The Besetment Of Kurt Lieders

: Stories Of A Western Town

A SILVER rime glistened all down the street.



There was a drabble of dead leaves on the sidewalk which was of wood,

and on the roadway which was of macadam and stiff mud. The wind blew

sharply, for it was a December day and only six in the morning. Nor were

the houses high enough to furnish any independent bulwark; they were

low, wooden dwellings, the tallest a bare two stories in height, the

majority only one story. But they were in good painting and repair,

and most of them had a homely gayety of geraniums or bouvardias in

the windows. The house on the corner was the tall house. It occupied a

larger yard than its neighbors; and there were lace curtains tied with

blue ribbons for the windows in the right hand front room. The door of

this house swung back with a crash, and a woman darted out. She ran at

the top of her speed to the little yellow house farther down the street.

Her blue calico gown clung about her stout figure and fluttered behind

her, revealing her blue woollen stockings and felt slippers. Her gray

head was bare. As she ran tears rolled down her cheeks and she wrung her

hands.



"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh, lieber Herr Je!" One near would have heard her sob, in

too distracted agitation to heed the motorneer of the passing street-car

who stared after her at the risk of his car, or the tousled heads behind

a few curtains. She did not stop until she almost fell against the door

of the yellow house. Her frantic knocking was answered by a young woman

in a light and artless costume of a quilted petticoat and a red flannel

sack.



"Oh, gracious goodness! Mrs. Lieders!" cried she.



Thekla Lieders rather staggered than walked into the room and fell back

on the black haircloth sofa.



"There, there, there," said the young woman while she patted the broad

shoulders heaving between sobs and short breath, "what is it? The house

aint afire?"



"Oh, no, oh, Mrs. Olsen, he has done it again!" She wailed in sobs, like

a child.



"Done it? Done what?" exclaimed Mrs. Olsen, then her face paled. "Oh, my

gracious, you DON'T mean he's killed himself------"



"Yes, he's killed himself, again."



"And he's dead?" asked the other in an awed tone.



Mrs. Lieders gulped down her tears. "Oh, not so bad as that, I cut him

down, he was up in the garret and I sus--suspected him and I run up

and--oh, he was there, a choking, and he was so mad! He swore at me

and--he kicked me when I--I says: 'Kurt, what are you doing of? Hold

on till I git a knife,' I says--for his hands was just dangling at his

side; and he says nottings cause he couldn't, he was most gone, and I

knowed I wouldn't have time to git no knife but I saw it was a rope was

pretty bad worn and so--so I just run and jumped and ketched it in my

hands, and being I'm so fleshy it couldn't stand no more and it broke!

And, oh! he--he kicked me when I was try to come near to git the rope

off his neck; and so soon like he could git his breath he swore at

me----"



"And you a helping of him! Just listen to that!" cried the hearer

indignantly.



"So I come here for to git you and Mr. Olsen to help me git him down

stairs, 'cause he is too heavy for me to lift, and he is so mad he won't

walk down himself."



"Yes, yes, of course. I'll call Carl. Carl! dost thou hear? come! But

did you dare to leave him Mrs. Lieders?" Part of the time she spoke

in English, part of the time in her own tongue, gliding from one to

another, and neither party observing the transition.



Mrs. Lieders wiped her eyes, saying: "Oh, yes, Danke schon, I aint

afraid 'cause I tied him with the rope, righd good, so he don't got no

chance to move. He was make faces at me all the time I tied him." At the

remembrance, the tears welled anew.



Mrs. Olsen, a little bright tinted woman with a nose too small for her

big blue eyes and chubby cheeks, quivered with indignant sympathy.



"Well, I did nefer hear of sooch a mean acting man!" seemed to her the

most natural expression; but the wife fired, at once.



"No, he is not a mean man," she cried, "no, Freda Olsen, he is not a

mean man at all! There aint nowhere a better man than my man; and Carl

Olsen, he knows that. Kurt, he always buys a whole ham and a whole

barrel of flour, and never less than a dollar of sugar at a time! And he

never gits drunk nor he never gives me any bad talk. It was only he got

this wanting to kill himself on him, sometimes."



"Well, I guess I'll go put on my things," said Mrs. Olsen, wisely

declining to defend her position. "You set right still and warm

yourself, and we'll be back in a minute."



Indeed, it was hardly more than that time before both Carl Olsen, who

worked in the same furniture factory as Kurt Lieders, and was a comely

and after-witted giant, appeared with Mrs. Olsen ready for the street.



