"'Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest;Home-keeping hearts are happiest.For those who wander, they know not where,Are full of trouble and full of care;To stay at home is best.'"
"But I have ambitions, Phares. All my eighteen years of life have been spent on a farm, in the narrow existence of those whose days are passed within one little circle. I want to see things, I want to meet people, I want to live, I want to learn to sing—I can't do any of these things here. Oh, you can't understand my real sincerity in this desire to get away. It is not that I love my home and my people less than you love yours. I feel that I must get away!"
"But your voice, Phœbe, like the scarlet tanager's, is right as God made it. Because we are such old friends it grieves me to see you go. I was hoping you would change your mind—there is so much vanity and evil in the city."
"I'll try to keep from it, Phares. I shall merely learn to sing better, meet a few new people, and be wiser because of the experience."
"It is useless to try to persuade you, I suppose. I hoped you would reconsider it, that you would learn to care for me as I care."
"Phares, don't. You make me unhappy."
"Misery loves company," he quoted, trying to smile.
"But can't you see that marriage is the thing I am thinking least about these days? I am too young."
She looked, indeed, like a fair representation of Youth as she stood by the crude rail fence at the edge of the woods, one arm flung along the rough top rail, her hair tumbled from the walk through the cornfield, her eyes still gleaming with the joy of seeing the tanager, yet shadowy with the startled emotions occasioned by the preacher's wooing.
He looked at her—
"Oh, look! Our tanager is back!" she exclaimed.
"I guess she is too young," he thought as he saw how quickly she turned from the question of marriage to watch the red bird.
Phœbe's lips parted in pleasure as she saw the tanager again take up his place on the oak and burst into song. So absorbed were man and maid that neither heard the rustle of parted corn nor were aware of the presence of a third person until a voice exclaimed, "Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn't know you were here."
As they turned David Eby stood before them, his expression a mingling of surprise and wonder. The flush on Phœbe's face, the awakened look in her eyes, troubled the man who had come through the corn and found the girl he loved standing with the preacher.The self-conscious look on the preacher's face assured David that he had stumbled through the field in an awkward moment, that his presence was unwelcome. He turned to go back, but Phœbe stepped quickly to him and took his hand.
"Ah," thought Phares with a twinge of jealousy, "she wouldn't do that to me. How quickly she dropped her hand a while ago. They are such good friends, she and David. It's wrong to be envious; I must fight against it—and yet—I want her just as much as David does!"
"David," Phœbe begged, "come back! Why, I was just wishing you were here! There's a scarlet tanager—see!" She pointed to the brilliant songster.
"I thought he was coming to this woods so I came to hunt him," said David, his irritation gone. "I saw that fellow over by the tobacco field and followed him here. I bet they have their nest in this very woods. We'll look better next spring and try to find it and see the little ones. Tut, tut," he whistled to the bird, "don't sing your pretty head off." His eyes turned to the sky and the smile left his face. "It looks threatening," he said. "I thought I heard thunder as I came through the corn."
"That so?" said Phares. "Then we better move in."
Even as they turned and started through the field the thunder came again—distant—nearer, rolling in ominous rumbles.
"Look at the sky," said David. "Clear yellow—that means hail!"
"Oh, David"—Phœbe stood still and looked at him—"not hail on your tobacco!"
He took her arm. "Come on, Phœbe, it's coming fast. We must get in. Come to our house, Phares, that's the nearest."
Just as they reached the kitchen door, where Mother Bab was looking for them, the hail came.
"It's hail, Mommie," David said. The three words held all the worry and pain of his heart.
"Never mind"—the little mother patted his shoulder. "It's hail for more people than we know, perhaps for some who are much poorer than we are."
"But the tobacco——" He stood by the window, impotent and weak, while the devastating hail pounded and rattled and smote the broad leaves of his tobacco and rendered it almost worthless.
"Won't new leaves grow again?" Phœbe tried to cheer him.
"Not this late in the summer. My tobacco was almost ready to be cut; it was unusually early this year."
"Well," spoke up the preacher, "I can't see why you always plant tobacco. Smoking and chewing tobacco are filthy habits. I can't see why so many people of this section plant the weed when the soil could be used to produce some useful grain or vegetable."
