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I stopped and turned a look of surprise upon him. "Don't you know that the Knapfs are leaving? Did I neglect to mention that this is a farewell party for Herr and Frau Knapf? We are losing our home, and we have just one week in which to find another." "But where will you go? And why did you not tell me this before?" "I haven't an idea where I shall lay my poor old head.
I thought of the old days with the Nirlangers; of Alma Pflugel's rose-encircled cottage; of Bennie; of the Knapfs; of the good-natured, uncouth aborigines, and their many kindnesses. I saw these dear people rarely now. Frau Nirlanger's resignation to her unhappiness only made me rebel more keenly against my own. If only Peter could become well and strong again, I told myself, bitterly.
We had a last family gathering in token of our appreciation of Herr and Frau Knapf. And because I had not seen him for almost three weeks; and because the time for his going was drawing so sickeningly near; and because I was quite sure that I had myself in hand; and because he knew the Knapfs, and was fond of them; and because-well, I invited Von Gerhard.
We three women stood looking down at him as he lay there in the quaint old blue-painted bed that had once held the plump little Knapfs. "You think anyway he had enough supper? mused the anxious-browed Frau Knapf. "To school he will have to go, yes?" murmured Frau Nirlanger, regretfully.
You would not have me wailing here in the street. Tell me just one thing, and there shall be no more fluttering breaths and languishing looks. Tell me, when did you begin to care?" We had reached Knapfs' door-step. The short winter day was already drawing to its close. In the half-light Von Gerhard's eyes glowed luminous. "Since the day I first met you at Norah's," he said, simply.
I dared not look at Von Gerhard, for I knew that he was purple with suppressed mirth, so I stared stonily at the sardine sandwich and dill pickle on my plate, and felt myself growing hot and hysterical, and cold and tearful by turns. At the end of the last verse I rose hastily and brought from their hiding-place the gifts which we of Knapfs' had purchased as remembrances for Herr and Frau Knapf.
Consternation has corrugated the brows of the aborigines. Consternation twice confounded had added a wrinkle or two to my collection. We are homeless. That is, we are Knapfless we, to whom the Knapfs spelled home. Herr Knapf, mustache aquiver, and Frau Knapf, cheek bones glistening, broke the news to us one evening just a week after the exciting day which so changed Bennie's life.
"Thank God for your gift of laughter," Von Gerhard said, and took my hand in his for one brief moment before he turned and walked away. Quite prosaically I opened the big front door at Knapfs' to find Herr Knapf standing in the hallway with his: "Nabben', Frau Orme." And there was the sane and soothing scent of Wienerschnitzel and spluttering things in the air.
There had even been a Christmas tree, hung with stodgy German angels and Pfeffernuesse and pink-frosted cakes. I found myself the bewildered recipient of gifts from everyone from the Knapfs, and the aborigines and even from one of the crushed-looking wives.
As I unpacked I thought of my cosy room at Knapfs', and as I thought I took my head out of my trunk and sank down on the floor with a satin blouse in one hand, and a walking boot in the other, and wanted to bellow with loneliness. There came to me dear visions of the friendly old yellow brocade chair, and the lamplight, and the fireplace, and Frau Nirlanger, and the Pfannkuchen.
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