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[Illustration: "OH, LOOK AT THIS--AND THIS!"]
PATCHWORK
A STORY OF
"THE PLAIN PEOPLE"
By ANNA BALMER MYERS
[Illustration]
WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR BY
HELEN MASON GROSE
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with George W. Jacobs & Company
Copyright, 1920, by
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
All rights reserved
_Printed in U.S.A._
_To my Mother and Father
this book is lovingly inscribed_
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CALICO PATCHWORK 13
II. OLD AARON'S FLAG 29
III. LITTLE DUTCHIE 40
IV. THE NEW TEACHER 52
V. THE HEART OF A CHILD 70
VI. THE PRIMA DONNA OF THE ATTIC 92
VII. "WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER MEET" 110
VIII. BEYOND THE ALPS LIES ITALY 119
IX. A VISIT TO MOTHER BAB 129
X. AN OLD-FASHIONED COUNTRY SALE 146
XI. "THE BRIGHT LEXICON OF YOUTH" 166
XII. THE PREACHER'S WOOING 176
XIII. THE SCARLET TANAGER 189
XIV. ALADDIN'S LAMP 203
XV. THE FLEDGLING'S FLIGHT 207
XVI. PHOEBE'S DIARY 212
XVII. DIARY--THE NEW HOME 221
XVIII. DIARY--THE MUSIC MASTER 226
XIX. DIARY--THE FIRST LESSON 229
XX. DIARY--SEEING THE CITY 235
XXI. DIARY--CHRYSALIS 240
XXII. DIARY--TRANSFORMATION 245
XXIII. DIARY--PLAIN FOR A NIGHT 251
XXIV. DIARY--DECLARATIONS 256
XXV. DIARY--"THE LINK MUST BREAK AND THE LAMP MUST DIE" 261
XXVI. "HAME'S BEST" 268
XXVII. TRAILING ARBUTUS 271
XXVIII. MOTHER BAB AND HER SON 284
XXIX. PREPARATIONS 291
XXX. THE FEAST OF ROSES 295
XXXI. BLINDNESS 303
XXXII. OFF TO THE NAVY 310
XXXIII. THE ONE CHANCE 315
XXXIV. BUSY DAYS 319
XXXV. DAVID'S SHARE 327
XXXVI. DAVID'S RETURN 331
XXXVII. "A LOVE THAT LIFE COULD NEVER TIRE" 335
Patchwork
CHAPTER I
CALICO PATCHWORK
THE gorgeous sunshine of a perfect June morning invited to the great
outdoors. Exquisite perfume from myriad blossoms tempted lovers of
nature to get away from cramped, man-made buildings, out under the blue
roof of heaven, and revel in the lavish splendor of the day.
This call of the Junetide came loudly and insistently to a little girl
as she sat in the sitting-room of a prosperous farmhouse in Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania, and sewed gaily-colored pieces of red and green
calico into patchwork.
"Ach, my!" she sighed, with all the dreariness which a ten-year-old is
capable of feeling, "why must I patch when it's so nice out? I just
ain't goin' to sew no more to-day!"
She rose, folded her work and laid it in her plaited rush sewing-basket.
Then she stood for a moment, irresolute, and listened to the sounds
issuing from the next room. She could hear her Aunt Maria bustle about
the big kitchen.
"Ach, I ain't afraid!"
The child opened the door and entered the kitchen, where the odor of
boiling strawberry preserves proclaimed the cause of the aunt's
activity.
Maria Metz was, at fifty, robust and comely, with black hair very
slightly streaked with gray, cheeks that retained traces of the rosy
coloring of her girlhood, and flashing black eyes meeting squarely the
looks of all with whom she came in contact. She was a member of the
Church of the Brethren and wore the quaint garb adopted by the women of
that sect. Her dress of black calico was perfectly plain. The tight
waist was half concealed by a long, pointed cape which fell over her
shoulders and touched the waistline back and front, where a full apron
of blue and white checked gingham was tied securely. Her dark hair was
parted and smoothly drawn under a cap of white lawn. She was a
picturesque figure but totally unconscious of it, for the section of
Pennsylvania in which she lived has been for generations the home of a
multitude of women similarly garbed--members of the plain sects, as the
Mennonites, Amish, Brethren in Christ, and Church of the Brethren, are
commonly called in the communities in which they flourish.
As the child appeared in the doorway her aunt turned.
