DAWN O HARA 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 THE GIRL WHO LAUGHED 
 
 BY 
 
 EDNA FERBER 
 
 FRONTISPIECE IN COLORS BY 
 
 R. FORD HARPER 
 
 EIGHTH EDITION 
 
 i 
 
 GRQSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS : : : : NEW YORK 
 
 Made in the United States of America 
 
FS 
 
 -. 
 
 Copyright, ipir, by 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign 
 languages, including the Scandinavian. 
 
 April, 
 
TO 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER 
 
 WHO FREQUENTLY INTERRUPTS 
 AND TO 
 
 MY SISTER FANNIE 
 
 WHO SAYS "SH-SH-SH!" OUTSIDE MY 
 DOOR 
 
 
 C44140 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I THE SMASH-UP . ,., ,., ,... . i 
 
 II MOSTLY EGGS . . . ,.. . 13 
 
 III GOOD AS NEW . . . . . 27 
 
 IV DAWN DEVELOPS A Heimweh . 40 
 V THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS 56 
 
 VI STEEPED IN GERMAN . . . 74 
 
 VII BLACKIE S PHILOSOPHY . . 88 
 
 VIII KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUGHEN . 106 
 
 IX THE LADY FROM VIENNA . .127 
 
 X A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS . . .140 
 
 XI VON GERHARD SPEAKS . . . 155 
 
 XII BENNIE THE CONSOLER . .167 
 
 XIII THE TEST 185 
 
 XIV BENNIE AND THE CHARMING 
 
 OLD MAID 200 
 
 XV FAREWELL TO KNAPFS . . .218 
 
 XVI JUNE MOONLIGHT, AND A NEW 
 
 BOARDING HOUSE . . . 234 
 
 XVII THE SHADOW OF TERROR . . 248 
 
 XVIII PETER ORME ..... 264 
 
 XIX A TURN OF THE WHEEL . . 279 
 
 XX BLACKIE S VACATION COMES . 288 
 
 XXI HAPPINESS 296 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 CHAPTER I : . 
 
 THE SMASH-UP 
 
 "T^HERE are a number of things that are 
 * pleasanter than being sick in a New 
 York boarding-house when one s nearest dear 
 est is a married sister up in far-away Michigan. 
 
 Some one must have been very kind, for 
 there were doctors, and a blue-and-white striped 
 nurse, and bottles and things. There was even 
 a vase of perky carnations scarlet ones. I 
 discovered that they had a trick of nodding their 
 heads, saucily. The discovery did not appear 
 to surprise me. 
 
 44 Howdy-do!" said I aloud to the fattest 
 and reddest carnation that overtopped all the 
 rest. " How in the world did you get in here ? " 
 
 The striped nurse (I hadn t noticed her be 
 fore) rose from some corner and came swiftly 
 over to my bedside, taking my wrist between 
 her fingers. 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " I m very well, thank you," she said, smil 
 ing, " and I came in at the door, of course." 
 
 " I wasn t talking to you," I snapped, 
 crossly, " I was speaking to the carnations; par 
 ticularly to that elderly one at the top the fat 
 , , .one who .keeps; bowing and wagging his head 
 
 :at -me.V 
 
 ; ; ,;" pV;yes," .d-nswered the striped nurse, po- 
 titely , 4 * of course. That one is very lively, 
 isn t he? But suppose we take them out for a 
 little while now." 
 
 She picked up the vase and carried it into 
 the corridor, and the carnations nodded their 
 heads more vigorously than ever over her shoul 
 der. 
 
 I heard her call softly to some one. The 
 some one answered with a sharp little cry that 
 sounded like, " Conscious! " 
 
 The next moment my own sister Norah came 
 quietly into the room, and knelt at the side of 
 my bed and took me in her arms. It did not 
 seem at all surprising that she should be there, 
 patting me with reassuring little love pats, mur 
 muring over me with her lips against my cheek, 
 calling me a hundred half-forgotten pet names 
 that I had not heard for years. But then, noth 
 ing seemed to surprise me that surprising day. 
 Not even the sight of a great, red-haired, red- 
 
THE SMASH-UP 
 
 faced, scrubbed looking man who strolled 
 into the room just as Norah was in the 
 midst of denouncing newspapers in general, and 
 my newspaper in particular, and calling the 
 city editor a slave-driver and a beast. The 
 big, red-haired man stood regarding us tol 
 erantly. 
 
 " Better, eh? " said he, not as one who asks 
 a question, but as though in confirmation of a 
 thought. Then he too took my wrist between 
 his fingers. His touch was very firm and cool. 
 After that he pulled down my eyelids and said, 
 " H m." Then he patted my cheek smartly 
 once or twice. " You ll do," he pronounced. 
 He picked up a sheet of paper from the table 
 and looked it over, keen-eyed. There followed 
 a clinking of bottles and glasses, a few low- 
 spoken words to the nurse, and then, as she left 
 the room the big red-haired man seated himself 
 heavily in the chair near the bedside and rested 
 his great hands on his fat knees. He stared 
 down at me in much the same way that a huge 
 mastiff looks at a terrier. Finally his glance 
 rested on my limp left hand. 
 
 "Married, h m?" 
 
 For a moment the word would not come. I 
 could hear Norah catch her breath quickly. 
 Then " Yes," answered I. 
 [3] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " Husband living? " I could see suspicion 
 dawning in his cold gray eye. 
 
 Again the catch in Norah s throat and a lit 
 tle half warning, half supplicating gesture. 
 And again, " Yes," said I. 
 
 The dawn of suspicion burst into full glow. 
 
 " Where is he? " growled the red-haired doc 
 tor. " At a time like this? " 
 
 I shut my eyes for a moment, too sick at 
 heart to resent his manner. I could feel, more 
 than sec, that Sis was signaling him frantically. 
 I moistened my lips and answered him, bitterly. 
 
 " He is in the Starkweather Hospital for the 
 
 insane." 
 
 When the red-haired man spoke again the 
 growl was quite gone from his voice. 
 
 " And your home is where? " 
 
 " Nowhere," I replied meekly, from my pil 
 low. But at that Sis put her hand out quickly, 
 as though she had been struck, and said: 
 
 " My home is her home. * 
 
 "Well then, take her there," he ordered, 
 frowning, " and keep her there as long as you 
 can. Newspaper reporting, h m? In New 
 York? That s a devil of a job for a woman. 
 And a husband who . . . Well, you ll 
 have to take a six months course in loafing, 
 young woman. And at the end of that time, if 
 
 [4] 
 
THE SMASH-UP 
 
 you are still determined to work, can t you pick 
 out something easier tr-n like taking in scrubbing, 
 for instance? " 
 
 I managed a feeble smile, wishing that he 
 would go away quickly, so that I might sleep. 
 He seemed to divine my thoughts, for he dis 
 appeared into the corridor, taking Norah with 
 him. Their voices, low-pitched and carefully 
 guarded, could be heard as they conversed out 
 side my door. 
 
 Norah was telling him the whole miserable 
 business. I wished, savagely, that she would 
 let me tell it, if it must be told. How could 
 she paint the fascination of the man who was 
 my husband? She had never known the charm 
 of him as I had known it in those few brief 
 months before our marriage. She had never 
 felt the caress of his voice, or the magnetism 
 of his strange, smoldering eyes glowing across 
 the smoke-dimmed city room as I had felt 
 them fixed on me. No one had ever known 
 what he had meant to the girl of twenty, with 
 her brain full of unspoken dreams dreams 
 which were all to become glorious realities in 
 that wonder-place, New York. 
 
 How he had fired my country-girl imagina 
 tion! He had been the most brilliant writer 
 on the big, brilliant sheet and the most dis- 
 [5] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 solute. How my heart had pounded on that 
 first lonely day when this Wonder-Being looked 
 up from his desk, saw me, and strolled over to 
 where I sat before my typewriter ! He smiled 
 down at me, companionably. I m quite sure 
 that my mouth must have been wide open with 
 surprise. He had been smoking a cigarette 
 an expensive-looking, gold-tipped one. Now 
 he removed it from between his lips with that 
 hand that always shook a little, and dropped it 
 to the floor, crushing it lightly with the toe of 
 his boot. He threw back his handsome head 
 and sent out the last mouthful of smoke in a 
 thin, lazy spiral. I remember thinking what a 
 pity it was that he should have crushed that 
 costly-looking cigarette, just for me. 
 
 " My name s Orme," he said, gravely. 
 " Peter Orme. And if yours isn t Shaugh- 
 nessy or Burke at least, then I m no judge of 
 what black hair and gray eyes stand for." 
 
 " Then you re not," retorted I, laughing up 
 at him, " for it happens to be O Hara 
 Dawn O Hara, if ye plaze." 
 
 He picked up a trifle that lay on my desk 
 a pencil, perhaps, or a bit of paper and toyed 
 with it, absently, as though I had not spoken. 
 I thought he had not heard, and I was con 
 scious of feeling a bit embarrassed, and very 
 [6] 
 
THE SMASH-UP 
 
 young. Suddenly he raised his smoldering eyes 
 to mine, and I saw that they had taken on a 
 deeper glow. His white, even teeth showed in 
 a half smile. 
 
 " Dawn O Hara," said he, slowly, and the 
 name had never sounded in the least like music 
 before, " Dawn O Hara. It sounds like a rose 1 *- 
 a pink blush rose that is deeper pink at its 
 heart, and very sweet." 
 
 He picked up the trifle with which he had 
 been toying and eyed it intently for a moment, 
 as though his whole mind were absorbed in 
 it. Then he put it down, turned, and walked 
 slowly away. I sat staring after him like a lit 
 tle simpleton, puzzled, bewildered, stunned. 
 That had been the beginning of it all. 
 
 He had what we Irish call " a way wid him." 
 I wonder now why I did not go mad with the 
 joy, and the pain, and the uncertainty of it all. 
 Never was a girl so dazzled, so humbled, so 
 worshiped, so neglected, so courted. He was 
 a creature of a thousand moods to torture one. 
 What guise would he wear to-day? Would he 
 be gay, or dour, or sullen, or teasing or pas 
 sionate, or cold, or tender or scintillating? I 
 know that my hands were always cold, and my 
 cheeks were always hot, those days. 
 
 He wrote like a modern Demosthenes, with 
 [7] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 all political New York to quiver under his 
 philippics. The managing editor used to send 
 him out on wonderful assignments, and they 
 used to hold the paper for his stuff when it was 
 late. Sometimes he would be gone for days at 
 a time, and when he returned the men would 
 look at him with a sort of admiring awe. And 
 the city editor would glance up from beneath 
 his green eye-shade and call out: 
 
 " Say, Orme, for a man who has just wired 
 in about a million dollars worth of stuff seems 
 to me you don t look very crisp and jaunty." 
 
 " Haven t slept for a week," Peter Orme 
 would growl, and then he would brush past 
 the men who were crowded around him, and 
 turn in my direction. And the old hot-and- 
 cold, happy, frightened, laughing, sobbing sen 
 sation would have me by the throat again. 
 
 Well, we were married. Love cast a glam 
 our over his very vices. His love of drink? 
 A weakness which I would transform into 
 strength. His white hot flashes of uncon 
 trollable temper? Surely they would die down 
 at my cool, tender touch. His fits of abstrac 
 tion and irritability? Mere evidences of the 
 genius within. Oh, my worshiping soul was 
 always alert with an excuse. 
 
 And so we were married. He had quite tired 
 [8] 
 
THE SMASH-UP 
 
 of me in less than a year, and the hand that 
 had always shaken a little shook a great deal 
 now, and the fits of abstraction and temper 
 could be counted upon to appear oftener than 
 any other moods. I used to laugh, sometimes, 
 when I was alone, at the bitter humor of it all. 
 It was like a Duchess novel come to life. 
 
 His work began to show slipshod in spots. 
 They talked to him about it and he laughed at 
 them. Then, one day, he left them in the 
 ditch on the big story of the McManus indict 
 ment, and the whole town scooped him, and the 
 managing editor told him that he must go. 
 His lapses had become too frequent. They 
 would have to replace him with a man not so 
 brilliant, perhaps, but more reliable. 
 
 I daren t think of his face as it looked when 
 he came home to the little apartment and told 
 me. The smoldering eyes were flaming now. 
 His lips were flecked with a sort of foam. I 
 stared at him in horror. He strode over to me, 
 clasped his fingers about my throat and shook 
 me as a dog shakes a mouse. 
 
 "Why don t you cry, eh?" he snarled. 
 " Why don t you cry I" 
 
 And then I did cry out at what I saw in his 
 eyes. I wrenched myself free, fled to my 
 room, and locked the door and stood against ft 
 
 [9] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 with my hand pressed over my heart until I 
 heard the outer door slam and the echo of his 
 footsteps die away. 
 
 Divorce ! That was my only salvation. 
 No, that would be cowardly now. I would 
 wait until he was on his feet again, and then I 
 would demand my old free life back once more. 
 This existence that was dragging me into the 
 gutter this was not life ! Life was a glori 
 ous, beautiful thing, and I would have it yet. 
 I laid my plans, feverishly, and waited. He 
 did not come back that night, or the next, or the 
 next, or the next. In desperation I went to 
 see the men at the office. No, they had not 
 seen him. Was there anything that they could 
 do? they asked. I smiled, and thanked them, 
 and said, oh, Peter was so absent-minded ! No 
 doubt he had misdirected his letters, or some 
 thing of the sort. And then I went back to 
 the flat to resume the horrible waiting. 
 
 One week later he turned up at the old office 
 which had cast him off. He sat down at his 
 former desk and began to write, breathlessly, as 
 he used to in the days when all the big stones 
 fell to him. One of the men reporters strolled 
 up to him and touched him on the shoulder, 
 man-fashion. Peter Orme raised his head and 
 stared at him, and the man sprang back in te*- 
 
 [10] 
 
THE SMASH-UP 
 
 ror. The smoldering eyes had burned down to 
 an ash. Peter Orme was quite bereft of all rea 
 son. They took him away that night, and I 
 kept telling myself that it wasn t true; that it 
 was all a nasty dream, and I would wake up 
 pretty soon, and laugh about it, and tell it at 
 the breakfast table. 
 
 Well, one does not seek a divorce from a hus 
 band who is insane. The busy men on the great 
 paper were very kind. They would take me 
 back on the staff. Did I think that I still 
 could write those amusing little human interest 
 stories? Funny ones, you know, with a punch 
 in em. 
 
 Oh, plenty of good stories left in me yet, I as 
 sured them. They must remember that I was 
 only twenty-one, after all, and at twenty-one one 
 does not lose the sense of humor. 
 
 And so I went back to my old desk, and 
 wrote bright, chatty letters home to Norah, and 
 ground out very funny stories with a punch in 
 em, that the husband in the insane asylum 
 might be kept in comforts. With both hands I 
 hung on like grim death to that saving sense of 
 humor, resolved to make something of that mis 
 erable mess which was my life to make some 
 thing of it yet. And now 
 
 At this point in my musings there was an end 
 
 en] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 of the low-voiced conversation in the hall. Sis 
 tiptoed in and looked her disapproval at finding 
 me sleepless. 
 
 " Dawn, old girlie, this will never do. Shut 
 your eyes now, like a good child, and go to 
 sleep. Guess what that great brute of a doctor 
 said! I may take you home with me next 
 week! Dawn dear, you will come, won t you? 
 You must! This is killing you. Don t make 
 me go away leaving you here. I couldn t stand 
 it." 
 
 She leaned over my pillow and closed my eye 
 lids gently with her sweet, cool fingers. " You 
 are coming home with me, and you shall sleep 
 and eat, and sleep and eat, until you are as lively 
 as the Widow Malone, ohone, and twice as fat. 
 Home, Dawnie dear, where we ll forget all 
 about New York. Home, with me." 
 
 I reached up uncertainly, and brought her 
 hand down to my lips and a great peace de 
 scended upon my sick soul. " Home with 
 you," I said, like a child, and fell asleep. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MOSTLY EGGS 
 
 , but it was clean, and sweet, and wonder- 
 fully 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 mid 
 night 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 stu 
 por, 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 night 
 mare. 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 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 and clatter? Never! Never! I resolved, 
 drowsily. And dropped off to sleep again. 
 
 And the sheets. Oh, those sheets of No- 
 rah s ! Why, they were white, instead of gray ! 
 And they actually smelled of flowers. For that 
 matter, there were rosebuds on the silken cover 
 let. 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 shud 
 dering 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 protect 
 ing 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 elu 
 cidated, sleepily, " never can tell who slept un 
 der em last " 
 
 " You eat! " exclaimed Norah, making a lit- 
 [14] 
 
MOSTLY EGGS 
 
 tie rush at me. " If you weren t supposed to be 
 ill I d shake you ! Comparing my darling rose 
 bud 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 un 
 der 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-cen 
 tury 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 dis 
 guise 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 some 
 thing before I discovered that it was only an 
 other egg in disguise. 
 
 " Feel like eating a great big dinner to-day, 
 Kidlet?" Norah would ask in the morning as 
 [151 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 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 1 
 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-ml 
 How perfectly scrumptious that looks ! What s 
 that affair in the lettuce leaf? Oh, can t I be 
 gin 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 ex 
 cept 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 unsmil- 
 [16] 
 
MOSTLY EGGS 
 
 ing 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 en 
 tered the room wearing a squeaky shoe. The 
 Weeping Walrus was a self-contained and tran 
 quil 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 weep 
 ing, " I m going to have Von Gerhard up here 
 to look at you. He can run up Sunday, eh, No- 
 rah?" 
 
 "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, indig 
 nantly. " 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 im 
 pressed when I told him that Von Gerhard was 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 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 Sun 
 day 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 wonder 
 ful 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 Ger 
 hard 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, 
 [18] 
 
MOSTLY EGGS 
 
 all three quite unmindful of the rain, and yelling 
 like Comanches. 
 
 Ten minutes later he had donned his profes 
 sional 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 en 
 tered the low doorway, and that the Vandyke 
 of my prophecy was missing. 
 
 He took my hand in his own steady, reassur 
 ing 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 mo 
 tion 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 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 <*verything from pate de fo ie gras to raw beef f 
 and I ve drunk everything from blood to cham 
 pagne." 
 
 "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 orange 
 ades, eggs in wine and eggs in milk, and eggs 
 au nature!. 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 ! " 
 
 " Mem 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 turn 
 ing my love for my sister into bitterest hate. 
 She stalks me the whole day long, forcing egg 
 mixtures down my unwilling throat. She bul 
 lies 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 dis- 
 
 [20] 
 
MOSTLY EGGS 
 
 tance of twenty yards, with my left hand tied be 
 hind 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, espe 
 cially 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. " Par 
 don? " 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 das- 
 sen 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 in 
 structions. 
 
 After that we got along beautifully. He 
 
 [21] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 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 satis 
 fied, and they trotted off contentedly. 
 
 There followed a process which reduced me 
 to a giggling heap but which Von Gerhard car 
 ried 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 ! " 
 
 ;t 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, 
 
 [22] 
 
MOSTLY EGGS 
 
 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 circum 
 stances may make our wishes impossible of exe 
 cution. 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 hu 
 man nature. Then too, there is your gift of 
 humor, Surely that is a combination which 
 should make your work acceptable to the maga 
 zines. 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 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 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. 
 
 " Natiirlich. A little dusting, a little scrub 
 bing, 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 assist 
 ing 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 no 
 ticed an expression of deepest pity overspread 
 ing her lumpy features. The expression be 
 came 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 
 [24] 
 
MOSTLY EGGS 
 
 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 or 
 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 de 
 clares, 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, be 
 tween hints as to flour and butter, gets delight 
 fully 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 wal 
 nut 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 offi 
 cial lickers and scrapers of the spoons and icing 
 pans, also official guides on their auntie s walks. 
 
 [25] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 [They regard their Aunt Dawn as a quite ridicu 
 lous 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, reck 
 lessly : " 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, any 
 way?" 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 GOOD AS NEW 
 
 OO Spring danced away, and Summer saun- 
 ^ tered in. My pillows looked less and less 
 tempting. The wine of the northern air im 
 parted a cocky assurance. One blue-and-gold 
 day followed the other, and I spent hours to 
 gether out of doors in the sunshine, lying full 
 length on the warm, sweet ground, to the horror 
 of the entire neighborhood. To be sure, I 
 was sufficiently discreet to choose the lawn at 
 the rear of the house. There I drank in the 
 atmosphere, as per doctor s instructions, while 
 the genial sun warmed the watery blood in my 
 veins and burned the skin off the end of my nose. 
 All my life I had envied the loungers in the 
 parks those silent, inert figures that lie under 
 the trees all the long summer day, their shabby 
 hats over their faces, their hands clasped above 
 their heads, legs sprawled in uncouth comfort, 
 while the sun dapples down between the leaves 
 and, like a good fairy godmother, touches their 
 frayed and wrinkled garments with flickering 
 [27] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 figures of golden splendor, while they sleep. 
 They always seemed so blissfully care-free and 
 at ease those sprawling men figures and I, 
 to whom such simple joys were forbidden, being 
 a woman, had envied them. 
 
 Now I was reveling in that very joy, 
 stretched prone upon the ground, blinking sleep 
 ily up at the sun and the cobalt sky, feeling my 
 very hair grow, and health returning in warm, 
 electric waves. I even dared to cross one leg 
 over the other and to swing the pendant member 
 with nonchalant air, first taking a cautious survey 
 of the neighboring back windows to see if any 
 one peeked. Doubtless they did, behind those 
 ruffled curtains, but I grew splendidly indifferent. 
 
 Even the crawling things and there were 
 myriads of them added to the enjoyment of 
 my ease. With my ear so close to the ground 
 the grass seemed fairly to buzz with them. 
 Everywhere there were crazily busy ants, and I, 
 patently a sluggard and therefore one of those 
 for whom the ancient warning was intended, 
 considered them lazily. How they plunged 
 about, weaving in and out, rushing here and 
 there, helter-skelter, like bargain-hunting women 
 darting wildly from counter to counter ! 
 
 " O, foolish, foolish anties!" I chided 
 them, " stop wearing yourselves out this way. 
 
 [28] 
 
GOOD AS NEW 
 
 Don t you know that the game isn t worth the 
 candle, and that you ll give yourselves nervous 
 jim-jams and then you ll have to go home to be 
 patched up ? Look at me I I m a horrible ex 
 ample." 
 
 But they only bustled on, heedless of my ad 
 vice, and showed their contempt by crawling 
 over me as I lay there like a lady Gulliver. 
 
 Oh, I played what they call a heavy think 
 ing part. It was not only the ants that came 
 in for lectures. I preached sternly to myself. 
 
 " Well, Dawn old girl, you ve made a beauti 
 ful mess of it. A smashed-up wreck at twenty- 
 eight! And what have you to show for it? 
 Nothing! You re a useless pulp, like a lemon 
 that has been squeezed dry. Von Gerhard was 
 right. There must be no more newspaper work 
 for you, me girl. Not if you can keep away 
 from the fascination of it, which I don t think 
 you can." 
 
 Then I would fall to thinking of those years 
 of newspapering of the thrills of them, and 
 the ills of them. It had been exhilarating, and 
 educating, but scarcely remunerative. Mother 
 had never approved. Dad had chuckled and 
 said that it was a curse descended upon me from 
 the terrible old Kitty O Hara, the only old maid 
 in the history of the O Haras, and famed in her 
 
 [29] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 day for a caustic tongue and a venomed pen* 
 Dad and Mother what a pair of children 
 they had been ! The very dissimilarity of their 
 natures had been a bond between them. Dad, 
 light-hearted, whimsical, care-free, improvident; 
 Mother, gravely sweet, anxious-browed, trying 
 to teach economy to the handsome Irish husband 
 who, descendant of a long and royal line of 
 spendthrift ancestors, would have none of it. 
 
 It was Dad who had insisted that they name 
 me Dawn. Dawn O Hara! His sense of 
 humor must have been sleeping. " You were 
 such a rosy, pinky, soft baby thing," Mother 
 had once told me, " that you looked just like the 
 first flush of .light at sunrise. That is why your 
 father insisted on calling you Dawn." 
 
 Poor Dad! How could he know that at 
 twenty-eight I would be a yellow wreck of a 
 newspaper reporter with a wrinkle between 
 my eyes. If he could see me now he would 
 say: 
 
 " Sure, you look like the dawn yet, me girl 
 ( but a Pittsburgh dawn." 
 
 ) ! At that, Mother, if she were here, would pat 
 my cheek where the hollow place is, and mur 
 mur: "Never mind, Dawnie dearie, Mother 
 thinks you are beautiful just the same." Of 
 such blessed stuff are mothers made. 
 
 [30] 
 
GOOD AS NEW 
 
 At this stage of the memory game I would 
 bury my face in the warm grass and thank my 
 God for having taken Mother before Peter 
 Orme came into my life. And then I would fall 
 asleep there on the soft, sweet grass, with my 
 head snuggled in my arms, and the ants wrig 
 gling, unchided, into my ears. 
 
 On the last of these sylvan occasions I awoke, 
 not with a graceful start, like the story-book 
 ladies, but with a grunt. Sis was digging me 
 in the ribs with her toe. I looked up to see her 
 standing over me, a foaming tumbler of some 
 thing in her hand. I felt that it was eggy and 
 eyed it disgustedly. 
 
 " Get up," said she, " you lazy scribbler, and 
 drink this." 
 
 I sat up, eyeing her severely and picking grass 
 and ants out of my hair. 
 
 " D you mean to tell me that you woke me 
 out of that babe-like slumber to make me drink 
 that goo? What is it, anyway? I ll bet it s 
 another egg-nogg." 
 
 I " Egg-nogg it is ; and swallow it right away, 
 because there are guests to see you." 
 
 I emerged from the first dip into the yellow 
 mixture and fixed on her as stern and terribk a 
 look at any one can whose mouth is encircled by 
 a mustache of yellow foam. 
 
 [31] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 "Guests!" I roared, "not for me! Don t 
 you dare to say that they came to see me ! " 
 
 " Did too," insists Norah, with firmness, 
 " they came especially to see you. Asked for 
 you, right from the jump." 
 
 I finished the egg-nogg in four gulps, returned 
 the empty tumbler with an air of decision, and 
 sank upon the grass. 
 
 "Tell em I rave. Tell em that I m un 
 conscious, and that for weeks I have recognized 
 no one, not even my dear sister. Say that in my 
 present nerve-shattered condition I " 
 
 " That wouldn t satisfy them," Norah calmly 
 interrupts," they know you re crazy because they 
 saw you out here from their second story back 
 windows. That s why they came. So you may 
 as well get up and face them. I promised them 
 I d bring you in. You can t go on forever re 
 fusing to see people, and you know the Whalens 
 are " 
 
 "Whalens!" I gasped. "How many of 
 them? Not not the entire fiendish three?" 
 
 " All three. I left them champing with im 
 patience." 
 
 The Whalens live just around the corner. 
 The Whalens are omniscient. They have a 
 system of news gathering which would make the 
 efforts of a New York daily appear antiquated. 
 
GOOD AS NEW 
 
 They know that Jenny Laffin feeds the family 
 on soup meat and oat-meal when Mr. Laffin 
 is on the road; they know that Mrs. Pearson 
 only shakes out her rugs once in four weeks; 
 they can tell you the number of times a week that 
 Sam Dempster comes home drunk; they know 
 that the Merkles never have cream with their 
 coffee because little Lizzie Merkle goes to the 
 creamery every day with just one pail and three 
 cents; they gloat over the knowledge that Pro 
 fessor Grimes, who is a married man, is sweet 
 on Gertie Ashe, who teaches second reader in his 
 school; they can tell you where Mrs. Black got 
 her seal coat, and her husband only earning two 
 thousand a year ; they know who is going to run 
 for mayor, and how long poor Angela Sims has 
 to live, and what Guy Donnelly said to Min 
 when he asked her to marry him. 
 
 The three Whalens mother and daughters 
 hunt in a group. They send meaning glances 
 to one another across the room, and at parties 
 they get together and exchange bulletins in a 
 corner. On passing the Whalen house one is 
 uncomfortably aware of shadowy forms lurking 
 in the windows, and of parlor curtains that are 
 agitated for no apparent cause. 
 
 Therefore it was with a groan that I rose and 
 prepared to follow Norah into the house. 
 [33] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 Something in my eye caused her to turn at the 
 very door. "Don t you dare!" she hissed; 
 then, banishing the warning scowl from her face, 
 and assuming a near-smile, she entered the room 
 and I followed miserably at her heels. 
 
 The Whalens rose and came forward effu 
 sively; Mrs. Whalen, plump, dark, voluble; 
 Sally, lean, swarthy, vindictive; Flossie, pudgy, 
 powdered, over-dressed. They eyed me hun 
 grily. I felt that they were searching my fea 
 tures for signs of incipient insanity. 
 
 " Dear, dear girl! " bubbled the billowy Flos 
 sie, kissing the end of my nose and fastening 
 her eye on my ringless left hand. 
 
 Sally contented herself with a limp and fishy 
 handshake. She and I were sworn enemies in 
 our school-girl days, and a baleful gleam still 
 lurked in Sally s eye. Mrs. Whalen bestowed 
 on me a motherly hug that enveloped me in an 
 atmosphere of liquid face-wash, strong perfum 
 ery and fried lard. Mrs. Whalen is a famous 
 cook. Said she: 
 
 " We ve been thinking of calling ever since 
 you were brought home, but dear me! you ve 
 been looking so poorly I just said to the girls, 
 wait till the poor thing feels more like seeing 
 her old friends. Tell me, how are you feeling 
 now?" 
 
 [34] 
 
GOOD AS NEW 
 
 The three sat forward in their chairs in at 
 titudes of tense waiting. 
 
 I resolved that if err I must it should be on 
 the side of safety. I turned to sister Norah. 
 
 " How am I feeling anyway, Norah ? " I 
 guardedly inquired. 
 
 Norah s face was a study. " Why Dawn 
 dear," she said, sugar-sweet, " no doubt you 
 know better than I. But I m sure that you 
 are wonderfully improved almost your old 
 self, in fact. Don t you think she looks splen 
 did, Mrs. Whalen?" 
 
 The three Whalens tore their gaze from my 
 blank countenance to exchange a series of mean 
 ing looks. 
 
 " I suppose," purred Mrs. Whalen, " that 
 your awful trouble was the real cause of your 
 a-a-a-sickness, worrying about it and grieving 
 as you must have." 
 
 She pronounces it with a capital T, and I 
 know she means Peter. I hate her for it. 
 
 "Trouble!" I chirped. "Trouble never 
 troubles me. I just worked too hard, that s all, 
 and acquired an awful tired. All work and 
 no play makes Jill a nervous wreck, you know." 
 
 At that the elephantine Flossie wagged a 
 playful finger at me. " Oh, now, you can t 
 make us believe that, just because we re from 
 
 [35] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 the country ! We know all about you gay New 
 Yorkers, with your Bohemian ways and your 
 midnight studio suppers, and your cigarettes, and 
 cocktails and high jinks ! " 
 
 Memory painted a swift mental picture of 
 Dawn O Hara as she used to tumble into bed 
 after a whirlwind day at the office, too dog-tired 
 to give her hair even one half of the prescribed 
 one hundred strokes of the brush. But in turn 
 I shook a reproving forefinger at Flossie. 
 
 " YouVe been reading some naughty society 
 novel! One of those millionaire-divorce-ac 
 tress-automobile novels. Dear, dear! Shall I 
 ever forget the first New York actress I ever 
 met; or what she said! " 
 
 I felt, more than saw, a warning movement 
 from Sis. But the three Whalens had hitched 
 forward in their chairs. 
 
 * What did she say?" gurgled Flossie. 
 " Was it something real reezk? " 
 
 " Well, it was at a late supper a studio 
 supper given in her honor," I confessed. 
 
 " Yes-s-s-s " hissed the Whalens. 
 
 " And this actress she was one of those* 
 musical comedy actresses, you know; I remember 
 her part called for a good deal of kicking about 
 in a short Dutch costume came in rather late, 
 after the performance. She was wearing a 
 
 [36] 
 
GOOD AS NEW 
 
 regal-looking fur-edged evening wrap, and she 
 still wore all her make-up " out of the corner 
 of my eye I saw Sis sink back with an air of 
 resignation " and she threw open the door and 
 said 
 
 " Yes-s-s-s ! " hissed the Whalens again, wet 
 ting their lips. 
 
 " said : l Folks, I just had a wire from 
 mother, up in Maine. The boy has the croup. 
 I m scared green. I hate to spoil the party, but 
 don t ask me to stay. I want to go home to 
 the flat and blubber. I didn t even stop to take 
 my make-up off. My God ! If anything should 
 happen to the boy! Well, have a good time 
 without me. Jirn s waiting outside. 
 
 A silence. 
 
 Then "Who was Jim?" asked Flossie, 
 hopefully. 
 
 " Jim was her husband, of course. He was 
 in the same company." 
 
 Another silence. 
 
 "Is that all?" demanded Sally from the 
 corner in which she had been glowering. 
 
 " All ! You unnatural girl ! Isn t one hus 
 band enough? " 
 
 Mrs. Whalen smiled an uncertain, wavering 
 smile. There passed among the three a series 
 of cabalistic signs. They rose simultaneously. 
 [37] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " How quaint you are ! " exclaimed Mrs* 
 Whalen, "and so amusing! Come girls, we 
 mustn t tire Miss ah Mrs. er " with 
 another meaning look at my bare left hand. 
 
 " My husband s name is still Orme," I 
 prompted, quite, quite pleasantly. 
 
 " Oh, certainly. I m so forgetful. And one 
 reads such queer things in the newspapers now- 
 a-days. Divorces, and separations, and soul- 
 mates and things." There was a note of 
 gentle insinuation in her voice. 
 
 Norah stepped firmly into the fray. " Yes, 
 doesn t one ? What a comfort it must be to you 
 to know that your dear girls are safe at home 
 with you, and no doubt will be secure, for years 
 to come, from the buffeting winds of matri 
 mony." 
 
 There was a tinge of purple in Mrs. Whalen s 
 face as she moved toward the door, gathering 
 her brood about her. " Now that dear Dawn is 
 almost normal again I shall send my little girlies 
 over real often. She must find it very dull here 
 after her ah life in New York." 
 
 " Not at all," I said, hurriedly, " not at all. 
 You see I m I m writing a book. My entire 
 day is occupied." 
 
 " A book! " screeched the three, " How in- 
 [38] 
 
GOOD AS NEW 
 
 teresting! What is it? When will it be pub 
 lished?" 
 
 I avoided Norah s baleful eye as I answered 
 their questions and performed the final adieux. 
 
 As the door closed, Norah and I faced each 
 other, glaring. 
 
 " Hussies ! " hissed Norah. Whereupon it 
 struck us funny and we fell, a shrieking heap, 
 into the nearest chair. Finally Sis dabbed at 
 her eyes with her handkerchief, drew a long 
 breath, and asked, with elaborate sarcasm, why 
 I hadn t made it a play instead of a book, while 
 I was about it. 
 
 " But I mean it," I declared. " I ve had 
 enough of loafing. Max must unpack my type 
 writer to-night. I m homesick for a look at the 
 keys. And to-morrow I m to be installed in the 
 cubby-hole off the dining-room and I defy any 
 one to enter it on peril of their lives. If you 
 value the lives of your offspring, warn them 
 away from that door. Von Gerhard said that 
 there was writing in my system, and by the Great 
 Horn Spoon and the Beard of the Prophet, I ll 
 have it out! Besides, I need the money. 
 Norah dear, how does one set about writing a 
 book? It seems like such a large order." 
 
 [39] 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH 
 
 TT S hard trying to develop into a real Writer 
 * Lady in the bosom of one s family, especially 
 when the family refuses to take one seriously. 
 Seven years of newspaper grind have taught me 
 the fallacy of trying to write by the inspiration 
 method. But there is such a thing as a train 
 of thought, and mine is constantly being de 
 railed, and wrecked and pitched about. 
 
 Scarcely am I settled in my cubby-hole, type 
 writer before me, the working plan of a story 
 buzzing about in my brain, when I hear my name 
 called in muffled tones, as though the speaker 
 were laboring with a mouthful of hairpins. I 
 pay no attention. I have just given my heroine 
 a pair of calm gray eyes, shaded with black 
 lashes and hair to match. A voice floats down 
 from the upstairs regions. 
 
 " Dawn ! Oh, Dawn ! Just run and rescue 
 the cucumbers out of the top of the ice-box, will 
 you? The iceman s coming, and he ll squash 
 
 em." 
 
 [40] 
 
DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH 
 
 A parting jab at my heroine s hair and eyes,, 
 and I m off to save the cucumbers. 
 
 Back at my typewriter once more. Shall I 
 make my heroine petite or grandef I decide, 
 that stateliness and Gibsonesque height should 
 accompany the calm gray eyes. I rattle away 
 happily, the plot unfolding itself in some mys 
 terious way. Sis opens the door a little and 
 peers in. She is dressed for the street. 
 
 " Dawn dear, I m going to the dressmaker s.. 
 Frieda s upstairs cleaning the bathroom, so take 
 a little squint at the roast now and then, will 
 you? See that it doesn t burn, and that there s 
 plenty of gravy. Oh, and Dawn tell the 
 milkman we want an extra half-pint of cream 
 to-day. The tickets are on the kitchen shelf,, 
 back of the clock. I ll be back in an hour." 
 
 " Mhmph," I reply. 
 
 Sis shuts the door, but opens it again almost 
 immediately. i 
 
 " Don t let the Infants bother you. But if 
 Frieda s upstairs and they come to you for some 
 thing to eat, don t let them have any cookies 
 before dinner. If they re really hungry they ll 
 eat bread and butter." 
 
 I promise, dreamily, my last typewritten sen 
 tence still running through my head. The gravy 
 seems to have got into the heroine s calm gray 
 
 [41] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 eyes. What heroine could remain calm-eyed 
 when her creator s mind is filled with roast beef? 
 A half-hour elapses before I get back on the 
 track. Then appears the hero a tall blond 
 youth, fair to behold. I make him two yards 
 high, and endow him with a pair of clothing- 
 advertisement shoulders. 
 
 There assails my nostrils a fearful smell of 
 scorching. The roast! A wild rush into the 
 kitchen. I fling open the oven door. The 
 roast is mahogany-colored, and gravyless. It 
 takes fifteen minutes of the most desperate first- 
 aid-to-the-injured measures before the roast is 
 revived. 
 
 Back to the writing. It has lost its charm. 
 The gray-eyed heroine is a stick; she moves lik<? 
 an Indian lady outside a cigar shop. The hero 
 is a milk-and-water sissy, without a vital spark 
 in him. What s the use of trying to write, any 
 way? Nobody wants my stuff. Good for 
 nothing except dubbing on a newspaper ! 
 
 Rap ! Rap ! Rappity-rap-rap ! Bing I Milk ! 
 
 I dash into the kitchen. No milk! No 
 milkman I I fly to the door. He is disappear 
 ing around the corner of the house. 
 
 " Hi ! Mr. Milkman ! Say, Mr. Milkman ! " 
 with frantic beckonings. 
 
 He turns. He lifts up his voice. " The 
 
 [42] 
 
DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH 
 
 screen door was locked so I left youse yer milk 
 OH top of the ice-box on the back porch. 
 Thought like the hired girl was upstairs an I 
 could git the tickets to-morra." 
 
 I explain about the cream, adding that it is 
 wanted for short-cake. The explanation does 
 not seem to cheer him. He appears to be a 
 very gloomy and reserved milkman. I fancy 
 that he is in the habit of indulging in a little 
 airy persiflage with Frieda o mornings, and he 
 finds me a poor substitute for her red-cheeked 
 comeliness. 
 
 The milk safely stowed away in the ice-box, I 
 have another look at the roast. I am dipping 
 up spoonfuls of brown gravy and pouring them 
 over the surface of the roast in approved bast 
 ing style, when there is a rush, a scramble, and 
 two hard bodies precipitate themselves upon my 
 legs so suddenly that for a moment my head 
 pitches forward into the oven. I withdraw my 
 head from the oven, hastily. The basting spoon 
 is immersed in the bottom of the pan. I turn, 
 indignant. The Spalpeens look up at me with 
 innocent eyes. 
 
 You little divils, what do you mean by shov 
 ing your old aunt into the oven ! It s cannibals 
 you are! " 
 
 The idea pleases them. They release my legs 
 
 [43] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 .and execute a savage war dance around me. 
 The Spalpeens are firm in the belief that I was 
 brought to their home for their sole amusement, 
 and they refuse to take me seriously. The 
 Spalpeens themselves are two of the finest ex 
 amples of real humor that ever were perpetrated 
 upon parents. Sheila is the first-born. Norah 
 decided that she should be an Irish beauty, and 
 bestowed upon her a name that reeks of the bogs. 
 Whereupon Sheila, at the age of six, is as flaxen- 
 haired and blue-eyed and stolid a little German 
 madchen as ever fooled her parents, and she is 
 a feminine reproduction of her German Dad. 
 Two years later came a sturdy boy, and they 
 named him Hans, in a flaunt of defiance. Hans 
 is black-haired, gray-eyed and Irish as Killarny. 
 
 We re awful hungry," announces Sheila. 
 
 " Can t you wait until dinner time? Such a 
 .grand dinner ! " 
 
 Sheila and Hans roll their eyes to convey to 
 me that, were they to wait until dinner for sus 
 tenance we should find but their lifeless forms. 
 
 " Well then, Auntie will get a nice piece of 
 bread and butter for each of you." 
 
 " Don t want bread an butty 1 " shrieks Hans. 
 "Want tooky!" 
 
 "Cooky!" echoes Sheila, pounding on the 
 .kitchen table with the rescued basting spoon. 
 
 [44] 
 
DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH 
 
 41 You can t have cookies before dinner. 
 They re bad for your insides." 
 
 " Can too," disputes Hans. " Fwieda dives 
 us tookies. Want tooky I " wailingly. 
 
 " Please, ple-e-e-ease, Auntie Dawnie dearie, n 
 wheedles Sheila, wriggling her soft little fingers 
 in my hand. 
 
 " But Mother never lets you have cookies 
 before dinner," I retort severely. " She knows 
 they are bad for you." 
 
 " Pooh, she does too ! She always says, No, 
 not a cooky ! And then we beg and screech, 
 and then she says, * Oh, for pity s sake, Frieda, 
 give em a cooky and send em out. One cooky 
 can t kill em. Sheila s imitation is delicious. 
 
 Hans catches the word screech and takes it as 
 his cue. He begins a series of ear-piercing 
 wails. Sheila surveys him with pride and then 
 takes the wail up in a minor key. Their team 
 work is marvelous. I fly to the cooky jar and 
 extract two round and sugary confections. I 
 thrust them into the pink, eager palms. The 
 wails cease. Solemnly they place one cooky atop 
 the other, measuring the circlets with grave eyes. 
 
 " Mine s a weeny bit bigger n yours this 
 time," decides Sheila, and holds her cocky 
 heroically while Hans takes a just and lawful 
 bite out of his sister s larger share. 
 
