April 13.
I'min sackcloth and ashes. My dream castles have tumbled down upon my head and left me bruised and sorrowful. I'm awake at last! I'd like to bury my face in my old red and green patchwork quilt and ask forgiveness for being a fool. But I must compose myself and write this last chapter of my romance.
Last night the "Singer with the Voice of Gold" gave a recital in the Academy of Music. Royal and I helped to make up a merry box party. I felt festive and gay in my lovely white crepe georgette gown. Royal said I looked like a dream and that made me radiant, I know.
As we sat down I whispered to him that I was excited because hearing that great singer has always been one of my dearest dreams and now the dream was coming true. He whispered back that more of my dreams would soon come true. I made him hush, for several people were looking at us. But his words sent my heart thrilling.
The Academy became quiet as the singer appeared,then the audience gave her a real Brotherly Love welcome and settled once more into silence as her beautiful voice rose in the place. The operatic selections were beautifully rendered. I thought her voice was most captivating in the simple songs everybody knows. Annie Laurie had new charm as she sang it. When she sang that Royal whispered, "That is what I feel for you." I smiled into his eyes, then turned again to look at the singer. Could I ever sing like that? Would the dreams of my childhood come true? It seemed improbable and yet—I had traveled a long way from the little girl of the tight braids and brown gingham dresses, I thought. Perhaps the future would bring still more wonderful changes.
The hours in the Academy of Music passed like a beautiful dream. I shrank from the last song, though. It was too much like some fatal, dire prophecy:
"The cord is frayed, the cruse is dry,The link must break, and the lamp must die—Good-bye to hope! Good-bye, good-bye!"
I told Royal I didn't like it, it was too much like Cassandra.
He laughed and said she generally sings it, but that it couldn't hurt us—was I superstitious?
"No, oh, no," I declared. But I wished I could forget the words of that song.
Some of the party decided that a proper ending to the delightful evening would be a visit to a fashionable café. I didn't care to go. Royal urged me tillI consented and I soon found myself in a beautiful place where merry groups of people were seated about small tables. Any desire for food I might have had left me as I heard Royal and the other men order wines and highballs.
"What will you have, Phœbe?" Royal asked me.
I gasped—"Why—nothing."
"Be a sport," he urged, "look around and do as the 'Romans do.'"
I looked around. Some of the women were smoking, others were drinking.
"Oh," I said, "this is dreadful. Let's go."
Royal laughed and the others teased me. One of the girls said I'd be doing all those things before the year ended. When I declared I would not Royal reminded me that I had said the same about cards and dancing. His words silenced me. I felt engulfed in shame and deeply hurt. How could Royal be amused at my discomfiture if he loved me! Did he love me? Did I want him to? Could I promise to honor and love him all my life? But perhaps he was teasing me—ah, that was it! I breathed more easily again. Royal was teasing me, sure of my refusal to indulge in any intoxicant. The others ate and made merry while I toyed idly with the glass of ginger ale the waiter brought me against my wish. I mused and dreamed—would Royal like my people? Somehow, he seemed an incongruity among the dear ones at the gray farmhouse in Lancaster County. What would he say when we ate in the kitchen and daddy came to the table in his shirt sleeves? Love can bridge greaterchasms than that, I thought. When we are married——
"Royal Lee, are you ever going to marry?" The question broke into my revery.
I looked at Royal. There was no rise of color in his handsome face. He returned my look dispassionately then turned to his teasing, inquisitive friend.
"I'm a bachelor forever," he declared. "But that does not keep me from loving. Women I care for have too much good sense to think that marriage always follows love. Ye Gods, I think love goes when marriage comes, so you'll have no chance to see my love interred."
I clenched my hands under the table. I felt my lips go white. How could he hurt me so? Of course our love was not a thing to be paraded in a public place but if he really cared for me as I thought he did he could have answered differently. An evasive answer would have served. An hour ago he had whispered tender words to me and now he frankly informed all present that he was a bachelor forever. I could not grasp the full significance of his words at once. I was dazed by the shock of them. I wanted to get away and be alone, to cry, to think, to determine what he had meant by his demonstrations of love if he did not hope to win me for his wife.
But later, when I went to bed in the pretty blue and white room next Virginia's, I did not cry. I lay wide awake thinking over and over, "How could he do it? Why is he heartless? Was he only playing?"
When morning came I had partially decided that I had been a ready, silly fool; that Royal Lee had merely whiled the hours away more pleasantly because of my love. I felt tempted to denounce him but I thought that would afford him additional amusement and make me not a whit less miserable. I was eager to get away from him. I desired but one little moment alone with him to satisfy myself that I did not judge him unjustly. Fortunately he came to the sitting-room as I sat there staring at the page of a magazine.
"Alone?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Phœbe"—he drew nearer and I rose and stood away from him. "My Bluebird! You look unhappy. Are you still shocked at the smoking and drinking you saw last night? It's all in the game, you know. Why not be happy along with the rest of us, why be a prude?"
I shivered. Couldn't he know why I was unhappy! How false and fickle he was! I wouldn't wear my heart on my sleeve for him to read and laugh about. All my Metz determination rose in me.
"Why," I lied, "I'm not unhappy. I'm just tired. Late hours don't agree with me."