"Yes"—David turned and addressed his cousin fiercely—"it's easy enough for you to talk! You with your big farm and orchards and every crop a success! Your bank account is so fat that you don't need to care whether your acres bring in a big return or a lean one. But when you have just a few acres you plant the thingthat will be likely to bring in the most money. You know many poor people plant tobacco for that reason, and that is why I plant it."
"Davie," the mother said, "Davie!"
"I know," he said bitterly. "I'm a beast when my temper gets beyond control, but Phares can be so confounded irritating, he rubs salt in your cuts every time."
"Just for healing," the mother said gently.
"David," said Phœbe, "I guess the temper is a little bit of that Irish showing up."
At that David smiled, then laughed.
"Phœbe," he said, "you know how to rub people the right way. If ever I have the blues you are just the right medicine."
"I don't want to be called medicine," she said with a shake of her head.
"Not even a sugar pill?" asked Mother Bab.
"No. I don't like the sound ofpill."
David looked across at the preacher, who stood silent and helpless in the swift tide of conversation. "You may be right, Phares. It may be the wrath of Providence upon the tobacco. I'll try alfalfa in that field next and then I'll rub Aladdin's lamp. I'll make some money then!"
"Where do you find Aladdin's lamp?" asked Phœbe.
"I can't tell you now. But I know I'm tired of slaving and having nothing for my work, so I am going after the magic lamp."
Themorning after the hail storm dawned fair and sunshiny. David went out and stood at the edge of his tobacco field. All about him the hail had wrought its destruction. Where yesterday broad, thick leaves of green tobacco had stood out strong and vigorous there hung only limp shreds, punctured and torn into worthlessness.
"All wasted, my summer's work. I'll rub that magic lamp now. Fool that I was, not to do it sooner!"
A little later, as he walked down the road to town, his lips were closed in a resolute line, his shoulders squared in soldierly fashion. "I hope Caleb Warner is in his office," he thought.
Caleb Warner was in; he greeted David cordially.
"Good-morning, Dave. How are things out your way? Hail do much damage?"
"Some damage," echoed the farmer. "It hailed just about four hundred dollars' worth too much for me."
"What, you don't say so! That's the trouble with your farming."
Caleb Warner was an affable little man with a frank,almost innocent, look on his smooth-shaven face. Spontaneous interest in his friends' affairs made him an agreeable companion and helped materially to increase his clientele—Caleb Warner dealt in real estate and, incidentally, in oil stocks and gold stocks.
"That's just the trouble with your farming," he repeated. "You slave and break your back and crops are fine and you hope to have a good return for your labor, when along comes a hail storm and ruins your fruit or tobacco or corn, or along comes a dry spell or a wet spell with the same result. It sounds mighty fine to say the farmer is the most independent person on the face of the earth—it's a different proposition when you try it out. Not so?"
"I'm about convinced you speak the truth about it," said the farmer.
"I know I do. I used to be a farmer, but I have grown wiser. I think there are too many other ways to make money with less risk."
"That is why I came——" David hesitated, but the other man waited silently for the explanation. "Have you any more of the gold-mine stock you offered me some time ago?"
"That Nevada mine?"
"Yes."
"Just one thousand dollars' worth; the rest is all cleaned out. I sold a thousand yesterday. Listen, Dave, there's the chance of your life. You know how I worked on that farm of mine, how my wife had to slave, how even Mary had to work hard. Then one day a friend of mine who had gone west came to me andoffered me some stock in a western gold mine. My wife was afraid of it, said I'd lose every cent I put in it and we'd have to go to the poorhouse—women don't generally understand about investments. But I went ahead and got the stock, and in a few years I sold out part of it for a neat sum and drew big dividends on what I kept. Then we moved to town; my wife keeps a maid, Mary goes to college, and we're living instead of slaving our lives away on a farm. And it's honestly made money, for the gold was put into the earth for us to use. It is just a case of running a little risk, but no person loses money because of your risk. Of course, there's lots of stock sold that's not worth the paper it's written on, but I don't sell that kind."
"People trust you here," said David.
If the man winced or had reason to do so, he betrayed no sign of it. "I hope so," he said. "You have known me all my life. If I ever want to work any skin game I'll go out of the place where all my friends are. This mine of which I speak is near the mine at Goldfield and some of the veins struck recently are richer than those of the renowned Goldfield. They are still striking deeper veins. I have sold stock in that mine to fifteen people in this town."
