PETER GRIMM HAS A PLAN
"That man!" panted Kathrien. "He actually wants to buy our home--our
gardens! Oh!" slipping for a moment back into the Dutch that was ever
nearer to her heart than English, "_Stel je zoon brutali tat!_"
"Don't you worry!" consoled Peter. "He won't get a stick or a stone of
ours. Wouldn't you think that girl had been born a Grimm, Fritzy? She's
got the true spirit. No, no, dear. Of course we won't sell. Never.
Never. _Never._ Hey, Fritz?"
"Certainly not!" declared Frederik. "The idea is preposterous."
"Fritzy!" exclaimed Grimm. "Speaking of ideas, I've got one, too. We'll
print the Grimm history in our new Midsummer Almanac. That's better than
a full-page cut of any tulip that ever sprouted. Katie, go get the
Staaten Bible and read it aloud to us. We can tell, then, how it will
strike the public."
The girl went to the side table where lay the great Bible, drew a chair
up to it, seated herself, turned over the leaves until she found what
she sought, then began to read in a manner that argued many previous
renditions of the quaint old phraseology.
"In the spring of 1709 there settled on Quassic Creek, New York Colony,
Johann Grimm, aged twenty-two--husbandman and vinedresser. Also,
Johanna, his wife. To him Queen Anne furnished one square, one rule, one
compass, two whipping saws, and several small pieces----"
"You left out 'two augers,'" prompted Grimm.
"Yes, 'and two augers.' To him was born a son and----"
"See?" cried Grimm. "That was the foundation of our family and our
business here. And here we are, still. After seven generations. We'll
print it. Hey, Fritzy?"
"Certainly, sir," approved Frederik, stifling a yawn with an access of
filial enthusiasm. "By all means, we'll print it."
"And, Fritzy," continued Grimm, with heavy significance, "we're relying
on you for the next line in the book."
Frederik glanced around him. Hartmann, during the reading, had gone
from the room to get some papers he had left at the office. But Kathrien
still lingered, restoring the Bible to its wonted place.
"Oh, by the way, Oom Peter," said Frederik, lowering his voice so as not
to reach the girl's ears, "I want to speak to you about a private matter
when you can spare me a moment. When I come back from the packing house
will be time enough. I just want to give a glance to those last
shipments."
"All right, lad," agreed Grimm. "Any time."
He looked fondly after the dapper figure.
"Isn't he a splendid, handsome, hustling young chap, Katje?" he
demanded. "If only his mother had lived to see him now, wouldn't she
have been proud of him? And what a complete little family we three
make!"
"We three?" hesitated the girl.
"Surely. That's all there are of us--at present,--isn't it? I don't
think I have made a miscount."
"You don't count in James!"
"James?" he queried sharply. "Why should I?"
"Why shouldn't you?" she retorted eagerly. "Oom Peter, if you don't
mind my saying so, I think you're just a little unfair to James. He used
to have dinner with us nearly every day. Can't you make him a little
more at home--more like one of the family?"
"Why, you good, unselfish little girl!" applauded Grimm. "You think of
everybody. James is----"
Hartmann came in with several newly typed letters to be signed, and
Grimm turned to meet him with something akin to cordiality.
"James," said he, "will you have dinner with us to-day?"
"Why, yes," answered Hartmann, in pleased surprise. "Certainly. Thank
you very much. Will you glance over these and sign them?" he added,
wondering at the grateful smile Kathrien flashed at Peter as she passed
into the dining-room and left the two men alone together.
Grimm, too, wondered a little at the warmth of the girl's smile.
"She has bloomed out lately like a rose," he mused as he looked over the
letters the secretary proffered him.
"Yes, sir!" involuntarily agreed Hartmann.
"So you've noticed it, too?"
"Yes, sir," replied Hartmann stiffly as he recovered his self-control.
"_Ach!_" murmured Grimm, as he signed letter after letter and passed
them over to Hartmann for sealing. "What a grip she has taken on my
heart! A good girl, James. A good little girl. And I've sheltered her,
ever since she came to me, as I shelter my violets from the cold. That's
as it should be, hey?"
"Y-e-s,--in a way."
"What's that?" bristled Grimm, looking up at the unexpected answer to
the question that had seemed to him to require none. "What do you mean?
Oh, speak out, man!" as the secretary hesitated. "Never be afraid to
express an honest opinion."
"I mean just this. No one can shape any one else's life. All people
should be made to understand that they are--free."
"Free? Nonsense! Katje's free. Free as air. Do you mean to tell me a
girl should be more free than she is? We must think for young people who
can't think for themselves. And no girl can."
