Amanda by Anna Balmer Myers (popular books to read TXT) đ
- Author: Anna Balmer Myers
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âYes, Martin, I know, but life ainât all piano playinâ after you get married, is it, Mom?â
Mrs. Landis laughed. âNo, itâs often other kinds of music! But Iâm not sorry Iâm married.â âMe neither,â confirmed her husband. âAnd that, Mart, is what you want to watch for when you pick a wife. Pick one so that after you been livinâ together thirty years you can both say youâre not sorry you married. Thatâs the test!â
âOh, some test!â the boy said drearily. âIâI guess youâre right, both of you. I guess it isnât a thing to rush into. But you donât know Isabel. Sheâs really a lovely, sweet girl.â
âOf course she is,â said his mother. âYou just hold on to her and go see her as often as you like. Perhaps when youâve been at the bank a while longer and can afford to get married youâll find sheâs the very one you want. Any one you pick weâll like.â
âYes, of course, yes,â said Mr. Landis. Wise parents! They knew that direct opposition to the choice of the son would frustrate their hopes for him. Let him go on seeing the butterfly and perhaps the sooner heâd outgrow her charms, they thought.
But later, as Mr. Landis unlaced his shoes and his wife took off her white Mennonite cap and combed her hair for the night, that mild man sputtered and stormed. All the gentle acquiescence was fallen from him. âThat empty-headed doll has got our Mart just wrapped round her finger! All she can say is âDelicious, lovely, darling!ââ
Mrs. Landis laughed at his imitation of the affected Isabel.
âGood guns, Mom, if any of our boys tie up with a doll like that itâll break our hearts. Why couldnât Mart pick a sensible girl that can cook and ainât too tony nor lazy to do it? A girl like Amanda Reist, now, would be more suited to him. Poor Mart, heâs bamboozled if he gets this one! But if we told him that heâd be so mad heâd run to-morrow and marry her. We got to be a little careful, I guess.â
âAch, yes, heâll get over it. Heâs a whole lot like you and I donât believe heâd marry a girl like that.â
âWell, letâs hope he shows as good taste when he picks a wife as I did, ainât, Mom?â
That summer Aunt Rebecca became ill. Millie volunteered to take care of her.
âShe ainât got no child to do for her,â said the hired girl, âand abody feels forlorn when youâre sick. Iâll go tend her if you want.â
âOh, Millie, Iâd be so glad if youâd go! Strangers might be ugly to her, for sheâs a little hard to get along with. And I canât do it to take care of her.â
âYouâwell, I guess you ainât strong enough to do work like that. If she gets real sick sheâll have to be lifted around and she ainât too light, neither. If you and Amanda can shift here Iâll just pack my telescope and go right over to Landisville.â
So Millie packed and strapped her old gray telescope and went to wait on the sick woman.
She found Aunt Rebecca in bed, very ill, with a kind neighbor ministering to her.
âMy goodness, Millie,â she greeted the newcomer, âI never was so glad to see anybody like I am you! You pay this lady for her trouble. My money is in the wash-stand drawer. Lock the drawer open and get it outâ
After the neighbor had been paid and departed Millie and the sick woman were left alone. âMillie,â said Aunt Rebecca, âyou stay with me till I go. Ach, you neednât tell me Iâll get well. I know Iâm done for. I donât want a lot oâ strangers pokinâ round in my things and takinâ care of me. Iâm crabbit and they donât have no patience.â
âAch, youâll be around again in no time,â said Millie cheerfully. âDonât you worry. Iâll run everything just like it ought to be. Iâll tend you so good youâll be up and about before you know it.â
âIâm not so easy fooled. I wonât get out of this room till Iâm carried out, I know. My goodness, abody thinks back over a lot oâ things when you get right sick once! I made a will, Millie, and a pretty good one,â the sick woman laughed as if in enjoyment of a pleasant secret. Her nurse attributed the laughter to delirium. But Aunt Rebecca went on, astonishing the other woman more and deepening the conviction that the strange talk was due to flightiness.
âYes, I made a will! Some peopleâll say I was crazy, but you tell them for me Iâm as sane as any one. My goodness, canât abody do what abody wants with your own money? Didnât I slave and scratch and skimp like everything all my life! And you bet Iâm goinâ to give that there money just where I want!â
âAch, people always fuss about wills. It gives them something to talk about,â said Millie, thinking argument useless.
âYes, it wonât worry me. I wonât hear it. I have it all fixed where and how I want to be buried, and all about the funeral. I want to have a nice funeral, eat in the meeting-house, and have enough to eat, too. I was to a funeral once and everything got all before all the people had eaten. I was close livinâ, but I ainât goinâ to be close dead.â
âNow you go to sleep,â ordered Millie. âYou can tell me the rest some other time.â
That evening as Millie sat on a low rocker by the bedside, the dim flare of an oil lamp flickering on the faces of the two women, Aunt Rebecca told more of the things she was so eager to detail while strength lasted.
