain't I--I mean am I--ach, David, it's hard sometimes to talk like Miss
+Lee says we should."
+
+"Where'd you get the dress, Phœbe?"
+
+"Up in the garret. Aunt Maria said I dare go up and play 'cause it's my
+birthday."
+
+"Hold on, that's just what I came for, to pull your ears."
+
+"No you don't," she said crossly. "No you don't, David Eby, pull my
+ears." She clapped a hand upon each ear.
+
+"Then I'll pull a curl," he said and suited the action to the word. He
+took one of the long light curls and pulled it gently, yet with a
+brusque show of savagery and strength--"One, two, three, four, five,
+six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and one to make you grow. Now who
+says I can't celebrate your birthday!"
+
+"You're mean, awful mean, David Eby!" She tossed her head in anger. But
+a moment later she relented as she saw him smile. "Ach," she said in
+friendly tone, "I don't care if you pull my curls. It didn't hurt
+anyhow. You can't do it again for a whole year. But don't you think I
+look like a primer donner, David?"
+
+"Oh, say it right! How can you expect to ever be what you can't
+pronounce? It's pri-ma-don-na."
+
+"Pri-ma-don-na," she repeated, shaking her curls at every syllable. "Do
+I look like a prima donna?"
+
+"Yes, all but your face."
+
+"My face--why"--she faltered--"what's wrong with my face? Ain't it
+pretty enough to be a prima donna?"
+
+"Funny kid," he laughed. "Your face is good enough for a prima donna,
+but to be a real prima donna you must fix it up with cold cream, paint
+and powder."
+
+"Powder!" she echoed in amazement. "Not the kind you put in guns?"
+
+"Gee, no! It's white stuff--looks like flour; mebbe it is flour fixed up
+with perfume. Mary Warner had some at school last week and showed some
+of the girls at recess how to put it on. I was behind a tree and saw
+them but they didn't see me."
+
+"I thought some of the girls looked pale--so that was what made them
+look so white! But how do you know all about fixing up to be a prima
+donna? Where did you learn?" She looked at him admiringly, justly
+appreciating his superior knowledge.
+
+"Oh, when I had the mumps last winter I used to read the papers every
+day, clean through. There was a column called the 'Hints to Beauty'
+column, and sometimes I read it just for fun, it was so funny. It told
+about fixing up the face and mentioned a famous singer and some other
+people who always looked beautiful because they knew how to fix their
+faces to keep looking young. But I wouldn't like to see any one I like
+fix their faces like it said, for all that stuff----"
+
+"But do you think all prima donnas put such things on their faces?" she
+interrupted him.
+
+"Guess so."
+
+"What was it, Davie?"
+
+"Cold cream, paint, powder--here, where are you going?" he asked as she
+started for the door.
+
+"I'll be out in a minute; you wait here for me."
+
+"Cold cream, paint, powder," she repeated as she closed the door and
+left David outside. "Cream's all in the cellar." She took a pewter
+tablespoon from a drawer, opened a latched door in the kitchen and went
+noiselessly down the steps to the cellar. There she lifted the lid from
+a large earthen jar, dipped a spoonful of thick cream from the jar, and
+began to rub it on her cheeks.
+
+"That's _cold_ cream, anyhow," she said to herself. "It certainly is
+cold. Ach, I don't like the feel of it on my face; it's too sticky and
+wet." But she rubbed valiantly until the spoonful was used and her face
+glowed.
+
+"Now paint, red paint--I don't dare use the kind you put on houses, for
+that's too hard to get off; let's see--I guess red-beet juice will do."
+
+She stooped to the cool, earthen floor, lifted the cover from a crock of
+pickled beets, dipped the spoon into the juice and began to rub the
+colored liquid upon her glowing cheeks.
+
+"If I only had a looking-glass, then I could see just where to put it
+on. But I don't dare to carry the juice up the steps, for if I spilled
+some just after Aunt Maria has them scrubbed for Sunday she'd be cross."
+
+She applied the red juice by guesswork, with the inevitable result that
+her ears, chin, and nose were stained as deeply as her cheeks.
+
+"Now the powder, then I'm through."
+
+She tiptoed up to the kitchen again, took a handful of flour from the
+bin and rubbed it upon her face.
+
+"Ugh, um," she sputtered, as some of the flour flew into her eyes and
+nostrils. "I guess that was too thick!" Then she knelt on a chair and
+looked into the small mirror that hung in the kitchen. She exclaimed in
+horror and disappointment at the vision that met her gaze.
+
+"Why, I don't like that! I look awful! I'll rub off some of the flour. I
+have blotches all over my face. Do all prima donnas look this way, I
+wonder. But David knows, I guess. I'll ask him if I did it right."
+
+She grabbed one end of the kitchen towel and disposed of some of the
+superfluous flour, then, still doubtful of her appearance, opened the
+door to the porch where the boy waited for her.
+
+"Do I look----" she began, but David burst into hilarious laughter.
+
+"Oh, oh," he held his sides and laughed. "Oh, your face----"
+
+"Don't you laugh at me, David Eby! Don't you dare laugh!"
+
+She was deeply hurt at his unseemly behavior, but the deluge was only
+beginning! The sound of David's laughter and Phœbe's raised voice
+reached the front room where the quilting party was in progress.
+
+"Sounds like somebody on the back porch," said Aunt Maria. "Guess I
+better go and see. With so many tramps around always abody can't be too
+careful."
+
+The sight that met Maria Metz's eyes as she opened the back door left
+her speechless. Phœbe turned and the two looked at each other in silence
+for a few long moments.
+
+"Don't scold her," David said, sobered by the sudden appearance of the
+woman and frightened for Phœbe--Aunt Maria could be stern, he knew.
+"Don't scold her. I told her to do it."
+
+"You did not, David; don't you tell lies for me! You just told me how to
+do it and I went and done it myself. I'm playing prima donna, Aunt
+Maria," she explained, though she knew it was a futile attempt at
+justification. "I'm playing I'm a big singer, so I had to fix up in this
+dress and put my hair down this way and fix my face."
+
+"Great singer--march in here!" The woman had fully regained her voice.
+"It's a bad girl you are! To think of your making such a monkey of
+yourself when I leave you go up in the garret to play! This ends playing
+in the garret. Next Saturday you sew! Ach, yes, you just come in," she
+commanded, for Phœbe hung back as they entered the house. "You come
+right in here and let all the women see how nice you play when I leave
+you go up in the garret instead of make you sew. This here's the tramp I
+found," she announced as she led her into the room where the women sat
+around the quilting frame and quilted.
+
+"What!" several of them exclaimed as they turned from their sewing and
+looked at the child. Granny Hogendobler and David Eby's mother, however,
+smiled.
+
+"What's on your face?" asked one woman sternly.
+
+Phœbe hung her head, abashed.
+
+"That's how nice she plays when I leave her go up on the garret and have
+a nice time instead of making her sew like she always has to Saturdays,"
+Aunt Maria said in sharp tones which told the child all too plainly of
+the displeasure she had caused.
+
+"I didn't mean," Phœbe looked up contritely, "I didn't mean to be bad
+and make you cross. I was just playing I was a big singer and I put cold
+cream and paint and powder on my face----"
+
+"Cream!"
+
+"Paint!"
+
+"Powder!"
+
+The shrill staccato words of the women set the child trembling.
+
+"But--but," she faltered, "it'll all wash off." She gave a convincing
+nod of her head and rubbed a hand ruefully across the grotesquely
+decorated cheek. "It's just cream and red-beet juice and flour."
+
+"Did I ever!" exclaimed the mother of Phares Eby.
+
+"I-to-goodness!" laughed Granny Hogendobler.
+
+"Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," quoted one of the other women.
+
+"Come here, Phœbe," said the mother of David Eby, and that woman, a
+thin, alert little person with tender, kindly eyes, drew the unhappy
+little girl to her. "You poor, precious child," she said, "it's a shame
+for us all to sit here and look at you as if we wanted to eat you.
+You've just been playing, haven't you?" She turned to the other women.
+"Why, Maria, Susan, I remember just as well as if it were only yesterday
+how we used to rub our cheeks with rough mullein leaves to make them red
+for Love Feast, don't you remember?"
+
+Aunt Maria's cheeks grew pink. "Ach, Barbara, mebbe we did that when we
+were young and foolish, but we didn't act like this."
+
+"Not much different, I guess," said Phœbe's champion with a smile. "Only
+we forget it now. Phœbe is just like we were once and she'll get over it
+like we did. Let her play; she'll soon be too old to want to play or to
+know how. She ain't a bad child, just full of life and likes to do
+things other people don't think of doing."
+
+"She, surely does," said Aunt Maria curtly, ill pleased by the woman's
+words. "Where that child gets all her notions from I'd like to know.
+It's something new every day."
+
+"She'll be all right when she gets older," said David's mother.
+
+"Be sure, yes," agreed Granny Hogendobler; "it don't do to be too
+strict."
+
+"Mebbe so," said the other women, with various shades of understanding
+in their words.
+
+Phœbe looked gratefully into the face of Granny Hogendobler, then she
+turned to David's mother and spoke to her as though there were no others
+present in the room.
+
+"You know, don't you, how little girls like to play? You called me
+precious child just like she would----"
+
+"She would," repeated Aunt Maria. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean my mother," she explained and turned again to her champion. "I
+was just thinking this after on the garret that I'd like you for my
+mother, to adopt you for it like people do with children when they have
+none and want some. I hear lots of people call you Aunty Bab--dare I
+call you Mother Bab?"
+
+The woman laid a hand on the child's tumbled hair. Her voice trembled as
+she answered, "Yes, Phœbe, you can call me Mother Bab. I have no little
+girl so you may fill that place. Now ask Aunt Maria if you should wash
+your face and get fixed right again."
+
+"Shall I, Aunt Maria?"
+
+"Yes. Go get cleaned up. Fold all them clothes right and put 'em in the
+trunk and put your hair in two plaits again. If you're big enough to do
+such dumb things you're big enough to comb your hair." And Aunt Maria,
+peeved and hurt at the child's behavior, went back to her quilting while
+Phœbe hurried from the room alone.
+
+The child scrubbed the three layers of decoration from her face, trudged
+up the stairs to the attic, took off the rose-sprigged gown and folded
+it away--a disconsolate, disillusioned prima donna.
+
+When the attic was once more restored to its orderliness she closed the
+window and went down-stairs to wrestle with her curls. They were
+tangled, but ordinarily she would have been able to braid them into some
+semblance of neatness, but the trying experience of the past moments,
+the joy of gaining an adopted mother, set her fingers bungling.
+
+"Ach, I can't, I just can't make two braids!" she said at length, ready
+to burst into tears.
+
+Then she remembered David. "Mebbe he's on the porch yet. I'll go see
+once."
+
+With the narrow brown ribbons streaming from her hand and a hair-brush
+tucked under one arm she ran down the stairs. She found David, for once
+a gloomy figure, on the back porch, just where she had left him.
+
+"David," she said softly, "will you help me?"
+
+"Why"--his face brightened as he looked at her--"you ain't"--he started
+to say "crying"--"you ain't mad at me for getting you into trouble with
+Aunt Maria?"
+
+"Ach, no. And I ain't never going to be mad at you now for I just
+adopted your mom for my mom--mother. She's going to be my Mother Bab;
+she said so."
+
+"What?"
+
+He knitted his forehead in a puzzled frown. Phœbe explained how kind his
+mother had been, how she understood what little girls like to do, how
+she had promised to be Mother Bab.
+
+"You don't care, Davie, you ain't jealous?" she ended anxiously.
+
+"Sure not," he assured her; "I think it's kinda nice, for she thinks
+you're a dandy. But did they haul you over the coals in there?"
+
+"Yes, a little, all but Granny Hogendobler and your mom--Mother Bab, I
+mean. Isn't it funny to get a mother when you didn't have one for so
+long?"
+
+"Guess so."
+
+"But, David, will you help me? I can't fix my hair and Aunt Maria is so
+mad at me she said I can just fix it myself. The plaits won't come right
+at all. Will you help me, please?" She asserted her femininity by adding
+new sweetness to her voice as she asked the uncommon favor.
+
+"Why"--he hesitated, then looked about to see if any one were near to
+witness what he was about to do--"I don't know if I can. I never braided
+hair, but I guess I can."
+
+"Be sure you can, David. You braid it just like we braid the daisy stems
+and the dandelion stems in the fields. You're so handy with them, you
+can do most anything, I guess."
+
+Spurred by her appreciation of his ability he took the brush and began
+to brush the tangled hair as she sat on the porch at his feet.
+
+"Gee," he exclaimed as the hair sprang into curls when the brush left
+it, "your hair's just like gold!"
+
+"And it's curly," she added proudly.
+
+"Sure is. Wouldn't Phares look if he saw it! I told him your hair is
+prettier than Mary Warner's and he said I was silly to talk about girls'
+hair."
+
+"I don't want him to see it this way," she said, "for he'd say it's a
+sin to have curly, pretty hair, even if God made it grow that way! He's
+awful queer! I wouldn't want him for my adopted brother."
+
+"Guess he'd keep you hopping," laughed David.
+
+"Guess I'd keep him hopping, too," retorted Phœbe, at which the boy
+laughed.
+
+"Now what do I do?" he asked when all the hair was untangled.
+
+"Part it in the middle and make two plaits."
+
+"Um-uh."
+
+The boy's clumsy fingers fumbled long with the parting; several times
+the braids twisted and had to be undone, but after a struggle he was
+able to announce, "There now, you're fixed! Now you're Phœbe Metz, no
+more prima donna!"
+
+"Thanks, David, for helping me. I feel much better around the
+head--guess curls would be a nuisance after all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+"WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER MEET"
+
+
+WHEN Phœbe adopted Mother Bab she did so with the whole-heartedness and
+finality characteristic of her blood.
+
+Mother Bab--the name never ceased to thrill the erstwhile motherless
+girl whose yearning for affection and understanding had been unsatisfied
+by the matter-of-fact Aunt Maria.
+
+At first Maria Metz did not seem too well pleased with the child's
+persistent naming of Barbara Eby as Mother Bab; but gradually, as she
+saw Phœbe's joy in the adoption, the woman acknowledged to herself that
+another woman was capable of mothering where she had failed.
+
+Phœbe spent many hours in the little house on the hill, learning from
+Mother Bab many things that made indelible impressions upon her
+sensitive child-heart, unraveling some of the tangled knots of her soul,
+stirring anew hopes and aspirations of her being. But there remained one
+knot to be untangled--she could not understand why the plain dress and
+white cap existed, she could not reconcile the utter simplicity of dress
+with the lavish beauty of the birds, flowers--all nature.
+
+"It will come," Mother Bab assured her one day. "You are a little girl
+now and cannot see into everything. But when you are older you will see
+how beautiful it is to live simply and plainly."
+
+"But is it necessary, Mother Bab?" the child cried out. "Must I dress
+like you and Aunt Maria if I want to be good?"
+
+"No, you don't _have_ to. Many people are good without wearing the plain
+garb. A great many people in the world never heard of the plain sects we
+have in this section of the country, and there are good people
+everywhere, I'm sure of that. But it is just as true that each person
+must find the best way to lead a good life. If you can wear fine clothes
+and still be good and lead a Christian life, then there is no harm in
+the pretty clothes. But for me the easiest way to be living right is to
+live as simply as I can. This is the way for me."
+
+"I'm afraid it's the way for me, too," confessed Phœbe. "I'm vain,
+awfully vain! I love pretty clothes and I'll never be satisfied till I
+get 'em--silk dresses, soft, shiny satin ones--ach, I guess I'm vain but
+I'll have to wait to satisfy my vanity till I'm older, for Aunt Maria is
+so set against fancy clothes."
+
+It was true, Maria Metz compromised on some matters as Phœbe grew older,
+but on the question of clothes the older woman was adamant. The child
+should have comfortable dresses but there would positively be no useless
+ornaments or adornments, such as wide sashes, abundance of laces,
+elaborately trimmed ruffles. Fancy hats, jewelry and unconfined curls
+were also strictly forbidden.
+
+Though Phœbe, even as she grew older, had much time to spend outdoors,
+there were many tasks about the house and farm she had to perform. The
+chest was soon filled with quilts and that bugbear was gone from her
+life. But there was continual scrubbing, baking, mending, and other
+household tasks to be done, so that much practice caused the girl to
+develop into a capable little housekeeper. Aunt Maria frankly admitted
+that Phœbe worked cheerfully and well, a matter she found consoling in
+the trying hours when Phœbe "wasted time" by playing the low walnut
+organ in the sitting-room.
+
+During Miss Lee's first term of teaching on the hill she taught her how
+to play simple exercises and songs and the child, musically inclined,
+made the most of the meagre knowledge and adeptly improved until she was
+able to play the hymns in the Gospel Hymn Book and the songs and carols
+in the old Music Book that had belonged to her mother and always rested
+on the top of the old low organ.
+
+So the organ became a great solace and joy, an outlet for the intense
+feelings of desire and hope in her heart. When her voice joined with the
+sweet tones of the old instrument it seemed to Phœbe as if she were
+echoing the harmony of the eternal music of all creation. Child though
+she was, she sang with the joy and sincerity of the true musician. She
+merely smiled when Aunt Maria characterized her best efforts as
+"doodling" and rejoiced when her father, Mother Bab or David praised her
+singing.
+
+In school she progressed rapidly but her interest lagged when, after
+two years of teaching, Miss Lee resigned her position as teacher of the
+school on the hill and a new teacher took command. The entire school
+missed the teacher from Philadelphia, but Phœbe was almost inconsolable.
+She, especially, appreciated the gain of contact with the teacher she
+loved and she continued to profit by the remembrance of many things Miss
+Lee had taught her. The Memory Gems, alone, bore evidence of the change
+the teacher from the city had wrought in the rural school. Phœbe smiled
+as she thought how the poems had been sing-songed until Miss Lee taught
+the children to bring out the meaning of the words.
+
+"Oh, my," she laughed one day as she and David were speaking of school
+happenings, "do you remember how John Schneider used to say Memory Gems?
+The day he got up and said, 'Have-you-heard-the-waters-singing-little-May
+--where-the-willows-green-are-bending-over-the-way--do-you-know-how-low-
+and-sweet-are-the-words-the-waves-repeat--to-the-pebbles-at-their-feet--
+night-and-day?'"
+
+David laughed at the girl's droll imitation, the way she sing-songed the
+verse in the exact manner prevalent in many rural schools.
+
+"And do you remember," he asked, "the day Isaac Hunchberger defined
+bipeds?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I'll never forget that! It was the day the County
+Superintendent of Schools came to visit our school and Miss Lee was
+anxious to have us show off. Isaac showed off, all right, with his
+'Bipets are sings vis two lex!' I guess Miss Lee decided that day that
+the Pennsylvania Dutch is ingrained in our English and hard to get out."
+
+To Phœbe each Memory Gem of her school days became, in truth, a gem
+stored away for future years. Long after she had outgrown the little
+rural school scraps of poetry returned to her to rewaken the enthusiasm
+of childhood and to teach her again to "hear the lark within the
+songless egg and find the fountain where they wailed, 'Mirage!'"
+
+Phœbe wanted so many things in those school-day years but she wanted
+most of all to become like Miss Lee. So earnestly did she try to speak
+as her teacher taught her that after a time the peculiar idioms and
+expressions became more infrequent and there was only a delightfully
+quaint inflection, an occasional phrase, to betray her Pennsylvania
+Dutch parentage. But in times of stress or excitement she invariably
+slipped back into the old way and prefaced her exclamations with an
+expressive "Ach!"
+
+Life on the Metz farm went on in even tenor year in and year out. Maria
+Metz never changed to any appreciable extent her mode of living or her
+methods of working, and she tried to teach Phœbe to conform to the same
+monotonous existence and live as several generations of Metzes had done.
+But Phœbe was a veritable Evelyn Hope, made of "spirit, fire and dew."
+The distinctiveness of her personality grew more pronounced as she
+slipped from childhood into girlhood and Maria Metz needed often to
+encourage her own heart for the task of rearing into ideal womanhood the
+daughter of her brother Jacob.
+
+Phœbe had a deep love for nature and this love was fostered by her
+sturdy farmer-father. As she followed him about the fields he taught her
+the names of wild flowers, told her the nesting haunts of birds,
+initiated her into the circle of tree-lore, taught her to keep ears,
+eyes and heart open for the treasures of the great outdoors.
+
+Phœbe required no urging in that direction. Her heart was filled with an
+insatiable desire to know more and more of the beautiful world about
+her. She gathered knowledge from every country walk; she showed so much
+"uncommon sense," David Eby said, that it was a keen pleasure to show
+her the nests of the thrush or the rare nests of the humming-bird. David
+and his mother, enthusiastic seekers after nature knowledge, augmented
+the father's nature education of Phœbe by frequent walks to field and
+woods. And so, when Phœbe was twelve years old she knew the haunts of
+all the wild flowers within walking distance of her home. With her
+father or with David and Mother Bab she found the first marsh-marigolds
+in the meadows, the first violets of the wooded slope of the hill, the
+earliest hepatica with its woolly buds, the first windflowers and spring
+beauties. She knew when the time was come for the bloodroot to lift its
+pure white petals about the golden hearts in the spot where the rich
+mould at the base of some giant tree nurtured the blooded plants. She
+could find the canopied Jack-in-the-pulpit and the pink azalea on the
+hill near her home. She knew the exact spot, a mile from the gray
+farmhouse, where, in a lovely little wood by a quiet road, a profusion
+of bird-foot violets and bluets made a carpet of blue loveliness each
+spring--so on, through the fleet days of summer, till the last asters
+and goldenrod faded, the child reveled in the beauties and wonders of
+the world at her feet and loved every part of it, from the tiny blue
+speedwell in the grass to the gorgeous orioles in the trees. What if
+Aunt Maria sometimes scolded her for bringing so many "weeds" into the
+house! With apparent unconcern she placed her flowers in a glass or
+earthen jar and secretly thought, "Well, I'm glad I like these pretty
+things; they are not weeds to me."
+
+The buoyancy of childhood tarried with her into girlhood. Like the old
+inscription of the sun-dial, she seemed to "count none but sunny hours."
+But those who knew her best saw that the shadows of life also left their
+marks upon her. At times the gaiety was displaced by seriousness. Mother
+Bab knew of the struggles in the girl's heart. Granny Hogendobler could
+have told of the hours Phœbe spent with her consoling her for the
+absence of Nason, mitigating the cruel stabs of the thoughtless people
+who condemned him, comforting with the assurance that he would return to
+his home some day. Old Aaron loved the girl and found her always ready
+to listen to his hackneyed story of the battle of Gettysburg.
+
+Phœbe was a student in the Greenwald High School when the war clouds
+broke over Europe and the world seemed to go mad in a whirl. She hurried
+to Old Aaron for his opinion on the terrible war.
+
+"Isn't it awful," she said to him, "that so many nations are flying at
+each other's throats? And in these days of our boasted civilization!"
+
+"Awful," he agreed. "But, mark my words, this is just the beginning.
+Before the thing's settled we'll be in it too."
+
+She shrank from the words. "Oh, no, not America! That would be too
+terrible. David might go then, and a lot of Greenwald boys--oh, that
+would be awful!"
+
+"Yes! But it would be far more dreadful to have them sit back safe while
+others died for the freedom of the world. I'd rather have my boy a
+soldier at a time like this than have him be ruler of a country."
+
+The old man's words ended quaveringly. The pent-up agony of his
+disappointment in his son surged over him, and he bowed his head in his
+hands and wept.
+
+Phœbe sent Granny to comfort him, and then stole away. The veteran's
+grief left an impression upon her. Were his words prophetic? Would
+America be drawn into the struggle? It was preposterous to dream of
+that. She would forget the words of Old Aaron, for she had important
+matters of her own to think about. In a few years she would be graduated
+from High School and then she would have her own life-work to decide
+upon. Her desire for larger experience, her determination to do
+something of importance after graduation was her chief interest. The war
+across the sea was too remote to bring constant fear to her. Dutifully
+she went about her work on the farm and pursued her studies. She was not
+without pity for the brave people of Servia and Belgium, not without
+praise for the heroic French and English. She added her vehement words
+of horror as she read of the atrocities visited upon the helpless
+peoples. She shared in the dread of many Americans that the octopus-arm
+of war might reach this country, and yet she was more concerned about
+her own future than about the future of battle-racked France or
+devastated Belgium.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BEYOND THE ALPS LIES ITALY
+
+
+PHÅ’BE'S graduation from the Greenwald High School was her red-letter
+day. Several times during the morning she stole to the spare-room where
+her graduation dress lay spread upon the high bed. Accompanied by Aunt
+Maria she had made a special trip to Lancaster for the frock, though
+Aunt Maria had conscientiously bought a few yards of muslin and apron
+gingham.
+
+The material was soft silky batiste of the quality Phœbe liked. The
+style, also, was of her choosing. She felt a glow of satisfaction as she
+looked at the dress so simply, yet fashionably, made.
+
+"For once in my life I have a dress I like," she thought.
+
+After supper, just as she was ready to dress for the great event, Phares
+Eby came to the gray farmhouse.
+
+The years had changed the solemn, serious boy into a more solemn,
+serious man. Tall and broad-shouldered, he was every inch a man in
+appearance. He was, moreover, a man highly respected in the community, a
+successful farmer and also a preacher in the Church of the Brethren. The
+latter honor had been conferred upon him a year before Phœbe's
+graduation and had seemed to increase his gravity and endow him with
+true bishopric dignity. He dressed after the manner of the majority of
+men who are affiliated with the Church of the Brethren in that district.
+His chin was covered with a thick, black beard, his dark hair was parted
+in the middle and combed behind his ears. He looked ten years older than
+he was and gave an impression of reserved strength, indomitable will and
+rigidity of purpose in furthering what he deemed a good cause.
+
+Phœbe felt a slight intimidation in his presence as she noted how
+serious he had grown, how mature he seemed. He appeared to desire the
+same friendship with her and tried to be comradely as of old, but there
+remained a feeling of restraint between them.
+
+"Hello, Phares," she greeted him as cordially as possible on her
+Commencement night.
+
+"Good-evening," he returned. "Are you ready for the great event?"
+
+"Yes, if I don't have heart failure before I get in to town. If only I
+had been fourth or fifth in the class marks instead of second, then I
+might have escaped to-night with just a solo. As it is, I must deliver
+the Salutatory oration."
+
+"Phœbe, you want to get off too easily! But I cannot stay more than a
+minute, for I know you'll want to get ready. I just stopped to give you
+a little gift for your graduation, a copy of Longfellow's poems."
+
+"Oh, thanks, Phares. I like his poems."
+
+"I thought you did. But I must go now," he said stiffly. "I'll see you
+to-night at Commencement. I hope you'll get through the oration all
+right."
+
+"Thanks. I hope so."
+
+When he was gone she made a wry face. "Whew," she whistled. "I'm sure
+Phares is a fine young man but he's too solemncoly. He gives me the
+woolies! If he's like that all the time I'm glad I don't have to live in
+the same house. Wonder if he really knows how to be jolly. But, shame on
+you, Phœbe Metz, talking so about your old friend! Perhaps for that I'll
+forget my oration to-night." With a gay laugh she ran away to dress for
+the most important occasion of her life.
+
+The white dress was vastly becoming. Its soft folds fell gracefully
+about her slender young figure. Her hair was brushed back, gathered into
+a bow at the top of her head, and braided into one thick braid which
+ended in a curl. There were no loving fingers of mother or sister to
+arrange the folds of her gown, no fond eyes to appraise her with looks
+of approval, but if she felt the omission she gave no evidence of it.
+She seemed especially gay as she dressed alone in her room. When she had
+finished she surveyed herself in the glass.
+
+"Um, Phœbe Metz, you don't look half bad! Now go and do as well as you
+look. If Aunt Maria heard me she'd be shocked, but what's the use
+pretending to be so stupid or innocent as not to appreciate your own
+good points. Any person with good sight and ordinary sense can tell
+whether their appearance is pleasing or otherwise. I like this
+dress----"
+
+"Phœbe," Aunt Maria's voice came up the stairs.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Why, David's down. Are you done dressing?"
+
+"I'll be down in a minute."
+
+David Eby, too, was a man grown, but a man so different! Like his
+cousin, Phares, he was tall. He had the same dark hair and eyes but his
+eyes were glowing, and his hair was cut close and his chin kept
+smooth-shaven.
+
+Between him and Phœbe there existed the old comradeship, free of
+restraint or embarrassment. He ran to meet her as her steps sounded on
+the stairs.
+
+But she came down sedately, her hand sliding along the colonial
+hand-rail, a calm dignity about her, her lovely head erect.
+
+"Good-evening," she said in quiet tones.
+
+"Whew!" he whistled. "Sweet girl graduate is too mild a phrase! Come,
+unbend, Phœbe. You don't expect me to call you Miss Metz or to kiss your
+hand--ah, shall I?"
+
+"Davie"--in a twinkling the assumed dignity deserted her, she was all
+girl again, animated and adorable--"Davie, you're hopeless! Here I pose
+before the mirror to find the most impressive way to hold my head and be
+sufficiently dignified for the occasion, and you come bursting into the
+hall like a tomboy, whistling and saying funny things."
+
+"I'm awfully sorry. But you took my breath away. I haven't gotten it
+back yet"--he breathed deeply.
+
+"David, will you ever grow up?"
+
+"I'll have to now. I see you've gone and done it."
+
+"Ach no," she lapsed into the childhood expression. "I'm not grown up.
+But how do I look? You won't tell me so I have to ask you."
+
+"You look like a Madonna," he said seriously.
+
+"Oh," she said impatiently, "that sounded like Phares."
+
+"Gracious, then I'll change it! You look like an angel and good enough
+to eat. But honestly, Phœbe, that dress is dandy! You look mighty nice."
+
+"Glad you think so. Shall I tell you a secret, David? I'm scared pink
+about to-night."
+
+"You scared?" He whistled again.
+
+"Don't be so smart," she said with a frown. "Were you scared on your
+Commencement night?"
+
+"Um-uh. At first I was. But you'll get over it in a few minutes. The
+lights and the glory of the occasion dim the scary feeling when you sit
+up there in the seats of honor. You should be glad your oration is
+first."
+
+"I am. Mary Warner is welcome to her Valedictory and the long wait to
+deliver it."
+
+Phœbe stiffened a bit at the thought of the other girl. Since the days
+when the two girls attended the rural school on the hill and Mary Warner
+was the possessor of curls while Phœbe wore the despised braids the
+other girl seemed to have everything for which Phœbe longed.
+
+"Ah, don't you care about the honor," said David. "Honors don't always
+tell who knows the most. Why, look at me; I was fifth in my class and I
+know as much any day as the little runt who was first."
+
+"Conceit!" laughed Phœbe. "But I guess you do know more than he does.
+Bet he never saw an orioles' nest or found a wild pink moccasin. You're
+a wonder at such things, David."
+
+"Um," came the sober answer, but there was a merry twinkle in his eyes,
+"I'm a wonder all right! Too bad only you and Mother Bab know it. But if
+I don't soon go you won't get to town in time to get the pink roses
+arranged just so for the grand march. The girls in our class primped
+about twenty minutes, patting their hair and fixing their ribbons and
+fussing with their flowers."
+
+"David, you're horrid!"
+
+"I know. But I brought you something more to primp with." He handed her
+a small flat box.
+
+"For me?"
+
+"From Mother Bab," he said.
+
+"Oh, David, that's a beauty!" she cried as she held up a scarf of pale
+blue crepe de chine. "I'll wear it to-night. Tell Mother Bab I thank her
+over and over. But I'll see her to-night and tell her myself; she'll be
+in at Commencement."
+
+"She can't come, Phœbe. She's sorry, but she has one of her dreadful
+headaches and you know what that means, how sick she really is."
+
+"Oh, Davie, Mother Bab not coming to my Commencement--why, I'm so
+disappointed, I want her there"--the tears were near the surface.
+
+"She's sorry, too, Phœbe, but she's too sick when those headaches get
+her. Her eyes are the cause of them, we think now."
+
+"And I'm horribly selfish to think of myself and my disappointment when
+she is suffering. You tell her I'll be up to see her in the morning and
+tell her all about to-night. You are coming?"
+
+"Sure thing! Aunt Mary is coming over to stay with mother, but there is
+really nothing to do for her; the pain seems to have to run its course.
+She'll go to bed early and be perfectly all right when she wakes in the
+morning. Come on, now, cheer up, and get ready for that 'Over the Alps
+lies Italy.'"
+
+"It's 'Beyond the Alps lies Italy,'" she corrected him. Her
+disappointment was softened by his cheerfulness.
+
+"Ach, it's all the same," he insisted, and went off smiling.
+
+To Phœbe that night seemed like a dream--the slow march down the aisle
+of the crowded auditorium to the elevated platform where the nine
+graduates sat in a semicircle; the sea of faces swathed in the bright
+glow of many lights; the perfume of the pink roses in her arm; the music
+of the High School chorus, and then the time when she rose and stood
+before the people to deliver her oration, "Beyond the Alps lies Italy."
+
+She began rather shakily; the sea of faces seemed so very formidable, so
+many eyes looked at her--how could she ever finish! She spoke
+mechanically at first, but gradually the magic of the Italy of her
+dreams stole upon her, a singular softness crept into her voice, a
+mellowness like music, as she depicted the blue skies of the sunny
+land-of-dreams-come-true.
+
+When she returned to her place in the semicircle a glow of satisfaction
+possessed her. She felt she had not failed, that she had, in truth, done
+very well. But later, when Mary Warner rose to deliver the Valedictory,
+Phœbe felt her own efforts shrink into littleness. The dark-eyed
+beautiful Mary was a sad thorn in the flesh for the fair girl who knew
+she was always overshadowed by the brilliant, queenly brunette.
+Involuntarily the country girl looked at David Eby--he was listening
+intently to Mary; his eyes never seemed to leave her face. Little, sharp
+pangs of jealousy thrust themselves into the depths of Phœbe's heart.
+Was it true, then, that David cared for Mary Warner? Town gossips said
+he frequented her house. Phœbe had met them together on the Square
+recently--not that she cared, of course! She sat erect and held her pink
+roses more tightly against her heart. It mattered little to her if David
+liked other girls; it was only that she felt a sense of proprietorship
+over the boy whose mother was her Mother Bab--thus she tried to console
+herself and quiet the demons of jealousy until the program was
+completed, congratulations received, and she stood with her aunt and
+father, ready for the trip back to the gray farmhouse.
+
+Teachers and friends had congratulated her, but it was David Eby's
+hearty, "You did all right, Phœbe," that gave her the keenest joy.
+
+"Did you walk in?" she asked him as she gathered her roses, diploma and
+scarf, preparatory to departure.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you can drive out with us," her father offered.
+
+"Yes, of course," she seconded the suggestion. "We have room in the
+carriage."
+
+So it happened that Phœbe, the blue scarf about her shoulders, sat
+beside David as they drove over the country road, home from her
+graduation. The vehicle rattled somewhat, but the young folks on the
+rear seat could speak and hear above the clatter.
+
+"I'm glad it's over," Phœbe sighed in relief. "But what next?"
+
+"Mary Warner is going to enter some prep school this fall and prepare
+for Vassar," David informed the girl beside him.
+
+"Lucky Mary"--Mary Warner--she was sick of the name! "I wish I knew what
+I want to do."
+
+"Want to go away to school?"
+
+"I don't know. Aunt Maria wants me to stay at home on the farm and just
+help her. Daddy doesn't say much, but he did ask me if I would like to
+go to Millersville. That's a fine Normal School and if I wanted to be a
+teacher I'd go to that school, but I don't want to be a teacher. What I
+really want to do is go away and study music."
+
+"Well, can't you do it? That is not really impossible."
+
+"No, but----"
+
+"No, but," he mimicked. "_But_ won't take you anywhere."
+
+"You set me thinking, David. Perhaps it isn't so improbable, after all.
+I'm coming over to see Mother Bab to-morrow; she'll be full of
+suggestions. She'll see a way for me to get what I want; she always
+does."
+
+"I bet she will," agreed David. "You'll be that primer donner yet," he
+mimicked, "I know you will."
+
+"Oh, Davie, wouldn't it be great! But I wouldn't beautify my face with
+cream and beet juice and flour!"
+
+They laughed so heartily that Aunt Maria turned and asked the cause of
+the merriment.
+
+"We were just speaking of the time when I dressed in the garret and
+fixed my face--the time you had the quilting party."
+
+"Ach," Aunt Maria said, smiling in the darkness. "You looked dreadful
+that day. I was good and mad at you! But I'm glad you're big enough now
+not to do such dumb things. My, now that you're done with school and
+will stay home with me we can have some nice times sewin' and quiltin'
+and makin' rugs, ain't, Phœbe?"
+
+In the semi-darkness of the carriage Phœbe looked at David. The
+appealing wistfulness of her face touched him. He patted her arm
+reassuringly and whispered to her, "Don't you worry. It'll come out all
+right. Mother Bab will help you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A VISIT TO MOTHER BAB
+
+
+THE next day as Phœbe walked up the hill to visit Mother Bab she went
+eagerly and with an unusual light in her eyes--she had transformed her
+schoolgirl braid into the coiffure of a woman! The golden hair was
+parted in the middle, twisted into a shapely knot in the nape of her
+neck, and the effect was highly satisfactory, she thought.
+
+"Mother Bab will be surprised," she said gladly as she swung up the hill
+in rapid, easy strides. "And David--I wonder what David will say if he's
+home."
+
+At the summit of the hill she paused and turned, looked back at the gray
+farmhouse and beyond it to the little town of Greenwald.
+
+"I just must stand here a minute and look! I love this view from the
+hill."
+
+She breathed deeply and continued to revel in the beauty of the scene.
+At the foot of the hill was the Metz farm nestling in its green
+surroundings. Like a tan ribbon the dusty road went winding past green
+fields, then hid itself as it dipped into a valley and made a sharp
+curve, though Phœbe knew that it went on past more fields and meadows to
+the town. Where she stood she had a view of the tall spires of Greenwald
+churches straggling through the trees, and the red and slate roofs of
+comfortable houses gleaming in the sunlight. Beyond and about the town
+lay fields resplendent in the pristine freshness of May greenery.
+
+"Oh," she said aloud after a long gaze, "this is glorious! But I must
+hurry to Mother Bab. I'm wild to have her see me. Aunt Maria just said
+when I showed her my hair, 'Yes well, Phœbe, I guess you're old enough
+to wear your hair up.' Mother Bab is different. Sometimes I pity Aunt
+Maria and wonder what kind of childhood she had to make her so grim
+about some things."
+
+The little house in which David and his mother lived stood near the
+country road leading to the schoolhouse on the hill. Like many other
+farmhouses of that county it was square, substantial and unadorned, its
+attractiveness being derived solely from its fine proportions, its
+colonial doorways, and the harmonious surroundings of trees and flowers.
+The garden was eloquent of the lavish love bestowed upon it. Mother Bab
+delighted in flowers and planted all the old favorites. The walks
+between the garden beds were trim and weedless, the yard and buildings
+well kept, and the entire little farm gave evidence that the reputed
+Pennsylvania Dutch thrift and neatness were present there.
+
+Adjoining the farm of Mother Bab was the farm of her brother-in-law, the
+father of Phares Eby. This was one of the best known in the community.
+Its great barns and vast acres quite eclipsed the modest little dwelling
+beside it. David Eby sometimes sighed as he compared the two farms and
+wondered why Fate had bestowed upon his uncle's efforts an almost
+unparalleled success while his own father had had a continual struggle
+to hold on to the few acres of the little farm. Since the death of his
+father David had often felt the straining of the yoke. It was toil,
+toil, on acres which were rich but apparently unwilling to yield their
+fullness. One year the crops were damaged by hail, another year
+prolonged drought prevented full development of the fruit, again
+continued rainy weather ruined the hay, and so on, year in and year out,
+there was seldom a season when the farm measured up to the expectations
+of the hard-working David.
+
+But Mother Bab never complained about the ill-luck, neither did she envy
+the woman in the great house next to her. Mother Bab's philosophy of
+life was mainly cheerful:
+
+        "I find earth not gray, but rosy,
+           Heaven not grim, but fair of hue.
+         Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.
+           Do I stand and stare? All's blue."
+
+A little house to shelter her, a big garden in which to work, to dream,
+to live; enough worldly goods to supply daily sustenance; the love of
+her David--truly her BELOVED, as the old Hebrew name signifies--the love
+of the dear Phœbe who had adopted her--given these blessings and no envy
+or discontent ever ventured near the white-capped woman. Life had
+brought her many hours of perplexity and several great sorrows, but it
+had also bestowed upon her compensating joys. She felt that the years
+would bring her new joys, now that her boy was grown into a man and was
+able to manage the farm. Some day he would bring home a wife--how she
+would love David's wife! But meanwhile, she was not lonely. Her friends
+and she were much together, quilting, rugging, comparing notes on the
+garden.
+
+"Guess Mother Bab'll be in the garden," thought Phœbe, "for it's such a
+fine day."
+
+But as she neared the whitewashed fence of the garden she saw that the
+place was deserted. She ran lightly up the walk, rapped at the kitchen
+door, and entered without waiting for an answer to her knock.
+
+"Mother Bab," she called.
+
+"I'm here, Phœbe," came a voice from the sitting-room.
+
+"How are you? Is your headache all gone?" Phœbe asked as she ran to the
+beloved person who came to meet her.
+
+"All gone. I was so disappointed last night--but what have you done to
+your hair?"
+
+"Oh, I forgot!" Phœbe lifted her head proudly. "I meant to knock at the
+front door and be company to-day. I've got my hair up!"
+
+"Phœbe, Phœbe," the woman drew her nearer. "Let me look at you." Her
+eyes scanned the face of the girl, her voice quivered as she spoke.
+"You've grown up! Of course it didn't come in a night but it seems that
+way."
+
+"The May fairies did it, Mother Bab. Yesterday I wore a braid. This
+morning when I woke I heard the robin who sings every morning in the
+apple tree outside my window and he was caroling, 'Put it up! Put it
+up!' I knew he meant my hair, so here I am, waiting for your blessing."
+
+"You have it, you always have it! But"--she changed her mood--"are you
+sure the robin wasn't saying, 'Get up, get up!' Phœbe?"
+
+"Positive; it was only five o'clock."
+
+"Now I must hear all about last night," said Mother Bab as they sat
+together on the broad wooden settee in the sitting-room. "David told me
+how nice you looked and how well you did."
+
+"Did he tell you how pleased I am with the scarf? It's just lovely! And
+the color is beautiful. I wonder why--I wonder why I love pretty things
+so much, really pretty things, like crepe de chine and taffeta and panne
+velvet and satin. Oh, sometimes I think I must have them. When I go to
+Lancaster I want lots of lovely clothes and I hate ginghams and percales
+and serviceable things."
+
+"I know, Phœbe, I know how you feel about it."
+
+"Do you really? Then it can't be so awfully wicked. You are so
+understanding, Mother Bab. I can't tell Aunt Maria how I feel about such
+things for she'd be dreadfully hurt or worried or provoked, but you seem
+always to know what I mean and how I feel."
+
+"I was eighteen myself once, a good many years ago, but I still remember
+it."
+
+"You have a good memory."
+
+"Yes. Why, I can remember some of the dresses I wore when I was
+eighteen. But then, I have a dress bundle to help me remember them."
+
+"What's a dress bundle?"
+
+"Didn't Aunt Maria keep one for you?"
+
+"I never heard of one."
+
+"It's a long string of samples of dresses you wore when you were little.
+Wait, I'll get mine and show you."
+
+She left the room and went up-stairs. After a short time she returned
+and held out a stout thread upon which were strung small, irregular
+scraps of dress material. "This is my dress bundle. My mother started it
+for me when I was a baby and kept it up till I was big enough to do it
+myself. Every time I got a new dress a little patch of the goods was
+threaded on my dress bundle."
+
+"Oh, may I see? Why, that's just like a part of your babyhood and
+childhood come back!"
+
+The two heads bent over the bundle--the girl's with its light hair in
+its first putting up, the woman's with its graying hair folded under the
+white cap.
+
+"Here"--Mother Bab turned the bundle upside down and fingered the scraps
+with that loving way of those who are dreaming of long departed days and
+touching a relic of those cherished hours--"this white calico with the
+little pink dots was the first dress any one gave me. Grandmother
+Hoerner made it for me, all by hand. Funny, wasn't it, the way they used
+to put colored dresses on wee babies! See, here are pink calico ones and
+white with red figures and a few blue ones. I wore all these when I was
+a baby. Then when I grew older these; they are much prettier. This red
+delaine I wore to a spelling bee when I was about sixteen and I got a
+book for a prize for standing up next to last. This red and black
+checked debaige I can see yet. It had an overskirt on it trimmed with
+little ruffles. This purple cashmere with the yellow sprigs in it I had
+all trimmed with narrow black velvet ribbon. I'll never forget that
+dress--I wore it the day I met David's father."
+
+"Oh, you must have looked lovely!"
+
+"He said so." She smiled; her eyes looked beyond Phœbe, back to the
+golden days of her youth when Love had come to her to bless and to abide
+with her long beyond the tarrying of the spirit in the flesh. "He said I
+looked nice. I met him the first time I wore the purple dress. It was at
+a corn-husking party at Jerry Grumb's barn. Some man played the fiddle
+and we danced."
+
+"Danced!" echoed Phœbe.
+
+"Yes, danced. But just the old-fashioned Virginia reel. We had cider and
+apples and cake and pie for our treat and we went home at ten o'clock!
+David walked home with me in the moonlight and I guess we liked each
+other from the first. We were married the next year, then we both turned
+plain."
+
+"Were you ever sorry, Mother Bab?"
+
+"That I married him, or that I turned plain?"
+
+"Yes. Both, I mean."
+
+"No, never sorry once, Phœbe, about either. We were happy together. And
+about turning plain, why, I wasn't sorry either."
+
+"But you had to give up Virginia reels and pretty dresses."
+
+"Yes, but I learned there are deeper, more important things than dancing
+and wearing pretty dresses."
+
+She looked at Phœbe, but the girl had bowed her head over the dress
+bundle and appeared to be thinking.
+
+"And so," continued Mother Bab softly, "my bundle ended with that dress.
+Since I dress plain I don't wear colors, just gray and black. But I
+always thought if I had a girl I'd start a dress bundle for her, for
+it's so much satisfaction to get it out sometimes and look over the
+pieces and remember the dresses and some of the happy times you had when
+you wore them. But the girl never came."
+
+"But you have David!"
+
+"Yes, to be sure, he's been so much to me, but I couldn't make him a
+dress bundle. He wouldn't have liked it when he grew older--boys are
+different. And I wouldn't want him to be a sissy, either."
+
+"He isn't, Mother Bab. He's fine!"
+
+"I think so, Phœbe. He has worked so hard since he's through school and
+he's so good to me and takes such care of the farm, though the crops
+don't always turn out as we want. But you haven't told me what you are
+going to do, now that you're through school."
+
+"I don't know. I want to do something."
+
+"Teach?"
+
+"No. What I would like best of all is study music."
+
+"In Greenwald? You mean to learn to play?"
+
+"No, to learn to sing. I have often dreamed of studying music in a great
+city, like Philadelphia."
+
+"What would you do then?"
+
+"Sing, sing! I feel that my voice is my one talent and I don't want to
+bury it."
+
+"Well, don't Miss Lee live in Philadelphia? Perhaps she could help you
+to get a good teacher and find a place to board."
+
+"Mother Bab!" Phœbe sprang to her feet and wrapped her arms about the
+slender little woman. "That's just it!" she cried. "I never thought of
+that! David said you'd help me. I'll write to Miss Lee to-day!"
+
+"Phœbe," the woman said, smiling at the girl's wild enthusiasm.
+
+"I'm not crazy, just inspired," said Phœbe. "You helped me, I knew you
+would! I want to go to Philadelphia to study music but I know daddy and
+Aunt Maria would never listen to any proposals about going to a big city
+and living among strangers. But if I write to Miss Lee and she says
+she'll help me the folks at home may consider the plan. I'll have a hard
+time, though"--a reactionary doubt touched her--"I'll have a dreadful
+time persuading Aunt Maria that I'm safe and sane if I mention music and
+Philadelphia and Phœbe in the same breath." Then she smiled
+determinedly. "At least I'm going to make a brave effort to get what I
+want. I'm not going to settle down on the farm and get brown and fat and
+wear gingham dresses all my life, and sunbonnets in the bargain! I never
+could see why I had to wear sunbonnets, I always hated them. Aunt Maria
+always tried to make me wear them, but as soon as I was out of her sight
+I sneaked them off. I remember one time I threw my bonnet in the
+Chicques and I had the loveliest time watching it disappear down the
+stream. But Aunt Maria made me make another one that was uglier still,
+so I gained nothing but the temporary pleasure of seeing it float away.
+And how I hated to do patchwork! It seemed to me I was always doing it,
+and I never could see the sense of cutting up pieces and then sewing
+them together again."
+
+"But the sewing was good practice for you, Phœbe. Patchwork--seems to me
+all our life is patchwork: a little here and a little there; one color
+now, then another; one shape first, then another shape fitted in; and
+when it is all joined it will be beautiful if we keep the parts straight
+and the colors and shapes right. It can be a very beautiful rising sun
+or an equally pretty flower basket, or it can be just a crazy quilt with
+little of the beautiful about it."
+
+"Mother Bab, if I had known that while I was patching I would have loved
+to patch! I had nothing to make it interesting; it was just stitching,
+stitching, stitching on seams! But those vivid quilts are all finished
+and I guess Aunt Maria is as glad about it as I am, for I gave her some
+worried hours before the end was sighted. Poor Aunt Maria, she should be
+glad to have me go to the city. I've led her some merry chases, but I
+must admit she was always equal to them, forged ahead of me many times."
+
+"Phœbe, you're a wilful child and I'm afraid I spoil you more."
+
+"No you don't! You're my safety valve. If I couldn't come up here and
+say the things I really feel I'd have to tell it to the Jenny
+Wrens--Aunt Maria hates to have me talk to myself."
+
+"But she's good to you, Phœbe?"
+
+"Yes, oh, yes! I appreciate all she has done for me. She has taken care
+of me since I was a tiny baby. I'll never forget that. It's just that we
+are so different. I can't make Phœbe Metz be just like Maria Metz, can
+I?"
+
+"No, you must be yourself, even if you are different."
+
+"That's it, Mother Bab. I feel I have the right to live my life as I
+choose, that no person shall say to me I must live it so or so. If I
+want to study music why shouldn't I do so? My mother left a few hundred
+dollars for me; it's been on interest and amounts to more than a few
+hundred, about a thousand dollars, I think. So the money end of my
+studying music need not worry Aunt Maria. I am determined to do it,
+wouldn't you?"
+
+"I suppose I'd feel the same way."
+
+"How did you learn to understand so well, Mother Bab? You have lived all
+your life on a farm, yet you are not narrow."
+
+"I hope I have not grown narrow," the woman said softly. "I have read a
+great deal. I have read--don't you breathe it to a soul--I have often
+read when I should have been baking pies or washing windows!"
+
+"No wonder David worships you so."
+
+"I still enjoy reading," said Mother Bab. "David subscribes for three
+good magazines and when they come I'm so anxious to look into them that
+sometimes my cooking burns."
+
+"That must be one of the reasons your English is correct. I am ashamed
+of myself when I mix my v's and w's and use a _t_ for a _d_. I have
+often wished the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect would have been put aside
+long ago."
+
+"Yes," the woman agreed, "I can't see the need of it. It has been
+ridiculed so long that it should have died a natural death. It's a
+mystery to me how it has survived. But cheer up, Phœbe, the gibberish is
+dying out. The older people will continue to speak it but the younger
+generations are becoming more and more English speaking. Why, do you
+know, Phœbe, since this war started in Europe and I read the dreadful
+crimes the Germans are committing I feel that I never want to hear or
+say, 'Yah.'"
+
+"Bully!" Phœbe clapped her hands. "I said to old Aaron Hogendobler
+yesterday that I'm ashamed I have a German name and some German
+ancestors, even if they did come to this country before the Revolution,
+and he said no one need feel shame at that, but every American who is
+not one hundred per cent American should die from shame. I know we
+Pennsylvania Dutch can carry our end of the burdens of the world and be
+real Americans, but I want to sound like one too."
+
+Mother Bab laughed. "Just yesterday I said to David that the butter was
+_all_."
+
+"I say that very often. I must read more."
+
+"And I less. I haven't told you, Phœbe, nor David, but my eyes are
+going back on me. I went to Lancaster a few weeks ago and the doctor
+there said I must be very careful not to strain them at all. I think I'd
+rather lose any other sense than sight. I always thought it was the
+greatest affliction in the world to be blind."
+
+"It is! It mustn't come to you, Mother Bab!"
+
+The woman looked worried, but in a moment her face brightened.
+
+"Anyhow," she said, "what's the use of worrying or thinking about it? If
+it ever comes I'll have to bear it just as many other people are bearing
+it. I'm glad I have sight to-day to see you."
+
+Phœbe gave her an ecstatic hug. "I believe you're Irish instead of
+Pennsylvania Dutch! You do know how to blarney and you have that
+coaxing, lovely way about you that the Irish are supposed to have."
+
+"Why, Phœbe, I am part Irish! My mother's maiden name was McKnight.
+David and I still have a few drops of the Irish blood in us, I suppose."
+
+"I just knew it! I'm glad. I adore the whimsical way the Irish have, and
+I like their sense of humor. I guess that's one of the reasons I like
+you better than other people I know and perhaps that's why David is
+jolly and different from Phares. Ah," she added roguishly, "I think it's
+a pity Phares hasn't some Irish blood in him. He's so solemn he seldom
+sees a joke."
+
+"But he's a good boy and he thinks a lot of you. He's just a little too
+quiet. But he's a good preacher and very bright."
+
+"Yes, he's so good that I'm ashamed of myself when I say mean things
+about him. I like him, but people with more life are more interesting."
+
+"Hello, who's this you like?" David's hearty voice burst upon them.
+
+Phœbe turned and saw him standing in the sunlight of the open door. The
+thought flashed upon her, "How big and strong he is!"
+
+He wore brown corduroys, a blue chambray shirt slightly open at the
+throat, heavy shoes. His face was already tanned by the wind and sun,
+his hands rough from contact with soil and farming implements, his dark
+hair rumpled where he had pulled the big straw hat from his head, but
+there was an odor of fresh spring earth about him, a boyish
+wholesomeness in his face, that attracted the girl as she looked at his
+frame in the doorway.
+
+There was a flash of white teeth, a twinkle in his dark eyes, as he
+asked, "What did I hear you say, Phœbe--that you like _me_?"
+
+"Indeed not! I wouldn't think of liking anybody who deceived me as you
+have done. All these years you have left me under the impression that
+you are Pennsylvania Dutch and now Mother Bab says you are part Irish."
+
+"Little saucebox! What about yourself? You can't make me believe that
+you are pure, unadulterated Pennsylvania Dutch. There's some alien blood
+in you, by the ways of you. Have you seen Phares this afternoon?" he
+asked irrelevantly.
+
+"Phares? No. Why?"
+
+"He went down past the field some time ago. Said he's going to
+Greenwald and means to stop and ask you to go to a sale with him next
+week. He said you mentioned some time ago that you'd like to go to a
+real old-fashioned one and he heard of one coming off next week and
+thought you might like to go."
+
+"I surely want to go. Don't you want to come, too, David? And Mother
+Bab?"
+
+But David shook his head. "And spoil Phares's party," he said. "Phares
+wouldn't thank us."
+
+Phœbe shrugged her shoulders. "Ach, David Eby, you're silly! Just as
+though I want to go to a sale all alone with Phares! He can take the big
+carriage and take us all."
+
+"He can but he won't want to." David showed an irritating wisdom. "When
+I invite you to come on a party with me I won't want Phares tagging
+after, either. Two's company."
+
+"Two's boredom sometimes," she said so ambiguously that the man laughed
+heartily and Mother Bab smiled in amusement.
+
+"Come now, Phœbe," David said, "just because you put your hair up you
+mustn't think you can rule us all and don grown-up airs."
+
+"Then you do notice things! I thought you were blind. You are downright
+mean, David Eby! When you wore your first pair of long pants I noticed
+it right away and made a fuss about them and it takes you ten minutes to
+see that my hair is up instead of hanging in a silly braid down my
+back."
+
+"I saw it first thing, Phœbe. That was mean--I'm sorry----"
+
+"You look it," she said sceptically.
+
+"I'm sorry," he repeated, "to see the braid go, though you look fine
+this way. I liked that long braid ever since the day I braided it, the
+day you played prima donna. Remember?"
+
+The girl flushed, then was vexed at her embarrassment and changed
+suddenly to the old, appealing Phœbe.
+
+"I remember, Davie. You were my salvation that day, you and Mother Bab."
+
+Before they could answer she added with seeming innocency, yet with a
+swift glance into the face of the farmer boy, "I must go now so I'll be
+home when Phares comes to invite me to that sale. I'm going with him;
+I'm wild to go."
+
+"Yes?" David said slowly.
+
+"Yes," she repeated, a teasing look in her eyes.
+
+"Mommie, isn't she fine?" David said after Phœbe was gone and he
+lingered in the house.
+
+"Mighty fine. But she is so different from the general run of girls;
+she's so lively and bright and sweet, so sensitive to all impressions.
+She's anxious to get to the city to study music. It would be a wonderful
+experience for her--and yet----"
+
+"And yet----" echoed David, then fell into silence.
+
+Mother Bab was thinking of her boy and Phœbe, of their gay comradeship.
+How friendly they were, how well-mated they appeared to be, how
+appreciative of each other. Could they ever care for each other in a
+deeper way? Did the preacher care for the playmate of his childhood as
+she thought David was beginning to care?
+
+"Well, I must go again, mommie. I came in for a drink at the pump and
+heard you and Phœbe. Now I must hustle for I have a lot to do before
+sundown--ach, why aren't we rich!"
+
+"Do you wish for that?"
+
+"Certainly I do. Not wealthy; just to have enough so we needn't lie
+awake wondering if the dry spell or the wet spell or the hail will ruin
+the crops. I wish I could find an Aladdin's lamp."
+
+"Davie"--the smile faded from her face--"don't get the money craze.
+Money isn't everything. This farm is paid for and we can always make a
+comfortable living. Money isn't all."
+
+"No, but--but it means everything sometimes to a young, single fellow.
+But don't you worry; the crops are fine this year, so far."
+
+The mother did not forget his words at once. "It must be," she thought,
+"that David wants Phœbe and feels he must have more money before he can
+ask her to marry him. Will men never learn that girls who are worth
+getting are not looking so much for money but the man. The young can't
+see the depth and fullness of love. I've tried to teach David, but I
+suppose there's some things he must learn for himself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+AN OLD-FASHIONED COUNTRY SALE
+
+
+A WEEK later Phares and Phœbe drove into the barnyard of a farm six
+miles from Greenwald, where the old-fashioned sale was scheduled to be
+held.
+
+"We are not the first, after all," said the preacher as he saw the
+number of conveyances in and about the barnyard. He smiled
+good-humoredly as he led the way--he could afford to smile when he was
+with Phœbe.
+
+All about the big yard of the farm were placed articles to be sold at
+public auction. It was a miscellaneous collection. A cradle with
+miniature puffy feather pillows, straw tick and an old patchwork quilt
+of pink and white calico stood near an old wood-stove which bore the
+inscription, CONOWINGO FURNACE. Corn-husk shoe-mats, a quilting frame,
+rocking-chairs, two spinning-wheels, copper kettles, rolls of hand-woven
+rag carpet, old oval hat-boxes and an old chest stood about a huge table
+which was laden with jars of jellies. Chests, filled with linens and
+antique woolen coverlets, afforded a resting place for the fortunate
+ones who had arrived earliest. A few antique chairs and tables, a
+mahogany highboy in excellent condition and an antique corner-cupboard
+of wild-cherry wood occupied prominent places among the collection.
+Truly, the sale warranted the attention it was receiving.
+
+"I'd like to bid on something--I'm going to do it!" Phœbe said as they
+looked about. "When I was a little girl and went to sales with Aunt
+Maria I coaxed to bid, just for the excitement of bidding. But she
+always made me tell what I wanted and then she bid on it."
+
+"What do you want to buy?" asked the preacher.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I don't want any apple-butter in crocks, or any
+chairs. Oh, I'll have some fun, Phares! I'll bid on the third article
+they put up for sale! I heard a man say the dishes are going to be sold
+first, so I'll probably get a cracked plate or a saucer without a cup,
+but whatever it is, the third article is going to be mine."
+
+"That is rather rash," warned Phares. "It may be a bed or a chest."
+
+"You can't scare me. I'm going to have some real thrills at this sale."
+
+The preacher entered into the spirit of the girl and smiled at her
+promise to bid on the third thing put up for sale.
+
+"Oh, look at the highboy," she exclaimed to him.
+
+"Do you like it?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. See how it's inlaid with hollywood and cherry and how fine the
+lines of it are! I wonder how much it will bring. But Aunt Maria'd scold
+if I brought any furniture home, so I can't buy it."
+
+"The price will depend upon the number of bidders and the size of their
+pocketbooks. If any dealers in antiques are here it may run way up. We
+used to buy homespun linen and fine old furniture very cheap at sales,
+but the antique dealers changed that."
+
+By that time the number of people was steadily increasing. They came
+singly and in groups, in carriages, farm wagons, automobiles and afoot.
+Some of the curious went about examining each article in the motley
+collection in the yard.
+
+Phœbe watched it all with an amused smile; finally she broke into merry
+laughter.
+
+Phares looked up inquiringly: "What is it?"
+
+"This is great sport! I haven't been to a good sale for several years.
+That old man has knocked his fist upon every chair and table, has tested
+every piece of furniture, has opened all the bureau drawers, even the
+case of the old clock, and just a moment ago he rocked the cradle
+furiously to convince himself that it is in good working condition. Here
+he comes with a pewter plate in his hand--let's hear what he has to say
+about it."
+
+The old man's cracked harsh voice rose above the confusion of other
+sounds as he leaned against a table near Phœbe and Phares and spoke to
+another man:
+
+"Here now, Eph, is one of them pewter plates that folks fuss so about
+just now, and I hear they put them in their dinin'-rooms along the wall!
+Why, when I was a boy my granny had a lot of 'em and we'd knock 'em
+around any way. Ha, ha," he laughed loudly, "I can tell you a good one,
+Eph, about one of them pewter dishes."
+
+He slapped the plate against his knee, but the thud was instantly
+drowned by his quick, "Ach, Jimminy, I hit myself pretty hard that time!
+But I'll tell you about it, Eph. You heard of the fellows from the city
+who go around the country hunting up old relics, all old truck, and sell
+it again in the city? Well, one of them fellows come to my house the
+other week and asked if I had anything old-fashioned I would sell. Now
+if Lizzie'd been home we might got rid of some of the old things we have
+on the garret, but I was alone and I didn't know what I dared sell--you
+know how the women is. So I said, 'What kind of old things do you want?'
+
+"'Oh,' he said, 'I buy old furniture, dishes, linen, pewter----'
+
+"'Pewter?' I said. 'Who wants that?'
+
+"'There is a great demand for it,' he said, 'and I will give you a good
+price for any you have.'
+
+"'Well,' I laughed, 'I have just one piece of pewter.'
+
+"'Where is it?'
+
+"'Why, the cats have been eating out of it for a few years.'
+
+"'May I see it?' he asks.
+
+"So I took him out to the barn and showed him the big pewter bowl the
+cats eat out of and he said, 'I'll give you fifty cents for that dish.'
+
+"Gosh, I said to him, 'Mister, I was just fooling with you. I know you
+don't want a cat-dish.'
+
+"But he said again, 'I'll give you fifty cents for that dish.'
+
+"So when I saw that he really meant it and wanted the dish I wrapped
+the old pewter dish in a paper and he gave me half a dollar for it. When
+I told Lizzie about it she laughed good and said the city folks must be
+dumb if they want pewter dishes when you can buy such nice ones for ten
+cents. Yes, Eph, that's the fellow's going to auctioneer. He's a good
+one, you bet; he keeps things lively all the time. All his folks is good
+talkers. Lizzie says his mom can talk the legs off an iron pot. But then
+he needs a good tongue in this business; it takes a lot of wind to be an
+auctioneer, specially at a big sale like this. He says it's going to be
+a wonderful sale, that he ain't had one like it for years. There's
+things here belonged to the family for three generations, been handed
+down and handed down and now to-day it'll get scattered all over
+Lancaster County, mebbe further. This saving up things and not using 'em
+is all nonsense. I tell Lizzie we'll use what we got and get new when
+it's worn out and not let a lot back for the young ones to fight over or
+other people to buy."
+
+Here the auctioneer climbed upon a big box, clapped his hands and called
+loudly, "Attention, attention! This sale is about to begin. We have here
+a collection of fine things, all in good condition. The terms of the
+sale are cash. Now, folks, bid up fast and talk loud when you bid so I
+can hear you. We have here some of the finest antique dishes in the
+country, also some furniture that can't be duplicated in any store
+to-day. We'll begin on this cherry table."
+
+He lifted a spindle-legged table in the air and went on talking.
+
+"Now that's a fine table to begin with! All solid cherry, no screws
+loose--and that's more than you can say about some people--now what's
+bid for this table? Fine and good as the day it came out of a good
+workman's shop; no scratches on it--the Brubaker people knew how to take
+care of furniture. Who bids? How much for it do you bid? Fifty
+cents--fifty, all right--make it sixty--sixty cents I'm bid. Sixty,
+sixty, sixty--seventy--go ahead, eighty--go on--ninety, one dollar, one
+dollar ten, twenty, thirty--keep on--one dollar thirty, make it forty,
+forty, forty, forty, I have a dollar forty for this table--all done?
+Going--all done--all done?"
+
+All was said in one breathless succession of words. He paused an instant
+to gather fresh impetus, then resumed, "All done--any more? Gone at a
+dollar forty to----"
+
+"Lizzie Brubaker."
+
+"Sold to Lizzie Brubaker."
+
+"There," whispered the preacher to Phœbe, "that's one."
+
+She smiled and nodded her head.
+
+"Here now," called the auctioneer, "here's a fine set of chairs. Bid on
+them; wink to me if you don't want to call out. My wife said she don't
+care how many ladies wink to me this afternoon at this sale, but after
+that she won't have it--now then; go ahead! Give me one of the chairs,
+Sam, so the people can see it--ah, ain't that a beauty! Six in all, all
+solid wood, too, none of your cane seats that you have to be afraid to
+sit in. All solid wood, and every one alike, all painted green and
+every one with fine hand-painted flowers on the back. Where can you beat
+such chairs? Don't make them any more these days, real antiques they
+are! Bid up now, friends; how much a piece? The six go together, it
+would be a shame to part them. Fifteen cents did I hear?--Say, I'm
+ashamed to take a bid like that! Twenty, that's a little better--thirty,
+thirty, forty over here? Forty cents I have, fifty, sixty, seventy,
+seventy-five, eighty, eighty, eighty cents I'm bid; I'm bid eighty
+cents--make it ninety--ninety I'm bid, make it a dollar--ninety,
+ninety--all done at ninety? Guess we'll let Jonas Erb have them at
+ninety cents a piece, and real bargains they are!"
+
+"Here's where I bid," said Phœbe, her cheeks rosy from excitement.
+
+"Shall I release you from your promise?" offered the preacher.
+
+"No, I'll bid."
+
+"Attention," called the auctioneer. "Attention, everybody! Here we have
+a real antique, something worth bidding on!"
+
+Phœbe held her breath.
+
+"Here now, Sam, give it a lift so everybody can see--ah, there you are!"
+
+He shouted the last words as two men held above the crowd--the old
+wooden cradle!
+
+Phœbe groaned and looked at Phares--he was smiling. The old aversion to
+ridicule swelled in her; he should not have reason to laugh at her; she
+would show him that she was equal to the occasion--she would bid on the
+cradle!
+
+"Start it, hurry up, somebody. How much is bid for the cradle? Sam here
+says it's been in the Brubaker family for years and years. Think of all
+the babies that were rocked to sleep in it--it's a real relic."
+
+Phœbe, unacquainted with the value of cradles, was silently endeavoring
+to determine the proper amount for a first bid. She was relieved to hear
+a woman's voice call, "Twenty-five cents."
+
+"Twenty-five I have, twenty-five," called the auctioneer. "Make it
+thirty."
+
+"Thirty," said Phœbe.
+
+"Forty," came from the other woman.
+
+"Make it fifty, Miss." He pointed a fat finger at Phœbe.
+
+"Fifty," she responded.
+
+"Fifty, fifty, anybody make it sixty? Fifty cents--all done at fifty?
+Then it goes at fifty cents to"--Phœbe repeated her name--"to Phœbe
+Metz."
+
+He proceeded with the sale. Phœbe turned triumphantly to the
+preacher--"I kept my promise."
+
+"You did," he said. "The cradle is yours--what are you going to do with
+it?"
+
+"Gracious! Why, I never thought of that! I don't want it. I just wanted
+the fun of bidding. Can't I pay it and leave it and they can sell it
+over again?"
+
+"You bid rashly," the preacher said, though his eyes were smiling and
+his usual tone of admonition was absent from his voice. "I think you may
+be able to sell it to the woman who was bidding against you."
+
+"I'll find her and give it to her."
+
+She elbowed her way through the crowd until she reached the place from
+which the opposing voice had come. She looked about a moment, then
+addressed a woman near her. "Do you know who was bidding on the cradle?"
+
+"Yes, it was Hetty here, the one with the white waist. Here, Hetty, this
+lady wants to talk to you."
+
+"To me?" echoed the rival bidder for the cradle.
+
+"Did you bid on the cradle?" asked Phœbe.
+
+"Yes, but I didn't get it. I only wanted it because it was in the family
+so long. I'm a Brubaker. I said I wouldn't give more than fifty cents
+for it, for it would just stand up in the garret anyway, and be one more
+thing to move around at housecleaning time. Yet I'd liked to have it. I
+don't know who got it."
+
+"I did, but I don't want it. I'd like to give it to you."
+
+"Why"--the woman was amazed--"what did you bid on it for?"
+
+"Just for the fun of bidding," said Phœbe, laughing. "Will you let me
+give it to you?"
+
+"I'll give you half a dollar for it," offered the woman.
+
+"No, I mean it. I want to give it to you. I'll consider it a favor if
+you'll take it from me."
+
+"Well, if you want it that way. But don't you want the quilt and the
+feather pillows?"
+
+"No, take it just as it is."
+
+"Why, thanks," said the woman as she went to the spot where the cradle
+stood. She soon walked away with the clumsy gift in her arm. "Now don't
+it beat all," she said as she set it down near her friends. "I just knew
+that I'd get a present to-day. This morning I put my stocking on wrong
+side out and I just left it for they say still that it means you'll get
+a present before the day is over, and here I get this cradle!"
+
+With a bright smile illumining her face, Phœbe rejoined the preacher.
+
+"I see you disposed of the cradle," he greeted her.
+
+"Yes. But I felt like a hypocrite when she thanked me, for I was giving
+her what I didn't want."
+
+Here the busy auctioneer called again, "Attention, everybody! This piece
+of furniture we are going to sell now dates back to ante-bellum days."
+
+"Ach, it don't," Phœbe heard a voice exclaim. "That never belonged to
+any person called Bellem; that was old Amanda Brubaker's for years and
+she used to tell me that it belonged to her grandmother once. That man
+don't know what he's saying, but that's the way these auctioneers do;
+you can't believe half they say at a sale half the time."
+
+Phœbe looked up at Phares; both smiled, but the loquacious auctioneer,
+not knowing the comments he was causing, went on serenely:
+
+"Yes, sir, this is a real old piece of furniture, a real antique. Look
+at this, everybody--a chest of drawers, a highboy, some people call it,
+but it's pretty by any name. All of it is genuine mahogany trimmed with
+inlaid pieces of white wood. Start it up, somebody. What will you give
+for the finest thing we have here at this sale to-day? What's bid? Good!
+I'm bid five dollars to begin; shows you know a good thing when you see
+it. Five dollars--make it ten?"
+
+"Ten," answered Phares Eby.
+
+Phœbe gave a start of surprise as the preacher's voice came in answer to
+the entreaty of the auctioneer.
+
+"Phares," she whispered, "I didn't mean that I want to buy it."
+
+"I am buying it," he said calmly, an inscrutable smile in his eyes. "You
+like it, don't you?"
+
+She felt a vague uneasiness at his words, at the new sound of tenderness
+in his voice.
+
+"Yes, I like it, but----"
+
+"Then we'll talk about that some other day soon," he returned, and
+looked again at the busy auctioneer.
+
+"Ten dollars, ten, ten," came the eager call of the man on the
+box. "Who makes it fifteen? That's it--fifteen I have--sixteen,
+eighteen--twenty--twenty-five, thirty--thirty, thirty, come on, who
+makes it more? Not done yet? Not going for that little bit? Who makes
+it thirty-five?"
+
+"Thirty-five," said Phares.
+
+"Thirty-five," the auctioneer caught at the words. "That's the way to
+bid."
+
+"Thirty-eight," came a voice from the crowd.
+
+"Thirty-eight," the auctioneer smiled broadly at the bid. "Some person
+is going to get a fine antique--keep it up, the highest bidder gets
+it--thirty-eight----"
+
+"Forty," offered Phares.
+
+"Forty, forty dollars--I have forty dollars offered for the highboy--all
+done at forty----"
+
+There was a tense silence.
+
+"Forty dollars--all done at forty--last call--going--going--gone. Gone
+at forty dollars to Phares Eby."
+
+Phœbe turned to the preacher. "Did you bid just for the fun of bidding?"
+she asked.
+
+"Well," he replied slowly, "the cases are not exactly alike. You like
+the highboy, don't you?"
+
+"Yes--but what has that to do with it?" She looked up, but turned her
+head away quickly. What did he mean? Surely Phares was not given to
+foolishness or love-making to her!
+
+She was glad that he suggested moving to the edge of the crowd after his
+successful bidding was completed. There a welcome diversion came in the
+form of the old man who had previously amused them by his talk about the
+pewter plate.
+
+"There now, Eph," he was saying, "what do you think of paying forty
+dollars for that old chest of drawers? To be sure it's good and all the
+drawers work yet--I tried 'em before the sale commenced. But forty
+dollars--whew!"
+
+The stupidity and extravagance of some people silenced him for a moment,
+then he continued: "My Lizzie, now, she knows better how to spend money.
+She bought ten dollars' worth of flavors and soap and things like that
+and she got in the bargain a big chest of drawers bigger than this old
+one, and it was polished up finer and had a looking-glass on the top
+yet. That man must have a lot of money to give forty dollars for one
+piece of furniture! Ach"--in answer to a remonstrance from his
+companion--"they can't hear me. I don't talk loud, and anyhow, they're
+listening to the auctioneer. That girl with him has a funny streak too.
+She bought the old cradle and then I heard her tell Hetty that she just
+bought it for fun and she gave it to Hetty. So, is that man Phares Eby
+from near Greenwald? Well, I thought he'd have too much sense to buy
+such a thing for forty dollars, but some people gets crazy when they get
+to a sale. Who ever heard of a person buying a cradle for fun and giving
+it away? But I guess that cradles went out of style some time ago. My
+girl Lizzie wasn't raised with funny notions like some girls have
+nowadays, but when she was married and had her first baby and we told
+her she could borrow the old cradle she was rocked in to put her baby
+in, she said she didn't want it, for cradles ain't healthy for babies,
+it is bad to rock babies! I guess that was her man's dumb notion, for
+he's a professor in the High School where they live, but he's just Jake
+Forney's John. They get along fine, but they do some dumb things. They
+let that baby yell till he found out that he wouldn't get rocked. It
+made her mom quite sick when we were up to visit them, and sometimes
+we'd sneak rocking it a little, just so the little fellow'd know there
+is such a thing as getting rocked. They don't want any person to kiss
+that baby, neither. Course I ain't in favor of everybody kissing a baby,
+but I can't see the hurt of its own people kissing it. We used to take
+it behind the door and kiss it good, and it's living yet. Ain't, Eph,
+it's a wonder we ever growed up, the way we were bounced and rocked and
+joggled and kissed! I say it ain't right to go back on cradles; they
+belong to babies. But look, Eph, there she's buying them old copper
+sheep bells! Wonder if she keeps sheep."
+
+Phœbe, triumphant bidder for a pair of hand-beaten copper sheep bells,
+turned and looked at the farmer. The tenderness of a bright smile still
+played about her lips and the old man, interpreting the smile as a
+personal greeting to him, drew near and spoke to her.
+
+"I can tell you what to take to clean them bells."
+
+"Thank you," she answered cordially, "but I do not want to clean them."
+
+"But you can make them shiny if you take----"
+
+"You are very kind, but I really want to keep them just as they are."
+
+The old man looked at her for a moment, then shook his head as though in
+perplexity and turned away.
+
+Several more hours of vigorous work on the part of the noisy auctioneer
+resulted in the sale of the miscellaneous collection of articles.
+
+The loquacious old farmer was often moved to whistle or to emit a low
+"Gosh" as the sale progressed and seemingly valueless articles were sold
+for high prices. A linen homespun table-cloth, woven in geometrical
+design, occasioned spirited bidding, but the man on the box was equal to
+the task and closed the bids at twenty dollars. Homespun linen towels
+were bought eagerly for seven, eight, nine dollars. A genuine buffalo
+robe was knocked down to a bidder at the price of eighty dollars. Cups
+and saucers and plates sold for from two to four dollars each. But it
+was an old blue glass bottle that provoked the greatest sensation.
+"Gosh, who wants that?" said the old man as the bottle was brought
+forth. "If he throws a cup or plate in with it mebbe somebody will give
+a penny for it."
+
+But a moment later, as an antique dealer started the bid at a dollar the
+old man spluttered, "Jimminy pats! Why, it's just an old glass bottle!"
+
+Some person enlightened him--it was Stiegel glass! After the first bid
+on the bottle every one became attentive. The two rival bidders were
+alert to every move of the auctioneer, the bids leapt up and up--ten
+dollars--eleven dollars--twelve dollars--thirteen dollars--gone at
+thirteen dollars!
+
+It was late afternoon when Phœbe and the preacher turned homeward. The
+preacher's purchase had to be left at the farm until he could return for
+it in the big farm wagon, but Phœbe thought of the highboy as they rode
+along the pleasant country roads. She remembered the expression she had
+caught on the face of Phares and the remembrance troubled her. She
+sought desperately for some topic of conversation that would lead the
+man's thoughts from the highboy and prevent the return of the mood she
+had discovered at the sale.
+
+"You--Phares," she began confusedly, "you are going to baptize this next
+time, Aunt Maria thought."
+
+"Yes."
+
+The preacher looked at the girl. The exhilarating influence of the early
+June outdoors was visible in her countenance. Her eyes sparkled, her
+cheeks glowed--she seemed the epitome of innocent, happy girlhood. The
+vision charmed the preacher and caused the blood to course more swiftly
+through his veins, but he bit his lip and steadied his voice to speak
+naturally. "Yes, Phœbe, I want to speak to you about that."
+
+"Oh, dear," she thought, "now I _have_ done it! Why did I start him on
+that subject!" Some of the excessive color faded from her face and she
+looked ahead as he spoke.
+
+"Phœbe, the second Sunday in June I am going to baptize a number of
+converts in the Chicques near your home. Are you ready to come with the
+rest, and give up the vanities of the world?"
+
+"Oh, Phares, why do you ask me? I can't wear plain clothes while I love
+pretty ones. I can't be a hypocrite."
+
+"But surely, Phœbe, you see that a simple life is more conducive to
+happiness than a complex, artificial life can possibly be. It is my duty
+to strive for the saving of souls and we have been friends so long that
+I take a special interest in you and desire to see you safe in the
+shelter of the Church."
+
+"Phares, I'll tell you frankly, if I ever wear plain garb it will be
+because I _feel_ that it is the right thing for me to do, not because
+some person persuades me to."
+
+"Of course, that is the only way to come. But can't you come now?"
+
+"I can't. I hurt you when I say that, but I want you to be my good
+friend, as always, in spite of my worldliness. Will you, Phares?"
+
+He opened his lips to speak, but she went on quickly: "Because I am
+learning every day how much I need the help and friendship of all my
+friends."
+
+He longed to throw down the reins he was holding and tell her what was
+in his heart, but something in her manner, her peculiar stress on the
+word "friendship" restrained him. She was, after all, only a child. Only
+eighteen--too young to think of marriage. He could wait a while longer
+before he told her of his love and his desire to marry her.
+
+"I will, Phœbe," he promised. "I'll be your friend, always."
+
+"I thought so," she breathed deeply in relief. "I knew you wouldn't fail
+me. Look at that field, Phares--oh, this is a perfect day! There should
+be a superlative form of perfect for a day like this! Those fields have
+as many colors as the shades reflected on a copper plate: lilac, tan,
+purple, rose, green and brown."
+
+The preacher answered a mere "Yes." She turned again and looked at the
+fields they were passing. "Perhaps," she thought, "before that corn is
+ripe I'll be in Philadelphia!" But she did not utter the thought, for
+she knew the preacher would not approve of her going to the city. He
+should know nothing about it until it was definitely settled.
+
+The thought of studying music in Philadelphia left her restless. If only
+the preacher would be more talkative!
+
+"It's just perfect to-day, isn't it, Phares?" she asked radiantly,
+resolved to make him talk. But his answers were so perfunctory that she
+turned her head, made a little grimace through the open side of the
+carriage and mentally dubbed him "Bump-on-log." Very well, if he felt
+indisposed to talk to her, she could enjoy the drive without his voice!
+
+Suddenly she laughed outright.
+
+"What----" he looked at her, puzzled.
+
+"What's funny?" she finished. "You."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, you. If sales affect you like this you must be careful to avoid
+them. You've been half asleep for the last half hour. I think the horse
+knows the way home; you haven't been driving at all."
+
+"I have not been asleep," he contradicted gravely, "just thinking."
+
+"Must be deep thoughts."
+
+"They were--shall I tell them to you?"
+
+"Oh, no, not to-day!" she cried. "I've had enough excitement for one
+day. Some other time. Besides, we are almost home."
+
+After that he threw off his lethargic manner and entered the girl's mood
+of appreciation of the lavish loveliness of the June. Yet, as Phœbe
+alighted from the carriage at the little gate of the Metz farm, and
+after she had thanked him and started through the yard to the house, she
+said softly to herself, "If Phares Eby isn't the queerest person I know!
+Just like a clam one minute and just lovely the next!"
+
+Maria Metz was dishing a panful of fried potatoes as Phœbe entered the
+kitchen.
+
+"Hello, daddy, Aunt Maria," exclaimed the girl.
+
+"So you come once?" said her aunt.
+
+"Have a good time?" asked her father.
+
+"Yes, it was a fine sale, a real old-fashioned one."
+
+But Aunt Maria was impatient for her supper. "Hurry," she said, "and get
+washed to eat. I have everything out and it'll get cold, then it ain't
+good. Did Phares like the sale? What did he have to say?"
+
+"Um, guess he liked it," said the girl with a shrug of her shoulders.
+"It's hard to tell what he likes--he's such a queer person. He said he's
+going to baptize the second Sunday of June and asked me if I want to
+come with the others."
+
+"He did!" Aunt Maria could not keep the eagerness out of her voice.
+"Well, let's sit down and eat."
+
+After a short grace she turned to the girl. "Now then," she said as she
+helped herself generously to sausage and potatoes and handed the dishes
+across the table to Phœbe, "tell us about it."
+
+"There isn't much to tell. I just told him that I can't renounce the
+pleasures of the world before I had a chance to take hold of them. I'm
+not ready yet to dress plain."
+
+"Why aren't you ready?" asked the woman.
+
+"Ach, don't ask me," Phœbe replied, speaking lightly in an effort to
+conceal her real feeling. "I just didn't come to that state yet. I want
+some more fun and pleasure before I think only of serious things."
+
+"You're just like a big baby," her aunt said impatiently. "You can hurt
+a good man like Phares Eby and come home and laugh about it."
+
+"Now, Maria," interposed the father, "let her laugh; she'll meet with
+crying soon enough, I guess."
+
+But the woman could not be easily silenced. "Some day, Phœbe, you'll
+wish you'd been nicer to Phares."
+
+"Why, I am nice to him."
+
+"Well, anyhow, I think it's soon time you give up the world and its
+vanities," said Aunt Maria.
+
+The girl's teasing mood fled. "I think," she said slowly, "that the
+plain dress should not be worn by any one who does not realize all that
+the dress stands for. If I ever turn plain I'll do so because I feel it
+is the right thing to do, but just now vanity and the love of pretty
+clothes are still in my heart."
+
+After the meal was over the women washed the dishes while Jacob went out
+to attend to the evening milking. Later, when the poultry houses and
+stables were locked he returned to the kitchen and read the weekly
+paper. After a while he turned to Phœbe.
+
+"Will you sing for me this evening?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," came the ready response.
+
+"Then make the door shut," Aunt Maria directed as they went to the
+sitting-room. "I want to mark my rug yet this evening and your noise
+bothers me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"THE BRIGHT LEXICON OF YOUTH"
+
+
+"WHAT shall I sing?" Phœbe asked as her father sank into the big rocker
+and she took her place at the low organ.
+
+"Ach, anything," he replied.
+
+She smiled, turned the pages of an old music book, and began to sing,
+"Annie Laurie." Her father nodded approval and smiled when she followed
+that with several other old-time favorites. Then she hesitated a moment,
+a low melody came from the organ, and the words of the beautiful lullaby
+fell from her lips:
+
+        "Sweet and low, sweet and low,
+           Wind of the western sea;
+         Low, low,--breathe and blow,
+           Wind of the western sea;
+         Over the rolling waters go,
+           Come from the dying moon and blow,
+         Blow him again to me,
+           While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps."
+
+Phœbe sang the lullaby as gently as if a tiny head were nestled against
+her bosom. She had within her, as has every normal, unspoiled woman, the
+loving impulses and yearning tenderness of motherhood. Her womanhood's
+star of hope shone brightly, though from a great distance; she devoutly
+hoped for the fulfillment of her destiny, but always dreamed of it
+coming in some time far removed from the present. Wifehood and
+motherhood--that was her goal, but long years of other joys and other
+achievements stretched between. Yet she felt an incomparable joy as she
+sang the lullaby. She sang it easily and sweetly and uttered each word
+with the freedom of one to whom music is second nature.
+
+To the man who listened memory drew aside the curtains of twenty years.
+He beheld again the sweet-faced wife glorified with the blessed halo of
+motherhood. He thrilled at the remembrance of her intense rapture as she
+clasped her babe in moments of vivid ecstasy, or held it tenderly in her
+arms as she sang the slumber song. The man was lost in revery--the sweet
+voice of the mother had suddenly grown weak and drifted into silence--a
+silence which would have been intolerable save for the lisping of a
+child voice that was filled with the same indefinable sweetness the
+treasured, silenced voice had possessed. In those first days of
+bereavement Jacob Metz had clung to his motherless babe for comfort; her
+love and caresses had renewed his strength and touched him with a divine
+sense of his responsibility. His toil-hardened hands could not do the
+mother's tasks for her but his heart could love sufficiently to
+recompense, so far as that be possible, for the loss of the mother's
+presence. His own childhood had been stripped of all romance, hence he
+could not measure the value of the innocent pleasures of which Aunt
+Maria, in her stern and narrow discipline, deprived the little girl; but
+so far as he saw the light and so far as he was able, he quietly soothed
+where Aunt Maria irritated, and mitigated by his interest and sympathy
+the sternness of the woman's rule.
+
+A fleeting retrospect of the past years crowded upon him as he heard
+Phœbe sing the mother's song. The two voices seemed strangely merged and
+blended; when she ended and turned her face to him she seemed the vivid
+reincarnation of that other Phœbe.
+
+"That's a pretty song, isn't it, daddy? You like it?"
+
+"Yes. Your mom used to sing you to sleep with it."
+
+"I wish I could remember. I can't remember her at all," the girl said
+wistfully.
+
+"I wish you could, too. You look just like her. I'm glad you do. We Metz
+people all have the black hair and dark eyes but you have your mom's
+light hair and blue eyes. I see her every time I look at you."
+
+She seated herself near him. In a moment he spoke again, very
+deliberately, with his characteristic expressiveness:
+
+"Phœbe, I want you to know more about your mom. You know she was plain,
+a member of our Church. I would like you to dress like she did but I
+don't want you to dress that way and then be dissatisfied and go back to
+the dress of the world. Not many people do that, but those that do are
+the laughing-stock of the world. I don't want you coaxed to be plain and
+then not stay plain. I tell you this because I can see that you are
+just like your mom was, you like pretty things so much. She came in the
+Church with some girls she knew; none of her people were plain. I knew
+her right after she joined, and I took her to Love Feasts and to
+Meetings and we were soon promised to marry each other. I saw that
+something was troubling her and she told me that she wanted pretty
+clothes again and wanted to go to parties and picnics like some of the
+other girls she knew. But because she cared for me and was promised to
+me she kept on dressing plain. So we were married. The second year you
+came and then she was satisfied without pretty dresses. She said to me
+once, 'Jacob, I was foolish to fret about pretty clothes and jewelry,
+they could not bring happiness, but this'--she looked down at you--'this
+is the most precious, most beautiful jewel any woman could have.' I knew
+then that the love of vanity was gone from her, that she would never be
+tempted to go back to the dress and ways of the world."
+
+For a moment there was silence in the big room. The memory of the days
+when the home circle was unbroken left the father quiet and thoughtful
+and strangely touched Phœbe.
+
+"I am glad you told me, daddy," she said presently. "To-day when Phares
+talked about the baptizing he seemed so confident and at peace in his
+religion, yet I could not promise to come into the Church and wear the
+plain dress. I am going to think about it----"
+
+Here Aunt Maria called loudly, "Phœbe, come out here once."
+
+Phœbe sighed, then turned from her father and entered the kitchen. The
+older woman was bending over an oblong frame and by the aid of a small
+steel hook was pulling tufts of cloth through the mesh of a piece of
+burlap, the foundation of a hooked rug.
+
+"See once, Phœbe, won't this be pretty till it's done?"
+
+"Yes, very pretty. I like the Wall of Troy design you are using, and the
+blues and gray will be a good combination. What are you going to do with
+it?"
+
+"It's for your chest."
+
+The girl laughed. "Aunt Maria, you'll have to enlarge that chest or buy
+a second one. This spring when we cleaned house and had all the things
+of that chest hung out to air, I counted eleven quilts, six rugs, five
+table-cloths, ten gingham aprons, ever so many towels, besides all the
+old homespun linen I have in that other chest on the garret. I'll never
+need all that."
+
+"Why, you don't know. If you marry----"
+
+"But if I don't marry?"
+
+"Ach, I guess old maids need covers and aprons and things as well as
+them that marry. But now I guess I'll stop for to-night. I want to sew
+the hooks 'n' eyes on my every-day dress yet before I go to bed."
+
+"But before you go I want to ask you, to talk with you and daddy," said
+Phœbe, determined to decide the matter of studying music in
+Philadelphia. The uncertainty of it was growing to be a strain upon her.
+If there was no possibility of her dreams becoming realities she would
+put the thoughts away from her, but she wanted the question settled.
+
+"Now what----" Aunt Maria raised her spectacles to her forehead and
+looked at the girl, at her flushed cheeks, her eyes darkened by
+excitement.
+
+"So," the woman chuckled, "Phares picked up spunk once and asked
+you----"
+
+"Phares has nothing to do with it," Phœbe said curtly, her cheeks
+flushing deeper at the thought of the words she knew her aunt was ready
+to say. "This is my affair, and, of course, yours and daddy's." She
+turned to her father--"I want to study music."
+
+"Music? How--you mean to learn to play the organ?" he asked.
+
+"No. Oh, no! I mean to sing. Listen, please," she pleaded as she saw the
+bewildered look on his face. "You know I have always liked to sing. I
+have told you that many people have said my voice is good. So I'd like
+to go to Philadelphia and take lessons from a good teacher. May I? I can
+use the money I have in the bank, that my mother left me. I have about a
+thousand dollars. It won't take all of that for a few years' lessons.
+Daddy, if you'll only say I may go!" Her voice wavered suspiciously at
+the end.
+
+Jacob Metz looked at his daughter, then at the little low organ in the
+other room. Another Phœbe had loved to sit at that instrument and
+sing--perhaps he was too easy with the girl--but if she wanted to go
+away and take lessons----
+
+Before he could answer the plea Maria Metz found her voice and spoke
+authoritatively:
+
+"Jacob Metz, goodness knows you're sometimes dumb enough to do foolish
+things, but you surely ain't goin' to leave Phœbe go off to learn
+singing! Throwing away money like that! And what good is to come of it,
+I'd like to know. Who put that dumb notion in her head, it just now
+vonders me! If she must go away somewheres to school, like all the young
+ones think they must nowadays, why not leave her go to Millersville or
+to Elizabethtown or to Lancaster to learn dressmakin'? But to
+Philadelphy--why, that's a big city! Anyhow, I can't see the use of all
+this flyin' around to school. We didn't get it when we was young, and we
+growed up, too. We was lucky if we got to the country school regular,
+and we got through the world so far!"
+
+"But Maria," her brother spoke gently, "you know things have changed
+since we went to school. The world don't stay the same."
+
+"But to learn music!" she placed a scornful accent on the last word.
+"What good will that do? And can't any one in Greenwald or Lancaster,
+even, learn her to sing? Anyhow, she don't need no lessons, she hollers
+too loud already. If she takes lessons yet what'll she do?"
+
+"Oh, Aunt Maria," Phœbe said impatiently, "you don't understand! If my
+voice is worth training it is worth having a good teacher. A city like
+Philadelphia is the place to go to."
+
+"But where would you stay down there? Mebbe you couldn't get a place
+with nice people. Abody don't know what kinda people live in a city."
+
+"I've thought of that. I wrote to Miss Lee last week and asked her and
+she wrote back and said it would be a splendid thing for me. She offered
+to help me find a boarding place. I could see her often and would not be
+alone among strangers. Best of all, Miss Lee has a cousin who plays the
+violin and who lives with her and her mother and he will help me find a
+good teacher. Isn't that lovely?"
+
+"Omph," sniffed Aunt Maria. "It'll cost you a lot of money for board,
+mebbe as much as four dollars a week! And your lessons will be a lot,
+and your car fare back and forth. Then I guess you'd want a lot more
+dresses and things--ach, you just put that dumb notion from your head."
+
+"Maria," Phœbe's father spoke in significantly even tones, "you needn't
+talk like that. Phœbe has the money her mom left her and I guess I could
+send her to school if I wanted to. It won't hurt her to go study music
+and see something of the world. It'll do her good to get away once like
+other girls."
+
+"Do her good," echoed Aunt Maria. "Jacob Metz! You know little of the
+dangers of the big cities! But then, men ain't got no sense! I never met
+one yet that had enough to fill a thimble!"
+
+"Aunt Maria," the girl said gently, "I'm not a child. I'm eighteen and
+I'll be near Miss Lee and her friends."
+
+"And the fiddler," added the woman tartly.
+
+"Ach," Phœbe laughed. "Miss Lee will take care of me."
+
+"Mebbe so," grumbled Aunt Maria.
+
+"Now look here, Maria," Jacob spoke up, "Phœbe can go this fall once and
+try it and she can come home often and if she don't like it she can come
+home right away. It takes only three hours to go to there. So, Phœbe,
+you write to Miss Lee and tell her to expect you."
+
+"Then I may go!" She threw her arms about her father's neck and kissed
+his bearded face. Demonstrations of affection were rare in the Metz
+household, but the father smiled as he stroked the girl's hair.
+
+"You be a good girl, Phœbe, that's all I want," he said.
+
+"I will, daddy, I will!"
+
+"Then, Maria, you take Phœbe to Lancaster and get things ready so she
+can go in September. I'll let her take that thousand she has in the
+bank, but that must reach; it's enough for music lessons."
+
+"I won't need all of it. What's left I'll save for next year."
+
+"Next year! How many years must you go?" demanded Aunt Maria, still
+unhappy and sore.
+
+"I don't know. But when the thousand is gone I'll earn more if I want to
+spend more."
+
+"Ach, my," groaned the woman, "you talk like money grew on trees! What's
+the world comin' to nowadays?" She rose and pushed her rugging frame
+into a corner of the kitchen.
+
+"Maria," her brother suggested, "we can get a hired girl if the work's
+too much for you alone."
+
+"Hired girl! I don't want no hired girl! Half of 'em don't do to suit,
+anyhow! I don't just want Phœbe here to help to work. It'll be awful
+lonesome with her gone."
+
+Phœbe saw the glint of anguish in the dark eyes and felt that her aunt's
+protestations were partly due to a disinclination to be parted from the
+child she had reared.
+
+"Aunt Maria," she said kindly, "I hate to do what you think I shouldn't
+do, for you're good to me. You mustn't feel that I'm doing this just to
+be contrary. You and I think differently, that's all. Perhaps I'm too
+young to always think right, but I don't want you to be hurt. I'll come
+home often."
+
+"Ach, yes well," the woman was touched by the girl's tenderness, but was
+still unconvinced. "Not much use my saying more, I guess. You and your
+pop will do what you like. You're a Metz, too, and hard to change when
+you make up your mind once."
+
+That night when Phœbe went to bed in her old-fashioned walnut bed she
+lay awake for hours, dreaming of the future. If Aunt Maria had known the
+visions that flitted before the girl that night she would have quaked in
+apprehension, for Phœbe finally drifted into slumber on clouds of glory,
+forecasts of the wonderful time when, as a prima donna in trailing,
+shimmering gown, she would have the world at her feet while she sang,
+sang, sang!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE PREACHER'S WOOING
+
+
+THERE belonged to the Metz farm an old stone quarry which Phœbe learned
+to love in early childhood and which, as she grew older, she adopted as
+her refuge and dreaming-place.
+
+Almost directly opposite the green gate at the country road was a narrow
+lane which led to the quarry. It was bordered on the right by a thickly
+interlaced hedge of blackberry bushes and wild honeysuckle, beyond which
+stood the orchard of the Metz farm. On the left of the lane a wide field
+sloped up along the road leading to the summit of the hill where the
+schoolhouse and the meeting-house stood. The lane was always inviting.
+It was the fair road to a fairer spot, the old stone quarry.
+
+The old stone quarry banked its rugged height against the side of a
+great wooded hill. Some twenty feet below the level of the lane was a
+huge semicircular base, and from this the jagged sides reared
+perpendicularly to the summit of the hill. The top and slopes of this
+hill were covered with a dense growth of underbrush and trees. Tall
+sycamores bordered the road opposite the quarry, making the spot
+sheltered and secluded.
+
+To this place Phœbe hurried the morning after she had gained her
+father's consent to go to Philadelphia.
+
+"I just had to come here," she breathed rapturously; "the house is too
+narrow, the garden too small, this June morning. They won't hold my
+dreams."
+
+She stood under the giant sycamore opposite the quarry and looked
+appreciatively about her. Earth's warm, throbbing bosom thrilled with
+the universal joy of parentage and fruition. Shafts of sunlight shot
+through the green of the trees, odors of wild flowers mingled with the
+fresh, woodsy fragrance of the fields and woods, song sparrows flitted
+busily among the hedges and sang their delicious, "Maids, maids, maids,
+hang on your tea kettle-ettle-ettle!" From the densest portions of the
+woods above the quarry a thrush sang--all nature seemed atune with
+Phœbe's mood, blithe, happy, joyous!
+
+Phares Eby, going to town that morning, walked slowly as he neared the
+Metz farm and looked for a glimpse of Phœbe. He saw, instead, the portly
+figure of Aunt Maria as she walked about her garden to see the progress
+of her early June peas.
+
+"Why, Phares," she called, "you goin' to Greenwald?"
+
+"Yes. Anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Ach no. Phœbe was in the other day. But come in once, Phares, I'll tell
+you something about her."
+
+"Where is Phœbe?" he asked as he joined Aunt Maria in the garden.
+
+"Over at the quarry again. But I must tell you, she's goin' to
+Phildelphy to study singin'. She asked her pop and he said she dare."
+
+"Philadelphia--singing!"
+
+"Yes. I don't like it at all, but she's goin' just the same."
+
+"It is a mistake to let her go," said the preacher. "It's a big mistake,
+Aunt Maria. She should stay at home or go to some school and learn
+something of value to her. In this quiet place she has never heard of
+many temptations which, in the city, she must meet face to face. It is
+the voice of the Tempter urging her to do this thing and we who are her
+friends should persuade her to remain in her good home and near the
+friends who care for her. Have you thought, Aunt Maria, that the people
+to whom she will go may dance and play cards and do many worldly things?
+Philadelphia is very different from Greenwald. Why, she may learn to
+indulge in worldly amusements and to love the vanities of the world
+which we have tried to teach her to avoid! She will be like a bird in a
+strange nest."
+
+"I know, Phares, but I can't make it different. When Jacob says a thing
+once it's hard to change him, and she is like that too. They fixed it up
+last night and I had no say at all. All I said against her going did as
+much good as if I said it to the chairs in the kitchen. Phœbe is going
+to get Miss Lee, the one that was teacher on the hill once, to help her.
+And Miss Lee has a cousin that lives with her and he plays the fiddle
+and he is goin' to get a teacher for her."
+
+Phares Eby groaned and gritted his teeth.
+
+"I guess I'll go talk with her a while," he decided.
+
+"Mebbe she'll come in soon, if you want to wait. I told her to bring me
+some pennyroyal along from the field next the quarry. You know that's so
+good for them little red ants, and they got into my jelly cupboard. She
+went a while ago and I guess she'll soon be back now."
+
+"I think I'll walk over."
+
+"All right, Phares. Tell her not to forget the pennyroyal."
+
+With long strides the preacher crossed the road and started up the lane
+to the quarry. There he slackened his pace--he thought of the previous
+day when he had asked Phœbe about entering the Church. She had
+disappointed him, it was true, but she had seemed so eager to do right,
+so innocent and childlike, that the interview had not left him wholly
+unhappy or greatly discouraged. He had hoped last night that she would
+give the matter of her soul's salvation serious thought, that she would
+soon stand in the stream and be baptized by him. Over sanguine he had
+been--so soon she had forgotten serious things and planned a winter in
+Philadelphia studying music.
+
+"I must act," he thought. "I must tell her of my love. All these years I
+have loved her and kept silent about it because I thought she was just a
+child. But I must tell her now. If she loves me she shall marry me soon
+and this great temptation will leave her; she will hearken to the voice
+of her conscience, and we will begin our life of happiness together."
+
+With this resolution strong within him he went up the lane to the quarry
+and Phœbe.
+
+She was seated on a rock under the giant sycamore and leaned confidingly
+against the shaggy trunk. The glaring sunshine that fell upon the fields
+and hills could not wholly penetrate the protecting canopy of
+well-proportioned sycamore leaves; only a few quivering rays fell upon
+the girl's upturned face.
+
+As the preacher approached she looked around quickly but did not move
+from her caressing attitude by the tree.
+
+"Good-morning, Phares. I'm glad you came. I was wishing for some one to
+share the old quarry with me this morning."
+
+"Aunt Maria told me you were here--she is impatient for her pennyroyal."
+Now, that the supreme moment had arrived, he hesitated and grasped at
+the first straw for conversation.
+
+"Oh, dear," she said childishly, "Aunt Maria expects me to remember ants
+and pennyroyal when I come here. Phares, I can't explain it, but this
+old quarry has a strange fascination for me. The beauty in its
+variegated stone with the sunlight upon it attracts me. Sometimes I am
+tempted to climb up the hill and hang over the quarry and look down into
+the heart of it."
+
+"Don't ever do that!" cried the preacher.
+
+"I won't," laughed Phœbe. "I don't want to die just yet. But isn't it
+the loveliest place! I come here often when the men are not blasting. It
+seems almost a desecration to blast these rocks when we think how long
+nature took in their making."
+
+She paused . . . only the sounds of nature invaded the quiet of the
+place: the drowsy hum of diligent bees, the cattle browsing in a field
+near by, the ecstatic trill of a bird. The world of bustle and flurry
+with its seething vats of evil and corruption, its sordid discontent and
+petulance, its ways of pain and darkness, seemed far removed from that
+place of peace and calm solitude. Phœbe could not bear to think that
+across the seas men were lying in the filth of water-soaked trenches,
+agonizing and bleeding on the battlefields and suffering nameless
+tortures in hospitals that a peace like unto the peace of her quiet
+haven might brood undisturbed over the world in future generations. She
+dismissed the harrowing thought of war--she would enjoy the calm of her
+quarry.
+
+The preacher had listened silently to the girl's rhapsodies--she
+suddenly awakened to the realization that he was paying scant attention
+to her enthusiastic words. She looked at him, her heart-beats quickened,
+some intuition warned her of the imminent declaration.
+
+She rose quickly from the embrace of the sycamore tree, but the
+compelling eyes of the preacher restrained her from flight. She stood
+before him, within reach of his hands.
+
+His first words reassured her somewhat: "Phœbe, your aunt has told me
+that you are going to Philadelphia to study music."
+
+"Yes. Isn't it fine! I'm so happy----" she stopped. Displeasure was
+written plainly upon his countenance. "Don't you think it's all right,
+Phares?"
+
+"I think it is a great mistake," he said gravely. "Why not spend your
+time on something of value to yourself and your friends and the world in
+general?"
+
+"But music is of great value. Why, the world needs it as it needs
+sunshine!"
+
+"But, Phœbe, you must remember you do not come of a people who stand
+before the worldly and lift their voices for the joy of the multitude of
+curious people. Your voice is right as it is and needs no training. It
+is as God gave it to you and is made to be used in His service, in His
+Church and your home."
+
+"But I have always wanted to learn to sing well, really well. So I am
+going to Philadelphia this winter and take lessons from a competent
+teacher."
+
+"Phœbe," exhorted the preacher, "put away the temptation before it grips
+you so strongly that you cannot shake it off. You must not go!"
+
+He spoke the last words in a tone of authority which the girl answered,
+"Phares, let us speak of something else. You know I have some of the
+Metz determination in my make-up and I can't be easily forced to give up
+a cherished plan. At any rate, we must not quarrel about it."
+
+The preacher forbore to try further argument or persuasion. He became
+grave. His habitual serenity of mind was disturbed by shadowy
+forebodings--when the pebbles of doubt drop into the placid pool of
+content it invariably follows that the waters become agitated for a
+time. Hitherto he had been hopeful of winning Phœbe. Had he not known
+her and loved her all her life! What was more natural than that their
+friendship should culminate in a deeper feeling!
+
+He stretched out his hand in a sudden rush of feeling--"Phœbe, I love
+you."
+
+She stepped back a pace and his hand fell to his side.
+
+"Don't, Phares," she began, but the next moment she realized that she
+could not turn aside his love without listening to him.
+
+"Phœbe, you must listen--I love you, I have loved you all my life. Can't
+you say that you care for me?"
+
+"Don't ask me that!" she pleaded. "I don't want to marry anybody now.
+All my life I have dreamed of going to a city and studying music and I
+can't let the opportunity slip away from me now when it is so near. To
+work under the direction of a master teacher has long been one of my
+dearest dreams."
+
+"You mean that you do not love me, then. Or if you do, that you would
+rather gratify your desire to study music than marry me--which is it?"
+
+"Ach, Phares, don't make it hard for me! I said I don't want to get
+married now. All my life I have lived on a farm and have thought that I
+should be wonderfully happy if I could get away from it for a while and
+know what it is to live in a big city. There I shall have a chance to
+see life in its broader aspects. I shall not be harmed by gathering new
+ideas and ideals, gaining new friends, and, above all, learning to sing
+well."
+
+The man groaned in spirit. It was evident that she was thoroughly
+determined to go away from the farm.
+
+"Phœbe," he pleaded again, not entirely for his own selfish desire, but
+worried about her love of worldliness, "do you know that the things for
+which you are going to the city are really not important, that all
+outward acquisitions for which you long now are transient? The things
+that count are goodness and purity and to be without them is to be
+pauperized; the things that bring happiness are love and home ties and
+to be without them is to be desolate. You want a larger, broader vision,
+but the city cannot always give you that."
+
+There was no bitterness in his voice, only an undertone of sadness as he
+spoke. "Phœbe, tell me plainly, do you care for me?"
+
+Her face was lamentably pathetic as she looked into his and read there
+the desire for what she could not give. "Not as you wish," she said
+softly. "But I don't really know what love is yet, I haven't thought
+about it except as something that will come to me some day, a long time
+from now. There are too many other things I must think about now. When I
+am through studying music I'll think about being married."
+
+The preacher shook his head; his heart was too heavy for more words,
+more futile words.
+
+"Let us go, Phares," she said, the silence becoming intolerable.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "And Phœbe," he added as they turned away from the
+quarry, "I hope you'll learn your lesson quickly and come back to us."
+
+They stepped from the sheltered path into the sunshine of the lane. Long
+trails of green lay in their path as they went, but the eyes of both
+were temporarily blinded to the loveliness of the June. When they
+reached the dusty road the preacher said good-bye and went on his way to
+the town.
+
+She stood where he left her; the suppressed feelings of the past half
+hour soon struggled to avenge themselves and she sped down the lane
+again, back to the refuge of the kindly tree, and there, under her
+sycamore, burst into passionate weeping.
+
+Some time after Phares left the girl at the end of the lane David Eby
+came swinging down the hill and entered the Metz kitchen.
+
+"Hello, Aunt Maria. Where's Phœbe?"
+
+"Why, I guess over at the quarry. She went for pennyroyal long ago and
+then Phares came and he went over after her, but I saw him go on the way
+to town a bit ago, so I guess she's still over there. Guess she's
+stumbling around after a bird's nest or picking some weeds that ain't no
+good. I don't see why she stays so long."
+
+"I'll go see," volunteered David.
+
+"Yes well. And tell her to hurry with that pennyroyal. I want it for red
+ants, but they can carry away the whole jelly cupboard till she gets
+here."
+
+"I'll tell her," said David, and went off, whistling.
+
+Phœbe's paroxysm of grief was short-lived. The soothing quiet of the
+quarry calmed her, but her eyes showed telltale marks of tears as
+David's steps sounded down the lane.
+
+She rose hastily, then sank back to her seat under the tree as she saw
+the identity of the intruder.
+
+"Whew, Phœbe Metz," he said and whistled in his old, boyish way as he
+sat beside her, "you're crying!"
+
+"I am not," she declared.
+
+"Then you just have been! I haven't seen you in tears for many years.
+Phœbe"--he changed his tone--"what's gone wrong? Anything the matter?"
+
+"Don't," she sniffed, "don't ask me or you'll have me at it again." She
+steadied her voice and went on, "I came over here so gloriously happy I
+could have shouted, because daddy said last night that I may go to
+Philadelphia this fall----"
+
+"Gee whiz!" David grabbed her hand. "Why, I'm tickled to death. But
+what--why are you crying? Isn't that what you want?"
+
+"Yes." She smiled, pleased by his interest and eagerness. "But just as I
+was happiest along came Phares and told me it was wicked to go. It's all
+a mistake to go, he said."
+
+"Ach, the dickens with the old fossil!" David cried. "And I'm not going
+to take that back or be sorry for saying it. Hadn't he better sense than
+to throw a wet blanket on all your happiness!"
+
+"Perhaps I needed it. I was just about burning up with gladness."
+
+"Well, don't you care what he's thinking about it. You go learn music if
+you want to and your father lets you go. Did he see you cry?"
+
+"Certainly not! I wouldn't cry before him. He would say that was
+foolish or wicked or something it shouldn't be. But you--you are so
+sensible I don't mind if you do see me with my eyes red."
+
+"Ha, ha, that's a compliment. I have been told that I am happy-go-lucky
+and sort of a cheerful idiot, but no person ever told me that I'm
+sensible. Well, don't you forget me when you get to be that prima
+donna."
+
+"I won't. You and Mother Bab rub me the right way."
+
+"But won't she be glad when I tell her," said David. "I came down to see
+if you had decided about it, and I find it all arranged."
+
+"And me in tears," added Phœbe, her natural poise and good humor again
+restored. "Tell Mother Bab I am coming up soon to tell her about it."
+
+So, in happier mood, she walked beside David, down the green lane to the
+road, across the road to her own gate.
+
+"So you come once!" Aunt Maria greeted her.
+
+"Oh, I forgot your pennyroyal! I'll go get it."
+
+"Never mind. You stayed so long I went over to the field near the barn
+and got some. But you look like you've been cryin', Phœbe. Did you and
+Phares have a fall-out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You and David, then?"
+
+"No--please don't ask me--it's nothing."
+
+"Well, there ain't no man in shoe leather worth cryin' about, I can tell
+you that. They just laugh at your cryin'."
+
+Phœbe smiled at her aunt's philosophy and resolved to forget the
+discouraging words of the preacher. She would be happy in spite of
+him--the future held bright hours for her!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SCARLET TANAGER
+
+
+THE days that followed were busy days at the gray farmhouse. Phœbe was
+soon deep in the preparations for her stay in the city. Her meagre
+wardrobe required replenishment; she wanted to go to Philadelphia with
+an outfit of which Miss Lee would not be ashamed. Much to her aunt's
+surprise the girl selected one-piece dresses of blue serge with sheer
+white collars for every-day wear in cold weather; a few white linens for
+warm days; and these, with her blue serge suit, her simple white
+graduation dress, and a plain dark silk dress, were the main articles of
+her outfit. Aunt Maria expressed her relief and wonder at the girl's
+choice--"Well, it wonders me that you don't want a lot of ugly fancy
+things to go to Phildelphy. Those dresses all made in one are sensible
+once. I guess the style makers tried all the outlandish styles they
+could think of and had to make a nice style once."
+
+But when Phœbe purchased a piece of long-cloth and began to make
+undergarments, beautifying them by sprays of hand embroidery, Aunt Maria
+scoffed, "Umph, I'd be ashamed to put snake-doctors on my petticoats."
+
+The girl laughed. "They aren't snake-doctors, they are butterflies," she
+said.
+
+"Not much difference--both got wings. I don't see what for you want to
+waste time like that."
+
+"It makes them prettier, and I like pretty things."
+
+"Ach, you have dumb notions sometimes. I guess we better make your other
+dresses soon, then you won't have time for sewing snake-doctors or
+butterflies. You better get your silk dress made in Greenwald, it's so
+soft and slippery that I ain't going to bother my old fingers makin' it.
+Granny Hogendobler wants to come out and help to sew, and David's mom
+said she'll come down and help us cut and fit the serge dresses. She's
+real handy like that. If those dresses look as nice on you as they do on
+the pictures they will be all right. Granny and Barb dare just come and
+both help with your things--they both think it's so fine for you to go
+to the city! Granny Hogendobler spoiled her Nason by givin' him just
+what he wanted, and now what has she got for it? And I guess Barb is
+easy with that big boy of hers. Mebbe if she was a little stricter he'd
+be in the Church like Phares is, though David is a nice boy and I guess
+he don't give his mom any trouble."
+
+"I just love Mother Bab; don't you say such things about her!" Phœbe
+exclaimed, her eyes flashing.
+
+"Why, I like her too," the woman said. She looked at Phœbe in surprise.
+"You needn't be so touchy. For goodness' sake, don't take to gettin'
+touchy like some people are! Handling them's like tryin' to plane over a
+knot in wood; any way you push the plane is the wrong way. This here
+going to Philadelphy upsets you, I guess. You're gettin' as touchy as
+the little touch-me-nots we get on the hill; they all snap shut when
+you touch 'em--only you snap open."
+
+Phœbe laughed. "I guess I am excited," she admitted. "I'm sewing too
+much for summer days and it makes me irritable. I think I'll let the
+butterflies wait and I'll go outdoors. Shall I weed the garden?"
+
+"Weed the garden? Now you're talkin' dumb! Don't you know yet that abody
+don't weed a garden on Fridays? Ours always gets done on Monday. But if
+you want to get out you dare take some of the sand-tarts I baked
+yesterday up to David's mom, she likes them so much. And you ask her if
+she can come down next week to help with the dresses. But don't stay too
+long, for it's been so hot all day and I think it's goin' to storm yet."
+
+"Don't worry about me if it rains. I won't start for home if it looks
+threatening. I'll wait till the storm is over."
+
+Aunt Maria filled a basket with her delectable cookies and the girl
+started up the hill. It was, indeed, a hot day, even for August. Phœbe
+paused several times in the shelter of overhanging trees as she plodded
+up the steep road. On the summit she climbed the rail fence and perched
+in the cool shade for a little while and looked out over the valley
+where the town of Greenwald lay.
+
+"It's lovely here, and I'm wondering how I can be happy when I know that
+I am going to leave it soon and go to the city for a long winter away
+from my home. But there's a voice calling to me from the great outside
+world and I won't be satisfied until I go and mingle with the multitude
+of a great city. It is life, life, that I want to see and know. And yet,
+I'm glad I'll have this to come back to! It gives me a comfortable
+feeling to know that this is waiting for me, no matter where I go--this
+is still my home. Sometimes I wonder if Aunt Maria could possibly be
+speaking wisely when she says it is all a waste of money to run off to
+the city and study music. But what is there on the farm to attract me? I
+don't want to marry yet"--the remembrance of Phares Eby's pleading came
+to her--"and if I do marry some time, it won't be Phares. No, never
+Phares! Ach, Phœbe Metz, you don't know what you want!" she said to
+herself as she jumped from the fence and ran down the road to the Eby
+farm.
+
+At the gate she paused. Mother Bab stood among her flowers, her
+white-capped head bare of any other covering, the hot sunshine streaming
+upon her.
+
+"Mother Bab," she cried, "you are simply baking in the sun!"
+
+"No," the woman turned to Phœbe and smiled. "I'm forgetting it's hot
+while I look at the flowers. You see, Phœbe, I was in the house sewing
+and trying to keep cool and all of a sudden my eyes grew dim so I
+couldn't sew. The fear came to me, the fear that my sight is going,
+though I try not to strain them at all and never sew at night. Well, I
+just ran out here and began to look and look at my flowers--if I ever do
+go blind I'm going to have lots of memories of lovely things I've seen."
+
+Phœbe drew Mother Bab's face to her and kissed it. "You just mustn't
+get blind! It would be too dreadful. There are many clever specialists
+in the city these days. Surely, there is some doctor who can help you."
+
+"They all say there is little to be done in a case like mine. But, let's
+forget it; I can see and we'll keep on hoping it will last. I went to a
+doctor at Lancaster some time ago and I'm going to give him a fair
+trial. I guess it'll come out right."
+
+Phœbe brightened again at the woman's words of contagious cheer and
+hope.
+
+"Isn't the garden pretty?" asked Mother Bab as they looked about it.
+
+"Perfect! Those zinnias are lovely."
+
+"Yes, I like them. But I like their other name better--Youth and Old
+Age, my mother used to call them. She used to say that they are not like
+other flowers, more like people, for the buds open into tiny flowers and
+those tiny flowers grow and develop until they are large and perfect. I
+would think something fine were missing in my garden if I didn't have my
+Youth and Old Age every year. But you will be too hot in this sun; shall
+we go in?"
+
+"No, please, not until I have seen the flowers. I need to gather
+precious memories, too, to take with me to Philadelphia. Oh, I like
+this"--she knelt in the narrow path and buried her face in fragrant
+lemon verbena plants.
+
+"I like that, too. Mother used to call it Joy Everlasting. We always put
+it in our bureau drawers between the linens. David likes lavender
+better, so I use that now."
+
+"How you spoil him," said Phœbe.
+
+"You think so?" asked the mother gently.
+
+Phœbe smiled in retraction of her statement. "We'll both be parboiled if
+we stay out here any longer," she said as she linked her arm into Mother
+Bab's. "Aunt Maria sent you some sand-tarts."
+
+"Isn't she good!"
+
+"Yes, but"--the blue eyes twinkled mischievously--"they are just a
+bribe. We want you to come down and help us with the dresses some day
+next week. You are not to sew, but if you are there to tell about the
+fit of them I'll feel better satisfied. Whew! If it's as hot as this
+I'll have a lovely time fitting woolen dresses!"
+
+"You won't mind."
+
+"I don't believe I shall, so long as the dresses are to be worn in
+Philadelphia. Granny Hogendobler is coming out, too. Will you come?"
+
+"I'll be glad to. David can eat his dinner at his aunt's."
+
+They entered the house and sat in the sitting-room, a room dear to both
+because of its association with many happy hours.
+
+"I love this room," Phœbe said. "This must be one of my pleasant
+memories when I go."
+
+"I like it better than any other room in the house," said Mother Bab. "I
+suppose it's because the old clock and the haircloth sofa are in it.
+Why, Davie used to slide down the ends of that sofa and call it his boat
+when he was just a little fellow. And that old clock"--her voice sank to
+the tenderness of musing retrospect--"why, Davie's father set it up the
+day we were married and came here and set up housekeeping and it's been
+ticking ever since. Davie used to say 'tick-tock' when he heard it, when
+he first learned to talk. I like that old clock most as much as if it
+were something alive. A man who comes around here to buy antique
+furniture came in one day and offered to buy it. I'll never forget how
+David told him it wasn't for sale. The very thought of selling the old
+clock made Davie cross."
+
+"Davie cross! How could he keep the twinkle out of his eyes long enough
+to be cross?"
+
+"Ach, it don't last long when he gets cross."
+
+"Where is he now, Mother Bab?"
+
+"Working in the tobacco field."
+
+"In the hot sun!"
+
+"He says he don't mind it. He's so pleased with the tobacco this summer.
+It looks fine. If the hail don't get in it now it'll bring about four
+hundred dollars, he thinks. That will be the most he has ever gotten out
+of it. But tobacco is an awful risk. If the weather is just so it pays
+about the best of anything around this part of the country, I guess, but
+so often the poor farmers work hard in the tobacco fields and then the
+hail comes along and all is spoiled. But ours is fine so far."
+
+"I'm glad. David has been working hard all summer with it."
+
+"Sometimes he gets discouraged; Phares's crops always seem to do better
+than David's, yet David works just as hard. But Phares plants no
+tobacco."
+
+At that moment Phares Eby himself came into the room where the two sat.
+He appeared a trifle embarrassed when he saw Phœbe. Since the June
+meeting under the sycamore tree by the old stone quarry he had made no
+special effort to see her, and the several times they had met in that
+time he had greeted her with marked restraint.
+
+"Good-afternoon," he murmured, looking from Phœbe to Mother Bab and back
+again to Phœbe. "I didn't know you were here, Phœbe. I--Aunt Barbara, I
+came in to tell you there's a bright red bird in the woods down by the
+cornfield."
+
+"There is!" cried Phœbe with much interest. "Is it all red, or has it
+black wings and tail?"
+
+"Why, I couldn't say. I know David and Aunt Barbara are always
+interested in birds and I heard David say the other day that he hadn't
+seen a red bird this summer, that they must be getting scarce around
+this section. So I thought I'd come up and tell you about it. I know it
+is bright red. Do you want to come out and try to find it again, Aunt
+Barbara?"
+
+"Not now, Phares. I have been in the sun so much to-day that my head
+aches."
+
+"Would you care to see it?" he asked Phœbe in visible hesitation.
+
+She answered eagerly, her passionate love of birds mastering her
+embarrassment. "I'd love to, Phares! I am anxious to see whether it's a
+tanager or a cardinal. I have never seen a cardinal."
+
+South of David Eby's cornfield stretched a strip of woodland. There
+blackberry brambles tangled about the bases of great oaks and the
+entire woods--trees and brambles--made an ideal nesting-place for birds.
+
+"Perhaps it's gone," said the preacher as they went along to the woods.
+
+"But it's worth trying for," she said.
+
+They kept silent then; only the rustling of the corn was heard as the
+two went through the green aisle. When they reached the woodland a
+sudden burst of glorious melody came to them. Phœbe laid a hand
+impulsively upon the arm of the preacher, but she removed it quite as
+suddenly when he looked down at her and said, "Our bird!"
+
+The bird, a scarlet tanager, aware of the presence of the intruders and
+eager to attract attention to himself and safeguard his hidden mate,
+flew to an exposed branch of an oak tree. There he displayed his
+gorgeous, flaming scarlet body with its touch of black in wings and
+tail.
+
+"It's a tanager," said Phœbe. "Isn't he lovely!"
+
+"Very fine," said the preacher. "What color is his mate? Is she red?"
+
+"She's green, a lovely olive green. When she sits on the nest she's just
+the color of her surroundings. If she were red like her mate she'd be
+too easily destroyed."
+
+"God's providence," said the preacher.
+
+"It is wonderful--look, Phares, there he goes!"
+
+The scarlet tanager made a streak of vivid color across the sky as he
+flew off over the corn.
+
+"I wonder if he trusts us or if his mate is not about," Phœbe said.
+"He's a beauty, so is his mate in her green frock. A few minutes with
+the birds can teach us a great deal, can't it?"
+
+"Yes, Phœbe, here, right near your home, are countless lessons to be
+learned and accomplishments to be acquired. Tell me, do you still wish
+to go away to the city?"
+
+"Certainly. I am going in September."
+
+"You remember the verse in the Third Reader we used to have at school:
+
+        "'Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest;
+          Home-keeping hearts are happiest.
+          For those who wander, they know not where,
+          Are full of trouble and full of care;
+          To stay at home is best.'"
+
+"But I have ambitions, Phares. All my eighteen years of life have been
+spent on a farm, in the narrow existence of those whose days are passed
+within one little circle. I want to see things, I want to meet people, I
+want to live, I want to learn to sing--I can't do any of these things
+here. Oh, you can't understand my real sincerity in this desire to get
+away. It is not that I love my home and my people less than you love
+yours. I feel that I must get away!"
+
+"But your voice, Phœbe, like the scarlet tanager's, is right as God made
+it. Because we are such old friends it grieves me to see you go. I was
+hoping you would change your mind--there is so much vanity and evil in
+the city."
+
+"I'll try to keep from it, Phares. I shall merely learn to sing better,
+meet a few new people, and be wiser because of the experience."
+
+"It is useless to try to persuade you, I suppose. I hoped you would
+reconsider it, that you would learn to care for me as I care."
+
+"Phares, don't. You make me unhappy."
+
+"Misery loves company," he quoted, trying to smile.
+
+"But can't you see that marriage is the thing I am thinking least about
+these days? I am too young."
+
+She looked, indeed, like a fair representation of Youth as she stood by
+the crude rail fence at the edge of the woods, one arm flung along the
+rough top rail, her hair tumbled from the walk through the cornfield,
+her eyes still gleaming with the joy of seeing the tanager, yet shadowy
+with the startled emotions occasioned by the preacher's wooing.
+
+He looked at her--
+
+"Oh, look! Our tanager is back!" she exclaimed.
+
+"I guess she is too young," he thought as he saw how quickly she turned
+from the question of marriage to watch the red bird.
+
+Phœbe's lips parted in pleasure as she saw the tanager again take up his
+place on the oak and burst into song. So absorbed were man and maid that
+neither heard the rustle of parted corn nor were aware of the presence
+of a third person until a voice exclaimed, "Oh, I beg your pardon. I
+didn't know you were here."
+
+As they turned David Eby stood before them, his expression a mingling of
+surprise and wonder. The flush on Phœbe's face, the awakened look in her
+eyes, troubled the man who had come through the corn and found the girl
+he loved standing with the preacher. The self-conscious look on the
+preacher's face assured David that he had stumbled through the field in
+an awkward moment, that his presence was unwelcome. He turned to go
+back, but Phœbe stepped quickly to him and took his hand.
+
+"Ah," thought Phares with a twinge of jealousy, "she wouldn't do that to
+me. How quickly she dropped her hand a while ago. They are such good
+friends, she and David. It's wrong to be envious; I must fight against
+it--and yet--I want her just as much as David does!"
+
+"David," Phœbe begged, "come back! Why, I was just wishing you were
+here! There's a scarlet tanager--see!" She pointed to the brilliant
+songster.
+
+"I thought he was coming to this woods so I came to hunt him," said
+David, his irritation gone. "I saw that fellow over by the tobacco field
+and followed him here. I bet they have their nest in this very woods.
+We'll look better next spring and try to find it and see the little
+ones. Tut, tut," he whistled to the bird, "don't sing your pretty head
+off." His eyes turned to the sky and the smile left his face. "It looks
+threatening," he said. "I thought I heard thunder as I came through the
+corn."
+
+"That so?" said Phares. "Then we better move in."
+
+Even as they turned and started through the field the thunder came
+again--distant--nearer, rolling in ominous rumbles.
+
+"Look at the sky," said David. "Clear yellow--that means hail!"
+
+"Oh, David"--Phœbe stood still and looked at him--"not hail on your
+tobacco!"
+
+He took her arm. "Come on, Phœbe, it's coming fast. We must get in. Come
+to our house, Phares, that's the nearest."
+
+Just as they reached the kitchen door, where Mother Bab was looking for
+them, the hail came.
+
+"It's hail, Mommie," David said. The three words held all the worry and
+pain of his heart.
+
+"Never mind"--the little mother patted his shoulder. "It's hail for more
+people than we know, perhaps for some who are much poorer than we are."
+
+"But the tobacco----" He stood by the window, impotent and weak, while
+the devastating hail pounded and rattled and smote the broad leaves of
+his tobacco and rendered it almost worthless.
+
+"Won't new leaves grow again?" Phœbe tried to cheer him.
+
+"Not this late in the summer. My tobacco was almost ready to be cut; it
+was unusually early this year."
+
+"Well," spoke up the preacher, "I can't see why you always plant
+tobacco. Smoking and chewing tobacco are filthy habits. I can't see why
+so many people of this section plant the weed when the soil could be
+used to produce some useful grain or vegetable."
+
+"Yes"--David turned and addressed his cousin fiercely--"it's easy enough
+for you to talk! You with your big farm and orchards and every crop a
+success! Your bank account is so fat that you don't need to care whether
+your acres bring in a big return or a lean one. But when you have just a
+few acres you plant the thing that will be likely to bring in the most
+money. You know many poor people plant tobacco for that reason, and that
+is why I plant it."
+
+"Davie," the mother said, "Davie!"
+
+"I know," he said bitterly. "I'm a beast when my temper gets beyond
+control, but Phares can be so confounded irritating, he rubs salt in
+your cuts every time."
+
+"Just for healing," the mother said gently.
+
+"David," said Phœbe, "I guess the temper is a little bit of that Irish
+showing up."
+
+At that David smiled, then laughed.
+
+"Phœbe," he said, "you know how to rub people the right way. If ever I
+have the blues you are just the right medicine."
+
+"I don't want to be called medicine," she said with a shake of her head.
+
+"Not even a sugar pill?" asked Mother Bab.
+
+"No. I don't like the sound of _pill_."
+
+David looked across at the preacher, who stood silent and helpless in
+the swift tide of conversation. "You may be right, Phares. It may be the
+wrath of Providence upon the tobacco. I'll try alfalfa in that field
+next and then I'll rub Aladdin's lamp. I'll make some money then!"
+
+"Where do you find Aladdin's lamp?" asked Phœbe.
+
+"I can't tell you now. But I know I'm tired of slaving and having
+nothing for my work, so I am going after the magic lamp."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ALADDIN'S LAMP
+
+
+THE morning after the hail storm dawned fair and sunshiny. David went
+out and stood at the edge of his tobacco field. All about him the hail
+had wrought its destruction. Where yesterday broad, thick leaves of
+green tobacco had stood out strong and vigorous there hung only limp
+shreds, punctured and torn into worthlessness.
+
+"All wasted, my summer's work. I'll rub that magic lamp now. Fool that I
+was, not to do it sooner!"
+
+A little later, as he walked down the road to town, his lips were closed
+in a resolute line, his shoulders squared in soldierly fashion. "I hope
+Caleb Warner is in his office," he thought.
+
+Caleb Warner was in; he greeted David cordially.
+
+"Good-morning, Dave. How are things out your way? Hail do much damage?"
+
+"Some damage," echoed the farmer. "It hailed just about four hundred
+dollars' worth too much for me."
+
+"What, you don't say so! That's the trouble with your farming."
+
+Caleb Warner was an affable little man with a frank, almost innocent,
+look on his smooth-shaven face. Spontaneous interest in his friends'
+affairs made him an agreeable companion and helped materially to
+increase his clientele--Caleb Warner dealt in real estate and,
+incidentally, in oil stocks and gold stocks.
+
+"That's just the trouble with your farming," he repeated. "You slave and
+break your back and crops are fine and you hope to have a good return
+for your labor, when along comes a hail storm and ruins your fruit or
+tobacco or corn, or along comes a dry spell or a wet spell with the same
+result. It sounds mighty fine to say the farmer is the most independent
+person on the face of the earth--it's a different proposition when you
+try it out. Not so?"
+
+"I'm about convinced you speak the truth about it," said the farmer.
+
+"I know I do. I used to be a farmer, but I have grown wiser. I think
+there are too many other ways to make money with less risk."
+
+"That is why I came----" David hesitated, but the other man waited
+silently for the explanation. "Have you any more of the gold-mine stock
+you offered me some time ago?"
+
+"That Nevada mine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Just one thousand dollars' worth; the rest is all cleaned out. I sold a
+thousand yesterday. Listen, Dave, there's the chance of your life. You
+know how I worked on that farm of mine, how my wife had to slave, how
+even Mary had to work hard. Then one day a friend of mine who had gone
+west came to me and offered me some stock in a western gold mine. My
+wife was afraid of it, said I'd lose every cent I put in it and we'd
+have to go to the poorhouse--women don't generally understand about
+investments. But I went ahead and got the stock, and in a few years I
+sold out part of it for a neat sum and drew big dividends on what I
+kept. Then we moved to town; my wife keeps a maid, Mary goes to college,
+and we're living instead of slaving our lives away on a farm. And it's
+honestly made money, for the gold was put into the earth for us to use.
+It is just a case of running a little risk, but no person loses money
+because of your risk. Of course, there's lots of stock sold that's not
+worth the paper it's written on, but I don't sell that kind."
+
+"People trust you here," said David.
+
+If the man winced or had reason to do so, he betrayed no sign of it. "I
+hope so," he said. "You have known me all my life. If I ever want to
+work any skin game I'll go out of the place where all my friends are.
+This mine of which I speak is near the mine at Goldfield and some of the
+veins struck recently are richer than those of the renowned Goldfield.
+They are still striking deeper veins. I have sold stock in that mine to
+fifteen people in this town."
+
+He mentioned some of the residents of Greenwald; people who, in David's
+opinion, were too shrewd to be entangled in any nefarious investment.
+The names impressed David--if those fifteen put their money into it he
+might as well be the sixteenth.
+
+In a little while David Eby walked home with a paper representing the
+ownership of a number of shares of a certain gold mine in Nevada, while
+Caleb Warner patted musingly a check for five hundred dollars.
+
+Mother Bab wondered at her boy's philosophical acceptance of his crop
+failure. "I'm glad you take it this way," she said as he came in,
+whistling, from his trip to Greenwald.
+
+"What's the use of crying?" he answered gaily, though he felt far from
+gay. Had he been too hasty? Doubts began to assail him. It was going to
+be hard to deceive his mother, she was always so eager for his
+confidence. But, then, he was doing it for her sake as much as for his
+own. The war clouds were drawing nearer and nearer to this country; if
+the time came when America would enter the war he would have to answer
+the call for help. If the stock turned out to be what the other wise men
+of the town felt confident it would be then the added money would be a
+boon to his mother while he was away in the service of his country--and
+yet--it was a great risk he was running. Why had he done it? The old
+lines of the poem came back to him and burned into his soul,
+
+        "O what a tangled web we weave
+         When first we practice to deceive."
+
+Then, again, swift upon that thought came the old proverb, "Nothing
+venture, nothing gain." Thus he was torn between doubt and satisfaction,
+but it was too late to undo the deed. He was the owner of the stock and
+Caleb Warner had the five hundred dollars!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE FLEDGLING'S FLIGHT
+
+
+PHÅ’BE found the packing of her trunk a task not altogether without pain.
+As she gathered her few treasures from her room a feeling of desolation
+seemed to pervade the place. Going away from home for the first long
+stay, however bright the new place of sojourn, brings to most hearts an
+undercurrent of sadness.
+
+She smiled a bit wistfully at her few treasures--her books, an old
+picture of her mother, the little Testament Aunt Maria gave her to read,
+the few trinkets her school friends had given her from time to time, a
+little kodak picture of Mother Bab and David in the flower garden.
+
+At last the dreary task was done, the trunk strapped, and she was ready
+for the journey. It was a perfect September day when she left the gray
+farmhouse, drove in the country road and stood with her father, Aunt
+Maria, Mother Bab, David and Phares at the railroad station in Greenwald
+and waited for the noon train to Philadelphia.
+
+Jacob Metz and the preacher made brave, though visible, efforts to be
+cheerful; Maria Metz made no effort to be anything except very greatly
+worried and anxious; but Mother Bab and David were determined that the
+girl's departure was to be nothing less than pleasant.
+
+"Now be sure, Phœbe," said Aunt Maria for the tenth time, "to ask the
+conductor at Reading if that train is for Phildelphy before you get on,
+and at Phildelphy you wait till Miss Lee fetches you."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Maria, I'll be careful."
+
+"And don't lose your trunk check--David, did you give it to her for
+sure?"
+
+"Yes. She'll hold on to it, don't you worry."
+
+"Phœbe will be all right," said Mother Bab.
+
+"And," said David teasingly, "be sure to let me know when you need that
+beet juice and cream and flour."
+
+"Davie! Now for that I won't write to you!"
+
+"Yes you will!" His eyes looked so long into hers that she said
+confusedly, "Ach, I'll write. Mind that you take good care of Mother Bab
+and stop in sometimes to see how Aunt Maria and daddy are getting on
+without me."
+
+"Ach, we'll be all right," said Aunt Maria. "Just you take care of
+yourself so far away from home. And if you get homesick you come right
+home. Anyway, you come home soon to see us; and be sure to write every
+week still."
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+A shrill whistle announced the approach of the train. There were hurried
+kisses and good-byes, a handshake for the preacher and, last of all, a
+handshake for David. He held her hand so long that she cried out,
+"David, you'll make me miss the train!"
+
+"No--good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, David." Then she tugged at her hand and in a moment was
+hurrying to the train.
+
+There were few passengers that day, so the train made a short stop.
+Phœbe smiled as the train started, leaned forward and waved till the
+familiar group was lost to her view, then she settled herself with a
+brave little smile and looked at the well-known fields and meadows she
+was passing. The trees on Cemetery Hill were silhouetted against the
+blue sky just as she had seen them many times in her walks about the
+country.
+
+But soon the old landmarks disappeared and unknown fields lay about her.
+Crude rail fences divided acres of rustling corn from orchards whose
+trees were laden with red apples or downy peaches. Occasionally flocks
+of startled birds rose from fields freshly plowed for the fall sowing of
+wheat. Huge red barns and spacious open tobacco sheds, hung with drying
+tobacco, gave evidence of the prosperity of the farmers of that section.
+Little schoolhouses were dotted here and there along the road. Flowers
+bloomed by the wayside and in them Phœbe was especially interested.
+Goldenrod in such great profusion that it seemed the very sunshine of
+the skies was imprisoned in flower form, stag-horn sumac with its
+grape-like clusters of red adding brilliancy to the landscape--everywhere
+was manifest the dawn of autumnal glory, the splendor that foreruns
+decay, the beauty that is but the first step in nature's transition from
+blossom and harvest to mystery and sleep.
+
+Every two or three miles the train stopped at little stations and then
+Phœbe leaned from her window to see the beautiful stretches of country.
+
+At one flag station the train was signalled and came to a stop. Just
+outside Phœbe's window stood a tall farmer. He rubbed his fingers
+through his hair and stared curiously at the train.
+
+"Step lively," shouted the trainman.
+
+But the farmer shook his head. "Ach, I don't want on your train! I
+expected some folks from Lititz and thought they'd be on this here
+train. Didn't none get on----"
+
+But the angry trainman had heard enough. He pulled the cord and the
+train started, leaving the old man alone, his eyes scanning the moving
+cars.
+
+Phœbe laughed. "We Pennsylvania Dutch do funny things! I wonder if I'll
+seem strange and foolish to the people I shall meet in the great city."
+
+At Reading she obeyed Aunt Maria's injunction and boarded the proper
+train. The ride along the winding Schuylkill was thoroughly enjoyed by
+the country girl, but the picture changed when the country was left
+behind, suburban Philadelphia passed, and the train entered the crowded
+heart of the city. They passed close to dark houses grimy with the
+accumulated smoke of many passing locomotives. Great factories loomed
+before the train, factories where girls looked up for a moment at the
+whirring cars and turned again to the grinding life of loom or machine.
+The sight disheartened Phœbe. Was life in the city like that for some
+girls? How dreadful to be shut up in a factory while outdoors the whole
+panorama of the seasons moved on! She would miss the fields and woods
+but she would make the sacrifice gladly if she might only see life, meet
+people and learn to sing. The thoughts awakened by the sight of the
+shut-in girls were not happy ones. She welcomed the call, "Reading
+Terminal, Philadelphia."
+
+As she followed the stream of fellow passengers and walked through the
+dim train shed to the exit her heart beat more quickly--she was really
+in Philadelphia! But the noise, the stream of people rushing from trains
+past other people rushing to trains, bewildered her. She saw the sea of
+faces beyond the iron gates and experienced for the first time the
+loneliness that comes to a traveler who enters a thronged depot and sees
+a host of people but enters unwelcomed and ungreeted.
+
+However, the loneliness was momentary. The next minute she caught sight
+of Miss Lee. A wave of relief and happiness swept over her--she was in
+Philadelphia, the land of her heart's desire!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+PHÅ’BE'S DIARY
+
+
+                                                      _September 15._
+
+I'M in Philadelphia--really, truly! Phœbe Metz, late of a gray farmhouse
+in Lancaster County, is sitting in a beautiful room of the Lee
+residence, Philadelphia.
+
+What a lot of things I have to write in you, diary! I can scarcely find
+the beginning. Before I left home I thought about keeping a diary, how
+entertaining it would be to sit down when I'm old and gray and read the
+accounts of my first winter in the city. So I went to Greenwald and
+bought the fattest note-book I could find and I'm going to write in you
+all of my joys--let's hope there won't be any sorrows--and all of my
+pleasures and all about my impressions of places and people in this
+great, wonderful City of Brotherly Love. Of course, I'll write letters
+home and to David and Mother Bab and some of the girls, but there are so
+many things one can't tell others yet likes to remember. So you'll have
+to be my safety valve, confidant and confessor.
+
+When I left the train at Philadelphia I was bewildered and confused.
+Such crowds I never saw, not even in Lancaster. Seemed like everybody in
+the city was coming from a train or running to one. I was glad to see
+Miss Lee. She's the dearest person! I love her as much as I did when I
+went to her school on the hill. I'm as tall as she is now. She dresses
+beautifully. I thought my blue serge suit was lovely but her clothes
+are--well, I suppose you'd call them creations. I'm so glad I'm going to
+be near her all winter and can copy from her.
+
+As I came through the gates at the depot she caught me and kissed me. I
+thought she was alone, but a moment later she turned to a tall man and
+introduced him, her cousin, Royal Lee, the musician. If Aunt Maria could
+see him she'd warn me again, as she did repeatedly, not to "leave that
+fiddlin' man get too friendly." He's handsome. I never before met a man
+like him. His magnetic smile, his low voice attracted me right away.
+
+After he piloted us through the crowded depot and into a taxicab Miss
+Lee began to ask me questions about Greenwald and the people she knows
+there. I felt rather timid, for I was conscious of the appraising eyes
+of her cousin. He didn't stare at me, yet every time I glanced at him
+his eyes were searching my face. Does he think me very countrified, I
+wonder? I do have the red cheeks country girls are always credited with,
+but I'm glad I'm not "buxom." I'd hate to be fat!
+
+I wish I could describe Royal Lee. He's just as I pictured him, only
+more so. He has the lean, æsthetic face of the musician, the sensitive
+nostrils and thin lips denoting acute temperament. His eyes are gray.
+
+As we rode through the streets of the city Miss Lee told me her mother
+would have me stay with them until we can find a suitable boarding
+place. To-morrow we're going in search of one.
+
+Taxicabs travel pretty fast. We skirted past curbs so that I almost held
+my breath and shot past trucks and other cars till I thought we'd surely
+land in the street. But we escaped safely and soon stopped at the Lee
+residence, a big, imposing brownstone house. It looks bare outside, no
+yard, no flowers. But inside it's a lovely place, so inviting and
+attractive that I'd like to settle down for life in it.
+
+Mrs. Lee is as charming as her daughter. She has been a semi-invalid for
+years, but even in her wheelchair she has the poise and manner of one
+well born. Her greeting was so cordial and gracious, but all I could
+answer was an inane, "Thank you, you are very kind." Will I ever learn
+to express my thoughts as charmingly as these people do, I wonder!
+
+When Miss Lee took me up-stairs it was up a bare, polished stairway upon
+which I was half afraid to tread. And the room she took me to! I've
+heard about such rooms and read about them. Delft blue paper and rugs,
+white woodwork and furniture, blue hangings, white curtains--it's a
+magazine-room turned to real!
+
+When I tried to express my gratitude for her goodness Miss Lee hushed me
+with a kiss and said she anticipated as much joy from my presence in the
+city as I did, that I was so genuine and refreshing that it would be a
+pleasure to have me around. I don't know just what she means. I'm just
+Phœbe Metz, nothing wonderful about me, unless it's my voice, and I hope
+that is. She said, too, that I would make her very happy if I'd let her
+be a real friend to me, and if I'd call her Virginia. Why, that's just
+what I've been wishing for! I told her so. She is just twelve years
+older than I am, so she's near the thirty mark yet, and I like a friend
+who is older. She seems just the same Miss Lee, no older than she was
+when I walked down the street of Greenwald in my gingham dress and
+checked sunbonnet and buried my nose in the pink rose David gave me. How
+lucky that little country girl is! I'm here in Philadelphia, in a
+beautiful house, with Virginia Lee for my friend, and glorious visions
+of music and good times flashing before my eyes. I put my hands to my
+head to keep it from going dizzy!
+
+There's a little speck of cloud in the blue of my joy right now, though.
+I'm afraid I've blundered already. Miss Lee--Virginia, I mean--said as
+she turned to leave my room that they have dinner at six and I'd have
+plenty of time to get ready for it. I had to tell her that I couldn't
+change my dress, that I hadn't thought to bring any light dress in my
+bag but had packed them all in the trunk. She hurried to assure me that
+my dark skirt and white blouse would do very well, that she would not
+dress for dinner to-night. But I feel sure that she seldom appears at
+the dinner table in a blouse and tailored skirt. Guess Aunt Maria'd say
+I'm in a place too tony for me, but I know I can learn how to do here. I
+might have remembered that some people make of their evening meal a
+formal one. I've read about "dressing for dinner" and when my first
+opportunity comes to do so it finds me with all my dress-up dresses
+packed in a trunk in the express office! Perhaps it serves me right for
+wanting to "put on style," but I remember an old saying about "doing as
+the Romans do." At any rate, I'm going to make the best of it and quit
+worrying about it, or I'll be so fussed I'll eat with my knife or pour
+my coffee into my saucer!
+
+
+                                              _Later in the evening._
+
+What a whirl my brain is in! Things happen so fast that I scarcely know
+where to begin again to write about them. But it began with the dinner.
+That was the grandest dinner I ever tasted but I don't remember a single
+thing I ate, though I do know there was no bread or jelly. What would
+Aunt Maria think of that! The delicate china, fine linen and silver were
+the loveliest I have ever seen. There were electric lights with
+soft-colored shades and there was a colored waiter who seemed to move
+without effort. The forks and spoons for the different courses bothered
+me. I had to glance at Virginia to see which one to use. Once during the
+dinner I thought of the time Mollie Brubaker told Aunt Maria about a
+dinner she had in the home of a city relative. I remember how Aunt Maria
+sniffed, "Humph, if abody's right hungry you can eat without such dumb
+style put on. I say when you cook and carry things to the table for
+people you don't need to feed them yet, they can help themselves. Just
+so it's clean and cooked good and enough to go round, that's all I try
+for when I get company to eat." I felt like a fish out of water at the
+Lee dinner table, but Mrs. Lee and the others were so kind and tactful
+that I could not be embarrassed, not enough to show it. However, I
+thought to myself as we rose from the table, "Thank Heaven!"
+
+Mrs. Lee asked me whether I like music. We were in the sitting-room and
+Mr. Lee stood by the piano, his hand on his violin case.
+
+"Yes, indeed!" I told her, for I was anxious to hear him play. I have
+never heard any great violinist but the sound of a violin sets me
+thrilling. I could listen to it for hours.
+
+Mr. Lee smiled at my enthusiasm, lifted the instrument to his shoulder
+and began to play. If I live to be a hundred I'll never forget that
+music! Like the soothing winds of summer, the subtle fragrance of a wild
+rose, the elusive phantoms of our dreams, it stirred my soul. I sat as
+one dazed when he ended.
+
+"You say nothing. Don't you like my music?" he asked me.
+
+"Like your music? Like is too poor a word!" And I tried to tell him how
+I loved it. He smiled again, that calling, hypnotizing smile, that made
+me want to rush to him and ask him to be my friend. But I restrained
+myself and turned to listen to Virginia. The music haunted me. It
+sounded like the voice of a soul searching for something it could never
+find. I was still dreaming about it when I heard Mr. Lee say, "Now,
+Aunt, shall we have some cribbage?" I watched him uncomprehendingly as
+he arranged a small table and brought out cards and boards for a game.
+The full significance of his actions dawned upon me--they were going to
+play cards! I had never seen a game of cards, but Aunt Maria taught me
+long ago that cards are the instrument of the Evil One. My first impulse
+was to run from the room, away from the cards, but I hated to be so
+rude.
+
+"Do you play cards?" Royal Lee asked me.
+
+"No, oh, no!" I gasped.
+
+"You should learn. I'm sure you would enjoy playing."
+
+I know my face flushed. He did not notice my bewilderment and went on,
+"We'll teach you to play, Miss Metz." Then he turned to the game.
+
+Virginia came to my rescue and drew me to a seat near her. She asked me
+questions about Greenwald. Goodness only knows what I answered her. My
+attention was a variant. Troubled thoughts distressed me. In Aunt
+Maria's category of sins dancing, card playing and theatre-going rank
+side by side with lying, stealing and idolatry. As I sat there I tried
+to reconcile my opinion of these worldly pleasures with the conduct of
+my new friends. The tangle is too complicated to unravel at once. I
+could feel blushes of shame staining my cheeks as the game progressed.
+What would Aunt Maria say, what would daddy say, what would even
+tolerant Mother Bab say, if they knew I sat passively by and watched a
+game of cards? After a little while I asked Virginia whether I could
+write a letter to Aunt Maria and tell her of my safe arrival. I just had
+to get out of that room! I don't know if she saw through my ruse but
+she smiled as she put her arm around me and led me to the stairs.
+"There's a desk in your room, Phœbe. You can be undisturbed there. Tell
+your aunt we are going to help you find a comfortable home and that we
+are going to take care of you. I'll be up presently to visit with you."
+
+When I got up-stairs I felt like crying. Those cards actually scared me.
+I shrank from being so near the evil things. But after a while as I came
+to think more calmly I decided that cards couldn't hurt me if I didn't
+play them. I promised myself to keep from being contaminated with the
+wickedness of the city the while I enjoyed its harmless pleasures. The
+first horror of the cards soon passed but it left me sobered. I wrote a
+long letter to Aunt Maria and then turned off the lights and looked down
+into the city street. It seemed wonderful to me to see so many lights
+stretched off until some of them were mere specks. There was a wedding
+across the street. I saw the guests and caught a glimpse of the bride,
+dressed all in white. But later, when Virginia came up to my room and I
+asked her about it she didn't know a thing about the wedding. Why, at
+home, if there's a big wedding and the neighbors don't know about it or
+are not invited to it, they feel slighted. But Virginia says a city is
+different, that you don't really have neighbors like in Greenwald.
+
+Virginia told me, too, how she came to teach in our school on the hill.
+When she finished college she wanted to earn money, just to prove that
+she could. Her father wanted her to stay home and live the life of a
+butterfly, she says. One day he said, more in jest than earnest, that if
+she insisted upon earning money he'd give his consent to her being a
+teacher in a rural school. She accepted the challenge and through her
+cousin she secured the place on the hill and became my teacher. When her
+father died and her mother became a semi-invalid she gave up her work
+and took up the old life again. She said that as if it were not really a
+desirable life, this going to teas, dances, plays, musicals, lectures,
+and having no cares or worries. Of course I know many of her pleasures
+are forbidden fruit for me, but if I ever can wear pretty clothes like
+hers and go off to an evening musical or concert I know I'll be as
+excited as a Jenny Wren.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+DIARY--THE NEW HOME
+
+
+                                                      _September 16._
+
+I'VE dreamed my first dreams in Philadelphia. Such dreams as they were!
+Whatever it was I ate for supper it must have been richer than our
+Lancaster County sausage and fried mush, for I dreamed all night. My
+old-fashioned walnut bed with its red and green calico quilt seemed to
+swing before me while Mother Bab and Aunt Maria talked to me. A clanging
+trolley car woke me and I remembered that I had been dreaming of Phares
+and the tanager's nest. I slept again and heard the strains of Royal
+Lee's violin till another car clanged past and woke me. I woke once to
+find myself saying, "Braid it straight, Davie. Aunt Maria's awful mad."
+When I slept again I thought I heard Royal Lee say, "We'll teach you to
+play cards," and speared tails and horned heads seemed mixed
+promiscuously with little pieces of cardboard bearing red and black
+symbols and the words "I'll get you if you don't watch out" rang in my
+ears. "Ugh, what awful dreams," I thought as I lay awake and listened
+for sounds of activity in the house. I missed Aunt Maria's five o'clock
+call. The luxury of an eight o'clock breakfast couldn't be appreciated
+the first morning, as I was wide awake at five. I'll soon learn to
+sleep later. There are many things I shall learn before I go back to the
+farm.
+
+This morning Virginia and I started out on a glorious adventure, looking
+for a boarding place. She laughed when I called it that.
+
+"I like the uncertainty of it," I told her. "The charm of the unknown
+appeals to me. I do not know under whose roof I shall sleep to-night yet
+I'm happy because I know I am going to meet new people and see new
+things. Of course, if I did not have you to help me I would remember
+Aunt Maria's dire tales of the evils and dangers of a big city and
+should feel afraid. As it is, I feel only curious and gay. No matter
+where I find a place to live it's bound to be quite different from the
+farm, not better, necessarily, but different."
+
+But my "high hopes of youth" received a jolt at the very first interview
+with a boarding-house mistress. She wouldn't take young ladies who were
+studying music, their practice would annoy the other boarders. I had
+never thought of that!
+
+The second quest was equally unsatisfactory. One room was vacant, a
+pleasant room--at twelve dollars a week! The sum left me speechless.
+Virginia had to explain that the amount was a _trifle_ more than I
+expected to pay.
+
+The third proved to be a smaller house on a narrower street. A charming
+old lady led us into a sitting-room. All my life I've been accustomed to
+the proverbial cleanliness of the Pennsylvania Dutch but I'm certain I
+never saw a place as clean as that house. I said something like that to
+its mistress and she informed me with a gentle firmness I never heard
+before that she expected every guest in her house to help to keep it in
+that condition. She had several rules she wanted all to obey, so that
+the sunshine would not have a chance to fade the rugs and the dust from
+the street could not ruin things. I knew I would not be happy there. I
+like clean rooms, but if it's a matter of choosing between foul air
+_without_ dust and fresh air _with_ dust I'll take the dust every time.
+I'd feel like a funeral to live in a house where the curtains and shades
+were down every day, summer and winter, to keep the sunshine out of the
+rooms and prevent the jade-green and china-blue and old-rose of the rugs
+from fading.
+
+The fourth place was in suburban Philadelphia, fifty minutes' ride from
+the heart of the city. It was a big colonial house set in a great yard,
+a relic of the days when gardens still flourished in the city and the
+breathing spaces allotted to householders were larger than at the
+present time. As we went up the shrubbery-bordered walk to the pillared
+porch I said, "I want to live here."
+
+Mrs. McCrea, the boarding-house mistress, did not object to the music,
+provided I took the large room on the third floor and did all my
+practicing between the hours of eight and five, when the other boarders
+were gone to business. The price of the room is seven dollars a week.
+
+I took the room at once, before Mrs. McCrea had any chance of changing
+her mind. I thought it was a very pleasant room, with its two windows
+looking out on the green yard.
+
+But later, after Virginia had gone and I was left alone in the room, the
+queerest feeling came over me. I never knew what it meant to be
+homesick, but I think I had a touch of it this afternoon in this room. I
+hated this place for about half an hour. I saw that the paint is soiled,
+the rug worn, the pictures cheap, the bed and bureau trimmed with
+gingerbready scrolls and knobs. It's so different from the blue and
+white room I slept in last night, so different from my plain,
+old-fashioned room at home. "It's all right," I said to myself, half
+crying, "but it's so different."
+
+Fortunately the word _different_ struck a responsive chord in my memory.
+I remembered that I wanted different things, and smiled again and dashed
+the tears away. I arranged my own pictures and few belongings about the
+room and felt more at home. After I had dressed and stood ready to go
+down for my first dinner in my new home I felt happier. To be living, to
+be young and enthusiastic, to possess the colossal courage of youth, was
+enough to bring happiness into my heart again. I'm going to like this
+place. I'm going to work and play and live in this wonderful city.
+
+Mrs. McCrea introduced the "New boarder" and I took my assigned place at
+a long table in the dining-room. I remembered that I once read that the
+average boarding-house is a veritable school for students of human
+nature. I wondered what I would learn from the people I met there. The
+fat man across the table from me gave me no opportunity for any mental
+ramblings. He launched me right into conversation by asking my opinion
+of the war in Europe and whether or not we would be dragged into the
+trouble.
+
+"Really," I answered him, "I don't know much about it. I don't think of
+it any more than I can help."
+
+Of course that was the wrong thing to say. It started a deluge. A
+studious-looking woman wearing heavy tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles
+took my answer as a personal affront. "Why not, Miss Metz?" she
+demanded. "Why should we not think about it? We women of America need to
+wake up! In this country we are lolling in ease and safety while other
+nations bleed and die that we might remain safe. We have no thoughts
+higher than our hats or deeper than our boots if the catastrophe across
+the sea does not waken in us an earnest desire to help the stricken
+nations."
+
+Others took up the argument and I sat quiet and helpless, for I know too
+little about the cause and progress of the war to talk intelligently
+about it. A sense of responsibility grazed my soul. I wished I were able
+to help France and Belgium, but what can I do? The constant harping on
+the subject of war irritated me. I felt relieved when a young girl near
+me asked, "Miss Metz, do you like the movies? There's a place near here
+where they show fine pictures, funny ones to make you forget the war for
+several hours, at least."
+
+On the whole, I think I'm going to like life at Mrs. McCrea's
+boarding-house. I hear the views of so many different sorts of people.
+And it certainly is different from my life on the farm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+DIARY--THE MUSIC MASTER
+
+
+                                                      _September 19._
+
+MY four days in Philadelphia have just been one exclamation point after
+another! The most wonderful thing happened to me last night! Mrs. Lee
+invited me over for dinner. I glided through the courses a little more
+gracefully--one can learn if the will is there. I always loved dainty
+things. I suppose that is why I delight in the Lee home and am eager to
+adopt the ways of my new friends.
+
+After dinner Mr. Lee played again. Of course I enjoyed that. When I
+praised his playing he said he heard I'm a real genius and asked me to
+sing for them. Mr. Krause, one of the best teachers of music in the
+city, is a friend of Royal and Virginia thinks he would be the very one
+to teach me. Mr. Lee wrote to Mr. Krause this summer and the music
+teacher promised to take me for a pupil if I have a voice worth the
+trouble. Virginia had prepared me for my meeting with him. Seems he's
+queer, odd, cranky and painfully frank. But he knows how to teach music
+so well that many would-be singers pray to be taken into his studio. Mr.
+Lee said yesterday that Mr. Krause was expected home from his vacation
+in a few days and then he'd arrange an interview. I trembled when he
+said that. What if the great teacher did not like my voice!
+
+To-night when Mr. Lee asked me to sing I selected a simple song. As I
+sat down before the baby grand piano the words of the old song "Sweet
+and Low" came to me. I would sing that until I gained courage and
+confidence to sing a harder selection. I played from memory. As I sang I
+was back again at home, singing to my father at the close of the day.
+
+As the last words died on my lips and I turned on the chair a man, a
+stranger to me, appeared in the room. He hurried unceremoniously to the
+piano and greeted me, "You can sing!"
+
+I stared at him. He was an odd-looking, active little man of about fifty
+with keen blue eyes that bored into one like a gimlet.
+
+Mr. Lee came toward us. "Mr. Krause," he exclaimed, and presented to me
+the music master, the teacher for whom I had dreaded so to sing! I was
+filled with inarticulate gladness.
+
+"Mr. Krause," I cried, grasping his outstretched hand in my old
+impetuous way, "do you mean it? Can I learn to sing?"
+
+"I said so--yes. You can sing. You need to learn how to use your voice
+but the voice is there."
+
+"I'm so glad. I'll work----" I couldn't say any more. My joy was too
+great to be expressed in words. I looked mutely into the wrinkled face
+of the man.
+
+"Royal said he had found a songbird," he went on smiling, "but I was
+afraid he didn't know the difference between that and an owl--I see he
+did. I'll be glad to have you for a pupil. Royal can bring you to my
+studio to-morrow at eleven."
+
+Mr. Krause stayed a while longer and the sitting-room was gay with
+laughter and bright conversation. I think I heard little of it, though,
+for the words, "You can sing!" kept ringing in my ears and crowding out
+all other sounds.
+
+I can sing! Mr. Krause has told me I can sing! And I will sing! Some day
+all the world may stop to hear!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+DIARY--THE FIRST LESSON
+
+
+                                                      _September 20._
+
+I HAD my first music lesson to-day. Mr. Lee called for me at the
+boarding-house and took me down-town to the studio. After he left I
+expected Mr. Krause to begin at once on the do, ra, me, fa, sol, la, si,
+do. But he thought differently!
+
+He sat facing me, looking at me till I felt like running. "And so," he
+said quietly, "you want to learn to sing."
+
+"Yes," was all I could say.
+
+"Well, you have a voice. If you want to work like all great singers have
+had to work you can be a singer. You may not set the world afire with
+your fame but you'll be worth hearing. You are Pennsylvania Dutch?"
+
+I nodded. What under the sun did Pennsylvania Dutch have to do with my
+becoming a singer? I was provoked. I didn't come to the city and pay a
+music teacher to ask me foolish questions.
+
+"That is good," he went on calmly. "The Pennsylvania Dutch are not
+afraid of work and that is what you need. The road to success in music
+is like the road to success in any other thing, long and hard and
+up-hill most of the way. Now that Pennsylvania Dutch is a funny
+language. It is neither Dutch nor English nor German but is like hash, a
+little of this and a little of that. Do you speak it?"
+
+I said I have spoken it all my life but wished I had never been taught
+it.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"Oh"--I couldn't quite veil my irritation--"it perverts our English."
+
+"Nothing uncommon," he answered, smiling. "Every part of this great
+country has some peculiarities of speech common to that particular
+section and laughed at in the other sections. Now we will go on with the
+lesson."
+
+When he really did begin to teach I found him a wonder. I'm going to
+enjoy, thoroughly enjoy, my music lessons.
+
+Mr. Lee called for me after the lesson. I told him I could find the way
+back to the boarding-house alone, but he said he'd consider it a
+pleasure and privilege to call for me. He has the nicest manners! He
+never needs to flounder around for the right thing to say, it just slips
+from his tongue like butter. Aunt Maria always says, "look out for them
+smooth apple-sass talkers," but I'm sure Mr. Lee is a gentleman and just
+the right kind for a country girl to know.
+
+When he called at the studio this morning I felt proud to walk away with
+him. He suggested riding home but I told him I'd rather walk, at least
+part of the way. We started up Chestnut Street. What a wonderful place
+that is! Such lovely stores I've never seen. I'm going to sneak away
+some day and visit every one that has women's belongings for sale. And
+the clothes I saw on Chestnut Street--on the women, I mean! My own
+wardrobe certainly is plain and ordinary compared with the things I saw
+women wear to-day. I couldn't help saying to Mr. Lee, "What lovely
+clothes Philadelphia women wear!" He smiled that wonderful smile and
+said, "Miss Metz, a diamond has no need of a glittering case, it has
+sufficient brilliancy itself." I caught his meaning, I couldn't help
+it--he meant me! Now I know I'm no beauty, but perhaps if I had clothes
+like those I saw to-day I'd be more attractive. I wonder if I'll get
+them; they must cost lots of money.
+
+As we walked along Mr. Lee told me he knows I'll have a wonderful year
+in the city, and that he is going to help it be the gladdest, merriest
+one I've ever had.
+
+"Oh, you're good," I said.
+
+"It must be that goodness inspires goodness," he replied.
+
+I didn't know what to answer. Men up home never say such things, at
+least I never heard them. Phares couldn't think of such things to say
+and David never made a "pretty speech" in his life. I know he thinks
+nice things about me sometimes but he wouldn't word them like Royal Lee
+does. I didn't want Mr. Lee to think I'm uncommonly good, I told him I'm
+not.
+
+"Not good?" He laughed at the idea. "Why, you are just a sweet, lovely
+young thing knowing nothing of evil."
+
+"Oh!" I said, feeling stupid before him, "you're too polite! I never
+met any one like you. But I want to ask you about cards, playing cards.
+I can't see that they are wrong but Aunt Maria and my father and all my
+friends up home think they are wicked. Aunt Maria would rather part with
+her right hand than play a game of cards."
+
+Mr. Lee laughed and said he's surprised that I am willing to accept the
+beliefs of others; can't I decide for myself what is wrong or right? Did
+I want to be narrow and goody-goody?
+
+Of course I don't want to be like that, and I told him so.
+
+He laughed again, a low, soft laugh. I never heard a man laugh like that
+before. When daddy laughs he laughs out loud, the kind of laugh you join
+in when you hear it. And David laughs like that too, a merry laugh that
+sounds, as he says, like it's coming clean from his boots. But Mr. Lee's
+laugh is different. I don't like it as well as the other kind, though it
+fascinates me. He said he knows I can't change my ideas in a night but
+he depends upon my good sense to decide what is right for me to do. He
+asked if I thought Virginia and her mother are wicked. They have played
+cards, danced, gone to theatres, all their lives. If I hope to have a
+really enjoyable time in the city I must do the same. He said, too, that
+I'll soon see that many of the teachings of the country churches are
+antiquated and entirely too narrow for this day.
+
+Dancing--I shuddered at the word, but I didn't tell him how I feel about
+it. Aunt Maria says dancing is even worse than playing cards. Why did
+he tempt me? I don't want to do wicked things, but when he mentioned
+forbidden pleasures I felt, somehow, that I wanted to do what Virginia
+does and have a good time with her and her friends. That would be
+dreadful! What am I thinking of! Is my head turned already? Can the evil
+of the world have exerted its influence upon me so soon? Of course, if I
+become a great singer I'll naturally have to live a life different from
+the narrow, restricted life of the farm. I must live a broader, freer
+life. But for a while, at least, I'll have to be the same old Phœbe
+Metz. I tried to tell Mr. Lee something like that, and he quoted,
+
+        "If you become a nun, dear,
+            A friar I will be;
+         In any cell you run, dear,
+            Pray look behind for me."
+
+Are city men always free like that? Is it the way of the new world I
+have entered? Before I could think of a suitable answer he said lightly,
+"But before you turn nun let me buy you some flowers."
+
+We stopped at a floral shop. Such flowers! I've never seen their equal!
+I exclaimed in many O's as I paused by the window, but I felt my cheeks
+flush at the idea of having him buy any of the lovely flowers for me.
+
+"Come inside," he said. "What do you like?"
+
+"I love them all," I told him as we stood before the array of blossoms.
+"I think I like the yellow rosebuds best, though. We have some at home
+on the farm but they bloom only in June."
+
+I detected an odd smile on his lips. What was wrong? Had I committed a
+breach of etiquette? Was it wrong to mention farms in a city floral
+shop? But his courteous, attentive manner returned in an instant. He
+watched me pin the yellow roses on my coat, smiled, and led me outside
+again. I felt proud as any queen, for those were the first flowers any
+man ever bought for me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+DIARY--SEEING THE CITY
+
+
+                                                         _October 2._
+
+I HAVE been seeing Philadelphia. Mr. Lee teasingly told me that most
+newcomers want to "do" the city so he and Virginia would take me round.
+They took me to see all the places I studied about in history class.
+I've done the Betsy Ross House, Franklin's Grave, Old Christ Church and
+Old Swede's Church. I like them all. Best of all I like Independence
+Hall, with its wonderful stairways and wide window sills and, most
+important, its grand old Liberty Bell and its history.
+
+Yesterday Mr. Lee took me to Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park. I like the
+pictures and oh, I looked long at a white marble statue of Isaac, his
+hands bound for the sacrifice. The face is beautiful. Royal Lee was
+amused at my interest in it and took me off to see the rare Chinese
+vases. We wandered around among the cases of glassware and then I found
+a case with valuable Stiegel glass, made in my own Lancaster County. I
+was proud of that! We went through Horticultural Hall and stopped to see
+the lovely sunken gardens, with their fall flowers.
+
+I like to go about with Royal Lee. He is so efficient. Crowds seem to
+fall back for him. He has the attractive, masterful personality that
+everybody recognizes. I feel a reflected glory from his presence. We
+have grown to be great friends in an amazingly short time. Our music,
+our appreciation of each other's ability, has strengthened the bond
+between us. Mrs. Lee sends me many invitations for dinner and week-ends
+in her beautiful home, so that Mr. Lee and I are already well
+acquainted. He has asked me to call him Royal and if he might call me
+Phœbe. I've told him all about my life on the farm, my friends up there,
+and the plans and dreams of my heart. He likes to tease me and call me a
+little Quakeress, but I don't enjoy that for he does it in a way I don't
+like. It sounds as if he's scoffing at the plain people. When I told him
+about the meeting house and described the service he laughed and said
+that a religion like that might do for a little country place but it
+would never do in a city. I bridled at that and tried to tell him about
+the wholesome, useful lives those people up home lead, how much good a
+woman like Mother Bab can do in the world. But he could not be easily
+convinced. He thinks they are crude and narrow. When I told him they are
+lovely and fine he challenged me and asked if I am willing to wear plain
+clothes and renounce all pleasures, jewelry and becoming raiment. I had
+to tell him I'm not ready for that yet, and he smiled triumphantly. He
+predicted I'll play cards and dance before the winter ends. I don't like
+him when he's so flippant. I want to be loyal to my home teaching but I
+see more clearly every day how great is the difference between the
+pleasures sanctioned by my people and those Virginia and her friends
+enjoy. There's a mystery somewhere I can't solve. Like Omar, I
+"evermore come out at the same door where in I went."
+
+
+                                                        _October 29._
+
+To-day we went for a long drive along the Wissahickon. The woods are
+bronze and scarlet now. The wild asters made me homesick for Lancaster
+County. I wanted to get out of the car and walk but Virginia and her
+friends wouldn't join me. I wanted to bury my nose in the goldenrod and
+asters--and get hay fever, one of the girls told me--and I just ached to
+push my way through the tangled bushes along the road and let the golden
+leaves of the hickory and beeches brush my face. It seems that most city
+people I have met don't know how to enjoy nature. They have a
+nodding-from-a-motor-acquaintance with it but I like a real
+handshake-friendship with it. I just wished David were here to-day! He'd
+have taken my hand and run me to the top of the hill and picked a branch
+of scarlet maple to carry with my goldenrod and asters. Well, I can't
+have the penny and the cake. I want to be in the city, of course that's
+the thing I most desire at present--I really am having a good time.
+
+In the evening we went to Holy Trinity Church. The organ recital gripped
+my soul. I wanted it to last for hours. And yet when it was over and the
+rector stood before us and preached one of his impressive sermons I was
+just as much interested as I had been in the music. There's a feeling of
+restful calm comes to me in a big dim church with stained glass
+windows. We stopped in the Cathedral one day last week. That is a
+wonderful place, too. I like the idea of having churches open all the
+time for prayer and meditation. I'm learning so many new ideas these
+days. If I ever do wear the plain dress I'm sure of one thing, I'll be
+broad-minded enough to respect the beliefs of other persons.
+
+
+                                                       _November 11._
+
+I can put another red mark on my calendar. I heard the great Irish
+Tenor! Glory, what a voice! It's the kind can echo in your ears to your
+dying day and follow you with its sweetness everywhere you go! I have
+been humming those lovely Irish songs all day.
+
+But before the recital my heart was heavy. I have no evening gown, no
+evening wrap, so I couldn't join the box party to which one of
+Virginia's friends invited us. I meant to stay at home and not break up
+the party, but Royal insisted upon buying two tickets in a section of
+the opera house where a plainer dress would do. In the end I allowed
+myself to be persuaded by him and we two went to the recital alone. When
+that tenor voice sounded through the place I forgot all about my limited
+wardrobe. I could hear him sing if I were dressed in calico and think of
+nothing but his singing.
+
+
+                                                       _November 12._
+
+I wrote letters to-day. Mother Bab and David write such lovely ones to
+me that I have to try hard to keep up my end of it. Sometimes David
+tells me he is anxious to supply me with the beet juice, cream and flour
+whenever I'm ready to begin the prima donna act. I can hear his laugh
+when I read the letter. Sometimes he's serious and talks about the crops
+of their farm and tells me the community news like an old grandmother.
+Phares Eby writes me an occasional letter, a stilted little note that
+sounds just like Phares. It always has some good advice in it. Aunt
+Maria's letters and daddy's come every week. I'd feel lost without them.
+I like to feel that everybody I care for at home is interested in and
+cares for me even if I am in Philadelphia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+DIARY--CHRYSALIS
+
+
+                                                        _December 3._
+
+I'M as miserable as any mortal can be! Oh, I'm still having a good time
+going around seeing the city, visiting the stores and museums,
+practicing hard in music, pleasing my teacher. But just the same, I'm
+not happy. The reason is this: I want pretty gowns like Virginia wears,
+I want to dance and play cards and see real plays. I dare say I'm a
+contemptible sinner to want all that after the way I've been brought up.
+I ought to be satisfied with all the wonderful things I enjoy in this
+big city but I'm not.
+
+Last week Virginia entertained the Bridge Club and tried to persuade me
+to learn to play and come to the party. Royal was provoked about it. He
+thinks I should learn to play. I told him I should have no peace if I
+learned to do such things.
+
+"Peace," he scorned, "no one has peace these days. The whole world is in
+a turmoil. Do you think your little Quaker-like girls of Lancaster
+County have peace these days?"
+
+"They have peace of mind and conscience."
+
+"But that," he said, "is the peace that touches those who live in
+selfish solitude. The virtue that dwells in the hearts of those who
+retire into hermitages is a negative virtue."
+
+"You speak like a seer, a philosopher," I told him.
+
+"Like a rational human being, I hope," he said petulantly. "But the
+thoughts are not original. I am merely echoing the opinion of sane
+thinkers. I have no appreciation of the foolish and useless sacrifice
+you are persistently making. We were not put on this planet to be dull
+nuns and monks. We have red blood racing through our veins and were not
+intended for sluggishness."
+
+"Yes--but----"
+
+He went off peeved at my refusal to do as he wished.
+
+What can I do? Shall I capitulate? I have wrestled with my desire for
+pleasure until I'm tired of the struggle. My old contentment has
+deserted me. I'm restless and dissatisfied, scarcely knowing what is
+right or wrong.
+
+
+                                                          _Next day._
+
+I'm happy again. Being on the fence grows mighty uncomfortable after a
+while, so I jumped across. I have decided to become a butterfly!
+
+I had luncheon to-day with Virginia. She had to run off to one of her
+Bridge Clubs so I offered to mend the lace on one of her gowns while she
+was gone. I was alone in the sitting-room that adjoins Virginia's
+bedroom. I love that little sitting-room. Virginia and I spend many
+happy hours in it when we want to get away from everybody and have a
+long chat. I like its big comfortable winged chairs by the cheery open
+fire.
+
+I dreamed a while before the fire, the gown across my knees. It's a pink
+gown, that scarcely defined pink of a sea shell. Virginia had often
+tempted me to try it on and see how well I'd look in a dress of that
+kind. The temptation came to do it. I jumped up in sudden determination.
+I _would_ put it on! I'd see for once how I looked in a real gown. I ran
+to Virginia's room to the low dressing table. My hands trembled as I
+opened the tight coils of my hair and shook it until it seemed to nod
+exultingly. I fluffed the curls loosely over my forehead and twisted the
+hair into a fashionable knot. Then I took off my plain blue serge dress
+and slipped the pink one over my head. The soft draperies clung to me,
+the gossamer lace lay upon my breast like a silken mist. I was beautiful
+in that gown and I knew it. It was my hour of appreciation of my own
+charm.
+
+Later I lifted the dress and saw my plain calfskin shoes. I smiled but
+soon grew sober as I thought that the incongruity between gown and shoes
+was no greater than that between the gown and the girl--the girl who was
+reared to wear plain clothes and be honest and unpretentious. But
+honesty--that is the rock to which I cling now. I am going to be honest
+with myself and have my share of happiness while I'm young.
+
+I went back again to the fire, still wearing the borrowed gown. Virginia
+found me there several hours later. When she came in and saw me, a
+gorgeous butterfly, she said, she was very happy. She would have me go
+down to her mother and Royal. I shrank from it but she said I might as
+well become accustomed to being stared at when I was so dazzling and
+beautiful. I went down, feeling almost as much of a culprit as I did the
+day Aunt Maria surprised me at playing prima donna and marched me in to
+the quilting party.
+
+Mrs. Lee was lovely. She is sure I deserve to be happy in my youth.
+Royal went mad. "Ye Gods!" he cried as he ran to me and grasped my
+hands. "You take my breath away! You are like this!" He seized his
+violin and began to play the Spring Song. The quivering ecstasy of
+spring, the mating calls of robins and orioles, the rushing joy of
+bursting blossoms, the delicate perfume of violets and trailing arbutus,
+the dazzling shafts of sunlight pierced by silver showers of capricious
+April--all echoed in the melody of the violin.
+
+"You are like that, that is you!" he said as he laid his instrument
+aside. His words were very sweet to me. The future beckons into sunlit
+paths of joy.
+
+So I have departed from the teachings of my childhood and turned to the
+so-called vanities of the world. I am going to grasp my share of
+happiness while I can enjoy them.
+
+When I went up-stairs again to take off the borrowed gown I was already
+planning the new clothes I want to buy. I must have a pink crepe
+georgette, a pale, pale blue--just as I'm writing this there flashes to
+my mind one of those old Memory Gems I learned in school on the hill.
+
+        "But pleasures are like poppies spread,--
+         You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
+         Or like the snow fall on the river,
+         A moment white, then melts forever."
+
+I wonder, is there always a fly in the ointment!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+DIARY--TRANSFORMATION
+
+
+                                                       _December 15._
+
+A FEW days can make a difference in one's life. I'm well on the way of
+being a real butterfly. I have bought new dresses, a real evening gown
+and a lovely silk dress to wear to the Bridge Club. It's lucky I saved
+my money these three months and had a nice surplus to buy these new
+things.
+
+Royal is teaching me to play cards. He says I take to them like a duck
+to water. Virginia and he are giving me dancing lessons. I love to
+dance! The same spirit that prompted me to skip when I wore sunbonnets
+is now urging me on to the dance. In a few weeks I'll be ready to join
+in the pleasures of my new friends. After the Christmas holidays the
+city will be gay until the Lenten season.
+
+
+                                                         _January 5._
+
+I went home for Christmas and I suppose I managed to make everybody
+there unhappy and worried. I couldn't let them think I am the same quiet
+girl and not tell them about the cards and dancing. Daddy was hurt, but
+he didn't scold me. He said plainly that he does not approve of my
+course, that he thinks cards and dancing wicked. He added that I had
+been taught the difference between right and wrong and was old enough to
+see it. Perhaps he thinks I'll "run my horns off quicker" if I'm let go,
+as Aunt Maria often says about people. But she didn't say that about me.
+She made up for what daddy didn't say. She begged him to make me stay at
+home away from the wicked influences of the city. I had the hardest time
+to keep calm and not say mean things to her. She's ashamed of me and
+afraid people up there will find out how worldly I am. I had to tell
+Mother Bab too. I know I hurt her. She was so gentle and lovely about it
+that I felt half inclined to tell her I'd give up everything she didn't
+approve of, just to please her. But I didn't. I couldn't do that when I
+know I'm not doing anything wrong. She changed the subject and inquired
+about my music. In that I was able to please her. She shared my joy when
+I told her of my critical music master's approval of my progress. I sang
+some of my new songs for her and she kissed me with the same love and
+tenderness she has always had for me. I wonder sometimes whether I could
+possibly have loved my own mother more. Somehow, as I sat with her in
+her dear, cozy sitting-room I hated the cards and the dancing and half
+wished I had never left the farm. But that's a narrow, provincial view
+to take. Now that I'm back again I'm caught once more in the whirl.
+Everybody is entertaining, as if in a frantic endeavor to be surfeited
+before Lent and thus be able to endure the dullness of that period of
+suspended social activities. The harrowing tales of suffering France
+and Belgium have occasioned Benefit Teas and Benefit Bridges and
+Benefit Dances, all for the aid of the war sufferers. Royal usually
+takes me to the social affairs. I enjoy being with him. He's the most
+entertaining man I ever met. He has traveled in Europe and all over our
+own country and can tell what he has seen. He attracts attention,
+whether he speaks or plays or is just silent. One day he said it would
+be a pleasure to travel with me, I enjoy things so and can appreciate
+their beauty. I could scarcely resist telling him how I'd enjoy
+traveling with a man like him. Oh, I dream wild dreams sometimes, but I
+really must stop doing that. The present is too wonderful to go
+borrowing joy from the future.
+
+
+                                                        _February 2._
+
+I'm all in a fluster. I have to write here what happened to-day. If I
+had a mother she could help and advise me but an adopted mother, even
+one as dear and near as Mother Bab, won't do for such confidences.
+
+Royal and I were sitting alone before the open fireplace. It's a
+dangerous place to be! The glowing fire sends such weird shadows
+flickering up and down. Its living fire is sometimes an entreating Circe
+waking undesirable impulses, then again it's a spirit that heals and
+inspires. I love an open fire but to-day I should have fled from it and
+yet--I think I'm glad I didn't.
+
+I looked up suddenly from the gleaming logs--right into the eyes of
+Royal. His voice startled me as he said, with the strangest catch in his
+voice, that my eyes are bluer than the skies. I tried to keep my voice
+ordinary as I lightly told him that some other person once told me they
+are the color of fringed gentians--could he improve on that?
+
+"You little fairy!" he cried. "I can beat that! They are blue as
+bluebirds!" Then he went on impetuously, telling me I was a real
+bluebird of happiness, a bringer of joy; that the ancients called the
+bluebird the emblem of happiness, but he knew the blue of my eyes was
+the real joy sign--or something like that he said. It startled me. I
+tried to tell him he must not talk like that but my words were useless.
+He went on to say that the world was bleak and unlovely till I came to
+Philadelphia and wouldn't I tell him I care for him.
+
+Of course I value his friendship and told him so. But he laughed and
+said I was a wise little girl but I couldn't evade his question like
+that. He said frankly he doesn't want my friendship, he wants my love,
+he must have it!
+
+I felt like a helpless bird. I couldn't answer him. He looked at me, a
+long, searching look. Then he pressed his thin lips together, and a
+moment later, threw back his head and laughed his low laugh.
+
+"Little bluebird," he said softly, "I have frightened you and I wouldn't
+do that for worlds! We'll talk it over some other time, after you have
+had time to think about it. Shall I play for you?"
+
+I nodded and he began to play. But the music didn't soothe me as it
+usually does. There were too many confused thoughts in my brain. Did
+Royal really love me? I looked at his white hands with the long
+tapering nails and the shapely fingers and couldn't help thinking of the
+strong, tanned hands of David Eby. I glanced at the handsome face of the
+musician with its magnetic charm--swiftly the countenance of my old
+playmate rose before me and then slowly faded: David, boyish and
+comradely; David, manly and strong, without ever a sneer or an unholy
+light upon his face. Could I ever forget him? Could I ever look into the
+face of any other man and call it the dearest in the whole world to me?
+Ach--I shook my head and gathered my recreant wits together! I'd forget
+what he said and attribute it to the weird influence of the firelight.
+
+I was glad Virginia came before Royal finished playing. She looked at us
+keenly. I suppose my face was flushed. But Royal seldom loses his
+outward calm. He answered her remarks in his casual way and listened
+with seeming interest to her plans for a pre-Lenten masquerade dance she
+wants to give. She has asked me to go dressed in a plain dress and white
+cap like Aunt Maria wears. I hesitated about it but she has done so much
+for me that I hate to refuse. So I've promised to go to the dance
+dressed in a plain dress and cap.
+
+A little later when Royal left us alone Virginia began to speak about
+him. She said she's so glad we have grown to be friends, in spite of the
+fact that he is so much older than I am. He's thirty-seven, she told me.
+I'm surprised at that. I never thought he's so much older. She mentioned
+something, too, about his being rather a gay Don Juan. I don't know
+just what she means. I'm sure he's a gentleman. Perhaps she expected me
+to tell her what Royal said to me, but how could I do that when I think
+it was just an impulsive burst that he's likely to forget by morning. If
+he really meant it--but I must stop dreaming all sorts of improbable
+dreams! I've had such a glorious time in Philadelphia just living and
+singing and working and playing that I wish it hadn't happened. I'm
+frightened when I think that any serious questions might confront me
+here.
+
+
+                                                       _February 10._
+
+I guessed right when I thought that Royal would forget that foolish
+outburst. He has been perfectly lovely to me, taking me out and buying
+me flowers and telling me about his trips, but he hasn't said one word
+more of sentimental nature. I'm surely getting my share of fun and
+pleasure these days. There are so many things to enjoy, so much to learn
+from my fellow-boarders and every one I meet, that the days are all too
+short. Between times I'm making a dress and cap for the masquerade
+dance. I hate sewing. I lost all love for it during my years of calico
+patching. But I don't mind making the dress for I'm eager for the dance,
+my first masquerade party. I'm hoping for a good time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+DIARY--PLAIN FOR A NIGHT
+
+
+                                                       _February 21._
+
+LAST night was the masquerade. I wore the plain gray dress, apron and
+cape and a white cap on my head. I felt rather like a hypocrite as I
+looked at myself in the glass, but Virginia said it was just the thing
+and certainly would not be duplicated by any other guest.
+
+I was dressed early and started down the stairs, my black mask swinging
+from my hand. As I rounded a curve in the stairway I glanced casually
+down the wide hall. The colored servant had admitted visitors. I looked
+in that direction--the mask fell from my hand and I ran down the steps
+and into the arms of Mother Bab! I couldn't say more than "Oh, oh!" as I
+kissed her over and over. When she got her breath she said happily,
+"Phœbe, you're plain!"
+
+Oh, how it hurt me! I took her and David to a little nook off the
+library where we could be alone and then I had to tell her that I was
+wearing the plain dress and white cap as a masquerade dress. Even when I
+told her I learned to dance and do things she thinks are worldly there
+was no look of pain on her face like the look I brought there as I stood
+before her in a dress she reverenced and told her I wore it in a spirit
+of fun. I'll never get over being sorry for hurting her like that. But
+Mother Bab rallies quickly from every hurt. She soon smiled and said she
+understood. David came to my aid. He assured his mother that they knew I
+could take care of myself and would not do anything really wrong. I
+couldn't thank him for his kindness. I felt suddenly all weepy and
+tearful. But David began to talk on in his old friendly way and tell
+about the home news and about the Big Doctor he had taken Mother Bab to
+see in Philadelphia and how he hoped she would soon be able to see
+perfectly again. While he talked Mother Bab and I had a chance to
+recover a bit. I noted a quick shadow pass over her face as he spoke
+about her eyes--was she less hopeful about them than he was? Had the Big
+Doctor told her something David did not hear? But no! I dismissed the
+thought--Mother Bab could not go blind! She would never be asked to
+suffer that! I soon forgot my troublesome thoughts as she hastened to
+say that perhaps her eyes would improve more quickly than the doctor
+promised. Then she changed the subject--"Now, Phœbe, I hope I didn't
+hurt you about the dress. I guess I looked at you as if I wanted to eat
+you. I love you and wouldn't hurt you for anything."
+
+"Mother Bab!" I gave her a real hug like I used to do when I ran
+barefooted up the hill with some childish perplexity and she helped me.
+"You're an angel! Mother Bab, David, having a good time won't hurt me.
+Our views up home are too narrow. It's all right to expect older people
+to do nothing more exciting than go to Greenwald to the store, to church
+every Sunday, to an occasional quilting or carpet-rag party, and to
+Lancaster to shop several times a year, but the younger generation needs
+other things."
+
+"I guess you mean it can't be Lent all the time for you," she suggested
+with a smile.
+
+"I just knew you'd understand."
+
+Just then Royal began to play and the music floated in to us. It was
+Traumerei. Mother Bab's tired face relaxed as she leaned back to listen
+to the piercingly sweet melody. David looked at me--I knew he was asking
+whether the player was Royal Lee.
+
+"Oh, Davie," Mother Bab said innocently as the music ended, "if only you
+could play like that!"
+
+"If I could," he said half bitterly, "but all I can do is farm. Are you
+coming home this spring?" he asked me, as if to forget the violin and
+its player.
+
+"I don't know. I'll probably stay here until early June. I may go away
+with Virginia for part of the summer."
+
+"Not be home for spring and summer!" he said dismally. "Why, it won't be
+spring without you! We can't go for bird-foot violets or arbutus."
+
+Arbutus--the name called up a host of memories to me. "How I'd like to
+go for arbutus this spring," I told him.
+
+"Then come home in April and I'll take you to Mt. Hope for some."
+
+"Oh, David, will you?"
+
+"I'd love to. We'll drive up."
+
+"I'll come," I promised. "I'll come home for arbutus. Let me know when
+they're out."
+
+"All right. But I think we must go now or we'll miss the train."
+
+"Go?" I echoed. "You're not going home to-night? Can't you stay? Mrs.
+McCrea has vacant rooms. I've been so excited I forgot my manners. Let
+me take you to the sitting-room and introduce you to Mrs. Lee and
+Royal."
+
+"Ach, no," Mother Bab protested. "We can't stay that long. We just
+stopped in to see you."
+
+David looked at his watch. "We must go now. There's a train at
+eight-twenty-one gets to Lancaster at ten-forty-five and we'll get the
+last car out to Greenwald and Phares will meet us and drive us home."
+
+I asked about the home folks as I watched David adjust Mother Bab's
+shawl. He looked older and worried. I suppose he was disappointed
+because the Big Doctor didn't promise a quick cure for Mother Bab's
+eyes.
+
+As they said good-bye and left me I wanted to run after them and ask
+them to take me home, back to the simple life of my people. But I stayed
+where I was, the earthiest worldling in a dress of unworldliness.
+
+"I--I believe I'll take it off," I thought as I stood in the doorway.
+
+Just then Royal opened the door and saw me. "Ye Gods!" he exclaimed,
+"you look like a saint, Phœbe."
+
+"But I'm not! I'm far from being a saint!"
+
+"Don't be one, please. If you turn saint I shall be disconsolate. I
+don't like saints of women and I want to keep on liking you, little
+Bluebird. Remember, you promised me the first dance."
+
+"I don't know--I don't feel like dancing."
+
+"Oh, but you must! You look like a Quakeress but no one expects you to
+act like one to-night. I'm going up to dress--I'm going as a monk to
+match you."
+
+He ran off, laughing, and I went in search of Virginia. My heart was
+heavy. The sudden appearance of Mother Bab and David brought me a vivid
+impression of the contrast between their lives and mine and the thoughts
+left me worried and restless. What was I doing? Was I shaping my life in
+such a way that it would never again fit into the simple grooves of
+country life? The dance lost its charm for me. I danced and made merry
+and tried to enter into the gay spirit of the occasion but I longed all
+the time to be with Mother Bab and David riding to Lancaster County.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+DIARY--DECLARATIONS
+
+
+                                                          _March 22._
+
+SPRING is here but I'd never know it if I didn't read the calendar. I
+haven't seen a robin or heard a song-sparrow. Just the same, I've had a
+wonderful time these past weeks. Of course my music gets first
+attention. I'm getting on well, though I'm beginning to see what a long,
+long time it will take before I become a great singer. Since I have
+heard really great singers I wonder whether I was not too presumptuous
+when I thought I might be one some day. I went to several big churches
+lately and heard fine music.
+
+I thought Lent would be a dull season but it's been gay enough for me.
+There has been unusual activity, Virginia says, because of so many
+charitable affairs held for the benefit of the war sufferers.
+
+I bought a new spring hat, a dream. Hope Aunt Maria never asks me what I
+paid for it. After wearing Greenwald hats all my life this one was
+coming to me.
+
+But my thoughts are not all of frivolous matters. I have taken advantage
+of some of the opportunities Philadelphia offers to improve my mind and
+broaden my vision. I've been to lectures and plays and enjoyed them all.
+
+I asked Royal to-day why he never worked. He laughed and said I was an
+inquisitive Bluebird. Then he told me his parents left him enough money
+to live without working. He never did a solid hour's real work in his
+whole life. With his talent and his personal attractions he might become
+a famous musician if he had some odds to fight against or some person to
+encourage him and make him do his best. He said he knows he never
+developed his talent to the full extent but that since he knows me he is
+playing better than he did before. I wonder if I really am an
+inspiration to him. I suppose a genius does need a wife or sympathetic
+friend to bring out the best in him. He has been so lovely, showing his
+fondness for me in many ways, but he has never said anything sentimental
+like he did the day we sat by the fire. Sometimes he does say ambiguous
+things that I can't understand. He is surely giving me a long time to
+think it over. I like him but I'm afraid he's cynical, and it worries
+me.
+
+There are other things, too, to dim the blue these days. War clouds are
+threatening. U-boats of Germany are sinking our vessels. Where will it
+all end?
+
+
+                                                           _April 7._
+
+War has been declared. America is in it at last. I came home to-day
+feeling disheartened and sad. War was the topic everywhere I went.
+Papers, bulletin-boards flaunted the words, "The world must be made safe
+for democracy." People on the streets and in cars spoke about it,
+newsboys yelled till they were hoarse.
+
+I stopped to see Virginia but she was out. Royal said he'd entertain me
+till she returned. He laughed at my tragic weariness about the war.
+
+"I'll tell you, Bluebird," he whispered as he sat beside me, "we'll talk
+of something better. I love you."
+
+The fire in his eyes frightened me. I couldn't look at him. "Why do you
+say such things?" I asked, and I couldn't keep my voice from trembling.
+
+That didn't hush him--he said some more. He told me how he loves me, how
+he waited for me all his life and wants me with him. He quoted the verse
+I like so much, "Thou beside me singing in the wilderness--O wilderness
+were Paradise enow!" Then he asked me frankly if I loved him.
+
+I couldn't answer right away. Now that the thing I had dreamed of was
+actually happening I was dazed and stupid and sat like a bump-on-a-log.
+
+He asked me again and before I knew what he was doing he had taken me
+into his arms and kissed me. "Say you love me," he pleaded.
+
+I said what he wanted to hear and he kissed me again. We were both very
+happy. It is almost too wonderful to believe!
+
+A few minutes later we heard Virginia enter the hall and we came back to
+earth. I know my cheeks still burned but Royal's ready poise served him
+well. He told his cousin he had been trying to make me forget about the
+war.
+
+Virginia probably thought my excitement was due to the war. She began at
+once to speak about it. "America is in it and we can't forget it. Every
+true American must help."
+
+"Do your bit, knit," chanted the musician.
+
+She asked him if he is going to do his bit. He flushed and looked vexed,
+then explained that he can neither knit nor fight, that he is a
+musician.
+
+Virginia argued that if he could play a violin he could learn to play a
+bugle, that many of the men who will fight for the flag are men who have
+never been taught to fight. She spoke as if she thought Royal should
+enlist in some branch of government service at once.
+
+I resented her words. "Do you want Royal to go to war and be killed?" I
+asked her.
+
+"My dear," she said solemnly, "have you ever heard that there is such a
+thing as losing one's life by trying to save it?"
+
+That startled me. I realized then that the war is going to be a very
+serious matter, that there will be work for each one of us to do. But
+Royal laughed and made me forget temporarily every solemn, sad thing. He
+told Virginia that she was over-zealous, that she need not worry about
+him. He'd be a true American and give his money to help protect the
+flag. We began to play Bridge then and I thought no more about the war
+for an hour or two.
+
+
+                                                          _April 12._
+
+I have learned to knit. Virginia has taught me and we are elbow-deep in
+gray and khaki wool. I have wound it and purled it and worked on the
+thing till I'm tasting fuzz. But I do want to do the little bit I can to
+help my country. This war _is_ a serious matter. Already people are
+talking about who is going to enlist--what if David would go! I hope he
+won't--yet I don't want him to be a coward. Oh, it's all too confusing
+and terrible to think long about. I try to forget it for a time by
+remembering that Royal Lee cares for me. He has told me over and over
+that he loves me. Love _must_ be blind, for he thinks I am beautiful and
+perfect. I'm glad I look like that to him. We should be happy when we
+are married, for we are so congenial, both loving music and things of
+beauty. It's queer, though, I have thought of it several times--he has
+never mentioned our marriage. I suppose he's too happy in the present to
+make plans for the future. But I know he is a gentleman, therefore his
+words of love are synonymous with an offer of marriage. All that will
+come later. It's enough now just to know we care for each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+DIARY--"THE LINK MUST BREAK AND THE LAMP MUST DIE"
+
+
+                                                          _April 13._
+
+I'M in sackcloth and ashes. My dream castles have tumbled down upon my
+head and left me bruised and sorrowful. I'm awake at last! I'd like to
+bury my face in my old red and green patchwork quilt and ask forgiveness
+for being a fool. But I must compose myself and write this last chapter
+of my romance.
+
+Last night the "Singer with the Voice of Gold" gave a recital in the
+Academy of Music. Royal and I helped to make up a merry box party. I
+felt festive and gay in my lovely white crepe georgette gown. Royal said
+I looked like a dream and that made me radiant, I know.
+
+As we sat down I whispered to him that I was excited because hearing
+that great singer has always been one of my dearest dreams and now the
+dream was coming true. He whispered back that more of my dreams would
+soon come true. I made him hush, for several people were looking at us.
+But his words sent my heart thrilling.
+
+The Academy became quiet as the singer appeared, then the audience gave
+her a real Brotherly Love welcome and settled once more into silence as
+her beautiful voice rose in the place. The operatic selections were
+beautifully rendered. I thought her voice was most captivating in the
+simple songs everybody knows. Annie Laurie had new charm as she sang it.
+When she sang that Royal whispered, "That is what I feel for you." I
+smiled into his eyes, then turned again to look at the singer. Could I
+ever sing like that? Would the dreams of my childhood come true? It
+seemed improbable and yet--I had traveled a long way from the little
+girl of the tight braids and brown gingham dresses, I thought. Perhaps
+the future would bring still more wonderful changes.
+
+The hours in the Academy of Music passed like a beautiful dream. I
+shrank from the last song, though. It was too much like some fatal, dire
+prophecy:
+
+        "The cord is frayed, the cruse is dry,
+         The link must break, and the lamp must die--
+         Good-bye to hope! Good-bye, good-bye!"
+
+I told Royal I didn't like it, it was too much like Cassandra.
+
+He laughed and said she generally sings it, but that it couldn't hurt
+us--was I superstitious?
+
+"No, oh, no," I declared. But I wished I could forget the words of that
+song.
+
+Some of the party decided that a proper ending to the delightful evening
+would be a visit to a fashionable café. I didn't care to go. Royal urged
+me till I consented and I soon found myself in a beautiful place where
+merry groups of people were seated about small tables. Any desire for
+food I might have had left me as I heard Royal and the other men order
+wines and highballs.
+
+"What will you have, Phœbe?" Royal asked me.
+
+I gasped--"Why--nothing."
+
+"Be a sport," he urged, "look around and do as the 'Romans do.'"
+
+I looked around. Some of the women were smoking, others were drinking.
+
+"Oh," I said, "this is dreadful. Let's go."
+
+Royal laughed and the others teased me. One of the girls said I'd be
+doing all those things before the year ended. When I declared I would
+not Royal reminded me that I had said the same about cards and dancing.
+His words silenced me. I felt engulfed in shame and deeply hurt. How
+could Royal be amused at my discomfiture if he loved me! Did he love me?
+Did I want him to? Could I promise to honor and love him all my life?
+But perhaps he was teasing me--ah, that was it! I breathed more easily
+again. Royal was teasing me, sure of my refusal to indulge in any
+intoxicant. The others ate and made merry while I toyed idly with the
+glass of ginger ale the waiter brought me against my wish. I mused and
+dreamed--would Royal like my people? Somehow, he seemed an incongruity
+among the dear ones at the gray farmhouse in Lancaster County. What
+would he say when we ate in the kitchen and daddy came to the table in
+his shirt sleeves? Love can bridge greater chasms than that, I thought.
+When we are married----
+
+"Royal Lee, are you ever going to marry?" The question broke into my
+revery.
+
+I looked at Royal. There was no rise of color in his handsome face. He
+returned my look dispassionately then turned to his teasing, inquisitive
+friend.
+
+"I'm a bachelor forever," he declared. "But that does not keep me from
+loving. Women I care for have too much good sense to think that marriage
+always follows love. Ye Gods, I think love goes when marriage comes, so
+you'll have no chance to see my love interred."
+
+I clenched my hands under the table. I felt my lips go white. How could
+he hurt me so? Of course our love was not a thing to be paraded in a
+public place but if he really cared for me as I thought he did he could
+have answered differently. An evasive answer would have served. An hour
+ago he had whispered tender words to me and now he frankly informed all
+present that he was a bachelor forever. I could not grasp the full
+significance of his words at once. I was dazed by the shock of them. I
+wanted to get away and be alone, to cry, to think, to determine what he
+had meant by his demonstrations of love if he did not hope to win me for
+his wife.
+
+But later, when I went to bed in the pretty blue and white room next
+Virginia's, I did not cry. I lay wide awake thinking over and over, "How
+could he do it? Why is he heartless? Was he only playing?"
+
+When morning came I had partially decided that I had been a ready, silly
+fool; that Royal Lee had merely whiled the hours away more pleasantly
+because of my love. I felt tempted to denounce him but I thought that
+would afford him additional amusement and make me not a whit less
+miserable. I was eager to get away from him. I desired but one little
+moment alone with him to satisfy myself that I did not judge him
+unjustly. Fortunately he came to the sitting-room as I sat there staring
+at the page of a magazine.
+
+"Alone?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Phœbe"--he drew nearer and I rose and stood away from him. "My
+Bluebird! You look unhappy. Are you still shocked at the smoking and
+drinking you saw last night? It's all in the game, you know. Why not be
+happy along with the rest of us, why be a prude?"
+
+I shivered. Couldn't he know why I was unhappy! How false and fickle he
+was! I wouldn't wear my heart on my sleeve for him to read and laugh
+about. All my Metz determination rose in me.
+
+"Why," I lied, "I'm not unhappy. I'm just tired. Late hours don't agree
+with me."
+
+He stretched out his arm but I eluded him. "Don't," I said lightly;
+"we've been foolish long enough."
+
+"Why"--he looked at me keenly. But I was determined he should not read
+my feelings. I smiled in spite of my contempt for him. "Why, Phœbe," he
+said tenderly, "what has changed you? Why shouldn't I kiss you when I
+love you? Love never hurt any one."
+
+"No--but----"
+
+"But what?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, nothing," I said, stepping farther away from him. "I'm in a hurry
+this morning. Good-bye." And for the first time I saw a look of chagrin
+mar the handsome face of Royal Lee. Before he could recover his
+customary equanimity I was gone from the house.
+
+I walked, caring not where the way led. My brain was in a whirl. I felt
+as though I were fleeing from a crumbling precipice. In a flash I
+understood Virginia's tactful attempts at warning. She had tried to make
+me understand but my head was too easily turned by the fine speeches and
+flattering attentions of the musician. I have been vain and foolish but
+I've had my lesson. It still hurts and yet I can see the value of it.
+I'll be better qualified after this to discriminate between the false
+and true.
+
+I am going home to-day! It came to me suddenly as I went back to my
+boarding-house after my long walk. I promised David I'd come home for
+arbutus and the inspiration came to go home for the whole spring and
+summer. I'll write a note to Mr. Krause and one to Virginia. Dear
+Virginia, she has been so good to me and helped me in so many ways! I
+can never thank her enough. These eight months in Philadelphia have been
+a liberal education for me. I'll never regret them. I hope to come back
+in the fall and go on with the music lessons. By that time Royal Lee
+will have found another to make love to.
+
+So I'm going home to-day, back to Lancaster County. The trees are green
+and the flowers are out--oh, I'm wild to get back!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+"HAME'S BEST"
+
+
+LANCASTER COUNTY never before looked so fertile, so lovely, as it did
+that April day when Phœbe returned to it after a long winter in
+Philadelphia.
+
+As she came unexpectedly there was no one to meet her at Greenwald. She
+started across the street and was soon on the dusty road leading to the
+gray farmhouse.
+
+"Let me see," she thought, "this is Friday afternoon and Aunt Maria will
+be scrubbing the kitchen floor."
+
+But when the girl reached the kitchen of the gray house and tiptoed
+gently over the sill she found the big room in order and Aunt Maria
+absent.
+
+"Why," she thought, "is Aunt Maria sick?" She opened the door to the
+sitting-room and there, seated by a window, was Aunt Maria with a ball
+of gray wool in her lap and five steel knitting needles plying in her
+hands.
+
+"Aunt Maria!"
+
+"Why, Phœbe!"
+
+The exclamations came simultaneously.
+
+"What in the world are you doing? I mean why aren't you cleaning the
+kitchen? Oh, Aunt Maria, you know what I mean! I never saw you sitting
+down early on a Friday afternoon."
+
+Aunt Maria laughed. "I ain't sick! You can see what I'm doin'; I'm
+knittin'. Ain't you learned to do it yet? I can learn you."
+
+"Why, I know how. But what are you knitting? For the Red Cross?"
+
+"Why not? You think the ladies in Phildelphy are the only ones do that?
+There's a Red Cross in Greenwald and they are askin' all who can to
+help. I used to knit all my own stockings still so I thought I'd pitch
+right in. I let the cleanin' slide a little this week so I could get a
+good start on this once."
+
+The girl gasped and looked at her aunt in wonder. All the days of her
+life she had never known her aunt to "let the cleanin' slide," if the
+physical strength were there to do the work. Aunt Maria was working for
+the Red Cross! While she, who had scorned the country folks and called
+them narrow, had knitted half-heartedly and spent the major part of her
+time in the pursuit of pleasure, the people of the little town and
+surrounding country had been doing real work for humanity.
+
+"I think you're splendid, Aunt Maria, to help the Red Cross," she said
+with enthusiasm.
+
+The woman looked up from her knitting. "Why, how dumb you talk! I guess
+abody wants to help. Them soldiers are fightin' for us. Now you can get
+yourself something to eat. It vonders me, anyhow, why you come home this
+time of the year. You said you'd stay till June."
+
+"I came because I want to be here."
+
+"So. Then I guess you got enough once of the city."
+
+"Yes," said Phœbe, laughing. "But how is everybody?"
+
+"All pretty good. But a lot of boys from round here went a'ready to
+enlist. I ain't for war, but I guess it has to come sometimes. But it's
+hard for them that has boys."
+
+"David?" Phœbe asked. "Has he gone?"
+
+"Ach, no, not him. He's got his mom to take care of."
+
+Phœbe remembered Virginia's words, "We can't get away from it, we're in
+it." The thought of them made her feel depressed. "I'm going to forget
+the war," she thought after a moment, "I'm going to forget it for
+to-morrow and have one perfect day in the mountains hunting arbutus."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+TRAILING ARBUTUS
+
+
+IT was a balmy day in April when Phœbe and David drove over the country
+roads to the mountains where the trailing arbutus grow.
+
+"Spring o' the year," called the meadow-larks in clear, piercing tones.
+
+"It is spring o' the year," said Phœbe. "I know it now. But last week I
+felt sure that the calendar was wrong and I wondered whether God made
+only English sparrows this year; that was all I could see. Then I saw a
+few birds early this week when we went along the Wissahickon for a long
+walk. Oh, no," she said in answer to the unspoken question in his eyes,
+"I did not go alone with a man. In Philadelphia one does not do that. I
+went properly chaperoned by Mrs. Hale. Virginia and Royal and several
+others were in the party. You should have been there; you would have
+enjoyed it for you know so much about birds and flowers. Royal didn't
+know a spring beauty from a bloodroot, and when we heard a song-sparrow
+he said it was a thrush."
+
+David threw back his head and laughed. "Some nature student he must be!
+But it must be fine along the Wissahickon. I have read about it."
+
+"It is fine, but this is finer."
+
+"You better say so!"
+
+"Oh, look, David, the soil is pink!" She pointed to a tilled field whose
+soil was colored a soft old rose color. "I'm always glad to see the pink
+soil."
+
+"So am I. It means that we are getting near the mountains. We'll drive
+over to Hull's tavern and leave the carriage there, then we can go to
+the patch of woods near the tavern where we used to find the great
+beauties, the fine big ones. There's the old tavern now." He pointed to
+a building with a fine background of wooded hills.
+
+Hull's tavern, a rambling structure erected in 1812, is still an
+interesting stopping-place for summer excursionists and travelers
+through that mountainous section of Pennsylvania. Situated on the south
+side of the beautiful South Mountains and overlooking the richest of
+hills, it has long been a popular roadhouse, accommodating many pleasure
+parties and hikers.
+
+Phœbe wandered about on the long porches while David took the horse to
+the stable.
+
+"Now then," he said as he joined her, "give me the lunch box and we'll
+be off."
+
+They walked a short distance in the loamy soil of the mountain road and
+then turned aside and scrambled up a steep bank to a tract of woodland.
+Phœbe sank on her knees in the dry, brown leaves and pushed aside the
+leaves. "There," she cried in triumph a moment later, "I found the first
+one!" She lifted a small cluster of trailing arbutus and gave it to
+David.
+
+"Um-ah," he said, in imitation of a little girl of long ago.
+
+"Little Dutchie," she answered. "But you can't provoke me to-day. I'm
+too happy to be peevish. Come, kneel down, you'll never find arbutus
+when you stand up."
+
+"I'm down," he said as he knelt beside her. "I'd go on my knees to find
+arbutus any day."
+
+"So would I---- Oh, look at this--and this! They are perfect." She
+fairly trembled with joy as she uncovered the waxlike flowers of dainty
+pink and white. "I could bury my nose in them forever."
+
+"They are perfect," agreed the man. "Fancy living where you never saw
+any arbutus or had the joy of picking them."
+
+"I don't want to fancy that, it's too delicious being where they do
+grow. Won't Mother Bab love them?"
+
+"Yes. She'll keep them for days in water. That flower you gave her in
+Philadelphia lasted four days."
+
+"These are better," Phœbe said quickly, anxious to shut out all thoughts
+of the city. Now that she was in the woods again she knew how hungry she
+had been for them. "I am going to pick a bunch of big ones for Mother
+Bab."
+
+"She would like the small ones every whit as much," the man declared.
+
+"Perhaps better," she mused. "She would say they are just as sweet and
+pretty. David, I don't know what I should have done without Mother Bab!
+My life was different, somehow, after she allowed me to adopt her."
+
+"She's great, isn't she?"
+
+"Wonderful! I have many friends, many new ones, many dear ones, but
+there is only one Mother Bab."
+
+The man's hands trembled among the arbutus--did the admiration touch
+Mother Bab's son? Could the dreams of his heart ever come true?
+
+"You know," Phœbe went on, "if I could always have her near me, in the
+same house, I'd be less unworthy of calling her Mother Bab."
+
+It was well that she bent over the dry leaves and blossoms and missed
+the look that flooded the face of the man for a moment. She wanted to be
+with Mother Bab--should he tell her of his love? But the very fact that
+she spoke thus was evidence that she did not love him as he desired. And
+the war must change his most cherished plans for the future, change them
+greatly for a time. If he went and never returned it would be harder for
+her if he went as her lover. As it was he was merely her old comrade and
+friend; he could read from her manner that no deeper feeling had touched
+her--not for him, but he wondered about the musician----
+
+The spell was broken when Phœbe spoke again: "Do you know, Davie, I read
+somewhere that arbutus can't be made to grow anywhere except in its own
+woods, that the most skilful hand of man or woman can't transplant it to
+a garden where the soil is different from its native soil."
+
+"I never heard that before, but I remember that I tried several times
+and failed. I dug up a big box of the soil to make it grow, but it
+lasted several months and died. Let us go along this path and find a
+new bed; we have almost cleaned this one."
+
+"See"--she raised her bunch of flowers--"I didn't take a single root, so
+next year when we come we shall find as many as this year. They are too
+altogether lovely to be exterminated."
+
+They moved about the woods, finding new patches of the fragrant flowers,
+until they declared it would be robbery to take another one.
+
+"Let's eat," she suggested; "I'm hungry as a bear."
+
+"Race you to that big rock," cried David and began to run. Phœbe
+followed through the brush and dry leaves, but the farmer covered the
+distance too quickly for her.
+
+"Now I'm hungry," she said, panting; "I'll eat more than my share of the
+lunch."
+
+She climbed to the top of the boulder and they sat side by side, the
+lunch box resting on David's knees.
+
+"Now anything you want ask for," said he.
+
+"I will not!" She delved into the box and brought out a sandwich. "It's
+mine as much as yours."
+
+"Going in for Woman's Suffrage and Rights and the like?" he asked,
+laughing.
+
+"Ugh," she wrinkled her nose, "don't mention things like that to-day. I
+don't want to hear about war or work or problems or anything but just
+pure joy this day! I earned this perfect day this year. This is to be a
+day of all-joy for us. Have another sandwich? I'm going to--this makes
+only four more left for each. Aunt Maria knew what she was doing when
+she made me take this big box of lunch for just us two. Now, aren't you
+glad that I brought lunch in a box instead of eating our dinner at
+Hull's as you suggested?" she said as she kicked her feet, little girl
+fashion, against the side of the boulder.
+
+"Of course I am glad. I was afraid you might like dinner at the tavern
+better, that is why I suggested it."
+
+"Don't you know me better than that? Why, we can eat in dining-rooms
+three hundred and sixty-four days in every year. This is one day when we
+eat in the birds' dining-room."
+
+"I am enjoying it, Phœbe. It is the first picnic I have had for a long
+time. I can't tell how I'm drinking in the joy of it."
+
+"Now," said Phœbe later, when the last crumb had been taken out of the
+lunch box, "we can pack the arbutus in this box. If you find some damp
+moss I'll arrange them."
+
+She laid the flowers on the cushion of moss, covered them with a few
+damp leaves and closed the box. "That will keep them fresh," she said.
+"Now for our drink of mountain water, then home again."
+
+Farther in the woods they found the spring. In a little cove edged with
+laurel bushes and overhung with chestnut trees and tall oaks it sent up
+a bubbling fountain of cold water.
+
+"I'm sorry the picnic is over," said Phœbe as she leaned over the clear
+water and drank the cold draught.
+
+"There is still the lovely drive home," he consoled her.
+
+"Yes," she said as they turned and walked back through the woods to the
+road again, "and I shall remember this day for a long time. In the
+spring it's dreadful to be shut in the city."
+
+"I believe you are growing tired of Philadelphia."
+
+"Yes and no. I love the many things to do and see there, but on a day
+like this I think the country is the place to really enjoy the spring. I
+wish you could come down some time to the city; there are many places of
+interest you would like to visit."
+
+"Yes." He opened his lips to tell her that he was soon to be in the
+service of his country, then he remembered that she had said she did not
+want to hear the word war on that day, it must be a day of all joy, so
+he closed his mouth resolutely and merely smiled in answer as she
+entered the carriage for the ride home. They spoke of many things; she
+was gay with the childish happiness she always felt in the woods or open
+country roads. He answered her gaiety, but his heart ached. What did the
+future hold for him? Would she, perchance, love another before he could
+return--would he return?
+
+"Look," Phœbe said after they had driven several miles, "it is going to
+storm--see how dark! We are going to have an April storm."
+
+Even as they looked up black clouds moved swiftly across the sky. They
+turned and looked toward the mountains behind them--the summits were
+shrouded in dense blackness; the whole countryside was being enveloped
+in a gloom like the gloom of late twilight. There was an ominous silence
+in the air, living things of the fields and woods scurried to shelter;
+only a solitary red-headed woodpecker tapped noisily upon a dead tree
+trunk.
+
+Suddenly sharp flashes of lightning darted in zigzag rays through the
+gloom.
+
+Phœbe gripped the side of the carriage. "The storm is following us," she
+said. "Look at the hills--they are black as night. Can we get home
+before the storm breaks over us?"
+
+"Hardly. It travels faster than we can, and we still have four more
+miles to go."
+
+The horse sniffed the air through inflated nostrils and sped unbidden
+over the country road. The lightning grew more vivid and blinding and
+darted among the hills with greater frequency; loud peals of thunder
+echoed and reëchoed among the mountains. Then the rain came. In great
+splashes, which increased rapidly, it poured its cool torrents upon the
+earth.
+
+Phœbe laughed but David shook his head. "We'll have to stop some place
+till it's over. You're getting wet. I'll drive in this barnyard."
+
+Amid the deafening crashes of thunder and the steady downpour of rain
+they ran through the barnyard and up the path that led to the house. As
+they stepped upon the porch a door was opened and a woman appeared.
+
+"Why, come right in!" she greeted them. "This is a bad storm."
+
+"If you don't mind," Phœbe began, but the woman was talkative and broke
+in, "Now, I just knowed there'd be company come to-day yet! This after
+when I dried the dishes I dropped a knife and fork and that's a sure
+sign. Mebbe you don't believe in signs?"
+
+"They come true sometimes," said Phœbe.
+
+"Ach, yes, my granny used to plant her garden by the signs in the
+almanac. Cabbage, now, must be planted in the up-sign. But mebbe you're
+hungry after your drive? I'll get some cake."
+
+"We had lunch----"
+
+"Ach, if your man's like mine he can eat cake any time." She opened a
+door that led to the cellar and soon returned with a plate piled high
+with cake. "Now eat," she invited. "But, ach, I just thought of it--you
+said you come from Greenwald--then I guess you know about Caleb Warner
+dying, killing himself, or something."
+
+"Caleb Warner dying!" David echoed. He half started from his chair, then
+sank with a visible effort at self-control.
+
+"Yes. I guess you know him. My mister was in to dinner a while ago and
+he said it went over the 'phone at Risser's and Jacob Risser told him
+that Caleb Warner of Greenwald was dead. It was from gas or something
+funny like that. It's the Warner that sold that oil stock and gold
+stock. You know him?"
+
+David nodded, his lips dry.
+
+"Well, I guess now a lot of people will lose money. There's a lady lives
+near here that gave him almost all her money for some of his stock. For
+a while she got big interest from it, but then it stopped and now she
+ain't got hardly enough money to live. And I guess a lot will lose
+money. My mister had no time for that stock. But if the man's dead now
+we should let him rest, I guess."
+
+"Yes----" David braced himself. "The rain is over. Phœbe, we must go."
+
+He smiled to the little woman as he gripped her hand. "You have been
+very kind to us and we appreciate it."
+
+"Yes, indeed," echoed Phœbe. "I hope we have not kept you from your
+work."
+
+"Ach, I can work enough to-day yet. I like company and I don't have much
+of it week-days. Um, ain't it good smelly after the rain?" She sniffed,
+smiling, as she followed Phœbe and David down the path to the barnyard.
+
+"Good-bye," she called as they drove off. "Safe home."
+
+"Thank you. Good-bye," Phœbe called over the side of the carriage. Then,
+as they entered again upon the country road, she turned to her place
+beside David.
+
+She looked up at him. All the light and joy had faded from his face; he
+stared straight head, though he must have felt her eyes' intent gaze
+upon him.
+
+"David," she said softly, "what is wrong?"
+
+"Nothing," he lied.
+
+"Seems you look different," she persisted. "Is it anything about Caleb
+Warner's death?"
+
+"I'm not much of a stoic, Phœbe. I should have hidden my worry. But you
+must forget it; we must not let it spoil our perfect day. It really is
+no great matter. I am affected, in some way you can't know, by his
+death, but I'll get over it," he tried to treat the matter lightly.
+
+But Phœbe felt a sudden heaviness of heart. She was almost certain that
+David had had no money to buy any stock from Caleb Warner, therefore,
+she jumped to the conclusion, it must be that David cared for Mary
+Warner, as town gossip said he did, and that the death of the girl's
+father would affect him. She felt hurt and baffled and sorely rebuffed
+at the withholding of David's confidence and was worried as she saw the
+marks of worry in the face of the man. Womanlike, she felt certain that
+the other girl was not good enough for David. Mary Warner, beautiful,
+aristocratic in bearing and manner--what had she to do with a man like
+David Eby! Was an incipient engagement with Mary Warner the Aladdin's
+lamp David had mentioned several times as being on the verge of rubbing
+and thus become rich? The thought left her trembling; she shivered in
+the April sunshine. When David spoke it was with an abstracted manner,
+and the girl beside him finally said, "Oh, don't let us talk. Let us
+just sit and look at the fields and enjoy the scenery."
+
+She said it calmly enough, but the man beside her could not know that it
+required the last shreds of her courage to keep her voice from breaking.
+She would not let David see that she cared if he did care for Mary
+Warner! Of course, she didn't want to marry him, it was merely that she
+knew Mary was too haughty for him. Mother Bab would also say that he was
+too different from Mary, that he was too fine for her. Then she
+remembered that Mother Bab had said on the previous evening that the
+Warners had taken David to Hershey recently in their fine new car. She
+shook herself in an effort at self-control. "Phœbe," she thought,
+"you're selfish! You go to Philadelphia and you go out with Royal Lee
+and dance with other young men, and yet, when David pays attention to
+another girl you have a spasm!"
+
+But the self-administered discipline failed to correct her attitude. She
+knew their day of all-joy was changed for her as it had been changed for
+David. The jealousy in her heart could not be quite overcome. She was
+glad when they reached familiar fields and were on the road near
+Greenwald.
+
+"Will you come in?" she invited as she left the carriage.
+
+"No. I better go right home."
+
+"I'll divide the flowers, David."
+
+"Oh, keep them all."
+
+"No, indeed. Mother Bab would be disappointed if you brought her none."
+
+She opened the box, separated half of the arbutus from their mates and
+laid them in the uplifted corner of her coat. "There," she said, "the
+rest are yours and Mother Bab's. It was perfect in the woods to-day.
+Thank you----"
+
+But he interrupted her. "It is I who must say that, Phœbe! This has been
+a great day. I'll never forget the glorious hour when we were on our
+knees and pushed away the leaves and found the arbutus. That is
+something to take with one, to remember when the days are not perfect as
+this one."
+
+He laid his fingers a moment on her hand as she held the corner of her
+coat to keep the flowers from falling, then he turned and jumped into
+the carriage.
+
+"Give my love to Mother Bab," she said.
+
+He turned, smiled and nodded, then started off. Phœbe stood at the gate
+and watched the carriage as it went slowly up the steep road by the
+hill. Her thoughts were with the man who was going home to his mother,
+going with trailing arbutus in his hands and some great unhappiness in
+his heart.
+
+"Is it always so?" she thought. "We carry fragrance in our hands, but
+what in our hearts?" For the time she was once more the old sympathetic,
+natural Phœbe, eager to help her friend in need, feeling the divine
+longing to comfort one who was miserable. "Oh, Davie, Davie," she
+thought as she went into the house, "I wish I could help you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+MOTHER BAB AND HER SON
+
+
+WHEN David drove over the brow of the hill and down the green lane to
+the little house he called home he caught sight of his mother in her
+garden. He whistled. At the sound Mother Bab rose from the soft earth in
+which she was working and straightened, smiling. She raised a hand to
+shade her eyes and waited for the coming of her boy, dreaming of a
+possible separation from him, dreaming long mother-dreams while he took
+the horse and carriage to the barn.
+
+When he returned he had mustered all his courage and was smiling--he
+would be a stoic as long as he could, but he knew that his mother would
+soon discover that all was not well with him.
+
+"Here, mother." He gave her the box of arbutus.
+
+"Then you got some, Davie!" She buried her face in the cool, sweet
+blossoms. "Oh, how sweet they are! Did you and Phœbe have a good time?
+Did she enjoy it as much as she always used to enjoy a day in the
+woods?"
+
+She looked up suddenly from the flowers and caught him unawares. "What
+is wrong?" she asked with real concern. "Did you and Phœbe fall out?"
+
+"No," he shook his head. He knew that attempts at subterfuge and evasion
+would be vain. "No, mommie, no use trying to deceive you any longer--I
+fell out with myself--I wish I could keep it from you," he added slowly;
+"I know it's going to hurt you."
+
+"You tell me, Davie. I've lived sixty years and never yet met a trouble
+I couldn't live through. Tell me about it."
+
+She placed the box of arbutus in the garden path and laid her hand on
+his arm.
+
+"Oh, mommie," he blurted out, almost sobbing, "I'm ashamed of myself!
+You'll be ashamed of your boy."
+
+"It's no girl----" the mother hesitated.
+
+He answered with a vehement, "No!"
+
+"Then tell me," she said softly. "I can look in your eyes and hear you
+tell me most anything so long as you need not tell me that you have
+broken the heart or spoiled the soul of a girl."
+
+She spoke gently, but the man cried out, "Thank God, I have nothing like
+that to confess! You know there is only one girl for me. I could never
+look into her eyes if I had betrayed the trust of any girl. I have
+dreamed of growing into a man she could love and marry, but I failed. I
+wanted to offer her more than slavery on a farm, I wanted to have
+something more than the few hundreds I scraped together. I took the five
+hundred dollars we skimped for and bought stock of Caleb Warner--you
+heard that he died?"
+
+"Phares told me."
+
+"I guess the five hundred dollars is gone with him! I heard of other
+men getting rich by buying gold and oil stock so I took a chance and
+staked all the spare money I had."
+
+"It was your money, Davie."
+
+"You called it mine, but you helped to earn and save it. Caleb promised
+me he would sell half of the stock for me at a great profit in a week or
+two, and I could keep the other half for the big dividends it would pay
+me soon--now he's dead, and the stock is probably worthless."
+
+He looked miserably at her troubled face. She flung her arm about him
+and led him to a seat under the budded cherry tree. "We must sit down
+and talk it over," she said. "Perhaps it isn't so bad as you think. Are
+you sure the stock is worth nothing? Perhaps you can get something out
+of it."
+
+"Perhaps I can." He brightened at the suggestion.
+
+"Well," she went on, "I can't say that I think you did right to buy the
+stock and try to get rich quick. You know that money gotten that way is
+tainted money, more or less. To earn what you have and have a little is
+better and safer than to have much and get it in such a way. But it's
+too late to preach about that now--I guess I didn't tell you that often
+enough and hard enough before this, or else you wouldn't have wanted to
+buy the stock. It is partly my fault, for I thought some time ago you
+talked as though you were getting the money craze, but I thought it
+would soon wear off. You did a foolish thing, but there's no use crying
+about it. You see you did wrong and are sorry, so that is all there is
+to it. I'm not sorry you lost on the stock, for if you made on it the
+craze would go deeper. I can live without the few extra things that
+money would buy."
+
+"Don't be so forgiving, mother! Scold me! I'd feel less like a criminal.
+But here comes Phares; he'll give me the scolding you're saving me."
+
+The preacher crossed the lawn and advanced to the seat under the cherry
+tree.
+
+"Aunt Barbara," he began, then noted the troubled look on the face of
+David and asked, "What is wrong?"
+
+"Nothing," said David, "except that I have some of Caleb Warner's
+stock."
+
+"You do? Whatever made you buy that?"
+
+David spoke as calmly as possible. "I wanted to be rich, that's all. But
+I guess I was never intended to be that."
+
+"I'm afraid you are going to be sorry," said the preacher very soberly.
+"I just came from town and they say things look bad for the investors.
+They said first that Warner was asphyxiated accidentally, but he was so
+deep in a hole with investing and re-investing other people's money and
+his own and he had lost so much that people think this was the easiest
+way out of it all for him. I suppose it will be hushed up and no one
+will ever know just how he died. There are at least twenty people in
+town and farms near here who are worried about their money since he
+died. Did you have much stock?"
+
+"Five hundred dollars' worth."
+
+"If people were as eager to lay up treasures in heaven----" the preacher
+said thoughtfully.
+
+"If they were," said David, struggling to keep the wrath from his words
+and voice. "I know, Phares, you can't understand why everybody should
+not be as good as you. I wish I were--mother should have had a son like
+you. I'm the black sheep of the Eby family, I suppose."
+
+"No, no!" cried Mother Bab. "We all make mistakes! You are good and
+noble, David. I am proud of you, even if you do err sometimes."
+
+"We must make the best of it," said the preacher. "Perhaps the stock is
+not quite worthless. If I were you I'd go to the lawyer in Lancaster.
+He'll see you at his house if you 'phone in."
+
+"Mighty good to think of that for me," said David, gripping the hand of
+his cousin. "I'll go in to-night."
+
+Several hours later David Eby sat before a lawyer and waited for the
+verdict. "I'm sorry," the lawyer shook his head. "The stock is
+worthless. Six months ago you might have sold it; now it's dead as a
+door-nail."
+
+"Guess it was a wildcat scheme," said David.
+
+A few minutes later he went out to the street. His Aladdin's lamp was
+smashed! What a fool he had been!
+
+When he reached home Mother Bab read the news in his face. "Never mind,"
+she said bravely, "we'll get along without that money."
+
+"Yes--but"--David spoke slowly, as if fearing to hurt her further--"I
+hoped to have a nice bank account for you to draw on when--when I go."
+
+"You mean----" Mother Bab stopped suddenly. Something choked her, but
+she faced him squarely and looked up into his face.
+
+"Yes, mother, I mean that I must go. You want me to go, don't you?"
+
+"Yes." The word came slowly, but David knew how truly she felt it. "You
+must go. I knew it right away when I saw that we were called of God to
+help in the fight for world peace and righteousness. You must go; there
+is nothing to keep you. Phares will look after the little farm. I spoke
+to him about it last week----"
+
+"Mother, you knew then!"
+
+"I saw it in your face as soon as war was declared. Phares was lovely
+about it and said he could just as well take your few acres in with his
+and pay a percentage to me for the crops he'll get from them. Phares is
+kind; he has a big heart, for all his queer ways and his strict views."
+
+"Phares is too good to be related to me, mommie. I'm ashamed of myself."
+
+"Ach, you two are just different, that's all. I can go over and stay at
+their house. Did you tell Phœbe you are going?"
+
+He shook his head. "I couldn't tell her yesterday. We had such a great
+day in the woods finding the arbutus, eating our lunch on a rock and
+acting just like we used to when we were ten years younger. She never
+mentioned war and I could not seem to break into that day of gladness
+to speak about the subject. I meant to tell her all about it when we got
+home, but then that storm came up and we stopped at a farmhouse and I
+heard about Caleb Warner. It struck me so hard I was just no good after
+that. I'll be a dandy soldier, won't I?"
+
+He laughed and took the little woman in his arms. When, some moments
+later, he held the white-capped mother at arms' length and smiled into
+her face neither knew if the wet lashes were caused by laughter or
+tears.
+
+"Some soldier you'll make," she said as she looked at him, tall, broad
+of shoulder, straight of spine. "Some soldier or sailor you'll make!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+PREPARATIONS
+
+
+THE days following the death of Caleb Warner were days of anxiety to
+other inhabitants of the little town who, like David, had purchased
+stock with glorious visions of sudden gain. In a short time the list of
+Warner's unfortunate investors was known and they were accorded various
+degrees of sympathy, rebuke or ridicule. The thing that hurt David was
+not so much the knowledge that some were speaking of him in condemnation
+or pity as the fact that he merited the condemnation.
+
+But he had neither time nor inclination for self-pity. His country was
+calling for his services and he knew his duty was to offer himself. He
+could not conscientiously say his mother had urgent need of him for he
+knew that the little farm would supply enough for her maintenance.
+
+Phares Eby, although a preacher among a sect who, as a sect, could not
+sanction the bearing of arms, accepted the decision of his cousin with
+no show of disapproval. "I don't believe in wars," he said gravely, "but
+there seems to be no other way this time. One of the Eby family should
+go. I'll be glad to keep up your farm and help look after your mother
+while you are gone. The most I can do here will be less than you are
+going to do, but I'll raise the best crops I can and help in the food
+end of it."
+
+"You'll do your part here, Phares, and it will count. You're a bona-fide
+farmer. You'll have our little place a record farm when I get back.
+You're a brick, Phares!" For the first time in months he felt a genuine
+affection for his preacher cousin. Preaching, prosaic Phares, how kind
+he was!
+
+Lancaster County measured up to its fair standard in those first trying
+days of recruit gathering. The sons of the nation answered when she
+called. Pennsylvania Dutch, hundreds of them, rallied round the flag and
+proved beyond a doubt that the real Pennsylvania Dutch are not
+German-American, but loyal, four-square Americans who are keeping the
+faith. Two hundred years ago the ancestors of the present Pennsylvania
+Dutch came to this country to escape tyranny, and the love of freedom
+has been transmitted from one generation to another. The plain sects, so
+flourishing in some portions of the Keystone State, consider war an
+evil, yet scores of men in navy blue and army khaki have come from homes
+where the mother wears the white cap, and have gone forth to do their
+part in the struggle for world freedom.
+
+As David Eby measured the days before his departure he felt grateful to
+Mother Bab for refraining from long homilies of advice. Her whole life
+was a living epistle of truth and nobility and she was wise enough to
+discern that what her son wanted most in their last days together was
+her customary cheerfulness--although he knew that at times the
+cheerfulness was a bit bluffed!
+
+News travels fast, even in rural communities. The people on the Metz
+farm soon learned of David's loss of money and of his desire to enter
+the navy.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me about the stock?" Phœbe chided him.
+
+"I couldn't. It knocked me out--it changed some of my plans. I knew
+you'd despise me and I couldn't stand that too that day."
+
+"Despise you! How foolish to think that. Of course it's better to earn
+your money, but I think you learned your lesson."
+
+"I have. I'll never try to get rich quick."
+
+"And you're going to war!" The words were almost a cry. "What does
+Mother Bab say? How dreadful for her!"
+
+"Dreadful?" he asked gently. "Phœbe, think a minute--would you rather be
+the mother of a soldier or sailor than the mother of a slacker?"
+
+"I would," she cried. "A thousand times rather!" She clutched his sleeve
+in her old impetuous manner. "I see now what it means, what war must
+mean to us! We must serve and be glad to do it. Your going is making it
+real for me. I'm proud of you and I know Mother Bab must be just about
+bursting with pride, for she always did think you are the grandest son
+in the wide world."
+
+"Phœbe, you always stroke me with the grain."
+
+"That sounds as if you were a wooden pussy-cat," she said merrily. "But
+you are just being funny to hide your deeper feelings. I know you,
+David Eby! Bet your heart's like lead this minute!"
+
+"'I have no heart,'" he quoted. "'The place where my heart was you could
+roll a turnip in.'"
+
+She laughed, then suddenly grew sober. "I've been horribly selfish," she
+said. "Having fine clothes and a good time and dreaming of fame through
+my voice have taken all my time during the past winter. I have taken
+only the husks of life and discarded the kernels. I'm ashamed of
+myself."
+
+"You mustn't condemn yourself too much. It's natural to pass through a
+period when those things seem the greatest things in the world, but if
+we do not shake off their influence and see the need of having real
+things to lay hold on we need to be jolted. I was money-mad, but I had
+my jolt."
+
+"Then we can both make a fresh beginning. And we'll try hard to be
+worthy of Mother Bab, won't we, David?"
+
+David was mute; he could merely nod his head in answer. Worthy of Mother
+Bab--what a goal! How sweet the name sounded from Phœbe's lips! Should
+he tell her of his love for her? He looked into her face. Her eyes were
+like clear blue pools but they mirrored only sisterly affection, he
+thought. Ah, well, he would be unselfish enough to go away without
+telling of the hope of his heart. If he came back there would be ample
+time to tell her; it was needless to bind her to a long-absent lover. If
+he came back crippled--if he never came back at all---- Oh, why delve
+into the future!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE FEAST OF ROSES
+
+
+IN the little town of Greenwald there is performed each year in June an
+interesting ceremony, the Feast of Roses.
+
+The origin of it dates back to the early colonial days when wigwam fires
+blazed in many clearings of this great land and Indians, fashioned after
+the similitude of bronze images, stole among the stalwart trees of the
+primeval forests. In those days, about the year 1762, a tract of land
+containing the present site of the little town of Greenwald fell into
+the hands of a German, who was so charmed by the fertility and beauty of
+the fields encircled by the winding Chicques Creek that he laid out a
+town and proceeded to build. The erection of those early houses entailed
+much labor. Bricks were imported from England and hauled from
+Philadelphia to the new town, a distance of almost one hundred miles.
+
+Some time later the founder built a glass factory in the new town,
+reputed to have been the first of its kind in America. Skilled workmen
+were imported to carry on the work, and marvelously skilful they must
+have been, as is proven by the articles of that glass still extant. It
+is delicately colored, daintily shaped, when touched with metal it
+emits a bell-like ring, and altogether merits the praise accorded it by
+every connoisseur of rare and beautiful glass.
+
+Tradition claims that the founder of that town was of noble birth, but
+his right to a title is not an indisputable fact. It is known, however,
+that he lived in baronial style in his new town. His red brick mansion
+was a treasure house of tapestries, tiles and other beautiful
+furnishings.
+
+However, whether he was a baron or an untitled man, he merits a share of
+admiration. He was founder of a glass factory, builder of a town,
+founder of iron works, religious and secular instructor of his employees
+and citizens, and earnest philanthropist.
+
+The last rôle resulted in his financial embarrassment. There is an
+ominous silence in the story of his life, then comes the information
+that the man who had done so much for others was left at last to
+languish in a debtors' jail, die unbefriended and be buried in an
+unknown grave.
+
+In the days of his prosperity he gave to the congregation of the
+Lutheran Church in his town a choice plot of ground, the consideration
+being the sum of five shillings and an annual rental of one red rose in
+June.
+
+Years passed, the man died, and either through forgetfulness or
+negligence the annual rental of one red rose was unpaid for many years.
+Then, one day a layman of the church found the old deed and the people
+prepared to pay the long-neglected debt once more. Since that renewal
+there is set apart each June a Sabbath day upon which the rose is paid
+to the nearest descendant of the founder of the town. They give but one
+red rose, but all around are roses, roses, and it seems most fitting to
+call the unique occurrence the Feast of Roses.
+
+If ever the little town puts on royal garb it is on the Feast of Roses
+Sabbath. For days before the ceremony the homes of Greenwald are
+beehives of industry. That day each train and trolley, every country
+road, is crowded with strangers or old acquaintances coming into the
+town. A heterogeneous crowd swarms through the street. The curious
+visitor who comes to see, the dreamer who is attracted by the romance of
+the rose, the careless youth who rubs his sleeve against some portly
+judge or senator; the tawdry, the refined, the rich, the poor--all meet
+in the crowd that moves to the red brick church in which the Feast of
+Roses is held.
+
+The old church of that early day has been removed and in its place a
+modern one has been erected, but by some happy inspiration of the
+builders the new church is devoid of the garish ornamentation that is
+too often found in churches. Harmonious coloring, artistic beauty, make
+it a fitting place for a Feast of Roses.
+
+When Phœbe Metz entered the church to keep her promise to sing at the
+service she found an eager crowd waiting for the opening. Every
+available space was occupied; people stood in the rear aisles, others
+waited in the churchyard by the open windows and hoped to catch there
+some stray parts of the service.
+
+Phœbe pushed her way gently through the crowd at the door and stood in
+the aisle until an usher saw her and directed her to a seat near the
+organ. The pink in her cheeks grew deeper. "I'll sing my best for
+Greenwald and the Feast of Roses," she thought. "And for David! He's in
+the crowd. He said he's coming to hear me sing."
+
+At the appointed hour the pipe-organ pealed out. The June sunlight
+streamed through the open windows, fell upon the banks of roses, and
+gleamed upon the fountain that played in the midst of the crimson
+flowers. Peace brooded over the place as the last strains of music died.
+There was silence for a moment, then a prayer, a hymn of adoration, and
+then the chosen speaker stood before the crowd and delivered his
+message.
+
+Phœbe listened to him until he uttered the words, "True life must be
+service, true love must be giving. No man has reached true greatness
+save he serves, and he who serves most faithfully is greatest in the
+kingdom."
+
+After those words she fell to thinking. Many things that had been dark
+to her suddenly became light. She seemed to see Royal Lee fiddling while
+the world was in travail, but beside him rose a vision of David in
+sailor's blue, ready to do his whole duty for his country.
+
+"Oh," she thought, "I've been blind, but now I see! It's David I want.
+He's a man!"
+
+She heard as in a dream the words of the one who presented the red rose
+to the heir. "Once more the time has come to pay our debt of one red
+rose. It is with cheerfulness and reverence we pay our rental. Amid
+these bright surroundings, in the presence of the many who have come to
+witness this unique ceremony, do we give to you in partial payment of
+the debt we owe--ONE RED ROSE."
+
+The heir received the flower and expressed her appreciation. Then
+silence settled upon the place and Phœbe rose to sing.
+
+As the organ sent forth the opening strains of music the people in the
+church looked at each other, surprised, disappointed. Why, that was the
+old tune, "Jesus, Lover of my soul." The tune they had heard sung
+hundreds of times--was Phœbe going to sing that? With so many impressive
+selections to choose from no soloist need sing that old hymn! Some of
+the town people thought disdainfully, "Was that all she could sing after
+a whole winter's study in Philadelphia!"
+
+But Phœbe sang the old words to the old tune. She sang them with a new
+power and sweetness. It touched the listeners in that rose-scented
+church and revealed to them the meaning of the old hymn. The dependence
+upon a divine guide, the utter impotence of mortal strength, breathed so
+persuasively in the second verse that many who heard Phœbe sing it
+mentally repeated the words with her.
+
+        "Other refuge have I none,
+           Hangs my helpless soul on Thee:
+         Leave, ah! leave me not alone,
+           Still support and comfort me;
+         All my trust on Thee is stayed;
+           All my help from Thee I bring;
+         Cover my defenceless head
+           With the shadow of Thy wing."
+
+Then the hymn changed--hope displaced hopelessness, faith surmounted
+fear.
+
+        "Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
+           Grace to cleanse from every sin;
+         Let the healing streams abound,
+           Make and keep me pure within;
+         Thou of life the fountain art,
+           Freely let me take of Thee:
+         Spring Thou up within my heart,
+           Rise to all eternity."
+
+The people in that rose-scented church heard the old hymn sung as they
+had never heard it sung before. A subdued hum of approval swept over the
+church as the girl sat down. She felt that she had sung well; her heart
+was in a tumult of happiness. She was glad when one man rose and lifted
+his hands in benediction.
+
+Again the organ throbbed with glad melodies. The eager crowd fell into
+line and walked slowly to the altar to lay their roses there. Children
+with half withered blossoms, maidens with bunches of crimson flowers,
+here and there a stranger with gorgeous hot-house roses, older men and
+women with the products of the gardens of the little town--all moved to
+the spot where lay a bank of fragrant roses and placed their tributes
+there.
+
+Phœbe added her roses to the others on the altar and left the church.
+Friends and acquaintances stopped to tell her how well she sang. But the
+words that one short year ago would have filled her with overwhelming
+pride in her own talent were soon crowded from her thoughts and there
+reigned there the words of the speaker, "No man has reached true
+greatness save he serves." She had learned great things at that Feast of
+Roses service. She had looked deep into her own heart and on its throne
+she had found David.
+
+He was waiting for her outside the church.
+
+"You sang fine, Phœbe," he told her as they went down the street
+together.
+
+"Yes? I'm glad you liked it."
+
+Then they spoke of other things, of many things, but not one word of the
+thoughts lying deepest in the heart of each.
+
+Aunt Maria and Jacob were eating supper in the big kitchen when Phœbe
+reached home.
+
+"Well," greeted the aunt, "did you come once! We thought that Feast of
+Roses would been out long ago. But when you didn't come for so long and
+supper was made we sat down a while. Did you sing?"
+
+"Yes," the girl said as she removed her hat and gloves and drew a chair
+to the table.
+
+"Now," cautioned the aunt, "put your apron on! That light goods in your
+dress is nothin' for wear; everything shows on it so. And if you spill
+red-beet juice or something on it it'll be spoiled."
+
+"I forgot." Phœbe took a blue gingham apron from a hook behind the
+kitchen door. "There, if I spoil it now you may have it for a rug."
+
+"Well, I guess that would be housekeepin'! And everything so high since
+the war!"
+
+"Tell me about the Feast of Roses," said the father. "Was the church
+full?"
+
+"Packed! It was a beautiful service."
+
+"Well," spoke up Aunt Maria, "I'm glad it's over and so are many people.
+Of course that Feast of Roses don't do no harm, but I think it's so dumb
+to have all this fuss just to give somebody a rose. If that man wanted
+to give the church some land why didn't he give it and done with it?
+It's no use to have this pokin' around every year to find the best red
+rose to give to some man or lady that's related to him. The rose withers
+right away, anyhow. And this Feast of Roses makes some people a lot of
+bother. I heard one woman say in the store that she has to get ready for
+a lot of company still for every person she knows, most, comes to visit
+her that Sunday and she's got to cook and wash dishes all day. I guess
+she's glad it's over for another year."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+BLINDNESS
+
+
+DAVID EBY had spent the day at Lancaster and returned to Greenwald at
+seven-thirty. He started with springing step out the country road in the
+soft June twilight. It was a twilight pervaded by blended perfumes and
+the sleepy chirp of birds. David drew in deep breaths of the fresh
+country air.
+
+"Lancaster County," he said aloud to himself, "and it's good enough for
+me!"
+
+Scarcely slackening his pace he started up the long road by the hill. He
+paused a moment on the summit and looked back at the town of Greenwald,
+then almost ran down the road to his home.
+
+He whistled his old greeting whistle.
+
+"Here, David, I'm on the porch," came his mother's voice.
+
+"Mommie," he cried gaily as he took her into his arms, "I knew you'd be
+looking for me."
+
+Then for the first time since his father's death he heard his mother
+sob. "Oh, mother," he asked, "is my going away as hard as all that? Or
+are you only glad to see me?"
+
+"Glad," she replied, restraining her emotion. "Sit down on the bench,
+Davie."
+
+"Why--I didn't notice it first--you're wearing dark glasses again! Are
+your eyes worse?"
+
+"Sit down, Davie, sit down," she said nervously. "That's right," she
+added as he sat beside her and put one arm about her.
+
+"Now tell me," he said imperiously. "Are you sure you're all right?
+You're not worrying about me?"
+
+"No, I'm not worrying about you; I quit worrying long ago. But I must
+tell you--I wish I didn't have to--don't be scared--it's just about my
+eyes."
+
+"Tell me! Are they worse?"
+
+She laid her hand on his knees. "Don't get excited--but--I can't see."
+
+"Can't see!" He repeated the words as though he could not understand
+them. Then he put his hands on her cheeks and peered into her face in
+the semi-darkness of the porch. "Not blind? Oh, mommie, not blind?"
+
+She nodded, her lips trembling. "Yes, it's come. I'm blind."
+
+The words, fraught with so much sorrow, sounded like claps of thunder in
+his ears. "Mother," he cried again, "you can't be blind!"
+
+"But I am. I knew it was coming. The light was getting dimmer every day.
+I could hardly see your face this morning when you went."
+
+"And I went away and you stayed here and went blind!" He broke into sobs
+and she allowed him to cry it out as they sat together in the darkness.
+
+"Come," she said at length, "now you mustn't take on so. It's not as
+awful as you think. I said to Phares to-day that I'm almost glad it's
+here, for it was awful to know it's coming."
+
+"But it's awful," he shuddered. "Come in to the light and let me see
+you--but oh, you can't see me!"
+
+"Yes I can." She reached a hand to his face. "This is the way I see you
+now. The same mouth and chin, the same mole on your left cheek--that's
+good luck, Davie--the same nose with its little turn-up."
+
+"Mommie"--he grabbed her hands and kissed them--"there's not another
+like you in the whole world! If I were blind I'd be groaning and moaning
+and making life miserable for everybody near me, and here you are your
+same cheerful self. You're the bravest of 'em all!"
+
+"But you mustn't think that I haven't rebelled against this, that I
+haven't cried out against it! I've had my hours of weakness and tears
+and rebellion."
+
+"And I never knew it."
+
+"No. Each one goes to Gethsemane alone."
+
+"But isn't it almost more than you can bear--to be blind?"
+
+"It's dreadful at first. I stumble so and every little sill and rug
+seems a foot high. But I'll soon learn."
+
+"Is there nothing to do? What did Dr. Munster say about your eyes when
+we were down to see him?"
+
+"He told me then I'd be blind soon. And he said the only thing might
+save my sight or bring it back was a delicate operation that would be a
+big risk, for it probably wouldn't help at any rate. So I'm not
+thinking of ever trying that. Now I don't want you to think I'm brave
+about it. I've cried all my tears a month ago, so don't put me on any
+pedestal. It seems hard not to see the people I love and all the
+beautiful things around me, but I'm glad I have the memory of them. I'm
+glad I know what a rainbow is, and a sunset."
+
+"Yes, but I think it's awful to know what they look like and never see
+them again. I can't, just can't, realize that you're blind!"
+
+"You will when you come back from war and have to fetch and carry for
+me. Your Aunt Mary and Phares are just lovely about it and willing to
+help in every way. I was going to live over with them at any rate."
+
+"I wish I could stay with you, mommie. You need me, but I guess Uncle
+Sam needs me too. I'm to go soon, you know."
+
+"You go, even if I am blind. I'm not helpless. It will be awkward for a
+while but there are many things I can do. I can knit without seeing."
+
+"You're a wonder! But is there no hope?"
+
+"Hope," she repeated softly. "No hope of the kind you mean, except that
+very severe operation that would cost big money and then perhaps not
+help. But this world isn't all. I've always liked that part of Isaiah,
+'The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall
+be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of
+the dumb sing.' I know now what it'll mean to us. It seems like the
+afflicted will have a special joy in that time."
+
+David was silent for a moment; his mother's words stirred in him
+emotions too great for ready words.
+
+Presently she continued, "But, Davie, this isn't heaven yet! And I'm
+concerned just now about helping myself to live the rest of this life
+the best way I can. I can knit like a machine and I like to knit
+socks----"
+
+The remainder was left unsaid for the strong arms of her boy surrounded
+her and held her close while his lips were pressed upon her forehead.
+
+"Such a mother," he breathed, as if the touch of her forehead bestowed a
+benediction upon him. "Such a mother!"
+
+In the morning he brought the news to the Metz farmhouse.
+
+"Blind?" Phœbe cried.
+
+David nodded.
+
+"Blind! Mother Bab blind? Oh, it's too awful!"
+
+"My goodness," Aunt Maria said with genuine sorrow, "now that's too bad!
+Her blind and you goin' off to war soon!"
+
+"I'm going up to see her," said Phœbe, and went off with David.
+
+Mother Bab heard the girl's step and called gaily, "Phœbe, is that you?
+I declare, it sounds like you!"
+
+Phœbe ran to the room where Mother Bab sat alone. The girl could not
+speak at first; she twined her arms about the woman while her heart
+ached with its poignant grief. Again it was the afflicted one who
+turned comforter. "Come, Phœbe, you mustn't cry for me. Laugh like you
+always did when you came to see me."
+
+"Laugh! Oh, Mother Bab, I can't laugh!"
+
+"But, Phœbe, I'll want you to come up to see me every day when you can
+and you surely can't cry every time and be sad, so you might as well
+begin now to be cheerful."
+
+"But, Mother Bab, can't something be done?"
+
+"Dr. Munster, the big doctor I saw in Philadelphia, said that only a big
+operation might help me, but he's not sure that even it would do any
+good. And, of course, we have no money for it and at my age it doesn't
+matter so much."
+
+Later, as Phœbe walked down the hill again, she kept revolving in her
+mind what Mother Bab had said about the operation. An inspiration
+suddenly flashed to her. The wonder of it made her stand still in the
+road.
+
+"I know! I'll buy sight for Mother Bab! I will! I must! If it's only
+money that's necessary, if there's any wonderful doctor can operate on
+her eyes and make her see again she's going to see! Oh, glory! What a
+happy thought! I'm the happiest girl since that idea came to me! The
+money I meant to spend on more music lessons next winter will be put to
+better use; it will give Mother Bab a chance to see again! Why, I'd
+rather have her _see_ than be able to call myself the greatest singer in
+the world! But she'll never let me spend so much money for her. I know
+that. I'll have to make her believe the operation will be free. I can
+fool her in that, dear, innocent, trusting Mother Bab! She'd believe me
+against half the world. But I'm afraid I can't fool David so easily. I
+must wait till he goes, then I'll write to Dr. Munster and start things
+going!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+OFF TO THE NAVY
+
+
+PHÅ’BE was glad when David came to her with the news that he had been
+accepted for the navy and was going to Norfolk.
+
+"That's so far away he won't come home soon," she thought. "It'll give
+me a chance to arrange for the operation. I hope he goes soon. That's a
+dreadful thing to say! The days are all too short for Mother Bab, I
+know."
+
+If the days seemed Mercury-shod to the blind mother she did not
+complain.
+
+"It's hard to let you go," she said to her boy, "but it would be harder
+to see you a slacker. Phœbe is going to read to me now when you go.
+She'll be up here often."
+
+"Yes, that makes it easier for me to go, mommie."
+
+"Don't you worry about me. Phœbe will be good company for me and she'll
+write my letters for me. We'll send you so many you'll be busy reading
+them."
+
+"I'm going to make her promise that," he declared with a laugh.
+
+He exacted the promise as Mother Bab and Phœbe stood with him and waited
+for the train to carry him away. "Mother, you and Phœbe must take me to
+the train," he had said. "I want you to be the last picture I see as
+the train pulls out." Phœbe had assented, though she thought ruefully of
+the deficiency of the English language, which has but one form for
+singular _you_ and plural _you_. She wondered whether he included her in
+the picture he wanted to cherish in his memory. Now, when he was going
+away from her she knew that she loved her old playmate, that he was the
+one man in the world for her. She loved David, she would always love
+him! She wanted to run to him and tell him so, but centuries of
+restriction had bequeathed to her the universal fear of womanhood to
+reveal a love that has not been sought. She felt that in all her life
+she had never wanted anything so keenly as she wanted to hear David Eby
+tell her that he loved her, that her face would be with him in whatever
+circumstances the future should place him. But David could not read the
+heart of his old playmate, and while his own heart cried out for its
+mate his words were commonplace.
+
+"Mother has promised that I'm to have so many letters that I can't read
+them all. As you're to be private secretary, you'll have to promise to
+carry out her promise."
+
+"David," she met him with equal jest, "you have as many promises in that
+sentence as a candidate for political office."
+
+"But I want them better kept than that," he said, laughing. "Will you
+promise, Phœbe?"
+
+"Promise what?" she asked, the levity fading suddenly.
+
+"To write often for mother."
+
+"Yes--I promise to write often for Mother Bab," she said, and the man
+could not know the effort the simple words cost her. "Oh, Davie," she
+thought, "it's not for Mother Bab alone I want to write to you! I want
+to write you _my_ letters, letters of a girl to the man she loves. How
+blind you are!"
+
+The moment was becoming tense. It was Mother Bab who turned the tide
+into a normal channel. "Now, don't you worry, Davie. I can make Phœbe
+mind me."
+
+The train whistled. Phœbe drew a long breath and prayed that the train
+would make a short stop and speed along for she could not endure much
+more. She looked at Mother Bab. The hysteria was turned from her. She
+knew she would have to be brave for the sake of the dear mother.
+
+"I'll take care of Mother Bab, David," she promised as the train drew
+in, "and I'll write often."
+
+"Phœbe, you're an angel!" He grasped both hands in his for a long
+moment. Then he turned to his mother, folded her in his arms and kissed
+her.
+
+"There he is," Phœbe cried as the train moved. She was eyes for Mother
+Bab. "Turn to the right a bit and wave; that's it! He's waving back----
+Oh, Mother Bab, he's waving that box of sand-tarts Aunt Maria gave him!
+They'll be in pieces!"
+
+"Sand-tarts," said the other, still waving to the boy she could not see.
+"Well, he'll eat them if they are broken. Davie is crazy for cookies."
+
+"I'm going to need you more than ever now, Phœbe," Mother Bab said as
+they started home. "Aunt Mary and Phares are so busy and I feel it's so
+lovely of them to have me there when I can do so little to help, that I
+don't want to make them more trouble than I must. So if you'll take care
+of the writing to David for me I'll be glad." Ah, blind Mother Bab, you
+had splendid vision just then!
+
+"I'll write for you. I'll love to do it. Mother Bab----" She hesitated.
+Should she broach the subject of the operation now? Perhaps it would be
+kind to divert the thoughts of the mother from the recent parting.
+"Mother Bab, I've thought about what you said, and I think you should
+have that operation. The doctor said there was a chance."
+
+"Ach, a very slim one. One chance in--I don't know how many!"
+
+"But a chance!"
+
+"Yes"--the woman thought a moment--"but it would cost lots of money, I
+guess. I didn't ask the doctor, but I know operations are dear. I have
+fifty dollars saved, but that wouldn't go far."
+
+"But don't you know," the girl said guilelessly, "that all big hospitals
+have free rooms and do lots of work for nothing? Many rich people endow
+rooms in hospitals. If you could get into one like that and pay just a
+little, would you go?"
+
+A light seemed to settle upon the face of the blind woman. "Why," she
+answered slowly, "why, Phœbe, I never thought of that! I didn't
+remember--why, I guess I would--yes, of course! I'd go and make a fight
+for that one chance!"
+
+"I knew you'd be brave! You'll have that operation, Mother Bab! I'll
+write to Dr. Munster right away. But don't you let Phares write and tell
+David. We'll surprise him!"
+
+"Ach, but won't he be glad if I can see when he comes home!"
+
+"Won't he though! I'll make all the arrangements; don't you worry about
+it at all."
+
+"My, you're good to me, Phœbe!"
+
+"Good--after all you've done for me!"
+
+"_Good_," she thought after Mother Bab had been left at the home of
+Phares and Phœbe turned homeward. "She calls me good the first time I
+deceive her. I've begun that tangled web and I know I'll have to tell a
+whole pack of lies before I'm through with it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+THE ONE CHANCE
+
+
+PHÅ’BE lost no time in carrying out her plans. When she mentioned the
+operation to Phares Eby he looked dubious.
+
+"I'm afraid it's no use," he said gravely. "Those operations very often
+fail."
+
+"But there's a chance, Phares! If it were your eyes wouldn't you snatch
+at any meagre chance?"
+
+"Why, I guess I would," he admitted, wondering at her insight into human
+nature and admiring her devotion to the blind woman.
+
+Aunt Maria also was sceptical. "Ach, Phœbe, it vonders me now that
+Barb'll spend all that money for carfare and to stay in the city and
+then mebbe it's all for nothin'. There was old Bevy Way and a lot of old
+people I knowed went blind and they died blind. When abody gets so old
+once it seems the doctors can't do much. I guess it just is to be."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Maria," Phœbe said hotly, "I don't believe in that is-to-be
+business! Not until you've done all you can to make things better."
+
+"Well, mebbe, for all, it's worth tryin'. I guess if it was my eyes I'd
+do most anything to get 'em fixed again."
+
+Mother Bab said little about the hopes Phœbe had raised, but the girl
+knew how the woman built upon having sight for a glad surprise for
+David.
+
+"I'm afraid the fifty dollars won't reach," she said the day before they
+were to take the trip to Philadelphia.
+
+"Don't worry about that. Those big doctors usually have hearts to match.
+I told you there are generous people who give lots of money to
+hospitals."
+
+"And I guess the hospitals pay the doctors then," offered the woman.
+
+"I guess so," Phœbe agreed. Her conscience smote her for the deception
+she was practicing on the dear white-capped woman. "But what's the use
+of straining at every little gnat of a falsehood," she thought, "when
+I'm swallowing camels wholesale?"
+
+She managed to secure a short interview with Dr. Munster before the
+examination of Mother Bab's eyes.
+
+"I want to ask you what the operation is going to cost, hospital charges
+and all," she said frankly.
+
+"At least five hundred dollars."
+
+Phœbe's year in the city had taught her many things. She showed no
+surprise at the amount named. "That will be satisfactory, Dr. Munster.
+But I want to ask you, please don't tell Moth--Mrs. Eby anything about
+it. I--it's to be paid by a friend. I know Mrs. Eby would almost faint
+if she knew so much money was going to be spent for her. She knows that
+many hospitals have free rooms and thinks some operations are free. I
+left her under that impression. You understand?"
+
+The big doctor understood. "Yes, I see. Well, we'll run this one chance
+to cover and make a fight. I wish I could promise more," he said.
+
+"Thank you. I know you'll succeed. I'm sure she'll see again!"
+
+True to his promise Dr. Munster answered Mother Bab so tactfully that
+she came out of his office feeling that "the physician is the flower of
+our civilization, that cheerfulness and generosity are a part of his
+virtues."
+
+The optimism in Phœbe's heart tinged the blind woman's with its cheery
+faith. "I figure it this way," the girl said; "we'll do all we can and
+then if we fail there's time enough to be resigned and say it's God's
+will."
+
+"Phœbe, you're a wonderful girl! Your name means _shining_, and that
+just suits you. You're doing so much for me. Why, you didn't even want
+to let me pay your carfare down here!"
+
+The girl winced again. "I must learn to wince without showing it," she
+thought, "for after she sees she'll keep saying such things and I can't
+spoil it all by letting her know the truth."
+
+Perhaps the optimistic words of Phœbe rang in the ears of the big doctor
+as he bent over Mother Bab's sightless eyes and began the tedious
+operation. His hands moved skilfully, with infinite precision, cutting
+to the infinitesimal fraction of an inch.
+
+Afterward, when Mother Bab had been taken away, he sought Phœbe. "I
+hope," he said, "that your faith was not unwarranted, though I can't
+promise anything yet."
+
+"Oh, I'm surer now than ever!" the girl said happily.
+
+But at times, in the days of waiting, her heart ached. What if the
+operation had failed, what if Mother Bab would have to bear cruel
+disappointment? All the natural buoyancy of the girl's nature was
+required to bear her through the trying days of waiting. With the
+dawning of the day upon which the bandage should be removed and the
+truth known Phœbe's excitement could not be restrained.
+
+"I can't wait!" she exclaimed. "I want to be right there when he takes
+it off. I want you to see me first, since David isn't here."
+
+Long after that day it seemed to her that she could hear Mother Bab's
+glad, sweet voice saying, "I can see!"
+
+"I can see!" The words were electric in their effect. Phœbe gave an
+ecstatic "Oh!" then hushed as her lips trembled.
+
+"You win," the big doctor said to her.
+
+"Oh, no, not I! You! But I knew she'd see again!"
+
+"She sees again, but," he cautioned, "Mrs. Eby, there must be no reading
+or sewing or any close work to strain your eyes."
+
+"Oh, doctor, it's enough just to see again! I can do without the reading
+and writing, for Phœbe, here, does all that for me. And I'll not miss
+the sewing. I'm glad I can potter around the garden again and plant
+flowers and _see_ them and"--her voice broke--"I think it's wonderful
+there are men like you in the world!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+BUSY DAYS
+
+
+THE news of the operation spread quickly and with it spread the
+interesting information that Mother Bab was keeping her sight as a
+surprise for David. So it happened that no letters to him contained the
+news, that even the town paper refrained from printing the item of heart
+interest and David's surprise was unspoiled.
+
+His letters to Mother Bab were long and interesting and always required
+frequent re-reading for the mother.
+
+"I wanted to read that letter awful bad," she confessed to Phœbe one
+day, "but I didn't. I'm not taking any chances with my eyes. I'm too
+glad to be able to see at all. The letter came this morning and Phares
+read it for me, but I want to hear it again. Will you read it, Phœbe?
+Did David write to you this week yet?"
+
+"No." The girl felt the color surging to her cheeks. "He doesn't write
+to me very often. He knows I read your letters."
+
+"Ach, yes. I guess he's busy, too. It's a big change for him to be
+learning to be a sailor when he always had his feet on dry land. But
+read the letter; it's a nice big one."
+
+Phœbe's clear laughter joined Mother Bab's at one paragraph: "Do you
+remember the blue sailor suits you used to make for me when I was a tiny
+chap? And once you made me a real tam and I was proud as a peacock in
+it. Well, since I'm here and wearing a sailor suit I feel like a
+masculine edition of Alice in Wonderland when she felt herself growing
+bigger and bigger and I wonder sometimes if I'll shrink back again and
+be just that little boy."
+
+Another portion of the letter set Phœbe's voice trembling as she read,
+"I must tell you again, mother, how thankful I am that you made it so
+much easier for me to go than I dreamed it could be. You are so fine
+about it. With a mother as plucky as you I can't very well be a
+jelly-fish. It's great to have a mother one has to reach high to live up
+to."
+
+"Just like David," said Phœbe as she laid the letter aside. "Of course I
+think war is dreadful, but the training is going to do wonders for many
+of the men."
+
+"Yes," said the white-capped woman. "Out of it some good will come.
+Selfishness is going to be erased clean from the souls of many people by
+the time war is over."
+
+"But we must pay a big price for all we gain from it."
+
+"Yes--I wonder--I guess Davie will be going over soon. He said, you
+know, that if we don't hear from him for a while not to worry. I guess
+that means he thinks he'll be going over."
+
+When, at length, news came from the other side it was Phœbe who was the
+bringer of the tidings.
+
+"Oh, Mother Bab," she cried breathlessly one day in autumn as she ran
+back from the gate after a visit from the postman, "it's a letter from
+France!"
+
+Phares Eby and his mother ran at the news and the four stood, an eager
+group, as Phœbe opened the letter.
+
+"Read it, Phœbe! He's over safely!" Mother Bab's voice was eager.
+
+"I--I can't read it. I'm too excited. I can't get my breath. You read
+it, Phares."
+
+The preacher read in his slow, calm way.
+
+                              "_Somewhere in France._
+
+        "DEAR MOTHER:
+
+        "You see by the heading I'm safe over here. I
+        can't tell you much about the trip--no use
+        wearing out the censor's pencils. The sea's
+        wonderful, but I like dry land better. I'm on
+        dry land now, in a quaint French village where
+        the streets run up hill and the people wear
+        strange costumes. The women wash their clothes
+        by beating them on stones in the brook--how
+        would the Lancaster County women like that?"
+
+It was a long, chatty letter and it warmed the heart of the mother and
+interested Phœbe and the others who heard it.
+
+"He's a great David," the preacher said as he handed the letter to
+Phœbe. "I suppose you'll have to read it over and over to Aunt Barbara."
+
+He looked at the girl as he spoke. Her high color and shining eyes spoke
+eloquently of her interest in the letter. "Ah," he thought, "I believe
+she still _likes Davie best_. I'm sure she does."
+
+The preacher had been greatly changed by the events of the past year.
+He would always be a bit too strict in his views of life, a bit narrow
+in many things. Nevertheless, he was changed. He was less harsh in his
+opinions of others since he had seen and heard how thousands who were
+not of his religious faith had gone forth to lay down their lives that
+the world might be made a decent place in which to live. He, Phares Eby,
+preacher, had formerly denounced all that pertained to actors and the
+theatre, yet tears had coursed down his cheeks as he had read the
+account of a famous comedian who had given his only son for the cause of
+freedom and who was going about in the camps and in the trenches
+bringing cheer to the men. As the preacher read that he confessed to
+himself that the comedian, familiar as he was with footlights, was doing
+more good in the world than a dozen Phares Ebys. That one incident swept
+away some of the prejudice of the preacher. He knew he could never
+sanction the doings so many people indulge in but he felt at the same
+time that those same pleasures need not have a damning influence upon
+all people.
+
+Phœbe noted the change in him. She felt like a discoverer of hidden
+treasure when she heard of the influence he was exerting in behalf of
+the Red Cross and Liberty Loans. But she was finding hidden treasures in
+many places those days. Strenuous, busy days they were but they held
+many revelations of soul beauty.
+
+Every link with Phœbe's former life in Philadelphia was broken save the
+one binding her to Virginia. That friendship was too precious to be
+shattered. The country girl had written a long letter to the city girl,
+telling of the decision to give up the music lessons. "My dear, dear
+friend," she wrote frankly, "you tried to keep me from being hurt, but I
+wouldn't see. How I must have worried you and how foolish I was! I know
+better now. I do not regret my winter in the city and I do appreciate
+all you did for me, but I am happy to be back on the farm again. I'm
+afraid I tried to be an American Beauty rose when I was meant to be just
+some ordinary wild flower like the daisy or even the common yarrow. I
+owe so much to you. We must always be friends."
+
+One day in late summer Phœbe fairly radiated joy as she hurried up the
+hill and ran down the road to the garden where Mother Bab was gathering
+larkspur seeds.
+
+"Oh, Mother Bab, I've such good news about Granny Hogendobler and Old
+Aaron!"
+
+"Come in, tell me!"
+
+"I've been to town and stopped to see Granny. You know Old Aaron and
+their boy Nason fell out years ago about something the boy said about
+the flag and was too stubborn to take back."
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"It was foolishness on the part of the father, of course, for he should
+have known boys say things they don't mean. Well, the two kept on acting
+all these years like strangers. The old man grew bitter. Last year when
+the boys went to Mexico he said that if he had a son instead of a
+blockhead he'd be sending a boy to do his share down there. It almost
+killed him to think of his boy sitting back while others went and
+defended the flag. Well, Granny said yesterday she was in the yard and
+she heard the gate click. She didn't pay any attention for she knew Old
+Aaron was in the front yard under the arbor. But then she heard a cry
+and ran to see, and there was Old Aaron with his arms around a big
+fellow dressed in a soldier uniform, and when the man turned his head it
+was Nason! Granny said it was the greatest day in their lives and paid
+up for all the unhappy days when Old Aaron was cross and said mean
+things about Nason. Nason had just a day to stay, but they made a day of
+it. Granny said, 'I-to-goodness, but we had a time! Aaron wanted to kill
+a chicken, for Nason likes chicken so much, but I knew that Aaron was so
+excited he'd like as not only cripple the poor thing, so I said I'd kill
+it while they talked. I made stuffing with onions in, like Nason likes,
+and I had just baked a snitz pie and I tell you we had a good dinner.
+But I bet them two didn't know what they ate, for they were all the time
+talking about the war and bombs and Gettysburg and France till I didn't
+know what they meant.'"
+
+"My, I'm glad for Granny and Old Aaron," Mother Bab said.
+
+"And what do you think!" Phœbe went on. "They are changing the name of
+Prussian Street, and some are talking of changing the name of the town,
+but I hope they won't do that."
+
+"No, it would be strange to have to call it something else after all
+these years."
+
+"I think it's a grand joke," said Phœbe, "that this little town was
+founded by a German and yet the town is strong American and doing its
+best to down the Potsdam gang. The people of Lancaster County are loyal
+to Old Glory and I'm glad I belong here."
+
+She appreciated her goodly heritage, not with any Pharisaical exultation
+but with honest gratitude.
+
+"I have learned many things, Mother Bab, and this is one of the big
+things I've learned lately: to be everlastingly thankful to Providence
+for setting me down on a farm where I could spend a childhood filled
+with communications with nature. I never before realized what blessings
+I've had all the years of my life. Why, I've had chickens to play with
+and feed, cows and wobbly calves to pet, birds to love and learn about,
+clear streams to wade in and float daisies on, meadows to play in, hills
+to run down while the dust went 'spif' under my bare feet. And I've had
+flowers, thousands of wild flowers, to find and carry home or, if too
+frail to bear carrying home, like the delicate spring beauty and the
+bluet, just to look at and admire and turn again to look at as I went
+out of the woods. My whole childhood has been a wonderful one but I was
+too blind to see the wonder of it. I see now! But, Mother Bab, I don't
+see, even yet, that I should wear plain clothes. I've been thinking
+about it lately. I do believe, though, that the plain way is a good way.
+Many people enjoy the simple service of the meeting-house more than they
+would enjoy a more complex form of worship. I feel so restful and
+peaceful when I'm in a meeting-house, so near to the real things, the
+things that count."
+
+Mother Bab answered only a mild "Yes," but her heart sang as she
+thought, "I believe she'll be plain some day, she and David. Perhaps
+they'll come together. But I'll not worry about them; I know their
+hearts are right."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+DAVID'S SHARE
+
+
+ANOTHER June came with its roses and perfume, but there was no Feast of
+Roses in Greenwald that June of 1918. Phœbe regretted the fact, for she
+felt that even in a war-racked world, with the multiple duties and
+anxiety and suffering of many of its people, there should still be time
+for a service as beautiful and inspiring as the Feast of Roses.
+
+But all thoughts of it or similar omissions were crowded into the
+background one day when the news came to Mother Bab that David had been
+wounded in France.
+
+The official telegram flashed over the wire and in due time came a
+letter with more satisfying details. The letter was characteristic of
+David: "I suppose you heard that the Boche got me, but he didn't get all
+of me, just one leg. What hurts me most is the fact that I didn't get a
+few Huns first or do some real thing for the cause before I got knocked
+out. I know you'll feel better satisfied if I tell you all about it.
+Several of the other boys and I left the town where we were stationed
+and went to Paris for a few days. It was our first pleasure trip since
+we came to this side. We gazed upon the things we studied about in
+school--Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and so forth. Later we went to a
+railroad station where refugees were coming in, fleeing from the
+invading Huns. I can't ever forget that sight! Women and children they
+were, but such women and children! Women who had gone through hell and
+children who had seen more horror in their few years that we can ever
+dream possible. Terror and suffering have lodged shadows in their eyes
+till one wonders if some of them will ever smile or laugh again. Many of
+them were wounded and in need of medical care. They carried with them
+their sole possessions, all of their belongings they could gather and
+take with them as they rushed away from the hordes of the enemy
+soldiers. We helped to place them into Red Cross vans to be taken to a
+safe place in the southern part of the country. As we were putting them
+into the vans the signal came that an air raid was on. The subways are
+places for refuge during the raids, so we hurried them out of the vans
+and into subways. They all got in safely but I was a bit too slow. I got
+knocked out and my right leg was so badly splintered that I'm better off
+without it. The thing worries me most is that I'll be sent home out of
+the fight before I fairly got into it."
+
+"Oh, Mother Bab," Phœbe said sobbingly, "his right leg's gone!"
+
+"It might be worse. But--I wish I could be with him."
+
+"But isn't it just like him," said Phœbe proudly, "to write as though it
+was carelessness caused the accident, when we know he got others to
+safety and never thought of himself. He was just as brave as the boys
+who fight."
+
+"Yes. There is still much to be thankful for. Many mothers will get
+sadder news than mine. You must write him a long letter."
+
+It was a long letter, indeed, that the mother dictated to her boy. When
+it was written Phœbe added a little postscript, "David, I'm mighty proud
+of you!" To this he responded, "Thank you for your pride in me, but
+don't you go making a hero of me; I can't live up to that when I get
+home. Guess I'll be sent back as soon as my leg is healed. Uncle Sam has
+no need of me here since I bungled things and left a leg in Paris. I'll
+have to do the rest of my bit on the farm. I wasn't a howling success as
+a farmer when I had two legs, but perhaps my luck has turned. I'm going
+to raise chickens and do my best to make the little farm a paying one."
+
+"He's the same cheerful David," thought the girl, "and we'll have to
+keep cheerful about it, too."
+
+But it was no easy matter to continue steadfast in cheerfulness during
+the long days of the summer. Phœbe and Mother Bab shared the anxiety of
+many others as the news came that the armies of the enemy were pushing
+nearer to Paris, nearer, and nearer, with the Americans and their allies
+fighting like demons and contesting every inch of the ground. A fear
+rose in Phœbe--what if the Germans should reach Paris, what if they
+should win the war! "But it can't be!" she thought.
+
+Her confidence was not unwarranted. Soon came the turn of the tide and
+the German drive was checked. One July day shrieking whistles, frenzied
+ringing of bells, impromptu parades and waving flags, spread the news
+that "America's contemptible little army" was helping to push the
+Germans back, back!
+
+"It's the beginning of the end for the Germans," said Phœbe jubilantly
+as she ran to Mother Bab with the news. "If they once start running
+they'll sprint pretty lively. We'll have to tell David about the
+excitement in town when the whistles blew--but, ach, I forgot! He won't
+think that was much excitement after he's been in _real_ excitement."
+
+Mother Bab laughed with the girl. "But we'll have lots to tell him when
+he comes back," she said. "And won't he be glad I can see!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+DAVID'S RETURN
+
+
+IT was October of 1918 when David Eby alighted from the train at
+Greenwald and started out the country road to his home. He could not
+resist the temptation to run into the yard of the gray farmhouse and
+into the kitchen where Aunt Maria and Phœbe were working.
+
+"David!"
+
+"Why, David!"
+
+The cries came gladly from the two women as he bounded over the sill and
+extended his hand, first to the older woman, then to Phœbe.
+
+"I just had to stop in here for a minute! Then I must run up the hill to
+mother. This place looks too good to pass by. How are you? You're both
+looking fine."
+
+"Ach, we're well," Aunt Maria had to answer, Phœbe remaining speechless.
+"But why, David! You got two legs and no crutches! I thought you lost a
+leg."
+
+"I did," he said, smiling, "but Uncle Sam gave me another one."
+
+"Why, abody'd hardly know it. Ain't, Phœbe, he just limps a little? Now
+I bet your mom'll be glad to see you--to have you back again, I mean."
+
+"Yes. I can't wait to get up the hill. I must go now. I'll be down
+later, Phœbe," he added.
+
+"All right," she said quietly.
+
+"Ach, Phœbe," Aunt Maria exclaimed after he left, "did you hear me? I
+almost give it away that his mom can see. Abody can be awful dumb still!
+But won't he be glad when he knows that she ain't blind! She can see him
+again. Ach, Phœbe, it's lots of nice people in the world, for all. It
+makes abody feel good to know them two are havin' a happy time."
+
+"I'm so glad for both I could sing."
+
+"Go on," said the woman; "I'm glad too, and I believe I could help you
+to holler."
+
+As David climbed the hill by the woodland he thought musingly, "Strikes
+me Phœbe didn't seem extra glad to see me. Perhaps she was just
+surprised, perhaps my being crippled changed her. Oh, Phœbe, I want you
+more than ever! I wonder--is it some nerve to ask you to marry a
+cripple?"
+
+However, all disquieting thoughts were forgotten as he reached the
+summit of the hill and saw his boyhood home.
+
+He whistled his old greeting whistle. At the sound of it Mother Bab ran
+to the door.
+
+"It's David come home!" she cried, her renewed eyes turned to the road,
+her hands outstretched.
+
+"I'm back, mommie!" he called before his running feet could take him to
+her. But as he held her again to his heart there were no words adequate
+for the greeting. Their joy was great enough to be inarticulate for a
+while.
+
+"But, Davie," the mother said after a long silence, "you come running!
+You have no crutches!"
+
+"Why, mommie!" There was questioning wonder in his voice. "How do you
+know? You couldn't see! You are blind!"
+
+"Oh, Davie, not any more! I can see!"
+
+"You can see?" He put a hand at each side of the white-capped head and
+looked into her eyes. They were not the dull, half-staring eyes of
+blindness but eyes lighted by loving recognition.
+
+Again words failed him as he swept her into his arms. But he could not
+long be silent. "Tell me," he cried. "I must know! What
+miracle--who--how--who did it? When?"
+
+"Oh, Davie, you're not changed a bit! Same old question box! But I'll
+tell you all about it."
+
+Throughout the story Mother Bab told ran the name of Phœbe. "Phœbe
+planned it all, Phœbe made the arrangements with the doctor, Phœbe took
+me down to Philadelphia, Phœbe was there when I found I could see"--it
+was Phœbe, Phœbe, till the man felt his heart singing the name.
+
+"Isn't she going on with her music lessons?" he asked. "I was afraid
+she'd be in the city when I got back."
+
+"She's given them up. It ain't like her to begin a thing and get tired
+of it so soon. All at once after we came back from Philadelphia she said
+she had enough of music, she was tired of it, and was going to stay at
+home and be useful. I'm glad she's not going off again, for it gets
+lonesome without her. You stopped to see her on the way up?"
+
+"Yes, just a minute. I'm going down again later. She hardly said two
+words to me."
+
+"You took her by surprise, I guess. Give her a chance and she'll ask you
+a hundred questions."
+
+But when he paid the promised visit to Phœbe he was again disappointed
+by her lack of the old comradely friendliness. She shared his joy at
+Mother Bab's restored sight but when he began to thank her for her part
+in it she disclaimed all credit and asked questions to lead him from the
+subject of the operation. The girl seemed interested in all he said yet
+there was a restraint in her manner. For the first time in his life
+David was baffled by her attitude. As he climbed the hill again he
+thought, "Now, what's the matter with Phœbe? Was she or wasn't she glad
+to see me? I couldn't tell her I love her when she acts like that! And
+I'm a cripple, and she's beautiful---- Oh, my mind's in a muddle! But
+one thing's clear--I want Phœbe Metz for my wife."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+"A LOVE THAT LIFE COULD NEVER TIRE"
+
+
+THE next morning Phares Eby called David, "Wait, I want to see you.
+I--David," the preacher began gravely, "perhaps I shouldn't tell you,
+but I really think I ought. Do you know all Phœbe did for your mother
+while you were gone?"
+
+"Why, yes. Mother told me. Phœbe was lovely to her. She's been great!
+Writing her letters and doing ever so many kind things for her."
+
+"I know--but--I guess you don't know all she did. That story about a
+great doctor operating for charity didn't quite please me. I thought as
+long as it was in the family I'd pay him for what he did. So I wrote to
+him and his secretary wrote back that the bill had been paid by a check
+signed by Phœbe Metz--the bill had been five hundred dollars. I guess
+that explains her giving up the music lessons. What a girl she is to
+make such a sacrifice! She don't know that I know, but I felt I ought to
+tell you."
+
+"Five hundred dollars! Phœbe did that for us--she paid it? Oh, Phares,
+I'm glad you told me! I'm going to find her right away and thank her!
+You're a brick for telling me!"
+
+The preacher smiled as David turned and ran down the hill, but preachers
+are only human--he felt a pang of pain as he went back to his work in
+the field while David went to find Phœbe.
+
+David forgot for the time that he was crippled as he ran limping over
+the road. Dressed in his working clothes, his head bare to the October
+sunlight, he hurried to the gray farmhouse.
+
+"Phœbe here?" he asked Aunt Maria.
+
+"What's wrong? Anything the matter at your house?" she asked.
+
+"No. Nothing's wrong. Where's Phœbe?"
+
+"Ach, over at the quarry again for weeds or something like she brings
+home all the time."
+
+"All right." He turned to the gate. "I'll find her."
+
+He half ran up the sheltered road to the old stone quarry.
+
+"Phœbe," he cried when he caught sight of her as she stooped to gather
+goldenrod that fringed the woods.
+
+"Why, David, what's the matter?" she asked as she stood erect and faced
+him.
+
+"You angel!" he cried, taking her hands in his and spilling the
+goldenrod over the ground. "You angel!" he said again, and the full
+gratitude of his heart shone from his eyes. "You bought Mother Bab's
+sight! You gave up the music lessons that she might see!"
+
+"How d'you know?" she challenged.
+
+"Oh, I know!" He told her briefly. "That's all true, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," she admitted. "I can't lie out of it now, I guess. Though I've
+lied like a trooper about it already. But you needn't get excited about
+it. Mother Bab's earned more than that from me!"
+
+"Oh, Phœbe!" The man could hardly refrain from taking her in his arms.
+"You're an angel! To sacrifice all that for us--it's the most unselfish
+thing I've ever heard of! You gave her sight so she could see me. I came
+right down to bless you and to thank you."
+
+Other words sought utterance but he fought them back. Phœbe must have
+read his heart, for she looked up suddenly and asked, "And you came all
+the way down here just to say thank you! There's nothing else----"
+
+Then, half-ashamed and startled at her forwardness, her gaze dropped.
+
+But the words had worked their magic. "There _is_ something else!" David
+cried, exulting. "I can't wait any longer to tell you! I love you!"
+
+He held out his arms and as she smiled into his face his arms enfolded
+her and he knew that she loved him. But he wanted to hear the sweet
+words from her lips. "Is it so?" he asked. "You do care for me, you'll
+marry me?"
+
+"Oh, Davie, did you think I could live the rest of my life without you?
+Did you think I could love you any less because you're crippled?"
+
+He flushed. "It seemed like working on your sympathy to ask you."
+
+"And if you hadn't asked me, Davie," she began.
+
+"Yes, go on. If I hadn't asked you----"
+
+"_I_ should have asked _you_!"
+
+They both laughed at that, but a moment later were serious as he said,
+"Just the same, Phœbe, it seems presumptuous for a maimed man to ask a
+girl like you to marry him. You are beautiful and you have a wonderful
+voice--and you've done such wonderful things for Mother Bab and me. You
+have sacrificed so much----"
+
+"Stop, David!" she cried, her voice ominously tearful. "David, don't
+hurt me like that! Do you love me?"
+
+"I do." His words had all the solemnity of a marriage vow.
+
+"You know I love you?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then, David, can't you see that we love each other not only in
+prosperity but in misfortunes as well?"
+
+"What a big heart you have, dear, what a woman's heart! I have two
+wonderful women in my life, Mother Bab and you."
+
+Phœbe felt the delicacy and magnitude of the tribute. "I'm happy,
+Davie," she said softly. "I feel so safe with you--no doubts, no fears."
+
+"Just love," he added.
+
+"Just love," she repeated.
+
+"Then, Phœbe"--how she loved the name from his lips--"you'll marry me?"
+He said it as though he could not quite believe his good fortune. "Then
+you _will_ marry me?"
+
+"Yes, if you want."
+
+"If I want! Oh, Phœbe, Phœbe, I have always wanted it!"
+
+
+
+
+Popular Copyright Novels
+
+_AT MODERATE PRICES_
+
+           Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of
+        A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction
+
+=Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.= By Frank L. Packard.
+
+=Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.= By A. Conan Doyle.
+
+=After House, The.= By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+
+=Ailsa Paige.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Alton of Somasco.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Amateur Gentleman, The.= By Jeffery Farnol.
+
+=Anna, the Adventuress.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Anne's House of Dreams.= By L. M. Montgomery.
+
+=Around Old Chester.= By Margaret Deland.
+
+=Athalie.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=At the Mercy of Tiberius.= By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+
+=Auction Block, The.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Aunt Jane of Kentucky.= By Eliza C. Hall.
+
+=Awakening of Helena Richie.= By Margaret Deland.
+
+
+=Bab: a Sub-Deb.= By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+
+=Barrier, The.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Barbarians.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Bargain True, The.= By Nalbro Bartley.
+
+=Bar 20.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Bar 20 Days.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Bars of Iron, The.= By Ethel M. Dell.
+
+=Beasts of Tarzan, The.= By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+
+=Beloved Traitor, The.= By Frank L. Packard.
+
+=Beltane the Smith.= By Jeffery Farnol.
+
+=Betrayal, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Beyond the Frontier.= By Randall Parrish.
+
+=Big Timber.= By Bertrand W. Sinclair.
+
+=Black Is White.= By George Barr McCutcheon.
+
+=Blind Man's Eyes, The.= By Wm. MacHarg and Edwin Balmer.
+
+=Bob, Son of Battle.= By Alfred Ollivant.
+
+=Boston Blackie.= By Jack Boyle.
+
+=Boy with Wings, The.= By Berta Ruck.
+
+=Brandon of the Engineers.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Broad Highway, The.= By Jeffery Farnol.
+
+=Brown Study, The.= By Grace S. Richmond.
+
+=Bruce of the Circle A.= By Harold Titus.
+
+=Buck Peters, Ranchman.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Business of Life, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+
+=Cabbages and Kings.= By O. Henry.
+
+=Cabin Fever.= By B. M. Bower.
+
+=Calling of Dan Matthews, The.= By Harold Bell Wright.
+
+=Cape Cod Stories.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper.= By James A. Cooper.
+
+=Cap'n Dan's Daughter.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Cap'n Eri.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Cap'n Jonah's Fortune.= By James A. Cooper.
+
+=Cap'n Warren's Wards.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Chain of Evidence, A.= By Carolyn Wells.
+
+=Chief Legatee, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Cinderella Jane.= By Marjorie B. Cooke.
+
+=Cinema Murder, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=City of Masks, The.= By George Barr McCutcheon.
+
+=Cleek of Scotland Yard.= By T. W. Hanshew.
+
+=Cleek, The Man of Forty Faces.= By Thomas W. Hanshew.
+
+=Cleek's Government Cases.= By Thomas W. Hanshew.
+
+=Clipped Wings.= By Rupert Hughes.
+
+=Clue, The.= By Carolyn Wells.
+
+=Clutch of Circumstance, The.= By Marjorie Benton Cooke.
+
+=Coast of Adventure, The.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Coming of Cassidy, The.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Coming of the Law, The.= By Chas. A. Seltzer.
+
+=Conquest of Canaan, The.= By Booth Tarkington.
+
+=Conspirators, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Court of Inquiry, A.= By Grace S. Richmond.
+
+=Cow Puncher, The.= By Robert J. C. Stead.
+
+=Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Cross Currents.= By Author of "Pollyanna."
+
+=Cry in the Wilderness, A.= By Mary E. Waller.
+
+
+=Danger, And Other Stories.= By A. Conan Doyle.
+
+=Dark Hollow, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Dark Star, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Daughter Pays, The.= By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.
+
+=Day of Days, The.= By Louis Joseph Vance.
+
+=Depot Master, The.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Desired Woman, The.= By Will N. Harben.
+
+=Destroying Angel, The.= By Louis Jos. Vance.
+
+=Devil's Own, The.= By Randall Parrish.
+
+=Double Traitor, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+
+=Empty Pockets.= By Rupert Hughes.
+
+=Eyes of the Blind, The.= By Arthur Somers Roche.
+
+=Eye of Dread, The.= By Payne Erskine.
+
+=Eyes of the World, The.= By Harold Bell Wright.
+
+=Extricating Obadiah.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+
+=Felix O'Day.= By F. Hopkinson Smith.
+
+=54-40 or Fight.= By Emerson Hough.
+
+=Fighting Chance, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Fighting Shepherdess, The.= By Caroline Lockhart.
+
+=Financier, The.= By Theodore Dreiser.
+
+=Flame, The.= By Olive Wadsley.
+
+=Flamsted Quarries.= By Mary E. Wallar.
+
+=Forfeit, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+=Four Million, The.= By O. Henry.
+
+=Fruitful Vine, The.= By Robert Hichens.
+
+=Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.= By Frank L. Packard.
+
+
+=Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.= By Payne Erskine.
+
+=Girl from Keller's, The.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Girl Philippa, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Girls at His Billet, The.= By Berta Ruck.
+
+=God's Country and the Woman.= By James Oliver Curwood.
+
+=Going Some.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Golden Slipper, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Golden Woman, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+=Greater Love Hath No Man.= By Frank L. Packard.
+
+=Greyfriars Bobby.= By Eleanor Atkinson.
+
+=Gun Brand, The.= By James B. Hendryx.
+
+
+=Halcyone.= By Elinor Glyn.
+
+=Hand of Fu-Manchu, The.= By Sax Rohmer.
+
+=Havoc.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Heart of the Desert, The.= By Honoré Willsie.
+
+=Heart of the Hills, The.= By John Fox, Jr.
+
+=Heart of the Sunset.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.= By Edfrid A. Bingham.
+
+=Her Weight in Gold.= By Geo. B. McCutcheon.
+
+=Hidden Children, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Hidden Spring, The.= By Clarence B. Kelland.
+
+=Hillman, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Hills of Refuge, The.= By Will N. Harben.
+
+=His Official Fiancee.= By Berta Ruck.
+
+=Honor of the Big Snows.= By James Oliver Curwood.
+
+=Hopalong Cassidy.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Hound from the North, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+=House of the Whispering Pines, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.= By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.
+
+
+=I Conquered.= By Harold Titus.
+
+=Illustrious Prince, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=In Another Girl's Shoes.= By Berta Ruck.
+
+=Indifference of Juliet, The.= By Grace S. Richmond.
+
+=Infelice.= By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+
+=Initials Only.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Inner Law, The.= By Will N. Harben.
+
+=Innocent.= By Marie Corelli.
+
+=Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.= By Sax Rohmer.
+
+=In the Brooding Wild.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+=Intriguers, The.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Iron Trail, The.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Iron Woman, The.= By Margaret Deland.
+
+=I Spy.= By Natalie Sumner Lincoln.
+
+
+=Japonette.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Jean of the Lazy A.= By B. M. Bower.
+
+=Jeanne of the Marshes.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Jennie Gerhardt.= By Theodore Dreiser.
+
+=Judgment House, The.= By Gilbert Parker.
+
+
+=Keeper of the Door, The.= By Ethel M. Dell.
+
+=Keith of the Border.= By Randall Parrish.
+
+=Kent Knowles: Quahaug.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Kingdom of the Blind, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+Page 17, word "have" added to the text (mom would have lived)
+
+Page 171, word "the" added to the text (in the bank)
+
+Page 181, "esctatic" changed to "ecstatic" (ecstatic trill of)
+
+Page 315, word "the" added to the text (mentioned the operation)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Patchwork, by Anna Balmer Myers
+
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diff --git a/22827-0.zip b/22827-0.zip
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+++ b/22827-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10309 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Patchwork, by Anna Balmer Myers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Patchwork
+       A Story of 'The Plain People'
+
+Author: Anna Balmer Myers
+
+Illustrator: Helen Mason Groce
+
+Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22827]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PATCHWORK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Emille and the Booksmiths
+at http://www.eBookForge.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "OH, LOOK AT THIS--AND THIS!"]
+
+
+
+
+PATCHWORK
+
+A STORY OF
+
+"THE PLAIN PEOPLE"
+
+By ANNA BALMER MYERS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+        WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR BY
+        HELEN MASON GROSE
+
+        A. L. BURT COMPANY
+        Publishers         New York
+
+        Published by arrangement with George W. Jacobs & Company
+
+        Copyright, 1920, by
+        GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+        All rights reserved
+        _Printed in U.S.A._
+
+        _To my Mother and Father
+        this book is lovingly inscribed_
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                    PAGE
+
+       I. CALICO PATCHWORK                                     13
+
+      II. OLD AARON'S FLAG                                     29
+
+     III. LITTLE DUTCHIE                                       40
+
+      IV. THE NEW TEACHER                                      52
+
+       V. THE HEART OF A CHILD                                 70
+
+      VI. THE PRIMA DONNA OF THE ATTIC                         92
+
+     VII. "WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER MEET"                    110
+
+    VIII. BEYOND THE ALPS LIES ITALY                          119
+
+      IX. A VISIT TO MOTHER BAB                               129
+
+       X. AN OLD-FASHIONED COUNTRY SALE                       146
+
+      XI. "THE BRIGHT LEXICON OF YOUTH"                       166
+
+     XII. THE PREACHER'S WOOING                               176
+
+    XIII. THE SCARLET TANAGER                                 189
+
+     XIV. ALADDIN'S LAMP                                      203
+
+      XV. THE FLEDGLING'S FLIGHT                              207
+
+     XVI. PHOEBE'S DIARY                                       212
+
+    XVII. DIARY--THE NEW HOME                                 221
+
+   XVIII. DIARY--THE MUSIC MASTER                             226
+
+     XIX. DIARY--THE FIRST LESSON                             229
+
+      XX. DIARY--SEEING THE CITY                              235
+
+     XXI. DIARY--CHRYSALIS                                    240
+
+    XXII. DIARY--TRANSFORMATION                               245
+
+   XXIII. DIARY--PLAIN FOR A NIGHT                            251
+
+    XXIV. DIARY--DECLARATIONS                                 256
+
+     XXV. DIARY--"THE LINK MUST BREAK AND THE LAMP MUST DIE"  261
+
+    XXVI. "HAME'S BEST"                                       268
+
+   XXVII. TRAILING ARBUTUS                                    271
+
+  XXVIII. MOTHER BAB AND HER SON                              284
+
+    XXIX. PREPARATIONS                                        291
+
+     XXX. THE FEAST OF ROSES                                  295
+
+    XXXI. BLINDNESS                                           303
+
+   XXXII. OFF TO THE NAVY                                     310
+
+  XXXIII. THE ONE CHANCE                                      315
+
+   XXXIV. BUSY DAYS                                           319
+
+    XXXV. DAVID'S SHARE                                       327
+
+   XXXVI. DAVID'S RETURN                                      331
+
+  XXXVII. "A LOVE THAT LIFE COULD NEVER TIRE"                 335
+
+
+
+
+Patchwork
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CALICO PATCHWORK
+
+
+THE gorgeous sunshine of a perfect June morning invited to the great
+outdoors. Exquisite perfume from myriad blossoms tempted lovers of
+nature to get away from cramped, man-made buildings, out under the blue
+roof of heaven, and revel in the lavish splendor of the day.
+
+This call of the Junetide came loudly and insistently to a little girl
+as she sat in the sitting-room of a prosperous farmhouse in Lancaster
+County, Pennsylvania, and sewed gaily-colored pieces of red and green
+calico into patchwork.
+
+"Ach, my!" she sighed, with all the dreariness which a ten-year-old is
+capable of feeling, "why must I patch when it's so nice out? I just
+ain't goin' to sew no more to-day!"
+
+She rose, folded her work and laid it in her plaited rush sewing-basket.
+Then she stood for a moment, irresolute, and listened to the sounds
+issuing from the next room. She could hear her Aunt Maria bustle about
+the big kitchen.
+
+"Ach, I ain't afraid!"
+
+The child opened the door and entered the kitchen, where the odor of
+boiling strawberry preserves proclaimed the cause of the aunt's
+activity.
+
+Maria Metz was, at fifty, robust and comely, with black hair very
+slightly streaked with gray, cheeks that retained traces of the rosy
+coloring of her girlhood, and flashing black eyes meeting squarely the
+looks of all with whom she came in contact. She was a member of the
+Church of the Brethren and wore the quaint garb adopted by the women of
+that sect. Her dress of black calico was perfectly plain. The tight
+waist was half concealed by a long, pointed cape which fell over her
+shoulders and touched the waistline back and front, where a full apron
+of blue and white checked gingham was tied securely. Her dark hair was
+parted and smoothly drawn under a cap of white lawn. She was a
+picturesque figure but totally unconscious of it, for the section of
+Pennsylvania in which she lived has been for generations the home of a
+multitude of women similarly garbed--members of the plain sects, as the
+Mennonites, Amish, Brethren in Christ, and Church of the Brethren, are
+commonly called in the communities in which they flourish.
+
+As the child appeared in the doorway her aunt turned.
+
+"So," the woman said pleasantly, "you worked vonderful quick to-day
+once, Phoebe. Why, you got your patches done soon--did you make little
+stitches like I told you?"
+
+"I ain't got 'em done!" The child stood erect, a defiant little figure,
+her blue eyes grown dark with the moment's tenseness. "I ain't goin' to
+sew no more when it's so nice out! I want to be out in the yard, that's
+what I want. I just hate this here patchin' to-day, that's what I do!"
+
+Maria Metz carefully wiped the strawberry juice from her fingers, then
+she stood before the little girl like a veritable tower of amazement and
+strength.
+
+"Phoebe," she said after a moment's struggle to control her wrath, "you
+ain't big enough nor old enough yet to tell me what you ain't goin' to
+do! How many patches did you make?"
+
+"Three."
+
+"And you know I said you shall make four every day still so you get the
+quilt done this summer yet and ready to quilt. You go and finish them."
+
+"I don't want to." Phoebe shook her head stubbornly. "I want to play out
+in the yard."
+
+"When you're done with the patches, not before! You know you must learn
+to sew. Why, Phoebe," the woman changed her tactics, "you used to like
+to sew still. When you was just five years old you cried for goods and
+needle and I pinned the patches on the little sewing-bird that belonged
+to Granny Metz still and screwed the bird on the table and you sewed
+that nice! And now you don't want to do no more patches--how will you
+ever get your big chest full of nice quilts if you don't patch?"
+
+But the child was too thoroughly possessed with the desire to be
+outdoors to be won by any pleading or praise. She pulled savagely at
+the two long braids which hung over her shoulders and cried, "I don't
+want no quilts! I don't want no chests! I don't like red and green
+quilts, anyhow--never, never! I wish my pop would come in; he wouldn't
+make me sew patches, he"--she began to sob--"I wish, I just wish I had a
+mom! She wouldn't make me sew calico when--when I want to play."
+
+Something in the utter unhappiness of the little girl, together with the
+words of yearning for the dead mother, filled the woman with a strange
+tenderness. Though she never allowed sentiment to sway her from doing
+what she considered her duty she did yield to its influence and spoke
+gently to the agitated child.
+
+"I wish, too, your mom was here yet, Phoebe. But I guess if she was
+she'd want you to learn to sew. Ach, it's just that you like to be out,
+out all the time that makes you so contrary, I guess. You're like your
+pop, if you can just be out! Mebbe when you're old as I once and had
+your back near broke often as I had with hoein' and weedin' and plantin'
+in the garden you'll be glad when you can set in the house and sew. Ach,
+now, stop your cryin' and go finish your patchin' and when you're done
+I'll leave you go in to Greenwald for me to the store and to Granny
+Hogendobler."
+
+"Oh"--the child lifted her tear-stained face--"and dare I really go to
+Greenwald when I'm done?"
+
+"Yes. I need some sugar yet and you dare order it. And you can get me
+some thread and then stop at Granny Hogendobler's and ask her to come
+out to-morrow and help with the strawberry jelly. I got so much to make
+and it comes good to Granny if she gets away for a little change."
+
+"Then I'll patch quick!" Phoebe said. The world was a good place again
+for the child as she went back to the sitting-room and resumed her
+sewing.
+
+She was so eager to finish the unpleasant task that she forgot one of
+Aunt Maria's rules, as inexorable as the law of the Medes and
+Persians--the door between the kitchen and the sitting-room _must_ be
+closed.
+
+"Here, Phoebe," the woman called sharply, "make that door shut! Abody'd
+think you was born in a sawmill! The strawberry smell gets all over the
+house."
+
+Phoebe turned alertly and closed the door. Then she soliloquized, "I
+don't see why there has to be doors on the inside of houses. I like to
+smell the good things all over the house, but then it's Aunt Maria's
+boss, not me."
+
+Maria Metz shook her head as she returned to her berries. "If it don't
+beat all and if I won't have my hands full yet with that girl 'fore
+she's growed up! That stubborn she is, like her pop--ach, like all of us
+Metz's, I guess. Anyhow, it ain't easy raising somebody else's child. If
+only her mom would have lived, and so young she was to die, too."
+
+Her thoughts went back to the time when her brother Jacob brought to the
+old Metz farmhouse his gentle, sweet-faced bride. Then the joint
+persuasions of Jacob and his wife induced Maria Metz to continue her
+residence in the old homestead. She relieved the bride of all the brunt
+of manual labor of the farm and in her capable way proved a worthy
+sister to the new mistress of the old Metz place. When, several years
+later, the gentle wife died and left Jacob the legacy of a helpless
+babe, it was Maria Metz who took up the task of mothering the motherless
+child. If she bungled at times in the performance of the mother's
+unfinished task it was not from lack of love, for she loved the fair
+little Phoebe with a passion that was almost abnormal, a passion which
+burned the more fiercely because there was seldom any outlet in
+demonstrative affection.
+
+As soon as the child was old enough Aunt Maria began to teach her the
+doctrines of the plain church and to warn her against the evils of
+vanity, frivolity and all forms of worldliness.
+
+Maria Metz was richly endowed with that admirable love of industry which
+is characteristic of the Pennsylvania Dutch. In accordance with her
+acceptance of the command, "Six days shalt thou labor," she swept,
+scrubbed, and toiled from early morning to evening with Herculean
+persistence. The farmhouse was spotless from cellar to attic, the wooden
+walks and porches scrubbed clean and smooth. Flower beds, vegetable
+gardens and lawns were kept neat and without weeds. Aunt Maria was, as
+she expressed it, "not afraid of work." Naturally she considered it her
+duty to teach little Phoebe to be industrious, to sew neatly, to help
+with light tasks about the house and gardens.
+
+Like many other good foster-mothers Maria Metz tried conscientiously to
+care for the child's spiritual and physical well-being, but in spite of
+her best endeavors there were times when she despaired of the
+tremendous task she had undertaken. Phoebe's spirit tingled with the
+divine, poetic appreciation of all things beautiful. A vivid imagination
+carried the child into realms where the stolid aunt could not follow,
+realms of whose existence the older woman never dreamed.
+
+But what troubled Maria Metz most was the child's frank avowal of
+vanity. Every new dress was a source of intense joy to Phoebe. Every new
+ribbon for her hair, no matter how narrow and dull of color, sent her
+face smiling. The golden hair, which sprang into long curls as Aunt
+Maria combed it, was invariably braided into two thick, tight braids,
+but there were always little wisps that curled about the ears and
+forehead. These wisps were at once the woman's despair and the child's
+freely expressed delight. However, through all the rigid discipline the
+little girl retained her natural buoyancy of childhood, the spontaneous
+interestedness, the cheerfulness and animation, which were a part of her
+goodly heritage.
+
+That June morning the world was changed suddenly from a dismal vale of
+patchwork to a glorious garden of delight. She was still a child and the
+promised walk to Greenwald changed the entire world for her.
+
+She paused once in her sewing to look about the sitting-room. "Ach, I
+vonder now why this room is so ugly to me to-day. I guess it's because
+it's so pretty out. Why, mostly always I think this is a vonderful nice
+room."
+
+The sitting-room of the Metz farm was attractive in its old-fashioned
+furnishing. It was large and well lighted. The gray rag carpet--woven
+from rags sewed by Aunt Maria and Phoebe--was decorated with wide
+stripes of green. Upon the carpet were spread numerous rugs, some made
+of braided rags coiled into large circles, others were hooked rugs gaily
+ornamented with birds and flowers and graceful scroll designs. The
+low-backed chairs were painted dull green and each bore upon the four
+inch panel of its back a hand-painted floral design. On the haircloth
+sofa were several crazy-work cushions. Two deep rocking-chairs matched
+the antique low-backed chairs. A spindle-legged cherry table bore an old
+vase filled with pink and red straw flowers. The large square table,
+covered with a red and green cloth, held a glass lamp, the old Metz
+Bible, several hymn-books and the papers read in that home,--a weekly
+religious paper, the weekly town paper, and a well-known farm journal. A
+low walnut organ which Phoebe's mother brought to the farm and a tall
+walnut grandfather clock, the most cherished heirloom of the Metz
+family, occupied places of honor in the room. Not a single article of
+modern design could be found in the entire room, yet it was an
+interesting and habitable place. Most of the Metz furniture had stood in
+the old homestead for several generations and so long as any piece
+served its purpose and continued to look respectable Aunt Maria would
+have considered it gross extravagance, even a sacrilege, to discard it
+for one of newer design. She was satisfied with her house, her brother
+Jacob was well pleased with the way she kept it--it never occurred to
+her that Phoebe might ever desire new things, and least of all did she
+dream that the girl sometimes spent an interesting hour refurnishing, in
+imagination, the same old sitting-room.
+
+"Yes," Phoebe was saying to herself, "sometimes this room is vonderful
+to me. Only I wished the organ was a piano, like the one Mary Warner got
+to play on. But, ach, I must hurry once and make this patch done. Funny
+thing patchin' is, cuttin' up big pieces of good calico in little ones
+and then sewin' them up in big ones again! I don't like it"--she spoke
+very softly for she knew her aunt disapproved of the habit of talking to
+one's self--"I don't like patchin' and I for certain don't like red and
+green quilts! I got one on my bed now and it hurts my eyes still in the
+morning when I get awake. I'd like a pretty blue and white one for my
+bed. Mebbe Aunt Maria will leave me make one when I get this one sewed.
+But now my patch is done and I dare to go to Greenwald. That's a
+vonderful nice walk."
+
+A moment later she stood again in the big kitchen.
+
+"See," she said, "now I got them all done. And little stitches, too, so
+nobody won't catch their toes in 'em when they sleep, like you used to
+tell me still when I first begun to sew."
+
+The woman smiled. "Now you're a good girl, Phoebe. Put your patches away
+nice and you dare go to Greenwald."
+
+"Where all shall I go?"
+
+"Go first to Granny Hogendobler; that's right on the way to the store.
+You ask her to come out to-morrow morning early if she wants to help
+with the berries."
+
+"Dare I stay a little?"
+
+"If you want. But don't you go bringin' any more slips of flowers to
+plant or any seeds. The flower beds are that full now abody can hardly
+get in to weed 'em still."
+
+"All right, I won't. But I think it's nice to have lots and lots of
+flowers. When I have a garden once I'll have it full----"
+
+"Talk of that some other day," said her aunt. "Get ready now for town
+once. You go to the store and ask 'em to send out twenty pounds of
+granulated sugar. Jonas, one of the clerks, comes out this way still
+when he goes home and he can just as good fetch it along on his home
+road. Your pop is too busy to hitch up and go in for it and I have no
+time neither to-day and I want it early in the morning, and what I have
+is almost all. And then you can buy three spools of white thread number
+fifty. And when you're done you dare look around a little in the store
+if you don't touch nothing. On the home road you better stop in the
+post-office and ask if there's anything. Nobody was in yesterday."
+
+"All right--and--Aunt Maria, dare I wear my hat?"
+
+"Ach, no. Abody don't wear Sunday clothes on a Wednesday just to go to
+Greenwald to the store. Only when you go to Lancaster and on a Sunday
+you wear your hat. You're dressed good enough; just get your sunbonnet,
+for it's sunny on the road."
+
+Phoebe took a small ruffled sunbonnet of blue checked gingham from a
+hook behind the kitchen door and pressed it lightly on her head.
+
+"Ach, bonnets are vonderful hot things!" she exclaimed. "A nice parasol
+like Mary Warner's got would be lots nicer. Where's the money?" she
+asked as she saw a shadow of displeasure on her aunt's face.
+
+"Here it is, enough for the sugar and the thread. Don't lose the
+pocketbook, and be sure to count the change so they don't make no
+mistake."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And don't touch things in the store."
+
+"No." The child walked to the door, impatient to be off.
+
+"And be careful crossin' over the streets. If a horse comes, or a
+bicycle, wait till it's past, or an automobile----"
+
+"Ach, yes, I'll be careful," Phoebe answered.
+
+A moment later she went down the boardwalk that led through the yard to
+the little green gate at the country road. There she paused and looked
+back at the farm with its old-fashioned house, her birthplace and home.
+
+The Metz homestead, erected in the days of home-grown flax and
+spinning-wheels, was plain and unpretentious. Built of gray, rough-hewn
+quarry stone it hid like a demure Quakeress behind tall evergreen trees
+whose branches touched and interlaced in so many places that the
+traveler on the country road caught but mere glimpses of the big gray
+house.
+
+The old home stood facing the road that led northward to the little town
+of Greenwald. Southward the road curved and wound itself about a steep
+hill, sent its branches right and left to numerous farms while it, still
+twisting and turning, went on to the nearest city, Lancaster, ten miles
+distant.
+
+The Metz farm was just outside the southern limits of the town of
+Greenwald. The spacious red barn stood on the very bank of Chicques
+Creek, the boundary line.
+
+"It's awful pretty here to-day," Phoebe said aloud as she looked from
+the house with its sheltering trees to the flower garden with its roses,
+larkspur and other old-fashioned flowers, then to the background of
+undulating fields and hills. "It's just vonderful pretty here to-day.
+But, ach, I guess it's pretty most anywheres on a day like this--but not
+in the house. Ugh, that patchin'! I want to forget it."
+
+As she closed the gate and entered the country road she caught sight of
+a familiar figure just ahead.
+
+"Hello," she called. "Wait once, David! Is that you?"
+
+"No, it ain't me, it's my shadow!" came the answer as a boy, several
+years older than Phoebe, turned and waited for her.
+
+"Ach, David Eby," she giggled, "you're just like Aunt Maria says still
+you are--always cuttin' up and talkin' so abody don't know if you mean
+it or what. Goin' in to town, too, once?"
+
+"Um-uh. Say, Phoebe, you want a rose to pin on?" he asked, turning to
+her with a pink damask rose.
+
+"Why, be sure I do! I just like them roses vonderful much. We got 'em
+too, big bushes of 'em, but Aunt Maria won't let me pull none off.
+Where'd you get yourn?"
+
+"We got lots. Mom lets me pull off all I want. You pin it on and be
+decorated for Greenwald. Where all you going, Phoebe?"
+
+"And I say thanks, too, David, for the rose," she said as she pinned the
+rose to her dress. "Um, it smells good! Where am I goin'?" she
+remembered his question. "Why, to the store and to Granny Hogendobler
+and the post-office----"
+
+"Jimminy Crickets!" The boy stood still. "That's where I'm to go! Me and
+mom both forgot about it. Mom wants a money order and said I'm to get it
+the first time I go to town and here I am without the money. It's home
+up the hill again for me."
+
+"Ach, David, don't you know that it's vonderful bad luck to go back for
+something when you got started once?"
+
+The boy laughed. "It _is_ bad luck to have to climb that hill again. But
+mom'll say what I ain't got in my head I got to have in my feet. They're
+big enough to hold a lot, too, Phoebe, ain't they?"
+
+She giggled, then laughed merrily. "Ach," she said, "you say funny
+things. You just make me laugh all the time. But it's mean, now, that
+you are so dumb to forget and have to go back. I thought I'd have nice
+company all the ways in, but mebbe I'll see you in Greenwald."
+
+"Mebbe. Goo'bye," said the boy and turned to the hill again.
+
+Phoebe stood a moment and looked after him. "My," she said to herself,
+"but David Eby is a vonderful nice boy!" Then she started down the road,
+a quaint, interesting little figure in her brown chambray dress with its
+full, gathered skirt and its short, plain waist. But the face that
+looked out from the blue sunbonnet was even more interesting. The blue
+eyes, golden hair and fair coloring of the cheeks held promise of an
+abiding beauty, but more than mere beauty was bounded by the ruffled
+sunbonnet. There was an eagerness of expression, an alert understanding
+in the deep eyes, a tender fluttering of the long lashes, an ever
+varying animation in the child face, as though she were standing on
+tiptoe to catch all the sunshine and glory of the great, beautiful world
+about her.
+
+Phoebe went decorously down the road, across the wooden bridge over the
+Chicques, then she began to skip. Her full skirt fluttered in the light
+wind, her sunbonnet slipped back from her head and flapped as she hopped
+along the half mile stretch of country road bordered by green fields and
+meadows.
+
+"There's no houses here so I dare skip," she panted gleefully. "Aunt
+Maria don't think it looks nice for girls to skip, but I like to do it.
+I could just skip and skip and skip----"
+
+She stopped suddenly. In a meadow to her right a tangle of bulrushes
+edged a small pond and, perched on a swaying reed, a red-winged
+blackbird was calling his clear, "Conqueree, conqueree."
+
+"Oh, you pretty thing!" Phoebe cried as she leaned on the fence and
+watched the bird. "You're just the prettiest thing with them red and
+yellow spots on your wings. And you ain't afraid of me, not a bit. I
+guess mebbe you know you got wings and I ain't. Such pretty wings you
+got, too, and the rest of you is all black as coal. Mebbe God made you
+black all over like a crow and then got sorry for you and put some
+pretty spots on your wings. I wonder now"--her face sobered--"I just
+wonder now why Aunt Maria says still that it's bad to fix up pretty with
+curls and things like that and to wear fancy dresses. Why, many of the
+birds are vonderful fine in gay feathers and the flowers are fancy and
+the butterflies--ach, mebbe when I'm big I'll understand it better, or
+mebbe I'll dress up pretty then too."
+
+With that cheering thought she turned again to the road and resumed her
+walk, but the skipping mood had fled. She pulled her sunbonnet to its
+proper place and walked briskly along, still enjoying thoroughly, though
+less exuberantly, the beauty of the June morning.
+
+The scent of pink clover mingled with the odor of grasses and the
+delicate perfume of sweetbrier. Wood sorrel nestled in the grassy
+corners near the crude rail fences, daisies and spiked toad-flax grew
+lavishly among the weeds of the roadside. In the meadows tall milkweed
+swayed its clusters of pink and lavender, marsh-marigolds dotted the
+grass with discs of pure gold, and Queen Anne's lace lifted its
+parasols of exquisite loveliness. Phoebe reveled in it all; her cheeks
+were glowing as she left the beauty of the country behind her and came
+at last to the little town of Greenwald.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+OLD AARON'S FLAG
+
+
+GREENWALD is an old town but it is a delightfully interesting one. It
+does not wear its antiquity as an excuse for sinking into mouldering
+uselessness. It presents, rather, a strange mingling of the quaint,
+romantic and historic with the beautiful, progressive and modern. Though
+it clings reverently to honored traditions it is ever mindful of the
+fact that the welfare of its inhabitants is dependent upon reasonable
+progress in its religious, educational and industrial life.
+
+The charming stamp of its antiquity is revealed in its great old trees;
+its wide Market Square from which narrower streets branch to the east,
+west, north and south; its numerous houses of the plain, substantial
+type of several generations ago; its occasional little, low houses which
+have withstood the march of modern building and stand squarely beside
+houses of more elaborate and later design; but chiefly in its
+old-fashioned gardens. All the old-time flowers are favorites there and
+refuse to be displaced by any newcomer. Sweet alyssum and candytuft
+spread carpets of bloom along the neat garden walks, hollyhocks and
+dahlias look boldly out to the streets, while the old-fashioned
+sweet-scented roses grow on great bushes which have been undisturbed for
+three or more generations.
+
+To Phoebe Metz, Greenwald, with its two thousand inhabitants, its
+several churches, post-office and numerous stores, seemed a veritable
+city. She delighted in walking on its brick sidewalks, looking at its
+different houses and entering its stores. How many attractions these
+stores held for the little country girl! There was the big one on the
+Square which had in one of its windows a great lemon tree on which grew
+real lemons. Another store had a large Santa Claus in its window every
+Christmas--not that Phoebe Metz had ever been taught to believe in that
+patron saint of the children--oh, no! Maria Metz would have considered
+it foolish, even sinful, to lie to a child about any mythical Santa
+Claus coming down the chimney Christmas Eve! Nevertheless, the smiling,
+rotund face of the red-habited Santa in the store window seemed so real
+and so emanative of cheer that Phoebe delighted in him each year and
+felt sure there must be a Santa Claus somewhere in the world, even
+though Aunt Maria knew nothing about him.
+
+Most little towns can boast of one or more persons like Granny
+Hogendobler, well-nigh community owned, certainly community
+appropriated. Did any one need a helper in garden or kitchen or sewing
+room, Granny Hogendobler was glad to serve. Did a housewife remember
+that a rose geranium leaf imparts to apple jelly a delicious flavor,
+Granny Hogendobler was able and willing to furnish the leaf. Did a lover
+of flowers covet a new phlox or dahlia or other old-fashioned flower,
+Granny Hogendobler was ready to give of her stock. Should a young wife
+desire a recipe for crullers, shoo-fly pie, or other delectable dish,
+Granny had a wealth of reliable recipes at her tongue's end. This
+admirable desire to serve found ample opportunities for exercise in the
+constant demands from her friends and neighbors. But Granny's greatest
+joy lay in the fond ministrations for her husband, Old Aaron, as the
+town people called him, half pityingly, half accusingly. For some said
+Old Aaron was plain shiftless, had always been so, would remain so
+forever, so long as he had Granny to do for him. Others averred that the
+Confederate bullets that had shattered his leg into splinters and
+necessitated its amputation must have gone astray and struck his
+liver--leastways, that was the kindest explanation they could give for
+his laziness.
+
+Granny stoutly refuted all these charges--gossip travels in circles in
+small towns and sooner or later reaches those most concerned--"Aaron
+lazy! I-to-goodness no! Why, he's old and what for should he go out and
+work every day, I wonder. He helps me with the garden and so, and when I
+go out to help somebody for a day or two he gets his own meals and tends
+the chickens still. Some people thought a few years ago that he might
+get work in the foundry, but I said I want him at home with me. He gets
+a pension and we can live good on what we have without him slaving his
+last years away, and him with one leg lost at Gettysburg!" she ended
+proudly.
+
+So Old Aaron continued to live his life as pleased his mate and himself.
+He pottered about the house and garden and spent long hours musing under
+the grape arbor. But there was one day in every year when Old Aaron
+came into his own. Every Memorial Day he dressed in his venerated blue
+uniform and carried the flag down the dusty streets of Greenwald, out to
+the dustier road to a spot a mile from the heart of the town, where, on
+a sunny hilltop, some of his comrades rested in the Silent City.
+
+Only the infirm and the ill of the town failed to run to look as the
+little procession passed down the street. There were boys in khaki, the
+town band playing its best, volunteer firemen clad in vivid red shirts,
+a low, hand-drawn wagon filled with flowers, an old cannon, also
+hand-drawn, whose shots over the graves of the dead veterans would
+thrill as they thrilled every May thirtieth--all received attention and
+admiration from the watchers of the procession. But the real honors of
+the day were accorded the "thin blue line of heroes," and Old Aaron was
+one of these. To Granny Hogendobler, who walked with the crowd of
+cheering children and adults and kept step on the sidewalk with the step
+of the marchers on the street, it was evident that the standard bearer
+was growing old. The steep climb near the cemetery entrance left him
+breathless and flushed and each year Granny thought, "It's getting too
+much for him to carry that flag." But each returning year she would have
+spurned as earnestly as he any suggestion that another one be chosen to
+carry that flag. And so every three hundred and sixty-fifth day the lean
+straight figure of Old Aaron marched directly under the fluttering folds
+of Old Glory and the soldier became a subject worthy of veneration,
+then with customary nonchalance the little town forgot him again or
+spoke of him as Old Aaron, a little lazy, a little shiftless, a little
+childish, and Granny Hogendobler became the more important figure of
+that household.
+
+Granny was fifteen years younger than her husband and was undeniably
+rotund of hips and face, the former rotundity increased by her full
+skirts, the latter accentuated by her style of wearing her hair combed
+back into a tight knot near the top of her head and held in place by a
+huge black back-comb.
+
+From this style of hair dressing it is evident that Granny was not a
+member of any plain sect. She was, as she said, "An Evangelical, one of
+the old kind yet. I can say Amen to the preacher's sermon and stand up
+in prayer-meeting and tell how the Lord has blessed me."
+
+There were some who doubted the rich blessing of which Granny spoke. "I
+wouldn't think the Lord blessed me so much," whispered one, "if I had a
+man like Old Aaron, though I guess he's good enough to her. And that boy
+of theirs never comes home; he must have a funny streak in him too."
+"But think of this," one would answer, "how the Lord keeps her cheerful,
+kind and faithful through all her troubles."
+
+Granny's was a wonderful garden. She and Old Aaron lived in a little
+gray cube of a house that had its front face set straight to the edge of
+Charlotte Street. However, the north side of the cube looked into a
+great green yard where tall spruce trees, overrun with trumpet vines and
+woodbine, shaded long beds of flowers that love semi-shady places. The
+rear of the house overlooked an old-fashioned garden enclosed with a
+white-washed picket fence. Always were there flowers at Granny's house.
+In the cold days of winter blooming masses of geraniums, primroses and
+gloxinias crowded against the little square panes of the windows and
+looked defiantly out at the snow; while all the old favorites grew in
+the garden, from the first March snowdrop to the late November
+chrysanthemum. In June, therefore, the garden was a "Lovesome spot"
+indeed.
+
+"It vonders me now if Granny's home," thought Phoebe as she opened the
+wooden gate and entered the yard.
+
+"Here I am," called Granny. "Back in the garden. I-to-goodness, Phoebe,
+did you come once! I just said yesterday to Aaron that I didn't see none
+of you folks for long, and here you come! You haven't seen the flowers
+for a while."
+
+"Oh!" Phoebe breathed an ecstatic little word of delight. "Oh, your
+garden is just vonderful pretty!"
+
+"Ain't," agreed Granny. "Aaron and me's been working pretty hard in it
+these weeks. There he is, out in the potato patch; see him?"
+
+Phoebe stood on tiptoe and looked where Granny's finger pointed to the
+extreme end of the long vegetable garden, where the white head of Old
+Aaron was bending over his hoeing.
+
+"He's hoeing the potatoes," Granny explained. "He don't see you. But
+he'll soon be done and come in."
+
+"What were you doin'?" asked the child.
+
+"Weeding the flag."
+
+"Weedin' the flag--what do you mean?" Phoebe's eyes lighted with
+eagerness. "I guess you mean mendin' the flag, Granny." She looked
+toward the porch as if in search of Old Glory.
+
+"I said weeding the flag," the woman insisted. "It's an idea of Aaron's
+and I guess I'll tell you about it, seeing your eyes are open so wide.
+See the poppies, that long stretch of them in the middle of the garden?"
+
+"Um-uh," nodded Phoebe.
+
+"Well, that patch at the back is all red poppies, the buds just coming
+on them nice and big. Then right in front of them is another patch of
+white poppies; the buds are thick on them, too. And right in front of
+them--you see what's there!"
+
+"Larkspur, blue larkspur!" cried Phoebe. "Oh, I see--it's red, white and
+blue! You'll have it all summer in your garden!"
+
+"Yes. When it blooms it'll be a grand sight. I said to Aaron that we'll
+have all the children of Greenwald in looking at his flag and he said he
+hopes so, for they couldn't look at anything better than the colors of
+Old Glory. Aaron's crazy about the flag."
+
+"'Cause he fought for it, mebbe."
+
+"Yes, I guess. His father died for it at Gettysburg, the same place
+where Aaron lost his leg. . . . The only thing is, the larkspur's
+getting ahead of the poppies--seems like the larkspur couldn't
+wait"--her voice continued low--"I always love to see the larkspur
+come."
+
+"I too," said the child. "I like to pull out the little slippers from
+the middle of the flowers and fit 'em into each other and make circles
+with 'em. I made a lot last summer and pressed 'em in a book, but Aunt
+Maria made me stop."
+
+"That's just what Nason used to do. I have some pressed in the big Bible
+yet that he made when he was a little boy." She spoke half-absently, as
+though momentarily forgetful of the child's presence.
+
+"Who's Nason?" asked Phoebe.
+
+Granny started. "I-to-goodness, Phoebe, I forgot! You don't know him,
+never heard of him, I guess. He's our boy. We had a little girl, too,
+but she died."
+
+"Did the boy die too, Granny?"
+
+"No, ach no! You wouldn't understand. He's living in the city. He writes
+to me often but he don't come home. He and his pop fell out about the
+flag once when Nason was young and foolish and they're both too stubborn
+to forget it."
+
+"But he'll come back some day and live with you, of course, won't he?"
+Phoebe comforted her.
+
+"Yes--some day they'll see things different. But now don't you bother
+that head of yourn with such things. You forget all about Nason. Come
+now, sit on the bench a little under the arbor."
+
+"Just a little. I must go to the store yet."
+
+"You have lots to do."
+
+"Yes. And I almost forgot what I come for. Aunt Maria wants you should
+come out to our place to-morrow early and help with the strawberries if
+you can."
+
+"I'll come. I like to come to your place. Your Aunt Maria is so straight
+out, nothing false about her. I like her. But now I bet you're thinking
+of how many berries you can eat," she added as she noted the child's
+abstracted look.
+
+"No--I was thinkin'--I was just thinkin' what a funny name Nason is,
+like you tried to say Nathan and got your tongue twisted."
+
+"It's a real name, but you must forget all about it."
+
+"If I can. Sometimes Aunt Maria tells me to forget things, like wantin'
+curls and fancy things and pretty dresses but I don't see how I can
+forget when I remember, do you?"
+
+"It's hard," Granny said, a deeper meaning in her words than the child
+could comprehend. "It's the hardest thing in the world to forget what
+you want to forget. But here comes Aaron----"
+
+"Well, well, if here ain't Phoebe Metz with her eyes shining and a pink
+rose pinned to her waist and matching the roses in her cheeks!" the old
+soldier said as he joined the two under the arbor. "Whew! Mebbe it ain't
+hot hoeing potatoes!"
+
+"You're all heated up, Aaron," said Granny. His fifteen years seniority
+warranted a solicitous watchfulness over him, she thought. "Now you get
+cooled off a little and I'll make some lemonade. It'll taste good to me
+and Phoebe, too."
+
+"All right, Ma," Aaron sighed in relaxation. "You know how to touch the
+spot. Did you tell Phoebe about the flag?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, I think it's fine!" cried the child. "I can't wait till all the
+flowers bloom. I want to see it."
+
+"You'll see it," promised the man. "And you bring all the boys and girls
+in too."
+
+"And then will you tell us about the war and the Battle of Gettysburg?
+David Eby says he heard you once tell about it. I think it was at some
+school celebration. And he says it was grand, just like being there
+yourself."
+
+"A little safer," laughed the old soldier. "But, yes, when the poppies
+bloom you bring the children in and I'll tell you about the war and the
+flag."
+
+"I'll remember. I love to hear about the war. Old Johnny Schlegelmilch
+from way up the country comes to our place still to sell brooms, and
+once last summer he came and it began to thunder and storm and pop said
+he shall stay till it's over and then he told me all about the war. He
+said our flag's the prettiest in the whole world."
+
+"So it is," solemnly affirmed Old Aaron.
+
+"I wonder if anybody it belongs to could help liking it," said the
+child, remembering Granny's words.
+
+"Well," the veteran answered slowly, "I knew a young fellow once, a nice
+fellow he seemed, too, and his father a soldier who fought for the flag.
+Well, the father was always talking about the flag and what it means and
+how every man should be ready to fight for it. And one day the boy said
+that he would never fight for it and be shot to pieces, that the old
+flag made him sick, and one soldier in the family was enough."
+
+"Oh!" Phoebe opened her eyes wide in surprise and horror.
+
+"And the father told the boy," the old man went on in a fixed voice as
+though the veriest details of the story were vividly before him, "that
+if he would not take back those words he never wanted to see him again.
+It was better to have no son, than such a son, a coward who hated the
+flag."
+
+Here Granny appeared with the lemonade and the story was abruptly ended.
+Phoebe refrained from questioning the man about the story but as she sat
+under the arbor and afterwards, as she started up the street of the
+little town, she wondered over and over how a boy could be the son of a
+soldier and hate the flag, and whether the story Old Aaron told her was
+the story of himself and Nason.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+LITTLE DUTCHIE
+
+
+"AUNT MARIA said I dare look around a little," thought Phoebe as she
+neared the big store on the Square. Her heart beat more quickly as she
+turned the knob of the heavy door--little things still thrilled her,
+going to the store in Greenwald was an event!
+
+The clerk's courteous, "What can I do for you?" bewildered her for an
+instant but she swallowed hard and said, "Why, we want twenty pounds of
+granulated sugar; ourn is almost all and Aunt Maria wants to make some
+strawberry jelly to-morrow. She said for Jonas to fetch it along on his
+home road."
+
+"All right. Out to Jacob Metz?"
+
+"Yes, he's my pop."
+
+"I see. Anything else?"
+
+"Three spools white thread, number fifty."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+She shook her head as she handed him the money. "No, that's all for
+to-day. But Aunt Maria said I dare look around a little if I don't touch
+things."
+
+"Look all you want," said the clerk and turned away, smiling.
+
+Phoebe began a slow tramp about the big store. There was the same glass
+case filled with jewelry. The rings and pins rested on satin that had
+faded long since, the jewelry itself was tarnished but it held Phoebe's
+interest with its meagre glistening. One little ring with a tiny
+turquoise aroused her desire but she realized that she was longing for
+the impossible, so she moved away from the coveted treasures and paused
+before the ribbons. Some of those same ribbons had been in the tall
+revolving case ever since she could remember going to that store. The
+pale sea-green and the crushed-strawberry were faded horribly, yet she
+looked at them with longing. "Suppose," she thought, "I dared pick out
+any ribbon I want for a sash--guess I'd take that funny pink one, or
+mebbe that nice blue one. But I kinda think I'd rather have a set of
+dishes or a doll. But then I got that rag doll at home and that pretty
+one that pop got for me in Lancaster and that Aunt Maria won't leave me
+play with. That's funny now, that she says still I daren't play with it
+for I might break it, that I shall keep it till I'm big. But when I'm
+big I won't want a doll, and then I vonder what! What will I do with it
+then?"
+
+She stood a long time before a table crowded with a motley gathering of
+toys, dolls and books. With so much coveted treasure before her it was
+hard to remember Aunt Maria's injunction to refrain from touching.
+
+"Well, anyhow," she decided finally, "I won't need any of these things
+to play with now, for I'm going to be out in the garden and the yard
+with the flowers and birds. So I guess my old rag doll will be plenty
+for playin' with. But I mustn't look too long else Aunt Maria won't
+leave me come in soon again. I'll walk down the other side of the store
+now yet and then I must go."
+
+She passed slowly along, her keen eyes noticing the varied assortment of
+articles displayed for sale. A long line of red handkerchiefs was
+fastened to a cord high above one counter. Long shelves were stacked
+high with ginghams, calicoes and finer dress materials. There were gaudy
+rugs and blankets tacked to the walls near the ceiling. Counters were
+filled with glassware, china and crockery; other counters were laden
+with umbrellas, hats, shoes----
+
+"Ach," she sighed as she went out to the street, "I think this goin' to
+Greenwald to the store is vonderful nice! It's most as much fun as goin'
+in to Lancaster, only there I go in a trolley and I see black
+niggers"--she spoke the word with a little shiver, for Greenwald had no
+negro residents--"and once in there me and Aunt Maria saw a Chinaman
+with a long plait like a girl's hangin' down his back!"
+
+After asking for the mail at the post-office she turned homeward,
+feeling like singing from sheer happiness. Then she looked down at her
+pink damask rose--it was withered.
+
+"I'm goin' home now so I guess I won't be decorated no more." She
+unpinned the flower, clasped its short stem in her hand and raised the
+blossom to her face.
+
+"Um-m-m!" She drew deep breaths of the rose's perfume. "Um-m!"
+
+"Does it smell good?"
+
+Phoebe turned her head at the voice and looked into the face of a young
+woman who sat on the porch of a near-by house.
+
+"Does it smell good?" The question came again, accompanied by a broad
+smile.
+
+Quickly the hand holding the flower dropped to the child's side, her
+eyes were cast down to the brick pavement and she went hurriedly down
+the street. But not so hurriedly that she failed to hear the words,
+"LITTLE DUTCHIE" and a merry laugh from the young woman.
+
+"She--she laughed at me!" Phoebe murmured to herself under the blue
+sunbonnet. "I don't know who she is, but that was at Mollie Stern's
+house that she sat--that lady that laughed at me. She called me a
+Dutchie!"
+
+The child stabbed a fist into one eye and then into the other to fight
+back the tears. She felt sure that the appellation of Dutchie was not
+complimentary. Hadn't she heard the boys at school tease each other by
+calling, "Dutchie, Dutchie, sauer kraut!" But no one had ever called her
+that before! Her heart ached as she went down the street of the little
+town. She had planned to look at all the gardens of the main street as
+she walked home but the glory of the June day was spoiled for her. She
+did not care to look at any gardens. The laughing words, "Does it smell
+good?" rang in her ears. The name, "Little Dutchie," sent her heart
+throbbing.
+
+After the first hurt a feeling of wrath rose in her. "Anyhow," she
+thought, "it's no disgrace to be a Dutchie! Nobody needn't laugh at me
+for that. But I just hate that lady that laughed at me! I hate everybody
+that pokes fun at me. And I ain't goin' to always be a Dutchie. You see
+once if I don't be something else when I grow up!"
+
+"Hello, Phoebe," a cheery voice rang out, followed by a deeper
+exclamation, "Phoebe!" as she came to the last intersection of streets
+in the town and turned to enter the country road.
+
+She turned a sober little face to the speakers, David Eby and his
+cousin, Phares Eby.
+
+"Hello," she answered listlessly.
+
+"What's wrong?" asked the older boy as they joined her.
+
+Both were plainly country boys accustomed to hard farm work, but their
+tanned faces were frank and honest under broad straw hats. Each bore
+marked family resemblances in their big frames, dark eyes and
+well-shaped heads, but there was a distinct line drawn between their
+personalities. Phares Eby at sixteen was grave, studious and dignified;
+his cousin, David, two years younger, was a cheery, laughing, sociable
+boy, fond of boyish sports, delighting in teasing his schoolmates and
+enjoying their retaliation, preferring a tramp through the woods to the
+best book ever written.
+
+The boys lived on adjacent farms and had long been the nearest neighbors
+of the Metz family; thus they had become Phoebe's playmates. Then, too,
+the Eby families were members of the Church of the Brethren, the mothers
+of the boys were old friends of Maria Metz, and a deep friendship
+existed among them all. Phoebe and the two boys attended the same
+little country school and had become frankly fond of each other.
+
+"What's wrong?" asked Phares again as Phoebe hung her head and remained
+silent.
+
+"Ach," laughed David, "somebody's broke her dolly."
+
+"Nobody ain't not broke my dolly, David Eby!" she said crossly. "I
+wouldn't cry for _that_!"
+
+"What's wrong then?--come on, Phoebe." He pushed the sunbonnet back and
+patted her roguishly on the head. But she drew away from him.
+
+"Don't you touch me," she cried. "I'm a Dutchie!"
+
+"What?"
+
+She tossed her head and became silent again.
+
+"Come on, tell me," coaxed David. "I want to know what's wrong. Why, if
+you don't tell me I'll be so worried I won't be able to eat any dinner,
+and I'm so hungry now I could eat nails."
+
+The girl laughed suddenly in spite of herself--"Ach, David, you're awful
+simple! Abody has to laugh at you. I was mad, for when I was in
+Greenwald I was smellin' a rose, that pink rose you gave me, and some
+lady on Mollie Stern's porch laughed at me and called me a LITTLE
+DUTCHIE! Now wouldn't you got mad for that?"
+
+But David threw back his head and laughed. "And you were ready to cry at
+that?" he said. "Why, I'm a Dutchie, so is Phares, so's most of the
+people round here. Ain't so, Phares?"
+
+"Yes, guess so," the older boy assented, his eyes still upon Phoebe.
+"D'ye know," he said, addressing her, "when you were cross a few minutes
+ago your eyes were almost black. You shouldn't get so angry still,
+Phoebe."
+
+"I don't care," she retorted quickly, "I don't care if my eyes was
+purple!"
+
+"But you should care," persisted the boy gravely. "I don't like you so
+angry."
+
+"Ach," she flashed an indignant look at him--"Phares Eby, you're by far
+too bossy! I like David best; he don't boss me all the time like you
+do!"
+
+David laughed but Phares appeared hurt.
+
+Phoebe was quick to note it. "Now I hurt you like that lady hurt me,
+ain't, Phares?" she said contritely. "But I didn't mean to hurt you,
+Phares, honest."
+
+"But you like me best," said David gaily. "You can't take that back,
+remember."
+
+She gave him a scornful look. Then she remembered the flag in the
+Hogendobler garden and became happy and eager again as she said, "Oh,
+Phares, David, I know the best secret!"
+
+"Can't keep it, I bet!" challenged David.
+
+"Can't I?" she retorted saucily. "Now for that I won't tell you till you
+get good and anxious. But then it's not really a secret." The flag of
+growing flowers was too glorious a thing to keep; she compromised--"I'll
+tell you, because it's not a real secret." And she proceeded to unfold
+with earnest gesticulations the story about the flowers of red and white
+and blue and the invitation for all who cared to come and see the
+colors of Old Glory growing in the garden of Old Aaron and Granny, and
+of the added pleasure of hearing Old Aaron tell his thrilling story of
+the battle of Gettysburg.
+
+"I won't want to hear about any battle," said Phares. "I think war is
+horrible, awful, wicked."
+
+"Mebbe so," said the girl, "but the poor men who fight in wars ain't
+always awful, horrible, wicked. You needn't turn your nose up at the old
+soldiers. Folks call Old Aaron lazy, I heard 'em a'ready, lots of times,
+but I bet some of them wouldn't have fought like he did and left a leg
+at Gettysburg and--ach, I think Old Aaron is just vonderful grand!" she
+ended in an impulsive burst of eloquence.
+
+"Hooray!" shouted David. "So do I! When he carries the flag out the pike
+every Decoration Day he's somebody, all right."
+
+"Ain't now!" agreed Phoebe.
+
+"Been in the stores?" David asked her, feeling that a change of subject
+might be wise.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"See anything pretty?"
+
+"Ach, yes. A lots of things. I saw the prettiest finger ring with a blue
+stone in. I wish I had it."
+
+"What would Aunt Maria say to that?" wondered David.
+
+"Ach, she'd say that so long as my finger ain't broke I don't need a
+band on it. But I looked at the ring at any rate and wished I had it."
+
+"You dare never wear gold rings," Phares told her.
+
+"Not now," she returned, "but some day when I'm older mebbe I'll wear a
+lot of 'em if I want."
+
+The words set the boys thinking. Each wondered what manner of woman
+their little playmate would become.
+
+"I bet she'll be a good-looking one," thought David. "She'd look swell
+dressed up fine like some of the people I see in town."
+
+"Of course she'll turn plain some day like her aunt," thought the other
+boy. "She'll look nice in the plain dress and the white cap."
+
+Phoebe, ignorant of the visions her innocent words had called to the
+hearts of her comrades, chattered on until they reached the little green
+gate of the Metz farm.
+
+"Now you two must climb the hill yet. I'm glad I'm home. I'm hungry."
+
+"And me," the boys answered, and with good-byes were off on the winding
+road up the hill.
+
+As Phoebe turned the corner of the big gray house she came face to face
+with her father.
+
+"So here you are, Phoebe," he said, smiling at sight of her. "Your Aunt
+Maria sent me out to look if you were coming. It's time to eat. Been to
+the store, ain't?"
+
+"Yes, pop. I went alone."
+
+"So? Why, you're getting a big girl, now you can go to Greenwald alone."
+
+"Ach," she laughed. "Why, it's just straight road."
+
+They crossed the porch and entered the kitchen hand-in-hand, the
+sunbonneted little girl and the big farmer. Jacob Metz was also a member
+of the Church of the Brethren and bore the distinctive mark: hair parted
+in the middle and combed straight back over his ears and cut so that the
+edge of it almost touched his collar. A heavy black beard concealed his
+chin, mild brown eyes gleamed beneath a pair of heavy black brows. Only
+in the wide, high forehead and the resolute mouth could be seen any
+resemblance between him and the fair child by his side.
+
+When they entered the kitchen Maria Metz turned from the stove, where
+she had been stirring the contents of a big iron pan.
+
+"So you got back safe, after all, Phoebe," she said with a sigh of
+relief. "I was afraid mebbe something happened to you, with so many
+streets to go across and so many teams all the time and the
+automobiles."
+
+"Ach, I look both ways still before I start over. Granny Hogendobler
+said she'll get out early."
+
+"So. What did she have to say?"
+
+"Ach, lots. She showed me her flowers. Ain't it too bad, now, that her
+little girl died and her boy went away?"
+
+"Well, she spoiled that boy. He grew up to be not much account if he
+stays away just because he and his pop had words once."
+
+"But he'll come back some day. Granny knows he will." The child echoed
+the old mother's confidence.
+
+"Not much chance of that," said Aunt Maria with her usual decisiveness.
+"When a man goes off like that he mostly always stays off. He writes to
+her she says and I guess she's just as good off with that as if he come
+home to live. She's lived this long without him."
+
+"But," argued Phoebe, the maternal in her over-sweeping all else, "he's
+her boy and she wants him back!"
+
+"Ach," the aunt said impatiently, "you talk too much. Were you at the
+store?"
+
+"Yes. I got the thread and ordered the sugar and counted the change and
+there was nothing in the post-office for us."
+
+"Did you enjoy your trip to town?" asked the father.
+
+"Yes--but----"
+
+"But what?" demanded Aunt Maria. "Did you break anything in the store
+now?"
+
+"No. I just got mad. It was this way"--and she told the story of her
+pink rose.
+
+Maria Metz frowned. "David Eby should leave his mom's roses on the
+stalks where they belong. Anyhow, I guess you did look funny if you
+poked your nose in it like you do still here."
+
+"But she had no business to laugh at me, had she, pop?"
+
+"You're too touchy," he said kindly. "But did you say the lady was on
+Mollie Stern's porch?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I guess it was her cousin from Philadelphia, the one that was
+elected to teach the school on the hill for next winter."
+
+"Oh, pop, not our school?"
+
+"Yes. Anyhow, her cousin was elected yesterday to teach your school. It
+seems she wanted to teach in the country and Mollie's pop is friends
+with a lot of our directors and they voted her in."
+
+"I ain't goin' to school then!" Phoebe almost sobbed. "I don't like her,
+I don't want to go to her school; she laughed at me."
+
+"Come, come," the father laid his hands on her head and spoke gently yet
+in a tone that she respected. "You mustn't get worked up over it. She's
+a nice young lady, and it will be something new to have a teacher from
+Philadelphia. Anyhow, it's a long ways yet till school begins."
+
+"I'm glad it is."
+
+"Come," interrupted the aunt, "help now to dish up. It's time to eat
+once. We're Pennsylvania Dutch, so what's the use gettin' cross when
+we're called that?"
+
+"Yes," Phoebe's father said, smiling, "I'm a Dutchie too, but I'm a big
+Dutchie."
+
+Phoebe smiled, but all through the meal and during the days that
+followed she thought often of the rose. Her heart was bitter toward the
+new teacher and she resolved never, never to like her!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE NEW TEACHER
+
+
+THE first Monday in September was the opening day of the rural school on
+the hill. Phoebe woke that morning before daylight. At four she heard
+her Aunt Maria tramp about in heavy shoes. It was Monday and wash-day
+and to Maria Metz the two words were so closely linked that nothing less
+than serious illness or death could part them.
+
+"Ach, my," Phoebe sighed as she turned again under her red and green
+quilt, "this is the first day of school! Wish Aunt Maria'd forget to
+call me till it's too late to go."
+
+At five-thirty she heard her father go down-stairs and soon after that
+came her aunt's loud call, "Phoebe, it's time to get up. Get up now and
+get down for I have breakfast made."
+
+"Yes," came the dreary answer.
+
+"Now don't you go asleep again."
+
+"No, I'm awake. Shall I dress right aways for school?"
+
+"No. Put on your old brown gingham once."
+
+Phoebe made a wry face. "Ugh, that ugly brown gingham! What for did
+anybody ever buy brown when there are such pretty colors in the stores?"
+
+A moment later she pushed back the gay quilt and sat on the edge of the
+bed. The first gleams of day-break sent bright streaks of light into her
+room as she sat on the high walnut bed and swung her bare feet back and
+forth.
+
+"It's the first time I wasn't glad for school," she soliloquized softly.
+"I used to could hardly wait still, and I'd be glad this time if we
+didn't have that teacher from Phildelphy. Miss Virginia Lee her name is,
+and she's pretty like the name, but I don't like her! Guess she's that
+stuck up, comin' from the city, that she'll laugh all the time at us
+country people. I don't like people that poke fun at me, you bet I
+don't! I vonder now, mebbe I am funny to look at, that she laughed at
+me. But if I was I think somebody would 'a' told me long ago. I don't
+see what for she laughed so at me."
+
+She sprang from the bed and ran to the window, pulled the cord of the
+green shade and sent it rattling to the top. Then she stood on tiptoe
+before the mirror in the walnut bureau, but the glass was hung too high
+for a satisfactory scrutiny of her features. She pushed a cane-seated
+chair before the bureau, knelt upon it and brought her face close to the
+glass.
+
+"Um," she surveyed herself soberly. "Well, now, mebbe if my hair was
+combed I'd look better."
+
+She pulled the tousled braids, opened them and shook her head until the
+golden hair hung about her face in all its glory.
+
+"Why"--she gasped at the sudden change she had wrought, then laughed
+aloud from sheer childish happiness in her own miracle--"Why," she said
+gladly, "I ain't near so funny lookin' with my hair opened and down
+instead of pulled back in two tight plaits! But I wish Aunt Maria'd
+leave me have curls. I'd have a lot, and long ones, longer'n Mary
+Warner's."
+
+"Phoebe!" Aunt Maria's voice startled the little girl. "What in the
+world are you doing lookin' in that glass so? And your knees on a
+cane-bottom chair! You know better than that. What for are you lookin'
+at yourself like that? You ought to be ashamed to be so vain."
+
+Phoebe left the chair and looked at her aunt.
+
+"Why," she said in an amazed voice, "I wasn't being vain! I was just
+lookin' to see if I am funny lookin' that it made Miss Lee laugh at me.
+And I found out that I'm much nicer to look at with my hair open than in
+plaits. You say still I mustn't have curls, but can't you see how much
+nicer I look this way----"
+
+"Ach," interrupted her aunt, "don't talk so dumb! I guess you ain't any
+funnier lookin' than other people, and if you was it wouldn't matter
+long as you're a good girl."
+
+"But I wouldn't be a good girl if I looked like some people I saw
+a'ready. If I had such big ears and crooked nose and big mouth----"
+
+"Phoebe, you talk vonderful! Where do you get such nonsense put in your
+head?"
+
+"I just think it and then I say it. But was that bad? I didn't mean it
+for bad."
+
+She looked so like a cherub of absolute innocency with her deep blue
+eyes opened wide in wonder, her golden hair tumbled about her face and
+streaming over the shoulders of her white muslin nightgown, that Aunt
+Maria, though she had never heard of Reynolds' cherubs, was moved by the
+adorable picture.
+
+"I know, Phoebe," she said kindly, "that you want to be a good girl. But
+you say such funny things still that I vonder sometimes if I'm raisin'
+you the right way. Come, hurry, now get dressed. Your pop's goin' way
+over to the field near Snavely's and you want to give him good-bye
+before he goes to work."
+
+"I'll hurry, Aunt Maria, honest I will," the child promised and began to
+dress.
+
+A little while later when she appeared in the big kitchen her father and
+Aunt Maria were already eating breakfast. With her hair drawn back into
+one uneven braid and a rusty brown dress upon her she seemed little like
+the adorable figure of the looking-glass, but her father's face lighted
+as he looked at her.
+
+"So, Phoebe," he said, a teasing twinkle in his eyes, "I see you get up
+early to go to school."
+
+"But I ain't glad to go." She refused to smile at his words.
+
+"Ach, yes," he coaxed, "you be a good girl and like your new teacher.
+She's nice. I guess you'll like her when you know her once."
+
+"Mebbe so," was the unpromising answer as she slipped the straps of a
+blue checked apron over her shoulders, buttoned it in the back and took
+her place at the table.
+
+Breakfast at the Metz farm was no light meal. Between the early morning
+meal and the twelve o'clock dinner much hard work was generally
+accomplished and Maria Metz felt that a substantial foundation was
+necessary. Accordingly, she carried to the big, square cherry table in
+the kitchen an array of well-filled dishes. There was always a glass
+dish of stewed prunes or seasonable fresh fruit; a plate piled high with
+thick slices of home-made bread; several dishes of spreadings, as the
+jellies, preserves or apple-butter of that community are called. There
+was a generous square of home-made butter, a platter of home-cured ham
+or sausage, a dish of fried or creamed potatoes, a smaller dish of
+pickles or beets, and occasionally a dome of glistening cup cheese. The
+meal would have been considered incomplete without a liberal supply of
+cake or cookies, coffee in huge cups and yellow cream in an
+old-fashioned blue pitcher.
+
+That morning Aunt Maria had prepared an extra treat, a platter of golden
+slices of fried mush.
+
+The two older people partook heartily of the food before them but the
+child ate listlessly. Her aunt soon exclaimed, "Now, Phoebe, you must
+eat or you'll get hungry till recess. You know this is the first day of
+school and you can't run for a cookie if you get hungry. You ain't
+eatin'; you feel bad?"
+
+"No, but I ain't hungry."
+
+"Come now," urged her father, as he poured a liberal helping of molasses
+on his sixth piece of mush, "you must eat. You surely don't feel that
+bad about going to school!"
+
+"Ach, pop," she burst out, "I don't hate the school part, the learnin'
+in books; that part is easy. But I don't like the teacher, and I guess
+she laughed at my tight braids. Mebbe if I dared wear curls---- Oh,
+pop, daren't I have curls? I'd like to show her that I look nice that
+way. Say I dare, then I won't be so funny lookin' no more!"
+
+Jacob Metz looked at his offspring--what did the child mean? Why, he
+thought she was right sweet and surely her aunt kept her clean and tidy.
+But before he could answer his sister spoke authoritatively.
+
+"Jacob, I wish you'd tell her once that she daren't have curls! She just
+plagues me all the time for 'em. Her hair was made to be kept back and
+not hangin' all over."
+
+"Why then," Phoebe asked soberly, "did God make my hair curly if I
+daren't have curls?" She spoke with a sense of knowing that she had
+propounded an unanswerable question.
+
+"That part don't matter," evaded Aunt Maria. "You ask your pop once how
+he wants you to have your hair fixed."
+
+The child looked up expectantly but she read the answer in her father's
+face.
+
+"I like your hair back in plaits, Phoebe. You look nice that way."
+
+"Ach," her nose wrinkled in disgust, "not so very, I guess. Mary Warner
+has curls, always she has curls!"
+
+"Come," said the father as he rose from his chair, "you be a good girl
+now to-day. I'm going now."
+
+"All right, pop. I'll tell you to-night how I like the teacher."
+
+After the breakfast dishes were washed and the other morning tasks
+accomplished Phoebe brought her comb and ribbons to her aunt and sat
+patiently on a spindle-legged kitchen chair while the woman carefully
+parted the long light hair and formed it into two braids, each tied at
+the end with a narrow brown ribbon.
+
+"Now," Aunt Maria said as she unbuttoned the despised brown dress, "you
+dare put on your blue chambray dress if you take care and not get it
+dirty right aways."
+
+"Oh, I'm glad for that. I like that dress best of all I have. It's not
+so long in the body or tight or long in the skirt like my other dresses.
+And blue is a prettier color than brown. I'll hurry now and get
+dressed."
+
+She ran up the wide stairs, her hands skimming lightly the white
+hand-rail, and entered the little room known as the clothes-room, where
+the best clothes of the family were hung on heavy hooks fastened along
+the entire length of the four walls. She soon found the blue chambray
+dress. It was extremely simple. The plain gathered skirt was fastened to
+the full waist by a wide belt of the chambray. But the dress bore one
+distinctive feature. Instead of the usual narrow band around the neck it
+was adorned with a wide round collar which lay over the shoulders.
+Phoebe knew that the collar was vastly becoming and the knowledge always
+had a soothing effect upon her.
+
+When the call of the school bell floated down the hill to the gray
+farmhouse Phoebe picked up her school bag and her tin lunch kettle and
+started off, outwardly in happier mood yet loath to go to the old
+schoolhouse for the first session of school.
+
+From the Metz farm the road to the school began to ascend. Gradually it
+curved up-hill, then suddenly stretched out in a long, steep climb
+until, upon the summit of the hill, it curved sharply to the west to a
+wide clearing. It was to this clearing the little country schoolhouse
+with its wide porch and snug bell-tower called the children back to
+their studies.
+
+Goldenrod and asters grew along the road, dogwood branches hung their
+scarlet berries over the edge of the woods, but Phoebe would have
+scorned to gather any of the flowers she loved and carry them to the new
+teacher. "I ain't bringing _her_ any flowers," she soliloquized.
+
+She trudged soberly ahead. As she reached the summit of the hill several
+children called to her. From three roads came other children, most of
+them carrying baskets or kettles filled with the noon lunch. All were
+eager for the opening of school, anxious to "see the new teacher once."
+
+From the farm nearest the schoolhouse Phares Eby had come for his last
+year in the rural school. From the little cottage on the adjoining farm
+David Eby came whistling down the road.
+
+"Hello, Phoebe," he called as he drew near to her. "Glad for school?"
+
+"I ain't!" She flung the words at him. "You know good enough I ain't."
+
+"Ha, ha," he laughed, "don't be cranky, Phoebe. Here comes Phares and
+he'll tell you that your eyes are black when you're cross. Won't you,
+Phares?"
+
+"I----" began the sober youth, but Phoebe rudely interrupted.
+
+"I don't care. I don't like the new teacher."
+
+"You must like everybody," said Phares.
+
+"Well, I just guess I won't! There's Mary Warner with her white dress
+and her black curls with a pink bow on them--you don't think I'm likin'
+her when she's got what I want and daren't have? Come on, it's time to
+go in," she added as Phares would have remonstrated with her for her
+frank avowal of jealousy. "Let's go in and see what the teacher's got
+on."
+
+"Gee," whistled David, "girls are always thinking of clothes."
+
+Phoebe gave him a disdainful look, but he laughed and walked by her
+side, up the three steps, across the porch and into the schoolhouse.
+
+The red brick schoolhouse on the hill was a typical country school of
+Lancaster County. It had one large room with four rows of double desks
+and seats facing the teacher's desk and a long blackboard with its
+border of A B C. A stove stood in one of the corners in the front of the
+room. In the rear numerous hooks in the wall waited for the children's
+wraps and a low bench stood ready to receive their lunch baskets and
+kettles. Each detail of the little schoolhouse was reproduced in scores
+of other rural schools of that community. And yet, somehow, many of the
+older children felt on that first Monday a hope that their school would
+be different that year, that the teacher from Philadelphia would change
+many of the old ways and teach them, what Youth most desires, new ways,
+new manners, new things. It is only as the years bring wisdom that men
+and women appreciate the old things of life, as well as the new.
+
+The new teacher became at once the predominating spirit of that little
+group. The interest of all the children, from the shy little beginners
+in the Primer class to the tall ones in the A class, was centered about
+her.
+
+Miss Lee stood by her desk as Phoebe and the two boys entered. It was
+still that delightful period, before-school, when laughter could be
+released and voices raised without a fear of "keep quiet." The children
+moved to the teacher's desk as though drawn by magnetic force. Mary
+Warner, her dark curls hanging over her shoulders, appeared already
+acquainted with her. Several tiny beginners stood near the desk, a few
+older scholars were bravely offering their services to fetch water from
+Eby's "whenever it's all or you want some fresh," or else stay and clap
+the erasers clean.
+
+When the second tug at the bell-rope gave the final call for the opening
+of school there was an air of gladness in the room. The new teacher
+possessed enough of the elusive "something" the country children felt
+belonged to a teacher from a big city like Philadelphia. The way she
+conducted the opening exercises, led the singing, and then proceeded
+with the business of arranging classes and assigning lessons served to
+intensify the first feelings of satisfaction. When recess came the
+children ran outdoors, ostensibly to play, but rather to gather into
+little groups and discuss the merits of the new teacher. The general
+verdict was, "She's all right."
+
+"Ain't she all right?" David Eby asked Phoebe as they stood in the brown
+grasses near the school porch.
+
+"Ach, don't ask me that so often!"
+
+"But honest now, Phoebe, don't you like her?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"When will you know?"
+
+"I don't know," came the tantalizing answer.
+
+"Ach, sometimes, Phoebe, you make me mad! You act dumb just like the
+other girls sometimes."
+
+"Then keep away from me if you don't like me," she retorted.
+
+"Sassbox!" said the boy and walked away from her.
+
+The little tilt with David did not improve the girl's humor. She entered
+the schoolroom with a sulky look on her face, her blue eyes dark and
+stormy. Accordingly, when Mary Warner shook her enviable curls and
+leaned forward to whisper ecstatically, "Phoebe, don't you just love the
+new teacher?" Phoebe replied very decidedly, "I do not! I don't like her
+at all!"
+
+For a moment Mary held her breath, then a surprised "Oh!" came from her
+lips and she raised her hand and waved it frantically to attract the
+teacher's attention.
+
+"What is it, Mary?"
+
+"Why, Miss Lee, Phoebe Metz says she don't like you at all!"
+
+"Did she ask you to tell me?" A faint flush crept into the face of the
+teacher.
+
+"No--but----"
+
+"Then that will do, Mary."
+
+But Phoebe Metz did not dismiss the matter so easily. She turned in her
+seat and gave one of Mary's obnoxious curls a vigorous yank.
+
+"Tattle-tale!" she hurled out madly. "Big tattle-tale!"
+
+"Yank 'em again," whispered David, seated a few seats behind the girls,
+but Phares called out a soft, "Phoebe, stop that."
+
+It all occurred in a moment--the yank, the outcry of Mary, the whispers
+of the two boys and the subsequent pause in the matter of teaching and
+the centering of every child's attention upon the exciting incident and
+wondering what Miss Lee would do with the disturbers of the peace.
+
+"Phoebe," the teacher's voice was controlled and forceful, "you may fold
+your hands. You do not seem to know what to do with them."
+
+Phoebe folded her hands and bowed her head in shame. She hadn't meant to
+create a disturbance. What would her father say when he knew she was
+scolded the first day of school!
+
+The teacher's voice went on, "Mary Warner, you may come to me at noon. I
+want to tell you a few things about tale-bearing. Phoebe may remain
+after the others leave this afternoon."
+
+"Kept in!" thought Phoebe disconsolately. She was going to be kept in
+the first day! Never before had such punishment been meted out to her!
+The disgrace almost overwhelmed her.
+
+"Now I won't ever, ever, ever like her!" she thought as she bent her
+head to hide the tears.
+
+The remainder of the day was like a blurred page to her. She was glad
+when the other children picked up their books and empty baskets and
+kettles and started homeward.
+
+"Cheer up," whispered David as he passed out, but she was too miserable
+to smile or answer.
+
+"Come on, David," urged Phares when the two cousins reached outdoors and
+the younger one seemed reluctant to go home. "Don't stay here to pet
+Phoebe when she comes out."
+
+"Ach, the poor kid"--David was all sympathy and tenderness.
+
+"Let her get punished. Pulling Mary's hair like that!"
+
+"Well, Mary tattled. I was wishing Phoebe'd yank that darned kid's hair
+half off."
+
+"Mary just told the truth. You think everything Phoebe does is right and
+you help her along in her temper. She needs to be punished sometimes."
+
+"Ach, you make me tired, standing up for a tattle-tale! Anyhow, you go
+on home. I'm goin' to hang round a while and see if Miss Lee does
+anything mean."
+
+Phares went on alone and the other boy stole to a window and crouched to
+the ground.
+
+Inside the room Phoebe waited tremblingly for the teacher to speak. It
+seemed ages before Miss Lee walked down the aisle and stood by the low
+desk.
+
+Phoebe raised her head--the look in the dark eyes of the teacher filled
+her with a sudden reversion of feeling. How could she go on hating any
+one so beautiful!
+
+"Phoebe, I'm sorry--I'm so sorry there has been any trouble the first
+day and that you have been the cause of it."
+
+"I--ach, Miss Lee," the child blurted out half-sobbingly, "Mary, she
+tattled on me."
+
+"That was wrong, of course. I made her understand that at noon. But
+don't you think that pulling her hair and creating a disturbance was
+equally wrong?"
+
+"I guess so, mebbe. But I didn't mean to make no fuss. I--I--why, I just
+get so mad still! I hadn't ought to pull her hair, for that hurts
+vonderful much."
+
+"Then you might tell her to-morrow how sorry you are about it."
+
+"Yes." Phoebe looked up at the lovely face of the teacher. She felt that
+some explanation of Mary's tale was necessary. "Why, now," she
+stammered, "you know--you know that Mary said I said I don't like you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, this summer once, early in June it was"--the child hung her head
+and spoke almost inaudibly--"you laughed at me and called me a LITTLE
+DUTCHIE!" She looked up bravely then and spoke faster, "And for that,
+it's just for that I don't like you like all the others do a'ready."
+
+"Laughed at you!" Miss Lee was perplexed. "You must be mistaken."
+
+But Phoebe shook her head resolutely and told the story of the pink
+rose. Miss Lee listened at first with an incredulous smile upon her
+face, then with dawning remembrance.
+
+"You dear child!" she cried as Phoebe ended her quaint recital. "So you
+are the little girl of the sunbonnet and the rose! I thought this
+morning I had seen you before. But you don't understand! I didn't laugh
+at you in the way you think. Why, I laughed at you just as we laugh at a
+dear little baby, because we love it and because it is so dear and
+sweet. And DUTCHIE was just a pet name. Can't you understand? You were
+so quaint and interesting in your sunbonnet and with the pink rose
+pressed to your face. Can't you understand?"
+
+Phoebe smiled radiantly, her face beaming with happiness.
+
+"Ach, ain't that simple now of me, Miss Lee?" she said in her
+old-fashioned manner. "I was so dumb and thought you was makin' fun of
+me, and just for that all summer I was wishin' school would not start
+ever. And I was sayin' all the time I ain't goin' to like you. But now I
+do like you," she added softly.
+
+"I am glad we understand each other, Phoebe."
+
+Miss Lee was genuinely interested in the child, attracted by the
+charming personality of the country girl. Of the thirty children of that
+school she felt that Phoebe Metz, in spite of her old-fashioned dress
+and older-fashioned ways, was the preëminent figure. It would be a
+delight to teach a child whose face could light with so much animation.
+
+"Now, Phoebe," she said, "since we understand each other and have become
+friends, gather your books and hurry home. Your mother may be anxious
+about you."
+
+"Not my mother," Phoebe replied soberly. "I ain't got no mom. It's my
+Aunt Maria and my pop takes care of me. My mom's dead long a'ready. But
+I'm goin' now," she ended brightly before Miss Lee could answer. "And
+the road's all down-hill so it won't take me long."
+
+So she gathered her books and kettle, said good-bye to Miss Lee and
+hurried from the schoolhouse. When she was fairly on the road she broke
+into her habit of soliloquy: "Ach, if she ain't the nicest lady! So
+pretty she is and so kind! She was vonderful kind after what I done. The
+teacher we had last year, now, he would 'a' slapped my hands with a
+ruler, he was awful for rulers! But she just looked at me and I was so
+sorry for bein' bad that I could 'a' cried. And when she touched my
+hands--her hands is soft like the milkweed silk we find still in the
+fall--I just had to like her. I like her now and I'm goin' to be a good
+girl for her and when I grow up I wish I'd be just like her, just
+esactly like her."
+
+David Eby waited until he was certain no harm was coming to Phoebe. He
+heard her say, "Now I do like you" and knew that the matter was being
+settled satisfactorily. Relieved, yet ashamed of his eavesdropping, he
+ran down the road toward his home.
+
+"That teacher's all right," he thought. "But Jimminy, girls is funny
+things!"
+
+He went on, whistling, but stopped suddenly as he turned a curve in the
+road and saw Phares sitting on the grass in the shelter of a clump of
+bushes.
+
+The older boy rose. "David," he said sternly, "you're spoiling Phoebe
+Metz with your petting and fooling around her. What for need you pity
+her when she gets kept in for being bad? She was bad!"
+
+"She was not bad!" David defended staunchly. "That Mary Warner makes me
+sick. Phoebe's got some sense, anyhow, and she's not bad. There's
+nothing bad in her."
+
+"Um," said Phares tauntingly, "mebbe you like her already and next
+you'll want her for your girl. You give her pink roses and you stay to
+lick the teacher for her if----"
+
+But the sentence was never finished. At the first words David's eyes
+flashed, his hands doubled into hard fists and, as his cousin paid no
+heed to the warning, he struck out suddenly, then partially restraining
+his rage, he unclenched his right hand and gave Phares a smarting slap
+upon the mouth.
+
+"I'll learn you," he growled, "to meddle in my business! You mind your
+own, d'ye hear?"
+
+"Why"--Phares knew no words to answer the insult--"why, David," he
+stammered, wiping his smarting lips.
+
+But his silence added fuel to the other's wrath.
+
+"You butt in too much, that's what!" said David. "It's just like Phoebe
+says, you boss too much. I ain't going to take it no more from you."
+
+"I--now--mebbe I do," admitted Phares.
+
+At the words David's anger cooled. He laid a hand on the older boy's
+arm, as older men might have gripped hands in reconciliation. "Come on,
+Phares," he said in natural, friendly tones. "I hadn't ought to hit you.
+Let's forget all about it. You and me mustn't fight over Phoebe."
+
+"That's so," agreed Phares, but both were thoughtful and silent as they
+went down the lane.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE HEART OF A CHILD
+
+
+PHOEBE'S aspiration to become like her teacher did not lessen as the days
+went on. Her profound admiration for Miss Lee developed into intense
+devotion, a devotion whose depth she carefully guarded from discovery.
+
+To her father's interested questioning she answered a mere, "Why, I like
+her, for all, pop. She didn't laugh to make fun at me. I think she's
+nice." But secretly the little girl thought of her new teacher in the
+most extravagant superlatives. Her heart was experiencing its first
+"hero" worship; the poetic, imaginative soul of the child was attracted
+by the magnetic personality of Miss Lee. The teacher's smiles,
+mannerisms, dress, and above all, her English, were objects worthy of
+emulation, thought the child. At times Phoebe despaired of ever becoming
+like Miss Lee, then again she felt certain she had within her
+possibilities to become like the enviable, wonderful Virginia Lee. But
+she breathed to none her ambitions and hopes except at night as she
+knelt by her high old-fashioned bed and bent her head to say the prayer
+Aunt Maria had taught her in babyhood. Then to the prayer, "Now I lay me
+down to sleep," she added an original petition, "And please let me get
+like my teacher, Miss Lee. Amen."
+
+"Aunt Maria, church is on the hill Sunday, ain't it?" she asked one day
+after several weeks of school.
+
+"Yes. And I hope it's nice, for we make ready for a lot of company
+always when we have church here."
+
+"Why," the child asked eagerly, "dare I ask Miss Lee to come here for
+dinner too that Sunday? Mary Warner's mom had her for dinner last
+Sunday."
+
+"Ach, yes, I don't care. You ask her. Mebbe she ain't been in a plain
+church yet and would like to go with us and then come home for dinner
+here. You ask her once."
+
+Phoebe trembled a bit as she invited the teacher to the gray farmhouse.
+"Miss Lee--why--we have church here on the hill this Sunday and Aunt
+Maria thought perhaps you'd like to come out and go with us and then
+come to our house for dinner. We always have a lot of people for
+dinner."
+
+"I'd love to, Phoebe, thank you," answered Miss Lee.
+
+The plain sects of that community were all novel to her. She was eager
+to attend a service in the meeting-house on the hill and especially
+eager to meet Phoebe's people and study the unusual child in the
+intimate circle of home.
+
+"Tell your aunt I shall be very glad to go to the service with you," she
+said as Phoebe stood speechless with joy. "Will you go?"
+
+"Ach, yes, I go always," with a surprised widening of the blue eyes.
+
+"And your aunt, too?"
+
+"Why be sure, yes! Abody don't stay home from church when it's so near.
+That would look like we don't want company. There's church on the hill
+only every six weeks and the other Sundays it's at other churches. Then
+we drive to those other churches and people what live near ask us to
+come to their house for dinner, and we go. Then when it's here on the
+hill we must ask people that live far off to come to us for dinner. That
+way everybody has a place to go. It makes it nice to go away and to have
+company still. We always have a lot when church is here. Aunt Maria
+cooks so good."
+
+She spoke the last words innocently and looked up with an expression of
+wonder as she heard Miss Lee laugh gaily--now what was funny? Surely
+Miss Lee laughed when there was nothing at all to laugh about!
+
+"What time does your service begin?" asked the teacher. "What time do
+you leave the house?"
+
+"It takes in at nine o'clock----"
+
+Miss Lee smothered an ejaculation of surprise.
+
+"But we leave the house a little after half-past eight. Then we can go
+easy up the hill and have time to walk around on the graveyard a little
+and get in church early and watch the people come in."
+
+"I'll stop for you and go with you, Phoebe."
+
+Sunday morning at the Metz farm was no time for prolonged slumber. With
+the first crowing of roosters Aunt Maria rose. After the early breakfast
+there were numerous tasks to be performed before the departure for the
+meeting-house. There was the milking to be done and the cans of milk
+placed in the cool spring-house; the chickens and cattle to be fed; each
+room of the big house to be dusted; vegetables to be prepared for a
+hasty boiling after the return from the service; preserves and canned
+fruits to be brought from the cellar, placed into glass dishes and set
+in readiness.
+
+At eight-fifteen Phoebe was ready. She wore her favorite blue chambray
+dress and delighted in the fact that Sunday always brought her the
+privilege of wearing her hat. The little sailor hat with its narrow
+ribbon and little bow was certainly not the hat she would have chosen if
+she might have had that pleasure, but it was the only hat she owned, so
+was not to be despised. She felt grateful that Aunt Maria allowed her to
+wear a hat. Many little girls, some smaller than she, came to church
+every Sunday wearing silk bonnets like their elders!--she felt grateful
+for her hat--any hat!
+
+Tugging at the elastic under her chin, then smoothing her handkerchief
+and placing it in her sleeve--she had seen Miss Lee dispose of a
+handkerchief in that way--she walked to the little green gate and
+watched the road leading from Greenwald.
+
+Her heart leaped when she saw the teacher come down the long road. She
+opened the gate to go to meet her, then suddenly stood still. Miss Lee
+as she appeared in the schoolroom, in white linen dress or trim serge
+skirt and tailored waist, was attractive enough to cause Phoebe's heart
+to flutter with admiration a dozen times a day; but Miss Lee in Sunday
+morning church attire was so irresistibly sweet that the vision sent the
+little girl's heart pounding and caused a strange shyness to possess
+her. The semi-tailored dress of dark blue taffeta, the sheer white
+collar, the small black hat with its white wings, the silver coin purse
+in the gloved hand--no detail escaped the keen eyes of the child. She
+looked down at her cotton dress--it had seemed so pretty just a moment
+ago. But, of course, such dresses and gloves and hats were for
+grown-ups! "But just you wait," she thought, "when I grow up I'll look
+like that, too, see if I don't!"
+
+Miss Lee, smiling, never knew the depths she stirred in the heart of the
+little girl.
+
+"Am I late, Phoebe?"
+
+"Ach, no. Just on time. Pop, he went a'ready, though. He goes early
+still to open the meeting-house. We'll go right away, as soon as Aunt
+Maria locks up. But what for did you bring a pocketbook?"
+
+"For the offering."
+
+"Offering?"
+
+"The church offering, Phoebe. Surely you know what that is if you go to
+church every Sunday. Don't you have collection plates or baskets passed
+about in your church for everybody to put their offerings on them?"
+
+"Why, no, we don't have that in our church! What for do they do that in
+any church?"
+
+"To pay the preachers' salaries and----"
+
+"Goodness," Phoebe laughed, "it would take a vonderful lot to pay all
+the preachers that preach at our church. Sometimes three or four preach
+at one meeting. They have to work week-days and get their money just
+like other men do. Men come around to the house sometimes for money for
+the poor, and when the meeting-house needs a new roof or something like
+that, everybody helps to pay for it, but we don't take no collections in
+church, like you say. That's a funny way----"
+
+The appearance of Maria Metz prevented further discussion of church
+collections. With a large, fringed shawl pinned over her plain gray
+dress and a stiff black silk bonnet tied under her chin, she was ready
+for church. She was putting the big iron key of the kitchen door into a
+deep pocket of her full skirt as she came down the walk.
+
+"That way, now we're ready," she said affably. "I guess you're Phoebe's
+teacher, ain't? I see you go past still."
+
+"Yes. I am very glad to meet you, Miss Metz. It is very kind of you to
+invite me to go with you."
+
+"Ach, that's nothing. You're welcome enough. We always have much company
+when church is on the hill. This is a nice day, so I guess church will
+be full. I hope so, anyway, for I got ready for company for dinner. But
+how do you like Greenwald?"
+
+"Very well, indeed. It is beautiful here."
+
+"Ain't! But I guess it's different from Phildelphy. I was there once, in
+the Centennial, and it was so full everywheres. I like the country best.
+Can't anything beat this now, can it?"
+
+They reached the summit of the hill and paused.
+
+"No," said Miss Lee, "this is hard to beat. I love the view from this
+hill."
+
+"Ain't now"--Aunt Maria smiled in approval--"this here is about the
+nicest spot around Greenwald. There's the town so plain you could almost
+count the houses, only the trees get in the road. And there's the
+reservoir with the white fence around, and the farms and the pretty
+country around them--it's a pretty place."
+
+"I like this hill," said Phoebe. "When I grow up I'm goin' to have a
+farm on this hill, when I'm married, I mean."
+
+"That's too far off yet, Phoebe," said her aunt. "You must eat bread and
+butter yet a while before you think of such things."
+
+"Anyhow, I changed my mind. I'm not goin' to live in the country when I
+grow up; I'm going to be a fine lady and live in the city."
+
+"Phoebe, stop that dumb talk, now!" reproved her aunt sternly. "You turn
+round and walk up the hill. We'll go on now, Miss Lee. Mebbe you'd like
+to go on the graveyard a little?"
+
+"I don't mind."
+
+"Then come." Aunt Maria led the way, past the low brick meeting-house,
+through the gateway into the old burial ground. They wandered among the
+marble slabs and read the inscriptions, some half obliterated by years
+of mountain storms, others freshly carved.
+
+"The epitaphs are interesting," said Miss Lee.
+
+"What's them?" asked Phoebe.
+
+"The verses on the tombstones. Here is one"--she read the inscription
+on the base of a narrow gray stone--"'After life's fitful fever she
+sleeps well.'"
+
+"Ach," Aunt Maria said tartly, "I guess her man knowed why he put that
+on. That poor woman had three husbands and eleven children, so I guess
+she had fitful fever enough."
+
+Phoebe laughed loud as she saw the smile on the face of her teacher, but
+next moment she sobered under the chiding of Aunt Maria. "Phoebe, now
+you keep quiet! Abody don't laugh and act so on a graveyard!"
+
+"Ugh," the child said a moment later, "Miss Lee, just read this one. It
+always gives me shivers when I read it still.
+
+        "'Remember, man, as you pass by,
+          What you are now that once was I.
+          What I am now that you will be;
+          Prepare for death and follow me.'"
+
+"That is rather startling," said Miss Lee.
+
+Phoebe smiled and asked, "Don't you think this is a pretty graveyard?"
+
+"Yes. How well cared for the graves are. Not a weed on most of them."
+
+"Well," Aunt Maria explained, "the people who have dead here mostly take
+care of the graves. We come up every two weeks or so and sometimes we
+bring a hoe and fix our graves up nice and even. But some people are too
+lazy to keep the graves clean. I hoed some pig-ears out a few graves
+last week; I was ashamed of 'em, even if the graves didn't belong to
+us."
+
+In the corner near the road the aunt stopped before a plain gray
+boulder.
+
+"Phoebe's mom," she said, pointing to the inscription.
+
+             "_PHOEBE
+          beloved wife of
+             Jacob Metz
+        aged twenty-two years
+           and one month.
+        Souls of the righteous
+        are in the hand of God._"
+
+"I'm glad," said the child as they stood by her mother's grave, "that
+they put that last on, for when I come here still I like to know that my
+mom ain't under all this dirt but that she's up in the Good Place like
+it says there."
+
+Miss Lee clasped the little hand in hers--what words were adequate to
+express her feeling for the motherless child!
+
+"Come on," Maria Metz said crisply, "or we'll be late." But Miss Lee
+read in the brusqueness a strong feeling of sorrow for the child.
+
+Silently the three walked through the green aisles of the old graveyard,
+Aunt Maria leading the way, alone; Phoebe's hand still in the hand of
+her teacher.
+
+To Miss Lee, whose hours of public worship had hitherto been spent in an
+Episcopal church in Philadelphia, the extreme plainness of the
+meeting-house on the hill brought a sense of acute wonderment. The
+contrast was so marked. There, in the city, was the large, high-vaulted
+church whose in-streaming light was softened by exquisite stained
+windows and revealed each detail of construction and color harmoniously
+consistent. Here, in the country, was the square, low-ceilinged
+meeting-house through whose open windows the glaring light relentlessly
+intensified the whiteness of the walls and revealed more plainly each
+flaw and knot in the unpainted pine benches. Yet the meeting-house on
+the hill was strangely, strongly representative of the frank, honest,
+unpretentious people who worshipped there, and after the first wave of
+surprise a feeling of interest and reverence held her.
+
+It was a unique sight for the city girl. The rows of white-capped women
+were separated from the rows of bearded men by a low partition built
+midway down the body of the church. Each sex entered the meeting-house
+through a different door and sat in its apportioned half of the
+building. On each side of the room rows of black hooks were set into the
+walls. On these hooks the sisters hung their bonnets and the shawls and
+the brethren placed their hats and overcoats during the service.
+
+The preachers, varying in number from two to six, sat before a long
+table in the front part of the meeting-house. When the duty of preaching
+devolved upon one of them he simply rose from his seat and delivered his
+message.
+
+As Aunt Maria and her two followers took their seats on a bench near the
+front of the church a preacher rose.
+
+"Let us join in singing--has any one a choice?"
+
+Miss Lee started as a woman's voice answered, "Number one hundred
+forty-seven." However, her surprise merged into other emotions as the
+old hymn rose in the low-ceilinged room. There was no accompaniment of
+any musical instrument, just a harmonious blending of the deep-toned
+voices of the brethren with the sweet voices of the sisters. The music
+swelled in full, deliberate rhythm, its calm earnestness bearing witness
+to the fact that every word of the hymn was uttered in a spirit of
+worship.
+
+Maria Metz sang very softly, but Phoebe's young voice rose clearly in
+the familiar words, "Jesus, Lover of my soul."
+
+Miss Lee listened a moment to the sweet voice of the child by her side,
+then she, too, joined in the singing--feeling the words, as she had
+never before felt them, to be the true expression of millions of mortals
+who have sung, are singing, and shall continue to sing them.
+
+When the hymn was ended another preacher arose and opened the service
+with a few remarks, then asked all to kneel in prayer.
+
+Every one--men, women, children--turned and knelt upon the bare floor
+while the preacher's voice rose in a simple prayer. As the Amen fell
+from his lips Miss Lee started to rise, but Phoebe laid a restraining
+hand upon her and whispered, "There's yet one."
+
+For a moment there was silence in the meeting-house. Then the voice of
+another preacher rose in the universal prayer, "Our Father, which art in
+heaven." Every extemporaneous prayer in the Church of the Brethren is
+complemented by the model prayer the Master taught His disciples.
+
+There was another hymn, reading of the Scriptures, and then the sermon
+proper was preached.
+
+Aunt Maria nodded approvingly as the preacher read, "Whose adorning let
+it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of
+gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the
+heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and
+quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price."
+
+"You listen good now to what the preacher says," the woman whispered to
+Phoebe.
+
+The child looked Up solemnly at her aunt, about her at the many
+white-capped women, then up at Miss Lee's pretty hat with its white
+Mercury wings--she was endeavoring to justify the pleasure and beauty
+her aunt pronounced vanity. Was Miss Lee really wicked when she wore
+clothes like that? Surely, no! After a few moments the child sighed,
+folded her hands and looked steadfastly at the tall bearded man who was
+preaching.
+
+The clergy among these plain sects receive no remuneration for their
+preaching. With them the mercenary and the pecuniary are ever distinct
+from the religious. Six days in the week the preacher follows the plow
+or works at some other worthy occupation; upon the seventh day he
+preaches the Gospel. There is, therefore, no elaborate preparation for
+the sermon; the preacher has abundant faith in the old admonition, "Take
+no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that
+same hour what ye shall speak, for it is not ye that speak but the
+spirit of the Father that speaketh in you." Thus it is that, while the
+sermons usually lack the blandishments of fine rhetoric and the rhythmic
+ease arising from oratorical ability, they seldom fail in deep sincerity
+and directness of appeal.
+
+The one who delivered the message that September morning told of the joy
+of those who have overcome the desire for the vanities of the world,
+extolled the virtue of a simple life, till Miss Lee felt convinced that
+there must be something real in a religion that could hold its followers
+to so simple, wholesome a life.