He mentioned some of the residents of Greenwald; people who, in David's opinion, were too shrewd to be entangled in any nefarious investment. The names impressed David—if those fifteen put their money into it he might as well be the sixteenth.
In a little while David Eby walked home with a paper representing the ownership of a number ofshares of a certain gold mine in Nevada, while Caleb Warner patted musingly a check for five hundred dollars.
Mother Bab wondered at her boy's philosophical acceptance of his crop failure. "I'm glad you take it this way," she said as he came in, whistling, from his trip to Greenwald.
"What's the use of crying?" he answered gaily, though he felt far from gay. Had he been too hasty? Doubts began to assail him. It was going to be hard to deceive his mother, she was always so eager for his confidence. But, then, he was doing it for her sake as much as for his own. The war clouds were drawing nearer and nearer to this country; if the time came when America would enter the war he would have to answer the call for help. If the stock turned out to be what the other wise men of the town felt confident it would be then the added money would be a boon to his mother while he was away in the service of his country—and yet—it was a great risk he was running. Why had he done it? The old lines of the poem came back to him and burned into his soul,
"O what a tangled web we weaveWhen first we practice to deceive."
Then, again, swift upon that thought came the old proverb, "Nothing venture, nothing gain." Thus he was torn between doubt and satisfaction, but it was too late to undo the deed. He was the owner of the stock and Caleb Warner had the five hundred dollars!
Phœbefound the packing of her trunk a task not altogether without pain. As she gathered her few treasures from her room a feeling of desolation seemed to pervade the place. Going away from home for the first long stay, however bright the new place of sojourn, brings to most hearts an undercurrent of sadness.
She smiled a bit wistfully at her few treasures—her books, an old picture of her mother, the little Testament Aunt Maria gave her to read, the few trinkets her school friends had given her from time to time, a little kodak picture of Mother Bab and David in the flower garden.
At last the dreary task was done, the trunk strapped, and she was ready for the journey. It was a perfect September day when she left the gray farmhouse, drove in the country road and stood with her father, Aunt Maria, Mother Bab, David and Phares at the railroad station in Greenwald and waited for the noon train to Philadelphia.
Jacob Metz and the preacher made brave, though visible, efforts to be cheerful; Maria Metz made no effort to be anything except very greatly worried and anxious; but Mother Bab and David were determinedthat the girl's departure was to be nothing less than pleasant.
"Now be sure, Phœbe," said Aunt Maria for the tenth time, "to ask the conductor at Reading if that train is for Phildelphy before you get on, and at Phildelphy you wait till Miss Lee fetches you."
"Yes, Aunt Maria, I'll be careful."
"And don't lose your trunk check—David, did you give it to her for sure?"
"Yes. She'll hold on to it, don't you worry."
"Phœbe will be all right," said Mother Bab.
"And," said David teasingly, "be sure to let me know when you need that beet juice and cream and flour."
"Davie! Now for that I won't write to you!"
"Yes you will!" His eyes looked so long into hers that she said confusedly, "Ach, I'll write. Mind that you take good care of Mother Bab and stop in sometimes to see how Aunt Maria and daddy are getting on without me."
"Ach, we'll be all right," said Aunt Maria. "Just you take care of yourself so far away from home. And if you get homesick you come right home. Anyway, you come home soon to see us; and be sure to write every week still."
"Yes, yes!"
A shrill whistle announced the approach of the train. There were hurried kisses and good-byes, a handshake for the preacher and, last of all, a handshake for David. He held her hand so long that she cried out, "David, you'll make me miss the train!"
"No—good-bye."
"Good-bye, David." Then she tugged at her hand and in a moment was hurrying to the train.
There were few passengers that day, so the train made a short stop. Phœbe smiled as the train started, leaned forward and waved till the familiar group was lost to her view, then she settled herself with a brave little smile and looked at the well-known fields and meadows she was passing. The trees on Cemetery Hill were silhouetted against the blue sky just as she had seen them many times in her walks about the country.
