The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) by Marshall P. Wilder (a book to read TXT) 📗

chance. We sat down to a huge bowl of cold, greasy soup, in which enormous lumps of meat swam, as though for their life, awaiting rescue at the prongs of a fork. In addition to this epicurean dish was a teeming plate of water-soaked potatoes, delicately boiled. That was all. Letitia said that it was Swedish, and the most annoying part of the entertainment was that I was alone in my critical disapprobation. Letitia was so engrossed with a little Swedish conversation book that she brought to table that she forgot the mere material question of food—forgot everything but the horrible jargon she was studying, and the soiled, wisp-like maiden, who looked more unlike a clean slate than ever.

"What shall I say to her, Archie?" asked Letitia, turning over the pages of her book, as I tried to rescue a block of meat from the cold fat in which it lurked. "Here is a chapter on dinner. 'I am very hungry,' 'Jag är myckel hungrig.' Rather pretty, isn't it? Hark at this: 'Kypare gif mig matsedeln och vinlistan.' That means: 'Waiter, give me the bill of fare, and the list of wines.'"

"Don't," I cried; "don't. This woman doesn't know what dining means. Look out a chapter on feeding."

Letitia was perfectly unruffled. She paid no attention to me whatsoever. She was fascinated with the slovenly girl, who stood around and gaped at her Swedish.

"Gerda," said Letitia, with her eyes on the book, "Gif mir apven senap och nägra potäter." And then, as Miss Lyberg dived for the drowned potatoes, Letitia exclaimed in an ecstasy of joy, "She understands, Archie, she understands. I feel I am going to be a great success. Jag tackar, Gerda. That means 'I thank you,' Jag tackar. See if you can say it, Archie. Just try, dear, to oblige me. Jag tackar. Now, that's a good boy, jag tackar."[Pg 40]

"I won't," I declared spitefully. "No jag tackaring for a parody like this, Letitia. You don't seem to realize that I'm hungry. Honestly, I prefer a delicatessen dinner to this."

"'Pray, give me a piece of venison,'" read Letitia, absolutely disregarding my mood. "'Var god och gif mig ett stycke vildt.' It is almost intelligible, isn't it, dear? 'Ni äter icke': you do not eat."

"I can't," I asserted mournfully, anxious to gain Letitia's sympathy.

It was not forthcoming. Letitia's eyes were fastened on Gerda, and I could not help noting on the woman's face an expression of scorn. I felt certain of it. She appeared to regard my wife as a sort of irresponsible freak, and I was vexed to think that Letitia should make such an exhibition of herself, and countenance the alleged meal that was set before us.

"'I have really dined very well,'" she continued joyously. "Jag har verkligen atit mycket bra.'"

"If you are quite sure that she doesn't understand English, Letitia," I said viciously, "I'll say to you that this is a kind of joke I don't appreciate. I won't keep such a woman in the house. Let us put on our things and go out and have dinner. Better late than never."

Letitia was turning over the pages of her book, quite lost to her surroundings. As I concluded my remarks she looked up and exclaimed, "How very funny, Archie. Just as you said 'Better late than never,' I came across that very phrase in the list of Swedish proverbs. It must be telepathy, dear. 'Better late than never,' 'Battre sent än aldrig.' What were you saying on the subject, dear? Will you repeat it? And do try it in Swedish. Say 'Battre sent än aldrig.'"

"Letitia," I shot forth in a fury, "I'm not in the humor[Pg 41] for this sort of thing. I think this dinner and this woman are rotten. See if you can find the word rotten in Swedish."

"I am surprised at you," Letitia declared glacially, roused from her book by my heroic though unparliamentary language. "Your expressions are neither English nor Swedish. Please don't use such gutter-words before a servant, to say nothing of your own wife."

"But she doesn't understand," I protested, glancing at Miss Lyberg. I could have sworn that I detected a gleam in the woman's eyes and that the sphinx-like attitude of dull incomprehensibility suggested a strenuous effort. "She doesn't understand anything. She doesn't want to understand."

"In a week from now," said Letitia, "she will understand everything perfectly, for I shall be able to talk with her. Oh, Archie, do be agreeable. Can't you see that I am having great fun? Don't be such a greedy boy. If you could only enter into the spirit of the thing, you wouldn't be so oppressed by the food question. Oh, dear! How important it does seem to be to men. Gerda, hur gammal är ni?"

The maiden sullenly left the room, and I felt convinced that Letitia had Swedishly asked her to do so. I was wrong. "Hur gammal är ni," Letitia explained, simply meant, "How old are you?"

"She evidently didn't want to tell me," was my wife's comment, as we went to the drawing-room. "I imagine, dear, that she doesn't quite like the idea of my ferreting out Swedish so persistently. But I intend to persevere. The worst of conversation books is that one acquires a language in such a parroty way. Now, in my book, the only answer to the question 'How old are you?' is, 'I was born on the tenth of August, 1852.' For the life of[Pg 42] me, I couldn't vary that, and it would be most embarrassing. It would make me fifty-two. If any one asked me in Swedish how old I was, I should have to be fifty-two!"

"When I think of my five advertisements," I said lugubriously, as I threw myself into an arm-chair, fatigued at my efforts to discover dinner, "when I remember our expectation, and the pleasant anticipations of to-day, I feel very bitter, Letitia. Just to think that from it all nothing has resulted but that beastly mummy, that atrocious ossified thing."

"Archie, Archie!" said my wife warningly; "please be calm. Perhaps I was too engrossed with my studies to note the deficiencies of dinner. But do remember that I pleaded with her for a Swedish meal. The poor thing did what I asked her to do. Our dinner was evidently Swedish. It was not her fault that I asked for it. To-morrow, dear, it shall be different. We had better stick to the American régime. It is more satisfactory to you. At any rate, we have somebody in the house, and if our five advertisements had brought forth five hundred applicants we should only have kept one. So don't torture yourself, Archie. Try and imagine that we had five hundred applicants, and that we selected Gerda Lyberg."

