Amanda | Page 9

here,' she hollered; 'who wants such a smell in the house!' I cleared out, and when I got home Mom was in bed, but Pop was readin' the paper in the kitchen. I opened the door. 'Clear out of here,' he ordered;' who wants such a smell in the house! Go to the wood-shed and I'll get you soap and water and other clothes.' So I went to the wood-shed, and he came out with a lantern and water and clothes and I began to scrub. After I was dressed we went to the barn-yard and he held the lantern while I dug a deep hole, and the clothes, my best Sunday clothes, went down into the ground and dirt on top. And that settled courtin' for a while with me."
Uncle Amos's story had interfered with the snitzing.
"Say," said Millie, "how can abody snitz apples when you make 'em laugh till the tears run down over the face?"
"Oh, come on," cried Amanda, "I just thought of it--let's tell fortunes with the peelin's! Everybody peel an apple with the peelin' all in one piece and then throw it over the right shoulder, and whatever letter it makes on the floor is the initial of the person you're goin' to marry."
"All right. Now, Millie, no cheatin'," teased Uncle Amos. "Don't you go peel yours so it'll fall into a Z, for I know that Zach Miller's been after you this long while already."
"Ach, him? He's as ugly as seven days' rainy weather."
"Ach, shoot it," said Phil, disgust written on his face as he threw a paring over his shoulder; "mine always come out an S. Guess that's the only letter you can make. S for Sadie, Susie--who wants them? That's a rotten way to tell fortunes!"
"Now look at mine, everybody!" cried Amanda as she flung her long apple paring over her shoulder.
"It's an M," shouted Phil. "Mebbe for Martin Landis. Jiminy Christmas, he's a pretty nice fellow. If you can hook him----"
"M stands for Mertzheimer," said Lyman proudly. "I guess it means me, Amanda, so you better begin to mind me now when we play at recess at school and spell on my side in the spelling matches."
"Huh," she retorted ungraciously, "Lyman Mertzheimer, you ain't the only M in Lancaster County!"
"No," he replied arrogantly, "but I guess that poor Mart Landis don't count. He's always tending one of his mom's babies--some nice beau he'd make! If he ever goes courting he'll have to take along one of the little Landis kids, I bet."
Phil laughed, but Amanda flushed in anger. "I think that's just grand of Martin to help his mom like that," she defended. "Anyhow, since she has no big girls to help her."
"He washes dishes. I saw him last week with an apron on," said Lyman, contempt in his voice.
"Wouldn't you do that for your mom if she was poor and had a lot of children and no one to help her?" asked the girl.
"Not me! I wouldn't wash dishes for no one! Men aren't made for that."
"Then I don't think much of _you_, Lyman Mertzheimer!" declared Amanda with a vigorous toss of her red head.
"Come, come," Mrs. Reist interrupted, "you mustn't quarrel. Of course Lyman would help his mother if she needed him."
Amanda laughed and friendliness was once more restored.
When the last apple was snitzed Uncle Amos brought some cold cider from the spring-house, Millie fetched a dish of cookies from the cellar, and the snitzing party ended in a feast.
That night Mrs. Reist followed Amanda up the stairs to the child's bedroom. They made a pretty picture as they stood there, the mother with her plain Mennonite garb, her sweet face encircled by a white cap, and the little red-haired child, eager, active, her dark eyes glimpsing dreams as they focused on the distant castles in Spain which were a part of her legitimate heritage of childhood. The room was like a Nutting picture, with its rag carpet, old-fashioned, low cherry bed, covered with a pink and white calico patchwork quilt, its low cherry bureau, its rush-bottom chairs, its big walnut chest covered with a hand-woven coverlet gay with red roses and blue tulips. An old- fashioned room and an old-fashioned mother and daughter--the elder had seen life, knew its glories and its dangers, had tasted its sweetness and drained its cups of sorrow, but the child--in her eyes was still the star-dust of the "trailing clouds of glory."
"Mom," she asked suddenly as her mother unbraided the red hair and brushed it, "do you like Lyman Mertzheimer?"
"Why--yes---" Mrs. Reist hesitated.
"Ach, I don't mean that way, Mom," the child said wisely. "You always say abody must like everybody, but I mean like him for real, like him so you want to be near him. He's good lookin'. At school he's