"Just say for us what you said the other day. Come, Stoffel. That's the way he always is, Juffrouw Mabbel. One has to pull him up on his feet before he will do anything. But then he goes all right. Forward, Stoffel! He's tired now. Teaching in such a school is hard work. Yes, Juffrouw, he's as smart as he can be. Would you believe it? All words are either masculine or feminine. Aren't they, Stoffel?"

"No, mother."

"No? But--and the other day you said--it's only to get him started, you know, Juffrouw Zipperman, it takes a little time, because he's worn out with his school work--but you said that all words----"

"No, mother. Masculine, feminine or neuter, I said."

"Yes, and still more," said Juffrouw Pieterse. "You will be astonished when you hear him. What do you suppose you are, Juffrouw Krummel?"

"I? What I am?"

"Yes, yes, what you are--what you really are."

"I am Juffrouw Krummel," she said, but doubtfully; for she read in the triumphant look of Juffrouw Pieterse and the tightly closed lips of Stoffel that she might easily be something entirely different from Juffrouw Krummel.

The tension did not need to be farther increased; so Juffrouw Pieterse pa.s.sed now from the special to the general. Her glance took in the entire company.

"And you, too, Juffrouw Mabbel; and you, Juffrouw Laps; and you, Juffrouw Zipperman; and you, Mrs. Stotter--what do you all think you are?"

No one knew.

This will not be surprising to anyone who knows how difficult knowledge of the "self" is; but Stoffel had something else in mind. There was a deeper meaning involved.

Juffrouw Laps was the first to answer, and she spoke with proud self-sufficiency:

"I am Juffrouw Laps!"

"Wrong, wrong--entirely wrong!"

"But for Heaven sake, am I not Juffrouw Laps?"

"Y-e-s. Of course you are Juffrouw Laps; but Stoffel didn't ask who you were, but what you were. There's the fine point."

"What I am? I'm Dutch Reform!"

"Y-e-s. That you are, too; but--it isn't that. The question is, What are you? Help her out, Stoffel."

Between puffs of smoke, and with the air of a professor, Stoffel proceeded to "help":

"Juffrouw Laps, I wished to know what you were from a zoological standpoint."

"I won't have anything more to do with it," said Juffrouw Laps in the tone of one who feels that he is going to be insulted.

"I am a midwife," said Mrs. Stotter, "and I'm going to stick to it."

"And I am the baker's wife," cried Juffrouw Mabbel, with a positiveness in her tone which showed her intention to hold to this opinion.

"Certainly, certainly, Juffrouw Mabbel; but I mean from a zoological standpoint."

"If it's going to be indecent, I prefer to go home."

"I, too," added Juffrouwen Krummel and Zipperman. "We came here to be entertained."

"But you're not going to get angry about it! I tell you, it's in the book, Stoffel--you will laugh when you hear it, Juffrouw Mabbel; and the best part of it is, that it's in the book, and one can't say anything against it. Tell her, Stoffel!"

"Juffrouw Laps," said Stoffel with dignity--an important moment in Juffrouw Pieterse's tea-evening had arrived--"Juffrouw Laps, you are a sucking animal."

I admit frankly that I cannot adequately describe the crisis that followed these two words. If Stoffel had only said mammal, perhaps then my task would have been easier.

Juffrouw Laps's face took on all the different colors that are generally supposed to express anger. She had been attacked more openly than the others, it is true; but her att.i.tude toward the prayer-cla.s.s would go to show that she was naturally polemical.

In French novels people used to turn green; but Juffrouw Laps did not read French, so she stopped at a terrible violet and screamed--no, she didn't. She didn't scream anything; for she was choking for breath. But she did pulverize that piece of ginger cake; and she looked at Stoffel and his mother in a manner that would have been most damaging for her if those two persons had happened to die that night.

Imitating the trick of the cuttle-fish, no doubt unconsciously, Stoffel managed to escape this fatal stare by enveloping himself in a heavy cloud of smoke. Juffrouw Pieterse, however, not being a smoker, was at the mercy of Juffrouw Laps. She stammered humbly: "It's in the book, really it's in the book. Don't be angry, it's in the book."

By this time Juffrouw Laps was getting a little air, so much that there was now no danger of her suffocating. She threw the mutilated remains of the ginger cake on the table and began:

"Juffrouw Pieterse, you are nothing but a low, vile, filthy--you may even be a sucking animal, you and your son too. I want you to understand that I've always been respectable. My father sold grain, and n.o.body's ever been able to say anything against me! Ask everybody about me--if I've ever run with men-folk, and such things; and if I haven't always paid my debts. He was manager I would have you understand, and we lived over the chapter-house, for he was in the grain business, and you can ask about me there. Thank G.o.d, you can ask about me everywhere--do you hear? But never, never, never, has such a thing happened to me. What you put on me! If it wasn't for lowering myself I'd tell you what I think of you--you sucking animal, you and your son and your whole family. My father sold grain, and I'm too respectable for you to----"

"But--it's in the book that way. For G.o.d's sake believe me; it's in the book."

"Just hold your lip about your book. Anybody who sells G.o.d's holy word on the Ouwebrug needn't talk to me about books."

This accusation was false; for Walter, and not his mother, had sold the Bible; but this was no time for such fine distinctions.

"Stoffel, go get the book and show Juffrouw--my G.o.d, what shall I do!"

"Go to the Devil with your book and your sucking animals. You've got nothing to show in your book. I know you--and your lout of a son, and your wenches of daughters, that are growing up like----"

Truitje, Myntje and Pietje, understanding from this that there was something radically wrong with their growth, began to screech too. Other members of the party bawled a word from time to time, as opportunity presented itself. Then came another message from the Juffrouw below. This time she threatened to call in the police. The children, taking advantage of the general excitement to break the ban under which they had been placed, had left the bed and were now listening at the keyhole. Juffrouw Pieterse was calling for the camphor bottle, declaring that she was going to die; Mrs. Stotter was clamoring for her wrap--her "old one"; and Stoffel was playing cuttle-fish as well as he could.

All had got up and were going to leave. They could "put up with a good deal," but that was "too much"! Juffrouw Krummel was going to tell her husband; Juffrouw Zipperman was going to let everybody in the insurance business know about it; Mrs. Stotter was going to relate the whole story to the gentleman in Prince Street; and Juffrouw Mabbel--I forget whom she was going to tell it all to. In short, every one of them was going to see to it that the affair was well aired.

Who knows but what these threats would have been carried out, if the good genius of the Pieterses had not at that moment caused someone to ring the door-bell? It was that worthy gentleman whom we left in such a state of pious despair at the close of the last chapter.

CHAPTER IX

Yes, the door-bell rang. And it rang again: So it was "for us." Juffrouw Pieterse drew a long breath; and I must say, she did a very proper thing. While admitting that it is foolish to say what one would do if one were somebody else, still, in her place I should have drawn a long breath, too. Firstly, because I imagine she hadn't done this for a long time; secondly, because I know how, in adverse circ.u.mstances, every change and interruption gives one ground for hope; and, finally, because I think Juffrouw Pieterse was human, just like the rest of us.

"Ah, my dears," she said, "be peaceable. It must be the gentlemen."

The ladies declared it couldn't be the gentlemen, because it was too early for them; and this very doubt and uncertainty as to who it might be gave the crisis a favorable turn.

Mere uncertainty, even when in no way connected with what is occupying us, has a sort of paralyzing effect. Besides, when one is interrupted in one's anger, afterwards it is difficult to find the place where one left off.