Anna Balmer Myers

“ Let him come.”
“So,” teased Uncle Amos. “Guess in a few years, Manda, you’ll be havin’ beaus. This Lyman Mertzheimer, now,--his pop’s the richest farmer round here and Lyman’s the only child. He’d be a good catch, mebbe.”
“Ach,” Amanda said in her quick way, “I ain’t thinkin’ of such things. Anyhow, I don’t like Lyman so good. He’s all the time braggin’ about his pop’s money and how much his mom pays for things, and at school he don’t play fair at recess. Sometimes, too, he cheats in school when we have a spellin’ match Friday afternoons. Then he traps head and thinks he’s smart.” ”

“ It’s the hearts of people that makes them beautiful.”
“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?” ”

“ Uncle Amos nodded his head. “Chip o’ the old block.”
“Now, look here,” chided Millie, “ain’t you ashamed, Amos, to put such notions in a little girl’s head, about beaus and such things?”
The man chuckled. “What’s born in heads don’t need to be put in.”
Amanda wondered what he meant, but her mother and Millie laughed.
“Women’s women,” he added knowingly. “Some wakes up sooner than others, that’s all! Millie, when you goin’ to get you a man? You’re gettin’ along now--just about my age, so I know--abody that cooks like you do-- "
“Amos, you just keep quiet! I ain’t lookin’ for a man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was in fall and got dark pretty early, and by the time I was done with the farm work and dressed in my best suit and half-way over to her house, it was gettin’ dusk. Now I never knew what it was to be afraid till that year my old Aunty Betz came to spend a month with us and began to tell her spook stories. She had a long list of them. One was about a big black dog that used to come in her room every night durin’ full moon and put its paws on her bed. ”