AT THE MARKET
The words of Lyman Mertzheimer lingered with Amanda for many days. He
had seemed so confident, so arrogantly sure, of her ultimate surrender
to his desire to marry her. Soon after the Spelling Bee he returned to
his college and the girl sighed in relief that his presence was not
annoying her. But she reckoned without the efficient United States mail
service. The rejected lover wrote lengthy, friendly letters which she
answered at long intervals by short, impersonal little notes.
"Oh, yea," she said to herself one day, "why does it have to be Lyman
Mertzheimer that falls in love with me? But he might as well fall out
as soon as he can. I'll never marry him. I read somewhere that one girl
said, 'I'd rather love what I cannot have, than have what I cannot
love,' and that's just the way I feel about it. I won't marry Lyman
Mertzheimer if I have to die Amanda Reist!"
As soon as her school term was ended Amanda entered into the work of
the farm. She helped Millie as much as possible in a determined effort
to forget all about the man who wanted her and whom she did not want,
and, more than that, to think less about her knight, her Sir Galahad,
who evidently had no time to waste on girls.
Millie appreciated Amanda's help. "There's one thing sure," she said
proudly to Mrs. Reist, "our Amanda ain't lazy. It seems to abody she's
workin' more'n ever this here spring. I guess mebbe she thinks she
better get all the ins and outs o' housework so as she can do it right
till she gets married once."
"Ach, I guess Amanda ain't thinkin' of marryin' yet," said the mother.
"You fool yourself," was Millie's wise answer. "Is there ever a woman
born that don't think 'bout it? Women ain't made that way. There ain't
one so ugly nor poor, nor dumb, that don't hanker about it sometimes,
even if she knows it ain't for her."
Here the entrance of Amanda cut short the discussion.
"Millie," asked the girl, "shall I go to market with you this week?"
"Why, yes. I'd be glad for you. Of course, you always help get things
ready here and your Uncle Amos drives me in and helps to get the
baskets emptied and the things on the counters, but I could use you in
sellin'."
"Then I'll come. This lovely spring weather makes me want to go. I like
to see the people come in to buy flowers and early vegetables. It's
like reading a page out of a romance to see the expressions on the
faces of the city people as they buy the products of the country."
"Ach, I don't know what you mean. I guess you got too much fine
learnin' for me. But all I can see in market is people runnin' up one
aisle and down the other to see where the onions or radishes is the
cheapest."
Amanda laughed. "That's part of the romance. It proves they are human."
The following Saturday Amanda accompanied Millie to the Lancaster
market to help dispose of the assortment of farm products the Reist
stall always carried.
Going to market in Lancaster is an interesting experience. In addition
to the famous street markets, where farmers display their produce along
the busy central streets of the city, there are indoor markets where
crowds move up and down and buy butter, eggs and vegetables, and such
Pennsylvania Dutch specialties as mince meat, cup cheese, sauerkraut,
pannhaus, apple butter, fresh sausage and smear cheese. While lovers of
flowers choose from the many old-fashioned varieties--straw flowers,
zinnias, dahlias.
The Reist stall was one of the prominent stalls of the market. Twice
every week Millie "tended market" there. On the day before market
several members of the Reist household were kept busy preparing all the
produce, and the next day before dawn Uncle Amos hitched the horse to
the big covered wagon and he and Millie, sometimes Amanda and Philip,
drove over the dark country roads to the city.
Amanda enjoyed the work. She arranged the glistening domes of cup
cheese, placed the fresh eggs in small baskets, uncovered one of the
bags of dried corn untied the cloth cover from a gray earthen crock of
apple butter, and then stood and looked about the market house. She
felt the human interest it never failed to waken in her. Behind many
stalls stood women in the quaint garb of the Church of the Brethren or
Mennonite. But quaintest of all were the Amish.
The Amish are the plainest and quaintest of the plain sects that
flourish in Lancaster County. Unlike their kindred sects, who wear
plain garb, they are partial to gay colors in dress. So it is no
unusual sight to see Amish women wearing dresses of such colors as
forest green, royal purple, king's blue or garnet. But the gay dress is
always plainly made, after the model of their sect, generally partially
subdued by a great black apron, a black pointed cape over the shoulders
and a big black bonnet which almost hides the face of its wearer and
necessitates a full-face gaze to disclose the identity of the woman.
The strings of the thick white lawn cap are invariably tied in a flat
bow that lies low on the chest.