He stretched out his arm but I eluded him. "Don't," I said lightly; "we've been foolish long enough."
"Why"—he looked at me keenly. But I was determined he should not read my feelings. I smiled in spite of my contempt for him. "Why, Phœbe," he said tenderly, "what has changed you? Why shouldn'tI kiss you when I love you? Love never hurt any one."
"No—but——"
"But what?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing," I said, stepping farther away from him. "I'm in a hurry this morning. Good-bye." And for the first time I saw a look of chagrin mar the handsome face of Royal Lee. Before he could recover his customary equanimity I was gone from the house.
I walked, caring not where the way led. My brain was in a whirl. I felt as though I were fleeing from a crumbling precipice. In a flash I understood Virginia's tactful attempts at warning. She had tried to make me understand but my head was too easily turned by the fine speeches and flattering attentions of the musician. I have been vain and foolish but I've had my lesson. It still hurts and yet I can see the value of it. I'll be better qualified after this to discriminate between the false and true.
I am going home to-day! It came to me suddenly as I went back to my boarding-house after my long walk. I promised David I'd come home for arbutus and the inspiration came to go home for the whole spring and summer. I'll write a note to Mr. Krause and one to Virginia. Dear Virginia, she has been so good to me and helped me in so many ways! I can never thank her enough. These eight months in Philadelphia have been a liberal education for me. I'll never regret them. I hope to come back in the fall and go on with the music lessons. By thattime Royal Lee will have found another to make love to.
So I'm going home to-day, back to Lancaster County. The trees are green and the flowers are out—oh, I'm wild to get back!
Lancaster Countynever before looked so fertile, so lovely, as it did that April day when Phœbe returned to it after a long winter in Philadelphia.
As she came unexpectedly there was no one to meet her at Greenwald. She started across the street and was soon on the dusty road leading to the gray farmhouse.
"Let me see," she thought, "this is Friday afternoon and Aunt Maria will be scrubbing the kitchen floor."
But when the girl reached the kitchen of the gray house and tiptoed gently over the sill she found the big room in order and Aunt Maria absent.
"Why," she thought, "is Aunt Maria sick?" She opened the door to the sitting-room and there, seated by a window, was Aunt Maria with a ball of gray wool in her lap and five steel knitting needles plying in her hands.
"Aunt Maria!"
"Why, Phœbe!"
The exclamations came simultaneously.
"What in the world are you doing? I mean why aren't you cleaning the kitchen? Oh, Aunt Maria,you know what I mean! I never saw you sitting down early on a Friday afternoon."
Aunt Maria laughed. "I ain't sick! You can see what I'm doin'; I'm knittin'. Ain't you learned to do it yet? I can learn you."
"Why, I know how. But what are you knitting? For the Red Cross?"
"Why not? You think the ladies in Phildelphy are the only ones do that? There's a Red Cross in Greenwald and they are askin' all who can to help. I used to knit all my own stockings still so I thought I'd pitch right in. I let the cleanin' slide a little this week so I could get a good start on this once."
The girl gasped and looked at her aunt in wonder. All the days of her life she had never known her aunt to "let the cleanin' slide," if the physical strength were there to do the work. Aunt Maria was working for the Red Cross! While she, who had scorned the country folks and called them narrow, had knitted half-heartedly and spent the major part of her time in the pursuit of pleasure, the people of the little town and surrounding country had been doing real work for humanity.
"I think you're splendid, Aunt Maria, to help the Red Cross," she said with enthusiasm.
The woman looked up from her knitting. "Why, how dumb you talk! I guess abody wants to help. Them soldiers are fightin' for us. Now you can get yourself something to eat. It vonders me, anyhow, why you come home this time of the year. You said you'd stay till June."
"I came because I want to be here."
"So. Then I guess you got enough once of the city."
"Yes," said Phœbe, laughing. "But how is everybody?"
"All pretty good. But a lot of boys from round here went a'ready to enlist. I ain't for war, but I guess it has to come sometimes. But it's hard for them that has boys."
"David?" Phœbe asked. "Has he gone?"
"Ach, no, not him. He's got his mom to take care of."
Phœbe remembered Virginia's words, "We can't get away from it, we're in it." The thought of them made her feel depressed. "I'm going to forget the war," she thought after a moment, "I'm going to forget it for to-morrow and have one perfect day in the mountains hunting arbutus."
Itwas a balmy day in April when Phœbe and David drove over the country roads to the mountains where the trailing arbutus grow.
"Spring o' the year," called the meadow-larks in clear, piercing tones.
"It is spring o' the year," said Phœbe. "I know it now. But last week I felt sure that the calendar was wrong and I wondered whether God made only English sparrows this year; that was all I could see. Then I saw a few birds early this week when we went along the Wissahickon for a long walk. Oh, no," she said in answer to the unspoken question in his eyes, "I did not go alone with a man. In Philadelphia one does not do that. I went properly chaperoned by Mrs. Hale. Virginia and Royal and several others were in the party. You should have been there; you would have enjoyed it for you know so much about birds and flowers. Royal didn't know a spring beauty from a bloodroot, and when we heard a song-sparrow he said it was a thrush."
