Amanda by Anna Balmer Myers (popular books to read TXT) đ
- Author: Anna Balmer Myers
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âWell, well, now let me think once.â Uncle Amos scratched his head. Then an inscrutable smile touched his lips. âWell, now,â he said after a momentâs meditation, ânow I donât see why it canât be arranged some way. Thereâs moreân one way sometimes to do things. I donât knowâI donât knowâbut I think I can see a way we could manage thatâ providinââach, weâll just wait once, mebbe itâll come out right.â
Mrs. Reist looked at her brother. What did he mean? He stammered and smiled like a foolish schoolboy. Poor Amos, she thought, how hard he had worked all his life and how little pleasure he had seemed to get out of his days! He was growing old, too, and would soon be unable to do the work on a big farm.
But Uncle Amos seemed spry enough several days later when he and Millie entered the big market wagon to go to Lancaster with the farm products. They left the Reist farmhouse early in the morning, a cold, gray winter day.
âSay, Millie,â he said soon after they began the drive, âI want to talk with you.â
âWell,â she answered dryly, âwhatâs to keep you from doinâ so? Here I am. Go on.â
âAch, Millie, now donât get obstreperous! Mandaâs mom would like to sell the farm and move to Lancaster to a little house. Then she wouldnât need me nor you.â
âWhat? Are you sure, Amos?â
âSure! She told me herself. That would leave us out a home. For I donât want to live in no city and set down evenings and look at houses or trolley cars. You can hire out to some other people, of course.â
âOh, yea! Amos. What in the worldâI donât want to live no place else.â
âWell, now, wait once, Millie. I got a plan all fixed up, something I wished long aâready I could do, only I hated to bust up the farm for my sister. Millieâach, donât you know what I mean? Letâs me and you get married!â
Millie drew her heavy blanket shawl closer around her and pulled her black woolen cap farther over her forehead, then she turned and looked at Amos, but his face was in shadow; the feeble oil lamp of the market wagon sent scant light inside.
âNow, Amos, you say that just because you take pity for me and want to fix a home for me, ainât?â
âAch, yammer, no!â came the vehement reply. âI liked you long aâready, Millie, and used to think still, âThereâs a girl Iâd like to marry!ââ
âWhy, Amos,â came the happy answer, âand I liked you, too, long aâready! I used to think still to myself, âI donât guess Iâll ever get married but if I do Iâd like a man like Amos.ââ
Then Uncle Amos suddenly demonstrated his skill at driving one-handed and something more than the blanket-shawl was around Millieâs shoulders.
âAch, my,â she said after a while, âto think of itâme, a hired girl, to get a nice, good man like you for husband!â
âAnd me, a fat dopple of a farmer to get a girl like you! Iâll be good to you, Millie, honest! You just see once if I wonât! You neednât work so hard no more. Iâll buy the farm off my sister and weâll sell some of the land and stop this goinâ to market. Itâs too hard work. We can take it easier; weâre both gettinâ old, ainât, Millie?â He leaned over and kissed her again.
âYou know,â he said blissfully, âI used to think still this here kissinâ business is all soft mush, butâwhyâI think itâs all right. Donât you?â
âAch,â she laughed as she pushed his face away gently. âThey say still there ainât no fools like old ones. I guess weâre some.â
âAll right, we donât care, long as we like it. Here,â he spoke to the horse, âgiddap with you! Abodyâd think you was restinâ âstead of goinâ to market. Weâll be late for sure this morning.â His mittened hands flapped the reins and the horse quickened his steps.
âHa, ha,â the man laughed, âI know what ails old Bill! The kissinâ scared him. He never heard none before in this market wagon. No wonder he stands still. Hereâs another for good measure.â
âAch, Amos, I think thatâs often enough now! Anyhow for this morning once.â
âHa, ha,â he laughed. âMillie, youâre all right! Thatâs what you are!â
That evening at supper Philip asked suddenly, âWhat ails you two, Uncle Amos, you and Millie? I see you grin every time you look at each other.â
âWell, nothinâ ails me except a bad case of love thatâs been stickinâ in me this long while and now itâs broke out. Millieâs caught it too.â
âWell, I declare!â Amanda was quick to detect his meaning. âYou two darlings! Iâm so glad!â
âAch,â the hired girl said, blushing rosy, âdonât go make so much fuss about it. Ainât we old enough to get married?â
âIâm glad, Millie,â Mrs. Reist told her. âAmos just needs a wife like you. He worried me long aâready, goinâ on all alone. Now I know heâll have some one to look out for him.â
âFinis! Youâre done for!â Phil said. âLay down your arms and surrender. But say, that makes it bully for Mother and me. We can move to Lancaster now. May we run out to the farm and visit you, Millie?â
âMe? Donât ask me. Itâs Amosâs.â
âMillie, you goose,â the man said happily, âwhen you marry me everything I have will be yours, too.â
âWell, did I ever! I donât believe Iâll know how to think about it that way. This nice big house wonât seem like part mine.â
âItâll be oursâ Uncle Amos said, smiling at the word.
