Amanda by Anna Balmer Myers (popular books to read TXT) š
- Author: Anna Balmer Myers
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āGood, Millie. Of course, though, I havenāt any cellar to go to for pie or any cooky crock filled with sand-tarts with shellbarks on the top.ā
āDonāt you worry, Manda. Iāll make you sand-tarts and lemon pie and everything you like every time you come home still.ā
āMillie, you good soul! With that promise to help me Iāll work like a Trojan and win some honors at old M.S.N.S. Just watch me!ā
Amanda did work. She brought to her studies the same whole-hearted interest and enthusiasm she evinced in her hunts for wild flowers, she applied to them the same dogged determination and untiring efforts she showed in her long search for hidden bird nests, with the inevitable result that her brain, naturally alert and brilliant, grasped with amazing celerity both the easy and the hard lessons of the Normal Training course.
Millieās prediction proved well foundedāAmanda Reist stood well in her classes. In botany she was the preeminent figure of the entire school. āAsk Amanda Reist, sheāll tell you,ā became the slogan among the students. āYellow violets, lady-slippers, wild gingerāsheāll tell you where they grow or get a specimen for you.ā
When the time for graduation drew near Amanda was able to carry home the glad news that she ranked third in her class and was chosen to deliver an oration at the Commencement exercises.
āThat I want to hear,ā declared Millie, āand Iāll get a new dress to wear to it, too.ā
On the June morning when the Commencement exercises of the First Pennsylvania State Normal School took place there were hundreds of happy, eager visitors on the campus at Millersville, and later in the great auditorium, but none was happier than Millie Hess, Reistsā hired girl. The new dress, bought in Lancaster and made by Mrs. Reist and Aunt Rebecca, was a white lawn flecked with black. Millie had decided on a plain waist with high neck, the inch wide band at the throat edged with torchon lace, after the style she usually wore, the skirt made full and having above the hem, as Millie put it, āJust a few tucks, then wait a while, then tucks again.ā But Amanda, happening on the scene as the dress was tried on, protested at the high neck.
āPlease, Millie,ā she coaxed, ādo have the neck turned down, oh, just a little! Iād have a nice pleated ruffle of white net around it and a little V in front. Youād look fine that way.ā
āMe-fine! Go long with you, Amanda Reist! Aināt I got two good eyes and a lookinā-glass? But I guess I would look more like other folks if I had it made like you say. But now I donāt want it too low. You dare fix it so it looks right.ā Displaying the same meek acquiescence in the desire of Amanda she bought a stylish hat instead of the big flat sailor with its taffeta bow she generally chose. The hat was Amandaās selection, a small, modest little thing with pale pink and gray roses misty with a covering of black tulle.
āMe with pink roses on my hat and over forty years old,ā said Millie wonderingly, but when she tried it on and saw the improvement in her appearance she smiled happily. āItās the prettiest hat I ever had and Iāll hold it up and take good care of it so itāll last me years. Iām gettinā fixed up for sure once, only my new shoes donāt have no squeak in āem at all.ā
āThatās out of style,ā Amanda informed her kindly.
āIt is? Why, when I was little I remember hearinā folks tell how when they bought new shoes they always asked for a āfibās worth of squeakā in āem.ā
āAnd now they pay the shoemaker more than a āfibā to put a few pegs in the shoes and take the squeak out.ā
āWell, well, how things get different! But then Iām glad mine donāt make no noise if thatās the way now.ā
Commencement day Millie could have held her own with any well-dressed city woman. Her plain face was almost beautiful as she stood ready for the great event of Amandaās life. At the last moment she thought of the big bush of shrubs in the yardāāI must get me a shrub to smell in the Commencement,ā she decided. So she gathered one of the queer-looking, fragrant brown blossoms, tied it in the corner of her handkerchief and bruised it gently so that the sweet perfume might be exuded. āUm-ah,ā she breathed in the odor, ānow Iām ready for Millersville.ā
As she stood with Mrs. Reist and Philip on the front porch waiting for Uncle Amos she said to Mrs. Reist, āAināt Amanda fixed me up fine? Abodyād hardly know me.ā
Mrs. Reist in her plain gray Mennonite dress and stiff black silk bonnet was, as usual, an attractive figure. Philip, grown to the dignity of long trousers, carried himself with all the poise of seventeen. He was now a student in the Lancaster High School and had he not learned to dress and act like city boys do! Uncle Amos, in his best Sunday suit of gray, his Mennonite hat in his hand, ambled along last as the little group went down the aisle of the Millersville chapel to see Amandaās graduation.
As Amanda marched in, her red hair parted on the side and coiled into a womanly coiffure, wearing a simple white organdie, she was just one of the hundred graduates who marched into the chapel. But later, as she stood alone on the platform and delivered her oration, āThe Flowers of the Garden Spot,ā she held the interested attention of all in that vast audience. She knew her subject and succeeded in waking in the hearts of her hearers a desire to go out in the green fields and quiet woods and find the lovely habitants of the flower world.