David threw back his head and laughed. "Some nature student he must be! But it must be fine along the Wissahickon. I have read about it."
"It is fine, but this is finer."
"You better say so!"
"Oh, look, David, the soil is pink!" She pointed to a tilled field whose soil was colored a soft old rose color. "I'm always glad to see the pink soil."
"So am I. It means that we are getting near the mountains. We'll drive over to Hull's tavern and leave the carriage there, then we can go to the patch of woods near the tavern where we used to find the great beauties, the fine big ones. There's the old tavern now." He pointed to a building with a fine background of wooded hills.
Hull's tavern, a rambling structure erected in 1812, is still an interesting stopping-place for summer excursionists and travelers through that mountainous section of Pennsylvania. Situated on the south side of the beautiful South Mountains and overlooking the richest of hills, it has long been a popular roadhouse, accommodating many pleasure parties and hikers.
Phœbe wandered about on the long porches while David took the horse to the stable.
"Now then," he said as he joined her, "give me the lunch box and we'll be off."
They walked a short distance in the loamy soil of the mountain road and then turned aside and scrambled up a steep bank to a tract of woodland. Phœbe sank on her knees in the dry, brown leaves and pushed aside the leaves. "There," she cried in triumph a moment later, "I found the first one!" She lifted a small cluster of trailing arbutus and gave it to David.
"Um-ah," he said, in imitation of a little girl of long ago.
"Little Dutchie," she answered. "But you can't provoke me to-day. I'm too happy to be peevish. Come, kneel down, you'll never find arbutus when you stand up."
"I'm down," he said as he knelt beside her. "I'd go on my knees to find arbutus any day."
"So would I—— Oh, look at this—and this! They are perfect." She fairly trembled with joy as she uncovered the waxlike flowers of dainty pink and white. "I could bury my nose in them forever."
"They are perfect," agreed the man. "Fancy living where you never saw any arbutus or had the joy of picking them."
"I don't want to fancy that, it's too delicious being where they do grow. Won't Mother Bab love them?"
"Yes. She'll keep them for days in water. That flower you gave her in Philadelphia lasted four days."
"These are better," Phœbe said quickly, anxious to shut out all thoughts of the city. Now that she was in the woods again she knew how hungry she had been for them. "I am going to pick a bunch of big ones for Mother Bab."
"She would like the small ones every whit as much," the man declared.
"Perhaps better," she mused. "She would say they are just as sweet and pretty. David, I don't know what I should have done without Mother Bab! My life was different, somehow, after she allowed me to adopt her."
"She's great, isn't she?"
"Wonderful! I have many friends, many new ones, many dear ones, but there is only one Mother Bab."
The man's hands trembled among the arbutus—did the admiration touch Mother Bab's son? Could the dreams of his heart ever come true?
"You know," Phœbe went on, "if I could always have her near me, in the same house, I'd be less unworthy of calling her Mother Bab."
It was well that she bent over the dry leaves and blossoms and missed the look that flooded the face of the man for a moment. She wanted to be with Mother Bab—should he tell her of his love? But the very fact that she spoke thus was evidence that she did not love him as he desired. And the war must change his most cherished plans for the future, change them greatly for a time. If he went and never returned it would be harder for her if he went as her lover. As it was he was merely her old comrade and friend; he could read from her manner that no deeper feeling had touched her—not for him, but he wondered about the musician——
The spell was broken when Phœbe spoke again: "Do you know, Davie, I read somewhere that arbutus can't be made to grow anywhere except in its own woods, that the most skilful hand of man or woman can't transplant it to a garden where the soil is different from its native soil."
"I never heard that before, but I remember that I tried several times and failed. I dug up a big box of the soil to make it grow, but it lasted several monthsand died. Let us go along this path and find a new bed; we have almost cleaned this one."
"See"—she raised her bunch of flowers—"I didn't take a single root, so next year when we come we shall find as many as this year. They are too altogether lovely to be exterminated."
They moved about the woods, finding new patches of the fragrant flowers, until they declared it would be robbery to take another one.
"Let's eat," she suggested; "I'm hungry as a bear."
"Race you to that big rock," cried David and began to run. Phœbe followed through the brush and dry leaves, but the farmer covered the distance too quickly for her.
"Now I'm hungry," she said, panting; "I'll eat more than my share of the lunch."
She climbed to the top of the boulder and they sat side by side, the lunch box resting on David's knees.
"Now anything you want ask for," said he.
"I will not!" She delved into the box and brought out a sandwich. "It's mine as much as yours."
"Going in for Woman's Suffrage and Rights and the like?" he asked, laughing.
"Ugh," she wrinkled her nose, "don't mention things like that to-day. I don't want to hear about war or work or problems or anything but just pure joy this day! I earned this perfect day this year. This is to be a day of all-joy for us. Have another sandwich? I'm going to—this makes only four more left for each. Aunt Maria knew what she was doing when she made me take this big box of lunch for justus two. Now, aren't you glad that I brought lunch in a box instead of eating our dinner at Hull's as you suggested?" she said as she kicked her feet, little girl fashion, against the side of the boulder.
"Of course I am glad. I was afraid you might like dinner at the tavern better, that is why I suggested it."
