“Pessimist! It doesn’t rain every day in May!”
There followed happy, excited times when the matter of a house was discussed. Those were wonderful hours in which the two hunted a nest that would be near enough to the city for Martin’s daily commuting and yet have so much of the country about it as to boast of green grass and space for flowers. It was found at length, a little new bungalow outside the city limits in a residential section where gardens and trees beautified the entire street.
“Do you know,” Mrs. Reist said to Uncle Amos one day, “there’s another little house for sale in that street. If it wasn’t for breakin’ up the home for you and Millie I’d buy it and Philip and I could move in there. It would be nice and handy for him. I’m gettin’ tired of such a big house. There I could do the work myself. There’d be room for you to come with us, but I wouldn’t need Millie. I don’t like to send her off to some other people. We had her so long a’ready, and she’s a good, faithful worker. Ach, I guess I’ll have to give up thinkin’ about doin’ anything like that.”
“Well, well, now let me think once.” Uncle Amos scratched his head. Then an inscrutable smile touched his lips. “Well, now,” he said after a moment’s meditation, “now I don’t see why it can’t be arranged some way. There’s more’n one way sometimes to do things. I don’t know--I don’t know--but I think I can see a way we could manage that-- providin’--ach, we’ll just wait once, mebbe it’ll come out right.”
Mrs. Reist looked at her brother. What did he mean? He stammered and smiled like a foolish schoolboy. Poor Amos, she thought, how hard he had worked all his life and how little pleasure he had seemed to get out of his days! He was growing old, too, and would soon be unable to do the work on a big farm.
But Uncle Amos seemed spry enough several days later when he and Millie entered the big market wagon to go to Lancaster with the farm products. They left the Reist farmhouse early in the morning, a cold, gray winter day.
“Say, Millie,” he said soon after they began the drive, “I want to talk with you.”
“Well,” she answered dryly, “what’s to keep you from doin’ so? Here I am. Go on.”
“Ach, Millie, now don’t get obstreperous! Manda’s mom would like to sell the farm and move to Lancaster to a little house. Then she wouldn’t need me nor you.”
“What? Are you sure, Amos?”