Metzerott, Shoemaker

by Katharine Pearson Woods

It proved to be worth seeing about.

The janitor of the Männerchor Club House, who was a saving man, and had, besides, good work and excellent pay in a factory in Micklegard, had resolved to try his luck on a sheep ranch in Texas, the owner of which had lately died, leaving a widow, who was willing to sell out land, stock, and fixtures on easy terms. The janitor had enough money to pay the first instalment, and his and his family’s expenses to Texas; but the widow wanted him to come on at once and take charge, as was, indeed, highly necessary for the welfare of the sheep, and he was bound to the Männerchor until June, their bargain being for a year at a time.

Now, the janitor’s salary was a small affair in itself; but the perquisites included the use of the ground floor of the club-house as a dwelling. This ground floor had originally been a store, of tolerable proportions, and had been simply partitioned off, when the building was bought by the Männerchor, to suit the new use to which it was to be put. There was a kitchen in the rear, small but alterable, and Metzerott had visions of alterations before his mind’s eye.

It will be remembered that at the Kaffee Klatsch, already described, supper was furnished to the convives at the modest price of fifteen cents a head. It had been experimentally proven that this rather more than covered expenses, even though the viands were ordered ready prepared from a baker, who of course made his own profit upon them. At the numerous concerts and balls which took place in the Hall, the supper cost usually a quarter, this sum, it was to be inferred, also leaving a margin for profit.

Now the duties of the janitor might be divided into two classes; he had to take care of the club-house, and keep it in order, and also attend to the fires and lights whenever it was used by the society, or other parties to whom it, or any part of it, might be rented for an evening. The first of these functions was usually performed by the janitor’s wife, while the second, being better suited to a masculine capacity, the janitor reserved for himself. It seemed, therefore, to Karl Metzerott’s logical mind, that, as these duties were already divided, it was not an absolute necessity that they who performed them should be man and wife; and his plan was to establish the Prices in the janitor’s quarters with the care of the house, and also as caterers to the club, by which, in addition to the business they had already got together, he thought they could make a very comfortable living.

As for the janitor’s other duties, Karl had a candidate for them in the person of Franz Schaefer, the pastor’s eldest son, now nearly seventeen. Franz, it appeared, was a musical genius, and was working hard at his violin, under the care of the Herr Direktor of the Männerchor. The pastor, however, had no spare dollars wherewith to further his son’s musical education; and, though the Direktor’s lessons might be given for the pure love of art, and perhaps of humanity, at least of such human beings as could detect the difference between E sharp and F natural, dollars were required to convey him to the land of his dreams, the summit of his aspirations,—the Royal Conservatory at Stuttgart.

Meanwhile, the denied wish was bearing good fruits in the economy and self-denial which were becoming a part of his nature. He was a clerk in a small drug store at a smaller salary, and the additional income that Karl’s plan would secure would set him considerably forward on the way to his promised land. Yet the plan was certainly an innovation; and perhaps Karl would not have been so successful in introducing it, but that the managers had a difficulty of their own, which the proposed arrangement met and satisfied. For houses in Micklegard were rented by the year; and it was hard, on the spur of the moment, to find a man, with a family, ready to give up his own domicile, and take the janitor’s place. And, on the other hand, they were large-minded men, who, having carved out their own fortunes, were reluctant to stand in the light of any one who was trying to rise in the world; so that Karl’s insistence, combined with the janitor’s eagerness to be off, finally carried the day, and, on the Sunday afternoon already referred to, he and Louis returned with a promise from the managers to give the new plan a trial, at all events.

“Let them have it until the end of the year, that is, till ‘moving day,’” the secretary had said; “then we can see how it works.”

“Work!” said Sally Price, “of course it’ll work! It shall work.”

Fortunately, the furniture of their new abode belonged to the house, having been put in for the departing janitor, who had taken the position as a fresh and furnitureless arrival from Germany; so there was nothing requiring an immediate outlay of capital.