Amanda: A Daughter of the Mennonites Part 16

"Stand here and look up," she invited.

Isabel obeyed, her gaze traveling searchingly along the steep trail.

"Oh, the beauties!" she cried as she discovered the pink flowers. "The beauties! Oh, there are more of them! And still more! Oh, Amanda!"

Before them was Amanda's haunt of the pink moccasin. From the low underbrush of spring growth rose several dozen gorgeously beautiful pink lady-slippers, each alone on a thick stem with two broad leaves spreading their green beauty near the base. What miracle had brought the rare shy plants so near the dusty road where rattling wagons and gliding automobiles sped on their busy way?

"May I pick them?" asked the city girl.

"Yes, but only one root. I'll dig that up with the trowel. That's for your friend's botany specimen. The rest we'll pull up gently and we'll get flower, stem and leaves and leave the roots in the ground for other years. I never pick all of the flowers. I leave some here in the woods --it seems they belong here and I can't bring myself to walk off with every last one of them in my arms and leave the hill desolate."

"You _are_ a queer girl!" was the frank statement of the city girl. "But you're a dear, just the same."

They picked a number of the largest flowers.

"That's enough," Amanda declared.

Isabel laughed. "I'd take every one if it were my haunt."

"And then other people might come here after some and find the place robbed of all its blooms."

"Oh," said the other girl easily, "I look out for Isabel. Now, please, may I pick some of that pretty wild azalea?" she asked teasingly as they came down the hill.

"Help yourself. That isn't rare. You couldn't take all of that if you tried."

So Isabel gathered branches of the pink bloom until her arms were filled with it and the six moccasins in her hand almost overshadowed.

As the two girls reached the edge of the woods and climbed over the fence into the school-yard Martin Landis came walking down the road.

"h.e.l.lo," he called gaily. "Been robbing the woods, Amanda?"

"Aren't they lovely?" she asked. Then when he drew near she introduced him to the girl beside her.

Martin Landis was not a blind man. A pretty girl, dark-eyed and dusky- haired, her arms full of pink azaleas, her lips parted in a smile above the flowers, and that smile given to him--it was too pretty a picture to fail in making an impression upon him.

Amanda saw the look of keen interest in the eyes of the girl and her heart felt heavy. What fortune had brought the two together? Had the Fates designed the meeting of Isabel and Martin? "Oh, now I've done it!" thought Amanda. "Isabel wants what she wants and generally gets it. Pray heaven, she won't want 'My Martin!'"

Similar thoughts disturbed her as they stepped on the sunny road once more and stood there talking. With a gay laugh Isabel took the finest pink moccasin from her bunch and handed it to Martin. "Here, I'll be generous," she said in friendly tones.

"Thank you, Miss Souders." The reply was accompanied with a smile of pleasure.

A low laugh rippled from the girl's red lips. Amanda's ears tingled so she did not understand the exchange of light talk. The fear and jealousy in her heart dulled her senses to all save them, but she laughed, said good-bye, and hid her feelings as she and Isabel went down the road to the Reist farmhouse.

"Amanda," the other girl said effusively, "what a fine young man! Is he your beau?"

"No. Certainly not! I have no beau. I've known Martin Landis ever since I was born, almost. He lives down the road a piece. He's a nice chap."

"Splendid! Fine! Such eyes, such wonderfully expressive gray eyes I have never seen. And he has such a strong face. Of course, his clothes are a bit shabby. He'd be great if he fixed up."

"Yes," Amanda agreed mechanically. She was ill-pleased with the dissection of her knight.

Mrs. Reist, with true rural, Pennsylvania Dutch hospitality, invited Isabel to have supper with them, an invitation readily accepted. At the close of the meal Isabel said suddenly to Mrs. Reist, "How would you like to have me board with you for a few weeks--a month, probably?"

"Why, I don't know. All right, I guess, if Millie, here, don't think it makes too much work. Poor Millie's got the worst of all the work to do.

I ain't so strong, and there's much always to do. Of course, Amanda helps, but none of us do as much as Millie."

"But me, don't I get paid for it, and paid good?" asked the hired girl, sending a loving glance at Mrs. Reist. "Far as I go it's all right to have Isabel come for a while. Mebbe she can help, too, sometimes with the work."

"I wouldn't be much help, I'm afraid. I never peeled a potato in my life."

Millie looked at the girl with slightly concealed disfavor. "Why, that's a funny way, now, to bring up a girl! I guess it's time you learn such things once! You dare come, and I'll show you how to do a little work. But why do you want to board when your folks live just in Lancaster?"

"Father and Mother are going to the Elks' Convention and to California.

They expect to be gone about a month. I was going to stay in Lancaster with my aunt, but I just thought how much nicer it would be to spend that time in the country."

"Well, I guess, too!" Millie was quick to understand how one would naturally prefer the country to the city.

So it was settled that Isabel Souders was to spend June at the Reist farmhouse. Everybody concerned appeared well pleased with the arrangement. But Amanda's heart hurt. "Why did I take her for those moccasins?" she thought drearily after Isabel had gone back to the city with her precious flowers. "I know Martin will fall in love with her and she with him. Oh, I'm a mean, detestable thing! But I wish she'd go to the coast with her parents!"

CHAPTER XI

THE BOARDER

The big automobile that brought Isabel Souders to the Reist farmhouse one day early in June brought with her a trunk, a suitcase, a bag, an umbrella and a green parasol.

Aunt Rebecca was visiting there that day and she followed Amanda to the front door to receive the boarder.

"My goodness," came the exclamation as the luggage was carried in, "is that girl comin' here for good, with all _that_ baggage? And what did you let her come here for on a Friday? That's powerful bad luck!"

"For me," thought Amanda as she went to meet Isabel.

"See," the newcomer pointed to her trunk, "I brought some of my pretties along. I'll have to make hay while the sun shines. I'll have to make the most of this opportunity to win the heart of some country youth. Amanda, dear, wouldn't I be a charming farmer's wife? Can you visualize me milking cows, for instance?"

"No," answered Amanda, "I'd say that you were cut out for a different role." There was a deeper meaning in the country girl's words than the flighty city girl could read.

"Just the same," went on the newcomer, "I'm going to have one wonderful time in the country. You are such a dear to want me here and to take me into the family. I want to do just all the exciting things one reads about as belonging to life in the country. I am eager to climb trees and chase chickens and be a regular country girl for a month."

"Then I hope you brought some old clothes," was the practical reply.

"Not old, but plain little dresses for hard wear. I knew I'd need them."

Later, as Amanda watched the city girl unpack, she smiled ruefully at the plain little dresses for hard wear. Her observant eye told her that the little dresses of gingham and linen must have cost more than her own "best dresses." It was a very lavish wardrobe Isabel had selected for her month on the farm. Silk stockings and crepe de chine underwear were matched in fineness by the crepe blouses, silk dresses, airy organdies, a suit of exquisite tailoring and three hats for as many different costumes. The whole outfit would have been adequate and appropriate for parades on the Atlantic City boardwalk or a saunter down Peac.o.c.k Alley of a great hotel, but it was entirely too elaborate for a Lancaster County farmhouse.

Millie, running in to offer her services in unpacking, stood speechless at the display of clothes. "Why," she almost stammered, "what in the world do you want with all them fancy things here? Them's party clothes, ain't?"