was a great reader and a fluent penman. One time he was absent from
home, lecturing in Venice for the benefit of the United Aggregation of
Mutual Admirers, and did not return for two weeks, so that when he got
back he found the front room full of autograph albums. It is said that
he then demonstrated his great fluency and readiness as a thinker and
writer. He waded through the entire lot in two days with only two men
from West Pisa to assist him. Galileo came out of it fresh and youthful,
and all of the following night he was closeted with another inventor, a
wicker-covered microscope, and a bologna sausage. The investigations
were carried on for two weeks, after which Galileo went out to the
inebriate asylum and discovered some new styles of reptiles.
Galileo was the author of a little work called "I Discarsi e
Dimas-Trazioni Matematiche Intorus a Due Muove Scienze." It was a neat
little book, of about the medium height, and sold well on the trains,
for the Pisan newsboys on the cars were very affable, as they are now,
and when they came and leaned an armful of these books on a passenger's
leg and poured into his ear a long tale about the wonderful beauty of
the work, and then pulled in the name of the book from the rear of the
last car, where it had been hanging on behind, the passenger would most
always buy it and enough of the name to wrap it up in.
He also discovered the isochronism of the pendulum. He saw that the
pendulum at certain seasons of the year looked yellow under the eyes,
and that it drooped and did not enter into its work with the old zest.
He began to study the case with the aid of his new bamboo telescope and
a wicker-covered microscope. As a result, in ten days he had the
pendulum on its feet again.
Galileo was inclined to be liberal in his religious views, more
especially in the matter of the Scriptures, claiming that there were
passages in the Bible which did not literally mean what the translator
said they did. This was where Galileo missed it. So long as he
discovered stars and isochronisms and such things as that, he succeeded,
but when he began to fool with other people's religious beliefs he got
into trouble. He was forced to fly from Pisa, we are told by the
historian, and we are assured at the same time that Galileo, who had
always been far, far ahead of all competitors in other things, was
equally successful as a fleer.
Galileo received but sixty scudi per year as his salary while at Pisa,
and a part of that he took in town orders, worth only sixty cents on the
scudi.
WANTED--A COOK
BY ALAN DALE
There was a ring at the front door-bell. Letitia, wrought-up, nervously
clutched my arm. For a moment a sort of paralysis seized me. Then,
alertly as a young calf, I bounded toward the door, hope aroused, and
expectation keen. It was rather dark in the outside hall, and I could
not quite perceive the nature of our visitor. But I soon gladly realized
that it was something feminine, and as I held the door open, a thin,
small, soiled wisp of a woman glided in and smiled at me.
"_Talar ni svensk?_" she asked, but I had no idea what she meant. She
may have been impertinent, or even rude, or perhaps improper, but she
looked as though she might be a domestic, and I led her gently,
reverently, to Letitia in the drawing-room. I smiled back at her, in a
wild endeavor to be sympathetic. I would have anointed her, or bathed
her feet, or plied her with figs and dates, or have done anything that
any nationality craves as a welcome. As the front door closed I heaved a
sigh of relief. Here was probably the quintessence of five
advertisements. Out of the mountain crept a mouse, and quite a little
mouse, too!
"_Talar ni svensk?_" proved to be nothing more outrageous than "Do you
speak Swedish?" My astute little wife discovered this intuitively. I
left them together, my mental excuse being that women understand each
other and that a man is unnecessary, under the circumstances. I had
some misgivings on the subject of Letitia and _svensk_, but the
universal language of femininity is not without its uses. I devoutly
hoped that Letitia would be able to come to terms, as the mere idea of a
cook who couldn't excoriate us in English was, at that moment,
delightful. At the end of a quarter of an hour I strolled back to the
drawing-room. Letitia was smiling and the hand-maiden sat grim and
uninspired.
"I've engaged her, Archie," said Letitia. "She knows nothing, as she has
told me in the few words of English that she has picked up, but--you
remember what Aunt Julia said about a clean slate."
I gazed at the maiden, and reflected that while the term "slate" might
be perfectly correct, the adjective seemed a bit over-enthusiastic. She
was decidely soiled, this quintessence of a quintette of advertisements.
I said nothing, anxious not to dampen Letitia's elation.
"She has no references," continued my wife, "as she has never been out
before. She is just a simple little Stockholm girl. I like her face
immensely, Archie--immensely. She is willing to begin at once, which
shows that she is eager, and consequently likely to suit us. Wait for
me, Archie, while I take her to the kitchen. _Kom_, Gerda."
