LXII

Galgenberg, Dec. 19th.

Oh, I can do nothing with you. You are bent, I'm afraid, on losing your

friend. Don't write me such letters--don't, don't, don't! My heart sinks

when I see you deliberately setting about strangling our friendship. Am

I to lose it then, that too? Your last letters are like bad dreams, so

strange and unreasonable, so without the least order or self-control. I

read them with my fingers in my ears,--an instinctive foolish movement

of protection against words I do not want to hear. Dear friend, do not

take your friendship from me. Give yourself a shake; come out from those

vain imaginings your soul has gone to dwell among. What shall I talk to

you about this bright winter's morning? Yes, I will write you longer

letters; you needn't beg so hard, as though the stars couldn't get along

in their courses if I didn't. See, I am willing to do anything to keep

my friend. You are my only one, the only person in the world to whom I

tell the silly thoughts that come into my head and so get rid of them.

You listen, and you are the only person in the world who does. You help

me, and I in my turn want to be allowed to go on helping you. Do not put

an end to what is precious,--believe me it will grow more and more

precious with years. Do not, in the heat and impatience of youth, kill

the poor goose who, if left alone, will lay the most beautiful golden

eggs. What shall I talk to you about to turn your attention somewhere

else, somewhere far removed from that unhappy bird? Shall I tell you

about Papa's book, finally refused by every single publisher, come back

battered and draggled to be galvanized by me into fresh life in an

English translation? Shall I tell you how I sit for three hours daily

doing it, pen in hand, ink on fingers, hair pushed back from an anxious

brow, Papa hovering behind with a dictionary in which, full of distrust,

he searches as I write to see if it contains the words I have used?

Shall I tell you about Joey, whose first disgust at finding himself once

more with us has given place by degrees that grow visibly wider to a

rollicking enjoyment. Less and less does he come up here. More and more

does he stay down there. He hurries through his lessons with a speed

that leaves Papa speechless, and is off and hauling the sled up past our

gate with Vicki walking demurely beside him and is whizzing down again

past our gate with Vicki sitting demurely in front of him before Papa is

well through the list of adjectives he applies to him once at least

every day. I never see the sled now nearer than in the distance. Vicki

wears her stiff shirts again, and her neat ties again, and the sporting

belt that makes her waist look so very trim and tiny. If anything she is

more aggressively starched and boyish than before. Her collars seem to

grow higher and cleaner each time I see her. Her hat is tilted further

forward. Her short skirts show the neatest little boots. She is

extraordinarily demure. She never cries. Joey reads _Samson Agonistes_

with us, and points out the jokes to Vicki. Vicki says why did I never

tell her it was so funny? I stare first at one and then at the other,

and feel a hundred years old.

'I say,' said Joey, coming into the kitchen just now.

'Well, what?' said I.

'I'm going to Berlin for a day.'

'Are you indeed?'

'Tell the old man, will you?'

'Tell the who?'

'The old man. I shan't be here for the lesson to-morrow, thank the Lord.

I'm off by the first train.'

'Indeed,' said I.

There was a silence, during which Joey fidgeted about among the culinary

objects scattered around him. I went on peeling apples. When he had

fidgeted as much as he wanted to be lit a cigarette.

'No,' said I. 'Not in kitchens. A highly improper thing to do.'

He threw it into the dustbin. 'I say,' he said again.

'Well, what?' said I again.

'What do you think--what do you think--' He paused. I waited. As he

didn't go on I thought he had done. 'What do I think?' I said. 'You'd be

staggered if I told you, it's such a lot, and it's so terrific.'

'What do you think,' repeated Joey, taking no heed of me, but, with his

hands in his pockets, kicking a fallen apple aimlessly about on the

floor, 'what do you think the little girl'd like for Christmas and that,

don't you know?'

I stopped peeling and gazed at him, knife and apple suspended in

mid-air. 'The little girl?' I inquired. 'Do you mean Johanna?'

Joey stared. Then he grinned at me monstrously. 'You bet,' was his

cryptic reply.

'What am I to bet?' I asked patiently.

