out in the yard."

"When you're done with the patches, not before! You know you must learn to sew. Why, Phœbe," the woman changed her tactics, "you used to like to sew still. When you was just five years old you cried for goods and needle and I pinned the patches on the little sewing-bird that belonged to Granny Metz still and screwed the bird on the table and you sewed that nice! And now you don't want to do no more patches—how will you ever get your big chest full of nice quilts if you don't patch?"

But the child was too thoroughly possessed with the desire to be outdoors to be won by any pleading or praise. She pulled savagely at the two long braids which hung over her shoulders and cried, "I don't want no quilts! I don't want no chests! I don't like red and green quilts, anyhow—never, never! I wish my pop would come in; he wouldn't make me sew patches, he"—she began to sob—"I wish, I just wish I had a mom! She wouldn't make me sew calico when—when I want to play."

Something in the utter unhappiness of the little girl, together with the words of yearning for the dead mother, filled the woman with a strange tenderness. Though she never allowed sentiment to sway her from doing what she considered her duty she did yield to its influence and spoke gently to the agitated child.

"I wish, too, your mom was here yet, Phœbe. But I guess if she was she'd want you to learn to sew. Ach, it's just that you like to be out, out all the time that makes you so contrary, I guess. You're like your pop, if you can just be out! Mebbe when you're old as I once and had your back near broke often as I had with hoein' and weedin' and plantin' in the garden you'll be glad when you can set in the house and sew. Ach, now, stop your cryin' and go finish your patchin' and when you're done I'll leave you go in to Greenwald for me to the store and to Granny Hogendobler."

"Oh"—the child lifted her tear-stained face—"and dare I really go to Greenwald when I'm done?"

"Yes. I need some sugar yet and you dare order it. And you can get me some thread and then stop at Granny Hogendobler's and ask her to come out to-morrow and help with the strawberry jelly. I got so much to make and it comes good to Granny if she gets away for a little change."

"Then I'll patch quick!" Phœbe said. The world was a good place again for the child as she went back to the sitting-room and resumed her sewing.

She was so eager to finish the unpleasant task that she forgot one of Aunt Maria's rules, as inexorable as the law of the Medes and Persians—the door between the kitchen and the sitting-room must be closed.

"Here, Phœbe," the woman called sharply, "make that door shut! Abody'd think you was born in a sawmill! The strawberry smell gets all over the house."

Phœbe turned alertly and closed the door. Then she soliloquized, "I don't see why there has to be doors on the inside of houses. I like to smell the good things all over the house, but then it's Aunt Maria's boss, not me."

Maria Metz shook her head as she returned to her berries. "If it don't beat all and if I won't have my hands full yet with that girl 'fore she's growed up! That stubborn she is, like her pop—ach, like all of us Metz's, I guess. Anyhow, it ain't easy raising somebody else's child. If only her mom would have lived, and so young she was to die, too."

Her thoughts went back to the time when her brother Jacob brought to the old Metz farmhouse his gentle, sweet-faced bride. Then the joint persuasions of Jacob and his wife induced Maria Metz to continue her residence in the old homestead. She relieved the bride of all the brunt of manual labor of the farm and in her capable way proved a worthy sister to the new mistress of the old Metz place. When, several years later, the gentle wife died and left Jacob the legacy of a helpless babe, it was Maria Metz who took up the task of mothering the motherless child. If she bungled at times in the performance of the mother's unfinished task it was not from lack of love, for she loved the fair little Phœbe with a passion that was almost abnormal, a passion which burned the more fiercely because there was seldom any outlet in demonstrative affection.

As soon as the child was old enough Aunt Maria began to teach her the doctrines of the plain church and to warn her against the evils of vanity, frivolity and all forms of worldliness.

Maria Metz was richly endowed with that admirable love of industry which is characteristic of the Pennsylvania Dutch. In accordance with her acceptance of the command, "Six days shalt thou labor," she swept, scrubbed, and toiled from early morning to evening with Herculean persistence. The farmhouse was spotless from cellar to attic, the wooden walks and porches scrubbed clean and smooth. Flower beds, vegetable gardens and lawns were kept neat and without weeds. Aunt Maria was, as she expressed it, "not afraid of work." Naturally she considered it her duty to teach little Phœbe to be industrious, to sew neatly, to help with light tasks about the house and gardens.

Like many other good foster-mothers Maria Metz tried conscientiously to care for the child's spiritual and physical well-being, but in spite of her best endeavors there were times when she despaired of the tremendous task she had undertaken. Phœbe's spirit tingled with the divine, poetic appreciation of all things beautiful. A vivid imagination carried the child into realms where the stolid aunt could not follow, realms of whose existence the older woman never dreamed.

But what troubled Maria Metz most was the child's frank avowal of vanity. Every new dress was a source of intense joy to Phœbe. Every new ribbon for her hair, no matter how narrow and dull of color, sent her face smiling. The golden hair, which sprang into long curls as Aunt Maria combed it, was invariably braided into two thick, tight braids, but there were always little wisps that curled about the ears and forehead. These wisps were at once the woman's despair and the child's freely expressed delight. However, through all the rigid discipline the little girl retained her natural buoyancy of childhood, the spontaneous interestedness, the cheerfulness and animation, which were a part of her goodly heritage.

That June morning the world was changed suddenly from a dismal vale of patchwork to a glorious garden of delight. She was still a child and the promised walk to Greenwald changed the entire world for her.

She paused once in her sewing to look about the sitting-room. "Ach, I vonder now why this room is so ugly to me to-day. I guess it's because it's so pretty out. Why, mostly always I think this is a vonderful nice room."

The sitting-room of the Metz farm was attractive in its old-fashioned furnishing. It was large and well lighted. The gray rag carpet—woven from rags sewed by Aunt Maria and Phœbe—was decorated with wide stripes of green. Upon the carpet were spread numerous rugs, some made of braided rags coiled into large circles, others were hooked rugs gaily ornamented with birds and flowers and graceful scroll designs. The low-backed chairs were painted dull green and each bore upon the four inch panel of its back a hand-painted floral design. On the haircloth sofa were several crazy-work cushions. Two deep rocking-chairs matched the antique low-backed chairs. A spindle-legged cherry table bore an old vase filled with pink and red straw flowers. The large square table, covered with a red and green cloth, held a glass lamp, the old Metz Bible, several hymn-books and the papers read in that home,—a weekly religious paper, the weekly town paper, and a well-known farm journal. A low walnut organ which Phœbe's