A VISIT TO MOTHER BAB
The next day as Phœbe walked up the hill to visit Mother Bab she went eagerly and with an unusual light in her eyes—she had transformed her schoolgirl braid into the coiffure of a woman! The golden hair was parted in the middle, twisted into a shapely knot in the nape of her neck, and the effect was highly satisfactory, she thought.
"Mother Bab will be surprised," she said gladly as she swung up the hill in rapid, easy strides. "And David—I wonder what David will say if he's home."
At the summit of the hill she paused and turned, looked back at the gray farmhouse and beyond it to the little town of Greenwald.
"I just must stand here a minute and look! I love this view from the hill."
She breathed deeply and continued to revel in the beauty of the scene. At the foot of the hill was the Metz farm nestling in its green surroundings. Like a tan ribbon the dusty road went winding past green fields, then hid itself as it dipped into a valley and made a sharp curve, though Phœbe knew that it went on past more fields and meadows to the town. Where she stood she had a view of the tall spires of Greenwald churches straggling through the trees, and the red and slate roofs of comfortable houses gleaming in the sunlight. Beyond and about the town lay fields resplendent in the pristine freshness of May greenery.
"Oh," she said aloud after a long gaze, "this is glorious! But I must hurry to Mother Bab. I'm wild to have her see me. Aunt Maria just said when I showed her my hair, 'Yes well, Phœbe, I guess you're old enough to wear your hair up.' Mother Bab is different. Sometimes I pity Aunt Maria and wonder what kind of childhood she had to make her so grim about some things."
The little house in which David and his mother lived stood near the country road leading to the schoolhouse on the hill. Like many other farmhouses of that county it was square, substantial and unadorned, its attractiveness being derived solely from its fine proportions, its colonial doorways, and the harmonious surroundings of trees and flowers. The garden was eloquent of the lavish love bestowed upon it. Mother Bab delighted in flowers and planted all the old favorites. The walks between the garden beds were trim and weedless, the yard and buildings well kept, and the entire little farm gave evidence that the reputed Pennsylvania Dutch thrift and neatness were present there.
Adjoining the farm of Mother Bab was the farm of her brother-in-law, the father of Phares Eby. This was one of the best known in the community. Its great barns and vast acres quite eclipsed the modest little dwelling beside it. David Eby sometimes sighed as he compared the two farms and wondered why Fate had bestowed upon his uncle's efforts an almost unparalleled success while his own father had had a continual struggle to hold on to the few acres of the little farm. Since the death of his father David had often felt the straining of the yoke. It was toil, toil, on acres which were rich but apparently unwilling to yield their fullness. One year the crops were damaged by hail, another year prolonged drought prevented full development of the fruit, again continued rainy weather ruined the hay, and so on, year in and year out, there was seldom a season when the farm measured up to the expectations of the hard-working David.
But Mother Bab never complained about the ill-luck, neither did she envy the woman in the great house next to her. Mother Bab's philosophy of life was mainly cheerful:
"I find earth not gray, but rosy,
Heaven not grim, but fair of hue.
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.
Do I stand and stare? All's blue."
A little house to shelter her, a big garden in which to work, to dream, to live; enough worldly goods to supply daily sustenance; the love of her David—truly her Beloved, as the old Hebrew name signifies—the love of the dear Phœbe who had adopted her—given these blessings and no envy or discontent ever ventured near the white-capped woman. Life had brought her many hours of perplexity and several great sorrows, but it had also bestowed upon her compensating joys. She felt that the years would bring her new joys, now that her boy was grown into a man and was able to manage the farm. Some day he would bring home a wife—how she would love David's wife! But meanwhile, she was not lonely. Her friends and she were much together, quilting, rugging, comparing notes on the garden.
"Guess Mother Bab'll be in the garden," thought Phœbe, "for it's such a fine day."
But as she neared the whitewashed fence of the garden she saw that the place was deserted. She ran lightly up the walk, rapped at the kitchen door, and entered without waiting for an answer to her knock.
"Mother Bab," she called.
"I'm here, Phœbe," came a voice from the sitting-room.
