LITTLE DUTCHIE
"AUNT MARIA said I dare look around a little," thought Phoebe as she
neared the big store on the Square. Her heart beat more quickly as she
turned the knob of the heavy door--little things still thrilled her,
going to the store in Greenwald was an event!
The clerk's courteous, "What can I do for you?" bewildered her for an
instant but she swallowed hard and said, "Why, we want twenty pounds of
granulated sugar; ourn is almost all and Aunt Maria wants to make some
strawberry jelly to-morrow. She said for Jonas to fetch it along on his
home road."
"All right. Out to Jacob Metz?"
"Yes, he's my pop."
"I see. Anything else?"
"Three spools white thread, number fifty."
"Anything else?"
She shook her head as she handed him the money. "No, that's all for
to-day. But Aunt Maria said I dare look around a little if I don't touch
things."
"Look all you want," said the clerk and turned away, smiling.
Phoebe began a slow tramp about the big store. There was the same glass
case filled with jewelry. The rings and pins rested on satin that had
faded long since, the jewelry itself was tarnished but it held Phoebe's
interest with its meagre glistening. One little ring with a tiny
turquoise aroused her desire but she realized that she was longing for
the impossible, so she moved away from the coveted treasures and paused
before the ribbons. Some of those same ribbons had been in the tall
revolving case ever since she could remember going to that store. The
pale sea-green and the crushed-strawberry were faded horribly, yet she
looked at them with longing. "Suppose," she thought, "I dared pick out
any ribbon I want for a sash--guess I'd take that funny pink one, or
mebbe that nice blue one. But I kinda think I'd rather have a set of
dishes or a doll. But then I got that rag doll at home and that pretty
one that pop got for me in Lancaster and that Aunt Maria won't leave me
play with. That's funny now, that she says still I daren't play with it
for I might break it, that I shall keep it till I'm big. But when I'm
big I won't want a doll, and then I vonder what! What will I do with it
then?"
She stood a long time before a table crowded with a motley gathering of
toys, dolls and books. With so much coveted treasure before her it was
hard to remember Aunt Maria's injunction to refrain from touching.
"Well, anyhow," she decided finally, "I won't need any of these things
to play with now, for I'm going to be out in the garden and the yard
with the flowers and birds. So I guess my old rag doll will be plenty
for playin' with. But I mustn't look too long else Aunt Maria won't
leave me come in soon again. I'll walk down the other side of the store
now yet and then I must go."
She passed slowly along, her keen eyes noticing the varied assortment of
articles displayed for sale. A long line of red handkerchiefs was
fastened to a cord high above one counter. Long shelves were stacked
high with ginghams, calicoes and finer dress materials. There were gaudy
rugs and blankets tacked to the walls near the ceiling. Counters were
filled with glassware, china and crockery; other counters were laden
with umbrellas, hats, shoes----
"Ach," she sighed as she went out to the street, "I think this goin' to
Greenwald to the store is vonderful nice! It's most as much fun as goin'
in to Lancaster, only there I go in a trolley and I see black
niggers"--she spoke the word with a little shiver, for Greenwald had no
negro residents--"and once in there me and Aunt Maria saw a Chinaman
with a long plait like a girl's hangin' down his back!"
After asking for the mail at the post-office she turned homeward,
feeling like singing from sheer happiness. Then she looked down at her
pink damask rose--it was withered.
"I'm goin' home now so I guess I won't be decorated no more." She
unpinned the flower, clasped its short stem in her hand and raised the
blossom to her face.
"Um-m-m!" She drew deep breaths of the rose's perfume. "Um-m!"
"Does it smell good?"
Phoebe turned her head at the voice and looked into the face of a young
woman who sat on the porch of a near-by house.
"Does it smell good?" The question came again, accompanied by a broad
smile.
Quickly the hand holding the flower dropped to the child's side, her
eyes were cast down to the brick pavement and she went hurriedly down
the street. But not so hurriedly that she failed to hear the words,
"LITTLE DUTCHIE" and a merry laugh from the young woman.
"She--she laughed at me!" Phoebe murmured to herself under the blue
sunbonnet. "I don't know who she is, but that was at Mollie Stern's
house that she sat--that lady that laughed at me. She called me a
Dutchie!"
The child stabbed a fist into one eye and then into the other to fight
back the tears. She felt sure that the appellation of Dutchie was not
complimentary. Hadn't she heard the boys at school tease each other by
calling, "Dutchie, Dutchie, sauer kraut!" But no one had ever called her
that before! Her heart ached as she went down the street of the little
town. She had planned to look at all the gardens of the main street as
she walked home but the glory of the June day was spoiled for her. She
did not care to look at any gardens. The laughing words, "Does it smell
good?" rang in her ears. The name, "Little Dutchie," sent her heart
throbbing.
