Amanda by Anna Balmer Myers (popular books to read TXT) đ
- Author: Anna Balmer Myers
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Amos chuckled and with a loud âWhoaâ brought the horse to a standstill. Aunt Rebecca climbed from the carriage, picked up the trophy of good luck and then took her seat beside her brother again, a smile upon her lined old face.
âThatâs three horseshoes I have now. I never let one lay. I pick up all I find and take them home and hang them on the old peach tree in the back yard. I know they bring good luck. Mebbe if I hadnât picked up all them three a lot oâ trouble would come to me.â
âHave it your way,â conceded Uncle Amos. âThey donât do you no hurt, anyhow. But, Rebecca,â he said as they came within sight of her little house, âyou ought to get your place painted once.â
âAch, my goodness, what for? When itâs me here alone. I think the house looks nice. My flowers are real pretty this year, once. Course, I donât fool with them like you do. I have the kind that donât take much tendinâ and come up every year without beinâ planted. Calico flowers and larkspur and lady-slippers are my kind. This plantinâ and hoeinâ at flowers is all for nothinâ. Itâs all right to work so at beans and potatoes and things you can eat when they grow, but what good are flowers but to look at! I done my share of hoeinâ and digginâ and workinâ in the ground. I near killed myself when Jonas lived yet, in them tobacco patches. I used to say to him still, we neednât work so hard and slave like that after we had so much money put away, but he was for workinâ as long as we could, and so we kept on till he went. He used to say money gets all if you begin to spend it and donât earn more. Jonas was savinâ.â
âHe sure was, that he was,â seconded Uncle Amos with a twinkle in his eyes. âSavinâ for you and now youâre savinâ for somebody thatâll make it fly when you go, I bet. Some day youâll lay down and die and your moneyâll be scattered. If you leave me any, Becky,â he teased her, âIâll put it all in an automobile.â
âWhat, them wild things! Road-hogs, I heard somebody call âem, and I think itâs a good name. My goodness, abody ainât safe no more since they come on the streets. They go toot, toot, and you got to hop off to one side in the mud or the ditch, it donât matter to them. I hate them things! Only donât never take me to the graveyard in one of them.â
âBy that time,â said Uncle Amos, âtheyâll have flyinâ machine hearses; theyâll go faster.â
âMy goodness, Amos, how you talk! Ainât you ashamed to make fun at your old sister that way! But Mom always said when you was little that you seemed a little simple, so I guess you canât help it.â
âNa-ha,â exulted Amanda, with impish delight. âThatâs one on you. Aunt Rebecca ainât so dumb like she lets on sometimes.â
âAch, no,â Aunt Rebecca said, laughing. ââA blind pig sometimes finds an acorn, too.ââ
Aunt Rebeccaâs table, though not lavishly laden as are those of most of the Pennsylvania Dutch, was amply filled with good, substantial food. The fried sausage was browned just right, the potatoes and lima beans well-cooked, the cold slaw, with its dash of red peppers, was tasty and the snitz pieâUncle Amosâs favoriteâwas thick with cinnamon, its crust flaky and brown.
After the dishes were washed Aunt Rebecca said, âNow then, weâll go in the parlor.â
âOh, in the parlor!â exclaimed Amanda. âWhy, abodyâd think we was company. You donât often take us in the parlor.â
âAch, well, you wonât make no dirt and I just thought to-day, once, Iâd take you in the parlor to sit a while. It donât get used hardly. Wait till I open the shutters.â
She led the way through a little hall to the front room. As she opened the door a musty odor came to the hall.
âIt smells close,â said Aunt Rebecca, sniffing. âBut itâll be all right till I get some screens in.â She pulled the tasseled cords of the green shades, opened the slatted shutters, and a flood of summer light entered the room. âAch,â she said impatiently as she hammered at one window, âI can hardly get this one open still, it sticks itself so.â But after repeated thumps on the frame she succeeded in raising it and placing an old-fashioned sliding screen.
âNow sit down and take it good,â she invited.
Uncle Amos sank into an old-fashioned rocker with high back and curved arms, built throughout for the solid comfort of its occupants. Mrs. Reist chose an old hickory Windsor chair, Aunt Rebecca selected, with a sigh of relief, a fancy reed rocker, given in exchange for a book of trading stamps.
âThis hereâs the best chair in the house and it didnât cost a cent,â she announced as she rocked in it.
Amanda roamed around the room. âI ainât been in here for long. I want to look around a little. I like these dishes. I wish we had some like them.â She tiptoed before a corner cupboard filled with antiques.
âAch, yes,â her aunt answered, âmebbe it looks funny, ainât, to have a glass cupboard in the parlor, but I had no other room for it, the house is so little. If I didnât think so much of them dishes Iâd sold them aâready. That little glass with the rim round the bottom of it I used to drink out of it at my grannyâs house when I was little. Them dark shiny dishes like copper were Jonasâs momâs. And I like to keep the pewter, too, for abody canât buy it these days.â
Amanda looked up. On the top shelf of the cupboard was a silver lustre pitcher, a teapot of rose lustre, a huge willow platter with its quaint blue design, several pewter bowls, a plate with a crude peacock in bright colorsâan array of antiques that would have awakened covetousness in the heart of a connoisseur.