But soon the old landmarks disappeared and unknown fields lay about her. Crude rail fences divided acres of rustling corn from orchards whose trees were laden with red apples or downy peaches. Occasionally flocks of startled birds rose from fields freshly plowed for the fall sowing of wheat. Huge red barns and spacious open tobacco sheds, hung with drying tobacco, gave evidence of the prosperity of the farmers of that section. Little schoolhouses were dotted here and there along the road. Flowers bloomed by the wayside and in them Phœbe was especially interested. Goldenrod in such great profusion that it seemed the very sunshine of the skies was imprisoned in flower form, stag-horn sumac with its grape-like clusters of red adding brilliancy to the landscape—everywhere was manifest the dawn of autumnal glory, the splendor that foreruns decay, the beauty that is but the first step in nature's transition from blossom and harvest to mystery and sleep.
Every two or three miles the train stopped at little stations and then Phœbe leaned from her window to see the beautiful stretches of country.
At one flag station the train was signalled and came to a stop. Just outside Phœbe's window stood a tall farmer. He rubbed his fingers through his hair and stared curiously at the train.
"Step lively," shouted the trainman.
But the farmer shook his head. "Ach, I don't want on your train! I expected some folks from Lititz and thought they'd be on this here train. Didn't none get on——"
But the angry trainman had heard enough. He pulled the cord and the train started, leaving the old man alone, his eyes scanning the moving cars.
Phœbe laughed. "We Pennsylvania Dutch do funny things! I wonder if I'll seem strange and foolish to the people I shall meet in the great city."
At Reading she obeyed Aunt Maria's injunction and boarded the proper train. The ride along the winding Schuylkill was thoroughly enjoyed by the country girl, but the picture changed when the country was left behind, suburban Philadelphia passed, and the train entered the crowded heart of the city. They passed close to dark houses grimy with the accumulated smoke of many passing locomotives. Great factories loomed before the train, factories where girls looked up for a moment at the whirring cars and turned again to the grinding life of loom or machine. The sight disheartened Phœbe. Was life in the city like that for some girls? How dreadful to be shut up in a factory whileoutdoors the whole panorama of the seasons moved on! She would miss the fields and woods but she would make the sacrifice gladly if she might only see life, meet people and learn to sing. The thoughts awakened by the sight of the shut-in girls were not happy ones. She welcomed the call, "Reading Terminal, Philadelphia."
As she followed the stream of fellow passengers and walked through the dim train shed to the exit her heart beat more quickly—she was really in Philadelphia! But the noise, the stream of people rushing from trains past other people rushing to trains, bewildered her. She saw the sea of faces beyond the iron gates and experienced for the first time the loneliness that comes to a traveler who enters a thronged depot and sees a host of people but enters unwelcomed and ungreeted.
However, the loneliness was momentary. The next minute she caught sight of Miss Lee. A wave of relief and happiness swept over her—she was in Philadelphia, the land of her heart's desire!
September 15.
I'min Philadelphia—really, truly! Phœbe Metz, late of a gray farmhouse in Lancaster County, is sitting in a beautiful room of the Lee residence, Philadelphia.
What a lot of things I have to write in you, diary! I can scarcely find the beginning. Before I left home I thought about keeping a diary, how entertaining it would be to sit down when I'm old and gray and read the accounts of my first winter in the city. So I went to Greenwald and bought the fattest note-book I could find and I'm going to write in you all of my joys—let's hope there won't be any sorrows—and all of my pleasures and all about my impressions of places and people in this great, wonderful City of Brotherly Love. Of course, I'll write letters home and to David and Mother Bab and some of the girls, but there are so many things one can't tell others yet likes to remember. So you'll have to be my safety valve, confidant and confessor.
When I left the train at Philadelphia I was bewildered and confused. Such crowds I never saw, not even in Lancaster. Seemed like everybody in the citywas coming from a train or running to one. I was glad to see Miss Lee. She's the dearest person! I love her as much as I did when I went to her school on the hill. I'm as tall as she is now. She dresses beautifully. I thought my blue serge suit was lovely but her clothes are—well, I suppose you'd call them creations. I'm so glad I'm going to be near her all winter and can copy from her.
As I came through the gates at the depot she caught me and kissed me. I thought she was alone, but a moment later she turned to a tall man and introduced him, her cousin, Royal Lee, the musician. If Aunt Maria could see him she'd warn me again, as she did repeatedly, not to "leave that fiddlin' man get too friendly." He's handsome. I never before met a man like him. His magnetic smile, his low voice attracted me right away.
