Amanda by Anna Balmer Myers (read my book TXT) 📕

“All right, then, but I’d like it if you could be here.”

“I’ll put twelve plates on the table.”

“What I don’t know about is the napkins, Amanda. We used to roll them up and put them in the tumblers and then some people folded them in triangles and laid them on the plates, but I don’t know if that’s right now. Mine are just folded square.”

“That’s right. I’ll place them to the side, so. And the forks go here and the knives and spoons to this side.”

“Well, don’t it beat all? They lay the spoons on the table now? What for is the spoon-holder?”

“Gone out of style.”

“Well, that’s funny. I guess when our Mary gets a little older once, she’ll want to fix things up, too. I don’t care if she does, so long as she don’t want to do dumb things and put on a lot of airs that ain’t fittin’ to plain people like us. But it’ll be a big wonder to me if one of the children won’t say something about the spoons bein’ on the table-cloth. That’s new to them. Then I need three glass dishes for jelly so none will have to reach so far for it. And a big platter for fried ham, a pitcher for the gravy, a dish for smashed potatoes, one for sweet potatoes, a glass one for cabbage slaw and I guess I ought to put desserts out for the slaw, Amanda. I hate when gravy and everything gets mixed on the plate. Then I’m going to have some new peas and sour red beets and the short cake. I guess that’s enough.”

“It sounds like real Lancaster County food,” said the girl. “Your company should enjoy her supper.”

“Ach, I guess she will. Now I must call in some of the children and get them started dressin’ once.”

She stood at the screen door of the kitchen and rang a small hand bell. Its tintinnabulation sounded through the yard and reached the ears of the children who were playing there. The three boys next in age to Martin were helping their father in the fields, but the other children came running at the sound of the bell.

“Time to get dressed,” announced Mrs. Landis. “You all stay round here now so I can call you easy as one gets done washin’. Johnny, you take Charlie and the two of you get washed and put on the clothes I laid on your bed. Then you stay on the porch so you don’t get dirty again till supper and the company comes. Be sure to wash your feet and legs right before you put on your stockings.”

“Aw, stockings!” growled Charlie. “Why can’t we stay barefooty?”

“For company?”

“Ach,” he said sulkily as he walked to the stairs, “I don’t like the kind of company you got to put stockings on for! Not on week-days, anyhow!”

His mother laughed. “Emma,” she addressed one of the girls, “when the boys come back you and Mary and Katie must get washed and dressed for the company. Mary, you dare wear your blue hair-ribbons today and the girls can put their pink ones on and their white dresses.”

“Oh,” the little girls cried happily. Dressing up for company held more pleasure for them than it did for the boys.

“I laugh still,” said Mrs. Landis, “when people say what a lot of work so many children make. In many ways, like sewing and cookin’ for them they do, but in other ways they are a big help to me and to each other. If I had just one now I’d have to dress it, but with so many they help the littler ones and all I got to do is tell them what to do. It don’t hurt them to work a little. Mary is big enough now to put a big apron on and help me with gettin’ meals ready. And the boys are good about helpin’ me, too. Why, Martin, now, he used to help me like a girl when the babies were little and I had a lot to do. Mister said the other day we dare be glad our boys ain’t give us no trouble so far. But this girl of Martin’s, now, she kinda worries me. I said to Mister if only he’d pick out a girl like you.”

To her surprise the face of the girl blanched. Mrs. Landis thought in dismay, “Now what for dumb block am I, not to guess that mebbe Amanda likes our Martin! Ach, my! but it spites me that he’s gone on that city girl! Well,” she went on, talking in an effort at reparation and in seeming ignorance of the secret upon which she had stumbled, “mebbe he ain’t goin’ to marry her after all. These boys sometimes run after such bright, merry butterfly girls and then they get tired of them and pick out a nice sensible one to marry. Abody must just keep on hopin’ that everything will turn out right. Anyhow, I don’t let myself worry much about it.”

“Do you ever worry, Mrs. Landis? I can’t remember ever seeing you worried and borrowing trouble.”

“No, what’s the use? I found out long ago that worry don’t get you nowhere except in hot water, so what’s the use of it?”

“That’s a good way to look at things if you can do it,” the girl agreed. “I think I’ll go home now. You don’t need me. You’ll get along nicely, I’m sure.”

“Ach, yes, I guess so. But now you must come soon again, Amanda. This company business kinda spoiled your visit to-day.”

Amanda was in the rear of the house and did not see the vision of loveliness which passed the Reist farmhouse about five o’clock that afternoon. One of Martin’s brothers met the two at the trolley and drove them to the Landis farm. Isabel Souders was that day, indeed, attractive. She wore a corn-colored organdie dress and leghorn hat, her natural beauty was enhanced by a becoming coiffure, her eyes danced, her lips curved in their most bewitching bow.

The visitor was effusive in her meeting with Martin’s mother. “Dear Mrs. Landis,” she gushed, “it is so lovely of you to have me here! Last summer while I boarded at Reists’ I was so sorry not to meet you! Of course I met Martin and some of the younger children but the mother is always the most adorable one of the family! Oh, come here, dear, you darling,” she cooed to little Emma, who had tiptoed into the room. But Emma held to her mother’s apron and refused to move.

“Ach, Emma,” Katie, a little older, chided her. “You’ll run a mile to Amanda Reist if you see her. Don’t act so simple! Talk to the lady; she’s our company.”

“Ach, she’s bashful all of a sudden,” said Mrs. Landis, smiling. “Now, Miss Souders, you take your hat off and just make yourself at home while I finish gettin’ the supper ready. You dare look through them albums in the front room or set on the front porch. Just make yourself at home now.”

“Thank you, how lovely!” came the sweet reply.

A little while later when Martin left her and went to his room to prepare for the evening meal the children, too, scurried away one by one and left Isabel alone. She took swift inventory of the furnishings of the front room.

“Dear,” she thought, “what atrocious taste! How can Martin live here? How can he belong to a family like this?”

But later she was all smiles again as Martin joined her and Mrs. Landis brought her husband into the room to meet the guest. Mr. Landis had, in spite of protests and murmurings, been persuaded to hearken to the advice of his wife and wear a coat. Likewise the older boys had followed Martin’s example and donned the hot woolen articles of dress they considered superfluous in the house during the summer days.

Isabel chattered gaily to the men of the Landis household until Mrs. Landis stood in the doorway and announced, “Come now, folks, supper’s done.”

After the twelve were seated about the big table, Mr. Landis said grace and then Mrs. Landis rose to pour the coffee, several of the boys started to pass the platters and dishes around the table and the evening meal on the farm was in full swing.

“Oh,” piped out little Charlie as he lifted his plate for a slice of ham, “somebody’s went and threw all the spoons on the table-cloth! Here’s two by my plate. And Emma’s got some by her place, too!”

“Sh!” warned Mary, but Mrs. Landis laughed heartily. “Easy seeing,” she confessed, “that we ain’t used to puttin’ on style. Charlie, that’s the latest way of puttin’ spoons on. Amanda Reist did it for me.”

“Amanda Reist,” said Mr. Landis. “Why didn’t she stay for supper if she was here when you set the table?”

“I asked her to but she couldn’t.”

“Oh,” the guest said, “I think Amanda is the sweetest girl. I just love her!”

“Me, too,” added Mary. “She’s my teacher.”

“Mine too,” said Katie. “I like her.”

The Landis children were taught politeness according to the standards of their parents, but they had never been told that they should be seen and not heard. Meal-time at the Landis farm was not a quiet time. The children were encouraged to repeat any interesting happening of the day and there was much laughter and genial conversation and frank expressions about the taste of the food.

“Um, ain’t that short cake good!” said Charlie, smacking his lips.

“Delicious, lovely!” agreed the guest.

“Here, have another piece,” urged Mrs. Landis. “I always make enough for two times around.”

“Mom takes care of us, all right,” testified Mr. Landis.

“Lovely, I’m sure,” Isabel said with a bright smile.

And so the dinner hour sped and at length all rose and Martin, tagged by two of the younger boys, showed Isabel the garden and yard, while Mrs. Landis with the aid of Mary and one of the boys cleared off and washed the dishes. Then the entire family gathered on the big porch and the time passed so quickly in the soft June night that the guest declared it had seemed like a mere minute.

“This is the most lovely, adorable family,” she told them. “I’ve had a wonderful time. How I hate to go back to the noisy city! How I envy you this lovely porch on such nights!”

Later, when Martin returned from seeing the visitor back to Lancaster, his parents were sitting alone on the porch.

“Well, Mother, Dad, what do you think of her?” he asked in his boyish eagerness to have their opinion of the girl he thought he was beginning to care for. “Isn’t she nice?”

“Seems like a very nice girl,” said his mother with measured enthusiasm.

“Oh, Mother,” was the boy’s impatient answer, “of course you wouldn’t think any girl was good enough for your boy! I can see that. If an angel from heaven came down after me you’d find flaws in her.”

“Easy, Mart,” cautioned the father. “Better put on the brakes a bit. Your mom and I think about the same, I guess, that the girl’s a likely enough lady and she surely is easy to look at, but she ain’t what we’d pick out for you if we had the say. It’s like some of these here fancy ridin’ horses people buy. They’re all right for ridin’ but no good for hitchin’ to a plow. You don’t just want a wife that you can play around with and dress pretty and amuse yourself with. You need a wife that’ll work with you and be a partner and not fail you when trouble comes. Think that over, Mart.”