Max did sleep on it but morning brought no solution for the riddle. While
he dressed he pondered it, stopping to study the stately constitution and
by-laws submitted with the invitation. From them he gathered a greater
respect for the organization than its frivolous name had given him. But
he got no further toward discovering the reason for his invitation, and
ran downstairs, a little late, to find Mrs. Schmitz unusually excited.
She had been drawn on jury duty, her first experience, for she had not
lived in Washington in the earlier territorial days when women were
citizens.
“That cook comes not before next week, and now they call me on jury
already. That marmalade will spoil surely.”
“Get excused,” advised Max.
“To make marmalade?” Mrs. Schmitz turned swiftly to him, speaking
sternly. “In Germany one man does everything--one man and a few nobility.
In America all men of the nation have each work to do; and here in
Washington also women. I do not shirk.”
“I see.”
“We’ll take good care of things,” Sydney assured her; “it’s fine that
it’s vacation. Tell us what to do.”
“Goot boy, Seedney! What to do you ever ask. You also so ask, Max?”
“Surely.”
Sydney noticed that Max’s face had no cloud on it. He did not show
resentment of her trust in Sydney, nor of his superior knowledge of
commonplace duties.
“There iss not so much to do in the house--enough to eat--anyways
Seedney, you are a goot cook. Ant the nursery--you know already what
goes on there. Look a leetle out for Blitzen, ant--that iss all I guess.”
“The marmalade?” Sydney inquired.
“Oh, that spoils anyhow I guess. No matter. Mebbe the trials will be over
pretty quick; then I’ll make it.”
She was as brisk and prompt about civic duty as about her own; and when
the boys insisted she should do no housework that morning, she was ready
before starting time, looking quite imposing in her “going out” clothes.
While she sat waiting, Sydney ran out on some errand to the nursery, and
Max, still puzzling over the invitation he had received, seized this
opportunity to talk it over with her.
She inquired the object of the club. The elaborate constitution couched
in flowing, dignified English was quite impressive. Max began to read it
to her, but she stopped him.
“I cannot understand that language. What kind of boys belong?”
“Some of the most influential boys in school, Sydney says.”
“Influential?” She paused a moment as if studying the word. “That may be
goot or bad. Not bad I guess, or teachers would stop it.”
It was time to start and they walked across to the car line, passing on
the way a row of splendid maples growing from the ground about three feet
above the sidewalk. The bank had recently been cut down sheer and many
roots were exposed.
“Look here already!” Mrs. Schmitz indicated a slender root of uniform
size running laterally, entirely in view. “What do you see?”
“Jolly! It runs from a down-bearing root of this tree right to a similar
root of that other tree. And here’s another!” he called, walking rapidly
ahead of her. “I didn’t know things like that happened.”
“Look close. You see many more leetle roots all going same way.”
“How strange!”
“Not so. You have not studied; that’s all. Under ground are many strange
things. From air, water, ground, and sun comes all life; but first
everything begins in the ground--in the dark.”
Max was awed by her seriousness. “Everything?” he said.
“Yes.” She picked up a little twig and began to stir the loose earth
absent-mindedly. “Now--this time of year are great things going on down
there--in the dark. A great fight for life. All the leetle seeds hear the
spring birds sing ant they feel the warm sun coming; ant something tells
them, ‘Come up! Come up! Come quick before it iss too late.’”
“Too late?” Max repeated when she dropped into silence.
“There iss so much for seeds to do in one summer, to feed themself with
air, sun, water, that makes them to grow; to make flower ant seed; ant
to put in every leetle seed also enough to last it through the long
winter.”
It seemed strange to Max that she should speak of a mere seed as if it
were sentient.
“So many seeds, so many new leetle roots growing, sometimes so leetle
rain ant so hard the ground--it iss all one big fight, pushings,
pullings, to see who first gets to the top, to the light.”
“I don’t see how they know when to start--the little seeds shut up in the
dark down there.”
“Their soul tells them.”
“Soul?” Max asked, startled.
“Yes. In all things, behind everything living iss soul.”
“That seems queer. I never thought a plant could have a soul.”
