AT AUNT REBECCA'S HOUSE
Several weeks after the eventful apple-butter boiling at the Reist
farm, Aunt Rebecca invited the Reist family to spend a Sunday at her
home.
"I ain't goin', Mom," Philip announced. "I don't like it there. Dare I
stay home with Millie?"
"Mebbe Millie wants to come along," suggested his mother.
"Ach, I guess not this time. Just you go and Phil and I'll stay and
tend the house and feed the chickens and look after things."
"Well, I'm goin'!" spoke up Amanda. "Aunt Rebecca's funny and bossy but
I like to go to her house, it's so little and cute, everything."
"Cute," scoffed the boy. "Everything's cute to a girl. You dare go, I
won't! Last time I was there I picked a few of her honeysuckle flowers
and pulled that stem out o' them to get the drop of honey that's in
each one, and she caught me and slapped my hand--mind you! Guess next
she'll be puttin' up some scare-bees to keep the bees off her flowers.
But say, Manda, if she gives you any of them little red and white
striped peppermint candies like she does still, sneak me a few."
"Humph! You don't go to see her but you want her candy! I'd be ashamed,
Philip Reist!"
"Hush, hush," warned Mrs. Reist. "Next you two'll be fightin', and on a
Sunday, too."
The girl laughed. "Ach, Mom, guess we both got the tempers that goes
with red hair. But it's Sunday, so I'll be good. I'm glad we're goin'
to Aunt Rebecca. That's a nice drive."
Aunt Rebecca lived alone in a cottage at the edge of Landisville, a
beautiful little town several miles from the Reist farm at Crow Hill.
During her husband's life they lived on one of the big farms of
Lancaster County, where she slaved in the manual labor of the great
fields. Many were the hours she spent in the hot sun of the tobacco
fields, riding the planter in the early spring, later hoeing the rich
black soil close to the little young plants, in midsummer finding and
killing the big green tobacco worms and topping and suckering the
plants so that added value might be given the broad, strong leaves.
Then later in the summer she helped the men to thread the harvested
stalks on laths and hang them in the long open shed to dry.
Aunt Rebecca had married Jonas Miller, a rich man. All the years of
their life together on the farm seemed a visible verification of the
old saying, "To him that hath shall be given." A special Providence
seemed to hover over their acres of tobacco. Storms and destructive
hail appeared to roam in a swath just outside their farm. The Jonas
Miller tobacco fields were reputed to be the finest in the whole Garden
Spot county, and the Jonas Miller bank account grew correspondingly
fast. But the bank account, however quickly it increased, failed to
give Jonas Miller and his wife full pleasure, unless, as some say, the
mere knowledge of possession of wealth can bring pleasure to miserly
hearts. For Jonas Miller was, in the vernacular of the Pennsylvania
Dutch, "almighty close." Millie, Reists' hired girl, said," That there
Jonas is too stingy to buy long enough pants for himself. I bet he gets
boys' size because they're cheaper, for the legs o' them always just
come to the top o' his shoes. Whoever lays him out when he's dead once
will have to put pockets in his shroud for sure! And he's made poor
Becky just like him. It ain't in her family to be so near; why, Mrs.
Reist is always givin' somebody something! But mebbe when he dies once
and his wife gets the money in her hand she'll let it fly."
However, when Jonas Miller died and left the hoarded money to his wife
she did not let it fly. She rented the big farm and moved to the little
old-fashioned house in Landisville--a little house whose outward
appearance might have easily proclaimed its tenant poor. There she
lived alone, with occasional visits and visitors to break the monotony
of her existence.
That Sunday morning of the Reist visit, Uncle Amos hitched the horse to
the carriage, tied it by the front fence of the farm, then he went
up-stairs and donned his Sunday suit of gray cloth. Later he brought
out his broad-brimmed Mennonite hat and called to Amanda and her mother,
"I'm ready. Come along!"
Mrs. Reist wore a black cashmere shawl pinned over her plain gray lawn
dress and a stiff black silk bonnet was tied under her chin. Amanda
skipped out to the yard, wearing a white dress with a wide buff sash. A
matching ribbon was tied on her red hair.
"Jiminy," whistled Uncle Amos as she ran to him and swung her leghorn
hat on its elastic. "Jiminy, you're pretty---"
"Oh, am I, Uncle Amos?" She smiled radiantly. "Am I really pretty?"
