________________________________________________
_ I have visited Baumbach's. I have heard Milwaukee
drinking its afternoon Kaffee.
O Baumbach's, with your deliciously crumbling butter
cookies and your kaffee kuchen, and your thick cream, and
your thicker waitresses and your cockroaches, and your
dinginess and your dowdy German ladies and your black,
black Kaffee,where in this country is there another like
you!
Blackie, true to his promise, had hailed me from the
doorway on the afternoon of the following day. In the
rush of the day's work I had quite forgotten about
Blackie and Baumbach's.
"Come, Kindchen!" he called. "Get your bonnet on.
We will by Baumbach's go, no?"
Ruefully I gazed at the grimy cuffs of my blouse, and
felt of my dishevelled hair. "Oh, I'm afraid I can't go.
I look so mussy. Haven't had time to brush up."
"Brush up!" scoffed Blackie, "the only thing
about you that will need brushin' up is your German. I
was goin' t' warn you to rumple up your hair a little so
you wouldn't feel overdressed w'en you got there. Come
on, girl."
And so I came. And oh, I'm so glad I came!
I must have passed it a dozen times without once
noticing it--just a dingy little black shop nestling
between two taller buildings, almost within the shadow of
the city hall. Over the sidewalk swung a shabby black
sign with gilt letters that spelled, "Franz Baumbach."
Blackie waved an introductory hand in the direction
of the sign. "There he is. That's all you'll ever see
of him."
"Dead? " asked I, regretfully, as we entered the
narrow doorway.
"No; down in the basement baking Kaffeekuchen."
Two tiny show-windows faced the street--such queer,
old-fashioned windows in these days of plate glass. At
the back they were quite open to the shop, and in one of
them reposed a huge, white, immovable structure--a
majestic, heavy, nutty, surely indigestible birthday
cake. Around its edge were flutings and scrolls of white
icing, and on its broad breast reposed cherries, and
stout butterflies of jelly, and cunning traceries of
colored sugar. It was quite the dressiest cake I had
ever beheld. Surely no human hand could be wanton enough
to guide a knife through all that magnificence. But in
the center of all this splendor was an inscription in
heavy white letters of icing: "Charlottens
Geburtstag."
Reluctantly I tore my gaze from this imposing example
of the German confectioner's art, for Blackie was tugging
impatiently at my sleeve.
"But Blackie," I marveled, "do you honestly suppose
that that structure is intended for some Charlotte's
birthday?"
"In Milwaukee," explained Blackie, "w'en you got a
birthday you got t' have a geburtstag cake, with your
name on it, and all the cousins and aunts and members of
the North Side Frauen Turner Verein Gesellchaft, in for
the day. It ain't considered decent if you don't. Are
you ready to fight your way into the main tent?"
It was holiday time, and the single narrow aisle of
the front shop was crowded. It was not easy to elbow
one's way through the packed little space. Men and women
were ordering recklessly of the cakes of every
description that were heaped in cases and on shelves.
Cakes! What a pale; dry name to apply to those
crumbling, melting, indigestible German
confections! Blackie grinned with enjoyment while I
gazed. There were cakes the like of which I had never
seen and of which I did not even know the names. There
were little round cup cakes made of almond paste that
melts in the mouth; there were Schnecken glazed with a
delicious candied brown sugar; there were Bismarcks
composed of layer upon layer of flaky crust inlaid with
an oozy custard that evades the eager consumer at the
first bite, and that slides down one's collar when chased
with a pursuing tongue. There were Pfeffernusse; there,
were Lebkuchen; there were cheese-kuchen; plum-kuchen,
peach-kuchen, Apfelkuchen, the juicy fruit stuck thickly
into the crust, the whole dusted over with powdered
sugar. There were Torten, and Hornchen, and butter
cookies.
Blackie touched my arm, and I tore my gaze from a
cherry-studded Schaumtorte that was being reverently
packed for delivery.
"My, what a greedy girl! Now get your mind all made
up. This is your chance. You know you're supposed t'
take a slant at th' things an' make up your mind w'at you
want before you go back w'ere th' tables are. Don't
fumble this thing. When Olga or Minna comes waddlin' up
t' you an' says: `Nu, Fraulein?' you gotta tell her
whether your heart says plum-kuchen oder Nusstorte, or
both, see? Just like that. Now make up your mind. I'd
hate t' have you blunder. Have you decided?"