“Mebbe you call it intelligence. Names make leetle difference. What do
you think? Look at mine lily. It iss in November just a dry brown thing
like onions. I put it in the ground. It grows, blooms with a beautiful
flower; then its leafs die, its flower, all you see. In August it iss
again one dry brown thing like onions. But inside iss all the bloom, all
the green leafs, all the lovely color, sweet fragrance, wrapped in those
leetle silk folds. It has drawn all back again into itself. I throw it in
mine cellar. It has no water, no light, nothing; but next year if I put
it once again into the ground it blooms. What do you call that?”
“I--I don’t know. It’s wonderful!”
“Also grass thinks.”
“Thinks! Grass?”
They were passing a lawn that needed mowing. “See that clover? In May it
blooms. Every week after that this man mows his lawn, ant every week he
cuts off leetle clover blossoms mebbe two inches high. But there on the
vacant lot just beside you see other clover growing?”
“Yes.”
“That also gets plenty water from the sprinkler; but that clover takes
its time. That clover grows mebbe one foot high before it blooms. What do
you call that? That grass thinks mebbe? _Nicht wahr?_”
Max looked his astonishment. “Why is it so?”
“Why? It iss the law of life. All things before they die give back to the
world children. If the clover in the lawn hurries not it never blooms;
never puts out its flower. The clover on the side needs not to hurry.”
“I shall never look at clover again without thinking of all this.”
“Soul, law, intelligence, God--I think all those names mean pretty near
the same, and Heavenly Father iss best of all. Plant, bird, man,--all are
in God’s hant. All are brothers. One plant likes one thing. Another plant
likes it not, but something else. Each helps all.”
“Yes, I begin to see,” Max said, his face shining with understanding.
“Those maple trees mit big tops--alone mit a big wind they fall mebbe;
tied together mit many roots they stand.”
“And for such needs are clubs, societies, and----”
“That iss right! How quick you see, Max!”
The car interrupted them, and she left him, waving her smart umbrella
in good-by. From her face beamed a love for him, for all humanity, that
as yet he could but half appreciate; yet her words had made a deep
impression.
When he returned to the house he found Sydney washing the dishes. “Here!
Let me bear a hand.” He caught the towel and began to dry the plates.
Sydney was silent, for a scheme was growing, the making of the marmalade.
“Why not?” he asked when Max objected that they might spoil it. “The
stuff will spoil anyway; if we can save it, won’t it be so much to the
good?”
“Yes. But can we do it right?”
“No matter. She makes the best marmalade in town, the neighbors say. They
know, for she gives away a lot. She’s started this right; if we finish it
up half right it will do for us boobs to eat on bread and butter, won’t
it?”
“Surely, and be much better than we deserve probably.”
The dishes finished, Sydney found Mrs. Schmitz’s recipe book and the two
studied the complicated directions. It was a three days’ process, and
they could not make up their minds whether this was the second or third
day, so little idea had they of the “looks of the mess.” But they acted
on the latter inference.
“Let’s do it today and get it over with,” Sydney, the prompt, suggested.
“Very well. Tell me what to do.”
Not without a little show of importance Sydney bustled about, giving
orders, looking up the great preserving kettle, and searching for such
materials as he judged were not already put together.
Max minded this not in the least. He had the soul of the true artist,
who is always too deeply engrossed in his work to notice what others
are doing, or saying of him. Over and over he read the recipe,
thinking closely, and once or twice correcting Sydney himself in his
interpretation.
It was great fun till the long process of boiling and simmering came,
and the kitchen grew hot, as, boy fashion, they stuffed the range with
kindling and coal, and in consequence had to cook their sweet stuff on
the very rear edge of the range.
But Sydney found Max a good partner in distress. He did even more than
his share of the watching and stirring, declaring it was the proper work
of the second cook.
“How is it, Max, that whatever you take up, you do it so perfectly, so
successfully at the very first? I must always try and try again.”
“I don’t know. I like to undertake new things. I put my whole mind on
what I do.”
“So do I. But it’s something more than that. Look at the way you have
taken to the work in the hothouses. Only yesterday Mrs. Schmitz said
you learned wonderfully fast; as if you knew long ago, and had only to
‘remember it as from sleep waking.’”
“How could I help learning about plants with her to teach me? She makes
them so interesting. She loves them as if they were children, and while
I’m with her I feel the same. If it wasn’t for music I could be willing
to work always with them.”
“Yet you couldn’t get work last winter. That seems strange.”