"Hold on, here!" He tried to look very sober. "If you ain't growin' up
for sure! Lookin' for compliments a'ready, same as all the rest. I was
goin' to say that you're pretty fancy dressed for havin' a Mennonite
mom."
"Oh, Uncle Amos!" Amanda laughed and tossed her head so the yellow bow
danced like a butterfly. "I don't believe you at all! You're too good
to be findin' fault like that! Millie says so, too."
"She does, eh? She does? Just what does Millie say about me now?"
"Why, she said yesterday that you're the nicest man and have the
biggest heart of any person she knows."
"Um--so! And Millie says that, does she? Um--so! well, well"--a glow of
joy spread in his face and stained his neck and ears. Fortunately, for
his future peace of mind, the child did not notice the flush. A
swallowtail butterfly had flitted among the zinnias and attracted the
attention of Amanda so it was diverted from her uncle. But he still
smiled as Millie opened the front door and she and Mrs. Reist stepped
on the porch.
Millie, in her blue gingham dress and her checked apron, her straight
hair drawn back from her plain face, was certainly no vision to cause
the heart of the average man to pump faster. But as Amos looked at her
he saw suddenly something lovelier than her face. She walked to the
gate, smoothing the shawl of Mrs. Reist, patting the buff sash of the
little girl.
"Big heart," thought Amos, "it's her got the big heart!"
"Good-bye, safe journey," the hired girl called after them as they
started down the road. "Don't worry about us. Me and Phil can manage
alone. Good-bye."
The road to Landisville led past green fields of tobacco and corn,
large farmhouses where old-fashioned flowers made a vivid picture in
the gardens, orchards and woodland tracts, their green shade calling
invitingly. Once they crossed a wandering little creek whose shallow
waters flowed through lovely meadows where boneset plants were white
with bloom and giant eupatorium lifted its rosy heads. A red-headed
flicker flew screaming from a field as they passed, and a fussy wren
scolded at them from a fence corner.
"She'll have a big job," said Uncle Amos, "if she's goin' to scold
every team and automobile that passes here this mornin'. Such a little
thing to be so sassy!"
As they came to Landisville and drove into the big churchyard there
were already many carriages standing in the shade of the long open shed
and numerous automobiles parked in the sunny yard.
A few minutes later they entered the big brick meeting-house and sat
down in the calm of the sanctuary. The whispers of newcomers drifted
through the open windows, steps sounded on the bare floor of the
church, but finally all had entered and quiet fell upon the place.
The simple service of the Mennonite Church is always appealing and
helpful. The music of voices, without any accompaniment of musical
instrument, the simple prayers and sermons, are all devoid of
ostentation or ornamentation. Amanda liked to join in the singing and
did so lustily that morning. But during the sermon she often fell to
dreaming. The quiet meeting-house where only the calm voice of the
preacher was heard invited the building of wonderful castles in Spain.
Their golden spires reared high in the blue of heaven... she would be a
lady in a trailing, silken gown, Martin would come, a plumed and belted
knight, riding on a pure white steed like that in the Sir Galahad
picture at school, and he'd repeat to her those beautiful words, "My
strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure." Was there
really any truth in that poem? Could one be strong as ten because the
heart was pure? Of course! It had to be true! Martin could be like
that. He'd lift her to the saddle on the pure white horse and they'd
ride away together to one of those beautiful castles in Spain, high up
on the mountains, so high they seemed above the clouds...
Then she came back to earth suddenly. The meeting was over and Aunt
Rebecca stood ready to take them to her home.
The country roads were filled with carriages and automobiles; the
occupants of the former nodded a cordial how-de-do, though most of them
were strangers, but the riders in the motors sped past without a sign
of friendliness.
"My goodness," said Aunt Rebecca, "since them automobiles is so common
abody don't get many how-de-dos no more as you travel along the country
roads. Used to be everybody'd speak to everybody else they'd meet on
the road--here, Amos," she laid a restraining hand upon the reins.
"Stop once! I see a horseshoe layin' in the road and it's got two nails
in it, too. That's powerful good luck! Stop once and let me get it."
Amos chuckled and with a loud "Whoa" brought the horse to a standstill.
Aunt Rebecca climbed from the carriage, picked up the trophy of good
luck and then took her seat beside her brother again, a smile upon her
lined old face.
