"I just love Mother Bab; don't you say such things about her!" Phœbe exclaimed, her eyes flashing.
"Why, I like her too," the woman said. She looked at Phœbe in surprise. "You needn't be so touchy. For goodness' sake, don't take to gettin' touchy like some people are! Handling them's like tryin' to plane over a knot in wood; any way you push the plane is the wrong way. This here going to Philadelphy upsets you, I guess. You're gettin' as touchy as the little touch-me-nots we get on the hill; they all snap shut when you touch 'em—only you snap open."
Phœbe laughed. "I guess I am excited," she admitted. "I'm sewing too much for summer days and it makes me irritable. I think I'll let the butterflies wait and I'll go outdoors. Shall I weed the garden?"
"Weed the garden? Now you're talkin' dumb! Don't you know yet that abody don't weed a garden on Fridays? Ours always gets done on Monday. But if you want to get out you dare take some of the sand-tarts I baked yesterday up to David's mom, she likes them so much. And you ask her if she can come down next week to help with the dresses. But don't stay too long, for it's been so hot all day and I think it's goin' to storm yet."
"Don't worry about me if it rains. I won't start for home if it looks threatening. I'll wait till the storm is over."
Aunt Maria filled a basket with her delectable cookies and the girl started up the hill. It was, indeed, a hot day, even for August. Phœbe paused several times in the shelter of overhanging trees as she plodded up the steep road. On the summit she climbed the rail fence and perched in the cool shade for a little while and looked out over the valley where the town of Greenwald lay.
"It's lovely here, and I'm wondering how I can be happy when I know that I am going to leave it soon and go to the city for a long winter away from my home. But there's a voice calling to me from the great outside world and I won't be satisfied until I go and mingle with the multitude of a great city. It is life, life, that I want to see and know. And yet, I'm glad I'll have this to come back to! It gives me a comfortable feeling to know that this is waiting for me, no matter where I go—this is still my home. Sometimes I wonder if Aunt Maria could possibly be speaking wisely when she says it is all a waste of money to run off to the city and study music. But what is there on the farm to attract me? I don't want to marry yet"—the remembrance of Phares Eby's pleading came to her—"and if I do marry some time, it won't be Phares. No, never Phares! Ach, Phœbe Metz, you don't know what you want!" she said to herself as she jumped from the fence and ran down the road to the Eby farm.
At the gate she paused. Mother Bab stood among her flowers, her white-capped head bare of any other covering, the hot sunshine streaming upon her.
"Mother Bab," she cried, "you are simply baking in the sun!"
"No," the woman turned to Phœbe and smiled. "I'm forgetting it's hot while I look at the flowers. You see, Phœbe, I was in the house sewing and trying to keep cool and all of a sudden my eyes grew dim so I couldn't sew. The fear came to me, the fear that my sight is going, though I try not to strain them at all and never sew at night. Well, I just ran out here and began to look and look at my flowers—if I ever do go blind I'm going to have lots of memories of lovely things I've seen."