 CHAPTER XIII. THE TEST. One 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, handsome, abnormal creature with magnificent eyes and very white teeth and no particular appetite at mealtime. The man whom I could care for at thirty would be the normal, safe, and substantial sort who would come in at six o'clock, kiss me once, sniff the air twice, and say, hmm, what's that smell so good, old girl? I'm as hungry as a bear, trotted 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 Gerhardt for a week or two. I find that seeing him is apt to make me forget Peter Orm, to forget that my duty begins with a capital D, to forget that I am dangerously near the thirty year old Mark, to forget Nora and Max and the small Peans and the world and everything but the happiness of being near him, watching 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 frown or languor's timid knocking or Benny'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 desirable. Men don't marry frumpy, snuffy old things of thirty or thereabouts. Men aren't marrying nowadays 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 fingernails and teeth and skin are a religion. Women whose clothes are a fine art. Women who are free to care only for themselves. To rest, to enjoy, to hear delightful music and read charming books and eat delicious 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, Don O'Hara. Begora. Tis loosen your sense of humor you're after doing. Get to work. After which I would fall upon the book in a furious, futile fashion writing many incoherent, irrelevant paragraphs which I knew would be cast aside as worthless on the sane and reasoning tomorrow. Oh, it had been easy enough to talk of love in a lofty, superior or 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 racing madly through thousands of two-taut nerves. It is not so easy to force the mind and tongue into safe, sane channels when they are forever threatening to rush together in an overwhelming torrent that will carry misery and destruction 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 Nora and Max and the small peens and the home, about the latest news, about the weather, about Peter Orm, and then silence. At our last meeting, things took a new and startling turn. So startling, so full of temptation and happiness that must not be, that I resolved to forbid myself the pain and joy of being near him until I could be quite sure that my grip on Don O'Hara was firm, unshakable, and lasting. Von Gerhard sports a motor car, a rakeish little craft built long and low with racing lines and a green complexion and a nose that cuts through the air like the prowl of a swift boat through water. Von Gerhard had promised me a spin at it on the first mild day. Sunday turned out to be unexpectedly lamb-like, as only a March Day can be, with real sunshine that warmed the end of one's nose instead of laughing as it tweaked it as the lying February sunshine had done. But to 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 has served great steaming plates of hot oyster stew. How will that be for a lark, yes? And so I had swabbed myself in wrappings until I could scarcely clamor 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 conversation, even if Von Gerhard had been in talkative 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-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, and I should have been what Mr. Mantanlini described as a diminishing body. For pity's sake, tell him the soup can't be too hot or 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 knock. That fresh air it has given you an appetite, Nicktoir. 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 owlish all the afternoon. Here try a cheese sandwich. Now why do you suppose that this mustard 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 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 deliberately stared at me. I sailed 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 ridiculous sandwich. I go to study and work with Gluck. It is the opportunity of a lifetime. Gluck 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, eh? The mustard in 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 in sandwich. No, I did not mean to frighten you, Don. How your hands tremble. So look at me. You would like Vienna, Kenjin. You would like the gaiety and the brightness of it and the music and the pretty women and the incomparable gowns. Your sense of humor would discern the hollowness beneath all the pomp and ceremony and rigid lines of cast and military glory and your writer's instinct with revel in the splendor and color and romance and intrigue. I shrugged my shoulders and assumed indifference. Can't you convey all this to me without grasping my wrists like a villain in a melodrama? 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. Van Gerhard's eyes were steady as they gazed into mine. Don, 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, stung. My world, my refuge of truth and honor and safety and sanity that had lain in Ernst Van 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 Van Gerhard was beside me, steadying me with his clear blue eyes. He did not 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 somehow. Klein, I see that you know me not, he said in German, and the saying it was as tender as as 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. Don, 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 Orm, 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 little voice was saying over and over again. Now, Don, careful. You've come to the crossroads at last. Right or left? Choose. Now, Don, careful. And the rest of it all over again. When I lifted 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 circumstances is almost impossible, even if I wish to do what you suggest. There are certain state laws. An exclamation of impatience broke from him. Laws, in some states yes, and others 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, he snapped his fingers. A few months' residence in another state perhaps. These American laws they are made to break. Yes, you were 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 decency 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 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 you. You have never seen me except when I was tortured 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 and 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 actions might be judged fairly unjustly, 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 assume 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. 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 regret. There was silence for a moment in the little bear dining room, a miserable silence on my part, a bitter one for Ernst. Then von Gerhard seated himself again at the table opposite and smiled one of the rare smiles that illumined his face with such sweetness. Come, Don, 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. Ah, Don, you know not how I very well I will not. With both hands I was clinging to my courage and praying for strength to endure this until I should be alone in my room again. As for that poor preacher 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 message of strength and courage together and going over to him, put my two hands on his great shoulders, 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 happiness 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 Nora tonight. I don't ask you to understand. Men are not made to understand these things, not 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 Gerhardt? The ride home was made in silence. The wind was colder, sharper. I was chilled, miserable, sick. Von Gerhardt's face was quite expressionless 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 will let me see you sometimes? 