"So," the woman said pleasantly, "you worked vonderful quick to-day
once, Phoebe. Why, you got your patches done soon--did you make little
stitches like I told you?"
"I ain't got 'em done!" The child stood erect, a defiant little figure,
her blue eyes grown dark with the moment's tenseness. "I ain't goin' to
sew no more when it's so nice out! I want to be out in the yard, that's
what I want. I just hate this here patchin' to-day, that's what I do!"
Maria Metz carefully wiped the strawberry juice from her fingers, then
she stood before the little girl like a veritable tower of amazement and
strength.
"Phoebe," she said after a moment's struggle to control her wrath, "you
ain't big enough nor old enough yet to tell me what you ain't goin' to
do! How many patches did you make?"
"Three."
"And you know I said you shall make four every day still so you get the
quilt done this summer yet and ready to quilt. You go and finish them."
"I don't want to." Phoebe shook her head stubbornly. "I want to play out
in the yard."
"When you're done with the patches, not before! You know you must learn
to sew. Why, Phoebe," the woman changed her tactics, "you used to like
to sew still. When you was just five years old you cried for goods and
needle and I pinned the patches on the little sewing-bird that belonged
to Granny Metz still and screwed the bird on the table and you sewed
that nice! And now you don't want to do no more patches--how will you
ever get your big chest full of nice quilts if you don't patch?"
But the child was too thoroughly possessed with the desire to be
outdoors to be won by any pleading or praise. She pulled savagely at
the two long braids which hung over her shoulders and cried, "I don't
want no quilts! I don't want no chests! I don't like red and green
quilts, anyhow--never, never! I wish my pop would come in; he wouldn't
make me sew patches, he"--she began to sob--"I wish, I just wish I had a
mom! She wouldn't make me sew calico when--when I want to play."
Something in the utter unhappiness of the little girl, together with the
words of yearning for the dead mother, filled the woman with a strange
tenderness. Though she never allowed sentiment to sway her from doing
what she considered her duty she did yield to its influence and spoke
gently to the agitated child.
"I wish, too, your mom was here yet, Phoebe. But I guess if she was
she'd want you to learn to sew. Ach, it's just that you like to be out,
out all the time that makes you so contrary, I guess. You're like your
pop, if you can just be out! Mebbe when you're old as I once and had
your back near broke often as I had with hoein' and weedin' and plantin'
in the garden you'll be glad when you can set in the house and sew. Ach,
now, stop your cryin' and go finish your patchin' and when you're done
I'll leave you go in to Greenwald for me to the store and to Granny
Hogendobler."
"Oh"--the child lifted her tear-stained face--"and dare I really go to
Greenwald when I'm done?"
"Yes. I need some sugar yet and you dare order it. And you can get me
some thread and then stop at Granny Hogendobler's and ask her to come
out to-morrow and help with the strawberry jelly. I got so much to make
and it comes good to Granny if she gets away for a little change."
"Then I'll patch quick!" Phoebe said. The world was a good place again
for the child as she went back to the sitting-room and resumed her
sewing.
She was so eager to finish the unpleasant task that she forgot one of
Aunt Maria's rules, as inexorable as the law of the Medes and
Persians--the door between the kitchen and the sitting-room _must_ be
closed.
"Here, Phoebe," the woman called sharply, "make that door shut! Abody'd
think you was born in a sawmill! The strawberry smell gets all over the
house."
Phoebe turned alertly and closed the door. Then she soliloquized, "I
don't see why there has to be doors on the inside of houses. I like to
smell the good things all over the house, but then it's Aunt Maria's
boss, not me."
Maria Metz shook her head as she returned to her berries. "If it don't
beat all and if I won't have my hands full yet with that girl 'fore
she's growed up! That stubborn she is, like her pop--ach, like all of us
Metz's, I guess. Anyhow, it ain't easy raising somebody else's child. If
only her mom would have lived, and so young she was to die, too."
Her thoughts went back to the time when her brother Jacob brought to the
old Metz farmhouse his gentle, sweet-faced bride. Then the joint
persuasions of Jacob and his wife induced Maria Metz to continue her
residence in the old homestead. She relieved the bride of all the brunt
of manual labor of the farm and in her capable way proved a worthy
sister to the new mistress of the old Metz place. When, several years
later, the gentle wife died and left Jacob the legacy of a helpless
babe, it was Maria Metz who took up the task of mothering the motherless
child. If she bungled at times in the performance of the mother's
unfinished task it was not from lack of love, for she loved the fair
little Phoebe with a passion that was almost abnormal, a passion which
burned the more fiercely because there was seldom any outlet in
demonstrative affection.
