,” said Mr. Petersen to himself, “I’m not the first nor the last!”
He was standing on the back porch, looking into the kitchen formerly Mrs. Hansen’s immaculate kingdom. How changed, how sadly altered now! As if a huge maddened bumblebee had been flying about in it, knocking down everything, making all sorts of stupid mischief. Dirty pots and pans on the stove, the sink, even, unaccountably, on the chairs. And extraordinary things, which interested him, on the floor, egg-shells, toys, a pair of gloves.
Without the least trouble he could remember just how it had been nine or ten months ago, when Mrs. Hansen had ruled, when he had been a bachelor. Sighed, but not with bitterness. Order-loving and systematic as he was, he was not exasperated by the turmoil in his home, or by the dreadful meals. He had toward Minnie an absolutely boundless tenderness. For one thing, he could see that she always tried; her failure came not from laziness but from—he hesitated even to think it—from lack of intelligence, from a sort of obstinate stupidity.
Servants were hard to procure and Minnie never got on well with them. There were always scenes, in which Minnie was the perfect Defoe and the servant very impudent. She seemed to have an absolute talent for provoking impudence from the most unexpected sources. Furthermore, she would not pay good wages. She resented the very idea of a servant profiting by her work. It was one of her queer little parsimonies. So she was compelled to do most of the work of the house alone. When she became quite submerged in the torrent of disorder, she called upon Mrs. Hansen, but grudgingly and ungraciously.
It was after six, and she hadn’t begun even to consider dinner. He went upstairs and found her sweeping the big bedroom with frantic haste.
“Oh, Chris,” she said, with a worried frown, “I know I’m awfully late. But I had a terrible headache, and I had to lie down almost all afternoon.”
He put his arm about her shoulders.
“Oh, leave this!” he said. “You poor little soul! If you’re well enough to get dressed, we’ll go and have dinner at the Eagle House.”
“But, Chris, the house! The kitchen!”
“Nonsense! I’ll get Mrs. Hansen”
“No, not that odious woman!”
“Someone else then. Come on, little Minnie! Put on your nice new dress! I’ll find Sandra.”
Finding Sandra was a recognised preliminary. Her mother never knew where she was. She roamed about the neighbourhood, dirty and beautiful, playing with whatever children she encountered, or, oftener, went quite alone on her expeditions. She was never hungry, and hadn’t the least regard for meal times. Sometimes it sufficed to call her, sometimes Petersen went making enquiries.
He found her this time in the garden next door, talking with the old lady who lived there. As soon as she saw his kindly face she rushed up to him and sprang into his arms with the warm and silent affection she had developed for him, and which so enraptured him. He smiled apologetically over her head at the old lady, and carried her off. She was five now, and tall for her age, thinner than ever, and lovelier. She had lost the softness of babyhood, her little face was pointed, her features clearer. Mr. Petersen looked upon her with an admiration that was almost awe. His feeling for this child was more than he could express, more than he could comprehend; something beyond any paternal affection. Minnie loved her, with a violent and undiscriminating passion, but he was privately convinced that Minnie didn’t quite understand her, or quite appreciate her rareness. She would, he fancied, have loved any child she had borne with the same fervour.
“Well, Sandra!” he said, “are you hungry?”
“No, Uncle Chris.”
So she always answered, and it always worried him. He had been disturbed to learn from Minnie that the child never drank milk, didn’t like it. He found a very particular sort of cow out in the country and arranged with its owner to deliver daily a quart of its milk, and, with bribes and cajolery, got her to drink it.
“How much milk to-day?” he asked, as he did every evening.
“None. Because Michael tipped over the bottle just when Mother opened it, and he drank it all up, from the floor, like this.”
She illustrated with a small tongue.
“Now then, that will never do! We shall have Michael growing bigger than you!”
That amused her, and together they constructed imaginary scenes with an enormous Michael.
“We’re going out to dinner to-night,” he said. “Uncle Chris will make you pretty, eh?”
So he carefully washed the little face, and combed her hair, talking to her all the while.
“What did the little girl do to-day?” he asked.