Here, again, I must explain that they had always cherished the element of surprise in their Christmas giving.
You will have seen that old Liebereich was living too long for his neighbors. I must be careful how I put their sentiments into words, so that no injustice be done them. I think I had better say that it began to seem to them like effrontery for him to live on. They said oftener now and with greater unction that he would be better off. And they answered Hermann Schlimm’s query (in the second paragraph of this story), when he repeated it, with accumulating anger now.
But you are not to suppose that old Liebereich was made unhappy by the least knowledge of this. On the contrary, nothing of it reached him. He found another reason for their brusqueness. They were simply women—and unlike Emmy.
One day, Mrs. Schwalm, wearily responding to his questions about his wife, asked him why he did not write to her. This at least, she thought cunningly, would consume time, keep him quiet, and give death added opportunity.
Now, in all his thoughts there had never been that one.
“Why, you see,” he said, “Emmy and me was never apart for a day. It was no need to write. And,” he went on, “I ain’t no scholar. But—say—you got any ink?”
The letter was a secret office which he attended to himself. It took many days. But he was very happy afterward, and delivered it to Mrs. Schwalm and Mrs. Krantz, who were to get a stamp and mail it.
“What we going to do with it?” whispered Mrs. Schwalm. “Burn it?”
“No. Open it.”
However, Mrs. Schwalm, who was known to be sentimental, opposed this.