Amanda: A Daughter of the Mennonites Part 9

"Then mebbe you'd like to see my friendship cane," said Aunt Rebecca.

"Oh, yes! What's that?" Amanda rose from her chair, eager to see what a friendship cane could be.

"My goodness, sit down! You get me all hoodled up when you act so jumpy," said the aunt. Then she walked to a corner of the parlor, reached behind the big cupboard and drew out a cane upon which were tied some thirty ribbon bows of various colors.

"And is that a friendship cane?" asked Amanda. "What's it for?"

"Ach, it was just such a style, good for nothin' but for the girls of my day to have a little pleasure with. We got boys and girls to give us pretty ribbons and we exchanged with some and then we tied 'em on the cane. See, they're all old kinds o' ribbons yet. Some are double-faced satin and some with them little scallops at the edge, and they're pretty colors, too. I could tell the name of every person who give me a ribbon for that cane. My goodness, lots o' them boys and girls been dead long a'ready. I guess abody shouldn't hold up such old things so long, it just makes you feel bad still when you rake 'em out and look at 'em. Here now, let me put it away, that's enough lookin' for one day." She spoke brusquely and put the cane into its hiding-place behind the gla.s.s cupboard.

As Amanda watched the stern, unlovely face during the critical, faultfinding conversation which followed, she thought to herself, "I just believe that Uncle Amos told the truth when he said that Aunt Rebecca's like a chestnut burr. She's all p.r.i.c.kly on the outside but she's got a nice, smooth side to her that abody don't often get the chance to see. Mebbe now, if she'd married Martin Landis's pop she'd be by now just as nice as Mrs. Landis. It wonders me now if she would!"

CHAPTER VI

SCHOOL DAYS

Mrs. Reist's desire for a happy childhood for her children was easily realized, especially in the case of Amanda. She had the happy faculty of finding joy in little things, things commonly called insignificant.

She had a way of taking to herself each beauty of nature, each joy note of the birds, the airy loveliness of the clouds, and being thrilled by them.

With Phil and Martin Landis--and the ubiquitous Landis baby--she explored every field, woods and roadside in the Crow Hill section of the county. From a.s.sociation with her Phil and Martin had developed an equal interest in outdoors. The Landis boy often came running into the Reist yard calling for Amanda and exclaiming excitedly, "I found a bird's nest! It's an oriole this time, the dandiest thing way out on the end of a tiny twig. Come on see it!"

Amanda was the moving spirit of that little group of nature students.

Phil and Martin might have never known an oriole from a thrush if she had not led them along the path of knowledge. Sometimes some of the intermediate Landis children joined the group. At times Lyman Mertzheimer sauntered along and invited himself, but his interest was feigned and his welcome was not always cordial.

"You Lyman Mertzheimer," Amanda said to him one day, "if you want to go along to see birds' nests you got to keep quiet! You think it's smart to scare them off the nests. That poor thrasher, now, that you scared last week! You had her heart thumpin' so her throat most burst. And her with her nest right down on the ground where we could watch the babies if we kept quiet. You're awful mean!"

"Huh," he answered, "what's a bird! All this fuss about a d.i.n.ky brown bird that can't do anything but flop its wings and squeal when you go near it. It was fun to see her flop all around the ground."

"Oh, you nasty mean thing, Lyman Mertzheimer"--for a moment Amanda found no words to express her contempt of him--"sometimes I just hate you!"

He went off laughing, flinging back the prediction, "But some day you'll do the reverse, Amanda Reist." He felt secure in the belief that he could win the love of any girl he chose if he exerted himself to do so.

The little country school of Crow Hill was necessarily limited in its curriculum, hence when Amanda expressed a desire to become a teacher it was decided to send her to the Normal School at Millersville. At that time she was sixteen and was grown into an attractive girl.