He nodded at Mrs. Lieders and made a gurgling noise in his throat,

expected to convey sympathy. Then, he coughed and said that he was

ready, and they started.



Feeling further expression demanded, Mrs. Olsen asked: "How many times

has he done it, Mrs. Lieders?"



Mrs. Lieders was trotting along, her anxious eyes on the house in the

distance, especially on the garret windows. "Three times," she answered,

not removing her eyes; "onct he tooked Rough on Rats and I found it out

and I put some apple butter in the place of it, and he kept wondering

and wondering how he didn't feel notings, and after awhile I got him off

the notion, that time. He wasn't mad at me; he just said: 'Well, I do it

some other time. You see!' but he promised to wait till I got the spring

house cleaning over, so he could shake the carpets for me; and by and

by he got feeling better. He was mad at the boss and that made him

feel bad. The next time it was the same, that time he jumped into the

cistern----"



"Yes, I know," said Olsen, with a half grin, "I pulled him out."



"It was the razor he wanted," the wife continued, "and when he come home

and says he was going to leave the shop and he aint never going back

there, and gets out his razor and sharps it, I knowed what that meant

and I told him I got to have some bluing and wouldn't he go and get it?

and he says, 'You won't git another husband run so free on your errands,

Thekla,' and I says I don't want none; and when he was gone I hid the

razor and he couldn't find it, but that didn't mad him, he didn't say

notings; and when I went to git the supper he walked out in the yard and

jumped into the cistern, and I heard the splash and looked in and there

he was trying to git his head under, and I called, 'For the Lord's sake,

papa! For the Lord's sake!' just like that. And I fished for him with

the pole that stood there and he was sorry and caught hold of it and

give in, and I rested the pole agin the side cause I wasn't strong

enough to h'ist him out; and he held on whilest I run for help----"



"And I got the ladder and he clum out," said the giant with another grin

of recollection, "he was awful wet!"



"That was a month ago," said the wife, solemnly.



"He sharped the razor onct," said Mrs. Lieders, "but he said it was

for to shave him, and I got him to promise to let the barber shave him

sometime, instead. Here, Mrs. Olsen, you go righd in, the door aint

locked."



By this time they were at the house door. They passed in and ascended

the stairs to the second story, then climbed a narrow, ladder-like

flight to the garret. Involuntarily they had paused to listen at the

foot of the stairs, but it was very quiet, not a sound of movement, not

so much as the sigh of a man breathing. The wife turned pale and put

both her shaking hands on her heart.



"Guess he's trying to scare us by keeping quiet!" said Olsen,

cheerfully, and he stumbled up the stairs, in advance. "Thunder!" he

exclaimed, on the last stair, "well, we aint any too quick."



In fact Carl had nearly fallen over the master of the house, that

enterprising self-destroyer having contrived, pinioned as he was, to

roll over to the very brink of the stair well, with the plain intent to

break his neck by plunging headlong.



In the dim light all that they could see was a small, old man whose

white hair was strung in wisps over his purple face, whose deep set eyes

glared like the eyes of a rat in a trap, and whose very elbows and knees

expressed in their cramps the fury of an outraged soul. When he saw the

new-comers he shut his eyes and his jaws.



"Well, Mr. Lieders," said Olsen, mildly, "I guess you better git

down-stairs. Kin I help you up?"



"No," said Lieders.



"Will I give you an arm to lean on?"



"No."



"Won't you go at all, Mr. Lieders?"



"No."



Olsen shook his head. "I hate to trouble you, Mr. Lieders," said he in

his slow, undecided tones, "please excuse me," with which he gathered up

the little man into his strong arms and slung him over his shoulders, as

easily as he would sling a sack of meal. It was a vent for Mrs. Olsen's

bubbling indignation to make a dive for Lieders's heels and hold them,

while Carl backed down-stairs. But Lieders did not make the least

resistance. He allowed them to carry him into the room indicated by

his wife, and to lay him bound on the plump feather bed. It was not his

bedroom but the sacred "spare room," and the bed was part of its luxury.

Thekla ran in, first, to remove the embroidered pillow shams and the

dazzling, silken "crazy quilt" that was her choicest possession.



Safely in the bed, Lieders opened his eyes and looked from one face to

the other, his lip curling. "You can't keep me this way all the time. I

can do it in spite of you," said he.



