Dawn O'Hara: The Girl Who Laughed Page 2

  CHAPTER II. MOSTLY EGGS

  Oh, but it was clean, and sweet, and wonderfully still, thatrose-and-white room at Norah's! No street cars to tear at one's nerveswith grinding brakes and clanging bells; no tramping of restless feeton the concrete all through the long, noisy hours; no shrieking midnightjoy-riders; not one of the hundred sounds which make night hideousin the city. What bliss to lie there, hour after hour, in a delicioushalf-waking, half-sleeping, wholly exquisite stupor, only rousing myselfto swallow egg-nogg No. 426, and then to flop back again on the big,cool pillow!

  New York, with its lights, its clangor, its millions, was only afar-away, jumbled nightmare. The office, with its clacking typewriters,its insistent, nerve-racking telephone bells, its systematic rush, itssmoke-dimmed city room, was but an ugly part of the dream.

  Back to that inferno of haste and scramble and clatter? Never! Never! Iresolved, drowsily. And dropped off to sleep again.

  And the sheets. Oh, those sheets of Norah's! Why, they were white,instead of gray! And they actually smelled of flowers. For that matter,there were rosebuds on the silken coverlet. It took me a week to getchummy with that rosebud-and-down quilt. I had to explain carefullyto Norah that after a half-dozen years of sleeping under doubtfulboarding-house blankets one does not so soon get rid of a shudderingdisgust for coverings which are haunted by the ghosts of a hundredunknown sleepers. Those years had taught me to draw up the sheetwith scrupulous care, to turn it down, and smooth it over, so that nocontaminating and woolly blanket should touch my skin. The habitstuck even after Norah had tucked me in between her fragrant sheets.Automatically my hands groped about, arranging the old protectingbarrier.

  "What's the matter, Fuss-fuss?" inquired Norah, looking on. "That downquilt won't bite you; what an old maid you are!"

  "Don't like blankets next to my face," I elucidated, sleepily, "nevercan tell who slept under 'em last--"

  "You cat!" exclaimed Norah, making a little rush at me. "If you weren'tsupposed to be ill I'd shake you! Comparing my darling rosebud quilt toyour miserable gray blankets! Just for that I'll make you eat an extrapair of eggs."

  There never was a sister like Norah. But then, who ever heard of abrother-in-law like Max? No woman--not even a frazzled-out newspaperwoman--could receive the love and care that they gave me, and fail toflourish under it. They had been Dad and Mother to me since the day whenNorah had tucked me under her arm and carried me away from New York. Siswas an angel; a comforting, twentieth-century angel, with white apronstrings for wings, and a tempting tray in her hands in place of the hymnbooks and palm leaves that the picture-book angels carry. She coaxed theinevitable eggs and beef into more tempting forms than Mrs. Rorer everguessed at. She could disguise those two plain, nourishing articles ofdiet so effectually that neither hen nor cow would have suspected eitherof having once been part of her anatomy. Once I ate halfway through amelting, fluffy, peach-bedecked plate of something before I discoveredthat it was only another egg in disguise.

  "Feel like eating a great big dinner to-day, Kidlet?" Norah would ask inthe morning as she stood at my bedside (with a glass of egg-something inher hand, of course).

  "Eat!"--horror and disgust shuddering through my voice--"Eat! Ugh!Don't s-s-speak of it to me. And for pity's sake tell Frieda to shutthe kitchen door when you go down, will you? I can smell something likeugh!--like pot roast, with gravy!" And I would turn my face to the wall.

  Three hours later I would hear Sis coming softly up the stairs,accompanied by a tinkling of china and glass. I would face her, allprotest.

  "Didn't I tell you, Sis, that I couldn't eat a mouthful? Not amouthf--um-m-m-m! How perfectly scrumptious that looks! What's thataffair in the lettuce leaf? Oh, can't I begin on that divine-lookingpinky stuff in the tall glass? H'm? Oh, please!"

  "I thought--" Norah would begin; and then she would snigger softly.

  "Oh, well, that was hours ago," I would explain, loftily. "Perhaps Icould manage a bite or two now."

  Whereupon I would demolish everything except the china and doilies.

  It was at this point on the road to recovery, just halfway betweenillness and health, that Norah and Max brought the great andunsmiling Von Gerhard on the scene. It appeared that even New York wasrespectfully aware of Von Gerhard, the nerve specialist, in spite of thefact that he lived in Milwaukee. The idea of bringing him up to look atme occurred to Max quite suddenly. I think it was on the evening that Iburst into tears when Max entered the room wearing a squeaky shoe. TheWeeping Walrus was a self-contained and tranquil creature compared to meat that time. The sight of a fly on the wall was enough to make me burstinto a passion of sobs.

