Elsie Singmaster

UNCLE DANIEL'S OFFER

Sarah Wenner, who was fifteen years old, but who did not look more than twelve, hesitated in the doorway between the kitchen and the best room, a great tray of tumblers and cups in her hands.

"Those knives and forks we keep always in here, Aunt Mena. We do not use them for every day."

Her aunt, Mena Illick, lifted the knives from the drawer where she had laid them. One could see from her snapping black eyes that she did not enjoy being directed by Sarah. But order was order, and no one ever justly accused a Pennsylvania German housewife of not putting things where they belonged. She laid the knives on the table for Sarah to put away.

The kitchen seemed strangely lonely and empty that evening, in spite of the number of persons who were there.

Besides little Sarah, who was the head of the Wenner household, now that the father was dead and the oldest son had gone away, and her Aunt Mena, who had driven thither for the funeral that afternoon, there was an uncle, Daniel Swartz, and his wife Eliza, who was just then wringing out the tea-towels from a pan of scalding suds, and the Swartzes' hired man, Jacob Kalb, short and stout, with a smooth-shaven face and tiny black eyes.

Daniel Swartz sat beside the wide table, the hired man by his side. On chairs against the wall, sitting now upright, now leaning against each other when sleep overpowered them, were the Wenner twins, Louisa Ellen and Ellen Louisa, whose combination of excessive slenderness and appearance of good health could be due only to constant activity. In their waking moments they looked not unlike eager little grasshoppers, ready for a spring.

The last member of the party lay peacefully sleeping on the deep settle before the fireplace. His wide blue eyes were closed, his chubby arms thrown above his head. Worn with the excitement of the day, too young to realize that the cheerful, merry father whom they had carried away that afternoon would never return, he slept on, the only one entirely at ease.

Daniel Swartz rose every few minutes to cover him more thoroughly. Aunt 'Liza and Aunt Mena watched Uncle Daniel, the eyes of the twins rested with scornful disfavor upon Jacob Kalb, and Sarah watched them all. Her tired eyes widened with apprehension when she saw her uncle bend over Albert as if he were his own, and she bit her lips when she saw Aunt 'Liza and Aunt Mena whispering together. Returning with the empty tray, she moved swiftly across the kitchen to where the twins were sitting.

At that moment they were awake and engaged in their favorite pastime of teasing Jacob Kalb.

Jacob had an intense desire to be considered English, and in an unfortunate moment had translated his name, not realizing how much worse its English equivalent, "Calf," would sound to English ears than the uncomprehended German "Kalb." It was the twins' older brother, William, who had now been away from home so long that they had almost forgotten him, who had heard Jacob telling his new name to some strangers.

"Ach, no, I cannot speak German very good. I am not German. My name is Jacob Calf."

He saw in their faces that he had made a mistake, but it was too late to retract. Besides, William Wenner, whom he hated, and who had been to the Normal School, had heard, and as long as Jacob lived the name would cling to him. Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen, accustomed to shout it at him from a safe vantage-ground on their own side of the fence, called it softly now when the older people were talking, "Jacob Calf! Jacob Calf!"

Then, suddenly, each twin found her arm clutched as though in a vise.

"Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen, be still. Not a word! Not a word!"

"But—" began the twins together. Sarah had always aided and abetted them. It was Sarah who had invented such brilliant rhymes as,

Sarah's nonsense had amused the father and delighted the children for many weary months. Why had she suddenly become so strange and solemn? To the twins death had as yet no very terrible meaning, and they knew nothing of care and responsibility. Each jerked her arm irritably away from Sarah's hand. Why didn't she tell the aunts and uncle to go home and let them go to bed? And why was Jacob Kalb there in the kitchen? Why—But the twins were too drowsy to worry very long. Leaning comfortably against each other, they fell asleep once more.

Sarah continued her journey across the room to gather up a pile of plates. She sympathized thoroughly with the twins in their hatred for the hired man. He had no business there. If the uncle and aunts wished to discuss their plans, they should do it alone, and not in the presence of this outsider. But he knew all Uncle Daniel's affairs, and was now too important a person to be teased.

Sarah put the plates into the corner-cupboard, arranging them in their accustomed places along the back. She had seen Aunt Eliza's and Aunt Mena's eyes glitter as they washed them.