"I know I'm not beautiful," she told her mother one day after a long, searching survey in the mirror. "My hair is too screaming red, but then it's fluffy and I got a lot of it. Add to red hair a nose that's a little pug and a mouth that's a little too big and I guess the combination won't produce any Cleopatra or any t.i.tian beauty."

"But you forgot the eyes," her mother said tenderly. "They are pretty brown and look--ach, I can't put it in fine words like you could, but I mean this: Your eyes are such honest eyes and always look so happy, like you could see through dark places and find the light and could look on wicked people and see the good in them and be glad about it.

You keep that look in your eyes and no pretty girl will be lovelier that you are, Amanda."

"Mother," the girl cried after she had kissed the white-capped woman, "if my eyes shine it's the faith and love you taught me that's shining in them."

During the summer preceding Amanda's departure for school there was pleasant excitement at the Reist farm. Millie was proud of the fact that Amanda was "goin' to Millersville till fall" and lost no opportunity to mention it whenever a friend or neighbor dropped in for a chat.

Aunt Rebecca did not approve of too much education. "Of course," she put it, "you're spendin' your own money for this Millersville goin', but I think you'd do better if you put it to bank and give it to Amanda when she gets married, once. This here rutchin' round to school so long is all for nothin'. I guess she's smart enough to teach country school without goin' to Millersville yet."

However, her protests fell heedlessly on the ears of those most concerned and when the preparation of new clothes began Aunt Rebecca was the first to offer her help. "It's all for nothin', this school learnin', but if she's goin' anyhow I can just as well as not help with the sewin'," she announced and spent a few weeks at the Reist farm, giving valuable aid in the making of Amanda's school outfit.

Those two weeks were long ones to Philip, who had scant patience with the querulous old aunt. But Amanda, since she had glimpsed the girlhood romance of the woman, had a kindlier feeling for her and could smile at the faultfinding or at least run away from it without retort if it became too vexatious.

Crow Hill was only an hour's ride from the school at Millersville, so Amanda spent most of her weekends at home. Each time she had wonderful tales to tell, at least they seemed wonderful to the little group at the Reist farmhouse. Mrs. Reist and Uncle Amos, denied in their youth of more than a very meagre education, took just pride in the girl who was pursuing the road to knowledge. Philip, boylike, expressed no pride in his sister, but he listened attentively to her stories of how the older students played pranks on the newcomers.

Millie was proud of having _our Amanda_ away at school and did not hesitate to express her pride. She felt sure that before the girl's three years' course was completed the name of Amanda Reist would shine above all others on the pages of the Millersville Normal School records.

"Oh, I've learned a few things about human nature," said Amanda on her second visit home. "You know I told you last week how nice the older girls are to the new ones. A crowd of Seniors came into our room the other day and they were lovely! One of them told me she adored red hair and she just knew all the girls were going to love me because I have such a sweet face and I'm so dear--she emphasized every other word! I wondered what ailed her. She didn't know me well enough to talk like that. Before they left she began to talk about the Page Literary Society--'Dear, we're all Pageites, and it's the best, finest society in the school. We do have such good times. You ought to join. All the very nicest girls of the school are in it.' I promised to think it over. Well, soon after they left another bunch of girls came into our room and they were just as sweet to us. By and by one of them said, 'Dear, we're all in the Normal Literary Society. It's the best society in the school; all the very nicest girls belong to it. You should join it.'"

"Ha, electioneering, was they!" said Uncle Amos, laughing. "Well, leave it to the women. When they get the vote once we men got to pony up. But which society did you join?"

"Neither. I'm going to wait a while and while I'm waiting I'm having a glorious time. The Pageites invited me to a fudge party one night, the Normalites took me for a long walk, a Pageite treated me to icecream soda one day and a Normalite gave me some real home-made cake the same afternoon. It's great to be on the fence when both sides are coaxing you to jump their way."

"Well," said Millie, her face glowing with interest and pride in the girl, "if you ain't the funniest! I just bet them girls all want you to come their way. But what kind o' meals do you get?"