 [45] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " The blessed little angels ! " I say to myself, 
 melting. " The dear, unselfish little sweet 
 ies ! " and give each of them another cooky. 
 
 Back to my typewriter. But the words flatly 
 refuse to come now. I make six false starts, 
 bite all my best finger-nails, screw my hair into 
 a wilderness of cork-screws and give it up. No 
 doubt a real Lady Writer could write on, un 
 ruffled and unhearing, while the iceman squashed 
 the cucumbers, and the roast burned to a frazzle, 
 and the Spalpeens perished of hunger. Pos 
 sessed of the real spark of genius, trivialities like 
 milkmen and cucumbers could not dim its glow. 
 Perhaps all successful Lady Writers with real 
 live sparks have cooks and scullery maids, and 
 need not worry about basting, and gravy, and 
 milkmen. 
 
 This book writing is all very well for those 
 who have a large faith in the future and an 
 equally large bank account. But my future will 
 have to be hand-carved, and my bank account 
 has always been an all too small pay envelope at 
 the end of each week. It will be months before 
 the book is shaped and finished. And my 
 pocketbook is empty. Last week Max sent 
 money for the care of Peter. He and Norah 
 think that I do not know. 
 
 Yon Gerhard was here in August. I told him 
 
 [46] 
 
DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH 
 
 that all my firm resolutions to forsake news- 
 paperdom forever were slipping away,one by one. 
 
 " I have heard of the fascination of the news 
 paper office," he said, in his understanding way. 
 ** I believe you have a heimweh for it, not? " 
 
 " Heimweh f That s the word," I had 
 agreed. " After you have been a newspaper 
 writer for seven years and loved it you 
 will be a newspaper writer, at heart and by in 
 stinct at least, until you die. There s no getting 
 away from it. It s in the blood. Newspaper 
 men have been known to inherit fortunes, to 
 enter politics, to write books and become famous, 
 to degenerate into press agents and become in 
 famous, to blossom into personages, to sink into 
 nonentities, but their news-nose remained a part 
 of them, and the inky, smoky, stuffy smell of a 
 newspaper office was ever sweet in their nos 
 trils." 
 
 But, "Not yet," Von Gerhard had said, 
 " unless you want to have again this miserable 
 business of the sick nerfs. Wait yet a few 
 months." 
 
 And so I have waited, saying nothing to 
 Norah and Max. But I want to be in the midst 
 of things. I miss the sensation of having my 
 fingers at the pulse of the big old world. I m 
 lonely for the noise and the rush and the hard 
 
 [47] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 work; for a glimpse of the busy local room just 
 before press time, when the lights are swimming 
 in a smoky haze, and the big presses downstairs 
 are thundering their warning to hurry, and the 
 men are breezing in from their runs with the 
 grist of news that will be ground finer and finer 
 as it passes through the mill of copy-readers 
 and editors hands. I want to be there in the 
 thick of the confusion that is, after all, so 
 orderly. I want to be there when the telephone 
 bells are zinging, and the typewriters are snap 
 ping, and the messenger boys are shuffling in and 
 out, and the office kids are scuffling in a corner, 
 and the big city editor, collar off, sleeves rolled 
 up from his great arms, hair bristling wildly 
 above his green eye-shade, is swearing gently 
 and smoking cigarette after cigarette, lighting 
 each fresh one at the dying glow of the last. 
 I would give a year of my life to hear him 
 say: 
 
 " I don t mind tellin you, Beatrice Fairfax, 
 that that was a darn good story you got on the 
 Millhaupt divorce. The other fellows haven t 
 a word that isn t re-hash." 
 
 All of which is most unwomanly; for is not 
 marriage woman s highest aim, and home her 
 true sphere? Haven t I tried both? I ought 
 to know. I merely have been miscast in this 
 
 [48] 
 
DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH 
 
 life s drama. My part should have been that 
 of one who makes her way alone. Peter, with 
 his thin, cruel lips, and his shaking hands, and 
 his haggard face and his smoldering e,yes v is a 
 shadow forever blotting out the sunny places in 
 my path. I was meant to be an old maid, like 
 the terrible old Kitty O Hara. Not one of 
 the tatting-and-tea kind, but an impressive, bus 
 tling old girl, with a double chin, The sharp* 
 tongued Kitty O Hara used to say that being an 
 old maid was a great deal like death by drown 
 ing a really delightful sensation when you 
 ceased struggling. 
 
 Norah has pleaded with me to be more like 
 other women of my age, and for her sake I ve 
 tried. She has led me about to bridge parties 
 and tea fights, and I have tried to act 
 as though I wefe enjoying it all, but I 
 knew that I wasn t getting on a bit. I have 
 come to the conclusion that one year of news- 
 papering counts for two years of ordinary ex 
 istence, and that while I m twenty-eight in the 
 family Bible I m fully forty inside. When one 
 day may bring under one s pen a priest, a pauper, 
 a prostitute, a philanthropist, each with a story 
 to tell, and each requiring to be bullied, or 
 cajoled, or bribed, or threatened, or tricked into 
 telling it; then the end of that day s work finds 
 
 [49] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 one looking out at the world with eyes that are 
 very tired and as old as the world itself. 
 
 I m spoiled for sewing bees and church socia 
 bles and afternoon bridges. A hunger for the 
 city is upon me. The long, lazy summer days 
 have slipped by. There is an autumn tang in 
 the air. The breeze has a touch that is sharp. 
 
 Winter in a little northern town! I should 
 go mad. But winter in the city! The streets 
 at dusk on a frosty evening; the shop windows 
 arranged by artist hands for the beauty-loving 
 eyes of women; the rows of lights like jewels 
 strung on an invisible chain ; the glitter of brass 
 and enamel as the endless procession of motors 
 flashes past; the smartly-gowned women; the 
 keen-eyed, nervous men; the shrill note of the 
 crossing policeman s whistle; every smoke- 
 grimed wall and pillar taking on a mysterious 
 shadowy beauty in the purple dusk, every un 
 sightly blot obscured by the kindly night. But 
 best of all, the fascination of the People I d Like 
 to Know. They pop up now and then in the 
 shifting crowds, and are gone the next moment,; 
 leaving behind them a vague regret. Some 
 times I call them the People I d Like to Know 
 and sometimes I call them the People I Know 
 I d Like, but it means much the same. Their 
 faces flash by in the crowd, and are gone, but 
 
 [50] 
 
DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH 
 
 I recognize them instantly as belonging to my 
 beloved circle of unknown friends. 
 
 Once it was a girl opposite me in a car a 
 girl with a wide, humorous mouth, and tragic 
 fyes, and a hole in her shoe. Once it was a 
 big, homely, red-headed giant of a man with an 
 engineering magazine sticking out of his coat 
 pocket. He was standing at a book counter 
 reading Dickens like a schoolboy and laughing 
 in all the right places, I know, because I peaked 
 over his shoulder to see. Another time it was a 
 sprightly little grizzled old woman, staring into 
 a dazzling shop window in which was displayed 
 a wonderful collection of fashionably impossible 
 hats and gowns. She was dressed all in rusty 
 black, was the little old lady, and she had a 
 quaint cast in her left eye that gave her the 
 oddest, most sporting look. The cast was 
 working overtime as she gazed at the gowns, 
 and the ridiculous old sprigs on her rusty black 
 bonnet trembled with her silent mirth. She 
 looked like one of those clever, epigrammatic, 
 dowdy old duchesses that one reads about in 
 English novels. I m sure she had cardamon 
 seeds in her shabby bag, and a carriage with a 
 crest on it waiting for her just around the corner. 
 I ached to slip my hand through her arm and 
 ask her what she thought of it all. I know that 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 her reply would have been exquisitely witty and 
 audacious, and I did so long to hear her say it. 
 
 No doubt some good angel tugs at my com 
 mon sense, restraining me from doing these 
 things that I am tempted to do. Of course it 
 would be madness for a woman to address un 
 known red-headed men with the look of an 
 engineer about them and a book of Dickens in 
 their hands; or perky old women with nut 
 cracker faces; or girls with wide humorous 
 mouths. Oh, it couldn t be done, I suppose. 
 They would clap me in a padded cell in no time 
 if I were to say: 
 
 " Mister Red-headed Man, I m so glad your 
 heart is young enough for Dickens. I love him 
 too enough to read him standing at a book 
 counter in a busy shop. And do you know, I 
 like the squareness of your jaw, and the way 
 your eyes crinkle up when you laugh ; and as for 
 your being an engineer why one of the very 
 first men I ever loved was the engineer in 
 * Soldiers of Fortune/ " 
 
 I wonder what the girl in the car would have 
 said if I had crossed over to her, and put my 
 hand on her arm and spoken, thus : 
 
 " Girl with the wide, humorous mouth, and 
 the tragic eyes, and the hole in your shoe, I 
 think you must be an awfully good sort. Ill 
 
DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH 
 
 wager you paint, or write, or act, or do some 
 thing clever like that for a living. But from 
 that hole in your shoe which you have inked so 
 carefully, although it persists in showing white 
 at the seams, I fancy you are stumbling over a 
 rather stony bit of Life s road just now. And 
 from the look in your eyes, girl, I m afraid the 
 stones have cut and bruised rather cruelly. But 
 when I look at your smiling, humorous mouth I 
 know that you are trying to laugh at the hurts. 
 I think that this morning, when you inked your 
 shoe for the dozenth time, you hesitated between 
 tears and laughter, and the laugh won, thank 
 God ! Please keep right on laughing, and don t 
 you dare stop for a minute! Because pretty 
 soon you ll come to a smooth easy place, and 
 then won t you be glad that you didn t give up 
 to lie down by the roadside, weary of your 
 hurts?" 
 
 Oh, it would never do. Never. And yet no 
 charm possessed by the people I know and like 
 can compare with the fascination of those Peo 
 ple I d Like to Know, and Know I Would Like. 
 
 Here at home with Norah there are no faces 
 in the crowds. There are no crowds. When 
 you turn the corner at Main street you are quite 
 sure that you will see the same people in the 
 same places. You know that Mamie Hayes will 
 [53] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 be flapping her duster just outside the door of 
 the jewelry store where she clerks. She gazes 
 up and down Main street as she flaps the cloth, 
 her bright eyes keeping a sharp watch for stray 
 traveling men that may chance to be passing.; 
 You know that there will be the same lounging 
 group of white-faced, vacant-eyed youths outside 
 the pool-room. Dr. Briggs s patient runabout 
 will be standing at his office doorway. Outside 
 his butcher shop Assemblyman Schenck will be 
 holding forth on the subject of county politics to 
 a group of red-faced, badly dressed, pros 
 perous looking farmers and townsmen, and as he 
 talks the circle of brown tobacco juice which 
 surrounds the group closes in upon them, nearer 
 and nearer. And there, in a roomy chair in a 
 corner of the public library reference room, fac 
 ing the big front window, you will see Old Man 
 Randall. His white hair forms a halo above 
 his pitiful drink-marred face. He was to have 
 been a great lawyer, was Old Man Randall. 
 But on the road to fame he met Drink, and she 
 grasped his arm, and led him down by-ways, and 
 into crooked lanes, and finally into ditches, and 
 he never arrived at his goal. There in that 
 library window nook it is cool in summer, and 
 warm in winter. So he sits and dreams, holding 
 an open volume, unread, on his knees. Some- 
 
 [54] 
 
DAWN DEVELOPS A HEIMWEH 
 
 times he writes, hunched up in his corner, fever 
 ishly scribbling at ridiculous plays, short stories, 
 and novels which later he will insist on reading 
 to the tittering schoolboys and girls who come 
 into the library to do their courting and refer 
 ence work. Presently, when it grows dusk, Old 
 Man Randall will put away his book, throw his 
 coat over his shoulders, sleeves dangling, flow 
 ing white locks sweeping the frayed velvet 
 collar. He will march out with his soldierly 
 tread, humming a bit of a tune, down the street 
 and into Vandermeister s saloon, where he will 
 beg a drink and a lunch, and some man will give 
 it to him tor the sake of what Old Man Randall 
 might have been. 
 
 All these things you know. And knowing 
 them, what is left for the imagination? How 
 can one dream dreams about people when one 
 knows how much they pay their hired girl, and 
 what they have for dinner on Wednesdays? 
 
 [55] 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS 
 
 T CAN understand the emotions of a broken- 
 * down war horse that is hitched to a vege 
 table wagon. I am going to Milwaukee to 
 work ! It is a thing to make the gods hold their 
 sides and roll down from their mountain peaks 
 with laughter. After New York Milwau 
 kee! 
 
 Of course Von Gerhard is to blame. But 
 I think even he sees the humor of it. It hap 
 pened in this way, on a day when I was indulging 
 in a particularly greenery-yallery fit of gloom. 
 Norah rushed into my room. I think I was 
 mooning over some old papers, or letters, or rib 
 bons, or some such truck in the charming, knife- 
 turning way that women have when they are 
 blue. 
 
 " Out wid yez 1 " cried Norah. " On with 
 your hat and coat! I ve just had a wire from 
 Ernst von Gerhard. He s coming, and you 
 look like an under-done dill pickle. You aren t 
 half as blooming as when he was here in August, 
 [56] 
 
THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS 
 
 and this is October. Get out and walk until 
 your cheeks are so red that Von Gerhard will 
 refuse to believe that this fiery-faced puffing, 
 bouncing creature is the green and limp thing 
 that huddled in a chair a few months ago. Out 
 ye go!" 
 
 And out I went. Hatless, I strode country- 
 wards, leaving paved streets and concrete walks 
 far behind There were drifts of fallen leaves 
 all about, and I scuffled through them drearily, 
 trying to feel gloomy, and old, and useless, and 
 failing because of the tang in the air, and the 
 red-and-gold wonder of the frost-kissed leaves, 
 and the regular pump-pump of good red blood 
 that was coursing through my body as per Nor- 
 ah s request. 
 
 In a field at the edge of the town, just where 
 city and country begin to have a bowing ac 
 quaintance, the college boys were at football 
 practice. Their scarlet sweaters made gay 
 patches of color against the dull gray-brown of 
 the autumn grass. 
 
 " Seven-eighteen-two-f our ! " called a voice, 
 There followed a scuffle, a creaking of leather on 
 leather, a thud. I watched them, a bit en 
 viously, walking backwards until a twist in the 
 road hid them from view. That same twist 
 transformed my path into a real country road 
 
 [57] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 a brown, dusty, monotonous Michigan country 
 road that went severely about its business, never 
 once stopping to flirt with the blushing autumn 
 woodland at its left, or to dally with the dim 
 pling ravine at its right. 
 
 " Now if that were an English country road," 
 thought I, " a sociably inclined, happy-go-lucky, 
 out-for-pleasure English country road, one might 
 expect something of it. On an English country 
 road this would be the psychological moment for 
 the appearance of a blond god, in gray tweed. 
 What a delightful time of it Richard Le Gal- 
 lienne s hero had on his quest! He could not 
 stroll down the most innocent looking lane, he 
 might not loiter along the most out-of-the-way 
 path, he never ambled over the barest piece of 
 country road, that he did not come face to face 
 with some witty and lovely woman creature, also 
 in search of things unconventional, and able to 
 quote charming lines from Chaucer to him." 
 
 Ah, but that was England, and this is Amer 
 ica. I realize it sadly as I step out of the road 
 to allow a yellow milk wagon to rattle past. 
 The red letters on the yellow milk cart inform 
 the reader that it is the property of August 
 Schimmelpfennig, of Hickory Grove. The 
 Schimmelpfennig eye may be seen staring down 
 upon me from the bit of glass in the rear as the 
 
 [58] 
 
THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS 
 
 cart rattles ahead, doubtless being suspicious of 
 hatless young women wandering along country 
 roads at dusk, alone. There was that in the 
 staring eye to which I took exception. It wore 
 an expression which made me feel sure that the 
 mouth below it was all a-grin, if I could 
 but have seen it. It was bad enough to be 
 stared at by the fishy Schimmelpfennig eye, but 
 to be grinned at by the Schimmelpfennig mouth ! 
 I resented it. In order to show my resent 
 ment I turned my back on the Schimmelpfennig 
 cart and pretended to look up the road which I 
 had just traveled. 
 
 I pretended to look up the road, and then I 
 did look in earnest. No wonder the Schim 
 melpfennig eye and mouth had worn the leering 
 expression. The blond god in gray tweed was 
 swinging along toward me! I knew that he 
 was blond because he wore no hat and the last 
 rays of the October sun were making a little halo 
 effect about his head. I knew that his gray 
 clothes were tweed because every well regulated 
 hero on a country road wears tweed. It s almostf; 
 a religion with them. He was not near enough 
 to make a glance at his features possible. I 
 turned around and continued my walk. The 
 yellow cart, with its impudent Schimmelpfennig 
 leer, was disappearing in a cloud of dust, 
 
 [59] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 Shades of the " Duchess " and Bertha M. Clay! 
 How does one greet a blond god in gray tweed 
 on a country road, when one has him ! 
 
 The blond god solved the problem for me. 
 
 " Hi ! " he called. I did not turn. There 
 was a moment s silence. Then there came a 
 shrill, insistent whistle, of the kind that is made 
 by placing four fingers between the teeth. It is 
 a favorite with the gallery gods. I would not 
 have believed that gray tweed gods stooped to 
 it. 
 
 " Hi ! " called the voice again, very near now. 
 " Lieber Gott! Never have I seen so proud a 
 young woman ! " 
 
 I whirled about to face Von Gerhard; a 
 strangely boyish and unprofessional looking Von 
 Gerhard. 
 
 4 Young man," I said severely, " have you 
 been a-follerin of me? " 
 
 " For miles," groaned he, as we shook hands. 
 " You walk like a grenadier. I am sent by the 
 charming Norah to tell you that you are to come 
 home to mix the salad dressing, for there is com 
 pany for supper. I am the company." 
 
 I was still a bit dazed. " But how did you 
 know which road to take? And when " 
 
 " Wunderbar, nlcht wahr? " laughed Von 
 Gerhard. " But really quite simple. I come 
 
 [60] 
 
THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS 
 
 in on an earlier train than I had expected, chat 
 a moment with sister Norah, inquire after the 
 health of my patient, and am told that she is 
 running away from a horde of blue devils 
 I quote your charming sister that have 
 swarmed about her all day. What direction did 
 her flight take ? I ask. Sister Norah shrugs her 
 shoulders and presumes that it is the road which 
 shows the reddest and yellowest autumn colors. 
 That road will be your road. So ! " 
 
 " Pooh ! How simple ! That is the second 
 disappointment you have given me to-day. 
 
 " But how is that possible ? The first has not 
 had time to happen." 
 
 " The first was yourself," I replied, rudely. 
 " I had been longing for an adventure. And 
 when I saw you way up the road, such an un 
 usual figure for our Michigan country roads, 
 I forgot that I was a disappointed old grass 
 widder with a history, and I grew young again, 
 and my heart jumped up into my throat, and I 
 sez to mesilf, sez I : * Enter the hero ! And it 
 was only you." 
 
 Von Gerhard stared a moment, a curious look 
 on his face. Then he laughed one of those 
 rare laughs of his, and I joined him because I 
 was strangely young, light, and happy to be 
 alive. 
 
 [61] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " You walk and enjoy walking, yes? " asked 
 Von Gerhard, scanning my face. " Your cheeks 
 they are like well, as unlike the cheeks of the 
 German girls as Diana s are unlike a dairy 
 maid s. And the nerfs? They no longer 
 jump, eh? " / . 
 
 " Oh, they jump, but not with weariness. 
 They jump to get into action again. From a 
 life of too much excitement I have gone to the 
 other extreme. I shall be dead of ennui in an 
 other six months." . 
 
 " Ennui ? " mused he, " and you are how is 
 it ? twenty-eight years, yes ? H m ! " 
 
 There was a world of exasperation in the last 
 exclamation. 
 
 " I am a thousand years old," it made me ex 
 claim, " a million! " 
 
 " I will prove to you that you are sixteen," 
 (declared Von Gerhard, calmly. 
 
 We had come to a fork in the road. At the 
 right the narrower road ran between two rows 
 of great maples that made an arch of golden 
 splendor. The frost had kissed them into a 
 gorgeous radiance. 
 
 " Sunshine Avenue," announced Von Gerhard. 
 " It beckons us away from home, and supper and 
 salad dressing and duty, but who knows what we 
 shall find at the end of it! " 
 [62] 
 
THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS 
 
 " Let s explore," I suggested. " It is splen 
 didly golden enough to be enchanted." 
 
 We entered the yellow canopied pathway. 
 
 "Let us pretend this is Germany, yes?" 
 pleaded Von Gerhard. " This golden pathway 
 will end in a neat little glass-roofed restaurant, 
 with tables and chairs outside, and comfortable 
 German papas and mammas and pig-tailed chil 
 dren sitting at the tables, drinking coffee or beer. 
 There will be stout waiters, and a red-faced 
 host. And we will seat ourselves at one of the 
 tables, and I will wave my hand, and one of the 
 stout waiters will come flying. Will you have 
 coffee, Fraulein, or beer? It sounds prosaic, 
 but it is very, very good, as you will see. Path 
 ways in Germany always end in coffee and 
 Kuchen and waiters in white aprons. 
 
 But, " Oh, no! " I exclaimed, for his mood 
 ivas infectious. " This is France. Please ! 
 The golden pathway will end in a picturesque 
 little French farm, with a dairy. And in the 
 doorway of the farmhouse there will be a red- 
 skirted peasant woman, with a white cap 1 and a 
 baby on her arm ! and sabots! Oh, surely she 
 will wear sabots! " 
 
 " Most certainly she will wear sabots," Von 
 Gerhard said, fef atedly, " and blue knitted stock 
 ings. And tin ta&y s name is Mimi ! " 
 [63] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 We had taken hands and were skipping down 
 the pathway now, like two excited children. 
 
 " Let s run," I suggested. And run we did, 
 like two mad creatures, until we rounded a gentle 
 curve and brought up, panting, within a foot of 
 a decrepit rail fence. The rail fence enclosed a 
 stubbly, lumpy field. The field was inhabited by 
 an inquiring cow. Von Gerhard and I stood 
 quite still, hand in hand, gazing at the cow. 
 Then we turned slowly and looked at each 
 other. 
 
 " This pathway of glorified maples ends in a 
 cow," I said, solemnly. At which we both 
 shrieked with mirth, leaning on the decrepit 
 fence and mopping our eyes with our handker 
 chiefs. 
 
 " Did I not say you were sixteen? " taunted 
 Von Gerhard. We were getting surprisingly 
 well acquainted. 
 
 " Such a scolding as we shall get! It will be 
 quite dark before we are home. Norah will be 
 tearing her hair." 
 
 It was a true prophecy. As we stampeded up 
 the steps the door was flung open, disclosing a 
 tragic figure. 
 
 " Such a steak ! " wailed Norah, " and it has 
 been done for hours and hours, and now it 
 
 [64] 
 
THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS 
 
 looks like a piece of fried ear. Where have 
 you two driveling idiots been? And mush 
 
 rooms too." 
 
 " She means that the ruined steak was fur 
 ther enhanced by mushrooms," I explained in 
 response to Von Gerhard s bewildered look. 
 We marched into the house, trying not to ap 
 pear like sneak thieves. Max, pipe in mouth, 
 surveyed us blandly. 
 
 " Fine color youVe got, Dawn," he re 
 marked. 
 
 ;< There is such a thing as overdoing this 
 health business," snapped Norah, with a great 
 deal of acidity for her. " I didn t tell you to 
 make them purple, you know." 
 
 Max turned to Von Gerhard. " Now what 
 does she mean by that do you suppose, eh 
 Ernst?" 
 
 " Softly, brother, softly ! " whispered Von 
 Gerhard. " When women exchange remarks 
 that apparently are simple, and yet that you, a 
 man, cannot understand, then know there is a 
 woman s war going on, and step softly, and 
 hold your peace. Aber ruhig! " 
 
 Calm was restored with the appearance of 
 the steak, which was found to have survived 
 the period of waiting, and to be incredibly 
 
 [65] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 yolcy and tender. Presently we were all set 
 tled once more in the great beamed living room, 
 Sis at the piano, the two men smoking their 
 after-dinner cigars with that idiotic expression 
 of contentment which always adorns the mascu 
 line face on such occasions. 
 
 I looked at them at those three who had 
 done so much for my happiness and well being, 
 and something within me said: "Now! Speak 
 now ! " Norah was playing very softly, so that 
 the Spalpeens upstairs might not be disturbed. 
 I took a long breath and made the plunge. 
 
 " Norah, if you ll continue the slow music, 
 I ll be much obliged. The time has come, the 
 Walrus said, to talk of many things. 
 
 " Don t be absurd," said Norah, over her 
 shoulder, and went on playing. 
 
 " I never was more serious in my life, good 
 folkses all. I ve got to be. This butterfly ex 
 istence has gone on long enough. Norah, and 
 Max, and Mr. Doctor Man, I am going away." 
 
 Norah s hands crashed down on the piano 
 keys with a jangling discord. She swung about 
 to face me. 
 
 " Not New York again, Dawn ! Not New 
 York ! " 
 
 " I am afraid so," I answered. 
 
 Max bless his great, b/otherly heart 
 [66] 
 
THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS 
 
 rose and came over to me and put a hand on 
 my shoulder. 
 
 " Don t you like it here, girlie? Want to be 
 hauled home on a shutter again, do you? You 
 know that as long as we have a home, you have 
 one. We need you here." 
 
 But I shook my head. From his chair at the 
 other side of the room I could feel Von Ger 
 hard s gaze fixed upon us. He had said noth 
 ing. 
 
 " Need me ! No one needs me. Don t 
 worry; I m not going to become maudlin about 
 it. But I don t belong here, and you know it. 
 I have my work to do. Norah is the best sis 
 ter that a woman ever had. And Max, you re 
 an angel brother-in-law. But how can I stay 
 on here and keep my self-respect?" I took 
 Max s big hand in mine and gathered courage 
 from it. 
 
 " But you have been working," wailed 
 Norah, " every morning. And I thought the 
 book was coming on beautifully. And I m 
 sure it will be a wonderful book, Dawn dean 
 You are so clever." 
 
 " Oh, the book it is too uncertain. Per 
 haps it will go, but perhaps it won t. And 
 then what? It will be months before the 
 book is properly polished off. And then I may 
 
 [67] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 peddle it around for more months. No; I 
 can t afford to trifle with uncertainties. 
 Every newspaper man or woman writes a book. 
 It s like having the measles. There is not a 
 newspaper man living who does not believe, in 
 his heart, that if he could only take a month or 
 two away from the telegraph desk or the police 
 run, he could write the book of the year, not to 
 speak of the great American Play. Why, just 
 look at me! I ve only been writing seriously 
 for a few weeks, and already the best maga 
 zines in the country are refusing my manuscripts 
 daily." 
 
 " Don t joke," said Norah, coming over to 
 me, " I can t stand it." 
 
 "Why not? Much better than weeping, 
 isn t it? And anyway, I m no subject for tears 
 any more. Dr. von Gerhard will tell you how 
 well and strong I am. Won t you, Herr 
 Doktor?" 
 
 " Well," said Von Gerhard, in his careful, 
 deliberate English, " since you ask me, I should 
 say that you might last about one year, in New 
 York." 
 
 "There! WHat did I tell you!" cried 
 Norah. 
 
 " What utter blither! " I scoffed, turning to 
 glare at Von Gerhard. 
 
 [68] 
 
THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS 
 
 " Gently," warned Max. " Such disrespect 
 to the man who pulled you back from the edge 
 of the yawning grave only six months ago! " 
 
 " Yawning fiddlesticks ! " snapped I, ele 
 gantly. u There was nothing wrong with me 
 except that I wanted to be fussed over. And 
 I have been. And I ve loved it. But it must 
 stop now." I rose and walked over to the 
 table and faced Von Gerhard, sitting there in 
 the depths of a great chair. " You do not 
 seem to realize that I am not free to come and 
 go, and work and play, and laugh and live like 
 other women. There is my living to make. 
 And there is Peter Orme. Do you think 
 that I could stay on here like this? Oh, I know 
 that Max is not a poor man. But he is not 
 a rich man, either. And there are the chil 
 dren to be educated, and besides, Max married 
 Norah O Hara, not the whole O Hara tribe. 
 I want to go to work. I am not a free woman, 
 but when I am working, I forget, and am al 
 most happy. I tell you I must be well again ! 
 I will be well! I am well!" 
 
 At the end of which dramatic period I 
 spoiled the whole effect by bowing my head on 
 the table and giving way to a fit of weeping 
 such as I had not had since the days of my 
 illness. 
 
 [69] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " Looks like it," said Max, at which I de 
 cided to laugh, and the situation was saved. 
 
 It was then that Von Gerhard proposed the 
 thing that set us staring at him in amused won 
 der. He came over and stood looking down 
 at us, his hands outspread upon the big. 
 library table, his body bent forward in an atti 
 tude of eager intentness. I remember thinking 
 what wonderful hands they were, true indexes 
 of the man s character; broad, white, surgeonly 
 hands; the fingers almost square at the tips. 
 They were hands as different from those 
 slender, nervous, unsteady, womanly hands of 
 Peter Orme as any hands could be, I thought. 
 They were hands made for work that called 
 for delicate strength, if such a paradox could 
 be; hands to cling to; to gain courage from; 
 hands that spelled power and reserve. I 
 looked at them, fascinated, as I often had done 
 before, and thought that I never had seen such 
 sane hands. 
 
 " You have done me the honor to include me 
 in this little family conclave," began Ernst von 
 Gerhard. " I am going to take advantage of 
 your trust. I shall give you some advice a 
 thing I usually keep for unpleasant professional 
 occasions. Do not go back to New York." 
 
 " But I know New York. And New York 
 
THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS 
 
 the newspaper part of it knows me. 
 Where else can I go? " 
 
 " You have your book to finish. You could 
 never finish it there, is it not so? " 
 
 I m afraid I shrugged my shoulders. It was 
 all so much harder than I had expected. What 
 did they want me to do? I asked myself, bit 
 terly. 
 
 Von Gerhard went on. " Why not go 
 where the newspaper work will not be so 
 nerve-racking? where you still might find time 
 for this other work that is dear to you, and 
 that may bring its reward in time." He reached 
 out and took my hand, into his great, steady 
 clasp. " Come to the happy, healthy, German 
 town called Milwaukee, yes? Ach, you may 
 laugh. But newspaper work is newspaper 
 work the world over, because men and womea 
 are just men and women the world over. But 
 there you could live sanely, and work not too 
 hard, and there would be spare hours for the 
 book that is near your heart. And I I will 
 speak of you to Norberg, of the Post. And 
 on Sundays, if you are good, I may take you 
 along the marvelous lake drives in my little red 
 runabout, yes? Aber wunderbar, those drives 
 are! So." 
 
 Then " Milwaukee ! " shrieked Max and 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 Norah and I, together. " After New York 
 Milwaukee! " 
 
 " Laugh," said Von Gerhard, quite com* 
 posedly. " I give you until to-morrow morn 
 ing to stop laughing. At the end of that time 
 it will not seem quite so amusing. No joke is 
 so funny after one has contemplated it for 
 twelve hours." 
 
 The voice of Norah, the temptress, sounded 
 close to my ear. " Dawn dear, just think how 
 many million miles nearer you would be to 
 Max, and me, and home." 
 
 "Oh, you have all gone mad! The thing 
 is impossible. I shan t go back to a country 
 sheet in my old age. I suppose that in two 
 more years I shall be editing a mothers column 
 on an agricultural weekly." 
 
 " Norberg would be delighted to get you," 
 mused Von Gerhard, " and it would be day 
 work instead of night work." 
 
 " And you would send me a weekly bulletin 
 on Dawn s health, wouldn t you, Ernst?" 
 pleaded Norah. " And you d teach her to 
 drink beer and she shall grow so fat that the 
 Spalpeens won t know their auntie." 
 
 At last "How much do they pay?" I 
 asked, in desperation. And the thing that had 
 
 [72] 
 
THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS 
 
 appeared so absurd at first began to take on the 
 shape of reality. 
 
 Von Gerhard did speak to Norberg of the 
 Post. And I am to go to Milwaukee next 
 week. The skeleton of the book manuscript 
 is stowed safely away in the bottom of my 
 trunk and Norah has filled in the remaining 
 space with sundry flannels, and hot water bags 
 and medicine flasks, so that I feel like a school 
 girl on her way to boarding-school, instead of 
 like a seasoned old newspaper woman with a 
 capital PAST and a shaky future. I wish that 
 I were chummier with the Irish saints. I need 
 them now. 
 
 f735 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 STEEPED IN GERMAN 
 
 I AM living at a little private hotel just 
 across from the court house square with 
 its scarlet geraniums and its pretty fountain. 
 The house is filled with German civil engineers, 
 mechanical engineers, and Herr Professors 
 from the German academy. On Sunday morn 
 ings we have Pfannkuchen with currant jelly, 
 and the Herr Professors come down to break 
 fast in fearful flappy German slippers. I m 
 the only creature in the place that isn t just 
 over from Germany. Even the dog is a dachs 
 hund. It is so unbelievable that every day or 
 two I go down to Wisconsin Street and gaze 
 at the stars and stripes floating from the govern 
 ment building, in order to convince myself that 
 this is America. It needs only a Kaiser or so, 
 and a bit of Unter den Linden to be quite com- 
 plete. 
 
 The little private hotel is kept by Herr and 
 Frau Knapf. After one has seen them, one 
 
 [74] 
 
STEEPED IN GERMAN 
 
 quite understands why the place is steeped in 
 a German atmosphere up to its eyebrows. 
 
 I never would have found it myself. It was 
 Doctor von Gerhard who had suggested 
 Knapfs, and who had paved the way for my 
 coming here. 
 
 " You will find it quite unlike anything you 
 have ever tried before," he warned me. 
 " Very German it is, and very, very clean, and 
 most inexpensive. Also I think you will find 
 material there how is it you call it? copy, 
 yes ? Well, there should be copy in plenty ; and 
 types! But you shall see." 
 
 From the moment I rang the Knapf door 
 bell I saw. The dapper, cheerful Herr Knapf, 
 wearing a disappointed Kaiser Wilhelm mus 
 tache, opened the door. I scarcely had begun 
 to make my wishes known when he interrupted 
 with a large wave of the hand, and an elabo 
 rate German bow. 
 
 " Ach yes ! You would be the lady of whom 
 the Herr Doktor has spoken. Gewiss! Frau 
 Orme, not? But so a young lady I did not ex 
 pect to see. A room we have saved for you 
 aber wunderhiibsch ! It makes me much 
 pleasure to show. Folgen Sie mir, bitte." 
 You you speak English?" I faltered, 
 
 [75] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 with visions of my evenings spent in expressing 
 myself in the sign language. 
 
 "Englisch? But yes. Here In Milwaukee 
 it gives aber mostly German. And then too, I 
 have been only twenty years in this country. 
 And always in Milwaukee. Here is it gemut- 
 lich and mostly it gives German." 
 
 I tried not to look frightened, and followed 
 him up to the " but wonderfully beautiful " 
 room. To my joy I found it high-ceilinged, 
 airy, and huge, with a great vault of a clothes 
 closet bristling with hooks, and boasting an un 
 believable number of shelves. My trunk was 
 swallowed up in it. Never in all my board 
 ing-house experience have I seen such a room, 
 or such a closet. The closet must have been 
 built for a bride s trousseau in the days of 
 hoop-skirts and scuttle bonnets. There was a 
 separate and distinct hook for each and every 
 one of my most obscure garments. I tried to 
 spread them out. I used two hooks to every 
 petticoat, and three for my kimono, and when 
 I had finished there were rows of hooks to 
 spare. Tiers of shelves yawned for hat-boxes 
 which I possessed not. Bluebeard s wives 
 could have held a family reunion in that closet 
 and invited all of Solomon s spouses. Finally, 
 in desperation, I gathered all my poor garments 
 
 [76] 
 
STEEPED IN GERMAN 
 
 together and hung them in a sociable bunch on 
 the hooks nearest the door. How I should 
 have loved to have shown that closet to a select 
 circle of New York boarding-house land 
 ladies ! 
 
 After wrestling in vain with the forest of 
 hooks, I turned my attention to my room. I 
 yanked a towel thing off the center table and 
 replaced it with a scarf that Peter had picked 
 up in the Orient. I set up my typewriter in a 
 corner near a window and dug a gay cushion 
 or two and a chafing-dish out of my trunk. I 
 distributed photographs of Norah and Max 
 and the Spalpeens separately, in couples, and 
 in groups. Then I bounced up and down in 
 a huge yellow brocade chair and found it un 
 believably soft and comfortable. Of course, 
 I reflected, after the big veranda, and the apple 
 tree at Norah s, and the leather-cushioned com 
 fort of her library, and the charming tones of 
 her Oriental rugs and hangings 
 
 " Oh, stop your carping, Dawn! " I told my 
 self. You can t expect charming tones, and 
 Oriental do-dads and apple trees in a German 
 boarding-house. Anyhow there s running 
 water in the room. For general utility pur 
 poses that s better than a pink prayer rug." 
 
 There was a time when I thought that it was 
 [77] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 the luxuries that made life worth living. That 
 was in the old Bohemian days. 
 
 " Necessities !" I used to laugh, "Pooh! 
 Who cares about the necessities! What if the 
 dishpan does leak? It is the luxuries that 
 count." 
 
 Bohemia and luxuries! Half a dozen lean 
 boarding-house years have steered me safely 
 past that. After such a course in common 
 sense you don t stand back and examine the pic 
 tures of a pink Moses in a nest of purple bull- 
 rushes, or complain because the bureau does not 
 harmonize with the wall paper. Neither do 
 you criticize the blue and saffron roses that 
 form the rug pattern. Deedy not! Instead 
 you warily punch the mattress to see if it is 
 rock-stuffed, and you snoop into the clothes 
 closet; you inquire the distance to the nearest 
 bath room, and whether the payments are 
 weekly or monthly, and if there is a baby in the 
 room next door. Oh, there s nothing like liv 
 ing in a boarding-house for cultivating the ma 
 terialistic side. 
 
 But I was to find that here at Knapf s things 
 were quite different. Not only was Ernst von 
 Gerhard right in saying that it was " very Ger 
 man, and very, very clean ;" he recognized 
 good copy when he saw it. Types! I never 
 
 [78] 
 
STEEPED IN GERMAN 
 
 dreamed that such faces existed outside of the 
 old German woodcuts that one sees illustrating 
 time-yellowed books. 
 
 I had thought myself hardened to strange 
 boarding-house dining rooms, with their bat 
 teries of cold, critical women s eyes. I had 
 learned to walk unruffled in the face of the 
 most carping, suspicious and the fishiest of 
 these batteries. Therefore on my first day at 
 Knapf s I went down to dinner in the evening, 
 quite composed and secure in the knowledge 
 that my collar was clean and that there was no 
 flaw to find in the fit of my skirt in the back. 
 
 As I opened the door of my room I heard 
 sounds as of a violent altercation in progress 
 downstairs. I leaned over the balusters and 
 listened. The sounds rose and fell and swelled 
 and boomed. They were German sounds that 
 started in the throat, gutturally, and spluttered 
 their way up. They were sounds such as I had 
 not heard since the night I was sent to cover a 
 Socialist meeting in New York. I tip-toed 
 down the stairs, although I might have fallen 
 down and landed with a thud without having 
 been heard. The din came from the direction 
 of the dining room. Well, come what might, 
 I would not falter. After all, it could not be 
 worse than that awful time when I had helped 
 
 [79] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 cover the teamsters strike. I peered into the 
 dining room. 
 
 The thunder of conversation went on as be 
 fore. But there was no bloodshed. Nothing 
 but men and women sitting at small tables, eat 
 ing and talking. When I say eating and talk 
 ing I do not mean that those acts were carried 
 on separately. Not at all. The eating and the 
 talking went on simultaneously, neither inter 
 rupting the other. A fork full of food and a 
 mouthful of ten-syllabled German words met, 
 wrestled, and passed one another, unscathed. 
 I stood in the doorway, fascinated, until Herr 
 Knapf spied me, took a nimble skip in my direc 
 tion, twisted the discouraged mustaches into 
 temporary sprightliness, and waved me toward 
 a table in the center of the room. 
 
 Then a frightful thing happened. When I 
 think of it now I turn cold. The battery was 
 not that of women s eyes, but of men s. And 
 conversation ceased! The uproar and the 
 booming of vowels was hushed. The silence 
 was appalling. I looked up in horror to find 
 that what seemed to be millions of staring blue 
 eyes were fixed on me. The stillness was so 
 thick that you could cut it with a knife. 
 Such men ! Immediately I dubbed them the 
 aborigines, and prayed that I might find ad- 
 
 [so] 
 
STEEPED IN GERMAN 
 
 jectives with which to describe their foreheads. 
 
 It appeared that the aborigines were espe 
 cially favored in that they were all placed at 
 one long, untidy table at the head of the room. 
 The rest of us sat at small tables. Later I 
 learned that they were all engineers. At meals 
 they discuss engineering problems in the most 
 awe-inspiring German. After supper they 
 smoke impossible German pipes and dozens of 
 cigarettes. They have bulging, knobby fore 
 heads and bristling pompadours, and some of 
 the rawest of them wear wild-looking beards, 
 and thick spectacles, and cravats and trousers 
 that Lew Fields never even dreamed of. They 
 are all graduates of high-sounding foreign uni 
 versities and are horribly learned and brilliant, 
 but they are the worst mannered lot I ever saw. 
 
 In the silence that followed my entrance a 
 red-cheeked maid approached me and asked 
 what I would have for supper. Supper? I 
 asked. Was not dinner served in the even 
 ing? The aborigines nudged each other and 
 sniggered like fiendish little school-boys. 
 
 The red-cheeked maid looked at me pity 
 ingly. Dinner was served in the middle of the 
 day, natiirlich. For supper there was Wiener- 
 schnitzel, and kalter Aufschnitt, also Kartoffcl 
 Salat, and fresh Kaffeekuchen. 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 The room hung breathless on my decision. 
 I wrestled with a horrible desire to shriek and 
 run. Instead I managed to mumble an order. 
 The aborigines turned to one another inquir 
 ingly. 
 
 " Was hat sie gesagt?" they asked. 
 " What did she say?" Whereupon they fell 
 to discussing my hair and teeth and eyes and 
 complexion in German as crammed with adjec 
 tives as was the rye bread over which I was 
 choking with caraway. The entire table 
 watched me with wide-eyed, unabashed interest 
 while I ate, and I advanced by quick stages 
 from red-faced confusion to purple mirth. It 
 appeared that my presence was the ground for 
 a heavy German joke in connection with the 
 youngest of the aborigines. He was a very 
 plump and greasy looking aborigine with a doll- 
 like rosiness of cheek and a scared and bristling 
 pompadour and very small pig-eyes. The 
 other aborigines clapped him on the back and 
 roared : 
 
 " Ai Fritz ! Yetzt brauchst du nicht zu 
 
 I 
 
 weinen ! Deine Lena war aber nicht so huebsch, 
 eh?" 
 
