_ Oh, but it was clean, and sweet, and wonderfully
still, that rose-and-white room at Norah's! No street
cars to tear at one's nerves with grinding brakes and
clanging bells; no tramping of restless feet on the
concrete all through the long, noisy hours; no shrieking
midnight joy-riders; not one of the hundred sounds which
make night hideous in the city. What bliss to lie there,
hour after hour, in a delicious half-waking,
half-sleeping, wholly exquisite stupor, only rousing
myself to swallow egg-nogg No. 426, and then to flop back
again on the big, cool pillow!
New York, with its lights, its clangor, its millions,
was only a far-away, jumbled nightmare. The office, with
its clacking typewriters, its insistent, nerve-racking
telephone bells, its systematic rush, its smoke-dimmed
city room, was but an ugly part of the dream.
Back to that inferno of haste and scramble and
clatter? Never! Never! I resolved, drowsily. And
dropped off to sleep again.
And the sheets. Oh, those sheets of Norah's! Why,
they were white, instead of gray! And they actually
smelled of flowers. For that matter, there were rosebuds
on the silken coverlet. It took me a week to get chummy
with that rosebud-and-down quilt. I had to explain
carefully to Norah that after a half-dozen years of
sleeping under doubtful boarding-house blankets one does
not so soon get rid of a shuddering disgust for coverings
which are haunted by the ghosts of a hundred unknown
sleepers. Those years had taught me to draw up the sheet
with scrupulous care, to turn it down, and smooth it
over, so that no contaminating and woolly blanket should
touch my skin. The habit stuck even after Norah had
tucked me in between her fragrant sheets. Automatically
my hands groped about, arranging the old protecting
barrier.
"What's the matter, Fuss-fuss?" inquired Norah,
looking on. "That down quilt won't bite you; what an old
maid you are!"
"Don't like blankets next to my face," I elucidated,
sleepily, "never can tell who slept under 'em last--"
You cat!" exclaimed Norah, making a little rush at
me. "If you weren't supposed to be ill I'd
shake you! Comparing my darling rosebud quilt to your
miserable gray blankets! Just for that I'll make you eat
an extra pair of eggs."
There never was a sister like Norah. But then, who
ever heard of a brother-in-law like Max? No woman--not
even a frazzled-out newspaper woman--could receive the
love and care that they gave me, and fail to flourish
under it. They had been Dad and Mother to me since the
day when Norah had tucked me under her arm and carried me
away from New York. Sis was an angel; a comforting,
twentieth-century angel, with white apron strings for
wings, and a tempting tray in her hands in place of the
hymn books and palm leaves that the picture-book angels
carry. She coaxed the inevitable eggs and beef into more
tempting forms than Mrs. Rorer ever guessed at. She
could disguise those two plain, nourishing articles of
diet so effectually that neither hen nor cow would have
suspected either of having once been part of her anatomy.
Once I ate halfway through a melting, fluffy,
peach-bedecked plate of something before I discovered
that it was only another egg in disguise.
"Feel like eating a great big dinner to-day, Kidlet?
"Norah would ask in the morning as she stood at my bedside
(with a glass of egg-something in her hand, of course).
"Eat!"--horror and disgust shuddering through my
voice--"Eat! Ugh! Don't s-s-speak of it to me. And for
pity's sake tell Frieda to shut the kitchen door when you
go down, will you? I can smell something like ugh!--like
pot roast, with gravy!" And I would turn my face to the
wall.
Three hours later I would hear Sis coming softly up
the stairs, accompanied by a tinkling of china and glass.
I would face her, all protest.
"Didn't I tell you, Sis, that I couldn't eat a
mouthful? Not a mouthf--um-m-m-m! How perfectly
scrumptious that looks! What's that affair in the
lettuce leaf? Oh, can't I begin on that divine-looking
pinky stuff in the tall glass? H'm? Oh, please!"
"I thought--" Norah would begin; and then she would
snigger softly.
"Oh, well, that was hours ago," I would explain,
loftily. "Perhaps I could manage a bite or two now."
Whereupon I would demolish everything except the
china and doilies.
It was at this point on the road to recovery, just
halfway between illness and health, that Norah and Max
brought the great and unsmiling Von Gerhard on the scene.
It appeared that even New York was respectfully aware of
Von Gerhard, the nerve specialist, in spite of the fact
that he lived in Milwaukee. The idea of bringing him up
to look at me occurred to Max quite suddenly. I think it
was on the evening that I burst into tears when Max
entered the room wearing a squeaky shoe. The Weeping
Walrus was a self-contained and tranquil creature
compared to me at that time. The sight of a fly on the
wall was enough to make me burst into a passion of sobs.
"I know the boy to steady those shaky nerves of
yours, Dawn," said Max, after I had made a shamefaced
apology for my hysterical weeping, "I'm going to have Von
Gerhard up here to look at you. He can run up Sunday,
eh, Norah?"
"Who's Von Gerhard?" I inquired, out of the depths of
my ignorance. "Anyway, I won't have him. I'll bet he
wears a Vandyke and spectacles."
"Von Gerhard!" exclaimed Norah, indignantly. "You
ought to be thankful to have him look at you, even if he
wears goggles and a flowing beard. Why, even that
red-haired New York doctor of yours cringed and looked
impressed when I told him that Von Gerhard was
a friend of my husband's, and that they had been comrades
at Heidelberg. I must have mentioned him dozens of times
in my letters."
"Never."
"Queer," commented Max, "he runs up here every now
and then to spend a quiet Sunday with Norah and me and
the Spalpeens. Says it rests him. The kids swarm all
over him, and tear him limb from limb. It doesn't look
restful, but he says it's great. I think he came here
from Berlin just after you left for New York, Dawn.
Milwaukee fits him as if it had been made for him."
"But you're not going to drag this wonderful being up
here just for me!" I protested, aghast.
Max pointed an accusing finger at me from the
doorway. "Aren't you what the bromides call a bundle of
nerves? And isn't Von Gerhard's specialty untying just
those knots? I'll write to him to-night."
And he did. And Von Gerhard came. The Spalpeens
watched for him, their noses flattened against the
window-pane, for it was raining. As he came up the path
they burst out of the door to meet him. From my bedroom
window I saw him come prancing up the walk like a boy,
with the two children clinging to his coat-tails, all
three quite unmindful of the rain, and yelling like
Comanches.
Ten minutes later he had donned his professional
dignity, entered my room, and beheld me in all my limp
and pea-green beauty. I noted approvingly that he had to
stoop a bit as he entered the low doorway, and that the
Vandyke of my prophecy was missing.
He took my hand in his own steady, reassuring clasp.
Then he began to talk. Half an hour sped away while we
discussed New York--books--music--theatres--everything
and anything but Dawn O'Hara. I learned later that as we
chatted he was getting his story, bit by bit, from every
twitch of the eyelids, from every gesture of the hands
that had grown too thin to wear the hateful ring; from
every motion of the lips; from the color of my nails;
from each convulsive muscle; from every shadow, and
wrinkle and curve and line of my face.
Suddenly he asked: "Are you making the proper effort
to get well? You try to conquer those jumping nerfs,
yes?"
I glared at him. "Try! I do everything. I'd eat
woolly worms if I thought they might benefit me. If ever
a girl has minded her big sister and her doctor, that
girl is I. I've eaten everything from pate de foie gras
to raw beef, and I've drunk everything from blood to
champagne."
"Eggs? " queried Von Gerhard, as though making a
happy suggestion.
"Eggs!" I snorted. "Eggs! Thousands of 'em! Eggs
hard and soft boiled, poached and fried, scrambled and
shirred, eggs in beer and egg-noggs, egg lemonades and
egg orangeades, eggs in wine and eggs in milk, and eggs
au naturel. I've lapped up iron-and-wine, and whole
rivers of milk, and I've devoured rare porterhouse and
roast beef day after day for weeks. So! Eggs!"
"Mein Himmel!" ejaculated he, fervently, "And you
still live!" A suspicion of a smile dawned in his eyes.
I wondered if he ever laughed. I would experiment.
"Don't breathe it to a soul," I whispered,
tragically, "but eggs, and eggs alone, are turning my
love for my sister into bitterest hate. She stalks me
the whole day long, forcing egg mixtures down my
unwilling throat. She bullies me. I daren't put out my
hand suddenly without knocking over liquid refreshment in
some form, but certainly with an egg lurking in its
depths. I am so expert that I can tell an egg orangeade
from an egg lemonade at a distance of twenty yards, with
my left hand tied behind me,and one eye shut, and my feet
in a sack."
"You can laugh, eh? Well, that iss good," commented
the grave and unsmiling one.
"Sure," answered I, made more flippant by his
solemnity. "Surely I can laugh. For what else was my
father Irish? Dad used to say that a sense of humor was
like a shillaly--an iligent thing to have around handy,
especially when the joke's on you."
The ghost of a twinkle appeared again in the corners
of the German blue eyes. Some fiend of rudeness seized
me.
"Laugh!" I commanded.
Dr. Ernst von Gerhard stiffened. "Pardon?" inquired
he, as one who is sure that he has misunderstood.
"Laugh!" I snapped again. "I'll dare you to do it.
I'll double dare you! You dassen't!"
But he did. After a moment's bewildered surprise he
threw back his handsome blond head and gave vent to a
great, deep infectious roar of mirth that brought the
Spalpeens tumbling up the stairs in defiance of their
mother's strict instructions.
