Walter Pieterse Part 3

But Leentje was employed to patch breeches and such things. She received for this seven stivers a week, and every evening a slice of bread and b.u.t.ter.

Long after the Habakkuk period, Walter often thought of her humble "Good-evening, Juffrouw; good-evening, M'neer and the young Juffrouwen; good-evening, Walter," etc.

Yes, Walter's mother was called Juffrouw, on account of the shoe-business. For Juffrouw is the t.i.tle of women of the lower middle cla.s.ses, while plain working women are called simply Vrouw. Mevrouw is the t.i.tle of women of the better cla.s.ses. And so it is in the Netherlands till to-day: The social structure is a series of cla.s.ses, graduated in an ascending scale. Single ladies are also called Juffrouw, so that Juffrouw may mean either a young lady or a young matron--who need not necessarily be so young. The young Juffrouwen were Walter's sisters, who had learned how to dance. His brother had been called M'neer since his appointment as a.s.sistant at the "intermediate school," a sort of charity school now no longer in existence. His mother had spliced his jacket that he might command the respect of the boys, and remarked that the name "Stoffel" scarcely suited him now. This explains why Leentje addressed him as M'neer. To Walter she simply said Walter, for he was only a small boy. Walter owed her three stivers, or, to be exact, twenty-six doits, which he never did pay her. For, years afterward, when he wanted to return the money to her, there were no more doits; and, besides, Leentje was dead.

This pained him very much, for he had thought a great deal of her. She was ugly, even dirty, and was stoop-shouldered, too. Stoffel, the schoolmaster, said that she had an evil tongue: She was thought to have started the report that he had once eaten strawberries with sugar in the "Netherlands." This was a small garden-restaurant.

I am willing to admit the truth of all this; but what more could one expect for seven stivers and a slice of bread and b.u.t.ter? I have known d.u.c.h.esses who had larger incomes; and still in social intercourse they were not agreeable.

Leentje was stooped as a result of continuous sewing. Her needle kept the whole family clothed; and she knew how to make two jackets and a cap out of an old coat and still have enough pieces left for the gaiters that Stoffel needed for his final examination. He fell through on account of a mistake in Euclid.

With the exception of Walter n.o.body was satisfied with Leentje. I believe they were afraid of spoiling her by too much kindness. Walter's sisters were always talking about "cla.s.s" and "rank," saying that "everyone must stay in his place." This was for Leentje. Her father had been a cobbler who soled shoes, while the father of the young Juffrouwen had had a store in which "shoes from Paris" were sold. A big difference. For it is much grander to sell something that somebody else has made than to make something one's self.

The mother thought that Leentje might be a little cleaner. But I am going to speak of the price again, and of the difficulty of was.h.i.+ng when one has no time, no soap, no room, and no water. At that time waterpipes had not been laid, and, if they had been, it's a question if the water had ever got as far as Leentje.

So, everyone but Walter had a spite against Leentje. He liked her, and was more intimate with her than with anyone else in the house, perhaps because the others could not endure him, and there was nothing left for him to do but to seek consolation from her. For every feeling finds expression, and nothing is lost, either in the moral or in the material world. I could say more about this, but I prefer to drop the subject now, for the organ-grinder under my window is driving me crazy.

Walter's mother called him, "That boy." His brothers--there were more beside Stoffel--affirmed that he was treacherous and morose, because he spoke little and didn't care for "marbles." When he did say anything, they attributed to him a relations.h.i.+p with King Solomon's cat. His sisters declared he was a little devil. But Walter stood well with Leentje. She consoled him, and considered it disgraceful that the family didn't make more out of such a boy as Walter. She had seen that he was not a child like ordinary children. And I should scarcely take the trouble to write his story if he had been.

Up to a short time after his trip to Hartenstraat, Ash Gate and the old bridge, Leentje was Walter's sole confidant. To her he read the verses that slender Cecilia had disdained. To her he poured out his grief over the injustice of his teacher Pennewip, who gave him only "Fair," while to that red-headed Keesje he gave "Very good"

underscored--Keesje who couldn't work an example by himself and always "stuck" in "Holland Counts."

"Poor boy," said Leentje, "you're right about it." They went over into the Bavarian house. It's a disgrace! And to save a doit on the pound.

She claimed that Keesje's father, who was a butcher, let Pennewip have meat at a reduced price, and that this was what was the matter with all those Holland counts and their several houses.

Later Walter looked upon this as a "white lie," for Pennewip, when examined closely, didn't look like a man who would carry on a crooked business with beefsteak. But in those days he accepted gladly this frivolous suspicion against the man's honor as a plaster for his own, which had been hurt by the favoritism towards Keesje. Whenever our honor is touched, or what we regard as our honor, then we think little of the honor of others.

When his brothers jeered at him and called him "Professor Walter,"

or when his sisters scolded him for his "idiotic groping among the bed-curtains," or when his mother punished him for eating up the rice that she intended to serve again "to-morrow"--then it was always Leentje who restored the equilibrium of his soul and banished his cares, just as, with her inimitable st.i.tches, she banished the "triangles" from his jacket and breeches.

Ugly, dirty, evil-tongued Leentje, how Walter did like you! What consolation radiated from her thimble, what encouragement even in the sight of her tapeline! And what a lullaby in those gentle words: "There now, you have a needle and thread and sc.r.a.ps. Sew your little sack for your pencils and tell me more of all those counts, who always pa.s.sed over from one house into another."

CHAPTER IV

I don't know what prophet Walter got as punishment for that p.a.w.ned Bible. The pastor came to preach a special sermon. The man was simply horrified at such impiousness. Juffrouw Laps, who lived in the lower anteroom, had heard about it too. She was very pious and a.s.serted that such a boy was destined for the gallows.

"One begins with the Bible," she said significantly, "and ends with something else."

No one has ever found out just what that "something else" is which follows a beginning with the Bible. I don't think she knew herself, and that she said it to make people believe that she possessed much wisdom and knew more about the world than she gave utterance to. Now, I admit that I have no respect for wisdom that cannot express itself in intelligible words, and, if it had been my affair, I should have very promptly drawn a tight rein on Juffrouw Laps.

Stoffel delivered an exhortation in which he brought out all that had been forgotten by the preacher. He spoke of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, who had erred similarly to Walter and had been sent to an early grave for their sins. He said too, that the honor of the family had been lost at the "Ouwebrug," that it was his duty, "as the eldest son of an irreproachable widow and third a.s.sistant at the intermediate school, to take care of the honor of the house----"

"Of Bavaria," said Leentje softly.

That "a marriage, or any other arrangement for the girls, would be frustrated by Walter's offence, for no one would have anything to do with girls who----"

In short, Stoffel accented the fact that it was "a disgrace," and that "he would never be able to look anyone in the face who knew of this crime." He remarked distinctly that the schoolboys must know of it, for Louis Hopper had already stuck out his tongue at him!

And finally, that he "shuddered to cross the new market-place"--in those days criminals were scourged, branded and hanged here--because it reminded him so disagreeably of Juffrouw Laps's horrible allusion to Walter's fate.

Then followed all sorts of things about Korahs, Dathans and Abirams, whereupon the whole family broke out in a wail. For it was so pathetic.

Walter comforted himself with thoughts of Glorioso, and, whenever that "something else" of Juffrouw Laps was spoken of, he just dreamed of his marriage with beautiful Amalia, whose train was carried by six pages. I fancy Juffrouw Laps would have made a pretty face if she had learned of this interpretation of her mysterious climax.

All efforts to compel our hero to tell how he had spent that money were in vain. After all known means had been applied, the attempt to force a confession had to be abandoned. Water and bread, water without bread, bread without water, no water and no bread, the preacher, Stoffel, Habakkuk, Juffrouw Laps, tears, the rod--all in vain. Walter was not the boy to betray Glorioso. This was what he had found so shabby of Scelerajoso, who had to pay the penalty, as we have seen.

As soon as he got the privilege of walking again with the Hallemans, who were so eminently respectable, he hurried away to the old bridge, near Ash Gate, to continue his thrilling book. He read up to that fatal moment when he had to tell his hero good-bye, and on the last page saw Glorioso, as a major-general, peacefully expire in the arms of the virtuous Alvira.