"Don't you know me better than that? Why, we can eat in dining-rooms three hundred and sixty-four days in every year. This is one day when we eat in the birds' dining-room."
"I am enjoying it, Phœbe. It is the first picnic I have had for a long time. I can't tell how I'm drinking in the joy of it."
"Now," said Phœbe later, when the last crumb had been taken out of the lunch box, "we can pack the arbutus in this box. If you find some damp moss I'll arrange them."
She laid the flowers on the cushion of moss, covered them with a few damp leaves and closed the box. "That will keep them fresh," she said. "Now for our drink of mountain water, then home again."
Farther in the woods they found the spring. In a little cove edged with laurel bushes and overhung with chestnut trees and tall oaks it sent up a bubbling fountain of cold water.
"I'm sorry the picnic is over," said Phœbe as she leaned over the clear water and drank the cold draught.
"There is still the lovely drive home," he consoled her.
"Yes," she said as they turned and walked back through the woods to the road again, "and I shall remember this day for a long time. In the spring it's dreadful to be shut in the city."
"I believe you are growing tired of Philadelphia."
"Yes and no. I love the many things to do and see there, but on a day like this I think the country is the place to really enjoy the spring. I wish you could come down some time to the city; there are many places of interest you would like to visit."
"Yes." He opened his lips to tell her that he was soon to be in the service of his country, then he remembered that she had said she did not want to hear the word war on that day, it must be a day of all joy, so he closed his mouth resolutely and merely smiled in answer as she entered the carriage for the ride home. They spoke of many things; she was gay with the childish happiness she always felt in the woods or open country roads. He answered her gaiety, but his heart ached. What did the future hold for him? Would she, perchance, love another before he could return—would he return?
"Look," Phœbe said after they had driven several miles, "it is going to storm—see how dark! We are going to have an April storm."
Even as they looked up black clouds moved swiftly across the sky. They turned and looked toward the mountains behind them—the summits were shrouded in dense blackness; the whole countryside was being enveloped in a gloom like the gloom of late twilight. There was an ominous silence in the air, living thingsof the fields and woods scurried to shelter; only a solitary red-headed woodpecker tapped noisily upon a dead tree trunk.
Suddenly sharp flashes of lightning darted in zigzag rays through the gloom.
Phœbe gripped the side of the carriage. "The storm is following us," she said. "Look at the hills—they are black as night. Can we get home before the storm breaks over us?"
"Hardly. It travels faster than we can, and we still have four more miles to go."
The horse sniffed the air through inflated nostrils and sped unbidden over the country road. The lightning grew more vivid and blinding and darted among the hills with greater frequency; loud peals of thunder echoed and reëchoed among the mountains. Then the rain came. In great splashes, which increased rapidly, it poured its cool torrents upon the earth.
Phœbe laughed but David shook his head. "We'll have to stop some place till it's over. You're getting wet. I'll drive in this barnyard."
Amid the deafening crashes of thunder and the steady downpour of rain they ran through the barnyard and up the path that led to the house. As they stepped upon the porch a door was opened and a woman appeared.
"Why, come right in!" she greeted them. "This is a bad storm."
"If you don't mind," Phœbe began, but the woman was talkative and broke in, "Now, I just knowed there'd be company come to-day yet! This after whenI dried the dishes I dropped a knife and fork and that's a sure sign. Mebbe you don't believe in signs?"
"They come true sometimes," said Phœbe.
"Ach, yes, my granny used to plant her garden by the signs in the almanac. Cabbage, now, must be planted in the up-sign. But mebbe you're hungry after your drive? I'll get some cake."
"We had lunch——"
"Ach, if your man's like mine he can eat cake any time." She opened a door that led to the cellar and soon returned with a plate piled high with cake. "Now eat," she invited. "But, ach, I just thought of it—you said you come from Greenwald—then I guess you know about Caleb Warner dying, killing himself, or something."
"Caleb Warner dying!" David echoed. He half started from his chair, then sank with a visible effort at self-control.
"Yes. I guess you know him. My mister was in to dinner a while ago and he said it went over the 'phone at Risser's and Jacob Risser told him that Caleb Warner of Greenwald was dead. It was from gas or something funny like that. It's the Warner that sold that oil stock and gold stock. You know him?"
David nodded, his lips dry.
"Well, I guess now a lot of people will lose money. There's a lady lives near here that gave him almost all her money for some of his stock. For a while she got big interest from it, but then it stopped and now she ain't got hardly enough money to live. And I guess alot will lose money. My mister had no time for that stock. But if the man's dead now we should let him rest, I guess."
"Yes——" David braced himself. "The rain is over. Phœbe, we must go."
He smiled to the little woman as he gripped her hand. "You have been very kind to us and we appreciate it."
"Yes, indeed," echoed Phœbe. "I hope we have not kept you from your work."
"Ach, I can work enough to-day yet. I like company and I don't have much of it week-days. Um, ain't it good smelly after the rain?" She sniffed, smiling, as she followed Phœbe and David down the path to the barnyard.
"Good-bye," she called as they drove off. "Safe home."
"Thank you. Good-bye," Phœbe called over the side of the carriage. Then, as they entered again upon the country road, she turned to her place beside David.