"How are you? Is your headache all gone?" Phœbe asked as she ran to the beloved person who came to meet her.
"All gone. I was so disappointed last night—but what have you done to your hair?"
"Oh, I forgot!" Phœbe lifted her head proudly. "I meant to knock at the front door and be company to-day. I've got my hair up!"
"Phœbe, Phœbe," the woman drew her nearer. "Let me look at you." Her eyes scanned the face of the girl, her voice quivered as she spoke. "You've grown up! Of course it didn't come in a night but it seems that way."
"The May fairies did it, Mother Bab. Yesterday I wore a braid. This morning when I woke I heard the robin who sings every morning in the apple tree outside my window and he was caroling, 'Put it up! Put it up!' I knew he meant my hair, so here I am, waiting for your blessing."
"You have it, you always have it! But"—she changed her mood—"are you sure the robin wasn't saying, 'Get up, get up!' Phœbe?"
"Positive; it was only five o'clock."
"Now I must hear all about last night," said Mother Bab as they sat together on the broad wooden settee in the sitting-room. "David told me how nice you looked and how well you did."
"Did he tell you how pleased I am with the scarf? It's just lovely! And the color is beautiful. I wonder why—I wonder why I love pretty things so much, really pretty things, like crepe de chine and taffeta and panne velvet and satin. Oh, sometimes I think I must have them. When I go to Lancaster I want lots of lovely clothes and I hate ginghams and percales and serviceable things."
"I know, Phœbe, I know how you feel about it."
"Do you really? Then it can't be so awfully wicked. You are so understanding, Mother Bab. I can't tell Aunt Maria how I feel about such things for she'd be dreadfully hurt or worried or provoked, but you seem always to know what I mean and how I feel."
"I was eighteen myself once, a good many years ago, but I still remember it."
"You have a good memory."
"Yes. Why, I can remember some of the dresses I wore when I was eighteen. But then, I have a dress bundle to help me remember them."
"What's a dress bundle?"
"Didn't Aunt Maria keep one for you?"
"I never heard of one."
"It's a long string of samples of dresses you wore when you were little. Wait, I'll get mine and show you."
She left the room and went up-stairs. After a short time she returned and held out a stout thread upon which were strung small, irregular scraps of dress material. "This is my dress bundle. My mother started it for me when I was a baby and kept it up till I was big enough to do it myself. Every time I got a new dress a little patch of the goods was threaded on my dress bundle."
"Oh, may I see? Why, that's just like a part of your babyhood and childhood come back!"
The two heads bent over the bundle—the girl's with its light hair in its first putting up, the woman's with its graying hair folded under the white cap.
"Here"—Mother Bab turned the bundle upside down and fingered the scraps with that loving way of those who are dreaming of long departed days and touching a relic of those cherished hours—"this white calico with the little pink dots was the first dress any one gave me. Grandmother Hoerner made it for me, all by hand. Funny, wasn't it, the way they used to put colored dresses on wee babies! See, here are pink calico ones and white with red figures and a few blue ones. I wore all these when I was a baby. Then when I grew older these; they are much prettier. This red delaine I wore to a spelling bee when I was about sixteen and I got a book for a prize for standing up next to last. This red and black checked debaige I can see yet. It had an overskirt on it trimmed with little ruffles. This purple cashmere with the yellow sprigs in it I had all trimmed with narrow black velvet ribbon. I'll never forget that dress—I wore it the day I met David's father."
"Oh, you must have looked lovely!"
"He said so." She smiled; her eyes looked beyond Phœbe, back to the golden days of her youth when Love had come to her to bless and to abide with her long beyond the tarrying of the spirit in the flesh. "He said I looked nice. I met him the first time I wore the purple dress. It was at a corn-husking party at Jerry Grumb's barn. Some man played the fiddle and we danced."
"Danced!" echoed Phœbe.
"Yes, danced. But just the old-fashioned Virginia reel. We had cider and apples and cake and pie for our treat and we went home at ten o'clock! David walked home with me in the moonlight and I guess we liked each other from the first. We were married the next year, then we both turned plain."
"Were you ever sorry, Mother Bab?"
