must hurry and get ready to come down stairs, for we are going to have
_Kaffee_ just as you do in Berlin. Won't that be fun?"
"Mamma can comfort her," she thought to herself, as she emptied the
pitcher which Sarah had filled a few minutes before, and refilled it
with water a shade cooler. "I'll leave them alone a few minutes and go
down and see about the coffee. I know she will like those little currant
cakes of Sarah's."
Frieda, however, seemed little inclined to ask consolation from Mrs.
Eldred. She stood helplessly looking into her trunk, and Mrs. Eldred,
feeling suddenly shy, looked helplessly at her. The clouded, silent face
was so different from Hannah's.
"Aren't you rather warm, dear, with that heavy gown on? Let's find
something thinner to slip on before we go down stairs."
Frieda stooped, rummaged a minute, and then produced a dress of pink
cotton, fussily trimmed with lace and ribbons. "This is thinner," she
said, stonily.
"That will do though it is rather fine for home dinner," said Mrs.
Eldred gently. "But put it on, if you will, dear. I'll tell that
forgetful Hannah to bring your water at once. O, I see, she left it
outside the door. There! If you want any help, just call me. I'll go
into my own room across the hall and read your mother's letter." She
wanted to kiss the child, but Frieda's manner forbade it.
The pink frock had alarmed Mrs. Eldred. "Clothes make such a difference
to girls," she thought in distress. "How can I help her? She will be
proud and shy, and sure to think I am criticising her mother's taste.
Dear Marie!" Whereupon she wisely suspended her puzzling and read the
letter.
"I am sending Frieda with as few new clothes as possible, my dear Edith,
relying upon your taste and kindness to fit her out with what she needs.
I remember how differently you dressed when you came to Heidelberg, and
how odd Hannah's clothes looked to Frieda's friends, and I want Frieda
to start without a handicap. American girls are less accustomed to
seeing foreigners than German girls are, and a little difference in the
way of dressing might make a great difference in happiness. I am afraid
my Frieda will be peculiar in many ways that cannot be remedied, so once
more I ask you, will you choose for her a simple outfit such as Hannah
herself would approve, and make me more than ever your grateful debtor?"
Mrs. Eldred sighed with relief. The solution of one difficulty in sight,
she felt braver about all others. It was a theory of hers that food and
clothes were more important to happiness than most of the subtleties
poets and philosophers write about. "Homesickness is very often hunger,
and _Weltschmerz_ can frequently be cured by a becoming frock, or
brought on by an ill-fitting one," she meditated, as she fastened the
pink and lace for Frieda.
Downstairs Hannah was busily setting forth upon a round table an
appetizing array of cakes and cookies with a copper pot of coffee. Mr.
Eldred had arranged to be present at this unwonted function, and Hannah
chattered to him as she worked.
"Be sure you shake hands with her often, Daddy dear," she admonished
him. "She is used to so very many hand-shakings a day, you know, and we
mustn't cut her down to none at all, the very first thing. It's little
matters like that that make you homesick. And homesickness is agony,
Father. I know, for I've been through it."
Mr. Eldred pinched the plump cheek which showed no trace of past
anguish, and Hannah seated herself upon his knee, being watchful of the
pleats of her skirt as she did so!
"There's one good thing," she philosophized. "She can't miss her father
as I should miss you, for he is so absent-minded that he really doesn't
know her from the furniture. For all she is such a mischief inside, she
acts so quiet-like and well-behaved around the house that she might
almost as well be a sofa and done with it. And they have plenty of
sofas, so he won't miss her and she won't miss him so very much,
either."
"You imply that if you were better behaved, you would not miss me so
much when we are separated! It's sufficiently complicated. I suppose you
pine for my fearful reprimands?"
That was such a delightful joke that they both laughed aloud and Mrs.
Eldred and Frieda were quite in the room before they realized it, and
sprang up to greet them with cordiality, if not with the ceremony Hannah
had planned for.
Those first days Frieda lived in a busy whirl. Hannah, once at home, and
recovered from the excitement of the day in Boston, was ashamed of her
conduct on that occasion, and tried to make up for it by all sorts of
thoughtful attentions to Frieda, which, with the shade of formality they
involved, added a little to the loneliness they were meant to combat.
