Quickly the hand holding the flower dropped to the child's side, her eyes were cast down to the brick pavement and she went hurriedly down the street. But not so hurriedly that she failed to hear the words, "Little Dutchie" and a merry laugh from the young woman.
"She—she laughed at me!" Phœbe murmured to herself under the blue sunbonnet. "I don't know who she is, but that was at Mollie Stern's house that she sat—that lady that laughed at me. She called me a Dutchie!"
The child stabbed a fist into one eye and then into the other to fight back the tears. She felt sure that the appellation of Dutchie was not complimentary. Hadn't she heard the boys at school tease each other by calling, "Dutchie, Dutchie, sauer kraut!" But no one had ever called her that before! Her heart ached as she went down the street of the little town. She had planned to look at all the gardens of the main street as she walked home but the glory of the June day was spoiled for her. She did not care to look at any gardens. The laughing words, "Does it smell good?" rang in her ears. The name, "Little Dutchie," sent her heart throbbing.
After the first hurt a feeling of wrath rose in her. "Anyhow," she thought, "it's no disgrace to be a Dutchie! Nobody needn't laugh at me for that. But I just hate that lady that laughed at me! I hate everybody that pokes fun at me. And I ain't goin' to always be a Dutchie. You see once if I don't be something else when I grow up!"
"Hello, Phœbe," a cheery voice rang out, followed by a deeper exclamation, "Phœbe!" as she came to the last intersection of streets in the town and turned to enter the country road.
She turned a sober little face to the speakers, David Eby and his cousin, Phares Eby.
"Hello," she answered listlessly.
"What's wrong?" asked the older boy as they joined her.
Both were plainly country boys accustomed to hard farm work, but their tanned faces were frank and honest under broad straw hats. Each bore marked family resemblances in their big frames, dark eyes and well-shaped heads, but there was a distinct line drawn between their personalities. Phares Eby at sixteen was grave, studious and dignified; his cousin, David, two years younger, was a cheery, laughing, sociable boy, fond of boyish sports, delighting in teasing his schoolmates and enjoying their retaliation, preferring a tramp through the woods to the best book ever written.
The boys lived on adjacent farms and had long been the nearest neighbors of the Metz family; thus they had become Phœbe's playmates. Then, too, the Eby families were members of the Church of the Brethren, the mothers of the boys were old friends of Maria Metz, and a deep friendship existed among them all. Phœbe and the two boys attended the same little country school and had become frankly fond of each other.