+
+She looked about, at the serried rows of white-capped women--how gentle
+and calm they appeared in their white caps and plain dresses; she looked
+across the partition at the lines of men--how strong and honest their
+faces were; and the children--she had never before seen so many children
+at a church service--would they all, in time, wear the garb of their
+people and enter the church of their parents? The child at her
+side--vivacious, untiring, responsive Phoebe--would she, too, wear the
+plain dress some day and live the quiet life of her people?
+
+The eagerness of the child's face as Miss Lee looked at her denoted
+intense interest in the sermon, but none could know the real cause of
+that eagerness.
+
+"I won't, I just won't dress plain!" she was thinking. "Anyway, not till
+I'm old like Aunt Maria. I want to look like Miss Lee when I grow up.
+And that preacher just said that it ain't good to plait the hair, I mean
+he read it out the Bible. Mebbe now Aunt Maria will leave me have
+curls. I hope she heard him say that."
+
+She sighed in relief as the sermon was concluded and the next preacher
+rose and added a few remarks. When the third man rose to add his few
+remarks Phoebe looked up at Miss Lee and whispered, "Guess he's the last
+one once!"
+
+Miss Lee smiled. The service was rather long, but it was drawing to a
+close. There was another prayer, another hymn and the service ended.
+
+Immediately the white-capped women rose and began to bestow upon each
+other the holy kiss; upon the opposite side of the church the brethren
+greeted each other in like fashion. Everywhere there were greetings and
+profferings of dinner invitations.
+
+Maria Metz and her brother did not fail in their duty. In a few minutes
+they had invited a goodly number to make the gray farmhouse their
+stopping-place. Then Aunt Maria hurried home, eager to prepare for her
+guests. Soon the Metz barnyard was filled with carriages and automobiles
+and the gray house resounded with happy voices. Some of the women helped
+Maria in the kitchen, others wandered about in the old-fashioned garden,
+where dahlias, sweet alyssum, marigolds, ladies' breastpin and
+snapdragons still bloomed in the bright September sunshine.
+
+Miss Lee, guided by Phoebe, examined every nook of the big garden,
+peered into the deserted wren-house and listened to the child's story of
+the six baby wrens reared in the box that summer. Finally Phoebe
+suggested sitting on a bench half screened by rose-bushes and
+honeysuckle. There, in that green spot, Miss Lee tactfully coaxed the
+child to unfold her charming personality, all serenely unconscious of
+the fact that inside the gray house the white-capped women were
+discussing the new teacher as they prepared the dinner.
+
+"She seems vonderful nice and common," volunteered Aunt Maria. "Not
+stuck up, for a Phildelphy lady."
+
+"Well, why should she be stuck up?" argued one. "Ain't she just Mollie
+Stern's cousin? Course, Mollie's nice, but nothing tony."
+
+"Anyhow, the children all like her," spoke up another woman. "My Enos
+learns good this year."
+
+"I guess she's all right," said another, "but Amande, my sister, says
+that she's after her Lizzie all the time for the way she talks. The
+teacher tells her all the time not to talk so funny, not to get her t's
+and d's and her v's and w's mixed. Goodness knows, them letters is near
+enough alike to get them mixed sometimes. I mix them myself. Manda don't
+want her Lizzie made high-toned, for then nothing will be good enough
+for her any more."
+
+"Ach, I guess Miss Lee won't do that," said Aunt Maria. "I know I'm glad
+the teacher ain't the kind to put on airs. When I heard they put in a
+teacher from Phildelphy I was afraid she'd be the kind to teach the
+children a lot of dumb notions and that Phoebe would be spoiled----
+Here, Sister Minnich, is the holder for that pan. I guess the ham is
+fried enough. Yes, ain't the chicken smells good! I roasted it
+yesterday, so it needs just a good heating to-day."
+
+"Shall I take the sweet potatoes off, Maria?"
+
+"Yes, they're brown enough, and the coffee's about done, and plenty of
+it, too."
+
+"And it smells good, too," chorused several women.
+
+"It's just twenty-eight cent coffee; I get it in Greenwald. I guess the
+things can be put out now. Call the men, Susan."
+
+In quick order the long table in the dining-room--used only upon
+occasions like this--was filled with smoking, savory dishes, the men
+called from the porches and yard and everybody, except the two women who
+helped Aunt Maria to serve, seated about the board. All heads were bowed
+while one of the brethren said a long grace and then the feast began.
+
+True to the standards set by the majority of the Pennsylvania Dutch, the
+meal was fit for the finest. There was no attempt to serve it according
+to the rules of the latest book of etiquette. All the food was placed
+upon the table and each one helped herself and himself and passed the
+dish to the nearest neighbor. Occasionally the services of the three
+women were required to bring in water, bread or coffee, or to replenish
+the dishes and platters. Everybody was in good humor, especially when
+one of the brethren suddenly found himself with a platter of chicken in
+one hand and a pitcher of gravy in the other.
+
+"Hold on, here!" he said laughingly, "it's coming both ways. I can't
+manage it."
+
+"Now, Isaac," chided one of the women, "you went and started the gravy
+the wrong way around. And here, Elam, start that apple-butter round
+once. Maria always has such good apple-butter."
+
+Miss Lee's ready adaptability proved a valuable asset that day.
+Everybody was so cordial and friendly that, although she was the only
+woman without the white cap, there was no shadow of any holier-than-thou
+spirit. She was accepted as a friend; as a lady from Philadelphia she
+became invested with a charm and interest which the frank country people
+did not try to conceal. They spoke freely to her of her work in the
+school, inquired about the children and listened with interest as she
+answered their questions about her home city.
+
+When the dinner was ended heads were bowed again and thanks rendered to
+God for the blessings received. Then the men went outdoors, where the
+beehives, poultry houses, barns and orchards of the farm afforded
+several hours of inspection and discussion.
+
+Indoors some of the women began to wash dishes while Aunt Maria and her
+helpers ate their belated dinner; others went to the sitting-room and
+entertained themselves by rocking and talking or looking at the pictures
+in the big red plush album which lay upon a small table.
+
+Later, when everything was once more in order in the big kitchen, Maria
+stood in the doorway of the sitting-room.
+
+"Now," she said, "I guess we better go up-stairs and see the rugs before
+the men come in. Susan said she wants to see my new rugs once when she
+comes. So come on, everybody that wants to."
+
+"You come," Phoebe invited Miss Lee. "I'll show you some of the things
+in my chest."
+
+Maria led the way to the spare-room on the second floor, a large square
+room furnished in old-fashioned country style: a rag carpet, rag rugs,
+heavy black walnut bureau and wash-stand, the latter with an antique
+bowl and pitcher of pink and white, and a splasher of white linen
+outlined in turkey red cotton. A framed cross-stitch sampler hung on the
+wall; four cane-seated chairs and a great wooden chest completed the
+furnishing of the room.
+
+The chest became the centre of attraction as Aunt Maria opened it and
+began to show the hooked rugs she had made.
+
+Phoebe waited until her teacher had seen and admired several, then she
+tugged at the silk sleeve ever so gently and whispered, "D'ye want to
+see some of the things I made?"
+
+Miss Lee smiled and nodded and the two stole away to the child's room.
+
+Phoebe closed the door.
+
+"This is my room and this is my Hope Chest," she said proudly.
+
+Among many of the Pennsylvania Dutch the Hope Chest has long been
+considered an important part of a girl's belongings. During her early
+childhood a large chest is secured and the stocking of it becomes a
+pleasant duty. Into it are laid the girl's discarded infant clothes;
+patchwork quilts and comfortables pieced by herself or by some fond
+grandmother or mother or aunt; homespun sheets and towels that have been
+handed down from other generations; ginghams, linens and minor household
+articles that might be useful in her own home. When the girl leaves the
+old nest for one of her own building the Hope Chest goes with her as a
+valuable portion of her dowry.
+
+"Hope Chest," echoed Miss Lee. "Do you have a Hope Chest?"
+
+"Ach, yes, long already! Aunt Maria says it's for when I grow up and get
+married and live in my own home, but I--why, I don't know at all yet if
+I want to get married. When I say that to her she says still that I can
+be glad I have the chest anyhow, for old maids need covers and aprons
+and things too."
+
+"You dear child," Miss Lee said, laughing, "you do say the funniest
+things!"
+
+"But"--Phoebe raised her flushed face--"you ain't laughing at me to make
+fun?"
+
+"Oh, Phoebe, I love you too much for that. It's just that you are
+different."
+
+"Ach, but I'm glad! And that's why I want to show you my things."
+
+She opened the lid of her chest and brought out a quilt, then another,
+and another.
+
+"This is all mine. And I finished another one this summer that Aunt
+Maria is going to quilt this fall yet. Then I'll have nine already.
+Ain't--isn't that a lot?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," laughed the teacher. "Just nine more than I have."
+
+"Why"--Phoebe stared in surprise--"don't you have quilts in your Hope
+Chest?"
+
+"I haven't even the Hope Chest."
+
+"No Hope Chest! Now, that's funny! I thought every girl that could have
+a chest for the money had a Hope Chest!"
+
+"I never heard of a Hope Chest before I came to Greenwald."
+
+"Now don't it beat all!" The child was very serious. "We ain't at all
+like other people, I believe. I wonder why we are so different from you
+people. Oh, I know we talk different from you, and mostly look different
+from you and I guess we do things a lot different from you--do you
+think, Miss Lee, oh, do you think that I could _ever_ get like you?"
+
+"Yes----" Miss Lee showed hesitancy.
+
+"For sure?" Phoebe asked, quick to note the slight delay in the answer.
+
+"Yes, I am sure you could, dear. You can learn to dress, speak and act
+as people do in the great cities--but are you sure that you want to do
+so?"
+
+"Want to! Why, I want to so bad that it hurts! I don't want to just go
+to country school and Greenwald High School and then live on a farm all
+the rest of my life and never get anywhere but to the store in
+Greenwald, to Lancaster several times a year, and to church every
+Sunday. I want to do some things other people in the other parts of the
+country do, that's what I want. I'd like best of all to be a great
+singer and to look and dress and talk like you. I can sing good, pop
+says I can."
+
+"I have noticed you have a sweet voice."
+
+"Ain't!" The child's voice rang with gladness. "I'm so glad I have. And
+David, he's glad too, for he says that he thinks it's a gift from God to
+have a voice that can sing as nice as the birds. David and Phares are
+just like my brothers. David's mom is awful nice. I like her"--she
+whispered--"I like her almost better than my Aunt Maria because she's
+so--ach, you know what I mean! She's so much like my own mom would be. I
+like David better than Phares, too, because Phares bosses me too much
+and he is wonderful strict and thinks everything is bad or foolish. He
+preaches a lot. He says it's bad to be a big singer and sing for the
+people and get money for it, in oprays, he means--is it?"
+
+Miss Lee was startled by the ambition of the child before her and amazed
+at the determination revealed in her young pupil. Before she could
+answer wisely Phoebe went on:
+
+"Now David says still I could be a big opray singer some day mebbe, and
+_he_ don't think it's bad. I think still that singin' is about like
+havin' curls--if God don't want you to use your singin' and your curls
+what did He give 'em to you for?"
+
+Much to the teacher's relief she was spared the difficulty of answering
+the child. The aunt was bringing the visitors to Phoebe's room.
+
+"Come in and see my things," Phoebe invited cordially, as though curls
+and operatic careers had never troubled her. In the excitement of
+displaying her quilts she apparently forgot the vital problems she had
+so lately discussed. But Miss Lee made a mental comment as she stood
+apart and watched the child among the white-capped women, "That little
+girl will do things before she settles into the simple, monotonous life
+these women lead."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE PRIMA DONNA OF THE ATTIC
+
+
+"AUNT MARIA, dare I go without sewing just this one Saturday?"
+
+It was Saturday afternoon in early October. All the week-end work of the
+farmhouse was done: the walks and porches scrubbed, the entire house
+cleaned, the shelves in the cellar filled with pies and cakes. Maria
+Metz stood by the wooden frame in which she had sewed Phoebe's latest
+quilt and chalked lines and half-moons upon the calico, preliminary to
+the actual work of quilting.
+
+Phoebe's face was eloquent as her aunt turned and looked down.
+
+"Why?" asked the woman calmly.
+
+"Ach, because it's my birthday, eleven I am to-day. And pop's going to
+bring me new hair-ribbons from Greenwald, pretty blue ones, I asked him
+to bring, and nice and wide"--she opened her hands in imaginary
+picturing of the width of the new ribbons--"but most of all," she
+hastened to add as she saw an expression of displeasure on her aunt's
+face, "I'd like to have a party all to myself. I thought that so long as
+you're going to have women in to help you quilt, and that is like a
+party, only you don't call it so, why I could have a party for me alone.
+I'd like to play all afternoon instead of sewing first like I do still.
+Dare I, I mean may I?"--in conscientious endeavor to speak as Miss Lee
+was trying to teach her.
+
+Maria Metz smiled at the little girl's idea of a party, and after a
+moment's hesitation replied, "Ach, yes well, Phoebe, I don't care."
+
+"In the garret, oh, dare I go in the garret and play?" she asked
+excitedly.
+
+"Yes, I guess. If you put everything away nice when you are done
+playin'."
+
+"I will."
+
+She started off gleefully.
+
+"And be careful of the steps. I'm always afraid you'll fall down when
+you go up there, the steps are so narrow."
+
+"Ach, I won't fall. I'll be careful. I'll play a while and then shall I
+help to quilt?" she offered magnanimously in return for the privilege of
+playing in the garret.
+
+"No, I don't need you. But you can quilt nice, too. The last time you
+took littler stitches than Lizzie from the Home, but she don't see so
+good. But you needn't help to-day, for so many can't get round the frame
+good. Phares's mom and David's mom and Lyddy and Granny Hogendobler and
+Susan are comin', and that's enough for one quilt. You go play."
+
+In a moment Phoebe was off, up the broad stairs to the second floor.
+There she paused for breath--"Oh, it's like going to a castle somewhere
+in a strange country, goin' to the garret! I'm always a little scared at
+first, goin' to the garret."
+
+With a laugh she turned into a small room, opened a latched door, closed
+it securely behind her, and stood upon the lower step of the attic
+stairs. She looked about a moment. Above her were the stained rafters of
+the attic, where a dim light invested it with a strange, half fearful
+interest.
+
+"Ach, now, don't be a baby," she admonished herself. "Go right up the
+stairs. You're a queen--no, I know!--You're a primer donner going up the
+platform steps to sing!"
+
+With that helpful delusion she started bravely up the stairs and never
+paused until she reached the top step. She ran to a small window and
+threw it wide open so that the October sunshine could stream in and make
+the place less ghostly.
+
+"Now it's fine up here," she cried. "And I dare--I may--talk to myself
+all I want. Aunt Maria says it's simple to talk to yourself, but
+goodness, when abody has no other boys or girls to talk to half the time
+like I don't, what else can abody do but talk to your own self? Anyhow,
+I'm up here now and dare talk out loud all I want. I'll hunt first for
+robbers."
+
+She ran about the big attic, peered behind every old trunk and box, even
+inside an old yellow cupboard, though she knew it was filled with old
+school-books and older hymn-books.
+
+"Not a robber here, less he's back under the eaves."
+
+She crept into the low nook under the slanting roof but found nothing
+more exciting than a spider. "Huh, it's no fun hunting for robbers.
+Guess I'll spin a while."
+
+With quick variability she drew a low stool near an old spinning-wheel,
+placed her foot on the slender treadle and twisted the golden flax in
+imitation of the way Aunt Maria had once taught her.
+
+"I'll weave a new dress for myself--oh, goody!" she cried, springing
+from the stool. "Now I know what I'll do! I'll dress up in the old
+clothes in that old trunk! That'll be the very best party I can have."
+
+She skipped to a far corner of the attic, where a long, leather-covered
+trunk stood among some boxes. In a moment the clasps were unfastened,
+the lid raised, a protecting cloth lifted from the top and the contents
+of the trunk exposed.
+
+The child, kneeling before the trunk, clasped her hands and uttered an
+ecstatic, "Oh, I'll be a primer donner now! I remember there used to be
+a wonderful fine dress in here somewhere."
+
+With childish feverishness, yet with tenderness and reverence for the
+relics of a long dead past, she lifted the old garments from the trunk.
+
+"The baby clothes my mom wore--my mother, Miss Lee always says, and I
+like that name better, too. My, but they're little! Such tweeny, weeny
+sleeves! I wonder how a baby ever got into anything so tiny. I bet she
+was cunning--Miss Lee says babies are cunning. And here's the dress and
+cap and a pair of white woolen stockings I wore. Aunt Maria told me so
+the last time we cleaned house and I helped to carry all these things
+down-stairs and hang them out in the air so they don't spoil here in the
+trunk all locked up tight. I wish I could see how I looked when I wore
+these things. I wonder if I was a nice baby--but, ach, all babies are
+nice. I could squeeze every one I see, only when they're not clean I'd
+want to wash 'em first. And here's my mom--mother's wedding dress, a
+gray silk one. Ain't it too bad, now, it's going in holes! And this
+satin jacket Aunt Maria said my grandpap wore at his wedding; it has a
+silver buckle at the neck in front. And next comes the dress I like. It
+was my mother's mother's, and it's awful old. But I think it's fine,
+with the little pink rosebuds and the lace shawl round the neck and the
+long skirt. That's the dress I must wear now to play I'm a primer
+donner."
+
+She held out the old-fashioned pink-sprigged muslin, yellowed with age,
+yet possessing the charm of old, well-preserved garments. The short,
+puffed sleeves, lace fichu and full, puffed skirt proclaimed it of a
+bygone generation.
+
+"It's pretty," the child exulted as she shook out the soft folds. "Guess
+I can slip it on over my other dress, it's plenty big. It must button in
+the front, for that's the way the lace shawl goes. Um--it's long"--she
+looked down as she fastened the last little button. "Oh, I know! I'll
+tuck it up in the front and leave the long back for a trail! How's that,
+I wonder."
+
+She unearthed an old mirror, hung it on a nail in the wall and surveyed
+herself in the glass.
+
+"Um, I don't look so bad--but my hair ain't right. I don't know how
+primer donners wear their hair, but I know they don't wear it in two
+plaits like mine."
+
+She pulled the narrow brown ribbons from her braids, opened the braids
+and shook her head vigorously until her curls tumbled about her head and
+over her shoulders. Then she knotted the two ribbons together and bound
+them across her hair in a fillet, tying them in a bow under her flowing
+curls.
+
+"Now, I guess it's as good as I can fix it. I wish Miss Lee could see me
+now. I wish most of all my mom--mother could see me. Mebbe she'd say,
+'Precious child,' like they say in stories, and then I'd say back,
+'Mother dear, mother dear'"--she lingered over the words--"'Mother
+dear.' But mebbe she is saying that to me right now, seeing it's my
+birthday. I'll make believe so, anyhow."
+
+She was silent for a moment, a puzzled expression on her face.
+
+"I just don't see," she spoke aloud suddenly, "I don't see why I
+shouldn't make believe I have a mother, just adopt one like people do
+children sometimes. Aunt Maria says it's a risk to adopt some one's
+child, but I don't see that it would be a risk to adopt a mother. Let me
+see now--of all the women I know, who do I want to adopt? Not Mary
+Warner's mom--she's stylish and wears nice dresses, but I don't think
+I'd like her to keep. Not Granny Hogendobler, though she's nice and I
+like her a lot, a whole lot, and I wish her Nason would come back, but I
+don't see how I could take her for my mother; she's too old and she
+don't wear a white cap and my mother did, so I must take one that does.
+I don't want Phares's mom, either. Now, David's mom I like--yes, I like
+her. Most everybody calls her Aunty Bab and I'm just goin' to ask her
+if I dare call her Mother Bab! Mother Bab--I like that vonderful much!
+And I like her. When we go over to her house she's so nice and talks to
+me kind and the last time I was there she kissed me and said what pretty
+hair I got. Yes, I want David's mom for mine. I guess he won't care. He
+always gives me apples and chestnuts and things and he shows me birds'
+nests and I think he'll leave me have his mom, so long as he can have
+her too. I'll ask him once when I see him. I wonder who's goin' on the
+road to Greenwald."
+
+She gathered up her long skirt and stepped grandly across the bare floor
+of the attic. As she stood by the window a boyish whistle floated up to
+her. She leaned over the narrow sill and peered through the evergreen
+trees at the road.
+
+"That's David now, I bet! Sounds like his whistle. Oo-oo, David," she
+called as the boy came swinging down the road.
+
+"Hello, Phoebe. Where you at?"
+
+He turned in at the gate and looked around.
+
+"Whew," he whistled as he glanced up and saw her at the little window of
+the attic. "What you doing up there?"
+
+"Playin' primer donner. I just look something grand. Wait, I'll come
+down."
+
+"Sure, come on down and let me see you. I'm going to hang around a
+while. Mom's here quilting, ain't she?"
+
+"Sh!" Phoebe raised a warning finger, then placed her hands to her mouth
+to shut the sound of her voice from the people in the gray house. "You
+sneak round to the kitchen door, to the back one, so they can't hear
+you, and I'll come down. Aunt Maria mightn't like my hair and dress, and
+I don't want to make her cross on my birthday. Be careful, don't make no
+noise."
+
+"Ha," laughed the boy. "Bet you're sneaking things, you little rascal."
+
+Phoebe lifted her finger, shook her head, then smiled and turned from
+the window. She tiptoed down the dark attic stairs, then down the narrow
+back stairs to the kitchen and slipped quietly to the little porch at
+the very rear of the house.
+
+"Gee whiz!" exclaimed David. "You're a swell in that dress!"
+
+"Ain't I--I mean am I--ach, David, it's hard sometimes to talk like Miss
+Lee says we should."
+
+"Where'd you get the dress, Phoebe?"
+
+"Up in the garret. Aunt Maria said I dare go up and play 'cause it's my
+birthday."
+
+"Hold on, that's just what I came for, to pull your ears."
+
+"No you don't," she said crossly. "No you don't, David Eby, pull my
+ears." She clapped a hand upon each ear.
+
+"Then I'll pull a curl," he said and suited the action to the word. He
+took one of the long light curls and pulled it gently, yet with a
+brusque show of savagery and strength--"One, two, three, four, five,
+six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and one to make you grow. Now who
+says I can't celebrate your birthday!"
+
+"You're mean, awful mean, David Eby!" She tossed her head in anger. But
+a moment later she relented as she saw him smile. "Ach," she said in
+friendly tone, "I don't care if you pull my curls. It didn't hurt
+anyhow. You can't do it again for a whole year. But don't you think I
+look like a primer donner, David?"
+
+"Oh, say it right! How can you expect to ever be what you can't
+pronounce? It's pri-ma-don-na."
+
+"Pri-ma-don-na," she repeated, shaking her curls at every syllable. "Do
+I look like a prima donna?"
+
+"Yes, all but your face."
+
+"My face--why"--she faltered--"what's wrong with my face? Ain't it
+pretty enough to be a prima donna?"
+
+"Funny kid," he laughed. "Your face is good enough for a prima donna,
+but to be a real prima donna you must fix it up with cold cream, paint
+and powder."
+
+"Powder!" she echoed in amazement. "Not the kind you put in guns?"
+
+"Gee, no! It's white stuff--looks like flour; mebbe it is flour fixed up
+with perfume. Mary Warner had some at school last week and showed some
+of the girls at recess how to put it on. I was behind a tree and saw
+them but they didn't see me."
+
+"I thought some of the girls looked pale--so that was what made them
+look so white! But how do you know all about fixing up to be a prima
+donna? Where did you learn?" She looked at him admiringly, justly
+appreciating his superior knowledge.
+
+"Oh, when I had the mumps last winter I used to read the papers every
+day, clean through. There was a column called the 'Hints to Beauty'
+column, and sometimes I read it just for fun, it was so funny. It told
+about fixing up the face and mentioned a famous singer and some other
+people who always looked beautiful because they knew how to fix their
+faces to keep looking young. But I wouldn't like to see any one I like
+fix their faces like it said, for all that stuff----"
+
+"But do you think all prima donnas put such things on their faces?" she
+interrupted him.
+
+"Guess so."
+
+"What was it, Davie?"
+
+"Cold cream, paint, powder--here, where are you going?" he asked as she
+started for the door.
+
+"I'll be out in a minute; you wait here for me."
+
+"Cold cream, paint, powder," she repeated as she closed the door and
+left David outside. "Cream's all in the cellar." She took a pewter
+tablespoon from a drawer, opened a latched door in the kitchen and went
+noiselessly down the steps to the cellar. There she lifted the lid from
+a large earthen jar, dipped a spoonful of thick cream from the jar, and
+began to rub it on her cheeks.
+
+"That's _cold_ cream, anyhow," she said to herself. "It certainly is
+cold. Ach, I don't like the feel of it on my face; it's too sticky and
+wet." But she rubbed valiantly until the spoonful was used and her face
+glowed.
+
+"Now paint, red paint--I don't dare use the kind you put on houses, for
+that's too hard to get off; let's see--I guess red-beet juice will do."
+
+She stooped to the cool, earthen floor, lifted the cover from a crock of
+pickled beets, dipped the spoon into the juice and began to rub the
+colored liquid upon her glowing cheeks.
+
+"If I only had a looking-glass, then I could see just where to put it
+on. But I don't dare to carry the juice up the steps, for if I spilled
+some just after Aunt Maria has them scrubbed for Sunday she'd be cross."
+
+She applied the red juice by guesswork, with the inevitable result that
+her ears, chin, and nose were stained as deeply as her cheeks.
+
+"Now the powder, then I'm through."
+
+She tiptoed up to the kitchen again, took a handful of flour from the
+bin and rubbed it upon her face.
+
+"Ugh, um," she sputtered, as some of the flour flew into her eyes and
+nostrils. "I guess that was too thick!" Then she knelt on a chair and
+looked into the small mirror that hung in the kitchen. She exclaimed in
+horror and disappointment at the vision that met her gaze.
+
+"Why, I don't like that! I look awful! I'll rub off some of the flour. I
+have blotches all over my face. Do all prima donnas look this way, I
+wonder. But David knows, I guess. I'll ask him if I did it right."
+
+She grabbed one end of the kitchen towel and disposed of some of the
+superfluous flour, then, still doubtful of her appearance, opened the
+door to the porch where the boy waited for her.
+
+"Do I look----" she began, but David burst into hilarious laughter.
+
+"Oh, oh," he held his sides and laughed. "Oh, your face----"
+
+"Don't you laugh at me, David Eby! Don't you dare laugh!"
+
+She was deeply hurt at his unseemly behavior, but the deluge was only
+beginning! The sound of David's laughter and Phoebe's raised voice
+reached the front room where the quilting party was in progress.
+
+"Sounds like somebody on the back porch," said Aunt Maria. "Guess I
+better go and see. With so many tramps around always abody can't be too
+careful."
+
+The sight that met Maria Metz's eyes as she opened the back door left
+her speechless. Phoebe turned and the two looked at each other in
+silence for a few long moments.
+
+"Don't scold her," David said, sobered by the sudden appearance of the
+woman and frightened for Phoebe--Aunt Maria could be stern, he knew.
+"Don't scold her. I told her to do it."
+
+"You did not, David; don't you tell lies for me! You just told me how to
+do it and I went and done it myself. I'm playing prima donna, Aunt
+Maria," she explained, though she knew it was a futile attempt at
+justification. "I'm playing I'm a big singer, so I had to fix up in this
+dress and put my hair down this way and fix my face."
+
+"Great singer--march in here!" The woman had fully regained her voice.
+"It's a bad girl you are! To think of your making such a monkey of
+yourself when I leave you go up in the garret to play! This ends playing
+in the garret. Next Saturday you sew! Ach, yes, you just come in," she
+commanded, for Phoebe hung back as they entered the house. "You come
+right in here and let all the women see how nice you play when I leave
+you go up in the garret instead of make you sew. This here's the tramp I
+found," she announced as she led her into the room where the women sat
+around the quilting frame and quilted.
+
+"What!" several of them exclaimed as they turned from their sewing and
+looked at the child. Granny Hogendobler and David Eby's mother, however,
+smiled.
+
+"What's on your face?" asked one woman sternly.
+
+Phoebe hung her head, abashed.
+
+"That's how nice she plays when I leave her go up on the garret and have
+a nice time instead of making her sew like she always has to Saturdays,"
+Aunt Maria said in sharp tones which told the child all too plainly of
+the displeasure she had caused.
+
+"I didn't mean," Phoebe looked up contritely, "I didn't mean to be bad
+and make you cross. I was just playing I was a big singer and I put cold
+cream and paint and powder on my face----"
+
+"Cream!"
+
+"Paint!"
+
+"Powder!"
+
+The shrill staccato words of the women set the child trembling.
+
+"But--but," she faltered, "it'll all wash off." She gave a convincing
+nod of her head and rubbed a hand ruefully across the grotesquely
+decorated cheek. "It's just cream and red-beet juice and flour."
+
+"Did I ever!" exclaimed the mother of Phares Eby.
+
+"I-to-goodness!" laughed Granny Hogendobler.
+
+"Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," quoted one of the other women.
+
+"Come here, Phoebe," said the mother of David Eby, and that woman, a
+thin, alert little person with tender, kindly eyes, drew the unhappy
+little girl to her. "You poor, precious child," she said, "it's a shame
+for us all to sit here and look at you as if we wanted to eat you.
+You've just been playing, haven't you?" She turned to the other women.
+"Why, Maria, Susan, I remember just as well as if it were only yesterday
+how we used to rub our cheeks with rough mullein leaves to make them red
+for Love Feast, don't you remember?"
+
+Aunt Maria's cheeks grew pink. "Ach, Barbara, mebbe we did that when we
+were young and foolish, but we didn't act like this."
+
+"Not much different, I guess," said Phoebe's champion with a smile.
+"Only we forget it now. Phoebe is just like we were once and she'll get
+over it like we did. Let her play; she'll soon be too old to want to
+play or to know how. She ain't a bad child, just full of life and likes
+to do things other people don't think of doing."
+
+"She, surely does," said Aunt Maria curtly, ill pleased by the woman's
+words. "Where that child gets all her notions from I'd like to know.
+It's something new every day."
+
+"She'll be all right when she gets older," said David's mother.
+
+"Be sure, yes," agreed Granny Hogendobler; "it don't do to be too
+strict."
+
+"Mebbe so," said the other women, with various shades of understanding
+in their words.
+
+Phoebe looked gratefully into the face of Granny Hogendobler, then she
+turned to David's mother and spoke to her as though there were no others
+present in the room.
+
+"You know, don't you, how little girls like to play? You called me
+precious child just like she would----"
+
+"She would," repeated Aunt Maria. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean my mother," she explained and turned again to her champion. "I
+was just thinking this after on the garret that I'd like you for my
+mother, to adopt you for it like people do with children when they have
+none and want some. I hear lots of people call you Aunty Bab--dare I
+call you Mother Bab?"
+
+The woman laid a hand on the child's tumbled hair. Her voice trembled as
+she answered, "Yes, Phoebe, you can call me Mother Bab. I have no little
+girl so you may fill that place. Now ask Aunt Maria if you should wash
+your face and get fixed right again."
+
+"Shall I, Aunt Maria?"
+
+"Yes. Go get cleaned up. Fold all them clothes right and put 'em in the
+trunk and put your hair in two plaits again. If you're big enough to do
+such dumb things you're big enough to comb your hair." And Aunt Maria,
+peeved and hurt at the child's behavior, went back to her quilting while
+Phoebe hurried from the room alone.
+
+The child scrubbed the three layers of decoration from her face, trudged
+up the stairs to the attic, took off the rose-sprigged gown and folded
+it away--a disconsolate, disillusioned prima donna.
+
+When the attic was once more restored to its orderliness she closed the
+window and went down-stairs to wrestle with her curls. They were
+tangled, but ordinarily she would have been able to braid them into some
+semblance of neatness, but the trying experience of the past moments,
+the joy of gaining an adopted mother, set her fingers bungling.
+
+"Ach, I can't, I just can't make two braids!" she said at length, ready
+to burst into tears.
+
+Then she remembered David. "Mebbe he's on the porch yet. I'll go see
+once."
+
+With the narrow brown ribbons streaming from her hand and a hair-brush
+tucked under one arm she ran down the stairs. She found David, for once
+a gloomy figure, on the back porch, just where she had left him.
+
+"David," she said softly, "will you help me?"
+
+"Why"--his face brightened as he looked at her--"you ain't"--he started
+to say "crying"--"you ain't mad at me for getting you into trouble with
+Aunt Maria?"
+
+"Ach, no. And I ain't never going to be mad at you now for I just
+adopted your mom for my mom--mother. She's going to be my Mother Bab;
+she said so."
+
+"What?"
+
+He knitted his forehead in a puzzled frown. Phoebe explained how kind
+his mother had been, how she understood what little girls like to do,
+how she had promised to be Mother Bab.
+
+"You don't care, Davie, you ain't jealous?" she ended anxiously.
+
+"Sure not," he assured her; "I think it's kinda nice, for she thinks
+you're a dandy. But did they haul you over the coals in there?"
+
+"Yes, a little, all but Granny Hogendobler and your mom--Mother Bab, I
+mean. Isn't it funny to get a mother when you didn't have one for so
+long?"
+
+"Guess so."
+
+"But, David, will you help me? I can't fix my hair and Aunt Maria is so
+mad at me she said I can just fix it myself. The plaits won't come right
+at all. Will you help me, please?" She asserted her femininity by adding
+new sweetness to her voice as she asked the uncommon favor.
+
+"Why"--he hesitated, then looked about to see if any one were near to
+witness what he was about to do--"I don't know if I can. I never braided
+hair, but I guess I can."
+
+"Be sure you can, David. You braid it just like we braid the daisy stems
+and the dandelion stems in the fields. You're so handy with them, you
+can do most anything, I guess."
+
+Spurred by her appreciation of his ability he took the brush and began
+to brush the tangled hair as she sat on the porch at his feet.
+
+"Gee," he exclaimed as the hair sprang into curls when the brush left
+it, "your hair's just like gold!"
+
+"And it's curly," she added proudly.
+
+"Sure is. Wouldn't Phares look if he saw it! I told him your hair is
+prettier than Mary Warner's and he said I was silly to talk about girls'
+hair."
+
+"I don't want him to see it this way," she said, "for he'd say it's a
+sin to have curly, pretty hair, even if God made it grow that way! He's
+awful queer! I wouldn't want him for my adopted brother."
+
+"Guess he'd keep you hopping," laughed David.
+
+"Guess I'd keep him hopping, too," retorted Phoebe, at which the boy
+laughed.
+
+"Now what do I do?" he asked when all the hair was untangled.
+
+"Part it in the middle and make two plaits."
+
+"Um-uh."
+
+The boy's clumsy fingers fumbled long with the parting; several times
+the braids twisted and had to be undone, but after a struggle he was
+able to announce, "There now, you're fixed! Now you're Phoebe Metz, no
+more prima donna!"
+
+"Thanks, David, for helping me. I feel much better around the
+head--guess curls would be a nuisance after all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+"WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER MEET"
+
+
+WHEN Phoebe adopted Mother Bab she did so with the whole-heartedness and
+finality characteristic of her blood.
+
+Mother Bab--the name never ceased to thrill the erstwhile motherless
+girl whose yearning for affection and understanding had been unsatisfied
+by the matter-of-fact Aunt Maria.
+
+At first Maria Metz did not seem too well pleased with the child's
+persistent naming of Barbara Eby as Mother Bab; but gradually, as she
+saw Phoebe's joy in the adoption, the woman acknowledged to herself that
+another woman was capable of mothering where she had failed.
+
+Phoebe spent many hours in the little house on the hill, learning from
+Mother Bab many things that made indelible impressions upon her
+sensitive child-heart, unraveling some of the tangled knots of her soul,
+stirring anew hopes and aspirations of her being. But there remained one
+knot to be untangled--she could not understand why the plain dress and
+white cap existed, she could not reconcile the utter simplicity of dress
+with the lavish beauty of the birds, flowers--all nature.
+
+"It will come," Mother Bab assured her one day. "You are a little girl
+now and cannot see into everything. But when you are older you will see
+how beautiful it is to live simply and plainly."
+
+"But is it necessary, Mother Bab?" the child cried out. "Must I dress
+like you and Aunt Maria if I want to be good?"
+
+"No, you don't _have_ to. Many people are good without wearing the plain
+garb. A great many people in the world never heard of the plain sects we
+have in this section of the country, and there are good people
+everywhere, I'm sure of that. But it is just as true that each person
+must find the best way to lead a good life. If you can wear fine clothes
+and still be good and lead a Christian life, then there is no harm in
+the pretty clothes. But for me the easiest way to be living right is to
+live as simply as I can. This is the way for me."
+
+"I'm afraid it's the way for me, too," confessed Phoebe. "I'm vain,
+awfully vain! I love pretty clothes and I'll never be satisfied till I
+get 'em--silk dresses, soft, shiny satin ones--ach, I guess I'm vain but
+I'll have to wait to satisfy my vanity till I'm older, for Aunt Maria is
+so set against fancy clothes."
+
+It was true, Maria Metz compromised on some matters as Phoebe grew
+older, but on the question of clothes the older woman was adamant. The
+child should have comfortable dresses but there would positively be no
+useless ornaments or adornments, such as wide sashes, abundance of
+laces, elaborately trimmed ruffles. Fancy hats, jewelry and unconfined
+curls were also strictly forbidden.
+
+Though Phoebe, even as she grew older, had much time to spend outdoors,
+there were many tasks about the house and farm she had to perform. The
+chest was soon filled with quilts and that bugbear was gone from her
+life. But there was continual scrubbing, baking, mending, and other
+household tasks to be done, so that much practice caused the girl to
+develop into a capable little housekeeper. Aunt Maria frankly admitted
+that Phoebe worked cheerfully and well, a matter she found consoling in
+the trying hours when Phoebe "wasted time" by playing the low walnut
+organ in the sitting-room.
+
+During Miss Lee's first term of teaching on the hill she taught her how
+to play simple exercises and songs and the child, musically inclined,
+made the most of the meagre knowledge and adeptly improved until she was
+able to play the hymns in the Gospel Hymn Book and the songs and carols
+in the old Music Book that had belonged to her mother and always rested
+on the top of the old low organ.
+
+So the organ became a great solace and joy, an outlet for the intense
+feelings of desire and hope in her heart. When her voice joined with the
+sweet tones of the old instrument it seemed to Phoebe as if she were
+echoing the harmony of the eternal music of all creation. Child though
+she was, she sang with the joy and sincerity of the true musician. She
+merely smiled when Aunt Maria characterized her best efforts as
+"doodling" and rejoiced when her father, Mother Bab or David praised her
+singing.
+
+In school she progressed rapidly but her interest lagged when, after
+two years of teaching, Miss Lee resigned her position as teacher of the
+school on the hill and a new teacher took command. The entire school
+missed the teacher from Philadelphia, but Phoebe was almost
+inconsolable. She, especially, appreciated the gain of contact with the
+teacher she loved and she continued to profit by the remembrance of many
+things Miss Lee had taught her. The Memory Gems, alone, bore evidence of
+the change the teacher from the city had wrought in the rural school.
+Phoebe smiled as she thought how the poems had been sing-songed until
+Miss Lee taught the children to bring out the meaning of the words.
+
+"Oh, my," she laughed one day as she and David were speaking of school
+happenings, "do you remember how John Schneider used to say Memory Gems?
+The day he got up and said, 'Have-you-heard-the-waters-singing-little-May
+--where-the-willows-green-are-bending-over-the-way--do-you-know-how-low-
+and-sweet-are-the-words-the-waves-repeat--to-the-pebbles-at-their-feet--
+night-and-day?'"
+
+David laughed at the girl's droll imitation, the way she sing-songed the
+verse in the exact manner prevalent in many rural schools.
+
+"And do you remember," he asked, "the day Isaac Hunchberger defined
+bipeds?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I'll never forget that! It was the day the County
+Superintendent of Schools came to visit our school and Miss Lee was
+anxious to have us show off. Isaac showed off, all right, with his
+'Bipets are sings vis two lex!' I guess Miss Lee decided that day that
+the Pennsylvania Dutch is ingrained in our English and hard to get out."
+
+To Phoebe each Memory Gem of her school days became, in truth, a gem
+stored away for future years. Long after she had outgrown the little
+rural school scraps of poetry returned to her to rewaken the enthusiasm
+of childhood and to teach her again to "hear the lark within the
+songless egg and find the fountain where they wailed, 'Mirage!'"
+
+Phoebe wanted so many things in those school-day years but she wanted
+most of all to become like Miss Lee. So earnestly did she try to speak
+as her teacher taught her that after a time the peculiar idioms and
+expressions became more infrequent and there was only a delightfully
+quaint inflection, an occasional phrase, to betray her Pennsylvania
+Dutch parentage. But in times of stress or excitement she invariably
+slipped back into the old way and prefaced her exclamations with an
+expressive "Ach!"
+
+Life on the Metz farm went on in even tenor year in and year out. Maria
+Metz never changed to any appreciable extent her mode of living or her
+methods of working, and she tried to teach Phoebe to conform to the same
+monotonous existence and live as several generations of Metzes had done.
+But Phoebe was a veritable Evelyn Hope, made of "spirit, fire and dew."
+The distinctiveness of her personality grew more pronounced as she
+slipped from childhood into girlhood and Maria Metz needed often to
+encourage her own heart for the task of rearing into ideal womanhood the
+daughter of her brother Jacob.
+
+Phoebe had a deep love for nature and this love was fostered by her
+sturdy farmer-father. As she followed him about the fields he taught her
+the names of wild flowers, told her the nesting haunts of birds,
+initiated her into the circle of tree-lore, taught her to keep ears,
+eyes and heart open for the treasures of the great outdoors.
+
+Phoebe required no urging in that direction. Her heart was filled with
+an insatiable desire to know more and more of the beautiful world about
+her. She gathered knowledge from every country walk; she showed so much
+"uncommon sense," David Eby said, that it was a keen pleasure to show
+her the nests of the thrush or the rare nests of the humming-bird. David
+and his mother, enthusiastic seekers after nature knowledge, augmented
+the father's nature education of Phoebe by frequent walks to field and
+woods. And so, when Phoebe was twelve years old she knew the haunts of
+all the wild flowers within walking distance of her home. With her
+father or with David and Mother Bab she found the first marsh-marigolds
+in the meadows, the first violets of the wooded slope of the hill, the
+earliest hepatica with its woolly buds, the first windflowers and spring
+beauties. She knew when the time was come for the bloodroot to lift its
+pure white petals about the golden hearts in the spot where the rich
+mould at the base of some giant tree nurtured the blooded plants. She
+could find the canopied Jack-in-the-pulpit and the pink azalea on the
+hill near her home. She knew the exact spot, a mile from the gray
+farmhouse, where, in a lovely little wood by a quiet road, a profusion
+of bird-foot violets and bluets made a carpet of blue loveliness each
+spring--so on, through the fleet days of summer, till the last asters
+and goldenrod faded, the child reveled in the beauties and wonders of
+the world at her feet and loved every part of it, from the tiny blue
+speedwell in the grass to the gorgeous orioles in the trees. What if
+Aunt Maria sometimes scolded her for bringing so many "weeds" into the
+house! With apparent unconcern she placed her flowers in a glass or
+earthen jar and secretly thought, "Well, I'm glad I like these pretty
+things; they are not weeds to me."
+
+The buoyancy of childhood tarried with her into girlhood. Like the old
+inscription of the sun-dial, she seemed to "count none but sunny hours."
+But those who knew her best saw that the shadows of life also left their
+marks upon her. At times the gaiety was displaced by seriousness. Mother
+Bab knew of the struggles in the girl's heart. Granny Hogendobler could
+have told of the hours Phoebe spent with her consoling her for the
+absence of Nason, mitigating the cruel stabs of the thoughtless people
+who condemned him, comforting with the assurance that he would return to
+his home some day. Old Aaron loved the girl and found her always ready
+to listen to his hackneyed story of the battle of Gettysburg.
+
+Phoebe was a student in the Greenwald High School when the war clouds
+broke over Europe and the world seemed to go mad in a whirl. She hurried
+to Old Aaron for his opinion on the terrible war.
+
+"Isn't it awful," she said to him, "that so many nations are flying at
+each other's throats? And in these days of our boasted civilization!"
+
+"Awful," he agreed. "But, mark my words, this is just the beginning.
+Before the thing's settled we'll be in it too."
+
+She shrank from the words. "Oh, no, not America! That would be too
+terrible. David might go then, and a lot of Greenwald boys--oh, that
+would be awful!"
+
+"Yes! But it would be far more dreadful to have them sit back safe while
+others died for the freedom of the world. I'd rather have my boy a
+soldier at a time like this than have him be ruler of a country."
+
+The old man's words ended quaveringly. The pent-up agony of his
+disappointment in his son surged over him, and he bowed his head in his
+hands and wept.
+
+Phoebe sent Granny to comfort him, and then stole away. The veteran's
+grief left an impression upon her. Were his words prophetic? Would
+America be drawn into the struggle? It was preposterous to dream of
+that. She would forget the words of Old Aaron, for she had important
+matters of her own to think about. In a few years she would be graduated
+from High School and then she would have her own life-work to decide
+upon. Her desire for larger experience, her determination to do
+something of importance after graduation was her chief interest. The war
+across the sea was too remote to bring constant fear to her. Dutifully
+she went about her work on the farm and pursued her studies. She was not
+without pity for the brave people of Servia and Belgium, not without
+praise for the heroic French and English. She added her vehement words
+of horror as she read of the atrocities visited upon the helpless
+peoples. She shared in the dread of many Americans that the octopus-arm
+of war might reach this country, and yet she was more concerned about
+her own future than about the future of battle-racked France or
+devastated Belgium.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BEYOND THE ALPS LIES ITALY
+
+
+PHOEBE'S graduation from the Greenwald High School was her red-letter
+day. Several times during the morning she stole to the spare-room where
+her graduation dress lay spread upon the high bed. Accompanied by Aunt
+Maria she had made a special trip to Lancaster for the frock, though
+Aunt Maria had conscientiously bought a few yards of muslin and apron
+gingham.
+
+The material was soft silky batiste of the quality Phoebe liked. The
+style, also, was of her choosing. She felt a glow of satisfaction as she
+looked at the dress so simply, yet fashionably, made.
+
+"For once in my life I have a dress I like," she thought.
+
+After supper, just as she was ready to dress for the great event, Phares
+Eby came to the gray farmhouse.
+
+The years had changed the solemn, serious boy into a more solemn,
+serious man. Tall and broad-shouldered, he was every inch a man in
+appearance. He was, moreover, a man highly respected in the community, a
+successful farmer and also a preacher in the Church of the Brethren. The
+latter honor had been conferred upon him a year before Phoebe's
+graduation and had seemed to increase his gravity and endow him with
+true bishopric dignity. He dressed after the manner of the majority of
+men who are affiliated with the Church of the Brethren in that district.
+His chin was covered with a thick, black beard, his dark hair was parted
+in the middle and combed behind his ears. He looked ten years older than
+he was and gave an impression of reserved strength, indomitable will and
+rigidity of purpose in furthering what he deemed a good cause.
+
+Phoebe felt a slight intimidation in his presence as she noted how
+serious he had grown, how mature he seemed. He appeared to desire the
+same friendship with her and tried to be comradely as of old, but there
+remained a feeling of restraint between them.
+
+"Hello, Phares," she greeted him as cordially as possible on her
+Commencement night.
+
+"Good-evening," he returned. "Are you ready for the great event?"
+
+"Yes, if I don't have heart failure before I get in to town. If only I
+had been fourth or fifth in the class marks instead of second, then I
+might have escaped to-night with just a solo. As it is, I must deliver
+the Salutatory oration."
+
+"Phoebe, you want to get off too easily! But I cannot stay more than a
+minute, for I know you'll want to get ready. I just stopped to give you
+a little gift for your graduation, a copy of Longfellow's poems."
+
+"Oh, thanks, Phares. I like his poems."
+
+"I thought you did. But I must go now," he said stiffly. "I'll see you
+to-night at Commencement. I hope you'll get through the oration all
+right."
+
+"Thanks. I hope so."
+
+When he was gone she made a wry face. "Whew," she whistled. "I'm sure
+Phares is a fine young man but he's too solemncoly. He gives me the
+woolies! If he's like that all the time I'm glad I don't have to live in
+the same house. Wonder if he really knows how to be jolly. But, shame on
+you, Phoebe Metz, talking so about your old friend! Perhaps for that
+I'll forget my oration to-night." With a gay laugh she ran away to dress
+for the most important occasion of her life.
+
+The white dress was vastly becoming. Its soft folds fell gracefully
+about her slender young figure. Her hair was brushed back, gathered into
+a bow at the top of her head, and braided into one thick braid which
+ended in a curl. There were no loving fingers of mother or sister to
+arrange the folds of her gown, no fond eyes to appraise her with looks
+of approval, but if she felt the omission she gave no evidence of it.
+She seemed especially gay as she dressed alone in her room. When she had
+finished she surveyed herself in the glass.
+
+"Um, Phoebe Metz, you don't look half bad! Now go and do as well as you
+look. If Aunt Maria heard me she'd be shocked, but what's the use
+pretending to be so stupid or innocent as not to appreciate your own
+good points. Any person with good sight and ordinary sense can tell
+whether their appearance is pleasing or otherwise. I like this
+dress----"
+
+"Phoebe," Aunt Maria's voice came up the stairs.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Why, David's down. Are you done dressing?"
+
+"I'll be down in a minute."
+
+David Eby, too, was a man grown, but a man so different! Like his
+cousin, Phares, he was tall. He had the same dark hair and eyes but his
+eyes were glowing, and his hair was cut close and his chin kept
+smooth-shaven.
+
+Between him and Phoebe there existed the old comradeship, free of
+restraint or embarrassment. He ran to meet her as her steps sounded on
+the stairs.
+
+But she came down sedately, her hand sliding along the colonial
+hand-rail, a calm dignity about her, her lovely head erect.
+
+"Good-evening," she said in quiet tones.
+
+"Whew!" he whistled. "Sweet girl graduate is too mild a phrase! Come,
+unbend, Phoebe. You don't expect me to call you Miss Metz or to kiss
+your hand--ah, shall I?"
+
+"Davie"--in a twinkling the assumed dignity deserted her, she was all
+girl again, animated and adorable--"Davie, you're hopeless! Here I pose
+before the mirror to find the most impressive way to hold my head and be
+sufficiently dignified for the occasion, and you come bursting into the
+hall like a tomboy, whistling and saying funny things."
+
+"I'm awfully sorry. But you took my breath away. I haven't gotten it
+back yet"--he breathed deeply.
+
+"David, will you ever grow up?"
+
+"I'll have to now. I see you've gone and done it."
+
+"Ach no," she lapsed into the childhood expression. "I'm not grown up.
+But how do I look? You won't tell me so I have to ask you."
+
+"You look like a Madonna," he said seriously.
+
+"Oh," she said impatiently, "that sounded like Phares."
+
+"Gracious, then I'll change it! You look like an angel and good enough
+to eat. But honestly, Phoebe, that dress is dandy! You look mighty
+nice."
+
+"Glad you think so. Shall I tell you a secret, David? I'm scared pink
+about to-night."
+
+"You scared?" He whistled again.
+
+"Don't be so smart," she said with a frown. "Were you scared on your
+Commencement night?"
+
+"Um-uh. At first I was. But you'll get over it in a few minutes. The
+lights and the glory of the occasion dim the scary feeling when you sit
+up there in the seats of honor. You should be glad your oration is
+first."
+
+"I am. Mary Warner is welcome to her Valedictory and the long wait to
+deliver it."
+
+Phoebe stiffened a bit at the thought of the other girl. Since the days
+when the two girls attended the rural school on the hill and Mary Warner
+was the possessor of curls while Phoebe wore the despised braids the
+other girl seemed to have everything for which Phoebe longed.
+
+"Ah, don't you care about the honor," said David. "Honors don't always
+tell who knows the most. Why, look at me; I was fifth in my class and I
+know as much any day as the little runt who was first."
+
+"Conceit!" laughed Phoebe. "But I guess you do know more than he does.
+Bet he never saw an orioles' nest or found a wild pink moccasin. You're
+a wonder at such things, David."
+
+"Um," came the sober answer, but there was a merry twinkle in his eyes,
+"I'm a wonder all right! Too bad only you and Mother Bab know it. But if
+I don't soon go you won't get to town in time to get the pink roses
+arranged just so for the grand march. The girls in our class primped
+about twenty minutes, patting their hair and fixing their ribbons and
+fussing with their flowers."
+
+"David, you're horrid!"
+
+"I know. But I brought you something more to primp with." He handed her
+a small flat box.
+
+"For me?"
+
+"From Mother Bab," he said.
+
+"Oh, David, that's a beauty!" she cried as she held up a scarf of pale
+blue crepe de chine. "I'll wear it to-night. Tell Mother Bab I thank her
+over and over. But I'll see her to-night and tell her myself; she'll be
+in at Commencement."
+
+"She can't come, Phoebe. She's sorry, but she has one of her dreadful
+headaches and you know what that means, how sick she really is."
+
+"Oh, Davie, Mother Bab not coming to my Commencement--why, I'm so
+disappointed, I want her there"--the tears were near the surface.
+
+"She's sorry, too, Phoebe, but she's too sick when those headaches get
+her. Her eyes are the cause of them, we think now."
+
+"And I'm horribly selfish to think of myself and my disappointment when
+she is suffering. You tell her I'll be up to see her in the morning and
+tell her all about to-night. You are coming?"
+
+"Sure thing! Aunt Mary is coming over to stay with mother, but there is
+really nothing to do for her; the pain seems to have to run its course.
+She'll go to bed early and be perfectly all right when she wakes in the
+morning. Come on, now, cheer up, and get ready for that 'Over the Alps
+lies Italy.'"
+
+"It's 'Beyond the Alps lies Italy,'" she corrected him. Her
+disappointment was softened by his cheerfulness.
+
+"Ach, it's all the same," he insisted, and went off smiling.
+
+To Phoebe that night seemed like a dream--the slow march down the aisle
+of the crowded auditorium to the elevated platform where the nine
+graduates sat in a semicircle; the sea of faces swathed in the bright
+glow of many lights; the perfume of the pink roses in her arm; the music
+of the High School chorus, and then the time when she rose and stood
+before the people to deliver her oration, "Beyond the Alps lies Italy."
+
+She began rather shakily; the sea of faces seemed so very formidable, so
+many eyes looked at her--how could she ever finish! She spoke
+mechanically at first, but gradually the magic of the Italy of her
+dreams stole upon her, a singular softness crept into her voice, a
+mellowness like music, as she depicted the blue skies of the sunny
+land-of-dreams-come-true.
+
+When she returned to her place in the semicircle a glow of satisfaction
+possessed her. She felt she had not failed, that she had, in truth, done
+very well. But later, when Mary Warner rose to deliver the Valedictory,
+Phoebe felt her own efforts shrink into littleness. The dark-eyed
+beautiful Mary was a sad thorn in the flesh for the fair girl who knew
+she was always overshadowed by the brilliant, queenly brunette.
+Involuntarily the country girl looked at David Eby--he was listening
+intently to Mary; his eyes never seemed to leave her face. Little, sharp
+pangs of jealousy thrust themselves into the depths of Phoebe's heart.
+Was it true, then, that David cared for Mary Warner? Town gossips said
+he frequented her house. Phoebe had met them together on the Square
+recently--not that she cared, of course! She sat erect and held her pink
+roses more tightly against her heart. It mattered little to her if David
+liked other girls; it was only that she felt a sense of proprietorship
+over the boy whose mother was her Mother Bab--thus she tried to console
+herself and quiet the demons of jealousy until the program was
+completed, congratulations received, and she stood with her aunt and
+father, ready for the trip back to the gray farmhouse.
+
+Teachers and friends had congratulated her, but it was David Eby's
+hearty, "You did all right, Phoebe," that gave her the keenest joy.
+
+"Did you walk in?" she asked him as she gathered her roses, diploma and
+scarf, preparatory to departure.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you can drive out with us," her father offered.
+
+"Yes, of course," she seconded the suggestion. "We have room in the
+carriage."
+
+So it happened that Phoebe, the blue scarf about her shoulders, sat
+beside David as they drove over the country road, home from her
+graduation. The vehicle rattled somewhat, but the young folks on the
+rear seat could speak and hear above the clatter.
+
+"I'm glad it's over," Phoebe sighed in relief. "But what next?"
+
+"Mary Warner is going to enter some prep school this fall and prepare
+for Vassar," David informed the girl beside him.
+
+"Lucky Mary"--Mary Warner--she was sick of the name! "I wish I knew what
+I want to do."
+
+"Want to go away to school?"
+
+"I don't know. Aunt Maria wants me to stay at home on the farm and just
+help her. Daddy doesn't say much, but he did ask me if I would like to
+go to Millersville. That's a fine Normal School and if I wanted to be a
+teacher I'd go to that school, but I don't want to be a teacher. What I
+really want to do is go away and study music."
+
+"Well, can't you do it? That is not really impossible."
+
+"No, but----"
+
+"No, but," he mimicked. "_But_ won't take you anywhere."
+
+"You set me thinking, David. Perhaps it isn't so improbable, after all.
+I'm coming over to see Mother Bab to-morrow; she'll be full of
+suggestions. She'll see a way for me to get what I want; she always
+does."
+
+"I bet she will," agreed David. "You'll be that primer donner yet," he
+mimicked, "I know you will."
+
+"Oh, Davie, wouldn't it be great! But I wouldn't beautify my face with
+cream and beet juice and flour!"
+
+They laughed so heartily that Aunt Maria turned and asked the cause of
+the merriment.
+
+"We were just speaking of the time when I dressed in the garret and
+fixed my face--the time you had the quilting party."
+
+"Ach," Aunt Maria said, smiling in the darkness. "You looked dreadful
+that day. I was good and mad at you! But I'm glad you're big enough now
+not to do such dumb things. My, now that you're done with school and
+will stay home with me we can have some nice times sewin' and quiltin'
+and makin' rugs, ain't, Phoebe?"
+
+In the semi-darkness of the carriage Phoebe looked at David. The
+appealing wistfulness of her face touched him. He patted her arm
+reassuringly and whispered to her, "Don't you worry. It'll come out all
+right. Mother Bab will help you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A VISIT TO MOTHER BAB
+
+
+THE next day as Phoebe walked up the hill to visit Mother Bab she went
+eagerly and with an unusual light in her eyes--she had transformed her
+schoolgirl braid into the coiffure of a woman! The golden hair was
+parted in the middle, twisted into a shapely knot in the nape of her
+neck, and the effect was highly satisfactory, she thought.
+
+"Mother Bab will be surprised," she said gladly as she swung up the hill
+in rapid, easy strides. "And David--I wonder what David will say if he's
+home."
+
+At the summit of the hill she paused and turned, looked back at the gray
+farmhouse and beyond it to the little town of Greenwald.
+
+"I just must stand here a minute and look! I love this view from the
+hill."
+
+She breathed deeply and continued to revel in the beauty of the scene.
+At the foot of the hill was the Metz farm nestling in its green
+surroundings. Like a tan ribbon the dusty road went winding past green
+fields, then hid itself as it dipped into a valley and made a sharp
+curve, though Phoebe knew that it went on past more fields and meadows
+to the town. Where she stood she had a view of the tall spires of
+Greenwald churches straggling through the trees, and the red and slate
+roofs of comfortable houses gleaming in the sunlight. Beyond and about
+the town lay fields resplendent in the pristine freshness of May
+greenery.
+
+"Oh," she said aloud after a long gaze, "this is glorious! But I must
+hurry to Mother Bab. I'm wild to have her see me. Aunt Maria just said
+when I showed her my hair, 'Yes well, Phoebe, I guess you're old enough
+to wear your hair up.' Mother Bab is different. Sometimes I pity Aunt
+Maria and wonder what kind of childhood she had to make her so grim
+about some things."
+
+The little house in which David and his mother lived stood near the
+country road leading to the schoolhouse on the hill. Like many other
+farmhouses of that county it was square, substantial and unadorned, its
+attractiveness being derived solely from its fine proportions, its
+colonial doorways, and the harmonious surroundings of trees and flowers.
+The garden was eloquent of the lavish love bestowed upon it. Mother Bab
+delighted in flowers and planted all the old favorites. The walks
+between the garden beds were trim and weedless, the yard and buildings
+well kept, and the entire little farm gave evidence that the reputed
+Pennsylvania Dutch thrift and neatness were present there.
+
+Adjoining the farm of Mother Bab was the farm of her brother-in-law, the
+father of Phares Eby. This was one of the best known in the community.
+Its great barns and vast acres quite eclipsed the modest little dwelling
+beside it. David Eby sometimes sighed as he compared the two farms and
+wondered why Fate had bestowed upon his uncle's efforts an almost
+unparalleled success while his own father had had a continual struggle
+to hold on to the few acres of the little farm. Since the death of his
+father David had often felt the straining of the yoke. It was toil,
+toil, on acres which were rich but apparently unwilling to yield their
+fullness. One year the crops were damaged by hail, another year
+prolonged drought prevented full development of the fruit, again
+continued rainy weather ruined the hay, and so on, year in and year out,
+there was seldom a season when the farm measured up to the expectations
+of the hard-working David.
+
+But Mother Bab never complained about the ill-luck, neither did she envy
+the woman in the great house next to her. Mother Bab's philosophy of
+life was mainly cheerful:
+
+        "I find earth not gray, but rosy,
+           Heaven not grim, but fair of hue.
+         Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.
+           Do I stand and stare? All's blue."
+
+A little house to shelter her, a big garden in which to work, to dream,
+to live; enough worldly goods to supply daily sustenance; the love of
+her David--truly her BELOVED, as the old Hebrew name signifies--the love
+of the dear Phoebe who had adopted her--given these blessings and no
+envy or discontent ever ventured near the white-capped woman. Life had
+brought her many hours of perplexity and several great sorrows, but it
+had also bestowed upon her compensating joys. She felt that the years
+would bring her new joys, now that her boy was grown into a man and was
+able to manage the farm. Some day he would bring home a wife--how she
+would love David's wife! But meanwhile, she was not lonely. Her friends
+and she were much together, quilting, rugging, comparing notes on the
+garden.
+
+"Guess Mother Bab'll be in the garden," thought Phoebe, "for it's such a
+fine day."
+
+But as she neared the whitewashed fence of the garden she saw that the
+place was deserted. She ran lightly up the walk, rapped at the kitchen
+door, and entered without waiting for an answer to her knock.
+
+"Mother Bab," she called.
+
+"I'm here, Phoebe," came a voice from the sitting-room.
+
+"How are you? Is your headache all gone?" Phoebe asked as she ran to the
+beloved person who came to meet her.
+
+"All gone. I was so disappointed last night--but what have you done to
+your hair?"
+
+"Oh, I forgot!" Phoebe lifted her head proudly. "I meant to knock at the
+front door and be company to-day. I've got my hair up!"
+
+"Phoebe, Phoebe," the woman drew her nearer. "Let me look at you." Her
+eyes scanned the face of the girl, her voice quivered as she spoke.
+"You've grown up! Of course it didn't come in a night but it seems that
+way."
+
+"The May fairies did it, Mother Bab. Yesterday I wore a braid. This
+morning when I woke I heard the robin who sings every morning in the
+apple tree outside my window and he was caroling, 'Put it up! Put it
+up!' I knew he meant my hair, so here I am, waiting for your blessing."
+
+"You have it, you always have it! But"--she changed her mood--"are you
+sure the robin wasn't saying, 'Get up, get up!' Phoebe?"
+
+"Positive; it was only five o'clock."
+
+"Now I must hear all about last night," said Mother Bab as they sat
+together on the broad wooden settee in the sitting-room. "David told me
+how nice you looked and how well you did."
+
+"Did he tell you how pleased I am with the scarf? It's just lovely! And
+the color is beautiful. I wonder why--I wonder why I love pretty things
+so much, really pretty things, like crepe de chine and taffeta and panne
+velvet and satin. Oh, sometimes I think I must have them. When I go to
+Lancaster I want lots of lovely clothes and I hate ginghams and percales
+and serviceable things."
+
+"I know, Phoebe, I know how you feel about it."
+
+"Do you really? Then it can't be so awfully wicked. You are so
+understanding, Mother Bab. I can't tell Aunt Maria how I feel about such
+things for she'd be dreadfully hurt or worried or provoked, but you seem
+always to know what I mean and how I feel."
+
+"I was eighteen myself once, a good many years ago, but I still remember
+it."
+
+"You have a good memory."
+
+"Yes. Why, I can remember some of the dresses I wore when I was
+eighteen. But then, I have a dress bundle to help me remember them."
+
+"What's a dress bundle?"
+
+"Didn't Aunt Maria keep one for you?"
+
+"I never heard of one."
+
+"It's a long string of samples of dresses you wore when you were little.
+Wait, I'll get mine and show you."
+
+She left the room and went up-stairs. After a short time she returned
+and held out a stout thread upon which were strung small, irregular
+scraps of dress material. "This is my dress bundle. My mother started it
+for me when I was a baby and kept it up till I was big enough to do it
+myself. Every time I got a new dress a little patch of the goods was
+threaded on my dress bundle."
+
+"Oh, may I see? Why, that's just like a part of your babyhood and
+childhood come back!"
+
+The two heads bent over the bundle--the girl's with its light hair in
+its first putting up, the woman's with its graying hair folded under the
+white cap.
+
+"Here"--Mother Bab turned the bundle upside down and fingered the scraps
+with that loving way of those who are dreaming of long departed days and
+touching a relic of those cherished hours--"this white calico with the
+little pink dots was the first dress any one gave me. Grandmother
+Hoerner made it for me, all by hand. Funny, wasn't it, the way they used
+to put colored dresses on wee babies! See, here are pink calico ones and
+white with red figures and a few blue ones. I wore all these when I was
+a baby. Then when I grew older these; they are much prettier. This red
+delaine I wore to a spelling bee when I was about sixteen and I got a
+book for a prize for standing up next to last. This red and black
+checked debaige I can see yet. It had an overskirt on it trimmed with
+little ruffles. This purple cashmere with the yellow sprigs in it I had
+all trimmed with narrow black velvet ribbon. I'll never forget that
+dress--I wore it the day I met David's father."
+
+"Oh, you must have looked lovely!"
+
+"He said so." She smiled; her eyes looked beyond Phoebe, back to the
+golden days of her youth when Love had come to her to bless and to abide
+with her long beyond the tarrying of the spirit in the flesh. "He said I
+looked nice. I met him the first time I wore the purple dress. It was at
+a corn-husking party at Jerry Grumb's barn. Some man played the fiddle
+and we danced."
+
+"Danced!" echoed Phoebe.
+
+"Yes, danced. But just the old-fashioned Virginia reel. We had cider and
+apples and cake and pie for our treat and we went home at ten o'clock!
+David walked home with me in the moonlight and I guess we liked each
+other from the first. We were married the next year, then we both turned
+plain."
+
+"Were you ever sorry, Mother Bab?"
+
+"That I married him, or that I turned plain?"
+
+"Yes. Both, I mean."
+
+"No, never sorry once, Phoebe, about either. We were happy together. And
+about turning plain, why, I wasn't sorry either."
+
+"But you had to give up Virginia reels and pretty dresses."
+
+"Yes, but I learned there are deeper, more important things than dancing
+and wearing pretty dresses."
+
+She looked at Phoebe, but the girl had bowed her head over the dress
+bundle and appeared to be thinking.
+
+"And so," continued Mother Bab softly, "my bundle ended with that dress.
+Since I dress plain I don't wear colors, just gray and black. But I
+always thought if I had a girl I'd start a dress bundle for her, for
+it's so much satisfaction to get it out sometimes and look over the
+pieces and remember the dresses and some of the happy times you had when
+you wore them. But the girl never came."
+
+"But you have David!"
+
+"Yes, to be sure, he's been so much to me, but I couldn't make him a
+dress bundle. He wouldn't have liked it when he grew older--boys are
+different. And I wouldn't want him to be a sissy, either."
+
+"He isn't, Mother Bab. He's fine!"
+
+"I think so, Phoebe. He has worked so hard since he's through school and
+he's so good to me and takes such care of the farm, though the crops
+don't always turn out as we want. But you haven't told me what you are
+going to do, now that you're through school."
+
+"I don't know. I want to do something."
+
+"Teach?"
+
+"No. What I would like best of all is study music."
+
+"In Greenwald? You mean to learn to play?"
+
+"No, to learn to sing. I have often dreamed of studying music in a great
+city, like Philadelphia."
+
+"What would you do then?"
+
+"Sing, sing! I feel that my voice is my one talent and I don't want to
+bury it."
+
+"Well, don't Miss Lee live in Philadelphia? Perhaps she could help you
+to get a good teacher and find a place to board."
+
+"Mother Bab!" Phoebe sprang to her feet and wrapped her arms about the
+slender little woman. "That's just it!" she cried. "I never thought of
+that! David said you'd help me. I'll write to Miss Lee to-day!"
+
+"Phoebe," the woman said, smiling at the girl's wild enthusiasm.
+
+"I'm not crazy, just inspired," said Phoebe. "You helped me, I knew you
+would! I want to go to Philadelphia to study music but I know daddy and
+Aunt Maria would never listen to any proposals about going to a big city
+and living among strangers. But if I write to Miss Lee and she says
+she'll help me the folks at home may consider the plan. I'll have a hard
+time, though"--a reactionary doubt touched her--"I'll have a dreadful
+time persuading Aunt Maria that I'm safe and sane if I mention music and
+Philadelphia and Phoebe in the same breath." Then she smiled
+determinedly. "At least I'm going to make a brave effort to get what I
+want. I'm not going to settle down on the farm and get brown and fat and
+wear gingham dresses all my life, and sunbonnets in the bargain! I never
+could see why I had to wear sunbonnets, I always hated them. Aunt Maria
+always tried to make me wear them, but as soon as I was out of her sight
+I sneaked them off. I remember one time I threw my bonnet in the
+Chicques and I had the loveliest time watching it disappear down the
+stream. But Aunt Maria made me make another one that was uglier still,
+so I gained nothing but the temporary pleasure of seeing it float away.
+And how I hated to do patchwork! It seemed to me I was always doing it,
+and I never could see the sense of cutting up pieces and then sewing
+them together again."
+
+"But the sewing was good practice for you, Phoebe. Patchwork--seems to
+me all our life is patchwork: a little here and a little there; one
+color now, then another; one shape first, then another shape fitted in;
+and when it is all joined it will be beautiful if we keep the parts
+straight and the colors and shapes right. It can be a very beautiful
+rising sun or an equally pretty flower basket, or it can be just a crazy
+quilt with little of the beautiful about it."
+
+"Mother Bab, if I had known that while I was patching I would have loved
+to patch! I had nothing to make it interesting; it was just stitching,
+stitching, stitching on seams! But those vivid quilts are all finished
+and I guess Aunt Maria is as glad about it as I am, for I gave her some
+worried hours before the end was sighted. Poor Aunt Maria, she should be
+glad to have me go to the city. I've led her some merry chases, but I
+must admit she was always equal to them, forged ahead of me many times."
+
+"Phoebe, you're a wilful child and I'm afraid I spoil you more."
+
+"No you don't! You're my safety valve. If I couldn't come up here and
+say the things I really feel I'd have to tell it to the Jenny
+Wrens--Aunt Maria hates to have me talk to myself."
+
+"But she's good to you, Phoebe?"
+
+"Yes, oh, yes! I appreciate all she has done for me. She has taken care
+of me since I was a tiny baby. I'll never forget that. It's just that we
+are so different. I can't make Phoebe Metz be just like Maria Metz, can
+I?"
+
+"No, you must be yourself, even if you are different."
+
+"That's it, Mother Bab. I feel I have the right to live my life as I
+choose, that no person shall say to me I must live it so or so. If I
+want to study music why shouldn't I do so? My mother left a few hundred
+dollars for me; it's been on interest and amounts to more than a few
+hundred, about a thousand dollars, I think. So the money end of my
+studying music need not worry Aunt Maria. I am determined to do it,
+wouldn't you?"
+
+"I suppose I'd feel the same way."
+
+"How did you learn to understand so well, Mother Bab? You have lived all
+your life on a farm, yet you are not narrow."
+
+"I hope I have not grown narrow," the woman said softly. "I have read a
+great deal. I have read--don't you breathe it to a soul--I have often
+read when I should have been baking pies or washing windows!"
+
+"No wonder David worships you so."
+
+"I still enjoy reading," said Mother Bab. "David subscribes for three
+good magazines and when they come I'm so anxious to look into them that
+sometimes my cooking burns."
+
+"That must be one of the reasons your English is correct. I am ashamed
+of myself when I mix my v's and w's and use a _t_ for a _d_. I have
+often wished the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect would have been put aside
+long ago."
+
+"Yes," the woman agreed, "I can't see the need of it. It has been
+ridiculed so long that it should have died a natural death. It's a
+mystery to me how it has survived. But cheer up, Phoebe, the gibberish
+is dying out. The older people will continue to speak it but the younger
+generations are becoming more and more English speaking. Why, do you
+know, Phoebe, since this war started in Europe and I read the dreadful
+crimes the Germans are committing I feel that I never want to hear or
+say, 'Yah.'"
+
+"Bully!" Phoebe clapped her hands. "I said to old Aaron Hogendobler
+yesterday that I'm ashamed I have a German name and some German
+ancestors, even if they did come to this country before the Revolution,
+and he said no one need feel shame at that, but every American who is
+not one hundred per cent American should die from shame. I know we
+Pennsylvania Dutch can carry our end of the burdens of the world and be
+real Americans, but I want to sound like one too."
+
+Mother Bab laughed. "Just yesterday I said to David that the butter was
+_all_."
+
+"I say that very often. I must read more."
+
+"And I less. I haven't told you, Phoebe, nor David, but my eyes are
+going back on me. I went to Lancaster a few weeks ago and the doctor
+there said I must be very careful not to strain them at all. I think I'd
+rather lose any other sense than sight. I always thought it was the
+greatest affliction in the world to be blind."
+
+"It is! It mustn't come to you, Mother Bab!"
+
+The woman looked worried, but in a moment her face brightened.
+
+"Anyhow," she said, "what's the use of worrying or thinking about it? If
+it ever comes I'll have to bear it just as many other people are bearing
+it. I'm glad I have sight to-day to see you."
+
+Phoebe gave her an ecstatic hug. "I believe you're Irish instead of
+Pennsylvania Dutch! You do know how to blarney and you have that
+coaxing, lovely way about you that the Irish are supposed to have."
+
+"Why, Phoebe, I am part Irish! My mother's maiden name was McKnight.
+David and I still have a few drops of the Irish blood in us, I suppose."
+
+"I just knew it! I'm glad. I adore the whimsical way the Irish have, and
+I like their sense of humor. I guess that's one of the reasons I like
+you better than other people I know and perhaps that's why David is
+jolly and different from Phares. Ah," she added roguishly, "I think it's
+a pity Phares hasn't some Irish blood in him. He's so solemn he seldom
+sees a joke."
+
+"But he's a good boy and he thinks a lot of you. He's just a little too
+quiet. But he's a good preacher and very bright."
+
+"Yes, he's so good that I'm ashamed of myself when I say mean things
+about him. I like him, but people with more life are more interesting."
+
+"Hello, who's this you like?" David's hearty voice burst upon them.
+
+Phoebe turned and saw him standing in the sunlight of the open door. The
+thought flashed upon her, "How big and strong he is!"
+
+He wore brown corduroys, a blue chambray shirt slightly open at the
+throat, heavy shoes. His face was already tanned by the wind and sun,
+his hands rough from contact with soil and farming implements, his dark
+hair rumpled where he had pulled the big straw hat from his head, but
+there was an odor of fresh spring earth about him, a boyish
+wholesomeness in his face, that attracted the girl as she looked at his
+frame in the doorway.
+
+There was a flash of white teeth, a twinkle in his dark eyes, as he
+asked, "What did I hear you say, Phoebe--that you like _me_?"
+
+"Indeed not! I wouldn't think of liking anybody who deceived me as you
+have done. All these years you have left me under the impression that
+you are Pennsylvania Dutch and now Mother Bab says you are part Irish."
+
+"Little saucebox! What about yourself? You can't make me believe that
+you are pure, unadulterated Pennsylvania Dutch. There's some alien blood
+in you, by the ways of you. Have you seen Phares this afternoon?" he
+asked irrelevantly.
+
+"Phares? No. Why?"
+
+"He went down past the field some time ago. Said he's going to
+Greenwald and means to stop and ask you to go to a sale with him next
+week. He said you mentioned some time ago that you'd like to go to a
+real old-fashioned one and he heard of one coming off next week and
+thought you might like to go."
+
+"I surely want to go. Don't you want to come, too, David? And Mother
+Bab?"
+
+But David shook his head. "And spoil Phares's party," he said. "Phares
+wouldn't thank us."
+
+Phoebe shrugged her shoulders. "Ach, David Eby, you're silly! Just as
+though I want to go to a sale all alone with Phares! He can take the big
+carriage and take us all."
+
+"He can but he won't want to." David showed an irritating wisdom. "When
+I invite you to come on a party with me I won't want Phares tagging
+after, either. Two's company."
+
+"Two's boredom sometimes," she said so ambiguously that the man laughed
+heartily and Mother Bab smiled in amusement.
+
+"Come now, Phoebe," David said, "just because you put your hair up you
+mustn't think you can rule us all and don grown-up airs."
+
+"Then you do notice things! I thought you were blind. You are downright
+mean, David Eby! When you wore your first pair of long pants I noticed
+it right away and made a fuss about them and it takes you ten minutes to
+see that my hair is up instead of hanging in a silly braid down my
+back."
+
+"I saw it first thing, Phoebe. That was mean--I'm sorry----"
+
+"You look it," she said sceptically.
+
+"I'm sorry," he repeated, "to see the braid go, though you look fine
+this way. I liked that long braid ever since the day I braided it, the
+day you played prima donna. Remember?"
+
+The girl flushed, then was vexed at her embarrassment and changed
+suddenly to the old, appealing Phoebe.
+
+"I remember, Davie. You were my salvation that day, you and Mother Bab."
+
+Before they could answer she added with seeming innocency, yet with a
+swift glance into the face of the farmer boy, "I must go now so I'll be
+home when Phares comes to invite me to that sale. I'm going with him;
+I'm wild to go."
+
+"Yes?" David said slowly.
+
+"Yes," she repeated, a teasing look in her eyes.
+
+"Mommie, isn't she fine?" David said after Phoebe was gone and he
+lingered in the house.
+
+"Mighty fine. But she is so different from the general run of girls;
+she's so lively and bright and sweet, so sensitive to all impressions.
+She's anxious to get to the city to study music. It would be a wonderful
+experience for her--and yet----"
+
+"And yet----" echoed David, then fell into silence.
+
+Mother Bab was thinking of her boy and Phoebe, of their gay comradeship.
+How friendly they were, how well-mated they appeared to be, how
+appreciative of each other. Could they ever care for each other in a
+deeper way? Did the preacher care for the playmate of his childhood as
+she thought David was beginning to care?
+
+"Well, I must go again, mommie. I came in for a drink at the pump and
+heard you and Phoebe. Now I must hustle for I have a lot to do before
+sundown--ach, why aren't we rich!"
+
+"Do you wish for that?"
+
+"Certainly I do. Not wealthy; just to have enough so we needn't lie
+awake wondering if the dry spell or the wet spell or the hail will ruin
+the crops. I wish I could find an Aladdin's lamp."
+
+"Davie"--the smile faded from her face--"don't get the money craze.
+Money isn't everything. This farm is paid for and we can always make a
+comfortable living. Money isn't all."
+
+"No, but--but it means everything sometimes to a young, single fellow.
+But don't you worry; the crops are fine this year, so far."
+
+The mother did not forget his words at once. "It must be," she thought,
+"that David wants Phoebe and feels he must have more money before he can
+ask her to marry him. Will men never learn that girls who are worth
+getting are not looking so much for money but the man. The young can't
+see the depth and fullness of love. I've tried to teach David, but I
+suppose there's some things he must learn for himself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+AN OLD-FASHIONED COUNTRY SALE
+
+
+A WEEK later Phares and Phoebe drove into the barnyard of a farm six
+miles from Greenwald, where the old-fashioned sale was scheduled to be
+held.
+
+"We are not the first, after all," said the preacher as he saw the
+number of conveyances in and about the barnyard. He smiled
+good-humoredly as he led the way--he could afford to smile when he was
+with Phoebe.
+
+All about the big yard of the farm were placed articles to be sold at
+public auction. It was a miscellaneous collection. A cradle with
+miniature puffy feather pillows, straw tick and an old patchwork quilt
+of pink and white calico stood near an old wood-stove which bore the
+inscription, CONOWINGO FURNACE. Corn-husk shoe-mats, a quilting frame,
+rocking-chairs, two spinning-wheels, copper kettles, rolls of hand-woven
+rag carpet, old oval hat-boxes and an old chest stood about a huge table
+which was laden with jars of jellies. Chests, filled with linens and
+antique woolen coverlets, afforded a resting place for the fortunate
+ones who had arrived earliest. A few antique chairs and tables, a
+mahogany highboy in excellent condition and an antique corner-cupboard
+of wild-cherry wood occupied prominent places among the collection.
+Truly, the sale warranted the attention it was receiving.
+
+"I'd like to bid on something--I'm going to do it!" Phoebe said as they
+looked about. "When I was a little girl and went to sales with Aunt
+Maria I coaxed to bid, just for the excitement of bidding. But she
+always made me tell what I wanted and then she bid on it."
+
+"What do you want to buy?" asked the preacher.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I don't want any apple-butter in crocks, or any
+chairs. Oh, I'll have some fun, Phares! I'll bid on the third article
+they put up for sale! I heard a man say the dishes are going to be sold
+first, so I'll probably get a cracked plate or a saucer without a cup,
+but whatever it is, the third article is going to be mine."
+
+"That is rather rash," warned Phares. "It may be a bed or a chest."
+
+"You can't scare me. I'm going to have some real thrills at this sale."
+
+The preacher entered into the spirit of the girl and smiled at her
+promise to bid on the third thing put up for sale.
+
+"Oh, look at the highboy," she exclaimed to him.
+
+"Do you like it?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. See how it's inlaid with hollywood and cherry and how fine the
+lines of it are! I wonder how much it will bring. But Aunt Maria'd scold
+if I brought any furniture home, so I can't buy it."
+
+"The price will depend upon the number of bidders and the size of their
+pocketbooks. If any dealers in antiques are here it may run way up. We
+used to buy homespun linen and fine old furniture very cheap at sales,
+but the antique dealers changed that."
+
+By that time the number of people was steadily increasing. They came
+singly and in groups, in carriages, farm wagons, automobiles and afoot.
+Some of the curious went about examining each article in the motley
+collection in the yard.
+
+Phoebe watched it all with an amused smile; finally she broke into merry
+laughter.
+
+Phares looked up inquiringly: "What is it?"
+
+"This is great sport! I haven't been to a good sale for several years.
+That old man has knocked his fist upon every chair and table, has tested
+every piece of furniture, has opened all the bureau drawers, even the
+case of the old clock, and just a moment ago he rocked the cradle
+furiously to convince himself that it is in good working condition. Here
+he comes with a pewter plate in his hand--let's hear what he has to say
+about it."
+
+The old man's cracked harsh voice rose above the confusion of other
+sounds as he leaned against a table near Phoebe and Phares and spoke to
+another man:
+
+"Here now, Eph, is one of them pewter plates that folks fuss so about
+just now, and I hear they put them in their dinin'-rooms along the wall!
+Why, when I was a boy my granny had a lot of 'em and we'd knock 'em
+around any way. Ha, ha," he laughed loudly, "I can tell you a good one,
+Eph, about one of them pewter dishes."
+
+He slapped the plate against his knee, but the thud was instantly
+drowned by his quick, "Ach, Jimminy, I hit myself pretty hard that time!
+But I'll tell you about it, Eph. You heard of the fellows from the city
+who go around the country hunting up old relics, all old truck, and sell
+it again in the city? Well, one of them fellows come to my house the
+other week and asked if I had anything old-fashioned I would sell. Now
+if Lizzie'd been home we might got rid of some of the old things we have
+on the garret, but I was alone and I didn't know what I dared sell--you
+know how the women is. So I said, 'What kind of old things do you want?'
+
+"'Oh,' he said, 'I buy old furniture, dishes, linen, pewter----'
+
+"'Pewter?' I said. 'Who wants that?'
+
+"'There is a great demand for it,' he said, 'and I will give you a good
+price for any you have.'
+
+"'Well,' I laughed, 'I have just one piece of pewter.'
+
+"'Where is it?'
+
+"'Why, the cats have been eating out of it for a few years.'
+
+"'May I see it?' he asks.
+
+"So I took him out to the barn and showed him the big pewter bowl the
+cats eat out of and he said, 'I'll give you fifty cents for that dish.'
+
+"Gosh, I said to him, 'Mister, I was just fooling with you. I know you
+don't want a cat-dish.'
+
+"But he said again, 'I'll give you fifty cents for that dish.'
+
+"So when I saw that he really meant it and wanted the dish I wrapped
+the old pewter dish in a paper and he gave me half a dollar for it. When
+I told Lizzie about it she laughed good and said the city folks must be
+dumb if they want pewter dishes when you can buy such nice ones for ten
+cents. Yes, Eph, that's the fellow's going to auctioneer. He's a good
+one, you bet; he keeps things lively all the time. All his folks is good
+talkers. Lizzie says his mom can talk the legs off an iron pot. But then
+he needs a good tongue in this business; it takes a lot of wind to be an
+auctioneer, specially at a big sale like this. He says it's going to be
+a wonderful sale, that he ain't had one like it for years. There's
+things here belonged to the family for three generations, been handed
+down and handed down and now to-day it'll get scattered all over
+Lancaster County, mebbe further. This saving up things and not using 'em
+is all nonsense. I tell Lizzie we'll use what we got and get new when
+it's worn out and not let a lot back for the young ones to fight over or
+other people to buy."
+
+Here the auctioneer climbed upon a big box, clapped his hands and called
+loudly, "Attention, attention! This sale is about to begin. We have here
+a collection of fine things, all in good condition. The terms of the
+sale are cash. Now, folks, bid up fast and talk loud when you bid so I
+can hear you. We have here some of the finest antique dishes in the
+country, also some furniture that can't be duplicated in any store
+to-day. We'll begin on this cherry table."
+
+He lifted a spindle-legged table in the air and went on talking.
+
+"Now that's a fine table to begin with! All solid cherry, no screws
+loose--and that's more than you can say about some people--now what's
+bid for this table? Fine and good as the day it came out of a good
+workman's shop; no scratches on it--the Brubaker people knew how to take
+care of furniture. Who bids? How much for it do you bid? Fifty
+cents--fifty, all right--make it sixty--sixty cents I'm bid. Sixty,
+sixty, sixty--seventy--go ahead, eighty--go on--ninety, one dollar, one
+dollar ten, twenty, thirty--keep on--one dollar thirty, make it forty,
+forty, forty, forty, I have a dollar forty for this table--all done?
+Going--all done--all done?"
+
+All was said in one breathless succession of words. He paused an instant
+to gather fresh impetus, then resumed, "All done--any more? Gone at a
+dollar forty to----"
+
+"Lizzie Brubaker."
+
+"Sold to Lizzie Brubaker."
+
+"There," whispered the preacher to Phoebe, "that's one."
+
+She smiled and nodded her head.
+
+"Here now," called the auctioneer, "here's a fine set of chairs. Bid on
+them; wink to me if you don't want to call out. My wife said she don't
+care how many ladies wink to me this afternoon at this sale, but after
+that she won't have it--now then; go ahead! Give me one of the chairs,
+Sam, so the people can see it--ah, ain't that a beauty! Six in all, all
+solid wood, too, none of your cane seats that you have to be afraid to
+sit in. All solid wood, and every one alike, all painted green and
+every one with fine hand-painted flowers on the back. Where can you beat
+such chairs? Don't make them any more these days, real antiques they
+are! Bid up now, friends; how much a piece? The six go together, it
+would be a shame to part them. Fifteen cents did I hear?--Say, I'm
+ashamed to take a bid like that! Twenty, that's a little better--thirty,
+thirty, forty over here? Forty cents I have, fifty, sixty, seventy,
+seventy-five, eighty, eighty, eighty cents I'm bid; I'm bid eighty
+cents--make it ninety--ninety I'm bid, make it a dollar--ninety,
+ninety--all done at ninety? Guess we'll let Jonas Erb have them at
+ninety cents a piece, and real bargains they are!"
+
+"Here's where I bid," said Phoebe, her cheeks rosy from excitement.
+
+"Shall I release you from your promise?" offered the preacher.
+
+"No, I'll bid."
+
+"Attention," called the auctioneer. "Attention, everybody! Here we have
+a real antique, something worth bidding on!"
+
+Phoebe held her breath.
+
+"Here now, Sam, give it a lift so everybody can see--ah, there you are!"
+
+He shouted the last words as two men held above the crowd--the old
+wooden cradle!
+
+Phoebe groaned and looked at Phares--he was smiling. The old aversion to
+ridicule swelled in her; he should not have reason to laugh at her; she
+would show him that she was equal to the occasion--she would bid on the
+cradle!
+
+"Start it, hurry up, somebody. How much is bid for the cradle? Sam here
+says it's been in the Brubaker family for years and years. Think of all
+the babies that were rocked to sleep in it--it's a real relic."
+
+Phoebe, unacquainted with the value of cradles, was silently endeavoring
+to determine the proper amount for a first bid. She was relieved to hear
+a woman's voice call, "Twenty-five cents."
+
+"Twenty-five I have, twenty-five," called the auctioneer. "Make it
+thirty."
+
+"Thirty," said Phoebe.
+
+"Forty," came from the other woman.
+
+"Make it fifty, Miss." He pointed a fat finger at Phoebe.
+
+"Fifty," she responded.
+
+"Fifty, fifty, anybody make it sixty? Fifty cents--all done at fifty?
+Then it goes at fifty cents to"--Phoebe repeated her name--"to Phoebe
+Metz."
+
+He proceeded with the sale. Phoebe turned triumphantly to the
+preacher--"I kept my promise."
+
+"You did," he said. "The cradle is yours--what are you going to do with
+it?"
+
+"Gracious! Why, I never thought of that! I don't want it. I just wanted
+the fun of bidding. Can't I pay it and leave it and they can sell it
+over again?"
+
+"You bid rashly," the preacher said, though his eyes were smiling and
+his usual tone of admonition was absent from his voice. "I think you may
+be able to sell it to the woman who was bidding against you."
+
+"I'll find her and give it to her."
+
+She elbowed her way through the crowd until she reached the place from
+which the opposing voice had come. She looked about a moment, then
+addressed a woman near her. "Do you know who was bidding on the cradle?"
+
+"Yes, it was Hetty here, the one with the white waist. Here, Hetty, this
+lady wants to talk to you."
+
+"To me?" echoed the rival bidder for the cradle.
+
+"Did you bid on the cradle?" asked Phoebe.
+
+"Yes, but I didn't get it. I only wanted it because it was in the family
+so long. I'm a Brubaker. I said I wouldn't give more than fifty cents
+for it, for it would just stand up in the garret anyway, and be one more
+thing to move around at housecleaning time. Yet I'd liked to have it. I
+don't know who got it."
+
+"I did, but I don't want it. I'd like to give it to you."
+
+"Why"--the woman was amazed--"what did you bid on it for?"
+
+"Just for the fun of bidding," said Phoebe, laughing. "Will you let me
+give it to you?"
+
+"I'll give you half a dollar for it," offered the woman.
+
+"No, I mean it. I want to give it to you. I'll consider it a favor if
+you'll take it from me."
+
+"Well, if you want it that way. But don't you want the quilt and the
+feather pillows?"
+
+"No, take it just as it is."
+
+"Why, thanks," said the woman as she went to the spot where the cradle
+stood. She soon walked away with the clumsy gift in her arm. "Now don't
+it beat all," she said as she set it down near her friends. "I just knew
+that I'd get a present to-day. This morning I put my stocking on wrong
+side out and I just left it for they say still that it means you'll get
+a present before the day is over, and here I get this cradle!"
+
+With a bright smile illumining her face, Phoebe rejoined the preacher.
+
+"I see you disposed of the cradle," he greeted her.
+
+"Yes. But I felt like a hypocrite when she thanked me, for I was giving
+her what I didn't want."
+
+Here the busy auctioneer called again, "Attention, everybody! This piece
+of furniture we are going to sell now dates back to ante-bellum days."
+
+"Ach, it don't," Phoebe heard a voice exclaim. "That never belonged to
+any person called Bellem; that was old Amanda Brubaker's for years and
+she used to tell me that it belonged to her grandmother once. That man
+don't know what he's saying, but that's the way these auctioneers do;
+you can't believe half they say at a sale half the time."
+
+Phoebe looked up at Phares; both smiled, but the loquacious auctioneer,
+not knowing the comments he was causing, went on serenely:
+
+"Yes, sir, this is a real old piece of furniture, a real antique. Look
+at this, everybody--a chest of drawers, a highboy, some people call it,
+but it's pretty by any name. All of it is genuine mahogany trimmed with
+inlaid pieces of white wood. Start it up, somebody. What will you give
+for the finest thing we have here at this sale to-day? What's bid? Good!
+I'm bid five dollars to begin; shows you know a good thing when you see
+it. Five dollars--make it ten?"
+
+"Ten," answered Phares Eby.
+
+Phoebe gave a start of surprise as the preacher's voice came in answer
+to the entreaty of the auctioneer.
+
+"Phares," she whispered, "I didn't mean that I want to buy it."
+
+"I am buying it," he said calmly, an inscrutable smile in his eyes. "You
+like it, don't you?"
+
+She felt a vague uneasiness at his words, at the new sound of tenderness
+in his voice.
+
+"Yes, I like it, but----"
+
+"Then we'll talk about that some other day soon," he returned, and
+looked again at the busy auctioneer.
+
+"Ten dollars, ten, ten," came the eager call of the man on the
+box. "Who makes it fifteen? That's it--fifteen I have--sixteen,
+eighteen--twenty--twenty-five, thirty--thirty, thirty, come on, who
+makes it more? Not done yet? Not going for that little bit? Who makes
+it thirty-five?"
+
+"Thirty-five," said Phares.
+
+"Thirty-five," the auctioneer caught at the words. "That's the way to
+bid."
+
+"Thirty-eight," came a voice from the crowd.
+
+"Thirty-eight," the auctioneer smiled broadly at the bid. "Some person
+is going to get a fine antique--keep it up, the highest bidder gets
+it--thirty-eight----"
+
+"Forty," offered Phares.
+
+"Forty, forty dollars--I have forty dollars offered for the highboy--all
+done at forty----"
+
+There was a tense silence.
+
+"Forty dollars--all done at forty--last call--going--going--gone. Gone
+at forty dollars to Phares Eby."
+
+Phoebe turned to the preacher. "Did you bid just for the fun of
+bidding?" she asked.
+
+"Well," he replied slowly, "the cases are not exactly alike. You like
+the highboy, don't you?"
+
+"Yes--but what has that to do with it?" She looked up, but turned her
+head away quickly. What did he mean? Surely Phares was not given to
+foolishness or love-making to her!
+
+She was glad that he suggested moving to the edge of the crowd after his
+successful bidding was completed. There a welcome diversion came in the
+form of the old man who had previously amused them by his talk about the
+pewter plate.
+
+"There now, Eph," he was saying, "what do you think of paying forty
+dollars for that old chest of drawers? To be sure it's good and all the
+drawers work yet--I tried 'em before the sale commenced. But forty
+dollars--whew!"
+
+The stupidity and extravagance of some people silenced him for a moment,
+then he continued: "My Lizzie, now, she knows better how to spend money.
+She bought ten dollars' worth of flavors and soap and things like that
+and she got in the bargain a big chest of drawers bigger than this old
+one, and it was polished up finer and had a looking-glass on the top
+yet. That man must have a lot of money to give forty dollars for one
+piece of furniture! Ach"--in answer to a remonstrance from his
+companion--"they can't hear me. I don't talk loud, and anyhow, they're
+listening to the auctioneer. That girl with him has a funny streak too.
+She bought the old cradle and then I heard her tell Hetty that she just
+bought it for fun and she gave it to Hetty. So, is that man Phares Eby
+from near Greenwald? Well, I thought he'd have too much sense to buy
+such a thing for forty dollars, but some people gets crazy when they get
+to a sale. Who ever heard of a person buying a cradle for fun and giving
+it away? But I guess that cradles went out of style some time ago. My
+girl Lizzie wasn't raised with funny notions like some girls have
+nowadays, but when she was married and had her first baby and we told
+her she could borrow the old cradle she was rocked in to put her baby
+in, she said she didn't want it, for cradles ain't healthy for babies,
+it is bad to rock babies! I guess that was her man's dumb notion, for
+he's a professor in the High School where they live, but he's just Jake
+Forney's John. They get along fine, but they do some dumb things. They
+let that baby yell till he found out that he wouldn't get rocked. It
+made her mom quite sick when we were up to visit them, and sometimes
+we'd sneak rocking it a little, just so the little fellow'd know there
+is such a thing as getting rocked. They don't want any person to kiss
+that baby, neither. Course I ain't in favor of everybody kissing a baby,
+but I can't see the hurt of its own people kissing it. We used to take
+it behind the door and kiss it good, and it's living yet. Ain't, Eph,
+it's a wonder we ever growed up, the way we were bounced and rocked and
+joggled and kissed! I say it ain't right to go back on cradles; they
+belong to babies. But look, Eph, there she's buying them old copper
+sheep bells! Wonder if she keeps sheep."
+
+Phoebe, triumphant bidder for a pair of hand-beaten copper sheep bells,
+turned and looked at the farmer. The tenderness of a bright smile still
+played about her lips and the old man, interpreting the smile as a
+personal greeting to him, drew near and spoke to her.
+
+"I can tell you what to take to clean them bells."
+
+"Thank you," she answered cordially, "but I do not want to clean them."
+
+"But you can make them shiny if you take----"
+
+"You are very kind, but I really want to keep them just as they are."
+
+The old man looked at her for a moment, then shook his head as though in
+perplexity and turned away.
+
+Several more hours of vigorous work on the part of the noisy auctioneer
+resulted in the sale of the miscellaneous collection of articles.
+
+The loquacious old farmer was often moved to whistle or to emit a low
+"Gosh" as the sale progressed and seemingly valueless articles were sold
+for high prices. A linen homespun table-cloth, woven in geometrical
+design, occasioned spirited bidding, but the man on the box was equal to
+the task and closed the bids at twenty dollars. Homespun linen towels
+were bought eagerly for seven, eight, nine dollars. A genuine buffalo
+robe was knocked down to a bidder at the price of eighty dollars. Cups
+and saucers and plates sold for from two to four dollars each. But it
+was an old blue glass bottle that provoked the greatest sensation.
+"Gosh, who wants that?" said the old man as the bottle was brought
+forth. "If he throws a cup or plate in with it mebbe somebody will give
+a penny for it."
+
+But a moment later, as an antique dealer started the bid at a dollar the
+old man spluttered, "Jimminy pats! Why, it's just an old glass bottle!"
+
+Some person enlightened him--it was Stiegel glass! After the first bid
+on the bottle every one became attentive. The two rival bidders were
+alert to every move of the auctioneer, the bids leapt up and up--ten
+dollars--eleven dollars--twelve dollars--thirteen dollars--gone at
+thirteen dollars!
+
+It was late afternoon when Phoebe and the preacher turned homeward. The
+preacher's purchase had to be left at the farm until he could return for
+it in the big farm wagon, but Phoebe thought of the highboy as they rode
+along the pleasant country roads. She remembered the expression she had
+caught on the face of Phares and the remembrance troubled her. She
+sought desperately for some topic of conversation that would lead the
+man's thoughts from the highboy and prevent the return of the mood she
+had discovered at the sale.
+
+"You--Phares," she began confusedly, "you are going to baptize this next
+time, Aunt Maria thought."
+
+"Yes."
+
+The preacher looked at the girl. The exhilarating influence of the early
+June outdoors was visible in her countenance. Her eyes sparkled, her
+cheeks glowed--she seemed the epitome of innocent, happy girlhood. The
+vision charmed the preacher and caused the blood to course more swiftly
+through his veins, but he bit his lip and steadied his voice to speak
+naturally. "Yes, Phoebe, I want to speak to you about that."
+
+"Oh, dear," she thought, "now I _have_ done it! Why did I start him on
+that subject!" Some of the excessive color faded from her face and she
+looked ahead as he spoke.
+
+"Phoebe, the second Sunday in June I am going to baptize a number of
+converts in the Chicques near your home. Are you ready to come with the
+rest, and give up the vanities of the world?"
+
+"Oh, Phares, why do you ask me? I can't wear plain clothes while I love
+pretty ones. I can't be a hypocrite."
+
+"But surely, Phoebe, you see that a simple life is more conducive to
+happiness than a complex, artificial life can possibly be. It is my duty
+to strive for the saving of souls and we have been friends so long that
+I take a special interest in you and desire to see you safe in the
+shelter of the Church."
+
+"Phares, I'll tell you frankly, if I ever wear plain garb it will be
+because I _feel_ that it is the right thing for me to do, not because
+some person persuades me to."
+
+"Of course, that is the only way to come. But can't you come now?"
+
+"I can't. I hurt you when I say that, but I want you to be my good
+friend, as always, in spite of my worldliness. Will you, Phares?"
+
+He opened his lips to speak, but she went on quickly: "Because I am
+learning every day how much I need the help and friendship of all my
+friends."
+
+He longed to throw down the reins he was holding and tell her what was
+in his heart, but something in her manner, her peculiar stress on the
+word "friendship" restrained him. She was, after all, only a child. Only
+eighteen--too young to think of marriage. He could wait a while longer
+before he told her of his love and his desire to marry her.
+
+"I will, Phoebe," he promised. "I'll be your friend, always."
+
+"I thought so," she breathed deeply in relief. "I knew you wouldn't fail
+me. Look at that field, Phares--oh, this is a perfect day! There should
+be a superlative form of perfect for a day like this! Those fields have
+as many colors as the shades reflected on a copper plate: lilac, tan,
+purple, rose, green and brown."
+
+The preacher answered a mere "Yes." She turned again and looked at the
+fields they were passing. "Perhaps," she thought, "before that corn is
+ripe I'll be in Philadelphia!" But she did not utter the thought, for
+she knew the preacher would not approve of her going to the city. He
+should know nothing about it until it was definitely settled.
+
+The thought of studying music in Philadelphia left her restless. If only
+the preacher would be more talkative!
+
+"It's just perfect to-day, isn't it, Phares?" she asked radiantly,
+resolved to make him talk. But his answers were so perfunctory that she
+turned her head, made a little grimace through the open side of the
+carriage and mentally dubbed him "Bump-on-log." Very well, if he felt
+indisposed to talk to her, she could enjoy the drive without his voice!
+
+Suddenly she laughed outright.
+
+"What----" he looked at her, puzzled.
+
+"What's funny?" she finished. "You."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, you. If sales affect you like this you must be careful to avoid
+them. You've been half asleep for the last half hour. I think the horse
+knows the way home; you haven't been driving at all."
+
+"I have not been asleep," he contradicted gravely, "just thinking."
+
+"Must be deep thoughts."
+
+"They were--shall I tell them to you?"
+
+"Oh, no, not to-day!" she cried. "I've had enough excitement for one
+day. Some other time. Besides, we are almost home."
+
+After that he threw off his lethargic manner and entered the girl's mood
+of appreciation of the lavish loveliness of the June. Yet, as Phoebe
+alighted from the carriage at the little gate of the Metz farm, and
+after she had thanked him and started through the yard to the house, she
+said softly to herself, "If Phares Eby isn't the queerest person I know!
+Just like a clam one minute and just lovely the next!"
+
+Maria Metz was dishing a panful of fried potatoes as Phoebe entered the
+kitchen.
+
+"Hello, daddy, Aunt Maria," exclaimed the girl.
+
+"So you come once?" said her aunt.
+
+"Have a good time?" asked her father.
+
+"Yes, it was a fine sale, a real old-fashioned one."
+
+But Aunt Maria was impatient for her supper. "Hurry," she said, "and get
+washed to eat. I have everything out and it'll get cold, then it ain't
+good. Did Phares like the sale? What did he have to say?"
+
+"Um, guess he liked it," said the girl with a shrug of her shoulders.
+"It's hard to tell what he likes--he's such a queer person. He said he's
+going to baptize the second Sunday of June and asked me if I want to
+come with the others."
+
+"He did!" Aunt Maria could not keep the eagerness out of her voice.
+"Well, let's sit down and eat."
+
+After a short grace she turned to the girl. "Now then," she said as she
+helped herself generously to sausage and potatoes and handed the dishes
+across the table to Phoebe, "tell us about it."
+
+"There isn't much to tell. I just told him that I can't renounce the
+pleasures of the world before I had a chance to take hold of them. I'm
+not ready yet to dress plain."
+
+"Why aren't you ready?" asked the woman.
+
+"Ach, don't ask me," Phoebe replied, speaking lightly in an effort to
+conceal her real feeling. "I just didn't come to that state yet. I want
+some more fun and pleasure before I think only of serious things."
+
+"You're just like a big baby," her aunt said impatiently. "You can hurt
+a good man like Phares Eby and come home and laugh about it."
+
+"Now, Maria," interposed the father, "let her laugh; she'll meet with
+crying soon enough, I guess."
+
+But the woman could not be easily silenced. "Some day, Phoebe, you'll
+wish you'd been nicer to Phares."
+
+"Why, I am nice to him."
+
+"Well, anyhow, I think it's soon time you give up the world and its
+vanities," said Aunt Maria.
+
+The girl's teasing mood fled. "I think," she said slowly, "that the
+plain dress should not be worn by any one who does not realize all that
+the dress stands for. If I ever turn plain I'll do so because I feel it
+is the right thing to do, but just now vanity and the love of pretty
+clothes are still in my heart."
+
+After the meal was over the women washed the dishes while Jacob went out
+to attend to the evening milking. Later, when the poultry houses and
+stables were locked he returned to the kitchen and read the weekly
+paper. After a while he turned to Phoebe.
+
+"Will you sing for me this evening?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," came the ready response.
+
+"Then make the door shut," Aunt Maria directed as they went to the
+sitting-room. "I want to mark my rug yet this evening and your noise
+bothers me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"THE BRIGHT LEXICON OF YOUTH"
+
+
+"WHAT shall I sing?" Phoebe asked as her father sank into the big rocker
+and she took her place at the low organ.
+
+"Ach, anything," he replied.
+
+She smiled, turned the pages of an old music book, and began to sing,
+"Annie Laurie." Her father nodded approval and smiled when she followed
+that with several other old-time favorites. Then she hesitated a moment,
+a low melody came from the organ, and the words of the beautiful lullaby
+fell from her lips:
+
+        "Sweet and low, sweet and low,
+           Wind of the western sea;
+         Low, low,--breathe and blow,
+           Wind of the western sea;
+         Over the rolling waters go,
+           Come from the dying moon and blow,
+         Blow him again to me,
+           While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps."
+
+Phoebe sang the lullaby as gently as if a tiny head were nestled against
+her bosom. She had within her, as has every normal, unspoiled woman, the
+loving impulses and yearning tenderness of motherhood. Her womanhood's
+star of hope shone brightly, though from a great distance; she devoutly
+hoped for the fulfillment of her destiny, but always dreamed of it
+coming in some time far removed from the present. Wifehood and
+motherhood--that was her goal, but long years of other joys and other
+achievements stretched between. Yet she felt an incomparable joy as she
+sang the lullaby. She sang it easily and sweetly and uttered each word
+with the freedom of one to whom music is second nature.
+
+To the man who listened memory drew aside the curtains of twenty years.
+He beheld again the sweet-faced wife glorified with the blessed halo of
+motherhood. He thrilled at the remembrance of her intense rapture as she
+clasped her babe in moments of vivid ecstasy, or held it tenderly in her
+arms as she sang the slumber song. The man was lost in revery--the sweet
+voice of the mother had suddenly grown weak and drifted into silence--a
+silence which would have been intolerable save for the lisping of a
+child voice that was filled with the same indefinable sweetness the
+treasured, silenced voice had possessed. In those first days of
+bereavement Jacob Metz had clung to his motherless babe for comfort; her
+love and caresses had renewed his strength and touched him with a divine
+sense of his responsibility. His toil-hardened hands could not do the
+mother's tasks for her but his heart could love sufficiently to
+recompense, so far as that be possible, for the loss of the mother's
+presence. His own childhood had been stripped of all romance, hence he
+could not measure the value of the innocent pleasures of which Aunt
+Maria, in her stern and narrow discipline, deprived the little girl; but
+so far as he saw the light and so far as he was able, he quietly soothed
+where Aunt Maria irritated, and mitigated by his interest and sympathy
+the sternness of the woman's rule.
+
+A fleeting retrospect of the past years crowded upon him as he heard
+Phoebe sing the mother's song. The two voices seemed strangely merged
+and blended; when she ended and turned her face to him she seemed the
+vivid reincarnation of that other Phoebe.
+
+"That's a pretty song, isn't it, daddy? You like it?"
+
+"Yes. Your mom used to sing you to sleep with it."
+
+"I wish I could remember. I can't remember her at all," the girl said
+wistfully.
+
+"I wish you could, too. You look just like her. I'm glad you do. We Metz
+people all have the black hair and dark eyes but you have your mom's
+light hair and blue eyes. I see her every time I look at you."
+
+She seated herself near him. In a moment he spoke again, very
+deliberately, with his characteristic expressiveness:
+
+"Phoebe, I want you to know more about your mom. You know she was plain,
+a member of our Church. I would like you to dress like she did but I
+don't want you to dress that way and then be dissatisfied and go back to
+the dress of the world. Not many people do that, but those that do are
+the laughing-stock of the world. I don't want you coaxed to be plain and
+then not stay plain. I tell you this because I can see that you are
+just like your mom was, you like pretty things so much. She came in the
+Church with some girls she knew; none of her people were plain. I knew
+her right after she joined, and I took her to Love Feasts and to
+Meetings and we were soon promised to marry each other. I saw that
+something was troubling her and she told me that she wanted pretty
+clothes again and wanted to go to parties and picnics like some of the
+other girls she knew. But because she cared for me and was promised to
+me she kept on dressing plain. So we were married. The second year you
+came and then she was satisfied without pretty dresses. She said to me
+once, 'Jacob, I was foolish to fret about pretty clothes and jewelry,
+they could not bring happiness, but this'--she looked down at you--'this
+is the most precious, most beautiful jewel any woman could have.' I knew
+then that the love of vanity was gone from her, that she would never be
+tempted to go back to the dress and ways of the world."
+
+For a moment there was silence in the big room. The memory of the days
+when the home circle was unbroken left the father quiet and thoughtful
+and strangely touched Phoebe.
+
+"I am glad you told me, daddy," she said presently. "To-day when Phares
+talked about the baptizing he seemed so confident and at peace in his
+religion, yet I could not promise to come into the Church and wear the
+plain dress. I am going to think about it----"
+
+Here Aunt Maria called loudly, "Phoebe, come out here once."
+
+Phoebe sighed, then turned from her father and entered the kitchen. The
+older woman was bending over an oblong frame and by the aid of a small
+steel hook was pulling tufts of cloth through the mesh of a piece of
+burlap, the foundation of a hooked rug.
+
+"See once, Phoebe, won't this be pretty till it's done?"
+
+"Yes, very pretty. I like the Wall of Troy design you are using, and the
+blues and gray will be a good combination. What are you going to do with
+it?"
+
+"It's for your chest."
+
+The girl laughed. "Aunt Maria, you'll have to enlarge that chest or buy
+a second one. This spring when we cleaned house and had all the things
+of that chest hung out to air, I counted eleven quilts, six rugs, five
+table-cloths, ten gingham aprons, ever so many towels, besides all the
+old homespun linen I have in that other chest on the garret. I'll never
+need all that."
+
+"Why, you don't know. If you marry----"
+
+"But if I don't marry?"
+
+"Ach, I guess old maids need covers and aprons and things as well as
+them that marry. But now I guess I'll stop for to-night. I want to sew
+the hooks 'n' eyes on my every-day dress yet before I go to bed."
+
+"But before you go I want to ask you, to talk with you and daddy," said
+Phoebe, determined to decide the matter of studying music in
+Philadelphia. The uncertainty of it was growing to be a strain upon her.
+If there was no possibility of her dreams becoming realities she would
+put the thoughts away from her, but she wanted the question settled.
+
+"Now what----" Aunt Maria raised her spectacles to her forehead and
+looked at the girl, at her flushed cheeks, her eyes darkened by
+excitement.
+
+"So," the woman chuckled, "Phares picked up spunk once and asked
+you----"
+
+"Phares has nothing to do with it," Phoebe said curtly, her cheeks
+flushing deeper at the thought of the words she knew her aunt was ready
+to say. "This is my affair, and, of course, yours and daddy's." She
+turned to her father--"I want to study music."
+
+"Music? How--you mean to learn to play the organ?" he asked.
+
+"No. Oh, no! I mean to sing. Listen, please," she pleaded as she saw the
+bewildered look on his face. "You know I have always liked to sing. I
+have told you that many people have said my voice is good. So I'd like
+to go to Philadelphia and take lessons from a good teacher. May I? I can
+use the money I have in the bank, that my mother left me. I have about a
+thousand dollars. It won't take all of that for a few years' lessons.
+Daddy, if you'll only say I may go!" Her voice wavered suspiciously at
+the end.
+
+Jacob Metz looked at his daughter, then at the little low organ in the
+other room. Another Phoebe had loved to sit at that instrument and
+sing--perhaps he was too easy with the girl--but if she wanted to go
+away and take lessons----
+
+Before he could answer the plea Maria Metz found her voice and spoke
+authoritatively:
+
+"Jacob Metz, goodness knows you're sometimes dumb enough to do foolish
+things, but you surely ain't goin' to leave Phoebe go off to learn
+singing! Throwing away money like that! And what good is to come of it,
+I'd like to know. Who put that dumb notion in her head, it just now
+vonders me! If she must go away somewheres to school, like all the young
+ones think they must nowadays, why not leave her go to Millersville or
+to Elizabethtown or to Lancaster to learn dressmakin'? But to
+Philadelphy--why, that's a big city! Anyhow, I can't see the use of all
+this flyin' around to school. We didn't get it when we was young, and we
+growed up, too. We was lucky if we got to the country school regular,
+and we got through the world so far!"
+
+"But Maria," her brother spoke gently, "you know things have changed
+since we went to school. The world don't stay the same."
+
+"But to learn music!" she placed a scornful accent on the last word.
+"What good will that do? And can't any one in Greenwald or Lancaster,
+even, learn her to sing? Anyhow, she don't need no lessons, she hollers
+too loud already. If she takes lessons yet what'll she do?"
+
+"Oh, Aunt Maria," Phoebe said impatiently, "you don't understand! If my
+voice is worth training it is worth having a good teacher. A city like
+Philadelphia is the place to go to."
+
+"But where would you stay down there? Mebbe you couldn't get a place
+with nice people. Abody don't know what kinda people live in a city."
+
+"I've thought of that. I wrote to Miss Lee last week and asked her and
+she wrote back and said it would be a splendid thing for me. She offered
+to help me find a boarding place. I could see her often and would not be
+alone among strangers. Best of all, Miss Lee has a cousin who plays the
+violin and who lives with her and her mother and he will help me find a
+good teacher. Isn't that lovely?"
+
+"Omph," sniffed Aunt Maria. "It'll cost you a lot of money for board,
+mebbe as much as four dollars a week! And your lessons will be a lot,
+and your car fare back and forth. Then I guess you'd want a lot more
+dresses and things--ach, you just put that dumb notion from your head."
+
+"Maria," Phoebe's father spoke in significantly even tones, "you needn't
+talk like that. Phoebe has the money her mom left her and I guess I
+could send her to school if I wanted to. It won't hurt her to go study
+music and see something of the world. It'll do her good to get away once
+like other girls."
+
+"Do her good," echoed Aunt Maria. "Jacob Metz! You know little of the
+dangers of the big cities! But then, men ain't got no sense! I never met
+one yet that had enough to fill a thimble!"
+
+"Aunt Maria," the girl said gently, "I'm not a child. I'm eighteen and
+I'll be near Miss Lee and her friends."
+
+"And the fiddler," added the woman tartly.
+
+"Ach," Phoebe laughed. "Miss Lee will take care of me."
+
+"Mebbe so," grumbled Aunt Maria.
+
+"Now look here, Maria," Jacob spoke up, "Phoebe can go this fall once
+and try it and she can come home often and if she don't like it she can
+come home right away. It takes only three hours to go to there. So,
+Phoebe, you write to Miss Lee and tell her to expect you."
+
+"Then I may go!" She threw her arms about her father's neck and kissed
+his bearded face. Demonstrations of affection were rare in the Metz
+household, but the father smiled as he stroked the girl's hair.
+
+"You be a good girl, Phoebe, that's all I want," he said.
+
+"I will, daddy, I will!"
+
+"Then, Maria, you take Phoebe to Lancaster and get things ready so she
+can go in September. I'll let her take that thousand she has in the
+bank, but that must reach; it's enough for music lessons."
+
+"I won't need all of it. What's left I'll save for next year."
+
+"Next year! How many years must you go?" demanded Aunt Maria, still
+unhappy and sore.
+
+"I don't know. But when the thousand is gone I'll earn more if I want to
+spend more."
+
+"Ach, my," groaned the woman, "you talk like money grew on trees! What's
+the world comin' to nowadays?" She rose and pushed her rugging frame
+into a corner of the kitchen.
+
+"Maria," her brother suggested, "we can get a hired girl if the work's
+too much for you alone."
+
+"Hired girl! I don't want no hired girl! Half of 'em don't do to suit,
+anyhow! I don't just want Phoebe here to help to work. It'll be awful
+lonesome with her gone."
+
+Phoebe saw the glint of anguish in the dark eyes and felt that her
+aunt's protestations were partly due to a disinclination to be parted
+from the child she had reared.
+
+"Aunt Maria," she said kindly, "I hate to do what you think I shouldn't
+do, for you're good to me. You mustn't feel that I'm doing this just to
+be contrary. You and I think differently, that's all. Perhaps I'm too
+young to always think right, but I don't want you to be hurt. I'll come
+home often."
+
+"Ach, yes well," the woman was touched by the girl's tenderness, but was
+still unconvinced. "Not much use my saying more, I guess. You and your
+pop will do what you like. You're a Metz, too, and hard to change when
+you make up your mind once."
+
+That night when Phoebe went to bed in her old-fashioned walnut bed she
+lay awake for hours, dreaming of the future. If Aunt Maria had known the
+visions that flitted before the girl that night she would have quaked in
+apprehension, for Phoebe finally drifted into slumber on clouds of
+glory, forecasts of the wonderful time when, as a prima donna in
+trailing, shimmering gown, she would have the world at her feet while
+she sang, sang, sang!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE PREACHER'S WOOING
+
+
+THERE belonged to the Metz farm an old stone quarry which Phoebe learned
+to love in early childhood and which, as she grew older, she adopted as
+her refuge and dreaming-place.
+
+Almost directly opposite the green gate at the country road was a narrow
+lane which led to the quarry. It was bordered on the right by a thickly
+interlaced hedge of blackberry bushes and wild honeysuckle, beyond which
+stood the orchard of the Metz farm. On the left of the lane a wide field
+sloped up along the road leading to the summit of the hill where the
+schoolhouse and the meeting-house stood. The lane was always inviting.
+It was the fair road to a fairer spot, the old stone quarry.
+
+The old stone quarry banked its rugged height against the side of a
+great wooded hill. Some twenty feet below the level of the lane was a
+huge semicircular base, and from this the jagged sides reared
+perpendicularly to the summit of the hill. The top and slopes of this
+hill were covered with a dense growth of underbrush and trees. Tall
+sycamores bordered the road opposite the quarry, making the spot
+sheltered and secluded.
+
+To this place Phoebe hurried the morning after she had gained her
+father's consent to go to Philadelphia.
+
+"I just had to come here," she breathed rapturously; "the house is too
+narrow, the garden too small, this June morning. They won't hold my
+dreams."
+
+She stood under the giant sycamore opposite the quarry and looked
+appreciatively about her. Earth's warm, throbbing bosom thrilled with
+the universal joy of parentage and fruition. Shafts of sunlight shot
+through the green of the trees, odors of wild flowers mingled with the
+fresh, woodsy fragrance of the fields and woods, song sparrows flitted
+busily among the hedges and sang their delicious, "Maids, maids, maids,
+hang on your tea kettle-ettle-ettle!" From the densest portions of the
+woods above the quarry a thrush sang--all nature seemed atune with
+Phoebe's mood, blithe, happy, joyous!
+
+Phares Eby, going to town that morning, walked slowly as he neared the
+Metz farm and looked for a glimpse of Phoebe. He saw, instead, the
+portly figure of Aunt Maria as she walked about her garden to see the
+progress of her early June peas.
+
+"Why, Phares," she called, "you goin' to Greenwald?"
+
+"Yes. Anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Ach no. Phoebe was in the other day. But come in once, Phares, I'll
+tell you something about her."
+
+"Where is Phoebe?" he asked as he joined Aunt Maria in the garden.
+
+"Over at the quarry again. But I must tell you, she's goin' to
+Phildelphy to study singin'. She asked her pop and he said she dare."
+
+"Philadelphia--singing!"
+
+"Yes. I don't like it at all, but she's goin' just the same."
+
+"It is a mistake to let her go," said the preacher. "It's a big mistake,
+Aunt Maria. She should stay at home or go to some school and learn
+something of value to her. In this quiet place she has never heard of
+many temptations which, in the city, she must meet face to face. It is
+the voice of the Tempter urging her to do this thing and we who are her
+friends should persuade her to remain in her good home and near the
+friends who care for her. Have you thought, Aunt Maria, that the people
+to whom she will go may dance and play cards and do many worldly things?
+Philadelphia is very different from Greenwald. Why, she may learn to
+indulge in worldly amusements and to love the vanities of the world
+which we have tried to teach her to avoid! She will be like a bird in a
+strange nest."
+
+"I know, Phares, but I can't make it different. When Jacob says a thing
+once it's hard to change him, and she is like that too. They fixed it up
+last night and I had no say at all. All I said against her going did as
+much good as if I said it to the chairs in the kitchen. Phoebe is going
+to get Miss Lee, the one that was teacher on the hill once, to help her.
+And Miss Lee has a cousin that lives with her and he plays the fiddle
+and he is goin' to get a teacher for her."
+
+Phares Eby groaned and gritted his teeth.
+
+"I guess I'll go talk with her a while," he decided.
+
+"Mebbe she'll come in soon, if you want to wait. I told her to bring me
+some pennyroyal along from the field next the quarry. You know that's so
+good for them little red ants, and they got into my jelly cupboard. She
+went a while ago and I guess she'll soon be back now."
+
+"I think I'll walk over."
+
+"All right, Phares. Tell her not to forget the pennyroyal."
+
+With long strides the preacher crossed the road and started up the lane
+to the quarry. There he slackened his pace--he thought of the previous
+day when he had asked Phoebe about entering the Church. She had
+disappointed him, it was true, but she had seemed so eager to do right,
+so innocent and childlike, that the interview had not left him wholly
+unhappy or greatly discouraged. He had hoped last night that she would
+give the matter of her soul's salvation serious thought, that she would
+soon stand in the stream and be baptized by him. Over sanguine he had
+been--so soon she had forgotten serious things and planned a winter in
+Philadelphia studying music.
+
+"I must act," he thought. "I must tell her of my love. All these years I
+have loved her and kept silent about it because I thought she was just a
+child. But I must tell her now. If she loves me she shall marry me soon
+and this great temptation will leave her; she will hearken to the voice
+of her conscience, and we will begin our life of happiness together."
+
+With this resolution strong within him he went up the lane to the quarry
+and Phoebe.
+
+She was seated on a rock under the giant sycamore and leaned confidingly
+against the shaggy trunk. The glaring sunshine that fell upon the fields
+and hills could not wholly penetrate the protecting canopy of
+well-proportioned sycamore leaves; only a few quivering rays fell upon
+the girl's upturned face.
+
+As the preacher approached she looked around quickly but did not move
+from her caressing attitude by the tree.
+
+"Good-morning, Phares. I'm glad you came. I was wishing for some one to
+share the old quarry with me this morning."
+
+"Aunt Maria told me you were here--she is impatient for her pennyroyal."
+Now, that the supreme moment had arrived, he hesitated and grasped at
+the first straw for conversation.
+
+"Oh, dear," she said childishly, "Aunt Maria expects me to remember ants
+and pennyroyal when I come here. Phares, I can't explain it, but this
+old quarry has a strange fascination for me. The beauty in its
+variegated stone with the sunlight upon it attracts me. Sometimes I am
+tempted to climb up the hill and hang over the quarry and look down into
+the heart of it."
+
+"Don't ever do that!" cried the preacher.
+
+"I won't," laughed Phoebe. "I don't want to die just yet. But isn't it
+the loveliest place! I come here often when the men are not blasting. It
+seems almost a desecration to blast these rocks when we think how long
+nature took in their making."
+
+She paused . . . only the sounds of nature invaded the quiet of the
+place: the drowsy hum of diligent bees, the cattle browsing in a field
+near by, the ecstatic trill of a bird. The world of bustle and flurry
+with its seething vats of evil and corruption, its sordid discontent and
+petulance, its ways of pain and darkness, seemed far removed from that
+place of peace and calm solitude. Phoebe could not bear to think that
+across the seas men were lying in the filth of water-soaked trenches,
+agonizing and bleeding on the battlefields and suffering nameless
+tortures in hospitals that a peace like unto the peace of her quiet
+haven might brood undisturbed over the world in future generations. She
+dismissed the harrowing thought of war--she would enjoy the calm of her
+quarry.
+
+The preacher had listened silently to the girl's rhapsodies--she
+suddenly awakened to the realization that he was paying scant attention
+to her enthusiastic words. She looked at him, her heart-beats quickened,
+some intuition warned her of the imminent declaration.
+
+She rose quickly from the embrace of the sycamore tree, but the
+compelling eyes of the preacher restrained her from flight. She stood
+before him, within reach of his hands.
+
+His first words reassured her somewhat: "Phoebe, your aunt has told me
+that you are going to Philadelphia to study music."
+
+"Yes. Isn't it fine! I'm so happy----" she stopped. Displeasure was
+written plainly upon his countenance. "Don't you think it's all right,
+Phares?"
+
+"I think it is a great mistake," he said gravely. "Why not spend your
+time on something of value to yourself and your friends and the world in
+general?"
+
+"But music is of great value. Why, the world needs it as it needs
+sunshine!"
+
+"But, Phoebe, you must remember you do not come of a people who stand
+before the worldly and lift their voices for the joy of the multitude of
+curious people. Your voice is right as it is and needs no training. It
+is as God gave it to you and is made to be used in His service, in His
+Church and your home."
+
+"But I have always wanted to learn to sing well, really well. So I am
+going to Philadelphia this winter and take lessons from a competent
+teacher."
+
+"Phoebe," exhorted the preacher, "put away the temptation before it
+grips you so strongly that you cannot shake it off. You must not go!"
+
+He spoke the last words in a tone of authority which the girl answered,
+"Phares, let us speak of something else. You know I have some of the
+Metz determination in my make-up and I can't be easily forced to give up
+a cherished plan. At any rate, we must not quarrel about it."
+
+The preacher forbore to try further argument or persuasion. He became
+grave. His habitual serenity of mind was disturbed by shadowy
+forebodings--when the pebbles of doubt drop into the placid pool of
+content it invariably follows that the waters become agitated for a
+time. Hitherto he had been hopeful of winning Phoebe. Had he not known
+her and loved her all her life! What was more natural than that their
+friendship should culminate in a deeper feeling!
+
+He stretched out his hand in a sudden rush of feeling--"Phoebe, I love
+you."
+
+She stepped back a pace and his hand fell to his side.
+
+"Don't, Phares," she began, but the next moment she realized that she
+could not turn aside his love without listening to him.
+
+"Phoebe, you must listen--I love you, I have loved you all my life.
+Can't you say that you care for me?"
+
+"Don't ask me that!" she pleaded. "I don't want to marry anybody now.
+All my life I have dreamed of going to a city and studying music and I
+can't let the opportunity slip away from me now when it is so near. To
+work under the direction of a master teacher has long been one of my
+dearest dreams."
+
+"You mean that you do not love me, then. Or if you do, that you would
+rather gratify your desire to study music than marry me--which is it?"
+
+"Ach, Phares, don't make it hard for me! I said I don't want to get
+married now. All my life I have lived on a farm and have thought that I
+should be wonderfully happy if I could get away from it for a while and
+know what it is to live in a big city. There I shall have a chance to
+see life in its broader aspects. I shall not be harmed by gathering new
+ideas and ideals, gaining new friends, and, above all, learning to sing
+well."
+
+The man groaned in spirit. It was evident that she was thoroughly
+determined to go away from the farm.
+
+"Phoebe," he pleaded again, not entirely for his own selfish desire, but
+worried about her love of worldliness, "do you know that the things for
+which you are going to the city are really not important, that all
+outward acquisitions for which you long now are transient? The things
+that count are goodness and purity and to be without them is to be
+pauperized; the things that bring happiness are love and home ties and
+to be without them is to be desolate. You want a larger, broader vision,
+but the city cannot always give you that."
+
+There was no bitterness in his voice, only an undertone of sadness as he
+spoke. "Phoebe, tell me plainly, do you care for me?"
+
+Her face was lamentably pathetic as she looked into his and read there
+the desire for what she could not give. "Not as you wish," she said
+softly. "But I don't really know what love is yet, I haven't thought
+about it except as something that will come to me some day, a long time
+from now. There are too many other things I must think about now. When I
+am through studying music I'll think about being married."
+
+The preacher shook his head; his heart was too heavy for more words,
+more futile words.
+
+"Let us go, Phares," she said, the silence becoming intolerable.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "And Phoebe," he added as they turned away from the
+quarry, "I hope you'll learn your lesson quickly and come back to us."
+
+They stepped from the sheltered path into the sunshine of the lane. Long
+trails of green lay in their path as they went, but the eyes of both
+were temporarily blinded to the loveliness of the June. When they
+reached the dusty road the preacher said good-bye and went on his way to
+the town.
+
+She stood where he left her; the suppressed feelings of the past half
+hour soon struggled to avenge themselves and she sped down the lane
+again, back to the refuge of the kindly tree, and there, under her
+sycamore, burst into passionate weeping.
+
+Some time after Phares left the girl at the end of the lane David Eby
+came swinging down the hill and entered the Metz kitchen.
+
+"Hello, Aunt Maria. Where's Phoebe?"
+
+"Why, I guess over at the quarry. She went for pennyroyal long ago and
+then Phares came and he went over after her, but I saw him go on the way
+to town a bit ago, so I guess she's still over there. Guess she's
+stumbling around after a bird's nest or picking some weeds that ain't no
+good. I don't see why she stays so long."
+
+"I'll go see," volunteered David.
+
+"Yes well. And tell her to hurry with that pennyroyal. I want it for red
+ants, but they can carry away the whole jelly cupboard till she gets
+here."
+
+"I'll tell her," said David, and went off, whistling.
+
+Phoebe's paroxysm of grief was short-lived. The soothing quiet of the
+quarry calmed her, but her eyes showed telltale marks of tears as
+David's steps sounded down the lane.
+
+She rose hastily, then sank back to her seat under the tree as she saw
+the identity of the intruder.
+
+"Whew, Phoebe Metz," he said and whistled in his old, boyish way as he
+sat beside her, "you're crying!"
+
+"I am not," she declared.
+
+"Then you just have been! I haven't seen you in tears for many years.
+Phoebe"--he changed his tone--"what's gone wrong? Anything the matter?"
+
+"Don't," she sniffed, "don't ask me or you'll have me at it again." She
+steadied her voice and went on, "I came over here so gloriously happy I
+could have shouted, because daddy said last night that I may go to
+Philadelphia this fall----"
+
+"Gee whiz!" David grabbed her hand. "Why, I'm tickled to death. But
+what--why are you crying? Isn't that what you want?"
+
+"Yes." She smiled, pleased by his interest and eagerness. "But just as I
+was happiest along came Phares and told me it was wicked to go. It's all
+a mistake to go, he said."
+
+"Ach, the dickens with the old fossil!" David cried. "And I'm not going
+to take that back or be sorry for saying it. Hadn't he better sense than
+to throw a wet blanket on all your happiness!"
+
+"Perhaps I needed it. I was just about burning up with gladness."
+
+"Well, don't you care what he's thinking about it. You go learn music if
+you want to and your father lets you go. Did he see you cry?"
+
+"Certainly not! I wouldn't cry before him. He would say that was
+foolish or wicked or something it shouldn't be. But you--you are so
+sensible I don't mind if you do see me with my eyes red."
+
+"Ha, ha, that's a compliment. I have been told that I am happy-go-lucky
+and sort of a cheerful idiot, but no person ever told me that I'm
+sensible. Well, don't you forget me when you get to be that prima
+donna."
+
+"I won't. You and Mother Bab rub me the right way."
+
+"But won't she be glad when I tell her," said David. "I came down to see
+if you had decided about it, and I find it all arranged."
+
+"And me in tears," added Phoebe, her natural poise and good humor again
+restored. "Tell Mother Bab I am coming up soon to tell her about it."
+
+So, in happier mood, she walked beside David, down the green lane to the
+road, across the road to her own gate.
+
+"So you come once!" Aunt Maria greeted her.
+
+"Oh, I forgot your pennyroyal! I'll go get it."
+
+"Never mind. You stayed so long I went over to the field near the barn
+and got some. But you look like you've been cryin', Phoebe. Did you and
+Phares have a fall-out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You and David, then?"
+
+"No--please don't ask me--it's nothing."
+
+"Well, there ain't no man in shoe leather worth cryin' about, I can tell
+you that. They just laugh at your cryin'."
+
+Phoebe smiled at her aunt's philosophy and resolved to forget the
+discouraging words of the preacher. She would be happy in spite of
+him--the future held bright hours for her!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SCARLET TANAGER
+
+
+THE days that followed were busy days at the gray farmhouse. Phoebe was
+soon deep in the preparations for her stay in the city. Her meagre
+wardrobe required replenishment; she wanted to go to Philadelphia with
+an outfit of which Miss Lee would not be ashamed. Much to her aunt's
+surprise the girl selected one-piece dresses of blue serge with sheer
+white collars for every-day wear in cold weather; a few white linens for
+warm days; and these, with her blue serge suit, her simple white
+graduation dress, and a plain dark silk dress, were the main articles of
+her outfit. Aunt Maria expressed her relief and wonder at the girl's
+choice--"Well, it wonders me that you don't want a lot of ugly fancy
+things to go to Phildelphy. Those dresses all made in one are sensible
+once. I guess the style makers tried all the outlandish styles they
+could think of and had to make a nice style once."
+
+But when Phoebe purchased a piece of long-cloth and began to make
+undergarments, beautifying them by sprays of hand embroidery, Aunt Maria
+scoffed, "Umph, I'd be ashamed to put snake-doctors on my petticoats."
+
+The girl laughed. "They aren't snake-doctors, they are butterflies," she
+said.
+
+"Not much difference--both got wings. I don't see what for you want to
+waste time like that."
+
+"It makes them prettier, and I like pretty things."
+
+"Ach, you have dumb notions sometimes. I guess we better make your other
+dresses soon, then you won't have time for sewing snake-doctors or
+butterflies. You better get your silk dress made in Greenwald, it's so
+soft and slippery that I ain't going to bother my old fingers makin' it.
+Granny Hogendobler wants to come out and help to sew, and David's mom
+said she'll come down and help us cut and fit the serge dresses. She's
+real handy like that. If those dresses look as nice on you as they do on
+the pictures they will be all right. Granny and Barb dare just come and
+both help with your things--they both think it's so fine for you to go
+to the city! Granny Hogendobler spoiled her Nason by givin' him just
+what he wanted, and now what has she got for it? And I guess Barb is
+easy with that big boy of hers. Mebbe if she was a little stricter he'd
+be in the Church like Phares is, though David is a nice boy and I guess
+he don't give his mom any trouble."
+
+"I just love Mother Bab; don't you say such things about her!" Phoebe
+exclaimed, her eyes flashing.
+
+"Why, I like her too," the woman said. She looked at Phoebe in surprise.
+"You needn't be so touchy. For goodness' sake, don't take to gettin'
+touchy like some people are! Handling them's like tryin' to plane over a
+knot in wood; any way you push the plane is the wrong way. This here
+going to Philadelphy upsets you, I guess. You're gettin' as touchy as
+the little touch-me-nots we get on the hill; they all snap shut when
+you touch 'em--only you snap open."
+
+Phoebe laughed. "I guess I am excited," she admitted. "I'm sewing too
+much for summer days and it makes me irritable. I think I'll let the
+butterflies wait and I'll go outdoors. Shall I weed the garden?"
+
+"Weed the garden? Now you're talkin' dumb! Don't you know yet that abody
+don't weed a garden on Fridays? Ours always gets done on Monday. But if
+you want to get out you dare take some of the sand-tarts I baked
+yesterday up to David's mom, she likes them so much. And you ask her if
+she can come down next week to help with the dresses. But don't stay too
+long, for it's been so hot all day and I think it's goin' to storm yet."
+
+"Don't worry about me if it rains. I won't start for home if it looks
+threatening. I'll wait till the storm is over."
+
+Aunt Maria filled a basket with her delectable cookies and the girl
+started up the hill. It was, indeed, a hot day, even for August. Phoebe
+paused several times in the shelter of overhanging trees as she plodded
+up the steep road. On the summit she climbed the rail fence and perched
+in the cool shade for a little while and looked out over the valley
+where the town of Greenwald lay.
+
+"It's lovely here, and I'm wondering how I can be happy when I know that
+I am going to leave it soon and go to the city for a long winter away
+from my home. But there's a voice calling to me from the great outside
+world and I won't be satisfied until I go and mingle with the multitude
+of a great city. It is life, life, that I want to see and know. And yet,
+I'm glad I'll have this to come back to! It gives me a comfortable
+feeling to know that this is waiting for me, no matter where I go--this
+is still my home. Sometimes I wonder if Aunt Maria could possibly be
+speaking wisely when she says it is all a waste of money to run off to
+the city and study music. But what is there on the farm to attract me? I
+don't want to marry yet"--the remembrance of Phares Eby's pleading came
+to her--"and if I do marry some time, it won't be Phares. No, never
+Phares! Ach, Phoebe Metz, you don't know what you want!" she said to
+herself as she jumped from the fence and ran down the road to the Eby
+farm.
+
+At the gate she paused. Mother Bab stood among her flowers, her
+white-capped head bare of any other covering, the hot sunshine streaming
+upon her.
+
+"Mother Bab," she cried, "you are simply baking in the sun!"
+
+"No," the woman turned to Phoebe and smiled. "I'm forgetting it's hot
+while I look at the flowers. You see, Phoebe, I was in the house sewing
+and trying to keep cool and all of a sudden my eyes grew dim so I
+couldn't sew. The fear came to me, the fear that my sight is going,
+though I try not to strain them at all and never sew at night. Well, I
+just ran out here and began to look and look at my flowers--if I ever do
+go blind I'm going to have lots of memories of lovely things I've seen."
+
+Phoebe drew Mother Bab's face to her and kissed it. "You just mustn't
+get blind! It would be too dreadful. There are many clever specialists
+in the city these days. Surely, there is some doctor who can help you."
+
+"They all say there is little to be done in a case like mine. But, let's
+forget it; I can see and we'll keep on hoping it will last. I went to a
+doctor at Lancaster some time ago and I'm going to give him a fair
+trial. I guess it'll come out right."
+
+Phoebe brightened again at the woman's words of contagious cheer and
+hope.
+
+"Isn't the garden pretty?" asked Mother Bab as they looked about it.
+
+"Perfect! Those zinnias are lovely."
+
+"Yes, I like them. But I like their other name better--Youth and Old
+Age, my mother used to call them. She used to say that they are not like
+other flowers, more like people, for the buds open into tiny flowers and
+those tiny flowers grow and develop until they are large and perfect. I
+would think something fine were missing in my garden if I didn't have my
+Youth and Old Age every year. But you will be too hot in this sun; shall
+we go in?"
+
+"No, please, not until I have seen the flowers. I need to gather
+precious memories, too, to take with me to Philadelphia. Oh, I like
+this"--she knelt in the narrow path and buried her face in fragrant
+lemon verbena plants.
+
+"I like that, too. Mother used to call it Joy Everlasting. We always put
+it in our bureau drawers between the linens. David likes lavender
+better, so I use that now."
+
+"How you spoil him," said Phoebe.
+
+"You think so?" asked the mother gently.
+
+Phoebe smiled in retraction of her statement. "We'll both be parboiled
+if we stay out here any longer," she said as she linked her arm into
+Mother Bab's. "Aunt Maria sent you some sand-tarts."
+
+"Isn't she good!"
+
+"Yes, but"--the blue eyes twinkled mischievously--"they are just a
+bribe. We want you to come down and help us with the dresses some day
+next week. You are not to sew, but if you are there to tell about the
+fit of them I'll feel better satisfied. Whew! If it's as hot as this
+I'll have a lovely time fitting woolen dresses!"
+
+"You won't mind."
+
+"I don't believe I shall, so long as the dresses are to be worn in
+Philadelphia. Granny Hogendobler is coming out, too. Will you come?"
+
+"I'll be glad to. David can eat his dinner at his aunt's."
+
+They entered the house and sat in the sitting-room, a room dear to both
+because of its association with many happy hours.
+
+"I love this room," Phoebe said. "This must be one of my pleasant
+memories when I go."
+
+"I like it better than any other room in the house," said Mother Bab. "I
+suppose it's because the old clock and the haircloth sofa are in it.
+Why, Davie used to slide down the ends of that sofa and call it his boat
+when he was just a little fellow. And that old clock"--her voice sank to
+the tenderness of musing retrospect--"why, Davie's father set it up the
+day we were married and came here and set up housekeeping and it's been
+ticking ever since. Davie used to say 'tick-tock' when he heard it, when
+he first learned to talk. I like that old clock most as much as if it
+were something alive. A man who comes around here to buy antique
+furniture came in one day and offered to buy it. I'll never forget how
+David told him it wasn't for sale. The very thought of selling the old
+clock made Davie cross."
+
+"Davie cross! How could he keep the twinkle out of his eyes long enough
+to be cross?"
+
+"Ach, it don't last long when he gets cross."
+
+"Where is he now, Mother Bab?"
+
+"Working in the tobacco field."
+
+"In the hot sun!"
+
+"He says he don't mind it. He's so pleased with the tobacco this summer.
+It looks fine. If the hail don't get in it now it'll bring about four
+hundred dollars, he thinks. That will be the most he has ever gotten out
+of it. But tobacco is an awful risk. If the weather is just so it pays
+about the best of anything around this part of the country, I guess, but
+so often the poor farmers work hard in the tobacco fields and then the
+hail comes along and all is spoiled. But ours is fine so far."
+
+"I'm glad. David has been working hard all summer with it."
+
+"Sometimes he gets discouraged; Phares's crops always seem to do better
+than David's, yet David works just as hard. But Phares plants no
+tobacco."
+
+At that moment Phares Eby himself came into the room where the two sat.
+He appeared a trifle embarrassed when he saw Phoebe. Since the June
+meeting under the sycamore tree by the old stone quarry he had made no
+special effort to see her, and the several times they had met in that
+time he had greeted her with marked restraint.
+
+"Good-afternoon," he murmured, looking from Phoebe to Mother Bab and
+back again to Phoebe. "I didn't know you were here, Phoebe. I--Aunt
+Barbara, I came in to tell you there's a bright red bird in the woods
+down by the cornfield."
+
+"There is!" cried Phoebe with much interest. "Is it all red, or has it
+black wings and tail?"
+
+"Why, I couldn't say. I know David and Aunt Barbara are always
+interested in birds and I heard David say the other day that he hadn't
+seen a red bird this summer, that they must be getting scarce around
+this section. So I thought I'd come up and tell you about it. I know it
+is bright red. Do you want to come out and try to find it again, Aunt
+Barbara?"
+
+"Not now, Phares. I have been in the sun so much to-day that my head
+aches."
+
+"Would you care to see it?" he asked Phoebe in visible hesitation.
+
+She answered eagerly, her passionate love of birds mastering her
+embarrassment. "I'd love to, Phares! I am anxious to see whether it's a
+tanager or a cardinal. I have never seen a cardinal."
+
+South of David Eby's cornfield stretched a strip of woodland. There
+blackberry brambles tangled about the bases of great oaks and the
+entire woods--trees and brambles--made an ideal nesting-place for birds.
+
+"Perhaps it's gone," said the preacher as they went along to the woods.
+
+"But it's worth trying for," she said.
+
+They kept silent then; only the rustling of the corn was heard as the
+two went through the green aisle. When they reached the woodland a
+sudden burst of glorious melody came to them. Phoebe laid a hand
+impulsively upon the arm of the preacher, but she removed it quite as
+suddenly when he looked down at her and said, "Our bird!"
+
+The bird, a scarlet tanager, aware of the presence of the intruders and
+eager to attract attention to himself and safeguard his hidden mate,
+flew to an exposed branch of an oak tree. There he displayed his
+gorgeous, flaming scarlet body with its touch of black in wings and
+tail.
+
+"It's a tanager," said Phoebe. "Isn't he lovely!"
+
+"Very fine," said the preacher. "What color is his mate? Is she red?"
+
+"She's green, a lovely olive green. When she sits on the nest she's just
+the color of her surroundings. If she were red like her mate she'd be
+too easily destroyed."
+
+"God's providence," said the preacher.
+
+"It is wonderful--look, Phares, there he goes!"
+
+The scarlet tanager made a streak of vivid color across the sky as he
+flew off over the corn.
+
+"I wonder if he trusts us or if his mate is not about," Phoebe said.
+"He's a beauty, so is his mate in her green frock. A few minutes with
+the birds can teach us a great deal, can't it?"
+
+"Yes, Phoebe, here, right near your home, are countless lessons to be
+learned and accomplishments to be acquired. Tell me, do you still wish
+to go away to the city?"
+
+"Certainly. I am going in September."
+
+"You remember the verse in the Third Reader we used to have at school:
+
+        "'Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest;
+          Home-keeping hearts are happiest.
+          For those who wander, they know not where,
+          Are full of trouble and full of care;
+          To stay at home is best.'"
+
+"But I have ambitions, Phares. All my eighteen years of life have been
+spent on a farm, in the narrow existence of those whose days are passed
+within one little circle. I want to see things, I want to meet people, I
+want to live, I want to learn to sing--I can't do any of these things
+here. Oh, you can't understand my real sincerity in this desire to get
+away. It is not that I love my home and my people less than you love
+yours. I feel that I must get away!"
+
+"But your voice, Phoebe, like the scarlet tanager's, is right as God
+made it. Because we are such old friends it grieves me to see you go. I
+was hoping you would change your mind--there is so much vanity and evil
+in the city."
+
+"I'll try to keep from it, Phares. I shall merely learn to sing better,
+meet a few new people, and be wiser because of the experience."
+
+"It is useless to try to persuade you, I suppose. I hoped you would
+reconsider it, that you would learn to care for me as I care."
+
+"Phares, don't. You make me unhappy."
+
+"Misery loves company," he quoted, trying to smile.
+
+"But can't you see that marriage is the thing I am thinking least about
+these days? I am too young."
+
+She looked, indeed, like a fair representation of Youth as she stood by
+the crude rail fence at the edge of the woods, one arm flung along the
+rough top rail, her hair tumbled from the walk through the cornfield,
+her eyes still gleaming with the joy of seeing the tanager, yet shadowy
+with the startled emotions occasioned by the preacher's wooing.
+
+He looked at her--
+
+"Oh, look! Our tanager is back!" she exclaimed.
+
+"I guess she is too young," he thought as he saw how quickly she turned
+from the question of marriage to watch the red bird.
+
+Phoebe's lips parted in pleasure as she saw the tanager again take up
+his place on the oak and burst into song. So absorbed were man and maid
+that neither heard the rustle of parted corn nor were aware of the
+presence of a third person until a voice exclaimed, "Oh, I beg your
+pardon. I didn't know you were here."
+
+As they turned David Eby stood before them, his expression a mingling of
+surprise and wonder. The flush on Phoebe's face, the awakened look in
+her eyes, troubled the man who had come through the corn and found the
+girl he loved standing with the preacher. The self-conscious look on
+the preacher's face assured David that he had stumbled through the field
+in an awkward moment, that his presence was unwelcome. He turned to go
+back, but Phoebe stepped quickly to him and took his hand.
+
+"Ah," thought Phares with a twinge of jealousy, "she wouldn't do that to
+me. How quickly she dropped her hand a while ago. They are such good
+friends, she and David. It's wrong to be envious; I must fight against
+it--and yet--I want her just as much as David does!"
+
+"David," Phoebe begged, "come back! Why, I was just wishing you were
+here! There's a scarlet tanager--see!" She pointed to the brilliant
+songster.
+
+"I thought he was coming to this woods so I came to hunt him," said
+David, his irritation gone. "I saw that fellow over by the tobacco field
+and followed him here. I bet they have their nest in this very woods.
+We'll look better next spring and try to find it and see the little
+ones. Tut, tut," he whistled to the bird, "don't sing your pretty head
+off." His eyes turned to the sky and the smile left his face. "It looks
+threatening," he said. "I thought I heard thunder as I came through the
+corn."
+
+"That so?" said Phares. "Then we better move in."
+
+Even as they turned and started through the field the thunder came
+again--distant--nearer, rolling in ominous rumbles.
+
+"Look at the sky," said David. "Clear yellow--that means hail!"
+
+"Oh, David"--Phoebe stood still and looked at him--"not hail on your
+tobacco!"
+
+He took her arm. "Come on, Phoebe, it's coming fast. We must get in.
+Come to our house, Phares, that's the nearest."
+
+Just as they reached the kitchen door, where Mother Bab was looking for
+them, the hail came.
+
+"It's hail, Mommie," David said. The three words held all the worry and
+pain of his heart.
+
+"Never mind"--the little mother patted his shoulder. "It's hail for more
+people than we know, perhaps for some who are much poorer than we are."
+
+"But the tobacco----" He stood by the window, impotent and weak, while
+the devastating hail pounded and rattled and smote the broad leaves of
+his tobacco and rendered it almost worthless.
+
+"Won't new leaves grow again?" Phoebe tried to cheer him.
+
+"Not this late in the summer. My tobacco was almost ready to be cut; it
+was unusually early this year."
+
+"Well," spoke up the preacher, "I can't see why you always plant
+tobacco. Smoking and chewing tobacco are filthy habits. I can't see why
+so many people of this section plant the weed when the soil could be
+used to produce some useful grain or vegetable."
+
+"Yes"--David turned and addressed his cousin fiercely--"it's easy enough
+for you to talk! You with your big farm and orchards and every crop a
+success! Your bank account is so fat that you don't need to care whether
+your acres bring in a big return or a lean one. But when you have just a
+few acres you plant the thing that will be likely to bring in the most
+money. You know many poor people plant tobacco for that reason, and that
+is why I plant it."
+
+"Davie," the mother said, "Davie!"
+
+"I know," he said bitterly. "I'm a beast when my temper gets beyond
+control, but Phares can be so confounded irritating, he rubs salt in
+your cuts every time."
+
+"Just for healing," the mother said gently.
+
+"David," said Phoebe, "I guess the temper is a little bit of that Irish
+showing up."
+
+At that David smiled, then laughed.
+
+"Phoebe," he said, "you know how to rub people the right way. If ever I
+have the blues you are just the right medicine."
+
+"I don't want to be called medicine," she said with a shake of her head.
+
+"Not even a sugar pill?" asked Mother Bab.
+
+"No. I don't like the sound of _pill_."
+
+David looked across at the preacher, who stood silent and helpless in
+the swift tide of conversation. "You may be right, Phares. It may be the
+wrath of Providence upon the tobacco. I'll try alfalfa in that field
+next and then I'll rub Aladdin's lamp. I'll make some money then!"
+
+"Where do you find Aladdin's lamp?" asked Phoebe.
+
+"I can't tell you now. But I know I'm tired of slaving and having
+nothing for my work, so I am going after the magic lamp."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ALADDIN'S LAMP
+
+
+THE morning after the hail storm dawned fair and sunshiny. David went
+out and stood at the edge of his tobacco field. All about him the hail
+had wrought its destruction. Where yesterday broad, thick leaves of
+green tobacco had stood out strong and vigorous there hung only limp
+shreds, punctured and torn into worthlessness.
+
+"All wasted, my summer's work. I'll rub that magic lamp now. Fool that I
+was, not to do it sooner!"
+
+A little later, as he walked down the road to town, his lips were closed
+in a resolute line, his shoulders squared in soldierly fashion. "I hope
+Caleb Warner is in his office," he thought.
+
+Caleb Warner was in; he greeted David cordially.
+
+"Good-morning, Dave. How are things out your way? Hail do much damage?"
+
+"Some damage," echoed the farmer. "It hailed just about four hundred
+dollars' worth too much for me."
+
+"What, you don't say so! That's the trouble with your farming."
+
+Caleb Warner was an affable little man with a frank, almost innocent,
+look on his smooth-shaven face. Spontaneous interest in his friends'
+affairs made him an agreeable companion and helped materially to
+increase his clientele--Caleb Warner dealt in real estate and,
+incidentally, in oil stocks and gold stocks.
+
+"That's just the trouble with your farming," he repeated. "You slave and
+break your back and crops are fine and you hope to have a good return
+for your labor, when along comes a hail storm and ruins your fruit or
+tobacco or corn, or along comes a dry spell or a wet spell with the same
+result. It sounds mighty fine to say the farmer is the most independent
+person on the face of the earth--it's a different proposition when you
+try it out. Not so?"
+
+"I'm about convinced you speak the truth about it," said the farmer.
+
+"I know I do. I used to be a farmer, but I have grown wiser. I think
+there are too many other ways to make money with less risk."
+
+"That is why I came----" David hesitated, but the other man waited
+silently for the explanation. "Have you any more of the gold-mine stock
+you offered me some time ago?"
+
+"That Nevada mine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Just one thousand dollars' worth; the rest is all cleaned out. I sold a
+thousand yesterday. Listen, Dave, there's the chance of your life. You
+know how I worked on that farm of mine, how my wife had to slave, how
+even Mary had to work hard. Then one day a friend of mine who had gone
+west came to me and offered me some stock in a western gold mine. My
+wife was afraid of it, said I'd lose every cent I put in it and we'd
+have to go to the poorhouse--women don't generally understand about
+investments. But I went ahead and got the stock, and in a few years I
+sold out part of it for a neat sum and drew big dividends on what I
+kept. Then we moved to town; my wife keeps a maid, Mary goes to college,
+and we're living instead of slaving our lives away on a farm. And it's
+honestly made money, for the gold was put into the earth for us to use.
+It is just a case of running a little risk, but no person loses money
+because of your risk. Of course, there's lots of stock sold that's not
+worth the paper it's written on, but I don't sell that kind."
+
+"People trust you here," said David.
+
+If the man winced or had reason to do so, he betrayed no sign of it. "I
+hope so," he said. "You have known me all my life. If I ever want to
+work any skin game I'll go out of the place where all my friends are.
+This mine of which I speak is near the mine at Goldfield and some of the
+veins struck recently are richer than those of the renowned Goldfield.
+They are still striking deeper veins. I have sold stock in that mine to
+fifteen people in this town."
+
+He mentioned some of the residents of Greenwald; people who, in David's
+opinion, were too shrewd to be entangled in any nefarious investment.
+The names impressed David--if those fifteen put their money into it he
+might as well be the sixteenth.
+
+In a little while David Eby walked home with a paper representing the
+ownership of a number of shares of a certain gold mine in Nevada, while
+Caleb Warner patted musingly a check for five hundred dollars.
+
+Mother Bab wondered at her boy's philosophical acceptance of his crop
+failure. "I'm glad you take it this way," she said as he came in,
+whistling, from his trip to Greenwald.
+
+"What's the use of crying?" he answered gaily, though he felt far from
+gay. Had he been too hasty? Doubts began to assail him. It was going to
+be hard to deceive his mother, she was always so eager for his
+confidence. But, then, he was doing it for her sake as much as for his
+own. The war clouds were drawing nearer and nearer to this country; if
+the time came when America would enter the war he would have to answer
+the call for help. If the stock turned out to be what the other wise men
+of the town felt confident it would be then the added money would be a
+boon to his mother while he was away in the service of his country--and
+yet--it was a great risk he was running. Why had he done it? The old
+lines of the poem came back to him and burned into his soul,
+
+        "O what a tangled web we weave
+         When first we practice to deceive."
+
+Then, again, swift upon that thought came the old proverb, "Nothing
+venture, nothing gain." Thus he was torn between doubt and satisfaction,
+but it was too late to undo the deed. He was the owner of the stock and
+Caleb Warner had the five hundred dollars!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE FLEDGLING'S FLIGHT
+
+
+PHOEBE found the packing of her trunk a task not altogether without pain.
+As she gathered her few treasures from her room a feeling of desolation
+seemed to pervade the place. Going away from home for the first long
+stay, however bright the new place of sojourn, brings to most hearts an
+undercurrent of sadness.
+
+She smiled a bit wistfully at her few treasures--her books, an old
+picture of her mother, the little Testament Aunt Maria gave her to read,
+the few trinkets her school friends had given her from time to time, a
+little kodak picture of Mother Bab and David in the flower garden.
+
+At last the dreary task was done, the trunk strapped, and she was ready
+for the journey. It was a perfect September day when she left the gray
+farmhouse, drove in the country road and stood with her father, Aunt
+Maria, Mother Bab, David and Phares at the railroad station in Greenwald
+and waited for the noon train to Philadelphia.
+
+Jacob Metz and the preacher made brave, though visible, efforts to be
+cheerful; Maria Metz made no effort to be anything except very greatly
+worried and anxious; but Mother Bab and David were determined that the
+girl's departure was to be nothing less than pleasant.
+
+"Now be sure, Phoebe," said Aunt Maria for the tenth time, "to ask the
+conductor at Reading if that train is for Phildelphy before you get on,
+and at Phildelphy you wait till Miss Lee fetches you."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Maria, I'll be careful."
+
+"And don't lose your trunk check--David, did you give it to her for
+sure?"
+
+"Yes. She'll hold on to it, don't you worry."
+
+"Phoebe will be all right," said Mother Bab.
+
+"And," said David teasingly, "be sure to let me know when you need that
+beet juice and cream and flour."
+
+"Davie! Now for that I won't write to you!"
+
+"Yes you will!" His eyes looked so long into hers that she said
+confusedly, "Ach, I'll write. Mind that you take good care of Mother Bab
+and stop in sometimes to see how Aunt Maria and daddy are getting on
+without me."
+
+"Ach, we'll be all right," said Aunt Maria. "Just you take care of
+yourself so far away from home. And if you get homesick you come right
+home. Anyway, you come home soon to see us; and be sure to write every
+week still."
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+A shrill whistle announced the approach of the train. There were hurried
+kisses and good-byes, a handshake for the preacher and, last of all, a
+handshake for David. He held her hand so long that she cried out,
+"David, you'll make me miss the train!"
+
+"No--good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, David." Then she tugged at her hand and in a moment was
+hurrying to the train.
+
+There were few passengers that day, so the train made a short stop.
+Phoebe smiled as the train started, leaned forward and waved till the
+familiar group was lost to her view, then she settled herself with a
+brave little smile and looked at the well-known fields and meadows she
+was passing. The trees on Cemetery Hill were silhouetted against the
+blue sky just as she had seen them many times in her walks about the
+country.
+
+But soon the old landmarks disappeared and unknown fields lay about her.
+Crude rail fences divided acres of rustling corn from orchards whose
+trees were laden with red apples or downy peaches. Occasionally flocks
+of startled birds rose from fields freshly plowed for the fall sowing of
+wheat. Huge red barns and spacious open tobacco sheds, hung with drying
+tobacco, gave evidence of the prosperity of the farmers of that section.
+Little schoolhouses were dotted here and there along the road. Flowers
+bloomed by the wayside and in them Phoebe was especially interested.
+Goldenrod in such great profusion that it seemed the very sunshine of
+the skies was imprisoned in flower form, stag-horn sumac with its
+grape-like clusters of red adding brilliancy to the landscape--everywhere
+was manifest the dawn of autumnal glory, the splendor that foreruns decay,
+the beauty that is but the first step in nature's transition from blossom
+and harvest to mystery and sleep.
+
+Every two or three miles the train stopped at little stations and then
+Phoebe leaned from her window to see the beautiful stretches of country.
+
+At one flag station the train was signalled and came to a stop. Just
+outside Phoebe's window stood a tall farmer. He rubbed his fingers
+through his hair and stared curiously at the train.
+
+"Step lively," shouted the trainman.
+
+But the farmer shook his head. "Ach, I don't want on your train! I
+expected some folks from Lititz and thought they'd be on this here
+train. Didn't none get on----"
+
+But the angry trainman had heard enough. He pulled the cord and the
+train started, leaving the old man alone, his eyes scanning the moving
+cars.
+
+Phoebe laughed. "We Pennsylvania Dutch do funny things! I wonder if I'll
+seem strange and foolish to the people I shall meet in the great city."
+
+At Reading she obeyed Aunt Maria's injunction and boarded the proper
+train. The ride along the winding Schuylkill was thoroughly enjoyed by
+the country girl, but the picture changed when the country was left
+behind, suburban Philadelphia passed, and the train entered the crowded
+heart of the city. They passed close to dark houses grimy with the
+accumulated smoke of many passing locomotives. Great factories loomed
+before the train, factories where girls looked up for a moment at the
+whirring cars and turned again to the grinding life of loom or machine.
+The sight disheartened Phoebe. Was life in the city like that for some
+girls? How dreadful to be shut up in a factory while outdoors the whole
+panorama of the seasons moved on! She would miss the fields and woods
+but she would make the sacrifice gladly if she might only see life, meet
+people and learn to sing. The thoughts awakened by the sight of the
+shut-in girls were not happy ones. She welcomed the call, "Reading
+Terminal, Philadelphia."
+
+As she followed the stream of fellow passengers and walked through the
+dim train shed to the exit her heart beat more quickly--she was really
+in Philadelphia! But the noise, the stream of people rushing from trains
+past other people rushing to trains, bewildered her. She saw the sea of
+faces beyond the iron gates and experienced for the first time the
+loneliness that comes to a traveler who enters a thronged depot and sees
+a host of people but enters unwelcomed and ungreeted.
+
+However, the loneliness was momentary. The next minute she caught sight
+of Miss Lee. A wave of relief and happiness swept over her--she was in
+Philadelphia, the land of her heart's desire!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+PHOEBE'S DIARY
+
+
+                                                      _September 15._
+
+I'M in Philadelphia--really, truly! Phoebe Metz, late of a gray
+farmhouse in Lancaster County, is sitting in a beautiful room of the Lee
+residence, Philadelphia.
+
+What a lot of things I have to write in you, diary! I can scarcely find
+the beginning. Before I left home I thought about keeping a diary, how
+entertaining it would be to sit down when I'm old and gray and read the
+accounts of my first winter in the city. So I went to Greenwald and
+bought the fattest note-book I could find and I'm going to write in you
+all of my joys--let's hope there won't be any sorrows--and all of my
+pleasures and all about my impressions of places and people in this
+great, wonderful City of Brotherly Love. Of course, I'll write letters
+home and to David and Mother Bab and some of the girls, but there are so
+many things one can't tell others yet likes to remember. So you'll have
+to be my safety valve, confidant and confessor.
+
+When I left the train at Philadelphia I was bewildered and confused.
+Such crowds I never saw, not even in Lancaster. Seemed like everybody in
+the city was coming from a train or running to one. I was glad to see
+Miss Lee. She's the dearest person! I love her as much as I did when I
+went to her school on the hill. I'm as tall as she is now. She dresses
+beautifully. I thought my blue serge suit was lovely but her clothes
+are--well, I suppose you'd call them creations. I'm so glad I'm going to
+be near her all winter and can copy from her.
+
+As I came through the gates at the depot she caught me and kissed me. I
+thought she was alone, but a moment later she turned to a tall man and
+introduced him, her cousin, Royal Lee, the musician. If Aunt Maria could
+see him she'd warn me again, as she did repeatedly, not to "leave that
+fiddlin' man get too friendly." He's handsome. I never before met a man
+like him. His magnetic smile, his low voice attracted me right away.
+
+After he piloted us through the crowded depot and into a taxicab Miss
+Lee began to ask me questions about Greenwald and the people she knows
+there. I felt rather timid, for I was conscious of the appraising eyes
+of her cousin. He didn't stare at me, yet every time I glanced at him
+his eyes were searching my face. Does he think me very countrified, I
+wonder? I do have the red cheeks country girls are always credited with,
+but I'm glad I'm not "buxom." I'd hate to be fat!
+
+I wish I could describe Royal Lee. He's just as I pictured him, only
+more so. He has the lean, æsthetic face of the musician, the sensitive
+nostrils and thin lips denoting acute temperament. His eyes are gray.
+
+As we rode through the streets of the city Miss Lee told me her mother
+would have me stay with them until we can find a suitable boarding
+place. To-morrow we're going in search of one.
+
+Taxicabs travel pretty fast. We skirted past curbs so that I almost held
+my breath and shot past trucks and other cars till I thought we'd surely
+land in the street. But we escaped safely and soon stopped at the Lee
+residence, a big, imposing brownstone house. It looks bare outside, no
+yard, no flowers. But inside it's a lovely place, so inviting and
+attractive that I'd like to settle down for life in it.
+
+Mrs. Lee is as charming as her daughter. She has been a semi-invalid for
+years, but even in her wheelchair she has the poise and manner of one
+well born. Her greeting was so cordial and gracious, but all I could
+answer was an inane, "Thank you, you are very kind." Will I ever learn
+to express my thoughts as charmingly as these people do, I wonder!
+
+When Miss Lee took me up-stairs it was up a bare, polished stairway upon
+which I was half afraid to tread. And the room she took me to! I've
+heard about such rooms and read about them. Delft blue paper and rugs,
+white woodwork and furniture, blue hangings, white curtains--it's a
+magazine-room turned to real!
+
+When I tried to express my gratitude for her goodness Miss Lee hushed me
+with a kiss and said she anticipated as much joy from my presence in the
+city as I did, that I was so genuine and refreshing that it would be a
+pleasure to have me around. I don't know just what she means. I'm just
+Phoebe Metz, nothing wonderful about me, unless it's my voice, and I
+hope that is. She said, too, that I would make her very happy if I'd let
+her be a real friend to me, and if I'd call her Virginia. Why, that's
+just what I've been wishing for! I told her so. She is just twelve years
+older than I am, so she's near the thirty mark yet, and I like a friend
+who is older. She seems just the same Miss Lee, no older than she was
+when I walked down the street of Greenwald in my gingham dress and
+checked sunbonnet and buried my nose in the pink rose David gave me. How
+lucky that little country girl is! I'm here in Philadelphia, in a
+beautiful house, with Virginia Lee for my friend, and glorious visions
+of music and good times flashing before my eyes. I put my hands to my
+head to keep it from going dizzy!
+
+There's a little speck of cloud in the blue of my joy right now, though.
+I'm afraid I've blundered already. Miss Lee--Virginia, I mean--said as
+she turned to leave my room that they have dinner at six and I'd have
+plenty of time to get ready for it. I had to tell her that I couldn't
+change my dress, that I hadn't thought to bring any light dress in my
+bag but had packed them all in the trunk. She hurried to assure me that
+my dark skirt and white blouse would do very well, that she would not
+dress for dinner to-night. But I feel sure that she seldom appears at
+the dinner table in a blouse and tailored skirt. Guess Aunt Maria'd say
+I'm in a place too tony for me, but I know I can learn how to do here. I
+might have remembered that some people make of their evening meal a
+formal one. I've read about "dressing for dinner" and when my first
+opportunity comes to do so it finds me with all my dress-up dresses
+packed in a trunk in the express office! Perhaps it serves me right for
+wanting to "put on style," but I remember an old saying about "doing as
+the Romans do." At any rate, I'm going to make the best of it and quit
+worrying about it, or I'll be so fussed I'll eat with my knife or pour
+my coffee into my saucer!
+
+
+                                              _Later in the evening._
+
+What a whirl my brain is in! Things happen so fast that I scarcely know
+where to begin again to write about them. But it began with the dinner.
+That was the grandest dinner I ever tasted but I don't remember a single
+thing I ate, though I do know there was no bread or jelly. What would
+Aunt Maria think of that! The delicate china, fine linen and silver were
+the loveliest I have ever seen. There were electric lights with
+soft-colored shades and there was a colored waiter who seemed to move
+without effort. The forks and spoons for the different courses bothered
+me. I had to glance at Virginia to see which one to use. Once during the
+dinner I thought of the time Mollie Brubaker told Aunt Maria about a
+dinner she had in the home of a city relative. I remember how Aunt Maria
+sniffed, "Humph, if abody's right hungry you can eat without such dumb
+style put on. I say when you cook and carry things to the table for
+people you don't need to feed them yet, they can help themselves. Just
+so it's clean and cooked good and enough to go round, that's all I try
+for when I get company to eat." I felt like a fish out of water at the
+Lee dinner table, but Mrs. Lee and the others were so kind and tactful
+that I could not be embarrassed, not enough to show it. However, I
+thought to myself as we rose from the table, "Thank Heaven!"
+
+Mrs. Lee asked me whether I like music. We were in the sitting-room and
+Mr. Lee stood by the piano, his hand on his violin case.
+
+"Yes, indeed!" I told her, for I was anxious to hear him play. I have
+never heard any great violinist but the sound of a violin sets me
+thrilling. I could listen to it for hours.
+
+Mr. Lee smiled at my enthusiasm, lifted the instrument to his shoulder
+and began to play. If I live to be a hundred I'll never forget that
+music! Like the soothing winds of summer, the subtle fragrance of a wild
+rose, the elusive phantoms of our dreams, it stirred my soul. I sat as
+one dazed when he ended.
+
+"You say nothing. Don't you like my music?" he asked me.
+
+"Like your music? Like is too poor a word!" And I tried to tell him how
+I loved it. He smiled again, that calling, hypnotizing smile, that made
+me want to rush to him and ask him to be my friend. But I restrained
+myself and turned to listen to Virginia. The music haunted me. It
+sounded like the voice of a soul searching for something it could never
+find. I was still dreaming about it when I heard Mr. Lee say, "Now,
+Aunt, shall we have some cribbage?" I watched him uncomprehendingly as
+he arranged a small table and brought out cards and boards for a game.
+The full significance of his actions dawned upon me--they were going to
+play cards! I had never seen a game of cards, but Aunt Maria taught me
+long ago that cards are the instrument of the Evil One. My first impulse
+was to run from the room, away from the cards, but I hated to be so
+rude.
+
+"Do you play cards?" Royal Lee asked me.
+
+"No, oh, no!" I gasped.
+
+"You should learn. I'm sure you would enjoy playing."
+
+I know my face flushed. He did not notice my bewilderment and went on,
+"We'll teach you to play, Miss Metz." Then he turned to the game.
+
+Virginia came to my rescue and drew me to a seat near her. She asked me
+questions about Greenwald. Goodness only knows what I answered her. My
+attention was a variant. Troubled thoughts distressed me. In Aunt
+Maria's category of sins dancing, card playing and theatre-going rank
+side by side with lying, stealing and idolatry. As I sat there I tried
+to reconcile my opinion of these worldly pleasures with the conduct of
+my new friends. The tangle is too complicated to unravel at once. I
+could feel blushes of shame staining my cheeks as the game progressed.
+What would Aunt Maria say, what would daddy say, what would even
+tolerant Mother Bab say, if they knew I sat passively by and watched a
+game of cards? After a little while I asked Virginia whether I could
+write a letter to Aunt Maria and tell her of my safe arrival. I just had
+to get out of that room! I don't know if she saw through my ruse but
+she smiled as she put her arm around me and led me to the stairs.
+"There's a desk in your room, Phoebe. You can be undisturbed there. Tell
+your aunt we are going to help you find a comfortable home and that we
+are going to take care of you. I'll be up presently to visit with you."
+
+When I got up-stairs I felt like crying. Those cards actually scared me.
+I shrank from being so near the evil things. But after a while as I came
+to think more calmly I decided that cards couldn't hurt me if I didn't
+play them. I promised myself to keep from being contaminated with the
+wickedness of the city the while I enjoyed its harmless pleasures. The
+first horror of the cards soon passed but it left me sobered. I wrote a
+long letter to Aunt Maria and then turned off the lights and looked down
+into the city street. It seemed wonderful to me to see so many lights
+stretched off until some of them were mere specks. There was a wedding
+across the street. I saw the guests and caught a glimpse of the bride,
+dressed all in white. But later, when Virginia came up to my room and I
+asked her about it she didn't know a thing about the wedding. Why, at
+home, if there's a big wedding and the neighbors don't know about it or
+are not invited to it, they feel slighted. But Virginia says a city is
+different, that you don't really have neighbors like in Greenwald.
+
+Virginia told me, too, how she came to teach in our school on the hill.
+When she finished college she wanted to earn money, just to prove that
+she could. Her father wanted her to stay home and live the life of a
+butterfly, she says. One day he said, more in jest than earnest, that if
+she insisted upon earning money he'd give his consent to her being a
+teacher in a rural school. She accepted the challenge and through her
+cousin she secured the place on the hill and became my teacher. When her
+father died and her mother became a semi-invalid she gave up her work
+and took up the old life again. She said that as if it were not really a
+desirable life, this going to teas, dances, plays, musicals, lectures,
+and having no cares or worries. Of course I know many of her pleasures
+are forbidden fruit for me, but if I ever can wear pretty clothes like
+hers and go off to an evening musical or concert I know I'll be as
+excited as a Jenny Wren.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+DIARY--THE NEW HOME
+
+
+                                                      _September 16._
+
+I'VE dreamed my first dreams in Philadelphia. Such dreams as they were!
+Whatever it was I ate for supper it must have been richer than our
+Lancaster County sausage and fried mush, for I dreamed all night. My
+old-fashioned walnut bed with its red and green calico quilt seemed to
+swing before me while Mother Bab and Aunt Maria talked to me. A clanging
+trolley car woke me and I remembered that I had been dreaming of Phares
+and the tanager's nest. I slept again and heard the strains of Royal
+Lee's violin till another car clanged past and woke me. I woke once to
+find myself saying, "Braid it straight, Davie. Aunt Maria's awful mad."
+When I slept again I thought I heard Royal Lee say, "We'll teach you to
+play cards," and speared tails and horned heads seemed mixed
+promiscuously with little pieces of cardboard bearing red and black
+symbols and the words "I'll get you if you don't watch out" rang in my
+ears. "Ugh, what awful dreams," I thought as I lay awake and listened
+for sounds of activity in the house. I missed Aunt Maria's five o'clock
+call. The luxury of an eight o'clock breakfast couldn't be appreciated
+the first morning, as I was wide awake at five. I'll soon learn to
+sleep later. There are many things I shall learn before I go back to the
+farm.
+
+This morning Virginia and I started out on a glorious adventure, looking
+for a boarding place. She laughed when I called it that.
+
+"I like the uncertainty of it," I told her. "The charm of the unknown
+appeals to me. I do not know under whose roof I shall sleep to-night yet
+I'm happy because I know I am going to meet new people and see new
+things. Of course, if I did not have you to help me I would remember
+Aunt Maria's dire tales of the evils and dangers of a big city and
+should feel afraid. As it is, I feel only curious and gay. No matter
+where I find a place to live it's bound to be quite different from the
+farm, not better, necessarily, but different."
+
+But my "high hopes of youth" received a jolt at the very first interview
+with a boarding-house mistress. She wouldn't take young ladies who were
+studying music, their practice would annoy the other boarders. I had
+never thought of that!
+
+The second quest was equally unsatisfactory. One room was vacant, a
+pleasant room--at twelve dollars a week! The sum left me speechless.
+Virginia had to explain that the amount was a _trifle_ more than I
+expected to pay.
+
+The third proved to be a smaller house on a narrower street. A charming
+old lady led us into a sitting-room. All my life I've been accustomed to
+the proverbial cleanliness of the Pennsylvania Dutch but I'm certain I
+never saw a place as clean as that house. I said something like that to
+its mistress and she informed me with a gentle firmness I never heard
+before that she expected every guest in her house to help to keep it in
+that condition. She had several rules she wanted all to obey, so that
+the sunshine would not have a chance to fade the rugs and the dust from
+the street could not ruin things. I knew I would not be happy there. I
+like clean rooms, but if it's a matter of choosing between foul air
+_without_ dust and fresh air _with_ dust I'll take the dust every time.
+I'd feel like a funeral to live in a house where the curtains and shades
+were down every day, summer and winter, to keep the sunshine out of the
+rooms and prevent the jade-green and china-blue and old-rose of the rugs
+from fading.
+
+The fourth place was in suburban Philadelphia, fifty minutes' ride from
+the heart of the city. It was a big colonial house set in a great yard,
+a relic of the days when gardens still flourished in the city and the
+breathing spaces allotted to householders were larger than at the
+present time. As we went up the shrubbery-bordered walk to the pillared
+porch I said, "I want to live here."
+
+Mrs. McCrea, the boarding-house mistress, did not object to the music,
+provided I took the large room on the third floor and did all my
+practicing between the hours of eight and five, when the other boarders
+were gone to business. The price of the room is seven dollars a week.
+
+I took the room at once, before Mrs. McCrea had any chance of changing
+her mind. I thought it was a very pleasant room, with its two windows
+looking out on the green yard.
+
+But later, after Virginia had gone and I was left alone in the room, the
+queerest feeling came over me. I never knew what it meant to be
+homesick, but I think I had a touch of it this afternoon in this room. I
+hated this place for about half an hour. I saw that the paint is soiled,
+the rug worn, the pictures cheap, the bed and bureau trimmed with
+gingerbready scrolls and knobs. It's so different from the blue and
+white room I slept in last night, so different from my plain,
+old-fashioned room at home. "It's all right," I said to myself, half
+crying, "but it's so different."
+
+Fortunately the word _different_ struck a responsive chord in my memory.
+I remembered that I wanted different things, and smiled again and dashed
+the tears away. I arranged my own pictures and few belongings about the
+room and felt more at home. After I had dressed and stood ready to go
+down for my first dinner in my new home I felt happier. To be living, to
+be young and enthusiastic, to possess the colossal courage of youth, was
+enough to bring happiness into my heart again. I'm going to like this
+place. I'm going to work and play and live in this wonderful city.
+
+Mrs. McCrea introduced the "New boarder" and I took my assigned place at
+a long table in the dining-room. I remembered that I once read that the
+average boarding-house is a veritable school for students of human
+nature. I wondered what I would learn from the people I met there. The
+fat man across the table from me gave me no opportunity for any mental
+ramblings. He launched me right into conversation by asking my opinion
+of the war in Europe and whether or not we would be dragged into the
+trouble.
+
+"Really," I answered him, "I don't know much about it. I don't think of
+it any more than I can help."
+
+Of course that was the wrong thing to say. It started a deluge. A
+studious-looking woman wearing heavy tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles
+took my answer as a personal affront. "Why not, Miss Metz?" she
+demanded. "Why should we not think about it? We women of America need to
+wake up! In this country we are lolling in ease and safety while other
+nations bleed and die that we might remain safe. We have no thoughts
+higher than our hats or deeper than our boots if the catastrophe across
+the sea does not waken in us an earnest desire to help the stricken
+nations."
+
+Others took up the argument and I sat quiet and helpless, for I know too
+little about the cause and progress of the war to talk intelligently
+about it. A sense of responsibility grazed my soul. I wished I were able
+to help France and Belgium, but what can I do? The constant harping on
+the subject of war irritated me. I felt relieved when a young girl near
+me asked, "Miss Metz, do you like the movies? There's a place near here
+where they show fine pictures, funny ones to make you forget the war for
+several hours, at least."
+
+On the whole, I think I'm going to like life at Mrs. McCrea's
+boarding-house. I hear the views of so many different sorts of people.
+And it certainly is different from my life on the farm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+DIARY--THE MUSIC MASTER
+
+
+                                                      _September 19._
+
+MY four days in Philadelphia have just been one exclamation point after
+another! The most wonderful thing happened to me last night! Mrs. Lee
+invited me over for dinner. I glided through the courses a little more
+gracefully--one can learn if the will is there. I always loved dainty
+things. I suppose that is why I delight in the Lee home and am eager to
+adopt the ways of my new friends.
+
+After dinner Mr. Lee played again. Of course I enjoyed that. When I
+praised his playing he said he heard I'm a real genius and asked me to
+sing for them. Mr. Krause, one of the best teachers of music in the
+city, is a friend of Royal and Virginia thinks he would be the very one
+to teach me. Mr. Lee wrote to Mr. Krause this summer and the music
+teacher promised to take me for a pupil if I have a voice worth the
+trouble. Virginia had prepared me for my meeting with him. Seems he's
+queer, odd, cranky and painfully frank. But he knows how to teach music
+so well that many would-be singers pray to be taken into his studio. Mr.
+Lee said yesterday that Mr. Krause was expected home from his vacation
+in a few days and then he'd arrange an interview. I trembled when he
+said that. What if the great teacher did not like my voice!
+
+To-night when Mr. Lee asked me to sing I selected a simple song. As I
+sat down before the baby grand piano the words of the old song "Sweet
+and Low" came to me. I would sing that until I gained courage and
+confidence to sing a harder selection. I played from memory. As I sang I
+was back again at home, singing to my father at the close of the day.
+
+As the last words died on my lips and I turned on the chair a man, a
+stranger to me, appeared in the room. He hurried unceremoniously to the
+piano and greeted me, "You can sing!"
+
+I stared at him. He was an odd-looking, active little man of about fifty
+with keen blue eyes that bored into one like a gimlet.
+
+Mr. Lee came toward us. "Mr. Krause," he exclaimed, and presented to me
+the music master, the teacher for whom I had dreaded so to sing! I was
+filled with inarticulate gladness.
+
+"Mr. Krause," I cried, grasping his outstretched hand in my old
+impetuous way, "do you mean it? Can I learn to sing?"
+
+"I said so--yes. You can sing. You need to learn how to use your voice
+but the voice is there."
+
+"I'm so glad. I'll work----" I couldn't say any more. My joy was too
+great to be expressed in words. I looked mutely into the wrinkled face
+of the man.
+
+"Royal said he had found a songbird," he went on smiling, "but I was
+afraid he didn't know the difference between that and an owl--I see he
+did. I'll be glad to have you for a pupil. Royal can bring you to my
+studio to-morrow at eleven."
+
+Mr. Krause stayed a while longer and the sitting-room was gay with
+laughter and bright conversation. I think I heard little of it, though,
+for the words, "You can sing!" kept ringing in my ears and crowding out
+all other sounds.
+
+I can sing! Mr. Krause has told me I can sing! And I will sing! Some day
+all the world may stop to hear!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+DIARY--THE FIRST LESSON
+
+
+                                                      _September 20._
+
+I HAD my first music lesson to-day. Mr. Lee called for me at the
+boarding-house and took me down-town to the studio. After he left I
+expected Mr. Krause to begin at once on the do, ra, me, fa, sol, la, si,
+do. But he thought differently!
+
+He sat facing me, looking at me till I felt like running. "And so," he
+said quietly, "you want to learn to sing."
+
+"Yes," was all I could say.
+
+"Well, you have a voice. If you want to work like all great singers have
+had to work you can be a singer. You may not set the world afire with
+your fame but you'll be worth hearing. You are Pennsylvania Dutch?"
+
+I nodded. What under the sun did Pennsylvania Dutch have to do with my
+becoming a singer? I was provoked. I didn't come to the city and pay a
+music teacher to ask me foolish questions.
+
+"That is good," he went on calmly. "The Pennsylvania Dutch are not
+afraid of work and that is what you need. The road to success in music
+is like the road to success in any other thing, long and hard and
+up-hill most of the way. Now that Pennsylvania Dutch is a funny
+language. It is neither Dutch nor English nor German but is like hash, a
+little of this and a little of that. Do you speak it?"
+
+I said I have spoken it all my life but wished I had never been taught
+it.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"Oh"--I couldn't quite veil my irritation--"it perverts our English."
+
+"Nothing uncommon," he answered, smiling. "Every part of this great
+country has some peculiarities of speech common to that particular
+section and laughed at in the other sections. Now we will go on with the
+lesson."
+
+When he really did begin to teach I found him a wonder. I'm going to
+enjoy, thoroughly enjoy, my music lessons.
+
+Mr. Lee called for me after the lesson. I told him I could find the way
+back to the boarding-house alone, but he said he'd consider it a
+pleasure and privilege to call for me. He has the nicest manners! He
+never needs to flounder around for the right thing to say, it just slips
+from his tongue like butter. Aunt Maria always says, "look out for them
+smooth apple-sass talkers," but I'm sure Mr. Lee is a gentleman and just
+the right kind for a country girl to know.
+
+When he called at the studio this morning I felt proud to walk away with
+him. He suggested riding home but I told him I'd rather walk, at least
+part of the way. We started up Chestnut Street. What a wonderful place
+that is! Such lovely stores I've never seen. I'm going to sneak away
+some day and visit every one that has women's belongings for sale. And
+the clothes I saw on Chestnut Street--on the women, I mean! My own
+wardrobe certainly is plain and ordinary compared with the things I saw
+women wear to-day. I couldn't help saying to Mr. Lee, "What lovely
+clothes Philadelphia women wear!" He smiled that wonderful smile and
+said, "Miss Metz, a diamond has no need of a glittering case, it has
+sufficient brilliancy itself." I caught his meaning, I couldn't help
+it--he meant me! Now I know I'm no beauty, but perhaps if I had clothes
+like those I saw to-day I'd be more attractive. I wonder if I'll get
+them; they must cost lots of money.
+
+As we walked along Mr. Lee told me he knows I'll have a wonderful year
+in the city, and that he is going to help it be the gladdest, merriest
+one I've ever had.
+
+"Oh, you're good," I said.
+
+"It must be that goodness inspires goodness," he replied.
+
+I didn't know what to answer. Men up home never say such things, at
+least I never heard them. Phares couldn't think of such things to say
+and David never made a "pretty speech" in his life. I know he thinks
+nice things about me sometimes but he wouldn't word them like Royal Lee
+does. I didn't want Mr. Lee to think I'm uncommonly good, I told him I'm
+not.
+
+"Not good?" He laughed at the idea. "Why, you are just a sweet, lovely
+young thing knowing nothing of evil."
+
+"Oh!" I said, feeling stupid before him, "you're too polite! I never
+met any one like you. But I want to ask you about cards, playing cards.
+I can't see that they are wrong but Aunt Maria and my father and all my
+friends up home think they are wicked. Aunt Maria would rather part with
+her right hand than play a game of cards."
+
+Mr. Lee laughed and said he's surprised that I am willing to accept the
+beliefs of others; can't I decide for myself what is wrong or right? Did
+I want to be narrow and goody-goody?
+
+Of course I don't want to be like that, and I told him so.
+
+He laughed again, a low, soft laugh. I never heard a man laugh like that
+before. When daddy laughs he laughs out loud, the kind of laugh you join
+in when you hear it. And David laughs like that too, a merry laugh that
+sounds, as he says, like it's coming clean from his boots. But Mr. Lee's
+laugh is different. I don't like it as well as the other kind, though it
+fascinates me. He said he knows I can't change my ideas in a night but
+he depends upon my good sense to decide what is right for me to do. He
+asked if I thought Virginia and her mother are wicked. They have played
+cards, danced, gone to theatres, all their lives. If I hope to have a
+really enjoyable time in the city I must do the same. He said, too, that
+I'll soon see that many of the teachings of the country churches are
+antiquated and entirely too narrow for this day.
+
+Dancing--I shuddered at the word, but I didn't tell him how I feel about
+it. Aunt Maria says dancing is even worse than playing cards. Why did
+he tempt me? I don't want to do wicked things, but when he mentioned
+forbidden pleasures I felt, somehow, that I wanted to do what Virginia
+does and have a good time with her and her friends. That would be
+dreadful! What am I thinking of! Is my head turned already? Can the evil
+of the world have exerted its influence upon me so soon? Of course, if I
+become a great singer I'll naturally have to live a life different from
+the narrow, restricted life of the farm. I must live a broader, freer
+life. But for a while, at least, I'll have to be the same old Phoebe
+Metz. I tried to tell Mr. Lee something like that, and he quoted,
+
+        "If you become a nun, dear,
+            A friar I will be;
+         In any cell you run, dear,
+            Pray look behind for me."
+
+Are city men always free like that? Is it the way of the new world I
+have entered? Before I could think of a suitable answer he said lightly,
+"But before you turn nun let me buy you some flowers."
+
+We stopped at a floral shop. Such flowers! I've never seen their equal!
+I exclaimed in many O's as I paused by the window, but I felt my cheeks
+flush at the idea of having him buy any of the lovely flowers for me.
+
+"Come inside," he said. "What do you like?"
+
+"I love them all," I told him as we stood before the array of blossoms.
+"I think I like the yellow rosebuds best, though. We have some at home
+on the farm but they bloom only in June."
+
+I detected an odd smile on his lips. What was wrong? Had I committed a
+breach of etiquette? Was it wrong to mention farms in a city floral
+shop? But his courteous, attentive manner returned in an instant. He
+watched me pin the yellow roses on my coat, smiled, and led me outside
+again. I felt proud as any queen, for those were the first flowers any
+man ever bought for me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+DIARY--SEEING THE CITY
+
+
+                                                         _October 2._
+
+I HAVE been seeing Philadelphia. Mr. Lee teasingly told me that most
+newcomers want to "do" the city so he and Virginia would take me round.
+They took me to see all the places I studied about in history class.
+I've done the Betsy Ross House, Franklin's Grave, Old Christ Church and
+Old Swede's Church. I like them all. Best of all I like Independence
+Hall, with its wonderful stairways and wide window sills and, most
+important, its grand old Liberty Bell and its history.
+
+Yesterday Mr. Lee took me to Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park. I like the
+pictures and oh, I looked long at a white marble statue of Isaac, his
+hands bound for the sacrifice. The face is beautiful. Royal Lee was
+amused at my interest in it and took me off to see the rare Chinese
+vases. We wandered around among the cases of glassware and then I found
+a case with valuable Stiegel glass, made in my own Lancaster County. I
+was proud of that! We went through Horticultural Hall and stopped to see
+the lovely sunken gardens, with their fall flowers.
+
+I like to go about with Royal Lee. He is so efficient. Crowds seem to
+fall back for him. He has the attractive, masterful personality that
+everybody recognizes. I feel a reflected glory from his presence. We
+have grown to be great friends in an amazingly short time. Our music,
+our appreciation of each other's ability, has strengthened the bond
+between us. Mrs. Lee sends me many invitations for dinner and week-ends
+in her beautiful home, so that Mr. Lee and I are already well
+acquainted. He has asked me to call him Royal and if he might call me
+Phoebe. I've told him all about my life on the farm, my friends up
+there, and the plans and dreams of my heart. He likes to tease me and
+call me a little Quakeress, but I don't enjoy that for he does it in a
+way I don't like. It sounds as if he's scoffing at the plain people.
+When I told him about the meeting house and described the service he
+laughed and said that a religion like that might do for a little country
+place but it would never do in a city. I bridled at that and tried to
+tell him about the wholesome, useful lives those people up home lead,
+how much good a woman like Mother Bab can do in the world. But he could
+not be easily convinced. He thinks they are crude and narrow. When I
+told him they are lovely and fine he challenged me and asked if I am
+willing to wear plain clothes and renounce all pleasures, jewelry and
+becoming raiment. I had to tell him I'm not ready for that yet, and he
+smiled triumphantly. He predicted I'll play cards and dance before the
+winter ends. I don't like him when he's so flippant. I want to be loyal
+to my home teaching but I see more clearly every day how great is the
+difference between the pleasures sanctioned by my people and those
+Virginia and her friends enjoy. There's a mystery somewhere I can't
+solve. Like Omar, I "evermore come out at the same door where in I
+went."