Mrs. Eldred, giving up, or suspending for a time, the apparently
hopeless task of winning Frieda's confidence, attended to her wardrobe
with a rapidity and fervor which astonished Frieda, accustomed to long
deliberations on such matters, and no reckless buying. Even the pretty
frocks and hats and shoes did not please her. She felt loyalty demanded
that she should wear the things she had brought from home, and it was
not till Mrs. Eldred had given her her mother's letter to read that she
consented to lay aside the German garments. Mr. Eldred took her about
the city, and thoroughly enjoyed her comments on things American, a
scorn thinly veiled by polite phrases, or by an expressive silence.
She was silent most of the time, for the language was her greatest
obstacle. She remembered vividly the superior feeling she had had in
Berlin, when she had watched Mr. Eldred wrestle with a conditional or
had heard Mrs. Eldred struggle to pronounce "ch." It was not nearly so
pleasant to be struggling one's self, with a quite senseless "th," for
instance. Her heart filled with rage when she caught Hannah listening
intently to her carefully enunciated words, and then saying suddenly
with relief, "O!" as their meaning dawned upon her. Frieda had been at
the head of her class in English.
"It's really because you pronounce so very well," Hannah explained
apologetically, on one of these occasions. "You are so much more exact
than we ever think of being, that it gives an unfamiliar sound to words.
And besides, yours is English English and ours is United States."
"But English English must be best," protested Frieda, and Hannah forgot
Miss Lyndesay's warning and "flared up" for a minute, but immediately
recollected herself, and ordered an ice-cream soda as a peace-offering,
notwithstanding the fact that Frieda found the taste disagreeable.
"You'll like it, when you are used to it," she said comfortingly. "You
don't have them at home, you know."
"No," growled Frieda, choking on a spoonful. "And I'm glad we don't.
Sundaes aren't so bad, but the name is foolish! I do not wonder Miss
Lyndesay lives most of the time in Europe!"
The fifth day matters came to a climax. Karl had come over from
Cambridge to spend Sunday. Hannah and he seemed to be on the best of
terms. They talked English faster than Frieda could understand, and they
seemed to have an endless stock of jokes that had no meaning for her.
Suddenly, after sitting with a brow like a thunder-cloud for a while,
listening to them and declining to join in the fun, she started up and
ran up stairs with a swift pounding gait that recalled to Hannah the way
she used to tear madly off to school in the morning, fearful of being
late.
Karl and Hannah, left behind, looked solemnly at each other. Karl
whistled.
"_Die Kleine_ is irritated about something," he remarked.
"I don't wonder," said Hannah sympathizingly. "I always remember when
it's too late to do any differently. She felt left out, I suppose, and
you know you do use a terrible amount of slang, nowadays. I'm awfully
ashamed of us, Karl!"
Karl pondered a moment. Then he said: "I'll fix it up all right. Here,
you take this note up to Frieda. Just shove it under the door, if she
won't let you in."
He wrote a few lines on a card and gave it to Hannah, who promptly ran
away up stairs with it. Then Karl went into the study and telephoned a
garage.
In a few minutes, Frieda, shy and somewhat red-eyed, came down stairs.
Hannah was nowhere to be seen, and Mrs. Eldred was out for the
afternoon. At the door was a snorting automobile, with seats for just
two.
"I knew Hannah would forgive us if we ran away by our two selves," said
Karl in German, meeting Frieda in the hall, and conducting her out to
the machine. "She knows enough about being in a foreign country to
understand that sometimes you want to be with your very own people.
There! I'll have this thing running like a charm in about a minute. Sure
you're not afraid to go out alone with me? I've learned a good deal
about this kind of thing lately. It's one of the courses I'm taking at
Harvard. Here we go!" And there they went, speeding down the street at a
rate that made a policeman, half asleep on the corner, look about him
with a start. Frieda's eyes shone, and she began to feel better.
Karl had evidently acquitted himself well in his course in motoring. He
drove skilfully and easily, and they were soon outside the city in a
pleasant country road. Almost any place would have seemed pleasant to
Frieda just then, though, for Karl was talking cheerily, merrily,
talking in German, talking of topics she knew about, and talking
exclusively to her. She discovered that the day was much more of a day
than she had thought. There was a quality in the air she had not noticed
earlier in the afternoon. Presently she even became confidential. Karl,
with eyes and hands busy, guiding the machine, bent an attentive ear as
Frieda poured out her suppressed irritation of days.