After he piloted us through the crowded depot and into a taxicab Miss Lee began to ask me questions about Greenwald and the people she knows there. I felt rather timid, for I was conscious of the appraising eyes of her cousin. He didn't stare at me, yet every time I glanced at him his eyes were searching my face. Does he think me very countrified, I wonder? I do have the red cheeks country girls are always credited with, but I'm glad I'm not "buxom." I'd hate to be fat!
I wish I could describe Royal Lee. He's just as I pictured him, only more so. He has the lean, æsthetic face of the musician, the sensitive nostrils and thin lips denoting acute temperament. His eyes are gray.
As we rode through the streets of the city Miss Lee told me her mother would have me stay with them until we can find a suitable boarding place. To-morrow we're going in search of one.
Taxicabs travel pretty fast. We skirted past curbs so that I almost held my breath and shot past trucks and other cars till I thought we'd surely land in the street. But we escaped safely and soon stopped at the Lee residence, a big, imposing brownstone house. It looks bare outside, no yard, no flowers. But inside it's a lovely place, so inviting and attractive that I'd like to settle down for life in it.
Mrs. Lee is as charming as her daughter. She has been a semi-invalid for years, but even in her wheelchair she has the poise and manner of one well born. Her greeting was so cordial and gracious, but all I could answer was an inane, "Thank you, you are very kind." Will I ever learn to express my thoughts as charmingly as these people do, I wonder!
When Miss Lee took me up-stairs it was up a bare, polished stairway upon which I was half afraid to tread. And the room she took me to! I've heard about such rooms and read about them. Delft blue paper and rugs, white woodwork and furniture, blue hangings, white curtains—it's a magazine-room turned to real!
When I tried to express my gratitude for her goodness Miss Lee hushed me with a kiss and said she anticipated as much joy from my presence in the city as I did, that I was so genuine and refreshing that it would be a pleasure to have me around. I don't know justwhat she means. I'm just Phœbe Metz, nothing wonderful about me, unless it's my voice, and I hope that is. She said, too, that I would make her very happy if I'd let her be a real friend to me, and if I'd call her Virginia. Why, that's just what I've been wishing for! I told her so. She is just twelve years older than I am, so she's near the thirty mark yet, and I like a friend who is older. She seems just the same Miss Lee, no older than she was when I walked down the street of Greenwald in my gingham dress and checked sunbonnet and buried my nose in the pink rose David gave me. How lucky that little country girl is! I'm here in Philadelphia, in a beautiful house, with Virginia Lee for my friend, and glorious visions of music and good times flashing before my eyes. I put my hands to my head to keep it from going dizzy!
There's a little speck of cloud in the blue of my joy right now, though. I'm afraid I've blundered already. Miss Lee—Virginia, I mean—said as she turned to leave my room that they have dinner at six and I'd have plenty of time to get ready for it. I had to tell her that I couldn't change my dress, that I hadn't thought to bring any light dress in my bag but had packed them all in the trunk. She hurried to assure me that my dark skirt and white blouse would do very well, that she would not dress for dinner to-night. But I feel sure that she seldom appears at the dinner table in a blouse and tailored skirt. Guess Aunt Maria'd say I'm in a place too tony for me, but I know I can learn how to do here. I might have remembered that some people make of their evening meal a formalone. I've read about "dressing for dinner" and when my first opportunity comes to do so it finds me with all my dress-up dresses packed in a trunk in the express office! Perhaps it serves me right for wanting to "put on style," but I remember an old saying about "doing as the Romans do." At any rate, I'm going to make the best of it and quit worrying about it, or I'll be so fussed I'll eat with my knife or pour my coffee into my saucer!
Later in the evening.
What a whirl my brain is in! Things happen so fast that I scarcely know where to begin again to write about them. But it began with the dinner. That was the grandest dinner I ever tasted but I don't remember a single thing I ate, though I do know there was no bread or jelly. What would Aunt Maria think of that! The delicate china, fine linen and silver were the loveliest I have ever seen. There were electric lights with soft-colored shades and there was a colored waiter who seemed to move without effort. The forks and spoons for the different courses bothered me. I had to glance at Virginia to see which one to use. Once during the dinner I thought of the time Mollie Brubaker told Aunt Maria about a dinner she had in the home of a city relative. I remember how Aunt Maria sniffed, "Humph, if abody's right hungry you can eat without such dumb style put on. I say when you cook and carry things to the table for people you don't need to feed them yet, they can help themselves. Just so it's clean and cooked good and enough to goround, that's all I try for when I get company to eat." I felt like a fish out of water at the Lee dinner table, but Mrs. Lee and the others were so kind and tactful that I could not be embarrassed, not enough to show it. However, I thought to myself as we rose from the table, "Thank Heaven!"