"That I married him, or that I turned plain?"
"Yes. Both, I mean."
"No, never sorry once, Phœbe, about either. We were happy together. And about turning plain, why, I wasn't sorry either."
"But you had to give up Virginia reels and pretty dresses."
"Yes, but I learned there are deeper, more important things than dancing and wearing pretty dresses."
She looked at Phœbe, but the girl had bowed her head over the dress bundle and appeared to be thinking.
"And so," continued Mother Bab softly, "my bundle ended with that dress. Since I dress plain I don't wear colors, just gray and black. But I always thought if I had a girl I'd start a dress bundle for her, for it's so much satisfaction to get it out sometimes and look over the pieces and remember the dresses and some of the happy times you had when you wore them. But the girl never came."
"But you have David!"
"Yes, to be sure, he's been so much to me, but I couldn't make him a dress bundle. He wouldn't have liked it when he grew older—boys are different. And I wouldn't want him to be a sissy, either."
"He isn't, Mother Bab. He's fine!"
"I think so, Phœbe. He has worked so hard since he's through school and he's so good to me and takes such care of the farm, though the crops don't always turn out as we want. But you haven't told me what you are going to do, now that you're through school."
"I don't know. I want to do something."
"Teach?"
"No. What I would like best of all is study music."
"In Greenwald? You mean to learn to play?"
"No, to learn to sing. I have often dreamed of studying music in a great city, like Philadelphia."
"What would you do then?"
"Sing, sing! I feel that my voice is my one talent and I don't want to bury it."
"Well, don't Miss Lee live in Philadelphia? Perhaps she could help you to get a good teacher and find a place to board."
"Mother Bab!" Phœbe sprang to her feet and wrapped her arms about the slender little woman. "That's just it!" she cried. "I never thought of that! David said you'd help me. I'll write to Miss Lee to-day!"
"Phœbe," the woman said, smiling at the girl's wild enthusiasm.
"I'm not crazy, just inspired," said Phœbe. "You helped me, I knew you would! I want to go to Philadelphia to study music but I know daddy and Aunt Maria would never listen to any proposals about going to a big city and living among strangers. But if I write to Miss Lee and she says she'll help me the folks at home may consider the plan. I'll have a hard time, though"—a reactionary doubt touched her—"I'll have a dreadful time persuading Aunt Maria that I'm safe and sane if I mention music and Philadelphia and Phœbe in the same breath." Then she smiled determinedly. "At least I'm going to make a brave effort to get what I want. I'm not going to settle down on the farm and get brown and fat and wear gingham dresses all my life, and sunbonnets in the bargain! I never could see why I had to wear sunbonnets, I always hated them. Aunt Maria always tried to make me wear them, but as soon as I was out of her sight I sneaked them off. I remember one time I threw my bonnet in the Chicques and I had the loveliest time watching it disappear down the stream. But Aunt Maria made me make another one that was uglier still, so I gained nothing but the temporary pleasure of seeing it float away. And how I hated to do patchwork! It seemed to me I was always doing it, and I never could see the sense of cutting up pieces and then sewing them together again."
"But the sewing was good practice for you, Phœbe. Patchwork—seems to me all our life is patchwork: a little here and a little there; one color now, then another; one shape first, then another shape fitted in; and when it is all joined it will be beautiful if we keep the parts straight and the colors and shapes right. It can be a very beautiful rising sun or an equally pretty flower basket, or it can be just a crazy quilt with little of the beautiful about it."
"Mother Bab, if I had known that while I was patching I would have loved to patch! I had nothing to make it interesting; it was just stitching, stitching, stitching on seams! But those vivid quilts are all finished and I guess Aunt Maria is as glad about it as I am, for I gave her some worried hours before the end was sighted. Poor Aunt Maria, she should be glad to have me go to the city. I've led her some merry chases, but I must admit she was always equal to them, forged ahead of me many times."
"Phœbe, you're a wilful child and I'm afraid I spoil you more."
"No you don't! You're my safety valve. If I couldn't come up here and say the things I really feel I'd have to tell it to the Jenny Wrens—Aunt Maria hates to have me talk to myself."