"It ain't one of them even a little bit cracked," said Aunt 'Liza. "They should have gone all along to pop and not to Ellie Wenner."

"And the homespun shall come to me," said Aunt Mena.

Sarah had been ready with a sharp reply, but had checked it on her lips. "Pop" and Aunt Mena, indeed! She thought of their well-stocked houses. Her mother had had few enough of the family treasures.

She stopped for a moment to wipe her eyes before she went back to the kitchen, standing by the window and looking out over the dark fields. There was no lingering sunset glow to brighten the sky, but Sarah's eyes seemed to pierce the gloom, as though she would follow the sun to that distant country where her brother had vanished.

Two hundred years before, their ancestors had come from the Fatherland, and ever since, adventurous souls had insisted upon leaving this safe haven to penetrate still farther into the enchanted West. Whole families had gone; in Ohio were towns and counties whose people bore the familiar Pennsylvania German names, Yeager, Miller, Wagner, Swartz, Schwenk, Gaumer. Dozens of young men had gone to California in '49. Some had returned, some were never heard of again. Fifty years later, the rumor of gold drew young men away once more, this time into the bitter cold of the far Northwest.

William's indulgent father had let him go almost without a word of objection. He knew what wanderlust was. And for some reason William had seemed suddenly to become unhappy. The farm was small, too small to support them all; there were four younger children, and William, to his father's and mother's secret delight, had declined his Uncle Daniel's offer of adoption. They had let him take his choice between the straitened, simple life at home and the prospect of ease and wealth at Uncle Daniel's.

Uncle Daniel had never forgiven them or him. William's success at the Normal School, where, with great sacrifice, he was sent, irritated him; William's election as a township school director made him furious.

It is safe to say that Daniel Swartz and Jacob Kalb were the only persons in Upper Shamrock township who did not like William. Even Miss Miflin, the pretty school-teacher, went riding with him in his buggy, and all the farmers and the farmers' wives were fond of him.

"His learning doesn't spoil him," said Mrs. Ebert, who lived on the next farm. "He is just so nice and common as when he went away."

And then he had gone away again, not to the Normal School, but to Alaska. Sarah remembered dimly how he and his father had pored over the old atlas after the twins had been put, protesting, to bed, and the mother had sat with Albert in her arms, and, when the men were not watching her, with a sad, frightened look in her eyes. Sarah could understand both her brother's eagerness and her mother's sadness. Little did any of them foresee what the next few years were to bring. The little mother went first, with messages for William on her last breath, and now the dear, cheerful father. Surely, if William could have guessed, he would never have gone so far away.

But for two years they had had no word. At first there had been frequent letters. When he reached Seattle, it had been too late for him to go north, and he waited for spring. Then it was difficult to get passage, and there was another delay. After that the letters grew fewer and fewer, and finally ceased.

Meanwhile, a strange shadow had crept over William's name and William's memory. Pretty Miss Miflin asked no more about him, Uncle Daniel came and spoke sharply to Sarah's father and mother and then they talked about him in whispers when they thought Sarah did not hear. Once she caught an unguarded sentence:—

"I have written again. If he does not answer, he is dishonest or—"

"No!" her mother had answered sharply. "No! William will come home, and then he will tell us!"

But William had neither come nor written. So far as they knew he had not heard of his mother's death, and there was no telling whether the announcement of his father's death would reach him. Perhaps he, too, might be—

But that thought Sarah would not admit for the fragment of a second to her burdened mind. She wiped away her tears once more, and then she almost succeeded in smiling. The black clouds in the west were parting. Here and there a star peeped through. She knew a few of them by name. There was Venus,—Sarah, whose English was none of the best, would have called it "Wenus,"—her father had loved it. Often he had watched it from this window. Perhaps William saw it, too, in that mysterious night in which he lived. Ah, what tales there would be to tell when William came home!

Her father's death had meant the giving up of all Sarah's dreams and hopes. Three years before, they had driven one day to a neighboring town. Drives were not frequent in that busy household. Sarah remembered yet how fine Dan and Bill had looked in their newly blackened harness, and how proud she had felt, sitting with her father on the front seat.

