"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. Herwomanhood'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 innocentpleasures 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 thatyou 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. Ifthere 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 inthebank, 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? Mebbeyou 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!
Therebelonged 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 almosta 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, theecstatictrill 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——" shestopped. 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 ofwinning 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 shewas 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. Hewould 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!
Thedays 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 littletouch-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 goand 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 musingretrospect—"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 aboutthe 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 inher 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: