SCHOOL DAYS
Mrs. Reist's desire for a happy childhood for her children was easily
realized, especially in the case of Amanda. She had the happy faculty
of finding joy in little things, things commonly called insignificant.
She had a way of taking to herself each beauty of nature, each joy note
of the birds, the airy loveliness of the clouds, and being thrilled by
them.
With Phil and Martin Landis--and the ubiquitous Landis baby--she
explored every field, woods and roadside in the Crow Hill section of
the county. From association with her Phil and Martin had developed an
equal interest in outdoors. The Landis boy often came running into the
Reist yard calling for Amanda and exclaiming excitedly, "I found a
bird's nest! It's an oriole this time, the dandiest thing way out on
the end of a tiny twig. Come on see it!"
Amanda was the moving spirit of that little group of nature students.
Phil and Martin might have never known an oriole from a thrush if she
had not led them along the path of knowledge. Sometimes some of the
intermediate Landis children joined the group. At times Lyman
Mertzheimer sauntered along and invited himself, but his interest was
feigned and his welcome was not always cordial.
"You Lyman Mertzheimer," Amanda said to him one day, "if you want to go
along to see birds' nests you got to keep quiet! You think it's smart
to scare them off the nests. That poor thrasher, now, that you scared
last week! You had her heart thumpin' so her throat most burst. And her
with her nest right down on the ground where we could watch the babies
if we kept quiet. You're awful mean!"
"Huh," he answered, "what's a bird! All this fuss about a dinky brown
bird that can't do anything but flop its wings and squeal when you go
near it. It was fun to see her flop all around the ground."
"Oh, you nasty mean thing, Lyman Mertzheimer"--for a moment Amanda
found no words to express her contempt of him--"sometimes I just hate
you!"
He went off laughing, flinging back the prediction, "But some day
you'll do the reverse, Amanda Reist." He felt secure in the belief that
he could win the love of any girl he chose if he exerted himself to do
so.
The little country school of Crow Hill was necessarily limited in its
curriculum, hence when Amanda expressed a desire to become a teacher it
was decided to send her to the Normal School at Millersville. At that
time she was sixteen and was grown into an attractive girl.
"I know I'm not beautiful," she told her mother one day after a long,
searching survey in the mirror. "My hair is too screaming red, but then
it's fluffy and I got a lot of it. Add to red hair a nose that's a
little pug and a mouth that's a little too big and I guess the
combination won't produce any Cleopatra or any Titian beauty."
"But you forgot the eyes," her mother said tenderly. "They are pretty
brown and look--ach, I can't put it in fine words like you could, but I
mean this: Your eyes are such honest eyes and always look so happy,
like you could see through dark places and find the light and could
look on wicked people and see the good in them and be glad about it.
You keep that look in your eyes and no pretty girl will be lovelier
that you are, Amanda."
"Mother," the girl cried after she had kissed the white-capped woman,
"if my eyes shine it's the faith and love you taught me that's shining
in them."
During the summer preceding Amanda's departure for school there was
pleasant excitement at the Reist farm. Millie was proud of the fact
that Amanda was "goin' to Millersville till fall" and lost no
opportunity to mention it whenever a friend or neighbor dropped in
for a chat.
Aunt Rebecca did not approve of too much education. "Of course," she
put it, "you're spendin' your own money for this Millersville goin',
but I think you'd do better if you put it to bank and give it to Amanda
when she gets married, once. This here rutchin' round to school so long
is all for nothin'. I guess she's smart enough to teach country school
without goin' to Millersville yet."
However, her protests fell heedlessly on the ears of those most
concerned and when the preparation of new clothes began Aunt Rebecca
was the first to offer her help. "It's all for nothin', this school
learnin', but if she's goin' anyhow I can just as well as not help with
the sewin'," she announced and spent a few weeks at the Reist farm,
giving valuable aid in the making of Amanda's school outfit.
