"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!
Thefirst 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 andsat 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 overthe 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 accomplishedand 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 mytight 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 theother 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, outwardlyin 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 bringingherany 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 youreyes 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 theirschool 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 intensifythe 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 aLittle Dutchie!" She looked up bravely then and spokefaster, "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. AndDutchiewas 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 feltthat 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.
Phœbe'saspiration 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 anoriginal 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 milkingto 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 Sundaymorning 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 atour 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.
"PHŒBEbeloved wife ofJacob Metzaged twenty-two yearsand one month.Souls of the righteousare 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 thesquare, 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 hymnrose 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 theFather 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 AuntMaria 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 saidshe 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 byherself 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 couldeverget 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, andhedon'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 hadso 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."