"Well, I think you had ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Lieders!"

Mrs. Olsen burst out, in a tremble between wrath and exertion, shaking

her little, plump fist at him.



But the placid Carl only nodded, as in sympathy, saying, "Well, I am

sorry you feel so bad, Mr. Lieders. I guess we got to go now."



Mrs. Olsen looked as if she would have liked to exhort Lieders further;

but she shrugged her shoulders and followed her husband in silence.



"I wished you'd stay to breakfast, now you're here," Thekla urged out of

her imperious hospitality; had Kurt been lying there dead, the next meal

must have been offered, just the same. "I know, you aint got time to git

Mr. Olsen his breakfast, Freda, before he has got to go to the shops,

and my tea-kettle is boiling now, and the coffee'll be ready--I GUESS

you had better stay."



But Mrs. Olsen seconded her husband's denial, and there was nothing

left Thekla but to see them to the door. No sooner did she return than

Lieders spoke. "Aint you going to take off them ropes?" said he.



"Not till you promise you won't do it."



Silence. Thekla, brushing a few tears from her eyes, scrutinized the

ropes again, before she walked heavily out of the room. She turned the

key in the door.



Directly a savory steam floated through the hall and pierced the cracks

about the door; then Thekla's footsteps returned; they echoed over the

uncarpeted boards.



She had brought his breakfast, cooked with the best of her homely skill.

The pork chops that he liked had been fried, there was a napkin on the

tray, and the coffee was in the best gilt cup and saucer.



"Here's your breakfast, papa," said she, trying to smile.



"I don't want no breakfast," said he.



She waited, holding the tray, and wistfully eying him.



"Take it 'way," said he, "I won't touch it if you stand till doomsday,

lessen you untie me!"



"I'll untie your arm, papa, one arm; you kin eat that way."



"Not lessen you untie all of me, I won't touch a bite."



"You know why I won't untie you, papa."



"Starving will kill as dead as hanging," was Lieders's orphic response

to this.



Thekla sighed and went away, leaving the tray on the table. It may be

that she hoped the sight of food might stir his stomach to rebel against

his dogged will; if so she was disappointed; half an hour went by during

which the statue under the bedclothes remained without so much as a

quiver.



Then the old woman returned. "Aint you awful cramped and stiff, papa?"



"Yes," said the statue.



"Will you promise not to do yourself a mischief, if I untie you?"



"No."



Thekla groaned, while the tears started to her red eyelids. "But you'll

git awful tired and it will hurt you if you don't get the ropes off,

soon, papa!"



"I know that!"



He closed his eyes again, to be the less hindered from dropping back

into his distempered musings. Thekla took a seat by his side and sat

silent as he. Slowly the natural pallor returned to the high forehead

and sharp features. They were delicate features and there was an air of

refinement, of thought, about Lieders's whole person, as different

as possible from the robust comeliness of his wife. With its keen

sensitive-ness and its undefined melancholy it was a dreamer's face. One

meets such faces, sometimes, in incongruous places and wonders what they

mean. In fact, Kurt Lieders, head cabinet maker in the furniture factory

of Lossing & Co., was an artist. He was, also, an incomparable artisan

and the most exacting foreman in the shops. Thirty years ago he had

first taken wages from the senior Lossing. He had watched a modest

industry climb up to a great business, nor was he all at sea in his own

estimate of his share in the firm's success. Lieders's workmanship had

an honesty, an infinite patience of detail, a daring skill of design

that came to be sought and commanded its own price. The Lossing "art

furniture" did not slander the name. No sculptor ever wrought his soul

into marble with a more unflinching conscience or a purer joy in his

work than this wood-carver dreaming over sideboards and bedsteads.

Unluckily, Lieders had the wrong side of the gift as well as the right;

was full of whims and crotchets, and as unpractical as the Christian

martyrs. He openly defied expense, and he would have no trifling with

the laws of art. To make after orders was an insult to Kurt. He made

what was best for the customer; if the latter had not the sense to see

it he was a fool and a pig, and some one else should work for him, not

Kurt Lieders, BEGEHR!



Young Lossing had learned the business practically. He was taught the

details by his father's best workman; and a mighty hard and strict

master the best workman proved! Lossing did not dream that the crabbed

old tyrant who rarely praised him, who made him go over, for the

twentieth time, any imperfect piece of work, who exacted all the artisan

virtues to the last inch, was secretly proud of him. Yet, in fact, the

thread of romance in Lieders's prosaic life was his idolatry of the

Lossing Manufacturing Co. It is hard to tell whether it was the Lossings

or that intangible quantity, the firm, the business, that he worshipped.

