Eloise was now like an enraged goddess or something; and if Herman hadn't been a quick bender and light on his feet she wouldn't of missed him with his gifts. As it was, he ducked in time and went out to the spring house to write a poem on her beauty, which he later read to her in German through a kitchen window that was raised. The window was screened; so he read it all. Later he gets Sandy Sawtelle to tell her this poem is all about how coy she is. Every once in a while you could get an idea partway over on Herman. He was almost certain Eloise was coy.
By the end of that second day, after Herman threw kisses to her for ten minutes from on top of the woodshed, where he was safe, she telephoned her brother to come over here quick, if he had the soul of a man in his frame, and kill Herman like he would a mad dog.
But Eloise left the next morning, without waiting for anything suitable to be pulled off by her family. It was because, when she went to bed that night, she found a letter from Herman pinned to her pillow. It had a red heart on it, pierced by a dagger that was dropping red drops very sentimentally; and it said would she not hasten to take her vast beauty out in the moonlight, to walk with Herman under the quiet trees while the nightingale warbled and the snee, or sidehill mooney, called to its lovemate? And here, as they walked, they could plan their beautiful future together.
This was beyond Eloise even with a full battery of kitchen utensils at hand. She left before breakfast; and Herman had to come in and wash dishes.
The next excitement was Herman committing suicide, out in the woodshed, with a rope he'd took off a new packsaddle. Something interrupted him after he got the noose adjusted and was ready to step off the chopping block he stood on. I believe it was one more farewell note to the woman that sent him to his grave. Only he got interested in it and put in a lot more of his own poetry and run out of paper, and had to get more from the house; and he must of forgot what he went to the woodshed for because an hour after that he committed an entirely new suicide with his fowling piece.
Near as I could gather, he was all ready to pull the trigger, looking down into this here frowning muzzle before a mirror; and then something about his whiskers in the mirror must of caught his eye. Anyway, another work of self-destruction was off. So he come in and helped with lunch. Then he told me he'd like to take some time off, because he was going up to the deep pool to drown himself.
I said was he really bent on it? He said it was requisite, because away from this beautiful lady, who had torn his heart out and danced on it, he could not continue to live, even for one day. So I come down on Herman. I told him that, hard up as I was for help, I positively would not have a man on the place who was always knocking off work to kill himself. It et into his time, and also it took the attention of others who longed to see him do it.
I said I might stand for a suicide or two—say, once a month, on a quiet Sunday—but I couldn't stand this here German thoroughness that kept it up continual. At least, if he hoped to keep on drawing pay from me, he'd have to make way with himself in his own leisure moments and not on my time.
Herman says I don't know the depths of the human heart. I says I know what I pay him a month, and that's all I'm needing to know in this emergency. I thought, of course, he'd calm down and forget his nonsense; but not so. He moped and mooned, and muttered German poetry to himself for another day, without ever laying a violent hand on himself; but then he come and said it was no good. He says, however, he will no longer commit suicide at this place, where none have sympathy with him and many jeer. Instead, he will take his fowling piece to some far place in the great still mountains and there, at last, do the right thing by himself.
I felt quite snubbed, but my patience was wore out; so I give Herman the money that was coming to him, wished him every success in his undertaking, and let him go.