Joey gave the fallen apple a kick. Looking down I observed that it was

the biggest and the best, and stooped to rescue it. 'It's not pretty,'

said I, rebuking him, 'to kick even an apple when it's down.'

'Oh, I say,' said Joey impatiently, 'do be sensible. There never was any

gettin' much sense out of you I remember. And you're only pretendin'.

You know I mean Vicki.'

'Vicki?'

He had the grace to blush. 'Well, Fräulein What's her name. You can't

expect any one decent to get the hang of these names of yours. They

ain't got any hang, so how's one to get it? What'd she like for

Christmas? Don't you all kick up a mighty fuss here over Christmas?

Trees, and presents, and that? Plummier plum-puddings than we have, and

mincier mince-pies, what?'

'If you think you will get even one plum-pudding or mince-pie,' said I,

thoughtfully peeling, 'you are gravely mistaken. The national dish is

carp boiled in beer.'

Joey looked really revolted. 'What?' he cried, not liking to credit his

senses.

'Carp boiled in beer,' I repeated distinctly. 'It is what I'm going to

give you on Christmas Day.'

'No you're not,' he said hastily.

'Yes I am,' I insisted. 'And before it and after it you will be

required, in accordance with German custom, to sing chorales.'

'I'd like to see myself doin' it. You'll have to sing 'em alone. I'm

invited to feed down there.'

And he jerked his head toward that portion of the kitchen wall beyond

which, if you passed through it and the intervening coal-hole and garden

and orchard, you would come to the dwelling of the Lindebergs.

'Oh,' said I; and looked at him thoughtfully.

'Yes,' said he, trying to meet my look with an equal calm, but

conspicuously failing. 'That bein' so,' he went on hurriedly, 'and my

droppin', so to speak, into the middle of somebody's Christmas tree and

that, it seems to me only decent to give the little girl somethin'. What

shall I get her? Somethin' to put on, I suppose. A brooch, or a pin,

what?'

'Or a ring,' said I, thoughtfully peeling.

'A ring? What, can one--oh I say, don't let's waste time rottin'--'

And glancing up through cautious eyelashes I saw he was very red.

'It'd be easy enough if it was you,' he said revengefully.

'What would?'

'Hittin' on what you'd like.'

'Would it?'

'All you'd want to do the trick would be a dictionary.'

'Now Mr. Collins that's unkind,' said I, laying down my knife.

He began to grin again. 'It's true,' he insisted.

'It suggests such an immeasurable stuffiness,' I complained.

'It isn't my fault,' said he grinning.

'But perhaps I deserve it because I mentioned a ring. Let me tell you,

as man to man, that you must buy no brooches for Vicki.'

'A pin, then?'

'No pins.'

'A necklace, then?'

'Nothing of the sort. What would her parents say? Give her chocolates, a

bunch of roses, perhaps a book--but nothing more. If you do you'll get

into a nice scrape.'

Joey looked at me. 'What sort of scrape?' he asked curiously.

'Gracious heavens, don't you see? Are you such a supreme goose? My poor

young man, the parents would immediately ask you your intentions.'

'Oh would they,' said Joey, in his turn becoming thoughtful; and after a

moment he said again, 'Oh would they.'

'It's as certain as anything I know,' said I.

'Oh is it,' said Joey, still thoughtful.

'It's a catastrophe young men very properly dread,' said I.

'Oh do they,' said Joey, sunk in thought.

'Well, if you're not listening--' And I shrugged my shoulders, and went

on with my peeling.

He pulled his cap out of the pocket into which it had been stuffed, and

began to put it on, tugging it first over one ear and then over the

other in a deep abstraction.

'You're in my kitchen,' I observed.

'Sorry,' he said, snatching it off. 'I forgot. You always make me feel

as if I were out of doors.'

'How very odd,' said I, interested and slightly flattered.

'Ain't it. East wind, you know--decidedly breezy, not to say nippin'.

Well, I must be goin'.'

'I think so too,' said I coldly.

'Don't be dull while I'm away,' said Joey; and departed with a nod.