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 Ishall 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 righd 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."