Those two weeks were long ones to Philip, who had scant patience with
the querulous old aunt. But Amanda, since she had glimpsed the girlhood
romance of the woman, had a kindlier feeling for her and could smile at
the faultfinding or at least run away from it without retort if it
became too vexatious.
Crow Hill was only an hour's ride from the school at Millersville, so
Amanda spent most of her weekends at home. Each time she had
wonderful tales to tell, at least they seemed wonderful to the little
group at the Reist farmhouse. Mrs. Reist and Uncle Amos, denied in
their youth of more than a very meagre education, took just pride in
the girl who was pursuing the road to knowledge. Philip, boylike,
expressed no pride in his sister, but he listened attentively to her
stories of how the older students played pranks on the newcomers.
Millie was proud of having _our Amanda_ away at school and did not
hesitate to express her pride. She felt sure that before the girl's
three years' course was completed the name of Amanda Reist would shine
above all others on the pages of the Millersville Normal School
records.
"Oh, I've learned a few things about human nature," said Amanda on her
second visit home. "You know I told you last week how nice the older
girls are to the new ones. A crowd of Seniors came into our room the
other day and they were lovely! One of them told me she adored red hair
and she just knew all the girls were going to love me because I have
such a sweet face and I'm so dear--she emphasized every other word! I
wondered what ailed her. She didn't know me well enough to talk like
that. Before they left she began to talk about the Page Literary
Society--'Dear, we're all Pageites, and it's the best, finest society
in the school. We do have such good times. You ought to join. All the
very nicest girls of the school are in it.' I promised to think it
over. Well, soon after they left another bunch of girls came into our
room and they were just as sweet to us. By and by one of them said,
'Dear, we're all in the Normal Literary Society. It's the best society
in the school; all the very nicest girls belong to it. You should join
it.'"
"Ha, electioneering, was they!" said Uncle Amos, laughing. "Well, leave
it to the women. When they get the vote once we men got to pony up. But
which society did you join?"
"Neither. I'm going to wait a while and while I'm waiting I'm having a
glorious time. The Pageites invited me to a fudge party one night, the
Normalites took me for a long walk, a Pageite treated me to icecream
soda one day and a Normalite gave me some real home-made cake the same
afternoon. It's great to be on the fence when both sides are coaxing
you to jump their way."
"Well," said Millie, her face glowing with interest and pride in the
girl, "if you ain't the funniest! I just bet them girls all want you to
come their way. But what kind o' meals do you get?"
"Good, Millie. Of course, though, I haven't any cellar to go to for pie
or any cooky crock filled with sand-tarts with shellbarks on the top."
"Don't you worry, Manda. I'll make you sand-tarts and lemon pie and
everything you like every time you come home still."
"Millie, you good soul! With that promise to help me I'll work like a
Trojan and win some honors at old M.S.N.S. Just watch me!"
Amanda did work. She brought to her studies the same whole-hearted
interest and enthusiasm she evinced in her hunts for wild flowers, she
applied to them the same dogged determination and untiring efforts she
showed in her long search for hidden bird nests, with the inevitable
result that her brain, naturally alert and brilliant, grasped with
amazing celerity both the easy and the hard lessons of the Normal
Training course.
Millie's prediction proved well founded--Amanda Reist stood well in her
classes. In botany she was the preeminent figure of the entire school.
"Ask Amanda Reist, she'll tell you," became the slogan among the
students. "Yellow violets, lady-slippers, wild ginger--she'll tell you
where they grow or get a specimen for you."
When the time for graduation drew near Amanda was able to carry home
the glad news that she ranked third in her class and was chosen to
deliver an oration at the Commencement exercises.
"That I want to hear," declared Millie, "and I'll get a new dress to
wear to it, too."