 Later I learned that Fritz was the newest ar 
 rival and that since coming to this country he 
 had been rather low in spirits in consequence of 
 
 [82] 
 
STEEPED IN GERMAN 
 
 a certain flaxen-haired Lena whom he had left 
 behind in the fatherland. 
 
 An examination of the dining room and its 
 other occupants served to keep my mind off 
 the hateful long table. The dining room was 
 a double one, the floor carpetless and clean. 
 There was a little platform at one end with 
 hardy-looking plants in pots near the windows. 
 The wall was ornamented with very German pic 
 tures of very plump, bare-armed German girls 
 being chucked under the chin by very dashing, 
 mustachioed German lieutenants. It was all 
 very bare, and strange and foreign to my eyes, 
 and yet there was something bright and com 
 fortable about it. I felt that I was going to 
 like it, aborigines and all. The men drink beer 
 with their supper and read the Staats-Zeitung 
 and the Germania and foreign papers that I 
 never heard of. It is uncanny, in these United 
 States. But it is going to be bully for my Ger 
 man. 
 
 After my first letter home Norah wrote 
 (frantically, demanding to know if I was the 
 only woman in the house. I calmed her fears by 
 assuring her that, while the men were interest 
 ing and ugly with the fascinating ugliness of a 
 bulldog, the women were crushed looking and 
 uninteresting and wore hopeless hats. I have 
 
 [83] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 written Norah and Max reams about this house 
 hold, from the aborigines to Minna, who tidies 
 my room and serves my meals, and admires my 
 clothes. Minna is related to Frau Knapf, 
 whom I have never seen. Minna is inordi 
 nately fond of dress, and her remarks anent my 
 own garments are apt to be a trifle disconcert 
 ing, especially when she intersperses her recital 
 of dinner dishes with admiring adjectives di 
 rected at my blouse or hat. Thus: 
 
 * Wir haben roast beef, und spareribs mit 
 Sauerkraut, und schicken ach, wie schon, 
 Frau Orme ! Aber ganz prachtvoll ! " Her 
 eyes and hands are raised toward heaven. 
 
 " What s prachtful? " I ask, startled. " The 
 chicken?" 
 
 " Nein; your waist. Selbst gemacht? " 
 
 I am even becoming hardened to the man 
 ners of the aborigines. It used to fuss me to 
 death to meet one of them in the halls. They 
 always stopped short, brought heels together 
 with a click, bent stiffly from the waist, and 
 thundered: " Nabben , Fraulein! " 
 
 I have learned to take the salutation quite 
 calmly, and even the wildest, most spectacled 
 and knobby-browed aborigine cannot startle 
 me. Nonchalantly I reply, " Nabben ," and 
 wish that Norah could but see me in the act. 
 
 [84] 
 
STEEPED IN GERMAN 
 
 When I told Ernst von Gerhard about them, 
 he laughed a little and shrugged his shoulders 
 and said: 
 
 " Na, you should not look so young, and so 
 pretty, and so unmarried. In Germany a mar 
 ried woman brushes her hair quite smoothly 
 back, and pins it in a hard knob. And she 
 knows nothing of such bewildering collars and 
 fluffy frilled things in the front of the blouse. 
 How do you call them jabots? " 
 
 Von Gerhard has not behaved at all nicely. 
 I did not see him until two weeks after my ar 
 rival in Milwaukee, although he telephoned 
 twice to ask if there was anything that he could 
 do to make me comfortable. 
 
 " Yes," I had answered the last time that 
 I heard his voice over the telephone. " It 
 would be a whole heap of comfort to me just 
 to see you. You are the nearest thing to Norah 
 that there is in this whole German town, and 
 goodness knows you re far from Irish." 
 
 He came. The weather had turned suddenly 
 cold and he was wearing a fur-lined coat with 
 a collar of fur. He looked most amazingly 
 handsome and blond and splendidly healthy. 
 The clasp of his hands was just as big and sure 
 as ever. 
 
 * You have no idea how glad I am to see 
 
 [85] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 i 
 
 you," I told him. " If you had, you would 
 have been here days ago. Aren t you rather 
 ill-mannered and neglectful, considering that 
 you are responsible for my being here? " 
 
 " I did not know whether you, a married 
 woman, would care to have me here," he said, in 
 his composed way. " In a place like this people 
 are not always kind enough to take the trouble 
 to understand. And I would not have them 
 raise their eyebrows at you, not for " 
 
 " Married! " I laughed, some imp of willful 
 ness seizing me, " I m not married. What 
 mockery to say that I am married simply be 
 cause I must write madam before my name ! 
 I am not married, and I shall talk to whom I 
 please." 
 
 And then Von Gerhard did a surprising thing. 
 He took two great steps over to my chair, and 
 grasped my hands and pulled me to my feet. 
 I stared up at him like a silly creature. His 
 face was suffused with a dull red, and his eyes 
 were unbelievably blue and bright. He had 
 my hands in his great grip, but his voice was; 
 very quiet and contained. 
 
 " You are married," he said. " Never for 
 get that for a moment. You are bound, hard 
 and fast and tight. And you are for no man. 
 You are married as much as though that poor 
 [86] 
 
STEEPED IN GERMAN 
 
 creature in the mad house were here working 
 for you, instead of the case being reversed as it 
 is. So." 
 
 "What do you mean!" I cried, wrenching 
 myself away indignantly. " What right have 
 you to talk to me like this? You know what 
 my life has been, and how I have tried to smile 
 with my lips and stay young in my heart! I 
 thought you understood. Norah thought so 
 too, and Max " 
 
 " I do understand. I understand so well 
 that I would not have you talk as you did a 
 moment ago. And I said what I said not so 
 much for your sake, as for mine. For see, I 
 too must remember that you write madam be 
 fore your name. And sometimes it is hard for 
 me to remember." 
 
 " Oh," I said, like a simpleton, and stood 
 staring after him as he quietly gathered up his 
 hat and gloves and left me standing there. 
 
 [87] 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 BLACKIE S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 I DID not write Norah about Von Gerhard. 
 After all, I told myself, there was nothing 
 to write. And so I was the first to break the 
 solemn pact that we had made. 
 
 " You will write everything, won t you, 
 Dawn dear? " Norah had pleaded, with tears 
 in her pretty eyes. " Promise me. We ve 
 been nearer to each other in these last few 
 months than we have been since we were girls. 
 And I ve loved it so. Please don t do as you 
 did during those miserable years in New York, 
 when you were fighting your troubles alone and 
 we knew nothing of it. You wrote only the 
 happy things. Promise me you ll write the un 
 happy ones too though the saints forbid that 
 there should be any to write! And Dawn, 
 don t you dare to forget your heavy underwear 
 in November. Those lake breezes ! Well, 
 some one has to tell you, and I can t leave those 
 to Von Gerhard. He has promised to act as 
 monitor over your health." 
 [88] 
 
BLACKIE S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 And so I promised. I crammed my letters 
 with descriptions of the Knapf household. I 
 assured her that I was putting on so much 
 weight that the skirts which formerly hung 
 about me in limp, dejected folds now refused to 
 meet in the back, and all the hooks and eyes 
 were making faces at each other. My cheeks, 
 I told her, looked as if I were wearing plump 
 ers, and I was beginning to waddle and puff as 
 I walked, 
 
 Norah made frantic answer: 
 
 " For mercy s sake child, be careful or you ll 
 be FAT!" 
 
 To which I replied : " Don t care if I am. 
 Rather be hunky and healthy than skinny and 
 sick. Have tried both." 
 
 It is impossible to avoid becoming round- 
 cheeked when one is working on a paper that 
 allows one to shut one s desk and amble com 
 fortably home for dinner at least five days in 
 the week. Everybody is at least plump in this 
 comfortable, gemutlich town, where everybody 
 placidly locks his shop or office ami goes home 
 at noon to dine heavily on soup and meat and 
 vegetables and pudding, washed down by the 
 inevitable beer and followed by forty winks on 
 the dining room sofa with the German Zeitung 
 
 [89] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 spread comfortably over the head as protection 
 against the flies. 
 
 There is a fascination about the bright little 
 city. There is about it something quaint and 
 foreign, as though a cross-section of the old 
 world had been dumped bodily into the lap of 
 Wisconsin. It does not seem at all strange to 
 hear German spoken everywhere in the 
 streets, in the shops, in the theaters, in the 
 street cars. One day I chanced upon a sign 
 hung above the doorway of a little German 
 bakery over on the north side. There were 
 Hornchen and Kaffeekuchen in the windows, 
 and a brood of flaxen-haired and sticky chil 
 dren in the back of the shop. I stopped, open- 
 mouthed, to stare at the worn sign tacked 
 over the door. 
 
 " Hier wird Englisch gesprochen" it an 
 nounced. 
 
 I blinked. Then I read it again. I shut 
 my eyes, and opened them again suddenly. 
 ^The fat German letters spoke their message as 
 before " English spoken here." 
 
 On reaching the office I told Norberg, the 
 city editor, about my find. He was not im 
 pressed. Norberg never is impressed. He is 
 the most soul-satisfying and theatrical city 
 editor that I have ever met. He is fat, and 
 
 [90] 
 
BLACKIE S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 unbelievably nimble, and keen-eyed, and untir 
 ing. He says, "Hell!" when things go- 
 wrong; he smokes innumerable cigarettes, in 
 haling the fumes and sending out the thin 
 wraith of smoke with little explosive sounds be 
 tween tongue and lips; he wears blue shirts, 
 and no collar to speak of, and his trousers are 
 kept in place only by a miracle and an inefficient 
 looking leather belt. 
 
 When he refused to see the story in the little 
 German bakery sign I began to argue. 
 
 " But man alive, this is America I I think 
 I know a story when I see it. Suppose you 
 were traveling in Germany, and should come 
 across a sign over a shop, saying: Hier wird 
 Deutsch gesprochen! Wouldn t you think you 
 were dreaming? " 
 
 Norberg waved an explanatory hand.. 
 " This isn t America. This is Milwaukee. 
 After you ve lived here a year or so you ll un 
 derstand what I mean. If we should run a 
 story of that sign, with a two-column cut, Mil 
 waukee wouldn t even see the joke." 
 
 But it was not necessary that I live in Mil 
 waukee a year or so in order to understand its 
 peculiarities, for I had a personal conductor 
 and efficient guide in the new friend that had 
 eome into my life with the first day of my work 
 
 [91] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 on the Post. Surely no woman ever had a 
 stronger friend than little " Blackie " Griffith, 
 sporting editor of the Milwaukee Post. We 
 became friends, not step by step, but in one 
 gigantic leap such as sometimes triumphs over 
 the gap between acquaintance and liking. 
 
 I never shall forget my first glimpse of him. 
 He strolled into the city room from his little 
 domicile across the hall. A shabby, disrepu 
 table, out-at-elbows office coat was worn over 
 his ultra-smart street clothes, and he was puf 
 fing at a freakish little pipe in the shape of a 
 miniature automobile. He eyed me a moment 
 from the doorway, a fantastic, elfin little 
 figure. I thought that I had never seen so 
 strange and so ugly a face as that of this little 
 brown Welshman with his lank, black hair and 
 his deep-set, uncanny black eyes. Suddenly he 
 trotted over to me with a quick little step. In 
 the doorway he had looked forty. Now a 
 smile illumined the many lines of his dark 
 countenance, and in some miraculous way he 
 looked twenty. 
 
 "Are you the New York importation? " hb 
 asked, his great black eyes searching my face. 
 
 " I m what s left of it," I replied, meekly. 
 
 " I understand you ve been in for repairs. 
 Must of met up with somethin on the road. 
 
 [92] 
 
BLACKIE S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 They say the goin is full of bumps in N* 
 York." 
 
 " Bumps! " I laughed, " it s uphill every bit 
 of the road, and yet you ve got to go full speed 
 to get anywhere. But I m running easily again, 
 thank you." 
 
 He waved away a cloud of pipe-smoke, and 
 knowingly squinted through the haze. " We 
 don t speed up much here. And they ain t no 
 hill climbin t speak of. But say, if you ever 
 should hit a nasty place on the route, toot your 
 siren for me and I ll come. I m a regular lit 
 tle human garage when it comes to patchin up 
 those aggravatin screws that need oilin . 
 And, say, don t let Norberg bully you. My 
 name s Blackie. I m goin t like you. Come 
 on over t my sanctum once in a while and I ll 
 show you my scrapbook and let you play with 
 the office revolver." 
 
 And so it happened that I had not been in 
 Milwaukee a month before Blackie and I were 
 friends. 
 
 Norah was horrified. My letters were full 
 of him. I told her that she might get a more 
 complete mental picture of him if she knew 
 that he wore the pinkest shirts, and the purplest 
 neckties, and the blackest and whitest of black- 
 and-white checked vests that ever aroused the 
 
 [93] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 envy of an office boy, and beneath them all, 
 the gentlest of hearts. And therefore one 
 loves him. There is a sort of spell about the 
 illiterate little slangy, brown Welshman. He 
 is the presiding genius of the place. The 
 office boys adore him. The Old Man takes his 
 advice in selecting a new motor car; the man 
 aging editor arranges his lunch hour to suit 
 Blackie s and they go off to the Press club to 
 gether, arm in arm. It is Blackie who lends 
 .a sympathetic ear to the society editor s tale 
 of woe. He hires and fires the office boys; 
 boldly he criticizes the news editor s makeup ; 
 he receives delegations of tan-coated, red- 
 faced prizefighting-looking persons; he gently 
 explains *o the photographer why that last 
 batch of cuts make their subjects look as if 
 afflicted with the German measles ; he arbitrates 
 any row that the newspaper may have with such 
 dignitaries as the mayor or the chief of police; 
 he manages boxing shows; he skims about in a 
 smart little roadster; he edits the best sporting 
 page in the city; and at four o clock of an after 
 noon he likes to send around the corner for a 
 chunk of devil s food cake with butter filling 
 from the Woman s Exchange. Blackie never 
 went to school to speak of. He doesn t know 
 was from were. But he can " see " a story 
 [94] 
 
BLACKIE S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 quicker, and farther and clearer than any news 
 paper man I ever knew excepting Peter 
 Orme. 
 
 There is a legend about to the effect that one 
 day the managing editor, who is Scotch and 
 without a sense of humor, ordered that Blackie 
 should henceforth be addressed by his surname 
 of Griffith, as being a more dignified appella 
 tion for the use of fellow reporters, hangers-on, 
 copy kids, office boys and others about the big 
 building. 
 
 The day after the order was issued the man 
 aging editor summoned a freckled youth, and 
 thrust a sheaf of galley proofs into his hand. 
 
 " Take those to Mr. Griffith," he ordered 
 without looking up. 
 
 "T who?" 
 
 " To Mr. Griffith," said the managing editor, 
 laboriously, and scowling a bit. 
 
 The boy took three unwilling steps toward the 
 door. Then he turned a puzzled face toward 
 the managing editor. 
 
 " Say, honest, I ain t never heard of dat guy. 
 He must be a new one. Were 11 I find him? " 
 
 " Oh, damn! Take those proofs to 
 Blackie ! " roared the managing editor. And 
 thus ended Blackie s enforced flight into the 
 realms of dignity. 
 
 095] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 All these things, and more, I wrote to the 
 scandalized Norah. I informed her that he 
 wore more diamond rings and scarf pins and 
 watch fobs than a railroad conductor, and that 
 his checked top-coat shrieked to Heaven. 
 
 There came back a letter in which every third 
 word was underlined, and which ended by ask 
 ing what the morals of such a man could be. 
 
 Then I tried to make Blackie more real to 
 Norah who, in all her sheltered life, had never 
 come in contact with a man like this. 
 
 . . . As for his morals or what you 
 would consider his morals, Sis they probably 
 are a deep crimson ; but I ll swear there is no yel 
 low streak. I never have heard anything more 
 pathetic than his story. Blackie sold papers on 
 a down-town corner when he was a baby six 
 years old. Then he got a job as office boy here, 
 and he used to sharpen pencils, and run errands, 
 and carry copy. After office hours he took care 
 of some horses in an alley barn near by, and 
 after that work was done he was employed about 
 the pressroom of one of the old German news 
 paper offices. Sometimes he would be too 
 weary to crawl home after working half the 
 night, and so he would fall asleep, a worn, 
 tragic little figure, on a pile of old papers and 
 sacks in a warm corner near the presses. He 
 
 [96] 
 
BLACKIE S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 was the head of a household, and every penny 
 counted. And all the time he was watching 
 things, and learning. Nothing escaped those 
 keen black eyes. He used to help the photog 
 rapher when there was a pile of plates to de 
 velop, and presently he knew more about pho 
 tography than the man himself. So they made 
 him staff photographer. In some marvelous 
 way he knew more ball players, and fighters and 
 horsemen than the sporting editor. He had 
 a nose for news that was nothing short of won 
 derful. He never went out of the office with 
 out coming back with a story. They used to 
 use him in the sporting department when a rush 
 was on. Then he became one of the sporting 
 staff; then assistant sporting editor; then sport 
 ing editor. He knows this paper from the base 
 ment up. He could operate a linotype or act as 
 managing editor with equal ease. 
 
 "No, I m afraid that Blackie hasn t had 
 much time for morals. But, Norah dear, I wish 
 that you could hear him when he talks about his 
 mother. He may follow doubtful paths, and 
 associate with questionable people, and wear 
 restless clothes, but I wouldn t exchange his 
 friendship for that of a dozen of your ordinary 
 so-called good men. All these years of work 
 and suffering have made an old man of little 
 
 [97] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 Blackie, although he is young in years. But 
 they haven t spoiled his heart any. He is able 
 to distinguish between sham and truth because 
 he has been obliged to do it ever since he was 
 a child selling papers on the corner. But he 
 still clings to the office that gave him his start, 
 although he makes more money in a single week 
 outside the office than his salary would amount 
 to in half a year. He says that this is a job 
 that does not interfere with his work." 
 
 Such is Blackie. Surely the oddest friend a 
 woman ever had. He possesses a genius for 
 friendship, and a wonderful understanding of 
 suffering, born of those years of hardship and 
 privation. Each learned the other s story, bit 
 by bit, in a series of confidences exchanged dur 
 ing that peaceful, beatific period that follows 
 just after the last edition has gone down. 
 Blackie s little cubby-hole of an office is always 
 blue with smoke, and cluttered with a thousand 
 odds and ends photographs, souvenirs, box 
 ing-gloves, a litter of pipes and tobacco, a ward 
 robe of dust-covered discarded coats and hats, 
 and Blackie in the midst of it all, sunk in the 
 depths of his swivel chair, and looking like 
 an amiable brown gnome, or a cheerful little 
 joss-house god come to life. There is in him 
 an uncanny wisdom which only the streets can 
 
 [98] 
 
BLACKIE S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 teach. He is one of those born newspaper men 
 who could not live out of sight of the ticker-tape, 
 and the copy-hook and the proof-sheet. 
 
 "Y see, girl, it s like this here," Blackie 
 explained one day. " W re all workin for 
 some good reason. A few of us are workin for 
 the glory of it, and most of us are workin t eat, 
 and lots of us are pluggin an savin in the 
 hopes that some day we ll have money enough 
 to get back at some people we know; but there 
 is some few workin for the pure love of the 
 work and I guess I m one of them fools. Y 
 see, I started in at this game when I was such 
 a little runt that now it s a ingrowing habit, 
 though it is comfortin t know you got a place 
 where you c n always come in out of the rain, 
 and where you c n have your mail sent. * 
 
 " This newspaper work is a curse," I re 
 marked. " Show me a clever newspaper man 
 and I ll show you a failure. There is nothing 
 in it but the glory and little of that. We 
 contrive and scheme and run about all day get 
 ting a story. And then we write it at fever heat, 
 searching our souls for words that are clean- 
 cut and virile. And then we turn it in, and 
 what is it? What have we to show for our 
 day s work? An ephemeral thijig, lacking the 
 first breath of life; a thing that is dead before 
 [99] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 it is born. Why, any cub reporter, if he were 
 to put into some other profession the same 
 amount of nerve, and tact, and ingenuity and 
 finesse, and stick-to-it-iveness that he expends* 
 in prying a single story out of some unwilling 
 victim, could retire with a fortune in no 
 
 time." 
 
 Blackie blew down the stem of his pipe, pre 
 paratory to re-filling the bowl. There was a 
 quizzical light in his black eyes. The little heap 
 of burned matches at his elbow was growing to 
 kindling wood proportions. It was common 
 knowledge that Blackie s trick of lighting pipe 
 or cigarette and then forgetting to puff at it 
 caused his bill for matches to exceed his tobacco 
 expense account. 
 
 "You talk," chuckled Blackie, "like you 
 meant it. But sa-a-ay, girl, it s a lonesome 
 game, this retirin with a fortune. I ve noticed 
 that them guys who retire with a barrel of 
 money usually dies at the end of the first year, of 
 a kind of a lingerin homesickness. You c n 
 see their pictures in th papers, with a pathetic 
 story of how they was just beginnin t enjoy life 
 when along comes the grim reaper an claims 
 
 em." 
 
 Blackie slid down in his chair and blew a 
 column of smoke ceilingward. 
 [100] 
 
BLACKIE S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " I knew a guy once - newspaper man, too 
 who retired with a fortune. He used to do 
 the city hall for us. Well, he got in soft with 
 the new administration before election, and 
 made quite a pile in stocks that was ppp.zd ofi 
 to him by his political friends. His wife, was 
 crazy for him to quit the newspaper game. > , He. 
 done it. An say, that guy kept on gettin 
 richer and richer till even his wife was almost 
 satisfied. But sa-a-ay, girl, was that chap lone 
 some! One day he come up here looking like 
 a dog that s run off with the steak. He was just 
 dyin for a kind word, an he sniffed the smell 
 of the ink and the hot metal like it was June 
 roses. He kind of wanders over to his old desk 
 and slumps down in the chair, and tips it back, 
 and puts his feet on the desk, with his hat tipped 
 back, and a bum stogie in his mouth. And 
 along came a kid with a bunch of papers wet 
 from the presses and sticks one in his hand, 
 and well, girl, that fellow, he just wriggled 
 he was so happy. You know as well as I do 
 that every man on a morning paper spends his 
 day off hanging around the office wishin that 
 a mob or a fire or somethin big would tear lose 
 so he could get back into the game. I guess 
 I told you about the time Von Gerhard sent me 
 ! abroad, didn t I?" 
 
 [101] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " Von Gerhard ! " I repeated, startled. " Do 
 you know him? " 
 
 " Well, he ain t braggin about it none," 
 Blackie admitted. " Von Gerhard, he told me 
 I had about ;five years or so t live, about two, 
 .three years ago.. He don t approve of me. 
 Pried into my private life, old Von Gerhard did, 
 somethin scand lous. I had sort of went to 
 pieces about that time, and I went t him to be 
 patched up. He thumps me fore an aft, firing 
 a volley of questions, lookin up the roof of m 
 mouth, and squintin at m ringer nails an teeth 
 like I was a prize horse for sale. Then he sits 
 still, lookin at me for about half a minute, till 
 I begin t feel uncomfortable. Then he says, 
 slow: Young man, how old are you? 
 
 " c O, twenty-eight or so, I says, airy. 
 
 " My Gawd! said he. You ve crammed 
 twice those years into your life, and you ll have 
 to pay for it. Now you listen t me. You get 
 t quit workin , an smokin , and get away from 
 this. Take a ocean voyage, he says, an try to 
 get four hours sleep a night, anyway. 
 
 " Well say, mother she was scared green. So 
 
 I tucked her under m arm, and we hit it up 
 
 across the ocean. Went t Germany, knowin 
 
 that it would feel homelike there, an we took in 
 
 [102] 
 
BLACKIE S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 all the swell baden, and chased up the Jungfrau 
 sa-a-ay, that s a classy little mountain, that 
 Jungfrau. Mother, she had some swell time I 
 guess. She never set down except for meals, 
 and she wrote picture postals like mad. But 
 sa-a-ay, girl, was I lonesome ! Maybe that trip 
 done me good. Anyway, I m livin yet. I 
 stuck it out for four months, an that ain t so 
 rotten for a guy who just grew up on printer s 
 ink ever since he was old enough to hold a 
 bunch of papers under his arm. Well, one day 
 mother an me was sittin out on one of them 
 veranda cafes they run to over there, w en some 
 body hits me a crack on the shoulder, an there 
 stands old Ryan who used t do A. P. here. He 
 was foreign correspondent for some big New 
 York syndicate papers over there. 
 
 " Well if it ain t Blackie ! he says. What 
 in Sam Hill are you doing out of your own cell 
 when Milwaukee s just got four more games t 
 win the pennant? J 
 
 " Sa-a-a-ay, girl, w en I got through huggin* 
 him around the neck an buyin him drinks I 
 knew it was me for the big ship. * Mother, I 
 says, * if you got anybody on your mind that 
 you neglected t send picture postals to, now s 
 your last chance. F I got to die I m going 
 [103] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 out with m* scissors in one mitt, and m trusty 
 paste-pot by m side ! An we hits it up for 
 old Milwaukee. I ain t been away since, except 
 w en I was out with the ball team, sending in 
 sportin extry dope for the pink sheet. The last 
 time I was in at Baumbach s in comes Von Ger 
 hard an " 
 
 " Who are Baumbach s? " I interrupted. 
 
 Blackie regarded me pityingly. " You ain t 
 never been to Baumbach s? Why girl, if you 
 don t know Baumbach s, you ain t never been 
 properly introduced to Milwaukee. No wonder 
 you ain t hep to the ways of this little com 
 munity. There ain t what the s ciety editor 
 would call the proper ontong cordyal between 
 you and the natives if you haven t had coffee at 
 Baumbach s. It ain t hardly legal t live in Mil 
 waukee all this time without ever having been 
 inside of B " 
 
 " Stop 1 If you do not tell me at once just 
 where this wonderful place may be found, and 
 what one does when one finds it, and how I hap 
 pened to miss it, and why it is so necessary to the 
 proper understanding of the city " 
 
 " I ll tell you what I ll do," said Blackie, 
 grinning, " I ll romp you over there to-morrow 
 afternoon at four o clock. Ach Himmel! 
 What will that for a grand time be, no? " 
 [104] 
 
BLACKIE S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Blackie, you re a dear to be so polite to an 
 old married cratur like me. Did you notice 
 that is, does Ernst von Gerhard drop in ofteri 
 at Baumbach s?" 
 
 [105] 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN 
 
 T HAVE visited Baumbach s. I have heard 
 * Milwaukee drinking its afternoon Kaffee. 
 
 O Baumbach s, with your deliciously crum 
 bling butter cookies and your kaffee kuchen, and 
 your thick cream, and your thicker waitresses 
 and your cockroaches, and your dinginess and 
 your dowdy German ladies and your black, black 
 Kaffee, where in this country is there another like 
 you! 
 
 Blackie, true to his promise, had hailed me 
 from the doorway on the afternoon of the fol 
 lowing day. In the rush of the day s work I 
 had quite forgotten about Blackie and Baum 
 bach s. 
 
 " Come, Kindchen! " he called. " Get your 
 bonnet on. We will by Baumbach s go, no? " 
 
 Ruefully I gazed at the grimy cuffs of my 
 blouse, and felt of my dishevelled hair. " Oh, 
 I m afraid I can t go. I look so mussy. 
 Haven t had time to brush up." 
 
 " Brush up I " scoffed Blackie, " the only thing 
 [106] 
 
KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN 
 
 about you that will need brushin up is your Ger 
 man. I was goin t warn you to rumple up 
 your hair a little so you wouldn t feel over 
 dressed w en you got there. Come on, girl." 
 
 And so I came. And oh, I m so glad I 
 came! 
 
 I must have passed it a dozen times without 
 once noticing it just a dingy little black shop 
 nestling between two taller buildings, almost 
 within the shadow of the city hall. Over the 
 sidewalk swung a shabby black sign with gilt 
 letters that spelled, " Franz Baumbach." 
 
 Blackie waved an introductory hand in the 
 direction of the sign. " There he is. That s 
 all you M ever see of him." 
 
 " Dead? " asked I, regretfully, as we entered 
 the narrow doorway. 
 
 "No; down in the basement baking Kaffee- 
 kuchen." 
 
 Two tiny show-windows faced the street -. 
 such queer, old-fashioned windows in these days 
 of plate glass. At the back they were quite oper 
 to the shop, and in one of them reposed a huge 
 white, immovable structure a majestic, heavy 
 nutty, surely indigestible birthday cake. Arouna 
 its edge were flutings and scrolls of white icing, 
 and on its broad breast reposed cherries, and 
 stout butterflies of jelly, and cunning traceries of 
 [107] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 colored sugar. It was quite the dressiest cake I 
 had ever beheld Surely no human hand could 
 be wanton enough to guide a knife through all 
 that magnificence. But in the center of all this 
 splendor was an inscription in heavy white letters 
 of icing: " Charlottens Geburtstag." 
 
 Reluctantly I tore my gaze from this impos 
 ing example of the German confectioner s art, 
 for Blackie was tugging impatiently at my sleeve. 
 
 " But Blackie," I marveled, " do you honestly 
 suppose that that structure is intended for some 
 Charlotte s birthday? " 
 
 " In Milwaukee," explained Blackie, " w en 
 you got a birthday you got t have a geburtstag 
 cake, with your name on it, and all the cousins 
 and aunts and members of the North Side 
 Frauen Turner Verein Gesellchaft in for the 
 day. It ain t considered decent if you don t. 
 Are you ready to fight your way into the main 
 tent? " 
 
 It was holiday time, and the single narrow 
 aisle of the front shop was crowded. It was 
 mot easy to elbow one s way through the packed 
 "little space. Men and women were ordering 
 recklessly of the cakes of every description that 
 were heaped in cases and on shelves. 
 
 Cakes ! What a pale, dry name to apply to 
 those crumbling, melting, indigestible German 
 [108] 
 
KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN 
 
 confections! Blackie grinned with enjoyment 
 while I gazed. There were cakes the like of 
 which I had never seen and of which I did 
 not even know the names. There were little 
 round cup cakes made of almond paste that melts 
 in the mouth ; there were Schnecken glazed with 
 a delicious candied brown sugar; there were Bis- 
 marcks composed of layer upon layer of flaky 
 crust inlaid with an oozy custard that evades the 
 eager consumer at the first bite, and that slides 
 down one s collar when chased with a pursuing 
 tongue. There were Pf effermisse ; there were 
 Lebkuchen; there were cheese-kuchen ; plum-ku- 
 chen, peach-kuchen, Apfelkuchen, the juicy fruit 
 stuck thickly into the crust, the whole dusted 
 over with powdered sugar. There were Tor- 
 ten, and Hornchen, and butter cookies. 
 
 Blackie touched my arm, and I tore my gaze 
 from a cherry-studded Schaumtorte that was be 
 ing reverently packed for delivery. 
 
 " My, what a greedy girl ! Now get your 
 mind all made up. This is your chance. You 
 know you re supposed t take a slant at th things 
 an make up your mind w at you want before 
 you go back w ere th tables are. Don t fumble 
 this thing. When Olga or Minna comes wad- 
 dim up t you an says: Nu, Frdulein? you 
 gotta tell her whether your heart says plum- 
 [109] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 kuchen oder Nusstorte, or both, see? Just 
 like that. Now make up your mind. I d hate 
 t have you blunder. Have you decided? " 
 
 " Decided ! How can I ? " I moaned, watch- 
 ling a black-haired, black-eyed Alsatian girl be 
 hind the counter as she rolled a piece of white 
 paper into a cone and dipped a spoonful of 
 whipped cream from a great brown bowl heaped 
 high with the snowy stuff. She filled the paper 
 cone, inserted the point of it into one end of a 
 hollow pastry horn, and gently squeezed. 
 Presto! A cream-filled Hornchen ! 
 
 " Oh, Blackie! " I gasped. " Come on. 1 
 want to go in and eat." 
 
 As we elbowed our way to the rear room 
 separated from the front shop only by a flimsy 
 wooden partition, I expected I know not what. 
 
 But surely this was not Blackie s much- 
 vaunted Baumbach s ! This long, narrow, dingy 
 room, with its bare floor and its iron-legged 
 tables whose bare marble tops were yellow with 
 age and use ! I said nothing as we seated our 
 selves. Blackie was watching me out of the 
 tail of his eye. My glance wandered about the 
 shabby, smoke-filled room, and slowly and surely 
 the charm of that fusty, dingy little cafe came 
 upon me. 
 
 A huge stove glowed red in one corner. On 
 
KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN 
 
 the wall behind the stove was suspended a 
 wooden rack, black with age, its compartments 
 holding German, Austrian and Hungarian news 
 papers. Against the opposite wall stood an an- 
 !cient walnut mirror, and above it hung a colored 
 print of Bismarck, helmeted, uniformed, and 
 fiercely mustached. The clumsy iron-legged 
 tables stood in two solemn rows down the length 
 of the narrow room. Three or four stout, 
 blond girls plodded back and forth, from tables 
 to front shop, bearing trays of cakes and steam 
 ing cups of coffee. There was a rumble and 
 clatter of German. Every one seemed to know 
 every one else. A game of chess was in progress 
 at one table, and between moves each contest 
 ant would refresh himself with a long-drawn, 
 sibilant mouthful of coffee. There was nothing 
 about the place or its occupants to remind one of 
 America. This dim, smoky, cake-scented cafe 
 was Germany. 
 
 " Time ! " said Blackie. " Here comes Rosie 
 to take our order. You can take your choice 
 of coffee or chocolate. That s as fancy as they 
 get here." 
 
 An expansive blond girl paused at our table 
 smiling a broad welcome at Blackie. 
 
 " Wie geht s, Roschen? " he greeted her. 
 
 Roschen s smile became still more pervasive, 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 so that her blue eyes disappeared in creases of 
 good humor. She wiped the marble table top 
 with a large and careless gesture that precipi 
 tated stray crumbs into our laps. " Gut ! " mur 
 mured she, coyly, and leaned one hand on a 
 portly hip in an attitude of waiting. 
 
 " Coffee? " asked Blackie, turning to me. I 
 nodded. 
 
 " Zweimal Kaffee ? " beamed Roschen, grasp 
 ing the idea. 
 
 " Now s your time to speak up," urged 
 Blackie. u Go ahead an order all the cream 
 gefillte things that looked good to you out in 
 front." 
 
 But I leaned forward, lowering my voice dis 
 creetly. " Blackie, before I plunge in too reck 
 lessly, tell me, are their prices yery " 
 
 " Sa-a-ay, child, you just can t spend half a 
 dollar here if you try. The flossiest kind of 
 thing they got is only ten cents a order. They ll 
 smother you in whipped cream f r a quarter. 
 You c n come in here an eat an eat an* put 
 away piles of cakes till you feel like a combina 
 tion of Little Jack Horner an old Doc Johnson. 
 An w en you re all through, they hand yuh your 
 check, an , say it says forty-five cents. You 
 can t beat it, so wade right in an spoil your 
 complexion." 
 
 [112] 
 
KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN 
 
 With enthusiasm I turned upon the patient 
 Rosie. " O, bring me some of those cunning 
 little round things with the cream on em, 
 you know two of those, eh Blackie ? And 
 a couple of those with the flaky crust and the 
 custard between, and a slice of that fluffy-look 
 ing cake and some of those funny cocked-hat 
 shaped cookies " 
 
 But a pall of bewilderment was slowly set 
 tling over Rosie s erstwhile smiling face. Her 
 plump shoulders went up in a helpless shrug, and 
 she turned her round blue eyes appealingly to 
 Blackie. 
 
 " Was meint sie alles? " she asked. 
 
 So I began all over again, with the assistance 
 of Blackie. We went into minute detail. We 
 made elaborate gestures. We drew pictures of 
 our desired goodies on the marble-topped table, 
 using a soft-lead pencil. Rosie s countenance 
 wore a distracted look. In desperation I was 
 about to accompany her to the crowded shop, 
 there to point out my chosen dainties when sud- 
 idenly, as they would put it here, a light went 
 her over. 
 
 "Ach, yes-s-s-s! Sie wollten vielleicht abge- 
 ruhrter Gugelhopf haben, und auch Schaum- 
 torte, und Bismarcks, und Hornchen mit cream 
 gefullt, nicht?" 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " Certainly," I murmured, quite crushed. 
 Roschen waddled merrily off to the shop. 
 
 Blackie was rolling a cigarette. He ran his 
 funny little red tongue along the edge of the 
 paper and glanced up at me in glee. " Don t 
 bother about me," he . generously observed. 
 " Just set still and let the atmosphere soak in." 
 
 But already I was lost in contemplation of a 
 red-faced, pompadoured German who was 
 drinking coffee and reading the Fliegende 
 Blatter at a table just across the way. There 
 were counterparts of my aborigines at Knapf s 
 thick spectacled engineers with high fore 
 heads actors and actresses from the German 
 stock company reporters from the English 
 and German newspapers business men with 
 comfortable German consciences long-haired 
 musicians dapper young lawyers a giggling 
 group of college girls and boys a couple of 
 smartly dressed women nibbling appreciatively at 
 slices of Nusstorte low-voiced lovers whose 
 coffee cups stood untouched at their elbows, 
 while no fragrant cloud of steam rose to indicatej 
 that there was warmth within. Their glances 
 grow warmer as the neglected Kaffee grows 
 colder. The color comes and goes in the girl s 
 face and I watch it, a bit enviously, marveling 
 that the old story still should be so new. 
 
KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN 
 
 At a large square table near the doorway a 
 group of eight men were absorbed in an ani 
 mated political discussion, accompanied by much 
 waving of arms, and thundering of gutturals. 
 It appeared to be a table of importance, for the 
 high-backed bench that ran along one side was 
 upholstered in worn red velvet, and every new 
 comer paused a moment to nod or to say a word 
 in greeting. It was not of American politics 
 that they talked, but of the politics of Austria 
 and Hungary. Finally the argument resolved 
 itself into a duel of words between a handsome, 
 red-faced German whose rosy skin seemed to 
 take on a deeper tone in contrast to the white 
 ness of his hair and mustache, and a swarthy 
 young fellow whose thick spectacles and heavy 
 mane of black hair gave him the look of a cari 
 cature out of an illustrated German weekly. 
 The red-faced man argued loudly, with much 
 rapping of bare knuckles on the table top. But 
 the dark man spoke seldom, and softly, with a 
 little twisted half-smile on his lips; and when 
 ever he spoke the red-faced man grew redder, 
 and there came a huge laugh from the others 
 who sat listening. 
 
 " Say, wouldn t it curdle your English? " 
 Blackie laughed. 
 
 Solemnly I turned to him. " Blackie Griffith, 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 tHese people do not even realize that there is 
 anything unusual about this." 
 
 "Sure not; that s the beauty of it. They 
 don t need to make no artificial atmosphere for 
 this place; it just grows wild, like dandelions. 
 Everybody comes here for their coffee because 
 their aunts an uncles and Grossmutters and 
 Grosspapas used t come, and come yet, if they re 
 livin I An , after all, what is it but a little Ger 
 man bakery? " 
 
 " But O, wise Herr Baumbach down in the 
 kitchen! O, subtle Frau Baumbach back of 
 the desk!" said I. "Others may fit their 
 shops with mirrors, and cut-glass chandeliers 
 and Oriental rugs and mahogany, but you sit 
 serenely by, and you smile, and you change 
 nothing. You let the brown walls grow dim 
 mer with age; you see the marble-topped tables 
 turning yellow; you leave bare your wooden 
 floor, and you smile, and smile, and smile." 
 
 "Fine!" applauded Blackie. "You re on. 
 And here comes Rosie." 
 
 Rosie, the radiant, placed on the table cups 
 and saucers of an unbelievable thickness. She set 
 them down on the marble surface with a crash 
 as oije who knows well that no mere marble or 
 granite could shatter the solidity of those stout 
 earthenware receptacles. Napkins there were 
 [116] 
 
KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN 
 
 none. I was to learn that fingers were rid of 
 any clinging remnants of cream or crumb by the 
 simple expedient of licking them. 
 
 Blackie emptied his pitcher of cream into his 
 cup of black, black coffee, sugared it, stirred, 
 tasted, and then, with a wicked gleam in his 
 black eyes he lifted the heavy cup to his lips and 
 took a long, gurgling mouthful. 
 
 " Blackie," I hissed, " if you do that again I 
 shall refuse to speak to you ! " 
 
 " Do what?" demanded he, all injured in 
 nocence. 
 
 " Snuffle up your coffee like that." 
 
 " Why, girl, that s th proper way t drink 
 coffee here. Listen t everybody else." And 
 while I glared he wrapped his hand lovingly 
 about his cup, holding the spoon imprisoned be 
 tween first and second fingers, and took another 
 sibilant mouthful " Any more of your back 
 talk and I ll drink it out of m saucer an blow 
 on it like the hefty party over there in the ear 
 rings is doin . Calm yerself an 1 try a Bis-, 
 marck." 
 
 I picked up one of the flaky confections and 
 eyed it in despair. There were no plates except 
 that on which the cakes reposed. 
 
 " How does one eat them? " I inquired. 
 
 fct Yuh don t really eat em. The motion Is 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 more like inhalin . T eat em successful you 
 really ought t get into a bath-tub half-filled 
 with water, because as soon s you bite in at one 
 end w y the custard stuff slides out at the other, 
 an no human mouth c n be two places at oncet. 
 Shut your eyes girl, an just wade in." 
 
 I waded. In silence I took a deep delicious 
 bite, nimbly chased the coy filling around a cor 
 ner with my tongue, devoured every bit down 
 to the last crumb and licked the stickiness off my 
 fingers. Then I investigated the interior of the 
 next cake. 
 
 " I m coming here every day," I announced. 
 
 " Better not. Ruin your complexion and 
 turn all your lines into bumps. Look at the 
 dame with the earrings. I ve been keepin 
 count an I ve seen her eat three Schnecken, two 
 cream puffs, a Nusshornchen and a slice of 
 Torte with two cups of coffee. Ain t she a hor 
 rible example! And yet she s got th nerve t 
 wear a princess gown ! " 
 
 " I don t care," I replied, recklessly, my 
 voice choked with whipped cream and butteri- 
 ness. " I can just feel myself getting greasy. 
 Haven t I done beautifully for a new hand? 
 Now tell me about some of these people. Who 
 is the funny little man in the checked suit with 
 the black braid trimming, and the green cravat, 
 
KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN 
 
 and the white spats, and the tan hat and the eye 
 glasses?" 
 
