Patchwork Part 4

"D'ye know," he said, addressing her, "when you were cross a few minutes ago your eyes were almost black. You shouldn't get so angry still, Phbe."

"I don't care," she retorted quickly, "I don't care if my eyes was purple!"

"But you should care," persisted the boy gravely. "I don't like you so angry."

"Ach," she flashed an indignant look at him--"Phares Eby, you're by far too bossy! I like David best; he don't boss me all the time like you do!"

David laughed but Phares appeared hurt.

Phbe was quick to note it. "Now I hurt you like that lady hurt me, ain't, Phares?" she said contritely. "But I didn't mean to hurt you, Phares, honest."

"But you like me best," said David gaily. "You can't take that back, remember."

She gave him a scornful look. Then she remembered the flag in the Hogendobler garden and became happy and eager again as she said, "Oh, Phares, David, I know the best secret!"

"Can't keep it, I bet!" challenged David.

"Can't I?" she retorted saucily. "Now for that I won't tell you till you get good and anxious. But then it's not really a secret." The flag of growing flowers was too glorious a thing to keep; she compromised--"I'll tell you, because it's not a real secret." And she proceeded to unfold with earnest gesticulations the story about the flowers of red and white and blue and the invitation for all who cared to come and see the colors of Old Glory growing in the garden of Old Aaron and Granny, and of the added pleasure of hearing Old Aaron tell his thrilling story of the battle of Gettysburg.

"I won't want to hear about any battle," said Phares. "I think war is horrible, awful, wicked."

"Mebbe so," said the girl, "but the poor men who fight in wars ain't always awful, horrible, wicked. You needn't turn your nose up at the old soldiers. Folks call Old Aaron lazy, I heard 'em a'ready, lots of times, but I bet some of them wouldn't have fought like he did and left a leg at Gettysburg and--ach, I think Old Aaron is just vonderful grand!" she ended in an impulsive burst of eloquence.

"Hooray!" shouted David. "So do I! When he carries the flag out the pike every Decoration Day he's somebody, all right."

"Ain't now!" agreed Phbe.

"Been in the stores?" David asked her, feeling that a change of subject might be wise.

"Yes."

"See anything pretty?"

"Ach, yes. A lots of things. I saw the prettiest finger ring with a blue stone in. I wish I had it."

"What would Aunt Maria say to that?" wondered David.

"Ach, she'd say that so long as my finger ain't broke I don't need a band on it. But I looked at the ring at any rate and wished I had it."

"You dare never wear gold rings," Phares told her.

"Not now," she returned, "but some day when I'm older mebbe I'll wear a lot of 'em if I want."

The words set the boys thinking. Each wondered what manner of woman their little playmate would become.

"I bet she'll be a good-looking one," thought David. "She'd look swell dressed up fine like some of the people I see in town."

"Of course she'll turn plain some day like her aunt," thought the other boy. "She'll look nice in the plain dress and the white cap."

Phbe, ignorant of the visions her innocent words had called to the hearts of her comrades, chattered on until they reached the little green gate of the Metz farm.

"Now you two must climb the hill yet. I'm glad I'm home. I'm hungry."

"And me," the boys answered, and with good-byes were off on the winding road up the hill.

As Phbe turned the corner of the big gray house she came face to face with her father.

"So here you are, Phbe," he said, smiling at sight of her. "Your Aunt Maria sent me out to look if you were coming. It's time to eat. Been to the store, ain't?"

"Yes, pop. I went alone."

"So? Why, you're getting a big girl, now you can go to Greenwald alone."

"Ach," she laughed. "Why, it's just straight road."

They crossed the porch and entered the kitchen hand-in-hand, the sunbonneted little girl and the big farmer. Jacob Metz was also a member of the Church of the Brethren and bore the distinctive mark: hair parted in the middle and combed straight back over his ears and cut so that the edge of it almost touched his collar. A heavy black beard concealed his chin, mild brown eyes gleamed beneath a pair of heavy black brows. Only in the wide, high forehead and the resolute mouth could be seen any resemblance between him and the fair child by his side.

When they entered the kitchen Maria Metz turned from the stove, where she had been stirring the contents of a big iron pan.

"So you got back safe, after all, Phbe," she said with a sigh of relief. "I was afraid mebbe something happened to you, with so many streets to go across and so many teams all the time and the automobiles."

"Ach, I look both ways still before I start over. Granny Hogendobler said she'll get out early."

"So. What did she have to say?"

"Ach, lots. She showed me her flowers. Ain't it too bad, now, that her little girl died and her boy went away?"

"Well, she spoiled that boy. He grew up to be not much account if he stays away just because he and his pop had words once."

"But he'll come back some day. Granny knows he will." The child echoed the old mother's confidence.

"Not much chance of that," said Aunt Maria with her usual decisiveness.

"When a man goes off like that he mostly always stays off. He writes to her she says and I guess she's just as good off with that as if he come home to live. She's lived this long without him."

"But," argued Phbe, the maternal in her over-sweeping all else, "he's her boy and she wants him back!"

"Ach," the aunt said impatiently, "you talk too much. Were you at the store?"

"Yes. I got the thread and ordered the sugar and counted the change and there was nothing in the post-office for us."

"Did you enjoy your trip to town?" asked the father.

"Yes--but----"

"But what?" demanded Aunt Maria. "Did you break anything in the store now?"

"No. I just got mad. It was this way"--and she told the story of her pink rose.

Maria Metz frowned. "David Eby should leave his mom's roses on the stalks where they belong. Anyhow, I guess you did look funny if you poked your nose in it like you do still here."