Amanda by Anna Balmer Myers (read my book TXT) 📕
"Now don't go far from the house," said Mrs. Reist later, "for yourother dress is soon ready to fit. As soon as Aunt Rebecca gets thepleats basted in the skirt."
"I'll soon get them in. But it's foolishness to go to all that botherwhen gathers would do just as good and go faster."
Amanda turned away and a moment later she and Phil were seated on thelong wooden settee in the kitchen. The boy had silently agreed to atemporary truce so that the game of counting might be played. He wouldpay 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 makeher holler!
"Gee, Manda, I thought of a bully thing!" the boy whispered. "If thatold crosspatch Rebecca says 'My goodness' t
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Uncle Amos was of a jovial, teasing disposition, prone to occasional shrewd thrusts at the idiosyncrasies of his acquaintances, but he held sacred things sacred and rendered to reverent things their due reverence. It was his acknowledged privilege to say grace, at the meals served in the Reist home.
That April evening, after he said, “Amen,” Philip turned to Amanda and said, “Polly wants some too.”
The girl burst into gay laughter. Everybody at the table looked at her in surprise.
“What’s funny?” asked Aunt Rebecca.
“I’ll tell you,” Phil offered. “Last Saturday we were back at Harnly’s. They have two parrots on the porch, and all morning we tried to get those birds to talk. They just sat and blinked at us, looked wise, but said not a word. I forgot all about them when we went in to dinner, but we had just sat down and bowed our heads for grace when those birds began to talk. They went at it as though some person had wound them up. ‘Polly wants some dinner; Polly wants some, too. Give Polly some too.’ Well, it struck me funny. Their voices were so shrill and it was such a surprise after they refused to say a word, that I got to laughing. I gave Amanda a nudge, and she got the giggles.”
“It was awful,” said Amanda. “If Phil hadn’t nudged me I could have weathered through by biting my lips.”
“I don’t see anything to laugh about when two parrots talk,” was Aunt Rebecca’s remark. “Anyhow, that was no time to laugh. I guess you’ll remember what I tell you, some day when you got to cry for all this laughin’ you do now.”
“Ach,” said the mother, “let ‘em laugh. I guess we were that way too once.”
“Bully for you, Mother,” cried the boy; “you’re as young as any of us.”
“That’s what,” chimed in Millie.
“Oh, say, Millie,” asked Philip, “did you make that cherry pie I finished up after school to-day?”
“Yes. Was it good?”
“Good? It melted in my mouth. When I marry, Millie, I’m going to borrow you for a while to come teach my wife how to make such pies.”
“Listen at him now! Ain’t it a wonder he wouldn’t think to get a wife that knows how to cook and bake? But, Philip Reist, you needn’t think I’ll ever leave your mom unless she sends me off.”
“Wouldn’t you, now, Millie?” asked Uncle Amos.
“Why, be sure, not! I ain’t forgettin’ how nice she was to me a’ready. I had hard enough to make through before I came here to work. I had a place to live out in Readin’ where I was to get big money, but when I got there I found I was to go in the back way always, even on Sunday, and was to eat alone in the kitchen after they eat, and I was to go to my room and not set with the folks at all. I just wouldn’t live like that, so I come back to Lancaster County and heard about you people wantin’ a girl, and here I am.”
Amanda looked at the hired girl. In her calico dress and gingham apron, her hair combed back plain from her homely face, she was certainly not beautiful, and yet the girl who looked at her thought she appeared really attractive as the gratitude of her loyal heart shone on her countenance.
“Millie’s a jewel,” thought Amanda. “And Mother’s another. I hope I shall be like them as I grow older.”
After the supper dishes were washed, Aunt Rebecca decided it was time for her to go home.
“Wouldn’t you like to go in the automobile this time?” suggested Philip. “It would go so much faster and is easier riding than the carriage.”
“Faster! Well, I guess that horse of yourn can get me anywhere I want to go fast enough to suit me. I got no time for all these new-fangled things, like wagons that run without horses, and lights you put on and off with a button. It goes good if you don’t get killed yet with that automobile.”
“Then I’ll hitch up Bill,” said the boy as he went out, an amused smile on his face.
Amanda was thoughtful as she bunched the arbutus for the market next day. “I wonder how Uncle Jonas could live with Aunt Rebecca,” she questioned. Ah, that was an enlightening test. “Am I an easy, pleasant person to live with?” Making full allowance for differences in temperament and dispositions, there was still, the girl thought, a possible compatibility that could be cultivated so that family life might be harmonious and happy.
“It’s that I am going to consider when I get married, if I ever do,” she decided that day. “I won’t marry a man who would ‘jaw’ like Aunt Rebecca. I’m fiery-tempered myself, and I’ll have to learn to control my anger better. Goodness knows I’ve had enough striking examples of how scolding sounds! But I won’t want to squabble with the man I really care for—Martin Landis, for instance—” Her thoughts went off to her castles in Spain as she gathered the arbutus into little bunches and tied them. “He offered to help me fix my schoolroom for the Spelling Bee on Saturday. He’s got a big heart, my Sir Galahad of childhood.” She smiled as she thought of her burned hand and his innocent kiss. “Poor Martin—he’s working like a man these ten years. I’d like to see him have a chance at education like Lyman Mertzheimer has. I know he’d accomplish something in the world then! At any rate, Martin’s a gentleman and Lyman’s a—ugh, I hate the very thought of him. I’m glad he’s not at home to come to my Spelling Bee.”
The old-fashioned Spelling Bee has never wholly died out in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Each year readers of certain small-town papers will find numerous news-titles headed something like this: “The Bees Will Buzz,” and under them an urgent invitation to attend a Spelling Bee at a certain rural schoolhouse. “A Good Time Promised”—“Classes for All”—“Come One, Come All”—the advertisements never fail. Many persons walk or ride to the little schoolhouse. The narrow seats, the benches along the wall, and all extra chairs that can be brought to the place are taken long before the hour set for the bees to buzz. The munificent charge is generally fifteen cents, and where in this whole United States of America can so much real enjoyment be secured for fifteen cents as is given at an old-fashioned Spelling Bee?
That April evening of Amanda’s Bee the Crow Hill schoolhouse was filled at an early hour. The scholars, splendid in their Sunday clothes, occupied front seats. Parents, friends and interested visitors from near-by towns crowded into the room.
Amanda, dressed in white, came upon the platform and announced that the scholars had prepared a simple program which would be interspersed through the spelling classes.
Vehement clapping of hands greeted her words and then the audience became silent as the littlest scholar of the school rose and delivered the address of welcome. There followed music and more recitations, all amateurish, but they brought feelings of pride to many mothers and fathers who listened, smiling, to “Our John” or “Our Mary” do his or her best.
But the real excitement began with the spelling classes. The first was open to all children under fourteen. At the invitation, boys and girls walked bravely to the front and joined the line till it reached from one side of the room to the opposite. A teacher from a neighboring town gave out the words. The weeding-out process soon began. Some fell down on simple words, others handled difficult ones with ease and spelled glibly through some which many of the older people present had forgotten existed. Soon the class narrowed down to two. Back and forth, back and forth the words rolled until the teacher pronounced one of the old standby catch-words. One of the contestants shook his head, puzzled, and surrendered.
There was more music, several recitations by the children, a spelling class for older people, more music, then a General Information class, whose participants were asked such questions as, “Who is State Superintendent of Schools?” “How many legs has a fly?” “How many teeth has a cow?” “Which color is at the top of the rainbow arch?” The amazed, puzzled expressions on the faces of the questioned afforded much merriment for the others. It was frequently necessary to wait a moment until the laughter was suppressed before other questions could be asked.
A geographical class was equally interesting. “How many counties has Pennsylvania?” sent five persons to their seats before it was answered correctly. Others succeeded in locating such queer names as Popocatepetl, Martinique, Ashtabula, Rhodesia, Orkney, Comanche.
A little later the last spelling class was held. It was open to everybody. The line was already stretched across the schoolroom when Lyman Mertzheimer, home for a few days of vacation, entered the schoolhouse.
“Oh, dear,” thought Amanda, “what does he want here? I’d rather do without his fifteen cents! He expects to make a show and win the prize from every one else.”
Lyman, indeed, swaggered down the room and entered the line, bearing the old air of superiority. “I’ll show them how to spell,” he thought as he took his place. Spelling had been his strong forte in the old days of school, and it was soon evident that he retained his former ability. The letters of the most confusing words fell from his lips as though the very pages of the spelling-book were engraved upon his brain. He held his place until the contest had ruled out all but two beside himself. Then he looked smilingly at Amanda and reared his head in new dignity and determination.
“Stelliform, the shape of a star,” submitted the teacher. The word fell to Lyman. He was visibly hesitant. Was it stelli or stella?
Bringing his knowledge of Latin into service, he was inclined to think it was stella. He began, “S-t-e-l-l—”
He looked uncertainly at one of his friends who was seated in the front seat. He, also, was a champion speller.
“Oh, if Joe would only help me!” thought the speller.
As if telepathy were possible, Joe raised the forefinger of his left hand to his eye, looked at Lyman with a meaning glance that told him what he craved to know.
“Iform,” finished Lyman in sure tones.
“Correct.”
“That was clever of Joe,” thought the cheat as the teacher gave out a word to one of the three contestants. “I just caught his sign in time. Nobody noticed it.”
But he reckoned without the observant teacher of Crow Hill school. Amanda, seated in the front of the room and placed so she half faced the audience and with one little turn of her head could view the spellers, had seen the cheating process and understood its significance. The same trick had been attempted by some of her pupils several times during the monthly spelling tests she held for the training of her classes.
“The cheat! The big cheat!” she thought, her face flushing with anger. “How I hope he falls down on the next word he gets!”
However, the punishment he deserved was not meted out to him. Lyman Mertzheimer outspelled his opponents and stood alone on the platform, a smiling victor.
“The cheat! The contemptible cheat!” hammered in Amanda’s brain.
After the distribution of prizes, cheap reprint editions of well-known books, an auctioneer stepped on the platform and drew from a corner a bushel basket of packages of various sizes and shapes.
“Oyez, Oyez,” he called in true auctioneer style, “we have here a bushel of good things,
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