"But I believe----"
"Bah! Who cares what _you_ believe. James, I'm sometimes afraid you're
just a little bit set in your ways;--almost obstinate."
"But in this," stoutly maintained Hartmann, "I know I'm right. We can't
think for other people any more than we can eat or sleep for them. Every
happy creature is bound, by nature, to lead its own life. And, first of
all, it must be _free_!"
"James," asked Grimm in amused contempt, "where on earth do you get
these wild ideas?"
"By reading what modern thinkers write, sir."
"H'--m! I thought so. Change your mental diet. There's a set of Jost
Vanden Vandell over on the shelves. Read it. Cultivate sentiment."
Hartmann shrugged his big shoulders and went on sealing and stamping
letters. But Grimm would not let this topic drop so easily.
"Free!" he scoffed. "Maybe you've thought you noticed Katje was not
happy?"
"No, sir. I can't honestly say I have."
"I should think not!" chimed in Peter. "These are the happiest hours of
her whole life. Don't I know? Can't I tell? Don't I know her and love
her better than any one else does? She's happy. Beautifully happy. And
why shouldn't she be? She's young. She's in love. She's soon to be
married. What girl wouldn't be happy?"
There was a long pause. Peter was reading over the last letter of the
budget. Hartmann was staring at him aghast.
"Soon to be married?" breathed the secretary when he could steady his
voice. "Then--then it's all settled, sir?"
"No," replied Peter. "But it soon will be. _I'm_ going to settle it. Any
one can see how she feels toward Frederik."
"But," faltered Hartmann lamely, "isn't she very--very _young_ to be
married?"
"Not when she marries into the family. Not when _I'm_ here to watch over
her. You see--Sit down again, James. I like to talk about it to some one
who is interested. And you _are_ interested, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir," the secretary managed to say.
"Very good. Now, in following out my plans----"
"Oom Peter," called Kathrien from the dining-room, "I have your coffee
all ready. Shall I bring it in?"
"By and by, dear. By and by. I am busy now. I'll let you know. Shut the
door, won't you?"
She obeyed. And to the hungrily watching secretary it seemed as if the
door were closing, in his very face, upon the gates of Paradise.
"In following my plans," Grimm was repeating, "I've had to be pretty
shrewd and secretive. For it wouldn't do to let either of them suspect
too soon. And I flatter myself they didn't. Here's my notion. I made up
in my mind to keep Katje in the family. I'm a rich man. And so I've had
to guard against young fellows who would dangle around after a girl for
her money. I've guarded that point rather well. The whole town, for
instance, understands that Katje hasn't a penny. Doesn't it?"
"I believe so."
"I've made a number of wills. But I've destroyed them all, one after
another. And any time any of her boy friends called, I've--well, I've
had business that kept me here in the room. When she goes to a dance,
how does she go? With _me_. When she goes to the theatre, how does she
go? With _me_. When she has had candy or any other present, who gave it
to her? _I_ did. And so it has been from the first. Every
pleasure--she's had 'em all. And she had 'em all from _me_. What's the
result? She's perfectly happy and----"
"But," argued Hartmann, "did you want her to be happy simply because
_you_ were happy? Didn't you want her to be happy because _she_----?"
"So long as she is happy," retorted Grimm, "why should I care what does
it?"
"If she's happy," repeated the secretary.
"If she's happy?" mocked Grimm, his Dutch temper beginning to smoulder
behind his gentle, obstinate little eyes. "If? What do you mean? That's
the second time you've--Why do you harp on that _if_?"
His voice rose threateningly. The silver grey mane on his head bristled
like a boar's. Hartmann rose and started quietly for the door.
"Where are you going?" shouted Grimm.
"Excuse me, sir," said the secretary, continuing his doorward progress.
"Come back here!" ordered Grimm fiercely. "Come back here, I say! Sit
down! So! Now, tell me what you mean! What do you know--or _think_ you
know?"
"Mr. Grimm," answered Hartmann, cornered and desperate, "you are the
greatest living authority on tulips. You can perform miracles with them.
But you can't mate people as you graft tulips. You can't do it. More
than once I have caught Miss Katie crying. And I've----"
"Pooh!" snorted Grimm. "Caught her crying, have you? Of course. So have
I. What does that amount to? Was there ever a girl that didn't cry? All
women cry until they have something to cry about. Then they're too busy
_living_ to waste time in such luxuries as tears. Why, time and time
again, I've asked her why she was crying. And always she'd answer: 'For
no reason at all. For nothing.' And that is the answer. They love to
cry. But that's what they all cry over;--'Nothing!'"
