"Never mind, my dear," she said, her voice vibrant with some feeling that the girls who heard her did not understand. "Put the foolish trifle on my desk here and go back to your book. You are punished enough. Ach!
perhaps I am, too."
And Nan Sherwood noted the fact that the German lady was much troubled during the rest of the session. She wondered why.
Like several of the instructors at Lakeview Hall, Frau Deuseldorf did not sleep on the premises. "Mister" Frau Deuseldorf kept a delicatessen shop in town and the couple had rooms behind the shop. The German instructor's husband, whom all the girls called "Mister Frau Deuseldorf," was a pursy, self-important little man, with a bristling pompadour and mustache. He was like a gnome with a military bearing--if you can imagine such a person!
When Frau Deuseldorf put her heavily shod foot over the threshold of the delicatessen shop she at once became the typical German hausfrau, and nothing else. Her University training was set aside. She cooked her husband's dinner with her own hands and then served him in approved German style.
It was the very afternoon of Bess Harley's trouble in German class that Nan and she chanced to have an errand in town and obtained permission from Mrs. Cupp to go there. The girls often bought delicacies of Mister Deuseldorf--his cheeses and _wurst_ had quite a special flavor, and he made lovely potato salad that often graced the secret banquets at Lakeview Hall.
As Nan and Bess came along Main Street, there was the little, bristle-haired Teuton, standing at his door. His bald head was bare and he wore carpet slippers and no coat. As the light was fading, he evidently had come to the door to read a letter which he held close to his purblind eyes.
"Frau Deuseldorf hasn't come down from the Hall yet--mean old thing!"
ejaculated Bess.
"You needn't call her names. _I_ think she was awfully easy on you," Nan said, smiling. "And she seemed worried, too, because Dr. Beulah caught the classroom in such a turmoil."
"Well, it wasn't _my_ fault," grumbled Bess, knowing, of course, that it was, but wishing to excuse herself if she could.
Nan made no immediate reply. She was watching the little German compassionately. As he stood there in the open door scanning the rustling sheet of paper, the girl saw that frank tears were running down his plump cheeks. Nan clutched her chum's wrist, and whispered:
"Oh, Bess! what do you suppose is the matter with Mister Frau Deuseldorf?"
"What? How? Oh!" exclaimed Bess, likewise seeing the little man's emotion as he turned back into the shop. "Why, Nan!"
"Yes," said Nan. "He was crying."
"Let's go in," suggested the impulsive Bess. "Maybe he will tell us about it."
"But--but--I wouldn't like to intrude," Nan said.
"Come on! We'll buy a pickle," exclaimed Bess. "Surely he won't think _that_ very much of an intrusion."
When the tinkling little bell over the door announced the girls'
entrance the German appeared from the rear premises, wiping his eyes on a checked handkerchief. He knew the two girls from the Hall by sight.
"Goot afternoon, fraulein," he said, in greeting. "Iss de school oudt yet?"
"Most of the classes are over for the day, sir," Nan replied, as Bess took much time in selecting the wartiest and biggest pickle in the Deuseldorf collection.
"Iss mein Frau come the town in yet?" pursued the little man, whose idiomatic speech often amused the girls when they came to the store.
"I believe she was correcting exercises, sir," Nan said, smiling. "I expect we girls make her much extra trouble."
"Ach!" he responded. "Trouble we haf in blenty--yes. But _that_ iss light trouble. Idt iss of our Hans undt Fritz we haf de most trouble.
Yes!"
Nan and Bess knew that the German couple worked only, and saved and "scrimped" only, for the support of two grown sons in the military service of the Fatherland. They desired that Hans and Fritz should have the best, and marry well. But for a young Prussian officer to keep up appearances and hold a footing among his mates, costs much more than his wage as a soldier.
"I hope your sons are well, Herr Deuseldorf," Nan said, speaking carefully.
