Patchwork Part 8

But his silence added fuel to the other's wrath.

"You b.u.t.t in too much, that's what!" said David. "It's just like Phbe says, you boss too much. I ain't going to take it no more from you."

"I--now--mebbe I do," admitted Phares.

At the words David's anger cooled. He laid a hand on the older boy's arm, as older men might have gripped hands in reconciliation. "Come on, Phares," he said in natural, friendly tones. "I hadn't ought to hit you.

Let's forget all about it. You and me mustn't fight over Phbe."

"That's so," agreed Phares, but both were thoughtful and silent as they went down the lane.

CHAPTER V

THE HEART OF A CHILD

PHBE'S aspiration to become like her teacher did not lessen as the days went on. Her profound admiration for Miss Lee developed into intense devotion, a devotion whose depth she carefully guarded from discovery.

To her father's interested questioning she answered a mere, "Why, I like her, for all, pop. She didn't laugh to make fun at me. I think she's nice." But secretly the little girl thought of her new teacher in the most extravagant superlatives. Her heart was experiencing its first "hero" worship; the poetic, imaginative soul of the child was attracted by the magnetic personality of Miss Lee. The teacher's smiles, mannerisms, dress, and above all, her English, were objects worthy of emulation, thought the child. At times Phbe despaired of ever becoming like Miss Lee, then again she felt certain she had within her possibilities to become like the enviable, wonderful Virginia Lee. But she breathed to none her ambitions and hopes except at night as she knelt by her high old-fashioned bed and bent her head to say the prayer Aunt Maria had taught her in babyhood. Then to the prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep," she added an original pet.i.tion, "And please let me get like my teacher, Miss Lee. Amen."

"Aunt Maria, church is on the hill Sunday, ain't it?" she asked one day after several weeks of school.

"Yes. And I hope it's nice, for we make ready for a lot of company always when we have church here."

"Why," the child asked eagerly, "dare I ask Miss Lee to come here for dinner too that Sunday? Mary Warner's mom had her for dinner last Sunday."

"Ach, yes, I don't care. You ask her. Mebbe she ain't been in a plain church yet and would like to go with us and then come home for dinner here. You ask her once."

Phbe trembled a bit as she invited the teacher to the gray farmhouse.

"Miss Lee--why--we have church here on the hill this Sunday and Aunt Maria thought perhaps you'd like to come out and go with us and then come to our house for dinner. We always have a lot of people for dinner."

"I'd love to, Phbe, thank you," answered Miss Lee.

The plain sects of that community were all novel to her. She was eager to attend a service in the meeting-house on the hill and especially eager to meet Phbe's people and study the unusual child in the intimate circle of home.

"Tell your aunt I shall be very glad to go to the service with you," she said as Phbe stood speechless with joy. "Will you go?"

"Ach, yes, I go always," with a surprised widening of the blue eyes.

"And your aunt, too?"

"Why be sure, yes! Abody don't stay home from church when it's so near.

That would look like we don't want company. There's church on the hill only every six weeks and the other Sundays it's at other churches. Then we drive to those other churches and people what live near ask us to come to their house for dinner, and we go. Then when it's here on the hill we must ask people that live far off to come to us for dinner. That way everybody has a place to go. It makes it nice to go away and to have company still. We always have a lot when church is here. Aunt Maria cooks so good."

She spoke the last words innocently and looked up with an expression of wonder as she heard Miss Lee laugh gaily--now what was funny? Surely Miss Lee laughed when there was nothing at all to laugh about!

"What time does your service begin?" asked the teacher. "What time do you leave the house?"

"It takes in at nine o'clock----"

Miss Lee smothered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of surprise.

"But we leave the house a little after half-past eight. Then we can go easy up the hill and have time to walk around on the graveyard a little and get in church early and watch the people come in."

"I'll stop for you and go with you, Phbe."