"They think it is such a fine country, Karl. I cannot understand them.
If they had never travelled--but they have been over Europe! They have
been in Berlin! And still they find matter for admiration in this dirty
little city with its buildings all heights, and its no trees anywhere
except in the parks. Where are their beautiful statues? Where is their
Victory Avenue? Where are their bridges? _Ach!_ It is a poor cheap
country. Tante Edith and Mr. Eldred are heavenly kind, and Hannah I have
loved with a great love, but they have very little taste, and no sense
at all."
Karl puckered up his lips in a low whistle, and Frieda blushed.
"I did not mean to say that, Karl," she said penitently. "I am their
guest. They are heavenly kind, yes. _But_ I do not like the
country."
It was a beautiful shady road they had come into then, and the hills at
the end of it showed gracious curves.
"This reminds me," said Karl meditatively, "of a place I went through
near the Rhine one summer vacation. It's really quite as charming, I
believe. Look here, Frieda. I'm interested in the impression you make in
this country. You're going to spend this year with a lot of girls who
don't know much about Germany or Germans, and I don't mind telling you
that I'm rather anxious to have you do us credit."
"I shall do Germany credit, everywhere," answered Frieda stoutly, but
somewhat perturbed.
"I'd like to think that," answered Karl, "and on the whole I guess it's
true, but if you keep on this way, I'm not so sure of it. You are
sitting here this afternoon making general statements about America when
you have seen only one of the less important cities. That doesn't strike
me as the way one should judge. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing
Professor Lange would do. He is very accurate and careful in his
judgments. And next, you haven't shown much enthusiasm over the things
the Eldreds have done for you the last day or two. Now, I never knew any
one who was so unfailingly appreciative as Frau Professor Lange."
Frieda pouted. "But Hannah shows off."
"Shows off? Frieda, I'm afraid your sense of humor is rather one-sided.
Hannah may take advantage of your not understanding perfectly, but who
taught her that that sort of thing was funny? Who told her the brass
plate over the barber's door meant that cakes were for sale there, so
that she almost went in to buy one?"
Frieda chuckled. "It was not long I could fool her. She soon learned too
much. Besides, my mother would not let me."
"You still think it was justifiable and humorous, I notice. But what
would you have said if Hannah had told you to say: 'So am I' when
strangers said: 'I am glad to meet you'? That was what some one told me,
when I first began talking English."
"If Hannah should tell me wrong, I would tell her what I think of her!"
blazed Frieda. "But you need not lecture any more, Karl. I understand,
and I will be good. I will be better than Hannah. I will be better than
yourself, than the saints, even. I will admire all things. Behold the
ravishing country! The wonder of that sky! Not Italy, not Spain has such
a dull gray color! The beauty of the dirty streets! The charm of the
crowded street-cars! Only five cents a ride, sitting upon the laps of
others! I will no longer sew on Sunday. I will never ask for beer. I
will eat every morning little dry cushions of curled grain. I will rock
madly. I will--"
"Hold on, Frieda!" shouted Karl. "Don't reform so fast. I can't keep
within speaking distance of you. You know, the reason I scolded you so
hard was because I sometimes feel just as you do about the whole
country!"
Frieda put out her hand. "Let us make a compact. For the honor of
Germany, we will be scrupulously careful of what we say about America,
but sometimes, all by ourselves, we can say just what we feel like
saying." Karl took her hand solemnly. "It's a bargain, and you are a
Cor-r-rker-r-r!"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BROOKMEADOW
Clara Lyndesay stood in the doorway of her Brookmeadow house, listening
for the coming trolley. As she waited, she looked about her with
satisfaction.
The big square house, freshly painted white, with green blinds at the
windows, stood just at the edge of the broad elm-shaded road, known as
the Albany Road because it had been, in stage-coach days, the main line
between Albany and Boston. Just opposite the house was a broad meadow
with a single elm in the center, and a clear line of hills for
background. Boulder walls enclosed the meadow, and vines ran riot over
them. The artist, looking, drew a deep breath.