On the June morning when the Commencement exercises of the First
Pennsylvania State Normal School took place there were hundreds of
happy, eager visitors on the campus at Millersville, and later in the
great auditorium, but none was happier than Millie Hess, Reists' hired
girl. The new dress, bought in Lancaster and made by Mrs. Reist and
Aunt Rebecca, was a white lawn flecked with black. Millie had decided
on a plain waist with high neck, the inch wide band at the throat edged
with torchon lace, after the style she usually wore, the skirt made
full and having above the hem, as Millie put it, "Just a few tucks,
then wait a while, then tucks again." But Amanda, happening on the
scene as the dress was tried on, protested at the high neck.
"Please, Millie," she coaxed, "do have the neck turned down, oh, just a
little! I'd have a nice pleated ruffle of white net around it and a
little V in front. You'd look fine that way."
"Me-fine! Go long with you, Amanda Reist! Ain't I got two good eyes and
a lookin'-glass? But I guess I would look more like other folks if I
had it made like you say. But now I don't want it too low. You dare fix
it so it looks right." Displaying the same meek acquiescence in the
desire of Amanda she bought a stylish hat instead of the big flat
sailor with its taffeta bow she generally chose. The hat was Amanda's
selection, a small, modest little thing with pale pink and gray roses
misty with a covering of black tulle.
"Me with pink roses on my hat and over forty years old," said Millie
wonderingly, but when she tried it on and saw the improvement in her
appearance she smiled happily. "It's the prettiest hat I ever had and
I'll hold it up and take good care of it so it'll last me years. I'm
gettin' fixed up for sure once, only my new shoes don't have no squeak
in 'em at all."
"That's out of style," Amanda informed her kindly.
"It is? Why, when I was little I remember hearin' folks tell how when
they bought new shoes they always asked for a 'fib's worth of squeak'
in 'em."
"And now they pay the shoemaker more than a 'fib' to put a few pegs in
the shoes and take the squeak out."
"Well, well, how things get different! But then I'm glad mine don't
make no noise if that's the way now."
Commencement day Millie could have held her own with any well-dressed
city woman. Her plain face was almost beautiful as she stood ready for
the great event of Amanda's life. At the last moment she thought of the
big bush of shrubs in the yard--"I must get me a shrub to smell in the
Commencement," she decided. So she gathered one of the queer-looking,
fragrant brown blossoms, tied it in the corner of her handkerchief and
bruised it gently so that the sweet perfume might be exuded. "Um-ah,"
she breathed in the odor, "now I'm ready for Millersville."
As she stood with Mrs. Reist and Philip on the front porch waiting for
Uncle Amos she said to Mrs. Reist, "Ain't Amanda fixed me up fine?
Abody'd hardly know me."
Mrs. Reist in her plain gray Mennonite dress and stiff black silk
bonnet was, as usual, an attractive figure. Philip, grown to the
dignity of long trousers, carried himself with all the poise of
seventeen. He was now a student in the Lancaster High School and had he
not learned to dress and act like city boys do! Uncle Amos, in his best
Sunday suit of gray, his Mennonite hat in his hand, ambled along last
as the little group went down the aisle of the Millersville chapel to
see Amanda's graduation.
As Amanda marched in, her red hair parted on the side and coiled into a
womanly coiffure, wearing a simple white organdie, she was just one of
the hundred graduates who marched into the chapel. But later, as she
stood alone on the platform and delivered her oration, "The Flowers of
the Garden Spot," she held the interested attention of all in that vast
audience. She knew her subject and succeeded in waking in the hearts of
her hearers a desire to go out in the green fields and quiet woods and
find the lovely habitants of the flower world.
After it was all over and she stood, shining-eyed and happy, among her
own people in the chapel, Martin Landis joined them. He, too, had left
childhood behind. The serious gravity of his new estate was deepened in
his face, but the same tenderness that had soothed the numerous Landis
babies also still dwelt there. One of the regrets of his heart was the
fact that nature had denied him great stature. He had always dreamed of
growing into a tall man, powerful in physique, like Lyman Mertzheimer.
