By the fierceness of her contempt for the opinion of another, one could easily measure her utter inexperience, but she finally closed her address by haughtily informing me that she was not to be deceived by “bindings”—that all poetry was sacred to her, whether she found it in the polished, metrical form of verse, or simply expressing itself in human action—but in these days there was no poetry—conscious or unconscious—for—she got no further; my fingers were on her wrist in that unintentionally savage clutch that never fails to secure immediate attention and later remembrance—and I was whispering: “Look! Look well! at the old man approaching!”
I’m sure, though, she needed no such reminder—no one could help looking at him—and, at first glance, only his snowy hair kept the laugh from one’s lips. A well-grown boy of twelve would have been “mad as a hopper” if he had not stood, at least, even in height with this old, old man. His gait was half-trot, half-shuffling walk, and his speed remarkable—but little as he was, he leant forward in a peculiar way. His nationality, after fifty-five unbroken years in America, was stamped so clearly on face and figure that his tongue’s thick, disobedient English was not needed to proclaim him an ancient Dutchman. His garments would have wrung laughter from a telegraph pole—the saddest thing on earth. That his wife made his trousers there could be no doubt, for if you looked at them only, you could never tell which way the man was going to walk. Then, short as his little legs were, his trouser-legs were still shorter, while he could have stowed away quite a nice, little outfit in that portion of them known as the “slack.” This breadth of beam and shortness of keel gave to the public gaze a generous margin of clean, white stocking. His collar, which was an integral part of his shirt—and not, to use his own words, “a flimsy-flamsy yump-a-bout-ting what wont stay hitched!”—was of immaculate whiteness, but utterly innocent of starch, and on his venerable head he wore an antique, “panama” hat. A Dutch friend, who cultivated coffee, had picked this “panama” in Java, when it was green—so to speak—and sent it here, and the older citizens had, for twenty-odd years, watched its slow ripening under the American sun—and in its wearer’s eyes it had just reached its prime. Before the quaint, little body reached us, I whispered: “It is not poverty that makes him dress like that—he owns the big ‘Buckeye Block,’ besides his dwelling-house up town,” and I saw her eye renew its slackening hold on him, so great is our unconscious deference to money that already he seemed less grotesque to her, because she saw him through the softening, yellow light his gold cast upon him—and then he dragged off his well-ripened “panama,” and stopped to tell me “youst how glad vas he to see me!”
For he had entered this country j-less, and j-less he remained, using y in place of j with such smiling confidence that it was “all right” that no one had the heart to sternly put him in the wrong by correcting him. My wise, young friend smiled quite brightly upon him, and when he had passed, demanded of me all I knew about him, “because he was such a dear—and so individual—you know!”
I assured her there was nothing to tell—that he was simply an ignorant but honest man, who by the hardest work and almost incredible economy had risen to wealth, and she surprised me by replying “that there was more than that in his face, even for her, a stranger, to see—and what was the secret of the almost child-like gentleness of his clear, blue eyes?”
Whereupon, we lunched in a quiet corner of a quiet room and over many—too many—cups of coffee, I told her that his name was Knights—Jacobus Knights—and I had made his acquaintance while I was still so young that the salient features of my own personality were the length of my braids and the whiteness of my aprons. He used to rear vegetables and then sell them from a cart, which he pushed when it was full and dragged when it was empty. Being sent after him one day by a lady, I called out lustily: “Boy—boy—you boy! Stop—stop—I say!” thus making the mistake that many an older and wiser person made daily, and one that was greatly facilitated by the tailless jacket and flat cap the little man wore. Really, it savored of the uncanny to thus address a question to the back of childhood and receive your answer from the unshaven lip of maturity. He seemed to be quite used to the error, and only laughed and said: “Dat is noddings—youst noddings at all! Whad I make mit you—onion—squash—eh, whad now?”
Two years later I came to live on S—— street, and right opposite, little Mr. Knights had his little play-house of a home, his doll of a blond baby, and his tremendous wife. No, her size was not the result of comparison, she was really a tremendously big woman, from whose deep chest and strong, column-like throat there issued the thin, little voice of a complaining, “cheeping” chick too weak to break its imprisoning shell. She was a spring of pure Dutch undefiled. Not one English sentence could she command, but she was a friendly creature, and hobnobbed deprecatingly but successfully with her neighbors through the medium of a ponderous but expressive and ever-smiling pantomime.