"That's three horseshoes I have now. I never let one lay. I pick up all
I find and take them home and hang them on the old peach tree in the
back yard. I know they bring good luck. Mebbe if I hadn't picked up all
them three a lot o' trouble would come to me."
"Have it your way," conceded Uncle Amos. "They don't do you no hurt,
anyhow. But, Rebecca," he said as they came within sight of her little
house, "you ought to get your place painted once."
"Ach, my goodness, what for? When it's me here alone. I think the house
looks nice. My flowers are real pretty this year, once. Course, I don't
fool with them like you do. I have the kind that don't take much
tendin' and come up every year without bein' planted. Calico flowers
and larkspur and lady-slippers are my kind. This plantin' and hoein' at
flowers is all for nothin'. It's all right to work so at beans and
potatoes and things you can eat when they grow, but what good are
flowers but to look at! I done my share of hoein' and diggin' and
workin' in the ground. I near killed myself when Jonas lived yet, in
them tobacco patches. I used to say to him still, we needn't work so
hard and slave like that after we had so much money put away, but he
was for workin' as long as we could, and so we kept on till he went. He
used to say money gets all if you begin to spend it and don't earn
more. Jonas was savin'."
"He sure was, that he was," seconded Uncle Amos with a twinkle in his
eyes. "Savin' for you and now you're savin' for somebody that'll make
it fly when you go, I bet. Some day you'll lay down and die and your
money'll be scattered. If you leave me any, Becky," he teased her,
"I'll put it all in an automobile."
"What, them wild things! Road-hogs, I heard somebody call 'em, and I
think it's a good name. My goodness, abody ain't safe no more since
they come on the streets. They go toot, toot, and you got to hop off to
one side in the mud or the ditch, it don't matter to them. I hate them
things! Only don't never take me to the graveyard in one of them."
"By that time," said Uncle Amos, "they'll have flyin' machine hearses;
they'll go faster."
"My goodness, Amos, how you talk! Ain't you ashamed to make fun at your
old sister that way! But Mom always said when you was little that you
seemed a little simple, so I guess you can't help it."
"Na-ha," exulted Amanda, with impish delight. "That's one on you. Aunt
Rebecca ain't so dumb like she lets on sometimes."
"Ach, no," Aunt Rebecca said, laughing. "'A blind pig sometimes finds
an acorn, too.'"
Aunt Rebecca's table, though not lavishly laden as are those of most of
the Pennsylvania Dutch, was amply filled with good, substantial food.
The fried sausage was browned just right, the potatoes and lima beans
well-cooked, the cold slaw, with its dash of red peppers, was tasty and
the snitz pie--Uncle Amos's favorite--was thick with cinnamon, its
crust flaky and brown.
After the dishes were washed Aunt Rebecca said, "Now then, we'll go in
the parlor."
"Oh, in the parlor!" exclaimed Amanda. "Why, abody'd think we was
company. You don't often take us in the parlor."
"Ach, well, you won't make no dirt and I just thought to-day, once, I'd
take you in the parlor to sit a while. It don't get used hardly. Wait
till I open the shutters."
She led the way through a little hall to the front room. As she opened
the door a musty odor came to the hall.
"It smells close," said Aunt Rebecca, sniffing. "But it'll be all right
till I get some screens in." She pulled the tasseled cords of the green
shades, opened the slatted shutters, and a flood of summer light
entered the room. "Ach," she said impatiently as she hammered at one
window, "I can hardly get this one open still, it sticks itself so."
But after repeated thumps on the frame she succeeded in raising it and
placing an old-fashioned sliding screen.
"Now sit down and take it good," she invited.
Uncle Amos sank into an old-fashioned rocker with high back and curved
arms, built throughout for the solid comfort of its occupants. Mrs.
Reist chose an old hickory Windsor chair, Aunt Rebecca selected, with a
sigh of relief, a fancy reed rocker, given in exchange for a book of
trading stamps.
"This here's the best chair in the house and it didn't cost a cent,"
she announced as she rocked in it.
Amanda roamed around the room. "I ain't been in here for long. I want
to look around a little. I like these dishes. I wish we had some like
them." She tiptoed before a corner cupboard filled with antiques.
