Part 36 (1/2)

”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 cla.s.s 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!”

e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 cla.s.sroom in such a turmoil.”

”Well, it wasn't _my_ fault,” grumbled Bess, knowing, of course, that it was, but wis.h.i.+ng to excuse herself if she could.

Nan made no immediate reply. She was watching the little German compa.s.sionately. 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 cla.s.ses 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.