Amanda - Anna Balmer Myers (read e book TXT) 📗

said the inscription in the big family Bible. But it was difficult to understand how the two women could have been mothered by one person.

Millie, the hired girl, expressed her opinion freely to Amanda one day after a particularly trying time with the old woman. “How that Rebecca Miller can be your mom’s sister now beats me. She’s more like a wasp than anything I ever seen without wings. It’s sting, sting all the time with her; nothin’ anybody does or says is just right. She’s faultfindin’ every time she comes. It wonders me sometimes if she’ll like heaven when she gets up there, or if she’ll see some things she’d change if she had her way. And mostly all the plain people are so nice that abody’s got to like ‘em, but she’s not like the others, I guess. Most every time she comes she makes me mad. She’s too bossy. Why, to-day when I was fryin’ doughnuts she bothered me so that I just wished the fat would spritz her good once and she’d go and leave me be.”

It will be seen that Millie felt free to voice her opinions at all times in the Reist family. She was a plain-faced, stout little woman of thirty-five, a product of the Pennsylvania Dutch country. Orphaned at an early age she had been buffeted about sorely until the happy day she entered the Reist household. Their kindness to her won her heart and she repaid them by a staunch devotion. The Reist joys, sorrows, perplexities and anxieties were shared by her and she naturally came in for a portion of Aunt Rebecca’s faultfinding.

Cross-grained and trying, Rebecca Miller was unlike the majority of the plain, unpretentious people of that rural community. In all her years she had failed to appreciate the futility of fuss, the sin of useless worry, and had never learned the invaluable lesson of minding her own business. “She means well,” Mrs. Reist said in conciliatory tones when Uncle Amos or the children resented the interference of the dictatorial relative, but secretly she wondered how Rebecca could be so—so—she never finished the sentence.

“Well, my goodness, here she comes once!” Amanda heard her aunt’s rasping voice as they entered the house.

Stifling an “Oh yea” the girl walked into the sitting-room.

“Hello, Aunt Rebecca,” she said dutifully, then turned to her mother— “You want me?”

“My goodness, your dress is all wet in the back!” Aunt Rebecca said shrilly. “What in the world did you do?”

Before she could reply Philip turned about so his wet clothes were on view. “And you too!” cried the visitor. “My goodness, what was you two up to? Such wet blotches like you got!” “We were wadin’ in the crick,” Amanda said demurely, as her mother smoothed the tousled red hair back from the flushed forehead.

“My goodness! Wadin’ in the crick in dog days!” exploded Aunt Rebecca.

“Now for that she’ll turn into a doggie, ain’t, Mom?” said the boy roguishly.

Aunt Rebecca looked over her steel-rimmed spectacles at the two children who were bubbling over with laughter. “I think,” she said sternly, “people don’t learn children no manners no more.”

“Ach,” the mother said soothingly, “you mustn’t mind them. They get so full of laughin’ even when we don’t see what’s to laugh at.”

“Yes,” put in Amanda, “the Bible says it’s good to have a merry heart and me and Phil’s got one. You like us that way, don’t you, Mom?”

“Yes,” the mother agreed. “Now you go put on dry things, then I want to fit your dresses. And, Philip, are you wet through?”

“Naw. These thick pants don’t get wet through if I rutch in water an hour. Jiminy pats, Mom, girls are delicate, can’t stand a little wettin’.”

“You just wait, Phil,” Amanda called to him as she ran up-stairs, “you’re gettin’ some good wettin’ yet. I ain’t done with you.”

“Cracky, who’s afraid?” he called.

A little later the girl appeared in dry clothes.

“Ach,” she said, “I forgot to wash my hands. I better go out to the pump and clean ‘em so I don’t get my new dresses dirty right aways.”

She ran to the pump on the side porch and jerked the handle up and down, while her brother followed and watched her, defiance in his eyes.

“Well,” she said suddenly, “if you want it I’ll give it to you now.” With that she caught him and soused his head in the tin basin that stood in the trough. “One for duckin’ me in the crick, and another for stealin’ that bird’s egg, and a third to learn you some sense.” Before he could get his breath she had run into the house and stood before her mother ready for the fitting. “I like this goods, Mom,” she told the mother as the new dress was slipped over her head. “I think the brown goes good with my red hair, and the blue gingham is pretty, too. Only don’t never buy me no pink nor red.”

“I won’t. Not unless your hair turns brown.”

“My goodness, but you spoil her,” came the unsolicited opinion of Aunt Rebecca. “When I was little I wore what my mom bought me, and so did you. We would never thought of sayin’, ‘Don’t get me this or that.’”

“But with red hair it’s different. And as long as blue and brown and colors Amanda likes don’t cost more than those she don’t want I can’t see why she shouldn’t have what she wants.”

“Well, abody wonders what kind o’ children plain people expect to raise nowadays with such caterin’ to their vanity.”

