"HAME'S BEST"
Lancaster County never before looked so fertile, so lovely, as it did that April day when Phœbe returned to it after a long winter in Philadelphia.
As she came unexpectedly there was no one to meet her at Greenwald. She started across the street and was soon on the dusty road leading to the gray farmhouse.
"Let me see," she thought, "this is Friday afternoon and Aunt Maria will be scrubbing the kitchen floor."
But when the girl reached the kitchen of the gray house and tiptoed gently over the sill she found the big room in order and Aunt Maria absent.
"Why," she thought, "is Aunt Maria sick?" She opened the door to the sitting-room and there, seated by a window, was Aunt Maria with a ball of gray wool in her lap and five steel knitting needles plying in her hands.
"Aunt Maria!"
"Why, Phœbe!"
The exclamations came simultaneously.
"What in the world are you doing? I mean why aren't you cleaning the kitchen? Oh, Aunt Maria, you know what I mean! I never saw you sitting down early on a Friday afternoon."
Aunt Maria laughed. "I ain't sick! You can see what I'm doin'; I'm knittin'. Ain't you learned to do it yet? I can learn you."
"Why, I know how. But what are you knitting? For the Red Cross?"
"Why not? You think the ladies in Phildelphy are the only ones do that? There's a Red Cross in Greenwald and they are askin' all who can to help. I used to knit all my own stockings still so I thought I'd pitch right in. I let the cleanin' slide a little this week so I could get a good start on this once."
The girl gasped and looked at her aunt in wonder. All the days of her life she had never known her aunt to "let the cleanin' slide," if the physical strength were there to do the work. Aunt Maria was working for the Red Cross! While she, who had scorned the country folks and called them narrow, had knitted half-heartedly and spent the major part of her time in the pursuit of pleasure, the people of the little town and surrounding country had been doing real work for humanity.
"I think you're splendid, Aunt Maria, to help the Red Cross," she said with enthusiasm.
The woman looked up from her knitting. "Why, how dumb you talk! I guess abody wants to help. Them soldiers are fightin' for us. Now you can get yourself something to eat. It vonders me, anyhow, why you come home this time of the year. You said you'd stay till June."
"I came because I want to be here."
"So. Then I guess you got enough once of the city."
"Yes," said Phœbe, laughing. "But how is everybody?"
"All pretty good. But a lot of boys from round here went a'ready to enlist. I ain't for war, but I guess it has to come sometimes. But it's hard for them that has boys."
"David?" Phœbe asked. "Has he gone?"
"Ach, no, not him. He's got his mom to take care of."
Phœbe remembered Virginia's words, "We can't get away from it, we're in it." The thought of them made her feel depressed. "I'm going to forget the war," she thought after a moment, "I'm going to forget it for to-morrow and have one perfect day in the mountains hunting arbutus."
