"So, Phœbe," he said, a teasing twinkle in his eyes, "I see you get up early to go to school."
"But I ain't glad to go." She refused to smile at his words.
"Ach, yes," he coaxed, "you be a good girl and like your new teacher. She's nice. I guess you'll like her when you know her once."
"Mebbe so," was the unpromising answer as she slipped the straps of a blue checked apron over her shoulders, buttoned it in the back and took her place at the table.
Breakfast at the Metz farm was no light meal. Between the early morning meal and the twelve o'clock dinner much hard work was generally accomplished and Maria Metz felt that a substantial foundation was necessary. Accordingly, she carried to the big, square cherry table in the kitchen an array of well-filled dishes. There was always a glass dish of stewed prunes or seasonable fresh fruit; a plate piled high with thick slices of home-made bread; several dishes of spreadings, as the jellies, preserves or apple-butter of that community are called. There was a generous square of home-made butter, a platter of home-cured ham or sausage, a dish of fried or creamed potatoes, a smaller dish of pickles or beets, and occasionally a dome of glistening cup cheese. The meal would have been considered incomplete without a liberal supply of cake or cookies, coffee in huge cups and yellow cream in an old-fashioned blue pitcher.
That morning Aunt Maria had prepared an extra treat, a platter of golden slices of fried mush.
The two older people partook heartily of the food before them but the child ate listlessly. Her aunt soon exclaimed, "Now, Phœbe, you must eat or you'll get hungry till recess. You know this is the first day of school and you can't run for a cookie if you get hungry. You ain't eatin'; you feel bad?"
"No, but I ain't hungry."
"Come now," urged her father, as he poured a liberal helping of molasses on his sixth piece of mush, "you must eat. You surely don't feel that bad about going to school!"
"Ach, pop," she burst out, "I don't hate the school part, the learnin' in books; that part is easy. But I don't like the teacher, and I guess she laughed at my tight braids. Mebbe if I dared wear curls—— Oh, pop, daren't I have curls? I'd like to show her that I look nice that way. Say I dare, then I won't be so funny lookin' no more!"