Never were such workers known before. I doubt if they could have recognized their own breakfast had they met it, by daylight. Certainly they had, for at least forty years, taken that meal by artificial light—candle or oil, whichever was the cheaper. Any morning between half-past four and five o’clock the neighbors could see, through the dim light, a pretty little incident. The cart, heavily laden, stood outside the gate; the small pedler with the boy-body and the man-face, with a broad, leather band or collar across his neck, hooked its ends to the shafts of the cart, thus placing on his shoulders part of the heavy weight and at the same time causing the curious forward bend of body that disfigured his walk to-day. When he was quite ready for his start, the door opened and the big woman appeared, holding in her brown arms a little, night-gowned figure, its bare, pink feet curled up in her one broad hand—baby dreams still lingering mistily in the sleepy, blue eyes, and while one wee hand pushed back impatiently the blond tangle of curls, the other one tossed uncounted kisses to the father dimly seen, while a sweet, bird-like voice cried: “Bye-bye, Papa! Bye-bye! Ick lief dy! Bye-bye!”
For this little one had the gift of tongues, and from babyhood Dutch and English were simply convertible terms with her—and the adoring father, with cap off, stood and smiled, and smiled, and waved his earth-stained, stumpy hand, and blessed her with all the tender Dutch blessings that he knew, and then put on his cap—took up his load and started on the way that would have been so hard, so ugly, but for those baby kisses that bloomed like flowers on his path and sweetened all his day. When he had gone quite out of sight the little Rosie was returned to the great, Dutch bed to complete her sleep, and in a few moments the mother was crouching between the rows of vegetables, looking like a monster toad, and was weeding—weeding—weeding, until with almost breaking back she began to carry water and sprinkle—sprinkle—sprinkle, and after that the household tasks of other women began—washing—scrubbing—ironing—baking, yet always and ever with it all, there were little, white garments for Rosie, and time to put them on, and when the child outgrew the vegetable basket she had passed a great part of her life in, playing with a few marigolds or a hollyhock flower—she could not have salable ones like mignonette or pinks—the mother feared many things—for, as “Little Knights” (that was what the neighbors called him), explained in slow, back-end-first sentences, the vegetable basket arrangement had been very satisfactory to both parties, and his wife could plant or hoe or weed without anxiety, having simply to put out her hand now and then and pull the basket after her. But now that was all past, and his wife was “full up mit dem fears,” and when questioned as to the nature of the fears that were filling her up, his blue eyes seemed both surprised and reproachful that they could not see for themselves the possible dangers in small Rosie’s path. “In place of first,” he explained, “der was de cleanness—she mighd get dirty de garden in! Den,” his eyes grew round at that, “der vas de red-peppers—she might touch dem and aftervards rup her sveet eyes!” but when at the end of a long list of possibilities, he cried out: “Unt dem pees—dem honey pees—what pite mit dere tails—suppose dey make mit dere stingers on her? Ach Gott! Ach Gott!” and, caught in a linguistic tangle, he fell into deep Dutch, from which he emerged breathless and excited. Now that is a condition no Dutchman will endure, so without apology, he trotted off home to soothe himself with the one smoke he allowed himself each day, and then to—rest? Oh, no, there was much work done in that small house by night as well as by day—and mind, there are old neighbors still to support this statement—they used actually to work in the garden by moonlight—not habitually, but often enough, Heaven knows! And what was the object of all this ceaseless labor—of their astonishing economies?
Before the coming of their baby girl, they had been little more than two patient, dumb beasts of burden. Born and bred to work—they worked—but dully—without hope or special object—but when God had sent into their lives that laughing, pretty thing, and formed her delicately that she might arouse their tenderness, they had changed. They looked at one another, and each, smiling, saw the other anew. They dreamed for her—they hoped now for her—they prayed now heavy, laborious, loving prayers for her. Truly she had been the “locust and wild honey” that fed them in their wilderness—so now it was for her they labored and were therefore never tired.
As the years passed I, who had long since ceased to live in S—— street, often went there to visit my friends who had remained, stopping with them from Saturday till Monday, and these visits kept me still in touch with “Little Knights” and his idol. It seemed strange that Rosie was quite unspoiled by so much adulation. She was a favorite with all the neighbors, was polite and obedient outside her own domain, while within it, an absolute monarch, she ruled with gentlest strength her idolatrous subjects. Derision or contempt shown to them was swiftly and sharply resented by her, while the only time she had to sternly exert her authority was when she made some demand upon the treasury that was for their benefit instead of hers.