A VISIT TO MOTHER BAB
THE next day as Phoebe walked up the hill to visit Mother Bab she went
eagerly and with an unusual light in her eyes--she had transformed her
schoolgirl braid into the coiffure of a woman! The golden hair was
parted in the middle, twisted into a shapely knot in the nape of her
neck, and the effect was highly satisfactory, she thought.
"Mother Bab will be surprised," she said gladly as she swung up the hill
in rapid, easy strides. "And David--I wonder what David will say if he's
home."
At the summit of the hill she paused and turned, looked back at the gray
farmhouse and beyond it to the little town of Greenwald.
"I just must stand here a minute and look! I love this view from the
hill."
She breathed deeply and continued to revel in the beauty of the scene.
At the foot of the hill was the Metz farm nestling in its green
surroundings. Like a tan ribbon the dusty road went winding past green
fields, then hid itself as it dipped into a valley and made a sharp
curve, though Phoebe knew that it went on past more fields and meadows
to the town. Where she stood she had a view of the tall spires of
Greenwald churches straggling through the trees, and the red and slate
roofs of comfortable houses gleaming in the sunlight. Beyond and about
the town lay fields resplendent in the pristine freshness of May
greenery.
"Oh," she said aloud after a long gaze, "this is glorious! But I must
hurry to Mother Bab. I'm wild to have her see me. Aunt Maria just said
when I showed her my hair, 'Yes well, Phoebe, I guess you're old enough
to wear your hair up.' Mother Bab is different. Sometimes I pity Aunt
Maria and wonder what kind of childhood she had to make her so grim
about some things."
The little house in which David and his mother lived stood near the
country road leading to the schoolhouse on the hill. Like many other
farmhouses of that county it was square, substantial and unadorned, its
attractiveness being derived solely from its fine proportions, its
colonial doorways, and the harmonious surroundings of trees and flowers.
The garden was eloquent of the lavish love bestowed upon it. Mother Bab
delighted in flowers and planted all the old favorites. The walks
between the garden beds were trim and weedless, the yard and buildings
well kept, and the entire little farm gave evidence that the reputed
Pennsylvania Dutch thrift and neatness were present there.
Adjoining the farm of Mother Bab was the farm of her brother-in-law, the
father of Phares Eby. This was one of the best known in the community.
Its great barns and vast acres quite eclipsed the modest little dwelling
beside it. David Eby sometimes sighed as he compared the two farms and
wondered why Fate had bestowed upon his uncle's efforts an almost
unparalleled success while his own father had had a continual struggle
to hold on to the few acres of the little farm. Since the death of his
father David had often felt the straining of the yoke. It was toil,
toil, on acres which were rich but apparently unwilling to yield their
fullness. One year the crops were damaged by hail, another year
prolonged drought prevented full development of the fruit, again
continued rainy weather ruined the hay, and so on, year in and year out,
there was seldom a season when the farm measured up to the expectations
of the hard-working David.
But Mother Bab never complained about the ill-luck, neither did she envy
the woman in the great house next to her. Mother Bab's philosophy of
life was mainly cheerful:
"I find earth not gray, but rosy,
Heaven not grim, but fair of hue.
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.
Do I stand and stare? All's blue."
A little house to shelter her, a big garden in which to work, to dream,
to live; enough worldly goods to supply daily sustenance; the love of
her David--truly her BELOVED, as the old Hebrew name signifies--the love
of the dear Phoebe who had adopted her--given these blessings and no
envy or discontent ever ventured near the white-capped woman. Life had
brought her many hours of perplexity and several great sorrows, but it
had also bestowed upon her compensating joys. She felt that the years
would bring her new joys, now that her boy was grown into a man and was
able to manage the farm. Some day he would bring home a wife--how she
would love David's wife! But meanwhile, she was not lonely. Her friends
and she were much together, quilting, rugging, comparing notes on the
garden.
"Guess Mother Bab'll be in the garden," thought Phoebe, "for it's such a
fine day."
But as she neared the whitewashed fence of the garden she saw that the
place was deserted. She ran lightly up the walk, rapped at the kitchen
door, and entered without waiting for an answer to her knock.
"Mother Bab," she called.
"I'm here, Phoebe," came a voice from the sitting-room.
