"Now," Aunt Maria said as she unbuttoned the despised brown dress, "you dare put on your blue chambray dress if you take care and not get it dirty right aways."
"Oh, I'm glad for that. I like that dress best of all I have. It's not so long in the body or tight or long in the skirt like my other dresses. And blue is a prettier color than brown. I'll hurry now and get dressed."
She ran up the wide stairs, her hands skimming lightly the white hand-rail, and entered the little room known as the clothes-room, where the best clothes of the family were hung on heavy hooks fastened along the entire length of the four walls. She soon found the blue chambray dress. It was extremely simple. The plain gathered skirt was fastened to the full waist by a wide belt of the chambray. But the dress bore one distinctive feature. Instead of the usual narrow band around the neck it was adorned with a wide round collar which lay over the shoulders. Phœbe knew that the collar was vastly becoming and the knowledge always had a soothing effect upon her.
When the call of the school bell floated down the hill to the gray farmhouse Phœbe picked up her school bag and her tin lunch kettle and started off, outwardly in happier mood yet loath to go to the old schoolhouse for the first session of school.
From the Metz farm the road to the school began to ascend. Gradually it curved up-hill, then suddenly stretched out in a long, steep climb until, upon the summit of the hill, it curved sharply to the west to a wide clearing. It was to this clearing the little country schoolhouse with its wide porch and snug bell-tower called the children back to their studies.
Goldenrod and asters grew along the road, dogwood branches hung their scarlet berries over the edge of the woods, but Phœbe would have scorned to gather any of the flowers she loved and carry them to the new teacher. "I ain't bringing her any flowers," she soliloquized.
She trudged soberly ahead. As she reached the summit of the hill several children called to her. From three roads came other children, most of them carrying baskets or kettles filled with the noon lunch. All were eager for the opening of school, anxious to "see the new teacher once."
From the farm nearest the schoolhouse Phares Eby had come for his last year in the rural school. From the little cottage on the adjoining farm David Eby came whistling down the road.
"Hello, Phœbe," he called as he drew near to her. "Glad for school?"
"I ain't!" She flung the words at him. "You know good enough I ain't."