 "Ain t them th dizzy habiliments?" !A! 
 note of envy crept into Blackie s voice. " His 
 name is Hugo Luders. Used t be a reporter 
 on the Germania, but he s reformed and gone 
 into advertising where there s real money. 
 Some say he wears them clo es on a bet, and 
 some say his taste in dress is a curse descended 
 upon him from Joseph, the guy with the fancy 
 coat, but I think he wears em because he fancies 
 em. He s been coming here ever afternoon 
 for twelve years, has a cup of coffee, game of 
 chess, and a pow-wow with a bunch of cronies. 
 If Baumbach s ever decide to paint the front of 
 their shop or put in cut glass fixtures and hand- 
 painted china, Hugo Luders would serve an in 
 junction on em. Next ! " 
 
 " Who s the woman with the leathery com 
 plexion and the belt to match, and the untidy 
 hair and the big feet? I like her face. And 
 why does she sit at a table with all those 
 strange-looking men? And who are all the 
 men? And who is the fur-lined grand opera 
 tenor just coming in Oh ! " 
 
 Blackie glanced over his shoulder just as the 
 tall man in the doorway turned his face toward 
 us. "That? Why, girl, that s Von Gerhard, 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 the man who gives me one more year t live 
 Look at everybody kowtowing to him. He 
 don t favor Baumbach s often. Too busy 
 patching up the nervous wrecks that are washed 
 up on his shores." 
 
 The tall figure in the doorway was glancing 
 from table to table, nodding here and there 
 to an acquaintance. His eyes traveled the 
 length of the room. Now they were nearing 
 us. I felt a sudden, inexplicable tightening at 
 heart and throat, as though fingers were clutch 
 ing there. Then his eyes met mine, and I felt 
 the blood rushing to my face as he came swiftly 
 over to our table and took my hand in his. 
 
 " So you have discovered Baumbach s," he 
 said. u May I have my coffee and cigar here 
 with you ? " 
 
 " Blackie here is responsible for my being in 
 itiated into the sticky mysteries of Baumbach s. 
 I never should have discovered it if he had not 
 offered to act as personal conductor. You 
 know one another, I believe ? " 
 
 The two men shook hands across the table. 
 There was something forced and graceless 
 about the act. Blackie eyed Von Gerhard 
 through a misty curtain of cigarette smoke. 
 Von Gerhard gazed at Blackie through nar 
 rowed lids as he lighted his cigar. 
 [120] 
 
KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN 
 
 " I m th gink you killed off two or three 
 years back/ Blackie explained. 
 
 " I remember you perfectly," Von Gerhard 
 returned, courteously. " I rejoice to see that I 
 was mistaken." 
 
 " Well," drawled Blackie, a wicked gleam 
 in his black eyes, " I m some rejoiced m self, 
 old top. Angel wings and a white kimono, 
 worn bare-footy, would go some rotten 
 with my Spanish style of beauty, what? 
 Didn t know that you and m dame friend 
 here was acquainted. Known each other 
 long?" 
 
 I felt myself flushing again. 
 
 II I knew Dr. von Gerhard back home. I ve 
 scarcely seen him since I have been here. Fa 
 mous specialists can t be bothered with middle- 
 aged relatives of their college friends, can they, 
 Herr Doktor?" 
 
 And now it was Von Gerhard s face that 
 flushed a deep and painful crimson. He 
 looked at me, in silence, and I felt very little, 
 and insignificant, and much like an impudent 
 child who has stuck out its tongue at its elders. 
 Silent men always affect talkative women in that 
 way. 
 
 1 You know that what you say is not true," 
 he said, slowly. 
 
 [121] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " Well, we won t quibble. We we were 
 just about to leave, weren t we Blackie? " 
 
 " Just," said Blackie, rising. " Sorry t see 
 you drinkin Baumbach s coffee, Doc. It ain t 
 fair t your patients." 
 
 "Quite right," replied Von Gerhard; and 
 rose with us. "I shall not drink it. I shall 
 walk home with Mrs. Orme instead, if she 
 will allow me. That will be more stimulating 
 than coffee, and twice as dangerous, perhaps, 
 but" 
 
 " You know how I hate that sort of thing," 
 I said, coldly, as we passed from the warmth of 
 the little front shop where the plump girls were 
 still filling pasteboard boxes with holiday cakes, 
 to the brisk chill of the winter street. The lit 
 tle black-and-gilt sign swung and creaked in 
 the wind. Whimsically, and with the memory 
 of that last cream-filled cake fresh in my mind, 
 I saluted the letters that spelled " Franz Baum- 
 bach." 
 
 Blackie chuckled impishly. " Just the same, 
 try a pinch of soda bicarbonate when you get 
 home, Dawn," he advised. " Well, I m off to 
 the factory again. Got t make up for time 
 wasted on m lady friend. Auf wiedersehen! " 
 
 And the little figure in the checked top-coat 
 trotted off. 
 
 [122] 
 
KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN 
 
 " But he called you Dawn," broke from 
 Von Gerhard. 
 
 " Mhum," I agreed. " My name s Dawn." 
 
 " Surely not to him. You have known him 
 but a few weeks. I would not have pre* 
 sumed " 
 
 " Blackie never presumes," I laughed. 
 " Blackie s just Blackie. Imagine taking of 
 fense at him ! He knows every one by their 
 given name, from Jo, the boss of the pressroom, 
 to the Chief, who imports his office coats from 
 London. Besides, Blackie and I are newspaper 
 men. And people don t scrape and bow in a 
 newspaper office especially when they re fond 
 of one another. You wouldn t understand." 
 
 As I looked at Von Gerhard in the light of 
 the street lamp I saw a tense, drawn look about 
 the little group of muscles which show when 
 the teeth are set hard. When he spoke those 
 muscles had relaxed but little. 
 
 " One man does not talk ill of another. But 
 this is different. I want to ask you - do you 
 know what manner of man this this Blackie 
 is? I ask you because I would have you safe 
 
 and sheltered always from such as he because 
 j " 
 
 "Safe! From Blackie? Now listen. There 
 never was a safer, saner, truer, more gen- 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 erous friend. Oh, I know what his life has 
 been. But what else could it have been, begin 
 ning as he did? I have no wish to reform 
 him. I tried my hand at reforming one man, 
 and made a glorious mess of it. So I ll just 
 take Blackie as he is, if you please slang, 
 wickedness, pink shirt, red necktie, diamond 
 rings and all. If there s any bad in him, we 
 all know it, for it s right down on the table, 
 face up. You re just angry because he called 
 you Doc." 
 
 " Small one," said Von Gerhard, in his quaint 
 German idiom, " we will not quarrel, you and 
 I. If I have been neglectful it was because 
 edged tools were never a chosen plaything of 
 mine. Perhaps your little Blackie realizes that 
 he need have no fear of such things, for the 
 Great Fear is upon him." 
 
 "The Great Fear! You mean! " 
 
 " I mean that there are too many fine little 
 lines radiating from the corners of the sunken 
 eyes, and that his hand-clasp leaves a moisture 
 in the palm. Ach ! you may laugh. Come, we 
 will change the subject to something more cheer 
 ful, yes? Tell me, how grows the book? " 
 
 " By inches. After working all day on a 
 bulletin paper whose city editor is constantly 
 shouting : * Boil it now, fellows ! Keep it down ! 
 
KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN 
 
 We re crowded I it is too much of a wrench 
 to find myself seated calmly before my owrt 
 typewriter at night, privileged to write one hun-* 
 dred thousand words if I choose. I can t get 
 over the habit of crowding the story all into the 
 first paragraph. Whenever I flower into a de 
 scriptive passage I glance nervously over my 
 shoulder, expecting to find Norberg stationed 
 behind me, scissors and blue pencil in hand. 
 Consequently the book, thus far, sounds very 
 much like a police reporter s story of a fire four 
 minutes before the paper is due to go to press." 
 
 Von Gerhard s face was unsmiling. " So," 
 he said, slowly. " You burn the candle at both 
 ends. All day you write, is it not so? And 
 at night you come home to write still more? 
 Ach, Kindchen ! Na, we shall change all that. 
 We will be better comrades, we two, yes? )You 
 remember that gay little walk of last autumn, 
 when we explored the Michigan country lane 
 at dusk? I shall be your Sunday Schatz, and 
 there shall be more rambles like that one, to 
 bring the roses into your cheeks. We shall 
 be good Kameraden, as you and this little Grif 
 fith are what is it they say good fellows? 
 That is it good fellows, yes ? So, shall we 
 shake hands on it? " 
 
 But I snatched my hand away. " I don t 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 want to be a good fellow," I cried. " I m tired 
 of being a good fellow. I ve been a good fel 
 low for years and years, while every other mar 
 ried woman in the world has been happy in her 
 own home, bringing up her babies. When I 
 am old I want some sons to worry me, too, and 
 to stay awake nights for, and some daughters 
 to keep me young, and to prevent me from 
 doing my hair in a knob and wearing bonnets! 
 I hate good-fellow women, and so do you, and 
 so does every one else ! I I " 
 
 "Dawn!" cried Von Gerhard. But I ran 
 up the steps and into the house and slammed the 
 door behind me, leaving him standing there. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE LADY FROM VIENNA 
 
 more aborigines have appeared. One 
 of them is a lady aborigine. They made 
 their entrance at supper and I forgot to eat, 
 watching them. The new-comers are from 
 Vienna. He is an expert engineer and she is 
 a woman of noble birth, with a history. Their 
 combined appearance is calculated to strike ter 
 ror to the heart. He is daringly uglv, with a 
 chin that curves in under his lip and then out 
 in a peak, like pictures of Punch. She wore a 
 gray gown of a style I never had seen before 
 and never expect to see again. It was fastened 
 with huge black buttons all the way down the 
 breathlessly tight front, and the upper part was 
 composed of that pre-historic garment known as 
 a basque. She curved in where she should have 
 curved out, and she bulged where she should 
 have had " lines." About her neck was sus 
 pended a string of cannon-ball beads that 
 clanked as she walked. On her forehead rested 
 a sparse fringe. 
 
 [127] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 "Mem Himmel!" thought I. " Am I 
 dreaming? This isn t Wisconsin. This is 
 Niirnberg, or Strassburg, with a dash of Heidel 
 berg and Berlin thrown in. Dawn, old girl, 
 it s going to be more instructive than a Cook s 
 tour." 
 
 That turned out to be the truest prophecy I 
 ever made. 
 
 The first surprising thing that the new-com 
 ers did was to seat themselves at the long table 
 with the other aborigines, the lady aborigine 
 being the only woman among the twelve men. 
 It was plain that they had known one another 
 previous to this meeting, for they became very 
 good friends at once, and the men grew heavily 
 humorous about there being thirteen at table. 
 
 At that the lady aborigine began to laugh. 
 Straightway I forgot the outlandish gown, for 
 got the cannon-ball beads, forgot the sparse 
 fringe, forgave the absence of " lines. " Suck 
 a voice ! A lilting, melodious thing. She 
 broke into a torrent of speech, with bewildering 
 gestures, and I saw that her hands were ex 
 quisitely formed and as expressive as her voice. 
 Her German was the musical tongue of the 
 Viennese, possessing none of the gutturals and 
 sputterings. When she crowned it with the 
 gay little trilling laugh my views on the Ian- 
 
 [128] 
 
THE LADY FROM VIENNA 
 
 guage underwent a lightning change. It 
 seemed the most natural thing in the world to 
 see her open the flat, silver case that dangled 
 at the end of the cannon-ball chain, take out a 
 cigarette, light it, and smoke it there in that 
 little German dining room. She wore the most 
 gracefully nonchalant air imaginable as she 
 blew little rings and wreaths, and laughed and 
 chatted brightly with her husband and the other 
 men. Occasionally she broke into French, her 
 accent as charmingly perfect as it had been in 
 her native tongue. There was a moment of 
 breathless staring on the part of the respec 
 table middle-class Frauen at the other tables. 
 Then they shrugged their shoulders and 
 plunged into their meal again. There was a 
 certain little high-born air of assurance about 
 that cigarette-smoking that no amount of star 
 ing could ruffle. 
 
 Watching the new aborigines grew to be a 
 sort of game. The lady aborigine of the 
 golden voice, and the ugly husband of the 
 peaked chin had a strange fascination for me. 
 I scrambled downstairs at meal time in order 
 not to miss them, and I dawdled over the meal 
 so that I need not leave before they. I dis 
 covered that when the lady aborigine was ani 
 mated, her face was that of a young woman, 
 [129] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 possessing a certain high-bred charm, but that 
 when in repose the face of the lady aborigine 
 was that of a very old and tired woman indeed. 
 Also that her husband bullied her, and that 
 when he did that she looked at him worship- 
 ingly. 
 
 Then one evening, a week or so after 
 the appearance of the new aborigines, there 
 came a clumping at my door. I was seated at 
 my typewriter and the book was balkier than 
 usual, and I wished that the clumper at the 
 door would go away. 
 
 " Come ! " I called, ungraciously enough. 
 Then, on second thought: "Herein/" 
 
 The knob turned slowly, and the door opened 
 just enough to admit the top of a head crowned 
 with a tight, moist German knob of hair. I 
 searched my memory to recognize the knob, 
 failed utterly and said again, this time with 
 mingled curiosity and hospitality: 
 
 "Won t you come in?" 
 
 The apparently bodiless head thrust itself for 
 ward a bit, disclosing an apologetically smiling 
 face, with high cheek bones that glistened with 
 friendliness and scrubbing. 
 
 " Nabben , Fraulein," said the head. 
 
 " Nabben ," I replied, more mystified than 
 ever. " Howdy do ! Is there anything " 
 
THE LADY FROM VIENNA 
 
 The head thrust itself forward still more, 
 showing a pair of plump shoulders as its sup 
 port. Then the plump shoulders heaved into 
 |the room, disclosing a stout, starched gingham 
 body. 
 
 " Ich bin Frau Knapf," announced the beam 
 ing vision. 
 
 Now up to this time Frau Knapf had main 
 tained a Mrs. Harris-like mysteriousness. I 
 had heard rumors of her, and I had partaken 
 of certain crispy dishes of German extraction, 
 reported to have come from her deft hands, but 
 I had not even caught a glimpse of her skirts 
 whisking around a corner. 
 
 Therefore: "Frau Knapf!" I repeated. 
 " Nonsense ! There ain t no sich person 
 that is, I m glad to see you. Won t you come 
 in and sit down? " 
 
 " Ach, no ! " smiled the substantial Frau 
 
 Knapf, clinging tightly to the door knob. " I 
 
 got no time. It gives much to do to-night yet, 
 
 jKuchen dough I must set, und ich weiss nicht 
 
 iwas. I got no time." 
 
 Bustling, red-cheeked Frau Knapf! This 
 iwas why I had never had a glimpse of her. 
 Always, she got no time. For while Herr 
 iKnapf, dapper and genial, welcomed new- 
 jcomers, chatted with the diners, poured a glass 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 of foaming Doppel-brau for Herr Weber or 
 dexterously carved fowl for the aborigines 
 table, Frau Knapf was making the wheels go 
 round. I discovered that it was she who bakes 
 the melting, golden German Pfannkuchen on 
 Sunday mornings; she it is who fries the crisp 
 and hissing Wienerschnitzel; she it is who pre 
 pares the plump ducklings, and the thick 
 gravies, and the steaming lentil soup and the 
 rosy sausages nestling coyly in their bed of 
 sauerkraut. All the week Frau Knapf bakes 
 and broils and stews, her rosy cheeks taking 
 on a twinkling crimson from the fire over which 
 she bends. But on Sunday night Frau Knapf 
 sheds her huge apron and rolls down the 
 sleeves from her plump arms. On Sunday 
 evening she leaves pots and pans and cooking, 
 and is a transformed Frau Knapf. Then does 
 she don a bright blue silk waist and a velvet 
 coat that is dripping with jet, and a black bon 
 net on which are perched palpitating birds and 
 weary-looking plumes. Then she and Herr 
 Knapf walk comfortably down to the PabsrJ 
 theater to sec the German play by the Germam 
 stock company. They applaud their favorite 
 stout, blond, German comedienne as she 
 romps through the acts of a sprightly German 
 comedy, and after the play they go to their 
 
THE LADY FROM VIENNA 
 
 favorite Wein-stube around the corner. There 
 they have sardellen and cheese sandwiches and 
 a great deal of beer, and for one charmed even- 
 jng Frau Knapf forgets all about the insides of 
 ^geese and the thickening for gravies, and is 
 happy. 
 
 Many of these things Frau Knapf herself 
 told me, standing there by the door with the 
 Kuchen heavy on her mind. Some of them I 
 got from Ernst von Gerhard when I told him 
 about my visitor and her errand. The errand 
 was not disclosed until Frau Knapf had caught 
 me casting a despairing glance at my last type 
 written page. 
 
 " Ach, see ! you got no time for talking to, 
 ain t it? " she apologized. 
 
 " Heaps of time," I politely assured her, 
 " don t hurry. But why not have a chair and 
 be comfortable? " 
 
 Frau Knapf was not to be deceived. " I 
 go in a minute. But first it is something I 
 like to ask you. You know maybe Frau Nir- 
 langer?" 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 " But sure you must know. From Vienna 
 she is, with such a voice like a bird." 
 
 " And the beads, and the gray gown, and the 
 fringe, and the cigarettes?" 
 
 [133] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " And the oogly husband," finished Frau 
 Knapf, nodding. 
 
 " Oogly," I agreed, " isn t the name for it. 
 And so she is Frau Nirlanger ? I thought there 
 would be a Von at the very least." 
 
 Whereupon my visitor deserted the door 
 knob, took half a dozen stealthy steps in my 
 direction and lowered her voice to a hissing 
 whisper of confidence. 
 
 " It is more as a Von. I will tell you. To 
 day comes Frau Nirlanger by me and she says: 
 * Frau Knapf, I wish to buy clothes, aber echt 
 Amerikanische. Myself, I do not know what 
 is modish, and I cannot go alone to buy/ * 
 
 " That s a grand idea," said I, recalling the 
 gray basque and the cannon-ball beads. 
 
 " Ja, sure it is," agreed Frau Knapf. " So- 
 o-o-o, she asks me was it some lady who would 
 come with her by the stores to help a hat and 
 suit and dresses to buy. Stylish she likes they 
 should be, and echt Amerikanisch. So-o-o-o, I 
 say to her, I would go myself with you, only 
 so awful stylish I ain t, and anyway I got no 
 time. But a lady I know who is got such 
 stylish clothes ! " Frau Knapf raised admir 
 ing hands and eyes toward heaven. " Such a 
 nice lady she is, and stylish, like anything! 
 And her name is Frau Orme." 
 
THE LADY FROM VIENNA 
 
 " Oh, really, Frau Knapf " I murmured in 
 blushing confusion. 
 
 " Sure, it is so," insisted Frau Knapf, com 
 ing a step nearer, and sinking her voice one hiss 
 lower. " You shouldn t say I said it, but Frau 
 Nirlanger likes she should look young for her 
 husband. He is much younger as she is 
 aber much. Anyhow ten years. Frau Nir 
 langer does not tell me this, but from other 
 people I have found out." Frau Knapf shook 
 her head mysteriously a great many times. 
 " But maybe you ain t got such an interest in 
 Frau Nirlanger, yes? " 
 
 "Interest! I m eaten up with curiosity. 
 You shan t leave this room alive until you ve 
 told me!" 
 
 Frau Knapf shook with silent mirth. 
 
 Now you make jokings, ain t? Well, I tell 
 you. In Vienna, Frau Nirlanger was a widow, 
 from a family aber hoch edel very high born. 
 From the court her family is, and friends from 
 the Emperor, und alles. Sure! Frau Nir 
 langer, she is different from the rest. Books 
 she likes, und meetings, und all such komisch 
 things. And what you think! " 
 
 " I don t know," I gasped, hanging on her 
 words, " what do I think? " 
 
 " She meets this here Konrad Nirlanger, and 
 
 [135] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 falls with him in love. Und her family is madl 
 But schrecklich madl Forty years old she is, 
 and from a noble family, and Konrad Nir- 
 langer is only a student from a university, and 
 he comes from the Volk. Sehr gebildet he is, 
 but not high born. So-o-o-o-o, she runs with 
 him away and is married." 
 
 Shamelessly I drank it all in. " You don t 
 mean it! Well, then what happened? She 
 ran away with him with that chin ! and then 
 what?" 
 
 Frau Knapf was enjoying it as much as I. 
 She drew a long breath, felt of the knob of 
 hair, and plunged once more into the story. 
 
 "Like a story-book it is, nicht? Well, 
 Frau Nirlanger, she has already a boy who is 
 ten years old, and a fine sum of money that her 
 first husband left her. Aber when she runs 
 with this poor kerl away from her family, 
 and her first husband s family is so schrecklich 
 mad that they try by law to take from her her 
 boy and her money, because she has her high 
 born family disgraced, you see? For a year 
 they fight in the courts, and then it stands that 
 her money Frau Nirlanger can keep, but her 
 boy she cannot have. He will be taken by her 
 highborn family and educated, and he must for 
 get all about his mamma. To cry it is, ain t 
 
THE LADY FROM VIENNA 
 
 it ? Das arme Kind ! Well, she can stand it no 
 longer to live where her boy is, and not to see 
 him. So-o-o-o, Konrad Nirlanger he gets a 
 chance to come by Amerika where there is a big 
 engineering plant here in Milwaukee, and she 
 begs her husband he should come, because this 
 boy she loves very much Oh, she loves her 
 young husband too, but difterent, yes? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," I agreed, remembering the gay 
 little trilling laugh, and the face that was so 
 young when animated, and so old and worn in 
 repose. " Oh, yes. Quite, quite different." 
 
 Frau Knapf smoothed her spotless skirt and 
 shook her head slowly and sadly. " So-o-o-o, 
 by Amerika they come. And Konrad Nir 
 langer he is maybe a little cross and so, because 
 for a year they have been in the courts, and it 
 might have been the money they would lose, 
 and for money Konrad Nirlanger cares well, 
 you shall see. But Frau Nirlanger must not 
 mourn and cry. She must laugh and sing, and 
 be gay for her husband. But Frau Nirlanger 
 has no grand clothes, for first she runs away 
 with Konrad Nirlanger, and then her money is 
 tied in the law. Now she has again her 
 money, and she must be young but young ! " 
 
 With a gesture that expressed a world of 
 pathos and futility Frau Knapf flung out her 
 
 [1373 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 arms. " He must not see that she looks dif 
 ferent as the ladies in this country. So Frau 
 Nirlanger wants she should buy here in the 
 stores new dresses echt Amerikanische. 
 All new and beautiful things she would have, 
 because she must look young, ain t it? And 
 perhaps her boy will remember her when he is 
 a fine young man, if she is yet young when he 
 grows up, you see? And too, there is the young 
 husband. First, she gives up her old life, and 
 her friends and her family for this man, and 
 then she must do all things to keep him. Men, 
 they are but children, after all," spake the wise 
 Frau Knapf in conclusion. " They war and 
 cry and plead for that which they would have, 
 and when they have won, then see! They are 
 amused for a moment, and the new toy is thrown 
 aside." 
 
 " Poor, plain, vivacious, fascinating little 
 Frau Nirlanger! " I said. " I wonder just how 
 snuch of pain and heartache that little musical 
 laugh of hers conceals? " 
 
 " Ja, that is so," mused Frau Knapf. 
 " Her eyes look like eyes that have wept 
 much, not? And so you will be so kind and 
 go maybe to select the so beautiful clothes? " 
 
 "Clothes?" I repeated, remembering the 
 original errand. " But dear lady ! How 
 
THE LADY FROM VIENNA 
 
 does one select clothes for a woman of forty 
 who would not weary her husband? That is 
 a task for a French modiste, a wizard, and a 
 fairy godmother all rolled into one." 
 
 " But you will do it, yes?" urged Frau 
 Knapf. 
 
 " I ll do It," I agreed, a bit ruefully, " if only 
 to see the face of the oogly husband when his 
 bride is properly corseted and shod." 
 
 Whereupon Frau Knapf, in a panic, remem 
 bered the unset Kuchen dough and rushed away, 
 with her hand on her lips and her eyes big with 
 secrecy. And I sat staring at the last typewrit 
 ten page stuck in my typewriter and I found 
 that the little letters on the white page were 
 swimming in a dim purple haze. 
 
 [I39l 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS 
 
 "C^ROM husbands in general, and from oogly 
 ^ German husbands in particular may Hy 
 men defend me 1 Never again will I attempt 
 to select " echt Amerikanische " clothes for a 
 woman who must not weary her young hus 
 band. But how was I to know that the harm 
 less little shopping expedition would resolve it 
 self into a domestic tragedy, with Herr Nir- 
 langer as the villain, Frau Nirlanger as the 
 persecuted heroine, and I as what is it in 
 tragedy that corresponds to the innocent by 
 stander in real life? That would be my role. 
 The purchasing of the clothes was a real joy. 
 Next to buying pretty things for myself there 
 is nothing I like better than choosing them for 
 some one else. And when that some one else 
 happens to be a fascinating little foreigner who 
 coos over the silken stuffs in a delightful mix 
 ture of German and English; and especially 
 when that some one else must be made to look 
 so charming that she will astonish her oogly 
 [140] 
 
A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS 
 
 husband, then does the selecting of those pretty 
 things cease to be a task, and become an art. 
 
 It was to be a complete surprise to Herr Nir- 
 langer. He was to know nothing of it until 
 everything was finished and Frau Nirlanger, 
 dressed in the prettiest of the pretty Amer- 
 ikanisch gowns, was ready to astound him when 
 he should come home from the office of the 
 vast plant where he solved engineering prob 
 lems. 
 
 " From my own money I buy all this/ Frau 
 Nirlanger confided to me, with a gay little 
 laugh of excitement, as we started out. " From 
 Vienna it comes. Always I have given it at 
 once to my husband, as a wife should. Yes 
 terday it came, but I said nothing, and when my 
 husband said to me, * Anna, did not the money 
 come as usual to-day? It is time/ I told a 
 little lie but a little one, is it not? Very 
 amusing it was. Almost I did laugh. Na, he 
 will not be cross when he see how his wife like 
 the Amerikanische ladies will look. He admires 
 very much the ladies of Amerika. Many times 
 he has said so. 
 
 ("I ll wager he has the great, ugly 
 boor!" I thought, in parenthesis.) "We ll 
 show him ! " I said, aloud. " He won t know 
 you. Such a lot of beautiful clothes as we can 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 buy with all this money. Oh, dear Frau Nir 
 langer, it s going to be slathers of fun 1 I feel 
 as excited about it as though it were a trous 
 seau we were buying." 
 
 " So it is," she replied, a little shadow of sad 
 ness falling across the brightness of her face. 
 <l I had no proper clothes when we were mar 
 ried but nothing ! You know perhaps my 
 story. In America, everyone knows every 
 thing. It is wonderful. When I ran away to 
 marry Konrad Nirlanger I had only the dress 
 which I wore; even that I borrowed from one 
 of the upper servants, on a pretext, so that no 
 one should recognize me. Ach Gott! I need 
 not have worried. So ! You see, it will be 
 after all a trousseau." 
 
 Why, oh, why should a woman with her 
 graceful carriage and pretty vivacity have been 
 cursed with such an ill-assorted lot of features! 
 Especially when certain boorish young hus 
 bands have expressed an admiration for pink- 
 and-white effects in femininity. 
 
 " Never mind, Mr. Husband, I ll show 
 yez I " I resolved as the elevator left us at 
 the floor where waxen ladies in shining glass 
 cases smiled amiably all the day. 
 
 There must be no violent pinks or blues. 
 Brown was too old. She was not young enough 
 
 
A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS 
 
 for black. Violet was too trying. And so the 
 gowns began to strew tables and chairs and 
 racks, and still I shook my head, and Frau Nir- 
 langer looked despairing, and the be-puffed and 
 real Irish-crocheted saleswoman began to de 
 velop a baleful gleam about the eyes. 
 
 And then we found it! It was a case of 
 love at first sight. The unimaginative would 
 have called it gray. The thoughtless would 
 have pronounced it pink. It was neither, and 
 both; a soft, rosily-gray mixture of the two, 
 like the sky that one sometimes sees at winter 
 twilight, the pink of the sunset veiled by the gray 
 of the snow clouds. It was of a supple, shin 
 ing cloth, simple in cut, graceful in lines. 
 
 "There! We ve found it. Let s pray that 
 it will not require too much altering." 
 
 But when it had been slipped over her head 
 we groaned at the inadequacy of her old- 
 fashioned stays. There followed a flying visit 
 to the department where hips were whisked out 
 of sight in a jiffy, and where lines miraculously 
 took the place of curves. Then came the gown 
 once more, over the new stays this time. The 
 effect was magical. The Irish-crocheted sales 
 woman and I clasped hands and fell back in 
 attitudes of admiration. Frau Nirlanger 
 turned this way and that before the long 
 
 [143] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 mirror and chattered like a pleased child 
 Her adjectives grew into words of six syllables. 
 She cooed over the soft-shining stuff in little 
 broken exclamations in French and German. 
 
 Then came a straight and simple street suit 
 of blue cloth, a lingerie gown of white, hats, 
 shoes and even a couple of limp satin petti 
 coats. The day was gone before we could 
 finish. 
 
 I bullied them into promising the pinky-gray 
 gown for the next afternoon. 
 
 " Sooch funs ! " giggled Frau Nirlanger, 
 " and how it makes one tired. So kind you 
 were, to take this trouble for me. Me, I could 
 never have warred with that Fraulein who 
 served us so haughty she was, nicht ? But 
 it is good again pretty clothes to have* Pretty 
 gowns I lofe you also, not?" 
 
 " Indeed I do lofe em. But my money 
 comes to me in a yellow pay envelope, and it is 
 spent before it reaches me, as a rule. It doesn t 
 leave much of a margin for general reckless 
 
 ness." 
 
 A tiny sigh came from Frau Nirlanger. v 
 "There will be little to give to Konrad this 
 time. So much money they cost, those clothes I 
 But Konrad, he will not care when he sees the 
 so beautiful dresses, is it not so? " 
 
A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS 
 
 " Care ! " I cried with a great deal of bravado, 
 although a tiny inner voice spake in doubt. 
 " Certainly not. How could he?" 
 
 Next day the boxes came, and we smuggled 
 them into my room. The unwrapping of the 
 tissue paper folds was a ceremony. We rev 
 eled in the very crackle of it. I had scuttled 
 home from the office as early as decency would 
 permit, in order to have plenty of time for the 
 dressing. It must be quite finished before 
 Herr Nirlanger should arrive. Frau Nirlanger 
 had purchased three tickets for the German 
 theater, also as a surprise, and I was to accom 
 pany the happily surprised husband and the 
 proud little wife of the new Amerikanische 
 clothes. 
 
 I coaxed her to let me do things to her hair. 
 Usually she wore a stiff and ugly coiffure that 
 could only be described as a chignon. I do 
 not recollect ever having seen a chignon, but 
 I know that it must look like that. I was 
 thankful for my Irish deftness of fingers as I 
 stepped back to view the result of my labors G 
 The new arrangement of the hair gave her 
 features a new softness and dignity. 
 
 We came to the lacing of the stays, with 
 their exaggerated length. " Aber ! " exclaimed 
 Frau Nirlanger, not daring to laugh because of 
 
 [145] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 the strange snugness. "Ach!" and again, 
 " Aber to laugh it is ! " 
 
 We had decided the prettiest of the new 
 gowns must do honor to the occasion. This 
 shade is called ashes of roses, 1 I explained, as I 
 slipped it over her head. 
 
 " Ashes of roses!" she echoed. "How 
 pretty, yes? But a little sad too, is it not so? 
 Like rosy hopes that have been withered. 
 Ach, what a foolish talk ! So, now you will 
 fasten it please. A real trick it is to button 
 such a dress so sly they are, those fasten 
 ings." 
 
 When all the sly fastenings were secure I 
 stood at gaze. 
 
 " Nose is shiny," I announced, searching in 
 a drawer for chamois and powder. 
 
 Frau Nirlanger raised an objecting hand. 
 " But Konrad does not approve of such things. 
 He has said so. He has " 
 
 " You tell your Konrad that a chamois skin 
 isn t half as objectionable as a shiny one. 
 Come here and let me dust this over your nose 
 and chin, while I breathe a prayer of thanks 
 that I have no overzealous husband near to 
 forbid me the use of a bit of powder. There ! 
 If I sez it mesilf as shouldn t, yez ar-r-re a 
 credit t me, me darlint." 
 
A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS 
 
 " You are satisfied. There is not one small 
 thing awry? Ach, how we shall laugh at 
 Konrad s face." 
 
 " Satisfied! I d kiss you if I weren t afraid 
 that I should muss you up. You re not the 
 same woman. You look like a girl! And so 
 pretty! Now skedaddle into your own rooms, 
 but don t you dare to sit down for a moment. 
 I m going down to get Frau Knapf before your 
 husband arrives." 
 
 " But is there then time?" inquired Frau 
 Nirlanger. "He should be here now." 
 
 " I ll bring her up in a jiffy, just for one peep. 
 She won t know you ! Her face will be a treat ! 
 Don t touch your hair it s quite perfect. 
 And f r Jawn s sake ! Don t twist around to 
 look at yourself in the back or something will 
 burst, I know it will. I ll be back in a minute. 
 Now run ! " 
 
 The slender, graceful figure disappeared 
 with a gay little laugh, and I flew downstairs 
 for Frau Knapf. She was discovered with a 
 spoon in one hand and a spluttering saucepan 
 in the other. I detached her from them f 
 clasped her big, capable red hands and dragged 
 her up the stairs, explaining as I went. 
 
 " Now don t fuss about that supper ! Let 
 em wait. You must see her before Herr Nir- 
 
 [147] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 langer comes home. He s due any minute. 
 She looks like a girl. So young ! And ac 
 tually pretty ! And her figure divine ! 
 Funny what a difference a decent pair of corsets, 
 and a gown, and some puffs will make, h m? " 
 
 Frau Knapf was panting as I pulled her 
 after me in swift eagerness. Between puffs she 
 brought out exclamations of surprise and unbe 
 lief such as: " Vnmdglich! (Puff! Puff!) 
 Aber wunderbar/ (Puff! Puff!) 
 
 We stopped before Frau Nirlanger s door. 
 I struck a dramatic pose. " Prepare ! " I cried 
 grandly, and threw open the door with a bang. 
 
 Crouched against the wall at a far corner 
 of the room was Frau Nirlanger. Her hands 
 were clasped over her breast and her eyes were 
 dilated as though she had been running. In 
 the center of the room stood Konrad Nirlanger, 
 and on his oogly face was the very oogliest look 
 that I have ever seen on a man. He glanced at 
 us as we stood transfixed in the doorway, and 
 laughed a short, sneering laugh that was like 
 a stinging blow on the cheek. 
 
 " So! " he said; and I would not have be 
 lieved that men really said " So ! " in that way 
 outside of a melodrama. " So ! You are in 
 the little surprise, yes? You carry your med 
 dling outside of your newspaper work, eh? I 
 [148] 
 
A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS 
 
 leave behind me an old wife in the morning and 
 in the evening, presto! I find a young bride. 
 Wonderful! but wonderful!" He laughed 
 an unmusical and mirthless laugh. 
 
 " But don t you like it? " I asked, like a 
 simpleton. 
 
 Frau Nirlanger seemed to shrink before our 
 very eyes, so that the pretty gown hung in limp 
 folds about her. 
 
 I stared, fascinated, at Konrad Nirlanger s 
 cruel face with its little eyes that were 
 too close together and its chin that curved 
 in below the mouth and out again so gro 
 tesquely. 
 
 "Like it?" sneered Konrad Nirlanger. 
 " For a young girl, yes. But how useless, this 
 belated trousseau. What a waste of good 
 money! For see, a young wife I do not want. 
 Young women one can have in plenty, always. 
 But I have an old woman married, and for an 
 old woman the gowns need be few eh, Frau 
 Orme? And you too, Frau Knapf ? " 
 
 Frau Knapf, crimson and staring, was dumb. 
 There came a little shivering moan from the 
 I figure crouched in the corner, and Frau Nir- 
 j langer, her face queerly withered and ashen, 
 i crumpled slowly in a little heap on the floor 
 i and buried her shamed head in her arms. 
 
 [149] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 Konrad Nirlanger turned to his wife, the 
 black look on his face growing blacker. 
 
 " Come, get up Anna," he ordered, in Ger 
 man. " These heroics become not a woman of 
 your years. And too, you must not ruin the so 
 costly gown that will be returned to-morrow." 
 
 Frau Nirlanger s white face was lifted from 
 the shelter of her arms. The stricken look was 
 still upon it, but there was no cowering in her at 
 titude now. Slowly she rose to her feet. I 
 had not realized that she was so tall. 
 
 The gown does not go back," she said. 
 
 " So? " he snarled, with a savage note in his 
 voice. " Now hear me. There shall be no 
 more buying of gowns and fripperies. You 
 hear? It is for the wife to come to the hus 
 band for the money; not for her to waste it 
 wantonly on gowns, like a creature of the streets. 
 You," his voice was an insult, " you, with your 
 Wrinkles and your faded eyes in a gown of " 
 he turned inquiringly toward me " How does 
 one call it, that color, Frau Orme ? " 
 
 There came a blur of tears to my eyes. " It 
 is called ashes of roses," I answered. " Ashes 
 of roses." 
 
 Konrad Nirlanger threw back his head and 
 laughed a laugh as stinging as a whip-lash. 
 " Ashes of roses ! So ? It is well named. For 
 
A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS 
 
 my dear wife it is poetically fit, is it not so? 
 For see, her roses are but withered ashes, eh 
 Anna? 5 
 
 Deliberately and in silence Anna Nirlanger 
 walked to the mirror and stood there, gazing at 
 the woman in the glass. There was something 
 dreadful and portentous about the calm and 
 studied deliberation with which she critically 
 viewed that reflection. She lifted her arms 
 slowly and patted into place the locks that had 
 become disarranged, turning her head from side 
 to side to study the effect. Then she took from 
 a drawer the bit of chamois skin that I had 
 given her, and passed it lightly over her eye 
 lids and cheeks, humming softly to herself the 
 while. No music ever sounded so uncanny to 
 my ears. The woman before the mirror looked 
 at the woman in the mirror with a long, steady, 
 measuring look. Then, slowly and deliber 
 ately, the long graceful folds of her lovely gown 
 trailing behind her, she walked over to where 
 her frowning husband stood. So might a queen 
 have walked, head held high, gaze steady. 
 She stopped within half a foot of him, her eyes 
 level with his. For a long half-minute they 
 stood thus, the faded blue eyes of the wife gaz 
 ing into the sullen black eyes of the husband, 
 and his were the first to drop, for all the noble 
 
DAWN (i HARA 
 
 blood in Anna Nirlanger s veins, and all her 
 long line of gently bred ancestors were coming 
 to her aid in dealing with her middle-class hus 
 band. 
 
 " You forget/ she said, very slowly and dis 
 tinctly. " If this were Austria, instead of 
 Amerika, you would not forget. In Austria 
 people of your class do not speak in this man 
 ner to those of my caste." 
 
 " Unsinn! " laughed Konrad Nirlanger. 
 " This is Amerika." 
 
 " Yes," said Anna Nirlanger, " this is Amer 
 ika. And in Amerika all things are different. 
 I see now that my people knew of what they 
 spoke when they called me mad to think of wed 
 ding a clod of the people, such as you." 
 
 For a moment I thought that he was going to 
 strike her. I think he would have, if she had 
 flinched. But she did not. Her head was 
 held high, and her eyes did not waver. 
 
 " I married you for love. It is most comi 
 cal, is it not? With you I thought I should 
 find peace, and happiness and a re-birth of the 
 intellect that was being smothered in the 
 splendor and artificiality and the restrictions of 
 my life there. Well, I was wrong. But 
 wrong. Now hear me! " Her voke was 
 
A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS 
 
 tense with passion. " There will be gowns 
 as many and as rich as I choose. You have 
 said many times that the ladies of Amerika you 
 admire. And see ! I shall be also one of those 
 so-admired ladies. My money shall go for 
 gowns ! For hats ! For trifles of lace and vel 
 vet and fur! You shall learn that it is not a 
 peasant woman whom you have married. This 
 is Amerika, the land of the free, my husband. 
 And see! Who is more of Amerika than I? 
 Who?" 
 
 She laughed a high little laugh and came 
 over to me, taking my hands in her own. 
 
 " Dear girl, you must run quickly and dress. 
 For this evening we go to the theater. Oh, 
 but you must. There shall be no unpleasant 
 ness, that I promise. My husband accom 
 panies us with joy. Is it not so, Konrad? 
 With joy? So!" 
 
 Wildly I longed to decline, but I dared not. 
 So I only nodded, for fear of the great lump 
 in my throat, and taking Frau Knapf s hand 
 I turned and fled with her. Frau Knapf was 
 muttering : 
 
 " Du Hund ! Du unverschamter Hund du ! " 
 in good Billingsgate German, and wiping her 
 eyes with her apron. And I dressed with 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 trembling fingers because I dared not otherwise 
 face the brave little Austrian, the plucky lit 
 tle aborigine who, with the donning of the new 
 Amerikanische gown had acquired some real 
 Amerikamsch nerve 
 
 1*54] 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 VON GERHARD SPEAKS 
 
 Von Gerhard I had not had a glimpse 
 since that evening of my hysterical out 
 burst. On Christmas day there had come a 
 box of roses so huge that I could not find vases 
 enough to hold its contents, although I pressed 
 into service everything from Mason jars from 
 the kitchen to hand-painted atrocities from the 
 parlor. After I had given posies to Frau 
 Nirlanger, and fastened a rose in Frau Knapf s 
 hard knob of hair, where it bobbed in ludicrous 
 discomfort, I still had enough to fill the wash 
 bowl. My room looked like a grand opera 
 star s boudoir when she is expecting the news 
 paper reporters. I reveled in the glowing fra 
 grance of the blossoms and felt very eastern and 
 luxurious and popular. It had been a busy, 
 happy, work-filled week, in which I had had to 
 snatch odd moments for the selecting of cer 
 tain wonderful toys for the Spalpeens. There 
 had been dolls and doll-clothes and a marvelous 
 miniature kitchen for the practical and stolid 
 
 [155] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 Sheila, and ingenious bits of mechanism that did 
 unbelievable things when wound up, for the 
 clever, imaginative Hans. I was not to have 
 the joy of seeing their wide-eyed delight, but I 
 knew that there would follow certain labor- 
 iously scrawled letters, filled with topsy-turvy 
 capitals and crazily leaning words of thanks to 
 the doting old auntie who had been such good 
 fun the summer before. 
 
 Boarding-house Christmases had become an 
 old story. I had learned to accept them, even 
 to those obscure and foreign parts of turkey 
 which are seen only on boarding-house plates, 
 and which would be recognized nowhere else 
 as belonging to that stately bird. 
 
 Christmas at Knapf s had been a happy sur 
 prise; a day of hearty good cheer and kind 
 ness. There had even been a Christmas tree, 
 hung with stodgy German angels and Pfeffer- 
 nuesse and pink-frosted cakes. I found myself 
 the bewildered recipient of gifts from every 
 one from the Knapfs, and the aborigines 
 and even from one of the crushed-looking wives* 
 The aborigine whom they called Fritz had pre 
 sented me with a huge and imposing Lebkuchen^ 
 reposing in a box with frilled border, orna- 
 mented with quaint little red-and-green Ger^ 
 man figures in sugar, and labeled Nurnberg in 
 
VON GERHARD SPEAKS 
 
 stout letters, for it had come all the way from 
 that kuchen-famous city. The Lebkuchen I 
 placed on my mantel shelf as befitted so magnif 
 icent a work of art. It was quite too elabo 
 rate and imposing to be sent the way of or 
 dinary food, although it had a certain 
 tantalizingly spicy scent that tempted one to 
 break off a corner here and there. 
 