"Decided! How can I?" I moaned, watching a
black-haired, black-eyed Alsatian girl behind the counter
as she rolled a piece of white paper into a cone and
dipped a spoonful of whipped cream from a great brown
bowl heaped high with the snowy stuff. She filled the
paper cone, inserted the point of it into one end of a
hollow pastry horn, and gently squeezed. Presto! A
cream-filled Hornchen!
"Oh, Blackie!" I gasped. "Come on. I want to go in
and eat."
As we elbowed our way to the rear room separated from
the front shop only by a flimsy wooden partition, I
expected I know not what.
But surely this was not Blackie's much-vaunted
Baumbach's! This long, narrow, dingy room, with its bare
floor and its iron-legged tables whose bare marble tops
were yellow with age and use! I said nothing as we
seated ourselves. Blackie was watching me out of the
tail of his eye. My glance wandered about the shabby,
smoke-filled room, and slowly and surely the charm of
that fusty, dingy little cafe came upon me.
A huge stove glowed red in one corner. On
the wall behind the stove was suspended a wooden rack,
black with age, its compartments holding German, Austrian
and Hungarian newspapers. Against the opposite wall
stood an ancient walnut mirror, and above it hung a
colored print of Bismarck, helmeted, uniformed, and
fiercely mustached. The clumsy iron-legged tables stood
in two solemn rows down the length of the narrow room.
Three or four stout, blond girls plodded back and forth,
from tables to front shop, bearing trays of cakes and
steaming cups of coffee. There was a rumble and clatter
of German. Every one seemed to know every one else. A
game of chess was in progress at one table, and between
moves each contestant would refresh himself with a
long-drawn, sibilant mouthful of coffee. There was
nothing about the place or its occupants to remind one of
America. This dim, smoky, cake-scented cafe was Germany.
"Time!" said Blackie. "Here comes Rosie to take our
order. You can take your choice of coffee or chocolate.
That's as fancy as they get here."
An expansive blond girl paused at our table smiling
a broad welcome at Blackie.
"Wie geht's, Roschen?" he greeted her. Roschen's
smile became still more pervasive, so that her blue eyes
disappeared in creases of good humor. She wiped the
marble table top with a large and careless gesture that
precipitated stray crumbs into our laps. "Gut!" murmured
she, coyly, and leaned one hand on a portly hip in an
attitude of waiting.
"Coffee?" asked Blackie, turning to me. I nodded.
"Zweimal Kaffee?" beamed Roschen, grasping the idea.
"Now's your time to speak up," urged Blackie. "Go
ahead an' order all the cream gefillte things that looked
good to you out in front."
But I leaned forward, lowering my voice discreetly.
"Blackie, before I plunge in too recklessly, tell me, are
their prices very--"
"Sa-a-ay, child, you just can't spend half a dollar
here if you try. The flossiest kind of thing they got is
only ten cents a order. They'll smother you in whipped
cream f'r a quarter. You c'n come in here an' eat an'
eat an' put away piles of cakes till you feel like a
combination of Little Jack Horner an' old Doc Johnson.
An' w'en you're all through, they hand yuh your check,
an', say--it says forty-five cents. You can't beat it,
so wade right in an' spoil your complexion."
With enthusiasm I turned upon the patient Rosie. "O,
bring me some of those cunning little round things with
the cream on 'em, you know--two of those, eh Blackie?
And a couple of those with the flaky crust and the
custard between, and a slice of that fluffy-looking cake
and some of those funny cocked-hat shaped cookies--"
But a pall of bewilderment was slowly settling over
Rosie's erstwhile smiling face. Her plump shoulders went
up in a helpless shrug, and she turned her round blue
eyes appealingly to Blackie.
"Was meint sie alles?" she asked.
So I began all over again, with the assistance of
Blackie. We went into minute detail. We made elaborate
gestures. We drew pictures of our desired goodies on the
marble-topped table, using a soft-lead pencil. Rosie's
countenance wore a distracted look. In desperation I was
about to accompany her to the crowded shop, there to
point out my chosen dainties when suddenly, as they would
put it here, a light went her over.
"Ach, yes-s-s-s! Sie wollten vielleicht abgeruhrter
Gugelhopf haben, und auch Schaumtorte, und Bismarcks, und
Hornchen mit cream gefullt, nicht?"
"Certainly," I murmured, quite crushed. Roschen
waddled merrily off to the shop.
Blackie was rolling a cigarette. He ran his funny
little red tongue along the edge of the paper and glanced
up at me in glee. "Don't bother about me," he generously
observed. "Just set still and let the atmosphere soak
in."
