ed as she went out to the street, "I think this goin' to
Greenwald to the store is vonderful nice! It's most as much fun as goin'
in to Lancaster, only there I go in a trolley and I see black
niggers"--she spoke the word with a little shiver, for Greenwald had no
negro residents--"and once in there me and Aunt Maria saw a Chinaman
with a long plait like a girl's hangin' down his back!"

After asking for the mail at the post-office she turned homeward,
feeling like singing from sheer happiness. Then she looked down at her
pink damask rose--it was withered.

"I'm goin' home now so I guess I won't be decorated no more." She
unpinned the flower, clasped its short stem in her hand and raised the
blossom to her face.

"Um-m-m!" She drew deep breaths of the rose's perfume. "Um-m!"

"Does it smell good?"

Phoebe turned her head at the voice and looked into the face of a young
woman who sat on the porch of a near-by house.

"Does it smell good?" The question came again, accompanied by a broad
smile.

Quickly the hand holding the flower dropped to the child's side, her
eyes were cast down to the brick pavement and she went hurriedly down
the street. But not so hurriedly that she failed to hear the words,
"LITTLE DUTCHIE" and a merry laugh from the young woman.

"She--she laughed at me!" Phoebe murmured to herself under the blue
sunbonnet. "I don't know who she is, but that was at Mollie Stern's
house that she sat--that lady that laughed at me. She called me a
Dutchie!"

The child stabbed a fist into one eye and then into the other to fight
back the tears. She felt sure that the appellation of Dutchie was not
complimentary. Hadn't she heard the boys at school tease each other by
calling, "Dutchie, Dutchie, sauer kraut!" But no one had ever called her
that before! Her heart ached as she went down the street of the little
town. She had planned to look at all the gardens of the main street as
she walked home but the glory of the June day was spoiled for her. She
did not care to look at any gardens. The laughing words, "Does it smell
good?" rang in her ears. The name, "Little Dutchie," sent her heart
throbbing.

After the first hurt a feeling of wrath rose in her. "Anyhow," she
thought, "it's no disgrace to be a Dutchie! Nobody needn't laugh at me
for that. But I just hate that lady that laughed at me! I hate everybody
that pokes fun at me. And I ain't goin' to always be a Dutchie. You see
once if I don't be something els