"Good, Millie. Of course, though, I haven't any cellar to go to for pie or any cooky crock filled with sand-tarts with sh.e.l.lbarks on the top."

"Don't you worry, Manda. I'll make you sand-tarts and lemon pie and everything you like every time you come home still."

"Millie, you good soul! With that promise to help me I'll work like a Trojan and win some honors at old M.S.N.S. Just watch me!"

Amanda did work. She brought to her studies the same whole-hearted interest and enthusiasm she evinced in her hunts for wild flowers, she applied to them the same dogged determination and untiring efforts she showed in her long search for hidden bird nests, with the inevitable result that her brain, naturally alert and brilliant, grasped with amazing celerity both the easy and the hard lessons of the Normal Training course.

Millie's prediction proved well founded--Amanda Reist stood well in her cla.s.ses. In botany she was the preeminent figure of the entire school.

"Ask Amanda Reist, she'll tell you," became the slogan among the students. "Yellow violets, lady-slippers, wild ginger--she'll tell you where they grow or get a specimen for you."

When the time for graduation drew near Amanda was able to carry home the glad news that she ranked third in her cla.s.s and was chosen to deliver an oration at the Commencement exercises.

"That I want to hear," declared Millie, "and I'll get a new dress to wear to it, too."

On the June morning when the Commencement exercises of the First Pennsylvania State Normal School took place there were hundreds of happy, eager visitors on the campus at Millersville, and later in the great auditorium, but none was happier than Millie Hess, Reists' hired girl. The new dress, bought in Lancaster and made by Mrs. Reist and Aunt Rebecca, was a white lawn flecked with black. Millie had decided on a plain waist with high neck, the inch wide band at the throat edged with torchon lace, after the style she usually wore, the skirt made full and having above the hem, as Millie put it, "Just a few tucks, then wait a while, then tucks again." But Amanda, happening on the scene as the dress was tried on, protested at the high neck.

"Please, Millie," she coaxed, "do have the neck turned down, oh, just a little! I'd have a nice pleated ruffle of white net around it and a little V in front. You'd look fine that way."

"Me-fine! Go long with you, Amanda Reist! Ain't I got two good eyes and a lookin'-gla.s.s? But I guess I would look more like other folks if I had it made like you say. But now I don't want it too low. You dare fix it so it looks right." Displaying the same meek acquiescence in the desire of Amanda she bought a stylish hat instead of the big flat sailor with its taffeta bow she generally chose. The hat was Amanda's selection, a small, modest little thing with pale pink and gray roses misty with a covering of black tulle.

"Me with pink roses on my hat and over forty years old," said Millie wonderingly, but when she tried it on and saw the improvement in her appearance she smiled happily. "It's the prettiest hat I ever had and I'll hold it up and take good care of it so it'll last me years. I'm gettin' fixed up for sure once, only my new shoes don't have no squeak in 'em at all."

"That's out of style," Amanda informed her kindly.

"It is? Why, when I was little I remember hearin' folks tell how when they bought new shoes they always asked for a 'fib's worth of squeak'

in 'em."

"And now they pay the shoemaker more than a 'fib' to put a few pegs in the shoes and take the squeak out."

"Well, well, how things get different! But then I'm glad mine don't make no noise if that's the way now."

Commencement day Millie could have held her own with any well-dressed city woman. Her plain face was almost beautiful as she stood ready for the great event of Amanda's life. At the last moment she thought of the big bush of shrubs in the yard--"I must get me a shrub to smell in the Commencement," she decided. So she gathered one of the queer-looking, fragrant brown blossoms, tied it in the corner of her handkerchief and bruised it gently so that the sweet perfume might be exuded. "Um-ah,"

she breathed in the odor, "now I'm ready for Millersville."

As she stood with Mrs. Reist and Philip on the front porch waiting for Uncle Amos she said to Mrs. Reist, "Ain't Amanda fixed me up fine?