Exactly why Letitia couldn't say "Come, Gerda," seemed strange. She
probably thought that _Kom_ must be Swedish, and that it sounded well.
She certainly invented _Kom_ on the spur of the Scandinavian moment, and
I learned afterward that it was correct. My inspired Letitia! Still, in
spite of all, my opinion is that "Come, Gerda," would have done just as
well.
"Isn't it delightful?" cried Letitia, when she joined me later. "I am
really enthusiastic at the idea of a Swedish girl. I adore Scandinavia,
Archie. It always makes me think of Ibsen. Perhaps Gerda Lyberg--that's
her name--will be as interesting as Hedda Gabler, and Mrs. Alving, and
Nora, and all those lovely complex Ibsen creatures."
"They were Norwegians, dear," I said gently, anxious not to shatter
illusions; "the Ibsen plays deal with Christiania, not with Stockholm."
"But they are so near," declared Letitia, amiable and seraphic once
more. "Somehow or other, I invariably mix up Norway and Sweden and
Denmark. I know I shall always look upon Gerda as an Ibsen girl, who has
come here to 'live her life,' or 'work out her inheritance.' Perhaps,
dear, she has some interesting internal disease, or a maggoty brain.
Don't you think, Archie, that the Ibsen inheritances are always most
fascinating? A bit morbid, but surely fascinating."
"I prefer a healthy cook, Letitia," I said meditatively, "somebody
willing to interest herself in our inheritance, rather than in her own."
"I don't mind what you say now," she pouted, "I am not to be put down by
clamor. We really have a cook at last, and I feel more lenient toward
you, Archie. Of course I was only joking when I suggested the Ibsen
diseases. Gerda Lyberg may have inherited from her ancestors something
quite nice and attractive."
"Then you mustn't look upon her as Ibsen, Letitia," I protested. "The
Ibsen people never inherit nice things. Their ancestors always bequeath
nasty ones. That is where their consistency comes in. They are
receptacles for horrors. Personally, if you'll excuse my flippancy, I
prefer Norwegian anchovies to Norwegian heroines. It is a mere matter of
opinion."
"I'm ashamed of you," retorted Letitia defiantly. "You talk like some of
the wretchedly frivolous criticisms, so called, that men like Acton
Davies and Alan Dale inflict upon the long-suffering public. They never
amuse me. Ibsen may make his heroines the recipients of ugly legacies,
but he has never yet cursed them with the odious incubus known as 'a
sense of humor.' The people with a sense of humor have something in
their brains worse than maggots. We'll drop the subject, Archie. I'm
going to learn Swedish. Before Gerda Lyberg has been with us a month I
intend to be able to talk fluently. It will be most useful. Next time we
go to Europe we'll take in Sweden, and I'll do the piloting. I am going
to buy some Swedish books, and study. Won't it be jolly? And just think
how melancholy we were this morning, you and I, looking out of that
window, and trying to materialize cooks. Wasn't it funny, Archie? What
amusing experiences we shall be able to chronicle, later on!"
Letitia babbled on like half a dozen brooks, and thinking up a gentle
parody, in the shape of, "cooks may come, and men may go," I decided to
leave my household gods for the bread-earning contest down-town. I could
not feel quite as sanguine as Letitia, who seemed to have forgotten the
dismal results of the advertisement--just one little puny Swedish
result. I should have preferred to make a choice. Letitia was as pleased
with Gerda Lyberg as though she had been a selection instead of a
that-or-nothing.
If somebody had dramatized Gerda Lyberg's initial dinner, it would
probably have been considered exceedingly droll. As a serious episode,
however, its humor, to my mind, lacked spontaneity. Letitia had asked
her to cook us a little Swedish meal, so that we could get some idea of
Stockholm life, in which, for some reason or other, we were supposed to
be deeply interested. Unfortunately I was extremely hungry, and had
carefully avoided luncheon in order to give my appetite a chance. We
sat down to a huge bowl of cold, greasy soup, in which enormous lumps of
meat swam, as though for their life, awaiting rescue at the prongs of a
fork. In addition to this epicurean dish was a teeming plate of
water-soaked potatoes, delicately boiled. That was all. Letitia said
that it was Swedish, and the most annoying part of the entertainment was
that I was alone in my critical disapprobation. Letitia was so engrossed
with a little Swedish conversation book that she brought to table that
she forgot the mere material question of food--forgot everything but the
horrible jargon she was studying, and the soiled, wisp-like maiden, who
looked more unlike a clean slate than ever.
