Amanda by Anna Balmer Myers (popular books to read TXT) đ
- Author: Anna Balmer Myers
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âNothinâ ails us,â declared Phil. âWe just feel like laughinâ.â
âAch,â said Aunt Rebecca, âthis dumb laughinâ is all for nothinâ. Anyhow, you better not laugh too much, for you got to cry as much as you laugh before you die.â
âThen Iâll have to cry oceans!â Amanda admitted. âThereâll be another Niagara Falls, right here in Lancaster County, Iâm thinkinâ.â
âAch,â said Millie, âthatâs just another of them old superstitions.â
âYes,â Aunt Rebecca said solemnly, ânobody believes them no more. But itâs a lot of truth in âem just the same. I often took notice that as high as the spiders build their webs in August so high will the snow be that winter. Nowadays people donât study the almanac or look for signs. Young ones is by far too smart. The farmers plant their seeds any time now, beans and peas in the Posey Woman sign and then they wonder why they get only flowers âstead of peas and beans. They take up red beets in the wrong sign and wonder why the beets cook up stringy. The women make sauerkraut in Gallas week and wonder why itâs bitter. I could tell them whatâs the matter! Thereâs more to them old womenâs signs than most people know. I never yet heard a dog cry at night that I didnât hear of some one I know dyinâ soon after. I wouldnât open an umbrella in the house for ten dollarsâitâs bad luckâyes, you laugh,â she said accusingly to Philip. âBut you got lots to learn yet. My goodness, when I think of all I learned since I was as old as you! Of all the new things in the world! I guess till youâre as old as I am thereâll be lots more.â
âSure Mike,â said the boy, rather flippantly. âWhatâs all new since you was little?â he asked his aunt.
âTelephone, them talkinâ machines, sewinâ machinesâanyhow, they were mighty scarce thenâtrolleysâ-â
âAutomobiles?â
âMy goodness, yes! Them awful things! They scare the life out abody. I donât go in none and I donât want no automobile hearse to haul me, neither. Iâd be afraid itâd run off.â
âGreat horn spoon, Aunt Rebecca, but that would be a gay ride,â the boy said, while Amanda giggled and Uncle Amos winked to Millie, who made a hurried trip to the stove for coffee.
âAch,â came the auntâs rebuke. âYou talk too much of that slang stuff. I guess Iâll take the next trolley home,â she said, unconscious of the merriment she had caused. âIâd like to help with the dishes, but I want to get home before it gets so late for me. Anyhow, Amanda is big enough to help. When I was big as her I cooked and baked and worked like a woman. Why, when I was just a little thing, Momâd tell me to go in the front room and pick the snipples off the floor and Iâd get down and do it. Nobody does that now, neither. They run a sweeper over the carpets and wear âem out.â
âBut the floors are full of germs,â said Amanda.
âChermsâwhat are them?â
âWhy, dreadful things! I learned about them at school. They are little, crawly bugs with a lot of legs, and if you eat them or breathe them in youâll get scarlet fever or diphtheria.â
âAch, thatâs too dumb!â Aunt Rebecca was unimpressed. âI donât believe in no such things.â With that emphatic remark she stalked to the sitting-room for her bonnet. She met Phil coming out, his hands in his pockets. He paused in the doorway as Amanda and her mother joined the guest.
Aunt Rebecca lifted the black silk bonnet carefully from the little table and Amanda shifted nervously from one foot to the other. If only Aunt Rebecca wouldnât hold the bonnet so the worm would fall to the floor! Then the woman gave the stiff headgear a dexterous turn and the squirming thing landed on her head.
âMy goodness! My goodness!â she cried as something soft brushed her cheek. Intently inquisitive, she stooped and picked from the floor a fat, green, wriggling tobacco worm.
âOne of them cherms, I guess, Amanda, ainât?â she said as she looked keenly at the child.
Amanda blushed and was silent. Philip was unable to hide his guilt. âNow, when did tobacco worms learn to live in bonnets?â she asked the boy as she eyed him reproachfully.
Mrs. Reist looked hurt. Her gentle reproof, âChildren, Iâm ashamed of you!â cut deeper with Amanda than the scolding of Aunt RebeccaââYouâre a bad pair! Almost you spoiled me my good bonnet. If Iâd squeezed that worm on my cap it would have ruined it! My goodness, you both need a good spankinâ, thatâs what. Too bad you ainât got a pop to learn you!â
âIt was only for fun, Aunt Rebecca,â said Amanda, truly ashamed. But Phil put his hand over his mouth to hide a grin.
âFunâwhat for fun is thatâto be so disrespectful to an old aunt? And you, Philip, ainât one bit ashamed. Your mom just ought to make you hunt all the worms in the whole tobacco patch. My goodness, look at that clock! Next with this dumb foolinâ Iâll miss that trolley yet. I must hurry myself now.â
âIâm sorry, Aunt Rebecca,â Amanda said softly, eager to make peace with the woman, whom she knew to be kind, though a bit severe.