Mrs. Lee asked me whether I like music. We were in the sitting-room and Mr. Lee stood by the piano, his hand on his violin case.
"Yes, indeed!" I told her, for I was anxious to hear him play. I have never heard any great violinist but the sound of a violin sets me thrilling. I could listen to it for hours.
Mr. Lee smiled at my enthusiasm, lifted the instrument to his shoulder and began to play. If I live to be a hundred I'll never forget that music! Like the soothing winds of summer, the subtle fragrance of a wild rose, the elusive phantoms of our dreams, it stirred my soul. I sat as one dazed when he ended.
"You say nothing. Don't you like my music?" he asked me.
"Like your music? Like is too poor a word!" And I tried to tell him how I loved it. He smiled again, that calling, hypnotizing smile, that made me want to rush to him and ask him to be my friend. But I restrained myself and turned to listen to Virginia. The music haunted me. It sounded like the voice of a soul searching for something it could never find. I was still dreaming about it when I heard Mr. Lee say, "Now, Aunt, shall we have some cribbage?" I watched him uncomprehendingly as he arranged asmall table and brought out cards and boards for a game. The full significance of his actions dawned upon me—they were going to play cards! I had never seen a game of cards, but Aunt Maria taught me long ago that cards are the instrument of the Evil One. My first impulse was to run from the room, away from the cards, but I hated to be so rude.
"Do you play cards?" Royal Lee asked me.
"No, oh, no!" I gasped.
"You should learn. I'm sure you would enjoy playing."
I know my face flushed. He did not notice my bewilderment and went on, "We'll teach you to play, Miss Metz." Then he turned to the game.
Virginia came to my rescue and drew me to a seat near her. She asked me questions about Greenwald. Goodness only knows what I answered her. My attention was a variant. Troubled thoughts distressed me. In Aunt Maria's category of sins dancing, card playing and theatre-going rank side by side with lying, stealing and idolatry. As I sat there I tried to reconcile my opinion of these worldly pleasures with the conduct of my new friends. The tangle is too complicated to unravel at once. I could feel blushes of shame staining my cheeks as the game progressed. What would Aunt Maria say, what would daddy say, what would even tolerant Mother Bab say, if they knew I sat passively by and watched a game of cards? After a little while I asked Virginia whether I could write a letter to Aunt Maria and tell her of my safe arrival. I just had to get out of that room! I don'tknow if she saw through my ruse but she smiled as she put her arm around me and led me to the stairs. "There's a desk in your room, Phœbe. You can be undisturbed there. Tell your aunt we are going to help you find a comfortable home and that we are going to take care of you. I'll be up presently to visit with you."
When I got up-stairs I felt like crying. Those cards actually scared me. I shrank from being so near the evil things. But after a while as I came to think more calmly I decided that cards couldn't hurt me if I didn't play them. I promised myself to keep from being contaminated with the wickedness of the city the while I enjoyed its harmless pleasures. The first horror of the cards soon passed but it left me sobered. I wrote a long letter to Aunt Maria and then turned off the lights and looked down into the city street. It seemed wonderful to me to see so many lights stretched off until some of them were mere specks. There was a wedding across the street. I saw the guests and caught a glimpse of the bride, dressed all in white. But later, when Virginia came up to my room and I asked her about it she didn't know a thing about the wedding. Why, at home, if there's a big wedding and the neighbors don't know about it or are not invited to it, they feel slighted. But Virginia says a city is different, that you don't really have neighbors like in Greenwald.
Virginia told me, too, how she came to teach in our school on the hill. When she finished college she wanted to earn money, just to prove that she could.Her father wanted her to stay home and live the life of a butterfly, she says. One day he said, more in jest than earnest, that if she insisted upon earning money he'd give his consent to her being a teacher in a rural school. She accepted the challenge and through her cousin she secured the place on the hill and became my teacher. When her father died and her mother became a semi-invalid she gave up her work and took up the old life again. She said that as if it were not really a desirable life, this going to teas, dances, plays, musicals, lectures, and having no cares or worries. Of course I know many of her pleasures are forbidden fruit for me, but if I ever can wear pretty clothes like hers and go off to an evening musical or concert I know I'll be as excited as a Jenny Wren.