After the first hurt a feeling of wrath rose in her. "Anyhow," she
thought, "it's no disgrace to be a Dutchie! Nobody needn't laugh at me
for that. But I just hate that lady that laughed at me! I hate everybody
that pokes fun at me. And I ain't goin' to always be a Dutchie. You see
once if I don't be something else when I grow up!"
"Hello, Phoebe," a cheery voice rang out, followed by a deeper
exclamation, "Phoebe!" as she came to the last intersection of streets
in the town and turned to enter the country road.
She turned a sober little face to the speakers, David Eby and his
cousin, Phares Eby.
"Hello," she answered listlessly.
"What's wrong?" asked the older boy as they joined her.
Both were plainly country boys accustomed to hard farm work, but their
tanned faces were frank and honest under broad straw hats. Each bore
marked family resemblances in their big frames, dark eyes and
well-shaped heads, but there was a distinct line drawn between their
personalities. Phares Eby at sixteen was grave, studious and dignified;
his cousin, David, two years younger, was a cheery, laughing, sociable
boy, fond of boyish sports, delighting in teasing his schoolmates and
enjoying their retaliation, preferring a tramp through the woods to the
best book ever written.
The boys lived on adjacent farms and had long been the nearest neighbors
of the Metz family; thus they had become Phoebe's playmates. Then, too,
the Eby families were members of the Church of the Brethren, the mothers
of the boys were old friends of Maria Metz, and a deep friendship
existed among them all. Phoebe and the two boys attended the same
little country school and had become frankly fond of each other.
"What's wrong?" asked Phares again as Phoebe hung her head and remained
silent.
"Ach," laughed David, "somebody's broke her dolly."
"Nobody ain't not broke my dolly, David Eby!" she said crossly. "I
wouldn't cry for _that_!"
"What's wrong then?--come on, Phoebe." He pushed the sunbonnet back and
patted her roguishly on the head. But she drew away from him.
"Don't you touch me," she cried. "I'm a Dutchie!"
"What?"
She tossed her head and became silent again.
"Come on, tell me," coaxed David. "I want to know what's wrong. Why, if
you don't tell me I'll be so worried I won't be able to eat any dinner,
and I'm so hungry now I could eat nails."
The girl laughed suddenly in spite of herself--"Ach, David, you're awful
simple! Abody has to laugh at you. I was mad, for when I was in
Greenwald I was smellin' a rose, that pink rose you gave me, and some
lady on Mollie Stern's porch laughed at me and called me a LITTLE
DUTCHIE! Now wouldn't you got mad for that?"
But David threw back his head and laughed. "And you were ready to cry at
that?" he said. "Why, I'm a Dutchie, so is Phares, so's most of the
people round here. Ain't so, Phares?"
"Yes, guess so," the older boy assented, his eyes still upon Phoebe.
"D'ye know," he said, addressing her, "when you were cross a few minutes
ago your eyes were almost black. You shouldn't get so angry still,
Phoebe."
"I don't care," she retorted quickly, "I don't care if my eyes was
purple!"
"But you should care," persisted the boy gravely. "I don't like you so
angry."
"Ach," she flashed an indignant look at him--"Phares Eby, you're by far
too bossy! I like David best; he don't boss me all the time like you
do!"
David laughed but Phares appeared hurt.
Phoebe was quick to note it. "Now I hurt you like that lady hurt me,
ain't, Phares?" she said contritely. "But I didn't mean to hurt you,
Phares, honest."
"But you like me best," said David gaily. "You can't take that back,
remember."
She gave him a scornful look. Then she remembered the flag in the
Hogendobler garden and became happy and eager again as she said, "Oh,
Phares, David, I know the best secret!"
"Can't keep it, I bet!" challenged David.
"Can't I?" she retorted saucily. "Now for that I won't tell you till you
get good and anxious. But then it's not really a secret." The flag of
growing flowers was too glorious a thing to keep; she compromised--"I'll
tell you, because it's not a real secret." And she proceeded to unfold
with earnest gesticulations the story about the flowers of red and white
and blue and the invitation for all who cared to come and see the
colors of Old Glory growing in the garden of Old Aaron and Granny, and
of the added pleasure of hearing Old Aaron tell his thrilling story of
the battle of Gettysburg.
"I won't want to hear about any battle," said Phares. "I think war is
horrible, awful, wicked."
"Mebbe so," said the girl, "but the poor men who fight in wars ain't
always awful, horrible, wicked. You needn't turn your nose up at the old
soldiers. Folks call Old Aaron lazy, I heard 'em a'ready, lots of times,
but I bet some of them wouldn't have fought like he did and left a leg
at Gettysburg and--ach, I think Old Aaron is just vonderful grand!" she
ended in an impulsive burst of eloquence.
"Hooray!" shouted David. "So do I! When he carries the flag out the pike
every Decoration Day he's somebody, all right."
"Ain't now!" agreed Phoebe.
"Been in the stores?" David asked her, feeling that a change of subject
might be wise.
