"Ach, my," groaned the woman, "you talk like money grew on trees! What"s the world comin" to nowadays?" She rose and pushed her rugging frame into a corner of the kitchen.
"Maria," her brother suggested, "we can get a hired girl if the work"s too much for you alone."
"Hired girl! I don"t want no hired girl! Half of "em don"t do to suit, anyhow! I don"t just want Phbe here to help to work. It"ll be awful lonesome with her gone."
Phbe saw the glint of anguish in the dark eyes and felt that her aunt"s protestations were partly due to a disinclination to be parted from the child she had reared.
"Aunt Maria," she said kindly, "I hate to do what you think I shouldn"t do, for you"re good to me. You mustn"t feel that I"m doing this just to be contrary. You and I think differently, that"s all. Perhaps I"m too young to always think right, but I don"t want you to be hurt. I"ll come home often."
"Ach, yes well," the woman was touched by the girl"s tenderness, but was still unconvinced. "Not much use my saying more, I guess. You and your pop will do what you like. You"re a Metz, too, and hard to change when you make up your mind once."
That night when Phbe went to bed in her old-fashioned walnut bed she lay awake for hours, dreaming of the future. If Aunt Maria had known the visions that flitted before the girl that night she would have quaked in apprehension, for Phbe finally drifted into slumber on clouds of glory, forecasts of the wonderful time when, as a prima donna in trailing, shimmering gown, she would have the world at her feet while she sang, sang, sang!
CHAPTER XII
THE PREACHER"S WOOING
THERE belonged to the Metz farm an old stone quarry which Phbe learned to love in early childhood and which, as she grew older, she adopted as her refuge and dreaming-place.
Almost directly opposite the green gate at the country road was a narrow lane which led to the quarry. It was bordered on the right by a thickly interlaced hedge of blackberry bushes and wild honeysuckle, beyond which stood the orchard of the Metz farm. On the left of the lane a wide field sloped up along the road leading to the summit of the hill where the schoolhouse and the meeting-house stood. The lane was always inviting.
It was the fair road to a fairer spot, the old stone quarry.
The old stone quarry banked its rugged height against the side of a great wooded hill. Some twenty feet below the level of the lane was a huge semicircular base, and from this the jagged sides reared perpendicularly to the summit of the hill. The top and slopes of this hill were covered with a dense growth of underbrush and trees. Tall sycamores bordered the road opposite the quarry, making the spot sheltered and secluded.
To this place Phbe hurried the morning after she had gained her father"s consent to go to Philadelphia.
"I just had to come here," she breathed rapturously; "the house is too narrow, the garden too small, this June morning. They won"t hold my dreams."
She stood under the giant sycamore opposite the quarry and looked appreciatively about her. Earth"s warm, throbbing bosom thrilled with the universal joy of parentage and fruition. Shafts of sunlight shot through the green of the trees, odors of wild flowers mingled with the fresh, woodsy fragrance of the fields and woods, song sparrows flitted busily among the hedges and sang their delicious, "Maids, maids, maids, hang on your tea kettle-ettle-ettle!" From the densest portions of the woods above the quarry a thrush sang--all nature seemed atune with Phbe"s mood, blithe, happy, joyous!
Phares Eby, going to town that morning, walked slowly as he neared the Metz farm and looked for a glimpse of Phbe. He saw, instead, the portly figure of Aunt Maria as she walked about her garden to see the progress of her early June peas.
"Why, Phares," she called, "you goin" to Greenwald?"
"Yes. Anything I can do for you?"
"Ach no. Phbe was in the other day. But come in once, Phares, I"ll tell you something about her."
"Where is Phbe?" he asked as he joined Aunt Maria in the garden.
"Over at the quarry again. But I must tell you, she"s goin" to Phildelphy to study singin". She asked her pop and he said she dare."
"Philadelphia--singing!"
"Yes. I don"t like it at all, but she"s goin" just the same."
"It is a mistake to let her go," said the preacher. "It"s a big mistake, Aunt Maria. She should stay at home or go to some school and learn something of value to her. In this quiet place she has never heard of many temptations which, in the city, she must meet face to face. It is the voice of the Tempter urging her to do this thing and we who are her friends should persuade her to remain in her good home and near the friends who care for her. Have you thought, Aunt Maria, that the people to whom she will go may dance and play cards and do many worldly things?
