"It's grand to ask me to it."

"Ach, we don't mind you. You're just like one of the family, abody might say. We won't fix like for company, eat in the room or anything like that."

"Well, I hope not. I'm no company. Let's eat in the kitchen and have everything just as you do when the family's alone."

"Yes," agreed Mrs. Landis. "That will be more homelike."

Mary helped to set the table in the big kitchen.

"Shall I lay the spoons on the table-cloth like we did when Isabel was here?" she asked her mother.

"Better put them in the spoon-holder," Amanda told her. "I'm no company."

"I'm glad you ain't. I don't like tony company like that girl was. She put on too much when she talked. And she had the funniest cheeks! Once she wiped her face when it was hot and pink came off on her handkerchief."

Amanda laughed and kept smiling as she helped the child set the table for supper. Later she offered her services to Mrs. Landis. Martin, coming in from the dusty road, found her before the stove, one of his mother's gingham ap.r.o.ns tied around her waist, and turning sweet potatoes in a big iron pan.

"Why, h.e.l.lo!" he said, pleasure written in his face. "Katie ran to meet me and said I couldn't guess who was here for supper. Has Mother got you working? Um," he sniffed, "smells awful much like chicken!"

"Ach," his mother told him, "you just hold your nose shut a while! You and your pop can smell chicken off a mile. But you dare ring the supper bell, Martin, before you go up-stairs to wash, so your pop and the boys can come in now and get ready, too."

Soon the savory, smoking dishes were all placed on the big table in the kitchen and the family with their guest gathered for the meal.

"Ain't I dare keep my coat off, Mom?" asked Mr. Landis, his face flushed from a long hot day in the fields.

"Why, yes, if Amanda don't care."

"Why should I? Look at my cool dress! Take your coat off, Martin. I never could see why men should roast while we keep comfortable."

As Martin stripped the serge coat off he thought of that other dinner when coats were kept on and dinner eaten in "the room" because of the presence of one who might take offense if she were expected to share the plain, every-day ways of the family. What a fool he had been! Their best efforts at style and convention must have looked very amateurish and incomplete to her--what a fool he had been!

"Ah, that looks good!" Mr. Landis said after he had said grace and everybody waited for the food to be pa.s.sed. "Now we'll just hand the platter around and let everybody help themselves, not so, Mom?"

"Yes, that's all right. Start the potatoes once, Martin. Now you must eat, Amanda. Just make yourself right at home."

"Martin, you must eat hearty, too,", said the father. "Your mom made this supper for you."

"For me? What's the idea? Feeding the prodigal? Fatted calf and all that, Mother?" the boy asked, smiling,

"Calf--nothing!" exclaimed little Charlie. "It's them two roosters Mom said long a'ready she's goin' to kill once and cook and here they are!"

Charlie wondered why everybody laughed at that but he soon forgot about it as his mother handed him a plate piled high with food.

Amanda scarcely knew what she was eating that day. Each mouthful had the taste of nectar and ambrosia to her. If she could _belong_ to a family like that! She adored her own people and felt certain that no one could wish for a finer family than the one in which she had been placed, but it seemed, by comparison with the Landis one, a very small, quiet family. She wished she could be a part of both, make the twelfth in that charming circle in which she sat that day.

After supper Mrs. Landis turned to Amanda--"Now you stay a while and hear our new pieces on the Victrola."

"I'll help you with the dishes," she offered.

"Ach, no, it ain't necessary. Mary and I will get them done up in no time. You just go in the room and enjoy yourself."

With little Katie leading the way and Martin following Amanda went to the sitting-room and sat down while Martin opened the Victrola.

"What do you like?" he asked. "Something lively? Or do you like soft music better?"

"I like both. What are your new pieces?"

"McCormack singing 'Mother Machree---'"

"Oh, I like that! Play that!"

As the soft, haunting melody of "Mother Machree" sounded in the room Mrs. Landis came to the door of the sitting-room, dish towel in hand.

"Ach," she said after the last verse, "I got that record most wore out a'ready. Ain't it the prettiest song? When I hear that I think still that if only one of my nine children feels that way about me I'm more than paid for any bother I had with them."

"Then, Mother," said Martin, "you should feel more than nine times paid, for we all feel that way about you."

"Listen, now!" The mother's eyes were misty as she looked at her first- born. "Ach, play it again. I only hope poor Becky knows how much good her money's doin' us!"

Later Martin walked with Amanda up the moonlit road to her home. "I've had a lovely time, Martin," she told him. "You do have the nicest, lively family! I wish we had a tableful like that!"

"You wouldn't wish it at dish-washing time, I bet! But they are a lively bunch. I wonder sometimes how Mother escapes _nerves_. If she feels irritable or tired she seldom shows it. I believe six of us can ask her questions at once and she knows how to answer each in its turn. But Mother never does much useless worrying. That keeps her youthful and calm. She has often said to us, 'What's the use of worrying? Worrying never gets you anywhere except into hot water--so what's the use of it?' That's a pet philosophy of hers."

"I remember that. I've heard her say it. Your mother's wonderful!"

"She thinks the same about you, Amanda, for she said so the other day."

"Me?" The girl turned her face from him so that the moonlight might not reveal her joy.

"You," he said happily, laughing in boyish contentment. "We think Amanda Reist is all right."

The girl was glad they had reached the gate of her home. She fumbled with the latch and escaped an answer to the man's words. Then they spoke commonplace good-nights and parted.

That night as she brushed her hair she stood a long time before the mirror. "Amanda Reist," she said to the image in the gla.s.s, "you better take care--next thing you know you'll be falling in love!" She leaned closer to the gla.s.s. "Oh, I'll have to keep that shine from my eyes!

It's there just because Martin walked home with me and was kind. I don't look as though I need any boneset tea _now!"_

CHAPTER XXI

BERRYING

The next morning Amanda helped her mother with the Sat.u.r.day baking while Millie and Uncle Amos tended market.

"This hot weather the pies get soft till Sunday if we bake them a'ready on Friday," Mrs. Reist said to Millie, "so Amanda and I can do the bakin' while you go to market. I guess we'll have a lot of company again this Sunday, with church near here."

"All right, let 'em come," said the hired girl composedly. "I don't care if you don't. It's a good thing we all like company pretty good, for I think sometimes people take this place for a regular boarding- house, the way they drop in at any time, just as like when we're ready to set down for a meal as at any other hour. Philip said last week, when that Sallie Snyder dropped in just at dinner, that he's goin' to paint a sign, 'Mad Dog,' and hang it on the gate. But I think we might as well put one up, 'Meals served at all hours,' but ach, that's Lancaster County for you!"