"WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER MEET"
WHEN Phoebe adopted Mother Bab she did so with the whole-heartedness and
finality characteristic of her blood.
Mother Bab--the name never ceased to thrill the erstwhile motherless
girl whose yearning for affection and understanding had been unsatisfied
by the matter-of-fact Aunt Maria.
At first Maria Metz did not seem too well pleased with the child's
persistent naming of Barbara Eby as Mother Bab; but gradually, as she
saw Phoebe's joy in the adoption, the woman acknowledged to herself that
another woman was capable of mothering where she had failed.
Phoebe spent many hours in the little house on the hill, learning from
Mother Bab many things that made indelible impressions upon her
sensitive child-heart, unraveling some of the tangled knots of her soul,
stirring anew hopes and aspirations of her being. But there remained one
knot to be untangled--she could not understand why the plain dress and
white cap existed, she could not reconcile the utter simplicity of dress
with the lavish beauty of the birds, flowers--all nature.
"It will come," Mother Bab assured her one day. "You are a little girl
now and cannot see into everything. But when you are older you will see
how beautiful it is to live simply and plainly."
"But is it necessary, Mother Bab?" the child cried out. "Must I dress
like you and Aunt Maria if I want to be good?"
"No, you don't _have_ to. Many people are good without wearing the plain
garb. A great many people in the world never heard of the plain sects we
have in this section of the country, and there are good people
everywhere, I'm sure of that. But it is just as true that each person
must find the best way to lead a good life. If you can wear fine clothes
and still be good and lead a Christian life, then there is no harm in
the pretty clothes. But for me the easiest way to be living right is to
live as simply as I can. This is the way for me."
"I'm afraid it's the way for me, too," confessed Phoebe. "I'm vain,
awfully vain! I love pretty clothes and I'll never be satisfied till I
get 'em--silk dresses, soft, shiny satin ones--ach, I guess I'm vain but
I'll have to wait to satisfy my vanity till I'm older, for Aunt Maria is
so set against fancy clothes."
It was true, Maria Metz compromised on some matters as Phoebe grew
older, but on the question of clothes the older woman was adamant. The
child should have comfortable dresses but there would positively be no
useless ornaments or adornments, such as wide sashes, abundance of
laces, elaborately trimmed ruffles. Fancy hats, jewelry and unconfined
curls were also strictly forbidden.
Though Phoebe, even as she grew older, had much time to spend outdoors,
there were many tasks about the house and farm she had to perform. The
chest was soon filled with quilts and that bugbear was gone from her
life. But there was continual scrubbing, baking, mending, and other
household tasks to be done, so that much practice caused the girl to
develop into a capable little housekeeper. Aunt Maria frankly admitted
that Phoebe worked cheerfully and well, a matter she found consoling in
the trying hours when Phoebe "wasted time" by playing the low walnut
organ in the sitting-room.
During Miss Lee's first term of teaching on the hill she taught her how
to play simple exercises and songs and the child, musically inclined,
made the most of the meagre knowledge and adeptly improved until she was
able to play the hymns in the Gospel Hymn Book and the songs and carols
in the old Music Book that had belonged to her mother and always rested
on the top of the old low organ.
So the organ became a great solace and joy, an outlet for the intense
feelings of desire and hope in her heart. When her voice joined with the
sweet tones of the old instrument it seemed to Phoebe as if she were
echoing the harmony of the eternal music of all creation. Child though
she was, she sang with the joy and sincerity of the true musician. She
merely smiled when Aunt Maria characterized her best efforts as
"doodling" and rejoiced when her father, Mother Bab or David praised her
singing.
In school she progressed rapidly but her interest lagged when, after
two years of teaching, Miss Lee resigned her position as teacher of the
school on the hill and a new teacher took command. The entire school
missed the teacher from Philadelphia, but Phoebe was almost
inconsolable. She, especially, appreciated the gain of contact with the
teacher she loved and she continued to profit by the remembrance of many
things Miss Lee had taught her. The Memory Gems, alone, bore evidence of
the change the teacher from the city had wrought in the rural school.
Phoebe smiled as she thought how the poems had been sing-songed until
Miss Lee taught the children to bring out the meaning of the words.
"Oh, my," she laughed one day as she and David were speaking of school
happenings, "do you remember how John Schneider used to say Memory Gems?
The day he got up and said, 'Have-you-heard-the-waters-singing-little-May
--where-the-willows-green-are-bending-over-the-way--do-you-know-how-low-
and-sweet-are-the-words-the-waves-repeat--to-the-pebbles-at-their-feet--
night-and-day?'"
David laughed at the girl's droll imitation, the way she sing-songed the
verse in the exact manner prevalent in many rural schools.
"And do you remember," he asked, "the day Isaac Hunchberger defined
bipeds?"
"Oh, yes! I'll never forget that! It was the day the County
Superintendent of Schools came to visit our school and Miss Lee was
anxious to have us show off. Isaac showed off, all right, with his
'Bipets are sings vis two lex!' I guess Miss Lee decided that day that
the Pennsylvania Dutch is ingrained in our English and hard to get out."
To Phoebe each Memory Gem of her school days became, in truth, a gem
stored away for future years. Long after she had outgrown the little
rural school scraps of poetry returned to her to rewaken the enthusiasm
of childhood and to teach her again to "hear the lark within the
songless egg and find the fountain where they wailed, 'Mirage!'"
