Part 24 (1/2)
”Ach, my,” groaned the woman, ”you talk like money grew on trees! What's the world comin' to nowadays?” She rose and pushed her rugging frame into a corner of the kitchen.
”Maria,” her brother suggested, ”we can get a hired girl if the work's too much for you alone.”
”Hired girl! I don't want no hired girl! Half of 'em don't do to suit, anyhow! I don't just want Phbe here to help to work. It'll be awful lonesome with her gone.”
Phbe saw the glint of anguish in the dark eyes and felt that her aunt's protestations were partly due to a disinclination to be parted from the child she had reared.
”Aunt Maria,” she said kindly, ”I hate to do what you think I shouldn't do, for you're good to me. You mustn't feel that I'm doing this just to be contrary. You and I think differently, that's all. Perhaps I'm too young to always think right, but I don't want you to be hurt. I'll come home often.”
”Ach, yes well,” the woman was touched by the girl's tenderness, but was still unconvinced. ”Not much use my saying more, I guess. You and your pop will do what you like. You're a Metz, too, and hard to change when you make up your mind once.”
That night when Phbe went to bed in her old-fas.h.i.+oned walnut bed she lay awake for hours, dreaming of the future. If Aunt Maria had known the visions that flitted before the girl that night she would have quaked in apprehension, for Phbe finally drifted into slumber on clouds of glory, forecasts of the wonderful time when, as a prima donna in trailing, s.h.i.+mmering gown, she would have the world at her feet while she sang, sang, sang!
CHAPTER XII
THE PREACHER'S WOOING
THERE belonged to the Metz farm an old stone quarry which Phbe learned to love in early childhood and which, as she grew older, she adopted as her refuge and dreaming-place.
Almost directly opposite the green gate at the country road was a narrow lane which led to the quarry. It was bordered on the right by a thickly interlaced hedge of blackberry bushes and wild honeysuckle, beyond which stood the orchard of the Metz farm. On the left of the lane a wide field sloped up along the road leading to the summit of the hill where the schoolhouse and the meeting-house stood. The lane was always inviting.
It was the fair road to a fairer spot, the old stone quarry.
The old stone quarry banked its rugged height against the side of a great wooded hill. Some twenty feet below the level of the lane was a huge semicircular base, and from this the jagged sides reared perpendicularly to the summit of the hill. The top and slopes of this hill were covered with a dense growth of underbrush and trees. Tall sycamores bordered the road opposite the quarry, making the spot sheltered and secluded.
To this place Phbe hurried the morning after she had gained her father's consent to go to Philadelphia.
”I just had to come here,” she breathed rapturously; ”the house is too narrow, the garden too small, this June morning. They won't hold my dreams.”
She stood under the giant sycamore opposite the quarry and looked appreciatively about her. Earth's warm, throbbing bosom thrilled with the universal joy of parentage and fruition. Shafts of sunlight shot through the green of the trees, odors of wild flowers mingled with the fresh, woodsy fragrance of the fields and woods, song sparrows flitted busily among the hedges and sang their delicious, ”Maids, maids, maids, hang on your tea kettle-ettle-ettle!” From the densest portions of the woods above the quarry a thrush sang--all nature seemed atune with Phbe's mood, blithe, happy, joyous!
Phares Eby, going to town that morning, walked slowly as he neared the Metz farm and looked for a glimpse of Phbe. He saw, instead, the portly figure of Aunt Maria as she walked about her garden to see the progress of her early June peas.
”Why, Phares,” she called, ”you goin' to Greenwald?”
”Yes. Anything I can do for you?”
”Ach no. Phbe was in the other day. But come in once, Phares, I'll tell you something about her.”
”Where is Phbe?” he asked as he joined Aunt Maria in the garden.
”Over at the quarry again. But I must tell you, she's goin' to Phildelphy to study singin'. She asked her pop and he said she dare.”
”Philadelphia--singing!”
”Yes. I don't like it at all, but she's goin' just the same.”
”It is a mistake to let her go,” said the preacher. ”It's a big mistake, Aunt Maria. She should stay at home or go to some school and learn something of value to her. In this quiet place she has never heard of many temptations which, in the city, she must meet face to face. It is the voice of the Tempter urging her to do this thing and we who are her friends should persuade her to remain in her good home and near the friends who care for her. Have you thought, Aunt Maria, that the people to whom she will go may dance and play cards and do many worldly things?
Philadelphia is very different from Greenwald. Why, she may learn to indulge in worldly amus.e.m.e.nts and to love the vanities of the world which we have tried to teach her to avoid! She will be like a bird in a strange nest.”