âAch, I donât hold no spite. But I think itâs high time you learn to behave. Such a big girl like you ought to help her brother be good, not learn him tricks. Boys go to the bad soon enough. Iâm goinâ now,â she addressed Mrs. Reist, âand you let me know when you boil apple butter and Iâll come and help stir.â
âAll right, Rebecca. I hope the children will behave and not cut up like to-day. You are always so ready to help usâI canât understand why they did such a thing. Iâm ashamed.â
âAch, itâs all right, long as my bonnet ainât spoiled. If that had happened then thereâd be a different kind oâ bird pipinâ.â
After she left Philip proceeded to do a Comanche Indian danceâin which Amanda joined by being pulled around the room by her dress skirtâin undisguised hilarity over the departure of their grim relative. Boys have little understanding of the older person who suppresses their animal energy and skylarking happiness.
âI ainât had so much fun since Adam was a boy,â Philip admitted with pretended seriousness, while the family smiled at his drollness.
Apple-butter boiling on the Reist farm occurred frequently during August and September. The choice fruit of the orchard was sold at Lancaster market, but bushels of smaller, imperfect apples lay scattered about the ground, and these were salvaged for the fragrant and luscious apple butter. To Phil and Amanda fell the task of gathering the fruit from the grass, washing them in big wooden tubs near the pump and placing them in bags. Then Uncle Amos hauled the apples to the cider press, where they came forth like liquid amber that dripped into fat brown barrels.
Many pecks of pared fruit were required for the apple-butter boiling. These were paredâthe Pennsylvania Dutch say snitzedâthe night before the day of boiling.
âMom,â Amanda told her mother as they ate supper one night when many apples were to be pared for the next dayâs use, âLyman Mertzheimer seen us pick apples to-day and he said heâs cominâ over to-night to the snitzinâ partyâdâyou care?â
âNo. Let him come.â
âSo,â teased Uncle Amos. âGuess in a few years, Manda, youâll be havinâ beaus. This Lyman Mertzheimer, now,âhis popâs the richest farmer round here and Lymanâs the only child. Heâd be a good catch, mebbe.â
âAch,â Amanda said in her quick way, âI ainât thinkinâ of such things. Anyhow, I donât like Lyman so good. Heâs all the time bragginâ about his popâs money and how much his mom pays for things, and at school he donât play fair at recess. Sometimes, too, he cheats in school when we have a spellinâ match Friday afternoons. Then he traps head and thinks heâs smart.â
Uncle Amos nodded his head. âChip oâ the old block.â
âNow, look here,â chided Millie, âainât you ashamed, Amos, to put such notions in a little girlâs head, about beaus and such things?â
The man chuckled. âWhatâs born in heads donât need to be put in.â
Amanda wondered what he meant, but her mother and Millie laughed.
âWomenâs women,â he added knowingly. âSome wakes up sooner than others, thatâs all! Millie, when you goinâ to get you a man? Youâre gettinâ along nowâjust about my age, so I knowâabody that cooks like you doâ
â
âAmos, you just keep quiet! I ainât lookinâ for a man. I got a home, and if I want something to growl at me Iâll go pull the dogâs tail.â
That evening the kitchen of the Reist farmhouse was a busy place. Baskets of apples stood on the floor. On the table were huge earthen dishes ready for the pared fruit. Equipped with a paring knife and a tin pie-plate for parings every member of the household drew near the table and began snitzing. There was much merry conversation, some in quaint Pennsylvania Dutch, then again in English tinged with the distinctive accent. There was also much laughter as Uncle Amos vied with Millie for the honor of making the thinnest parings.
âHere comes Lyman. Make place for him,â cried Amanda as a boy of fifteen came to the kitchen door.
âYou canât come in here unless you work,â challenged Uncle Amos.
âI can do that,â said the boy, though he seemed none too eager to take the knife and plate Mrs. Reist offered him.
âYou dare sit beside me,â Amanda offered.
Lyman smiled his appreciation of the honor, but the girlâs eyes twinkled as she added, âso I can watch that you make thin peelinâs.â
âThatâs it,â said Uncle Amos. âBoys, listen! Mostly always when a womanâs kind to you thereâs something back of it.â
âAch, Amos, youâre soured,â said Millie.
âNo, not me,â he declared. âI know thereâs still a few good women in the world. Ach, yea,â he sighed deeply and looked the incarnation of misery, âsoon Iâll have three to boss me, with Amanda here growinâ like a weed!â
âDonât you know,â Mrs. Reist reminded him, âhow Granny used to say that one good boss is better than six poor workers? You donât appreciate us, Amos.â
âI give up.â Uncle Amos spread his hands in surrender. âI give up. When women start arguinâ whereâs a man cominâ in at?â
âI wouldnât give up,â spoke out Lyman. âA man ought to have the last word every time.â
âAch, you donât know women,â said Uncle Amos, chuckling.
âA man was made to be master,â the youth went on, evidently quoting some recent reading. âWoman is the weaker vessel.â
âWait till you try to break one,â came Uncle Amosâs wise comment.
âI,â said Lyman proudly, âI could be master of any woman I marry! And I bet, I dare to bet my popâs farm, that any girl I set out to get I can get, too. Iâd just carry her off or something. âAllâs fair in love and war.ââ
âThem twoâs the same thing, sonny, but you donât know it yet,â laughed Uncle Amos. âIt sounds mighty strong and brave to talk like you were a giant or king, or something, and I only hope Iâm livinâ and here in Crow Hill so I can see how you work that game of carryinâ off the girl you like. Iâd like to see it, Iâd sure
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