But already I was lost in contemplation of a
red-faced, pompadoured German who was drinking coffee and
reading the Fliegende Blatter at a table just across
the way. There were counterparts of my aborigines at
Knapf's--thick spectacled engineers with high foreheads--
actors and actresses from the German stock company--
reporters from the English and German newspapers--
business men with comfortable German consciences--
long-haired musicians--dapper young lawyers--a giggling
group of college girls and boys--a couple of smartly
dressed women nibbling appreciatively at slices of
Nusstorte--low-voiced lovers whose coffee cups stood
untouched at their elbows, while no fragrant cloud of
steam rose to indicate that there was warmth within.
Their glances grow warmer as the neglected Kaffee grows
colder. The color comes and goes in the girl's face and
I watch it, a bit enviously, marveling that the old story
still should be so new.
At a large square table near the doorway a group of
eight men were absorbed in an animated political
discussion, accompanied by much waving of arms, and
thundering of gutturals. It appeared to be a table of
importance, for the high-backed bench that ran along one
side was upholstered in worn red velvet, and every
newcomer paused a moment to nod or to say a word in
greeting. It was not of American politics that they
talked, but of the politics of Austria and Hungary.
Finally the argument resolved itself into a duel of words
between a handsome, red-faced German whose rosy skin
seemed to take on a deeper tone in contrast to the
whiteness of his hair and mustache, and a swarthy young
fellow whose thick spectacles and heavy mane of black
hair gave him the look of a caricature out of an
illustrated German weekly. The red-faced man argued
loudly, with much rapping of bare knuckles on the table
top. But the dark man spoke seldom, and softly, with a
little twisted half-smile on his lips; and whenever he
spoke the red-faced man grew redder, and there came a
huge laugh from the others who sat listening.
"Say, wouldn't it curdle your English?" Blackie
laughed.
Solemnly I turned to him. "Blackie Griffith,
these people do not even realize that there is anything
unusual about this."
"Sure not; that's the beauty of it. They don't need
to make no artificial atmosphere for this place; it just
grows wild, like dandelions. Everybody comes here for
their coffee because their aunts an' uncles and
Grossmutters and Grosspapas used t' come, and come yet,
if they're livin'! An', after all, what is it but a
little German bakery?"
"But O, wise Herr Baumbach down in the kitchen! O,
subtle Frau Baumbach back of the desk!" said I. "Others
may fit their shops with mirrors, and cut-glass
chandeliers and Oriental rugs and mahogany, but you sit
serenely by, and you smile, and you change nothing. You
let the brown walls grow dimmer with age; you see the
marble-topped tables turning yellow; you leave bare your
wooden floor, and you smile, and smile, and smile."
"Fine!" applauded Blackie. "You're on. And here
comes Rosie."
Rosie, the radiant, placed on the table cups and
saucers of an unbelievable thickness. She set them down
on the marble surface with a crash as one who knows well
that no mere marble or granite could shatter the solidity
of those stout earthenware receptacles. Napkins there
were none. I was to learn that fingers were rid of any
clinging remnants of cream or crumb by the simple
expedient of licking them.
Blackie emptied his pitcher of cream into his cup of
black, black coffee, sugared it, stirred, tasted, and
then, with a wicked gleam in his black eyes he lifted the
heavy cup to his lips and took a long, gurgling mouthful.
"Blackie," I hissed, "if you do that again I shall
refuse to speak to you!"
"Do what?" demanded he, all injured innocence.
"Snuffle up your coffee like that."
"Why, girl, that's th' proper way t' drink coffee
here. Listen t' everybody else." And while I glared he
wrapped his hand lovingly about his cup, holding the
spoon imprisoned between first and second fingers, and
took another sibilant mouthful. "Any more of your back
talk and I'll drink it out of m' saucer an' blow on it
like the hefty party over there in the earrings is doin'.
Calm yerself an' try a Bismarck."
I picked up one of the flaky confections and eyed it
in despair. There were no plates except that on which
the cakes reposed.
"How does one eat them?" I inquired.
"Yuh don't really eat 'em. The motion is
more like inhalin'. T' eat 'em successful you really
ought t' get into a bath-tub half-filled with water,
because as soon's you bite in at one end w'y the custard
stuff slides out at the other, an' no human mouth c'n be
two places at oncet. Shut your eyes girl, an' just wade
in."
