Patchwork Part 39

Several hours later David Eby sat before a lawyer and waited for the verdict. "I'm sorry," the lawyer shook his head. "The stock is worthless. Six months ago you might have sold it; now it's dead as a door-nail."

"Guess it was a wildcat scheme," said David.

A few minutes later he went out to the street. His Aladdin's lamp was smashed! What a fool he had been!

When he reached home Mother Bab read the news in his face. "Never mind,"

she said bravely, "we'll get along without that money."

"Yes--but"--David spoke slowly, as if fearing to hurt her further--"I hoped to have a nice bank account for you to draw on when--when I go."

"You mean----" Mother Bab stopped suddenly. Something choked her, but she faced him squarely and looked up into his face.

"Yes, mother, I mean that I must go. You want me to go, don't you?"

"Yes." The word came slowly, but David knew how truly she felt it. "You must go. I knew it right away when I saw that we were called of G.o.d to help in the fight for world peace and righteousness. You must go; there is nothing to keep you. Phares will look after the little farm. I spoke to him about it last week----"

"Mother, you knew then!"

"I saw it in your face as soon as war was declared. Phares was lovely about it and said he could just as well take your few acres in with his and pay a percentage to me for the crops he'll get from them. Phares is kind; he has a big heart, for all his queer ways and his strict views."

"Phares is too good to be related to me, mommie. I'm ashamed of myself."

"Ach, you two are just different, that's all. I can go over and stay at their house. Did you tell Phbe you are going?"

He shook his head. "I couldn't tell her yesterday. We had such a great day in the woods finding the arbutus, eating our lunch on a rock and acting just like we used to when we were ten years younger. She never mentioned war and I could not seem to break into that day of gladness to speak about the subject. I meant to tell her all about it when we got home, but then that storm came up and we stopped at a farmhouse and I heard about Caleb Warner. It struck me so hard I was just no good after that. I'll be a dandy soldier, won't I?"

He laughed and took the little woman in his arms. When, some moments later, he held the white-capped mother at arms' length and smiled into her face neither knew if the wet lashes were caused by laughter or tears.

"Some soldier you'll make," she said as she looked at him, tall, broad of shoulder, straight of spine. "Some soldier or sailor you'll make!"

CHAPTER XXIX

PREPARATIONS

THE days following the death of Caleb Warner were days of anxiety to other inhabitants of the little town who, like David, had purchased stock with glorious visions of sudden gain. In a short time the list of Warner's unfortunate investors was known and they were accorded various degrees of sympathy, rebuke or ridicule. The thing that hurt David was not so much the knowledge that some were speaking of him in condemnation or pity as the fact that he merited the condemnation.

But he had neither time nor inclination for self-pity. His country was calling for his services and he knew his duty was to offer himself. He could not conscientiously say his mother had urgent need of him for he knew that the little farm would supply enough for her maintenance.

Phares Eby, although a preacher among a sect who, as a sect, could not sanction the bearing of arms, accepted the decision of his cousin with no show of disapproval. "I don't believe in wars," he said gravely, "but there seems to be no other way this time. One of the Eby family should go. I'll be glad to keep up your farm and help look after your mother while you are gone. The most I can do here will be less than you are going to do, but I'll raise the best crops I can and help in the food end of it."

"You'll do your part here, Phares, and it will count. You're a bona-fide farmer. You'll have our little place a record farm when I get back.

You're a brick, Phares!" For the first time in months he felt a genuine affection for his preacher cousin. Preaching, prosaic Phares, how kind he was!

Lancaster County measured up to its fair standard in those first trying days of recruit gathering. The sons of the nation answered when she called. Pennsylvania Dutch, hundreds of them, rallied round the flag and proved beyond a doubt that the real Pennsylvania Dutch are not German-American, but loyal, four-square Americans who are keeping the faith. Two hundred years ago the ancestors of the present Pennsylvania Dutch came to this country to escape tyranny, and the love of freedom has been transmitted from one generation to another. The plain sects, so flouris.h.i.+ng in some portions of the Keystone State, consider war an evil, yet scores of men in navy blue and army khaki have come from homes where the mother wears the white cap, and have gone forth to do their part in the struggle for world freedom.