"What shall I say to her, Archie?" asked Letitia, turning over the pages
of her book, as I tried to rescue a block of meat from the cold fat in
which it lurked. "Here is a chapter on dinner. 'I am very hungry,' '_Jag
är myckel hungrig_.' Rather pretty, isn't it? Hark at this: '_Kypare gif
mig matsedeln och vinlistan._' That means: 'Waiter, give me the bill of
fare, and the list of wines.'"
"Don't," I cried; "don't. This woman doesn't know what dining means.
Look out a chapter on feeding."
Letitia was perfectly unruffled. She paid no attention to me whatsoever.
She was fascinated with the slovenly girl, who stood around and gaped at
her Swedish.
"Gerda," said Letitia, with her eyes on the book, "_Gif mir apven senap
och nägra potäter_." And then, as Miss Lyberg dived for the drowned
potatoes, Letitia exclaimed in an ecstasy of joy, "She understands,
Archie, she understands. I feel I am going to be a great success. _Jag
tackar_, Gerda. That means 'I thank you,' _Jag tackar_. See if you can
say it, Archie. Just try, dear, to oblige me. _Jag tackar._ Now, that's
a good boy, _jag tackar_."
"I won't," I declared spitefully. "No _jag tackar_ing for a parody like
this, Letitia. You don't seem to realize that I'm hungry. Honestly, I
prefer a delicatessen dinner to this."
"'Pray, give me a piece of venison,'" read Letitia, absolutely
disregarding my mood. "'_Var god och gif mig ett stycke vildt._' It is
almost intelligible, isn't it, dear? '_Ni äter icke_': you do not eat."
"I can't," I asserted mournfully, anxious to gain Letitia's sympathy.
It was not forthcoming. Letitia's eyes were fastened on Gerda, and I
could not help noting on the woman's face an expression of scorn. I felt
certain of it. She appeared to regard my wife as a sort of irresponsible
freak, and I was vexed to think that Letitia should make such an
exhibition of herself, and countenance the alleged meal that was set
before us.
"'I have really dined very well,'" she continued joyously. "_Jag har
verkligen atit mycket bra._'"
"If you are quite sure that she doesn't understand English, Letitia," I
said viciously, "I'll say to you that this is a kind of joke I don't
appreciate. I won't keep such a woman in the house. Let us put on our
things and go out and have dinner. Better late than never."
Letitia was turning over the pages of her book, quite lost to her
surroundings. As I concluded my remarks she looked up and exclaimed,
"How very funny, Archie. Just as you said 'Better late than never,' I
came across that very phrase in the list of Swedish proverbs. It must be
telepathy, dear. 'Better late than never,' '_Battre sent än aldrig_.'
What were you saying on the subject, dear? Will you repeat it? And do
try it in Swedish. Say '_Battre sent än aldrig_.'"
"Letitia," I shot forth in a fury, "I'm not in the humor for this sort
of thing. I think this dinner and this woman are rotten. See if you can
find the word rotten in Swedish."
"I am surprised at you," Letitia declared glacially, roused from her
book by my heroic though unparliamentary language. "Your expressions are
neither English nor Swedish. Please don't use such gutter-words before a
servant, to say nothing of your own wife."
"But she doesn't understand," I protested, glancing at Miss Lyberg. I
could have sworn that I detected a gleam in the woman's eyes and that
the sphinx-like attitude of dull incomprehensibility suggested a
strenuous effort. "She doesn't understand anything. She doesn't want to
understand."
"In a week from now," said Letitia, "she will understand everything
perfectly, for I shall be able to talk with her. Oh, Archie, do be
agreeable. Can't you see that I am having great fun? Don't be such a
greedy boy. If you could only enter into the spirit of the thing, you
wouldn't be so oppressed by the food question. Oh, dear! How important
it does seem to be to men. Gerda, _hur gammal är ni_?"
The maiden sullenly left the room, and I felt convinced that Letitia had
Swedishly asked her to do so. I was wrong. "_Hur gammal är ni_," Letitia
explained, simply meant, "How old are you?"
"She evidently didn't want to tell me," was my wife's comment, as we
went to the drawing-room. "I imagine, dear, that she doesn't quite like
the idea of my ferreting out Swedish so persistently. But I intend to
persevere. The worst of conversation books is that one acquires a
language in such a parroty way. Now, in my book, the only answer to the
question 'How old are you?' is, 'I was born on the tenth of August,
1852.' For the life of me, I couldn't vary that, and it would be most
embarrassing. It would make me fifty-two. If any one asked me in Swedish
how old I was, I should _have_ to be fifty-two!"