"How are you? Is your headache all gone?" Phoebe asked as she ran to the
beloved person who came to meet her.
"All gone. I was so disappointed last night--but what have you done to
your hair?"
"Oh, I forgot!" Phoebe lifted her head proudly. "I meant to knock at the
front door and be company to-day. I've got my hair up!"
"Phoebe, Phoebe," the woman drew her nearer. "Let me look at you." Her
eyes scanned the face of the girl, her voice quivered as she spoke.
"You've grown up! Of course it didn't come in a night but it seems that
way."
"The May fairies did it, Mother Bab. Yesterday I wore a braid. This
morning when I woke I heard the robin who sings every morning in the
apple tree outside my window and he was caroling, 'Put it up! Put it
up!' I knew he meant my hair, so here I am, waiting for your blessing."
"You have it, you always have it! But"--she changed her mood--"are you
sure the robin wasn't saying, 'Get up, get up!' Phoebe?"
"Positive; it was only five o'clock."
"Now I must hear all about last night," said Mother Bab as they sat
together on the broad wooden settee in the sitting-room. "David told me
how nice you looked and how well you did."
"Did he tell you how pleased I am with the scarf? It's just lovely! And
the color is beautiful. I wonder why--I wonder why I love pretty things
so much, really pretty things, like crepe de chine and taffeta and panne
velvet and satin. Oh, sometimes I think I must have them. When I go to
Lancaster I want lots of lovely clothes and I hate ginghams and percales
and serviceable things."
"I know, Phoebe, I know how you feel about it."
"Do you really? Then it can't be so awfully wicked. You are so
understanding, Mother Bab. I can't tell Aunt Maria how I feel about such
things for she'd be dreadfully hurt or worried or provoked, but you seem
always to know what I mean and how I feel."
"I was eighteen myself once, a good many years ago, but I still remember
it."
"You have a good memory."
"Yes. Why, I can remember some of the dresses I wore when I was
eighteen. But then, I have a dress bundle to help me remember them."
"What's a dress bundle?"
"Didn't Aunt Maria keep one for you?"
"I never heard of one."
"It's a long string of samples of dresses you wore when you were little.
Wait, I'll get mine and show you."
She left the room and went up-stairs. After a short time she returned
and held out a stout thread upon which were strung small, irregular
scraps of dress material. "This is my dress bundle. My mother started it
for me when I was a baby and kept it up till I was big enough to do it
myself. Every time I got a new dress a little patch of the goods was
threaded on my dress bundle."
"Oh, may I see? Why, that's just like a part of your babyhood and
childhood come back!"
The two heads bent over the bundle--the girl's with its light hair in
its first putting up, the woman's with its graying hair folded under the
white cap.
"Here"--Mother Bab turned the bundle upside down and fingered the scraps
with that loving way of those who are dreaming of long departed days and
touching a relic of those cherished hours--"this white calico with the
little pink dots was the first dress any one gave me. Grandmother
Hoerner made it for me, all by hand. Funny, wasn't it, the way they used
to put colored dresses on wee babies! See, here are pink calico ones and
white with red figures and a few blue ones. I wore all these when I was
a baby. Then when I grew older these; they are much prettier. This red
delaine I wore to a spelling bee when I was about sixteen and I got a
book for a prize for standing up next to last. This red and black
checked debaige I can see yet. It had an overskirt on it trimmed with
little ruffles. This purple cashmere with the yellow sprigs in it I had
all trimmed with narrow black velvet ribbon. I'll never forget that
dress--I wore it the day I met David's father."
"Oh, you must have looked lovely!"
"He said so." She smiled; her eyes looked beyond Phoebe, back to the
golden days of her youth when Love had come to her to bless and to abide
with her long beyond the tarrying of the spirit in the flesh. "He said I
looked nice. I met him the first time I wore the purple dress. It was at
a corn-husking party at Jerry Grumb's barn. Some man played the fiddle
and we danced."
"Danced!" echoed Phoebe.
"Yes, danced. But just the old-fashioned Virginia reel. We had cider and
apples and cake and pie for our treat and we went home at ten o'clock!
David walked home with me in the moonlight and I guess we liked each
other from the first. We were married the next year, then we both turned
plain."
