Anna Balmer Myers

“ I wonder if, after all, gold eagles are better and more to be desired than the golden roofs of our dream castles? If an automobile like Lyman Mertzheimer drives is not to be preferred to Sir Galahad’s pure white steed! I’ve clung to my romanticism and what has it brought me? It might have been wiser to let go my dreams, sweep the illusions from my eyes and settle down to a sordid, everyday existence as the wife of some man, like Lyman Mertzheimer, who has no eye for the beauties of nature but who has two eyes for me.”
Poor Amanda, destruction of her dream castles was perilously imminent! ”

“ How he had started from the car, eager to get to Amanda, then Lyman had come with his news of her engagement and the hope in his heart became stark. Where was her blue bunting with its eternal song? Ah, he had killed it with his indifference and caution and foolish blindness! He knew he stumbled along the road, grief and misery playing upon his heart strings. Then came the frantic honk of the car and Lyman in its path. Good enough for him, was the first thought of the Adam in Martin. The next second he had obeyed some powerful impulse and rushed to the help of the heedless Lyman. ”

“ A low laugh rippled from the girl’s red lips. Amanda’s ears tingled so she did not understand the exchange of light talk. The fear and jealousy in her heart dulled her senses to all save them, but she laughed, said good-bye, and hid her feelings as she and Isabel went down the road to the Reist farmhouse.
“Amanda,” the other girl said effusively, “what a fine young man! Is he your beau?”
“No. Certainly not! I have no beau. I’ve known Martin Landis ever since I was born, almost. He lives down the road a piece. He’s a nice chap.” ”

“ That afternoon Amanda walked down the country road, past the Crow Hill schoolhouse, to the Landis farm. As she came to the barn-yard she heard Emma, the youngest Landis child, crying and an older boy chiding, “Ah, you big baby! Crying about a pinched finger! Can’t you act like a soldier?”
“But girls--don’t be soldiers,” said the hurt child, sobbing in childish pain.
Amanda appeared on the scene and went to the grassy slope of the big bank barn. There she drew the little girl to her and began to comfort her. “Here, let Amanda kiss the finger.” ”

“ Uncle Amos, in his best Sunday suit of gray, his Mennonite hat in his hand, ambled along last as the little group went down the aisle of the Millersville chapel to see Amanda’s graduation.
As Amanda marched in, her red hair parted on the side and coiled into a womanly coiffure, wearing a simple white organdie, she was just one of the hundred graduates who marched into the chapel. But later, as she stood alone on the platform and delivered her oration, “The Flowers of the Garden Spot,” she held the interested attention of all in that vast audience. ”

“ The quiet meeting-house where only the calm voice of the preacher was heard invited the building of wonderful castles in Spain. Their golden spires reared high in the blue of heaven... she would be a lady in a trailing, silken gown, Martin would come, a plumed and belted knight, riding on a pure white steed like that in the Sir Galahad picture at school, and he’d repeat to her those beautiful words, “My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.” Was there really any truth in that poem? Could one be strong as ten because the heart was pure? ”

“ Reist bit her lips and refrained from answering. The expression of joy on the face of Amanda as she looked down at her new dress took away the sting of the older woman’s words. “I want,” the mother said softly, “I want my children to have a happy childhood. It belongs to them. And I want them to remember me for a kind mom.”
“Ach, Mom, you are a good mom.” Amanda leaned over the mother, who was pinning the hem in the new dress, and pressed a kiss on the top of the white-capped head. “When I grow up I want to be like you. And when I’m big and you’re old, won’t you be the nicest granny!” ”

“ They don’t look for womanly qualities, but prefer to be amused and entertained and flattered and appealed to through the senses. Brains and heart don’t seem to count. I wish I could be a butterfly! But I can never be like Isabel. When she is near I feel like a bump-on-a-log. My tongue is like lead while she chatters and holds the attention of Martin. She compels attention and crowds out everybody else. ”

“ Amanda was thoughtful as she bunched the arbutus for the market next day. “I wonder how Uncle Jonas could live with Aunt Rebecca,” she questioned. Ah, that was an enlightening test. “Am I an easy, pleasant person to live with?” Making full allowance for differences in temperament and dispositions, there was still, the girl thought, a possible compatibility that could be cultivated so that family life might be harmonious and happy.
“It’s that I am going to consider when I get married, if I ever do,” she decided that day. “I won’t marry a man who would ‘jaw’ like Aunt Rebecca. ”

“ Just as she instilled into the youthful mind the homely old-fashioned virtues of honesty, truthfulness and reverence for holy things which made Amanda, as she stood on the threshold of a new life, so richly dowered in spiritual and moral acquisitions, so had the mother laid away in the big wooden chest fine linens, useful and beautiful and symbolic of the worth of the bride whose home they were destined to enrich. ”

“ Could he win the love of a girl like Amanda Reist? She gave him her friendship freely, would she give her love also? A woman like Amanda could never be satisfied with half-gods, she would love as she did everything else--intensely, entirely! He remembered reading that propinquity often led people into mistakes, that constant companionship was liable to awaken a feeling that might masquerade as love. Well, he’d be fair to her, he’d let separation prove his love.
“That’s just what I’ll do,” he decided. “Next week I’m to go on my vacation and I’ll be gone two weeks. ”

“ Fortunately love and hope are inseparable. Amanda thought frequently of the verse, “God above is great to grant as mighty to make, and creates the love to reward the love.” It was not always so, she knew, but she hoped it would be so for her. Martin Landis, unselfish, devoted to his people, honest as a dollar, true as steel--dear Martin, how she wanted to walk home with him that night of the Spelling Bee instead of going with Lyman Mertzheimer! ”