 On the afternoon of Christmas day I sat 
 down to thank Dr. von Gerhard for the flowers 
 as prettily as might be. Also I asked his par 
 don, a thing not hard to do with the perfume 
 of his roses filling the room. 
 
 " For you," I wrote, " who are so wise in, 
 the ways of those tricky things called nerves, 
 must know that it was only a mild hysteria that 
 made me say those most unladylike things. I 
 have written Norah all about it. She has re 
 plied, advising me to stick to the good-fellow 
 role but not to dress the part. So when next 
 you see me I shall be a perfectly safe and sane 
 comrade in petticoats. And I promise you 
 no more outbursts." 
 
 So it happened that on the afternoon of New 
 Year s day Von Gerhard and I gravely wished 
 one another many happy and impossible things 
 for the coming year, looking fairly and squarely 
 into each other s eyes as we did so. 
 
 [157] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " So," said Von Gerhard, as one who is sat 
 isfied. " The nerfs are steady to-day. What 
 do you say to a brisk walk along the lake shore 
 to put us in a New Year frame of mind, and 
 then a supper down-town somewhere, with a 
 toast to Max and Norah? " 
 
 " You ve saved my life! Sit down here in 
 the parlor and gaze at the crepe-paper oranges 
 while I powder my nose and get into some street 
 clothes. I have such a story to tell youl It 
 has made me quite contented with my lot." 
 
 The story was that of the Nirlangers; and 
 as we struggled against a brisk lake breeze I 
 told it, and partly because of the breeze, and 
 partly because of the story, there were tears in 
 my eyes when I had finished. Von Gerhard 
 stared at me, aghast. 
 
 "But you are crying!" he marveled, 
 watching a tear slide down my nose. 
 
 " I m not," I retorted. " Anyway I know 
 it I think I may blubber if I choose to, mayn t 
 I, as well as other women? " 
 
 " Blubber?" repeated Von Gerhard, he of 
 the careful and cautious English. " But most 
 certainly, if you wish. I had thought that news 
 paper women did not indulge in the luxury of 
 tears." 
 
 "They don t - often. Haven t the time. 
 [158] 
 
VON GERHARD SPEAKS 
 
 If a woman reporter were to burst into tears* 
 every time she saw something to weep over she d 
 be going about with a red nose and puffy eye 
 lids half the time. Scarcely a day passes that 
 does not bring her face to face with human 
 suffering in some form. Not only must she 
 see these things, but she must write of them so 
 that those who read can also see them. And 
 just because she does not wail and tear her hair 
 and faint she popularly is supposed to be a flinty, 
 cigarette-smoking creature who rampages up and 
 down the land, seeking whom she may rend with 
 her pen and gazing, dry-eyed, upon scenes of 
 horrid bloodshed." 
 
 " And yet the little domestic tragedy of the 
 Nirlangers can bring tears to your eyes? " 
 
 " Oh, that was quite different. The case of 
 the Nirlangers had nothing to do with Dawn 
 O Hara, newspaper reporter. It was just plain 
 Dawn O Hara, woman, who witnessed that little 
 tragedy. Mein Himmel ! Are all German hus 
 bands like that? " 
 
 " Not all. I have a very good friend named 
 Max" 
 
 " O, Max ! Max is an angel husband. 
 Fancy Max and Norah waxing tragic on the 
 subject of a gown ! Now you " 
 
 " I ? Come, you are sworn to good-fel- 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 lowship. As one comrade to another, tell me, 
 what sort of husband do you think I should 
 make, eh? The boorish Nirlanger sort, or 
 the charming Max variety. Come, tell me 
 you who always have seemed so so dam 
 nably able to take care of yourself/* His eyes 
 were twinkling in the maddening way they had. 
 
 I looked out across the lake to where a line 
 of white-caps was piling up formidably only to 
 break in futile wrath against the solid wall of 
 the shore. And there came over me an equally 
 futile wrath; that savage, unreasoning instinct 
 in women which prompts them to hurt those 
 whom they- love. 
 
 " Oh, you ! " I began, with Von Gerhard s 
 amused eyes laughing down upon me. " I 
 should say that you would be more in the Nir 
 langer style, in your large, immovable, German- 
 sure way. Not that you would stoop to 
 wrangle about money or gowns, but that you 
 would control those things. Your wife will be a 
 placid, blond, rather plump German Fraulein, 
 of excellent family and no imagination. Men 
 of your type always select negative wives. 
 Twenty years ago she would have run to bring 
 you your Zeitung and your slippers. She would 
 be that kind, if Zeitung-and-slipper husbands 
 still were in existence. You will be fond of her, 
 
VON GERHARD SPEAKS 
 
 in a patronizing sort of way, and she will never 
 know the difference between that and being 
 loved, not having a great deal of imagination, as 
 I have said before. And you will go on be 
 coming more and more famous, and she will 
 grow plumper and more placid, and less and less 
 understanding of what those komisch medical 
 journals have to say so often about her husband 
 who is always discovering things. And you 
 will live happily ever after " 
 
 A hand gripped my shoulder. I looked up, 
 startled, into two blue eyes blazing down into 
 mine. Von Gerhard s face was a painful red. 
 I think that the hand on my shoulder even 
 shook me a little, there on that bleak and de 
 serted lake drive. I tried to wrench my shoul 
 der free with a jerk. 
 
 " You are hurting me! " I cried. 
 
 A quiver of pain passed over the face that I 
 had thought so calmly unemotional. u You talk 
 of hurts! You, who set out deliberately and 
 maliciously to make me suffer ! How dare you 
 then talk to me like this! You stab with a 
 hundred knives you, who know how I " 
 
 " I m sorry," I put in, contritely. " Please 
 
 don t be so dreadful about it. After all, you 
 
 asked me, didn t you ? Perhaps I ve hurt your 
 
 vanity. There, I didn t mean that, either. Oh, 
 
 [161] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 dear, let s talk about something impersonal. 
 We get along wretchedly of late." 
 
 The angry red ebbed away from Von Ger 
 hard s face. The blaze of wrath in his eyes 
 gave way to a deeper, brighter light that held me 
 fascinated, and there came to his lips a smile 
 of rare sweetness. The hand that had grasped 
 my shoulder slipped down, down, until it met 
 my hand and gripped it. 
 
 " Na, s ist schon recht, Kindchen. Those 
 that we most care for we would hurt always. 
 When I have told you of my love for you, al 
 though already you know it, then you will tell 
 me. Hush! Do not deny this thing. There 
 shall be no more lies between us. There shall 
 be only the truth, and no more about plump, 
 blonde German wives who run with Zeitung and 
 slippers. After all, it is no secret. Three 
 months ago I told Norah. It was not news to 
 her. But she trusted me." 
 
 I felt my face to be as white and as tense 
 as his own. " Norah knows ! " 
 
 " It is better to speak these things. Then 
 there need be no shifting of the eyes, no evasive! 
 words, no tricks, no subterfuge." 
 
 We had faced about and were retracing our 
 steps, past the rows of peculiarly home-like 
 houses that line Milwaukee s magnificent lake 
 
VON GERHARD SPEAKS 
 
 shore. Windows were hung with holiday scar 
 let and holly, and here and there a face was 
 visible at a window, looking out at the man and 
 woman walking swiftly along the wind-swept 
 heights that rose far above the lake. 
 
 A wretched revolt seized me as I gazed at 
 the substantial comfort of those normal, happy 
 homes. 
 
 "Why did you tell me! What good can 
 that do ? At least we were make-believe friends 
 before. Suppose I were to tell you that I care, 
 then what." 
 
 " I do not ask you to tell me," Von Gerhard 
 replied, quietly. 
 
 " You need not. You know. You knew 
 long, long ago. You know I love the big quiet 
 ness of you, and your sureness, and the German, 
 way you have of twisting your sentences about, 
 and the steady grip of your great firm hands, 
 and the rareness of your laugh, and the sim 
 plicity of you. Why I love the very cleanliness 
 of your ruddy skin, and the way your hair 
 grows away from your forehead, and your walk, 
 ^and your voice and Oh, what is the use of it 
 all?" 
 
 " Just this, Dawn. The light of day sweet 
 ens all things. We have dragged this thing out 
 into the sunlight, where, if it grows, it will grow 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 sanely and healthily. It was but an ugly, dis 
 torted, unsightly thing, sending out pale un 
 healthy shoots in the dark, unwholesome cellars 
 of our inner consciences. Norah s knowing was 
 the cleanest, sweetest thing about it. * 
 
 " How wonderfully you understand her, and 
 how right you are! Her knowing seems to 
 make it as it should be, doesn t it? I am braver 
 already, for the knowledge of it. It shall make 
 no difference between us? " 
 
 " There is no difference, Dawn," said he. 
 
 " No. It is only in the story-books that they 
 sigh, and groan and utter silly nonsense. We 
 are not like that. Perhaps, after a bit, you 
 will meet some one you care for greatly not 
 plump, or blond, or German, perhaps, but 
 still " 
 
 " Doch you are flippant?" 
 
 " I must say those things to keep the tears 
 back. You would not have me wailing here 
 in the street. Tell me just one thing, and there 
 shall be no more fluttering breaths and languish 
 ing looks. Tell me, when did you begin to 
 care?" 
 
 We had reached Knapfs door-step. The 
 short winter day was already drawing to its 
 close. In the half-light Von Gerhard s eyes 
 glowed luminous. 
 
VON GERHARD SPEAKS 
 
 " Since the day I first met you at Norah s," 
 he said, simply. 
 
 I stared at him, aghast, my ever-present sense 
 of hurnor struggling to the surface. " Not - 
 not on that day when you came into the room 
 where I sat in the chair by the window, with a 
 flowered quilt humped about my shoulders 1 
 And a fever-sore twisting my mouth ! And my 
 complexion the color of cheese, and my hair plas 
 tered back from my forehead, and my eyes like 
 boiled onions ! " 
 
 " Thank God for your gift of laughter," 
 Von Gerhard said, and took my hand in his for 
 one brief moment before he turned and walked 
 away. 
 
 Quite prosaically I opened the big front door 
 at Knapfs to find Herr Knapf standing in the 
 hallway with his: 
 
 " Nabben , Frau Orme." 
 
 And there was the sane and soothing scent 
 of Wienerschnitzel and spluttering things in 
 the air. And I ran upstairs to my room and 
 turned on all the lights and looked at the starry- 
 eyed creature in the mirror. Then I took the 
 biggest, newest photograph of Norah from the 
 mantel and looked at her for a long, long min 
 ute, while she looked back at me in her brave 
 true way. 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " Thank you, dear," I said to her. " Thank 
 you. Would you think me stagey and silly if 
 I were to kiss you, just once, on your beau 
 tiful trusting eyes? " 
 
 A telephone bell tinkled downstairs and Herr 
 Knapf stationed himself at the foot of the stairs 
 and roared my name. 
 
 When I had picked up the receiver: This 
 is Ernst," said the voice at the other end of the 
 wire. ",I have just remembered that I had 
 asked you down-town for supper." 
 
 " I would rather thank God fasting," I re 
 plied, very softly, and hung the receiver on its 
 hook. 
 
 [166] 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 BENNIE THE CONSOLER 
 
 T N a corner of Frau Nirlanger s bedroom, 
 *- sheltered from draughts and glaring light, 
 is a little wooden bed, painted blue and or 
 namented with stout red roses that are faded 
 by time and much abuse. Every evening at 
 eight o clock three anxious-browed women hold 
 low-spoken conclave about the quaint old bed, 
 while i f s occupant sleeps and smiles as he sleeps, 
 and dc^ps to his breast a chewed-looking woolly 
 dog. For a new joy has come to the sad little 
 Frau Nirlanger, and I, quite by accident, was 
 the cause of bringing it to her. The queer 
 little blue bed, with its faded roses, was brought 
 down from the attic by Frau Knapf, for she is 
 one of the three foster mothers of the small oc 
 cupant of the bed. The occupant of the bed is 
 named Bennie, and a corporation formed for the 
 purpose of bringing him up in the way he should 
 go is composed of: Dawn O Hara Orme, Pres 
 ident and Distracted Guardian; Mrs. Konrad 
 Nirlanger, Cuddler-in-chief and Authority on the 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 Subject of Bennie s Bed-time; Mr. Blackie Grif 
 fith, Good Angel, General Cut-up and Monitor 
 off n Bennie s Neckties and Toys; Dr. Ernst 
 von Gerhard, Chief Medical Adviser, and 
 Sweller of the Exchequer, with the Privilege of 
 Selecting All Candies. Members of the corpor 
 ation meet with great frequency evenings and 
 Sundays, much to the detriment of a certain 
 Book-in-the-making with which Dawn O Hara 
 Orme was wont to struggle o evenings. 
 
 Bennie had been one of those little tragedies 
 that find their way into Juvenile court. Bennie s 
 story was common enough, but Bennie himself 
 had been different. Ten minutes after his first 
 appearance in the court room everyone, from the 
 big, bald judge to the newest probation officer, 
 had fallen in love with him. Somehow, you 
 wanted to smooth the hair from his forehead, 
 tip his pale little face upward, and very gently 
 kiss his smooth, white brow. Which alone was 
 enough to distinguish Bennie, for Juvenile court 
 children, as a rule, are distinctly not kissable. 
 , Bennie s mother was accused of being unfit 
 (to care for her boy, and Bennie was tempo 
 rarily installed in the Detention Home. There 
 the superintendent and his plump and kindly 
 wife had fallen head over heels in love with 
 him, and had dressed him in a smart little Nor- 
 [168] 
 
BENNIE THE CONSOLER 
 
 folk suit and a frivolous plaid silk tie. There 
 were delays in the case, and postponement after 
 postponement, so that Bennie appeared in the 
 court room every Tuesday for four weeks. The 
 reporters, and the probation officers and police 
 men became very chummy with Bennie, and 
 showered him with bright new pennies and cer 
 tain wonderful candies. Superintendent Arnett 
 of the Detention Home was as proud of the 
 boy as though he were his own. And when, 
 Bennie would look shyly and questioningly into 
 his face for permission to accept the proffered 
 offerings, the big superintendent would chuckle 
 delightedly. Bennie had a strangely mobile 
 face for such a baby, and the whitest, smooth 
 est brow I have ever seen. 
 
 The comedy and tears and misery and laugh 
 ter of the big, white-walled court room were too 
 much for Bennie. He would gaze about with 
 puzzled blue eyes; then, giving up the situation 
 as something too vast for his comprehension, 
 he would fall to drawing curly-cues on a bit of 
 paper with a great yellow pencil presented him 
 by one of the newspaper men. 
 
 Every Tuesday the rows of benches were 
 
 packed with a motley crowd of Poles, Russians, 
 
 Slavs, Italians, Greeks, Lithuanians a crowd 
 
 made up of fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, 
 
 [169] 
 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 aunts, uncles, neighbors, friends, and enemies of 
 the boys and girls whose fate was in the hands 
 of the big man seated in the revolving chair up 
 in front. But Bennie s mother was not of this 
 crowd; this pitiful, ludicrous crowd filling the 
 great room with the stifling, rancid odor of the 
 poor. Nor was Bennie. He sat, clear-eyed 
 and unsmiling, in the depths of a great chair on 
 the court side of the railing and gravely received 
 the attentions of the lawyers, and reporters and 
 court room attaches who had grown fond of 
 the grave little figure. 
 
 Then, on the fifth Tuesday, Bennie s mother 
 appeared. How she had come to be that child s 
 mother God only knows or perhaps He had 
 had nothing to do with it. She was terribly 
 sober and frightened. Her face was swollen 
 and bruised, and beneath one eye there was a 
 puffy green-and-blue swelling. Her sordid 
 story was common enough as the probation 
 officer told it. The woman had been living in 
 one wretched room with the boy. Her husband 
 had deserted her. There was no food, and 
 little furniture. The queer feature of it, said 
 the probation officer, was that the woman man 
 aged to keep the boy fairly neat and clean, re 
 gardless of her own condition, and he generally 
 had food of some sort, although the mother 
 [170] 
 
BENNIE THE CONSOLER 
 
 sometimes went without food for days. 
 Through the squalor and misery and degrada 
 tion of her own life Bennie had somehow been 
 *feept unsullied, a thing apart. 
 
 " H m ! " said Judge Wheeling, and looked 
 at Bennie. Bennie was standing beside his 
 mother. He was very quiet, and his eyes were 
 smiling up into those of the battered crea 
 ture who was fighting for him. " I guess we ll 
 have to take you out of this," the judge de 
 cided, abruptly. " That boy is too good to go 
 to waste." 
 
 The sodden, dazed woman before him did 
 not immediately get the full meaning of his 
 words. She still stood there, swaying a bit, 
 and staring unintelligently at the judge. Then, 
 quite suddenly, she realized it. She took a 
 quick step forward. Her hand went up to her 
 breast, to her throat, to her lips, with an odd, 
 stifled gesture. 
 
 " You ain t going to take him away ! From 
 me! No, you wouldn t do that, would you? 
 Not for not for always! You wouldn t do 
 that you wouldn t " 
 
 Judge Wheeling waved her away. But the 
 woman dropped to her knees. 
 
 Judge, give me a chance! I ll stop drink 
 ing. Only don t take him away from me! 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 Don t, Judge, don t! He s all I ve got in the 
 world. Give me a chance. Three months ! 
 Six months! A year! " 
 
 " Get up ! " ordered Judge Wheeling, gruffly, 
 " and stop that ! It won t do you a bit of 
 good." 
 
 And then a wonderful thing happened. The 
 woman rose to her feet. A new and strange 
 dignity had come into her battered face. The 
 lines of suffering and vice were erased as by 
 magic, and she seemed to grow taller, younger, 
 almost beautiful. When she spoke again it was 
 slowly and distinctly, her words quite free from 
 the blur of the barroom and street vernacular. 
 
 " I tell you you must give me a chance. 
 You cannot take a child from a mother in this 
 way. I tell you, if you will only help me I can 
 crawl back up the road that I ve traveled. I 
 was not always like this. There was another 
 life, before before Oh, since then there 
 have been years of blackness, and hunger, and 
 cold and worse! But I never dragged the 
 boy into it. Look at him ! " 
 
 Our eyes traveled from the woman s trans 
 figured face to that of the boy. We could trace 
 a wonderful likeness where before we had seep 
 none. But the woman went on in her steadv, 
 even tone. 
 
 [172] 
 
BENNIE THE CONSOLER 
 
 " I can t talk as I should, because my brain 
 isn t clear. It s the drink. When you drink, 
 you forget. But you must help me. I can t 
 do it alone. I can remember how to live 
 straight, just as I can remember how to talk 
 straight. Let me show you that I m not all 
 bad. Give me a chance. Take the boy and 
 then give him back to me when you are satis 
 fied. I ll try God only knows how I ll try. 
 Only don t take him away forever, Judge I 
 Don t do that!" 
 
 Judge Wheeling ran an uncomfortable finger 
 around his collar s edge. 
 
 "Any friends living here?" 
 
 "No! No!" 
 
 "Sure about that?" 
 
 " Quite sure." 
 
 " Now see here; I m going to give you your 
 chance. I shall take this boy away from you 
 for a year. In that time you will stop drink 
 ing and become a decent, self-supporting woman. 
 You will be given in charge of one of these 
 probation officers. She will find work for you, 
 and a good home, and she ll stand by you, and 
 you must report to her. If she is satisfied with 
 you at the end of the year, the boy goes back 
 to you." 
 
 " She will be satisfied," the woman said, 
 
 [173] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 simply. She stooped and taking Bennie s face 
 between her hands kissed him once, i hen she 
 stepped aside and stood quite still, looking after 
 the little figure that passed out of the court 
 room with his hand in that of a big, kindly 
 police officer. She looked until the big door 
 had opened and closed upon them. 
 
 Then well, it was just another newspaper 
 *tory. It made a good one. That evening I 
 told Frau Nirlanger about it, and she wept, 
 softly, and murmured: u Ach, das arme 
 baby! Like my little Oscar he is, without a 
 mother." I told Ernst about him too, and 
 Blackie, because I could not get his grave little 
 face out of my mind. I wondered if those who 
 had charge of him now would take the time 
 to bathe the little body, and brush the soft hair 
 until it shone, and tie the gay plaid silk tie as lov 
 ingly as " Daddy " Arnett of the Detention 
 Home had done. 
 
 Then it was that I, quite unwittingly, stepped 
 into Bennie s life. 
 
 There was an anniversary, or a change in 
 the board of directors, or a new coat of paint 
 or something of the kind in one of the orphan 
 homes, and the story fell to me. I found the 
 orphan home to be typical of its kind a big, 
 dreary, prison-like structure. The woman at 
 
BENNIE THE CONSOLER 
 
 the door did not in the least care to let me MB. 
 She was a fish-mouthed woman with a hard eye, 
 and as I told my errand her mouth grew fish 
 ier and the eye harder. Finally she led me 
 down a long, dark, airless stretch of corridor 
 and departed in search of the matron, leaving 
 me seated in the unfriendly reception room, with 
 its straight-backed chairs placed stonily against 
 the walls, beneath rows of red and blue and 
 yellow religious pictures. 
 
 Just as I was wondering why it seemed im 
 possible to be holy and cheerful at the same 
 time, there came a pad-padding down the cor 
 ridor. The next moment the matron stood in 
 the doorway. She was a mountainous, red- 
 faced woman, with warts on her nose. 
 
 " Good-afternoon," I said, sweetly. (" Ugh ! 
 What a brute!") I thought. Then I began to 
 explain my errand once more. Criticism of 
 the Home? No indeed, I assured her. At 
 last, convinced of my disinterestedness she re 
 luctantly guided me about the big, gloomy build 
 ing. There were endless flights of shiny stairs, 
 and endless stuffy, airless rooms, until we came 
 to a door which she flung open, disclosing the 
 nursery. It seemed to me that there were a 
 hundred babies babies at every stage of de 
 velopment, of all sizes, and ages and types. 
 
 [175] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 They glanced up at the opening of the door, 
 and then a dreadful thing happened. 
 
 Every child that was able to walk or creep 
 scuttled into the farthest corners and remained 
 quite, quite still with a wide-eyed expression of 
 fear and apprehension on every face. 
 
 For a moment my heart stood still. I turned 
 to look at the woman by my side. Her thin 
 lips were compressed into a straight, hard line. 
 She said a word to a nurse standing near, and 
 began to walk about, eying the children sharply. 
 She put out a hand to pat the head of one 
 red-haired mite in a soiled pinafore; but before 
 her hand could descend I saw the child dodge 
 and the tiny hand flew up to the head, as though 
 in defense. 
 
 " They are afraid of her ! " my sick heart told 
 me. " Those babies are afraid of her! What 
 does she do to them? I can t stand this. I m 
 going." 
 
 I mumbled a hurried " Thank you," to the 
 fat matron as I turned to leave the big, bare 
 room. At the head of the stairs there was a 1 
 great, black door. I stopped before it God 
 knows why ! and pointed toward it. 
 
 "What is in that room?" I asked. Since 
 then I have wondered many times at the unseen 
 power that prompted me to put the question. 
 
BENNIE THE CONSOLER 
 
 The stout matron bustled on, rattling her 
 keys as she walked. 
 
 " That oh, that s where we keep the incor- 
 rigibles." 
 
 " May I see them? " I asked, again prompted 
 by that inner voice. 
 
 " There is only one." She grudgingly un 
 locked the door, using one of the great keys 
 that swung from her waist. The heavy, black 
 door swung open. I stepped into the bare room, 
 lighted dimly by one small window. In the 
 farthest corner crouched something that stirred 
 and glanced up at our entrance. It peered at 
 us with an ugly look of terror and defiance, 
 and I stared back at it, in the dim light. Dur 
 ing one dreadful, breathless second I remained 
 staring, while my heart stood still. Then 
 "Bennie!" I cried. And stumbled toward 
 him. "Bennie boy!" 
 
 The little unkempt figure, in its soiled knick- 
 erbocker suit, the sunny hair all uncared for, the 
 gay plaid tie draggled and limp, rushed Into 
 my arms with a crazy, inarticulate cry. 
 
 Down on my knees on the bare floor I held 
 him close close ! and his arms were about my 
 neck as though they never should unclasp. 
 
 "Take me away! Take me away!" His 
 wet cheek was pressed against my own stream- 
 
 [177] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 ing one. " I want my mother ! I want Daddy 
 ArnettI Take me away! " 
 
 I wiped his cheeks with my notebook or some 
 thing, picked him up in my arms, and started 
 for the door. I had quite forgotten the fat 
 matron. 
 
 " What are you doing? " she asked, blocking 
 the doorway with her huge bulk. 
 
 " I m going to take him back with me. 
 Please let me ! I ll take care of him until the 
 year is up. He shan t bother you any more." 
 
 " That is impossible," she said, coldly. " He 
 has been sent here by the court, for a year, 
 and he must stay here. Besides, he is a stub 
 born, uncontrollable child." 
 
 " Uncontrollable ! He s nothing of the kind ! 
 Why don t you treat him as a child should be 
 treated, instead of like a little animal? You 
 don t know him! Why, he s the most lov 
 able ! And he s only a baby! Can t you 
 see that? A baby!" 
 
 She only stared her dislike, her little pig eyes 
 grown smaller and more glittering. 
 
 "You great big thing!" I shrieked at 
 her, like an infuriated child. With the tears 
 streaming down my cheeks I unclasped Bennie s 
 cold hands from about my neck. He clung to 
 
BENNIE THE CONSOLER 
 
 me, frantically, until I had to push him away 
 and run. 
 
 The woman swung the door shut, and locked 
 it. But for all its thickness I could hear Ben- 
 nie s helpless fists pounding on its panels as I 
 stumbled down the stairs, and Bennie s voice 
 came faintly to my ears, muffled by the heavy 
 door, as he shrieked to me to take him away 
 to his mother, and to Daddy Arnett. 
 
 I blubbered all the way back in the car, until 
 everyone stared, but I didn t care. When I 
 reached the office I made straight for Blackie s 
 smoke-filled sanctum. When my tale was ended 
 he let me cry all over his desk, with my head 
 buried in a heap of galley-proofs and my tears 
 watering his paste-pot. He sat calmly by, 
 smoking. Finally he began gently to philoso 
 phize. " Now girl, he s prob ly better off there 
 than he ever was at home with his mother soused 
 all the time. Maybe he give that warty matron 
 friend of yours all kinds of trouble, yellin for 
 his ma." 
 
 I raised my head from the desk. " Oh, you 
 can talk! You didn t see him. What do you 
 eare ! But if you could have seen him, crouched 
 there alone like a little animal ! He was 
 so sweet and lovable and and he 
 [179] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 hadn t been decently washed for weeks and 
 his arms clung to me I can feel his hands 
 about my neck ! " 
 
 I buried my head in the papers again. 
 Blackie went on smoking. There was no sound 
 in the little room except the purr-purring of 
 Blackie s pipe. Then: 
 
 " I done a favor for Wheeling once," mused 
 he. 
 
 I glanced up, quickly. " Oh, Blackie, do 
 you think " 
 
 " No, I don t. But then again, you can t 
 never tell. That was four or five years ago, and 
 the mem ry of past favors grows dim fast. 
 Still, if you re through waterin the top of my 
 desk, why I d like t set down and do a little real 
 brisk talkin over the phone. You re excused." 
 
 Quite humbly I crept away, with hope in my 
 heart. 
 
 To this day I do not know what secret string 
 the resourceful Blackie pulled. But the next 
 afternoon I found a hastily scrawled note tucked 
 into the roll of my typewriter. It sent me 
 scuttling across the hall to the sporting editor s 
 smoke-filled room. And there on a chair be 
 side the desk, surrounded by scrap-books, lead 
 pencils, paste-pot and odds and ends of news 
 paper office paraphernalia, sat Bennie. His hair 
 [180] 
 
BENNIE THE CONSOLER 
 
 was parted very smoothly on one side, and undefl 
 his dimpled chin bristled a very new and ex 
 tremely lively green-and-red plaid silk tie. 
 
 The next instant I had swept aside papers, 
 brushes, pencils, books, and Bennie was gath 
 ered close in my arms. Blackie, with a strange 
 glow in his deep-set black eyes regarded us with 
 an assumed disgust 
 
 "Wimmin is all alike. Ain t it th truth? 
 I used t think you was different. But shucks ! 
 It ain t so. Got t turn on the weeps the minute 
 you re tickled or mad. Why say, I ain t goin t 
 have you comin in here an dampenin up the 
 whole place every little while ! It s unhealthy 
 for me, sittin here in the wet." 
 
 " Oh, shut up, Blackie," I said, happily. 
 " How in the world did you do it? " 
 
 " Never you mind. The question is, what 
 you goin t do with him, now you ve got him? 
 Goin t have a French bunny for him, or 
 fetch him up by hand? Wheeling appointed 
 a probation skirt to look after the crowd of us, 
 and we got t toe the mark." 
 
 " Glory be! " I ejaculated. " I don t know 
 what I shall do with him. I shall have to bring 
 him down with me every morning, and per 
 haps you can make a sporting editor out of 
 him." 
 
 [1*1] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 "Nix. Not with that forehead. He s a 
 high-brow. We ll make him dramatic critic. 
 In the meantime, I ll be little fairy godmother, 
 an* if you ll get on your bonnet I ll stake you 
 and the young un to strawberry shortcake an 
 chocolate ice cream." 
 
 So it happened that a wondering Frau Knapf 
 and a sympathetic Frau Nirlanger were called in 
 for consultation an hour later. Bennie was en 
 sconced in my room, very wide-eyed and won 
 dering, but quite content. With the entrance of 
 Frau Nirlanger the consultation was somewhat 
 disturbed. She made a quick rush at him and 
 gathered him in her hungry arms. 
 
 " Du baby du ! " she cried. " Du Kleiner ! " 
 And she was down on her knees, and somehow 
 her figure had melted into delicious mother- 
 curves, with Bennie s head just fitting into that 
 most gracious one between her shoulder and 
 breast. She cooed to him in a babble of French 
 and German and English, calling him her lee-tel 
 Oscar. Bennie seemed miraculously to under 
 stand. Perhaps he was becoming accustomed 
 to having strange ladies snatch him to their 
 breasts. 
 
 " So," said Frau Nirlanger, looking up at 
 us. " Is he not sweet? He shall be my lee-tel 
 boy, nicht? For one small year he shall be my 
 
 
 
BENNIE THE CONSOLER 
 
 own boy. Ach, I am but lonely all the long 
 day here in this strange land. You will let me 
 care for him, nicht? And Konrad, he will be 
 very angry, but that shall make no bit of 
 difference. Eh, Oscar?" 
 
 And so the thing was settled, and an hour 
 later three anxious-browed women were debating 
 the weighty question of eggs or bread-and-milk 
 for Bennie s supper. Frau Nirlanger was for 
 soft-boiled eggs as being none too heavy after 
 orphan asylum fare; I was for bread-and-milk, 
 that being the prescribed supper dish for all 
 the orphans and waifs that I had ever read 
 about, from "The Wide, Wide World" to 
 " Helen s Babies," and back again. Frau 
 Knapf was for both eggs and bread-and-milk 
 with a dash of meat and potatoes thrown in 
 for good measure, and a slice or so of Kuchen 
 on the side. We compromised on one egg, one 
 glass of milk, and a slice of lavishly buttered 
 bread, and jelly. It was a clean, sweet, sleepy- 
 eyed Bennie that we tucked between the sheets. 
 We three women stood looking down at him 
 as he lay there in the quaint old blue-painted 
 bed that had once held the plump little 
 Knapfs. 
 
 " You think anyway he had enough supper? * 
 mused the anxious-browed Frau Knapf. 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " To school he will have to go, yes? " mur 
 mured Frau Nirlanger, regretfully. 
 
 I tucked in the covers at one side of the bed, 
 not that they needed tucking, but because it 
 was such a comfortable, satisfying thing to do. 
 
 " Just at this minute," I said, as I tucked, 
 " I d rather be a newspaper reporter than any 
 thing else in the world. As a profession tis so 
 broadennV, an ? at the same time, so chancey." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE TEST 
 
 OOME day the marriageable age for women 
 ^ will be advanced from twenty to thirty, and 
 the old maid line will be changed from thirty 
 to forty. When that time comes there will be 
 surprisingly few divorces. The husband of 
 whom we dream at twenty is not at all the type 
 of man who attracts us at thirty. The man I 
 married at twenty was a brilliant, morbid, hand 
 some, abnormal creature with magnificent eyes 
 and very white teeth and no particular appe 
 tite at mealtime. The man whom I could care 
 for at thirty would be the normal, safe and sub 
 stantial sort who would come in at six o clock, 
 kiss me once, sniff the air twice and say: " Mm ! 
 What s that smells so good, old girl? I m as 
 hungry as a bear. Trot it out. Where are the 
 kids?" 
 
 These are dangerous things to think upon. 
 So dangerous and disturbing to the peace of 
 mind that I have decided not to see Ernst von 
 Gerhard for a week or two. I find that seeing 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 him is apt to make me forget Peter Orme; to 
 forget that my duty begins with a capital D; 
 to forget that I am dangerously near the thirty 
 year old mark; to forget Norah, and Max, and 
 the Spalpeens, and the world, and everything 
 but the happiness of being near him, watch 
 ing his eyes say one thing while his lips say 
 another. 
 
 At such times I am apt to work myself up 
 into rather a savage frame of mind, and to shut 
 myself in my room evenings, paying no heed 
 to Frau Nirlanger s timid knocking, or Bennie s 
 good-night message. I uncover my typewriter 
 and set to work at the thing which may or may 
 not be a book, and am extremely wretched and 
 gloomy and pessimistic, after this fashion: 
 
 " He probably wouldn t care anything about 
 you if you were free. It is just a case of the 
 fruit that is out of reach being the most desir 
 able. Men don t marry frumpy, snuffy old 
 things of thirty, or thereabouts. Men aren t 
 marrying now-a-days, anyway. Certainly not 
 for love. They marry for position, or power, 
 or money, when they do marry. Think of all the 
 glorious creatures he meets every day women 
 whose hair, and finger-nails and teeth and skin 
 are a religion; women whose clothes are a fine 
 art; women who are free to care only for them- 
 [186] 
 
THE TEST 
 
 selves; to rest, to enjoy, to hear delightful 
 music, and read charming books, and eat dc 
 licious food. He doesn t really care about you, 
 with your rumpled blouses, and your shabby 
 gloves and shoes, and your somewhat doubtful 
 linen collars. The last time you saw him you 
 were just coming home from the office after a 
 dickens of a day, and there was a smudge on 
 the end of your nose, and he told you of it, 
 laughing. But you didn t laugh. You rubbed 
 it off, furiously, and you wanted to cry. Cry! 
 You, Dawn O Hara ! Begorra ! Tis losin 
 your sense av humor you re after doin ! Get to 
 work." 
 
 After which I would fall upon the book in 
 a furious, futile fashion, writing many inco 
 herent, irrelevant paragraphs which I knew 
 would be cast aside as worthless on the sane 
 and reasoning to-morrow. 
 
 Oh, it had been easy enough to talk of love 
 in a lofty, superior impersonal way that New 
 Year s day. Just the luxury of speaking of it 
 at all, after those weeks of repression, sufficed. 
 But it is not so easy to be impersonal and lofty 
 when the touch of a coat sleeve against your 
 arm sends little prickling, tingling shivers rac 
 ing madly through thousands of too taut nerves. 
 It is not so easy to force the mind and tongue 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 into safe, sane- channels when they are for 
 ever threatening to rush together in an over 
 whelming torrent that will carry misery and de 
 struction in its wake. Invariably we talk with 
 feverish earnestness about the book; about my 
 work at the office; about Ernst s profession, 
 with its wonderful growth; about Norah, and 
 Max and the Spalpeens, and the home; about 
 the latest news; about the weather; about Peter 
 Orme and then silence. 
 
 At our last meeting things took a new and 
 startling turn. So startling, so full of tempta 
 tion and happiness-that-must-not-be, that I re 
 solved to forbid myself the pain and joy of being 
 near him until I could be quite sure that my grip 
 on Dawn O Hara was firm, unshakable and 
 lasting. 
 
 Von Gerhard sports a motor-car, a rakish 
 little craft, built long and low, with racing lines, 
 and a green complexion, and a nose that cuts 
 through the air like the prow of a swift boat 
 through water. Von Gerhard had promised 
 me a spin in it on the first mild day. Sunday 
 turned out to be unexpectedly lamblike, as only 
 a March day can be, with real sunshine that 
 warmed the end of one s nose instead of laugh 
 ing as it tweaked it, as the lying February sun 
 shine had done. 
 
 [188] 
 
THE TEST 
 
 / 
 
 " But warmly you must dress yourself," Von 
 Gerhard warned me, " with no gauzy blouses or 
 sleeveless gowns. The air cuts like a knife, but 
 it feels good against the face. And a little 
 road-house I know, where one is served great 
 steaming plates of hot oyster stew. How will 
 that be for a lark, yes?" 
 
 And so I had swathed myself in wrappings 
 until I could scarcely clamber into the panting 
 little car, and we had darted off along the smooth 
 lake drives, while the wind whipped the scarlet 
 into our cheeks, even while it brought the tears 
 to our eyes. There was no chance for conver 
 sation, even if Von Gerhard had been in talk 
 ative mood, which he was not. He seemed 
 more taciturn than usual, seated there at the 
 wheel, looking straight ahead at the ribbon of 
 road, his eyes narrowed down to mere keen blue 
 slits. I realized, without alarm, that he was 
 driving furiously and lawlessly, and I did not 
 care. Von Gerhard was that sort of man. 
 One could sit quite calmly beside him while 
 he pulled at the reins of a pair of runaway, 
 horses, knowing that he would conquer them in 
 the end. 
 
 Just when my face began to feel as stiff 
 and glazed as a mummy s, we swung off the 
 roadway and up to the entrance of the road- 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 house that was to revive us with things hot and 
 soupy. 
 
 " Another minute," I said, through stiff lips, 
 as I extricated myself from my swathings, u and 
 |I should have been what Mr. Mantalini de 
 scribed as a demnition body. For pity s sake, 
 tell em the soup can t be too hot nor too 
 steaming for your lady friend. I ve had enough 
 fresh air to last me the remainder of my life. 
 May I timidly venture to suggest that a cheese 
 sandwich follow the oyster stew? I am famished, 
 and this place looks as though it might make 
 a speciality of cheese sandwiches." 
 
 " By all means a cheese sandwich. Und was 
 noch? That fresh air it has given you an ap 
 petite, nicht wahr? " But there was no sign of 
 a smile on his face, nor was the kindly twinkle 
 of amusement to be seen in his eyes that 
 twinkle that I had learned to look for. 
 
 " Smile for the lady," I mockingly begged 
 when we had been served. " You ve been owl 
 ish all the afternoon. Here, try a cheese sand 
 wich. Now, why do you suppose that this mus 
 tard tastes so much better than the kind one 
 gets at home? " 
 
 Von Gerhard had been smoking a cigarette, 
 the first that I had ever seen in his fingers. Now 
 he tossed it into the fireplace that yawned black 
 [190] 
 
THE TEST 
 
 and empty at one side of the room. He swept 
 aside the plates and glasses that stood before 
 him, leaned his arms on the table and deliber 
 ately stared at me. 
 
 " I sail for Europe in June, to be gone a 
 year probably more," he said. 
 
 "Sail!" I echoed, idiotically; and began 
 blindly to dab clots of mustard on that ridicu 
 lous sandwich. 
 
 "I go to study and work with Gliick. It is 
 the opportunity of a lifetime. Gliick is to the 
 world of medicine what Edison is to the world 
 of electricity. He is a wizard, a man inspired. 
 You should see him a little, bent, grizzled, 
 shabby old man who looks at you, and sees you 
 not. It is a wonderful opportunity, a " 
 
 The mustard and the sandwich and the table 
 and Von Gerhard s face were very indistinct 
 and uncertain to my eyes, but I managed to 
 say: " So glad congratulate you very 
 happy no doubt fortunate " 
 
 Two strong hands grasped my wrists. 
 " Drop that absurd mustard spoon and sand 
 wich. Na, I did not mean to frighten you, 
 Dawn. How your hands tremble. So, look at 
 me. You would like Vienna, Kindchen. You 
 would like the gayety, and the brightness of it, 
 and the music, and the pretty women, and the 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 incomparable gowns. Your sense of humor 
 would discern the hollowness beneath all the 
 pomp and ceremony and rigid lines of caste, and 
 military glory; and your writer s instinct would 
 revel in the splendor, and color and romance 
 and intrigue." 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders in assumed indif 
 ference. " Can t you convey all this to me with 
 out grasping my wrists like a villain in a melo 
 drama? Besides, it isn t very generous or 
 thoughtful of you to tell me all this, knowing 
 that it is not for me. Vienna for you, and 
 Milwaukee and cheese sandwiches for me. 
 Please pass the mustard." 
 
 But the hold on my wrists grew firmer. Von 
 Gerhard s eyes were steady as they gazed into 
 mine. " Dawn, Vienna, and the whole world is 
 waiting for you, if you will but take it. Vienna 
 and happiness with me " 
 
 I wrenched my wrists free with a dreadful 
 effort and rose, sick, bewildered, stunned. My 
 world my refuge of truth, and honor, and 
 safety and sanity that had lain in Ernst von. 
 Gerhard s great, steady hands, was slipping 
 away from me. I think the horror that I 
 felt within must have leaped to my eyes, for in 
 an instant Von Gerhard was beside me, steady 
 ing me with his clear blue eyes. He did not 
 [192] 
 
THE TEST 
 
 touch the tips of my fingers as he stood there 
 very near me. From the look of pain on his 
 face I knew that I had misunderstood, some 
 how. 
 
 " Kleine, I see that you know me not," he 
 said, in German, and the saying it was as tender 
 as is a mother when she reproves a child that 
 she loves. " This fight against the world, those 
 years of unhappiness and misery, they have 
 made you suspicious and lacking in trust, is it 
 not so? You do not yet know the perfect love 
 that casts out all doubt. Dawn, I ask you in 
 the name of all that is reasoning, and for the 
 sake of your happiness and mine, to divorce this 
 man Peter Orme this man who for almost 
 ten years has not been your husband who 
 never can be your husband. I ask you to do 
 something which will bring suffering to no one, 
 and which will mean happiness to many. Let 
 me make you happy you were born to be 
 happy you who can laugh like a girl in spite 
 of your woman s sorrows " 
 
 But I sank into a chair and hid my face in 
 my hands so that I might be spared the beauty 
 and the tenderness of his eyes. I tried to think 
 of all the sane and commonplace things in life. 
 Somewhere in my inner consciousness a cool lit 
 tle voice was saying, over and over again: 
 [193] 
 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " Now, Dawn, careful ! You ve come to the 
 crossroads at last. Right or left? Choose I 
 Now, Dawn, careful!" and the rest of it all 
 over again. 
 
 When I IHted my face from my hands at last 
 it was to meet the tenderness of Von Gerhard s 
 gaze with scarcely a tremor. 
 
 " You ought to know," I said, very slowly 
 and evenly, " that a divorce, under these cir 
 cumstances, is almost impossible, even if I 
 wished to do what you suggest. There are cer 
 tain state laws " 
 
 An exclamation of impatience broke from 
 him. " Laws ! In some states, yes. In oth 
 ers, no. It is a mere technicality a trifle ! 
 There Is about it a bit of that which you call 
 red tape. It amounts to nothing to that I " 
 He snapped his fingers. " A few months resi 
 dence in another state, perhaps. These Amer 
 ican laws, they are made to break." 
 
 " Yes; you are quite right," I said, and I 
 knew in my heart that the cool, insistent little 
 voice within had not spoken in vain. " But 
 there are other laws laws of honor and de 
 cency, and right living and conscience that 
 cannot be broken with such ease. I cannot 
 marry you. I have a husband." 
 
 " You can call that unfortunate wretch your 
 [194] 
 
THE TEST 
 
 husband! He does not know that he has a 
 wife. He will not know that he has lost a wife. 
 Come, Dawn small one be not so foolish. 
 You do not know how happy I will make yoUc 
 You have never seen me except when I was tor 
 tured with doubts and fears. You do not know 
 what our life will be together. There shall be 
 everything to make you forget everything 
 that thought and love and money can give you. 
 The man there in the barred room " 
 
 At that I took his dear hands in mine and 
 held them close as I miserably tried to make 
 him hear what that small, still voice had told 
 me. 
 
 "There! That is it! If he were free, if 
 he were able to stand before men that his ac 
 tions might be judged fairly and justly, I should 
 not hesitate for one single, precious moment. 
 If he could fight for his rights, or relinquish 
 them, as he saw fit, then this thing would not 
 be so monstrous. But, Ernst, can t you see? 
 He is there, alone, in that dreadful place, quite 
 helpless, quite incapable, quite at our mercy. 
 I should as soon think of hurting a little child, 
 or snatching the pennies from a blind man s cup. 
 The thing is inhuman! It is monstrous! No 
 state laws, no red tape can dissolve such a 
 
 union." 
 
 [195] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 " You still care for him ! " 
 
 "Ernst!" 
 
 His face was very white with the pallor of 
 repressed emotion, and his eyes were like the 
 blue flame that one sees flashing above a bed of 
 white-hot coals. 
 
 You do care for him still. But yes ! You 
 can stand there, quite cool but quite and 
 tell me that you would not hurt him, not for 
 your happiness, not for mine. But me you can 
 hurt again and again, without one twinge of re- 
 gret." 
 
 There was silence for a moment in the little 
 bare dining-room a miserable silence on my 
 part, a bitter one for Ernst. Then Von Ger 
 hard seated himself again at the table opposite 
 and smiled one of the rare smiles that illumined 
 his face with such sweetness. 
 
 " Come, Dawn, almost we are quarreling 
 we who were to have been so matter-of-fact and 
 sensible. Let us make an end of this question. 
 You will think of what I have said, will you 
 not? Perhaps I was too abrupt, too brutal. 
 Ach, Dawn, you know not how I Very 
 well, I will not." 
 
 With both hands I was clinging to my cour 
 age and praying for strength to endure this un 
 til I should be alone in my room again. 
 
THE TEST 
 
 " As for that poor creature who is bereft of 
 reason, he shall lack no care, no attention. The 
 burden you have borne so long I shall take now 
 upon my shoulders. * 
 
 He seemed so confident, so sure. I could 
 bear it no longer. " Ernst, if you have any 
 pity, any love for me, stop! I tell you I can 
 never do this. Why do you make it so terribly 
 hard for me ! So pitilessly hard ! You always 
 have been so strong, so sure, such a staff of 
 courage." 
 
 " I say again, and again, and again, you do 
 not care." 
 
 It was then that I took my last vestige of 
 strength and courage together and going over 
 to him, put my two hands on his great shoul 
 ders, looking up into his drawn face as I spoke. 
 
 " Ernst, look at me ! You never can know 
 how much I care. I care so much that I could 
 not bear to have the shadow of wrong fall upon 
 our happiness. There can be no lasting happi 
 ness upon a foundation of shameful deceit. I 
 should hate myself, and you would grow to 
 hate me. It always is so. Dear one, I care so 
 much that I have the strength to do as I would 
 do if I had to face my mother, and Norah to 
 night. I don t ask you to understand. Men 
 are not made to understand these things; not 
 
 [197] 
 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 even a man such as you, who are so beautifully 
 understanding. I only ask that you believe in 
 me and think of me sometimes I shall feel 
 it, and be helped. Will you take me home now, 
 Dr. von Gerhard? " 
 
 The ride home was made in silence. The 
 wind was colder, sharper. I was chilled, mis 
 erable, sick. Von Gerhard s face was quite ex 
 pressionless as he guided the little car over the 
 smooth road. When we had stopped before 
 my door, still without a word, I thought that 
 he was going to leave me with that barrier of 
 silence unbroken. But as I stepped stiffly to the 
 curbing his hands closed about mine with the 
 old steady grip. I looked up quickly, to find a 
 smile in the corners of the tired eyes. 
 
 " You you will let me see you some 
 times ?" 
 
 But wisdom came to my aid. " Not now. 
 It is better that we go our separate ways for a 
 few weeks, until our work has served to adjust 
 the balance that has been disturbed. At the 
 end of that time I shall write you, and from 
 that time until you sail in June we shall be just 1 
 good comrades again. And once in Vienna 
 who knows ? you may meet the plump blond 
 Fraulein, of excellent family " 
 
 " And no particular imagination " 
 [198] 
 
THE TEST 
 
 And then we both laughed, a bit hysterically, 
 because laughter is, after all, akin to tears. And 
 the little green car shot off with a whir as I 
 turned to enter my new world of Ioneliness 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 BENNIE AND THE CHARMING OLD MAID 
 
 followed a blessed week of work 
 a " human warious " week, with some 
 thing piquant lurking at every turn. A week 
 so busy, so kaleidoscopic in its quick succession 
 of events that my own troubles and grievances 
 were pushed into a neglected corner of my mind 
 and made to languish there, unfed by tears or 
 sighs. 
 
 News comes in cycles. There are weeks 
 when a city editor tears his hair in vain as he 
 bellows for a first-page story. There follow 
 days so bristling with real, live copy that per 
 fectly good stuff which, in the ordinary course 
 of events might be used to grace the front sheet, 
 is sandwiched away between the marine intelli 
 gence and the Elgin butter reports. 
 
 Such a week was this. I interviewed every 
 thing from a red-handed murderer to an incu 
 bator baby. The town seemed to be running 
 over with celebrities, Norberg, the city editor, 
 adores celebrities. He never allows one to 
 
 [200] 
 
BENNIE AND THE OLD MAID 
 
 escape uninterviewed. On Friday there fell to 
 my lot a world-famous prima donna, an in 
 famous prize-fighter, and a charming old maid. 
 Norberg cared not whether the celebrity in ques 
 tion was noted for a magnificent high C, or a 
 left half-scissors hook, so long as the interview 
 was dished up hot and juicy, with plenty of 
 quotation marks, a liberal sprinkling of adjec 
 tives and adverbs, and a cut of the victim 
 gracing the top of the column. 
 
 It was long past the lunch hour when the 
 prima donna and the prize-fighter , properly em 
 bellished, were snapped on the copy hook. 
 The prima donna had chattered in French; the 
 prize-fighter had jabbered in slang; but the 
 charming old maid, who spoke Milwaukee Eng 
 lish, was to make better copy than a whole 
 chorus of prima donnas, or a ring full of fight 
 ers. 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 cheer 
 fully announced. 
 
 No answering cheer appeared upon my lunch- 
 less features. " A prize-fighter at ten-thirty, 
 and a prima donna at twelve. What s the next 
 choice morsel? An aeronaut with another sue- 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 cessful airship ? or a cash girl who has inherited 
 a million? " 
 
 Norberg s plump cheeks dimpled. " Nei 
 ther. This time it is a nice German old 
 maid." 
 
 " Eloped with the coachman, no doubt? " 
 
 " I said a nice old maid. And she hasn t 
 done anything yet. You are to find 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, a cigarette waggling from 
 the corner of his mouth. 
 
 " Name and address on this slip. Take a 
 Greenfield car. Nice old maid has lived in nice 
 old cottage all her life. Grandfather built it 
 himself about a hundred years ago. Whole 
 family was born in it, and married in it, and 
 died in it, see? It s crammed full of spinning- 
 wheels and mahogany and stuff that ll make 
 your eyes stick out. See? Well, there s no 
 one left now but the nice old maid, all alone* 
 She had a sister who ran away with a scamp 
 some years ago. Nice old maid has never 
 heard of her since, but she leaves the gate ajar 
 or the latch-string open, or a lamp in the win 
 dow, or something, so that if ever she wanders 
 [202] 
 
BENNIE AND THE OLD MAID 
 
 back to the old home she ll know she s welcome* 
 see?" 
 
 " Sounds like a moving picture play," I re 
 marked. 
 
 " Wait a minute. Here s the point. The 
 city wants to build a branch library or some 
 thing on her property, and the nice old party 
 is so pinched for money that she ll have to take 
 their offer. So the time has come when she ll 
 have to leave that old cottage, with its romance, 
 and its memories, and its lamp in the window, 
 and go to live in a cheap little flat, see ? Where 
 the old four-poster will choke up the bed 
 room " 
 
 " And the parlor will be done in red and 
 green," I put in, eagerly, " and where there will 
 be an ingrowing sideboard in the dining-room 
 that won t fit in with the quaint old dinner-set 
 at all, and a kitchenette just off that, in which 
 the great iron pots and kettles that used to hold 
 the family dinners will be monstrously out of 
 place " 
 
 " You re on," said Norberg. 
 
 Half an hour later I stood before the cottage, 
 set primly in the center of a great lot that ex 
 tended for half a square on all sides. A winter- 
 sodden, bare enough sight it was in the gray 
 of that March day. But it was not long be- 
 [203] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 fore Alma Pflugel, standing in the midst of it, 
 the March winds flapping her neat skirts about 
 her ankles, filled it with 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 
 Sweet William, and pansies, and bridal wreath. 
 The naked twigs of the rose bushes flowered 
 into wondrous bloom so that they bent to the 
 ground with their weight of crimson and yellow 
 glory. The bare brick paths were overrun with 
 the green of growing things. Gray mounds of 
 dirt grew vivid with the fire of poppies. Even 
 the rain-soaked wood of the pea-frames miracu 
 lously was hidden in a hedge of green, over 
 which ran riot the butterfly beauty of the laven 
 der, and pink, and cerise blossoms. Oh, she 
 did 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 Alma Pflugel and I gazed 
 curiously at one another. Surprise was writ 
 large on her honest face as I disclosed my er 
 rand. It was plain that the ways of newspaper 
 reporters were foreign to the life of this plain 
 [204] 
 
BENNIE AND THE OLD MAID 
 
 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 to the sitting-room be 
 yond. And there I saw that Norberg had 
 known whereof he spoke. 
 
 A stout, red-faced stove glowed cheerfully in 
 one corner of the room. Back of the stove a 
 sleepy cat opened one indolent eye, yawned 
 shamelessly, and rose to investigate, as is the 
 way of cats. The windows were aglow with 
 the sturdy potted plants that flower-loving Ger 
 man women coax into bloom. The low-ceil- 
 inged room twinkled and shone as the polished 
 surfaces of tables and chairs reflected the rosy 
 glow from the plethoric stove. I sank into the 
 depths of a huge rocker that must have been 
 built for Grosspapa Pflugel s generous curves. 
 Alma Pflugel, in a chair opposite, politely 
 waited for this new process of interviewing to 
 begin, but relaxed in the embrace of that great 
 armchair I suddenly realized that I was very 
 tired and hungry, and talk-weary, and that here 
 was a great peace. The prima donna, with her 
 French, and her paint, and her pearls, and the 
 prize-fighter with his slang, and his cauliflower 
 ear, and his diamonds, seemed creatures of 
 another planet. My eyes closed. A delicious 
 [205] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 sensation of warmth and drowsy contentment 
 stole over me. 
 
 " Do listen to the purring of that cat ! " I 
 murmured. " Oh, newspapers have no 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 this room, seated in 
 one of those deep chairs, with a bit of sewing 
 in her hand; so near that I could touch her 
 cheek with my fingers." 
 
 Alma Pflugel rose from her chair and came 
 over to me. She timidly placed her hand on 
 my arm. " Ah, I am so glad you are like that. 
 You do not laugh at the low ceilings, and the 
 sunken floors, and the old-fashioned rooms. 
 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 
 dreadful ceilings seem higher/ How nice you 
 are to understand like that ! " 
 
 My hand crept over to cover her own that 
 lay on my arm. " Indeed, indeed I do under 
 stand," I whispered. Which, as the veriest cub 
 reporter can testify, is no way to begin an inter 
 view. 
 
 A hundred happy memories filled the little 
 
 [206] 
 
BENNIE AND THE OLD MAID 
 
 low room as Alma Pflugel showed me her 
 treasures. The cat purred in great content, and 
 the stove cast a rosy glow over the scene as the 
 simple woman told the story of each precious 
 relic, from the battered candle-dipper on the 
 shelf, to the great mahogany folding table, and 
 sewing stand, and carved bed. Then there was 
 the old horn lantern that Jacob Pflugel had 
 used a century before, and in one corner of the 
 sitting-room stood Grossmutter Pflugel s spin 
 ning-wheel. Behind cupboard doors were 
 ranged the carefully preserved blue-and-white 
 china dishes, and on the shelf below stood the 
 clumsy earthen set that Grosspapa Pflugel him 
 self had modeled for his young bride in those 
 days of long ago. In the linen chest there still 
 lay, in neat, fragrant folds, piles of the linen 
 that had been spun on that time-yellowed spin 
 ning-wheel. And because of the tragedy in the 
 honest face bent over these dear treasures, and 
 because she tried so bravely to hide her tears, 
 I knew in my heart that this could never be a 
 newspaper story. 
 
 " So," said Alma Pflugel at last, and rose 
 and walked slowly to the window and stood 
 looking out at the wind-swept garden. That 
 window, with its many tiny panes, once had 
 looked out across a wilderness, with an Indian 
 [207] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 camp not far away. Grossmutter Pflugel had 
 sat at that window many a bitter winter night, 
 with her baby in her arms, watching and wait 
 ing for the young husband who was urging his 
 ox-team across the ice of Lake Michigan in tho 
 teeth of a raging blizzard. 
 
 The little, low-ceilinged room was very still. 
 I looked at Alma Pflugel standing there at the 
 window in her neat blue gown, and something 
 about the face and figure or was it the pose 
 of the sorrowful head? seemed strangely fa 
 miliar. Somewhere in my mind the resem 
 blance haunted me. Resemblance to what? 
 Whom? 
 
 " Would you like to see my garden? " asked 
 Alma Pflugel, turning from the window. For 
 a moment I stared in wonderment. But the 
 honest, kindly face was unsmiling. " These 
 things that I have shown you, I can take with 
 me when I go. But there," and she pointed 
 cut over the bare, wind-swept lot, " there is 
 something that I cannot take. My flowers ! 
 You see that mound over there, covered so 
 snug and warm with burlap and sacking? 
 There my tulips and hyacinths sleep. In a few 
 weeks, when the covering is whisked off ah, 
 you shall see ! Then one can be quite sure that 
 the spring is here. Who can look at a great 
 
 [208] 
 
BENNIE AND THE OLD MAID 
 
 bed of red and pink and lavender and 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. She stood a moment, silent, gaz 
 ing over the sodden earth. Then she flitted 
 swiftly down the narrow path, and halted be 
 fore a queer little structure of brick, covered 
 with the skeleton of a creeping vine. Stoop 
 ing, Alma Pflugel pulled open the rusty iron 
 door and smiled up at me. 
 
 " This was my grandmother s oven. All 
 her bread she baked in this little brick stove. 
 Black bread it was, with a great thick crust, and 
 a bitter taste. But it was sweet, too. I have 
 never tasted any so good. I like to think of 
 Grossmutter, when she was a bride, baking her 
 first batch of bread in this oven that Grossvater 
 built for her. And because the old oven was 
 so very difficult to manage, and because she 
 was such a young thing only sixteen ! I 
 like to think that her first loaves were perhaps 
 not so successful, and that Grosspapa. joked 
 about them, and that the little bride wept, so 
 that the young husband had to kiss away the 
 tears." 
 
 She shut the rusty, sagging door very slowly 
 [209] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 and gently. " No doubt the workmen who will 
 come to prepare the ground for the new library 
 will laugh and joke among themselves when 
 they see the oven, and they will kick it with 
 their heels, and wonder what the old brick 
 mound could have been." 
 
 There was a little twisted smile on her face 
 as she rose a smile that brought a hot mist 
 of tears to my eyes. There was tragedy itself 
 in that spare, homely figure standing there in 
 the garden, the wind twining her skirts about 
 her. 
 
 4 You should but see the children peering 
 over the fence to see my flowers in the sum 
 mer," she said. The blue eyes wore a wistful, 
 far-away look. " 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 ! Some are 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 once more. It was 
 as though the Spirit of the Flowers had touched 
 the naked twigs with fairy fingers, waking them 
 into glowing life for her who never again was 
 to shower her love and care upon them. 
 [210] 
 
BENNIE AND THE OLD MAID 
 
 " These are my poppies. Did you ever come 
 out in the morning to find a hundred poppy 
 faces smiling at you, and swaying and glisten 
 ing and rippling in the breeze? There they 
 are, scarlet and pink, side by side as 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 children with 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 her shoulders, and the wind 
 had tossed her hair into a soft fluff about her 
 head. 
 
 " We used to come out here in the early 
 morning, my little Schwester and I, to see which 
 rose had unfolded its petals overnight, or 
 whether this great peony that had held its white 
 head so high only yesterday, was humbled to 
 the ground in a heap of ragged leaves. Oh, 
 in the morning she loved it best. And so every 
 summer I have made the garden bloom again, 
 so that when she comes back she will sec 
 flowers greet her. 
 
 " All the way up the path to the door she 
 will walk in an aisle of fragrance, and when 
 she turns the handle of the old door she will 
 find it unlocked, summer and winter, day and 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 night, so that she has only to turn the knob and 
 
 enter. 
 
 She stopped, abruptly. The light died out 
 of her face. She glanced at me, half defiantly, 
 half timidly, as one who is not quite sure of 
 what she has said. At that I went over to 
 her, and took her work-worn hands in mine, 
 and smiled down into the faded blue eyes grown 
 dim with tears and watching. 
 
 "Perhaps who knows? the little sister 
 may come yet. I feel it. She will walk up 
 the little path, and try the handle of the door, 
 and it will turn beneath her fingers, and she will 
 
 enter." 
 
 With my arm about her we walked down the 
 path toward the old-fashioned arbor, 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 
 sewing during the long, peaceful summer after 
 noons. Alma Pflugel would be wearing one 
 of her neat gingham gowns, very starched and 
 stiff, with perhaps a snowy apron edged with a 
 border of heavy crochet done by the wrinkled 
 fingers of Grossmutter Pflugel. On the rustic 
 table there would be a bowl of flowers, and a 
 pot of delicious Kaffee, and a plate of German 
 
 [212] 
 
BENNIE AND THE OLD MAID 
 
 Kaffeekuchen, and through the leafy doorway 
 the scent of the wonderful garden would come 
 stealing. 
 
 I thought of the cheap little flat, with the 
 ugly sideboard, and the bit of weedy yard in 
 the rear, and the alley beyond that, and the red 
 and green wall paper in the parlor. The next 
 moment, to my horror, Alma Pflugel had 
 dropped to her knees before the table in the 
 damp little arbor, her face in her hands, her 
 spare shoulders shaking. 
 
 " Ich kann s nicht thun ! " she moaned. 
 " Ich kann nicht ! Ach, kleine Schwester, wo 
 bist du denn! Nachts und Morgens bete ich, 
 aber doch kommst 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 the shoulder. " 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 the hand 
 to the breast, to the throat, to the lips 
 Oh ! " 
 
 Suddenly I knew. I lifted the drooping 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 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 shaky floor of the old arbor. 
 " I know her. From the moment I saw you 
 the resemblance haunted me." And then as 
 Alma Pflugel continued to stare, while the 
 stunned bewilderment grew in her eyes, 
 * Why, I have one-fourth interest in your own 
 nephew this very minute. And his name is 
 Bennie ! " 
 
 Whereupon Alma Pflugel fainted quietly 
 away in the chilly little grape arbor, with her 
 head on my shoulder. 
 
 I called myself savage names as I chafed her 
 hands and did all the foolish, futile things that 
 distracted humans think of at such times, won 
 dering, meanwhile, if I had been quite mad to 
 discern a resemblance between 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 them slowly. Then, 
 with a jerk, she sat upright, her trembling 
 hands clinging to me. 
 
 "Where is she? Take me to her. Ach, 
 you are sure sure? " 
 
BENNIE AND THE OLD MAID 
 
 " Lordy, I hope so ! Come, you must let me 
 help you into the house. And where is the 
 nearest telephone? Never mind; I ll find one." 
 
 When I had succeeded in finding the nearest 
 drug store I spent a wild ten minutes telephon 
 ing the surprised little probation officer, then 
 Frau Nirlanger, and finally Blackie, for no par 
 ticular reason. I shrieked my story over the 
 wire in disconnected, incoherent sentences. 
 Then I rushed back to the little cottage where 
 Alma Pflugel and I waited with what patience 
 we could summon. 
 
 Blackie was the first to arrive. He required 
 few explanations. That is one of the nicest 
 things about Blackie. He understands by leaps 
 and bounds, while others crawl to comprehen 
 sion. But when Frau Nirlanger came, with 
 Bennie in tow, there were tears, and exclama 
 tions, followed by a little stricken silence on 
 the part of Frau Nirlanger when she saw Ben 
 nie snatched to the breast of this weeping 
 woman. So it was that in the midst of the 
 confusion we did not hear the approach of the 
 probation officer and her charge. They came 
 up the path to the door, and there the little sis 
 ter turned the knob, and it yielded under her 
 fingers, and the old door swung open; and so 
 she entered the house quite as Alma Pflugel 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 had planned she should, except that the roses 
 were not blooming along the edge of the sunken 
 brick walk. 
 
 She entered the room in silence, and no one 
 could have recognized in this 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. She 
 put Bennie down very gently, rose, and took the 
 shaking little figure in her strong arms, and 
 held it as though never to let it go again. 
 There were little broken words of love and pity. 
 She called her " Ldmmchen" and " little one," 
 and so Frau Nirlanger and Blackie and I stole 
 away, after a whispered consultation with the 
 little probation officer. 
 
 Blackie had come in his red runabout, and 
 now he tucked us into it, feigning a deep dis 
 gust. 
 
 " I d like to know where I enter into this lit 
 tle drayma," he growled. " Ain t I got nothin 
 t do but run around town unitin long lost sis 
 ters an orphans ! " 
 
 " Now, Blackie, you know you would never 
 have forgiven me if I had left you out of this. 
 Besides, you must hustle around and see that 
 they need not move out of that dear little cot- 
 
BENNIE AND THE OLD MAID 
 
 tage. Now don t say a word! You ll never 
 have a greater chance to act the fairy god 
 mother." 
 
 Frau Nirlanger s hand sought mine and I 
 squeezed it in silent sympathy. Poor little 
 Frau Nirlanger, the happiness of another had 
 brought her only sorrow. And she had kissed 
 Bennie good-by with the knowledge that the lit 
 tle blue-painted bed, with its faded red roses, 
 would again stand empty in the gloom of the 
 Knapf attic. 
 
 Norberg glanced up quickly as I entered the 
 city room. " Get something good on that 
 south side story? " he asked. 
 
 " Why, no," I answered. " You were mis 
 taken about that. The the nice old maid is 
 not going to move, after all." 
 
 
 217] 
 
CHAPTER XY 
 
 FAREWELL TO KNAPFS* 
 
 /CONSTERNATION has corrugated the 
 ^^ brows of the aborigines. Consternation 
 twice confounded had added a wrinkle or two 
 to my collection. We are homeless. That is, 
 we are Knapfless we, to whom the Knapfs 
 spelled home. 
 
 Herr Knapf, mustache aquiver, and Frau 
 Knapf, cheek bones glistening, broke the news 
 to us one evening just a week after the exciting 
 day which so changed Bennie s life. " Es thut 
 uns sehr, sehr leid" Herr Knapf had begun. 
 And before he had finished, protesting German 
 groans mingled with voluble German explana 
 tions. The aborigines were stricken down. 
 They clapped pudgy fists to knobby foreheads; 
 they smote their breasts, and made wild gestures 
 with their arms. If my protests were less 
 frenzied than theirs, it was only because my 
 knowledge of German stops at words of six 
 syllables. 
 
 Out of the chaos of ejaculations and interro- 
 
FAREWELL TO KNAPFS 
 
 gation the reason for our expulsion at last was 
 made clear. The little German hotel had not 
 been remunerative. Our host and hostess were 
 too hospitable and too polite to state the true 
 reason for this state of affairs. Perhaps rents 
 were too high. Perhaps, thought I, Frau 
 Knapf had been too liberal with the butter in 
 the stewed chicken. Perhaps there had been 
 too many golden Pfannkuchen with real eggs 
 and milk stirred into them, and with toothsome 
 little islands of ruddy currant jelly on top. 
 Perhaps there had been too much honest, nour 
 ishing food, and not enough boarding-house 
 victuals. At any rate, the enterprise would 
 have to be abandoned. 
 
 It was then that the bare, bright little dining 
 room, with its queer prints of chin-chucking 
 lieutenants, and its queerer faces, and its Ger 
 man cookery became very dear to me. I had 
 grown to like Frau Knapf, of the shining cheek 
 bones, and Herr Knapf, of the heavy geniality. 
 A close bond of friendship had sprung up be 
 tween Frau Nirlanger and me. I would miss 
 her friendly visits, and her pretty ways, and her 
 sparkling conversation. She and I had held 
 many kimonoed pow-wows, and sometimes 
 not often she had given me wonderful 
 glimpses of that which she had left of 
 [219] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 Vienna, the opera, the court, the life which had 
 been hers. She talked marvelously well, for 
 she had all the charm and vivacity of the true 
 Viennese. Even the aborigines, bristling pom- 
 padours, thick spectacles, terrifying manner, 
 and all, became as dear as old friends, now that 
 I knew I must lose them. 
 
 The great, high-ceilinged room upstairs had 
 taken on the look of home. The Blue-beard 
 closet no longer appalled me. The very pur- 
 pleness of the purple roses in the rug had grown 
 beautiful in my eyes because they were part of 
 that little domain which spelled peace and com 
 fort and kindness. How could I live without 
 the stout yellow brocade armchair! Its ple 
 thoric curves were balm for my tired bones. 
 Its great lap admitted of sitting with knees 
 crossed, Turk-fashion. Its cushioned back 
 stopped just at the point where the head found 
 needed support. Its pudgy arms offered rest 
 for tired elbows; its yielding bosom was made 
 for tired backs. Given the padded comfort of 
 that stout old chair a friendly, time-tried 
 book between my fingers a dish of rudd> 
 apples twinkling in the fire-light; my mundane 
 soul snuggled in content. And then, too, the 
 book-in-the-making had grown in that room. 
 It had developed from a weak, wobbling uncer- 
 [220] 
 
FAREWELL TO KNAPFS 
 
 tainty into a lusty full-blooded thing that grew 
 and grew until it promised soon to become man- 
 size. 
 
 Now all this was to be changed. And I 
 knew that I would miss the easy German at 
 mosphere of the place; the kindness they had 
 shown me ; the chattering, admiring Minna ; the 
 taffy-colored dachshund; the aborigines with 
 their ill-smelling pipes and flappy slippers; the 
 Wienerschnitzel ; the crushed-looking wives and 
 the masterful German husbands ; the very darns 
 in the table-cloths and the very nicks in the 
 china. 
 
 We had a last family gathering in token of 
 our appreciation of Herr and Frau Knapf. 
 And because I had not seen him for almost 
 three weeks ; and because the time for his going 
 was drawing so sickeningly near; and because 
 I was quite sure that I had myself in hand; and 
 because he knew the Knapfs, and was fond of 
 them ; and because well, I invited Von Ger 
 hard. He came, and I found myself danger 
 ously glad to see him, so that I made my greet 
 ing as airy and frivolous as possible. Perhaps 
 I overdid the airy business, for Von Gerhard 
 looked at me for a long, silent minute, until 
 the nonsense I had been chattering died on my 
 lips, and I found myself staring up at him like 
 
 [221] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 a child that is apprehensive of being scolded for 
 some naughtiness. 
 
 " Not so much chatter, small one," he said, 
 unsmilingly. " This pretense, it is not neces 
 sary between you and me. So. You are ein 
 bischen blasz, nicht? A little pale? You have 
 not been ill, Dawn? " 
 
 " 111? Never felt more chipper in my life," 
 I made flippant answer, " and I adore these 
 people who are forever telling one how un 
 usually thin, or pale, or scrawny one is look- 
 ing." ] 
 
 " Na, they are not to be satisfied, these 
 women! If I were to tell you how lovely you 
 look to me to-night you would draw yourself 
 up with chill dignity and remind me that I am 
 not privileged to say these things to you. So 
 I discreetly mention that you are looking in 
 terestingly pale, taking care to keep all tender 
 ness out of my tones, and still you are 
 not pleased." He shrugged despairing shoul 
 ders. 
 
 ; " Can t you strike a happy medium between 
 rudeness and tenderness? After all, I haven t 
 had a glimpse of your blond beauty for three 
 weeks. And while I don t ask you to whisper 
 sweet nothings, still, after twenty-one days " 
 [222] 
 
FAREWELL TO KNAPFS 
 
 " You have been lonely? If only I thought 
 that those weeks have been as wearisome to 
 you " 
 
 " Not lonely exactly/ I hurriedly inter 
 rupted, " but sort of wishing that some one 
 would pat me on the head and tell me that I 
 was a good doggie. You know what I mean. 
 It is so easy to become accustomed to thought- 
 fulness and devotion, and so dreadfully hard 
 to be happy without it, once one has had it. 
 This has been a sort of training for what I may 
 expect when Vienna has swallowed you up." 
 
 You are still obstinate? These three weeks 
 have not changed you? Ach, Dawn! Kind- 
 chen! " 
 
 But I knew that these were thin spots 
 marked "Danger!" in our conversational 
 pond. So, " Come," said I. " I have two 
 new aborigines for you to meet. They are the 
 very shiniest and wildest of all our shiny-faced 
 and wild aborigines. And you should see their 
 trousers and neckties! If you dare to come 
 back from Vienna wearing trousers like 
 these ! " 
 
 " And is the party in honor of these new 
 aborigines ? " laughed Von Gerhard. " You 
 did not explain in your note. Merely you 
 [223] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 asked me to come, knowing that I cared not if 
 it were a lawn fete or a ball, so long as I might 
 again be with you." 
 
 We were on our way to the dining room, 
 where the festivities were to be held. I stopped 
 and turned a look of surprise upon him. 
 
 " Don t you know that the Knapfs are leav 
 ing? Did I neglect to mention that this is a 
 farewell party for Herr and Frau Knapf ? We 
 are losing our home, and we have just one week 
 in which to find another/ 
 
 " But where will you go? And why did you 
 not tell me this before? " 
 
 " I haven t an idea where I shall lay my 
 poor old head. In the lap of the gods, prob 
 ably, for I don t know how I shall find the 
 time to interview landladies and pack my be 
 longings in seven short days. The book will 
 have to suffer for it. Just when it was getting 
 along so beautifully, too." 
 
 There was a dangerous tenderness in Von 
 Gerhard s eyes as he said: "Again you are a 
 wanderer, eh small one ? That you, with 
 your love of beautiful things, and your fastidi 
 ousness, should have to live in this way in 
 these boarding-houses, alone, with not even the 
 comforts that should be yours. Ach, Kindchen, 
 you were not made for that. You were in- 
 
 [224] 
 
FAREWELL TO KNAPFS 
 
 tended for the home, with a husband, and 
 kinder, and all that is truly worth while." 
 
 I swallowed a lump in my throat as I 
 shrugged my shoulders. " Pooh ! Any 
 woman can have a husband and babies," I re 
 torted, wickedly. " But mighty few women can 
 write a book. It s a special curse." 
 
 " And you prefer this life this existence, 
 to the things that I offer you ! You would en 
 dure these hardships rather than give up the 
 nonsensical views which ycu entertain toward 
 your " 
 
 " Please. We were not to talk of that. I 
 am enduring no hardships. Since I have lived 
 in this pretty town I have become a worshiper 
 of the goddess Gemutlichkeit. Perhaps I 
 shan t find another home as dear to my heart 
 as this has been, but at least I shan t have to 
 sleep on a park bench, and any one can tell you 
 that park benches have long been the favored 
 resting place of genius. There is Frau Nir- 
 langer beckoning us. Now do stop scowling, 
 and smile for the lady. I know you will get 
 on beautifully with the aborigines." 
 
 He did get on with them so beautifully that 
 in less than half an hour they were swapping 
 stories of Germany, of Austria, of the universi 
 ties, of student life. Frau Knapf served a 
 [225] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 supper, at which some one led in singing Auld 
 Lang Syne, although the sounds emanating 
 from the aborigines end of the table sounded 
 suspiciously like Die Wacht am Rhein. Fol 
 lowing that the aborigines rose en masse and 
 roared out their German university songs, 
 banging their glasses on the table when they 
 came to the chorus until we all caught the spirit 
 of it and banged our glasses like rathskeller 
 veterans. Then the red-faced and amorous 
 Fritz, he of the absent Lena, announced his in 
 tention of entertaining the company. Made 
 bold by an injudicious mixture of Herr Knapf s 
 excellent beer, and a wonderful punch which 
 Von Gerhard had concocted, Fritz mounted his 
 chair, placed his plump hand over the spot 
 where he supposed his heart to be, fastened his 
 watery blue eyes upon my surprised and blush 
 ing countenance, and sang " Weh ! Dass Wir 
 Scheiden Miissen! " in an astonishingly beau 
 tiful barytone. I dared not look at Von Ger 
 hard, for I knew that he was purple with sup 
 pressed mirth, so I stared stonily at the sardine 
 sandwich and dill pickle on my plate, and felt 
 myself growing hot and hysterical, and cold and 
 tearful by turns. 
 
 At the end of the last verse I rose hastily 
 
 [226] 
 
FAREWELL TO KNAPFS 
 
 and brought from their hiding-place the gifts 
 which we of Knapfs had purchased as remem 
 brances for Herr and Frau Knapf. I had been 
 delegated to make the presentation speech, so 
 I grasped in one hand the too elaborate pipe 
 that was to make Herr Knapf unhappy, and the 
 too fashionable silk umbrella that was to appall 
 Frau Knapf, and ascended the little platform at 
 the end of the dining room, and began to speak 
 in what I fondly thought to be fluent and high- 
 sounding German. Immediately the aborig 
 ines went off into paroxysms of laughter. 
 They threw back their heads and roared, and 
 slapped their thighs, and spluttered. It ap 
 peared that they thought I was making a hum 
 orous speech. At that discovery I cast dignity 
 aside and continued my speech in the language 
 of a German vaudeville comedian, with a dash 
 of Weber and Field here and there. With the 
 presentation of the silk umbrella Frau Knapf 
 burst into tears, groped about helplessly for her 
 apron, realized that it was missing from its ac 
 customed place, and wiped her tears upon her 
 cherished blue silk sleeve in the utter abandon 
 of her sorrow. We drank to the future health 
 and prosperity of our tearful host and hostess, 
 and some one suggested drei mal drei, to which 
 [227] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 we responded in a manner to make the chin- 
 chucking lieutenant tremble in his frame on 
 the wall. 
 
 When it was all over Frau Nirlanger beck- 
 oned me, and she, Dr. von Gerhard and I stole 
 out into the hall and stood at the foot of the 
 stairway, discussing our plans for the future, 
 and trying to smile as we talked of this plan 
 and that. Frau Nirlanger, in the pretty white 
 gown, was looking haggard and distrait. The 
 oogly husband was still in the dining room, 
 finishing the beer and punch, of which he had 
 already taken too much. 
 
 " A tiny apartment we have taken," said 
 Frau Nirlanger, softly. " It is better so. 
 Then I shall have a little housework, a little 
 cooking, a little marketing to keep me busy and 
 perhaps happy." Her hand closed over mine. 
 " But that shall us not separate," she pleaded, 
 " Without you to make me sometimes laugh 
 what should I then do? You will bring her 
 often to our little apartment, not?" she went 
 on, turning appealingly to Von Gerhard. 
 
 " As often as Mrs. Orme will allow me," he 
 answered. 
 
 " Ach, yes. So lonely I shall be. You do 
 not know what she has been to me, this Dawn. 
 She is brave for two. Always laughing she is, 
 
 [228] 
 
FAREWELL TO KNAPFS 
 
 and merry, nicht wahr ? Meine kleme Soldatin, 
 I call her. 
 
 " Soldatin, eh ? " mused Von Gerhard. " Our 
 little soldier. She is well named. And her bat 
 tles she fights alone. But quite alone." His 
 eyes, as they looked down on me from his great 
 height had that in them which sent the blood 
 rushing and tingling to my finger-tips. I 
 brought my hand to my head in stiff military 
 salute. 
 
 " Inspection satisfactory, sir? " 
 
 He laughed a rueful little laugh. " Emi 
 nently. Aber ganz befriedigend." 
 
 He was very tall, and straight and good to 
 look at as he stood there in the hall with the 
 light from the newel-post illuminating his fea 
 tures and emphasizing his blondness. Frau Nir- 
 langer s face wore a drawn little look of pain 
 as she gazed at him, and from him to the figure 
 of her husband who had just emerged from the 
 dining room, and was making unsteady progress 
 toward us. Herr Nirlanger s face was flushed 
 and his damp, dark hair was awry so that one 
 lock straggled limply down over his forehead. 
 As he approached he surveyed us with a surly 
 frown that changed slowly into a leering grin. 
 He lurched over and placed a hand familiarly 
 on my shoulder. 
 
 [229] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 "We mus part, ;> he announced, dramatic 
 ally. U O, weh! Tht bes of frien s m z 
 part. Well, g by, li l interfering Teufel. 
 F give you, though, b cause you re such a pretty 
 li l Teufel." He raised one hand as though to 
 pat my cheek and because of the horror which 
 I saw on the face of the woman beside me I 
 tried to smile, and did not shrink from him. 
 But with a quick movement Von Gerhard 
 clutched the swaying figure and turned it so 
 that it faced the stairs. 
 
 " Come Nirlanger 1 Time for hard-working 
 men like you and me to be in bed. Mrs. Orme 
 must not nod over her desk to-morrow, either. 
 So good-night. Schlafen Sie wohl." 
 
 Konrad Nirlanger turned a scowling face 
 over his shoulder. Then he forgot what he 
 was scowling for, and smiled a leering smile. 
 
 " Pretty good frien s, you an the li l Teufel, 
 yes? Guess we ll have to watch you, huh, 
 Anna? We ll watch em, won t we? " 
 
 He began to climb the stairs laboriously, with 
 Frau Nirlanger s light figure flitting just ahead 
 of him. At the bend in the stairway she 
 turned and looked down on us a moment, her 
 eyes very bright and big. She pressed her 
 fingers to her lips and wafted a little kiss toward 
 us with a gesture indescribably graceful and pa- 
 [230] 
 
FAREWELL TO KNAPFS 
 
 thetic. She viewed her husband s laborious 
 progress, not daring to offer help. Then the 
 turn in the stair hid her from sight. 
 
 In the dim quiet of the little hallway Von 
 Gerhard held out his hands those deft, 
 manual hands those steady, sure, surgeonly 
 hands hands to cling to, to steady oneself 
 by, and because I needed them most just then, 
 and because I longed with my whole soul to 
 place both my weary hands in those strong 
 capable ones and to bring those dear, cool, sane 
 fingers up to my burning cheeks, I put one foot 
 on the first stair and held out two chilly finger 
 tips. " Good-night, Herr Doktor," I said, " and 
 thank you, not only for myself, but for her. I 
 have felt what she feels to-night. It is not a 
 pleasant thing to be ashamed of one s husband." 
 
 Von Gerhard s two hands closed over that 
 one of mine. " Dawn, you will let me help you 
 to find comfortable quarters? You cannot 
 tramp about from place to place all the week. 
 Let us get a list of addresses, and then, with the 
 machine, we can drive from one to the other in 
 an hour. It will at least save you time and 
 strength." 
 
 " Go boarding-house hunting in a stunning 
 green automobile ! " I exclaimed. From my 
 vantage point on the steps I could look down 
 
DAWN CTHARA 
 
 on him, and there came over me a great long 
 ing to run my fingers gently through that crisp 
 blond hair, and to bring his head down close 
 against my breast for one exquisite moment. 
 So " Landladies and oitermobiles ! " I 
 laughed. " Never ! Don t you know that if 
 they got one glimpse, through the front parlor 
 windows, of me stepping grand-like out of your 
 green motor car, they would promptly over 
 charge me for any room in the house? I shall 
 go room-hunting in my oldest hat, with one 
 finger sticking out of my glove." 
 
 Von Gerhard shrugged despairing shoulders. 
 " Na, of what use is it to plead with you. 
 Sometimes I wonder if, after all, you are not 
 merely amusing yourself. Getting copy, per 
 haps, for the book, or a new experience to add 
 to your already varied store." 
 
 Abruptly I turned to hide my pain, and be 
 gan to ascend the stairs. With a bound Von 
 Gerhard was beside me, his face drawn and 
 contrite. 
 
 " Forgive me, Dawn I I know that you are 
 wisest. It is only that I become a little mad, 
 I think, when I see you battling alone like this, 
 among strangers, and know that I have not the 
 right to help you. I knew not what I was say 
 ing. Come, raise your eyes and smile, like the 
 [232] 
 
FAREWELL TO KNAPFS 
 
 ftttle Soldatin that you are. So. Now I am 
 forgiven, yes? " 
 
 I smiled cheerily enough into his blue eyes. 
 " Quite forgiven. And now you must run 
 along. This is scandalously late. The aborig 
 ines will be along saying Morgen ! instead 
 of Nabben ! if we stay here much longer. 
 Good-night." 
 
 1 You will give me your new address as soon 
 as you have found a satisfactory home? " 
 
 " Never fear I I probably shall be pestering 
 you with telephone calls, urging you to have 
 pity upon me in my loneliness. Now good 
 night again. I m as full of farewells as a 
 Bernhardt." And to end it I ran up the stairs. 
 At the bend, just where Frau Nirlanger had 
 turned, I too stopped and looked over my shoul 
 der. Von Gerhard was standing as I had left 
 him, looking up at me. And like Frau Nir 
 langer, I wafted a little kiss in his direction, 
 before I allowed the bend in the stairs to cut 
 off my view. But Von Gerhard did not signify 
 by look or word that he had seen it, as he stood 
 looking up at me, one strong white hand resting 
 on the broad baluster. 
 
