Amanda: A Daughter of the Mennonites Part 4

"I see, Mom, and I'll mind to remember that. I'm gettin' to know a lot o' things now, Mom, ain't? I like when you tell me things my pop said.

I'm glad I was big enough to remember him. I know yet what nice eyes he had, like they was always smilin' at you. I wish he wouldn't died, but I'm glad he's not dead for always. People don't stay dead like peepies or birds, do they?"

"No, they'll live again some day." The mother's voice was low, but a divine trust shone in her eyes. "Life would be nothing if it could end for us like it does for the birds."

"Millie says the souls of people can't die. That it's with people just like it's with the apple trees. In winter they look dead and like all they're good for was to chop down and burn, then in spring they get green and the flowers come on them and they're alive, and we know they're alive. I'm glad people are like that, ain't you?"

"Yes." She gathered the child to her arms and kissed the sensitive, eager little face. Neither Mrs. Reist nor Amanda, as yet, had read Locksley Hall, but the truth expressed there was echoing in their souls:

"Gone forever! Ever? no--for since our dying race began, Ever, ever, and forever was the leading light of man.

Indian warriors dream of ampler hunting grounds beyond the night; Even the black Australian dying hopes he shall return, a white.

Truth for truth, and good for good! The good, the true, the pure, the just-- Take the charm 'Forever' from them, and they crumble into dust."

"Ach, Mom," the child asked a few moments later, "do you mind that Christmas and the big doll?" An eager light dwelt in the little girl's eyes as she thought back to the happy time when her big, laughing father had made one in the family circle.

"Yes." The mother smiled a bit sadly. But Amanda prattled on gaily.

"That was the best Christmas ever I had! You mind how we went to market in Lancaster, Pop and you and I, near Christmas, and in a window of a store we saw a great, grand, big doll. She was bigger'n me and had light hair and blue eyes. I wanted her, and I told you and Pop and coaxed for you to buy her. Next week when we went to market and pa.s.sed the store she was still in the window. Then one day Pop went to Lancaster alone and when he came home I asked if the doll was still there, and he said she wasn't in the window. I cried, and was so disappointed and you said to Pop, 'That's a shame, Philip.' And I thought, too, it was a shame he let somebody else buy that doll when I wanted it so. Then on Christmas morning--what do you think--I came down-stairs and ran for my presents, and there was that same big doll settin' on the table in the room! Millie and you had dressed her in a blue dress. Course she wasn't in the window when I asked Pop, for he had bought her! He laughed, and we all laughed, and we had the best Christmas. I sat on my little rocking-chair and rocked her, and then I'd sit her on the sofa and look at her--I was that proud of her."

"That's five, six years ago, Amanda."

"Yes, I was _little_ then. I mind a story about that little rockin'-chair, too, Mom. It's up in the garret now; I'm too big for it.

But when I first got it I thought it was wonderful fine. Once Katie Hiestand came here with her mom, and we were playin' with our dolls and not thinkin' of the chair, and then Katie saw it and sat in it. And right aways I wanted to set in it, too, and I made her get off. But you saw it and you told me I must not be selfish, but must be polite and let her set in it. My, I remember lots of things."

"I'm glad, Amanda, if you remember such things, for I want you to grow up into a nice, good woman."

"Like you and Millie, ain't? I'm goin' to. I ain't forgot, neither, that once when I laughed at Katie for saying the Dutch word for calendar and gettin' all her English mixed with Dutch, you told me it's not nice to laugh at people. But I forgot it the other day, Mom, when we laughed at Aunt Rebecca and treated her mean. But she's so cranky and--and---"

"And she helped sew on your dresses," added the mother.

"Now that was ugly for us to act so! Why, ain't it funny, Mom, it sounds so easy to say abody should be kind and yet sometimes it's so hard to do it. When Aunt Rebecca comes next time I'm just goin' to see once if I can't be nice to her."

"Of course you are. She's comin' to-morrow to help with the apple b.u.t.ter. But now you must go to sleep or you can't get up early to see Millie put the cider on. Philip, he's asleep this long while already."

A few minutes later the child was in bed and called a last good-night to the mother, who stood in the hall, a little lighted lamp in her hand. Amanda had an eye for beauty and the picture of her mother pleased her.

"Ach, Mom," she called, "just stand that way a little once, right there."

"Why?"

"Ach, you look wonderful like a picture I saw once, in that gray dress and the lamp in your hand. It's pretty."