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 good comrades again. And once in Vienna, who knows, you may meet the plump blonde frail line of excellent family. And no particular imagination. 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 loneliness. End of chapter 13. Chapter 14 of Don O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. Don O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed, by Edna Furber. Chapter 14. Benny and the Charming Old Maid. There followed a blessed week of work, a human warrious week, with something pecanth 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 perfectly good stuff, which in the ordinary course of events might be used to grace the front sheet, is sandwiched away between the marine intelligence and the Elgin Butter Reports. Such a week was this. I interviewed everything from a red-handed murderer to an incubator baby. The town seemed to be running over with celebrities. Norberg, the city editor, adores celebrities. He never allows one to escape un-interviewed. On Friday, there fell to my lot a world-famous prima donna, an infamous prize fighter, and a charming old maid. Norberg cared not whether the celebrity in question 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 adjectives 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 embellished, 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 English, was to make better copy than a whole chorus of prima donnas or a ring full of fighters. Copy, it was such wonderful stuff that I couldn't use it. It was with the charming old maid in mind that Norberg summoned me. Another special story for you, he cheerfully announced. No answering cheer appeared upon my lunchless features. A prize fighter at 1030 and a prima donna at 12, what's the next choice, morsel? An aeronaut with another successful airship or a cash girl who has inherited a million? Norberg's plump cheeks dimpled. Neither. 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. Charminally 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 100 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 is 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 window or something so that if ever she wanders back to the old home, she'll know she's welcome, see? Sounds like a moving picture play, I remarked. Wait a minute, here's the point. The city wants to build a branch library or something 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 bedroom. And the parlor will be done in red and green, I put in eagerly and where there will be an in growing 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 we 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 extended for half a square on all sides. A winter sodden, bare enough site it was in the gray of that March day. But it was not long before Alma flugel standing in the midst of it, the March twins 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 a scent of heliotrope and sweet William and pansies and bridal wreath. The naked twigs of the rosebushes 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 and growing things. Gray mounds of dirt grew vivid with the fire of poppies. Even the rain soaked wood of the pea frames miraculously was hidden in a hedge of green over which ran riot the butterfly beauty with the lavender and pink and cerise blossoms. Oh, she did marvelous things that dull March day, did plain German Alma flugel 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 flugel and I gazed curiously at one another. Surprise was writ large on her honest face as I disclosed my errand. It was plain that the ways of newspaper reporters were foreign to the life of this plain German woman but she bade me enter with a sweet graciousness of manner. Wondering but silent, she led the way down the dim narrow hallway to the sitting room beyond 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 German women coax into bloom. The low ceilinged 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 gross pop of flugels generous curves. Alma flugel and 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 piece. 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 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 flugel 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 flugel 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 and horror and say no conveniences and why don't you try striped wallpaper? It would make those red full 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 understand, I whispered, which, as the various cub reporter can testify, is no way to begin an interview. A hundred happy memories filled the little low room as Alma flugel 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 flugel had used a century before and in one corner of the sitting rooms stood Grossmutter flugel's spinning 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 flugel himself 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 spinning wheel and because of the tragedy and 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 flugel at last and rose and walked slowly to the window and stood looking out at the windswept garden. That window with its many tiny pains once had looked out across a wilderness with an Indian camp not far away. Grossmutter flugel had sat at that window many a bitter winter night with her baby in her arms watching and waiting for the young husband who was urging his ox team across the ice of Lake Michigan in the teeth of a raging blizzard. The little low ceilinged room was very still. I looked at Alma flugel 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 familiar. Somewhere in my mind, the resemblance haunted me. Resemblance to what? Whom? Would you like to see my garden? Asked Alma flugel 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 out over the bear when 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 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 gazing over the sodden earth. Then she flitted swiftly down the narrow path and halted before a queer little structure of brick covered with a skeleton of a creeping vine. Stooping, Alma Flegel 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 Grossmutter built for her. And because the old oven was so very difficult to manage and because she was such a young thing, only 16, 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 and gently. No doubt the workman 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. You should but see the children peering over the fence to see my flowers in the summer, she said. The blue eyes were a wistful far away look. All the children know my garden. It blooms from April to October. There I have my sweet peas and hear my roses, thousands of them. Some were 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 a bloom months 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. These are my poppies. Did you ever come out in the morning to find a hundred poppy faces smiling at you and swaying and glistening 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 see 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 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 was not quite sure of what she has said. At that I went over to her and took her work-worn hands and 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, bear 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 sowing during the long peaceful summer afternoons. Alma Flügel 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 Flügel. On the rustic table there would be a bowl of flowers and a pot of delicious coffee and a plate of German coffee-cooking 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 wallpaper in the parlor. The next moment to my horror, Alma Flügel had dropped her knees before the table in the damp little arbor, her face in her hands, her spare shoulders shaking. It comes Nickton, she moaned. It comes Nickt, Akk, Klein Schwester, will be student. Naks und Morgens bet ik, Aberdopp komst du Nickt. 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 Flügel sharply by the shoulder. Do that again. Her startled blue eyes looked into mine. What do you mean, she asked? 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 head and rumbled 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 Flügel continued to stare while the stunned bewilderment grew in her eyes. I have one fourth interest in your own nephew this very minute and his name is Benny. Whereupon Alma Flügel feigned 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 feudal things that distracted humans think of at such times, wondering 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 Flügel 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. Ah, you are sure? Sure? Lordy, I hope so. Come, you must let me help you into the house. And where's the nearest telephone? Nevermind, I'll find one. When I had succeeded in finding the nearest drugstore, I spent a wild 10 minutes telephoning the surprised little probation officer, then found Nurlanger and finally Blackie for no particular reason. I shrieked my story over the wire and disconnected incoherent sentences. Then I rushed back to the little cottage where Alma Flügel 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 comprehension. But when Fraun Nurlanger came with Benny in tow, there were tears and exclamations followed by a little stricken silence on the part of Fraun Nurlanger when she saw Benny snatched to the breast of the sweeping 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 sister turned the knob and it yielded under her fingers and the old door swung open. And so she entered the house quite as Alma Flügel 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 Flügel saw the face of the little sister, the poor, marred, stricken face, her own face became terrible in its agony. She put Benny 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 Namken and little one and so Fraun Nurlanger 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 fanning a deep disgust. I'd like to know where I enter into this little drama he growled. Ain't I got nothing to do but run around town uniting long lost sisters and 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 cottage. Now don't say a word. You'll never have a greater chance to act the very godmother. Fraun Nurlanger's hand sought mine and I squeezed it in silent sympathy. Poor little Fraun Nurlanger, the happiness of another had brought her only sorrow and she had kissed Benny goodbye with the knowledge that the little blue-painted bed with its faded red roses would again stand empty in the gloom of the canop 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 mistaken about that. The nice old maid is not going to move after all. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of Don O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. Don O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber. Chapter 15 Farewell to Canops 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 canoppless. We, to whom the Canops, spelled home. Hare canop, moustache, quiver, and frau canop, cheekbones glistening, broke the news to us one evening just a week after the exciting day which so changed Benny's life. Istut unser seleid, Hare canop had begun. And before he had finished, protesting German groans mingled with voluble German explanations, the Aborigines was tricking down. They clapped pudgy fists to knobby foreheads. They smote their breasts and made wild gestures with their arms. If my protests were less frenzy than theirs, it was only because my knowledge of German stops at words of six syllables. Out of the chaos of ejaculations and interrogation, the reason for our expulsion at last was made clear. The little German hotel had not been remunerative. Our hosts 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 canop had been too liberal with the butter and the stewed chicken. Perhaps there had been too many golden fancuchen with real eggs and milk stirred into them and with two some little islands of ruddy current jelly on top. Perhaps there had been too much honest nourishing 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 queer faces and its German cookery became very dear to me. I had grown to like frau canop of the shining cheekbones and hair-canop of the heavy genealogy. A close bond of friendship had sprung up between frau Nurlanger and me. I would miss her friendly visits and her pretty ways and her sparkling conversation. She and I had held many kimono-ed powwows and sometimes, not often, she had given me wonderful glimpses of that which she had left. Of Vienna, the opera of 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 pompadours, thick spectacles, terrifying manner and all, became as dear as old friends now that I knew I must lose them. The great high-ceiling-droom upstairs had taken on the look of home. The blue-beard closet no longer appalled me. The very purpleness 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 comfort and kindness. How could I live without the stout yellow-brocade armchair? Its plethoric curves were bombed 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 ruddy apples twinkling in the firelight, my mundane soul snuggled in content. And then, too, the book and the making had grown in that room. It had developed from a weak, wobbling uncertainty 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 atmosphere of the place, the kindness they had shown me, the chattering, admiring menna, the taffy-colored docks and the aborigines with their ill-smelling pipes and flappy slippers, the vener schnitzel, the crush-looking guives and the masterful German husbands, the very darns in the tablecloths and the very nicks in the china. We had a last family gathering in token of our appreciation of hair and frau canop. 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 canops and was fond of them, and because, well, I invited Von Gerhard. He came and I found myself dangerously glad to see him so that I made my greeting 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 a child that is apprehensive of being scolded for some naughtiness. Not so much chatters, small one, he said unsmilingly. This pretense, it is not necessary between you and me. So, you are iron-bition bloths, nicked, a little pale, you have not been illed on. Ill, never felt more chipper in my life, I made flippant answer, and I adore these people who are forever telling one how unusually thin or pale or scrawny one is looking. Nah, they are not to be satisfied, these women. If I were to tell you how lovely you look to me tonight, 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 interestingly pale, taking care to keep all tenderness out of my tones, and still you are not pleased. He shrugged despairing shoulders. Can't you strike a happy medium between rudeness and tenderness? After all, I haven't had a glimpse of your blonde beauty for three weeks, and while I don't ask you to whisper sweet nothings, still, after 21 days, you have been lonely? If only I thought that those weeks have been as wearisome to you. Not lonely exactly, I hurriedly interrupted, but sort of wishing that someone would pat me on the head and tell me that I was a good doggy. You know what I mean. It is so easy to become accustomed to thoughtfulness 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. Akdan, Kinchen. But I knew that these were then 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 as the party in honor of these new aborigines, laughed von Gerhard, you did not explain in your note. Merely you asked me to come, knowing that I cared not if it were a lawn-fet 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 canops are leaving? That I neglect to mention that this is a farewell party for hair and for our canop? 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 and the lap of the gods probably, for I don't know how I shall find the time to interview landlady's and pack my belongings 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, a small one, that you, with your love of beautiful things and your fastidiousness, should have to live in this way in these boarding houses, alone, with not even the comforts that should be yours. Ock, Kenshin, you were not made for that. You were intended for the home with a husband and kinder and all that is truly worthwhile. I swallowed a lump in my throat as I shrugged my shoulders. Pooh, any woman can have a husband and babies, I retorted 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 endure these hardships rather than give up the nonsensical views which you 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 Gemilklikkite. Perhaps I shan't find that other home as dear to my heart as this has been. But at least I shan't have to sleep on a park bench. And anyone can tell you that park benches have long been the favored resting place of genius. There is Frauner 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 universities of student life. Fraun Knopf served a late supper at which someone led in singing all slang sign. Although the sounds emanating from the Aborigines end of the table sounded suspiciously like debauched Amrine. Following that, the Aborigines rose in mass 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 wrath-skiller veterans. Then the red-faced and amorous Fritz, he of the absent Lena, announced his intention of entertaining the company. Made bold by an injudicious mixture of Herr Knopf's excellent beer and a wonderful punch which von Gerhardt had concocted, Fritz mounted his chair, placed his pump hand over the spot where he supposed his heart to be, fastened his watery blue eyes upon my surprised and blushing countenance and sang, Ve, das verscheiden musn, in an astonishingly beautiful baritone. I dare not look at von Gerhardt, for I knew that he was purple with suppressed mirth, so I stared stonely 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 and brought from their hiding place the gifts which we of Knopf's had purchased as remembrances for Herr and Frow Knopf. I had been delegated to make the presentation speech, so I grasped in one hand the two elaborate pipe that was to make Herr Knopf fun happy and the two fashionable silk umbrella that was to appall Frow Knopf 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 aborigines went off into paroxysms of laughter. They threw back their heads and roared and slapped their thighs and spluttered. It appeared that they thought I was making a humorous 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, Frow Knopf burst into tears, groped about helplessly for her apron, realized that it was missing from its accustomed 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 someone suggested dry-mal-dry to which we responded in a manner to make the Chin-Chucking Lieutenant tremble in his frame on the wall. When it was all over, Frow Knopf longer beckoned 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. Frow Knopf longer in the pretty white gown was looking haggard and distraught. The ugly 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 Frow Knopf longer softly, it is better so than 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. Orm will allow me, he answered. Ah, 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. And Mary, Niktvar, my inclined Soldaten, I call her. Soldaten, eh, used Von Gerhard. Our little soldier, she is well-named, and her battles 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 fingertips. I brought my hand to my head in stiff military salute. Inspection satisfactory, sir. He laughed a roof a little laugh. Imminently, abrogans be freed again. He was very tall and straight and good to look at as he stood there in the hall, with the light from the Nule post, illuminating his features and emphasizing his blondness. Fraud no longer's face were 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. Hair no longer'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. We must part, he announced dramatically. Ove, the best of friends must part. Well, goodbye, little interfering two-ful. Forgive you, though, because you're such a pretty little two-ful. 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, time for hard-working men like you and me to be in bed. Mrs. Orm must not nod over her desk tomorrow, either. So good night. Schlafen sie wohl. Conrad Nirlanger turned a scowling face over his shoulder. Then he forgot what he was scowling for and smiled a leering smile. Pretty good friends, you and the little two-ful, yes? Guess we'll have to watch you, huh, Anna? We'll watch him, won't we? He began to climb the stairs laboriously with Frow 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 waffed a little kiss toward us with a gesture indescribably graceful and pathetic. She viewed her husband's laborious progress, not daring to offer help. Then the churn in the stair hit her from sight. In the dim quiet of the little hallway, Von Gerhard held out his hands, those deft manual hands, those steady, sure, surgingly 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 fingertips. Good night, Herr Doctor, I said, and thank you, not only for myself, but for her. I have felt what she feels tonight. It is not a pleasant thing to be ashamed of one's husband. Von Gerhard's two hands closed over that one of mine. Don, 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 on him, and there came over me a great longing to run my fingers gently through that crisp blonde hair and to bring his head down close against my breast for one exquisite moment. So, landlady's and Oidermobiles, 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 overcharge 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. Nah, of what use it is to plead with you. Sometimes I wonder if, after all, you are not merely amusing yourself. Getting copy, perhaps, for the book or a new experience to add to your already varied store. Abruptly I turned to hide my pain and began to ascend the stairs. With a bound, Von Gerhard was beside me, his face drawn and contrite. Forgive me, Don, 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, I know that I have not the right to help you. I knew not what I was saying. Come, raise your eyes and smile like the little 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 Aborigines will be along, saying, Morgan, instead of Nobben, if we stay here much longer. Good night. You will give me your new address as soon as you have found a satisfactory home. Never fear, 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 farewells as a burn heart. And to end it, I ran up the stairs. At the bend, just where Frauner Langer had turned, I too stopped and looked over my shoulder. Von Gerhard was standing as I had left him, looking up at me. And like Frauner 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. End of Chapter 15. Chapter 16 of Don O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. Don O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed, by Edna Ferber. Chapter 16. June Moonlight and a New Boarding House. There was a week in which to scurry about for a new home. The days scampered by, tripping over one another in their haste. My sleeping hours were haunted by nightmares of landlady's and impossible boarding house bedrooms. Columns of too-let, furnished, or unfurnished ads filed, advanced, and be treated before my dizzy eyes. My time after office hours was spent in climbing dim stairways, interviewing unenthusiastic females and kimonos, and peering into ugly bedrooms, papered with sprawly and impossible patterns, and filled with the odors of dead and gone dinners. 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 rather tank gents only, explain the ample person who carried the keys to the mansion. Gents goes early in the morning and comes in late at night, and that's all you ever see of them half the time. I've tried ladies and they get me wild, always yelling for hot water to wash their hair or paste in handkerchiefs up on the mirror or wanting 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 landlady's, landlady's fat and German, landlady's lean and Irish, landlady's loquacious, regardless of nationality, landlady's reserved, landlady's husbandless, wedded, widowed, divorced, and willing, landlady's slatternly, landlady's 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, hatbox, and typewriter reposing on the sidewalk while I, homeless, 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, although a cautious inner voice warned me that 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 occur so early in the morning, whereupon she of the vinegar countenance had sniffed. I loathe landlady's who sniff. My trunk and trusty typewriter was sent on to my new home at noon, unshaperoned, 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 unfashionable 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 quivering out 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 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, skyrockets, pinwheels, set pieces and all, could not have made that room take on a festive air. As I unpacked, I thought of my cozy room at Knobs, 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 lamp light and the fireplace and Fraun Neurlanger and the Fann Kuchen. I thought of the Aborigines and 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 neckties. In my memory of Frau Knoff, 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 cheekbones and the apron and the chicken's stewed-in butter. I would have given a year out of my life to have heard that good-natured knobbing. One Aborigine had been want to emphasize his after-dinner arguments with a toothpick brandished fiercely between thumb and finger. The brandisher had always annoyed me. Now I thought of him with tenderness 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 thriftiness denied my tears the soiling of the blouse. So I sat up on my knees and finished the unpacking. Just before dinner time I dawned to be coming down to jerk up my courage, put my way down the long, dim stairs and telephone 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. Orm is waiting to speak to him. I'll see the voice was grudging. Another wait, then Don came his voice and 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 whatever you were doing, but I couldn't help it. Just talk please, 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 Nora written? Nora? 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, is it satisfactory? You have found what you wanted. Your room is comfortable? It's a large room, I faltered. And there's 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 downtown at seven o'clock. We will have dinner together, Von Gerhard said. I cannot have you moping up there all alone all evening. I can't come. Why? Because I want to, so very much. And anyway, I'm much more cheerful now. I am going into dinner and after dinner I shall get acquainted with my room. There are six corners in all the space under the bed that I haven't explored yet. Don? Yes? If you were free tonight, 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 open wide to you and they had welcome done in diamonds 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, almost exquisite and most desirable, would you enter? And then I hung up the receiver and went into dinner. I went into 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 Dothaboy's Hall. It was bare and cheerless and fearfully undressed looking. The diners receded at two long, unsociable boarding-housy tables that ran the length of the room and all the women folks came down to dine with white wool shawls wrapped snugly about their susceptible black silk shoulders. The general effect was out of an old people's home. I found seat after seat at table was filled and myself the youngest thing present. I felt so criminally young that I wondered they did not strap me in a high chair and ran bread and milk down my throat. Now on then the door would open to admit another snuffly ancient and beshawled member of the company. I learned that Mrs. Schwartz on my right did not care much for steak for breakfast, abraliter limb chop 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, Miss Maurer? Hmm? 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? Hmm. They haven't stood long enough. Look at Miss Miller, she feels good this evening. She should feel good. 25 cents she won at Bridge. I never seen how that woman has 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 turning out a long letter to Nora. That finished my spirit's rose. I dived into the bottom of my trunk for the loose sheets of the book and the making, glanced over the last three or four, discovered that they did not sound so maudlin as I had feared and straight away forgot my gloomy surroundings and the fascination of weaving the tale. In the midst of my fine frenzy, there came a knock at the door, in the halls to the anemic little serving maid who had attended me at dinner. She was almost eclipsed by a huge green pasteboard box. You're Miss Ormachu, this year's for you. The little white-cheeked maid hovered at the threshold while I lifted the box cover and revealed the perfection of the American beauty buds that lay there, all dewy and fragrant. The eyes of the little maid were wide with wonder 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 nothing big enough in here except your water pitcher and 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 a 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 trarig. How well he knew, and how truly impossible 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 understanding of feminine moods. So I churned 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. Last 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 silver lake, a dazzling bar of moonlight on its breast. Motors rushed along the roadway with a roar and a roar 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 streetlight the popcorn-vendor'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 my weary thoughts of Peter Orm, forgot everything 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 overjoyously in my heart. What a strange contrast they made, blacky of the elastic morals and the still-more elastic heart, frowneurlanger 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 blooming below, only to find a worthless weed selling her hand. Alma flugal with the unquenchable light of gratefulness in her honest face. Von Gerhard, ready to act as buffer between myself and the world, tender as a woman, gravely thoughtful with the light of devotion glowing in his steady eyes. Here is 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 Nora, growing sour and crabbed with the years. Those years of work and buffeting had made of me a broader, finer, truer type of womanhood, 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. Oh, dear Lord, I prayed, and I did not mean that it should sound irreverent. Oh, 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. Tomorrow, after office hours, I'll tuck up my skirt and wrap my head in a towel and have a house-cleaning be. I'll move the bed where the wash stand is now and I'll make the chiffonere swap places with the couch. One feels on friendlier terms with furniture that one has shoved about a little. How brilliant the moonlight 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. End of Chapter 16. Chapter 17 of Don O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. Don O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber. Chapter 17, The Shadow of Terror. Two days before the date set for Von Gerhard's departure, the book was finished, typed, reread, packed, and sent away. Half an hour after it was gone, all its most glaring faults seemed to marshal 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 certain 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 indistinguishable 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 dolly if I could feel Von Gerhard's departure more keenly. No one knew of the existence of the book except Nora, Von Gerhard, Blackie, and me. Blackie had a way of inquiring after its progress and hushed tones of mock awe. Also he delighted in getting down on hands and knees and guiding a yardstick carefully about my desk with a view to having a fence built around it, bearing an inscription which would inform admiring tourists that here was the desk at which the brilliant author had been want to sit when grinding out heartthrob stories for the humble post. He took an impush delight in my struggles with my hero and heroine, and his inquiries after the health of both were of such a nature as to make any earnest writer-person rise and wrath and slay him. I had seen little of Blackie of late. My spare hours had been devoted 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. 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 was inwardly amused. I've been thinking about a vacation. None of your measly little two-weeks affairs with one week on salary and the other without. I ain't going to take my vacation for a while, not till fall, perhaps, or maybe winter. But when I do take it, say, girl, it's going to 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 don't know, used Blackie. I just made my arrangements for that time, and I hate to mess them up. You'll say when the time comes that my plans are reasonable. There was a sharp ring from the telephone at 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. Hmm, grunted Blackie pulling at his pipe. Thoughtful, ain't he? I turned at the door. He's going away day after tomorrow, Blackie. I explained, although no explanation had been asked for. To Vienna. He expects to stay a year or two or three. Blackie looked up quickly. Going away, is he? Well, maybe it's best all around, girl. I see his name's been mentioned in all the medical papers and the big magazines and all that lately. Getting to be a big bug, Von Gerhard is. Sorry, he's going, though. I was planning to consult him just before I go on my vacation, but some other guy'll do. He don't approve of me, Von Gerhard, don't. For some reason, which I could never explain, 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. We're not caring so long as we approve of one another, are we? Not a bit, girl, smile, Blackie. Not a bit. When the green car stopped before the old folks' home, I was in syrophic mood. I had bathed, dawn-cleaned 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 distraught, did not quiet them. We darted away out along the lakefront, 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 20th-century pilgrims toward the mecca of cool breezes and comfort. There were proud limousines, comfortable family cars, trim little roadsters, noisy runabouts. Not a hoofbeat was to be heard. It was as though the horseless age had indeed descended upon the 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 occasional gleams of silvery water. The rush of cool air fanned my hot forehead, tussled my hair, slit down between my collar and the back of my neck, and I was grandly content. Even though you were going to sail away, and even though you have the grumps and refuse to talk and scowl like a jabberwock, this is an extremely nice world. You can't spoil it. Behut, 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 perfected. Perfected, I groan. I turned 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, the punch. What is that, then, the punch? Obligingly, I elucidated. A book may be written in flawless style with a plot and a climax and a lot of little side surprises. But if 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 review page of the Saturday papers, nor will the man across the aisle in the streetcar be so absorbed in its contents that he will be taken past his corner. Von Gerhard looked troubled. What 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 heartwarming roars. Thanks, said I. Now tell me the important news. His face grew serious in an instant. Not yet, Don. Later. Let us hear more about the book. Not so flippant, however, small one. The time has passed 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 them, and 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 Kenshin. 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 worthwhile. Independence, freedom from this treadmill. Stop, cried Von Gerhard sharply. Then as I stared in surprise, I do ask your pardon. I was again rude, Nicktoir. But in me there is a queer vein of a German superstition that disapproves of air castles. Sieg ein Bilden, we call it. The lights of the Bay Pavilion twinkle just ahead. The green car poked its nose up the path between rows of empty machines. At last it drew up panting before vacant space between 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 fuse, a lot of applause. Through the open doorway could be seen a company of Terri Lee's singers and 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 inexcusably ugly they are, these Terri Lee's 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 to eat and we made brave efforts to appear hungry and hearty but my high spirits were ebbing fast and Von Gerhard was frankly distraught. One of the women's 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 hush 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 silence. Then in a great burst of melody the chorus of voices within the pavilion answered the call. 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 terrible ease, 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 were gone. Von Gerhard beckoned the hovering waiter. Take these things away, and you need not return. He placed something in the man's palm, something that caused a sudden whisking away of empty dishes and many obsequious boughs. Von Gerhard's face was turned away from me toward the beauty of the lake and sky. Now as the last foot 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. Nora, 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 Glock and Vienna this year. I shall stay here. Here? Why? Surely. Because I shall be needed here, Don. Because I cannot leave you now. You will need someone, a friend. I stared at him with eyes that were wide with terror, waiting for I knew not what. Need someone for what? I stammered. Why should you? In the kindly shadow of the trees, Von Gerhard's hands took my icy ones and held them in a close clasp of encouragement. Nora is coming to be with you. Nora, why? Tell me at once, at once. Because Peter Orm 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 ward 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 something funny, isn't it? And after a bit we'll laugh, we'll laugh, of course. See, I'm smiling already. Don, dear one, it is true. God knows I wish that I could be happy to know it. The hospital authorities pronounced 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 Orm had shown evidences of recovery. He spoke of you, of 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 vanished. He may be there still. He may be here. Ernst, take me home. Oh, 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 compared 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 awaken 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, Don, my love, looking wonderfully well. Grass widowhood agrees with you, eh? Don, you must not laugh like that. Come, we will go. You were shivering. Don't, dear, don't. See, you have Nora and Max 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 Gerhard simply. 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 Nora 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 in the sharp spat of applauding hands and shouts of approbation. The sound seemed seared upon my brain. I rose and ran down the path toward the waiting machine. There in the darkness I buried my shamed face in my hands and prayed for the tears that would not come. It seemed hours before I heard Von Gerhard's firm, quick tread upon the gravel path. He moved about the machine, adjusting this and that, and 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 machine at the roadside. Careful, Kenjin, 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 hundred pitfalls, I can't lay it down again for Peter Orm 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. Love you? Repeated Ernst, slowly. Yes. Too well. Too well. Yes. Too well for that. Gotse dank, small one. Too well for that. End of Chapter 17. Chapter 18 of Don O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. Don O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber. Chapter 18, Peter Orm. A man's figure rose from the shadows of the porch and came forward to meet us as we swung up to the curving. I stifled a scream in my throat. As I shrank back into the seat, I heard the quick intake of Von Gerhard's breath as he leaned forward to peer into the darkness. A sick dread came upon me. Say, girl, draw the man's voice with a familiar little cackling laugh in it. Say, girl, the policeman on the beats got me spotted for a suspicious character. I've been hoofing it up and down this block like a distracted mama waiting for her daughter to come home from a boat ride. Blackie, it's only you. Thanks, flatterer, simpered Blackie, coming to the edge of the walk as I stepped from the automobile. Was you expecting the landlady? I don't know just whom I expected. I'm nervous, I think, and you startled me. Dr. 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 instant so that the flare of it illuminated his face as he lighted his cigarette. There was no laughter 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 to talk to you for a minute. Perhaps Von Gerhard had better hear it, too. I telephoned you an hour ago, tried to get you out to the bay, waited here ever since. Got a parlor or something 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. Von Gerhard was frowning. Mrs. Orm is not well, he began. She has had a shock, some startling news concerning. Her husband, inquired Blackie Cooley. 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, and when I get through, remember, I'm there with the little help and 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 tonight, 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 wonder where all the boys was. Looked into the billiard room, nothing doing. Poked my head in at the writing room, same. Ambled into the reading room, empty. Well I steered for the dining room, and there was the bunch. And 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 careless like on the mantle, stood a man, stranger to me. He was talking kind of low and quick, biting off his words like an Englishman. And the boys, they were staring with their eyes and their mouths, and forgetting to smoke, and letting their pipes and cigars go dead in their hands while he talked. Talk. Say, girl, that guy, he could talk the leads right out of a ruled, locked form. I didn't catch his name. Tall, thin, unearthly looking chap, with the widest teeth you ever saw, and eyes, well, as eyes was something like a lighted pipe with a little fine ash over the red, just waiting for a sudden pull to 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. I'm 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. Orm is living? I'm coming to that, returned Blackie tranquilly. Though for Don's sake, I'll say right here he don't know. I told him later that she was taking a vacation up at her folks in Michigan. Thank God, I breathed. Wore a New York press club button, this guy did. I asked one of the boys standing on the outer edge of the circle what the fellow's name was, but he only says, shut up, Black, and listen. He's seen every darn thing in the world. Well, I listened. He wasn't bragging. He wasn't talking big. He was just talking. Seems like he'd been more correspondent in the Boer War and the Spanish-American, and God knows where. He spoke low, not using any big words either, and I thought his eyes looked something like those of the Black cat up on the mantle just over his head. You know what I mean. When the electric lights is turned on inside, the ugly thing. Well, every time he showed signs of stopping, one of the boys would up with a question and start him going again. He knew everybody and everything and everywhere. 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 to me I've heard of him. Well, at that, the boys yelled. Thought it was a good joke, seeing that Ted has been smeared all over the first page of everything for years. But kid, I seen the look in that man's eyes when he said it, and he wasn't joking, girl. And it came to me all of a sudden that all the things he'd been talking about had happened almost 10 years back. After he'd made that break about Roosevelt, he kind of shut up and strolled over to the piano and began to 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 fascinating 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. Something seemed to urge me to go up to him and say, 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. Say, girl, I'm a modest violet I am, but I don't mind mentioning that the general opinion up at the club is that I'm a little wizard with a cue. Well, when he got through with me, I looked like little sister when big brother is trying to teach her how to hold the cue in her fingers. He just sent them balls wherever he thought they'd look pretty. I bet if he'd hold up his thumb and finger and said, jump through this, then balls would have jumped. Von Gerhard took a couple of quick steps in blacky's direction. His eyes were blue steel. Is this then necessary? He asked. All this leads to what? Has not Mrs. Orm suffered enough that she should undergo this idle chatter? It is sufficient that she knows this man is here. It is a time for action, not for words. Actions come and later, Doc, draw blacky looking impish. Monologon ain't my specialty. I generally let the other gank talk. You never can learn nothing by talking, but I got something to say to Don here. Now, in case you're bored the least bit, why don't hesitate one minute to, Nah, 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 I grew to long for blessed silence, for fewer words and more of that reserve, which means strength. All this time continued blacky. I didn't know his name. When we'd finished our game of billiards, he hung up his cue and then he turned round 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 in it if you know what I mean. Guess you do, maybe, if you've seen it. Boys, says he, smiling that twisted kind of smile. Boys, I'm looking for a job. I'm not much of a talker, and I'm only an amateur at music, and my game of billiards is ragged. But there's one thing I can do, fellas, from ABC up to XYZ, and that's right. 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 Merkel left us, we haven't had a day when we wasn't scooped on some political guff. I guess we can use you someplace, I says, trying not to look too anxious. If your ideas on salary can take a slump between New York and Milwaukee, our salaries around here is more of what is elegantly known as a stipend. What's your name, Beau? Name, says he, smiling again. Maybe it'll be familiar to you. That is, it will if my wife is using it. Orm is my name, Peter Orm. 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 expecting you, I asked. No, not exactly, he says, with that crooked grin. Thought not, I answered before I knew what I was saying. 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 10 until Monday? 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 going to do. Send your brother-in-law down 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 nodding approval. It all seemed so easy, so temptingly easy, to run away. Not to face him until I was safe in the shelter of Nora's arms. I stood up, resolved, 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 because Blackie and Von Gerhard looked so pathetically concerned and so unhappy in my unhappiness, 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 me leaf and laughter so that Peter Orm, 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 me 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, Don, old girl, said he, you're looking wonderfully fit. Grass wood-o-hood 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 have a notion to thwack you. What do you mean by telling me my wife's gone? You're not sweet on her yourself, eh? Von Gerhard stifled an exclamation and Orm 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. Live with them for 10 years, damn them. Don, tell these fellows they're excused, will ya? 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'm happy to know that you are well again. Surely you do not expect me to be joyful in seeing 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, Don, sneered Peter. Have either of you fellows the makings about you? Thanks. I'm famished for a smoke. The worrying words of 10 years ago rose automatically 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 Job, Don, I believe you're as much my wife now as you were 10 years ago. I always said you know that you would have become a first-class nagger 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 devotion 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 dying blacky, sallow face. His eyes had a menace in their depths. Then very quietly, von Gerhard stepped forward and stopped directly before me. Don, 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 has passed, I said. My tone is calm and even is his own. A man like you cannot burden himself with a derelict like me. Masked gone, sails gone, waterlogged, drifting. Five years from now you'll thank me for what I am saying now. My places with this other wreck, tossed about by wind and weather until we both go down together. There came a sharp, insistent ring at the doorbell. No answering sound came from the regions above stairs. The ringing sounded again louder than before. I'll be the buttons, said blacky, and disappeared 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. Nora, I cried, Nora, Nora, Nora. And as her blessed arms closed about me, the tears that had been denied me before 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 somebody meet me? I telegraphed. You didn't get it? Well, I forgive you. How do you 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 methistophily and smile at me. It doesn't frighten me. Von Gerhard, take him down to his hotel. I'm dying for my kimono in bed, and this child is trembling like a racehorse. Now run along, all of you. Things that look greenery-owry at night always turn pink in the morning. Great heavens, there's somebody calling down from the second floor landing. It sounds like a landlady. Run, Don, until your perfectly respectable sister has come. Peter Von Gerhard, Mr. Blackie. Shoe. End of Chapter 18. Chapter 19 of Don O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. Don O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber. Chapter 19. A Turn of the Wheel. You who were ever alert to befriend a man, 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 the attitude and a queer sight you will be in that attitude. Someday, where gratitude seems but a platitude, you'll find your latitude. From 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 under the jawbone 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. The thing had adjusted itself as Nora 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 Nora's deft management. And now I was back in harness again and Peter was churning out brilliant 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 42nd Street. He laughed at Milwaukee's quaint German atmosphere. He sneered at our journalistic methods and called the newspapers country sheets and was forever talking of the world and the Herald and the sun until the minute the press club fought shy of him. Nora had found quiet and comfortable quarters for Peter and 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 threaten to leave daily. Let's go back to the big town, Donald girl he would say. We're buried alive in this overgrown Dutch village. I came here in 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. 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, you must be mad. Then with one of his unaccountable changes of tone and topic. Don, let me have some money. I'm strapped. If I had the time, I'd get out some magazine stuff. Anything to give 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 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 nerlangers, of alma flugels rose in circled cottage, of Benny, of the canops, of the good-natured uncouth aborigines and their many kindnesses. I saw these dear people rarely now. Frau Nerlinger's resignation to her unhappiness 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 as 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 manner, my question was answered. There came to my desk one day an envelope bearing the letterhead 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 myself, in preparation for any disappointment that 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 wildly 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 thinking, he said. Anything to oblige you. When you're through shoving that paper into my face, would you mind explaining who wants what? Oh, you're so stupid, so slow. Can't you see that I've written a real life book and had it accepted and then I'm 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 modeling in my joy, but forgive me, it's been so long since I've had the taste of it. Well, take a good chew while you got the chance and don't count too high on this first book business. I knew a guy who wrote a book once and 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 rushed. Say, girl, when he got through getting those royalties for that book, they dwindled down to fresh wallpaper for the dining room in a new gas stove for his wife and not enough leftover 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 on a grin overspread his thin face. Tell you what we'll do, girly, 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 and it might as well be me. Five minutes later with my hat in my hand, I turned to find Peter at my elbow. 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. 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, he said over his shoulder. But I can't, Peter, I cried. It isn't my party in any way. 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. In any way, 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 witty he 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'm sure. Come, we'll go down now, he'll be waiting for us. Blackie's keen, clever mind grasped the situation as soon as he saw us together. His dark face was illumined by one of his rare smiles. Coming with us, Orm, do you good? Pile into the to-know, you two, and hang onto 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. Nick's 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 to-know 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 lead 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, Orm, rose in his place and, leaning forward and upward, grasped the wheel that was in Blackie's hands. The car swerved, sickeningly. I noticed Dolly 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 madman 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, Orm, Blackie yelled. You'll ditch us, Don, 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 sinking 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 feudal fingers. Then I ran screaming down the road toward a man who was tranquilly working in a field nearby. End of Chapter 19.