"Were you ever sorry, Mother Bab?"
"That I married him, or that I turned plain?"
"Yes. Both, I mean."
"No, never sorry once, Phoebe, about either. We were happy together. And
about turning plain, why, I wasn't sorry either."
"But you had to give up Virginia reels and pretty dresses."
"Yes, but I learned there are deeper, more important things than dancing
and wearing pretty dresses."
She looked at Phoebe, but the girl had bowed her head over the dress
bundle and appeared to be thinking.
"And so," continued Mother Bab softly, "my bundle ended with that dress.
Since I dress plain I don't wear colors, just gray and black. But I
always thought if I had a girl I'd start a dress bundle for her, for
it's so much satisfaction to get it out sometimes and look over the
pieces and remember the dresses and some of the happy times you had when
you wore them. But the girl never came."
"But you have David!"
"Yes, to be sure, he's been so much to me, but I couldn't make him a
dress bundle. He wouldn't have liked it when he grew older--boys are
different. And I wouldn't want him to be a sissy, either."
"He isn't, Mother Bab. He's fine!"
"I think so, Phoebe. He has worked so hard since he's through school and
he's so good to me and takes such care of the farm, though the crops
don't always turn out as we want. But you haven't told me what you are
going to do, now that you're through school."
"I don't know. I want to do something."
"Teach?"
"No. What I would like best of all is study music."
"In Greenwald? You mean to learn to play?"
"No, to learn to sing. I have often dreamed of studying music in a great
city, like Philadelphia."
"What would you do then?"
"Sing, sing! I feel that my voice is my one talent and I don't want to
bury it."
"Well, don't Miss Lee live in Philadelphia? Perhaps she could help you
to get a good teacher and find a place to board."
"Mother Bab!" Phoebe sprang to her feet and wrapped her arms about the
slender little woman. "That's just it!" she cried. "I never thought of
that! David said you'd help me. I'll write to Miss Lee to-day!"
"Phoebe," the woman said, smiling at the girl's wild enthusiasm.
"I'm not crazy, just inspired," said Phoebe. "You helped me, I knew you
would! I want to go to Philadelphia to study music but I know daddy and
Aunt Maria would never listen to any proposals about going to a big city
and living among strangers. But if I write to Miss Lee and she says
she'll help me the folks at home may consider the plan. I'll have a hard
time, though"--a reactionary doubt touched her--"I'll have a dreadful
time persuading Aunt Maria that I'm safe and sane if I mention music and
Philadelphia and Phoebe in the same breath." Then she smiled
determinedly. "At least I'm going to make a brave effort to get what I
want. I'm not going to settle down on the farm and get brown and fat and
wear gingham dresses all my life, and sunbonnets in the bargain! I never
could see why I had to wear sunbonnets, I always hated them. Aunt Maria
always tried to make me wear them, but as soon as I was out of her sight
I sneaked them off. I remember one time I threw my bonnet in the
Chicques and I had the loveliest time watching it disappear down the
stream. But Aunt Maria made me make another one that was uglier still,
so I gained nothing but the temporary pleasure of seeing it float away.
And how I hated to do patchwork! It seemed to me I was always doing it,
and I never could see the sense of cutting up pieces and then sewing
them together again."
"But the sewing was good practice for you, Phoebe. Patchwork--seems to
me all our life is patchwork: a little here and a little there; one
color now, then another; one shape first, then another shape fitted in;
and when it is all joined it will be beautiful if we keep the parts
straight and the colors and shapes right. It can be a very beautiful
rising sun or an equally pretty flower basket, or it can be just a crazy
quilt with little of the beautiful about it."
"Mother Bab, if I had known that while I was patching I would have loved
to patch! I had nothing to make it interesting; it was just stitching,
stitching, stitching on seams! But those vivid quilts are all finished
and I guess Aunt Maria is as glad about it as I am, for I gave her some
worried hours before the end was sighted. Poor Aunt Maria, she should be
glad to have me go to the city. I've led her some merry chases, but I
must admit she was always equal to them, forged ahead of me many times."
"Phoebe, you're a wilful child and I'm afraid I spoil you more."
"No you don't! You're my safety valve. If I couldn't come up here and
say the things I really feel I'd have to tell it to the Jenny
Wrens--Aunt Maria hates to have me talk to myself."