Worship he did, however, the one or the other, perhaps the both of them,

though in the peevish and erratic manner of the savage who sometimes

grovels to his idols and sometimes kicks them.



Nobody guessed what a blow it was to Kurt when, a year ago, the elder

Lossing had died. Even his wife did not connect his sullen melancholy

and his gibes at the younger generation, with the crape on Harry

Lossing's hat. He would not go to the funeral, but worked savagely, all

alone by himself, in the shop, the whole afternoon--breaking down at

last at the sight of a carved panel over which Lossing and he had once

disputed. The desolate loneliness of the old came to him when his old

master was gone. He loved the young man, but the old man was of his own

generation; he had "known how things ought to be and he could understand

without talking." Lieders began to be on the lookout for signs of waning

consideration, to watch his own eyes and hands, drearily wondering when

they would begin to play him false; at the same time because he was

unhappy he was ten times as exacting and peremptory and critical with

the younger workmen, and ten times as insolently independent with the

young master. Often enough, Lossing was exasperated to the point of

taking the old man at his word and telling him to go if he would, but

every time the chain of long habit, a real respect for such faithful

service, and a keen admiration for Kurt's matchless skill in his craft,

had held him back. He prided himself on keeping his word; for that

reason he was warier of using it. So he would compromise by giving the

domineering old fellow a "good, stiff rowing." Once, he coupled this

with a threat, if they could not get along decently they would better

part! Lieders had answered not a word; he had given Lossing a queer

glance and turned on his heel. He went home and bought some poison on

the way. "The old man is gone and the young feller don't want the old

crank round, no more," he said to himself. "Thekla, I guess I make her

troubles, too; I'll git out!"



That was the beginning of his tampering with suicide. Thekla, who did

not have the same opinion of the "trouble," had interfered. He had

married Thekla to have someone to keep a warm fireside for him, but she

was an ignorant creature who never could be made to understand about

carving. He felt sorry for her when the baby died, the only child they

ever had; he was sorrier than he expected to be on his own account, too,

for it was an ugly little creature, only four days old, and very red and

wrinkled; but he never thought of confiding his own griefs or trials

to her. Now, it made him angry to have that stupid Thekla keep him in

a world where he did not wish to stay. If the next day Lossing had not

remembered how his father valued Lieders, and made an excuse to half

apologize to him, I fear Thekla's stratagems would have done little

good.



The next experience was cut out of the same piece of cloth. He had

relented, he had allowed his wife to save him; but he was angry in

secret. Then came the day when open disobedience to Lossing's orders had

snapped the last thread of Harry's patience. To Lieders's aggrieved "If

you ain't satisfied with my work, Mr. Lossing, I kin quit," the answer

had come instantly, "Very well, Lieders, I'm sorry to lose you, but we

can't have two bosses here: you can go to the desk." And when Lieders in

a blind stab of temper had growled a prophecy that Lossing would regret

it, Lossing had stabbed in turn: "Maybe, but it will be a cold day when

I ask you to come back." And he had gone off without so much as a word

of regret. The old workman had packed up his tools, the pet tools that

no one was ever permitted to touch, and crammed his arms into his coat

and walked out of the place where he had worked so long, not a man

saying a word. Lieders didn't reflect that they knew nothing of the

quarrel. He glowered at them and went away sore at heart. We make a

great mistake when we suppose that it is only the affectionate

that desire affection; sulky and ill-conditioned souls often have a

passionate longing for the very feelings that they repel. Lieders was a

womanish, sensitive creature under the surly mask, and he was cut to the

quick by his comrades' apathy. "There ain't no place for old men in this

world," he thought, "there's them boys I done my best to make do a good

job, and some of 'em I've worked overtime to help; and not one of 'em

has got as much as a good-by in him for me!"



But he did not think of going to poor Thekla for comfort, he went to

his grim dreams. "I git my property all straight for Thekla, and then

I quit," said he. Perhaps he gave himself a reprieve unconsciously,

thinking that something might happen to save him from himself. Nothing

happened. None of the "boys" came to see him, except Carl Olsen, the

very stupidest man in the shop, who put Lieders beside himself fifty

times a day. The other men were sorry that Lieders had gone, having a

genuine workman's admiration for his skill, and a sort of underground

liking for the unreasonable old man because he was so absolutely honest

and "a fellow could always tell where to find him." But they were shy,

they were afraid he would take their pity in bad part, they "waited a

while."



