Anna Balmer Myers

“ The scorching heat of a midsummer day beat mercilessly upon the earth. Travelers on the dusty roads, toilers in the fields, and others exposed to the rays of the sun, thought yearningly of cooling winds and running streams. ”

“ Amanda admitted. “There’ll be another Niagara Falls, right here in Lancaster County, I’m thinkin’.”
“Ach,” said Millie, “that’s just another of them old superstitions.”
“Yes,” Aunt Rebecca said solemnly, “nobody believes them no more. But it’s a lot of truth in ’em just the same. I often took notice that as high as the spiders build their webs in August so high will the snow be that winter. Nowadays people don’t study the almanac or look for signs. Young ones is by far too smart. ”

“ Aunt Rebecca Miller was an elder sister to Mrs. Reist, so said the inscription in the big family Bible. But it was difficult to understand how the two women could have been mothered by one person.
Millie, the hired girl, expressed her opinion freely to Amanda one day after a particularly trying time with the old woman. “How that Rebecca Miller can be your mom’s sister now beats me. She’s more like a wasp than anything I ever seen without wings. It’s sting, sting all the time with her; nothin’ anybody does or says is just right. She’s faultfindin’ every time she comes. ”

“ I must hurry myself now.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Rebecca,” Amanda said softly, eager to make peace with the woman, whom she knew to be kind, though a bit severe.
“Ach, I don’t hold no spite. But I think it’s high time you learn to behave. Such a big girl like you ought to help her brother be good, not learn him tricks. Boys go to the bad soon enough. I’m goin’ now,” she addressed Mrs. Reist, “and you let me know when you boil apple butter and I’ll come and help stir.”
“All right, Rebecca. I hope the children will behave and not cut up like to-day. ”

“ Amanda said demurely, as her mother smoothed the tousled red hair back from the flushed forehead.
“My goodness! Wadin’ in the crick in dog days!” exploded Aunt Rebecca.
“Now for that she’ll turn into a doggie, ain’t, Mom?” said the boy roguishly.
Aunt Rebecca looked over her steel-rimmed spectacles at the two children who were bubbling over with laughter. “I think,” she said sternly, “people don’t learn children no manners no more.”
“Ach,” the mother said soothingly, “you mustn’t mind them. They get so full of laughin’ even when we don’t see what’s to laugh at.” ”

“ Mebbe she’d be nice inside if only abody had the dare to find out.”
“Ach, come on,” urged the boy, impatient at the girl’s philosophy. “Mom wants you to fit. Come on, get pins stuck in you and then I’ll laugh. Gee, I’m glad I’m not a girl! Fittin’ dresses on a day like this--whew! "
“Well,” she tossed her red head proudly, “I’m glad I’m one!” A sudden thought came to her--"Come in, Phil, while I fit and then we’ll set in the kitchen and count how often Aunt Rebecca says, My goodness.” ”

“ Now if you’re not a blockhead mebbe you can guess what it is.” He moved his hand about in his pocket.
“Phil, let me see.” The words were plain coaxing then.
“Here.” And he drew from his pocket a robin’s egg.
“Philip Reist! Where did you get that?” The girl’s voice was stern and loud.
“Ach, I found the dandiest nest out on one of the cherry trees and I know you like dinky birds and thought I’d get you an egg. There’s three more in the nest; I guess that’s enough for any robin. Anyhow, they had young ones in that nest early in the summer.”
“You bad boy! How dare you rob a bird’s nest? ”

“ The farmers plant their seeds any time now, beans and peas in the Posey Woman sign and then they wonder why they get only flowers ’stead of peas and beans. They take up red beets in the wrong sign and wonder why the beets cook up stringy. ”

“ My goodness, abody gets old quick.” She sighed and returned to her sewing.
“Twenty-three, countin’ the last one,” prompted Phil. “Mark it down. Gee, it’s a cinch.”
But Amanda looked sober. “Phil, mebbe it ain’t right to make fun of her so and count after how often she says the same thing. She looked kinda teary when she said that about gettin’ old quick.”
“Ach, go on,” said Philip, too young to appreciate the subtle shades of feelings or looks. “You can’t back out of it now. Gee, what’s bitin’ you? It ain’t four o’clock yet, and it ain’t right, neither, to go back on a promise. ”

“ Abody can hardly understand you half the time. Mom says you should stop it.”
“Yea, that reminds me, Manda, what I come for. Mom said you’re to come in and get your dresses tried on. And mebbe you’d like to know that Aunt Rebecca’s here again. She just come and is helpin’ to sew and if she sees our clothes wet--oh, yea!”
“Oh yea,” echoed Amanda with the innocent candor of a twelve-year-old. “Aunt Rebecca--is she here again? Ach, if she wasn’t so cranky I’d be glad still when she comes, but you know how she acts all the time.”
“Um-uh. Uncle Amos says still she’s prickly like a chestnut burr. ”

“ They don’t make nothin’ no more like they used to,” came through the open door.
“That’s one,” said Phil; “make a stroke on the paper. Jiminy Christmas, that’s easy! Bet you we get that paper full of strokes!”
“My goodness, that girl’s shootin’ up! It wouldn’t wonder me if you got to leave these dresses down till time for school. Now if I was you I’d make them plenty big and let her grow into ’em. Our mom always done that.” ”

“ Them awful things! They scare the life out abody. I don’t go in none and I don’t want no automobile hearse to haul me, neither. I’d be afraid it’d run off.”
“Great horn spoon, Aunt Rebecca, but that would be a gay ride,” the boy said, while Amanda giggled and Uncle Amos winked to Millie, who made a hurried trip to the stove for coffee.
“Ach,” came the aunt’s rebuke. “You talk too much of that slang stuff. ”

“ I better go out to the pump and clean ’em so I don’t get my new dresses dirty right aways.”
She ran to the pump on the side porch and jerked the handle up and down, while her brother followed and watched her, defiance in his eyes.
“Well,” she said suddenly, “if you want it I’ll give it to you now.” With that she caught him and soused his head in the tin basin that stood in the trough. “One for duckin’ me in the crick, and another for stealin’ that bird’s egg, and a third to learn you some sense.” ”