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diff --git a/1602-h/1602-h.htm b/1602-h/1602-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac872a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/1602-h/1602-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9178 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dawn O’Hara, by Edna Ferber</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dawn O’Hara, by Edna Ferber</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Dawn O’Hara<br/> + The Girl Who Laughed</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Edna Ferber</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January, 1999 [eBook #1602]<br /> +[Most recently updated: April 20, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAWN O’HARA ***</div> + +<h1>Dawn O’Hara</h1> + +<h3>THE GIRL WHO LAUGHED</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">By Edna Ferber</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="center"> +TO MY DEAR MOTHER<br/> +WHO FREQUENTLY INTERRUPTS<br/> +AND TO<br/> +MY SISTER FANNIE<br/> +WHO SAYS “SH-SH-SH!” OUTSIDE MY DOOR<br/> +</p> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. THE SMASH-UP</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. MOSTLY EGGS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. GOOD AS NEW</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. STEEPED IN GERMAN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. BLACKIE’S PHILOSOPHY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. THE LADY FROM VIENNA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. VON GERHARD SPEAKS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. BENNIE THE CONSOLER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. THE TEST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. BENNIE AND THE CHARMING OLD MAID</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. FAREWELL TO KNAPFS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. JUNE MOONLIGHT, AND A NEW BOARDINGHOUSE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII. THE SHADOW OF TERROR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII. PETER ORME</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX. A TURN OF THE WHEEL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX. BLACKIE’S VACATION COMES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI. HAPPINESS</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>DAWN O’HARA</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/> +THE SMASH-UP</h2> + +<p> +There are a number of things that are pleasanter than being sick in a New York +boarding-house when one’s nearest dearest is a married sister up in far-away +Michigan. +</p> + +<p> +Some one must have been very kind, for there were doctors, and a blue-and-white +striped nurse, and bottles and things. There was even a vase of perky +carnations—scarlet ones. I discovered that they had a trick of nodding their +heads, saucily. The discovery did not appear to surprise me. +</p> + +<p> +“Howdy-do!” said I aloud to the fattest and reddest carnation that overtopped +all the rest. “How in the world did you get in here?” +</p> + +<p> +The striped nurse (I hadn’t noticed her before) rose from some corner and came +swiftly over to my bedside, taking my wrist between her fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very well, thank you,” she said, smiling, “and I came in at the door, of +course.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wasn’t talking to you,” I snapped, crossly, “I was speaking to the +carnations; particularly to that elderly one at the top—the fat one who keeps +bowing and wagging his head at me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” answered the striped nurse, politely, “of course. That one is very +lively, isn’t he? But suppose we take them out for a little while now.” +</p> + +<p> +She picked up the vase and carried it into the corridor, and the carnations +nodded their heads more vigorously than ever over her shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +I heard her call softly to some one. The some one answered with a sharp little +cry that sounded like, “Conscious!” +</p> + +<p> +The next moment my own sister Norah came quietly into the room, and knelt at +the side of my bed and took me in her arms. It did not seem at all surprising +that she should be there, patting me with reassuring little love pats, +murmuring over me with her lips against my cheek, calling me a hundred +half-forgotten pet names that I had not heard for years. But then, nothing +seemed to surprise me that surprising day. Not even the sight of a great, +red-haired, red-faced, scrubbed looking man who strolled into the room just as +Norah was in the midst of denouncing newspapers in general, and my newspaper in +particular, and calling the city editor a slave-driver and a beast. The big, +red-haired man stood regarding us tolerantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Better, eh?” said he, not as one who asks a question, but as though in +confirmation of a thought. Then he too took my wrist between his fingers. His +touch was very firm and cool. After that he pulled down my eyelids and said, +“H’m.” Then he patted my cheek smartly once or twice. “You’ll do,” he +pronounced. He picked up a sheet of paper from the table and looked it over, +keen-eyed. There followed a clinking of bottles and glasses, a few low-spoken +words to the nurse, and then, as she left the room the big red-haired man +seated himself heavily in the chair near the bedside and rested his great hands +on his fat knees. He stared down at me in much the same way that a huge mastiff +looks at a terrier. Finally his glance rested on my limp left hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Married, h’m?” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment the word would not come. I could hear Norah catch her breath +quickly. Then—“Yes,” answered I. +</p> + +<p> +“Husband living?” I could see suspicion dawning in his cold gray eye. +</p> + +<p> +Again the catch in Norah’s throat and a little half warning, half supplicating +gesture. And again, “Yes,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +The dawn of suspicion burst into full glow. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is he?” growled the red-haired doctor. “At a time like this?” +</p> + +<p> +I shut my eyes for a moment, too sick at heart to resent his manner. I could +feel, more than see, that Sis was signaling him frantically. I moistened my +lips and answered him, bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“He is in the Starkweather Hospital for the insane.” +</p> + +<p> +When the red-haired man spoke again the growl was quite gone from his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“And your home is—where?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nowhere,” I replied meekly, from my pillow. But at that Sis put her hand out +quickly, as though she had been struck, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“My home is her home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well then, take her there,” he ordered, frowning, “and keep her there as long +as you can. Newspaper reporting, h’m? In New York? That’s a devil of a job for +a woman. And a husband who... Well, you’ll have to take a six months’ course in +loafing, young woman. And at the end of that time, if you are still determined +to work, can’t you pick out something easier—like taking in scrubbing, for +instance?” +</p> + +<p> +I managed a feeble smile, wishing that he would go away quickly, so that I +might sleep. He seemed to divine my thoughts, for he disappeared into the +corridor, taking Norah with him. Their voices, low-pitched and carefully +guarded, could be heard as they conversed outside my door. +</p> + +<p> +Norah was telling him the whole miserable business. I wished, savagely, that +she would let me tell it, if it must be told. How could she paint the +fascination of the man who was my husband? She had never known the charm of him +as I had known it in those few brief months before our marriage. She had never +felt the caress of his voice, or the magnetism of his strange, smoldering eyes +glowing across the smoke-dimmed city room as I had felt them fixed on me. No +one had ever known what he had meant to the girl of twenty, with her brain full +of unspoken dreams—dreams which were all to become glorious realities in that +wonder-place, New York. +</p> + +<p> +How he had fired my country-girl imagination! He had been the most brilliant +writer on the big, brilliant sheet—and the most dissolute. How my heart had +pounded on that first lonely day when this Wonder-Being looked up from his +desk, saw me, and strolled over to where I sat before my typewriter! He smiled +down at me, companionably. I’m quite sure that my mouth must have been wide +open with surprise. He had been smoking a cigarette—an expensive-looking, +gold-tipped one. Now he removed it from between his lips with that hand that +always shook a little, and dropped it to the floor, crushing it lightly with +the toe of his boot. He threw back his handsome head and sent out the last +mouthful of smoke in a thin, lazy spiral. I remember thinking what a pity it +was that he should have crushed that costly-looking cigarette, just for me. +</p> + +<p> +“My name’s Orme,” he said, gravely. “Peter Orme. And if yours isn’t Shaughnessy +or Burke at least, then I’m no judge of what black hair and gray eyes stand +for.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’re not,” retorted I, laughing up at him, “for it happens to be +O’Hara—Dawn O’Hara, if ye plaze.” +</p> + +<p> +He picked up a trifle that lay on my desk—a pencil, perhaps, or a bit of +paper—and toyed with it, absently, as though I had not spoken. I thought he had +not heard, and I was conscious of feeling a bit embarrassed, and very young. +Suddenly he raised his smoldering eyes to mine, and I saw that they had taken +on a deeper glow. His white, even teeth showed in a half smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Dawn O’Hara,” said he, slowly, and the name had never sounded in the least +like music before, “Dawn O’Hara. It sounds like a rose—a pink blush rose that +is deeper pink at its heart, and very sweet.” +</p> + +<p> +He picked up the trifle with which he had been toying and eyed it intently for +a moment, as though his whole mind were absorbed in it. Then he put it down, +turned, and walked slowly away. I sat staring after him like a little +simpleton, puzzled, bewildered, stunned. That had been the beginning of it all. +</p> + +<p> +He had what we Irish call “a way wid him.” I wonder now why I did not go mad +with the joy, and the pain, and the uncertainty of it all. Never was a girl so +dazzled, so humbled, so worshiped, so neglected, so courted. He was a creature +of a thousand moods to torture one. What guise would he wear to-day? Would he +be gay, or dour, or sullen, or teasing or passionate, or cold, or tender or +scintillating? I know that my hands were always cold, and my cheeks were always +hot, those days. +</p> + +<p> +He wrote like a modern Demosthenes, with all political New York to quiver under +his philippics. The managing editor used to send him out on wonderful +assignments, and they used to hold the paper for his stuff when it was late. +Sometimes he would be gone for days at a time, and when he returned the men +would look at him with a sort of admiring awe. And the city editor would glance +up from beneath his green eye-shade and call out: +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Orme, for a man who has just wired in about a million dollars’ worth of +stuff seems to me you don’t look very crisp and jaunty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t slept for a week,” Peter Orme would growl, and then he would brush +past the men who were crowded around him, and turn in my direction. And the old +hot-and-cold, happy, frightened, laughing, sobbing sensation would have me by +the throat again. +</p> + +<p> +Well, we were married. Love cast a glamour over his very vices. His love of +drink? A weakness which I would transform into strength. His white hot flashes +of uncontrollable temper? Surely they would die down at my cool, tender touch. +His fits of abstraction and irritability? Mere evidences of the genius within. +Oh, my worshiping soul was always alert with an excuse. +</p> + +<p> +And so we were married. He had quite tired of me in less than a year, and the +hand that had always shaken a little shook a great deal now, and the fits of +abstraction and temper could be counted upon to appear oftener than any other +moods. I used to laugh, sometimes, when I was alone, at the bitter humor of it +all. It was like a Duchess novel come to life. +</p> + +<p> +His work began to show slipshod in spots. They talked to him about it and he +laughed at them. Then, one day, he left them in the ditch on the big story of +the McManus indictment, and the whole town scooped him, and the managing editor +told him that he must go. His lapses had become too frequent. They would have +to replace him with a man not so brilliant, perhaps, but more reliable. +</p> + +<p> +I daren’t think of his face as it looked when he came home to the little +apartment and told me. The smoldering eyes were flaming now. His lips were +flecked with a sort of foam. I stared at him in horror. He strode over to me, +clasped his fingers about my throat and shook me as a dog shakes a mouse. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you cry, eh?” he snarled. “Why don’t you cry!” +</p> + +<p> +And then I did cry out at what I saw in his eyes. I wrenched myself free, fled +to my room, and locked the door and stood against it with my hand pressed over +my heart until I heard the outer door slam and the echo of his footsteps die +away. +</p> + +<p> +Divorce! That was my only salvation. No, that would be cowardly now. I would +wait until he was on his feet again, and then I would demand my old free life +back once more. This existence that was dragging me into the gutter—this was +not life! Life was a glorious, beautiful thing, and I would have it yet. I laid +my plans, feverishly, and waited. He did not come back that night, or the next, +or the next, or the next. In desperation I went to see the men at the office. +No, they had not seen him. Was there anything that they could do? they asked. I +smiled, and thanked them, and said, oh, Peter was so absent-minded! No doubt he +had misdirected his letters, or something of the sort. And then I went back to +the flat to resume the horrible waiting. +</p> + +<p> +One week later he turned up at the old office which had cast him off. He sat +down at his former desk and began to write, breathlessly, as he used to in the +days when all the big stories fell to him. One of the men reporters strolled up +to him and touched him on the shoulder, man-fashion. Peter Orme raised his head +and stared at him, and the man sprang back in terror. The smoldering eyes had +burned down to an ash. Peter Orme was quite bereft of all reason. They took him +away that night, and I kept telling myself that it wasn’t true; that it was all +a nasty dream, and I would wake up pretty soon, and laugh about it, and tell it +at the breakfast table. +</p> + +<p> +Well, one does not seek a divorce from a husband who is insane. The busy men on +the great paper were very kind. They would take me back on the staff. Did I +think that I still could write those amusing little human interest stories? +Funny ones, you know, with a punch in ’em. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, plenty of good stories left in me yet, I assured them. They must remember +that I was only twenty-one, after all, and at twenty-one one does not lose the +sense of humor. +</p> + +<p> +And so I went back to my old desk, and wrote bright, chatty letters home to +Norah, and ground out very funny stories with a punch in ’em, that the husband +in the insane asylum might be kept in comforts. With both hands I hung on like +grim death to that saving sense of humor, resolved to make something of that +miserable mess which was my life—to make something of it yet. And now— +</p> + +<p> +At this point in my musings there was an end of the low-voiced conversation in +the hall. Sis tiptoed in and looked her disapproval at finding me sleepless. +</p> + +<p> +“Dawn, old girlie, this will never do. Shut your eyes now, like a good child, +and go to sleep. Guess what that great brute of a doctor said! I may take you +home with me next week! Dawn dear, you will come, won’t you? You must! This is +killing you. Don’t make me go away leaving you here. I couldn’t stand it.” +</p> + +<p> +She leaned over my pillow and closed my eyelids gently with her sweet, cool +fingers. “You are coming home with me, and you shall sleep and eat, and sleep +and eat, until you are as lively as the Widow Malone, ohone, and twice as fat. +Home, Dawnie dear, where we’ll forget all about New York. Home, with me.” +</p> + +<p> +I reached up uncertainly, and brought her hand down to my lips and a great +peace descended upon my sick soul. “Home—with you,” I said, like a child, and +fell asleep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/> +MOSTLY EGGS</h2> + +<p> +Oh, but it was clean, and sweet, and wonderfully still, that rose-and-white +room at Norah’s! No street cars to tear at one’s nerves with grinding brakes +and clanging bells; no tramping of restless feet on the concrete all through +the long, noisy hours; no shrieking midnight joy-riders; not one of the hundred +sounds which make night hideous in the city. What bliss to lie there, hour +after hour, in a delicious half-waking, half-sleeping, wholly exquisite stupor, +only rousing myself to swallow egg-nogg No. 426, and then to flop back again on +the big, cool pillow! +</p> + +<p> +New York, with its lights, its clangor, its millions, was only a far-away, +jumbled nightmare. The office, with its clacking typewriters, its insistent, +nerve-racking telephone bells, its systematic rush, its smoke-dimmed city room, +was but an ugly part of the dream. +</p> + +<p> +Back to that inferno of haste and scramble and clatter? Never! Never! I +resolved, drowsily. And dropped off to sleep again. +</p> + +<p> +And the sheets. Oh, those sheets of Norah’s! Why, they were white, instead of +gray! And they actually smelled of flowers. For that matter, there were +rosebuds on the silken coverlet. It took me a week to get chummy with that +rosebud-and-down quilt. I had to explain carefully to Norah that after a +half-dozen years of sleeping under doubtful boarding-house blankets one does +not so soon get rid of a shuddering disgust for coverings which are haunted by +the ghosts of a hundred unknown sleepers. Those years had taught me to draw up +the sheet with scrupulous care, to turn it down, and smooth it over, so that no +contaminating and woolly blanket should touch my skin. The habit stuck even +after Norah had tucked me in between her fragrant sheets. Automatically my +hands groped about, arranging the old protecting barrier. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, Fuss-fuss?” inquired Norah, looking on. “That down quilt +won’t bite you; what an old maid you are!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t like blankets next to my face,” I elucidated, sleepily, “never can tell +who slept under ’em last—” +</p> + +<p> +“You cat!” exclaimed Norah, making a little rush at me. “If you weren’t +supposed to be ill I’d shake you! Comparing my darling rosebud quilt to your +miserable gray blankets! Just for that I’ll make you eat an extra pair of +eggs.” +</p> + +<p> +There never was a sister like Norah. But then, who ever heard of a +brother-in-law like Max? No woman—not even a frazzled-out newspaper woman—could +receive the love and care that they gave me, and fail to flourish under it. +They had been Dad and Mother to me since the day when Norah had tucked me under +her arm and carried me away from New York. Sis was an angel; a comforting, +twentieth-century angel, with white apron strings for wings, and a tempting +tray in her hands in place of the hymn books and palm leaves that the +picture-book angels carry. She coaxed the inevitable eggs and beef into more +tempting forms than Mrs. Rorer ever guessed at. She could disguise those two +plain, nourishing articles of diet so effectually that neither hen nor cow +would have suspected either of having once been part of her anatomy. Once I ate +halfway through a melting, fluffy, peach-bedecked plate of something before I +discovered that it was only another egg in disguise. +</p> + +<p> +“Feel like eating a great big dinner to-day, Kidlet?” Norah would ask in the +morning as she stood at my bedside (with a glass of egg-something in her hand, +of course). +</p> + +<p> +“Eat!”—horror and disgust shuddering through my voice—“Eat! Ugh! Don’t +s-s-speak of it to me. And for pity’s sake tell Frieda to shut the kitchen door +when you go down, will you? I can smell something like ugh!—like pot roast, +with gravy!” And I would turn my face to the wall. +</p> + +<p> +Three hours later I would hear Sis coming softly up the stairs, accompanied by +a tinkling of china and glass. I would face her, all protest. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t I tell you, Sis, that I couldn’t eat a mouthful? Not a mouthf—um-m-m-m! +How perfectly scrumptious that looks! What’s that affair in the lettuce leaf? +Oh, can’t I begin on that divine-looking pinky stuff in the tall glass? H’m? +Oh, please!” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought—” Norah would begin; and then she would snigger softly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, that was hours ago,” I would explain, loftily. “Perhaps I could +manage a bite or two now.” +</p> + +<p> +Whereupon I would demolish everything except the china and doilies. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this point on the road to recovery, just halfway between illness and +health, that Norah and Max brought the great and unsmiling Von Gerhard on the +scene. It appeared that even New York was respectfully aware of Von Gerhard, +the nerve specialist, in spite of the fact that he lived in Milwaukee. The idea +of bringing him up to look at me occurred to Max quite suddenly. I think it was +on the evening that I burst into tears when Max entered the room wearing a +squeaky shoe. The Weeping Walrus was a self-contained and tranquil creature +compared to me at that time. The sight of a fly on the wall was enough to make +me burst into a passion of sobs. +</p> + +<p> +“I know the boy to steady those shaky nerves of yours, Dawn,” said Max, after I +had made a shamefaced apology for my hysterical weeping, “I’m going to have Von +Gerhard up here to look at you. He can run up Sunday, eh, Norah?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s Von Gerhard?” I inquired, out of the depths of my ignorance. “Anyway, I +won’t have him. I’ll bet he wears a Vandyke and spectacles.” +</p> + +<p> +“Von Gerhard!” exclaimed Norah, indignantly. “You ought to be thankful to have +him look at you, even if he wears goggles and a flowing beard. Why, even that +red-haired New York doctor of yours cringed and looked impressed when I told +him that Von Gerhard was a friend of my husband’s, and that they had been +comrades at Heidelberg. I must have mentioned him dozens of times in my +letters.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never.” +</p> + +<p> +“Queer,” commented Max, “he runs up here every now and then to spend a quiet +Sunday with Norah and me and the Spalpeens. Says it rests him. The kids swarm +all over him, and tear him limb from limb. It doesn’t look restful, but he says +it’s great. I think he came here from Berlin just after you left for New York, +Dawn. Milwaukee fits him as if it had been made for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’re not going to drag this wonderful being up here just for me!” I +protested, aghast. +</p> + +<p> +Max pointed an accusing finger at me from the doorway. “Aren’t you what the +bromides call a bundle of nerves? And isn’t Von Gerhard’s specialty untying +just those knots? I’ll write to him to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +And he did. And Von Gerhard came. The Spalpeens watched for him, their noses +flattened against the window-pane, for it was raining. As he came up the path +they burst out of the door to meet him. From my bedroom window I saw him come +prancing up the walk like a boy, with the two children clinging to his +coat-tails, all three quite unmindful of the rain, and yelling like Comanches. +</p> + +<p> +Ten minutes later he had donned his professional dignity, entered my room, and +beheld me in all my limp and pea-green beauty. I noted approvingly that he had +to stoop a bit as he entered the low doorway, and that the Vandyke of my +prophecy was missing. +</p> + +<p> +He took my hand in his own steady, reassuring clasp. Then he began to talk. +Half an hour sped away while we discussed New +York—books—music—theatres—everything and anything but Dawn O’Hara. I learned +later that as we chatted he was getting his story, bit by bit, from every +twitch of the eyelids, from every gesture of the hands that had grown too thin +to wear the hateful ring; from every motion of the lips; from the color of my +nails; from each convulsive muscle; from every shadow, and wrinkle and curve +and line of my face. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he asked: “Are you making the proper effort to get well? You try to +conquer those jumping nerfs, yes?” +</p> + +<p> +I glared at him. “Try! I do everything. I’d eat woolly worms if I thought they +might benefit me. If ever a girl has minded her big sister and her doctor, that +girl is I. I’ve eaten everything from pâté de foie gras to raw beef, and I’ve +drunk everything from blood to champagne.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eggs?” queried Von Gerhard, as though making a happy suggestion. +</p> + +<p> +“Eggs!” I snorted. “Eggs! Thousands of ’em! Eggs hard and soft boiled, poached +and fried, scrambled and shirred, eggs in beer and egg-noggs, egg lemonades and +egg orangeades, eggs in wine and eggs in milk, and eggs au naturel. I’ve lapped +up iron-and-wine, and whole rivers of milk, and I’ve devoured rare porterhouse +and roast beef day after day for weeks. So! Eggs!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mein Himmel!” ejaculated he, fervently, “And you still live!” A suspicion of a +smile dawned in his eyes. I wondered if he ever laughed. I would experiment. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t breathe it to a soul,” I whispered, tragically, “but eggs, and eggs +alone, are turning my love for my sister into bitterest hate. She stalks me the +whole day long, forcing egg mixtures down my unwilling throat. She bullies me. +I daren’t put out my hand suddenly without knocking over liquid refreshment in +some form, but certainly with an egg lurking in its depths. I am so expert that +I can tell an egg orangeade from an egg lemonade at a distance of twenty yards, +with my left hand tied behind me, and one eye shut, and my feet in a sack.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can laugh, eh? Well, that iss good,” commented the grave and unsmiling +one. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” answered I, made more flippant by his solemnity. “Surely I can laugh. +For what else was my father Irish? Dad used to say that a sense of humor was +like a shillaly—an iligent thing to have around handy, especially when the +joke’s on you.” +</p> + +<p> +The ghost of a twinkle appeared again in the corners of the German blue eyes. +Some fiend of rudeness seized me. +</p> + +<p> +“Laugh!” I commanded. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Ernst von Gerhard stiffened. “Pardon?” inquired he, as one who is sure that +he has misunderstood. +</p> + +<p> +“Laugh!” I snapped again. “I’ll dare you to do it. I’ll double dare you! You +dassen’t!” +</p> + +<p> +But he did. After a moment’s bewildered surprise he threw back his handsome +blond head and gave vent to a great, deep infectious roar of mirth that brought +the Spalpeens tumbling up the stairs in defiance of their mother’s strict +instructions. +</p> + +<p> +After that we got along beautifully. He turned out to be quite human, beneath +the outer crust of reserve. He continued his examination only after bribing the +Spalpeens shamefully, so that even their rapacious demands were satisfied, and +they trotted off contentedly. +</p> + +<p> +There followed a process which reduced me to a giggling heap but which Von +Gerhard carried out ceremoniously. It consisted of certain raps at my knees, +and shins, and elbows, and fingers, and certain commands to—“look at my finger! +Look at the wall! Look at my finger! Look at the wall!” +</p> + +<p> +“So!” said Von Gerhard at last, in a tone of finality. I sank my battered frame +into the nearest chair. “This—this newspaper work—it must cease.” He dismissed +it with a wave of the hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” I said, with elaborate sarcasm. “How should you advise me to earn +my living in the future? In the stories they paint dinner cards, don’t they? or +bake angel cakes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you then never serious?” asked Von Gerhard, in disapproval. +</p> + +<p> +“Never,” said I. “An old, worn-out, worked-out newspaper reporter, with a +husband in the mad-house, can’t afford to be serious for a minute, because if +she were she’d go mad, too, with the hopelessness of it all.” And I buried my +face in my hands. +</p> + +<p> +The room was very still for a moment. Then the great Von Gerhard came over, and +took my hands gently from my face. “I—I do beg your pardon,” he said. He looked +strangely boyish and uncomfortable as he said it. “I was thinking only of your +good. We do that, sometimes, forgetting that circumstances may make our wishes +impossible of execution. So. You will forgive me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive you? Yes, indeed,” I assured him. And we shook hands, gravely. “But +that doesn’t help matters much, after all, does it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it helps. For now we understand one another, is it not so? You say you +can only write for a living. Then why not write here at home? Surely these +years of newspaper work have given you a great knowledge of human nature. Then +too, there is your gift of humor. Surely that is a combination which should +make your work acceptable to the magazines. Never in my life have I seen so +many magazines as here in the United States. But hundreds! Thousands!” +</p> + +<p> +“Me!” I exploded—“A real writer lady! No more interviews with actresses! No +more slushy Sunday specials! No more teary tales! Oh, my! When may I begin? +To-morrow? You know I brought my typewriter with me. I’ve almost forgotten +where the letters are on the keyboard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait, wait; not so fast! In a month or two, perhaps. But first must come other +things—outdoor things. Also housework.” +</p> + +<p> +“Housework!” I echoed, feebly. +</p> + +<p> +“Naturlich. A little dusting, a little scrubbing, a little sweeping, a little +cooking. The finest kind of indoor exercise. Later you may write a little—but +very little. Run and play out of doors with the children. When I see you again +you will have roses in your cheeks like the German girls, yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I echoed, meekly, “I wonder how Frieda will like my elephantine efforts +at assisting with the housework. If she gives notice, Norah will be lost to +you.” +</p> + +<p> +But Frieda did not give notice. After I had helped her clean the kitchen and +the pantry I noticed an expression of deepest pity overspreading her lumpy +features. The expression became almost one of agony as she watched me roll out +some noodles for soup, and delve into the sticky mysteries of a new kind of +cake. +</p> + +<p> +Max says that for a poor working girl who hasn’t had time to cultivate the +domestic graces, my cakes are a distinct triumph. Sis sniffs at that, and +mutters something about cups of raisins and nuts and citron hiding a multitude +of batter sins. She never allows the Spalpeens to eat my cakes, and on my +baking days they are usually sent from the table howling. Norah declares, +severely, that she is going to hide the Green Cook Book. The Green Cook Book is +a German one. Norah bought it in deference to Max’s love of German cookery. It +is called Aunt Julchen’s cook book, and the author, between hints as to flour +and butter, gets delightfully chummy with her pupil. Her cakes are proud, rich +cakes. She orders grandly: +</p> + +<p> +“Now throw in the yolks of twelve eggs; one-fourth of a pound of almonds; two +pounds of raisins; a pound of citron; a pound of orange-peel.” +</p> + +<p> +As if that were not enough, there follow minor instructions as to trifles like +ounces of walnut meats, pounds of confectioner’s sugar, and pints of very rich +cream. When cold, to be frosted with an icing made up of more eggs, more nuts, +more cream, more everything. +</p> + +<p> +The children have appointed themselves official lickers and scrapers of the +spoons and icing pans, also official guides on their auntie’s walks. They +regard their Aunt Dawn as a quite ridiculous but altogether delightful old +thing. +</p> + +<p> +And Norah—bless her! looks up when I come in from a romp with the Spalpeens and +says: “Your cheeks are pink! Actually! And you’re losing a puff there at the +back of your ear, and your hat’s on crooked. Oh, you are beginning to look your +old self, Dawn dear!” +</p> + +<p> +At which doubtful compliment I retort, recklessly: “Pooh! What’s a puff more or +less, in a worthy cause? And if you think my cheeks are pink now, just wait +until your mighty Von Gerhard comes again. By that time they shall be so red +and bursting that Frieda’s, on wash day, will look anemic by comparison. Say, +Norah, how red are German red cheeks, anyway?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br/> +GOOD AS NEW</h2> + +<p> +So Spring danced away, and Summer sauntered in. My pillows looked less and less +tempting. The wine of the northern air imparted a cocky assurance. One +blue-and-gold day followed the other, and I spent hours together out of doors +in the sunshine, lying full length on the warm, sweet ground, to the horror of +the entire neighborhood. To be sure, I was sufficiently discreet to choose the +lawn at the rear of the house. There I drank in the atmosphere, as per doctor’s +instructions, while the genial sun warmed the watery blood in my veins and +burned the skin off the end of my nose. +</p> + +<p> +All my life I had envied the loungers in the parks—those silent, inert figures +that lie under the trees all the long summer day, their shabby hats over their +faces, their hands clasped above their heads, legs sprawled in uncouth comfort, +while the sun dapples down between the leaves and, like a good fairy godmother, +touches their frayed and wrinkled garments with flickering figures of golden +splendor, while they sleep. They always seemed so blissfully care-free and at +ease—those sprawling men figures—and I, to whom such simple joys were +forbidden, being a woman, had envied them. +</p> + +<p> +Now I was reveling in that very joy, stretched prone upon the ground, blinking +sleepily up at the sun and the cobalt sky, feeling my very hair grow, and +health returning in warm, electric waves. I even dared to cross one leg over +the other and to swing the pendant member with nonchalant air, first taking a +cautious survey of the neighboring back windows to see if any one peeked. +Doubtless they did, behind those ruffled curtains, but I grew splendidly +indifferent. +</p> + +<p> +Even the crawling things—and there were myriads of them—added to the enjoyment +of my ease. With my ear so close to the ground the grass seemed fairly to buzz +with them. Everywhere there were crazily busy ants, and I, patently a sluggard +and therefore one of those for whom the ancient warning was intended, +considered them lazily. How they plunged about, weaving in and out, rushing +here and there, helter-skelter, like bargain-hunting women darting wildly from +counter to counter! +</p> + +<p> +“O, foolish, foolish antics!” I chided them, “stop wearing yourselves out this +way. Don’t you know that the game isn’t worth the candle, and that you’ll give +yourselves nervous jim-jams and then you’ll have to go home to be patched up? +Look at me! I’m a horrible example.” +</p> + +<p> +But they only bustled on, heedless of my advice, and showed their contempt by +crawling over me as I lay there like a lady Gulliver. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, I played what they call a heavy thinking part. It was not only the ants +that came in for lectures. I preached sternly to myself. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Dawn old girl, you’ve made a beautiful mess of it. A smashed-up wreck at +twenty-eight! And what have you to show for it? Nothing! You’re a useless pulp, +like a lemon that has been squeezed dry. Von Gerhard was right. There must be +no more newspaper work for you, me girl. Not if you can keep away from the +fascination of it, which I don’t think you can.” +</p> + +<p> +Then I would fall to thinking of those years of newspapering—of the thrills of +them, and the ills of them. It had been exhilarating, and educating, but +scarcely remunerative. Mother had never approved. Dad had chuckled and said +that it was a curse descended upon me from the terrible old Kitty O’Hara, the +only old maid in the history of the O’Haras, and famed in her day for a caustic +tongue and a venomed pen. Dad and Mother—what a pair of children they had been! +The very dissimilarity of their natures had been a bond between them. Dad, +light-hearted, whimsical, care-free, improvident; Mother, gravely sweet, +anxious-browed, trying to teach economy to the handsome Irish husband who, +descendant of a long and royal line of spendthrift ancestors, would have none +of it. +</p> + +<p> +It was Dad who had insisted that they name me Dawn. Dawn O’Hara! His sense of +humor must have been sleeping. “You were such a rosy, pinky, soft baby thing,” +Mother had once told me, “that you looked just like the first flush of light at +sunrise. That is why your father insisted on calling you Dawn.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Dad! How could he know that at twenty-eight I would be a yellow wreck of a +newspaper reporter—with a wrinkle between my eyes. If he could see me now he +would say: +</p> + +<p> +“Sure, you look like the dawn yet, me girl—but a Pittsburgh dawn.” +</p> + +<p> +At that, Mother, if she were here, would pat my check where the hollow place +is, and murmur: “Never mind, Dawnie dearie, Mother thinks you are beautiful +just the same.” Of such blessed stuff are mothers made. +</p> + +<p> +At this stage of the memory game I would bury my face in the warm grass and +thank my God for having taken Mother before Peter Orme came into my life. And +then I would fall asleep there on the soft, sweet grass, with my head snuggled +in my arms, and the ants wriggling, unchided, into my ears. +</p> + +<p> +On the last of these sylvan occasions I awoke, not with a graceful start, like +the story-book ladies, but with a grunt. Sis was digging me in the ribs with +her toe. I looked up to see her standing over me, a foaming tumbler of +something in her hand. I felt that it was eggy and eyed it disgustedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Get up,” said she, “you lazy scribbler, and drink this.” +</p> + +<p> +I sat up, eyeing her severely and picking grass and ants out of my hair. +</p> + +<p> +“D’ you mean to tell me that you woke me out of that babe-like slumber to make +me drink that goo? What is it, anyway? I’ll bet it’s another egg-nogg.” +</p> + +<p> +“Egg-nogg it is; and swallow it right away, because there are guests to see +you.” +</p> + +<p> +I emerged from the first dip into the yellow mixture and fixed on her as stern +and terrible a look at any one can whose mouth is encircled by a mustache of +yellow foam. +</p> + +<p> +“Guests!” I roared, “not for me! Don’t you dare to say that they came to see +me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Did too,” insists Norah, with firmness, “they came especially to see you. +Asked for you, right from the jump.” +</p> + +<p> +I finished the egg-nogg in four gulps, returned the empty tumbler with an air +of decision, and sank upon the grass. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell ’em I rave. Tell ’em that I’m unconscious, and that for weeks I have +recognized no one, not even my dear sister. Say that in my present +nerve-shattered condition I—” +</p> + +<p> +“That wouldn’t satisfy them,” Norah calmly interrupts, “they know you’re crazy +because they saw you out here from their second story back windows. That’s why +they came. So you may as well get up and face them. I promised them I’d bring +you in. You can’t go on forever refusing to see people, and you know the +Whalens are—” +</p> + +<p> +“Whalens!” I gasped. “How many of them? Not—not the entire fiendish three?” +</p> + +<p> +“All three. I left them champing with impatience.” +</p> + +<p> +The Whalens live just around the corner. The Whalens are omniscient. They have +a system of news gathering which would make the efforts of a New York daily +appear antiquated. They know that Jenny Laffin feeds the family on soup meat +and oat-meal when Mr. Laffin is on the road; they know that Mrs. Pearson only +shakes out her rugs once in four weeks; they can tell you the number of times a +week that Sam Dempster comes home drunk; they know that the Merkles never have +cream with their coffee because little Lizzie Merkle goes to the creamery every +day with just one pail and three cents; they gloat over the knowledge that +Professor Grimes, who is a married man, is sweet on Gertie Ashe, who teaches +second reader in his school; they can tell you where Mrs. Black got her seal +coat, and her husband only earning two thousand a year; they know who is going +to run for mayor, and how long poor Angela Sims has to live, and what Guy +Donnelly said to Min when he asked her to marry him. +</p> + +<p> +The three Whalens—mother and daughters—hunt in a group. They send meaning +glances to one another across the room, and at parties they get together and +exchange bulletins in a corner. On passing the Whalen house one is +uncomfortably aware of shadowy forms lurking in the windows, and of parlor +curtains that are agitated for no apparent cause. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore it was with a groan that I rose and prepared to follow Norah into the +house. Something in my eye caused her to turn at the very door. “Don’t you +dare!” she hissed; then, banishing the warning scowl from her face, and +assuming a near-smile, she entered the room and I followed miserably at her +heels. +</p> + +<p> +The Whalens rose and came forward effusively; Mrs. Whalen, plump, dark, +voluble; Sally, lean, swarthy, vindictive; Flossie, pudgy, powdered, +over-dressed. They eyed me hungrily. I felt that they were searching my +features for signs of incipient insanity. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear, DEAR girl!” bubbled the billowy Flossie, kissing the end of my nose and +fastening her eye on my ringless left hand. +</p> + +<p> +Sally contented herself with a limp and fishy handshake. She and I were sworn +enemies in our school-girl days, and a baleful gleam still lurked in Sally’s +eye. Mrs. Whalen bestowed on me a motherly hug that enveloped me in an +atmosphere of liquid face-wash, strong perfumery and fried lard. Mrs. Whalen is +a famous cook. Said she: +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve been thinking of calling ever since you were brought home, but dear me! +you’ve been looking so poorly I just said to the girls, wait till the poor +thing feels more like seeing her old friends. Tell me, how are you feeling +now?” +</p> + +<p> +The three sat forward in their chairs in attitudes of tense waiting. +</p> + +<p> +I resolved that if err I must it should be on the side of safety. I turned to +sister Norah. +</p> + +<p> +“How am I feeling anyway, Norah?” I guardedly inquired. +</p> + +<p> +Norah’s face was a study. “Why Dawn dear,” she said, sugar-sweet, “no doubt you +know better than I. But I’m sure that you are wonderfully improved—almost your +old self, in fact. Don’t you think she looks splendid, Mrs. Whalen?” +</p> + +<p> +The three Whalens tore their gaze from my blank countenance to exchange a +series of meaning looks. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” purred Mrs. Whalen, “that your awful trouble was the real cause of +your—a-a-a-sickness, worrying about it and grieving as you must have.” +</p> + +<p> +She pronounces it with a capital T, and I know she means Peter. I hate her for +it. +</p> + +<p> +“Trouble!” I chirped. “Trouble never troubles me. I just worked too hard, +that’s all, and acquired an awful ‘tired.’ All work and no play makes Jill a +nervous wreck, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +At that the elephantine Flossie wagged a playful finger at me. “Oh, now, you +can’t make us believe that, just because we’re from the country! We know all +about you gay New Yorkers, with your Bohemian ways and your midnight studio +suppers, and your cigarettes, and cocktails and high jinks!” +</p> + +<p> +Memory painted a swift mental picture of Dawn O’Hara as she used to tumble into +bed after a whirlwind day at the office, too dog-tired to give her hair even +one half of the prescribed one hundred strokes of the brush. But in turn I +shook a reproving forefinger at Flossie. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been reading some naughty society novel! One of those +millionaire-divorce-actress-automobile novels. Dear, dear! Shall I ever forget +the first New York actress I ever met; or what she said!” +</p> + +<p> +I felt, more than saw, a warning movement from Sis. But the three Whalens had +hitched forward in their chairs. +</p> + +<p> +“What did she say?” gurgled Flossie. “Was it something real reezk?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it was at a late supper—a studio supper given in her honor,” I +confessed. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes-s-s-s,” hissed the Whalens. +</p> + +<p> +“And this actress—she was one of those musical comedy actresses, you know; I +remember her part called for a good deal of kicking about in a short Dutch +costume—came in rather late, after the performance. She was wearing a +regal-looking fur-edged evening wrap, and she still wore all her make-up”—out +of the corner of my eye I saw Sis sink back with an air of resignation—“and she +threw open the door and said— +</p> + +<p> +“Yes-s-s-s!” hissed the Whalens again, wetting their lips. +</p> + +<p> +“—said: ‘Folks, I just had a wire from mother, up in Maine. The boy has the +croup. I’m scared green. I hate to spoil the party, but don’t ask me to stay. I +want to go home to the flat and blubber. I didn’t even stop to take my make-up +off. My God! If anything should happen to the boy!—Well, have a good time +without me. Jim’s waiting outside.’” A silence. +</p> + +<p> +Then—“Who was Jim?” asked Flossie, hopefully. +</p> + +<p> +“Jim was her husband, of course. He was in the same company.” +</p> + +<p> +Another silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that all?” demanded Sally from the corner in which she had been glowering. +</p> + +<p> +“All! You unnatural girl! Isn’t one husband enough?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Whalen smiled an uncertain, wavering smile. There passed among the three a +series of cabalistic signs. They rose simultaneously. +</p> + +<p> +“How quaint you are!” exclaimed Mrs. Whalen, “and so amusing! Come girls, we +mustn’t tire Miss—ah—Mrs.—er—” with another meaning look at my bare left hand. +</p> + +<p> +“My husband’s name is still Orme,” I prompted, quite, quite pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, certainly. I’m so forgetful. And one reads such queer things in the +newspapers now-a-days. Divorces, and separations, and soul-mates and things.” +There was a note of gentle insinuation in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +Norah stepped firmly into the fray. “Yes, doesn’t one? What a comfort it must +be to you to know that your dear girls are safe at home with you, and no doubt +will be secure, for years to come, from the buffeting winds of matrimony.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a tinge of purple in Mrs. Whalen’s face as she moved toward the door, +gathering her brood about her. “Now that dear Dawn is almost normal again I +shall send my little girlies over real often. She must find it very dull here +after her—ah—life in New York.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” I said, hurriedly, “not at all. You see I’m—I’m writing a book. +My entire day is occupied.” +</p> + +<p> +“A book!” screeched the three. “How interesting! What is it? When will it be +published?” +</p> + +<p> +I avoided Norah’s baleful eye as I answered their questions and performed the +final adieux. +</p> + +<p> +As the door closed, Norah and I faced each other, glaring. +</p> + +<p> +“Hussies!” hissed Norah. Whereupon it struck us funny and we fell, a shrieking +heap, into the nearest chair. Finally Sis dabbed at her eyes with her +handkerchief, drew a long breath, and asked, with elaborate sarcasm, why I +hadn’t made it a play instead of a book, while I was about it. +</p> + +<p> +“But I mean it,” I declared. “I’ve had enough of loafing. Max must unpack my +typewriter to-night. I’m homesick for a look at the keys. And to-morrow I’m to +be installed in the cubbyhole off the dining-room and I defy any one to enter +it on peril of their lives. If you value the lives of your offspring, warn them +away from that door. Von Gerhard said that there was writing in my system, and +by the Great Horn Spoon and the Beard of the Prophet, I’ll have it out! +Besides, I need the money. Norah dear, how does one set about writing a book? +It seems like such a large order.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br/> +DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH</h2> + +<p> +It’s hard trying to develop into a real Writer Lady in the bosom of one’s +family, especially when the family refuses to take one seriously. Seven years +of newspaper grind have taught me the fallacy of trying to write by the +inspiration method. But there is such a thing as a train of thought, and mine +is constantly being derailed, and wrecked and pitched about. +</p> + +<p> +Scarcely am I settled in my cubby-hole, typewriter before me, the working plan +of a story buzzing about in my brain, when I hear my name called in muffled +tones, as though the speaker were laboring with a mouthful of hairpins. I pay +no attention. I have just given my heroine a pair of calm gray eyes, shaded +with black lashes and hair to match. A voice floats down from the upstairs +regions. +</p> + +<p> +“Dawn! Oh, Dawn! Just run and rescue the cucumbers out of the top of the +ice-box, will you? The iceman’s coming, and he’ll squash ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +A parting jab at my heroine’s hair and eyes, and I’m off to save the cucumbers. +</p> + +<p> +Back at my typewriter once more. Shall I make my heroine petite or grande? I +decide that stateliness and Gibsonesque height should accompany the calm gray +eyes. I rattle away happily, the plot unfolding itself in some mysterious way. +Sis opens the door a little and peers in. She is dressed for the street. +</p> + +<p> +“Dawn dear, I’m going to the dressmaker’s. Frieda’s upstairs cleaning the +bathroom, so take a little squint at the roast now and then, will you? See that +it doesn’t burn, and that there’s plenty of gravy. Oh, and Dawn—tell the +milkman we want an extra half-pint of cream to-day. The tickets are on the +kitchen shelf, back of the clock. I’ll be back in an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mhmph,” I reply. +</p> + +<p> +Sis shuts the door, but opens it again almost immediately. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let the Infants bother you. But if Frieda’s upstairs and they come to +you for something to eat, don’t let them have any cookies before dinner. If +they’re really hungry they’ll eat bread and butter.” +</p> + +<p> +I promise, dreamily, my last typewritten sentence still running through my +head. The gravy seems to have got into the heroine’s calm gray eyes. What +heroine could remain calm-eyed when her creator’s mind is filled with roast +beef? A half-hour elapses before I get back on the track. Then appears the +hero—a tall blond youth, fair to behold. I make him two yards high, and endow +him with a pair of clothing-advertisement shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +There assails my nostrils a fearful smell of scorching. The roast! A wild rush +into the kitchen. I fling open the oven door. The roast is mahogany-colored, +and gravyless. It takes fifteen minutes of the most desperate +first-aid-to-the-injured measures before the roast is revived. +</p> + +<p> +Back to the writing. It has lost its charm. The gray-eyed heroine is a stick; +she moves like an Indian lady outside a cigar shop. The hero is a +milk-and-water sissy, without a vital spark in him. What’s the use of trying to +write, anyway? Nobody wants my stuff. Good for nothing except dubbing on a +newspaper! +</p> + +<p> +Rap! Rap! Rappity-rap-rap! Bing! Milk! +</p> + +<p> +I dash into the kitchen. No milk! No milkman! I fly to the door. He is +disappearing around the corner of the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Hi! Mr. Milkman! Say, Mr. Milkman!” with frantic beckonings. +</p> + +<p> +He turns. He lifts up his voice. “The screen door was locked so I left youse +yer milk on top of the ice-box on the back porch. Thought like the hired girl +was upstairs an’ I could git the tickets to-morra.” +</p> + +<p> +I explain about the cream, adding that it is wanted for short-cake. The +explanation does not seem to cheer him. He appears to be a very gloomy and +reserved milkman. I fancy that he is in the habit of indulging in a little airy +persiflage with Frieda o’ mornings, and he finds me a poor substitute for her +red-cheeked comeliness. +</p> + +<p> +The milk safely stowed away in the ice-box, I have another look at the roast. I +am dipping up spoonfuls of brown gravy and pouring them over the surface of the +roast in approved basting style, when there is a rush, a scramble, and two hard +bodies precipitate themselves upon my legs so suddenly that for a moment my +head pitches forward into the oven. I withdraw my head from the oven, hastily. +The basting spoon is immersed in the bottom of the pan. I turn, indignant. The +Spalpeens look up at me with innocent eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You little divils, what do you mean by shoving your old aunt into the oven! +It’s cannibals you are!” +</p> + +<p> +The idea pleases them. They release my legs and execute a savage war dance +around me. The Spalpeens are firm in the belief that I was brought to their +home for their sole amusement, and they refuse to take me seriously. The +Spalpeens themselves are two of the finest examples of real humor that ever +were perpetrated upon parents. Sheila is the first-born. Norah decided that she +should be an Irish beauty, and bestowed upon her a name that reeks of the bogs. +Whereupon Sheila, at the age of six, is as flaxen-haired and blue-eyed and +stolid a little German madchen as ever fooled her parents, and she is a +feminine reproduction of her German Dad. Two years later came a sturdy boy, and +they named him Hans, in a flaunt of defiance. Hans is black-haired, gray-eyed +and Irish as Killarny. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re awful hungry,” announces Sheila. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you wait until dinner time? Such a grand dinner!” +</p> + +<p> +Sheila and Hans roll their eyes to convey to me that, were they to wait until +dinner for sustenance we should find but their lifeless forms. +</p> + +<p> +“Well then, Auntie will get a nice piece of bread and butter for each of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t want bread an’ butty!” shrieks Hans. “Want tooky!” +</p> + +<p> +“Cooky!” echoes Sheila, pounding on the kitchen table with the rescued basting +spoon. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t have cookies before dinner. They’re bad for your insides.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can too,” disputes Hans. “Fwieda dives us tookies. Want tooky!” wailingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, ple-e-e-ease, Auntie Dawnie dearie,” wheedles Sheila, wriggling her +soft little fingers in my hand. +</p> + +<p> +“But Mother never lets you have cookies before dinner,” I retort severely. “She +knows they are bad for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh, she does too! She always says, ‘No, not a cooky!’ And then we beg and +screech, and then she says, ‘Oh, for pity’s sake, Frieda, give ’em a cooky and +send ’em out. One cooky can’t kill ’em.’” Sheila’s imitation is delicious. +</p> + +<p> +Hans catches the word screech and takes it as his cue. He begins a series of +ear-piercing wails. Sheila surveys him with pride and then takes the wail up in +a minor key. Their teamwork is marvelous. I fly to the cooky jar and extract +two round and sugary confections. I thrust them into the pink, eager palms. The +wails cease. Solemnly they place one cooky atop the other, measuring the +circlets with grave eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Mine’s a weeny bit bigger’n yours this time,” decides Sheila, and holds her +cooky heroically while Hans takes a just and lawful bite out of his sister’s +larger share. +</p> + +<p> +“The blessed little angels!” I say to myself, melting. “The dear, unselfish +little sweeties!” and give each of them another cooky. +</p> + +<p> +Back to my typewriter. But the words flatly refuse to come now. I make six +false starts, bite all my best finger-nails, screw my hair into a wilderness of +cork-screws and give it up. No doubt a real Lady Writer could write on, +unruffled and unhearing, while the iceman squashed the cucumbers, and the roast +burned to a frazzle, and the Spalpeens perished of hunger. Possessed of the +real spark of genius, trivialities like milkmen and cucumbers could not dim its +glow. Perhaps all successful Lady Writers with real live sparks have cooks and +scullery maids, and need not worry about basting, and gravy, and milkmen. +</p> + +<p> +This book writing is all very well for those who have a large faith in the +future and an equally large bank account. But my future will have to be +hand-carved, and my bank account has always been an all too small pay envelope +at the end of each week. It will be months before the book is shaped and +finished. And my pocketbook is empty. Last week Max sent money for the care of +Peter. He and Norah think that I do not know. +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard was here in August. I told him that all my firm resolutions to +forsake newspaperdom forever were slipping away, one by one. +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard of the fascination of the newspaper office,” he said, in his +understanding way. “I believe you have a heimweh for it, not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Heimweh! That’s the word,” I had agreed. “After you have been a newspaper +writer for seven years—and loved it—you will be a newspaper writer, at heart +and by instinct at least, until you die. There’s no getting away from it. It’s +in the blood. Newspaper men have been known to inherit fortunes, to enter +politics, to write books and become famous, to degenerate into press agents and +become infamous, to blossom into personages, to sink into nonentities, but +their news-nose remained a part of them, and the inky, smoky, stuffy smell of a +newspaper office was ever sweet in their nostrils.” +</p> + +<p> +But, “Not yet,” Von Gerhard had said, “It unless you want to have again this +miserable business of the sick nerfs. Wait yet a few months.” +</p> + +<p> +And so I have waited, saying nothing to Norah and Max. But I want to be in the +midst of things. I miss the sensation of having my fingers at the pulse of the +big old world. I’m lonely for the noise and the rush and the hard work; for a +glimpse of the busy local room just before press time, when the lights are +swimming in a smoky haze, and the big presses downstairs are thundering their +warning to hurry, and the men are breezing in from their runs with the grist of +news that will be ground finer and finer as it passes through the mill of +copy-readers’ and editors’ hands. I want to be there in the thick of the +confusion that is, after all, so orderly. I want to be there when the telephone +bells are zinging, and the typewriters are snapping, and the messenger boys are +shuffling in and out, and the office kids are scuffling in a corner, and the +big city editor, collar off, sleeves rolled up from his great arms, hair +bristling wildly above his green eye-shade, is swearing gently and smoking +cigarette after cigarette, lighting each fresh one at the dying glow of the +last. I would give a year of my life to hear him say: +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind tellin’ you, Beatrice Fairfax, that that was a darn good story +you got on the Millhaupt divorce. The other fellows haven’t a word that isn’t +re-hash.” +</p> + +<p> +All of which is most unwomanly; for is not marriage woman’s highest aim, and +home her true sphere? Haven’t I tried both? I ought to know. I merely have been +miscast in this life’s drama. My part should have been that of one who makes +her way alone. Peter, with his thin, cruel lips, and his shaking hands, and his +haggard face and his smoldering eyes, is a shadow forever blotting out the +sunny places in my path. I was meant to be an old maid, like the terrible old +Kitty O’Hara. Not one of the tatting-and-tea kind, but an impressive, bustling +old girl, with a double chin. The sharp-tongued Kitty O’Hara used to say that +being an old maid was a great deal like death by drowning—a really delightful +sensation when you ceased struggling. +</p> + +<p> +Norah has pleaded with me to be more like other women of my age, and for her +sake I’ve tried. She has led me about to bridge parties and tea fights, and I +have tried to act as though I were enjoying it all, but I knew that I wasn’t +getting on a bit. I have come to the conclusion that one year of newspapering +counts for two years of ordinary existence, and that while I’m twenty-eight in +the family Bible I’m fully forty inside. When one day may bring under one’s pen +a priest, a pauper, a prostitute, a philanthropist, each with a story to tell, +and each requiring to be bullied, or cajoled, or bribed, or threatened, or +tricked into telling it; then the end of that day’s work finds one looking out +at the world with eyes that are very tired and as old as the world itself. +</p> + +<p> +I’m spoiled for sewing bees and church sociables and afternoon bridges. A +hunger for the city is upon me. The long, lazy summer days have slipped by. +There is an autumn tang in the air. The breeze has a touch that is sharp. +</p> + +<p> +Winter in a little northern town! I should go mad. But winter in the city! The +streets at dusk on a frosty evening; the shop windows arranged by artist hands +for the beauty-loving eyes of women; the rows of lights like jewels strung on +an invisible chain; the glitter of brass and enamel as the endless procession +of motors flashes past; the smartly-gowned women; the keen-eyed, nervous men; +the shrill note of the crossing policeman’s whistle; every smoke-grimed wall +and pillar taking on a mysterious shadowy beauty in the purple dusk, every +unsightly blot obscured by the kindly night. But best of all, the fascination +of the People I’d Like to Know. They pop up now and then in the shifting +crowds, and are gone the next moment, leaving behind them a vague regret. +Sometimes I call them the People I’d Like to Know and sometimes I call them the +People I Know I’d Like, but it means much the same. Their faces flash by in the +crowd, and are gone, but I recognize them instantly as belonging to my beloved +circle of unknown friends. +</p> + +<p> +Once it was a girl opposite me in a car—a girl with a wide, humorous mouth, and +tragic eyes, and a hole in her shoe. Once it was a big, homely, red-headed +giant of a man with an engineering magazine sticking out of his coat pocket. He +was standing at a book counter reading Dickens like a schoolboy and laughing in +all the right places, I know, because I peaked over his shoulder to see. +Another time it was a sprightly little, grizzled old woman, staring into a +dazzling shop window in which was displayed a wonderful collection of +fashionably impossible hats and gowns. She was dressed all in rusty black, was +the little old lady, and she had a quaint cast in her left eye that gave her +the oddest, most sporting look. The cast was working overtime as she gazed at +the gowns, and the ridiculous old sprigs on her rusty black bonnet trembled +with her silent mirth. She looked like one of those clever, epigrammatic, dowdy +old duchesses that one reads about in English novels. I’m sure she had cardamon +seeds in her shabby bag, and a carriage with a crest on it waiting for her just +around the corner. I ached to slip my hand through her arm and ask her what she +thought of it all. I know that her reply would have been exquisitely witty and +audacious, and I did so long to hear her say it. +</p> + +<p> +No doubt some good angel tugs at my common sense, restraining me from doing +these things that I am tempted to do. Of course it would be madness for a woman +to address unknown red-headed men with the look of an engineer about them and a +book of Dickens in their hands; or perky old women with nutcracker faces; or +girls with wide humorous mouths. Oh, it couldn’t be done, I suppose. They would +clap me in a padded cell in no time if I were to say: +</p> + +<p> +“Mister Red-headed Man, I’m so glad your heart is young enough for Dickens. I +love him too—enough to read him standing at a book counter in a busy shop. And +do you know, I like the squareness of your jaw, and the way your eyes crinkle +up when you laugh; and as for your being an engineer—why one of the very first +men I ever loved was the engineer in ‘Soldiers of Fortune.’” +</p> + +<p> +I wonder what the girl in the car would have said if I had crossed over to her, +and put my hand on her arm and spoken, thus: +</p> + +<p> +“Girl with the wide, humorous mouth, and the tragic eyes, and the hole in your +shoe, I think you must be an awfully good sort. I’ll wager you paint, or write, +or act, or do something clever like that for a living. But from that hole in +your shoe which you have inked so carefully, although it persists in showing +white at the seams, I fancy you are stumbling over a rather stony bit of Life’s +road just now. And from the look in your eyes, girl, I’m afraid the stones have +cut and bruised rather cruelly. But when I look at your smiling, humorous mouth +I know that you are trying to laugh at the hurts. I think that this morning, +when you inked your shoe for the dozenth time, you hesitated between tears and +laughter, and the laugh won, thank God! Please keep right on laughing, and +don’t you dare stop for a minute! Because pretty soon you’ll come to a smooth +easy place, and then won’t you be glad that you didn’t give up to lie down by +the roadside, weary of your hurts?” +</p> + +<p> +Oh, it would never do. Never. And yet no charm possessed by the people I know +and like can compare with the fascination of those People I’d Like to Know, and +Know I Would Like. +</p> + +<p> +Here at home with Norah there are no faces in the crowds. There are no crowds. +When you turn the corner at Main street you are quite sure that you will see +the same people in the same places. You know that Mamie Hayes will be flapping +her duster just outside the door of the jewelry store where she clerks. She +gazes up and down Main street as she flaps the cloth, her bright eyes keeping a +sharp watch for stray traveling men that may chance to be passing. You know +that there will be the same lounging group of white-faced, vacant-eyed youths +outside the pool-room. Dr. Briggs’s patient runabout will be standing at his +office doorway. Outside his butcher shop Assemblyman Schenck will be holding +forth on the subject of county politics to a group of red-faced, badly dressed, +prosperous looking farmers and townsmen, and as he talks the circle of brown +tobacco juice which surrounds the group closes in upon them, nearer and nearer. +And there, in a roomy chair in a corner of the public library reference room, +facing the big front window, you will see Old Man Randall. His white hair forms +a halo above his pitiful drink-marred face. He was to have been a great lawyer, +was Old Man Randall. But on the road to fame he met Drink, and she grasped his +arm, and led him down by-ways, and into crooked lanes, and finally into +ditches, and he never arrived at his goal. There in that library window nook it +is cool in summer, and warm in winter. So he sits and dreams, holding an open +volume, unread, on his knees. Sometimes he writes, hunched up in his corner, +feverishly scribbling at ridiculous plays, short stories, and novels which +later he will insist on reading to the tittering schoolboys and girls who come +into the library to do their courting and reference work. Presently, when it +grows dusk, Old Man Randall will put away his book, throw his coat over his +shoulders, sleeves dangling, flowing white locks sweeping the frayed velvet +collar. He will march out with his soldierly tread, humming a bit of a tune, +down the street and into Vandermeister’s saloon, where he will beg a drink and +a lunch, and some man will give it to him for the sake of what Old Man Randall +might have been. +</p> + +<p> +All these things you know. And knowing them, what is left for the imagination? +How can one dream dreams about people when one knows how much they pay their +hired girl, and what they have for dinner on Wednesdays? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br/> +THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS</h2> + +<p> +I can understand the emotions of a broken-down war horse that is hitched to a +vegetable wagon. I am going to Milwaukee to work! It is a thing to make the +gods hold their sides and roll down from their mountain peaks with laughter. +After New York—Milwaukee! +</p> + +<p> +Of course Von Gerhard is to blame. But I think even he sees the humor of it. It +happened in this way, on a day when I was indulging in a particularly +greenery-yallery fit of gloom. Norah rushed into my room. I think I was mooning +over some old papers, or letters, or ribbons, or some such truck in the +charming, knife-turning way that women have when they are blue. +</p> + +<p> +“Out wid yez!” cried Norah. “On with your hat and coat! I’ve just had a wire +from Ernst von Gerhard. He’s coming, and you look like an under-done dill +pickle. You aren’t half as blooming as when he was here in August, and this is +October. Get out and walk until your cheeks are so red that Von Gerhard will +refuse to believe that this fiery-faced puffing, bouncing creature is the green +and limp thing that huddled in a chair a few months ago. Out ye go!” +</p> + +<p> +And out I went. Hatless, I strode countrywards, leaving paved streets and +concrete walks far behind. There were drifts of fallen leaves all about, and I +scuffled through them drearily, trying to feel gloomy, and old, and useless, +and failing because of the tang in the air, and the red-and-gold wonder of the +frost-kissed leaves, and the regular pump-pump of good red blood that was +coursing through my body as per Norah’s request. +</p> + +<p> +In a field at the edge of the town, just where city and country begin to have a +bowing acquaintance, the college boys were at football practice. Their scarlet +sweaters made gay patches of color against the dull gray-brown of the autumn +grass. +</p> + +<p> +“Seven-eighteen-two-four!” called a voice. There followed a scuffle, a creaking +of leather on leather, a thud. I watched them, a bit enviously, walking +backwards until a twist in the road hid them from view. That same twist +transformed my path into a real country road—a brown, dusty, monotonous +Michigan country road that went severely about its business, never once +stopping to flirt with the blushing autumn woodland at its left, or to dally +with the dimpling ravine at its right. +</p> + +<p> +“Now if that were an English country road,” thought I, “a sociably inclined, +happy-go-lucky, out-for-pleasure English country road, one might expect +something of it. On an English country road this would be the psychological +moment for the appearance of a blond god, in gray tweed. What a delightful time +of it Richard Le Gallienne’s hero had on his quest! He could not stroll down +the most innocent looking lane, he might not loiter along the most +out-of-the-way path, he never ambled over the barest piece of country road, +that he did not come face to face with some witty and lovely woman creature, +also in search of things unconventional, and able to quote charming lines from +Chaucer to him.” +</p> + +<p> +Ah, but that was England, and this is America. I realize it sadly as I step out +of the road to allow a yellow milk wagon to rattle past. The red letters on the +yellow milk cart inform the reader that it is the property of August +Schimmelpfennig, of Hickory Grove. The Schimmelpfennig eye may be seen staring +down upon me from the bit of glass in the rear as the cart rattles ahead, +doubtless being suspicious of hatless young women wandering along country roads +at dusk, alone. There was that in the staring eye to which I took exception. It +wore an expression which made me feel sure that the mouth below it was all +a-grin, if I could but have seen it. It was bad enough to be stared at by the +fishy Schimmelpfennig eye, but to be grinned at by the Schimmelpfennig mouth!—I +resented it. In order to show my resentment I turned my back on the +Schimmelpfennig cart and pretended to look up the road which I had just +traveled. +</p> + +<p> +I pretended to look up the road, and then I did look in earnest. No wonder the +Schimmelpfennig eye and mouth had worn the leering expression. The blond god in +gray tweed was swinging along toward me! I knew that he was blond because he +wore no hat and the last rays of the October sun were making a little halo +effect about his head. I knew that his gray clothes were tweed because every +well regulated hero on a country road wears tweed. It’s almost a religion with +them. He was not near enough to make a glance at his features possible. I +turned around and continued my walk. The yellow cart, with its impudent +Schimmelpfennig leer, was disappearing in a cloud of dust. Shades of the +“Duchess” and Bertha M. Clay! How does one greet a blond god in gray tweed on a +country road, when one has him! +</p> + +<p> +The blond god solved the problem for me. +</p> + +<p> +“Hi!” he called. I did not turn. There was a moment’s silence. Then there came +a shrill, insistent whistle, of the kind that is made by placing four fingers +between the teeth. It is a favorite with the gallery gods. I would not have +believed that gray tweed gods stooped to it. +</p> + +<p> +“Hi!” called the voice again, very near now. “Lieber Gott! Never have I seen so +proud a young woman!” +</p> + +<p> +I whirled about to face Von Gerhard; a strangely boyish and unprofessional +looking Von Gerhard. +</p> + +<p> +“Young man,” I said severely, “have you been a-follerin’ of me?” +</p> + +<p> +“For miles,” groaned he, as we shook hands. “You walk like a grenadier. I am +sent by the charming Norah to tell you that you are to come home to mix the +salad dressing, for there is company for supper. I am the company.” +</p> + +<p> +I was still a bit dazed. “But how did you know which road to take? And when—” +</p> + +<p> +“Wunderbar, nicht wahr?” laughed Von Gerhard. “But really quite simple. I come +in on an earlier train than I had expected, chat a moment with sister Norah, +inquire after the health of my patient, and am told that she is running away +from a horde of blue devils!—quote your charming sister—that have swarmed about +her all day. What direction did her flight take? I ask. Sister Norah shrugs her +shoulders and presumes that it is the road which shows the reddest and +yellowest autumn colors. That road will be your road. So!” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh! How simple! That is the second disappointment you have given me to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how is that possible? The first has not had time to happen.” +</p> + +<p> +“The first was yourself,” I replied, rudely. +</p> + +<p> +“I had been longing for an adventure. And when I saw you ’way up the road, such +an unusual figure for our Michigan country roads, I forgot that I was a +disappointed old grass widder with a history, and I grew young again, and my +heart jumped up into my throat, and I sez to mesilf, sez I: ‘Enter the hero!’ +And it was only you.” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard stared a moment, a curious look on his face. Then he laughed one of +those rare laughs of his, and I joined him because I was strangely young, +light, and happy to be alive. +</p> + +<p> +“You walk and enjoy walking, yes?” asked Von Gerhard, scanning my face. “Your +cheeks they are like—well, as unlike the cheeks of the German girls as Diana’s +are unlike a dairy maid’s. And the nerfs? They no longer jump, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they jump, but not with weariness. They jump to get into action again. +From a life of too much excitement I have gone to the other extreme. I shall be +dead of ennui in another six months.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ennui?” mused he, “and you are—how is it?—twenty-eight years, yes? H’m!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a world of exasperation in the last exclamation. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a thousand years old,” it made me exclaim, “a million!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will prove to you that you are sixteen,” declared Von Gerhard, calmly. +</p> + +<p> +We had come to a fork in the road. At the right the narrower road ran between +two rows of great maples that made an arch of golden splendor. The frost had +kissed them into a gorgeous radiance. +</p> + +<p> +“Sunshine Avenue,” announced Von Gerhard. “It beckons us away from home, and +supper and salad dressing and duty, but who knows what we shall find at the end +of it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s explore,” I suggested. “It is splendidly golden enough to be enchanted.” +</p> + +<p> +We entered the yellow canopied pathway. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us pretend this is Germany, yes?” pleaded Von Gerhard. “This golden +pathway will end in a neat little glass-roofed restaurant, with tables and +chairs outside, and comfortable German papas and mammas and pig-tailed children +sitting at the tables, drinking coffee or beer. There will be stout waiters, +and a red-faced host. And we will seat ourselves at one of the tables, and I +will wave my hand, and one of the stout waiters will come flying. ‘Will you +have coffee, <i>Fraulein</i>, or beer?’ It sounds prosaic, but it is very, very +good, as you will see. Pathways in Germany always end in coffee and Kuchen and +waiters in white aprons.” +</p> + +<p> +But, “Oh, no!” I exclaimed, for his mood was infectious. “This is France. +Please! The golden pathway will end in a picturesque little French farm, with a +dairy. And in the doorway of the farmhouse there will be a red-skirted peasant +woman, with a white cap! and a baby on her arm! and sabots! Oh, surely she will +wear sabots!” +</p> + +<p> +“Most certainly she will wear sabots,” Von Gerhard said, heatedly, “and blue +knitted stockings. And the baby’s name is Mimi!” +</p> + +<p> +We had taken hands and were skipping down the pathway now, like two excited +children. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s run,” I suggested. And run we did, like two mad creatures, until we +rounded a gentle curve and brought up, panting, within a foot of a decrepit +rail fence. The rail fence enclosed a stubbly, lumpy field. The field was +inhabited by an inquiring cow. Von Gerhard and I stood quite still, hand in +hand, gazing at the cow. Then we turned slowly and looked at each other. +</p> + +<p> +“This pathway of glorified maples ends in a cow,” I said, solemnly. At which we +both shrieked with mirth, leaning on the decrepit fence and mopping our eyes +with our handkerchiefs. +</p> + +<p> +“Did I not say you were sixteen?” taunted Von Gerhard. We were getting +surprisingly well acquainted. +</p> + +<p> +“Such a scolding as we shall get! It will be quite dark before we are home. +Norah will be tearing her hair.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a true prophecy. As we stampeded up the steps the door was flung open, +disclosing a tragic figure. +</p> + +<p> +“Such a steak!” wailed Norah, “and it has been done for hours and hours, and +now it looks like a piece of fried ear. Where have you two driveling idiots +been? And mushrooms too.” +</p> + +<p> +“She means that the ruined steak was further enhanced by mushrooms,” I +explained in response to Von Gerhard’s bewildered look. We marched into the +house, trying not to appear like sneak thieves. Max, pipe in mouth, surveyed us +blandly. +</p> + +<p> +“Fine color you’ve got, Dawn,” he remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“There is such a thing as overdoing this health business,” snapped Norah, with +a great deal of acidity for her. “I didn’t tell you to make them purple, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +Max turned to Von Gerhard. “Now what does she mean by that do you suppose, eh +Ernst?” +</p> + +<p> +“Softly, brother, softly!” whispered Von Gerhard. “When women exchange remarks +that apparently are simple, and yet that you, a man, cannot understand, then +know there is a woman’s war going on, and step softly, and hold your peace. +Aber ruhig!” +</p> + +<p> +Calm was restored with the appearance of the steak, which was found to have +survived the period of waiting, and to be incredibly juicy and tender. +Presently we were all settled once more in the great beamed living room, Sis at +the piano, the two men smoking their after-dinner cigars with that idiotic +expression of contentment which always adorns the masculine face on such +occasions. +</p> + +<p> +I looked at them—at those three who had done so much for my happiness and well +being, and something within me said: “Now! Speak now!” Norah was playing very +softly, so that the Spalpeens upstairs might not be disturbed. I took a long +breath and made the plunge. +</p> + +<p> +“Norah, if you’ll continue the slow music, I’ll be much obliged. ‘The time has +come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be absurd,” said Norah, over her shoulder, and went on playing. +</p> + +<p> +“I never was more serious in my life, good folkses all. I’ve got to be. This +butterfly existence has gone on long enough. Norah, and Max, and Mr. Doctor +Man, I am going away.” +</p> + +<p> +Norah’s hands crashed down on the piano keys with a jangling discord. She swung +about to face me. +</p> + +<p> +“Not New York again, Dawn! Not New York!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid so,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +Max—bless his great, brotherly heart—rose and came over to me and put a hand on +my shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you like it here, girlie? Want to be hauled home on a shutter again, do +you? You know that as long as we have a home, you have one. We need you here.” +</p> + +<p> +But I shook my head. From his chair at the other side of the room I could feel +Von Gerhard’s gaze fixed upon us. He had said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Need me! No one needs me. Don’t worry; I’m not going to become maudlin about +it. But I don’t belong here, and you know, it. I have my work to do. Norah is +the best sister that a woman ever had. And Max, you’re an angel brother-in-law. +But how can I stay on here and keep my self-respect?” I took Max’s big hand in +mine and gathered courage from it. +</p> + +<p> +“But you have been working,” wailed Norah, “every morning. And I thought the +book was coming on beautifully. And I’m sure it will be a wonderful book, Dawn +dear. You are so clever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the book—it is too uncertain. Perhaps it will go, but perhaps it won’t. +And then—what? It will be months before the book is properly polished off. And +then I may peddle it around for more months. No; I can’t afford to trifle with +uncertainties. Every newspaper man or woman writes a book. It’s like having the +measles. There is not a newspaper man living who does not believe, in his +heart, that if he could only take a month or two away from the telegraph desk +or the police run, he could write the book of the year, not to speak of the +great American Play. Why, just look at me! I’ve only been writing seriously for +a few weeks, and already the best magazines in the country are refusing my +manuscripts daily.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t joke,” said Norah, coming over to me, “I can’t stand it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? Much better than weeping, isn’t it? And anyway, I’m no subject for +tears any more. Dr. von Gerhard will tell you how well and strong I am. Won’t +you, Herr Doktor?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Von Gerhard, in his careful, deliberate English, “since you ask +me, I should say that you might last about one year, in New York.” +</p> + +<p> +“There! What did I tell you!” cried Norah. +</p> + +<p> +“What utter blither!” I scoffed, turning to glare at Von Gerhard. +</p> + +<p> +“Gently,” warned Max. “Such disrespect to the man who pulled you back from the +edge of the yawning grave only six months ago!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yawning fiddlesticks!” snapped I, elegantly. “There was nothing wrong with me +except that I wanted to be fussed over. And I have been. And I’ve loved it. But +it must stop now.” I rose and walked over to the table and faced Von Gerhard, +sitting there in the depths of a great chair. “You do not seem to realize that +I am not free to come and go, and work and play, and laugh and live like other +women. There is my living to make. And there is—Peter Orme. Do you think that I +could stay on here like this? Oh, I know that Max is not a poor man. But he is +not a rich man, either. And there are the children to be educated, and besides, +Max married Norah O’Hara, not the whole O’Hara tribe. I want to go to work. I +am not a free woman, but when I am working, I forget, and am almost happy. I +tell you I must be well again! I will be well! I am well!” +</p> + +<p> +At the end of which dramatic period I spoiled the whole effect by bowing my +head on the table and giving way to a fit of weeping such as I had not had +since the days of my illness. +</p> + +<p> +“Looks like it,” said Max, at which I decided to laugh, and the situation was +saved. +</p> + +<p> +It was then that Von Gerhard proposed the thing that set us staring at him in +amused wonder. He came over and stood looking down at us, his hands outspread +upon the big library table, his body bent forward in an attitude of eager +intentness. I remember thinking what wonderful hands they were, true indexes of +the man’s character; broad, white, surgeonly hands; the fingers almost square +at the tips. They were hands as different from those slender, nervous, +unsteady, womanly hands of Peter Orme as any hands could be, I thought. They +were hands made for work that called for delicate strength, if such a paradox +could be; hands to cling to; to gain courage from; hands that spelled power and +reserve. I looked at them, fascinated, as I often had done before, and thought +that I never had seen such SANE hands. +</p> + +<p> +“You have done me the honor to include me in this little family conclave,” +began Ernst von Gerhard. “I am going to take advantage of your trust. I shall +give you some advice—a thing I usually keep for unpleasant professional +occasions. Do not go back to New York.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I know New York. And New York—the newspaper part of it—knows me. Where +else can I go?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have your book to finish. You could never finish it there, is it not so?” +</p> + +<p> +I’m afraid I shrugged my shoulders. It was all so much harder than I had +expected. What did they want me to do? I asked myself, bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard went on. “Why not go where the newspaper work will not be so +nerve-racking? where you still might find time for this other work that is dear +to you, and that may bring its reward in time.” He reached out and took my +hand, into his great, steady clasp. “Come to the happy, healthy, German town +called Milwaukee, yes? Ach, you may laugh. But newspaper work is newspaper work +the world over, because men and women are just men and women the world over. +But there you could live sanely, and work not too hard, and there would be +spare hours for the book that is near your heart. And I—I will speak of you to +Norberg, of the Post. And on Sundays, if you are good, I may take you along the +marvelous lake drives in my little red runabout, yes? Aber wunderbar, those +drives are! So.” +</p> + +<p> +Then—“Milwaukee!” shrieked Max and Norah and I, together. “After New +York—Milwaukee!” +</p> + +<p> +“Laugh,” said Von Gerhard, quite composedly. “I give you until to-morrow +morning to stop laughing. At the end of that time it will not seem quite so +amusing. No joke is so funny after one has contemplated it for twelve hours.” +</p> + +<p> +The voice of Norah, the temptress, sounded close to my ear. “Dawn dear, just +think how many million miles nearer you would be to Max, and me, and home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you have all gone mad! The thing is impossible. I shan’t go back to a +country sheet in my old age. I suppose that in two more years I shall be +editing a mothers’ column on an agricultural weekly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Norberg would be delighted to get you,” mused Von Gerhard, “and it would be +day work instead of night work.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you would send me a weekly bulletin on Dawn’s health, wouldn’t you, +Ernst?” pleaded Norah. “And you’d teach her to drink beer and she shall grow so +fat that the Spalpeens won’t know their auntie.” +</p> + +<p> +At last—“How much do they pay?” I asked, in desperation. And the thing that had +appeared so absurd at first began to take on the shape of reality. +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard did speak to Norberg of the Post. And I am to go to Milwaukee next +week. The skeleton of the book manuscript is stowed safely away in the bottom +of my trunk and Norah has filled in the remaining space with sundry flannels, +and hot water bags and medicine flasks, so that I feel like a schoolgirl on her +way to boarding-school, instead of like a seasoned old newspaper woman with a +capital PAST and a shaky future. I wish that I were chummier with the Irish +saints. I need them now. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br/> +STEEPED IN GERMAN</h2> + +<p> +I am living at a little private hotel just across from the court house square +with its scarlet geraniums and its pretty fountain. The house is filled with +German civil engineers, mechanical engineers, and Herr Professors from the +German academy. On Sunday mornings we have Pfannkuchen with currant jelly, and +the Herr Professors come down to breakfast in fearful flappy German slippers. +I’m the only creature in the place that isn’t just over from Germany. Even the +dog is a dachshund. It is so unbelievable that every day or two I go down to +Wisconsin Street and gaze at the stars and stripes floating from the government +building, in order to convince myself that this is America. It needs only a +Kaiser or so, and a bit of Unter den Linden to be quite complete. +</p> + +<p> +The little private hotel is kept by Herr and Frau Knapf. After one has seen +them, one quite understands why the place is steeped in a German atmosphere up +to its eyebrows. +</p> + +<p> +I never would have found it myself. It was Doctor von Gerhard who had suggested +Knapf’s, and who had paved the way for my coming here. +</p> + +<p> +“You will find it quite unlike anything you have ever tried before,” he warned +me. “Very German it is, and very, very clean, and most inexpensive. Also I +think you will find material there—how is it you call it?—copy, yes? Well, +there should be copy in plenty; and types! But you shall see.” +</p> + +<p> +From the moment I rang the Knapf doorbell I saw. The dapper, cheerful Herr +Knapf, wearing a disappointed Kaiser Wilhelm mustache, opened the door. I +scarcely had begun to make my wishes known when he interrupted with a large +wave of the hand, and an elaborate German bow. +</p> + +<p> +“Ach yes! You would be the lady of whom the Herr Doktor has spoken. Gewiss! +Frau Orme, not? But so a young lady I did not expect to see. A room we have +saved for you—aber wunderhubsch! It makes me much pleasure to show. Folgen Sie +mir, bitte.” +</p> + +<p> +“You—you speak English?” I faltered, with visions of my evenings spent in +expressing myself in the sign language. +</p> + +<p> +“Englisch? But yes. Here in Milwaukee it gives aber mostly German. And then +too, I have been only twenty years in this country. And always in Milwaukee. +Here is it gemutlich—and mostly it gives German.” +</p> + +<p> +I tried not to look frightened, and followed him up to the “but wonderfully +beautiful” room. To my joy I found it high-ceilinged, airy, and huge, with a +great vault of a clothes closet bristling with hooks, and boasting an +unbelievable number of shelves. My trunk was swallowed up in it. Never in all +my boarding-house experience have I seen such a room, or such a closet. The +closet must have been built for a bride’s trousseau in the days of hoop-skirts +and scuttle bonnets. There was a separate and distinct hook for each and every +one of my most obscure garments. I tried to spread them out. I used two hooks +to every petticoat, and three for my kimono, and when I had finished there were +rows of hooks to spare. Tiers of shelves yawned for hat-boxes which I possessed +not. Bluebeard’s wives could have held a family reunion in that closet and +invited all of Solomon’s spouses. Finally, in desperation, I gathered all my +poor garments together and hung them in a sociable bunch on the hooks nearest +the door. How I should have loved to have shown that closet to a select circle +of New York boarding-house landladies! +</p> + +<p> +After wrestling in vain with the forest of hooks, I turned my attention to my +room. I yanked a towel thing off the center table and replaced it with a scarf +that Peter had picked up in the Orient. I set up my typewriter in a corner near +a window and dug a gay cushion or two and a chafing-dish out of my trunk. I +distributed photographs of Norah and Max and the Spalpeens separately, in +couples, and in groups. Then I bounced up and down in a huge yellow brocade +chair and found it unbelievably soft and comfortable. Of course, I reflected, +after the big veranda, and the apple tree at Norah’s, and the leather-cushioned +comfort of her library, and the charming tones of her Oriental rugs and +hangings— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, stop your carping, Dawn!” I told myself. “You can’t expect charming tones, +and Oriental do-dads and apple trees in a German boarding-house. Anyhow there’s +running water in the room. For general utility purposes that’s better than a +pink prayer rug.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a time when I thought that it was the luxuries that made life worth +living. That was in the old Bohemian days. +</p> + +<p> +“Necessities!” I used to laugh, “Pooh! Who cares about the necessities! What if +the dishpan does leak? It is the luxuries that count.” +</p> + +<p> +Bohemia and luxuries! Half a dozen lean boarding-house years have steered me +safely past that. After such a course in common sense you don’t stand back and +examine the pictures of a pink Moses in a nest of purple bullrushes, or +complain because the bureau does not harmonize with the wall paper. Neither do +you criticize the blue and saffron roses that form the rug pattern. ’Deedy not! +Instead you warily punch the mattress to see if it is rock-stuffed, and you +snoop into the clothes closet; you inquire the distance to the nearest bath +room, and whether the payments are weekly or monthly, and if there is a baby in +the room next door. Oh, there’s nothing like living in a boarding-house for +cultivating the materialistic side. +</p> + +<p> +But I was to find that here at Knapf’s things were quite different. Not only +was Ernst von Gerhard right in saying that it was “very German, and very, very +clean;” he recognized good copy when he saw it. Types! I never dreamed that +such faces existed outside of the old German woodcuts that one sees +illustrating time-yellowed books. +</p> + +<p> +I had thought myself hardened to strange boarding-house dining rooms, with +their batteries of cold, critical women’s eyes. I had learned to walk unruffled +in the face of the most carping, suspicious and the fishiest of these +batteries. Therefore on my first day at Knapf’s I went down to dinner in the +evening, quite composed and secure in the knowledge that my collar was clean +and that there was no flaw to find in the fit of my skirt in the back. +</p> + +<p> +As I opened the door of my room I heard sounds as of a violent altercation in +progress downstairs. I leaned over the balusters and listened. The sounds rose +and fell and swelled and boomed. They were German sounds that started in the +throat, gutturally, and spluttered their way up. They were sounds such as I had +not heard since the night I was sent to cover a Socialist meeting in New York. +I tip-toed down the stairs, although I might have fallen down and landed with a +thud without having been heard. The din came from the direction of the dining +room. Well, come what might, I would not falter. After all, it could not be +worse than that awful time when I had helped cover the teamsters’ strike. I +peered into the dining room. +</p> + +<p> +The thunder of conversation went on as before. But there was no bloodshed. +Nothing but men and women sitting at small tables, eating and talking. When I +say eating and talking I do not mean that those acts were carried on +separately. Not at all. The eating and the talking went on simultaneously, +neither interrupting the other. A fork full of food and a mouthful of +ten-syllabled German words met, wrestled, and passed one another, unscathed. I +stood in the doorway, fascinated, until Herr Knapf spied me, took a nimble skip +in my direction, twisted the discouraged mustaches into temporary +sprightliness, and waved me toward a table in the center of the room. +</p> + +<p> +Then a frightful thing happened. When I think of it now I turn cold. The +battery was not that of women’s eyes, but of men’s. And conversation ceased! +The uproar and the booming of vowels was hushed. The silence was appalling. I +looked up in horror to find that what seemed to be millions of staring blue +eyes were fixed on me. The stillness was so thick that you could cut it with a +knife. Such men! Immediately I dubbed them the aborigines, and prayed that I +might find adjectives with which to describe their foreheads. +</p> + +<p> +It appeared that the aborigines were especially favored in that they were all +placed at one long, untidy table at the head of the room. The rest of us sat at +small tables. Later I learned that they were all engineers. At meals they +discuss engineering problems in the most awe-inspiring German. After supper +they smoke impossible German pipes and dozens of cigarettes. They have bulging, +knobby foreheads and bristling pompadours, and some of the rawest of them wear +wild-looking beards, and thick spectacles, and cravats and trousers that Lew +Fields never even dreamed of. They are all graduates of high-sounding foreign +universities and are horribly learned and brilliant, but they are the worst +mannered lot I ever saw. +</p> + +<p> +In the silence that followed my entrance a red-cheeked maid approached me and +asked what I would have for supper. Supper? I asked. Was not dinner served in +the evening? The aborigines nudged each other and sniggered like fiendish +little school-boys. +</p> + +<p> +The red-cheeked maid looked at me pityingly. Dinner was served in the middle of +the day, naturlich. For supper there was Wienerschnitzel, and kalter +Aufschnitt, also Kartoffel Salat, and fresh Kaffeekuchen. +</p> + +<p> +The room hung breathless on my decision. I wrestled with a horrible desire to +shriek and run. Instead I managed to mumble an order. The aborigines turned to +one another inquiringly. +</p> + +<p> +“Was hat sie gesagt?” they asked. “What did she say?” Whereupon they fell to +discussing my hair and teeth and eyes and complexion in German as crammed with +adjectives as was the rye bread over which I was choking with caraway. The +entire table watched me with wide-eyed, unabashed interest while I ate, and I +advanced by quick stages from red-faced confusion to purple mirth. It appeared +that my presence was the ground for a heavy German joke in connection with the +youngest of the aborigines. He was a very plump and greasy looking aborigine +with a doll-like rosiness of cheek and a scared and bristling pompadour and +very small pig-eyes. The other aborigines clapped him on the back and roared: +</p> + +<p> +“Ai Fritz! Jetzt brauchst du nicht zu weinen! Deine Lena war aber nicht so +huebsch, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +Later I learned that Fritz was the newest arrival and that since coming to this +country he had been rather low in spirits in consequence of a certain +flaxen-haired Lena whom he had left behind in the fatherland. +</p> + +<p> +An examination of the dining room and its other occupants served to keep my +mind off the hateful long table. The dining room was a double one, the floor +carpetless and clean. There was a little platform at one end with hardy-looking +plants in pots near the windows. The wall was ornamented with very German +pictures of very plump, bare-armed German girls being chucked under the chin by +very dashing, mustachioed German lieutenants. It was all very bare, and strange +and foreign to my eyes, and yet there was something bright and comfortable +about it. I felt that I was going to like it, aborigines and all. The men drink +beer with their supper and read the Staats-Zeitung and the Germania and foreign +papers that I never heard of. It is uncanny, in these United States. But it is +going to be bully for my German. +</p> + +<p> +After my first letter home Norah wrote frantically, demanding to know if I was +the only woman in the house. I calmed her fears by assuring her that, while the +men were interesting and ugly with the fascinating ugliness of a bulldog, the +women were crushed looking and uninteresting and wore hopeless hats. I have +written Norah and Max reams about this household, from the aborigines to Minna, +who tidies my room and serves my meals, and admires my clothes. Minna is +related to Frau Knapf, whom I have never seen. Minna is inordinately fond of +dress, and her remarks anent my own garments are apt to be a trifle +disconcerting, especially when she intersperses her recital of dinner dishes +with admiring adjectives directed at my blouse or hat. Thus: +</p> + +<p> +“Wir haben roast beef, und spareribs mit Sauerkraut, und schicken—ach, wie +schon, Frau Orme! Aber ganz prachtvoll!” Her eyes and hands are raised toward +heaven. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s prachtful?” I ask, startled. “The chicken?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nein; your waist. Selbst gemacht?” +</p> + +<p> +I am even becoming hardened to the manners of the aborigines. It used to fuss +me to death to meet one of them in the halls. They always stopped short, +brought heels together with a click, bent stiffly from the waist, and +thundered: “Nabben’, Fraulein!” +</p> + +<p> +I have learned to take the salutation quite calmly, and even the wildest, most +spectacled and knobby-browed aborigine cannot startle me. Nonchalantly I reply, +“Nabben’,” and wish that Norah could but see me in the act. +</p> + +<p> +When I told Ernst von Gerhard about them, he laughed a little and shrugged his +shoulders and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Na, you should not look so young, and so pretty, and so unmarried. In Germany +a married woman brushes her hair quite smoothly back, and pins it in a hard +knob. And she knows nothing of such bewildering collars and fluffy frilled +things in the front of the blouse. How do you call them—jabots?” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard has not behaved at all nicely. I did not see him until two weeks +after my arrival in Milwaukee, although he telephoned twice to ask if there was +anything that he could do to make me comfortable. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I had answered the last time that I heard his voice over the telephone. +“It would be a whole heap of comfort to me just to see you. You are the nearest +thing to Norah that there is in this whole German town, and goodness knows +you’re far from Irish.” +</p> + +<p> +He came. The weather had turned suddenly cold and he was wearing a fur-lined +coat with a collar of fur. He looked most amazingly handsome and blond and +splendidly healthy. The clasp of his hands was just as big and sure as ever. +</p> + +<p> +“You have no idea how glad I am to see you,” I told him. “If you had, you would +have been here days ago. Aren’t you rather ill-mannered and neglectful, +considering that you are responsible for my being here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not know whether you, a married woman, would care to have me here,” he +said, in his composed way. “In a place like this people are not always kind +enough to take the trouble to understand. And I would not have them raise their +eyebrows at you, not for—” +</p> + +<p> +“Married!” I laughed, some imp of willfulness seizing me, “I’m not married. +What mockery to say that I am married simply because I must write madam before +my name! I am not married, and I shall talk to whom I please.” +</p> + +<p> +And then Von Gerhard did a surprising thing. He took two great steps over to my +chair, and grasped my hands and pulled me to my feet. I stared up at him like a +silly creature. His face was suffused with a dull red, and his eyes were +unbelievably blue and bright. He had my hands in his great grip, but his voice +was very quiet and contained. +</p> + +<p> +“You are married,” he said. “Never forget that for a moment. You are bound, +hard and fast and tight. And you are for no man. You are married as much as +though that poor creature in the mad house were here working for you, instead +of the case being reversed as it is. So.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean!” I cried, wrenching myself away indignantly. “What right +have you to talk to me like this? You know what my life has been, and how I +have tried to smile with my lips and stay young in my heart! I thought you +understood. Norah thought so too, and Max—” +</p> + +<p> +“I do understand. I understand so well that I would not have you talk as you +did a moment ago. And I said what I said not so much for your sake, as for +mine. For see, I too must remember that you write madam before your name. And +sometimes it is hard for me to remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” I said, like a simpleton, and stood staring after him as he quietly +gathered up his hat and gloves and left me standing there. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br/> +BLACKIE’S PHILOSOPHY</h2> + +<p> +I did not write Norah about Von Gerhard. After all, I told myself, there was +nothing to write. And so I was the first to break the solemn pact that we had +made. +</p> + +<p> +“You will write everything, won’t you, Dawn dear?” Norah had pleaded, with +tears in her pretty eyes. “Promise me. We’ve been nearer to each other in these +last few months than we have been since we were girls. And I’ve loved it so. +Please don’t do as you did during those miserable years in New York, when you +were fighting your troubles alone and we knew nothing of it. You wrote only the +happy things. Promise me you’ll write the unhappy ones too—though the saints +forbid that there should be any to write! And Dawn, don’t you dare to forget +your heavy underwear in November. Those lake breezes!—Well, some one has to +tell you, and I can’t leave those to Von Gerhard. He has promised to act as +monitor over your health.” +</p> + +<p> +And so I promised. I crammed my letters with descriptions of the Knapf +household. I assured her that I was putting on so much weight that the skirts +which formerly hung about me in limp, dejected folds now refused to meet in the +back, and all the hooks and eyes were making faces at each other. My cheeks, I +told her, looked as if I were wearing plumpers, and I was beginning to waddle +and puff as I walked. +</p> + +<p> +Norah made frantic answer: +</p> + +<p> +“For mercy’s sake child, be careful or you’ll be FAT!” +</p> + +<p> +To which I replied: “Don’t care if I am. Rather be hunky and healthy than +skinny and sick. Have tried both.” +</p> + +<p> +It is impossible to avoid becoming round-cheeked when one is working on a paper +that allows one to shut one’s desk and amble comfortably home for dinner at +least five days in the week. Everybody is at least plump in this comfortable, +gemutlich town, where everybody placidly locks his shop or office and goes home +at noon to dine heavily on soup and meat and vegetables and pudding, washed +down by the inevitable beer and followed by forty winks on the dining room sofa +with the German Zeitung spread comfortably over the head as protection against +the flies. +</p> + +<p> +There is a fascination about the bright little city. There is about it +something quaint and foreign, as though a cross-section of the old world had +been dumped bodily into the lap of Wisconsin. It does not seem at all strange +to hear German spoken everywhere—in the streets, in the shops, in the theaters, +in the street cars. One day I chanced upon a sign hung above the doorway of a +little German bakery over on the north side. There were Hornchen and +Kaffeekuchen in the windows, and a brood of flaxen-haired and sticky children +in the back of the shop. I stopped, open-mouthed, to stare at the worn sign +tacked over the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Hier wird Englisch gesprochen,” it announced. +</p> + +<p> +I blinked. Then I read it again. I shut my eyes, and opened them again +suddenly. The fat German letters spoke their message as before—“English spoken +here.” +</p> + +<p> +On reaching the office I told Norberg, the city editor, about my find. He was +not impressed. Norberg never is impressed. He is the most soul-satisfying and +theatrical city editor that I have ever met. He is fat, and unbelievably +nimble, and keen-eyed, and untiring. He says, “Hell!” when things go wrong; he +smokes innumerable cigarettes, inhaling the fumes and sending out the thin +wraith of smoke with little explosive sounds between tongue and lips; he wears +blue shirts, and no collar to speak of, and his trousers are kept in place only +by a miracle and an inefficient looking leather belt. +</p> + +<p> +When he refused to see the story in the little German bakery sign I began to +argue. +</p> + +<p> +“But man alive, this is America! I think I know a story when I see it. Suppose +you were traveling in Germany, and should come across a sign over a shop, +saying: ‘Hier wird Deutsch gesprochen.’ Wouldn’t you think you were dreaming?” +</p> + +<p> +Norberg waved an explanatory hand. “This isn’t America. This is Milwaukee. +After you’ve lived here a year or so you’ll understand what I mean. If we +should run a story of that sign, with a two-column cut, Milwaukee wouldn’t even +see the joke.” +</p> + +<p> +But it was not necessary that I live in Milwaukee a year or so in order to +understand its peculiarities, for I had a personal conductor and efficient +guide in the new friend that had come into my life with the first day of my +work on the Post. Surely no woman ever had a stronger friend than little +“Blackie” Griffith, sporting editor of the Milwaukee Post. We became friends, +not step by step, but in one gigantic leap such as sometimes triumphs over the +gap between acquaintance and liking. +</p> + +<p> +I never shall forget my first glimpse of him. He strolled into the city room +from his little domicile across the hall. A shabby, disreputable, out-at-elbows +office coat was worn over his ultra-smart street clothes, and he was puffing at +a freakish little pipe in the shape of a miniature automobile. He eyed me a +moment from the doorway, a fantastic, elfin little figure. I thought that I had +never seen so strange and so ugly a face as that of this little brown Welshman +with his lank, black hair and his deep-set, uncanny black eyes. Suddenly he +trotted over to me with a quick little step. In the doorway he had looked +forty. Now a smile illumined the many lines of his dark countenance, and in +some miraculous way he looked twenty. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you the New York importation?” he, asked, his great black eyes searching +my face. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m what’s left of it,” I replied, meekly. +</p> + +<p> +“I understand you’ve been in for repairs. Must of met up with somethin’ on the +road. They say the goin’ is full of bumps in N’ York.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bumps!” I laughed, “it’s uphill every bit of the road, and yet you’ve got to +go full speed to get anywhere. But I’m running easily again, thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +He waved away a cloud of pipe-smoke, and knowingly squinted through the haze. +“We don’t speed up much here. And they ain’t no hill climbin’ t’ speak of. But +say, if you ever should hit a nasty place on the route, toot your siren for me +and I’ll come. I’m a regular little human garage when it comes to patchin’ up +those aggravatin’ screws that need oilin’. And, say, don’t let Norberg bully +you. My name’s Blackie. I’m goin’ t’ like you. Come on over t’ my sanctum once +in a while and I’ll show you my scrapbook and let you play with the office +revolver.” +</p> + +<p> +And so it happened that I had not been in Milwaukee a month before Blackie and +I were friends. +</p> + +<p> +Norah was horrified. My letters were full of him. I told her that she might get +a more complete mental picture of him if she knew that he wore the pinkest +shirts, and the purplest neckties, and the blackest and whitest of +black-and-white checked vests that ever aroused the envy of an office boy, and +beneath them all, the gentlest of hearts. And therefore one loves him. There is +a sort of spell about the illiterate little slangy, brown Welshman. He is the +presiding genius of the place. The office boys adore him. The Old Man takes his +advice in selecting a new motor car; the managing editor arranges his lunch +hour to suit Blackie’s and they go off to the Press club together, arm in arm. +It is Blackie who lends a sympathetic ear to the society editor’s tale of woe. +He hires and fires the office boys; boldly he criticizes the news editor’s +makeup; he receives delegations of tan-coated, red-faced prizefighting-looking +persons; he gently explains to the photographer why that last batch of cuts +make their subjects look as if afflicted with the German measles; he arbitrates +any row that the newspaper may have with such dignitaries as the mayor or the +chief of police; he manages boxing shows; he skims about in a smart little +roadster; he edits the best sporting page in the city; and at four o’clock of +an afternoon he likes to send around the corner for a chunk of devil’s food +cake with butter filling from the Woman’s Exchange. Blackie never went to +school to speak of. He doesn’t know was from were. But he can “see” a story +quicker, and farther and clearer than any newspaper man I ever knew—excepting +Peter Orme. +</p> + +<p> +There is a legend about to the effect that one day the managing editor, who is +Scotch and without a sense of humor, ordered that Blackie should henceforth be +addressed by his surname of Griffith, as being a more dignified appellation for +the use of fellow reporters, hangers-on, copy kids, office boys and others +about the big building. +</p> + +<p> +The day after the order was issued the managing editor summoned a freckled +youth and thrust a sheaf of galley proofs into his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Take those to Mr. Griffith,” he ordered without looking up. +</p> + +<p> +“T’ who?” +</p> + +<p> +“To Mr. Griffith,” said the managing editor, laboriously, and scowling a bit. +</p> + +<p> +The boy took three unwilling steps toward the door. Then he turned a puzzled +face toward the managing editor. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, honest, I ain’t never heard of dat guy. He must be a new one. W’ere’ll I +find him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, damn! Take those proofs to Blackie!” roared the managing editor. And thus +ended Blackie’s enforced flight into the realms of dignity. +</p> + +<p> +All these things, and more, I wrote to the scandalized Norah. I informed her +that he wore more diamond rings and scarf pins and watch fobs than a railroad +conductor, and that his checked top-coat shrieked to Heaven. +</p> + +<p> +There came back a letter in which every third word was underlined, and which +ended by asking what the morals of such a man could be. +</p> + +<p> +Then I tried to make Blackie more real to Norah who, in all her sheltered life, +had never come in contact with a man like this. +</p> + +<p> +“... As for his morals—or what you would consider his morals, Sis—they probably +are a deep crimson; but I’ll swear there is no yellow streak. I never have +heard anything more pathetic than his story. Blackie sold papers on a down-town +corner when he was a baby six years old. Then he got a job as office boy here, +and he used to sharpen pencils, and run errands, and carry copy. After office +hours he took care of some horses in an alley barn near by, and after that work +was done he was employed about the pressroom of one of the old German newspaper +offices. Sometimes he would be too weary to crawl home after working half the +night, and so he would fall asleep, a worn, tragic little figure, on a pile of +old papers and sacks in a warm corner near the presses. He was the head of a +household, and every penny counted. And all the time he was watching things, +and learning. Nothing escaped those keen black eyes. He used to help the +photographer when there was a pile of plates to develop, and presently he knew +more about photography than the man himself. So they made him staff +photographer. In some marvelous way he knew more ball players, and fighters and +horsemen than the sporting editor. He had a nose for news that was nothing +short of wonderful. He never went out of the office without coming back with a +story. They used to use him in the sporting department when a rush was on. Then +he became one of the sporting staff; then assistant sporting editor; then +sporting editor. He knows this paper from the basement up. He could operate a +linotype or act as managing editor with equal ease. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m afraid that Blackie hasn’t had much time for morals. But, Norah dear, +I wish that you could hear him when he talks about his mother. He may follow +doubtful paths, and associate with questionable people, and wear restless +clothes, but I wouldn’t exchange his friendship for that of a dozen of your +ordinary so-called good men. All these years of work and suffering have made an +old man of little Blackie, although he is young in years. But they haven’t +spoiled his heart any. He is able to distinguish between sham and truth because +he has been obliged to do it ever since he was a child selling papers on the +corner. But he still clings to the office that gave him his start, although he +makes more money in a single week outside the office than his salary would +amount to in half a year. He says that this is a job that does not interfere +with his work.” +</p> + +<p> +Such is Blackie. Surely the oddest friend a woman ever had. He possesses a +genius for friendship, and a wonderful understanding of suffering, born of +those years of hardship and privation. Each learned the other’s story, bit by +bit, in a series of confidences exchanged during that peaceful, beatific period +that follows just after the last edition has gone down. Blackie’s little +cubby-hole of an office is always blue with smoke, and cluttered with a +thousand odds and ends—photographs, souvenirs, boxing-gloves, a litter of pipes +and tobacco, a wardrobe of dust-covered discarded coats and hats, and Blackie +in the midst of it all, sunk in the depths of his swivel chair, and looking +like an amiable brown gnome, or a cheerful little joss-house god come to life. +There is in him an uncanny wisdom which only the streets can teach. He is one +of those born newspaper men who could not live out of sight of the ticker-tape, +and the copy-hook and the proof-sheet. +</p> + +<p> +“Y’ see, girl, it’s like this here,” Blackie explained one day. “W’re all +workin’ for some good reason. A few of us are workin’ for the glory of it, and +most of us are workin’ t’ eat, and lots of us are pluggin’ an’ savin’ in the +hopes that some day we’ll have money enough to get back at some people we know; +but there is some few workin’ for the pure love of the work—and I guess I’m one +of them fools. Y’ see, I started in at this game when I was such a little runt +that now it’s a ingrowing habit, though it is comfortin’ t’ know you got a +place where you c’n always come in out of the rain, and where you c’n have your +mail sent.” +</p> + +<p> +“This newspaper work is a curse,” I remarked. “Show me a clever newspaper man +and I’ll show you a failure. There is nothing in it but the glory—and little of +that. We contrive and scheme and run about all day getting a story. And then we +write it at fever heat, searching our souls for words that are cleancut and +virile. And then we turn it in, and what is it? What have we to show for our +day’s work? An ephemeral thing, lacking the first breath of life; a thing that +is dead before it is born. Why, any cub reporter, if he were to put into some +other profession the same amount of nerve, and tact, and ingenuity and finesse, +and stick-to-it-iveness that he expends in prying a single story out of some +unwilling victim, could retire with a fortune in no time.” +</p> + +<p> +Blackie blew down the stem of his pipe, preparatory to re-filling the bowl. +There was a quizzical light in his black eyes. The little heap of burned +matches at his elbow was growing to kindling wood proportions. It was common +knowledge that Blackie’s trick of lighting pipe or cigarette and then +forgetting to puff at it caused his bill for matches to exceed his tobacco +expense account. +</p> + +<p> +“You talk,” chuckled Blackie, “like you meant it. But sa-a-ay, girl, it’s a +lonesome game, this retirin’ with a fortune. I’ve noticed that them guys who +retire with a barrel of money usually dies at the end of the first year, of a +kind of a lingerin’ homesickness. You c’n see their pictures in th’ papers, +with a pathetic story of how they was just beginnin’ t’ enjoy life when along +comes the grim reaper an’ claims ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +Blackie slid down in his chair and blew a column of smoke ceilingward. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew a guy once—newspaper man, too—who retired with a fortune. He used to do +the city hall for us. Well, he got in soft with the new administration before +election, and made quite a pile in stocks that was tipped off to him by his +political friends. His wife was crazy for him to quit the newspaper game. He +done it. An’ say, that guy kept on gettin’ richer and richer till even his wife +was almost satisfied. But sa-a-ay, girl, was that chap lonesome! One day he +come up here looking like a dog that’s run off with the steak. He was just +dyin’ for a kind word, an’ he sniffed the smell of the ink and the hot metal +like it was June roses. He kind of wanders over to his old desk and slumps down +in the chair, and tips it back, and puts his feet on the desk, with his hat +tipped back, and a bum stogie in his mouth. And along came a kid with a bunch +of papers wet from the presses and sticks one in his hand, and—well, girl, that +fellow, he just wriggled he was so happy. You know as well as I do that every +man on a morning paper spends his day off hanging around the office wishin’ +that a mob or a fire or somethin’ big would tear lose so he could get back into +the game. I guess I told you about the time Von Gerhard sent me abroad, didn’t +I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Von Gerhard!” I repeated, startled. “Do you know him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he ain’t braggin’ about it none,” Blackie admitted. “Von Gerhard, he +told me I had about five years or so t’ live, about two, three years ago. He +don’t approve of me. Pried into my private life, old Von Gerhard did, somethin’ +scand’lous. I had sort of went to pieces about that time, and I went t’ him to +be patched up. He thumps me fore ‘an’ aft, firing a volley of questions, +lookin’ up the roof of m’ mouth, and squintin’ at m’ finger nails an’ teeth +like I was a prize horse for sale. Then he sits still, lookin’ at me for about +half a minute, till I begin t’ feel uncomfortable. Then he says, slow: ‘Young +man, how old are you?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘O, twenty-eight or so,’ I says, airy. +</p> + +<p> +“‘My Gawd!’ said he. ‘You’ve crammed twice those years into your life, and +you’ll have to pay for it. Now you listen t’ me. You got t’ quit workin’, an’ +smokin’, and get away from this. Take a ocean voyage,’ he says, ’an’ try to get +four hours sleep a night, anyway.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Well say, mother she was scared green. So I tucked her under m’ arm, and we +hit it up across the ocean. Went t’ Germany, knowin’ that it would feel +homelike there, an’ we took in all the swell baden, and chased up the +Jungfrau—sa-a-ay, that’s a classy little mountain, that Jungfrau. Mother, she +had some swell time I guess. She never set down except for meals, and she wrote +picture postals like mad. But sa-a-ay, girl, was I lonesome! Maybe that trip +done me good. Anyway, I’m livin’ yet. I stuck it out for four months, an’ that +ain’t so rotten for a guy who just grew up on printer’s ink ever since he was +old enough to hold a bunch of papers under his arm. Well, one day mother an’ me +was sittin’ out on one of them veranda cafes they run to over there, w’en +somebody hits me a crack on the shoulder, an’ there stands old Ryan who used t’ +do A. P. here. He was foreign correspondent for some big New York syndicate +papers over there. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Well if it ain’t Blackie!’ he says. ‘What in Sam Hill are you doing out of +your own cell when Milwaukee’s just got four more games t’ win the pennant?’ +</p> + +<p> +“Sa-a-a-ay, girl, w’en I got through huggin’ him around the neck an’ buyin’ him +drinks I knew it was me for the big ship. ‘Mother,’ I says, ‘if you got anybody +on your mind that you neglected t’ send picture postals to, now’s’ your last +chance. ’F I got to die I’m going out with m’ scissors in one mitt, and m’ +trusty paste-pot by m’ side!’ An’ we hits it up for old Milwaukee. I ain’t been +away since, except w’en I was out with the ball team, sending in sportin’ extry +dope for the pink sheet. The last time I was in at Baumbach’s in comes Von +Gerhard an’—” +</p> + +<p> +“Who are Baumbach’s?” I interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +Blackie regarded me pityingly. “You ain’t never been to Baumbach’s? Why girl, +if you don’t know Baumbach’s, you ain’t never been properly introduced to +Milwaukee. No wonder you ain’t hep to the ways of this little community. There +ain’t what the s’ciety editor would call the proper ontong cordyal between you +and the natives if you haven’t had coffee at Baumbach’s. It ain’t hardly legal +t’ live in Milwaukee all this time without ever having been inside of B—” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop! If you do not tell me at once just where this wonderful place may be +found, and what one does when one finds it, and how I happened to miss it, and +why it is so necessary to the proper understanding of the city—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Blackie, grinning, “I’ll romp you over there +to-morrow afternoon at four o’clock. Ach Himmel! What will that for a grand +time be, no?” +</p> + +<p> +“Blackie, you’re a dear to be so polite to an old married cratur’ like me. Did +you notice—that is, does Ernst von Gerhard drop in often at Baumbach’s?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br/> +KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN</h2> + +<p> +I have visited Baumbach’s. I have heard Milwaukee drinking its afternoon +Kaffee. +</p> + +<p> +O Baumbach’s, with your deliciously crumbling butter cookies and your kaffee +kuchen, and your thick cream, and your thicker waitresses and your cockroaches, +and your dinginess and your dowdy German ladies and your black, black Kaffee, +where in this country is there another like you! +</p> + +<p> +Blackie, true to his promise, had hailed me from the doorway on the afternoon +of the following day. In the rush of the day’s work I had quite forgotten about +Blackie and Baumbach’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Kindchen!” he called. “Get your bonnet on. We will by Baumbach’s go, +no?” +</p> + +<p> +Ruefully I gazed at the grimy cuffs of my blouse, and felt of my dishevelled +hair. “Oh, I’m afraid I can’t go. I look so mussy. Haven’t had time to brush +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Brush up!” scoffed Blackie, “the only thing about you that will need brushin’ +up is your German. I was goin’ t’ warn you to rumple up your hair a little so +you wouldn’t feel overdressed w’en you got there. Come on, girl.” +</p> + +<p> +And so I came. And oh, I’m so glad I came! +</p> + +<p> +I must have passed it a dozen times without once noticing it—just a dingy +little black shop nestling between two taller buildings, almost within the +shadow of the city hall. Over the sidewalk swung a shabby black sign with gilt +letters that spelled, “Franz Baumbach.” +</p> + +<p> +Blackie waved an introductory hand in the direction of the sign. “There he is. +That’s all you’ll ever see of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dead?” asked I, regretfully, as we entered the narrow doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“No; down in the basement baking Kaffeekuchen.” +</p> + +<p> +Two tiny show-windows faced the street—such queer, old-fashioned windows in +these days of plate glass. At the back they were quite open to the shop, and in +one of them reposed a huge, white, immovable structure—a majestic, heavy, +nutty, surely indigestible birthday cake. Around its edge were flutings and +scrolls of white icing, and on its broad breast reposed cherries, and stout +butterflies of jelly, and cunning traceries of colored sugar. It was quite the +dressiest cake I had ever beheld. Surely no human hand could be wanton enough +to guide a knife through all that magnificence. But in the center of all this +splendor was an inscription in heavy white letters of icing: “Charlottens +Geburtstag.” +</p> + +<p> +Reluctantly I tore my gaze from this imposing example of the German +confectioner’s art, for Blackie was tugging impatiently at my sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +“But Blackie,” I marveled, “do you honestly suppose that that structure is +intended for some Charlotte’s birthday?” +</p> + +<p> +“In Milwaukee,” explained Blackie, “w’en you got a birthday you got t’ have a +geburtstag cake, with your name on it, and all the cousins and aunts and +members of the North Side Frauen Turner Verein Gesellchaft, in for the day. It +ain’t considered decent if you don’t. Are you ready to fight your way into the +main tent?” +</p> + +<p> +It was holiday time, and the single narrow aisle of the front shop was crowded. +It was not easy to elbow one’s way through the packed little space. Men and +women were ordering recklessly of the cakes of every description that were +heaped in cases and on shelves. +</p> + +<p> +Cakes! What a pale; dry name to apply to those crumbling, melting, indigestible +German confections! Blackie grinned with enjoyment while I gazed. There were +cakes the like of which I had never seen and of which I did not even know the +names. There were little round cup cakes made of almond paste that melts in the +mouth; there were Schnecken glazed with a delicious candied brown sugar; there +were Bismarcks composed of layer upon layer of flaky crust inlaid with an oozy +custard that evades the eager consumer at the first bite, and that slides down +one’s collar when chased with a pursuing tongue. There were Pfeffernusse; +there, were Lebkuchen; there were cheese-kuchen; plum-kuchen, peach-kuchen, +Apfelkuchen, the juicy fruit stuck thickly into the crust, the whole dusted +over with powdered sugar. There were Torten, and Hornchen, and butter cookies. +</p> + +<p> +Blackie touched my arm, and I tore my gaze from a cherry-studded Schaumtorte +that was being reverently packed for delivery. +</p> + +<p> +“My, what a greedy girl! Now get your mind all made up. This is your chance. +You know you’re supposed t’ take a slant at th’ things an’ make up your mind +w’at you want before you go back w’ere th’ tables are. Don’t fumble this thing. +When Olga or Minna comes waddlin’ up t’ you an’ says: ‘Nu, Fraulein?’ you gotta +tell her whether your heart says plum-kuchen oder Nusstorte, or both, see? Just +like that. Now make up your mind. I’d hate t’ have you blunder. Have you +decided?” +</p> + +<p> +“Decided! How can I?” I moaned, watching a black-haired, black-eyed Alsatian +girl behind the counter as she rolled a piece of white paper into a cone and +dipped a spoonful of whipped cream from a great brown bowl heaped high with the +snowy stuff. She filled the paper cone, inserted the point of it into one end +of a hollow pastry horn, and gently squeezed. Presto! A cream-filled Hornchen! +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Blackie!” I gasped. “Come on. I want to go in and eat.” +</p> + +<p> +As we elbowed our way to the rear room separated from the front shop only by a +flimsy wooden partition, I expected I know not what. +</p> + +<p> +But surely this was not Blackie’s much-vaunted Baumbach’s! This long, narrow, +dingy room, with its bare floor and its iron-legged tables whose bare marble +tops were yellow with age and use! I said nothing as we seated ourselves. +Blackie was watching me out of the tail of his eye. My glance wandered about +the shabby, smoke-filled room, and slowly and surely the charm of that fusty, +dingy little cafe came upon me. +</p> + +<p> +A huge stove glowed red in one corner. On the wall behind the stove was +suspended a wooden rack, black with age, its compartments holding German, +Austrian and Hungarian newspapers. Against the opposite wall stood an ancient +walnut mirror, and above it hung a colored print of Bismarck, helmeted, +uniformed, and fiercely mustached. The clumsy iron-legged tables stood in two +solemn rows down the length of the narrow room. Three or four stout, blond +girls plodded back and forth, from tables to front shop, bearing trays of cakes +and steaming cups of coffee. There was a rumble and clatter of German. Every +one seemed to know every one else. A game of chess was in progress at one +table, and between moves each contestant would refresh himself with a +long-drawn, sibilant mouthful of coffee. There was nothing about the place or +its occupants to remind one of America. This dim, smoky, cake-scented cafe was +Germany. +</p> + +<p> +“Time!” said Blackie. “Here comes Rosie to take our order. You can take your +choice of coffee or chocolate. That’s as fancy as they get here.” +</p> + +<p> +An expansive blond girl paused at our table smiling a broad welcome at Blackie. +</p> + +<p> +“Wie geht’s, Roschen?” he greeted her. Roschen’s smile became still more +pervasive, so that her blue eyes disappeared in creases of good humor. She +wiped the marble table top with a large and careless gesture that precipitated +stray crumbs into our laps. “Gut!” murmured she, coyly, and leaned one hand on +a portly hip in an attitude of waiting. +</p> + +<p> +“Coffee?” asked Blackie, turning to me. I nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Zweimal Kaffee?” beamed Roschen, grasping the idea. +</p> + +<p> +“Now’s your time to speak up,” urged Blackie. “Go ahead an’ order all the cream +gefillte things that looked good to you out in front.” +</p> + +<p> +But I leaned forward, lowering my voice discreetly. “Blackie, before I plunge +in too recklessly, tell me, are their prices very—” +</p> + +<p> +“Sa-a-ay, child, you just can’t spend half a dollar here if you try. The +flossiest kind of thing they got is only ten cents a order. They’ll smother you +in whipped cream f’r a quarter. You c’n come in here an’ eat an’ eat an’ put +away piles of cakes till you feel like a combination of Little Jack Horner an’ +old Doc Johnson. An’ w’en you’re all through, they hand yuh your check, an’, +say—it says forty-five cents. You can’t beat it, so wade right in an’ spoil +your complexion.” +</p> + +<p> +With enthusiasm I turned upon the patient Rosie. “O, bring me some of those +cunning little round things with the cream on ’em, you know—two of those, eh +Blackie? And a couple of those with the flaky crust and the custard between, +and a slice of that fluffy-looking cake and some of those funny cocked-hat +shaped cookies—” +</p> + +<p> +But a pall of bewilderment was slowly settling over Rosie’s erstwhile smiling +face. Her plump shoulders went up in a helpless shrug, and she turned her round +blue eyes appealingly to Blackie. +</p> + +<p> +“Was meint sie alles?