"Ach, yes," her aunt answered, "mebbe it looks funny, ain't, to have a
glass cupboard in the parlor, but I had no other room for it, the house
is so little. If I didn't think so much of them dishes I'd sold them
a'ready. That little glass with the rim round the bottom of it I used
to drink out of it at my granny's house when I was little. Them dark
shiny dishes like copper were Jonas's mom's. And I like to keep the
pewter, too, for abody can't buy it these days."
Amanda looked up. On the top shelf of the cupboard was a silver lustre
pitcher, a teapot of rose lustre, a huge willow platter with its quaint
blue design, several pewter bowls, a plate with a crude peacock in
bright colors--an array of antiques that would have awakened
covetousness in the heart of a connoisseur.
A walnut pie-crust tilt top table stood in one corner of the room, a
mahogany gateleg occupied the centre, its beauty largely concealed by a
cover of yellow and white checked homespun linen, upon which rested a
glass oil lamp with a green paper shade, a wide glass dish filled with
pictures, an old leather-bound album with heavy brass clasps and
hinges. A rag carpet, covered in places with hooked rugs, added a
proper note of harmony, while the old walnut chairs melted into the
whole like trees in a woodland scene. The whitewashed walls were bare
save for a large square mirror with a wide mahogany frame, a picture
holder made from a palm leaf fan and a piece of blue velvet briar
stitched in yellow, and a cross-stitch canvas sampler framed with a
narrow braid of horsehair from the tail of a dead favorite of long ago.
"What's pewter made of, Aunt Rebecca?" asked the child.
"Why, of tin and lead. And it's a pity they don't make it and use lots
of it like they used to long ago. For you can use pewter spoons in
vinegar and they don't turn black like some of these things that look
like silver but ain't. Pewter is good ware and I think sometimes that
the people that lived when it was used so much were way ahead of the
people to-day. Pewter's the same all through, no thin coatin' of
something shiny that can wear off and spoil the spoons or dishes. It's
old style now but it's good and pretty."
"Yes, that's so," agreed Amanda. It was surprising to the little girl
that the acidulous old aunt could, so unexpectedly, utter beautiful,
suggestive thoughts. Oh, Aunt Rebecca's house was a wonderful place.
She must see more of the treasures in the parlor.
Finally her activity annoyed Aunt Rebecca. "My goodness," came the
command, "you sit down once! Here, look at the album. Mebbe that will
keep you quiet for a while."
Amanda sat on a low footstool and took the old album on her knees. She
uttered many delighted squeals of surprise and merriment as she turned
the thick pages and looked at the pictures of several generations ago.
A little girl with ruffled pantalets showing below her full skirt and a
fat little boy with full trousers reaching half-way between his knees
and his shoetops sent Amanda into a gale of laughter. "Oh, I wish Phil
was here. What funny people!"
"Let me see once," asked Aunt Rebecca. "Why, that's Amos and your mom."
Mrs. Reist smiled and Uncle Amos chuckled. "We're peaches there, ain't?
I guess if abody thinks back right you see there were as many crazy
styles in olden times as there is now."
Tintypes of men and women in peculiar dress of Aunt Rebecca's youth
called forth much comment and many questions from the interested
Amanda. "Are there no pictures in here of you?" she asked her aunt.
"Yes, I guess so. On the last page or near there. That one," she said
as the child found it, a tintype of a young man seated on a vine-
covered seat and a comely young woman standing beside him, one hand
laid upon his shoulder.
"And is that Uncle Jonas?"
"No--my goodness, no! That's Martin Landis."
"Martin Landis? Not my--not the Martin Landis's pop that lives near
us?"
"Yes, that one."
"Why"--Amanda was wide-eyed and curious--"what were you doin' with your
hand on his shoulder so and your picture taken with him?"
Aunt Rebecca laughed. "Ach, I had dare to do that for we was promised
then, engaged they say now."
"You were goin' to marry Martin Landis's pop once?" The girl could not
quite believe it.
"Yes. But he was poor and along came Jonas Miller and he was rich and I
took him. But the money never done me no good. Mebbe abody shouldn't
say it, since he's dead, but Jonas was stingy. He'd squeeze a dollar
till the eagle'd holler. He made me pinch and save till I got so I
didn't feel right when I spent money. Now, since he's gone, I don't
know how. I act so dumb it makes me mad at myself sometimes. If I go to
Lancaster and buy me a whole plate of ice-cream it kinda bothers me. I
keep wonderin' what Jonas'd think, for he used to say that half a plate
of cream's enough for any woman. But mebbe it was to be that I married
Jonas instead of Martin Landis. Martin is a good man but all them
children--my goodness! I guess I got it good alone in my little house
long side of Mrs. Landis with all her children to take care of."