Hartmann did not answer. Grimm's gust of anger had been blown away by
the wind of his own words. He went on in a half-amused reminiscent tone:
"James, did I ever tell you how I happened to get Katje? She was
prescribed for me by Dr. McPherson."
"Prescribed?"
"Yes, just that. As an antidote for getting to be a fussy old bachelor
with queer notions in my head. And the cure worked to perfection. When
my old friend Staats died----"
"Oh, yes, I've often heard----"
But Peter Grimm was no more to be balked in the repetition of his
favourite narrative merely because his hearer chanced to be familiar
with its every detail, than he would have been balked in hearing the
Grimm genealogy re-read for the thousandth time.
"When my old friend Staats died," he said, "McPherson brought Staats's
motherless baby over here; and he said: 'Peter, this is what you need in
the house.' Those were his very words: 'Peter, this is what you need in
the house.' And, sure enough, the very first time I carried her up those
stairs over there, all my fine, cranky, crotchety bachelor notions flew
out of my head. I knew then, in a flash, that all my knowledge and all
my queer ideas of life were just humbug! I had missed the Child in the
House. Yes,"--his voice dropped with a strain of soft regret,--"I had
missed _many_ children in the house. James, I was born in that little
room up there. The room I sleep in. And one day, please God, Katje's
children shall play in the room where I was born."
"Yes," acquiesced Hartmann as Grimm ceased,--and the secretary's voice
and words grated like a file on the old man's tender mood,--"it's a very
pretty picture--if it turns out at all the way you are trying to paint
it."
"How can it turn out wrong?" demanded Peter, in fresh irritation.
"What's the matter with the way I'm 'painting the picture'?"
"From your standpoint, as I say, it's very pretty. But it's more than a
mere question of sentiment. Her children can play anywhere."
"What? You're talking rubbish! I pick out a husband _here_--and her
children can play in China if they want to? Are you crazy? Pshaw,"
turning away in disgust, "I just waste words in opening my heart's dear
secrets to a dolt like you."
"Perhaps," assented Hartmann, quite unruffled, as he set to work
enveloping some seed catalogues that lay on the table. Grimm evidently
was about to pursue the flying foe with fresh invective. But Marta came
in from the kitchen, and, with her, Willem. At sight of the boy, Grimm's
frown softened into a smile of welcome.
"_Come seg huge moroche tegen, Mynheer Grimm_," said Marta, while
Willem, walking over to Peter, held out a thin little hand in greeting,
with the salutation:
"_Huge moroche, Mynheer Grimm._"
"_Huge moroche, Willem_," replied Grimm kindly, pressing the boy's hand.
"I'm all ready to take the flowers over to the rectory," announced
Willem, drifting into English.
"If you're tired after going to the station, Otto can take them," said
Grimm.
"Oh, I'm not a bit tired."
"And you're getting real well again?"
"_Ja, Mynheer._ The doctor says I'm all right now."
"That's good. Tell Otto to give you a _big_ armful of flowers for the
rectory. A _big_ armful, remember."
Marta's grandmotherly gaze fancied it detected a twist in the boy's
neatly tied cravat. So she swooped down upon him and bore him away to
the window seat, where her blurring eyes would have light enough to
readjust the tie to her satisfaction. Grimm, with a quick glance to make
sure they were not in earshot, tapped Hartmann on the shoulder and
whispered:
"There's a nice result of the 'freedom' you said young girls ought to
have. Marta's Anne Marie had nothing but freedom. She was the worst
spoiled child in town. Marta let her come and go as she pleased. Come
and go--Heaven knows where. And Heaven knows where the poor shamed girl
is now. Every time I look at Willem," raising his voice to normal pitch
as Marta and her grandson passed into the kitchen, "I realise how right
I've been in the way I've brought up Katje. H'--m! Want me to give Katje
a chance for more freedom, do you? Why----"
"Mr. Grimm," interrupted Hartmann, suddenly getting to his feet and
facing his employer, "I'd like to be transferred to your Florida
headquarters. At once, if it is convenient to you. I want to work out in
the open for a while."
"What?" exclaimed Grimm dumfounded. "Florida? At this time of the year?
And you were so glad to get back here to--Pshaw! You've just got a
cranky fit on you, lad. Get rid of it. Put on your overalls and go out
and potter around among those beloved vegetables of yours. Change your
ideas, I say. Change the whole lot of them. They're all wrong. You don't
know _what_ you want."