Max thought a moment before replying. “I don’t understand it myself.
The first work I had after I arrived in the City of Green Hills was
collecting for a doctor. I was too careless--no, I didn’t know enough
to hide the money; and the third day a big fellow caught me in a lonely
place and robbed me. The doctor wouldn’t believe me, and so I lost that
job.”
“Gee! That was rough.”
“The next thing was being bell boy at a hotel. That lasted two months,
but----say, Sydney, I just hated that work. At first it made me feel mean
to take tips; then I got to looking for ’em, and I--left.”
Sydney scanned the noncommittal face during the pause that followed.
“When I remembered my mother I--I couldn’t go on there. I was out of work
a long time after that, and on the street two days and nights before
I went--where I had declared I would not go--to the brewery to wash
bottles.” He turned away with a motion of disgust. “Gee! The odor of that
stale beer! I smell it yet.”
“But why didn’t you try for a chance in an orchestra?”
Max smiled. “With no proper clothes, no violin, and not a friend among
people that care for music? There was no Mrs. Schmitz standing round,
ready to hand me an old Cremona.”
Both were silent a moment. “But even bottle washers get too plenty in the
winter when work is slack; and after I began to cough so hard the men
were afraid of tuberculosis and wouldn’t work with me and I had to go. I
couldn’t seem to impress any one with my superior skill as bottle washer
enough to command a promotion.” He gave Sydney a crooked smile that was
not all mirth.
“That’s because it was work that needed no thought.”
“That isn’t all. There was no one to take an interest in me, to show me
what to do, and how, as Mrs. Schmitz does. And more than that, no one had
the kind of work suited to me.”
“I reckon that has the most to do with it,” Sydney acquiesced.
“Now this playing at the moving picture houses--that’s work I ought to do
well. My father paid for my lessons for years--he hated to do it, for he
didn’t want me to be a musician, but mother insisted. Mrs. Schmitz has
helped me to make something from all that training.”
“A good friend does help a lot, doesn’t he?”
“Wonderfully. A little more than six weeks altogether I’ve played,
most of the time evenings only, and I’ve made enough to buy all the
clothes I need, to pay Mrs. Schmitz a little for my first month’s board
and nursing, all she’ll let me pay. I’m in school, I’m learning a
business--no matter if it is slowly--I have good health, am invited to
join the Fussers, and--have a chance to play with Miss Carter. Gee! If
any one had shown me all those pictures the night before I broke in here
I’d have thought he was dippy.” There was a happy, boyish lilt in his
tones, and he began to whistle as he stirred the steaming fruit.
Carefully into the glasses, as Sydney had seen Mrs. Schmitz put away her
jellies, they dipped the marmalade, and afterward washed up the dishes
and put the kitchen in order, rather proud of their morning’s work. Then
they went to the nursery to help in the potting, the making of new beds,
the “slipping,” or whatever work was most pressing.
That day and night they did little cooking. Anyone could live well more
than one day on warmed-up things at Mrs. Schmitz’s home. Early in the
evening Max wrote and posted his acceptance of the invitation to have his
name proposed for the Fussers.
They went to bed early. Neither would acknowledge how lonely he was
without Mrs. Schmitz; though each knew the other felt it.
The next afternoon a cheery voice came over the line.
“Have you all been well efer since I left you?” Mrs. Schmitz inquired.
“It seems one year already. I come tonight; in about two hours now.”
“Let’s surprise her!” Max proposed. “Have a bang-up dinner. You boss, and
I’ll help.”
Sydney agreed readily and both went at it.
“We’ll serve it in courses. I’ll wait on you two, and we’ll make her
think of old days, when she had servants at every turn.”
“How do you know she had them? Did she tell you?” Sydney speculated upon
her confidences to Max, thinking they must have been much greater than
any she had given him. But Max’s laughing reply disarmed him.
“She’s scarcely mentioned her past life to me; but can’t you see? She
betrays at every turn the fact of her gentle breeding and familiarity
with luxury.”
Sydney saw that it was because like knows like that Max understood these
things.
He set the table with great ceremony, putting on all the silver he could
find, meanwhile suggesting many unusual dishes from which they selected
those they knew how to prepare or those that “sounded easy.” Max brought
the nicest linen, and from the greenhouses fragrant flowers, arranging a
center piece that Sydney admired, secretly envying Max his skill.