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +So I began all over again, with the assistance of Blackie. We went into minute +detail. We made elaborate gestures. We drew pictures of our desired goodies on +the marble-topped table, using a soft-lead pencil. Rosie’s countenance wore a +distracted look. In desperation I was about to accompany her to the crowded +shop, there to point out my chosen dainties when suddenly, as they would put it +here, a light went her over. +</p> + +<p> +“Ach, yes-s-s-s! Sie wollten vielleicht abgeruhrter Gugelhopf haben, und auch +Schaumtorte, und Bismarcks, und Hornchen mit cream gefullt, nicht?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” I murmured, quite crushed. Roschen waddled merrily off to the +shop. +</p> + +<p> +Blackie was rolling a cigarette. He ran his funny little red tongue along the +edge of the paper and glanced up at me in glee. “Don’t bother about me,” he +generously observed. “Just set still and let the atmosphere soak in.” +</p> + +<p> +But already I was lost in contemplation of a red-faced, pompadoured German who +was drinking coffee and reading the Fliegende Blatter at a table just across +the way. There were counterparts of my aborigines at Knapf’s—thick spectacled +engineers with high foreheads—actors and actresses from the German stock +company—reporters from the English and German newspapers—business men with +comfortable German consciences—long-haired musicians—dapper young lawyers—a +giggling group of college girls and boys—a couple of smartly dressed women +nibbling appreciatively at slices of Nusstorte—low-voiced lovers whose coffee +cups stood untouched at their elbows, while no fragrant cloud of steam rose to +indicate that there was warmth within. Their glances grow warmer as the +neglected Kaffee grows colder. The color comes and goes in the girl’s face and +I watch it, a bit enviously, marveling that the old story still should be so +new. +</p> + +<p> +At a large square table near the doorway a group of eight men were absorbed in +an animated political discussion, accompanied by much waving of arms, and +thundering of gutturals. It appeared to be a table of importance, for the +high-backed bench that ran along one side was upholstered in worn red velvet, +and every newcomer paused a moment to nod or to say a word in greeting. It was +not of American politics that they talked, but of the politics of Austria and +Hungary. Finally the argument resolved itself into a duel of words between a +handsome, red-faced German whose rosy skin seemed to take on a deeper tone in +contrast to the whiteness of his hair and mustache, and a swarthy young fellow +whose thick spectacles and heavy mane of black hair gave him the look of a +caricature out of an illustrated German weekly. The red-faced man argued +loudly, with much rapping of bare knuckles on the table top. But the dark man +spoke seldom, and softly, with a little twisted half-smile on his lips; and +whenever he spoke the red-faced man grew redder, and there came a huge laugh +from the others who sat listening. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, wouldn’t it curdle your English?” Blackie laughed. +</p> + +<p> +Solemnly I turned to him. “Blackie Griffith, these people do not even realize +that there is anything unusual about this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure not; that’s the beauty of it. They don’t need to make no artificial +atmosphere for this place; it just grows wild, like dandelions. Everybody comes +here for their coffee because their aunts an’ uncles and Grossmutters and +Grosspapas used t’ come, and come yet, if they’re livin’! An’, after all, what +is it but a little German bakery?” +</p> + +<p> +“But O, wise Herr Baumbach down in the kitchen! O, subtle Frau Baumbach back of +the desk!” said I. “Others may fit their shops with mirrors, and cut-glass +chandeliers and Oriental rugs and mahogany, but you sit serenely by, and you +smile, and you change nothing. You let the brown walls grow dimmer with age; +you see the marble-topped tables turning yellow; you leave bare your wooden +floor, and you smile, and smile, and smile.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine!” applauded Blackie. “You’re on. And here comes Rosie.” +</p> + +<p> +Rosie, the radiant, placed on the table cups and saucers of an unbelievable +thickness. She set them down on the marble surface with a crash as one who +knows well that no mere marble or granite could shatter the solidity of those +stout earthenware receptacles. Napkins there were none. I was to learn that +fingers were rid of any clinging remnants of cream or crumb by the simple +expedient of licking them. +</p> + +<p> +Blackie emptied his pitcher of cream into his cup of black, black coffee, +sugared it, stirred, tasted, and then, with a wicked gleam in his black eyes he +lifted the heavy cup to his lips and took a long, gurgling mouthful. +</p> + +<p> +“Blackie,” I hissed, “if you do that again I shall refuse to speak to you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do what?” demanded he, all injured innocence. +</p> + +<p> +“Snuffle up your coffee like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, girl, that’s th’ proper way t’ drink coffee here. Listen t’ everybody +else.” And while I glared he wrapped his hand lovingly about his cup, holding +the spoon imprisoned between first and second fingers, and took another +sibilant mouthful. “Any more of your back talk and I’ll drink it out of m’ +saucer an’ blow on it like the hefty party over there in the earrings is doin’. +Calm yerself an’ try a Bismarck.” +</p> + +<p> +I picked up one of the flaky confections and eyed it in despair. There were no +plates except that on which the cakes reposed. +</p> + +<p> +“How does one eat them?” I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Yuh don’t really eat ’em. The motion is more like inhalin’. T’ eat ’em +successful you really ought t’ get into a bath-tub half-filled with water, +because as soon’s you bite in at one end w’y the custard stuff slides out at +the other, an’ no human mouth c’n be two places at oncet. Shut your eyes girl, +an’ just wade in.” +</p> + +<p> +I waded. In silence I took a deep delicious bite, nimbly chased the coy filling +around a corner with my tongue, devoured every bit down to the last crumb and +licked the stickiness off my fingers. Then I investigated the interior of the +next cake. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m coming here every day,” I announced. +</p> + +<p> +“Better not. Ruin your complexion and turn all your lines into bumps. Look at +the dame with the earrings. I’ve been keepin’ count an’ I’ve seen her eat three +Schnecken, two cream puffs, a Nusshornchen and a slice of Torte with two cups +of coffee. Ain’t she a horrible example! And yet she’s got th’ nerve t’ wear a +princess gown!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care,” I replied, recklessly, my voice choked with whipped cream and +butteriness. “I can just feel myself getting greasy. Haven’t I done beautifully +for a new hand? Now tell me about some of these people. Who is the funny little +man in the checked suit with the black braid trimming, and the green cravat, +and the white spats, and the tan hat and the eyeglasses?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t them th’ dizzy habiliments?” A note of envy crept into Blackie’s voice. +“His name is Hugo Luders. Used t’ be a reporter on the Germania, but he’s +reformed and gone into advertisin’, where there’s real money. Some say he wears +them clo’es on a bet, and some say his taste in dress is a curse descended upon +him from Joseph, the guy with the fancy coat, but I think he wears ’em because +he fancies ’em. He’s been coming here ever’ afternoon for twelve years, has a +cup of coffee, game of chess, and a pow-wow with a bunch of cronies. If +Baumbach’s ever decide to paint the front of their shop or put in cut glass +fixtures and handpainted china, Hugo Luders would serve an injunction on ’em. +Next!” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s the woman with the leathery complexion and the belt to match, and the +untidy hair and the big feet? I like her face. And why does she sit at a table +with all those strange-looking men? And who are all the men? And who is the +fur-lined grand opera tenor just coming in—Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +Blackie glanced over his shoulder just as the tall man in the doorway turned +his face toward us. “That? Why, girl, that’s Von Gerhard, the man who gives me +one more year t’ live. Look at everybody kowtowing to him. He don’t favor +Baumbach’s often. Too busy patching up the nervous wrecks that are washed up on +his shores.” +</p> + +<p> +The tall figure in the doorway was glancing from table to table, nodding here +and there to an acquaintance. His eyes traveled the length of the room. Now +they were nearing us. I felt a sudden, inexplicable tightening at heart and +throat, as though fingers were clutching there. Then his eyes met mine, and I +felt the blood rushing to my face as he came swiftly over to our table and took +my hand in his. +</p> + +<p> +“So you have discovered Baumbach’s,” he said. “May I have my coffee and cigar +here with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Blackie here is responsible for my being initiated into the sticky mysteries +of Baumbach’s. I never should have discovered it if he had not offered to act +as personal conductor. You know one another, I believe?” +</p> + +<p> +The two men shook hands across the table. There was something forced and +graceless about the act. Blackie eyed Von Gerhard through a misty curtain of +cigarette smoke. Von Gerhard gazed at Blackie through narrowed lids as he +lighted his cigar. “I’m th’ gink you killed off two or three years back,” +Blackie explained. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember you perfectly,” Von Gerhard returned, courteously. “I rejoice to +see that I was mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” drawled Blackie, a wicked gleam in his black eyes, “I’m some rejoiced +m’self, old top. Angel wings and a white kimono, worn bare-footy, would go some +rotten with my Spanish style of beauty, what? Didn’t know that you and m’dame +friend here was acquainted. Known each other long?” +</p> + +<p> +I felt myself flushing again. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew Dr. von Gerhard back home. I’ve scarcely seen him since I have been +here. Famous specialists can’t be bothered with middle-aged relatives of their +college friends, can they, Herr Doktor?” +</p> + +<p> +And now it was Von Gerhard’s face that flushed a deep and painful crimson. He +looked at me, in silence, and I felt very little, and insignificant, and much +like an impudent child who has stuck out its tongue at its elders. Silent men +always affect talkative women in that way. +</p> + +<p> +“You know that what you say is not true,” he said, slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we won’t quibble. We—we were just about to leave, weren’t we Blackie?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just,” said Blackie, rising. “Sorry t’ see you drinkin’ Baumbach’s coffee, +Doc. It ain’t fair t’ your patients.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right,” replied Von Gerhard; and rose with us. “I shall not drink it. I +shall walk home with Mrs. Orme instead, if she will allow me. That will be more +stimulating than coffee, and twice as dangerous, perhaps, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“You know how I hate that sort of thing,” I said, coldly, as we passed from the +warmth of the little front shop where the plump girls were still filling +pasteboard boxes with holiday cakes, to the brisk chill of the winter street. +The little black-and-gilt sign swung and creaked in the wind. Whimsically, and +with the memory of that last cream-filled cake fresh in my mind, I saluted the +letters that spelled “Franz Baumbach.” +</p> + +<p> +Blackie chuckled impishly. “Just the same, try a pinch of soda bicarb’nate when +you get home, Dawn,” he advised. “Well, I’m off to the factory again. Got t’ +make up for time wasted on m’ lady friend. Auf wiedersehen!” +</p> + +<p> +And the little figure in the checked top-coat trotted off. +</p> + +<p> +“But he called you—Dawn,” broke from Von Gerhard. +</p> + +<p> +“Mhum,” I agreed. “My name’s Dawn.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely not to him. You have known him but a few weeks. I would not have +presumed—” +</p> + +<p> +“Blackie never presumes,” I laughed. “Blackie’s just—Blackie. Imagine taking +offense at him! He knows every one by their given name, from Jo, the boss of +the pressroom, to the Chief, who imports his office coats from London. Besides, +Blackie and I are newspaper men. And people don’t scrape and bow in a newspaper +office—especially when they’re fond of one another. You wouldn’t understand.” +</p> + +<p> +As I looked at Von Gerhard in the light of the street lamp I saw a tense, drawn +look about the little group of muscles which show when the teeth are set hard. +When he spoke those muscles had relaxed but little. +</p> + +<p> +“One man does not talk ill of another. But this is different. I want to ask +you—do you know what manner of man this—this Blackie is? I ask you because I +would have you safe and sheltered always from such as he—because I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Safe! From Blackie? Now listen. There never was a safer, saner, truer, more +generous friend. Oh, I know what his life has been. But what else could it have +been, beginning as he did? I have no wish to reform him. I tried my hand at +reforming one man, and made a glorious mess of it. So I’ll just take Blackie as +he is, if you please—slang, wickedness, pink shirt, red necktie, diamond rings +and all. If there’s any bad in him, we all know it, for it’s right down on the +table, face up. You’re just angry because he called you Doc.” +</p> + +<p> +“Small one,” said Von Gerhard, in his quaint German idiom, “we will not +quarrel, you and I. If I have been neglectful it was because edged tools were +never a chosen plaything of mine. Perhaps your little Blackie realizes that he +need have no fear of such things, for the Great Fear is upon him.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Great Fear! You mean!—” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean that there are too many fine little lines radiating from the corners of +the sunken eyes, and that his hand-clasp leaves a moisture in the palm. Ach! +you may laugh. Come, we will change the subject to something more cheerful, +yes? Tell me, how grows the book?” +</p> + +<p> +“By inches. After working all day on a bulletin paper whose city editor is +constantly shouting: ‘Boil it now, fellows! Keep it down! We’re crowded!’ it is +too much of a wrench to find myself seated calmly before my own typewriter at +night, privileged to write one hundred thousand words if I choose. I can’t get +over the habit of crowding the story all into the first paragraph. Whenever I +flower into a descriptive passage I glance nervously over my shoulder, +expecting to find Norberg stationed behind me, scissors and blue pencil in +hand. Consequently the book, thus far, sounds very much like a police +reporter’s story of a fire four minutes before the paper is due to go to +press.” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard’s face was unsmiling. “So,” he said, slowly. “You burn the candle +at both ends. All day you write, is it not so? And at night you come home to +write still more? Ach, Kindchen!—Na, we shall change all that. We will be +better comrades, we two, yes? You remember that gay little walk of last autumn, +when we explored the Michigan country lane at dusk? I shall be your Sunday +Schatz, and there shall be more rambles like that one, to bring the roses into +your cheeks. We shall be good Kameraden, as you and this little Griffith +are—what is it they say—good fellows? That is it—good fellows, yes? So, shall +we shake hands on it?” +</p> + +<p> +But I snatched my hand away. “I don’t want to be a good fellow,” I cried. “I’m +tired of being a good fellow. I’ve been a good fellow for years and years, +while every other married woman in the world has been happy in her own home, +bringing up her babies. When I am old I want some sons to worry me, too, and to +stay awake nights for, and some daughters to keep me young, and to prevent me +from doing my hair in a knob and wearing bonnets! I hate good-fellow women, and +so do you, and so does every one else! I—I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Dawn!” cried Von Gerhard. But I ran up the steps and into the house and +slammed the door behind me, leaving him standing there. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br/> +THE LADY FROM VIENNA</h2> + +<p> +Two more aborigines have appeared. One of them is a lady aborigine. They made +their entrance at supper and I forgot to eat, watching them. The new-comers are +from Vienna. He is an expert engineer and she is a woman of noble birth, with a +history. Their combined appearance is calculated to strike terror to the heart. +He is daringly ugly, with a chin that curves in under his lip and then out in a +peak, like pictures of Punch. She wore a gray gown of a style I never had seen +before and never expect to see again. It was fastened with huge black buttons +all the way down the breathlessly tight front, and the upper part was composed +of that pre-historic garment known as a basque. She curved in where she should +have curved out, and she bulged where she should have had “lines.” About her +neck was suspended a string of cannon-ball beads that clanked as she walked. On +her forehead rested a sparse fringe. +</p> + +<p> +“Mein Himmel!” thought I. “Am I dreaming? This isn’t Wisconsin. This is +Nurnberg, or Strassburg, with a dash of Heidelberg and Berlin thrown in. Dawn, +old girl, it’s going to be more instructive than a Cook’s tour.” +</p> + +<p> +That turned out to be the truest prophecy I ever made. +</p> + +<p> +The first surprising thing that the new-comers did was to seat themselves at +the long table with the other aborigines, the lady aborigine being the only +woman among the twelve men. It was plain that they had known one another +previous to this meeting, for they became very good friends at once, and the +men grew heavily humorous about there being thirteen at table. +</p> + +<p> +At that the lady aborigine began to laugh. Straightway I forgot the outlandish +gown, forgot the cannon-ball beads, forgot the sparse fringe, forgave the +absence of “lines.” Such a voice! A lilting, melodious thing. She broke into a +torrent of speech, with bewildering gestures, and I saw that her hands were +exquisitely formed and as expressive as her voice. Her German was the musical +tongue of the Viennese, possessing none of the gutturals and sputterings. When +she crowned it with the gay little trilling laugh my views on the language +underwent a lightning change. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to +see her open the flat, silver case that dangled at the end of the cannon-ball +chain, take out a cigarette, light it, and smoke it there in that little German +dining room. She wore the most gracefully nonchalant air imaginable as she blew +little rings and wreaths, and laughed and chatted brightly with her husband and +the other men. Occasionally she broke into French, her accent as charmingly +perfect as it had been in her native tongue. There was a moment of breathless +staring on the part of the respectable middle-class Frauen at the other tables. +Then they shrugged their shoulders and plunged into their meal again. There was +a certain little high-born air of assurance about that cigarette-smoking that +no amount of staring could ruffle. +</p> + +<p> +Watching the new aborigines grew to be a sort of game. The lady aborigine of +the golden voice, and the ugly husband of the peaked chin had a strange +fascination for me. I scrambled downstairs at meal time in order not to miss +them, and I dawdled over the meal so that I need not leave before they. I +discovered that when the lady aborigine was animated, her face was that of a +young woman, possessing a certain high-bred charm, but that when in repose the +face of the lady aborigine was that of a very old and tired woman indeed. Also +that her husband bullied her, and that when he did that she looked at him +worshipingly. +</p> + +<p> +Then one evening, a week or so after the appearance of the new aborigines, +there came a clumping at my door. I was seated at my typewriter and the book +was balkier than usual, and I wished that the clumper at the door would go +away. +</p> + +<p> +“Come!” I called, ungraciously enough. Then, on second thought: “Herein!” +</p> + +<p> +The knob turned slowly, and the door opened just enough to admit the top of a +head crowned with a tight, moist German knob of hair. I searched my memory to +recognize the knob, failed utterly and said again, this time with mingled +curiosity and hospitality: +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you come in?” +</p> + +<p> +The apparently bodiless head thrust itself forward a bit, disclosing an +apologetically smiling face, with high check bones that glistened with +friendliness and scrubbing. +</p> + +<p> +“Nabben’, Fraulein,” said the head. +</p> + +<p> +“Nabben’,” I replied, more mystified than ever. “Howdy do! Is there anything—” +</p> + +<p> +The head thrust itself forward still more, showing a pair of plump shoulders as +its support. Then the plump shoulders heaved into the room, disclosing a stout, +starched gingham body. +</p> + +<p> +“Ich bin Frau Knapf,” announced the beaming vision. +</p> + +<p> +Now up to this time Frau Knapf had maintained a Mrs. Harris-like +mysteriousness. I had heard rumors of her, and I had partaken of certain crispy +dishes of German extraction, reported to have come from her deft hands, but I +had not even caught a glimpse of her skirts whisking around a corner. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore: “Frau Knapf!” I repeated. “Nonsense! There ain’t no sich person—that +is, I’m glad to see you. Won’t you come in and sit down?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ach, no!” smiled the substantial Frau Knapf, clinging tightly to the door +knob. “I got no time. It gives much to do to-night yet. Kuchen dough I must +set, und ich weiss nicht was. I got no time.” +</p> + +<p> +Bustling, red-cheeked Frau Knapf! This was why I had never had a glimpse of +her. Always, she got no time. For while Herr Knapf, dapper and genial, welcomed +new-comers, chatted with the diners, poured a glass of foaming Doppel-brau for +Herr Weber or, dexterously carved fowl for the aborigines’ table, Frau Knapf +was making the wheels go round. I discovered that it was she who bakes the +melting, golden German Pfannkuchen on Sunday mornings; she it is who fries the +crisp and hissing Wienerschnitzel; she it is who prepares the plump ducklings, +and the thick gravies, and the steaming lentil soup and the rosy sausages +nestling coyly in their bed of sauerkraut. All the week Frau Knapf bakes and +broils and stews, her rosy cheeks taking on a twinkling crimson from the fire +over which she bends. But on Sunday night Frau Knapf sheds her huge apron and +rolls down the sleeves from her plump arms. On Sunday evening she leaves pots +and pans and cooking, and is a transformed Frau Knapf. Then does she don a +bright blue silk waist and a velvet coat that is dripping with jet, and a black +bonnet on which are perched palpitating birds and weary-looking plumes. Then +she and Herr Knapf walk comfortably down to the Pabst theater to see the German +play by the German stock company. They applaud their favorite stout, blond, +German comedienne as she romps through the acts of a sprightly German comedy, +and after the play they go to their favorite Wein-stube around the corner. +There they have sardellen and cheese sandwiches and a great deal of beer, and +for one charmed evening Frau Knapf forgets all about the insides of geese and +the thickening for gravies, and is happy. +</p> + +<p> +Many of these things Frau Knapf herself told me, standing there by the door +with the Kuchen heavy on her mind. Some of them I got from Ernst von Gerhard +when I told him about my visitor and her errand. The errand was not disclosed +until Frau Knapf had caught me casting a despairing glance at my last +typewritten page. +</p> + +<p> +“Ach, see! you got no time for talking to, ain’t it?” she apologized. +</p> + +<p> +“Heaps of time,” I politely assured her, “don’t hurry. But why not have a chair +and be comfortable?” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Knapf was not to be deceived. “I go in a minute. But first it is something +I like to ask you. You know maybe Frau Nirlanger?” +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. +</p> + +<p> +“But sure you must know. From Vienna she is, with such a voice like a bird.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the beads, and the gray gown, and the fringe, and the cigarettes?” +</p> + +<p> +“And the oogly husband,” finished Frau Knapf, nodding. +</p> + +<p> +“Oogly,” I agreed, “isn’t the name for it. And so she is Frau Nirlanger? I +thought there would be a Von at the very least.” +</p> + +<p> +Whereupon my visitor deserted the doorknob, took half a dozen stealthy steps in +my direction and lowered her voice to a hissing whisper of confidence. +</p> + +<p> +“It is more as a Von. I will tell you. Today comes Frau Nirlanger by me and she +says: ‘Frau Knapf, I wish to buy clothes, aber echt Amerikanische. Myself, I do +not know what is modish, and I cannot go alone to buy.’” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a grand idea,” said I, recalling the gray basque and the cannon-ball +beads. +</p> + +<p> +“Ja, sure it is,” agreed Frau Knapf. “Soo-o-o, she asks me was it some lady who +would come with her by the stores to help a hat and suit and dresses to buy. +Stylish she likes they should be, and echt Amerikanisch. So-o-o-o, I say to +her, I would go myself with you, only so awful stylish I ain’t, and anyway I +got no time. But a lady I know who is got such stylish clothes!” Frau Knapf +raised admiring hands and eyes toward heaven. “Such a nice lady she is, and +stylish, like anything! And her name is Frau Orme.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, really, Frau Knapf—” I murmured in blushing confusion. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure, it is so,” insisted Frau Knapf, coming a step nearer, and sinking her, +voice one hiss lower. “You shouldn’t say I said it, but Frau Nirlanger likes +she should look young for her husband. He is much younger as she is—aber much. +Anyhow ten years. Frau Nirlanger does not tell me this, but from other people I +have found out.” Frau Knapf shook her head mysteriously a great many times. +“But maybe you ain’t got such an interest in Frau Nirlanger, yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Interest! I’m eaten up with curiosity. You shan’t leave this room alive until +you’ve told me!” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Knapf shook with silent mirth. “Now you make jokings, ain’t? Well, I tell +you. In Vienna, Frau Nirlanger was a widow, from a family aber hoch edel—very +high born. From the court her family is, and friends from the Emperor, und +alles. Sure! Frau Nirlanger, she is different from the rest. Books she likes, +und meetings, und all such komisch things. And what you think!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” I gasped, hanging on her words, “what DO I think?” +</p> + +<p> +“She meets this here Konrad Nirlanger, and falls with him in love. Und her +family is mad! But schrecklich mad! Forty years old she is, and from a noble +family, and Konrad Nirlanger is only a student from a university, and he comes +from the Volk. Sehr gebildet he is, but not high born. So-o-o-o-o, she runs +with him away and is married.” +</p> + +<p> +Shamelessly I drank it all in. “You don’t mean it! Well, then what happened? +She ran away with him—with that chin! and then what?” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Knapf was enjoying it as much as I. She drew a long breath, felt of the +knob of hair, and plunged once more into the story. +</p> + +<p> +“Like a story-book it is, nicht? Well, Frau Nirlanger, she has already a boy +who is ten years old, and a fine sum of money that her first husband left her. +Aber when she runs with this poor kerl away from her family, and her first +husband’s family is so schrecklich mad that they try by law to take from her +her boy and her money, because she has her highborn family disgraced, you see? +For a year they fight in the courts, and then it stands that her money Frau +Nirlanger can keep, but her boy she cannot have. He will be taken by her +highborn family and educated, and he must forget all about his mamma. To cry it +is, ain’t it? Das arme Kind! Well, she can stand it no longer to live where her +boy is, and not to see him. So-o-o-o, Konrad Nirlanger he gets a chance to come +by Amerika where there is a big engineering plant here in Milwaukee, and she +begs her husband he should come, because this boy she loves very much—Oh, she +loves her young husband too, but different, yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” I agreed, remembering the gay little trilling laugh, and the face +that was so young when animated, and so old and worn in repose. “Oh, yes. +Quite, quite different.” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Knapf smoothed her spotless skirt and shook her head slowly and sadly. +“So-o-o-o, by Amerika they come. And Konrad Nirlanger he is maybe a little +cross and so, because for a year they have been in the courts, and it might +have been the money they would lose, and for money Konrad Nirlanger cares—well, +you shall see. But Frau Nirlanger must not mourn and cry. She must laugh and +sing, and be gay for her husband. But Frau Nirlanger has no grand clothes, for +first she runs away with Konrad Nirlanger, and then her money is tied in the +law. Now she has again her money, and she must be young—but young!” +</p> + +<p> +With a gesture that expressed a world of pathos and futility Frau Knapf flung +out her arms. “He must not see that she looks different as the ladies in this +country. So Frau Nirlanger wants she should buy here in the stores new +dresses—echt Amerikanische. All new and beautiful things she would have, +because she must look young, ain’t it? And perhaps her boy will remember her +when he is a fine young man, if she is yet young when he grows up, you see? And +too, there is the young husband. First, she gives up her old life, and her +friends and her family for this man, and then she must do all things to keep +him. Men, they are but children, after all,” spake the wise Frau Knapf in +conclusion. “They war and cry and plead for that which they would have, and +when they have won, then see! They are amused for a moment, and the new toy is +thrown aside.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor, plain, vivacious, fascinating little Frau Nirlanger!” I said. “I wonder +just how much of pain and heartache that little musical laugh of hers +conceals?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ja, that is so,” mused Frau Knapf. “Her eyes look like eyes that have wept +much, not? And so you will be so kind and go maybe to select the so beautiful +clothes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Clothes?” I repeated, remembering the original errand. “But dear lady! How, +does one select clothes for a woman of forty who would not weary her husband? +That is a task for a French modiste, a wizard, and a fairy godmother all rolled +into one.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you will do it, yes?” urged Frau Knapf. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll do it,” I agreed, a bit ruefully, “if only to see the face of the oogly +husband when his bride is properly corseted and shod.” +</p> + +<p> +Whereupon Frau Knapf, in a panic, remembered the unset Kuchen dough and rushed +away, with her hand on her lips and her eyes big with secrecy. And I sat +staring at the last typewritten page stuck in my typewriter and I found that +the little letters on the white page were swimming in a dim purple haze. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br/> +A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS</h2> + +<p> +From husbands in general, and from oogly German husbands in particular may +Hymen defend me! Never again will I attempt to select “echt Amerikanische” +clothes for a woman who must not weary her young husband. But how was I to know +that the harmless little shopping expedition would resolve itself into a +domestic tragedy, with Herr Nirlanger as the villain, Frau Nirlanger as the +persecuted heroine, and I as—what is it in tragedy that corresponds to the +innocent bystander in real life? That would be my role. +</p> + +<p> +The purchasing of the clothes was a real joy. Next to buying pretty things for +myself there is nothing I like better than choosing them for some one else. And +when that some one else happens to be a fascinating little foreigner who coos +over the silken stuffs in a delightful mixture of German and English; and +especially when that some one else must be made to look so charming that she +will astonish her oogly husband, then does the selecting of those pretty things +cease to be a task, and become an art. +</p> + +<p> +It was to be a complete surprise to Herr Nirlanger. He was to know nothing of +it until everything was finished and Frau Nirlanger, dressed in the prettiest +of the pretty Amerikanisch gowns, was ready to astound him when he should come +home from the office of the vast plant where he solved engineering problems. +</p> + +<p> +“From my own money I buy all this,” Frau Nirlanger confided to me, with a gay +little laugh of excitement, as we started out. “From Vienna it comes. Always I +have given it at once to my husband, as a wife should. Yesterday it came, but I +said nothing, and when my husband said to me, ‘Anna, did not the money come as +usual to-day? It is time,’ I told a little lie—but a little one, is it not? +Very amusing it was. Almost I did laugh. Na, he will not be cross when he see +how his wife like the Amerikanische ladies will look. He admires very much the +ladies of Amerika. Many times he has said so.” +</p> + +<p> +(“I’ll wager he has—the great, ugly boor!” I thought, in parenthesis.) “We’ll +show him!” I said, aloud. “He won’t know you. Such a lot of beautiful clothes +as we can buy with all this money. Oh, dear Frau Nirlanger, it’s going to be +slathers of fun! I feel as excited about it as though it were a trousseau we +were buying.” +</p> + +<p> +“So it is,” she replied, a little shadow of sadness falling across the +brightness of her face. “I had no proper clothes when we were married—but +nothing! You know perhaps my story. In America, everyone knows everything. It +is wonderful. When I ran away to marry Konrad Nirlanger I had only the dress +which I wore; even that I borrowed from one of the upper servants, on a +pretext, so that no one should recognize me. Ach Gott! I need not have worried. +So! You see, it will be after all a trousseau.” +</p> + +<p> +Why, oh, why should a woman with her graceful carriage and pretty vivacity have +been cursed with such an ill-assorted lot of features! Especially when certain +boorish young husbands have expressed an admiration for pink-and-white effects +in femininity. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, Mr. Husband, I’ll show yez!” I resolved as the elevator left us at +the floor where waxen ladies in shining glass cases smiled amiably all the day. +</p> + +<p> +There must be no violent pinks or blues. Brown was too old. She was not young +enough for black. Violet was too trying. And so the gowns began to strew tables +and chairs and racks, and still I shook my head, and Frau Nirlanger looked +despairing, and the be-puffed and real Irish-crocheted saleswoman began to +develop a baleful gleam about the eyes. +</p> + +<p> +And then we found it! It was a case of love at first sight. The unimaginative +would have called it gray. The thoughtless would have pronounced it pink. It +was neither, and both; a soft, rosily-gray mixture of the two, like the sky +that one sometimes sees at winter twilight, the pink of the sunset veiled by +the gray of the snow clouds. It was of a supple, shining cloth, simple in cut, +graceful in lines. +</p> + +<p> +“There! We’ve found it. Let’s pray that it will not require too much altering.” +</p> + +<p> +But when it had been slipped over her head we groaned at the inadequacy of her +old-fashioned stays. There followed a flying visit to the department where hips +were whisked out of sight in a jiffy, and where lines miraculously took the +place of curves. Then came the gown once more, over the new stays this time. +The effect was magical. The Irish-crocheted saleswoman and I clasped hands and +fell back in attitudes of admiration. Frau Nirlanger turned this way and that +before the long mirror and chattered like a pleased child. Her adjectives grew +into words of six syllables. She cooed over the soft-shining stuff in little +broken exclamations in French and German. +</p> + +<p> +Then came a straight and simple street suit of blue cloth, a lingerie gown of +white, hats, shoes and even a couple of limp satin petticoats. The day was gone +before we could finish. +</p> + +<p> +I bullied them into promising the pinky-gray gown for the next afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +“Sooch funs!” giggled Frau Nirlanger, “and how it makes one tired. So kind you +were, to take this trouble for me. Me, I could never have warred with that +Fraulein who served us—so haughty she was, nicht? But it is good again pretty +clothes to have. Pretty gowns I lofe—you also, not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I do lofe ’em. But my money comes to me in a yellow pay envelope, and +it is spent before it reaches me, as a rule. It doesn’t leave much of a margin +for general recklessness.” +</p> + +<p> +A tiny sigh came from Frau Nirlanger. “There will be little to give to Konrad +this time. So much money they cost, those clothes! But Konrad, he will not care +when he sees the so beautiful dresses, is it not so?” +</p> + +<p> +“Care!” I cried with a great deal of bravado, although a tiny inner voice spake +in doubt. “Certainly not. How could he?” +</p> + +<p> +Next day the boxes came, and we smuggled them into my room. The unwrapping of +the tissue paper folds was a ceremony. We reveled in the very crackle of it. I +had scuttled home from the office as early as decency would permit, in order to +have plenty of time for the dressing. It must be quite finished before Herr +Nirlanger should arrive. Frau Nirlanger had purchased three tickets for the +German theater, also as a surprise, and I was to accompany the happily +surprised husband and the proud little wife of the new Amerikanische clothes. +</p> + +<p> +I coaxed her to let me do things to her hair. Usually she wore a stiff and ugly +coiffure that could only be described as a chignon. I do not recollect ever +having seen a chignon, but I know that it must look like that. I was thankful +for my Irish deftness of fingers as I stepped back to view the result of my +labors. The new arrangement of the hair gave her features a new softness and +dignity. +</p> + +<p> +We came to the lacing of the stays, with their exaggerated length. “Aber!” +exclaimed Frau Nirlanger, not daring to laugh because of the strange snugness. +“Ach!” and again, “Aber to laugh it is!” +</p> + +<p> +We had decided the prettiest of the new gowns must do honor to the occasion. +“This shade is called ashes of roses,” I explained, as I slipped it over her +head. +</p> + +<p> +“Ashes of roses!” she echoed. “How pretty, yes? But a little sad too, is it not +so? Like rosy hopes that have been withered. Ach, what a foolish talk! So, now +you will fasten it please. A real trick it is to button such a dress—so sly +they are, those fastenings.” +</p> + +<p> +When all the sly fastenings were secure I stood at gaze. +</p> + +<p> +“Nose is shiny,” I announced, searching in a drawer for chamois and powder. +</p> + +<p> +Frau Nirlanger raised an objecting hand. “But Konrad does not approve of such +things. He has said so. He has—” +</p> + +<p> +“You tell your Konrad that a chamois skin isn’t half as objectionable as a +shiny one. Come here and let me dust this over your nose and chin, while I +breathe a prayer of thanks that I have no overzealous husband near to forbid me +the use of a bit of powder. There! If I sez it mesilf as shouldn’t, yez ar-r-re +a credit t’ me, me darlint.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are satisfied. There is not one small thing awry? Ach, how we shall laugh +at Konrad’s face.” +</p> + +<p> +“Satisfied! I’d kiss you if I weren’t afraid that I should muss you up. You’re +not the same woman. You look like a girl! And so pretty! Now skedaddle into +your own rooms, but don’t you dare to sit down for a moment. I’m going down to +get Frau Knapf before your husband arrives.” +</p> + +<p> +“But is there then time?” inquired Frau Nirlanger. “He should be here now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll bring her up in a jiffy, just for one peep. She won’t know you! Her face +will be a treat! Don’t touch your hair—it’s quite perfect. And f’r Jawn’s sake! +Don’t twist around to look at yourself in the back or something will burst, I +know it will. I’ll be back in a minute. Now run!” +</p> + +<p> +The slender, graceful figure disappeared with a gay little laugh, and I flew +downstairs for Frau Knapf. She was discovered with a spoon in one hand and a +spluttering saucepan in the other. I detached her from them, clasped her big, +capable red hands and dragged her up the stairs, explaining as I went. +</p> + +<p> +“Now don’t fuss about that supper! Let ’em wait. You must see her before Herr +Nirlanger comes home. He’s due any minute. She looks like a girl. So young! And +actually pretty! And her figure—divine! Funny what a difference a decent pair +of corsets, and a gown, and some puffs will make, h’m?” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Knapf was panting as I pulled her after me in swift eagerness. Between +puffs she brought out exclamations of surprise and unbelief such as: +“Unmoglich! (Puff! Puff!) Aber—wunderbar! (Puff! Puff!)” +</p> + +<p> +We stopped before Frau Nirlanger’s door. I struck a dramatic pose. “Prepare!” I +cried grandly, and threw open the door with a bang. +</p> + +<p> +Crouched against the wall at a far corner of the room was Frau Nirlanger. Her +hands were clasped over her breast and her eyes were dilated as though she had +been running. In the center of the room stood Konrad Nirlanger, and on his +oogly face was the very oogliest look that I have ever seen on a man. He +glanced at us as we stood transfixed in the doorway, and laughed a short, +sneering laugh that was like a stinging blow on the cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“So!” he said; and I would not have believed that men really said “So!” in that +way outside of a melodrama. “So! You are in the little surprise, yes? You carry +your meddling outside of your newspaper work, eh? I leave behind me an old wife +in the morning and in the evening, presto! I find a young bride. Wonderful!