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Over Periscope Pond

Chapter 5 FROM ESTHER No.5

Word Count: 2876    |    Released on: 06/12/2017

16 to 3

st Si

rial "oui" has caused me to give my writing-table as wide a berth as is compatible with the size of this my dominion; but since he at the same time calls me "fatuous child" instead of using the far more obvious and shorter adjective, I say, So be it. The

eople who have invited me about in Paris, and now that my first fear is dispelled, I shall proceed. My first fear, you see, was that the family would think I was having too good a time and would call me home with dispatch; now that good times manifest themselves

topped by my two suitcases and a hatbox, towers in vain when I look up at it in the early morning from my eider-down fastness-or (see Father) slowness. "My bed is like a little boat" no more than it is like Central Park-in fact

Mother's last whitened tress is wound up on her finger and put away in a little Altman box at the back of her right-hand bureau drawer, that I keep things pretty well arranged on the different shelves and in the little drawers, my best clothes being left in my wardrobe trunk, but my orderliness (so-called) is due to no virtue of my own

e off, as it were, it does very well. Then there are two little chairs made so that you sit on them diagonally,-I've always thought them an abomination,-bu

ll remember that the wallpaper is pink and gold); the other two, gray in background, with a design which would seem to be conventionalized lyre-b

pt my dictionaries, but Mrs. Bigelow has left me ten Baedekers, and any number of book

and practically entertain through the bars. Mrs. Shurtleff is very anxious for me to get a sofa,-it's just impossible, of course, to let any of the Ambulance men come to call here,-but I don't know. I may get a little hanging bookcase. Just try, yourself, living without a bureau, a desk, a bookcase, or a rug, and see how screaming it is. This last week, I spent most of the time I was in the house sitting on a little hassock with my back to the radiator. It has been bitter cold, and we had three centimeters of snow, and there is

s, when I discovered their pianos, that I decided to do something desperate. I found a little piano-store on rue Denfert-Rochereau, with a little upright, and a darling blind piano-maker and his worried li

e that morning. I had a long hard day that day, and almost forgot my new treasure until after dinner, when I sat down on the piano-stool. I was casting about for some music-any music-to play, when Mlle. Germain, a French girl here, came in and offered a copy of the Beethoven Symphonies. I struck up the Fifth, and, believ

earned to watch out at the end of the F major étude not to crack my elbow against the foot of the bed, for I find that my bed gives out a metallic sound when rapped sharply with a bone. I stick my umbrella into the brass handle at the side of the piano, and then I have a "piano à queue"! After a few hours of reading Beethoven, Mlle. Germain and I get out a

e night after I had been here about a week, when Mélanie came to turn down my bed. I, thinking to turn my French on any victim, started to ask her questions about where her home w

d. "Don't tell me

little girl,-they're both three years old. They live with th

ct kids themselves-little and rosy-cheeked, scared to

ing all the chamber work, waiting on table and odd jobs for fourteen people-for the princely sum of six dollars a month and tips. Louise, the cook, is Mélanie's aunt, a jolly soul, and one fine cook. She lets me come into the kitchen any time, and gives me a hot apple fritter or some grilled carrots. I found it was customary to give ten francs for the three maids to divide among them each month-three francs apiece-sixty cents for a month's hard labor. I gave them twelve francs, and they were tickled to death. Then through the Vestiaire I got some warm things for Mélanie's and Maria's children for C

ver and in desperation sing (like Charles Woody), "Ferme la fenêtre, pour l'amour de Dieu!" Then I get up in the cold and light my candle-Madame won't turn on the elect

from mere weather could get me, but when you don't see the sun for four weeks, the grayness gets inside of you. It gets dark at about half-past three or quarter of four. The other day I was walking down the Avenue de l'Opéra, and no

mber

Father's cable about the Ford. Did any girl ever have such a good father! I will write him at once! Then the "New Republic," and Mother's letter, and yours. Please write me about the things that you alone can tell

ay night I went to the tree celebration, and it was a great experience. In the first place, the hospital is in an old French private mansion-h?tel, as they call it-and is quite a gorgeous place. What was once the salon was filled with convalescents, all well enough to be in uniform. At one end was the tree, the stage, and a piano, and at the other end

ee them all facing the tree with the light on their faces, many of them pale, some bandaged, singing with their whole hearts, it was too much for me. Some had only one leg to stand on

holly and mistletoe, and there were snappers and caps, and things raffled off, and more speeches. The eve

d Happy

th

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