As soon as the child was old enough Aunt Maria began to teach her the
doctrines of the plain church and to warn her against the evils of
vanity, frivolity and all forms of worldliness.
Maria Metz was richly endowed with that admirable love of industry which
is characteristic of the Pennsylvania Dutch. In accordance with her
acceptance of the command, "Six days shalt thou labor," she swept,
scrubbed, and toiled from early morning to evening with Herculean
persistence. The farmhouse was spotless from cellar to attic, the wooden
walks and porches scrubbed clean and smooth. Flower beds, vegetable
gardens and lawns were kept neat and without weeds. Aunt Maria was, as
she expressed it, "not afraid of work." Naturally she considered it her
duty to teach little Phoebe to be industrious, to sew neatly, to help
with light tasks about the house and gardens.
Like many other good foster-mothers Maria Metz tried conscientiously to
care for the child's spiritual and physical well-being, but in spite of
her best endeavors there were times when she despaired of the
tremendous task she had undertaken. Phoebe's spirit tingled with the
divine, poetic appreciation of all things beautiful. A vivid imagination
carried the child into realms where the stolid aunt could not follow,
realms of whose existence the older woman never dreamed.
But what troubled Maria Metz most was the child's frank avowal of
vanity. Every new dress was a source of intense joy to Phoebe. Every new
ribbon for her hair, no matter how narrow and dull of color, sent her
face smiling. The golden hair, which sprang into long curls as Aunt
Maria combed it, was invariably braided into two thick, tight braids,
but there were always little wisps that curled about the ears and
forehead. These wisps were at once the woman's despair and the child's
freely expressed delight. However, through all the rigid discipline the
little girl retained her natural buoyancy of childhood, the spontaneous
interestedness, the cheerfulness and animation, which were a part of her
goodly heritage.
That June morning the world was changed suddenly from a dismal vale of
patchwork to a glorious garden of delight. She was still a child and the
promised walk to Greenwald changed the entire world for her.
She paused once in her sewing to look about the sitting-room. "Ach, I
vonder now why this room is so ugly to me to-day. I guess it's because
it's so pretty out. Why, mostly always I think this is a vonderful nice
room."
The sitting-room of the Metz farm was attractive in its old-fashioned
furnishing. It was large and well lighted. The gray rag carpet--woven
from rags sewed by Aunt Maria and Phoebe--was decorated with wide
stripes of green. Upon the carpet were spread numerous rugs, some made
of braided rags coiled into large circles, others were hooked rugs gaily
ornamented with birds and flowers and graceful scroll designs. The
low-backed chairs were painted dull green and each bore upon the four
inch panel of its back a hand-painted floral design. On the haircloth
sofa were several crazy-work cushions. Two deep rocking-chairs matched
the antique low-backed chairs. A spindle-legged cherry table bore an old
vase filled with pink and red straw flowers. The large square table,
covered with a red and green cloth, held a glass lamp, the old Metz
Bible, several hymn-books and the papers read in that home,--a weekly
religious paper, the weekly town paper, and a well-known farm journal. A
low walnut organ which Phoebe's mother brought to the farm and a tall
walnut grandfather clock, the most cherished heirloom of the Metz
family, occupied places of honor in the room. Not a single article of
modern design could be found in the entire room, yet it was an
interesting and habitable place. Most of the Metz furniture had stood in
the old homestead for several generations and so long as any piece
served its purpose and continued to look respectable Aunt Maria would
have considered it gross extravagance, even a sacrilege, to discard it
for one of newer design. She was satisfied with her house, her brother
Jacob was well pleased with the way she kept it--it never occurred to
her that Phoebe might ever desire new things, and least of all did she
dream that the girl sometimes spent an interesting hour refurnishing, in
imagination, the same old sitting-room.
"Yes," Phoebe was saying to herself, "sometimes this room is vonderful
to me. Only I wished the organ was a piano, like the one Mary Warner got
to play on. But, ach, I must hurry once and make this patch done. Funny
thing patchin' is, cuttin' up big pieces of good calico in little ones
and then sewin' them up in big ones again! I don't like it"--she spoke
very softly for she knew her aunt disapproved of the habit of talking to
one's self--"I don't like patchin' and I for certain don't like red and
green quilts! I got one on my bed now and it hurts my eyes still in the
morning when I get awake. I'd like a pretty blue and white one for my
bed. Mebbe Aunt Maria will leave me make one when I get this one sewed.