—but +wonderful!” He laughed an unmusical and mirthless laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“But—don’t you like it?” I asked, like a simpleton. +</p> + +<p> +Frau Nirlanger seemed to shrink before our very eyes, so that the pretty gown +hung in limp folds about her. +</p> + +<p> +I stared, fascinated, at Konrad Nirlanger’s cruel face with its little eyes +that were too close together and its chin that curved in below the mouth and +out again so grotesquely. +</p> + +<p> +“Like it?” sneered Konrad Nirlanger. “For a young girl, yes. But how useless, +this belated trousseau. What a waste of good money! For see, a young wife I do +not want. Young women one can have in plenty, always. But I have an old woman +married, and for an old woman the gowns need be few—eh, Frau Orme? And you too, +Frau Knapf?” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Knapf, crimson and staring, was dumb. There came a little shivering moan +from the figure crouched in the corner, and Frau Nirlanger, her face queerly +withered and ashen, crumpled slowly in a little heap on the floor and buried +her shamed head in her arms. +</p> + +<p> +Konrad Nirlanger turned to his wife, the black look on his face growing +blacker. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, get up Anna,” he ordered, in German. “These heroics become not a woman +of your years. And too, you must not ruin the so costly gown that will be +returned to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Nirlanger’s white face was lifted from the shelter of her arms. The +stricken look was still upon it, but there was no cowering in her attitude now. +Slowly she rose to her feet. I had not realized that she was so tall. +</p> + +<p> +“The gown does not go back,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“So?” he snarled, with a savage note in his voice. “Now hear me. There shall be +no more buying of gowns and fripperies. You hear? It is for the wife to come to +the husband for the money; not for her to waste it wantonly on gowns, like a +creature of the streets. You,” his voice was an insult, “you, with your +wrinkles and your faded eyes in a gown of—” he turned inquiringly toward +me—“How does one call it, that color, Frau Orme?” +</p> + +<p> +There came a blur of tears to my eyes. “It is called ashes of roses,” I +answered. “Ashes of roses.” +</p> + +<p> +Konrad Nirlanger threw back his head and laughed a laugh as stinging as a +whip-lash. “Ashes of roses! So? It is well named. For my dear wife it is +poetically fit, is it not so? For see, her roses are but withered ashes, eh +Anna?” +</p> + +<p> +Deliberately and in silence Anna Nirlanger walked to the mirror and stood +there, gazing at the woman in the glass. There was something dreadful and +portentous about the calm and studied deliberation with which she critically +viewed that reflection. She lifted her arms slowly and patted into place the +locks that had become disarranged, turning her head from side to side to study +the effect. Then she took from a drawer the bit of chamois skin that I had +given her, and passed it lightly over her eyelids and cheeks, humming softly to +herself the while. No music ever sounded so uncanny to my ears. The woman +before the mirror looked at the woman in the mirror with a long, steady, +measuring look. Then, slowly and deliberately, the long graceful folds of her +lovely gown trailing behind her, she walked over to where her frowning husband +stood. So might a queen have walked, head held high, gaze steady. She stopped +within half a foot of him, her eyes level with his. For a long half-minute they +stood thus, the faded blue eyes of the wife gazing into the sullen black eyes +of the husband, and his were the first to drop, for all the noble blood in Anna +Nirlanger’s veins, and all her long line of gently bred ancestors were coming +to her aid in dealing with her middle-class husband. +</p> + +<p> +“You forget,” she said, very slowly and distinctly. “If this were Austria, +instead of Amerika, you would not forget. In Austria people of your class do +not speak in this manner to those of my caste.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unsinn!” laughed Konrad Nirlanger. “This is Amerika.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Anna Nirlanger, “this is Amerika. And in Amerika all things are +different. I see now that my people knew of what they spoke when they called me +mad to think of wedding a clod of the people, such as you.” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment I thought that he was going to strike her. I think he would have, +if she had flinched. But she did not. Her head was held high, and her eyes did +not waver. +</p> + +<p> +“I married you for love. It is most comical, is it not? With you I thought I +should find peace, and happiness and a re-birth of the intellect that was being +smothered in the splendor and artificiality and the restrictions of my life +there. Well, I was wrong. But wrong. Now hear me!” Her voice was tense with +passion. “There will be gowns—as many and as rich as I choose. You have said +many times that the ladies of Amerika you admire. And see! I shall be also one +of those so-admired ladies. My money shall go for gowns! For hats! For trifles +of lace and velvet and fur! You shall learn that it is not a peasant woman whom +you have married. This is Amerika, the land of the free, my husband. And see! +Who is more of Amerika than I? Who?” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed a high little laugh and came over to me, taking my hands in her +own. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear girl, you must run quickly and dress. For this evening we go to the +theater. Oh, but you must. There shall be no unpleasantness, that I promise. My +husband accompanies us—with joy. Is it not so, Konrad? With joy? So!” +</p> + +<p> +Wildly I longed to decline, but I dared not. So I only nodded, for fear of the +great lump in my throat, and taking Frau Knapf’s hand I turned and fled with +her. Frau Knapf was muttering: +</p> + +<p> +“Du Hund! Du unverschamter Hund du!” in good Billingsgate German, and wiping +her eyes with her apron. And I dressed with trembling fingers because I dared +not otherwise face the brave little Austrian, the plucky little aborigine who, +with the donning of the new Amerikanische gown had acquired some real +Amerikanisch nerve. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br/> +VON GERHARD SPEAKS</h2> + +<p> +Of Von Gerhard I had not had a glimpse since that evening of my hysterical +outburst. On Christmas day there had come a box of roses so huge that I could +not find vases enough to hold its contents, although I pressed into service +everything from Mason jars from the kitchen to hand-painted atrocities from the +parlor. After I had given posies to Frau Nirlanger, and fastened a rose in Frau +Knapf’s hard knob of hair, where it bobbed in ludicrous discomfort, I still had +enough to fill the washbowl. My room looked like a grand opera star’s boudoir +when she is expecting the newspaper reporters. I reveled in the glowing +fragrance of the blossoms and felt very eastern and luxurious and popular. It +had been a busy, happy, work-filled week, in which I had had to snatch odd +moments for the selecting of certain wonderful toys for the Spalpeens. There +had been dolls and doll-clothes and a marvelous miniature kitchen for the +practical and stolid Sheila, and ingenious bits of mechanism that did +unbelievable things when wound up, for the clever, imaginative Hans. I was not +to have the joy of seeing their wide-eyed delight, but I knew that there would +follow certain laboriously scrawled letters, filled with topsy-turvy capitals +and crazily leaning words of thanks to the doting old auntie who had been such +good fun the summer before. +</p> + +<p> +Boarding-house Christmases had become an old story. I had learned to accept +them, even to those obscure and foreign parts of turkey which are seen only on +boarding-house plates, and which would be recognized nowhere else as belonging +to that stately bird. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas at Knapf’s had been a happy surprise; a day of hearty good cheer and +kindness. There had even been a Christmas tree, hung with stodgy German angels +and Pfeffernuesse and pink-frosted cakes. I found myself the bewildered +recipient of gifts from everyone—from the Knapfs, and the aborigines and even +from one of the crushed-looking wives. The aborigine whom they called Fritz had +presented me with a huge and imposing Lebkuchen, reposing in a box with frilled +border, ornamented with quaint little red-and-green German figures in sugar, +and labeled Nurnberg in stout letters, for it had come all the way from that +kuchen-famous city. The Lebkuchen I placed on my mantel shelf as befitted so +magnificent a work of art. It was quite too elaborate and imposing to be sent +the way of ordinary food, although it had a certain tantalizingly spicy scent +that tempted one to break off a corner here and there. +</p> + +<p> +On the afternoon of Christmas day I sat down to thank Dr. von Gerhard for the +flowers as prettily as might be. Also I asked his pardon, a thing not hard to +do with the perfume of his roses filling the room. +</p> + +<p> +“For you,” I wrote, “who are so wise in the ways of those tricky things called +nerves, must know that it was only a mild hysteria that made me say those most +unladylike things. I have written Norah all about it. She has replied, advising +me to stick to the good-fellow role but not to dress the part. So when next you +see me I shall be a perfectly safe and sane comrade in petticoats. And I +promise you—no more outbursts.” +</p> + +<p> +So it happened that on the afternoon of New Year’s day Von Gerhard and I +gravely wished one another many happy and impossible things for the coming +year, looking fairly and squarely into each other’s eyes as we did so. +</p> + +<p> +“So,” said Von Gerhard, as one who is satisfied. “The nerfs are steady to-day. +What do you say to a brisk walk along the lake shore to put us in a New Year +frame of mind, and then a supper down-town somewhere, with a toast to Max and +Norah?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve saved my life! Sit down here in the parlor and gaze at the crepe-paper +oranges while I powder my nose and get into some street clothes. I have such a +story to tell you! It has made me quite contented with my lot.” +</p> + +<p> +The story was that of the Nirlangers; and as we struggled against a brisk lake +breeze I told it, and partly because of the breeze, and partly because of the +story, there were tears in my eyes when I had finished. Von Gerhard stared at +me, aghast. +</p> + +<p> +“But you are—crying!” he marveled, watching a tear slide down my nose. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not,” I retorted. “Anyway I know it. I think I may blubber if I choose to, +mayn’t I, as well as other women?” +</p> + +<p> +“Blubber?” repeated Von Gerhard, he of the careful and cautious English. “But +most certainly, if you wish. I had thought that newspaper women did not indulge +in the luxury of tears.” +</p> + +<p> +“They don’t—often. Haven’t the time. If a woman reporter were to burst into +tears every time she saw something to weep over she’d be going about with a red +nose and puffy eyelids half the time. Scarcely a day passes that does not bring +her face to face with human suffering in some form. Not only must she see these +things, but she must write of them so that those who read can also see them. +And just because she does not wail and tear her hair and faint she popularly is +supposed to be a flinty, cigarette-smoking creature who rampages up and down +the land, seeking whom she may rend with her pen and gazing, dry-eyed, upon +scenes of horrid bloodshed.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yet the little domestic tragedy of the Nirlangers can bring tears to your +eyes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that was quite different. The case of the Nirlangers had nothing to do +with Dawn O’Hara, newspaper reporter. It was just plain Dawn O’Hara, woman, who +witnessed that little tragedy. Mein Himmel! Are all German husbands like that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not all. I have a very good friend named Max—” +</p> + +<p> +“O, Max! Max is an angel husband. Fancy Max and Norah waxing tragic on the +subject of a gown! Now you—” +</p> + +<p> +“I? Come, you are sworn to good-fellowship. As one comrade to another, tell me, +what sort of husband do you think I should make, eh? The boorish Nirlanger +sort, or the charming Max variety. Come, tell me—you who always have seemed +so—so damnably able to take care of yourself.” His eyes were twinkling in the +maddening way they had. +</p> + +<p> +I looked out across the lake to where a line of white-caps was piling up +formidably only to break in futile wrath against the solid wall of the shore. +And there came over me an equally futile wrath; that savage, unreasoning +instinct in women which prompts them to hurt those whom they love. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you!” I began, with Von Gerhard’s amused eyes laughing down upon me. “I +should say that you would be more in the Nirlanger style, in your large, +immovable, Germansure way. Not that you would stoop to wrangle about money or +gowns, but that you would control those things. Your wife will be a placid, +blond, rather plump German Fraulein, of excellent family and no imagination. +Men of your type always select negative wives. Twenty years ago she would have +run to bring you your Zeitung and your slippers. She would be that kind, if +Zeitung-and-slipper husbands still were in existence. You will be fond of her, +in a patronizing sort of way, and she will never know the difference between +that and being loved, not having a great deal of imagination, as I have said +before. And you will go on becoming more and more famous, and she will grow +plumper and more placid, and less and less understanding of what those komisch +medical journals have to say so often about her husband who is always +discovering things. And you will live happily ever after—” +</p> + +<p> +A hand gripped my shoulder. I looked up, startled, into two blue eyes blazing +down into mine. Von Gerhard’s face was a painful red. I think that the hand on +my shoulder even shook me a little, there on that bleak and deserted lake +drive. I tried to wrench my shoulder free with a jerk. +</p> + +<p> +“You are hurting me!” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +A quiver of pain passed over the face that I had thought so calmly unemotional. +“You talk of hurts! You, who set out deliberately and maliciously to make me +suffer! How dare you then talk to me like this! You stab with a hundred +knives—you, who know how I—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry,” I put in, contritely. “Please don’t be so dreadful about it. After +all, you asked me, didn’t you? Perhaps I’ve hurt your vanity. There, I didn’t +mean that, either. Oh, dear, let’s talk about something impersonal. We get +along wretchedly of late.” +</p> + +<p> +The angry red ebbed away from Von Gerhard’s face. The blaze of wrath in his +eyes gave way to a deeper, brighter light that held me fascinated, and there +came to his lips a smile of rare sweetness. The hand that had grasped my +shoulder slipped down, down, until it met my hand and gripped it. +</p> + +<p> +“Na, ’s ist schon recht, Kindchen. Those that we most care for we would hurt +always. When I have told you of my love for you, although already you know it, +then you will tell me. Hush! Do not deny this thing. There shall be no more +lies between us. There shall be only the truth, and no more about plump, blonde +German wives who run with Zeitung and slippers. After all, it is no secret. +Three months ago I told Norah. It was not news to her. But she trusted me.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt my face to be as white and as tense as his own. “Norah—knows!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is better to speak these things. Then there need be no shifting of the +eyes, no evasive words, no tricks, no subterfuge.” +</p> + +<p> +We had faced about and were retracing our steps, past the rows of peculiarly +home-like houses that line Milwaukee’s magnificent lake shore. Windows were +hung with holiday scarlet and holly, and here and there a face was visible at a +window, looking out at the man and woman walking swiftly along the wind-swept +heights that rose far above the lake. +</p> + +<p> +A wretched revolt seized me as I gazed at the substantial comfort of those +normal, happy homes. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you tell me! What good can that do? At least we were make-believe +friends before. Suppose I were to tell you that I care, then what.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not ask you to tell me,” Von Gerhard replied, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“You need not. You know. You knew long, long ago. You know I love the big +quietness of you, and your sureness, and the German way you have of twisting +your sentences about, and the steady grip of your great firm hands, and the +rareness of your laugh, and the simplicity of you. Why I love the very +cleanliness of your ruddy skin, and the way your hair grows away from your +forehead, and your walk, and your voice and—Oh, what is the use of it all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just this, Dawn. The light of day sweetens all things. We have dragged this +thing out into the sunlight, where, if it grows, it will grow sanely and +healthily. It was but an ugly, distorted, unsightly thing, sending out pale +unhealthy shoots in the dark, unwholesome cellars of our inner consciences. +Norah’s knowing was the cleanest, sweetest thing about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“How wonderfully you understand her, and how right you are! Her knowing seems +to make it as it should be, doesn’t it? I am braver already, for the knowledge +of it. It shall make no difference between us?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no difference, Dawn,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“No. It is only in the story-books that they sigh, and groan and utter silly +nonsense. We are not like that. Perhaps, after a bit, you will meet some one +you care for greatly—not plump, or blond, or German, perhaps, but still—” +</p> + +<p> +“Doch you are flippant?” +</p> + +<p> +“I must say those things to keep the tears back. You would not have me wailing +here in the street. Tell me just one thing, and there shall be no more +fluttering breaths and languishing looks. Tell me, when did you begin to care?” +</p> + +<p> +We had reached Knapfs’ door-step. The short winter day was already drawing to +its close. In the half-light Von Gerhard’s eyes glowed luminous. +</p> + +<p> +“Since the day I first met you at Norah’s,” he said, simply. +</p> + +<p> +I stared at him, aghast, my ever-present sense of humor struggling to the +surface. “Not—not on that day when you came into the room where I sat in the +chair by the window, with a flowered quilt humped about my shoulders! And a +fever-sore twisting my mouth! And my complexion the color of cheese, and my +hair plastered back from my forehead, and my eyes like boiled onions!” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God for your gift of laughter,” Von Gerhard said, and took my hand in +his for one brief moment before he turned and walked away. +</p> + +<p> +Quite prosaically I opened the big front door at Knapfs’ to find Herr Knapf +standing in the hallway with his: +</p> + +<p> +“Nabben’, Frau Orme.” +</p> + +<p> +And there was the sane and soothing scent of Wienerschnitzel and spluttering +things in the air. And I ran upstairs to my room and turned on all the lights +and looked at the starry-eyed creature in the mirror. Then I took the biggest, +newest photograph of Norah from the mantel and looked at her for a long, long +minute, while she looked back at me in her brave true way. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, dear,” I said to her. “Thank you. Would you think me stagey and +silly if I were to kiss you, just once, on your beautiful trusting eyes?” +</p> + +<p> +A telephone bell tinkled downstairs and Herr Knapf stationed himself at the +foot of the stairs and roared my name. +</p> + +<p> +When I had picked up the receiver: “This is Ernst,” said the voice at the other +end of the wire. “I have just remembered that I had asked you down-town for +supper.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather thank God fasting,” I replied, very softly, and hung the +receiver on its hook. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br/> +BENNIE THE CONSOLER</h2> + +<p> +In a corner of Frau Nirlanger’s bedroom, sheltered from draughts and glaring +light, is a little wooden bed, painted blue and ornamented with stout red roses +that are faded by time and much abuse. Every evening at eight o’clock three +anxious-browed women hold low-spoken conclave about the quaint old bed, while +its occupant sleeps and smiles as he sleeps, and clasps to his breast a +chewed-looking woolly dog. For a new joy has come to the sad little Frau +Nirlanger, and I, quite by accident, was the cause of bringing it to her. The +queer little blue bed, with its faded roses, was brought down from the attic by +Frau Knapf, for she is one of the three foster mothers of the small occupant of +the bed. The occupant of the bed is named Bennie, and a corporation formed for +the purpose of bringing him up in the way he should go is composed of: Dawn +O’Hara Orme, President and Distracted Guardian; Mrs. Konrad Nirlanger, +Cuddler-in-chief and Authority on the Subject of Bennie’s Bed-time; Mr. Blackie +Griffith, Good Angel, General Cut-up and Monitor off’n Bennie’s Neckties and +Toys; Dr. Ernst von Gerhard, Chief Medical Adviser, and Sweller of the +Exchequer, with the Privilege of Selecting All Candies. Members of the +corporation meet with great frequency evenings and Sundays, much to the +detriment of a certain Book-in-the-making with which Dawn O’Hara Orme was wont +to struggle o’ evenings. +</p> + +<p> +Bennie had been one of those little tragedies that find their way into juvenile +court. Bennie’s story was common enough, but Bennie himself had been different. +Ten minutes after his first appearance in the court room everyone, from the +big, bald judge to the newest probation officer, had fallen in love with him. +Somehow, you wanted to smooth the hair from his forehead, tip his pale little +face upward, and very gently kiss his smooth, white brow. Which alone was +enough to distinguish Bennie, for Juvenile court children, as a rule, are +distinctly not kissable. +</p> + +<p> +Bennie’s mother was accused of being unfit to care for her boy, and Bennie was +temporarily installed in the Detention Home. There the superintendent and his +plump and kindly wife had fallen head over heels in love with him, and had +dressed him in a smart little Norfolk suit and a frivolous plaid silk tie. +There were delays in the case, and postponement after postponement, so that +Bennie appeared in the court room every Tuesday for four weeks. The reporters, +and the probation officers and policemen became very chummy with Bennie, and +showered him with bright new pennies and certain wonderful candies. +Superintendent Arnett of the Detention Home was as proud of the boy as though +he were his own. And when Bennie would look shyly and questioningly into his +face for permission to accept the proffered offerings, the big superintendent +would chuckle delightedly. Bennie had a strangely mobile face for such a baby, +and the whitest, smoothest brow I have ever seen. +</p> + +<p> +The comedy and tears and misery and laughter of the big, white-walled court +room were too much for Bennie. He would gaze about with puzzled blue eyes; +then, giving up the situation as something too vast for his comprehension, he +would fall to drawing curly-cues on a bit of paper with a great yellow pencil +presented him by one of the newspaper men. +</p> + +<p> +Every Tuesday the rows of benches were packed with a motley crowd of Poles, +Russians, Slavs, Italians, Greeks, Lithuanians—a crowd made up of fathers, +mothers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, neighbors, friends, and enemies of +the boys and girls whose fate was in the hands of the big man seated in the +revolving chair up in front. But Bennie’s mother was not of this crowd; this +pitiful, ludicrous crowd filling the great room with the stifling, rancid odor +of the poor. Nor was Bennie. He sat, clear-eyed and unsmiling, in the depths of +a great chair on the court side of the railing and gravely received the +attentions of the lawyers, and reporters and court room attaches who had grown +fond of the grave little figure. +</p> + +<p> +Then, on the fifth Tuesday, Bennie’s mother appeared. How she had come to be +that child’s mother God only knows—or perhaps He had had nothing to do with it. +She was terribly sober and frightened. Her face was swollen and bruised, and +beneath one eye there was a puffy green-and-blue swelling. Her sordid story was +common enough as the probation officer told it. The woman had been living in +one wretched room with the boy. Her husband had deserted her. There was no +food, and little furniture. The queer feature of it, said the probation +officer, was that the woman managed to keep the boy fairly neat and clean, +regardless of her own condition, and he generally had food of some sort, +although the mother sometimes went without food for days. Through the squalor +and misery and degradation of her own life Bennie had somehow been kept +unsullied, a thing apart. +</p> + +<p> +“H’m!” said judge Wheeling, and looked at Bennie. Bennie was standing beside +his mother. He was very quiet, and his eyes were smiling up into those of the +battered creature who was fighting for him. “I guess we’ll have to take you out +of this,” the judge decided, abruptly. “That boy is too good to go to waste.” +</p> + +<p> +The sodden, dazed woman before him did not immediately get the full meaning of +his words. She still stood there, swaying a bit, and staring unintelligently at +the judge. Then, quite suddenly, she realized it. She took a quick step +forward. Her hand went up to her breast, to her throat, to her lips, with an +odd, stifled gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“You ain’t going to take him away! From me! No, you wouldn’t do that, would +you? Not for—not for always! You wouldn’t do that—you wouldn’t—” +</p> + +<p> +Judge Wheeling waved her away. But the woman dropped to her knees. +</p> + +<p> +“Judge, give me a chance! I’ll stop drinking. Only don’t take him away from me! +Don’t, judge, don’t! He’s all I’ve got in the world. Give me a chance. Three +months! Six months! A year!” +</p> + +<p> +“Get up!” ordered judge Wheeling, gruffly, “and stop that! It won’t do you a +bit of good.” +</p> + +<p> +And then a wonderful thing happened. The woman rose to her feet. A new and +strange dignity had come into her battered face. The lines of suffering and +vice were erased as by magic, and she seemed to grow taller, younger, almost +beautiful. When she spoke again it was slowly and distinctly, her words quite +free from the blur of the barroom and street vernacular. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you you must give me a chance. You cannot take a child from a mother in +this way. I tell you, if you will only help me I can crawl back up the road +that I’ve traveled. I was not always like this. There was another life, +before—before—Oh, since then there have been years of blackness, and hunger, +and cold and—worse! But I never dragged the boy into it. Look at him!” +</p> + +<p> +Our eyes traveled from the woman’s transfigured face to that of the boy. We +could trace a wonderful likeness where before we had seen none. But the woman +went on in her steady, even tone. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t talk as I should, because my brain isn’t clear. It’s the drink. When +you drink, you forget. But you must help me. I can’t do it alone. I can +remember how to live straight, just as I can remember how to talk straight. Let +me show you that I’m not all bad. Give me a chance. Take the boy and then give +him back to me when you are satisfied. I’ll try—God only knows how I’ll try. +Only don’t take him away forever, Judge! Don’t do that!” +</p> + +<p> +Judge Wheeling ran an uncomfortable finger around his collar’s edge. +</p> + +<p> +“Any friends living here?” +</p> + +<p> +“No! No!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure about that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now see here; I’m going to give you your chance. I shall take this boy away +from you for a year. In that time you will stop drinking and become a decent, +self-supporting woman. You will be given in charge of one of these probation +officers. She will find work for you, and a good home, and she’ll stand by you, +and you must report to her. If she is satisfied with you at the end of the +year, the boy goes back to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“She will be satisfied,” the woman said, simply. She stooped and taking +Bennie’s face between her hands kissed him once. Then she stepped aside and +stood quite still, looking after the little figure that passed out of the court +room with his hand in that of a big, kindly police officer. She looked until +the big door had opened and closed upon them. +</p> + +<p> +Then—well, it was just another newspaper story. It made a good one. That +evening I told Frau Nirlanger about it, and she wept, softly, and murmured: +“Ach, das arme baby! Like my little Oscar he is, without a mother.” I told +Ernst about him too, and Blackie, because I could not get his grave little face +out of my mind. I wondered if those who had charge of him now would take the +time to bathe the little body, and brush the soft hair until it shone, and tie +the gay plaid silk tie as lovingly as “Daddy” Arnett of the Detention Home had +done. +</p> + +<p> +Then it was that I, quite unwittingly, stepped into Bennie’s life. +</p> + +<p> +There was an anniversary, or a change in the board of directors, or a new coat +of paint or something of the kind in one of the orphan homes, and the story +fell to me. I found the orphan home to be typical of its kind—a big, dreary, +prison-like structure. The woman at the door did not in the least care to let +me in. She was a fish-mouthed woman with a hard eye, and as I told my errand +her mouth grew fishier and the eye harder. Finally she led me down a long, +dark, airless stretch of corridor and departed in search of the matron, leaving +me seated in the unfriendly reception room, with its straight-backed chairs +placed stonily against the walls, beneath rows of red and blue and yellow +religious pictures. +</p> + +<p> +Just as I was wondering why it seemed impossible to be holy and cheerful at the +same time, there came a pad-padding down the corridor. The next moment the +matron stood in the doorway. She was a mountainous, red-faced woman, with warts +on her nose. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-afternoon,” I said, sweetly. (“Ugh! What a brute!”) I thought. Then I +began to explain my errand once more. Criticism of the Home? No indeed, I +assured her. At last, convinced of my disinterestedness she reluctantly guided +me about the big, gloomy building. There were endless flights of shiny stairs, +and endless stuffy, airless rooms, until we came to a door which she flung +open, disclosing the nursery. It seemed to me that there were a hundred +babies—babies at every stage of development, of all sizes, and ages and types. +They glanced up at the opening of the door, and then a dreadful thing happened. +</p> + +<p> +Every child that was able to walk or creep scuttled into the farthest corners +and remained quite, quite still with a wide-eyed expression of fear and +apprehension on every face. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment my heart stood still. I turned to look at the woman by my side. +Her thin lips were compressed into a straight, hard line. She said a word to a +nurse standing near, and began to walk about, eying the children sharply. She +put out a hand to pat the head of one red-haired mite in a soiled pinafore; but +before her hand could descend I saw the child dodge and the tiny hand flew up +to the head, as though in defense. +</p> + +<p> +“They are afraid of her!” my sick heart told me. “Those babies are afraid of +her! What does she do to them? I can’t stand this. I’m going.” +</p> + +<p> +I mumbled a hurried “Thank you,” to the fat matron as I turned to leave the +big, bare room. At the head of the stairs there was a great, black door. I +stopped before it—God knows why!—and pointed toward it. +</p> + +<p> +“What is in that room?” I asked. Since then I have wondered many times at the +unseen power that prompted me to put the question. +</p> + +<p> +The stout matron bustled on, rattling her keys as she walked. +</p> + +<p> +“That—oh, that’s where we keep the incorrigibles.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I see them?” I asked, again prompted by that inner voice. +</p> + +<p> +“There is only one.” She grudgingly unlocked the door, using one of the great +keys that swung from her waist. The heavy, black door swung open. I stepped +into the bare room, lighted dimly by one small window. In the farthest corner +crouched something that stirred and glanced up at our entrance. It peered at us +with an ugly look of terror and defiance, and I stared back at it, in the dim +light. During one dreadful, breathless second I remained staring, while my +heart stood still. Then—“Bennie!” I cried. And stumbled toward him. +“Bennie—boy!” +</p> + +<p> +The little unkempt figure, in its soiled knickerbocker suit, the sunny hair all +uncared for, the gay plaid tie draggled and limp, rushed into my arms with a +crazy, inarticulate cry. +</p> + +<p> +Down on my knees on the bare floor I held him close—close! and his arms were +about my neck as though they never should unclasp. +</p> + +<p> +“Take me away! Take me away!” His wet cheek was pressed against my own +streaming one. “I want my mother! I want Daddy Arnett! Take me away!” +</p> + +<p> +I wiped his cheeks with my notebook or something, picked him up in my arms, and +started for the door. I had quite forgotten the fat matron. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing?” she asked, blocking the doorway with her huge bulk. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to take him back with me. Please let me! I’ll take care of him until +the year is up. He shan’t bother you any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is impossible,” she said, coldly. “He has been sent here by the court, +for a year, and he must stay here. Besides, he is a stubborn, uncontrollable +child.” +</p> + +<p> +“Uncontrollable! He’s nothing of the kind! Why don’t you treat him as a child +should be treated, instead of like a little animal? You don’t know him! Why, +he’s the most lovable—! And he’s only a baby! Can’t you see that? A baby!” +</p> + +<p> +She only stared her dislike, her little pig eyes grown smaller and more +glittering. +</p> + +<p> +“You great—big—thing!” I shrieked at her, like an infuriated child. With the +tears streaming down my cheeks I unclasped Bennie’s cold hands from about my +neck. He clung to me, frantically, until I had to push him away and run. +</p> + +<p> +The woman swung the door shut, and locked it. But for all its thickness I could +hear Bennie’s helpless fists pounding on its panels as I stumbled down the +stairs, and Bennie’s voice came faintly to my ears, muffled by the heavy door, +as he shrieked to me to take him away to his mother, and to Daddy Arnett. +</p> + +<p> +I blubbered all the way back in the car, until everyone stared, but I didn’t +care. When I reached the office I made straight for Blackie’s smoke-filled +sanctum. When my tale was ended he let me cry all over his desk, with my head +buried in a heap of galley-proofs and my tears watering his paste-pot. He sat +calmly by, smoking. Finally he began gently to philosophize. “Now girl, he’s +prob’ly better off there than he ever was at home with his mother soused all +the time. Maybe he give that warty matron friend of yours all kinds of trouble, +yellin’ for his ma.” +</p> + +<p> +I raised my head from the desk. “Oh, you can talk! You didn’t see him. What do +you care! But if you could have seen him, crouched there—alone—like a little +animal! He was so sweet—and lovable—and—and—he hadn’t been decently washed for +weeks—and his arms clung to me—I can feel his hands about my neck!—” +</p> + +<p> +I buried my head in the papers again. Blackie went on smoking. There was no +sound in the little room except the purr-purring of Blackie’s pipe. Then: +</p> + +<p> +“I done a favor for Wheeling once,” mused he. +</p> + +<p> +I glanced up, quickly. “Oh, Blackie, do you think—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t. But then again, you can’t never tell. That was four or five years +ago, and the mem’ry of past favors grows dim fast. Still, if you’re through +waterin’ the top of my desk, why I’d like t’ set down and do a little real +brisk talkin’ over the phone. You’re excused.” +</p> + +<p> +Quite humbly I crept away, with hope in my heart. +</p> + +<p> +To this day I do not know what secret string the resourceful Blackie pulled. +But the next afternoon I found a hastily scrawled note tucked into the roll of +my typewriter. It sent me scuttling across the hall to the sporting editor’s +smoke-filled room. And there on a chair beside the desk, surrounded by +scrap-books, lead pencils, paste-pot and odds and ends of newspaper office +paraphernalia, sat Bennie. His hair was parted very smoothly on one side, and +under his dimpled chin bristled a very new and extremely lively green-and-red +plaid silk tie. +</p> + +<p> +The next instant I had swept aside papers, brushes, pencils, books, and Bennie +was gathered close in my arms. Blackie, with a strange glow in his deep-set +black eyes regarded us with an assumed disgust. +</p> + +<p> +“Wimmin is all alike. Ain’t it th’ truth? I used t’ think you was different. +But shucks! It ain’t so. Got t’ turn on the weeps the minute you’re tickled or +mad. Why say, I ain’t goin’ t’ have you comin’ in here an’ dampenin’ up the +whole place every little while! It’s unhealthy for me, sittin’ here in the +wet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, shut up, Blackie,” I said, happily. “How in the world did you do it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never you mind. The question is, what you goin’ t’ do with him, now you’ve got +him? Goin’ t’ have a French bunny for him, or fetch him up by hand? Wheeling +appointed a probation skirt to look after the crowd of us, and we got t’ toe +the mark.” +</p> + +<p> +“Glory be!” I ejaculated. “I don’t know what I shall do with him. I shall have +to bring him down with me every morning, and perhaps you can make a sporting +editor out of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nix. Not with that forehead. He’s a high-brow. We’ll make him dramatic critic. +In the meantime, I’ll be little fairy godmother, an’ if you’ll get on your +bonnet I’ll stake you and the young ’un to strawberry shortcake an’ chocolate +ice cream.” +</p> + +<p> +So it happened that a wondering Frau Knapf and a sympathetic Frau Nirlanger +were called in for consultation an hour later. Bennie was ensconced in my room, +very wide-eyed and wondering, but quite content. With the entrance of Frau +Nirlanger the consultation was somewhat disturbed. She made a quick rush at him +and gathered him in her hungry arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Du baby du!” she cried. “Du Kleiner! And she was down on her knees, and +somehow her figure had melted into delicious mother-curves, with Bennie’s head +just fitting into that most gracious one between her shoulder and breast. She +cooed to him in a babble of French and German and English, calling him her +lee-tel Oscar. Bennie seemed miraculously to understand. Perhaps he was +becoming accustomed to having strange ladies snatch him to their breasts. +</p> + +<p> +“So,” said Frau Nirlanger, looking up at us. “Is he not sweet? He shall be my +lee-tel boy, nicht? For one small year he shall be my own boy. Ach, I am but +lonely all the long day here in this strange land. You will let me care for +him, nicht? And Konrad, he will be very angry, but that shall make no bit of +difference. Eh, Oscar?” +</p> + +<p> +And so the thing was settled, and an hour later three anxious-browed women were +debating the weighty question of eggs or bread-and-milk for Bennie’s supper. +Frau Nirlanger was for soft-boiled eggs as being none too heavy after orphan +asylum fare; I was for bread-and-milk, that being the prescribed supper dish +for all the orphans and waifs that I had ever read about, from “The Wide, Wide +World” to “Helen’s Babies,” and back again. Frau Knapf was for both eggs and +bread-and-milk with a dash of meat and potatoes thrown in for good measure, and +a slice or so of Kuchen on the side. We compromised on one egg, one glass of +milk, and a slice of lavishly buttered bread, and jelly. It was a clean, sweet, +sleepy-eyed Bennie that we tucked between the sheets. We three women stood +looking down at him as he lay there in the quaint old blue-painted bed that had +once held the plump little Knapfs. +</p> + +<p> +“You think anyway he had enough supper? mused the anxious-browed Frau Knapf. +</p> + +<p> +“To school he will have to go, yes?” murmured Frau Nirlanger, regretfully. +</p> + +<p> +I tucked in the covers at one side of the bed, not that they needed tucking, +but because it was such a comfortable, satisfying thing to do. +</p> + +<p> +“Just at this minute,” I said, as I tucked, “I’d rather be a newspaper reporter +than anything else in the world. As a profession ’tis so broadenin’, an’ at the +same time, so chancey.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br/> +THE TEST</h2> + +<p> +Some day the marriageable age for women will be advanced from twenty to thirty, +and the old maid line will be changed from thirty to forty. When that time +comes there will be surprisingly few divorces. The husband of whom we dream at +twenty is not at all the type of man who attracts us at thirty. The man I +married at twenty was a brilliant, morbid, handsome, abnormal creature with +magnificent eyes and very white teeth and no particular appetite at mealtime. +The man whom I could care for at thirty would be the normal, safe and +substantial sort who would come in at six o’clock, kiss me once, sniff the air +twice and say: “Mm! What’s that smells so good, old girl? I’m as hungry as a +bear. Trot it out. Where are the kids?” +</p> + +<p> +These are dangerous things to think upon. So dangerous and disturbing to the +peace of mind that I have decided not to see Ernst von Gerhard for a week or +two. I find that seeing him is apt to make me forget Peter Orme; to forget that +my duty begins with a capital D; to forget that I am dangerously near the +thirty year old mark; to forget Norah, and Max, and the Spalpeens, and the +world, and everything but the happiness of being near him, watching his eyes +say one thing while his lips say another. +</p> + +<p> +At such times I am apt to work myself up into rather a savage frame of mind, +and to shut myself in my room evenings, paying no heed to Frau Nirlanger’s +timid knocking, or Bennie’s good-night message. I uncover my typewriter and set +to work at the thing which may or may not be a book, and am extremely wretched +and gloomy and pessimistic, after this fashion: +</p> + +<p> +“He probably wouldn’t care anything about you if you were free. It is just a +case of the fruit that is out of reach being the most desirable. Men don’t +marry frumpy, snuffy old things of thirty, or thereabouts. Men aren’t marrying +now-a-days, anyway. Certainly not for love. They marry for position, or power, +or money, when they do marry. Think of all the glorious creatures he meets +every day—women whose hair, and finger-nails and teeth and skin are a religion; +women whose clothes are a fine art; women who are free to care only for +themselves; to rest, to enjoy, to hear delightful music, and read charming +books, and eat delicious food. He doesn’t really care about you, with your +rumpled blouses, and your shabby gloves and shoes, and your somewhat doubtful +linen collars. The last time you saw him you were just coming home from the +office after a dickens of a day, and there was a smudge on the end of your +nose, and he told you of it, laughing. But you didn’t laugh. You rubbed it off, +furiously, and you wanted to cry. Cry! You, Dawn O’Hara! Begorra! ’Tis losin’ +your sense av humor you’re after doin’! Get to work.” +</p> + +<p> +After which I would fall upon the book in a furious, futile fashion, writing +many incoherent, irrelevant paragraphs which I knew would be cast aside as +worthless on the sane and reasoning to-morrow. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, it had been easy enough to talk of love in a lofty, superior impersonal way +that New Year’s day. Just the luxury of speaking of it at all, after those +weeks of repression, sufficed. But it is not so easy to be impersonal and lofty +when the touch of a coat sleeve against your arm sends little prickling, +tingling shivers racing madly through thousands of too taut nerves. It is not +so easy to force the mind and tongue into safe, sane channels when they are +forever threatening to rush together in an overwhelming torrent that will carry +misery and destruction in its wake. Invariably we talk with feverish +earnestness about the book; about my work at the office; about Ernst’s +profession, with its wonderful growth; about Norah, and Max and the Spalpeens, +and the home; about the latest news; about the weather; about Peter Orme—and +then silence. +</p> + +<p> +At our last meeting things took a new and startling turn. So startling, so full +of temptation and happiness-that-must-not-be, that I resolved to forbid myself +the pain and joy of being near him until I could be quite sure that my grip on +Dawn O’Hara was firm, unshakable and lasting. +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard sports a motor-car, a rakish little craft, built long and low, with +racing lines, and a green complexion, and a nose that cuts through the air like +the prow of a swift boat through water. Von Gerhard had promised me a spin in +it on the first mild day. Sunday turned out to be unexpectedly lamblike, as +only a March day can be, with real sunshine that warmed the end of one’s nose +instead of laughing as it tweaked it, as the lying February sunshine had done. +</p> + +<p> +“But warmly you must dress yourself,” Von Gerhard warned me, “with no gauzy +blouses or sleeveless gowns. The air cuts like a knife, but it feels good +against the face. And a little road-house I know, where one is served great +steaming plates of hot oyster stew. How will that be for a lark, yes?” +</p> + +<p> +And so I had swathed myself in wrappings until I could scarcely clamber into +the panting little car, and we had darted off along the smooth lake drives, +while the wind whipped the scarlet into our cheeks, even while it brought the +tears to our eyes. There was no chance for conversation, even if Von Gerhard +had been in talkative mood, which he was not. He seemed more taciturn than +usual, seated there at the wheel, looking straight ahead at the ribbon of road, +his eyes narrowed down to mere keen blue slits. I realized, without alarm, that +he was driving furiously and lawlessly, and I did not care. Von Gerhard was +that sort of man. One could sit quite calmly beside him while he pulled at the +reins of a pair of runaway horses, knowing that he would conquer them in the +end. +</p> + +<p> +Just when my face began to feel as stiff and glazed as a mummy’s, we swung off +the roadway and up to the entrance of the road-house that was to revive us with +things hot and soupy. +</p> + +<p> +“Another minute,” I said, through stiff lips, as I extricated myself from my +swathings, “and I should have been what Mr. Mantalini described as a demnition +body. For pity’s sake, tell ’em the soup can’t be too hot nor too steaming for +your lady friend. I’ve had enough fresh air to last me the remainder of my +life. May I timidly venture to suggest that a cheese sandwich follow the oyster +stew? I am famished, and this place looks as though it might make a speciality +of cheese sandwiches.” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means a cheese sandwich. Und was noch? That fresh air it has given you +an appetite, nicht wahr?” But there was no sign of a smile on his face, nor was +the kindly twinkle of amusement to be seen in his eyes—that twinkle that I had +learned to look for. +</p> + +<p> +“Smile for the lady,” I mockingly begged when we had been served. “You’ve been +owlish all the afternoon. Here, try a cheese sandwich. Now, why do you suppose +that this mustard tastes so much better than the kind one gets at home?” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard had been smoking a cigarette, the first that I had ever seen in his +fingers. Now he tossed it into the fireplace that yawned black and empty at one +side of the room. He swept aside the plates and glasses that stood before him, +leaned his arms on the table and deliberately stared at me. +</p> + +<p> +“I sail for Europe in June, to be gone a year—probably more,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Sail!” I echoed, idiotically; and began blindly to dab clots of mustard on +that ridiculous sandwich. +</p> + +<p> +“I go to study and work with Gluck. It is the opportunity of a lifetime. Gluck +is to the world of medicine what Edison is to the world of electricity. He is a +wizard, a man inspired. You should see him—a little, bent, grizzled, shabby old +man who looks at you, and sees you not. It is a wonderful opportunity, a—” +</p> + +<p> +The mustard and the sandwich and the table and Von Gerhard’s face were very +indistinct and uncertain to my eyes, but I managed to say: “So +glad—congratulate you—very happy—no doubt fortunate—” +</p> + +<p> +Two strong hands grasped my wrists. “Drop that absurd mustard spoon and +sandwich. Na, I did not mean to frighten you, Dawn. How your hands tremble. So, +look at me. You would like Vienna, Kindchen. You would like the gayety, and the +brightness of it, and the music, and the pretty women, and the incomparable +gowns. Your sense of humor would discern the hollowness beneath all the pomp +and ceremony and rigid lines of caste, and military glory; and your writer’s +instinct would revel in the splendor, and color and romance and intrigue.” +</p> + +<p> +I shrugged my shoulders in assumed indifference. “Can’t you convey all this to +me without grasping my wrists like a villain in a melodrama? Besides, it isn’t +very generous or thoughtful of you to tell me all this, knowing that it is not +for me. Vienna for you, and Milwaukee and cheese sandwiches for me. Please pass +the mustard.” +</p> + +<p> +But the hold on my wrists grew firmer. Von Gerhard’s eyes were steady as they +gazed into mine. “Dawn, Vienna, and the whole world is waiting for you, if you +will but take it. Vienna—and happiness—with me—” +</p> + +<p> +I wrenched my wrists free with a dreadful effort and rose, sick, bewildered, +stunned. My world—my refuge of truth, and honor, and safety and sanity that had +lain in Ernst von Gerhard’s great, steady hands, was slipping away from me. I +think the horror that I felt within must have leaped to my eyes, for in an +instant Von Gerhard was beside me, steadying me with his clear blue eyes. He +did not touch the tips of my fingers as he stood there very near me. From the +look of pain on his face I knew that I had misunderstood, somehow. +</p> + +<p> +“Kleine, I see that you know me not,” he said, in German, and the saying it was +as tender as is a mother when she reproves a child that she loves. “This fight +against the world, those years of unhappiness and misery, they have made you +suspicious and lacking in trust, is it not so? You do not yet know the perfect +love that casts out all doubt. Dawn, I ask you in the name of all that is +reasoning, and for the sake of your happiness and mine, to divorce this man +Peter Orme—this man who for almost ten years has not been your husband—who +never can be your husband. I ask you to do something which will bring suffering +to no one, and which will mean happiness to many. Let me make you happy—you +were born to be happy—you who can laugh like a girl in spite of your woman’s +sorrows—” +</p> + +<p> +But I sank into a chair and hid my face in my hands so that I might be spared +the beauty and the tenderness of his eyes. I tried to think of all the sane and +commonplace things in life. Somewhere in my inner consciousness a cool little +voice was saying, over and over again: +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Dawn, careful! You’ve come to the crossroads at last. Right or left? +Choose! Now, Dawn, careful!” and the rest of it all over again. +</p> + +<p> +When I lifted my face from my hands at last it was to meet the tenderness of +Von Gerhard’s gaze with scarcely a tremor. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to know,” I said, very slowly and evenly, “that a divorce, under +these circumstances, is almost impossible, even if I wished to do what you +suggest. There are certain state laws—” +</p> + +<p> +An exclamation of impatience broke from him. “Laws! In some states, yes. In +others, no. It is a mere technicality—a trifle! There is about it a bit of that +which you call red tape. It amounts to nothing—to that!” He snapped his +fingers. “A few months’ residence in another state, perhaps. These American +laws, they are made to break.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; you are quite right,” I said, and I knew in my heart that the cool, +insistent little voice within had not spoken in vain. “But there are other +laws—laws of honor and decency, and right living and conscience—that cannot be +broken with such ease. I cannot marry you. I have a husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can call that unfortunate wretch your husband! He does not know that he +has a wife. He will not know that he has lost a wife. Come, Dawn—small one—be +not so foolish. You do not know how happy I will make you. You have never seen +me except when I was tortured with doubts and fears. You do not know what our +life will be together. There shall be everything to make you forget—everything +that thought and love and money can give you. The man there in the barred +room—” +</p> + +<p> +At that I took his dear hands in mine and held them close as I miserably tried +to make him hear what that small, still voice had told me. +</p> + +<p> +“There! That is it! If he were free, if he were able to stand before men that +his actions might be judged fairly and justly, I should not hesitate for one +single, precious moment. If he could fight for his rights, or relinquish them, +as he saw fit, then this thing would not be so monstrous. But, Ernst, can’t you +see? He is there, alone, in that dreadful place, quite helpless, quite +incapable, quite at our mercy. I should as soon think of hurting a little +child, or snatching the pennies from a blind man’s cup. The thing is inhuman! +It is monstrous! No state laws, no red tape can dissolve such a union.” +</p> + +<p> +“You still care for him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ernst!” +</p> + +<p> +His face was very white with the pallor of repressed emotion, and his eyes were +like the blue flame that one sees flashing above a bed of white-hot coals. +</p> + +<p> +“You do care for him still. But yes! You can stand there, quite cool—but +quite—and tell me that you would not hurt him, not for your happiness, not for +mine. But me you can hurt again and again, without one twinge of regret.” +</p> + +<p> +There was silence for a moment in the little bare dining-room—a miserable +silence on my part, a bitter one for Ernst. Then Von Gerhard seated himself +again at the table opposite and smiled one of the rare smiles that illumined +his face with such sweetness. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Dawn, almost we are quarreling—we who were to have been so +matter-of-fact and sensible. Let us make an end of this question. You will +think of what I have said, will you not? Perhaps I was too abrupt, too brutal. +Ach, Dawn, you know not how I—Very well, I will not.” +</p> + +<p> +With both hands I was clinging to my courage and praying for strength to endure +this until I should be alone in my room again. +</p> + +<p> +“As for that poor creature who is bereft of reason, he shall lack no care, no +attention. The burden you have borne so long I shall take now upon my +shoulders.” +</p> + +<p> +He seemed so confident, so sure. I could bear it no longer. “Ernst, if you have +any pity, any love for me, stop! I tell you I can never do this. Why do you +make it so terribly hard for me! So pitilessly hard! You always have been so +strong, so sure, such a staff of courage.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say again, and again, and again, you do not care.” +</p> + +<p> +It was then that I took my last vestige of strength and courage together and +going over to him, put my two hands on his great shoulders, looking up into his +drawn face as I spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Ernst, look at me! You never can know how much I care. I care so much that I +could not bear to have the shadow of wrong fall upon our happiness. There can +be no lasting happiness upon a foundation of shameful deceit. I should hate +myself, and you would grow to hate me. It always is so. Dear one, I care so +much that I have the strength to do as I would do if I had to face my mother, +and Norah tonight. I don’t ask you to understand. Men are not made to +understand these things; not even a man such as you, who are so beautifully +understanding. I only ask that you believe in me—and think of me sometimes—I +shall feel it, and be helped. Will you take me home now, Dr. von Gerhard?” +</p> + +<p> +The ride home was made in silence. The wind was colder, sharper. I was chilled, +miserable, sick. Von Gerhard’s face was quite expressionless as he guided the +little car over the smooth road. When we had stopped before my door, still +without a word, I thought that he was going to leave me with that barrier of +silence unbroken. But as I stepped stiffly to the curbing his hands closed +about mine with the old steady grip. I looked up quickly, to find a smile in +the corners of the tired eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You—you will let me see you—sometimes?” +</p> + +<p> +But wisdom came to my aid. “Not now. It is better that we go our separate ways +for a few weeks, until our work has served to adjust the balance that has been +disturbed. At the end of that time I shall write you, and from that time until +you sail in June we shall be just good comrades again. And once in Vienna—who +knows?—you may meet the plump blond Fraulein, of excellent family—” +</p> + +<p> +“And no particular imagination—” +</p> + +<p> +And then we both laughed, a bit hysterically, because laughter is, after all, +akin to tears. And the little green car shot off with a whir as I turned to +enter my new world of loneliness. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br/> +BENNIE AND THE CHARMING OLD +MAID</h2> + +<p> +There followed a blessed week of work—a “human warious” week, with something +piquant lurking at every turn. A week so busy, so kaleidoscopic in its quick +succession of events that my own troubles and grievances were pushed into a +neglected corner of my mind and made to languish there, unfed by tears or +sighs. +</p> + +<p> +News comes in cycles. There are weeks when a city editor tears his hair in vain +as he bellows for a first-page story. There follow days so bristling with real, +live copy that perfectly good stuff which, in the ordinary course of events +might be used to grace the front sheet, is sandwiched away between the marine +intelligence and the Elgin butter reports. +</p> + +<p> +Such a week was this. I interviewed everything from a red-handed murderer to an +incubator baby. The town seemed to be running over with celebrities. Norberg, +the city editor, adores celebrities. He never allows one to escape +uninterviewed. On Friday there fell to my lot a world-famous prima donna, an +infamous prize-fighter, and a charming old maid. Norberg cared not whether the +celebrity in question was noted for a magnificent high C, or a left +half-scissors hook, so long as the interview was dished up hot and juicy, with +plenty of quotation marks, a liberal sprinkling of adjectives and adverbs, and +a cut of the victim gracing the top of the column. +</p> + +<p> +It was long past the lunch hour when the prima donna and the prize-fighter, +properly embellished, were snapped on the copy hook. The prima donna had +chattered in French; the prize-fighter had jabbered in slang; but the charming +old maid, who spoke Milwaukee English, was to make better copy than a whole +chorus of prima donnas, or a ring full of fighters. Copy! It was such wonderful +stuff that I couldn’t use it. +</p> + +<p> +It was with the charming old maid in mind that Norberg summoned me. +</p> + +<p> +“Another special story for you,” he cheerfully announced. +</p> + +<p> +No answering cheer appeared upon my lunchless features. “A prize-fighter at +ten-thirty, and a prima donna at twelve. What’s the next choice morsel? An +aeronaut with another successful airship? or a cash girl who has inherited a +million?” +</p> + +<p> +Norberg’s plump cheeks dimpled. “Neither. This time it is a nice German old +maid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eloped with the coachman, no doubt?” +</p> + +<p> +“I said a nice old maid. And she hasn’t done anything yet. You are to find out +how she’ll feel when she does it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Charmingly lucid,” commented I, made savage by the pangs of hunger. +</p> + +<p> +Norberg proceeded to outline the story with characteristic vigor, a cigarette +waggling from the corner of his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Name and address on this slip. Take a Greenfield car. Nice old maid has lived +in nice old cottage all her life. Grandfather built it himself about a hundred +years ago. Whole family was born in it, and married in it, and died in it, see? +It’s crammed full of spinning-wheels and mahogany and stuff that’ll make your +eyes stick out. See? Well, there’s no one left now but the nice old maid, all +alone. She had a sister who ran away with a scamp some years ago. Nice old maid +has never heard of her since, but she leaves the gate ajar or the latch-string +open, or a lamp in the window, or something, so that if ever she wanders back +to the old home she’ll know she’s welcome, see?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sounds like a moving picture play,” I remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a minute. Here’s the point. The city wants to build a branch library or +something on her property, and the nice old party is so pinched for money that +she’ll have to take their offer. So the time has come when she’ll have to leave +that old cottage, with its romance, and its memories, and its lamp in the +window, and go to live in a cheap little flat, see? Where the old four-poster +will choke up the bedroom—” +</p> + +<p> +“And the parlor will be done in red and green,” I put in, eagerly, “and where +there will be an ingrowing sideboard in the dining-room that won’t fit in with +the quaint old dinner-set at all, and a kitchenette just off that, in which the +great iron pots and kettles that used to hold the family dinners will be +monstrously out of place—” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re on,” said Norberg. +</p> + +<p> +Half an hour later I stood before the cottage, set primly in the center of a +great lot that extended for half a square on all sides. A winter-sodden, bare +enough sight it was in the gray of that March day. But it was not long before +Alma Pflugel, standing in the midst of it, the March winds flapping her neat +skirts about her ankles, filled it with a blaze of color. As she talked, a row +of stately hollyhocks, pink, and scarlet, and saffron, reared their heads +against the cottage sides. The chill March air became sweet with the scent of +heliotrope, and Sweet William, and pansies, and bridal wreath. The naked twigs +of the rose bushes flowered into wondrous bloom so that they bent to the ground +with their weight of crimson and yellow glory. The bare brick paths were +overrun with the green of growing things. Gray mounds of dirt grew vivid with +the fire of poppies. Even the rain-soaked wood of the pea-frames miraculously +was hidden in a hedge of green, over which ran riot the butterfly beauty of the +lavender, and pink, and cerise blossoms. Oh, she did marvelous things that dull +March day, did plain German Alma Pflugel! And still more marvelous were the +things that were to come. +</p> + +<p> +But of these things we knew nothing as the door was opened and Alma Pflugel and +I gazed curiously at one another. Surprise was writ large on her honest face as +I disclosed my errand. It was plain that the ways of newspaper reporters were +foreign to the life of this plain German woman, but she bade me enter with a +sweet graciousness of manner. +</p> + +<p> +Wondering, but silent, she led the way down the dim narrow hallway to the +sitting-room beyond. And there I saw that Norberg had known whereof he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +A stout, red-faced stove glowed cheerfully in one corner of the room. Back of +the stove a sleepy cat opened one indolent eye, yawned shamelessly, and rose to +investigate, as is the way of cats. The windows were aglow with the sturdy +potted plants that flower-loving German women coax into bloom. The +low-ceilinged room twinkled and shone as the polished surfaces of tables and +chairs reflected the rosy glow from the plethoric stove. I sank into the depths +of a huge rocker that must have been built for Grosspapa Pflugel’s generous +curves. Alma Pflugel, in a chair opposite, politely waited for this new process +of interviewing to begin, but relaxed in the embrace of that great armchair I +suddenly realized that I was very tired and hungry, and talk-weary, and that +here; was a great peace. The prima donna, with her French, and her paint, and +her pearls, and the prizefighter with his slang, and his cauliflower ear, and +his diamonds, seemed creatures of another planet. My eyes closed. A delicious +sensation of warmth and drowsy contentment stole over me. +</p> + +<p> +“Do listen to the purring of that cat!” I murmured. “Oh, newspapers have no +place in this. This is peace and rest.” +</p> + +<p> +Alma Pflugel leaned forward in her chair. “You—you like it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Like it! This is home. I feel as though my mother were here in this room, +seated in one of those deep chairs, with a bit of sewing in her hand; so near +that I could touch her cheek with my fingers.” +</p> + +<p> +Alma Pflugel rose from her chair and came over to me. She timidly placed her +hand on my arm. “Ah, I am so glad you are like that. You do not laugh at the +low ceilings, and the sunken floors, and the old-fashioned rooms. You do not +raise your eyes in horror and say: ‘No conveniences! And why don’t you try +striped wall paper? It would make those dreadful ceilings seem higher.’ How +nice you are to understand like that!” +</p> + +<p> +My hand crept over to cover her own that lay on my arm. “Indeed, indeed I do +understand,” I whispered. Which, as the veriest cub reporter can testify, is no +way to begin an interview. +</p> + +<p> +A hundred happy memories filled the little low room as Alma Pflugel showed me +her treasures. The cat purred in great content, and the stove cast a rosy glow +over the scene as the simple woman told the story of each precious relic, from +the battered candle-dipper on the shelf, to the great mahogany folding table, +and sewing stand, and carved bed. Then there was the old horn lantern that +Jacob Pflugel had used a century before, and in one corner of the sitting-room +stood Grossmutter Pflugel’s spinning-wheel. Behind cupboard doors were ranged +the carefully preserved blue-and-white china dishes, and on the shelf below +stood the clumsy earthen set that Grosspapa Pflugel himself had modeled for his +young bride in those days of long ago. In the linen chest there still lay, in +neat, fragrant folds, piles of the linen that had been spun on that +time-yellowed spinning-wheel. And because of the tragedy in the honest face +bent over these dear treasures, and because she tried so bravely to hide her +tears, I knew in my heart that this could never be a newspaper story. +</p> + +<p> +“So,” said Alma Pflugel at last, and rose and walked slowly to the window and +stood looking out at the wind-swept garden. That window, with its many tiny +panes, once had looked out across a wilderness, with an Indian camp not far +away. Grossmutter Pflugel had sat at that window many a bitter winter night, +with her baby in her arms, watching and waiting for the young husband who was +urging his ox-team across the ice of Lake Michigan in the teeth of a raging +blizzard. +</p> + +<p> +The little, low-ceilinged room was very still. I looked at Alma Pflugel +standing there at the window in her neat blue gown, and something about the +face and figure—or was it the pose of the sorrowful head?—seemed strangely +familiar. Somewhere in my mind the resemblance haunted me. Resemblance to—what? +Whom? +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like to see my garden?” asked Alma Pflugel, turning from the window. +For a moment I stared in wonderment. But the honest, kindly face was unsmiling. +“These things that I have shown you, I can take with me when I—go. But there,” +and she pointed out over the bare, wind-swept lot, “there is something that I +cannot take. My flowers! You see that mound over there, covered so snug and +warm with burlap and sacking? There my tulips and hyacinths sleep. In a few +weeks, when the covering is whisked off—ah, you shall see! Then one can be +quite sure that the spring is here. Who can look at a great bed of red and pink +and lavender and yellow tulips and hyacinths, and doubt it? Come.” +</p> + +<p> +With a quick gesture she threw a shawl over her head, and beckoned me. Together +we stepped out into the chill of the raw March afternoon. She stood a moment, +silent, gazing over the sodden earth. Then she flitted swiftly down the narrow +path, and halted before a queer little structure of brick, covered with the +skeleton of a creeping vine. Stooping, Alma Pflugel pulled open the rusty iron +door and smiled up at me. +</p> + +<p> +“This was my grandmother’s oven. All her bread she baked in this little brick +stove. Black bread it was, with a great thick crust, and a bitter taste. But it +was sweet, too. I have never tasted any so good. I like to think of +Grossmutter, when she was a bride, baking her first batch of bread in this oven +that Grossvater built for her. And because the old oven was so very difficult +to manage, and because she was such a young thing—only sixteen!—I like to think +that her first loaves were perhaps not so successful, and that Grosspapa joked +about them, and that the little bride wept, so that the young husband had to +kiss away the tears.” +</p> + +<p> +She shut the rusty, sagging door very slowly and gently. “No doubt the workmen +who will come to prepare the ground for the new library will laugh and joke +among themselves when they see the oven, and they will kick it with their +heels, and wonder what the old brick mound could have been.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a little twisted smile on her face as she rose—a smile that brought a +hot mist of tears to my eyes. There was tragedy itself in that spare, homely +figure standing there in the garden, the wind twining her skirts about her. +</p> + +<p> +“You should but see the children peering over the fence to see my flowers in +the summer,” she said. The blue eyes wore a wistful, far-away look. “All the +children know my garden. It blooms from April to October. There I have my sweet +peas; and here my roses—thousands of them! Some are as red as a drop of blood, +and some as white as a bridal wreath. When they are blossoming it makes the +heart ache, it is so beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +She had quite forgotten me now. For her the garden was all abloom once more. It +was as though the Spirit of the Flowers had touched the naked twigs with fairy +fingers, waking them into glowing life for her who never again was to shower +her love and care upon them. +</p> + +<p> +“These are my poppies. Did you ever come out in the morning to find a hundred +poppy faces smiling at you, and swaying and glistening and rippling in the +breeze? There they are, scarlet and pink, side by side as only God can place +them. And near the poppies I planted my pansies, because each is a lesson to +the other. I call my pansies little children with happy faces. See how this +great purple one winks his yellow eye, and laughs!” +</p> + +<p> +Her gray shawl had slipped back from her face and lay about her shoulders, and +the wind had tossed her hair into a soft fluff about her head. +</p> + +<p> +“We used to come out here in the early morning, my little Schwester and I, to +see which rose had unfolded its petals overnight, or whether this great peony +that had held its white head so high only yesterday, was humbled to the ground +in a heap of ragged leaves. Oh, in the morning she loved it best. And so every +summer I have made the garden bloom again, so that when she comes back she will +see flowers greet her. +</p> + +<p> +“All the way up the path to the door she will walk in an aisle of fragrance, +and when she turns the handle of the old door she will find it unlocked, summer +and winter, day and night, so that she has only to turn the knob and enter.” +</p> + +<p> +She stopped, abruptly. The light died out of her face. She glanced at me, half +defiantly, half timidly, as one who is not quite sure of what she has said. At +that I went over to her, and took her work-worn hands in mine, and smiled down +into the faded blue eyes grown dim with tears and watching. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps—who knows?—the little sister may come yet. I feel it. She will walk up +the little path, and try the handle of the door, and it will turn beneath her +fingers, and she will enter.” +</p> + +<p> +With my arm about her we walked down the path toward the old-fashioned arbor, +bare now except for the tendrils that twined about the lattice. The arbor was +fitted with a wooden floor, and there were rustic chairs, and a table. I could +picture the sisters sitting there with their sewing during the long, peaceful +summer afternoons. Alma Pflugel would be wearing one of her neat gingham gowns, +very starched and stiff, with perhaps a snowy apron edged with a border of +heavy crochet done by the wrinkled fingers of Grossmutter Pflugel. On the +rustic table there would be a bowl of flowers, and a pot of delicious Kaffee, +and a plate of German Kaffeekuchen, and through the leafy doorway the scent of +the wonderful garden would come stealing. +</p> + +<p> +I thought of the cheap little flat, with the ugly sideboard, and the bit of +weedy yard in the rear, and the alley beyond that, and the red and green wall +paper in the parlor. The next moment, to my horror, Alma Pflugel had dropped to +her knees before the table in the damp little arbor, her face in her hands, her +spare shoulders shaking. +</p> + +<p> +“Ich kann’s nicht thun!” she moaned. “Ich kann nicht! Ach, kleine Schwester, wo +bist du denn! Nachts und Morgens bete ich, aber doch kommst du nicht.” +</p> + +<p> +A great dry sob shook her. Her hand went to her breast, to her throat, to her +lips, with an odd, stifled gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“Do that again!” I cried, and shook Alma Pflugel sharply by the shoulder. “Do +that again!” +</p> + +<p> +Her startled blue eyes looked into mine. “What do you mean?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“That—that gesture. I’ve seen it—somewhere—that trick of pressing the hand to +the breast, to the throat, to the lips—Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly I knew. I lifted the drooping head and rumpled its neat braids, and +laughed down into the startled face. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s here!” I shouted, and started a dance of triumph on the shaky floor of +the old arbor. “I know her. From the moment I saw you the resemblance haunted +me.” And then as Alma Pflugel continued to stare, while the stunned +bewilderment grew in her eyes, “Why, I have one-fourth interest in your own +nephew this very minute. And his name is Bennie!” +</p> + +<p> +Whereupon Alma Pflugel fainted quietly away in the chilly little grape arbor, +with her head on my shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +I called myself savage names as I chafed her hands and did all the foolish, +futile things that distracted humans think of at such times, wondering, +meanwhile, if I had been quite mad to discern a resemblance between this +simple, clear-eyed gentle German woman, and the battered, ragged, swaying +figure that had stood at the judge’s bench. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Alma Pflugel opened her eyes. Recognition dawned in them slowly. Then, +with a jerk, she sat upright, her trembling hands clinging to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is she? Take me to her. Ach, you are sure—sure?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lordy, I hope so! Come, you must let me help you into the house. And where is +the nearest telephone? Never mind; I’ll find one.” +</p> + +<p> +When I had succeeded in finding the nearest drug store I spent a wild ten +minutes telephoning the surprised little probation officer, then Frau +Nirlanger, and finally Blackie, for no particular reason. I shrieked my story +over the wire in disconnected, incoherent sentences. Then I rushed back to the +little cottage where Alma Pflugel and I waited with what patience we could +summon. +</p> + +<p> +Blackie was the first to arrive. He required few explanations. That is one of +the nicest things about Blackie. He understands by leaps and bounds, while +others crawl to comprehension. But when Frau Nirlanger came, with Bennie in +tow, there were tears, and exclamations, followed by a little stricken silence +on the part of Frau Nirlanger when she saw Bennie snatched to the breast of +this weeping woman. So it was that in the midst of the confusion we did not +hear the approach of the probation officer and her charge. They came up the +path to the door, and there the little sister turned the knob, and it yielded +under her fingers, and the old door swung open; and so she entered the house +quite as Alma Pflugel had planned she should, except that the roses were not +blooming along the edge of the sunken brick walk. +</p> + +<p> +She entered the room in silence, and no one could have recognized in this +pretty, fragile creature the pitiful wreck of the juvenile court. And when Alma +Pflugel saw the face of the little sister—the poor, marred, stricken face—her +own face became terrible in its agony. She put Bennie down very gently, rose, +and took the shaking little figure in her strong arms, and held it as though +never to let it go again. There were little broken words of love and pity. She +called her “Lammchen” and “little one,” and so Frau Nirlanger and Blackie and I +stole away, after a whispered consultation with the little probation officer. +</p> + +<p> +Blackie had come in his red runabout, and now he tucked us into it, feigning a +deep disgust. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like to know where I enter into this little drayma,” he growled. “Ain’t I +got nothin’ t’ do but run around town unitin’ long lost sisters an’ orphans!” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Blackie, you know you would never have forgiven me if I had left you out +of this. Besides, you must hustle around and see that they need not move out of +that dear little cottage. Now don’t say a word! You’ll never have a greater +chance to act the fairy godmother.” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Nirlanger’s hand sought mine and I squeezed it in silent sympathy. Poor +little Frau Nirlanger, the happiness of another had brought her only sorrow. +And she had kissed Bennie good-by with the knowledge that the little +blue-painted bed, with its faded red roses, would again stand empty in the +gloom of the Knapf attic. +</p> + +<p> +Norberg glanced up quickly as I entered the city room. “Get something good on +that south side story?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, no,” I answered. “You were mistaken about that. The—the nice old maid is +not going to move, after all.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br/> +FAREWELL TO KNAPFS</h2> + +<p> +Consternation has corrugated the brows of the aborigines. Consternation twice +confounded had added a wrinkle or two to my collection. We are homeless. That +is, we are Knapfless—we, to whom the Knapfs spelled home. +</p> + +<p> +Herr Knapf, mustache aquiver, and Frau Knapf, cheek bones glistening, broke the +news to us one evening just a week after the exciting day which so changed +Bennie’s life. “Es thut uns sehr, sehr leid,” Herr Knapf had begun. And before +he had finished, protesting German groans mingled with voluble German +explanations. The aborigines were stricken down. They clapped pudgy fists to +knobby foreheads; they smote their breasts, and made wild gestures with their +arms. If my protests were less frenzied than theirs, it was only because my +knowledge of German stops at words of six syllables. +</p> + +<p> +Out of the chaos of ejaculations and interrogation the reason for our expulsion +at last was made clear. The little German hotel had not been remunerative. Our +host and hostess were too hospitable and too polite to state the true reason +for this state of affairs. Perhaps rents were too high. Perhaps, thought I, +Frau Knapf had been too liberal with the butter in the stewed chicken. Perhaps +there had been too many golden Pfannkuchen with real eggs and milk stirred into +them, and with toothsome little islands of ruddy currant jelly on top. Perhaps +there had been too much honest, nourishing food, and not enough boarding-house +victuals. At any rate, the enterprise would have to be abandoned. +</p> + +<p> +It was then that the bare, bright little dining room, with its queer prints of +chin-chucking lieutenants, and its queerer faces, and its German cookery became +very dear to me. I had grown to like Frau Knapf, of the shining cheek bones, +and Herr Knapf, of the heavy geniality. A close bond of friendship had sprung +up between Frau Nirlanger and me. I would miss her friendly visits, and her +pretty ways, and her sparkling conversation. She and I had held many kimonoed +pow-wows, and sometimes—not often—she had given me wonderful glimpses of that +which she had left—of Vienna, the opera, the court, the life which had been +hers. She talked marvelously well, for she had all the charm and vivacity of +the true Viennese. Even the aborigines, bristling pompadours, thick spectacles, +terrifying manner, and all, became as dear as old friends, now that I knew I +must lose them. +</p> + +<p> +The great, high-ceilinged room upstairs had taken on the look of home. The +Blue-beard closet no longer appalled me. The very purpleness of the purple +roses in the rug had grown beautiful in my eyes because they were part of that +little domain which spelled peace and comfort and kindness. How could I live +without the stout yellow brocade armchair! Its plethoric curves were balm for +my tired bones. Its great lap admitted of sitting with knees crossed, +Turk-fashion. Its cushioned back stopped just at the point where the head found +needed support. Its pudgy arms offered rest for tired elbows; its yielding +bosom was made for tired backs. Given the padded comfort of that stout old +chair—a friendly, time-tried book between my fingers—a dish of ruddy apples +twinkling in the fire-light; my mundane soul snuggled in content. And then, +too, the book-in-the-making had grown in that room. It had developed from a +weak, wobbling uncertainty into a lusty full-blooded thing that grew and grew +until it promised soon to become mansize. +</p> + +<p> +Now all this was to be changed. And I knew that I would miss the easy German +atmosphere of the place; the kindness they had shown me; the chattering, +admiring Minna; the taffy-colored dachshund; the aborigines with their +ill-smelling pipes and flappy slippers; the Wienerschnitzel; the +crushed-looking wives and the masterful German husbands; the very darns in the +table-cloths and the very nicks in the china. +</p> + +<p> +We had a last family gathering in token of our appreciation of Herr and Frau +Knapf. And because I had not seen him for almost three weeks; and because the +time for his going was drawing so sickeningly near; and because I was quite +sure that I had myself in hand; and because he knew the Knapfs, and was fond of +them; and because-well, I invited Von Gerhard. He came, and I found myself +dangerously glad to see him, so that I made my greeting as airy and frivolous +as possible. Perhaps I overdid the airy business, for Von Gerhard looked at me +for a long, silent minute, until the nonsense I had been chattering died on my +lips, and I found myself staring up at him like a child that is apprehensive of +being scolded for some naughtiness. +</p> + +<p> +“Not so much chatter, small one,” he said, unsmilingly. “This pretense, it is +not necessary between you and me. So. You are ein bischen blasz, nicht? A +little pale? You have not been ill, Dawn?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ill? Never felt more chipper in my life,” I made flippant answer, “and I adore +these people who are forever telling one how unusually thin, or pale, or +scrawny one is looking.” +</p> + +<p> +“Na, they are not to be satisfied, these women! If I were to tell you how +lovely you look to me to-night you would draw yourself up with chill dignity +and remind me that I am not privileged to say these things to you. So I +discreetly mention that you are looking, interestingly pale, taking care to +keep all tenderness out of my tones, and still you are not pleased.” He +shrugged despairing shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you strike a happy medium between rudeness and tenderness? After all, I +haven’t had a glimpse of your blond beauty for three weeks. And while I don’t +ask you to whisper sweet nothings, still, after twenty-one days—” +</p> + +<p> +“You have been lonely? If only I thought that those weeks have been as +wearisome to you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not lonely exactly,” I hurriedly interrupted, “but sort of wishing that some +one would pat me on the head and tell me that I was a good doggie. You know +what I mean. It is so easy to become accustomed to thoughtfulness and devotion, +and so dreadfully hard to be happy without it, once one has had it. This has +been a sort of training for what I may expect when Vienna has swallowed you +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are still obstinate? These three weeks have not changed you? Ach, Dawn! +Kindchen!—” +</p> + +<p> +But I knew that these were thin spots marked “Danger!” in our conversational +pond. So, “Come,” said I. “I have two new aborigines for you to meet. They are +the very shiniest and wildest of all our shiny-faced and wild aborigines. And +you should see their trousers and neckties! If you dare to come back from +Vienna wearing trousers like these!—” +</p> + +<p> +“And is the party in honor of these new aborigines?” laughed Von Gerhard. “You +did not explain in your note. Merely you asked me to come, knowing that I cared +not if it were a lawn fete or a ball, so long as I might again be with you.” +</p> + +<p> +We were on our way to the dining room, where the festivities were to be held. I +stopped and turned a look of surprise upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know that the Knapfs are leaving? Did I neglect to mention that this +is a farewell party for Herr and Frau Knapf? We are losing our home, and we +have just one week in which to find another.” +</p> + +<p> +“But where will you go? And why did you not tell me this before?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t an idea where I shall lay my poor old head. In the lap of the gods, +probably, for I don’t know how I shall find the time to interview landladies +and pack my belongings in seven short days. The book will have to suffer for +it. Just when it was getting along so beautifully, too.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a dangerous tenderness in Von Gerhard’s eyes as he said: “Again you +are a wanderer, eh—small one? That you, with your love of beautiful things, and +your fastidiousness, should have to live in this way—in these boarding-houses, +alone, with not even the comforts that should be yours. Ach, Kindchen, you were +not made for that. You were intended for the home, with a husband, and kinder, +and all that is truly worth while.” +</p> + +<p> +I swallowed a lump in my throat as I shrugged my shoulders. “Pooh! Any woman +can have a husband and babies,” I retorted, wickedly. “But mighty few women can +write a book. It’s a special curse.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you prefer this life—this existence, to the things that I offer you! You +would endure these hardships rather than give up the nonsensical views which +you entertain toward your—” +</p> + +<p> +“Please. We were not to talk of that. I am enduring no hardships. Since I have +lived in this pretty town I have become a worshiper of the goddess +Gemutlichkeit. Perhaps I shan’t find another home as dear to my heart as this +has been, but at least I shan’t have to sleep on a park bench, and any one can +tell you that park benches have long been the favored resting place of genius. +There is Frau Nirlanger beckoning us. Now do stop scowling, and smile for the +lady. I know you will get on beautifully with the aborigines.” +</p> + +<p> +He did get on with them so beautifully that in less than half an hour they were +swapping stories of Germany, of Austria, of the universities, of student life. +Frau Knapf served a late supper, at which some one led in singing Auld Lang +Syne, although the sounds emanating from the aborigines’ end of the table +sounded suspiciously like Die Wacht am Rhein. Following that the aborigines +rose en masse and roared out their German university songs, banging their +glasses on the table when they came to the chorus until we all caught the +spirit of it and banged our glasses like rathskeller veterans. Then the +red-faced and amorous Fritz, he of the absent Lena, announced his intention of +entertaining the company. Made bold by an injudicious mixture of Herr Knapf’s +excellent beer, and a wonderful punch which Von Gerhard had concocted, Fritz +mounted his chair, placed his plump hand over the spot where he supposed his +heart to be, fastened his watery blue eyes upon my surprised and blushing +countenance, and sang “Weh! Dass Wir Scheiden Mussen!” in an astonishingly +beautiful barytone. I dared not look at Von Gerhard, for I knew that he was +purple with suppressed mirth, so I stared stonily at the sardine sandwich and +dill pickle on my plate, and felt myself growing hot and hysterical, and cold +and tearful by turns. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of the last verse I rose hastily and brought from their hiding-place +the gifts which we of Knapfs’ had purchased as remembrances for Herr and Frau +Knapf. I had been delegated to make the presentation speech, so I grasped in +one hand the too elaborate pipe that was to make Herr Knapf unhappy, and the +too fashionable silk umbrella that was to appall Frau Knapf, and ascended the +little platform at the end of the dining room, and began to speak in what I +fondly thought to be fluent and highsounding German. Immediately the aborigines +went off into paroxysms of laughter. They threw back their heads and roared, +and slapped their thighs, and spluttered. It appeared that they thought I was +making a humorous speech. At that discovery I cast dignity aside and continued +my speech in the language of a German vaudeville comedian, with a dash of Weber +and Field here and there. With the presentation of the silk umbrella Frau Knapf +burst into tears, groped about helplessly for her apron, realized that it was +missing from its accustomed place, and wiped her tears upon her cherished blue +silk sleeve in the utter abandon of her sorrow. We drank to the future health +and prosperity of our tearful host and hostess, and some one suggested drei mal +drei, to which we responded in a manner to make the chin-chucking lieutenant +tremble in his frame on the wall. +</p> + +<p> +When it was all over Frau Nirlanger beckoned me, and she, Dr. von Gerhard and I +stole out into the hall and stood at the foot of the stairway, discussing our +plans for the future, and trying to smile as we talked of this plan and that. +Frau Nirlanger, in the pretty white gown, was looking haggard and distrait. The +oogly husband was still in the dining room, finishing the beer and punch, of +which he had already taken too much. +</p> + +<p> +“A tiny apartment we have taken,” said Frau Nirlanger, softly. “It is better +so. Then I shall have a little housework, a little cooking, a little marketing +to keep me busy and perhaps happy.” Her hand closed over mine. “But that shall +us not separate,” she pleaded. “Without you to make me sometimes laugh what +should I then do? You will bring her often to our little apartment, not?” she +went on, turning appealingly to Von Gerhard. +</p> + +<p> +“As often as Mrs. Orme will allow me,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Ach, yes. So lonely I shall be. You do not know what she has been to me, this +Dawn. She is brave for two. Always laughing she is, and merry, nicht wahr? +Meine kleine Soldatin, I call her. +</p> + +<p> +“Soldatin, eh?” mused Von Gerhard. “Our little soldier. She is well named. And +her battles she fights alone. But quite alone.” His eyes, as they looked down +on me from his great height had that in them which sent the blood rushing and +tingling to my finger-tips. I brought my hand to my head in stiff military +salute. +</p> + +<p> +“Inspection satisfactory, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed a rueful little laugh. “Eminently. Aber ganz befriedigend.” +</p> + +<p> +He was very tall, and straight and good to look at as he stood there in the +hall with the light from the newel-post illuminating his features and +emphasizing his blondness. Frau Nirlanger’s face wore a drawn little look of +pain as she gazed at him, and from him to the figure of her husband who had +just emerged from the dining room, and was making unsteady progress toward us. +Herr Nirlanger’s face was flushed and his damp, dark hair was awry so that one +lock straggled limply down over his forehead. As he approached he surveyed us +with a surly frown that changed slowly into a leering grin. He lurched over and +placed a hand familiarly on my shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“We mus’ part,” he announced, dramatically. “O, weh! The bes’ of frien’s m’z +part. Well, g’by, li’l interfering Teufel. F’give you, though, b’cause you’re +such a pretty li’l Teufel.” He raised one hand as though to pat my check and +because of the horror which I saw on the face of the woman beside me I tried to +smile, and did not shrink from him. But with a quick movement Von Gerhard +clutched the swaying figure and turned it so that it faced the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Come Nirlanger! Time for hard-working men like you and me to be in bed. Mrs. +Orme must not nod over her desk to-morrow, either. So good-night. Schlafen Sie +wohl.” +</p> + +<p> +Konrad Nirlanger turned a scowling face over his shoulder. Then he forgot what +he was scowling for, and smiled a leering smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty good frien’s, you an’ the li’l Teufel, yes? Guess we’ll have to watch +you, huh, Anna? We’ll watch ’em, won’t we?” +</p> + +<p> +He began to climb the stairs laboriously, with Frau Nirlanger’s light figure +flitting just ahead of him. At the bend in the stairway she turned and looked +down on us a moment, her eyes very bright and big. She pressed her fingers to +her lips and wafted a little kiss toward us with a gesture indescribably +graceful and pathetic. She viewed her husband’s laborious progress, not daring +to offer help. Then the turn in the stair hid her from sight. +</p> + +<p> +In the dim quiet of the little hallway Von Gerhard held out his hands—those +deft, manual hands—those steady, sure, surgeonly hands—hands to cling to, to +steady oneself by, and because I needed them most just then, and because I +longed with my whole soul to place both my weary hands in those strong capable +ones and to bring those dear, cool, sane fingers up to my burning cheeks, I put +one foot on the first stair and held out two chilly fingertips. “Good-night, +Herr Doktor,” I said, “and thank you, not only for myself, but for her. I have +felt what she feels to-night. It is not a pleasant thing to be ashamed of one’s +husband.” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard’s two hands closed over that one of mine. “Dawn, you will let me +help you to find comfortable quarters? You cannot tramp about from place to +place all the week. Let us get a list of addresses, and then, with the machine, +we can drive from one to the other in an hour. It will at least save you time +and strength.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go boarding-house hunting in a stunning green automobile!” I exclaimed. From +my vantage point on the steps I could look down on him, and there came over me +a great longing to run my fingers gently through that crisp blond hair, and to +bring his head down close against my breast for one exquisite moment. +So—“Landladies and oitermobiles!” I laughed. “Never! Don’t you know that if +they got one glimpse, through the front parlor windows, of me stepping +grand-like out of your green motor car, they would promptly over-charge me for +any room in the house? I shall go room-hunting in my oldest hat, with one +finger sticking out of my glove.” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard shrugged despairing shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Na, of what use is it to plead with you. Sometimes I wonder if, after all, you +are not merely amusing yourself. Getting copy, perhaps, for the book, or a new +experience to add to your already varied store.” +</p> + +<p> +Abruptly I turned to hide my pain, and began to ascend the stairs. With a bound +Von Gerhard was beside me, his face drawn and contrite. +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me, Dawn! I know that you are wisest. It is only that I become a +little mad, I think, when I see you battling alone like this, among strangers, +and know that I have not the right to help you. I knew not what I was saying. +Come, raise your eyes and smile, like the little Soldatin that you are. So. Now +I am forgiven, yes?” +</p> + +<p> +I smiled cheerily enough into his blue eyes. “Quite forgiven. And now you must +run along. This is scandalously late. The aborigines will be along saying +‘Morgen!’ instead of ‘Nabben’!’ if we stay here much longer. Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will give me your new address as soon as you have found a satisfactory +home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never fear! I probably shall be pestering you with telephone calls, urging you +to have pity upon me in my loneliness. Now goodnight again. I’m as full of +farewells as a Bernhardt.” And to end it I ran up the stairs. At the bend, just +where Frau Nirlanger had turned, I too stopped and looked over my shoulder. Von +Gerhard was standing as I had left him, looking up at me. And like Frau +Nirlanger, I wafted a little kiss in his direction, before I allowed the bend +in the stairs to cut off my view. But Von Gerhard did not signify by look or +word that he had seen it, as he stood looking up at me, one strong white hand +resting on the broad baluster. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br/> +JUNE MOONLIGHT, AND A NEW BOARDINGHOUSE</h2> + +<p> +There was a week in which to scurry about for a new home. The days scampered +by, tripping over one another in their haste. My sleeping hours were haunted by +nightmares of landladies and impossible boarding-house bedrooms. Columns of “To +Let, Furnished or Unfurnished” ads filed, advanced, and retreated before my +dizzy eyes. My time after office hours was spent in climbing dim stairways, +interviewing unenthusiastic females in kimonos, and peering into ugly bedrooms +papered with sprawly and impossible patterns and filled with the odors of +dead-and-gone dinners. I found one room less impossible than the rest, only to +be told that the preference was to be given to a man who had “looked” the day +before. +</p> + +<p> +“I d’ruther take gents only,” explained the ample person who carried the keys +to the mansion. “Gents goes early in the morning and comes in late at night, +and that’s all you ever see of ’em, half the time. I’ve tried ladies, an’ they +get me wild, always yellin’ for hot water to wash their hair, or pastin’ +handkerchiefs up on the mirr’r or wantin’ to butt into the kitchen to press +this or that. I’ll let you know if the gent don’t take it, but I got an idea he +will.” +</p> + +<p> +He did. At any rate, no voice summoned me to that haven for gents only. There +were other landladies—landladies fat and German; landladies lean and Irish; +landladies loquacious (regardless of nationality); landladies reserved; +landladies husbandless, wedded, widowed, divorced, and willing; landladies +slatternly; landladies prim; and all hinting of past estates wherein there had +been much grandeur. +</p> + +<p> +At last, when despair gripped me, and I had horrid visions of my trunk, hat-box +and typewriter reposing on the sidewalk while I, homeless, sat perched in the +midst of them, I chanced upon a room which commanded a glorious view of the +lake. True, it was too expensive for my slim purse; true, the owner of it was +sour of feature; true, the room itself was cavernous and unfriendly and +cold-looking, but the view of the great, blue lake triumphed over all these, +although a cautious inner voice warned me that that lake view would cover a +multitude of sins. I remembered, later, how she of the sour visage had dilated +upon the subject of the sunrise over the water. I told her at the time that +while I was passionately fond of sunrises myself, still I should like them just +as well did they not occur so early in the morning. Whereupon she of the +vinegar countenance had sniffed. I loathe landladies who sniff. +</p> + +<p> +My trunk and trusty typewriter were sent on to my new home at noon, +unchaperoned, for I had no time to spare at that hour of the day. Later I +followed them, laden with umbrella, boxes, brown-paper parcels, and other +unfashionable moving-day paraphernalia. I bumped and banged my way up the two +flights of stairs that led to my lake view and my bed, and my heart went down +as my feet went up. By the time the cavernous bedroom was gained I felt +decidedly quivery-mouthed, so that I dumped my belongings on the floor in a +heap and went to the window to gaze on the lake until my spirits should rise. +But it was a gray day, and the lake looked large, and wet and unsociable. You +couldn’t get chummy with it. I turned to my great barn of a room. You couldn’t +get chummy with that, either. I began to unpack, with furious energy. In vain I +turned every gas jet blazing high. They only cast dim shadows in the murky +vastness of that awful chamber. A whole Fourth of July fireworks display, Roman +candles, sky-rockets, pin-wheels, set pieces and all, could not have made that +room take on a festive air. +</p> + +<p> +As I unpacked I thought of my cosy room at Knapfs’, and as I thought I took my +head out of my trunk and sank down on the floor with a satin blouse in one +hand, and a walking boot in the other, and wanted to bellow with loneliness. +There came to me dear visions of the friendly old yellow brocade chair, and the +lamplight, and the fireplace, and Frau Nirlanger, and the Pfannkuchen. I +thought of the aborigines. In my homesick mind their bumpy faces became things +of transcendent beauty. I could have put my head on their combined shoulders +and wept down their blue satin neckties. In my memory of Frau Knapf it seemed +to me that I could discern a dim, misty halo hovering above her tightly wadded +hair. My soul went out to her as I recalled the shining cheek-bones, and the +apron, and the chickens stewed in butter. I would have given a year out of my +life to have heard that good-natured, “Nabben’.” One aborigine had been wont to +emphasize his after-dinner arguments with a toothpick brandished fiercely +between thumb and finger. The brandisher had always annoyed me. Now I thought +of him with tenderness in my heart and reproached myself for my fastidiousness. +I should have wept if I had not had a walking boot in one hand, and a satin +blouse in the other. A walking boot is but a cold comfort. And my thriftiness +denied my tears the soiling of the blouse. So I sat up on my knees and finished +the unpacking. +</p> + +<p> +Just before dinner time I donned a becoming gown to chirk up my courage, groped +my way down the long, dim stairs, and telephoned to Von Gerhard. It seemed to +me that just to hear his voice would instill in me new courage and hope. I gave +the number, and waited. +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. von Gerhard?” repeated a woman’s voice at the other end of the wire. “He +is very busy. Will you leave your name?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I snapped. “I’ll hold the wire. Tell him that Mrs. Orme is waiting to +speak to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see.” The voice was grudging. +</p> + +<p> +Another wait; then—“Dawn!” came his voice in glad surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello!” I cried, hysterically. “Hello! Oh, talk! Say something nice, for +pity’s sake! I’m sorry that I’ve taken you away from whatever you were doing, +but I couldn’t help it. Just talk please! I’m dying of loneliness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Child, are you ill?” Von Gerhard’s voice was so satisfyingly solicitous. “Is +anything wrong? Your voice is trembling. I can hear it quite plainly. What has +happened? Has Norah written—” +</p> + +<p> +“Norah? No. There was nothing in her letter to upset me. It is only the +strangeness of this place. I shall be all right in a day or so.” +</p> + +<p> +“The new home—it is satisfactory? You have found what you wanted? Your room is +comfortable?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s—it’s a large room,” I faltered. “And there’s a—a large view of the lake, +too.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a smothered sound at the other end of the wire. Then—“I want you to +meet me down-town at seven o’clock. We will have dinner together,” Von Gerhard +said, “I cannot have you moping up there all alone all evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I want to so very much. And anyway, I’m much more cheerful now. I am +going in to dinner. And after dinner I shall get acquainted with my room. There +are six corners and all the space under the bed that I haven’t explored yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dawn!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you were free to-night, would you marry me? If you knew that the next month +would find you mistress of yourself would you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ernst!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“If the gates of Heaven were opened wide to you, and they had ‘Welcome!’ done +in diamonds over the door, and all the loveliest angel ladies grouped about the +doorway to receive you, and just beyond you could see awaiting you all that was +beautiful, and most exquisite, and most desirable, would you enter?” +</p> + +<p> +And then I hung up the receiver and went in to dinner. I went in to dinner, but +not to dine. Oh, shades of those who have suffered in boarding-houses—that +dining room! It must have been patterned after the dining room at Dotheboys’ +hall. It was bare, and cheerless, and fearfully undressed looking. The diners +were seated at two long, unsociable, boarding-housey tables that ran the length +of the room, and all the women folks came down to dine with white wool shawls +wrapped snugly about their susceptible black silk shoulders. The general effect +was that of an Old People’s Home. I found seat after seat at table was filled, +and myself the youngest thing present. I felt so criminally young that I +wondered they did not strap me in a high chair and ram bread and milk down my +throat. Now and then the door would open to admit another snuffly, ancient, and +be-shawled member of the company. I learned that Mrs. Schwartz, on my right, +did not care mooch for shteak for breakfast, aber a leedle l’mb ch’p she likes. +Also that the elderly party on my left and the elderly party on my right +resented being separated by my person. Conversation between E. P. on right, and +E. P. on left scintillated across my soup, thus: +</p> + +<p> +“How you feel this evening Mis’ Maurer, h’m?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ask me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No wonder you got rheumatism. My room was like a ice-house all day. Yours +too?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t complain any more. Much good it does. Barley soup again? In my own +home I never ate it, and here I pay my good money and get four time a week +barley soup. Are those fresh cucumbers? M-m-m-m. They haven’t stood long +enough. Look at Mis’ Miller. She feels good this evening. She should feel good. +Twenty-five cents she won at bridge. I never seen how that woman is got luck.” +</p> + +<p> +I choked, gasped, and fled. +</p> + +<p> +Back in my own mausoleum once more I put things in order, dragged my typewriter +stand into the least murky corner under the bravest gas jet and rescued my +tottering reason by turning out a long letter to Norah. That finished, my +spirits rose. I dived into the bottom of my trunk for the loose sheets of the +book-in-the-making, glanced over the last three or four, discovered that they +did not sound so maudlin as I had feared, and straightway forgot my gloomy +surroundings in the fascination of weaving the tale. +</p> + +<p> +In the midst of my fine frenzy there came a knock at the door. In the hall +stood the anemic little serving maid who had attended me at dinner. She was +almost eclipsed by a huge green pasteboard box. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re Mis’ Orme, ain’t you? This here’s for you.” +</p> + +<p> +The little white-cheeked maid hovered at the threshold while I lifted the box +cover and revealed the perfection of the American beauty buds that lay there, +all dewy and fragrant. The eyes of the little maid were wide with wonder as she +gazed, and because I had known flower-hunger I separated two stately blossoms +from the glowing cluster and held them out to her. +</p> + +<p> +“For me!” she gasped, and brought her lips down to them, gently. Then—“There’s +a high green jar downstairs you can have to stick your flowers in. You ain’t +got nothin’ big enough in here, except your water pitcher. An’ putting these +grand flowers in a water pitcher—why, it’d be like wearing a silk dress over a +flannel petticoat, wouldn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +When the anemic little boarding-house slavey with the beauty-loving soul had +fetched the green jar, I placed the shining stems in it with gentle fingers. At +the bottom of the box I found a card that read: “For it is impossible to live +in a room with red roses and still be traurig.” +</p> + +<p> +How well he knew! And how truly impossible to be sad when red roses are glowing +for one, and filling the air with their fragrance! +</p> + +<p> +The interruption was fatal to book-writing. My thoughts were a chaos of red +roses, and anemic little maids with glowing eyes, and thoughtful young doctors +with a marvelous understanding of feminine moods. So I turned out all the +lights, undressed by moonlight, and, throwing a kimono about me, carried my jar +of roses to the window and sat down beside them so that their exquisite scent +caressed me. +</p> + +<p> +The moonlight had put a spell of white magic upon the lake. It was a +light-flooded world that lay below my window. Summer, finger on lip, had stolen +in upon the heels of spring. Dim, shadowy figures dotted the benches of the +park across the way. Just beyond lay the silver lake, a dazzling bar of +moonlight on its breast. Motors rushed along the roadway with a roar and a whir +and were gone, leaving a trail of laughter behind them. From the open window of +the room below came the slip-slap of cards on the polished table surface, and +the low buzz of occasional conversation as the players held postmortems. Under +the street light the popcorn vender’s cart made a blot on the mystic beauty of +the scene below. But the perfume of my red roses came to me, and their velvet +caressed my check, and beyond the noise and lights of the street lay that +glorious lake with the bar of moonlight on its soft breast. I gazed and forgave +the sour-faced landlady her dining room; forgave the elderly parties their +shawls and barley soup; forgot for a moment my weary thoughts of Peter Orme; +forgot everything except that it was June, and moonlight and good to be alive. +</p> + +<p> +All the changes and events of that strange, eventful year came crowding to my +mind as I crouched there at the window. Four new friends, tried and true! I +conned them over joyously in my heart. What a strange contrast they made! +Blackie, of the elastic morals, and the still more elastic heart; Frau +Nirlanger, of the smiling lips and the lilting voice and the tragic eyes—she +who had stooped from a great height to pluck the flower of love blooming below, +only to find a worthless weed sullying her hand; Alma Pflugel, with the +unquenchable light of gratefulness in her honest face; Von Gerhard, ready to +act as buffer between myself and the world, tender as a woman, gravely +thoughtful, with the light of devotion glowing in his steady eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s richness,” said I, like the fat boy in Pickwick Papers. And I thanked +God for the new energy which had sent me to this lovely city by the lake. I +thanked Him that I had not been content to remain a burden to Max and Norah, +growing sour and crabbed with the years. Those years of work and buffeting had +made of me a broader, finer, truer type of womanhood—had caused me to forget my +own little tragedy in contemplating the great human comedy. And so I made a +little prayer there in the moon-flooded room. +</p> + +<p> +“O dear Lord,” I prayed, and I did not mean that it should sound irreverent. “O +dear Lord, don’t bother about my ambitions! Just let me remain strong and well +enough to do the work that is my portion from day to day. Keep me faithful to +my standards of right and wrong. Let this new and wonderful love which has come +into my life be a staff of strength and comfort instead of a burden of +weariness. Let me not grow careless and slangy as the years go by. Let me keep +my hair and complexion and teeth, and deliver me from wearing soiled blouses +and doing my hair in a knob. Amen.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt quite cheerful after that—so cheerful that the strange bumps in the new +bed did not bother me as unfamiliar beds usually did. The roses I put to sleep +in their jar of green, keeping one to hold against my cheek as I slipped into +dreamland. I thought drowsily, just before sleep claimed me: +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow, after office hours, I’ll tuck up my skirt, and wrap my head in a +towel and have a housecleaning bee. I’ll move the bed where the wash-stand is +now, and I’ll make the chiffonnier swap places with the couch. One feels on +friendlier terms with furniture that one has shoved about a little. How +brilliant the moonlight is! The room is flooded with it. Those +roses—sweet!—sweet!—” +</p> + +<p> +When I awoke it was morning. During the days that followed I looked back +gratefully upon that night, with its moonlight, and its roses, and its great +peace. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br/> +THE SHADOW OF TERROR</h2> + +<p> +Two days before the date set for Von Gerhard’s departure the book was finished, +typed, re-read, packed, and sent away. Half an hour after it was gone all its +most glaring faults seemed to marshall themselves before my mind’s eye. Whole +paragraphs, that had read quite reasonably before, now loomed ludicrous in +perspective. I longed to snatch it back; to tidy it here, to take it in there, +to smooth certain rough places neglected in my haste. For almost a year I had +lived with this thing, so close that its faults and its virtues had become +indistinguishable to me. Day and night, for many months, it had been in my +mind. Of late some instinct had prompted me to finish it. I had worked at it +far into the night, until I marveled that the ancient occupants of the +surrounding rooms did not enter a combined protest against the clack-clacking +of my typewriter keys. And now that it was gone I wondered, dully, if I could +feel Von Gerhard’s departure more keenly. +</p> + +<p> +No one knew of the existence of the book except Norah, Von Gerhard, Blackie and +me. Blackie had a way of inquiring after its progress in hushed tones of mock +awe. Also he delighted in getting down on hands and knees and guiding a +yard-stick carefully about my desk with a view to having a fence built around +it, bearing an inscription which would inform admiring tourists that here was +the desk at which the brilliant author had been wont to sit when grinding out +heart-throb stories for the humble Post. He took an impish delight in my +struggles with my hero and heroine, and his inquiries after the health of both +were of such a nature as to make any earnest writer person rise in wrath and +slay him. I had seen little of Blackie of late. My spare hours had been devoted +to the work in hand. On the day after the book was sent away I was conscious of +a little shock as I strolled into Blackie’s sanctum and took my accustomed seat +beside his big desk. There was an oddly pinched look about Blackie’s nostrils +and lips, I thought. And the deep-set black eyes appeared deeper and blacker +than ever in his thin little face. +</p> + +<p> +A week of unseasonable weather had come upon the city. June was going out in a +wave of torrid heat such as August might have boasted. The day had seemed +endless and intolerably close. I was feeling very limp and languid. Perhaps, +thought I, it was the heat which had wilted Blackie’s debonair spirits. +</p> + +<p> +“It has been a long time since we’ve had a talk-talk, Blackie. I’ve missed you. +Also you look just a wee bit green around the edges. I’m thinking a vacation +wouldn’t hurt you.” +</p> + +<p> +Blackie’s lean brown forefinger caressed the bowl of his favorite pipe. His +eyes, that had been gazing out across the roofs beyond his window, came back to +me, and there was in them a curious and quizzical expression as of one who is +inwardly amused. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been thinkin’ about a vacation. None of your measly little two weeks’ +affairs, with one week on salary, and th’ other without. I ain’t goin’ t’ take +my vacation for a while—not till fall, p’raps, or maybe winter. But w’en I do +take it, sa-a-ay, girl, it’s goin’ t’ be a real one.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why wait so long?” I asked. “You need it now. Who ever heard of putting +off a vacation until winter!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I dunno,” mused Blackie. “I just made my arrangements for that time, and +I hate t’ muss ’em up. You’ll say, w’en the time comes, that my plans are +reasonable.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a sharp ring from the telephone at Blackie’s elbow. He answered it, +then thrust the receiver into my hand. “For you,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +It was Von Gerhard’s voice that came to me. “I have something to tell you,” he +said. “Something most important. If I call for you at six we can drive out to +the bay for supper, yes? I must talk to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have saved my life,” I called back. “It has been a beast of a day. You may +talk as much and as importantly as you like, so long as I am kept cool.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was Von Gerhard,” said I to Blackie, and tried not to look uncomfortable. +</p> + +<p> +“Mm,” grunted Blackie, pulling at his pipe. “Thoughtful, ain’t he?” +</p> + +<p> +I turned at the door. “He—he’s going away day after to-morrow, Blackie,” I +explained, although no explanation had been asked for, “to Vienna. He expects +to stay a year—or two—or three—” +</p> + +<p> +Blackie looked up quickly. “Goin’ away, is he? Well, maybe it’s best, all +around, girl. I see his name’s been mentioned in all the medical papers, and +the big magazines, and all that, lately. Gettin’ t’ be a big bug, Von Gerhard +is. Sorry he’s goin’, though. I was plannin’ t’ consult him just before I go on +my—vacation. But some other guy’ll do. He don’t approve of me, Von Gerhard +don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +For some reason which I could never explain I went back into the room and held +out both my hands to Blackie. His nervous brown fingers closed over them. “That +doesn’t make one bit of difference to us, does it, Blackie?” I said, gravely. +“We’re—we’re not caring so long as we approve of one another, are we?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit, girl,” smiled Blackie, “not a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +When the green car stopped before the Old Folks’ Home I was in seraphic mood. I +had bathed, donned clean linen and a Dutch-necked gown. The result was most +soul-satisfying. My spirits rose unaccountably. Even the sight of Von Gerhard, +looking troubled and distrait, did not quiet them. We darted away, out along +the lake front, past the toll gate, to the bay road stretching its flawless +length along the water’s side. It was alive with swift-moving motor cars +swarming like twentieth-century pilgrims toward the mecca of cool breezes and +comfort. There were proud limousines; comfortable family cars; trim little +roadsters; noisy runabouts. Not a hoof-beat was to be heard. It was as though +the horseless age had indeed descended upon the world. There was only a hum, a +rush, a roar, as car after car swept on. +</p> + +<p> +Summer homes nestled among the trees near the lake. Through the branches one +caught occasional gleams of silvery water. The rush of cool air fanned my hot +forehead, tousled my hair, slid down between my collar and the back of my neck, +and I was grandly content. +</p> + +<p> +“Even though you are going to sail away, and even though you have the grumps, +and refuse to talk, and scowl like a jabberwock, this is an extremely nice +world. You can’t spoil it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Behute!” Von Gerhard’s tone was solemn. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you be faintly interested in knowing that the book is finished?” +</p> + +<p> +“So? That is well. You were wearing yourself thin over it. It was then quickly +perfected.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perfected!” I groaned. “I turn cold when I think of it. The last chapters got +away from me completely. They lacked the punch.” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard considered that a moment, as I wickedly had intended that he +should. Then—“The punch? What is that then—the punch?” +</p> + +<p> +Obligingly I elucidated. “A book may be written in flawless style, with a plot, +and a climax, and a lot of little side surprises. But if it lacks that peculiar +and convincing quality poetically known as the punch, it might as well never +have been written. It can never be a six-best-seller, neither will it live as a +classic. You will never see it advertised on the book review page of the +Saturday papers, nor will the man across the aisle in the street car be so +absorbed in its contents that he will be taken past his corner.” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard looked troubled. “But the literary value? Does that not enter—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t aim to contribute to the literary uplift,” I assured him. “All my life +I have cherished two ambitions. One of them is to write a successful book, and +the other to learn to whistle through my teeth—this way, you know, as the +gallery gods do it. I am almost despairing of the whistle, but I still have +hopes of the book.” +</p> + +<p> +Whereupon Von Gerhard, after a moment’s stiff surprise, gave vent to one of his +heartwarming roars. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks,” said I. “Now tell me the important news.” +</p> + +<p> +His face grew serious in an instant. “Not yet, Dawn. Later. Let us hear more +about the book. Not so flippant, however, small one. The time is past when you +can deceive me with your nonsense.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely you would not have me take myself seriously! That’s another debt I owe +my Irish forefathers. They could laugh—bless ’em!—in the very teeth of a potato +crop failure. And let me tell you, that takes some sense of humor. The book is +my potato crop. If it fails it will mean that I must keep on drudging, with a +knot or two taken in my belt. But I’ll squeeze a smile out of the corner of my +mouth, somehow. And if it succeeds! Oh, Ernst, if it succeeds!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, Kindchen?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it means that I may have a little thin layer of jam on my bread and +butter. It won’t mean money—at least, I don’t think it will. A first book never +does. But it will mean a future. It will mean that I will have something solid +to stand on. It will be a real beginning—a breathing spell—time in which to +accomplish something really worth while—independence—freedom from this +tread-mill—” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop!” cried Von Gerhard, sharply. Then, as I stared in surprise—“I do ask +your pardon. I was again rude, nicht wahr? But in me there is a queer vein of +German superstition that disapproves of air castles. Sich einbilden, we call +it.” +</p> + +<p> +The lights of the bay pavilion twinkled just ahead. The green car poked its +nose up the path between rows of empty machines. At last it drew up, panting, +before a vacant space between an imposing, scarlet touring car and a smart, +cream-colored runabout. We left it there and walked up the light-flooded path. +</p> + +<p> +Inside the great, barn-like structure that did duty as pavilion glasses +clinked, chairs scraped on the wooden floor; a burst of music followed a sharp +fusillade of applause. Through the open doorway could be seen a company of +Tyrolese singers in picturesque costumes of scarlet and green and black. The +scene was very noisy, and very bright, and very German. +</p> + +<p> +“Not in there, eh?” said Von Gerhard, as though divining my wish. “It is too +brightly lighted, and too noisy. We will find a table out here under the trees, +where the music is softened by the distance, and our eyes are not offended by +the ugliness of the singers. But inexcusably ugly they are, these Tyrolese +women.” +</p> + +<p> +We found a table within the glow of the pavilion’s lights, but still so near +the lake that we could hear the water lapping the shore. A cadaverous, +sandy-haired waiter brought things to eat, and we made brave efforts to appear +hungry and hearty, but my high spirits were ebbing fast, and Von Gerhard was +frankly distraught. One of the women singers appeared suddenly in the doorway +of the pavilion, then stole down the steps, and disappeared in the shadow of +the trees beyond our table. The voices of the singers ceased abruptly. There +was a moment’s hushed silence. Then, from the shadow of the trees came a +woman’s voice, clear, strong, flexible, flooding the night with the bird-like +trill of the mountain yodel. The sound rose and fell, and swelled and soared. A +silence. Then, in a great burst of melody the chorus of voices within the +pavilion answered the call. Again a silence. Again the wonder of the woman’s +voice flooded the stillness, ending in a note higher, clearer, sweeter than any +that had gone before. Then the little Tyrolese, her moment of glory ended, sped +into the light of the noisy pavilion again. +</p> + +<p> +When I turned to Von Gerhard my eyes were wet. “I shall have that to remember, +when you are gone.” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard beckoned the hovering waiter. “Take these things away. And you need +not return.” He placed something in the man’s palm—something that caused a +sudden whisking away of empty dishes, and many obsequious bows. +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard’s face was turned away from me, toward the beauty of the lake and +sky. Now, as the last flirt of the waiter’s apron vanished around the corner he +turned his head slowly, and I saw that in his eyes which made me catch my +breath with apprehension. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” I cried. “Norah? Max? The children?” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. “They are well, so far as I know. I—perhaps first I should +tell you—although this is not the thing which I have to say to you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” I urged him on, impatiently. I had never seen him like this. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not sail this week. I shall not be with Gluck in Vienna this year. I +shall stay here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here! Why? Surely—” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I shall be needed here, Dawn. Because I cannot leave you now. You will +need—some one—a friend—” +</p> + +<p> +I stared at him with eyes that were wide with terror, waiting for I knew not +what. +</p> + +<p> +“Need—some one—for—what?” I stammered. “Why should you—” +</p> + +<p> +In the kindly shadow of the trees Von Gerhard’s hands took my icy ones, and +held them in a close clasp of encouragement. +</p> + +<p> +“Norah is coming to be with you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Norah! Why? Tell me at once! At once!” +</p> + +<p> +“Because Peter Orme has been sent home—cured,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +The lights of the pavilion fell away, and advanced, and swung about in a great +sickening circle. I shut my eyes. The lights still swung before my eyes. Von +Gerhard leaned toward me with a word of alarm. I clung to his hands with all my +strength. +</p> + +<p> +“No!” I said, and the savage voice was not my own. “No! No! No! It isn’t true! +It isn’t—Oh, it’s some joke, isn’t it? Tell me, it’s—it’s something funny, +isn’t it? And after a bit we’ll laugh—we’ll laugh—of course—see! I am smiling +already—” +</p> + +<p> +“Dawn—dear one—it is true. God knows I wish that I could be happy to know it. +The hospital authorities pronounce him cured. He has been quite sane for +weeks.” +</p> + +<p> +“You knew it—how long?” +</p> + +<p> +“You know that Max has attended to all communications from the doctors there. A +few weeks ago they wrote that Orme had shown evidences of recovery. He spoke of +you, of the people he had known in New York, of his work on the paper, all +quite rationally and calmly. But they must first be sure. Max went to New York +a week ago. Peter was gone. The hospital authorities were frightened and +apologetic. Peter had walked away quite coolly one day. He had gone into the +city, borrowed money of some old newspaper cronies, and vanished. He may be +there still. He may be—” +</p> + +<p> +“Here! Ernst! Take me home! O God; I can’t do it! I can’t! I ought to be happy, +but I’m not. I ought to be thankful, but I’m not, I’m not! The horror of having +him there was great enough, but it was nothing compared to the horror of having +him here. I used to dream that he was well again, and that he was searching for +me, and the dreadful realness of it used to waken me, and I would find myself +shivering with terror. Once I dreamed that I looked up from my desk to find him +standing in the doorway, smiling that mirthless smile of his, and I heard him +say, in his mocking way: ‘Hello, Dawn my love; looking wonderfully well. Grass +widowhood agrees with you, eh?’” +</p> + +<p> +“Dawn, you must not laugh like that. Come, we will go. You are shivering! +Don’t, dear, don’t. See, you have Norah, and Max, and me to help you. We will +put him on his feet. Physically he is not what he should be. I can do much for +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“You!” I cried, and the humor of it was too exquisite for laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“For that I gave up Vienna,” said Von Gerhard, simply. “You, too, must do your +share.” +</p> + +<p> +“My share! I have done my share. He was in the gutter, and he was dragging me +with him. When his insanity came upon him I thanked God for it, and struggled +up again. Even Norah never knew what that struggle was. Whatever I am, I am in +spite of him. I tell you I could hug my widow’s weeds. Ten years ago he showed +me how horrible and unclean a thing can be made of this beautiful life. I was a +despairing, cowering girl of twenty then—I am a woman now, happy in her work, +her friends; growing broader and saner in thought, quicker to appreciate the +finer things in life. And now—what?” +</p> + +<p> +They were dashing off a rollicking folk-song indoors. When it was finished +there came a burst of laughter and the sharp spat of applauding hands, and +shouts of approbation. The sounds seemed seared upon my brain. I rose and ran +down the path toward the waiting machine. There in the darkness I buried my +shamed face in my hands and prayed for the tears that would not come. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed hours before I heard Von Gerhard’s firm, quick tread upon the gravel +path. He moved about the machine, adjusting this and that, then took his place +at the wheel without a word. We glided out upon the smooth white road. All the +loveliness of the night seemed to have vanished. Only the ugly, distorted +shadows remained. The terror of uncertainty gripped me. I could not endure the +sight of Von Gerhard’s stern, set face. I grasped his arm suddenly so that the +machine veered and darted across the road. With a mighty wrench Von Gerhard +righted it. He stopped the machine at the road-side. +</p> + +<p> +“Careful, Kindchen,” he said, gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“Ernst,” I said, and my breath came quickly, chokingly, as though I had been +running fast, “Ernst, I can’t do it. I’m not big enough. I can’t. I hate him, I +tell you, I hate him! My life is my own. I’ve made it what it is, in the face +of a hundred temptations; in spite of a hundred pitfalls. I can’t lay it down +again for Peter Orme to trample. Ernst, if you love me, take me away now. To +Vienna—anywhere—only don’t ask me to take up my life with him again. I can’t—I +can’t—” +</p> + +<p> +“Love you?” repeated Ernst, slowly, “yes. Too well—” +</p> + +<p> +“Too well—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, too well for that, Gott sei dank, small one. Too well for that.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br/> +PETER ORME</h2> + +<p> +A man’s figure rose from the shadows of the porch and came forward to meet us +as we swung up to the curbing. I stifled a scream in my throat. As I shrank +back into the seat I heard the quick intake of Von Gerhard’s breath as he +leaned forward to peer into the darkness. A sick dread came upon me. +</p> + +<p> +“Sa-a-ay, girl,” drawled the man’s voice, with a familiar little cackling laugh +in it, “sa-a-ay, girl, the policeman on th’ beat’s got me spotted for a +suspicious character. I been hoofin’ it up an’ down this block like a +distracted mamma waitin’ for her daughter t’ come home from a boat ride.” +</p> + +<p> +“Blackie! It’s only you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks, flatterer,” simpered Blackie, coming to the edge of the walk as I +stepped from the automobile. “Was you expectin’ the landlady?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know just whom I expected. I—I’m nervous, I think, and you startled +me. Dr. Von Gerhard was taken back for a moment, weren’t you, Doctor?” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard laughed ruefully. “Frankly, yes. It is not early. And visitors at +this hour—” +</p> + +<p> +“What in the world is it, Blackie?” I put in. “Don’t tell me that Norberg has +been seized with one of his fiendish inspirations at this time of night.” +</p> + +<p> +Blackie struck a match and held it for an instant so that the flare of it +illuminated his face as he lighted his cigarette. There was no laughter in the +deep-set black eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it Blackie?” I asked again. The horror of what Von Gerhard had told me +made the prospect of any lesser trial a welcome relief. +</p> + +<p> +“I got t’ talk to you for a minute. P’raps Von Gerhard ’d better hear it, too. +I telephoned you an hour ago. Tried to get you out to the bay. Waited here ever +since. Got a parlor, or somethin’, where a guy can talk?” +</p> + +<p> +I led the way indoors. The first floor seemed deserted. The bare, unfriendly +boarding-house parlor was unoccupied, and one dim gas jet did duty as +illumination. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring in the set pieces,” muttered Blackie, as he turned two more gas jets +flaring high. “This parlor just yells for a funeral.” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard was frowning. “Mrs. Orme is not well,” he began. “She has had a +shock—some startling news concerning—” +</p> + +<p> +“Her husband?” inquired Blackie, coolly. I started up with a cry. “How could +you know?” +</p> + +<p> +A look of relief came into Blackie’s face. “That helps a little. Now listen, +kid. An’ w’en I get through, remember I’m there with the little helpin’ mitt. +Have a cigarette, Doc?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Von Gerhard, shortly. +</p> + +<p> +Blackie’s strange black eyes were fastened on my face, and I saw an expression +of pity in their depths as he began to talk. +</p> + +<p> +“I was up at the Press Club to-night. Dropped in for a minute or two, like I +always do on the rounds. The place sounded kind of still when I come up the +steps, and I wondered where all the boys was. Looked into the billiard +room—nothin’ doin’. Poked my head in at the writin’ room—same. Ambled into the +readin’ room—empty. Well, I steered for the dining room, an’ there was the +bunch. An’ just as I come in they give a roar, and I started to investigate. Up +against the fireplace, with one hand in his pocket, and the other hanging +careless like on the mantel, stood a man—stranger t’ me. He was talkin’ kind of +low, and quick, bitin’ off his words like a Englishman. An’ the boys, they was +starin’ with their eyes, an’ their mouths, and forgettin’ t’ smoke, an’ lettin’ +their pipes an’ cigars go dead in their hands, while he talked. Talk! Sa-a-ay, +girl, that guy, he could talk the leads right out of a ruled, locked form. I +didn’t catch his name. Tall, thin, unearthly lookin’ chap, with the whitest +teeth you ever saw, an’ eyes—well, his eyes was somethin’ like a lighted pipe +with a little fine ash over the red, just waitin’ for a sudden pull t’ make it +glow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Peter!” I moaned, and buried my face in my hands. Von Gerhard put a quick hand +on my arm. But I shook it off. “I’m not going to faint,” I said, through set +teeth. “I’m not going to do anything silly. I want to think. I want to... Go +on, Blackie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just a minute,” interrupted Von Gerhard. “Does he know where Mrs. Orme is +living?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m coming t’ that,” returned Blackie, tranquilly. “Though for Dawn’s sake +I’ll say right here he don’t know. I told him later, that she was takin’ a +vacation up at her folks’ in Michigan.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God!” I breathed. +</p> + +<p> +“Wore a New York Press Club button, this guy did. I asked one of the boys +standin’ on the outer edge of the circle what the fellow’s name was, but he +only says: ‘Shut up Black! An’ listen. He’s seen every darn thing in the +world.’ Well, I listened. He wasn’t braggin’. He wasn’t talkin’ big. He was +just talkin’. Seems like he’d been war correspondent in the Boer war, and the +Spanish-American, an’ Gawd knows where. He spoke low, not usin’ any big words, +either, an’ I thought his eyes looked somethin’ like those of the Black Cat up +on the mantel just over his head—you know what I mean, when the electric lights +is turned on in-inside{sic} the ugly thing. Well, every time he showed signs of +stoppin’, one of the boys would up with a question, and start him goin’ again. +He knew everybody, an’ everything, an’ everywhere. All of a sudden one of the +boys points to the Roosevelt signature on the wall—the one he scrawled up there +along with all the other celebrities first time he was entertained by the Press +Club boys. Well this guy, he looked at the name for a minute. ‘Roosevelt?’ he +says, slow. ‘Oh, yes. Seems t’ me I’ve heard of him.’ Well, at that the boys +yelled. Thought it was a good joke, seein’ that Ted had been smeared all over +the first page of everything for years. But kid, I seen th’ look in that man’s +eyes when he said it, and he wasn’t jokin’, girl. An’ it came t’ me, all of a +sudden, that all the things he’d been talkin’ about had happened almost ten +years back. After he’d made that break about Roosevelt he kind of shut up, and +strolled over to the piano and began t’ play. You know that bum old piano, with +half a dozen dead keys, and no tune?” +</p> + +<p> +I looked up for a moment. “He could make you think that it was a concert grand, +couldn’t he? He hasn’t forgotten even that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Forgotten? Girl, I don’t know what his accomplishments was when you knew him, +but if he was any more fascinatin’ than he is now, then I’m glad I didn’t know +him. He could charm the pay envelope away from a reporter that was Saturday +broke. Somethin’ seemed t’ urge me t’ go up t’ him an’ say: ‘Have a game of +billiards?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Don’t care if I do,’ says he, and swung his long legs off the piano stool and +we made for the billiard room, with the whole gang after us. Sa-a-ay, girl, I’m +a modest violet, I am, but I don’t mind mentionin’ that the general opinion up +at the club is that I’m a little wizard with the cue. Well, w’en he got through +with me I looked like little sister when big brother is tryin’ t’ teach her how +to hold the cue in her fingers. He just sent them balls wherever he thought +they’d look pretty. I bet if he’d held up his thumb and finger an’ said, ‘jump +through this!’ them balls would of jumped.” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard took a couple of quick steps in Blackie’s direction. His eyes were +blue steel. +</p> + +<p> +“Is this then necessary?” he asked. “All this leads to what? Has not Mrs. Orme +suffered enough, that she should undergo this idle chatter? It is sufficient +that she knows this—this man is here. It is a time for action, not for words.” +</p> + +<p> +“Action’s comin’ later, Doc,” drawled Blackie, looking impish. “Monologuin’ +ain’t my specialty. I gener’ly let the other gink talk. You never can learn +nothin’ by talkin’. But I got somethin’ t’ say t’ Dawn here. Now, in case +you’re bored the least bit, w’y don’t hesitate one minnit t’—” +</p> + +<p> +“Na, you are quite right, and I was hasty,” said Von Gerhard, and his eyes, +with the kindly gleam in them, smiled down upon the little man. “It is only +that both you and I are over-anxious to be of assistance to this unhappy lady. +Well, we shall see. You talked with this man at the Press Club?” +</p> + +<p> +“He talked. I listened.” +</p> + +<p> +“That would be Peter’s way,” I said, bitterly. “How he used to love to hold +forth, and how I grew to long for blessed silence—for fewer words, and more of +that reserve which means strength!” +</p> + +<p> +“All this time,” continued Blackie, “I didn’t know his name. When we’d finished +our game of billiards he hung up his cue, and then he turned around like +lightning, and faced the boys that were standing around with their hands in +their pockets. He had a odd little smile on his face—a smile with no fun it, if +you know what I mean. Guess you do, maybe, if you’ve seen it. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Boys,’ says he, smilin’ that twisted kind of smile, ‘boys, I’m lookin’ for a +job. I’m not much of a talker, an’ I’m only a amateur at music, and my game of +billiards is ragged. But there’s one thing I can do, fellows, from abc up to +xyz, and that’s write. I can write, boys, in a way to make your pet little +political scribe sound like a high school paper. I don’t promise to stick. As +soon as I get on my feet again I’m going back to New York. But not just yet. +Meanwhile, I’m going to the highest bidder.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you know since Merkle left us we haven’t had a day when we wasn’t +scooped on some political guff. ‘I guess we can use you—some place,’ I says, +tryin’ not t’ look too anxious. If your ideas on salary can take a slump be +tween New York and Milwaukee. Our salaries around here is more what is +elegantly known as a stipend. What’s your name, Bo?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Name?’ says he, smiling again, ‘Maybe it’ll be familiar t’ you. That is, it +will if my wife is usin’ it. Orme’s my name—Peter Orme. Know a lady of that +name? Good.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I hadn’t said I did, but those eyes of his had seen the look on my face. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Friends in New York told me she was here,’ he says. ‘Where is she now? Got +her address?’ he says. +</p> + +<p> +“‘She expectin’ you?’ I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“‘N-not exactly,’ he says, with that crooked grin. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Thought not,’ I answered, before I knew what I was sayin’. ‘She’s up north +with her folks on a vacation.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘The devil she is!’ he says. ‘Well, in that case can you let me have ten until +Monday?’” +</p> + +<p> +Blackie came over to me as I sat cowering in my chair. He patted my shoulder +with one lean brown hand. “Now kid, you dig, see? Beat it. Go home for a week. +I’ll fix it up with Norberg. No tellin’ what a guy like that’s goin’ t’ do. +Send your brother-in-law down here if you want to make it a family affair, and +between us, we’ll see this thing through.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked up at Von Gerhard. He was nodding approval. It all seemed so easy, so +temptingly easy. To run away! Not to face him until I was safe in the shelter +of Norah’s arms! I stood up, resolve lending me new strength and courage. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going. I know it isn’t brave, but I can’t be brave any longer. I’m too +tired—too old—” +</p> + +<p> +I grasped the hand of each of those men who had stood by me so staunchly in the +year that was past. The words of thanks that I had on my lips ended in dry, +helpless sobs. And because Blackie and Von Gerhard looked so pathetically +concerned and so unhappy in my unhappiness my sobs changed to hysterical +laughter, in which the two men joined, after one moment’s bewildered staring. +</p> + +<p> +So it was that we did not hear the front door slam, or the sound of footsteps +in the hall. Our overstrained nerves found relief in laughter, so that Peter +Orme, a lean, ominous figure in the doorway looked in upon a merry scene. +</p> + +<p> +I was the first to see him. And at the sight of the emaciated figure, with its +hollow cheeks and its sunken eyes all terror and hatred left me, and I felt +only a great pity for this wreck of manhood. Slowly I went up to him there in +the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Peter?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Dawn old girl,” said he “you’re looking wonderfully fit. Grass widowhood +seems to agree with you, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +And I knew then that my dread dream had come true. +</p> + +<p> +Peter advanced into the room with his old easy grace of manner. His eyes glowed +as he looked at Blackie. Then he laughed, showing his even, white teeth. “Why, +you little liar!” he said, in his crisp, clear English. “I’ve a notion to +thwack you. What d’ you mean by telling me my wife’s gone? You’re not sweet on +her yourself, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard stifled an exclamation, and Orme turned quickly in his direction. +“Who are you?” he asked. “Still another admirer? Jolly time you were having +when I interrupted.” He stared at Von Gerhard deliberately and coolly. A little +frown of dislike came into his face. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you? I knew it. I +can tell by the hands, and the eyes, and the skin, and the smell. Lived with +’em for ten years, damn them! Dawn, tell these fellows they’re excused, will +you? And by the way, you don’t seem very happy to see me?” +</p> + +<p> +I went up to him then, and laid my hand on his arm. “Peter, you don’t +understand. These two gentlemen have been all that is kind to me. I am happy to +know that you are well again. Surely you do not expect me to be joyful at +seeing you. All that pretense was left out of our lives long before +your—illness. It hasn’t been all roses for me since then, Peter. I’ve worked +until I wanted to die with weariness. You know what this newspaper game is for +a woman. It doesn’t grow easier as she grows older and tireder.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, cut out the melodrama, Dawn,” sneered Peter. “Have either of you fellows +the makin’s about you? Thanks. I’m famished for a smoke.” +</p> + +<p> +The worrying words of ten years ago rose automatically to my lips. “Aren’t you +smoking too much, Peter?” The tone was that of a harassed wife. +</p> + +<p> +Peter stared. Then he laughed his short, mirthless little laugh. “By Jove! +Dawn, I believe you’re as much my wife now as you were ten years ago. I always +said, you know, that you would have become a first-class nagger if you hadn’t +had such a keen sense of humor. That saved you.” He turned his mocking eyes to +Von Gerhard. “Doesn’t it beat the devil, how these good women stick to a man, +once they’re married! There’s a certain dog-like devotion about it that’s +touching.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a dreadful little silence. For the first time in my knowledge of him +I saw a hot, painful red dyeing Blackie’s sallow face. His eyes had a menace in +their depths. Then, very quietly, Von Gerhard stepped forward and stopped +directly before me. +</p> + +<p> +“Dawn,” he said, very softly and gently, “I retract my statement of an hour +ago. If you will give me another chance to do as you asked me, I shall thank +God for it all my life. There is no degradation in that. To live with this +man—that is degradation. And I say you shall not suffer it.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked up into his face, and it had never seemed so dear to me. “The time for +that is past,” I said, my tone as calm and even as his own. “A man like you +cannot burden himself with a derelict like me—mast gone, sails gone, +water-logged, drifting. Five years from now you’ll thank me for what I am +saying now. My place is with this other wreck—tossed about by wind and weather +until we both go down together.” There came a sharp, insistent ring at the +door-bell. No answering sound came from the regions above stairs. The ringing +sounded again, louder than before. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be the Buttons,” said Blackie, and disappeared into the hallway. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I’ve heard about you,” came to our ears a moment later, in a high, +clear voice—a dear, beloved voice that sent me flying to the door in an agony +of hope. +</p> + +<p> +“Norah!” I cried, “Norah! Norah! Norah!” And as her blessed arms closed about +me the tears that had been denied me before came in a torrent of joy. +</p> + +<p> +“There, there!” murmured she, patting my shoulder with those comforting +mother-pats. “What’s all this about? And why didn’t somebody meet me? I +telegraphed. You didn’t get it? Well, I forgive you. Howdy-do, Peter? I suppose +you are Peter. I hope you haven’t been acting devilish again. That seems to be +your specialty. Now don’t smile that Mephistophelian smile at me. It doesn’t +frighten me. Von Gerhard, take him down to his hotel. I’m dying for my kimono +and bed. And this child is trembling like a race-horse. Now run along, all of +you. Things that look greenery-yallery at night always turn pink in the +morning. Great Heavens! There’s somebody calling down from the second-floor +landing. It sounds like a landlady. Run, Dawn, and tell her your perfectly +respectable sister has come. Peter! Von Gerhard! Mr. Blackie! Shoo!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br/> +A TURN OF THE WHEEL</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“You who were ever alert to befriend a man<br/> +You who were ever the first to defend a man,<br/> +You who had always the money to lend a man<br/> +Down on his luck and hard up for a V,<br/> +Sure you’ll be playing a harp in beatitude<br/> +(And a quare sight you will be in that attitude)<br/> +Some day, where gratitude seems but a platitude,<br/> +You’ll find your latitude.” +</p> + +<p> +From my desk I could see Peter standing in the doorway of the news editor’s +room. I shut my eyes for a moment. Then I opened them again, quickly. No, it +was not a dream. He was there, a slender, graceful, hateful figure, with the +inevitable cigarette in his unsteady fingers—the expensive-looking, gold-tipped +cigarette of the old days. Peter was Peter. Ten years had made little +difference. There were queer little hollow places in his cheeks, and under the +jaw-bone, and at the base of the head, and a flabby, parchment-like appearance +about the skin. That was all that made him different from the Peter of the old +days. +</p> + +<p> +The thing had adjusted itself, as Norah had said it would. The situation that +had filled me with loathing and terror the night of Peter’s return had been +transformed into quite a matter-of-fact and commonplace affair under Norah’s +deft management. And now I was back in harness again, and Peter was turning out +brilliant political stuff at spasmodic intervals. He was not capable of any +sustained effort. He never would be again; that was plain. He was growing +restless and dissatisfied. He spoke of New York as though it were Valhalla. He +said that he hadn’t seen a pretty girl since he left Forty-second street. He +laughed at Milwaukee’s quaint German atmosphere. He sneered at our journalistic +methods, and called the newspapers “country sheets,” and was forever talking of +the World, and the Herald, and the Sun, until the men at the Press Club fought +shy of him. Norah had found quiet and comfortable quarters for Peter in a +boarding-house near the lake, and just a square or two distant from my own +boarding-house. He hated it cordially, as only the luxury-loving can hate a +boarding-house, and threatened to leave daily. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go back to the big town, Dawn, old girl,” he would say. “We’re buried +alive in this overgrown Dutch village. I came here in the first place on your +account. Now it’s up to you to get me out of it. Think of what New York means! +Think of what I’ve been! And I can write as well as ever.” +</p> + +<p> +But I always shook my head. “We would not last a month in New York, Peter. New +York has hurried on and left us behind. We’re just two pieces of discard. We’ll +have to be content where we are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Content! In this silly hole! You must be mad!” Then, with one of his +unaccountable changes of tone and topic, “Dawn, let me have some money. I’m +strapped. If I had the time I’d get out some magazine stuff. Anything to get a +little extra coin. Tell me, how does that little sport you call Blackie happen +to have so much ready cash? I’ve never yet struck him for a loan that he hasn’t +obliged me. I think he’s sweet on you, perhaps, and thinks he’s doing you a +sort of second-hand favor.” +</p> + +<p> +At times such as these all the old spirit that I had thought dead within me +would rise up in revolt against this creature who was taking from me my pride, +my sense of honor, my friends. I never saw Von Gerhard now. Peter had refused +outright to go to him for treatment, saying that he wasn’t going to be poisoned +by any cursed doctor, particularly not by one who had wanted to run away with +his wife before his very eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes I wondered how long this could go on. I thought of the old days with +the Nirlangers; of Alma Pflugel’s rose-encircled cottage; of Bennie; of the +Knapfs; of the good-natured, uncouth aborigines, and their many kindnesses. I +saw these dear people rarely now. Frau Nirlanger’s resignation to her +unhappiness only made me rebel more keenly against my own. +</p> + +<p> +If only Peter could become well and strong again, I told myself, bitterly. If +it were not for those blue shadows under his eyes, and the shrunken muscles, +and the withered skin, I could leave him to live his life as he saw fit. But he +was as dependent as a child, and as capricious. What was the end to be? I asked +myself. Where was it all leading me? +</p> + +<p> +And then, in a fearful and wonderful manner, my question was answered. +</p> + +<p> +There came to my desk one day an envelope bearing the letter-head of the +publishing house to which I had sent my story. I balanced it for a moment in my +fingers, woman-fashion, wondering, hoping, surmising. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course they can’t want it,” I told myself, in preparation for any +disappointment that was in store for me. “They’re sending it back. This is the +letter that will tell me so.” +</p> + +<p> +And then I opened it. The words jumped out at me from the typewritten page. I +crushed the paper in my hands, and rushed into Blackie’s little office as I had +been used to doing in the old days. He was at his desk, pipe in mouth. I shook +his shoulder and flourished the letter wildly, and did a crazy little dance +about his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“They want it! They like it! Not only that, they want another, as soon as I can +get it out. Think of it!” +</p> + +<p> +Blackie removed his pipe from between his teeth and wiped his lips with the +back of his hand. “I’m thinkin’,” he said. “Anything t’ oblige you. When you’re +through shovin’ that paper into my face would you mind explainin’ who wants +what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you’re so stupid! So slow! Can’t you see that I’ve written a real live +book, and had it accepted, and that I am going to write another if I have to +run away from a whole regiment of husbands to do it properly? Blackie, can’t +you see what it means! Oh, Blackie, I know I’m maudlin in my joy, but forgive +me. It’s been so long since I’ve had the taste of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, take a good chew while you got th’chance an’ don’t count too high on +this first book business. I knew a guy who wrote a book once, an’ he planned to +take a trip to Europe on it, and build a house when he got home, and maybe a +yacht or so, if he wasn’t too rushed. Sa-a-ay, girl, w’en he got through +gettin’ those royalties for that book they’d dwindled down to fresh wall paper +for the dinin’-room, and a new gas stove for his wife, an’ not enough left over +to take a trolley trip to Oshkosh on. Don’t count too high.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not counting at all, Blackie, and you can’t discourage me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t want to. But I’d hate to see you come down with a thud.” Suddenly he sat +up and a grin overspread his thin face. “Tell you what we’ll do, girlie. We’ll +celebrate. Maybe it’ll be the last time. Let’s pretend this is six months ago, +and everything’s serene. You get your bonnet. I’ll get the machine. It’s too +hot to work, anyway. We’ll take a spin out to somewhere that’s cool, and we’ll +order cold things to eat, and cold things to drink, and you can talk about +yourself till you’re tired. You’ll have to take it out on somebody, an’ it +might as well be me.” +</p> + +<p> +Five minutes later, with my hat in my hand, I turned to find Peter at my elbow. +</p> + +<p> +“Want to talk to you,” he said, frowning. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, Peter, but I can’t stop. Won’t it do later?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Got an assignment? I’ll go with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“N-not exactly, Peter. The truth is, Blackie has taken pity on me and has +promised to take me out for a spin, just to cool off. It has been so +insufferably hot.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter turned away. “Count me in on that,” he said, over his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“But I can’t, Peter,” I cried. “It isn’t my party. And anyway—” +</p> + +<p> +Peter turned around, and there was an ugly glow in his eyes and an ugly look on +his face, and a little red ridge that I had not noticed before seemed to burn +itself across his forehead. “And anyway, you don’t want me, eh? Well, I’m +going. I’m not going to have my wife chasing all over the country with strange +men. Remember, you’re not the giddy grass widdy you used to be. You can take +me, or stay at home, understand?” +</p> + +<p> +His voice was high-pitched and quavering. Something in his manner struck a +vague terror to my heart. “Why, Peter, if you care that much I shall be glad to +have you go. So will Blackie, I am sure. Come, we’ll go down now. He’ll be +waiting for us.” +</p> + +<p> +Blackie’s keen, clever mind grasped the situation as soon as he saw us +together. His dark face was illumined by one of his rare smiles. “Coming with +us, Orme? Do you good. Pile into the tonneau, you two, and hang on to your +hair. I’m going to smash the law.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter sauntered up to the steering-wheel. “Let me drive,” he said. “I’m not bad +at it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nix with the artless amateur,” returned Blackie. “This ain’t no demonstration +car. I drive my own little wagon when I go riding, and I intend to until I take +my last ride, feet first.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter muttered something surly and climbed into the front seat next to Blackie, +leaving me to occupy the tonneau in solitary state. +</p> + +<p> +Peter began to ask questions—dozens of them, which Blackie answered, patiently +and fully. I could not hear all that they said, but I saw that Peter was urging +Blackie to greater speed, and that Blackie was explaining that he must first +leave the crowded streets behind. Suddenly Peter made a gesture in the +direction of the wheel, and said something in a high, sharp voice. Blackie’s +answer was quick and decidedly in the negative. The next instant Peter Orme +rose in his place and leaning forward and upward, grasped the wheel that was in +Blackie’s hands. The car swerved sickeningly. I noticed, dully, that Blackie +did not go white as novelists say men do in moments of horror. A dull red flush +crept to the very base of his neck. With a twist of his frail body he tried to +throw off Peter’s hands. I remember leaning over the back of the seat and +trying to pull Peter back as I realized that it was a madman with whom we were +dealing. Nothing seemed real. It was ridiculously like the things one sees in +the moving picture theaters. I felt no fear. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, Orme!” Blackie yelled. “You’ll ditch us! Dawn! God!—” +</p> + +<p> +We shot down a little hill. Two wheels were lifted from the ground. The machine +was poised in the air for a second before it crashed into the ditch and turned +over completely, throwing me clear, but burying Blackie and Peter under its +weight of steel and wood and whirring wheels. +</p> + +<p> +I remember rising from the ground, and sinking back again and rising once more +to run forward to where the car lay in the ditch, and tugging at that great +frame of steel with crazy, futile fingers. Then I ran screaming down the road +toward a man who was tranquilly working in a field nearby. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br/> +BLACKIE’S VACATION COMES</h2> + +<p> +The shabby blue office coat hangs on the hook in the little sporting room where +Blackie placed it. No one dreams of moving it. There it dangles, out at elbows, +disreputable, its pockets burned from many a hot pipe thrust carelessly into +them, its cuffs frayed, its lapels bearing the marks of cigarette, paste-pot +and pen. +</p> + +<p> +It is that faded old garment, more than anything else, which makes us fail to +realize that its owner will never again slip into its comfortable folds. We +cannot believe that a lifeless rag like that can triumph over the man of flesh +and blood and nerves and sympathies. With what contempt do we look upon those +garments during our lifetime! And how they live on, defying time, long, long +after we have been gathered to our last rest. +</p> + +<p> +In some miraculous manner Blackie had lived on for two days after that ghastly +ride. Peter had been killed instantly, the doctors said. They gave no hope for +Blackie. My escape with but a few ridiculous bruises and scratches was due, +they said, to the fact that I had sat in the tonneau. I heard them all, in a +stupor of horror and grief, and wondered what plan Fate had in store for me, +that I alone should have been spared. Norah and Max came, and took things in +charge, and I saw Von Gerhard, but all three appeared dim and shadowy, like +figures in a mist. When I closed my eyes I could see Peter’s tense figure +bending over Blackie at the wheel, and heard his labored breathing as he +struggled in his mad fury, and felt again the helpless horror that had come to +me as we swerved off the road and into the ditch below, with Blackie, rigid and +desperate, still clinging to the wheel. I lived it all over and over in my +mind. In the midst of the blackness I heard a sentence that cleared the fog +from my mind, and caused me to raise myself from my pillows. +</p> + +<p> +Some one—Norah, I think—had said that Blackie was conscious, and that he was +asking for some of the men at the office, and for me. For me! I rose and +dressed, in spite of Norah’s protests. I was quite well, I told them. I must +see him. I shook them off with trembling fingers and when they saw that I was +quite determined they gave in, and Von Gerhard telephoned to the hospital to +learn the hour at which I might meet the others who were to see Blackie for a +brief moment. +</p> + +<p> +I met them in the stiff little waiting room of he hospital—Norberg, Deming, +Schmidt, Holt—men who had known him from the time when they had yelled, “Heh, +boy!” at him when they wanted their pencils sharpened. Awkwardly we followed +the fleet-footed nurse who glided ahead of us down the wide hospital corridors, +past doorways through which we caught glimpses of white beds that were no +whiter than the faces that lay on the pillows. We came at last into a very +still and bright little room where Blackie lay. +</p> + +<p> +Had years passed over his head since I saw him last? The face that tried to +smile at us from the pillow was strangely wizened and old. It was as though a +withering blight had touched it. Only the eyes were the same. They glowed in +the sunken face, beneath the shock of black hair, with a startling luster and +brilliancy. +</p> + +<p> +I do not know what pain he suffered. I do not know what magic medicine gave him +the strength to smile at us, dying as he was even then. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what do you know about little Paul Dombey?” he piped in a high, thin +voice. The shock of relief was too much. We giggled hysterically, then stopped +short and looked at each other, like scared and naughty children. +</p> + +<p> +“Sa-a-ay, boys and girls, cut out the heavy thinking parts. Don’t make me do +all the social stunts. What’s the news? What kind of a rotten cotton sportin’ +sheet is that dub Callahan gettin’ out? Who won to-day—Cubs or Pirates? +Norberg, you goat, who pinned that purple tie on you?” +</p> + +<p> +He was so like the Blackie we had always known that we were at our ease +immediately. The sun shone in at the window, and some one laughed a little +laugh somewhere down the corridor, and Deming, who is Irish, plunged into a +droll description of a brand-new office boy who had arrived that day. +</p> + +<p> +“S’elp me, Black, the kid wears spectacles and a Norfolk suit, and low-cut +shoes with bows on ’em. On the square he does. Looks like one of those Boston +infants you see in the comic papers. I don’t believe he’s real. We’re saving +him until you get back, if the kids in the alley don’t chew him up before that +time.” +</p> + +<p> +An almost imperceptible shade passed over Blackie’s face. He closed his eyes +for a moment. Without their light his countenance was ashen, and awful. +</p> + +<p> +A nurse in stripes and cap appeared in the doorway. She looked keenly at the +little figure in the bed. Then she turned to us. +</p> + +<p> +“You must go now,” she said. “You were just to see him for a minute or two, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +Blackie summoned the wan ghost of a smile to his lips. “Guess you guys ain’t +got th’ stimulatin’ effect that a bunch of live wires ought to have. Say, +Norberg, tell that fathead, Callahan, if he don’t keep the third drawer t’ the +right in my desk locked, th’ office kids’ll swipe all the roller rink passes +surest thing you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll—tell him, Black,” stammered Norberg, and turned away. +</p> + +<p> +They said good-by, awkwardly enough. Not one of them that did not owe him an +unpayable debt of gratitude. Not one that had not the memory of some secret +kindness stored away in his heart. It was Blackie who had furnished the money +that had sent Deming’s sick wife west. It had been Blackie who had rescued +Schmidt time and again when drink got a strangle-hold. Blackie had always said: +“Fire Schmidt! Not much! Why, Schmidt writes better stuff drunk than all the +rest of the bunch sober.” And Schmidt would be granted another reprieve by the +Powers that Were. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Blackie beckoned the nurse in the doorway. She came swiftly and bent +over him. +</p> + +<p> +“Gimme two minutes more, that’s a good nursie. There’s something I want to say +t’ this dame. It’s de rigger t’ hand out last messages, ain’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +The nurse looked at me, doubtfully. “But you’re not to excite yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sa-a-ay, girl, this ain’t goin’ t’ be no scene from East Lynne. Be a good kid. +The rest of the bunch can go.” +</p> + +<p> +And so, when the others had gone, I found myself seated at the side of his bed, +trying to smile down at him. I knew that there must be nothing to excite him. +But the words on my lips would come. +</p> + +<p> +“Blackie,” I said, and I struggled to keep my voice calm and emotionless, +“Blackie, forgive me. It is all my fault—my wretched fault.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, cut that,” interrupted Blackie. “I thought that was your game. That’s why +I said I wanted t’ talk t’ you. Now, listen. Remember my tellin’ you, a few +weeks ago, ’bout that vacation I was plannin’? This is it, only it’s come +sooner than I expected, that’s all. I seen two three doctor guys about it. Your +friend Von Gerhard was one of ’em. They didn’t tell me t’ take no ocean trip +this time. Between ’em, they decided my vacation would come along about +November, maybe. Well, I beat ’em to it, that’s all. Sa-a-ay, girl, I ain’t +kickin’. You can’t live on your nerves and expect t’ keep goin’. Sooner or +later you’ll be suein’ those same nerves for non-support. But, kid, ain’t it a +shame that I got to go out in a auto smashup, in these days when even a airship +exit don’t make a splash on the front page!” +</p> + +<p> +The nervous brown hand was moving restlessly over the covers. Finally it met my +hand, and held it in a tense little grip. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve been good pals, you and me, ain’t we, kid?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Blackie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t regretted it none?” +</p> + +<p> +“Regretted it! I am a finer, truer, better woman for having known you, +Blackie.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave a little contented sigh at that, and his eyes closed. When he opened +them the old, whimsical smile wrinkled his face. +</p> + +<p> +“This is where I get off at. It ain’t been no long trip, but sa-a-ay, girl, +I’ve enjoyed every mile of the road. All kinds of scenery—all kinds of +lan’scape—plain—fancy—uphill—downhill—” +</p> + +<p> +I leaned forward, fearfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Not—yet,” whispered Blackie. “Say Dawn—in the story books—they—always—are +strong on the—good-by kiss, what?” +</p> + +<p> +And as the nurse appeared in the doorway again, disapproval on her face, I +stooped and gently pressed my lips to the pain-lined cheek. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br/> +HAPPINESS</h2> + +<p> +We laid Peter to rest in that noisy, careless, busy city that he had loved so +well, and I think his cynical lips would have curled in a bitterly amused +smile, and his somber eyes would have flamed into sudden wrath if he could have +seen how utterly and completely New York had forgotten Peter Orme. He had been +buried alive ten years before—and Newspaper Row has no faith in resurrections. +Peter Orme was not even a memory. Ten years is an age in a city where epochs +are counted by hours. +</p> + +<p> +Now, after two weeks of Norah’s loving care, I was back in the pretty little +city by the lake. I had come to say farewell to all those who had filled my +life so completely in that year. My days of newspaper work were over. The +autumn and winter would be spent at Norah’s, occupied with hours of delightful, +congenial work, for the second book was to be written in the quiet peace of my +own little Michigan town. Von Gerhard was to take his deferred trip to Vienna +in the spring, and I knew that I was to go with him. The thought filled my +heart with a great flood of happiness. +</p> + +<p> +Together Von Gerhard and I had visited Alma Pflugel’s cottage, and the garden +was blooming in all its wonder of color and scent as we opened the little gate +and walked up the worn path. We found them in the cool shade of the arbor, the +two women sewing, Bennie playing with the last wonderful toy that Blackie had +given him. They made a serene and beautiful picture there against the green +canopy of the leaves. We spoke of Frau Nirlanger, and of Blackie, and of the +strange snarl of events which had at last been unwound to knit a close +friendship between us. And when I had kissed them and walked for the last time +in many months up the flower-bordered path, the scarlet and pink, and green and +gold of that wonderful garden swam in a mist before my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Frau Nirlanger was next. When we spoke of Vienna she caught her breath sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“Vienna!” she repeated, and the longing in her voice was an actual pain. +“Vienna! Gott! Shall I ever see it again? Vienna! My boy is there. Perhaps—” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” I said, gently. “Stranger things have happened. Perhaps if I could +see them, and talk to them—if I could tell them—they might be made to +understand. I haven’t been a newspaper reporter all these years without +acquiring a golden gift of persuasiveness. Perhaps—who knows?—we may meet again +in Vienna. Stranger things have happened.” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Nirlanger shook her head with a little hopeless sigh. “You do not know +Vienna; you do not know the iron strength of caste, and custom and stiff-necked +pride. I am dead in Vienna. And the dead should rest in peace.” +</p> + +<p> +It was late in the afternoon when Von Gerhard and I turned the corner which led +to the building that held the Post. I had saved that for the last. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope that heaven is not a place of golden streets, and twanging harps and +angel choruses,” I said, softly. “Little, nervous, slangy, restless Blackie, +how bored and ill at ease he would be in such a heaven! How lonely, without his +old black pipe, and his checked waistcoats, and his diamonds, and his sporting +extra. Oh, I hope they have all those comforting, everyday things up there, for +Blackie’s sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“How you grew to understand him in that short year,” mused Von Gerhard. “I +sometimes used to resent the bond between you and this little Blackie whose +name was always on your tongue.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that was because you did not comprehend. It is given to very few women to +know the beauty of a man’s real friendship. That was the bond between Blackie +and me. To me he was a comrade, and to him I was a good-fellow girl—one to whom +he could talk without excusing his pipe or cigarette. Love and love-making were +things to bring a kindly, amused chuckle from Blackie.” +</p> + +<p> +Von Gerhard was silent. Something in his silence held a vague irritation for +me. I extracted a penny from my purse, and placed it in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I was thinking,” he said, “that none are so blind as those who will not see.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand,” I said, puzzled. +</p> + +<p> +“That is well,” answered Von Gerhard, as we entered the building. “That is as +it should be.” And he would say nothing more. +</p> + +<p> +The last edition of the paper had been run off for the day. I had purposely +waited until the footfalls of the last departing reporter should have ceased to +echo down the long corridor. The city room was deserted except for one figure +bent over a pile of papers and proofs. Norberg, the city editor, was the last +to leave, as always. His desk light glowed in the darkness of the big room, and +his typewriter alone awoke the echoes. +</p> + +<p> +As I stood in the doorway he peered up from beneath his green eye-shade, and +waved a cloud of smoke away with the palm of his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“That you, Mrs. Orme?” he called out. “Lord, we’ve missed you! That new woman +can’t write an obituary, and her teary tales sound like they were carved with a +cold chisel. When are you coming back?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not coming back,” I replied. “I’ve come to say good-by to you +and—Blackie.” +</p> + +<p> +Norberg looked up quickly. “You feel that way, too? Funny. So do the rest of +us. Sometimes I think we are all half sure that it is only another of his +impish tricks, and that some morning he will pop open the door of the city room +here and call out, ‘Hello, slaves! Been keepin’ m’ memory green?’” +</p> + +<p> +I held out my hand to him, gratefully. He took it in his great palm, and a +smile dimpled his plump cheeks. “Going to blossom into a regular little writer, +h’m? Well, they say it’s a paying game when you get the hang of it. And I guess +you’ve got it. But if ever you feel that you want a real thrill—a touch of the +old satisfying newspaper feeling—a sniff of wet ink—the music of some editorial +cussing—why come up here and I’ll give you the hottest assignment on my list, +if I have to take it away from Deming’s very notebook.” +</p> + +<p> +When I had thanked him I crossed the hall and tried the door of the sporting +editor’s room. Von Gerhard was waiting for me far down at the other end of the +corridor. The door opened and I softly entered and shut it again. The little +room was dim, but in the half-light I could see that Callahan had changed +something—had shoved a desk nearer the window, or swung the typewriter over to +the other side. I resented it. I glanced up at the corner where the shabby old +office coat had been wont to hang. There it dangled, untouched, just as he had +left it. Callahan had not dared to change that. I tip-toed over to the corner +and touched it gently with my fingers. A light pall of dust had settled over +the worn little garment, but I knew each worn place, each ink-spot, each scorch +or burn from pipe or cigarette. I passed my hands over it reverently and +gently, and then, in the dimness of that quiet little room I laid my cheek +against the rough cloth, so that the scent of the old black pipe came back to +me once more, and a new spot appeared on the coat sleeve—a damp, salt spot. +Blackie would have hated my doing that. But he was not there to see, and one +spot more or less did not matter; it was such a grimy, disreputable old coat. +</p> + +<p> +“Dawn!” called Von Gerhard softly, outside the door. “Dawn! Coming, Kindchen?” +</p> + +<p> +I gave the little coat a parting pat. “Goodby,” I whispered, under my breath, +and turned toward the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Coming!” I called, aloud. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAWN O’HARA ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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