+
+
+                                                        _October 29._
+
+To-day we went for a long drive along the Wissahickon. The woods are
+bronze and scarlet now. The wild asters made me homesick for Lancaster
+County. I wanted to get out of the car and walk but Virginia and her
+friends wouldn't join me. I wanted to bury my nose in the goldenrod and
+asters--and get hay fever, one of the girls told me--and I just ached to
+push my way through the tangled bushes along the road and let the golden
+leaves of the hickory and beeches brush my face. It seems that most city
+people I have met don't know how to enjoy nature. They have a
+nodding-from-a-motor-acquaintance with it but I like a real
+handshake-friendship with it. I just wished David were here to-day! He'd
+have taken my hand and run me to the top of the hill and picked a branch
+of scarlet maple to carry with my goldenrod and asters. Well, I can't
+have the penny and the cake. I want to be in the city, of course that's
+the thing I most desire at present--I really am having a good time.
+
+In the evening we went to Holy Trinity Church. The organ recital gripped
+my soul. I wanted it to last for hours. And yet when it was over and the
+rector stood before us and preached one of his impressive sermons I was
+just as much interested as I had been in the music. There's a feeling of
+restful calm comes to me in a big dim church with stained glass
+windows. We stopped in the Cathedral one day last week. That is a
+wonderful place, too. I like the idea of having churches open all the
+time for prayer and meditation. I'm learning so many new ideas these
+days. If I ever do wear the plain dress I'm sure of one thing, I'll be
+broad-minded enough to respect the beliefs of other persons.
+
+
+                                                       _November 11._
+
+I can put another red mark on my calendar. I heard the great Irish
+Tenor! Glory, what a voice! It's the kind can echo in your ears to your
+dying day and follow you with its sweetness everywhere you go! I have
+been humming those lovely Irish songs all day.
+
+But before the recital my heart was heavy. I have no evening gown, no
+evening wrap, so I couldn't join the box party to which one of
+Virginia's friends invited us. I meant to stay at home and not break up
+the party, but Royal insisted upon buying two tickets in a section of
+the opera house where a plainer dress would do. In the end I allowed
+myself to be persuaded by him and we two went to the recital alone. When
+that tenor voice sounded through the place I forgot all about my limited
+wardrobe. I could hear him sing if I were dressed in calico and think of
+nothing but his singing.
+
+
+                                                       _November 12._
+
+I wrote letters to-day. Mother Bab and David write such lovely ones to
+me that I have to try hard to keep up my end of it. Sometimes David
+tells me he is anxious to supply me with the beet juice, cream and flour
+whenever I'm ready to begin the prima donna act. I can hear his laugh
+when I read the letter. Sometimes he's serious and talks about the crops
+of their farm and tells me the community news like an old grandmother.
+Phares Eby writes me an occasional letter, a stilted little note that
+sounds just like Phares. It always has some good advice in it. Aunt
+Maria's letters and daddy's come every week. I'd feel lost without them.
+I like to feel that everybody I care for at home is interested in and
+cares for me even if I am in Philadelphia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+DIARY--CHRYSALIS
+
+
+                                                        _December 3._
+
+I'M as miserable as any mortal can be! Oh, I'm still having a good time
+going around seeing the city, visiting the stores and museums,
+practicing hard in music, pleasing my teacher. But just the same, I'm
+not happy. The reason is this: I want pretty gowns like Virginia wears,
+I want to dance and play cards and see real plays. I dare say I'm a
+contemptible sinner to want all that after the way I've been brought up.
+I ought to be satisfied with all the wonderful things I enjoy in this
+big city but I'm not.
+
+Last week Virginia entertained the Bridge Club and tried to persuade me
+to learn to play and come to the party. Royal was provoked about it. He
+thinks I should learn to play. I told him I should have no peace if I
+learned to do such things.
+
+"Peace," he scorned, "no one has peace these days. The whole world is in
+a turmoil. Do you think your little Quaker-like girls of Lancaster
+County have peace these days?"
+
+"They have peace of mind and conscience."
+
+"But that," he said, "is the peace that touches those who live in
+selfish solitude. The virtue that dwells in the hearts of those who
+retire into hermitages is a negative virtue."
+
+"You speak like a seer, a philosopher," I told him.
+
+"Like a rational human being, I hope," he said petulantly. "But the
+thoughts are not original. I am merely echoing the opinion of sane
+thinkers. I have no appreciation of the foolish and useless sacrifice
+you are persistently making. We were not put on this planet to be dull
+nuns and monks. We have red blood racing through our veins and were not
+intended for sluggishness."
+
+"Yes--but----"
+
+He went off peeved at my refusal to do as he wished.
+
+What can I do? Shall I capitulate? I have wrestled with my desire for
+pleasure until I'm tired of the struggle. My old contentment has
+deserted me. I'm restless and dissatisfied, scarcely knowing what is
+right or wrong.
+
+
+                                                          _Next day._
+
+I'm happy again. Being on the fence grows mighty uncomfortable after a
+while, so I jumped across. I have decided to become a butterfly!
+
+I had luncheon to-day with Virginia. She had to run off to one of her
+Bridge Clubs so I offered to mend the lace on one of her gowns while she
+was gone. I was alone in the sitting-room that adjoins Virginia's
+bedroom. I love that little sitting-room. Virginia and I spend many
+happy hours in it when we want to get away from everybody and have a
+long chat. I like its big comfortable winged chairs by the cheery open
+fire.
+
+I dreamed a while before the fire, the gown across my knees. It's a pink
+gown, that scarcely defined pink of a sea shell. Virginia had often
+tempted me to try it on and see how well I'd look in a dress of that
+kind. The temptation came to do it. I jumped up in sudden determination.
+I _would_ put it on! I'd see for once how I looked in a real gown. I ran
+to Virginia's room to the low dressing table. My hands trembled as I
+opened the tight coils of my hair and shook it until it seemed to nod
+exultingly. I fluffed the curls loosely over my forehead and twisted the
+hair into a fashionable knot. Then I took off my plain blue serge dress
+and slipped the pink one over my head. The soft draperies clung to me,
+the gossamer lace lay upon my breast like a silken mist. I was beautiful
+in that gown and I knew it. It was my hour of appreciation of my own
+charm.
+
+Later I lifted the dress and saw my plain calfskin shoes. I smiled but
+soon grew sober as I thought that the incongruity between gown and shoes
+was no greater than that between the gown and the girl--the girl who was
+reared to wear plain clothes and be honest and unpretentious. But
+honesty--that is the rock to which I cling now. I am going to be honest
+with myself and have my share of happiness while I'm young.
+
+I went back again to the fire, still wearing the borrowed gown. Virginia
+found me there several hours later. When she came in and saw me, a
+gorgeous butterfly, she said, she was very happy. She would have me go
+down to her mother and Royal. I shrank from it but she said I might as
+well become accustomed to being stared at when I was so dazzling and
+beautiful. I went down, feeling almost as much of a culprit as I did the
+day Aunt Maria surprised me at playing prima donna and marched me in to
+the quilting party.
+
+Mrs. Lee was lovely. She is sure I deserve to be happy in my youth.
+Royal went mad. "Ye Gods!" he cried as he ran to me and grasped my
+hands. "You take my breath away! You are like this!" He seized his
+violin and began to play the Spring Song. The quivering ecstasy of
+spring, the mating calls of robins and orioles, the rushing joy of
+bursting blossoms, the delicate perfume of violets and trailing arbutus,
+the dazzling shafts of sunlight pierced by silver showers of capricious
+April--all echoed in the melody of the violin.
+
+"You are like that, that is you!" he said as he laid his instrument
+aside. His words were very sweet to me. The future beckons into sunlit
+paths of joy.
+
+So I have departed from the teachings of my childhood and turned to the
+so-called vanities of the world. I am going to grasp my share of
+happiness while I can enjoy them.
+
+When I went up-stairs again to take off the borrowed gown I was already
+planning the new clothes I want to buy. I must have a pink crepe
+georgette, a pale, pale blue--just as I'm writing this there flashes to
+my mind one of those old Memory Gems I learned in school on the hill.
+
+        "But pleasures are like poppies spread,--
+         You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
+         Or like the snow fall on the river,
+         A moment white, then melts forever."
+
+I wonder, is there always a fly in the ointment!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+DIARY--TRANSFORMATION
+
+
+                                                       _December 15._
+
+A FEW days can make a difference in one's life. I'm well on the way of
+being a real butterfly. I have bought new dresses, a real evening gown
+and a lovely silk dress to wear to the Bridge Club. It's lucky I saved
+my money these three months and had a nice surplus to buy these new
+things.
+
+Royal is teaching me to play cards. He says I take to them like a duck
+to water. Virginia and he are giving me dancing lessons. I love to
+dance! The same spirit that prompted me to skip when I wore sunbonnets
+is now urging me on to the dance. In a few weeks I'll be ready to join
+in the pleasures of my new friends. After the Christmas holidays the
+city will be gay until the Lenten season.
+
+
+                                                         _January 5._
+
+I went home for Christmas and I suppose I managed to make everybody
+there unhappy and worried. I couldn't let them think I am the same quiet
+girl and not tell them about the cards and dancing. Daddy was hurt, but
+he didn't scold me. He said plainly that he does not approve of my
+course, that he thinks cards and dancing wicked. He added that I had
+been taught the difference between right and wrong and was old enough to
+see it. Perhaps he thinks I'll "run my horns off quicker" if I'm let go,
+as Aunt Maria often says about people. But she didn't say that about me.
+She made up for what daddy didn't say. She begged him to make me stay at
+home away from the wicked influences of the city. I had the hardest time
+to keep calm and not say mean things to her. She's ashamed of me and
+afraid people up there will find out how worldly I am. I had to tell
+Mother Bab too. I know I hurt her. She was so gentle and lovely about it
+that I felt half inclined to tell her I'd give up everything she didn't
+approve of, just to please her. But I didn't. I couldn't do that when I
+know I'm not doing anything wrong. She changed the subject and inquired
+about my music. In that I was able to please her. She shared my joy when
+I told her of my critical music master's approval of my progress. I sang
+some of my new songs for her and she kissed me with the same love and
+tenderness she has always had for me. I wonder sometimes whether I could
+possibly have loved my own mother more. Somehow, as I sat with her in
+her dear, cozy sitting-room I hated the cards and the dancing and half
+wished I had never left the farm. But that's a narrow, provincial view
+to take. Now that I'm back again I'm caught once more in the whirl.
+Everybody is entertaining, as if in a frantic endeavor to be surfeited
+before Lent and thus be able to endure the dullness of that period of
+suspended social activities. The harrowing tales of suffering France
+and Belgium have occasioned Benefit Teas and Benefit Bridges and
+Benefit Dances, all for the aid of the war sufferers. Royal usually
+takes me to the social affairs. I enjoy being with him. He's the most
+entertaining man I ever met. He has traveled in Europe and all over our
+own country and can tell what he has seen. He attracts attention,
+whether he speaks or plays or is just silent. One day he said it would
+be a pleasure to travel with me, I enjoy things so and can appreciate
+their beauty. I could scarcely resist telling him how I'd enjoy
+traveling with a man like him. Oh, I dream wild dreams sometimes, but I
+really must stop doing that. The present is too wonderful to go
+borrowing joy from the future.
+
+
+                                                        _February 2._
+
+I'm all in a fluster. I have to write here what happened to-day. If I
+had a mother she could help and advise me but an adopted mother, even
+one as dear and near as Mother Bab, won't do for such confidences.
+
+Royal and I were sitting alone before the open fireplace. It's a
+dangerous place to be! The glowing fire sends such weird shadows
+flickering up and down. Its living fire is sometimes an entreating Circe
+waking undesirable impulses, then again it's a spirit that heals and
+inspires. I love an open fire but to-day I should have fled from it and
+yet--I think I'm glad I didn't.
+
+I looked up suddenly from the gleaming logs--right into the eyes of
+Royal. His voice startled me as he said, with the strangest catch in his
+voice, that my eyes are bluer than the skies. I tried to keep my voice
+ordinary as I lightly told him that some other person once told me they
+are the color of fringed gentians--could he improve on that?
+
+"You little fairy!" he cried. "I can beat that! They are blue as
+bluebirds!" Then he went on impetuously, telling me I was a real
+bluebird of happiness, a bringer of joy; that the ancients called the
+bluebird the emblem of happiness, but he knew the blue of my eyes was
+the real joy sign--or something like that he said. It startled me. I
+tried to tell him he must not talk like that but my words were useless.
+He went on to say that the world was bleak and unlovely till I came to
+Philadelphia and wouldn't I tell him I care for him.
+
+Of course I value his friendship and told him so. But he laughed and
+said I was a wise little girl but I couldn't evade his question like
+that. He said frankly he doesn't want my friendship, he wants my love,
+he must have it!
+
+I felt like a helpless bird. I couldn't answer him. He looked at me, a
+long, searching look. Then he pressed his thin lips together, and a
+moment later, threw back his head and laughed his low laugh.
+
+"Little bluebird," he said softly, "I have frightened you and I wouldn't
+do that for worlds! We'll talk it over some other time, after you have
+had time to think about it. Shall I play for you?"
+
+I nodded and he began to play. But the music didn't soothe me as it
+usually does. There were too many confused thoughts in my brain. Did
+Royal really love me? I looked at his white hands with the long
+tapering nails and the shapely fingers and couldn't help thinking of the
+strong, tanned hands of David Eby. I glanced at the handsome face of the
+musician with its magnetic charm--swiftly the countenance of my old
+playmate rose before me and then slowly faded: David, boyish and
+comradely; David, manly and strong, without ever a sneer or an unholy
+light upon his face. Could I ever forget him? Could I ever look into the
+face of any other man and call it the dearest in the whole world to me?
+Ach--I shook my head and gathered my recreant wits together! I'd forget
+what he said and attribute it to the weird influence of the firelight.
+
+I was glad Virginia came before Royal finished playing. She looked at us
+keenly. I suppose my face was flushed. But Royal seldom loses his
+outward calm. He answered her remarks in his casual way and listened
+with seeming interest to her plans for a pre-Lenten masquerade dance she
+wants to give. She has asked me to go dressed in a plain dress and white
+cap like Aunt Maria wears. I hesitated about it but she has done so much
+for me that I hate to refuse. So I've promised to go to the dance
+dressed in a plain dress and cap.
+
+A little later when Royal left us alone Virginia began to speak about
+him. She said she's so glad we have grown to be friends, in spite of the
+fact that he is so much older than I am. He's thirty-seven, she told me.
+I'm surprised at that. I never thought he's so much older. She mentioned
+something, too, about his being rather a gay Don Juan. I don't know
+just what she means. I'm sure he's a gentleman. Perhaps she expected me
+to tell her what Royal said to me, but how could I do that when I think
+it was just an impulsive burst that he's likely to forget by morning. If
+he really meant it--but I must stop dreaming all sorts of improbable
+dreams! I've had such a glorious time in Philadelphia just living and
+singing and working and playing that I wish it hadn't happened. I'm
+frightened when I think that any serious questions might confront me
+here.
+
+
+                                                       _February 10._
+
+I guessed right when I thought that Royal would forget that foolish
+outburst. He has been perfectly lovely to me, taking me out and buying
+me flowers and telling me about his trips, but he hasn't said one word
+more of sentimental nature. I'm surely getting my share of fun and
+pleasure these days. There are so many things to enjoy, so much to learn
+from my fellow-boarders and every one I meet, that the days are all too
+short. Between times I'm making a dress and cap for the masquerade
+dance. I hate sewing. I lost all love for it during my years of calico
+patching. But I don't mind making the dress for I'm eager for the dance,
+my first masquerade party. I'm hoping for a good time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+DIARY--PLAIN FOR A NIGHT
+
+
+                                                       _February 21._
+
+LAST night was the masquerade. I wore the plain gray dress, apron and
+cape and a white cap on my head. I felt rather like a hypocrite as I
+looked at myself in the glass, but Virginia said it was just the thing
+and certainly would not be duplicated by any other guest.
+
+I was dressed early and started down the stairs, my black mask swinging
+from my hand. As I rounded a curve in the stairway I glanced casually
+down the wide hall. The colored servant had admitted visitors. I looked
+in that direction--the mask fell from my hand and I ran down the steps
+and into the arms of Mother Bab! I couldn't say more than "Oh, oh!" as I
+kissed her over and over. When she got her breath she said happily,
+"Phoebe, you're plain!"
+
+Oh, how it hurt me! I took her and David to a little nook off the
+library where we could be alone and then I had to tell her that I was
+wearing the plain dress and white cap as a masquerade dress. Even when I
+told her I learned to dance and do things she thinks are worldly there
+was no look of pain on her face like the look I brought there as I stood
+before her in a dress she reverenced and told her I wore it in a spirit
+of fun. I'll never get over being sorry for hurting her like that. But
+Mother Bab rallies quickly from every hurt. She soon smiled and said she
+understood. David came to my aid. He assured his mother that they knew I
+could take care of myself and would not do anything really wrong. I
+couldn't thank him for his kindness. I felt suddenly all weepy and
+tearful. But David began to talk on in his old friendly way and tell
+about the home news and about the Big Doctor he had taken Mother Bab to
+see in Philadelphia and how he hoped she would soon be able to see
+perfectly again. While he talked Mother Bab and I had a chance to
+recover a bit. I noted a quick shadow pass over her face as he spoke
+about her eyes--was she less hopeful about them than he was? Had the Big
+Doctor told her something David did not hear? But no! I dismissed the
+thought--Mother Bab could not go blind! She would never be asked to
+suffer that! I soon forgot my troublesome thoughts as she hastened to
+say that perhaps her eyes would improve more quickly than the doctor
+promised. Then she changed the subject--"Now, Phoebe, I hope I didn't
+hurt you about the dress. I guess I looked at you as if I wanted to eat
+you. I love you and wouldn't hurt you for anything."
+
+"Mother Bab!" I gave her a real hug like I used to do when I ran
+barefooted up the hill with some childish perplexity and she helped me.
+"You're an angel! Mother Bab, David, having a good time won't hurt me.
+Our views up home are too narrow. It's all right to expect older people
+to do nothing more exciting than go to Greenwald to the store, to church
+every Sunday, to an occasional quilting or carpet-rag party, and to
+Lancaster to shop several times a year, but the younger generation needs
+other things."
+
+"I guess you mean it can't be Lent all the time for you," she suggested
+with a smile.
+
+"I just knew you'd understand."
+
+Just then Royal began to play and the music floated in to us. It was
+Traumerei. Mother Bab's tired face relaxed as she leaned back to listen
+to the piercingly sweet melody. David looked at me--I knew he was asking
+whether the player was Royal Lee.
+
+"Oh, Davie," Mother Bab said innocently as the music ended, "if only you
+could play like that!"
+
+"If I could," he said half bitterly, "but all I can do is farm. Are you
+coming home this spring?" he asked me, as if to forget the violin and
+its player.
+
+"I don't know. I'll probably stay here until early June. I may go away
+with Virginia for part of the summer."
+
+"Not be home for spring and summer!" he said dismally. "Why, it won't be
+spring without you! We can't go for bird-foot violets or arbutus."
+
+Arbutus--the name called up a host of memories to me. "How I'd like to
+go for arbutus this spring," I told him.
+
+"Then come home in April and I'll take you to Mt. Hope for some."
+
+"Oh, David, will you?"
+
+"I'd love to. We'll drive up."
+
+"I'll come," I promised. "I'll come home for arbutus. Let me know when
+they're out."
+
+"All right. But I think we must go now or we'll miss the train."
+
+"Go?" I echoed. "You're not going home to-night? Can't you stay? Mrs.
+McCrea has vacant rooms. I've been so excited I forgot my manners. Let
+me take you to the sitting-room and introduce you to Mrs. Lee and
+Royal."
+
+"Ach, no," Mother Bab protested. "We can't stay that long. We just
+stopped in to see you."
+
+David looked at his watch. "We must go now. There's a train at
+eight-twenty-one gets to Lancaster at ten-forty-five and we'll get the
+last car out to Greenwald and Phares will meet us and drive us home."
+
+I asked about the home folks as I watched David adjust Mother Bab's
+shawl. He looked older and worried. I suppose he was disappointed
+because the Big Doctor didn't promise a quick cure for Mother Bab's
+eyes.
+
+As they said good-bye and left me I wanted to run after them and ask
+them to take me home, back to the simple life of my people. But I stayed
+where I was, the earthiest worldling in a dress of unworldliness.
+
+"I--I believe I'll take it off," I thought as I stood in the doorway.
+
+Just then Royal opened the door and saw me. "Ye Gods!" he exclaimed,
+"you look like a saint, Phoebe."
+
+"But I'm not! I'm far from being a saint!"
+
+"Don't be one, please. If you turn saint I shall be disconsolate. I
+don't like saints of women and I want to keep on liking you, little
+Bluebird. Remember, you promised me the first dance."
+
+"I don't know--I don't feel like dancing."
+
+"Oh, but you must! You look like a Quakeress but no one expects you to
+act like one to-night. I'm going up to dress--I'm going as a monk to
+match you."
+
+He ran off, laughing, and I went in search of Virginia. My heart was
+heavy. The sudden appearance of Mother Bab and David brought me a vivid
+impression of the contrast between their lives and mine and the thoughts
+left me worried and restless. What was I doing? Was I shaping my life in
+such a way that it would never again fit into the simple grooves of
+country life? The dance lost its charm for me. I danced and made merry
+and tried to enter into the gay spirit of the occasion but I longed all
+the time to be with Mother Bab and David riding to Lancaster County.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+DIARY--DECLARATIONS
+
+
+                                                          _March 22._
+
+SPRING is here but I'd never know it if I didn't read the calendar. I
+haven't seen a robin or heard a song-sparrow. Just the same, I've had a
+wonderful time these past weeks. Of course my music gets first
+attention. I'm getting on well, though I'm beginning to see what a long,
+long time it will take before I become a great singer. Since I have
+heard really great singers I wonder whether I was not too presumptuous
+when I thought I might be one some day. I went to several big churches
+lately and heard fine music.
+
+I thought Lent would be a dull season but it's been gay enough for me.
+There has been unusual activity, Virginia says, because of so many
+charitable affairs held for the benefit of the war sufferers.
+
+I bought a new spring hat, a dream. Hope Aunt Maria never asks me what I
+paid for it. After wearing Greenwald hats all my life this one was
+coming to me.
+
+But my thoughts are not all of frivolous matters. I have taken advantage
+of some of the opportunities Philadelphia offers to improve my mind and
+broaden my vision. I've been to lectures and plays and enjoyed them all.
+
+I asked Royal to-day why he never worked. He laughed and said I was an
+inquisitive Bluebird. Then he told me his parents left him enough money
+to live without working. He never did a solid hour's real work in his
+whole life. With his talent and his personal attractions he might become
+a famous musician if he had some odds to fight against or some person to
+encourage him and make him do his best. He said he knows he never
+developed his talent to the full extent but that since he knows me he is
+playing better than he did before. I wonder if I really am an
+inspiration to him. I suppose a genius does need a wife or sympathetic
+friend to bring out the best in him. He has been so lovely, showing his
+fondness for me in many ways, but he has never said anything sentimental
+like he did the day we sat by the fire. Sometimes he does say ambiguous
+things that I can't understand. He is surely giving me a long time to
+think it over. I like him but I'm afraid he's cynical, and it worries
+me.
+
+There are other things, too, to dim the blue these days. War clouds are
+threatening. U-boats of Germany are sinking our vessels. Where will it
+all end?
+
+
+                                                           _April 7._
+
+War has been declared. America is in it at last. I came home to-day
+feeling disheartened and sad. War was the topic everywhere I went.
+Papers, bulletin-boards flaunted the words, "The world must be made safe
+for democracy." People on the streets and in cars spoke about it,
+newsboys yelled till they were hoarse.
+
+I stopped to see Virginia but she was out. Royal said he'd entertain me
+till she returned. He laughed at my tragic weariness about the war.
+
+"I'll tell you, Bluebird," he whispered as he sat beside me, "we'll talk
+of something better. I love you."
+
+The fire in his eyes frightened me. I couldn't look at him. "Why do you
+say such things?" I asked, and I couldn't keep my voice from trembling.
+
+That didn't hush him--he said some more. He told me how he loves me, how
+he waited for me all his life and wants me with him. He quoted the verse
+I like so much, "Thou beside me singing in the wilderness--O wilderness
+were Paradise enow!" Then he asked me frankly if I loved him.
+
+I couldn't answer right away. Now that the thing I had dreamed of was
+actually happening I was dazed and stupid and sat like a bump-on-a-log.
+
+He asked me again and before I knew what he was doing he had taken me
+into his arms and kissed me. "Say you love me," he pleaded.
+
+I said what he wanted to hear and he kissed me again. We were both very
+happy. It is almost too wonderful to believe!
+
+A few minutes later we heard Virginia enter the hall and we came back to
+earth. I know my cheeks still burned but Royal's ready poise served him
+well. He told his cousin he had been trying to make me forget about the
+war.
+
+Virginia probably thought my excitement was due to the war. She began at
+once to speak about it. "America is in it and we can't forget it. Every
+true American must help."
+
+"Do your bit, knit," chanted the musician.
+
+She asked him if he is going to do his bit. He flushed and looked vexed,
+then explained that he can neither knit nor fight, that he is a
+musician.
+
+Virginia argued that if he could play a violin he could learn to play a
+bugle, that many of the men who will fight for the flag are men who have
+never been taught to fight. She spoke as if she thought Royal should
+enlist in some branch of government service at once.
+
+I resented her words. "Do you want Royal to go to war and be killed?" I
+asked her.
+
+"My dear," she said solemnly, "have you ever heard that there is such a
+thing as losing one's life by trying to save it?"
+
+That startled me. I realized then that the war is going to be a very
+serious matter, that there will be work for each one of us to do. But
+Royal laughed and made me forget temporarily every solemn, sad thing. He
+told Virginia that she was over-zealous, that she need not worry about
+him. He'd be a true American and give his money to help protect the
+flag. We began to play Bridge then and I thought no more about the war
+for an hour or two.
+
+
+                                                          _April 12._
+
+I have learned to knit. Virginia has taught me and we are elbow-deep in
+gray and khaki wool. I have wound it and purled it and worked on the
+thing till I'm tasting fuzz. But I do want to do the little bit I can to
+help my country. This war _is_ a serious matter. Already people are
+talking about who is going to enlist--what if David would go! I hope he
+won't--yet I don't want him to be a coward. Oh, it's all too confusing
+and terrible to think long about. I try to forget it for a time by
+remembering that Royal Lee cares for me. He has told me over and over
+that he loves me. Love _must_ be blind, for he thinks I am beautiful and
+perfect. I'm glad I look like that to him. We should be happy when we
+are married, for we are so congenial, both loving music and things of
+beauty. It's queer, though, I have thought of it several times--he has
+never mentioned our marriage. I suppose he's too happy in the present to
+make plans for the future. But I know he is a gentleman, therefore his
+words of love are synonymous with an offer of marriage. All that will
+come later. It's enough now just to know we care for each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+DIARY--"THE LINK MUST BREAK AND THE LAMP MUST DIE"
+
+
+                                                          _April 13._
+
+I'M in sackcloth and ashes. My dream castles have tumbled down upon my
+head and left me bruised and sorrowful. I'm awake at last! I'd like to
+bury my face in my old red and green patchwork quilt and ask forgiveness
+for being a fool. But I must compose myself and write this last chapter
+of my romance.
+
+Last night the "Singer with the Voice of Gold" gave a recital in the
+Academy of Music. Royal and I helped to make up a merry box party. I
+felt festive and gay in my lovely white crepe georgette gown. Royal said
+I looked like a dream and that made me radiant, I know.
+
+As we sat down I whispered to him that I was excited because hearing
+that great singer has always been one of my dearest dreams and now the
+dream was coming true. He whispered back that more of my dreams would
+soon come true. I made him hush, for several people were looking at us.
+But his words sent my heart thrilling.
+
+The Academy became quiet as the singer appeared, then the audience gave
+her a real Brotherly Love welcome and settled once more into silence as
+her beautiful voice rose in the place. The operatic selections were
+beautifully rendered. I thought her voice was most captivating in the
+simple songs everybody knows. Annie Laurie had new charm as she sang it.
+When she sang that Royal whispered, "That is what I feel for you." I
+smiled into his eyes, then turned again to look at the singer. Could I
+ever sing like that? Would the dreams of my childhood come true? It
+seemed improbable and yet--I had traveled a long way from the little
+girl of the tight braids and brown gingham dresses, I thought. Perhaps
+the future would bring still more wonderful changes.
+
+The hours in the Academy of Music passed like a beautiful dream. I
+shrank from the last song, though. It was too much like some fatal, dire
+prophecy:
+
+        "The cord is frayed, the cruse is dry,
+         The link must break, and the lamp must die--
+         Good-bye to hope! Good-bye, good-bye!"
+
+I told Royal I didn't like it, it was too much like Cassandra.
+
+He laughed and said she generally sings it, but that it couldn't hurt
+us--was I superstitious?
+
+"No, oh, no," I declared. But I wished I could forget the words of that
+song.
+
+Some of the party decided that a proper ending to the delightful evening
+would be a visit to a fashionable café. I didn't care to go. Royal urged
+me till I consented and I soon found myself in a beautiful place where
+merry groups of people were seated about small tables. Any desire for
+food I might have had left me as I heard Royal and the other men order
+wines and highballs.
+
+"What will you have, Phoebe?" Royal asked me.
+
+I gasped--"Why--nothing."
+
+"Be a sport," he urged, "look around and do as the 'Romans do.'"
+
+I looked around. Some of the women were smoking, others were drinking.
+
+"Oh," I said, "this is dreadful. Let's go."
+
+Royal laughed and the others teased me. One of the girls said I'd be
+doing all those things before the year ended. When I declared I would
+not Royal reminded me that I had said the same about cards and dancing.
+His words silenced me. I felt engulfed in shame and deeply hurt. How
+could Royal be amused at my discomfiture if he loved me! Did he love me?
+Did I want him to? Could I promise to honor and love him all my life?
+But perhaps he was teasing me--ah, that was it! I breathed more easily
+again. Royal was teasing me, sure of my refusal to indulge in any
+intoxicant. The others ate and made merry while I toyed idly with the
+glass of ginger ale the waiter brought me against my wish. I mused and
+dreamed--would Royal like my people? Somehow, he seemed an incongruity
+among the dear ones at the gray farmhouse in Lancaster County. What
+would he say when we ate in the kitchen and daddy came to the table in
+his shirt sleeves? Love can bridge greater chasms than that, I thought.
+When we are married----
+
+"Royal Lee, are you ever going to marry?" The question broke into my
+revery.
+
+I looked at Royal. There was no rise of color in his handsome face. He
+returned my look dispassionately then turned to his teasing, inquisitive
+friend.
+
+"I'm a bachelor forever," he declared. "But that does not keep me from
+loving. Women I care for have too much good sense to think that marriage
+always follows love. Ye Gods, I think love goes when marriage comes, so
+you'll have no chance to see my love interred."
+
+I clenched my hands under the table. I felt my lips go white. How could
+he hurt me so? Of course our love was not a thing to be paraded in a
+public place but if he really cared for me as I thought he did he could
+have answered differently. An evasive answer would have served. An hour
+ago he had whispered tender words to me and now he frankly informed all
+present that he was a bachelor forever. I could not grasp the full
+significance of his words at once. I was dazed by the shock of them. I
+wanted to get away and be alone, to cry, to think, to determine what he
+had meant by his demonstrations of love if he did not hope to win me for
+his wife.
+
+But later, when I went to bed in the pretty blue and white room next
+Virginia's, I did not cry. I lay wide awake thinking over and over, "How
+could he do it? Why is he heartless? Was he only playing?"
+
+When morning came I had partially decided that I had been a ready, silly
+fool; that Royal Lee had merely whiled the hours away more pleasantly
+because of my love. I felt tempted to denounce him but I thought that
+would afford him additional amusement and make me not a whit less
+miserable. I was eager to get away from him. I desired but one little
+moment alone with him to satisfy myself that I did not judge him
+unjustly. Fortunately he came to the sitting-room as I sat there staring
+at the page of a magazine.
+
+"Alone?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Phoebe"--he drew nearer and I rose and stood away from him. "My
+Bluebird! You look unhappy. Are you still shocked at the smoking and
+drinking you saw last night? It's all in the game, you know. Why not be
+happy along with the rest of us, why be a prude?"
+
+I shivered. Couldn't he know why I was unhappy! How false and fickle he
+was! I wouldn't wear my heart on my sleeve for him to read and laugh
+about. All my Metz determination rose in me.
+
+"Why," I lied, "I'm not unhappy. I'm just tired. Late hours don't agree
+with me."
+
+He stretched out his arm but I eluded him. "Don't," I said lightly;
+"we've been foolish long enough."
+
+"Why"--he looked at me keenly. But I was determined he should not read
+my feelings. I smiled in spite of my contempt for him. "Why, Phoebe," he
+said tenderly, "what has changed you? Why shouldn't I kiss you when I
+love you? Love never hurt any one."
+
+"No--but----"
+
+"But what?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, nothing," I said, stepping farther away from him. "I'm in a hurry
+this morning. Good-bye." And for the first time I saw a look of chagrin
+mar the handsome face of Royal Lee. Before he could recover his
+customary equanimity I was gone from the house.
+
+I walked, caring not where the way led. My brain was in a whirl. I felt
+as though I were fleeing from a crumbling precipice. In a flash I
+understood Virginia's tactful attempts at warning. She had tried to make
+me understand but my head was too easily turned by the fine speeches and
+flattering attentions of the musician. I have been vain and foolish but
+I've had my lesson. It still hurts and yet I can see the value of it.
+I'll be better qualified after this to discriminate between the false
+and true.
+
+I am going home to-day! It came to me suddenly as I went back to my
+boarding-house after my long walk. I promised David I'd come home for
+arbutus and the inspiration came to go home for the whole spring and
+summer. I'll write a note to Mr. Krause and one to Virginia. Dear
+Virginia, she has been so good to me and helped me in so many ways! I
+can never thank her enough. These eight months in Philadelphia have been
+a liberal education for me. I'll never regret them. I hope to come back
+in the fall and go on with the music lessons. By that time Royal Lee
+will have found another to make love to.
+
+So I'm going home to-day, back to Lancaster County. The trees are green
+and the flowers are out--oh, I'm wild to get back!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+"HAME'S BEST"
+
+
+LANCASTER COUNTY never before looked so fertile, so lovely, as it did
+that April day when Phoebe returned to it after a long winter in
+Philadelphia.
+
+As she came unexpectedly there was no one to meet her at Greenwald. She
+started across the street and was soon on the dusty road leading to the
+gray farmhouse.
+
+"Let me see," she thought, "this is Friday afternoon and Aunt Maria will
+be scrubbing the kitchen floor."
+
+But when the girl reached the kitchen of the gray house and tiptoed
+gently over the sill she found the big room in order and Aunt Maria
+absent.
+
+"Why," she thought, "is Aunt Maria sick?" She opened the door to the
+sitting-room and there, seated by a window, was Aunt Maria with a ball
+of gray wool in her lap and five steel knitting needles plying in her
+hands.
+
+"Aunt Maria!"
+
+"Why, Phoebe!"
+
+The exclamations came simultaneously.
+
+"What in the world are you doing? I mean why aren't you cleaning the
+kitchen? Oh, Aunt Maria, you know what I mean! I never saw you sitting
+down early on a Friday afternoon."
+
+Aunt Maria laughed. "I ain't sick! You can see what I'm doin'; I'm
+knittin'. Ain't you learned to do it yet? I can learn you."
+
+"Why, I know how. But what are you knitting? For the Red Cross?"
+
+"Why not? You think the ladies in Phildelphy are the only ones do that?
+There's a Red Cross in Greenwald and they are askin' all who can to
+help. I used to knit all my own stockings still so I thought I'd pitch
+right in. I let the cleanin' slide a little this week so I could get a
+good start on this once."
+
+The girl gasped and looked at her aunt in wonder. All the days of her
+life she had never known her aunt to "let the cleanin' slide," if the
+physical strength were there to do the work. Aunt Maria was working for
+the Red Cross! While she, who had scorned the country folks and called
+them narrow, had knitted half-heartedly and spent the major part of her
+time in the pursuit of pleasure, the people of the little town and
+surrounding country had been doing real work for humanity.
+
+"I think you're splendid, Aunt Maria, to help the Red Cross," she said
+with enthusiasm.
+
+The woman looked up from her knitting. "Why, how dumb you talk! I guess
+abody wants to help. Them soldiers are fightin' for us. Now you can get
+yourself something to eat. It vonders me, anyhow, why you come home this
+time of the year. You said you'd stay till June."
+
+"I came because I want to be here."
+
+"So. Then I guess you got enough once of the city."
+
+"Yes," said Phoebe, laughing. "But how is everybody?"
+
+"All pretty good. But a lot of boys from round here went a'ready to
+enlist. I ain't for war, but I guess it has to come sometimes. But it's
+hard for them that has boys."
+
+"David?" Phoebe asked. "Has he gone?"
+
+"Ach, no, not him. He's got his mom to take care of."
+
+Phoebe remembered Virginia's words, "We can't get away from it, we're in
+it." The thought of them made her feel depressed. "I'm going to forget
+the war," she thought after a moment, "I'm going to forget it for
+to-morrow and have one perfect day in the mountains hunting arbutus."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+TRAILING ARBUTUS
+
+
+IT was a balmy day in April when Phoebe and David drove over the country
+roads to the mountains where the trailing arbutus grow.
+
+"Spring o' the year," called the meadow-larks in clear, piercing tones.
+
+"It is spring o' the year," said Phoebe. "I know it now. But last week I
+felt sure that the calendar was wrong and I wondered whether God made
+only English sparrows this year; that was all I could see. Then I saw a
+few birds early this week when we went along the Wissahickon for a long
+walk. Oh, no," she said in answer to the unspoken question in his eyes,
+"I did not go alone with a man. In Philadelphia one does not do that. I
+went properly chaperoned by Mrs. Hale. Virginia and Royal and several
+others were in the party. You should have been there; you would have
+enjoyed it for you know so much about birds and flowers. Royal didn't
+know a spring beauty from a bloodroot, and when we heard a song-sparrow
+he said it was a thrush."
+
+David threw back his head and laughed. "Some nature student he must be!
+But it must be fine along the Wissahickon. I have read about it."
+
+"It is fine, but this is finer."
+
+"You better say so!"
+
+"Oh, look, David, the soil is pink!" She pointed to a tilled field whose
+soil was colored a soft old rose color. "I'm always glad to see the pink
+soil."
+
+"So am I. It means that we are getting near the mountains. We'll drive
+over to Hull's tavern and leave the carriage there, then we can go to
+the patch of woods near the tavern where we used to find the great
+beauties, the fine big ones. There's the old tavern now." He pointed to
+a building with a fine background of wooded hills.
+
+Hull's tavern, a rambling structure erected in 1812, is still an
+interesting stopping-place for summer excursionists and travelers
+through that mountainous section of Pennsylvania. Situated on the south
+side of the beautiful South Mountains and overlooking the richest of
+hills, it has long been a popular roadhouse, accommodating many pleasure
+parties and hikers.
+
+Phoebe wandered about on the long porches while David took the horse to
+the stable.
+
+"Now then," he said as he joined her, "give me the lunch box and we'll
+be off."
+
+They walked a short distance in the loamy soil of the mountain road and
+then turned aside and scrambled up a steep bank to a tract of woodland.
+Phoebe sank on her knees in the dry, brown leaves and pushed aside the
+leaves. "There," she cried in triumph a moment later, "I found the first
+one!" She lifted a small cluster of trailing arbutus and gave it to
+David.
+
+"Um-ah," he said, in imitation of a little girl of long ago.
+
+"Little Dutchie," she answered. "But you can't provoke me to-day. I'm
+too happy to be peevish. Come, kneel down, you'll never find arbutus
+when you stand up."
+
+"I'm down," he said as he knelt beside her. "I'd go on my knees to find
+arbutus any day."
+
+"So would I---- Oh, look at this--and this! They are perfect." She
+fairly trembled with joy as she uncovered the waxlike flowers of dainty
+pink and white. "I could bury my nose in them forever."
+
+"They are perfect," agreed the man. "Fancy living where you never saw
+any arbutus or had the joy of picking them."
+
+"I don't want to fancy that, it's too delicious being where they do
+grow. Won't Mother Bab love them?"
+
+"Yes. She'll keep them for days in water. That flower you gave her in
+Philadelphia lasted four days."
+
+"These are better," Phoebe said quickly, anxious to shut out all
+thoughts of the city. Now that she was in the woods again she knew how
+hungry she had been for them. "I am going to pick a bunch of big ones
+for Mother Bab."
+
+"She would like the small ones every whit as much," the man declared.
+
+"Perhaps better," she mused. "She would say they are just as sweet and
+pretty. David, I don't know what I should have done without Mother Bab!
+My life was different, somehow, after she allowed me to adopt her."
+
+"She's great, isn't she?"
+
+"Wonderful! I have many friends, many new ones, many dear ones, but
+there is only one Mother Bab."
+
+The man's hands trembled among the arbutus--did the admiration touch
+Mother Bab's son? Could the dreams of his heart ever come true?
+
+"You know," Phoebe went on, "if I could always have her near me, in the
+same house, I'd be less unworthy of calling her Mother Bab."
+
+It was well that she bent over the dry leaves and blossoms and missed
+the look that flooded the face of the man for a moment. She wanted to be
+with Mother Bab--should he tell her of his love? But the very fact that
+she spoke thus was evidence that she did not love him as he desired. And
+the war must change his most cherished plans for the future, change them
+greatly for a time. If he went and never returned it would be harder for
+her if he went as her lover. As it was he was merely her old comrade and
+friend; he could read from her manner that no deeper feeling had touched
+her--not for him, but he wondered about the musician----
+
+The spell was broken when Phoebe spoke again: "Do you know, Davie, I
+read somewhere that arbutus can't be made to grow anywhere except in its
+own woods, that the most skilful hand of man or woman can't transplant
+it to a garden where the soil is different from its native soil."
+
+"I never heard that before, but I remember that I tried several times
+and failed. I dug up a big box of the soil to make it grow, but it
+lasted several months and died. Let us go along this path and find a
+new bed; we have almost cleaned this one."
+
+"See"--she raised her bunch of flowers--"I didn't take a single root, so
+next year when we come we shall find as many as this year. They are too
+altogether lovely to be exterminated."
+
+They moved about the woods, finding new patches of the fragrant flowers,
+until they declared it would be robbery to take another one.
+
+"Let's eat," she suggested; "I'm hungry as a bear."
+
+"Race you to that big rock," cried David and began to run. Phoebe
+followed through the brush and dry leaves, but the farmer covered the
+distance too quickly for her.
+
+"Now I'm hungry," she said, panting; "I'll eat more than my share of the
+lunch."
+
+She climbed to the top of the boulder and they sat side by side, the
+lunch box resting on David's knees.
+
+"Now anything you want ask for," said he.
+
+"I will not!" She delved into the box and brought out a sandwich. "It's
+mine as much as yours."
+
+"Going in for Woman's Suffrage and Rights and the like?" he asked,
+laughing.
+
+"Ugh," she wrinkled her nose, "don't mention things like that to-day. I
+don't want to hear about war or work or problems or anything but just
+pure joy this day! I earned this perfect day this year. This is to be a
+day of all-joy for us. Have another sandwich? I'm going to--this makes
+only four more left for each. Aunt Maria knew what she was doing when
+she made me take this big box of lunch for just us two. Now, aren't you
+glad that I brought lunch in a box instead of eating our dinner at
+Hull's as you suggested?" she said as she kicked her feet, little girl
+fashion, against the side of the boulder.
+
+"Of course I am glad. I was afraid you might like dinner at the tavern
+better, that is why I suggested it."
+
+"Don't you know me better than that? Why, we can eat in dining-rooms
+three hundred and sixty-four days in every year. This is one day when we
+eat in the birds' dining-room."
+
+"I am enjoying it, Phoebe. It is the first picnic I have had for a long
+time. I can't tell how I'm drinking in the joy of it."
+
+"Now," said Phoebe later, when the last crumb had been taken out of the
+lunch box, "we can pack the arbutus in this box. If you find some damp
+moss I'll arrange them."
+
+She laid the flowers on the cushion of moss, covered them with a few
+damp leaves and closed the box. "That will keep them fresh," she said.
+"Now for our drink of mountain water, then home again."
+
+Farther in the woods they found the spring. In a little cove edged with
+laurel bushes and overhung with chestnut trees and tall oaks it sent up
+a bubbling fountain of cold water.
+
+"I'm sorry the picnic is over," said Phoebe as she leaned over the clear
+water and drank the cold draught.
+
+"There is still the lovely drive home," he consoled her.
+
+"Yes," she said as they turned and walked back through the woods to the
+road again, "and I shall remember this day for a long time. In the
+spring it's dreadful to be shut in the city."
+
+"I believe you are growing tired of Philadelphia."
+
+"Yes and no. I love the many things to do and see there, but on a day
+like this I think the country is the place to really enjoy the spring. I
+wish you could come down some time to the city; there are many places of
+interest you would like to visit."
+
+"Yes." He opened his lips to tell her that he was soon to be in the
+service of his country, then he remembered that she had said she did not
+want to hear the word war on that day, it must be a day of all joy, so
+he closed his mouth resolutely and merely smiled in answer as she
+entered the carriage for the ride home. They spoke of many things; she
+was gay with the childish happiness she always felt in the woods or open
+country roads. He answered her gaiety, but his heart ached. What did the
+future hold for him? Would she, perchance, love another before he could
+return--would he return?
+
+"Look," Phoebe said after they had driven several miles, "it is going to
+storm--see how dark! We are going to have an April storm."
+
+Even as they looked up black clouds moved swiftly across the sky. They
+turned and looked toward the mountains behind them--the summits were
+shrouded in dense blackness; the whole countryside was being enveloped
+in a gloom like the gloom of late twilight. There was an ominous silence
+in the air, living things of the fields and woods scurried to shelter;
+only a solitary red-headed woodpecker tapped noisily upon a dead tree
+trunk.
+
+Suddenly sharp flashes of lightning darted in zigzag rays through the
+gloom.
+
+Phoebe gripped the side of the carriage. "The storm is following us,"
+she said. "Look at the hills--they are black as night. Can we get home
+before the storm breaks over us?"
+
+"Hardly. It travels faster than we can, and we still have four more
+miles to go."
+
+The horse sniffed the air through inflated nostrils and sped unbidden
+over the country road. The lightning grew more vivid and blinding and
+darted among the hills with greater frequency; loud peals of thunder
+echoed and reëchoed among the mountains. Then the rain came. In great
+splashes, which increased rapidly, it poured its cool torrents upon the
+earth.
+
+Phoebe laughed but David shook his head. "We'll have to stop some place
+till it's over. You're getting wet. I'll drive in this barnyard."
+
+Amid the deafening crashes of thunder and the steady downpour of rain
+they ran through the barnyard and up the path that led to the house. As
+they stepped upon the porch a door was opened and a woman appeared.
+
+"Why, come right in!" she greeted them. "This is a bad storm."
+
+"If you don't mind," Phoebe began, but the woman was talkative and broke
+in, "Now, I just knowed there'd be company come to-day yet! This after
+when I dried the dishes I dropped a knife and fork and that's a sure
+sign. Mebbe you don't believe in signs?"
+
+"They come true sometimes," said Phoebe.
+
+"Ach, yes, my granny used to plant her garden by the signs in the
+almanac. Cabbage, now, must be planted in the up-sign. But mebbe you're
+hungry after your drive? I'll get some cake."
+
+"We had lunch----"
+
+"Ach, if your man's like mine he can eat cake any time." She opened a
+door that led to the cellar and soon returned with a plate piled high
+with cake. "Now eat," she invited. "But, ach, I just thought of it--you
+said you come from Greenwald--then I guess you know about Caleb Warner
+dying, killing himself, or something."
+
+"Caleb Warner dying!" David echoed. He half started from his chair, then
+sank with a visible effort at self-control.
+
+"Yes. I guess you know him. My mister was in to dinner a while ago and
+he said it went over the 'phone at Risser's and Jacob Risser told him
+that Caleb Warner of Greenwald was dead. It was from gas or something
+funny like that. It's the Warner that sold that oil stock and gold
+stock. You know him?"
+
+David nodded, his lips dry.
+
+"Well, I guess now a lot of people will lose money. There's a lady lives
+near here that gave him almost all her money for some of his stock. For
+a while she got big interest from it, but then it stopped and now she
+ain't got hardly enough money to live. And I guess a lot will lose
+money. My mister had no time for that stock. But if the man's dead now
+we should let him rest, I guess."
+
+"Yes----" David braced himself. "The rain is over. Phoebe, we must go."
+
+He smiled to the little woman as he gripped her hand. "You have been
+very kind to us and we appreciate it."
+
+"Yes, indeed," echoed Phoebe. "I hope we have not kept you from your
+work."
+
+"Ach, I can work enough to-day yet. I like company and I don't have much
+of it week-days. Um, ain't it good smelly after the rain?" She sniffed,
+smiling, as she followed Phoebe and David down the path to the barnyard.
+
+"Good-bye," she called as they drove off. "Safe home."
+
+"Thank you. Good-bye," Phoebe called over the side of the carriage.
+Then, as they entered again upon the country road, she turned to her
+place beside David.
+
+She looked up at him. All the light and joy had faded from his face; he
+stared straight head, though he must have felt her eyes' intent gaze
+upon him.
+
+"David," she said softly, "what is wrong?"
+
+"Nothing," he lied.
+
+"Seems you look different," she persisted. "Is it anything about Caleb
+Warner's death?"
+
+"I'm not much of a stoic, Phoebe. I should have hidden my worry. But you
+must forget it; we must not let it spoil our perfect day. It really is
+no great matter. I am affected, in some way you can't know, by his
+death, but I'll get over it," he tried to treat the matter lightly.
+
+But Phoebe felt a sudden heaviness of heart. She was almost certain that
+David had had no money to buy any stock from Caleb Warner, therefore,
+she jumped to the conclusion, it must be that David cared for Mary
+Warner, as town gossip said he did, and that the death of the girl's
+father would affect him. She felt hurt and baffled and sorely rebuffed
+at the withholding of David's confidence and was worried as she saw the
+marks of worry in the face of the man. Womanlike, she felt certain that
+the other girl was not good enough for David. Mary Warner, beautiful,
+aristocratic in bearing and manner--what had she to do with a man like
+David Eby! Was an incipient engagement with Mary Warner the Aladdin's
+lamp David had mentioned several times as being on the verge of rubbing
+and thus become rich? The thought left her trembling; she shivered in
+the April sunshine. When David spoke it was with an abstracted manner,
+and the girl beside him finally said, "Oh, don't let us talk. Let us
+just sit and look at the fields and enjoy the scenery."
+
+She said it calmly enough, but the man beside her could not know that it
+required the last shreds of her courage to keep her voice from breaking.
+She would not let David see that she cared if he did care for Mary
+Warner! Of course, she didn't want to marry him, it was merely that she
+knew Mary was too haughty for him. Mother Bab would also say that he was
+too different from Mary, that he was too fine for her. Then she
+remembered that Mother Bab had said on the previous evening that the
+Warners had taken David to Hershey recently in their fine new car. She
+shook herself in an effort at self-control. "Phoebe," she thought,
+"you're selfish! You go to Philadelphia and you go out with Royal Lee
+and dance with other young men, and yet, when David pays attention to
+another girl you have a spasm!"
+
+But the self-administered discipline failed to correct her attitude. She
+knew their day of all-joy was changed for her as it had been changed for
+David. The jealousy in her heart could not be quite overcome. She was
+glad when they reached familiar fields and were on the road near
+Greenwald.
+
+"Will you come in?" she invited as she left the carriage.
+
+"No. I better go right home."
+
+"I'll divide the flowers, David."
+
+"Oh, keep them all."
+
+"No, indeed. Mother Bab would be disappointed if you brought her none."
+
+She opened the box, separated half of the arbutus from their mates and
+laid them in the uplifted corner of her coat. "There," she said, "the
+rest are yours and Mother Bab's. It was perfect in the woods to-day.
+Thank you----"
+
+But he interrupted her. "It is I who must say that, Phoebe! This has
+been a great day. I'll never forget the glorious hour when we were on
+our knees and pushed away the leaves and found the arbutus. That is
+something to take with one, to remember when the days are not perfect as
+this one."
+
+He laid his fingers a moment on her hand as she held the corner of her
+coat to keep the flowers from falling, then he turned and jumped into
+the carriage.
+
+"Give my love to Mother Bab," she said.
+
+He turned, smiled and nodded, then started off. Phoebe stood at the gate
+and watched the carriage as it went slowly up the steep road by the
+hill. Her thoughts were with the man who was going home to his mother,
+going with trailing arbutus in his hands and some great unhappiness in
+his heart.
+
+"Is it always so?" she thought. "We carry fragrance in our hands, but
+what in our hearts?" For the time she was once more the old sympathetic,
+natural Phoebe, eager to help her friend in need, feeling the divine
+longing to comfort one who was miserable. "Oh, Davie, Davie," she
+thought as she went into the house, "I wish I could help you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+MOTHER BAB AND HER SON
+
+
+WHEN David drove over the brow of the hill and down the green lane to
+the little house he called home he caught sight of his mother in her
+garden. He whistled. At the sound Mother Bab rose from the soft earth in
+which she was working and straightened, smiling. She raised a hand to
+shade her eyes and waited for the coming of her boy, dreaming of a
+possible separation from him, dreaming long mother-dreams while he took
+the horse and carriage to the barn.
+
+When he returned he had mustered all his courage and was smiling--he
+would be a stoic as long as he could, but he knew that his mother would
+soon discover that all was not well with him.
+
+"Here, mother." He gave her the box of arbutus.
+
+"Then you got some, Davie!" She buried her face in the cool, sweet
+blossoms. "Oh, how sweet they are! Did you and Phoebe have a good time?
+Did she enjoy it as much as she always used to enjoy a day in the
+woods?"
+
+She looked up suddenly from the flowers and caught him unawares. "What
+is wrong?" she asked with real concern. "Did you and Phoebe fall out?"
+
+"No," he shook his head. He knew that attempts at subterfuge and evasion
+would be vain. "No, mommie, no use trying to deceive you any longer--I
+fell out with myself--I wish I could keep it from you," he added slowly;
+"I know it's going to hurt you."
+
+"You tell me, Davie. I've lived sixty years and never yet met a trouble
+I couldn't live through. Tell me about it."
+
+She placed the box of arbutus in the garden path and laid her hand on
+his arm.
+
+"Oh, mommie," he blurted out, almost sobbing, "I'm ashamed of myself!
+You'll be ashamed of your boy."
+
+"It's no girl----" the mother hesitated.
+
+He answered with a vehement, "No!"
+
+"Then tell me," she said softly. "I can look in your eyes and hear you
+tell me most anything so long as you need not tell me that you have
+broken the heart or spoiled the soul of a girl."
+
+She spoke gently, but the man cried out, "Thank God, I have nothing like
+that to confess! You know there is only one girl for me. I could never
+look into her eyes if I had betrayed the trust of any girl. I have
+dreamed of growing into a man she could love and marry, but I failed. I
+wanted to offer her more than slavery on a farm, I wanted to have
+something more than the few hundreds I scraped together. I took the five
+hundred dollars we skimped for and bought stock of Caleb Warner--you
+heard that he died?"
+
+"Phares told me."
+
+"I guess the five hundred dollars is gone with him! I heard of other
+men getting rich by buying gold and oil stock so I took a chance and
+staked all the spare money I had."
+
+"It was your money, Davie."
+
+"You called it mine, but you helped to earn and save it. Caleb promised
+me he would sell half of the stock for me at a great profit in a week or
+two, and I could keep the other half for the big dividends it would pay
+me soon--now he's dead, and the stock is probably worthless."
+
+He looked miserably at her troubled face. She flung her arm about him
+and led him to a seat under the budded cherry tree. "We must sit down
+and talk it over," she said. "Perhaps it isn't so bad as you think. Are
+you sure the stock is worth nothing? Perhaps you can get something out
+of it."
+
+"Perhaps I can." He brightened at the suggestion.
+
+"Well," she went on, "I can't say that I think you did right to buy the
+stock and try to get rich quick. You know that money gotten that way is
+tainted money, more or less. To earn what you have and have a little is
+better and safer than to have much and get it in such a way. But it's
+too late to preach about that now--I guess I didn't tell you that often
+enough and hard enough before this, or else you wouldn't have wanted to
+buy the stock. It is partly my fault, for I thought some time ago you
+talked as though you were getting the money craze, but I thought it
+would soon wear off. You did a foolish thing, but there's no use crying
+about it. You see you did wrong and are sorry, so that is all there is
+to it. I'm not sorry you lost on the stock, for if you made on it the
+craze would go deeper. I can live without the few extra things that
+money would buy."
+
+"Don't be so forgiving, mother! Scold me! I'd feel less like a criminal.
+But here comes Phares; he'll give me the scolding you're saving me."
+
+The preacher crossed the lawn and advanced to the seat under the cherry
+tree.
+
+"Aunt Barbara," he began, then noted the troubled look on the face of
+David and asked, "What is wrong?"
+
+"Nothing," said David, "except that I have some of Caleb Warner's
+stock."
+
+"You do? Whatever made you buy that?"
+
+David spoke as calmly as possible. "I wanted to be rich, that's all. But
+I guess I was never intended to be that."
+
+"I'm afraid you are going to be sorry," said the preacher very soberly.
+"I just came from town and they say things look bad for the investors.
+They said first that Warner was asphyxiated accidentally, but he was so
+deep in a hole with investing and re-investing other people's money and
+his own and he had lost so much that people think this was the easiest
+way out of it all for him. I suppose it will be hushed up and no one
+will ever know just how he died. There are at least twenty people in
+town and farms near here who are worried about their money since he
+died. Did you have much stock?"
+
+"Five hundred dollars' worth."
+
+"If people were as eager to lay up treasures in heaven----" the preacher
+said thoughtfully.
+
+"If they were," said David, struggling to keep the wrath from his words
+and voice. "I know, Phares, you can't understand why everybody should
+not be as good as you. I wish I were--mother should have had a son like
+you. I'm the black sheep of the Eby family, I suppose."
+
+"No, no!" cried Mother Bab. "We all make mistakes! You are good and
+noble, David. I am proud of you, even if you do err sometimes."
+
+"We must make the best of it," said the preacher. "Perhaps the stock is
+not quite worthless. If I were you I'd go to the lawyer in Lancaster.
+He'll see you at his house if you 'phone in."
+
+"Mighty good to think of that for me," said David, gripping the hand of
+his cousin. "I'll go in to-night."
+
+Several hours later David Eby sat before a lawyer and waited for the
+verdict. "I'm sorry," the lawyer shook his head. "The stock is
+worthless. Six months ago you might have sold it; now it's dead as a
+door-nail."
+
+"Guess it was a wildcat scheme," said David.
+
+A few minutes later he went out to the street. His Aladdin's lamp was
+smashed! What a fool he had been!
+
+When he reached home Mother Bab read the news in his face. "Never mind,"
+she said bravely, "we'll get along without that money."
+
+"Yes--but"--David spoke slowly, as if fearing to hurt her further--"I
+hoped to have a nice bank account for you to draw on when--when I go."
+
+"You mean----" Mother Bab stopped suddenly. Something choked her, but
+she faced him squarely and looked up into his face.
+
+"Yes, mother, I mean that I must go. You want me to go, don't you?"
+
+"Yes." The word came slowly, but David knew how truly she felt it. "You
+must go. I knew it right away when I saw that we were called of God to
+help in the fight for world peace and righteousness. You must go; there
+is nothing to keep you. Phares will look after the little farm. I spoke
+to him about it last week----"
+
+"Mother, you knew then!"
+
+"I saw it in your face as soon as war was declared. Phares was lovely
+about it and said he could just as well take your few acres in with his
+and pay a percentage to me for the crops he'll get from them. Phares is
+kind; he has a big heart, for all his queer ways and his strict views."
+
+"Phares is too good to be related to me, mommie. I'm ashamed of myself."
+
+"Ach, you two are just different, that's all. I can go over and stay at
+their house. Did you tell Phoebe you are going?"
+
+He shook his head. "I couldn't tell her yesterday. We had such a great
+day in the woods finding the arbutus, eating our lunch on a rock and
+acting just like we used to when we were ten years younger. She never
+mentioned war and I could not seem to break into that day of gladness
+to speak about the subject. I meant to tell her all about it when we got
+home, but then that storm came up and we stopped at a farmhouse and I
+heard about Caleb Warner. It struck me so hard I was just no good after
+that. I'll be a dandy soldier, won't I?"
+
+He laughed and took the little woman in his arms. When, some moments
+later, he held the white-capped mother at arms' length and smiled into
+her face neither knew if the wet lashes were caused by laughter or
+tears.
+
+"Some soldier you'll make," she said as she looked at him, tall, broad
+of shoulder, straight of spine. "Some soldier or sailor you'll make!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+PREPARATIONS
+
+
+THE days following the death of Caleb Warner were days of anxiety to
+other inhabitants of the little town who, like David, had purchased
+stock with glorious visions of sudden gain. In a short time the list of
+Warner's unfortunate investors was known and they were accorded various
+degrees of sympathy, rebuke or ridicule. The thing that hurt David was
+not so much the knowledge that some were speaking of him in condemnation
+or pity as the fact that he merited the condemnation.
+
+But he had neither time nor inclination for self-pity. His country was
+calling for his services and he knew his duty was to offer himself. He
+could not conscientiously say his mother had urgent need of him for he
+knew that the little farm would supply enough for her maintenance.
+
+Phares Eby, although a preacher among a sect who, as a sect, could not
+sanction the bearing of arms, accepted the decision of his cousin with
+no show of disapproval. "I don't believe in wars," he said gravely, "but
+there seems to be no other way this time. One of the Eby family should
+go. I'll be glad to keep up your farm and help look after your mother
+while you are gone. The most I can do here will be less than you are
+going to do, but I'll raise the best crops I can and help in the food
+end of it."
+
+"You'll do your part here, Phares, and it will count. You're a bona-fide
+farmer. You'll have our little place a record farm when I get back.
+You're a brick, Phares!" For the first time in months he felt a genuine
+affection for his preacher cousin. Preaching, prosaic Phares, how kind
+he was!
+
+Lancaster County measured up to its fair standard in those first trying
+days of recruit gathering. The sons of the nation answered when she
+called. Pennsylvania Dutch, hundreds of them, rallied round the flag and
+proved beyond a doubt that the real Pennsylvania Dutch are not
+German-American, but loyal, four-square Americans who are keeping the
+faith. Two hundred years ago the ancestors of the present Pennsylvania
+Dutch came to this country to escape tyranny, and the love of freedom
+has been transmitted from one generation to another. The plain sects, so
+flourishing in some portions of the Keystone State, consider war an
+evil, yet scores of men in navy blue and army khaki have come from homes
+where the mother wears the white cap, and have gone forth to do their
+part in the struggle for world freedom.
+
+As David Eby measured the days before his departure he felt grateful to
+Mother Bab for refraining from long homilies of advice. Her whole life
+was a living epistle of truth and nobility and she was wise enough to
+discern that what her son wanted most in their last days together was
+her customary cheerfulness--although he knew that at times the
+cheerfulness was a bit bluffed!
+
+News travels fast, even in rural communities. The people on the Metz
+farm soon learned of David's loss of money and of his desire to enter
+the navy.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me about the stock?" Phoebe chided him.
+
+"I couldn't. It knocked me out--it changed some of my plans. I knew
+you'd despise me and I couldn't stand that too that day."
+
+"Despise you! How foolish to think that. Of course it's better to earn
+your money, but I think you learned your lesson."
+
+"I have. I'll never try to get rich quick."
+
+"And you're going to war!" The words were almost a cry. "What does
+Mother Bab say? How dreadful for her!"
+
+"Dreadful?" he asked gently. "Phoebe, think a minute--would you rather
+be the mother of a soldier or sailor than the mother of a slacker?"
+
+"I would," she cried. "A thousand times rather!" She clutched his sleeve
+in her old impetuous manner. "I see now what it means, what war must
+mean to us! We must serve and be glad to do it. Your going is making it
+real for me. I'm proud of you and I know Mother Bab must be just about
+bursting with pride, for she always did think you are the grandest son
+in the wide world."
+
+"Phoebe, you always stroke me with the grain."
+
+"That sounds as if you were a wooden pussy-cat," she said merrily. "But
+you are just being funny to hide your deeper feelings. I know you,
+David Eby! Bet your heart's like lead this minute!"
+
+"'I have no heart,'" he quoted. "'The place where my heart was you could
+roll a turnip in.'"
+
+She laughed, then suddenly grew sober. "I've been horribly selfish," she
+said. "Having fine clothes and a good time and dreaming of fame through
+my voice have taken all my time during the past winter. I have taken
+only the husks of life and discarded the kernels. I'm ashamed of
+myself."
+
+"You mustn't condemn yourself too much. It's natural to pass through a
+period when those things seem the greatest things in the world, but if
+we do not shake off their influence and see the need of having real
+things to lay hold on we need to be jolted. I was money-mad, but I had
+my jolt."
+
+"Then we can both make a fresh beginning. And we'll try hard to be
+worthy of Mother Bab, won't we, David?"
+
+David was mute; he could merely nod his head in answer. Worthy of Mother
+Bab--what a goal! How sweet the name sounded from Phoebe's lips! Should
+he tell her of his love for her? He looked into her face. Her eyes were
+like clear blue pools but they mirrored only sisterly affection, he
+thought. Ah, well, he would be unselfish enough to go away without
+telling of the hope of his heart. If he came back there would be ample
+time to tell her; it was needless to bind her to a long-absent lover. If
+he came back crippled--if he never came back at all---- Oh, why delve
+into the future!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE FEAST OF ROSES
+
+
+IN the little town of Greenwald there is performed each year in June an
+interesting ceremony, the Feast of Roses.
+
+The origin of it dates back to the early colonial days when wigwam fires
+blazed in many clearings of this great land and Indians, fashioned after
+the similitude of bronze images, stole among the stalwart trees of the
+primeval forests. In those days, about the year 1762, a tract of land
+containing the present site of the little town of Greenwald fell into
+the hands of a German, who was so charmed by the fertility and beauty of
+the fields encircled by the winding Chicques Creek that he laid out a
+town and proceeded to build. The erection of those early houses entailed
+much labor. Bricks were imported from England and hauled from
+Philadelphia to the new town, a distance of almost one hundred miles.
+
+Some time later the founder built a glass factory in the new town,
+reputed to have been the first of its kind in America. Skilled workmen
+were imported to carry on the work, and marvelously skilful they must
+have been, as is proven by the articles of that glass still extant. It
+is delicately colored, daintily shaped, when touched with metal it
+emits a bell-like ring, and altogether merits the praise accorded it by
+every connoisseur of rare and beautiful glass.
+
+Tradition claims that the founder of that town was of noble birth, but
+his right to a title is not an indisputable fact. It is known, however,
+that he lived in baronial style in his new town. His red brick mansion
+was a treasure house of tapestries, tiles and other beautiful
+furnishings.
+
+However, whether he was a baron or an untitled man, he merits a share of
+admiration. He was founder of a glass factory, builder of a town,
+founder of iron works, religious and secular instructor of his employees
+and citizens, and earnest philanthropist.
+
+The last rôle resulted in his financial embarrassment. There is an
+ominous silence in the story of his life, then comes the information
+that the man who had done so much for others was left at last to
+languish in a debtors' jail, die unbefriended and be buried in an
+unknown grave.
+
+In the days of his prosperity he gave to the congregation of the
+Lutheran Church in his town a choice plot of ground, the consideration
+being the sum of five shillings and an annual rental of one red rose in
+June.
+
+Years passed, the man died, and either through forgetfulness or
+negligence the annual rental of one red rose was unpaid for many years.
+Then, one day a layman of the church found the old deed and the people
+prepared to pay the long-neglected debt once more. Since that renewal
+there is set apart each June a Sabbath day upon which the rose is paid
+to the nearest descendant of the founder of the town. They give but one
+red rose, but all around are roses, roses, and it seems most fitting to
+call the unique occurrence the Feast of Roses.
+
+If ever the little town puts on royal garb it is on the Feast of Roses
+Sabbath. For days before the ceremony the homes of Greenwald are
+beehives of industry. That day each train and trolley, every country
+road, is crowded with strangers or old acquaintances coming into the
+town. A heterogeneous crowd swarms through the street. The curious
+visitor who comes to see, the dreamer who is attracted by the romance of
+the rose, the careless youth who rubs his sleeve against some portly
+judge or senator; the tawdry, the refined, the rich, the poor--all meet
+in the crowd that moves to the red brick church in which the Feast of
+Roses is held.
+
+The old church of that early day has been removed and in its place a
+modern one has been erected, but by some happy inspiration of the
+builders the new church is devoid of the garish ornamentation that is
+too often found in churches. Harmonious coloring, artistic beauty, make
+it a fitting place for a Feast of Roses.
+
+When Phoebe Metz entered the church to keep her promise to sing at the
+service she found an eager crowd waiting for the opening. Every
+available space was occupied; people stood in the rear aisles, others
+waited in the churchyard by the open windows and hoped to catch there
+some stray parts of the service.
+
+Phoebe pushed her way gently through the crowd at the door and stood in
+the aisle until an usher saw her and directed her to a seat near the
+organ. The pink in her cheeks grew deeper. "I'll sing my best for
+Greenwald and the Feast of Roses," she thought. "And for David! He's in
+the crowd. He said he's coming to hear me sing."
+
+At the appointed hour the pipe-organ pealed out. The June sunlight
+streamed through the open windows, fell upon the banks of roses, and
+gleamed upon the fountain that played in the midst of the crimson
+flowers. Peace brooded over the place as the last strains of music died.
+There was silence for a moment, then a prayer, a hymn of adoration, and
+then the chosen speaker stood before the crowd and delivered his
+message.
+
+Phoebe listened to him until he uttered the words, "True life must be
+service, true love must be giving. No man has reached true greatness
+save he serves, and he who serves most faithfully is greatest in the
+kingdom."
+
+After those words she fell to thinking. Many things that had been dark
+to her suddenly became light. She seemed to see Royal Lee fiddling while
+the world was in travail, but beside him rose a vision of David in
+sailor's blue, ready to do his whole duty for his country.
+
+"Oh," she thought, "I've been blind, but now I see! It's David I want.
+He's a man!"
+
+She heard as in a dream the words of the one who presented the red rose
+to the heir. "Once more the time has come to pay our debt of one red
+rose. It is with cheerfulness and reverence we pay our rental. Amid
+these bright surroundings, in the presence of the many who have come to
+witness this unique ceremony, do we give to you in partial payment of
+the debt we owe--ONE RED ROSE."
+
+The heir received the flower and expressed her appreciation. Then
+silence settled upon the place and Phoebe rose to sing.
+
+As the organ sent forth the opening strains of music the people in the
+church looked at each other, surprised, disappointed. Why, that was the
+old tune, "Jesus, Lover of my soul." The tune they had heard sung
+hundreds of times--was Phoebe going to sing that? With so many
+impressive selections to choose from no soloist need sing that old hymn!
+Some of the town people thought disdainfully, "Was that all she could
+sing after a whole winter's study in Philadelphia!"
+
+But Phoebe sang the old words to the old tune. She sang them with a new
+power and sweetness. It touched the listeners in that rose-scented
+church and revealed to them the meaning of the old hymn. The dependence
+upon a divine guide, the utter impotence of mortal strength, breathed so
+persuasively in the second verse that many who heard Phoebe sing it
+mentally repeated the words with her.
+
+        "Other refuge have I none,
+           Hangs my helpless soul on Thee:
+         Leave, ah! leave me not alone,
+           Still support and comfort me;
+         All my trust on Thee is stayed;
+           All my help from Thee I bring;
+         Cover my defenceless head
+           With the shadow of Thy wing."
+
+Then the hymn changed--hope displaced hopelessness, faith surmounted
+fear.
+
+        "Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
+           Grace to cleanse from every sin;
+         Let the healing streams abound,
+           Make and keep me pure within;
+         Thou of life the fountain art,
+           Freely let me take of Thee:
+         Spring Thou up within my heart,
+           Rise to all eternity."
+
+The people in that rose-scented church heard the old hymn sung as they
+had never heard it sung before. A subdued hum of approval swept over the
+church as the girl sat down. She felt that she had sung well; her heart
+was in a tumult of happiness. She was glad when one man rose and lifted
+his hands in benediction.
+
+Again the organ throbbed with glad melodies. The eager crowd fell into
+line and walked slowly to the altar to lay their roses there. Children
+with half withered blossoms, maidens with bunches of crimson flowers,
+here and there a stranger with gorgeous hot-house roses, older men and
+women with the products of the gardens of the little town--all moved to
+the spot where lay a bank of fragrant roses and placed their tributes
+there.
+
+Phoebe added her roses to the others on the altar and left the church.
+Friends and acquaintances stopped to tell her how well she sang. But the
+words that one short year ago would have filled her with overwhelming
+pride in her own talent were soon crowded from her thoughts and there
+reigned there the words of the speaker, "No man has reached true
+greatness save he serves." She had learned great things at that Feast of
+Roses service. She had looked deep into her own heart and on its throne
+she had found David.
+
+He was waiting for her outside the church.
+
+"You sang fine, Phoebe," he told her as they went down the street
+together.
+
+"Yes? I'm glad you liked it."
+
+Then they spoke of other things, of many things, but not one word of the
+thoughts lying deepest in the heart of each.
+
+Aunt Maria and Jacob were eating supper in the big kitchen when Phoebe
+reached home.
+
+"Well," greeted the aunt, "did you come once! We thought that Feast of
+Roses would been out long ago. But when you didn't come for so long and
+supper was made we sat down a while. Did you sing?"
+
+"Yes," the girl said as she removed her hat and gloves and drew a chair
+to the table.
+
+"Now," cautioned the aunt, "put your apron on! That light goods in your
+dress is nothin' for wear; everything shows on it so. And if you spill
+red-beet juice or something on it it'll be spoiled."
+
+"I forgot." Phoebe took a blue gingham apron from a hook behind the
+kitchen door. "There, if I spoil it now you may have it for a rug."
+
+"Well, I guess that would be housekeepin'! And everything so high since
+the war!"
+
+"Tell me about the Feast of Roses," said the father. "Was the church
+full?"
+
+"Packed! It was a beautiful service."
+
+"Well," spoke up Aunt Maria, "I'm glad it's over and so are many people.
+Of course that Feast of Roses don't do no harm, but I think it's so dumb
+to have all this fuss just to give somebody a rose. If that man wanted
+to give the church some land why didn't he give it and done with it?
+It's no use to have this pokin' around every year to find the best red
+rose to give to some man or lady that's related to him. The rose withers
+right away, anyhow. And this Feast of Roses makes some people a lot of
+bother. I heard one woman say in the store that she has to get ready for
+a lot of company still for every person she knows, most, comes to visit
+her that Sunday and she's got to cook and wash dishes all day. I guess
+she's glad it's over for another year."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+BLINDNESS
+
+
+DAVID EBY had spent the day at Lancaster and returned to Greenwald at
+seven-thirty. He started with springing step out the country road in the
+soft June twilight. It was a twilight pervaded by blended perfumes and
+the sleepy chirp of birds. David drew in deep breaths of the fresh
+country air.
+
+"Lancaster County," he said aloud to himself, "and it's good enough for
+me!"
+
+Scarcely slackening his pace he started up the long road by the hill. He
+paused a moment on the summit and looked back at the town of Greenwald,
+then almost ran down the road to his home.
+
+He whistled his old greeting whistle.
+
+"Here, David, I'm on the porch," came his mother's voice.
+
+"Mommie," he cried gaily as he took her into his arms, "I knew you'd be
+looking for me."
+
+Then for the first time since his father's death he heard his mother
+sob. "Oh, mother," he asked, "is my going away as hard as all that? Or
+are you only glad to see me?"
+
+"Glad," she replied, restraining her emotion. "Sit down on the bench,
+Davie."
+
+"Why--I didn't notice it first--you're wearing dark glasses again! Are
+your eyes worse?"
+
+"Sit down, Davie, sit down," she said nervously. "That's right," she
+added as he sat beside her and put one arm about her.
+
+"Now tell me," he said imperiously. "Are you sure you're all right?
+You're not worrying about me?"
+
+"No, I'm not worrying about you; I quit worrying long ago. But I must
+tell you--I wish I didn't have to--don't be scared--it's just about my
+eyes."
+
+"Tell me! Are they worse?"
+
+She laid her hand on his knees. "Don't get excited--but--I can't see."
+
+"Can't see!" He repeated the words as though he could not understand
+them. Then he put his hands on her cheeks and peered into her face in
+the semi-darkness of the porch. "Not blind? Oh, mommie, not blind?"
+
+She nodded, her lips trembling. "Yes, it's come. I'm blind."
+
+The words, fraught with so much sorrow, sounded like claps of thunder in
+his ears. "Mother," he cried again, "you can't be blind!"
+
+"But I am. I knew it was coming. The light was getting dimmer every day.
+I could hardly see your face this morning when you went."
+
+"And I went away and you stayed here and went blind!" He broke into sobs
+and she allowed him to cry it out as they sat together in the darkness.
+
+"Come," she said at length, "now you mustn't take on so. It's not as
+awful as you think. I said to Phares to-day that I'm almost glad it's
+here, for it was awful to know it's coming."
+
+"But it's awful," he shuddered. "Come in to the light and let me see
+you--but oh, you can't see me!"
+
+"Yes I can." She reached a hand to his face. "This is the way I see you
+now. The same mouth and chin, the same mole on your left cheek--that's
+good luck, Davie--the same nose with its little turn-up."
+
+"Mommie"--he grabbed her hands and kissed them--"there's not another
+like you in the whole world! If I were blind I'd be groaning and moaning
+and making life miserable for everybody near me, and here you are your
+same cheerful self. You're the bravest of 'em all!"
+
+"But you mustn't think that I haven't rebelled against this, that I
+haven't cried out against it! I've had my hours of weakness and tears
+and rebellion."
+
+"And I never knew it."
+
+"No. Each one goes to Gethsemane alone."
+
+"But isn't it almost more than you can bear--to be blind?"
+
+"It's dreadful at first. I stumble so and every little sill and rug
+seems a foot high. But I'll soon learn."
+
+"Is there nothing to do? What did Dr. Munster say about your eyes when
+we were down to see him?"
+
+"He told me then I'd be blind soon. And he said the only thing might
+save my sight or bring it back was a delicate operation that would be a
+big risk, for it probably wouldn't help at any rate. So I'm not
+thinking of ever trying that. Now I don't want you to think I'm brave
+about it. I've cried all my tears a month ago, so don't put me on any
+pedestal. It seems hard not to see the people I love and all the
+beautiful things around me, but I'm glad I have the memory of them. I'm
+glad I know what a rainbow is, and a sunset."
+
+"Yes, but I think it's awful to know what they look like and never see
+them again. I can't, just can't, realize that you're blind!"
+
+"You will when you come back from war and have to fetch and carry for
+me. Your Aunt Mary and Phares are just lovely about it and willing to
+help in every way. I was going to live over with them at any rate."
+
+"I wish I could stay with you, mommie. You need me, but I guess Uncle
+Sam needs me too. I'm to go soon, you know."
+
+"You go, even if I am blind. I'm not helpless. It will be awkward for a
+while but there are many things I can do. I can knit without seeing."
+
+"You're a wonder! But is there no hope?"
+
+"Hope," she repeated softly. "No hope of the kind you mean, except that
+very severe operation that would cost big money and then perhaps not
+help. But this world isn't all. I've always liked that part of Isaiah,
+'The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall
+be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of
+the dumb sing.' I know now what it'll mean to us. It seems like the
+afflicted will have a special joy in that time."
+
+David was silent for a moment; his mother's words stirred in him
+emotions too great for ready words.
+
+Presently she continued, "But, Davie, this isn't heaven yet! And I'm
+concerned just now about helping myself to live the rest of this life
+the best way I can. I can knit like a machine and I like to knit
+socks----"
+
+The remainder was left unsaid for the strong arms of her boy surrounded
+her and held her close while his lips were pressed upon her forehead.
+
+"Such a mother," he breathed, as if the touch of her forehead bestowed a
+benediction upon him. "Such a mother!"
+
+In the morning he brought the news to the Metz farmhouse.
+
+"Blind?" Phoebe cried.
+
+David nodded.
+
+"Blind! Mother Bab blind? Oh, it's too awful!"
+
+"My goodness," Aunt Maria said with genuine sorrow, "now that's too bad!
+Her blind and you goin' off to war soon!"
+
+"I'm going up to see her," said Phoebe, and went off with David.
+
+Mother Bab heard the girl's step and called gaily, "Phoebe, is that you?
+I declare, it sounds like you!"
+
+Phoebe ran to the room where Mother Bab sat alone. The girl could not
+speak at first; she twined her arms about the woman while her heart
+ached with its poignant grief. Again it was the afflicted one who
+turned comforter. "Come, Phoebe, you mustn't cry for me. Laugh like you
+always did when you came to see me."
+
+"Laugh! Oh, Mother Bab, I can't laugh!"
+
+"But, Phoebe, I'll want you to come up to see me every day when you can
+and you surely can't cry every time and be sad, so you might as well
+begin now to be cheerful."
+
+"But, Mother Bab, can't something be done?"
+
+"Dr. Munster, the big doctor I saw in Philadelphia, said that only a big
+operation might help me, but he's not sure that even it would do any
+good. And, of course, we have no money for it and at my age it doesn't
+matter so much."
+
+Later, as Phoebe walked down the hill again, she kept revolving in her
+mind what Mother Bab had said about the operation. An inspiration
+suddenly flashed to her. The wonder of it made her stand still in the
+road.
+
+"I know! I'll buy sight for Mother Bab! I will! I must! If it's only
+money that's necessary, if there's any wonderful doctor can operate on
+her eyes and make her see again she's going to see! Oh, glory! What a
+happy thought! I'm the happiest girl since that idea came to me! The
+money I meant to spend on more music lessons next winter will be put to
+better use; it will give Mother Bab a chance to see again! Why, I'd
+rather have her _see_ than be able to call myself the greatest singer in
+the world! But she'll never let me spend so much money for her. I know
+that. I'll have to make her believe the operation will be free. I can
+fool her in that, dear, innocent, trusting Mother Bab! She'd believe me
+against half the world. But I'm afraid I can't fool David so easily. I
+must wait till he goes, then I'll write to Dr. Munster and start things
+going!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+OFF TO THE NAVY
+
+
+PHOEBE was glad when David came to her with the news that he had been
+accepted for the navy and was going to Norfolk.
+
+"That's so far away he won't come home soon," she thought. "It'll give
+me a chance to arrange for the operation. I hope he goes soon. That's a
+dreadful thing to say! The days are all too short for Mother Bab, I
+know."
+
+If the days seemed Mercury-shod to the blind mother she did not
+complain.
+
+"It's hard to let you go," she said to her boy, "but it would be harder
+to see you a slacker. Phoebe is going to read to me now when you go.
+She'll be up here often."
+
+"Yes, that makes it easier for me to go, mommie."
+
+"Don't you worry about me. Phoebe will be good company for me and she'll
+write my letters for me. We'll send you so many you'll be busy reading
+them."
+
+"I'm going to make her promise that," he declared with a laugh.
+
+He exacted the promise as Mother Bab and Phoebe stood with him and
+waited for the train to carry him away. "Mother, you and Phoebe must
+take me to the train," he had said. "I want you to be the last picture
+I see as the train pulls out." Phoebe had assented, though she thought
+ruefully of the deficiency of the English language, which has but one
+form for singular _you_ and plural _you_. She wondered whether he
+included her in the picture he wanted to cherish in his memory. Now,
+when he was going away from her she knew that she loved her old
+playmate, that he was the one man in the world for her. She loved David,
+she would always love him! She wanted to run to him and tell him so, but
+centuries of restriction had bequeathed to her the universal fear of
+womanhood to reveal a love that has not been sought. She felt that in
+all her life she had never wanted anything so keenly as she wanted to
+hear David Eby tell her that he loved her, that her face would be with
+him in whatever circumstances the future should place him. But David
+could not read the heart of his old playmate, and while his own heart
+cried out for its mate his words were commonplace.
+
+"Mother has promised that I'm to have so many letters that I can't read
+them all. As you're to be private secretary, you'll have to promise to
+carry out her promise."
+
+"David," she met him with equal jest, "you have as many promises in that
+sentence as a candidate for political office."
+
+"But I want them better kept than that," he said, laughing. "Will you
+promise, Phoebe?"
+
+"Promise what?" she asked, the levity fading suddenly.
+
+"To write often for mother."
+
+"Yes--I promise to write often for Mother Bab," she said, and the man
+could not know the effort the simple words cost her. "Oh, Davie," she
+thought, "it's not for Mother Bab alone I want to write to you! I want
+to write you _my_ letters, letters of a girl to the man she loves. How
+blind you are!"
+
+The moment was becoming tense. It was Mother Bab who turned the tide
+into a normal channel. "Now, don't you worry, Davie. I can make Phoebe
+mind me."
+
+The train whistled. Phoebe drew a long breath and prayed that the train
+would make a short stop and speed along for she could not endure much
+more. She looked at Mother Bab. The hysteria was turned from her. She
+knew she would have to be brave for the sake of the dear mother.
+
+"I'll take care of Mother Bab, David," she promised as the train drew
+in, "and I'll write often."
+
+"Phoebe, you're an angel!" He grasped both hands in his for a long
+moment. Then he turned to his mother, folded her in his arms and kissed
+her.
+
+"There he is," Phoebe cried as the train moved. She was eyes for Mother
+Bab. "Turn to the right a bit and wave; that's it! He's waving back----
+Oh, Mother Bab, he's waving that box of sand-tarts Aunt Maria gave him!
+They'll be in pieces!"
+
+"Sand-tarts," said the other, still waving to the boy she could not see.
+"Well, he'll eat them if they are broken. Davie is crazy for cookies."
+
+"I'm going to need you more than ever now, Phoebe," Mother Bab said as
+they started home. "Aunt Mary and Phares are so busy and I feel it's so
+lovely of them to have me there when I can do so little to help, that I
+don't want to make them more trouble than I must. So if you'll take care
+of the writing to David for me I'll be glad." Ah, blind Mother Bab, you
+had splendid vision just then!
+
+"I'll write for you. I'll love to do it. Mother Bab----" She hesitated.
+Should she broach the subject of the operation now? Perhaps it would be
+kind to divert the thoughts of the mother from the recent parting.
+"Mother Bab, I've thought about what you said, and I think you should
+have that operation. The doctor said there was a chance."
+
+"Ach, a very slim one. One chance in--I don't know how many!"
+
+"But a chance!"
+
+"Yes"--the woman thought a moment--"but it would cost lots of money, I
+guess. I didn't ask the doctor, but I know operations are dear. I have
+fifty dollars saved, but that wouldn't go far."
+
+"But don't you know," the girl said guilelessly, "that all big hospitals
+have free rooms and do lots of work for nothing? Many rich people endow
+rooms in hospitals. If you could get into one like that and pay just a
+little, would you go?"
+
+A light seemed to settle upon the face of the blind woman. "Why," she
+answered slowly, "why, Phoebe, I never thought of that! I didn't
+remember--why, I guess I would--yes, of course! I'd go and make a fight
+for that one chance!"
+
+"I knew you'd be brave! You'll have that operation, Mother Bab! I'll
+write to Dr. Munster right away. But don't you let Phares write and tell
+David. We'll surprise him!"
+
+"Ach, but won't he be glad if I can see when he comes home!"
+
+"Won't he though! I'll make all the arrangements; don't you worry about
+it at all."
+
+"My, you're good to me, Phoebe!"
+
+"Good--after all you've done for me!"
+
+"_Good_," she thought after Mother Bab had been left at the home of
+Phares and Phoebe turned homeward. "She calls me good the first time I
+deceive her. I've begun that tangled web and I know I'll have to tell a
+whole pack of lies before I'm through with it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+THE ONE CHANCE
+
+
+PHOEBE lost no time in carrying out her plans. When she mentioned the
+operation to Phares Eby he looked dubious.
+
+"I'm afraid it's no use," he said gravely. "Those operations very often
+fail."
+
+"But there's a chance, Phares! If it were your eyes wouldn't you snatch
+at any meagre chance?"
+
+"Why, I guess I would," he admitted, wondering at her insight into human
+nature and admiring her devotion to the blind woman.
+
+Aunt Maria also was sceptical. "Ach, Phoebe, it vonders me now that
+Barb'll spend all that money for carfare and to stay in the city and
+then mebbe it's all for nothin'. There was old Bevy Way and a lot of old
+people I knowed went blind and they died blind. When abody gets so old
+once it seems the doctors can't do much. I guess it just is to be."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Maria," Phoebe said hotly, "I don't believe in that is-to-be
+business! Not until you've done all you can to make things better."
+
+"Well, mebbe, for all, it's worth tryin'. I guess if it was my eyes I'd
+do most anything to get 'em fixed again."
+
+Mother Bab said little about the hopes Phoebe had raised, but the girl
+knew how the woman built upon having sight for a glad surprise for
+David.
+
+"I'm afraid the fifty dollars won't reach," she said the day before they
+were to take the trip to Philadelphia.
+
+"Don't worry about that. Those big doctors usually have hearts to match.
+I told you there are generous people who give lots of money to
+hospitals."
+
+"And I guess the hospitals pay the doctors then," offered the woman.
+
+"I guess so," Phoebe agreed. Her conscience smote her for the deception
+she was practicing on the dear white-capped woman. "But what's the use
+of straining at every little gnat of a falsehood," she thought, "when
+I'm swallowing camels wholesale?"
+
+She managed to secure a short interview with Dr. Munster before the
+examination of Mother Bab's eyes.
+
+"I want to ask you what the operation is going to cost, hospital charges
+and all," she said frankly.
+
+"At least five hundred dollars."
+
+Phoebe's year in the city had taught her many things. She showed no
+surprise at the amount named. "That will be satisfactory, Dr. Munster.
+But I want to ask you, please don't tell Moth--Mrs. Eby anything about
+it. I--it's to be paid by a friend. I know Mrs. Eby would almost faint
+if she knew so much money was going to be spent for her. She knows that
+many hospitals have free rooms and thinks some operations are free. I
+left her under that impression. You understand?"
+
+The big doctor understood. "Yes, I see. Well, we'll run this one chance
+to cover and make a fight. I wish I could promise more," he said.
+
+"Thank you. I know you'll succeed. I'm sure she'll see again!"
+
+True to his promise Dr. Munster answered Mother Bab so tactfully that
+she came out of his office feeling that "the physician is the flower of
+our civilization, that cheerfulness and generosity are a part of his
+virtues."
+
+The optimism in Phoebe's heart tinged the blind woman's with its cheery
+faith. "I figure it this way," the girl said; "we'll do all we can and
+then if we fail there's time enough to be resigned and say it's God's
+will."
+
+"Phoebe, you're a wonderful girl! Your name means _shining_, and that
+just suits you. You're doing so much for me. Why, you didn't even want
+to let me pay your carfare down here!"
+
+The girl winced again. "I must learn to wince without showing it," she
+thought, "for after she sees she'll keep saying such things and I can't
+spoil it all by letting her know the truth."
+
+Perhaps the optimistic words of Phoebe rang in the ears of the big
+doctor as he bent over Mother Bab's sightless eyes and began the tedious
+operation. His hands moved skilfully, with infinite precision, cutting
+to the infinitesimal fraction of an inch.
+
+Afterward, when Mother Bab had been taken away, he sought Phoebe. "I
+hope," he said, "that your faith was not unwarranted, though I can't
+promise anything yet."
+
+"Oh, I'm surer now than ever!" the girl said happily.
+
+But at times, in the days of waiting, her heart ached. What if the
+operation had failed, what if Mother Bab would have to bear cruel
+disappointment? All the natural buoyancy of the girl's nature was
+required to bear her through the trying days of waiting. With the
+dawning of the day upon which the bandage should be removed and the
+truth known Phoebe's excitement could not be restrained.
+
+"I can't wait!" she exclaimed. "I want to be right there when he takes
+it off. I want you to see me first, since David isn't here."
+
+Long after that day it seemed to her that she could hear Mother Bab's
+glad, sweet voice saying, "I can see!"
+
+"I can see!" The words were electric in their effect. Phoebe gave an
+ecstatic "Oh!" then hushed as her lips trembled.
+
+"You win," the big doctor said to her.
+
+"Oh, no, not I! You! But I knew she'd see again!"
+
+"She sees again, but," he cautioned, "Mrs. Eby, there must be no reading
+or sewing or any close work to strain your eyes."
+
+"Oh, doctor, it's enough just to see again! I can do without the reading
+and writing, for Phoebe, here, does all that for me. And I'll not miss
+the sewing. I'm glad I can potter around the garden again and plant
+flowers and _see_ them and"--her voice broke--"I think it's wonderful
+there are men like you in the world!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+BUSY DAYS
+
+
+THE news of the operation spread quickly and with it spread the
+interesting information that Mother Bab was keeping her sight as a
+surprise for David. So it happened that no letters to him contained the
+news, that even the town paper refrained from printing the item of heart
+interest and David's surprise was unspoiled.
+
+His letters to Mother Bab were long and interesting and always required
+frequent re-reading for the mother.
+
+"I wanted to read that letter awful bad," she confessed to Phoebe one
+day, "but I didn't. I'm not taking any chances with my eyes. I'm too
+glad to be able to see at all. The letter came this morning and Phares
+read it for me, but I want to hear it again. Will you read it, Phoebe?
+Did David write to you this week yet?"
+
+"No." The girl felt the color surging to her cheeks. "He doesn't write
+to me very often. He knows I read your letters."
+
+"Ach, yes. I guess he's busy, too. It's a big change for him to be
+learning to be a sailor when he always had his feet on dry land. But
+read the letter; it's a nice big one."
+
+Phoebe's clear laughter joined Mother Bab's at one paragraph: "Do you
+remember the blue sailor suits you used to make for me when I was a tiny
+chap? And once you made me a real tam and I was proud as a peacock in
+it. Well, since I'm here and wearing a sailor suit I feel like a
+masculine edition of Alice in Wonderland when she felt herself growing
+bigger and bigger and I wonder sometimes if I'll shrink back again and
+be just that little boy."
+
+Another portion of the letter set Phoebe's voice trembling as she read,
+"I must tell you again, mother, how thankful I am that you made it so
+much easier for me to go than I dreamed it could be. You are so fine
+about it. With a mother as plucky as you I can't very well be a
+jelly-fish. It's great to have a mother one has to reach high to live up
+to."
+
+"Just like David," said Phoebe as she laid the letter aside. "Of course
+I think war is dreadful, but the training is going to do wonders for
+many of the men."
+
+"Yes," said the white-capped woman. "Out of it some good will come.
+Selfishness is going to be erased clean from the souls of many people by
+the time war is over."
+
+"But we must pay a big price for all we gain from it."
+
+"Yes--I wonder--I guess Davie will be going over soon. He said, you
+know, that if we don't hear from him for a while not to worry. I guess
+that means he thinks he'll be going over."
+
+When, at length, news came from the other side it was Phoebe who was the
+bringer of the tidings.
+
+"Oh, Mother Bab," she cried breathlessly one day in autumn as she ran
+back from the gate after a visit from the postman, "it's a letter from
+France!"
+
+Phares Eby and his mother ran at the news and the four stood, an eager
+group, as Phoebe opened the letter.
+
+"Read it, Phoebe! He's over safely!" Mother Bab's voice was eager.
+
+"I--I can't read it. I'm too excited. I can't get my breath. You read
+it, Phares."
+
+The preacher read in his slow, calm way.
+
+                                "_Somewhere in France._
+
+    "DEAR MOTHER:
+
+    "You see by the heading I'm safe over here. I can't
+    tell you much about the trip--no use wearing out
+    the censor's pencils. The sea's wonderful, but I
+    like dry land better. I'm on dry land now, in a
+    quaint French village where the streets run up hill
+    and the people wear strange costumes. The women
+    wash their clothes by beating them on stones in the
+    brook--how would the Lancaster County women like
+    that?"
+
+It was a long, chatty letter and it warmed the heart of the mother and
+interested Phoebe and the others who heard it.
+
+"He's a great David," the preacher said as he handed the letter to
+Phoebe. "I suppose you'll have to read it over and over to Aunt
+Barbara."
+
+He looked at the girl as he spoke. Her high color and shining eyes spoke
+eloquently of her interest in the letter. "Ah," he thought, "I believe
+she still _likes Davie best_. I'm sure she does."
+
+The preacher had been greatly changed by the events of the past year.
+He would always be a bit too strict in his views of life, a bit narrow
+in many things. Nevertheless, he was changed. He was less harsh in his
+opinions of others since he had seen and heard how thousands who were
+not of his religious faith had gone forth to lay down their lives that
+the world might be made a decent place in which to live. He, Phares Eby,
+preacher, had formerly denounced all that pertained to actors and the
+theatre, yet tears had coursed down his cheeks as he had read the
+account of a famous comedian who had given his only son for the cause of
+freedom and who was going about in the camps and in the trenches
+bringing cheer to the men. As the preacher read that he confessed to
+himself that the comedian, familiar as he was with footlights, was doing
+more good in the world than a dozen Phares Ebys. That one incident swept
+away some of the prejudice of the preacher. He knew he could never
+sanction the doings so many people indulge in but he felt at the same
+time that those same pleasures need not have a damning influence upon
+all people.
+
+Phoebe noted the change in him. She felt like a discoverer of hidden
+treasure when she heard of the influence he was exerting in behalf of
+the Red Cross and Liberty Loans. But she was finding hidden treasures in
+many places those days. Strenuous, busy days they were but they held
+many revelations of soul beauty.
+
+Every link with Phoebe's former life in Philadelphia was broken save the
+one binding her to Virginia. That friendship was too precious to be
+shattered. The country girl had written a long letter to the city girl,
+telling of the decision to give up the music lessons. "My dear, dear
+friend," she wrote frankly, "you tried to keep me from being hurt, but I
+wouldn't see. How I must have worried you and how foolish I was! I know
+better now. I do not regret my winter in the city and I do appreciate
+all you did for me, but I am happy to be back on the farm again. I'm
+afraid I tried to be an American Beauty rose when I was meant to be just
+some ordinary wild flower like the daisy or even the common yarrow. I
+owe so much to you. We must always be friends."
+
+One day in late summer Phoebe fairly radiated joy as she hurried up the
+hill and ran down the road to the garden where Mother Bab was gathering
+larkspur seeds.
+
+"Oh, Mother Bab, I've such good news about Granny Hogendobler and Old
+Aaron!"
+
+"Come in, tell me!"
+
+"I've been to town and stopped to see Granny. You know Old Aaron and
+their boy Nason fell out years ago about something the boy said about
+the flag and was too stubborn to take back."
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"It was foolishness on the part of the father, of course, for he should
+have known boys say things they don't mean. Well, the two kept on acting
+all these years like strangers. The old man grew bitter. Last year when
+the boys went to Mexico he said that if he had a son instead of a
+blockhead he'd be sending a boy to do his share down there. It almost
+killed him to think of his boy sitting back while others went and
+defended the flag. Well, Granny said yesterday she was in the yard and
+she heard the gate click. She didn't pay any attention for she knew Old
+Aaron was in the front yard under the arbor. But then she heard a cry
+and ran to see, and there was Old Aaron with his arms around a big
+fellow dressed in a soldier uniform, and when the man turned his head it
+was Nason! Granny said it was the greatest day in their lives and paid
+up for all the unhappy days when Old Aaron was cross and said mean
+things about Nason. Nason had just a day to stay, but they made a day of
+it. Granny said, 'I-to-goodness, but we had a time! Aaron wanted to kill
+a chicken, for Nason likes chicken so much, but I knew that Aaron was so
+excited he'd like as not only cripple the poor thing, so I said I'd kill
+it while they talked. I made stuffing with onions in, like Nason likes,
+and I had just baked a snitz pie and I tell you we had a good dinner.
+But I bet them two didn't know what they ate, for they were all the time
+talking about the war and bombs and Gettysburg and France till I didn't
+know what they meant.'"
+
+"My, I'm glad for Granny and Old Aaron," Mother Bab said.
+
+"And what do you think!" Phoebe went on. "They are changing the name of
+Prussian Street, and some are talking of changing the name of the town,
+but I hope they won't do that."
+
+"No, it would be strange to have to call it something else after all
+these years."
+
+"I think it's a grand joke," said Phoebe, "that this little town was
+founded by a German and yet the town is strong American and doing its
+best to down the Potsdam gang. The people of Lancaster County are loyal
+to Old Glory and I'm glad I belong here."
+
+She appreciated her goodly heritage, not with any Pharisaical exultation
+but with honest gratitude.
+
+"I have learned many things, Mother Bab, and this is one of the big
+things I've learned lately: to be everlastingly thankful to Providence
+for setting me down on a farm where I could spend a childhood filled
+with communications with nature. I never before realized what blessings
+I've had all the years of my life. Why, I've had chickens to play with
+and feed, cows and wobbly calves to pet, birds to love and learn about,
+clear streams to wade in and float daisies on, meadows to play in, hills
+to run down while the dust went 'spif' under my bare feet. And I've had
+flowers, thousands of wild flowers, to find and carry home or, if too
+frail to bear carrying home, like the delicate spring beauty and the
+bluet, just to look at and admire and turn again to look at as I went
+out of the woods. My whole childhood has been a wonderful one but I was
+too blind to see the wonder of it. I see now! But, Mother Bab, I don't
+see, even yet, that I should wear plain clothes. I've been thinking
+about it lately. I do believe, though, that the plain way is a good way.
+Many people enjoy the simple service of the meeting-house more than they
+would enjoy a more complex form of worship. I feel so restful and
+peaceful when I'm in a meeting-house, so near to the real things, the
+things that count."
+
+Mother Bab answered only a mild "Yes," but her heart sang as she
+thought, "I believe she'll be plain some day, she and David. Perhaps
+they'll come together. But I'll not worry about them; I know their
+hearts are right."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+DAVID'S SHARE
+
+
+ANOTHER June came with its roses and perfume, but there was no Feast of
+Roses in Greenwald that June of 1918. Phoebe regretted the fact, for she
+felt that even in a war-racked world, with the multiple duties and
+anxiety and suffering of many of its people, there should still be time
+for a service as beautiful and inspiring as the Feast of Roses.
+
+But all thoughts of it or similar omissions were crowded into the
+background one day when the news came to Mother Bab that David had been
+wounded in France.
+
+The official telegram flashed over the wire and in due time came a
+letter with more satisfying details. The letter was characteristic of
+David: "I suppose you heard that the Boche got me, but he didn't get all
+of me, just one leg. What hurts me most is the fact that I didn't get a
+few Huns first or do some real thing for the cause before I got knocked
+out. I know you'll feel better satisfied if I tell you all about it.
+Several of the other boys and I left the town where we were stationed
+and went to Paris for a few days. It was our first pleasure trip since
+we came to this side. We gazed upon the things we studied about in
+school--Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and so forth. Later we went to a
+railroad station where refugees were coming in, fleeing from the
+invading Huns. I can't ever forget that sight! Women and children they
+were, but such women and children! Women who had gone through hell and
+children who had seen more horror in their few years that we can ever
+dream possible. Terror and suffering have lodged shadows in their eyes
+till one wonders if some of them will ever smile or laugh again. Many of
+them were wounded and in need of medical care. They carried with them
+their sole possessions, all of their belongings they could gather and
+take with them as they rushed away from the hordes of the enemy
+soldiers. We helped to place them into Red Cross vans to be taken to a
+safe place in the southern part of the country. As we were putting them
+into the vans the signal came that an air raid was on. The subways are
+places for refuge during the raids, so we hurried them out of the vans
+and into subways. They all got in safely but I was a bit too slow. I got
+knocked out and my right leg was so badly splintered that I'm better off
+without it. The thing worries me most is that I'll be sent home out of
+the fight before I fairly got into it."
+
+"Oh, Mother Bab," Phoebe said sobbingly, "his right leg's gone!"
+
+"It might be worse. But--I wish I could be with him."
+
+"But isn't it just like him," said Phoebe proudly, "to write as though
+it was carelessness caused the accident, when we know he got others to
+safety and never thought of himself. He was just as brave as the boys
+who fight."
+
+"Yes. There is still much to be thankful for. Many mothers will get
+sadder news than mine. You must write him a long letter."
+
+It was a long letter, indeed, that the mother dictated to her boy. When
+it was written Phoebe added a little postscript, "David, I'm mighty
+proud of you!" To this he responded, "Thank you for your pride in me,
+but don't you go making a hero of me; I can't live up to that when I get
+home. Guess I'll be sent back as soon as my leg is healed. Uncle Sam has
+no need of me here since I bungled things and left a leg in Paris. I'll
+have to do the rest of my bit on the farm. I wasn't a howling success as
+a farmer when I had two legs, but perhaps my luck has turned. I'm going
+to raise chickens and do my best to make the little farm a paying one."
+
+"He's the same cheerful David," thought the girl, "and we'll have to
+keep cheerful about it, too."
+
+But it was no easy matter to continue steadfast in cheerfulness during
+the long days of the summer. Phoebe and Mother Bab shared the anxiety of
+many others as the news came that the armies of the enemy were pushing
+nearer to Paris, nearer, and nearer, with the Americans and their allies
+fighting like demons and contesting every inch of the ground. A fear
+rose in Phoebe--what if the Germans should reach Paris, what if they
+should win the war! "But it can't be!" she thought.
+
+Her confidence was not unwarranted. Soon came the turn of the tide and
+the German drive was checked. One July day shrieking whistles, frenzied
+ringing of bells, impromptu parades and waving flags, spread the news
+that "America's contemptible little army" was helping to push the
+Germans back, back!
+
+"It's the beginning of the end for the Germans," said Phoebe jubilantly
+as she ran to Mother Bab with the news. "If they once start running
+they'll sprint pretty lively. We'll have to tell David about the
+excitement in town when the whistles blew--but, ach, I forgot! He won't
+think that was much excitement after he's been in _real_ excitement."
+
+Mother Bab laughed with the girl. "But we'll have lots to tell him when
+he comes back," she said. "And won't he be glad I can see!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+DAVID'S RETURN
+
+
+IT was October of 1918 when David Eby alighted from the train at
+Greenwald and started out the country road to his home. He could not
+resist the temptation to run into the yard of the gray farmhouse and
+into the kitchen where Aunt Maria and Phoebe were working.
+
+"David!"
+
+"Why, David!"
+
+The cries came gladly from the two women as he bounded over the sill and
+extended his hand, first to the older woman, then to Phoebe.
+
+"I just had to stop in here for a minute! Then I must run up the hill to
+mother. This place looks too good to pass by. How are you? You're both
+looking fine."
+
+"Ach, we're well," Aunt Maria had to answer, Phoebe remaining
+speechless. "But why, David! You got two legs and no crutches! I thought
+you lost a leg."
+
+"I did," he said, smiling, "but Uncle Sam gave me another one."
+
+"Why, abody'd hardly know it. Ain't, Phoebe, he just limps a little?
+Now I bet your mom'll be glad to see you--to have you back again, I
+mean."
+
+"Yes. I can't wait to get up the hill. I must go now. I'll be down
+later, Phoebe," he added.
+
+"All right," she said quietly.
+
+"Ach, Phoebe," Aunt Maria exclaimed after he left, "did you hear me? I
+almost give it away that his mom can see. Abody can be awful dumb still!
+But won't he be glad when he knows that she ain't blind! She can see him
+again. Ach, Phoebe, it's lots of nice people in the world, for all. It
+makes abody feel good to know them two are havin' a happy time."
+
+"I'm so glad for both I could sing."
+
+"Go on," said the woman; "I'm glad too, and I believe I could help you
+to holler."
+
+As David climbed the hill by the woodland he thought musingly, "Strikes
+me Phoebe didn't seem extra glad to see me. Perhaps she was just
+surprised, perhaps my being crippled changed her. Oh, Phoebe, I want you
+more than ever! I wonder--is it some nerve to ask you to marry a
+cripple?"
+
+However, all disquieting thoughts were forgotten as he reached the
+summit of the hill and saw his boyhood home.
+
+He whistled his old greeting whistle. At the sound of it Mother Bab ran
+to the door.
+
+"It's David come home!" she cried, her renewed eyes turned to the road,
+her hands outstretched.
+
+"I'm back, mommie!" he called before his running feet could take him to
+her. But as he held her again to his heart there were no words adequate
+for the greeting. Their joy was great enough to be inarticulate for a
+while.
+
+"But, Davie," the mother said after a long silence, "you come running!
+You have no crutches!"
+
+"Why, mommie!" There was questioning wonder in his voice. "How do you
+know? You couldn't see! You are blind!"
+
+"Oh, Davie, not any more! I can see!"
+
+"You can see?" He put a hand at each side of the white-capped head and
+looked into her eyes. They were not the dull, half-staring eyes of
+blindness but eyes lighted by loving recognition.
+
+Again words failed him as he swept her into his arms. But he could not
+long be silent. "Tell me," he cried. "I must know! What
+miracle--who--how--who did it? When?"
+
+"Oh, Davie, you're not changed a bit! Same old question box! But I'll
+tell you all about it."
+
+Throughout the story Mother Bab told ran the name of Phoebe. "Phoebe
+planned it all, Phoebe made the arrangements with the doctor, Phoebe
+took me down to Philadelphia, Phoebe was there when I found I could
+see"--it was Phoebe, Phoebe, till the man felt his heart singing the
+name.
+
+"Isn't she going on with her music lessons?" he asked. "I was afraid
+she'd be in the city when I got back."
+
+"She's given them up. It ain't like her to begin a thing and get tired
+of it so soon. All at once after we came back from Philadelphia she said
+she had enough of music, she was tired of it, and was going to stay at
+home and be useful. I'm glad she's not going off again, for it gets
+lonesome without her. You stopped to see her on the way up?"
+
+"Yes, just a minute. I'm going down again later. She hardly said two
+words to me."
+
+"You took her by surprise, I guess. Give her a chance and she'll ask you
+a hundred questions."
+
+But when he paid the promised visit to Phoebe he was again disappointed
+by her lack of the old comradely friendliness. She shared his joy at
+Mother Bab's restored sight but when he began to thank her for her part
+in it she disclaimed all credit and asked questions to lead him from the
+subject of the operation. The girl seemed interested in all he said yet
+there was a restraint in her manner. For the first time in his life
+David was baffled by her attitude. As he climbed the hill again he
+thought, "Now, what's the matter with Phoebe? Was she or wasn't she glad
+to see me? I couldn't tell her I love her when she acts like that! And
+I'm a cripple, and she's beautiful---- Oh, my mind's in a muddle! But
+one thing's clear--I want Phoebe Metz for my wife."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+"A LOVE THAT LIFE COULD NEVER TIRE"
+
+
+THE next morning Phares Eby called David, "Wait, I want to see you.
+I--David," the preacher began gravely, "perhaps I shouldn't tell you,
+but I really think I ought. Do you know all Phoebe did for your mother
+while you were gone?"
+
+"Why, yes. Mother told me. Phoebe was lovely to her. She's been great!
+Writing her letters and doing ever so many kind things for her."
+
+"I know--but--I guess you don't know all she did. That story about a
+great doctor operating for charity didn't quite please me. I thought as
+long as it was in the family I'd pay him for what he did. So I wrote to
+him and his secretary wrote back that the bill had been paid by a check
+signed by Phoebe Metz--the bill had been five hundred dollars. I guess
+that explains her giving up the music lessons. What a girl she is to
+make such a sacrifice! She don't know that I know, but I felt I ought to
+tell you."
+
+"Five hundred dollars! Phoebe did that for us--she paid it? Oh, Phares,
+I'm glad you told me! I'm going to find her right away and thank her!
+You're a brick for telling me!"
+
+The preacher smiled as David turned and ran down the hill, but preachers
+are only human--he felt a pang of pain as he went back to his work in
+the field while David went to find Phoebe.
+
+David forgot for the time that he was crippled as he ran limping over
+the road. Dressed in his working clothes, his head bare to the October
+sunlight, he hurried to the gray farmhouse.
+
+"Phoebe here?" he asked Aunt Maria.
+
+"What's wrong? Anything the matter at your house?" she asked.
+
+"No. Nothing's wrong. Where's Phoebe?"
+
+"Ach, over at the quarry again for weeds or something like she brings
+home all the time."
+
+"All right." He turned to the gate. "I'll find her."
+
+He half ran up the sheltered road to the old stone quarry.
+
+"Phoebe," he cried when he caught sight of her as she stooped to gather
+goldenrod that fringed the woods.
+
+"Why, David, what's the matter?" she asked as she stood erect and faced
+him.
+
+"You angel!" he cried, taking her hands in his and spilling the
+goldenrod over the ground. "You angel!" he said again, and the full
+gratitude of his heart shone from his eyes. "You bought Mother Bab's
+sight! You gave up the music lessons that she might see!"
+
+"How d'you know?" she challenged.
+
+"Oh, I know!" He told her briefly. "That's all true, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," she admitted. "I can't lie out of it now, I guess. Though I've
+lied like a trooper about it already. But you needn't get excited about
+it. Mother Bab's earned more than that from me!"
+
+"Oh, Phoebe!" The man could hardly refrain from taking her in his arms.
+"You're an angel! To sacrifice all that for us--it's the most unselfish
+thing I've ever heard of! You gave her sight so she could see me. I came
+right down to bless you and to thank you."
+
+Other words sought utterance but he fought them back. Phoebe must have
+read his heart, for she looked up suddenly and asked, "And you came all
+the way down here just to say thank you! There's nothing else----"
+
+Then, half-ashamed and startled at her forwardness, her gaze dropped.
+
+But the words had worked their magic. "There _is_ something else!" David
+cried, exulting. "I can't wait any longer to tell you! I love you!"
+
+He held out his arms and as she smiled into his face his arms enfolded
+her and he knew that she loved him. But he wanted to hear the sweet
+words from her lips. "Is it so?" he asked. "You do care for me, you'll
+marry me?"
+
+"Oh, Davie, did you think I could live the rest of my life without you?
+Did you think I could love you any less because you're crippled?"
+
+He flushed. "It seemed like working on your sympathy to ask you."
+
+"And if you hadn't asked me, Davie," she began.
+
+"Yes, go on. If I hadn't asked you----"
+
+"_I_ should have asked _you_!"
+
+They both laughed at that, but a moment later were serious as he said,
+"Just the same, Phoebe, it seems presumptuous for a maimed man to ask a
+girl like you to marry him. You are beautiful and you have a wonderful
+voice--and you've done such wonderful things for Mother Bab and me. You
+have sacrificed so much----"
+
+"Stop, David!" she cried, her voice ominously tearful. "David, don't
+hurt me like that! Do you love me?"
+
+"I do." His words had all the solemnity of a marriage vow.
+
+"You know I love you?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then, David, can't you see that we love each other not only in
+prosperity but in misfortunes as well?"
+
+"What a big heart you have, dear, what a woman's heart! I have two
+wonderful women in my life, Mother Bab and you."
+
+Phoebe felt the delicacy and magnitude of the tribute. "I'm happy,
+Davie," she said softly. "I feel so safe with you--no doubts, no fears."
+
+"Just love," he added.
+
+"Just love," she repeated.
+
+"Then, Phoebe"--how she loved the name from his lips--"you'll marry me?"
+He said it as though he could not quite believe his good fortune. "Then
+you _will_ marry me?"
+
+"Yes, if you want."
+
+"If I want! Oh, Phoebe, Phoebe, I have always wanted it!"
+
+
+
+
+Popular Copyright Novels
+
+_AT MODERATE PRICES_
+
+         Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of
+        A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction
+
+=Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.= By Frank L. Packard.
+
+=Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.= By A. Conan Doyle.
+
+=After House, The.= By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+
+=Ailsa Paige.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Alton of Somasco.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Amateur Gentleman, The.= By Jeffery Farnol.
+
+=Anna, the Adventuress.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Anne's House of Dreams.= By L. M. Montgomery.
+
+=Around Old Chester.= By Margaret Deland.
+
+=Athalie.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=At the Mercy of Tiberius.= By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+
+=Auction Block, The.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Aunt Jane of Kentucky.= By Eliza C. Hall.
+
+=Awakening of Helena Richie.= By Margaret Deland.
+
+
+=Bab: a Sub-Deb.= By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+
+=Barrier, The.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Barbarians.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Bargain True, The.= By Nalbro Bartley.
+
+=Bar 20.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Bar 20 Days.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Bars of Iron, The.= By Ethel M. Dell.
+
+=Beasts of Tarzan, The.= By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+
+=Beloved Traitor, The.= By Frank L. Packard.
+
+=Beltane the Smith.= By Jeffery Farnol.
+
+=Betrayal, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Beyond the Frontier.= By Randall Parrish.
+
+=Big Timber.= By Bertrand W. Sinclair.
+
+=Black Is White.= By George Barr McCutcheon.
+
+=Blind Man's Eyes, The.= By Wm. MacHarg and Edwin Balmer.
+
+=Bob, Son of Battle.= By Alfred Ollivant.
+
+=Boston Blackie.= By Jack Boyle.
+
+=Boy with Wings, The.= By Berta Ruck.
+
+=Brandon of the Engineers.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Broad Highway, The.= By Jeffery Farnol.
+
+=Brown Study, The.= By Grace S. Richmond.
+
+=Bruce of the Circle A.= By Harold Titus.
+
+=Buck Peters, Ranchman.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Business of Life, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+
+=Cabbages and Kings.= By O. Henry.
+
+=Cabin Fever.= By B. M. Bower.
+
+=Calling of Dan Matthews, The.= By Harold Bell Wright.
+
+=Cape Cod Stories.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper.= By James A. Cooper.
+
+=Cap'n Dan's Daughter.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Cap'n Eri.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Cap'n Jonah's Fortune.= By James A. Cooper.
+
+=Cap'n Warren's Wards.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Chain of Evidence, A.= By Carolyn Wells.
+
+=Chief Legatee, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Cinderella Jane.= By Marjorie B. Cooke.
+
+=Cinema Murder, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=City of Masks, The.= By George Barr McCutcheon.
+
+=Cleek of Scotland Yard.= By T. W. Hanshew.
+
+=Cleek, The Man of Forty Faces.= By Thomas W. Hanshew.
+
+=Cleek's Government Cases.= By Thomas W. Hanshew.
+
+=Clipped Wings.= By Rupert Hughes.
+
+=Clue, The.= By Carolyn Wells.
+
+=Clutch of Circumstance, The.= By Marjorie Benton Cooke.
+
+=Coast of Adventure, The.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Coming of Cassidy, The.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Coming of the Law, The.= By Chas. A. Seltzer.
+
+=Conquest of Canaan, The.= By Booth Tarkington.
+
+=Conspirators, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Court of Inquiry, A.= By Grace S. Richmond.
+
+=Cow Puncher, The.= By Robert J. C. Stead.
+
+=Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Cross Currents.= By Author of "Pollyanna."
+
+=Cry in the Wilderness, A.= By Mary E. Waller.
+
+
+=Danger, And Other Stories.= By A. Conan Doyle.
+
+=Dark Hollow, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Dark Star, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Daughter Pays, The.= By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.
+
+=Day of Days, The.= By Louis Joseph Vance.
+
+=Depot Master, The.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Desired Woman, The.= By Will N. Harben.
+
+=Destroying Angel, The.= By Louis Jos. Vance.
+
+=Devil's Own, The.= By Randall Parrish.
+
+=Double Traitor, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+
+=Empty Pockets.= By Rupert Hughes.
+
+=Eyes of the Blind, The.= By Arthur Somers Roche.
+
+=Eye of Dread, The.= By Payne Erskine.
+
+=Eyes of the World, The.= By Harold Bell Wright.
+
+=Extricating Obadiah.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+
+=Felix O'Day.= By F. Hopkinson Smith.
+
+=54-40 or Fight.= By Emerson Hough.
+
+=Fighting Chance, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Fighting Shepherdess, The.= By Caroline Lockhart.
+
+=Financier, The.= By Theodore Dreiser.
+
+=Flame, The.= By Olive Wadsley.
+
+=Flamsted Quarries.= By Mary E. Wallar.
+
+=Forfeit, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+=Four Million, The.= By O. Henry.
+
+=Fruitful Vine, The.= By Robert Hichens.
+
+=Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.= By Frank L. Packard.
+
+
+=Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.= By Payne Erskine.
+
+=Girl from Keller's, The.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Girl Philippa, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Girls at His Billet, The.= By Berta Ruck.
+
+=God's Country and the Woman.= By James Oliver Curwood.
+
+=Going Some.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Golden Slipper, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Golden Woman, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+=Greater Love Hath No Man.= By Frank L. Packard.
+
+=Greyfriars Bobby.= By Eleanor Atkinson.
+
+=Gun Brand, The.= By James B. Hendryx.
+
+
+=Halcyone.= By Elinor Glyn.
+
+=Hand of Fu-Manchu, The.= By Sax Rohmer.
+
+=Havoc.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Heart of the Desert, The.= By Honoré Willsie.
+
+=Heart of the Hills, The.= By John Fox, Jr.
+
+=Heart of the Sunset.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.= By Edfrid A. Bingham.
+
+=Her Weight in Gold.= By Geo. B. McCutcheon.
+
+=Hidden Children, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Hidden Spring, The.= By Clarence B. Kelland.
+
+=Hillman, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Hills of Refuge, The.= By Will N. Harben.
+
+=His Official Fiancee.= By Berta Ruck.
+
+=Honor of the Big Snows.= By James Oliver Curwood.
+
+=Hopalong Cassidy.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Hound from the North, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+=House of the Whispering Pines, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.= By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.
+
+
+=I Conquered.= By Harold Titus.
+
+=Illustrious Prince, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=In Another Girl's Shoes.= By Berta Ruck.
+
+=Indifference of Juliet, The.= By Grace S. Richmond.
+
+=Infelice.= By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+
+=Initials Only.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Inner Law, The.= By Will N. Harben.
+
+=Innocent.= By Marie Corelli.
+
+=Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.= By Sax Rohmer.
+
+=In the Brooding Wild.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+=Intriguers, The.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Iron Trail, The.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Iron Woman, The.= By Margaret Deland.
+
+=I Spy.= By Natalie Sumner Lincoln.
+
+
+=Japonette.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Jean of the Lazy A.= By B. M. Bower.
+
+=Jeanne of the Marshes.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Jennie Gerhardt.= By Theodore Dreiser.
+
+=Judgment House, The.= By Gilbert Parker.
+
+
+=Keeper of the Door, The.= By Ethel M. Dell.
+
+=Keith of the Border.= By Randall Parrish.
+
+=Kent Knowles: Quahaug.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Kingdom of the Blind, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+Page 17, word "have" added to the text (mom would have lived)
+
+Page 171, word "the" added to the text (in the bank)
+
+Page 181, "esctatic" changed to "ecstatic" (ecstatic trill of)
+
+Page 315, word "the" added to the text (mentioned the operation)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Patchwork, by Anna Balmer Myers
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PATCHWORK ***
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Patchwork, by Anna Balmer Myers.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Patchwork, by Anna Balmer Myers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Patchwork
+       A Story of 'The Plain People'
+
+Author: Anna Balmer Myers
+
+Illustrator: Helen Mason Groce
+
+Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22827]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PATCHWORK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Emille and the Booksmiths
+at http://www.eBookForge.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i"></a><a href="images/i.png">[i]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='bbox'>
+<h1>PATCHWORK</h1>
+
+<h3>A STORY OF</h3>
+
+<h2>"THE PLAIN PEOPLE"</h2>
+</div><div class='bbox'>
+<h2>By ANNA BALMER MYERS</h2>
+</div><div class='bbox'>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
+<img src="images/emblem.png" width="100" height="100" alt="Emblem" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><br />
+<small>WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR BY</small><br />
+HELEN MASON GROSE<br /><br /></div>
+</div><div class='bbox'><div class='center'>
+<big>A. L. BURT COMPANY</big><br />
+<big>Publishers</big>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;         <big>New York</big><br />
+<br />
+<small>Published by arrangement with George W. Jacobs &amp; Company</small><br />
+<br /></div></div>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii"></a><a href="images/ii.png">[ii]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='center'><br />
+<small>Copyright, 1920, by</small><br />
+<span class="smcap"><small>George W. Jacobs &amp; Company</small></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<small>All rights reserved</small><br />
+<i><small>Printed in U.S.A.</small></i><br />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii"></a><a href="images/iii.png">[iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>To my Mother and Father<br />
+this book is lovingly inscribed</i><br /></div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a><a href="images/illus.jpg">[frontis]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 267px;">
+<img src="images/001-illus.jpg" width="267" height="400" alt="&quot;OH, LOOK AT THIS&mdash;AND THIS!&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;OH, LOOK AT THIS&mdash;AND THIS!&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a><a href="images/9.png">[9]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align='left' colspan='2'><span class="smcap">chapter</span></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Calico Patchwork</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Old Aaron's Flag</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Little Dutchie</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The New Teacher</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Heart of a Child</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Prima Donna of the Attic</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">Where the Brook and River Meet</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Beyond the Alps Lies Italy</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Visit to Mother Bab</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Old-Fashioned Country Sale</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">The Bright Lexicon of Youth</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Preacher's Wooing</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Scarlet Tanager</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Aladdin's Lamp</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Fledgling's Flight</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ph&#339;be's Diary</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Diary&mdash;The New Home</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_221">221</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Diary&mdash;The Music Master</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Diary&mdash;The First Lesson</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Diary&mdash;Seeing the City</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Diary&mdash;Chrysalis</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Diary&mdash;Transformation</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Diary&mdash;Plain for a Night</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Diary&mdash;Declarations</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_256">256</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a><a href="images/10.png">[10]</a></span>XXV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Diary&mdash;"The Link Must Break and the Lamp Must Die</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXVI.</td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">Hame's Best</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_268">268</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Trailing Arbutus</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXVIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mother Bab and Her Son</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_284">284</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Preparations</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_291">291</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Feast of Roses</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_295">295</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXXI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Blindness</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_303">303</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXXII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Off to the Navy</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_310">310</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXXIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The One Chance</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_315">315</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXXIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Busy Days</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXXV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">David's Share</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_327">327</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXXVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">David's Return</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_331">331</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXXVII.</td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">A Love That Life Could Never Tire</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_335">335</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a><a href="images/13.png">[13]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>Patchwork</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>CALICO PATCHWORK</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> gorgeous sunshine of a perfect June morning
+invited to the great outdoors. Exquisite perfume
+from myriad blossoms tempted lovers of nature to get
+away from cramped, man-made buildings, out under
+the blue roof of heaven, and revel in the lavish
+splendor of the day.</p>
+
+<p>This call of the Junetide came loudly and insistently
+to a little girl as she sat in the sitting-room of a prosperous
+farmhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,
+and sewed gaily-colored pieces of red and green calico
+into patchwork.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, my!" she sighed, with all the dreariness
+which a ten-year-old is capable of feeling, "why must
+I patch when it's so nice out? I just ain't goin' to sew
+no more to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>She rose, folded her work and laid it in her
+plaited rush sewing-basket. Then she stood for a
+moment, irresolute, and listened to the sounds issuing
+from the next room. She could hear her Aunt
+Maria bustle about the big kitchen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a><a href="images/14.png">[14]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ach, I ain't afraid!"</p>
+
+<p>The child opened the door and entered the
+kitchen, where the odor of boiling strawberry preserves
+proclaimed the cause of the aunt's activity.</p>
+
+<p>Maria Metz was, at fifty, robust and comely, with
+black hair very slightly streaked with gray, cheeks
+that retained traces of the rosy coloring of her
+girlhood, and flashing black eyes meeting squarely
+the looks of all with whom she came in contact.
+She was a member of the Church of the Brethren
+and wore the quaint garb adopted by the women of
+that sect. Her dress of black calico was perfectly
+plain. The tight waist was half concealed by a
+long, pointed cape which fell over her shoulders
+and touched the waistline back and front, where a
+full apron of blue and white checked gingham was
+tied securely. Her dark hair was parted and smoothly
+drawn under a cap of white lawn. She was a picturesque
+figure but totally unconscious of it, for the
+section of Pennsylvania in which she lived has been
+for generations the home of a multitude of women
+similarly garbed&mdash;members of the plain sects, as the
+Mennonites, Amish, Brethren in Christ, and Church
+of the Brethren, are commonly called in the communities
+in which they flourish.</p>
+
+<p>As the child appeared in the doorway her aunt
+turned.</p>
+
+<p>"So," the woman said pleasantly, "you worked
+vonderful quick to-day once, Ph&#339;be. Why, you got
+your patches done soon&mdash;did you make little stitches
+like I told you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a><a href="images/15.png">[15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I ain't got 'em done!" The child stood erect, a
+defiant little figure, her blue eyes grown dark with the
+moment's tenseness. "I ain't goin' to sew no more
+when it's so nice out! I want to be out in the yard,
+that's what I want. I just hate this here patchin'
+to-day, that's what I do!"</p>
+
+<p>Maria Metz carefully wiped the strawberry juice
+from her fingers, then she stood before the little girl
+like a veritable tower of amazement and strength.</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be," she said after a moment's struggle to
+control her wrath, "you ain't big enough nor old
+enough yet to tell me what you ain't goin' to do!
+How many patches did you make?"</p>
+
+<p>"Three."</p>
+
+<p>"And you know I said you shall make four every
+day still so you get the quilt done this summer yet and
+ready to quilt. You go and finish them."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to." Ph&#339;be shook her head stubbornly.
+"I want to play out in the yard."</p>
+
+<p>"When you're done with the patches, not before!
+You know you must learn to sew. Why, Ph&#339;be," the
+woman changed her tactics, "you used to like to sew
+still. When you was just five years old you cried for
+goods and needle and I pinned the patches on the little
+sewing-bird that belonged to Granny Metz still and
+screwed the bird on the table and you sewed that nice!
+And now you don't want to do no more patches&mdash;how
+will you ever get your big chest full of nice quilts if
+you don't patch?"</p>
+
+<p>But the child was too thoroughly possessed with the
+desire to be outdoors to be won by any pleading or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a><a href="images/16.png">[16]</a></span>
+praise. She pulled savagely at the two long braids
+which hung over her shoulders and cried, "I don't
+want no quilts! I don't want no chests! I don't like
+red and green quilts, anyhow&mdash;never, never! I wish
+my pop would come in; he wouldn't make me sew
+patches, he"&mdash;she began to sob&mdash;"I wish, I just wish
+I had a mom! She wouldn't make me sew calico
+when&mdash;when I want to play."</p>
+
+<p>Something in the utter unhappiness of the little girl,
+together with the words of yearning for the dead
+mother, filled the woman with a strange tenderness.
+Though she never allowed sentiment to sway her from
+doing what she considered her duty she did yield to
+its influence and spoke gently to the agitated child.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish, too, your mom was here yet, Ph&#339;be. But
+I guess if she was she'd want you to learn to sew.
+Ach, it's just that you like to be out, out all the time
+that makes you so contrary, I guess. You're like your
+pop, if you can just be out! Mebbe when you're old
+as I once and had your back near broke often as I had
+with hoein' and weedin' and plantin' in the garden
+you'll be glad when you can set in the house and sew.
+Ach, now, stop your cryin' and go finish your patchin'
+and when you're done I'll leave you go in to Greenwald
+for me to the store and to Granny Hogendobler."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh"&mdash;the child lifted her tear-stained face&mdash;"and
+dare I really go to Greenwald when I'm done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I need some sugar yet and you dare order
+it. And you can get me some thread and then stop at
+Granny Hogendobler's and ask her to come out to-morrow
+and help with the strawberry jelly. I got so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a><a href="images/17.png">[17]</a></span>
+much to make and it comes good to Granny if she
+gets away for a little change."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll patch quick!" Ph&#339;be said. The world
+was a good place again for the child as she went back
+to the sitting-room and resumed her sewing.</p>
+
+<p>She was so eager to finish the unpleasant task that
+she forgot one of Aunt Maria's rules, as inexorable as
+the law of the Medes and Persians&mdash;the door between
+the kitchen and the sitting-room <i>must</i> be closed.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Ph&#339;be," the woman called sharply, "make
+that door shut! Abody'd think you was born in a
+sawmill! The strawberry smell gets all over the
+house."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be turned alertly and closed the door. Then
+she soliloquized, "I don't see why there has to be
+doors on the inside of houses. I like to smell the good
+things all over the house, but then it's Aunt Maria's
+boss, not me."</p>
+
+<p>Maria Metz shook her head as she returned to her
+berries. "If it don't beat all and if I won't have my
+hands full yet with that girl 'fore she's growed up!
+That stubborn she is, like her pop&mdash;ach, like all of us
+Metz's, I guess. Anyhow, it ain't easy raising somebody
+else's child. If only her mom would <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original text omits this word">have</ins> lived, and
+so young she was to die, too."</p>
+
+<p>Her thoughts went back to the time when her
+brother Jacob brought to the old Metz farmhouse his
+gentle, sweet-faced bride. Then the joint persuasions
+of Jacob and his wife induced Maria Metz to continue
+her residence in the old homestead. She relieved the
+bride of all the brunt of manual labor of the farm and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a><a href="images/18.png">[18]</a></span>
+in her capable way proved a worthy sister to the new
+mistress of the old Metz place. When, several years
+later, the gentle wife died and left Jacob the legacy
+of a helpless babe, it was Maria Metz who took up the
+task of mothering the motherless child. If she
+bungled at times in the performance of the mother's
+unfinished task it was not from lack of love, for she
+loved the fair little Ph&#339;be with a passion that was
+almost abnormal, a passion which burned the more
+fiercely because there was seldom any outlet in demonstrative
+affection.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the child was old enough Aunt Maria
+began to teach her the doctrines of the plain church
+and to warn her against the evils of vanity, frivolity
+and all forms of worldliness.</p>
+
+<p>Maria Metz was richly endowed with that admirable
+love of industry which is characteristic of the Pennsylvania
+Dutch. In accordance with her acceptance
+of the command, "Six days shalt thou labor," she
+swept, scrubbed, and toiled from early morning to
+evening with Herculean persistence. The farmhouse
+was spotless from cellar to attic, the wooden walks
+and porches scrubbed clean and smooth. Flower beds,
+vegetable gardens and lawns were kept neat and without
+weeds. Aunt Maria was, as she expressed it, "not
+afraid of work." Naturally she considered it her duty
+to teach little Ph&#339;be to be industrious, to sew neatly,
+to help with light tasks about the house and gardens.</p>
+
+<p>Like many other good foster-mothers Maria Metz
+tried conscientiously to care for the child's spiritual
+and physical well-being, but in spite of her best en<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a><a href="images/19.png">[19]</a></span>deavors
+there were times when she despaired of the
+tremendous task she had undertaken. Ph&#339;be's spirit
+tingled with the divine, poetic appreciation of all
+things beautiful. A vivid imagination carried the
+child into realms where the stolid aunt could not follow,
+realms of whose existence the older woman never
+dreamed.</p>
+
+<p>But what troubled Maria Metz most was the child's
+frank avowal of vanity. Every new dress was a
+source of intense joy to Ph&#339;be. Every new ribbon
+for her hair, no matter how narrow and dull of color,
+sent her face smiling. The golden hair, which sprang
+into long curls as Aunt Maria combed it, was invariably
+braided into two thick, tight braids, but there
+were always little wisps that curled about the ears and
+forehead. These wisps were at once the woman's
+despair and the child's freely expressed delight. However,
+through all the rigid discipline the little girl
+retained her natural buoyancy of childhood, the spontaneous
+interestedness, the cheerfulness and animation,
+which were a part of her goodly heritage.</p>
+
+<p>That June morning the world was changed suddenly
+from a dismal vale of patchwork to a glorious garden
+of delight. She was still a child and the promised
+walk to Greenwald changed the entire world for her.</p>
+
+<p>She paused once in her sewing to look about the
+sitting-room. "Ach, I vonder now why this room
+is so ugly to me to-day. I guess it's because it's so
+pretty out. Why, mostly always I think this is a
+vonderful nice room."</p>
+
+<p>The sitting-room of the Metz farm was attractive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a><a href="images/20.png">[20]</a></span>
+in its old-fashioned furnishing. It was large and well
+lighted. The gray rag carpet&mdash;woven from rags
+sewed by Aunt Maria and Ph&#339;be&mdash;was decorated with
+wide stripes of green. Upon the carpet were spread
+numerous rugs, some made of braided rags coiled into
+large circles, others were hooked rugs gaily ornamented
+with birds and flowers and graceful scroll
+designs. The low-backed chairs were painted dull
+green and each bore upon the four inch panel of its
+back a hand-painted floral design. On the haircloth
+sofa were several crazy-work cushions. Two deep
+rocking-chairs matched the antique low-backed chairs.
+A spindle-legged cherry table bore an old vase filled
+with pink and red straw flowers. The large square
+table, covered with a red and green cloth, held a glass
+lamp, the old Metz Bible, several hymn-books and the
+papers read in that home,&mdash;a weekly religious paper,
+the weekly town paper, and a well-known farm journal.
+A low walnut organ which Ph&#339;be's mother brought
+to the farm and a tall walnut grandfather clock, the
+most cherished heirloom of the Metz family, occupied
+places of honor in the room. Not a single article of
+modern design could be found in the entire room, yet
+it was an interesting and habitable place. Most of the
+Metz furniture had stood in the old homestead for
+several generations and so long as any piece served its
+purpose and continued to look respectable Aunt Maria
+would have considered it gross extravagance, even a
+sacrilege, to discard it for one of newer design. She
+was satisfied with her house, her brother Jacob was
+well pleased with the way she kept it&mdash;it never oc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a><a href="images/21.png">[21]</a></span>curred
+to her that Ph&#339;be might ever desire new things,
+and least of all did she dream that the girl sometimes
+spent an interesting hour refurnishing, in imagination,
+the same old sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Ph&#339;be was saying to herself, "sometimes
+this room is vonderful to me. Only I wished the
+organ was a piano, like the one Mary Warner got to
+play on. But, ach, I must hurry once and make this
+patch done. Funny thing patchin' is, cuttin' up big
+pieces of good calico in little ones and then sewin'
+them up in big ones again! I don't like it"&mdash;she spoke
+very softly for she knew her aunt disapproved of the
+habit of talking to one's self&mdash;"I don't like patchin'
+and I for certain don't like red and green quilts! I
+got one on my bed now and it hurts my eyes still in the
+morning when I get awake. I'd like a pretty blue and
+white one for my bed. Mebbe Aunt Maria will leave
+me make one when I get this one sewed. But now my
+patch is done and I dare to go to Greenwald. That's
+a vonderful nice walk."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later she stood again in the big kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"See," she said, "now I got them all done. And
+little stitches, too, so nobody won't catch their toes in
+'em when they sleep, like you used to tell me still when
+I first begun to sew."</p>
+
+<p>The woman smiled. "Now you're a good girl,
+Ph&#339;be. Put your patches away nice and you dare go
+to Greenwald."</p>
+
+<p>"Where all shall I go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go first to Granny Hogendobler; that's right on
+the way to the store. You ask her to come out to-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a><a href="images/22.png">[22]</a></span>morrow
+morning early if she wants to help with the
+berries."</p>
+
+<p>"Dare I stay a little?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you want. But don't you go bringin' any more
+slips of flowers to plant or any seeds. The flower
+beds are that full now abody can hardly get in to
+weed 'em still."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, I won't. But I think it's nice to have
+lots and lots of flowers. When I have a garden once
+I'll have it full&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Talk of that some other day," said her aunt.
+"Get ready now for town once. You go to the store
+and ask 'em to send out twenty pounds of granulated
+sugar. Jonas, one of the clerks, comes out this way
+still when he goes home and he can just as good fetch
+it along on his home road. Your pop is too busy to
+hitch up and go in for it and I have no time neither
+to-day and I want it early in the morning, and what I
+have is almost all. And then you can buy three spools
+of white thread number fifty. And when you're done
+you dare look around a little in the store if you don't
+touch nothing. On the home road you better stop in
+the post-office and ask if there's anything. Nobody
+was in yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"All right&mdash;and&mdash;Aunt Maria, dare I wear my
+hat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, no. Abody don't wear Sunday clothes on a
+Wednesday just to go to Greenwald to the store. Only
+when you go to Lancaster and on a Sunday you wear
+your hat. You're dressed good enough; just get your
+sunbonnet, for it's sunny on the road."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a><a href="images/23.png">[23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be took a small ruffled sunbonnet of blue
+checked gingham from a hook behind the kitchen door
+and pressed it lightly on her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, bonnets are vonderful hot things!" she exclaimed.
+"A nice parasol like Mary Warner's got
+would be lots nicer. Where's the money?" she asked
+as she saw a shadow of displeasure on her aunt's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Here it is, enough for the sugar and the thread.
+Don't lose the pocketbook, and be sure to count the
+change so they don't make no mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And don't touch things in the store."</p>
+
+<p>"No." The child walked to the door, impatient to
+be off.</p>
+
+<p>"And be careful crossin' over the streets. If a
+horse comes, or a bicycle, wait till it's past, or an automobile&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, yes, I'll be careful," Ph&#339;be answered.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later she went down the boardwalk that
+led through the yard to the little green gate at the
+country road. There she paused and looked back at
+the farm with its old-fashioned house, her birthplace
+and home.</p>
+
+<p>The Metz homestead, erected in the days of home-grown
+flax and spinning-wheels, was plain and unpretentious.
+Built of gray, rough-hewn quarry stone it
+hid like a demure Quakeress behind tall evergreen trees
+whose branches touched and interlaced in so many
+places that the traveler on the country road caught but
+mere glimpses of the big gray house.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a><a href="images/24.png">[24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The old home stood facing the road that led northward
+to the little town of Greenwald. Southward
+the road curved and wound itself about a steep hill,
+sent its branches right and left to numerous farms
+while it, still twisting and turning, went on to the
+nearest city, Lancaster, ten miles distant.</p>
+
+<p>The Metz farm was just outside the southern limits
+of the town of Greenwald. The spacious red barn
+stood on the very bank of Chicques Creek, the boundary
+line.</p>
+
+<p>"It's awful pretty here to-day," Ph&#339;be said aloud
+as she looked from the house with its sheltering trees
+to the flower garden with its roses, larkspur and other
+old-fashioned flowers, then to the background of undulating
+fields and hills. "It's just vonderful pretty
+here to-day. But, ach, I guess it's pretty most anywheres
+on a day like this&mdash;but not in the house. Ugh,
+that patchin'! I want to forget it."</p>
+
+<p>As she closed the gate and entered the country
+road she caught sight of a familiar figure just
+ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello," she called. "Wait once, David! Is that
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it ain't me, it's my shadow!" came the answer
+as a boy, several years older than Ph&#339;be, turned
+and waited for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, David Eby," she giggled, "you're just like
+Aunt Maria says still you are&mdash;always cuttin' up and
+talkin' so abody don't know if you mean it or what.
+Goin' in to town, too, once?"</p>
+
+<p>"Um-uh. Say, Ph&#339;be, you want a rose to pin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a><a href="images/25.png">[25]</a></span>
+on?" he asked, turning to her with a pink damask
+rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, be sure I do! I just like them roses vonderful
+much. We got 'em too, big bushes of 'em, but
+Aunt Maria won't let me pull none off. Where'd you
+get yourn?"</p>
+
+<p>"We got lots. Mom lets me pull off all I want.
+You pin it on and be decorated for Greenwald. Where
+all you going, Ph&#339;be?"</p>
+
+<p>"And I say thanks, too, David, for the rose," she
+said as she pinned the rose to her dress. "Um, it
+smells good! Where am I goin'?" she remembered
+his question. "Why, to the store and to Granny
+Hogendobler and the post-office&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Jimminy Crickets!" The boy stood still. "That's
+where I'm to go! Me and mom both forgot about
+it. Mom wants a money order and said I'm to
+get it the first time I go to town and here I am
+without the money. It's home up the hill again
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, David, don't you know that it's vonderful
+bad luck to go back for something when you got started
+once?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy laughed. "It <i>is</i> bad luck to have to climb
+that hill again. But mom'll say what I ain't got in my
+head I got to have in my feet. They're big enough
+to hold a lot, too, Ph&#339;be, ain't they?"</p>
+
+<p>She giggled, then laughed merrily. "Ach," she
+said, "you say funny things. You just make me
+laugh all the time. But it's mean, now, that you are
+so dumb to forget and have to go back. I thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a><a href="images/26.png">[26]</a></span>
+I'd have nice company all the ways in, but mebbe I'll
+see you in Greenwald."</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe. Goo'bye," said the boy and turned to the
+hill again.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be stood a moment and looked after him. "My,"
+she said to herself, "but David Eby is a vonderful
+nice boy!" Then she started down the road, a quaint,
+interesting little figure in her brown chambray dress
+with its full, gathered skirt and its short, plain waist.
+But the face that looked out from the blue sunbonnet
+was even more interesting. The blue eyes, golden
+hair and fair coloring of the cheeks held promise of an
+abiding beauty, but more than mere beauty was
+bounded by the ruffled sunbonnet. There was an
+eagerness of expression, an alert understanding in the
+deep eyes, a tender fluttering of the long lashes, an ever
+varying animation in the child face, as though she
+were standing on tiptoe to catch all the sunshine and
+glory of the great, beautiful world about her.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be went decorously down the road, across the
+wooden bridge over the Chicques, then she began to
+skip. Her full skirt fluttered in the light wind, her
+sunbonnet slipped back from her head and flapped as
+she hopped along the half mile stretch of country road
+bordered by green fields and meadows.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no houses here so I dare skip," she panted
+gleefully. "Aunt Maria don't think it looks nice for
+girls to skip, but I like to do it. I could just skip and
+skip and skip&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped suddenly. In a meadow to her right a
+tangle of bulrushes edged a small pond and, perched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a><a href="images/27.png">[27]</a></span>
+on a swaying reed, a red-winged blackbird was calling
+his clear, "Conqueree, conqueree."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you pretty thing!" Ph&#339;be cried as she leaned
+on the fence and watched the bird. "You're just the
+prettiest thing with them red and yellow spots on
+your wings. And you ain't afraid of me, not a bit. I
+guess mebbe you know you got wings and I ain't.
+Such pretty wings you got, too, and the rest of you is
+all black as coal. Mebbe God made you black all over
+like a crow and then got sorry for you and put some
+pretty spots on your wings. I wonder now"&mdash;her
+face sobered&mdash;"I just wonder now why Aunt Maria
+says still that it's bad to fix up pretty with curls and
+things like that and to wear fancy dresses. Why,
+many of the birds are vonderful fine in gay feathers
+and the flowers are fancy and the butterflies&mdash;ach,
+mebbe when I'm big I'll understand it better, or mebbe
+I'll dress up pretty then too."</p>
+
+<p>With that cheering thought she turned again to the
+road and resumed her walk, but the skipping mood had
+fled. She pulled her sunbonnet to its proper place
+and walked briskly along, still enjoying thoroughly,
+though less exuberantly, the beauty of the June morning.</p>
+
+<p>The scent of pink clover mingled with the odor of
+grasses and the delicate perfume of sweetbrier. Wood
+sorrel nestled in the grassy corners near the crude rail
+fences, daisies and spiked toad-flax grew lavishly
+among the weeds of the roadside. In the meadows
+tall milkweed swayed its clusters of pink and lavender,
+marsh-marigolds dotted the grass with discs of pure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a><a href="images/28.png">[28]</a></span>
+gold, and Queen Anne's lace lifted its parasols of exquisite
+loveliness. Ph&#339;be reveled in it all; her cheeks
+were glowing as she left the beauty of the country
+behind her and came at last to the little town of
+Greenwald.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a><a href="images/29.png">[29]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>OLD AARON'S FLAG</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Greenwald</span> is an old town but it is a delightfully
+interesting one. It does not wear its antiquity as an
+excuse for sinking into mouldering uselessness. It
+presents, rather, a strange mingling of the quaint, romantic
+and historic with the beautiful, progressive and
+modern. Though it clings reverently to honored traditions
+it is ever mindful of the fact that the welfare
+of its inhabitants is dependent upon reasonable progress
+in its religious, educational and industrial life.</p>
+
+<p>The charming stamp of its antiquity is revealed in
+its great old trees; its wide Market Square from which
+narrower streets branch to the east, west, north and
+south; its numerous houses of the plain, substantial
+type of several generations ago; its occasional little,
+low houses which have withstood the march of modern
+building and stand squarely beside houses of more
+elaborate and later design; but chiefly in its old-fashioned
+gardens. All the old-time flowers are
+favorites there and refuse to be displaced by any newcomer.
+Sweet alyssum and candytuft spread carpets
+of bloom along the neat garden walks, hollyhocks and
+dahlias look boldly out to the streets, while the old-fashioned
+sweet-scented roses grow on great bushes
+which have been undisturbed for three or more generations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a><a href="images/30.png">[30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To Ph&#339;be Metz, Greenwald, with its two thousand
+inhabitants, its several churches, post-office and numerous
+stores, seemed a veritable city. She delighted in
+walking on its brick sidewalks, looking at its different
+houses and entering its stores. How many attractions
+these stores held for the little country girl! There
+was the big one on the Square which had in one of its
+windows a great lemon tree on which grew real lemons.
+Another store had a large Santa Claus in its window
+every Christmas&mdash;not that Ph&#339;be Metz had ever been
+taught to believe in that patron saint of the children&mdash;oh,
+no! Maria Metz would have considered it foolish,
+even sinful, to lie to a child about any mythical Santa
+Claus coming down the chimney Christmas Eve!
+Nevertheless, the smiling, rotund face of the red-habited
+Santa in the store window seemed so real and
+so emanative of cheer that Ph&#339;be delighted in him
+each year and felt sure there must be a Santa Claus
+somewhere in the world, even though Aunt Maria
+knew nothing about him.</p>
+
+<p>Most little towns can boast of one or more persons
+like Granny Hogendobler, well-nigh community owned,
+certainly community appropriated. Did any one need
+a helper in garden or kitchen or sewing room, Granny
+Hogendobler was glad to serve. Did a housewife
+remember that a rose geranium leaf imparts to apple
+jelly a delicious flavor, Granny Hogendobler was able
+and willing to furnish the leaf. Did a lover of flowers
+covet a new phlox or dahlia or other old-fashioned
+flower, Granny Hogendobler was ready to give of her
+stock. Should a young wife desire a recipe for crul<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a><a href="images/31.png">[31]</a></span>lers,
+shoo-fly pie, or other delectable dish, Granny had
+a wealth of reliable recipes at her tongue's end. This
+admirable desire to serve found ample opportunities
+for exercise in the constant demands from her friends
+and neighbors. But Granny's greatest joy lay in the
+fond ministrations for her husband, Old Aaron, as
+the town people called him, half pityingly, half accusingly.
+For some said Old Aaron was plain shiftless,
+had always been so, would remain so forever, so
+long as he had Granny to do for him. Others averred
+that the Confederate bullets that had shattered his leg
+into splinters and necessitated its amputation must
+have gone astray and struck his liver&mdash;leastways, that
+was the kindest explanation they could give for his
+laziness.</p>
+
+<p>Granny stoutly refuted all these charges&mdash;gossip
+travels in circles in small towns and sooner or later
+reaches those most concerned&mdash;"Aaron lazy! I-to-goodness
+no! Why, he's old and what for should he
+go out and work every day, I wonder. He helps me
+with the garden and so, and when I go out to help
+somebody for a day or two he gets his own meals and
+tends the chickens still. Some people thought a few
+years ago that he might get work in the foundry, but I
+said I want him at home with me. He gets a pension
+and we can live good on what we have without him
+slaving his last years away, and him with one leg lost
+at Gettysburg!" she ended proudly.</p>
+
+<p>So Old Aaron continued to live his life as pleased
+his mate and himself. He pottered about the house
+and garden and spent long hours musing under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a><a href="images/32.png">[32]</a></span>
+grape arbor. But there was one day in every year
+when Old Aaron came into his own. Every Memorial
+Day he dressed in his venerated blue uniform and
+carried the flag down the dusty streets of Greenwald,
+out to the dustier road to a spot a mile from the heart
+of the town, where, on a sunny hilltop, some of his
+comrades rested in the Silent City.</p>
+
+<p>Only the infirm and the ill of the town failed to run
+to look as the little procession passed down the street.
+There were boys in khaki, the town band playing its
+best, volunteer firemen clad in vivid red shirts, a low,
+hand-drawn wagon filled with flowers, an old cannon,
+also hand-drawn, whose shots over the graves of the
+dead veterans would thrill as they thrilled every May
+thirtieth&mdash;all received attention and admiration from
+the watchers of the procession. But the real honors
+of the day were accorded the "thin blue line of
+heroes," and Old Aaron was one of these. To Granny
+Hogendobler, who walked with the crowd of cheering
+children and adults and kept step on the sidewalk with
+the step of the marchers on the street, it was evident
+that the standard bearer was growing old. The steep
+climb near the cemetery entrance left him breathless
+and flushed and each year Granny thought, "It's getting
+too much for him to carry that flag." But each
+returning year she would have spurned as earnestly as
+he any suggestion that another one be chosen to carry
+that flag. And so every three hundred and sixty-fifth
+day the lean straight figure of Old Aaron marched
+directly under the fluttering folds of Old Glory and
+the soldier became a subject worthy of veneration,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a><a href="images/33.png">[33]</a></span>
+then with customary nonchalance the little town forgot
+him again or spoke of him as Old Aaron, a little
+lazy, a little shiftless, a little childish, and Granny
+Hogendobler became the more important figure of that
+household.</p>
+
+<p>Granny was fifteen years younger than her husband
+and was undeniably rotund of hips and face, the
+former rotundity increased by her full skirts, the latter
+accentuated by her style of wearing her hair combed
+back into a tight knot near the top of her head and
+held in place by a huge black back-comb.</p>
+
+<p>From this style of hair dressing it is evident that
+Granny was not a member of any plain sect. She was,
+as she said, "An Evangelical, one of the old kind yet.
+I can say Amen to the preacher's sermon and stand up
+in prayer-meeting and tell how the Lord has blessed
+me."</p>
+
+<p>There were some who doubted the rich blessing of
+which Granny spoke. "I wouldn't think the Lord
+blessed me so much," whispered one, "if I had a man
+like Old Aaron, though I guess he's good enough to
+her. And that boy of theirs never comes home; he
+must have a funny streak in him too." "But think of
+this," one would answer, "how the Lord keeps her
+cheerful, kind and faithful through all her troubles."</p>
+
+<p>Granny's was a wonderful garden. She and Old
+Aaron lived in a little gray cube of a house that had
+its front face set straight to the edge of Charlotte
+Street. However, the north side of the cube looked
+into a great green yard where tall spruce trees, overrun
+with trumpet vines and woodbine, shaded long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a><a href="images/34.png">[34]</a></span>
+beds of flowers that love semi-shady places. The rear
+of the house overlooked an old-fashioned garden enclosed
+with a white-washed picket fence. Always
+were there flowers at Granny's house. In the cold
+days of winter blooming masses of geraniums, primroses
+and gloxinias crowded against the little square
+panes of the windows and looked defiantly out at the
+snow; while all the old favorites grew in the garden,
+from the first March snowdrop to the late November
+chrysanthemum. In June, therefore, the garden was
+a "Lovesome spot" indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"It vonders me now if Granny's home," thought
+Ph&#339;be as she opened the wooden gate and entered the
+yard.</p>
+
+<p>"Here I am," called Granny. "Back in the garden.
+I-to-goodness, Ph&#339;be, did you come once! I just
+said yesterday to Aaron that I didn't see none of you
+folks for long, and here you come! You haven't seen
+the flowers for a while."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" Ph&#339;be breathed an ecstatic little word of
+delight. "Oh, your garden is just vonderful pretty!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't," agreed Granny. "Aaron and me's been
+working pretty hard in it these weeks. There he is,
+out in the potato patch; see him?"</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be stood on tiptoe and looked where Granny's
+finger pointed to the extreme end of the long vegetable
+garden, where the white head of Old Aaron was
+bending over his hoeing.</p>
+
+<p>"He's hoeing the potatoes," Granny explained.
+"He don't see you. But he'll soon be done and
+come in."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a><a href="images/35.png">[35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What were you doin'?" asked the child.</p>
+
+<p>"Weeding the flag."</p>
+
+<p>"Weedin' the flag&mdash;what do you mean?" Ph&#339;be's
+eyes lighted with eagerness. "I guess you mean
+mendin' the flag, Granny." She looked toward the
+porch as if in search of Old Glory.</p>
+
+<p>"I said weeding the flag," the woman insisted. "It's
+an idea of Aaron's and I guess I'll tell you about it,
+seeing your eyes are open so wide. See the poppies,
+that long stretch of them in the middle of the garden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Um-uh," nodded Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that patch at the back is all red poppies, the
+buds just coming on them nice and big. Then right
+in front of them is another patch of white poppies;
+the buds are thick on them, too. And right in front
+of them&mdash;you see what's there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Larkspur, blue larkspur!" cried Ph&#339;be. "Oh, I
+see&mdash;it's red, white and blue! You'll have it all summer
+in your garden!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. When it blooms it'll be a grand sight. I
+said to Aaron that we'll have all the children of Greenwald
+in looking at his flag and he said he hopes so, for
+they couldn't look at anything better than the colors
+of Old Glory. Aaron's crazy about the flag."</p>
+
+<p>"'Cause he fought for it, mebbe."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I guess. His father died for it at Gettysburg,
+the same place where Aaron lost his leg. . . . The
+only thing is, the larkspur's getting ahead of the poppies&mdash;seems
+like the larkspur couldn't wait"&mdash;her
+voice continued low&mdash;"I always love to see the larkspur
+come."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a><a href="images/36.png">[36]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I too," said the child. "I like to pull out the little
+slippers from the middle of the flowers and fit 'em
+into each other and make circles with 'em. I made a
+lot last summer and pressed 'em in a book, but Aunt
+Maria made me stop."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what Nason used to do. I have some
+pressed in the big Bible yet that he made when he was
+a little boy." She spoke half-absently, as though
+momentarily forgetful of the child's presence.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's Nason?" asked Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>Granny started. "I-to-goodness, Ph&#339;be, I forgot!
+You don't know him, never heard of him, I guess.
+He's our boy. We had a little girl, too, but she died."</p>
+
+<p>"Did the boy die too, Granny?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, ach no! You wouldn't understand. He's
+living in the city. He writes to me often but he don't
+come home. He and his pop fell out about the flag
+once when Nason was young and foolish and they're
+both too stubborn to forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"But he'll come back some day and live with you,
+of course, won't he?" Ph&#339;be comforted her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;some day they'll see things different. But
+now don't you bother that head of yourn with such
+things. You forget all about Nason. Come now, sit
+on the bench a little under the arbor."</p>
+
+<p>"Just a little. I must go to the store yet."</p>
+
+<p>"You have lots to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And I almost forgot what I come for.
+Aunt Maria wants you should come out to our place
+to-morrow early and help with the strawberries if you
+can."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a><a href="images/37.png">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'll come. I like to come to your place. Your
+Aunt Maria is so straight out, nothing false about
+her. I like her. But now I bet you're thinking
+of how many berries you can eat," she added as she
+noted the child's abstracted look.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I was thinkin'&mdash;I was just thinkin' what a
+funny name Nason is, like you tried to say Nathan and
+got your tongue twisted."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a real name, but you must forget all about it."</p>
+
+<p>"If I can. Sometimes Aunt Maria tells me to forget
+things, like wantin' curls and fancy things and
+pretty dresses but I don't see how I can forget when I
+remember, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's hard," Granny said, a deeper meaning in her
+words than the child could comprehend. "It's the
+hardest thing in the world to forget what you want
+to forget. But here comes Aaron&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, if here ain't Ph&#339;be Metz with her
+eyes shining and a pink rose pinned to her waist and
+matching the roses in her cheeks!" the old soldier said
+as he joined the two under the arbor. "Whew!
+Mebbe it ain't hot hoeing potatoes!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're all heated up, Aaron," said Granny. His
+fifteen years seniority warranted a solicitous watchfulness
+over him, she thought. "Now you get cooled
+off a little and I'll make some lemonade. It'll taste
+good to me and Ph&#339;be, too."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Ma," Aaron sighed in relaxation. "You
+know how to touch the spot. Did you tell Ph&#339;be
+about the flag?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a><a href="images/38.png">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I think it's fine!" cried the child. "I can't
+wait till all the flowers bloom. I want to see it."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see it," promised the man. "And you bring
+all the boys and girls in too."</p>
+
+<p>"And then will you tell us about the war and the
+Battle of Gettysburg? David Eby says he heard you
+once tell about it. I think it was at some school celebration.
+And he says it was grand, just like being
+there yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"A little safer," laughed the old soldier. "But,
+yes, when the poppies bloom you bring the children in
+and I'll tell you about the war and the flag."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll remember. I love to hear about the war. Old
+Johnny Schlegelmilch from way up the country comes
+to our place still to sell brooms, and once last summer
+he came and it began to thunder and storm and pop
+said he shall stay till it's over and then he told me all
+about the war. He said our flag's the prettiest in the
+whole world."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is," solemnly affirmed Old Aaron.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if anybody it belongs to could help liking
+it," said the child, remembering Granny's words.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," the veteran answered slowly, "I knew a
+young fellow once, a nice fellow he seemed, too, and
+his father a soldier who fought for the flag. Well,
+the father was always talking about the flag and what
+it means and how every man should be ready to fight
+for it. And one day the boy said that he would never
+fight for it and be shot to pieces, that the old flag
+made him sick, and one soldier in the family was
+enough."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a><a href="images/39.png">[39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" Ph&#339;be opened her eyes wide in surprise and
+horror.</p>
+
+<p>"And the father told the boy," the old man went
+on in a fixed voice as though the veriest details of the
+story were vividly before him, "that if he would not
+take back those words he never wanted to see him
+again. It was better to have no son, than such a son, a
+coward who hated the flag."</p>
+
+<p>Here Granny appeared with the lemonade and the
+story was abruptly ended. Ph&#339;be refrained from
+questioning the man about the story but as she sat
+under the arbor and afterwards, as she started up the
+street of the little town, she wondered over and over
+how a boy could be the son of a soldier and hate the
+flag, and whether the story Old Aaron told her was the
+story of himself and Nason.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a><a href="images/40.png">[40]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>LITTLE DUTCHIE</h3>
+
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Aunt Maria</span> said I dare look around a little,"
+thought Ph&#339;be as she neared the big store on the
+Square. Her heart beat more quickly as she turned
+the knob of the heavy door&mdash;little things still thrilled
+her, going to the store in Greenwald was an event!</p>
+
+<p>The clerk's courteous, "What can I do for you?"
+bewildered her for an instant but she swallowed hard
+and said, "Why, we want twenty pounds of granulated
+sugar; ourn is almost all and Aunt Maria wants
+to make some strawberry jelly to-morrow. She said
+for Jonas to fetch it along on his home road."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Out to Jacob Metz?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he's my pop."</p>
+
+<p>"I see. Anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Three spools white thread, number fifty."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head as she handed him the money.
+"No, that's all for to-day. But Aunt Maria said I
+dare look around a little if I don't touch things."</p>
+
+<p>"Look all you want," said the clerk and turned
+away, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be began a slow tramp about the big store.
+There was the same glass case filled with jewelry.
+The rings and pins rested on satin that had faded long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a><a href="images/41.png">[41]</a></span>
+since, the jewelry itself was tarnished but it held
+Ph&#339;be's interest with its meagre glistening. One little
+ring with a tiny turquoise aroused her desire but
+she realized that she was longing for the impossible, so
+she moved away from the coveted treasures and
+paused before the ribbons. Some of those same ribbons
+had been in the tall revolving case ever since she
+could remember going to that store. The pale sea-green
+and the crushed-strawberry were faded horribly,
+yet she looked at them with longing. "Suppose," she
+thought, "I dared pick out any ribbon I want for a
+sash&mdash;guess I'd take that funny pink one, or mebbe
+that nice blue one. But I kinda think I'd rather have
+a set of dishes or a doll. But then I got that rag doll
+at home and that pretty one that pop got for me in
+Lancaster and that Aunt Maria won't leave me play
+with. That's funny now, that she says still I daren't
+play with it for I might break it, that I shall keep it
+till I'm big. But when I'm big I won't want a doll,
+and then I vonder what! What will I do with it
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>She stood a long time before a table crowded with
+a motley gathering of toys, dolls and books. With
+so much coveted treasure before her it was hard to
+remember Aunt Maria's injunction to refrain from
+touching.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow," she decided finally, "I won't need
+any of these things to play with now, for I'm going to
+be out in the garden and the yard with the flowers
+and birds. So I guess my old rag doll will be plenty
+for playin' with. But I mustn't look too long else<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a><a href="images/42.png">[42]</a></span>
+Aunt Maria won't leave me come in soon again. I'll
+walk down the other side of the store now yet and
+then I must go."</p>
+
+<p>She passed slowly along, her keen eyes noticing the
+varied assortment of articles displayed for sale. A
+long line of red handkerchiefs was fastened to a cord
+high above one counter. Long shelves were stacked
+high with ginghams, calicoes and finer dress materials.
+There were gaudy rugs and blankets tacked to the
+walls near the ceiling. Counters were filled with glassware,
+china and crockery; other counters were laden
+with umbrellas, hats, shoes&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ach," she sighed as she went out to the street, "I
+think this goin' to Greenwald to the store is vonderful
+nice! It's most as much fun as goin' in to Lancaster,
+only there I go in a trolley and I see black niggers"&mdash;she
+spoke the word with a little shiver, for Greenwald
+had no negro residents&mdash;"and once in there me and
+Aunt Maria saw a Chinaman with a long plait like a
+girl's hangin' down his back!"</p>
+
+<p>After asking for the mail at the post-office she
+turned homeward, feeling like singing from sheer happiness.
+Then she looked down at her pink damask
+rose&mdash;it was withered.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm goin' home now so I guess I won't be decorated
+no more." She unpinned the flower, clasped its
+short stem in her hand and raised the blossom to her
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Um-m-m!" She drew deep breaths of the rose's
+perfume. "Um-m!"</p>
+
+<p>"Does it smell good?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a><a href="images/43.png">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be turned her head at the voice and looked into
+the face of a young woman who sat on the porch of a
+near-by house.</p>
+
+<p>"Does it smell good?" The question came again,
+accompanied by a broad smile.</p>
+
+<p>Quickly the hand holding the flower dropped to the
+child's side, her eyes were cast down to the brick pavement
+and she went hurriedly down the street. But
+not so hurriedly that she failed to hear the words,
+"<span class="smcap">Little Dutchie</span>" and a merry laugh from the
+young woman.</p>
+
+<p>"She&mdash;she laughed at me!" Ph&#339;be murmured to
+herself under the blue sunbonnet. "I don't know
+who she is, but that was at Mollie Stern's house that
+she sat&mdash;that lady that laughed at me. She called me
+a Dutchie!"</p>
+
+<p>The child stabbed a fist into one eye and then into
+the other to fight back the tears. She felt sure that
+the appellation of Dutchie was not complimentary.
+Hadn't she heard the boys at school tease each other
+by calling, "Dutchie, Dutchie, sauer kraut!" But no
+one had ever called her that before! Her heart ached
+as she went down the street of the little town. She
+had planned to look at all the gardens of the main
+street as she walked home but the glory of the June
+day was spoiled for her. She did not care to look at
+any gardens. The laughing words, "Does it smell
+good?" rang in her ears. The name, "Little
+Dutchie," sent her heart throbbing.</p>
+
+<p>After the first hurt a feeling of wrath rose in her.
+"Anyhow," she thought, "it's no disgrace to be a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a><a href="images/44.png">[44]</a></span>
+Dutchie! Nobody needn't laugh at me for that. But
+I just hate that lady that laughed at me! I hate
+everybody that pokes fun at me. And I ain't goin' to
+always be a Dutchie. You see once if I don't be
+something else when I grow up!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Ph&#339;be," a cheery voice rang out, followed
+by a deeper exclamation, "Ph&#339;be!" as she came to
+the last intersection of streets in the town and turned
+to enter the country road.</p>
+
+<p>She turned a sober little face to the speakers, David
+Eby and his cousin, Phares Eby.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello," she answered listlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong?" asked the older boy as they
+joined her.</p>
+
+<p>Both were plainly country boys accustomed to hard
+farm work, but their tanned faces were frank and
+honest under broad straw hats. Each bore marked
+family resemblances in their big frames, dark eyes and
+well-shaped heads, but there was a distinct line drawn
+between their personalities. Phares Eby at sixteen
+was grave, studious and dignified; his cousin, David,
+two years younger, was a cheery, laughing, sociable
+boy, fond of boyish sports, delighting in teasing his
+schoolmates and enjoying their retaliation, preferring a
+tramp through the woods to the best book ever written.</p>
+
+<p>The boys lived on adjacent farms and had long
+been the nearest neighbors of the Metz family; thus
+they had become Ph&#339;be's playmates. Then, too, the
+Eby families were members of the Church of the
+Brethren, the mothers of the boys were old friends of
+Maria Metz, and a deep friendship existed among them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a><a href="images/45.png">[45]</a></span>
+all. Ph&#339;be and the two boys attended the same little
+country school and had become frankly fond of each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong?" asked Phares again as Ph&#339;be
+hung her head and remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach," laughed David, "somebody's broke her
+dolly."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody ain't not broke my dolly, David Eby!"
+she said crossly. "I wouldn't cry for <i>that!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong then?&mdash;come on, Ph&#339;be." He
+pushed the sunbonnet back and patted her roguishly
+on the head. But she drew away from him.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you touch me," she cried. "I'm a
+Dutchie!"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>She tossed her head and became silent again.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, tell me," coaxed David. "I want to
+know what's wrong. Why, if you don't tell me I'll be
+so worried I won't be able to eat any dinner, and I'm
+so hungry now I could eat nails."</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed suddenly in spite of herself&mdash;"Ach,
+David, you're awful simple! Abody has to laugh at
+you. I was mad, for when I was in Greenwald I was
+smellin' a rose, that pink rose you gave me, and some
+lady on Mollie Stern's porch laughed at me and called
+me a <span class="smcap">Little Dutchie</span>! Now wouldn't you got mad
+for that?"</p>
+
+<p>But David threw back his head and laughed. "And
+you were ready to cry at that?" he said. "Why, I'm
+a Dutchie, so is Phares, so's most of the people round
+here. Ain't so, Phares?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a><a href="images/46.png">[46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, guess so," the older boy assented, his eyes
+still upon Ph&#339;be. "D'ye know," he said, addressing
+her, "when you were cross a few minutes ago your
+eyes were almost black. You shouldn't get so angry
+still, Ph&#339;be."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care," she retorted quickly, "I don't care
+if my eyes was purple!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you should care," persisted the boy gravely.
+"I don't like you so angry."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach," she flashed an indignant look at him&mdash;"Phares
+Eby, you're by far too bossy! I like David
+best; he don't boss me all the time like you do!"</p>
+
+<p>David laughed but Phares appeared hurt.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be was quick to note it. "Now I hurt you like
+that lady hurt me, ain't, Phares?" she said contritely.
+"But I didn't mean to hurt you, Phares, honest."</p>
+
+<p>"But you like me best," said David gaily. "You
+can't take that back, remember."</p>
+
+<p>She gave him a scornful look. Then she remembered
+the flag in the Hogendobler garden and became
+happy and eager again as she said, "Oh, Phares,
+David, I know the best secret!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't keep it, I bet!" challenged David.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't I?" she retorted saucily. "Now for that I
+won't tell you till you get good and anxious. But then
+it's not really a secret." The flag of growing flowers
+was too glorious a thing to keep; she compromised&mdash;"I'll
+tell you, because it's not a real secret." And she
+proceeded to unfold with earnest gesticulations the
+story about the flowers of red and white and blue and
+the invitation for all who cared to come and see the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a><a href="images/47.png">[47]</a></span>
+colors of Old Glory growing in the garden of Old
+Aaron and Granny, and of the added pleasure of hearing
+Old Aaron tell his thrilling story of the battle of
+Gettysburg.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't want to hear about any battle," said
+Phares. "I think war is horrible, awful, wicked."</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe so," said the girl, "but the poor men who
+fight in wars ain't always awful, horrible, wicked.
+You needn't turn your nose up at the old soldiers.
+Folks call Old Aaron lazy, I heard 'em a'ready, lots of
+times, but I bet some of them wouldn't have fought
+like he did and left a leg at Gettysburg and&mdash;ach, I
+think Old Aaron is just vonderful grand!" she ended
+in an impulsive burst of eloquence.</p>
+
+<p>"Hooray!" shouted David. "So do I! When he
+carries the flag out the pike every Decoration Day he's
+somebody, all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't now!" agreed Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"Been in the stores?" David asked her, feeling that
+a change of subject might be wise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"See anything pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, yes. A lots of things. I saw the prettiest
+finger ring with a blue stone in. I wish I had
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"What would Aunt Maria say to that?" wondered
+David.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, she'd say that so long as my finger ain't broke
+I don't need a band on it. But I looked at the ring
+at any rate and wished I had it."</p>
+
+<p>"You dare never wear gold rings," Phares told her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a><a href="images/48.png">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not now," she returned, "but some day when I'm
+older mebbe I'll wear a lot of 'em if I want."</p>
+
+<p>The words set the boys thinking. Each wondered
+what manner of woman their little playmate would
+become.</p>
+
+<p>"I bet she'll be a good-looking one," thought David.
+"She'd look swell dressed up fine like some of the
+people I see in town."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she'll turn plain some day like her
+aunt," thought the other boy. "She'll look nice in the
+plain dress and the white cap."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be, ignorant of the visions her innocent words
+had called to the hearts of her comrades, chattered on
+until they reached the little green gate of the Metz
+farm.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you two must climb the hill yet. I'm glad
+I'm home. I'm hungry."</p>
+
+<p>"And me," the boys answered, and with good-byes
+were off on the winding road up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>As Ph&#339;be turned the corner of the big gray house
+she came face to face with her father.</p>
+
+<p>"So here you are, Ph&#339;be," he said, smiling at sight
+of her. "Your Aunt Maria sent me out to look if
+you were coming. It's time to eat. Been to the store,
+ain't?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, pop. I went alone."</p>
+
+<p>"So? Why, you're getting a big girl, now you can
+go to Greenwald alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach," she laughed. "Why, it's just straight
+road."</p>
+
+<p>They crossed the porch and entered the kitchen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a><a href="images/49.png">[49]</a></span>
+hand-in-hand, the sunbonneted little girl and the big
+farmer. Jacob Metz was also a member of the Church
+of the Brethren and bore the distinctive mark: hair
+parted in the middle and combed straight back over
+his ears and cut so that the edge of it almost touched
+his collar. A heavy black beard concealed his chin,
+mild brown eyes gleamed beneath a pair of heavy
+black brows. Only in the wide, high forehead and
+the resolute mouth could be seen any resemblance between
+him and the fair child by his side.</p>
+
+<p>When they entered the kitchen Maria Metz turned
+from the stove, where she had been stirring the contents
+of a big iron pan.</p>
+
+<p>"So you got back safe, after all, Ph&#339;be," she said
+with a sigh of relief. "I was afraid mebbe something
+happened to you, with so many streets to go across
+and so many teams all the time and the automobiles."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, I look both ways still before I start over.
+Granny Hogendobler said she'll get out early."</p>
+
+<p>"So. What did she have to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, lots. She showed me her flowers. Ain't
+it too bad, now, that her little girl died and her boy
+went away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she spoiled that boy. He grew up to be not
+much account if he stays away just because he and his
+pop had words once."</p>
+
+<p>"But he'll come back some day. Granny knows he
+will." The child echoed the old mother's confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much chance of that," said Aunt Maria with
+her usual decisiveness. "When a man goes off like
+that he mostly always stays off. He writes to her she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a><a href="images/50.png">[50]</a></span>
+says and I guess she's just as good off with that as if
+he come home to live. She's lived this long without
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"But," argued Ph&#339;be, the maternal in her over-sweeping
+all else, "he's her boy and she wants him
+back!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach," the aunt said impatiently, "you talk too
+much. Were you at the store?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I got the thread and ordered the sugar and
+counted the change and there was nothing in the post-office
+for us."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you enjoy your trip to town?" asked the
+father.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But what?" demanded Aunt Maria. "Did you
+break anything in the store now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I just got mad. It was this way"&mdash;and she
+told the story of her pink rose.</p>
+
+<p>Maria Metz frowned. "David Eby should leave his
+mom's roses on the stalks where they belong. Anyhow,
+I guess you did look funny if you poked your
+nose in it like you do still here."</p>
+
+<p>"But she had no business to laugh at me, had she,
+pop?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're too touchy," he said kindly. "But did you
+say the lady was on Mollie Stern's porch?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I guess it was her cousin from Philadelphia,
+the one that was elected to teach the school on the hill
+for next winter."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, pop, not our school?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a><a href="images/51.png">[51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Anyhow, her cousin was elected yesterday
+to teach your school. It seems she wanted to teach
+in the country and Mollie's pop is friends with a lot of
+our directors and they voted her in."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't goin' to school then!" Ph&#339;be almost
+sobbed. "I don't like her, I don't want to go to her
+school; she laughed at me."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come," the father laid his hands on her head
+and spoke gently yet in a tone that she respected.
+"You mustn't get worked up over it. She's a nice
+young lady, and it will be something new to have a
+teacher from Philadelphia. Anyhow, it's a long ways
+yet till school begins."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Come," interrupted the aunt, "help now to dish
+up. It's time to eat once. We're Pennsylvania Dutch,
+so what's the use gettin' cross when we're called that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Ph&#339;be's father said, smiling, "I'm a Dutchie
+too, but I'm a big Dutchie."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be smiled, but all through the meal and during
+the days that followed she thought often of the rose.
+Her heart was bitter toward the new teacher and she
+resolved never, never to like her!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a><a href="images/52.png">[52]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NEW TEACHER</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> first Monday in September was the opening
+day of the rural school on the hill. Ph&#339;be woke that
+morning before daylight. At four she heard her Aunt
+Maria tramp about in heavy shoes. It was Monday
+and wash-day and to Maria Metz the two words were
+so closely linked that nothing less than serious illness
+or death could part them.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, my," Ph&#339;be sighed as she turned again under
+her red and green quilt, "this is the first day of school!
+Wish Aunt Maria'd forget to call me till it's too late to
+go."</p>
+
+<p>At five-thirty she heard her father go down-stairs
+and soon after that came her aunt's loud call, "Ph&#339;be,
+it's time to get up. Get up now and get down for I
+have breakfast made."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," came the dreary answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Now don't you go asleep again."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm awake. Shall I dress right aways for
+school?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Put on your old brown gingham once."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be made a wry face. "Ugh, that ugly brown
+gingham! What for did anybody ever buy brown
+when there are such pretty colors in the stores?"</p>
+
+<p>A moment later she pushed back the gay quilt and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a><a href="images/53.png">[53]</a></span>
+sat on the edge of the bed. The first gleams of day-break
+sent bright streaks of light into her room as she
+sat on the high walnut bed and swung her bare feet
+back and forth.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the first time I wasn't glad for school," she
+soliloquized softly. "I used to could hardly wait
+still, and I'd be glad this time if we didn't have that
+teacher from Phildelphy. Miss Virginia Lee her
+name is, and she's pretty like the name, but I don't
+like her! Guess she's that stuck up, comin' from the
+city, that she'll laugh all the time at us country people.
+I don't like people that poke fun at me, you bet I don't!
+I vonder now, mebbe I am funny to look at, that she
+laughed at me. But if I was I think somebody would
+'a' told me long ago. I don't see what for she laughed
+so at me."</p>
+
+<p>She sprang from the bed and ran to the window,
+pulled the cord of the green shade and sent it rattling
+to the top. Then she stood on tiptoe before the mirror
+in the walnut bureau, but the glass was hung too high
+for a satisfactory scrutiny of her features. She pushed
+a cane-seated chair before the bureau, knelt upon it
+and brought her face close to the glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Um," she surveyed herself soberly. "Well, now,
+mebbe if my hair was combed I'd look better."</p>
+
+<p>She pulled the tousled braids, opened them and shook
+her head until the golden hair hung about her face in
+all its glory.</p>
+
+<p>"Why"&mdash;she gasped at the sudden change she had
+wrought, then laughed aloud from sheer childish happiness
+in her own miracle&mdash;"Why," she said gladly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a><a href="images/54.png">[54]</a></span>
+"I ain't near so funny lookin' with my hair opened
+and down instead of pulled back in two tight plaits!
+But I wish Aunt Maria'd leave me have curls. I'd
+have a lot, and long ones, longer'n Mary Warner's."</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be!" Aunt Maria's voice startled the little
+girl. "What in the world are you doing lookin' in
+that glass so? And your knees on a cane-bottom
+chair! You know better than that. What for are
+you lookin' at yourself like that? You ought to be
+ashamed to be so vain."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be left the chair and looked at her aunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," she said in an amazed voice, "I wasn't being
+vain! I was just lookin' to see if I am funny lookin'
+that it made Miss Lee laugh at me. And I found out
+that I'm much nicer to look at with my hair open than
+in plaits. You say still I mustn't have curls, but can't
+you see how much nicer I look this way&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach," interrupted her aunt, "don't talk so dumb!
+I guess you ain't any funnier lookin' than other people,
+and if you was it wouldn't matter long as you're
+a good girl."</p>
+
+<p>"But I wouldn't be a good girl if I looked like some
+people I saw a'ready. If I had such big ears and
+crooked nose and big mouth&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be, you talk vonderful! Where do you get
+such nonsense put in your head?"</p>
+
+<p>"I just think it and then I say it. But was that
+bad? I didn't mean it for bad."</p>
+
+<p>She looked so like a cherub of absolute innocency
+with her deep blue eyes opened wide in wonder, her
+golden hair tumbled about her face and streaming over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a><a href="images/55.png">[55]</a></span>
+the shoulders of her white muslin nightgown, that
+Aunt Maria, though she had never heard of Reynolds'
+cherubs, was moved by the adorable picture.</p>
+
+<p>"I know, Ph&#339;be," she said kindly, "that you want
+to be a good girl. But you say such funny things still
+that I vonder sometimes if I'm raisin' you the right
+way. Come, hurry, now get dressed. Your pop's
+goin' way over to the field near Snavely's and you want
+to give him good-bye before he goes to work."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll hurry, Aunt Maria, honest I will," the child
+promised and began to dress.</p>
+
+<p>A little while later when she appeared in the big
+kitchen her father and Aunt Maria were already eating
+breakfast. With her hair drawn back into one uneven
+braid and a rusty brown dress upon her she seemed
+little like the adorable figure of the looking-glass, but
+her father's face lighted as he looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"So, Ph&#339;be," he said, a teasing twinkle in his eyes,
+"I see you get up early to go to school."</p>
+
+<p>"But I ain't glad to go." She refused to smile at
+his words.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, yes," he coaxed, "you be a good girl and like
+your new teacher. She's nice. I guess you'll like her
+when you know her once."</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe so," was the unpromising answer as she
+slipped the straps of a blue checked apron over her
+shoulders, buttoned it in the back and took her place
+at the table.</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast at the Metz farm was no light meal. Between
+the early morning meal and the twelve o'clock
+dinner much hard work was generally accomplished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a><a href="images/56.png">[56]</a></span>
+and Maria Metz felt that a substantial foundation was
+necessary. Accordingly, she carried to the big, square
+cherry table in the kitchen an array of well-filled
+dishes. There was always a glass dish of stewed
+prunes or seasonable fresh fruit; a plate piled high with
+thick slices of home-made bread; several dishes of
+spreadings, as the jellies, preserves or apple-butter of
+that community are called. There was a generous
+square of home-made butter, a platter of home-cured
+ham or sausage, a dish of fried or creamed potatoes,
+a smaller dish of pickles or beets, and occasionally a
+dome of glistening cup cheese. The meal would have
+been considered incomplete without a liberal supply of
+cake or cookies, coffee in huge cups and yellow cream
+in an old-fashioned blue pitcher.</p>
+
+<p>That morning Aunt Maria had prepared an extra
+treat, a platter of golden slices of fried mush.</p>
+
+<p>The two older people partook heartily of the food
+before them but the child ate listlessly. Her aunt soon
+exclaimed, "Now, Ph&#339;be, you must eat or you'll get
+hungry till recess. You know this is the first day of
+school and you can't run for a cookie if you get
+hungry. You ain't eatin'; you feel bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I ain't hungry."</p>
+
+<p>"Come now," urged her father, as he poured a
+liberal helping of molasses on his sixth piece of mush,
+"you must eat. You surely don't feel that bad about
+going to school!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, pop," she burst out, "I don't hate the school
+part, the learnin' in books; that part is easy. But I
+don't like the teacher, and I guess she laughed at my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a><a href="images/57.png">[57]</a></span>
+tight braids. Mebbe if I dared wear curls&mdash;&mdash; Oh,
+pop, daren't I have curls? I'd like to show her that I
+look nice that way. Say I dare, then I won't be so
+funny lookin' no more!"</p>
+
+<p>Jacob Metz looked at his offspring&mdash;what did the
+child mean? Why, he thought she was right sweet
+and surely her aunt kept her clean and tidy. But
+before he could answer his sister spoke authoritatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Jacob, I wish you'd tell her once that she daren't
+have curls! She just plagues me all the time for 'em.
+Her hair was made to be kept back and not hangin'
+all over."</p>
+
+<p>"Why then," Ph&#339;be asked soberly, "did God make
+my hair curly if I daren't have curls?" She spoke
+with a sense of knowing that she had propounded an
+unanswerable question.</p>
+
+<p>"That part don't matter," evaded Aunt Maria.
+"You ask your pop once how he wants you to have
+your hair fixed."</p>
+
+<p>The child looked up expectantly but she read the
+answer in her father's face.</p>
+
+<p>"I like your hair back in plaits, Ph&#339;be. You look
+nice that way."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach," her nose wrinkled in disgust, "not so very,
+I guess. Mary Warner has curls, always she has
+curls!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come," said the father as he rose from his chair,
+"you be a good girl now to-day. I'm going now."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, pop. I'll tell you to-night how I like the
+teacher."</p>
+
+<p>After the breakfast dishes were washed and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a><a href="images/58.png">[58]</a></span>
+other morning tasks accomplished Ph&#339;be brought her
+comb and ribbons to her aunt and sat patiently on a
+spindle-legged kitchen chair while the woman carefully
+parted the long light hair and formed it into two
+braids, each tied at the end with a narrow brown ribbon.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," Aunt Maria said as she unbuttoned the
+despised brown dress, "you dare put on your blue
+chambray dress if you take care and not get it dirty
+right aways."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm glad for that. I like that dress best of
+all I have. It's not so long in the body or tight or
+long in the skirt like my other dresses. And blue is
+a prettier color than brown. I'll hurry now and get
+dressed."</p>
+
+<p>She ran up the wide stairs, her hands skimming
+lightly the white hand-rail, and entered the little room
+known as the clothes-room, where the best clothes of
+the family were hung on heavy hooks fastened along
+the entire length of the four walls. She soon found
+the blue chambray dress. It was extremely simple.
+The plain gathered skirt was fastened to the full waist
+by a wide belt of the chambray. But the dress bore
+one distinctive feature. Instead of the usual narrow
+band around the neck it was adorned with a wide round
+collar which lay over the shoulders. Ph&#339;be knew
+that the collar was vastly becoming and the knowledge
+always had a soothing effect upon her.</p>
+
+<p>When the call of the school bell floated down the
+hill to the gray farmhouse Ph&#339;be picked up her school
+bag and her tin lunch kettle and started off, outwardly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a><a href="images/59.png">[59]</a></span>
+in happier mood yet loath to go to the old schoolhouse
+for the first session of school.</p>
+
+<p>From the Metz farm the road to the school began
+to ascend. Gradually it curved up-hill, then suddenly
+stretched out in a long, steep climb until, upon
+the summit of the hill, it curved sharply to the west to
+a wide clearing. It was to this clearing the little country
+schoolhouse with its wide porch and snug bell-tower
+called the children back to their studies.</p>
+
+<p>Goldenrod and asters grew along the road, dogwood
+branches hung their scarlet berries over the edge
+of the woods, but Ph&#339;be would have scorned to
+gather any of the flowers she loved and carry them to
+the new teacher. "I ain't bringing <i>her</i> any flowers,"
+she soliloquized.</p>
+
+<p>She trudged soberly ahead. As she reached the
+summit of the hill several children called to her. From
+three roads came other children, most of them carrying
+baskets or kettles filled with the noon lunch. All
+were eager for the opening of school, anxious to "see
+the new teacher once."</p>
+
+<p>From the farm nearest the schoolhouse Phares Eby
+had come for his last year in the rural school. From
+the little cottage on the adjoining farm David Eby
+came whistling down the road.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Ph&#339;be," he called as he drew near to her.
+"Glad for school?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't!" She flung the words at him. "You
+know good enough I ain't."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha, ha," he laughed, "don't be cranky, Ph&#339;be.
+Here comes Phares and he'll tell you that your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a><a href="images/60.png">[60]</a></span>
+eyes are black when you're cross. Won't you,
+Phares?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;&mdash;" began the sober youth, but Ph&#339;be rudely
+interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care. I don't like the new teacher."</p>
+
+<p>"You must like everybody," said Phares.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I just guess I won't! There's Mary Warner
+with her white dress and her black curls with a pink
+bow on them&mdash;you don't think I'm likin' her when
+she's got what I want and daren't have? Come on,
+it's time to go in," she added as Phares would have
+remonstrated with her for her frank avowal of
+jealousy. "Let's go in and see what the teacher's
+got on."</p>
+
+<p>"Gee," whistled David, "girls are always thinking
+of clothes."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be gave him a disdainful look, but he laughed
+and walked by her side, up the three steps, across the
+porch and into the schoolhouse.</p>
+
+<p>The red brick schoolhouse on the hill was a typical
+country school of Lancaster County. It had one large
+room with four rows of double desks and seats facing
+the teacher's desk and a long blackboard with its
+border of A B C. A stove stood in one of the corners
+in the front of the room. In the rear numerous hooks
+in the wall waited for the children's wraps and a low
+bench stood ready to receive their lunch baskets and
+kettles. Each detail of the little schoolhouse was
+reproduced in scores of other rural schools of that
+community. And yet, somehow, many of the older
+children felt on that first Monday a hope that their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a><a href="images/61.png">[61]</a></span>
+school would be different that year, that the teacher
+from Philadelphia would change many of the old ways
+and teach them, what Youth most desires, new ways,
+new manners, new things. It is only as the years
+bring wisdom that men and women appreciate the old
+things of life, as well as the new.</p>
+
+<p>The new teacher became at once the predominating
+spirit of that little group. The interest of all the
+children, from the shy little beginners in the Primer
+class to the tall ones in the A class, was centered about
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lee stood by her desk as Ph&#339;be and the two
+boys entered. It was still that delightful period, before-school,
+when laughter could be released and
+voices raised without a fear of "keep quiet." The
+children moved to the teacher's desk as though drawn
+by magnetic force. Mary Warner, her dark curls
+hanging over her shoulders, appeared already acquainted
+with her. Several tiny beginners stood near
+the desk, a few older scholars were bravely offering
+their services to fetch water from Eby's "whenever
+it's all or you want some fresh," or else stay and clap
+the erasers clean.</p>
+
+<p>When the second tug at the bell-rope gave the final
+call for the opening of school there was an air of gladness
+in the room. The new teacher possessed enough
+of the elusive "something" the country children felt
+belonged to a teacher from a big city like Philadelphia.
+The way she conducted the opening exercises, led the
+singing, and then proceeded with the business of arranging
+classes and assigning lessons served to intensify<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a><a href="images/62.png">[62]</a></span>
+the first feelings of satisfaction. When recess came
+the children ran outdoors, ostensibly to play, but rather
+to gather into little groups and discuss the merits of
+the new teacher. The general verdict was, "She's
+all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't she all right?" David Eby asked Ph&#339;be as
+they stood in the brown grasses near the school porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, don't ask me that so often!"</p>
+
+<p>"But honest now, Ph&#339;be, don't you like her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"When will you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," came the tantalizing answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, sometimes, Ph&#339;be, you make me mad! You
+act dumb just like the other girls sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then keep away from me if you don't like me,"
+she retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"Sassbox!" said the boy and walked away from
+her.</p>
+
+<p>The little tilt with David did not improve the girl's
+humor. She entered the schoolroom with a sulky
+look on her face, her blue eyes dark and stormy. Accordingly,
+when Mary Warner shook her enviable
+curls and leaned forward to whisper ecstatically,
+"Ph&#339;be, don't you just love the new teacher?"