Mrs. Reist bit her lips and refrained from answering. The expression of joy on the face of Amanda as she looked down at her new dress took away the sting of the older woman’s words. “I want,” the mother said softly, “I want my children to have a happy childhood. It belongs to them. And I want them to remember me for a kind mom.”

“Ach, Mom, you are a good mom.” Amanda leaned over the mother, who was pinning the hem in the new dress, and pressed a kiss on the top of the white-capped head. “When I grow up I want to be like you. And when I’m big and you’re old, won’t you be the nicest granny!”

Aunt Rebecca suddenly looked sad and meek. Perhaps a partial appreciation of what she missed by being childless came to her. What thrills she might have known if happy children ran to her with shouts of “Granny!” But she did not carry the thread of thought far enough to analyze her own actions and discover that, though childless, she could attract the love of other people’s children if she chose. The tender moment was fleet. She looked at Amanda and Philip and saw in them only two children prone to evil, requiring stern disciplining.

“Now don’t go far from the house,” said Mrs. Reist later, “for your other dress is soon ready to fit. As soon as Aunt Rebecca gets the pleats basted in the skirt.”

“I’ll soon get them in. But it’s foolishness to go to all that bother when gathers would do just as good and go faster.”

Amanda turned away and a moment later she and Phil were seated on the long wooden settee in the kitchen. The boy had silently agreed to a temporary truce so that the game of counting might be played. He would pay back his sister some other time. Gee, it was easy to get her goat— just a little thing like a caterpillar dropped down her neck would make her holler!

“Gee, Manda, I thought of a bully thing!” the boy whispered. “If that old crosspatch Rebecca says ‘My goodness’ thirty times till four o’clock I’ll fetch a tobacco worm and put it in her bonnet. If she don’t say it that often you got to put one in. Huh? Manda, ain’t that a peachy game to play?”

“All right,” agreed the girl. “I’ll get paper and pencil to keep count.” She slipped into the other room and in a few minutes the two settled themselves on the settee, their ears straining to hear every word spoken by the women in the next room.

“My goodness, this thread breaks easy! They don’t make nothin’ no more like they used to,” came through the open door.

“That’s one,” said Phil; “make a stroke on the paper. Jiminy Christmas, that’s easy! Bet you we get that paper full of strokes!”

“My goodness, that girl’s shootin’ up! It wouldn’t wonder me if you got to leave these dresses down till time for school. Now if I was you I’d make them plenty big and let her grow into ‘em. Our mom always done that.”

And so the conversation went on until there were twenty lines on the paper. The game was growing exciting and, under the stress of it, the counting on the old settee rose above the discreet whisper it was originally meant to be. “Twenty-one!” cried Amanda. Aunt Rebecca walked to the door.

“What’s you two up to?” she asked. “Oh, you got the hymn-book. My goodness, what for you writin’ on the hymn-book?” She turned to her sister. “Ain’t you goin’ to make ‘em stop that? A hymn-book ain’t to be wrote on!”

“Twenty-two,” cried Phil, secure in the knowledge that his mother would not object to their use of the book and safely confident that the aunt could not dream what they were doing.

“What is twenty-two? Look once, Amanda,” said the woman, taking the mention of the number to refer to a hymn.

The girl opened the book. “Beulah Land,” she read, a sudden compunction seizing her.

“Ach, yes, Beulah Land—I sang that when I was a girl still. My goodness, abody gets old quick.” She sighed and returned to her sewing.

“Twenty-three, countin’ the last one,” prompted Phil. “Mark it down. Gee, it’s a cinch.”

But Amanda looked sober. “Phil, mebbe it ain’t right to make fun of her so and count after how often she says the same thing. She looked kinda teary when she said that about gettin’ old quick.”

“Ach, go on,” said Philip, too young to appreciate the subtle shades of feelings or looks. “You can’t back out of it now. Gee, what’s bitin’ you? It ain’t four o’clock yet, and it ain’t right, neither, to go back on a promise. Anyhow, if we don’t go on and count up to thirty you got to put the worm in her bonnet—you said you would—girls are no good, they get cold feet.”

Thus spurred, Amanda resumed the game until the coveted thirty lines were marked on the paper. Then, the goal reached, it was Phil’s duty to find a tobacco worm.

Supper at the Reist farmhouse was an ample meal. By that time the hardest portion of the day’s labor was completed and the relaxation from physical toil made the meal doubly enjoyable. Millie saw to it that there was always appetizing food set upon the big square table in the kitchen. Two open doors and three screened windows looking out upon green fields and orchards made the kitchen a cool refuge that hot August day.

Uncle Amos, a fat, flushed little man, upon whose shoulders rested the responsibilities of that big farm, sat at the head of the table. His tired figure sagged somewhat, but his tanned face shone from a vigorous scrubbing. Millie sat beside Mrs. Reist, for she was, as she expressed it, “Nobody’s dog, to eat alone.” She expected to eat with the folks where she hired. However, her presence at the table did not prevent her from waiting on the others. She made frequent trips to the other side of the big kitchen to replenish any of the depleted dishes.

That evening Amanda and Philip were restless.

“What ails you