Fritz, junior, slept soundly; but he had a child’s fashion of waking
early. When he found the sunlight shining into his eyes through the
window which, being unaccustomed to care for young folks, Aunt Ruth
had forgotten to darken,--and thus insure her own undisturbed morning
nap,--he sat up in bed and looked about him. He was perfectly wide
awake on the instant, and the cheerfulness of the sunlight was scarcely
greater than the clear light of the lad’s own happy nature.
“I was a dreadful bad boy, last night! I’m awful sorry I licked the
crippler and--by jingo! I’ll go and tell him so!”
Paula had labored long and seriously with her little brother; but he
didn’t take polishing well at all--that is, of the sort which his elder
sister was minded to give him. It made not the slightest impression on
this small man to be forbidden a dozen times a day to use the language
which came naturally to his lips, and which from his association with
the boys of the street he had come to consider smart.
More than this, Uncle Fritz was always inclined to concur in Fritz,
junior’s, own opinion. But, for the matter of that, pretty nearly
everything the little lad did was “smart” in the eyes of his adoring
uncle, who firmly believed that his namesake was an epitome of every
human grace and virtue. He would not have had the child different for
half his fortune; and it was well for the little fellow that he had the
wholesomest and sweetest of natures, and that he had sprung from a race
of gentlefolk.
But there was a polishing he did take, readily. If by any chance--alas!
they were frequent--he had inadvertently really pained any living
heart, he could not rest till he had done his childish utmost to banish
that pain. Once, on one never-to-be-forgotten, dreadful day, he had
told Fritzy Nunky a lie! “Story” does not express it; fib is too mild;
falsehood or untruth indicate a premeditation which was absent from
the offence; so, though it is an ugly word, never to be carelessly
uttered or written, it must stand. No matter what the lie was about;
that was between the two Fritzes. Suffice it to tell that the big Fritz
had suffered actual agony, fearing that his idol was going to be found
wanting in that first foundation of all nobility,--truthfulness. And
the little Fritz has seen the agony, and--but the sorrow of a little
child is sacred.
So that rough corner of his character was polished till the shining
gold showed bright and sparkling. Fritz never told a second lie; nor
would he have done so for any enticement which could have been offered
him.
Now he remembered that he had been “spunky” and almost “killed”
somebody; and somehow this tender-hearted little gentleman felt as
if his day would begin better if he could get that unpleasant memory
off his mind. So he slipped out of bed, threw his nightshirt into one
corner of the room, soused the water in the bowl all over the floor,
in his vain effort to make it answer for the tubbing to which he was
accustomed, tried to straighten his curly tangles of hair with two
strokes of the brush, then to button his shoes on the wrong feet,
and gave up the matter as satisfactorily settled by leaving both
unfastened, put his knickerbockers on wrong side before with a goodly
protuberance of shirt waist to protest against the arrangement, and
hied himself out of the room.
As he passed a little chamber under the stairs, he heard the familiar
snore of Fritz the elder, and was about to run back and get a pillow
to hurl at him. It was a kind of awakening to which both the Fritzes
were accustomed, in their loving equality of playfellows, but for once
Fritz, junior, refrained.
Not from the slightest hesitation about disturbing his guardian, but
because it would hinder him from finding and apologizing to Melville.
He was in a great hurry to get that job off his hands; then he would be
free to hunt up that donkey who lived with his pretty aunt, and ask his
permission to be ridden.
Melville was in a refreshing sleep. His feeble body needed it as much
as his tired brain, for half of the invalid’s crossness came, had his
relatives but known it, from a restlessness of mind which needed to
be understood before it could be cured. There had never been any one
about him to understand it; so the crippled lad had lain month in and
month out weaving his fancies to himself, and disdaining to confide
them to any other, as one shrinks from trusting a perfectly and freshly
ripened cluster of grapes to the careless fingers of a child, lest its
delicate bloom be lost before its beauty becomes known.