+Ph&#339;be replied very decidedly, "I do not! I don't like
+her at all!"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Mary held her breath, then a surprised
+"Oh!" came from her lips and she raised her
+hand and waved it frantically to attract the teacher's
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Mary?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a><a href="images/63.png">[63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why, Miss Lee, Ph&#339;be Metz says she don't like
+you at all!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did she ask you to tell me?" A faint flush crept
+into the face of the teacher.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then that will do, Mary."</p>
+
+<p>But Ph&#339;be Metz did not dismiss the matter so
+easily. She turned in her seat and gave one of Mary's
+obnoxious curls a vigorous yank.</p>
+
+<p>"Tattle-tale!" she hurled out madly. "Big tattle-tale!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yank 'em again," whispered David, seated a few
+seats behind the girls, but Phares called out a soft,
+"Ph&#339;be, stop that."</p>
+
+<p>It all occurred in a moment&mdash;the yank, the outcry
+of Mary, the whispers of the two boys and the subsequent
+pause in the matter of teaching and the centering
+of every child's attention upon the exciting incident
+and wondering what Miss Lee would do with the disturbers
+of the peace.</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be," the teacher's voice was controlled and
+forceful, "you may fold your hands. You do not
+seem to know what to do with them."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be folded her hands and bowed her head in
+shame. She hadn't meant to create a disturbance.
+What would her father say when he knew she was
+scolded the first day of school!</p>
+
+<p>The teacher's voice went on, "Mary Warner, you
+may come to me at noon. I want to tell you a few
+things about tale-bearing. Ph&#339;be may remain after
+the others leave this afternoon."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a><a href="images/64.png">[64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Kept in!" thought Ph&#339;be disconsolately. She
+was going to be kept in the first day! Never before
+had such punishment been meted out to her! The
+disgrace almost overwhelmed her.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I won't ever, ever, ever like her!" she
+thought as she bent her head to hide the tears.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of the day was like a blurred page to
+her. She was glad when the other children picked up
+their books and empty baskets and kettles and started
+homeward.</p>
+
+<p>"Cheer up," whispered David as he passed out, but
+she was too miserable to smile or answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, David," urged Phares when the two
+cousins reached outdoors and the younger one seemed
+reluctant to go home. "Don't stay here to pet
+Ph&#339;be when she comes out."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, the poor kid"&mdash;David was all sympathy and
+tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"Let her get punished. Pulling Mary's hair like
+that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mary tattled. I was wishing Ph&#339;be'd yank
+that darned kid's hair half off."</p>
+
+<p>"Mary just told the truth. You think everything
+Ph&#339;be does is right and you help her along in her
+temper. She needs to be punished sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, you make me tired, standing up for a tattle-tale!
+Anyhow, you go on home. I'm goin' to hang
+round a while and see if Miss Lee does anything
+mean."</p>
+
+<p>Phares went on alone and the other boy stole to a
+window and crouched to the ground.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a><a href="images/65.png">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Inside the room Ph&#339;be waited tremblingly for the
+teacher to speak. It seemed ages before Miss Lee
+walked down the aisle and stood by the low desk.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be raised her head&mdash;the look in the dark eyes
+of the teacher filled her with a sudden reversion of
+feeling. How could she go on hating any one so
+beautiful!</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be, I'm sorry&mdash;I'm so sorry there has been
+any trouble the first day and that you have been the
+cause of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;ach, Miss Lee," the child blurted out half-sobbingly,
+"Mary, she tattled on me."</p>
+
+<p>"That was wrong, of course. I made her understand
+that at noon. But don't you think that pulling
+her hair and creating a disturbance was equally
+wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess so, mebbe. But I didn't mean to make no
+fuss. I&mdash;I&mdash;why, I just get so mad still! I hadn't
+ought to pull her hair, for that hurts vonderful much."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you might tell her to-morrow how sorry you
+are about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." Ph&#339;be looked up at the lovely face of the
+teacher. She felt that some explanation of Mary's
+tale was necessary. "Why, now," she stammered,
+"you know&mdash;you know that Mary said I said I don't
+like you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, this summer once, early in June it was"&mdash;the
+child hung her head and spoke almost inaudibly&mdash;"you
+laughed at me and called me a <span class="smcap">Little
+Dutchie</span>!" She looked up bravely then and spoke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a><a href="images/66.png">[66]</a></span>
+faster, "And for that, it's just for that I don't like
+you like all the others do a'ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Laughed at you!" Miss Lee was perplexed.
+"You must be mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>But Ph&#339;be shook her head resolutely and told the
+story of the pink rose. Miss Lee listened at first with
+an incredulous smile upon her face, then with dawning
+remembrance.</p>
+
+<p>"You dear child!" she cried as Ph&#339;be ended her
+quaint recital. "So you are the little girl of the sunbonnet
+and the rose! I thought this morning I had
+seen you before. But you don't understand! I didn't
+laugh at you in the way you think. Why, I laughed
+at you just as we laugh at a dear little baby, because
+we love it and because it is so dear and sweet. And
+<span class="smcap">Dutchie</span> was just a pet name. Can't you understand?
+You were so quaint and interesting in your
+sunbonnet and with the pink rose pressed to your face.
+Can't you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be smiled radiantly, her face beaming with happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, ain't that simple now of me, Miss Lee?" she
+said in her old-fashioned manner. "I was so dumb
+and thought you was makin' fun of me, and just for
+that all summer I was wishin' school would not start
+ever. And I was sayin' all the time I ain't goin' to
+like you. But now I do like you," she added softly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad we understand each other, Ph&#339;be."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lee was genuinely interested in the child, attracted
+by the charming personality of the country
+girl. Of the thirty children of that school she felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a><a href="images/67.png">[67]</a></span>
+that Ph&#339;be Metz, in spite of her old-fashioned dress
+and older-fashioned ways, was the pre&euml;minent figure.
+It would be a delight to teach a child whose face could
+light with so much animation.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Ph&#339;be," she said, "since we understand
+each other and have become friends, gather your books
+and hurry home. Your mother may be anxious about
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Not my mother," Ph&#339;be replied soberly. "I ain't
+got no mom. It's my Aunt Maria and my pop takes
+care of me. My mom's dead long a'ready. But I'm
+goin' now," she ended brightly before Miss Lee could
+answer. "And the road's all down-hill so it won't
+take me long."</p>
+
+<p>So she gathered her books and kettle, said good-bye
+to Miss Lee and hurried from the schoolhouse. When
+she was fairly on the road she broke into her habit of
+soliloquy: "Ach, if she ain't the nicest lady! So
+pretty she is and so kind! She was vonderful kind
+after what I done. The teacher we had last year, now,
+he would 'a' slapped my hands with a ruler, he was awful
+for rulers! But she just looked at me and I was so
+sorry for bein' bad that I could 'a' cried. And when
+she touched my hands&mdash;her hands is soft like the milkweed
+silk we find still in the fall&mdash;I just had to like
+her. I like her now and I'm goin' to be a good girl
+for her and when I grow up I wish I'd be just like her,
+just esactly like her."</p>
+
+<p>David Eby waited until he was certain no harm was
+coming to Ph&#339;be. He heard her say, "Now I do like
+you" and knew that the matter was being settled sat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a><a href="images/68.png">[68]</a></span>isfactorily.
+Relieved, yet ashamed of his eavesdropping,
+he ran down the road toward his home.</p>
+
+<p>"That teacher's all right," he thought. "But
+Jimminy, girls is funny things!"</p>
+
+<p>He went on, whistling, but stopped suddenly as he
+turned a curve in the road and saw Phares sitting on
+the grass in the shelter of a clump of bushes.</p>
+
+<p>The older boy rose. "David," he said sternly,
+"you're spoiling Ph&#339;be Metz with your petting and
+fooling around her. What for need you pity her when
+she gets kept in for being bad? She was bad!"</p>
+
+<p>"She was not bad!" David defended staunchly.
+"That Mary Warner makes me sick. Ph&#339;be's got
+some sense, anyhow, and she's not bad. There's
+nothing bad in her."</p>
+
+<p>"Um," said Phares tauntingly, "mebbe you like her
+already and next you'll want her for your girl. You
+give her pink roses and you stay to lick the teacher
+for her if&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But the sentence was never finished. At the first
+words David's eyes flashed, his hands doubled into
+hard fists and, as his cousin paid no heed to the warning,
+he struck out suddenly, then partially restraining
+his rage, he unclenched his right hand and gave Phares
+a smarting slap upon the mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll learn you," he growled, "to meddle in my
+business! You mind your own, d'ye hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why"&mdash;Phares knew no words to answer the
+insult&mdash;"why, David," he stammered, wiping his
+smarting lips.</p>
+
+<p>But his silence added fuel to the other's wrath.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a><a href="images/69.png">[69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You butt in too much, that's what!" said David.
+"It's just like Ph&#339;be says, you boss too much. I ain't
+going to take it no more from you."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;now&mdash;mebbe I do," admitted Phares.</p>
+
+<p>At the words David's anger cooled. He laid a hand
+on the older boy's arm, as older men might have
+gripped hands in reconciliation. "Come on, Phares,"
+he said in natural, friendly tones. "I hadn't ought
+to hit you. Let's forget all about it. You and me
+mustn't fight over Ph&#339;be."</p>
+
+<p>"That's so," agreed Phares, but both were thoughtful
+and silent as they went down the lane.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a><a href="images/70.png">[70]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HEART OF A CHILD</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ph&#339;be's</span> aspiration to become like her teacher did
+not lessen as the days went on. Her profound admiration
+for Miss Lee developed into intense devotion, a
+devotion whose depth she carefully guarded from discovery.</p>
+
+<p>To her father's interested questioning she answered
+a mere, "Why, I like her, for all, pop. She didn't
+laugh to make fun at me. I think she's nice." But
+secretly the little girl thought of her new teacher in
+the most extravagant superlatives. Her heart was
+experiencing its first "hero" worship; the poetic, imaginative
+soul of the child was attracted by the magnetic
+personality of Miss Lee. The teacher's smiles,
+mannerisms, dress, and above all, her English, were
+objects worthy of emulation, thought the child. At
+times Ph&#339;be despaired of ever becoming like Miss
+Lee, then again she felt certain she had within her possibilities
+to become like the enviable, wonderful Virginia
+Lee. But she breathed to none her ambitions
+and hopes except at night as she knelt by her high old-fashioned
+bed and bent her head to say the prayer
+Aunt Maria had taught her in babyhood. Then to the
+prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep," she added an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a><a href="images/71.png">[71]</a></span>
+original petition, "And please let me get like my
+teacher, Miss Lee. Amen."</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Maria, church is on the hill Sunday, ain't
+it?" she asked one day after several weeks of school.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And I hope it's nice, for we make ready for
+a lot of company always when we have church here."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," the child asked eagerly, "dare I ask Miss
+Lee to come here for dinner too that Sunday? Mary
+Warner's mom had her for dinner last Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, yes, I don't care. You ask her. Mebbe she
+ain't been in a plain church yet and would like to go
+with us and then come home for dinner here. You
+ask her once."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be trembled a bit as she invited the teacher to
+the gray farmhouse. "Miss Lee&mdash;why&mdash;we have
+church here on the hill this Sunday and Aunt Maria
+thought perhaps you'd like to come out and go with
+us and then come to our house for dinner. We always
+have a lot of people for dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd love to, Ph&#339;be, thank you," answered Miss
+Lee.</p>
+
+<p>The plain sects of that community were all novel to
+her. She was eager to attend a service in the meeting-house
+on the hill and especially eager to meet Ph&#339;be's
+people and study the unusual child in the intimate
+circle of home.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell your aunt I shall be very glad to go to the
+service with you," she said as Ph&#339;be stood speechless
+with joy. "Will you go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, yes, I go always," with a surprised widening
+of the blue eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a><a href="images/72.png">[72]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And your aunt, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why be sure, yes! Abody don't stay home from
+church when it's so near. That would look like we
+don't want company. There's church on the hill only
+every six weeks and the other Sundays it's at other
+churches. Then we drive to those other churches and
+people what live near ask us to come to their house
+for dinner, and we go. Then when it's here on the
+hill we must ask people that live far off to come to us
+for dinner. That way everybody has a place to go.
+It makes it nice to go away and to have company still.
+We always have a lot when church is here. Aunt
+Maria cooks so good."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke the last words innocently and looked up
+with an expression of wonder as she heard Miss Lee
+laugh gaily&mdash;now what was funny? Surely Miss Lee
+laughed when there was nothing at all to laugh about!</p>
+
+<p>"What time does your service begin?" asked the
+teacher. "What time do you leave the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"It takes in at nine o'clock&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lee smothered an ejaculation of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"But we leave the house a little after half-past
+eight. Then we can go easy up the hill and have time
+to walk around on the graveyard a little and get in
+church early and watch the people come in."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll stop for you and go with you, Ph&#339;be."</p>
+
+<p>Sunday morning at the Metz farm was no time for
+prolonged slumber. With the first crowing of roosters
+Aunt Maria rose. After the early breakfast there
+were numerous tasks to be performed before the departure
+for the meeting-house. There was the milking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a><a href="images/73.png">[73]</a></span>
+to be done and the cans of milk placed in the cool
+spring-house; the chickens and cattle to be fed; each
+room of the big house to be dusted; vegetables to be
+prepared for a hasty boiling after the return from the
+service; preserves and canned fruits to be brought
+from the cellar, placed into glass dishes and set in
+readiness.</p>
+
+<p>At eight-fifteen Ph&#339;be was ready. She wore her
+favorite blue chambray dress and delighted in the fact
+that Sunday always brought her the privilege of wearing
+her hat. The little sailor hat with its narrow ribbon
+and little bow was certainly not the hat she would
+have chosen if she might have had that pleasure, but
+it was the only hat she owned, so was not to be
+despised. She felt grateful that Aunt Maria allowed
+her to wear a hat. Many little girls, some smaller than
+she, came to church every Sunday wearing silk bonnets
+like their elders!&mdash;she felt grateful for her hat&mdash;any
+hat!</p>
+
+<p>Tugging at the elastic under her chin, then smoothing
+her handkerchief and placing it in her sleeve&mdash;she
+had seen Miss Lee dispose of a handkerchief in that
+way&mdash;she walked to the little green gate and watched
+the road leading from Greenwald.</p>
+
+<p>Her heart leaped when she saw the teacher come
+down the long road. She opened the gate to go to
+meet her, then suddenly stood still. Miss Lee as she
+appeared in the schoolroom, in white linen dress or
+trim serge skirt and tailored waist, was attractive
+enough to cause Ph&#339;be's heart to flutter with admiration
+a dozen times a day; but Miss Lee in Sunday<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a><a href="images/74.png">[74]</a></span>
+morning church attire was so irresistibly sweet that
+the vision sent the little girl's heart pounding and
+caused a strange shyness to possess her. The semi-tailored
+dress of dark blue taffeta, the sheer white collar,
+the small black hat with its white wings, the silver
+coin purse in the gloved hand&mdash;no detail escaped the
+keen eyes of the child. She looked down at her cotton
+dress&mdash;it had seemed so pretty just a moment ago.
+But, of course, such dresses and gloves and hats were
+for grown-ups! "But just you wait," she thought,
+"when I grow up I'll look like that, too, see if I
+don't!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lee, smiling, never knew the depths she stirred
+in the heart of the little girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I late, Ph&#339;be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, no. Just on time. Pop, he went a'ready,
+though. He goes early still to open the meeting-house.
+We'll go right away, as soon as Aunt Maria locks up.
+But what for did you bring a pocketbook?"</p>
+
+<p>"For the offering."</p>
+
+<p>"Offering?"</p>
+
+<p>"The church offering, Ph&#339;be. Surely you know
+what that is if you go to church every Sunday. Don't
+you have collection plates or baskets passed about in
+your church for everybody to put their offerings on
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no, we don't have that in our church! What
+for do they do that in any church?"</p>
+
+<p>"To pay the preachers' salaries and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness," Ph&#339;be laughed, "it would take a
+vonderful lot to pay all the preachers that preach at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a><a href="images/75.png">[75]</a></span>
+our church. Sometimes three or four preach at one
+meeting. They have to work week-days and get their
+money just like other men do. Men come around to
+the house sometimes for money for the poor, and when
+the meeting-house needs a new roof or something
+like that, everybody helps to pay for it, but we don't
+take no collections in church, like you say. That's a
+funny way&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of Maria Metz prevented further
+discussion of church collections. With a large, fringed
+shawl pinned over her plain gray dress and a stiff black
+silk bonnet tied under her chin, she was ready for
+church. She was putting the big iron key of the
+kitchen door into a deep pocket of her full skirt as she
+came down the walk.</p>
+
+<p>"That way, now we're ready," she said affably.
+"I guess you're Ph&#339;be's teacher, ain't? I see you go
+past still."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I am very glad to meet you, Miss Metz.
+It is very kind of you to invite me to go with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, that's nothing. You're welcome enough.
+We always have much company when church is on the
+hill. This is a nice day, so I guess church will be full.
+I hope so, anyway, for I got ready for company for
+dinner. But how do you like Greenwald?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, indeed. It is beautiful here."</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't! But I guess it's different from Phildelphy.
+I was there once, in the Centennial, and it was so full
+everywheres. I like the country best. Can't anything
+beat this now, can it?"</p>
+
+<p>They reached the summit of the hill and paused.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a><a href="images/76.png">[76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No," said Miss Lee, "this is hard to beat. I love
+the view from this hill."</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't now"&mdash;Aunt Maria smiled in approval&mdash;"this
+here is about the nicest spot around Greenwald.
+There's the town so plain you could almost count the
+houses, only the trees get in the road. And there's
+the reservoir with the white fence around, and the
+farms and the pretty country around them&mdash;it's a
+pretty place."</p>
+
+<p>"I like this hill," said Ph&#339;be. "When I grow up
+I'm goin' to have a farm on this hill, when I'm married,
+I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"That's too far off yet, Ph&#339;be," said her aunt.
+"You must eat bread and butter yet a while before
+you think of such things."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, I changed my mind. I'm not goin' to
+live in the country when I grow up; I'm going to be a
+fine lady and live in the city."</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be, stop that dumb talk, now!" reproved her
+aunt sternly. "You turn round and walk up the hill.
+We'll go on now, Miss Lee. Mebbe you'd like to go
+on the graveyard a little?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Then come." Aunt Maria led the way, past the
+low brick meeting-house, through the gateway into the
+old burial ground. They wandered among the marble
+slabs and read the inscriptions, some half obliterated
+by years of mountain storms, others freshly carved.</p>
+
+<p>"The epitaphs are interesting," said Miss Lee.</p>
+
+<p>"What's them?" asked Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"The verses on the tombstones. Here is one"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a><a href="images/77.png">[77]</a></span>&mdash;she
+read the inscription on the base of a narrow gray
+stone&mdash;"'After life's fitful fever she sleeps well.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach," Aunt Maria said tartly, "I guess her man
+knowed why he put that on. That poor woman had
+three husbands and eleven children, so I guess she had
+fitful fever enough."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be laughed loud as she saw the smile on the face
+of her teacher, but next moment she sobered under the
+chiding of Aunt Maria. "Ph&#339;be, now you keep quiet!
+Abody don't laugh and act so on a graveyard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh," the child said a moment later, "Miss Lee,
+just read this one. It always gives me shivers when
+I read it still.</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"'Remember, man, as you pass by,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">What you are now that once was I.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">What I am now that you will be;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">Prepare for death and follow me.'"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"That is rather startling," said Miss Lee.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be smiled and asked, "Don't you think this is a
+pretty graveyard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. How well cared for the graves are. Not
+a weed on most of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Aunt Maria explained, "the people who
+have dead here mostly take care of the graves. We
+come up every two weeks or so and sometimes we
+bring a hoe and fix our graves up nice and even. But
+some people are too lazy to keep the graves clean. I
+hoed some pig-ears out a few graves last week; I was
+ashamed of 'em, even if the graves didn't belong to us."</p>
+
+<p>In the corner near the road the aunt stopped before
+a plain gray boulder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a><a href="images/78.png">[78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be's mom," she said, pointing to the inscription.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"<i>PH&#338;BE<br />
+beloved wife of<br />
+Jacob Metz<br />
+aged twenty-two years<br />
+and one month.<br />
+Souls of the righteous<br />
+are in the hand of God.</i>"<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"I'm glad," said the child as they stood by her
+mother's grave, "that they put that last on, for when
+I come here still I like to know that my mom ain't
+under all this dirt but that she's up in the Good Place
+like it says there."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lee clasped the little hand in hers&mdash;what
+words were adequate to express her feeling for the
+motherless child!</p>
+
+<p>"Come on," Maria Metz said crisply, "or we'll be
+late." But Miss Lee read in the brusqueness a strong
+feeling of sorrow for the child.</p>
+
+<p>Silently the three walked through the green aisles of
+the old graveyard, Aunt Maria leading the way, alone;
+Ph&#339;be's hand still in the hand of her teacher.</p>
+
+<p>To Miss Lee, whose hours of public worship had
+hitherto been spent in an Episcopal church in Philadelphia,
+the extreme plainness of the meeting-house on the
+hill brought a sense of acute wonderment. The contrast
+was so marked. There, in the city, was the
+large, high-vaulted church whose in-streaming light
+was softened by exquisite stained windows and revealed
+each detail of construction and color harmoniously
+consistent. Here, in the country, was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a><a href="images/79.png">[79]</a></span>
+square, low-ceilinged meeting-house through whose
+open windows the glaring light relentlessly intensified
+the whiteness of the walls and revealed more plainly
+each flaw and knot in the unpainted pine benches.
+Yet the meeting-house on the hill was strangely,
+strongly representative of the frank, honest, unpretentious
+people who worshipped there, and after the
+first wave of surprise a feeling of interest and reverence
+held her.</p>
+
+<p>It was a unique sight for the city girl. The rows
+of white-capped women were separated from the rows
+of bearded men by a low partition built midway down
+the body of the church. Each sex entered the meeting-house
+through a different door and sat in its
+apportioned half of the building. On each side of the
+room rows of black hooks were set into the walls. On
+these hooks the sisters hung their bonnets and the
+shawls and the brethren placed their hats and overcoats
+during the service.</p>
+
+<p>The preachers, varying in number from two to six,
+sat before a long table in the front part of the meeting-house.
+When the duty of preaching devolved upon
+one of them he simply rose from his seat and delivered
+his message.</p>
+
+<p>As Aunt Maria and her two followers took their
+seats on a bench near the front of the church a
+preacher rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us join in singing&mdash;has any one a choice?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lee started as a woman's voice answered,
+"Number one hundred forty-seven." However, her
+surprise merged into other emotions as the old hymn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a><a href="images/80.png">[80]</a></span>
+rose in the low-ceilinged room. There was no accompaniment
+of any musical instrument, just a harmonious
+blending of the deep-toned voices of the brethren
+with the sweet voices of the sisters. The music
+swelled in full, deliberate rhythm, its calm earnestness
+bearing witness to the fact that every word of the
+hymn was uttered in a spirit of worship.</p>
+
+<p>Maria Metz sang very softly, but Ph&#339;be's young
+voice rose clearly in the familiar words, "Jesus, Lover
+of my soul."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lee listened a moment to the sweet voice of
+the child by her side, then she, too, joined in the singing&mdash;feeling
+the words, as she had never before felt
+them, to be the true expression of millions of mortals
+who have sung, are singing, and shall continue to sing
+them.</p>
+
+<p>When the hymn was ended another preacher arose
+and opened the service with a few remarks, then asked
+all to kneel in prayer.</p>
+
+<p>Every one&mdash;men, women, children&mdash;turned and
+knelt upon the bare floor while the preacher's voice
+rose in a simple prayer. As the Amen fell from his
+lips Miss Lee started to rise, but Ph&#339;be laid a restraining
+hand upon her and whispered, "There's yet
+one."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment there was silence in the meeting-house.
+Then the voice of another preacher rose in the
+universal prayer, "Our Father, which art in heaven."
+Every extemporaneous prayer in the Church of the
+Brethren is complemented by the model prayer the
+Master taught His disciples.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a><a href="images/81.png">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was another hymn, reading of the Scriptures,
+and then the sermon proper was preached.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Maria nodded approvingly as the preacher
+read, "Whose adorning let it not be that outward
+adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold,
+or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden
+man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even
+the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the
+sight of God of great price."</p>
+
+<p>"You listen good now to what the preacher says,"
+the woman whispered to Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>The child looked Up solemnly at her aunt, about her
+at the many white-capped women, then up at Miss
+Lee's pretty hat with its white Mercury wings&mdash;she
+was endeavoring to justify the pleasure and beauty her
+aunt pronounced vanity. Was Miss Lee really wicked
+when she wore clothes like that? Surely, no! After
+a few moments the child sighed, folded her hands and
+looked steadfastly at the tall bearded man who was
+preaching.</p>
+
+<p>The clergy among these plain sects receive no remuneration
+for their preaching. With them the mercenary
+and the pecuniary are ever distinct from the
+religious. Six days in the week the preacher follows
+the plow or works at some other worthy occupation;
+upon the seventh day he preaches the Gospel. There
+is, therefore, no elaborate preparation for the sermon;
+the preacher has abundant faith in the old admonition,
+"Take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it
+shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall
+speak, for it is not ye that speak but the spirit of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a><a href="images/82.png">[82]</a></span>
+Father that speaketh in you." Thus it is that, while
+the sermons usually lack the blandishments of fine
+rhetoric and the rhythmic ease arising from oratorical
+ability, they seldom fail in deep sincerity and directness
+of appeal.</p>
+
+<p>The one who delivered the message that September
+morning told of the joy of those who have overcome
+the desire for the vanities of the world, extolled the
+virtue of a simple life, till Miss Lee felt convinced
+that there must be something real in a religion that
+could hold its followers to so simple, wholesome a
+life.</p>
+
+<p>She looked about, at the serried rows of white-capped
+women&mdash;how gentle and calm they appeared in
+their white caps and plain dresses; she looked across
+the partition at the lines of men&mdash;how strong and honest
+their faces were; and the children&mdash;she had never
+before seen so many children at a church service&mdash;would
+they all, in time, wear the garb of their people
+and enter the church of their parents? The child at
+her side&mdash;vivacious, untiring, responsive Ph&#339;be&mdash;would
+she, too, wear the plain dress some day and live
+the quiet life of her people?</p>
+
+<p>The eagerness of the child's face as Miss Lee looked
+at her denoted intense interest in the sermon, but none
+could know the real cause of that eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't, I just won't dress plain!" she was thinking.
+"Anyway, not till I'm old like Aunt Maria. I
+want to look like Miss Lee when I grow up. And that
+preacher just said that it ain't good to plait the hair,
+I mean he read it out the Bible. Mebbe now Aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a><a href="images/83.png">[83]</a></span>
+Maria will leave me have curls. I hope she heard
+him say that."</p>
+
+<p>She sighed in relief as the sermon was concluded
+and the next preacher rose and added a few remarks.
+When the third man rose to add his few remarks
+Ph&#339;be looked up at Miss Lee and whispered, "Guess
+he's the last one once!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lee smiled. The service was rather long, but
+it was drawing to a close. There was another prayer,
+another hymn and the service ended.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately the white-capped women rose and began
+to bestow upon each other the holy kiss; upon the
+opposite side of the church the brethren greeted each
+other in like fashion. Everywhere there were greetings
+and profferings of dinner invitations.</p>
+
+<p>Maria Metz and her brother did not fail in their
+duty. In a few minutes they had invited a goodly
+number to make the gray farmhouse their stopping-place.
+Then Aunt Maria hurried home, eager to
+prepare for her guests. Soon the Metz barnyard was
+filled with carriages and automobiles and the gray
+house resounded with happy voices. Some of the
+women helped Maria in the kitchen, others wandered
+about in the old-fashioned garden, where dahlias,
+sweet alyssum, marigolds, ladies' breastpin and snapdragons
+still bloomed in the bright September sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lee, guided by Ph&#339;be, examined every nook of
+the big garden, peered into the deserted wren-house
+and listened to the child's story of the six baby wrens
+reared in the box that summer. Finally Ph&#339;be sug<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a><a href="images/84.png">[84]</a></span>gested
+sitting on a bench half screened by rose-bushes
+and honeysuckle. There, in that green spot, Miss Lee
+tactfully coaxed the child to unfold her charming
+personality, all serenely unconscious of the fact that
+inside the gray house the white-capped women were
+discussing the new teacher as they prepared the
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"She seems vonderful nice and common," volunteered
+Aunt Maria. "Not stuck up, for a Phildelphy
+lady."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why should she be stuck up?" argued one.
+"Ain't she just Mollie Stern's cousin? Course, Mollie's
+nice, but nothing tony."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, the children all like her," spoke up another
+woman. "My Enos learns good this year."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess she's all right," said another, "but
+Amande, my sister, says that she's after her Lizzie all
+the time for the way she talks. The teacher tells her all
+the time not to talk so funny, not to get her t's and d's
+and her v's and w's mixed. Goodness knows, them
+letters is near enough alike to get them mixed sometimes.
+I mix them myself. Manda don't want her
+Lizzie made high-toned, for then nothing will be good
+enough for her any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, I guess Miss Lee won't do that," said Aunt
+Maria. "I know I'm glad the teacher ain't the kind
+to put on airs. When I heard they put in a teacher
+from Phildelphy I was afraid she'd be the kind to teach
+the children a lot of dumb notions and that Ph&#339;be
+would be spoiled&mdash;&mdash; Here, Sister Minnich, is the
+holder for that pan. I guess the ham is fried enough.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a><a href="images/85.png">[85]</a></span>
+Yes, ain't the chicken smells good! I roasted it yesterday,
+so it needs just a good heating to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I take the sweet potatoes off, Maria?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they're brown enough, and the coffee's about
+done, and plenty of it, too."</p>
+
+<p>"And it smells good, too," chorused several women.</p>
+
+<p>"It's just twenty-eight cent coffee; I get it in Greenwald.
+I guess the things can be put out now. Call
+the men, Susan."</p>
+
+<p>In quick order the long table in the dining-room&mdash;used
+only upon occasions like this&mdash;was filled with
+smoking, savory dishes, the men called from the
+porches and yard and everybody, except the two
+women who helped Aunt Maria to serve, seated about
+the board. All heads were bowed while one of
+the brethren said a long grace and then the feast
+began.</p>
+
+<p>True to the standards set by the majority of the
+Pennsylvania Dutch, the meal was fit for the finest.
+There was no attempt to serve it according to the rules
+of the latest book of etiquette. All the food was
+placed upon the table and each one helped herself and
+himself and passed the dish to the nearest neighbor.
+Occasionally the services of the three women were required
+to bring in water, bread or coffee, or to replenish
+the dishes and platters. Everybody was in good
+humor, especially when one of the brethren suddenly
+found himself with a platter of chicken in one hand
+and a pitcher of gravy in the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on, here!" he said laughingly, "it's coming
+both ways. I can't manage it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a><a href="images/86.png">[86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now, Isaac," chided one of the women, "you
+went and started the gravy the wrong way around.
+And here, Elam, start that apple-butter round once.
+Maria always has such good apple-butter."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lee's ready adaptability proved a valuable
+asset that day. Everybody was so cordial and friendly
+that, although she was the only woman without the
+white cap, there was no shadow of any holier-than-thou
+spirit. She was accepted as a friend; as a lady
+from Philadelphia she became invested with a charm
+and interest which the frank country people did not try
+to conceal. They spoke freely to her of her work in
+the school, inquired about the children and listened
+with interest as she answered their questions about her
+home city.</p>
+
+<p>When the dinner was ended heads were bowed again
+and thanks rendered to God for the blessings received.
+Then the men went outdoors, where the beehives,
+poultry houses, barns and orchards of the farm afforded
+several hours of inspection and discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Indoors some of the women began to wash dishes
+while Aunt Maria and her helpers ate their belated
+dinner; others went to the sitting-room and entertained
+themselves by rocking and talking or looking at the
+pictures in the big red plush album which lay upon a
+small table.</p>
+
+<p>Later, when everything was once more in order in
+the big kitchen, Maria stood in the doorway of the
+sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," she said, "I guess we better go up-stairs
+and see the rugs before the men come in. Susan said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a><a href="images/87.png">[87]</a></span>
+she wants to see my new rugs once when she comes.
+So come on, everybody that wants to."</p>
+
+<p>"You come," Ph&#339;be invited Miss Lee. "I'll show
+you some of the things in my chest."</p>
+
+<p>Maria led the way to the spare-room on the second
+floor, a large square room furnished in old-fashioned
+country style: a rag carpet, rag rugs, heavy black walnut
+bureau and wash-stand, the latter with an antique
+bowl and pitcher of pink and white, and a splasher of
+white linen outlined in turkey red cotton. A framed
+cross-stitch sampler hung on the wall; four cane-seated
+chairs and a great wooden chest completed the furnishing
+of the room.</p>
+
+<p>The chest became the centre of attraction as Aunt
+Maria opened it and began to show the hooked rugs
+she had made.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be waited until her teacher had seen and admired
+several, then she tugged at the silk sleeve ever
+so gently and whispered, "D'ye want to see some of
+the things I made?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lee smiled and nodded and the two stole away
+to the child's room.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be closed the door.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my room and this is my Hope Chest," she
+said proudly.</p>
+
+<p>Among many of the Pennsylvania Dutch the Hope
+Chest has long been considered an important part of a
+girl's belongings. During her early childhood a large
+chest is secured and the stocking of it becomes a pleasant
+duty. Into it are laid the girl's discarded infant
+clothes; patchwork quilts and comfortables pieced by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a><a href="images/88.png">[88]</a></span>
+herself or by some fond grandmother or mother or
+aunt; homespun sheets and towels that have been
+handed down from other generations; ginghams,
+linens and minor household articles that might be useful
+in her own home. When the girl leaves the old
+nest for one of her own building the Hope Chest goes
+with her as a valuable portion of her dowry.</p>
+
+<p>"Hope Chest," echoed Miss Lee. "Do you have a
+Hope Chest?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, yes, long already! Aunt Maria says it's for
+when I grow up and get married and live in my own
+home, but I&mdash;why, I don't know at all yet if I want
+to get married. When I say that to her she says
+still that I can be glad I have the chest anyhow,
+for old maids need covers and aprons and things
+too."</p>
+
+<p>"You dear child," Miss Lee said, laughing, "you do
+say the funniest things!"</p>
+
+<p>"But"&mdash;Ph&#339;be raised her flushed face&mdash;"you ain't
+laughing at me to make fun?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ph&#339;be, I love you too much for that. It's
+just that you are different."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, but I'm glad! And that's why I want to
+show you my things."</p>
+
+<p>She opened the lid of her chest and brought out a
+quilt, then another, and another.</p>
+
+<p>"This is all mine. And I finished another one this
+summer that Aunt Maria is going to quilt this fall yet.
+Then I'll have nine already. Ain't&mdash;isn't that a lot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," laughed the teacher. "Just nine
+more than I have."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a><a href="images/89.png">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why"&mdash;Ph&#339;be stared in surprise&mdash;"don't you
+have quilts in your Hope Chest?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't even the Hope Chest."</p>
+
+<p>"No Hope Chest! Now, that's funny! I thought
+every girl that could have a chest for the money had
+a Hope Chest!"</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard of a Hope Chest before I came to
+Greenwald."</p>
+
+<p>"Now don't it beat all!" The child was very serious.
+"We ain't at all like other people, I believe. I
+wonder why we are so different from you people. Oh,
+I know we talk different from you, and mostly look
+different from you and I guess we do things a lot different
+from you&mdash;do you think, Miss Lee, oh, do you
+think that I could <i>ever</i> get like you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;&mdash;" Miss Lee showed hesitancy.</p>
+
+<p>"For sure?" Ph&#339;be asked, quick to note the slight
+delay in the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am sure you could, dear. You can learn to
+dress, speak and act as people do in the great cities&mdash;but
+are you sure that you want to do so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Want to! Why, I want to so bad that it hurts!
+I don't want to just go to country school and Greenwald
+High School and then live on a farm all the rest
+of my life and never get anywhere but to the store in
+Greenwald, to Lancaster several times a year, and to
+church every Sunday. I want to do some things other
+people in the other parts of the country do, that's what
+I want. I'd like best of all to be a great singer and to
+look and dress and talk like you. I can sing good, pop
+says I can."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a><a href="images/90.png">[90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have noticed you have a sweet voice."</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't!" The child's voice rang with gladness.
+"I'm so glad I have. And David, he's glad too, for
+he says that he thinks it's a gift from God to have a
+voice that can sing as nice as the birds. David and
+Phares are just like my brothers. David's mom is
+awful nice. I like her"&mdash;she whispered&mdash;"I like her
+almost better than my Aunt Maria because she's so&mdash;ach,
+you know what I mean! She's so much like my
+own mom would be. I like David better than Phares,
+too, because Phares bosses me too much and he is wonderful
+strict and thinks everything is bad or foolish.
+He preaches a lot. He says it's bad to be a big singer
+and sing for the people and get money for it, in oprays,
+he means&mdash;is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lee was startled by the ambition of the child
+before her and amazed at the determination revealed in
+her young pupil. Before she could answer wisely
+Ph&#339;be went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Now David says still I could be a big opray singer
+some day mebbe, and <i>he</i> don't think it's bad. I think
+still that singin' is about like havin' curls&mdash;if God don't
+want you to use your singin' and your curls what did
+He give 'em to you for?"</p>
+
+<p>Much to the teacher's relief she was spared the difficulty
+of answering the child. The aunt was bringing
+the visitors to Ph&#339;be's room.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in and see my things," Ph&#339;be invited cordially,
+as though curls and operatic careers had never
+troubled her. In the excitement of displaying her
+quilts she apparently forgot the vital problems she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a><a href="images/91.png">[91]</a></span>
+so lately discussed. But Miss Lee made a mental comment
+as she stood apart and watched the child among
+the white-capped women, "That little girl will do
+things before she settles into the simple, monotonous
+life these women lead."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a><a href="images/92.png">[92]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PRIMA DONNA OF THE ATTIC</h3>
+
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Aunt Maria</span>, dare I go without sewing just this
+one Saturday?"</p>
+
+<p>It was Saturday afternoon in early October. All
+the week-end work of the farmhouse was done: the
+walks and porches scrubbed, the entire house cleaned,
+the shelves in the cellar filled with pies and cakes.
+Maria Metz stood by the wooden frame in which she
+had sewed Ph&#339;be's latest quilt and chalked lines and
+half-moons upon the calico, preliminary to the actual
+work of quilting.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be's face was eloquent as her aunt turned and
+looked down.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" asked the woman calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, because it's my birthday, eleven I am to-day.
+And pop's going to bring me new hair-ribbons from
+Greenwald, pretty blue ones, I asked him to bring, and
+nice and wide"&mdash;she opened her hands in imaginary
+picturing of the width of the new ribbons&mdash;"but most
+of all," she hastened to add as she saw an expression
+of displeasure on her aunt's face, "I'd like to have a
+party all to myself. I thought that so long as you're
+going to have women in to help you quilt, and that is
+like a party, only you don't call it so, why I could have
+a party for me alone. I'd like to play all afternoon in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a><a href="images/93.png">[93]</a></span>stead
+of sewing first like I do still. Dare I, I mean
+may I?"&mdash;in conscientious endeavor to speak as Miss
+Lee was trying to teach her.</p>
+
+<p>Maria Metz smiled at the little girl's idea of a party,
+and after a moment's hesitation replied, "Ach, yes
+well, Ph&#339;be, I don't care."</p>
+
+<p>"In the garret, oh, dare I go in the garret and
+play?" she asked excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I guess. If you put everything away nice
+when you are done playin'."</p>
+
+<p>"I will."</p>
+
+<p>She started off gleefully.</p>
+
+<p>"And be careful of the steps. I'm always afraid
+you'll fall down when you go up there, the steps are
+so narrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, I won't fall. I'll be careful. I'll play a
+while and then shall I help to quilt?" she offered magnanimously
+in return for the privilege of playing in the
+garret.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't need you. But you can quilt nice, too.
+The last time you took littler stitches than Lizzie from
+the Home, but she don't see so good. But you needn't
+help to-day, for so many can't get round the frame
+good. Phares's mom and David's mom and Lyddy
+and Granny Hogendobler and Susan are comin', and
+that's enough for one quilt. You go play."</p>
+
+<p>In a moment Ph&#339;be was off, up the broad stairs to
+the second floor. There she paused for breath&mdash;"Oh,
+it's like going to a castle somewhere in a strange country,
+goin' to the garret! I'm always a little scared at
+first, goin' to the garret."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a><a href="images/94.png">[94]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With a laugh she turned into a small room, opened
+a latched door, closed it securely behind her, and stood
+upon the lower step of the attic stairs. She looked
+about a moment. Above her were the stained rafters
+of the attic, where a dim light invested it with a
+strange, half fearful interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, now, don't be a baby," she admonished herself.
+"Go right up the stairs. You're a queen&mdash;no,
+I know!&mdash;You're a primer donner going up the platform
+steps to sing!"</p>
+
+<p>With that helpful delusion she started bravely up the
+stairs and never paused until she reached the top step.
+She ran to a small window and threw it wide open so
+that the October sunshine could stream in and make
+the place less ghostly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now it's fine up here," she cried. "And I dare&mdash;I
+may&mdash;talk to myself all I want. Aunt Maria says
+it's simple to talk to yourself, but goodness, when
+abody has no other boys or girls to talk to half the time
+like I don't, what else can abody do but talk to your
+own self? Anyhow, I'm up here now and dare talk
+out loud all I want. I'll hunt first for robbers."</p>
+
+<p>She ran about the big attic, peered behind every old
+trunk and box, even inside an old yellow cupboard,
+though she knew it was filled with old school-books and
+older hymn-books.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a robber here, less he's back under the eaves."</p>
+
+<p>She crept into the low nook under the slanting roof
+but found nothing more exciting than a spider.
+"Huh, it's no fun hunting for robbers. Guess I'll
+spin a while."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a><a href="images/95.png">[95]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With quick variability she drew a low stool near an
+old spinning-wheel, placed her foot on the slender
+treadle and twisted the golden flax in imitation of the
+way Aunt Maria had once taught her.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll weave a new dress for myself&mdash;oh, goody!"
+she cried, springing from the stool. "Now I know
+what I'll do! I'll dress up in the old clothes in that
+old trunk! That'll be the very best party I can have."</p>
+
+<p>She skipped to a far corner of the attic, where a
+long, leather-covered trunk stood among some boxes.
+In a moment the clasps were unfastened, the lid raised,
+a protecting cloth lifted from the top and the contents
+of the trunk exposed.</p>
+
+<p>The child, kneeling before the trunk, clasped her
+hands and uttered an ecstatic, "Oh, I'll be a primer
+donner now! I remember there used to be a wonderful
+fine dress in here somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>With childish feverishness, yet with tenderness and
+reverence for the relics of a long dead past, she lifted
+the old garments from the trunk.</p>
+
+<p>"The baby clothes my mom wore&mdash;my mother,
+Miss Lee always says, and I like that name better, too.
+My, but they're little! Such tweeny, weeny sleeves!
+I wonder how a baby ever got into anything so tiny.
+I bet she was cunning&mdash;Miss Lee says babies are cunning.
+And here's the dress and cap and a pair of
+white woolen stockings I wore. Aunt Maria told me
+so the last time we cleaned house and I helped to carry
+all these things down-stairs and hang them out in the
+air so they don't spoil here in the trunk all locked up
+tight. I wish I could see how I looked when I wore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a><a href="images/96.png">[96]</a></span>
+these things. I wonder if I was a nice baby&mdash;but,
+ach, all babies are nice. I could squeeze every one I
+see, only when they're not clean I'd want to wash 'em
+first. And here's my mom&mdash;mother's wedding dress,
+a gray silk one. Ain't it too bad, now, it's going in
+holes! And this satin jacket Aunt Maria said my
+grandpap wore at his wedding; it has a silver buckle
+at the neck in front. And next comes the dress I like.
+It was my mother's mother's, and it's awful old. But
+I think it's fine, with the little pink rosebuds and the
+lace shawl round the neck and the long skirt. That's
+the dress I must wear now to play I'm a primer
+donner."</p>
+
+<p>She held out the old-fashioned pink-sprigged muslin,
+yellowed with age, yet possessing the charm of old,
+well-preserved garments. The short, puffed sleeves,
+lace fichu and full, puffed skirt proclaimed it of a bygone
+generation.</p>
+
+<p>"It's pretty," the child exulted as she shook out the
+soft folds. "Guess I can slip it on over my other
+dress, it's plenty big. It must button in the front, for
+that's the way the lace shawl goes. Um&mdash;it's long"&mdash;she
+looked down as she fastened the last little button.
+"Oh, I know! I'll tuck it up in the front and leave
+the long back for a trail! How's that, I wonder."</p>
+
+<p>She unearthed an old mirror, hung it on a nail in
+the wall and surveyed herself in the glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Um, I don't look so bad&mdash;but my hair ain't right.
+I don't know how primer donners wear their hair, but
+I know they don't wear it in two plaits like mine."</p>
+
+<p>She pulled the narrow brown ribbons from her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a><a href="images/97.png">[97]</a></span>
+braids, opened the braids and shook her head vigorously
+until her curls tumbled about her head and over
+her shoulders. Then she knotted the two ribbons together
+and bound them across her hair in a fillet, tying
+them in a bow under her flowing curls.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I guess it's as good as I can fix it. I wish
+Miss Lee could see me now. I wish most of all my
+mom&mdash;mother could see me. Mebbe she'd say, 'Precious
+child,' like they say in stories, and then I'd say
+back, 'Mother dear, mother dear'"&mdash;she lingered
+over the words&mdash;"'Mother dear.' But mebbe she is
+saying that to me right now, seeing it's my birthday.
+I'll make believe so, anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>She was silent for a moment, a puzzled expression
+on her face.</p>
+
+<p>"I just don't see," she spoke aloud suddenly, "I
+don't see why I shouldn't make believe I have a
+mother, just adopt one like people do children sometimes.
+Aunt Maria says it's a risk to adopt some
+one's child, but I don't see that it would be a risk to
+adopt a mother. Let me see now&mdash;of all the women
+I know, who do I want to adopt? Not Mary Warner's
+mom&mdash;she's stylish and wears nice dresses, but
+I don't think I'd like her to keep. Not Granny Hogendobler,
+though she's nice and I like her a lot, a
+whole lot, and I wish her Nason would come back, but
+I don't see how I could take her for my mother; she's
+too old and she don't wear a white cap and my mother
+did, so I must take one that does. I don't want
+Phares's mom, either. Now, David's mom I like&mdash;yes,
+I like her. Most everybody calls her Aunty Bab<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a><a href="images/98.png">[98]</a></span>
+and I'm just goin' to ask her if I dare call her Mother
+Bab! Mother Bab&mdash;I like that vonderful much!
+And I like her. When we go over to her house she's
+so nice and talks to me kind and the last time I was
+there she kissed me and said what pretty hair I got.
+Yes, I want David's mom for mine. I guess he won't
+care. He always gives me apples and chestnuts and
+things and he shows me birds' nests and I think he'll
+leave me have his mom, so long as he can have her too.
+I'll ask him once when I see him. I wonder who's
+goin' on the road to Greenwald."</p>
+
+<p>She gathered up her long skirt and stepped grandly
+across the bare floor of the attic. As she stood by the
+window a boyish whistle floated up to her. She
+leaned over the narrow sill and peered through the
+evergreen trees at the road.</p>
+
+<p>"That's David now, I bet! Sounds like his whistle.
+Oo-oo, David," she called as the boy came swinging
+down the road.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Ph&#339;be. Where you at?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned in at the gate and looked around.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew," he whistled as he glanced up and saw her
+at the little window of the attic. "What you doing
+up there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Playin' primer donner. I just look something
+grand. Wait, I'll come down."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, come on down and let me see you. I'm
+going to hang around a while. Mom's here quilting,
+ain't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sh!" Ph&#339;be raised a warning finger, then placed
+her hands to her mouth to shut the sound of her voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a><a href="images/99.png">[99]</a></span>
+from the people in the gray house. "You sneak
+round to the kitchen door, to the back one, so they
+can't hear you, and I'll come down. Aunt Maria
+mightn't like my hair and dress, and I don't want to
+make her cross on my birthday. Be careful, don't
+make no noise."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha," laughed the boy. "Bet you're sneaking
+things, you little rascal."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be lifted her finger, shook her head, then smiled
+and turned from the window. She tiptoed down the
+dark attic stairs, then down the narrow back stairs to
+the kitchen and slipped quietly to the little porch at the
+very rear of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee whiz!" exclaimed David. "You're a swell
+in that dress!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't I&mdash;I mean am I&mdash;ach, David, it's hard sometimes
+to talk like Miss Lee says we should."</p>
+
+<p>"Where'd you get the dress, Ph&#339;be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Up in the garret. Aunt Maria said I dare go up
+and play 'cause it's my birthday."</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on, that's just what I came for, to pull your
+ears."</p>
+
+<p>"No you don't," she said crossly. "No you don't,
+David Eby, pull my ears." She clapped a hand upon
+each ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll pull a curl," he said and suited the action
+to the word. He took one of the long light curls and
+pulled it gently, yet with a brusque show of savagery
+and strength&mdash;"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
+eight, nine, ten, eleven, and one to make you grow.
+Now who says I can't celebrate your birthday!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a><a href="images/100.png">[100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You're mean, awful mean, David Eby!" She
+tossed her head in anger. But a moment later she relented
+as she saw him smile. "Ach," she said in
+friendly tone, "I don't care if you pull my curls. It
+didn't hurt anyhow. You can't do it again for a
+whole year. But don't you think I look like a primer
+donner, David?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, say it right! How can you expect to ever
+be what you can't pronounce? It's pri-ma-don-na."</p>
+
+<p>"Pri-ma-don-na," she repeated, shaking her curls
+at every syllable. "Do I look like a prima donna?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, all but your face."</p>
+
+<p>"My face&mdash;why"&mdash;she faltered&mdash;"what's wrong
+with my face? Ain't it pretty enough to be a prima
+donna?"</p>
+
+<p>"Funny kid," he laughed. "Your face is good
+enough for a prima donna, but to be a real prima
+donna you must fix it up with cold cream, paint and
+powder."</p>
+
+<p>"Powder!" she echoed in amazement. "Not the
+kind you put in guns?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gee, no! It's white stuff&mdash;looks like flour; mebbe
+it is flour fixed up with perfume. Mary Warner had
+some at school last week and showed some of the girls
+at recess how to put it on. I was behind a tree and
+saw them but they didn't see me."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought some of the girls looked pale&mdash;so that
+was what made them look so white! But how do you
+know all about fixing up to be a prima donna? Where
+did you learn?" She looked at him admiringly, justly
+appreciating his superior knowledge.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a><a href="images/101.png">[101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, when I had the mumps last winter I used to
+read the papers every day, clean through. There was
+a column called the 'Hints to Beauty' column, and
+sometimes I read it just for fun, it was so funny. It
+told about fixing up the face and mentioned a famous
+singer and some other people who always looked beautiful
+because they knew how to fix their faces to keep
+looking young. But I wouldn't like to see any one
+I like fix their faces like it said, for all that
+stuff&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But do you think all prima donnas put such things
+on their faces?" she interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess so."</p>
+
+<p>"What was it, Davie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cold cream, paint, powder&mdash;here, where are you
+going?" he asked as she started for the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be out in a minute; you wait here for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Cold cream, paint, powder," she repeated as she
+closed the door and left David outside. "Cream's all
+in the cellar." She took a pewter tablespoon from a
+drawer, opened a latched door in the kitchen and went
+noiselessly down the steps to the cellar. There she
+lifted the lid from a large earthen jar, dipped a spoonful
+of thick cream from the jar, and began to rub it on
+her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"That's <i>cold</i> cream, anyhow," she said to herself.
+"It certainly is cold. Ach, I don't like the feel of it
+on my face; it's too sticky and wet." But she rubbed
+valiantly until the spoonful was used and her face
+glowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Now paint, red paint&mdash;I don't dare use the kind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a><a href="images/102.png">[102]</a></span>
+you put on houses, for that's too hard to get off; let's
+see&mdash;I guess red-beet juice will do."</p>
+
+<p>She stooped to the cool, earthen floor, lifted the
+cover from a crock of pickled beets, dipped the spoon
+into the juice and began to rub the colored liquid upon
+her glowing cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"If I only had a looking-glass, then I could see just
+where to put it on. But I don't dare to carry the juice
+up the steps, for if I spilled some just after Aunt
+Maria has them scrubbed for Sunday she'd be cross."</p>
+
+<p>She applied the red juice by guesswork, with the
+inevitable result that her ears, chin, and nose were
+stained as deeply as her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Now the powder, then I'm through."</p>
+
+<p>She tiptoed up to the kitchen again, took a handful
+of flour from the bin and rubbed it upon her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh, um," she sputtered, as some of the flour flew
+into her eyes and nostrils. "I guess that was too
+thick!" Then she knelt on a chair and looked into the
+small mirror that hung in the kitchen. She exclaimed
+in horror and disappointment at the vision that met
+her gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I don't like that! I look awful! I'll rub
+off some of the flour. I have blotches all over my
+face. Do all prima donnas look this way, I wonder.
+But David knows, I guess. I'll ask him if I did it
+right."</p>
+
+<p>She grabbed one end of the kitchen towel and disposed
+of some of the superfluous flour, then, still
+doubtful of her appearance, opened the door to the
+porch where the boy waited for her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a><a href="images/103.png">[103]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do I look&mdash;&mdash;" she began, but David burst into
+hilarious laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh," he held his sides and laughed. "Oh,
+your face&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you laugh at me, David Eby! Don't you
+dare laugh!"</p>
+
+<p>She was deeply hurt at his unseemly behavior, but
+the deluge was only beginning! The sound of David's
+laughter and Ph&#339;be's raised voice reached the front
+room where the quilting party was in progress.</p>
+
+<p>"Sounds like somebody on the back porch," said
+Aunt Maria. "Guess I better go and see. With so
+many tramps around always abody can't be too careful."</p>
+
+<p>The sight that met Maria Metz's eyes as she opened
+the back door left her speechless. Ph&#339;be turned and
+the two looked at each other in silence for a few long
+moments.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't scold her," David said, sobered by the sudden
+appearance of the woman and frightened for
+Ph&#339;be&mdash;Aunt Maria could be stern, he knew. "Don't
+scold her. I told her to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"You did not, David; don't you tell lies for me!
+You just told me how to do it and I went and done it
+myself. I'm playing prima donna, Aunt Maria," she
+explained, though she knew it was a futile attempt at
+justification. "I'm playing I'm a big singer, so I had
+to fix up in this dress and put my hair down this way
+and fix my face."</p>
+
+<p>"Great singer&mdash;march in here!" The woman had
+fully regained her voice. "It's a bad girl you are!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a><a href="images/104.png">[104]</a></span>
+To think of your making such a monkey of yourself
+when I leave you go up in the garret to play! This
+ends playing in the garret. Next Saturday you sew!
+Ach, yes, you just come in," she commanded, for
+Ph&#339;be hung back as they entered the house. "You
+come right in here and let all the women see how nice
+you play when I leave you go up in the garret instead
+of make you sew. This here's the tramp I found,"
+she announced as she led her into the room where the
+women sat around the quilting frame and quilted.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" several of them exclaimed as they turned
+from their sewing and looked at the child. Granny
+Hogendobler and David Eby's mother, however,
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"What's on your face?" asked one woman sternly.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be hung her head, abashed.</p>
+
+<p>"That's how nice she plays when I leave her go up
+on the garret and have a nice time instead of making
+her sew like she always has to Saturdays," Aunt Maria
+said in sharp tones which told the child all too plainly
+of the displeasure she had caused.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean," Ph&#339;be looked up contritely, "I
+didn't mean to be bad and make you cross. I was just
+playing I was a big singer and I put cold cream and
+paint and powder on my face&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Cream!"</p>
+
+<p>"Paint!"</p>
+
+<p>"Powder!"</p>
+
+<p>The shrill staccato words of the women set the child
+trembling.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but," she faltered, "it'll all wash off." She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a><a href="images/105.png">[105]</a></span>
+gave a convincing nod of her head and rubbed a hand
+ruefully across the grotesquely decorated cheek. "It's
+just cream and red-beet juice and flour."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I ever!" exclaimed the mother of Phares
+Eby.</p>
+
+<p>"I-to-goodness!" laughed Granny Hogendobler.</p>
+
+<p>"Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," quoted one of the
+other women.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here, Ph&#339;be," said the mother of David
+Eby, and that woman, a thin, alert little person with
+tender, kindly eyes, drew the unhappy little girl to her.
+"You poor, precious child," she said, "it's a shame
+for us all to sit here and look at you as if we wanted
+to eat you. You've just been playing, haven't you?"
+She turned to the other women. "Why, Maria,
+Susan, I remember just as well as if it were only yesterday
+how we used to rub our cheeks with rough
+mullein leaves to make them red for Love Feast, don't
+you remember?"</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Maria's cheeks grew pink. "Ach, Barbara,
+mebbe we did that when we were young and foolish,
+but we didn't act like this."</p>
+
+<p>"Not much different, I guess," said Ph&#339;be's champion
+with a smile. "Only we forget it now. Ph&#339;be
+is just like we were once and she'll get over it like we
+did. Let her play; she'll soon be too old to want to
+play or to know how. She ain't a bad child, just full
+of life and likes to do things other people don't think
+of doing."</p>
+
+<p>"She, surely does," said Aunt Maria curtly, ill
+pleased by the woman's words. "Where that child<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a><a href="images/106.png">[106]</a></span>
+gets all her notions from I'd like to know. It's something
+new every day."</p>
+
+<p>"She'll be all right when she gets older," said
+David's mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Be sure, yes," agreed Granny Hogendobler; "it
+don't do to be too strict."</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe so," said the other women, with various
+shades of understanding in their words.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be looked gratefully into the face of Granny
+Hogendobler, then she turned to David's mother and
+spoke to her as though there were no others present in
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, don't you, how little girls like to play?
+You called me precious child just like she would&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She would," repeated Aunt Maria. "What do
+you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean my mother," she explained and turned
+again to her champion. "I was just thinking this
+after on the garret that I'd like you for my mother,
+to adopt you for it like people do with children when
+they have none and want some. I hear lots of
+people call you Aunty Bab&mdash;dare I call you Mother
+Bab?"</p>
+
+<p>The woman laid a hand on the child's tumbled hair.
+Her voice trembled as she answered, "Yes, Ph&#339;be,
+you can call me Mother Bab. I have no little girl so
+you may fill that place. Now ask Aunt Maria if you
+should wash your face and get fixed right again."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I, Aunt Maria?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Go get cleaned up. Fold all them clothes
+right and put 'em in the trunk and put your hair in two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a><a href="images/107.png">[107]</a></span>
+plaits again. If you're big enough to do such dumb
+things you're big enough to comb your hair." And
+Aunt Maria, peeved and hurt at the child's behavior,
+went back to her quilting while Ph&#339;be hurried from
+the room alone.</p>
+
+<p>The child scrubbed the three layers of decoration
+from her face, trudged up the stairs to the attic, took
+off the rose-sprigged gown and folded it away&mdash;a disconsolate,
+disillusioned prima donna.</p>
+
+<p>When the attic was once more restored to its orderliness
+she closed the window and went down-stairs to
+wrestle with her curls. They were tangled, but ordinarily
+she would have been able to braid them into
+some semblance of neatness, but the trying experience
+of the past moments, the joy of gaining an adopted
+mother, set her fingers bungling.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, I can't, I just can't make two braids!" she
+said at length, ready to burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>Then she remembered David. "Mebbe he's on the
+porch yet. I'll go see once."</p>
+
+<p>With the narrow brown ribbons streaming from her
+hand and a hair-brush tucked under one arm she ran
+down the stairs. She found David, for once a gloomy
+figure, on the back porch, just where she had left him.</p>
+
+<p>"David," she said softly, "will you help me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why"&mdash;his face brightened as he looked at her&mdash;"you
+ain't"&mdash;he started to say "crying"&mdash;"you ain't
+mad at me for getting you into trouble with Aunt
+Maria?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, no. And I ain't never going to be mad at
+you now for I just adopted your mom for my mom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a><a href="images/108.png">[108]</a></span>&mdash;mother.
+She's going to be my Mother Bab; she
+said so."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>He knitted his forehead in a puzzled frown. Ph&#339;be
+explained how kind his mother had been, how she understood
+what little girls like to do, how she had promised
+to be Mother Bab.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't care, Davie, you ain't jealous?" she
+ended anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure not," he assured her; "I think it's kinda nice,
+for she thinks you're a dandy. But did they haul you
+over the coals in there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a little, all but Granny Hogendobler and your
+mom&mdash;Mother Bab, I mean. Isn't it funny to get a
+mother when you didn't have one for so long?"</p>
+
+<p>"Guess so."</p>
+
+<p>"But, David, will you help me? I can't fix my
+hair and Aunt Maria is so mad at me she said I can
+just fix it myself. The plaits won't come right at all.
+Will you help me, please?" She asserted her femininity
+by adding new sweetness to her voice as she
+asked the uncommon favor.</p>
+
+<p>"Why"&mdash;he hesitated, then looked about to see if
+any one were near to witness what he was about to
+do&mdash;"I don't know if I can. I never braided hair,
+but I guess I can."</p>
+
+<p>"Be sure you can, David. You braid it just like we
+braid the daisy stems and the dandelion stems in the
+fields. You're so handy with them, you can do most
+anything, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>Spurred by her appreciation of his ability he took<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a><a href="images/109.png">[109]</a></span>
+the brush and began to brush the tangled hair as she
+sat on the porch at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee," he exclaimed as the hair sprang into curls
+when the brush left it, "your hair's just like gold!"</p>
+
+<p>"And it's curly," she added proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure is. Wouldn't Phares look if he saw it! I
+told him your hair is prettier than Mary Warner's and
+he said I was silly to talk about girls' hair."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want him to see it this way," she said,
+"for he'd say it's a sin to have curly, pretty hair, even
+if God made it grow that way! He's awful queer! I
+wouldn't want him for my adopted brother."</p>
+
+<p>"Guess he'd keep you hopping," laughed David.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess I'd keep him hopping, too," retorted Ph&#339;be,
+at which the boy laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what do I do?" he asked when all the hair
+was untangled.</p>
+
+<p>"Part it in the middle and make two plaits."</p>
+
+<p>"Um-uh."</p>
+
+<p>The boy's clumsy fingers fumbled long with the
+parting; several times the braids twisted and had to be
+undone, but after a struggle he was able to announce,
+"There now, you're fixed! Now you're Ph&#339;be Metz,
+no more prima donna!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, David, for helping me. I feel much better
+around the head&mdash;guess curls would be a nuisance
+after all."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a><a href="images/110.png">[110]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>"WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER MEET"</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Ph&#339;be adopted Mother Bab she did so with
+the whole-heartedness and finality characteristic of her
+blood.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Bab&mdash;the name never ceased to thrill the
+erstwhile motherless girl whose yearning for affection
+and understanding had been unsatisfied by the matter-of-fact
+Aunt Maria.</p>
+
+<p>At first Maria Metz did not seem too well pleased
+with the child's persistent naming of Barbara Eby as
+Mother Bab; but gradually, as she saw Ph&#339;be's joy in
+the adoption, the woman acknowledged to herself that
+another woman was capable of mothering where she
+had failed.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be spent many hours in the little house on the
+hill, learning from Mother Bab many things that made
+indelible impressions upon her sensitive child-heart,
+unraveling some of the tangled knots of her soul, stirring
+anew hopes and aspirations of her being. But
+there remained one knot to be untangled&mdash;she could
+not understand why the plain dress and white cap existed,
+she could not reconcile the utter simplicity of
+dress with the lavish beauty of the birds, flowers&mdash;all
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>"It will come," Mother Bab assured her one day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a><a href="images/111.png">[111]</a></span>
+"You are a little girl now and cannot see into everything.
+But when you are older you will see how
+beautiful it is to live simply and plainly."</p>
+
+<p>"But is it necessary, Mother Bab?" the child cried
+out. "Must I dress like you and Aunt Maria if I
+want to be good?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you don't <i>have</i> to. Many people are good
+without wearing the plain garb. A great many people
+in the world never heard of the plain sects we have in
+this section of the country, and there are good people
+everywhere, I'm sure of that. But it is just as true
+that each person must find the best way to lead a good
+life. If you can wear fine clothes and still be good
+and lead a Christian life, then there is no harm in the
+pretty clothes. But for me the easiest way to be living
+right is to live as simply as I can. This is the way
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it's the way for me, too," confessed
+Ph&#339;be. "I'm vain, awfully vain! I love pretty
+clothes and I'll never be satisfied till I get 'em&mdash;silk
+dresses, soft, shiny satin ones&mdash;ach, I guess I'm vain
+but I'll have to wait to satisfy my vanity till I'm older,
+for Aunt Maria is so set against fancy clothes."</p>
+
+<p>It was true, Maria Metz compromised on some matters
+as Ph&#339;be grew older, but on the question of
+clothes the older woman was adamant. The child
+should have comfortable dresses but there would positively
+be no useless ornaments or adornments, such as
+wide sashes, abundance of laces, elaborately trimmed
+ruffles. Fancy hats, jewelry and unconfined curls
+were also strictly forbidden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a><a href="images/112.png">[112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Though Ph&#339;be, even as she grew older, had much
+time to spend outdoors, there were many tasks about
+the house and farm she had to perform. The chest
+was soon filled with quilts and that bugbear was gone
+from her life. But there was continual scrubbing,
+baking, mending, and other household tasks to be done,
+so that much practice caused the girl to develop into a
+capable little housekeeper. Aunt Maria frankly admitted
+that Ph&#339;be worked cheerfully and well, a matter
+she found consoling in the trying hours when
+Ph&#339;be "wasted time" by playing the low walnut
+organ in the sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>During Miss Lee's first term of teaching on the hill
+she taught her how to play simple exercises and songs
+and the child, musically inclined, made the most of the
+meagre knowledge and adeptly improved until she was
+able to play the hymns in the Gospel Hymn Book and
+the songs and carols in the old Music Book that had
+belonged to her mother and always rested on the top
+of the old low organ.</p>
+
+<p>So the organ became a great solace and joy, an outlet
+for the intense feelings of desire and hope in her
+heart. When her voice joined with the sweet tones of
+the old instrument it seemed to Ph&#339;be as if she were
+echoing the harmony of the eternal music of all creation.
+Child though she was, she sang with the joy and
+sincerity of the true musician. She merely smiled
+when Aunt Maria characterized her best efforts as
+"doodling" and rejoiced when her father, Mother
+Bab or David praised her singing.</p>
+
+<p>In school she progressed rapidly but her interest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a><a href="images/113.png">[113]</a></span>
+lagged when, after two years of teaching, Miss Lee
+resigned her position as teacher of the school on the
+hill and a new teacher took command. The entire
+school missed the teacher from Philadelphia, but
+Ph&#339;be was almost inconsolable. She, especially, appreciated
+the gain of contact with the teacher she loved
+and she continued to profit by the remembrance of
+many things Miss Lee had taught her. The Memory
+Gems, alone, bore evidence of the change the teacher
+from the city had wrought in the rural school. Ph&#339;be
+smiled as she thought how the poems had been sing-songed
+until Miss Lee taught the children to bring out
+the meaning of the words.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my," she laughed one day as she and David
+were speaking of school happenings, "do you remember
+how John Schneider used to say Memory Gems?
+The day he got up and said, 'Have-you-heard-the-waters-singing-little-May&mdash;where-the-willows-green-are-bending-over-the-way&mdash;do-you-know-how-low-and-sweet-are-the-words-the-waves-repeat&mdash;to-the-pebbles-at-their-feet&mdash;night-and-day?'"</p>
+
+<p>David laughed at the girl's droll imitation, the way
+she sing-songed the verse in the exact manner prevalent
+in many rural schools.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you remember," he asked, "the day Isaac
+Hunchberger defined bipeds?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes! I'll never forget that! It was the day
+the County Superintendent of Schools came to visit
+our school and Miss Lee was anxious to have us show
+off. Isaac showed off, all right, with his 'Bipets are
+sings vis two lex!' I guess Miss Lee decided that day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a><a href="images/114.png">[114]</a></span>
+that the Pennsylvania Dutch is ingrained in our English
+and hard to get out."</p>
+
+<p>To Ph&#339;be each Memory Gem of her school days became,
+in truth, a gem stored away for future years.
+Long after she had outgrown the little rural school
+scraps of poetry returned to her to rewaken the enthusiasm
+of childhood and to teach her again to "hear
+the lark within the songless egg and find the fountain
+where they wailed, 'Mirage!'"</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be wanted so many things in those school-day
+years but she wanted most of all to become like Miss
+Lee. So earnestly did she try to speak as her teacher
+taught her that after a time the peculiar idioms and
+expressions became more infrequent and there was
+only a delightfully quaint inflection, an occasional
+phrase, to betray her Pennsylvania Dutch parentage.
+But in times of stress or excitement she invariably
+slipped back into the old way and prefaced her exclamations
+with an expressive "Ach!"</p>
+
+<p>Life on the Metz farm went on in even tenor year
+in and year out. Maria Metz never changed to any
+appreciable extent her mode of living or her methods
+of working, and she tried to teach Ph&#339;be to conform
+to the same monotonous existence and live as several
+generations of Metzes had done. But Ph&#339;be was a
+veritable Evelyn Hope, made of "spirit, fire and dew."
+The distinctiveness of her personality grew more pronounced
+as she slipped from childhood into girlhood
+and Maria Metz needed often to encourage her own
+heart for the task of rearing into ideal womanhood the
+daughter of her brother Jacob.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a><a href="images/115.png">[115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be had a deep love for nature and this love was
+fostered by her sturdy farmer-father. As she followed
+him about the fields he taught her the names of
+wild flowers, told her the nesting haunts of birds, initiated
+her into the circle of tree-lore, taught her to
+keep ears, eyes and heart open for the treasures of the
+great outdoors.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be required no urging in that direction. Her
+heart was filled with an insatiable desire to know more
+and more of the beautiful world about her. She
+gathered knowledge from every country walk; she
+showed so much "uncommon sense," David Eby said,
+that it was a keen pleasure to show her the nests of
+the thrush or the rare nests of the humming-bird.
+David and his mother, enthusiastic seekers after nature
+knowledge, augmented the father's nature education
+of Ph&#339;be by frequent walks to field and woods. And
+so, when Ph&#339;be was twelve years old she knew the
+haunts of all the wild flowers within walking distance
+of her home. With her father or with David and
+Mother Bab she found the first marsh-marigolds in
+the meadows, the first violets of the wooded slope of
+the hill, the earliest hepatica with its woolly buds, the
+first windflowers and spring beauties. She knew when
+the time was come for the bloodroot to lift its pure
+white petals about the golden hearts in the spot where
+the rich mould at the base of some giant tree nurtured
+the blooded plants. She could find the canopied Jack-in-the-pulpit
+and the pink azalea on the hill near her
+home. She knew the exact spot, a mile from the gray
+farmhouse, where, in a lovely little wood by a quiet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a><a href="images/116.png">[116]</a></span>
+road, a profusion of bird-foot violets and bluets made
+a carpet of blue loveliness each spring&mdash;so on, through
+the fleet days of summer, till the last asters and goldenrod
+faded, the child reveled in the beauties and wonders
+of the world at her feet and loved every part of it,
+from the tiny blue speedwell in the grass to the gorgeous
+orioles in the trees. What if Aunt Maria sometimes
+scolded her for bringing so many "weeds" into
+the house! With apparent unconcern she placed her
+flowers in a glass or earthen jar and secretly thought,
+"Well, I'm glad I like these pretty things; they are
+not weeds to me."</p>
+
+<p>The buoyancy of childhood tarried with her into
+girlhood. Like the old inscription of the sun-dial, she
+seemed to "count none but sunny hours." But those
+who knew her best saw that the shadows of life also
+left their marks upon her. At times the gaiety was
+displaced by seriousness. Mother Bab knew of the
+struggles in the girl's heart. Granny Hogendobler
+could have told of the hours Ph&#339;be spent with her
+consoling her for the absence of Nason, mitigating
+the cruel stabs of the thoughtless people who condemned
+him, comforting with the assurance that he
+would return to his home some day. Old Aaron loved
+the girl and found her always ready to listen to his
+hackneyed story of the battle of Gettysburg.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be was a student in the Greenwald High School
+when the war clouds broke over Europe and the world
+seemed to go mad in a whirl. She hurried to Old
+Aaron for his opinion on the terrible war.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it awful," she said to him, "that so many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a><a href="images/117.png">[117]</a></span>
+nations are flying at each other's throats? And in
+these days of our boasted civilization!"</p>
+
+<p>"Awful," he agreed. "But, mark my words, this
+is just the beginning. Before the thing's settled we'll
+be in it too."</p>
+
+<p>She shrank from the words. "Oh, no, not America!
+That would be too terrible. David might go then, and
+a lot of Greenwald boys&mdash;oh, that would be awful!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! But it would be far more dreadful to have
+them sit back safe while others died for the freedom
+of the world. I'd rather have my boy a soldier at a
+time like this than have him be ruler of a country."</p>
+
+<p>The old man's words ended quaveringly. The pent-up
+agony of his disappointment in his son surged over
+him, and he bowed his head in his hands and wept.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be sent Granny to comfort him, and then stole
+away. The veteran's grief left an impression upon
+her. Were his words prophetic? Would America be
+drawn into the struggle? It was preposterous to
+dream of that. She would forget the words of Old
+Aaron, for she had important matters of her own to
+think about. In a few years she would be graduated
+from High School and then she would have her own
+life-work to decide upon. Her desire for larger experience,
+her determination to do something of importance
+after graduation was her chief interest. The
+war across the sea was too remote to bring constant
+fear to her. Dutifully she went about her work on
+the farm and pursued her studies. She was not without
+pity for the brave people of Servia and Belgium,
+not without praise for the heroic French and English.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a><a href="images/118.png">[118]</a></span>
+She added her vehement words of horror as she read
+of the atrocities visited upon the helpless peoples. She
+shared in the dread of many Americans that the octopus-arm
+of war might reach this country, and yet she
+was more concerned about her own future than about
+the future of battle-racked France or devastated Belgium.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a><a href="images/119.png">[119]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BEYOND THE ALPS LIES ITALY</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ph&#339;be's</span> graduation from the Greenwald High
+School was her red-letter day. Several times during
+the morning she stole to the spare-room where her
+graduation dress lay spread upon the high bed. Accompanied
+by Aunt Maria she had made a special trip
+to Lancaster for the frock, though Aunt Maria had
+conscientiously bought a few yards of muslin and
+apron gingham.</p>
+
+<p>The material was soft silky batiste of the quality
+Ph&#339;be liked. The style, also, was of her choosing.
+She felt a glow of satisfaction as she looked at the
+dress so simply, yet fashionably, made.</p>
+
+<p>"For once in my life I have a dress I like," she
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>After supper, just as she was ready to dress for the
+great event, Phares Eby came to the gray farmhouse.</p>
+
+<p>The years had changed the solemn, serious boy into
+a more solemn, serious man. Tall and broad-shouldered,
+he was every inch a man in appearance. He
+was, moreover, a man highly respected in the community,
+a successful farmer and also a preacher in the
+Church of the Brethren. The latter honor had been
+conferred upon him a year before Ph&#339;be's graduation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a><a href="images/120.png">[120]</a></span>
+and had seemed to increase his gravity and endow him
+with true bishopric dignity. He dressed after the
+manner of the majority of men who are affiliated with
+the Church of the Brethren in that district. His chin
+was covered with a thick, black beard, his dark hair
+was parted in the middle and combed behind his ears.
+He looked ten years older than he was and gave an
+impression of reserved strength, indomitable will and
+rigidity of purpose in furthering what he deemed a
+good cause.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be felt a slight intimidation in his presence as
+she noted how serious he had grown, how mature he
+seemed. He appeared to desire the same friendship
+with her and tried to be comradely as of old, but there
+remained a feeling of restraint between them.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Phares," she greeted him as cordially as
+possible on her Commencement night.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening," he returned. "Are you ready for
+the great event?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if I don't have heart failure before I get in
+to town. If only I had been fourth or fifth in the
+class marks instead of second, then I might have
+escaped to-night with just a solo. As it is, I must
+deliver the Salutatory oration."</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be, you want to get off too easily! But I
+cannot stay more than a minute, for I know you'll
+want to get ready. I just stopped to give you a little
+gift for your graduation, a copy of Longfellow's
+poems."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thanks, Phares. I like his poems."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you did. But I must go now," he said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a><a href="images/121.png">[121]</a></span>
+stiffly. "I'll see you to-night at Commencement. I
+hope you'll get through the oration all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks. I hope so."</p>
+
+<p>When he was gone she made a wry face. "Whew,"
+she whistled. "I'm sure Phares is a fine young man
+but he's too solemncoly. He gives me the woolies!
+If he's like that all the time I'm glad I don't have to
+live in the same house. Wonder if he really knows
+how to be jolly. But, shame on you, Ph&#339;be Metz,
+talking so about your old friend! Perhaps for that
+I'll forget my oration to-night." With a gay laugh
+she ran away to dress for the most important occasion
+of her life.</p>
+
+<p>The white dress was vastly becoming. Its soft
+folds fell gracefully about her slender young figure.
+Her hair was brushed back, gathered into a bow at the
+top of her head, and braided into one thick braid
+which ended in a curl. There were no loving fingers
+of mother or sister to arrange the folds of her gown,
+no fond eyes to appraise her with looks of approval,
+but if she felt the omission she gave no evidence of it.
+She seemed especially gay as she dressed alone in her
+room. When she had finished she surveyed herself
+in the glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Um, Ph&#339;be Metz, you don't look half bad! Now
+go and do as well as you look. If Aunt Maria heard
+me she'd be shocked, but what's the use pretending to
+be so stupid or innocent as not to appreciate your own
+good points. Any person with good sight and ordinary
+sense can tell whether their appearance is pleasing
+or otherwise. I like this dress&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a><a href="images/122.png">[122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be," Aunt Maria's voice came up the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, David's down. Are you done dressing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be down in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>David Eby, too, was a man grown, but a man so different!
+Like his cousin, Phares, he was tall. He had
+the same dark hair and eyes but his eyes were glowing,
+and his hair was cut close and his chin kept smooth-shaven.</p>
+
+<p>Between him and Ph&#339;be there existed the old comradeship,
+free of restraint or embarrassment. He ran
+to meet her as her steps sounded on the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>But she came down sedately, her hand sliding along
+the colonial hand-rail, a calm dignity about her, her
+lovely head erect.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening," she said in quiet tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew!" he whistled. "Sweet girl graduate is
+too mild a phrase! Come, unbend, Ph&#339;be. You don't
+expect me to call you Miss Metz or to kiss your hand&mdash;ah,
+shall I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Davie"&mdash;in a twinkling the assumed dignity deserted
+her, she was all girl again, animated and adorable&mdash;"Davie,
+you're hopeless! Here I pose before
+the mirror to find the most impressive way to hold my
+head and be sufficiently dignified for the occasion, and
+you come bursting into the hall like a tomboy, whistling
+and saying funny things."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm awfully sorry. But you took my breath away.
+I haven't gotten it back yet"&mdash;he breathed deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"David, will you ever grow up?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have to now. I see you've gone and done it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a><a href="images/123.png">[123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ach no," she lapsed into the childhood expression.
+"I'm not grown up. But how do I look? You won't
+tell me so I have to ask you."</p>
+
+<p>"You look like a Madonna," he said seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she said impatiently, "that sounded like
+Phares."</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious, then I'll change it! You look like an
+angel and good enough to eat. But honestly, Ph&#339;be,
+that dress is dandy! You look mighty nice."</p>
+
+<p>"Glad you think so. Shall I tell you a secret,
+David? I'm scared pink about to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"You scared?" He whistled again.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be so smart," she said with a frown. "Were
+you scared on your Commencement night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Um-uh. At first I was. But you'll get over it
+in a few minutes. The lights and the glory of the
+occasion dim the scary feeling when you sit up there
+in the seats of honor. You should be glad your
+oration is first."</p>
+
+<p>"I am. Mary Warner is welcome to her Valedictory
+and the long wait to deliver it."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be stiffened a bit at the thought of the other
+girl. Since the days when the two girls attended the
+rural school on the hill and Mary Warner was the
+possessor of curls while Ph&#339;be wore the despised
+braids the other girl seemed to have everything for
+which Ph&#339;be longed.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, don't you care about the honor," said David.
+"Honors don't always tell who knows the most.
+Why, look at me; I was fifth in my class and I know
+as much any day as the little runt who was first."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a><a href="images/124.png">[124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Conceit!" laughed Ph&#339;be. "But I guess you do
+know more than he does. Bet he never saw an orioles'
+nest or found a wild pink moccasin. You're a wonder
+at such things, David."</p>
+
+<p>"Um," came the sober answer, but there was a
+merry twinkle in his eyes, "I'm a wonder all right!
+Too bad only you and Mother Bab know it. But if I
+don't soon go you won't get to town in time to get
+the pink roses arranged just so for the grand march.
+The girls in our class primped about twenty minutes,
+patting their hair and fixing their ribbons and fussing
+with their flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"David, you're horrid!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know. But I brought you something more to
+primp with." He handed her a small flat box.</p>
+
+<p>"For me?"</p>
+
+<p>"From Mother Bab," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, David, that's a beauty!" she cried as she held
+up a scarf of pale blue crepe de chine. "I'll wear it
+to-night. Tell Mother Bab I thank her over and over.
+But I'll see her to-night and tell her myself; she'll be
+in at Commencement."</p>
+
+<p>"She can't come, Ph&#339;be. She's sorry, but she has
+one of her dreadful headaches and you know what that
+means, how sick she really is."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Davie, Mother Bab not coming to my Commencement&mdash;why,
+I'm so disappointed, I want her
+there"&mdash;the tears were near the surface.</p>
+
+<p>"She's sorry, too, Ph&#339;be, but she's too sick when
+those headaches get her. Her eyes are the cause of
+them, we think now."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a><a href="images/125.png">[125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And I'm horribly selfish to think of myself and
+my disappointment when she is suffering. You tell
+her I'll be up to see her in the morning and tell her
+all about to-night. You are coming?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure thing! Aunt Mary is coming over to stay
+with mother, but there is really nothing to do for her;
+the pain seems to have to run its course. She'll go to
+bed early and be perfectly all right when she wakes in
+the morning. Come on, now, cheer up, and get ready
+for that 'Over the Alps lies Italy.'"</p>
+
+<p>"It's 'Beyond the Alps lies Italy,'" she corrected
+him. Her disappointment was softened by his cheerfulness.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, it's all the same," he insisted, and went off
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>To Ph&#339;be that night seemed like a dream&mdash;the slow
+march down the aisle of the crowded auditorium to
+the elevated platform where the nine graduates sat in
+a semicircle; the sea of faces swathed in the bright
+glow of many lights; the perfume of the pink roses in
+her arm; the music of the High School chorus, and
+then the time when she rose and stood before the people
+to deliver her oration, "Beyond the Alps lies Italy."</p>
+
+<p>She began rather shakily; the sea of faces seemed
+so very formidable, so many eyes looked at her&mdash;how
+could she ever finish! She spoke mechanically at first,
+but gradually the magic of the Italy of her dreams stole
+upon her, a singular softness crept into her voice, a
+mellowness like music, as she depicted the blue skies
+of the sunny land-of-dreams-come-true.</p>
+
+<p>When she returned to her place in the semicircle a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a><a href="images/126.png">[126]</a></span>
+glow of satisfaction possessed her. She felt she had
+not failed, that she had, in truth, done very well. But
+later, when Mary Warner rose to deliver the Valedictory,
+Ph&#339;be felt her own efforts shrink into littleness.
+The dark-eyed beautiful Mary was a sad thorn
+in the flesh for the fair girl who knew she was always
+overshadowed by the brilliant, queenly brunette. Involuntarily
+the country girl looked at David Eby&mdash;he
+was listening intently to Mary; his eyes never seemed
+to leave her face. Little, sharp pangs of jealousy
+thrust themselves into the depths of Ph&#339;be's heart.
+Was it true, then, that David cared for Mary Warner?
+Town gossips said he frequented her house. Ph&#339;be
+had met them together on the Square recently&mdash;not
+that she cared, of course! She sat erect and held her
+pink roses more tightly against her heart. It mattered
+little to her if David liked other girls; it was only that
+she felt a sense of proprietorship over the boy whose
+mother was her Mother Bab&mdash;thus she tried to console
+herself and quiet the demons of jealousy until the
+program was completed, congratulations received, and
+she stood with her aunt and father, ready for the trip
+back to the gray farmhouse.</p>
+
+<p>Teachers and friends had congratulated her, but it
+was David Eby's hearty, "You did all right, Ph&#339;be,"
+that gave her the keenest joy.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you walk in?" she asked him as she gathered
+her roses, diploma and scarf, preparatory to departure.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you can drive out with us," her father
+offered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a><a href="images/127.png">[127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course," she seconded the suggestion. "We
+have room in the carriage."</p>
+
+<p>So it happened that Ph&#339;be, the blue scarf about her
+shoulders, sat beside David as they drove over the
+country road, home from her graduation. The vehicle
+rattled somewhat, but the young folks on the rear
+seat could speak and hear above the clatter.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad it's over," Ph&#339;be sighed in relief. "But
+what next?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mary Warner is going to enter some prep school
+this fall and prepare for Vassar," David informed the
+girl beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky Mary"&mdash;Mary Warner&mdash;she was sick of
+the name! "I wish I knew what I want to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Want to go away to school?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Aunt Maria wants me to stay at
+home on the farm and just help her. Daddy
+doesn't say much, but he did ask me if I would like to
+go to Millersville. That's a fine Normal School and
+if I wanted to be a teacher I'd go to that school, but I
+don't want to be a teacher. What I really want to do
+is go away and study music."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, can't you do it? That is not really impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but," he mimicked. "<i>But</i> won't take you
+anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"You set me thinking, David. Perhaps it isn't so
+improbable, after all. I'm coming over to see Mother
+Bab to-morrow; she'll be full of suggestions. She'll
+see a way for me to get what I want; she always does."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a><a href="images/128.png">[128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I bet she will," agreed David. "You'll be that
+primer donner yet," he mimicked, "I know you will."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Davie, wouldn't it be great! But I wouldn't
+beautify my face with cream and beet juice and flour!"</p>
+
+<p>They laughed so heartily that Aunt Maria turned
+and asked the cause of the merriment.</p>
+
+<p>"We were just speaking of the time when I dressed
+in the garret and fixed my face&mdash;the time you had the
+quilting party."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach," Aunt Maria said, smiling in the darkness.
+"You looked dreadful that day. I was good and mad
+at you! But I'm glad you're big enough now not to
+do such dumb things. My, now that you're done with
+school and will stay home with me we can have some
+nice times sewin' and quiltin' and makin' rugs, ain't,
+Ph&#339;be?"</p>
+
+<p>In the semi-darkness of the carriage Ph&#339;be looked
+at David. The appealing wistfulness of her face
+touched him. He patted her arm reassuringly and
+whispered to her, "Don't you worry. It'll come out
+all right. Mother Bab will help you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a><a href="images/129.png">[129]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>A VISIT TO MOTHER BAB</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> next day as Ph&#339;be walked up the hill to visit
+Mother Bab she went eagerly and with an unusual
+light in her eyes&mdash;she had transformed her schoolgirl
+braid into the coiffure of a woman! The golden hair
+was parted in the middle, twisted into a shapely knot
+in the nape of her neck, and the effect was highly satisfactory,
+she thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother Bab will be surprised," she said gladly as
+she swung up the hill in rapid, easy strides. "And
+David&mdash;I wonder what David will say if he's home."</p>
+
+<p>At the summit of the hill she paused and turned,
+looked back at the gray farmhouse and beyond it to
+the little town of Greenwald.</p>
+
+<p>"I just must stand here a minute and look! I love
+this view from the hill."</p>
+
+<p>She breathed deeply and continued to revel in the
+beauty of the scene. At the foot of the hill was the
+Metz farm nestling in its green surroundings. Like
+a tan ribbon the dusty road went winding past green
+fields, then hid itself as it dipped into a valley and
+made a sharp curve, though Ph&#339;be knew that it went
+on past more fields and meadows to the town. Where
+she stood she had a view of the tall spires of Greenwald
+churches straggling through the trees, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a><a href="images/130.png">[130]</a></span>
+red and slate roofs of comfortable houses gleaming in
+the sunlight. Beyond and about the town lay fields
+resplendent in the pristine freshness of May greenery.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she said aloud after a long gaze, "this is
+glorious! But I must hurry to Mother Bab. I'm
+wild to have her see me. Aunt Maria just said when
+I showed her my hair, 'Yes well, Ph&#339;be, I guess
+you're old enough to wear your hair up.' Mother
+Bab is different. Sometimes I pity Aunt Maria and
+wonder what kind of childhood she had to make her
+so grim about some things."</p>
+
+<p>The little house in which David and his mother
+lived stood near the country road leading to the schoolhouse
+on the hill. Like many other farmhouses of
+that county it was square, substantial and unadorned,
+its attractiveness being derived solely from its fine
+proportions, its colonial doorways, and the harmonious
+surroundings of trees and flowers. The garden was
+eloquent of the lavish love bestowed upon it. Mother
+Bab delighted in flowers and planted all the old
+favorites. The walks between the garden beds were
+trim and weedless, the yard and buildings well kept,
+and the entire little farm gave evidence that the reputed
+Pennsylvania Dutch thrift and neatness were present
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Adjoining the farm of Mother Bab was the farm of
+her brother-in-law, the father of Phares Eby. This
+was one of the best known in the community. Its
+great barns and vast acres quite eclipsed the modest
+little dwelling beside it. David Eby sometimes sighed
+as he compared the two farms and wondered why Fate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a><a href="images/131.png">[131]</a></span>
+had bestowed upon his uncle's efforts an almost unparalleled
+success while his own father had had a
+continual struggle to hold on to the few acres of the
+little farm. Since the death of his father David had
+often felt the straining of the yoke. It was toil, toil,
+on acres which were rich but apparently unwilling to
+yield their fullness. One year the crops were damaged
+by hail, another year prolonged drought prevented full
+development of the fruit, again continued rainy
+weather ruined the hay, and so on, year in and year
+out, there was seldom a season when the farm measured
+up to the expectations of the hard-working David.</p>
+
+<p>But Mother Bab never complained about the ill-luck,
+neither did she envy the woman in the great house next
+to her. Mother Bab's philosophy of life was mainly
+cheerful:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"I find earth not gray, but rosy,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Heaven not grim, but fair of hue.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Do I stand and stare? All's blue."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>A little house to shelter her, a big garden in which
+to work, to dream, to live; enough worldly goods to
+supply daily sustenance; the love of her David&mdash;truly
+her <span class="smcap">Beloved</span>, as the old Hebrew name signifies&mdash;the
+love of the dear Ph&#339;be who had adopted her&mdash;given
+these blessings and no envy or discontent ever ventured
+near the white-capped woman. Life had brought her
+many hours of perplexity and several great sorrows,
+but it had also bestowed upon her compensating joys.
+She felt that the years would bring her new joys, now
+that her boy was grown into a man and was able to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a><a href="images/132.png">[132]</a></span>
+manage the farm. Some day he would bring home a
+wife&mdash;how she would love David's wife! But meanwhile,
+she was not lonely. Her friends and she were
+much together, quilting, rugging, comparing notes on
+the garden.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess Mother Bab'll be in the garden," thought
+Ph&#339;be, "for it's such a fine day."</p>
+
+<p>But as she neared the whitewashed fence of the
+garden she saw that the place was deserted. She ran
+lightly up the walk, rapped at the kitchen door, and
+entered without waiting for an answer to her knock.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother Bab," she called.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm here, Ph&#339;be," came a voice from the sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>"How are you? Is your headache all gone?"
+Ph&#339;be asked as she ran to the beloved person who
+came to meet her.</p>
+
+<p>"All gone. I was so disappointed last night&mdash;but
+what have you done to your hair?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I forgot!" Ph&#339;be lifted her head proudly.
+"I meant to knock at the front door and be company
+to-day. I've got my hair up!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be, Ph&#339;be," the woman drew her nearer.
+"Let me look at you." Her eyes scanned the face of
+the girl, her voice quivered as she spoke. "You've
+grown up! Of course it didn't come in a night but it
+seems that way."</p>
+
+<p>"The May fairies did it, Mother Bab. Yesterday
+I wore a braid. This morning when I woke I heard
+the robin who sings every morning in the apple tree
+outside my window and he was caroling, 'Put it up!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a><a href="images/133.png">[133]</a></span>
+Put it up!' I knew he meant my hair, so here I am,
+waiting for your blessing."</p>
+
+<p>"You have it, you always have it! But"&mdash;she
+changed her mood&mdash;"are you sure the robin wasn't
+saying, 'Get up, get up!' Ph&#339;be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Positive; it was only five o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"Now I must hear all about last night," said Mother
+Bab as they sat together on the broad wooden settee
+in the sitting-room. "David told me how nice you
+looked and how well you did."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he tell you how pleased I am with the scarf?
+It's just lovely! And the color is beautiful. I wonder
+why&mdash;I wonder why I love pretty things so much,
+really pretty things, like crepe de chine and taffeta and
+panne velvet and satin. Oh, sometimes I think I must
+have them. When I go to Lancaster I want lots of
+lovely clothes and I hate ginghams and percales and
+serviceable things."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, Ph&#339;be, I know how you feel about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really? Then it can't be so awfully
+wicked. You are so understanding, Mother Bab. I
+can't tell Aunt Maria how I feel about such things for
+she'd be dreadfully hurt or worried or provoked, but
+you seem always to know what I mean and how I
+feel."</p>
+
+<p>"I was eighteen myself once, a good many years
+ago, but I still remember it."</p>
+
+<p>"You have a good memory."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Why, I can remember some of the dresses
+I wore when I was eighteen. But then, I have a dress
+bundle to help me remember them."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a><a href="images/134.png">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What's a dress bundle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't Aunt Maria keep one for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard of one."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a long string of samples of dresses you wore
+when you were little. Wait, I'll get mine and show
+you."</p>
+
+<p>She left the room and went up-stairs. After a
+short time she returned and held out a stout thread
+upon which were strung small, irregular scraps of
+dress material. "This is my dress bundle. My
+mother started it for me when I was a baby and kept
+it up till I was big enough to do it myself. Every
+time I got a new dress a little patch of the goods was
+threaded on my dress bundle."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, may I see? Why, that's just like a part of
+your babyhood and childhood come back!"</p>
+
+<p>The two heads bent over the bundle&mdash;the girl's with
+its light hair in its first putting up, the woman's with
+its graying hair folded under the white cap.</p>
+
+<p>"Here"&mdash;Mother Bab turned the bundle upside
+down and fingered the scraps with that loving way of
+those who are dreaming of long departed days and
+touching a relic of those cherished hours&mdash;"this white
+calico with the little pink dots was the first dress any
+one gave me. Grandmother Hoerner made it for me,
+all by hand. Funny, wasn't it, the way they used to
+put colored dresses on wee babies! See, here are pink
+calico ones and white with red figures and a few blue
+ones. I wore all these when I was a baby. Then
+when I grew older these; they are much prettier.
+This red delaine I wore to a spelling bee when I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a><a href="images/135.png">[135]</a></span>
+about sixteen and I got a book for a prize for standing
+up next to last. This red and black checked debaige
+I can see yet. It had an overskirt on it trimmed with
+little ruffles. This purple cashmere with the yellow
+sprigs in it I had all trimmed with narrow black velvet
+ribbon. I'll never forget that dress&mdash;I wore it the
+day I met David's father."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you must have looked lovely!"</p>
+
+<p>"He said so." She smiled; her eyes looked beyond
+Ph&#339;be, back to the golden days of her youth when
+Love had come to her to bless and to abide with her
+long beyond the tarrying of the spirit in the flesh.
+"He said I looked nice. I met him the first time I
+wore the purple dress. It was at a corn-husking party
+at Jerry Grumb's barn. Some man played the fiddle
+and we danced."</p>
+
+<p>"Danced!" echoed Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, danced. But just the old-fashioned Virginia
+reel. We had cider and apples and cake and pie for
+our treat and we went home at ten o'clock! David
+walked home with me in the moonlight and I guess we
+liked each other from the first. We were married the
+next year, then we both turned plain."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you ever sorry, Mother Bab?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I married him, or that I turned plain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Both, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"No, never sorry once, Ph&#339;be, about either. We
+were happy together. And about turning plain, why,
+I wasn't sorry either."</p>
+
+<p>"But you had to give up Virginia reels and pretty
+dresses."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a><a href="images/136.png">[136]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I learned there are deeper, more important
+things than dancing and wearing pretty dresses."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at Ph&#339;be, but the girl had bowed her
+head over the dress bundle and appeared to be thinking.</p>
+
+<p>"And so," continued Mother Bab softly, "my bundle
+ended with that dress. Since I dress plain I don't
+wear colors, just gray and black. But I always
+thought if I had a girl I'd start a dress bundle for her,
+for it's so much satisfaction to get it out sometimes
+and look over the pieces and remember the dresses and
+some of the happy times you had when you wore them.
+But the girl never came."</p>
+
+<p>"But you have David!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, to be sure, he's been so much to me, but I
+couldn't make him a dress bundle. He wouldn't have
+liked it when he grew older&mdash;boys are different. And
+I wouldn't want him to be a sissy, either."</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't, Mother Bab. He's fine!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so, Ph&#339;be. He has worked so hard since
+he's through school and he's so good to me and takes
+such care of the farm, though the crops don't always
+turn out as we want. But you haven't told me what
+you are going to do, now that you're through school."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I want to do something."</p>
+
+<p>"Teach?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. What I would like best of all is study
+music."</p>
+
+<p>"In Greenwald? You mean to learn to play?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, to learn to sing. I have often dreamed of
+studying music in a great city, like Philadelphia."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a><a href="images/137.png">[137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What would you do then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sing, sing! I feel that my voice is my one talent
+and I don't want to bury it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't Miss Lee live in Philadelphia? Perhaps
+she could help you to get a good teacher and find
+a place to board."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother Bab!" Ph&#339;be sprang to her feet and
+wrapped her arms about the slender little woman.
+"That's just it!" she cried. "I never thought of
+that! David said you'd help me. I'll write to Miss
+Lee to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be," the woman said, smiling at the girl's wild
+enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not crazy, just inspired," said Ph&#339;be. "You
+helped me, I knew you would! I want to go to Philadelphia
+to study music but I know daddy and Aunt Maria
+would never listen to any proposals about going to a big
+city and living among strangers. But if I write to Miss
+Lee and she says she'll help me the folks at home may
+consider the plan. I'll have a hard time, though"&mdash;a
+reactionary doubt touched her&mdash;"I'll have a dreadful
+time persuading Aunt Maria that I'm safe and sane if
+I mention music and Philadelphia and Ph&#339;be in the
+same breath." Then she smiled determinedly. "At
+least I'm going to make a brave effort to get what I
+want. I'm not going to settle down on the farm and
+get brown and fat and wear gingham dresses all my
+life, and sunbonnets in the bargain! I never could
+see why I had to wear sunbonnets, I always hated
+them. Aunt Maria always tried to make me wear
+them, but as soon as I was out of her sight I sneaked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a><a href="images/138.png">[138]</a></span>
+them off. I remember one time I threw my bonnet
+in the Chicques and I had the loveliest time watching
+it disappear down the stream. But Aunt Maria
+made me make another one that was uglier still, so
+I gained nothing but the temporary pleasure of seeing
+it float away. And how I hated to do patchwork!
+It seemed to me I was always doing it, and I never
+could see the sense of cutting up pieces and then sewing
+them together again."</p>
+
+<p>"But the sewing was good practice for you, Ph&#339;be.
+Patchwork&mdash;seems to me all our life is patchwork: a
+little here and a little there; one color now, then
+another; one shape first, then another shape fitted in;
+and when it is all joined it will be beautiful if we keep
+the parts straight and the colors and shapes right.
+It can be a very beautiful rising sun or an equally
+pretty flower basket, or it can be just a crazy quilt with
+little of the beautiful about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother Bab, if I had known that while I was
+patching I would have loved to patch! I had nothing
+to make it interesting; it was just stitching, stitching,
+stitching on seams! But those vivid quilts are all finished
+and I guess Aunt Maria is as glad about it as I
+am, for I gave her some worried hours before the end
+was sighted. Poor Aunt Maria, she should be glad to
+have me go to the city. I've led her some merry
+chases, but I must admit she was always equal to them,
+forged ahead of me many times."</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be, you're a wilful child and I'm afraid I spoil
+you more."</p>
+
+<p>"No you don't! You're my safety valve. If I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a><a href="images/139.png">[139]</a></span>
+couldn't come up here and say the things I really feel
+I'd have to tell it to the Jenny Wrens&mdash;Aunt Maria
+hates to have me talk to myself."</p>
+
+<p>"But she's good to you, Ph&#339;be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, oh, yes! I appreciate all she has done for
+me. She has taken care of me since I was a tiny baby.
+I'll never forget that. It's just that we are so different.
+I can't make Ph&#339;be Metz be just like Maria
+Metz, can I?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you must be yourself, even if you are different."</p>
+
+<p>"That's it, Mother Bab. I feel I have the right
+to live my life as I choose, that no person shall say to
+me I must live it so or so. If I want to study music
+why shouldn't I do so? My mother left a few hundred
+dollars for me; it's been on interest and amounts
+to more than a few hundred, about a thousand dollars,
+I think. So the money end of my studying music need
+not worry Aunt Maria. I am determined to do it,
+wouldn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I'd feel the same way."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you learn to understand so well,
+Mother Bab? You have lived all your life on a farm,
+yet you are not narrow."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I have not grown narrow," the woman
+said softly. "I have read a great deal. I have read&mdash;don't
+you breathe it to a soul&mdash;I have often read when
+I should have been baking pies or washing windows!"</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder David worships you so."</p>
+
+<p>"I still enjoy reading," said Mother Bab. "David
+subscribes for three good magazines and when they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a><a href="images/140.png">[140]</a></span>
+come I'm so anxious to look into them that sometimes
+my cooking burns."</p>
+
+<p>"That must be one of the reasons your English is
+correct. I am ashamed of myself when I mix my v's
+and w's and use a <i>t</i> for a <i>d</i>. I have often wished the
+Pennsylvania Dutch dialect would have been put aside
+long ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the woman agreed, "I can't see the need of
+it. It has been ridiculed so long that it should have
+died a natural death. It's a mystery to me how it has
+survived. But cheer up, Ph&#339;be, the gibberish is dying
+out. The older people will continue to speak it but
+the younger generations are becoming more and more
+English speaking. Why, do you know, Ph&#339;be, since
+this war started in Europe and I read the dreadful
+crimes the Germans are committing I feel that I never
+want to hear or say, 'Yah.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Bully!" Ph&#339;be clapped her hands. "I said to
+old Aaron Hogendobler yesterday that I'm ashamed I
+have a German name and some German ancestors,
+even if they did come to this country before the Revolution,
+and he said no one need feel shame at that,
+but every American who is not one hundred per cent
+American should die from shame. I know we Pennsylvania
+Dutch can carry our end of the burdens of
+the world and be real Americans, but I want to sound
+like one too."</p>
+
+<p>Mother Bab laughed. "Just yesterday I said to
+David that the butter was <i>all</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I say that very often. I must read more."</p>
+
+<p>"And I less. I haven't told you, Ph&#339;be, nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a><a href="images/141.png">[141]</a></span>
+David, but my eyes are going back on me. I went to
+Lancaster a few weeks ago and the doctor there said
+I must be very careful not to strain them at all. I
+think I'd rather lose any other sense than sight. I
+always thought it was the greatest affliction in the
+world to be blind."</p>
+
+<p>"It is! It mustn't come to you, Mother Bab!"</p>
+
+<p>The woman looked worried, but in a moment her
+face brightened.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow," she said, "what's the use of worrying or
+thinking about it? If it ever comes I'll have to bear
+it just as many other people are bearing it. I'm glad
+I have sight to-day to see you."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be gave her an ecstatic hug. "I believe you're
+Irish instead of Pennsylvania Dutch! You do know
+how to blarney and you have that coaxing, lovely way
+about you that the Irish are supposed to have."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Ph&#339;be, I am part Irish! My mother's
+maiden name was McKnight. David and I still have
+a few drops of the Irish blood in us, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"I just knew it! I'm glad. I adore the whimsical
+way the Irish have, and I like their sense of humor.
+I guess that's one of the reasons I like you better than
+other people I know and perhaps that's why David is
+jolly and different from Phares. Ah," she added
+roguishly, "I think it's a pity Phares hasn't some Irish
+blood in him. He's so solemn he seldom sees a joke."</p>
+
+<p>"But he's a good boy and he thinks a lot of you.
+He's just a little too quiet. But he's a good preacher
+and very bright."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he's so good that I'm ashamed of myself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a><a href="images/142.png">[142]</a></span>
+when I say mean things about him. I like him, but
+people with more life are more interesting."</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, who's this you like?" David's hearty
+voice burst upon them.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be turned and saw him standing in the sunlight
+of the open door. The thought flashed upon her,
+"How big and strong he is!"</p>
+
+<p>He wore brown corduroys, a blue chambray shirt
+slightly open at the throat, heavy shoes. His face was
+already tanned by the wind and sun, his hands rough
+from contact with soil and farming implements, his
+dark hair rumpled where he had pulled the big straw
+hat from his head, but there was an odor of fresh
+spring earth about him, a boyish wholesomeness in
+his face, that attracted the girl as she looked at his
+frame in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>There was a flash of white teeth, a twinkle in his
+dark eyes, as he asked, "What did I hear you say,
+Ph&#339;be&mdash;that you like <i>me?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed not! I wouldn't think of liking anybody
+who deceived me as you have done. All these years
+you have left me under the impression that you are
+Pennsylvania Dutch and now Mother Bab says you
+are part Irish."</p>
+
+<p>"Little saucebox! What about yourself? You
+can't make me believe that you are pure, unadulterated
+Pennsylvania Dutch. There's some alien blood in
+you, by the ways of you. Have you seen Phares this
+afternoon?" he asked irrelevantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Phares? No. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"He went down past the field some time ago. Said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a><a href="images/143.png">[143]</a></span>
+he's going to Greenwald and means to stop and ask
+you to go to a sale with him next week. He said you
+mentioned some time ago that you'd like to go to a
+real old-fashioned one and he heard of one coming
+off next week and thought you might like to go."</p>
+
+<p>"I surely want to go. Don't you want to come, too,
+David? And Mother Bab?"</p>
+
+<p>But David shook his head. "And spoil Phares's
+party," he said. "Phares wouldn't thank us."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be shrugged her shoulders. "Ach, David Eby,
+you're silly! Just as though I want to go to a sale all
+alone with Phares! He can take the big carriage and
+take us all."</p>
+
+<p>"He can but he won't want to." David showed an
+irritating wisdom. "When I invite you to come on
+a party with me I won't want Phares tagging after,
+either. Two's company."</p>
+
+<p>"Two's boredom sometimes," she said so ambiguously
+that the man laughed heartily and Mother
+Bab smiled in amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, Ph&#339;be," David said, "just because
+you put your hair up you mustn't think you can rule
+us all and don grown-up airs."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you do notice things! I thought you were
+blind. You are downright mean, David Eby! When
+you wore your first pair of long pants I noticed it right
+away and made a fuss about them and it takes you ten
+minutes to see that my hair is up instead of hanging
+in a silly braid down my back."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw it first thing, Ph&#339;be. That was mean&mdash;I'm
+sorry&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a><a href="images/144.png">[144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You look it," she said sceptically.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry," he repeated, "to see the braid go,
+though you look fine this way. I liked that long
+braid ever since the day I braided it, the day you
+played prima donna. Remember?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl flushed, then was vexed at her embarrassment
+and changed suddenly to the old, appealing
+Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember, Davie. You were my salvation that
+day, you and Mother Bab."</p>
+
+<p>Before they could answer she added with seeming
+innocency, yet with a swift glance into the face of
+the farmer boy, "I must go now so I'll be home when
+Phares comes to invite me to that sale. I'm going
+with him; I'm wild to go."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" David said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she repeated, a teasing look in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Mommie, isn't she fine?" David said after Ph&#339;be
+was gone and he lingered in the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Mighty fine. But she is so different from the
+general run of girls; she's so lively and bright and
+sweet, so sensitive to all impressions. She's anxious
+to get to the city to study music. It would be a wonderful
+experience for her&mdash;and yet&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet&mdash;&mdash;" echoed David, then fell into silence.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Bab was thinking of her boy and Ph&#339;be,
+of their gay comradeship. How friendly they were,
+how well-mated they appeared to be, how appreciative
+of each other. Could they ever care for each other
+in a deeper way? Did the preacher care for the play<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a><a href="images/145.png">[145]</a></span>mate
+of his childhood as she thought David was beginning
+to care?</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I must go again, mommie. I came in for
+a drink at the pump and heard you and Ph&#339;be. Now
+I must hustle for I have a lot to do before sundown&mdash;ach,
+why aren't we rich!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you wish for that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I do. Not wealthy; just to have enough
+so we needn't lie awake wondering if the dry spell
+or the wet spell or the hail will ruin the crops. I
+wish I could find an Aladdin's lamp."</p>
+
+<p>"Davie"&mdash;the smile faded from her face&mdash;"don't
+get the money craze. Money isn't everything. This
+farm is paid for and we can always make a comfortable
+living. Money isn't all."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but&mdash;but it means everything sometimes to a
+young, single fellow. But don't you worry; the crops
+are fine this year, so far."</p>
+
+<p>The mother did not forget his words at once. "It
+must be," she thought, "that David wants Ph&#339;be and
+feels he must have more money before he can ask her
+to marry him. Will men never learn that girls who
+are worth getting are not looking so much for money
+but the man. The young can't see the depth and fullness
+of love. I've tried to teach David, but I suppose
+there's some things he must learn for himself."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a><a href="images/146.png">[146]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>AN OLD-FASHIONED COUNTRY SALE</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A week</span> later Phares and Ph&#339;be drove into the
+barnyard of a farm six miles from Greenwald, where
+the old-fashioned sale was scheduled to be held.</p>
+
+<p>"We are not the first, after all," said the preacher
+as he saw the number of conveyances in and about the
+barnyard. He smiled good-humoredly as he led the
+way&mdash;he could afford to smile when he was with
+Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>All about the big yard of the farm were placed
+articles to be sold at public auction. It was a miscellaneous
+collection. A cradle with miniature puffy
+feather pillows, straw tick and an old patchwork quilt
+of pink and white calico stood near an old wood-stove
+which bore the inscription, <span class="smcap">Conowingo Furnace</span>.
+Corn-husk shoe-mats, a quilting frame, rocking-chairs,
+two spinning-wheels, copper kettles, rolls
+of hand-woven rag carpet, old oval hat-boxes and an
+old chest stood about a huge table which was laden
+with jars of jellies. Chests, filled with linens and
+antique woolen coverlets, afforded a resting place for
+the fortunate ones who had arrived earliest. A few
+antique chairs and tables, a mahogany highboy in excellent
+condition and an antique corner-cupboard of
+wild-cherry wood occupied prominent places among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a><a href="images/147.png">[147]</a></span>
+the collection. Truly, the sale warranted the attention
+it was receiving.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to bid on something&mdash;I'm going to do it!"
+Ph&#339;be said as they looked about. "When I was a
+little girl and went to sales with Aunt Maria I coaxed
+to bid, just for the excitement of bidding. But she
+always made me tell what I wanted and then she bid
+on it."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want to buy?" asked the preacher.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know. I don't want any apple-butter
+in crocks, or any chairs. Oh, I'll have some fun,
+Phares! I'll bid on the third article they put up for
+sale! I heard a man say the dishes are going to be
+sold first, so I'll probably get a cracked plate or a saucer
+without a cup, but whatever it is, the third article is
+going to be mine."</p>
+
+<p>"That is rather rash," warned Phares. "It may
+be a bed or a chest."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't scare me. I'm going to have some real
+thrills at this sale."</p>
+
+<p>The preacher entered into the spirit of the girl and
+smiled at her promise to bid on the third thing put up
+for sale.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, look at the highboy," she exclaimed to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. See how it's inlaid with hollywood and
+cherry and how fine the lines of it are! I wonder how
+much it will bring. But Aunt Maria'd scold if I
+brought any furniture home, so I can't buy it."</p>
+
+<p>"The price will depend upon the number of bidders
+and the size of their pocketbooks. If any dealers in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a><a href="images/148.png">[148]</a></span>
+antiques are here it may run way up. We used to buy
+homespun linen and fine old furniture very cheap at
+sales, but the antique dealers changed that."</p>
+
+<p>By that time the number of people was steadily increasing.
+They came singly and in groups, in carriages,
+farm wagons, automobiles and afoot. Some
+of the curious went about examining each article in
+the motley collection in the yard.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be watched it all with an amused smile; finally
+she broke into merry laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Phares looked up inquiringly: "What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"This is great sport! I haven't been to a good sale
+for several years. That old man has knocked his fist
+upon every chair and table, has tested every piece of
+furniture, has opened all the bureau drawers, even the
+case of the old clock, and just a moment ago he rocked
+the cradle furiously to convince himself that it is in
+good working condition. Here he comes with a
+pewter plate in his hand&mdash;let's hear what he has to say
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>The old man's cracked harsh voice rose above the
+confusion of other sounds as he leaned against a table
+near Ph&#339;be and Phares and spoke to another man:</p>
+
+<p>"Here now, Eph, is one of them pewter plates that
+folks fuss so about just now, and I hear they put them
+in their dinin'-rooms along the wall! Why, when I
+was a boy my granny had a lot of 'em and we'd knock
+'em around any way. Ha, ha," he laughed loudly, "I
+can tell you a good one, Eph, about one of them pewter
+dishes."</p>
+
+<p>He slapped the plate against his knee, but the thud<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a><a href="images/149.png">[149]</a></span>
+was instantly drowned by his quick, "Ach, Jimminy, I
+hit myself pretty hard that time! But I'll tell you
+about it, Eph. You heard of the fellows from the
+city who go around the country hunting up old relics,
+all old truck, and sell it again in the city? Well, one
+of them fellows come to my house the other week and
+asked if I had anything old-fashioned I would sell.
+Now if Lizzie'd been home we might got rid of some
+of the old things we have on the garret, but I was alone
+and I didn't know what I dared sell&mdash;you know how
+the women is. So I said, 'What kind of old things
+do you want?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh,' he said, 'I buy old furniture, dishes, linen,
+pewter&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Pewter?' I said. 'Who wants that?'</p>
+
+<p>"'There is a great demand for it,' he said, 'and I
+will give you a good price for any you have.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' I laughed, 'I have just one piece of
+pewter.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Where is it?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, the cats have been eating out of it for a
+few years.'</p>
+
+<p>"'May I see it?' he asks.</p>
+
+<p>"So I took him out to the barn and showed him the
+big pewter bowl the cats eat out of and he said, 'I'll
+give you fifty cents for that dish.'</p>
+
+<p>"Gosh, I said to him, 'Mister, I was just fooling
+with you. I know you don't want a cat-dish.'</p>
+
+<p>"But he said again, 'I'll give you fifty cents for
+that dish.'</p>
+
+<p>"So when I saw that he really meant it and wanted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a><a href="images/150.png">[150]</a></span>
+the dish I wrapped the old pewter dish in a paper and
+he gave me half a dollar for it. When I told Lizzie
+about it she laughed good and said the city folks must
+be dumb if they want pewter dishes when you can buy
+such nice ones for ten cents. Yes, Eph, that's the fellow's
+going to auctioneer. He's a good one, you bet;
+he keeps things lively all the time. All his folks is
+good talkers. Lizzie says his mom can talk the legs
+off an iron pot. But then he needs a good tongue in
+this business; it takes a lot of wind to be an auctioneer,
+specially at a big sale like this. He says it's going
+to be a wonderful sale, that he ain't had one like it for
+years. There's things here belonged to the family for
+three generations, been handed down and handed
+down and now to-day it'll get scattered all over Lancaster
+County, mebbe further. This saving up things
+and not using 'em is all nonsense. I tell Lizzie we'll
+use what we got and get new when it's worn out and
+not let a lot back for the young ones to fight over or
+other people to buy."</p>
+
+<p>Here the auctioneer climbed upon a big box, clapped
+his hands and called loudly, "Attention, attention!
+This sale is about to begin. We have here a collection
+of fine things, all in good condition. The terms of the
+sale are cash. Now, folks, bid up fast and talk loud
+when you bid so I can hear you. We have here some
+of the finest antique dishes in the country, also some
+furniture that can't be duplicated in any store to-day.
+We'll begin on this cherry table."</p>
+
+<p>He lifted a spindle-legged table in the air and went
+on talking.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a><a href="images/151.png">[151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now that's a fine table to begin with! All solid
+cherry, no screws loose&mdash;and that's more than you can
+say about some people&mdash;now what's bid for this table?
+Fine and good as the day it came out of a good workman's
+shop; no scratches on it&mdash;the Brubaker people
+knew how to take care of furniture. Who bids?
+How much for it do you bid? Fifty cents&mdash;fifty, all
+right&mdash;make it sixty&mdash;sixty cents I'm bid. Sixty,
+sixty, sixty&mdash;seventy&mdash;go ahead, eighty&mdash;go on&mdash;ninety,
+one dollar, one dollar ten, twenty, thirty&mdash;keep
+on&mdash;one dollar thirty, make it forty, forty, forty,
+forty, I have a dollar forty for this table&mdash;all done?
+Going&mdash;all done&mdash;all done?"</p>
+
+<p>All was said in one breathless succession of words.
+He paused an instant to gather fresh impetus, then resumed,
+"All done&mdash;any more? Gone at a dollar
+forty to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lizzie Brubaker."</p>
+
+<p>"Sold to Lizzie Brubaker."</p>
+
+<p>"There," whispered the preacher to Ph&#339;be, "that's
+one."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled and nodded her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Here now," called the auctioneer, "here's a fine
+set of chairs. Bid on them; wink to me if you don't
+want to call out. My wife said she don't care how
+many ladies wink to me this afternoon at this sale, but
+after that she won't have it&mdash;now then; go ahead!
+Give me one of the chairs, Sam, so the people can see
+it&mdash;ah, ain't that a beauty! Six in all, all solid wood,
+too, none of your cane seats that you have to be afraid
+to sit in. All solid wood, and every one alike, all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a><a href="images/152.png">[152]</a></span>
+painted green and every one with fine hand-painted
+flowers on the back. Where can you beat such chairs?
+Don't make them any more these days, real antiques
+they are! Bid up now, friends; how much a piece?
+The six go together, it would be a shame to part them.
+Fifteen cents did I hear?&mdash;Say, I'm ashamed to take
+a bid like that! Twenty, that's a little better&mdash;thirty,
+thirty, forty over here? Forty cents I have, fifty,
+sixty, seventy, seventy-five, eighty, eighty, eighty cents
+I'm bid; I'm bid eighty cents&mdash;make it ninety&mdash;ninety
+I'm bid, make it a dollar&mdash;ninety, ninety&mdash;all done at
+ninety? Guess we'll let Jonas Erb have them at ninety
+cents a piece, and real bargains they are!"</p>
+
+<p>"Here's where I bid," said Ph&#339;be, her cheeks rosy
+from excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I release you from your promise?" offered
+the preacher.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'll bid."</p>
+
+<p>"Attention," called the auctioneer. "Attention,
+everybody! Here we have a real antique, something
+worth bidding on!"</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be held her breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Here now, Sam, give it a lift so everybody can
+see&mdash;ah, there you are!"</p>
+
+<p>He shouted the last words as two men held above
+the crowd&mdash;the old wooden cradle!</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be groaned and looked at Phares&mdash;he was smiling.
+The old aversion to ridicule swelled in her; he
+should not have reason to laugh at her; she would
+show him that she was equal to the occasion&mdash;she
+would bid on the cradle!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a><a href="images/153.png">[153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Start it, hurry up, somebody. How much is bid
+for the cradle? Sam here says it's been in the Brubaker
+family for years and years. Think of all the
+babies that were rocked to sleep in it&mdash;it's a real relic."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be, unacquainted with the value of cradles, was
+silently endeavoring to determine the proper amount
+for a first bid. She was relieved to hear a woman's
+voice call, "Twenty-five cents."</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty-five I have, twenty-five," called the auctioneer.
+"Make it thirty."</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty," said Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty," came from the other woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Make it fifty, Miss." He pointed a fat finger at
+Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty," she responded.</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty, fifty, anybody make it sixty? Fifty cents&mdash;all
+done at fifty? Then it goes at fifty cents to"&mdash;Ph&#339;be
+repeated her name&mdash;"to Ph&#339;be Metz."</p>
+
+<p>He proceeded with the sale. Ph&#339;be turned triumphantly
+to the preacher&mdash;"I kept my promise."</p>
+
+<p>"You did," he said. "The cradle is yours&mdash;what
+are you going to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious! Why, I never thought of that! I
+don't want it. I just wanted the fun of bidding.
+Can't I pay it and leave it and they can sell it over
+again?"</p>
+
+<p>"You bid rashly," the preacher said, though his
+eyes were smiling and his usual tone of admonition
+was absent from his voice. "I think you may be able
+to sell it to the woman who was bidding against you."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll find her and give it to her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a><a href="images/154.png">[154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She elbowed her way through the crowd until she
+reached the place from which the opposing voice had
+come. She looked about a moment, then addressed a
+woman near her. "Do you know who was bidding on
+the cradle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it was Hetty here, the one with the white
+waist. Here, Hetty, this lady wants to talk to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"To me?" echoed the rival bidder for the cradle.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you bid on the cradle?" asked Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I didn't get it. I only wanted it because
+it was in the family so long. I'm a Brubaker. I said
+I wouldn't give more than fifty cents for it, for it
+would just stand up in the garret anyway, and be one
+more thing to move around at housecleaning time.
+Yet I'd liked to have it. I don't know who got it."</p>
+
+<p>"I did, but I don't want it. I'd like to give it to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why"&mdash;the woman was amazed&mdash;"what did you
+bid on it for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just for the fun of bidding," said Ph&#339;be, laughing.
+"Will you let me give it to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you half a dollar for it," offered the
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I mean it. I want to give it to you. I'll
+consider it a favor if you'll take it from me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you want it that way. But don't you
+want the quilt and the feather pillows?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, take it just as it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, thanks," said the woman as she went to the
+spot where the cradle stood. She soon walked away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a><a href="images/155.png">[155]</a></span>
+with the clumsy gift in her arm. "Now don't it beat
+all," she said as she set it down near her friends. "I
+just knew that I'd get a present to-day. This morning
+I put my stocking on wrong side out and I just left it
+for they say still that it means you'll get a present before
+the day is over, and here I get this cradle!"</p>
+
+<p>With a bright smile illumining her face, Ph&#339;be rejoined
+the preacher.</p>
+
+<p>"I see you disposed of the cradle," he greeted her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But I felt like a hypocrite when she thanked
+me, for I was giving her what I didn't want."</p>
+
+<p>Here the busy auctioneer called again, "Attention,
+everybody! This piece of furniture we are going to
+sell now dates back to ante-bellum days."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, it don't," Ph&#339;be heard a voice exclaim.
+"That never belonged to any person called Bellem;
+that was old Amanda Brubaker's for years and she
+used to tell me that it belonged to her grandmother
+once. That man don't know what he's saying, but
+that's the way these auctioneers do; you can't believe
+half they say at a sale half the time."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be looked up at Phares; both smiled, but the
+loquacious auctioneer, not knowing the comments he
+was causing, went on serenely:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, this is a real old piece of furniture, a real
+antique. Look at this, everybody&mdash;a chest of drawers,
+a highboy, some people call it, but it's pretty by any
+name. All of it is genuine mahogany trimmed with
+inlaid pieces of white wood. Start it up, somebody.
+What will you give for the finest thing we have here
+at this sale to-day? What's bid? Good! I'm bid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a><a href="images/156.png">[156]</a></span>
+five dollars to begin; shows you know a good thing
+when you see it. Five dollars&mdash;make it ten?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ten," answered Phares Eby.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be gave a start of surprise as the preacher's
+voice came in answer to the entreaty of the auctioneer.</p>
+
+<p>"Phares," she whispered, "I didn't mean that I
+want to buy it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am buying it," he said calmly, an inscrutable
+smile in his eyes. "You like it, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She felt a vague uneasiness at his words, at the new
+sound of tenderness in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I like it, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll talk about that some other day soon,"
+he returned, and looked again at the busy auctioneer.</p>
+
+<p>"Ten dollars, ten, ten," came the eager call of the
+man on the box. "Who makes it fifteen? That's
+it&mdash;fifteen I have&mdash;sixteen, eighteen&mdash;twenty&mdash;twenty-five,
+thirty&mdash;thirty, thirty, come on, who makes it
+more? Not done yet? Not going for that little bit?
+Who makes it thirty-five?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty-five," said Phares.</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty-five," the auctioneer caught at the words.
+"That's the way to bid."</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty-eight," came a voice from the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty-eight," the auctioneer smiled broadly at
+the bid. "Some person is going to get a fine antique&mdash;keep
+it up, the highest bidder gets it&mdash;thirty-eight&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Forty," offered Phares.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty, forty dollars&mdash;I have forty dollars offered
+for the highboy&mdash;all done at forty&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a><a href="images/157.png">[157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a tense silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty dollars&mdash;all done at forty&mdash;last call&mdash;going&mdash;going&mdash;gone.
+Gone at forty dollars to Phares
+Eby."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be turned to the preacher. "Did you bid just
+for the fun of bidding?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he replied slowly, "the cases are not exactly
+alike. You like the highboy, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;but what has that to do with it?" She
+looked up, but turned her head away quickly. What
+did he mean? Surely Phares was not given to foolishness
+or love-making to her!</p>
+
+<p>She was glad that he suggested moving to the edge
+of the crowd after his successful bidding was completed.
+There a welcome diversion came in the form
+of the old man who had previously amused them by his
+talk about the pewter plate.</p>
+
+<p>"There now, Eph," he was saying, "what do you
+think of paying forty dollars for that old chest of
+drawers? To be sure it's good and all the drawers
+work yet&mdash;I tried 'em before the sale commenced.
+But forty dollars&mdash;whew!"</p>
+
+<p>The stupidity and extravagance of some people
+silenced him for a moment, then he continued: "My
+Lizzie, now, she knows better how to spend money.
+She bought ten dollars' worth of flavors and soap and
+things like that and she got in the bargain a big chest
+of drawers bigger than this old one, and it was polished
+up finer and had a looking-glass on the top yet. That
+man must have a lot of money to give forty dollars
+for one piece of furniture! Ach"&mdash;in answer to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a><a href="images/158.png">[158]</a></span>
+remonstrance from his companion&mdash;"they can't hear
+me. I don't talk loud, and anyhow, they're listening
+to the auctioneer. That girl with him has a funny
+streak too. She bought the old cradle and then I
+heard her tell Hetty that she just bought it for fun
+and she gave it to Hetty. So, is that man Phares Eby
+from near Greenwald? Well, I thought he'd have too
+much sense to buy such a thing for forty dollars, but
+some people gets crazy when they get to a sale. Who
+ever heard of a person buying a cradle for fun and
+giving it away? But I guess that cradles went out of
+style some time ago. My girl Lizzie wasn't raised
+with funny notions like some girls have nowadays,
+but when she was married and had her first baby and
+we told her she could borrow the old cradle she was
+rocked in to put her baby in, she said she didn't want
+it, for cradles ain't healthy for babies, it is bad to rock
+babies! I guess that was her man's dumb notion, for
+he's a professor in the High School where they live,
+but he's just Jake Forney's John. They get along fine,
+but they do some dumb things. They let that baby
+yell till he found out that he wouldn't get rocked.
+It made her mom quite sick when we were up to visit
+them, and sometimes we'd sneak rocking it a little, just
+so the little fellow'd know there is such a thing as
+getting rocked. They don't want any person to kiss
+that baby, neither. Course I ain't in favor of everybody
+kissing a baby, but I can't see the hurt of its own
+people kissing it. We used to take it behind the door
+and kiss it good, and it's living yet. Ain't, Eph, it's
+a wonder we ever growed up, the way we were bounced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a><a href="images/159.png">[159]</a></span>
+and rocked and joggled and kissed! I say it ain't
+right to go back on cradles; they belong to babies.
+But look, Eph, there she's buying them old copper
+sheep bells! Wonder if she keeps sheep."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be, triumphant bidder for a pair of hand-beaten
+copper sheep bells, turned and looked at the farmer.
+The tenderness of a bright smile still played about her
+lips and the old man, interpreting the smile as a personal
+greeting to him, drew near and spoke to her.</p>
+
+<p>"I can tell you what to take to clean them bells."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she answered cordially, "but I do
+not want to clean them."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can make them shiny if you take&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are very kind, but I really want to keep them
+just as they are."</p>
+
+<p>The old man looked at her for a moment, then shook
+his head as though in perplexity and turned away.</p>
+
+<p>Several more hours of vigorous work on the part of
+the noisy auctioneer resulted in the sale of the miscellaneous
+collection of articles.</p>
+
+<p>The loquacious old farmer was often moved to
+whistle or to emit a low "Gosh" as the sale progressed
+and seemingly valueless articles were sold for high
+prices. A linen homespun table-cloth, woven in
+geometrical design, occasioned spirited bidding, but the
+man on the box was equal to the task and closed the
+bids at twenty dollars. Homespun linen towels were
+bought eagerly for seven, eight, nine dollars. A
+genuine buffalo robe was knocked down to a bidder at
+the price of eighty dollars. Cups and saucers and
+plates sold for from two to four dollars each. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a><a href="images/160.png">[160]</a></span>
+it was an old blue glass bottle that provoked the greatest
+sensation. "Gosh, who wants that?" said the old
+man as the bottle was brought forth. "If he throws
+a cup or plate in with it mebbe somebody will give a
+penny for it."</p>
+
+<p>But a moment later, as an antique dealer started the
+bid at a dollar the old man spluttered, "Jimminy pats!
+Why, it's just an old glass bottle!"</p>
+
+<p>Some person enlightened him&mdash;it was Stiegel glass!
+After the first bid on the bottle every one became attentive.
+The two rival bidders were alert to every
+move of the auctioneer, the bids leapt up and up&mdash;ten
+dollars&mdash;eleven dollars&mdash;twelve dollars&mdash;thirteen dollars&mdash;gone
+at thirteen dollars!</p>
+
+<p>It was late afternoon when Ph&#339;be and the preacher
+turned homeward. The preacher's purchase had to be
+left at the farm until he could return for it in the big
+farm wagon, but Ph&#339;be thought of the highboy as
+they rode along the pleasant country roads. She remembered
+the expression she had caught on the face
+of Phares and the remembrance troubled her. She
+sought desperately for some topic of conversation that
+would lead the man's thoughts from the highboy and
+prevent the return of the mood she had discovered at
+the sale.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;Phares," she began confusedly, "you are
+going to baptize this next time, Aunt Maria thought."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>The preacher looked at the girl. The exhilarating
+influence of the early June outdoors was visible in her
+countenance. Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a><a href="images/161.png">[161]</a></span>&mdash;she
+seemed the epitome of innocent, happy girlhood.
+The vision charmed the preacher and caused the blood
+to course more swiftly through his veins, but he bit
+his lip and steadied his voice to speak naturally.
+"Yes, Ph&#339;be, I want to speak to you about that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear," she thought, "now I <i>have</i> done it!
+Why did I start him on that subject!" Some of the
+excessive color faded from her face and she looked
+ahead as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be, the second Sunday in June I am going to
+baptize a number of converts in the Chicques near your
+home. Are you ready to come with the rest, and give
+up the vanities of the world?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Phares, why do you ask me? I can't wear
+plain clothes while I love pretty ones. I can't be a
+hypocrite."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely, Ph&#339;be, you see that a simple life is
+more conducive to happiness than a complex, artificial
+life can possibly be. It is my duty to strive for the
+saving of souls and we have been friends so long that
+I take a special interest in you and desire to see you
+safe in the shelter of the Church."</p>
+
+<p>"Phares, I'll tell you frankly, if I ever wear plain
+garb it will be because I <i>feel</i> that it is the right thing
+for me to do, not because some person persuades
+me to."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, that is the only way to come. But
+can't you come now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't. I hurt you when I say that, but I want
+you to be my good friend, as always, in spite of my
+worldliness. Will you, Phares?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a><a href="images/162.png">[162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He opened his lips to speak, but she went on quickly:
+"Because I am learning every day how much I need
+the help and friendship of all my friends."</p>
+
+<p>He longed to throw down the reins he was holding
+and tell her what was in his heart, but something in
+her manner, her peculiar stress on the word "friendship"
+restrained him. She was, after all, only a
+child. Only eighteen&mdash;too young to think of marriage.
+He could wait a while longer before he told
+her of his love and his desire to marry her.</p>
+
+<p>"I will, Ph&#339;be," he promised. "I'll be your friend,
+always."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so," she breathed deeply in relief. "I
+knew you wouldn't fail me. Look at that field,
+Phares&mdash;oh, this is a perfect day! There should be a
+superlative form of perfect for a day like this! Those
+fields have as many colors as the shades reflected on a
+copper plate: lilac, tan, purple, rose, green and brown."</p>
+
+<p>The preacher answered a mere "Yes." She turned
+again and looked at the fields they were passing.
+"Perhaps," she thought, "before that corn is ripe I'll
+be in Philadelphia!" But she did not utter the
+thought, for she knew the preacher would not approve
+of her going to the city. He should know nothing
+about it until it was definitely settled.</p>
+
+<p>The thought of studying music in Philadelphia left
+her restless. If only the preacher would be more
+talkative!</p>
+
+<p>"It's just perfect to-day, isn't it, Phares?" she asked
+radiantly, resolved to make him talk. But his answers
+were so perfunctory that she turned her head,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a><a href="images/163.png">[163]</a></span>
+made a little grimace through the open side of the
+carriage and mentally dubbed him "Bump-on-log."
+Very well, if he felt indisposed to talk to her, she
+could enjoy the drive without his voice!</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;&mdash;" he looked at her, puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"What's funny?" she finished. "You."</p>
+
+<p>"I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you. If sales affect you like this you must
+be careful to avoid them. You've been half asleep for
+the last half hour. I think the horse knows the way
+home; you haven't been driving at all."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not been asleep," he contradicted gravely,
+"just thinking."</p>
+
+<p>"Must be deep thoughts."</p>
+
+<p>"They were&mdash;shall I tell them to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, not to-day!" she cried. "I've had enough
+excitement for one day. Some other time. Besides,
+we are almost home."</p>
+
+<p>After that he threw off his lethargic manner and
+entered the girl's mood of appreciation of the lavish
+loveliness of the June. Yet, as Ph&#339;be alighted from
+the carriage at the little gate of the Metz farm, and
+after she had thanked him and started through the
+yard to the house, she said softly to herself, "If
+Phares Eby isn't the queerest person I know! Just
+like a clam one minute and just lovely the next!"</p>
+
+<p>Maria Metz was dishing a panful of fried potatoes
+as Ph&#339;be entered the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, daddy, Aunt Maria," exclaimed the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"So you come once?" said her aunt.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a><a href="images/164.png">[164]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Have a good time?" asked her father.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it was a fine sale, a real old-fashioned one."</p>
+
+<p>But Aunt Maria was impatient for her supper.
+"Hurry," she said, "and get washed to eat. I have
+everything out and it'll get cold, then it ain't good.
+Did Phares like the sale? What did he have to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Um, guess he liked it," said the girl with a shrug
+of her shoulders. "It's hard to tell what he likes&mdash;he's
+such a queer person. He said he's going to baptize
+the second Sunday of June and asked me if I want
+to come with the others."</p>
+
+<p>"He did!" Aunt Maria could not keep the eagerness
+out of her voice. "Well, let's sit down and eat."</p>
+
+<p>After a short grace she turned to the girl. "Now
+then," she said as she helped herself generously to
+sausage and potatoes and handed the dishes across the
+table to Ph&#339;be, "tell us about it."</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't much to tell. I just told him that I
+can't renounce the pleasures of the world before I had
+a chance to take hold of them. I'm not ready yet to
+dress plain."</p>
+
+<p>"Why aren't you ready?" asked the woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, don't ask me," Ph&#339;be replied, speaking lightly
+in an effort to conceal her real feeling. "I just didn't
+come to that state yet. I want some more fun and
+pleasure before I think only of serious things."</p>
+
+<p>"You're just like a big baby," her aunt said impatiently.
+"You can hurt a good man like Phares
+Eby and come home and laugh about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Maria," interposed the father, "let her
+laugh; she'll meet with crying soon enough, I guess."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a><a href="images/165.png">[165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the woman could not be easily silenced. "Some
+day, Ph&#339;be, you'll wish you'd been nicer to Phares."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I am nice to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow, I think it's soon time you give up
+the world and its vanities," said Aunt Maria.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's teasing mood fled. "I think," she said
+slowly, "that the plain dress should not be worn by
+any one who does not realize all that the dress stands
+for. If I ever turn plain I'll do so because I feel it
+is the right thing to do, but just now vanity and the
+love of pretty clothes are still in my heart."</p>
+
+<p>After the meal was over the women washed the
+dishes while Jacob went out to attend to the evening
+milking. Later, when the poultry houses and stables
+were locked he returned to the kitchen and read the
+weekly paper. After a while he turned to Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you sing for me this evening?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," came the ready response.</p>
+
+<p>"Then make the door shut," Aunt Maria directed
+as they went to the sitting-room. "I want to mark
+my rug yet this evening and your noise bothers me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a><a href="images/166.png">[166]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>"THE BRIGHT LEXICON OF YOUTH"</h3>
+
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">What</span> shall I sing?" Ph&#339;be asked as her father
+sank into the big rocker and she took her place at the
+low organ.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, anything," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, turned the pages of an old music book,
+and began to sing, "Annie Laurie." Her father
+nodded approval and smiled when she followed that
+with several other old-time favorites. Then she hesitated
+a moment, a low melody came from the organ,
+and the words of the beautiful lullaby fell from her
+lips:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Sweet and low, sweet and low,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Wind of the western sea;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Low, low,&mdash;breathe and blow,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Wind of the western sea;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Over the rolling waters go,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Come from the dying moon and blow,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Blow him again to me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be sang the lullaby as gently as if a tiny head
+were nestled against her bosom. She had within her,
+as has every normal, unspoiled woman, the loving impulses
+and yearning tenderness of motherhood. Her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a><a href="images/167.png">[167]</a></span>
+womanhood's star of hope shone brightly, though from
+a great distance; she devoutly hoped for the fulfillment
+of her destiny, but always dreamed of it coming in
+some time far removed from the present. Wifehood
+and motherhood&mdash;that was her goal, but long years of
+other joys and other achievements stretched between.
+Yet she felt an incomparable joy as she sang the
+lullaby. She sang it easily and sweetly and uttered
+each word with the freedom of one to whom music is
+second nature.</p>
+
+<p>To the man who listened memory drew aside the
+curtains of twenty years. He beheld again the sweet-faced
+wife glorified with the blessed halo of motherhood.
+He thrilled at the remembrance of her intense
+rapture as she clasped her babe in moments of vivid
+ecstasy, or held it tenderly in her arms as she sang
+the slumber song. The man was lost in revery&mdash;the
+sweet voice of the mother had suddenly grown weak
+and drifted into silence&mdash;a silence which would have
+been intolerable save for the lisping of a child voice
+that was filled with the same indefinable sweetness the
+treasured, silenced voice had possessed. In those first
+days of bereavement Jacob Metz had clung to his
+motherless babe for comfort; her love and caresses
+had renewed his strength and touched him with a
+divine sense of his responsibility. His toil-hardened
+hands could not do the mother's tasks for her but his
+heart could love sufficiently to recompense, so far as
+that be possible, for the loss of the mother's presence.
+His own childhood had been stripped of all romance,
+hence he could not measure the value of the innocent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a><a href="images/168.png">[168]</a></span>
+pleasures of which Aunt Maria, in her stern and narrow
+discipline, deprived the little girl; but so far as
+he saw the light and so far as he was able, he quietly
+soothed where Aunt Maria irritated, and mitigated by
+his interest and sympathy the sternness of the woman's
+rule.</p>
+
+<p>A fleeting retrospect of the past years crowded upon
+him as he heard Ph&#339;be sing the mother's song. The
+two voices seemed strangely merged and blended; when
+she ended and turned her face to him she seemed the
+vivid reincarnation of that other Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a pretty song, isn't it, daddy? You
+like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Your mom used to sing you to sleep with it."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could remember. I can't remember her
+at all," the girl said wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you could, too. You look just like her.
+I'm glad you do. We Metz people all have the black
+hair and dark eyes but you have your mom's light hair
+and blue eyes. I see her every time I look at you."</p>
+
+<p>She seated herself near him. In a moment he spoke
+again, very deliberately, with his characteristic expressiveness:</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be, I want you to know more about your mom.
+You know she was plain, a member of our Church. I
+would like you to dress like she did but I don't want
+you to dress that way and then be dissatisfied and go
+back to the dress of the world. Not many people do
+that, but those that do are the laughing-stock of the
+world. I don't want you coaxed to be plain and then
+not stay plain. I tell you this because I can see that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a><a href="images/169.png">[169]</a></span>
+you are just like your mom was, you like pretty things
+so much. She came in the Church with some girls
+she knew; none of her people were plain. I knew her
+right after she joined, and I took her to Love Feasts
+and to Meetings and we were soon promised to marry
+each other. I saw that something was troubling her
+and she told me that she wanted pretty clothes again
+and wanted to go to parties and picnics like some of the
+other girls she knew. But because she cared for me
+and was promised to me she kept on dressing plain.
+So we were married. The second year you came and
+then she was satisfied without pretty dresses. She
+said to me once, 'Jacob, I was foolish to fret about
+pretty clothes and jewelry, they could not bring happiness,
+but this'&mdash;she looked down at you&mdash;'this is the
+most precious, most beautiful jewel any woman could
+have.' I knew then that the love of vanity was gone
+from her, that she would never be tempted to go back
+to the dress and ways of the world."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment there was silence in the big room.
+The memory of the days when the home circle was
+unbroken left the father quiet and thoughtful and
+strangely touched Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you told me, daddy," she said presently.
+"To-day when Phares talked about the baptizing
+he seemed so confident and at peace in his religion,
+yet I could not promise to come into the
+Church and wear the plain dress. I am going to
+think about it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here Aunt Maria called loudly, "Ph&#339;be, come out
+here once."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a><a href="images/170.png">[170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be sighed, then turned from her father and
+entered the kitchen. The older woman was bending
+over an oblong frame and by the aid of a small steel
+hook was pulling tufts of cloth through the mesh of a
+piece of burlap, the foundation of a hooked rug.</p>
+
+<p>"See once, Ph&#339;be, won't this be pretty till it's
+done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, very pretty. I like the Wall of Troy design
+you are using, and the blues and gray will be a
+good combination. What are you going to do with
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's for your chest."</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed. "Aunt Maria, you'll have to
+enlarge that chest or buy a second one. This spring
+when we cleaned house and had all the things of that
+chest hung out to air, I counted eleven quilts, six rugs,
+five table-cloths, ten gingham aprons, ever so many
+towels, besides all the old homespun linen I have in
+that other chest on the garret. I'll never need all
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you don't know. If you marry&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But if I don't marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, I guess old maids need covers and aprons
+and things as well as them that marry. But now I
+guess I'll stop for to-night. I want to sew the hooks
+'n' eyes on my every-day dress yet before I go to
+bed."</p>
+
+<p>"But before you go I want to ask you, to talk with
+you and daddy," said Ph&#339;be, determined to decide the
+matter of studying music in Philadelphia. The uncertainty
+of it was growing to be a strain upon her. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a><a href="images/171.png">[171]</a></span>
+there was no possibility of her dreams becoming
+realities she would put the thoughts away from her,
+but she wanted the question settled.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what&mdash;&mdash;" Aunt Maria raised her spectacles
+to her forehead and looked at the girl, at her
+flushed cheeks, her eyes darkened by excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"So," the woman chuckled, "Phares picked up
+spunk once and asked you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Phares has nothing to do with it," Ph&#339;be said
+curtly, her cheeks flushing deeper at the thought of the
+words she knew her aunt was ready to say. "This is
+my affair, and, of course, yours and daddy's." She
+turned to her father&mdash;"I want to study music."</p>
+
+<p>"Music? How&mdash;you mean to learn to play the
+organ?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Oh, no! I mean to sing. Listen, please,"
+she pleaded as she saw the bewildered look on his
+face. "You know I have always liked to sing. I
+have told you that many people have said my voice
+is good. So I'd like to go to Philadelphia and take
+lessons from a good teacher. May I? I can use the
+money I have in <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original omits this word">the</ins> bank, that my mother left me. I
+have about a thousand dollars. It won't take all of
+that for a few years' lessons. Daddy, if you'll only
+say I may go!" Her voice wavered suspiciously at
+the end.</p>
+
+<p>Jacob Metz looked at his daughter, then at the little
+low organ in the other room. Another Ph&#339;be had
+loved to sit at that instrument and sing&mdash;perhaps he
+was too easy with the girl&mdash;but if she wanted to go
+away and take lessons&mdash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a><a href="images/172.png">[172]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Before he could answer the plea Maria Metz found
+her voice and spoke authoritatively:</p>
+
+<p>"Jacob Metz, goodness knows you're sometimes
+dumb enough to do foolish things, but you surely ain't
+goin' to leave Ph&#339;be go off to learn singing! Throwing
+away money like that! And what good is to come
+of it, I'd like to know. Who put that dumb notion
+in her head, it just now vonders me! If she must go
+away somewheres to school, like all the young ones
+think they must nowadays, why not leave her go to
+Millersville or to Elizabethtown or to Lancaster to
+learn dressmakin'? But to Philadelphy&mdash;why, that's
+a big city! Anyhow, I can't see the use of all this
+flyin' around to school. We didn't get it when we
+was young, and we growed up, too. We was lucky
+if we got to the country school regular, and we got
+through the world so far!"</p>
+
+<p>"But Maria," her brother spoke gently, "you know
+things have changed since we went to school. The
+world don't stay the same."</p>
+
+<p>"But to learn music!" she placed a scornful accent
+on the last word. "What good will that do? And
+can't any one in Greenwald or Lancaster, even, learn
+her to sing? Anyhow, she don't need no lessons, she
+hollers too loud already. If she takes lessons yet
+what'll she do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Aunt Maria," Ph&#339;be said impatiently, "you
+don't understand! If my voice is worth training it is
+worth having a good teacher. A city like Philadelphia
+is the place to go to."</p>
+
+<p>"But where would you stay down there? Mebbe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a><a href="images/173.png">[173]</a></span>
+you couldn't get a place with nice people. Abody don't
+know what kinda people live in a city."</p>
+
+<p>"I've thought of that. I wrote to Miss Lee last
+week and asked her and she wrote back and said it
+would be a splendid thing for me. She offered to
+help me find a boarding place. I could see her often
+and would not be alone among strangers. Best of all,
+Miss Lee has a cousin who plays the violin and who
+lives with her and her mother and he will help me find
+a good teacher. Isn't that lovely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Omph," sniffed Aunt Maria. "It'll cost you a
+lot of money for board, mebbe as much as four dollars
+a week! And your lessons will be a lot, and your car
+fare back and forth. Then I guess you'd want a lot
+more dresses and things&mdash;ach, you just put that dumb
+notion from your head."</p>
+
+<p>"Maria," Ph&#339;be's father spoke in significantly even
+tones, "you needn't talk like that. Ph&#339;be has the
+money her mom left her and I guess I could send her
+to school if I wanted to. It won't hurt her to go study
+music and see something of the world. It'll do her
+good to get away once like other girls."</p>
+
+<p>"Do her good," echoed Aunt Maria. "Jacob
+Metz! You know little of the dangers of the
+big cities! But then, men ain't got no sense! I
+never met one yet that had enough to fill a thimble!"</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Maria," the girl said gently, "I'm not a
+child. I'm eighteen and I'll be near Miss Lee and her
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>"And the fiddler," added the woman tartly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a><a href="images/174.png">[174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ach," Ph&#339;be laughed. "Miss Lee will take care
+of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe so," grumbled Aunt Maria.</p>
+
+<p>"Now look here, Maria," Jacob spoke up, "Ph&#339;be
+can go this fall once and try it and she can come home
+often and if she don't like it she can come home right
+away. It takes only three hours to go to there. So,
+Ph&#339;be, you write to Miss Lee and tell her to expect
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I may go!" She threw her arms about her
+father's neck and kissed his bearded face. Demonstrations
+of affection were rare in the Metz household,
+but the father smiled as he stroked the girl's
+hair.</p>
+
+<p>"You be a good girl, Ph&#339;be, that's all I want," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"I will, daddy, I will!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Maria, you take Ph&#339;be to Lancaster and
+get things ready so she can go in September. I'll let
+her take that thousand she has in the bank, but that
+must reach; it's enough for music lessons."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't need all of it. What's left I'll save for
+next year."</p>
+
+<p>"Next year! How many years must you go?" demanded
+Aunt Maria, still unhappy and sore.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. But when the thousand is gone
+I'll earn more if I want to spend more."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, my," groaned the woman, "you talk like
+money grew on trees! What's the world comin' to
+nowadays?" She rose and pushed her rugging frame
+into a corner of the kitchen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a><a href="images/175.png">[175]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Maria," her brother suggested, "we can get a
+hired girl if the work's too much for you alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Hired girl! I don't want no hired girl! Half
+of 'em don't do to suit, anyhow! I don't just want
+Ph&#339;be here to help to work. It'll be awful lonesome
+with her gone."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be saw the glint of anguish in the dark eyes and
+felt that her aunt's protestations were partly due to a
+disinclination to be parted from the child she had
+reared.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Maria," she said kindly, "I hate to do what
+you think I shouldn't do, for you're good to me.
+You mustn't feel that I'm doing this just to be contrary.
+You and I think differently, that's all. Perhaps
+I'm too young to always think right, but I don't
+want you to be hurt. I'll come home often."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, yes well," the woman was touched by the
+girl's tenderness, but was still unconvinced. "Not
+much use my saying more, I guess. You and your
+pop will do what you like. You're a Metz, too, and
+hard to change when you make up your mind once."</p>
+
+<p>That night when Ph&#339;be went to bed in her old-fashioned
+walnut bed she lay awake for hours, dreaming
+of the future. If Aunt Maria had known the
+visions that flitted before the girl that night she would
+have quaked in apprehension, for Ph&#339;be finally drifted
+into slumber on clouds of glory, forecasts of the
+wonderful time when, as a prima donna in trailing,
+shimmering gown, she would have the world at her
+feet while she sang, sang, sang!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a><a href="images/176.png">[176]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PREACHER'S WOOING</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> belonged to the Metz farm an old stone
+quarry which Ph&#339;be learned to love in early childhood
+and which, as she grew older, she adopted as her
+refuge and dreaming-place.</p>
+
+<p>Almost directly opposite the green gate at the
+country road was a narrow lane which led to the
+quarry. It was bordered on the right by a thickly interlaced
+hedge of blackberry bushes and wild honeysuckle,
+beyond which stood the orchard of the Metz
+farm. On the left of the lane a wide field sloped up
+along the road leading to the summit of the hill where
+the schoolhouse and the meeting-house stood. The
+lane was always inviting. It was the fair road to a
+fairer spot, the old stone quarry.</p>
+
+<p>The old stone quarry banked its rugged height
+against the side of a great wooded hill. Some twenty
+feet below the level of the lane was a huge semicircular
+base, and from this the jagged sides reared perpendicularly
+to the summit of the hill. The top and
+slopes of this hill were covered with a dense growth
+of underbrush and trees. Tall sycamores bordered
+the road opposite the quarry, making the spot sheltered
+and secluded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a><a href="images/177.png">[177]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To this place Ph&#339;be hurried the morning after she
+had gained her father's consent to go to Philadelphia.</p>
+
+<p>"I just had to come here," she breathed rapturously;
+"the house is too narrow, the garden too small,
+this June morning. They won't hold my dreams."</p>
+
+<p>She stood under the giant sycamore opposite the
+quarry and looked appreciatively about her. Earth's
+warm, throbbing bosom thrilled with the universal joy
+of parentage and fruition. Shafts of sunlight shot
+through the green of the trees, odors of wild flowers
+mingled with the fresh, woodsy fragrance of the
+fields and woods, song sparrows flitted busily among
+the hedges and sang their delicious, "Maids, maids,
+maids, hang on your tea kettle-ettle-ettle!" From the
+densest portions of the woods above the quarry a
+thrush sang&mdash;all nature seemed atune with Ph&#339;be's
+mood, blithe, happy, joyous!</p>
+
+<p>Phares Eby, going to town that morning, walked
+slowly as he neared the Metz farm and looked for a
+glimpse of Ph&#339;be. He saw, instead, the portly figure
+of Aunt Maria as she walked about her garden to see
+the progress of her early June peas.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Phares," she called, "you goin' to Greenwald?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Anything I can do for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach no. Ph&#339;be was in the other day. But come
+in once, Phares, I'll tell you something about
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Ph&#339;be?" he asked as he joined Aunt
+Maria in the garden.</p>
+
+<p>"Over at the quarry again. But I must tell you,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a><a href="images/178.png">[178]</a></span>
+she's goin' to Phildelphy to study singin'. She asked
+her pop and he said she dare."</p>
+
+<p>"Philadelphia&mdash;singing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I don't like it at all, but she's goin' just the
+same."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a mistake to let her go," said the preacher.
+"It's a big mistake, Aunt Maria. She should stay at
+home or go to some school and learn something of
+value to her. In this quiet place she has never heard
+of many temptations which, in the city, she must meet
+face to face. It is the voice of the Tempter urging
+her to do this thing and we who are her friends should
+persuade her to remain in her good home and near the
+friends who care for her. Have you thought, Aunt
+Maria, that the people to whom she will go may dance
+and play cards and do many worldly things? Philadelphia
+is very different from Greenwald. Why, she
+may learn to indulge in worldly amusements and to
+love the vanities of the world which we have tried to
+teach her to avoid! She will be like a bird in a strange
+nest."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, Phares, but I can't make it different.
+When Jacob says a thing once it's hard to change him,
+and she is like that too. They fixed it up last night
+and I had no say at all. All I said against her going
+did as much good as if I said it to the chairs in the
+kitchen. Ph&#339;be is going to get Miss Lee, the one
+that was teacher on the hill once, to help her. And
+Miss Lee has a cousin that lives with her and he
+plays the fiddle and he is goin' to get a teacher for
+her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a><a href="images/179.png">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Phares Eby groaned and gritted his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I'll go talk with her a while," he decided.</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe she'll come in soon, if you want to wait.
+I told her to bring me some pennyroyal along from the
+field next the quarry. You know that's so good for
+them little red ants, and they got into my jelly cupboard.
+She went a while ago and I guess she'll soon
+be back now."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'll walk over."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Phares. Tell her not to forget the
+pennyroyal."</p>
+
+<p>With long strides the preacher crossed the road and
+started up the lane to the quarry. There he slackened
+his pace&mdash;he thought of the previous day when he had
+asked Ph&#339;be about entering the Church. She had
+disappointed him, it was true, but she had seemed so
+eager to do right, so innocent and childlike, that the
+interview had not left him wholly unhappy or greatly
+discouraged. He had hoped last night that she would
+give the matter of her soul's salvation serious thought,
+that she would soon stand in the stream and be baptized
+by him. Over sanguine he had been&mdash;so soon
+she had forgotten serious things and planned a winter
+in Philadelphia studying music.</p>
+
+<p>"I must act," he thought. "I must tell her of my
+love. All these years I have loved her and kept silent
+about it because I thought she was just a child. But
+I must tell her now. If she loves me she shall marry
+me soon and this great temptation will leave her; she
+will hearken to the voice of her conscience, and we will
+begin our life of happiness together."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a><a href="images/180.png">[180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With this resolution strong within him he went up
+the lane to the quarry and Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>She was seated on a rock under the giant sycamore
+and leaned confidingly against the shaggy trunk.
+The glaring sunshine that fell upon the fields and
+hills could not wholly penetrate the protecting
+canopy of well-proportioned sycamore leaves; only
+a few quivering rays fell upon the girl's upturned
+face.</p>
+
+<p>As the preacher approached she looked around
+quickly but did not move from her caressing attitude
+by the tree.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Phares. I'm glad you came. I
+was wishing for some one to share the old quarry with
+me this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Maria told me you were here&mdash;she is impatient
+for her pennyroyal." Now, that the supreme
+moment had arrived, he hesitated and grasped at the
+first straw for conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear," she said childishly, "Aunt Maria expects
+me to remember ants and pennyroyal when I
+come here. Phares, I can't explain it, but this old
+quarry has a strange fascination for me. The beauty
+in its variegated stone with the sunlight upon it attracts
+me. Sometimes I am tempted to climb up the
+hill and hang over the quarry and look down into the
+heart of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ever do that!" cried the preacher.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't," laughed Ph&#339;be. "I don't want to die
+just yet. But isn't it the loveliest place! I come here
+often when the men are not blasting. It seems almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a><a href="images/181.png">[181]</a></span>
+a desecration to blast these rocks when we think how
+long nature took in their making."</p>
+
+<p>She paused . . . only the sounds of nature invaded
+the quiet of the place: the drowsy hum of diligent
+bees, the cattle browsing in a field near by, the
+<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'esctatic'">ecstatic</ins> trill of a bird. The world of bustle and flurry
+with its seething vats of evil and corruption, its sordid
+discontent and petulance, its ways of pain and darkness,
+seemed far removed from that place of peace and
+calm solitude. Ph&#339;be could not bear to think that
+across the seas men were lying in the filth of water-soaked
+trenches, agonizing and bleeding on the battlefields
+and suffering nameless tortures in hospitals that
+a peace like unto the peace of her quiet haven might
+brood undisturbed over the world in future generations.
+She dismissed the harrowing thought of war&mdash;she
+would enjoy the calm of her quarry.</p>
+
+<p>The preacher had listened silently to the girl's
+rhapsodies&mdash;she suddenly awakened to the realization
+that he was paying scant attention to her enthusiastic
+words. She looked at him, her heart-beats quickened,
+some intuition warned her of the imminent declaration.</p>
+
+<p>She rose quickly from the embrace of the sycamore
+tree, but the compelling eyes of the preacher restrained
+her from flight. She stood before him, within reach
+of his hands.</p>
+
+<p>His first words reassured her somewhat: "Ph&#339;be,
+your aunt has told me that you are going to Philadelphia
+to study music."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Isn't it fine! I'm so happy&mdash;&mdash;" she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a><a href="images/182.png">[182]</a></span>
+stopped. Displeasure was written plainly upon his
+countenance. "Don't you think it's all right, Phares?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is a great mistake," he said gravely.
+"Why not spend your time on something of value to
+yourself and your friends and the world in general?"</p>
+
+<p>"But music is of great value. Why, the world
+needs it as it needs sunshine!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Ph&#339;be, you must remember you do not come
+of a people who stand before the worldly and lift their
+voices for the joy of the multitude of curious people.
+Your voice is right as it is and needs no training. It
+is as God gave it to you and is made to be used in His
+service, in His Church and your home."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have always wanted to learn to sing well,
+really well. So I am going to Philadelphia this winter
+and take lessons from a competent teacher."</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be," exhorted the preacher, "put away the
+temptation before it grips you so strongly that you
+cannot shake it off. You must not go!"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke the last words in a tone of authority which
+the girl answered, "Phares, let us speak of something
+else. You know I have some of the Metz determination
+in my make-up and I can't be easily forced to give
+up a cherished plan. At any rate, we must not quarrel
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>The preacher forbore to try further argument or
+persuasion. He became grave. His habitual serenity
+of mind was disturbed by shadowy forebodings&mdash;when
+the pebbles of doubt drop into the placid pool of content
+it invariably follows that the waters become agitated
+for a time. Hitherto he had been hopeful of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a><a href="images/183.png">[183]</a></span>
+winning Ph&#339;be. Had he not known her and loved
+her all her life! What was more natural than that
+their friendship should culminate in a deeper feeling!</p>
+
+<p>He stretched out his hand in a sudden rush of feeling&mdash;"Ph&#339;be,
+I love you."</p>
+
+<p>She stepped back a pace and his hand fell to his
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't, Phares," she began, but the next moment
+she realized that she could not turn aside his love
+without listening to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be, you must listen&mdash;I love you, I have loved
+you all my life. Can't you say that you care for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask me that!" she pleaded. "I don't want
+to marry anybody now. All my life I have dreamed
+of going to a city and studying music and I can't let
+the opportunity slip away from me now when it is so
+near. To work under the direction of a master
+teacher has long been one of my dearest dreams."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that you do not love me, then. Or if
+you do, that you would rather gratify your desire to
+study music than marry me&mdash;which is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, Phares, don't make it hard for me! I said
+I don't want to get married now. All my life I have
+lived on a farm and have thought that I should be
+wonderfully happy if I could get away from it for a
+while and know what it is to live in a big city. There
+I shall have a chance to see life in its broader aspects.
+I shall not be harmed by gathering new ideas and
+ideals, gaining new friends, and, above all, learning to
+sing well."</p>
+
+<p>The man groaned in spirit. It was evident that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a><a href="images/184.png">[184]</a></span>
+was thoroughly determined to go away from the
+farm.</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be," he pleaded again, not entirely for his own
+selfish desire, but worried about her love of worldliness,
+"do you know that the things for which you are
+going to the city are really not important, that all
+outward acquisitions for which you long now are
+transient? The things that count are goodness and
+purity and to be without them is to be pauperized; the
+things that bring happiness are love and home ties and
+to be without them is to be desolate. You want a
+larger, broader vision, but the city cannot always give
+you that."</p>
+
+<p>There was no bitterness in his voice, only an undertone
+of sadness as he spoke. "Ph&#339;be, tell me plainly,
+do you care for me?"</p>
+
+<p>Her face was lamentably pathetic as she looked into
+his and read there the desire for what she could not
+give. "Not as you wish," she said softly. "But I
+don't really know what love is yet, I haven't thought
+about it except as something that will come to me some
+day, a long time from now. There are too many other
+things I must think about now. When I am through
+studying music I'll think about being married."</p>
+
+<p>The preacher shook his head; his heart was too
+heavy for more words, more futile words.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go, Phares," she said, the silence becoming
+intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he agreed. "And Ph&#339;be," he added as they
+turned away from the quarry, "I hope you'll learn
+your lesson quickly and come back to us."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a><a href="images/185.png">[185]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They stepped from the sheltered path into the sunshine
+of the lane. Long trails of green lay in their
+path as they went, but the eyes of both were temporarily
+blinded to the loveliness of the June. When
+they reached the dusty road the preacher said good-bye
+and went on his way to the town.</p>
+
+<p>She stood where he left her; the suppressed feelings
+of the past half hour soon struggled to avenge themselves
+and she sped down the lane again, back to the
+refuge of the kindly tree, and there, under her sycamore,
+burst into passionate weeping.</p>
+
+<p>Some time after Phares left the girl at the end of
+the lane David Eby came swinging down the hill and
+entered the Metz kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Aunt Maria. Where's Ph&#339;be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I guess over at the quarry. She went for
+pennyroyal long ago and then Phares came and he
+went over after her, but I saw him go on the way to
+town a bit ago, so I guess she's still over there.
+Guess she's stumbling around after a bird's nest or
+picking some weeds that ain't no good. I don't see
+why she stays so long."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go see," volunteered David.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes well. And tell her to hurry with that pennyroyal.
+I want it for red ants, but they can carry away
+the whole jelly cupboard till she gets here."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell her," said David, and went off, whistling.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be's paroxysm of grief was short-lived. The
+soothing quiet of the quarry calmed her, but her eyes
+showed telltale marks of tears as David's steps sounded
+down the lane.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a><a href="images/186.png">[186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She rose hastily, then sank back to her seat under the
+tree as she saw the identity of the intruder.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew, Ph&#339;be Metz," he said and whistled in his
+old, boyish way as he sat beside her, "you're crying!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not," she declared.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you just have been! I haven't seen you in
+tears for many years. Ph&#339;be"&mdash;he changed his
+tone&mdash;"what's gone wrong? Anything the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," she sniffed, "don't ask me or you'll have
+me at it again." She steadied her voice and went on,
+"I came over here so gloriously happy I could have
+shouted, because daddy said last night that I may go
+to Philadelphia this fall&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Gee whiz!" David grabbed her hand. "Why,
+I'm tickled to death. But what&mdash;why are you crying?
+Isn't that what you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." She smiled, pleased by his interest and
+eagerness. "But just as I was happiest along came
+Phares and told me it was wicked to go. It's all a
+mistake to go, he said."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, the dickens with the old fossil!" David cried.
+"And I'm not going to take that back or be sorry for
+saying it. Hadn't he better sense than to throw a
+wet blanket on all your happiness!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I needed it. I was just about burning up
+with gladness."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't you care what he's thinking about it.
+You go learn music if you want to and your father
+lets you go. Did he see you cry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not! I wouldn't cry before him. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a><a href="images/187.png">[187]</a></span>
+would say that was foolish or wicked or something it
+shouldn't be. But you&mdash;you are so sensible I don't
+mind if you do see me with my eyes red."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha, ha, that's a compliment. I have been told
+that I am happy-go-lucky and sort of a cheerful idiot,
+but no person ever told me that I'm sensible. Well,
+don't you forget me when you get to be that prima
+donna."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't. You and Mother Bab rub me the right
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"But won't she be glad when I tell her," said David.
+"I came down to see if you had decided about it, and
+I find it all arranged."</p>
+
+<p>"And me in tears," added Ph&#339;be, her natural poise
+and good humor again restored. "Tell Mother Bab
+I am coming up soon to tell her about it."</p>
+
+<p>So, in happier mood, she walked beside David, down
+the green lane to the road, across the road to her own
+gate.</p>
+
+<p>"So you come once!" Aunt Maria greeted her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I forgot your pennyroyal! I'll go get it."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. You stayed so long I went over to
+the field near the barn and got some. But you look
+like you've been cryin', Ph&#339;be. Did you and Phares
+have a fall-out?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You and David, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;please don't ask me&mdash;it's nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there ain't no man in shoe leather worth
+cryin' about, I can tell you that. They just laugh at
+your cryin'."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a><a href="images/188.png">[188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be smiled at her aunt's philosophy and resolved
+to forget the discouraging words of the preacher. She
+would be happy in spite of him&mdash;the future held bright
+hours for her!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a><a href="images/189.png">[189]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SCARLET TANAGER</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> days that followed were busy days at the gray
+farmhouse. Ph&#339;be was soon deep in the preparations
+for her stay in the city. Her meagre wardrobe required
+replenishment; she wanted to go to Philadelphia
+with an outfit of which Miss Lee would not be
+ashamed. Much to her aunt's surprise the girl selected
+one-piece dresses of blue serge with sheer white
+collars for every-day wear in cold weather; a few
+white linens for warm days; and these, with her blue
+serge suit, her simple white graduation dress, and a
+plain dark silk dress, were the main articles of her outfit.
+Aunt Maria expressed her relief and wonder at
+the girl's choice&mdash;"Well, it wonders me that you don't
+want a lot of ugly fancy things to go to Phildelphy.
+Those dresses all made in one are sensible once. I
+guess the style makers tried all the outlandish styles
+they could think of and had to make a nice style once."</p>
+
+<p>But when Ph&#339;be purchased a piece of long-cloth and
+began to make undergarments, beautifying them by
+sprays of hand embroidery, Aunt Maria scoffed,
+"Umph, I'd be ashamed to put snake-doctors on my
+petticoats."</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed. "They aren't snake-doctors, they
+are butterflies," she said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a><a href="images/190.png">[190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not much difference&mdash;both got wings. I don't
+see what for you want to waste time like that."</p>
+
+<p>"It makes them prettier, and I like pretty things."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, you have dumb notions sometimes. I guess
+we better make your other dresses soon, then you
+won't have time for sewing snake-doctors or butterflies.
+You better get your silk dress made in Greenwald,
+it's so soft and slippery that I ain't going to
+bother my old fingers makin' it. Granny Hogendobler
+wants to come out and help to sew, and David's
+mom said she'll come down and help us cut and fit the
+serge dresses. She's real handy like that. If those
+dresses look as nice on you as they do on the pictures
+they will be all right. Granny and Barb dare just
+come and both help with your things&mdash;they both think
+it's so fine for you to go to the city! Granny Hogendobler
+spoiled her Nason by givin' him just what he
+wanted, and now what has she got for it? And I
+guess Barb is easy with that big boy of hers. Mebbe
+if she was a little stricter he'd be in the Church like
+Phares is, though David is a nice boy and I guess he
+don't give his mom any trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"I just love Mother Bab; don't you say such things
+about her!" Ph&#339;be exclaimed, her eyes flashing.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I like her too," the woman said. She looked
+at Ph&#339;be in surprise. "You needn't be so touchy.
+For goodness' sake, don't take to gettin' touchy like
+some people are! Handling them's like tryin' to plane
+over a knot in wood; any way you push the plane is the
+wrong way. This here going to Philadelphy upsets
+you, I guess. You're gettin' as touchy as the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a><a href="images/191.png">[191]</a></span>
+touch-me-nots we get on the hill; they all snap shut
+when you touch 'em&mdash;only you snap open."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be laughed. "I guess I am excited," she admitted.
+"I'm sewing too much for summer days and
+it makes me irritable. I think I'll let the butterflies
+wait and I'll go outdoors. Shall I weed the garden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Weed the garden? Now you're talkin' dumb!
+Don't you know yet that abody don't weed a garden on
+Fridays? Ours always gets done on Monday. But if
+you want to get out you dare take some of the sand-tarts
+I baked yesterday up to David's mom, she likes
+them so much. And you ask her if she can come
+down next week to help with the dresses. But don't
+stay too long, for it's been so hot all day and I think
+it's goin' to storm yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry about me if it rains. I won't start
+for home if it looks threatening. I'll wait till the
+storm is over."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Maria filled a basket with her delectable
+cookies and the girl started up the hill. It was, indeed,
+a hot day, even for August. Ph&#339;be paused
+several times in the shelter of overhanging trees as she
+plodded up the steep road. On the summit she climbed
+the rail fence and perched in the cool shade for a little
+while and looked out over the valley where the town
+of Greenwald lay.</p>
+
+<p>"It's lovely here, and I'm wondering how I can be
+happy when I know that I am going to leave it soon
+and go to the city for a long winter away from my
+home. But there's a voice calling to me from the
+great outside world and I won't be satisfied until I go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a><a href="images/192.png">[192]</a></span>
+and mingle with the multitude of a great city. It is
+life, life, that I want to see and know. And yet, I'm
+glad I'll have this to come back to! It gives me a
+comfortable feeling to know that this is waiting for
+me, no matter where I go&mdash;this is still my home.
+Sometimes I wonder if Aunt Maria could possibly be
+speaking wisely when she says it is all a waste of
+money to run off to the city and study music. But
+what is there on the farm to attract me? I don't want
+to marry yet"&mdash;the remembrance of Phares Eby's
+pleading came to her&mdash;"and if I do marry some time,
+it won't be Phares. No, never Phares! Ach, Ph&#339;be
+Metz, you don't know what you want!" she said to
+herself as she jumped from the fence and ran down the
+road to the Eby farm.</p>
+
+<p>At the gate she paused. Mother Bab stood among
+her flowers, her white-capped head bare of any other
+covering, the hot sunshine streaming upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother Bab," she cried, "you are simply baking
+in the sun!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," the woman turned to Ph&#339;be and smiled.
+"I'm forgetting it's hot while I look at the flowers.
+You see, Ph&#339;be, I was in the house sewing and trying
+to keep cool and all of a sudden my eyes grew dim so
+I couldn't sew. The fear came to me, the fear that
+my sight is going, though I try not to strain them at
+all and never sew at night. Well, I just ran out here
+and began to look and look at my flowers&mdash;if I ever do
+go blind I'm going to have lots of memories of lovely
+things I've seen."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be drew Mother Bab's face to her and kissed it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a><a href="images/193.png">[193]</a></span>
+"You just mustn't get blind! It would be too dreadful.
+There are many clever specialists in the city these
+days. Surely, there is some doctor who can help you."</p>
+
+<p>"They all say there is little to be done in a case like
+mine. But, let's forget it; I can see and we'll keep on
+hoping it will last. I went to a doctor at Lancaster
+some time ago and I'm going to give him a fair trial.
+I guess it'll come out right."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be brightened again at the woman's words of
+contagious cheer and hope.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't the garden pretty?" asked Mother Bab as
+they looked about it.</p>
+
+<p>"Perfect! Those zinnias are lovely."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I like them. But I like their other name
+better&mdash;Youth and Old Age, my mother used to call
+them. She used to say that they are not like other
+flowers, more like people, for the buds open into tiny
+flowers and those tiny flowers grow and develop until
+they are large and perfect. I would think something
+fine were missing in my garden if I didn't have my
+Youth and Old Age every year. But you will be too
+hot in this sun; shall we go in?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, please, not until I have seen the flowers. I
+need to gather precious memories, too, to take with me
+to Philadelphia. Oh, I like this"&mdash;she knelt in the
+narrow path and buried her face in fragrant lemon
+verbena plants.</p>
+
+<p>"I like that, too. Mother used to call it Joy Everlasting.
+We always put it in our bureau drawers between
+the linens. David likes lavender better, so I
+use that now."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a><a href="images/194.png">[194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How you spoil him," said Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"You think so?" asked the mother gently.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be smiled in retraction of her statement.
+"We'll both be parboiled if we stay out here any
+longer," she said as she linked her arm into Mother
+Bab's. "Aunt Maria sent you some sand-tarts."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't she good!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but"&mdash;the blue eyes twinkled mischievously&mdash;"they
+are just a bribe. We want you to come down
+and help us with the dresses some day next week.
+You are not to sew, but if you are there to tell about
+the fit of them I'll feel better satisfied. Whew! If
+it's as hot as this I'll have a lovely time fitting woolen
+dresses!"</p>
+
+<p>"You won't mind."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe I shall, so long as the dresses are to
+be worn in Philadelphia. Granny Hogendobler is
+coming out, too. Will you come?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be glad to. David can eat his dinner at his
+aunt's."</p>
+
+<p>They entered the house and sat in the sitting-room,
+a room dear to both because of its association with
+many happy hours.</p>
+
+<p>"I love this room," Ph&#339;be said. "This must be
+one of my pleasant memories when I go."</p>
+
+<p>"I like it better than any other room in the house,"
+said Mother Bab. "I suppose it's because the old
+clock and the haircloth sofa are in it. Why, Davie
+used to slide down the ends of that sofa and call it his
+boat when he was just a little fellow. And that old
+clock"&mdash;her voice sank to the tenderness of musing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a><a href="images/195.png">[195]</a></span>
+retrospect&mdash;"why, Davie's father set it up the day we
+were married and came here and set up housekeeping
+and it's been ticking ever since. Davie used to say
+'tick-tock' when he heard it, when he first learned to
+talk. I like that old clock most as much as if it were
+something alive. A man who comes around here to
+buy antique furniture came in one day and offered to
+buy it. I'll never forget how David told him it wasn't
+for sale. The very thought of selling the old clock
+made Davie cross."</p>
+
+<p>"Davie cross! How could he keep the twinkle out
+of his eyes long enough to be cross?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, it don't last long when he gets cross."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he now, Mother Bab?"</p>
+
+<p>"Working in the tobacco field."</p>
+
+<p>"In the hot sun!"</p>
+
+<p>"He says he don't mind it. He's so pleased with
+the tobacco this summer. It looks fine. If the hail
+don't get in it now it'll bring about four hundred dollars,
+he thinks. That will be the most he has ever
+gotten out of it. But tobacco is an awful risk. If the
+weather is just so it pays about the best of anything
+around this part of the country, I guess, but so often
+the poor farmers work hard in the tobacco fields and
+then the hail comes along and all is spoiled. But ours
+is fine so far."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad. David has been working hard all summer
+with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes he gets discouraged; Phares's crops always
+seem to do better than David's, yet David works
+just as hard. But Phares plants no tobacco."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a><a href="images/196.png">[196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At that moment Phares Eby himself came into the
+room where the two sat. He appeared a trifle embarrassed
+when he saw Ph&#339;be. Since the June meeting
+under the sycamore tree by the old stone quarry he had
+made no special effort to see her, and the several times
+they had met in that time he had greeted her with
+marked restraint.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-afternoon," he murmured, looking from
+Ph&#339;be to Mother Bab and back again to Ph&#339;be. "I
+didn't know you were here, Ph&#339;be. I&mdash;Aunt Barbara,
+I came in to tell you there's a bright red bird in the
+woods down by the cornfield."</p>
+
+<p>"There is!" cried Ph&#339;be with much interest. "Is
+it all red, or has it black wings and tail?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I couldn't say. I know David and Aunt
+Barbara are always interested in birds and I heard
+David say the other day that he hadn't seen a red bird
+this summer, that they must be getting scarce around
+this section. So I thought I'd come up and tell you
+about it. I know it is bright red. Do you want to
+come out and try to find it again, Aunt Barbara?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not now, Phares. I have been in the sun so much
+to-day that my head aches."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you care to see it?" he asked Ph&#339;be in
+visible hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>She answered eagerly, her passionate love of birds
+mastering her embarrassment. "I'd love to, Phares!
+I am anxious to see whether it's a tanager or a cardinal.
+I have never seen a cardinal."</p>
+
+<p>South of David Eby's cornfield stretched a strip of
+woodland. There blackberry brambles tangled about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a><a href="images/197.png">[197]</a></span>
+the bases of great oaks and the entire woods&mdash;trees
+and brambles&mdash;made an ideal nesting-place for birds.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it's gone," said the preacher as they went
+along to the woods.</p>
+
+<p>"But it's worth trying for," she said.</p>
+
+<p>They kept silent then; only the rustling of the corn
+was heard as the two went through the green aisle.
+When they reached the woodland a sudden burst of
+glorious melody came to them. Ph&#339;be laid a hand
+impulsively upon the arm of the preacher, but she removed
+it quite as suddenly when he looked down at
+her and said, "Our bird!"</p>
+
+<p>The bird, a scarlet tanager, aware of the presence of
+the intruders and eager to attract attention to himself
+and safeguard his hidden mate, flew to an exposed
+branch of an oak tree. There he displayed his gorgeous,
+flaming scarlet body with its touch of black in
+wings and tail.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a tanager," said Ph&#339;be. "Isn't he lovely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very fine," said the preacher. "What color is his
+mate? Is she red?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's green, a lovely olive green. When she sits
+on the nest she's just the color of her surroundings.
+If she were red like her mate she'd be too easily destroyed."</p>
+
+<p>"God's providence," said the preacher.</p>
+
+<p>"It is wonderful&mdash;look, Phares, there he goes!"</p>
+
+<p>The scarlet tanager made a streak of vivid color
+across the sky as he flew off over the corn.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if he trusts us or if his mate is not
+about," Ph&#339;be said. "He's a beauty, so is his mate in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a><a href="images/198.png">[198]</a></span>
+her green frock. A few minutes with the birds can
+teach us a great deal, can't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Ph&#339;be, here, right near your home, are
+countless lessons to be learned and accomplishments to
+be acquired. Tell me, do you still wish to go away to
+the city?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. I am going in September."</p>
+
+<p>"You remember the verse in the Third Reader we
+used to have at school:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"'Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">Home-keeping hearts are happiest.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">For those who wander, they know not where,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">Are full of trouble and full of care;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">To stay at home is best.'"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"But I have ambitions, Phares. All my eighteen
+years of life have been spent on a farm, in the narrow
+existence of those whose days are passed within one
+little circle. I want to see things, I want to meet
+people, I want to live, I want to learn to sing&mdash;I can't
+do any of these things here. Oh, you can't understand
+my real sincerity in this desire to get away. It is not
+that I love my home and my people less than you love
+yours. I feel that I must get away!"</p>
+
+<p>"But your voice, Ph&#339;be, like the scarlet tanager's,
+is right as God made it. Because we are such old
+friends it grieves me to see you go. I was hoping you
+would change your mind&mdash;there is so much vanity and
+evil in the city."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try to keep from it, Phares. I shall merely
+learn to sing better, meet a few new people, and be
+wiser because of the experience."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a><a href="images/199.png">[199]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is useless to try to persuade you, I suppose. I
+hoped you would reconsider it, that you would learn to
+care for me as I care."</p>
+
+<p>"Phares, don't. You make me unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>"Misery loves company," he quoted, trying to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"But can't you see that marriage is the thing I am
+thinking least about these days? I am too young."</p>
+
+<p>She looked, indeed, like a fair representation of
+Youth as she stood by the crude rail fence at the edge
+of the woods, one arm flung along the rough top rail,
+her hair tumbled from the walk through the cornfield,
+her eyes still gleaming with the joy of seeing the tanager,
+yet shadowy with the startled emotions occasioned
+by the preacher's wooing.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, look! Our tanager is back!" she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess she is too young," he thought as he saw
+how quickly she turned from the question of marriage
+to watch the red bird.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be's lips parted in pleasure as she saw the tanager
+again take up his place on the oak and burst into
+song. So absorbed were man and maid that neither
+heard the rustle of parted corn nor were aware of the
+presence of a third person until a voice exclaimed,
+"Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn't know you were
+here."</p>
+
+<p>As they turned David Eby stood before them, his
+expression a mingling of surprise and wonder. The
+flush on Ph&#339;be's face, the awakened look in her eyes,
+troubled the man who had come through the corn and
+found the girl he loved standing with the preacher.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a><a href="images/200.png">[200]</a></span>
+The self-conscious look on the preacher's face assured
+David that he had stumbled through the field in an
+awkward moment, that his presence was unwelcome.
+He turned to go back, but Ph&#339;be stepped quickly to
+him and took his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," thought Phares with a twinge of jealousy,
+"she wouldn't do that to me. How quickly she
+dropped her hand a while ago. They are such good
+friends, she and David. It's wrong to be envious; I
+must fight against it&mdash;and yet&mdash;I want her just as
+much as David does!"</p>
+
+<p>"David," Ph&#339;be begged, "come back! Why, I
+was just wishing you were here! There's a scarlet
+tanager&mdash;see!" She pointed to the brilliant songster.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought he was coming to this woods so I came
+to hunt him," said David, his irritation gone. "I saw
+that fellow over by the tobacco field and followed him
+here. I bet they have their nest in this very woods.
+We'll look better next spring and try to find it and see
+the little ones. Tut, tut," he whistled to the bird,
+"don't sing your pretty head off." His eyes turned to
+the sky and the smile left his face. "It looks threatening,"
+he said. "I thought I heard thunder as I came
+through the corn."</p>
+
+<p>"That so?" said Phares. "Then we better move
+in."</p>
+
+<p>Even as they turned and started through the field
+the thunder came again&mdash;distant&mdash;nearer, rolling in
+ominous rumbles.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at the sky," said David. "Clear yellow&mdash;that
+means hail!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a><a href="images/201.png">[201]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, David"&mdash;Ph&#339;be stood still and looked at him&mdash;"not
+hail on your tobacco!"</p>
+
+<p>He took her arm. "Come on, Ph&#339;be, it's coming
+fast. We must get in. Come to our house, Phares,
+that's the nearest."</p>
+
+<p>Just as they reached the kitchen door, where Mother
+Bab was looking for them, the hail came.</p>
+
+<p>"It's hail, Mommie," David said. The three words
+held all the worry and pain of his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind"&mdash;the little mother patted his shoulder.
+"It's hail for more people than we know, perhaps
+for some who are much poorer than we are."</p>
+
+<p>"But the tobacco&mdash;&mdash;" He stood by the window,
+impotent and weak, while the devastating hail pounded
+and rattled and smote the broad leaves of his tobacco
+and rendered it almost worthless.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't new leaves grow again?" Ph&#339;be tried to
+cheer him.</p>
+
+<p>"Not this late in the summer. My tobacco was almost
+ready to be cut; it was unusually early this year."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," spoke up the preacher, "I can't see why
+you always plant tobacco. Smoking and chewing tobacco
+are filthy habits. I can't see why so many people
+of this section plant the weed when the soil could
+be used to produce some useful grain or vegetable."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes"&mdash;David turned and addressed his cousin
+fiercely&mdash;"it's easy enough for you to talk! You with
+your big farm and orchards and every crop a success!
+Your bank account is so fat that you don't need to care
+whether your acres bring in a big return or a lean one.
+But when you have just a few acres you plant the thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a><a href="images/202.png">[202]</a></span>
+that will be likely to bring in the most money. You
+know many poor people plant tobacco for that reason,
+and that is why I plant it."</p>
+
+<p>"Davie," the mother said, "Davie!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," he said bitterly. "I'm a beast when my
+temper gets beyond control, but Phares can be so confounded
+irritating, he rubs salt in your cuts every
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"Just for healing," the mother said gently.</p>
+
+<p>"David," said Ph&#339;be, "I guess the temper is a little
+bit of that Irish showing up."</p>
+
+<p>At that David smiled, then laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be," he said, "you know how to rub people
+the right way. If ever I have the blues you are just
+the right medicine."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to be called medicine," she said with
+a shake of her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Not even a sugar pill?" asked Mother Bab.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I don't like the sound of <i>pill</i>."</p>
+
+<p>David looked across at the preacher, who stood
+silent and helpless in the swift tide of conversation.
+"You may be right, Phares. It may be the wrath of
+Providence upon the tobacco. I'll try alfalfa in that
+field next and then I'll rub Aladdin's lamp. I'll make
+some money then!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you find Aladdin's lamp?" asked
+Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you now. But I know I'm tired of
+slaving and having nothing for my work, so I am
+going after the magic lamp."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a><a href="images/203.png">[203]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>ALADDIN'S LAMP</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> morning after the hail storm dawned fair and
+sunshiny. David went out and stood at the edge of
+his tobacco field. All about him the hail had wrought
+its destruction. Where yesterday broad, thick leaves
+of green tobacco had stood out strong and vigorous
+there hung only limp shreds, punctured and torn into
+worthlessness.</p>
+
+<p>"All wasted, my summer's work. I'll rub that
+magic lamp now. Fool that I was, not to do it
+sooner!"</p>
+
+<p>A little later, as he walked down the road to town,
+his lips were closed in a resolute line, his shoulders
+squared in soldierly fashion. "I hope Caleb Warner
+is in his office," he thought.</p>
+
+<p>Caleb Warner was in; he greeted David cordially.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Dave. How are things out your
+way? Hail do much damage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some damage," echoed the farmer. "It hailed
+just about four hundred dollars' worth too much for
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"What, you don't say so! That's the trouble with
+your farming."</p>
+
+<p>Caleb Warner was an affable little man with a frank,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a><a href="images/204.png">[204]</a></span>
+almost innocent, look on his smooth-shaven face.
+Spontaneous interest in his friends' affairs made him
+an agreeable companion and helped materially to increase
+his clientele&mdash;Caleb Warner dealt in real estate
+and, incidentally, in oil stocks and gold stocks.</p>
+
+<p>"That's just the trouble with your farming," he repeated.
+"You slave and break your back and crops
+are fine and you hope to have a good return for your
+labor, when along comes a hail storm and ruins your
+fruit or tobacco or corn, or along comes a dry spell or
+a wet spell with the same result. It sounds mighty
+fine to say the farmer is the most independent person
+on the face of the earth&mdash;it's a different proposition
+when you try it out. Not so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm about convinced you speak the truth about it,"
+said the farmer.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I do. I used to be a farmer, but I have
+grown wiser. I think there are too many other ways
+to make money with less risk."</p>
+
+<p>"That is why I came&mdash;&mdash;" David hesitated, but
+the other man waited silently for the explanation.
+"Have you any more of the gold-mine stock you
+offered me some time ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"That Nevada mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Just one thousand dollars' worth; the rest is all
+cleaned out. I sold a thousand yesterday. Listen,
+Dave, there's the chance of your life. You know how
+I worked on that farm of mine, how my wife had to
+slave, how even Mary had to work hard. Then one day
+a friend of mine who had gone west came to me and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a><a href="images/205.png">[205]</a></span>
+offered me some stock in a western gold mine. My
+wife was afraid of it, said I'd lose every cent I put in it
+and we'd have to go to the poorhouse&mdash;women don't
+generally understand about investments. But I went
+ahead and got the stock, and in a few years I sold out
+part of it for a neat sum and drew big dividends on
+what I kept. Then we moved to town; my wife keeps
+a maid, Mary goes to college, and we're living instead
+of slaving our lives away on a farm. And it's honestly
+made money, for the gold was put into the earth
+for us to use. It is just a case of running a little risk,
+but no person loses money because of your risk. Of
+course, there's lots of stock sold that's not worth the
+paper it's written on, but I don't sell that kind."</p>
+
+<p>"People trust you here," said David.</p>
+
+<p>If the man winced or had reason to do so, he betrayed
+no sign of it. "I hope so," he said. "You
+have known me all my life. If I ever want to work
+any skin game I'll go out of the place where all my
+friends are. This mine of which I speak is near the
+mine at Goldfield and some of the veins struck recently
+are richer than those of the renowned Goldfield. They
+are still striking deeper veins. I have sold stock in
+that mine to fifteen people in this town."</p>
+
+<p>He mentioned some of the residents of Greenwald;
+people who, in David's opinion, were too shrewd to be
+entangled in any nefarious investment. The names
+impressed David&mdash;if those fifteen put their money into
+it he might as well be the sixteenth.</p>
+
+<p>In a little while David Eby walked home with a
+paper representing the ownership of a number of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a><a href="images/206.png">[206]</a></span>
+shares of a certain gold mine in Nevada, while Caleb
+Warner patted musingly a check for five hundred
+dollars.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Bab wondered at her boy's philosophical acceptance
+of his crop failure. "I'm glad you take it
+this way," she said as he came in, whistling, from his
+trip to Greenwald.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the use of crying?" he answered gaily,
+though he felt far from gay. Had he been too hasty?
+Doubts began to assail him. It was going to be hard
+to deceive his mother, she was always so eager for his
+confidence. But, then, he was doing it for her sake
+as much as for his own. The war clouds were drawing
+nearer and nearer to this country; if the time came
+when America would enter the war he would have to
+answer the call for help. If the stock turned out to
+be what the other wise men of the town felt confident
+it would be then the added money would be a boon to
+his mother while he was away in the service of his
+country&mdash;and yet&mdash;it was a great risk he was running.
+Why had he done it? The old lines of the poem came
+back to him and burned into his soul,</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"O what a tangled web we weave<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">When first we practice to deceive."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Then, again, swift upon that thought came the old
+proverb, "Nothing venture, nothing gain." Thus he
+was torn between doubt and satisfaction, but it was too
+late to undo the deed. He was the owner of the stock
+and Caleb Warner had the five hundred dollars!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a><a href="images/207.png">[207]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FLEDGLING'S FLIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ph&#339;be</span> found the packing of her trunk a task not
+altogether without pain. As she gathered her few
+treasures from her room a feeling of desolation seemed
+to pervade the place. Going away from home for the
+first long stay, however bright the new place of sojourn,
+brings to most hearts an undercurrent of sadness.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled a bit wistfully at her few treasures&mdash;her
+books, an old picture of her mother, the little Testament
+Aunt Maria gave her to read, the few trinkets
+her school friends had given her from time to time, a
+little kodak picture of Mother Bab and David in the
+flower garden.</p>
+
+<p>At last the dreary task was done, the trunk strapped,
+and she was ready for the journey. It was a perfect
+September day when she left the gray farmhouse,
+drove in the country road and stood with her father,
+Aunt Maria, Mother Bab, David and Phares at the
+railroad station in Greenwald and waited for the noon
+train to Philadelphia.</p>
+
+<p>Jacob Metz and the preacher made brave, though
+visible, efforts to be cheerful; Maria Metz made no
+effort to be anything except very greatly worried and
+anxious; but Mother Bab and David were determined<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a><a href="images/208.png">[208]</a></span>
+that the girl's departure was to be nothing less than
+pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>"Now be sure, Ph&#339;be," said Aunt Maria for the
+tenth time, "to ask the conductor at Reading if that
+train is for Phildelphy before you get on, and at Phildelphy
+you wait till Miss Lee fetches you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Aunt Maria, I'll be careful."</p>
+
+<p>"And don't lose your trunk check&mdash;David, did you
+give it to her for sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. She'll hold on to it, don't you worry."</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be will be all right," said Mother Bab.</p>
+
+<p>"And," said David teasingly, "be sure to let me
+know when you need that beet juice and cream and
+flour."</p>
+
+<p>"Davie! Now for that I won't write to you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes you will!" His eyes looked so long into hers
+that she said confusedly, "Ach, I'll write. Mind that
+you take good care of Mother Bab and stop in sometimes
+to see how Aunt Maria and daddy are getting
+on without me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, we'll be all right," said Aunt Maria. "Just
+you take care of yourself so far away from home.
