THE PREACHER'S WOOING
There belonged to the Metz farm an old stone quarry which Phœbe 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 Phœbe 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 Phœbe'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 Phœbe. 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. Phœbe was in the other day. But come in once, Phares, I'll tell you something about her."
"Where is Phœbe?" 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 amusements 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. Phœbe 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 Phœbe 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 Phœbe.
She was seated on a rock under the giant sycamore and leaned confidingly against the shaggy 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 attitude 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 Phœbe. "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. Phœbe 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 reassured her somewhat: "Phœbe, 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?"
"But music is of great value. Why, the world needs it as it needs sunshine!"
"But, Phœbe, you must remember you do not come of a people who stand before the worldly and lift their voices for the joy of the multitude of curious people. Your voice is right as it is and needs no training. It is as God gave it to you and is made to be used in His service, in His Church and your home."
"But I have always wanted to learn to sing well, really well. So I am going to Philadelphia this winter and take lessons from a competent teacher."
"Phœbe," exhorted the preacher, "put away the temptation before it grips you so strongly that you cannot shake it off. You must not go!"
He spoke the last words in a tone of authority which the girl answered, "Phares, let us speak of something else. You know I have some of the Metz determination in my make-up and I can't be easily forced to give up a cherished plan. At any rate, we must not quarrel about it."
The preacher forbore to try further argument or persuasion. He became grave. His habitual serenity of mind was disturbed by shadowy forebodings—when the pebbles of doubt drop into the placid pool of content it invariably follows that the waters become agitated for a time. Hitherto he had been hopeful of winning Phœbe. Had he not known her and loved her all her life! What was more natural than that their friendship should culminate in a deeper feeling!
He stretched out his hand in a sudden rush of feeling—"Phœbe, I love you."
She stepped back a pace and his hand fell to his side.
"Don't, Phares," she began, but the next moment she realized that she could not turn aside his love without listening to him.
"Phœbe, you must listen—I love you, I have loved you all my life. Can't you say that you care for me?"
"Don't ask me that!" she pleaded. "I don't want to marry anybody now. All my life I have dreamed of going to a city and studying music and I can't let the opportunity slip away from me now when it is so near. To work under the direction of a master teacher has long been one of my dearest dreams."
"You mean that you do not love me, then. Or if you do, that you would rather gratify your desire to study music than marry me—which is it?"
"Ach, Phares, don't make it hard for me! I said I don't want to get married now. All my life I have lived on a farm and have thought that I should be wonderfully happy if I could get away from it for a while and know what it is to live in a big city. There I shall have a chance to see life in its broader aspects. I shall not be harmed by gathering new ideas and ideals, gaining new friends, and, above all, learning to sing well."
The man groaned in spirit. It was evident that she was thoroughly determined to go away from the farm.
"Phœbe," he pleaded again, not entirely for his own selfish desire, but worried about her love of worldliness, "do you know that the things for which you are going to the city are really not important, that all outward acquisitions for which you long now are transient? The things that count are goodness and purity and to be without them is to be pauperized; the things that bring happiness are love and home ties and to be without them is to be desolate. You want a larger, broader vision, but the city cannot always give you that."
There was no bitterness in his voice, only an undertone of sadness as he spoke. "Phœbe, tell me plainly, do you care for me?"
Her face was lamentably pathetic as she looked into his and read there the desire for what she could not give. "Not as you wish," she said softly. "But I don't really know what love is yet, I haven't thought about it except as something that will come to me some day, a long time from now. There are too many other things I must think about now. When I am through studying music I'll think about being married."
The preacher shook his head; his heart was too heavy for more words, more futile words.
"Let us go, Phares," she said, the silence becoming intolerable.
"Yes," he agreed. "And Phœbe," he added as they turned away from the quarry, "I hope you'll learn your lesson quickly and come back to us."
They stepped from the sheltered path into the sunshine of the lane. Long trails of green lay in their path as they went, but the eyes of both were temporarily blinded to the loveliness of the June. When they reached the dusty road the preacher said good-bye and went on his way to the town.
She stood where he left her; the suppressed feelings of the past half hour soon struggled to avenge themselves and she sped down the lane again, back to the refuge of the kindly tree, and there, under her sycamore, burst into passionate weeping.
Some time after Phares left the girl at the end of the lane David Eby came swinging down the hill and entered the Metz kitchen.
"Hello, Aunt Maria. Where's Phœbe?"
"Why, I guess over at the quarry. She went for pennyroyal long ago and then Phares came and he went over after her, but I saw him go on the way to town a bit ago, so I guess she's still over there. Guess she's stumbling around after a bird's nest or picking some weeds that ain't no good. I don't see why she stays so long."
"I'll go see," volunteered David.
"Yes well. And tell her to hurry with that pennyroyal. I want it for red ants, but they can carry away the whole jelly cupboard till she gets here."
"I'll tell her," said David, and went off, whistling.
Phœbe's paroxysm of grief was short-lived. The soothing quiet of the quarry calmed her, but her eyes showed telltale marks of tears as David's steps sounded down the lane.
She rose hastily, then sank back to her seat under the tree as she saw the identity of the intruder.
"Whew, Phœbe Metz," he said and whistled in his old, boyish way as he sat beside her, "you're crying!"
"I am not," she declared.
"Then you just have been! I haven't seen you in tears for many years. Phœbe"—he changed his tone—"what's gone wrong? Anything the matter?"
"Don't," she sniffed, "don't ask me or you'll have me at it again." She steadied her voice and went on, "I came over here so gloriously happy I could have shouted, because daddy said last night that I may go to Philadelphia this fall——"
"Gee whiz!" David grabbed her hand. "Why, I'm tickled to death. But what—why are you crying? Isn't that what you want?"
"Yes." She smiled, pleased by his interest and eagerness. "But just as I was happiest along came Phares and told me it was wicked to go. It's all a mistake to go, he said."
"Ach, the dickens with the old fossil!" David cried. "And I'm not going to take that back or be sorry for saying it. Hadn't he better sense than to throw a wet blanket on all your happiness!"
"Perhaps I needed it. I was just about burning up with gladness."
"Well, don't you care what he's thinking about it. You go learn music if you want to and your father lets you go. Did he see you cry?"
"Certainly not! I wouldn't cry before him. He would say that was foolish or wicked or something it shouldn't be. But you—you are so sensible I don't mind if you do see me with my eyes red."
"Ha, ha, that's a compliment. I have been told that I am happy-go-lucky and sort of a cheerful idiot, but no person ever told me that I'm sensible. Well, don't you forget me when you get to be that prima donna."
"I won't. You and Mother Bab rub me the right way."
"But won't she be glad when I tell her," said David. "I came down to see if you had decided about it, and I find it all arranged."
"And me in tears," added Phœbe, her natural poise and good humor again restored. "Tell Mother Bab I am coming up soon to tell her about it."
So, in happier mood, she walked beside David, down the green lane to the road, across the road to her own gate.
"So you come once!" Aunt Maria greeted her.
"Oh, I forgot your pennyroyal! I'll go get it."
"Never mind. You stayed so long I went over to the field near the barn and got some. But you look like you've been cryin', Phœbe. Did you and Phares have a fall-out?"
"No."
"You and David, then?"
"No—please don't ask me—it's nothing."
"Well, there ain't no man in shoe leather worth cryin' about, I can tell you that. They just laugh at your cryin'."
Phœbe smiled at her aunt's philosophy and resolved to forget the discouraging words of the preacher. She would be happy in spite of him—the future held bright hours for her!