"Yes."
"See anything pretty?"
"Ach, yes. A lots of things. I saw the prettiest finger ring with a blue
stone in. I wish I had it."
"What would Aunt Maria say to that?" wondered David.
"Ach, she'd say that so long as my finger ain't broke I don't need a
band on it. But I looked at the ring at any rate and wished I had it."
"You dare never wear gold rings," Phares told her.
"Not now," she returned, "but some day when I'm older mebbe I'll wear a
lot of 'em if I want."
The words set the boys thinking. Each wondered what manner of woman
their little playmate would become.
"I bet she'll be a good-looking one," thought David. "She'd look swell
dressed up fine like some of the people I see in town."
"Of course she'll turn plain some day like her aunt," thought the other
boy. "She'll look nice in the plain dress and the white cap."
Phoebe, ignorant of the visions her innocent words had called to the
hearts of her comrades, chattered on until they reached the little green
gate of the Metz farm.
"Now you two must climb the hill yet. I'm glad I'm home. I'm hungry."
"And me," the boys answered, and with good-byes were off on the winding
road up the hill.
As Phoebe turned the corner of the big gray house she came face to face
with her father.
"So here you are, Phoebe," he said, smiling at sight of her. "Your Aunt
Maria sent me out to look if you were coming. It's time to eat. Been to
the store, ain't?"
"Yes, pop. I went alone."
"So? Why, you're getting a big girl, now you can go to Greenwald alone."
"Ach," she laughed. "Why, it's just straight road."
They crossed the porch and entered the kitchen hand-in-hand, the
sunbonneted little girl and the big farmer. Jacob Metz was also a member
of the Church of the Brethren and bore the distinctive mark: hair parted
in the middle and combed straight back over his ears and cut so that the
edge of it almost touched his collar. A heavy black beard concealed his
chin, mild brown eyes gleamed beneath a pair of heavy black brows. Only
in the wide, high forehead and the resolute mouth could be seen any
resemblance between him and the fair child by his side.
When they entered the kitchen Maria Metz turned from the stove, where
she had been stirring the contents of a big iron pan.
"So you got back safe, after all, Phoebe," she said with a sigh of
relief. "I was afraid mebbe something happened to you, with so many
streets to go across and so many teams all the time and the
automobiles."
"Ach, I look both ways still before I start over. Granny Hogendobler
said she'll get out early."
"So. What did she have to say?"
"Ach, lots. She showed me her flowers. Ain't it too bad, now, that her
little girl died and her boy went away?"
"Well, she spoiled that boy. He grew up to be not much account if he
stays away just because he and his pop had words once."
"But he'll come back some day. Granny knows he will." The child echoed
the old mother's confidence.
"Not much chance of that," said Aunt Maria with her usual decisiveness.
"When a man goes off like that he mostly always stays off. He writes to
her she says and I guess she's just as good off with that as if he come
home to live. She's lived this long without him."
"But," argued Phoebe, the maternal in her over-sweeping all else, "he's
her boy and she wants him back!"
"Ach," the aunt said impatiently, "you talk too much. Were you at the
store?"
"Yes. I got the thread and ordered the sugar and counted the change and
there was nothing in the post-office for us."
"Did you enjoy your trip to town?" asked the father.
"Yes--but----"
"But what?" demanded Aunt Maria. "Did you break anything in the store
now?"
"No. I just got mad. It was this way"--and she told the story of her
pink rose.
Maria Metz frowned. "David Eby should leave his mom's roses on the
stalks where they belong. Anyhow, I guess you did look funny if you
poked your nose in it like you do still here."
"But she had no business to laugh at me, had she, pop?"
"You're too touchy," he said kindly. "But did you say the lady was on
Mollie Stern's porch?"
"Yes."
"Then I guess it was her cousin from Philadelphia, the one that was
elected to teach the school on the hill for next winter."
"Oh, pop, not our school?"
"Yes. Anyhow, her cousin was elected yesterday to teach your school. It
seems she wanted to teach in the country and Mollie's pop is friends
with a lot of our directors and they voted her in."
"I ain't goin' to school then!" Phoebe almost sobbed. "I don't like her,
I don't want to go to her school; she laughed at me."
"Come, come," the father laid his hands on her head and spoke gently yet
in a tone that she respected. "You mustn't get worked up over it. She's
a nice young lady, and it will be something new to have a teacher from
Philadelphia. Anyhow, it's a long ways yet till school begins."
"I'm glad it is."
"Come," interrupted the aunt, "help now to dish up. It's time to eat
once. We're Pennsylvania Dutch, so what's the use gettin' cross when
we're called that?"
"Yes," Phoebe's father said, smiling, "I'm a Dutchie too, but I'm a big
Dutchie."
Phoebe smiled, but all through the meal and during the days that
followed she thought often of the rose. Her heart was bitter toward the
new teacher and she resolved never, never to like her!