September 16.
I'vedreamed my first dreams in Philadelphia. Such dreams as they were! Whatever it was I ate for supper it must have been richer than our Lancaster County sausage and fried mush, for I dreamed all night. My old-fashioned walnut bed with its red and green calico quilt seemed to swing before me while Mother Bab and Aunt Maria talked to me. A clanging trolley car woke me and I remembered that I had been dreaming of Phares and the tanager's nest. I slept again and heard the strains of Royal Lee's violin till another car clanged past and woke me. I woke once to find myself saying, "Braid it straight, Davie. Aunt Maria's awful mad." When I slept again I thought I heard Royal Lee say, "We'll teach you to play cards," and speared tails and horned heads seemed mixed promiscuously with little pieces of cardboard bearing red and black symbols and the words "I'll get you if you don't watch out" rang in my ears. "Ugh, what awful dreams," I thought as I lay awake and listened for sounds of activity in the house. I missed Aunt Maria's five o'clock call. The luxury of an eight o'clock breakfast couldn't be appreciated the first morning, as I was wide awake at five. I'll soon learnto sleep later. There are many things I shall learn before I go back to the farm.
This morning Virginia and I started out on a glorious adventure, looking for a boarding place. She laughed when I called it that.
"I like the uncertainty of it," I told her. "The charm of the unknown appeals to me. I do not know under whose roof I shall sleep to-night yet I'm happy because I know I am going to meet new people and see new things. Of course, if I did not have you to help me I would remember Aunt Maria's dire tales of the evils and dangers of a big city and should feel afraid. As it is, I feel only curious and gay. No matter where I find a place to live it's bound to be quite different from the farm, not better, necessarily, but different."
But my "high hopes of youth" received a jolt at the very first interview with a boarding-house mistress. She wouldn't take young ladies who were studying music, their practice would annoy the other boarders. I had never thought of that!
The second quest was equally unsatisfactory. One room was vacant, a pleasant room—at twelve dollars a week! The sum left me speechless. Virginia had to explain that the amount was atriflemore than I expected to pay.
The third proved to be a smaller house on a narrower street. A charming old lady led us into a sitting-room. All my life I've been accustomed to the proverbial cleanliness of the Pennsylvania Dutch but I'm certain I never saw a place as clean as that house.I said something like that to its mistress and she informed me with a gentle firmness I never heard before that she expected every guest in her house to help to keep it in that condition. She had several rules she wanted all to obey, so that the sunshine would not have a chance to fade the rugs and the dust from the street could not ruin things. I knew I would not be happy there. I like clean rooms, but if it's a matter of choosing between foul airwithoutdust and fresh airwithdust I'll take the dust every time. I'd feel like a funeral to live in a house where the curtains and shades were down every day, summer and winter, to keep the sunshine out of the rooms and prevent the jade-green and china-blue and old-rose of the rugs from fading.
The fourth place was in suburban Philadelphia, fifty minutes' ride from the heart of the city. It was a big colonial house set in a great yard, a relic of the days when gardens still flourished in the city and the breathing spaces allotted to householders were larger than at the present time. As we went up the shrubbery-bordered walk to the pillared porch I said, "I want to live here."
Mrs. McCrea, the boarding-house mistress, did not object to the music, provided I took the large room on the third floor and did all my practicing between the hours of eight and five, when the other boarders were gone to business. The price of the room is seven dollars a week.
I took the room at once, before Mrs. McCrea had any chance of changing her mind. I thought it was avery pleasant room, with its two windows looking out on the green yard.
But later, after Virginia had gone and I was left alone in the room, the queerest feeling came over me. I never knew what it meant to be homesick, but I think I had a touch of it this afternoon in this room. I hated this place for about half an hour. I saw that the paint is soiled, the rug worn, the pictures cheap, the bed and bureau trimmed with gingerbready scrolls and knobs. It's so different from the blue and white room I slept in last night, so different from my plain, old-fashioned room at home. "It's all right," I said to myself, half crying, "but it's so different."
