"I, am in the habit of doing anything I please."
"Ah, Herr is one of those millionaires I have read about!"
"Yes, I am very rich." I laughed, but Gretchen did not see the point.
"Come, then, with me, and you shall weed the knoblauch patch."
She was laughing at me, but I was not to be abashed.
"To the patch be it, then!" I cried. "An onion would smell as sweet
under any other name."
So Gretchen and I went into the onion patch, and I weeded and hoed and
hoed and weeded till my back ached and my hands were the color of the
soil. Nothing was done satisfactorily to Gretchen. It was, "There,
you have ruined the row back of you!" or "Pull the weeds more gently!"
and sometimes, "Ach! could your friends see you now!" I suppose that I
did not make a pretty picture. The perspiration would run down my
face. I would forget the condition of my hands and push back my hair,
which fell like a mop over my brow, whereat she would laugh. Once I
took her hand and helped her to jump over a row. I was surprised at
the strength of her grasp.
"What does Herr do for a living, he works so badly as a gardener?"
"I am a journalist," I answered, leaning on my hoe and breathing
heavily.
"Ach! one of those men who tell such dreadful stories about kings and
princes? Who cause men to go to war with each other? Who rouse the
ignorant to deeds of violence? One of those men who are more powerful
than a king, because they can undo him?" She drew away from me.
"Hold on!" I cried, dropping the hoe; "what do you know about it?"
"Enough," sadly. "I read the papers. I always look with fear upon one
of those men who can do so much good, and yet who would do so much
evil."
I had never looked at it in that light before.
"It seems to me, Gretchen," I said quietly, "that you are about as much
a barmaid as I am a weeder of knoblauches."
The color of excitement fled from Gretchen's cheeks, her eyes grew
troubled and she looked away.
"Gretchen has a secret," said I. "It is nothing to me what Gretchen's
secret is; I shall respect it, and continue to think of her only as a
barmaid with--with a superior education." I shouldered the hoe.
"Come, let us go back; I'm thirsty."