Amanda remembered the glory on the face of Mrs. Landis as she had said,
"Abody can have lots of money and yet be poor and others can have
hardly any money and yet be rich. It's all in what abody means by rich
and what kind of treasures you set store by. I wouldn't change places
with your rich Aunt Rebecca for all the farms in Lancaster County."
Poor Aunt Rebecca, she pitied her! Then she remembered the words of the
memory gem they had analyzed in school last year, "Where ignorance is
bliss 'tis folly to be wise." She could understand it now! So long as
Aunt Rebecca didn't see what she missed it was all right. But if she
ever woke up and really felt what her life might have been if she had
married the poor man she loved--poor Aunt Rebecca! A halo of purest
romance hung about the old woman as the child looked up at her.
"My goodness," the woman broke the spell, "it's funny how old pictures
make abody think back. That old polonaise dress, now," she went on in
reminiscent strain, "had the nicest buttons on. I got some of 'em yet
on my charm string."
"Charm string--what's a charm string?"
"Wait once. I'll show you."
The woman left the room. They heard her tramp about up-stairs and soon
she returned with a long string of buttons threaded closely together
and forming a heavy cable.
"Oh, let me see! Ain't that nice!" exclaimed Amanda. "Where did you
ever get so many buttons and all different?"
"We used to beg them. When I was a girl everybody mostly had a charm
string. I kept puttin' buttons on mine till I was well up in my
twenties, then the string was full and big so I stopped. I used to hang
it over the looking glass in the parlor and everybody that came looked
at it."
Amanda fingered the charm string interestedly. Antique buttons,
iridescent, golden, glimmering, some with carved flowers, others
globules of colored glass, many of them with quaint filigree brass
mounting over colored background, a few G. A. R. buttons from old
uniforms, speckled china ones like portions of bird eggs--all strung
together and each one having a history to the little old eccentric
woman who had cherished them through many years.
"This one Martin Landis give me for the string and this one is from
Jonas' wedding jacket and this pretty blue glass one a girl gave me
that's dead this long a'ready."
"Oh"--Amanda's eyes shone. She turned to her mother, "Did you ever have
a charm string, Mom?"
"Yes. A pretty one. But I let you play with it when you were a baby and
the string got broke and the buttons put in the box or lost."
"Ach, but that spites me. I'd like to see it and have you tell where
the buttons come from. I like old things like that, I do."
"Then mebbe you'd like to see my friendship cane," said Aunt Rebecca.
"Oh, yes! What's that?" Amanda rose from her chair, eager to see what a
friendship cane could be.
"My goodness, sit down! You get me all hoodled up when you act so
jumpy," said the aunt. Then she walked to a corner of the parlor,
reached behind the big cupboard and drew out a cane upon which were
tied some thirty ribbon bows of various colors.
"And is that a friendship cane?" asked Amanda. "What's it for?"
"Ach, it was just such a style, good for nothin' but for the girls of
my day to have a little pleasure with. We got boys and girls to give us
pretty ribbons and we exchanged with some and then we tied 'em on the
cane. See, they're all old kinds o' ribbons yet. Some are double-faced
satin and some with them little scallops at the edge, and they're
pretty colors, too. I could tell the name of every person who give me a
ribbon for that cane. My goodness, lots o' them boys and girls been
dead long a'ready. I guess abody shouldn't hold up such old things so
long, it just makes you feel bad still when you rake 'em out and look
at 'em. Here now, let me put it away, that's enough lookin' for one
day." She spoke brusquely and put the cane into its hiding-place behind
the glass cupboard.
As Amanda watched the stern, unlovely face during the critical,
faultfinding conversation which followed, she thought to herself, "I
just believe that Uncle Amos told the truth when he said that Aunt
Rebecca's like a chestnut burr. She's all prickly on the outside but
she's got a nice, smooth side to her that abody don't often get the
chance to see. Mebbe now, if she'd married Martin Landis's pop she'd be
by now just as nice as Mrs. Landis. It wonders me now if she would!"