"But she's good to you, Phoebe?"
"Yes, oh, yes! I appreciate all she has done for me. She has taken care
of me since I was a tiny baby. I'll never forget that. It's just that we
are so different. I can't make Phoebe Metz be just like Maria Metz, can
I?"
"No, you must be yourself, even if you are different."
"That's it, Mother Bab. I feel I have the right to live my life as I
choose, that no person shall say to me I must live it so or so. If I
want to study music why shouldn't I do so? My mother left a few hundred
dollars for me; it's been on interest and amounts to more than a few
hundred, about a thousand dollars, I think. So the money end of my
studying music need not worry Aunt Maria. I am determined to do it,
wouldn't you?"
"I suppose I'd feel the same way."
"How did you learn to understand so well, Mother Bab? You have lived all
your life on a farm, yet you are not narrow."
"I hope I have not grown narrow," the woman said softly. "I have read a
great deal. I have read--don't you breathe it to a soul--I have often
read when I should have been baking pies or washing windows!"
"No wonder David worships you so."
"I still enjoy reading," said Mother Bab. "David subscribes for three
good magazines and when they come I'm so anxious to look into them that
sometimes my cooking burns."
"That must be one of the reasons your English is correct. I am ashamed
of myself when I mix my v's and w's and use a _t_ for a _d_. I have
often wished the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect would have been put aside
long ago."
"Yes," the woman agreed, "I can't see the need of it. It has been
ridiculed so long that it should have died a natural death. It's a
mystery to me how it has survived. But cheer up, Phoebe, the gibberish
is dying out. The older people will continue to speak it but the younger
generations are becoming more and more English speaking. Why, do you
know, Phoebe, since this war started in Europe and I read the dreadful
crimes the Germans are committing I feel that I never want to hear or
say, 'Yah.'"
"Bully!" Phoebe clapped her hands. "I said to old Aaron Hogendobler
yesterday that I'm ashamed I have a German name and some German
ancestors, even if they did come to this country before the Revolution,
and he said no one need feel shame at that, but every American who is
not one hundred per cent American should die from shame. I know we
Pennsylvania Dutch can carry our end of the burdens of the world and be
real Americans, but I want to sound like one too."
Mother Bab laughed. "Just yesterday I said to David that the butter was
_all_."
"I say that very often. I must read more."
"And I less. I haven't told you, Phoebe, nor David, but my eyes are
going back on me. I went to Lancaster a few weeks ago and the doctor
there said I must be very careful not to strain them at all. I think I'd
rather lose any other sense than sight. I always thought it was the
greatest affliction in the world to be blind."
"It is! It mustn't come to you, Mother Bab!"
The woman looked worried, but in a moment her face brightened.
"Anyhow," she said, "what's the use of worrying or thinking about it? If
it ever comes I'll have to bear it just as many other people are bearing
it. I'm glad I have sight to-day to see you."
Phoebe gave her an ecstatic hug. "I believe you're Irish instead of
Pennsylvania Dutch! You do know how to blarney and you have that
coaxing, lovely way about you that the Irish are supposed to have."
"Why, Phoebe, I am part Irish! My mother's maiden name was McKnight.
David and I still have a few drops of the Irish blood in us, I suppose."
"I just knew it! I'm glad. I adore the whimsical way the Irish have, and
I like their sense of humor. I guess that's one of the reasons I like
you better than other people I know and perhaps that's why David is
jolly and different from Phares. Ah," she added roguishly, "I think it's
a pity Phares hasn't some Irish blood in him. He's so solemn he seldom
sees a joke."
"But he's a good boy and he thinks a lot of you. He's just a little too
quiet. But he's a good preacher and very bright."
"Yes, he's so good that I'm ashamed of myself when I say mean things
about him. I like him, but people with more life are more interesting."
"Hello, who's this you like?" David's hearty voice burst upon them.
Phoebe turned and saw him standing in the sunlight of the open door. The
thought flashed upon her, "How big and strong he is!"
He wore brown corduroys, a blue chambray shirt slightly open at the
throat, heavy shoes. His face was already tanned by the wind and sun,
his hands rough from contact with soil and farming implements, his dark
hair rumpled where he had pulled the big straw hat from his head, but
there was an odor of fresh spring earth about him, a boyish
wholesomeness in his face, that attracted the girl as she looked at his
frame in the doorway.