She looked up at him. All the light and joy had faded from his face; he stared straight head, though he must have felt her eyes' intent gaze upon him.
"David," she said softly, "what is wrong?"
"Nothing," he lied.
"Seems you look different," she persisted. "Is it anything about Caleb Warner's death?"
"I'm not much of a stoic, Phœbe. I should have hidden my worry. But you must forget it; we must not let it spoil our perfect day. It really is no greatmatter. I am affected, in some way you can't know, by his death, but I'll get over it," he tried to treat the matter lightly.
But Phœbe felt a sudden heaviness of heart. She was almost certain that David had had no money to buy any stock from Caleb Warner, therefore, she jumped to the conclusion, it must be that David cared for Mary Warner, as town gossip said he did, and that the death of the girl's father would affect him. She felt hurt and baffled and sorely rebuffed at the withholding of David's confidence and was worried as she saw the marks of worry in the face of the man. Womanlike, she felt certain that the other girl was not good enough for David. Mary Warner, beautiful, aristocratic in bearing and manner—what had she to do with a man like David Eby! Was an incipient engagement with Mary Warner the Aladdin's lamp David had mentioned several times as being on the verge of rubbing and thus become rich? The thought left her trembling; she shivered in the April sunshine. When David spoke it was with an abstracted manner, and the girl beside him finally said, "Oh, don't let us talk. Let us just sit and look at the fields and enjoy the scenery."
She said it calmly enough, but the man beside her could not know that it required the last shreds of her courage to keep her voice from breaking. She would not let David see that she cared if he did care for Mary Warner! Of course, she didn't want to marry him, it was merely that she knew Mary was too haughty for him. Mother Bab would also say that he was toodifferent from Mary, that he was too fine for her. Then she remembered that Mother Bab had said on the previous evening that the Warners had taken David to Hershey recently in their fine new car. She shook herself in an effort at self-control. "Phœbe," she thought, "you're selfish! You go to Philadelphia and you go out with Royal Lee and dance with other young men, and yet, when David pays attention to another girl you have a spasm!"
But the self-administered discipline failed to correct her attitude. She knew their day of all-joy was changed for her as it had been changed for David. The jealousy in her heart could not be quite overcome. She was glad when they reached familiar fields and were on the road near Greenwald.
"Will you come in?" she invited as she left the carriage.
"No. I better go right home."
"I'll divide the flowers, David."
"Oh, keep them all."
"No, indeed. Mother Bab would be disappointed if you brought her none."
She opened the box, separated half of the arbutus from their mates and laid them in the uplifted corner of her coat. "There," she said, "the rest are yours and Mother Bab's. It was perfect in the woods to-day. Thank you——"
But he interrupted her. "It is I who must say that, Phœbe! This has been a great day. I'll never forget the glorious hour when we were on our knees and pushed away the leaves and found the arbutus. Thatis something to take with one, to remember when the days are not perfect as this one."
He laid his fingers a moment on her hand as she held the corner of her coat to keep the flowers from falling, then he turned and jumped into the carriage.
"Give my love to Mother Bab," she said.
He turned, smiled and nodded, then started off. Phœbe stood at the gate and watched the carriage as it went slowly up the steep road by the hill. Her thoughts were with the man who was going home to his mother, going with trailing arbutus in his hands and some great unhappiness in his heart.
"Is it always so?" she thought. "We carry fragrance in our hands, but what in our hearts?" For the time she was once more the old sympathetic, natural Phœbe, eager to help her friend in need, feeling the divine longing to comfort one who was miserable. "Oh, Davie, Davie," she thought as she went into the house, "I wish I could help you."
WhenDavid drove over the brow of the hill and down the green lane to the little house he called home he caught sight of his mother in her garden. He whistled. At the sound Mother Bab rose from the soft earth in which she was working and straightened, smiling. She raised a hand to shade her eyes and waited for the coming of her boy, dreaming of a possible separation from him, dreaming long mother-dreams while he took the horse and carriage to the barn.
When he returned he had mustered all his courage and was smiling—he would be a stoic as long as he could, but he knew that his mother would soon discover that all was not well with him.
"Here, mother." He gave her the box of arbutus.
"Then you got some, Davie!" She buried her face in the cool, sweet blossoms. "Oh, how sweet they are! Did you and Phœbe have a good time? Did she enjoy it as much as she always used to enjoy a day in the woods?"
She looked up suddenly from the flowers and caught him unawares. "What is wrong?" she asked with real concern. "Did you and Phœbe fall out?"
"No," he shook his head. He knew that attempts at subterfuge and evasion would be vain. "No, mommie, no use trying to deceive you any longer—I fell out with myself—I wish I could keep it from you," he added slowly; "I know it's going to hurt you."
"You tell me, Davie. I've lived sixty years and never yet met a trouble I couldn't live through. Tell me about it."
She placed the box of arbutus in the garden path and laid her hand on his arm.
"Oh, mommie," he blurted out, almost sobbing, "I'm ashamed of myself! You'll be ashamed of your boy."
"It's no girl——" the mother hesitated.
He answered with a vehement, "No!"
"Then tell me," she said softly. "I can look in your eyes and hear you tell me most anything so long as you need not tell me that you have broken the heart or spoiled the soul of a girl."
