ONLY A QUESTION OF RENT

The two girls were still under the shadow of a painful domestic scene. They hurried along anxious to escape from themselves but soon the perfect beauty of the day calmed their nerves. Their rapid pace slackened and they strolled quietly along but still in unbroken silence. At last they turned into the park and soon found a beautiful plot of soft grass all surrounded by dark firs. With one impulse they threw themselves down full on their backs. After some moments of quiet contemplation one of the friends raised herself on her elbow and began,. “I will not attempt to excuse my father to you. He is moody, bitter and often tyrranical; we all recognize that, but, the poor old dad, we love him anyway. Wait I’ll tell you a little of his life. It is only just that you should know it.”

After a pause, she continued, “He has a brother in this town as you know and perhaps you have often wondered why we never speak of him. He and my father were the only children of a peasant away off in Germany. Shortly after grandfather’s death, uncle left home, and settled out here in the West. My father soon followed him to this the land of promise, taking his old mother with him. He supported her for some years although nothing but a boy, unassisted by his brother.

At last my uncle having established a good business sent for his brother who had meanwhile grown into a handsome and attractive young man. He was invaluable to my uncle as a salesman. He made friends while my uncle made money. Finally much to my uncle’s disgust, father married and left his employ.

My grand-mother, not long after, joined her sons in their new home and of course she went first to her Joseph her best-beloved. My poor mother was young and inexperienced and managed before long to imitate gross-mutter who had just such a temper as all our family are cursed with. We children although we loved her, never could approve of her and we still remember how we suffered under her cruel tongue when her anger was aroused.

As I was saying, at first it was only a small misunderstanding, some question concerning olives, but my uncle soon made it a pretext for hatred. He encouraged Gross-mutter in her anger, until finally she left my father’s house and went to him. He forbade his children speaking to their uncle and called him a dastardly ingrate who had turned his old mother out of doors.

Poor old dad, he had to enter a house where he was shunned as if he were a leper or give up seeing his old mother altogether.

This continued for some time until gross-mutter getting older and older began gradually to fade away. She was very near her end and for the first time in years the brothers stood together by her side. She revived slightly and opening her eyes said to my uncle lovingly. “Dave, be good to little Joe. You know he’s only a boy. He’s got no one but you my little Joe.” ….. Yes the feud was at an end but only till the last clod of earth had fallen on the mother’s grave. Before the brother’s had left the cemetery their hate sprang into life again. My uncle insulted my father. Fierce words were followed by fiercer blows and once more my uncle dropped out of our lives.

During My father made only a fairly good living while his brother grew constantly richer. The man who owned father’s store wished to use it for some other purpose and so the dad began to look about for new quarters. My uncle came to him and told him that he was also going to move and that he would gladly rent him his old store. My father always ready to keep the peace with his brother although in all other relations a high-spirited man, consented and took a lease for three years.

During this time the street lost its prestige and rents began to lower. My father went to his brother at the end of his lease in order to get a renewal. He told him that under the circumstances he expected a reduction of his rent. My uncle handed my father a folded paper and said with his slightly foreign accent, ‘Yes, Jo, here is your renewal.’ My father opened it, read it, looked at his brother, then at the paper and said ‘Why you can’t mean this Dave, you have raised my rent: and a lease of ten years too, I don’t want that’

Quietly came the answer, ‘If you don’t want it, you leave my store immediately! ‘But I can’t do that, that would ruin me, think of my wife and children.’

‘Yes’ the words came slowly, cooly, Yes, ruin, I know it, it is as I have long wished. You see’1 bringing his fingers together ‘I have you between my thumb and finger, so, and now I crush squeeze you. You sign my lease or you leave my store! … Nothing more was heard but the quiet scratching of a pen and the brother parted ….

Seven years after my father met a little girl on the street who smiled at him brightly. He was is fond of children and began talking to her. As they strolled along together he happened to ask her name. The little one replied, ‘Why don’t you know me uncle I’m little Minnie.’ The poor old dad,! he wanted to be kind but he could not help it. He hated even his brother’s little child. He left her instantly and she stood looking after him, too surprised even to cry.

I have just been reading Pembroke by Mary Wilkins and it has left me with a feeling of soul sickness and utter hopelessness. The intolerance of these New Englanders is overwhelming. There is never a curve all the lines are gr hard and straight. The word sympathy is not in their vocabulary. To me it seems such a pitiful waste of human life to see that each struggle s on alone no help no sympathy. Poor humanity even when sympathy is offered and though [?] man yearns with all his heart for it he turns his head face to the wall and will have none of it. You New Englanders say that you have more feeling sympathy because you conceal it. palpable falsehood. All things die with disuse and you have been so hard all your lives that can you know nothing of sympathy. You have feelings to be sure but always feeling of supreme egoism. Egoism so all-embracing that you fail to recognize it. You never struggle with yourselves. You think you do but you never really do so.

It had been snowing all day and about nine o’clock we started out for a stroll. We came to a bit of orchard and stood there spell-bound. The trees were all covered with snow and there reigned over the place that peculiar tense silence that always accompanies winter-beauty. The air was as balmy as on a spring evening in the South and through all the trees came the soft murmur of the spring song from the Walküre. The air was full of it even to the delicate pink haze overhead and yet all was so hushed so still.