As David Eby measured the days before his departure he felt grateful to Mother Bab for refraining from long homilies of advice. Her whole life was a living epistle of truth and n.o.bility and she was wise enough to discern that what her son wanted most in their last days together was her customary cheerfulness--although he knew that at times the cheerfulness was a bit bluffed!

News travels fast, even in rural communities. The people on the Metz farm soon learned of David's loss of money and of his desire to enter the navy.

"Why didn't you tell me about the stock?" Phbe chided him.

"I couldn't. It knocked me out--it changed some of my plans. I knew you'd despise me and I couldn't stand that too that day."

"Despise you! How foolish to think that. Of course it's better to earn your money, but I think you learned your lesson."

"I have. I'll never try to get rich quick."

"And you're going to war!" The words were almost a cry. "What does Mother Bab say? How dreadful for her!"

"Dreadful?" he asked gently. "Phbe, think a minute--would you rather be the mother of a soldier or sailor than the mother of a slacker?"

"I would," she cried. "A thousand times rather!" She clutched his sleeve in her old impetuous manner. "I see now what it means, what war must mean to us! We must serve and be glad to do it. Your going is making it real for me. I'm proud of you and I know Mother Bab must be just about bursting with pride, for she always did think you are the grandest son in the wide world."

"Phbe, you always stroke me with the grain."

"That sounds as if you were a wooden p.u.s.s.y-cat," she said merrily. "But you are just being funny to hide your deeper feelings. I know you, David Eby! Bet your heart's like lead this minute!"

"'I have no heart,'" he quoted. "'The place where my heart was you could roll a turnip in.'"

She laughed, then suddenly grew sober. "I've been horribly selfish," she said. "Having fine clothes and a good time and dreaming of fame through my voice have taken all my time during the past winter. I have taken only the husks of life and discarded the kernels. I'm ashamed of myself."

"You mustn't condemn yourself too much. It's natural to pa.s.s through a period when those things seem the greatest things in the world, but if we do not shake off their influence and see the need of having real things to lay hold on we need to be jolted. I was money-mad, but I had my jolt."

"Then we can both make a fresh beginning. And we'll try hard to be worthy of Mother Bab, won't we, David?"

David was mute; he could merely nod his head in answer. Worthy of Mother Bab--what a goal! How sweet the name sounded from Phbe's lips! Should he tell her of his love for her? He looked into her face. Her eyes were like clear blue pools but they mirrored only sisterly affection, he thought. Ah, well, he would be unselfish enough to go away without telling of the hope of his heart. If he came back there would be ample time to tell her; it was needless to bind her to a long-absent lover. If he came back crippled--if he never came back at all---- Oh, why delve into the future!

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE FEAST OF ROSES

IN the little town of Greenwald there is performed each year in June an interesting ceremony, the Feast of Roses.

The origin of it dates back to the early colonial days when wigwam fires blazed in many clearings of this great land and Indians, fas.h.i.+oned after the similitude of bronze images, stole among the stalwart trees of the primeval forests. In those days, about the year 1762, a tract of land containing the present site of the little town of Greenwald fell into the hands of a German, who was so charmed by the fertility and beauty of the fields encircled by the winding Chicques Creek that he laid out a town and proceeded to build. The erection of those early houses entailed much labor. Bricks were imported from England and hauled from Philadelphia to the new town, a distance of almost one hundred miles.

Some time later the founder built a gla.s.s factory in the new town, reputed to have been the first of its kind in America. Skilled workmen were imported to carry on the work, and marvelously skilful they must have been, as is proven by the articles of that gla.s.s still extant. It is delicately colored, daintily shaped, when touched with metal it emits a bell-like ring, and altogether merits the praise accorded it by every connoisseur of rare and beautiful gla.s.s.

Tradition claims that the founder of that town was of n.o.ble birth, but his right to a t.i.tle is not an indisputable fact. It is known, however, that he lived in baronial style in his new town. His red brick mansion was a treasure house of tapestries, tiles and other beautiful furnis.h.i.+ngs.

However, whether he was a baron or an unt.i.tled man, he merits a share of admiration. He was founder of a gla.s.s factory, builder of a town, founder of iron works, religious and secular instructor of his employees and citizens, and earnest philanthropist.