Phoebe wanted so many things in those school-day years but she wanted
most of all to become like Miss Lee. So earnestly did she try to speak
as her teacher taught her that after a time the peculiar idioms and
expressions became more infrequent and there was only a delightfully
quaint inflection, an occasional phrase, to betray her Pennsylvania
Dutch parentage. But in times of stress or excitement she invariably
slipped back into the old way and prefaced her exclamations with an
expressive "Ach!"
Life on the Metz farm went on in even tenor year in and year out. Maria
Metz never changed to any appreciable extent her mode of living or her
methods of working, and she tried to teach Phoebe to conform to the same
monotonous existence and live as several generations of Metzes had done.
But Phoebe was a veritable Evelyn Hope, made of "spirit, fire and dew."
The distinctiveness of her personality grew more pronounced as she
slipped from childhood into girlhood and Maria Metz needed often to
encourage her own heart for the task of rearing into ideal womanhood the
daughter of her brother Jacob.
Phoebe had a deep love for nature and this love was fostered by her
sturdy farmer-father. As she followed him about the fields he taught her
the names of wild flowers, told her the nesting haunts of birds,
initiated her into the circle of tree-lore, taught her to keep ears,
eyes and heart open for the treasures of the great outdoors.
Phoebe required no urging in that direction. Her heart was filled with
an insatiable desire to know more and more of the beautiful world about
her. She gathered knowledge from every country walk; she showed so much
"uncommon sense," David Eby said, that it was a keen pleasure to show
her the nests of the thrush or the rare nests of the humming-bird. David
and his mother, enthusiastic seekers after nature knowledge, augmented
the father's nature education of Phoebe by frequent walks to field and
woods. And so, when Phoebe was twelve years old she knew the haunts of
all the wild flowers within walking distance of her home. With her
father or with David and Mother Bab she found the first marsh-marigolds
in the meadows, the first violets of the wooded slope of the hill, the
earliest hepatica with its woolly buds, the first windflowers and spring
beauties. She knew when the time was come for the bloodroot to lift its
pure white petals about the golden hearts in the spot where the rich
mould at the base of some giant tree nurtured the blooded plants. She
could find the canopied Jack-in-the-pulpit and the pink azalea on the
hill near her home. She knew the exact spot, a mile from the gray
farmhouse, where, in a lovely little wood by a quiet road, a profusion
of bird-foot violets and bluets made a carpet of blue loveliness each
spring--so on, through the fleet days of summer, till the last asters
and goldenrod faded, the child reveled in the beauties and wonders of
the world at her feet and loved every part of it, from the tiny blue
speedwell in the grass to the gorgeous orioles in the trees. What if
Aunt Maria sometimes scolded her for bringing so many "weeds" into the
house! With apparent unconcern she placed her flowers in a glass or
earthen jar and secretly thought, "Well, I'm glad I like these pretty
things; they are not weeds to me."
The buoyancy of childhood tarried with her into girlhood. Like the old
inscription of the sun-dial, she seemed to "count none but sunny hours."
But those who knew her best saw that the shadows of life also left their
marks upon her. At times the gaiety was displaced by seriousness. Mother
Bab knew of the struggles in the girl's heart. Granny Hogendobler could
have told of the hours Phoebe spent with her consoling her for the
absence of Nason, mitigating the cruel stabs of the thoughtless people
who condemned him, comforting with the assurance that he would return to
his home some day. Old Aaron loved the girl and found her always ready
to listen to his hackneyed story of the battle of Gettysburg.
Phoebe was a student in the Greenwald High School when the war clouds
broke over Europe and the world seemed to go mad in a whirl. She hurried
to Old Aaron for his opinion on the terrible war.
"Isn't it awful," she said to him, "that so many nations are flying at
each other's throats? And in these days of our boasted civilization!"
"Awful," he agreed. "But, mark my words, this is just the beginning.
Before the thing's settled we'll be in it too."
She shrank from the words. "Oh, no, not America! That would be too
terrible. David might go then, and a lot of Greenwald boys--oh, that
would be awful!"
"Yes! But it would be far more dreadful to have them sit back safe while
others died for the freedom of the world. I'd rather have my boy a
soldier at a time like this than have him be ruler of a country."
The old man's words ended quaveringly. The pent-up agony of his
disappointment in his son surged over him, and he bowed his head in his
hands and wept.
Phoebe sent Granny to comfort him, and then stole away. The veteran's
grief left an impression upon her. Were his words prophetic? Would
America be drawn into the struggle? It was preposterous to dream of
that. She would forget the words of Old Aaron, for she had important
matters of her own to think about. In a few years she would be graduated
from High School and then she would have her own life-work to decide
upon. Her desire for larger experience, her determination to do
something of importance after graduation was her chief interest. The war
across the sea was too remote to bring constant fear to her. Dutifully
she went about her work on the farm and pursued her studies. She was not
without pity for the brave people of Servia and Belgium, not without
praise for the heroic French and English. She added her vehement words
of horror as she read of the atrocities visited upon the helpless
peoples. She shared in the dread of many Americans that the octopus-arm
of war might reach this country, and yet she was more concerned about
her own future than about the future of battle-racked France or
devastated Belgium.