Patchwork Part 22

"I can't. I hurt you when I say that, but I want you to be my good friend, as always, in spite of my worldliness. Will you, Phares?"

He opened his lips to speak, but she went on quickly: "Because I am learning every day how much I need the help and friendship of all my friends."

He longed to throw down the reins he was holding and tell her what was in his heart, but something in her manner, her peculiar stress on the word "friendship" restrained him. She was, after all, only a child. Only eighteen--too young to think of marriage. He could wait a while longer before he told her of his love and his desire to marry her.

"I will, Phbe," he promised. "I'll be your friend, always."

"I thought so," she breathed deeply in relief. "I knew you wouldn't fail me. Look at that field, Phares--oh, this is a perfect day! There should be a superlative form of perfect for a day like this! Those fields have as many colors as the shades reflected on a copper plate: lilac, tan, purple, rose, green and brown."

The preacher answered a mere "Yes." She turned again and looked at the fields they were pa.s.sing. "Perhaps," she thought, "before that corn is ripe I'll be in Philadelphia!" But she did not utter the thought, for she knew the preacher would not approve of her going to the city. He should know nothing about it until it was definitely settled.

The thought of studying music in Philadelphia left her restless. If only the preacher would be more talkative!

"It's just perfect to-day, isn't it, Phares?" she asked radiantly, resolved to make him talk. But his answers were so perfunctory that she turned her head, made a little grimace through the open side of the carriage and mentally dubbed him "b.u.mp-on-log." Very well, if he felt indisposed to talk to her, she could enjoy the drive without his voice!

Suddenly she laughed outright.

"What----" he looked at her, puzzled.

"What's funny?" she finished. "You."

"I?"

"Yes, you. If sales affect you like this you must be careful to avoid them. You've been half asleep for the last half hour. I think the horse knows the way home; you haven't been driving at all."

"I have not been asleep," he contradicted gravely, "just thinking."

"Must be deep thoughts."

"They were--shall I tell them to you?"

"Oh, no, not to-day!" she cried. "I've had enough excitement for one day. Some other time. Besides, we are almost home."

After that he threw off his lethargic manner and entered the girl's mood of appreciation of the lavish loveliness of the June. Yet, as Phbe alighted from the carriage at the little gate of the Metz farm, and after she had thanked him and started through the yard to the house, she said softly to herself, "If Phares Eby isn't the queerest person I know!

Just like a clam one minute and just lovely the next!"

Maria Metz was dishing a panful of fried potatoes as Phbe entered the kitchen.

"h.e.l.lo, daddy, Aunt Maria," exclaimed the girl.

"So you come once?" said her aunt.

"Have a good time?" asked her father.

"Yes, it was a fine sale, a real old-fashioned one."

But Aunt Maria was impatient for her supper. "Hurry," she said, "and get washed to eat. I have everything out and it'll get cold, then it ain't good. Did Phares like the sale? What did he have to say?"

"Um, guess he liked it," said the girl with a shrug of her shoulders.

"It's hard to tell what he likes--he's such a queer person. He said he's going to baptize the second Sunday of June and asked me if I want to come with the others."

"He did!" Aunt Maria could not keep the eagerness out of her voice.

"Well, let's sit down and eat."

After a short grace she turned to the girl. "Now then," she said as she helped herself generously to sausage and potatoes and handed the dishes across the table to Phbe, "tell us about it."

"There isn't much to tell. I just told him that I can't renounce the pleasures of the world before I had a chance to take hold of them. I'm not ready yet to dress plain."

"Why aren't you ready?" asked the woman.

"Ach, don't ask me," Phbe replied, speaking lightly in an effort to conceal her real feeling. "I just didn't come to that state yet. I want some more fun and pleasure before I think only of serious things."

"You're just like a big baby," her aunt said impatiently. "You can hurt a good man like Phares Eby and come home and laugh about it."

"Now, Maria," interposed the father, "let her laugh; she'll meet with crying soon enough, I guess."

But the woman could not be easily silenced. "Some day, Phbe, you'll wish you'd been nicer to Phares."

"Why, I am nice to him."

"Well, anyhow, I think it's soon time you give up the world and its vanities," said Aunt Maria.

The girl's teasing mood fled. "I think," she said slowly, "that the plain dress should not be worn by any one who does not realize all that the dress stands for. If I ever turn plain I'll do so because I feel it is the right thing to do, but just now vanity and the love of pretty clothes are still in my heart."

After the meal was over the women washed the dishes while Jacob went out to attend to the evening milking. Later, when the poultry houses and stables were locked he returned to the kitchen and read the weekly paper. After a while he turned to Phbe.

"Will you sing for me this evening?" he asked.

"Yes," came the ready response.

"Then make the door shut," Aunt Maria directed as they went to the sitting-room. "I want to mark my rug yet this evening and your noise bothers me."

CHAPTER XI

"THE BRIGHT LEXICON OF YOUTH"

"WHAT shall I sing?" Phbe asked as her father sank into the big rocker and she took her place at the low organ.

"Ach, anything," he replied.

She smiled, turned the pages of an old music book, and began to sing, "Annie Laurie." Her father nodded approval and smiled when she followed that with several other old-time favorites. Then she hesitated a moment, a low melody came from the organ, and the words of the beautiful lullaby fell from her lips:

"Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea; Low, low,--breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea; Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon and blow, Blow him again to me, While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps."

Phbe sang the lullaby as gently as if a tiny head were nestled against her bosom. She had within her, as has every normal, unspoiled woman, the loving impulses and yearning tenderness of motherhood. Her womanhood's star of hope shone brightly, though from a great distance; she devoutly hoped for the fulfillment of her destiny, but always dreamed of it coming in some time far removed from the present. Wifehood and motherhood--that was her goal, but long years of other joys and other achievements stretched between. Yet she felt an incomparable joy as she sang the lullaby. She sang it easily and sweetly and uttered each word with the freedom of one to whom music is second nature.