"I never heard of a Hope Chest before I came to Greenwald."
"Now don't it beat all!" The child was very serious. "We ain't at all like other people, I believe. I wonder why we are so different from you people. Oh, I know we talk different from you, and mostly look different from you and I guess we do things a lot different from you—do you think, Miss Lee, oh, do you think that I could ever get like you?"
"Yes——" Miss Lee showed hesitancy.
"For sure?" Phœbe asked, quick to note the slight delay in the answer.
"Yes, I am sure you could, dear. You can learn to dress, speak and act as people do in the great cities—but are you sure that you want to do so?"
"Want to! Why, I want to so bad that it hurts! I don't want to just go to country school and Greenwald High School and then live on a farm all the rest of my life and never get anywhere but to the store in Greenwald, to Lancaster several times a year, and to church every Sunday. I want to do some things other people in the other parts of the country do, that's what I want. I'd like best of all to be a great singer and to look and dress and talk like you. I can sing good, pop says I can."
"I have noticed you have a sweet voice."
"Ain't!" The child's voice rang with gladness. "I'm so glad I have. And David, he's glad too, for he says that he thinks it's a gift from God to have a voice that can sing as nice as the birds. David and Phares are just like my brothers. David's mom is awful nice. I like her"—she whispered—"I like her almost better than my Aunt Maria because she's so—ach, you know what I mean! She's so much like my own mom would be. I like David better than Phares, too, because Phares bosses me too much and he is wonderful strict and thinks everything is bad or foolish. He preaches a lot. He says it's bad to be a big singer and sing for the people and get money for it, in oprays, he means—is it?"
Miss Lee was startled by the ambition of the child before her and amazed at the determination revealed in her young pupil. Before she could answer wisely Phœbe went on:
"Now David says still I could be a big opray singer some day mebbe, and he don't think it's bad. I think still that singin' is about like havin' curls—if God don't want you to use your singin' and your curls what did He give 'em to you for?"