A SILVER rime glistened all down the street.
There was a drabble of dead leaves on the sidewalk which was of wood, and on the roadway which was of macadam and stiff mud.
The wind blew sharply, for it was a December day and only six in the morning. Nor were the houses high enough to furnish any independent bulwark; they were low, wooden dwellings, the tallest a bare two stories in height, the majority only one story.
But they were in good painting and repair, and most of them had a homely gayety of geraniums or bouvardias in the windows.
The house on the corner was the tall house. It occupied a larger yard than its neighbors; and there were lace curtains tied with blue ribbons for the windows in the right hand front room.
The door of this house swung back with a crash, and a woman darted out.
She ran at the top of her speed to the little yellow house farther down the street. Her blue calico gown clung about her stout figure and fluttered behind her, revealing her blue woollen stockings and felt slippers. Her gray head was bare.
As she ran tears rolled down her cheeks and she wrung her hands.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh, lieber Herr Je!" One near would have heard her sob, in too distracted agitation to heed the motorneer of the passing street-car who stared after her at the risk of his car, or the tousled heads behind a few curtains. She did not stop until she almost fell against the door of the yellow house.
Her frantic knocking was answered by a young woman in a light and artless costume of a quilted petticoat and a red flannel sack.
"Oh, gracious goodness! Mrs. Lieders!" cried she.
Thekla Lieders rather staggered than walked into the room and fell back on the black haircloth sofa.
"There, there, there," said the young woman while she patted the broad shoulders heaving between sobs and short breath, "what is it?
The house aint afire?"
"Oh, no, oh, Mrs. Olsen, he has done it again!" She wailed in sobs, like a child.
"Done it? Done what?" exclaimed Mrs. Olsen, then her face paled.
"Oh, my gracious, you DON'T mean he's killed himself ------""Yes, he's killed himself, again."
"And he's dead?" asked the other in an awed tone.
Mrs. Lieders gulped down her tears. "Oh, not so bad as that, I cut him down, he was up in the garret and I sus--suspected him and I run up and--oh, he was there, a choking, and he was so mad!
He swore at me and--he kicked me when I--I says: 'Kurt, what are you doing of? Hold on till I git a knife,' I says--for his hands was just dangling at his side; and he says nottings cause he couldn't, he was most gone, and I knowed I wouldn't have time to git no knife but I saw it was a rope was pretty bad worn and so--so I just run and jumped and ketched it in my hands, and being I'm so fleshy it couldn't stand no more and it broke! And, oh! he--he kicked me when I was try to come near to git the rope off his neck;and so soon like he could git his breath he swore at me ----""And you a helping of him! Just listen to that!"cried the hearer indignantly.
"So I come here for to git you and Mr. Olsen to help me git him down stairs, 'cause he is too heavy for me to lift, and he is so mad he won't walk down himself.""Yes, yes, of course. I'll call Carl. Carl! dost thou hear? come!
But did you dare to leave him Mrs. Lieders?" Part of the time she spoke in English, part of the time in her own tongue, gliding from one to another, and neither party observing the transition.
Mrs. Lieders wiped her eyes, saying: "Oh, yes, Danke schon, I aint afraid 'cause I tied him with the rope, righd good, so he don't got no chance to move. He was make faces at me all the time I tied him."At the remembrance, the tears welled anew.
Mrs. Olsen, a little bright tinted woman with a nose too small for her big blue eyes and chubby cheeks, quivered with indignant sympathy.
"Well, I did nefer hear of sooch a mean acting man!" seemed to her the most natural expression; but the wife fired, at once.
"No, he is not a mean man," she cried, "no, Freda Olsen, he is not a mean man at all! There aint nowhere a better man than my man;and Carl Olsen, he knows that. Kurt, he always buys a whole ham and a whole barrel of flour, and never less than a dollar of sugar at a time!
And he never gits drunk nor he never gives me any bad talk.
It was only he got this wanting to kill himself on him, sometimes.""Well, I guess I'll go put on my things," said Mrs. Olsen, wisely declining to defend her position. "You set right still and warm yourself, and we'll be back in a minute."Indeed, it was hardly more than that time before both Carl Olsen, who worked in the same furniture factory as Kurt Lieders, and was a comely and after-witted giant, appeared with Mrs. Olsen ready for the street.
He nodded at Mrs. Lieders and made a gurgling noise in his throat, expected to convey sympathy. Then, he coughed and said that he was ready, and they started.
Feeling further expression demanded, Mrs. Olsen asked:
"How many times has he done it, Mrs. Lieders?"Mrs. Lieders was trotting along, her anxious eyes on the house in the distance, especially on the garret windows. "Three times,"she answered, not removing her eyes; "onct he tooked Rough on Rats and I found it out and I put some apple butter in the place of it, and he kept wondering and wondering how he didn't feel notings, and after awhile I got him off the notion, that time.
He wasn't mad at me; he just said: 'Well, I do it some other time.