The Amish men are equally interesting in appearance. They wear broad-
brimmed hats with low crowns. Their clothes are so extremely plain that
buttons, universally deemed indispensable, are taboo and their place is
filled by the inconspicuous hook-and-eye, which style has brought upon
them the sobriquet, "Hook-and-eye people."
However, interesting as the men and women of the Amish faith are in
their dress, they are eclipsed in that aspect by the Amish children.
These are invariably dressed as exact replicas of their parents. Little
boys, mere children of three and four years, wear long trousers, tight
jackets, blocked hair and broad-brimmed, low-crowned hats. Little girls
of tender years wear brightly colored woolen dresses, one-piece aprons
of black sateen or colored chambray, and the picturesque big stiff
bonnets of the faith.
A stranger in Lancaster County seeing an Amish family group might
easily wonder if he had not been magically transported to some secluded
spot of Europe, far from the beaten paths of modernity. But in the
cosmopolitan population of Lancaster the Amish awakes a mere moment's
interest to the majority of observers. If a bit of envy steals into the
heart of the little Amish girl who stands at the Square and sees a
child in white organdie and pink sash tripping along with her feet in
silk socks and white slippers, of what avail is it? The hold of family
customs is strong among them and the world and its allurements and
vanities are things to be left stringently alone.
To Amanda Reist, the Amish children made strong appeal. Their presence
was one of the reasons she enjoyed tending market. Many stories she
wove in her imagination about the little lads in their long trousers
and the tiny girls in their big bonnets.
But when the marketing was in full swing Amanda had scant time for any
weaving of imaginary stories. Purchasers stopped at the stall and in a
short time the produce was sold, with the exception of cheese and eggs
which had been ordered the previous week.
"Ach," complained Millie, "now if these people would fetch this cheese
and the eggs we'd be done and could go home. Our baskets are all empty
but them. But it seems like some of these here city folks can't get to
market till eight o'clock. They have to sleep till seven."
She was interrupted by the approach of a young girl, fashionably
dressed.
"Why," exclaimed Amanda, "here comes Isabel Souders, one of the
Millersville girls."
Isabel Souders was a girl of the butterfly type, made for sunshine,
beauty, but not intended, apparently, for much practical use. Like the
butterfly, her excuse for being was her beauty. Pretty, with dark hair,
Amanda sometimes had envied her during days at the Normal School. Well
dressed, petted and spoiled by well-to-do parents who catered to her
whims, she seemed, nevertheless, an attractive girl in manner as well
as in appearance. At school something like friendship had sprung up
between Amanda and the city girl, no doubt each attracted to the other
by the very directness of their opposite personalities and tastes.
Isabel Souders was a year younger than Amanda. She lacked all of the
latter's ambition. Music and Art and having a good time were the things
that engrossed her attention. At Millersville she had devoted her time
to the pursuit of the three. Professors and hall teachers knew that the
moving spirit of many harmless pranks was Isabel, but she had a way of
glossing things, shedding blame without causing innocent ones to
suffer, that somehow endeared her to students and teachers alike.
That market day she came laughing down the market aisle to greet
Amanda.
"Hello, Amanda! What do you think of me, here at this early hour of the
day? Pin a medal on me! But it was so glorious a day I felt like doing
something out of the ordinary. I promised one of the Lancaster girls
who is at school now that I'd ask you about the pink moccasins. Are
they out yet?"
"Just out. Why?"
"This girl wants one for her collection. I remembered you had a perfect
one in your lot of flowers at school and I said I'd see you about
them."
"They'll be at their best next Saturday."
"Next Saturday--dear, Helen's going home over the week-end. Oh, could I
come out and get one for her?"
"Yes. I'll be glad to take you where they grow. I have a special haunt.
If no botanizers or flower hunters find my spot, we'll get a beauty for
your friend."
"You're the same old darling, Amanda," said the girl sweetly. "Then
I'll be out to your house Saturday afternoon. How do I get there?"
"Take the car to Oyster Point, then walk till you find a mail-box with
our name on it, and there I'll be found."
"Thank you, Amanda, you are a dear! I'll be there for the pink
moccasin. Won't it be romantic to hunt for such lovely things as they
are? You're perfectly sweet to bother about it and offer to take me."
"Oh, I don't mind doing that. I'll enjoy it. Finding the wild pink
lady-slipper is a real joy."
Unselfish Amanda, she could not dream of what would come out of that
little hunt for the pink moccasin!