But nature was obstinate and Martin Landis reached manhood, a strong,
sturdy being, but of medium height. His mother tried to assuage his
disappointment by asserting that even if his stature was not great as
he wished his heart was big enough to make up for it. He tried to live
up to her valuation of him, but it was scant comfort as he stood in the
presence of physically big men. Life had not dealt generously with him
as with Amanda in the matter of education. He wanted a chance to study
at some institution higher than the little school at Crow Hill but his
father needed him on the farm. The elder man was subject to attacks of
rheumatism and at such times the brunt of farm labor fell upon the
shoulders of Martin.
Money was scarce in the Landis household, there were so many mouths to
feed and it seemed to Martin that he would never have the opportunity
to do anything but work in the fields from early spring to late autumn,
snatch a few months for study in a business college in Lancaster, then
go back again to the ploughing and arduous duties of his father's farm.
He thought enviously of Lyman Mertzheimer, whose father had sent him to
a well-known preparatory school and then started him in a full course
in one of the leading universities of the country. If he had a chance
like that! If he could only get away from the farm long enough to earn
some money he knew he could work his way through school and fit himself
for some position he would like better than farming. Some such thoughts
ran through his brain as he went to congratulate Amanda on her
graduation day.
"Oh, Martin!" she greeted him cordially. "So you got here, after all.
I'm so glad!"
"So am I. I wouldn't have missed that oration for a great deal. I could
smell the arbutus--say, it was great, Amanda!"
At that moment Lyman Mertzheimer joined them.
"Congratulations, Amanda," he said in his affected manner. As the good-
looking son of a wealthy man he credited himself with the possession of
permissible pride. "Congratulations," he repeated, ignoring the smaller
man who stood by the side of the girl. "Your oration was beautifully
rendered. You were very eloquent, but if you will pardon me, I'd like
to remind you of one flower you forgot to mention--a very important
flower of the Garden Spot."
"I did?" she said as though it were a negligible matter. "What was the
flower I forgot?"
"Amanda Reist," he said, and laughed at his supposed cleverness.
"Oh," she replied, vexed at his words and his bold attitude, "I left
that out purposely along with some of the weeds of the Garden Spot I
might have mentioned."
"Meaning me?" He lifted his eyebrows in question. "You don't really
mean that, Amanda." He spoke in winning voice. "I know you don't mean
that so I won't quarrel with you."
"Well, I guess you better not!" spoke up Millie who had listened to all
that was said. "You don't have to get our Amanda cross on this here
day. She done fine in that speech and we're proud of her and don't want
you nor no one else to go spoil it by any fuss."
"I see you have more than one champion, Amanda. I'll have to be very
careful how I speak to you." He laughed but a glare of anger shone in
his eyes.
A few moments later the little party broke up and Lyman went off alone.
A storm raged within him--"A hired girl to speak to me like that--a
common hired girl! I'll teach her her place when I marry Amanda. And
Amanda was high and mighty to-day. Thought she owned the world because
she graduated from Millersville! As though that's anything! She's the
kind needs a strong hand, a master hand. And I'll be the master! I like
her kind, the women who have spirit and fire. But she needs to be held
under, subjected by a stronger spirit. That little runt of a Martin
Landis was hanging round her, too. He has no show when I'm in the
running. He's poor and has no education. He's just a clodhopper."
Meanwhile the clodhopper had also said good-bye to Amanda. For some
reason he did not stop to analyze, the heart of Martin Landis was light
as he went home from the Commencement at Millersville. He had always
detested Lyman Mertzheimer, for he had felt too often the snubs and
taunts of the rich boy. Amanda's rebuff of the arrogant youth pleased
Martin.
"I like Amanda," he thought frankly, but he never went beyond that in
the analysis of his feelings for the comrade of his childhood and young
boyhood. "I like her and I'd hate to see her waste her time on a fellow
like Lyman Mertzheimer. I'm glad she squelched him. Perhaps some day
he'll find there are still some desirable things that money can't buy."