But where is Kate? where is my lovely bride?
—_Taming of the Shrew._
Not that Miss Esther had preferred imaginary Romeos. Imagination was all
very well in its place, but she would have gladly welcomed a hero who
could have spoken his own lines. Although she had never consciously or
definitely wished for a husband, yet she had often felt the lack of that
companionship which she knew could only be afforded by association with
one whose mentality was equal to her own, whose tastes were congenial,
and whose temperament was similar.
Without reflection upon her own sex, but with total indifference to the
lack of feminine comradeship, Miss Esther preferred masculine society.
During their long and somewhat lonely life together, her association
with her father had been a real friendship; and though not a whit
mannish, indeed being herself the essence of femininity, men’s traits
and characteristics appealed strongly to Esther Adams.
More than this, she had, and knew she had, the capability to be a great
deal to some one man. Responsive, tactful, loyal, and possessed of an
instant perception, she demanded these qualities in the man she could
love.
No one in Whitfield had ever qualified.
The young men who had entered into Miss Esther’s girlhood life were not
of inferior mental calibre, in the opinion of the best Whitfield
society, but owing to Esther’s possibly unfortunate fastidiousness, they
did not come up to her standards. Her mentally intimate association with
Galahad, Romeo, and The Admirable Crichton had made her exacting. It is
not that she was unreasonable, nor did she complain; her demeanor toward
the young men of Whitfield was marked by a gentle courtesy and frank
good comradeship. Whitfield society did not understand her attitude, and
could not have done so had she explained it to them—which she did not.
Indeed, so misleading was her apparent acceptance of their attentions,
that more than one young man had put himself in a position to receive
her gracious but decided refusal.
Through her girlhood years Miss Esther had thought it not impossible
that she might yet meet a man who would be the realization of her
ideals. But no strangers ever came to Whitfield, and her filial sense of
duty would not allow her to leave her father alone, so she could not
accept invitations to visit elsewhere, which would otherwise have given
her great pleasure. Major Adams was so deeply occupied with his books
that it never occurred to him that his daughter needed a change, or
recreation of any sort other than that which was offered at home,
although had she asked to go he would have gladly given consent. It had
never occurred to him, either, but that she would sometime make a choice
among the men of Whitfield, for he knew nothing of his daughter’s ideals
and was himself amply content with the society of his native town.
Once, when Whistler was shooting at a Scotch country place, he
deliberately shot a dog which was standing near by. Because, as he
afterward explained, the dog was out of drawing. He should have been
twenty feet further to the left, if in the landscape at all. And so it
seemed to Miss Esther that the men who had come into her life had been
“out of drawing.” She did not shoot them, but she put them out of her
life as completely as if they had been shot.
This state of things, however, did not leave Miss Esther’s life as empty
as might have been expected. The very qualities which induced this lack
brought with them their own means of fulfilling it. Although without any
definite acceptance of these facts, Miss Esther went on from day to day,
living in the way which seemed to her to offer the best possible
selection from all that life had to offer. The Romeos and Galahads of
her happy fancies came nearer the perfection of her standards than did
the men of Whitfield, and her dream-life with them was happier in its
ideality than any real life she had seen. This play-life was begun by
Esther Adams, sitting in prim frocks, silent, her foot tucked
comfortably under her on the straight-backed sofa of her father’s
library. It continued through the girlhood days when she was still known
as Esther Adams; and now, after many years, when, a woman of fifty, she
was called Miss Esther by everybody in Whitfield, the gentle,
gray-haired lady still found in the atmosphere of her wonderful old
books the realization of the ideals which had been denied her elsewhere.
And so this is the explanation of why Miss Esther Adams never married.
One morning Miss Esther sat in her broad-armed veranda chair with her
hands idly folded in her lap. She rocked slowly as she gazed across the
lawn at the riotous rose-garden.
“Ay, ’tis as thou sayest, Rosalind; the blossoms be o’er-blown. They
ought to have been cut earlier. They are really of no use now except to
make potpourri. Heigh-ho, Rosalind, I wonder if your roses in the Forest
of Arden ever bothered you as much as mine do me.”
Miss Esther’s attention was attracted from the roses by a stranger
within her gates. This was an unusual occurrence; even more so in that
this stranger was a man. And he was big and broad and black-bearded, and
distinctly of Teutonic origin. His air was assured, yet deferential, and
he approached the house with the look of one who was certain of a
waiting welcome.
