If the securing of the coveted school, the assurance of the good will
and support of the patrons and directors, and the love of the dear home
folks was a combination of blessings ample enough to bring perfect
happiness, then Amanda Reist should have been in that state during the
long summer months of her vacation. But, after the perverseness of
human nature, there was one thing lacking, only one--her knight, Martin
Landis.
During the long, bright summer days Amanda worked on the farm, helped
Millie faithfully, but she was never so busily occupied with manual
labor that she did not take time now and then to sit idly under some
tree and dream, adding new and wonderful turrets to her golden castles
in Spain.
She remembered with a whimsical, wistful smile the pathetic Romance of
the Swan's Nest and the musing of Little Ellie-"I will have a lover,
Riding on a steed of steeds;
He shall love me without guile,
And to him I will discover
The swan's nest among the reeds.
"And the steed shall be red-roan,
And the lover shall be noble"-and so on, into a rhapsody of the valor of her lover, such as only a
romantic child could picture. But, alas! As the dream comes to the
grand climax and Little Ellie, "Her smile not yet ended," goes to see
what more eggs were with the two in the swan's nest, she finds, "Lo, the wild swan had deserted,
And a rat had gnawed the reeds!"
Was it usually like that? Amanda wondered. Were reality and dreams
never coincident? Was the romance of youth just a pretty bubble whose
rainbow tints would soon be pierced and vanish into vapor? Castles in
Spain--were they so ethereal that never by any chance could they--at
least some semblance to them--be duplicated in reality?
"I'll hold on to my castles in Spain!" she cried to her heart. "I'll
keep on hoping, I won't let go," she said, as though, like Jacob of
old, she were wrestling for a blessing.
Many afternoons she brought her sewing to the front porch and sat there
as Martin passed by on his way home from the day's work at Lancaster.
His cordial, "Hello" was friendly enough but it afforded scant joy to
the girl who knew that all his leisure hours were spent with the
attractive Isabel Souders.
Martin was friendly enough, but that was handing her a stone when she
wanted bread.
One June morning she was working in the yard as he went by on his way
to the bank. A great bunch of his mother's pink spice roses was in his
arm. He was earlier, too, than usual. Probably he was taking the
flowers to Isabel.
"Hello," he called to the girl. "You're almost a stranger, Amanda."