Philadelphia is very different from Greenwald. Why, she may learn to indulge in worldly amus.e.m.e.nts and to love the vanities of the world which we have tried to teach her to avoid! She will be like a bird in a strange nest."
"I know, Phares, but I can"t make it different. When Jacob says a thing once it"s hard to change him, and she is like that too. They fixed it up last night and I had no say at all. All I said against her going did as much good as if I said it to the chairs in the kitchen. Phbe is going to get Miss Lee, the one that was teacher on the hill once, to help her.
And Miss Lee has a cousin that lives with her and he plays the fiddle and he is goin" to get a teacher for her."
Phares Eby groaned and gritted his teeth.
"I guess I"ll go talk with her a while," he decided.
"Mebbe she"ll come in soon, if you want to wait. I told her to bring me some pennyroyal along from the field next the quarry. You know that"s so good for them little red ants, and they got into my jelly cupboard. She went a while ago and I guess she"ll soon be back now."
"I think I"ll walk over."
"All right, Phares. Tell her not to forget the pennyroyal."
With long strides the preacher crossed the road and started up the lane to the quarry. There he slackened his pace--he thought of the previous day when he had asked Phbe about entering the Church. She had disappointed him, it was true, but she had seemed so eager to do right, so innocent and childlike, that the interview had not left him wholly unhappy or greatly discouraged. He had hoped last night that she would give the matter of her soul"s salvation serious thought, that she would soon stand in the stream and be baptized by him. Over sanguine he had been--so soon she had forgotten serious things and planned a winter in Philadelphia studying music.
"I must act," he thought. "I must tell her of my love. All these years I have loved her and kept silent about it because I thought she was just a child. But I must tell her now. If she loves me she shall marry me soon and this great temptation will leave her; she will hearken to the voice of her conscience, and we will begin our life of happiness together."
With this resolution strong within him he went up the lane to the quarry and Phbe.
She was seated on a rock under the giant sycamore and leaned confidingly against the s.h.a.ggy trunk. The glaring sunshine that fell upon the fields and hills could not wholly penetrate the protecting canopy of well-proportioned sycamore leaves; only a few quivering rays fell upon the girl"s upturned face.
As the preacher approached she looked around quickly but did not move from her caressing att.i.tude by the tree.
"Good-morning, Phares. I"m glad you came. I was wishing for some one to share the old quarry with me this morning."
"Aunt Maria told me you were here--she is impatient for her pennyroyal."
Now, that the supreme moment had arrived, he hesitated and grasped at the first straw for conversation.
"Oh, dear," she said childishly, "Aunt Maria expects me to remember ants and pennyroyal when I come here. Phares, I can"t explain it, but this old quarry has a strange fascination for me. The beauty in its variegated stone with the sunlight upon it attracts me. Sometimes I am tempted to climb up the hill and hang over the quarry and look down into the heart of it."
"Don"t ever do that!" cried the preacher.
"I won"t," laughed Phbe. "I don"t want to die just yet. But isn"t it the loveliest place! I come here often when the men are not blasting. It seems almost a desecration to blast these rocks when we think how long nature took in their making."
She paused . . . only the sounds of nature invaded the quiet of the place: the drowsy hum of diligent bees, the cattle browsing in a field near by, the ecstatic trill of a bird. The world of bustle and flurry with its seething vats of evil and corruption, its sordid discontent and petulance, its ways of pain and darkness, seemed far removed from that place of peace and calm solitude. Phbe could not bear to think that across the seas men were lying in the filth of water-soaked trenches, agonizing and bleeding on the battlefields and suffering nameless tortures in hospitals that a peace like unto the peace of her quiet haven might brood undisturbed over the world in future generations. She dismissed the harrowing thought of war--she would enjoy the calm of her quarry.
The preacher had listened silently to the girl"s rhapsodies--she suddenly awakened to the realization that he was paying scant attention to her enthusiastic words. She looked at him, her heart-beats quickened, some intuition warned her of the imminent declaration.
She rose quickly from the embrace of the sycamore tree, but the compelling eyes of the preacher restrained her from flight. She stood before him, within reach of his hands.
His first words rea.s.sured her somewhat: "Phbe, your aunt has told me that you are going to Philadelphia to study music."
"Yes. Isn"t it fine! I"m so happy----" she stopped. Displeasure was written plainly upon his countenance. "Don"t you think it"s all right, Phares?"
"I think it is a great mistake," he said gravely. "Why not spend your time on something of value to yourself and your friends and the world in general?"