“He looks like Thor,” said Miss Esther, critically, “but I never saw a
brunette Thor before.”
With the pleasant manner of childlike confidence characteristic of the
people of his country, he said:
“Is this Tekla Klein’s house?”
“No,—not exactly—”
“That is too bad. I wished to marry her.”
“Is that so?” said Miss Esther, with interest. “In that case perhaps I
had better call her.”
“If you will be so kind.”
The big man seated himself on the lowest of the stone steps, removed his
wide-brimmed hat, and calmly wiped his forehead with a huge
handkerchief.
Miss Esther looked at her brunette Thor steadily, with a dawning
appreciation that here at last she was confronted by a dramatic
situation quite to her taste. She went into the house and into the
library. She rang the bell and in a moment Tekla appeared.
“There is a person inquiring for you at the front door,” said Miss
Esther.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Tekla.
The stranger had not moved since Miss Esther went into the house, but at
the sound of a footstep behind him he rose and went up the steps to
where Tekla Klein stood by one of Putnam Adams’s fluted pillars.
He took a letter from his pocket, and she saw that it was the one which
she had written in answer to the advertisement.
“I have come,” he said, simply.
Tekla looked at him critically, and then with an air of satisfaction she
said, “It is good. And you have the farm?”
“Yes, a half-section, many—three hundred and twenty acres—one hundred
wheat, one hundred corn, one hundred and twenty in pasture.”
“Is it in America?” asked Tekla.
“It is in Nebraska,” he replied.
“Oh! I would rather it had been in America. But it does not matter. I
will go.”
Again the pleased smile broke over the big, good-natured face.
“I was born near Breslau. I am a German. I have lived in America fifteen
years—ten years in Nebraska. I own my farm there, and my cattle. I am
thirty-five years old. My name is Adolf Hecksher.”
“Adolf is a nice name,” said Tekla.
“Yes, it is a good name. It was my father’s. Can you go soon?”
“Yes, soon; but first I must tell Miss Esther. She will not be pleased.”
“She will miss you?”
“Yes, I have lived with her for seven years, and she has been very kind
to me.”
“But she will let you go?”
“Oh, yes; I will go. Come with me and we will tell her together.”
Leading her big captive, Tekla went straight to the library. Miss Esther
smiled at the pair as they entered, and said indulgently, “Well?”
“He has come to marry me,” said Tekla.
“So he told me,” said Miss Esther. “Who is he?”
“I am Adolf Hecksher—” began the accepted suitor.
“And he has three hundred and twenty acres,” interrupted Tekla, “and he
wants to marry me.”
“I understand that,” said Miss Esther, “but where did you find him or
where did he find you?”
“It was an advertisement,” said Tekla, “and—”
“What!” exclaimed Miss Esther, “you answered an advertisement? a
matrimonial advertisement!”
“It was in one of those papers Lieutenant Adams sent with the cast,”
asserted Tekla, “and it cost but a dollar.”
Miss Esther smiled. “He’s big enough to be worth it,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” and Tekla looked at the giant beside her, “he is.”
“But I don’t understand,” pursued Miss Esther. “Did that dreadful
matrimonial agency send this man to you? Have you ever seen him before?
Do you know who he is?”
“Yes,” said Tekla; “he is Adolf Hecksher.”
“You are a little fool,” said Miss Esther. “Leave the room and I will
talk with your Adolf Hecksher myself.”
Tekla left the room, smiling. Miss Esther invited her guest to be
seated, and in the next half hour satisfied herself from the credentials
which he produced in the shape of savings-bank books, deeds of property,
and a draft which he had received from the last lot of cattle which had
been shipped to Chicago, that he was at least in a position to take care
of a wife. She promised to communicate with the people whom he had named
as references in the little Nebraska town where he lived. This matter
being disposed of, Miss Esther again rang the bell for Tekla. “It is all
right,” she said, “and you may ask Mr. Hecksher to stay to dinner with
you if you wish.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Tekla.
As Miss Esther passed through the kitchen shortly before dinner, Tekla
showed her the picture she had cut from the paper.
“That is what my farm will be like,” she said. “There will be cows and
sheep and many, many acres—and Adolf.”
Miss Esther returned to the veranda. “It is very nice for them,” she
thought; “but where can I find another Tekla?”