A walnut pie-crust tilt top table stood in one corner of the room, a mahogany gateleg occupied the centre, its beauty largely concealed by a cover of yellow and white checked homespun linen, upon which rested a glass oil lamp with a green paper shade, a wide glass dish filled with pictures, an old leather-bound album with heavy brass clasps and hinges. A rag carpet, covered in places with hooked rugs, added a proper note of harmony, while the old walnut chairs melted into the whole like trees in a woodland scene. The whitewashed walls were bare save for a large square mirror with a wide mahogany frame, a picture holder made from a palm leaf fan and a piece of blue velvet briar stitched in yellow, and a cross-stitch canvas sampler framed with a narrow braid of horsehair from the tail of a dead favorite of long ago.
âWhatâs pewter made of, Aunt Rebecca?â asked the child.
âWhy, of tin and lead. And itâs a pity they donât make it and use lots of it like they used to long ago. For you can use pewter spoons in vinegar and they donât turn black like some of these things that look like silver but ainât. Pewter is good ware and I think sometimes that the people that lived when it was used so much were way ahead of the people to-day. Pewterâs the same all through, no thin coatinâ of something shiny that can wear off and spoil the spoons or dishes. Itâs old style now but itâs good and pretty.â
âYes, thatâs so,â agreed Amanda. It was surprising to the little girl that the acidulous old aunt could, so unexpectedly, utter beautiful, suggestive thoughts. Oh, Aunt Rebeccaâs house was a wonderful place. She must see more of the treasures in the parlor.
Finally her activity annoyed Aunt Rebecca. âMy goodness,â came the command, âyou sit down once! Here, look at the album. Mebbe that will keep you quiet for a while.â
Amanda sat on a low footstool and took the old album on her knees. She uttered many delighted squeals of surprise and merriment as she turned the thick pages and looked at the pictures of several generations ago. A little girl with ruffled pantalets showing below her full skirt and a fat little boy with full trousers reaching half-way between his knees and his shoetops sent Amanda into a gale of laughter. âOh, I wish Phil was here. What funny people!â
âLet me see once,â asked Aunt Rebecca. âWhy, thatâs Amos and your mom.â
Mrs. Reist smiled and Uncle Amos chuckled. âWeâre peaches there, ainât? I guess if abody thinks back right you see there were as many crazy styles in olden times as there is now.â
Tintypes of men and women in peculiar dress of Aunt Rebeccaâs youth called forth much comment and many questions from the interested Amanda. âAre there no pictures in here of you?â she asked her aunt.
âYes, I guess so. On the last page or near there. That one,â she said as the child found it, a tintype of a young man seated on a vine-covered seat and a comely young woman standing beside him, one hand laid upon his shoulder.
âAnd is that Uncle Jonas?â
âNoâmy goodness, no! Thatâs Martin Landis.â
âMartin Landis? Not myânot the Martin Landisâs pop that lives near us?â
âYes, that one.â
âWhyââAmanda was wide-eyed and curiousââwhat were you doinâ with your hand on his shoulder so and your picture taken with him?â
Aunt Rebecca laughed. âAch, I had dare to do that for we was promised then, engaged they say now.â
âYou were goinâ to marry Martin Landisâs pop once?â The girl could not quite believe it.
âYes. But he was poor and along came Jonas Miller and he was rich and I took him. But the money never done me no good. Mebbe abody shouldnât say it, since heâs dead, but Jonas was stingy. Heâd squeeze a dollar till the eagleâd holler. He made me pinch and save till I got so I didnât feel right when I spent money. Now, since heâs gone, I donât know how. I act so dumb it makes me mad at myself sometimes. If I go to Lancaster and buy me a whole plate of icecream it kinda bothers me. I keep wonderinâ what Jonasâd think, for he used to say that half a plate of creamâs enough for any woman. But mebbe it was to be that I married Jonas instead of Martin Landis. Martin is a good man but all them childrenâmy goodness! I guess I got it good alone in my little house long side of Mrs. Landis with all her children to take care of.â
Amanda remembered the glory on the face of Mrs. Landis as she had said, âAbody can have lots of money and yet be poor and others can have hardly any money and yet be rich. Itâs all in what abody means by rich and what kind of treasures you set store by. I wouldnât change places with your rich Aunt Rebecca for all the farms in Lancaster County.â Poor Aunt Rebecca, she pitied her! Then she remembered the words of the memory gem they had analyzed in school last year, âWhere ignorance is bliss âtis folly to be wise.â She could understand it now! So long as Aunt Rebecca didnât see what she missed it was all right. But if she ever woke up and really felt what her life might have been if she had married the poor man she lovedâpoor Aunt Rebecca! A halo of purest romance hung about the old woman as the child looked up at her.
âMy
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