When Walter had returned the book to Hartenstraat his eye was attracted by some almond-cakes at the confectioner's on the corner. He did with Glorioso just as the Athenians did with Kodrus: No one was worthy to be the successor of such a hero, and within a few days the residue of the New Testament had been converted into stomach-destroying pastry.

I ought to add that a part of the "balance" left after that Italian excursion--perhaps the part contributed by the Psalms--was invested in a triple-toned, ear-splitting, soul-searing harmonica, which was finally confiscated by Master Pennewip as being a disturbing element in the schoolroom.

CHAPTER V

I don't feel called upon to pa.s.s judgment on the strife between Leentje and Pennewip regarding the latter's partiality towards Keesje, the butcher's son. But that fiery feeling for right and justice which has harra.s.sed me from my earliest youth--ah, for years have I waited in vain for justice--and the foolish pa.s.sion for hunting after mitigating circ.u.mstances, even when the misdeed has been proved--all this compels me to say that Pennewip's lot might be considered a mitigating circ.u.mstance for a man convicted of the eight deadly sins.

I have found that many great men began their careers as feeders of hogs (see biographical encyclopedias); and it seems to me that this occupation develops those qualities necessary in ruling or advancing mankind.

If the theologists should happen to criticise this story, and perhaps accuse me of far-reaching ignorance, because I enumerate one cardinal sin more than they knew of, or of the crime of cla.s.sifying man as a sort of hog, I reply that, still another new canonical sin could be discovered that they have never studied. And that ought to be as pleasing to them as influenza is to the apothecary.

New problems, gentlemen, new problems!

And as for our relations.h.i.+p with pigs, just consider the relation of coal to diamond, and I think everyone will be satisfied--even the theologists.

What a magnificent prospect anyone has who spends his tender youth with those grunting coal-diamonds of the animal world! But I have often wondered that in the "Lives of Famous Men" we so seldom read of a school-teacher, for in the school all the ingredients of greatness are abounding.

The reverse is more often true. Every day we see banished princes teaching lazy boys. Dionysius and Louis Philippe are not the only ones. I myself once tried to teach an American French. It was no go.

If it should ever become customary again to elect kings, I hope the people will elect such persons as have studied men, just as one studies Geography on globes or maps. All virtues, propensities, pa.s.sions, mistakes, misdeeds, knowledge of which is so indispensable in human society, can be studied much better in the schoolroom. The field is restricted, and can be taken in more readily. The famous statecraft of many a great man, if the truth were known, had its origin in that old tripping trick, which is everything to the three-foot Machiavellis.

The task of a schoolmaster is not an easy one. I have never understood why he is not better paid, or, since this must be so, why there are still men who prefer to teach, when on the same pay they might be corporals in the army, and teach the use of firearms, which offers fewer headaches and more fresh air.

I would even rather be a preacher; for he does work with people who are interested and come to hear him of their own free will. The teacher has to fight continually with indifference, and with the extremely dangerous rivalry of tops, marbles, and paper-dolls--not to speak of candy, scarlatina and weak mothers.

Pennewip was a man of the old school. At least he would seem so to us if we could see him in his gray school jacket and short trousers with buckles, and his brown wig, which he was continually pus.h.i.+ng into place. At the first of the week this was always curly, when it was not raining--rain isn't good for curls; and on Sundays "the man with the curling irons" came.

Antiquated? But perhaps this is only imagination. Who knows? perhaps in his day he was quite modern. How soon people will say the same of us! At all events, the man called himself "Master" and his school was a school and not an "Inst.i.tute." It is no advance to call things by other than their right names. In his school boys and girls sat together indiscriminately, according to the nave custom of those days. They learned, or might learn, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, National History, Psalmody, Sewing, Knitting, and Religion. These were the order of the day, but if anyone distinguished himself by a show of talent, diligence or good behavior, that one received special instruction in versification, an art in which Pennewip took great pleasure.

Thus he taught the boys till they were sufficiently advanced to be confirmed. With the help of his wife he gave the girls a "finis.h.i.+ng course." They were graduated with a paternoster done in red on a black background, or perhaps a pierced heart between two flower-pots. Then they were through and ready to become the grandmothers of their own generation.