  "I know the boy to steady those shaky nerves of yours, Dawn," said Max,after I had made a shamefaced apology for my hysterical weeping, "I'mgoing to have Von Gerhard up here to look at you. He can run up Sunday,eh, Norah?"

  "Who's Von Gerhard?" I inquired, out of the depths of my ignorance."Anyway, I won't have him. I'll bet he wears a Vandyke and spectacles."

  "Von Gerhard!" exclaimed Norah, indignantly. "You ought to be thankfulto have him look at you, even if he wears goggles and a flowing beard.Why, even that red-haired New York doctor of yours cringed and lookedimpressed when I told him that Von Gerhard was a friend of my husband's,and that they had been comrades at Heidelberg. I must have mentioned himdozens of times in my letters."

  "Never."

  "Queer," commented Max, "he runs up here every now and then to spend aquiet Sunday with Norah and me and the Spalpeens. Says it rests him. Thekids swarm all over him, and tear him limb from limb. It doesn't lookrestful, but he says it's great. I think he came here from Berlin justafter you left for New York, Dawn. Milwaukee fits him as if it had beenmade for him."

  "But you're not going to drag this wonderful being up here just for me!"I protested, aghast.

  Max pointed an accusing finger at me from the doorway. "Aren't you whatthe bromides call a bundle of nerves? And isn't Von Gerhard's specialtyuntying just those knots? I'll write to him to-night."

  And he did. And Von Gerhard came. The Spalpeens watched for him, theirnoses flattened against the window-pane, for it was raining. As he cameup the path they burst out of the door to meet him. From my bedroomwindow I saw him come prancing up the walk like a boy, with the twochildren clinging to his coat-tails, all three quite unmindful of therain, and yelling like Comanches.

  Ten minutes later he had donned his professional dignity, enteredmy room, and beheld me in all my limp and pea-green beauty. I notedapprovingly that he had to stoop a bit as he entered the low doorway,and that the Vandyke of my prophecy was missing.

  He took my hand in his own steady, reassuring clasp. Then hebegan to talk. Half an hour sped away while we discussed NewYork--books--music--theatres--everything and anything but Dawn O'Hara.I learned later that as we chatted he was getting his story, bit by bit,from every twitch of the eyelids, from every gesture of the hands thathad grown too thin to wear the hateful ring; from every motion of thelips; from the color of my nails; from each convulsive muscle; fromevery shadow, and wrinkle and curve and line of my face.

  Suddenly he asked: "Are you making the proper effort to get well? Youtry to conquer those jumping nerfs, yes?"

  I glared at him. "Try! I do everything. I'd eat woolly worms if Ithought they might benefit me. If ever a girl has minded her big sisterand her doctor, that girl is I. I've eaten everything from pate de foiegras to raw beef, and I've drunk everything from blood to champagne."

  "Eggs?" queried Von Gerhard, as though making a happy suggestion.

  "Eggs!" I snorted. "Eggs! Thousands of 'em! Eggs hard and soft boiled,poached and fried, scrambled and shirred, eggs in beer and egg-noggs,egg lemonades and egg orangeades, eggs in wine and eggs in milk, andeggs au naturel. I've lapped up iron-and-wine, and whole rivers of milk,and I've devoured rare porterhouse and roast beef day after day forweeks. So! Eggs!"

  "Mein Himmel!" ejaculated he, fervently, "And you still live!" Asuspicion of a smile dawned in his eyes. I w
ondered if he ever laughed.I would experiment.

  "Don't breathe it to a soul," I whispered, tragically, "but eggs, andeggs alone, are turning my love for my sister into bitterest hate. Shestalks me the whole day long, forcing egg mixtures down my unwillingthroat. She bullies me. I daren't put out my hand suddenly withoutknocking over liquid refreshment in some form, but certainly with an egglurking in its depths. I am so expert that I can tell an egg orangeadefrom an egg lemonade at a distance of twenty yards, with my left handtied behind me, and one eye shut, and my feet in a sack."

  "You can laugh, eh? Well, that iss good," commented the grave andunsmiling one.

  "Sure," answered I, made more flippant by his solemnity. "Surely I canlaugh. For what else was my father Irish? Dad used to say that a senseof humor was like a shillaly--an iligent thing to have around handy,especially when the joke's on you."

  The ghost of a twinkle appeared again in the corners of the German blueeyes. Some fiend of rudeness seized me.

  "Laugh!" I commanded.

  Dr. Ernst von Gerhard stiffened. "Pardon?" inquired he, as one who issure that he has misunderstood.

  "Laugh!" I snapped again. "I'll dare you to do it. I'll double dare you!You dassen't!"

  But he did. After a moment's bewildered surprise he threw back hishandsome blond head and gave vent to a great, deep infectious roar ofmirth that brought the Spalpeens tumbling up the stairs in defiance oftheir mother's strict instructions.