They had seen many wonderful things: a paint-mill, a low, long building, covered, inside and out, with thick layers of red powder; and the ore mines, great holes in the yellow soil, where the ore needed only to be dug out from the surface; and they had stopped to watch a cast at a blast-furnace. But most wonderful of all was the "Normal." Sarah had seen the slender tower of the main building against the sky.

"What is then that?" she had asked.

"That is the Normal, where William went to school."

"Ach, yes, of course!" cried Sarah.

All the delightful things in the world were connected with William. Her father looked down at the sparkling eyes in the eager little face. He had had little education himself, but he knew its value.

"Would you like, then, to come here to school?"

Sarah's face grew a deep crimson. She looked at the trees, the wide lawns, the young people at play in the tennis-courts.

"I? To school? Here?"

"Of course. Wouldn't you like to be such a teacher like Miss Miflin?"

Sarah's face grew almost white. It was as though he had said, "Would you like to be President of the United States?"

"I! Like Miss Miflin! Ach, pop, do you surely mean it? But I am too dumb."

Her father laughed.

"No, you are not dumb. If you are good, and if you study, you dare come here."

Ah, but how could one study with a sick mother, and then a sick father and a baby to look after, and twins like Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen to bring up, and—

Sarah went slowly back to the kitchen. It was like going into church, all was so still and solemn. Albert and the twins slept, Aunt 'Liza and Aunt Mena had taken their places on the opposite side of the table from Uncle Daniel and Jacob Kalb.

"Come, come," cried Uncle Daniel impatiently. He did not like black-eyed little Sarah. She looked too much like her father, whom his sister had married against his will. "We must get this fixed up. Sit down, once."

Sarah sat down on the nearest seat, which was the lower end of the settle on which Albert lay. She wiped her hot face on her gingham apron, then laid her hand on Albert's stubby little shoes, as though she needed something to hold to.

"Don't," commanded Uncle Daniel. "You wake him up if you don't look a little out."

Sarah's eyes flashed. As though she would wake him, her own baby, whom she had tended for three years! She wanted to tell them to go, to leave her alone with her children. But again she was wisely silent. She did not know yet what it was that her uncle meant to "fix up."

Swartz pulled his chair a little closer to the table. He looked uncomfortable in his black suit and his stiff collar. Occasionally he slipped his finger behind it and pulled it away from his throat, as though it were too tight. It seemed as if his remarks were for the benefit of Sarah alone, even though he did not look at her, for Aunt Mena and Aunt 'Liza and the hired man helped him out with an occasional word as if they knew beforehand what he meant to say.

He, too, had his dreams. One was to see a son in his house; another was to see the Wenner farm once more united to his own as it had been in his father's lifetime. Then he would have the old border on the creek. There was also talk of the strange, new "electricity cars" running along the creek. That would double the value of the farm.

But he said nothing of this in his speech to Sarah.

"A couple of years back," he began, "I made an offer to Wenner. I said to him, 'I will take William and bring him up right, and then he can have the farm when I am no longer here.' That is what I said to your pop. But he wouldn't have it. He had to send William instead to school."

"Then what did he get for his schooling?" asked Jacob Kalb.

"I never had no schooling," said Uncle Daniel. "And you see where I am. Nobody needs schooling but preachers and teachers."

"I don't believe in schooling," said Aunt Eliza.

"Nor I," said Aunt Mena.

Sarah's eyes continued to flash, but she said nothing. She knew that they were expressing their scorn for her father's judgment, but she was too tired to answer. If they would only go home! She saw her uncle look at little Albert. He need not think she would give him up. Sarah almost laughed at the idea. Then she heard that her uncle had begun to speak again.

"Well, now I have another offer to make. Mena will take Ellie and Weezy. I will take Albert. He shall be Albert Swartz from now on. And Sarah can come also to us to help to work."

"You will have to be a good little girl and work right," admonished Aunt 'Liza.

"And you will have a good home," put in Jacob Kalb. "You and the zwillings (twins)." There were times when Jacob's English vocabulary was not equal to the demands upon it.

Sarah's pale cheeks grew a little whiter. But Uncle Daniel had said it was an offer. An offer could be declined.

"But we are all going to stay here together like always," she said. "I and Albert and the twins."

She saw their anger in their faces.