Sunday morning at the Metz farm was no time for prolonged slumber. With the first crowing of roosters Aunt Maria rose. After the early breakfast there were numerous tasks to be performed before the departure for the meeting-house. There was the milking to be done and the cans of milk placed in the cool spring-house; the chickens and cattle to be fed; each room of the big house to be dusted; vegetables to be prepared for a hasty boiling after the return from the service; preserves and canned fruits to be brought from the cellar, placed into gla.s.s dishes and set in readiness.

At eight-fifteen Phbe was ready. She wore her favorite blue chambray dress and delighted in the fact that Sunday always brought her the privilege of wearing her hat. The little sailor hat with its narrow ribbon and little bow was certainly not the hat she would have chosen if she might have had that pleasure, but it was the only hat she owned, so was not to be despised. She felt grateful that Aunt Maria allowed her to wear a hat. Many little girls, some smaller than she, came to church every Sunday wearing silk bonnets like their elders!--she felt grateful for her hat--any hat!

Tugging at the elastic under her chin, then smoothing her handkerchief and placing it in her sleeve--she had seen Miss Lee dispose of a handkerchief in that way--she walked to the little green gate and watched the road leading from Greenwald.

Her heart leaped when she saw the teacher come down the long road. She opened the gate to go to meet her, then suddenly stood still. Miss Lee as she appeared in the schoolroom, in white linen dress or trim serge skirt and tailored waist, was attractive enough to cause Phbe's heart to flutter with admiration a dozen times a day; but Miss Lee in Sunday morning church attire was so irresistibly sweet that the vision sent the little girl's heart pounding and caused a strange shyness to possess her. The semi-tailored dress of dark blue taffeta, the sheer white collar, the small black hat with its white wings, the silver coin purse in the gloved hand--no detail escaped the keen eyes of the child. She looked down at her cotton dress--it had seemed so pretty just a moment ago. But, of course, such dresses and gloves and hats were for grown-ups! "But just you wait," she thought, "when I grow up I'll look like that, too, see if I don't!"

Miss Lee, smiling, never knew the depths she stirred in the heart of the little girl.

"Am I late, Phbe?"

"Ach, no. Just on time. Pop, he went a'ready, though. He goes early still to open the meeting-house. We'll go right away, as soon as Aunt Maria locks up. But what for did you bring a pocketbook?"

"For the offering."

"Offering?"

"The church offering, Phbe. Surely you know what that is if you go to church every Sunday. Don't you have collection plates or baskets pa.s.sed about in your church for everybody to put their offerings on them?"

"Why, no, we don't have that in our church! What for do they do that in any church?"

"To pay the preachers' salaries and----"

"Goodness," Phbe laughed, "it would take a vonderful lot to pay all the preachers that preach at our church. Sometimes three or four preach at one meeting. They have to work week-days and get their money just like other men do. Men come around to the house sometimes for money for the poor, and when the meeting-house needs a new roof or something like that, everybody helps to pay for it, but we don't take no collections in church, like you say. That's a funny way----"

The appearance of Maria Metz prevented further discussion of church collections. With a large, fringed shawl pinned over her plain gray dress and a stiff black silk bonnet tied under her chin, she was ready for church. She was putting the big iron key of the kitchen door into a deep pocket of her full skirt as she came down the walk.

"That way, now we're ready," she said affably. "I guess you're Phbe's teacher, ain't? I see you go past still."

"Yes. I am very glad to meet you, Miss Metz. It is very kind of you to invite me to go with you."

"Ach, that's nothing. You're welcome enough. We always have much company when church is on the hill. This is a nice day, so I guess church will be full. I hope so, anyway, for I got ready for company for dinner. But how do you like Greenwald?"

"Very well, indeed. It is beautiful here."

"Ain't! But I guess it's different from Phildelphy. I was there once, in the Centennial, and it was so full everywheres. I like the country best.

Can't anything beat this now, can it?"

They reached the summit of the hill and paused.