âJonas always thought that if I lived longest half of what I have should go back to the Miller people, his side of the family. But I tell you, Millie, none of them ever come to see me except one or two who come just for the money. They was wishinâ long aâready Iâd die and theyâd get it. But Jonas didnât put that in the will. He left me everything and he did say once I could do with it what I want. So I made a will and Iâm givinâ them Millers five thousand dollars in all and the restâwell, youâll find out what I done with the rest after Iâm gone. I never had much good out my money and Iâm havinâ a lot of pleasure lyinâ here and thinkinâ what some people will do with what I leave them in my will. I had a lot of good that way aâready since Iâm sick. People will have something to talk about once when I die.â
And so the sick woman rambled on, while Millie thought the fever caused the strange words and paid little attention to their import. But, several weeks later, when the querulous old woman closed her eyes in her long, last sleep, Millie, who had nursed her so faithfully, remembered each detail of the funeral as Aunt Rebecca had told her and saw to it that every one was carried out.
According to her wishes, Aunt Rebecca was robed in white for burial. The cashmere dress was fashioned, of course, after the garb she had worn so many years, and was complete with apron, pointed cape, all in white. Her hair was parted and folded under a white cap as it had been in her lifetime. She looked peaceful and happy as she lay in the parlor of her little home in Landisville. A smile seemed to have fixed itself about her lips as though the pleasant thoughts her will had occasioned lingered with her to the very last.
She had stipulated that short services be held at the house, then the body taken to the church and a public service held and after interment in the old Mennonite graveyard at Landisville, a public dinner to be served in the basement of the meeting-house, as is frequently the custom in that community.
The service of the burial of the dead is considered by the plain sects as a sacred obligation to attend whenever possible. Relatives, friends, and members of the deceasedâs religious sect, drive many miles to pay their last respects to departed ones. The innate hospitality of the Pennsylvania Dutch calls for the serving of a light lunch after the funeral. Relatives, friends, who have come from a distance or live close by, and all others who wish to partake of it, are welcomed. Therefore most meeting-houses of the plain sects have their basements fitted with long tables and benches, a generous supply of china and cutlery, a stove big enough for making many quarts of coffee. And after the burial willing hands prepare the food and many take advantage of the proffered hospitality and file to the long tables, where bread, cheese, cold meat, coffee and sometimes beets and pie, await them. This was an important portion of what Aunt Rebecca called a ânice funeral,â and it was given to her.
Later in the day, while the nearest relatives were still together in the little house at Landisville, the lawyer arrived and read the will.
The Millers, who were so eager for their legacies, were impatient with all the legal phrasing, âBeing of sound mindâ and so forth. They sat up more attentively when the lawyer read, âdo hereby bequeath.â
First came the wish that all real estate be sold, that personal property be given to her sister, the sum of five hundred dollars be given to the Mennonite Church at Landisville for the upkeep of the burial ground. Then the announcement of the sum of five thousand dollars to be equally divided among the heirs of Jonas Miller, deceased, the sum of five thousand dollars to her brother Amos Rohrer, a like amount to her sister, Mrs. Reist, the sum of ten thousand dollars to Martin Landis, husband of Elizabeth Anders, and the remainder, if any, to be divided equally between said brother Amos and sister Mary.
âMartin Landis!â exploded one of the Miller women, âwho under the sun is he? To get ten thousand dollars of Rebeccaâs money!â
âIâll tell you,â spoke up Uncle Amos, âheâs an old beau of hers.â
âWell, who ever heard of such a thing! And here we are, her own blood, you might say, close relations of poor Jonas, and we get only five thousand to be divided into about twenty shares! Itâs an outrage! Such a will ought to be broken!â
âI guess not,â came Uncle Amosâs firm reply. âIt was all Rebeccaâs money and hers to do with what suited her. Sheâs made me think a whole lot more of her by this here will. Iâm glad to know she didnât forget her old beau. She was a little prickly on the outside sometimes, but I guess her heart was soft after all. Itâs all right, itâs all right, that will is! It ainât for us to fuss about. She could have give the whole lot of it to some cat home or spent it while she lived. It was hers! If thatâs all, lawyer, I guess weâll go. Mary and I are satisfied and the rest got to be. I bet Rebecca got a lot oâ good thinkinâ how Martin Landis would get the surprise of his life when she was in her grave.â
In a short time the news spread over the rural community that Rebecca Miller willed Martin Landis ten thousand dollars! Some said facetiously that it
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