That September Amanda began her third year of teaching at Crow Hill.
“I declare,” Millie said, “how quick the time goes! Here’s your third year o’ teachin’ started a’ready. A body gets old fast.”
“Yes, I’ll soon be an old maid school teacher.”
“Now, mebbe not!” The hired girl had lost none of her frankness. “I notice that Mart Landis sneaks round here a good bit this while past.”
“Ach, Millie, he’s not here often.”
“No, o’ course not! He just stops in in the afternoon about every other day with a book or something of excuse like that, and about every other day in the morning he’s likely to happen to drop in to get the book back, and then in between that he comes and you go out for a walk after flowers or birds or something, and then between times there he comes with something his mom told him to ask or bring or something like that --no, o’ course not, he don’t come often! Not at all! I guess he’s just neighborly, ain’t, Amanda?” Millie chuckled at her own wit and Amanda could not long keep a frown upon her face.
“Of course, Millie,” she said with an assumed air of indifference, “the Landis people have always been neighborly. Pennsylvania Dutch are great for that.”
It was not from Millie alone that Amanda had to take teasing. Philip, always ready for amusement, was at times almost insufferable in the opinion of his sister.
“What’s the matter with Mart Landis’s home?” the boy asked innocently one day at the supper table.
“Why?” asked Uncle Amos. “I’ll bite.”
“Well, he seems to be out of it a great deal; he spends half of his time in our house. I think, Uncle Amos, as head of the house here, you should ask him what his intentions are.”
“Phil!” Amanda’s protest was vehement. “You make me as tired as some other people round here do. As soon as a man walks down the road with a girl the whole matter is settled--they’ll surely marry soon! It would be nice if people would attend to their own affairs.”
“Makes me tired too,” said Philip fervently. “Last week I met that Sarah from up the road and naturally walked to the car with her. You all know what a fright she is--cross-eyed, pigeon-toed, and as brilliant mentally as a dark night in the forest. When I got into the car I heard some one say, ’Did you see Philip Reist with that girl? I wonder if he keeps company with her.’ Imagine!”
“Serves you right,” Amanda told him with impish delight. “I hope every cross-eyed, pigeon-toed girl in the county meets you and walks with you!”
“Feel better now, Sis?” His grin brought laughter to the crowd and Amanda’s peeved feeling was soon gone.
It was true, Martin Landis spent many hours at the Reist farmhouse. He seemed filled with an insatiable desire for the companionship of Amanda. Scarcely a day passed without some glimpse of him at the Reist home.
Just what that companionship meant to the young man he did not stop to analyze at first. He knew he was happy with Amanda, enjoyed her conversation, felt a bond between them in their love for the vast outdoors, but he never went beyond that. Until one day in early November when he was walking down the lonely road after a pleasant evening with Amanda. He paused once to look up at the stars, remembering what the girl had said concerning them, how they comforted and inspired her. A sudden rush of feeling came to him as he leaned on the rail fence and looked up.... “Look here,” he told himself, “it’s time you take account of yourself. What’s all this friendship with your old companion leading to? Do you love Amanda?” The “stars in their courses” seemed to twinkle her name, every leafless tree along the road she loved seemed to murmur it to him--Amanda! It was suddenly the sweetest name in the whole world to him!
“Oh, I know it now!” he said softly to himself under the quiet sky. “I love her! What a woman she is! What a heart she has, what a heart! I want her for my wife; she’s the only one I want to have with me ’Till death us do part’--that’s a fair test. Why, I’ve been wondering why I enjoyed each minute with her and just longed to get to see her as often as possible--fool, not to recognize love when it came to me! But I know it now! I’m as sure of it as I am sure those stars, her stars, are shining up there in the sky.”