"We were happy at Rudder Grange," said Euphemia; "but that was only a canal-boat, and could not, in the nature of things, have been a permanent home.""No," said I, "it could not have been permanent. But, in many respects, it was a delightful home. The very name of it brings pleasant thoughts.""It was a nice name," said Euphemia, "and I'll tell you what we might do: Let us call this place Rudder Grange--the New Rudder Grange! The name will do just as well for a house as for a boat."I agreed on the spot, and the house was christened.
Our household was small; we had a servant--a German woman; and we had ourselves, that was all.
I did not do much in the garden; it was too late in the season.
The former occupant had planted some corn and potatoes, with a few other vegetables, and these I weeded and hoed, working early in the morning and when I came home in the afternoon. Euphemia tied up the rose-vines, trimmed the bushes, and with a little rake and hoe she prepared a flower-bed in front of the parlor-window. This exercise gave us splendid appetites, and we loved our new home more and more.
Our German girl did not suit us exactly at first, and day by day she grew to suit us less. She was a quiet, kindly, pleasant creature, and delighted in an out-of-door life. She was as willing to weed in the garden as she was to cook or wash. At first I was very much pleased with this, because, as I remarked to Euphemia, you can find very few girls who would be willing to work in the garden, and she might be made very useful.
But, after a time, Euphemia began to get a little out of patience with her. She worked out-of-doors entirely too much. And what she did there, as well as some of her work in the house, was very much like certain German literature--you did not know how it was done, or what it was for.
One afternoon I found Euphemia quite annoyed.
"Look here," she said, "and see what that girl has been at work at, nearly all this afternoon. I was upstairs sewing and thought she was ironing. Isn't it too provoking?"It WAS provoking. The contemplative German had collected a lot of short ham-bones--where she found them I cannot imagine--and had made of them a border around my wife's flower-bed. The bones stuck up straight a few inches above the ground, all along the edge of the bed, and the marrow cavity of each one was filled with earth in which she had planted seeds.
"'These,' she says, 'will spring up and look beautiful,'" said Euphemia; "they have that style of thing in her country.""Then let her take them off with her to her country," I exclaimed.
"No, no," said Euphemia, hurriedly, "don't kick them out. It would only wound her feelings. She did it all for the best, and thought it would please me to have such a border around my bed. But she is too independent, and neglects her proper work. I will give her a week's notice and get another servant. When she goes we can take these horrid bones away. But I hope nobody will call on us in the meantime.""Must we keep these things here a whole week?" I asked.
"Oh, I can't turn her away without giving her a fair notice. That would be cruel."I saw the truth of the remark, and determined to bear with the bones and her rather than be unkind.
That night Euphemia informed the girl of her decision, and the next morning, soon after I had left, the good German appeared with her bonnet on and her carpet-bag in her hand, to take leave of her mistress.
"What!" cried Euphemia. "You are not going to-day?""If it is goot to go at all it is goot to go now," said the girl.
"And you will go off and leave me without any one in the house, after my putting myself out to give you a fair notice? It's shameful!""I think it is very goot for me to go now," quietly replied the girl. "This house is very loneful. I will go to-morrow in the city to see your husband for my money. Goot morning." And off she trudged to the station.
Before I reached the house that afternoon, Euphemia rushed out to tell this story. I would not like to say how far I kicked those ham-bones.
This German girl had several successors, and some of them suited as badly and left as abruptly as herself; but Euphemia never forgot the ungrateful stab given her by this "ham-bone girl," as she always called her. It was her first wound of the kind, and it came in the very beginning of the campaign when she was all unused to this domestic warfare.
