CHAPTER XIV. BENNIE AND THE CHARMING OLD MAID
There followed a blessed week of work--a "human warious" week,with something piquant lurking at every turn. A week so busy, sokaleidoscopic in its quick succession of events that my own troubles andgrievances were pushed into a neglected corner of my mind and made tolanguish there, unfed by tears or sighs.
News comes in cycles. There are weeks when a city editor tears hishair in vain as he bellows for a first-page story. There follow days sobristling with real, live copy that perfectly good stuff which, in theordinary course of events might be used to grace the front sheet, issandwiched away between the marine intelligence and the Elgin butterreports.
Such a week was this. I interviewed everything from a red-handedmurderer to an incubator baby. The town seemed to be running over withcelebrities. Norberg, the city editor, adores celebrities. He neverallows one to escape uninterviewed. On Friday there fell to my lot aworld-famous prima donna, an infamous prize-fighter, and a charming oldmaid. Norberg cared not whether the celebrity in question was notedfor a magnificent high C, or a left half-scissors hook, so long as theinterview was dished up hot and juicy, with plenty of quotation marks,a liberal sprinkling of adjectives and adverbs, and a cut of the victimgracing the top of the column.
It was long past the lunch hour when the prima donna and theprize-fighter, properly embellished, were snapped on the copy hook. Theprima donna had chattered in French; the prize-fighter had jabbered inslang; but the charming old maid, who spoke Milwaukee English, was tomake better copy than a whole chorus of prima donnas, or a ring full offighters. Copy! It was such wonderful stuff that I couldn't use it.
It was with the charming old maid in mind that Norberg summoned me.
"Another special story for you," he cheerfully announced.
No answering cheer appeared upon my lunchless features. "A prize-fighterat ten-thirty, and a prima donna at twelve. What's the next choicemorsel? An aeronaut with another successful airship? or a cash girl whohas inherited a million?"
Norberg's plump cheeks dimpled. "Neither. This time it is a nice Germanold maid."
"Eloped with the coachman, no doubt?"
"I said a nice old maid. And she hasn't done anything yet. You are tofind out how she'll feel when she does it."
"Charmingly lucid," commented I, made savage by the pangs of hunger.
Norberg proceeded to outline the story with characteristic vigor, acigarette waggling from the corner of his mouth.
"Name and address on this slip. Take a Greenfield car. Nice old maidhas lived in nice old cottage all her life. Grandfather built it himselfabout a hundred years ago. Whole family was born in it, and marriedin it, and died in it, see? It's crammed full of spinning-wheels andmahogany and stuff that'll make your eyes stick out. See? Well, there'sno one left now but the nice old maid, all alone. She had a sister whoran away with a scamp some years ago. Nice old maid has never heard ofher since, but she leaves the gate ajar or the latch-string open, or alamp in the window, or something, so that if ever she wanders back tothe old home she'll know she's welcome, see?"
"Sounds like a moving picture play," I remarked.
"Wait a minute. Here's the point. The city wants to build a branchlibrary or something on her property, and the nice old party is sopinched for money that she'll have to take their offer. So the time hascome when she'll have to leave that old cottage, with its romance, andits memories, and its lamp in the window, and go to live in a cheaplittle flat, see? Where the old four-poster will choke up the bedroom--"
"And the parlor will be done in red and green," I put in, eagerly, "andwhere there will be an ingrowing sideboard in the dining-room that won'tfit in with the quaint old dinner-set at all, and a kitchenette justoff that, in which the great iron pots and kettles that used to hold thefamily dinners will be monstrously out of place--"
"You're on," said Norberg.
Half an hour later I stood before the cottage, set primly in thecenter of a great lot that extended for half a square on all sides. Awinter-sodden, bare enough sight it was in the gray of that March day.But it was not long before Alma Pflugel, standing in the midst of it,the March winds flapping her neat skirts about her ankles, filled itwith a blaze of color. As she talked, a row of stately hollyhocks, pink,and scarlet, and saffron, reared their heads against the cottage sides.The chill March air became sweet with the scent of heliotrope, and SweetWilliam, and pansies, and bridal wreath. The naked twigs of the rosebushes flowered into wondrous bloom so that they bent to the groundwith their weight of crimson and yellow glory. The bare brick paths wereoverrun with the green of growing things. Gray mounds of dirt grew vividwith the fire of poppies. Even the rain-soaked wood of the pea-framesmiraculously was hidden in a hedge of green, over which ran riot thebutterfly beauty of the lavender, and pink, and cerise blossoms. Oh, shedid marvelous things that dull March day, did plain German Alma Pflugel!And still more marvelous were the things that were to come.