Carl, honest soul, stood about in Lieders's workshop, kicking the

shavings with his heels for half an hour, and grinned sheepishly,

and was told what a worthless, scamping, bragging lot the "boys" at

Lossing's were, and said he guessed he had got to go home now; and so

departed, unwitting that his presence had been a consolation. Mrs. Olsen

asked Carl what Lieders said; Carl answered simply, "Say, Freda, that

man feels terrible bad."



Meanwhile Thekla seemed easily satisfied. She made no outcry as Lieders

had dreaded, over his leaving the shop.



"Well, then, papa, you don't need git up so early in the morning no

more, if you aint going to the shop," was her only comment; and Lieders

despised the mind of woman more than ever.



But that evening, while Lieders was down town (occupied, had she known

it, with a codicil to his will), she went over to the Olsens and found

out all Carl could tell her about the trouble in the shop. And it was

she that made the excuse of marketing to go out the next day, that

she might see the rich widow on the hill who was talking about a china

closet, and Judge Trevor, who had asked the price of a mantel, and Mr.

Martin, who had looked at sideboards (all this information came from

honest Carl); and who proposed to them that they order such furniture

of the best cabinet-maker in the country, now setting up on his own

account. He, simple as a baby for all his doggedness, thought that

they came because of his fame as a workman, and felt a glow of pride,

particularly as (having been prepared by the wife, who said, "You see it

don't make so much difference with my Kurt 'bout de prize, if so he can

get the furniture like he wants it, and he always know of the best in

the old country") they all were duly humble. He accepted a few orders

and went to work with a will; he would show them what the old man

could do. But it was only a temporary gleam; in a little while he grew

homesick for the shop, for the sawdust floor and the familiar smell

of oil, and the picture of Lossing flitting in and out. He missed the

careless young workmen at whom he had grumbled, he missed the whir of

machinery, and the consciousness of rush and hurry accented by the cars

on the track outside. In short, he missed the feeling of being part of

a great whole. At home, in his cosey little improvised shop, there was

none to dispute him, but there was none to obey him either. He grew

deathly tired of it all. He got into the habit of walking around the

shops at night, prowling about his old haunts like a cat. Once the night

watchman saw him. The next day there was a second watchman engaged.

And Olsen told him very kindly, meaning only to warn him, that he was

suspected to be there for no good purpose. Lieders confirmed a lurking

suspicion of the good Carl's own, by the clouding of his face. Yet he

would have chopped his hand off rather than have lifted it against the

shop.



That was Tuesday night, this was Wednesday morning.



The memory of it all, the cruel sense of injustice, returned with such

poignant force that Lieders groaned aloud.



Instantly, Thekla was bending over him. He did not know whether to laugh

at her or to swear, for she began fumbling at the ropes, half sobbing.

"Yes, I knowed they was hurting you, papa; I'm going to loose one arm.

Then I put it back again and loose the other. Please don't be bad!"



He made no resistance and she was as good as her word. She unbound and

bound him in sections, as it were; he watching her with a morose smile.



Then she left the room, but only to return with some hot coffee.

Lieders twisted his head away. "No," said he, "I don't eat none of that

breakfast, not if you make fresh coffee all the morning; I feel like I

don't eat never no more on earth."



Thekla knew that the obstinate nature that she tempted was proof against

temptation; if Kurt chose to starve, starve he would with food at his

elbow.



"Oh, papa," she cried, helplessly, "what IS the matter with you?"



"Just dying is the matter with me, Thekla. If I can't die one way I kin

another. Now Thekla, I want you to quit crying and listen. After I'm

gone you go to the boss, young Mr. Lossing--but I always called him

Harry because he learned his trade of me, Thekla, but he don't think of

that now--and you tell him old Lieders that worked for him thirty years

is dead, but he didn't hold no hard feelings, he knowed he done wrong

'bout that mantel. Mind you tell him."



"Yes, papa," said Thekla, which was a surprise to Kurt; he had dreaded

a weak flood of tears and protestations. But there were no tears, no

protestations, only a long look at him and a contraction of the eyebrows

as if Thekla were trying to think of something that eluded her. She

placed the coffee on the tray beside the other breakfast. For a while

the room was very still. Lieders could not see the look of resolve that

finally smoothed the perplexed lines out of his wife's kind, simple old

face. She rose. "Kurt," she said, "I don't guess you remember this is

our wedding-day; it was this day, eighteen year we was married."