"I can't, Letitia," I said sulkily, and I heaved a heavy sigh.

"Come," she said soothingly, "come and study Swedish with me. It will be most useful for your Lives of Great Men. You can read up the Swedes in the original. I'll entertain you with this book, and you'll forget all about Mrs. Potz—I mean Gerda Lyberg. By-the-by, Archie, she doesn't remind me so much of Hedda Gabler. I don't fancy that she is very subtile."

"You, Letitia," I retorted, "remind me of Mrs. Nickleby. You ramble on so."[Pg 43]

Letitia looked offended. She always declared that Dickens "got on her nerves." She was one of the new-fashioned readers who have learned to despise Dickens. Personally, I regretted only his nauseating sense of humor. Letitia placed a cushion behind my head, smoothed my forehead, kissed me, made her peace, and settled down by my side. Lack of nourishment made me drowsy, and Letitia's babblings sounded vague and muffled.

"It is a most inclusive little book," she said, "and if I can succeed in memorizing it all I shall be quite at home with the language. In fact, dear, I think I shall always keep Swedish cooks. Hark at this: 'If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours.' 'Om vinden är god, sa äro vi pa pyrtio timmar i Goteborg.' I think it is sweetly pretty. 'You are seasick.' 'Steward, bring me a glass of brandy and water.' 'We are now entering the harbor.' 'We are now anchoring.' 'Your passports, gentlemen.'"

A comfortable lethargy was stealing o'er me. Letitia took a pencil and paper, and made notes as she plied the book. "A chapter on 'seeing a town' is most interesting, Archie. Of course, it must be a Swedish town. 'Do you know the two private galleries of Mr. Smith, the merchant, and Mr. Muller, the chancellor?' 'To-morrow morning I wish to see all the public buildings and statues.' 'Statyerna' is Swedish for statues, Archie. Are you listening, dear? 'We will visit the Church of the Holy Ghost, at two, then we will make an excursion on Lake Mälan and see the fortress of Vaxholm.' It is a charming little book. Don't you think that it is a great improvement on the old Ollendorff system? I don't find nonsensical sentences like 'The hat of my aunt's sister is blue, but the nose of my brother-in-law's sister-in-law is red.'"

I rose and stretched myself. Letitia was still plunged[Pg 44] in the irritating guide to Sweden, where I vowed I would never go. Nothing on earth should ever induce me to visit Sweden. If it came to a choice between Hoboken and Stockholm, I mentally determined to select the former. As I paced the room I heard a curious splashing noise in the kitchen. Letitia's studies must have dulled her ears. She was evidently too deeply engrossed.

I strolled nonchalantly into the hall, and proceeded deliberately toward the kitchen. The thick carpet deadened my footsteps. The splashing noise grew louder. The kitchen door was closed. I gently opened it. As I did so a wild scream rent the air. There stood Gerda Lyberg in—in—my pen declines to write it—a simple unsophisticated birthday dress, taking an ingenuous reluctant bath in the "stationary tubs," with the plates, and dishes, and dinner things grouped artistically around her!

The instant she saw me she modestly seized a dish-towel and shouted at the top of her voice. The kitchen was filled with the steam from the hot water. 'Venus arising' looked nebulous, and mystic. I beat a hasty retreat, aghast at the revelation, and almost fell against Letitia, who, dropping her conversation book, came to see what had happened.

"She's bathing!" I gasped, "in the kitchen—among the plates—near the soup—"

"Never!" cried Letitia. Then, melodramatically: "Let me pass. Stand aside, Archie. I'll go and see. Perhaps—perhaps—you had better come with me."

"Letitia," I gurgled, "I'm shocked! She has nothing on but a dish-towel."

Letitia paused irresolutely for a second, and going into the kitchen shut the door. The splashing noise ceased. I heard the sound of voices, or rather of a voice—Letitia's! Evidently she had forgotten Swedish, and such[Pg 45] remarks as "If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours." I listened attentively, and could not even hear her say "We will visit the Church of the Holy Ghost at two." It is strange how the stress of circumstances alters the complexion of a conversation book! All the evening she had studied Swedish, and yet suddenly confronted by a Swedish lady bathing in our kitchen, dish-toweled but unashamed, all she could find to say was "How disgusting!" and "How disgraceful!" in English!

"You see," said Letitia, when she emerged, "she is just a simple peasant girl, and only needs to be told. It is very horrid, of course."

"And unappetizing!" I chimed in.

"Of course—certainly unappetizing. I couldn't think of anything Swedish to say, but I said several things in English. She was dreadfully sorry that you had seen her, and never contemplated such a possibility. After all, Archie, bathing is not a crime."

"And we were hunting for a clean slate," I suggested satirically. "Do you think, Letitia, that she also takes a cold bath in the morning, among the bacon and eggs, and things?"

"That is enough," said Letitia sternly. "The episode need not serve as an excuse for indelicacy."

It was with the advent of Gerda Lyberg that we became absolutely certain, beyond the peradventure of any doubt, that there was such a thing as the servant question. The knowledge had been gradually wafted in upon us, but it was not until the lady from Stockholm had definitively planted herself in our midst that we admitted to ourselves openly, unblushingly, that the problem existed. Gerda blazoned forth the enigma in all its force and defiance.

The remarkable thing about our latest acquisition was[Pg 46] the singularly blank state of her gastronomic mind. There was nothing that she knew. Most women, and a great many men, intuitively recognize the physical fact that water, at a certain temperature, boils. Miss Lyberg, apparently seeking to earn her living in the