"When I think of my five advertisements," I said lugubriously, as I
threw myself into an arm-chair, fatigued at my efforts to discover
dinner, "when I remember our expectation, and the pleasant anticipations
of to-day, I feel very bitter, Letitia. Just to think that from it all
nothing has resulted but that beastly mummy, that atrocious ossified
thing."
"Archie, Archie!" said my wife warningly; "please be calm. Perhaps I was
too engrossed with my studies to note the deficiencies of dinner. But do
remember that I pleaded with her for a Swedish meal. The poor thing did
what I asked her to do. Our dinner was evidently Swedish. It was not her
fault that I asked for it. To-morrow, dear, it shall be different. We
had better stick to the American régime. It is more satisfactory to you.
At any rate, we have somebody in the house, and if our five
advertisements had brought forth five hundred applicants we should only
have kept one. So don't torture yourself, Archie. Try and imagine that
we _had_ five hundred applicants, and that we selected Gerda Lyberg."
"I can't, Letitia," I said sulkily, and I heaved a heavy sigh.
"Come," she said soothingly, "come and study Swedish with me. It will be
most useful for your _Lives of Great Men_. You can read up the Swedes in
the original. I'll entertain you with this book, and you'll forget all
about Mrs. Potz--I mean Gerda Lyberg. By-the-by, Archie, she doesn't
remind me so much of Hedda Gabler. I don't fancy that she is very
subtile."
"You, Letitia," I retorted, "remind me of Mrs. Nickleby. You ramble on
so."
Letitia looked offended. She always declared that Dickens "got on her
nerves." She was one of the new-fashioned readers who have learned to
despise Dickens. Personally, I regretted only his nauseating sense of
humor. Letitia placed a cushion behind my head, smoothed my forehead,
kissed me, made her peace, and settled down by my side. Lack of
nourishment made me drowsy, and Letitia's babblings sounded vague and
muffled.
"It is a most inclusive little book," she said, "and if I can succeed in
memorizing it all I shall be quite at home with the language. In fact,
dear, I think I shall always keep Swedish cooks. Hark at this: 'If the
wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours.' '_Om
vinden är god, sa äro vi pa pyrtio timmar i Goteborg._' I think it is
sweetly pretty. 'You are seasick.' 'Steward, bring me a glass of brandy
and water.' 'We are now entering the harbor.' 'We are now anchoring.'
'Your passports, gentlemen.'"
A comfortable lethargy was stealing o'er me. Letitia took a pencil and
paper, and made notes as she plied the book. "A chapter on 'seeing a
town' is most interesting, Archie. Of course, it must be a Swedish town.
'Do you know the two private galleries of Mr. Smith, the merchant, and
Mr. Muller, the chancellor?' 'To-morrow morning I wish to see all the
public buildings and statues.' '_Statyerna_' is Swedish for statues,
Archie. Are you listening, dear? 'We will visit the Church of the Holy
Ghost, at two, then we will make an excursion on Lake Mälan and see the
fortress of Vaxholm.' It _is_ a charming little book. Don't you think
that it is a great improvement on the old Ollendorff system? I don't
find nonsensical sentences like 'The hat of my aunt's sister is blue,
but the nose of my brother-in-law's sister-in-law is red.'"
I rose and stretched myself. Letitia was still plunged in the
irritating guide to Sweden, where I vowed I would never go. Nothing on
earth should ever induce me to visit Sweden. If it came to a choice
between Hoboken and Stockholm, I mentally determined to select the
former. As I paced the room I heard a curious splashing noise in the
kitchen. Letitia's studies must have dulled her ears. She was evidently
too deeply engrossed.
I strolled nonchalantly into the hall, and proceeded deliberately toward
the kitchen. The thick carpet deadened my footsteps. The splashing noise
grew louder. The kitchen door was closed. I gently opened it. As I did
so a wild scream rent the air. There stood Gerda Lyberg in--in--my pen
declines to write it--a simple unsophisticated birthday dress, taking an
ingenuous reluctant bath in the "stationary tubs," with the plates, and
dishes, and dinner things grouped artistically around her!
The instant she saw me she modestly seized a dish-towel and shouted at
the top of her voice. The kitchen was filled with the steam from the hot
water. 'Venus arising' looked nebulous, and mystic. I beat a hasty
retreat, aghast at the revelation, and almost fell against Letitia, who,
dropping her conversation book, came to see what had happened.