Hartmann's lips were parted for a retort. But he closed them, turned on
his heel, and left the room. Grimm shook his head as over a problem he
could not solve and did not greatly care to. Then he fell to sorting a
box full of bulbs.
But in a minute or two he was interrupted by Frederik.
"I saw Hartmann crossing the yard," said the younger man, "so I stepped
over for a little chat with you, if you've time to listen to me."
"I've always got time to listen to you, Fritzy," replied Grimm, still
busy with his bulbs. "It'll be a relief after that pig-headed James.
Lord, how I do hate an obstinate man! You said a while ago you wanted to
see me on a private matter. What was it? If it's that full-page coloured
cut of the new tulip, I may as well tell you----"
"It isn't. It's about your pig-headed friend, James."
"James? What about him?"
"Just this, Oom Peter: I think he is interested in Kathrien."
"Who? James? Bah! You're dreaming. That's just like a lover. Thinks
every one is trying to steal his sweetheart. Why, James is too much
wrapped up in his work to care about anything else. His work and his
crazy theories that he gets out of books. Interested in Kathrien? Just
to show you how foolish you are to think that, he asked me not five
minutes ago to transfer him to the Florida headquarters. And, even if he
weren't so absorbed in the business, he'd never even presume to think of
Kathrien. It's preposterous!"
"Is it?" said Frederik, quite unconvinced. "Yet I've reason to believe
he has been making love to her."
There was a quiet certainty in his nephew's voice that caught Grimm's
reluctant credence.
"We'll find out mighty soon," he declared. "Katje!"
"No, no!" expostulated Frederik. "It would be better not to bring her
into it or give her the idea that----"
"Katje!"
"Yes, Oom Peter," answered the girl, hurrying in from the dining-room in
response to the bellowed summons. "What's the matter?"
"Katje," began the old man in visible embarrassment, "has--has
James----?"
"What?" queried Kathrien, as Grimm paused and broke into a shamefaced
laugh.
"Has--has James ever shown any special interest in you? Ever made love
to you, or----?"
"Oh, Oom Peter!" expostulated Kathrien, reddening to the roots of her
hair. "Whatever gave you such an idea as that?"
"Nothing at all," he answered her. "It was just a bit of silly nonsense.
A joke. I can't help teasing you. Because you blush so prettily.
But--but _has_ he?"
"Why, of course not. I've always known James. Ever since I can remember.
He's never shown any interest in me that he ought not to,--if that's
what you mean. He's always been _very_ respectful; in a perfectly--a
perfectly friendly way."
She was scarlet and stammering. But Grimm apparently did not notice her
confusion.
"Respectful," he repeated musingly. "In a perfectly friendly way. Surely
we couldn't ask for anything more than that. Thank you, little girl.
That's all I wanted to know. Run along."
Casting a puzzled look at Grimm and then at Frederik--who, since she
first entered the room had been seated near the window, deeply absorbed
in a book,--Kathrien returned to her work in the other part of the
house.
Grimm's kind eyes had never for an instant left her troubled face, nor
had they failed to note her evident relief at escaping from the room. As
the door closed behind her, the kindly look faded from the old eyes,
leaving them hard and cold. The firm jaw set more tightly. Yet, as he
turned toward Frederik, there was no trace in his tone of anything but
pleasant banter.
"There, Fritzy!" said he. "You see James was only 'respectful to her in
a perfectly friendly way.' I hope you are quite satisfied?"
"I am," answered Frederik. "Quite. In fact I'm every bit as satisfied as
you are, uncle."
Grimm sat very still for a moment or so, staring blindly into space, his
head on his breast. Then, with a sigh, he roused himself. Reaching for
the telephone he called up his office.
"Send Mr. Hartmann over here," he commanded.
He set down the instrument and resumed his blank stare into nothingness.
Frederik was once more wholly engrossed in the book he was not reading.
Hartmann broke in upon the strained silence.
"You sent for me, sir?" he asked, his breezy bigness waking the still
room to life.
"Yes," replied Peter Grimm. "James, it has occurred to me--to ask--it
has occurred to me that--James, please tell me your reason for asking a
few minutes ago to be transferred to Florida?"
James made no immediate reply. He seemed ransacking his mind for the
right words. Grimm eyed him closely, asking with sudden directness:
"Was it on account of my little girl?"
"Yes, sir," replied Hartmann.
The secretary's confusion had fled. Calm, self-contained, flinching not
at all from the shrewd, searching eyes that were fixed on his own, he
stood awaiting the breaking of the storm.