er teacher taught her that after a time the peculiar idioms and
expressions became more infrequent and there was only a delightfully
quaint inflection, an occasional phrase, to betray her Pennsylvania
Dutch parentage. But in times of stress or excitement she invariably
slipped back into the old way and prefaced her exclamations with an
expressive "Ach!"

Life on the Metz farm went on in even tenor year in and year out. Maria
Metz never changed to any appreciable extent her mode of living or her
methods of working, and she tried to teach Phoebe to conform to the same
monotonous existence and live as several generations of Metzes had done.
But Phoebe was a veritable Evelyn Hope, made of "spirit, fire and dew."
The distinctiveness of her personality grew more pronounced as she
slipped from childhood into girlhood and Maria Metz needed often to
encourage her own heart for the task of rearing into ideal womanhood the
daughter of her brother Jacob.

Phoebe had a deep love for nature and this love was fostered by her
sturdy farmer-father. As she followed him about the fields he taught her
the names of wild flowers, told her the nesting haunts of birds,
initiated her into the circle of tree-lore, taught her to keep ears,
eyes and heart open for the treasures of the great outdoors.

Phoebe required no urging in that direction. Her heart was filled with
an insatiable desire to know more and more of the beautiful world about
her. She gathered knowledge from every country walk; she showed so much
"uncommon sense," David Eby said, that it was a keen pleasure to show
her the nests of the thrush or the rare nests of the humming-bird. David
and his mother, enthusiastic seekers after nature knowledge, augmented
the father's nature education of Phoebe by frequent walks to field and
woods. And so, when Phoebe was twelve years old she knew the haunts of
all the wild flowers within walking distance of her home. With her
father or with David and Mother Bab she found the first marsh-marigolds
in the meadows, the first violets of the wooded slope of the hill, the
earliest hepatica with its woolly buds, the first windflowers and spring
beauties. She knew when the time was come for the bloodroot to lift its
pure white petals about the golden hearts in the spot where the rich
mould at the base of some giant tree nurtured the blooded plants. She
could find the canopied Jack-in-the-pulpit and the pink azalea on the
hill near her home. She knew th