Читать книгу The Matrimonial Bureau - Carolyn Wells - Страница 4

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Think you there was, or might be such a man as this I dreamed of?—Antony and Cleopatra.

It all happened in the most curious fashion to begin with. If Lieutenant Adams had not sent to Miss Esther the particularly heavy box which contained some sort of a plaster cast which he had picked up somewhere, and which necessitated a great deal of packing-stuff to keep it from breaking, Tekla never would have found the paper. Then, too, she never would have found the paper if Michael had been about the place on the afternoon the box came. But he wasn’t, and Miss Esther was impatient. The box had to be unpacked, so she and Tekla, armed with a hatchet, a screw-driver, and a monkey-wrench, went at it.

“I expect it’s broken,” said Miss Esther, after the protecting boards had been removed, with that lack of dexterity but determined effectiveness which characterizes the carpenter work of the average woman; “I have no doubt it’s broken all to pieces.”

“Yes ‘m, I suppose it is; they always are,” said Tekla, cheerfully, as she pulled out the bunches of paper which were stuffed about the cast.

“It was packed carefully enough,” said Miss Esther.

“Yes, indeed, ma’am. They must have used all the papers they had saved up for housecleaning time. I don’t know what they’ll have left to put on their pantry shelves.”

“I’m glad they did; this is a specially fine cast, and I do hope it isn’t broken. It looks as if it were, though.”

Miss Esther took hold of the end of the cast and tried to lift it out. She succeeded in extricating it from the mass of papers and carried it off in triumph.

Tekla brought a basket and began picking up the crumpled papers from the kitchen floor. Some large figures on one bit caught her eye.

“ ‘Circulation yesterday, 840,327,’ ” she read; “must have used ‘em all.”

She went on picking up the papers, carefully smoothing out those pieces which she believed might be of use for such purposes as suggest themselves to the careful housewife. “I wish,” she thought, “that they hadn’t crumpled these things up so much. They might just as well have left them flat. We could have used them then.”

At the very bottom of the box she found several voluminous Sunday newspapers that apparently had never been opened. “At least here’s a few smooth ones,” she continued with a satisfied air.

As she laid them aside, a conspicuous picture attracted her attention. “That,” said Tekla, after a long, steady stare at it, “is the kind of place I’m going to live in. There should be cows—yes—like those,” and she held the picture at arm’s length. “Chickens—yes—and dogs. Some calves, maybe, and pigeons and pigs, the same like those! Ah!”

Again she held the picture out before her and gazed at it. “It is all there, all—but the man—not!”

Taking down the big shears from their nail, Tekla cut out the picture and pinned it up above the kitchen table. “But I will have the cow-sheds nearer the house,” she said as she turned away. “They are not handy, so.”

In the household of Miss Esther Adams, a Sunday newspaper was almost an unknown quantity. To Tekla the discovery of three or four complete sheets, with all the various “sections” carefully put together, was an event of thrilling importance. She hurried through her work, and sat down that evening to enjoy without interruption the unexpected windfall.

By a slow and laborious process of elimination she laid aside the primarily colored pages, the reproduced photographs, the editorial sections, and other interesting but unbelievable stories, and reserved only the advertisements.

These she read eagerly, marking with her pencil such pictured glories of feminine apparel as appealed to her somewhat barbaric taste.

Idly scanning one of the more uninteresting looking pages, she chanced upon a sort of advertisement which seemed to her to be wholly new. Nothing like it had ever fallen under her observation.

SPINSTERS ATTENTION!

Why remain unappropriated blessings? Why waste your sweetness on the desert air? Somewhere there is a heart that beats for you alone. He may be on our list. We have bankers, brokers, clergymen, lawyers, merchants, farmers,—

“Farmers!” said Tekla, thoughtfully.

—machinists, carpenters, masons, and others. Every one of our clients is a worthy, honorable gentleman who wants a wife. If you will send $1 and your photograph, we will enter your name upon our records.

Tekla read and re-read this advertisement. “Only a dollar,—that is not so much. And they said farmers.”

She raised her eyes to the picture she had pinned up on the wall.

“A farm—and a farmer, and some cows yet, and chickens. A house like that, and two pigs and two horses and a kitchen all over white paint—with a yellow floor—”

She hesitated, looked at the picture again doubtfully, and continued. “It stands in the advertisement that there should be a farmer. I will do it! I will send yet one dollar.” Tekla had lived under the influence of Miss Esther so long that whatever she did was more or less tinged with the old-fashioned fineness which characterized her large-hearted, gentle-minded mistress. Therefore, after a considerable amount of earnest effort, she produced this letter:

Whitfield, June 8th.

DEAR SIR,—I have read your advertisement and would say that I inclose herewith one dollar. Please enter my name on your records, and I would like a farmer.

The farm must contain many acres, also many cows, pigs, sheep, and a donkey. But there must be no bees, as I do not enjoy stinging.

I have never lived on a farm, but I have a picture of one, and I am sure it will be good. I have lived with Miss Esther for seven years and she has trusted me with the care of her large house, and she says I am too good for James, who drives for the Doctor.

So please, Dear Sir, if among your worthy and honorable gentlemen there is a farmer with a farm which I have described, I should be glad to hear from you by return of post.

Yours to Command,

TEKLA KLEIN.

P. S.—My Mother is dead.

Tekla carefully copied the address given in the advertisement, folded her letter, and inclosed it in the envelope. Then she took from the top drawer of the old dresser, which stood in the kitchen closet, a new dollar bill, which Major Bradford had given her on his last visit. That was the day, Tekla remembered, when she had taken particular pains with the brushing of his uniform—it was the day of the dedication of the soldiers’ monument. She regarded the new bill with real affection. She had had it more than a year. For a moment she hesitated. What if the farmer were not forthcoming in response to her request? But before her hung the picture of the farmhouse, the horses, cows, chickens—not one single bee was visible.

Tekla’s sense of justice was such that she felt a certain responsibility to Miss Esther for the spending of her wages, but surely, she thought, with this particular dollar she had every right to do as she chose.

Therefore, trusting that the end would justify the means, she neatly folded the bill and placed it carefully with the letter in the already stamped and addressed envelope, and sealed it.

And so, as we said at first, if Lieutenant Adams had not sent the cast to his cousin, and if Michael had not been absent the day it came, and if Miss Esther had not in her impatience insisted upon Tekla’s opening the box, the little German girl would not have seen the picture of her farm, the letter would not have been written, Adolf Hecksher would never have come to Whitfield, this story would never have been written—and what would you have done then?