e road that led northward to the little town
of Greenwald. Southward the road curved and wound itself about a steep
hill, sent its branches right and left to numerous farms while it, still
twisting and turning, went on to the nearest city, Lancaster, ten miles
distant.

The Metz farm was just outside the southern limits of the town of
Greenwald. The spacious red barn stood on the very bank of Chicques
Creek, the boundary line.

"It's awful pretty here to-day," Phoebe said aloud as she looked from
the house with its sheltering trees to the flower garden with its roses,
larkspur and other old-fashioned flowers, then to the background of
undulating fields and hills. "It's just vonderful pretty here to-day.
But, ach, I guess it's pretty most anywheres on a day like this--but not
in the house. Ugh, that patchin'! I want to forget it."

As she closed the gate and entered the country road she caught sight of
a familiar figure just ahead.

"Hello," she called. "Wait once, David! Is that you?"

"No, it ain't me, it's my shadow!" came the answer as a boy, several
years older than Phoebe, turned and waited for her.

"Ach, David Eby," she giggled, "you're just like Aunt Maria says still
you are--always cuttin' up and talkin' so abody don't know if you mean
it or what. Goin' in to town, too, once?"

"Um-uh. Say, Phoebe, you want a rose to pin on?" he asked, turning to
her with a pink damask rose.

"Why, be sure I do! I just like them roses vonderful much. We got 'em
too, big bushes of 'em, but Aunt Maria won't let me pull none off.
Where'd you get yourn?"

"We got lots. Mom lets me pull off all I want. You pin it on and be
decorated for Greenwald. Where all you going, Phoebe?"

"And I say thanks, too, David, for the rose," she said as she pinned the
rose to her dress. "Um, it smells good! Where am I goin'?" she
remembered his question. "Why, to the store and to Granny Hogendobler
and the post-office----"

"Jimminy Crickets!" The boy stood still. "That's where I'm to go! Me and
mom both forgot about it. Mom wants a money order and said I'm to get it
the first time I go to town and here I am without the money. It's home
up the hill again for me."

"Ach, David, don't you know that it's vonderful bad luck to go back for
something when you got started once?"

The boy laughed. "It _is_ bad luck to have to climb that hill again. But
mom'll say what I ain't got in my head I got to have in my feet. They're
big enough to hold