+And if you get homesick you come right home. Anyway,
+you come home soon to see us; and be sure to
+write every week still."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes!"</p>
+
+<p>A shrill whistle announced the approach of the train.
+There were hurried kisses and good-byes, a handshake
+for the preacher and, last of all, a handshake for
+David. He held her hand so long that she cried out,
+"David, you'll make me miss the train!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a><a href="images/209.png">[209]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, David." Then she tugged at her hand
+and in a moment was hurrying to the train.</p>
+
+<p>There were few passengers that day, so the train
+made a short stop. Ph&#339;be smiled as the train started,
+leaned forward and waved till the familiar group was
+lost to her view, then she settled herself with a brave
+little smile and looked at the well-known fields and
+meadows she was passing. The trees on Cemetery
+Hill were silhouetted against the blue sky just as she
+had seen them many times in her walks about the
+country.</p>
+
+<p>But soon the old landmarks disappeared and unknown
+fields lay about her. Crude rail fences divided
+acres of rustling corn from orchards whose trees were
+laden with red apples or downy peaches. Occasionally
+flocks of startled birds rose from fields freshly plowed
+for the fall sowing of wheat. Huge red barns and
+spacious open tobacco sheds, hung with drying tobacco,
+gave evidence of the prosperity of the farmers of that
+section. Little schoolhouses were dotted here and
+there along the road. Flowers bloomed by the wayside
+and in them Ph&#339;be was especially interested.
+Goldenrod in such great profusion that it seemed the
+very sunshine of the skies was imprisoned in flower
+form, stag-horn sumac with its grape-like clusters of
+red adding brilliancy to the landscape&mdash;everywhere
+was manifest the dawn of autumnal glory, the splendor
+that foreruns decay, the beauty that is but the first
+step in nature's transition from blossom and harvest
+to mystery and sleep.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a><a href="images/210.png">[210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Every two or three miles the train stopped at little
+stations and then Ph&#339;be leaned from her window to
+see the beautiful stretches of country.</p>
+
+<p>At one flag station the train was signalled and came
+to a stop. Just outside Ph&#339;be's window stood a tall
+farmer. He rubbed his fingers through his hair and
+stared curiously at the train.</p>
+
+<p>"Step lively," shouted the trainman.</p>
+
+<p>But the farmer shook his head. "Ach, I don't want
+on your train! I expected some folks from Lititz and
+thought they'd be on this here train. Didn't none get
+on&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But the angry trainman had heard enough. He
+pulled the cord and the train started, leaving the old
+man alone, his eyes scanning the moving cars.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be laughed. "We Pennsylvania Dutch do
+funny things! I wonder if I'll seem strange and foolish
+to the people I shall meet in the great city."</p>
+
+<p>At Reading she obeyed Aunt Maria's injunction and
+boarded the proper train. The ride along the winding
+Schuylkill was thoroughly enjoyed by the country girl,
+but the picture changed when the country was left behind,
+suburban Philadelphia passed, and the train entered
+the crowded heart of the city. They passed close
+to dark houses grimy with the accumulated smoke of
+many passing locomotives. Great factories loomed
+before the train, factories where girls looked up for a
+moment at the whirring cars and turned again to the
+grinding life of loom or machine. The sight disheartened
+Ph&#339;be. Was life in the city like that for some
+girls? How dreadful to be shut up in a factory while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a><a href="images/211.png">[211]</a></span>
+outdoors the whole panorama of the seasons moved
+on! She would miss the fields and woods but she
+would make the sacrifice gladly if she might only see
+life, meet people and learn to sing. The thoughts
+awakened by the sight of the shut-in girls were not
+happy ones. She welcomed the call, "Reading Terminal,
+Philadelphia."</p>
+
+<p>As she followed the stream of fellow passengers and
+walked through the dim train shed to the exit her heart
+beat more quickly&mdash;she was really in Philadelphia!
+But the noise, the stream of people rushing from trains
+past other people rushing to trains, bewildered her.
+She saw the sea of faces beyond the iron gates and
+experienced for the first time the loneliness that comes
+to a traveler who enters a thronged depot and sees a
+host of people but enters unwelcomed and ungreeted.</p>
+
+<p>However, the loneliness was momentary. The next
+minute she caught sight of Miss Lee. A wave of relief
+and happiness swept over her&mdash;she was in Philadelphia,
+the land of her heart's desire!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a><a href="images/212.png">[212]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>PH&#338;BE'S DIARY</h3>
+
+
+<div class='right'>
+<i>September 15.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I'm</span> in Philadelphia&mdash;really, truly! Ph&#339;be Metz,
+late of a gray farmhouse in Lancaster County, is sitting
+in a beautiful room of the Lee residence, Philadelphia.</p>
+
+<p>What a lot of things I have to write in you, diary!
+I can scarcely find the beginning. Before I left home
+I thought about keeping a diary, how entertaining it
+would be to sit down when I'm old and gray and read
+the accounts of my first winter in the city. So I went
+to Greenwald and bought the fattest note-book I could
+find and I'm going to write in you all of my joys&mdash;let's
+hope there won't be any sorrows&mdash;and all of my
+pleasures and all about my impressions of places and
+people in this great, wonderful City of Brotherly Love.
+Of course, I'll write letters home and to David and
+Mother Bab and some of the girls, but there are so
+many things one can't tell others yet likes to remember.
+So you'll have to be my safety valve, confidant and
+confessor.</p>
+
+<p>When I left the train at Philadelphia I was bewildered
+and confused. Such crowds I never saw, not
+even in Lancaster. Seemed like everybody in the city<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a><a href="images/213.png">[213]</a></span>
+was coming from a train or running to one. I was
+glad to see Miss Lee. She's the dearest person! I
+love her as much as I did when I went to her school on
+the hill. I'm as tall as she is now. She dresses beautifully.
+I thought my blue serge suit was lovely but
+her clothes are&mdash;well, I suppose you'd call them creations.
+I'm so glad I'm going to be near her all winter
+and can copy from her.</p>
+
+<p>As I came through the gates at the depot she caught
+me and kissed me. I thought she was alone, but a
+moment later she turned to a tall man and introduced
+him, her cousin, Royal Lee, the musician. If Aunt
+Maria could see him she'd warn me again, as she did
+repeatedly, not to "leave that fiddlin' man get too
+friendly." He's handsome. I never before met a
+man like him. His magnetic smile, his low voice attracted
+me right away.</p>
+
+<p>After he piloted us through the crowded depot and
+into a taxicab Miss Lee began to ask me questions
+about Greenwald and the people she knows there. I
+felt rather timid, for I was conscious of the appraising
+eyes of her cousin. He didn't stare at me, yet every
+time I glanced at him his eyes were searching my face.
+Does he think me very countrified, I wonder? I do
+have the red cheeks country girls are always credited
+with, but I'm glad I'm not "buxom." I'd hate to be
+fat!</p>
+
+<p>I wish I could describe Royal Lee. He's just as I
+pictured him, only more so. He has the lean, &aelig;sthetic
+face of the musician, the sensitive nostrils and thin lips
+denoting acute temperament. His eyes are gray.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a><a href="images/214.png">[214]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As we rode through the streets of the city Miss Lee
+told me her mother would have me stay with them
+until we can find a suitable boarding place. To-morrow
+we're going in search of one.</p>
+
+<p>Taxicabs travel pretty fast. We skirted past curbs
+so that I almost held my breath and shot past trucks
+and other cars till I thought we'd surely land in the
+street. But we escaped safely and soon stopped at the
+Lee residence, a big, imposing brownstone house. It
+looks bare outside, no yard, no flowers. But inside it's
+a lovely place, so inviting and attractive that I'd like to
+settle down for life in it.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lee is as charming as her daughter. She has
+been a semi-invalid for years, but even in her wheelchair
+she has the poise and manner of one well born.
+Her greeting was so cordial and gracious, but all I
+could answer was an inane, "Thank you, you are very
+kind." Will I ever learn to express my thoughts as
+charmingly as these people do, I wonder!</p>
+
+<p>When Miss Lee took me up-stairs it was up a bare,
+polished stairway upon which I was half afraid to
+tread. And the room she took me to! I've heard
+about such rooms and read about them. Delft blue
+paper and rugs, white woodwork and furniture, blue
+hangings, white curtains&mdash;it's a magazine-room turned
+to real!</p>
+
+<p>When I tried to express my gratitude for her goodness
+Miss Lee hushed me with a kiss and said she anticipated
+as much joy from my presence in the city as I
+did, that I was so genuine and refreshing that it would
+be a pleasure to have me around. I don't know just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a><a href="images/215.png">[215]</a></span>
+what she means. I'm just Ph&#339;be Metz, nothing wonderful
+about me, unless it's my voice, and I hope that
+is. She said, too, that I would make her very happy
+if I'd let her be a real friend to me, and if I'd call her
+Virginia. Why, that's just what I've been wishing
+for! I told her so. She is just twelve years older
+than I am, so she's near the thirty mark yet, and I like
+a friend who is older. She seems just the same Miss
+Lee, no older than she was when I walked down the
+street of Greenwald in my gingham dress and checked
+sunbonnet and buried my nose in the pink rose David
+gave me. How lucky that little country girl is! I'm
+here in Philadelphia, in a beautiful house, with Virginia
+Lee for my friend, and glorious visions of music
+and good times flashing before my eyes. I put my
+hands to my head to keep it from going dizzy!</p>
+
+<p>There's a little speck of cloud in the blue of my joy
+right now, though. I'm afraid I've blundered already.
+Miss Lee&mdash;Virginia, I mean&mdash;said as she turned to
+leave my room that they have dinner at six and I'd
+have plenty of time to get ready for it. I had to tell
+her that I couldn't change my dress, that I hadn't
+thought to bring any light dress in my bag but had
+packed them all in the trunk. She hurried to assure
+me that my dark skirt and white blouse would do very
+well, that she would not dress for dinner to-night.
+But I feel sure that she seldom appears at the dinner
+table in a blouse and tailored skirt. Guess Aunt
+Maria'd say I'm in a place too tony for me, but I know
+I can learn how to do here. I might have remembered
+that some people make of their evening meal a formal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a><a href="images/216.png">[216]</a></span>
+one. I've read about "dressing for dinner" and
+when my first opportunity comes to do so it finds me
+with all my dress-up dresses packed in a trunk in the
+express office! Perhaps it serves me right for wanting
+to "put on style," but I remember an old saying
+about "doing as the Romans do." At any rate, I'm
+going to make the best of it and quit worrying about it,
+or I'll be so fussed I'll eat with my knife or pour my
+coffee into my saucer!</p>
+
+
+<div class='right'>
+<i>Later in the evening.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>What a whirl my brain is in! Things happen so
+fast that I scarcely know where to begin again to write
+about them. But it began with the dinner. That was
+the grandest dinner I ever tasted but I don't remember
+a single thing I ate, though I do know there was no
+bread or jelly. What would Aunt Maria think of
+that! The delicate china, fine linen and silver were
+the loveliest I have ever seen. There were electric
+lights with soft-colored shades and there was a colored
+waiter who seemed to move without effort. The forks
+and spoons for the different courses bothered me. I
+had to glance at Virginia to see which one to use.
+Once during the dinner I thought of the time Mollie
+Brubaker told Aunt Maria about a dinner she had in
+the home of a city relative. I remember how Aunt
+Maria sniffed, "Humph, if abody's right hungry you
+can eat without such dumb style put on. I say when
+you cook and carry things to the table for people you
+don't need to feed them yet, they can help themselves.
+Just so it's clean and cooked good and enough to go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a><a href="images/217.png">[217]</a></span>
+round, that's all I try for when I get company to eat."
+I felt like a fish out of water at the Lee dinner table,
+but Mrs. Lee and the others were so kind and tactful
+that I could not be embarrassed, not enough to show it.
+However, I thought to myself as we rose from the
+table, "Thank Heaven!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lee asked me whether I like music. We were
+in the sitting-room and Mr. Lee stood by the piano, his
+hand on his violin case.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed!" I told her, for I was anxious to hear
+him play. I have never heard any great violinist but
+the sound of a violin sets me thrilling. I could listen
+to it for hours.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lee smiled at my enthusiasm, lifted the instrument
+to his shoulder and began to play. If I live to be
+a hundred I'll never forget that music! Like the
+soothing winds of summer, the subtle fragrance of a
+wild rose, the elusive phantoms of our dreams, it
+stirred my soul. I sat as one dazed when he ended.</p>
+
+<p>"You say nothing. Don't you like my music?" he
+asked me.</p>
+
+<p>"Like your music? Like is too poor a word!"
+And I tried to tell him how I loved it. He smiled
+again, that calling, hypnotizing smile, that made me
+want to rush to him and ask him to be my friend.
+But I restrained myself and turned to listen to Virginia.
+The music haunted me. It sounded like the
+voice of a soul searching for something it could never
+find. I was still dreaming about it when I heard Mr.
+Lee say, "Now, Aunt, shall we have some cribbage?"
+I watched him uncomprehendingly as he arranged a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a><a href="images/218.png">[218]</a></span>
+small table and brought out cards and boards for a
+game. The full significance of his actions dawned
+upon me&mdash;they were going to play cards! I had never
+seen a game of cards, but Aunt Maria taught me long
+ago that cards are the instrument of the Evil One.
+My first impulse was to run from the room, away from
+the cards, but I hated to be so rude.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you play cards?" Royal Lee asked me.</p>
+
+<p>"No, oh, no!" I gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"You should learn. I'm sure you would enjoy
+playing."</p>
+
+<p>I know my face flushed. He did not notice my bewilderment
+and went on, "We'll teach you to play,
+Miss Metz." Then he turned to the game.</p>
+
+<p>Virginia came to my rescue and drew me to a seat
+near her. She asked me questions about Greenwald.
+Goodness only knows what I answered her. My attention
+was a variant. Troubled thoughts distressed
+me. In Aunt Maria's category of sins dancing, card
+playing and theatre-going rank side by side with lying,
+stealing and idolatry. As I sat there I tried to reconcile
+my opinion of these worldly pleasures with the
+conduct of my new friends. The tangle is too complicated
+to unravel at once. I could feel blushes of
+shame staining my cheeks as the game progressed.
+What would Aunt Maria say, what would daddy say,
+what would even tolerant Mother Bab say, if they
+knew I sat passively by and watched a game of cards?
+After a little while I asked Virginia whether I could
+write a letter to Aunt Maria and tell her of my safe
+arrival. I just had to get out of that room! I don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a><a href="images/219.png">[219]</a></span>
+know if she saw through my ruse but she smiled as she
+put her arm around me and led me to the stairs.
+"There's a desk in your room, Ph&#339;be. You can be
+undisturbed there. Tell your aunt we are going to
+help you find a comfortable home and that we are
+going to take care of you. I'll be up presently to
+visit with you."</p>
+
+<p>When I got up-stairs I felt like crying. Those
+cards actually scared me. I shrank from being so
+near the evil things. But after a while as I came to
+think more calmly I decided that cards couldn't hurt
+me if I didn't play them. I promised myself to keep
+from being contaminated with the wickedness of the
+city the while I enjoyed its harmless pleasures. The
+first horror of the cards soon passed but it left me
+sobered. I wrote a long letter to Aunt Maria and then
+turned off the lights and looked down into the city
+street. It seemed wonderful to me to see so many
+lights stretched off until some of them were mere
+specks. There was a wedding across the street. I
+saw the guests and caught a glimpse of the bride,
+dressed all in white. But later, when Virginia came
+up to my room and I asked her about it she didn't
+know a thing about the wedding. Why, at home, if
+there's a big wedding and the neighbors don't know
+about it or are not invited to it, they feel slighted. But
+Virginia says a city is different, that you don't really
+have neighbors like in Greenwald.</p>
+
+<p>Virginia told me, too, how she came to teach in our
+school on the hill. When she finished college she
+wanted to earn money, just to prove that she could.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a><a href="images/220.png">[220]</a></span>
+Her father wanted her to stay home and live the life
+of a butterfly, she says. One day he said, more in
+jest than earnest, that if she insisted upon earning
+money he'd give his consent to her being a teacher in
+a rural school. She accepted the challenge and
+through her cousin she secured the place on the hill
+and became my teacher. When her father died and
+her mother became a semi-invalid she gave up her
+work and took up the old life again. She said that as
+if it were not really a desirable life, this going to teas,
+dances, plays, musicals, lectures, and having no cares
+or worries. Of course I know many of her pleasures
+are forbidden fruit for me, but if I ever can wear
+pretty clothes like hers and go off to an evening
+musical or concert I know I'll be as excited as a Jenny
+Wren.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a><a href="images/221.png">[221]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>DIARY&mdash;THE NEW HOME</h3>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>September 16.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I've</span> dreamed my first dreams in Philadelphia. Such
+dreams as they were! Whatever it was I ate for supper
+it must have been richer than our Lancaster County
+sausage and fried mush, for I dreamed all night. My
+old-fashioned walnut bed with its red and green calico
+quilt seemed to swing before me while Mother Bab
+and Aunt Maria talked to me. A clanging trolley car
+woke me and I remembered that I had been dreaming
+of Phares and the tanager's nest. I slept again and
+heard the strains of Royal Lee's violin till another car
+clanged past and woke me. I woke once to find myself
+saying, "Braid it straight, Davie. Aunt Maria's
+awful mad." When I slept again I thought I heard
+Royal Lee say, "We'll teach you to play cards," and
+speared tails and horned heads seemed mixed promiscuously
+with little pieces of cardboard bearing red and
+black symbols and the words "I'll get you if you don't
+watch out" rang in my ears. "Ugh, what awful
+dreams," I thought as I lay awake and listened for
+sounds of activity in the house. I missed Aunt
+Maria's five o'clock call. The luxury of an eight
+o'clock breakfast couldn't be appreciated the first
+morning, as I was wide awake at five. I'll soon learn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a><a href="images/222.png">[222]</a></span>
+to sleep later. There are many things I shall learn
+before I go back to the farm.</p>
+
+<p>This morning Virginia and I started out on a glorious
+adventure, looking for a boarding place. She
+laughed when I called it that.</p>
+
+<p>"I like the uncertainty of it," I told her. "The
+charm of the unknown appeals to me. I do not know
+under whose roof I shall sleep to-night yet I'm happy
+because I know I am going to meet new people and
+see new things. Of course, if I did not have you to
+help me I would remember Aunt Maria's dire tales of
+the evils and dangers of a big city and should feel
+afraid. As it is, I feel only curious and gay. No
+matter where I find a place to live it's bound to be
+quite different from the farm, not better, necessarily,
+but different."</p>
+
+<p>But my "high hopes of youth" received a jolt at
+the very first interview with a boarding-house mistress.
+She wouldn't take young ladies who were studying
+music, their practice would annoy the other boarders.
+I had never thought of that!</p>
+
+<p>The second quest was equally unsatisfactory. One
+room was vacant, a pleasant room&mdash;at twelve dollars
+a week! The sum left me speechless. Virginia had
+to explain that the amount was a <i>trifle</i> more than I
+expected to pay.</p>
+
+<p>The third proved to be a smaller house on a narrower
+street. A charming old lady led us into a sitting-room.
+All my life I've been accustomed to the
+proverbial cleanliness of the Pennsylvania Dutch but
+I'm certain I never saw a place as clean as that house.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a><a href="images/223.png">[223]</a></span>
+I said something like that to its mistress and she informed
+me with a gentle firmness I never heard before
+that she expected every guest in her house to help to
+keep it in that condition. She had several rules she
+wanted all to obey, so that the sunshine would not have
+a chance to fade the rugs and the dust from the street
+could not ruin things. I knew I would not be happy
+there. I like clean rooms, but if it's a matter of
+choosing between foul air <i>without</i> dust and fresh air
+<i>with</i> dust I'll take the dust every time. I'd feel like a
+funeral to live in a house where the curtains and
+shades were down every day, summer and winter, to
+keep the sunshine out of the rooms and prevent the
+jade-green and china-blue and old-rose of the rugs
+from fading.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth place was in suburban Philadelphia, fifty
+minutes' ride from the heart of the city. It was a big
+colonial house set in a great yard, a relic of the days
+when gardens still flourished in the city and the breathing
+spaces allotted to householders were larger than at
+the present time. As we went up the shrubbery-bordered
+walk to the pillared porch I said, "I want to live
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. McCrea, the boarding-house mistress, did not
+object to the music, provided I took the large room on
+the third floor and did all my practicing between the
+hours of eight and five, when the other boarders were
+gone to business. The price of the room is seven dollars
+a week.</p>
+
+<p>I took the room at once, before Mrs. McCrea had
+any chance of changing her mind. I thought it was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a><a href="images/224.png">[224]</a></span>
+very pleasant room, with its two windows looking out
+on the green yard.</p>
+
+<p>But later, after Virginia had gone and I was left
+alone in the room, the queerest feeling came over me.
+I never knew what it meant to be homesick, but I
+think I had a touch of it this afternoon in this room.
+I hated this place for about half an hour. I saw that
+the paint is soiled, the rug worn, the pictures cheap,
+the bed and bureau trimmed with gingerbready scrolls
+and knobs. It's so different from the blue and white
+room I slept in last night, so different from my plain,
+old-fashioned room at home. "It's all right," I said
+to myself, half crying, "but it's so different."</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately the word <i>different</i> struck a responsive
+chord in my memory. I remembered that I wanted
+different things, and smiled again and dashed the tears
+away. I arranged my own pictures and few belongings
+about the room and felt more at home. After I
+had dressed and stood ready to go down for my first
+dinner in my new home I felt happier. To be living,
+to be young and enthusiastic, to possess the colossal
+courage of youth, was enough to bring happiness into
+my heart again. I'm going to like this place. I'm
+going to work and play and live in this wonderful city.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. McCrea introduced the "New boarder" and I
+took my assigned place at a long table in the dining-room.
+I remembered that I once read that the average
+boarding-house is a veritable school for students of
+human nature. I wondered what I would learn from
+the people I met there. The fat man across the table
+from me gave me no opportunity for any mental ram<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a><a href="images/225.png">[225]</a></span>blings.
+He launched me right into conversation by
+asking my opinion of the war in Europe and whether
+or not we would be dragged into the trouble.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," I answered him, "I don't know much
+about it. I don't think of it any more than I can
+help."</p>
+
+<p>Of course that was the wrong thing to say. It
+started a deluge. A studious-looking woman wearing
+heavy tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles took my answer
+as a personal affront. "Why not, Miss Metz?" she
+demanded. "Why should we not think about it? We
+women of America need to wake up! In this country
+we are lolling in ease and safety while other nations
+bleed and die that we might remain safe. We have no
+thoughts higher than our hats or deeper than our
+boots if the catastrophe across the sea does not waken
+in us an earnest desire to help the stricken nations."</p>
+
+<p>Others took up the argument and I sat quiet and
+helpless, for I know too little about the cause and progress
+of the war to talk intelligently about it. A sense
+of responsibility grazed my soul. I wished I were able
+to help France and Belgium, but what can I do? The
+constant harping on the subject of war irritated me. I
+felt relieved when a young girl near me asked, "Miss
+Metz, do you like the movies? There's a place near
+here where they show fine pictures, funny ones to make
+you forget the war for several hours, at least."</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, I think I'm going to like life at Mrs.
+McCrea's boarding-house. I hear the views of so
+many different sorts of people. And it certainly is
+different from my life on the farm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a><a href="images/226.png">[226]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>DIARY&mdash;THE MUSIC MASTER</h3>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>September 19.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My</span> four days in Philadelphia have just been one exclamation
+point after another! The most wonderful
+thing happened to me last night! Mrs. Lee invited me
+over for dinner. I glided through the courses a little
+more gracefully&mdash;one can learn if the will is there. I
+always loved dainty things. I suppose that is why I
+delight in the Lee home and am eager to adopt the
+ways of my new friends.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner Mr. Lee played again. Of course I
+enjoyed that. When I praised his playing he said he
+heard I'm a real genius and asked me to sing for them.
+Mr. Krause, one of the best teachers of music in the
+city, is a friend of Royal and Virginia thinks he would
+be the very one to teach me. Mr. Lee wrote to Mr.
+Krause this summer and the music teacher promised
+to take me for a pupil if I have a voice worth the
+trouble. Virginia had prepared me for my meeting
+with him. Seems he's queer, odd, cranky and painfully
+frank. But he knows how to teach music so
+well that many would-be singers pray to be taken into
+his studio. Mr. Lee said yesterday that Mr. Krause
+was expected home from his vacation in a few days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a><a href="images/227.png">[227]</a></span>
+and then he'd arrange an interview. I trembled when
+he said that. What if the great teacher did not like
+my voice!</p>
+
+<p>To-night when Mr. Lee asked me to sing I selected
+a simple song. As I sat down before the baby grand
+piano the words of the old song "Sweet and Low"
+came to me. I would sing that until I gained courage
+and confidence to sing a harder selection. I played
+from memory. As I sang I was back again at home,
+singing to my father at the close of the day.</p>
+
+<p>As the last words died on my lips and I turned on
+the chair a man, a stranger to me, appeared in the
+room. He hurried unceremoniously to the piano and
+greeted me, "You can sing!"</p>
+
+<p>I stared at him. He was an odd-looking, active
+little man of about fifty with keen blue eyes that bored
+into one like a gimlet.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lee came toward us. "Mr. Krause," he exclaimed,
+and presented to me the music master, the
+teacher for whom I had dreaded so to sing! I was
+filled with inarticulate gladness.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Krause," I cried, grasping his outstretched
+hand in my old impetuous way, "do you mean it?
+Can I learn to sing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said so&mdash;yes. You can sing. You need to learn
+how to use your voice but the voice is there."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so glad. I'll work&mdash;&mdash;" I couldn't say any
+more. My joy was too great to be expressed in words.
+I looked mutely into the wrinkled face of the man.</p>
+
+<p>"Royal said he had found a songbird," he went on
+smiling, "but I was afraid he didn't know the differ<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a><a href="images/228.png">[228]</a></span>ence
+between that and an owl&mdash;I see he did. I'll be
+glad to have you for a pupil. Royal can bring you to
+my studio to-morrow at eleven."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Krause stayed a while longer and the sitting-room
+was gay with laughter and bright conversation.
+I think I heard little of it, though, for the words,
+"You can sing!" kept ringing in my ears and crowding
+out all other sounds.</p>
+
+<p>I can sing! Mr. Krause has told me I can sing!
+And I will sing! Some day all the world may stop to
+hear!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a><a href="images/229.png">[229]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>DIARY&mdash;THE FIRST LESSON</h3>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>September 20.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I had</span> my first music lesson to-day. Mr. Lee called
+for me at the boarding-house and took me down-town
+to the studio. After he left I expected Mr. Krause to
+begin at once on the do, ra, me, fa, sol, la, si, do. But
+he thought differently!</p>
+
+<p>He sat facing me, looking at me till I felt like
+running. "And so," he said quietly, "you want to
+learn to sing."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," was all I could say.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you have a voice. If you want to work
+like all great singers have had to work you can be a
+singer. You may not set the world afire with your
+fame but you'll be worth hearing. You are Pennsylvania
+Dutch?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded. What under the sun did Pennsylvania
+Dutch have to do with my becoming a singer? I was
+provoked. I didn't come to the city and pay a music
+teacher to ask me foolish questions.</p>
+
+<p>"That is good," he went on calmly. "The Pennsylvania
+Dutch are not afraid of work and that is
+what you need. The road to success in music is like
+the road to success in any other thing, long and hard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a><a href="images/230.png">[230]</a></span>
+and up-hill most of the way. Now that Pennsylvania
+Dutch is a funny language. It is neither Dutch nor
+English nor German but is like hash, a little of this and
+a little of that. Do you speak it?"</p>
+
+<p>I said I have spoken it all my life but wished I had
+never been taught it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh"&mdash;I couldn't quite veil my irritation&mdash;"it perverts
+our English."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing uncommon," he answered, smiling.
+"Every part of this great country has some peculiarities
+of speech common to that particular section and
+laughed at in the other sections. Now we will go on
+with the lesson."</p>
+
+<p>When he really did begin to teach I found him a
+wonder. I'm going to enjoy, thoroughly enjoy, my
+music lessons.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lee called for me after the lesson. I told him
+I could find the way back to the boarding-house alone,
+but he said he'd consider it a pleasure and privilege to
+call for me. He has the nicest manners! He never
+needs to flounder around for the right thing to say, it
+just slips from his tongue like butter. Aunt Maria
+always says, "look out for them smooth apple-sass
+talkers," but I'm sure Mr. Lee is a gentleman and just
+the right kind for a country girl to know.</p>
+
+<p>When he called at the studio this morning I felt
+proud to walk away with him. He suggested riding
+home but I told him I'd rather walk, at least part of the
+way. We started up Chestnut Street. What a wonderful
+place that is! Such lovely stores I've never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a><a href="images/231.png">[231]</a></span>
+seen. I'm going to sneak away some day and visit
+every one that has women's belongings for sale. And
+the clothes I saw on Chestnut Street&mdash;on the women,
+I mean! My own wardrobe certainly is plain and
+ordinary compared with the things I saw women wear
+to-day. I couldn't help saying to Mr. Lee, "What
+lovely clothes Philadelphia women wear!" He smiled
+that wonderful smile and said, "Miss Metz, a diamond
+has no need of a glittering case, it has sufficient brilliancy
+itself." I caught his meaning, I couldn't help
+it&mdash;he meant me! Now I know I'm no beauty, but
+perhaps if I had clothes like those I saw to-day I'd
+be more attractive. I wonder if I'll get them; they
+must cost lots of money.</p>
+
+<p>As we walked along Mr. Lee told me he knows I'll
+have a wonderful year in the city, and that he is going
+to help it be the gladdest, merriest one I've ever had.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you're good," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be that goodness inspires goodness," he
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>I didn't know what to answer. Men up home never
+say such things, at least I never heard them. Phares
+couldn't think of such things to say and David never
+made a "pretty speech" in his life. I know he thinks
+nice things about me sometimes but he wouldn't word
+them like Royal Lee does. I didn't want Mr. Lee to
+think I'm uncommonly good, I told him I'm not.</p>
+
+<p>"Not good?" He laughed at the idea. "Why,
+you are just a sweet, lovely young thing knowing nothing
+of evil."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" I said, feeling stupid before him, "you're<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a><a href="images/232.png">[232]</a></span>
+too polite! I never met any one like you. But I want
+to ask you about cards, playing cards. I can't see that
+they are wrong but Aunt Maria and my father and all
+my friends up home think they are wicked. Aunt
+Maria would rather part with her right hand than
+play a game of cards."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lee laughed and said he's surprised that I am
+willing to accept the beliefs of others; can't I decide
+for myself what is wrong or right? Did I want to be
+narrow and goody-goody?</p>
+
+<p>Of course I don't want to be like that, and I told
+him so.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed again, a low, soft laugh. I never heard
+a man laugh like that before. When daddy laughs he
+laughs out loud, the kind of laugh you join in when
+you hear it. And David laughs like that too, a merry
+laugh that sounds, as he says, like it's coming clean
+from his boots. But Mr. Lee's laugh is different. I
+don't like it as well as the other kind, though it fascinates
+me. He said he knows I can't change my
+ideas in a night but he depends upon my good sense
+to decide what is right for me to do. He asked if I
+thought Virginia and her mother are wicked. They
+have played cards, danced, gone to theatres, all their
+lives. If I hope to have a really enjoyable time in
+the city I must do the same. He said, too, that I'll
+soon see that many of the teachings of the country
+churches are antiquated and entirely too narrow for
+this day.</p>
+
+<p>Dancing&mdash;I shuddered at the word, but I didn't tell
+him how I feel about it. Aunt Maria says dancing is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a><a href="images/233.png">[233]</a></span>
+even worse than playing cards. Why did he tempt
+me? I don't want to do wicked things, but when he
+mentioned forbidden pleasures I felt, somehow, that
+I wanted to do what Virginia does and have a good
+time with her and her friends. That would be dreadful!
+What am I thinking of! Is my head turned
+already? Can the evil of the world have exerted its
+influence upon me so soon? Of course, if I become a
+great singer I'll naturally have to live a life different
+from the narrow, restricted life of the farm. I must
+live a broader, freer life. But for a while, at least,
+I'll have to be the same old Ph&#339;be Metz. I tried to
+tell Mr. Lee something like that, and he quoted,</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"If you become a nun, dear,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A friar I will be;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In any cell you run, dear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pray look behind for me."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Are city men always free like that? Is it the way
+of the new world I have entered? Before I could
+think of a suitable answer he said lightly, "But before
+you turn nun let me buy you some flowers."</p>
+
+<p>We stopped at a floral shop. Such flowers! I've
+never seen their equal! I exclaimed in many O's as I
+paused by the window, but I felt my cheeks flush at
+the idea of having him buy any of the lovely flowers
+for me.</p>
+
+<p>"Come inside," he said. "What do you like?"</p>
+
+<p>"I love them all," I told him as we stood before the
+array of blossoms. "I think I like the yellow rosebuds
+best, though. We have some at home on the
+farm but they bloom only in June."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a><a href="images/234.png">[234]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I detected an odd smile on his lips. What was
+wrong? Had I committed a breach of etiquette?
+Was it wrong to mention farms in a city floral shop?
+But his courteous, attentive manner returned in an
+instant. He watched me pin the yellow roses on my
+coat, smiled, and led me outside again. I felt proud
+as any queen, for those were the first flowers any man
+ever bought for me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a><a href="images/235.png">[235]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>DIARY&mdash;SEEING THE CITY</h3>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>October 2.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I have</span> been seeing Philadelphia. Mr. Lee teasingly
+told me that most newcomers want to "do" the city so
+he and Virginia would take me round. They took me
+to see all the places I studied about in history class.
+I've done the Betsy Ross House, Franklin's Grave,
+Old Christ Church and Old Swede's Church. I like
+them all. Best of all I like Independence Hall, with
+its wonderful stairways and wide window sills and,
+most important, its grand old Liberty Bell and its
+history.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday Mr. Lee took me to Memorial Hall in
+Fairmount Park. I like the pictures and oh, I looked
+long at a white marble statue of Isaac, his hands bound
+for the sacrifice. The face is beautiful. Royal Lee
+was amused at my interest in it and took me off to see
+the rare Chinese vases. We wandered around among
+the cases of glassware and then I found a case with
+valuable Stiegel glass, made in my own Lancaster
+County. I was proud of that! We went through
+Horticultural Hall and stopped to see the lovely
+sunken gardens, with their fall flowers.</p>
+
+<p>I like to go about with Royal Lee. He is so efficient.
+Crowds seem to fall back for him. He has
+the attractive, masterful personality that everybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a><a href="images/236.png">[236]</a></span>
+recognizes. I feel a reflected glory from his presence.
+We have grown to be great friends in an amazingly
+short time. Our music, our appreciation of each
+other's ability, has strengthened the bond between us.
+Mrs. Lee sends me many invitations for dinner and
+week-ends in her beautiful home, so that Mr. Lee and
+I are already well acquainted. He has asked me to
+call him Royal and if he might call me Ph&#339;be. I've
+told him all about my life on the farm, my friends up
+there, and the plans and dreams of my heart. He likes
+to tease me and call me a little Quakeress, but I don't
+enjoy that for he does it in a way I don't like. It
+sounds as if he's scoffing at the plain people. When
+I told him about the meeting house and described the
+service he laughed and said that a religion like that
+might do for a little country place but it would never
+do in a city. I bridled at that and tried to tell him
+about the wholesome, useful lives those people up
+home lead, how much good a woman like Mother Bab
+can do in the world. But he could not be easily convinced.
+He thinks they are crude and narrow. When
+I told him they are lovely and fine he challenged me
+and asked if I am willing to wear plain clothes and
+renounce all pleasures, jewelry and becoming raiment.
+I had to tell him I'm not ready for that yet, and he
+smiled triumphantly. He predicted I'll play cards and
+dance before the winter ends. I don't like him when
+he's so flippant. I want to be loyal to my home teaching
+but I see more clearly every day how great is the
+difference between the pleasures sanctioned by my
+people and those Virginia and her friends enjoy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a><a href="images/237.png">[237]</a></span>
+There's a mystery somewhere I can't solve. Like
+Omar, I "evermore come out at the same door where
+in I went."</p>
+
+
+<div class='right'>
+<i>October 29.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>To-day we went for a long drive along the Wissahickon.
+The woods are bronze and scarlet now. The
+wild asters made me homesick for Lancaster County.
+I wanted to get out of the car and walk but Virginia
+and her friends wouldn't join me. I wanted to bury
+my nose in the goldenrod and asters&mdash;and get hay
+fever, one of the girls told me&mdash;and I just ached to
+push my way through the tangled bushes along the
+road and let the golden leaves of the hickory and
+beeches brush my face. It seems that most city people
+I have met don't know how to enjoy nature. They
+have a nodding-from-a-motor-acquaintance with it but
+I like a real handshake-friendship with it. I just
+wished David were here to-day! He'd have taken my
+hand and run me to the top of the hill and picked a
+branch of scarlet maple to carry with my goldenrod
+and asters. Well, I can't have the penny and the
+cake. I want to be in the city, of course that's the
+thing I most desire at present&mdash;I really am having a
+good time.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening we went to Holy Trinity Church.
+The organ recital gripped my soul. I wanted it to
+last for hours. And yet when it was over and the
+rector stood before us and preached one of his impressive
+sermons I was just as much interested as I
+had been in the music. There's a feeling of restful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a><a href="images/238.png">[238]</a></span>
+calm comes to me in a big dim church with stained
+glass windows. We stopped in the Cathedral one day
+last week. That is a wonderful place, too. I like
+the idea of having churches open all the time for
+prayer and meditation. I'm learning so many new
+ideas these days. If I ever do wear the plain dress
+I'm sure of one thing, I'll be broad-minded enough to
+respect the beliefs of other persons.</p>
+
+
+<div class='right'>
+<i>November 11.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I can put another red mark on my calendar. I
+heard the great Irish Tenor! Glory, what a voice!
+It's the kind can echo in your ears to your dying day
+and follow you with its sweetness everywhere you go!
+I have been humming those lovely Irish songs all day.</p>
+
+<p>But before the recital my heart was heavy. I have
+no evening gown, no evening wrap, so I couldn't join
+the box party to which one of Virginia's friends invited
+us. I meant to stay at home and not break up
+the party, but Royal insisted upon buying two tickets
+in a section of the opera house where a plainer dress
+would do. In the end I allowed myself to be persuaded
+by him and we two went to the recital alone.
+When that tenor voice sounded through the place I
+forgot all about my limited wardrobe. I could hear
+him sing if I were dressed in calico and think of nothing
+but his singing.</p>
+
+
+<div class='right'>
+<i>November 12.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I wrote letters to-day. Mother Bab and David
+write such lovely ones to me that I have to try hard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a><a href="images/239.png">[239]</a></span>
+to keep up my end of it. Sometimes David tells me
+he is anxious to supply me with the beet juice, cream
+and flour whenever I'm ready to begin the prima donna
+act. I can hear his laugh when I read the letter.
+Sometimes he's serious and talks about the crops of
+their farm and tells me the community news like an
+old grandmother. Phares Eby writes me an occasional
+letter, a stilted little note that sounds just like Phares.
+It always has some good advice in it. Aunt Maria's
+letters and daddy's come every week. I'd feel lost
+without them. I like to feel that everybody I care for
+at home is interested in and cares for me even if I am
+in Philadelphia.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a><a href="images/240.png">[240]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>DIARY&mdash;CHRYSALIS</h3>
+
+
+<div class='right'>
+<i>December 3.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I'm</span> as miserable as any mortal can be! Oh, I'm
+still having a good time going around seeing the city,
+visiting the stores and museums, practicing hard in
+music, pleasing my teacher. But just the same, I'm
+not happy. The reason is this: I want pretty gowns
+like Virginia wears, I want to dance and play cards
+and see real plays. I dare say I'm a contemptible
+sinner to want all that after the way I've been brought
+up. I ought to be satisfied with all the wonderful
+things I enjoy in this big city but I'm not.</p>
+
+<p>Last week Virginia entertained the Bridge Club and
+tried to persuade me to learn to play and come to the
+party. Royal was provoked about it. He thinks I
+should learn to play. I told him I should have no
+peace if I learned to do such things.</p>
+
+<p>"Peace," he scorned, "no one has peace these days.
+The whole world is in a turmoil. Do you think your
+little Quaker-like girls of Lancaster County have peace
+these days?"</p>
+
+<p>"They have peace of mind and conscience."</p>
+
+<p>"But that," he said, "is the peace that touches those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a><a href="images/241.png">[241]</a></span>
+who live in selfish solitude. The virtue that dwells in
+the hearts of those who retire into hermitages is a
+negative virtue."</p>
+
+<p>"You speak like a seer, a philosopher," I told him.</p>
+
+<p>"Like a rational human being, I hope," he said
+petulantly. "But the thoughts are not original. I am
+merely echoing the opinion of sane thinkers. I have
+no appreciation of the foolish and useless sacrifice you
+are persistently making. We were not put on this
+planet to be dull nuns and monks. We have red blood
+racing through our veins and were not intended for
+sluggishness."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He went off peeved at my refusal to do as he wished.</p>
+
+<p>What can I do? Shall I capitulate? I have
+wrestled with my desire for pleasure until I'm tired of
+the struggle. My old contentment has deserted me.
+I'm restless and dissatisfied, scarcely knowing what is
+right or wrong.</p>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>Next day.</i></div>
+
+<p>I'm happy again. Being on the fence grows mighty
+uncomfortable after a while, so I jumped across. I
+have decided to become a butterfly!</p>
+
+<p>I had luncheon to-day with Virginia. She had to
+run off to one of her Bridge Clubs so I offered to mend
+the lace on one of her gowns while she was gone. I
+was alone in the sitting-room that adjoins Virginia's
+bedroom. I love that little sitting-room. Virginia
+and I spend many happy hours in it when we want to
+get away from everybody and have a long chat. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a><a href="images/242.png">[242]</a></span>
+like its big comfortable winged chairs by the cheery
+open fire.</p>
+
+<p>I dreamed a while before the fire, the gown across
+my knees. It's a pink gown, that scarcely defined pink
+of a sea shell. Virginia had often tempted me to try
+it on and see how well I'd look in a dress of that kind.
+The temptation came to do it. I jumped up in sudden
+determination. I <i>would</i> put it on! I'd see for once
+how I looked in a real gown. I ran to Virginia's room
+to the low dressing table. My hands trembled as I
+opened the tight coils of my hair and shook it until
+it seemed to nod exultingly. I fluffed the curls loosely
+over my forehead and twisted the hair into a fashionable
+knot. Then I took off my plain blue serge dress
+and slipped the pink one over my head. The soft
+draperies clung to me, the gossamer lace lay upon my
+breast like a silken mist. I was beautiful in that gown
+and I knew it. It was my hour of appreciation of my
+own charm.</p>
+
+<p>Later I lifted the dress and saw my plain calfskin
+shoes. I smiled but soon grew sober as I thought
+that the incongruity between gown and shoes was no
+greater than that between the gown and the girl&mdash;the
+girl who was reared to wear plain clothes and be honest
+and unpretentious. But honesty&mdash;that is the rock to
+which I cling now. I am going to be honest with
+myself and have my share of happiness while I'm
+young.</p>
+
+<p>I went back again to the fire, still wearing the borrowed
+gown. Virginia found me there several hours
+later. When she came in and saw me, a gorgeous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a><a href="images/243.png">[243]</a></span>
+butterfly, she said, she was very happy. She would
+have me go down to her mother and Royal. I shrank
+from it but she said I might as well become accustomed
+to being stared at when I was so dazzling and beautiful.
+I went down, feeling almost as much of a culprit as
+I did the day Aunt Maria surprised me at playing
+prima donna and marched me in to the quilting party.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lee was lovely. She is sure I deserve to be
+happy in my youth. Royal went mad. "Ye Gods!"
+he cried as he ran to me and grasped my hands. "You
+take my breath away! You are like this!" He
+seized his violin and began to play the Spring Song.
+The quivering ecstasy of spring, the mating calls of
+robins and orioles, the rushing joy of bursting blossoms,
+the delicate perfume of violets and trailing
+arbutus, the dazzling shafts of sunlight pierced by
+silver showers of capricious April&mdash;all echoed in the
+melody of the violin.</p>
+
+<p>"You are like that, that is you!" he said as he laid
+his instrument aside. His words were very sweet to
+me. The future beckons into sunlit paths of joy.</p>
+
+<p>So I have departed from the teachings of my childhood
+and turned to the so-called vanities of the world.
+I am going to grasp my share of happiness while I can
+enjoy them.</p>
+
+<p>When I went up-stairs again to take off the borrowed
+gown I was already planning the new clothes I want
+to buy. I must have a pink crepe georgette, a pale,
+pale blue&mdash;just as I'm writing this there flashes to my
+mind one of those old Memory Gems I learned in
+school on the hill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a><a href="images/244.png">[244]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"But pleasures are like poppies spread,&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Or like the snow fall on the river,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">A moment white, then melts forever."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I wonder, is there always a fly in the ointment!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a><a href="images/245.png">[245]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>DIARY&mdash;TRANSFORMATION</h3>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>December 15.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A few</span> days can make a difference in one's life.
+I'm well on the way of being a real butterfly. I have
+bought new dresses, a real evening gown and a lovely
+silk dress to wear to the Bridge Club. It's lucky I
+saved my money these three months and had a nice
+surplus to buy these new things.</p>
+
+<p>Royal is teaching me to play cards. He says I take
+to them like a duck to water. Virginia and he are
+giving me dancing lessons. I love to dance! The
+same spirit that prompted me to skip when I wore sunbonnets
+is now urging me on to the dance. In a few
+weeks I'll be ready to join in the pleasures of my new
+friends. After the Christmas holidays the city will
+be gay until the Lenten season.</p>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>January 5.</i></div>
+
+<p>I went home for Christmas and I suppose I managed
+to make everybody there unhappy and worried.
+I couldn't let them think I am the same quiet girl and
+not tell them about the cards and dancing. Daddy
+was hurt, but he didn't scold me. He said plainly that
+he does not approve of my course, that he thinks cards<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a><a href="images/246.png">[246]</a></span>
+and dancing wicked. He added that I had been taught
+the difference between right and wrong and was old
+enough to see it. Perhaps he thinks I'll "run my
+horns off quicker" if I'm let go, as Aunt Maria often
+says about people. But she didn't say that about me.
+She made up for what daddy didn't say. She begged
+him to make me stay at home away from the wicked
+influences of the city. I had the hardest time to keep
+calm and not say mean things to her. She's ashamed
+of me and afraid people up there will find out how
+worldly I am. I had to tell Mother Bab too. I know
+I hurt her. She was so gentle and lovely about it that
+I felt half inclined to tell her I'd give up everything she
+didn't approve of, just to please her. But I didn't. I
+couldn't do that when I know I'm not doing anything
+wrong. She changed the subject and inquired about
+my music. In that I was able to please her. She
+shared my joy when I told her of my critical music
+master's approval of my progress. I sang some of
+my new songs for her and she kissed me with the same
+love and tenderness she has always had for me. I
+wonder sometimes whether I could possibly have loved
+my own mother more. Somehow, as I sat with her in
+her dear, cozy sitting-room I hated the cards and the
+dancing and half wished I had never left the farm.
+But that's a narrow, provincial view to take. Now
+that I'm back again I'm caught once more in the whirl.
+Everybody is entertaining, as if in a frantic endeavor
+to be surfeited before Lent and thus be able to endure
+the dullness of that period of suspended social activities.
+The harrowing tales of suffering France and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a><a href="images/247.png">[247]</a></span>
+Belgium have occasioned Benefit Teas and Benefit
+Bridges and Benefit Dances, all for the aid of the war
+sufferers. Royal usually takes me to the social affairs.
+I enjoy being with him. He's the most entertaining
+man I ever met. He has traveled in Europe and all
+over our own country and can tell what he has seen.
+He attracts attention, whether he speaks or plays or
+is just silent. One day he said it would be a pleasure
+to travel with me, I enjoy things so and can appreciate
+their beauty. I could scarcely resist telling him how
+I'd enjoy traveling with a man like him. Oh, I dream
+wild dreams sometimes, but I really must stop doing
+that. The present is too wonderful to go borrowing
+joy from the future.</p>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>February 2.</i></div>
+
+<p>I'm all in a fluster. I have to write here what happened
+to-day. If I had a mother she could help and
+advise me but an adopted mother, even one as dear and
+near as Mother Bab, won't do for such confidences.</p>
+
+<p>Royal and I were sitting alone before the open fireplace.
+It's a dangerous place to be! The glowing fire
+sends such weird shadows flickering up and down.
+Its living fire is sometimes an entreating Circe waking
+undesirable impulses, then again it's a spirit that heals
+and inspires. I love an open fire but to-day I should
+have fled from it and yet&mdash;I think I'm glad I didn't.</p>
+
+<p>I looked up suddenly from the gleaming logs&mdash;right
+into the eyes of Royal. His voice startled me as he
+said, with the strangest catch in his voice, that my eyes
+are bluer than the skies. I tried to keep my voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a><a href="images/248.png">[248]</a></span>
+ordinary as I lightly told him that some other person
+once told me they are the color of fringed gentians&mdash;could
+he improve on that?</p>
+
+<p>"You little fairy!" he cried. "I can beat that!
+They are blue as bluebirds!" Then he went on impetuously,
+telling me I was a real bluebird of happiness,
+a bringer of joy; that the ancients called the
+bluebird the emblem of happiness, but he knew the
+blue of my eyes was the real joy sign&mdash;or something
+like that he said. It startled me. I tried to tell him
+he must not talk like that but my words were useless.
+He went on to say that the world was bleak and unlovely
+till I came to Philadelphia and wouldn't I tell
+him I care for him.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I value his friendship and told him so.
+But he laughed and said I was a wise little girl but I
+couldn't evade his question like that. He said frankly
+he doesn't want my friendship, he wants my love, he
+must have it!</p>
+
+<p>I felt like a helpless bird. I couldn't answer him.
+He looked at me, a long, searching look. Then he
+pressed his thin lips together, and a moment later,
+threw back his head and laughed his low laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Little bluebird," he said softly, "I have frightened
+you and I wouldn't do that for worlds! We'll talk
+it over some other time, after you have had time to
+think about it. Shall I play for you?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded and he began to play. But the music
+didn't soothe me as it usually does. There were too
+many confused thoughts in my brain. Did Royal
+really love me? I looked at his white hands with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a><a href="images/249.png">[249]</a></span>
+long tapering nails and the shapely fingers and couldn't
+help thinking of the strong, tanned hands of David
+Eby. I glanced at the handsome face of the musician
+with its magnetic charm&mdash;swiftly the countenance of
+my old playmate rose before me and then slowly faded:
+David, boyish and comradely; David, manly and
+strong, without ever a sneer or an unholy light upon
+his face. Could I ever forget him? Could I ever
+look into the face of any other man and call it the
+dearest in the whole world to me? Ach&mdash;I shook my
+head and gathered my recreant wits together! I'd
+forget what he said and attribute it to the weird influence
+of the firelight.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad Virginia came before Royal finished playing.
+She looked at us keenly. I suppose my face
+was flushed. But Royal seldom loses his outward
+calm. He answered her remarks in his casual way
+and listened with seeming interest to her plans for a
+pre-Lenten masquerade dance she wants to give. She
+has asked me to go dressed in a plain dress and white
+cap like Aunt Maria wears. I hesitated about it but
+she has done so much for me that I hate to refuse.
+So I've promised to go to the dance dressed in a plain
+dress and cap.</p>
+
+<p>A little later when Royal left us alone Virginia began
+to speak about him. She said she's so glad we
+have grown to be friends, in spite of the fact that he
+is so much older than I am. He's thirty-seven, she
+told me. I'm surprised at that. I never thought he's
+so much older. She mentioned something, too, about
+his being rather a gay Don Juan. I don't know just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a><a href="images/250.png">[250]</a></span>
+what she means. I'm sure he's a gentleman. Perhaps
+she expected me to tell her what Royal said to
+me, but how could I do that when I think it was just
+an impulsive burst that he's likely to forget by morning.
+If he really meant it&mdash;but I must stop dreaming
+all sorts of improbable dreams! I've had such a glorious
+time in Philadelphia just living and singing and
+working and playing that I wish it hadn't happened.
+I'm frightened when I think that any serious questions
+might confront me here.</p>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>February 10.</i></div>
+
+<p>I guessed right when I thought that Royal would
+forget that foolish outburst. He has been perfectly
+lovely to me, taking me out and buying me flowers and
+telling me about his trips, but he hasn't said one word
+more of sentimental nature. I'm surely getting my
+share of fun and pleasure these days. There are so
+many things to enjoy, so much to learn from my
+fellow-boarders and every one I meet, that the days
+are all too short. Between times I'm making a dress
+and cap for the masquerade dance. I hate sewing. I
+lost all love for it during my years of calico patching.
+But I don't mind making the dress for I'm eager for
+the dance, my first masquerade party. I'm hoping for
+a good time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a><a href="images/251.png">[251]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>DIARY&mdash;PLAIN FOR A NIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>February 21.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Last</span> night was the masquerade. I wore the plain
+gray dress, apron and cape and a white cap on my
+head. I felt rather like a hypocrite as I looked at
+myself in the glass, but Virginia said it was just the
+thing and certainly would not be duplicated by any
+other guest.</p>
+
+<p>I was dressed early and started down the stairs, my
+black mask swinging from my hand. As I rounded
+a curve in the stairway I glanced casually down the
+wide hall. The colored servant had admitted visitors.
+I looked in that direction&mdash;the mask fell from my hand
+and I ran down the steps and into the arms of Mother
+Bab! I couldn't say more than "Oh, oh!" as I kissed
+her over and over. When she got her breath she said
+happily, "Ph&#339;be, you're plain!"</p>
+
+<p>Oh, how it hurt me! I took her and David to a
+little nook off the library where we could be alone and
+then I had to tell her that I was wearing the plain
+dress and white cap as a masquerade dress. Even
+when I told her I learned to dance and do things she
+thinks are worldly there was no look of pain on her
+face like the look I brought there as I stood before her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a><a href="images/252.png">[252]</a></span>
+in a dress she reverenced and told her I wore it in a
+spirit of fun. I'll never get over being sorry for hurting
+her like that. But Mother Bab rallies quickly
+from every hurt. She soon smiled and said she understood.
+David came to my aid. He assured his mother
+that they knew I could take care of myself and would
+not do anything really wrong. I couldn't thank him
+for his kindness. I felt suddenly all weepy and tearful.
+But David began to talk on in his old friendly
+way and tell about the home news and about the Big
+Doctor he had taken Mother Bab to see in Philadelphia
+and how he hoped she would soon be able to see perfectly
+again. While he talked Mother Bab and I had
+a chance to recover a bit. I noted a quick shadow
+pass over her face as he spoke about her eyes&mdash;was
+she less hopeful about them than he was? Had the
+Big Doctor told her something David did not hear?
+But no! I dismissed the thought&mdash;Mother Bab could
+not go blind! She would never be asked to suffer
+that! I soon forgot my troublesome thoughts as she
+hastened to say that perhaps her eyes would improve
+more quickly than the doctor promised. Then she
+changed the subject&mdash;"Now, Ph&#339;be, I hope I didn't
+hurt you about the dress. I guess I looked at you as
+if I wanted to eat you. I love you and wouldn't hurt
+you for anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother Bab!" I gave her a real hug like I used
+to do when I ran barefooted up the hill with some
+childish perplexity and she helped me. "You're an
+angel! Mother Bab, David, having a good time won't
+hurt me. Our views up home are too narrow. It's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a><a href="images/253.png">[253]</a></span>
+all right to expect older people to do nothing more exciting
+than go to Greenwald to the store, to church
+every Sunday, to an occasional quilting or carpet-rag
+party, and to Lancaster to shop several times a year,
+but the younger generation needs other things."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you mean it can't be Lent all the time for
+you," she suggested with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I just knew you'd understand."</p>
+
+<p>Just then Royal began to play and the music floated
+in to us. It was Traumerei. Mother Bab's tired face
+relaxed as she leaned back to listen to the piercingly
+sweet melody. David looked at me&mdash;I knew he was
+asking whether the player was Royal Lee.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Davie," Mother Bab said innocently as the
+music ended, "if only you could play like that!"</p>
+
+<p>"If I could," he said half bitterly, "but all I can do
+is farm. Are you coming home this spring?" he
+asked me, as if to forget the violin and its player.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I'll probably stay here until early
+June. I may go away with Virginia for part of the
+summer."</p>
+
+<p>"Not be home for spring and summer!" he said
+dismally. "Why, it won't be spring without you!
+We can't go for bird-foot violets or arbutus."</p>
+
+<p>Arbutus&mdash;the name called up a host of memories to
+me. "How I'd like to go for arbutus this spring," I
+told him.</p>
+
+<p>"Then come home in April and I'll take you to Mt.
+Hope for some."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, David, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd love to. We'll drive up."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a><a href="images/254.png">[254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'll come," I promised. "I'll come home for
+arbutus. Let me know when they're out."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. But I think we must go now or we'll
+miss the train."</p>
+
+<p>"Go?" I echoed. "You're not going home to-night?
+Can't you stay? Mrs. McCrea has vacant rooms.
+I've been so excited I forgot my manners. Let me
+take you to the sitting-room and introduce you to Mrs.
+Lee and Royal."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, no," Mother Bab protested. "We can't stay
+that long. We just stopped in to see you."</p>
+
+<p>David looked at his watch. "We must go now.
+There's a train at eight-twenty-one gets to Lancaster
+at ten-forty-five and we'll get the last car out to Greenwald
+and Phares will meet us and drive us home."</p>
+
+<p>I asked about the home folks as I watched David
+adjust Mother Bab's shawl. He looked older and
+worried. I suppose he was disappointed because the
+Big Doctor didn't promise a quick cure for Mother
+Bab's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>As they said good-bye and left me I wanted to run
+after them and ask them to take me home, back to the
+simple life of my people. But I stayed where I was,
+the earthiest worldling in a dress of unworldliness.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I believe I'll take it off," I thought as I stood
+in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>Just then Royal opened the door and saw me. "Ye
+Gods!" he exclaimed, "you look like a saint, Ph&#339;be."</p>
+
+<p>"But I'm not! I'm far from being a saint!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be one, please. If you turn saint I shall be
+disconsolate. I don't like saints of women and I want<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a><a href="images/255.png">[255]</a></span>
+to keep on liking you, little Bluebird. Remember, you
+promised me the first dance."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;I don't feel like dancing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you must! You look like a Quakeress
+but no one expects you to act like one to-night. I'm
+going up to dress&mdash;I'm going as a monk to match you."</p>
+
+<p>He ran off, laughing, and I went in search of Virginia.
+My heart was heavy. The sudden appearance
+of Mother Bab and David brought me a vivid impression
+of the contrast between their lives and mine and
+the thoughts left me worried and restless. What was
+I doing? Was I shaping my life in such a way that
+it would never again fit into the simple grooves of
+country life? The dance lost its charm for me. I
+danced and made merry and tried to enter into the
+gay spirit of the occasion but I longed all the time to
+be with Mother Bab and David riding to Lancaster
+County.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a><a href="images/256.png">[256]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>DIARY&mdash;DECLARATIONS</h3>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>March 22.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Spring</span> is here but I'd never know it if I didn't read
+the calendar. I haven't seen a robin or heard a song-sparrow.
+Just the same, I've had a wonderful time
+these past weeks. Of course my music gets first attention.
+I'm getting on well, though I'm beginning to
+see what a long, long time it will take before I become
+a great singer. Since I have heard really great singers
+I wonder whether I was not too presumptuous when I
+thought I might be one some day. I went to several
+big churches lately and heard fine music.</p>
+
+<p>I thought Lent would be a dull season but it's been
+gay enough for me. There has been unusual activity,
+Virginia says, because of so many charitable affairs
+held for the benefit of the war sufferers.</p>
+
+<p>I bought a new spring hat, a dream. Hope Aunt
+Maria never asks me what I paid for it. After wearing
+Greenwald hats all my life this one was coming
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>But my thoughts are not all of frivolous matters.
+I have taken advantage of some of the opportunities
+Philadelphia offers to improve my mind and broaden
+my vision. I've been to lectures and plays and enjoyed
+them all.</p>
+
+<p>I asked Royal to-day why he never worked. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a><a href="images/257.png">[257]</a></span>
+laughed and said I was an inquisitive Bluebird. Then
+he told me his parents left him enough money to live
+without working. He never did a solid hour's real
+work in his whole life. With his talent and his personal
+attractions he might become a famous musician
+if he had some odds to fight against or some person to
+encourage him and make him do his best. He said he
+knows he never developed his talent to the full extent
+but that since he knows me he is playing better than
+he did before. I wonder if I really am an inspiration
+to him. I suppose a genius does need a wife or
+sympathetic friend to bring out the best in him. He
+has been so lovely, showing his fondness for me in
+many ways, but he has never said anything sentimental
+like he did the day we sat by the fire. Sometimes he
+does say ambiguous things that I can't understand.
+He is surely giving me a long time to think it over. I
+like him but I'm afraid he's cynical, and it worries me.</p>
+
+<p>There are other things, too, to dim the blue these
+days. War clouds are threatening. U-boats of Germany
+are sinking our vessels. Where will it all end?</p>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>April 7.</i></div>
+
+<p>War has been declared. America is in it at last. I
+came home to-day feeling disheartened and sad. War
+was the topic everywhere I went. Papers, bulletin-boards
+flaunted the words, "The world must be made
+safe for democracy." People on the streets and in
+cars spoke about it, newsboys yelled till they were
+hoarse.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped to see Virginia but she was out. Royal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a><a href="images/258.png">[258]</a></span>
+said he'd entertain me till she returned. He laughed
+at my tragic weariness about the war.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you, Bluebird," he whispered as he sat beside
+me, "we'll talk of something better. I love you."</p>
+
+<p>The fire in his eyes frightened me. I couldn't look
+at him. "Why do you say such things?" I asked, and
+I couldn't keep my voice from trembling.</p>
+
+<p>That didn't hush him&mdash;he said some more. He told
+me how he loves me, how he waited for me all his life
+and wants me with him. He quoted the verse I like
+so much, "Thou beside me singing in the wilderness&mdash;O
+wilderness were Paradise enow!" Then he asked
+me frankly if I loved him.</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't answer right away. Now that the thing
+I had dreamed of was actually happening I was dazed
+and stupid and sat like a bump-on-a-log.</p>
+
+<p>He asked me again and before I knew what he was
+doing he had taken me into his arms and kissed me.
+"Say you love me," he pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>I said what he wanted to hear and he kissed me
+again. We were both very happy. It is almost too
+wonderful to believe!</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later we heard Virginia enter the hall
+and we came back to earth. I know my cheeks still
+burned but Royal's ready poise served him well. He
+told his cousin he had been trying to make me forget
+about the war.</p>
+
+<p>Virginia probably thought my excitement was due
+to the war. She began at once to speak about it.
+"America is in it and we can't forget it. Every true
+American must help."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a><a href="images/259.png">[259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do your bit, knit," chanted the musician.</p>
+
+<p>She asked him if he is going to do his bit. He
+flushed and looked vexed, then explained that he can
+neither knit nor fight, that he is a musician.</p>
+
+<p>Virginia argued that if he could play a violin he
+could learn to play a bugle, that many of the men who
+will fight for the flag are men who have never been
+taught to fight. She spoke as if she thought Royal
+should enlist in some branch of government service
+at once.</p>
+
+<p>I resented her words. "Do you want Royal to go
+to war and be killed?" I asked her.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," she said solemnly, "have you ever
+heard that there is such a thing as losing one's life by
+trying to save it?"</p>
+
+<p>That startled me. I realized then that the war is
+going to be a very serious matter, that there will be
+work for each one of us to do. But Royal laughed
+and made me forget temporarily every solemn, sad
+thing. He told Virginia that she was over-zealous,
+that she need not worry about him. He'd be a true
+American and give his money to help protect the flag.
+We began to play Bridge then and I thought no more
+about the war for an hour or two.</p>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>April 12.</i></div>
+
+<p>I have learned to knit. Virginia has taught me and
+we are elbow-deep in gray and khaki wool. I have
+wound it and purled it and worked on the thing till
+I'm tasting fuzz. But I do want to do the little bit
+I can to help my country. This war <i>is</i> a serious mat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a><a href="images/260.png">[260]</a></span>ter.
+Already people are talking about who is going
+to enlist&mdash;what if David would go! I hope he won't&mdash;yet
+I don't want him to be a coward. Oh, it's all too
+confusing and terrible to think long about. I try to
+forget it for a time by remembering that Royal Lee
+cares for me. He has told me over and over that he
+loves me. Love <i>must</i> be blind, for he thinks I am
+beautiful and perfect. I'm glad I look like that to
+him. We should be happy when we are married, for
+we are so congenial, both loving music and things of
+beauty. It's queer, though, I have thought of it several
+times&mdash;he has never mentioned our marriage. I
+suppose he's too happy in the present to make plans for
+the future. But I know he is a gentleman, therefore
+his words of love are synonymous with an offer of
+marriage. All that will come later. It's enough now
+just to know we care for each other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a><a href="images/261.png">[261]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>DIARY&mdash;"THE LINK MUST BREAK AND THE LAMP
+MUST DIE"</h3>
+
+
+<div class='right'><i>April 13.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I'm</span> in sackcloth and ashes. My dream castles have
+tumbled down upon my head and left me bruised and
+sorrowful. I'm awake at last! I'd like to bury my
+face in my old red and green patchwork quilt and ask
+forgiveness for being a fool. But I must compose
+myself and write this last chapter of my romance.</p>
+
+<p>Last night the "Singer with the Voice of Gold"
+gave a recital in the Academy of Music. Royal and
+I helped to make up a merry box party. I felt festive
+and gay in my lovely white crepe georgette gown.
+Royal said I looked like a dream and that made me
+radiant, I know.</p>
+
+<p>As we sat down I whispered to him that I was excited
+because hearing that great singer has always been
+one of my dearest dreams and now the dream was
+coming true. He whispered back that more of my
+dreams would soon come true. I made him hush, for
+several people were looking at us. But his words sent
+my heart thrilling.</p>
+
+<p>The Academy became quiet as the singer appeared,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a><a href="images/262.png">[262]</a></span>
+then the audience gave her a real Brotherly Love welcome
+and settled once more into silence as her beautiful
+voice rose in the place. The operatic selections were
+beautifully rendered. I thought her voice was most
+captivating in the simple songs everybody knows.
+Annie Laurie had new charm as she sang it. When
+she sang that Royal whispered, "That is what I feel
+for you." I smiled into his eyes, then turned again to
+look at the singer. Could I ever sing like that?
+Would the dreams of my childhood come true? It
+seemed improbable and yet&mdash;I had traveled a long way
+from the little girl of the tight braids and brown gingham
+dresses, I thought. Perhaps the future would
+bring still more wonderful changes.</p>
+
+<p>The hours in the Academy of Music passed like
+a beautiful dream. I shrank from the last song,
+though. It was too much like some fatal, dire
+prophecy:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"The cord is frayed, the cruse is dry,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The link must break, and the lamp must die&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Good-bye to hope! Good-bye, good-bye!"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I told Royal I didn't like it, it was too much like
+Cassandra.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed and said she generally sings it, but that
+it couldn't hurt us&mdash;was I superstitious?</p>
+
+<p>"No, oh, no," I declared. But I wished I could
+forget the words of that song.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the party decided that a proper ending to
+the delightful evening would be a visit to a fashionable
+caf&eacute;. I didn't care to go. Royal urged me till<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a><a href="images/263.png">[263]</a></span>
+I consented and I soon found myself in a beautiful
+place where merry groups of people were seated about
+small tables. Any desire for food I might have had
+left me as I heard Royal and the other men order
+wines and highballs.</p>
+
+<p>"What will you have, Ph&#339;be?" Royal asked me.</p>
+
+<p>I gasped&mdash;"Why&mdash;nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Be a sport," he urged, "look around and do as
+the 'Romans do.'"</p>
+
+<p>I looked around. Some of the women were smoking,
+others were drinking.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," I said, "this is dreadful. Let's go."</p>
+
+<p>Royal laughed and the others teased me. One of
+the girls said I'd be doing all those things before the
+year ended. When I declared I would not Royal reminded
+me that I had said the same about cards and
+dancing. His words silenced me. I felt engulfed in
+shame and deeply hurt. How could Royal be amused
+at my discomfiture if he loved me! Did he love me?
+Did I want him to? Could I promise to honor and
+love him all my life? But perhaps he was teasing
+me&mdash;ah, that was it! I breathed more easily again.
+Royal was teasing me, sure of my refusal to indulge
+in any intoxicant. The others ate and made merry
+while I toyed idly with the glass of ginger ale the
+waiter brought me against my wish. I mused and
+dreamed&mdash;would Royal like my people? Somehow,
+he seemed an incongruity among the dear ones at the
+gray farmhouse in Lancaster County. What would
+he say when we ate in the kitchen and daddy came to
+the table in his shirt sleeves? Love can bridge greater<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a><a href="images/264.png">[264]</a></span>
+chasms than that, I thought. When we are married&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Royal Lee, are you ever going to marry?" The
+question broke into my revery.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Royal. There was no rise of color in
+his handsome face. He returned my look dispassionately
+then turned to his teasing, inquisitive
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a bachelor forever," he declared. "But that
+does not keep me from loving. Women I care for
+have too much good sense to think that marriage always
+follows love. Ye Gods, I think love goes when
+marriage comes, so you'll have no chance to see my
+love interred."</p>
+
+<p>I clenched my hands under the table. I felt my lips
+go white. How could he hurt me so? Of course our
+love was not a thing to be paraded in a public place but
+if he really cared for me as I thought he did he could
+have answered differently. An evasive answer would
+have served. An hour ago he had whispered tender
+words to me and now he frankly informed all present
+that he was a bachelor forever. I could not grasp the
+full significance of his words at once. I was dazed
+by the shock of them. I wanted to get away and be
+alone, to cry, to think, to determine what he had meant
+by his demonstrations of love if he did not hope to win
+me for his wife.</p>
+
+<p>But later, when I went to bed in the pretty blue and
+white room next Virginia's, I did not cry. I lay wide
+awake thinking over and over, "How could he do
+it? Why is he heartless? Was he only playing?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a><a href="images/265.png">[265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When morning came I had partially decided that I
+had been a ready, silly fool; that Royal Lee had merely
+whiled the hours away more pleasantly because of my
+love. I felt tempted to denounce him but I thought
+that would afford him additional amusement and make
+me not a whit less miserable. I was eager to get away
+from him. I desired but one little moment alone with
+him to satisfy myself that I did not judge him unjustly.
+Fortunately he came to the sitting-room as I
+sat there staring at the page of a magazine.</p>
+
+<p>"Alone?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be"&mdash;he drew nearer and I rose and stood
+away from him. "My Bluebird! You look unhappy.
+Are you still shocked at the smoking and drinking you
+saw last night? It's all in the game, you know. Why
+not be happy along with the rest of us, why be a
+prude?"</p>
+
+<p>I shivered. Couldn't he know why I was unhappy!
+How false and fickle he was! I wouldn't wear my
+heart on my sleeve for him to read and laugh about.
+All my Metz determination rose in me.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I lied, "I'm not unhappy. I'm just tired.
+Late hours don't agree with me."</p>
+
+<p>He stretched out his arm but I eluded him.
+"Don't," I said lightly; "we've been foolish long
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Why"&mdash;he looked at me keenly. But I was determined
+he should not read my feelings. I smiled in
+spite of my contempt for him. "Why, Ph&#339;be," he
+said tenderly, "what has changed you? Why shouldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a><a href="images/266.png">[266]</a></span>
+I kiss you when I love you? Love never hurt any
+one."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But what?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing," I said, stepping farther away from
+him. "I'm in a hurry this morning. Good-bye."
+And for the first time I saw a look of chagrin mar
+the handsome face of Royal Lee. Before he could
+recover his customary equanimity I was gone from
+the house.</p>
+
+<p>I walked, caring not where the way led. My brain
+was in a whirl. I felt as though I were fleeing from
+a crumbling precipice. In a flash I understood Virginia's
+tactful attempts at warning. She had tried to
+make me understand but my head was too easily
+turned by the fine speeches and flattering attentions of
+the musician. I have been vain and foolish but I've
+had my lesson. It still hurts and yet I can see the
+value of it. I'll be better qualified after this to discriminate
+between the false and true.</p>
+
+<p>I am going home to-day! It came to me suddenly
+as I went back to my boarding-house after my long
+walk. I promised David I'd come home for arbutus
+and the inspiration came to go home for the whole
+spring and summer. I'll write a note to Mr. Krause
+and one to Virginia. Dear Virginia, she has been so
+good to me and helped me in so many ways! I can
+never thank her enough. These eight months in
+Philadelphia have been a liberal education for me.
+I'll never regret them. I hope to come back in the
+fall and go on with the music lessons. By that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a><a href="images/267.png">[267]</a></span>
+time Royal Lee will have found another to make
+love to.</p>
+
+<p>So I'm going home to-day, back to Lancaster
+County. The trees are green and the flowers are out&mdash;oh,
+I'm wild to get back!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a><a href="images/268.png">[268]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>"HAME'S BEST"</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lancaster County</span> never before looked so fertile,
+so lovely, as it did that April day when Ph&#339;be returned
+to it after a long winter in Philadelphia.</p>
+
+<p>As she came unexpectedly there was no one to meet
+her at Greenwald. She started across the street and
+was soon on the dusty road leading to the gray farmhouse.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see," she thought, "this is Friday afternoon
+and Aunt Maria will be scrubbing the kitchen
+floor."</p>
+
+<p>But when the girl reached the kitchen of the gray
+house and tiptoed gently over the sill she found the
+big room in order and Aunt Maria absent.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," she thought, "is Aunt Maria sick?" She
+opened the door to the sitting-room and there, seated
+by a window, was Aunt Maria with a ball of gray wool
+in her lap and five steel knitting needles plying in her
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Maria!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Ph&#339;be!"</p>
+
+<p>The exclamations came simultaneously.</p>
+
+<p>"What in the world are you doing? I mean why
+aren't you cleaning the kitchen? Oh, Aunt Maria,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a><a href="images/269.png">[269]</a></span>
+you know what I mean! I never saw you sitting down
+early on a Friday afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Maria laughed. "I ain't sick! You can see
+what I'm doin'; I'm knittin'. Ain't you learned to
+do it yet? I can learn you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I know how. But what are you knitting?
+For the Red Cross?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? You think the ladies in Phildelphy are
+the only ones do that? There's a Red Cross in Greenwald
+and they are askin' all who can to help. I used
+to knit all my own stockings still so I thought I'd pitch
+right in. I let the cleanin' slide a little this week so
+I could get a good start on this once."</p>
+
+<p>The girl gasped and looked at her aunt in wonder.
+All the days of her life she had never known her aunt
+to "let the cleanin' slide," if the physical strength were
+there to do the work. Aunt Maria was working for
+the Red Cross! While she, who had scorned the
+country folks and called them narrow, had knitted
+half-heartedly and spent the major part of her time
+in the pursuit of pleasure, the people of the little town
+and surrounding country had been doing real work
+for humanity.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you're splendid, Aunt Maria, to help the
+Red Cross," she said with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>The woman looked up from her knitting. "Why,
+how dumb you talk! I guess abody wants to help.
+Them soldiers are fightin' for us. Now you can get
+yourself something to eat. It vonders me, anyhow,
+why you come home this time of the year. You said
+you'd stay till June."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a><a href="images/270.png">[270]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I came because I want to be here."</p>
+
+<p>"So. Then I guess you got enough once of the
+city."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ph&#339;be, laughing. "But how is everybody?"</p>
+
+<p>"All pretty good. But a lot of boys from round
+here went a'ready to enlist. I ain't for war, but I
+guess it has to come sometimes. But it's hard for
+them that has boys."</p>
+
+<p>"David?" Ph&#339;be asked. "Has he gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, no, not him. He's got his mom to take
+care of."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be remembered Virginia's words, "We can't
+get away from it, we're in it." The thought of them
+made her feel depressed. "I'm going to forget the
+war," she thought after a moment, "I'm going to forget
+it for to-morrow and have one perfect day in the
+mountains hunting arbutus."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a><a href="images/271.png">[271]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>TRAILING ARBUTUS</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was a balmy day in April when Ph&#339;be and David
+drove over the country roads to the mountains where
+the trailing arbutus grow.</p>
+
+<p>"Spring o' the year," called the meadow-larks in
+clear, piercing tones.</p>
+
+<p>"It is spring o' the year," said Ph&#339;be. "I know
+it now. But last week I felt sure that the calendar
+was wrong and I wondered whether God made only
+English sparrows this year; that was all I could see.
+Then I saw a few birds early this week when we went
+along the Wissahickon for a long walk. Oh, no,"
+she said in answer to the unspoken question in his eyes,
+"I did not go alone with a man. In Philadelphia one
+does not do that. I went properly chaperoned by
+Mrs. Hale. Virginia and Royal and several others
+were in the party. You should have been there; you
+would have enjoyed it for you know so much about
+birds and flowers. Royal didn't know a spring beauty
+from a bloodroot, and when we heard a song-sparrow
+he said it was a thrush."</p>
+
+<p>David threw back his head and laughed. "Some
+nature student he must be! But it must be fine along
+the Wissahickon. I have read about it."</p>
+
+<p>"It is fine, but this is finer."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a><a href="images/272.png">[272]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You better say so!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, look, David, the soil is pink!" She pointed
+to a tilled field whose soil was colored a soft old rose
+color. "I'm always glad to see the pink soil."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I. It means that we are getting near the
+mountains. We'll drive over to Hull's tavern and
+leave the carriage there, then we can go to the patch
+of woods near the tavern where we used to find the
+great beauties, the fine big ones. There's the old
+tavern now." He pointed to a building with a fine
+background of wooded hills.</p>
+
+<p>Hull's tavern, a rambling structure erected in 1812,
+is still an interesting stopping-place for summer excursionists
+and travelers through that mountainous
+section of Pennsylvania. Situated on the south side
+of the beautiful South Mountains and overlooking the
+richest of hills, it has long been a popular roadhouse,
+accommodating many pleasure parties and hikers.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be wandered about on the long porches while
+David took the horse to the stable.</p>
+
+<p>"Now then," he said as he joined her, "give me the
+lunch box and we'll be off."</p>
+
+<p>They walked a short distance in the loamy soil of
+the mountain road and then turned aside and scrambled
+up a steep bank to a tract of woodland. Ph&#339;be
+sank on her knees in the dry, brown leaves and pushed
+aside the leaves. "There," she cried in triumph a
+moment later, "I found the first one!" She lifted a
+small cluster of trailing arbutus and gave it to David.</p>
+
+<p>"Um-ah," he said, in imitation of a little girl of
+long ago.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"></a><a href="images/273.png">[273]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Little Dutchie," she answered. "But you can't
+provoke me to-day. I'm too happy to be peevish.
+Come, kneel down, you'll never find arbutus when you
+stand up."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm down," he said as he knelt beside her. "I'd
+go on my knees to find arbutus any day."</p>
+
+<p>"So would I&mdash;&mdash; Oh, look at this&mdash;and this!
+They are perfect." She fairly trembled with joy as
+she uncovered the waxlike flowers of dainty pink and
+white. "I could bury my nose in them forever."</p>
+
+<p>"They are perfect," agreed the man. "Fancy living
+where you never saw any arbutus or had the joy
+of picking them."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to fancy that, it's too delicious being
+where they do grow. Won't Mother Bab love them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. She'll keep them for days in water. That
+flower you gave her in Philadelphia lasted four
+days."</p>
+
+<p>"These are better," Ph&#339;be said quickly, anxious
+to shut out all thoughts of the city. Now that she
+was in the woods again she knew how hungry she had
+been for them. "I am going to pick a bunch of big
+ones for Mother Bab."</p>
+
+<p>"She would like the small ones every whit as much,"
+the man declared.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps better," she mused. "She would say
+they are just as sweet and pretty. David, I don't know
+what I should have done without Mother Bab! My
+life was different, somehow, after she allowed me to
+adopt her."</p>
+
+<p>"She's great, isn't she?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"></a><a href="images/274.png">[274]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Wonderful! I have many friends, many new
+ones, many dear ones, but there is only one Mother
+Bab."</p>
+
+<p>The man's hands trembled among the arbutus&mdash;did
+the admiration touch Mother Bab's son? Could the
+dreams of his heart ever come true?</p>
+
+<p>"You know," Ph&#339;be went on, "if I could always
+have her near me, in the same house, I'd be less unworthy
+of calling her Mother Bab."</p>
+
+<p>It was well that she bent over the dry leaves and
+blossoms and missed the look that flooded the face of
+the man for a moment. She wanted to be with
+Mother Bab&mdash;should he tell her of his love? But the
+very fact that she spoke thus was evidence that she
+did not love him as he desired. And the war must
+change his most cherished plans for the future, change
+them greatly for a time. If he went and never returned
+it would be harder for her if he went as her
+lover. As it was he was merely her old comrade and
+friend; he could read from her manner that no deeper
+feeling had touched her&mdash;not for him, but he wondered
+about the musician&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The spell was broken when Ph&#339;be spoke again:
+"Do you know, Davie, I read somewhere that arbutus
+can't be made to grow anywhere except in its own
+woods, that the most skilful hand of man or woman
+can't transplant it to a garden where the soil is different
+from its native soil."</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard that before, but I remember that I
+tried several times and failed. I dug up a big box of
+the soil to make it grow, but it lasted several months<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a><a href="images/275.png">[275]</a></span>
+and died. Let us go along this path and find a new
+bed; we have almost cleaned this one."</p>
+
+<p>"See"&mdash;she raised her bunch of flowers&mdash;"I didn't
+take a single root, so next year when we come we
+shall find as many as this year. They are too altogether
+lovely to be exterminated."</p>
+
+<p>They moved about the woods, finding new patches
+of the fragrant flowers, until they declared it would
+be robbery to take another one.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's eat," she suggested; "I'm hungry as a bear."</p>
+
+<p>"Race you to that big rock," cried David and began
+to run. Ph&#339;be followed through the brush and dry
+leaves, but the farmer covered the distance too quickly
+for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I'm hungry," she said, panting; "I'll eat
+more than my share of the lunch."</p>
+
+<p>She climbed to the top of the boulder and they sat
+side by side, the lunch box resting on David's knees.</p>
+
+<p>"Now anything you want ask for," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not!" She delved into the box and brought
+out a sandwich. "It's mine as much as yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Going in for Woman's Suffrage and Rights and
+the like?" he asked, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh," she wrinkled her nose, "don't mention
+things like that to-day. I don't want to hear about
+war or work or problems or anything but just pure joy
+this day! I earned this perfect day this year. This
+is to be a day of all-joy for us. Have another sandwich?
+I'm going to&mdash;this makes only four more left
+for each. Aunt Maria knew what she was doing
+when she made me take this big box of lunch for just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a><a href="images/276.png">[276]</a></span>
+us two. Now, aren't you glad that I brought lunch
+in a box instead of eating our dinner at Hull's as you
+suggested?" she said as she kicked her feet, little girl
+fashion, against the side of the boulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I am glad. I was afraid you might
+like dinner at the tavern better, that is why I suggested
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know me better than that? Why, we
+can eat in dining-rooms three hundred and sixty-four
+days in every year. This is one day when we eat in
+the birds' dining-room."</p>
+
+<p>"I am enjoying it, Ph&#339;be. It is the first picnic I
+have had for a long time. I can't tell how I'm drinking
+in the joy of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Ph&#339;be later, when the last crumb had
+been taken out of the lunch box, "we can pack the
+arbutus in this box. If you find some damp moss I'll
+arrange them."</p>
+
+<p>She laid the flowers on the cushion of moss, covered
+them with a few damp leaves and closed the box.
+"That will keep them fresh," she said. "Now for
+our drink of mountain water, then home again."</p>
+
+<p>Farther in the woods they found the spring. In a
+little cove edged with laurel bushes and overhung with
+chestnut trees and tall oaks it sent up a bubbling fountain
+of cold water.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry the picnic is over," said Ph&#339;be as she
+leaned over the clear water and drank the cold
+draught.</p>
+
+<p>"There is still the lovely drive home," he consoled
+her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"></a><a href="images/277.png">[277]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said as they turned and walked back
+through the woods to the road again, "and I shall remember
+this day for a long time. In the spring it's
+dreadful to be shut in the city."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you are growing tired of Philadelphia."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes and no. I love the many things to do and
+see there, but on a day like this I think the country is
+the place to really enjoy the spring. I wish you could
+come down some time to the city; there are many
+places of interest you would like to visit."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." He opened his lips to tell her that he was
+soon to be in the service of his country, then he remembered
+that she had said she did not want to hear
+the word war on that day, it must be a day of all joy,
+so he closed his mouth resolutely and merely smiled in
+answer as she entered the carriage for the ride home.
+They spoke of many things; she was gay with the
+childish happiness she always felt in the woods or open
+country roads. He answered her gaiety, but his heart
+ached. What did the future hold for him? Would
+she, perchance, love another before he could return&mdash;would
+he return?</p>
+
+<p>"Look," Ph&#339;be said after they had driven several
+miles, "it is going to storm&mdash;see how dark! We are
+going to have an April storm."</p>
+
+<p>Even as they looked up black clouds moved swiftly
+across the sky. They turned and looked toward the
+mountains behind them&mdash;the summits were shrouded
+in dense blackness; the whole countryside was being
+enveloped in a gloom like the gloom of late twilight.
+There was an ominous silence in the air, living things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278"></a><a href="images/278.png">[278]</a></span>
+of the fields and woods scurried to shelter; only a solitary
+red-headed woodpecker tapped noisily upon a
+dead tree trunk.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly sharp flashes of lightning darted in zigzag
+rays through the gloom.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be gripped the side of the carriage. "The
+storm is following us," she said. "Look at the hills&mdash;they
+are black as night. Can we get home before the
+storm breaks over us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly. It travels faster than we can, and we
+still have four more miles to go."</p>
+
+<p>The horse sniffed the air through inflated nostrils
+and sped unbidden over the country road. The lightning
+grew more vivid and blinding and darted among
+the hills with greater frequency; loud peals of thunder
+echoed and re&euml;choed among the mountains. Then the
+rain came. In great splashes, which increased rapidly,
+it poured its cool torrents upon the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be laughed but David shook his head. "We'll
+have to stop some place till it's over. You're getting
+wet. I'll drive in this barnyard."</p>
+
+<p>Amid the deafening crashes of thunder and the
+steady downpour of rain they ran through the barnyard
+and up the path that led to the house. As they
+stepped upon the porch a door was opened and a
+woman appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, come right in!" she greeted them. "This
+is a bad storm."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind," Ph&#339;be began, but the woman
+was talkative and broke in, "Now, I just knowed
+there'd be company come to-day yet! This after when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"></a><a href="images/279.png">[279]</a></span>
+I dried the dishes I dropped a knife and fork and
+that's a sure sign. Mebbe you don't believe in
+signs?"</p>
+
+<p>"They come true sometimes," said Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, yes, my granny used to plant her garden by
+the signs in the almanac. Cabbage, now, must be
+planted in the up-sign. But mebbe you're hungry
+after your drive? I'll get some cake."</p>
+
+<p>"We had lunch&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, if your man's like mine he can eat cake any
+time." She opened a door that led to the cellar and
+soon returned with a plate piled high with cake.
+"Now eat," she invited. "But, ach, I just thought
+of it&mdash;you said you come from Greenwald&mdash;then I
+guess you know about Caleb Warner dying, killing
+himself, or something."</p>
+
+<p>"Caleb Warner dying!" David echoed. He half
+started from his chair, then sank with a visible effort at
+self-control.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I guess you know him. My mister was in
+to dinner a while ago and he said it went over the
+'phone at Risser's and Jacob Risser told him that Caleb
+Warner of Greenwald was dead. It was from gas or
+something funny like that. It's the Warner that sold
+that oil stock and gold stock. You know him?"</p>
+
+<p>David nodded, his lips dry.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I guess now a lot of people will lose money.
+There's a lady lives near here that gave him almost all
+her money for some of his stock. For a while she got
+big interest from it, but then it stopped and now she
+ain't got hardly enough money to live. And I guess a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></a><a href="images/280.png">[280]</a></span>
+lot will lose money. My mister had no time for that
+stock. But if the man's dead now we should let him
+rest, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;&mdash;" David braced himself. "The rain is
+over. Ph&#339;be, we must go."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled to the little woman as he gripped her
+hand. "You have been very kind to us and we appreciate
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," echoed Ph&#339;be. "I hope we have
+not kept you from your work."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, I can work enough to-day yet. I like company
+and I don't have much of it week-days. Um,
+ain't it good smelly after the rain?" She sniffed,
+smiling, as she followed Ph&#339;be and David down the
+path to the barnyard.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," she called as they drove off. "Safe
+home."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. Good-bye," Ph&#339;be called over the
+side of the carriage. Then, as they entered again
+upon the country road, she turned to her place beside
+David.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at him. All the light and joy had
+faded from his face; he stared straight head, though
+he must have felt her eyes' intent gaze upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"David," she said softly, "what is wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," he lied.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems you look different," she persisted. "Is it
+anything about Caleb Warner's death?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not much of a stoic, Ph&#339;be. I should have
+hidden my worry. But you must forget it; we must
+not let it spoil our perfect day. It really is no great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281"></a><a href="images/281.png">[281]</a></span>
+matter. I am affected, in some way you can't know,
+by his death, but I'll get over it," he tried to treat the
+matter lightly.</p>
+
+<p>But Ph&#339;be felt a sudden heaviness of heart. She
+was almost certain that David had had no money to
+buy any stock from Caleb Warner, therefore, she
+jumped to the conclusion, it must be that David cared
+for Mary Warner, as town gossip said he did, and that
+the death of the girl's father would affect him. She
+felt hurt and baffled and sorely rebuffed at the withholding
+of David's confidence and was worried as she
+saw the marks of worry in the face of the man.
+Womanlike, she felt certain that the other girl was
+not good enough for David. Mary Warner, beautiful,
+aristocratic in bearing and manner&mdash;what had she
+to do with a man like David Eby! Was an incipient
+engagement with Mary Warner the Aladdin's lamp
+David had mentioned several times as being on the
+verge of rubbing and thus become rich? The thought
+left her trembling; she shivered in the April sunshine.
+When David spoke it was with an abstracted manner,
+and the girl beside him finally said, "Oh, don't let us
+talk. Let us just sit and look at the fields and enjoy
+the scenery."</p>
+
+<p>She said it calmly enough, but the man beside her
+could not know that it required the last shreds of her
+courage to keep her voice from breaking. She would
+not let David see that she cared if he did care for Mary
+Warner! Of course, she didn't want to marry him, it
+was merely that she knew Mary was too haughty for
+him. Mother Bab would also say that he was too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282"></a><a href="images/282.png">[282]</a></span>
+different from Mary, that he was too fine for her.
+Then she remembered that Mother Bab had said on the
+previous evening that the Warners had taken David
+to Hershey recently in their fine new car. She shook
+herself in an effort at self-control. "Ph&#339;be," she
+thought, "you're selfish! You go to Philadelphia and
+you go out with Royal Lee and dance with other young
+men, and yet, when David pays attention to another
+girl you have a spasm!"</p>
+
+<p>But the self-administered discipline failed to correct
+her attitude. She knew their day of all-joy was
+changed for her as it had been changed for David.
+The jealousy in her heart could not be quite overcome.
+She was glad when they reached familiar fields and
+were on the road near Greenwald.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come in?" she invited as she left the
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I better go right home."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll divide the flowers, David."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, keep them all."</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed. Mother Bab would be disappointed
+if you brought her none."</p>
+
+<p>She opened the box, separated half of the arbutus
+from their mates and laid them in the uplifted corner
+of her coat. "There," she said, "the rest are yours
+and Mother Bab's. It was perfect in the woods to-day.
+Thank you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But he interrupted her. "It is I who must say that,
+Ph&#339;be! This has been a great day. I'll never forget
+the glorious hour when we were on our knees and
+pushed away the leaves and found the arbutus. That<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></a><a href="images/283.png">[283]</a></span>
+is something to take with one, to remember when the
+days are not perfect as this one."</p>
+
+<p>He laid his fingers a moment on her hand as she
+held the corner of her coat to keep the flowers from
+falling, then he turned and jumped into the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Give my love to Mother Bab," she said.</p>
+
+<p>He turned, smiled and nodded, then started off.
+Ph&#339;be stood at the gate and watched the carriage as
+it went slowly up the steep road by the hill. Her
+thoughts were with the man who was going home to
+his mother, going with trailing arbutus in his hands
+and some great unhappiness in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it always so?" she thought. "We carry fragrance
+in our hands, but what in our hearts?" For
+the time she was once more the old sympathetic, natural
+Ph&#339;be, eager to help her friend in need, feeling
+the divine longing to comfort one who was miserable.
+"Oh, Davie, Davie," she thought as she went into the
+house, "I wish I could help you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284"></a><a href="images/284.png">[284]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>MOTHER BAB AND HER SON</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> David drove over the brow of the hill and
+down the green lane to the little house he called home
+he caught sight of his mother in her garden. He
+whistled. At the sound Mother Bab rose from the
+soft earth in which she was working and straightened,
+smiling. She raised a hand to shade her eyes and
+waited for the coming of her boy, dreaming of a possible
+separation from him, dreaming long mother-dreams
+while he took the horse and carriage to the
+barn.</p>
+
+<p>When he returned he had mustered all his courage
+and was smiling&mdash;he would be a stoic as long as he
+could, but he knew that his mother would soon discover
+that all was not well with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, mother." He gave her the box of arbutus.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you got some, Davie!" She buried her face
+in the cool, sweet blossoms. "Oh, how sweet they
+are! Did you and Ph&#339;be have a good time? Did
+she enjoy it as much as she always used to enjoy a day
+in the woods?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked up suddenly from the flowers and caught
+him unawares. "What is wrong?" she asked with
+real concern. "Did you and Ph&#339;be fall out?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285"></a><a href="images/285.png">[285]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No," he shook his head. He knew that attempts
+at subterfuge and evasion would be vain. "No, mommie,
+no use trying to deceive you any longer&mdash;I fell
+out with myself&mdash;I wish I could keep it from you," he
+added slowly; "I know it's going to hurt you."</p>
+
+<p>"You tell me, Davie. I've lived sixty years and
+never yet met a trouble I couldn't live through. Tell
+me about it."</p>
+
+<p>She placed the box of arbutus in the garden path and
+laid her hand on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mommie," he blurted out, almost sobbing,
+"I'm ashamed of myself! You'll be ashamed of your
+boy."</p>
+
+<p>"It's no girl&mdash;&mdash;" the mother hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>He answered with a vehement, "No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then tell me," she said softly. "I can look in
+your eyes and hear you tell me most anything so long
+as you need not tell me that you have broken the heart
+or spoiled the soul of a girl."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke gently, but the man cried out, "Thank
+God, I have nothing like that to confess! You know
+there is only one girl for me. I could never look into
+her eyes if I had betrayed the trust of any girl. I have
+dreamed of growing into a man she could love and
+marry, but I failed. I wanted to offer her more than
+slavery on a farm, I wanted to have something more
+than the few hundreds I scraped together. I took the
+five hundred dollars we skimped for and bought stock
+of Caleb Warner&mdash;you heard that he died?"</p>
+
+<p>"Phares told me."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess the five hundred dollars is gone with him!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286"></a><a href="images/286.png">[286]</a></span>
+I heard of other men getting rich by buying gold and
+oil stock so I took a chance and staked all the spare
+money I had."</p>
+
+<p>"It was your money, Davie."</p>
+
+<p>"You called it mine, but you helped to earn and save
+it. Caleb promised me he would sell half of the stock
+for me at a great profit in a week or two, and I could
+keep the other half for the big dividends it would pay
+me soon&mdash;now he's dead, and the stock is probably
+worthless."</p>
+
+<p>He looked miserably at her troubled face. She
+flung her arm about him and led him to a seat under
+the budded cherry tree. "We must sit down and talk
+it over," she said. "Perhaps it isn't so bad as you
+think. Are you sure the stock is worth nothing?
+Perhaps you can get something out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I can." He brightened at the suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she went on, "I can't say that I think you
+did right to buy the stock and try to get rich quick.
+You know that money gotten that way is tainted
+money, more or less. To earn what you have and
+have a little is better and safer than to have much and
+get it in such a way. But it's too late to preach about
+that now&mdash;I guess I didn't tell you that often enough
+and hard enough before this, or else you wouldn't have
+wanted to buy the stock. It is partly my fault, for I
+thought some time ago you talked as though you were
+getting the money craze, but I thought it would soon
+wear off. You did a foolish thing, but there's no use
+crying about it. You see you did wrong and are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287"></a><a href="images/287.png">[287]</a></span>
+sorry, so that is all there is to it. I'm not sorry you
+lost on the stock, for if you made on it the craze would
+go deeper. I can live without the few extra things
+that money would buy."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be so forgiving, mother! Scold me! I'd
+feel less like a criminal. But here comes Phares; he'll
+give me the scolding you're saving me."</p>
+
+<p>The preacher crossed the lawn and advanced to the
+seat under the cherry tree.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Barbara," he began, then noted the troubled
+look on the face of David and asked, "What is
+wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," said David, "except that I have some
+of Caleb Warner's stock."</p>
+
+<p>"You do? Whatever made you buy that?"</p>
+
+<p>David spoke as calmly as possible. "I wanted to
+be rich, that's all. But I guess I was never intended
+to be that."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you are going to be sorry," said the
+preacher very soberly. "I just came from town and
+they say things look bad for the investors. They said
+first that Warner was asphyxiated accidentally, but he
+was so deep in a hole with investing and re-investing
+other people's money and his own and he had lost so
+much that people think this was the easiest way out of
+it all for him. I suppose it will be hushed up and no
+one will ever know just how he died. There are at
+least twenty people in town and farms near here who
+are worried about their money since he died. Did you
+have much stock?"</p>
+
+<p>"Five hundred dollars' worth."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></a><a href="images/288.png">[288]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If people were as eager to lay up treasures in
+heaven&mdash;&mdash;" the preacher said thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"If they were," said David, struggling to keep the
+wrath from his words and voice. "I know, Phares,
+you can't understand why everybody should not be as
+good as you. I wish I were&mdash;mother should have had
+a son like you. I'm the black sheep of the Eby family,
+I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" cried Mother Bab. "We all make mistakes!
+You are good and noble, David. I am proud
+of you, even if you do err sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"We must make the best of it," said the preacher.
+"Perhaps the stock is not quite worthless. If I were
+you I'd go to the lawyer in Lancaster. He'll see you
+at his house if you 'phone in."</p>
+
+<p>"Mighty good to think of that for me," said David,
+gripping the hand of his cousin. "I'll go in to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Several hours later David Eby sat before a lawyer
+and waited for the verdict. "I'm sorry," the lawyer
+shook his head. "The stock is worthless. Six months
+ago you might have sold it; now it's dead as a door-nail."</p>
+
+<p>"Guess it was a wildcat scheme," said David.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later he went out to the street. His
+Aladdin's lamp was smashed! What a fool he had
+been!</p>
+
+<p>When he reached home Mother Bab read the news
+in his face. "Never mind," she said bravely, "we'll
+get along without that money."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;but"&mdash;David spoke slowly, as if fearing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289"></a><a href="images/289.png">[289]</a></span>
+hurt her further&mdash;"I hoped to have a nice bank account
+for you to draw on when&mdash;when I go."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean&mdash;&mdash;" Mother Bab stopped suddenly.
+Something choked her, but she faced him squarely and
+looked up into his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mother, I mean that I must go. You want
+me to go, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." The word came slowly, but David knew
+how truly she felt it. "You must go. I knew it right
+away when I saw that we were called of God to help
+in the fight for world peace and righteousness. You
+must go; there is nothing to keep you. Phares will
+look after the little farm. I spoke to him about it last
+week&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, you knew then!"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw it in your face as soon as war was declared.
+Phares was lovely about it and said he could just as
+well take your few acres in with his and pay a percentage
+to me for the crops he'll get from them. Phares
+is kind; he has a big heart, for all his queer ways and
+his strict views."</p>
+
+<p>"Phares is too good to be related to me, mommie.
+I'm ashamed of myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, you two are just different, that's all. I can
+go over and stay at their house. Did you tell Ph&#339;be
+you are going?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. "I couldn't tell her yesterday.
+We had such a great day in the woods finding the arbutus,
+eating our lunch on a rock and acting just like we
+used to when we were ten years younger. She never
+mentioned war and I could not seem to break into that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290"></a><a href="images/290.png">[290]</a></span>
+day of gladness to speak about the subject. I meant
+to tell her all about it when we got home, but then that
+storm came up and we stopped at a farmhouse and I
+heard about Caleb Warner. It struck me so hard I
+was just no good after that. I'll be a dandy soldier,
+won't I?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed and took the little woman in his arms.
+When, some moments later, he held the white-capped
+mother at arms' length and smiled into her face neither
+knew if the wet lashes were caused by laughter or
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Some soldier you'll make," she said as she looked
+at him, tall, broad of shoulder, straight of spine.
+"Some soldier or sailor you'll make!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291"></a><a href="images/291.png">[291]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>PREPARATIONS</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> days following the death of Caleb Warner
+were days of anxiety to other inhabitants of the little
+town who, like David, had purchased stock with glorious
+visions of sudden gain. In a short time the list
+of Warner's unfortunate investors was known and
+they were accorded various degrees of sympathy, rebuke
+or ridicule. The thing that hurt David was not
+so much the knowledge that some were speaking of
+him in condemnation or pity as the fact that he merited
+the condemnation.</p>
+
+<p>But he had neither time nor inclination for self-pity.
+His country was calling for his services and he knew
+his duty was to offer himself. He could not conscientiously
+say his mother had urgent need of him for he
+knew that the little farm would supply enough for her
+maintenance.</p>
+
+<p>Phares Eby, although a preacher among a sect who,
+as a sect, could not sanction the bearing of arms, accepted
+the decision of his cousin with no show of disapproval.
+"I don't believe in wars," he said gravely,
+"but there seems to be no other way this time. One
+of the Eby family should go. I'll be glad to keep up
+your farm and help look after your mother while you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292"></a><a href="images/292.png">[292]</a></span>
+are gone. The most I can do here will be less than you
+are going to do, but I'll raise the best crops I can and
+help in the food end of it."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll do your part here, Phares, and it will count.
+You're a bona-fide farmer. You'll have our little
+place a record farm when I get back. You're a brick,
+Phares!" For the first time in months he felt a genuine
+affection for his preacher cousin. Preaching, prosaic
+Phares, how kind he was!</p>
+
+<p>Lancaster County measured up to its fair standard
+in those first trying days of recruit gathering. The
+sons of the nation answered when she called. Pennsylvania
+Dutch, hundreds of them, rallied round the
+flag and proved beyond a doubt that the real Pennsylvania
+Dutch are not German-American, but loyal,
+four-square Americans who are keeping the faith.
+Two hundred years ago the ancestors of the present
+Pennsylvania Dutch came to this country to escape
+tyranny, and the love of freedom has been transmitted
+from one generation to another. The plain sects, so
+flourishing in some portions of the Keystone State,
+consider war an evil, yet scores of men in navy blue
+and army khaki have come from homes where the
+mother wears the white cap, and have gone forth to
+do their part in the struggle for world freedom.</p>
+
+<p>As David Eby measured the days before his departure
+he felt grateful to Mother Bab for refraining
+from long homilies of advice. Her whole life was a
+living epistle of truth and nobility and she was wise
+enough to discern that what her son wanted most in
+their last days together was her customary cheerful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293"></a><a href="images/293.png">[293]</a></span>ness&mdash;although
+he knew that at times the cheerfulness
+was a bit bluffed!</p>
+
+<p>News travels fast, even in rural communities. The
+people on the Metz farm soon learned of David's loss
+of money and of his desire to enter the navy.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you tell me about the stock?" Ph&#339;be
+chided him.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't. It knocked me out&mdash;it changed some
+of my plans. I knew you'd despise me and I couldn't
+stand that too that day."</p>
+
+<p>"Despise you! How foolish to think that. Of
+course it's better to earn your money, but I think you
+learned your lesson."</p>
+
+<p>"I have. I'll never try to get rich quick."</p>
+
+<p>"And you're going to war!" The words were
+almost a cry. "What does Mother Bab say? How
+dreadful for her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dreadful?" he asked gently. "Ph&#339;be, think a
+minute&mdash;would you rather be the mother of a soldier
+or sailor than the mother of a slacker?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would," she cried. "A thousand times rather!"
+She clutched his sleeve in her old impetuous manner.
+"I see now what it means, what war must mean to us!
+We must serve and be glad to do it. Your going is
+making it real for me. I'm proud of you and I know
+Mother Bab must be just about bursting with pride, for
+she always did think you are the grandest son in the
+wide world."</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be, you always stroke me with the grain."</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds as if you were a wooden pussy-cat,"
+she said merrily. "But you are just being funny to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></a><a href="images/294.png">[294]</a></span>
+hide your deeper feelings. I know you, David Eby!
+Bet your heart's like lead this minute!"</p>
+
+<p>"'I have no heart,'" he quoted. "'The place
+where my heart was you could roll a turnip in.'"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, then suddenly grew sober. "I've been
+horribly selfish," she said. "Having fine clothes and
+a good time and dreaming of fame through my voice
+have taken all my time during the past winter. I have
+taken only the husks of life and discarded the kernels.
+I'm ashamed of myself."</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't condemn yourself too much. It's
+natural to pass through a period when those things
+seem the greatest things in the world, but if we do not
+shake off their influence and see the need of having
+real things to lay hold on we need to be jolted. I was
+money-mad, but I had my jolt."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we can both make a fresh beginning. And
+we'll try hard to be worthy of Mother Bab, won't we,
+David?"</p>
+
+<p>David was mute; he could merely nod his head in
+answer. Worthy of Mother Bab&mdash;what a goal! How
+sweet the name sounded from Ph&#339;be's lips! Should
+he tell her of his love for her? He looked into her
+face. Her eyes were like clear blue pools but they
+mirrored only sisterly affection, he thought. Ah, well,
+he would be unselfish enough to go away without telling
+of the hope of his heart. If he came back there
+would be ample time to tell her; it was needless to bind
+her to a long-absent lover. If he came back crippled&mdash;if
+he never came back at all&mdash;&mdash; Oh, why delve
+into the future!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295"></a><a href="images/295.png">[295]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FEAST OF ROSES</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the little town of Greenwald there is performed
+each year in June an interesting ceremony, the Feast
+of Roses.</p>
+
+<p>The origin of it dates back to the early colonial days
+when wigwam fires blazed in many clearings of this
+great land and Indians, fashioned after the similitude
+of bronze images, stole among the stalwart trees of the
+primeval forests. In those days, about the year 1762,
+a tract of land containing the present site of the little
+town of Greenwald fell into the hands of a German,
+who was so charmed by the fertility and beauty of the
+fields encircled by the winding Chicques Creek that he
+laid out a town and proceeded to build. The erection
+of those early houses entailed much labor. Bricks
+were imported from England and hauled from Philadelphia
+to the new town, a distance of almost one hundred
+miles.</p>
+
+<p>Some time later the founder built a glass factory in
+the new town, reputed to have been the first of its kind
+in America. Skilled workmen were imported to carry
+on the work, and marvelously skilful they must have
+been, as is proven by the articles of that glass still extant.
+It is delicately colored, daintily shaped, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296"></a><a href="images/296.png">[296]</a></span>
+touched with metal it emits a bell-like ring, and altogether
+merits the praise accorded it by every connoisseur
+of rare and beautiful glass.</p>
+
+<p>Tradition claims that the founder of that town was
+of noble birth, but his right to a title is not an indisputable
+fact. It is known, however, that he lived in
+baronial style in his new town. His red brick mansion
+was a treasure house of tapestries, tiles and other
+beautiful furnishings.</p>
+
+<p>However, whether he was a baron or an untitled
+man, he merits a share of admiration. He was
+founder of a glass factory, builder of a town, founder
+of iron works, religious and secular instructor of his
+employees and citizens, and earnest philanthropist.</p>
+
+<p>The last r&ocirc;le resulted in his financial embarrassment.
+There is an ominous silence in the story of his life,
+then comes the information that the man who had done
+so much for others was left at last to languish in a
+debtors' jail, die unbefriended and be buried in an
+unknown grave.</p>
+
+<p>In the days of his prosperity he gave to the congregation
+of the Lutheran Church in his town a choice
+plot of ground, the consideration being the sum of five
+shillings and an annual rental of one red rose in June.</p>
+
+<p>Years passed, the man died, and either through forgetfulness
+or negligence the annual rental of one red
+rose was unpaid for many years. Then, one day a
+layman of the church found the old deed and the
+people prepared to pay the long-neglected debt once
+more. Since that renewal there is set apart each June
+a Sabbath day upon which the rose is paid to the near<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297"></a><a href="images/297.png">[297]</a></span>est
+descendant of the founder of the town. They give
+but one red rose, but all around are roses, roses, and it
+seems most fitting to call the unique occurrence the
+Feast of Roses.</p>
+
+<p>If ever the little town puts on royal garb it is on the
+Feast of Roses Sabbath. For days before the ceremony
+the homes of Greenwald are beehives of industry.
+That day each train and trolley, every country
+road, is crowded with strangers or old acquaintances
+coming into the town. A heterogeneous crowd swarms
+through the street. The curious visitor who comes to
+see, the dreamer who is attracted by the romance of
+the rose, the careless youth who rubs his sleeve against
+some portly judge or senator; the tawdry, the refined,
+the rich, the poor&mdash;all meet in the crowd that moves to
+the red brick church in which the Feast of Roses is
+held.</p>
+
+<p>The old church of that early day has been removed
+and in its place a modern one has been erected, but by
+some happy inspiration of the builders the new church
+is devoid of the garish ornamentation that is too often
+found in churches. Harmonious coloring, artistic
+beauty, make it a fitting place for a Feast of Roses.</p>
+
+<p>When Ph&#339;be Metz entered the church to keep her
+promise to sing at the service she found an eager crowd
+waiting for the opening. Every available space was
+occupied; people stood in the rear aisles, others waited
+in the churchyard by the open windows and hoped to
+catch there some stray parts of the service.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be pushed her way gently through the crowd at
+the door and stood in the aisle until an usher saw her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></a><a href="images/298.png">[298]</a></span>
+and directed her to a seat near the organ. The pink
+in her cheeks grew deeper. "I'll sing my best for
+Greenwald and the Feast of Roses," she thought.
+"And for David! He's in the crowd. He said he's
+coming to hear me sing."</p>
+
+<p>At the appointed hour the pipe-organ pealed out.
+The June sunlight streamed through the open windows,
+fell upon the banks of roses, and gleamed upon
+the fountain that played in the midst of the crimson
+flowers. Peace brooded over the place as the last
+strains of music died. There was silence for a moment,
+then a prayer, a hymn of adoration, and then the
+chosen speaker stood before the crowd and delivered
+his message.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be listened to him until he uttered the words,
+"True life must be service, true love must be giving.
+No man has reached true greatness save he serves, and
+he who serves most faithfully is greatest in the kingdom."</p>
+
+<p>After those words she fell to thinking. Many things
+that had been dark to her suddenly became light. She
+seemed to see Royal Lee fiddling while the world was
+in travail, but beside him rose a vision of David in
+sailor's blue, ready to do his whole duty for his
+country.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she thought, "I've been blind, but now I see!
+It's David I want. He's a man!"</p>
+
+<p>She heard as in a dream the words of the one who
+presented the red rose to the heir. "Once more the
+time has come to pay our debt of one red rose. It is
+with cheerfulness and reverence we pay our rental.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299"></a><a href="images/299.png">[299]</a></span>
+Amid these bright surroundings, in the presence of the
+many who have come to witness this unique ceremony,
+do we give to you in partial payment of the debt we
+owe&mdash;<span class="smcap">one red rose</span>."</p>
+
+<p>The heir received the flower and expressed her appreciation.
+Then silence settled upon the place and
+Ph&#339;be rose to sing.</p>
+
+<p>As the organ sent forth the opening strains of music
+the people in the church looked at each other, surprised,
+disappointed. Why, that was the old tune, "Jesus,
+Lover of my soul." The tune they had heard sung
+hundreds of times&mdash;was Ph&#339;be going to sing that?
+With so many impressive selections to choose from no
+soloist need sing that old hymn! Some of the town
+people thought disdainfully, "Was that all she could
+sing after a whole winter's study in Philadelphia!"</p>
+
+<p>But Ph&#339;be sang the old words to the old tune. She
+sang them with a new power and sweetness. It
+touched the listeners in that rose-scented church and
+revealed to them the meaning of the old hymn. The
+dependence upon a divine guide, the utter impotence of
+mortal strength, breathed so persuasively in the second
+verse that many who heard Ph&#339;be sing it mentally repeated
+the words with her.</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Other refuge have I none,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Hangs my helpless soul on Thee:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Leave, ah! leave me not alone,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Still support and comfort me;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">All my trust on Thee is stayed;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">All my help from Thee I bring;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cover my defenceless head</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">With the shadow of Thy wing."</span><br />
+</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></a><a href="images/300.png">[300]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then the hymn changed&mdash;hope displaced hopelessness,
+faith surmounted fear.</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Plenteous grace with Thee is found,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Grace to cleanse from every sin;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Let the healing streams abound,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Make and keep me pure within;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Thou of life the fountain art,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Freely let me take of Thee:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Spring Thou up within my heart,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Rise to all eternity."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The people in that rose-scented church heard the old
+hymn sung as they had never heard it sung before. A
+subdued hum of approval swept over the church as the
+girl sat down. She felt that she had sung well; her
+heart was in a tumult of happiness. She was glad
+when one man rose and lifted his hands in benediction.</p>
+
+<p>Again the organ throbbed with glad melodies. The
+eager crowd fell into line and walked slowly to the
+altar to lay their roses there. Children with half withered
+blossoms, maidens with bunches of crimson
+flowers, here and there a stranger with gorgeous hot-house
+roses, older men and women with the products
+of the gardens of the little town&mdash;all moved to the spot
+where lay a bank of fragrant roses and placed their
+tributes there.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be added her roses to the others on the altar and
+left the church. Friends and acquaintances stopped to
+tell her how well she sang. But the words that one
+short year ago would have filled her with overwhelming
+pride in her own talent were soon crowded from
+her thoughts and there reigned there the words of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301"></a><a href="images/301.png">[301]</a></span>
+speaker, "No man has reached true greatness save he
+serves." She had learned great things at that Feast
+of Roses service. She had looked deep into her own
+heart and on its throne she had found David.</p>
+
+<p>He was waiting for her outside the church.</p>
+
+<p>"You sang fine, Ph&#339;be," he told her as they went
+down the street together.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes? I'm glad you liked it."</p>
+
+<p>Then they spoke of other things, of many things,
+but not one word of the thoughts lying deepest in the
+heart of each.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Maria and Jacob were eating supper in the big
+kitchen when Ph&#339;be reached home.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," greeted the aunt, "did you come once!
+We thought that Feast of Roses would been out long
+ago. But when you didn't come for so long and supper
+was made we sat down a while. Did you sing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the girl said as she removed her hat and
+gloves and drew a chair to the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," cautioned the aunt, "put your apron on!
+That light goods in your dress is nothin' for wear;
+everything shows on it so. And if you spill red-beet
+juice or something on it it'll be spoiled."</p>
+
+<p>"I forgot." Ph&#339;be took a blue gingham apron
+from a hook behind the kitchen door. "There, if I
+spoil it now you may have it for a rug."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I guess that would be housekeepin'! And
+everything so high since the war!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me about the Feast of Roses," said the father.
+"Was the church full?"</p>
+
+<p>"Packed! It was a beautiful service."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302"></a><a href="images/302.png">[302]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," spoke up Aunt Maria, "I'm glad it's over
+and so are many people. Of course that Feast of
+Roses don't do no harm, but I think it's so dumb to
+have all this fuss just to give somebody a rose. If
+that man wanted to give the church some land why
+didn't he give it and done with it? It's no use to have
+this pokin' around every year to find the best red rose
+to give to some man or lady that's related to him. The
+rose withers right away, anyhow. And this Feast of
+Roses makes some people a lot of bother. I heard one
+woman say in the store that she has to get ready for a
+lot of company still for every person she knows, most,
+comes to visit her that Sunday and she's got to cook
+and wash dishes all day. I guess she's glad it's over
+for another year."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303"></a><a href="images/303.png">[303]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>BLINDNESS</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">David Eby</span> had spent the day at Lancaster and returned
+to Greenwald at seven-thirty. He started with
+springing step out the country road in the soft June
+twilight. It was a twilight pervaded by blended perfumes
+and the sleepy chirp of birds. David drew in
+deep breaths of the fresh country air.</p>
+
+<p>"Lancaster County," he said aloud to himself, "and
+it's good enough for me!"</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely slackening his pace he started up the long
+road by the hill. He paused a moment on the summit
+and looked back at the town of Greenwald, then almost
+ran down the road to his home.</p>
+
+<p>He whistled his old greeting whistle.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, David, I'm on the porch," came his mother's
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Mommie," he cried gaily as he took her into his
+arms, "I knew you'd be looking for me."</p>
+
+<p>Then for the first time since his father's death he
+heard his mother sob. "Oh, mother," he asked, "is
+my going away as hard as all that? Or are you only
+glad to see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Glad," she replied, restraining her emotion. "Sit
+down on the bench, Davie."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304"></a><a href="images/304.png">[304]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;I didn't notice it first&mdash;you're wearing dark
+glasses again! Are your eyes worse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, Davie, sit down," she said nervously.
+"That's right," she added as he sat beside her and put
+one arm about her.</p>
+
+<p>"Now tell me," he said imperiously. "Are you
+sure you're all right? You're not worrying about
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not worrying about you; I quit worrying
+long ago. But I must tell you&mdash;I wish I didn't have
+to&mdash;don't be scared&mdash;it's just about my eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me! Are they worse?"</p>
+
+<p>She laid her hand on his knees. "Don't get excited&mdash;but&mdash;I
+can't see."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't see!" He repeated the words as though he
+could not understand them. Then he put his hands on
+her cheeks and peered into her face in the semi-darkness
+of the porch. "Not blind? Oh, mommie,
+not blind?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, her lips trembling. "Yes, it's come.
+I'm blind."</p>
+
+<p>The words, fraught with so much sorrow, sounded
+like claps of thunder in his ears. "Mother," he cried
+again, "you can't be blind!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I am. I knew it was coming. The light was
+getting dimmer every day. I could hardly see your
+face this morning when you went."</p>
+
+<p>"And I went away and you stayed here and went
+blind!" He broke into sobs and she allowed him to
+cry it out as they sat together in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," she said at length, "now you mustn't take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305"></a><a href="images/305.png">[305]</a></span>
+on so. It's not as awful as you think. I said to
+Phares to-day that I'm almost glad it's here, for it was
+awful to know it's coming."</p>
+
+<p>"But it's awful," he shuddered. "Come in to the
+light and let me see you&mdash;but oh, you can't see
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes I can." She reached a hand to his face.
+"This is the way I see you now. The same mouth
+and chin, the same mole on your left cheek&mdash;that's
+good luck, Davie&mdash;the same nose with its little turn-up."</p>
+
+<p>"Mommie"&mdash;he grabbed her hands and kissed them&mdash;"there's
+not another like you in the whole world!
+If I were blind I'd be groaning and moaning and making
+life miserable for everybody near me, and here you
+are your same cheerful self. You're the bravest of
+'em all!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you mustn't think that I haven't rebelled
+against this, that I haven't cried out against it! I've
+had my hours of weakness and tears and rebellion."</p>
+
+<p>"And I never knew it."</p>
+
+<p>"No. Each one goes to Gethsemane alone."</p>
+
+<p>"But isn't it almost more than you can bear&mdash;to be
+blind?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's dreadful at first. I stumble so and every little
+sill and rug seems a foot high. But I'll soon learn."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there nothing to do? What did Dr. Munster
+say about your eyes when we were down to see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He told me then I'd be blind soon. And he said
+the only thing might save my sight or bring it back
+was a delicate operation that would be a big risk, for it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306"></a><a href="images/306.png">[306]</a></span>
+probably wouldn't help at any rate. So I'm not thinking
+of ever trying that. Now I don't want you to
+think I'm brave about it. I've cried all my tears a
+month ago, so don't put me on any pedestal. It seems
+hard not to see the people I love and all the beautiful
+things around me, but I'm glad I have the memory of
+them. I'm glad I know what a rainbow is, and a sunset."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I think it's awful to know what they look
+like and never see them again. I can't, just can't,
+realize that you're blind!"</p>
+
+<p>"You will when you come back from war and have
+to fetch and carry for me. Your Aunt Mary and
+Phares are just lovely about it and willing to help in
+every way. I was going to live over with them at any
+rate."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could stay with you, mommie. You need
+me, but I guess Uncle Sam needs me too. I'm to go
+soon, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"You go, even if I am blind. I'm not helpless. It
+will be awkward for a while but there are many things
+I can do. I can knit without seeing."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a wonder! But is there no hope?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hope," she repeated softly. "No hope of the
+kind you mean, except that very severe operation that
+would cost big money and then perhaps not help. But
+this world isn't all. I've always liked that part of
+Isaiah, 'The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and
+the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall
+the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the
+dumb sing.' I know now what it'll mean to us. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307"></a><a href="images/307.png">[307]</a></span>
+seems like the afflicted will have a special joy in that
+time."</p>
+
+<p>David was silent for a moment; his mother's words
+stirred in him emotions too great for ready words.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she continued, "But, Davie, this isn't
+heaven yet! And I'm concerned just now about helping
+myself to live the rest of this life the best way I
+can. I can knit like a machine and I like to knit
+socks&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The remainder was left unsaid for the strong arms
+of her boy surrounded her and held her close while his
+lips were pressed upon her forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a mother," he breathed, as if the touch of
+her forehead bestowed a benediction upon him.
+"Such a mother!"</p>
+
+<p>In the morning he brought the news to the Metz
+farmhouse.</p>
+
+<p>"Blind?" Ph&#339;be cried.</p>
+
+<p>David nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Blind! Mother Bab blind? Oh, it's too awful!"</p>
+
+<p>"My goodness," Aunt Maria said with genuine sorrow,
+"now that's too bad! Her blind and you goin'
+off to war soon!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going up to see her," said Ph&#339;be, and went
+off with David.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Bab heard the girl's step and called gaily,
+"Ph&#339;be, is that you? I declare, it sounds like you!"</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be ran to the room where Mother Bab sat alone.
+The girl could not speak at first; she twined her arms
+about the woman while her heart ached with its poignant
+grief. Again it was the afflicted one who turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308"></a><a href="images/308.png">[308]</a></span>
+comforter. "Come, Ph&#339;be, you mustn't cry for me.
+Laugh like you always did when you came to see me."</p>
+
+<p>"Laugh! Oh, Mother Bab, I can't laugh!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Ph&#339;be, I'll want you to come up to see me
+every day when you can and you surely can't cry every
+time and be sad, so you might as well begin now to be
+cheerful."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mother Bab, can't something be done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Munster, the big doctor I saw in Philadelphia,
+said that only a big operation might help me, but he's
+not sure that even it would do any good. And, of
+course, we have no money for it and at my age it
+doesn't matter so much."</p>
+
+<p>Later, as Ph&#339;be walked down the hill again, she
+kept revolving in her mind what Mother Bab had said
+about the operation. An inspiration suddenly flashed
+to her. The wonder of it made her stand still in the
+road.</p>
+
+<p>"I know! I'll buy sight for Mother Bab! I will!
+I must! If it's only money that's necessary, if there's
+any wonderful doctor can operate on her eyes and
+make her see again she's going to see! Oh, glory!
+What a happy thought! I'm the happiest girl since
+that idea came to me! The money I meant to spend
+on more music lessons next winter will be put to better
+use; it will give Mother Bab a chance to see again!
+Why, I'd rather have her <i>see</i> than be able to call myself
+the greatest singer in the world! But she'll never let
+me spend so much money for her. I know that. I'll
+have to make her believe the operation will be free. I
+can fool her in that, dear, innocent, trusting Mother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309"></a><a href="images/309.png">[309]</a></span>
+Bab! She'd believe me against half the world. But
+I'm afraid I can't fool David so easily. I must wait
+till he goes, then I'll write to Dr. Munster and start
+things going!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310"></a><a href="images/310.png">[310]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+<h3>OFF TO THE NAVY</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ph&#339;be</span> was glad when David came to her with the
+news that he had been accepted for the navy and was
+going to Norfolk.</p>
+
+<p>"That's so far away he won't come home soon," she
+thought. "It'll give me a chance to arrange for the
+operation. I hope he goes soon. That's a dreadful
+thing to say! The days are all too short for Mother
+Bab, I know."</p>
+
+<p>If the days seemed Mercury-shod to the blind
+mother she did not complain.</p>
+
+<p>"It's hard to let you go," she said to her boy, "but
+it would be harder to see you a slacker. Ph&#339;be is going
+to read to me now when you go. She'll be up here
+often."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that makes it easier for me to go, mommie."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you worry about me. Ph&#339;be will be good
+company for me and she'll write my letters for me.
+We'll send you so many you'll be busy reading them."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to make her promise that," he declared
+with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>He exacted the promise as Mother Bab and Ph&#339;be
+stood with him and waited for the train to carry him
+away. "Mother, you and Ph&#339;be must take me to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311"></a><a href="images/311.png">[311]</a></span>
+train," he had said. "I want you to be the last picture
+I see as the train pulls out." Ph&#339;be had assented,
+though she thought ruefully of the deficiency of the
+English language, which has but one form for singular
+<i>you</i> and plural <i>you</i>. She wondered whether he included
+her in the picture he wanted to cherish in his
+memory. Now, when he was going away from her
+she knew that she loved her old playmate, that he was
+the one man in the world for her. She loved David,
+she would always love him! She wanted to run to
+him and tell him so, but centuries of restriction had bequeathed
+to her the universal fear of womanhood to
+reveal a love that has not been sought. She felt that
+in all her life she had never wanted anything so keenly
+as she wanted to hear David Eby tell her that he loved
+her, that her face would be with him in whatever circumstances
+the future should place him. But David
+could not read the heart of his old playmate, and while
+his own heart cried out for its mate his words were
+commonplace.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother has promised that I'm to have so many
+letters that I can't read them all. As you're to be private
+secretary, you'll have to promise to carry out her
+promise."</p>
+
+<p>"David," she met him with equal jest, "you have
+as many promises in that sentence as a candidate for
+political office."</p>
+
+<p>"But I want them better kept than that," he said,
+laughing. "Will you promise, Ph&#339;be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Promise what?" she asked, the levity fading suddenly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312"></a><a href="images/312.png">[312]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"To write often for mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I promise to write often for Mother Bab,"
+she said, and the man could not know the effort the
+simple words cost her. "Oh, Davie," she thought,
+"it's not for Mother Bab alone I want to write to you!
+I want to write you <i>my</i> letters, letters of a girl to the
+man she loves. How blind you are!"</p>
+
+<p>The moment was becoming tense. It was Mother Bab
+who turned the tide into a normal channel. "Now,
+don't you worry, Davie. I can make Ph&#339;be mind me."</p>
+
+<p>The train whistled. Ph&#339;be drew a long breath and
+prayed that the train would make a short stop and speed
+along for she could not endure much more. She
+looked at Mother Bab. The hysteria was turned from
+her. She knew she would have to be brave for the
+sake of the dear mother.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take care of Mother Bab, David," she promised
+as the train drew in, "and I'll write often."</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be, you're an angel!" He grasped both hands
+in his for a long moment. Then he turned to his
+mother, folded her in his arms and kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>"There he is," Ph&#339;be cried as the train moved.
+She was eyes for Mother Bab. "Turn to the right a
+bit and wave; that's it! He's waving back&mdash;&mdash; Oh,
+Mother Bab, he's waving that box of sand-tarts Aunt
+Maria gave him! They'll be in pieces!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sand-tarts," said the other, still waving to the boy
+she could not see. "Well, he'll eat them if they are
+broken. Davie is crazy for cookies."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to need you more than ever now,
+Ph&#339;be," Mother Bab said as they started home.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313"></a><a href="images/313.png">[313]</a></span>
+"Aunt Mary and Phares are so busy and I feel it's so
+lovely of them to have me there when I can do so little
+to help, that I don't want to make them more trouble
+than I must. So if you'll take care of the writing
+to David for me I'll be glad." Ah, blind Mother Bab,
+you had splendid vision just then!</p>
+
+<p>"I'll write for you. I'll love to do it. Mother
+Bab&mdash;&mdash;" She hesitated. Should she broach the
+subject of the operation now? Perhaps it would be
+kind to divert the thoughts of the mother from the
+recent parting. "Mother Bab, I've thought about
+what you said, and I think you should have that operation.
+The doctor said there was a chance."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, a very slim one. One chance in&mdash;I don't
+know how many!"</p>
+
+<p>"But a chance!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes"&mdash;the woman thought a moment&mdash;"but it
+would cost lots of money, I guess. I didn't ask the
+doctor, but I know operations are dear. I have fifty
+dollars saved, but that wouldn't go far."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you know," the girl said guilelessly,
+"that all big hospitals have free rooms and do lots of
+work for nothing? Many rich people endow rooms in
+hospitals. If you could get into one like that and pay
+just a little, would you go?"</p>
+
+<p>A light seemed to settle upon the face of the blind
+woman. "Why," she answered slowly, "why, Ph&#339;be,
+I never thought of that! I didn't remember&mdash;why, I
+guess I would&mdash;yes, of course! I'd go and make a
+fight for that one chance!"</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you'd be brave! You'll have that opera<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314"></a><a href="images/314.png">[314]</a></span>tion,
+Mother Bab! I'll write to Dr. Munster right
+away. But don't you let Phares write and tell David.
+We'll surprise him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, but won't he be glad if I can see when he
+comes home!"</p>
+
+<p>"Won't he though! I'll make all the arrangements;
+don't you worry about it at all."</p>
+
+<p>"My, you're good to me, Ph&#339;be!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good&mdash;after all you've done for me!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Good</i>," she thought after Mother Bab had been
+left at the home of Phares and Ph&#339;be turned homeward.
+"She calls me good the first time I deceive her.
+I've begun that tangled web and I know I'll have to tell
+a whole pack of lies before I'm through with it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315"></a><a href="images/315.png">[315]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ONE CHANCE</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ph&#339;be</span> lost no time in carrying out her plans.
+When she mentioned <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original omits this word">the</ins> operation to Phares Eby he
+looked dubious.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it's no use," he said gravely. "Those
+operations very often fail."</p>
+
+<p>"But there's a chance, Phares! If it were your
+eyes wouldn't you snatch at any meagre chance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I guess I would," he admitted, wondering
+at her insight into human nature and admiring her
+devotion to the blind woman.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Maria also was sceptical. "Ach, Ph&#339;be, it
+vonders me now that Barb'll spend all that money for
+carfare and to stay in the city and then mebbe it's all
+for nothin'. There was old Bevy Way and a lot of
+old people I knowed went blind and they died blind.
+When abody gets so old once it seems the doctors
+can't do much. I guess it just is to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Aunt Maria," Ph&#339;be said hotly, "I don't believe
+in that is-to-be business! Not until you've done
+all you can to make things better."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, mebbe, for all, it's worth tryin'. I guess if
+it was my eyes I'd do most anything to get 'em fixed
+again."</p>
+
+<p>Mother Bab said little about the hopes Ph&#339;be had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316"></a><a href="images/316.png">[316]</a></span>
+raised, but the girl knew how the woman built upon
+having sight for a glad surprise for David.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid the fifty dollars won't reach," she said
+the day before they were to take the trip to Philadelphia.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry about that. Those big doctors usually
+have hearts to match. I told you there are generous
+people who give lots of money to hospitals."</p>
+
+<p>"And I guess the hospitals pay the doctors then,"
+offered the woman.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess so," Ph&#339;be agreed. Her conscience smote
+her for the deception she was practicing on the dear
+white-capped woman. "But what's the use of straining
+at every little gnat of a falsehood," she thought,
+"when I'm swallowing camels wholesale?"</p>
+
+<p>She managed to secure a short interview with Dr.
+Munster before the examination of Mother Bab's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to ask you what the operation is going to
+cost, hospital charges and all," she said frankly.</p>
+
+<p>"At least five hundred dollars."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be's year in the city had taught her many things.
+She showed no surprise at the amount named. "That
+will be satisfactory, Dr. Munster. But I want to ask
+you, please don't tell Moth&mdash;Mrs. Eby anything about
+it. I&mdash;it's to be paid by a friend. I know Mrs. Eby
+would almost faint if she knew so much money was
+going to be spent for her. She knows that many hospitals
+have free rooms and thinks some operations are
+free. I left her under that impression. You understand?"</p>
+
+<p>The big doctor understood. "Yes, I see. Well,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317"></a><a href="images/317.png">[317]</a></span>
+we'll run this one chance to cover and make a fight.
+I wish I could promise more," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. I know you'll succeed. I'm sure
+she'll see again!"</p>
+
+<p>True to his promise Dr. Munster answered Mother
+Bab so tactfully that she came out of his office feeling
+that "the physician is the flower of our civilization,
+that cheerfulness and generosity are a part of his
+virtues."</p>
+
+<p>The optimism in Ph&#339;be's heart tinged the blind
+woman's with its cheery faith. "I figure it this way,"
+the girl said; "we'll do all we can and then if we fail
+there's time enough to be resigned and say it's God's
+will."</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be, you're a wonderful girl! Your name
+means <i>shining</i>, and that just suits you. You're doing
+so much for me. Why, you didn't even want to let me
+pay your carfare down here!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl winced again. "I must learn to wince
+without showing it," she thought, "for after she sees
+she'll keep saying such things and I can't spoil it all by
+letting her know the truth."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the optimistic words of Ph&#339;be rang in the
+ears of the big doctor as he bent over Mother Bab's
+sightless eyes and began the tedious operation. His
+hands moved skilfully, with infinite precision, cutting
+to the infinitesimal fraction of an inch.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward, when Mother Bab had been taken away,
+he sought Ph&#339;be. "I hope," he said, "that your
+faith was not unwarranted, though I can't promise
+anything yet."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318"></a><a href="images/318.png">[318]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm surer now than ever!" the girl said happily.</p>
+
+<p>But at times, in the days of waiting, her heart ached.
+What if the operation had failed, what if Mother Bab
+would have to bear cruel disappointment? All the
+natural buoyancy of the girl's nature was required to
+bear her through the trying days of waiting. With
+the dawning of the day upon which the bandage should
+be removed and the truth known Ph&#339;be's excitement
+could not be restrained.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't wait!" she exclaimed. "I want to be
+right there when he takes it off. I want you to see
+me first, since David isn't here."</p>
+
+<p>Long after that day it seemed to her that she could
+hear Mother Bab's glad, sweet voice saying, "I can see!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can see!" The words were electric in their
+effect. Ph&#339;be gave an ecstatic "Oh!" then hushed
+as her lips trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"You win," the big doctor said to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, not I! You! But I knew she'd see
+again!"</p>
+
+<p>"She sees again, but," he cautioned, "Mrs. Eby,
+there must be no reading or sewing or any close work
+to strain your eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, doctor, it's enough just to see again! I can
+do without the reading and writing, for Ph&#339;be, here,
+does all that for me. And I'll not miss the sewing.
+I'm glad I can potter around the garden again and
+plant flowers and <i>see</i> them and"&mdash;her voice broke&mdash;"I
+think it's wonderful there are men like you in the
+world!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319"></a><a href="images/319.png">[319]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>BUSY DAYS</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> news of the operation spread quickly and with
+it spread the interesting information that Mother Bab
+was keeping her sight as a surprise for David. So it
+happened that no letters to him contained the news,
+that even the town paper refrained from printing the
+item of heart interest and David's surprise was unspoiled.</p>
+
+<p>His letters to Mother Bab were long and interesting
+and always required frequent re-reading for the
+mother.</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to read that letter awful bad," she confessed
+to Ph&#339;be one day, "but I didn't. I'm not
+taking any chances with my eyes. I'm too glad to be
+able to see at all. The letter came this morning and
+Phares read it for me, but I want to hear it again.
+Will you read it, Ph&#339;be? Did David write to you this
+week yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No." The girl felt the color surging to her cheeks.
+"He doesn't write to me very often. He knows I
+read your letters."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, yes. I guess he's busy, too. It's a big
+change for him to be learning to be a sailor when he
+always had his feet on dry land. But read the letter;
+it's a nice big one."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320"></a><a href="images/320.png">[320]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be's clear laughter joined Mother Bab's at one
+paragraph: "Do you remember the blue sailor suits
+you used to make for me when I was a tiny chap?
+And once you made me a real tam and I was proud as
+a peacock in it. Well, since I'm here and wearing a
+sailor suit I feel like a masculine edition of Alice in
+Wonderland when she felt herself growing bigger and
+bigger and I wonder sometimes if I'll shrink back
+again and be just that little boy."</p>
+
+<p>Another portion of the letter set Ph&#339;be's voice
+trembling as she read, "I must tell you again, mother,
+how thankful I am that you made it so much easier for
+me to go than I dreamed it could be. You are so fine
+about it. With a mother as plucky as you I can't very
+well be a jelly-fish. It's great to have a mother one
+has to reach high to live up to."</p>
+
+<p>"Just like David," said Ph&#339;be as she laid the letter
+aside. "Of course I think war is dreadful, but the
+training is going to do wonders for many of the men."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the white-capped woman. "Out of it
+some good will come. Selfishness is going to be erased
+clean from the souls of many people by the time war
+is over."</p>
+
+<p>"But we must pay a big price for all we gain
+from it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I wonder&mdash;I guess Davie will be going over
+soon. He said, you know, that if we don't hear from
+him for a while not to worry. I guess that means he
+thinks he'll be going over."</p>
+
+<p>When, at length, news came from the other side it
+was Ph&#339;be who was the bringer of the tidings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321"></a><a href="images/321.png">[321]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mother Bab," she cried breathlessly one day
+in autumn as she ran back from the gate after a visit
+from the postman, "it's a letter from France!"</p>
+
+<p>Phares Eby and his mother ran at the news and the
+four stood, an eager group, as Ph&#339;be opened the letter.</p>
+
+<p>"Read it, Ph&#339;be! He's over safely!" Mother
+Bab's voice was eager.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I can't read it. I'm too excited. I can't get
+my breath. You read it, Phares."</p>
+
+<p>The preacher read in his slow, calm way.</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<div class='right'>
+"<i>Somewhere in France.</i><br /></div>
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">"Dear Mother</span>:<br />
+<br />
+
+<p>"You see by the heading I'm safe over here. I
+can't tell you much about the trip&mdash;no use wearing out
+the censor's pencils. The sea's wonderful, but I like
+dry land better. I'm on dry land now, in a quaint
+French village where the streets run up hill and the
+people wear strange costumes. The women wash
+their clothes by beating them on stones in the brook&mdash;how
+would the Lancaster County women like that?"</p></div>
+
+<p>It was a long, chatty letter and it warmed the heart
+of the mother and interested Ph&#339;be and the others
+who heard it.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a great David," the preacher said as he
+handed the letter to Ph&#339;be. "I suppose you'll have
+to read it over and over to Aunt Barbara."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the girl as he spoke. Her high color
+and shining eyes spoke eloquently of her interest in
+the letter. "Ah," he thought, "I believe she still <i>likes
+Davie best</i>. I'm sure she does."</p>
+
+<p>The preacher had been greatly changed by the events<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322"></a><a href="images/322.png">[322]</a></span>
+of the past year. He would always be a bit too strict
+in his views of life, a bit narrow in many things.
+Nevertheless, he was changed. He was less harsh in
+his opinions of others since he had seen and heard how
+thousands who were not of his religious faith had gone
+forth to lay down their lives that the world might be
+made a decent place in which to live. He, Phares Eby,
+preacher, had formerly denounced all that pertained to
+actors and the theatre, yet tears had coursed down his
+cheeks as he had read the account of a famous comedian
+who had given his only son for the cause of freedom
+and who was going about in the camps and in the
+trenches bringing cheer to the men. As the preacher
+read that he confessed to himself that the comedian,
+familiar as he was with footlights, was doing more
+good in the world than a dozen Phares Ebys. That
+one incident swept away some of the prejudice of the
+preacher. He knew he could never sanction the doings
+so many people indulge in but he felt at the same
+time that those same pleasures need not have a damning
+influence upon all people.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be noted the change in him. She felt like a
+discoverer of hidden treasure when she heard of the
+influence he was exerting in behalf of the Red Cross
+and Liberty Loans. But she was finding hidden treasures
+in many places those days. Strenuous, busy days
+they were but they held many revelations of soul
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Every link with Ph&#339;be's former life in Philadelphia
+was broken save the one binding her to Virginia.
+That friendship was too precious to be shattered. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323"></a><a href="images/323.png">[323]</a></span>
+country girl had written a long letter to the city girl,
+telling of the decision to give up the music lessons.
+"My dear, dear friend," she wrote frankly, "you tried
+to keep me from being hurt, but I wouldn't see. How
+I must have worried you and how foolish I was! I
+know better now. I do not regret my winter in the
+city and I do appreciate all you did for me, but I am
+happy to be back on the farm again. I'm afraid I
+tried to be an American Beauty rose when I was meant
+to be just some ordinary wild flower like the daisy or
+even the common yarrow. I owe so much to you.
+We must always be friends."</p>
+
+<p>One day in late summer Ph&#339;be fairly radiated joy
+as she hurried up the hill and ran down the road to the
+garden where Mother Bab was gathering larkspur
+seeds.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mother Bab, I've such good news about
+Granny Hogendobler and Old Aaron!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, tell me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I've been to town and stopped to see Granny.
+You know Old Aaron and their boy Nason fell out
+years ago about something the boy said about the flag
+and was too stubborn to take back."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"It was foolishness on the part of the father, of
+course, for he should have known boys say things they
+don't mean. Well, the two kept on acting all these
+years like strangers. The old man grew bitter. Last
+year when the boys went to Mexico he said that if he
+had a son instead of a blockhead he'd be sending a boy
+to do his share down there. It almost killed him to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324"></a><a href="images/324.png">[324]</a></span>
+think of his boy sitting back while others went and
+defended the flag. Well, Granny said yesterday she
+was in the yard and she heard the gate click. She
+didn't pay any attention for she knew Old Aaron was
+in the front yard under the arbor. But then she heard
+a cry and ran to see, and there was Old Aaron with his
+arms around a big fellow dressed in a soldier uniform,
+and when the man turned his head it was Nason!
+Granny said it was the greatest day in their lives and
+paid up for all the unhappy days when Old Aaron was
+cross and said mean things about Nason. Nason had
+just a day to stay, but they made a day of it. Granny
+said, 'I-to-goodness, but we had a time! Aaron wanted
+to kill a chicken, for Nason likes chicken so much, but I
+knew that Aaron was so excited he'd like as not only
+cripple the poor thing, so I said I'd kill it while they
+talked. I made stuffing with onions in, like Nason
+likes, and I had just baked a snitz pie and I tell you
+we had a good dinner. But I bet them two didn't
+know what they ate, for they were all the time talking
+about the war and bombs and Gettysburg and France
+till I didn't know what they meant.'"</p>
+
+<p>"My, I'm glad for Granny and Old Aaron," Mother
+Bab said.</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you think!" Ph&#339;be went on.
+"They are changing the name of Prussian Street, and
+some are talking of changing the name of the town,
+but I hope they won't do that."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it would be strange to have to call it something
+else after all these years."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's a grand joke," said Ph&#339;be, "that this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325"></a><a href="images/325.png">[325]</a></span>
+little town was founded by a German and yet the town
+is strong American and doing its best to down the
+Potsdam gang. The people of Lancaster County are
+loyal to Old Glory and I'm glad I belong here."</p>
+
+<p>She appreciated her goodly heritage, not with any
+Pharisaical exultation but with honest gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"I have learned many things, Mother Bab, and this
+is one of the big things I've learned lately: to be everlastingly
+thankful to Providence for setting me down
+on a farm where I could spend a childhood filled with
+communications with nature. I never before realized
+what blessings I've had all the years of my life. Why,
+I've had chickens to play with and feed, cows and
+wobbly calves to pet, birds to love and learn about,
+clear streams to wade in and float daisies on, meadows
+to play in, hills to run down while the dust went 'spif'
+under my bare feet. And I've had flowers, thousands
+of wild flowers, to find and carry home or, if too frail
+to bear carrying home, like the delicate spring beauty
+and the bluet, just to look at and admire and turn again
+to look at as I went out of the woods. My whole
+childhood has been a wonderful one but I was too blind
+to see the wonder of it. I see now! But, Mother
+Bab, I don't see, even yet, that I should wear plain
+clothes. I've been thinking about it lately. I do believe,
+though, that the plain way is a good way.
+Many people enjoy the simple service of the meeting-house
+more than they would enjoy a more complex
+form of worship. I feel so restful and peaceful when
+I'm in a meeting-house, so near to the real things, the
+things that count."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326"></a><a href="images/326.png">[326]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mother Bab answered only a mild "Yes," but her
+heart sang as she thought, "I believe she'll be plain
+some day, she and David. Perhaps they'll come together.
+But I'll not worry about them; I know their
+hearts are right."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327"></a><a href="images/327.png">[327]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXV</h2>
+
+<h3>DAVID'S SHARE</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Another</span> June came with its roses and perfume,
+but there was no Feast of Roses in Greenwald that
+June of 1918. Ph&#339;be regretted the fact, for she felt
+that even in a war-racked world, with the multiple
+duties and anxiety and suffering of many of its people,
+there should still be time for a service as beautiful and
+inspiring as the Feast of Roses.</p>
+
+<p>But all thoughts of it or similar omissions were
+crowded into the background one day when the news
+came to Mother Bab that David had been wounded in
+France.</p>
+
+<p>The official telegram flashed over the wire and in
+due time came a letter with more satisfying details.
+The letter was characteristic of David: "I suppose
+you heard that the Boche got me, but he didn't get all
+of me, just one leg. What hurts me most is the fact
+that I didn't get a few Huns first or do some real thing
+for the cause before I got knocked out. I know you'll
+feel better satisfied if I tell you all about it. Several
+of the other boys and I left the town where we were
+stationed and went to Paris for a few days. It was
+our first pleasure trip since we came to this side. We
+gazed upon the things we studied about in school<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328"></a><a href="images/328.png">[328]</a></span>&mdash;Eiffel
+Tower, Notre Dame, and so forth. Later we
+went to a railroad station where refugees were coming
+in, fleeing from the invading Huns. I can't ever forget
+that sight! Women and children they were, but
+such women and children! Women who had gone
+through hell and children who had seen more horror
+in their few years that we can ever dream possible.
+Terror and suffering have lodged shadows in their eyes
+till one wonders if some of them will ever smile or
+laugh again. Many of them were wounded and in
+need of medical care. They carried with them their
+sole possessions, all of their belongings they could
+gather and take with them as they rushed away from
+the hordes of the enemy soldiers. We helped to place
+them into Red Cross vans to be taken to a safe place
+in the southern part of the country. As we were putting
+them into the vans the signal came that an air raid
+was on. The subways are places for refuge during
+the raids, so we hurried them out of the vans and into
+subways. They all got in safely but I was a bit too
+slow. I got knocked out and my right leg was so
+badly splintered that I'm better off without it. The
+thing worries me most is that I'll be sent home out of
+the fight before I fairly got into it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mother Bab," Ph&#339;be said sobbingly, "his
+right leg's gone!"</p>
+
+<p>"It might be worse. But&mdash;I wish I could be with
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"But isn't it just like him," said Ph&#339;be proudly,
+"to write as though it was carelessness caused the accident,
+when we know he got others to safety and never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329"></a><a href="images/329.png">[329]</a></span>
+thought of himself. He was just as brave as the boys
+who fight."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. There is still much to be thankful for.
+Many mothers will get sadder news than mine. You
+must write him a long letter."</p>
+
+<p>It was a long letter, indeed, that the mother dictated
+to her boy. When it was written Ph&#339;be added a little
+postscript, "David, I'm mighty proud of you!" To
+this he responded, "Thank you for your pride in me,
+but don't you go making a hero of me; I can't live up
+to that when I get home. Guess I'll be sent back as
+soon as my leg is healed. Uncle Sam has no need of
+me here since I bungled things and left a leg in Paris.
+I'll have to do the rest of my bit on the farm. I wasn't
+a howling success as a farmer when I had two legs,
+but perhaps my luck has turned. I'm going to raise
+chickens and do my best to make the little farm a
+paying one."</p>
+
+<p>"He's the same cheerful David," thought the girl,
+"and we'll have to keep cheerful about it, too."</p>
+
+<p>But it was no easy matter to continue steadfast in
+cheerfulness during the long days of the summer.
+Ph&#339;be and Mother Bab shared the anxiety of many
+others as the news came that the armies of the enemy
+were pushing nearer to Paris, nearer, and nearer, with
+the Americans and their allies fighting like demons
+and contesting every inch of the ground. A fear rose
+in Ph&#339;be&mdash;what if the Germans should reach Paris,
+what if they should win the war! "But it can't be!"
+she thought.</p>
+
+<p>Her confidence was not unwarranted. Soon came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330"></a><a href="images/330.png">[330]</a></span>
+the turn of the tide and the German drive was checked.
+One July day shrieking whistles, frenzied ringing of
+bells, impromptu parades and waving flags, spread the
+news that "America's contemptible little army" was
+helping to push the Germans back, back!</p>
+
+<p>"It's the beginning of the end for the Germans,"
+said Ph&#339;be jubilantly as she ran to Mother Bab with
+the news. "If they once start running they'll sprint
+pretty lively. We'll have to tell David about the excitement
+in town when the whistles blew&mdash;but, ach, I
+forgot! He won't think that was much excitement
+after he's been in <i>real</i> excitement."</p>
+
+<p>Mother Bab laughed with the girl. "But we'll have
+lots to tell him when he comes back," she said. "And
+won't he be glad I can see!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331"></a><a href="images/331.png">[331]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>DAVID'S RETURN</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was October of 1918 when David Eby alighted
+from the train at Greenwald and started out the country
+road to his home. He could not resist the temptation
+to run into the yard of the gray farmhouse and
+into the kitchen where Aunt Maria and Ph&#339;be were
+working.</p>
+
+<p>"David!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, David!"</p>
+
+<p>The cries came gladly from the two women as he
+bounded over the sill and extended his hand, first to the
+older woman, then to Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>"I just had to stop in here for a minute! Then I
+must run up the hill to mother. This place looks too
+good to pass by. How are you? You're both looking
+fine."</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, we're well," Aunt Maria had to answer,
+Ph&#339;be remaining speechless. "But why, David!
+You got two legs and no crutches! I thought you lost
+a leg."</p>
+
+<p>"I did," he said, smiling, "but Uncle Sam gave me
+another one."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, abody'd hardly know it. Ain't, Ph&#339;be, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332"></a><a href="images/332.png">[332]</a></span>
+just limps a little? Now I bet your mom'll be glad to
+see you&mdash;to have you back again, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I can't wait to get up the hill. I must go
+now. I'll be down later, Ph&#339;be," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," she said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, Ph&#339;be," Aunt Maria exclaimed after he left,
+"did you hear me? I almost give it away that his
+mom can see. Abody can be awful dumb still! But
+won't he be glad when he knows that she ain't blind!
+She can see him again. Ach, Ph&#339;be, it's lots of nice
+people in the world, for all. It makes abody feel good
+to know them two are havin' a happy time."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so glad for both I could sing."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said the woman; "I'm glad too, and I
+believe I could help you to holler."</p>
+
+<p>As David climbed the hill by the woodland he
+thought musingly, "Strikes me Ph&#339;be didn't seem
+extra glad to see me. Perhaps she was just surprised,
+perhaps my being crippled changed her. Oh, Ph&#339;be,
+I want you more than ever! I wonder&mdash;is it some
+nerve to ask you to marry a cripple?"</p>
+
+<p>However, all disquieting thoughts were forgotten as
+he reached the summit of the hill and saw his boyhood
+home.</p>
+
+<p>He whistled his old greeting whistle. At the sound
+of it Mother Bab ran to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"It's David come home!" she cried, her renewed
+eyes turned to the road, her hands outstretched.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm back, mommie!" he called before his running
+feet could take him to her. But as he held her again
+to his heart there were no words adequate for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333"></a><a href="images/333.png">[333]</a></span>
+greeting. Their joy was great enough to be inarticulate
+for a while.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Davie," the mother said after a long silence,
+"you come running! You have no crutches!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mommie!" There was questioning wonder
+in his voice. "How do you know? You couldn't
+see! You are blind!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Davie, not any more! I can see!"</p>
+
+<p>"You can see?" He put a hand at each side of the
+white-capped head and looked into her eyes. They
+were not the dull, half-staring eyes of blindness but
+eyes lighted by loving recognition.</p>
+
+<p>Again words failed him as he swept her into his
+arms. But he could not long be silent. "Tell me,"
+he cried. "I must know! What miracle&mdash;who&mdash;how&mdash;who
+did it? When?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Davie, you're not changed a bit! Same old
+question box! But I'll tell you all about it."</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the story Mother Bab told ran the
+name of Ph&#339;be. "Ph&#339;be planned it all, Ph&#339;be made
+the arrangements with the doctor, Ph&#339;be took me
+down to Philadelphia, Ph&#339;be was there when I found
+I could see"&mdash;it was Ph&#339;be, Ph&#339;be, till the man felt
+his heart singing the name.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't she going on with her music lessons?" he
+asked. "I was afraid she'd be in the city when I got
+back."</p>
+
+<p>"She's given them up. It ain't like her to begin a
+thing and get tired of it so soon. All at once after we
+came back from Philadelphia she said she had enough
+of music, she was tired of it, and was going to stay at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334"></a><a href="images/334.png">[334]</a></span>
+home and be useful. I'm glad she's not going off
+again, for it gets lonesome without her. You stopped
+to see her on the way up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, just a minute. I'm going down again later.
+She hardly said two words to me."</p>
+
+<p>"You took her by surprise, I guess. Give her a
+chance and she'll ask you a hundred questions."</p>
+
+<p>But when he paid the promised visit to Ph&#339;be he
+was again disappointed by her lack of the old comradely
+friendliness. She shared his joy at Mother
+Bab's restored sight but when he began to thank her
+for her part in it she disclaimed all credit and asked
+questions to lead him from the subject of the operation.
+The girl seemed interested in all he said yet there was
+a restraint in her manner. For the first time in his
+life David was baffled by her attitude. As he climbed
+the hill again he thought, "Now, what's the matter
+with Ph&#339;be? Was she or wasn't she glad to see me?
+I couldn't tell her I love her when she acts like that!
+And I'm a cripple, and she's beautiful&mdash;&mdash; Oh, my
+mind's in a muddle! But one thing's clear&mdash;I want
+Ph&#339;be Metz for my wife."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335"></a><a href="images/335.png">[335]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>"A LOVE THAT LIFE COULD NEVER TIRE"</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> next morning Phares Eby called David, "Wait,
+I want to see you. I&mdash;David," the preacher began
+gravely, "perhaps I shouldn't tell you, but I really
+think I ought. Do you know all Ph&#339;be did for your
+mother while you were gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes. Mother told me. Ph&#339;be was lovely
+to her. She's been great! Writing her letters and
+doing ever so many kind things for her."</p>
+
+<p>"I know&mdash;but&mdash;I guess you don't know all she did.
+That story about a great doctor operating for charity
+didn't quite please me. I thought as long as it was
+in the family I'd pay him for what he did. So I wrote
+to him and his secretary wrote back that the bill had
+been paid by a check signed by Ph&#339;be Metz&mdash;the bill
+had been five hundred dollars. I guess that explains
+her giving up the music lessons. What a girl she is
+to make such a sacrifice! She don't know that I know,
+but I felt I ought to tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Five hundred dollars! Ph&#339;be did that for us&mdash;she
+paid it? Oh, Phares, I'm glad you told me! I'm
+going to find her right away and thank her! You're
+a brick for telling me!"</p>
+
+<p>The preacher smiled as David turned and ran down
+the hill, but preachers are only human&mdash;he felt a pang<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336"></a><a href="images/336.png">[336]</a></span>
+of pain as he went back to his work in the field while
+David went to find Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>David forgot for the time that he was crippled as
+he ran limping over the road. Dressed in his working
+clothes, his head bare to the October sunlight, he
+hurried to the gray farmhouse.</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be here?" he asked Aunt Maria.</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong? Anything the matter at your
+house?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Nothing's wrong. Where's Ph&#339;be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ach, over at the quarry again for weeds or something
+like she brings home all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"All right." He turned to the gate. "I'll find
+her."</p>
+
+<p>He half ran up the sheltered road to the old stone
+quarry.</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&#339;be," he cried when he caught sight of her as
+she stooped to gather goldenrod that fringed the
+woods.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, David, what's the matter?" she asked as
+she stood erect and faced him.</p>
+
+<p>"You angel!" he cried, taking her hands in his and
+spilling the goldenrod over the ground. "You angel!"
+he said again, and the full gratitude of his heart shone
+from his eyes. "You bought Mother Bab's sight!
+You gave up the music lessons that she might see!"</p>
+
+<p>"How d'you know?" she challenged.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know!" He told her briefly. "That's all
+true, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she admitted. "I can't lie out of it now, I
+guess. Though I've lied like a trooper about it al<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337"></a><a href="images/337.png">[337]</a></span>ready.
+But you needn't get excited about it. Mother
+Bab's earned more than that from me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ph&#339;be!" The man could hardly refrain
+from taking her in his arms. "You're an angel! To
+sacrifice all that for us&mdash;it's the most unselfish thing
+I've ever heard of! You gave her sight so she could
+see me. I came right down to bless you and to thank
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Other words sought utterance but he fought them
+back. Ph&#339;be must have read his heart, for she looked
+up suddenly and asked, "And you came all the way
+down here just to say thank you! There's nothing
+else&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Then, half-ashamed and startled at her forwardness,
+her gaze dropped.</p>
+
+<p>But the words had worked their magic. "There <i>is</i>
+something else!" David cried, exulting. "I can't
+wait any longer to tell you! I love you!"</p>
+
+<p>He held out his arms and as she smiled into his face
+his arms enfolded her and he knew that she loved him.
+But he wanted to hear the sweet words from her lips.
+"Is it so?" he asked. "You do care for me, you'll
+marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Davie, did you think I could live the rest of
+my life without you? Did you think I could love you
+any less because you're crippled?"</p>
+
+<p>He flushed. "It seemed like working on your sympathy
+to ask you."</p>
+
+<p>"And if you hadn't asked me, Davie," she began.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, go on. If I hadn't asked you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> should have asked <i>you!</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338"></a><a href="images/338.png">[338]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They both laughed at that, but a moment later were
+serious as he said, "Just the same, Ph&#339;be, it seems
+presumptuous for a maimed man to ask a girl like you
+to marry him. You are beautiful and you have a
+wonderful voice&mdash;and you've done such wonderful
+things for Mother Bab and me. You have sacrificed
+so much&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, David!" she cried, her voice ominously
+tearful. "David, don't hurt me like that! Do you
+love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do." His words had all the solemnity of a
+marriage vow.</p>
+
+<p>"You know I love you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, David, can't you see that we love each other
+not only in prosperity but in misfortunes as well?"</p>
+
+<p>"What a big heart you have, dear, what a woman's
+heart! I have two wonderful women in my life,
+Mother Bab and you."</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be felt the delicacy and magnitude of the
+tribute. "I'm happy, Davie," she said softly. "I
+feel so safe with you&mdash;no doubts, no fears."</p>
+
+<p>"Just love," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"Just love," she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Ph&#339;be"&mdash;how she loved the name from
+his lips&mdash;"you'll marry me?" He said it as though
+he could not quite believe his good fortune. "Then
+you <i>will</i> marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you want."</p>
+
+<p>"If I want! Oh, Ph&#339;be, Ph&#339;be, I have always
+wanted it!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ad1" id="Page_ad1"></a><a href="images/ad1.png">[iv]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Popular Copyright Novels</h2>
+
+<h3><i>AT MODERATE PRICES</i></h3>
+
+<div class='center'>
+Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<br />
+A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction<br />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div><b>Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.</b> By Frank L. Packard.<br />
+<b>Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.</b> By A. Conan Doyle.<br />
+<b>After House, The.</b> By Mary Roberts Rinehart.<br />
+<b>Ailsa Paige.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br />
+<b>Alton of Somasco.</b> By Harold Bindloss.<br />
+<b>Amateur Gentleman, The.</b> By Jeffery Farnol.<br />
+<b>Anna, the Adventuress.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br />
+<b>Anne's House of Dreams.</b> By L. M. Montgomery.<br />
+<b>Around Old Chester.</b> By Margaret Deland.<br />
+<b>Athalie.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br />
+<b>At the Mercy of Tiberius.</b> By Augusta Evans Wilson.<br />
+<b>Auction Block, The.</b> By Rex Beach.<br />
+<b>Aunt Jane of Kentucky.</b> By Eliza C. Hall.<br />
+<b>Awakening of Helena Richie.</b> By Margaret Deland.<br />
+<br />
+<b>Bab: a Sub-Deb.</b> By Mary Roberts Rinehart.<br />
+<b>Barrier, The.</b> By Rex Beach.<br />
+<b>Barbarians.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br />
+<b>Bargain True, The.</b> By Nalbro Bartley.<br />
+<b>Bar 20.</b> By Clarence E. Mulford.<br />
+<b>Bar 20 Days.</b> By Clarence E. Mulford.<br />
+<b>Bars of Iron, The.</b> By Ethel M. Dell.<br />
+<b>Beasts of Tarzan, The.</b> By Edgar Rice Burroughs.<br />
+<b>Beloved Traitor, The.</b> By Frank L. Packard.<br />
+<b>Beltane the Smith.</b> By Jeffery Farnol.<br />
+<b>Betrayal, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br />
+<b>Beyond the Frontier.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br />
+<b>Big Timber.</b> By Bertrand W. Sinclair.<br />
+<b>Black Is White.</b> By George Barr McCutcheon.<br />
+<b>Blind Man's Eyes, The.</b> By Wm. MacHarg and Edwin
+Balmer.<br />
+<b>Bob, Son of Battle.</b> By Alfred Ollivant.<br />
+<b>Boston Blackie.</b> By Jack Boyle.<br />
+<b>Boy with Wings, The.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br />
+<b>Brandon of the Engineers.</b> By Harold Bindloss.<br />
+<b>Broad Highway, The.</b> By Jeffery Farnol.<br />
+<b>Brown Study, The.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br />
+<b>Bruce of the Circle A.</b> By Harold Titus.<br />
+<b>Buck Peters, Ranchman.</b> By Clarence E. Mulford.<br />
+<b>Business of Life, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ad2" id="Page_ad2"></a><a href="images/ad2.png">[v]</a></span>
+<b>Cabbages and Kings.</b> By O. Henry.<br />
+<b>Cabin Fever.</b> By B. M. Bower.<br />
+<b>Calling of Dan Matthews, The.</b> By Harold Bell Wright.<br />
+<b>Cape Cod Stories.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br />
+<b>Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper.</b> By James A. Cooper.<br />
+<b>Cap'n Dan's Daughter.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br />
+<b>Cap'n Eri.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br />
+<b>Cap'n Jonah's Fortune.</b> By James A. Cooper.<br />
+<b>Cap'n Warren's Wards.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br />
+<b>Chain of Evidence, A.</b> By Carolyn Wells.<br />
+<b>Chief Legatee, The.</b> By Anna Katharine Green.<br />
+<b>Cinderella Jane.</b> By Marjorie B. Cooke.<br />
+<b>Cinema Murder, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br />
+<b>City of Masks, The.</b> By George Barr McCutcheon.<br />
+<b>Cleek of Scotland Yard.</b> By T. W. Hanshew.<br />
+<b>Cleek, The Man of Forty Faces.</b> By Thomas W. Hanshew.<br />
+<b>Cleek's Government Cases.</b> By Thomas W. Hanshew.<br />
+<b>Clipped Wings.</b> By Rupert Hughes.<br />
+<b>Clue, The.</b> By Carolyn Wells.<br />
+<b>Clutch of Circumstance, The.</b> By Marjorie Benton Cooke.<br />
+<b>Coast of Adventure, The.</b> By Harold Bindloss.<br />
+<b>Coming of Cassidy, The.</b> By Clarence E. Mulford.<br />
+<b>Coming of the Law, The.</b> By Chas. A. Seltzer.<br />
+<b>Conquest of Canaan, The.</b> By Booth Tarkington.<br />
+<b>Conspirators, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br />
+<b>Court of Inquiry, A.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br />
+<b>Cow Puncher, The.</b> By Robert J. C. Stead.<br />
+<b>Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.</b> By Rex Beach.<br />
+
+<b>Cross Currents.</b> By Author of "Pollyanna."<br />
+
+<b>Cry in the Wilderness, A.</b> By Mary E. Waller.<br /><br />
+
+<b>Danger, And Other Stories.</b> By A. Conan Doyle.<br />
+<b>Dark Hollow, The.</b> By Anna Katharine Green.<br />
+<b>Dark Star, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br />
+<b>Daughter Pays, The.</b> By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.<br />
+<b>Day of Days, The.</b> By Louis Joseph Vance.<br />
+<b>Depot Master, The.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br />
+<b>Desired Woman, The.</b> By Will N. Harben.<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ad3" id="Page_ad3"></a><a href="images/ad3.png">[vi]</a></span>
+<b>Destroying Angel, The.</b> By Louis Jos. Vance.<br />
+<b>Devil's Own, The.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br />
+<b>Double Traitor, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br />
+<br />
+<b>Empty Pockets.</b> By Rupert Hughes.<br />
+<b>Eyes of the Blind, The.</b> By Arthur Somers Roche.<br />
+<b>Eye of Dread, The.</b> By Payne Erskine.<br />
+<b>Eyes of the World, The.</b> By Harold Bell Wright.<br />
+<b>Extricating Obadiah.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /><br />
+
+<b>Felix O'Day.</b> By F. Hopkinson Smith.<br />
+<b>54-40 or Fight.</b> By Emerson Hough.<br />
+<b>Fighting Chance, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br />
+<b>Fighting Shepherdess, The.</b> By Caroline Lockhart.<br />
+<b>Financier, The.</b> By Theodore Dreiser.<br />
+<b>Flame, The.</b> By Olive Wadsley.<br />
+<b>Flamsted Quarries.</b> By Mary E. Wallar.<br />
+<b>Forfeit, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br />
+<b>Four Million, The.</b> By O. Henry.<br />
+<b>Fruitful Vine, The.</b> By Robert Hichens.<br />
+<b>Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.</b> By Frank L. Packard.<br /><br />
+
+<b>Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.</b> By Payne Erskine.<br />
+<b>Girl from Keller's, The.</b> By Harold Bindloss.<br />
+<b>Girl Philippa, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br />
+<b>Girls at His Billet, The.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br />
+<b>God's Country and the Woman.</b> By James Oliver Curwood.<br />
+<b>Going Some.</b> By Rex Beach.<br />
+<b>Golden Slipper, The.</b> By Anna Katharine Green.<br />
+<b>Golden Woman, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br />
+<b>Greater Love Hath No Man.</b> By Frank L. Packard.<br />
+<b>Greyfriars Bobby.</b> By Eleanor Atkinson.<br />
+<b>Gun Brand, The.</b> By James B. Hendryx.<br />
+<br />
+<b>Halcyone.</b> By Elinor Glyn.<br />
+<b>Hand of Fu-Manchu, The.</b> By Sax Rohmer.<br />
+<b>Havoc.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br />
+<b>Heart of the Desert, The.</b> By Honor&eacute; Willsie.<br />
+<b>Heart of the Hills, The.</b> By John Fox, Jr.<br />
+<b>Heart of the Sunset.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ad4" id="Page_ad4"></a><a href="images/ad4.png">[vii]</a></span>
+<b>Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.</b> By Edfrid A. Bingham.<br />
+<b>Her Weight in Gold.</b> By Geo. B. McCutcheon.<br />
+<b>Hidden Children, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br />
+<b>Hidden Spring, The.</b> By Clarence B. Kelland.<br />
+<b>Hillman, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br />
+<b>Hills of Refuge, The.</b> By Will N. Harben.<br />
+<b>His Official Fiancee.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br />
+<b>Honor of the Big Snows.</b> By James Oliver Curwood.<br />
+<b>Hopalong Cassidy.</b> By Clarence E. Mulford.<br />
+<b>Hound from the North, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br />
+<b>House of the Whispering Pines, The.</b> By Anna Katharine Green.<br />
+<b>Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.</b> By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.<br /><br />
+
+<b>I Conquered.</b> By Harold Titus.<br />
+<b>Illustrious Prince, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br />
+<b>In Another Girl's Shoes.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br />
+<b>Indifference of Juliet, The.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br />
+<b>Infelice.</b> By Augusta Evans Wilson.<br />
+<b>Initials Only.</b> By Anna Katharine Green.<br />
+<b>Inner Law, The.</b> By Will N. Harben.<br />
+<b>Innocent.</b> By Marie Corelli.<br />
+<b>Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.</b> By Sax Rohmer.<br />
+<b>In the Brooding Wild.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br />
+<b>Intriguers, The.</b> By Harold Bindloss.<br />
+<b>Iron Trail, The.</b> By Rex Beach.<br />
+<b>Iron Woman, The.</b> By Margaret Deland.<br />
+<b>I Spy.</b> By Natalie Sumner Lincoln.<br />
+<br />
+<b>Japonette.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br />
+<b>Jean of the Lazy A.</b> By B. M. Bower.<br />
+<b>Jeanne of the Marshes.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br />
+<b>Jennie Gerhardt.</b> By Theodore Dreiser.<br />
+<b>Judgment House, The.</b> By Gilbert Parker.<br />
+<br />
+<b>Keeper of the Door, The.</b> By Ethel M. Dell.<br />
+<b>Keith of the Border.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br />
+<b>Kent Knowles: Quahaug.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br />
+<b>Kingdom of the Blind, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
+<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under
+the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text
+will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Patchwork, by Anna Balmer Myers
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Patchwork, by Anna Balmer Myers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Patchwork
+       A Story of 'The Plain People'
+
+Author: Anna Balmer Myers
+
+Illustrator: Helen Mason Groce
+
+Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22827]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PATCHWORK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Emille and the Booksmiths
+at http://www.eBookForge.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "OH, LOOK AT THIS--AND THIS!"]
+
+
+
+
+PATCHWORK
+
+A STORY OF
+
+"THE PLAIN PEOPLE"
+
+By ANNA BALMER MYERS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+        WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR BY
+        HELEN MASON GROSE
+
+        A. L. BURT COMPANY
+        Publishers         New York
+
+        Published by arrangement with George W. Jacobs & Company
+
+        Copyright, 1920, by
+        GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+        All rights reserved
+        _Printed in U.S.A._
+
+        _To my Mother and Father
+        this book is lovingly inscribed_
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                    PAGE
+
+       I. CALICO PATCHWORK                                     13
+
+      II. OLD AARON'S FLAG                                     29
+
+     III. LITTLE DUTCHIE                                       40
+
+      IV. THE NEW TEACHER                                      52
+
+       V. THE HEART OF A CHILD                                 70
+
+      VI. THE PRIMA DONNA OF THE ATTIC                         92
+
+     VII. "WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER MEET"                    110
+
+    VIII. BEYOND THE ALPS LIES ITALY                          119
+
+      IX. A VISIT TO MOTHER BAB                               129
+
+       X. AN OLD-FASHIONED COUNTRY SALE                       146
+
+      XI. "THE BRIGHT LEXICON OF YOUTH"                       166
+
+     XII. THE PREACHER'S WOOING                               176
+
+    XIII. THE SCARLET TANAGER                                 189
+
+     XIV. ALADDIN'S LAMP                                      203
+
+      XV. THE FLEDGLING'S FLIGHT                              207
+
+     XVI. PHOEBE'S DIARY                                       212
+
+    XVII. DIARY--THE NEW HOME                                 221
+
+   XVIII. DIARY--THE MUSIC MASTER                             226
+
+     XIX. DIARY--THE FIRST LESSON                             229
+
+      XX. DIARY--SEEING THE CITY                              235
+
+     XXI. DIARY--CHRYSALIS                                    240
+
+    XXII. DIARY--TRANSFORMATION                               245
+
+   XXIII. DIARY--PLAIN FOR A NIGHT                            251
+
+    XXIV. DIARY--DECLARATIONS                                 256
+
+     XXV. DIARY--"THE LINK MUST BREAK AND THE LAMP MUST DIE"  261
+
+    XXVI. "HAME'S BEST"                                       268
+
+   XXVII. TRAILING ARBUTUS                                    271
+
+  XXVIII. MOTHER BAB AND HER SON                              284
+
+    XXIX. PREPARATIONS                                        291
+
+     XXX. THE FEAST OF ROSES                                  295
+
+    XXXI. BLINDNESS                                           303
+
+   XXXII. OFF TO THE NAVY                                     310
+
+  XXXIII. THE ONE CHANCE                                      315
+
+   XXXIV. BUSY DAYS                                           319
+
+    XXXV. DAVID'S SHARE                                       327
+
+   XXXVI. DAVID'S RETURN                                      331
+
+  XXXVII. "A LOVE THAT LIFE COULD NEVER TIRE"                 335
+
+
+
+
+Patchwork
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CALICO PATCHWORK
+
+
+THE gorgeous sunshine of a perfect June morning invited to the great
+outdoors. Exquisite perfume from myriad blossoms tempted lovers of
+nature to get away from cramped, man-made buildings, out under the blue
+roof of heaven, and revel in the lavish splendor of the day.
+
+This call of the Junetide came loudly and insistently to a little girl
+as she sat in the sitting-room of a prosperous farmhouse in Lancaster
+County, Pennsylvania, and sewed gaily-colored pieces of red and green
+calico into patchwork.
+
+"Ach, my!" she sighed, with all the dreariness which a ten-year-old is
+capable of feeling, "why must I patch when it's so nice out? I just
+ain't goin' to sew no more to-day!"
+
+She rose, folded her work and laid it in her plaited rush sewing-basket.
+Then she stood for a moment, irresolute, and listened to the sounds
+issuing from the next room. She could hear her Aunt Maria bustle about
+the big kitchen.
+
+"Ach, I ain't afraid!"
+
+The child opened the door and entered the kitchen, where the odor of
+boiling strawberry preserves proclaimed the cause of the aunt's
+activity.
+
+Maria Metz was, at fifty, robust and comely, with black hair very
+slightly streaked with gray, cheeks that retained traces of the rosy
+coloring of her girlhood, and flashing black eyes meeting squarely the
+looks of all with whom she came in contact. She was a member of the
+Church of the Brethren and wore the quaint garb adopted by the women of
+that sect. Her dress of black calico was perfectly plain. The tight
+waist was half concealed by a long, pointed cape which fell over her
+shoulders and touched the waistline back and front, where a full apron
+of blue and white checked gingham was tied securely. Her dark hair was
+parted and smoothly drawn under a cap of white lawn. She was a
+picturesque figure but totally unconscious of it, for the section of
+Pennsylvania in which she lived has been for generations the home of a
+multitude of women similarly garbed--members of the plain sects, as the
+Mennonites, Amish, Brethren in Christ, and Church of the Brethren, are
+commonly called in the communities in which they flourish.
+
+As the child appeared in the doorway her aunt turned.
+
+"So," the woman said pleasantly, "you worked vonderful quick to-day
+once, Phoebe. Why, you got your patches done soon--did you make little
+stitches like I told you?"
+
+"I ain't got 'em done!" The child stood erect, a defiant little figure,
+her blue eyes grown dark with the moment's tenseness. "I ain't goin' to
+sew no more when it's so nice out! I want to be out in the yard, that's
+what I want. I just hate this here patchin' to-day, that's what I do!"
+
+Maria Metz carefully wiped the strawberry juice from her fingers, then
+she stood before the little girl like a veritable tower of amazement and
+strength.
+
+"Phoebe," she said after a moment's struggle to control her wrath, "you
+ain't big enough nor old enough yet to tell me what you ain't goin' to
+do! How many patches did you make?"
+
+"Three."
+
+"And you know I said you shall make four every day still so you get the
+quilt done this summer yet and ready to quilt. You go and finish them."
+
+"I don't want to." Phoebe shook her head stubbornly. "I want to play out
+in the yard."
+
+"When you're done with the patches, not before! You know you must learn
+to sew. Why, Phoebe," the woman changed her tactics, "you used to like
+to sew still. When you was just five years old you cried for goods and
+needle and I pinned the patches on the little sewing-bird that belonged
+to Granny Metz still and screwed the bird on the table and you sewed
+that nice! And now you don't want to do no more patches--how will you
+ever get your big chest full of nice quilts if you don't patch?"
+
+But the child was too thoroughly possessed with the desire to be
+outdoors to be won by any pleading or praise. She pulled savagely at
+the two long braids which hung over her shoulders and cried, "I don't
+want no quilts! I don't want no chests! I don't like red and green
+quilts, anyhow--never, never! I wish my pop would come in; he wouldn't
+make me sew patches, he"--she began to sob--"I wish, I just wish I had a
+mom! She wouldn't make me sew calico when--when I want to play."
+
+Something in the utter unhappiness of the little girl, together with the
+words of yearning for the dead mother, filled the woman with a strange
+tenderness. Though she never allowed sentiment to sway her from doing
+what she considered her duty she did yield to its influence and spoke
+gently to the agitated child.
+
+"I wish, too, your mom was here yet, Phoebe. But I guess if she was
+she'd want you to learn to sew. Ach, it's just that you like to be out,
+out all the time that makes you so contrary, I guess. You're like your
+pop, if you can just be out! Mebbe when you're old as I once and had
+your back near broke often as I had with hoein' and weedin' and plantin'
+in the garden you'll be glad when you can set in the house and sew. Ach,
+now, stop your cryin' and go finish your patchin' and when you're done
+I'll leave you go in to Greenwald for me to the store and to Granny
+Hogendobler."
+
+"Oh"--the child lifted her tear-stained face--"and dare I really go to
+Greenwald when I'm done?"
+
+"Yes. I need some sugar yet and you dare order it. And you can get me
+some thread and then stop at Granny Hogendobler's and ask her to come
+out to-morrow and help with the strawberry jelly. I got so much to make
+and it comes good to Granny if she gets away for a little change."
+
+"Then I'll patch quick!" Phoebe said. The world was a good place again
+for the child as she went back to the sitting-room and resumed her
+sewing.
+
+She was so eager to finish the unpleasant task that she forgot one of
+Aunt Maria's rules, as inexorable as the law of the Medes and
+Persians--the door between the kitchen and the sitting-room _must_ be
+closed.
+
+"Here, Phoebe," the woman called sharply, "make that door shut! Abody'd
+think you was born in a sawmill! The strawberry smell gets all over the
+house."
+
+Phoebe turned alertly and closed the door. Then she soliloquized, "I
+don't see why there has to be doors on the inside of houses. I like to
+smell the good things all over the house, but then it's Aunt Maria's
+boss, not me."
+
+Maria Metz shook her head as she returned to her berries. "If it don't
+beat all and if I won't have my hands full yet with that girl 'fore
+she's growed up! That stubborn she is, like her pop--ach, like all of us
+Metz's, I guess. Anyhow, it ain't easy raising somebody else's child. If
+only her mom would have lived, and so young she was to die, too."
+
+Her thoughts went back to the time when her brother Jacob brought to the
+old Metz farmhouse his gentle, sweet-faced bride. Then the joint
+persuasions of Jacob and his wife induced Maria Metz to continue her
+residence in the old homestead. She relieved the bride of all the brunt
+of manual labor of the farm and in her capable way proved a worthy
+sister to the new mistress of the old Metz place. When, several years
+later, the gentle wife died and left Jacob the legacy of a helpless
+babe, it was Maria Metz who took up the task of mothering the motherless
+child. If she bungled at times in the performance of the mother's
+unfinished task it was not from lack of love, for she loved the fair
+little Phoebe with a passion that was almost abnormal, a passion which
+burned the more fiercely because there was seldom any outlet in
+demonstrative affection.
+
+As soon as the child was old enough Aunt Maria began to teach her the
+doctrines of the plain church and to warn her against the evils of
+vanity, frivolity and all forms of worldliness.
+
+Maria Metz was richly endowed with that admirable love of industry which
+is characteristic of the Pennsylvania Dutch. In accordance with her
+acceptance of the command, "Six days shalt thou labor," she swept,
+scrubbed, and toiled from early morning to evening with Herculean
+persistence. The farmhouse was spotless from cellar to attic, the wooden
+walks and porches scrubbed clean and smooth. Flower beds, vegetable
+gardens and lawns were kept neat and without weeds. Aunt Maria was, as
+she expressed it, "not afraid of work." Naturally she considered it her
+duty to teach little Phoebe to be industrious, to sew neatly, to help
+with light tasks about the house and gardens.
+
+Like many other good foster-mothers Maria Metz tried conscientiously to
+care for the child's spiritual and physical well-being, but in spite of
+her best endeavors there were times when she despaired of the
+tremendous task she had undertaken. Phoebe's spirit tingled with the
+divine, poetic appreciation of all things beautiful. A vivid imagination
+carried the child into realms where the stolid aunt could not follow,
+realms of whose existence the older woman never dreamed.
+
+But what troubled Maria Metz most was the child's frank avowal of
+vanity. Every new dress was a source of intense joy to Phoebe. Every new
+ribbon for her hair, no matter how narrow and dull of color, sent her
+face smiling. The golden hair, which sprang into long curls as Aunt
+Maria combed it, was invariably braided into two thick, tight braids,
+but there were always little wisps that curled about the ears and
+forehead. These wisps were at once the woman's despair and the child's
+freely expressed delight. However, through all the rigid discipline the
+little girl retained her natural buoyancy of childhood, the spontaneous
+interestedness, the cheerfulness and animation, which were a part of her
+goodly heritage.
+
+That June morning the world was changed suddenly from a dismal vale of
+patchwork to a glorious garden of delight. She was still a child and the
+promised walk to Greenwald changed the entire world for her.
+
+She paused once in her sewing to look about the sitting-room. "Ach, I
+vonder now why this room is so ugly to me to-day. I guess it's because
+it's so pretty out. Why, mostly always I think this is a vonderful nice
+room."
+
+The sitting-room of the Metz farm was attractive in its old-fashioned
+furnishing. It was large and well lighted. The gray rag carpet--woven
+from rags sewed by Aunt Maria and Phoebe--was decorated with wide
+stripes of green. Upon the carpet were spread numerous rugs, some made
+of braided rags coiled into large circles, others were hooked rugs gaily
+ornamented with birds and flowers and graceful scroll designs. The
+low-backed chairs were painted dull green and each bore upon the four
+inch panel of its back a hand-painted floral design. On the haircloth
+sofa were several crazy-work cushions. Two deep rocking-chairs matched
+the antique low-backed chairs. A spindle-legged cherry table bore an old
+vase filled with pink and red straw flowers. The large square table,
+covered with a red and green cloth, held a glass lamp, the old Metz
+Bible, several hymn-books and the papers read in that home,--a weekly
+religious paper, the weekly town paper, and a well-known farm journal. A
+low walnut organ which Phoebe's mother brought to the farm and a tall
+walnut grandfather clock, the most cherished heirloom of the Metz
+family, occupied places of honor in the room. Not a single article of
+modern design could be found in the entire room, yet it was an
+interesting and habitable place. Most of the Metz furniture had stood in
+the old homestead for several generations and so long as any piece
+served its purpose and continued to look respectable Aunt Maria would
+have considered it gross extravagance, even a sacrilege, to discard it
+for one of newer design. She was satisfied with her house, her brother
+Jacob was well pleased with the way she kept it--it never occurred to
+her that Phoebe might ever desire new things, and least of all did she
+dream that the girl sometimes spent an interesting hour refurnishing, in
+imagination, the same old sitting-room.
+
+"Yes," Phoebe was saying to herself, "sometimes this room is vonderful
+to me. Only I wished the organ was a piano, like the one Mary Warner got
+to play on. But, ach, I must hurry once and make this patch done. Funny
+thing patchin' is, cuttin' up big pieces of good calico in little ones
+and then sewin' them up in big ones again! I don't like it"--she spoke
+very softly for she knew her aunt disapproved of the habit of talking to
+one's self--"I don't like patchin' and I for certain don't like red and
+green quilts! I got one on my bed now and it hurts my eyes still in the
+morning when I get awake. I'd like a pretty blue and white one for my
+bed. Mebbe Aunt Maria will leave me make one when I get this one sewed.
+But now my patch is done and I dare to go to Greenwald. That's a
+vonderful nice walk."
+
+A moment later she stood again in the big kitchen.
+
+"See," she said, "now I got them all done. And little stitches, too, so
+nobody won't catch their toes in 'em when they sleep, like you used to
+tell me still when I first begun to sew."
+
+The woman smiled. "Now you're a good girl, Phoebe. Put your patches away
+nice and you dare go to Greenwald."
+
+"Where all shall I go?"
+
+"Go first to Granny Hogendobler; that's right on the way to the store.
+You ask her to come out to-morrow morning early if she wants to help
+with the berries."
+
+"Dare I stay a little?"
+
+"If you want. But don't you go bringin' any more slips of flowers to
+plant or any seeds. The flower beds are that full now abody can hardly
+get in to weed 'em still."
+
+"All right, I won't. But I think it's nice to have lots and lots of
+flowers. When I have a garden once I'll have it full----"
+
+"Talk of that some other day," said her aunt. "Get ready now for town
+once. You go to the store and ask 'em to send out twenty pounds of
+granulated sugar. Jonas, one of the clerks, comes out this way still
+when he goes home and he can just as good fetch it along on his home
+road. Your pop is too busy to hitch up and go in for it and I have no
+time neither to-day and I want it early in the morning, and what I have
+is almost all. And then you can buy three spools of white thread number
+fifty. And when you're done you dare look around a little in the store
+if you don't touch nothing. On the home road you better stop in the
+post-office and ask if there's anything. Nobody was in yesterday."
+
+"All right--and--Aunt Maria, dare I wear my hat?"
+
+"Ach, no. Abody don't wear Sunday clothes on a Wednesday just to go to
+Greenwald to the store. Only when you go to Lancaster and on a Sunday
+you wear your hat. You're dressed good enough; just get your sunbonnet,
+for it's sunny on the road."
+
+Phoebe took a small ruffled sunbonnet of blue checked gingham from a
+hook behind the kitchen door and pressed it lightly on her head.
+
+"Ach, bonnets are vonderful hot things!" she exclaimed. "A nice parasol
+like Mary Warner's got would be lots nicer. Where's the money?" she
+asked as she saw a shadow of displeasure on her aunt's face.
+
+"Here it is, enough for the sugar and the thread. Don't lose the
+pocketbook, and be sure to count the change so they don't make no
+mistake."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And don't touch things in the store."
+
+"No." The child walked to the door, impatient to be off.
+
+"And be careful crossin' over the streets. If a horse comes, or a
+bicycle, wait till it's past, or an automobile----"
+
+"Ach, yes, I'll be careful," Phoebe answered.
+
+A moment later she went down the boardwalk that led through the yard to
+the little green gate at the country road. There she paused and looked
+back at the farm with its old-fashioned house, her birthplace and home.
+
+The Metz homestead, erected in the days of home-grown flax and
+spinning-wheels, was plain and unpretentious. Built of gray, rough-hewn
+quarry stone it hid like a demure Quakeress behind tall evergreen trees
+whose branches touched and interlaced in so many places that the
+traveler on the country road caught but mere glimpses of the big gray
+house.
+
+The old home stood facing the road that led northward to the little town
+of Greenwald. Southward the road curved and wound itself about a steep
+hill, sent its branches right and left to numerous farms while it, still
+twisting and turning, went on to the nearest city, Lancaster, ten miles
+distant.
+
+The Metz farm was just outside the southern limits of the town of
+Greenwald. The spacious red barn stood on the very bank of Chicques
+Creek, the boundary line.
+
+"It's awful pretty here to-day," Phoebe said aloud as she looked from
+the house with its sheltering trees to the flower garden with its roses,
+larkspur and other old-fashioned flowers, then to the background of
+undulating fields and hills. "It's just vonderful pretty here to-day.
+But, ach, I guess it's pretty most anywheres on a day like this--but not
+in the house. Ugh, that patchin'! I want to forget it."
+
+As she closed the gate and entered the country road she caught sight of
+a familiar figure just ahead.
+
+"Hello," she called. "Wait once, David! Is that you?"
+
+"No, it ain't me, it's my shadow!" came the answer as a boy, several
+years older than Phoebe, turned and waited for her.
+
+"Ach, David Eby," she giggled, "you're just like Aunt Maria says still
+you are--always cuttin' up and talkin' so abody don't know if you mean
+it or what. Goin' in to town, too, once?"
+
+"Um-uh. Say, Phoebe, you want a rose to pin on?" he asked, turning to
+her with a pink damask rose.
+
+"Why, be sure I do! I just like them roses vonderful much. We got 'em
+too, big bushes of 'em, but Aunt Maria won't let me pull none off.
+Where'd you get yourn?"
+
+"We got lots. Mom lets me pull off all I want. You pin it on and be
+decorated for Greenwald. Where all you going, Phoebe?"
+
+"And I say thanks, too, David, for the rose," she said as she pinned the
+rose to her dress. "Um, it smells good! Where am I goin'?" she
+remembered his question. "Why, to the store and to Granny Hogendobler
+and the post-office----"
+
+"Jimminy Crickets!" The boy stood still. "That's where I'm to go! Me and
+mom both forgot about it. Mom wants a money order and said I'm to get it
+the first time I go to town and here I am without the money. It's home
+up the hill again for me."
+
+"Ach, David, don't you know that it's vonderful bad luck to go back for
+something when you got started once?"
+
+The boy laughed. "It _is_ bad luck to have to climb that hill again. But
+mom'll say what I ain't got in my head I got to have in my feet. They're
+big enough to hold a lot, too, Phoebe, ain't they?"
+
+She giggled, then laughed merrily. "Ach," she said, "you say funny
+things. You just make me laugh all the time. But it's mean, now, that
+you are so dumb to forget and have to go back. I thought I'd have nice
+company all the ways in, but mebbe I'll see you in Greenwald."
+
+"Mebbe. Goo'bye," said the boy and turned to the hill again.
+
+Phoebe stood a moment and looked after him. "My," she said to herself,
+"but David Eby is a vonderful nice boy!" Then she started down the road,
+a quaint, interesting little figure in her brown chambray dress with its
+full, gathered skirt and its short, plain waist. But the face that
+looked out from the blue sunbonnet was even more interesting. The blue
+eyes, golden hair and fair coloring of the cheeks held promise of an
+abiding beauty, but more than mere beauty was bounded by the ruffled
+sunbonnet. There was an eagerness of expression, an alert understanding
+in the deep eyes, a tender fluttering of the long lashes, an ever
+varying animation in the child face, as though she were standing on
+tiptoe to catch all the sunshine and glory of the great, beautiful world
+about her.