She spoke gently, but the man cried out, "Thank God, I have nothing like that to confess! You know there is only one girl for me. I could never look into her eyes if I had betrayed the trust of any girl. I have dreamed of growing into a man she could love and marry, but I failed. I wanted to offer her more than slavery on a farm, I wanted to have something more than the few hundreds I scraped together. I took the five hundred dollars we skimped for and bought stock of Caleb Warner—you heard that he died?"
"Phares told me."
"I guess the five hundred dollars is gone with him!I heard of other men getting rich by buying gold and oil stock so I took a chance and staked all the spare money I had."
"It was your money, Davie."
"You called it mine, but you helped to earn and save it. Caleb promised me he would sell half of the stock for me at a great profit in a week or two, and I could keep the other half for the big dividends it would pay me soon—now he's dead, and the stock is probably worthless."
He looked miserably at her troubled face. She flung her arm about him and led him to a seat under the budded cherry tree. "We must sit down and talk it over," she said. "Perhaps it isn't so bad as you think. Are you sure the stock is worth nothing? Perhaps you can get something out of it."
"Perhaps I can." He brightened at the suggestion.
"Well," she went on, "I can't say that I think you did right to buy the stock and try to get rich quick. You know that money gotten that way is tainted money, more or less. To earn what you have and have a little is better and safer than to have much and get it in such a way. But it's too late to preach about that now—I guess I didn't tell you that often enough and hard enough before this, or else you wouldn't have wanted to buy the stock. It is partly my fault, for I thought some time ago you talked as though you were getting the money craze, but I thought it would soon wear off. You did a foolish thing, but there's no use crying about it. You see you did wrong and aresorry, so that is all there is to it. I'm not sorry you lost on the stock, for if you made on it the craze would go deeper. I can live without the few extra things that money would buy."
"Don't be so forgiving, mother! Scold me! I'd feel less like a criminal. But here comes Phares; he'll give me the scolding you're saving me."
The preacher crossed the lawn and advanced to the seat under the cherry tree.
"Aunt Barbara," he began, then noted the troubled look on the face of David and asked, "What is wrong?"
"Nothing," said David, "except that I have some of Caleb Warner's stock."
"You do? Whatever made you buy that?"
David spoke as calmly as possible. "I wanted to be rich, that's all. But I guess I was never intended to be that."
"I'm afraid you are going to be sorry," said the preacher very soberly. "I just came from town and they say things look bad for the investors. They said first that Warner was asphyxiated accidentally, but he was so deep in a hole with investing and re-investing other people's money and his own and he had lost so much that people think this was the easiest way out of it all for him. I suppose it will be hushed up and no one will ever know just how he died. There are at least twenty people in town and farms near here who are worried about their money since he died. Did you have much stock?"
"Five hundred dollars' worth."
"If people were as eager to lay up treasures in heaven——" the preacher said thoughtfully.
"If they were," said David, struggling to keep the wrath from his words and voice. "I know, Phares, you can't understand why everybody should not be as good as you. I wish I were—mother should have had a son like you. I'm the black sheep of the Eby family, I suppose."
"No, no!" cried Mother Bab. "We all make mistakes! You are good and noble, David. I am proud of you, even if you do err sometimes."
"We must make the best of it," said the preacher. "Perhaps the stock is not quite worthless. If I were you I'd go to the lawyer in Lancaster. He'll see you at his house if you 'phone in."
"Mighty good to think of that for me," said David, gripping the hand of his cousin. "I'll go in to-night."
Several hours later David Eby sat before a lawyer and waited for the verdict. "I'm sorry," the lawyer shook his head. "The stock is worthless. Six months ago you might have sold it; now it's dead as a door-nail."
"Guess it was a wildcat scheme," said David.
A few minutes later he went out to the street. His Aladdin's lamp was smashed! What a fool he had been!
When he reached home Mother Bab read the news in his face. "Never mind," she said bravely, "we'll get along without that money."
"Yes—but"—David spoke slowly, as if fearing tohurt her further—"I hoped to have a nice bank account for you to draw on when—when I go."
"You mean——" Mother Bab stopped suddenly. Something choked her, but she faced him squarely and looked up into his face.
"Yes, mother, I mean that I must go. You want me to go, don't you?"
"Yes." The word came slowly, but David knew how truly she felt it. "You must go. I knew it right away when I saw that we were called of God to help in the fight for world peace and righteousness. You must go; there is nothing to keep you. Phares will look after the little farm. I spoke to him about it last week——"
"Mother, you knew then!"
"I saw it in your face as soon as war was declared. Phares was lovely about it and said he could just as well take your few acres in with his and pay a percentage to me for the crops he'll get from them. Phares is kind; he has a big heart, for all his queer ways and his strict views."
"Phares is too good to be related to me, mommie. I'm ashamed of myself."
"Ach, you two are just different, that's all. I can go over and stay at their house. Did you tell Phœbe you are going?"
He shook his head. "I couldn't tell her yesterday. We had such a great day in the woods finding the arbutus, eating our lunch on a rock and acting just like we used to when we were ten years younger. She never mentioned war and I could not seem to break into thatday of gladness to speak about the subject. I meant to tell her all about it when we got home, but then that storm came up and we stopped at a farmhouse and I heard about Caleb Warner. It struck me so hard I was just no good after that. I'll be a dandy soldier, won't I?"
