"Fun--what for fun is that--to be so disrespectful to an old aunt? And you, Philip, ain't one bit ashamed. Your mom just ought to make you hunt all the worms in the whole tobacco patch. My goodness, look at that clock! Next with this dumb foolin' I'll miss that trolley yet. I must hurry myself now." "I'm sorry, Aunt Rebecca," Amanda said softly, eager to make peace with the woman, whom she knew to be kind, though a bit severe. "Ach, I don't hold no spite. But I think it's high time you learn to behave. Such a big girl like you ought to help her brother be good, not learn him tricks. Boys go to the bad soon enough. I'm goin' now," she addressed Mrs. Reist, "and you let me know when you boil apple butter and I'll come and help stir." "All right, Rebecca. I hope the children will behave and not cut up like to-day. You are always so ready to help us--I can't understand why they did such a thing. I'm ashamed." "Ach, it's all right, long as my bonnet ain't spoiled. If that had happened then there'd be a different kind o' bird pipin'." After she left Philip proceeded to do a Comanche Indian dance--in which Amanda joined by being pulled around the room by her dress skirt--in undisguised hilarity over the departure of their grim relative. Boys have little understanding of the older person who suppresses their animal energy and skylarking happiness. "I ain't had so much fun since Adam was a boy," Philip admitted with pretended seriousness, while the family smiled at his drollness. CHAPTER II THE SNITZING PARTY Apple-butter boiling on the Reist farm occurred frequently during August and September. The choice fruit of the orchard was sold at Lancaster market, but bushels of smaller, imperfect apples lay scattered about the ground, and these were salvaged for the fragrant and luscious apple butter. To Phil and Amanda fell the task of gathering the fruit from the grass, washing them in big wooden tubs near the pump and placing them in bags. Then Uncle Amos hauled the apples to the cider press, where they came forth like liquid amber that dripped into fat brown barrels. Many pecks of pared fruit were required for the apple-butter boiling. These were pared--the Pennsylvania Dutch say snitzed--the night before the day of boiling. "Mom," Amanda told her mother as they ate supper one night when many apples were to be pared for the next day's use, "Lyman Mertzheimer seen us pick apples to-day and he said he's comin' over to-night to the snitzin' party--d'you care?" "No. Let him come." "So," teased Uncle Amos. "Guess in a few years, Manda, you'll be havin' beaus. This Lyman Mertzheimer, now,--his pop's the richest farmer round here and Lyman's the only child. He'd be a good catch, mebbe."