"So!" said Lieders, "well, I was a bad bargain to you, Thekla; after

you nursed your father that was a cripple for twenty years, I thought it

would be easy with me; but I was a bad bargain."



"The Lord knows best about that," said Thekla, simply, "be it how it

be, you are the only man I ever had or will have, and I don't like you

starve yourself. Papa, say you don't kill yourself, to-day, and dat you

will eat your breakfast!"



"Yes," Lieders repeated in German, "a bad bargain for thee, that is

sure. But thou hast been a good bargain for me. Here! I promise. Not

this day. Give me the coffee."



He had seasons, all the morning, of wondering over his meekness, and

his agreement to be tied up again, at night. But still, what did a

day matter? a man humors women's notions; and starving was so tedious.

Between whiles he elaborated a scheme to attain his end. How easy to

outwit the silly Thekla! His eyes shone, as he hid the little, sharp

knife up his cuff. "Let her tie me!" says Lieders, "I keep my word.

To-morrow I be out of this. He won't git a man like me, pretty soon!"



Thekla went about her daily tasks, with her every-day air; but, now and

again, that same pucker of thought returned to her forehead; and, more

than once, Lieders saw her stand over some dish, poising her spoon in

air, too abstracted to notice his cynical observation.



The dinner was more elaborate than common, and Thekla had broached a

bottle of her currant wine. She gravely drank Lieders's health. "And

many good days, papa," she said.



Lieders felt a queer movement of pity. After the table was cleared,

he helped his wife to wash and wipe the dishes as his custom was of a

Sunday or holiday. He wiped dishes as he did everything, neatly, slowly,

with a careful deliberation. Not until the dishes were put away and the

couple were seated, did Thekla speak.



"Kurt," she said, "I got to talk to you."



An inarticulate groan and a glance at the door from Lieders. "I just got

to, papa. It aint righd for you to do the way you been doing for so long

time; efery little whiles you try to kill yourself; no, papa, that aint

righd!"



Kurt, who had gotten out his pencils and compasses and other drawing

tools, grunted: "I got to look at my work, Thekla, now; I am too busy to

talk."



"No, Kurt, no, papa"--the hands holding the blue apron that she was



embroidering with white linen began to tremble; Lieders had not the

least idea what a strain it was on this reticent, slow of speech woman

who had stood in awe of him for eighteen years, to discuss the horror

of her life; but he could not help marking her agitation. She went on,

desperately: "Yes, papa, I got to talk it oud with you. You had ought

to listen, 'cause I always been a good wife to you and nefer refused you

notings. No."



"Well, I aint saying I done it 'cause you been bad to me; everybody

knows we aint had no trouble."



"But everybody what don't know us, when they read how you tried to kill

yourself in the papers, they think it was me. That always is so. And now

I never can any more sleep nights, for you is always maybe git up and

do something to yourself. So now, I got to talk to you, papa. Papa, how

could you done so?"



Lieders twisted his feet under the rungs of his chair; he opened his

mouth, but only to shut it again with a click of his teeth.



"I got my mind made up, papa. I tought and I tought. I know WHY you done

it; you done it 'cause you and the boss was mad at each other. The boss

hadn't no righd to let you go------"



"Yes, he had, I madded him first; I was a fool. Of course I knowed more

than him 'bout the work, but I hadn't no right to go against him. The

boss is all right."



"Yes, papa, I got my mind made up"--like most sluggish spirits there was

an immense momentum about Thekla's mind, once get it fairly started it

was not to be diverted--"you never killed yourself before you used to

git mad at the boss. You was afraid he would send you away; and now you

have sent yourself away you don't want to live, 'cause you do not know

how you can git along without the shop. But you want to get back, you

want to get back more as you want to kill yourself. Yes, papa, I know,

I know where you did used to go, nights. Now"--she changed her speech

unconsciously to the tongue of her youth--"it is not fair, it is not

fair to me that thou shouldst treat me like that, thou dost belong to

me, also; so I say, my Kurt, wilt thou make a bargain with me? If I

shall get thee back thy place wilt thou promise me never to kill thyself

any more?"



Lieders had not once looked up at her during the slow, difficult

sentences with their half choked articulation; but he was experiencing

some strange emotions, and one of them was a novel respect for his wife.

