"Yes, pop. I went alone."
"So? Why, you're getting a big girl, now you can go to Greenwald alone."
"Ach," she laughed. "Why, it's just straight road."
They crossed the porch and entered the kitchen hand-in-hand, the sunbonneted little girl and the big farmer. Jacob Metz was also a member of the Church of the Brethren and bore the distinctive mark: hair parted in the middle and combed straight back over his ears and cut so that the edge of it almost touched his collar. A heavy black beard concealed his chin, mild brown eyes gleamed beneath a pair of heavy black brows. Only in the wide, high forehead and the resolute mouth could be seen any resemblance between him and the fair child by his side.
When they entered the kitchen Maria Metz turned from the stove, where she had been stirring the contents of a big iron pan.
"So you got back safe, after all, Phœbe," she said with a sigh of relief. "I was afraid mebbe something happened to you, with so many streets to go across and so many teams all the time and the automobiles."
"Ach, I look both ways still before I start over. Granny Hogendobler said she'll get out early."
"So. What did she have to say?"
"Ach, lots. She showed me her flowers. Ain't it too bad, now, that her little girl died and her boy went away?"
"Well, she spoiled that boy. He grew up to be not much account if he stays away just because he and his pop had words once."