+
+Phoebe went decorously down the road, across the wooden bridge over the
+Chicques, then she began to skip. Her full skirt fluttered in the light
+wind, her sunbonnet slipped back from her head and flapped as she hopped
+along the half mile stretch of country road bordered by green fields and
+meadows.
+
+"There's no houses here so I dare skip," she panted gleefully. "Aunt
+Maria don't think it looks nice for girls to skip, but I like to do it.
+I could just skip and skip and skip----"
+
+She stopped suddenly. In a meadow to her right a tangle of bulrushes
+edged a small pond and, perched on a swaying reed, a red-winged
+blackbird was calling his clear, "Conqueree, conqueree."
+
+"Oh, you pretty thing!" Phoebe cried as she leaned on the fence and
+watched the bird. "You're just the prettiest thing with them red and
+yellow spots on your wings. And you ain't afraid of me, not a bit. I
+guess mebbe you know you got wings and I ain't. Such pretty wings you
+got, too, and the rest of you is all black as coal. Mebbe God made you
+black all over like a crow and then got sorry for you and put some
+pretty spots on your wings. I wonder now"--her face sobered--"I just
+wonder now why Aunt Maria says still that it's bad to fix up pretty with
+curls and things like that and to wear fancy dresses. Why, many of the
+birds are vonderful fine in gay feathers and the flowers are fancy and
+the butterflies--ach, mebbe when I'm big I'll understand it better, or
+mebbe I'll dress up pretty then too."
+
+With that cheering thought she turned again to the road and resumed her
+walk, but the skipping mood had fled. She pulled her sunbonnet to its
+proper place and walked briskly along, still enjoying thoroughly, though
+less exuberantly, the beauty of the June morning.
+
+The scent of pink clover mingled with the odor of grasses and the
+delicate perfume of sweetbrier. Wood sorrel nestled in the grassy
+corners near the crude rail fences, daisies and spiked toad-flax grew
+lavishly among the weeds of the roadside. In the meadows tall milkweed
+swayed its clusters of pink and lavender, marsh-marigolds dotted the
+grass with discs of pure gold, and Queen Anne's lace lifted its
+parasols of exquisite loveliness. Phoebe reveled in it all; her cheeks
+were glowing as she left the beauty of the country behind her and came
+at last to the little town of Greenwald.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+OLD AARON'S FLAG
+
+
+GREENWALD is an old town but it is a delightfully interesting one. It
+does not wear its antiquity as an excuse for sinking into mouldering
+uselessness. It presents, rather, a strange mingling of the quaint,
+romantic and historic with the beautiful, progressive and modern. Though
+it clings reverently to honored traditions it is ever mindful of the
+fact that the welfare of its inhabitants is dependent upon reasonable
+progress in its religious, educational and industrial life.
+
+The charming stamp of its antiquity is revealed in its great old trees;
+its wide Market Square from which narrower streets branch to the east,
+west, north and south; its numerous houses of the plain, substantial
+type of several generations ago; its occasional little, low houses which
+have withstood the march of modern building and stand squarely beside
+houses of more elaborate and later design; but chiefly in its
+old-fashioned gardens. All the old-time flowers are favorites there and
+refuse to be displaced by any newcomer. Sweet alyssum and candytuft
+spread carpets of bloom along the neat garden walks, hollyhocks and
+dahlias look boldly out to the streets, while the old-fashioned
+sweet-scented roses grow on great bushes which have been undisturbed for
+three or more generations.
+
+To Phoebe Metz, Greenwald, with its two thousand inhabitants, its
+several churches, post-office and numerous stores, seemed a veritable
+city. She delighted in walking on its brick sidewalks, looking at its
+different houses and entering its stores. How many attractions these
+stores held for the little country girl! There was the big one on the
+Square which had in one of its windows a great lemon tree on which grew
+real lemons. Another store had a large Santa Claus in its window every
+Christmas--not that Phoebe Metz had ever been taught to believe in that
+patron saint of the children--oh, no! Maria Metz would have considered
+it foolish, even sinful, to lie to a child about any mythical Santa
+Claus coming down the chimney Christmas Eve! Nevertheless, the smiling,
+rotund face of the red-habited Santa in the store window seemed so real
+and so emanative of cheer that Phoebe delighted in him each year and
+felt sure there must be a Santa Claus somewhere in the world, even
+though Aunt Maria knew nothing about him.
+
+Most little towns can boast of one or more persons like Granny
+Hogendobler, well-nigh community owned, certainly community
+appropriated. Did any one need a helper in garden or kitchen or sewing
+room, Granny Hogendobler was glad to serve. Did a housewife remember
+that a rose geranium leaf imparts to apple jelly a delicious flavor,
+Granny Hogendobler was able and willing to furnish the leaf. Did a lover
+of flowers covet a new phlox or dahlia or other old-fashioned flower,
+Granny Hogendobler was ready to give of her stock. Should a young wife
+desire a recipe for crullers, shoo-fly pie, or other delectable dish,
+Granny had a wealth of reliable recipes at her tongue's end. This
+admirable desire to serve found ample opportunities for exercise in the
+constant demands from her friends and neighbors. But Granny's greatest
+joy lay in the fond ministrations for her husband, Old Aaron, as the
+town people called him, half pityingly, half accusingly. For some said
+Old Aaron was plain shiftless, had always been so, would remain so
+forever, so long as he had Granny to do for him. Others averred that the
+Confederate bullets that had shattered his leg into splinters and
+necessitated its amputation must have gone astray and struck his
+liver--leastways, that was the kindest explanation they could give for
+his laziness.
+
+Granny stoutly refuted all these charges--gossip travels in circles in
+small towns and sooner or later reaches those most concerned--"Aaron
+lazy! I-to-goodness no! Why, he's old and what for should he go out and
+work every day, I wonder. He helps me with the garden and so, and when I
+go out to help somebody for a day or two he gets his own meals and tends
+the chickens still. Some people thought a few years ago that he might
+get work in the foundry, but I said I want him at home with me. He gets
+a pension and we can live good on what we have without him slaving his
+last years away, and him with one leg lost at Gettysburg!" she ended
+proudly.
+
+So Old Aaron continued to live his life as pleased his mate and himself.
+He pottered about the house and garden and spent long hours musing under
+the grape arbor. But there was one day in every year when Old Aaron
+came into his own. Every Memorial Day he dressed in his venerated blue
+uniform and carried the flag down the dusty streets of Greenwald, out to
+the dustier road to a spot a mile from the heart of the town, where, on
+a sunny hilltop, some of his comrades rested in the Silent City.
+
+Only the infirm and the ill of the town failed to run to look as the
+little procession passed down the street. There were boys in khaki, the
+town band playing its best, volunteer firemen clad in vivid red shirts,
+a low, hand-drawn wagon filled with flowers, an old cannon, also
+hand-drawn, whose shots over the graves of the dead veterans would
+thrill as they thrilled every May thirtieth--all received attention and
+admiration from the watchers of the procession. But the real honors of
+the day were accorded the "thin blue line of heroes," and Old Aaron was
+one of these. To Granny Hogendobler, who walked with the crowd of
+cheering children and adults and kept step on the sidewalk with the step
+of the marchers on the street, it was evident that the standard bearer
+was growing old. The steep climb near the cemetery entrance left him
+breathless and flushed and each year Granny thought, "It's getting too
+much for him to carry that flag." But each returning year she would have
+spurned as earnestly as he any suggestion that another one be chosen to
+carry that flag. And so every three hundred and sixty-fifth day the lean
+straight figure of Old Aaron marched directly under the fluttering folds
+of Old Glory and the soldier became a subject worthy of veneration,
+then with customary nonchalance the little town forgot him again or
+spoke of him as Old Aaron, a little lazy, a little shiftless, a little
+childish, and Granny Hogendobler became the more important figure of
+that household.
+
+Granny was fifteen years younger than her husband and was undeniably
+rotund of hips and face, the former rotundity increased by her full
+skirts, the latter accentuated by her style of wearing her hair combed
+back into a tight knot near the top of her head and held in place by a
+huge black back-comb.
+
+From this style of hair dressing it is evident that Granny was not a
+member of any plain sect. She was, as she said, "An Evangelical, one of
+the old kind yet. I can say Amen to the preacher's sermon and stand up
+in prayer-meeting and tell how the Lord has blessed me."
+
+There were some who doubted the rich blessing of which Granny spoke. "I
+wouldn't think the Lord blessed me so much," whispered one, "if I had a
+man like Old Aaron, though I guess he's good enough to her. And that boy
+of theirs never comes home; he must have a funny streak in him too."
+"But think of this," one would answer, "how the Lord keeps her cheerful,
+kind and faithful through all her troubles."
+
+Granny's was a wonderful garden. She and Old Aaron lived in a little
+gray cube of a house that had its front face set straight to the edge of
+Charlotte Street. However, the north side of the cube looked into a
+great green yard where tall spruce trees, overrun with trumpet vines and
+woodbine, shaded long beds of flowers that love semi-shady places. The
+rear of the house overlooked an old-fashioned garden enclosed with a
+white-washed picket fence. Always were there flowers at Granny's house.
+In the cold days of winter blooming masses of geraniums, primroses and
+gloxinias crowded against the little square panes of the windows and
+looked defiantly out at the snow; while all the old favorites grew in
+the garden, from the first March snowdrop to the late November
+chrysanthemum. In June, therefore, the garden was a "Lovesome spot"
+indeed.
+
+"It vonders me now if Granny's home," thought Phoebe as she opened the
+wooden gate and entered the yard.
+
+"Here I am," called Granny. "Back in the garden. I-to-goodness, Phoebe,
+did you come once! I just said yesterday to Aaron that I didn't see none
+of you folks for long, and here you come! You haven't seen the flowers
+for a while."
+
+"Oh!" Phoebe breathed an ecstatic little word of delight. "Oh, your
+garden is just vonderful pretty!"
+
+"Ain't," agreed Granny. "Aaron and me's been working pretty hard in it
+these weeks. There he is, out in the potato patch; see him?"
+
+Phoebe stood on tiptoe and looked where Granny's finger pointed to the
+extreme end of the long vegetable garden, where the white head of Old
+Aaron was bending over his hoeing.
+
+"He's hoeing the potatoes," Granny explained. "He don't see you. But
+he'll soon be done and come in."
+
+"What were you doin'?" asked the child.
+
+"Weeding the flag."
+
+"Weedin' the flag--what do you mean?" Phoebe's eyes lighted with
+eagerness. "I guess you mean mendin' the flag, Granny." She looked
+toward the porch as if in search of Old Glory.
+
+"I said weeding the flag," the woman insisted. "It's an idea of Aaron's
+and I guess I'll tell you about it, seeing your eyes are open so wide.
+See the poppies, that long stretch of them in the middle of the garden?"
+
+"Um-uh," nodded Phoebe.
+
+"Well, that patch at the back is all red poppies, the buds just coming
+on them nice and big. Then right in front of them is another patch of
+white poppies; the buds are thick on them, too. And right in front of
+them--you see what's there!"
+
+"Larkspur, blue larkspur!" cried Phoebe. "Oh, I see--it's red, white and
+blue! You'll have it all summer in your garden!"
+
+"Yes. When it blooms it'll be a grand sight. I said to Aaron that we'll
+have all the children of Greenwald in looking at his flag and he said he
+hopes so, for they couldn't look at anything better than the colors of
+Old Glory. Aaron's crazy about the flag."
+
+"'Cause he fought for it, mebbe."
+
+"Yes, I guess. His father died for it at Gettysburg, the same place
+where Aaron lost his leg. . . . The only thing is, the larkspur's
+getting ahead of the poppies--seems like the larkspur couldn't
+wait"--her voice continued low--"I always love to see the larkspur
+come."
+
+"I too," said the child. "I like to pull out the little slippers from
+the middle of the flowers and fit 'em into each other and make circles
+with 'em. I made a lot last summer and pressed 'em in a book, but Aunt
+Maria made me stop."
+
+"That's just what Nason used to do. I have some pressed in the big Bible
+yet that he made when he was a little boy." She spoke half-absently, as
+though momentarily forgetful of the child's presence.
+
+"Who's Nason?" asked Phoebe.
+
+Granny started. "I-to-goodness, Phoebe, I forgot! You don't know him,
+never heard of him, I guess. He's our boy. We had a little girl, too,
+but she died."
+
+"Did the boy die too, Granny?"
+
+"No, ach no! You wouldn't understand. He's living in the city. He writes
+to me often but he don't come home. He and his pop fell out about the
+flag once when Nason was young and foolish and they're both too stubborn
+to forget it."
+
+"But he'll come back some day and live with you, of course, won't he?"
+Phoebe comforted her.
+
+"Yes--some day they'll see things different. But now don't you bother
+that head of yourn with such things. You forget all about Nason. Come
+now, sit on the bench a little under the arbor."
+
+"Just a little. I must go to the store yet."
+
+"You have lots to do."
+
+"Yes. And I almost forgot what I come for. Aunt Maria wants you should
+come out to our place to-morrow early and help with the strawberries if
+you can."
+
+"I'll come. I like to come to your place. Your Aunt Maria is so straight
+out, nothing false about her. I like her. But now I bet you're thinking
+of how many berries you can eat," she added as she noted the child's
+abstracted look.
+
+"No--I was thinkin'--I was just thinkin' what a funny name Nason is,
+like you tried to say Nathan and got your tongue twisted."
+
+"It's a real name, but you must forget all about it."
+
+"If I can. Sometimes Aunt Maria tells me to forget things, like wantin'
+curls and fancy things and pretty dresses but I don't see how I can
+forget when I remember, do you?"
+
+"It's hard," Granny said, a deeper meaning in her words than the child
+could comprehend. "It's the hardest thing in the world to forget what
+you want to forget. But here comes Aaron----"
+
+"Well, well, if here ain't Phoebe Metz with her eyes shining and a pink
+rose pinned to her waist and matching the roses in her cheeks!" the old
+soldier said as he joined the two under the arbor. "Whew! Mebbe it ain't
+hot hoeing potatoes!"
+
+"You're all heated up, Aaron," said Granny. His fifteen years seniority
+warranted a solicitous watchfulness over him, she thought. "Now you get
+cooled off a little and I'll make some lemonade. It'll taste good to me
+and Phoebe, too."
+
+"All right, Ma," Aaron sighed in relaxation. "You know how to touch the
+spot. Did you tell Phoebe about the flag?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, I think it's fine!" cried the child. "I can't wait till all the
+flowers bloom. I want to see it."
+
+"You'll see it," promised the man. "And you bring all the boys and girls
+in too."
+
+"And then will you tell us about the war and the Battle of Gettysburg?
+David Eby says he heard you once tell about it. I think it was at some
+school celebration. And he says it was grand, just like being there
+yourself."
+
+"A little safer," laughed the old soldier. "But, yes, when the poppies
+bloom you bring the children in and I'll tell you about the war and the
+flag."
+
+"I'll remember. I love to hear about the war. Old Johnny Schlegelmilch
+from way up the country comes to our place still to sell brooms, and
+once last summer he came and it began to thunder and storm and pop said
+he shall stay till it's over and then he told me all about the war. He
+said our flag's the prettiest in the whole world."
+
+"So it is," solemnly affirmed Old Aaron.
+
+"I wonder if anybody it belongs to could help liking it," said the
+child, remembering Granny's words.
+
+"Well," the veteran answered slowly, "I knew a young fellow once, a nice
+fellow he seemed, too, and his father a soldier who fought for the flag.
+Well, the father was always talking about the flag and what it means and
+how every man should be ready to fight for it. And one day the boy said
+that he would never fight for it and be shot to pieces, that the old
+flag made him sick, and one soldier in the family was enough."
+
+"Oh!" Phoebe opened her eyes wide in surprise and horror.
+
+"And the father told the boy," the old man went on in a fixed voice as
+though the veriest details of the story were vividly before him, "that
+if he would not take back those words he never wanted to see him again.
+It was better to have no son, than such a son, a coward who hated the
+flag."
+
+Here Granny appeared with the lemonade and the story was abruptly ended.
+Phoebe refrained from questioning the man about the story but as she sat
+under the arbor and afterwards, as she started up the street of the
+little town, she wondered over and over how a boy could be the son of a
+soldier and hate the flag, and whether the story Old Aaron told her was
+the story of himself and Nason.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+LITTLE DUTCHIE
+
+
+"AUNT MARIA said I dare look around a little," thought Phoebe as she
+neared the big store on the Square. Her heart beat more quickly as she
+turned the knob of the heavy door--little things still thrilled her,
+going to the store in Greenwald was an event!
+
+The clerk's courteous, "What can I do for you?" bewildered her for an
+instant but she swallowed hard and said, "Why, we want twenty pounds of
+granulated sugar; ourn is almost all and Aunt Maria wants to make some
+strawberry jelly to-morrow. She said for Jonas to fetch it along on his
+home road."
+
+"All right. Out to Jacob Metz?"
+
+"Yes, he's my pop."
+
+"I see. Anything else?"
+
+"Three spools white thread, number fifty."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+She shook her head as she handed him the money. "No, that's all for
+to-day. But Aunt Maria said I dare look around a little if I don't touch
+things."
+
+"Look all you want," said the clerk and turned away, smiling.
+
+Phoebe began a slow tramp about the big store. There was the same glass
+case filled with jewelry. The rings and pins rested on satin that had
+faded long since, the jewelry itself was tarnished but it held Phoebe's
+interest with its meagre glistening. One little ring with a tiny
+turquoise aroused her desire but she realized that she was longing for
+the impossible, so she moved away from the coveted treasures and paused
+before the ribbons. Some of those same ribbons had been in the tall
+revolving case ever since she could remember going to that store. The
+pale sea-green and the crushed-strawberry were faded horribly, yet she
+looked at them with longing. "Suppose," she thought, "I dared pick out
+any ribbon I want for a sash--guess I'd take that funny pink one, or
+mebbe that nice blue one. But I kinda think I'd rather have a set of
+dishes or a doll. But then I got that rag doll at home and that pretty
+one that pop got for me in Lancaster and that Aunt Maria won't leave me
+play with. That's funny now, that she says still I daren't play with it
+for I might break it, that I shall keep it till I'm big. But when I'm
+big I won't want a doll, and then I vonder what! What will I do with it
+then?"
+
+She stood a long time before a table crowded with a motley gathering of
+toys, dolls and books. With so much coveted treasure before her it was
+hard to remember Aunt Maria's injunction to refrain from touching.
+
+"Well, anyhow," she decided finally, "I won't need any of these things
+to play with now, for I'm going to be out in the garden and the yard
+with the flowers and birds. So I guess my old rag doll will be plenty
+for playin' with. But I mustn't look too long else Aunt Maria won't
+leave me come in soon again. I'll walk down the other side of the store
+now yet and then I must go."
+
+She passed slowly along, her keen eyes noticing the varied assortment of
+articles displayed for sale. A long line of red handkerchiefs was
+fastened to a cord high above one counter. Long shelves were stacked
+high with ginghams, calicoes and finer dress materials. There were gaudy
+rugs and blankets tacked to the walls near the ceiling. Counters were
+filled with glassware, china and crockery; other counters were laden
+with umbrellas, hats, shoes----
+
+"Ach," she sighed as she went out to the street, "I think this goin' to
+Greenwald to the store is vonderful nice! It's most as much fun as goin'
+in to Lancaster, only there I go in a trolley and I see black
+niggers"--she spoke the word with a little shiver, for Greenwald had no
+negro residents--"and once in there me and Aunt Maria saw a Chinaman
+with a long plait like a girl's hangin' down his back!"
+
+After asking for the mail at the post-office she turned homeward,
+feeling like singing from sheer happiness. Then she looked down at her
+pink damask rose--it was withered.
+
+"I'm goin' home now so I guess I won't be decorated no more." She
+unpinned the flower, clasped its short stem in her hand and raised the
+blossom to her face.
+
+"Um-m-m!" She drew deep breaths of the rose's perfume. "Um-m!"
+
+"Does it smell good?"
+
+Phoebe turned her head at the voice and looked into the face of a young
+woman who sat on the porch of a near-by house.
+
+"Does it smell good?" The question came again, accompanied by a broad
+smile.
+
+Quickly the hand holding the flower dropped to the child's side, her
+eyes were cast down to the brick pavement and she went hurriedly down
+the street. But not so hurriedly that she failed to hear the words,
+"LITTLE DUTCHIE" and a merry laugh from the young woman.
+
+"She--she laughed at me!" Phoebe murmured to herself under the blue
+sunbonnet. "I don't know who she is, but that was at Mollie Stern's
+house that she sat--that lady that laughed at me. She called me a
+Dutchie!"
+
+The child stabbed a fist into one eye and then into the other to fight
+back the tears. She felt sure that the appellation of Dutchie was not
+complimentary. Hadn't she heard the boys at school tease each other by
+calling, "Dutchie, Dutchie, sauer kraut!" But no one had ever called her
+that before! Her heart ached as she went down the street of the little
+town. She had planned to look at all the gardens of the main street as
+she walked home but the glory of the June day was spoiled for her. She
+did not care to look at any gardens. The laughing words, "Does it smell
+good?" rang in her ears. The name, "Little Dutchie," sent her heart
+throbbing.
+
+After the first hurt a feeling of wrath rose in her. "Anyhow," she
+thought, "it's no disgrace to be a Dutchie! Nobody needn't laugh at me
+for that. But I just hate that lady that laughed at me! I hate everybody
+that pokes fun at me. And I ain't goin' to always be a Dutchie. You see
+once if I don't be something else when I grow up!"
+
+"Hello, Phoebe," a cheery voice rang out, followed by a deeper
+exclamation, "Phoebe!" as she came to the last intersection of streets
+in the town and turned to enter the country road.
+
+She turned a sober little face to the speakers, David Eby and his
+cousin, Phares Eby.
+
+"Hello," she answered listlessly.
+
+"What's wrong?" asked the older boy as they joined her.
+
+Both were plainly country boys accustomed to hard farm work, but their
+tanned faces were frank and honest under broad straw hats. Each bore
+marked family resemblances in their big frames, dark eyes and
+well-shaped heads, but there was a distinct line drawn between their
+personalities. Phares Eby at sixteen was grave, studious and dignified;
+his cousin, David, two years younger, was a cheery, laughing, sociable
+boy, fond of boyish sports, delighting in teasing his schoolmates and
+enjoying their retaliation, preferring a tramp through the woods to the
+best book ever written.
+
+The boys lived on adjacent farms and had long been the nearest neighbors
+of the Metz family; thus they had become Phoebe's playmates. Then, too,
+the Eby families were members of the Church of the Brethren, the mothers
+of the boys were old friends of Maria Metz, and a deep friendship
+existed among them all. Phoebe and the two boys attended the same
+little country school and had become frankly fond of each other.
+
+"What's wrong?" asked Phares again as Phoebe hung her head and remained
+silent.
+
+"Ach," laughed David, "somebody's broke her dolly."
+
+"Nobody ain't not broke my dolly, David Eby!" she said crossly. "I
+wouldn't cry for _that_!"
+
+"What's wrong then?--come on, Phoebe." He pushed the sunbonnet back and
+patted her roguishly on the head. But she drew away from him.
+
+"Don't you touch me," she cried. "I'm a Dutchie!"
+
+"What?"
+
+She tossed her head and became silent again.
+
+"Come on, tell me," coaxed David. "I want to know what's wrong. Why, if
+you don't tell me I'll be so worried I won't be able to eat any dinner,
+and I'm so hungry now I could eat nails."
+
+The girl laughed suddenly in spite of herself--"Ach, David, you're awful
+simple! Abody has to laugh at you. I was mad, for when I was in
+Greenwald I was smellin' a rose, that pink rose you gave me, and some
+lady on Mollie Stern's porch laughed at me and called me a LITTLE
+DUTCHIE! Now wouldn't you got mad for that?"
+
+But David threw back his head and laughed. "And you were ready to cry at
+that?" he said. "Why, I'm a Dutchie, so is Phares, so's most of the
+people round here. Ain't so, Phares?"
+
+"Yes, guess so," the older boy assented, his eyes still upon Phoebe.
+"D'ye know," he said, addressing her, "when you were cross a few minutes
+ago your eyes were almost black. You shouldn't get so angry still,
+Phoebe."
+
+"I don't care," she retorted quickly, "I don't care if my eyes was
+purple!"
+
+"But you should care," persisted the boy gravely. "I don't like you so
+angry."
+
+"Ach," she flashed an indignant look at him--"Phares Eby, you're by far
+too bossy! I like David best; he don't boss me all the time like you
+do!"
+
+David laughed but Phares appeared hurt.
+
+Phoebe was quick to note it. "Now I hurt you like that lady hurt me,
+ain't, Phares?" she said contritely. "But I didn't mean to hurt you,
+Phares, honest."
+
+"But you like me best," said David gaily. "You can't take that back,
+remember."
+
+She gave him a scornful look. Then she remembered the flag in the
+Hogendobler garden and became happy and eager again as she said, "Oh,
+Phares, David, I know the best secret!"
+
+"Can't keep it, I bet!" challenged David.
+
+"Can't I?" she retorted saucily. "Now for that I won't tell you till you
+get good and anxious. But then it's not really a secret." The flag of
+growing flowers was too glorious a thing to keep; she compromised--"I'll
+tell you, because it's not a real secret." And she proceeded to unfold
+with earnest gesticulations the story about the flowers of red and white
+and blue and the invitation for all who cared to come and see the
+colors of Old Glory growing in the garden of Old Aaron and Granny, and
+of the added pleasure of hearing Old Aaron tell his thrilling story of
+the battle of Gettysburg.
+
+"I won't want to hear about any battle," said Phares. "I think war is
+horrible, awful, wicked."
+
+"Mebbe so," said the girl, "but the poor men who fight in wars ain't
+always awful, horrible, wicked. You needn't turn your nose up at the old
+soldiers. Folks call Old Aaron lazy, I heard 'em a'ready, lots of times,
+but I bet some of them wouldn't have fought like he did and left a leg
+at Gettysburg and--ach, I think Old Aaron is just vonderful grand!" she
+ended in an impulsive burst of eloquence.
+
+"Hooray!" shouted David. "So do I! When he carries the flag out the pike
+every Decoration Day he's somebody, all right."
+
+"Ain't now!" agreed Phoebe.
+
+"Been in the stores?" David asked her, feeling that a change of subject
+might be wise.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"See anything pretty?"
+
+"Ach, yes. A lots of things. I saw the prettiest finger ring with a blue
+stone in. I wish I had it."
+
+"What would Aunt Maria say to that?" wondered David.
+
+"Ach, she'd say that so long as my finger ain't broke I don't need a
+band on it. But I looked at the ring at any rate and wished I had it."
+
+"You dare never wear gold rings," Phares told her.
+
+"Not now," she returned, "but some day when I'm older mebbe I'll wear a
+lot of 'em if I want."
+
+The words set the boys thinking. Each wondered what manner of woman
+their little playmate would become.
+
+"I bet she'll be a good-looking one," thought David. "She'd look swell
+dressed up fine like some of the people I see in town."
+
+"Of course she'll turn plain some day like her aunt," thought the other
+boy. "She'll look nice in the plain dress and the white cap."
+
+Phoebe, ignorant of the visions her innocent words had called to the
+hearts of her comrades, chattered on until they reached the little green
+gate of the Metz farm.
+
+"Now you two must climb the hill yet. I'm glad I'm home. I'm hungry."
+
+"And me," the boys answered, and with good-byes were off on the winding
+road up the hill.
+
+As Phoebe turned the corner of the big gray house she came face to face
+with her father.
+
+"So here you are, Phoebe," he said, smiling at sight of her. "Your Aunt
+Maria sent me out to look if you were coming. It's time to eat. Been to
+the store, ain't?"
+
+"Yes, pop. I went alone."
+
+"So? Why, you're getting a big girl, now you can go to Greenwald alone."
+
+"Ach," she laughed. "Why, it's just straight road."
+
+They crossed the porch and entered the kitchen hand-in-hand, the
+sunbonneted little girl and the big farmer. Jacob Metz was also a member
+of the Church of the Brethren and bore the distinctive mark: hair parted
+in the middle and combed straight back over his ears and cut so that the
+edge of it almost touched his collar. A heavy black beard concealed his
+chin, mild brown eyes gleamed beneath a pair of heavy black brows. Only
+in the wide, high forehead and the resolute mouth could be seen any
+resemblance between him and the fair child by his side.
+
+When they entered the kitchen Maria Metz turned from the stove, where
+she had been stirring the contents of a big iron pan.
+
+"So you got back safe, after all, Phoebe," she said with a sigh of
+relief. "I was afraid mebbe something happened to you, with so many
+streets to go across and so many teams all the time and the
+automobiles."
+
+"Ach, I look both ways still before I start over. Granny Hogendobler
+said she'll get out early."
+
+"So. What did she have to say?"
+
+"Ach, lots. She showed me her flowers. Ain't it too bad, now, that her
+little girl died and her boy went away?"
+
+"Well, she spoiled that boy. He grew up to be not much account if he
+stays away just because he and his pop had words once."
+
+"But he'll come back some day. Granny knows he will." The child echoed
+the old mother's confidence.
+
+"Not much chance of that," said Aunt Maria with her usual decisiveness.
+"When a man goes off like that he mostly always stays off. He writes to
+her she says and I guess she's just as good off with that as if he come
+home to live. She's lived this long without him."
+
+"But," argued Phoebe, the maternal in her over-sweeping all else, "he's
+her boy and she wants him back!"
+
+"Ach," the aunt said impatiently, "you talk too much. Were you at the
+store?"
+
+"Yes. I got the thread and ordered the sugar and counted the change and
+there was nothing in the post-office for us."
+
+"Did you enjoy your trip to town?" asked the father.
+
+"Yes--but----"
+
+"But what?" demanded Aunt Maria. "Did you break anything in the store
+now?"
+
+"No. I just got mad. It was this way"--and she told the story of her
+pink rose.
+
+Maria Metz frowned. "David Eby should leave his mom's roses on the
+stalks where they belong. Anyhow, I guess you did look funny if you
+poked your nose in it like you do still here."
+
+"But she had no business to laugh at me, had she, pop?"
+
+"You're too touchy," he said kindly. "But did you say the lady was on
+Mollie Stern's porch?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I guess it was her cousin from Philadelphia, the one that was
+elected to teach the school on the hill for next winter."
+
+"Oh, pop, not our school?"
+
+"Yes. Anyhow, her cousin was elected yesterday to teach your school. It
+seems she wanted to teach in the country and Mollie's pop is friends
+with a lot of our directors and they voted her in."
+
+"I ain't goin' to school then!" Phoebe almost sobbed. "I don't like her,
+I don't want to go to her school; she laughed at me."
+
+"Come, come," the father laid his hands on her head and spoke gently yet
+in a tone that she respected. "You mustn't get worked up over it. She's
+a nice young lady, and it will be something new to have a teacher from
+Philadelphia. Anyhow, it's a long ways yet till school begins."
+
+"I'm glad it is."
+
+"Come," interrupted the aunt, "help now to dish up. It's time to eat
+once. We're Pennsylvania Dutch, so what's the use gettin' cross when
+we're called that?"
+
+"Yes," Phoebe's father said, smiling, "I'm a Dutchie too, but I'm a big
+Dutchie."
+
+Phoebe smiled, but all through the meal and during the days that
+followed she thought often of the rose. Her heart was bitter toward the
+new teacher and she resolved never, never to like her!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE NEW TEACHER
+
+
+THE first Monday in September was the opening day of the rural school on
+the hill. Phoebe woke that morning before daylight. At four she heard
+her Aunt Maria tramp about in heavy shoes. It was Monday and wash-day
+and to Maria Metz the two words were so closely linked that nothing less
+than serious illness or death could part them.
+
+"Ach, my," Phoebe sighed as she turned again under her red and green
+quilt, "this is the first day of school! Wish Aunt Maria'd forget to
+call me till it's too late to go."
+
+At five-thirty she heard her father go down-stairs and soon after that
+came her aunt's loud call, "Phoebe, it's time to get up. Get up now and
+get down for I have breakfast made."
+
+"Yes," came the dreary answer.
+
+"Now don't you go asleep again."
+
+"No, I'm awake. Shall I dress right aways for school?"
+
+"No. Put on your old brown gingham once."
+
+Phoebe made a wry face. "Ugh, that ugly brown gingham! What for did
+anybody ever buy brown when there are such pretty colors in the stores?"
+
+A moment later she pushed back the gay quilt and sat on the edge of the
+bed. The first gleams of day-break sent bright streaks of light into her
+room as she sat on the high walnut bed and swung her bare feet back and
+forth.
+
+"It's the first time I wasn't glad for school," she soliloquized softly.
+"I used to could hardly wait still, and I'd be glad this time if we
+didn't have that teacher from Phildelphy. Miss Virginia Lee her name is,
+and she's pretty like the name, but I don't like her! Guess she's that
+stuck up, comin' from the city, that she'll laugh all the time at us
+country people. I don't like people that poke fun at me, you bet I
+don't! I vonder now, mebbe I am funny to look at, that she laughed at
+me. But if I was I think somebody would 'a' told me long ago. I don't
+see what for she laughed so at me."
+
+She sprang from the bed and ran to the window, pulled the cord of the
+green shade and sent it rattling to the top. Then she stood on tiptoe
+before the mirror in the walnut bureau, but the glass was hung too high
+for a satisfactory scrutiny of her features. She pushed a cane-seated
+chair before the bureau, knelt upon it and brought her face close to the
+glass.
+
+"Um," she surveyed herself soberly. "Well, now, mebbe if my hair was
+combed I'd look better."
+
+She pulled the tousled braids, opened them and shook her head until the
+golden hair hung about her face in all its glory.
+
+"Why"--she gasped at the sudden change she had wrought, then laughed
+aloud from sheer childish happiness in her own miracle--"Why," she said
+gladly, "I ain't near so funny lookin' with my hair opened and down
+instead of pulled back in two tight plaits! But I wish Aunt Maria'd
+leave me have curls. I'd have a lot, and long ones, longer'n Mary
+Warner's."
+
+"Phoebe!" Aunt Maria's voice startled the little girl. "What in the
+world are you doing lookin' in that glass so? And your knees on a
+cane-bottom chair! You know better than that. What for are you lookin'
+at yourself like that? You ought to be ashamed to be so vain."
+
+Phoebe left the chair and looked at her aunt.
+
+"Why," she said in an amazed voice, "I wasn't being vain! I was just
+lookin' to see if I am funny lookin' that it made Miss Lee laugh at me.
+And I found out that I'm much nicer to look at with my hair open than in
+plaits. You say still I mustn't have curls, but can't you see how much
+nicer I look this way----"
+
+"Ach," interrupted her aunt, "don't talk so dumb! I guess you ain't any
+funnier lookin' than other people, and if you was it wouldn't matter
+long as you're a good girl."
+
+"But I wouldn't be a good girl if I looked like some people I saw
+a'ready. If I had such big ears and crooked nose and big mouth----"
+
+"Phoebe, you talk vonderful! Where do you get such nonsense put in your
+head?"
+
+"I just think it and then I say it. But was that bad? I didn't mean it
+for bad."
+
+She looked so like a cherub of absolute innocency with her deep blue
+eyes opened wide in wonder, her golden hair tumbled about her face and
+streaming over the shoulders of her white muslin nightgown, that Aunt
+Maria, though she had never heard of Reynolds' cherubs, was moved by the
+adorable picture.
+
+"I know, Phoebe," she said kindly, "that you want to be a good girl. But
+you say such funny things still that I vonder sometimes if I'm raisin'
+you the right way. Come, hurry, now get dressed. Your pop's goin' way
+over to the field near Snavely's and you want to give him good-bye
+before he goes to work."
+
+"I'll hurry, Aunt Maria, honest I will," the child promised and began to
+dress.
+
+A little while later when she appeared in the big kitchen her father and
+Aunt Maria were already eating breakfast. With her hair drawn back into
+one uneven braid and a rusty brown dress upon her she seemed little like
+the adorable figure of the looking-glass, but her father's face lighted
+as he looked at her.
+
+"So, Phoebe," he said, a teasing twinkle in his eyes, "I see you get up
+early to go to school."
+
+"But I ain't glad to go." She refused to smile at his words.
+
+"Ach, yes," he coaxed, "you be a good girl and like your new teacher.
+She's nice. I guess you'll like her when you know her once."
+
+"Mebbe so," was the unpromising answer as she slipped the straps of a
+blue checked apron over her shoulders, buttoned it in the back and took
+her place at the table.
+
+Breakfast at the Metz farm was no light meal. Between the early morning
+meal and the twelve o'clock dinner much hard work was generally
+accomplished and Maria Metz felt that a substantial foundation was
+necessary. Accordingly, she carried to the big, square cherry table in
+the kitchen an array of well-filled dishes. There was always a glass
+dish of stewed prunes or seasonable fresh fruit; a plate piled high with
+thick slices of home-made bread; several dishes of spreadings, as the
+jellies, preserves or apple-butter of that community are called. There
+was a generous square of home-made butter, a platter of home-cured ham
+or sausage, a dish of fried or creamed potatoes, a smaller dish of
+pickles or beets, and occasionally a dome of glistening cup cheese. The
+meal would have been considered incomplete without a liberal supply of
+cake or cookies, coffee in huge cups and yellow cream in an
+old-fashioned blue pitcher.
+
+That morning Aunt Maria had prepared an extra treat, a platter of golden
+slices of fried mush.
+
+The two older people partook heartily of the food before them but the
+child ate listlessly. Her aunt soon exclaimed, "Now, Phoebe, you must
+eat or you'll get hungry till recess. You know this is the first day of
+school and you can't run for a cookie if you get hungry. You ain't
+eatin'; you feel bad?"
+
+"No, but I ain't hungry."
+
+"Come now," urged her father, as he poured a liberal helping of molasses
+on his sixth piece of mush, "you must eat. You surely don't feel that
+bad about going to school!"
+
+"Ach, pop," she burst out, "I don't hate the school part, the learnin'
+in books; that part is easy. But I don't like the teacher, and I guess
+she laughed at my tight braids. Mebbe if I dared wear curls---- Oh,
+pop, daren't I have curls? I'd like to show her that I look nice that
+way. Say I dare, then I won't be so funny lookin' no more!"
+
+Jacob Metz looked at his offspring--what did the child mean? Why, he
+thought she was right sweet and surely her aunt kept her clean and tidy.
+But before he could answer his sister spoke authoritatively.
+
+"Jacob, I wish you'd tell her once that she daren't have curls! She just
+plagues me all the time for 'em. Her hair was made to be kept back and
+not hangin' all over."
+
+"Why then," Phoebe asked soberly, "did God make my hair curly if I
+daren't have curls?" She spoke with a sense of knowing that she had
+propounded an unanswerable question.
+
+"That part don't matter," evaded Aunt Maria. "You ask your pop once how
+he wants you to have your hair fixed."
+
+The child looked up expectantly but she read the answer in her father's
+face.
+
+"I like your hair back in plaits, Phoebe. You look nice that way."
+
+"Ach," her nose wrinkled in disgust, "not so very, I guess. Mary Warner
+has curls, always she has curls!"
+
+"Come," said the father as he rose from his chair, "you be a good girl
+now to-day. I'm going now."
+
+"All right, pop. I'll tell you to-night how I like the teacher."
+
+After the breakfast dishes were washed and the other morning tasks
+accomplished Phoebe brought her comb and ribbons to her aunt and sat
+patiently on a spindle-legged kitchen chair while the woman carefully
+parted the long light hair and formed it into two braids, each tied at
+the end with a narrow brown ribbon.
+
+"Now," Aunt Maria said as she unbuttoned the despised brown dress, "you
+dare put on your blue chambray dress if you take care and not get it
+dirty right aways."
+
+"Oh, I'm glad for that. I like that dress best of all I have. It's not
+so long in the body or tight or long in the skirt like my other dresses.
+And blue is a prettier color than brown. I'll hurry now and get
+dressed."
+
+She ran up the wide stairs, her hands skimming lightly the white
+hand-rail, and entered the little room known as the clothes-room, where
+the best clothes of the family were hung on heavy hooks fastened along
+the entire length of the four walls. She soon found the blue chambray
+dress. It was extremely simple. The plain gathered skirt was fastened to
+the full waist by a wide belt of the chambray. But the dress bore one
+distinctive feature. Instead of the usual narrow band around the neck it
+was adorned with a wide round collar which lay over the shoulders.
+Phoebe knew that the collar was vastly becoming and the knowledge always
+had a soothing effect upon her.
+
+When the call of the school bell floated down the hill to the gray
+farmhouse Phoebe picked up her school bag and her tin lunch kettle and
+started off, outwardly in happier mood yet loath to go to the old
+schoolhouse for the first session of school.
+
+From the Metz farm the road to the school began to ascend. Gradually it
+curved up-hill, then suddenly stretched out in a long, steep climb
+until, upon the summit of the hill, it curved sharply to the west to a
+wide clearing. It was to this clearing the little country schoolhouse
+with its wide porch and snug bell-tower called the children back to
+their studies.
+
+Goldenrod and asters grew along the road, dogwood branches hung their
+scarlet berries over the edge of the woods, but Phoebe would have
+scorned to gather any of the flowers she loved and carry them to the new
+teacher. "I ain't bringing _her_ any flowers," she soliloquized.
+
+She trudged soberly ahead. As she reached the summit of the hill several
+children called to her. From three roads came other children, most of
+them carrying baskets or kettles filled with the noon lunch. All were
+eager for the opening of school, anxious to "see the new teacher once."
+
+From the farm nearest the schoolhouse Phares Eby had come for his last
+year in the rural school. From the little cottage on the adjoining farm
+David Eby came whistling down the road.
+
+"Hello, Phoebe," he called as he drew near to her. "Glad for school?"
+
+"I ain't!" She flung the words at him. "You know good enough I ain't."
+
+"Ha, ha," he laughed, "don't be cranky, Phoebe. Here comes Phares and
+he'll tell you that your eyes are black when you're cross. Won't you,
+Phares?"
+
+"I----" began the sober youth, but Phoebe rudely interrupted.
+
+"I don't care. I don't like the new teacher."
+
+"You must like everybody," said Phares.
+
+"Well, I just guess I won't! There's Mary Warner with her white dress
+and her black curls with a pink bow on them--you don't think I'm likin'
+her when she's got what I want and daren't have? Come on, it's time to
+go in," she added as Phares would have remonstrated with her for her
+frank avowal of jealousy. "Let's go in and see what the teacher's got
+on."
+
+"Gee," whistled David, "girls are always thinking of clothes."
+
+Phoebe gave him a disdainful look, but he laughed and walked by her
+side, up the three steps, across the porch and into the schoolhouse.
+
+The red brick schoolhouse on the hill was a typical country school of
+Lancaster County. It had one large room with four rows of double desks
+and seats facing the teacher's desk and a long blackboard with its
+border of A B C. A stove stood in one of the corners in the front of the
+room. In the rear numerous hooks in the wall waited for the children's
+wraps and a low bench stood ready to receive their lunch baskets and
+kettles. Each detail of the little schoolhouse was reproduced in scores
+of other rural schools of that community. And yet, somehow, many of the
+older children felt on that first Monday a hope that their school would
+be different that year, that the teacher from Philadelphia would change
+many of the old ways and teach them, what Youth most desires, new ways,
+new manners, new things. It is only as the years bring wisdom that men
+and women appreciate the old things of life, as well as the new.
+
+The new teacher became at once the predominating spirit of that little
+group. The interest of all the children, from the shy little beginners
+in the Primer class to the tall ones in the A class, was centered about
+her.
+
+Miss Lee stood by her desk as Phoebe and the two boys entered. It was
+still that delightful period, before-school, when laughter could be
+released and voices raised without a fear of "keep quiet." The children
+moved to the teacher's desk as though drawn by magnetic force. Mary
+Warner, her dark curls hanging over her shoulders, appeared already
+acquainted with her. Several tiny beginners stood near the desk, a few
+older scholars were bravely offering their services to fetch water from
+Eby's "whenever it's all or you want some fresh," or else stay and clap
+the erasers clean.
+
+When the second tug at the bell-rope gave the final call for the opening
+of school there was an air of gladness in the room. The new teacher
+possessed enough of the elusive "something" the country children felt
+belonged to a teacher from a big city like Philadelphia. The way she
+conducted the opening exercises, led the singing, and then proceeded
+with the business of arranging classes and assigning lessons served to
+intensify the first feelings of satisfaction. When recess came the
+children ran outdoors, ostensibly to play, but rather to gather into
+little groups and discuss the merits of the new teacher. The general
+verdict was, "She's all right."
+
+"Ain't she all right?" David Eby asked Phoebe as they stood in the brown
+grasses near the school porch.
+
+"Ach, don't ask me that so often!"
+
+"But honest now, Phoebe, don't you like her?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"When will you know?"
+
+"I don't know," came the tantalizing answer.
+
+"Ach, sometimes, Phoebe, you make me mad! You act dumb just like the
+other girls sometimes."
+
+"Then keep away from me if you don't like me," she retorted.
+
+"Sassbox!" said the boy and walked away from her.
+
+The little tilt with David did not improve the girl's humor. She entered
+the schoolroom with a sulky look on her face, her blue eyes dark and
+stormy. Accordingly, when Mary Warner shook her enviable curls and
+leaned forward to whisper ecstatically, "Phoebe, don't you just love the
+new teacher?" Phoebe replied very decidedly, "I do not! I don't like her
+at all!"
+
+For a moment Mary held her breath, then a surprised "Oh!" came from her
+lips and she raised her hand and waved it frantically to attract the
+teacher's attention.
+
+"What is it, Mary?"
+
+"Why, Miss Lee, Phoebe Metz says she don't like you at all!"
+
+"Did she ask you to tell me?" A faint flush crept into the face of the
+teacher.
+
+"No--but----"
+
+"Then that will do, Mary."
+
+But Phoebe Metz did not dismiss the matter so easily. She turned in her
+seat and gave one of Mary's obnoxious curls a vigorous yank.
+
+"Tattle-tale!" she hurled out madly. "Big tattle-tale!"
+
+"Yank 'em again," whispered David, seated a few seats behind the girls,
+but Phares called out a soft, "Phoebe, stop that."
+
+It all occurred in a moment--the yank, the outcry of Mary, the whispers
+of the two boys and the subsequent pause in the matter of teaching and
+the centering of every child's attention upon the exciting incident and
+wondering what Miss Lee would do with the disturbers of the peace.
+
+"Phoebe," the teacher's voice was controlled and forceful, "you may fold
+your hands. You do not seem to know what to do with them."
+
+Phoebe folded her hands and bowed her head in shame. She hadn't meant to
+create a disturbance. What would her father say when he knew she was
+scolded the first day of school!
+
+The teacher's voice went on, "Mary Warner, you may come to me at noon. I
+want to tell you a few things about tale-bearing. Phoebe may remain
+after the others leave this afternoon."
+
+"Kept in!" thought Phoebe disconsolately. She was going to be kept in
+the first day! Never before had such punishment been meted out to her!
+The disgrace almost overwhelmed her.
+
+"Now I won't ever, ever, ever like her!" she thought as she bent her
+head to hide the tears.
+
+The remainder of the day was like a blurred page to her. She was glad
+when the other children picked up their books and empty baskets and
+kettles and started homeward.
+
+"Cheer up," whispered David as he passed out, but she was too miserable
+to smile or answer.
+
+"Come on, David," urged Phares when the two cousins reached outdoors and
+the younger one seemed reluctant to go home. "Don't stay here to pet
+Phoebe when she comes out."
+
+"Ach, the poor kid"--David was all sympathy and tenderness.
+
+"Let her get punished. Pulling Mary's hair like that!"
+
+"Well, Mary tattled. I was wishing Phoebe'd yank that darned kid's hair
+half off."
+
+"Mary just told the truth. You think everything Phoebe does is right and
+you help her along in her temper. She needs to be punished sometimes."
+
+"Ach, you make me tired, standing up for a tattle-tale! Anyhow, you go
+on home. I'm goin' to hang round a while and see if Miss Lee does
+anything mean."
+
+Phares went on alone and the other boy stole to a window and crouched to
+the ground.
+
+Inside the room Phoebe waited tremblingly for the teacher to speak. It
+seemed ages before Miss Lee walked down the aisle and stood by the low
+desk.
+
+Phoebe raised her head--the look in the dark eyes of the teacher filled
+her with a sudden reversion of feeling. How could she go on hating any
+one so beautiful!
+
+"Phoebe, I'm sorry--I'm so sorry there has been any trouble the first
+day and that you have been the cause of it."
+
+"I--ach, Miss Lee," the child blurted out half-sobbingly, "Mary, she
+tattled on me."
+
+"That was wrong, of course. I made her understand that at noon. But
+don't you think that pulling her hair and creating a disturbance was
+equally wrong?"
+
+"I guess so, mebbe. But I didn't mean to make no fuss. I--I--why, I just
+get so mad still! I hadn't ought to pull her hair, for that hurts
+vonderful much."
+
+"Then you might tell her to-morrow how sorry you are about it."
+
+"Yes." Phoebe looked up at the lovely face of the teacher. She felt that
+some explanation of Mary's tale was necessary. "Why, now," she
+stammered, "you know--you know that Mary said I said I don't like you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, this summer once, early in June it was"--the child hung her head
+and spoke almost inaudibly--"you laughed at me and called me a LITTLE
+DUTCHIE!" She looked up bravely then and spoke faster, "And for that,
+it's just for that I don't like you like all the others do a'ready."
+
+"Laughed at you!" Miss Lee was perplexed. "You must be mistaken."
+
+But Phoebe shook her head resolutely and told the story of the pink
+rose. Miss Lee listened at first with an incredulous smile upon her
+face, then with dawning remembrance.
+
+"You dear child!" she cried as Phoebe ended her quaint recital. "So you
+are the little girl of the sunbonnet and the rose! I thought this
+morning I had seen you before. But you don't understand! I didn't laugh
+at you in the way you think. Why, I laughed at you just as we laugh at a
+dear little baby, because we love it and because it is so dear and
+sweet. And DUTCHIE was just a pet name. Can't you understand? You were
+so quaint and interesting in your sunbonnet and with the pink rose
+pressed to your face. Can't you understand?"
+
+Phoebe smiled radiantly, her face beaming with happiness.
+
+"Ach, ain't that simple now of me, Miss Lee?" she said in her
+old-fashioned manner. "I was so dumb and thought you was makin' fun of
+me, and just for that all summer I was wishin' school would not start
+ever. And I was sayin' all the time I ain't goin' to like you. But now I
+do like you," she added softly.
+
+"I am glad we understand each other, Phoebe."
+
+Miss Lee was genuinely interested in the child, attracted by the
+charming personality of the country girl. Of the thirty children of that
+school she felt that Phoebe Metz, in spite of her old-fashioned dress
+and older-fashioned ways, was the preeminent figure. It would be a
+delight to teach a child whose face could light with so much animation.
+
+"Now, Phoebe," she said, "since we understand each other and have become
+friends, gather your books and hurry home. Your mother may be anxious
+about you."
+
+"Not my mother," Phoebe replied soberly. "I ain't got no mom. It's my
+Aunt Maria and my pop takes care of me. My mom's dead long a'ready. But
+I'm goin' now," she ended brightly before Miss Lee could answer. "And
+the road's all down-hill so it won't take me long."
+
+So she gathered her books and kettle, said good-bye to Miss Lee and
+hurried from the schoolhouse. When she was fairly on the road she broke
+into her habit of soliloquy: "Ach, if she ain't the nicest lady! So
+pretty she is and so kind! She was vonderful kind after what I done. The
+teacher we had last year, now, he would 'a' slapped my hands with a
+ruler, he was awful for rulers! But she just looked at me and I was so
+sorry for bein' bad that I could 'a' cried. And when she touched my
+hands--her hands is soft like the milkweed silk we find still in the
+fall--I just had to like her. I like her now and I'm goin' to be a good
+girl for her and when I grow up I wish I'd be just like her, just
+esactly like her."
+
+David Eby waited until he was certain no harm was coming to Phoebe. He
+heard her say, "Now I do like you" and knew that the matter was being
+settled satisfactorily. Relieved, yet ashamed of his eavesdropping, he
+ran down the road toward his home.
+
+"That teacher's all right," he thought. "But Jimminy, girls is funny
+things!"
+
+He went on, whistling, but stopped suddenly as he turned a curve in the
+road and saw Phares sitting on the grass in the shelter of a clump of
+bushes.
+
+The older boy rose. "David," he said sternly, "you're spoiling Phoebe
+Metz with your petting and fooling around her. What for need you pity
+her when she gets kept in for being bad? She was bad!"
+
+"She was not bad!" David defended staunchly. "That Mary Warner makes me
+sick. Phoebe's got some sense, anyhow, and she's not bad. There's
+nothing bad in her."
+
+"Um," said Phares tauntingly, "mebbe you like her already and next
+you'll want her for your girl. You give her pink roses and you stay to
+lick the teacher for her if----"
+
+But the sentence was never finished. At the first words David's eyes
+flashed, his hands doubled into hard fists and, as his cousin paid no
+heed to the warning, he struck out suddenly, then partially restraining
+his rage, he unclenched his right hand and gave Phares a smarting slap
+upon the mouth.
+
+"I'll learn you," he growled, "to meddle in my business! You mind your
+own, d'ye hear?"
+
+"Why"--Phares knew no words to answer the insult--"why, David," he
+stammered, wiping his smarting lips.
+
+But his silence added fuel to the other's wrath.
+
+"You butt in too much, that's what!" said David. "It's just like Phoebe
+says, you boss too much. I ain't going to take it no more from you."
+
+"I--now--mebbe I do," admitted Phares.
+
+At the words David's anger cooled. He laid a hand on the older boy's
+arm, as older men might have gripped hands in reconciliation. "Come on,
+Phares," he said in natural, friendly tones. "I hadn't ought to hit you.
+Let's forget all about it. You and me mustn't fight over Phoebe."
+
+"That's so," agreed Phares, but both were thoughtful and silent as they
+went down the lane.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE HEART OF A CHILD
+
+
+PHOEBE'S aspiration to become like her teacher did not lessen as the days
+went on. Her profound admiration for Miss Lee developed into intense
+devotion, a devotion whose depth she carefully guarded from discovery.
+
+To her father's interested questioning she answered a mere, "Why, I like
+her, for all, pop. She didn't laugh to make fun at me. I think she's
+nice." But secretly the little girl thought of her new teacher in the
+most extravagant superlatives. Her heart was experiencing its first
+"hero" worship; the poetic, imaginative soul of the child was attracted
+by the magnetic personality of Miss Lee. The teacher's smiles,
+mannerisms, dress, and above all, her English, were objects worthy of
+emulation, thought the child. At times Phoebe despaired of ever becoming
+like Miss Lee, then again she felt certain she had within her
+possibilities to become like the enviable, wonderful Virginia Lee. But
+she breathed to none her ambitions and hopes except at night as she
+knelt by her high old-fashioned bed and bent her head to say the prayer
+Aunt Maria had taught her in babyhood. Then to the prayer, "Now I lay me
+down to sleep," she added an original petition, "And please let me get
+like my teacher, Miss Lee. Amen."
+
+"Aunt Maria, church is on the hill Sunday, ain't it?" she asked one day
+after several weeks of school.
+
+"Yes. And I hope it's nice, for we make ready for a lot of company
+always when we have church here."
+
+"Why," the child asked eagerly, "dare I ask Miss Lee to come here for
+dinner too that Sunday? Mary Warner's mom had her for dinner last
+Sunday."
+
+"Ach, yes, I don't care. You ask her. Mebbe she ain't been in a plain
+church yet and would like to go with us and then come home for dinner
+here. You ask her once."
+
+Phoebe trembled a bit as she invited the teacher to the gray farmhouse.
+"Miss Lee--why--we have church here on the hill this Sunday and Aunt
+Maria thought perhaps you'd like to come out and go with us and then
+come to our house for dinner. We always have a lot of people for
+dinner."
+
+"I'd love to, Phoebe, thank you," answered Miss Lee.
+
+The plain sects of that community were all novel to her. She was eager
+to attend a service in the meeting-house on the hill and especially
+eager to meet Phoebe's people and study the unusual child in the
+intimate circle of home.
+
+"Tell your aunt I shall be very glad to go to the service with you," she
+said as Phoebe stood speechless with joy. "Will you go?"
+
+"Ach, yes, I go always," with a surprised widening of the blue eyes.
+
+"And your aunt, too?"
+
+"Why be sure, yes! Abody don't stay home from church when it's so near.
+That would look like we don't want company. There's church on the hill
+only every six weeks and the other Sundays it's at other churches. Then
+we drive to those other churches and people what live near ask us to
+come to their house for dinner, and we go. Then when it's here on the
+hill we must ask people that live far off to come to us for dinner. That
+way everybody has a place to go. It makes it nice to go away and to have
+company still. We always have a lot when church is here. Aunt Maria
+cooks so good."
+
+She spoke the last words innocently and looked up with an expression of
+wonder as she heard Miss Lee laugh gaily--now what was funny? Surely
+Miss Lee laughed when there was nothing at all to laugh about!
+
+"What time does your service begin?" asked the teacher. "What time do
+you leave the house?"
+
+"It takes in at nine o'clock----"
+
+Miss Lee smothered an ejaculation of surprise.
+
+"But we leave the house a little after half-past eight. Then we can go
+easy up the hill and have time to walk around on the graveyard a little
+and get in church early and watch the people come in."
+
+"I'll stop for you and go with you, Phoebe."
+
+Sunday morning at the Metz farm was no time for prolonged slumber. With
+the first crowing of roosters Aunt Maria rose. After the early breakfast
+there were numerous tasks to be performed before the departure for the
+meeting-house. There was the milking to be done and the cans of milk
+placed in the cool spring-house; the chickens and cattle to be fed; each
+room of the big house to be dusted; vegetables to be prepared for a
+hasty boiling after the return from the service; preserves and canned
+fruits to be brought from the cellar, placed into glass dishes and set
+in readiness.
+
+At eight-fifteen Phoebe was ready. She wore her favorite blue chambray
+dress and delighted in the fact that Sunday always brought her the
+privilege of wearing her hat. The little sailor hat with its narrow
+ribbon and little bow was certainly not the hat she would have chosen if
+she might have had that pleasure, but it was the only hat she owned, so
+was not to be despised. She felt grateful that Aunt Maria allowed her to
+wear a hat. Many little girls, some smaller than she, came to church
+every Sunday wearing silk bonnets like their elders!--she felt grateful
+for her hat--any hat!
+
+Tugging at the elastic under her chin, then smoothing her handkerchief
+and placing it in her sleeve--she had seen Miss Lee dispose of a
+handkerchief in that way--she walked to the little green gate and
+watched the road leading from Greenwald.
+
+Her heart leaped when she saw the teacher come down the long road. She
+opened the gate to go to meet her, then suddenly stood still. Miss Lee
+as she appeared in the schoolroom, in white linen dress or trim serge
+skirt and tailored waist, was attractive enough to cause Phoebe's heart
+to flutter with admiration a dozen times a day; but Miss Lee in Sunday
+morning church attire was so irresistibly sweet that the vision sent the
+little girl's heart pounding and caused a strange shyness to possess
+her. The semi-tailored dress of dark blue taffeta, the sheer white
+collar, the small black hat with its white wings, the silver coin purse
+in the gloved hand--no detail escaped the keen eyes of the child. She
+looked down at her cotton dress--it had seemed so pretty just a moment
+ago. But, of course, such dresses and gloves and hats were for
+grown-ups! "But just you wait," she thought, "when I grow up I'll look
+like that, too, see if I don't!"
+
+Miss Lee, smiling, never knew the depths she stirred in the heart of the
+little girl.
+
+"Am I late, Phoebe?"
+
+"Ach, no. Just on time. Pop, he went a'ready, though. He goes early
+still to open the meeting-house. We'll go right away, as soon as Aunt
+Maria locks up. But what for did you bring a pocketbook?"
+
+"For the offering."
+
+"Offering?"
+
+"The church offering, Phoebe. Surely you know what that is if you go to
+church every Sunday. Don't you have collection plates or baskets passed
+about in your church for everybody to put their offerings on them?"
+
+"Why, no, we don't have that in our church! What for do they do that in
+any church?"
+
+"To pay the preachers' salaries and----"
+
+"Goodness," Phoebe laughed, "it would take a vonderful lot to pay all
+the preachers that preach at our church. Sometimes three or four preach
+at one meeting. They have to work week-days and get their money just
+like other men do. Men come around to the house sometimes for money for
+the poor, and when the meeting-house needs a new roof or something like
+that, everybody helps to pay for it, but we don't take no collections in
+church, like you say. That's a funny way----"
+
+The appearance of Maria Metz prevented further discussion of church
+collections. With a large, fringed shawl pinned over her plain gray
+dress and a stiff black silk bonnet tied under her chin, she was ready
+for church. She was putting the big iron key of the kitchen door into a
+deep pocket of her full skirt as she came down the walk.
+
+"That way, now we're ready," she said affably. "I guess you're Phoebe's
+teacher, ain't? I see you go past still."
+
+"Yes. I am very glad to meet you, Miss Metz. It is very kind of you to
+invite me to go with you."
+
+"Ach, that's nothing. You're welcome enough. We always have much company
+when church is on the hill. This is a nice day, so I guess church will
+be full. I hope so, anyway, for I got ready for company for dinner. But
+how do you like Greenwald?"
+
+"Very well, indeed. It is beautiful here."
+
+"Ain't! But I guess it's different from Phildelphy. I was there once, in
+the Centennial, and it was so full everywheres. I like the country best.
+Can't anything beat this now, can it?"
+
+They reached the summit of the hill and paused.
+
+"No," said Miss Lee, "this is hard to beat. I love the view from this
+hill."
+
+"Ain't now"--Aunt Maria smiled in approval--"this here is about the
+nicest spot around Greenwald. There's the town so plain you could almost
+count the houses, only the trees get in the road. And there's the
+reservoir with the white fence around, and the farms and the pretty
+country around them--it's a pretty place."
+
+"I like this hill," said Phoebe. "When I grow up I'm goin' to have a
+farm on this hill, when I'm married, I mean."
+
+"That's too far off yet, Phoebe," said her aunt. "You must eat bread and
+butter yet a while before you think of such things."
+
+"Anyhow, I changed my mind. I'm not goin' to live in the country when I
+grow up; I'm going to be a fine lady and live in the city."
+
+"Phoebe, stop that dumb talk, now!" reproved her aunt sternly. "You turn
+round and walk up the hill. We'll go on now, Miss Lee. Mebbe you'd like
+to go on the graveyard a little?"
+
+"I don't mind."
+
+"Then come." Aunt Maria led the way, past the low brick meeting-house,
+through the gateway into the old burial ground. They wandered among the
+marble slabs and read the inscriptions, some half obliterated by years
+of mountain storms, others freshly carved.
+
+"The epitaphs are interesting," said Miss Lee.
+
+"What's them?" asked Phoebe.
+
+"The verses on the tombstones. Here is one"--she read the inscription
+on the base of a narrow gray stone--"'After life's fitful fever she
+sleeps well.'"
+
+"Ach," Aunt Maria said tartly, "I guess her man knowed why he put that
+on. That poor woman had three husbands and eleven children, so I guess
+she had fitful fever enough."
+
+Phoebe laughed loud as she saw the smile on the face of her teacher, but
+next moment she sobered under the chiding of Aunt Maria. "Phoebe, now
+you keep quiet! Abody don't laugh and act so on a graveyard!"
+
+"Ugh," the child said a moment later, "Miss Lee, just read this one. It
+always gives me shivers when I read it still.
+
+        "'Remember, man, as you pass by,
+          What you are now that once was I.
+          What I am now that you will be;
+          Prepare for death and follow me.'"
+
+"That is rather startling," said Miss Lee.
+
+Phoebe smiled and asked, "Don't you think this is a pretty graveyard?"
+
+"Yes. How well cared for the graves are. Not a weed on most of them."
+
+"Well," Aunt Maria explained, "the people who have dead here mostly take
+care of the graves. We come up every two weeks or so and sometimes we
+bring a hoe and fix our graves up nice and even. But some people are too
+lazy to keep the graves clean. I hoed some pig-ears out a few graves
+last week; I was ashamed of 'em, even if the graves didn't belong to
+us."
+
+In the corner near the road the aunt stopped before a plain gray
+boulder.
+
+"Phoebe's mom," she said, pointing to the inscription.
+
+             "_PHOEBE
+          beloved wife of
+             Jacob Metz
+        aged twenty-two years
+           and one month.
+        Souls of the righteous
+        are in the hand of God._"
+
+"I'm glad," said the child as they stood by her mother's grave, "that
+they put that last on, for when I come here still I like to know that my
+mom ain't under all this dirt but that she's up in the Good Place like
+it says there."
+
+Miss Lee clasped the little hand in hers--what words were adequate to
+express her feeling for the motherless child!
+
+"Come on," Maria Metz said crisply, "or we'll be late." But Miss Lee
+read in the brusqueness a strong feeling of sorrow for the child.
+
+Silently the three walked through the green aisles of the old graveyard,
+Aunt Maria leading the way, alone; Phoebe's hand still in the hand of
+her teacher.
+
+To Miss Lee, whose hours of public worship had hitherto been spent in an
+Episcopal church in Philadelphia, the extreme plainness of the
+meeting-house on the hill brought a sense of acute wonderment. The
+contrast was so marked. There, in the city, was the large, high-vaulted
+church whose in-streaming light was softened by exquisite stained
+windows and revealed each detail of construction and color harmoniously
+consistent. Here, in the country, was the square, low-ceilinged
+meeting-house through whose open windows the glaring light relentlessly
+intensified the whiteness of the walls and revealed more plainly each
+flaw and knot in the unpainted pine benches. Yet the meeting-house on
+the hill was strangely, strongly representative of the frank, honest,
+unpretentious people who worshipped there, and after the first wave of
+surprise a feeling of interest and reverence held her.
+
+It was a unique sight for the city girl. The rows of white-capped women
+were separated from the rows of bearded men by a low partition built
+midway down the body of the church. Each sex entered the meeting-house
+through a different door and sat in its apportioned half of the
+building. On each side of the room rows of black hooks were set into the
+walls. On these hooks the sisters hung their bonnets and the shawls and
+the brethren placed their hats and overcoats during the service.
+
+The preachers, varying in number from two to six, sat before a long
+table in the front part of the meeting-house. When the duty of preaching
+devolved upon one of them he simply rose from his seat and delivered his
+message.
+
+As Aunt Maria and her two followers took their seats on a bench near the
+front of the church a preacher rose.
+
+"Let us join in singing--has any one a choice?"
+
+Miss Lee started as a woman's voice answered, "Number one hundred
+forty-seven." However, her surprise merged into other emotions as the
+old hymn rose in the low-ceilinged room. There was no accompaniment of
+any musical instrument, just a harmonious blending of the deep-toned
+voices of the brethren with the sweet voices of the sisters. The music
+swelled in full, deliberate rhythm, its calm earnestness bearing witness
+to the fact that every word of the hymn was uttered in a spirit of
+worship.
+
+Maria Metz sang very softly, but Phoebe's young voice rose clearly in
+the familiar words, "Jesus, Lover of my soul."
+
+Miss Lee listened a moment to the sweet voice of the child by her side,
+then she, too, joined in the singing--feeling the words, as she had
+never before felt them, to be the true expression of millions of mortals
+who have sung, are singing, and shall continue to sing them.
+
+When the hymn was ended another preacher arose and opened the service
+with a few remarks, then asked all to kneel in prayer.
+
+Every one--men, women, children--turned and knelt upon the bare floor
+while the preacher's voice rose in a simple prayer. As the Amen fell
+from his lips Miss Lee started to rise, but Phoebe laid a restraining
+hand upon her and whispered, "There's yet one."
+
+For a moment there was silence in the meeting-house. Then the voice of
+another preacher rose in the universal prayer, "Our Father, which art in
+heaven." Every extemporaneous prayer in the Church of the Brethren is
+complemented by the model prayer the Master taught His disciples.
+
+There was another hymn, reading of the Scriptures, and then the sermon
+proper was preached.
+
+Aunt Maria nodded approvingly as the preacher read, "Whose adorning let
+it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of
+gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the
+heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and
+quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price."
+
+"You listen good now to what the preacher says," the woman whispered to
+Phoebe.
+
+The child looked Up solemnly at her aunt, about her at the many
+white-capped women, then up at Miss Lee's pretty hat with its white
+Mercury wings--she was endeavoring to justify the pleasure and beauty
+her aunt pronounced vanity. Was Miss Lee really wicked when she wore
+clothes like that? Surely, no! After a few moments the child sighed,
+folded her hands and looked steadfastly at the tall bearded man who was
+preaching.
+
+The clergy among these plain sects receive no remuneration for their
+preaching. With them the mercenary and the pecuniary are ever distinct
+from the religious. Six days in the week the preacher follows the plow
+or works at some other worthy occupation; upon the seventh day he
+preaches the Gospel. There is, therefore, no elaborate preparation for
+the sermon; the preacher has abundant faith in the old admonition, "Take
+no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that
+same hour what ye shall speak, for it is not ye that speak but the
+spirit of the Father that speaketh in you." Thus it is that, while the
+sermons usually lack the blandishments of fine rhetoric and the rhythmic
+ease arising from oratorical ability, they seldom fail in deep sincerity
+and directness of appeal.
+
+The one who delivered the message that September morning told of the joy
+of those who have overcome the desire for the vanities of the world,
+extolled the virtue of a simple life, till Miss Lee felt convinced that
+there must be something real in a religion that could hold its followers
+to so simple, wholesome a life.
+
+She looked about, at the serried rows of white-capped women--how gentle
+and calm they appeared in their white caps and plain dresses; she looked
+across the partition at the lines of men--how strong and honest their
+faces were; and the children--she had never before seen so many children
+at a church service--would they all, in time, wear the garb of their
+people and enter the church of their parents? The child at her
+side--vivacious, untiring, responsive Phoebe--would she, too, wear the
+plain dress some day and live the quiet life of her people?
+
+The eagerness of the child's face as Miss Lee looked at her denoted
+intense interest in the sermon, but none could know the real cause of
+that eagerness.
+
+"I won't, I just won't dress plain!" she was thinking. "Anyway, not till
+I'm old like Aunt Maria. I want to look like Miss Lee when I grow up.
+And that preacher just said that it ain't good to plait the hair, I mean
+he read it out the Bible. Mebbe now Aunt Maria will leave me have
+curls. I hope she heard him say that."
+
+She sighed in relief as the sermon was concluded and the next preacher
+rose and added a few remarks. When the third man rose to add his few
+remarks Phoebe looked up at Miss Lee and whispered, "Guess he's the last
+one once!"
+
+Miss Lee smiled. The service was rather long, but it was drawing to a
+close. There was another prayer, another hymn and the service ended.
+
+Immediately the white-capped women rose and began to bestow upon each
+other the holy kiss; upon the opposite side of the church the brethren
+greeted each other in like fashion. Everywhere there were greetings and
+profferings of dinner invitations.
+
+Maria Metz and her brother did not fail in their duty. In a few minutes
+they had invited a goodly number to make the gray farmhouse their
+stopping-place. Then Aunt Maria hurried home, eager to prepare for her
+guests. Soon the Metz barnyard was filled with carriages and automobiles
+and the gray house resounded with happy voices. Some of the women helped
+Maria in the kitchen, others wandered about in the old-fashioned garden,
+where dahlias, sweet alyssum, marigolds, ladies' breastpin and
+snapdragons still bloomed in the bright September sunshine.
+
+Miss Lee, guided by Phoebe, examined every nook of the big garden,
+peered into the deserted wren-house and listened to the child's story of
+the six baby wrens reared in the box that summer. Finally Phoebe
+suggested sitting on a bench half screened by rose-bushes and
+honeysuckle. There, in that green spot, Miss Lee tactfully coaxed the
+child to unfold her charming personality, all serenely unconscious of
+the fact that inside the gray house the white-capped women were
+discussing the new teacher as they prepared the dinner.
+
+"She seems vonderful nice and common," volunteered Aunt Maria. "Not
+stuck up, for a Phildelphy lady."
+
+"Well, why should she be stuck up?" argued one. "Ain't she just Mollie
+Stern's cousin? Course, Mollie's nice, but nothing tony."
+
+"Anyhow, the children all like her," spoke up another woman. "My Enos
+learns good this year."
+
+"I guess she's all right," said another, "but Amande, my sister, says
+that she's after her Lizzie all the time for the way she talks. The
+teacher tells her all the time not to talk so funny, not to get her t's
+and d's and her v's and w's mixed. Goodness knows, them letters is near
+enough alike to get them mixed sometimes. I mix them myself. Manda don't
+want her Lizzie made high-toned, for then nothing will be good enough
+for her any more."
+
+"Ach, I guess Miss Lee won't do that," said Aunt Maria. "I know I'm glad
+the teacher ain't the kind to put on airs. When I heard they put in a
+teacher from Phildelphy I was afraid she'd be the kind to teach the
+children a lot of dumb notions and that Phoebe would be spoiled----
+Here, Sister Minnich, is the holder for that pan. I guess the ham is
+fried enough. Yes, ain't the chicken smells good! I roasted it
+yesterday, so it needs just a good heating to-day."
+
+"Shall I take the sweet potatoes off, Maria?"
+
+"Yes, they're brown enough, and the coffee's about done, and plenty of
+it, too."
+
+"And it smells good, too," chorused several women.
+
+"It's just twenty-eight cent coffee; I get it in Greenwald. I guess the
+things can be put out now. Call the men, Susan."
+
+In quick order the long table in the dining-room--used only upon
+occasions like this--was filled with smoking, savory dishes, the men
+called from the porches and yard and everybody, except the two women who
+helped Aunt Maria to serve, seated about the board. All heads were bowed
+while one of the brethren said a long grace and then the feast began.
+
+True to the standards set by the majority of the Pennsylvania Dutch, the
+meal was fit for the finest. There was no attempt to serve it according
+to the rules of the latest book of etiquette. All the food was placed
+upon the table and each one helped herself and himself and passed the
+dish to the nearest neighbor. Occasionally the services of the three
+women were required to bring in water, bread or coffee, or to replenish
+the dishes and platters. Everybody was in good humor, especially when
+one of the brethren suddenly found himself with a platter of chicken in
+one hand and a pitcher of gravy in the other.
+
+"Hold on, here!" he said laughingly, "it's coming both ways. I can't
+manage it."
+
+"Now, Isaac," chided one of the women, "you went and started the gravy
+the wrong way around. And here, Elam, start that apple-butter round
+once. Maria always has such good apple-butter."
+
+Miss Lee's ready adaptability proved a valuable asset that day.
+Everybody was so cordial and friendly that, although she was the only
+woman without the white cap, there was no shadow of any holier-than-thou
+spirit. She was accepted as a friend; as a lady from Philadelphia she
+became invested with a charm and interest which the frank country people
+did not try to conceal. They spoke freely to her of her work in the
+school, inquired about the children and listened with interest as she
+answered their questions about her home city.
+
+When the dinner was ended heads were bowed again and thanks rendered to
+God for the blessings received. Then the men went outdoors, where the
+beehives, poultry houses, barns and orchards of the farm afforded
+several hours of inspection and discussion.
+
+Indoors some of the women began to wash dishes while Aunt Maria and her
+helpers ate their belated dinner; others went to the sitting-room and
+entertained themselves by rocking and talking or looking at the pictures
+in the big red plush album which lay upon a small table.
+
+Later, when everything was once more in order in the big kitchen, Maria
+stood in the doorway of the sitting-room.
+
+"Now," she said, "I guess we better go up-stairs and see the rugs before
+the men come in. Susan said she wants to see my new rugs once when she
+comes. So come on, everybody that wants to."
+
+"You come," Phoebe invited Miss Lee. "I'll show you some of the things
+in my chest."
+
+Maria led the way to the spare-room on the second floor, a large square
+room furnished in old-fashioned country style: a rag carpet, rag rugs,
+heavy black walnut bureau and wash-stand, the latter with an antique
+bowl and pitcher of pink and white, and a splasher of white linen
+outlined in turkey red cotton. A framed cross-stitch sampler hung on the
+wall; four cane-seated chairs and a great wooden chest completed the
+furnishing of the room.
+
+The chest became the centre of attraction as Aunt Maria opened it and
+began to show the hooked rugs she had made.
+
+Phoebe waited until her teacher had seen and admired several, then she
+tugged at the silk sleeve ever so gently and whispered, "D'ye want to
+see some of the things I made?"
+
+Miss Lee smiled and nodded and the two stole away to the child's room.
+
+Phoebe closed the door.
+
+"This is my room and this is my Hope Chest," she said proudly.
+
+Among many of the Pennsylvania Dutch the Hope Chest has long been
+considered an important part of a girl's belongings. During her early
+childhood a large chest is secured and the stocking of it becomes a
+pleasant duty. Into it are laid the girl's discarded infant clothes;
+patchwork quilts and comfortables pieced by herself or by some fond
+grandmother or mother or aunt; homespun sheets and towels that have been
+handed down from other generations; ginghams, linens and minor household
+articles that might be useful in her own home. When the girl leaves the
+old nest for one of her own building the Hope Chest goes with her as a
+valuable portion of her dowry.
+
+"Hope Chest," echoed Miss Lee. "Do you have a Hope Chest?"
+
+"Ach, yes, long already! Aunt Maria says it's for when I grow up and get
+married and live in my own home, but I--why, I don't know at all yet if
+I want to get married. When I say that to her she says still that I can
+be glad I have the chest anyhow, for old maids need covers and aprons
+and things too."
+
+"You dear child," Miss Lee said, laughing, "you do say the funniest
+things!"
+
+"But"--Phoebe raised her flushed face--"you ain't laughing at me to make
+fun?"
+
+"Oh, Phoebe, I love you too much for that. It's just that you are
+different."
+
+"Ach, but I'm glad! And that's why I want to show you my things."
+
+She opened the lid of her chest and brought out a quilt, then another,
+and another.
+
+"This is all mine. And I finished another one this summer that Aunt
+Maria is going to quilt this fall yet. Then I'll have nine already.
+Ain't--isn't that a lot?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," laughed the teacher. "Just nine more than I have."
+
+"Why"--Phoebe stared in surprise--"don't you have quilts in your Hope
+Chest?"
+
+"I haven't even the Hope Chest."
+
+"No Hope Chest! Now, that's funny! I thought every girl that could have
+a chest for the money had a Hope Chest!"
+
+"I never heard of a Hope Chest before I came to Greenwald."
+
+"Now don't it beat all!" The child was very serious. "We ain't at all
+like other people, I believe. I wonder why we are so different from you
+people. Oh, I know we talk different from you, and mostly look different
+from you and I guess we do things a lot different from you--do you
+think, Miss Lee, oh, do you think that I could _ever_ get like you?"
+
+"Yes----" Miss Lee showed hesitancy.
+
+"For sure?" Phoebe asked, quick to note the slight delay in the answer.
+
+"Yes, I am sure you could, dear. You can learn to dress, speak and act
+as people do in the great cities--but are you sure that you want to do
+so?"
+
+"Want to! Why, I want to so bad that it hurts! I don't want to just go
+to country school and Greenwald High School and then live on a farm all
+the rest of my life and never get anywhere but to the store in
+Greenwald, to Lancaster several times a year, and to church every
+Sunday. I want to do some things other people in the other parts of the
+country do, that's what I want. I'd like best of all to be a great
+singer and to look and dress and talk like you. I can sing good, pop
+says I can."
+
+"I have noticed you have a sweet voice."
+
+"Ain't!" The child's voice rang with gladness. "I'm so glad I have. And
+David, he's glad too, for he says that he thinks it's a gift from God to
+have a voice that can sing as nice as the birds. David and Phares are
+just like my brothers. David's mom is awful nice. I like her"--she
+whispered--"I like her almost better than my Aunt Maria because she's
+so--ach, you know what I mean! She's so much like my own mom would be. I
+like David better than Phares, too, because Phares bosses me too much
+and he is wonderful strict and thinks everything is bad or foolish. He
+preaches a lot. He says it's bad to be a big singer and sing for the
+people and get money for it, in oprays, he means--is it?"
+
+Miss Lee was startled by the ambition of the child before her and amazed
+at the determination revealed in her young pupil. Before she could
+answer wisely Phoebe went on:
+
+"Now David says still I could be a big opray singer some day mebbe, and
+_he_ don't think it's bad. I think still that singin' is about like
+havin' curls--if God don't want you to use your singin' and your curls
+what did He give 'em to you for?"
+
+Much to the teacher's relief she was spared the difficulty of answering
+the child. The aunt was bringing the visitors to Phoebe's room.
+
+"Come in and see my things," Phoebe invited cordially, as though curls
+and operatic careers had never troubled her. In the excitement of
+displaying her quilts she apparently forgot the vital problems she had
+so lately discussed. But Miss Lee made a mental comment as she stood
+apart and watched the child among the white-capped women, "That little
+girl will do things before she settles into the simple, monotonous life
+these women lead."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE PRIMA DONNA OF THE ATTIC
+
+
+"AUNT MARIA, dare I go without sewing just this one Saturday?"
+
+It was Saturday afternoon in early October. All the week-end work of the
+farmhouse was done: the walks and porches scrubbed, the entire house
+cleaned, the shelves in the cellar filled with pies and cakes. Maria
+Metz stood by the wooden frame in which she had sewed Phoebe's latest
+quilt and chalked lines and half-moons upon the calico, preliminary to
+the actual work of quilting.
+
+Phoebe's face was eloquent as her aunt turned and looked down.
+
+"Why?" asked the woman calmly.
+
+"Ach, because it's my birthday, eleven I am to-day. And pop's going to
+bring me new hair-ribbons from Greenwald, pretty blue ones, I asked him
+to bring, and nice and wide"--she opened her hands in imaginary
+picturing of the width of the new ribbons--"but most of all," she
+hastened to add as she saw an expression of displeasure on her aunt's
+face, "I'd like to have a party all to myself. I thought that so long as
+you're going to have women in to help you quilt, and that is like a
+party, only you don't call it so, why I could have a party for me alone.
+I'd like to play all afternoon instead of sewing first like I do still.
+Dare I, I mean may I?"--in conscientious endeavor to speak as Miss Lee
+was trying to teach her.
+
+Maria Metz smiled at the little girl's idea of a party, and after a
+moment's hesitation replied, "Ach, yes well, Phoebe, I don't care."
+
+"In the garret, oh, dare I go in the garret and play?" she asked
+excitedly.
+
+"Yes, I guess. If you put everything away nice when you are done
+playin'."
+
+"I will."
+
+She started off gleefully.
+
+"And be careful of the steps. I'm always afraid you'll fall down when
+you go up there, the steps are so narrow."
+
+"Ach, I won't fall. I'll be careful. I'll play a while and then shall I
+help to quilt?" she offered magnanimously in return for the privilege of
+playing in the garret.
+
+"No, I don't need you. But you can quilt nice, too. The last time you
+took littler stitches than Lizzie from the Home, but she don't see so
+good. But you needn't help to-day, for so many can't get round the frame
+good. Phares's mom and David's mom and Lyddy and Granny Hogendobler and
+Susan are comin', and that's enough for one quilt. You go play."
+
+In a moment Phoebe was off, up the broad stairs to the second floor.
+There she paused for breath--"Oh, it's like going to a castle somewhere
+in a strange country, goin' to the garret! I'm always a little scared at
+first, goin' to the garret."
+
+With a laugh she turned into a small room, opened a latched door, closed
+it securely behind her, and stood upon the lower step of the attic
+stairs. She looked about a moment. Above her were the stained rafters of
+the attic, where a dim light invested it with a strange, half fearful
+interest.
+
+"Ach, now, don't be a baby," she admonished herself. "Go right up the
+stairs. You're a queen--no, I know!--You're a primer donner going up the
+platform steps to sing!"
+
+With that helpful delusion she started bravely up the stairs and never
+paused until she reached the top step. She ran to a small window and
+threw it wide open so that the October sunshine could stream in and make
+the place less ghostly.
+
+"Now it's fine up here," she cried. "And I dare--I may--talk to myself
+all I want. Aunt Maria says it's simple to talk to yourself, but
+goodness, when abody has no other boys or girls to talk to half the time
+like I don't, what else can abody do but talk to your own self? Anyhow,
+I'm up here now and dare talk out loud all I want. I'll hunt first for
+robbers."
+
+She ran about the big attic, peered behind every old trunk and box, even
+inside an old yellow cupboard, though she knew it was filled with old
+school-books and older hymn-books.
+
+"Not a robber here, less he's back under the eaves."
+
+She crept into the low nook under the slanting roof but found nothing
+more exciting than a spider. "Huh, it's no fun hunting for robbers.
+Guess I'll spin a while."
+
+With quick variability she drew a low stool near an old spinning-wheel,
+placed her foot on the slender treadle and twisted the golden flax in
+imitation of the way Aunt Maria had once taught her.
+
+"I'll weave a new dress for myself--oh, goody!" she cried, springing
+from the stool. "Now I know what I'll do! I'll dress up in the old
+clothes in that old trunk! That'll be the very best party I can have."
+
+She skipped to a far corner of the attic, where a long, leather-covered
+trunk stood among some boxes. In a moment the clasps were unfastened,
+the lid raised, a protecting cloth lifted from the top and the contents
+of the trunk exposed.
+
+The child, kneeling before the trunk, clasped her hands and uttered an
+ecstatic, "Oh, I'll be a primer donner now! I remember there used to be
+a wonderful fine dress in here somewhere."
+
+With childish feverishness, yet with tenderness and reverence for the
+relics of a long dead past, she lifted the old garments from the trunk.
+
+"The baby clothes my mom wore--my mother, Miss Lee always says, and I
+like that name better, too. My, but they're little! Such tweeny, weeny
+sleeves! I wonder how a baby ever got into anything so tiny. I bet she
+was cunning--Miss Lee says babies are cunning. And here's the dress and
+cap and a pair of white woolen stockings I wore. Aunt Maria told me so
+the last time we cleaned house and I helped to carry all these things
+down-stairs and hang them out in the air so they don't spoil here in the
+trunk all locked up tight. I wish I could see how I looked when I wore
+these things. I wonder if I was a nice baby--but, ach, all babies are
+nice. I could squeeze every one I see, only when they're not clean I'd
+want to wash 'em first. And here's my mom--mother's wedding dress, a
+gray silk one. Ain't it too bad, now, it's going in holes! And this
+satin jacket Aunt Maria said my grandpap wore at his wedding; it has a
+silver buckle at the neck in front. And next comes the dress I like. It
+was my mother's mother's, and it's awful old. But I think it's fine,
+with the little pink rosebuds and the lace shawl round the neck and the
+long skirt. That's the dress I must wear now to play I'm a primer
+donner."
+
+She held out the old-fashioned pink-sprigged muslin, yellowed with age,
+yet possessing the charm of old, well-preserved garments. The short,
+puffed sleeves, lace fichu and full, puffed skirt proclaimed it of a
+bygone generation.
+
+"It's pretty," the child exulted as she shook out the soft folds. "Guess
+I can slip it on over my other dress, it's plenty big. It must button in
+the front, for that's the way the lace shawl goes. Um--it's long"--she
+looked down as she fastened the last little button. "Oh, I know! I'll
+tuck it up in the front and leave the long back for a trail! How's that,
+I wonder."
+
+She unearthed an old mirror, hung it on a nail in the wall and surveyed
+herself in the glass.
+
+"Um, I don't look so bad--but my hair ain't right. I don't know how
+primer donners wear their hair, but I know they don't wear it in two
+plaits like mine."
+
+She pulled the narrow brown ribbons from her braids, opened the braids
+and shook her head vigorously until her curls tumbled about her head and
+over her shoulders. Then she knotted the two ribbons together and bound
+them across her hair in a fillet, tying them in a bow under her flowing
+curls.
+
+"Now, I guess it's as good as I can fix it. I wish Miss Lee could see me
+now. I wish most of all my mom--mother could see me. Mebbe she'd say,
+'Precious child,' like they say in stories, and then I'd say back,
+'Mother dear, mother dear'"--she lingered over the words--"'Mother
+dear.' But mebbe she is saying that to me right now, seeing it's my
+birthday. I'll make believe so, anyhow."
+
+She was silent for a moment, a puzzled expression on her face.
+
+"I just don't see," she spoke aloud suddenly, "I don't see why I
+shouldn't make believe I have a mother, just adopt one like people do
+children sometimes. Aunt Maria says it's a risk to adopt some one's
+child, but I don't see that it would be a risk to adopt a mother. Let me
+see now--of all the women I know, who do I want to adopt? Not Mary
+Warner's mom--she's stylish and wears nice dresses, but I don't think
+I'd like her to keep. Not Granny Hogendobler, though she's nice and I
+like her a lot, a whole lot, and I wish her Nason would come back, but I
+don't see how I could take her for my mother; she's too old and she
+don't wear a white cap and my mother did, so I must take one that does.
+I don't want Phares's mom, either. Now, David's mom I like--yes, I like
+her. Most everybody calls her Aunty Bab and I'm just goin' to ask her
+if I dare call her Mother Bab! Mother Bab--I like that vonderful much!
+And I like her. When we go over to her house she's so nice and talks to
+me kind and the last time I was there she kissed me and said what pretty
+hair I got. Yes, I want David's mom for mine. I guess he won't care. He
+always gives me apples and chestnuts and things and he shows me birds'
+nests and I think he'll leave me have his mom, so long as he can have
+her too. I'll ask him once when I see him. I wonder who's goin' on the
+road to Greenwald."
+
+She gathered up her long skirt and stepped grandly across the bare floor
+of the attic. As she stood by the window a boyish whistle floated up to
+her. She leaned over the narrow sill and peered through the evergreen
+trees at the road.
+
+"That's David now, I bet! Sounds like his whistle. Oo-oo, David," she
+called as the boy came swinging down the road.
+
+"Hello, Phoebe. Where you at?"
+
+He turned in at the gate and looked around.
+
+"Whew," he whistled as he glanced up and saw her at the little window of
+the attic. "What you doing up there?"
+
+"Playin' primer donner. I just look something grand. Wait, I'll come
+down."
+
+"Sure, come on down and let me see you. I'm going to hang around a
+while. Mom's here quilting, ain't she?"
+
+"Sh!" Phoebe raised a warning finger, then placed her hands to her mouth
+to shut the sound of her voice from the people in the gray house. "You
+sneak round to the kitchen door, to the back one, so they can't hear
+you, and I'll come down. Aunt Maria mightn't like my hair and dress, and
+I don't want to make her cross on my birthday. Be careful, don't make no
+noise."
+
+"Ha," laughed the boy. "Bet you're sneaking things, you little rascal."
+
+Phoebe lifted her finger, shook her head, then smiled and turned from
+the window. She tiptoed down the dark attic stairs, then down the narrow
+back stairs to the kitchen and slipped quietly to the little porch at
+the very rear of the house.
+
+"Gee whiz!" exclaimed David. "You're a swell in that dress!"
+
+"Ain't I--I mean am I--ach, David, it's hard sometimes to talk like Miss
+Lee says we should."
+
+"Where'd you get the dress, Phoebe?"
+
+"Up in the garret. Aunt Maria said I dare go up and play 'cause it's my
+birthday."
+
+"Hold on, that's just what I came for, to pull your ears."
+
+"No you don't," she said crossly. "No you don't, David Eby, pull my
+ears." She clapped a hand upon each ear.
+
+"Then I'll pull a curl," he said and suited the action to the word. He
+took one of the long light curls and pulled it gently, yet with a
+brusque show of savagery and strength--"One, two, three, four, five,
+six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and one to make you grow. Now who
+says I can't celebrate your birthday!"
+
+"You're mean, awful mean, David Eby!" She tossed her head in anger. But
+a moment later she relented as she saw him smile. "Ach," she said in
+friendly tone, "I don't care if you pull my curls. It didn't hurt
+anyhow. You can't do it again for a whole year. But don't you think I
+look like a primer donner, David?"
+
+"Oh, say it right! How can you expect to ever be what you can't
+pronounce? It's pri-ma-don-na."
+
+"Pri-ma-don-na," she repeated, shaking her curls at every syllable. "Do
+I look like a prima donna?"
+
+"Yes, all but your face."
+
+"My face--why"--she faltered--"what's wrong with my face? Ain't it
+pretty enough to be a prima donna?"
+
+"Funny kid," he laughed. "Your face is good enough for a prima donna,
+but to be a real prima donna you must fix it up with cold cream, paint
+and powder."
+
+"Powder!" she echoed in amazement. "Not the kind you put in guns?"
+
+"Gee, no! It's white stuff--looks like flour; mebbe it is flour fixed up
+with perfume. Mary Warner had some at school last week and showed some
+of the girls at recess how to put it on. I was behind a tree and saw
+them but they didn't see me."
+
+"I thought some of the girls looked pale--so that was what made them
+look so white! But how do you know all about fixing up to be a prima
+donna? Where did you learn?" She looked at him admiringly, justly
+appreciating his superior knowledge.
+
+"Oh, when I had the mumps last winter I used to read the papers every
+day, clean through. There was a column called the 'Hints to Beauty'
+column, and sometimes I read it just for fun, it was so funny. It told
+about fixing up the face and mentioned a famous singer and some other
+people who always looked beautiful because they knew how to fix their
+faces to keep looking young. But I wouldn't like to see any one I like
+fix their faces like it said, for all that stuff----"
+
+"But do you think all prima donnas put such things on their faces?" she
+interrupted him.
+
+"Guess so."
+
+"What was it, Davie?"
+
+"Cold cream, paint, powder--here, where are you going?" he asked as she
+started for the door.
+
+"I'll be out in a minute; you wait here for me."
+
+"Cold cream, paint, powder," she repeated as she closed the door and
+left David outside. "Cream's all in the cellar." She took a pewter
+tablespoon from a drawer, opened a latched door in the kitchen and went
+noiselessly down the steps to the cellar. There she lifted the lid from
+a large earthen jar, dipped a spoonful of thick cream from the jar, and
+began to rub it on her cheeks.
+
+"That's _cold_ cream, anyhow," she said to herself. "It certainly is
+cold. Ach, I don't like the feel of it on my face; it's too sticky and
+wet." But she rubbed valiantly until the spoonful was used and her face
+glowed.
+
+"Now paint, red paint--I don't dare use the kind you put on houses, for
+that's too hard to get off; let's see--I guess red-beet juice will do."
+
+She stooped to the cool, earthen floor, lifted the cover from a crock of
+pickled beets, dipped the spoon into the juice and began to rub the
+colored liquid upon her glowing cheeks.
+
+"If I only had a looking-glass, then I could see just where to put it
+on. But I don't dare to carry the juice up the steps, for if I spilled
+some just after Aunt Maria has them scrubbed for Sunday she'd be cross."
+
+She applied the red juice by guesswork, with the inevitable result that
+her ears, chin, and nose were stained as deeply as her cheeks.
+
+"Now the powder, then I'm through."
+
+She tiptoed up to the kitchen again, took a handful of flour from the
+bin and rubbed it upon her face.
+
+"Ugh, um," she sputtered, as some of the flour flew into her eyes and
+nostrils. "I guess that was too thick!" Then she knelt on a chair and
+looked into the small mirror that hung in the kitchen. She exclaimed in
+horror and disappointment at the vision that met her gaze.
+
+"Why, I don't like that! I look awful! I'll rub off some of the flour. I
+have blotches all over my face. Do all prima donnas look this way, I
+wonder. But David knows, I guess. I'll ask him if I did it right."
+
+She grabbed one end of the kitchen towel and disposed of some of the
+superfluous flour, then, still doubtful of her appearance, opened the
+door to the porch where the boy waited for her.
+
+"Do I look----" she began, but David burst into hilarious laughter.
+
+"Oh, oh," he held his sides and laughed. "Oh, your face----"
+
+"Don't you laugh at me, David Eby! Don't you dare laugh!"
+
+She was deeply hurt at his unseemly behavior, but the deluge was only
+beginning! The sound of David's laughter and Phoebe's raised voice
+reached the front room where the quilting party was in progress.
+
+"Sounds like somebody on the back porch," said Aunt Maria. "Guess I
+better go and see. With so many tramps around always abody can't be too
+careful."
+
+The sight that met Maria Metz's eyes as she opened the back door left
+her speechless. Phoebe turned and the two looked at each other in
+silence for a few long moments.
+
+"Don't scold her," David said, sobered by the sudden appearance of the
+woman and frightened for Phoebe--Aunt Maria could be stern, he knew.
+"Don't scold her. I told her to do it."
+
+"You did not, David; don't you tell lies for me! You just told me how to
+do it and I went and done it myself. I'm playing prima donna, Aunt
+Maria," she explained, though she knew it was a futile attempt at
+justification. "I'm playing I'm a big singer, so I had to fix up in this
+dress and put my hair down this way and fix my face."
+
+"Great singer--march in here!" The woman had fully regained her voice.
+"It's a bad girl you are! To think of your making such a monkey of
+yourself when I leave you go up in the garret to play! This ends playing
+in the garret. Next Saturday you sew! Ach, yes, you just come in," she
+commanded, for Phoebe hung back as they entered the house. "You come
+right in here and let all the women see how nice you play when I leave
+you go up in the garret instead of make you sew. This here's the tramp I
+found," she announced as she led her into the room where the women sat
+around the quilting frame and quilted.
+
+"What!" several of them exclaimed as they turned from their sewing and
+looked at the child. Granny Hogendobler and David Eby's mother, however,
+smiled.
+
+"What's on your face?" asked one woman sternly.
+
+Phoebe hung her head, abashed.
+
+"That's how nice she plays when I leave her go up on the garret and have
+a nice time instead of making her sew like she always has to Saturdays,"
+Aunt Maria said in sharp tones which told the child all too plainly of
+the displeasure she had caused.
+
+"I didn't mean," Phoebe looked up contritely, "I didn't mean to be bad
+and make you cross. I was just playing I was a big singer and I put cold
+cream and paint and powder on my face----"
+
+"Cream!"
+
+"Paint!"
+
+"Powder!"
+
+The shrill staccato words of the women set the child trembling.
+
+"But--but," she faltered, "it'll all wash off." She gave a convincing
+nod of her head and rubbed a hand ruefully across the grotesquely
+decorated cheek. "It's just cream and red-beet juice and flour."
+
+"Did I ever!" exclaimed the mother of Phares Eby.
+
+"I-to-goodness!" laughed Granny Hogendobler.
+
+"Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," quoted one of the other women.
+
+"Come here, Phoebe," said the mother of David Eby, and that woman, a
+thin, alert little person with tender, kindly eyes, drew the unhappy
+little girl to her. "You poor, precious child," she said, "it's a shame
+for us all to sit here and look at you as if we wanted to eat you.
+You've just been playing, haven't you?" She turned to the other women.
+"Why, Maria, Susan, I remember just as well as if it were only yesterday
+how we used to rub our cheeks with rough mullein leaves to make them red
+for Love Feast, don't you remember?"
+
+Aunt Maria's cheeks grew pink. "Ach, Barbara, mebbe we did that when we
+were young and foolish, but we didn't act like this."
+
+"Not much different, I guess," said Phoebe's champion with a smile.
+"Only we forget it now. Phoebe is just like we were once and she'll get
+over it like we did. Let her play; she'll soon be too old to want to
+play or to know how. She ain't a bad child, just full of life and likes
+to do things other people don't think of doing."
+
+"She, surely does," said Aunt Maria curtly, ill pleased by the woman's
+words. "Where that child gets all her notions from I'd like to know.
+It's something new every day."
+
+"She'll be all right when she gets older," said David's mother.
+
+"Be sure, yes," agreed Granny Hogendobler; "it don't do to be too
+strict."
+
+"Mebbe so," said the other women, with various shades of understanding
+in their words.
+
+Phoebe looked gratefully into the face of Granny Hogendobler, then she
+turned to David's mother and spoke to her as though there were no others
+present in the room.
+
+"You know, don't you, how little girls like to play? You called me
+precious child just like she would----"
+
+"She would," repeated Aunt Maria. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean my mother," she explained and turned again to her champion. "I
+was just thinking this after on the garret that I'd like you for my
+mother, to adopt you for it like people do with children when they have
+none and want some. I hear lots of people call you Aunty Bab--dare I
+call you Mother Bab?"
+
+The woman laid a hand on the child's tumbled hair. Her voice trembled as
+she answered, "Yes, Phoebe, you can call me Mother Bab. I have no little
+girl so you may fill that place. Now ask Aunt Maria if you should wash
+your face and get fixed right again."
+
+"Shall I, Aunt Maria?"
+
+"Yes. Go get cleaned up. Fold all them clothes right and put 'em in the
+trunk and put your hair in two plaits again. If you're big enough to do
+such dumb things you're big enough to comb your hair." And Aunt Maria,
+peeved and hurt at the child's behavior, went back to her quilting while
+Phoebe hurried from the room alone.
+
+The child scrubbed the three layers of decoration from her face, trudged
+up the stairs to the attic, took off the rose-sprigged gown and folded
+it away--a disconsolate, disillusioned prima donna.
+
+When the attic was once more restored to its orderliness she closed the
+window and went down-stairs to wrestle with her curls. They were
+tangled, but ordinarily she would have been able to braid them into some
+semblance of neatness, but the trying experience of the past moments,
+the joy of gaining an adopted mother, set her fingers bungling.
+
+"Ach, I can't, I just can't make two braids!" she said at length, ready
+to burst into tears.
+
+Then she remembered David. "Mebbe he's on the porch yet. I'll go see
+once."
+
+With the narrow brown ribbons streaming from her hand and a hair-brush
+tucked under one arm she ran down the stairs. She found David, for once
+a gloomy figure, on the back porch, just where she had left him.
+
+"David," she said softly, "will you help me?"
+
+"Why"--his face brightened as he looked at her--"you ain't"--he started
+to say "crying"--"you ain't mad at me for getting you into trouble with
+Aunt Maria?"
+
+"Ach, no. And I ain't never going to be mad at you now for I just
+adopted your mom for my mom--mother. She's going to be my Mother Bab;
+she said so."
+
+"What?"
+
+He knitted his forehead in a puzzled frown. Phoebe explained how kind
+his mother had been, how she understood what little girls like to do,
+how she had promised to be Mother Bab.
+
+"You don't care, Davie, you ain't jealous?" she ended anxiously.
+
+"Sure not," he assured her; "I think it's kinda nice, for she thinks
+you're a dandy. But did they haul you over the coals in there?"
+
+"Yes, a little, all but Granny Hogendobler and your mom--Mother Bab, I
+mean. Isn't it funny to get a mother when you didn't have one for so
+long?"
+
+"Guess so."
+
+"But, David, will you help me? I can't fix my hair and Aunt Maria is so
+mad at me she said I can just fix it myself. The plaits won't come right
+at all. Will you help me, please?" She asserted her femininity by adding
+new sweetness to her voice as she asked the uncommon favor.
+
+"Why"--he hesitated, then looked about to see if any one were near to
+witness what he was about to do--"I don't know if I can. I never braided
+hair, but I guess I can."
+
+"Be sure you can, David. You braid it just like we braid the daisy stems
+and the dandelion stems in the fields. You're so handy with them, you
+can do most anything, I guess."
+
+Spurred by her appreciation of his ability he took the brush and began
+to brush the tangled hair as she sat on the porch at his feet.
+
+"Gee," he exclaimed as the hair sprang into curls when the brush left
+it, "your hair's just like gold!"
+
+"And it's curly," she added proudly.
+
+"Sure is. Wouldn't Phares look if he saw it! I told him your hair is
+prettier than Mary Warner's and he said I was silly to talk about girls'
+hair."
+
+"I don't want him to see it this way," she said, "for he'd say it's a
+sin to have curly, pretty hair, even if God made it grow that way! He's
+awful queer! I wouldn't want him for my adopted brother."
+
+"Guess he'd keep you hopping," laughed David.
+
+"Guess I'd keep him hopping, too," retorted Phoebe, at which the boy
+laughed.
+
+"Now what do I do?" he asked when all the hair was untangled.
+
+"Part it in the middle and make two plaits."
+
+"Um-uh."
+
+The boy's clumsy fingers fumbled long with the parting; several times
+the braids twisted and had to be undone, but after a struggle he was
+able to announce, "There now, you're fixed! Now you're Phoebe Metz, no
+more prima donna!"
+
+"Thanks, David, for helping me. I feel much better around the
+head--guess curls would be a nuisance after all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+"WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER MEET"
+
+
+WHEN Phoebe adopted Mother Bab she did so with the whole-heartedness and
+finality characteristic of her blood.
+
+Mother Bab--the name never ceased to thrill the erstwhile motherless
+girl whose yearning for affection and understanding had been unsatisfied
+by the matter-of-fact Aunt Maria.
+
+At first Maria Metz did not seem too well pleased with the child's
+persistent naming of Barbara Eby as Mother Bab; but gradually, as she
+saw Phoebe's joy in the adoption, the woman acknowledged to herself that
+another woman was capable of mothering where she had failed.
+
+Phoebe spent many hours in the little house on the hill, learning from
+Mother Bab many things that made indelible impressions upon her
+sensitive child-heart, unraveling some of the tangled knots of her soul,
+stirring anew hopes and aspirations of her being. But there remained one
+knot to be untangled--she could not understand why the plain dress and
+white cap existed, she could not reconcile the utter simplicity of dress
+with the lavish beauty of the birds, flowers--all nature.
+
+"It will come," Mother Bab assured her one day. "You are a little girl
+now and cannot see into everything. But when you are older you will see
+how beautiful it is to live simply and plainly."
+
+"But is it necessary, Mother Bab?" the child cried out. "Must I dress
+like you and Aunt Maria if I want to be good?"
+
+"No, you don't _have_ to. Many people are good without wearing the plain
+garb. A great many people in the world never heard of the plain sects we
+have in this section of the country, and there are good people
+everywhere, I'm sure of that. But it is just as true that each person
+must find the best way to lead a good life. If you can wear fine clothes
+and still be good and lead a Christian life, then there is no harm in
+the pretty clothes. But for me the easiest way to be living right is to
+live as simply as I can. This is the way for me."
+
+"I'm afraid it's the way for me, too," confessed Phoebe. "I'm vain,
+awfully vain! I love pretty clothes and I'll never be satisfied till I
+get 'em--silk dresses, soft, shiny satin ones--ach, I guess I'm vain but
+I'll have to wait to satisfy my vanity till I'm older, for Aunt Maria is
+so set against fancy clothes."
+
+It was true, Maria Metz compromised on some matters as Phoebe grew
+older, but on the question of clothes the older woman was adamant. The
+child should have comfortable dresses but there would positively be no
+useless ornaments or adornments, such as wide sashes, abundance of
+laces, elaborately trimmed ruffles. Fancy hats, jewelry and unconfined
+curls were also strictly forbidden.
+
+Though Phoebe, even as she grew older, had much time to spend outdoors,
+there were many tasks about the house and farm she had to perform. The
+chest was soon filled with quilts and that bugbear was gone from her
+life. But there was continual scrubbing, baking, mending, and other
+household tasks to be done, so that much practice caused the girl to
+develop into a capable little housekeeper. Aunt Maria frankly admitted
+that Phoebe worked cheerfully and well, a matter she found consoling in
+the trying hours when Phoebe "wasted time" by playing the low walnut
+organ in the sitting-room.
+
+During Miss Lee's first term of teaching on the hill she taught her how
+to play simple exercises and songs and the child, musically inclined,
+made the most of the meagre knowledge and adeptly improved until she was
+able to play the hymns in the Gospel Hymn Book and the songs and carols
+in the old Music Book that had belonged to her mother and always rested
+on the top of the old low organ.
+
+So the organ became a great solace and joy, an outlet for the intense
+feelings of desire and hope in her heart. When her voice joined with the
+sweet tones of the old instrument it seemed to Phoebe as if she were
+echoing the harmony of the eternal music of all creation. Child though
+she was, she sang with the joy and sincerity of the true musician. She
+merely smiled when Aunt Maria characterized her best efforts as
+"doodling" and rejoiced when her father, Mother Bab or David praised her
+singing.
+
+In school she progressed rapidly but her interest lagged when, after
+two years of teaching, Miss Lee resigned her position as teacher of the
+school on the hill and a new teacher took command. The entire school
+missed the teacher from Philadelphia, but Phoebe was almost
+inconsolable. She, especially, appreciated the gain of contact with the
+teacher she loved and she continued to profit by the remembrance of many
+things Miss Lee had taught her. The Memory Gems, alone, bore evidence of
+the change the teacher from the city had wrought in the rural school.
+Phoebe smiled as she thought how the poems had been sing-songed until
+Miss Lee taught the children to bring out the meaning of the words.
+
+"Oh, my," she laughed one day as she and David were speaking of school
+happenings, "do you remember how John Schneider used to say Memory Gems?
+The day he got up and said, 'Have-you-heard-the-waters-singing-little-May
+--where-the-willows-green-are-bending-over-the-way--do-you-know-how-low-
+and-sweet-are-the-words-the-waves-repeat--to-the-pebbles-at-their-feet--
+night-and-day?'"
+
+David laughed at the girl's droll imitation, the way she sing-songed the
+verse in the exact manner prevalent in many rural schools.
+
+"And do you remember," he asked, "the day Isaac Hunchberger defined
+bipeds?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I'll never forget that! It was the day the County
+Superintendent of Schools came to visit our school and Miss Lee was
+anxious to have us show off. Isaac showed off, all right, with his
+'Bipets are sings vis two lex!' I guess Miss Lee decided that day that
+the Pennsylvania Dutch is ingrained in our English and hard to get out."
+
+To Phoebe each Memory Gem of her school days became, in truth, a gem
+stored away for future years. Long after she had outgrown the little
+rural school scraps of poetry returned to her to rewaken the enthusiasm
+of childhood and to teach her again to "hear the lark within the
+songless egg and find the fountain where they wailed, 'Mirage!'"
+
+Phoebe wanted so many things in those school-day years but she wanted
+most of all to become like Miss Lee. So earnestly did she try to speak
+as her teacher taught her that after a time the peculiar idioms and
+expressions became more infrequent and there was only a delightfully
+quaint inflection, an occasional phrase, to betray her Pennsylvania
+Dutch parentage. But in times of stress or excitement she invariably
+slipped back into the old way and prefaced her exclamations with an
+expressive "Ach!"
+
+Life on the Metz farm went on in even tenor year in and year out. Maria
+Metz never changed to any appreciable extent her mode of living or her
+methods of working, and she tried to teach Phoebe to conform to the same
+monotonous existence and live as several generations of Metzes had done.
+But Phoebe was a veritable Evelyn Hope, made of "spirit, fire and dew."
+The distinctiveness of her personality grew more pronounced as she
+slipped from childhood into girlhood and Maria Metz needed often to
+encourage her own heart for the task of rearing into ideal womanhood the
+daughter of her brother Jacob.
+
+Phoebe had a deep love for nature and this love was fostered by her
+sturdy farmer-father. As she followed him about the fields he taught her
+the names of wild flowers, told her the nesting haunts of birds,
+initiated her into the circle of tree-lore, taught her to keep ears,
+eyes and heart open for the treasures of the great outdoors.
+
+Phoebe required no urging in that direction. Her heart was filled with
+an insatiable desire to know more and more of the beautiful world about
+her. She gathered knowledge from every country walk; she showed so much
+"uncommon sense," David Eby said, that it was a keen pleasure to show
+her the nests of the thrush or the rare nests of the humming-bird. David
+and his mother, enthusiastic seekers after nature knowledge, augmented
+the father's nature education of Phoebe by frequent walks to field and
+woods. And so, when Phoebe was twelve years old she knew the haunts of
+all the wild flowers within walking distance of her home. With her
+father or with David and Mother Bab she found the first marsh-marigolds
+in the meadows, the first violets of the wooded slope of the hill, the
+earliest hepatica with its woolly buds, the first windflowers and spring
+beauties. She knew when the time was come for the bloodroot to lift its
+pure white petals about the golden hearts in the spot where the rich
+mould at the base of some giant tree nurtured the blooded plants. She
+could find the canopied Jack-in-the-pulpit and the pink azalea on the
+hill near her home. She knew the exact spot, a mile from the gray
+farmhouse, where, in a lovely little wood by a quiet road, a profusion
+of bird-foot violets and bluets made a carpet of blue loveliness each
+spring--so on, through the fleet days of summer, till the last asters
+and goldenrod faded, the child reveled in the beauties and wonders of
+the world at her feet and loved every part of it, from the tiny blue
+speedwell in the grass to the gorgeous orioles in the trees. What if
+Aunt Maria sometimes scolded her for bringing so many "weeds" into the
+house! With apparent unconcern she placed her flowers in a glass or
+earthen jar and secretly thought, "Well, I'm glad I like these pretty
+things; they are not weeds to me."
+
+The buoyancy of childhood tarried with her into girlhood. Like the old
+inscription of the sun-dial, she seemed to "count none but sunny hours."
+But those who knew her best saw that the shadows of life also left their
+marks upon her. At times the gaiety was displaced by seriousness. Mother
+Bab knew of the struggles in the girl's heart. Granny Hogendobler could
+have told of the hours Phoebe spent with her consoling her for the
+absence of Nason, mitigating the cruel stabs of the thoughtless people
+who condemned him, comforting with the assurance that he would return to
+his home some day. Old Aaron loved the girl and found her always ready
+to listen to his hackneyed story of the battle of Gettysburg.
+
+Phoebe was a student in the Greenwald High School when the war clouds
+broke over Europe and the world seemed to go mad in a whirl. She hurried
+to Old Aaron for his opinion on the terrible war.
+
+"Isn't it awful," she said to him, "that so many nations are flying at
+each other's throats? And in these days of our boasted civilization!"
+
+"Awful," he agreed. "But, mark my words, this is just the beginning.
+Before the thing's settled we'll be in it too."
+
+She shrank from the words. "Oh, no, not America! That would be too
+terrible. David might go then, and a lot of Greenwald boys--oh, that
+would be awful!"
+
+"Yes! But it would be far more dreadful to have them sit back safe while
+others died for the freedom of the world. I'd rather have my boy a
+soldier at a time like this than have him be ruler of a country."
+
+The old man's words ended quaveringly. The pent-up agony of his
+disappointment in his son surged over him, and he bowed his head in his
+hands and wept.
+
+Phoebe sent Granny to comfort him, and then stole away. The veteran's
+grief left an impression upon her. Were his words prophetic? Would
+America be drawn into the struggle? It was preposterous to dream of
+that. She would forget the words of Old Aaron, for she had important
+matters of her own to think about. In a few years she would be graduated
+from High School and then she would have her own life-work to decide
+upon. Her desire for larger experience, her determination to do
+something of importance after graduation was her chief interest. The war
+across the sea was too remote to bring constant fear to her. Dutifully
+she went about her work on the farm and pursued her studies. She was not
+without pity for the brave people of Servia and Belgium, not without
+praise for the heroic French and English. She added her vehement words
+of horror as she read of the atrocities visited upon the helpless
+peoples. She shared in the dread of many Americans that the octopus-arm
+of war might reach this country, and yet she was more concerned about
+her own future than about the future of battle-racked France or
+devastated Belgium.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BEYOND THE ALPS LIES ITALY
+
+
+PHOEBE'S graduation from the Greenwald High School was her red-letter
+day. Several times during the morning she stole to the spare-room where
+her graduation dress lay spread upon the high bed. Accompanied by Aunt
+Maria she had made a special trip to Lancaster for the frock, though
+Aunt Maria had conscientiously bought a few yards of muslin and apron
+gingham.
+
+The material was soft silky batiste of the quality Phoebe liked. The
+style, also, was of her choosing. She felt a glow of satisfaction as she
+looked at the dress so simply, yet fashionably, made.
+
+"For once in my life I have a dress I like," she thought.
+
+After supper, just as she was ready to dress for the great event, Phares
+Eby came to the gray farmhouse.
+
+The years had changed the solemn, serious boy into a more solemn,
+serious man. Tall and broad-shouldered, he was every inch a man in
+appearance. He was, moreover, a man highly respected in the community, a
+successful farmer and also a preacher in the Church of the Brethren. The
+latter honor had been conferred upon him a year before Phoebe's
+graduation and had seemed to increase his gravity and endow him with
+true bishopric dignity. He dressed after the manner of the majority of
+men who are affiliated with the Church of the Brethren in that district.
+His chin was covered with a thick, black beard, his dark hair was parted
+in the middle and combed behind his ears. He looked ten years older than
+he was and gave an impression of reserved strength, indomitable will and
+rigidity of purpose in furthering what he deemed a good cause.
+
+Phoebe felt a slight intimidation in his presence as she noted how
+serious he had grown, how mature he seemed. He appeared to desire the
+same friendship with her and tried to be comradely as of old, but there
+remained a feeling of restraint between them.
+
+"Hello, Phares," she greeted him as cordially as possible on her
+Commencement night.
+
+"Good-evening," he returned. "Are you ready for the great event?"
+
+"Yes, if I don't have heart failure before I get in to town. If only I
+had been fourth or fifth in the class marks instead of second, then I
+might have escaped to-night with just a solo. As it is, I must deliver
+the Salutatory oration."
+
+"Phoebe, you want to get off too easily! But I cannot stay more than a
+minute, for I know you'll want to get ready. I just stopped to give you
+a little gift for your graduation, a copy of Longfellow's poems."
+
+"Oh, thanks, Phares. I like his poems."
+
+"I thought you did. But I must go now," he said stiffly. "I'll see you
+to-night at Commencement. I hope you'll get through the oration all
+right."
+
+"Thanks. I hope so."
+
+When he was gone she made a wry face. "Whew," she whistled. "I'm sure
+Phares is a fine young man but he's too solemncoly. He gives me the
+woolies! If he's like that all the time I'm glad I don't have to live in
+the same house. Wonder if he really knows how to be jolly. But, shame on
+you, Phoebe Metz, talking so about your old friend! Perhaps for that
+I'll forget my oration to-night." With a gay laugh she ran away to dress
+for the most important occasion of her life.
+
+The white dress was vastly becoming. Its soft folds fell gracefully
+about her slender young figure. Her hair was brushed back, gathered into
+a bow at the top of her head, and braided into one thick braid which
+ended in a curl. There were no loving fingers of mother or sister to
+arrange the folds of her gown, no fond eyes to appraise her with looks
+of approval, but if she felt the omission she gave no evidence of it.
+She seemed especially gay as she dressed alone in her room. When she had
+finished she surveyed herself in the glass.
+
+"Um, Phoebe Metz, you don't look half bad! Now go and do as well as you
+look. If Aunt Maria heard me she'd be shocked, but what's the use
+pretending to be so stupid or innocent as not to appreciate your own
+good points. Any person with good sight and ordinary sense can tell
+whether their appearance is pleasing or otherwise. I like this
+dress----"
+
+"Phoebe," Aunt Maria's voice came up the stairs.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Why, David's down. Are you done dressing?"
+
+"I'll be down in a minute."
+
+David Eby, too, was a man grown, but a man so different! Like his
+cousin, Phares, he was tall. He had the same dark hair and eyes but his
+eyes were glowing, and his hair was cut close and his chin kept
+smooth-shaven.
+
+Between him and Phoebe there existed the old comradeship, free of
+restraint or embarrassment. He ran to meet her as her steps sounded on
+the stairs.
+
+But she came down sedately, her hand sliding along the colonial
+hand-rail, a calm dignity about her, her lovely head erect.
+
+"Good-evening," she said in quiet tones.
+
+"Whew!" he whistled. "Sweet girl graduate is too mild a phrase! Come,
+unbend, Phoebe. You don't expect me to call you Miss Metz or to kiss
+your hand--ah, shall I?"
+
+"Davie"--in a twinkling the assumed dignity deserted her, she was all
+girl again, animated and adorable--"Davie, you're hopeless! Here I pose
+before the mirror to find the most impressive way to hold my head and be
+sufficiently dignified for the occasion, and you come bursting into the
+hall like a tomboy, whistling and saying funny things."
+
+"I'm awfully sorry. But you took my breath away. I haven't gotten it
+back yet"--he breathed deeply.
+
+"David, will you ever grow up?"
+
+"I'll have to now. I see you've gone and done it."
+
+"Ach no," she lapsed into the childhood expression. "I'm not grown up.
+But how do I look? You won't tell me so I have to ask you."
+
+"You look like a Madonna," he said seriously.
+
+"Oh," she said impatiently, "that sounded like Phares."
+
+"Gracious, then I'll change it! You look like an angel and good enough
+to eat. But honestly, Phoebe, that dress is dandy! You look mighty
+nice."
+
+"Glad you think so. Shall I tell you a secret, David? I'm scared pink
+about to-night."
+
+"You scared?" He whistled again.
+
+"Don't be so smart," she said with a frown. "Were you scared on your
+Commencement night?"
+
+"Um-uh. At first I was. But you'll get over it in a few minutes. The
+lights and the glory of the occasion dim the scary feeling when you sit
+up there in the seats of honor. You should be glad your oration is
+first."
+
+"I am. Mary Warner is welcome to her Valedictory and the long wait to
+deliver it."
+
+Phoebe stiffened a bit at the thought of the other girl. Since the days
+when the two girls attended the rural school on the hill and Mary Warner
+was the possessor of curls while Phoebe wore the despised braids the
+other girl seemed to have everything for which Phoebe longed.
+
+"Ah, don't you care about the honor," said David. "Honors don't always
+tell who knows the most. Why, look at me; I was fifth in my class and I
+know as much any day as the little runt who was first."
+
+"Conceit!" laughed Phoebe. "But I guess you do know more than he does.
+Bet he never saw an orioles' nest or found a wild pink moccasin. You're
+a wonder at such things, David."
+
+"Um," came the sober answer, but there was a merry twinkle in his eyes,
+"I'm a wonder all right! Too bad only you and Mother Bab know it. But if
+I don't soon go you won't get to town in time to get the pink roses
+arranged just so for the grand march. The girls in our class primped
+about twenty minutes, patting their hair and fixing their ribbons and
+fussing with their flowers."
+
+"David, you're horrid!"
+
+"I know. But I brought you something more to primp with." He handed her
+a small flat box.
+
+"For me?"
+
+"From Mother Bab," he said.
+
+"Oh, David, that's a beauty!" she cried as she held up a scarf of pale
+blue crepe de chine. "I'll wear it to-night. Tell Mother Bab I thank her
+over and over. But I'll see her to-night and tell her myself; she'll be
+in at Commencement."
+
+"She can't come, Phoebe. She's sorry, but she has one of her dreadful
+headaches and you know what that means, how sick she really is."
+
+"Oh, Davie, Mother Bab not coming to my Commencement--why, I'm so
+disappointed, I want her there"--the tears were near the surface.
+
+"She's sorry, too, Phoebe, but she's too sick when those headaches get
+her. Her eyes are the cause of them, we think now."
+
+"And I'm horribly selfish to think of myself and my disappointment when
+she is suffering. You tell her I'll be up to see her in the morning and
+tell her all about to-night. You are coming?"
+
+"Sure thing! Aunt Mary is coming over to stay with mother, but there is
+really nothing to do for her; the pain seems to have to run its course.
+She'll go to bed early and be perfectly all right when she wakes in the
+morning. Come on, now, cheer up, and get ready for that 'Over the Alps
+lies Italy.'"
+
+"It's 'Beyond the Alps lies Italy,'" she corrected him. Her
+disappointment was softened by his cheerfulness.
+
+"Ach, it's all the same," he insisted, and went off smiling.
+
+To Phoebe that night seemed like a dream--the slow march down the aisle
+of the crowded auditorium to the elevated platform where the nine
+graduates sat in a semicircle; the sea of faces swathed in the bright
+glow of many lights; the perfume of the pink roses in her arm; the music
+of the High School chorus, and then the time when she rose and stood
+before the people to deliver her oration, "Beyond the Alps lies Italy."
+
+She began rather shakily; the sea of faces seemed so very formidable, so
+many eyes looked at her--how could she ever finish! She spoke
+mechanically at first, but gradually the magic of the Italy of her
+dreams stole upon her, a singular softness crept into her voice, a
+mellowness like music, as she depicted the blue skies of the sunny
+land-of-dreams-come-true.
+
+When she returned to her place in the semicircle a glow of satisfaction
+possessed her. She felt she had not failed, that she had, in truth, done
+very well. But later, when Mary Warner rose to deliver the Valedictory,
+Phoebe felt her own efforts shrink into littleness. The dark-eyed
+beautiful Mary was a sad thorn in the flesh for the fair girl who knew
+she was always overshadowed by the brilliant, queenly brunette.
+Involuntarily the country girl looked at David Eby--he was listening
+intently to Mary; his eyes never seemed to leave her face. Little, sharp
+pangs of jealousy thrust themselves into the depths of Phoebe's heart.
+Was it true, then, that David cared for Mary Warner? Town gossips said
+he frequented her house. Phoebe had met them together on the Square
+recently--not that she cared, of course! She sat erect and held her pink
+roses more tightly against her heart. It mattered little to her if David
+liked other girls; it was only that she felt a sense of proprietorship
+over the boy whose mother was her Mother Bab--thus she tried to console
+herself and quiet the demons of jealousy until the program was
+completed, congratulations received, and she stood with her aunt and
+father, ready for the trip back to the gray farmhouse.
+
+Teachers and friends had congratulated her, but it was David Eby's
+hearty, "You did all right, Phoebe," that gave her the keenest joy.
+
+"Did you walk in?" she asked him as she gathered her roses, diploma and
+scarf, preparatory to departure.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you can drive out with us," her father offered.
+
+"Yes, of course," she seconded the suggestion. "We have room in the
+carriage."
+
+So it happened that Phoebe, the blue scarf about her shoulders, sat
+beside David as they drove over the country road, home from her
+graduation. The vehicle rattled somewhat, but the young folks on the
+rear seat could speak and hear above the clatter.
+
+"I'm glad it's over," Phoebe sighed in relief. "But what next?"
+
+"Mary Warner is going to enter some prep school this fall and prepare
+for Vassar," David informed the girl beside him.
+
+"Lucky Mary"--Mary Warner--she was sick of the name! "I wish I knew what
+I want to do."
+
+"Want to go away to school?"
+
+"I don't know. Aunt Maria wants me to stay at home on the farm and just
+help her. Daddy doesn't say much, but he did ask me if I would like to
+go to Millersville. That's a fine Normal School and if I wanted to be a
+teacher I'd go to that school, but I don't want to be a teacher. What I
+really want to do is go away and study music."
+
+"Well, can't you do it? That is not really impossible."
+
+"No, but----"
+
+"No, but," he mimicked. "_But_ won't take you anywhere."
+
+"You set me thinking, David. Perhaps it isn't so improbable, after all.
+I'm coming over to see Mother Bab to-morrow; she'll be full of
+suggestions. She'll see a way for me to get what I want; she always
+does."
+
+"I bet she will," agreed David. "You'll be that primer donner yet," he
+mimicked, "I know you will."
+
+"Oh, Davie, wouldn't it be great! But I wouldn't beautify my face with
+cream and beet juice and flour!"
+
+They laughed so heartily that Aunt Maria turned and asked the cause of
+the merriment.
+
+"We were just speaking of the time when I dressed in the garret and
+fixed my face--the time you had the quilting party."
+
+"Ach," Aunt Maria said, smiling in the darkness. "You looked dreadful
+that day. I was good and mad at you! But I'm glad you're big enough now
+not to do such dumb things. My, now that you're done with school and
+will stay home with me we can have some nice times sewin' and quiltin'
+and makin' rugs, ain't, Phoebe?"
+
+In the semi-darkness of the carriage Phoebe looked at David. The
+appealing wistfulness of her face touched him. He patted her arm
+reassuringly and whispered to her, "Don't you worry. It'll come out all
+right. Mother Bab will help you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A VISIT TO MOTHER BAB
+
+
+THE next day as Phoebe walked up the hill to visit Mother Bab she went
+eagerly and with an unusual light in her eyes--she had transformed her
+schoolgirl braid into the coiffure of a woman! The golden hair was
+parted in the middle, twisted into a shapely knot in the nape of her
+neck, and the effect was highly satisfactory, she thought.
+
+"Mother Bab will be surprised," she said gladly as she swung up the hill
+in rapid, easy strides. "And David--I wonder what David will say if he's
+home."
+
+At the summit of the hill she paused and turned, looked back at the gray
+farmhouse and beyond it to the little town of Greenwald.
+
+"I just must stand here a minute and look! I love this view from the
+hill."
+
+She breathed deeply and continued to revel in the beauty of the scene.
+At the foot of the hill was the Metz farm nestling in its green
+surroundings. Like a tan ribbon the dusty road went winding past green
+fields, then hid itself as it dipped into a valley and made a sharp
+curve, though Phoebe knew that it went on past more fields and meadows
+to the town. Where she stood she had a view of the tall spires of
+Greenwald churches straggling through the trees, and the red and slate
+roofs of comfortable houses gleaming in the sunlight. Beyond and about
+the town lay fields resplendent in the pristine freshness of May
+greenery.
+
+"Oh," she said aloud after a long gaze, "this is glorious! But I must
+hurry to Mother Bab. I'm wild to have her see me. Aunt Maria just said
+when I showed her my hair, 'Yes well, Phoebe, I guess you're old enough
+to wear your hair up.' Mother Bab is different. Sometimes I pity Aunt
+Maria and wonder what kind of childhood she had to make her so grim
+about some things."
+
+The little house in which David and his mother lived stood near the
+country road leading to the schoolhouse on the hill. Like many other
+farmhouses of that county it was square, substantial and unadorned, its
+attractiveness being derived solely from its fine proportions, its
+colonial doorways, and the harmonious surroundings of trees and flowers.
+The garden was eloquent of the lavish love bestowed upon it. Mother Bab
+delighted in flowers and planted all the old favorites. The walks
+between the garden beds were trim and weedless, the yard and buildings
+well kept, and the entire little farm gave evidence that the reputed
+Pennsylvania Dutch thrift and neatness were present there.
+
+Adjoining the farm of Mother Bab was the farm of her brother-in-law, the
+father of Phares Eby. This was one of the best known in the community.
+Its great barns and vast acres quite eclipsed the modest little dwelling
+beside it. David Eby sometimes sighed as he compared the two farms and
+wondered why Fate had bestowed upon his uncle's efforts an almost
+unparalleled success while his own father had had a continual struggle
+to hold on to the few acres of the little farm. Since the death of his
+father David had often felt the straining of the yoke. It was toil,
+toil, on acres which were rich but apparently unwilling to yield their
+fullness. One year the crops were damaged by hail, another year
+prolonged drought prevented full development of the fruit, again
+continued rainy weather ruined the hay, and so on, year in and year out,
+there was seldom a season when the farm measured up to the expectations
+of the hard-working David.
+
+But Mother Bab never complained about the ill-luck, neither did she envy
+the woman in the great house next to her. Mother Bab's philosophy of
+life was mainly cheerful:
+
+        "I find earth not gray, but rosy,
+           Heaven not grim, but fair of hue.
+         Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.
+           Do I stand and stare? All's blue."
+
+A little house to shelter her, a big garden in which to work, to dream,
+to live; enough worldly goods to supply daily sustenance; the love of
+her David--truly her BELOVED, as the old Hebrew name signifies--the love
+of the dear Phoebe who had adopted her--given these blessings and no
+envy or discontent ever ventured near the white-capped woman. Life had
+brought her many hours of perplexity and several great sorrows, but it
+had also bestowed upon her compensating joys. She felt that the years
+would bring her new joys, now that her boy was grown into a man and was
+able to manage the farm. Some day he would bring home a wife--how she
+would love David's wife! But meanwhile, she was not lonely. Her friends
+and she were much together, quilting, rugging, comparing notes on the
+garden.
+
+"Guess Mother Bab'll be in the garden," thought Phoebe, "for it's such a
+fine day."
+
+But as she neared the whitewashed fence of the garden she saw that the
+place was deserted. She ran lightly up the walk, rapped at the kitchen
+door, and entered without waiting for an answer to her knock.
+
+"Mother Bab," she called.
+
+"I'm here, Phoebe," came a voice from the sitting-room.
+
+"How are you? Is your headache all gone?" Phoebe asked as she ran to the
+beloved person who came to meet her.
+
+"All gone. I was so disappointed last night--but what have you done to
+your hair?"
+
+"Oh, I forgot!" Phoebe lifted her head proudly. "I meant to knock at the
+front door and be company to-day. I've got my hair up!"
+
+"Phoebe, Phoebe," the woman drew her nearer. "Let me look at you." Her
+eyes scanned the face of the girl, her voice quivered as she spoke.
+"You've grown up! Of course it didn't come in a night but it seems that
+way."
+
+"The May fairies did it, Mother Bab. Yesterday I wore a braid. This
+morning when I woke I heard the robin who sings every morning in the
+apple tree outside my window and he was caroling, 'Put it up! Put it
+up!' I knew he meant my hair, so here I am, waiting for your blessing."
+
+"You have it, you always have it! But"--she changed her mood--"are you
+sure the robin wasn't saying, 'Get up, get up!' Phoebe?"
+
+"Positive; it was only five o'clock."
+
+"Now I must hear all about last night," said Mother Bab as they sat
+together on the broad wooden settee in the sitting-room. "David told me
+how nice you looked and how well you did."
+
+"Did he tell you how pleased I am with the scarf? It's just lovely! And
+the color is beautiful. I wonder why--I wonder why I love pretty things
+so much, really pretty things, like crepe de chine and taffeta and panne
+velvet and satin. Oh, sometimes I think I must have them. When I go to
+Lancaster I want lots of lovely clothes and I hate ginghams and percales
+and serviceable things."
+
+"I know, Phoebe, I know how you feel about it."
+
+"Do you really? Then it can't be so awfully wicked. You are so
+understanding, Mother Bab. I can't tell Aunt Maria how I feel about such
+things for she'd be dreadfully hurt or worried or provoked, but you seem
+always to know what I mean and how I feel."
+
+"I was eighteen myself once, a good many years ago, but I still remember
+it."
+
+"You have a good memory."
+
+"Yes. Why, I can remember some of the dresses I wore when I was
+eighteen. But then, I have a dress bundle to help me remember them."
+
+"What's a dress bundle?"
+
+"Didn't Aunt Maria keep one for you?"
+
+"I never heard of one."
+
+"It's a long string of samples of dresses you wore when you were little.
+Wait, I'll get mine and show you."
+
+She left the room and went up-stairs. After a short time she returned
+and held out a stout thread upon which were strung small, irregular
+scraps of dress material. "This is my dress bundle. My mother started it
+for me when I was a baby and kept it up till I was big enough to do it
+myself. Every time I got a new dress a little patch of the goods was
+threaded on my dress bundle."
+
+"Oh, may I see? Why, that's just like a part of your babyhood and
+childhood come back!"
+
+The two heads bent over the bundle--the girl's with its light hair in
+its first putting up, the woman's with its graying hair folded under the
+white cap.
+
+"Here"--Mother Bab turned the bundle upside down and fingered the scraps
+with that loving way of those who are dreaming of long departed days and
+touching a relic of those cherished hours--"this white calico with the
+little pink dots was the first dress any one gave me. Grandmother
+Hoerner made it for me, all by hand. Funny, wasn't it, the way they used
+to put colored dresses on wee babies! See, here are pink calico ones and
+white with red figures and a few blue ones. I wore all these when I was
+a baby. Then when I grew older these; they are much prettier. This red
+delaine I wore to a spelling bee when I was about sixteen and I got a
+book for a prize for standing up next to last. This red and black
+checked debaige I can see yet. It had an overskirt on it trimmed with
+little ruffles. This purple cashmere with the yellow sprigs in it I had
+all trimmed with narrow black velvet ribbon. I'll never forget that
+dress--I wore it the day I met David's father."
+
+"Oh, you must have looked lovely!"
+
+"He said so." She smiled; her eyes looked beyond Phoebe, back to the
+golden days of her youth when Love had come to her to bless and to abide
+with her long beyond the tarrying of the spirit in the flesh. "He said I
+looked nice. I met him the first time I wore the purple dress. It was at
+a corn-husking party at Jerry Grumb's barn. Some man played the fiddle
+and we danced."
+
+"Danced!" echoed Phoebe.
+
+"Yes, danced. But just the old-fashioned Virginia reel. We had cider and
+apples and cake and pie for our treat and we went home at ten o'clock!
+David walked home with me in the moonlight and I guess we liked each
+other from the first. We were married the next year, then we both turned
+plain."
+
+"Were you ever sorry, Mother Bab?"
+
+"That I married him, or that I turned plain?"
+
+"Yes. Both, I mean."
+
+"No, never sorry once, Phoebe, about either. We were happy together. And
+about turning plain, why, I wasn't sorry either."
+
+"But you had to give up Virginia reels and pretty dresses."
+
+"Yes, but I learned there are deeper, more important things than dancing
+and wearing pretty dresses."
+
+She looked at Phoebe, but the girl had bowed her head over the dress
+bundle and appeared to be thinking.
+
+"And so," continued Mother Bab softly, "my bundle ended with that dress.
+Since I dress plain I don't wear colors, just gray and black. But I
+always thought if I had a girl I'd start a dress bundle for her, for
+it's so much satisfaction to get it out sometimes and look over the
+pieces and remember the dresses and some of the happy times you had when
+you wore them. But the girl never came."
+
+"But you have David!"
+
+"Yes, to be sure, he's been so much to me, but I couldn't make him a
+dress bundle. He wouldn't have liked it when he grew older--boys are
+different. And I wouldn't want him to be a sissy, either."
+
+"He isn't, Mother Bab. He's fine!"
+
+"I think so, Phoebe. He has worked so hard since he's through school and
+he's so good to me and takes such care of the farm, though the crops
+don't always turn out as we want. But you haven't told me what you are
+going to do, now that you're through school."
+
+"I don't know. I want to do something."
+
+"Teach?"
+
+"No. What I would like best of all is study music."
+
+"In Greenwald? You mean to learn to play?"
+
+"No, to learn to sing. I have often dreamed of studying music in a great
+city, like Philadelphia."
+
+"What would you do then?"
+
+"Sing, sing! I feel that my voice is my one talent and I don't want to
+bury it."
+
+"Well, don't Miss Lee live in Philadelphia? Perhaps she could help you
+to get a good teacher and find a place to board."
+
+"Mother Bab!" Phoebe sprang to her feet and wrapped her arms about the
+slender little woman. "That's just it!" she cried. "I never thought of
+that! David said you'd help me. I'll write to Miss Lee to-day!"
+
+"Phoebe," the woman said, smiling at the girl's wild enthusiasm.
+
+"I'm not crazy, just inspired," said Phoebe. "You helped me, I knew you
+would! I want to go to Philadelphia to study music but I know daddy and
+Aunt Maria would never listen to any proposals about going to a big city
+and living among strangers. But if I write to Miss Lee and she says
+she'll help me the folks at home may consider the plan. I'll have a hard
+time, though"--a reactionary doubt touched her--"I'll have a dreadful
+time persuading Aunt Maria that I'm safe and sane if I mention music and
+Philadelphia and Phoebe in the same breath." Then she smiled
+determinedly. "At least I'm going to make a brave effort to get what I
+want. I'm not going to settle down on the farm and get brown and fat and
+wear gingham dresses all my life, and sunbonnets in the bargain! I never
+could see why I had to wear sunbonnets, I always hated them. Aunt Maria
+always tried to make me wear them, but as soon as I was out of her sight
+I sneaked them off. I remember one time I threw my bonnet in the
+Chicques and I had the loveliest time watching it disappear down the
+stream. But Aunt Maria made me make another one that was uglier still,
+so I gained nothing but the temporary pleasure of seeing it float away.
+And how I hated to do patchwork! It seemed to me I was always doing it,
+and I never could see the sense of cutting up pieces and then sewing
+them together again."
+
+"But the sewing was good practice for you, Phoebe. Patchwork--seems to
+me all our life is patchwork: a little here and a little there; one
+color now, then another; one shape first, then another shape fitted in;
+and when it is all joined it will be beautiful if we keep the parts
+straight and the colors and shapes right. It can be a very beautiful
+rising sun or an equally pretty flower basket, or it can be just a crazy
+quilt with little of the beautiful about it."
+
+"Mother Bab, if I had known that while I was patching I would have loved
+to patch! I had nothing to make it interesting; it was just stitching,
+stitching, stitching on seams! But those vivid quilts are all finished
+and I guess Aunt Maria is as glad about it as I am, for I gave her some
+worried hours before the end was sighted. Poor Aunt Maria, she should be
+glad to have me go to the city. I've led her some merry chases, but I
+must admit she was always equal to them, forged ahead of me many times."
+
+"Phoebe, you're a wilful child and I'm afraid I spoil you more."
+
+"No you don't! You're my safety valve. If I couldn't come up here and
+say the things I really feel I'd have to tell it to the Jenny
+Wrens--Aunt Maria hates to have me talk to myself."
+
+"But she's good to you, Phoebe?"
+
+"Yes, oh, yes! I appreciate all she has done for me. She has taken care
+of me since I was a tiny baby. I'll never forget that. It's just that we
+are so different. I can't make Phoebe Metz be just like Maria Metz, can
+I?"
+
+"No, you must be yourself, even if you are different."
+
+"That's it, Mother Bab. I feel I have the right to live my life as I
+choose, that no person shall say to me I must live it so or so. If I
+want to study music why shouldn't I do so? My mother left a few hundred
+dollars for me; it's been on interest and amounts to more than a few
+hundred, about a thousand dollars, I think. So the money end of my
+studying music need not worry Aunt Maria. I am determined to do it,
+wouldn't you?"
+
+"I suppose I'd feel the same way."
+
+"How did you learn to understand so well, Mother Bab? You have lived all
+your life on a farm, yet you are not narrow."
+
+"I hope I have not grown narrow," the woman said softly. "I have read a
+great deal. I have read--don't you breathe it to a soul--I have often
+read when I should have been baking pies or washing windows!"
+
+"No wonder David worships you so."
+
+"I still enjoy reading," said Mother Bab. "David subscribes for three
+good magazines and when they come I'm so anxious to look into them that
+sometimes my cooking burns."
+
+"That must be one of the reasons your English is correct. I am ashamed
+of myself when I mix my v's and w's and use a _t_ for a _d_. I have
+often wished the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect would have been put aside
+long ago."
+
+"Yes," the woman agreed, "I can't see the need of it. It has been
+ridiculed so long that it should have died a natural death. It's a
+mystery to me how it has survived. But cheer up, Phoebe, the gibberish
+is dying out. The older people will continue to speak it but the younger
+generations are becoming more and more English speaking. Why, do you
+know, Phoebe, since this war started in Europe and I read the dreadful
+crimes the Germans are committing I feel that I never want to hear or
+say, 'Yah.'"
+
+"Bully!" Phoebe clapped her hands. "I said to old Aaron Hogendobler
+yesterday that I'm ashamed I have a German name and some German
+ancestors, even if they did come to this country before the Revolution,
+and he said no one need feel shame at that, but every American who is
+not one hundred per cent American should die from shame. I know we
+Pennsylvania Dutch can carry our end of the burdens of the world and be
+real Americans, but I want to sound like one too."
+
+Mother Bab laughed. "Just yesterday I said to David that the butter was
+_all_."
+
+"I say that very often. I must read more."
+
+"And I less. I haven't told you, Phoebe, nor David, but my eyes are
+going back on me. I went to Lancaster a few weeks ago and the doctor
+there said I must be very careful not to strain them at all. I think I'd
+rather lose any other sense than sight. I always thought it was the
+greatest affliction in the world to be blind."
+
+"It is! It mustn't come to you, Mother Bab!"
+
+The woman looked worried, but in a moment her face brightened.
+
+"Anyhow," she said, "what's the use of worrying or thinking about it? If
+it ever comes I'll have to bear it just as many other people are bearing
+it. I'm glad I have sight to-day to see you."
+
+Phoebe gave her an ecstatic hug. "I believe you're Irish instead of
+Pennsylvania Dutch! You do know how to blarney and you have that
+coaxing, lovely way about you that the Irish are supposed to have."
+
+"Why, Phoebe, I am part Irish! My mother's maiden name was McKnight.
+David and I still have a few drops of the Irish blood in us, I suppose."
+
+"I just knew it! I'm glad. I adore the whimsical way the Irish have, and
+I like their sense of humor. I guess that's one of the reasons I like
+you better than other people I know and perhaps that's why David is
+jolly and different from Phares. Ah," she added roguishly, "I think it's
+a pity Phares hasn't some Irish blood in him. He's so solemn he seldom
+sees a joke."
+
+"But he's a good boy and he thinks a lot of you. He's just a little too
+quiet. But he's a good preacher and very bright."
+
+"Yes, he's so good that I'm ashamed of myself when I say mean things
+about him. I like him, but people with more life are more interesting."
+
+"Hello, who's this you like?" David's hearty voice burst upon them.
+
+Phoebe turned and saw him standing in the sunlight of the open door. The
+thought flashed upon her, "How big and strong he is!"
+
+He wore brown corduroys, a blue chambray shirt slightly open at the
+throat, heavy shoes. His face was already tanned by the wind and sun,
+his hands rough from contact with soil and farming implements, his dark
+hair rumpled where he had pulled the big straw hat from his head, but
+there was an odor of fresh spring earth about him, a boyish
+wholesomeness in his face, that attracted the girl as she looked at his
+frame in the doorway.
+
+There was a flash of white teeth, a twinkle in his dark eyes, as he
+asked, "What did I hear you say, Phoebe--that you like _me_?"
+
+"Indeed not! I wouldn't think of liking anybody who deceived me as you
+have done. All these years you have left me under the impression that
+you are Pennsylvania Dutch and now Mother Bab says you are part Irish."
+
+"Little saucebox! What about yourself? You can't make me believe that
+you are pure, unadulterated Pennsylvania Dutch. There's some alien blood
+in you, by the ways of you. Have you seen Phares this afternoon?" he
+asked irrelevantly.
+
+"Phares? No. Why?"
+
+"He went down past the field some time ago. Said he's going to
+Greenwald and means to stop and ask you to go to a sale with him next
+week. He said you mentioned some time ago that you'd like to go to a
+real old-fashioned one and he heard of one coming off next week and
+thought you might like to go."
+
+"I surely want to go. Don't you want to come, too, David? And Mother
+Bab?"
+
+But David shook his head. "And spoil Phares's party," he said. "Phares
+wouldn't thank us."
+
+Phoebe shrugged her shoulders. "Ach, David Eby, you're silly! Just as
+though I want to go to a sale all alone with Phares! He can take the big
+carriage and take us all."
+
+"He can but he won't want to." David showed an irritating wisdom. "When
+I invite you to come on a party with me I won't want Phares tagging
+after, either. Two's company."
+
+"Two's boredom sometimes," she said so ambiguously that the man laughed
+heartily and Mother Bab smiled in amusement.
+
+"Come now, Phoebe," David said, "just because you put your hair up you
+mustn't think you can rule us all and don grown-up airs."
+
+"Then you do notice things! I thought you were blind. You are downright
+mean, David Eby! When you wore your first pair of long pants I noticed
+it right away and made a fuss about them and it takes you ten minutes to
+see that my hair is up instead of hanging in a silly braid down my
+back."
+
+"I saw it first thing, Phoebe. That was mean--I'm sorry----"
+
+"You look it," she said sceptically.
+
+"I'm sorry," he repeated, "to see the braid go, though you look fine
+this way. I liked that long braid ever since the day I braided it, the
+day you played prima donna. Remember?"
+
+The girl flushed, then was vexed at her embarrassment and changed
+suddenly to the old, appealing Phoebe.
+
+"I remember, Davie. You were my salvation that day, you and Mother Bab."
+
+Before they could answer she added with seeming innocency, yet with a
+swift glance into the face of the farmer boy, "I must go now so I'll be
+home when Phares comes to invite me to that sale. I'm going with him;
+I'm wild to go."
+
+"Yes?" David said slowly.
+
+"Yes," she repeated, a teasing look in her eyes.
+
+"Mommie, isn't she fine?" David said after Phoebe was gone and he
+lingered in the house.
+
+"Mighty fine. But she is so different from the general run of girls;
+she's so lively and bright and sweet, so sensitive to all impressions.
+She's anxious to get to the city to study music. It would be a wonderful
+experience for her--and yet----"
+
+"And yet----" echoed David, then fell into silence.
+
+Mother Bab was thinking of her boy and Phoebe, of their gay comradeship.
+How friendly they were, how well-mated they appeared to be, how
+appreciative of each other. Could they ever care for each other in a
+deeper way? Did the preacher care for the playmate of his childhood as
+she thought David was beginning to care?
+
+"Well, I must go again, mommie. I came in for a drink at the pump and
+heard you and Phoebe. Now I must hustle for I have a lot to do before
+sundown--ach, why aren't we rich!"
+
+"Do you wish for that?"
+
+"Certainly I do. Not wealthy; just to have enough so we needn't lie
+awake wondering if the dry spell or the wet spell or the hail will ruin
+the crops. I wish I could find an Aladdin's lamp."
+
+"Davie"--the smile faded from her face--"don't get the money craze.
+Money isn't everything. This farm is paid for and we can always make a
+comfortable living. Money isn't all."
+
+"No, but--but it means everything sometimes to a young, single fellow.
+But don't you worry; the crops are fine this year, so far."
+
+The mother did not forget his words at once. "It must be," she thought,
+"that David wants Phoebe and feels he must have more money before he can
+ask her to marry him. Will men never learn that girls who are worth
+getting are not looking so much for money but the man. The young can't
+see the depth and fullness of love. I've tried to teach David, but I
+suppose there's some things he must learn for himself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+AN OLD-FASHIONED COUNTRY SALE
+
+
+A WEEK later Phares and Phoebe drove into the barnyard of a farm six
+miles from Greenwald, where the old-fashioned sale was scheduled to be
+held.
+
+"We are not the first, after all," said the preacher as he saw the
+number of conveyances in and about the barnyard. He smiled
+good-humoredly as he led the way--he could afford to smile when he was
+with Phoebe.
+
+All about the big yard of the farm were placed articles to be sold at
+public auction. It was a miscellaneous collection. A cradle with
+miniature puffy feather pillows, straw tick and an old patchwork quilt
+of pink and white calico stood near an old wood-stove which bore the
+inscription, CONOWINGO FURNACE. Corn-husk shoe-mats, a quilting frame,
+rocking-chairs, two spinning-wheels, copper kettles, rolls of hand-woven
+rag carpet, old oval hat-boxes and an old chest stood about a huge table
+which was laden with jars of jellies. Chests, filled with linens and
+antique woolen coverlets, afforded a resting place for the fortunate
+ones who had arrived earliest. A few antique chairs and tables, a
+mahogany highboy in excellent condition and an antique corner-cupboard
+of wild-cherry wood occupied prominent places among the collection.
+Truly, the sale warranted the attention it was receiving.
+
+"I'd like to bid on something--I'm going to do it!" Phoebe said as they
+looked about. "When I was a little girl and went to sales with Aunt
+Maria I coaxed to bid, just for the excitement of bidding. But she
+always made me tell what I wanted and then she bid on it."
+
+"What do you want to buy?" asked the preacher.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I don't want any apple-butter in crocks, or any
+chairs. Oh, I'll have some fun, Phares! I'll bid on the third article
+they put up for sale! I heard a man say the dishes are going to be sold
+first, so I'll probably get a cracked plate or a saucer without a cup,
+but whatever it is, the third article is going to be mine."
+
+"That is rather rash," warned Phares. "It may be a bed or a chest."
+
+"You can't scare me. I'm going to have some real thrills at this sale."
+
+The preacher entered into the spirit of the girl and smiled at her
+promise to bid on the third thing put up for sale.
+
+"Oh, look at the highboy," she exclaimed to him.
+
+"Do you like it?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. See how it's inlaid with hollywood and cherry and how fine the
+lines of it are! I wonder how much it will bring. But Aunt Maria'd scold
+if I brought any furniture home, so I can't buy it."
+
+"The price will depend upon the number of bidders and the size of their
+pocketbooks. If any dealers in antiques are here it may run way up. We
+used to buy homespun linen and fine old furniture very cheap at sales,
+but the antique dealers changed that."
+
+By that time the number of people was steadily increasing. They came
+singly and in groups, in carriages, farm wagons, automobiles and afoot.
+Some of the curious went about examining each article in the motley
+collection in the yard.
+
+Phoebe watched it all with an amused smile; finally she broke into merry
+laughter.
+
+Phares looked up inquiringly: "What is it?"
+
+"This is great sport! I haven't been to a good sale for several years.
+That old man has knocked his fist upon every chair and table, has tested
+every piece of furniture, has opened all the bureau drawers, even the
+case of the old clock, and just a moment ago he rocked the cradle
+furiously to convince himself that it is in good working condition. Here
+he comes with a pewter plate in his hand--let's hear what he has to say
+about it."
+
+The old man's cracked harsh voice rose above the confusion of other
+sounds as he leaned against a table near Phoebe and Phares and spoke to
+another man:
+
+"Here now, Eph, is one of them pewter plates that folks fuss so about
+just now, and I hear they put them in their dinin'-rooms along the wall!
+Why, when I was a boy my granny had a lot of 'em and we'd knock 'em
+around any way. Ha, ha," he laughed loudly, "I can tell you a good one,
+Eph, about one of them pewter dishes."
+
+He slapped the plate against his knee, but the thud was instantly
+drowned by his quick, "Ach, Jimminy, I hit myself pretty hard that time!
+But I'll tell you about it, Eph. You heard of the fellows from the city
+who go around the country hunting up old relics, all old truck, and sell
+it again in the city? Well, one of them fellows come to my house the
+other week and asked if I had anything old-fashioned I would sell. Now
+if Lizzie'd been home we might got rid of some of the old things we have
+on the garret, but I was alone and I didn't know what I dared sell--you
+know how the women is. So I said, 'What kind of old things do you want?'
+
+"'Oh,' he said, 'I buy old furniture, dishes, linen, pewter----'
+
+"'Pewter?' I said. 'Who wants that?'
+
+"'There is a great demand for it,' he said, 'and I will give you a good
+price for any you have.'
+
+"'Well,' I laughed, 'I have just one piece of pewter.'
+
+"'Where is it?'
+
+"'Why, the cats have been eating out of it for a few years.'
+
+"'May I see it?' he asks.
+
+"So I took him out to the barn and showed him the big pewter bowl the
+cats eat out of and he said, 'I'll give you fifty cents for that dish.'
+
+"Gosh, I said to him, 'Mister, I was just fooling with you. I know you
+don't want a cat-dish.'
+
+"But he said again, 'I'll give you fifty cents for that dish.'
+
+"So when I saw that he really meant it and wanted the dish I wrapped
+the old pewter dish in a paper and he gave me half a dollar for it. When
+I told Lizzie about it she laughed good and said the city folks must be
+dumb if they want pewter dishes when you can buy such nice ones for ten
+cents. Yes, Eph, that's the fellow's going to auctioneer. He's a good
+one, you bet; he keeps things lively all the time. All his folks is good
+talkers. Lizzie says his mom can talk the legs off an iron pot. But then
+he needs a good tongue in this business; it takes a lot of wind to be an
+auctioneer, specially at a big sale like this. He says it's going to be
+a wonderful sale, that he ain't had one like it for years. There's
+things here belonged to the family for three generations, been handed
+down and handed down and now to-day it'll get scattered all over
+Lancaster County, mebbe further. This saving up things and not using 'em
+is all nonsense. I tell Lizzie we'll use what we got and get new when
+it's worn out and not let a lot back for the young ones to fight over or
+other people to buy."
+
+Here the auctioneer climbed upon a big box, clapped his hands and called
+loudly, "Attention, attention! This sale is about to begin. We have here
+a collection of fine things, all in good condition. The terms of the
+sale are cash. Now, folks, bid up fast and talk loud when you bid so I
+can hear you. We have here some of the finest antique dishes in the
+country, also some furniture that can't be duplicated in any store
+to-day. We'll begin on this cherry table."
+
+He lifted a spindle-legged table in the air and went on talking.
+
+"Now that's a fine table to begin with! All solid cherry, no screws
+loose--and that's more than you can say about some people--now what's
+bid for this table? Fine and good as the day it came out of a good
+workman's shop; no scratches on it--the Brubaker people knew how to take
+care of furniture. Who bids? How much for it do you bid? Fifty
+cents--fifty, all right--make it sixty--sixty cents I'm bid. Sixty,
+sixty, sixty--seventy--go ahead, eighty--go on--ninety, one dollar, one
+dollar ten, twenty, thirty--keep on--one dollar thirty, make it forty,
+forty, forty, forty, I have a dollar forty for this table--all done?
+Going--all done--all done?"
+
+All was said in one breathless succession of words. He paused an instant
+to gather fresh impetus, then resumed, "All done--any more? Gone at a
+dollar forty to----"
+
+"Lizzie Brubaker."
+
+"Sold to Lizzie Brubaker."
+
+"There," whispered the preacher to Phoebe, "that's one."
+
+She smiled and nodded her head.
+
+"Here now," called the auctioneer, "here's a fine set of chairs. Bid on
+them; wink to me if you don't want to call out. My wife said she don't
+care how many ladies wink to me this afternoon at this sale, but after
+that she won't have it--now then; go ahead! Give me one of the chairs,
+Sam, so the people can see it--ah, ain't that a beauty! Six in all, all
+solid wood, too, none of your cane seats that you have to be afraid to
+sit in. All solid wood, and every one alike, all painted green and
+every one with fine hand-painted flowers on the back. Where can you beat
+such chairs? Don't make them any more these days, real antiques they
+are! Bid up now, friends; how much a piece? The six go together, it
+would be a shame to part them. Fifteen cents did I hear?--Say, I'm
+ashamed to take a bid like that! Twenty, that's a little better--thirty,
+thirty, forty over here? Forty cents I have, fifty, sixty, seventy,
+seventy-five, eighty, eighty, eighty cents I'm bid; I'm bid eighty
+cents--make it ninety--ninety I'm bid, make it a dollar--ninety,
+ninety--all done at ninety? Guess we'll let Jonas Erb have them at
+ninety cents a piece, and real bargains they are!"
+
+"Here's where I bid," said Phoebe, her cheeks rosy from excitement.
+
+"Shall I release you from your promise?" offered the preacher.
+
+"No, I'll bid."
+
+"Attention," called the auctioneer. "Attention, everybody! Here we have
+a real antique, something worth bidding on!"
+
+Phoebe held her breath.
+
+"Here now, Sam, give it a lift so everybody can see--ah, there you are!"
+
+He shouted the last words as two men held above the crowd--the old
+wooden cradle!
+
+Phoebe groaned and looked at Phares--he was smiling. The old aversion to
+ridicule swelled in her; he should not have reason to laugh at her; she
+would show him that she was equal to the occasion--she would bid on the
+cradle!
+
+"Start it, hurry up, somebody. How much is bid for the cradle? Sam here
+says it's been in the Brubaker family for years and years. Think of all
+the babies that were rocked to sleep in it--it's a real relic."
+
+Phoebe, unacquainted with the value of cradles, was silently endeavoring
+to determine the proper amount for a first bid. She was relieved to hear
+a woman's voice call, "Twenty-five cents."
+
+"Twenty-five I have, twenty-five," called the auctioneer. "Make it
+thirty."
+
+"Thirty," said Phoebe.
+
+"Forty," came from the other woman.
+
+"Make it fifty, Miss." He pointed a fat finger at Phoebe.
+
+"Fifty," she responded.
+
+"Fifty, fifty, anybody make it sixty? Fifty cents--all done at fifty?
+Then it goes at fifty cents to"--Phoebe repeated her name--"to Phoebe
+Metz."
+
+He proceeded with the sale. Phoebe turned triumphantly to the
+preacher--"I kept my promise."
+
+"You did," he said. "The cradle is yours--what are you going to do with
+it?"
+
+"Gracious! Why, I never thought of that! I don't want it. I just wanted
+the fun of bidding. Can't I pay it and leave it and they can sell it
+over again?"
+
+"You bid rashly," the preacher said, though his eyes were smiling and
+his usual tone of admonition was absent from his voice. "I think you may
+be able to sell it to the woman who was bidding against you."
+
+"I'll find her and give it to her."
+
+She elbowed her way through the crowd until she reached the place from
+which the opposing voice had come. She looked about a moment, then
+addressed a woman near her. "Do you know who was bidding on the cradle?"
+
+"Yes, it was Hetty here, the one with the white waist. Here, Hetty, this
+lady wants to talk to you."
+
+"To me?" echoed the rival bidder for the cradle.
+
+"Did you bid on the cradle?" asked Phoebe.
+
+"Yes, but I didn't get it. I only wanted it because it was in the family
+so long. I'm a Brubaker. I said I wouldn't give more than fifty cents
+for it, for it would just stand up in the garret anyway, and be one more
+thing to move around at housecleaning time. Yet I'd liked to have it. I
+don't know who got it."
+
+"I did, but I don't want it. I'd like to give it to you."
+
+"Why"--the woman was amazed--"what did you bid on it for?"
+
+"Just for the fun of bidding," said Phoebe, laughing. "Will you let me
+give it to you?"
+
+"I'll give you half a dollar for it," offered the woman.
+
+"No, I mean it. I want to give it to you. I'll consider it a favor if
+you'll take it from me."
+
+"Well, if you want it that way. But don't you want the quilt and the
+feather pillows?"
+
+"No, take it just as it is."
+
+"Why, thanks," said the woman as she went to the spot where the cradle
+stood. She soon walked away with the clumsy gift in her arm. "Now don't
+it beat all," she said as she set it down near her friends. "I just knew
+that I'd get a present to-day. This morning I put my stocking on wrong
+side out and I just left it for they say still that it means you'll get
+a present before the day is over, and here I get this cradle!"
+
+With a bright smile illumining her face, Phoebe rejoined the preacher.
+
+"I see you disposed of the cradle," he greeted her.
+
+"Yes. But I felt like a hypocrite when she thanked me, for I was giving
+her what I didn't want."
+
+Here the busy auctioneer called again, "Attention, everybody! This piece
+of furniture we are going to sell now dates back to ante-bellum days."
+
+"Ach, it don't," Phoebe heard a voice exclaim. "That never belonged to
+any person called Bellem; that was old Amanda Brubaker's for years and
+she used to tell me that it belonged to her grandmother once. That man
+don't know what he's saying, but that's the way these auctioneers do;
+you can't believe half they say at a sale half the time."
+
+Phoebe looked up at Phares; both smiled, but the loquacious auctioneer,
+not knowing the comments he was causing, went on serenely:
+
+"Yes, sir, this is a real old piece of furniture, a real antique. Look
+at this, everybody--a chest of drawers, a highboy, some people call it,
+but it's pretty by any name. All of it is genuine mahogany trimmed with
+inlaid pieces of white wood. Start it up, somebody. What will you give
+for the finest thing we have here at this sale to-day? What's bid? Good!
+I'm bid five dollars to begin; shows you know a good thing when you see
+it. Five dollars--make it ten?"
+
+"Ten," answered Phares Eby.
+
+Phoebe gave a start of surprise as the preacher's voice came in answer
+to the entreaty of the auctioneer.
+
+"Phares," she whispered, "I didn't mean that I want to buy it."
+
+"I am buying it," he said calmly, an inscrutable smile in his eyes. "You
+like it, don't you?"
+
+She felt a vague uneasiness at his words, at the new sound of tenderness
+in his voice.
+
+"Yes, I like it, but----"
+
+"Then we'll talk about that some other day soon," he returned, and
+looked again at the busy auctioneer.
+
+"Ten dollars, ten, ten," came the eager call of the man on the
+box. "Who makes it fifteen? That's it--fifteen I have--sixteen,
+eighteen--twenty--twenty-five, thirty--thirty, thirty, come on, who
+makes it more? Not done yet? Not going for that little bit? Who makes
+it thirty-five?"
+
+"Thirty-five," said Phares.
+
+"Thirty-five," the auctioneer caught at the words. "That's the way to
+bid."
+
+"Thirty-eight," came a voice from the crowd.
+
+"Thirty-eight," the auctioneer smiled broadly at the bid. "Some person
+is going to get a fine antique--keep it up, the highest bidder gets
+it--thirty-eight----"
+
+"Forty," offered Phares.
+
+"Forty, forty dollars--I have forty dollars offered for the highboy--all
+done at forty----"
+
+There was a tense silence.
+
+"Forty dollars--all done at forty--last call--going--going--gone. Gone
+at forty dollars to Phares Eby."
+
+Phoebe turned to the preacher. "Did you bid just for the fun of
+bidding?" she asked.
+
+"Well," he replied slowly, "the cases are not exactly alike. You like
+the highboy, don't you?"
+
+"Yes--but what has that to do with it?" She looked up, but turned her
+head away quickly. What did he mean? Surely Phares was not given to
+foolishness or love-making to her!
+
+She was glad that he suggested moving to the edge of the crowd after his
+successful bidding was completed. There a welcome diversion came in the
+form of the old man who had previously amused them by his talk about the
+pewter plate.
+
+"There now, Eph," he was saying, "what do you think of paying forty
+dollars for that old chest of drawers? To be sure it's good and all the
+drawers work yet--I tried 'em before the sale commenced. But forty
+dollars--whew!"
+
+The stupidity and extravagance of some people silenced him for a moment,
+then he continued: "My Lizzie, now, she knows better how to spend money.
+She bought ten dollars' worth of flavors and soap and things like that
+and she got in the bargain a big chest of drawers bigger than this old
+one, and it was polished up finer and had a looking-glass on the top
+yet. That man must have a lot of money to give forty dollars for one
+piece of furniture! Ach"--in answer to a remonstrance from his
+companion--"they can't hear me. I don't talk loud, and anyhow, they're
+listening to the auctioneer. That girl with him has a funny streak too.
+She bought the old cradle and then I heard her tell Hetty that she just
+bought it for fun and she gave it to Hetty. So, is that man Phares Eby
+from near Greenwald? Well, I thought he'd have too much sense to buy
+such a thing for forty dollars, but some people gets crazy when they get
+to a sale. Who ever heard of a person buying a cradle for fun and giving
+it away? But I guess that cradles went out of style some time ago. My
+girl Lizzie wasn't raised with funny notions like some girls have
+nowadays, but when she was married and had her first baby and we told
+her she could borrow the old cradle she was rocked in to put her baby
+in, she said she didn't want it, for cradles ain't healthy for babies,
+it is bad to rock babies! I guess that was her man's dumb notion, for
+he's a professor in the High School where they live, but he's just Jake
+Forney's John. They get along fine, but they do some dumb things. They
+let that baby yell till he found out that he wouldn't get rocked. It
+made her mom quite sick when we were up to visit them, and sometimes
+we'd sneak rocking it a little, just so the little fellow'd know there
+is such a thing as getting rocked. They don't want any person to kiss
+that baby, neither. Course I ain't in favor of everybody kissing a baby,
+but I can't see the hurt of its own people kissing it. We used to take
+it behind the door and kiss it good, and it's living yet. Ain't, Eph,
+it's a wonder we ever growed up, the way we were bounced and rocked and
+joggled and kissed! I say it ain't right to go back on cradles; they
+belong to babies. But look, Eph, there she's buying them old copper
+sheep bells! Wonder if she keeps sheep."
+
+Phoebe, triumphant bidder for a pair of hand-beaten copper sheep bells,
+turned and looked at the farmer. The tenderness of a bright smile still
+played about her lips and the old man, interpreting the smile as a
+personal greeting to him, drew near and spoke to her.
+
+"I can tell you what to take to clean them bells."
+
+"Thank you," she answered cordially, "but I do not want to clean them."
+
+"But you can make them shiny if you take----"
+
+"You are very kind, but I really want to keep them just as they are."
+
+The old man looked at her for a moment, then shook his head as though in
+perplexity and turned away.
+
+Several more hours of vigorous work on the part of the noisy auctioneer
+resulted in the sale of the miscellaneous collection of articles.
+
+The loquacious old farmer was often moved to whistle or to emit a low
+"Gosh" as the sale progressed and seemingly valueless articles were sold
+for high prices. A linen homespun table-cloth, woven in geometrical
+design, occasioned spirited bidding, but the man on the box was equal to
+the task and closed the bids at twenty dollars. Homespun linen towels
+were bought eagerly for seven, eight, nine dollars. A genuine buffalo
+robe was knocked down to a bidder at the price of eighty dollars. Cups
+and saucers and plates sold for from two to four dollars each. But it
+was an old blue glass bottle that provoked the greatest sensation.
+"Gosh, who wants that?" said the old man as the bottle was brought
+forth. "If he throws a cup or plate in with it mebbe somebody will give
+a penny for it."
+
+But a moment later, as an antique dealer started the bid at a dollar the
+old man spluttered, "Jimminy pats! Why, it's just an old glass bottle!"
+
+Some person enlightened him--it was Stiegel glass! After the first bid
+on the bottle every one became attentive. The two rival bidders were
+alert to every move of the auctioneer, the bids leapt up and up--ten
+dollars--eleven dollars--twelve dollars--thirteen dollars--gone at
+thirteen dollars!
+
+It was late afternoon when Phoebe and the preacher turned homeward. The
+preacher's purchase had to be left at the farm until he could return for
+it in the big farm wagon, but Phoebe thought of the highboy as they rode
+along the pleasant country roads. She remembered the expression she had
+caught on the face of Phares and the remembrance troubled her. She
+sought desperately for some topic of conversation that would lead the
+man's thoughts from the highboy and prevent the return of the mood she
+had discovered at the sale.
+
+"You--Phares," she began confusedly, "you are going to baptize this next
+time, Aunt Maria thought."
+
+"Yes."
+
+The preacher looked at the girl. The exhilarating influence of the early
+June outdoors was visible in her countenance. Her eyes sparkled, her
+cheeks glowed--she seemed the epitome of innocent, happy girlhood. The
+vision charmed the preacher and caused the blood to course more swiftly
+through his veins, but he bit his lip and steadied his voice to speak
+naturally. "Yes, Phoebe, I want to speak to you about that."
+
+"Oh, dear," she thought, "now I _have_ done it! Why did I start him on
+that subject!" Some of the excessive color faded from her face and she
+looked ahead as he spoke.
+
+"Phoebe, the second Sunday in June I am going to baptize a number of
+converts in the Chicques near your home. Are you ready to come with the
+rest, and give up the vanities of the world?"
+
+"Oh, Phares, why do you ask me? I can't wear plain clothes while I love
+pretty ones. I can't be a hypocrite."
+
+"But surely, Phoebe, you see that a simple life is more conducive to
+happiness than a complex, artificial life can possibly be. It is my duty
+to strive for the saving of souls and we have been friends so long that
+I take a special interest in you and desire to see you safe in the
+shelter of the Church."
+
+"Phares, I'll tell you frankly, if I ever wear plain garb it will be
+because I _feel_ that it is the right thing for me to do, not because
+some person persuades me to."
+
+"Of course, that is the only way to come. But can't you come now?"
+
+"I can't. I hurt you when I say that, but I want you to be my good
+friend, as always, in spite of my worldliness. Will you, Phares?"
+
+He opened his lips to speak, but she went on quickly: "Because I am
+learning every day how much I need the help and friendship of all my
+friends."
+
+He longed to throw down the reins he was holding and tell her what was
+in his heart, but something in her manner, her peculiar stress on the
+word "friendship" restrained him. She was, after all, only a child. Only
+eighteen--too young to think of marriage. He could wait a while longer
+before he told her of his love and his desire to marry her.
+
+"I will, Phoebe," he promised. "I'll be your friend, always."
+
+"I thought so," she breathed deeply in relief. "I knew you wouldn't fail
+me. Look at that field, Phares--oh, this is a perfect day! There should
+be a superlative form of perfect for a day like this! Those fields have
+as many colors as the shades reflected on a copper plate: lilac, tan,
+purple, rose, green and brown."
+
+The preacher answered a mere "Yes." She turned again and looked at the
+fields they were passing. "Perhaps," she thought, "before that corn is
+ripe I'll be in Philadelphia!" But she did not utter the thought, for
+she knew the preacher would not approve of her going to the city. He
+should know nothing about it until it was definitely settled.
+
+The thought of studying music in Philadelphia left her restless. If only
+the preacher would be more talkative!
+
+"It's just perfect to-day, isn't it, Phares?" she asked radiantly,
+resolved to make him talk. But his answers were so perfunctory that she
+turned her head, made a little grimace through the open side of the
+carriage and mentally dubbed him "Bump-on-log." Very well, if he felt
+indisposed to talk to her, she could enjoy the drive without his voice!
+
+Suddenly she laughed outright.
+
+"What----" he looked at her, puzzled.
+
+"What's funny?" she finished. "You."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, you. If sales affect you like this you must be careful to avoid
+them. You've been half asleep for the last half hour. I think the horse
+knows the way home; you haven't been driving at all."
+
+"I have not been asleep," he contradicted gravely, "just thinking."
+
+"Must be deep thoughts."
+
+"They were--shall I tell them to you?"
+
+"Oh, no, not to-day!" she cried. "I've had enough excitement for one
+day. Some other time. Besides, we are almost home."
+
+After that he threw off his lethargic manner and entered the girl's mood
+of appreciation of the lavish loveliness of the June. Yet, as Phoebe
+alighted from the carriage at the little gate of the Metz farm, and
+after she had thanked him and started through the yard to the house, she
+said softly to herself, "If Phares Eby isn't the queerest person I know!
+Just like a clam one minute and just lovely the next!"
+
+Maria Metz was dishing a panful of fried potatoes as Phoebe entered the
+kitchen.
+
+"Hello, daddy, Aunt Maria," exclaimed the girl.
+
+"So you come once?" said her aunt.
+
+"Have a good time?" asked her father.
+
+"Yes, it was a fine sale, a real old-fashioned one."
+
+But Aunt Maria was impatient for her supper. "Hurry," she said, "and get
+washed to eat. I have everything out and it'll get cold, then it ain't
+good. Did Phares like the sale? What did he have to say?"
+
+"Um, guess he liked it," said the girl with a shrug of her shoulders.
+"It's hard to tell what he likes--he's such a queer person. He said he's
+going to baptize the second Sunday of June and asked me if I want to
+come with the others."
+
+"He did!" Aunt Maria could not keep the eagerness out of her voice.
+"Well, let's sit down and eat."
+
+After a short grace she turned to the girl. "Now then," she said as she
+helped herself generously to sausage and potatoes and handed the dishes
+across the table to Phoebe, "tell us about it."
+
+"There isn't much to tell. I just told him that I can't renounce the
+pleasures of the world before I had a chance to take hold of them. I'm
+not ready yet to dress plain."
+
+"Why aren't you ready?" asked the woman.
+
+"Ach, don't ask me," Phoebe replied, speaking lightly in an effort to
+conceal her real feeling. "I just didn't come to that state yet. I want
+some more fun and pleasure before I think only of serious things."
+
+"You're just like a big baby," her aunt said impatiently. "You can hurt
+a good man like Phares Eby and come home and laugh about it."
+
+"Now, Maria," interposed the father, "let her laugh; she'll meet with
+crying soon enough, I guess."
+
+But the woman could not be easily silenced. "Some day, Phoebe, you'll
+wish you'd been nicer to Phares."
+
+"Why, I am nice to him."
+
+"Well, anyhow, I think it's soon time you give up the world and its
+vanities," said Aunt Maria.
+
+The girl's teasing mood fled. "I think," she said slowly, "that the
+plain dress should not be worn by any one who does not realize all that
+the dress stands for. If I ever turn plain I'll do so because I feel it
+is the right thing to do, but just now vanity and the love of pretty
+clothes are still in my heart."
+
+After the meal was over the women washed the dishes while Jacob went out
+to attend to the evening milking. Later, when the poultry houses and
+stables were locked he returned to the kitchen and read the weekly
+paper. After a while he turned to Phoebe.
+
+"Will you sing for me this evening?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," came the ready response.
+
+"Then make the door shut," Aunt Maria directed as they went to the
+sitting-room. "I want to mark my rug yet this evening and your noise
+bothers me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"THE BRIGHT LEXICON OF YOUTH"
+
+
+"WHAT shall I sing?" Phoebe asked as her father sank into the big rocker
+and she took her place at the low organ.
+
+"Ach, anything," he replied.
+
+She smiled, turned the pages of an old music book, and began to sing,
+"Annie Laurie." Her father nodded approval and smiled when she followed
+that with several other old-time favorites. Then she hesitated a moment,
+a low melody came from the organ, and the words of the beautiful lullaby
+fell from her lips:
+
+        "Sweet and low, sweet and low,
+           Wind of the western sea;
+         Low, low,--breathe and blow,
+           Wind of the western sea;
+         Over the rolling waters go,
+           Come from the dying moon and blow,
+         Blow him again to me,
+           While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps."
+
+Phoebe sang the lullaby as gently as if a tiny head were nestled against
+her bosom. She had within her, as has every normal, unspoiled woman, the
+loving impulses and yearning tenderness of motherhood. Her womanhood's
+star of hope shone brightly, though from a great distance; she devoutly
+hoped for the fulfillment of her destiny, but always dreamed of it
+coming in some time far removed from the present. Wifehood and
+motherhood--that was her goal, but long years of other joys and other
+achievements stretched between. Yet she felt an incomparable joy as she
+sang the lullaby. She sang it easily and sweetly and uttered each word
+with the freedom of one to whom music is second nature.
+
+To the man who listened memory drew aside the curtains of twenty years.
+He beheld again the sweet-faced wife glorified with the blessed halo of
+motherhood. He thrilled at the remembrance of her intense rapture as she
+clasped her babe in moments of vivid ecstasy, or held it tenderly in her
+arms as she sang the slumber song. The man was lost in revery--the sweet
+voice of the mother had suddenly grown weak and drifted into silence--a
+silence which would have been intolerable save for the lisping of a
+child voice that was filled with the same indefinable sweetness the
+treasured, silenced voice had possessed. In those first days of
+bereavement Jacob Metz had clung to his motherless babe for comfort; her
+love and caresses had renewed his strength and touched him with a divine
+sense of his responsibility. His toil-hardened hands could not do the
+mother's tasks for her but his heart could love sufficiently to
+recompense, so far as that be possible, for the loss of the mother's
+presence. His own childhood had been stripped of all romance, hence he
+could not measure the value of the innocent pleasures of which Aunt
+Maria, in her stern and narrow discipline, deprived the little girl; but
+so far as he saw the light and so far as he was able, he quietly soothed
+where Aunt Maria irritated, and mitigated by his interest and sympathy
+the sternness of the woman's rule.
+
+A fleeting retrospect of the past years crowded upon him as he heard
+Phoebe sing the mother's song. The two voices seemed strangely merged
+and blended; when she ended and turned her face to him she seemed the
+vivid reincarnation of that other Phoebe.
+
+"That's a pretty song, isn't it, daddy? You like it?"
+
+"Yes. Your mom used to sing you to sleep with it."
+
+"I wish I could remember. I can't remember her at all," the girl said
+wistfully.
+
+"I wish you could, too. You look just like her. I'm glad you do. We Metz
+people all have the black hair and dark eyes but you have your mom's
+light hair and blue eyes. I see her every time I look at you."
+
+She seated herself near him. In a moment he spoke again, very
+deliberately, with his characteristic expressiveness:
+
+"Phoebe, I want you to know more about your mom. You know she was plain,
+a member of our Church. I would like you to dress like she did but I
+don't want you to dress that way and then be dissatisfied and go back to
+the dress of the world. Not many people do that, but those that do are
+the laughing-stock of the world. I don't want you coaxed to be plain and
+then not stay plain. I tell you this because I can see that you are
+just like your mom was, you like pretty things so much. She came in the
+Church with some girls she knew; none of her people were plain. I knew
+her right after she joined, and I took her to Love Feasts and to
+Meetings and we were soon promised to marry each other. I saw that
+something was troubling her and she told me that she wanted pretty
+clothes again and wanted to go to parties and picnics like some of the
+other girls she knew. But because she cared for me and was promised to
+me she kept on dressing plain. So we were married. The second year you
+came and then she was satisfied without pretty dresses. She said to me
+once, 'Jacob, I was foolish to fret about pretty clothes and jewelry,
+they could not bring happiness, but this'--she looked down at you--'this
+is the most precious, most beautiful jewel any woman could have.' I knew
+then that the love of vanity was gone from her, that she would never be
+tempted to go back to the dress and ways of the world."
+
+For a moment there was silence in the big room. The memory of the days
+when the home circle was unbroken left the father quiet and thoughtful
+and strangely touched Phoebe.
+
+"I am glad you told me, daddy," she said presently. "To-day when Phares
+talked about the baptizing he seemed so confident and at peace in his
+religion, yet I could not promise to come into the Church and wear the
+plain dress. I am going to think about it----"
+
+Here Aunt Maria called loudly, "Phoebe, come out here once."
+
+Phoebe sighed, then turned from her father and entered the kitchen. The
+older woman was bending over an oblong frame and by the aid of a small
+steel hook was pulling tufts of cloth through the mesh of a piece of
+burlap, the foundation of a hooked rug.
+
+"See once, Phoebe, won't this be pretty till it's done?"
+
+"Yes, very pretty. I like the Wall of Troy design you are using, and the
+blues and gray will be a good combination. What are you going to do with
+it?"
+
+"It's for your chest."
+
+The girl laughed. "Aunt Maria, you'll have to enlarge that chest or buy
+a second one. This spring when we cleaned house and had all the things
+of that chest hung out to air, I counted eleven quilts, six rugs, five
+table-cloths, ten gingham aprons, ever so many towels, besides all the
+old homespun linen I have in that other chest on the garret. I'll never
+need all that."
+
+"Why, you don't know. If you marry----"
+
+"But if I don't marry?"
+
+"Ach, I guess old maids need covers and aprons and things as well as
+them that marry. But now I guess I'll stop for to-night. I want to sew
+the hooks 'n' eyes on my every-day dress yet before I go to bed."
+
+"But before you go I want to ask you, to talk with you and daddy," said
+Phoebe, determined to decide the matter of studying music in
+Philadelphia. The uncertainty of it was growing to be a strain upon her.
+If there was no possibility of her dreams becoming realities she would
+put the thoughts away from her, but she wanted the question settled.
+
+"Now what----" Aunt Maria raised her spectacles to her forehead and
+looked at the girl, at her flushed cheeks, her eyes darkened by
+excitement.
+
+"So," the woman chuckled, "Phares picked up spunk once and asked
+you----"
+
+"Phares has nothing to do with it," Phoebe said curtly, her cheeks
+flushing deeper at the thought of the words she knew her aunt was ready
+to say. "This is my affair, and, of course, yours and daddy's." She
+turned to her father--"I want to study music."
+
+"Music? How--you mean to learn to play the organ?" he asked.
+
+"No. Oh, no! I mean to sing. Listen, please," she pleaded as she saw the
+bewildered look on his face. "You know I have always liked to sing. I
+have told you that many people have said my voice is good. So I'd like
+to go to Philadelphia and take lessons from a good teacher. May I? I can
+use the money I have in the bank, that my mother left me. I have about a
+thousand dollars. It won't take all of that for a few years' lessons.
+Daddy, if you'll only say I may go!" Her voice wavered suspiciously at
+the end.
+
+Jacob Metz looked at his daughter, then at the little low organ in the
+other room. Another Phoebe had loved to sit at that instrument and
+sing--perhaps he was too easy with the girl--but if she wanted to go
+away and take lessons----
+
+Before he could answer the plea Maria Metz found her voice and spoke
+authoritatively:
+
+"Jacob Metz, goodness knows you're sometimes dumb enough to do foolish
+things, but you surely ain't goin' to leave Phoebe go off to learn
+singing! Throwing away money like that! And what good is to come of it,
+I'd like to know. Who put that dumb notion in her head, it just now
+vonders me! If she must go away somewheres to school, like all the young
+ones think they must nowadays, why not leave her go to Millersville or
+to Elizabethtown or to Lancaster to learn dressmakin'? But to
+Philadelphy--why, that's a big city! Anyhow, I can't see the use of all
+this flyin' around to school. We didn't get it when we was young, and we
+growed up, too. We was lucky if we got to the country school regular,
+and we got through the world so far!"
+
+"But Maria," her brother spoke gently, "you know things have changed
+since we went to school. The world don't stay the same."
+
+"But to learn music!" she placed a scornful accent on the last word.
+"What good will that do? And can't any one in Greenwald or Lancaster,
+even, learn her to sing? Anyhow, she don't need no lessons, she hollers
+too loud already. If she takes lessons yet what'll she do?"
+
+"Oh, Aunt Maria," Phoebe said impatiently, "you don't understand! If my
+voice is worth training it is worth having a good teacher. A city like
+Philadelphia is the place to go to."
+
+"But where would you stay down there? Mebbe you couldn't get a place
+with nice people. Abody don't know what kinda people live in a city."
+
+"I've thought of that. I wrote to Miss Lee last week and asked her and
+she wrote back and said it would be a splendid thing for me. She offered
+to help me find a boarding place. I could see her often and would not be
+alone among strangers. Best of all, Miss Lee has a cousin who plays the
+violin and who lives with her and her mother and he will help me find a
+good teacher. Isn't that lovely?"
+
+"Omph," sniffed Aunt Maria. "It'll cost you a lot of money for board,
+mebbe as much as four dollars a week! And your lessons will be a lot,
+and your car fare back and forth. Then I guess you'd want a lot more
+dresses and things--ach, you just put that dumb notion from your head."
+
+"Maria," Phoebe's father spoke in significantly even tones, "you needn't
+talk like that. Phoebe has the money her mom left her and I guess I
+could send her to school if I wanted to. It won't hurt her to go study
+music and see something of the world. It'll do her good to get away once
+like other girls."
+
+"Do her good," echoed Aunt Maria. "Jacob Metz! You know little of the
+dangers of the big cities! But then, men ain't got no sense! I never met
+one yet that had enough to fill a thimble!"
+
+"Aunt Maria," the girl said gently, "I'm not a child. I'm eighteen and
+I'll be near Miss Lee and her friends."
+
+"And the fiddler," added the woman tartly.
+
+"Ach," Phoebe laughed. "Miss Lee will take care of me."
+
+"Mebbe so," grumbled Aunt Maria.
+
+"Now look here, Maria," Jacob spoke up, "Phoebe can go this fall once
+and try it and she can come home often and if she don't like it she can
+come home right away. It takes only three hours to go to there. So,
+Phoebe, you write to Miss Lee and tell her to expect you."
+
+"Then I may go!" She threw her arms about her father's neck and kissed
+his bearded face. Demonstrations of affection were rare in the Metz
+household, but the father smiled as he stroked the girl's hair.
+
+"You be a good girl, Phoebe, that's all I want," he said.
+
+"I will, daddy, I will!"
+
+"Then, Maria, you take Phoebe to Lancaster and get things ready so she
+can go in September. I'll let her take that thousand she has in the
+bank, but that must reach; it's enough for music lessons."
+
+"I won't need all of it. What's left I'll save for next year."
+
+"Next year! How many years must you go?" demanded Aunt Maria, still
+unhappy and sore.
+
+"I don't know. But when the thousand is gone I'll earn more if I want to
+spend more."
+
+"Ach, my," groaned the woman, "you talk like money grew on trees! What's
+the world comin' to nowadays?" She rose and pushed her rugging frame
+into a corner of the kitchen.
+
+"Maria," her brother suggested, "we can get a hired girl if the work's
+too much for you alone."
+
+"Hired girl! I don't want no hired girl! Half of 'em don't do to suit,
+anyhow! I don't just want Phoebe here to help to work. It'll be awful
+lonesome with her gone."
+
+Phoebe saw the glint of anguish in the dark eyes and felt that her
+aunt's protestations were partly due to a disinclination to be parted
+from the child she had reared.
+
+"Aunt Maria," she said kindly, "I hate to do what you think I shouldn't
+do, for you're good to me. You mustn't feel that I'm doing this just to
+be contrary. You and I think differently, that's all. Perhaps I'm too
+young to always think right, but I don't want you to be hurt. I'll come
+home often."
+
+"Ach, yes well," the woman was touched by the girl's tenderness, but was
+still unconvinced. "Not much use my saying more, I guess. You and your
+pop will do what you like. You're a Metz, too, and hard to change when
+you make up your mind once."
+
+That night when Phoebe went to bed in her old-fashioned walnut bed she
+lay awake for hours, dreaming of the future. If Aunt Maria had known the
+visions that flitted before the girl that night she would have quaked in
+apprehension, for Phoebe finally drifted into slumber on clouds of
+glory, forecasts of the wonderful time when, as a prima donna in
+trailing, shimmering gown, she would have the world at her feet while
+she sang, sang, sang!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE PREACHER'S WOOING
+
+
+THERE belonged to the Metz farm an old stone quarry which Phoebe learned
+to love in early childhood and which, as she grew older, she adopted as
+her refuge and dreaming-place.
+
+Almost directly opposite the green gate at the country road was a narrow
+lane which led to the quarry. It was bordered on the right by a thickly
+interlaced hedge of blackberry bushes and wild honeysuckle, beyond which
+stood the orchard of the Metz farm. On the left of the lane a wide field
+sloped up along the road leading to the summit of the hill where the
+schoolhouse and the meeting-house stood. The lane was always inviting.
+It was the fair road to a fairer spot, the old stone quarry.
+
+The old stone quarry banked its rugged height against the side of a
+great wooded hill. Some twenty feet below the level of the lane was a
+huge semicircular base, and from this the jagged sides reared
+perpendicularly to the summit of the hill. The top and slopes of this
+hill were covered with a dense growth of underbrush and trees. Tall
+sycamores bordered the road opposite the quarry, making the spot
+sheltered and secluded.
+
+To this place Phoebe hurried the morning after she had gained her
+father's consent to go to Philadelphia.
+
+"I just had to come here," she breathed rapturously; "the house is too
+narrow, the garden too small, this June morning. They won't hold my
+dreams."
+
+She stood under the giant sycamore opposite the quarry and looked
+appreciatively about her. Earth's warm, throbbing bosom thrilled with
+the universal joy of parentage and fruition. Shafts of sunlight shot
+through the green of the trees, odors of wild flowers mingled with the
+fresh, woodsy fragrance of the fields and woods, song sparrows flitted
+busily among the hedges and sang their delicious, "Maids, maids, maids,
+hang on your tea kettle-ettle-ettle!" From the densest portions of the
+woods above the quarry a thrush sang--all nature seemed atune with
+Phoebe's mood, blithe, happy, joyous!
+
+Phares Eby, going to town that morning, walked slowly as he neared the
+Metz farm and looked for a glimpse of Phoebe. He saw, instead, the
+portly figure of Aunt Maria as she walked about her garden to see the
+progress of her early June peas.
+
+"Why, Phares," she called, "you goin' to Greenwald?"
+
+"Yes. Anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Ach no. Phoebe was in the other day. But come in once, Phares, I'll
+tell you something about her."
+
+"Where is Phoebe?" he asked as he joined Aunt Maria in the garden.
+
+"Over at the quarry again. But I must tell you, she's goin' to
+Phildelphy to study singin'. She asked her pop and he said she dare."
+
+"Philadelphia--singing!"
+
+"Yes. I don't like it at all, but she's goin' just the same."
+
+"It is a mistake to let her go," said the preacher. "It's a big mistake,
+Aunt Maria. She should stay at home or go to some school and learn
+something of value to her. In this quiet place she has never heard of
+many temptations which, in the city, she must meet face to face. It is
+the voice of the Tempter urging her to do this thing and we who are her
+friends should persuade her to remain in her good home and near the
+friends who care for her. Have you thought, Aunt Maria, that the people
+to whom she will go may dance and play cards and do many worldly things?
+Philadelphia is very different from Greenwald. Why, she may learn to
+indulge in worldly amusements and to love the vanities of the world
+which we have tried to teach her to avoid! She will be like a bird in a
+strange nest."
+
+"I know, Phares, but I can't make it different. When Jacob says a thing
+once it's hard to change him, and she is like that too. They fixed it up
+last night and I had no say at all. All I said against her going did as
+much good as if I said it to the chairs in the kitchen. Phoebe is going
+to get Miss Lee, the one that was teacher on the hill once, to help her.
+And Miss Lee has a cousin that lives with her and he plays the fiddle
+and he is goin' to get a teacher for her."
+
+Phares Eby groaned and gritted his teeth.
+
+"I guess I'll go talk with her a while," he decided.
+
+"Mebbe she'll come in soon, if you want to wait. I told her to bring me
+some pennyroyal along from the field next the quarry. You know that's so
+good for them little red ants, and they got into my jelly cupboard. She
+went a while ago and I guess she'll soon be back now."