  After that we got along beautifully. He turned out to be quite human,beneath the outer crust of reserve. He continued his examination onlyafter bribing the Spalpeens shamefully, so that even their rapaciousdemands were satisfied, and they trotted off contentedly.

  There followed a process which reduced me to a giggling heap but whichVon Gerhard carried out ceremoniously. It consisted of certain rapsat my knees, and shins, and elbows, and fingers, and certain commandsto--"look at my finger! Look at the wall! Look at my finger! Look at thewall!"

  "So!" said Von Gerhard at last, in a tone of finality. I sank mybattered frame into the nearest chair. "This--this newspaper work--itmust cease." He dismissed it with a wave of the hand.

  "Certainly," I said, with elaborate sarcasm. "How should you advise meto earn my living in the future? In the stories they paint dinner cards,don't they? or bake angel cakes?"

  "Are you then never serious?" asked Von Gerhard, in disapproval.

  "Never," said I. "An old, worn-out, worked-out newspaper reporter, witha husband in the mad-house, can't afford to be serious for a minute,because if she were she'd go mad, too, with the hopelessness of it all."And I buried my face in my hands.

  The room was very still for a moment. Then the great Von Gerhard cameover, and took my hands gently from my face. "I--I do beg your pardon,"he said. He looked strangely boyish and uncomfortable as he said it. "Iwas thinking only of your good. We do that, sometimes, forgetting thatcircumstances may make our wishes impossible of execution. So. You willforgive me?"

  "Forgive you? Yes, indeed," I assured him. And we shook hands, gravely."But that doesn't help matters much, after all, does it?"

  "Yes, it helps. For now we understand one another, is it not so? You sayyou can only write for a living. Then why not write here at home? Surelythese years of newspaper work have given you a great knowledge ofhuman nature. Then too, there is your gift of humor. Surely that is acombination which should make your work acceptable to the magazines.Never in my life have I seen so many magazines as here in the UnitedStates. But hundreds! Thousands!"

  "Me!" I exploded--"A real writer lady! No more interviews withactresses! No more slushy Sunday specials! No more teary tales! Oh, my!When may I begin? To-morrow? You know I brought my typewriter with me.I've almost forgotten where the letters are on the keyboard."

  "Wait, wait; not so fast! In a month or two, perhaps. But first mustcome other things outdoor things. Also housework."

  "Housework!" I echoed, feebly.

  "Naturlich. A little dusting, a little scrubbing, a little sweeping, alittle cooking. The finest kind of indoor exercise. Later you may writea little--but very little. Run and play out of doors with the children.When I see you again you will have roses in your cheeks like the Germangirls, yes?"

  "Yes," I echoed, meekly, "I wonder how Frieda will like my elephantineefforts at assisting with the housework. If she gives notice, Norah willbe lost to you."

  But Frieda did not give notice. After I had helped her clean the kitchenand the pantry I noticed an expression of deepest pity overspreading herlumpy features. The expression became almost one of agony as she watchedme roll out some noodles for soup, and delve into the sticky mysteriesof a new kind of cake.

  Max says that for a poor working girl who hasn't had time to cultivatethe domestic graces, my cakes are a distinct triumph. Sis sniffs atthat, and mutters something about cups of raisins and nuts and citronhiding a multitude of batter sins. She never allows the Spalpeens toeat my cakes, and on my baking days they are usually sent from the tablehowling. Norah declares, severely, that she is going to hide the GreenCook Book. The Green Cook Book is a German one. Norah bought it indeference to Max's love of German cookery. It is called Aunt Julchen'scook book, and the author, between hints as to flour and butter, getsdelightfully chummy with her pupil. Her cakes are proud, rich cakes. Sheorders grandly:

  "Now throw in the yolks of twelve eggs; one-fourth of a poundof almonds; two pounds of raisins; a pound of citron; a pound oforange-peel."

  As if that were not enough, there follow minor instructions as totrifles like ounces of walnut meats, pounds of confectioner's sugar, andpints of very rich cream. When cold, to be frosted with an icing made upof more eggs, more nuts, more cream, more everything.

  The children have appointed themselves official lickers and scrapers ofthe spoons and icing pans, also official guides on their auntie'swalks. They regard their Aunt Dawn as a quite ridiculous but altogetherdelightful old thing.

  And Norah--bless her! looks up when I come in from a romp with theSpalpeens and says: "Your cheeks are pink! Actually! And you're losinga puff there at the back of your ear, and your hat's on crooked. Oh, youare beginning to look your old self, Dawn dear!"

  At which doubtful compliment I retort, recklessly: "Pooh! What's a puffmore or less, in a worthy cause? And if you think my cheeks are pinknow, just wait until your mighty Von Gerhard comes again. By that timethey shall be so red and bursting that Frieda's, on wash day, willlook anemic by comparison. Say, Norah, how red are German red cheeks,anyway?"