After it was all over and she stood, shining-eyed and happy, among her own people in the chapel, Martin Landis joined them. He, too, had left childhood behind. The serious gravity of his new estate was deepened in his face, but the same tenderness that had soothed the numerous Landis babies also still dwelt there. One of the regrets of his heart was the fact that nature had denied him great stature. He had always dreamed of growing into a tall man, powerful in physique, like Lyman Mertzheimer. But nature was obstinate and Martin Landis reached manhood, a strong, sturdy being, but of medium height. His mother tried to assuage his disappointment by asserting that even if his stature was not great as he wished his heart was big enough to make up for it. He tried to live up to her valuation of him, but it was scant comfort as he stood in the presence of physically big men. Life had not dealt generously with him as with Amanda in the matter of education. He wanted a chance to study at some institution higher than the little school at Crow Hill but his father needed him on the farm. The elder man was subject to attacks of rheumatism and at such times the brunt of farm labor fell upon the shoulders of Martin.
Money was scarce in the Landis household, there were so many mouths to feed and it seemed to Martin that he would never have the opportunity to do anything but work in the fields from early spring to late autumn, snatch a few months for study in a business college in Lancaster, then go back again to the ploughing and arduous duties of his fatherās farm. He thought enviously of Lyman Mertzheimer, whose father had sent him to a well-known preparatory school and then started him in a full course in one of the leading universities of the country. If he had a chance like that! If he could only get away from the farm long enough to earn some money he knew he could work his way through school and fit himself for some position he would like better than farming. Some such thoughts ran through his brain as he went to congratulate Amanda on her graduation day.
āOh, Martin!ā she greeted him cordially. āSo you got here, after all. Iām so glad!ā
āSo am I. I wouldnāt have missed that oration for a great deal. I could smell the arbutusāsay, it was great, Amanda!ā
At that moment Lyman Mertzheimer joined them.
āCongratulations, Amanda,ā he said in his affected manner. As the good-looking son of a wealthy man he credited himself with the possession of permissible pride. āCongratulations,ā he repeated, ignoring the smaller man who stood by the side of the girl. āYour oration was beautifully rendered. You were very eloquent, but if you will pardon me, Iād like to remind you of one flower you forgot to mentionāa very important flower of the Garden Spot.ā
āI did?ā she said as though it were a negligible matter. āWhat was the flower I forgot?ā
āAmanda Reist,ā he said, and laughed at his supposed cleverness.
āOh,ā she replied, vexed at his words and his bold attitude, āI left that out purposely along with some of the weeds of the Garden Spot I might have mentioned.ā
āMeaning me?ā He lifted his eyebrows in question. āYou donāt really mean that, Amanda.ā He spoke in winning voice. āI know you donāt mean that so I wonāt quarrel with you.ā
āWell, I guess you better not!ā spoke up Millie who had listened to all that was said. āYou donāt have to get our Amanda cross on this here day. She done fine in that speech and weāre proud of her and donāt want you nor no one else to go spoil it by any fuss.ā
āI see you have more than one champion, Amanda. Iāll have to be very careful how I speak to you.ā He laughed but a glare of anger shone in his eyes.
A few moments later the little party broke up and Lyman went off alone. A storm raged within himāāA hired girl to speak to me like thatāa common hired girl! Iāll teach her her place when I marry Amanda. And Amanda was high and mighty to-day. Thought she owned the world because she graduated from Millersville! As though thatās anything! Sheās the kind needs a strong hand, a master hand. And Iāll be the master! I like her kind, the women who have spirit and fire. But she needs to be held under, subjected by a stronger spirit. That little runt of a Martin Landis was hanging round her, too. He has no show when Iām in the running. Heās poor and has no education. Heās just a clodhopper.ā
Meanwhile the clodhopper had also said goodbye to Amanda. For some reason he did not stop to analyze, the heart of Martin Landis was light as he went home from the Commencement at Millersville. He had always detested Lyman Mertzheimer, for he had felt too often the snubs and taunts of the rich boy. Amandaās rebuff of the arrogant youth pleased Martin.
āI like Amanda,ā he thought frankly, but he never went beyond that in the analysis of his feelings for the comrade of his childhood and young boyhood. āI like her and Iād hate to see her waste her time on a fellow like Lyman Mertzheimer. Iām glad she squelched him. Perhaps some day heāll find there are still some desirable things that money canāt buy.ā
Amanda had no desire to teach far from her home. āI want to see the whole United States if I live long enough,ā she declared, ābut I want to travel through the distant parts of it, not settle there to live. While I have a home I want
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