"Vell? Ja--they no sickness have. But there iss more trouble as sickness--Ach! mein Frau, she come!" he exclaimed.
Bess had selected the pickle. The little German gave them no more attention, but darted out from behind the counter to meet Frau Deuseldorf as she entered the shop. He waved the letter he had been reading excitedly, and began in high-pitched German to tell his wife the news--and news of trouble it was, indeed, as the two American girls could understand.
Both Bess and Nan had studied German a year before they came to the Hall, and rapidly as the little man talked they could understand much that he said. The slower replies of his startled wife they could likewise apprehend.
Nan and Bess clung together near the door, hesitating to depart, for Mister Frau Deuseldorf had not given Bess her change.
Hans was in trouble--serious trouble. His brother, Fritz, wrote that it would take all the old couple's little savings to save Hans from disgrace; and one brother's disgrace would seriously affect the career of the other.
"And perhaps I have offended the good Dr. Prescott this very day," cried Frau Deuseldorf. "You know how it was at that other school last year, Henry." (The German teacher had only been at Lakeview Hall half a year before this present term.) "Dr. Prescott, too, is very, very stern. She entered my classroom, with friends, just as one of those thoughtless girls had made me excited. The room was in a turmoil--Ach! it would be terrible now if the doctor requested my resignation."
Nan drew Bess outside into the street. "Never mind the change, Bessie,"
she begged.
"Oh! I'm so ashamed of myself," sighed Bess. "I never knew people had so much trouble. And those sons are men grown!"
"Their children, just the same. But I know she is over-anxious about her position. I don't suppose the little shop earns them very much. It is probably her salary at the school which goes to Germany. Oh, my dear!
you don't suppose Dr. Beulah _is_ angry with Frau Deuseldorf because she does not keep good order in her classes? We do bother her a lot."
Bess was very serious. "I know _I_ do," she admitted. "Sometimes it's fun to plague her--she gets excited so easily, and forgets her polite English."
"We mustn't any more," said Nan.
"I just know what I am going to do," muttered Bess; but Nan did not hear her.
Elizabeth was impulsive; of late she had shown more strongly than before the influence Nan Sherwood's character had had upon her own disposition.
She felt herself at fault because of the scene that day in German class and Frau Deuseldorf feared she would be blamed for it.
Dr. Beulah Prescott had never seemed like a very harsh person to Bess; but the girl approached the office that evening before supper with some timidity. It had always been a hard thing for Bess Harley to admit that she was wrong in any case; and now, when Dr. Beulah was looking at her quizzically, the girl from Tillbury shrank from the ordeal.
"Miss Elizabeth! you do not often seek my desk, my dear," said the preceptress pleasantly. "What is it you wish?"
"Oh, Dr. Prescott!" exclaimed Bess, going headlong into the matter as usual. "It's about Frau Deuseldorf."
Dr. Prescott's pretty brows drew together a little; but perhaps it was a puzzled line instead of anger.
"What about your German instructor?" she asked quietly.
"Oh, dear Dr. Prescott! you won't blame her for that trouble in class to-day--will you? It was I. I did it. I was crocheting instead of attending to the work. And you know how easy it is for her to get excited. Please blame me and not her, Dr. Prescott."
"My dear child!" gasped the lady, in some surprise. "Perhaps I do not just understand. Sit down here. Now, be quiet, and don't sob so. Tell me all about it."
And Bess managed soon to control herself and explain fully her reason for coming to "beg off" for Frau Deuseldorf. The preceptress listened quietly; nor did she smile at Bess Harley's way of trying to straighten out the affair.
"You are a kind girl," she said, "and I am glad to see that--despite your thoughtlessness--you consider others. You should consider the Madam always in class, for she has a hard time enough at the best. I know she is easily excited; but I judge her work from results. I am quite satisfied with her and have no intention of disturbing her about that contretemps to-day. Indeed, I should not have mentioned it to her had you not told me how she felt about it.