Patchwork: A Story of 'The Plain People'

by Anna Balmer Myers

"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.