All he said was: "'Taint no use talking. I won't never ask him to take

me back, once."



"Well, you aint asking of him. I ask him. I try to git you back,

once!"



"I tell you, it aint no use; I know the boss, he aint going to be

letting womans talk him over; no, he's a good man, he knows how to work

his business himself!"



"But would you promise me, Kurt?"



Lieders's eyes blurred with a mild and dreamy mist; he sighed softly.

"Thekla, you can't see how it is. It is like you are tied up, if I don't

can do that; if I can then it is always that I am free, free to go, free

to stay. And for you, Thekla, it is the same."



Thekla's mild eyes flashed. "I don't believe you would like it so you

wake up in the morning and find ME hanging up in the kitchen by the

clothes-line!"



Lieders had the air of one considering deeply. Then he gave Thekla one

of the surprises of her life; he rose from his chair, he walked in his

shuffling, unheeled slippers across the room to where the old woman sat;

he put one arm on the back of the chair and stiffly bent over her and

kissed her.



"Lieber Herr Je!" gasped Thekla.



"Then I shall go, too, pretty quick, that is all, mamma," said he.



Thekla wiped her eyes. A little pause fell between them, and in it they

may have both remembered vanished, half-forgotten days when life had

looked differently to them, when they had never thought to sit by

their own fireside and discuss suicide. The husband spoke first; with

a reluctant, half-shamed smile, "Thekla, I tell you what, I make the

bargain with you; you git me back that place, I don't do it again, 'less

you let me; you don't git me back that place, you don't say notings to

me."



The apron dropped from the withered, brown hands to the floor. Again

there was silence; but not for long; ghastly as was the alternative, the

proposal offered a chance to escape from the terror that was sapping her

heart.



"How long will you give me, papa?" said she.



"I give you a week," said he.



Thekla rose and went to the door; as she opened it a fierce gust of wind

slashed her like a knife, and Lieders exclaimed, fretfully, "what you

opening that door for, Thekla, letting in the wind? I'm so cold, now,

right by the fire, I most can't draw. We got to keep a fire in the

base-burner good, all night, or the plants will freeze."



Thekla said confusedly that something sounded like a cat crying. "And

you talking like that it frightened me; maybe I was wrong to make such

bargains------"



"Then don't make it," said Lieders, curtly, "I aint asking you."



But Thekla drew a long breath and straightened herself, saying, "Yes, I

make it, papa, I make it."



"Well, put another stick of wood in the stove, will you, now you are

up?" said Lieders, shrugging his shoulders, "or I'll freeze in spite of

you! It seems to me it grows colder every minute."



But all that day he was unusually gentle with Thekla. He talked of his

youth and the struggles of the early days of the firm; he related a

dozen tales of young Lossing, all illustrating some admirable trait that

he certainly had not praised at the time. Never had he so opened his

heart in regard to his own ideals of art, his own ambitions. And Thekla

listened, not always comprehending but always sympathizing; she was

almost like a comrade, Kurt thought afterward.



The next morning, he was surprised to have her appear equipped for the

street, although it was bitterly cold. She wore her garb of ceremony, a

black alpaca gown, with a white crocheted collar neatly turned over the

long black, broadcloth cloak in which she had taken pride for the last

five years; and her quilted black silk bonnet was on her gray head. When

she put up her foot to don her warm overshoes Kurt saw that the stout

ankles were encased in white stockings. This was the last touch.

"Gracious, Thekla," cried Kurt, "are you going to market this day? It is

the coldest day this winter!"



"Oh, I don't mind," replied Thekla, nervously. Then she had wrapped a

scarf about her and gone out while he was getting into his own coat, and

conning a proffer to go in her stead.



"Oh, well, Thekla she aint such a fool like she looks!" he observed to

the cat, "say, pussy, WAS it you out yestiddy?"



The cat only blinked her yellow eyes and purred. She knew that she had

not been out, last night. Not any better than her mistress, however, who

at this moment was hailing a street-car.



The street-car did not land her anywhere near a market; it whirled her

past the lines of low wooden houses into the big brick shops with their

arched windows and terra-cotta ornaments that showed the ambitious

architecture of a growing Western town, past these into mills and

factories and smoke-stained chimneys. Here, she stopped. An acquaintance

would hardly have recognized her, her ruddy cheeks had grown so pale.