"'The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground. Yea, I have a goodly
heritage,'" she thought to herself. "I think I shall call my
wander-years over, and settle down here as Aunt Abigail hoped I would,
and care for her old mahogany as she did, painting a picture now and
then from my own doorway. The doorway itself is the most beautiful thing
about the house," she added, stepping down the flagged path, to view it
for the hundredth time that week. Brookmeadow houses were famous for
their wonderful old doorways, with carved lintels, and this was not
surpassed by any of them.
Its owner's contemplation was cut short by the far-off whir of the
trolley, sounding clearly through the still morning. Miss Lyndesay
walked quickly along the curving road to the Common where she was to
receive her guests. Reaching the long narrow green, where a few cows
nibbled placidly as in the days when a green in the center of the
village was a necessary defensive measure, she walked idly up and down.
The straggling road under the great elms passed the plain white
meeting-house, dating from 1813, the Academy with its belfry, the little
general store and post-office combined, and wound out of sight between
dignified old houses, "like Aunt Abigail's--mine now," she corrected her
thought happily. No one was in sight. Up the road came the trolley,
jogging comfortably along. It stopped at the Common and its two
passengers almost fell into the arms that waited to receive them.
"O-eeeeee!" sighed Hannah, getting as close to Miss Lyndesay as she
could on one side, while Frieda did the same on the other with a similar
ejaculation.
"Two blue girls this time!" exclaimed Miss Lyndesay. "That is a very
becoming suit, Frieda," and then forestalling any answer, for she had
known of Frau Lange's letter to Mrs. Eldred and had guessed that Frieda
would not take altogether kindly to the new clothes, she inquired of
Hannah as to the health of her father and mother.
"They're all right," answered Hannah briefly. "And I am so glad to be
here! Isn't it just the dearest, sleepiest place you ever saw in all
your life?"
"Is it your first visit here?" asked Miss Lyndesay. "I supposed you knew
these villages by heart."
"I don't," confessed Hannah. "I go to school all winter, and in the
summer we go to the shore, and we haven't any aunts or grandmothers or
things like that living around here, so I don't see places like this
except in passing through them."
"Well, you have a sort of aunt and grandmother combined living in
Brookmeadow now, and I shall expect you to visit her often. How does it
seem to you, Frieda?"
"It's bigger than I thought it would be," answered Frieda. "Hannah said
it was a _Dorf_. I thought there would be only two or three houses,
and many little huts all close together, but we passed many houses."
"It is a good thing for you to see a New England village," said Miss
Lyndesay, "as part of the education you came for. And when you get out
to Wisconsin, you will think you are in a different country altogether."
"I did," laughed Hannah. "Why, it looked as though it had been laid out
with a ruler, and the trees were so little I felt as though they ought
to be in flower-pots."
"Not the beech woods, surely?"
"Dear me, no. But in the town itself. The beech woods are real forest.
Is this the house? O, Aunt Clara, wouldn't Catherine _love_ it?"
Miss Lyndesay was so unused to the house, herself, that she took a keen
delight in showing the girls all over it, taking them from one big room
into another, and telling them how to appreciate the fine old furniture.
"The hangings are all new," she explained. "Aunt Abigail's taste was not
like her heart! She kept the old furniture, but she had gaudy
wall-papers and thick lace curtains, and I have had them all replaced.
They aren't done yet, everywhere, but these main rooms are. And she had
the fireplace bricked up and a stove in the living-room. I found these
andirons in the garret."
"O, let's see the garret," begged Hannah. "We haven't any, with old
things in it, I mean. You know our house is only a little older than I
am, and mother came from the West and she didn't have heirlooms, and
father had nothing whatever when they started. I should think this house
would have been full of treasures."
"It was. I found several good chairs and a desk in the garret. I shall
have them refinished as soon as I can get around to it. There is a trunk
that I have only peeped into. I saved it for you girls to open. But you
must come out into the garden now, while the sun is there."
Frieda had taken only a moderate interest in the house, but when they
entered the tangled garden, German exclamations poured from her lips in
a rapturous stream.