But of these things we knew nothing as the door was opened and AlmaPflugel and I gazed curiously at one another. Surprise was writ large onher honest face as I disclosed my errand. It was plain that the ways ofnewspaper reporters were foreign to the life of this plain German woman,but she bade me enter with a sweet graciousness of manner.
Wondering, but silent, she led the way down the dim narrow hallway tothe sitting-room beyond. And there I saw that Norberg had known whereofhe spoke.
A stout, red-faced stove glowed cheerfully in one corner of theroom. Back of the stove a sleepy cat opened one indolent eye, yawnedshamelessly, and rose to investigate, as is the way of cats. The windowswere aglow with the sturdy potted plants that flower-loving Germanwomen coax into bloom. The low-ceilinged room twinkled and shone as thepolished surfaces of tables and chairs reflected the rosy glow from theplethoric stove. I sank into the depths of a huge rocker that must havebeen built for Grosspapa Pflugel's generous curves. Alma Pflugel, in achair opposite, politely waited for this new process of interviewingto begin, but relaxed in the embrace of that great armchair I suddenlyrealized that I was very tired and hungry, and talk-weary, and thathere; was a great peace. The prima donna, with her French, and herpaint, and her pearls, and the prizefighter with his slang, and hiscauliflower ear, and his diamonds, seemed creatures of another planet.My eyes closed. A delicious sensation of warmth and drowsy contentmentstole over me.
"Do listen to the purring of that cat!" I murmured. "Oh, newspapers haveno place in this. This is peace and rest."
Alma Pflugel leaned forward in her chair. "You--you like it?"
"Like it! This is home. I feel as though my mother were here in thisroom, seated in one of those deep chairs, with a bit of sewing in herhand; so near that I could touch her cheek with my fingers."
Alma Pflugel rose from her chair and came over to me. She timidly placedher hand on my arm. "Ah, I am so glad you are like that. You do notlaugh at the low ceilings, and the sunken floors, and the old-fashionedrooms. You do not raise your eyes in horror and say: 'No conveniences!And why don't you try striped wall paper? It would make those dreadfulceilings seem higher.' How nice you are to understand like that!"
My hand crept over to cover her own that lay on my arm. "Indeed, indeedI do understand," I whispered. Which, as the veriest cub reporter cantestify, is no way to begin an interview.
A hundred happy memories filled the little low room as Alma Pflugelshowed me her treasures. The cat purred in great content, and the stovecast a rosy glow over the scene as the simple woman told the story ofeach precious relic, from the battered candle-dipper on the shelf, tothe great mahogany folding table, and sewing stand, and carved bed. Thenthere was the old horn lantern that Jacob Pflugel had used a centurybefore, and in one corner of the sitting-room stood GrossmutterPflugel's spinning-wheel. Behind cupboard doors were ranged thecarefully preserved blue-and-white china dishes, and on the shelf belowstood the clumsy earthen set that Grosspapa Pflugel himself had modeledfor his young bride in those days of long ago. In the linen ch
est therestill lay, in neat, fragrant folds, piles of the linen that had beenspun on that time-yellowed spinning-wheel. And because of the tragedy inthe honest face bent over these dear treasures, and because she tried sobravely to hide her tears, I knew in my heart that this could never be anewspaper story.
"So," said Alma Pflugel at last, and rose and walked slowly to thewindow and stood looking out at the wind-swept garden. That window, withits many tiny panes, once had looked out across a wilderness, with anIndian camp not far away. Grossmutter Pflugel had sat at that windowmany a bitter winter night, with her baby in her arms, watching andwaiting for the young husband who was urging his ox-team across the iceof Lake Michigan in the teeth of a raging blizzard.
The little, low-ceilinged room was very still. I looked at Alma Pflugelstanding there at the window in her neat blue gown, and something aboutthe face and figure--or was it the pose of the sorrowful head?--seemedstrangely familiar. Somewhere in my mind the resemblance haunted me.Resemblance to--what? Whom?