He laughed and took the little woman in his arms. When, some moments later, he held the white-capped mother at arms' length and smiled into her face neither knew if the wet lashes were caused by laughter or tears.
"Some soldier you'll make," she said as she looked at him, tall, broad of shoulder, straight of spine. "Some soldier or sailor you'll make!"
Thedays following the death of Caleb Warner were days of anxiety to other inhabitants of the little town who, like David, had purchased stock with glorious visions of sudden gain. In a short time the list of Warner's unfortunate investors was known and they were accorded various degrees of sympathy, rebuke or ridicule. The thing that hurt David was not so much the knowledge that some were speaking of him in condemnation or pity as the fact that he merited the condemnation.
But he had neither time nor inclination for self-pity. His country was calling for his services and he knew his duty was to offer himself. He could not conscientiously say his mother had urgent need of him for he knew that the little farm would supply enough for her maintenance.
Phares Eby, although a preacher among a sect who, as a sect, could not sanction the bearing of arms, accepted the decision of his cousin with no show of disapproval. "I don't believe in wars," he said gravely, "but there seems to be no other way this time. One of the Eby family should go. I'll be glad to keep up your farm and help look after your mother while youare gone. The most I can do here will be less than you are going to do, but I'll raise the best crops I can and help in the food end of it."
"You'll do your part here, Phares, and it will count. You're a bona-fide farmer. You'll have our little place a record farm when I get back. You're a brick, Phares!" For the first time in months he felt a genuine affection for his preacher cousin. Preaching, prosaic Phares, how kind he was!
Lancaster County measured up to its fair standard in those first trying days of recruit gathering. The sons of the nation answered when she called. Pennsylvania Dutch, hundreds of them, rallied round the flag and proved beyond a doubt that the real Pennsylvania Dutch are not German-American, but loyal, four-square Americans who are keeping the faith. Two hundred years ago the ancestors of the present Pennsylvania Dutch came to this country to escape tyranny, and the love of freedom has been transmitted from one generation to another. The plain sects, so flourishing in some portions of the Keystone State, consider war an evil, yet scores of men in navy blue and army khaki have come from homes where the mother wears the white cap, and have gone forth to do their part in the struggle for world freedom.
As David Eby measured the days before his departure he felt grateful to Mother Bab for refraining from long homilies of advice. Her whole life was a living epistle of truth and nobility and she was wise enough to discern that what her son wanted most in their last days together was her customary cheerfulness—although he knew that at times the cheerfulness was a bit bluffed!
News travels fast, even in rural communities. The people on the Metz farm soon learned of David's loss of money and of his desire to enter the navy.
"Why didn't you tell me about the stock?" Phœbe chided him.
"I couldn't. It knocked me out—it changed some of my plans. I knew you'd despise me and I couldn't stand that too that day."
"Despise you! How foolish to think that. Of course it's better to earn your money, but I think you learned your lesson."
"I have. I'll never try to get rich quick."
"And you're going to war!" The words were almost a cry. "What does Mother Bab say? How dreadful for her!"
"Dreadful?" he asked gently. "Phœbe, think a minute—would you rather be the mother of a soldier or sailor than the mother of a slacker?"
"I would," she cried. "A thousand times rather!" She clutched his sleeve in her old impetuous manner. "I see now what it means, what war must mean to us! We must serve and be glad to do it. Your going is making it real for me. I'm proud of you and I know Mother Bab must be just about bursting with pride, for she always did think you are the grandest son in the wide world."
"Phœbe, you always stroke me with the grain."
"That sounds as if you were a wooden pussy-cat," she said merrily. "But you are just being funny tohide your deeper feelings. I know you, David Eby! Bet your heart's like lead this minute!"
"'I have no heart,'" he quoted. "'The place where my heart was you could roll a turnip in.'"
She laughed, then suddenly grew sober. "I've been horribly selfish," she said. "Having fine clothes and a good time and dreaming of fame through my voice have taken all my time during the past winter. I have taken only the husks of life and discarded the kernels. I'm ashamed of myself."
"You mustn't condemn yourself too much. It's natural to pass through a period when those things seem the greatest things in the world, but if we do not shake off their influence and see the need of having real things to lay hold on we need to be jolted. I was money-mad, but I had my jolt."
"Then we can both make a fresh beginning. And we'll try hard to be worthy of Mother Bab, won't we, David?"
David was mute; he could merely nod his head in answer. Worthy of Mother Bab—what a goal! How sweet the name sounded from Phœbe's lips! Should he tell her of his love for her? He looked into her face. Her eyes were like clear blue pools but they mirrored only sisterly affection, he thought. Ah, well, he would be unselfish enough to go away without telling of the hope of his heart. If he came back there would be ample time to tell her; it was needless to bind her to a long-absent lover. If he came back crippled—if he never came back at all—— Oh, why delve into the future!
Inthe little town of Greenwald there is performed each year in June an interesting ceremony, the Feast of Roses.
