"But he'll come back some day. Granny knows he will." The child echoed the old mother's confidence.
"Not much chance of that," said Aunt Maria with her usual decisiveness. "When a man goes off like that he mostly always stays off. He writes to her she says and I guess she's just as good off with that as if he come home to live. She's lived this long without him."
"But," argued Phœbe, the maternal in her over-sweeping all else, "he's her boy and she wants him back!"
"Ach," the aunt said impatiently, "you talk too much. Were you at the store?"
"Yes. I got the thread and ordered the sugar and counted the change and there was nothing in the post-office for us."
"Did you enjoy your trip to town?" asked the father.
"Yes—but——"
"But what?" demanded Aunt Maria. "Did you break anything in the store now?"
"No. I just got mad. It was this way"—and she told the story of her pink rose.
Maria Metz frowned. "David Eby should leave his mom's roses on the stalks where they belong. Anyhow, I guess you did look funny if you poked your nose in it like you do still here."