I don't hate the school part, the learnin'
in books; that part is easy. But I don't like the teacher, and I guess
she laughed at my tight braids. Mebbe if I dared wear curls---- Oh,
pop, daren't I have curls? I'd like to show her that I look nice that
way. Say I dare, then I won't be so funny lookin' no more!"

Jacob Metz looked at his offspring--what did the child mean? Why, he
thought she was right sweet and surely her aunt kept her clean and tidy.
But before he could answer his sister spoke authoritatively.

"Jacob, I wish you'd tell her once that she daren't have curls! She just
plagues me all the time for 'em. Her hair was made to be kept back and
not hangin' all over."

"Why then," Phoebe asked soberly, "did God make my hair curly if I
daren't have curls?" She spoke with a sense of knowing that she had
propounded an unanswerable question.

"That part don't matter," evaded Aunt Maria. "You ask your pop once how
he wants you to have your hair fixed."

The child looked up expectantly but she read the answer in her father's
face.

"I like your hair back in plaits, Phoebe. You look nice that way."

"Ach," her nose wrinkled in disgust, "not so very, I guess. Mary Warner
has curls, always she has curls!"

"Come," said the father as he rose from his chair, "you be a good girl
now to-day. I'm going now."

"All right, pop. I'll tell you to-night how I like the teacher."

After the breakfast dishes were washed and the other morning tasks
accomplished Phoebe brought her comb and ribbons to her aunt and sat
patiently on a spindle-legged kitchen chair while the woman carefully
parted the long light hair and formed it into two braids, each tied at
the end with a narrow brown ribbon.

"Now," Aunt Maria said as she unbuttoned the despised brown dress, "you
dare put on your blue chambray dress if you take care and not get it
dirty right aways."

"Oh, I'm glad for that. I like that dress best of all I have. It's not
so long in the body or tight or long in the skirt like my other dresses.
And blue is a prettier color than brown. I'll hurry now and get
dressed."

She ran up the wide stairs, her hands skimming lightly the white
hand-rail, and entered the little room known as the clothes-room, where
the best clothes of the family were hung on heavy hooks fastened along
the entire length of the four walls. She soon found the blue chambray
dress. It was extremely simple. The plain gathered skirt was fastened to
the full w