"Your back is so sticky!" complained Pietro, whose care it was to look after the washing.
The family rubbed, and felt, and smelt; and then they declared unanimously that Walter's back had been guilty of absorbing all kinds of sticky gases and liquids.
"Really, it smells like lemon," said Trudie.
"And it's just coated with sugar. Boy, where have you been? Don't you have any sense of shame? To go to visit such swell people with lemon and sugar on your back! It's a disgrace, a disgrace."
"That don't explain the wine on your back--nor the lemon--nor the sugar. What say you, Trudie?"
There was complete unanimity. Timid, as usual, Walter didn't have the courage to tell everything. Nor would this have done any good. The understanding of the Pieterse family was like a rusty lock that no key will open. Walter knew this, and remembering former sad experiences, allowed the storm to rage above his head. Unfortunately he, too, in a sense, was rusty. His nobility of character had suffered; he had been guilty of cowardice.
He felt it. No minister could pray it away. Not even God himself could revoke it. Everyone must act according to his conviction, Mevrouw Holsma had said. He had not done this.
A dog would have kissed the hem of Femke's garment, meeting her after such a long separation. For it was she. Certainly it was Femke--or----
Could it have been somebody else? It must have been somebody else. How could Femke be at Dr. Holsma's?
No, no, it was she! Didn't she say that she knew me? Didn't she speak with the same voice that I heard when she called me a dear boy and gave me the kiss at the bridge?
She didn't know then what a coward I am! She wouldn't deny me and betray me. She would say to everybody: That is Walter, my little friend that I kissed that time, because he was so brave in fighting off those boys!
No, God has nothing to do with it. I am a coward. I can't live this way.
He thought of suicide; and in this mood he spent that Thursday night. He arose Friday morning with the firm determination to put an end to his unworthy existence.
Fortunately, just after breakfast he was put to work on a job that is calculated to reconcile one with life.
He had been tried and convicted, the verdict being unanimous. The penalty was that he should wash his jacket till it was clean. He entered upon the task with such enthusiasm that in an hour he was running to his mother crying triumphantly: