[253]CHAPTER XXIVNEWS FROM THE FATHERLAND“With laughing mouth but tear-wet eye.”Therecame a day when Phyl and Dolly dashed in from the Post-office with scarlet faces. There had been among the letters one with a queer German stamp upon it, and, secure in a deserted road, they had raced each other home as if they had still been in short frocks.The news spread round the house, and the family gathered rapidly together from orchard, garden, and verandahs, for this was the boy’s first letter since his feet had touched on German soil.In the hall impish Davey lingered with wistful eyes to catch a word or two, and out in the kitchen Mary said, “Bless the little chap!” and looked affectionately at a patch of ink he had one time spilt on her spotless dresser.[254]“Wiesbaden,“Jan. the something or other.“Hello the all of you” (the letter ran),“And how’s things out there? I expect you are all roasting. Well, I’m not, and that’s a fact. Cold! Why, if I put my nose outside this morning it would never come in again, the wind snaps so, and I’d have a beard of icicles and a snow moustache in five jiffys. Did you get my other letter? I posted two of them at places we stopped at, I forgot the blessed names,—oh! one of them was in the Sandwich Islands, I remember that, because a fellow stuffed me there were natural sandwiches there growing on the Bread-fruit Palms. I never get taken in now though; you can’t help it at first, everything’s so queer. Then I posted again—only I didn’t put a stamp on, at the place we left the ship,—I forget the name, but it’s in Italy. You got it, didn’t you? Old Ollendorf’s a rummy fellow;we went to a towncalled Rome (it’s in Italy too, not far from that other town), and he poked about all day among the smashed-up places. He gets tears in his eyes and blows his nose hard whenever he gets excited, and he gets excited over everything. Well, the more smashed-up a place was the more he’d cry. While we were in that town he was crying most of the time. I got tired of it, so I left him saying ‘Ach Gott’ and ‘Himmel’ and such things in front of a lot of dirty old pictures, and young Clinch and me went to a circus. Mein vord, it[255]wasa circus. They’d kick such a thing out of Australia, but anything does for these old Rome people.[Illustration]“We went to a town called Rome.”“Well, then, we went to another place, I forget the name—oh, Florence, I think. Didn’t think much of it, but it’s not quite so tumble-down as the what’s-it’s-name town. Oh, I didn’t tell you about the river at the other place. Old Olly had spouted about it, the Tiber it’s called, all the way in the train, and I really thought I was going to see something at last. Well, when we’d had something to eat, he carted me out on to a bridge to look at it. I give you my word I[256]thought he was having a lark with me. The dirtiest, miserablest bit of a river you ever saw. I didn’t want to catch typhoid, so I held my nose and turned round to see if he was holding his. But he wasn’t. He was blowing it hard and crying. Yes, by Shimminy. I told him he just ought to see our Hawkesbury.“Well, about Florence. It’s got a lot of buildings and things in it, and some of them look rather nice; they’re higher too than the buildings in Sydney. Clinch and me got sick of mooning about with Olly, and there was one of the waiters, a real good sort, going to a place five miles off to see some races, so you bet we went too. But the horses were as smashed-up as the buildings are—not a goer in the lot, so it wasn’t much fun. Australia could put them up to a thing or two on racing, my word.“I get awfully sick of only hearing this blessed German talked. We’ve settled down in this town now for three months, and even the slaveys here jabber it. Young Clinch is only eight, but I feel I can talk to him all day and all night just because he doesn’t jabber-jabber. I’m getting pretty smart at it myself though; you have to, or go hungry here, they’re such a blessed set of idiots. You don’t know how I wanted some bull’s-eyes one day, and do you think I could make any of the thick heads in three shops understand? They all kept telling me to go to the butcher’s. When I come back I’ll have to get three pounds of them straight off to make up.[257]“Aunt Helene’s awfully queer; she’s as old as anything you know, and yet she’s always doing lessons and things. I go for a walk with her every day, and she makes me do the jabber, and does it herself all the time, so sometimes I don’t talk much. Butshedoes,—all the questions and answers in the Conversation-book, and I know she goes into the shops and buys things just so she can ask for them in German.“Yesterday it was such a lark; we were mooning up and down the street and a horse backed on to the pavement, and she bolted into the first shop,—she’s the nervousest woman I ever saw,—bar those little donkeys Phyl and Dolly. Well, she likes to be dignified too, so when the shop-walker johnnie came up to her she pretended she’d just come in to buy something. Well, every time she speaks to any one, this is her regular jabber, only I’m saying it in English, the other stuff is too hard to spell. ‘Guten morgen’ (that means good-morning). ‘It is a cold wind. Winter draws near. It freezes. It has frozen last night.’ The shop-walker johnnie says, ‘Ja, es ist schönes wetter’ (that means, yes, it is very fine weather)—of course he doesn’t understand what she has been saying. Then he says, ‘Be seated, Frau’ (once she got her hair off and said, ‘Fraulein, gefalligst’).“Then she says, ‘Show me, if you please,—she’s got that part very pat,—das gloves, des ribbons, dem lace,’[258]or whatever she wants. Only this was a man’s shop, and there were only shirts and trousers or things about. Well, I thought I’d help her out of a hole; I knew she didn’t want anything at a shop like that, but I thought she wouldn’t like to go out without buying something after bolting in like she did. So I told her she’d better get me some trousers, I wanted some. Well, she got so red I thought she must have forgotten the word for them, so I pointed to some tweed stuff on the counter, and then pointed at my legs, and a man at a counter understood in a jiffy, and began to get some down. But Aunt turned round and walked out of the shop, and I had to follow, of course, and the shop-people must have thought we were cracked. What do you think it was? It wasn’t that she’d forgotten the word for trousers, but I know now she’d have rather died than have said it. ‘Never refer to such horrible things in a mixed assembly, Alfred,’ she said. I’m always treading on her corns, but how on earth was I to knowtrousersweren’t proper?“She’s as finicky as that over everything; after I’ve been in her room for an hour I just rush out on the hill and shout, and howl, and roll about, you get so bottled up. She’s not much to look at, her hair’s any colour, and her eyes are lightish blue, and she always looks as ill as anything. She’s not a bit like that likeness of mother. She’s always getting new dresses, really spiffing ones, all silk things with roses[259]and flowers worked all over them, and lace things and everything; jolly greedy of her never to have sent mother any.“This is what we do all day. Well, we’re not at a hotel now, Grandfather’s tired of them; this is a private sort of a house in the suburbs, only you pay them for keeping you. Well, every one gets up at six except Grandfather, and we have some sort of meal—you can’t call it breakfast. There’s no cloth, only a table and a box of sugar on it, and a tray full of hot rolls and a big pot of coffee. We just go and help ourselves, and then Aunt Helene settles down and plays the hideousest and hardest things on the piano for two mortal hours, and I moon round the garden and lark with the fellow who cleans the boots, an awfully nice fellow. Then I hear her saying in her squeaky, proper little voice, ‘To me if you please the young Herr Alfred send, Elizabeth.’ And sometimes the young Herr Alfred hides so he can’t be sent, but sometimes he goes, she looks so lonely plugging along up the hill by herself. Well, we lug along for about an hour, and plug into churches and lug into ruins and plug along the river,—it’s called the Rhine. And then we plug back, and now we’ve come to an agreement that if I jabber going, she talks English coming back. So coming back I talk the most; only she doesn’t seem to like to hear about all of you, so I can’t think of much to say.“Then when you get in there’s another meal, about[260]ten—you can’t call this breakfast either, no porridge or eggs or anything decent, only fruit and little cakes and stupid things. Grandfather is up then, and we go out in an old rattle-your-bones for miles and see things. Then there’s mittagessen when you get back—that’s dinner. It’s not so bad ’cause you needn’t eat just what they do. They have raw ham and raw smoked fish stuffed with vegetables, raw herrings and salad. There’s soup and meat and proper things like we have, but in between the meat courses the slaveys hand round some mad thing like pancakes or ices. Sometimes they have pigeons or partridges, and then they hand round an ass of a dish of boiled apricots or plums, and the Germaners, not us, you bet, take some on their plate with the game, and put lettuce on that, and oil and sugar on that, and then fall to and eat it. We all have a salt-cellar each, but they don’t put spoons in them, you’re expected to help yourself with your knife. Do you remember dropping on to me for that, old mother?—I can see just where I was sitting at the table; Dolly was dreaming away over her meat and wouldn’t pass the salt, and I leaned across her to get some on my knife. It was haricot mutton for dinner, I remember, and there was Queen’s Pudding after, and Phyl served it and gave me the pyramid piece of icing, and Freddie got tears in his eyes because he wanted it. I hate them having things to eat here like we did at home; there was a big sago pudding the other day,[261]and it made me feel as funny as anything to look at it, you all seemed so far away.“Old mother, don’t you think if I get on fast and learn everything I could come back soon? I keep remembering what the Pater said, but it makes you feel pretty sick to think you’ve got to stop here for always. There’s a man coming here from to-morrow to give me lessons, and I’m not going to play any larks on him or anything. I’m just going to do Latin and any mortal thing he sticks on to me. I’ll know an awful lot in a year, old mother, if I work like that, and I’d soon get a good billet in Sydney, specially now I know German talk. Get him to let me come back, mother; what’s the good of tin to you when you don’t want to spend it?“Your affectionate son,“Alf.”Letters followed from week to week.“Jan. 19, Strasburg.“Dear Mother,“We came to this town for a few days; there’s rather a good clock here, it would interest you. Grandfather isn’t well. He’s rather a little man, and his nose is a bit like a hook, and he gets gout. I don’t like him much. He’s always asking you the past participle ofpouvoir, and saying just when you’re enjoying your pudding, and don’t want all[262]the table to look at you, ‘Dative plural of a sharp weapon?’“I think he gives Aunt Helene a pretty bad time; he’s always jumping on her, and sometimes he tells her she couldn’t get married because no one would have her with such a temper as she’s got. She never says anything back, I don’t believe she’s got a temper at all, and she’s jolly nice to him and looks after him like anything. I believe she’d like to get married to Vollmar—he’s the chap that’s started to teach me music; he wouldn’t have her of course, he’s as young and nice as anything, and he’s gone on young Clinch’s governess, they’re stopping near us in Wiesbaden. When he comes for my lessons she dresses herself up like anything and keeps coming in the room, and sometimes she drops books so that he has to pick them up, and once she pretended she was fainting, and he had to hold her up, and he looked as if he didn’t like it. Wish she would get married—that would be one lot of money less to wait here for.“I’m getting on like anything, mother. I heard Grandfather say yesterday, ‘And what do you think of your pupil’s capabilities, Herr Oppenheim?’ And old Opp Beir,—he’s a decent old boy—said, ‘Cababeelitays,—ach, ya, he brogress along with dem first glass.’ And I really am getting on, mother, I never grafted like this before. I asked Grandfather to let me learn shorthand, and he was quite pleased, and said it would[263]be very useful if he decided to let me have any active share in the firm. Was it mean of me, old mother? He lets me learn anything, and I couldn’t tell him I wanted to learn so that I could get a billet in Sydney. Don’t you think if I cram very hard all June I could come back? I wouldn’t be any expense to the Pater now; I know music and whips of things I usen’t to, and I could easily get something to do, and p’raps help to pay Freddie’s school bills. Dear old mother, do let me,—honour bright, I’ve tried like anything not to want to come back, but it’s pretty awful. If you see a girl go running down the street and her hair’s brown you can’t help thinking of Weenie. Sometimes just flowers make you feel sick; there’s some here in the garden, and they’re jonquils like those old Clif brought home for you that day, and I never go to that part of the garden.“Your loving oldAlf.”“Same old Veesbaden, March 30.“Darling old Mother, and all of you,“Grandfather’s better again, but Aunt Helene is pretty ill. She never goes walks now, but lies on the sofa nearly all the time. She likes me to talk to her and tell her about my lessons, especially my music. The doctor said to Grandfather last week she ought to go for a sea-voyage, and said, ‘Take a run to Australia.’ My scrimmy, I couldn’t help turning straight head over heels, and I made an awful row,[264]and Grandfather swore like anything. Then the doctor said if we came straight away now she’d escape the rest of the cold weather here, and I nearly turned over again. Oh, my scrimmy, think of seeing you all in a month or two! Grandfather growled like anything, he doesn’t seem to think any one but himself ought to be ill, and he said he was very comfortable where he was, and he wasn’t going to lay himself open to sea-sickness. And so I told him there was a fellow when we came out, and he used to put cotton-wool in his ears and wear smoked glasses, and pretend hard to himself for three days that he was right away up country, and he was never sick at all hardly. And Grandfather gave a roar at me and said, ‘Clear out.’ You never know where to take that chap. I laid for the doctor, he’s a very nice fellow, and I told him I thought Aunt ought to go the voyage at once; she hardly ate anything at dinner, and there was roast quales and things. And I told him I’d look after her like anything if Grandfather liked to stop behind. I went round with him in his buggy to all his places, and he talked and was as nice as anything; he said he’d like to see Phyl and Dolly writing in that room old Clif and Ted built; and I’d got that photo of Weenie up a tree in my pocket that old Ted took, and he said she looked like the little youthful maiden Hiney wrote about. Hiney’s a poet that lives somewhere out here, I think, you often hear people talking about him. Well, the[265]old brick said he’d try to persuade Grandfather to come, he said the voyage would do him good too. He’s a real Briton, that man, although he’s made in Germany. I’ll keep letting you know things as fast as I find them out.”
“With laughing mouth but tear-wet eye.”
“With laughing mouth but tear-wet eye.”
“With laughing mouth but tear-wet eye.”
“With laughing mouth but tear-wet eye.”
Therecame a day when Phyl and Dolly dashed in from the Post-office with scarlet faces. There had been among the letters one with a queer German stamp upon it, and, secure in a deserted road, they had raced each other home as if they had still been in short frocks.
The news spread round the house, and the family gathered rapidly together from orchard, garden, and verandahs, for this was the boy’s first letter since his feet had touched on German soil.
In the hall impish Davey lingered with wistful eyes to catch a word or two, and out in the kitchen Mary said, “Bless the little chap!” and looked affectionately at a patch of ink he had one time spilt on her spotless dresser.
[254]“Wiesbaden,“Jan. the something or other.“Hello the all of you” (the letter ran),“And how’s things out there? I expect you are all roasting. Well, I’m not, and that’s a fact. Cold! Why, if I put my nose outside this morning it would never come in again, the wind snaps so, and I’d have a beard of icicles and a snow moustache in five jiffys. Did you get my other letter? I posted two of them at places we stopped at, I forgot the blessed names,—oh! one of them was in the Sandwich Islands, I remember that, because a fellow stuffed me there were natural sandwiches there growing on the Bread-fruit Palms. I never get taken in now though; you can’t help it at first, everything’s so queer. Then I posted again—only I didn’t put a stamp on, at the place we left the ship,—I forget the name, but it’s in Italy. You got it, didn’t you? Old Ollendorf’s a rummy fellow;we went to a towncalled Rome (it’s in Italy too, not far from that other town), and he poked about all day among the smashed-up places. He gets tears in his eyes and blows his nose hard whenever he gets excited, and he gets excited over everything. Well, the more smashed-up a place was the more he’d cry. While we were in that town he was crying most of the time. I got tired of it, so I left him saying ‘Ach Gott’ and ‘Himmel’ and such things in front of a lot of dirty old pictures, and young Clinch and me went to a circus. Mein vord, it[255]wasa circus. They’d kick such a thing out of Australia, but anything does for these old Rome people.[Illustration]“We went to a town called Rome.”“Well, then, we went to another place, I forget the name—oh, Florence, I think. Didn’t think much of it, but it’s not quite so tumble-down as the what’s-it’s-name town. Oh, I didn’t tell you about the river at the other place. Old Olly had spouted about it, the Tiber it’s called, all the way in the train, and I really thought I was going to see something at last. Well, when we’d had something to eat, he carted me out on to a bridge to look at it. I give you my word I[256]thought he was having a lark with me. The dirtiest, miserablest bit of a river you ever saw. I didn’t want to catch typhoid, so I held my nose and turned round to see if he was holding his. But he wasn’t. He was blowing it hard and crying. Yes, by Shimminy. I told him he just ought to see our Hawkesbury.“Well, about Florence. It’s got a lot of buildings and things in it, and some of them look rather nice; they’re higher too than the buildings in Sydney. Clinch and me got sick of mooning about with Olly, and there was one of the waiters, a real good sort, going to a place five miles off to see some races, so you bet we went too. But the horses were as smashed-up as the buildings are—not a goer in the lot, so it wasn’t much fun. Australia could put them up to a thing or two on racing, my word.“I get awfully sick of only hearing this blessed German talked. We’ve settled down in this town now for three months, and even the slaveys here jabber it. Young Clinch is only eight, but I feel I can talk to him all day and all night just because he doesn’t jabber-jabber. I’m getting pretty smart at it myself though; you have to, or go hungry here, they’re such a blessed set of idiots. You don’t know how I wanted some bull’s-eyes one day, and do you think I could make any of the thick heads in three shops understand? They all kept telling me to go to the butcher’s. When I come back I’ll have to get three pounds of them straight off to make up.[257]“Aunt Helene’s awfully queer; she’s as old as anything you know, and yet she’s always doing lessons and things. I go for a walk with her every day, and she makes me do the jabber, and does it herself all the time, so sometimes I don’t talk much. Butshedoes,—all the questions and answers in the Conversation-book, and I know she goes into the shops and buys things just so she can ask for them in German.“Yesterday it was such a lark; we were mooning up and down the street and a horse backed on to the pavement, and she bolted into the first shop,—she’s the nervousest woman I ever saw,—bar those little donkeys Phyl and Dolly. Well, she likes to be dignified too, so when the shop-walker johnnie came up to her she pretended she’d just come in to buy something. Well, every time she speaks to any one, this is her regular jabber, only I’m saying it in English, the other stuff is too hard to spell. ‘Guten morgen’ (that means good-morning). ‘It is a cold wind. Winter draws near. It freezes. It has frozen last night.’ The shop-walker johnnie says, ‘Ja, es ist schönes wetter’ (that means, yes, it is very fine weather)—of course he doesn’t understand what she has been saying. Then he says, ‘Be seated, Frau’ (once she got her hair off and said, ‘Fraulein, gefalligst’).“Then she says, ‘Show me, if you please,—she’s got that part very pat,—das gloves, des ribbons, dem lace,’[258]or whatever she wants. Only this was a man’s shop, and there were only shirts and trousers or things about. Well, I thought I’d help her out of a hole; I knew she didn’t want anything at a shop like that, but I thought she wouldn’t like to go out without buying something after bolting in like she did. So I told her she’d better get me some trousers, I wanted some. Well, she got so red I thought she must have forgotten the word for them, so I pointed to some tweed stuff on the counter, and then pointed at my legs, and a man at a counter understood in a jiffy, and began to get some down. But Aunt turned round and walked out of the shop, and I had to follow, of course, and the shop-people must have thought we were cracked. What do you think it was? It wasn’t that she’d forgotten the word for trousers, but I know now she’d have rather died than have said it. ‘Never refer to such horrible things in a mixed assembly, Alfred,’ she said. I’m always treading on her corns, but how on earth was I to knowtrousersweren’t proper?“She’s as finicky as that over everything; after I’ve been in her room for an hour I just rush out on the hill and shout, and howl, and roll about, you get so bottled up. She’s not much to look at, her hair’s any colour, and her eyes are lightish blue, and she always looks as ill as anything. She’s not a bit like that likeness of mother. She’s always getting new dresses, really spiffing ones, all silk things with roses[259]and flowers worked all over them, and lace things and everything; jolly greedy of her never to have sent mother any.“This is what we do all day. Well, we’re not at a hotel now, Grandfather’s tired of them; this is a private sort of a house in the suburbs, only you pay them for keeping you. Well, every one gets up at six except Grandfather, and we have some sort of meal—you can’t call it breakfast. There’s no cloth, only a table and a box of sugar on it, and a tray full of hot rolls and a big pot of coffee. We just go and help ourselves, and then Aunt Helene settles down and plays the hideousest and hardest things on the piano for two mortal hours, and I moon round the garden and lark with the fellow who cleans the boots, an awfully nice fellow. Then I hear her saying in her squeaky, proper little voice, ‘To me if you please the young Herr Alfred send, Elizabeth.’ And sometimes the young Herr Alfred hides so he can’t be sent, but sometimes he goes, she looks so lonely plugging along up the hill by herself. Well, we lug along for about an hour, and plug into churches and lug into ruins and plug along the river,—it’s called the Rhine. And then we plug back, and now we’ve come to an agreement that if I jabber going, she talks English coming back. So coming back I talk the most; only she doesn’t seem to like to hear about all of you, so I can’t think of much to say.“Then when you get in there’s another meal, about[260]ten—you can’t call this breakfast either, no porridge or eggs or anything decent, only fruit and little cakes and stupid things. Grandfather is up then, and we go out in an old rattle-your-bones for miles and see things. Then there’s mittagessen when you get back—that’s dinner. It’s not so bad ’cause you needn’t eat just what they do. They have raw ham and raw smoked fish stuffed with vegetables, raw herrings and salad. There’s soup and meat and proper things like we have, but in between the meat courses the slaveys hand round some mad thing like pancakes or ices. Sometimes they have pigeons or partridges, and then they hand round an ass of a dish of boiled apricots or plums, and the Germaners, not us, you bet, take some on their plate with the game, and put lettuce on that, and oil and sugar on that, and then fall to and eat it. We all have a salt-cellar each, but they don’t put spoons in them, you’re expected to help yourself with your knife. Do you remember dropping on to me for that, old mother?—I can see just where I was sitting at the table; Dolly was dreaming away over her meat and wouldn’t pass the salt, and I leaned across her to get some on my knife. It was haricot mutton for dinner, I remember, and there was Queen’s Pudding after, and Phyl served it and gave me the pyramid piece of icing, and Freddie got tears in his eyes because he wanted it. I hate them having things to eat here like we did at home; there was a big sago pudding the other day,[261]and it made me feel as funny as anything to look at it, you all seemed so far away.“Old mother, don’t you think if I get on fast and learn everything I could come back soon? I keep remembering what the Pater said, but it makes you feel pretty sick to think you’ve got to stop here for always. There’s a man coming here from to-morrow to give me lessons, and I’m not going to play any larks on him or anything. I’m just going to do Latin and any mortal thing he sticks on to me. I’ll know an awful lot in a year, old mother, if I work like that, and I’d soon get a good billet in Sydney, specially now I know German talk. Get him to let me come back, mother; what’s the good of tin to you when you don’t want to spend it?“Your affectionate son,“Alf.”
[254]“Wiesbaden,“Jan. the something or other.
[254]“Wiesbaden,“Jan. the something or other.
“Hello the all of you” (the letter ran),
“And how’s things out there? I expect you are all roasting. Well, I’m not, and that’s a fact. Cold! Why, if I put my nose outside this morning it would never come in again, the wind snaps so, and I’d have a beard of icicles and a snow moustache in five jiffys. Did you get my other letter? I posted two of them at places we stopped at, I forgot the blessed names,—oh! one of them was in the Sandwich Islands, I remember that, because a fellow stuffed me there were natural sandwiches there growing on the Bread-fruit Palms. I never get taken in now though; you can’t help it at first, everything’s so queer. Then I posted again—only I didn’t put a stamp on, at the place we left the ship,—I forget the name, but it’s in Italy. You got it, didn’t you? Old Ollendorf’s a rummy fellow;we went to a towncalled Rome (it’s in Italy too, not far from that other town), and he poked about all day among the smashed-up places. He gets tears in his eyes and blows his nose hard whenever he gets excited, and he gets excited over everything. Well, the more smashed-up a place was the more he’d cry. While we were in that town he was crying most of the time. I got tired of it, so I left him saying ‘Ach Gott’ and ‘Himmel’ and such things in front of a lot of dirty old pictures, and young Clinch and me went to a circus. Mein vord, it[255]wasa circus. They’d kick such a thing out of Australia, but anything does for these old Rome people.
[Illustration]“We went to a town called Rome.”
“We went to a town called Rome.”
“Well, then, we went to another place, I forget the name—oh, Florence, I think. Didn’t think much of it, but it’s not quite so tumble-down as the what’s-it’s-name town. Oh, I didn’t tell you about the river at the other place. Old Olly had spouted about it, the Tiber it’s called, all the way in the train, and I really thought I was going to see something at last. Well, when we’d had something to eat, he carted me out on to a bridge to look at it. I give you my word I[256]thought he was having a lark with me. The dirtiest, miserablest bit of a river you ever saw. I didn’t want to catch typhoid, so I held my nose and turned round to see if he was holding his. But he wasn’t. He was blowing it hard and crying. Yes, by Shimminy. I told him he just ought to see our Hawkesbury.
“Well, about Florence. It’s got a lot of buildings and things in it, and some of them look rather nice; they’re higher too than the buildings in Sydney. Clinch and me got sick of mooning about with Olly, and there was one of the waiters, a real good sort, going to a place five miles off to see some races, so you bet we went too. But the horses were as smashed-up as the buildings are—not a goer in the lot, so it wasn’t much fun. Australia could put them up to a thing or two on racing, my word.
“I get awfully sick of only hearing this blessed German talked. We’ve settled down in this town now for three months, and even the slaveys here jabber it. Young Clinch is only eight, but I feel I can talk to him all day and all night just because he doesn’t jabber-jabber. I’m getting pretty smart at it myself though; you have to, or go hungry here, they’re such a blessed set of idiots. You don’t know how I wanted some bull’s-eyes one day, and do you think I could make any of the thick heads in three shops understand? They all kept telling me to go to the butcher’s. When I come back I’ll have to get three pounds of them straight off to make up.
[257]“Aunt Helene’s awfully queer; she’s as old as anything you know, and yet she’s always doing lessons and things. I go for a walk with her every day, and she makes me do the jabber, and does it herself all the time, so sometimes I don’t talk much. Butshedoes,—all the questions and answers in the Conversation-book, and I know she goes into the shops and buys things just so she can ask for them in German.
“Yesterday it was such a lark; we were mooning up and down the street and a horse backed on to the pavement, and she bolted into the first shop,—she’s the nervousest woman I ever saw,—bar those little donkeys Phyl and Dolly. Well, she likes to be dignified too, so when the shop-walker johnnie came up to her she pretended she’d just come in to buy something. Well, every time she speaks to any one, this is her regular jabber, only I’m saying it in English, the other stuff is too hard to spell. ‘Guten morgen’ (that means good-morning). ‘It is a cold wind. Winter draws near. It freezes. It has frozen last night.’ The shop-walker johnnie says, ‘Ja, es ist schönes wetter’ (that means, yes, it is very fine weather)—of course he doesn’t understand what she has been saying. Then he says, ‘Be seated, Frau’ (once she got her hair off and said, ‘Fraulein, gefalligst’).
“Then she says, ‘Show me, if you please,—she’s got that part very pat,—das gloves, des ribbons, dem lace,’[258]or whatever she wants. Only this was a man’s shop, and there were only shirts and trousers or things about. Well, I thought I’d help her out of a hole; I knew she didn’t want anything at a shop like that, but I thought she wouldn’t like to go out without buying something after bolting in like she did. So I told her she’d better get me some trousers, I wanted some. Well, she got so red I thought she must have forgotten the word for them, so I pointed to some tweed stuff on the counter, and then pointed at my legs, and a man at a counter understood in a jiffy, and began to get some down. But Aunt turned round and walked out of the shop, and I had to follow, of course, and the shop-people must have thought we were cracked. What do you think it was? It wasn’t that she’d forgotten the word for trousers, but I know now she’d have rather died than have said it. ‘Never refer to such horrible things in a mixed assembly, Alfred,’ she said. I’m always treading on her corns, but how on earth was I to knowtrousersweren’t proper?
“She’s as finicky as that over everything; after I’ve been in her room for an hour I just rush out on the hill and shout, and howl, and roll about, you get so bottled up. She’s not much to look at, her hair’s any colour, and her eyes are lightish blue, and she always looks as ill as anything. She’s not a bit like that likeness of mother. She’s always getting new dresses, really spiffing ones, all silk things with roses[259]and flowers worked all over them, and lace things and everything; jolly greedy of her never to have sent mother any.
“This is what we do all day. Well, we’re not at a hotel now, Grandfather’s tired of them; this is a private sort of a house in the suburbs, only you pay them for keeping you. Well, every one gets up at six except Grandfather, and we have some sort of meal—you can’t call it breakfast. There’s no cloth, only a table and a box of sugar on it, and a tray full of hot rolls and a big pot of coffee. We just go and help ourselves, and then Aunt Helene settles down and plays the hideousest and hardest things on the piano for two mortal hours, and I moon round the garden and lark with the fellow who cleans the boots, an awfully nice fellow. Then I hear her saying in her squeaky, proper little voice, ‘To me if you please the young Herr Alfred send, Elizabeth.’ And sometimes the young Herr Alfred hides so he can’t be sent, but sometimes he goes, she looks so lonely plugging along up the hill by herself. Well, we lug along for about an hour, and plug into churches and lug into ruins and plug along the river,—it’s called the Rhine. And then we plug back, and now we’ve come to an agreement that if I jabber going, she talks English coming back. So coming back I talk the most; only she doesn’t seem to like to hear about all of you, so I can’t think of much to say.
“Then when you get in there’s another meal, about[260]ten—you can’t call this breakfast either, no porridge or eggs or anything decent, only fruit and little cakes and stupid things. Grandfather is up then, and we go out in an old rattle-your-bones for miles and see things. Then there’s mittagessen when you get back—that’s dinner. It’s not so bad ’cause you needn’t eat just what they do. They have raw ham and raw smoked fish stuffed with vegetables, raw herrings and salad. There’s soup and meat and proper things like we have, but in between the meat courses the slaveys hand round some mad thing like pancakes or ices. Sometimes they have pigeons or partridges, and then they hand round an ass of a dish of boiled apricots or plums, and the Germaners, not us, you bet, take some on their plate with the game, and put lettuce on that, and oil and sugar on that, and then fall to and eat it. We all have a salt-cellar each, but they don’t put spoons in them, you’re expected to help yourself with your knife. Do you remember dropping on to me for that, old mother?—I can see just where I was sitting at the table; Dolly was dreaming away over her meat and wouldn’t pass the salt, and I leaned across her to get some on my knife. It was haricot mutton for dinner, I remember, and there was Queen’s Pudding after, and Phyl served it and gave me the pyramid piece of icing, and Freddie got tears in his eyes because he wanted it. I hate them having things to eat here like we did at home; there was a big sago pudding the other day,[261]and it made me feel as funny as anything to look at it, you all seemed so far away.
“Old mother, don’t you think if I get on fast and learn everything I could come back soon? I keep remembering what the Pater said, but it makes you feel pretty sick to think you’ve got to stop here for always. There’s a man coming here from to-morrow to give me lessons, and I’m not going to play any larks on him or anything. I’m just going to do Latin and any mortal thing he sticks on to me. I’ll know an awful lot in a year, old mother, if I work like that, and I’d soon get a good billet in Sydney, specially now I know German talk. Get him to let me come back, mother; what’s the good of tin to you when you don’t want to spend it?
“Your affectionate son,“Alf.”
“Your affectionate son,“Alf.”
“Your affectionate son,
“Alf.”
Letters followed from week to week.
“Jan. 19, Strasburg.“Dear Mother,“We came to this town for a few days; there’s rather a good clock here, it would interest you. Grandfather isn’t well. He’s rather a little man, and his nose is a bit like a hook, and he gets gout. I don’t like him much. He’s always asking you the past participle ofpouvoir, and saying just when you’re enjoying your pudding, and don’t want all[262]the table to look at you, ‘Dative plural of a sharp weapon?’“I think he gives Aunt Helene a pretty bad time; he’s always jumping on her, and sometimes he tells her she couldn’t get married because no one would have her with such a temper as she’s got. She never says anything back, I don’t believe she’s got a temper at all, and she’s jolly nice to him and looks after him like anything. I believe she’d like to get married to Vollmar—he’s the chap that’s started to teach me music; he wouldn’t have her of course, he’s as young and nice as anything, and he’s gone on young Clinch’s governess, they’re stopping near us in Wiesbaden. When he comes for my lessons she dresses herself up like anything and keeps coming in the room, and sometimes she drops books so that he has to pick them up, and once she pretended she was fainting, and he had to hold her up, and he looked as if he didn’t like it. Wish she would get married—that would be one lot of money less to wait here for.“I’m getting on like anything, mother. I heard Grandfather say yesterday, ‘And what do you think of your pupil’s capabilities, Herr Oppenheim?’ And old Opp Beir,—he’s a decent old boy—said, ‘Cababeelitays,—ach, ya, he brogress along with dem first glass.’ And I really am getting on, mother, I never grafted like this before. I asked Grandfather to let me learn shorthand, and he was quite pleased, and said it would[263]be very useful if he decided to let me have any active share in the firm. Was it mean of me, old mother? He lets me learn anything, and I couldn’t tell him I wanted to learn so that I could get a billet in Sydney. Don’t you think if I cram very hard all June I could come back? I wouldn’t be any expense to the Pater now; I know music and whips of things I usen’t to, and I could easily get something to do, and p’raps help to pay Freddie’s school bills. Dear old mother, do let me,—honour bright, I’ve tried like anything not to want to come back, but it’s pretty awful. If you see a girl go running down the street and her hair’s brown you can’t help thinking of Weenie. Sometimes just flowers make you feel sick; there’s some here in the garden, and they’re jonquils like those old Clif brought home for you that day, and I never go to that part of the garden.“Your loving oldAlf.”
“Jan. 19, Strasburg.
“Dear Mother,
“We came to this town for a few days; there’s rather a good clock here, it would interest you. Grandfather isn’t well. He’s rather a little man, and his nose is a bit like a hook, and he gets gout. I don’t like him much. He’s always asking you the past participle ofpouvoir, and saying just when you’re enjoying your pudding, and don’t want all[262]the table to look at you, ‘Dative plural of a sharp weapon?’
“I think he gives Aunt Helene a pretty bad time; he’s always jumping on her, and sometimes he tells her she couldn’t get married because no one would have her with such a temper as she’s got. She never says anything back, I don’t believe she’s got a temper at all, and she’s jolly nice to him and looks after him like anything. I believe she’d like to get married to Vollmar—he’s the chap that’s started to teach me music; he wouldn’t have her of course, he’s as young and nice as anything, and he’s gone on young Clinch’s governess, they’re stopping near us in Wiesbaden. When he comes for my lessons she dresses herself up like anything and keeps coming in the room, and sometimes she drops books so that he has to pick them up, and once she pretended she was fainting, and he had to hold her up, and he looked as if he didn’t like it. Wish she would get married—that would be one lot of money less to wait here for.
“I’m getting on like anything, mother. I heard Grandfather say yesterday, ‘And what do you think of your pupil’s capabilities, Herr Oppenheim?’ And old Opp Beir,—he’s a decent old boy—said, ‘Cababeelitays,—ach, ya, he brogress along with dem first glass.’ And I really am getting on, mother, I never grafted like this before. I asked Grandfather to let me learn shorthand, and he was quite pleased, and said it would[263]be very useful if he decided to let me have any active share in the firm. Was it mean of me, old mother? He lets me learn anything, and I couldn’t tell him I wanted to learn so that I could get a billet in Sydney. Don’t you think if I cram very hard all June I could come back? I wouldn’t be any expense to the Pater now; I know music and whips of things I usen’t to, and I could easily get something to do, and p’raps help to pay Freddie’s school bills. Dear old mother, do let me,—honour bright, I’ve tried like anything not to want to come back, but it’s pretty awful. If you see a girl go running down the street and her hair’s brown you can’t help thinking of Weenie. Sometimes just flowers make you feel sick; there’s some here in the garden, and they’re jonquils like those old Clif brought home for you that day, and I never go to that part of the garden.
“Your loving oldAlf.”
“Your loving oldAlf.”
“Same old Veesbaden, March 30.“Darling old Mother, and all of you,“Grandfather’s better again, but Aunt Helene is pretty ill. She never goes walks now, but lies on the sofa nearly all the time. She likes me to talk to her and tell her about my lessons, especially my music. The doctor said to Grandfather last week she ought to go for a sea-voyage, and said, ‘Take a run to Australia.’ My scrimmy, I couldn’t help turning straight head over heels, and I made an awful row,[264]and Grandfather swore like anything. Then the doctor said if we came straight away now she’d escape the rest of the cold weather here, and I nearly turned over again. Oh, my scrimmy, think of seeing you all in a month or two! Grandfather growled like anything, he doesn’t seem to think any one but himself ought to be ill, and he said he was very comfortable where he was, and he wasn’t going to lay himself open to sea-sickness. And so I told him there was a fellow when we came out, and he used to put cotton-wool in his ears and wear smoked glasses, and pretend hard to himself for three days that he was right away up country, and he was never sick at all hardly. And Grandfather gave a roar at me and said, ‘Clear out.’ You never know where to take that chap. I laid for the doctor, he’s a very nice fellow, and I told him I thought Aunt ought to go the voyage at once; she hardly ate anything at dinner, and there was roast quales and things. And I told him I’d look after her like anything if Grandfather liked to stop behind. I went round with him in his buggy to all his places, and he talked and was as nice as anything; he said he’d like to see Phyl and Dolly writing in that room old Clif and Ted built; and I’d got that photo of Weenie up a tree in my pocket that old Ted took, and he said she looked like the little youthful maiden Hiney wrote about. Hiney’s a poet that lives somewhere out here, I think, you often hear people talking about him. Well, the[265]old brick said he’d try to persuade Grandfather to come, he said the voyage would do him good too. He’s a real Briton, that man, although he’s made in Germany. I’ll keep letting you know things as fast as I find them out.”
“Same old Veesbaden, March 30.
“Darling old Mother, and all of you,
“Grandfather’s better again, but Aunt Helene is pretty ill. She never goes walks now, but lies on the sofa nearly all the time. She likes me to talk to her and tell her about my lessons, especially my music. The doctor said to Grandfather last week she ought to go for a sea-voyage, and said, ‘Take a run to Australia.’ My scrimmy, I couldn’t help turning straight head over heels, and I made an awful row,[264]and Grandfather swore like anything. Then the doctor said if we came straight away now she’d escape the rest of the cold weather here, and I nearly turned over again. Oh, my scrimmy, think of seeing you all in a month or two! Grandfather growled like anything, he doesn’t seem to think any one but himself ought to be ill, and he said he was very comfortable where he was, and he wasn’t going to lay himself open to sea-sickness. And so I told him there was a fellow when we came out, and he used to put cotton-wool in his ears and wear smoked glasses, and pretend hard to himself for three days that he was right away up country, and he was never sick at all hardly. And Grandfather gave a roar at me and said, ‘Clear out.’ You never know where to take that chap. I laid for the doctor, he’s a very nice fellow, and I told him I thought Aunt ought to go the voyage at once; she hardly ate anything at dinner, and there was roast quales and things. And I told him I’d look after her like anything if Grandfather liked to stop behind. I went round with him in his buggy to all his places, and he talked and was as nice as anything; he said he’d like to see Phyl and Dolly writing in that room old Clif and Ted built; and I’d got that photo of Weenie up a tree in my pocket that old Ted took, and he said she looked like the little youthful maiden Hiney wrote about. Hiney’s a poet that lives somewhere out here, I think, you often hear people talking about him. Well, the[265]old brick said he’d try to persuade Grandfather to come, he said the voyage would do him good too. He’s a real Briton, that man, although he’s made in Germany. I’ll keep letting you know things as fast as I find them out.”