"Would you like to see my garden?" asked Alma Pflugel, turning from thewindow. For a moment I stared in wonderment. But the honest, kindly facewas unsmiling. "These things that I have shown you, I can take with mewhen I--go. But there," and she pointed out over the bare, wind-sweptlot, "there is something that I cannot take. My flowers! You see thatmound over there, covered so snug and warm with burlap and sacking?There my tulips and hyacinths sleep. In a few weeks, when the coveringis whisked off--ah, you shall see! Then one can be quite sure that thespring is here. Who can look at a great bed of red and pink and lavenderand yellow tulips and hyacinths, and doubt it? Come."
With a quick gesture she threw a shawl over her head, and beckoned me.Together we stepped out into the chill of the raw March afternoon. Shestood a moment, silent, gazing over the sodden earth. Then she flittedswiftly down the narrow path, and halted before a queer little structureof brick, covered with the skeleton of a creeping vine. Stooping, AlmaPflugel pulled open the rusty iron door and smiled up at me.
"This was my grandmother's oven. All her bread she baked in this littlebrick stove. Black bread it was, with a great thick crust, and a bittertaste. But it was sweet, too. I have never tasted any so good. I liketo think of Grossmutter, when she was a bride, baking her first batchof bread in this oven that Grossvater built for her. And because the oldoven was so very difficult to manage, and because she was such a youngthing--only sixteen!--I like to think that her first loaves were perhapsnot so successful, and that Grosspapa joked about them, and that thelittle bride wept, so that the young husband had to kiss away thetears."
She shut the rusty, sagging door very slowly and gently. "No doubt theworkmen who will come to prepare the ground for the new library willlaugh and joke among themselves when they see the oven, and they willkick it with their heels, and wonder what the old brick mound could havebeen."
There was a little twisted smile on her face as she rose--a smile thatbrought a hot mist of tears to my eyes. There was tragedy itself in thatspare, homely figure standing there in the garden, the wind twining herskirts about her.
"You should but see the children peering over the fence to see myflowers in the summer," she said. The blue eyes wore a wistful, far-awaylook. "All the children know my garden. It blooms from April to October.There I have my sweet peas; and here my roses--thousands of them! Someare as red as a drop of blood, and some as white as a bridal wreath.When they are blossoming it makes the heart ache, it is so beautiful."
She had quite forgotten me now. For her the garden was all abloom oncemore. It was as though the Spirit of the Flowers had touched the nakedtwigs with fairy fingers, waking them into glowing life for her whonever again was to shower her love and care upon them.
"These are my poppies. Did you ever come out in the morning to finda hundred poppy faces smiling at you, and swaying and glistening andrippling in the breeze? There they are, scarlet and pink, side by sideas only God can place them. And near the poppies I planted my pansies,because each is a lesson to the other. I call my pansies little childrenwith happy faces. See how this great purple one winks his yellow eye,and laughs!"
Her gray shawl had slipped back from her face and lay about hershoulders, and the wind had tossed her hair into a soft fluff about herhead.
"We used to come out here in the early morning, my little Schwester andI, to see which rose had unfolded its petals overnight, or whether thisgreat peony that had held its white head so high only yesterday, washumbled to the ground in a heap of ragged leaves. Oh, in the morning sheloved it best. And so every summer I have made the garden bloom again,so that when she comes back she will see flowers greet her.
"All the way up the path to the door she will walk in an aisle offragrance, and when she turns the handle of the old door she will findit unlocked, summer and winter, day and night, so that she has only toturn the knob and enter."
She stopped, abruptly. The light died out of her face. She glanced atme, half defiantly, half timidly, as one who is not quite sure of whatshe has said. At that I went over to her, and took her work-worn handsin mine, and smiled down into the faded blue eyes grown dim with tearsand watching.
"Perhaps--who knows?--the little sister may come yet. I feel it. Shewill walk up the little path, and try the handle of the door, and itwill turn beneath her fingers, and she will enter."
With my arm about her we walked down the path toward the old-fashionedarbor, bare now except for the tendrils that twined about the lattice.The arbor was fitted with a wooden floor, and there were rustic chairs,and a table. I could picture the sisters sitting there with their sewingduring the long, peaceful summer afternoons. Alma Pflugel would bewearing one of her neat gingham gowns, very starched and stiff, withperhaps a snowy apron edged with a border of heavy crochet done by thewrinkled fingers of Grossmutter Pflugel. On the rustic table there wouldbe a bowl of flowers, and a pot of delicious Kaffee, and a plate ofGerman Kaffeekuchen, and through the leafy doorway the scent of thewonderful garden would come stealing.