"But she's good to you, Phœbe?"
"Yes, oh, yes! I appreciate all she has done for me. She has taken care of me since I was a tiny baby. I'll never forget that. It's just that we are so different. I can't make Phœbe Metz be just like Maria Metz, can I?"
"No, you must be yourself, even if you are different."
"That's it, Mother Bab. I feel I have the right to live my life as I choose, that no person shall say to me I must live it so or so. If I want to study music why shouldn't I do so? My mother left a few hundred dollars for me; it's been on interest and amounts to more than a few hundred, about a thousand dollars, I think. So the money end of my studying music need not worry Aunt Maria. I am determined to do it, wouldn't you?"
"I suppose I'd feel the same way."
"How did you learn to understand so well, Mother Bab? You have lived all your life on a farm, yet you are not narrow."
"I hope I have not grown narrow," the woman said softly. "I have read a great deal. I have read—don't you breathe it to a soul—I have often read when I should have been baking pies or washing windows!"
"No wonder David worships you so."
"I still enjoy reading," said Mother Bab. "David subscribes for three good magazines and when they come I'm so anxious to look into them that sometimes my cooking burns."
"That must be one of the reasons your English is correct. I am ashamed of myself when I mix my v's and w's and use a t for a d. I have often wished the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect would have been put aside long ago."
"Yes," the woman agreed, "I can't see the need of it. It has been ridiculed so long that it should have died a natural death. It's a mystery to me how it has survived. But cheer up, Phœbe, the gibberish is dying out. The older people will continue to speak it but the younger generations are becoming more and more English speaking. Why, do you know, Phœbe, since this war started in Europe and I read the dreadful crimes the Germans are committing I feel that I never want to hear or say, 'Yah.'"
"Bully!" Phœbe clapped her hands. "I said to old Aaron Hogendobler yesterday that I'm ashamed I have a German name and some German ancestors, even if they did come to this country before the Revolution, and he said no one need feel shame at that, but every American who is not one hundred per cent American should die from shame. I know we Pennsylvania Dutch can carry our end of the burdens of the world and be real Americans, but I want to sound like one too."
Mother Bab laughed. "Just yesterday I said to David that the butter was all."
"I say that very often. I must read more."
"And I less. I haven't told you, Phœbe, nor David, but my eyes are going back on me. I went to Lancaster a few weeks ago and the doctor there said I must be very careful not to strain them at all. I think I'd rather lose any other sense than sight. I always thought it was the greatest affliction in the world to be blind."
"It is! It mustn't come to you, Mother Bab!"
The woman looked worried, but in a moment her face brightened.
"Anyhow," she said, "what's the use of worrying or thinking about it? If it ever comes I'll have to bear it just as many other people are bearing it. I'm glad I have sight to-day to see you."
Phœbe gave her an ecstatic hug. "I believe you're Irish instead of Pennsylvania Dutch! You do know how to blarney and you have that coaxing, lovely way about you that the Irish are supposed to have."
"Why, Phœbe, I am part Irish! My mother's maiden name was McKnight. David and I still have a few drops of the Irish blood in us, I suppose."
"I just knew it! I'm glad. I adore the whimsical way the Irish have, and I like their sense of humor. I guess that's one of the reasons I like you better than other people I know and perhaps that's why David is jolly and different from Phares. Ah," she added roguishly, "I think it's a pity Phares hasn't some Irish blood in him. He's so solemn he seldom sees a joke."
"But he's a good boy and he thinks a lot of you. He's just a little too quiet. But he's a good preacher and very bright."
"Yes, he's so good that I'm ashamed of myself when I say mean things about him. I like him, but people with more life are more interesting."
"Hello, who's this you like?" David's hearty voice burst upon them.
Phœbe turned and saw him standing in the sunlight of the open door. The thought flashed upon her, "How big and strong he is!"
He wore brown corduroys, a blue chambray shirt slightly open at the throat, heavy shoes. His face was already tanned by the wind and sun, his hands rough from contact with soil and farming implements, his dark hair rumpled where he had pulled the big straw hat from his head, but there was an odor of fresh spring earth about him, a boyish wholesomeness in his face, that attracted the girl as she looked at his frame in the doorway.