Fortunately the worddifferentstruck a responsive chord in my memory. I remembered that I wanted different things, and smiled again and dashed the tears away. I arranged my own pictures and few belongings about the room and felt more at home. After I had dressed and stood ready to go down for my first dinner in my new home I felt happier. To be living, to be young and enthusiastic, to possess the colossal courage of youth, was enough to bring happiness into my heart again. I'm going to like this place. I'm going to work and play and live in this wonderful city.
Mrs. McCrea introduced the "New boarder" and I took my assigned place at a long table in the dining-room. I remembered that I once read that the average boarding-house is a veritable school for students of human nature. I wondered what I would learn from the people I met there. The fat man across the table from me gave me no opportunity for any mental ramblings. He launched me right into conversation by asking my opinion of the war in Europe and whether or not we would be dragged into the trouble.
"Really," I answered him, "I don't know much about it. I don't think of it any more than I can help."
Of course that was the wrong thing to say. It started a deluge. A studious-looking woman wearing heavy tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles took my answer as a personal affront. "Why not, Miss Metz?" she demanded. "Why should we not think about it? We women of America need to wake up! In this country we are lolling in ease and safety while other nations bleed and die that we might remain safe. We have no thoughts higher than our hats or deeper than our boots if the catastrophe across the sea does not waken in us an earnest desire to help the stricken nations."
Others took up the argument and I sat quiet and helpless, for I know too little about the cause and progress of the war to talk intelligently about it. A sense of responsibility grazed my soul. I wished I were able to help France and Belgium, but what can I do? The constant harping on the subject of war irritated me. I felt relieved when a young girl near me asked, "Miss Metz, do you like the movies? There's a place near here where they show fine pictures, funny ones to make you forget the war for several hours, at least."
On the whole, I think I'm going to like life at Mrs. McCrea's boarding-house. I hear the views of so many different sorts of people. And it certainly is different from my life on the farm.
September 19.
Myfour days in Philadelphia have just been one exclamation point after another! The most wonderful thing happened to me last night! Mrs. Lee invited me over for dinner. I glided through the courses a little more gracefully—one can learn if the will is there. I always loved dainty things. I suppose that is why I delight in the Lee home and am eager to adopt the ways of my new friends.
After dinner Mr. Lee played again. Of course I enjoyed that. When I praised his playing he said he heard I'm a real genius and asked me to sing for them. Mr. Krause, one of the best teachers of music in the city, is a friend of Royal and Virginia thinks he would be the very one to teach me. Mr. Lee wrote to Mr. Krause this summer and the music teacher promised to take me for a pupil if I have a voice worth the trouble. Virginia had prepared me for my meeting with him. Seems he's queer, odd, cranky and painfully frank. But he knows how to teach music so well that many would-be singers pray to be taken into his studio. Mr. Lee said yesterday that Mr. Krause was expected home from his vacation in a few daysand then he'd arrange an interview. I trembled when he said that. What if the great teacher did not like my voice!
To-night when Mr. Lee asked me to sing I selected a simple song. As I sat down before the baby grand piano the words of the old song "Sweet and Low" came to me. I would sing that until I gained courage and confidence to sing a harder selection. I played from memory. As I sang I was back again at home, singing to my father at the close of the day.
As the last words died on my lips and I turned on the chair a man, a stranger to me, appeared in the room. He hurried unceremoniously to the piano and greeted me, "You can sing!"
I stared at him. He was an odd-looking, active little man of about fifty with keen blue eyes that bored into one like a gimlet.
Mr. Lee came toward us. "Mr. Krause," he exclaimed, and presented to me the music master, the teacher for whom I had dreaded so to sing! I was filled with inarticulate gladness.
"Mr. Krause," I cried, grasping his outstretched hand in my old impetuous way, "do you mean it? Can I learn to sing?"
"I said so—yes. You can sing. You need to learn how to use your voice but the voice is there."
"I'm so glad. I'll work——" I couldn't say any more. My joy was too great to be expressed in words. I looked mutely into the wrinkled face of the man.
"Royal said he had found a songbird," he went on smiling, "but I was afraid he didn't know the difference between that and an owl—I see he did. I'll be glad to have you for a pupil. Royal can bring you to my studio to-morrow at eleven."
Mr. Krause stayed a while longer and the sitting-room was gay with laughter and bright conversation. I think I heard little of it, though, for the words, "You can sing!" kept ringing in my ears and crowding out all other sounds.
I can sing! Mr. Krause has told me I can sing! And I will sing! Some day all the world may stop to hear!