Unhappy Days

That September Amanda went back to her second year of teaching at Crow
Hill. She went bearing a heavy heart. It was hard to concentrate her
full attention on reading, spelling and arithmetic. She needed
constantly to summon all her will power to keep from dreaming and
holding together her tottering castles in Spain.

From the little Landis children, pupils in her school, she heard
unsolicited bits of gossip about Martin--"Our Mart, he's got a girl in
Lancaster."

"Oh, you mustn't talk like that!" Amanda interrupted, feeling
conscience stricken.

"Ach, that don't matter," came the frank reply; "it ain't no secret.
Pop and Mom tease him about it lots of times. He gets all dressed up
still evenings and takes the trolley to Lancaster to see his girl."

"Perhaps he goes in on business."

"Business--you bet not! Not every week and sometimes twice a week would
he go on business. He's got a girl and I heard Mom tell Pop in Dutch
that she thinks it's that there Isabel that boarded at your house last
summer once. Mom said she wished she could meet her, then she'd feel
better satisfied. We don't want just anybody to get our Mart. But I
guess anybody he'd pick out would be all right, don't you, Aman--I
mean, Miss Reist?"

"Yes, I guess so--of course she would," Amanda agreed.

One winter day Martin himself mentioned the name of Isabel to Amanda.
He stopped in at the Reist farm, seeming his old friendly self. "I came
in to tell you good news," he told Amanda.