After that we got along beautifully. He
turned out to be quite human, beneath the outer crust of
reserve. He continued his examination only after bribing
the Spalpeens shamefully, so that even their rapacious
demands were satisfied, and they trotted off contentedly.
There followed a process which reduced me to a
giggling heap but which Von Gerhard carried out
ceremoniously. It consisted of certain raps at my knees,
and shins, and elbows, and fingers, and certain commands
to--"look at my finger! Look at the wall! Look at my
finger! Look at the wall!"
"So!" said Von Gerhard at last, in a tone of
finality. I sank my battered frame into the nearest
chair. "This--this newspaper work--it must cease." He
dismissed it with a wave of the hand.
"Certainly," I said, with elaborate sarcasm. "How
should you advise me to earn my living in the future?
In the stories they paint dinner cards, don't
they? or bake angel cakes?"
"Are you then never serious?" asked Von Gerhard, in
disapproval.
"Never," said I. "An old, worn-out, worked-out
newspaper reporter, with a husband in the mad-house,
can't afford to be serious for a minute, because if she
were she'd go mad, too, with the hopelessness of it all."
And I buried my face in my hands.
The room was very still for a moment. Then the great
Von Gerhard came over, and took my hands gently from my
face. "I--I do beg your pardon," he said. He looked
strangely boyish and uncomfortable as he said it. "I was
thinking only of your good. We do that, sometimes,
forgetting that circumstances may make our wishes
impossible of execution. So. You will forgive me?"
"Forgive you? Yes,indeed," I assured him. And we shook
hands, gravely. "But that doesn't help matters much,
after all, does it?"
"Yes, it helps. For now we understand one another,
is it not so? You say you can only write for a living.
Then why not write here at home? Surely these years of
newspaper work have given you a great knowledge of human
nature. Then too, there is your gift of humor. Surely
that is a combination which should make your work
acceptable to the magazines. Never in my life have I
seen so many magazines as here in the United States. But
hundreds! Thousands!"
"Me!" I exploded--"A real writer lady! No more
interviews with actresses! No more slushy Sunday
specials! No more teary tales! Oh, my!
When may I begin? To-morrow? You know I brought my
typewriter with me. I've almost forgotten where the
letters are on the keyboard."
"Wait, wait; not so fast! In a month or two,
perhaps. But first must come other things outdoor
things. Also housework."
"Housework!" I echoed, feebly.
"Naturlich. A little dusting, a little scrubbing,
a little sweeping, a little cooking. The finest kind of
indoor exercise. Later you may write a little--but very
little. Run and play out of doors with the children.
When I see you again you will have roses in your cheeks
like the German girls, yes?"
"Yes," I echoed, meekly, "I wonder how Frieda will
like my elephantine efforts at assisting with the
housework. If she gives notice, Norah will be lost to
you."
But Frieda did not give notice. After I had helped
her clean the kitchen and the pantry I noticed an
expression of deepest pity overspreading her lumpy
features. The expression became almost one of agony as
she watched me roll out some noodles for soup, and delve
into the sticky mysteries of a new kind of cake.
Max says that for a poor working girl who
hasn't had time to cultivate the domestic graces, my
cakes are a distinct triumph. Sis sniffs at that, and
mutters something about cups of raisins and nuts and
citron hiding a multitude of batter sins. She never
allows the Spalpeens to eat my cakes, and on my baking
days they are usually sent from the table howling. Norah
declares, severely, that she is going to hide the Green
Cook Book. The Green Cook Book is a German one. Norah
bought it in deference to Max's love of German cookery.
It is called Aunt Julchen's cook book, and the author,
between hints as to flour and butter, gets delightfully
chummy with her pupil. Her cakes are proud, rich cakes.
She orders grandly:
"Now throw in the yolks of twelve eggs; one-fourth of
a pound of almonds; two pounds of raisins; a pound of
citron; a pound of orange-peel."
As if that were not enough, there follow minor
instructions as to trifles like ounces of walnut meats,
pounds of confectioner's sugar, and pints of very rich
cream. When cold, to be frosted with an icing made up of
more eggs, more nuts, more cream, more everything.
The children have appointed themselves official
lickers and scrapers of the spoons and icing pans, also
official guides on their auntie's walks. They regard
their Aunt Dawn as a quite ridiculous but altogether
delightful old thing.
And Norah--bless her! looks up when I come in from a
romp with the Spalpeens and says: "Your cheeks are pink!
Actually! And you're losing a puff there at the back of
your ear, and your hat's on crooked. Oh, you are
beginning to look your old self, Dawn dear!"
At which doubtful compliment I retort, recklessly:
"Pooh! What's a puff more or less, in a worthy cause?
And if you think my cheeks are pink now, just wait until
your mighty Von Gerhard comes again. By that time they
shall be so red and bursting that Frieda's, on wash day,
will look anemic by comparison. Say, Norah, how red are
German red cheeks, anyway?" _