But now my patch is done and I dare to go to Greenwald. That's a
vonderful nice walk."
A moment later she stood again in the big kitchen.
"See," she said, "now I got them all done. And little stitches, too, so
nobody won't catch their toes in 'em when they sleep, like you used to
tell me still when I first begun to sew."
The woman smiled. "Now you're a good girl, Phoebe. Put your patches away
nice and you dare go to Greenwald."
"Where all shall I go?"
"Go first to Granny Hogendobler; that's right on the way to the store.
You ask her to come out to-morrow morning early if she wants to help
with the berries."
"Dare I stay a little?"
"If you want. But don't you go bringin' any more slips of flowers to
plant or any seeds. The flower beds are that full now abody can hardly
get in to weed 'em still."
"All right, I won't. But I think it's nice to have lots and lots of
flowers. When I have a garden once I'll have it full----"
"Talk of that some other day," said her aunt. "Get ready now for town
once. You go to the store and ask 'em to send out twenty pounds of
granulated sugar. Jonas, one of the clerks, comes out this way still
when he goes home and he can just as good fetch it along on his home
road. Your pop is too busy to hitch up and go in for it and I have no
time neither to-day and I want it early in the morning, and what I have
is almost all. And then you can buy three spools of white thread number
fifty. And when you're done you dare look around a little in the store
if you don't touch nothing. On the home road you better stop in the
post-office and ask if there's anything. Nobody was in yesterday."
"All right--and--Aunt Maria, dare I wear my hat?"
"Ach, no. Abody don't wear Sunday clothes on a Wednesday just to go to
Greenwald to the store. Only when you go to Lancaster and on a Sunday
you wear your hat. You're dressed good enough; just get your sunbonnet,
for it's sunny on the road."
Phoebe took a small ruffled sunbonnet of blue checked gingham from a
hook behind the kitchen door and pressed it lightly on her head.
"Ach, bonnets are vonderful hot things!" she exclaimed. "A nice parasol
like Mary Warner's got would be lots nicer. Where's the money?" she
asked as she saw a shadow of displeasure on her aunt's face.
"Here it is, enough for the sugar and the thread. Don't lose the
pocketbook, and be sure to count the change so they don't make no
mistake."
"Yes."
"And don't touch things in the store."
"No." The child walked to the door, impatient to be off.
"And be careful crossin' over the streets. If a horse comes, or a
bicycle, wait till it's past, or an automobile----"
"Ach, yes, I'll be careful," Phoebe answered.
A moment later she went down the boardwalk that led through the yard to
the little green gate at the country road. There she paused and looked
back at the farm with its old-fashioned house, her birthplace and home.
The Metz homestead, erected in the days of home-grown flax and
spinning-wheels, was plain and unpretentious. Built of gray, rough-hewn
quarry stone it hid like a demure Quakeress behind tall evergreen trees
whose branches touched and interlaced in so many places that the
traveler on the country road caught but mere glimpses of the big gray
house.
The old home stood facing the road that led northward to the little town
of Greenwald. Southward the road curved and wound itself about a steep
hill, sent its branches right and left to numerous farms while it, still
twisting and turning, went on to the nearest city, Lancaster, ten miles
distant.
The Metz farm was just outside the southern limits of the town of
Greenwald. The spacious red barn stood on the very bank of Chicques
Creek, the boundary line.
"It's awful pretty here to-day," Phoebe said aloud as she looked from
the house with its sheltering trees to the flower garden with its roses,
larkspur and other old-fashioned flowers, then to the background of
undulating fields and hills. "It's just vonderful pretty here to-day.
But, ach, I guess it's pretty most anywheres on a day like this--but not
in the house. Ugh, that patchin'! I want to forget it."
As she closed the gate and entered the country road she caught sight of
a familiar figure just ahead.
"Hello," she called. "Wait once, David! Is that you?"
"No, it ain't me, it's my shadow!" came the answer as a boy, several
years older than Phoebe, turned and waited for her.
"Ach, David Eby," she giggled, "you're just like Aunt Maria says still
you are--always cuttin' up and talkin' so abody don't know if you mean
it or what. Goin' in to town, too, once?"
