Amanda: A Daughter of the Mennonites Part 10

Abody'd hardly know me."

Mrs. Reist in her plain gray Mennonite dress and stiff black silk bonnet was, as usual, an attractive figure. Philip, grown to the dignity of long trousers, carried himself with all the poise of seventeen. He was now a student in the Lancaster High School and had he not learned to dress and act like city boys do! Uncle Amos, in his best Sunday suit of gray, his Mennonite hat in his hand, ambled along last as the little group went down the aisle of the Millersville chapel to see Amanda's graduation.

As Amanda marched in, her red hair parted on the side and coiled into a womanly coiffure, wearing a simple white organdie, she was just one of the hundred graduates who marched into the chapel. But later, as she stood alone on the platform and delivered her oration, "The Flowers of the Garden Spot," she held the interested attention of all in that vast audience. She knew her subject and succeeded in waking in the hearts of her hearers a desire to go out in the green fields and quiet woods and find the lovely habitants of the flower world.

After it was all over and she stood, shining-eyed and happy, among her own people in the chapel, Martin Landis joined them. He, too, had left childhood behind. The serious gravity of his new estate was deepened in his face, but the same tenderness that had soothed the numerous Landis babies also still dwelt there. One of the regrets of his heart was the fact that nature had denied him great stature. He had always dreamed of growing into a tall man, powerful in physique, like Lyman Mertzheimer.

But nature was obstinate and Martin Landis reached manhood, a strong, st.u.r.dy being, but of medium height. His mother tried to a.s.suage his disappointment by a.s.serting that even if his stature was not great as he wished his heart was big enough to make up for it. He tried to live up to her valuation of him, but it was scant comfort as he stood in the presence of physically big men. Life had not dealt generously with him as with Amanda in the matter of education. He wanted a chance to study at some inst.i.tution higher than the little school at Crow Hill but his father needed him on the farm. The elder man was subject to attacks of rheumatism and at such times the brunt of farm labor fell upon the shoulders of Martin.

Money was scarce in the Landis household, there were so many mouths to feed and it seemed to Martin that he would never have the opportunity to do anything but work in the fields from early spring to late autumn, s.n.a.t.c.h a few months for study in a business college in Lancaster, then go back again to the ploughing and arduous duties of his father's farm.

He thought enviously of Lyman Mertzheimer, whose father had sent him to a well-known preparatory school and then started him in a full course in one of the leading universities of the country. If he had a chance like that! If he could only get away from the farm long enough to earn some money he knew he could work his way through school and fit himself for some position he would like better than farming. Some such thoughts ran through his brain as he went to congratulate Amanda on her graduation day.

"Oh, Martin!" she greeted him cordially. "So you got here, after all.

I'm so glad!"

"So am I. I wouldn't have missed that oration for a great deal. I could smell the arbutus--say, it was great, Amanda!"

At that moment Lyman Mertzheimer joined them.

"Congratulations, Amanda," he said in his affected manner. As the good- looking son of a wealthy man he credited himself with the possession of permissible pride. "Congratulations," he repeated, ignoring the smaller man who stood by the side of the girl. "Your oration was beautifully rendered. You were very eloquent, but if you will pardon me, I'd like to remind you of one flower you forgot to mention--a very important flower of the Garden Spot."

"I did?" she said as though it were a negligible matter. "What was the flower I forgot?"

"Amanda Reist," he said, and laughed at his supposed cleverness.

"Oh," she replied, vexed at his words and his bold att.i.tude, "I left that out purposely along with some of the weeds of the Garden Spot I might have mentioned."

"Meaning me?" He lifted his eyebrows in question. "You don't really mean that, Amanda." He spoke in winning voice. "I know you don't mean that so I won't quarrel with you."

"Well, I guess you better not!" spoke up Millie who had listened to all that was said. "You don't have to get our Amanda cross on this here day. She done fine in that speech and we're proud of her and don't want you nor no one else to go spoil it by any fuss."

"I see you have more than one champion, Amanda. I'll have to be very careful how I speak to you." He laughed but a glare of anger shone in his eyes.

A few moments later the little party broke up and Lyman went off alone.

A storm raged within him--"A hired girl to speak to me like that--a common hired girl! I'll teach her her place when I marry Amanda. And Amanda was high and mighty to-day. Thought she owned the world because she graduated from Millersville! As though that's anything! She's the kind needs a strong hand, a master hand. And I'll be the master! I like her kind, the women who have spirit and fire. But she needs to be held under, subjected by a stronger spirit. That little runt of a Martin Landis was hanging round her, too. He has no show when I'm in the running. He's poor and has no education. He's just a clodhopper."

Meanwhile the clodhopper had also said good-bye to Amanda. For some reason he did not stop to a.n.a.lyze, the heart of Martin Landis was light as he went home from the Commencement at Millersville. He had always detested Lyman Mertzheimer, for he had felt too often the snubs and taunts of the rich boy. Amanda's rebuff of the arrogant youth pleased Martin.

"I like Amanda," he thought frankly, but he never went beyond that in the a.n.a.lysis of his feelings for the comrade of his childhood and young boyhood. "I like her and I'd hate to see her waste her time on a fellow like Lyman Mertzheimer. I'm glad she squelched him. Perhaps some day he'll find there are still some desirable things that money can't buy."

CHAPTER VII

AMANDA REIST, TEACHER

Amanda had no desire to teach far from her home. "I want to see the whole United States if I live long enough," she declared, "but I want to travel through the distant parts of it, not settle there to live.

While I have a home I want to stay near it. So I wish I could get a school in Lancaster County."

Her wish was granted. There was an opening in Crow Hill, in the little rural school in which she had received the rudiments of her education.

Amanda applied for the position and was elected.