I waded. In silence I took a deep delicious bite,
nimbly chased the coy filling around a corner with my
tongue, devoured every bit down to the last crumb and
licked the stickiness off my fingers. Then I
investigated the interior of the next cake.
"I'm coming here every day," I announced.
"Better not. Ruin your complexion and turn all your
lines into bumps. Look at the dame with the earrings.
I've been keepin' count an' I've seen her eat three
Schnecken, two cream puffs, a Nusshornchen and a slice of
Torte with two cups of coffee. Ain't she a horrible
example! And yet she's got th' nerve t' wear a princess
gown!"
"I don't care," I replied, recklessly, my voice
choked with whipped cream and butteriness. "I can just
feel myself getting greasy. Haven't I done beautifully
for a new hand? Now tell me about some of these people.
Who is the funny little man in the checked suit with the
black braid trimming, and the green cravat, and the
white spats, and the tan hat and the eyeglasses?"
"Ain't them th' dizzy habiliments? "A note of envy
crept into Blackie's voice. "His name is Hugo Luders.
Used t' be a reporter on the Germania, but he's
reformed and gone into advertisin', where there's real
money. Some say he wears them clo'es on a bet, and some
say his taste in dress is a curse descended upon him from
Joseph, the guy with the fancy coat, but I think he
wears'em because he fancies 'em. He's been coming here
ever' afternoon for twelve years, has a cup of coffee,
game of chess, and a pow-wow with a bunch of cronies. If
Baumbach's ever decide to paint the front of their shop
or put in cut glass fixtures and handpainted china, Hugo
Luders would serve an injunction on 'em. Next!"
"Who's the woman with the leathery complexion and the
belt to match, and the untidy hair and the big feet? I
like her face. And why does she sit at a table with all
those strange-looking men? And who are all the men? And
who is the fur-lined grand opera tenor just coming in--
Oh!"
Blackie glanced over his shoulder just as the tall
man in the doorway turned his face toward us. "That?
Why, girl, that's Von Gerhard, the man who gives me one
more year t' live. Look at everybody kowtowing to him.
He don't favor Baumbach's often. Too busy patching up the
nervous wrecks that are washed up on his shores."
The tall figure in the doorway was glancing from
table to table, nodding here and there to an
acquaintance. His eyes traveled the length of the room.
Now they were nearing us. I felt a sudden, inexplicable
tightening at heart and throat, as though fingers were
clutching there. Then his eyes met mine, and I felt the
blood rushing to my face as he came swiftly over to our
table and took my hand in his.
"So you have discovered Baumbach's," he said. "May
I have my coffee and cigar here with you? "
"Blackie here is responsible for my being initiated
into the sticky mysteries of Baumbach's. I never should
have discovered it if he had not offered to act as
personal conductor. You know one another, I believe?"
The two men shook hands across the table. There was
something forced and graceless about the act. Blackie
eyed Von Gerhard through a misty curtain of cigarette
smoke. Von Gerhard gazed at Blackie through narrowed
lids as he lighted his cigar.
"I'm th' gink you killed off two or three years back,"
Blackie explained.
"I remember you perfectly," Von Gerhard returned,
courteously. "I rejoice to see that I was mistaken."
"Well," drawled Blackie, a wicked gleam in his black
eyes, "I'm some rejoiced m'self, old top. Angel wings
and a white kimono, worn bare-footy, would go some rotten
with my Spanish style of beauty, what? Didn't know that
you and m'dame friend here was acquainted. Known each
other long?
I felt myself flushing again.
"I knew Dr. von Gerhard back home. I've scarcely
seen him since I have been here. Famous specialists
can't be bothered with middle-aged relatives of their
college friends, can they, Herr Doktor?"
And now it was Von Gerhard's face that flushed a deep
and painful crimson. He looked at me, in silence, and I
felt very little, and insignificant, and much like an
impudent child who has stuck out its tongue at its
elders. Silent men always affect talkative women in that
way.
"You know that what you say is not true," he said,
slowly.
"Well, we won't quibble. We--we were just about to
leave, weren't we Blackie?"
"Just," said Blackie, rising. "Sorry t' see you
drinkin' Baumbach's coffee, Doc. It ain't fair t' your
patients."
"Quite right," replied Von Gerhard; and rose with us.