"Um-uh. Say, Phoebe, you want a rose to pin on?" he asked, turning to
her with a pink damask rose.
"Why, be sure I do! I just like them roses vonderful much. We got 'em
too, big bushes of 'em, but Aunt Maria won't let me pull none off.
Where'd you get yourn?"
"We got lots. Mom lets me pull off all I want. You pin it on and be
decorated for Greenwald. Where all you going, Phoebe?"
"And I say thanks, too, David, for the rose," she said as she pinned the
rose to her dress. "Um, it smells good! Where am I goin'?" she
remembered his question. "Why, to the store and to Granny Hogendobler
and the post-office----"
"Jimminy Crickets!" The boy stood still. "That's where I'm to go! Me and
mom both forgot about it. Mom wants a money order and said I'm to get it
the first time I go to town and here I am without the money. It's home
up the hill again for me."
"Ach, David, don't you know that it's vonderful bad luck to go back for
something when you got started once?"
The boy laughed. "It _is_ bad luck to have to climb that hill again. But
mom'll say what I ain't got in my head I got to have in my feet. They're
big enough to hold a lot, too, Phoebe, ain't they?"
She giggled, then laughed merrily. "Ach," she said, "you say funny
things. You just make me laugh all the time. But it's mean, now, that
you are so dumb to forget and have to go back. I thought I'd have nice
company all the ways in, but mebbe I'll see you in Greenwald."
"Mebbe. Goo'bye," said the boy and turned to the hill again.
Phoebe stood a moment and looked after him. "My," she said to herself,
"but David Eby is a vonderful nice boy!" Then she started down the road,
a quaint, interesting little figure in her brown chambray dress with its
full, gathered skirt and its short, plain waist. But the face that
looked out from the blue sunbonnet was even more interesting. The blue
eyes, golden hair and fair coloring of the cheeks held promise of an
abiding beauty, but more than mere beauty was bounded by the ruffled
sunbonnet. There was an eagerness of expression, an alert understanding
in the deep eyes, a tender fluttering of the long lashes, an ever
varying animation in the child face, as though she were standing on
tiptoe to catch all the sunshine and glory of the great, beautiful world
about her.
Phoebe went decorously down the road, across the wooden bridge over the
Chicques, then she began to skip. Her full skirt fluttered in the light
wind, her sunbonnet slipped back from her head and flapped as she hopped
along the half mile stretch of country road bordered by green fields and
meadows.
"There's no houses here so I dare skip," she panted gleefully. "Aunt
Maria don't think it looks nice for girls to skip, but I like to do it.
I could just skip and skip and skip----"
She stopped suddenly. In a meadow to her right a tangle of bulrushes
edged a small pond and, perched on a swaying reed, a red-winged
blackbird was calling his clear, "Conqueree, conqueree."
"Oh, you pretty thing!" Phoebe cried as she leaned on the fence and
watched the bird. "You're just the prettiest thing with them red and
yellow spots on your wings. And you ain't afraid of me, not a bit. I
guess mebbe you know you got wings and I ain't. Such pretty wings you
got, too, and the rest of you is all black as coal. Mebbe God made you
black all over like a crow and then got sorry for you and put some
pretty spots on your wings. I wonder now"--her face sobered--"I just
wonder now why Aunt Maria says still that it's bad to fix up pretty with
curls and things like that and to wear fancy dresses. Why, many of the
birds are vonderful fine in gay feathers and the flowers are fancy and
the butterflies--ach, mebbe when I'm big I'll understand it better, or
mebbe I'll dress up pretty then too."
With that cheering thought she turned again to the road and resumed her
walk, but the skipping mood had fled. She pulled her sunbonnet to its
proper place and walked briskly along, still enjoying thoroughly, though
less exuberantly, the beauty of the June morning.
The scent of pink clover mingled with the odor of grasses and the
delicate perfume of sweetbrier. Wood sorrel nestled in the grassy
corners near the crude rail fences, daisies and spiked toad-flax grew
lavishly among the weeds of the roadside. In the meadows tall milkweed
swayed its clusters of pink and lavender, marsh-marigolds dotted the
grass with discs of pure gold, and Queen Anne's lace lifted its
parasols of exquisite loveliness. Phoebe reveled in it all; her cheeks
were glowing as she left the beauty of the country behind her and came
at last to the little town of Greenwald.