"Smear mud on," suggested Mary. "Once I got stung by a b.u.mblebee when he went in a hollyhock and I held the flower shut so he couldn't get out, and he stung me through the flower. Mom put mud on and it helped."

"Mud!" stormed Lyman, stepping about in the bush and twisting his head in pain. "There isn't any mud in Lancaster County now. The whole place is dry as punk!"

"If you had some of the mud you slung at me recently it would come in handy now," Martin could not refrain from saying.

Another oath greeted his words. Then the stung young man started off down the road to find relief from his smarts, ignoring the fling.

"Well," said Amanda, "well, of all things! For him to tackle a hornets'

nest! Just for the fun of it!"

"But he got his come-uppance for once! Got it from the hornets," said Martin. "Serves him right."

"But that hurts," said Mary sympathetically. "Hornets hurt awful bad!"

"Yes," said Martin as they turned homeward. "But he's getting paid for all the mean tricks he's played on other people."

"Mebbe G.o.d made the hornets sting him if he's a bad man," said Charlie.

"We all get what we give out," agreed Martin. "Lyman Mertzheimer will feel those hornet stings for a few days. While I've always been taught not to rejoice at the misfortunes of others I'm not sorry I saw him.

I'll call our account square now. You pitied him, didn't you?" he asked Amanda suddenly. "I saw it in your eyes. So did Mary and Katie."

"Of course I pitied him," she confessed. "I'd feel sorry for anything or anybody who suffers. I know it serves him right, that he's earned worse than that, and yet I would have relieved him if I could have done so. Nature meant that we should be decent, I suppose."

The man was thoughtful for a moment. "Yes, I suppose so. It is a woman's nature."

"Would you have us different?"

"No--no--we wouldn't have you different. Many of the best men would be mere brutes if women's pity and tenderness and forgiveness were taken out of their lives--we wouldn't have you different."

CHAPTER XXII

ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP

The following Sunday at noon Martin pa.s.sed the Reist farmhouse as he drove his mother and several of the children to Mennonite church at Landisville. After the service he pa.s.sed that way again and noticed several cars stopping at Reists'. Evidently they were entertaining a number of visitors for Sunday dinner after the service, as is the custom in rural Lancaster County. The big porch was filled with people who rocked or leaned idly against the pillars, while in the big kitchen Millie, Amanda and Mrs. Reist worked near the hot stove and prepared an appetizing dinner for them.

Amanda did not shirk her portion of the necessary work, but rebellion was in her heart as she noted her mother's flushed, tired face.

"Mother, if you'd only feel that Millie and I could get the dinner without you! It's a shame to have you in this kitchen on a day like this!"

"Ach, I'm not so hot. I'm not better than you or Millie," the mother insisted, and stuck to her post, while Amanda murmured, "This Sunday visiting--how I hate it! We've outgrown the need of it now, especially with automobiles."

But at length the meal was placed upon the table, the guests gathered from porches and lawn and an hour later the dishes were washed and everything at peace once more in the kitchen. Then Amanda walked out to the garden at the rear of the house.

"Ooh," she sighed in relief, "I'm glad that's over! Visiting on such a day should be made a misdemeanor!" She pulled idly on a zinnia that lifted its globular red head in the hot August sun.

"Hey, Sis," came Phil's voice to her, "he wants you on the 'phone!"

"Who's he?" she asked as the boy ran out to her in the garden.

They turned to the house, talking as they went.

"Well, Sis, you know who _he_ is! He's coming round here all the time lately."

A gentle shove from the girl rewarded the boy for his teasing, but he was not easily daunted. "Don't you remember," he said, "how that old Mrs. Haldeman who kept tine candy store near the market house in Lancaster used to call her husband _he_? She never called him Mister or Mr. Haldeman, just _he_, and you could feel she would have written it in italics if she could."

"Well, that was all right, there was only one _he_ in the world so far as she was concerned. But do you remember, Phil, the time Mother took us in her store to buy candy and we talked to her canary and the old woman said, 'Ach, yes, I think still how good birds got it! I often wish I was a canary, but then he would have to be one too!' We disgraced Mother by giggling fit to kill ourselves. But the old woman just smiled at us and gave us each a pink and white striped peppermint stick. Now run along, Phil, don't be eavesdropping," she said as they reached the hall and she sat down to answer the telephone.

"That you, Amanda?" came over the wire.

"Yes."

"Got a houseful of company? It seemed like that when we drove past.

Overflow meeting on the porch!"

"Oh, yes, as usual."

"What I wanted to know is--are there any young people among the visitors, that makes it a matter of courtesy for you to stay at home all afternoon?"

"No, they are all older people to-day, and a few little children."

"Good! Then how would you like to have a little picnic, just we two? I want to get away from Victrola music and children's questions and four walls, and I thought you might have a similar longing."

"Mental telepathy, Martin! That's just what I was thinking as I was out in the garden."

"Then I'll call for you and we'll go up past the sandpit to that hilltop where the breeze blows even on a day like this."

When Martin came for her she was ready, a lunch tucked under one arm, two old pillows in the other. She had given the red hair a few pats, added several hairpins, slipped off her white dress and b.u.t.toned up a pale green chambray one with cool white collar and cuffs. She stood ready, attractive, as Martin entered the lawn.

"Say!" he whistled. "You did that in short order! I thought it took girls hours to dress."

"Then you're like Solomon; you can't understand the ways of women!" She laughed as she handed him the lunch-box.

Her calm efficiency puzzled him. Lately he was discovering so many undreamed of qualities in this lively friend of his childhood. He was beginning to feel some of the wonder those people must have felt whose children played with pebbles that were one day discovered to be priceless uncut diamonds. Until that day she had found him prostrate in her moccasin woods he had thought of her as just Amanda Reist, a nice, jolly girl with a quick temper if you tried her too hard and a quick tongue to express it, but a good comrade and a pleasant companion if you treated her fairly.

Then his att.i.tude had undergone a change. After that day of his great unhappiness he thought of her as a woman, staunch, courageous, yet gentle and feminine, one who had faith in her old friend, who could comfort a man when he was downcast and help him raise his head again. A wonderful woman she was! One who loved pretty clothes and things modern and yet appreciated the charm of the old-fashioned, and seemed to dovetail perfectly into the plain grooves of her people and his with their quaint old dress and houses and manners. A woman, too, who had an intense love for the great outdoors. Not the shallow, pretentious love that would call forth gushing rhapsodies about moonlight or sunsets or the spectacular alone in nature, but a sincere, deep-rooted love that shone in her eyes as she stooped to see more plainly the tracery of veins in a fallen leaf and moved her to gentle speech to the birds, b.u.t.terflies and woodland creatures as though they could understand and answer.

As they walked down the country road he looked at her. He had a way of noticing women's clothes and had become an observant judge of their becomingness. In her growing-up days Amanda had been frequently angered by his frank, unsolicited remarks about the colors she wore--this blue was off color for her red hair, or that golden brown was just the thing. Later she grew accustomed to his remarks and rather expected them. They still disconcerted her at times, but she had long ago ceased to grow angry about them.

"That green's the color for you to-day," he said, as they went along.

"Do you know, I've often thought I'd like to see you in a black gown and a string of real jade beads around your neck."

"Jade! Was there ever a red head who didn't wish she had a string of jade beads?"

"You'd be great!"