The origin of it dates back to the early colonial days when wigwam fires blazed in many clearings of this great land and Indians, fashioned after the similitude of bronze images, stole among the stalwart trees of the primeval forests. In those days, about the year 1762, a tract of land containing the present site of the little town of Greenwald fell into the hands of a German, who was so charmed by the fertility and beauty of the fields encircled by the winding Chicques Creek that he laid out a town and proceeded to build. The erection of those early houses entailed much labor. Bricks were imported from England and hauled from Philadelphia to the new town, a distance of almost one hundred miles.
Some time later the founder built a glass factory in the new town, reputed to have been the first of its kind in America. Skilled workmen were imported to carry on the work, and marvelously skilful they must have been, as is proven by the articles of that glass still extant. It is delicately colored, daintily shaped, whentouched with metal it emits a bell-like ring, and altogether merits the praise accorded it by every connoisseur of rare and beautiful glass.
Tradition claims that the founder of that town was of noble birth, but his right to a title is not an indisputable fact. It is known, however, that he lived in baronial style in his new town. His red brick mansion was a treasure house of tapestries, tiles and other beautiful furnishings.
However, whether he was a baron or an untitled man, he merits a share of admiration. He was founder of a glass factory, builder of a town, founder of iron works, religious and secular instructor of his employees and citizens, and earnest philanthropist.
The last rôle resulted in his financial embarrassment. There is an ominous silence in the story of his life, then comes the information that the man who had done so much for others was left at last to languish in a debtors' jail, die unbefriended and be buried in an unknown grave.
In the days of his prosperity he gave to the congregation of the Lutheran Church in his town a choice plot of ground, the consideration being the sum of five shillings and an annual rental of one red rose in June.
Years passed, the man died, and either through forgetfulness or negligence the annual rental of one red rose was unpaid for many years. Then, one day a layman of the church found the old deed and the people prepared to pay the long-neglected debt once more. Since that renewal there is set apart each June a Sabbath day upon which the rose is paid to the nearest descendant of the founder of the town. They give but one red rose, but all around are roses, roses, and it seems most fitting to call the unique occurrence the Feast of Roses.
If ever the little town puts on royal garb it is on the Feast of Roses Sabbath. For days before the ceremony the homes of Greenwald are beehives of industry. That day each train and trolley, every country road, is crowded with strangers or old acquaintances coming into the town. A heterogeneous crowd swarms through the street. The curious visitor who comes to see, the dreamer who is attracted by the romance of the rose, the careless youth who rubs his sleeve against some portly judge or senator; the tawdry, the refined, the rich, the poor—all meet in the crowd that moves to the red brick church in which the Feast of Roses is held.
The old church of that early day has been removed and in its place a modern one has been erected, but by some happy inspiration of the builders the new church is devoid of the garish ornamentation that is too often found in churches. Harmonious coloring, artistic beauty, make it a fitting place for a Feast of Roses.
When Phœbe Metz entered the church to keep her promise to sing at the service she found an eager crowd waiting for the opening. Every available space was occupied; people stood in the rear aisles, others waited in the churchyard by the open windows and hoped to catch there some stray parts of the service.
Phœbe pushed her way gently through the crowd at the door and stood in the aisle until an usher saw herand directed her to a seat near the organ. The pink in her cheeks grew deeper. "I'll sing my best for Greenwald and the Feast of Roses," she thought. "And for David! He's in the crowd. He said he's coming to hear me sing."
At the appointed hour the pipe-organ pealed out. The June sunlight streamed through the open windows, fell upon the banks of roses, and gleamed upon the fountain that played in the midst of the crimson flowers. Peace brooded over the place as the last strains of music died. There was silence for a moment, then a prayer, a hymn of adoration, and then the chosen speaker stood before the crowd and delivered his message.
Phœbe listened to him until he uttered the words, "True life must be service, true love must be giving. No man has reached true greatness save he serves, and he who serves most faithfully is greatest in the kingdom."
After those words she fell to thinking. Many things that had been dark to her suddenly became light. She seemed to see Royal Lee fiddling while the world was in travail, but beside him rose a vision of David in sailor's blue, ready to do his whole duty for his country.
"Oh," she thought, "I've been blind, but now I see! It's David I want. He's a man!"
She heard as in a dream the words of the one who presented the red rose to the heir. "Once more the time has come to pay our debt of one red rose. It is with cheerfulness and reverence we pay our rental.Amid these bright surroundings, in the presence of the many who have come to witness this unique ceremony, do we give to you in partial payment of the debt we owe—one red rose."
The heir received the flower and expressed her appreciation. Then silence settled upon the place and Phœbe rose to sing.
As the organ sent forth the opening strains of music the people in the church looked at each other, surprised, disappointed. Why, that was the old tune, "Jesus, Lover of my soul." The tune they had heard sung hundreds of times—was Phœbe going to sing that? With so many impressive selections to choose from no soloist need sing that old hymn! Some of the town people thought disdainfully, "Was that all she could sing after a whole winter's study in Philadelphia!"
But Phœbe sang the old words to the old tune. She sang them with a new power and sweetness. It touched the listeners in that rose-scented church and revealed to them the meaning of the old hymn. The dependence upon a divine guide, the utter impotence of mortal strength, breathed so persuasively in the second verse that many who heard Phœbe sing it mentally repeated the words with her.