+
+"I think I'll walk over."
+
+"All right, Phares. Tell her not to forget the pennyroyal."
+
+With long strides the preacher crossed the road and started up the lane
+to the quarry. There he slackened his pace--he thought of the previous
+day when he had asked Phoebe about entering the Church. She had
+disappointed him, it was true, but she had seemed so eager to do right,
+so innocent and childlike, that the interview had not left him wholly
+unhappy or greatly discouraged. He had hoped last night that she would
+give the matter of her soul's salvation serious thought, that she would
+soon stand in the stream and be baptized by him. Over sanguine he had
+been--so soon she had forgotten serious things and planned a winter in
+Philadelphia studying music.
+
+"I must act," he thought. "I must tell her of my love. All these years I
+have loved her and kept silent about it because I thought she was just a
+child. But I must tell her now. If she loves me she shall marry me soon
+and this great temptation will leave her; she will hearken to the voice
+of her conscience, and we will begin our life of happiness together."
+
+With this resolution strong within him he went up the lane to the quarry
+and Phoebe.
+
+She was seated on a rock under the giant sycamore and leaned confidingly
+against the shaggy trunk. The glaring sunshine that fell upon the fields
+and hills could not wholly penetrate the protecting canopy of
+well-proportioned sycamore leaves; only a few quivering rays fell upon
+the girl's upturned face.
+
+As the preacher approached she looked around quickly but did not move
+from her caressing attitude by the tree.
+
+"Good-morning, Phares. I'm glad you came. I was wishing for some one to
+share the old quarry with me this morning."
+
+"Aunt Maria told me you were here--she is impatient for her pennyroyal."
+Now, that the supreme moment had arrived, he hesitated and grasped at
+the first straw for conversation.
+
+"Oh, dear," she said childishly, "Aunt Maria expects me to remember ants
+and pennyroyal when I come here. Phares, I can't explain it, but this
+old quarry has a strange fascination for me. The beauty in its
+variegated stone with the sunlight upon it attracts me. Sometimes I am
+tempted to climb up the hill and hang over the quarry and look down into
+the heart of it."
+
+"Don't ever do that!" cried the preacher.
+
+"I won't," laughed Phoebe. "I don't want to die just yet. But isn't it
+the loveliest place! I come here often when the men are not blasting. It
+seems almost a desecration to blast these rocks when we think how long
+nature took in their making."
+
+She paused . . . only the sounds of nature invaded the quiet of the
+place: the drowsy hum of diligent bees, the cattle browsing in a field
+near by, the ecstatic trill of a bird. The world of bustle and flurry
+with its seething vats of evil and corruption, its sordid discontent and
+petulance, its ways of pain and darkness, seemed far removed from that
+place of peace and calm solitude. Phoebe could not bear to think that
+across the seas men were lying in the filth of water-soaked trenches,
+agonizing and bleeding on the battlefields and suffering nameless
+tortures in hospitals that a peace like unto the peace of her quiet
+haven might brood undisturbed over the world in future generations. She
+dismissed the harrowing thought of war--she would enjoy the calm of her
+quarry.
+
+The preacher had listened silently to the girl's rhapsodies--she
+suddenly awakened to the realization that he was paying scant attention
+to her enthusiastic words. She looked at him, her heart-beats quickened,
+some intuition warned her of the imminent declaration.
+
+She rose quickly from the embrace of the sycamore tree, but the
+compelling eyes of the preacher restrained her from flight. She stood
+before him, within reach of his hands.
+
+His first words reassured her somewhat: "Phoebe, your aunt has told me
+that you are going to Philadelphia to study music."
+
+"Yes. Isn't it fine! I'm so happy----" she stopped. Displeasure was
+written plainly upon his countenance. "Don't you think it's all right,
+Phares?"
+
+"I think it is a great mistake," he said gravely. "Why not spend your
+time on something of value to yourself and your friends and the world in
+general?"
+
+"But music is of great value. Why, the world needs it as it needs
+sunshine!"
+
+"But, Phoebe, you must remember you do not come of a people who stand
+before the worldly and lift their voices for the joy of the multitude of
+curious people. Your voice is right as it is and needs no training. It
+is as God gave it to you and is made to be used in His service, in His
+Church and your home."
+
+"But I have always wanted to learn to sing well, really well. So I am
+going to Philadelphia this winter and take lessons from a competent
+teacher."
+
+"Phoebe," exhorted the preacher, "put away the temptation before it
+grips you so strongly that you cannot shake it off. You must not go!"
+
+He spoke the last words in a tone of authority which the girl answered,
+"Phares, let us speak of something else. You know I have some of the
+Metz determination in my make-up and I can't be easily forced to give up
+a cherished plan. At any rate, we must not quarrel about it."
+
+The preacher forbore to try further argument or persuasion. He became
+grave. His habitual serenity of mind was disturbed by shadowy
+forebodings--when the pebbles of doubt drop into the placid pool of
+content it invariably follows that the waters become agitated for a
+time. Hitherto he had been hopeful of winning Phoebe. Had he not known
+her and loved her all her life! What was more natural than that their
+friendship should culminate in a deeper feeling!
+
+He stretched out his hand in a sudden rush of feeling--"Phoebe, I love
+you."
+
+She stepped back a pace and his hand fell to his side.
+
+"Don't, Phares," she began, but the next moment she realized that she
+could not turn aside his love without listening to him.
+
+"Phoebe, you must listen--I love you, I have loved you all my life.
+Can't you say that you care for me?"
+
+"Don't ask me that!" she pleaded. "I don't want to marry anybody now.
+All my life I have dreamed of going to a city and studying music and I
+can't let the opportunity slip away from me now when it is so near. To
+work under the direction of a master teacher has long been one of my
+dearest dreams."
+
+"You mean that you do not love me, then. Or if you do, that you would
+rather gratify your desire to study music than marry me--which is it?"
+
+"Ach, Phares, don't make it hard for me! I said I don't want to get
+married now. All my life I have lived on a farm and have thought that I
+should be wonderfully happy if I could get away from it for a while and
+know what it is to live in a big city. There I shall have a chance to
+see life in its broader aspects. I shall not be harmed by gathering new
+ideas and ideals, gaining new friends, and, above all, learning to sing
+well."
+
+The man groaned in spirit. It was evident that she was thoroughly
+determined to go away from the farm.
+
+"Phoebe," he pleaded again, not entirely for his own selfish desire, but
+worried about her love of worldliness, "do you know that the things for
+which you are going to the city are really not important, that all
+outward acquisitions for which you long now are transient? The things
+that count are goodness and purity and to be without them is to be
+pauperized; the things that bring happiness are love and home ties and
+to be without them is to be desolate. You want a larger, broader vision,
+but the city cannot always give you that."
+
+There was no bitterness in his voice, only an undertone of sadness as he
+spoke. "Phoebe, tell me plainly, do you care for me?"
+
+Her face was lamentably pathetic as she looked into his and read there
+the desire for what she could not give. "Not as you wish," she said
+softly. "But I don't really know what love is yet, I haven't thought
+about it except as something that will come to me some day, a long time
+from now. There are too many other things I must think about now. When I
+am through studying music I'll think about being married."
+
+The preacher shook his head; his heart was too heavy for more words,
+more futile words.
+
+"Let us go, Phares," she said, the silence becoming intolerable.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "And Phoebe," he added as they turned away from the
+quarry, "I hope you'll learn your lesson quickly and come back to us."
+
+They stepped from the sheltered path into the sunshine of the lane. Long
+trails of green lay in their path as they went, but the eyes of both
+were temporarily blinded to the loveliness of the June. When they
+reached the dusty road the preacher said good-bye and went on his way to
+the town.
+
+She stood where he left her; the suppressed feelings of the past half
+hour soon struggled to avenge themselves and she sped down the lane
+again, back to the refuge of the kindly tree, and there, under her
+sycamore, burst into passionate weeping.
+
+Some time after Phares left the girl at the end of the lane David Eby
+came swinging down the hill and entered the Metz kitchen.
+
+"Hello, Aunt Maria. Where's Phoebe?"
+
+"Why, I guess over at the quarry. She went for pennyroyal long ago and
+then Phares came and he went over after her, but I saw him go on the way
+to town a bit ago, so I guess she's still over there. Guess she's
+stumbling around after a bird's nest or picking some weeds that ain't no
+good. I don't see why she stays so long."
+
+"I'll go see," volunteered David.
+
+"Yes well. And tell her to hurry with that pennyroyal. I want it for red
+ants, but they can carry away the whole jelly cupboard till she gets
+here."
+
+"I'll tell her," said David, and went off, whistling.
+
+Phoebe's paroxysm of grief was short-lived. The soothing quiet of the
+quarry calmed her, but her eyes showed telltale marks of tears as
+David's steps sounded down the lane.
+
+She rose hastily, then sank back to her seat under the tree as she saw
+the identity of the intruder.
+
+"Whew, Phoebe Metz," he said and whistled in his old, boyish way as he
+sat beside her, "you're crying!"
+
+"I am not," she declared.
+
+"Then you just have been! I haven't seen you in tears for many years.
+Phoebe"--he changed his tone--"what's gone wrong? Anything the matter?"
+
+"Don't," she sniffed, "don't ask me or you'll have me at it again." She
+steadied her voice and went on, "I came over here so gloriously happy I
+could have shouted, because daddy said last night that I may go to
+Philadelphia this fall----"
+
+"Gee whiz!" David grabbed her hand. "Why, I'm tickled to death. But
+what--why are you crying? Isn't that what you want?"
+
+"Yes." She smiled, pleased by his interest and eagerness. "But just as I
+was happiest along came Phares and told me it was wicked to go. It's all
+a mistake to go, he said."
+
+"Ach, the dickens with the old fossil!" David cried. "And I'm not going
+to take that back or be sorry for saying it. Hadn't he better sense than
+to throw a wet blanket on all your happiness!"
+
+"Perhaps I needed it. I was just about burning up with gladness."
+
+"Well, don't you care what he's thinking about it. You go learn music if
+you want to and your father lets you go. Did he see you cry?"
+
+"Certainly not! I wouldn't cry before him. He would say that was
+foolish or wicked or something it shouldn't be. But you--you are so
+sensible I don't mind if you do see me with my eyes red."
+
+"Ha, ha, that's a compliment. I have been told that I am happy-go-lucky
+and sort of a cheerful idiot, but no person ever told me that I'm
+sensible. Well, don't you forget me when you get to be that prima
+donna."
+
+"I won't. You and Mother Bab rub me the right way."
+
+"But won't she be glad when I tell her," said David. "I came down to see
+if you had decided about it, and I find it all arranged."
+
+"And me in tears," added Phoebe, her natural poise and good humor again
+restored. "Tell Mother Bab I am coming up soon to tell her about it."
+
+So, in happier mood, she walked beside David, down the green lane to the
+road, across the road to her own gate.
+
+"So you come once!" Aunt Maria greeted her.
+
+"Oh, I forgot your pennyroyal! I'll go get it."
+
+"Never mind. You stayed so long I went over to the field near the barn
+and got some. But you look like you've been cryin', Phoebe. Did you and
+Phares have a fall-out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You and David, then?"
+
+"No--please don't ask me--it's nothing."
+
+"Well, there ain't no man in shoe leather worth cryin' about, I can tell
+you that. They just laugh at your cryin'."
+
+Phoebe smiled at her aunt's philosophy and resolved to forget the
+discouraging words of the preacher. She would be happy in spite of
+him--the future held bright hours for her!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SCARLET TANAGER
+
+
+THE days that followed were busy days at the gray farmhouse. Phoebe was
+soon deep in the preparations for her stay in the city. Her meagre
+wardrobe required replenishment; she wanted to go to Philadelphia with
+an outfit of which Miss Lee would not be ashamed. Much to her aunt's
+surprise the girl selected one-piece dresses of blue serge with sheer
+white collars for every-day wear in cold weather; a few white linens for
+warm days; and these, with her blue serge suit, her simple white
+graduation dress, and a plain dark silk dress, were the main articles of
+her outfit. Aunt Maria expressed her relief and wonder at the girl's
+choice--"Well, it wonders me that you don't want a lot of ugly fancy
+things to go to Phildelphy. Those dresses all made in one are sensible
+once. I guess the style makers tried all the outlandish styles they
+could think of and had to make a nice style once."
+
+But when Phoebe purchased a piece of long-cloth and began to make
+undergarments, beautifying them by sprays of hand embroidery, Aunt Maria
+scoffed, "Umph, I'd be ashamed to put snake-doctors on my petticoats."
+
+The girl laughed. "They aren't snake-doctors, they are butterflies," she
+said.
+
+"Not much difference--both got wings. I don't see what for you want to
+waste time like that."
+
+"It makes them prettier, and I like pretty things."
+
+"Ach, you have dumb notions sometimes. I guess we better make your other
+dresses soon, then you won't have time for sewing snake-doctors or
+butterflies. You better get your silk dress made in Greenwald, it's so
+soft and slippery that I ain't going to bother my old fingers makin' it.
+Granny Hogendobler wants to come out and help to sew, and David's mom
+said she'll come down and help us cut and fit the serge dresses. She's
+real handy like that. If those dresses look as nice on you as they do on
+the pictures they will be all right. Granny and Barb dare just come and
+both help with your things--they both think it's so fine for you to go
+to the city! Granny Hogendobler spoiled her Nason by givin' him just
+what he wanted, and now what has she got for it? And I guess Barb is
+easy with that big boy of hers. Mebbe if she was a little stricter he'd
+be in the Church like Phares is, though David is a nice boy and I guess
+he don't give his mom any trouble."
+
+"I just love Mother Bab; don't you say such things about her!" Phoebe
+exclaimed, her eyes flashing.
+
+"Why, I like her too," the woman said. She looked at Phoebe in surprise.
+"You needn't be so touchy. For goodness' sake, don't take to gettin'
+touchy like some people are! Handling them's like tryin' to plane over a
+knot in wood; any way you push the plane is the wrong way. This here
+going to Philadelphy upsets you, I guess. You're gettin' as touchy as
+the little touch-me-nots we get on the hill; they all snap shut when
+you touch 'em--only you snap open."
+
+Phoebe laughed. "I guess I am excited," she admitted. "I'm sewing too
+much for summer days and it makes me irritable. I think I'll let the
+butterflies wait and I'll go outdoors. Shall I weed the garden?"
+
+"Weed the garden? Now you're talkin' dumb! Don't you know yet that abody
+don't weed a garden on Fridays? Ours always gets done on Monday. But if
+you want to get out you dare take some of the sand-tarts I baked
+yesterday up to David's mom, she likes them so much. And you ask her if
+she can come down next week to help with the dresses. But don't stay too
+long, for it's been so hot all day and I think it's goin' to storm yet."
+
+"Don't worry about me if it rains. I won't start for home if it looks
+threatening. I'll wait till the storm is over."
+
+Aunt Maria filled a basket with her delectable cookies and the girl
+started up the hill. It was, indeed, a hot day, even for August. Phoebe
+paused several times in the shelter of overhanging trees as she plodded
+up the steep road. On the summit she climbed the rail fence and perched
+in the cool shade for a little while and looked out over the valley
+where the town of Greenwald lay.
+
+"It's lovely here, and I'm wondering how I can be happy when I know that
+I am going to leave it soon and go to the city for a long winter away
+from my home. But there's a voice calling to me from the great outside
+world and I won't be satisfied until I go and mingle with the multitude
+of a great city. It is life, life, that I want to see and know. And yet,
+I'm glad I'll have this to come back to! It gives me a comfortable
+feeling to know that this is waiting for me, no matter where I go--this
+is still my home. Sometimes I wonder if Aunt Maria could possibly be
+speaking wisely when she says it is all a waste of money to run off to
+the city and study music. But what is there on the farm to attract me? I
+don't want to marry yet"--the remembrance of Phares Eby's pleading came
+to her--"and if I do marry some time, it won't be Phares. No, never
+Phares! Ach, Phoebe Metz, you don't know what you want!" she said to
+herself as she jumped from the fence and ran down the road to the Eby
+farm.
+
+At the gate she paused. Mother Bab stood among her flowers, her
+white-capped head bare of any other covering, the hot sunshine streaming
+upon her.
+
+"Mother Bab," she cried, "you are simply baking in the sun!"
+
+"No," the woman turned to Phoebe and smiled. "I'm forgetting it's hot
+while I look at the flowers. You see, Phoebe, I was in the house sewing
+and trying to keep cool and all of a sudden my eyes grew dim so I
+couldn't sew. The fear came to me, the fear that my sight is going,
+though I try not to strain them at all and never sew at night. Well, I
+just ran out here and began to look and look at my flowers--if I ever do
+go blind I'm going to have lots of memories of lovely things I've seen."
+
+Phoebe drew Mother Bab's face to her and kissed it. "You just mustn't
+get blind! It would be too dreadful. There are many clever specialists
+in the city these days. Surely, there is some doctor who can help you."
+
+"They all say there is little to be done in a case like mine. But, let's
+forget it; I can see and we'll keep on hoping it will last. I went to a
+doctor at Lancaster some time ago and I'm going to give him a fair
+trial. I guess it'll come out right."
+
+Phoebe brightened again at the woman's words of contagious cheer and
+hope.
+
+"Isn't the garden pretty?" asked Mother Bab as they looked about it.
+
+"Perfect! Those zinnias are lovely."
+
+"Yes, I like them. But I like their other name better--Youth and Old
+Age, my mother used to call them. She used to say that they are not like
+other flowers, more like people, for the buds open into tiny flowers and
+those tiny flowers grow and develop until they are large and perfect. I
+would think something fine were missing in my garden if I didn't have my
+Youth and Old Age every year. But you will be too hot in this sun; shall
+we go in?"
+
+"No, please, not until I have seen the flowers. I need to gather
+precious memories, too, to take with me to Philadelphia. Oh, I like
+this"--she knelt in the narrow path and buried her face in fragrant
+lemon verbena plants.
+
+"I like that, too. Mother used to call it Joy Everlasting. We always put
+it in our bureau drawers between the linens. David likes lavender
+better, so I use that now."
+
+"How you spoil him," said Phoebe.
+
+"You think so?" asked the mother gently.
+
+Phoebe smiled in retraction of her statement. "We'll both be parboiled
+if we stay out here any longer," she said as she linked her arm into
+Mother Bab's. "Aunt Maria sent you some sand-tarts."
+
+"Isn't she good!"
+
+"Yes, but"--the blue eyes twinkled mischievously--"they are just a
+bribe. We want you to come down and help us with the dresses some day
+next week. You are not to sew, but if you are there to tell about the
+fit of them I'll feel better satisfied. Whew! If it's as hot as this
+I'll have a lovely time fitting woolen dresses!"
+
+"You won't mind."
+
+"I don't believe I shall, so long as the dresses are to be worn in
+Philadelphia. Granny Hogendobler is coming out, too. Will you come?"
+
+"I'll be glad to. David can eat his dinner at his aunt's."
+
+They entered the house and sat in the sitting-room, a room dear to both
+because of its association with many happy hours.
+
+"I love this room," Phoebe said. "This must be one of my pleasant
+memories when I go."
+
+"I like it better than any other room in the house," said Mother Bab. "I
+suppose it's because the old clock and the haircloth sofa are in it.
+Why, Davie used to slide down the ends of that sofa and call it his boat
+when he was just a little fellow. And that old clock"--her voice sank to
+the tenderness of musing retrospect--"why, Davie's father set it up the
+day we were married and came here and set up housekeeping and it's been
+ticking ever since. Davie used to say 'tick-tock' when he heard it, when
+he first learned to talk. I like that old clock most as much as if it
+were something alive. A man who comes around here to buy antique
+furniture came in one day and offered to buy it. I'll never forget how
+David told him it wasn't for sale. The very thought of selling the old
+clock made Davie cross."
+
+"Davie cross! How could he keep the twinkle out of his eyes long enough
+to be cross?"
+
+"Ach, it don't last long when he gets cross."
+
+"Where is he now, Mother Bab?"
+
+"Working in the tobacco field."
+
+"In the hot sun!"
+
+"He says he don't mind it. He's so pleased with the tobacco this summer.
+It looks fine. If the hail don't get in it now it'll bring about four
+hundred dollars, he thinks. That will be the most he has ever gotten out
+of it. But tobacco is an awful risk. If the weather is just so it pays
+about the best of anything around this part of the country, I guess, but
+so often the poor farmers work hard in the tobacco fields and then the
+hail comes along and all is spoiled. But ours is fine so far."
+
+"I'm glad. David has been working hard all summer with it."
+
+"Sometimes he gets discouraged; Phares's crops always seem to do better
+than David's, yet David works just as hard. But Phares plants no
+tobacco."
+
+At that moment Phares Eby himself came into the room where the two sat.
+He appeared a trifle embarrassed when he saw Phoebe. Since the June
+meeting under the sycamore tree by the old stone quarry he had made no
+special effort to see her, and the several times they had met in that
+time he had greeted her with marked restraint.
+
+"Good-afternoon," he murmured, looking from Phoebe to Mother Bab and
+back again to Phoebe. "I didn't know you were here, Phoebe. I--Aunt
+Barbara, I came in to tell you there's a bright red bird in the woods
+down by the cornfield."
+
+"There is!" cried Phoebe with much interest. "Is it all red, or has it
+black wings and tail?"
+
+"Why, I couldn't say. I know David and Aunt Barbara are always
+interested in birds and I heard David say the other day that he hadn't
+seen a red bird this summer, that they must be getting scarce around
+this section. So I thought I'd come up and tell you about it. I know it
+is bright red. Do you want to come out and try to find it again, Aunt
+Barbara?"
+
+"Not now, Phares. I have been in the sun so much to-day that my head
+aches."
+
+"Would you care to see it?" he asked Phoebe in visible hesitation.
+
+She answered eagerly, her passionate love of birds mastering her
+embarrassment. "I'd love to, Phares! I am anxious to see whether it's a
+tanager or a cardinal. I have never seen a cardinal."
+
+South of David Eby's cornfield stretched a strip of woodland. There
+blackberry brambles tangled about the bases of great oaks and the
+entire woods--trees and brambles--made an ideal nesting-place for birds.
+
+"Perhaps it's gone," said the preacher as they went along to the woods.
+
+"But it's worth trying for," she said.
+
+They kept silent then; only the rustling of the corn was heard as the
+two went through the green aisle. When they reached the woodland a
+sudden burst of glorious melody came to them. Phoebe laid a hand
+impulsively upon the arm of the preacher, but she removed it quite as
+suddenly when he looked down at her and said, "Our bird!"
+
+The bird, a scarlet tanager, aware of the presence of the intruders and
+eager to attract attention to himself and safeguard his hidden mate,
+flew to an exposed branch of an oak tree. There he displayed his
+gorgeous, flaming scarlet body with its touch of black in wings and
+tail.
+
+"It's a tanager," said Phoebe. "Isn't he lovely!"
+
+"Very fine," said the preacher. "What color is his mate? Is she red?"
+
+"She's green, a lovely olive green. When she sits on the nest she's just
+the color of her surroundings. If she were red like her mate she'd be
+too easily destroyed."
+
+"God's providence," said the preacher.
+
+"It is wonderful--look, Phares, there he goes!"
+
+The scarlet tanager made a streak of vivid color across the sky as he
+flew off over the corn.
+
+"I wonder if he trusts us or if his mate is not about," Phoebe said.
+"He's a beauty, so is his mate in her green frock. A few minutes with
+the birds can teach us a great deal, can't it?"
+
+"Yes, Phoebe, here, right near your home, are countless lessons to be
+learned and accomplishments to be acquired. Tell me, do you still wish
+to go away to the city?"
+
+"Certainly. I am going in September."
+
+"You remember the verse in the Third Reader we used to have at school:
+
+        "'Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest;
+          Home-keeping hearts are happiest.
+          For those who wander, they know not where,
+          Are full of trouble and full of care;
+          To stay at home is best.'"
+
+"But I have ambitions, Phares. All my eighteen years of life have been
+spent on a farm, in the narrow existence of those whose days are passed
+within one little circle. I want to see things, I want to meet people, I
+want to live, I want to learn to sing--I can't do any of these things
+here. Oh, you can't understand my real sincerity in this desire to get
+away. It is not that I love my home and my people less than you love
+yours. I feel that I must get away!"
+
+"But your voice, Phoebe, like the scarlet tanager's, is right as God
+made it. Because we are such old friends it grieves me to see you go. I
+was hoping you would change your mind--there is so much vanity and evil
+in the city."
+
+"I'll try to keep from it, Phares. I shall merely learn to sing better,
+meet a few new people, and be wiser because of the experience."
+
+"It is useless to try to persuade you, I suppose. I hoped you would
+reconsider it, that you would learn to care for me as I care."
+
+"Phares, don't. You make me unhappy."
+
+"Misery loves company," he quoted, trying to smile.
+
+"But can't you see that marriage is the thing I am thinking least about
+these days? I am too young."
+
+She looked, indeed, like a fair representation of Youth as she stood by
+the crude rail fence at the edge of the woods, one arm flung along the
+rough top rail, her hair tumbled from the walk through the cornfield,
+her eyes still gleaming with the joy of seeing the tanager, yet shadowy
+with the startled emotions occasioned by the preacher's wooing.
+
+He looked at her--
+
+"Oh, look! Our tanager is back!" she exclaimed.
+
+"I guess she is too young," he thought as he saw how quickly she turned
+from the question of marriage to watch the red bird.
+
+Phoebe's lips parted in pleasure as she saw the tanager again take up
+his place on the oak and burst into song. So absorbed were man and maid
+that neither heard the rustle of parted corn nor were aware of the
+presence of a third person until a voice exclaimed, "Oh, I beg your
+pardon. I didn't know you were here."
+
+As they turned David Eby stood before them, his expression a mingling of
+surprise and wonder. The flush on Phoebe's face, the awakened look in
+her eyes, troubled the man who had come through the corn and found the
+girl he loved standing with the preacher. The self-conscious look on
+the preacher's face assured David that he had stumbled through the field
+in an awkward moment, that his presence was unwelcome. He turned to go
+back, but Phoebe stepped quickly to him and took his hand.
+
+"Ah," thought Phares with a twinge of jealousy, "she wouldn't do that to
+me. How quickly she dropped her hand a while ago. They are such good
+friends, she and David. It's wrong to be envious; I must fight against
+it--and yet--I want her just as much as David does!"
+
+"David," Phoebe begged, "come back! Why, I was just wishing you were
+here! There's a scarlet tanager--see!" She pointed to the brilliant
+songster.
+
+"I thought he was coming to this woods so I came to hunt him," said
+David, his irritation gone. "I saw that fellow over by the tobacco field
+and followed him here. I bet they have their nest in this very woods.
+We'll look better next spring and try to find it and see the little
+ones. Tut, tut," he whistled to the bird, "don't sing your pretty head
+off." His eyes turned to the sky and the smile left his face. "It looks
+threatening," he said. "I thought I heard thunder as I came through the
+corn."
+
+"That so?" said Phares. "Then we better move in."
+
+Even as they turned and started through the field the thunder came
+again--distant--nearer, rolling in ominous rumbles.
+
+"Look at the sky," said David. "Clear yellow--that means hail!"
+
+"Oh, David"--Phoebe stood still and looked at him--"not hail on your
+tobacco!"
+
+He took her arm. "Come on, Phoebe, it's coming fast. We must get in.
+Come to our house, Phares, that's the nearest."
+
+Just as they reached the kitchen door, where Mother Bab was looking for
+them, the hail came.
+
+"It's hail, Mommie," David said. The three words held all the worry and
+pain of his heart.
+
+"Never mind"--the little mother patted his shoulder. "It's hail for more
+people than we know, perhaps for some who are much poorer than we are."
+
+"But the tobacco----" He stood by the window, impotent and weak, while
+the devastating hail pounded and rattled and smote the broad leaves of
+his tobacco and rendered it almost worthless.
+
+"Won't new leaves grow again?" Phoebe tried to cheer him.
+
+"Not this late in the summer. My tobacco was almost ready to be cut; it
+was unusually early this year."
+
+"Well," spoke up the preacher, "I can't see why you always plant
+tobacco. Smoking and chewing tobacco are filthy habits. I can't see why
+so many people of this section plant the weed when the soil could be
+used to produce some useful grain or vegetable."
+
+"Yes"--David turned and addressed his cousin fiercely--"it's easy enough
+for you to talk! You with your big farm and orchards and every crop a
+success! Your bank account is so fat that you don't need to care whether
+your acres bring in a big return or a lean one. But when you have just a
+few acres you plant the thing that will be likely to bring in the most
+money. You know many poor people plant tobacco for that reason, and that
+is why I plant it."
+
+"Davie," the mother said, "Davie!"
+
+"I know," he said bitterly. "I'm a beast when my temper gets beyond
+control, but Phares can be so confounded irritating, he rubs salt in
+your cuts every time."
+
+"Just for healing," the mother said gently.
+
+"David," said Phoebe, "I guess the temper is a little bit of that Irish
+showing up."
+
+At that David smiled, then laughed.
+
+"Phoebe," he said, "you know how to rub people the right way. If ever I
+have the blues you are just the right medicine."
+
+"I don't want to be called medicine," she said with a shake of her head.
+
+"Not even a sugar pill?" asked Mother Bab.
+
+"No. I don't like the sound of _pill_."
+
+David looked across at the preacher, who stood silent and helpless in
+the swift tide of conversation. "You may be right, Phares. It may be the
+wrath of Providence upon the tobacco. I'll try alfalfa in that field
+next and then I'll rub Aladdin's lamp. I'll make some money then!"
+
+"Where do you find Aladdin's lamp?" asked Phoebe.
+
+"I can't tell you now. But I know I'm tired of slaving and having
+nothing for my work, so I am going after the magic lamp."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ALADDIN'S LAMP
+
+
+THE morning after the hail storm dawned fair and sunshiny. David went
+out and stood at the edge of his tobacco field. All about him the hail
+had wrought its destruction. Where yesterday broad, thick leaves of
+green tobacco had stood out strong and vigorous there hung only limp
+shreds, punctured and torn into worthlessness.
+
+"All wasted, my summer's work. I'll rub that magic lamp now. Fool that I
+was, not to do it sooner!"
+
+A little later, as he walked down the road to town, his lips were closed
+in a resolute line, his shoulders squared in soldierly fashion. "I hope
+Caleb Warner is in his office," he thought.
+
+Caleb Warner was in; he greeted David cordially.
+
+"Good-morning, Dave. How are things out your way? Hail do much damage?"
+
+"Some damage," echoed the farmer. "It hailed just about four hundred
+dollars' worth too much for me."
+
+"What, you don't say so! That's the trouble with your farming."
+
+Caleb Warner was an affable little man with a frank, almost innocent,
+look on his smooth-shaven face. Spontaneous interest in his friends'
+affairs made him an agreeable companion and helped materially to
+increase his clientele--Caleb Warner dealt in real estate and,
+incidentally, in oil stocks and gold stocks.
+
+"That's just the trouble with your farming," he repeated. "You slave and
+break your back and crops are fine and you hope to have a good return
+for your labor, when along comes a hail storm and ruins your fruit or
+tobacco or corn, or along comes a dry spell or a wet spell with the same
+result. It sounds mighty fine to say the farmer is the most independent
+person on the face of the earth--it's a different proposition when you
+try it out. Not so?"
+
+"I'm about convinced you speak the truth about it," said the farmer.
+
+"I know I do. I used to be a farmer, but I have grown wiser. I think
+there are too many other ways to make money with less risk."
+
+"That is why I came----" David hesitated, but the other man waited
+silently for the explanation. "Have you any more of the gold-mine stock
+you offered me some time ago?"
+
+"That Nevada mine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Just one thousand dollars' worth; the rest is all cleaned out. I sold a
+thousand yesterday. Listen, Dave, there's the chance of your life. You
+know how I worked on that farm of mine, how my wife had to slave, how
+even Mary had to work hard. Then one day a friend of mine who had gone
+west came to me and offered me some stock in a western gold mine. My
+wife was afraid of it, said I'd lose every cent I put in it and we'd
+have to go to the poorhouse--women don't generally understand about
+investments. But I went ahead and got the stock, and in a few years I
+sold out part of it for a neat sum and drew big dividends on what I
+kept. Then we moved to town; my wife keeps a maid, Mary goes to college,
+and we're living instead of slaving our lives away on a farm. And it's
+honestly made money, for the gold was put into the earth for us to use.
+It is just a case of running a little risk, but no person loses money
+because of your risk. Of course, there's lots of stock sold that's not
+worth the paper it's written on, but I don't sell that kind."
+
+"People trust you here," said David.
+
+If the man winced or had reason to do so, he betrayed no sign of it. "I
+hope so," he said. "You have known me all my life. If I ever want to
+work any skin game I'll go out of the place where all my friends are.
+This mine of which I speak is near the mine at Goldfield and some of the
+veins struck recently are richer than those of the renowned Goldfield.
+They are still striking deeper veins. I have sold stock in that mine to
+fifteen people in this town."
+
+He mentioned some of the residents of Greenwald; people who, in David's
+opinion, were too shrewd to be entangled in any nefarious investment.
+The names impressed David--if those fifteen put their money into it he
+might as well be the sixteenth.
+
+In a little while David Eby walked home with a paper representing the
+ownership of a number of shares of a certain gold mine in Nevada, while
+Caleb Warner patted musingly a check for five hundred dollars.
+
+Mother Bab wondered at her boy's philosophical acceptance of his crop
+failure. "I'm glad you take it this way," she said as he came in,
+whistling, from his trip to Greenwald.
+
+"What's the use of crying?" he answered gaily, though he felt far from
+gay. Had he been too hasty? Doubts began to assail him. It was going to
+be hard to deceive his mother, she was always so eager for his
+confidence. But, then, he was doing it for her sake as much as for his
+own. The war clouds were drawing nearer and nearer to this country; if
+the time came when America would enter the war he would have to answer
+the call for help. If the stock turned out to be what the other wise men
+of the town felt confident it would be then the added money would be a
+boon to his mother while he was away in the service of his country--and
+yet--it was a great risk he was running. Why had he done it? The old
+lines of the poem came back to him and burned into his soul,
+
+        "O what a tangled web we weave
+         When first we practice to deceive."
+
+Then, again, swift upon that thought came the old proverb, "Nothing
+venture, nothing gain." Thus he was torn between doubt and satisfaction,
+but it was too late to undo the deed. He was the owner of the stock and
+Caleb Warner had the five hundred dollars!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE FLEDGLING'S FLIGHT
+
+
+PHOEBE found the packing of her trunk a task not altogether without pain.
+As she gathered her few treasures from her room a feeling of desolation
+seemed to pervade the place. Going away from home for the first long
+stay, however bright the new place of sojourn, brings to most hearts an
+undercurrent of sadness.
+
+She smiled a bit wistfully at her few treasures--her books, an old
+picture of her mother, the little Testament Aunt Maria gave her to read,
+the few trinkets her school friends had given her from time to time, a
+little kodak picture of Mother Bab and David in the flower garden.
+
+At last the dreary task was done, the trunk strapped, and she was ready
+for the journey. It was a perfect September day when she left the gray
+farmhouse, drove in the country road and stood with her father, Aunt
+Maria, Mother Bab, David and Phares at the railroad station in Greenwald
+and waited for the noon train to Philadelphia.
+
+Jacob Metz and the preacher made brave, though visible, efforts to be
+cheerful; Maria Metz made no effort to be anything except very greatly
+worried and anxious; but Mother Bab and David were determined that the
+girl's departure was to be nothing less than pleasant.
+
+"Now be sure, Phoebe," said Aunt Maria for the tenth time, "to ask the
+conductor at Reading if that train is for Phildelphy before you get on,
+and at Phildelphy you wait till Miss Lee fetches you."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Maria, I'll be careful."
+
+"And don't lose your trunk check--David, did you give it to her for
+sure?"
+
+"Yes. She'll hold on to it, don't you worry."
+
+"Phoebe will be all right," said Mother Bab.
+
+"And," said David teasingly, "be sure to let me know when you need that
+beet juice and cream and flour."
+
+"Davie! Now for that I won't write to you!"
+
+"Yes you will!" His eyes looked so long into hers that she said
+confusedly, "Ach, I'll write. Mind that you take good care of Mother Bab
+and stop in sometimes to see how Aunt Maria and daddy are getting on
+without me."
+
+"Ach, we'll be all right," said Aunt Maria. "Just you take care of
+yourself so far away from home. And if you get homesick you come right
+home. Anyway, you come home soon to see us; and be sure to write every
+week still."
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+A shrill whistle announced the approach of the train. There were hurried
+kisses and good-byes, a handshake for the preacher and, last of all, a
+handshake for David. He held her hand so long that she cried out,
+"David, you'll make me miss the train!"
+
+"No--good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, David." Then she tugged at her hand and in a moment was
+hurrying to the train.
+
+There were few passengers that day, so the train made a short stop.
+Phoebe smiled as the train started, leaned forward and waved till the
+familiar group was lost to her view, then she settled herself with a
+brave little smile and looked at the well-known fields and meadows she
+was passing. The trees on Cemetery Hill were silhouetted against the
+blue sky just as she had seen them many times in her walks about the
+country.
+
+But soon the old landmarks disappeared and unknown fields lay about her.
+Crude rail fences divided acres of rustling corn from orchards whose
+trees were laden with red apples or downy peaches. Occasionally flocks
+of startled birds rose from fields freshly plowed for the fall sowing of
+wheat. Huge red barns and spacious open tobacco sheds, hung with drying
+tobacco, gave evidence of the prosperity of the farmers of that section.
+Little schoolhouses were dotted here and there along the road. Flowers
+bloomed by the wayside and in them Phoebe was especially interested.
+Goldenrod in such great profusion that it seemed the very sunshine of
+the skies was imprisoned in flower form, stag-horn sumac with its
+grape-like clusters of red adding brilliancy to the landscape--everywhere
+was manifest the dawn of autumnal glory, the splendor that foreruns decay,
+the beauty that is but the first step in nature's transition from blossom
+and harvest to mystery and sleep.
+
+Every two or three miles the train stopped at little stations and then
+Phoebe leaned from her window to see the beautiful stretches of country.
+
+At one flag station the train was signalled and came to a stop. Just
+outside Phoebe's window stood a tall farmer. He rubbed his fingers
+through his hair and stared curiously at the train.
+
+"Step lively," shouted the trainman.
+
+But the farmer shook his head. "Ach, I don't want on your train! I
+expected some folks from Lititz and thought they'd be on this here
+train. Didn't none get on----"
+
+But the angry trainman had heard enough. He pulled the cord and the
+train started, leaving the old man alone, his eyes scanning the moving
+cars.
+
+Phoebe laughed. "We Pennsylvania Dutch do funny things! I wonder if I'll
+seem strange and foolish to the people I shall meet in the great city."
+
+At Reading she obeyed Aunt Maria's injunction and boarded the proper
+train. The ride along the winding Schuylkill was thoroughly enjoyed by
+the country girl, but the picture changed when the country was left
+behind, suburban Philadelphia passed, and the train entered the crowded
+heart of the city. They passed close to dark houses grimy with the
+accumulated smoke of many passing locomotives. Great factories loomed
+before the train, factories where girls looked up for a moment at the
+whirring cars and turned again to the grinding life of loom or machine.
+The sight disheartened Phoebe. Was life in the city like that for some
+girls? How dreadful to be shut up in a factory while outdoors the whole
+panorama of the seasons moved on! She would miss the fields and woods
+but she would make the sacrifice gladly if she might only see life, meet
+people and learn to sing. The thoughts awakened by the sight of the
+shut-in girls were not happy ones. She welcomed the call, "Reading
+Terminal, Philadelphia."
+
+As she followed the stream of fellow passengers and walked through the
+dim train shed to the exit her heart beat more quickly--she was really
+in Philadelphia! But the noise, the stream of people rushing from trains
+past other people rushing to trains, bewildered her. She saw the sea of
+faces beyond the iron gates and experienced for the first time the
+loneliness that comes to a traveler who enters a thronged depot and sees
+a host of people but enters unwelcomed and ungreeted.
+
+However, the loneliness was momentary. The next minute she caught sight
+of Miss Lee. A wave of relief and happiness swept over her--she was in
+Philadelphia, the land of her heart's desire!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+PHOEBE'S DIARY
+
+
+                                                      _September 15._
+
+I'M in Philadelphia--really, truly! Phoebe Metz, late of a gray
+farmhouse in Lancaster County, is sitting in a beautiful room of the Lee
+residence, Philadelphia.
+
+What a lot of things I have to write in you, diary! I can scarcely find
+the beginning. Before I left home I thought about keeping a diary, how
+entertaining it would be to sit down when I'm old and gray and read the
+accounts of my first winter in the city. So I went to Greenwald and
+bought the fattest note-book I could find and I'm going to write in you
+all of my joys--let's hope there won't be any sorrows--and all of my
+pleasures and all about my impressions of places and people in this
+great, wonderful City of Brotherly Love. Of course, I'll write letters
+home and to David and Mother Bab and some of the girls, but there are so
+many things one can't tell others yet likes to remember. So you'll have
+to be my safety valve, confidant and confessor.
+
+When I left the train at Philadelphia I was bewildered and confused.
+Such crowds I never saw, not even in Lancaster. Seemed like everybody in
+the city was coming from a train or running to one. I was glad to see
+Miss Lee. She's the dearest person! I love her as much as I did when I
+went to her school on the hill. I'm as tall as she is now. She dresses
+beautifully. I thought my blue serge suit was lovely but her clothes
+are--well, I suppose you'd call them creations. I'm so glad I'm going to
+be near her all winter and can copy from her.
+
+As I came through the gates at the depot she caught me and kissed me. I
+thought she was alone, but a moment later she turned to a tall man and
+introduced him, her cousin, Royal Lee, the musician. If Aunt Maria could
+see him she'd warn me again, as she did repeatedly, not to "leave that
+fiddlin' man get too friendly." He's handsome. I never before met a man
+like him. His magnetic smile, his low voice attracted me right away.
+
+After he piloted us through the crowded depot and into a taxicab Miss
+Lee began to ask me questions about Greenwald and the people she knows
+there. I felt rather timid, for I was conscious of the appraising eyes
+of her cousin. He didn't stare at me, yet every time I glanced at him
+his eyes were searching my face. Does he think me very countrified, I
+wonder? I do have the red cheeks country girls are always credited with,
+but I'm glad I'm not "buxom." I'd hate to be fat!
+
+I wish I could describe Royal Lee. He's just as I pictured him, only
+more so. He has the lean, aesthetic face of the musician, the sensitive
+nostrils and thin lips denoting acute temperament. His eyes are gray.
+
+As we rode through the streets of the city Miss Lee told me her mother
+would have me stay with them until we can find a suitable boarding
+place. To-morrow we're going in search of one.
+
+Taxicabs travel pretty fast. We skirted past curbs so that I almost held
+my breath and shot past trucks and other cars till I thought we'd surely
+land in the street. But we escaped safely and soon stopped at the Lee
+residence, a big, imposing brownstone house. It looks bare outside, no
+yard, no flowers. But inside it's a lovely place, so inviting and
+attractive that I'd like to settle down for life in it.
+
+Mrs. Lee is as charming as her daughter. She has been a semi-invalid for
+years, but even in her wheelchair she has the poise and manner of one
+well born. Her greeting was so cordial and gracious, but all I could
+answer was an inane, "Thank you, you are very kind." Will I ever learn
+to express my thoughts as charmingly as these people do, I wonder!
+
+When Miss Lee took me up-stairs it was up a bare, polished stairway upon
+which I was half afraid to tread. And the room she took me to! I've
+heard about such rooms and read about them. Delft blue paper and rugs,
+white woodwork and furniture, blue hangings, white curtains--it's a
+magazine-room turned to real!
+
+When I tried to express my gratitude for her goodness Miss Lee hushed me
+with a kiss and said she anticipated as much joy from my presence in the
+city as I did, that I was so genuine and refreshing that it would be a
+pleasure to have me around. I don't know just what she means. I'm just
+Phoebe Metz, nothing wonderful about me, unless it's my voice, and I
+hope that is. She said, too, that I would make her very happy if I'd let
+her be a real friend to me, and if I'd call her Virginia. Why, that's
+just what I've been wishing for! I told her so. She is just twelve years
+older than I am, so she's near the thirty mark yet, and I like a friend
+who is older. She seems just the same Miss Lee, no older than she was
+when I walked down the street of Greenwald in my gingham dress and
+checked sunbonnet and buried my nose in the pink rose David gave me. How
+lucky that little country girl is! I'm here in Philadelphia, in a
+beautiful house, with Virginia Lee for my friend, and glorious visions
+of music and good times flashing before my eyes. I put my hands to my
+head to keep it from going dizzy!
+
+There's a little speck of cloud in the blue of my joy right now, though.
+I'm afraid I've blundered already. Miss Lee--Virginia, I mean--said as
+she turned to leave my room that they have dinner at six and I'd have
+plenty of time to get ready for it. I had to tell her that I couldn't
+change my dress, that I hadn't thought to bring any light dress in my
+bag but had packed them all in the trunk. She hurried to assure me that
+my dark skirt and white blouse would do very well, that she would not
+dress for dinner to-night. But I feel sure that she seldom appears at
+the dinner table in a blouse and tailored skirt. Guess Aunt Maria'd say
+I'm in a place too tony for me, but I know I can learn how to do here. I
+might have remembered that some people make of their evening meal a
+formal one. I've read about "dressing for dinner" and when my first
+opportunity comes to do so it finds me with all my dress-up dresses
+packed in a trunk in the express office! Perhaps it serves me right for
+wanting to "put on style," but I remember an old saying about "doing as
+the Romans do." At any rate, I'm going to make the best of it and quit
+worrying about it, or I'll be so fussed I'll eat with my knife or pour
+my coffee into my saucer!
+
+
+                                              _Later in the evening._
+
+What a whirl my brain is in! Things happen so fast that I scarcely know
+where to begin again to write about them. But it began with the dinner.
+That was the grandest dinner I ever tasted but I don't remember a single
+thing I ate, though I do know there was no bread or jelly. What would
+Aunt Maria think of that! The delicate china, fine linen and silver were
+the loveliest I have ever seen. There were electric lights with
+soft-colored shades and there was a colored waiter who seemed to move
+without effort. The forks and spoons for the different courses bothered
+me. I had to glance at Virginia to see which one to use. Once during the
+dinner I thought of the time Mollie Brubaker told Aunt Maria about a
+dinner she had in the home of a city relative. I remember how Aunt Maria
+sniffed, "Humph, if abody's right hungry you can eat without such dumb
+style put on. I say when you cook and carry things to the table for
+people you don't need to feed them yet, they can help themselves. Just
+so it's clean and cooked good and enough to go round, that's all I try
+for when I get company to eat." I felt like a fish out of water at the
+Lee dinner table, but Mrs. Lee and the others were so kind and tactful
+that I could not be embarrassed, not enough to show it. However, I
+thought to myself as we rose from the table, "Thank Heaven!"
+
+Mrs. Lee asked me whether I like music. We were in the sitting-room and
+Mr. Lee stood by the piano, his hand on his violin case.
+
+"Yes, indeed!" I told her, for I was anxious to hear him play. I have
+never heard any great violinist but the sound of a violin sets me
+thrilling. I could listen to it for hours.
+
+Mr. Lee smiled at my enthusiasm, lifted the instrument to his shoulder
+and began to play. If I live to be a hundred I'll never forget that
+music! Like the soothing winds of summer, the subtle fragrance of a wild
+rose, the elusive phantoms of our dreams, it stirred my soul. I sat as
+one dazed when he ended.
+
+"You say nothing. Don't you like my music?" he asked me.
+
+"Like your music? Like is too poor a word!" And I tried to tell him how
+I loved it. He smiled again, that calling, hypnotizing smile, that made
+me want to rush to him and ask him to be my friend. But I restrained
+myself and turned to listen to Virginia. The music haunted me. It
+sounded like the voice of a soul searching for something it could never
+find. I was still dreaming about it when I heard Mr. Lee say, "Now,
+Aunt, shall we have some cribbage?" I watched him uncomprehendingly as
+he arranged a small table and brought out cards and boards for a game.
+The full significance of his actions dawned upon me--they were going to
+play cards! I had never seen a game of cards, but Aunt Maria taught me
+long ago that cards are the instrument of the Evil One. My first impulse
+was to run from the room, away from the cards, but I hated to be so
+rude.
+
+"Do you play cards?" Royal Lee asked me.
+
+"No, oh, no!" I gasped.
+
+"You should learn. I'm sure you would enjoy playing."
+
+I know my face flushed. He did not notice my bewilderment and went on,
+"We'll teach you to play, Miss Metz." Then he turned to the game.
+
+Virginia came to my rescue and drew me to a seat near her. She asked me
+questions about Greenwald. Goodness only knows what I answered her. My
+attention was a variant. Troubled thoughts distressed me. In Aunt
+Maria's category of sins dancing, card playing and theatre-going rank
+side by side with lying, stealing and idolatry. As I sat there I tried
+to reconcile my opinion of these worldly pleasures with the conduct of
+my new friends. The tangle is too complicated to unravel at once. I
+could feel blushes of shame staining my cheeks as the game progressed.
+What would Aunt Maria say, what would daddy say, what would even
+tolerant Mother Bab say, if they knew I sat passively by and watched a
+game of cards? After a little while I asked Virginia whether I could
+write a letter to Aunt Maria and tell her of my safe arrival. I just had
+to get out of that room! I don't know if she saw through my ruse but
+she smiled as she put her arm around me and led me to the stairs.
+"There's a desk in your room, Phoebe. You can be undisturbed there. Tell
+your aunt we are going to help you find a comfortable home and that we
+are going to take care of you. I'll be up presently to visit with you."
+
+When I got up-stairs I felt like crying. Those cards actually scared me.
+I shrank from being so near the evil things. But after a while as I came
+to think more calmly I decided that cards couldn't hurt me if I didn't
+play them. I promised myself to keep from being contaminated with the
+wickedness of the city the while I enjoyed its harmless pleasures. The
+first horror of the cards soon passed but it left me sobered. I wrote a
+long letter to Aunt Maria and then turned off the lights and looked down
+into the city street. It seemed wonderful to me to see so many lights
+stretched off until some of them were mere specks. There was a wedding
+across the street. I saw the guests and caught a glimpse of the bride,
+dressed all in white. But later, when Virginia came up to my room and I
+asked her about it she didn't know a thing about the wedding. Why, at
+home, if there's a big wedding and the neighbors don't know about it or
+are not invited to it, they feel slighted. But Virginia says a city is
+different, that you don't really have neighbors like in Greenwald.
+
+Virginia told me, too, how she came to teach in our school on the hill.
+When she finished college she wanted to earn money, just to prove that
+she could. Her father wanted her to stay home and live the life of a
+butterfly, she says. One day he said, more in jest than earnest, that if
+she insisted upon earning money he'd give his consent to her being a
+teacher in a rural school. She accepted the challenge and through her
+cousin she secured the place on the hill and became my teacher. When her
+father died and her mother became a semi-invalid she gave up her work
+and took up the old life again. She said that as if it were not really a
+desirable life, this going to teas, dances, plays, musicals, lectures,
+and having no cares or worries. Of course I know many of her pleasures
+are forbidden fruit for me, but if I ever can wear pretty clothes like
+hers and go off to an evening musical or concert I know I'll be as
+excited as a Jenny Wren.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+DIARY--THE NEW HOME
+
+
+                                                      _September 16._
+
+I'VE dreamed my first dreams in Philadelphia. Such dreams as they were!
+Whatever it was I ate for supper it must have been richer than our
+Lancaster County sausage and fried mush, for I dreamed all night. My
+old-fashioned walnut bed with its red and green calico quilt seemed to
+swing before me while Mother Bab and Aunt Maria talked to me. A clanging
+trolley car woke me and I remembered that I had been dreaming of Phares
+and the tanager's nest. I slept again and heard the strains of Royal
+Lee's violin till another car clanged past and woke me. I woke once to
+find myself saying, "Braid it straight, Davie. Aunt Maria's awful mad."
+When I slept again I thought I heard Royal Lee say, "We'll teach you to
+play cards," and speared tails and horned heads seemed mixed
+promiscuously with little pieces of cardboard bearing red and black
+symbols and the words "I'll get you if you don't watch out" rang in my
+ears. "Ugh, what awful dreams," I thought as I lay awake and listened
+for sounds of activity in the house. I missed Aunt Maria's five o'clock
+call. The luxury of an eight o'clock breakfast couldn't be appreciated
+the first morning, as I was wide awake at five. I'll soon learn to
+sleep later. There are many things I shall learn before I go back to the
+farm.
+
+This morning Virginia and I started out on a glorious adventure, looking
+for a boarding place. She laughed when I called it that.
+
+"I like the uncertainty of it," I told her. "The charm of the unknown
+appeals to me. I do not know under whose roof I shall sleep to-night yet
+I'm happy because I know I am going to meet new people and see new
+things. Of course, if I did not have you to help me I would remember
+Aunt Maria's dire tales of the evils and dangers of a big city and
+should feel afraid. As it is, I feel only curious and gay. No matter
+where I find a place to live it's bound to be quite different from the
+farm, not better, necessarily, but different."
+
+But my "high hopes of youth" received a jolt at the very first interview
+with a boarding-house mistress. She wouldn't take young ladies who were
+studying music, their practice would annoy the other boarders. I had
+never thought of that!
+
+The second quest was equally unsatisfactory. One room was vacant, a
+pleasant room--at twelve dollars a week! The sum left me speechless.
+Virginia had to explain that the amount was a _trifle_ more than I
+expected to pay.
+
+The third proved to be a smaller house on a narrower street. A charming
+old lady led us into a sitting-room. All my life I've been accustomed to
+the proverbial cleanliness of the Pennsylvania Dutch but I'm certain I
+never saw a place as clean as that house. I said something like that to
+its mistress and she informed me with a gentle firmness I never heard
+before that she expected every guest in her house to help to keep it in
+that condition. She had several rules she wanted all to obey, so that
+the sunshine would not have a chance to fade the rugs and the dust from
+the street could not ruin things. I knew I would not be happy there. I
+like clean rooms, but if it's a matter of choosing between foul air
+_without_ dust and fresh air _with_ dust I'll take the dust every time.
+I'd feel like a funeral to live in a house where the curtains and shades
+were down every day, summer and winter, to keep the sunshine out of the
+rooms and prevent the jade-green and china-blue and old-rose of the rugs
+from fading.
+
+The fourth place was in suburban Philadelphia, fifty minutes' ride from
+the heart of the city. It was a big colonial house set in a great yard,
+a relic of the days when gardens still flourished in the city and the
+breathing spaces allotted to householders were larger than at the
+present time. As we went up the shrubbery-bordered walk to the pillared
+porch I said, "I want to live here."
+
+Mrs. McCrea, the boarding-house mistress, did not object to the music,
+provided I took the large room on the third floor and did all my
+practicing between the hours of eight and five, when the other boarders
+were gone to business. The price of the room is seven dollars a week.
+
+I took the room at once, before Mrs. McCrea had any chance of changing
+her mind. I thought it was a very pleasant room, with its two windows
+looking out on the green yard.
+
+But later, after Virginia had gone and I was left alone in the room, the
+queerest feeling came over me. I never knew what it meant to be
+homesick, but I think I had a touch of it this afternoon in this room. I
+hated this place for about half an hour. I saw that the paint is soiled,
+the rug worn, the pictures cheap, the bed and bureau trimmed with
+gingerbready scrolls and knobs. It's so different from the blue and
+white room I slept in last night, so different from my plain,
+old-fashioned room at home. "It's all right," I said to myself, half
+crying, "but it's so different."
+
+Fortunately the word _different_ struck a responsive chord in my memory.
+I remembered that I wanted different things, and smiled again and dashed
+the tears away. I arranged my own pictures and few belongings about the
+room and felt more at home. After I had dressed and stood ready to go
+down for my first dinner in my new home I felt happier. To be living, to
+be young and enthusiastic, to possess the colossal courage of youth, was
+enough to bring happiness into my heart again. I'm going to like this
+place. I'm going to work and play and live in this wonderful city.
+
+Mrs. McCrea introduced the "New boarder" and I took my assigned place at
+a long table in the dining-room. I remembered that I once read that the
+average boarding-house is a veritable school for students of human
+nature. I wondered what I would learn from the people I met there. The
+fat man across the table from me gave me no opportunity for any mental
+ramblings. He launched me right into conversation by asking my opinion
+of the war in Europe and whether or not we would be dragged into the
+trouble.
+
+"Really," I answered him, "I don't know much about it. I don't think of
+it any more than I can help."
+
+Of course that was the wrong thing to say. It started a deluge. A
+studious-looking woman wearing heavy tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles
+took my answer as a personal affront. "Why not, Miss Metz?" she
+demanded. "Why should we not think about it? We women of America need to
+wake up! In this country we are lolling in ease and safety while other
+nations bleed and die that we might remain safe. We have no thoughts
+higher than our hats or deeper than our boots if the catastrophe across
+the sea does not waken in us an earnest desire to help the stricken
+nations."
+
+Others took up the argument and I sat quiet and helpless, for I know too
+little about the cause and progress of the war to talk intelligently
+about it. A sense of responsibility grazed my soul. I wished I were able
+to help France and Belgium, but what can I do? The constant harping on
+the subject of war irritated me. I felt relieved when a young girl near
+me asked, "Miss Metz, do you like the movies? There's a place near here
+where they show fine pictures, funny ones to make you forget the war for
+several hours, at least."
+
+On the whole, I think I'm going to like life at Mrs. McCrea's
+boarding-house. I hear the views of so many different sorts of people.
+And it certainly is different from my life on the farm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+DIARY--THE MUSIC MASTER
+
+
+                                                      _September 19._
+
+MY four days in Philadelphia have just been one exclamation point after
+another! The most wonderful thing happened to me last night! Mrs. Lee
+invited me over for dinner. I glided through the courses a little more
+gracefully--one can learn if the will is there. I always loved dainty
+things. I suppose that is why I delight in the Lee home and am eager to
+adopt the ways of my new friends.
+
+After dinner Mr. Lee played again. Of course I enjoyed that. When I
+praised his playing he said he heard I'm a real genius and asked me to
+sing for them. Mr. Krause, one of the best teachers of music in the
+city, is a friend of Royal and Virginia thinks he would be the very one
+to teach me. Mr. Lee wrote to Mr. Krause this summer and the music
+teacher promised to take me for a pupil if I have a voice worth the
+trouble. Virginia had prepared me for my meeting with him. Seems he's
+queer, odd, cranky and painfully frank. But he knows how to teach music
+so well that many would-be singers pray to be taken into his studio. Mr.
+Lee said yesterday that Mr. Krause was expected home from his vacation
+in a few days and then he'd arrange an interview. I trembled when he
+said that. What if the great teacher did not like my voice!
+
+To-night when Mr. Lee asked me to sing I selected a simple song. As I
+sat down before the baby grand piano the words of the old song "Sweet
+and Low" came to me. I would sing that until I gained courage and
+confidence to sing a harder selection. I played from memory. As I sang I
+was back again at home, singing to my father at the close of the day.
+
+As the last words died on my lips and I turned on the chair a man, a
+stranger to me, appeared in the room. He hurried unceremoniously to the
+piano and greeted me, "You can sing!"
+
+I stared at him. He was an odd-looking, active little man of about fifty
+with keen blue eyes that bored into one like a gimlet.
+
+Mr. Lee came toward us. "Mr. Krause," he exclaimed, and presented to me
+the music master, the teacher for whom I had dreaded so to sing! I was
+filled with inarticulate gladness.
+
+"Mr. Krause," I cried, grasping his outstretched hand in my old
+impetuous way, "do you mean it? Can I learn to sing?"
+
+"I said so--yes. You can sing. You need to learn how to use your voice
+but the voice is there."
+
+"I'm so glad. I'll work----" I couldn't say any more. My joy was too
+great to be expressed in words. I looked mutely into the wrinkled face
+of the man.
+
+"Royal said he had found a songbird," he went on smiling, "but I was
+afraid he didn't know the difference between that and an owl--I see he
+did. I'll be glad to have you for a pupil. Royal can bring you to my
+studio to-morrow at eleven."
+
+Mr. Krause stayed a while longer and the sitting-room was gay with
+laughter and bright conversation. I think I heard little of it, though,
+for the words, "You can sing!" kept ringing in my ears and crowding out
+all other sounds.
+
+I can sing! Mr. Krause has told me I can sing! And I will sing! Some day
+all the world may stop to hear!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+DIARY--THE FIRST LESSON
+
+
+                                                      _September 20._
+
+I HAD my first music lesson to-day. Mr. Lee called for me at the
+boarding-house and took me down-town to the studio. After he left I
+expected Mr. Krause to begin at once on the do, ra, me, fa, sol, la, si,
+do. But he thought differently!
+
+He sat facing me, looking at me till I felt like running. "And so," he
+said quietly, "you want to learn to sing."
+
+"Yes," was all I could say.
+
+"Well, you have a voice. If you want to work like all great singers have
+had to work you can be a singer. You may not set the world afire with
+your fame but you'll be worth hearing. You are Pennsylvania Dutch?"
+
+I nodded. What under the sun did Pennsylvania Dutch have to do with my
+becoming a singer? I was provoked. I didn't come to the city and pay a
+music teacher to ask me foolish questions.
+
+"That is good," he went on calmly. "The Pennsylvania Dutch are not
+afraid of work and that is what you need. The road to success in music
+is like the road to success in any other thing, long and hard and
+up-hill most of the way. Now that Pennsylvania Dutch is a funny
+language. It is neither Dutch nor English nor German but is like hash, a
+little of this and a little of that. Do you speak it?"
+
+I said I have spoken it all my life but wished I had never been taught
+it.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"Oh"--I couldn't quite veil my irritation--"it perverts our English."
+
+"Nothing uncommon," he answered, smiling. "Every part of this great
+country has some peculiarities of speech common to that particular
+section and laughed at in the other sections. Now we will go on with the
+lesson."
+
+When he really did begin to teach I found him a wonder. I'm going to
+enjoy, thoroughly enjoy, my music lessons.
+
+Mr. Lee called for me after the lesson. I told him I could find the way
+back to the boarding-house alone, but he said he'd consider it a
+pleasure and privilege to call for me. He has the nicest manners! He
+never needs to flounder around for the right thing to say, it just slips
+from his tongue like butter. Aunt Maria always says, "look out for them
+smooth apple-sass talkers," but I'm sure Mr. Lee is a gentleman and just
+the right kind for a country girl to know.
+
+When he called at the studio this morning I felt proud to walk away with
+him. He suggested riding home but I told him I'd rather walk, at least
+part of the way. We started up Chestnut Street. What a wonderful place
+that is! Such lovely stores I've never seen. I'm going to sneak away
+some day and visit every one that has women's belongings for sale. And
+the clothes I saw on Chestnut Street--on the women, I mean! My own
+wardrobe certainly is plain and ordinary compared with the things I saw
+women wear to-day. I couldn't help saying to Mr. Lee, "What lovely
+clothes Philadelphia women wear!" He smiled that wonderful smile and
+said, "Miss Metz, a diamond has no need of a glittering case, it has
+sufficient brilliancy itself." I caught his meaning, I couldn't help
+it--he meant me! Now I know I'm no beauty, but perhaps if I had clothes
+like those I saw to-day I'd be more attractive. I wonder if I'll get
+them; they must cost lots of money.
+
+As we walked along Mr. Lee told me he knows I'll have a wonderful year
+in the city, and that he is going to help it be the gladdest, merriest
+one I've ever had.
+
+"Oh, you're good," I said.
+
+"It must be that goodness inspires goodness," he replied.
+
+I didn't know what to answer. Men up home never say such things, at
+least I never heard them. Phares couldn't think of such things to say
+and David never made a "pretty speech" in his life. I know he thinks
+nice things about me sometimes but he wouldn't word them like Royal Lee
+does. I didn't want Mr. Lee to think I'm uncommonly good, I told him I'm
+not.
+
+"Not good?" He laughed at the idea. "Why, you are just a sweet, lovely
+young thing knowing nothing of evil."
+
+"Oh!" I said, feeling stupid before him, "you're too polite! I never
+met any one like you. But I want to ask you about cards, playing cards.
+I can't see that they are wrong but Aunt Maria and my father and all my
+friends up home think they are wicked. Aunt Maria would rather part with
+her right hand than play a game of cards."
+
+Mr. Lee laughed and said he's surprised that I am willing to accept the
+beliefs of others; can't I decide for myself what is wrong or right? Did
+I want to be narrow and goody-goody?
+
+Of course I don't want to be like that, and I told him so.
+
+He laughed again, a low, soft laugh. I never heard a man laugh like that
+before. When daddy laughs he laughs out loud, the kind of laugh you join
+in when you hear it. And David laughs like that too, a merry laugh that
+sounds, as he says, like it's coming clean from his boots. But Mr. Lee's
+laugh is different. I don't like it as well as the other kind, though it
+fascinates me. He said he knows I can't change my ideas in a night but
+he depends upon my good sense to decide what is right for me to do. He
+asked if I thought Virginia and her mother are wicked. They have played
+cards, danced, gone to theatres, all their lives. If I hope to have a
+really enjoyable time in the city I must do the same. He said, too, that
+I'll soon see that many of the teachings of the country churches are
+antiquated and entirely too narrow for this day.
+
+Dancing--I shuddered at the word, but I didn't tell him how I feel about
+it. Aunt Maria says dancing is even worse than playing cards. Why did
+he tempt me? I don't want to do wicked things, but when he mentioned
+forbidden pleasures I felt, somehow, that I wanted to do what Virginia
+does and have a good time with her and her friends. That would be
+dreadful! What am I thinking of! Is my head turned already? Can the evil
+of the world have exerted its influence upon me so soon? Of course, if I
+become a great singer I'll naturally have to live a life different from
+the narrow, restricted life of the farm. I must live a broader, freer
+life. But for a while, at least, I'll have to be the same old Phoebe
+Metz. I tried to tell Mr. Lee something like that, and he quoted,
+
+        "If you become a nun, dear,
+            A friar I will be;
+         In any cell you run, dear,
+            Pray look behind for me."
+
+Are city men always free like that? Is it the way of the new world I
+have entered? Before I could think of a suitable answer he said lightly,
+"But before you turn nun let me buy you some flowers."
+
+We stopped at a floral shop. Such flowers! I've never seen their equal!
+I exclaimed in many O's as I paused by the window, but I felt my cheeks
+flush at the idea of having him buy any of the lovely flowers for me.
+
+"Come inside," he said. "What do you like?"
+
+"I love them all," I told him as we stood before the array of blossoms.
+"I think I like the yellow rosebuds best, though. We have some at home
+on the farm but they bloom only in June."
+
+I detected an odd smile on his lips. What was wrong? Had I committed a
+breach of etiquette? Was it wrong to mention farms in a city floral
+shop? But his courteous, attentive manner returned in an instant. He
+watched me pin the yellow roses on my coat, smiled, and led me outside
+again. I felt proud as any queen, for those were the first flowers any
+man ever bought for me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+DIARY--SEEING THE CITY
+
+
+                                                         _October 2._
+
+I HAVE been seeing Philadelphia. Mr. Lee teasingly told me that most
+newcomers want to "do" the city so he and Virginia would take me round.
+They took me to see all the places I studied about in history class.
+I've done the Betsy Ross House, Franklin's Grave, Old Christ Church and
+Old Swede's Church. I like them all. Best of all I like Independence
+Hall, with its wonderful stairways and wide window sills and, most
+important, its grand old Liberty Bell and its history.
+
+Yesterday Mr. Lee took me to Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park. I like the
+pictures and oh, I looked long at a white marble statue of Isaac, his
+hands bound for the sacrifice. The face is beautiful. Royal Lee was
+amused at my interest in it and took me off to see the rare Chinese
+vases. We wandered around among the cases of glassware and then I found
+a case with valuable Stiegel glass, made in my own Lancaster County. I
+was proud of that! We went through Horticultural Hall and stopped to see
+the lovely sunken gardens, with their fall flowers.
+
+I like to go about with Royal Lee. He is so efficient. Crowds seem to
+fall back for him. He has the attractive, masterful personality that
+everybody recognizes. I feel a reflected glory from his presence. We
+have grown to be great friends in an amazingly short time. Our music,
+our appreciation of each other's ability, has strengthened the bond
+between us. Mrs. Lee sends me many invitations for dinner and week-ends
+in her beautiful home, so that Mr. Lee and I are already well
+acquainted. He has asked me to call him Royal and if he might call me
+Phoebe. I've told him all about my life on the farm, my friends up
+there, and the plans and dreams of my heart. He likes to tease me and
+call me a little Quakeress, but I don't enjoy that for he does it in a
+way I don't like. It sounds as if he's scoffing at the plain people.
+When I told him about the meeting house and described the service he
+laughed and said that a religion like that might do for a little country
+place but it would never do in a city. I bridled at that and tried to
+tell him about the wholesome, useful lives those people up home lead,
+how much good a woman like Mother Bab can do in the world. But he could
+not be easily convinced. He thinks they are crude and narrow. When I
+told him they are lovely and fine he challenged me and asked if I am
+willing to wear plain clothes and renounce all pleasures, jewelry and
+becoming raiment. I had to tell him I'm not ready for that yet, and he
+smiled triumphantly. He predicted I'll play cards and dance before the
+winter ends. I don't like him when he's so flippant. I want to be loyal
+to my home teaching but I see more clearly every day how great is the
+difference between the pleasures sanctioned by my people and those
+Virginia and her friends enjoy. There's a mystery somewhere I can't
+solve. Like Omar, I "evermore come out at the same door where in I
+went."
+
+
+                                                        _October 29._
+
+To-day we went for a long drive along the Wissahickon. The woods are
+bronze and scarlet now. The wild asters made me homesick for Lancaster
+County. I wanted to get out of the car and walk but Virginia and her
+friends wouldn't join me. I wanted to bury my nose in the goldenrod and
+asters--and get hay fever, one of the girls told me--and I just ached to
+push my way through the tangled bushes along the road and let the golden
+leaves of the hickory and beeches brush my face. It seems that most city
+people I have met don't know how to enjoy nature. They have a
+nodding-from-a-motor-acquaintance with it but I like a real
+handshake-friendship with it. I just wished David were here to-day! He'd
+have taken my hand and run me to the top of the hill and picked a branch
+of scarlet maple to carry with my goldenrod and asters. Well, I can't
+have the penny and the cake. I want to be in the city, of course that's
+the thing I most desire at present--I really am having a good time.
+
+In the evening we went to Holy Trinity Church. The organ recital gripped
+my soul. I wanted it to last for hours. And yet when it was over and the
+rector stood before us and preached one of his impressive sermons I was
+just as much interested as I had been in the music. There's a feeling of
+restful calm comes to me in a big dim church with stained glass
+windows. We stopped in the Cathedral one day last week. That is a
+wonderful place, too. I like the idea of having churches open all the
+time for prayer and meditation. I'm learning so many new ideas these
+days. If I ever do wear the plain dress I'm sure of one thing, I'll be
+broad-minded enough to respect the beliefs of other persons.
+
+
+                                                       _November 11._
+
+I can put another red mark on my calendar. I heard the great Irish
+Tenor! Glory, what a voice! It's the kind can echo in your ears to your
+dying day and follow you with its sweetness everywhere you go! I have
+been humming those lovely Irish songs all day.
+
+But before the recital my heart was heavy. I have no evening gown, no
+evening wrap, so I couldn't join the box party to which one of
+Virginia's friends invited us. I meant to stay at home and not break up
+the party, but Royal insisted upon buying two tickets in a section of
+the opera house where a plainer dress would do. In the end I allowed
+myself to be persuaded by him and we two went to the recital alone. When
+that tenor voice sounded through the place I forgot all about my limited
+wardrobe. I could hear him sing if I were dressed in calico and think of
+nothing but his singing.
+
+
+                                                       _November 12._
+
+I wrote letters to-day. Mother Bab and David write such lovely ones to
+me that I have to try hard to keep up my end of it. Sometimes David
+tells me he is anxious to supply me with the beet juice, cream and flour
+whenever I'm ready to begin the prima donna act. I can hear his laugh
+when I read the letter. Sometimes he's serious and talks about the crops
+of their farm and tells me the community news like an old grandmother.
+Phares Eby writes me an occasional letter, a stilted little note that
+sounds just like Phares. It always has some good advice in it. Aunt
+Maria's letters and daddy's come every week. I'd feel lost without them.
+I like to feel that everybody I care for at home is interested in and
+cares for me even if I am in Philadelphia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+DIARY--CHRYSALIS
+
+
+                                                        _December 3._
+
+I'M as miserable as any mortal can be! Oh, I'm still having a good time
+going around seeing the city, visiting the stores and museums,
+practicing hard in music, pleasing my teacher. But just the same, I'm
+not happy. The reason is this: I want pretty gowns like Virginia wears,
+I want to dance and play cards and see real plays. I dare say I'm a
+contemptible sinner to want all that after the way I've been brought up.
+I ought to be satisfied with all the wonderful things I enjoy in this
+big city but I'm not.
+
+Last week Virginia entertained the Bridge Club and tried to persuade me
+to learn to play and come to the party. Royal was provoked about it. He
+thinks I should learn to play. I told him I should have no peace if I
+learned to do such things.
+
+"Peace," he scorned, "no one has peace these days. The whole world is in
+a turmoil. Do you think your little Quaker-like girls of Lancaster
+County have peace these days?"
+
+"They have peace of mind and conscience."
+
+"But that," he said, "is the peace that touches those who live in
+selfish solitude. The virtue that dwells in the hearts of those who
+retire into hermitages is a negative virtue."
+
+"You speak like a seer, a philosopher," I told him.
+
+"Like a rational human being, I hope," he said petulantly. "But the
+thoughts are not original. I am merely echoing the opinion of sane
+thinkers. I have no appreciation of the foolish and useless sacrifice
+you are persistently making. We were not put on this planet to be dull
+nuns and monks. We have red blood racing through our veins and were not
+intended for sluggishness."
+
+"Yes--but----"
+
+He went off peeved at my refusal to do as he wished.
+
+What can I do? Shall I capitulate? I have wrestled with my desire for
+pleasure until I'm tired of the struggle. My old contentment has
+deserted me. I'm restless and dissatisfied, scarcely knowing what is
+right or wrong.
+
+
+                                                          _Next day._
+
+I'm happy again. Being on the fence grows mighty uncomfortable after a
+while, so I jumped across. I have decided to become a butterfly!
+
+I had luncheon to-day with Virginia. She had to run off to one of her
+Bridge Clubs so I offered to mend the lace on one of her gowns while she
+was gone. I was alone in the sitting-room that adjoins Virginia's
+bedroom. I love that little sitting-room. Virginia and I spend many
+happy hours in it when we want to get away from everybody and have a
+long chat. I like its big comfortable winged chairs by the cheery open
+fire.
+
+I dreamed a while before the fire, the gown across my knees. It's a pink
+gown, that scarcely defined pink of a sea shell. Virginia had often
+tempted me to try it on and see how well I'd look in a dress of that
+kind. The temptation came to do it. I jumped up in sudden determination.
+I _would_ put it on! I'd see for once how I looked in a real gown. I ran
+to Virginia's room to the low dressing table. My hands trembled as I
+opened the tight coils of my hair and shook it until it seemed to nod
+exultingly. I fluffed the curls loosely over my forehead and twisted the
+hair into a fashionable knot. Then I took off my plain blue serge dress
+and slipped the pink one over my head. The soft draperies clung to me,
+the gossamer lace lay upon my breast like a silken mist. I was beautiful
+in that gown and I knew it. It was my hour of appreciation of my own
+charm.
+
+Later I lifted the dress and saw my plain calfskin shoes. I smiled but
+soon grew sober as I thought that the incongruity between gown and shoes
+was no greater than that between the gown and the girl--the girl who was
+reared to wear plain clothes and be honest and unpretentious. But
+honesty--that is the rock to which I cling now. I am going to be honest
+with myself and have my share of happiness while I'm young.
+
+I went back again to the fire, still wearing the borrowed gown. Virginia
+found me there several hours later. When she came in and saw me, a
+gorgeous butterfly, she said, she was very happy. She would have me go
+down to her mother and Royal. I shrank from it but she said I might as
+well become accustomed to being stared at when I was so dazzling and
+beautiful. I went down, feeling almost as much of a culprit as I did the
+day Aunt Maria surprised me at playing prima donna and marched me in to
+the quilting party.
+
+Mrs. Lee was lovely. She is sure I deserve to be happy in my youth.
+Royal went mad. "Ye Gods!" he cried as he ran to me and grasped my
+hands. "You take my breath away! You are like this!" He seized his
+violin and began to play the Spring Song. The quivering ecstasy of
+spring, the mating calls of robins and orioles, the rushing joy of
+bursting blossoms, the delicate perfume of violets and trailing arbutus,
+the dazzling shafts of sunlight pierced by silver showers of capricious
+April--all echoed in the melody of the violin.
+
+"You are like that, that is you!" he said as he laid his instrument
+aside. His words were very sweet to me. The future beckons into sunlit
+paths of joy.
+
+So I have departed from the teachings of my childhood and turned to the
+so-called vanities of the world. I am going to grasp my share of
+happiness while I can enjoy them.
+
+When I went up-stairs again to take off the borrowed gown I was already
+planning the new clothes I want to buy. I must have a pink crepe
+georgette, a pale, pale blue--just as I'm writing this there flashes to
+my mind one of those old Memory Gems I learned in school on the hill.
+
+        "But pleasures are like poppies spread,--
+         You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
+         Or like the snow fall on the river,
+         A moment white, then melts forever."
+
+I wonder, is there always a fly in the ointment!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+DIARY--TRANSFORMATION
+
+
+                                                       _December 15._
+
+A FEW days can make a difference in one's life. I'm well on the way of
+being a real butterfly. I have bought new dresses, a real evening gown
+and a lovely silk dress to wear to the Bridge Club. It's lucky I saved
+my money these three months and had a nice surplus to buy these new
+things.
+
+Royal is teaching me to play cards. He says I take to them like a duck
+to water. Virginia and he are giving me dancing lessons. I love to
+dance! The same spirit that prompted me to skip when I wore sunbonnets
+is now urging me on to the dance. In a few weeks I'll be ready to join
+in the pleasures of my new friends. After the Christmas holidays the
+city will be gay until the Lenten season.
+
+
+                                                         _January 5._
+
+I went home for Christmas and I suppose I managed to make everybody
+there unhappy and worried. I couldn't let them think I am the same quiet
+girl and not tell them about the cards and dancing. Daddy was hurt, but
+he didn't scold me. He said plainly that he does not approve of my
+course, that he thinks cards and dancing wicked. He added that I had
+been taught the difference between right and wrong and was old enough to
+see it. Perhaps he thinks I'll "run my horns off quicker" if I'm let go,
+as Aunt Maria often says about people. But she didn't say that about me.
+She made up for what daddy didn't say. She begged him to make me stay at
+home away from the wicked influences of the city. I had the hardest time
+to keep calm and not say mean things to her. She's ashamed of me and
+afraid people up there will find out how worldly I am. I had to tell
+Mother Bab too. I know I hurt her. She was so gentle and lovely about it
+that I felt half inclined to tell her I'd give up everything she didn't
+approve of, just to please her. But I didn't. I couldn't do that when I
+know I'm not doing anything wrong. She changed the subject and inquired
+about my music. In that I was able to please her. She shared my joy when
+I told her of my critical music master's approval of my progress. I sang
+some of my new songs for her and she kissed me with the same love and
+tenderness she has always had for me. I wonder sometimes whether I could
+possibly have loved my own mother more. Somehow, as I sat with her in
+her dear, cozy sitting-room I hated the cards and the dancing and half
+wished I had never left the farm. But that's a narrow, provincial view
+to take. Now that I'm back again I'm caught once more in the whirl.
+Everybody is entertaining, as if in a frantic endeavor to be surfeited
+before Lent and thus be able to endure the dullness of that period of
+suspended social activities. The harrowing tales of suffering France
+and Belgium have occasioned Benefit Teas and Benefit Bridges and
+Benefit Dances, all for the aid of the war sufferers. Royal usually
+takes me to the social affairs. I enjoy being with him. He's the most
+entertaining man I ever met. He has traveled in Europe and all over our
+own country and can tell what he has seen. He attracts attention,
+whether he speaks or plays or is just silent. One day he said it would
+be a pleasure to travel with me, I enjoy things so and can appreciate
+their beauty. I could scarcely resist telling him how I'd enjoy
+traveling with a man like him. Oh, I dream wild dreams sometimes, but I
+really must stop doing that. The present is too wonderful to go
+borrowing joy from the future.
+
+
+                                                        _February 2._
+
+I'm all in a fluster. I have to write here what happened to-day. If I
+had a mother she could help and advise me but an adopted mother, even
+one as dear and near as Mother Bab, won't do for such confidences.
+
+Royal and I were sitting alone before the open fireplace. It's a
+dangerous place to be! The glowing fire sends such weird shadows
+flickering up and down. Its living fire is sometimes an entreating Circe
+waking undesirable impulses, then again it's a spirit that heals and
+inspires. I love an open fire but to-day I should have fled from it and
+yet--I think I'm glad I didn't.
+
+I looked up suddenly from the gleaming logs--right into the eyes of
+Royal. His voice startled me as he said, with the strangest catch in his
+voice, that my eyes are bluer than the skies. I tried to keep my voice
+ordinary as I lightly told him that some other person once told me they
+are the color of fringed gentians--could he improve on that?
+
+"You little fairy!" he cried. "I can beat that! They are blue as
+bluebirds!" Then he went on impetuously, telling me I was a real
+bluebird of happiness, a bringer of joy; that the ancients called the
+bluebird the emblem of happiness, but he knew the blue of my eyes was
+the real joy sign--or something like that he said. It startled me. I
+tried to tell him he must not talk like that but my words were useless.
+He went on to say that the world was bleak and unlovely till I came to
+Philadelphia and wouldn't I tell him I care for him.
+
+Of course I value his friendship and told him so. But he laughed and
+said I was a wise little girl but I couldn't evade his question like
+that. He said frankly he doesn't want my friendship, he wants my love,
+he must have it!
+
+I felt like a helpless bird. I couldn't answer him. He looked at me, a
+long, searching look. Then he pressed his thin lips together, and a
+moment later, threw back his head and laughed his low laugh.
+
+"Little bluebird," he said softly, "I have frightened you and I wouldn't
+do that for worlds! We'll talk it over some other time, after you have
+had time to think about it. Shall I play for you?"
+
+I nodded and he began to play. But the music didn't soothe me as it
+usually does. There were too many confused thoughts in my brain. Did
+Royal really love me? I looked at his white hands with the long
+tapering nails and the shapely fingers and couldn't help thinking of the
+strong, tanned hands of David Eby. I glanced at the handsome face of the
+musician with its magnetic charm--swiftly the countenance of my old
+playmate rose before me and then slowly faded: David, boyish and
+comradely; David, manly and strong, without ever a sneer or an unholy
+light upon his face. Could I ever forget him? Could I ever look into the
+face of any other man and call it the dearest in the whole world to me?
+Ach--I shook my head and gathered my recreant wits together! I'd forget
+what he said and attribute it to the weird influence of the firelight.
+
+I was glad Virginia came before Royal finished playing. She looked at us
+keenly. I suppose my face was flushed. But Royal seldom loses his
+outward calm. He answered her remarks in his casual way and listened
+with seeming interest to her plans for a pre-Lenten masquerade dance she
+wants to give. She has asked me to go dressed in a plain dress and white
+cap like Aunt Maria wears. I hesitated about it but she has done so much
+for me that I hate to refuse. So I've promised to go to the dance
+dressed in a plain dress and cap.
+
+A little later when Royal left us alone Virginia began to speak about
+him. She said she's so glad we have grown to be friends, in spite of the
+fact that he is so much older than I am. He's thirty-seven, she told me.
+I'm surprised at that. I never thought he's so much older. She mentioned
+something, too, about his being rather a gay Don Juan. I don't know
+just what she means. I'm sure he's a gentleman. Perhaps she expected me
+to tell her what Royal said to me, but how could I do that when I think
+it was just an impulsive burst that he's likely to forget by morning. If
+he really meant it--but I must stop dreaming all sorts of improbable
+dreams! I've had such a glorious time in Philadelphia just living and
+singing and working and playing that I wish it hadn't happened. I'm
+frightened when I think that any serious questions might confront me
+here.
+
+
+                                                       _February 10._
+
+I guessed right when I thought that Royal would forget that foolish
+outburst. He has been perfectly lovely to me, taking me out and buying
+me flowers and telling me about his trips, but he hasn't said one word
+more of sentimental nature. I'm surely getting my share of fun and
+pleasure these days. There are so many things to enjoy, so much to learn
+from my fellow-boarders and every one I meet, that the days are all too
+short. Between times I'm making a dress and cap for the masquerade
+dance. I hate sewing. I lost all love for it during my years of calico
+patching. But I don't mind making the dress for I'm eager for the dance,
+my first masquerade party. I'm hoping for a good time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+DIARY--PLAIN FOR A NIGHT
+
+
+                                                       _February 21._
+
+LAST night was the masquerade. I wore the plain gray dress, apron and
+cape and a white cap on my head. I felt rather like a hypocrite as I
+looked at myself in the glass, but Virginia said it was just the thing
+and certainly would not be duplicated by any other guest.
+
+I was dressed early and started down the stairs, my black mask swinging
+from my hand. As I rounded a curve in the stairway I glanced casually
+down the wide hall. The colored servant had admitted visitors. I looked
+in that direction--the mask fell from my hand and I ran down the steps
+and into the arms of Mother Bab! I couldn't say more than "Oh, oh!" as I
+kissed her over and over. When she got her breath she said happily,
+"Phoebe, you're plain!"
+
+Oh, how it hurt me! I took her and David to a little nook off the
+library where we could be alone and then I had to tell her that I was
+wearing the plain dress and white cap as a masquerade dress. Even when I
+told her I learned to dance and do things she thinks are worldly there
+was no look of pain on her face like the look I brought there as I stood
+before her in a dress she reverenced and told her I wore it in a spirit
+of fun. I'll never get over being sorry for hurting her like that. But
+Mother Bab rallies quickly from every hurt. She soon smiled and said she
+understood. David came to my aid. He assured his mother that they knew I
+could take care of myself and would not do anything really wrong. I
+couldn't thank him for his kindness. I felt suddenly all weepy and
+tearful. But David began to talk on in his old friendly way and tell
+about the home news and about the Big Doctor he had taken Mother Bab to
+see in Philadelphia and how he hoped she would soon be able to see
+perfectly again. While he talked Mother Bab and I had a chance to
+recover a bit. I noted a quick shadow pass over her face as he spoke
+about her eyes--was she less hopeful about them than he was? Had the Big
+Doctor told her something David did not hear? But no! I dismissed the
+thought--Mother Bab could not go blind! She would never be asked to
+suffer that! I soon forgot my troublesome thoughts as she hastened to
+say that perhaps her eyes would improve more quickly than the doctor
+promised. Then she changed the subject--"Now, Phoebe, I hope I didn't
+hurt you about the dress. I guess I looked at you as if I wanted to eat
+you. I love you and wouldn't hurt you for anything."
+
+"Mother Bab!" I gave her a real hug like I used to do when I ran
+barefooted up the hill with some childish perplexity and she helped me.
+"You're an angel! Mother Bab, David, having a good time won't hurt me.
+Our views up home are too narrow. It's all right to expect older people
+to do nothing more exciting than go to Greenwald to the store, to church
+every Sunday, to an occasional quilting or carpet-rag party, and to
+Lancaster to shop several times a year, but the younger generation needs
+other things."
+
+"I guess you mean it can't be Lent all the time for you," she suggested
+with a smile.
+
+"I just knew you'd understand."
+
+Just then Royal began to play and the music floated in to us. It was
+Traumerei. Mother Bab's tired face relaxed as she leaned back to listen
+to the piercingly sweet melody. David looked at me--I knew he was asking
+whether the player was Royal Lee.
+
+"Oh, Davie," Mother Bab said innocently as the music ended, "if only you
+could play like that!"
+
+"If I could," he said half bitterly, "but all I can do is farm. Are you
+coming home this spring?" he asked me, as if to forget the violin and
+its player.
+
+"I don't know. I'll probably stay here until early June. I may go away
+with Virginia for part of the summer."
+
+"Not be home for spring and summer!" he said dismally. "Why, it won't be
+spring without you! We can't go for bird-foot violets or arbutus."
+
+Arbutus--the name called up a host of memories to me. "How I'd like to
+go for arbutus this spring," I told him.
+
+"Then come home in April and I'll take you to Mt. Hope for some."
+
+"Oh, David, will you?"
+
+"I'd love to. We'll drive up."
+
+"I'll come," I promised. "I'll come home for arbutus. Let me know when
+they're out."
+
+"All right. But I think we must go now or we'll miss the train."
+
+"Go?" I echoed. "You're not going home to-night? Can't you stay? Mrs.
+McCrea has vacant rooms. I've been so excited I forgot my manners. Let
+me take you to the sitting-room and introduce you to Mrs. Lee and
+Royal."
+
+"Ach, no," Mother Bab protested. "We can't stay that long. We just
+stopped in to see you."
+
+David looked at his watch. "We must go now. There's a train at
+eight-twenty-one gets to Lancaster at ten-forty-five and we'll get the
+last car out to Greenwald and Phares will meet us and drive us home."
+
+I asked about the home folks as I watched David adjust Mother Bab's
+shawl. He looked older and worried. I suppose he was disappointed
+because the Big Doctor didn't promise a quick cure for Mother Bab's
+eyes.
+
+As they said good-bye and left me I wanted to run after them and ask
+them to take me home, back to the simple life of my people. But I stayed
+where I was, the earthiest worldling in a dress of unworldliness.
+
+"I--I believe I'll take it off," I thought as I stood in the doorway.
+
+Just then Royal opened the door and saw me. "Ye Gods!" he exclaimed,
+"you look like a saint, Phoebe."
+
+"But I'm not! I'm far from being a saint!"
+
+"Don't be one, please. If you turn saint I shall be disconsolate. I
+don't like saints of women and I want to keep on liking you, little
+Bluebird. Remember, you promised me the first dance."
+
+"I don't know--I don't feel like dancing."
+
+"Oh, but you must! You look like a Quakeress but no one expects you to
+act like one to-night. I'm going up to dress--I'm going as a monk to
+match you."
+
+He ran off, laughing, and I went in search of Virginia. My heart was
+heavy. The sudden appearance of Mother Bab and David brought me a vivid
+impression of the contrast between their lives and mine and the thoughts
+left me worried and restless. What was I doing? Was I shaping my life in
+such a way that it would never again fit into the simple grooves of
+country life? The dance lost its charm for me. I danced and made merry
+and tried to enter into the gay spirit of the occasion but I longed all
+the time to be with Mother Bab and David riding to Lancaster County.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+DIARY--DECLARATIONS
+
+
+                                                          _March 22._
+
+SPRING is here but I'd never know it if I didn't read the calendar. I
+haven't seen a robin or heard a song-sparrow. Just the same, I've had a
+wonderful time these past weeks. Of course my music gets first
+attention. I'm getting on well, though I'm beginning to see what a long,
+long time it will take before I become a great singer. Since I have
+heard really great singers I wonder whether I was not too presumptuous
+when I thought I might be one some day. I went to several big churches
+lately and heard fine music.
+
+I thought Lent would be a dull season but it's been gay enough for me.
+There has been unusual activity, Virginia says, because of so many
+charitable affairs held for the benefit of the war sufferers.
+
+I bought a new spring hat, a dream. Hope Aunt Maria never asks me what I
+paid for it. After wearing Greenwald hats all my life this one was
+coming to me.
+
+But my thoughts are not all of frivolous matters. I have taken advantage
+of some of the opportunities Philadelphia offers to improve my mind and
+broaden my vision. I've been to lectures and plays and enjoyed them all.
+
+I asked Royal to-day why he never worked. He laughed and said I was an
+inquisitive Bluebird. Then he told me his parents left him enough money
+to live without working. He never did a solid hour's real work in his
+whole life. With his talent and his personal attractions he might become
+a famous musician if he had some odds to fight against or some person to
+encourage him and make him do his best. He said he knows he never
+developed his talent to the full extent but that since he knows me he is
+playing better than he did before. I wonder if I really am an
+inspiration to him. I suppose a genius does need a wife or sympathetic
+friend to bring out the best in him. He has been so lovely, showing his
+fondness for me in many ways, but he has never said anything sentimental
+like he did the day we sat by the fire. Sometimes he does say ambiguous
+things that I can't understand. He is surely giving me a long time to
+think it over. I like him but I'm afraid he's cynical, and it worries
+me.
+
+There are other things, too, to dim the blue these days. War clouds are
+threatening. U-boats of Germany are sinking our vessels. Where will it
+all end?
+
+
+                                                           _April 7._
+
+War has been declared. America is in it at last. I came home to-day
+feeling disheartened and sad. War was the topic everywhere I went.
+Papers, bulletin-boards flaunted the words, "The world must be made safe
+for democracy." People on the streets and in cars spoke about it,
+newsboys yelled till they were hoarse.
+
+I stopped to see Virginia but she was out. Royal said he'd entertain me
+till she returned. He laughed at my tragic weariness about the war.
+
+"I'll tell you, Bluebird," he whispered as he sat beside me, "we'll talk
+of something better. I love you."
+
+The fire in his eyes frightened me. I couldn't look at him. "Why do you
+say such things?" I asked, and I couldn't keep my voice from trembling.
+
+That didn't hush him--he said some more. He told me how he loves me, how
+he waited for me all his life and wants me with him. He quoted the verse
+I like so much, "Thou beside me singing in the wilderness--O wilderness
+were Paradise enow!" Then he asked me frankly if I loved him.
+
+I couldn't answer right away. Now that the thing I had dreamed of was
+actually happening I was dazed and stupid and sat like a bump-on-a-log.
+
+He asked me again and before I knew what he was doing he had taken me
+into his arms and kissed me. "Say you love me," he pleaded.
+
+I said what he wanted to hear and he kissed me again. We were both very
+happy. It is almost too wonderful to believe!
+
+A few minutes later we heard Virginia enter the hall and we came back to
+earth. I know my cheeks still burned but Royal's ready poise served him
+well. He told his cousin he had been trying to make me forget about the
+war.
+
+Virginia probably thought my excitement was due to the war. She began at
+once to speak about it. "America is in it and we can't forget it. Every
+true American must help."
+
+"Do your bit, knit," chanted the musician.
+
+She asked him if he is going to do his bit. He flushed and looked vexed,
+then explained that he can neither knit nor fight, that he is a
+musician.
+
+Virginia argued that if he could play a violin he could learn to play a
+bugle, that many of the men who will fight for the flag are men who have
+never been taught to fight. She spoke as if she thought Royal should
+enlist in some branch of government service at once.
+
+I resented her words. "Do you want Royal to go to war and be killed?" I
+asked her.
+
+"My dear," she said solemnly, "have you ever heard that there is such a
+thing as losing one's life by trying to save it?"
+
+That startled me. I realized then that the war is going to be a very
+serious matter, that there will be work for each one of us to do. But
+Royal laughed and made me forget temporarily every solemn, sad thing. He
+told Virginia that she was over-zealous, that she need not worry about
+him. He'd be a true American and give his money to help protect the
+flag. We began to play Bridge then and I thought no more about the war
+for an hour or two.
+
+
+                                                          _April 12._
+
+I have learned to knit. Virginia has taught me and we are elbow-deep in
+gray and khaki wool. I have wound it and purled it and worked on the
+thing till I'm tasting fuzz. But I do want to do the little bit I can to
+help my country. This war _is_ a serious matter. Already people are
+talking about who is going to enlist--what if David would go! I hope he
+won't--yet I don't want him to be a coward. Oh, it's all too confusing
+and terrible to think long about. I try to forget it for a time by
+remembering that Royal Lee cares for me. He has told me over and over
+that he loves me. Love _must_ be blind, for he thinks I am beautiful and
+perfect. I'm glad I look like that to him. We should be happy when we
+are married, for we are so congenial, both loving music and things of
+beauty. It's queer, though, I have thought of it several times--he has
+never mentioned our marriage. I suppose he's too happy in the present to
+make plans for the future. But I know he is a gentleman, therefore his
+words of love are synonymous with an offer of marriage. All that will
+come later. It's enough now just to know we care for each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+DIARY--"THE LINK MUST BREAK AND THE LAMP MUST DIE"
+
+
+                                                          _April 13._
+
+I'M in sackcloth and ashes. My dream castles have tumbled down upon my
+head and left me bruised and sorrowful. I'm awake at last! I'd like to
+bury my face in my old red and green patchwork quilt and ask forgiveness
+for being a fool. But I must compose myself and write this last chapter
+of my romance.
+
+Last night the "Singer with the Voice of Gold" gave a recital in the
+Academy of Music. Royal and I helped to make up a merry box party. I
+felt festive and gay in my lovely white crepe georgette gown. Royal said
+I looked like a dream and that made me radiant, I know.
+
+As we sat down I whispered to him that I was excited because hearing
+that great singer has always been one of my dearest dreams and now the
+dream was coming true. He whispered back that more of my dreams would
+soon come true. I made him hush, for several people were looking at us.
+But his words sent my heart thrilling.
+
+The Academy became quiet as the singer appeared, then the audience gave
+her a real Brotherly Love welcome and settled once more into silence as
+her beautiful voice rose in the place. The operatic selections were
+beautifully rendered. I thought her voice was most captivating in the
+simple songs everybody knows. Annie Laurie had new charm as she sang it.
+When she sang that Royal whispered, "That is what I feel for you." I
+smiled into his eyes, then turned again to look at the singer. Could I
+ever sing like that? Would the dreams of my childhood come true? It
+seemed improbable and yet--I had traveled a long way from the little
+girl of the tight braids and brown gingham dresses, I thought. Perhaps
+the future would bring still more wonderful changes.
+
+The hours in the Academy of Music passed like a beautiful dream. I
+shrank from the last song, though. It was too much like some fatal, dire
+prophecy:
+
+        "The cord is frayed, the cruse is dry,
+         The link must break, and the lamp must die--
+         Good-bye to hope! Good-bye, good-bye!"
+
+I told Royal I didn't like it, it was too much like Cassandra.
+
+He laughed and said she generally sings it, but that it couldn't hurt
+us--was I superstitious?
+
+"No, oh, no," I declared. But I wished I could forget the words of that
+song.
+
+Some of the party decided that a proper ending to the delightful evening
+would be a visit to a fashionable cafe. I didn't care to go. Royal urged
+me till I consented and I soon found myself in a beautiful place where
+merry groups of people were seated about small tables. Any desire for
+food I might have had left me as I heard Royal and the other men order
+wines and highballs.
+
+"What will you have, Phoebe?" Royal asked me.
+
+I gasped--"Why--nothing."
+
+"Be a sport," he urged, "look around and do as the 'Romans do.'"
+
+I looked around. Some of the women were smoking, others were drinking.
+
+"Oh," I said, "this is dreadful. Let's go."
+
+Royal laughed and the others teased me. One of the girls said I'd be
+doing all those things before the year ended. When I declared I would
+not Royal reminded me that I had said the same about cards and dancing.
+His words silenced me. I felt engulfed in shame and deeply hurt. How
+could Royal be amused at my discomfiture if he loved me! Did he love me?
+Did I want him to? Could I promise to honor and love him all my life?
+But perhaps he was teasing me--ah, that was it! I breathed more easily
+again. Royal was teasing me, sure of my refusal to indulge in any
+intoxicant. The others ate and made merry while I toyed idly with the
+glass of ginger ale the waiter brought me against my wish. I mused and
+dreamed--would Royal like my people? Somehow, he seemed an incongruity
+among the dear ones at the gray farmhouse in Lancaster County. What
+would he say when we ate in the kitchen and daddy came to the table in
+his shirt sleeves? Love can bridge greater chasms than that, I thought.
+When we are married----
+
+"Royal Lee, are you ever going to marry?" The question broke into my
+revery.
+
+I looked at Royal. There was no rise of color in his handsome face. He
+returned my look dispassionately then turned to his teasing, inquisitive
+friend.
+
+"I'm a bachelor forever," he declared. "But that does not keep me from
+loving. Women I care for have too much good sense to think that marriage
+always follows love. Ye Gods, I think love goes when marriage comes, so
+you'll have no chance to see my love interred."
+
+I clenched my hands under the table. I felt my lips go white. How could
+he hurt me so? Of course our love was not a thing to be paraded in a
+public place but if he really cared for me as I thought he did he could
+have answered differently. An evasive answer would have served. An hour
+ago he had whispered tender words to me and now he frankly informed all
+present that he was a bachelor forever. I could not grasp the full
+significance of his words at once. I was dazed by the shock of them. I
+wanted to get away and be alone, to cry, to think, to determine what he
+had meant by his demonstrations of love if he did not hope to win me for
+his wife.
+
+But later, when I went to bed in the pretty blue and white room next
+Virginia's, I did not cry. I lay wide awake thinking over and over, "How
+could he do it? Why is he heartless? Was he only playing?"
+
+When morning came I had partially decided that I had been a ready, silly
+fool; that Royal Lee had merely whiled the hours away more pleasantly
+because of my love. I felt tempted to denounce him but I thought that
+would afford him additional amusement and make me not a whit less
+miserable. I was eager to get away from him. I desired but one little
+moment alone with him to satisfy myself that I did not judge him
+unjustly. Fortunately he came to the sitting-room as I sat there staring
+at the page of a magazine.
+
+"Alone?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Phoebe"--he drew nearer and I rose and stood away from him. "My
+Bluebird! You look unhappy. Are you still shocked at the smoking and
+drinking you saw last night? It's all in the game, you know. Why not be
+happy along with the rest of us, why be a prude?"
+
+I shivered. Couldn't he know why I was unhappy! How false and fickle he
+was! I wouldn't wear my heart on my sleeve for him to read and laugh
+about. All my Metz determination rose in me.
+
+"Why," I lied, "I'm not unhappy. I'm just tired. Late hours don't agree
+with me."
+
+He stretched out his arm but I eluded him. "Don't," I said lightly;
+"we've been foolish long enough."
+
+"Why"--he looked at me keenly. But I was determined he should not read
+my feelings. I smiled in spite of my contempt for him. "Why, Phoebe," he
+said tenderly, "what has changed you? Why shouldn't I kiss you when I
+love you? Love never hurt any one."
+
+"No--but----"
+
+"But what?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, nothing," I said, stepping farther away from him. "I'm in a hurry
+this morning. Good-bye." And for the first time I saw a look of chagrin
+mar the handsome face of Royal Lee. Before he could recover his
+customary equanimity I was gone from the house.
+
+I walked, caring not where the way led. My brain was in a whirl. I felt
+as though I were fleeing from a crumbling precipice. In a flash I
+understood Virginia's tactful attempts at warning. She had tried to make
+me understand but my head was too easily turned by the fine speeches and
+flattering attentions of the musician. I have been vain and foolish but
+I've had my lesson. It still hurts and yet I can see the value of it.
+I'll be better qualified after this to discriminate between the false
+and true.
+
+I am going home to-day! It came to me suddenly as I went back to my
+boarding-house after my long walk. I promised David I'd come home for
+arbutus and the inspiration came to go home for the whole spring and
+summer. I'll write a note to Mr. Krause and one to Virginia. Dear
+Virginia, she has been so good to me and helped me in so many ways! I
+can never thank her enough. These eight months in Philadelphia have been
+a liberal education for me. I'll never regret them. I hope to come back
+in the fall and go on with the music lessons. By that time Royal Lee
+will have found another to make love to.
+
+So I'm going home to-day, back to Lancaster County. The trees are green
+and the flowers are out--oh, I'm wild to get back!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+"HAME'S BEST"
+
+
+LANCASTER COUNTY never before looked so fertile, so lovely, as it did
+that April day when Phoebe returned to it after a long winter in
+Philadelphia.
+
+As she came unexpectedly there was no one to meet her at Greenwald. She
+started across the street and was soon on the dusty road leading to the
+gray farmhouse.
+
+"Let me see," she thought, "this is Friday afternoon and Aunt Maria will
+be scrubbing the kitchen floor."
+
+But when the girl reached the kitchen of the gray house and tiptoed
+gently over the sill she found the big room in order and Aunt Maria
+absent.
+
+"Why," she thought, "is Aunt Maria sick?" She opened the door to the
+sitting-room and there, seated by a window, was Aunt Maria with a ball
+of gray wool in her lap and five steel knitting needles plying in her
+hands.
+
+"Aunt Maria!"
+
+"Why, Phoebe!"
+
+The exclamations came simultaneously.
+
+"What in the world are you doing? I mean why aren't you cleaning the
+kitchen? Oh, Aunt Maria, you know what I mean! I never saw you sitting
+down early on a Friday afternoon."
+
+Aunt Maria laughed. "I ain't sick! You can see what I'm doin'; I'm
+knittin'. Ain't you learned to do it yet? I can learn you."
+
+"Why, I know how. But what are you knitting? For the Red Cross?"
+
+"Why not? You think the ladies in Phildelphy are the only ones do that?
+There's a Red Cross in Greenwald and they are askin' all who can to
+help. I used to knit all my own stockings still so I thought I'd pitch
+right in. I let the cleanin' slide a little this week so I could get a
+good start on this once."
+
+The girl gasped and looked at her aunt in wonder. All the days of her
+life she had never known her aunt to "let the cleanin' slide," if the
+physical strength were there to do the work. Aunt Maria was working for
+the Red Cross! While she, who had scorned the country folks and called
+them narrow, had knitted half-heartedly and spent the major part of her
+time in the pursuit of pleasure, the people of the little town and
+surrounding country had been doing real work for humanity.
+
+"I think you're splendid, Aunt Maria, to help the Red Cross," she said
+with enthusiasm.
+
+The woman looked up from her knitting. "Why, how dumb you talk! I guess
+abody wants to help. Them soldiers are fightin' for us. Now you can get
+yourself something to eat. It vonders me, anyhow, why you come home this
+time of the year. You said you'd stay till June."
+
+"I came because I want to be here."
+
+"So. Then I guess you got enough once of the city."
+
+"Yes," said Phoebe, laughing. "But how is everybody?"
+
+"All pretty good. But a lot of boys from round here went a'ready to
+enlist. I ain't for war, but I guess it has to come sometimes. But it's
+hard for them that has boys."
+
+"David?" Phoebe asked. "Has he gone?"
+
+"Ach, no, not him. He's got his mom to take care of."
+
+Phoebe remembered Virginia's words, "We can't get away from it, we're in
+it." The thought of them made her feel depressed. "I'm going to forget
+the war," she thought after a moment, "I'm going to forget it for
+to-morrow and have one perfect day in the mountains hunting arbutus."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+TRAILING ARBUTUS
+
+
+IT was a balmy day in April when Phoebe and David drove over the country
+roads to the mountains where the trailing arbutus grow.
+
+"Spring o' the year," called the meadow-larks in clear, piercing tones.
+
+"It is spring o' the year," said Phoebe. "I know it now. But last week I
+felt sure that the calendar was wrong and I wondered whether God made
+only English sparrows this year; that was all I could see. Then I saw a
+few birds early this week when we went along the Wissahickon for a long
+walk. Oh, no," she said in answer to the unspoken question in his eyes,
+"I did not go alone with a man. In Philadelphia one does not do that. I
+went properly chaperoned by Mrs. Hale. Virginia and Royal and several
+others were in the party. You should have been there; you would have
+enjoyed it for you know so much about birds and flowers. Royal didn't
+know a spring beauty from a bloodroot, and when we heard a song-sparrow
+he said it was a thrush."
+
+David threw back his head and laughed. "Some nature student he must be!
+But it must be fine along the Wissahickon. I have read about it."
+
+"It is fine, but this is finer."
+
+"You better say so!"
+
+"Oh, look, David, the soil is pink!" She pointed to a tilled field whose
+soil was colored a soft old rose color. "I'm always glad to see the pink
+soil."
+
+"So am I. It means that we are getting near the mountains. We'll drive
+over to Hull's tavern and leave the carriage there, then we can go to
+the patch of woods near the tavern where we used to find the great
+beauties, the fine big ones. There's the old tavern now." He pointed to
+a building with a fine background of wooded hills.
+
+Hull's tavern, a rambling structure erected in 1812, is still an
+interesting stopping-place for summer excursionists and travelers
+through that mountainous section of Pennsylvania. Situated on the south
+side of the beautiful South Mountains and overlooking the richest of
+hills, it has long been a popular roadhouse, accommodating many pleasure
+parties and hikers.
+
+Phoebe wandered about on the long porches while David took the horse to
+the stable.
+
+"Now then," he said as he joined her, "give me the lunch box and we'll
+be off."
+
+They walked a short distance in the loamy soil of the mountain road and
+then turned aside and scrambled up a steep bank to a tract of woodland.
+Phoebe sank on her knees in the dry, brown leaves and pushed aside the
+leaves. "There," she cried in triumph a moment later, "I found the first
+one!" She lifted a small cluster of trailing arbutus and gave it to
+David.
+
+"Um-ah," he said, in imitation of a little girl of long ago.
+
+"Little Dutchie," she answered. "But you can't provoke me to-day. I'm
+too happy to be peevish. Come, kneel down, you'll never find arbutus
+when you stand up."
+
+"I'm down," he said as he knelt beside her. "I'd go on my knees to find
+arbutus any day."
+
+"So would I---- Oh, look at this--and this! They are perfect." She
+fairly trembled with joy as she uncovered the waxlike flowers of dainty
+pink and white. "I could bury my nose in them forever."
+
+"They are perfect," agreed the man. "Fancy living where you never saw
+any arbutus or had the joy of picking them."
+
+"I don't want to fancy that, it's too delicious being where they do
+grow. Won't Mother Bab love them?"
+
+"Yes. She'll keep them for days in water. That flower you gave her in
+Philadelphia lasted four days."
+
+"These are better," Phoebe said quickly, anxious to shut out all
+thoughts of the city. Now that she was in the woods again she knew how
+hungry she had been for them. "I am going to pick a bunch of big ones
+for Mother Bab."
+
+"She would like the small ones every whit as much," the man declared.
+
+"Perhaps better," she mused. "She would say they are just as sweet and
+pretty. David, I don't know what I should have done without Mother Bab!
+My life was different, somehow, after she allowed me to adopt her."
+
+"She's great, isn't she?"
+
+"Wonderful! I have many friends, many new ones, many dear ones, but
+there is only one Mother Bab."
+
+The man's hands trembled among the arbutus--did the admiration touch
+Mother Bab's son? Could the dreams of his heart ever come true?
+
+"You know," Phoebe went on, "if I could always have her near me, in the
+same house, I'd be less unworthy of calling her Mother Bab."
+
+It was well that she bent over the dry leaves and blossoms and missed
+the look that flooded the face of the man for a moment. She wanted to be
+with Mother Bab--should he tell her of his love? But the very fact that
+she spoke thus was evidence that she did not love him as he desired. And
+the war must change his most cherished plans for the future, change them
+greatly for a time. If he went and never returned it would be harder for
+her if he went as her lover. As it was he was merely her old comrade and
+friend; he could read from her manner that no deeper feeling had touched
+her--not for him, but he wondered about the musician----
+
+The spell was broken when Phoebe spoke again: "Do you know, Davie, I
+read somewhere that arbutus can't be made to grow anywhere except in its
+own woods, that the most skilful hand of man or woman can't transplant
+it to a garden where the soil is different from its native soil."
+
+"I never heard that before, but I remember that I tried several times
+and failed. I dug up a big box of the soil to make it grow, but it
+lasted several months and died. Let us go along this path and find a
+new bed; we have almost cleaned this one."
+
+"See"--she raised her bunch of flowers--"I didn't take a single root, so
+next year when we come we shall find as many as this year. They are too
+altogether lovely to be exterminated."
+
+They moved about the woods, finding new patches of the fragrant flowers,
+until they declared it would be robbery to take another one.
+
+"Let's eat," she suggested; "I'm hungry as a bear."
+
+"Race you to that big rock," cried David and began to run. Phoebe
+followed through the brush and dry leaves, but the farmer covered the
+distance too quickly for her.
+
+"Now I'm hungry," she said, panting; "I'll eat more than my share of the
+lunch."
+
+She climbed to the top of the boulder and they sat side by side, the
+lunch box resting on David's knees.
+
+"Now anything you want ask for," said he.
+
+"I will not!" She delved into the box and brought out a sandwich. "It's
+mine as much as yours."
+
+"Going in for Woman's Suffrage and Rights and the like?" he asked,
+laughing.
+
+"Ugh," she wrinkled her nose, "don't mention things like that to-day. I
+don't want to hear about war or work or problems or anything but just
+pure joy this day! I earned this perfect day this year. This is to be a
+day of all-joy for us. Have another sandwich? I'm going to--this makes
+only four more left for each. Aunt Maria knew what she was doing when
+she made me take this big box of lunch for just us two. Now, aren't you
+glad that I brought lunch in a box instead of eating our dinner at
+Hull's as you suggested?" she said as she kicked her feet, little girl
+fashion, against the side of the boulder.
+
+"Of course I am glad. I was afraid you might like dinner at the tavern
+better, that is why I suggested it."
+
+"Don't you know me better than that? Why, we can eat in dining-rooms
+three hundred and sixty-four days in every year. This is one day when we
+eat in the birds' dining-room."
+
+"I am enjoying it, Phoebe. It is the first picnic I have had for a long
+time. I can't tell how I'm drinking in the joy of it."
+
+"Now," said Phoebe later, when the last crumb had been taken out of the
+lunch box, "we can pack the arbutus in this box. If you find some damp
+moss I'll arrange them."
+
+She laid the flowers on the cushion of moss, covered them with a few
+damp leaves and closed the box. "That will keep them fresh," she said.
+"Now for our drink of mountain water, then home again."
+
+Farther in the woods they found the spring. In a little cove edged with
+laurel bushes and overhung with chestnut trees and tall oaks it sent up
+a bubbling fountain of cold water.
+
+"I'm sorry the picnic is over," said Phoebe as she leaned over the clear
+water and drank the cold draught.
+
+"There is still the lovely drive home," he consoled her.
+
+"Yes," she said as they turned and walked back through the woods to the
+road again, "and I shall remember this day for a long time. In the
+spring it's dreadful to be shut in the city."
+
+"I believe you are growing tired of Philadelphia."
+
+"Yes and no. I love the many things to do and see there, but on a day
+like this I think the country is the place to really enjoy the spring. I
+wish you could come down some time to the city; there are many places of
+interest you would like to visit."
+
+"Yes." He opened his lips to tell her that he was soon to be in the
+service of his country, then he remembered that she had said she did not
+want to hear the word war on that day, it must be a day of all joy, so
+he closed his mouth resolutely and merely smiled in answer as she
+entered the carriage for the ride home. They spoke of many things; she
+was gay with the childish happiness she always felt in the woods or open
+country roads. He answered her gaiety, but his heart ached. What did the
+future hold for him? Would she, perchance, love another before he could
+return--would he return?
+
+"Look," Phoebe said after they had driven several miles, "it is going to
+storm--see how dark! We are going to have an April storm."
+
+Even as they looked up black clouds moved swiftly across the sky. They
+turned and looked toward the mountains behind them--the summits were
+shrouded in dense blackness; the whole countryside was being enveloped
+in a gloom like the gloom of late twilight. There was an ominous silence
+in the air, living things of the fields and woods scurried to shelter;
+only a solitary red-headed woodpecker tapped noisily upon a dead tree
+trunk.
+
+Suddenly sharp flashes of lightning darted in zigzag rays through the
+gloom.
+
+Phoebe gripped the side of the carriage. "The storm is following us,"
+she said. "Look at the hills--they are black as night. Can we get home
+before the storm breaks over us?"
+
+"Hardly. It travels faster than we can, and we still have four more
+miles to go."
+
+The horse sniffed the air through inflated nostrils and sped unbidden
+over the country road. The lightning grew more vivid and blinding and
+darted among the hills with greater frequency; loud peals of thunder
+echoed and reechoed among the mountains. Then the rain came. In great
+splashes, which increased rapidly, it poured its cool torrents upon the
+earth.
+
+Phoebe laughed but David shook his head. "We'll have to stop some place
+till it's over. You're getting wet. I'll drive in this barnyard."
+
+Amid the deafening crashes of thunder and the steady downpour of rain
+they ran through the barnyard and up the path that led to the house. As
+they stepped upon the porch a door was opened and a woman appeared.
+
+"Why, come right in!" she greeted them. "This is a bad storm."
+
+"If you don't mind," Phoebe began, but the woman was talkative and broke
+in, "Now, I just knowed there'd be company come to-day yet! This after
+when I dried the dishes I dropped a knife and fork and that's a sure
+sign. Mebbe you don't believe in signs?"
+
+"They come true sometimes," said Phoebe.
+
+"Ach, yes, my granny used to plant her garden by the signs in the
+almanac. Cabbage, now, must be planted in the up-sign. But mebbe you're
+hungry after your drive? I'll get some cake."
+
+"We had lunch----"
+
+"Ach, if your man's like mine he can eat cake any time." She opened a
+door that led to the cellar and soon returned with a plate piled high
+with cake. "Now eat," she invited. "But, ach, I just thought of it--you
+said you come from Greenwald--then I guess you know about Caleb Warner
+dying, killing himself, or something."
+
+"Caleb Warner dying!" David echoed. He half started from his chair, then
+sank with a visible effort at self-control.
+
+"Yes. I guess you know him. My mister was in to dinner a while ago and
+he said it went over the 'phone at Risser's and Jacob Risser told him
+that Caleb Warner of Greenwald was dead. It was from gas or something
+funny like that. It's the Warner that sold that oil stock and gold
+stock. You know him?"
+
+David nodded, his lips dry.
+
+"Well, I guess now a lot of people will lose money. There's a lady lives
+near here that gave him almost all her money for some of his stock. For
+a while she got big interest from it, but then it stopped and now she
+ain't got hardly enough money to live. And I guess a lot will lose
+money. My mister had no time for that stock. But if the man's dead now
+we should let him rest, I guess."
+
+"Yes----" David braced himself. "The rain is over. Phoebe, we must go."
+
+He smiled to the little woman as he gripped her hand. "You have been
+very kind to us and we appreciate it."
+
+"Yes, indeed," echoed Phoebe. "I hope we have not kept you from your
+work."
+
+"Ach, I can work enough to-day yet. I like company and I don't have much
+of it week-days. Um, ain't it good smelly after the rain?" She sniffed,
+smiling, as she followed Phoebe and David down the path to the barnyard.
+
+"Good-bye," she called as they drove off. "Safe home."
+
+"Thank you. Good-bye," Phoebe called over the side of the carriage.
+Then, as they entered again upon the country road, she turned to her
+place beside David.
+
+She looked up at him. All the light and joy had faded from his face; he
+stared straight head, though he must have felt her eyes' intent gaze
+upon him.
+
+"David," she said softly, "what is wrong?"
+
+"Nothing," he lied.
+
+"Seems you look different," she persisted. "Is it anything about Caleb
+Warner's death?"
+
+"I'm not much of a stoic, Phoebe. I should have hidden my worry. But you
+must forget it; we must not let it spoil our perfect day. It really is
+no great matter. I am affected, in some way you can't know, by his
+death, but I'll get over it," he tried to treat the matter lightly.
+
+But Phoebe felt a sudden heaviness of heart. She was almost certain that
+David had had no money to buy any stock from Caleb Warner, therefore,
+she jumped to the conclusion, it must be that David cared for Mary
+Warner, as town gossip said he did, and that the death of the girl's
+father would affect him. She felt hurt and baffled and sorely rebuffed
+at the withholding of David's confidence and was worried as she saw the
+marks of worry in the face of the man. Womanlike, she felt certain that
+the other girl was not good enough for David. Mary Warner, beautiful,
+aristocratic in bearing and manner--what had she to do with a man like
+David Eby! Was an incipient engagement with Mary Warner the Aladdin's
+lamp David had mentioned several times as being on the verge of rubbing
+and thus become rich? The thought left her trembling; she shivered in
+the April sunshine. When David spoke it was with an abstracted manner,
+and the girl beside him finally said, "Oh, don't let us talk. Let us
+just sit and look at the fields and enjoy the scenery."
+
+She said it calmly enough, but the man beside her could not know that it
+required the last shreds of her courage to keep her voice from breaking.
+She would not let David see that she cared if he did care for Mary
+Warner! Of course, she didn't want to marry him, it was merely that she
+knew Mary was too haughty for him. Mother Bab would also say that he was
+too different from Mary, that he was too fine for her. Then she
+remembered that Mother Bab had said on the previous evening that the
+Warners had taken David to Hershey recently in their fine new car. She
+shook herself in an effort at self-control. "Phoebe," she thought,
+"you're selfish! You go to Philadelphia and you go out with Royal Lee
+and dance with other young men, and yet, when David pays attention to
+another girl you have a spasm!"
+
+But the self-administered discipline failed to correct her attitude. She
+knew their day of all-joy was changed for her as it had been changed for
+David. The jealousy in her heart could not be quite overcome. She was
+glad when they reached familiar fields and were on the road near
+Greenwald.
+
+"Will you come in?" she invited as she left the carriage.
+
+"No. I better go right home."
+
+"I'll divide the flowers, David."
+
+"Oh, keep them all."
+
+"No, indeed. Mother Bab would be disappointed if you brought her none."
+
+She opened the box, separated half of the arbutus from their mates and
+laid them in the uplifted corner of her coat. "There," she said, "the
+rest are yours and Mother Bab's. It was perfect in the woods to-day.
+Thank you----"
+
+But he interrupted her. "It is I who must say that, Phoebe! This has
+been a great day. I'll never forget the glorious hour when we were on
+our knees and pushed away the leaves and found the arbutus. That is
+something to take with one, to remember when the days are not perfect as
+this one."
+
+He laid his fingers a moment on her hand as she held the corner of her
+coat to keep the flowers from falling, then he turned and jumped into
+the carriage.
+
+"Give my love to Mother Bab," she said.
+
+He turned, smiled and nodded, then started off. Phoebe stood at the gate
+and watched the carriage as it went slowly up the steep road by the
+hill. Her thoughts were with the man who was going home to his mother,
+going with trailing arbutus in his hands and some great unhappiness in
+his heart.
+
+"Is it always so?" she thought. "We carry fragrance in our hands, but
+what in our hearts?" For the time she was once more the old sympathetic,
+natural Phoebe, eager to help her friend in need, feeling the divine
+longing to comfort one who was miserable. "Oh, Davie, Davie," she
+thought as she went into the house, "I wish I could help you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+MOTHER BAB AND HER SON
+
+
+WHEN David drove over the brow of the hill and down the green lane to
+the little house he called home he caught sight of his mother in her
+garden. He whistled. At the sound Mother Bab rose from the soft earth in
+which she was working and straightened, smiling. She raised a hand to
+shade her eyes and waited for the coming of her boy, dreaming of a
+possible separation from him, dreaming long mother-dreams while he took
+the horse and carriage to the barn.
+
+When he returned he had mustered all his courage and was smiling--he
+would be a stoic as long as he could, but he knew that his mother would
+soon discover that all was not well with him.
+
+"Here, mother." He gave her the box of arbutus.
+
+"Then you got some, Davie!" She buried her face in the cool, sweet
+blossoms. "Oh, how sweet they are! Did you and Phoebe have a good time?
+Did she enjoy it as much as she always used to enjoy a day in the
+woods?"
+
+She looked up suddenly from the flowers and caught him unawares. "What
+is wrong?" she asked with real concern. "Did you and Phoebe fall out?"
+
+"No," he shook his head. He knew that attempts at subterfuge and evasion
+would be vain. "No, mommie, no use trying to deceive you any longer--I
+fell out with myself--I wish I could keep it from you," he added slowly;
+"I know it's going to hurt you."
+
+"You tell me, Davie. I've lived sixty years and never yet met a trouble
+I couldn't live through. Tell me about it."
+
+She placed the box of arbutus in the garden path and laid her hand on
+his arm.
+
+"Oh, mommie," he blurted out, almost sobbing, "I'm ashamed of myself!
+You'll be ashamed of your boy."
+
+"It's no girl----" the mother hesitated.
+
+He answered with a vehement, "No!"
+
+"Then tell me," she said softly. "I can look in your eyes and hear you
+tell me most anything so long as you need not tell me that you have
+broken the heart or spoiled the soul of a girl."
+
+She spoke gently, but the man cried out, "Thank God, I have nothing like
+that to confess! You know there is only one girl for me. I could never
+look into her eyes if I had betrayed the trust of any girl. I have
+dreamed of growing into a man she could love and marry, but I failed. I
+wanted to offer her more than slavery on a farm, I wanted to have
+something more than the few hundreds I scraped together. I took the five
+hundred dollars we skimped for and bought stock of Caleb Warner--you
+heard that he died?"
+
+"Phares told me."
+
+"I guess the five hundred dollars is gone with him! I heard of other
+men getting rich by buying gold and oil stock so I took a chance and
+staked all the spare money I had."
+
+"It was your money, Davie."
+
+"You called it mine, but you helped to earn and save it. Caleb promised
+me he would sell half of the stock for me at a great profit in a week or
+two, and I could keep the other half for the big dividends it would pay
+me soon--now he's dead, and the stock is probably worthless."
+
+He looked miserably at her troubled face. She flung her arm about him
+and led him to a seat under the budded cherry tree. "We must sit down
+and talk it over," she said. "Perhaps it isn't so bad as you think. Are
+you sure the stock is worth nothing? Perhaps you can get something out
+of it."
+
+"Perhaps I can." He brightened at the suggestion.
+
+"Well," she went on, "I can't say that I think you did right to buy the
+stock and try to get rich quick. You know that money gotten that way is
+tainted money, more or less. To earn what you have and have a little is
+better and safer than to have much and get it in such a way. But it's
+too late to preach about that now--I guess I didn't tell you that often
+enough and hard enough before this, or else you wouldn't have wanted to
+buy the stock. It is partly my fault, for I thought some time ago you
+talked as though you were getting the money craze, but I thought it
+would soon wear off. You did a foolish thing, but there's no use crying
+about it. You see you did wrong and are sorry, so that is all there is
+to it. I'm not sorry you lost on the stock, for if you made on it the
+craze would go deeper. I can live without the few extra things that
+money would buy."
+
+"Don't be so forgiving, mother! Scold me! I'd feel less like a criminal.
+But here comes Phares; he'll give me the scolding you're saving me."
+
+The preacher crossed the lawn and advanced to the seat under the cherry
+tree.
+
+"Aunt Barbara," he began, then noted the troubled look on the face of
+David and asked, "What is wrong?"
+
+"Nothing," said David, "except that I have some of Caleb Warner's
+stock."
+
+"You do? Whatever made you buy that?"
+
+David spoke as calmly as possible. "I wanted to be rich, that's all. But
+I guess I was never intended to be that."
+
+"I'm afraid you are going to be sorry," said the preacher very soberly.
+"I just came from town and they say things look bad for the investors.
+They said first that Warner was asphyxiated accidentally, but he was so
+deep in a hole with investing and re-investing other people's money and
+his own and he had lost so much that people think this was the easiest
+way out of it all for him. I suppose it will be hushed up and no one
+will ever know just how he died. There are at least twenty people in
+town and farms near here who are worried about their money since he
+died. Did you have much stock?"
+
+"Five hundred dollars' worth."
+
+"If people were as eager to lay up treasures in heaven----" the preacher
+said thoughtfully.
+
+"If they were," said David, struggling to keep the wrath from his words
+and voice. "I know, Phares, you can't understand why everybody should
+not be as good as you. I wish I were--mother should have had a son like
+you. I'm the black sheep of the Eby family, I suppose."
+
+"No, no!" cried Mother Bab. "We all make mistakes! You are good and
+noble, David. I am proud of you, even if you do err sometimes."
+
+"We must make the best of it," said the preacher. "Perhaps the stock is
+not quite worthless. If I were you I'd go to the lawyer in Lancaster.
+He'll see you at his house if you 'phone in."
+
+"Mighty good to think of that for me," said David, gripping the hand of
+his cousin. "I'll go in to-night."
+
+Several hours later David Eby sat before a lawyer and waited for the
+verdict. "I'm sorry," the lawyer shook his head. "The stock is
+worthless. Six months ago you might have sold it; now it's dead as a
+door-nail."
+
+"Guess it was a wildcat scheme," said David.
+
+A few minutes later he went out to the street. His Aladdin's lamp was
+smashed! What a fool he had been!
+
+When he reached home Mother Bab read the news in his face. "Never mind,"
+she said bravely, "we'll get along without that money."
+
+"Yes--but"--David spoke slowly, as if fearing to hurt her further--"I
+hoped to have a nice bank account for you to draw on when--when I go."
+
+"You mean----" Mother Bab stopped suddenly. Something choked her, but
+she faced him squarely and looked up into his face.
+
+"Yes, mother, I mean that I must go. You want me to go, don't you?"
+
+"Yes." The word came slowly, but David knew how truly she felt it. "You
+must go. I knew it right away when I saw that we were called of God to
+help in the fight for world peace and righteousness. You must go; there
+is nothing to keep you. Phares will look after the little farm. I spoke
+to him about it last week----"
+
+"Mother, you knew then!"
+
+"I saw it in your face as soon as war was declared. Phares was lovely
+about it and said he could just as well take your few acres in with his
+and pay a percentage to me for the crops he'll get from them. Phares is
+kind; he has a big heart, for all his queer ways and his strict views."
+
+"Phares is too good to be related to me, mommie. I'm ashamed of myself."
+
+"Ach, you two are just different, that's all. I can go over and stay at
+their house. Did you tell Phoebe you are going?"
+
+He shook his head. "I couldn't tell her yesterday. We had such a great
+day in the woods finding the arbutus, eating our lunch on a rock and
+acting just like we used to when we were ten years younger. She never
+mentioned war and I could not seem to break into that day of gladness
+to speak about the subject. I meant to tell her all about it when we got
+home, but then that storm came up and we stopped at a farmhouse and I
+heard about Caleb Warner. It struck me so hard I was just no good after
+that. I'll be a dandy soldier, won't I?"
+
+He laughed and took the little woman in his arms. When, some moments
+later, he held the white-capped mother at arms' length and smiled into
+her face neither knew if the wet lashes were caused by laughter or
+tears.
+
+"Some soldier you'll make," she said as she looked at him, tall, broad
+of shoulder, straight of spine. "Some soldier or sailor you'll make!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+PREPARATIONS
+
+
+THE days following the death of Caleb Warner were days of anxiety to
+other inhabitants of the little town who, like David, had purchased
+stock with glorious visions of sudden gain. In a short time the list of
+Warner's unfortunate investors was known and they were accorded various
+degrees of sympathy, rebuke or ridicule. The thing that hurt David was
+not so much the knowledge that some were speaking of him in condemnation
+or pity as the fact that he merited the condemnation.
+
+But he had neither time nor inclination for self-pity. His country was
+calling for his services and he knew his duty was to offer himself. He
+could not conscientiously say his mother had urgent need of him for he
+knew that the little farm would supply enough for her maintenance.
+
+Phares Eby, although a preacher among a sect who, as a sect, could not
+sanction the bearing of arms, accepted the decision of his cousin with
+no show of disapproval. "I don't believe in wars," he said gravely, "but
+there seems to be no other way this time. One of the Eby family should
+go. I'll be glad to keep up your farm and help look after your mother
+while you are gone. The most I can do here will be less than you are
+going to do, but I'll raise the best crops I can and help in the food
+end of it."
+
+"You'll do your part here, Phares, and it will count. You're a bona-fide
+farmer. You'll have our little place a record farm when I get back.
+You're a brick, Phares!" For the first time in months he felt a genuine
+affection for his preacher cousin. Preaching, prosaic Phares, how kind
+he was!
+
+Lancaster County measured up to its fair standard in those first trying
+days of recruit gathering. The sons of the nation answered when she
+called. Pennsylvania Dutch, hundreds of them, rallied round the flag and
+proved beyond a doubt that the real Pennsylvania Dutch are not
+German-American, but loyal, four-square Americans who are keeping the
+faith. Two hundred years ago the ancestors of the present Pennsylvania
+Dutch came to this country to escape tyranny, and the love of freedom
+has been transmitted from one generation to another. The plain sects, so
+flourishing in some portions of the Keystone State, consider war an
+evil, yet scores of men in navy blue and army khaki have come from homes
+where the mother wears the white cap, and have gone forth to do their
+part in the struggle for world freedom.
+
+As David Eby measured the days before his departure he felt grateful to
+Mother Bab for refraining from long homilies of advice. Her whole life
+was a living epistle of truth and nobility and she was wise enough to
+discern that what her son wanted most in their last days together was
+her customary cheerfulness--although he knew that at times the
+cheerfulness was a bit bluffed!
+
+News travels fast, even in rural communities. The people on the Metz
+farm soon learned of David's loss of money and of his desire to enter
+the navy.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me about the stock?" Phoebe chided him.
+
+"I couldn't. It knocked me out--it changed some of my plans. I knew
+you'd despise me and I couldn't stand that too that day."
+
+"Despise you! How foolish to think that. Of course it's better to earn
+your money, but I think you learned your lesson."
+
+"I have. I'll never try to get rich quick."
+
+"And you're going to war!" The words were almost a cry. "What does
+Mother Bab say? How dreadful for her!"
+
+"Dreadful?" he asked gently. "Phoebe, think a minute--would you rather
+be the mother of a soldier or sailor than the mother of a slacker?"
+
+"I would," she cried. "A thousand times rather!" She clutched his sleeve
+in her old impetuous manner. "I see now what it means, what war must
+mean to us! We must serve and be glad to do it. Your going is making it
+real for me. I'm proud of you and I know Mother Bab must be just about
+bursting with pride, for she always did think you are the grandest son
+in the wide world."
+
+"Phoebe, you always stroke me with the grain."
+
+"That sounds as if you were a wooden pussy-cat," she said merrily. "But
+you are just being funny to hide your deeper feelings. I know you,
+David Eby! Bet your heart's like lead this minute!"
+
+"'I have no heart,'" he quoted. "'The place where my heart was you could
+roll a turnip in.'"
+
+She laughed, then suddenly grew sober. "I've been horribly selfish," she
+said. "Having fine clothes and a good time and dreaming of fame through
+my voice have taken all my time during the past winter. I have taken
+only the husks of life and discarded the kernels. I'm ashamed of
+myself."
+
+"You mustn't condemn yourself too much. It's natural to pass through a
+period when those things seem the greatest things in the world, but if
+we do not shake off their influence and see the need of having real
+things to lay hold on we need to be jolted. I was money-mad, but I had
+my jolt."
+
+"Then we can both make a fresh beginning. And we'll try hard to be
+worthy of Mother Bab, won't we, David?"
+
+David was mute; he could merely nod his head in answer. Worthy of Mother
+Bab--what a goal! How sweet the name sounded from Phoebe's lips! Should
+he tell her of his love for her? He looked into her face. Her eyes were
+like clear blue pools but they mirrored only sisterly affection, he
+thought. Ah, well, he would be unselfish enough to go away without
+telling of the hope of his heart. If he came back there would be ample
+time to tell her; it was needless to bind her to a long-absent lover. If
+he came back crippled--if he never came back at all---- Oh, why delve
+into the future!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE FEAST OF ROSES
+
+
+IN the little town of Greenwald there is performed each year in June an
+interesting ceremony, the Feast of Roses.
+
+The origin of it dates back to the early colonial days when wigwam fires
+blazed in many clearings of this great land and Indians, fashioned after
+the similitude of bronze images, stole among the stalwart trees of the
+primeval forests. In those days, about the year 1762, a tract of land
+containing the present site of the little town of Greenwald fell into
+the hands of a German, who was so charmed by the fertility and beauty of
+the fields encircled by the winding Chicques Creek that he laid out a
+town and proceeded to build. The erection of those early houses entailed
+much labor. Bricks were imported from England and hauled from
+Philadelphia to the new town, a distance of almost one hundred miles.
+
+Some time later the founder built a glass factory in the new town,
+reputed to have been the first of its kind in America. Skilled workmen
+were imported to carry on the work, and marvelously skilful they must
+have been, as is proven by the articles of that glass still extant. It
+is delicately colored, daintily shaped, when touched with metal it
+emits a bell-like ring, and altogether merits the praise accorded it by
+every connoisseur of rare and beautiful glass.
+
+Tradition claims that the founder of that town was of noble birth, but
+his right to a title is not an indisputable fact. It is known, however,
+that he lived in baronial style in his new town. His red brick mansion
+was a treasure house of tapestries, tiles and other beautiful
+furnishings.
+
+However, whether he was a baron or an untitled man, he merits a share of
+admiration. He was founder of a glass factory, builder of a town,
+founder of iron works, religious and secular instructor of his employees
+and citizens, and earnest philanthropist.
+
+The last role resulted in his financial embarrassment. There is an
+ominous silence in the story of his life, then comes the information
+that the man who had done so much for others was left at last to
+languish in a debtors' jail, die unbefriended and be buried in an
+unknown grave.
+
+In the days of his prosperity he gave to the congregation of the
+Lutheran Church in his town a choice plot of ground, the consideration
+being the sum of five shillings and an annual rental of one red rose in
+June.
+
+Years passed, the man died, and either through forgetfulness or
+negligence the annual rental of one red rose was unpaid for many years.
+Then, one day a layman of the church found the old deed and the people
+prepared to pay the long-neglected debt once more. Since that renewal
+there is set apart each June a Sabbath day upon which the rose is paid
+to the nearest descendant of the founder of the town. They give but one
+red rose, but all around are roses, roses, and it seems most fitting to
+call the unique occurrence the Feast of Roses.
+
+If ever the little town puts on royal garb it is on the Feast of Roses
+Sabbath. For days before the ceremony the homes of Greenwald are
+beehives of industry. That day each train and trolley, every country
+road, is crowded with strangers or old acquaintances coming into the
+town. A heterogeneous crowd swarms through the street. The curious
+visitor who comes to see, the dreamer who is attracted by the romance of
+the rose, the careless youth who rubs his sleeve against some portly
+judge or senator; the tawdry, the refined, the rich, the poor--all meet
+in the crowd that moves to the red brick church in which the Feast of
+Roses is held.
+
+The old church of that early day has been removed and in its place a
+modern one has been erected, but by some happy inspiration of the
+builders the new church is devoid of the garish ornamentation that is
+too often found in churches. Harmonious coloring, artistic beauty, make
+it a fitting place for a Feast of Roses.
+
+When Phoebe Metz entered the church to keep her promise to sing at the
+service she found an eager crowd waiting for the opening. Every
+available space was occupied; people stood in the rear aisles, others
+waited in the churchyard by the open windows and hoped to catch there
+some stray parts of the service.
+
+Phoebe pushed her way gently through the crowd at the door and stood in
+the aisle until an usher saw her and directed her to a seat near the
+organ. The pink in her cheeks grew deeper. "I'll sing my best for
+Greenwald and the Feast of Roses," she thought. "And for David! He's in
+the crowd. He said he's coming to hear me sing."
+
+At the appointed hour the pipe-organ pealed out. The June sunlight
+streamed through the open windows, fell upon the banks of roses, and
+gleamed upon the fountain that played in the midst of the crimson
+flowers. Peace brooded over the place as the last strains of music died.
+There was silence for a moment, then a prayer, a hymn of adoration, and
+then the chosen speaker stood before the crowd and delivered his
+message.
+
+Phoebe listened to him until he uttered the words, "True life must be
+service, true love must be giving. No man has reached true greatness
+save he serves, and he who serves most faithfully is greatest in the
+kingdom."
+
+After those words she fell to thinking. Many things that had been dark
+to her suddenly became light. She seemed to see Royal Lee fiddling while
+the world was in travail, but beside him rose a vision of David in
+sailor's blue, ready to do his whole duty for his country.
+
+"Oh," she thought, "I've been blind, but now I see! It's David I want.
+He's a man!"
+
+She heard as in a dream the words of the one who presented the red rose
+to the heir. "Once more the time has come to pay our debt of one red
+rose. It is with cheerfulness and reverence we pay our rental. Amid
+these bright surroundings, in the presence of the many who have come to
+witness this unique ceremony, do we give to you in partial payment of
+the debt we owe--ONE RED ROSE."
+
+The heir received the flower and expressed her appreciation. Then
+silence settled upon the place and Phoebe rose to sing.
+
+As the organ sent forth the opening strains of music the people in the
+church looked at each other, surprised, disappointed. Why, that was the
+old tune, "Jesus, Lover of my soul." The tune they had heard sung
+hundreds of times--was Phoebe going to sing that? With so many
+impressive selections to choose from no soloist need sing that old hymn!
+Some of the town people thought disdainfully, "Was that all she could
+sing after a whole winter's study in Philadelphia!"
+
+But Phoebe sang the old words to the old tune. She sang them with a new
+power and sweetness. It touched the listeners in that rose-scented
+church and revealed to them the meaning of the old hymn. The dependence
+upon a divine guide, the utter impotence of mortal strength, breathed so
+persuasively in the second verse that many who heard Phoebe sing it
+mentally repeated the words with her.
+
+        "Other refuge have I none,
+           Hangs my helpless soul on Thee:
+         Leave, ah! leave me not alone,
+           Still support and comfort me;
+         All my trust on Thee is stayed;
+           All my help from Thee I bring;
+         Cover my defenceless head
+           With the shadow of Thy wing."
+
+Then the hymn changed--hope displaced hopelessness, faith surmounted
+fear.
+
+        "Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
+           Grace to cleanse from every sin;
+         Let the healing streams abound,
+           Make and keep me pure within;
+         Thou of life the fountain art,
+           Freely let me take of Thee:
+         Spring Thou up within my heart,
+           Rise to all eternity."
+
+The people in that rose-scented church heard the old hymn sung as they
+had never heard it sung before. A subdued hum of approval swept over the
+church as the girl sat down. She felt that she had sung well; her heart
+was in a tumult of happiness. She was glad when one man rose and lifted
+his hands in benediction.
+
+Again the organ throbbed with glad melodies. The eager crowd fell into
+line and walked slowly to the altar to lay their roses there. Children
+with half withered blossoms, maidens with bunches of crimson flowers,
+here and there a stranger with gorgeous hot-house roses, older men and
+women with the products of the gardens of the little town--all moved to
+the spot where lay a bank of fragrant roses and placed their tributes
+there.
+
+Phoebe added her roses to the others on the altar and left the church.
+Friends and acquaintances stopped to tell her how well she sang. But the
+words that one short year ago would have filled her with overwhelming
+pride in her own talent were soon crowded from her thoughts and there
+reigned there the words of the speaker, "No man has reached true
+greatness save he serves." She had learned great things at that Feast of
+Roses service. She had looked deep into her own heart and on its throne
+she had found David.
+
+He was waiting for her outside the church.
+
+"You sang fine, Phoebe," he told her as they went down the street
+together.
+
+"Yes? I'm glad you liked it."
+
+Then they spoke of other things, of many things, but not one word of the
+thoughts lying deepest in the heart of each.
+
+Aunt Maria and Jacob were eating supper in the big kitchen when Phoebe
+reached home.
+
+"Well," greeted the aunt, "did you come once! We thought that Feast of
+Roses would been out long ago. But when you didn't come for so long and
+supper was made we sat down a while. Did you sing?"
+
+"Yes," the girl said as she removed her hat and gloves and drew a chair
+to the table.
+
+"Now," cautioned the aunt, "put your apron on! That light goods in your
+dress is nothin' for wear; everything shows on it so. And if you spill
+red-beet juice or something on it it'll be spoiled."
+
+"I forgot." Phoebe took a blue gingham apron from a hook behind the
+kitchen door. "There, if I spoil it now you may have it for a rug."
+
+"Well, I guess that would be housekeepin'! And everything so high since
+the war!"
+
+"Tell me about the Feast of Roses," said the father. "Was the church
+full?"
+
+"Packed! It was a beautiful service."
+
+"Well," spoke up Aunt Maria, "I'm glad it's over and so are many people.
+Of course that Feast of Roses don't do no harm, but I think it's so dumb
+to have all this fuss just to give somebody a rose. If that man wanted
+to give the church some land why didn't he give it and done with it?
+It's no use to have this pokin' around every year to find the best red
+rose to give to some man or lady that's related to him. The rose withers
+right away, anyhow. And this Feast of Roses makes some people a lot of
+bother. I heard one woman say in the store that she has to get ready for
+a lot of company still for every person she knows, most, comes to visit
+her that Sunday and she's got to cook and wash dishes all day. I guess
+she's glad it's over for another year."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+BLINDNESS
+
+
+DAVID EBY had spent the day at Lancaster and returned to Greenwald at
+seven-thirty. He started with springing step out the country road in the
+soft June twilight. It was a twilight pervaded by blended perfumes and
+the sleepy chirp of birds. David drew in deep breaths of the fresh
+country air.
+
+"Lancaster County," he said aloud to himself, "and it's good enough for
+me!"
+
+Scarcely slackening his pace he started up the long road by the hill. He
+paused a moment on the summit and looked back at the town of Greenwald,
+then almost ran down the road to his home.
+
+He whistled his old greeting whistle.
+
+"Here, David, I'm on the porch," came his mother's voice.
+
+"Mommie," he cried gaily as he took her into his arms, "I knew you'd be
+looking for me."
+
+Then for the first time since his father's death he heard his mother
+sob. "Oh, mother," he asked, "is my going away as hard as all that? Or
+are you only glad to see me?"
+
+"Glad," she replied, restraining her emotion. "Sit down on the bench,
+Davie."
+
+"Why--I didn't notice it first--you're wearing dark glasses again! Are
+your eyes worse?"
+
+"Sit down, Davie, sit down," she said nervously. "That's right," she
+added as he sat beside her and put one arm about her.
+
+"Now tell me," he said imperiously. "Are you sure you're all right?
+You're not worrying about me?"
+
+"No, I'm not worrying about you; I quit worrying long ago. But I must
+tell you--I wish I didn't have to--don't be scared--it's just about my
+eyes."
+
+"Tell me! Are they worse?"
+
+She laid her hand on his knees. "Don't get excited--but--I can't see."
+
+"Can't see!" He repeated the words as though he could not understand
+them. Then he put his hands on her cheeks and peered into her face in
+the semi-darkness of the porch. "Not blind? Oh, mommie, not blind?"
+
+She nodded, her lips trembling. "Yes, it's come. I'm blind."
+
+The words, fraught with so much sorrow, sounded like claps of thunder in
+his ears. "Mother," he cried again, "you can't be blind!"
+
+"But I am. I knew it was coming. The light was getting dimmer every day.
+I could hardly see your face this morning when you went."
+
+"And I went away and you stayed here and went blind!" He broke into sobs
+and she allowed him to cry it out as they sat together in the darkness.
+
+"Come," she said at length, "now you mustn't take on so. It's not as
+awful as you think. I said to Phares to-day that I'm almost glad it's
+here, for it was awful to know it's coming."
+
+"But it's awful," he shuddered. "Come in to the light and let me see
+you--but oh, you can't see me!"
+
+"Yes I can." She reached a hand to his face. "This is the way I see you
+now. The same mouth and chin, the same mole on your left cheek--that's
+good luck, Davie--the same nose with its little turn-up."
+
+"Mommie"--he grabbed her hands and kissed them--"there's not another
+like you in the whole world! If I were blind I'd be groaning and moaning
+and making life miserable for everybody near me, and here you are your
+same cheerful self. You're the bravest of 'em all!"
+
+"But you mustn't think that I haven't rebelled against this, that I
+haven't cried out against it! I've had my hours of weakness and tears
+and rebellion."
+
+"And I never knew it."
+
+"No. Each one goes to Gethsemane alone."
+
+"But isn't it almost more than you can bear--to be blind?"
+
+"It's dreadful at first. I stumble so and every little sill and rug
+seems a foot high. But I'll soon learn."
+
+"Is there nothing to do? What did Dr. Munster say about your eyes when
+we were down to see him?"
+
+"He told me then I'd be blind soon. And he said the only thing might
+save my sight or bring it back was a delicate operation that would be a
+big risk, for it probably wouldn't help at any rate. So I'm not
+thinking of ever trying that. Now I don't want you to think I'm brave
+about it. I've cried all my tears a month ago, so don't put me on any
+pedestal. It seems hard not to see the people I love and all the
+beautiful things around me, but I'm glad I have the memory of them. I'm
+glad I know what a rainbow is, and a sunset."
+
+"Yes, but I think it's awful to know what they look like and never see
+them again. I can't, just can't, realize that you're blind!"
+
+"You will when you come back from war and have to fetch and carry for
+me. Your Aunt Mary and Phares are just lovely about it and willing to
+help in every way. I was going to live over with them at any rate."
+
+"I wish I could stay with you, mommie. You need me, but I guess Uncle
+Sam needs me too. I'm to go soon, you know."
+
+"You go, even if I am blind. I'm not helpless. It will be awkward for a
+while but there are many things I can do. I can knit without seeing."
+
+"You're a wonder! But is there no hope?"
+
+"Hope," she repeated softly. "No hope of the kind you mean, except that
+very severe operation that would cost big money and then perhaps not
+help. But this world isn't all. I've always liked that part of Isaiah,
+'The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall
+be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of
+the dumb sing.' I know now what it'll mean to us. It seems like the
+afflicted will have a special joy in that time."
+
+David was silent for a moment; his mother's words stirred in him
+emotions too great for ready words.
+
+Presently she continued, "But, Davie, this isn't heaven yet! And I'm
+concerned just now about helping myself to live the rest of this life
+the best way I can. I can knit like a machine and I like to knit
+socks----"
+
+The remainder was left unsaid for the strong arms of her boy surrounded
+her and held her close while his lips were pressed upon her forehead.
+
+"Such a mother," he breathed, as if the touch of her forehead bestowed a
+benediction upon him. "Such a mother!"
+
+In the morning he brought the news to the Metz farmhouse.
+
+"Blind?" Phoebe cried.
+
+David nodded.
+
+"Blind! Mother Bab blind? Oh, it's too awful!"
+
+"My goodness," Aunt Maria said with genuine sorrow, "now that's too bad!
+Her blind and you goin' off to war soon!"
+
+"I'm going up to see her," said Phoebe, and went off with David.
+
+Mother Bab heard the girl's step and called gaily, "Phoebe, is that you?
+I declare, it sounds like you!"
+
+Phoebe ran to the room where Mother Bab sat alone. The girl could not
+speak at first; she twined her arms about the woman while her heart
+ached with its poignant grief. Again it was the afflicted one who
+turned comforter. "Come, Phoebe, you mustn't cry for me. Laugh like you
+always did when you came to see me."
+
+"Laugh! Oh, Mother Bab, I can't laugh!"
+
+"But, Phoebe, I'll want you to come up to see me every day when you can
+and you surely can't cry every time and be sad, so you might as well
+begin now to be cheerful."
+
+"But, Mother Bab, can't something be done?"
+
+"Dr. Munster, the big doctor I saw in Philadelphia, said that only a big
+operation might help me, but he's not sure that even it would do any
+good. And, of course, we have no money for it and at my age it doesn't
+matter so much."
+
+Later, as Phoebe walked down the hill again, she kept revolving in her
+mind what Mother Bab had said about the operation. An inspiration
+suddenly flashed to her. The wonder of it made her stand still in the
+road.
+
+"I know! I'll buy sight for Mother Bab! I will! I must! If it's only
+money that's necessary, if there's any wonderful doctor can operate on
+her eyes and make her see again she's going to see! Oh, glory! What a
+happy thought! I'm the happiest girl since that idea came to me! The
+money I meant to spend on more music lessons next winter will be put to
+better use; it will give Mother Bab a chance to see again! Why, I'd
+rather have her _see_ than be able to call myself the greatest singer in
+the world! But she'll never let me spend so much money for her. I know
+that. I'll have to make her believe the operation will be free. I can
+fool her in that, dear, innocent, trusting Mother Bab! She'd believe me
+against half the world. But I'm afraid I can't fool David so easily. I
+must wait till he goes, then I'll write to Dr. Munster and start things
+going!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+OFF TO THE NAVY
+
+
+PHOEBE was glad when David came to her with the news that he had been
+accepted for the navy and was going to Norfolk.
+
+"That's so far away he won't come home soon," she thought. "It'll give
+me a chance to arrange for the operation. I hope he goes soon. That's a
+dreadful thing to say! The days are all too short for Mother Bab, I
+know."
+
+If the days seemed Mercury-shod to the blind mother she did not
+complain.
+
+"It's hard to let you go," she said to her boy, "but it would be harder
+to see you a slacker. Phoebe is going to read to me now when you go.
+She'll be up here often."
+
+"Yes, that makes it easier for me to go, mommie."
+
+"Don't you worry about me. Phoebe will be good company for me and she'll
+write my letters for me. We'll send you so many you'll be busy reading
+them."
+
+"I'm going to make her promise that," he declared with a laugh.
+
+He exacted the promise as Mother Bab and Phoebe stood with him and
+waited for the train to carry him away. "Mother, you and Phoebe must
+take me to the train," he had said. "I want you to be the last picture
+I see as the train pulls out." Phoebe had assented, though she thought
+ruefully of the deficiency of the English language, which has but one
+form for singular _you_ and plural _you_. She wondered whether he
+included her in the picture he wanted to cherish in his memory. Now,
+when he was going away from her she knew that she loved her old
+playmate, that he was the one man in the world for her. She loved David,
+she would always love him! She wanted to run to him and tell him so, but
+centuries of restriction had bequeathed to her the universal fear of
+womanhood to reveal a love that has not been sought. She felt that in
+all her life she had never wanted anything so keenly as she wanted to
+hear David Eby tell her that he loved her, that her face would be with
+him in whatever circumstances the future should place him. But David
+could not read the heart of his old playmate, and while his own heart
+cried out for its mate his words were commonplace.
+
+"Mother has promised that I'm to have so many letters that I can't read
+them all. As you're to be private secretary, you'll have to promise to
+carry out her promise."
+
+"David," she met him with equal jest, "you have as many promises in that
+sentence as a candidate for political office."
+
+"But I want them better kept than that," he said, laughing. "Will you
+promise, Phoebe?"
+
+"Promise what?" she asked, the levity fading suddenly.
+
+"To write often for mother."
+
+"Yes--I promise to write often for Mother Bab," she said, and the man
+could not know the effort the simple words cost her. "Oh, Davie," she
+thought, "it's not for Mother Bab alone I want to write to you! I want
+to write you _my_ letters, letters of a girl to the man she loves. How
+blind you are!"
+
+The moment was becoming tense. It was Mother Bab who turned the tide
+into a normal channel. "Now, don't you worry, Davie. I can make Phoebe
+mind me."
+
+The train whistled. Phoebe drew a long breath and prayed that the train
+would make a short stop and speed along for she could not endure much
+more. She looked at Mother Bab. The hysteria was turned from her. She
+knew she would have to be brave for the sake of the dear mother.
+
+"I'll take care of Mother Bab, David," she promised as the train drew
+in, "and I'll write often."
+
+"Phoebe, you're an angel!" He grasped both hands in his for a long
+moment. Then he turned to his mother, folded her in his arms and kissed
+her.
+
+"There he is," Phoebe cried as the train moved. She was eyes for Mother
+Bab. "Turn to the right a bit and wave; that's it! He's waving back----
+Oh, Mother Bab, he's waving that box of sand-tarts Aunt Maria gave him!
+They'll be in pieces!"
+
+"Sand-tarts," said the other, still waving to the boy she could not see.
+"Well, he'll eat them if they are broken. Davie is crazy for cookies."
+
+"I'm going to need you more than ever now, Phoebe," Mother Bab said as
+they started home. "Aunt Mary and Phares are so busy and I feel it's so
+lovely of them to have me there when I can do so little to help, that I
+don't want to make them more trouble than I must. So if you'll take care
+of the writing to David for me I'll be glad." Ah, blind Mother Bab, you
+had splendid vision just then!
+
+"I'll write for you. I'll love to do it. Mother Bab----" She hesitated.
+Should she broach the subject of the operation now? Perhaps it would be
+kind to divert the thoughts of the mother from the recent parting.
+"Mother Bab, I've thought about what you said, and I think you should
+have that operation. The doctor said there was a chance."
+
+"Ach, a very slim one. One chance in--I don't know how many!"
+
+"But a chance!"
+
+"Yes"--the woman thought a moment--"but it would cost lots of money, I
+guess. I didn't ask the doctor, but I know operations are dear. I have
+fifty dollars saved, but that wouldn't go far."
+
+"But don't you know," the girl said guilelessly, "that all big hospitals
+have free rooms and do lots of work for nothing? Many rich people endow
+rooms in hospitals. If you could get into one like that and pay just a
+little, would you go?"
+
+A light seemed to settle upon the face of the blind woman. "Why," she
+answered slowly, "why, Phoebe, I never thought of that! I didn't
+remember--why, I guess I would--yes, of course! I'd go and make a fight
+for that one chance!"
+
+"I knew you'd be brave! You'll have that operation, Mother Bab! I'll
+write to Dr. Munster right away. But don't you let Phares write and tell
+David. We'll surprise him!"
+
+"Ach, but won't he be glad if I can see when he comes home!"
+
+"Won't he though! I'll make all the arrangements; don't you worry about
+it at all."
+
+"My, you're good to me, Phoebe!"
+
+"Good--after all you've done for me!"
+
+"_Good_," she thought after Mother Bab had been left at the home of
+Phares and Phoebe turned homeward. "She calls me good the first time I
+deceive her. I've begun that tangled web and I know I'll have to tell a
+whole pack of lies before I'm through with it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+THE ONE CHANCE
+
+
+PHOEBE lost no time in carrying out her plans. When she mentioned the
+operation to Phares Eby he looked dubious.
+
+"I'm afraid it's no use," he said gravely. "Those operations very often
+fail."
+
+"But there's a chance, Phares! If it were your eyes wouldn't you snatch
+at any meagre chance?"
+
+"Why, I guess I would," he admitted, wondering at her insight into human
+nature and admiring her devotion to the blind woman.
+
+Aunt Maria also was sceptical. "Ach, Phoebe, it vonders me now that
+Barb'll spend all that money for carfare and to stay in the city and
+then mebbe it's all for nothin'. There was old Bevy Way and a lot of old
+people I knowed went blind and they died blind. When abody gets so old
+once it seems the doctors can't do much. I guess it just is to be."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Maria," Phoebe said hotly, "I don't believe in that is-to-be
+business! Not until you've done all you can to make things better."
+
+"Well, mebbe, for all, it's worth tryin'. I guess if it was my eyes I'd
+do most anything to get 'em fixed again."
+
+Mother Bab said little about the hopes Phoebe had raised, but the girl
+knew how the woman built upon having sight for a glad surprise for
+David.
+
+"I'm afraid the fifty dollars won't reach," she said the day before they
+were to take the trip to Philadelphia.
+
+"Don't worry about that. Those big doctors usually have hearts to match.
+I told you there are generous people who give lots of money to
+hospitals."
+
+"And I guess the hospitals pay the doctors then," offered the woman.
+
+"I guess so," Phoebe agreed. Her conscience smote her for the deception
+she was practicing on the dear white-capped woman. "But what's the use
+of straining at every little gnat of a falsehood," she thought, "when
+I'm swallowing camels wholesale?"
+
+She managed to secure a short interview with Dr. Munster before the
+examination of Mother Bab's eyes.
+
+"I want to ask you what the operation is going to cost, hospital charges
+and all," she said frankly.
+
+"At least five hundred dollars."
+
+Phoebe's year in the city had taught her many things. She showed no
+surprise at the amount named. "That will be satisfactory, Dr. Munster.
+But I want to ask you, please don't tell Moth--Mrs. Eby anything about
+it. I--it's to be paid by a friend. I know Mrs. Eby would almost faint
+if she knew so much money was going to be spent for her. She knows that
+many hospitals have free rooms and thinks some operations are free. I
+left her under that impression. You understand?"
+
+The big doctor understood. "Yes, I see. Well, we'll run this one chance
+to cover and make a fight. I wish I could promise more," he said.
+
+"Thank you. I know you'll succeed. I'm sure she'll see again!"
+
+True to his promise Dr. Munster answered Mother Bab so tactfully that
+she came out of his office feeling that "the physician is the flower of
+our civilization, that cheerfulness and generosity are a part of his
+virtues."
+
+The optimism in Phoebe's heart tinged the blind woman's with its cheery
+faith. "I figure it this way," the girl said; "we'll do all we can and
+then if we fail there's time enough to be resigned and say it's God's
+will."
+
+"Phoebe, you're a wonderful girl! Your name means _shining_, and that
+just suits you. You're doing so much for me. Why, you didn't even want
+to let me pay your carfare down here!"
+
+The girl winced again. "I must learn to wince without showing it," she
+thought, "for after she sees she'll keep saying such things and I can't
+spoil it all by letting her know the truth."
+
+Perhaps the optimistic words of Phoebe rang in the ears of the big
+doctor as he bent over Mother Bab's sightless eyes and began the tedious
+operation. His hands moved skilfully, with infinite precision, cutting
+to the infinitesimal fraction of an inch.
+
+Afterward, when Mother Bab had been taken away, he sought Phoebe. "I
+hope," he said, "that your faith was not unwarranted, though I can't
+promise anything yet."
+
+"Oh, I'm surer now than ever!" the girl said happily.
+
+But at times, in the days of waiting, her heart ached. What if the
+operation had failed, what if Mother Bab would have to bear cruel
+disappointment? All the natural buoyancy of the girl's nature was
+required to bear her through the trying days of waiting. With the
+dawning of the day upon which the bandage should be removed and the
+truth known Phoebe's excitement could not be restrained.
+
+"I can't wait!" she exclaimed. "I want to be right there when he takes
+it off. I want you to see me first, since David isn't here."
+
+Long after that day it seemed to her that she could hear Mother Bab's
+glad, sweet voice saying, "I can see!"
+
+"I can see!" The words were electric in their effect. Phoebe gave an
+ecstatic "Oh!" then hushed as her lips trembled.
+
+"You win," the big doctor said to her.
+
+"Oh, no, not I! You! But I knew she'd see again!"
+
+"She sees again, but," he cautioned, "Mrs. Eby, there must be no reading
+or sewing or any close work to strain your eyes."
+
+"Oh, doctor, it's enough just to see again! I can do without the reading
+and writing, for Phoebe, here, does all that for me. And I'll not miss
+the sewing. I'm glad I can potter around the garden again and plant
+flowers and _see_ them and"--her voice broke--"I think it's wonderful
+there are men like you in the world!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+BUSY DAYS
+
+
+THE news of the operation spread quickly and with it spread the
+interesting information that Mother Bab was keeping her sight as a
+surprise for David. So it happened that no letters to him contained the
+news, that even the town paper refrained from printing the item of heart
+interest and David's surprise was unspoiled.
+
+His letters to Mother Bab were long and interesting and always required
+frequent re-reading for the mother.
+
+"I wanted to read that letter awful bad," she confessed to Phoebe one
+day, "but I didn't. I'm not taking any chances with my eyes. I'm too
+glad to be able to see at all. The letter came this morning and Phares
+read it for me, but I want to hear it again. Will you read it, Phoebe?
+Did David write to you this week yet?"
+
+"No." The girl felt the color surging to her cheeks. "He doesn't write
+to me very often. He knows I read your letters."
+
+"Ach, yes. I guess he's busy, too. It's a big change for him to be
+learning to be a sailor when he always had his feet on dry land. But
+read the letter; it's a nice big one."
+
+Phoebe's clear laughter joined Mother Bab's at one paragraph: "Do you
+remember the blue sailor suits you used to make for me when I was a tiny
+chap? And once you made me a real tam and I was proud as a peacock in
+it. Well, since I'm here and wearing a sailor suit I feel like a
+masculine edition of Alice in Wonderland when she felt herself growing
+bigger and bigger and I wonder sometimes if I'll shrink back again and
+be just that little boy."
+
+Another portion of the letter set Phoebe's voice trembling as she read,
+"I must tell you again, mother, how thankful I am that you made it so
+much easier for me to go than I dreamed it could be. You are so fine
+about it. With a mother as plucky as you I can't very well be a
+jelly-fish. It's great to have a mother one has to reach high to live up
+to."
+
+"Just like David," said Phoebe as she laid the letter aside. "Of course
+I think war is dreadful, but the training is going to do wonders for
+many of the men."
+
+"Yes," said the white-capped woman. "Out of it some good will come.
+Selfishness is going to be erased clean from the souls of many people by
+the time war is over."
+
+"But we must pay a big price for all we gain from it."
+
+"Yes--I wonder--I guess Davie will be going over soon. He said, you
+know, that if we don't hear from him for a while not to worry. I guess
+that means he thinks he'll be going over."
+
+When, at length, news came from the other side it was Phoebe who was the
+bringer of the tidings.
+
+"Oh, Mother Bab," she cried breathlessly one day in autumn as she ran
+back from the gate after a visit from the postman, "it's a letter from
+France!"
+
+Phares Eby and his mother ran at the news and the four stood, an eager
+group, as Phoebe opened the letter.
+
+"Read it, Phoebe! He's over safely!" Mother Bab's voice was eager.
+
+"I--I can't read it. I'm too excited. I can't get my breath. You read
+it, Phares."
+
+The preacher read in his slow, calm way.
+
+                                "_Somewhere in France._
+
+    "DEAR MOTHER:
+
+    "You see by the heading I'm safe over here. I can't
+    tell you much about the trip--no use wearing out
+    the censor's pencils. The sea's wonderful, but I
+    like dry land better. I'm on dry land now, in a
+    quaint French village where the streets run up hill
+    and the people wear strange costumes. The women
+    wash their clothes by beating them on stones in the
+    brook--how would the Lancaster County women like
+    that?"
+
+It was a long, chatty letter and it warmed the heart of the mother and
+interested Phoebe and the others who heard it.
+
+"He's a great David," the preacher said as he handed the letter to
+Phoebe. "I suppose you'll have to read it over and over to Aunt
+Barbara."
+
+He looked at the girl as he spoke. Her high color and shining eyes spoke
+eloquently of her interest in the letter. "Ah," he thought, "I believe
+she still _likes Davie best_. I'm sure she does."
+
+The preacher had been greatly changed by the events of the past year.
+He would always be a bit too strict in his views of life, a bit narrow
+in many things. Nevertheless, he was changed. He was less harsh in his
+opinions of others since he had seen and heard how thousands who were
+not of his religious faith had gone forth to lay down their lives that
+the world might be made a decent place in which to live. He, Phares Eby,
+preacher, had formerly denounced all that pertained to actors and the
+theatre, yet tears had coursed down his cheeks as he had read the
+account of a famous comedian who had given his only son for the cause of
+freedom and who was going about in the camps and in the trenches
+bringing cheer to the men. As the preacher read that he confessed to
+himself that the comedian, familiar as he was with footlights, was doing
+more good in the world than a dozen Phares Ebys. That one incident swept
+away some of the prejudice of the preacher. He knew he could never
+sanction the doings so many people indulge in but he felt at the same
+time that those same pleasures need not have a damning influence upon
+all people.
+
+Phoebe noted the change in him. She felt like a discoverer of hidden
+treasure when she heard of the influence he was exerting in behalf of
+the Red Cross and Liberty Loans. But she was finding hidden treasures in
+many places those days. Strenuous, busy days they were but they held
+many revelations of soul beauty.
+
+Every link with Phoebe's former life in Philadelphia was broken save the
+one binding her to Virginia. That friendship was too precious to be
+shattered. The country girl had written a long letter to the city girl,
+telling of the decision to give up the music lessons. "My dear, dear
+friend," she wrote frankly, "you tried to keep me from being hurt, but I
+wouldn't see. How I must have worried you and how foolish I was! I know
+better now. I do not regret my winter in the city and I do appreciate
+all you did for me, but I am happy to be back on the farm again. I'm
+afraid I tried to be an American Beauty rose when I was meant to be just
+some ordinary wild flower like the daisy or even the common yarrow. I
+owe so much to you. We must always be friends."
+
+One day in late summer Phoebe fairly radiated joy as she hurried up the
+hill and ran down the road to the garden where Mother Bab was gathering
+larkspur seeds.
+
+"Oh, Mother Bab, I've such good news about Granny Hogendobler and Old
+Aaron!"
+
+"Come in, tell me!"
+
+"I've been to town and stopped to see Granny. You know Old Aaron and
+their boy Nason fell out years ago about something the boy said about
+the flag and was too stubborn to take back."
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"It was foolishness on the part of the father, of course, for he should
+have known boys say things they don't mean. Well, the two kept on acting
+all these years like strangers. The old man grew bitter. Last year when
+the boys went to Mexico he said that if he had a son instead of a
+blockhead he'd be sending a boy to do his share down there. It almost
+killed him to think of his boy sitting back while others went and
+defended the flag. Well, Granny said yesterday she was in the yard and
+she heard the gate click. She didn't pay any attention for she knew Old
+Aaron was in the front yard under the arbor. But then she heard a cry
+and ran to see, and there was Old Aaron with his arms around a big
+fellow dressed in a soldier uniform, and when the man turned his head it
+was Nason! Granny said it was the greatest day in their lives and paid
+up for all the unhappy days when Old Aaron was cross and said mean
+things about Nason. Nason had just a day to stay, but they made a day of
+it. Granny said, 'I-to-goodness, but we had a time! Aaron wanted to kill
+a chicken, for Nason likes chicken so much, but I knew that Aaron was so
+excited he'd like as not only cripple the poor thing, so I said I'd kill
+it while they talked. I made stuffing with onions in, like Nason likes,
+and I had just baked a snitz pie and I tell you we had a good dinner.
+But I bet them two didn't know what they ate, for they were all the time
+talking about the war and bombs and Gettysburg and France till I didn't
+know what they meant.'"
+
+"My, I'm glad for Granny and Old Aaron," Mother Bab said.
+
+"And what do you think!" Phoebe went on. "They are changing the name of
+Prussian Street, and some are talking of changing the name of the town,
+but I hope they won't do that."
+
+"No, it would be strange to have to call it something else after all
+these years."
+
+"I think it's a grand joke," said Phoebe, "that this little town was
+founded by a German and yet the town is strong American and doing its
+best to down the Potsdam gang. The people of Lancaster County are loyal
+to Old Glory and I'm glad I belong here."
+
+She appreciated her goodly heritage, not with any Pharisaical exultation
+but with honest gratitude.
+
+"I have learned many things, Mother Bab, and this is one of the big
+things I've learned lately: to be everlastingly thankful to Providence
+for setting me down on a farm where I could spend a childhood filled
+with communications with nature. I never before realized what blessings
+I've had all the years of my life. Why, I've had chickens to play with
+and feed, cows and wobbly calves to pet, birds to love and learn about,
+clear streams to wade in and float daisies on, meadows to play in, hills
+to run down while the dust went 'spif' under my bare feet. And I've had
+flowers, thousands of wild flowers, to find and carry home or, if too
+frail to bear carrying home, like the delicate spring beauty and the
+bluet, just to look at and admire and turn again to look at as I went
+out of the woods. My whole childhood has been a wonderful one but I was
+too blind to see the wonder of it. I see now! But, Mother Bab, I don't
+see, even yet, that I should wear plain clothes. I've been thinking
+about it lately. I do believe, though, that the plain way is a good way.
+Many people enjoy the simple service of the meeting-house more than they
+would enjoy a more complex form of worship. I feel so restful and
+peaceful when I'm in a meeting-house, so near to the real things, the
+things that count."
+
+Mother Bab answered only a mild "Yes," but her heart sang as she
+thought, "I believe she'll be plain some day, she and David. Perhaps
+they'll come together. But I'll not worry about them; I know their
+hearts are right."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+DAVID'S SHARE
+
+
+ANOTHER June came with its roses and perfume, but there was no Feast of
+Roses in Greenwald that June of 1918. Phoebe regretted the fact, for she
+felt that even in a war-racked world, with the multiple duties and
+anxiety and suffering of many of its people, there should still be time
+for a service as beautiful and inspiring as the Feast of Roses.
+
+But all thoughts of it or similar omissions were crowded into the
+background one day when the news came to Mother Bab that David had been
+wounded in France.
+
+The official telegram flashed over the wire and in due time came a
+letter with more satisfying details. The letter was characteristic of
+David: "I suppose you heard that the Boche got me, but he didn't get all
+of me, just one leg. What hurts me most is the fact that I didn't get a
+few Huns first or do some real thing for the cause before I got knocked
+out. I know you'll feel better satisfied if I tell you all about it.
+Several of the other boys and I left the town where we were stationed
+and went to Paris for a few days. It was our first pleasure trip since
+we came to this side. We gazed upon the things we studied about in
+school--Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and so forth. Later we went to a
+railroad station where refugees were coming in, fleeing from the
+invading Huns. I can't ever forget that sight! Women and children they
+were, but such women and children! Women who had gone through hell and
+children who had seen more horror in their few years that we can ever
+dream possible. Terror and suffering have lodged shadows in their eyes
+till one wonders if some of them will ever smile or laugh again. Many of
+them were wounded and in need of medical care. They carried with them
+their sole possessions, all of their belongings they could gather and
+take with them as they rushed away from the hordes of the enemy
+soldiers. We helped to place them into Red Cross vans to be taken to a
+safe place in the southern part of the country. As we were putting them
+into the vans the signal came that an air raid was on. The subways are
+places for refuge during the raids, so we hurried them out of the vans
+and into subways. They all got in safely but I was a bit too slow. I got
+knocked out and my right leg was so badly splintered that I'm better off
+without it. The thing worries me most is that I'll be sent home out of
+the fight before I fairly got into it."
+
+"Oh, Mother Bab," Phoebe said sobbingly, "his right leg's gone!"
+
+"It might be worse. But--I wish I could be with him."
+
+"But isn't it just like him," said Phoebe proudly, "to write as though
+it was carelessness caused the accident, when we know he got others to
+safety and never thought of himself. He was just as brave as the boys
+who fight."
+
+"Yes. There is still much to be thankful for. Many mothers will get
+sadder news than mine. You must write him a long letter."
+
+It was a long letter, indeed, that the mother dictated to her boy. When
+it was written Phoebe added a little postscript, "David, I'm mighty
+proud of you!" To this he responded, "Thank you for your pride in me,
+but don't you go making a hero of me; I can't live up to that when I get
+home. Guess I'll be sent back as soon as my leg is healed. Uncle Sam has
+no need of me here since I bungled things and left a leg in Paris. I'll
+have to do the rest of my bit on the farm. I wasn't a howling success as
+a farmer when I had two legs, but perhaps my luck has turned. I'm going
+to raise chickens and do my best to make the little farm a paying one."
+
+"He's the same cheerful David," thought the girl, "and we'll have to
+keep cheerful about it, too."
+
+But it was no easy matter to continue steadfast in cheerfulness during
+the long days of the summer. Phoebe and Mother Bab shared the anxiety of
+many others as the news came that the armies of the enemy were pushing
+nearer to Paris, nearer, and nearer, with the Americans and their allies
+fighting like demons and contesting every inch of the ground. A fear
+rose in Phoebe--what if the Germans should reach Paris, what if they
+should win the war! "But it can't be!" she thought.
+
+Her confidence was not unwarranted. Soon came the turn of the tide and
+the German drive was checked. One July day shrieking whistles, frenzied
+ringing of bells, impromptu parades and waving flags, spread the news
+that "America's contemptible little army" was helping to push the
+Germans back, back!
+
+"It's the beginning of the end for the Germans," said Phoebe jubilantly
+as she ran to Mother Bab with the news. "If they once start running
+they'll sprint pretty lively. We'll have to tell David about the
+excitement in town when the whistles blew--but, ach, I forgot! He won't
+think that was much excitement after he's been in _real_ excitement."
+
+Mother Bab laughed with the girl. "But we'll have lots to tell him when
+he comes back," she said. "And won't he be glad I can see!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+DAVID'S RETURN
+
+
+IT was October of 1918 when David Eby alighted from the train at
+Greenwald and started out the country road to his home. He could not
+resist the temptation to run into the yard of the gray farmhouse and
+into the kitchen where Aunt Maria and Phoebe were working.
+
+"David!"
+
+"Why, David!"
+
+The cries came gladly from the two women as he bounded over the sill and
+extended his hand, first to the older woman, then to Phoebe.
+
+"I just had to stop in here for a minute! Then I must run up the hill to
+mother. This place looks too good to pass by. How are you? You're both
+looking fine."
+
+"Ach, we're well," Aunt Maria had to answer, Phoebe remaining
+speechless. "But why, David! You got two legs and no crutches! I thought
+you lost a leg."
+
+"I did," he said, smiling, "but Uncle Sam gave me another one."
+
+"Why, abody'd hardly know it. Ain't, Phoebe, he just limps a little?
+Now I bet your mom'll be glad to see you--to have you back again, I
+mean."
+
+"Yes. I can't wait to get up the hill. I must go now. I'll be down
+later, Phoebe," he added.
+
+"All right," she said quietly.
+
+"Ach, Phoebe," Aunt Maria exclaimed after he left, "did you hear me? I
+almost give it away that his mom can see. Abody can be awful dumb still!
+But won't he be glad when he knows that she ain't blind! She can see him
+again. Ach, Phoebe, it's lots of nice people in the world, for all. It
+makes abody feel good to know them two are havin' a happy time."
+
+"I'm so glad for both I could sing."
+
+"Go on," said the woman; "I'm glad too, and I believe I could help you
+to holler."
+
+As David climbed the hill by the woodland he thought musingly, "Strikes
+me Phoebe didn't seem extra glad to see me. Perhaps she was just
+surprised, perhaps my being crippled changed her. Oh, Phoebe, I want you
+more than ever! I wonder--is it some nerve to ask you to marry a
+cripple?"
+
+However, all disquieting thoughts were forgotten as he reached the
+summit of the hill and saw his boyhood home.
+
+He whistled his old greeting whistle. At the sound of it Mother Bab ran
+to the door.
+
+"It's David come home!" she cried, her renewed eyes turned to the road,
+her hands outstretched.
+
+"I'm back, mommie!" he called before his running feet could take him to
+her. But as he held her again to his heart there were no words adequate
+for the greeting. Their joy was great enough to be inarticulate for a
+while.
+
+"But, Davie," the mother said after a long silence, "you come running!
+You have no crutches!"
+
+"Why, mommie!" There was questioning wonder in his voice. "How do you
+know? You couldn't see! You are blind!"
+
+"Oh, Davie, not any more! I can see!"
+
+"You can see?" He put a hand at each side of the white-capped head and
+looked into her eyes. They were not the dull, half-staring eyes of
+blindness but eyes lighted by loving recognition.
+
+Again words failed him as he swept her into his arms. But he could not
+long be silent. "Tell me," he cried. "I must know! What
+miracle--who--how--who did it? When?"
+
+"Oh, Davie, you're not changed a bit! Same old question box! But I'll
+tell you all about it."
+
+Throughout the story Mother Bab told ran the name of Phoebe. "Phoebe
+planned it all, Phoebe made the arrangements with the doctor, Phoebe
+took me down to Philadelphia, Phoebe was there when I found I could
+see"--it was Phoebe, Phoebe, till the man felt his heart singing the
+name.
+
+"Isn't she going on with her music lessons?" he asked. "I was afraid
+she'd be in the city when I got back."
+
+"She's given them up. It ain't like her to begin a thing and get tired
+of it so soon. All at once after we came back from Philadelphia she said
+she had enough of music, she was tired of it, and was going to stay at
+home and be useful. I'm glad she's not going off again, for it gets
+lonesome without her. You stopped to see her on the way up?"
+
+"Yes, just a minute. I'm going down again later. She hardly said two
+words to me."
+
+"You took her by surprise, I guess. Give her a chance and she'll ask you
+a hundred questions."
+
+But when he paid the promised visit to Phoebe he was again disappointed
+by her lack of the old comradely friendliness. She shared his joy at
+Mother Bab's restored sight but when he began to thank her for her part
+in it she disclaimed all credit and asked questions to lead him from the
+subject of the operation. The girl seemed interested in all he said yet
+there was a restraint in her manner. For the first time in his life
+David was baffled by her attitude. As he climbed the hill again he
+thought, "Now, what's the matter with Phoebe? Was she or wasn't she glad
+to see me? I couldn't tell her I love her when she acts like that! And
+I'm a cripple, and she's beautiful---- Oh, my mind's in a muddle! But
+one thing's clear--I want Phoebe Metz for my wife."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+"A LOVE THAT LIFE COULD NEVER TIRE"
+
+
+THE next morning Phares Eby called David, "Wait, I want to see you.
+I--David," the preacher began gravely, "perhaps I shouldn't tell you,
+but I really think I ought. Do you know all Phoebe did for your mother
+while you were gone?"
+
+"Why, yes. Mother told me. Phoebe was lovely to her. She's been great!
+Writing her letters and doing ever so many kind things for her."
+
+"I know--but--I guess you don't know all she did. That story about a
+great doctor operating for charity didn't quite please me. I thought as
+long as it was in the family I'd pay him for what he did. So I wrote to
+him and his secretary wrote back that the bill had been paid by a check
+signed by Phoebe Metz--the bill had been five hundred dollars. I guess
+that explains her giving up the music lessons. What a girl she is to
+make such a sacrifice! She don't know that I know, but I felt I ought to
+tell you."
+
+"Five hundred dollars! Phoebe did that for us--she paid it? Oh, Phares,
+I'm glad you told me! I'm going to find her right away and thank her!
+You're a brick for telling me!"
+
+The preacher smiled as David turned and ran down the hill, but preachers
+are only human--he felt a pang of pain as he went back to his work in
+the field while David went to find Phoebe.
+
+David forgot for the time that he was crippled as he ran limping over
+the road. Dressed in his working clothes, his head bare to the October
+sunlight, he hurried to the gray farmhouse.
+
+"Phoebe here?" he asked Aunt Maria.
+
+"What's wrong? Anything the matter at your house?" she asked.
+
+"No. Nothing's wrong. Where's Phoebe?"
+
+"Ach, over at the quarry again for weeds or something like she brings
+home all the time."
+
+"All right." He turned to the gate. "I'll find her."
+
+He half ran up the sheltered road to the old stone quarry.
+
+"Phoebe," he cried when he caught sight of her as she stooped to gather
+goldenrod that fringed the woods.
+
+"Why, David, what's the matter?" she asked as she stood erect and faced
+him.
+
+"You angel!" he cried, taking her hands in his and spilling the
+goldenrod over the ground. "You angel!" he said again, and the full
+gratitude of his heart shone from his eyes. "You bought Mother Bab's
+sight! You gave up the music lessons that she might see!"
+
+"How d'you know?" she challenged.
+
+"Oh, I know!" He told her briefly. "That's all true, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," she admitted. "I can't lie out of it now, I guess. Though I've
+lied like a trooper about it already. But you needn't get excited about
+it. Mother Bab's earned more than that from me!"
+
+"Oh, Phoebe!" The man could hardly refrain from taking her in his arms.
+"You're an angel! To sacrifice all that for us--it's the most unselfish
+thing I've ever heard of! You gave her sight so she could see me. I came
+right down to bless you and to thank you."
+
+Other words sought utterance but he fought them back. Phoebe must have
+read his heart, for she looked up suddenly and asked, "And you came all
+the way down here just to say thank you! There's nothing else----"
+
+Then, half-ashamed and startled at her forwardness, her gaze dropped.
+
+But the words had worked their magic. "There _is_ something else!" David
+cried, exulting. "I can't wait any longer to tell you! I love you!"
+
+He held out his arms and as she smiled into his face his arms enfolded
+her and he knew that she loved him. But he wanted to hear the sweet
+words from her lips. "Is it so?" he asked. "You do care for me, you'll
+marry me?"
+
+"Oh, Davie, did you think I could live the rest of my life without you?
+Did you think I could love you any less because you're crippled?"
+
+He flushed. "It seemed like working on your sympathy to ask you."
+
+"And if you hadn't asked me, Davie," she began.
+
+"Yes, go on. If I hadn't asked you----"
+
+"_I_ should have asked _you_!"
+
+They both laughed at that, but a moment later were serious as he said,
+"Just the same, Phoebe, it seems presumptuous for a maimed man to ask a
+girl like you to marry him. You are beautiful and you have a wonderful
+voice--and you've done such wonderful things for Mother Bab and me. You
+have sacrificed so much----"
+
+"Stop, David!" she cried, her voice ominously tearful. "David, don't
+hurt me like that! Do you love me?"
+
+"I do." His words had all the solemnity of a marriage vow.
+
+"You know I love you?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then, David, can't you see that we love each other not only in
+prosperity but in misfortunes as well?"
+
+"What a big heart you have, dear, what a woman's heart! I have two
+wonderful women in my life, Mother Bab and you."
+
+Phoebe felt the delicacy and magnitude of the tribute. "I'm happy,
+Davie," she said softly. "I feel so safe with you--no doubts, no fears."
+
+"Just love," he added.
+
+"Just love," she repeated.
+
+"Then, Phoebe"--how she loved the name from his lips--"you'll marry me?"
+He said it as though he could not quite believe his good fortune. "Then
+you _will_ marry me?"
+
+"Yes, if you want."
+
+"If I want! Oh, Phoebe, Phoebe, I have always wanted it!"
+
+
+
+
+Popular Copyright Novels
+
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+
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+        A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction
+
+=Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.= By Frank L. Packard.
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+=Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.= By A. Conan Doyle.
+
+=After House, The.= By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+
+=Ailsa Paige.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
+=Aunt Jane of Kentucky.= By Eliza C. Hall.
+
+=Awakening of Helena Richie.= By Margaret Deland.
+
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+
+=Barbarians.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Bargain True, The.= By Nalbro Bartley.
+
+=Bar 20.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Bar 20 Days.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Bars of Iron, The.= By Ethel M. Dell.
+
+=Beasts of Tarzan, The.= By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+
+=Beloved Traitor, The.= By Frank L. Packard.
+
+=Beltane the Smith.= By Jeffery Farnol.
+
+=Betrayal, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Beyond the Frontier.= By Randall Parrish.
+
+=Big Timber.= By Bertrand W. Sinclair.
+
+=Black Is White.= By George Barr McCutcheon.
+
+=Blind Man's Eyes, The.= By Wm. MacHarg and Edwin Balmer.
+
+=Bob, Son of Battle.= By Alfred Ollivant.
+
+=Boston Blackie.= By Jack Boyle.
+
+=Boy with Wings, The.= By Berta Ruck.
+
+=Brandon of the Engineers.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Broad Highway, The.= By Jeffery Farnol.
+
+=Brown Study, The.= By Grace S. Richmond.
+
+=Bruce of the Circle A.= By Harold Titus.
+
+=Buck Peters, Ranchman.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Business of Life, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+
+=Cabbages and Kings.= By O. Henry.
+
+=Cabin Fever.= By B. M. Bower.
+
+=Calling of Dan Matthews, The.= By Harold Bell Wright.
+
+=Cape Cod Stories.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper.= By James A. Cooper.
+
+=Cap'n Dan's Daughter.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Cap'n Eri.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Cap'n Jonah's Fortune.= By James A. Cooper.
+
+=Cap'n Warren's Wards.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Chain of Evidence, A.= By Carolyn Wells.
+
+=Chief Legatee, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Cinderella Jane.= By Marjorie B. Cooke.
+
+=Cinema Murder, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=City of Masks, The.= By George Barr McCutcheon.
+
+=Cleek of Scotland Yard.= By T. W. Hanshew.
+
+=Cleek, The Man of Forty Faces.= By Thomas W. Hanshew.
+
+=Cleek's Government Cases.= By Thomas W. Hanshew.
+
+=Clipped Wings.= By Rupert Hughes.
+
+=Clue, The.= By Carolyn Wells.
+
+=Clutch of Circumstance, The.= By Marjorie Benton Cooke.
+
+=Coast of Adventure, The.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Coming of Cassidy, The.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Coming of the Law, The.= By Chas. A. Seltzer.
+
+=Conquest of Canaan, The.= By Booth Tarkington.
+
+=Conspirators, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Court of Inquiry, A.= By Grace S. Richmond.
+
+=Cow Puncher, The.= By Robert J. C. Stead.
+
+=Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Cross Currents.= By Author of "Pollyanna."
+
+=Cry in the Wilderness, A.= By Mary E. Waller.
+
+
+=Danger, And Other Stories.= By A. Conan Doyle.
+
+=Dark Hollow, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Dark Star, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Daughter Pays, The.= By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.
+
+=Day of Days, The.= By Louis Joseph Vance.
+
+=Depot Master, The.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Desired Woman, The.= By Will N. Harben.
+
+=Destroying Angel, The.= By Louis Jos. Vance.
+
+=Devil's Own, The.= By Randall Parrish.
+
+=Double Traitor, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+
+=Empty Pockets.= By Rupert Hughes.
+
+=Eyes of the Blind, The.= By Arthur Somers Roche.
+
+=Eye of Dread, The.= By Payne Erskine.
+
+=Eyes of the World, The.= By Harold Bell Wright.
+
+=Extricating Obadiah.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+
+=Felix O'Day.= By F. Hopkinson Smith.
+
+=54-40 or Fight.= By Emerson Hough.
+
+=Fighting Chance, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Fighting Shepherdess, The.= By Caroline Lockhart.
+
+=Financier, The.= By Theodore Dreiser.
+
+=Flame, The.= By Olive Wadsley.
+
+=Flamsted Quarries.= By Mary E. Wallar.
+
+=Forfeit, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+=Four Million, The.= By O. Henry.
+
+=Fruitful Vine, The.= By Robert Hichens.
+
+=Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.= By Frank L. Packard.
+
+
+=Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.= By Payne Erskine.
+
+=Girl from Keller's, The.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Girl Philippa, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Girls at His Billet, The.= By Berta Ruck.
+
+=God's Country and the Woman.= By James Oliver Curwood.
+
+=Going Some.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Golden Slipper, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Golden Woman, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+=Greater Love Hath No Man.= By Frank L. Packard.
+
+=Greyfriars Bobby.= By Eleanor Atkinson.
+
+=Gun Brand, The.= By James B. Hendryx.
+
+
+=Halcyone.= By Elinor Glyn.
+
+=Hand of Fu-Manchu, The.= By Sax Rohmer.
+
+=Havoc.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Heart of the Desert, The.= By Honore Willsie.
+
+=Heart of the Hills, The.= By John Fox, Jr.
+
+=Heart of the Sunset.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.= By Edfrid A. Bingham.
+
+=Her Weight in Gold.= By Geo. B. McCutcheon.
+
+=Hidden Children, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Hidden Spring, The.= By Clarence B. Kelland.
+
+=Hillman, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Hills of Refuge, The.= By Will N. Harben.
+
+=His Official Fiancee.= By Berta Ruck.
+
+=Honor of the Big Snows.= By James Oliver Curwood.
+
+=Hopalong Cassidy.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
+
+=Hound from the North, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+=House of the Whispering Pines, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.= By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.
+
+
+=I Conquered.= By Harold Titus.
+
+=Illustrious Prince, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=In Another Girl's Shoes.= By Berta Ruck.
+
+=Indifference of Juliet, The.= By Grace S. Richmond.
+
+=Infelice.= By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+
+=Initials Only.= By Anna Katharine Green.
+
+=Inner Law, The.= By Will N. Harben.
+
+=Innocent.= By Marie Corelli.
+
+=Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.= By Sax Rohmer.
+
+=In the Brooding Wild.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+=Intriguers, The.= By Harold Bindloss.
+
+=Iron Trail, The.= By Rex Beach.
+
+=Iron Woman, The.= By Margaret Deland.
+
+=I Spy.= By Natalie Sumner Lincoln.
+
+
+=Japonette.= By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+=Jean of the Lazy A.= By B. M. Bower.
+
+=Jeanne of the Marshes.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+=Jennie Gerhardt.= By Theodore Dreiser.
+
+=Judgment House, The.= By Gilbert Parker.
+
+
+=Keeper of the Door, The.= By Ethel M. Dell.
+
+=Keith of the Border.= By Randall Parrish.
+
+=Kent Knowles: Quahaug.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+=Kingdom of the Blind, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+Page 17, word "have" added to the text (mom would have lived)
+
+Page 171, word "the" added to the text (in the bank)
+
+Page 181, "esctatic" changed to "ecstatic" (ecstatic trill of)
+
+Page 315, word "the" added to the text (mentioned the operation)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Patchwork, by Anna Balmer Myers
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PATCHWORK ***
+
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diff --git a/22827.zip b/22827.zip
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+++ b/README.md
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #22827 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22827)