Amanda: A Daughter of the Mennonites — A Closer Reading

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."

"Yes," put in Amanda, "the Bible says it's good to have a merry heart and me and Phil's got one. You like us that way, don't you, Mom?"

"Yes," the mother agreed. "Now you go put on dry things, then I want to fit your dresses. And, Philip, are you wet through?"

"Naw. These thick pants don't get wet through if I rutch in water an hour. Jiminy pats, Mom, girls are delicate, can't stand a little wettin'."

"You just wait, Phil," Amanda called to him as she ran up-stairs, "you're gettin' some good wettin' yet. I ain't done with you."

"Cracky, who's afraid?" he called.

A little later the girl appeared in dry clothes.

"Ach," she said, "I forgot to wash my hands. 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." Before he could get his breath she had run into the house and stood before her mother ready for the fitting. "I like this goods, Mom," she told the mother as the new dress was slipped over her head. "I think the brown goes good with my red hair, and the blue gingham is pretty, too. Only don't never buy me no pink nor red."

"I won't. Not unless your hair turns brown."

"My goodness, but you spoil her," came the unsolicited opinion of Aunt Rebecca. "When I was little I wore what my mom bought me, and so did you. We would never thought of sayin', 'Don't get me this or that.'"

"But with red hair it's different. And as long as blue and brown and colors Amanda likes don't cost more than those she don't want I can't see why she shouldn't have what she wants."

"Well, abody wonders what kind o' children plain people expect to raise nowadays with such caterin' to their vanity."

Mrs. Reist bit her lips and refrained from answering. The expression of joy on the face of Amanda as she looked down at her new dress took away the sting of the older woman's words. "I want," the mother said softly, "I want my children to have a happy childhood. It belongs to them. And I want them to remember me for a kind mom."

"Ach, Mom, you _are_ a good mom." Amanda leaned over the mother, who was pinning the hem in the new dress, and pressed a kiss on the top of the white-capped head. "When I grow up I want to be like you. And when I'm big and you're old, won't you be the nicest granny!"

Aunt Rebecca suddenly looked sad and meek. Perhaps a partial appreciation of what she missed by being childless came to her. What thrills she might have known if happy children ran to her with shouts of "Granny!" But she did not carry the thread of thought far enough to analyze her own actions and discover that, though childless, she could attract the love of other people's children if she chose. The tender moment was fleet. She looked at Amanda and Philip and saw in them only two children prone to evil, requiring stern disciplining.

"Now don't go far from the house," said Mrs. Reist later, "for your other dress is soon ready to fit. As soon as Aunt Rebecca gets the pleats basted in the skirt."

"I'll soon get them in. But it's foolishness to go to all that bother when gathers would do just as good and go faster."