"Now, now," chided the mother gently, "you go to sleep now.

Good-night."

"Good-night," Amanda called after the retreating figure.

CHAPTER III

BOILING APPLE b.u.t.tER

Amanda rose early the next morning. Apple-b.u.t.ter boiling day was always a happy one for her. She liked to watch the fire under the big copper kettle, to help with the ceaseless stirring with a long-handled stirrer. She thrilled at the breathless moment when her mother tested the thick, dark contents of the kettle and announced, "It's done."

At dawn she went up the stairs with Uncle Amos to the big attic and opened and closed doors for him as he carried the heavy copper kettle down to the yard. Then she made the same trip with Millie and helped to carry from the attic heavy stone crocks in which to store the apple b.u.t.ter.

After breakfast she went out to the gra.s.sy spot in the rear of the garden where an iron tripod stood and began to gather shavings and paper in readiness for the fire. She watched Millie scour the great copper kettle until its interior shone, then it was lifted on the tripod, the cider poured into it, and the fire started. Logs were fed to the flames until a roaring fire was in blast. Several times Millie skimmed the foam from the cider.

"This is one time when signs don't work," the hired girl confided to the child. "Your Aunt Rebecca says that if you cook apple b.u.t.ter in the up-sign of the almanac it boils over easy, but it's the down-sign to-day, and yet this cider boils up all the time."

"I guess it'll all burn in the bottom," said Amanda, "if it's the down-sign."

"Not if you stir it good when the snitz are in. That's the time the work begins. Here's your mom and Philip."

"Ach, Mom,"--Amanda ran to meet her mother--"this here's awful much fun! I wish we'd boil apple b.u.t.ter every few days."

"Just wait once," said Millie, "till you're a little bigger and want to go off to picnics or somewhere and got to stay home and help to stir apple b.u.t.ter. Then you'll not like it so well. Why, Mrs. Hershey was tellin' me last week how mad her girls get still if the apple b.u.t.ter's got to be boiled in the hind part of the week when they want to be done and dressed and off to visit or to Lancaster instead of gettin' their eyes full of smoke stirrin' apple b.u.t.ter."

Mrs. Reist laughed.

"But," Amanda said with a tender glance at the hired girl, "I guess Hershey's ain't got no Millie like we to help."

"Ach, pack off now with you," Millie said, trying to frown. "I got to stop this spoilin' you. You don't think I'd stand in the hot sun and stir apple b.u.t.ter while you go off on a picnic or so when you're big enough to help good?"

"But that's just what you would do! I know you! Didn't you spend almost your whole Christmas savin' fund on me and Phil last year?"

"Ach, you talk too much! Let me be, now, I got to boil apple b.u.t.ter."

Philip ran for several boxes and old chairs and put them under a spreading cherry tree. "We take turns stirrin'," he explained, "so those that don't stir can take it easy while they wait their turn.

Jiminy Christmas, guess we'll have a regular party to-day. All of us are in it, and Aunt Rebecca's comin', and Lyman Mertzheimer, and I guess Martin Landis, and mebbe some of the little Landis ones and the whole Crow Hill will be here. Here comes Millie with the snitz!"

The pared apples were put into the kettle, then the stirring commenced.

A long wooden stirrer, with a handle ten feet long, was used, the big handle permitting the stirrer to stand a comfortable distance from the smoke and fire.

The boiling was well under way when Aunt Rebecca arrived.

"My goodness, Philip," she began as soon as she neared the fire, "you just stir half! You must do it all around the bottom of the kettle or the b.u.t.ter'll burn fast till it's done. Here, let me do it once." She took the handle from his hands and began to stir vigorously.

"Good!" cried the boy. "Now we can roast apples. Here, comes Lyman up the road, and Martin Landis and the baby. Now we'll have some fun!" He pointed to the toad, where Martin Landis, a neighbor boy, drew near with his two-year-old brother on his arm.

"But you keep away from the fire," ordered Aunt Rebecca.

The children ran off to the yard to greet the newcomers and soon came back joined by Lyman and Martin and the ubiquitous baby.

"I told you," Lyman said with mocking smiles, "that Martin would have to bring the baby along."

Martin Landis was fifteen, but hard work and much responsibility had added to him wisdom and understanding beyond his years. His frank, serious face could at times a.s.sume the look of a man of ripened experience. At Lyman's words it burned scarlet. "Ach, go on," he said quietly; "it'd do you good if you had a few to carry around; mebbe then you wouldn't be such a dude."