She brought to that little school several innovations. Her love and knowledge of nature helped her to make the common studies less monotonous and more interesting. A Sat.u.r.day afternoon nutting party with her pupils afforded a more promising subject for Monday's original composition than the hackneyed suggestions of the grammar book's "Tell all you know about the cultivation of coffee." Later, snow forts in the school-yard impressed the children with the story of Ticonderoga more indelibly than mere reading about it could have done. During her last year at Normal, Amanda had read about a school where geography was taught by the construction of miniature islands, capes, straits, peninsulas, and so forth, in the school-yard. She directed the older children in the formation of such a landscape picture. When a blundering boy slipped and with one bare foot demolished at one stroke the cape, island and bay, there was much merriment and rivalry for the honor of rebuilding. The children were almost unanimous in their affection for the new teacher and approval of her methods of teaching.

Most of them ran home with eager tales concerning the wonderful, funny, "nice" ways Miss Reist had of teaching school.

However, Crow Hill is no Eden. Some of the older boys laughed at the "silly ideas" of "that Manda Reist" and disliked the way she taught geography and made the pupils "play in the dirt and build capes and islands and the whole blamed geography business right in the school- yard."

It naturally followed that adverse criticism grew and grew, like Longfellow's pumpkin, and many curious visitors came to Crow Hill school. The patrons, taxpayers, directors were concerned and considered it their duty to drop in and observe how things were being run in that school. They found that the three R's were still taught efficiently, even if they were taught with the aid of chestnuts, autumn leaves and flowers; they were glad to discover that an island, though formed in the school-yard from dirt and water, was still being defined with the old standard definition, "An island is a body of land entirely surrounded by water."

If any other school had graduated Amanda, her position might have been a trifle precarious, but Millersville Normal School was too well known and universally approved in Lancaster County to admit of any questionable suggestions about its recent graduate. Most of the people who came to inspect came without any antagonistic feeling and they left convinced that, although some of Amanda Reist's ways were a little different, the scholars seemed to know their lessons and to progress satisfactorily.

Later in the school year she urged the children to bring dried corn husk to school, she brought brightly colored raffia, and taught them how to make baskets. The children were clamorous for more knowledge of basket making. The fascinating task of forming objects of beauty and usefulness from homely corn husk and a few gay threads of raffia was novel to them. Amanda was willing to help the children along the path of manual dexterity and eager to have them see and love the beautiful.

Under her guidance they gathered and pressed weeds and gra.s.ses and the airy, elusive milkweed down, caught b.u.t.terflies, and a.s.sembled the whole under gla.s.s, thus making beautiful trays and pictures.

On the whole it was a wonderful, happy year for the new teacher of the Crow Hill school. When spring came with all the alluring witchery of the Garden Spot it seemed to her she must make every one of her pupils feel the thrill of the song-sparrow's first note and the matchless loveliness of the anemone.

One day in early April, the last week of school, as she locked the door of the schoolhouse and started down the road to her home an unusual glow of satisfaction beamed on her face.

"Only two more days of school, then the big Spelling Bee to wind it up and then my first year's teaching will be over! I have enjoyed it but I'm like the children--eager for vacation."

She hummed gaily as she went along, this nineteen-year-old school teacher so near the end of her first year's work in the schoolroom. Her eyes roved over the fair panorama of Lancaster County in early spring dress. As she neared the house she saw her Uncle Amos resting under a giant sycamore tree that stood in the front yard.

"Good times," she called to him.

"h.e.l.lo, Manda," he answered. "You're home early."

"Early--it's half-past four. Have you been asleep and lost track of the time?"

He took a big silver watch from a pocket and whistled as he looked at it. "Whew! It is that late! Time for me to get to work again. Your Aunt Rebecca's here."

"Dear me! And I felt so happy! Now I'll get a call-down about something or other. I'm ashamed of myself, Uncle Amos, but I think Aunt Rebecca gets worse as she grows older."

"'Fraid so," the man agreed soberly. "Well, we can't all be alike. Too bad, now, she don't take after me, eh, Amanda?"

"It surely is! You're the nicest man I know!"

"Hold on now," he said; "next you make me blush. I ain't used to gettin' compliments."

"But I mean it. I don't see how she can be your sister and Mother's! I think the fairies must have mixed babies when she was little. I can see many good qualities in her, but there's no need of her being so contrary and critical. I remember how I used to be half afraid of her when I was little. She tried to make Mother dress me in a plain dress and a Mennonite bonnet, but Mother said she'd dress me like a little girl and if I chose I could wear the plain dress and bonnet when I was old enough to know what it means. Oh, Mother's wonderful! If I had Aunt Rebecca for a mother--but perhaps she'd be different then. Oh, Uncle Amos, do you remember the howl she raised when we had our house wired for electricity?"

"Glory, yes! She was scared to death to come here for a while."

"And Phil wickedly suggested we scare her again! But she was afraid of it. She was sure the house would be struck by lightning the first thunder-storm we'd have. And when we put the bath tub into the house-- whew! Didn't she give us lectures then! She has no use for 'swimmin'

tubs' to this day. If folks can't wash clean out of a basin they must be powerful dirty! That's her opinion."

Both laughed at the remembrance of the old woman's words. Then the girl asked, "What did she have to say to you to-day? Did she iron any wrinkles out of you?"

"Oh, I got it a'ready." The man chuckled. "I was plantin' potatoes till my back was near broke and I came in to rest a little and get a drink.

She told me it's funny people got to rest so often in these days when they do a little work. She worked in the fields often and she could stand more yet than a lot o' lazy men. I didn't answer her but I came out here and got my rest just the same. She ain't bossin' her brother Amos yet! But now I got to work faster for this doin' nothin' under the tree."