But she trotted on to the great building on the corner from whence came

a low, incessant buzz. She went into the first door and ran against Carl

Olsen. "Carl, I got to see Mr. Lossing," said she breathlessly.



"There ain't noding----"



"No, Gott sei dank', but I got to see him."



It was not Carl's way to ask questions; he promptly showed her the

office and she entered. She had not seen young Harry Lossing half a

dozen times; and, now, her anxious eyes wandered from one dapper figure

at the high desks, to another, until Lossing advanced to her.



He was a handsome young man, she thought, and he had kind eyes, but they

hardened at her first timid sentence: "I am Mrs. Lieders, I come about

my man----"



"Will you walk in here, Mrs. Lieders?" said Lossing. His voice was like

the ice on the window-panes.



She followed him into a little room. He shut the door.



Declining the chair that he pushed toward her she stood in the centre of

the room, looking at him with the pleading eyes of a child.



"Mr. Lossing, will you please save my Kurt from killing himself?"



"What do you mean?" Lossing's voice had not thawed.



"It is for you that he will kill himself, Mr. Lossing. This is the dird

time he has done it. It is because he is so lonesome now, your father is

died and he thinks that you forget, and he has worked so hard for you,

but he thinks that you forget. He was never tell me till yesterday; and

then--it was--it was because I would not let him hang himself----"



"Hang himself?" stammered Lossing, "you don't mean----"



"Yes, he was hang himself, but I cut him, no I broke him down," said

Thekla, accurate in all the disorder of her spirits; and forthwith, with

many tremors, but clearly, she told the story of Kurt's despair. She

told, as Lieders never would have known how to tell, even had his pride

let him, all the man's devotion for the business, all his personal

attachment to the firm; she told of his gloom after the elder Lossing

died, "for he was think there was no one in this town such good man

and so smart like your fader, Mr. Lossing, no, and he would set all

the evening and try to draw and make the lines all wrong, and, then, he

would drow the papers in the fire and go and walk outside and he say, 'I

can't do nothing righd no more now the old man's died; they don't have

no use for me at the shop, pretty quick!' and that make him feel awful

bad!" She told of his homesick wanderings about the shops by night;

"but he was better as a watchman, he wouldn't hurt it for the world! He

telled me how you was hide his dinner-pail onct for a joke, and put in a

piece of your pie, and how you climbed on the roof with the hose when

it was afire. And he telled me if he shall die I shall tell you that

he ain't got no hard feelings, but you didn't know how that mantel had

ought to be, so he done it right the other way, but he hadn't no righd

to talk to you like he done, nohow, and you was all righd to send him

away, but you might a shaked hands, and none of the boys never said

nothing nor none of them never come to see him, 'cept Carl Olsen, and

that make him feel awful bad, too! And when he feels so bad he don't no

more want to live, so I make him promise if I git him back he never try

to kill himself again. Oh, Mr. Lossing, please don't let my man die!"



Bewildered and more touched than he cared to feel, himself, Lossing

still made a feeble stand for discipline. "I don't see how Lieders can

expect me to take him back again," he began.



"He aint expecting you, Mr. Lossing, it's ME!"



"But didn't Lieders tell you I told him I would never take him back?"



"No, sir, no, Mr. Lossing, it was not that, it was you said it would

be a cold day that you would take him back; and it was git so cold

yesterday, so I think, 'Now it would be a cold day to-morrow and Mr.

Lossing he can take Kurt back.' And it IS the most coldest day this

year!"



Lossing burst into a laugh, perhaps he was glad to have the Western

sense of humor come to the rescue of his compassion. "Well, it was a

cold day for you to come all this way for nothing," said he. "You go

home and tell Lieders to report to-morrow."



Kurt's manner of receiving the news was characteristic. He snorted

in disgust: "Well, I did think he had more sand than to give in to a

woman!" But after he heard the whole story he chuckled: "Yes, it was

that way he said, and he must do like he said; but that was a funny way

you done, Thekla. Say, mamma, yesterday, was you look out for the cat or

to find how cold it been?"



"Never you mind, papa," said Thekla, "you remember what you promised if

I git you back?"



Lieders's eyes grew dull; he flung his arms out, with a long sigh. "No,

I don't forget, I will keep my promise, but--it is like the handcuffs,

Thekla, it is like the handcuffs!" In a second, however, he added, in a

changed tone, "But thou art a kind jailer, mamma, more like a comrade.

And no, it was not fair to thee--I know that now, Thekla."