Out of his dreamless rest he was awakened by the touch of a little hand.
“Wake up, you poor crippler, can’t you! I want to tell you I-- Say,
can’t you wake up?”
Fritz had stiffened the grasp of his fingers to a painful clutch; and
he had yet to learn that Melville was habitually “sore all over,”
outwardly as well as within.
The clutch succeeded where the gentler touch had failed, and the sick
lad opened his eyes with such suddenness that his disturber fairly
jumped.
“What the dickens are you doing here again?” roared Melville.
Fritz trembled. Still, he did not retreat; he was far too much in
earnest.
“I come--I come--” began the child, and paused, confused. He somehow
found this humiliation of himself vastly harder than any of the many
similar confessions he had previously made. He was accustomed to having
his “I’m sorrys” met more than half way by the friendly interpretation
of love.
But there was no love in the scowling brow upon the pillow, and only a
very present memory of the indignity which its owner had suffered.
“Yes, I see you’ve ‘come.’ Why? That’s what I want to know!” thundered
the invalid.
“What is it, Melville? Did you call me, darling?” sleepily asked
Grandmother Capers, coming to the doorway; and Fritz’s ready attention
was drawn away from his cousin to her.
He looked; he stared; and as he stared his eyes grew bigger and bigger,
which was quite unnecessary, since they were very round and wide open
at all times. He had never seen any such person, and instantly he
decided that the old lady was the “Witch of Endor,” about whom his
guardian was continually talking when things went wrong in his great
business house. “The ‘Witch of Endor’ is to pay!” was Uncle Fritz’s
most vehement expression; and little Fritz thought that this must be
she, and he did not at all wonder that big Fritz dreaded her.
His feet began to shake in their ill-adjusted shoes, and, if his hair
had not been so well deluged by those two dabs of the brush and bath
water, it might have stood upright.
Melville saw the growing consternation on the childish face before
him, and turned from it to its cause. Then he did not even attempt to
restrain the disrespectful laugh which followed.
Grandmother Capers was one of those saving old ladies who do not wear
their false teeth when asleep; and as by daylight she wore both “upper”
and “under,” and as her features were of the sort described as hooked,
the economy resulted in an undress, and sinister appearance, which
was at least an unlucky transformation. Add to that the fact that she
was also one of the fast fading race who cling to a combination of
false-front and black silk skull-cap draped with lace by day, in lieu
of their own silver locks, the effect when this regalia was laid aside
added one more factor to a get-up which Fritz did not find attractive.
Then, being of slender build and sensitive temperament, she always
found it convenient to sleep wrapped in one shawl; and, owing to the
undue exposure of the night just gone, she had put on a second, of rich
color and great amplitude. Below all trailed a heavy dressing-gown
which was summer and winter bedfellow to shawl number one.
Melville was on the point of retorting to her usual fond inquiry:
“No, I didn’t ‘call you darling!’” but one of those rare glimpses of
humor which proved him, after all, to be something of a Kinsolving and
relative to Ruth, averted the sharp retort. For the first time in his
life he saw his doting grandmother as other people saw her; or might
see her, if they were admitted to the close intimacy which was his.
“For goodness sake, grandmother! Haven’t you what you call a ‘Bay
State’ shawl?”
“Yes. And I suppose you think I ought to have it on.” She laughed
gaily, in relief from the usual reprimand and appreciation of their
mutual wit.
But to the little foreigner the laugh was more terrible than
Melville’s frown had been. His chin dropped, and something very like a
quiver swept over the brave red lips.
Melville’s gaze had returned to his cousin’s face by then, and an
impish impulse seized him. He would make Fritz kiss Grandmother Capers!
The child evidently regarded her with some inexplicable terror, and
this would be a punishment complete and well-deserved.
“Come here a minute, grandma.”
The loving creature obeyed the summons swiftly, glad of his unusual
gentleness, and in her feeble haste stumbled continually upon her long
train. This gave her the hobbling gait which was the one touch needed
to make her, in Fritz’s eyes, the so much dreaded “Endor woman.”
