Chapter XV
The moon paused on the sky, as if she were weary of her lonely lot. Was she grieved because ungrateful humanity had fallen asleep and was ignoring her?—or because of the light borrowed from her for thousands of years, and none returned? She poured forth her sorrow in heart-breaking noiseless elegies till the night-wind was moved to pity. Whish! he went through the trees; and the leaves danced. Crash! he went over the roof; and the tiles flew away, and chimneys bowed meekly; and over the walls and ditches the sawmills danced with the logs they were to saw. There a girl sat sleeping. Could it be Femke? The linen danced about her to the music of the wind, the shirts making graceful bows and extending their sleeves. Nightcaps, dickeys and drawers danced the minuet; stockings, skirts, collars, handkerchiefs waltzed thicker and thicker around the sleeping girl. Her curls began to flutter—a smile, a sigh, and she sprang to her feet. A whirlwind caught her up and——
“O, heavens, Femke, Femke!” and Walter grasped at the apparition that was being borne away towards the moon in a cloud of stockings, socks, drawers, shirts and collars.
“Mother! Walter’s pinching me,” cried Laurens, the printer’s apprentice; and Juffrouw Pieterse groaned, that those boys couldn’t even keep quiet at night.
The “House of Pieterse” gathered at Walter’s bed. There was the noble mother of the family enveloped in a venerable jacket that fell in broad folds over a black woolen skirt. There was Trudie, with her stupid blue eyes; and Myntje and Pietje—but what am I talking about? In the new home Trudie had become Gertrude, like a morganatic princess in Hessia; and Myntje was now Mina, but preferred to be called Mine, as that sounded more Frenchy. But her stupid face remained unchanged. Pietje was now Pietro. Stoffel had said that was a very swell name.
Stoffel, too, had now appeared on the scene, to the great astonishment of his mother, who expected so much of him. This fine sense of propriety had been developed in the new home.
“What’s the matter with you, boy?” cried everybody at once.
“Oh, mother, Femke—Femke!”
“The boy is foolish.” That was the unanimous verdict of the family.
And they were not altogether wrong. Walter was delirious.
“They are carrying her away—around and around—Daughter of the Sun, decide—here is Telasco—thou shalt die, Aztalpa—Femke, stay, stay, I will watch the clothes—I will shoot the doe—a widower of God—together through the ivory gate—there she is again—stay, Omicron!”
“Ought we to call in a preacher?” asked Juffrouw Pieterse hesitatingly. She didn’t know whether praying was needed or a whipping—or both.
And now, perhaps for the first time in his life, Stoffel expressed a sensible thought: “Mother, we ought to have a doctor. Walter is sick.”
Walter had nervous fever. It was fortunate for him that a doctor was called in, and still more fortunate that it was a man who understood Walter’s mental troubles. He exerted a most wholesome influence on the boy; though this came later, as at first he could only treat the disease.
On Juffrouw Pieterse, too, he had a good influence. To her great astonishment, he explained to her that children ought not to be packed together in a bed as if they were superfluous pieces of furniture being thrown aside; that air, light, play, enjoyment, exercise are all necessary for the development of body and soul; that whipping does no good, and that she had better dispense with her “divine worship.” He told her of other things she had never heard of; and she listened willingly, for the doctor——
“Ah, dear Juffrouw Laps, you must manage to be here when he comes. He writes the prescriptions with a gold pen; and his coachman wears a brown bear-skin cape.”
That gold pen and the bear-skin cape! Ah, if everyone who preaches truth could only dress up his coachman so swell! But alas, alas—I know a great many people who love the truth, and they have no coachman at all—not to mention the bear-skin.
And gold pens often get into the wrong hands.
“I just wanted Juffrouw Zipperman to come sometime when the doctor’s here. Run and tell her, Gertrude, that I said Walter was sick, and say that we have lunch about twelve. He came about that time yesterday. And Leentje, you go to the grocer’s—we need salt—have something to say about it—it’s not just to be gossiping, you know—I despise gossip—but I would like to know if the people have noticed it. And you, Pietro, remember that you are to give me a clean cap when he comes—for the doctor is such an elegant gentleman, and such a doctor! And all that he said—I drank it all in. Mina, you mustn’t stare at him again like that; it’s not proper. But I’m curious to know if the people at the grocer’s have seen him!”
I shouldn’t like to be severe on her; but it seems to me that Juffrouw Pieterse was gradually beginning to take pleasure in Walter’s illness.
There is something swell in having such a carriage standing before one’s door.
Juffrouw Laps had come: “But dear Juffrouw Pieterse, what am I to do about my uncle? You are invited; and I have told him that there will be a poem.”
“Very bad, Juffrouw Laps. You can see though that that poor worm can’t write the poem. What about Stoffel? Why not ask him to write it?”
“It’s all right with me. Just so it’s a poem; otherwise I’m disgraced.”
Stoffel was requested to take Walter’s place, but he raised objections at once.
“You don’t know what that would mean, mother. I would lose the respect of the boys. For anyone working with youth, respect is the main thing; and such a poem——”
“But the boys at school need not know it.”
“But the man would tell somebody and then—you don’t understand it. At the Diaconate school there was a fellow who wrote verses; and what has become of him? He went to India, mother, and he still owes me for half a bottle of ink. That’s the way it goes, mother. For me to write such a poem? No, no, mother—for a boy like Walter it’s all right; but when one is already a teacher!”
“And Master Pennewip?” cried Juffrouw Laps.
“The very man!” cried Stoffel, as if this supported his former argument. “A happy thought! Master Pennewip will do it.”
“I’ve read a poem by him, Stoffel.”
“Yes, yes. And you’ve read a poem by him. That’s because—but how shall I explain that to you, Juffrouw Laps? You know that in teaching there are all kinds of things. Take Geography, for example. I will just mention one fact: Madrid is on the Manganares. Understand, mother?”
“Yes, yes, Stoffel. That’s just as if you were to say——”
“Amsterdam on the Y. Exactly so. And then there are many, many more things, Juffrouw Laps. You have no idea how much there is of it. A grocer mixes sugar with something else. He must calculate exactly what he must get for a pound in order not to lose money. Think of it! And then you have partnership, and breakage, and the verbs—but I must go before those rascals break everything.”
Stoffel returned to school earlier than usual, without having diminished Juffrouw Laps’s difficulties very much. That poor woman could not comprehend how geography and Madrid and the grocer and partnerships made it impossible for Stoffel to write verses. Juffrouw Pieterse smoothed the matter over as well as she could and sent Juffrouw Laps to Master Pennewip.
That gentleman was alarmed when he saw the angry “sucking animal,” but he quieted down as soon as he heard the object of her visit.
“To what class does your uncle belong, Juffrouw?”
“Why, to the class—you mean the mussel-shells and eggs?”
“No, no, Juffrouw, I mean on which rung of the ladder is he—how high up. I repeat it, on what rung—it’s a figure, Juffrouw—on what rung of the social ladder?”
“In the grain business? Is that what you mean?”
“That is not sufficient, Juffrouw Laps. One may be in the grain business as a pastry cook, a baker, a retailer, a wholesaler, or as a broker; and all these vocations have their peculiar sub-divisions. Take Joseph in Egypt, for example. This man of God, whom some place in the class of patriarchs, while others claim—but let that be as it may. It is certain that Joseph bought corn and was on the topmost rung of the ladder, for we read in Genesis, chapter 41——”
“Yes, indeed, he rode in Pharaoh’s carriage, and he wore a white silk coat. My uncle is an agent, and my father was the same.”
“So-o-oo? Agent! That’s something Moses doesn’t mention, and I don’t know in what class——” He spoke slowly, puzzling over his words.
“Besides, my uncle is a widower.”
“Ah, there we have the difference! We read that Joseph wooed Asnath, the daughter of Potiphar; but nowhere do we read that his spouse was already dead when he went into the corn business. Therefore, Juffrouw Laps, if it is your earnest desire to have a pious poem written on your uncle, I advise you to go to my pupil, Klaasje van der Gracht.”
He explained to her where that prodigy might be found.
Again I must beg pardon if my criticism of Pennewip is too severe; but he gave me reasons enough to harbor ugly suspicions against him. I am convinced that he would have written that poem for Juffrouw Laps if her uncle had received a white silk coat from the king, or had ever driven through The Hague in a royal carriage. But to sing an agent in verse! He would leave that to the genius of “the flying tea-kettle” in the Peperstraat. That was not nice of Pennewip. Was that uncle to blame because his brothers never threw him into a well? or sold him into Egypt? Or because he couldn’t interpret dreams? Or because cleverness is not rewarded to-day with rings, white coats, carriages and high official position?
Juffrouw Laps footed it over to the Peperstraat, where she made the acquaintance of the elder van der Gracht. The old gentleman felt flattered.
He was most gracious, and assured the Juffrouw that the poem should be written that very evening. Klaasje could bring it over the next morning and repeat it to Juffrouw Laps, and if it were found worthy as an expression of her feelings toward her uncle, then Klaasje was to be invited to be present on that evening. The father assured her that Klaasje would wear a white stand-up collar.
“Just like Joseph,” said the Juffrouw. “Everything is in the Bible.”
When she got home she read the forty-first chapter of Genesis, trying to find the relation of Klaasje’s apotheosis to Joseph’s exaltation. That night she dreamed she had a mantle in her hand.