Amanda's lips trembled. The relief and happiness occasioned by the words of the speaker almost brought her to tears. The children, appreciating the compliment to their teacher, clapped hands until the little room resounded with deafening noise.

"That's good," said the distinguished visitor, smiling, as the applause died down. "You stick to your teacher like that and follow her lead and I am sure you will develop into men and women of whom Lancaster County will be proud."

After a few more remarks, a joke or two, he went back to his seat with the directors. Mr. Mertzheimer avoided meeting his eyes. The father of Lyman Mertzheimer, who had been so loud in his denunciation of the tomfoolery baskets and dried weeds, suddenly developed an intense interest in a tray of b.u.t.terflies and milkweed.

In a few minutes it was time for dismissal. One of the older girls played a simple march on the little organ and the scholars marched from the room. With happy faces they said good-bye, eager to run home and tell all about the visit of the County Superintendent and the things he said.

As the visitors rose to go the County Superintendent stepped away from the others and went to Amanda.

"You have been very kind," she told him, joy showing in her animated face.

"Honor to whom honor is due, Miss Reist," he said, with that winning smile of approval so many teachers worked to win. "I have here a little thing I want you to read after we leave. It is a copy of a letter you might like to keep, though I feel certain the writer of it would feel embarra.s.sed if told of your perusal of it. I want to add that I should have felt the same and made similar remarks to-day if I had not read that letter, but probably I should not have expressed my opinion quite so forcibly. Keep the letter. I intend to keep the original. It renews faith in human nature in general. It makes me feel anew how good a thing it is to have a friend. Good-bye, Miss Reist. I have enjoyed my visit to Crow Hill school, I a.s.sure you."

Amanda looked at him, wondering. What under the sun could he mean? Why should she read a letter written to him? She smiled, shook the hand he offered, but was still at a loss to understand his words. The directors came up to say good-bye. Mr. Mertzheimer bowed very politely but refrained from meeting her eyes as he said, "Good-afternoon." The other men did not bow but they added to their good-bye, "I'm going to vote for you. We don't want to lose you."

Amanda's heart sang as the two carriages rolled away and she was left alone in the schoolroom. She had seen the device of the wicked come to naught, she gloried in the fact that the mean and unfair was once more overbalanced by the just and kind. After the tribute from the County Superintendent and the promises from all the directors but Mr.

Mertzheimer she felt a.s.sured that she would not be ignominiously put out of the school she loved. Then she thought of the letter and opened it hastily, her eyes traveling fast over the long sheet.

"DEAR MISTER,

Maybe it ain't polite to write to you when you don't know me but I got a favor to ask you and I don't know no other way to do it. Amanda Reist is teacher of the Crow Hill school and she is a good one, everybody says so but a few old cranks that don't know nothing. There's one of the directors on the school board has got a son that ain't worth a hollow bean and he wants Amanda should take him for her beau. She's got too much sense for that, our Amanda can get a better man than Lyman Mertzheimer I guess. But now since she won't have nothing to do with him he's got his pop to get her out her school. The old man has asked another girl to ask for the job and he's talked a lot about Amanda till some of the other directors side with him. He's rich and a big boss and things got to go his way. Most everybody says Amanda's a good teacher, the children run to meet her and they learn good with her. I heard her say you was coming to visit the school soon and that the directors mostly come with you and I just found out where you live and am writing this to tell you how it is. Perhaps if you like her school and would do it to tell them directors so it would help her. It sometimes helps a lot when a big person takes the side of the person being tramped on.

Amanda is too high strung to ask any of the directors to stick to her.

She says they can see what kind of work she does and if they want to let one man run the school board and run her out she'll go out. But she likes that school and it's near her home and we'd all feel bad if she got put out and went off somewheres far to teach. I'm just the hired girl at her house but I think a lot of her. I will say thanks very much for what you can do.

And oblige, AMELIA HESS.

P. S. I forgot to say Amanda don't know I have wrote this. I guess she wouldn't leave me send it if she did."

Tears of happiness rolled down the girl's face as she ended the reading of the letter. "The dear thing! The loyal old body she is! So that was why she borrowed my dictionary and shut herself up in her room one whole evening! Just a hired girl she says--could any blood relative do a kinder deed? Oh, I don't wonder he said it renews faith in human nature! I guess for every Mertzheimer there's a Millie. I'll surely keep this letter but I won't let her know I have any idea about what she did. I'm so glad he gave it to me. It takes the bitter taste from my mouth and makes life pleasant again. Now I'll run home with the news of the Superintendent's visit and the nice things he said."

She did run, indeed, especially when she reached the yard of her home.

By the time the gate clicked she was near the kitchen door. Millie was rolling out pies, Mrs. Reist was paring apples.

