“Well, I’m goin’!” spoke up Amanda. “Aunt Rebecca’s funny and bossy but I like to go to her house, it’s so little and cute, everything.”
“Cute,” scoffed the boy. “Everything’s cute to a girl. You dare go, I won’t! Last time I was there I picked a few of her honeysuckle flowers and pulled that stem out o’ them to get the drop of honey that’s in each one, and she caught me and slapped my hand--mind you! Guess next she’ll be puttin’ up some scare-bees to keep the bees off her flowers. But say, Manda, if she gives you any of them little red and white striped peppermint candies like she does still, sneak me a few.”
“Humph! You don’t go to see her but you want her candy! I’d be ashamed, Philip Reist!”
“Hush, hush,” warned Mrs. Reist. “Next you two’ll be fightin’, and on a Sunday, too.”
The girl laughed. “Ach, Mom, guess we both got the tempers that goes with red hair. But it’s Sunday, so I’ll be good. I’m glad we’re goin’ to Aunt Rebecca. That’s a nice drive.”
Aunt Rebecca lived alone in a cottage at the edge of Landisville, a beautiful little town several miles from the Reist farm at Crow Hill. During her husband’s life they lived on one of the big farms of Lancaster County, where she slaved in the manual labor of the great fields. Many were the hours she spent in the hot sun of the tobacco fields, riding the planter in the early spring, later hoeing the rich black soil close to the little young plants, in midsummer finding and killing the big green tobacco worms and topping and suckering the plants so that added value might be given the broad, strong leaves. Then later in the summer she helped the men to thread the harvested stalks on laths and hang them in the long open shed to dry.
Aunt Rebecca had married Jonas Miller, a rich man. All the years of their life together on the farm seemed a visible verification of the old saying, “To him that hath shall be given.” A special Providence seemed to hover over their acres of tobacco. Storms and destructive hail appeared to roam in a swath just outside their farm. The Jonas Miller tobacco fields were reputed to be the finest in the whole Garden Spot county, and the Jonas Miller bank account grew correspondingly fast. But the bank account, however quickly it increased, failed to give Jonas Miller and his wife full pleasure, unless, as some say, the mere knowledge of possession of wealth can bring pleasure to miserly hearts. For Jonas Miller was, in the vernacular of the Pennsylvania Dutch, “almighty close.” Millie, Reists’ hired girl, said,” That there Jonas is too stingy to buy long enough pants for himself. I bet he gets boys’ size because they’re cheaper, for the legs o’ them always just come to the top o’ his shoes. Whoever lays him out when he’s dead once will have to put pockets in his shroud for sure! And he’s made poor Becky just like him. It ain’t in her family to be so near; why, Mrs. Reist is always givin’ somebody something! But mebbe when he dies once and his wife gets the money in her hand she’ll let it fly.”
However, when Jonas Miller died and left the hoarded money to his wife she did not let it fly. She rented the big farm and moved to the little old-fashioned house in Landisville--a little house whose outward appearance might have easily proclaimed its tenant poor. There she lived alone, with occasional visits and visitors to break the monotony of her existence.
That Sunday morning of the Reist visit, Uncle Amos hitched the horse to the carriage, tied it by the front fence of the farm, then he went up-stairs and donned his Sunday suit of gray cloth. Later he brought out his broad-brimmed Mennonite hat and called to Amanda and her mother, “I’m ready. Come along!”
Mrs. Reist wore a black cashmere shawl pinned over her plain gray lawn dress and a stiff black silk bonnet was tied under her chin. Amanda skipped out to the yard, wearing a white dress with a wide buff sash. A matching ribbon was tied on her red hair.