I thought of the cheap little flat, with the ugly sideboard, and the bitof weedy yard in the rear, and the alley beyond that, and the red andgreen wall paper in the parlor. The next moment, to my horror, AlmaPflugel had dropped to her knees before the table in the damp littlearbor, her face in her hands, her spare shoulders shaking.
"Ich kann's nicht thun!" she moaned. "Ich kann nicht! Ach, kleineSchwester, wo bist du denn! Nachts und Morgens bete ich, aber dochkommst du nicht."
A great dry sob shook her. Her hand went to her breast, to her throat,to her lips, with an odd, stifled gesture.
"Do that again!" I cried, and shook Alma Pflugel sharply by theshoulder. "Do that again!"
Her startled blue eyes looked into mine. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"That--that gesture. I've seen it--somewhere--that trick of pressing thehand to the breast, to the throat, to the lips--Oh!"
Suddenly I knew. I lifted the drooping head and rumpled its neat braids,and laughed down into the startled face.
"She's here!" I shouted, and started a dance of triumph on the shakyfloor of the old arbor. "I know her. From the moment I saw you theresemblance haunted me." And then as Alma Pflugel continued to stare,while the stunned bewilderment grew in her eyes, "Why, I have one-fourthinterest in your own nephew this very minute. And his name is Bennie!"
Whereupon Alma Pflugel fainted quietly away in the chilly little grapearbor, with her head on my shoulder.
I called myself savage names as I chafed her hands and did all thefoolish, futile things that distracted humans think of at such times,wondering, meanwhile, if I had been quite mad to discern a resemblancebetween this simple, clear-eyed gentle German woman, and the battered,ragged, swaying figure that had stood at the judge's bench.
Suddenly Alma Pflugel opened her eyes. Recognition dawned in themslowly. Then, with a jerk, she sat upright, her trembling hands clingingto me.
"Where is she? Take me to her. Ach, you are sure--sure?"
"Lordy, I hope so! Come, yo
u must let me help you into the house. Andwhere is the nearest telephone? Never mind; I'll find one."
When I had succeeded in finding the nearest drug store I spent a wildten minutes telephoning the surprised little probation officer, thenFrau Nirlanger, and finally Blackie, for no particular reason. Ishrieked my story over the wire in disconnected, incoherent sentences.Then I rushed back to the little cottage where Alma Pflugel and I waitedwith what patience we could summon.
Blackie was the first to arrive. He required few explanations. Thatis one of the nicest things about Blackie. He understands by leaps andbounds, while others crawl to comprehension. But when Frau Nirlangercame, with Bennie in tow, there were tears, and exclamations, followedby a little stricken silence on the part of Frau Nirlanger when she sawBennie snatched to the breast of this weeping woman. So it was that inthe midst of the confusion we did not hear the approach of the probationofficer and her charge. They came up the path to the door, and there thelittle sister turned the knob, and it yielded under her fingers, and theold door swung open; and so she entered the house quite as Alma Pflugelhad planned she should, except that the roses were not blooming alongthe edge of the sunken brick walk.
She entered the room in silence, and no one could have recognized inthis pretty, fragile creature the pitiful wreck of the juvenile court.And when Alma Pflugel saw the face of the little sister--the poor,marred, stricken face--her own face became terrible in its agony. Sheput Bennie down very gently, rose, and took the shaking little figure inher strong arms, and held it as though never to let it go again. Therewere little broken words of love and pity. She called her "Lammchen" and"little one," and so Frau Nirlanger and Blackie and I stole away, aftera whispered consultation with the little probation officer.
Blackie had come in his red runabout, and now he tucked us into it,feigning a deep disgust.
"I'd like to know where I enter into this little drayma," he growled."Ain't I got nothin' t' do but run around town unitin' long lost sistersan' orphans!"
"Now, Blackie, you know you would never have forgiven me if I had leftyou out of this. Besides, you must hustle around and see that they neednot move out of that dear little cottage. Now don't say a word! You'llnever have a greater chance to act the fairy godmother."
Frau Nirlanger's hand sought mine and I squeezed it in silent sympathy.Poor little Frau Nirlanger, the happiness of another had brought heronly sorrow. And she had kissed Bennie good-by with the knowledge thatthe little blue-painted bed, with its faded red roses, would again standempty in the gloom of the Knapf attic.
Norberg glanced up quickly as I entered the city room. "Get somethinggood on that south side story?" he asked.
"Why, no," I answered. "You were mistaken about that. The--the nice oldmaid is not going to move, after all."