Galgenberg, Dec. 9th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther,--We are still in sunshine and frost up here, and
are all very happy, we three Schmidts--Johanna is the third--because
Joey arrives to-morrow and we shall once more roll in money. I hasten to
tell you this, for there were signs in your last two letters that you
were taking our position to heart. It is wonderfully kind, I think, the
way you are interested in our different little pains and pleasures. I am
often more touched than I care to tell you by the sincerity of your
sympathy with all we do, and feel very grateful for so true a friend. I
was so glad you gave up coming to Jena on your way to Berlin, for it
showed that you try to be reasonable, and then you know Professor
Martens goes to Berlin himself every now and then to take sweet counsel
with men like Harnack, so you will be sure to see him sooner or later,
and see him comfortably, without a rush to catch a train. You say you
did not come because I urged you not to, and that in all things you want
to please me. Well, I would prefer to suppose you a follower of that
plain-faced but excellent guide Common Sense. Still, being human, the
less lofty and conscientious side of me does like to know there is some
one who wishes to please me. I feel deliciously flattered--when I let
myself think of it; nearly always I take care to think of something
else--that a young man of your undoubted temporal and spiritual
advantages should be desirous of pleasing an obscure person like me.
What would Frau von Lindeberg say? Do you remember Shelley's wife's
sister, the Miss Westbrook who brushed her hair so much, with her
constant 'Gracious Heavens, what would Miss Warne say?' I feel inclined
to exclaim the same thing about Frau von Lindeberg, but with an opposite
meaning. And it is really very surprising that you should be so kind,
for I have been a shrew to you often, and have been absorbed in my own
affairs, and have not erred on the side of over-sympathy about yours.
Some day, when we are both very old, perhaps you will get a few hours'
leave from the dowager duchess you'll marry when you are forty, and will
come and look at my pigs and my garden and sit with me before the fire
and talk over our long friendship and all the long days of our life. And
I, when I hear you are coming, shall be in a flutter, and will get out
my best dress, and will fuss over things like asparagus and a salad, and
tell the heated and awe-stricken maid that His Britannic Majesty's
Ambassador at the Best Place to be an Ambassador in in the World is
coming to supper; and we shall feel how sweet it is to be old dear
friends.
Meanwhile we are both very busy with the days we have got to now. Today,
for instance, has been so violently active that every bone I possess is
aching. I'll tell you what happened, since you so earnestly assure me
that all we do interests you. The snow is frozen so hard that far from
being cut off as I had feared from shops and food there is the most
glorious sledding road down to Jena; and at once on hearing of Joey's
imminence Vicki and I coasted down on the sled and I bought the book
Papa has been wanting and a gigantic piece of beef. Then we persuaded a
small but strong boy, a boy of open countenance and superior manners
whom we met in the market-place, to drag the sled with the beef and the
book up the hill again for us; and so we set out homeward, walking gayly
one on each side of him, encouraging him with loud admiration of his
prowess. 'See,' said I, when I knew a specially steep bit was coming,
'see what a great thing it is to be able to draw so much so easily.'
A smirk and renewed efforts were the result of this speech at first; but
the smirk grew smaller as the hill grew steeper, and the efforts
dwindled to vanishing point with the higher windings of the road. At
last there was no smirk at all, and at my sixth repetition of the
encouragement he stopped dead. 'If it is such a great thing,' he said,
wiping his youthful forehead with a patched sleeve, and looking at me
with a precociousness I had not till then observed in his eyes, 'why do
you not do it yourself?'
Vicki and I stared at each other in silent wonder.
'Because,' I said, turning a reproachful gaze on him, 'because, my dear
little boy, I desire you to have the chance of earning the fifty
pfennings we have promised to give you when we get to the top.'
He began to pull again, but no longer with any pride in his performance.
Vicki and I walked in silence behind, and at the next steep bit, instead
of repeating a form of words I felt had grown vain, I skilfully unhooked
the parcel of meat hanging on the right-hand runner and carried it, and
Vicki, always quick to follow my example, unhooked the biography of
Goethe from the left-hand runner and carried that. The sled leaped
forward, and for a space the boy climbed with greater vigor. Then came
another long steep bit, and he flagged again.
'Come, come,' said I, 'it is quite easy.'
He at once stopped and wiped his forehead. 'If it is easy,' he asked,
'why do you not do it yourself?'
'Because, my dear little boy,' said I, trying to be patient, but meat is
heavy, and I knew it to be raw, and I feared every moment to feel a
dreadful dampness oozing through the paper, and I was out of breath, and
no longer completely calm, 'you engaged to pull it up for us, and having
engaged to do it it is your duty to do it. I will not come between a boy
and his duty.'
The boy looked at Vicki. 'How she talks,' he said.
Vicki and I again stared at each other in silent wonder, and while we
were staring he pulled the sled sideways across the road and sat down.
'Come, come,' said I, striving after a brisk severity.
'I am tired,' he said, leaning his chin on his hand and studying first
my face and then Vicki's with a detached, impartial scrutiny.
'We too are tired,' said I, 'and see, yet we carry the heavy parcels for
you. The sled, empty, is quite light.'
'Then why do you not pull it yourself?' he asked again.
'Anyhow,' said Vicki, 'while he sits there we needn't hold these great
things.' And she put the volumes on the sled, and I let the meat drop on
it, which it did with a horrible, soft, heavy thud.
The boy sat motionless.
'Let him get his wind,' said Vicki, turning away to look over the edge
of the road at the view.
'I'm afraid he's a bad little boy,' said I, following her and gazing too
at the sparkling hills across the valley. 'A bad little boy, encased in
an outer semblance of innocence.'
'He only wants his wind,' said Vicki.
'He shows no symptoms of not having got it,' said I; for the boy was
very calm, and his mouth was shut sweetly in a placid curve.
We waited, looking at the view, humanely patient as became two highly
civilized persons. The boy got up after a few minutes and shook himself.
'I am rested,' he announced with a sudden return to the politeness that
had charmed us in Jena.
'It certainly was rather a long pull up,' said I kindly, softened by his
manner.
'Yes,' said he, 'but I will not keep the ladies waiting longer.'
And he did not, for he whisked the sled round, sat himself upon it, and
before we had in the least understood what was happening he and it and
the books for Papa and the beef for Joey were darting down the hill,
skimming along the track with the delicious swiftness none knew and
appreciated better than we did. At the bend of the road he gave a joyful
whoop and waved his cap. Then he disappeared.
Vicki and I stared at each other once more in silent wonder. 'What an
abandoned little boy,' she gasped at last--he must have been almost in
Jena by the time we were able to speak.
'The poor beef,' said I very ruefully, for it was a big piece and had
cost vast sums.
'Yes, and the books,' said Vicki.
'Yes, and the _Assessor's_ sled,' said I.
There was nothing for it but to hurry down after him and seek out the
authorities and set them in pursuit; and so we hurried as much as can be
hurried over such a road, tired, silent, and hungry, and both secretly
nettled to the point of madness at having been so easily circumvented by
one small boy.
'Little boys are more pestilential than almost anything I know,' said
Vicki, after a period of speechless crunching over the snow.
'Far more than anything I know,' said I.
'I'm thankful I did not marry,' said she.
'So am I,' said I.
'The world's much too full of them as it is,' said she.
'Much,' said I.
'Oh,' she cried suddenly, stamping her foot, 'if I could only get hold
of him--wicked, wicked little wretch!'
'What would you do?' I asked, curious to see if her plans were at all
like mine.
'Gr--r--r--r--r,' said Vicki, clenching all those parts of her, such as
teeth and fists, that would clench.
'Oh so would I!' I cried.
We were almost at the bottom; the road was making its final bend; and,
as we turned the corner, behold the boy, his cap off, his head bent, his
shoulders straining at the rope, pulling the sled laboriously up again.
And there was the beef hung on one runner, and there were the books hung
on the other. We both stopped dead, arrested by this spectacle. He was
almost upon us before he saw us, so intent was he on his business, his
eyes on the ground, the sun shining on his yellow hair, the drops of
labor rolling down his crimson cheeks.
'What?' he panted, pausing when he saw our four boots in a row in his
path, and had looked up and recognized the rest of us, 'what, am I there
already?'
'No,' I cried in the voice of justified anger, 'you are not there--you
are here, at the very beginning of the mountain. Now what have you to
say for yourself?'
'Nothing,' said he, grinning and wiping his face with his sleeve. 'But
it was a good ride.'
'You have only just escaped the police and prison,' I said, still
louder. 'We were on our way to hand you over to them.'
'If I had been there to hand,' said he, winking at Vicki, to whom he had
apparently taken a fancy that was in no way encouraged.
'You had stolen our sled and our parcels,' I continued, glaring down on
him.
'Here they are. They are all here. What more do you want?' said he. 'How
she talks,' he added, turning to Vicki and thrusting out his underlip
with an expression that could only mean disgust.
'You are a very naughty little boy,' said Vicki. 'Give me the rope and
be off.'
'Give me my fifty pfennings.'
'Your fifty pfennings?' we exclaimed with one voice.
'You promised me fifty pfennings.'
'To pull the sled up to the top.'
'I am ready to do it.'
'Thank you. We have had enough. Let the rope go--'
'And get home to your mother--'
'And ask her to give you a thorough--'
'A bargain is a bargain,' said the boy, planting himself squarely in
front of me, while I adjusted the rope over my shoulders and prepared to
pull.
'Now run away, you very naughty little boy,' said I, pulling sideways to
pass him by.
He stepped aside too, and faced me again. 'You promised me fifty
pfennings,' he said.
'To pull the sled up.'
'I am willing to do it.'
'Yes, and coast down again as soon as you have got to the top. Be off
with you. We are not playing games.'
'A promise is a promise,' said the boy.
'Vicki, remove him from my path,' said I.
Vicki took him by the arm and gingerly drew him on one side, and I
started up the hill, surprised to find what hard work it was.
'I am coming too,' said the boy.
'Are you?' said Vicki.
'Yes. To fetch my fifty pfennings.'
We said no more. I couldn't, because I was so breathlessly pulling, and
Vicki marched by my side in indignant silence, with a jealous eye
divided between the parcels and the boy. He, unencumbered, thrust his
hands into his pockets and beguiled the way by shrilly whistling.
At each winding of the road when Vicki and I changed places he renewed
his offer to fulfil his first bargain; but we, more and more angry as we
grew hotter and hotter, refused with an ever increasing wrath.
'Come, come,' said he, when a very steep bit had forced me to pause and
struggle for breath.
'Come, come--' and he imitated my earlier manner--'it is quite easy.'