"_Himmlisch! Reizend! Famos! Ach, wie wunderhuebsch! Was nennt man
dies? Und dies?_" She flew from one blossom to another, sniffing,
admiring, and asking questions about those that were unknown to her,
naming the others in German, and altogether showing a degree of
enthusiasm which nothing American had hitherto been able to arouse in
her. It was not because of Karl's compact, but because of her mighty
love of flowers. She seemed to forget the others as she knelt before a
little white tea-rose, kissing it and calling it pretty names.
Miss Lyndesay and Hannah watched her.
"Now she seems more like herself," said Hannah frowning, "the way she
was in Berlin. I wish she would stay that way!"
Miss Lyndesay looked at Hannah searchingly.
"Frieda," she called, "will you gather flowers for the luncheon table,
please? Hannah is going to pick raspberries with me. I have a most
beautiful old glass bowl to put them in."
Frieda undertook the task assigned her joyfully, and Hannah followed
Miss Lyndesay to the kitchen, where Aunt Abigail's old servant,
inherited with the house, supplied them with pails for the
berry-picking. The bushes were at the other end of the garden, where
they could speak without being overheard.
Miss Lyndesay said nothing at first, but she had not long to wait.
Hannah had poured out her puzzles and worries in letters to this friend
often, since the evening at Three Gables, long ago, when she had poured
them out in words and tears, and found comfort.
It was a torrent of words this time, but Miss Lyndesay, listening,
distinguished between essentials and non-essentials by a divine gift
which had always been hers.
"She doesn't seem the same Frieda," declared Hannah, at last. "I don't
feel acquainted with her. Mamma says it is just because everything is
new and strange to her. She hasn't criticised things since she and Karl
went off together for a little trip the other day, but she looks bored
or unhappy and I don't know what to do. I was a stranger when we were
together before, but I'm sure I didn't act so, and I don't see why she
should now. So there!"
"Did you go to Germany alone?" Miss Lyndesay put the question casually,
and Hannah looked up, surprised.
"Why, no. Dad and Mamma were there all the time, of course. I couldn't
have lived without them--O! I see what you mean," and the berries
dropped slowly into the half-full pail while Hannah meditated.
Clara Lyndesay, observing her bent face, felt satisfied. It was not the
first time she had seen Hannah Eldred come out of a quandary with very
little help.
"She doesn't do things by halves, either," she thought. "Frieda won't
have such a lonely time from now on." Aloud she said:
"I wondered, when I heard you speak to Frieda in that careful
explanatory way, as you might to a child who had been left in your care
rather against your will, if you seemed just natural to Frieda! Frau
Lange realized that there was some risk in sending Frieda over here. She
told me that she knew young girls changed rapidly in tastes and ideals,
and it might be that you two would not care so much for each other now.
But she hoped, for the sake of the friendship between your mother and
herself, that the two years would prove not to have separated you
greatly. I assured her that, while there might be some little difficulty
at first, you would probably come out better friends than ever. There! I
think we have quite enough berries. If you will just take them in to
Evangeline, I'll see about Frieda's flowers. You'll find a pitcher of
shrub on the ice, and goblets on the tray all ready to bring out. We'll
arrange the flowers on the back stoop, I think, and you might bring us
some refreshment there."
Frieda had gathered flowers eagerly, but without much discrimination.
Miss Lyndesay helped her sort them and make several bouquets instead of
one variegated one, talking with her the while of incidents of their
journey, till Frieda was entirely at her ease. By the time Hannah came
out with the cool drink, the slight constraint that had existed for days
between Frieda and herself seemed to have vanished. Joyfully, Hannah
entered into the new spirit, and when Miss Lyndesay went in to answer
Evangeline's questions about luncheon, her guests were bubbling with
mirth over some reminiscence of their Berlin days.
Immediately after luncheon, a caller arrived, with the obvious intention
of spending some time. Miss Lyndesay gave the girls a trunk key and sent
them off to do their garret exploring by themselves, giving them
permission to do whatever they liked with anything they might find. They
climbed the polished stairs, with arms interlaced, chattering in German
and English mixed, and reached the big shadowy garret out of breath. The
trunks were piled in a cobwebby corner, and their key proved to belong
to the lowest one in the pile. That meant much mighty tugging, but at
last the encumbering ones were removed and they turned the key in the
lock and lifted the heavy lid.