hunt for crystals and agates and bits of pink chalcedony. She had two
cigar boxes full of stones that she had found or traded for, and she
imagined that they were of enormous value. She was always planning how
she would have them set.
“What are you reading?” The doctor reached under the covers and pulled
out a book of Byron’s poems. “Do you like this?”
She looked confused, turned over a few pages rapidly, and pointed to “My
native land, good-night.” “That,” she said sheepishly.
“How about ‘Maid of Athens’?”
She blushed and looked at him suspiciously. “I like ‘There was a sound
of revelry,’” she muttered.
The doctor laughed and closed the book. It was clumsily bound in padded
leather and had been presented to the Reverend Peter Kronborg by his
Sunday-School class as an ornament for his parlor table.
“Come into the office some day, and I’ll lend you a nice book. You can
skip the parts you don’t understand. You can read it in vacation.
Perhaps you’ll be able to understand all of it by then.”
Thea frowned and looked fretfully toward the piano. “In vacation I have
to practice four hours every day, and then there’ll be Thor to take care
of.” She pronounced it “Tor.”
“Thor? Oh, you’ve named the baby Thor?” exclaimed the doctor.
Thea frowned again, still more fiercely, and said quickly, “That’s a
nice name, only maybe it’s a little—old fashioned.” She was very
sensitive about being thought a foreigner, and was proud of the fact
that, in town, her father always preached in English; very bookish
English, at that, one might add.
Born in an old Scandinavian colony in Minnesota, Peter Kronborg had been
sent to a small divinity school in Indiana by the women of a Swedish
evangelical mission, who were convinced of his gifts and who skimped and
begged and gave church suppers to get the long, lazy youth through the
seminary. He could still speak enough Swedish to exhort and to bury the
members of his country church out at Copper Hole, and he wielded in his
Moonstone pulpit a somewhat pompous English vocabulary he had learned
out of books at college. He always spoke of “the infant Saviour,” “our
Heavenly Father,” etc. The poor man had no natural, spontaneous human
speech. If he had his sincere moments, they were perforce inarticulate.
Probably a good deal of his pretentiousness was due to the fact that he
habitually expressed himself in a book learned language, wholly remote
from anything personal, native, or homely. Mrs. Kronborg spoke Swedish
to her own sisters and to her sister-in-law Tillie, and colloquial
English to her neighbors. Thea, who had a rather sensitive ear, until
she went to school never spoke at all, except in monosyllables, and her
mother was convinced that she was tongue-tied. She was still inept in
speech for a child so intelligent. Her ideas were usually clear, but she
seldom attempted to explain them, even at school, where she excelled in
“written work” and never did more than mutter a reply.
“Your music professor stopped me on the street to-day and asked me how
you were,” said the doctor, rising. “He’ll be sick himself, trotting
around in this slush with no overcoat or overshoes.”
“He’s poor,” said Thea simply.
The doctor sighed. “I’m afraid he’s worse than that. Is he always all
right when you take your lessons? Never acts as if he’d been drinking?”
Thea looked angry and spoke excitedly. “He knows a lot. More than
anybody. I don’t care if he does drink; he’s old and poor.” Her voice
shook a little.
Mrs. Kronborg spoke up from the next room. “He’s a good teacher, doctor.
It’s good for us he does drink. He’d never be in a little place like
this if he didn’t have some weakness. These women that teach music
around here don’t know nothing. I wouldn’t have my child wasting time
with them. If Professor Wunsch goes away, Thea’ll have nobody to take
from. He’s careful with his scholars; he don’t use bad language. Mrs.
Kohler is always present when Thea takes her lesson. It’s all right.”
Mrs. Kronborg spoke calmly and judicially. One could see that she had
thought the matter out before.
“I’m glad to hear that, Mrs. Kronborg. I wish we could get the old man
off his bottle and keep him tidy. Do you suppose if I gave you an old
overcoat you could get him to wear it?” The doctor went to the bedroom
door and Mrs. Kronborg looked up from her darning.
“Why, yes, I guess he’d be glad of it. He’ll take most anything from me.
He won’t buy clothes, but I guess he’d wear ‘em if he had ‘em. I’ve
never had any clothes to give him, having so many to make over for.”
“I’ll have Larry bring the coat around to-night. You aren’t cross with
me, Thea?” taking her hand.
Thea grinned warmly. “Not if you give Professor Wunsch a coat—and
things,” she tapped the grapes significantly. The doctor bent over and
kissed her.
III
Being sick was all very well, but Thea knew from experience that
starting back to school again was attended by depressing difficulties.
One Monday morning she got up early with Axel and Gunner, who shared her
wing room, and hurried into the back living-room, between the
dining-room and the kitchen. There, beside a soft-coal stove, the
younger children of the family undressed at night and dressed in the
morning. The older daughter, Anna, and the two big boys slept upstairs,
where the rooms were theoretically warmed by stovepipes from below. The
first (and the worst!) thing that confronted Thea was a suit of clean,
prickly red flannel, fresh from the wash. Usually the torment of
breaking in a clean suit of flannel came on Sunday, but yesterday, as
she was staying in the house, she had begged off. Their winter underwear
was a trial to all the children, but it was bitterest to Thea because
she happened to have the most sensitive skin. While she was tugging it
on, her Aunt Tillie brought in warm water from the boiler and filled the
tin pitcher. Thea washed her face, brushed and braided her hair, and got
into her blue cashmere dress. Over this she buttoned a long apron, with
sleeves, which would not be removed until she put on her cloak to go to
school. Gunner and Axel, on the soap box behind the stove, had their
usual quarrel about which should wear the tightest stockings, but they
exchanged reproaches in low tones, for they were wholesomely afraid of
Mrs. Kronborg’s rawhide whip. She did not chastise her children often,
but she did it thoroughly. Only a somewhat stern system of discipline
could have kept any degree of order and quiet in that overcrowded house.
Mrs. Kronborg’s children were all trained to dress themselves at the
earliest possible age, to make their own beds,—the boys as well as the
girls,—to take care of their clothes, to eat what was given them, and
to keep out of the way. Mrs. Kronborg would have made a good chess
player; she had a head for moves and positions.
Anna, the elder daughter, was her mother’s lieutenant. All the children
knew that they must obey Anna, who was an obstinate contender for
proprieties and not always fair minded. To see the young Kronborgs
headed for Sunday School was like watching a military drill. Mrs.
Kronborg let her children’s minds alone. She did not pry into their
thoughts or nag them. She respected them as individuals, and outside of
the house they had a great deal of liberty. But their communal life was
definitely ordered.