There was a flash of white teeth, a twinkle in his dark eyes, as he asked, "What did I hear you say, Phœbe—that you like me?"
"Indeed not! I wouldn't think of liking anybody who deceived me as you have done. All these years you have left me under the impression that you are Pennsylvania Dutch and now Mother Bab says you are part Irish."
"Little saucebox! What about yourself? You can't make me believe that you are pure, unadulterated Pennsylvania Dutch. There's some alien blood in you, by the ways of you. Have you seen Phares this afternoon?" he asked irrelevantly.
"Phares? No. Why?"
"He went down past the field some time ago. Said he's going to Greenwald and means to stop and ask you to go to a sale with him next week. He said you mentioned some time ago that you'd like to go to a real old-fashioned one and he heard of one coming off next week and thought you might like to go."
"I surely want to go. Don't you want to come, too, David? And Mother Bab?"
But David shook his head. "And spoil Phares's party," he said. "Phares wouldn't thank us."
Phœbe shrugged her shoulders. "Ach, David Eby, you're silly! Just as though I want to go to a sale all alone with Phares! He can take the big carriage and take us all."
"He can but he won't want to." David showed an irritating wisdom. "When I invite you to come on a party with me I won't want Phares tagging after, either. Two's company."
"Two's boredom sometimes," she said so ambiguously that the man laughed heartily and Mother Bab smiled in amusement.
"Come now, Phœbe," David said, "just because you put your hair up you mustn't think you can rule us all and don grown-up airs."
"Then you do notice things! I thought you were blind. You are downright mean, David Eby! When you wore your first pair of long pants I noticed it right away and made a fuss about them and it takes you ten minutes to see that my hair is up instead of hanging in a silly braid down my back."
"I saw it first thing, Phœbe. That was mean—I'm sorry——"
"You look it," she said sceptically.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, "to see the braid go, though you look fine this way. I liked that long braid ever since the day I braided it, the day you played prima donna. Remember?"
The girl flushed, then was vexed at her embarrassment and changed suddenly to the old, appealing Phœbe.
"I remember, Davie. You were my salvation that day, you and Mother Bab."
Before they could answer she added with seeming innocency, yet with a swift glance into the face of the farmer boy, "I must go now so I'll be home when Phares comes to invite me to that sale. I'm going with him; I'm wild to go."
"Yes?" David said slowly.
"Yes," she repeated, a teasing look in her eyes.
"Mommie, isn't she fine?" David said after Phœbe was gone and he lingered in the house.
"Mighty fine. But she is so different from the general run of girls; she's so lively and bright and sweet, so sensitive to all impressions. She's anxious to get to the city to study music. It would be a wonderful experience for her—and yet——"
"And yet——" echoed David, then fell into silence.
Mother Bab was thinking of her boy and Phœbe, of their gay comradeship. How friendly they were, how well-mated they appeared to be, how appreciative of each other. Could they ever care for each other in a deeper way? Did the preacher care for the playmate of his childhood as she thought David was beginning to care?
"Well, I must go again, mommie. I came in for a drink at the pump and heard you and Phœbe. Now I must hustle for I have a lot to do before sundown—ach, why aren't we rich!"
"Do you wish for that?"
"Certainly I do. Not wealthy; just to have enough so we needn't lie awake wondering if the dry spell or the wet spell or the hail will ruin the crops. I wish I could find an Aladdin's lamp."
"Davie"—the smile faded from her face—"don't get the money craze. Money isn't everything. This farm is paid for and we can always make a comfortable living. Money isn't all."
"No, but—but it means everything sometimes to a young, single fellow. But don't you worry; the crops are fine this year, so far."
The mother did not forget his words at once. "It must be," she thought, "that David wants Phœbe and feels he must have more money before he can ask her to marry him. Will men never learn that girls who are worth getting are not looking so much for money but the man. The young can't see the depth and fullness of love. I've tried to teach David, but I suppose there's some things he must learn for himself."
