“I’m glad, Millie,” Mrs. Reist told her. “Amos just needs a wife like you. He worried me long a’ready, goin’ on all alone. Now I know he’ll have some one to look out for him.”
“Finis! You’re done for!” Phil said. “Lay down your arms and surrender. But say, that makes it bully for Mother and me. We can move to Lancaster now. May we run out to the farm and visit you, Millie?”
“Me? Don’t ask me. It’s Amos’s.”
“Millie, you goose,” the man said happily, “when you marry me everything I have will be yours, too.”
“Well, did I ever! I don’t believe I’ll know how to think about it that way. This nice big house won’t seem like part mine.”
“It’ll be ours” Uncle Amos said, smiling at the word.
And so it happened that the preparation of another wedding outfit was begun in the Reist farmhouse.
“I don’t need fancy things like Amanda,” declared the hired girl. “I wear the old style o’ clothes yet. And for top things, why, I made up my mind I’m goin’ to wear myself plain and be a Mennonite.”
“Plain,” said Mrs. Reist. “Won’t Amos be glad! He likes you no matter what clothes you wear, but it’s so much nicer when you can both go to the same church. He’ll be glad if you turn a Mennonite.”
“Well, I’m goin’ to be one. So I won’t want much for my weddin’ in clothes, just some plain suits and bonnets and shawl. But I got no chest ready like Amanda has. I never thought I’d need a Hope Chest. When I was little I got knocked around, but as soon as I could earn money I saved a little all the time and now I got a pretty good bit laid in the bank. I can take that and get me some things I need.”