 [233] 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 JUNE MOONLIGHT, AND A NEW BOARDING* 
 HOUSE 
 
 I " HERE was a week in which to scurry 
 * about for a new home. The days scam 
 pered by, tripping over one another in their 
 haste. My sleeping hours were haunted by 
 nightmares of landladies and impossible board 
 ing-house bedrooms. Columns of " To Let, 
 Furnished or Unfurnished " ads filed, advanced, 
 and retreated before my dizzy eyes. My time 
 after office hours was spent in climbing dim 
 stairways, interviewing unenthusiastic females 
 in kimonos, and peering into ugly bedrooms 
 papered with sprawly and impossible patterns 
 and filled with the odors of dead-and-gone din 
 ners. I found one room less impossible than 
 the rest, only to be told that the preference was 
 to be given to a man who had " looked " the 
 day before. 
 
 " I d ruther take gents only/ explained the 
 ample person who carried the keys to the man 
 sion. " Gents goes early in the morning and 
 [234] 
 
A NEW BOARDING-HOUSE 
 
 conies in late at night, and that s all you ever 
 see of em, half the time. I ve tried ladies, 
 an they get me wild, always yellin for hot 
 water to wash their hair, or pastin handker 
 chiefs up on the mirr r or wantin to butt into 
 the kitchen to press this or that. I ll let you 
 know if the gent don t take it, but I got an 
 idea he will." 
 
 He did. At any rate, no voice summoned 
 me to that haven for gents only. There were 
 other landladies landladies fat and German; 
 landladies lean and Irish; landladies loquacious 
 (regardless of nationality) ; landladies reserved; 
 landladies husbandless, wedded, widowed, di 
 vorced, and willing; landladies slatternly; land 
 ladies prim; and all hinting of past estates 
 wherein there had been much grandeur. 
 
 At last, when despair gripped me, and I had 
 horrid visions of my trunk, hat-box and type 
 writer reposing on the sidewalk while I, home 
 less, sat perched in the midst of them, I chanced 
 upon a room which commanded a glorious view 
 of the lake. True, it was too expensive for my 
 slim purse; true, the owner of it was sour of 
 feature ; true, the room itself was cavernous and 
 unfriendly and cold-looking, but the view of the 
 great, blue lake triumphed over all these, al 
 though a cautious inner voice warned me that 
 
 [235] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 that lake view would cover a multitude of sins. 
 I remembered, later, how she of the sour visage 
 had dilated upon the subject of the sunrise over 
 the water. I told her at the time that while I 
 was passionately fond of sunrises myself, still 
 I should like them just as well did they not oc 
 cur so early in the morning. Whereupon she 
 of the vinegar countenance had sniffed. I 
 loathe landladies who sniff. 
 
 My trunk and trusty typewriter were sent on 
 to my new home at noon, unchaperoned, for I 
 had no time to spare at that hour of the day. 
 Later I followed them, laden with umbrella, 
 boxes, brown-paper parcels, and other unfash 
 ionable moving-day paraphernalia. I bumped 
 and banged my way up the two flights of stairs 
 that led to my lake view and my bed, and my 
 heart went down as my feet went up. By the 
 time the cavernous bedroom was gained I felt 
 decidedly quivery-mouthed, so that I dumped 
 my belongings on the floor in a heap and went 
 to the window to gaze on the lake until my 
 spirits should rise. But it was a gray day, and 
 the lake looked large, and wet and unsociable. 
 You couldn t get chummy with it. I turned 
 to my great barn of a room. You couldn t get 
 chummy with that, either. I began to unpack, 
 with furious energy. In vain I turned every 
 
 [236] 
 
A NEW BOARDING-HOUSE 
 
 gas jet blazing high. They only cast dim 
 shadows in the murky vastness of that awful 
 chamber. A whole Fourth of July fireworks 
 display, Roman candles, sky-rockets, pin-wheels,J 
 set pieces and all, could not have made that 
 room take on a festive air. 
 
 As I unpacked I thought of my cosy room 
 at Knapfs , and as I thought I took my head 
 out of my trunk and sank down on the floor 
 with a satin blouse in one hand, and a walking 
 boot in the other, and wanted to bellow with 
 loneliness. There came to me dear visions of 
 the friendly old yellow brocade chair, and the 
 lamplight, and the fireplace, and Frau Nir- 
 langer, and the Pfannkuchen. I thought of the 
 aborigines. In my homesick mind their bumpy 
 faces became things of transcendent beauty. I 
 could have put my head on their combined 
 shoulders and wept down their blue satin neck 
 ties. In my memory of Frau Knapf it seemed 
 to me that I could discern a dim, misty halo 
 hovering above her tightly wadded hair. My, 
 soul went out to her as I recalled the shining 
 cheek-bones, and the apron, and the chickens 
 stewed in butter. I would have given a year 
 out of my life to have heard that good-natured, 
 " NabbenV One aborigine had been wont to 
 emphasize his after-dinner arguments with a 
 [237] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 toothpick brandished fiercely between thumb 
 and finger. The brandisher had always an 
 noyed me. Now I thought of him with tender 
 ness in my heart and reproached myself for my 
 fastidiousness. I should have wept if I had 
 not had a walking boot in one hand, and a satin 
 blouse in the other. A walking boot is but a 
 cold comfort. And my thriftmess denied my 
 tears the soiling of the blouse. So I sat up on 
 my knees and finished the unpacking. 
 
 Just before dinner time I donned a becoming 
 gown to chirk up my courage, groped my way 
 down the long, dim stairs, and telephoned to 
 Von Gerhard. It seemed to me that just to 
 hear his voice would instill in me new courage 
 and hope. I gave the number, and waited. 
 
 "Dr. von Gerhard?" repeated a woman s 
 voice at the other end of the wire. " He is 
 very busy. Will you leave your name? " 
 
 "No," I snapped. "I ll hold the wire. 
 Tell him that Mrs. Orme is waiting to speak to 
 him." 
 
 " I ll see." The voice was grudging. 
 
 Another wait; then "Dawn!" came his 
 voice in glad surprise. 
 
 "Hello!" I cried, hysterically. "Hello! 
 Oh, talk ! Say something nice, for pity s sake ! 
 I m sorry that I ve taken you away from what* 
 
 [238] 
 
A NEW BOARDING-HOUSE 
 
 ever you were doing, but I couldn t help it. 
 Just talk please I I m dying of loneliness." 
 
 " Child, are you ill?" Von Gerhard s voice 
 Was so satisfyingly solicitous. " Is anything 
 wrong? Your voice is trembling. I can hear 
 it quite plainly. What has happened? Has 
 Norah written " 
 
 "Norah? No. There was nothing in her 
 letter to upset me. It is only the strangeness 
 of this place. I shall be all right in a day or 
 
 so." 
 
 "The new home it is satisfactory? You 
 have found what you wanted? Your room is 
 comfortable? " 
 
 " It s it s a large room," I faltered. 
 " And there s a a large view of the lake, 
 too." 
 
 There was a smothered sound at the other 
 end of the wire. Then " I want you to meet 
 me down-town at seven o clock. We will have 
 dinner together," Von Gerhard said, " I can 
 not have you moping up there all alone all even 
 ing." 
 
 " I can t come." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 u Because I want to so very much. And any 
 way, I m much more cheerful now. I am going 
 in to dinner. And after dinner I shall get ac- 
 [239] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 quainted with my room. There are six corners 
 and all the space under the bed that I- haven t 
 explored yet." 
 
 "Dawn!" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "If you were free to-night, would you marry 
 me? If you knew that the next month would 
 find you mistress of yourself would you " 
 
 "Ernst!" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " If the gates of Heaven were opened wide to 
 you, and they had Welcome ! done in dia 
 monds over the door, and all the loveliest angel 
 ladies grouped about the doorway to receive 
 you, and just beyond you could see awaiting you 
 all that was beautiful, and most exquisite, and 
 most desirable, would you enter? " 
 
 And then I hung up the receiver and went 
 in to dinner. I went in to dinner, but not to 
 dine. Oh, shades of those who have suffered 
 in boarding-houses that dining room ! It 
 must have been patterned after the dining room 
 at Dotheboys hall. It was bare, and cheer 
 less, and fearfully undressed looking. The 
 diners were seated at two long, unsociable, 
 boarding-housey tables that ran the length of 
 the room, and all the women folks came down 
 to dine with white wool shawls wrapped snugly 
 [240] 
 
A NEW BOARDING-HOUSE 
 
 about their susceptible black silk shoulders. 
 The general effect was that of an Old People s 
 Home. Seat after seat at table was filled, and 
 I found myself the youngest thing present. I 
 felt so criminally young that I wondered they 
 did not strap me in a high chair and ram bread 
 and milk down my throat. Now and then the 
 door would open to admit another snuffly, 
 ancient, and be-shawled member of the com 
 pany. I learned that Mrs. Schwartz, on my 
 right, did not care mooch for shteak for break 
 fast, aber a leedle 1 mb ch p she likes. Also 
 that the elderly party on my left and the elderly 
 party on my right resented being separated by 
 my person. Conversation between E. P. on 
 right, and E. P. on left scintillated across my 
 soup, thus: 
 
 " How you feel this evening Mis Maurer, 
 h m?" 
 
 " Don t ask me." 
 
 " No wonder you got rheumatism. My 
 room was like a ice-house all day. Yours 
 too?" 
 
 " I don t complain any more. Much good it 
 does. Barley soup again? In my own home 
 I never ate it, and here I pay my good money 
 and get four time a week barley soup. Are 
 those fresh cucumbers? M-m-m-m. They 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 haven t stood long enough. Look at Mis 
 Miller. She feels good this evening. She 
 should feel good. Twenty-five cents she won 
 at bridge. I never seen how that woman is got 
 luck." 
 
 I choked, gasped, and fled. 
 
 Back in my own mausoleum once more I put 
 things in order, dragged my typewriter stand 
 into the least murky corner under the bravest 
 gas jet and rescued my tottering reason by turn 
 ing out a long letter to Norah. That finished, 
 my spirits rose. I dived into the bottom of my 
 trunk for the loose sheets of the book-in-the- 
 making, glanced over the last three or four, 
 discovered that they did not sound so maudlin 
 as I had feared, and straightway forgot my 
 gloomy surroundings in the fascination of weav 
 ing the tale. 
 
 In the midst of my fine frenzy there came 
 a knock at the door. In the hall stood the 
 anemic little serving maid who had attended 
 me at dinner. She was almost eclipsed by a 
 huge green pasteboard box. 
 
 " You re Mis Orme, ain t you? This here s 
 for you." 
 
 The little white-cheeked maid hovered at the 
 threshold while I lifted the box cover and re 
 vealed the perfection of the American beauty 
 [242] 
 
A NEW BOARDING-HOUSE 
 
 buds that lay there, all dewy and fragrant 
 The eyes of the little maid were wide with won 
 der as she gazed, and because I had known 
 flower-hunger I separated two stately blossoms 
 from the glowing cluster and held them out to 
 her. 
 
 " For me! " she gasped, and brought her lips 
 down to them, gently. Then " There s a 
 high green jar downstairs you can have to stick 
 your flowers .in. You ain t got nothin big 
 enough in here, except your water pitcher. An 5 
 putting these grand flowers in a water pitcher 
 why, it d be like wearing a silk dress over a 
 flannel petticoat, wouldn t it? " 
 
 When the anemic little boarding-house 
 slavey with the beauty-loving soul had fetched 
 the green jar, I placed the shining stems in it 
 with gentle fingers. At the bottom of the box 
 I found a card that read : " For it is impossible 
 to live in a room with red roses and still be 
 traurig." 
 
 How well he knew I And how truly impos 
 sible to be sad when red roses are glowing for 
 one, and filling the air with their fragrance! 
 
 The interruption was fatal to book-writing. 
 My thoughts were a chaos of red roses, and 
 anemic little maids with glowing eyes, and 
 thoughtful young doctors with a marvelous un- 
 
 [243] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 derstanding of feminine moods. So I turned 
 out all the lights, undressed by moonlight, and, 
 throwing a kimono about me, carried my jar of 
 roses to the window and sat down beside them 
 so that their exquisite scent caressed me. 
 
 The moonlight had put a spell of white magic 
 upon the lake. It was a light-flooded world 
 that lay below my window. Summer, finger 
 on lip, had stolen in upon the heels of spring. 
 Dim, shadowy figures dotted the benches of the 
 park across the way. Just beyond lay the sil 
 ver lake, a dazzling bar of moonlight on its 
 breast. Motors rushed along the roadway with 
 a roar and a whir and were gone, leaving a 
 trail of laughter behind them. From the open 
 window of the room below came the slip-slap 
 of cards on the polished table surface, and the 
 low buzz of occasional conversation as the 
 players held post-mortems. Under the street 
 light the popcorn vender s cart made a blot on 
 the mystic beauty of the scene below. But the 
 perfume of my red roses came to me, and their 
 velvet caressed my cheek, and beyond the noise 
 and lights of the street lay that glorious lake 
 with the bar of moonlight on its soft breast. I 
 gazed and forgave the sour-faced landlady her 
 dining room; forgave the elderly parties their 
 shawls and barley soup; forgot for a moment 
 [244] 
 
A NEW BOARDING-HOUSE 
 
 my weary thoughts of Peter Orme ; forgot every 
 thing except that it was June, and moonlight 
 and good to be alive. 
 
 All the changes and events of that strange, 
 eventful year came crowding to my mind as I 
 crouched there at the window. Four new 
 friends, tried and true! I conned them over 
 joyously in my heart. What a strange contrast 
 they made ! Blackie, of the elastic morals, and 
 the still more elastic heart; Frau Nirlanger, of 
 the smiling lips and the lilting voice and the 
 tragic eyes she who had stooped from a 
 great height to pluck the flower of love bloom 
 ing below, only to find a worthless weed sully 
 ing her hand; Alma Pflugel, with the unquench 
 able light of gratefulness in her honest face; 
 Von Gerhard, ready to act as buffer between my* 
 self and the world, tender as a woman, gravely 
 thoughtful, with the light of devotion glowing 
 in his steady eyes. 
 
 " Here s richness," said I, like the fat boy 
 in Pickwick Papers. And I thanked God for 
 the new energy which had sent me to this lovely 
 city by the lake. I thanked Him that I had 
 not been content to remain a burden to Max and 
 , Norah, growing sour and crabbed with the years. 
 Those years of work and buffeting had made 
 of me a broader, finer, truer type of woman- 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 hood had caused me to forget my own little 
 tragedy in contemplating the great human 
 comedy. And so I made a little prayer there in 
 the moon-flooded room. 
 
 " O dear Lord," I prayed, and I did not 
 mean that it should sound irreverent. " O dear 
 Lord, don t bother about my ambitions! Just 
 let me remain strong and well enough to do 
 the work that is my portion from day to day. 
 Keep me faithful to my standards of right and 
 wrong. Let this new and wonderful love which 
 has come into my life be a staff of strength and 
 comfort instead of a burden of weariness. Let 
 me not grow careless and slangy as the years go 
 by. Let me keep my hair and complexion and 
 teeth, and deliver me from wearing soiled 
 blouses and doing my hair in a knob. Amen." 
 
 I felt quite cheerful after that so cheerful 
 that the strange bumps in the new bed did not 
 bother me as unfamiliar beds usually did. The 
 roses I put to sleep in their jar of green, keeping 
 one to hold against my cheek as I slipped into 
 dreamland. I thought drowsily, just before 
 sleep claimed me : 
 
 " To-morrow, after office hours, I ll tuck up 
 my skirt, and wrap my head in a towel and have 
 a housecleaning bee. I ll move the bed where 
 the wash-stand is now, and I ll make the chiffon- 
 
A NEW BOARDING-HOUSE 
 
 nler twap places with the couch. One feels on 
 friendlier terms with furniture that one has 
 shoved about a little. How brilliant the moon 
 light is ! The room is flooded with it. Those 
 roses sweet ! sweet ! " 
 
 When I awoke it was morning. During the 
 days that followed I looked back gratefully upon 
 that night, with its moonlight, and its roses, 
 and its great peace. 
 
 t*47l 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE SHADOW OF TERROR 
 
 days before the date set for Von Ger* 
 hard s departure the book was finished, 
 typed, re-read, packed, and sent away. Half 
 an hour after it was gone all its most glaring 
 faults seemed to marshall themselves before my 
 mind s eye. Whole paragraphs, that had read 
 quite reasonably before, now loomed ludicrous 
 in perspective. I longed to snatch it back; to 
 tidy it here, to take it in there, to smooth cer 
 tain rough places neglected in my haste. For 
 almost a year I had lived with this thing, so close 
 that its faults and its virtues had become in 
 distinguishable to me. Day and night, for many 
 months, it had been in my mind. Of late some 
 instinct had prompted me to finish it. I had 
 worked at it far into the night, until I marveled 
 that the ancient occupants of the surrounding 
 rooms did not enter a combined protest against 
 the clack-clacking of my typewriter keys. And 
 now that it was gone I wondered, dully, if I 
 sould feel Yon Gerhard s departure more keenly. 
 
THE SHADOW OF TERROR 
 
 No one knew of the existence of the book 
 except Norah, Von Gerhard, Blackie and me. 
 Blackie had a way of inquiring after its progress 
 in hushed tones of mock awe. Also he de 
 lighted in getting down on hands and knees and 
 guiding a yard-stick carefully about my desk 
 with a view to having a fence built around it, 
 bearing an inscription which would inform ad 
 miring tourists that here was the desk at which 
 the brilliant author had been wont to sit- 
 when grinding out heart-throb stories for the 
 humble Post. He took an impish delight in my 
 struggles with my hero and heroine, and his in 
 quiries after the health of both were of such 
 a nature as to make any earnest writer person 
 rise in wrath and slay him. I had seen little of 
 Blackie of late. My spare hours had been de 
 voted to the work in hand. On the day after the 
 book was sent away I was conscious of a little 
 shock as I strolled into Blackie s sanctum and 
 took my accustomed seat beside his big desk. 
 There was an oddly pinched look about 
 Blackie s nostrils and lips, I thought. And the 
 deep-set black eyes appeared deeper and blacker 
 than ever in his thin little face. 
 
 A week of unseasonable weather had come 
 upon the city. June was going out in a wave of 
 torrid heat such as August might have boasted. 
 [249] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 The day had seemed endless and intolerably 
 close. I was feeling very limp and languid. 
 Perhaps, thought I, it was the heat which had 
 wilted Blackie s debonair spirits. 
 
 " It has been a long time since we ve had a 
 talk-talk, Blackie. I ve missed you. Also you 
 look just a wee bit green around the edges. 
 I m thinking a vacation wouldn t hurt you." 
 
 Blackie s lean brown forefinger caressed the 
 bowl of his favorite pipe. His eyes, that had 
 been gazing out across the roofs beyond his 
 window, came back to me, and there was in them 
 a curious and quizzical expression as of one who 
 is inwardly amused. 
 
 " I ve been thinkin about a vacation. Noiie 
 of your measly little two weeks affairs, with one 
 week on salary, and th other without I ain t 
 goin t take my vacation for a while not till 
 fall, p raps, or maybe winter. But w en I do 
 take it, sa-a-ay, girl, it s goin t be a real one." 
 
 " But why wait so long? " I asked. " You 
 need it now. Who ever heard of putting off 
 a vacation until winter ! " 
 
 " Well, I dunno," mused Blackie. " I just 
 made my arrangements for that time, and I hate 
 t muss em up. You ll say, w en the time comes, 
 that my plans are reas nable." 
 
 There was a sharp ring from the telephone at 
 [250] 
 
THE SHADOW OF TERROR 
 
 Blackie s elbow. He answered it, then thrust 
 the receiver into my hand. " For you," he 
 said. 
 
 It was Von Gerhard s voice that came to me. 
 " I have something to tell you," he said. 
 " Something most important. If I call for you 
 at six we can drive out to the bay for supper, 
 yes ? I must talk to you." 
 
 " You have saved my life," I called back. 
 " It has been a beast of a day. You may talk 
 as much and as importantly as you like, so long 
 as I am kept cool." 
 
 " That was Von Gerhard," said I to Blackie, 
 and tried not to look uncomfortable. 
 
 " Mm," grunted Blackie, pulling at his pipe. 
 "Thoughtful, ain t he?" 
 
 I turned at the door. " He he s going 
 away day after to-morrow, Blackie," I ex 
 plained, although no explanation had been asked 
 for, " to Vienna. He expects to stay a year 
 or two or three " 
 
 Blackie looked up quickly. " Goin away, is 
 he? Well, maybe it s best, all around, girl. I 
 see his name s been mentioned in all the medi 
 cal papers, and the big magazines, and all that, 
 lately. Gettin t be a big bug, Von Gerhard is. 
 Sorry he s goin , though. I was plannin t con 
 sult him just before I go on my vacation. 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 But some other guy ll do. He don t approve of 
 me, Von Gerhard don t." 
 
 For some reason which I could never ex 
 plain I went back into the room and held out 
 both my hands to Blackie. His nervous brown 
 fingers closed over them. That doesn t make 
 one bit of difference to us, does it, Blackie?" 
 I said, gravely. u We re we re not caring 
 so long as we approve of one another, are 
 we?" 
 
 " Not a bit, girl," smiled Blackie, " not a 
 bit." 
 
 When the green car stopped before the Old 
 Folks Home I was in seraphic mood. I had 
 bathed, donned clean linen and a Dutch-necked 
 gown. The result was most soul-satisfying. 
 My spirits rose unaccountably. Even the sight 
 of Von Gerhard, looking troubled and distrait, 
 did not quiet them. We darted away, out along 
 the lake front, past the toll gate, to the bay road 
 stretching its flawless length along the water s 
 side. It was alive with swift-moving motor cars 
 swarming like twentieth-century pilgrims toward 
 the mecca of cool breezes and comfort. There 
 were proud limousines; comfortable family cars; 
 trim little roadsters; noisy runabouts. Not a 
 hoof-beat was to be heard. It was as though 
 the horseless age had indeed descended upon the 
 [252] 
 
THE SHADOW OF TERROR 
 
 world. There was only a hum, a rush, a roar, 
 as car after car swept on. 
 
 Summer homes nestled among the trees near 
 the lake. Through the branches one caught oc 
 casional gleams of silvery water. The rush of 
 cool air fanned my hot forehead, tousled my 
 hair, slid down between my collar and the back 
 of my neck, and I was grandly content. 
 
 " Even though you are going to sail away, and 
 even though you have the grumps, and refuse to 
 talk, and scowl like a jabberwock, this is an ex 
 tremely nice world. You can t spoil it." 
 
 " Behiite ! " Von Gerhard s tone was solemn. 
 
 " Would you be faintly interested in knowing 
 that the book is finished? " 
 
 "So? That is well. You were wearing 
 yourself thin over it. It was then quickly per 
 fected." 
 
 " Perfected ! " I groaned. " I turn cold when 
 I think of it. The last chapters got away from 
 me completely. They lacked the punch." 
 
 Von Gerhard considered that a moment, as I 
 wickedly had intended that he should. Then 
 u The punch? What is that then the 
 punch? " 
 
 Obligingly I elucidated. " A book may be 
 written in flawless style, with a plot, and a cli 
 max, and a lot of little side surprises. But if 
 L 2 53l 
 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 it lacks that peculiar and convincing quality 
 poetically known as the punch, it might as well 
 never have been written. It can never be a 
 six-best-seller, neither will it live as a classic. 
 You will never see it advertised on the book re 
 view page of the Saturday papers, nor will the 
 man across the aisle in the street car be so ab 
 sorbed in its contents that he will be taken past 
 his corner." 
 
 Von Gerhard looked troubled. " But the 
 literary value? Does that not enter " 
 
 " I don t aim to contribute to the literary 
 uplift," I assured him. " All my life I have 
 cherished two ambitions. One of them is to 
 write a successful book, and the other to learn 
 to whistle through my teeth this way, you 
 know, as the gallery gods do it. I am almost 
 despairing of the whistle, but I still have hopes 
 of the book." 
 
 Whereupon Von Gerhard, after a moment s 
 stiff surprise, gave vent to one of his heart 
 warming roars. 
 
 " Thanks," said I. " Now tell me the im 
 portant news." 
 
 His face grew serious in an instant. " Not 
 yet, Dawn. Later. Let us hear more about 
 the book. Not so flippant, however, small one. 
 
 [254] 
 
THE SHADOW OF TERROR 
 
 The time is past when you can deceive me with 
 your nonsense." 
 
 " Surely you would not have me take myself 
 seriously ! That s another debt I owe my Irish 
 forefathers. They could laugh bless em I 
 in the very teeth of a potato crop failure. 
 And let me tell you, that takes some sense of 
 humor. The book is my potato crop. If it 
 fails it will mean that I must keep on drudging, 
 with a knot or two taken in my belt. But I ll 
 squeeze a smile out of the corner of my mouth, 
 somehow. And if it succeeds! Oh, Ernst, if 
 it succeeds! " 
 
 "Then, Kindchen?" 
 
 " Then it means that I may have a little thin 
 layer of jam on my bread and butter. It won t 
 mean money at least, I don t think it will. A 
 first book never does. But it will mean a future. 
 It will mean that I will have something solid 
 to stand on. It will be a real beginning a 
 breathing spell time in which to accomplish 
 something really worth while independence 
 freedom from this tread-mill " 
 i " Stop ! " cried Von Gerhard, sharply. 
 Then, as I stared in surprise " I do ask your 
 pardon. I was again rude, nicht wahr? But 
 in me there is a queer vein of German supersti- 
 
 [255] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 tion that disapproves of air castles. Sich ein 
 bilden, we call it." 
 
 The lights of the bay pavilion twinkled just 
 ahead. The green car poked its nose up the 
 path between rows of empty machines. At last 
 it drew up, panting, before a vacant space be 
 tween an imposing, scarlet touring car and a 
 smart, cream-colored runabout. We left it 
 there and walked up the light-flooded path. 
 
 Inside the great, barn-like structure that did 
 duty as pavilion glasses clinked, chairs scraped 
 on the wooden floor ; a burst of music followed a 
 sharp fusillade of applause. Through the open 
 doorway could be seen a company of Tyrolese 
 singers in picturesque costumes of scarlet and 
 green and black. The scene was very noisy, and 
 very bright, and very German. 
 
 "Not in there, eh?" said Von Gerhard, as 
 though divining my wish. "It is too brightly 
 lighted, and too noisy. We will find a table 
 out here under the trees, where the music is 
 softened by the distance, and our eyes are not 
 offended by the ugliness of the singers. But in 
 excusably ugly they are, these Tyrolese women." 
 
 We found a table within the glow of the 
 pavilion s lights, but still so near the lake that 
 we could hear the water lapping the shore. A 
 cadaverous, sandy-haired waiter brought things 
 
THE SHADOW OF TERROR 
 
 to eat, and we made brave efforts to appear 
 hungry and hearty, but my high spirits were ebb 
 ing fast, and Von Gerhard was frankly dis 
 traught. One of the women singers appeared 
 suddenly in the doorway of the pavilion, then 
 stole down the steps, and disappeared in the 
 shadow of the trees beyond our table, The 
 voices of the singers ceased abruptly. There 
 was a moment s hushed silence. Then, from the 
 shadow of the trees came a woman s voice, clear, 
 strong, flexible, flooding the night with the bird- 
 like trill of the mountain yodel. The sound 
 rose and fell, and swelled and soared. A sil 
 ence. Then, in a great burst of melody the 
 chorus of voices within the pavilion answered the 
 eall. Again a silence. Again the wonder of 
 the woman s voice flooded the stillness, ending in 
 a note higher, clearer, sweeter than any that 
 had gone before. Then the little Tyrolese, her 
 moment of glory ended, sped into the light of 
 the noisy pavilion again. 
 
 When I turned to Von Gerhard my eyes were 
 wet " I shall have that to remember, when you 
 are gone." 
 
 Von Gerhard beckoned the hovering waiter. 
 
 u Take these things away. And you need not 
 
 return." He placed something in the man s 
 
 palm something that caused a sudden whisk- 
 
 [257] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 ing away of empty dishes, and many obsequious 
 bows. 
 
 Von Gerhard s face was turned away from 
 me, toward the beauty of the lake and sky. 
 Now, as the last flirt of the waiter s apron 
 vanished around the corner he turned his head 
 slowly, and I saw that in his eyes which made 
 me catch my breath with apprehension. 
 
 "What is it?" I cried. "Norah? Max? 
 The children?" 
 
 He shook his head. " They are well, so far 
 as I know. I perhaps first I should tell you 
 although this is not the thing which I have 
 to say to you " 
 
 " Yes? " I urged him on, impatiently. I had 
 never seen him like this. 
 
 "I do not sail this week. I shall not be 
 with Gliick in Vienna this year. I shall stay 
 here." 
 
 "Here! Why? Surely" 
 
 " Because I shall be needed here, Dawn. Be 
 cause I cannot leave you now. You will need 
 some one a friend " 
 
 I stared at him with eyes that were wide with 
 terror, waiting for I knew not what. 
 
 " Need some one for what ? " I 
 Stammered. " Why should you " 
 
 In the kindly shadow of the trees Von Ger- 
 
 [258] 
 
THE SHADOW OF TERROR 
 
 hard s hands took my icy ones, and held them in 
 a close clasp of encouragement. 
 
 " Norah is coming to be with you " 
 
 "Norah! Why? Tell me at once! At 
 once I " 
 
 " Because Peter Orme has been sent home 
 cured," said he. 
 
 The lights of the pavilion fell away, and 
 advanced, and swung about in a great sickening 
 circle. I shut my eyes. The lights still swung 
 before my eyes. Von Gerhard leaned toward 
 me with a word of alarm. I clung to his hands 
 with all my strength. 
 
 " No! " I said, and the savage voice was not 
 my own. "No! No! No! It isn t true! It 
 isn t Oh, it s some joke, isn t it? Tell me, 
 it s it s something funny, isn t it? And after 
 a bit we ll laugh we ll laugh of course - 
 see ! I am smiling already " 
 
 " Dawn dear one it is true. God 
 knows I wish that I could be happy to know it. 
 The hospital authorities pronounce him cured. 
 He has been quite sane for weeks." 
 
 " You knew it how long? " 
 
 " You know that Max has attended to all 
 
 communications from the doctors there. A few 
 
 weeks ago they wrote that Orme had shown 
 
 evidences of recovery. He spoke of you, of 
 
 [259] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 the people he had known in New York, of his 
 work on the paper, all quite rationally and 
 calmly. But they must first be sure. Max went 
 to New York a week ago. Peter was gone. 
 The hospital authorities were frightened and 
 apologetic. Peter had walked away quite coolly 
 one day. He had gone into the city, borrowed 
 money of some old newspaper cronies, and van 
 ished. He may be there still. He may be " 
 
 "Here! Ernst! Take me home! O 
 God; I can t do it! I can t! I ought to be 
 happy, but I m not. I ought to be thankful, but 
 I m not, I m not ! The horror of having him 
 there was great enough, but it was nothing com 
 pared to the horror of having him here. I used 
 to dream that he was well again, and that he 
 was searching for me, and the dreadful realness 
 of it used to waken me, and I would find myself 
 shivering with terror. Once I dreamed that I 
 looked up from my desk to find him standing 
 in the doorway, smiling that mirthless smile of 
 his, and I heard him say, in his mocking way: 
 * Hello, Dawn my love ; looking wonderfully 
 well. Grass widowhood agrees with you, 
 eh?" 
 
 " Dawn, you must not laugh like that. 
 Come, we will go. You are shivering ! Don t, 
 dear, don t. See, you have Norah, and Max, 
 [260] 
 
THE SHADOW OF TERROR 
 
 and me to help you. We will put him on his 
 feet. Physically he is not what he should be. 
 I can do much for him." 
 
 " You ! " I cried, and the humor of it was too 
 exquisite for laughter. 
 
 " For that I gave up Vienna," said Von Ger 
 hard, simply. u You, too, must do your share." 
 
 " My share! I have done my share. He 
 was in the gutter, and he was dragging me with 
 him. When his insanity came upon him I 
 thanked God for it, and struggled up again. 
 Even Norah never knew what that struggle was. 
 Whatever I am, I am in spite of him. I tell 
 you I could hug my widow s weeds. Ten years 
 ago he showed me how horrible and unclean a 
 thing can be made of this beautiful life. I was 
 a despairing, cowering girl of twenty then 
 I am a woman now, happy in her work, her 
 friends; growing broader and saner in thought, 
 quicker to appreciate the finer things in life. 
 And now what? " 
 
 They were dashing off a rollicking folk-song 
 indoors. When it was finished there came a 
 burst of laughter and the sharp spat of ap 
 plauding hands, and shouts of approbation. 
 The sounds seemed seared upon my brain. I 
 rose and ran down the path toward the waiting 
 machine. There in the darkness I buried my 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 shamed face in my hands and prayed for the 
 tears that would not come. 
 
 It seemed hours before I heard Von Ger 
 hard s firm, quick tread upon the gravel path. 
 He moved about the machine, adjusting this and 
 that, then took his place at the wheel without a 
 word. We glided out upon the smooth white 
 road. All the loveliness of the night seemed 
 to have vanished. Only the ugly, distorted 
 shadows remained. The terror of uncertainty 
 gripped me. I could not endure the sight of 
 Von Gerhard s stern, set face. I grasped his 
 arm suddenly so that the machine veered and 
 darted across the road. With a mighty wrench 
 Von Gerhard righted it. He stopped the ma 
 chine at the road-side. 
 
 " Careful, Kindchen," he said, gravely. 
 
 " Ernst," I said, and my breath came quickly, 
 chokingly, as though I had been running fast, 
 " Ernst, I can t do it. I m not big enough. I 
 can t. I hate him, I tell you, I hate him ! My 
 life is my own. I ve made it what it is, in the 
 face of a hundred temptations ; in spite of a hun 
 dred pitfalls. I can t lay it down again for 
 Peter Orme to trample. Ernst, if you love me, 
 take me away now. To Vienna anywhere 
 only don t ask me to take up my life with 
 him again. I can t I can t - " 
 
 [262] 
 
THE SHADOW OF TERROR 
 
 "Love you?" repeated Ernst, slowly, " yes, 
 Too well " 
 
 " Too well " 
 
 " Yes, too well for that, Gott sei dank, small 
 one. Too well for that." 
 
 [263] 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 PETER ORME 
 
 A MAN S figure rose from the shadows of 
 ^^ the porch and came forward to meet us 
 as we swung up to the curbing. I stifled a 
 scream in my throat. As I shrank back into 
 the seat I heard the quick intake of Von Ger 
 hard s breath as he leaned forward to peer into 
 the darkness. A sick dread came upon me. 
 
 " Sa-a-ay, girl," drawled the man s voice, with 
 a familiar little cackling laugh in it, " sa-a-ay, 
 girl, the policeman on th beat s got me spotted 
 for a suspicious character. I been hoofin it up 
 an* down this block like a distracted mamma 
 waitin for her daughter t come home from a 
 boat ride." 
 
 "Blackie! It s only you!" 
 
 " Thanks, flatterer," simpered Blackie, com 
 ing to the edge of the walk as I stepped from 
 the automobile. " Was you expectin the land 
 lady?" 
 
 " I don t know just whom I expected. I 
 I m nervous, I think, and you startled me. Dr. 
 [264] 
 
PETER ORME 
 
 Von Gerhard was taken back for a moment, 
 weren t you, Doctor? " 
 
 Von Gerhard laughed ruefully. " Frankly, 
 yes. It is not early. And visitors at this 
 hour" 
 
 " What in the world is it, Blackie? " I put in. 
 " Don t tell me that Norberg has been seized 
 with one of his fiendish inspirations at this time 
 of night." 
 
 Blackie struck a match and held it for an in 
 stant so that the flare of it illuminated his face 
 as he lighted his cigarette. There was no laugh 
 ter in the deep-set black eyes. 
 
 " What is it Blackie? " I asked again. The 
 horror of what Von Gerhard had told me made 
 the prospect of any lesser trial a welcome relief. 
 
 " I got t talk to you for a minute. P raps 
 Von Gerhard d better hear it, too. I tele 
 phoned you an hour ago. Tried to get you out 
 to the bay. Waited here ever since. Got a 
 parlor, or somethin , where a guy can talk? " 
 
 I led the way indoors. The first floor seemed 
 deserted. The bare, unfriendly boarding-house 
 parlor was unoccupied, and one dim gas jet did 
 duty as illumination. 
 
 " Bring- in the set pieces," muttered Blackie, 
 as he turned two more gas jets flaring high. 
 " This parlor just yells for a funeral." 
 
 [265] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 Von Gerhard was frowning. " Mrs. Orme 
 is not well," he began. " She has had a shock 
 * some startling news concerning " 
 
 "Her husband ?" inquired Blackie, coolly. 
 
 I started up with a cry. " How could you 
 know?" 
 
 A look of relief came into Blackie s face. 
 "That helps a little. Now listen, kid. An 
 w en I get through, remember I m there with 
 the little helpin mitt. Have a cigarette, Doc? " 
 
 " No," said Von Gerhard, shortly. 
 
 Blackie s strange black eyes were fastened on 
 my face, and I saw an expression of pity in their 
 depths as he began to talk. 
 
 " I was up at the Press Club to-night. 
 Dropped in for a minute or two, like I always 
 do on the rounds. The place sounded kind of 
 still when I come up the steps, and I wondered 
 where all the boys was. Looked into the bil 
 liard room nothin doin . Poked my head in 
 at the writin room same. Ambled into the 
 readin room empty. Well, I steered for the 
 dining room, an there was the bunch. An just 
 as I come in they give a roar, and I started to 
 investigate. Up against the fireplace, with one 
 hand in his pocket, and the other hanging care 
 less like on the mantel, stood a man stranger 
 t rae. He was talkin kind of low, and quick, 
 
 [266] 
 
PETER ORME 
 
 bitin off his words like a Englishman. An* 
 the boys, they was starin with their eyes, an* 
 their mouths, and forgettin t smoke, an lettin 1 
 their pipes an cigars go dead in their hands, 
 while he talked. Talk ! Sa-a-ay, girl, that guy, 
 he could talk the leads right out of a ruled, 
 locked form. I didn t catch his name. Tall, 
 thin, unearthly lookin chap, with the whitest 
 teeth you ever saw, an eyes well, his eyes was 
 somethin like a lighted pipe with a little fine 
 ash over the red, just waitin for a sudden pull 
 t make it glow." 
 
 " Peter ! " I moaned, and buried my face in 
 my hands. Von Gerhard put a quick hand on 
 my arm. But I shook it off. " I m not going 
 to faint," I said, through set teeth. " Pm not 
 going to do anything silly. I want to think. 
 I want to ... Go on, Blackie." 
 
 " Just a minute," interrupted Von Gerhard. 
 " Does he know where Mrs. Orrne is living? " 
 
 " I m coming t that," returned Blackie, tran 
 quilly. " Though for Dawn s sake I ll say right 
 here he don t know. I told him later, that she 
 was takin a vacation up at her folks in Mich 
 igan." 
 
 "Thank God!" I breathed. 
 
 " Wore a New York Press Club button, this 
 guy did. I asked one of the boys standin on 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 the outer edge of the circle what the fellow s 
 name was, but he only says: * Shut up Black! 
 An listen. He s seen every darn thing in the 
 world. Well, I listened. He wasn t braggin . 
 He wasn t talkin big. He was just talkin . 
 Seems like he d been war correspondent in the 
 Boer war, and the Spanish-American, an Gawd 
 knows where. He spoke low, not usin any big 
 words, either, an I thought his eyes looked 
 somethin like those of the Black Cat up on the 
 mantel just over his head you know what I 
 mean, when the electric lights is turned on in- 
 inside the ugly thing. Well, every time he 
 showed signs of stoppin , one of the boys would 
 up with a question, and start him goin again. 
 He knew everybody, an everything, an every 
 where. All of a sudden one of the boys points 
 to the Roosevelt signature on the wall the one 
 he scrawled up there along with all the other 
 celebrities first time he was entertained by the 
 Press Club boys. Well this guy, he looked at 
 the name for a minute. Roosevelt? he says, 
 slow. * Oh, yes. Seems t me I ve heard of 
 him. Well, at that the boys yelled. Thought 
 it was a good joke, seem that Ted had been 
 smeared all over the first page of everything for 
 years. But kid, I seen th look in that man s 
 eyes when he said it, and he wasn t jokin , girl. 
 
PETER ORME 
 
 An it came t* me, all of a sudden, that all the 
 things he d been talkin about had happened al 
 most ten years back. After he d made that 
 break about Roosevelt he kind of shut up, and 
 strolled over to the piano and began t play. 
 You know that bum old piano, with half a 
 dozen dead keys, and no tune? " 
 
 I looked up for a moment. " He could make 
 you think that it was a concert grand, couldn t 
 he? He hasn t forgotten even that? " 
 
 " Forgotten? Girl, I don t know what his 
 accomplishments was when you knew him, but if 
 he was any more fascinatin than he is now, then 
 I m glad I didn t know him. He could charm 
 the pay envelope away from a reporter that was 
 Saturday broke. Somethin seemed t urge me 
 t go up t him an say : 4 Have a game of 
 billiards? 
 
 " * Don t care if I do, says he, and swung his 
 long legs off the piano stool and we made for 
 the billiard room, with the whole gang after us. 
 Sa-a-ay, girl, I m a modest violet, I am, but I 
 don t mind mentionin that the general opinion 
 up at the club is that I m a little wizard with 
 the cue. Well, w en he got through with me 
 I looked like little sister when big brother is 
 try in t teach her how to hold the cu in her 
 fingers. He just sent them balls wherever he 
 
 [269] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 thought they d look pretty. I bet if he d held 
 up his thumb and finger an said, Jump through 
 this! them balls would of jumped." 
 
 Von Gerhard took a couple of quick steps in 
 Blackie s direction. His eyes were blue steel. 
 
 " Is this then necessary? " he asked. " All 
 this leads to what? Has not Mrs. Orme suf 
 fered enough, that she should undergo this idle 
 chatter? It is sufficient that she knows this 
 this man is here. It is a time for action, not 
 for words." 
 
 " Action s comin later, Doc," drawled 
 Blackie, looking impish. " Monologuin ain t 
 my specialty. I gener ly let the other gink talk. 
 You never can learn nothin by talkin . But I 
 got somethin t* say t Dawn here. Now, in 
 case you re bored the least bit, w y don t hes 
 itate one minnit t " 
 
 " Na, you are quite right, and I was hasty," 
 said Von Gerhard, and his eyes, with the kindly 
 gleam in them, smiled down upon the little man. 
 " It is only that both you and I are over-anxious 
 to be of assistance to this unhappy lady. Well, 
 we shall see. You talked with this man at the 
 Press Club?" 
 
 " He talked. I listened." 
 
 " That would be Peter s way," I said, bitterly. 
 " How he used to love to hold forth, and how 
 [270] 
 
PETER ORME 
 
 I grew to long for blessed silence for fewer 
 words, and more of that reserve which means 
 strength! " 
 
 " All this time," continued Blackie, " I didn t 
 jknow his name. When we d finished our game 
 of billiards he hung up his cue, and then he 
 turned around like lightning, and faced the boys 
 that were standing around with their hands in 
 their pockets. He had a odd little smile on his 
 face a smile with no fun it, if you know 
 what I mean. Guess you do, maybe, if you re 
 seen it. 
 
 " * Boys, says he, smilin that twisted kind 
 of smile, boys, I m lookin for a job. I m not 
 much of a talker, an I m only a amateur at 
 music, and my game of billiards is ragged. But 
 there s one thing I can do, fellows, from abc 
 up to xyz, and that s write. I can write, boys, 
 in a way to make your pet little political scribe 
 sound like a high school paper. I don t promise 
 to stick. As soon as I get on my feet again I m 
 going back to New York. But not just yet. 
 Meanwhile, I m going to the highest bidder. 
 
 " Well, you know since Merkle left us we 
 haven t had a day when we wasn t scooped on 
 some political guff. * I guess we can use you > 
 some place, I says, tryin not t look too anxious. 
 * If your ideas on salary can take a slump be- 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 tween New York and Milwaukee. Our sal 
 aries around here is more what is elegantly 
 known as a stipend. What s your name, 
 Bo? 
 
 * Name ? says he, smiling again, * Maybe 
 it ll be familiar t you. That is, it will if my 
 wife is usin it. Orme s my name Peter 
 Orme. Know a lady of that name? Good. 
 
 " I hadn t said I did, but those eyes of his had 
 seen the look on my face. 
 
 " * Friends in New York told me she was 
 here, he says. * Where is she now? Got her 
 address ? he says. 
 
 " She expectin you? I asked. 
 
 " * N-not exactly, he says, with that crooked 
 grin. 
 
 * Thought not, I answered, before I knew 
 what I was sayin . * She s up north with her 
 folks on a vacation. 
 
 " The devil she is! he says. * Well, in 
 that case can you let me have ten until Moi> 
 day? " 
 
 Blackie came over to me as I sat cowering in 
 my chair. He patted my shoulder with one lean 
 brown hand. "Now kid, you dig, see? Beat 
 it. Go home for a week. I ll fix it up with 
 Norberg. No tellin what a guy like that s 
 goin t do. Send your brother-in-law down 
 [272] 
 
PETER ORME 
 
 here if you want to make it a family affair, and 
 between us, we ll see this thing through," 
 
 I looked up at Von Gerhard. He was nod 
 ding approval. It all seemed so easy, so tempt 
 ingly easy. To run away! Not to face him 
 until I was safe in the shelter of Norah s arms! 
 I stood up, resolve lending me new strength and 
 courage. 
 
 " I am going. I know it isn t brave, but I 
 can t be brave any longer. I m too tired too 
 old" 
 
 I grasped the hand of each of those men who 
 had stood by me so staunchly in the year that 
 was past. The words of thanks that I had on 
 my lips ended in dry, helpless sobs. And be 
 cause Blackie and Von Gerhard looked so pa 
 thetically concerned and so unhappy in my un- 
 happiness my sobs changed to hysterical 
 laughter, in which the two men joined, after one 
 moment s bewildered staring. 
 
 So it was that we did not hear the front door 
 slam, or the sound of footsteps in the hall. Our 
 overstrained nerves found relief in laughter, so 
 that Peter Orme, a lean, ominous figure in the 
 doorway looked in upon a merry scene. 
 
 I was the first to see him. And at the sight 
 of the emaciated figure, with its hollow cheeks 
 and its sunken eyes all terror and hatred left m, 
 
 [273] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 and I felt only a great pity for this wreck of 
 manhood. Slowly I went up to him there in the 
 doorway. 
 
 "Well, Peter ?" I said. 
 
 " Well, Dawn old girl," said he " you re look 
 ing wonderfully fit. Grass widowhood seems to 
 agree with you, eh? " 
 
 And I knew then that my dread dream had 
 come true. 
 
 Peter advanced into the room with his old 
 easy grace of manner. His eyes glowed as he 
 looked at Blackie. Then he laughed, showing 
 his even, white teeth. " Why, you little liar! " 
 he said, in his crisp, clear English. " I ve a no 
 tion to thwack you. What d you mean by tell 
 ing me my wife s gone? You re not sweet on 
 her yourself, eh?" 
 
 Von Gerhard stifled an exclamation, and 
 Orme turned quickly in his direction. " Who 
 are you?" he asked. "Still another admirer? 
 Jolly time you were having when I interrupted." 
 He stared at Von Gerhard deliberately and 
 coolly. A little frown of dislike came into his 
 face. " You re a doctor, aren t you ? I knew 
 it. I can tell by the hands, and the eyes, and 
 the skin, and the smell. Lived with em for ten 
 years, damn them! Dawn, tell these fellows 
 [274] 
 
PETER ORME 
 
 they re excused, will you ? And by the way, you 
 don t seem very happy to see me? " 
 
 I went up to him then, and laid my hand on 
 his arm. " Peter, you don t understand. These 
 two gentlemen have been all that is kind to me. 
 I am happy to know that you are well again. 
 Surely you do not expect me to be joyful at see 
 ing you. All that pretense was left out of our 
 lives long before your illness. It hasn t been 
 all roses for me since then, Peter. I ve worked 
 until I wanted to die with weariness. You 
 know what this newspaper game is for a woman. 
 It doesn t grow easier as she grows older and 
 tireder." 
 
 " Oh, cut out the melodrama, Dawn," 
 sneered Peter. " Have either of you fellows the 
 makin s about you? Thanks. I m famished 
 for a smoke." 
 
 The worrying words of ten years ago rose au 
 tomatically to my lips. " Aren t you smoking 
 too much, Peter ? " The tone was that of a 
 harassed wife. 
 
 Peter stared. Then he laughed his short, 
 mirthless little laugh. " By Jove ! Dawn, I 
 believe you re as much my wife now as you 
 were ten years ago. I always said, you know, 
 that you would have become a first-class nagger 
 [275] 
 
 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 if you hadn t had such a keen sense of humor. 
 That saved you." He turned his mocking eyes 
 to Von Gerhard. " Doesn t it beat the devil, 
 how these good women stick to a man, once 
 they re married ! There s a certain dog-like de 
 votion about it that s touching." 
 
 There was a dreadful little silence. For the 
 first time in my knowledge of him I saw a hot, 
 painful red dyeing Blackie s sallow face. His 
 eyes had a menace in their depths. Then, very 
 quietly, Von Gerhard stepped forward and 
 stopped directly before me. 
 
 " Dawn," he said, very softly and gently, " I 
 retract my statement of an hour ago. If you 
 will give me another chance to do as you asked 
 me, I shall thank God for it all my life. There 
 is no degradation in that. To live with this 
 man that is degradation. And I say you 
 shall not suffer it." 
 
 I looked up into his face, and it had never 
 seemed so dear to me. " The time for that is 
 past," I said, my tone as calm and even as hrs 
 own. " A man like you cannot burden himself 
 with a derelict like me mast gone, sails gone, 
 water-logged, drifting. Five years from now 
 you ll thank me for what I am saying now. My 
 place is with this other wreck tossed about by 
 wind and weather until we both go down to- 
 
 
PETER ORME 
 
 gether." There came a sharp, insistent ring at 
 the door-bell. No answering sound came from 
 the regions above stairs. The ringing sounded 
 again, louder than before. 
 
 " I ll be the Buttons," said Blackie, and dis 
 appeared into the hallway. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I ve heard about you," came to 
 our ears a moment later, in a high, clear voice 
 a dear, beloved voice that sent me flying to 
 the door in an agony of hope. 
 
 "Norah!" I cried, "Norah! Norah! 
 Norah ! " And as her blessed arms closed 
 about me the tears that had been denied me be 
 fore came in a torrent of joy. 
 
 "There, there! " murmured she, patting my 
 shoulder with those comforting mother-pats. 
 " What s all this about? And why didn t some 
 body meet me? I telegraphed. You didn t get 
 it? Well, I forgive you. Howdy-do, Peter? 
 I suppose you are Peter. I hope you haven t 
 been acting devilish again. That seems to be 
 your specialty. Now don t smile that Mephis- 
 jtophelian smile at me. It doesn t frighten me c 
 Von Gerhard, take him down to his hotel. I m 
 dying for my kimono and bed. And this child 
 is trembling like a race-horse. Now run along, 
 all of you. Things *hat look greenery-yallery 
 at night always turn pink in the morning. 
 
 [277.1 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 Great Heavens! There s somebody calling 
 down from the second-floor landing. It sounds 
 like a landlady. Run, Dawn, and tell her your 
 perfectly respectable sister has come. Peter! 
 Von Gerhard 1 Mr. Blackie ! Shoo 1 " 
 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A TURN OF THE WHEEL 
 
 ** You who were ever alert to befriend a mats 
 You who were ever the first to defend a man, 
 You who had always the money to lend a man 
 Down on his luck and hard up for a V, 
 Sure you ll be playing a harp in beatitude 
 (And a quare sight you will be in that attitude) 1 
 Some day, where gratitude seems but a platitude, 
 You ll find your latitude." 
 
 "C^ROM my desk I could see Peter standing in 
 * the doorway of the news editor s room. I 
 shut my eyes for a moment. Then I opened 
 them again, quickly. No, it was not a dream. 
 He was there, a slender, graceful, hateful figure^ 
 with the inevitable cigarette in his unsteady 
 fingers the expensive-looking, gold-tipped 
 cigarette of the old days. Peter was Peter. 
 Ten years had made little difference. There 
 were queer little hollow places in his cheeks, and 
 under the jaw-bone, and at the base of the head, 
 and a flabby, parchment-like appearance about 
 the skin. That was all that made him different 
 from the Peter of the old days. 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 The thing had adjusted itself, as Norah had 
 said it would. The situation that had filled me 
 with loathing and terror the night of Peter s 
 return had been transformed into quite a matter- 
 of-fact and commonplace affair under Norah s 
 deft management. And now I was back in 
 harness again, and Peter was turning out bril 
 liant political stuff at spasmodic intervals. He 
 was not capable of any sustained effort. He 
 never would be again; that was plain. He was 
 growing restless and dissatisfied. He spoke of 
 New York as though it were Valhalla. He said 
 that he hadn t seen a pretty girl since he left 
 Forty-second street He laughed at Milwau 
 kee s quaint German atmosphere. He sneered 
 at our journalistic methods, and called the news 
 papers " country sheets," and was forever talk 
 ing of the World, and the Herald, and the Sun, 
 until the men at the Press Club fought shy of 
 him. Norah had found quiet and comfortable 
 quarters for Peter in a boarding-house near the 
 lake, and just a square or two distant from my 
 own boarding-house. He hated it cordially, as 
 only the luxury-loving can hate a boarding- 
 house, and threatened to leave daily. 
 
 " Let s go back to the big town, Dawn, old 
 girl," he would say. " We re buried alive in 
 overgrown Dutch village. I came here in 
 [280! 
 
A TURN OF THE WHEEL 
 
 the first place on your account. Now it s up 
 to you to get me out of it. Think of what New 
 York means ! Think of what I ve been ! And 
 I can write as well as ever." i 
 
 But I always shook my head. " We would 
 not last a month in New York, Peter. New 
 York has hurried on and left us behind. We re 
 just two pieces of discard. We ll have to be 
 content where we are." 
 
 " Content ! In this silly hole 1 You must 
 be mad ! " Then, with one of his unaccountable 
 changes of tone and topic, " Dawn, let me 
 have some money. I m strapped. If I had the 
 time I d get out some magazine stuff. Any 
 thing to get a little extra coin. Tell me, how 
 does that little sport you call Blackie happen 
 to have so much ready cash? I ve never yet 
 struck him for a loan that he hasn t obliged me. 
 I think he s sweet on you, perhaps, and thinks 
 he s doing you a sort of second-hand favor." 
 
 At times such as these all the old spirit that 
 I had thought dead within me would rise up in 
 revolt against this creature who was taking 
 from me my pride, my sense of honor, my 
 friends. I never saw Von Gerhard now. 
 Peter had refused outright to go to him for 
 treatment, saying that he wasn t going to be 
 poisoned by any cursed doctor, particularly not 
 [281] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 by one who had wanted to run away with his 
 wife before his very eyes. 
 
 Sometimes I wondered how long this could 
 go on. I thought of the old days with the Nir- 
 langers; of Alma PflugePs rose-encircled cot 
 tage; of Bennie; of the Knapfs; of the good- 
 natured, uncouth aborigines, and their many 
 kindnesses. I saw these dear people rarely 
 now. Frau Nirlanger s resignation to her un- 
 happiness only made me rebel more keenly 
 against my own. 
 
 If only Peter could become well and strong 
 again, I told myself, bitterly. If it were not 
 for those blue shadows under his eyes, and the 
 shrunken muscles, and the withered skin, I could 
 leave him to live his life as he saw fit. But he 
 was as dependent as a child, and as capricious. 
 What was the end to be? I asked myself. 
 Where was it all leading me? 
 
 And then, in a fearful and wonderful man 
 ner, my question was answered. 
 
 There came to my desk one day an envelope 
 bearing the letter-head of the publishing house 
 to which I had sent my story. I balanced it 
 for a moment in my fingers, woman-fashion, 
 wondering, hoping, surmising. 
 
 " Of course they can t want it," I told my 
 self, in preparation for any disappointment that 
 
 [282] 
 
A TURN OF THE WHEEL 
 
 was in store for me. " They re sending it back. 
 This is the letter that will tell me so." 
 
 And then I opened it. The words jumped 
 out at me from the typewritten page. I crushed 
 the paper in my hands, and rushed into Blackie s 
 little office as I had been used to doing in the old 
 days. He was at his desk, pipe in mouth. I 
 shook his shoulder and flourished the letter wild 
 ly, and did a crazy little dance about his chair. 
 
 "They want it! They like it! Not only 
 that, they want another, as soon as I can get it 
 out. Think of it !" 
 
 Blackie removed his pipe from between his 
 teeth and wiped his lips with the back of his 
 hand. " I m thinkin ," he said. " Anything 
 t oblige you, When you re through shovin 
 that paper into my face would you mind ex- 
 plainin who wants what? " 
 
 " Oh, you re so stupid! So slow! Can t 
 you see that I ve written a real live book, and 
 had it accepted, and that I am going to write 
 another if I have to run away from a whole 
 regiment of husbands to do it properly? 
 Blackie, can t you see what it means! Oh, 
 Blackie, I know I m maudlin in my joy, but for 
 give me. It s been so long since I ve had the 
 taste of it." 
 
 " Well, take a good chew while you got th* 
 
 [283] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 chance an don t count too high on this first 
 book business. I knew a guy who wrote a book 
 once, an* he planned to take a trip to Europe 
 on it, and build a house when he got home, and 
 maybe a yacht or so, if he wasn t too rushedo 
 Sa-a-ay, girl, w en he got through gettin those 
 royalties for that book they d dwindled down to 
 fresh wall paper for the dinin -room, and a new 
 gas stove for his wife, an not enough left over 
 to take a trolley trip to Oshkosh on. Don t 
 count too high." 
 
 " I m not counting at all, Blackie, and you 
 can t discourage me." 
 
 " Don t want to. But I d hate to see you 
 come down with a thud." Suddenly he sat up 
 and a grin overspread his thin face. * Tell 
 you what we ll do, girlie. We ll celebrate. 
 Maybe it ll be the last time. Let s pretend this 
 is six months ago, and everything s serene. 
 You get your bonnet. I ll get the machine. 
 It s too hot to work, anyway. We ll take a 
 spin out to somewhere that s cool, and we ll 
 order cold things to eat, and cold things to 
 drink, and you can talk about yourself till you re 
 tired. You ll have to take it out on somebody, 
 an it might as well be me." 
 
 Five minutes later, with my hat in my hand; 
 I turned to find Peter at my elbow. 
 [284] 
 
A TURN OF THE WHEEL 
 
 " Want to talk to you," he said, frowning. 
 
 " Sorry, Peter, but I can t stop. Won t it 
 do later?" 
 
 " No. Got an assignment ? I ll go with you. 1 ^ 
 
 " N-not exactly, Peter. The truth is, Blackie 
 has taken pity on me and has promised to take 
 me out for a spin, just to cool off. It has been 
 so insufferably hot." 
 
 Peter turned away. " Count me in on that, 1 
 he said, over his shoulder. 
 
 " But I can t, Peter," I cried. " It isn t my 
 party. And anyway " 
 
 Peter turned around, and there was an ugly 
 glow in his eyes and an ugly look on his face, 
 and a little red ridge that I had not noticed 
 before seemed to burn itself across his forehead. 
 " And anyway, you don t want me, eh? Well, 
 I m going. I m not going to have my wife 
 chasing all over the country with strange men. 
 Remember, you re not the giddy grass widdy 
 you used to be. You can take me, or stay at 
 home, understand? " 
 
 His voice was high-pitched and quavering. 
 Something in his manner struck a vague terror 
 to my heart. " Why, Peter, if you care that 
 much I shall be glad to have you go. So will 
 Blackie, I am sure. Come, we ll go down now. 
 He ll be waiting for us." 
 
 [285] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 Blackie s keen, clever mind grasped the situ 
 ation as soon as he saw us together. His dark 
 face was illumined by one of his rare smiles. 
 " Coming with us, Orme ? Do you good. 
 Pile into the tonneau, you two, and hang on to 
 your hair. I m going to smash the law." 
 
 Peter sauntered up to the steering-wheel. 
 " Let me drive," he said. " I m not bad at it" 
 
 " Nix with the artless amateur," returned 
 Blackie. " This ain t no demonstration car. 
 I drive my own little wagon when I go riding, 
 and I intend to until I take my last ride, feet 
 first." 
 
 Peter muttered something surly and climbed 
 into the front seat next to Blackie, leaving me 
 to occupy the tonneau in solitary state. 
 
 Peter began to ask questions dozens of 
 them, which Blackie answered, patiently and 
 fully. I could not hear all that they said, but 
 I saw that Peter was urging Blackie to greater 
 speed, and that Blackie was explaining that he 
 must first leave the crowded streets behind. 
 Suddenly Peter made a gesture in the direction 
 of the wheel, and said something in a high, 
 sharp voice. Blackie s answer was quick and 
 decidedly in the negative. The next instant 
 Peter Orme rose in his place and leaning for 
 ward and upward, grasped the wheel that was 
 J>86] 
 
A TURN OF THE WHEEL 
 
 in Blackie s hands. The car swerved sicken- 
 ingly. I noticed, dully, that Blackie did not go 
 white as novelists say men do in moments of 
 horror. A dull red flush crept to the very base 
 of his neck. With a twist of his frail body he 
 tried to throw off Peter s hands. I remember 
 leaning over the back of the seat and trying to 
 pull Peter back as I realized that it was a mad 
 man with whom we were dealing. Nothing 
 seemed real. It was ridiculously like the things 
 one sees in the moving picture theaters. I felt 
 no fear. 
 
 "Sit down, Orme!" Blackie yelled. 
 41 You ll ditch us ! Dawn ! God ! " 
 
 We shot down a little hill. Two wheels 
 were lifted from the ground. The machine was 
 poised in the air for a second before it crashed 
 into the ditch and turned over completely, 
 throwing me clear, but burying Blackie and 
 Peter under its weight of steel and wood and 
 whirring wheels. 
 
 I remember rising from the ground, and sink 
 ing back again and rising once more to run 
 forward to where the car lay in the ditch, and 
 tugging at that great frame of steel with crazy, 
 futile fingers. Then I ran screaming down the 
 road toward a man who was tranquilly working 
 in a field nearby. 
 
 [287] 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 BLACKIE S VACATION COMES 
 
 "T"*HE shabby blue office coat hangs on the 
 * hook in the little sporting room where 
 Blackie placed it. No one dreams of moving 
 it. There it dangles, out at elbows, disrepu 
 table, its pockets burned from many a hot pipe 
 thrust carelessly into them, its cuffs frayed, its 
 lapels bearing the marks of cigarette, paste-pot 
 and pen. 
 
 It is that faded old garment, more than any 
 thing else, which makes us fail to realize that 
 its owner will never again slip into its comfort 
 able folds. We cannot believe that a lifeless 
 rag like that can triumph over the man of flesh 
 and blood and nerves and sympathies. With 
 what contempt do we look upon those garments 
 during our lifetime! And how they live on, 
 defying time, long, long after we have been 
 gathered to our last rest. 
 
 In some miraculous manner Blackie had lived 
 on for two days after that ghastly ride. Peter 
 had been killed instantly, the doctors sakL 
 [288] 
 
BLACKIE S VACATION COMES 
 
 They gave no hope for Blackie. My escape 
 with but a few ridiculous bruises and scratches 
 was due, they said, to the fact that I had sat 
 in the tonneau. I heard them all, in a stupor 
 of horror and grief, and wondered what plan 
 Fate had in store for me, that I alone should 
 have been spared. Norah and Max came, and 
 took things in charge, and I saw Von Gerhard, 
 but all three appeared dim and shadowy, like 
 figures in a mist. When I closed my eyes I 
 could see Peter s tense figure bending over 
 Blackie at the wheel, and heard his labored 
 breathing as he struggled in his mad fury, and 
 felt again the helpless horror that had come to 
 me as we swerved off the road and into the 
 ditch below, with Blackie, rigid and desperate, 
 still clinging to the wheel. I lived it all over 
 and over in my mind. In the midst of the 
 blackness I heard a sentence that cleared the 
 fog from my mind, and caused me to raise my 
 self from my pillows. 
 
 Some one Norah, I think had said that 
 Blackie was conscious, and that he was asking 
 for some of the men at the office, and for me. 
 For me! I rose and dressed, in spite of 
 Norah s protests. I was quite well, I told 
 them. I must see him. I shook them off with 
 trembling fingers and when they saw that I was 
 
 [289] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 quite determined they gave in, and Von Ger 
 hard telephoned to the hospital to learn the hour 
 at which I might meet the others who were to 
 see Blackie for a brief moment. 
 
 I met them in the stiff little waiting room of 
 the hospital Norberg, Deming, Schmidt, 
 Holt men who had known him from the time 
 when they had yelled, " Heh, boy! " at him 
 when they wanted their pencils sharpened. 
 Awkwardly we followed the fleet-footed nurse 
 who glided ahead of us down the wide hospital 
 corridors, past doorways through which we 
 caught glimpses of white beds that were no 
 whiter than the faces that lay on the pillows. 
 We came at last into a very still and bright 
 little room where Blackie lay. 
 
 Had years passed over his head since I saw 
 him last? The face that tried to smile at us 
 from the pillow was strangely wizened and old. 
 It was as though a withering blight had touched 
 it. Only the eyes were the same. They 
 glowed in the sunken face, beneath the shock 
 of black hair, with a startling luster and bril- ; 
 liancy. 
 
 I do not know what pain he suffered. I do 
 not know what magic medicine gave him the 
 strength to smile at us, dying as he was even 
 then. 
 
 [290] 
 
BLACKIE S VACATION COMES 
 
 " Well, what do you know about little Paul 
 Dombey?" he piped in a high, thin voice. 
 The shock of relief was too much. We gig 
 gled hysterically, then stopped short and looked 
 at each other, like scared and naughty children. 
 
 " Sa-a-ay, boys and girls, cut out the heavy 
 thinking parts. Don t make me do all the so 
 cial stunts. What s the news? What kind of 
 a rotten cotton sportin sheet is that dub Calla- 
 han gettin out ? Who won to-day Cubs or 
 Pirates? Norberg, you goat, who pinned that 
 purple tie on you? " 
 
 He was so like the Blackie we had always 
 known that we were at our ease immediately. 
 The sun shone in at the window, and some one 
 laughed a little laugh somewhere down the cor 
 ridor, and Deming, who is Irish, plunged into 
 a droll description of a brand-new office boy 
 who had arrived that day. 
 
 " S elp me, Black, the kid wears spectacles 
 and a Norfolk suit, and low-cut shoes with bows 
 on em. On the square he does. Looks like 
 one of those Boston infants you see in the comic 
 papers. I don t believe he s real. We re sav 
 ing him until you get back, if the kids in the 
 alley don t chew him up before that time." 
 
 An almost imperceptible shade passed over 
 Blackie s face. He closed his eyes for a mo- 
 [291] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 ment Without their light his countenance was 
 ashen, and awful. 
 
 A nurse in stripes and cap appeared in the 
 doorway. She looked keenly at the little figure 
 in the bed. Then she turned to us. 
 
 " You must go now," she said. " You were 
 just to see him for a minute or two, you know." 
 
 Blackie summoned the wan ghost of a smile 
 to his lips. " Guess you guys ain t got th 
 stimulatin effect that a bunch of live wires 
 ought to have. Say, Norberg, tell that fat 
 head, Callahan, if he don t keep the third 
 drawer t the right in my desk locked, th office 
 kids ll swipe all the roller rink passes surest 
 thing you know." 
 
 "I ll tell him, Black," stammered Nor 
 berg, and turned away. 
 
 They said good-by, awkwardly enough. 
 Not one of them that did not owe him an un 
 payable debt of gratitude. Not one that had 
 not the memory of some secret kindness stored 
 away in his heart. It was Blackie who had 
 furnished the money that had sent Deming s 
 sick wife west. It had been Blackie who had 
 rescued Schmidt time and again when drink got 
 a strangle-hold. Blackie had always said: 
 "Fire Schmidt! Not much! Why, Schmidt 
 Writes better stuff drunk than all the rest of the 
 [292] 
 
BLACKIE S VACATION COMES 
 
 bunch sober." And Schmidt would be granted 
 another reprieve by the Powers that Were. 
 
 Suddenly Blackie beckoned the nurse in the 
 doorway. She came swiftly and bent over him. 
 
 " Gimme two minutes more, that s a good 
 nursie. There s something I want to say t this 
 dame. It s de rigger t hand out last messages, 
 ain t it?" 
 
 The nurse looked at me, doubtfully. " But 
 you re not to excite yourself." 
 
 " Sa-a-ay, girl, this ain t goin t be no scene 
 from East Lynne. Be a good kid. The rest 
 of the bunch can go." 
 
 And so, when the others had gone, I found 
 myself seated at the side of his bed, trying to 
 smile down at him. I knew that there must be 
 nothing to excite him. But the words on my 
 lips would come. 
 
 " Blackie," I said, and I struggled to keep 
 my voice calm and emotionless, " Blackie, for 
 give me. It is all my fault my wretched 
 fault." 
 
 " Now, cut that," interrupted Blackie. " I 
 thought that was your game. That s why 
 I said I wanted t talk t j you. Now, listen. 
 Remember my tellin you, a few weeks ago, 
 bout that vacation I was plannin ? This is it, 
 only it s come sooner than I expected, that s all. 
 [293] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 1 seen two three doctor guys about it. Your 
 friend Von Gerhard was one of em. They 
 didn t tell me t take no ocean trip this time. 
 Between em, they decided my vacation would 
 come along about November, maybe. Well, I 
 beat em to it, that s all. Sa-a-ay, girl, I ain t 
 kickin . You can t live on your nerves and ex 
 pect t keep goin . Sooner or later you ll be 
 suein those same nerves for non-support. But, 
 kid, ain t it a shame that I got to go out in a 
 auto smashup, in these days when even a air 
 ship exit don t make a splash on the front 
 page!" 
 
 The nervous brown hand was moving rest 
 lessly over the covers. Finally it met my hand, 
 and held it in a tense little grip. 
 
 " We ve been good pals, you and me, ain t 
 we, kid?" 
 
 " Yes, Blackie." 
 
 " Ain t regretted it none? " 
 
 "Regretted it! I am a finer, truer, better 
 woman for having known you, Blackie." 
 
 He gave a little contented sigh at that, and 
 his eyes closed. When he opened them the old, 
 whimsical smile wrinkled his face. 
 
 * This is where I get off at. It ain t been 
 no long trip, but sa-a-ay, girl, I ve enjoyed every 
 mile of the road. All kinds of scenery all 
 [294] 
 
BLACKIE S VACATION COMES 
 
 kinds of lan scape plain fancy uphill 
 
 downhill" 
 
 I leaned forward, fearfully. 
 "Not yet," whispered Blackie. " Say 
 Dawn in the story books they always 
 
 are strong on the good-by kiss, what? " 
 And as the nurse appeared in the doorway 
 
 again, disapproval on her face, I stooped and 
 gently pressed my lips to the pain-lined cheek. 
 
 [295] 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 HAPPINESS 
 
 TTT E laid Peter to rest in that noisy, careless t 
 ^ * busy city that he had loved so well, and I 
 think his cynical lips would have curled in a 
 bitterly amused smile, and his somber eyes 
 would have flamed into sudden wrath if he 
 could have seen how utterly and completely 
 New York had forgotten Peter Orme. He had 
 been buried alive ten years before and News 
 paper Row has no faith in resurrections. Peter 
 Orme was not even a memory. Ten years is an 
 age in a city where epochs are counted by hours. 
 Now, after two weeks of Norah s loving 
 care, I was back in the pretty little city by the 
 lake. I had come to say farewell to all those 
 who had filled my life so completely in that year. 
 My days of newspaper work were over. The 
 autumn and winter would be spent at Norah s, 
 occupied with hours of delightful, congenial 
 work, for the second book was to be written in 
 the quiet peace of my own little Michigan town. 
 Von Gerhard was to take his deferred trip to 
 
 1:2963 
 
HAPPINESS 
 
 Vienna in the spring, and I knew that I was to 
 go with him. The thought filled my heart with 
 a great flood of happiness. 
 
 Together Von Gerhard and I had visited 
 Alma Pflugel s cottage, and the garden was 
 blooming in all its wonder of color and scent as 
 we opened the little gate and walked up the 
 Worn path. We found them in the cool shade 
 of the arbor, the two women sewing, Bennie 
 playing with the last wonderful toy that Blackie 
 had given him. They made a serene and 
 beautiful picture there against the green canopy 
 of the leaves. We spoke of Frau Nirlanger, 
 and of Blackie, and of the strange snarl of 
 events which had at last been unwound to knit 
 a close friendship between us. And when I had 
 kissed them and walked for the last time in 
 many months up the flower-bordered path, the 
 scarlet and pink, and green and gold of that 
 wonderful garden swam in a mist before my 
 eyes. 
 
 Frau Nirlanger was next. When we spoke 
 of Vienna she caught her breath sharply. 
 
 " Vienna ! " she repeated, and the longing in 
 her voice was an actual pain. " Vienna ! 
 Gott! Shall I ever see it again? Vienna! 
 My boy is there. Perhaps " 
 
 " Perhaps," I said, gently. " Stranger things 
 [297] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 have happened. Perhaps if I could see them, 
 and talk to them if I could tell them they 
 might be made to understand. I haven t been 
 a newspaper reporter all these years without 
 acquiring a golden gift of persuasiveness. Per 
 haps who knows ? we may meet again in 
 Vienna. Stranger things have happened." 
 
 Frau Nirlanger shook her head with a little 
 hopeless sigh. " You do not know Vienna ; you 
 do not know the iron strength of caste, and cus 
 tom and stiff-necked pride. I am dead in Vi 
 enna. And the dead should rest in peace." 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when Von Ger 
 hard and I turned the corner which led to the 
 building that held the Post. I had saved that 
 for the last. 
 
 " I hope that heaven is not a place of golden 
 streets, and twanging harps and angel cho 
 ruses," I said, softly. " Little, nervous, slangy, 
 restless Blackie, how bored and ill at ease he 
 would be in such a heaven ! How lonely, with 
 out his old black pipe, and his checked waist 
 coats, and his diamonds, and his sporting extra. 
 (Oh, I hope they have all those comforting, 
 everyday things up there, for Blackie s sake." 
 
 " How you grew to understand him in that 
 short year," mused Von Gerhard. " I some 
 times used to resent the bond between you and 
 
 [298] 
 
HAPPINESS 
 
 this little Blackie whose name was always on 
 your tongue." 
 
 " Ah, that was because you did not compre-* 
 hend. It is given to very few women to know 
 the beauty of a man s real friendship. That 
 was the bond between Blackie and me. To me 
 he was a comrade, and to him I was a good- 
 fellow girl one to whom he could talk with 
 out excusing his pipe or cigarette. Love and 
 love-making were things to bring a kindly, 
 amused chuckle from Blackie." 
 
 Von Gerhard was silent. Something in his 
 silence held a vague irritation for me. I ex 
 tracted a penny from my purse, and placed it in 
 his hand. 
 
 44 1 was thinking," he said, " that none are 
 so blind as those who will not see." 
 
 " I don t understand," I said, puzzled. 
 
 " That is well," answered Von Gerhard, as 
 we entered the building. " That is as it should 
 be." And he would say nothing more. 
 
 The last edition of the paper had been run 
 off for the day. I had purposely waited until 
 the footfalls of the last departing reporter 
 should have ceased to echo down the long cor 
 ridor. The city room was deserted except for 
 one figure bent over a pile of papers and proofs. 
 Norberg, the city editor, was the last to leave, 
 [299] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 >as always. His desk light glowed in the dark* 
 ness of the big room, and his typewriter alone 
 awoke the echoes. 
 
 As I stood in the doorway he peered up from 
 beneath his green eye-shade, and waved a cloud 
 of smoke away with the palm of his hand. 
 
 "That you, Mrs. Orme?" he called out. 
 " Lord, we ve missed you ! That new woman 
 can t write an obituary, and her teary tales 
 sound like they were carved with a cold chisel. 
 When are you coming back? " 
 
 " 1 5 m not coming back," I replied. " I ve 
 come to say good-by to you and Blackie." 
 
 Norberg looked up quickly. " You feel that 
 way, too? Funny. So do the rest of us. 
 Sometimes I think we are all half sure that it 
 is only another of his impish tricks, and that 
 some morning he will pop open the door of the 
 city room here and call out, * Hello, slaves I 
 Eeen keepin m memory green? 
 
 I held out my hand to him, gratefully. He 
 took it in his great palm, and a smile dimpled 
 his plump cheeks. " Going to blossom into a 
 regular little writer, h m? Well, they say it s 
 a paying game when you get the hang of it. 
 And I guess you ve got it. But if ever you 
 feel that you want a real thrill a touch of 
 the old satisfying newspaper feeling a sniff 
 [300] 
 
HAPPINESS 
 
 of wet ink the music of some editorial cuss 
 ing why come up here and I ll give you the 
 hottest assignment on my list, if I have to 
 take it away from Deming s very notebook." 
 
 When I had thanked him I crossed the hall 
 and tried the door of the sporting editor s room. 
 Von Gerhard was waiting for me far down at 
 the other end of the corridor. The door 
 opened and I softly entered and shut it again. 
 The little room was dim, but in the half-light I 
 could see that Callahan had changed something 
 had shoved a desk nearer the window, or 
 swung the typewriter over to the other side. I 
 resented it. I glanced up at the corner where 
 the shabby old office coat had been wont to 
 hang. There it dangled, untouched, just as he 
 had left it. Callahan had not dared to change 
 that. I tip-toed over to the corner and touched 
 it gently with my fingers. A light pall of dust 
 had settled over the worn little garment, but 
 I knew each worn place, each ink-spot, each 
 scorch or burn from pipe or cigarette. I passed 
 my hands over it reverently and gently, and 
 then, in the dimness of that quiet little room I 
 laid my cheek against the rough cloth, so that 
 the scent of the old black pipe came back to me 
 once more, and a new spot appeared on the 
 sleeve a damp, salt spot. Blackie 
 
 [301] 
 
DAWN O HARA 
 
 would have hated my doing that. But he was 
 not there to see, and one spot more or less did 
 not matter; it was such a grimy, disreputable 
 old coat. 
 
 " Dawn ! " called Von Gerhard softly, out 
 side the door. " Dawn! Coming, Kindchen? * 
 
 I gave the little coat a parting pat. " Good- 
 by," I whispered, under my breath, and turned 
 toward the door. 
 
 " Coming ! " I called, aloud. 
 
 THE END 
 
 [3021 
 
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 54-40 OR FIGHT 
 
 HEART S DESIRE 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE 
 
 THE PURCHASE PRICE 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK 
 
JACKSON GREGORY S NOVELS 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Duniap s list. 
 
 THE EVERLASTING WHISPER 
 
 The story of a strong man s struggle against savage nature and human- 
 ity, and of a beautiful girl s regeneration from a spoiled child of wealth into 
 a courageous strong-willed woman. 
 
 DESERT VALLEY 
 
 A college professor sets out with his daughter to find gold. They nutd 
 a rancher who loses his heart, and become involved in a feud. An intensely 
 exciting story. 
 
 MAN TO MAN 
 
 Encircled with enemies, distrusted, Steve defends his rights. How he 
 won his game and the girl he loved is the story filled wtth breathless 
 situations. 
 
 THE BELLS OF SAN JUAN 
 
 Dr. Virg-n?a Page is forced to go with the sheriff on a nigh* journey 
 into the strongholds of a lawless band. Thrills and excitement sweep the 
 leader along to tbe end. 
 
 JUDITH OF BLUE LAKE RANCH 
 
 Judith Sanford pavt owner of a cattle ranch realizes she is beir.g robbed 
 by her foreman. How, with the help of Bud Lee, she checkmates Trevor s 
 echeme makes fasciuatiug reading. 
 
 THE SHORT CUT 
 
 Wayne is suspected of killing his brother after a violent quarrel. )**feaan> 
 cial complications, villains, a horse-race and beautiful Wanda, all go to make 
 up a thrilling romance. 
 
 THE JOYOUS TROUBLE MAKER 
 
 A reporter sets up housekeeping -cicse to Beatrice s Ranch much to hef 
 chagrin. There is " another man " who complicates matters, but all turns 
 out as it should in this tale of romance and adventure. 
 
 SIX FEET FOUR 
 
 Beatrice Waverly is robbed of $5,000 *nd suspicion fastens upon Buck 
 Thornton, but she soon realizes he is not guilty. Intensely exciting, here is 
 teal story of the Great Far West. 
 
 WOLF BREED 
 
 No Luck Drennan had grown hard throuflfe Irss of faith in men he had 
 trusted. A woman hater and sharp of tongue, he finds a match in Ygerne 
 whose clever fencing wins the admiration and love of the " Lone Wolf." 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YOR 
 
PETER B. KYNE S NOVELS 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap s ilst. 
 
 THE PRIDE OF PALOMAR 
 
 When two strong men clash and the under-dog has Irish 
 blood in his veins there s a tale that Kyne can tell 1 And 
 M the girl " is also very much in evidence. 
 
 KINDRED OF THE DUST 
 
 Donald McKay, son of Hector McKay, millionaire lum 
 ber king, falls in love with " Nan of the Sawdust Pile," a 
 cnarming girl who has been ostracized by her townsfolk,! 
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE GIANTS " 
 
 The fight of the Cardigans, father and son, to hold the 
 Valley of the Giants against treachery. The reader finishes 
 with a sense of having lived with big men and women in a 
 big country. 
 
 GAPPY RICKS 
 
 The story of old Cappy Kicks and or Matt Peasley, the 
 boy he tried to break because he knew the acid test was 
 good for his soul. 
 
 WEBSTER: MAN S MAN 
 
 In a little Jim Crow Republic in Central America, a man 
 and a woman, hailing from the " States," met up with a 
 revolution and for a while adventures and excitement came 
 so thick and fast that their love affair had to wait for a lull 
 in the game. 
 
 CAPTAIN SCRAGGS 
 
 This sea yarn recounts the adventures of three rapscal 
 lion sea-faring men a Captain Scraggs, owner of the green 
 vegetable freighter Maggie, Gibney the mate and McGuff- 
 ney the engineer. 
 
 THE LONG CHANCE 
 
 A story fresh from the heart of the West, of San Pasquai, 
 V ;un-baked desert town, of Harley P. Hennage, the best 
 gambler, the best and worst man of San Pasquai and of 
 lovely Donna. 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK 
 
STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY 
 
 GENE STRATTON-PQRTER 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap s list. 
 
 THE WHITE FLAG. 
 
 How a young girl, singlehanded, fought against the power of the More- 
 lands who held the town of Ashwater in their grip. 
 
 HER FATHER S DAUGHTER. 
 
 This story is of California and tells of that charming girl, Linda Strong, i 
 otherwise known as " Her Father s Daughter." 
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE LAND. 
 
 Kate Bates, the heroine of this story, is a true " Daughter of the Land," 
 and to read about her is truly inspiring. 
 
 MICHAEL O HALLORAN. 
 
 Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern Indiana. 
 He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also aspires to lead the entire 
 rural community upward and onward. 
 
 LADDIE. 
 
 This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story is 
 told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it is con 
 cerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs of older 
 members of the family, 
 
 THE HARVESTER. 
 
 "The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and is well worth 
 knowing, but when the Girl comes to his " Medicine Woods," there begins a 
 romance of the rarest idyllic quality. 
 
 FRECKLES. 
 
 Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he 
 takes hold of life ; the nature friendships he forms ; and his love-story with 
 " The Angel " are full of real sentiment. 
 
 A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. 
 
 The story of a girl of the Michigan woods ; a buoyant, loveable type of 
 the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness toward 
 all things ; her hope is never dimmed. 
 
 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. 
 
 The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. It is one 
 of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. 
 
 THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. 
 
 The love idyl of the Cardinal and his mate, told with rare delicacy and 
 humor. 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK 
 
KATHLEEN NORRIS* STORIES 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grossed & Dunlap s list 
 
 SISTERS. Frontispiece by Frank Street. 
 
 The California Redwoods furnish the background for this 
 beautiful story of sisterly devotion and sacrifice. 
 
 POOR, DEAR, MARGARET KIRBY. 
 Frontispiece by George Gibbs. 
 
 A collection of delightful stories, including " Bridging the. 
 Years" and "The Tide-Marsh." This story is now shown in 
 moving pictures. < 
 
 JOSSELYN S WIFE. Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert. 
 
 The story of a beautiful woman who fought a bitter fight lot 
 happiness and love. 
 
 MARTIE, THE UNCONQUERED. 
 Illustrated by Charles E. Chambers. 
 The triumph of a dauntless spirit over adverse conditions. 
 
 THE HEART OF RACHAEL. 
 Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers. 
 
 An interesting story of divorce and the problems that come 
 with a second marriage. 
 
 THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. 
 
 Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert. 
 
 ^ A sympathetic portrayal of the quest of a normal girl, obscure 
 
 and lonely, for the happiness of life. 
 
 SATURDAY S CHILD. Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes, 
 
 Can a girl, born in rather sordid conditions, lift herself througl 
 sheer determination to the better things for which her soul 
 , hungered ? 
 
 MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. 
 
 A story of the big mother heart that beats in the background 
 of every girl s life, and some dreams which came true. 
 
 Ask for Complete free list of G. 6- D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
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 KOV 12 & 
 
 DEC 2 1 1989 
 
 LD 21-100m-ll, 49(B7146sl6)476 
 
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U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY