The Wit and Humor of America Volume I Part 6

"Don't," I cried; "don't. This woman doesn't know what dining means.

Look out a chapter on feeding."

Let.i.tia was perfectly unruffled. She paid no attention to me whatsoever.

She was fascinated with the slovenly girl, who stood around and gaped at her Swedish.

"Gerda," said Let.i.tia, with her eyes on the book, "_Gif mir apven senap och nagra potater_." And then, as Miss Lyberg dived for the drowned potatoes, Let.i.tia exclaimed in an ecstasy of joy, "She understands, Archie, she understands. I feel I am going to be a great success. _Jag tackar_, Gerda. That means 'I thank you,' _Jag tackar_. See if you can say it, Archie. Just try, dear, to oblige me. _Jag tackar._ Now, that's a good boy, _jag tackar_."

"I won't," I declared spitefully. "No _jag tackar_ing for a parody like this, Let.i.tia. You don't seem to realize that I'm hungry. Honestly, I prefer a delicatessen dinner to this."

"'Pray, give me a piece of venison,'" read Let.i.tia, absolutely disregarding my mood. "'_Var G.o.d och gif mig ett stycke vildt._' It is almost intelligible, isn't it, dear? '_Ni ater icke_': you do not eat."

"I can't," I a.s.serted mournfully, anxious to gain Let.i.tia's sympathy.

It was not forthcoming. Let.i.tia's eyes were fastened on Gerda, and I could not help noting on the woman's face an expression of scorn. I felt certain of it. She appeared to regard my wife as a sort of irresponsible freak, and I was vexed to think that Let.i.tia should make such an exhibition of herself, and countenance the alleged meal that was set before us.

"'I have really dined very well,'" she continued joyously. "_Jag har verkligen at.i.t mycket bra._'"

"If you are quite sure that she doesn't understand English, Let.i.tia," I said viciously, "I'll say to you that this is a kind of joke I don't appreciate. I won't keep such a woman in the house. Let us put on our things and go out and have dinner. Better late than never."

Let.i.tia was turning over the pages of her book, quite lost to her surroundings. As I concluded my remarks she looked up and exclaimed, "How very funny, Archie. Just as you said 'Better late than never,' I came across that very phrase in the list of Swedish proverbs. It must be telepathy, dear. 'Better late than never,' '_Battre sent an aldrig_.'

What were you saying on the subject, dear? Will you repeat it? And do try it in Swedish. Say '_Battre sent an aldrig_.'"

"Let.i.tia," I shot forth in a fury, "I'm not in the humor for this sort of thing. I think this dinner and this woman are rotten. See if you can find the word rotten in Swedish."

"I am surprised at you," Let.i.tia declared glacially, roused from her book by my heroic though unparliamentary language. "Your expressions are neither English nor Swedish. Please don't use such gutter-words before a servant, to say nothing of your own wife."

"But she doesn't understand," I protested, glancing at Miss Lyberg. I could have sworn that I detected a gleam in the woman's eyes and that the sphinx-like att.i.tude of dull incomprehensibility suggested a strenuous effort. "She doesn't understand anything. She doesn't want to understand."

"In a week from now," said Let.i.tia, "she will understand everything perfectly, for I shall be able to talk with her. Oh, Archie, do be agreeable. Can't you see that I am having great fun? Don't be such a greedy boy. If you could only enter into the spirit of the thing, you wouldn't be so oppressed by the food question. Oh, dear! How important it does seem to be to men. Gerda, _hur gammal ar ni_?"

The maiden sullenly left the room, and I felt convinced that Let.i.tia had Swedishly asked her to do so. I was wrong. "_Hur gammal ar ni_," Let.i.tia explained, simply meant, "How old are you?"

"She evidently didn't want to tell me," was my wife's comment, as we went to the drawing-room. "I imagine, dear, that she doesn't quite like the idea of my ferreting out Swedish so persistently. But I intend to persevere. The worst of conversation books is that one acquires a language in such a parroty way. Now, in my book, the only answer to the question 'How old are you?' is, 'I was born on the tenth of August, 1852.' For the life of me, I couldn't vary that, and it would be most embarra.s.sing. It would make me fifty-two. If any one asked me in Swedish how old I was, I should _have_ to be fifty-two!"

"When I think of my five advertis.e.m.e.nts," I said lugubriously, as I threw myself into an arm-chair, fatigued at my efforts to discover dinner, "when I remember our expectation, and the pleasant antic.i.p.ations of to-day, I feel very bitter, Let.i.tia. Just to think that from it all nothing has resulted but that beastly mummy, that atrocious ossified thing."

"Archie, Archie!" said my wife warningly; "please be calm. Perhaps I was too engrossed with my studies to note the deficiencies of dinner. But do remember that I pleaded with her for a Swedish meal. The poor thing did what I asked her to do. Our dinner was evidently Swedish. It was not her fault that I asked for it. To-morrow, dear, it shall be different. We had better stick to the American regime. It is more satisfactory to you.

At any rate, we have somebody in the house, and if our five advertis.e.m.e.nts had brought forth five hundred applicants we should only have kept one. So don't torture yourself, Archie. Try and imagine that we _had_ five hundred applicants, and that we selected Gerda Lyberg."

"I can't, Let.i.tia," I said sulkily, and I heaved a heavy sigh.

"Come," she said soothingly, "come and study Swedish with me. It will be most useful for your _Lives of Great Men_. You can read up the Swedes in the original. I'll entertain you with this book, and you'll forget all about Mrs. Potz--I mean Gerda Lyberg. By-the-by, Archie, she doesn't remind me so much of Hedda Gabler. I don't fancy that she is very subtile."

"You, Let.i.tia," I retorted, "remind me of Mrs. Nickleby. You ramble on so."

Let.i.tia looked offended. She always declared that d.i.c.kens "got on her nerves." She was one of the new-fas.h.i.+oned readers who have learned to despise d.i.c.kens. Personally, I regretted only his nauseating sense of humor. Let.i.tia placed a cus.h.i.+on behind my head, smoothed my forehead, kissed me, made her peace, and settled down by my side. Lack of nourishment made me drowsy, and Let.i.tia's babblings sounded vague and m.u.f.fled.

"It is a most inclusive little book," she said, "and if I can succeed in memorizing it all I shall be quite at home with the language. In fact, dear, I think I shall always keep Swedish cooks. Hark at this: 'If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours.' '_Om vinden ar G.o.d, sa aro vi pa pyrtio timmar i Goteborg._' I think it is sweetly pretty. 'You are seasick.' 'Steward, bring me a gla.s.s of brandy and water.' 'We are now entering the harbor.' 'We are now anchoring.'

'Your pa.s.sports, gentlemen.'"

A comfortable lethargy was stealing o'er me. Let.i.tia took a pencil and paper, and made notes as she plied the book. "A chapter on 'seeing a town' is most interesting, Archie. Of course, it must be a Swedish town.

'Do you know the two private galleries of Mr. Smith, the merchant, and Mr. Muller, the chancellor?' 'To-morrow morning I wish to see all the public buildings and statues.' '_Statyerna_' is Swedish for statues, Archie. Are you listening, dear? 'We will visit the Church of the Holy Ghost, at two, then we will make an excursion on Lake Malan and see the fortress of Vaxholm.' It _is_ a charming little book. Don't you think that it is a great improvement on the old Ollendorff system? I don't find nonsensical sentences like 'The hat of my aunt's sister is blue, but the nose of my brother-in-law's sister-in-law is red.'"

I rose and stretched myself. Let.i.tia was still plunged in the irritating guide to Sweden, where I vowed I would never go. Nothing on earth should ever induce me to visit Sweden. If it came to a choice between Hoboken and Stockholm, I mentally determined to select the former. As I paced the room I heard a curious splas.h.i.+ng noise in the kitchen. Let.i.tia's studies must have dulled her ears. She was evidently too deeply engrossed.

I strolled nonchalantly into the hall, and proceeded deliberately toward the kitchen. The thick carpet deadened my footsteps. The splas.h.i.+ng noise grew louder. The kitchen door was closed. I gently opened it. As I did so a wild scream rent the air. There stood Gerda Lyberg in--in--my pen declines to write it--a simple unsophisticated birthday dress, taking an ingenuous reluctant bath in the "stationary tubs," with the plates, and dishes, and dinner things grouped artistically around her!

The instant she saw me she modestly seized a dish-towel and shouted at the top of her voice. The kitchen was filled with the steam from the hot water. 'Venus arising' looked nebulous, and mystic. I beat a hasty retreat, aghast at the revelation, and almost fell against Let.i.tia, who, dropping her conversation book, came to see what had happened.

"She's bathing!" I gasped, "in the kitchen--among the plates--near the soup--"

"Never!" cried Let.i.tia. Then, melodramatically: "Let me pa.s.s. Stand aside, Archie. I'll go and see. Perhaps--perhaps--you had better come with me."

"Let.i.tia," I gurgled, "I'm shocked! She has nothing on but a dish-towel."

Let.i.tia paused irresolutely for a second, and going into the kitchen shut the door. The splas.h.i.+ng noise ceased. I heard the sound of voices, or rather of a voice--Let.i.tia's! Evidently she had forgotten Swedish, and such remarks as "If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours." I listened attentively, and could not even hear her say "We will visit the Church of the Holy Ghost at two." It is strange how the stress of circ.u.mstances alters the complexion of a conversation book! All the evening she had studied Swedish, and yet suddenly confronted by a Swedish lady bathing in our kitchen, dish-toweled but unashamed, all she could find to say was "How disgusting!" and "How disgraceful!" in Englis.h.!.+

"You see," said Let.i.tia, when she emerged, "she is just a simple peasant girl, and only needs to be told. It is very horrid, of course."

"And unappetizing!" I chimed in.

"Of course--certainly unappetizing. I couldn't think of anything Swedish to say, but I said several things in English. She was dreadfully sorry that you had seen her, and never contemplated such a possibility. After all, Archie, bathing is not a crime."

"And we were hunting for a clean slate," I suggested satirically. "Do you think, Let.i.tia, that she also takes a cold bath in the morning, among the bacon and eggs, and things?"

"That is enough," said Let.i.tia sternly. "The episode need not serve as an excuse for indelicacy."

It was with the advent of Gerda Lyberg that we became absolutely certain, beyond the peradventure of any doubt, that there was such a thing as the servant question. The knowledge had been gradually wafted in upon us, but it was not until the lady from Stockholm had definitively planted herself in our midst that we admitted to ourselves openly, unblus.h.i.+ngly, that the problem existed. Gerda blazoned forth the enigma in all its force and defiance.

The remarkable thing about our latest acquisition was the singularly blank state of her gastronomic mind. There was nothing that she knew.

Most women, and a great many men, intuitively recognize the physical fact that water, at a certain temperature, boils. Miss Lyberg, apparently seeking to earn her living in the kitchen, had no certain views as to when the boiling point was reached. Rumors seemed vaguely to have reached her that things called eggs dropped into water would, in the course of time--any time, and generally less than a week--become eatable. Let.i.tia bought a little egg-boiler for her--one of those antique arrangements in which the sands of time play to the soft-boiled egg. The maiden promptly boiled it with the eggs, and undoubtedly thought that the hen, in a moment of perturbation, or aberration, had laid it. I say "thought" because it is the only term I can use. It is, perhaps, inappropriate in connection with Gerda.

Potatoes, subjected to the action of hot water, grow soft. She was certain of that. Whether she tested them with the poker, or with her hands or feet, we never knew. I inclined to the last suggestion. The situation was quite marvelous. Here was an alleged worker, in a particular field, asking the wages of skilled labor, and densely ignorant of every detail connected with her task. It seemed unique.

Carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, seamstresses, dressmakers, laundresses--all the sowers and reapers in the little garden of our daily needs, were forced by the inexorable law of compet.i.tion to possess some inkling of the significance of their undertakings. With the cook it was different. She could step jubilantly into any kitchen without the slightest idea of what she was expected to do there. If she knew that water was wet and that fire was hot, she felt amply primed to demand a salary.

Impelled by her craving for Swedish literature, Let.i.tia struggled with Miss Lyberg. Compared with the Swede, my exquisitely ignorant wife was a culinary queen. She was an epicurean caterer. Let.i.tia's slate-pencil coffee was ambrosia for the G.o.ds, sweetest nectar, by the side of the dishwater that cook prepared. I began to feel quite proud of her. She grew to be an adept in the art of boiling water. If we could have lived on that fluid, everything would have moved clockworkily.

"I've discovered one thing," said Let.i.tia on the evening of the third day. "The girl is just a peasant, probably a worker in the fields. That is why she is so ignorant."

I thought this reasoning foolish. "Even peasants eat, my dear," I muttered. "She must have seen somebody cook something. Field-workers have good appet.i.tes. If this woman ever ate, what did she eat and why can't we have the same? We have asked her for no luxuries. We have arrived at the stage, my poor girl, when all we need is, prosaically, to 'fill up.' You have given her opportunities to offer us samples of peasant food. The result has been _nil_."

"It _is_ odd," Let.i.tia declared, a wrinkle of perplexity appearing in the smooth surface of her forehead. "Of course, she says she doesn't understand me. And yet, Archie, I have talked to her in pure Swedish."

"I suppose you said, 'Pray give me a piece of venison,' from the conversation book."

"Don't be ridiculous, Archie. I know the Swedish for cauliflower, green peas, spinach, a leg of mutton, mustard, roast meat, soup, and--"

"'If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours,'"