Much to the teacher's relief she was spared the difficulty of answering the child. The aunt was bringing the visitors to Phœbe's room.
"Come in and see my things," Phœbe invited cordially, as though curls and operatic careers had never troubled her. In the excitement of displaying her quilts she apparently forgot the vital problems she had so lately discussed. But Miss Lee made a mental comment as she stood apart and watched the child among the white-capped women, "That little girl will do things before she settles into the simple, monotonous life these women lead."
CHAPTER VI
THE PRIMA DONNA OF THE ATTIC
"Aunt Maria, dare I go without sewing just this one Saturday?"
It was Saturday afternoon in early October. All the week-end work of the farmhouse was done: the walks and porches scrubbed, the entire house cleaned, the shelves in the cellar filled with pies and cakes. Maria Metz stood by the wooden frame in which she had sewed Phœbe's latest quilt and chalked lines and half-moons upon the calico, preliminary to the actual work of quilting.
Phœbe's face was eloquent as her aunt turned and looked down.
"Why?" asked the woman calmly.
"Ach, because it's my birthday, eleven I am to-day. And pop's going to bring me new hair-ribbons from Greenwald, pretty blue ones, I asked him to bring, and nice and wide"—she opened her hands in imaginary picturing of the width of the new ribbons—"but most of all," she hastened to add as she saw an expression of displeasure on her aunt's face, "I'd like to have a party all to myself. I thought that so long as you're going to have women in to help you quilt, and that is like a party, only you don't call it so, why I could have a party for me alone. I'd like to play all afternoon instead of sewing first like I do still. Dare I, I mean may I?"—in conscientious endeavor to speak as Miss Lee was trying to teach her.
