At Vicki's gate he was still with us. 'I will see you safely home,'
Vicki said to me when we got there.
'This where you live?' inquired the boy, peeping through the bars of the
gate with cheerful interest. 'Nice little house.'
We were silent.
'I will see her home,' he said to Vicki, 'if you don't want to. But she
can surely take care of herself, a great girl like that?'
We were silent.
At my gate he was still with us. 'This where she lives?' he asked Vicki,
again peeping through the bars with cheerful interest. 'Funny little
house.'
We were silent. In silence we opened the gate and dragged the sled in.
He came too.
'You cannot come in here,' said Vicki. 'This is private property.'
'I only wish to fetch my fifty pfennings,' said he. 'It will save you
trouble if I come to the door.'
We went in in silence, and together carried the sled inside, a thing we
had not yet done, and took it with immense exertions into the parlor,
and put it under the table, and tied it by each of its four corners to
each of the table's four legs.
'There,' said Vicki, scrambling to her feet again and looking at her
knots with satisfaction, 'that's safe if anything is.'
I went with her to the door. The boy was still there, cap in hand, very
polite, very patient. 'And my fifty pfennings?' he asked pleasantly.
I cannot explain what we did next. I pulled out my purse and paid him,
which was surprising enough, but Vicki, to whom fifty pfennings are also
precious, pulled out hers too and gave him fifty on her own account. I
am quite unable to explain either her action or mine. The boy made us
each the politest bow, his cap sweeping the snow. 'She,' he said to
Vicki, jerking his head my way, 'may think she is the prettiest, but you
are certainly the best.'
And he left us to settle it between us, and walked away shrilly
whistling.
And I am so tired that my very pen has begun to ache, so good-by.