“ But in the cosmopolitan population of Lancaster the Amish awakes a mere moment’s interest to the majority of observers. If a bit of envy steals into the heart of the little Amish girl who stands at the Square and sees a child in white organdie and pink sash tripping along with her feet in silk socks and white slippers, of what avail is it? The hold of family customs is strong among them and the world and its allurements and vanities are things to be left stringently alone.
To Amanda Reist, the Amish children made strong appeal. Their presence was one of the reasons she enjoyed tending market. ”

“ Her nurse attributed the laughter to delirium. But Aunt Rebecca went on, astonishing the other woman more and deepening the conviction that the strange talk was due to flightiness.
“Yes, I made a will! Some people’ll say I was crazy, but you tell them for me I’m as sane as any one. My goodness, can’t abody do what abody wants with your own money? Didn’t I slave and scratch and skimp like everything all my life! And you bet I’m goin’ to give that there money just where I want!”
“Ach, people always fuss about wills. It gives them something to talk about,” said Millie, thinking argument useless. ”

“ I’ll never marry him. I read somewhere that one girl said, ’I’d rather love what I cannot have, than have what I cannot love,’ and that’s just the way I feel about it. I won’t marry Lyman Mertzheimer if I have to die Amanda Reist!”
As soon as her school term was ended Amanda entered into the work of the farm. She helped Millie as much as possible in a determined effort to forget all about the man who wanted her and whom she did not want, and, more than that, to think less about her knight, her Sir Galahad, who evidently had no time to waste on girls. ”

“ But nature was obstinate and Martin Landis reached manhood, a strong, sturdy being, but of medium height. His mother tried to assuage his disappointment by asserting that even if his stature was not great as he wished his heart was big enough to make up for it. He tried to live up to her valuation of him, but it was scant comfort as he stood in the presence of physically big men. Life had not dealt generously with him as with Amanda in the matter of education. He wanted a chance to study at some institution higher than the little school at Crow Hill but his father needed him on the farm. ”

“ To the country girl’s observant, analytical mind it seemed almost impossible that a girl of Isabel’s type could truly love a plain man like Martin Landis or could ever make him happy if she married him.
“It’s just one more conquest for her to boast about,” Amanda thought. “Just as the mate of the Jack-in-the-pulpit invites the insects to her honey and then catches them in a hopeless trap, so women like Isabel play with men like Martin. ”

“ When he reached the Reist home he found Amanda and her Uncle Amos on the porch.
“Oh, it’s all right!” the girl cried as he came into the yard. “I can read it in your face.” Gladness rang in her voice like a bell.
“It’s all right,” Martin told her.
“Good! I’m glad,” said Uncle Amos while Amanda smiled her happiness.
“Was I right?” she asked. “Was it the work of Mertzheimers?”
“It was. They must hate me like poison.”
“Ach, he’s a copperhead,” said Uncle Amos. “He’s so pesky low and mean he can’t bear to see any one else be honest. You’re gettin’ up too far to suit him. ”

“ You should not go flower hunting in city clothes. With your pink and white dress and lovely Dresden sash, silk stockings and low shoes, you look more fit for a dance than a ramble after deep woods flowers, such as moccasins. But we might as well go on now.”
She led the way across the school-yard, climbed nimbly over the rail fence and laughed at Isabel’s clumsy imitation of her. Pink azaleas grew in great bushes of bloom throughout the woods. Isabel would have stopped to pick some but Amanda said, “That withers easily. Better pick them when we come back.” ”

“ Why, Martin Landis, you are an equal! If a good, honest country boy isn’t as good as a butterfly city girl I’d like to know who is! Aren’t your people and mine as good as any others in the whole world? Even if the men do eat in their shirt sleeves and the women can’t tell an oyster fork from a salad one.” The fine face of the girl was flushed and eager as she went on, “Of course, these days young people should learn all the little niceties of correct table manners so they can eat anywhere and not be embarrassed. ”

“ Make place for him,” cried Amanda as a boy of fifteen came to the kitchen door.
“You can’t come in here unless you work,” challenged Uncle Amos.
“I can do that,” said the boy, though he seemed none too eager to take the knife and plate Mrs. Reist offered him.
“You dare sit beside me,” Amanda offered.
Lyman smiled his appreciation of the honor, but the girl’s eyes twinkled as she added, “so I can watch that you make thin peelin’s.”
“That’s it,” said Uncle Amos. “Boys, listen! Mostly always when a woman’s kind to you there’s something back of it.”
“Ach, Amos, you’re soured,” said Millie. ”

“ That little glass with the rim round the bottom of it I used to drink out of it at my granny’s house when I was little. Them dark shiny dishes like copper were Jonas’s mom’s. And I like to keep the pewter, too, for abody can’t buy it these days.”
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 colors--an array of antiques that would have awakened covetousness in the heart of a connoisseur. ”

“ Your eyes are such honest eyes and always look so happy, like you could see through dark places and find the light and could look on wicked people and see the good in them and be glad about it. You keep that look in your eyes and no pretty girl will be lovelier that you are, Amanda.”
“Mother,” the girl cried after she had kissed the white-capped woman, “if my eyes shine it’s the faith and love you taught me that’s shining in them.”
During the summer preceding Amanda’s departure for school there was pleasant excitement at the Reist farm. ”