There was a flash of white teeth, a twinkle in his dark eyes, as he
asked, "What did I hear you say, Phoebe--that you like _me_?"
"Indeed not! I wouldn't think of liking anybody who deceived me as you
have done. All these years you have left me under the impression that
you are Pennsylvania Dutch and now Mother Bab says you are part Irish."
"Little saucebox! What about yourself? You can't make me believe that
you are pure, unadulterated Pennsylvania Dutch. There's some alien blood
in you, by the ways of you. Have you seen Phares this afternoon?" he
asked irrelevantly.
"Phares? No. Why?"
"He went down past the field some time ago. Said he's going to
Greenwald and means to stop and ask you to go to a sale with him next
week. He said you mentioned some time ago that you'd like to go to a
real old-fashioned one and he heard of one coming off next week and
thought you might like to go."
"I surely want to go. Don't you want to come, too, David? And Mother
Bab?"
But David shook his head. "And spoil Phares's party," he said. "Phares
wouldn't thank us."
Phoebe shrugged her shoulders. "Ach, David Eby, you're silly! Just as
though I want to go to a sale all alone with Phares! He can take the big
carriage and take us all."
"He can but he won't want to." David showed an irritating wisdom. "When
I invite you to come on a party with me I won't want Phares tagging
after, either. Two's company."
"Two's boredom sometimes," she said so ambiguously that the man laughed
heartily and Mother Bab smiled in amusement.
"Come now, Phoebe," David said, "just because you put your hair up you
mustn't think you can rule us all and don grown-up airs."
"Then you do notice things! I thought you were blind. You are downright
mean, David Eby! When you wore your first pair of long pants I noticed
it right away and made a fuss about them and it takes you ten minutes to
see that my hair is up instead of hanging in a silly braid down my
back."
"I saw it first thing, Phoebe. That was mean--I'm sorry----"
"You look it," she said sceptically.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, "to see the braid go, though you look fine
this way. I liked that long braid ever since the day I braided it, the
day you played prima donna. Remember?"
The girl flushed, then was vexed at her embarrassment and changed
suddenly to the old, appealing Phoebe.
"I remember, Davie. You were my salvation that day, you and Mother Bab."
Before they could answer she added with seeming innocency, yet with a
swift glance into the face of the farmer boy, "I must go now so I'll be
home when Phares comes to invite me to that sale. I'm going with him;
I'm wild to go."
"Yes?" David said slowly.
"Yes," she repeated, a teasing look in her eyes.
"Mommie, isn't she fine?" David said after Phoebe was gone and he
lingered in the house.
"Mighty fine. But she is so different from the general run of girls;
she's so lively and bright and sweet, so sensitive to all impressions.
She's anxious to get to the city to study music. It would be a wonderful
experience for her--and yet----"
"And yet----" echoed David, then fell into silence.
Mother Bab was thinking of her boy and Phoebe, of their gay comradeship.
How friendly they were, how well-mated they appeared to be, how
appreciative of each other. Could they ever care for each other in a
deeper way? Did the preacher care for the playmate of his childhood as
she thought David was beginning to care?
"Well, I must go again, mommie. I came in for a drink at the pump and
heard you and Phoebe. Now I must hustle for I have a lot to do before
sundown--ach, why aren't we rich!"
"Do you wish for that?"
"Certainly I do. Not wealthy; just to have enough so we needn't lie
awake wondering if the dry spell or the wet spell or the hail will ruin
the crops. I wish I could find an Aladdin's lamp."
"Davie"--the smile faded from her face--"don't get the money craze.
Money isn't everything. This farm is paid for and we can always make a
comfortable living. Money isn't all."
"No, but--but it means everything sometimes to a young, single fellow.
But don't you worry; the crops are fine this year, so far."
The mother did not forget his words at once. "It must be," she thought,
"that David wants Phoebe and feels he must have more money before he can
ask her to marry him. Will men never learn that girls who are worth
getting are not looking so much for money but the man. The young can't
see the depth and fullness of love. I've tried to teach David, but I
suppose there's some things he must learn for himself."