"Mother," the girl twined an arm about the neck of the white-capped woman and kissed her fervently on the cheek, "I'm so excited! Oh, Millie," she treated the astonished woman to the same expression of love.

"What now?" said Millie. "Now you got that flour all over your nice dress. What ails you, anyhow?"

"Oh, just joy. The Superintendent was here and he puffed me way up to the skies and the directors, all but Mr. Mertzheimer, promised to vote for me. I didn't ask them too, either."

"I'm so glad," said Mrs. Reist.

"Ach, now ain't that nice! I'm glad," said Millie, her face bright with joy. "So he puffed you up in front of them men? That was powerful nice for him to do, but just what you earned, I guess. I bet that settled the Mertzheimer hash once! That County man knows his business. He ain't goin' through the world blind. What all did he say?"

"Oh, he was lovely. He liked the baskets and the cla.s.ses and the singing and--everything! And Mr Mertzheimer looked madder than a setting hen when you take her off the nest. He hung his head like a whipped dog."

"Na-ha!" exulted Millie. "That's one time that he didn't have his own way once! I bet he gets out of the school board if he can't run it."

Her prediction came true. Mr. Mertzheimer's dignity would not tolerate such trampling under foot. If that red-headed teacher was going to keep the school he'd get out and let the whole thing go to smash! He got out, but to his surprise, nothing went to smash. An intelligent farmer, more amenable to good judgment, was elected to succeed him and the Crow Hill school affairs went smoothly. In due time Amanda Reist was elected by unanimous vote to teach for the ensuing year and the Mertzheimers, thwarted, nursed their wrath, and sat down to think of other avenues of attack.

CHAPTER XV

"MARTIN'S GIRL"

If the securing of the coveted school, the a.s.surance of the good will and support of the patrons and directors, and the love of the dear home folks was a combination of blessings ample enough to bring perfect happiness, then Amanda Reist should have been in that state during the long summer months of her vacation. But, after the perverseness of human nature, there was one thing lacking, only one--her knight, Martin Landis.

During the long, bright summer days Amanda worked on the farm, helped Millie faithfully, but she was never so busily occupied with manual labor that she did not take time now and then to sit idly under some tree and dream, adding new and wonderful turrets to her golden castles in Spain.

She remembered with a whimsical, wistful smile the pathetic Romance of the Swan's Nest and the musing of Little Ellie--

"I will have a lover, Riding on a steed of steeds; He shall love me without guile, And to him I will discover The swan's nest among the reeds.

"And the steed shall be red-roan, And the lover shall be n.o.ble"--

and so on, into a rhapsody of the valor of her lover, such as only a romantic child could picture. But, alas! As the dream comes to the grand climax and Little Ellie, "Her smile not yet ended," goes to see what more eggs were with the two in the swan's nest, she finds,

"Lo, the wild swan had deserted, And a rat had gnawed the reeds!"

Was it usually like that? Amanda wondered. Were reality and dreams never coincident? Was the romance of youth just a pretty bubble whose rainbow tints would soon be pierced and vanish into vapor? Castles in Spain--were they so ethereal that never by any chance could they--at least some semblance to them--be duplicated in reality?

"I'll hold on to my castles in Spain!" she cried to her heart. "I'll keep on hoping, I won't let go," she said, as though, like Jacob of old, she were wrestling for a blessing.

Many afternoons she brought her sewing to the front porch and sat there as Martin pa.s.sed by on his way home from the day's work at Lancaster.

His cordial, "h.e.l.lo" was friendly enough but it afforded scant joy to the girl who knew that all his leisure hours were spent with the attractive Isabel Souders.

Martin was friendly enough, but that was handing her a stone when she wanted bread.

One June morning she was working in the yard as he went by on his way to the bank. A great bunch of his mother's pink spice roses was in his arm. He was earlier, too, than usual. Probably he was taking the flowers to Isabel.

"h.e.l.lo," he called to the girl. "You're almost a stranger, Amanda."

He was not close enough to see the tremble of her lips as she called back, "Not quite, I hope."

"Well, Mother said this morning that she has not seen you for several weeks. You used to come down to play with the babies but now your visits are few and far between. Mother said she misses you, Amanda. Why don't you run down to see her when you have time?"

"All right, Martin, I will. It is some time since I've had a good visit with your mother. I'll be down soon."

"Do, she'll be glad," he said and went down the road to the trolley.

"Almost a stranger," mused the girl after he was gone. Then she thought of the old maid who had answered a query thus, "Why ain't I married?

Goodness knows, it ain't my fault!" Amanda's saving sense of humor came to her rescue and banished the tears.

"Guess I'll run over to see Mrs. Landis a while this afternoon. It is a long time since I've been there. I do enjoy being with her. She's such a cheerful person. The work and noise of nine children doesn't bother her a bit. I don't believe she knows what nerves are."

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.