And so it happened that the preparation of another wedding outfit was begun in the Reist farmhouse.
âI donât need fancy things like Amanda,â declared the hired girl. âI wear the old style oâ clothes yet. And for top things, why, I made up my mind Iâm goinâ to wear myself plain and be a Mennonite.â
âPlain,â said Mrs. Reist. âWonât Amos be glad! He likes you no matter what clothes you wear, but itâs so much nicer when you can both go to the same church. Heâll be glad if you turn a Mennonite.â
âWell, Iâm goinâ to be one. So I wonât want much for my weddinâ in clothes, just some plain suits and bonnets and shawl. But I got no chest ready like Amanda has. I never thought Iâd need a Hope Chest. When I was little I got knocked around, but as soon as I could earn money I saved a little all the time and now I got a pretty good bit laid in the bank. I can take that and get me some things I need.â
Mrs. Reist laid her hands on the shoulders of the faithful hired girl. âNever mind, Millie, youâll have your chest! Weâll go to Lancaster and buy what you want. Amos got his share of our motherâs things when we divided them and he has a big chest on the garret all filled with homespun linen and quilts and things that you can use. That will all be yours.â
âMine? I canât hardly believe it. You couldnât be nicer to me if you was my own mom. And I ainât forgettinâ it neither! I said to Amos we wonât get married till after Amanda and when you and Phil are all fixed in your new house. Then weâll go to the preacher and get it done. We donât want no fuss, just so we get married, thatâs all we want. It neednât be done fancy.â
Amanda married Martin that May, when the cherry blossoms transformed the orchard into a sea of white.
To the rear of the farmhouse stood a plot of ground planted with cherry trees. Low grass under the trees and little paths worn into it led like aisles up and down. There, near the centre of the plot, Amanda and Martin chose the place for the ceremony. The march to and from that spot would lead through a white-arched aisle sweet with the breath of thousands of cherry blossoms.
Amanda selected for her wedding a dress of white silk. âI do want a wedding dress I can pack away in an old box on the attic and keep for fifty years and take out and look at when itâs yellow and old,â she said, romance still burning in her heart.
âUh,â said practical Millie. âWhy, there ainât no attic in that house youâre goinâ to! Them bungalows ainât the kind I like. I like a real house.â
âWell, thereâs no garret like ours, but there is a little raftered room with a slanting ceiling and little windows and I intend to put trunks and boxes in it and take my spinning-wheel that Granny gave me and put it there.â
âA spinning-wheel! What under the sun will you do with that?â
âLook at it,â was the strange reply, at which Millie shook her head and went off to her work.
âAre you going to carry flowers, and have a real wedding?â Philip asked his sister the day before the wedding.
âI donât need any, with the whole outdoors a mass of bloom. If the pink moccasins were blooming Iâd carry some.â
âPinkâwith your red hair!â The boy exercised his brotherly prerogative of frankness.
âYes, pink! Whose wedding is this? Iâd carry pink moccasins and wear my red hair if theyâif the two curdled! But Iâll have to find some other wild flowers.â
He laughed. âThen Iâll help you pick them.â
âMartin and I are going for them, thanks.â
âOh, donât mention it! I wouldnât spoil that party!â He began whistling his old greeting whistle. He had forgotten it for several years but some chord of memory flashed it back to him at that moment.
At the sound of the old melody Amanda stepped closer to the boy. âPhil,â she said tenderly, âyou make me awful mad sometimes but I like you a lot. I hope youâll be as happy as I am some day.â
âAh,â he blinked, half ashamed of any outward show of emotion. âYouâre all right, Sis. When I find a girl like you Iâll do the wedding ring stunt, too. Now, since weâve thrown bouquets at each other letâs get to work. What may I do if Iâm debarred from the flower hunt?â
âGo ask Millie.â
âGee, Sis, have a heart! Sheâs been love struck, too. Regular epidemic at Reistsâ!â But he went off to offer his services to the hired girl.
As Amanda dressed in her white silk gown she wished she were beautiful. âEvery girl ought to have beauty once in her life,â she thought. âEven for just one hour on her wedding day it would be a boon. But then, love is supposed to be blind, so perhaps Martin will think I am beautiful to-day.â
She was not beautiful, but her eyes shone soft and her face was expressive of the joy in her heart as she stood ready for the ceremony which was the consummation of her love for the knight of her girlhoodâs dreams.
It would be impossible to find a more beautiful setting for a wedding than the Reist cherry orchard that May day. There were rows of trees, with their fresh young green and their canopies of lacy bloom through which the warm May sunshine trickled like gold. As Amanda and Martin stood before the waiting clergyman and in the presence of relatives, friends and neighbors, faint breezes stirred the branches and fugitive little petals loosened from the hearts of the blossoms and fell upon the happy people gathered under the white glory of the orchard.
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