"She's bathing!" I gasped, "in the kitchen--among the plates--near the
soup--"
"Never!" cried Letitia. Then, melodramatically: "Let me pass. Stand
aside, Archie. I'll go and see. Perhaps--perhaps--you had better come
with me."
"Letitia," I gurgled, "I'm shocked! She has nothing on but a
dish-towel."
Letitia paused irresolutely for a second, and going into the kitchen
shut the door. The splashing noise ceased. I heard the sound of voices,
or rather of a voice--Letitia's! Evidently she had forgotten Swedish,
and such remarks as "If the wind be favorable, we shall be at
Gothenburg in forty hours." I listened attentively, and could not even
hear her say "We will visit the Church of the Holy Ghost at two." It is
strange how the stress of circumstances alters the complexion of a
conversation book! All the evening she had studied Swedish, and yet
suddenly confronted by a Swedish lady bathing in our kitchen,
dish-toweled but unashamed, all she could find to say was "How
disgusting!" and "How disgraceful!" in English!
"You see," said Letitia, when she emerged, "she is just a simple peasant
girl, and only needs to be told. It is very horrid, of course."
"And unappetizing!" I chimed in.
"Of course--certainly unappetizing. I couldn't think of anything Swedish
to say, but I said several things in English. She was dreadfully sorry
that you had seen her, and never contemplated such a possibility. After
all, Archie, bathing is not a crime."
"And we were hunting for a clean slate," I suggested satirically. "Do
you think, Letitia, that she also takes a cold bath in the morning,
among the bacon and eggs, and things?"
"That is enough," said Letitia sternly. "The episode need not serve as
an excuse for indelicacy."
It was with the advent of Gerda Lyberg that we became absolutely
certain, beyond the peradventure of any doubt, that there was such a
thing as the servant question. The knowledge had been gradually wafted
in upon us, but it was not until the lady from Stockholm had
definitively planted herself in our midst that we admitted to ourselves
openly, unblushingly, that the problem existed. Gerda blazoned forth the
enigma in all its force and defiance.
The remarkable thing about our latest acquisition was the singularly
blank state of her gastronomic mind. There was nothing that she knew.
Most women, and a great many men, intuitively recognize the physical
fact that water, at a certain temperature, boils. Miss Lyberg,
apparently seeking to earn her living in the kitchen, had no certain
views as to when the boiling point was reached. Rumors seemed vaguely to
have reached her that things called eggs dropped into water would, in
the course of time--any time, and generally less than a week--become
eatable. Letitia bought a little egg-boiler for her--one of those
antique arrangements in which the sands of time play to the soft-boiled
egg. The maiden promptly boiled it with the eggs, and undoubtedly
thought that the hen, in a moment of perturbation, or aberration, had
laid it. I say "thought" because it is the only term I can use. It is,
perhaps, inappropriate in connection with Gerda.
Potatoes, subjected to the action of hot water, grow soft. She was
certain of that. Whether she tested them with the poker, or with her
hands or feet, we never knew. I inclined to the last suggestion. The
situation was quite marvelous. Here was an alleged worker, in a
particular field, asking the wages of skilled labor, and densely
ignorant of every detail connected with her task. It seemed unique.
Carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, seamstresses, dressmakers,
laundresses--all the sowers and reapers in the little garden of our
daily needs, were forced by the inexorable law of competition to possess
some inkling of the significance of their undertakings. With the cook it
was different. She could step jubilantly into any kitchen without the
slightest idea of what she was expected to do there. If she knew that
water was wet and that fire was hot, she felt amply primed to demand a
salary.
Impelled by her craving for Swedish literature, Letitia struggled with
Miss Lyberg. Compared with the Swede, my exquisitely ignorant wife was
a culinary queen. She was an epicurean caterer. Letitia's slate-pencil
coffee was ambrosia for the gods, sweetest nectar, by the side of the
dishwater that cook prepared. I began to feel quite proud of her. She
grew to be an adept in the art of boiling water. If we could have lived
on that fluid, everything would have moved clockworkily.
"I've discovered one thing," said Letitia on the evening of the third
day. "The girl is just a peasant, probably a worker in the fields. That
is why she is so ignorant."
I thought this reasoning foolish. "Even peasants eat, my dear," I
muttered. "She must have seen somebody cook something. Field-workers
have good appetites. If this woman ever ate, what did she eat and why
can't we have the same? We have asked her for no luxuries. We have
arrived at the stage, my poor girl, when all we need is, prosaically, to
'fill up.' You have given her opportunities to offer us samples of
peasant food. The result has been _nil_."