FullReads

“Ah–at last–of course!” The round face beamed and a hard hand smote a harder knee, joyously. That he had not remembered at once! It was the new banker, to be sure. He would tell Minna, quite as a matter of fact, for there could be no mistake. Hank Judge, the machine agent, and Eli Stevens, the proprietor of the corner store, had said only yesterday there was to be a bank. Looking up the street the little man spied a familiar figure, and sprang to his feet as though released by a spring, his hand already in the air. There was Hank Judge, now, and he didn’t know–

“Dinner, Hans,” announced Minna at his elbow.

Holding the child of his brain hard in both hands lest it should escape prematurely, the little German went inside to preside over a repast, the distinctively German incense of which ascended most appetizingly.

Hans, junior, in a childish treble, spoke an honest little German blessing, beginning “Mein Vater von Himmel,” and emphasized by the raps of Hans senior’s knuckles on certain other small heads to keep their owners quiet.

“Fresh lettuce and radishes!” commented Camilla, joyously.

“Raised in our own garden hinein,” bobbed Minna, in ecstasy.

“And sauerkraut–” began Ichabod.

“From cabbages so large,” completed Hans, spreading his arms to designate an imaginary vegetable of heroic proportions.

“They must have grown very fast to be so large in May,” commented Camilla.

Hans and Minna exchanged glances–pitying, superior glances–such as we give behind the backs of the infirm, or the very old; and the subject of vegetables dropped.

“A great country for a bank, this,” commented Mr. Becher, with infinite finesse and between intermittent puffs at a hot potato.

“Is that so?”

Hans nodded violent confirmation, then words, English words, being valuable to him, he came quickly to the test.

“You will build for the bank yourself, is it not so?”

It was not the German and Minna who exchanged glances this time.

“No, I shall not build for the bank myself, Mr. Becher.”

“You will rent, perhaps?” Hans’s faith was beautiful.

“No, I shall not rent.”

The German’s face fell. To have wasted all that thought; for after all it was not the banker!

Minna, senior, stared in surprise, and her attention being diverted, Minna the younger seized the opportunity to inundate herself with a cup of hot coffee.

The spell was broken.

“I’m going to take a homestead,” explained Ichabod.

Hans’s fork paused in mid-air and his mouth forgot to close. At the point where the German struck, the earth was very hard.

“So?” he interrogated, weakly.

At this juncture the difference between the two Minnas, which had been transferred from the table to the kitchen, was resumed; and although Ichabod ate the remaining kraut to the last shred, and Camilla talked to Hans of the Vaterland in his native German, each knew the occasion was a failure. An ideal had been raised, the ideal of a Napoleon of finance, a banker; and that ideal materializing, lo there stood forth a farmer! Ach Gott von Himmel!

After dinner Hans stood in the doorway and pointed out the land-office. Ichabod thanked him, and under the impulse of habit felt in his pocket for a cigar. None was there, and all at once he remembered Ichabod Maurice did not smoke. Strange he should have such an abominable inclination to do so just then; but nevertheless the fact remained. Ichabod Maurice never had smoked.

He started up the street.

A small man, with very high boots and a very long moustache, sat tipped back in the sun in front of the land-office. He was telling a story; a good one, judging from the attention of the row of listeners. He grasped the chair tightly with his left hand while his right, holding a cob pipe, gesticulated actively. The story halted abruptly as Ichabod came up.

“Howdy!” greeted the little man.

Maurice nodded.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” he temporized.

“Not at all,” courtesied the teller of stories, as he led the way inside. “I’ve told that one until I’m tired of it, anyway.” He tapped the ashes from his pipe-bowl, meditatively. “A fellow has to kill the time some way, though, you know.”