"I shall not drink it. I shall walk home with Mrs. Orme
instead, if she will allow me. That will be more
stimulating than coffee, and twice as dangerous, perhaps,
but--"
"You know how I hate that sort of thing," I said,
coldly, as we passed from the warmth of the little front
shop where the plump girls were still filling pasteboard
boxes with holiday cakes, to the brisk chill of the
winter street. The little black-and-gilt sign swung and
creaked in the wind. Whimsically, and with the memory of
that last cream-filled cake fresh in my mind, I saluted
the letters that spelled "Franz Baumbach."
Blackie chuckled impishly. "Just the, same, try a
pinch of soda bicarb'nate when you get home, Dawn," he
advised. "Well, I'm off to the factory again. Got t'
make up for time wasted on m' lady friend. Auf
wiedersehen!"
And the little figure in the checked top-coat trotted
off.
"But he called you--Dawn," broke from Von Gerhard.
"Mhum," I agreed. "My name's Dawn."
"Surely not to him. You have known him but a few
weeks. I would not have presumed--"
"Blackie never presumes," I laughed. "Blackie's
just--Blackie. Imagine taking offense at him! He knows
every one by their given name, from Jo, the boss of the
pressroom, to the Chief, who imports his office coats
from London. Besides, Blackie and I are newspaper men.
And people don't scrape and bow in a newspaper office--
especially when they're fond of one another. You
wouldn't understand."
As I looked at Von Gerhard in the light of the street
lamp I saw a tense, drawn look about the little group of
muscles which show when the teeth are set hard. When he
spoke those muscles had relaxed but little.
"One man does not talk ill of another. But this is
different. I want to ask you--do you know what manner of
man this--this Blackie is? I ask you because I would
have you safe and sheltered always from such as he--
because I--"
"Safe! From Blackie? Now listen. There never was
a safer, saner, truer, more generous friend. Oh, I know
what his life has been. But what else could it have been,
beginning as he did? I have no wish to reform him. I
tried my hand at reforming one man, and made a glorious
mess of it. So I'll just take Blackie as he is, if you
please--slang, wickedness, pink shirt, red necktie,
diamond rings and all. If there's any bad in him, we
all know it, for it's right down on the table, face up.
You're just angry because he called you Doc."
"Small one," said Von Gerhard, in his quaint German
idiom, "we will not quarrel, you and I. If I have been
neglectful it was because edged tools were never a chosen
plaything of mine. Perhaps your little Blackie realizes
that he need have no fear of such things, for the Great
Fear is upon him."
"The Great Fear! You mean!--"
"I mean that there are too many fine little lines
radiating from the corners of the sunken eyes, and that
his hand-clasp leaves a moisture in the palm. Ach! you
may laugh. Come, we will change the subject to something
more cheerful, yes? Tell me, how grows the book?"
"By inches. After working all day on a bulletin
paper whose city editor is constantly shouting: `Boil it
now, fellows! Keep it down! We're crowded!' it is too
much of a wrench to find myself seated calmly before my
own typewriter at night, privileged to write one hundred
thousand words if I choose. I can't get over the habit of
crowding the story all into the first paragraph. Whenever
I flower into a descriptive passage I glance nervously
over my shoulder, expecting to find Norberg stationed
behind me, scissors and blue pencil in hand.
Consequently the book, thus far, sounds very much like a
police reporter's story of a fire four minutes before the
paper is due to go to press."
Von Gerhard's face was unsmiling. "So," he said,
slowly. "You burn the candle at both ends. All day you
write, is it not so? And at night you come home to write
still more? Ach, Kindchen!--Na, we shall change all
that. We will be better comrades, we two, yes? You
remember that gay little walk of last autumn, when we
explored the Michigan country lane at dusk? I shall be
your Sunday Schatz, and there shall be more rambles like
that one, to bring the roses into your cheeks. We shall
be good Kameraden, as you and this little Griffith are--
what is it they say--good fellows? That is it--good
fellows, yes? So, shall we shake hands on it? "
But I snatched my hand away. "I don't
want to be a good fellow," I cried. "I'm tired of being
a good fellow. I've been a good fellow for years and
years, while every other married woman in the world has
been happy in her own home, bringing up her babies. When
I am old I want some sons to worry me, too, and to stay
awake nights for, and some daughters to keep me young,
and to prevent me from doing my hair in a knob and
wearing bonnets! I hate good-fellow women, and so do
you, and so does every one else! I--I--"
"Dawn!" cried Von Gerhard. But I ran up the steps
and into the house and slammed the door behind me,
leaving him standing there. _
Read next: CHAPTER IX - THE LADY FROM VIENNA
Read previous: CHAPTER VII - BLACKIE'S PHILOSOPHY
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