"What!" said Aunt Eliza.

"Such dumb talk!" cried Uncle Daniel.

"Are you then out of your mind?" asked Aunt Mena.

Jacob Kalb alone said nothing. But Sarah saw him smile. He planned to live in the Wenner farmhouse.

"Will you plough?" demanded Uncle Daniel.

"Or plant the seeds?" asked Aunt 'Liza.

"Or harvest?" said Aunt Mena.

Sarah spoke quietly. "I have it all planned. Ebert will farm like always for the half."

"The half!" repeated Uncle Daniel. "Should we then give this good money to Ebert? The half! I will farm."

"Well, then," said Sarah. "But you must pay the half to us because we must live."

"Pay the half to you!" exclaimed Aunt Mena.

"It is our farm," replied Sarah. "It was my mom's and my pop's farm. It isn't yours."

"Well, it will be mine," said Uncle Daniel. "What would such children make with such a farm?"

"I am not a child," answered Sarah firmly. "For three years already I managed the farm while my pop was sick. And it is William's farm so much as ours. And when William comes home—"

"William will never come home," said Uncle Daniel.

Sarah got up from the old settle.

"William will come home!" she cried. "It don't make nothing out if you do give us homes. If you take the farm, it will be stealing."

"Ei yi!" reproved Aunt Mena shortly. "That is no word for little girls!"

"A whipping would be good for her," offered Jacob Kalb.

"You haven't any right here, Jacob C-calf," cried Sarah.

Jacob's little eyes narrowed. "It is no way for little girls to talk when their brothers steal school-board money, and go off and their pops have to pay it," he said.

For a moment there was silence, then a reproving murmur from Aunt Mena.

"It isn't true!" cried Sarah. "It isn't true!" Suddenly she remembered her father's sadness, her mother's tears.

She burst into wild crying. "Ach, I wish you would go away and leave me with my children! I will get good along, if you will only let me be. Albert should be this long time in his bed. I wish you would go home."

She bent to lift the sleeping child. But her uncle pushed her aside.

"Albert is coming home with me," he said, as he lifted him up. "Jacob, put Weezy and Ellie in the carriage with Aunt Mena."

Sarah tried to keep her hold of the little boy. But she struggled in vain. Jacob Kalb picked up one of the twins.

"Ellen Louisa!" called Sarah.

Ellen Louisa struggled into wakefulness.

"Let me down, Jacob Calf; let me down!" She began to cry. "Ja-cob Calf, you m-make m-me l-laugh; let me down!"

But Ellen Louisa was borne shrieking from the room.

"Louisa Ellen!" called Sarah.

But Louisa Ellen found herself closely held by Aunt 'Liza and Aunt Mena, and she, too, was led forth.

"You are thieves!" cried Sarah wildly.

"Be still," commanded Uncle Daniel. "Will you wake him up?"

Then he, too, went toward the door. Aunt 'Liza put in her round face. They did not mean to be cruel. But little Sarah must be taught to know her place.

"Come, Sarah."

"I am going to stay here," said Sarah. She stood in the middle of the room, a wild, pathetic little figure.

"Come on," commanded Uncle Daniel.

"I am going to stay here," said Sarah.

At that moment Jacob Kalb returned. The poor twins had, despite their rage, fallen immediately asleep in Aunt Mena's carriage.

"Let her stay," he advised. "She will get pretty soon tired of it when she is afraid in the middle of the night."

"Ach, no!" cried Aunt Eliza. "She can't stay here."

But Uncle Daniel decided to take Jacob's advice.

"Come on, 'Lizie," he said.

For a moment after they had gone, Sarah stared about her. Afraid! Here in her own house with all the dear, familiar things of every day! There was nothing to be afraid of. She stood with blinking eyes, trying to remember what they had said about William; but her mind was a blank. She knew only one thing,—if she did not go upstairs, she should fall asleep where she stood.

She barred the doors and was about to put out the light, when she saw, above the mantel-shelf, the one firearm which the Wenners possessed,—an old shot-gun, which William had broken years ago, shooting crows. Still half asleep, she lifted it down, and put out the light. Then, dragging it by the muzzle in a position which would have been extremely dangerous had the poor old thing been loaded or capable of shooting, she took her candle and went upstairs.