Anna Balmer Myers

“ Her eyes roved over the fair panorama of Lancaster County in early spring dress. As she neared the house she saw her Uncle Amos resting under a giant sycamore tree that stood in the front yard.
“Good times,” she called to him.
“Hello, Manda,” he answered. “You’re home early.”
“Early--it’s half-past four. Have you been asleep and lost track of the time?”
He took a big silver watch from a pocket and whistled as he looked at it. “Whew! It is that late! Time for me to get to work again. Your Aunt Rebecca’s here.” ”

“ I heard a’ready that they are all liars. You’re by far too easy!”
“Oh, Aunt Rebecca,” said Amanda, “not all lawyers are liars. Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer.”
“Ach, I guess he was no different from others, only he’s dead so abody shouldn’t talk about him.”
Amanda sighed and turned to her mother. “Mother, I’m going up to put on an old dress and when Phil comes we’re going over to the woods for arbutus.”
“All right.”
But the aunt did not consider it all right. “Why don’t you help cut carpet rags?” she asked. “That would be more sense than runnin’ out after flowers that wither right aways.” ”

“ Stiegel glass is rare and valuable so if you have any more hold on to it and I’ll buy it from you.”
“Well, I guess! I wouldn’t leave you pay five dollars for a glass pitcher! But I wish I had that one back. It spites me now I sold it. My goodness, abody can’t watch out enough so you won’t get cheated. Where did you learn so much about that old glass?”
“Oh, I read about it in a book last year,” came the ready answer.
Aunt Rebecca looked at the girl, but Amanda’s face bore so innocent an expression that the woman could not think her guilty of emphasizing the word purposely. ”

“ We may not want to live here ten years from now. But, Mother,” he veered suddenly, “got any pie left from dinner? I’m hungry. May I forage?”
“Help yourself, Philip. There’s a piece of cherry pie and a slice of chocolate cake in the cellar.”
“Hurray, Mother! I’m going to see that you get an extra star in your crown some day for feeding the hungry.”
“But you spoil him,” said Aunt Rebecca as Phil went off to the cellar. “And if that boy ain’t always after pie! I mind how he used to eat pie when he was little and you brought him to see us. ”

“ If I had Aunt Rebecca for a mother--but perhaps she’d be different then. Oh, Uncle Amos, do you remember the howl she raised when we had our house wired for electricity?”
“Glory, yes! She was scared to death to come here for a while.”
“And Phil wickedly suggested we scare her again! But she was afraid of it. She was sure the house would be struck by lightning the first thunder-storm we’d have. And when we put the bath tub into the house-- whew! Didn’t she give us lectures then! She has no use for ‘swimmin’ tubs’ to this day. If folks can’t wash clean out of a basin they must be powerful dirty! ”

“ According to your reasoning, we’re as good as missionaries when we find wild flowers and take or send them to the city market to sell. Aunt Rebecca wouldn’t see that. She’d see the money end of it. Poor soul! ”

“ I’m ashamed of myself, Uncle Amos, but I think Aunt Rebecca gets worse as she grows older.”
“’Fraid so,” the man agreed soberly. “Well, we can’t all be alike. Too bad, now, she don’t take after me, eh, Amanda?” ”

“ She worked in the fields often and she could stand more yet than a lot o’ lazy men. I didn’t answer her but I came out here and got my rest just the same. She ain’t bossin’ her brother Amos yet! But now I got to work faster for this doin’ nothin’ under the tree.”
When Amanda entered the kitchen she found her mother and the visitor cutting carpet rags. Old clothes were falling under the snip of the shears into a peach basket, ready to be sewn together, wound into balls and woven into rag carpet by the local carpet weaver on his hand loom. ”

“ Well, I guess that horse of yourn can get me anywhere I want to go fast enough to suit me. I got no time for all these new-fangled things, like wagons that run without horses, and lights you put on and off with a button. It goes good if you don’t get killed yet with that automobile. ”

“ So I wish I could get a school in Lancaster County.”
Her wish was granted. There was an opening in Crow Hill, in the little rural school in which she had received the rudiments of her education. Amanda applied for the position and was elected.
She brought to that little school several innovations. Her love and knowledge of nature helped her to make the common studies less monotonous and more interesting. ”

“ I don’t see nothin’ in that Stiegel glass to make it so dear. Why, I had a little white glass pitcher, crooked it was, too, and nothin’ extra to look at. But along come one of them anteak men, so they call themselves, the men that buy up old things. Anyhow, he offered to give me a dollar for that little pitcher. Ach, I didn’t care much for it, though it was Jonas’s granny’s still. I sold it to that man quick before he’d change his mind and mebbe only give me fifty cents.”
“You sold it?” asked Amanda. ”

“ It naturally followed that adverse criticism grew and grew, like Longfellow’s pumpkin, and many curious visitors came to Crow Hill school. The patrons, taxpayers, directors were concerned and considered it their duty to drop in and observe how things were being run in that school. They found that the three R’s were still taught efficiently, even if they were taught with the aid of chestnuts, autumn leaves and flowers ”