“It was. They must hate me like poison.”
“Ach, he’s a copperhead,” said Uncle Amos. “He’s so pesky low and mean he can’t bear to see any one else be honest. You’re gettin’ up too far to suit him. It’s always so that when abody climbs up the ladder a little there’s some settin’ at the foot ready to joggle it, and the higher abody climbs the more are there to help try to shake you down. I guess there’s mean people everywheres, even in this here beautiful Garden Spot. But to my notion you got to just go on doin’ right and not mind ’em. They’ll get what they earn some day. Nobody has yet sowed weeds and got a crop of potatoes from it.”
“But,” said the girl, “I can’t understand it. The Mertzheimer people come from good families and they have certainly been taught to be different. I can’t see where they get their mean streak. With all their money and chance to improve and opportunities for education and culture---”
“Ach, money"--said Uncle Amos--"what good does money do them if they don’t have the right mind to use it? My granny used to say still you can tie a silk ribbon round a pig’s neck but she’ll wallow in the dirt just the same first chance she’ll get. I guess some people are like that. Well, Martin, I’m goin’ in to tell Millie--the women--it’s all right with you. They was so upset about it. And won’t Millie talk!” He chuckled at the thought of what that staunch woman would say about Mr. Mertzheimer. “Millie can hit the nail on the head pretty good, pretty good,” he said as he ambled into the house.
Martin lingered on the porch with Amanda till the sound of the Landis supper bell called him home.
CHAPTER XX
Dinner at Landis’s
The following afternoon little Katie Landis came running down the road and in at the Reist gate. She greeted Amanda with, “Mom says you got to come to our place for supper.”
“To-day?”