“I want you to kiss this sweet little boy. He is an early visitor, and
so devoted, you see!”
Melville’s laugh, saying this, was harsh, but that Mrs. Capers did
not observe. She only knew that Melville laughed. She was ready to do
anything he asked of her. So she followed after the child, who slowly
retreated, and bent her face to touch his.
“Kiss me, little man. Come, kiss me good-morning.”
Kiss the “Witch of Endor!” It was dreadful enough to know she really
lived, and right here in his own grandmother’s house; but--kiss her!
Before the horror of that rite the stalwart soul of the “little
man” appeared to die within him. He tried to retreat still farther,
and found himself prevented by the barrier of a wall. He darted his
terrified glance this way and that for some way of escape, but the pale
morning light showed nothing clearly. Else would the still bright eyes
of Grandmother Capers have seen what they did not see, that the child’s
hesitation was not shyness but fear; and even for Melville’s dear sake
she would not have done what she did do.
Fritz felt the frill of her night-cap brush his hair, then her
peppermint-scented breath reached his nostrils, and, with a shriek as
if all the witches ever known to history were upon him, he struck out
in his own defence.
Melville, even, had looked for no such result as this. At the most, he
expected to see “a little fun”; but his knowledge of healthy boyhood
was slight, and a boy who, small as this one was, had yet pluck enough
to protect himself from the aggressions even of “witches” was amazing
to him.
Needless to say that poor Mrs. Capers was far more astonished than
her grandson, and with a more serious cause. As the first blow of
the sturdy little fist fell on her unsuspecting cheek, she started
and staggered back. Then came a second blow, and she retreated still
farther; but her aged feet caught in the folds of her long gown, and
she was thrown violently to the floor.
For a moment chaos reigned.
Fritzy’s fighting blood was up. “St. George and the Dragon” and
“Ralph the Lion Killer” were nothing to him. He, who all unarmed and
unsuspecting, had met and conquered Uncle Fritz’s “Witch of Endor!”
Wouldn’t Fritzy Nunky be a proud and happy man when she should be
safely out of the way, and no longer “to pay!” At this thought the
whacking blows redoubled, and it was only owing to Grandmother Capers’s
well wrapped person that she was not then and there annihilated, as
her adversary, forsooth, intended.
Meanwhile, Melville lay helpless on his bed and hollaed. The game had
gone to terrifying limits, and he was powerless to stop it, save by
his lusty voice; which, for awhile, seemed rather to egg on the small
pugilist than to restrain him.
Fortunately for all concerned, Content was also an early riser; and
this one morning in especial she had been “up with the lark,” that she
might help Aunt Ruth, rightly foreseeing that the sudden invasion of a
whole flock of hungry youngsters would make breakfast-getting a task
for many hands.
As she entered the passage which ran by the apartments devoted to the
Caperses, the sound of Melville’s voice reached her. She was used
already to hearing it pitched in the most disagreeable of tones, but
there was something in these roars out of the common. She had heard
him quarrelling with his grandmother, and, after intrusion on one such
scene, had learned to take herself as far away as possible before
witnessing another. Under all her gentleness, there was still enough
of the old Kinsolving “substance” left in Content’s veins to make her
wholly sympathize with Aunt Ruth’s views concerning Melville Capers’s
treatment of his grandmother.
She paused an instant; then, arrested by the difference in the “roar,”
the next she had pushed open the door and come upon the conflict. What
it meant she could not guess; but what it was she saw only too plainly.
With one bound she had caught up Fritz in her arms, and was holding the
struggling child from further mischief.
But he was not minded to be so restrained. “Let me go! Let me go, you
great girl, you!”
“Hush! Melville, stop calling, and tell me what it means,” answered
Content, heedless of Fritz’s violent struggles but finding herself
almost incompetent to control them.
“But I must call. There must somebody come. You can’t hold that
infernal little beast and help grandma too. Ruth--Aunt Ruth!
Grandmother! Somebody!!”
Grandmother Capers, feeling that she was no longer being assaulted,
ventured to raise her head. “Don’t mind me, darling. I--I’m not hurt
much, I--I think.” But the feebleness of her tone denied her statement,
and with a new distress Content saw that the poor old lady’s nose was
bleeding.
The sight of the scarlet flow he had caused for a moment incited Fritz
to fresh struggles and fresh exhibitions of prowess. Truly, it had
been reserved for the last of his race to be the fighter amongst them!
Another moment and he realized that this was the sweet-faced new cousin
Content who was holding him, and that Aunt Ruth had said of her that
she “was very, very lovely in her mind, as well as in her person.”
The weather-cock curiosity of childhood veered on the instant. He
ceased kicking, but none too soon for the girlish strength he had taxed
so severely, and improved his chance to scrutinize the features so near
his own. Aunt Ruth had told him about Content, during that sleepy,
undressing talk of the night before.
“How do you know that she is pretty in her mind, too?” he had asked.
“Because her mind shows through her face,” Aunt Ruth had answered; and
now he had an excellent opportunity to see where. Not that he supposed
his cousin’s face would be really transparent, but he believed it
must be different from that of others. The only difference he found,
however, was in the singular clearness and gentleness of her expression.
Content saw that for some reason she had gained his momentary
attention, and she followed up her advantage. “Go quickly, and call
Aunt Ruth. If you cannot find her bring somebody--the first person
you can see.” Then she sat him down upon the floor, still wistfully
regarding him lest this strange combination of tenderness and wrath, in
the form of a boy, should develop some new and more untoward quality as
well.
But she need not have feared. Beside the quiet command of her eye,
his ear had caught the words: “Are you badly hurt, poor grandma?”
uttered in a sympathetic voice by the “roaring crippler,” and he was
completely at sea. So he walked slowly out of the room, but less in
obedience to her wish than because he was puzzling to understand how
this Melville, who was his own cousin and lived here in America, could
by any possibility be the grandson of the “Witch of Endor,” who, he was
perfectly sure, belonged by good rights at his uncle’s great book shop
in Munich. So perplexed, indeed, was he by this problem that he walked
straight into the legs of portly “Fritzy Nunky.”
“Hey, small sir! And so after waking up thy poor guardian with thy
noisy racing over the stairs thou wouldst walk him down like a
nine-pin! Hey?” The jolly uncle swung his nephew to his shoulder, and
marched away through the passage to the open door at its end.
When they came to the sunlight, he cried, “And pray where was thy valet
this morning? Surely, there is something out of common with this!” The
great hand caught hold of the escaping waist frill and tucked it into
hiding.
“But, Fritzy Nunky, I forgot. They want you, the folks do. The roaring
crippler, and the lovely-minded girl, and the ‘Witch of Endor.’ I
reckon I’ve about settled _her_, though! So you won’t have her no more
‘to pay.’ Ain’t you awful glad?”
By many unfortunate experiences Uncle Fritz had learned that he could
not always rejoice when called upon to do so by his small nephew, and
he promptly inquired, with some misgiving, “What do you mean, child?”
Fritz, junior, recognized the change from the tender “thou” to the
sterner “you,” which with his guardian “meant business,” and he
answered, instantly:
“I’ve pounded the old woman in there pretty hard, I reckon; and the
girl said for you to come quick.”
“O Fritzy! more mischief?” demanded the uncle, reproachfully. Then he
put the little boy down and ordered him to lead the way.
So Mr. Fritz Pickel’s introduction to old lady Capers was made under
circumstances which neither that devotee of conventionality nor the
courteous gentleman would have preferred. But one glance of his keen
eyes showed him that the case was far too serious for any ceremony, and
the expression of them as they rested upon the strangely attired and
prostrate figure was one that his little nephew never forgot.