Mrs. Schmitz came like a joyous, fragrant summer wind. She seemed to
bring life to a dead house; sweetness, goodness; in short, motherhood.
She laughed, exclaimed, kissed each boy on the cheek--and Sydney blushed
with bashfulness. She took off her hat and ran to the dining room, saying
she must start dinner. Max caught her back and himself took off her coat.
Then she started toward the side door that led to the nursery, and Sydney
interrupted her there.
“Dinner’s most ready,” he announced with importance.
“What? You boys the dinner cook?”
They nodded vigorously.
“And it will spoil if you don’t hasten,” Max continued. “You said you’d
be here in two hours. We set the time half an hour later; but you are
late and you have just seven minutes in which to make your toilet.”
Laughing and happy, she went upstairs; and they could hear her stepping
about overhead, pulling out drawers, opening doors, and making a racket
in more rooms than one. When she entered the sitting room again she was
only a minute late and was in evening dress.
[Illustration: She was in evening dress]
Both boys started. For all Max had told Sydney so much, and had realized
more, even he was not prepared for the grand dame who swept in upon
them, bowing low to both. Her fine white skin and plump neck, freed from
the stiff collar she usually wore, gave her, as with all stout women, a
stateliness the boys had little suspected; and the sweeping train added
to this effect. The high-piled hair, gray but waving and beautiful, her
dark blue eyes that could be merry, tender, scornful, or stern, all her
kind features they knew so well, took on an air that made her for an
instant almost a stranger.
“In honor of my dear young men, Sydney and Max, I have dressed for
dinner.”
Sydney did not know that her elegant finery, shipped from Germany, was
old in style. Max knew, but didn’t care, since it was rich and becoming.
“Thank you, dear Mrs. Schmitz. Madame, dinner is served.”
Sydney merely stared. Max’s “thank you” was spoken as a most loving son
might greet his mother; but he wore an apron and carried a napkin on his
arm; and his “dinner is served,” was in the tone of the most obsequious
servant.
They went out in great state, Sydney giving his arm, and Max throwing
open the door, drawing the chair for Madame and, when he had seated her,
standing stiffly behind her.
Before she could touch her soup Sydney brought a jar of marmalade,
insisting that she should try it at once.
“No, no! Not before soup!” Max objected, forgetting his “place” as
waiter. “Take your sweets away till dessert.”
“They’re his sweets too. It’s really a three-partner job,” Sydney
explained.
Mrs. Schmitz pronounced it excellent with such fervor that both boys were
convinced. She never told them that it was “clear as mud.” How could it
be otherwise when Max had “stirred it to death”?
With great merriment, and in several courses, the dinner passed. Max
insisted on serving in great style because he knew how it should be done;
but she blighted his vanity by commanding him to his own seat while they
ate. It was really a success. She praised everything, entering into
their fun; and the boys, taught by her absence, felt a deeper joy in
all she did, realizing gratefully how much a part of her home life she
considered them.
A few days after this came a telephone summons from Bess Carter for Max
to bring his violin and music. There was an invitation for Sydney also,
but he refused--so curtly that Max, who, though leaving the room, could
not help hearing it, was out of patience with him. And when he came home
after an evening of music and joy he painted it in extravagant fashion,
intending to punish Sydney for slighting Miss Carter. He never dreamed he
was stirring an already hot-burning fire in Sydney’s heart.
It was by no means love for Bess that seethed in his veins. Neither
was it any passion that Sydney could recognize and analyze. It was a
savage sort of resentment that another should be able to please, not
only Bess, but all, girls and boys; that Max should be able to say with
ease the most appropriate and interesting things, while he, Sydney, the
tongue-tied, could merely mumble. That Max could make exquisite music, do
the gallant thing at the right moment, and wear his clothes as if they
were king’s ermine--it was all this that made the less gifted, untaught
waif of a boy--boy yet though a man in size--rage at himself and hate
everyone, Max in particular.
Twice more Max came home radiant, the second time full of plans for
more music through that part of the vacation when Bess should be in
town, and afterward when both should be in the university. For Max, the
housebreaker, had taken a new hold on life, had determined to be a man in
the world of best men. Mrs. Schmitz had resurrected his ambition.
Then the blow fell.