"Let me see once," asked Aunt Rebecca. "Why, that's Amos and your mom."

Mrs. Reist smiled and Uncle Amos chuckled. "We're peaches there, ain't?

I guess if abody thinks back right you see there were as many crazy

styles in olden times as there is now."

Tintypes of men and women in peculiar dress of Aunt Rebecca's youth

called forth much comment and many questions from the interested

Amanda. "Are there no pictures in here of you?" she asked her aunt.

"Yes, I guess so. On the last page or near there. That one," she said

as the child found it, a tintype of a young man seated on a vine-

covered seat and a comely young woman standing beside him, one hand

laid upon his shoulder.

"And is that Uncle Jonas?"

"No--my goodness, no! That's Martin Landis."

"Martin Landis? Not my--not the Martin Landis's pop that lives near

us?"

"Yes, that one."

"Why"--Amanda was wide-eyed and curious--"what were you doin' with your

hand on his shoulder so and your picture taken with him?"

Aunt Rebecca laughed. "Ach, I had dare to do that for we was promised

then, engaged they say now."

"You were goin' to marry Martin Landis's pop once?" The girl could not

quite believe it.

"Yes. But he was poor and along came Jonas Miller and he was rich and I

took him. But the money never done me no good. Mebbe abody shouldn't

say it, since he's dead, but Jonas was stingy. He'd squeeze a dollar

till the eagle'd holler. He made me pinch and save till I got so I

didn't feel right when I spent money. Now, since he's gone, I don't

know how. I act so dumb it makes me mad at myself sometimes. If I go to

Lancaster and buy me a whole plate of ice-cream it kinda bothers me. I

keep wonderin' what Jonas'd think, for he used to say that half a plate

of cream's enough for any woman. But mebbe it was to be that I married

Jonas instead of Martin Landis. Martin is a good man but all them

children--my goodness! I guess I got it good alone in my little house

long side of Mrs. Landis with all her children to take care of."

Amanda remembered the glory on the face of Mrs. Landis as she had said,

"Abody can have lots of money and yet be poor and others can have

hardly any money and yet be rich. It's all in what abody means by rich

and what kind of treasures you set store by. I wouldn't change places

with your rich Aunt Rebecca for all the farms in Lancaster County."

Poor Aunt Rebecca, she pitied her! Then she remembered the words of the

memory gem they had analyzed in school last year, "Where ignorance is

bliss 'tis folly to be wise." She could understand it now! So long as

Aunt Rebecca didn't see what she missed it was all right. But if she

ever woke up and really felt what her life might have been if she had

married the poor man she loved--poor Aunt Rebecca! A halo of purest

romance hung about the old woman as the child looked up at her.




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