GERTRUDE STEIN Premium Collection: 60+ Stories, Poems & Plays in One Volume. Gertrude Stein
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was really true with Mrs. Lehntman that Mrs. Federner did not mean to interfere, but Anna’s friendship with the Drehtens was a very different matter.
Why should Mrs. Drehten, that poor common working wife of a man who worked for others in a brewery and who always drank too much, and was not like a thrifty, decent german man, why should that Mrs. Drehten and her ugly, awkward daughters be getting presents from her husband’s sister all the time, and her husband always so good to Anna, and one of the girls having her name too, and those Drehtens all strangers to her and never going to come to any good? It was not right for Anna to do so.
Mrs. Federner knew better than to say such things straight out to her husband’s fiery, stubborn sister, but she lost no chance to let Anna feel and see what they all thought.
It was easy to blacken all the Drehtens, their poverty, the husband’s drinking, the four big sons carrying on and always lazy, the awkward, ugly daughters dressing up with Anna’s help and trying to look so fine, and the poor, weak, hard-working sickly mother, so easy to degrade with large dosings of contemptuous pity.
Anna could not do much with these attacks for Mrs. Federner always ended with, “And you so good to them Anna all the time. I don’t see how they could get along at all if you didn’t help them all the time, but you are so good Anna, and got such a feeling heart, just like your brother, that you give anything away you got to anybody that will ask you for it, and that’s shameless enough to take it when they ain’t no relatives of yours. Poor Mrs. Drehten, she is a good woman. Poor thing it must be awful hard for her to have to take things from strangers all the time, and her husband spending it on drink. I was saying to Mrs. Lehntman, Anna, only yesterday, how I never was so sorry for any one as Mrs. Drehten, and how good it was for you to help them all the time.”
All this meant a gold watch and chain to her god daughter for her birthday, the next month, and a new silk umbrella for the elder sister. Poor Anna, and she did not love them very much, these relatives of hers, and they were the only kin she had.
Mrs. Lehntman never joined in, in these attacks. Mrs. Lehntman was diffuse and careless in her ways, but she never worked such things for her own ends, and she was too sure of Anna to be jealous of her other friends.
All this time Anna was leading her happy life with Dr. Shonjen. She had every day her busy time. She cooked and saved and sewed and scrubbed and scolded. And every night she had her happy time, in seeing her Doctor like the fine things she bought so cheap and cooked so good for him to eat. And then he would listen and laugh so loud, as she told him stories of what had happened on that day.
The Doctor, too, liked it better all the time and several times in these five years he had of his own motion raised her wages.
Anna was content with what she had and grateful for all her doctor did for her.
So Anna’s serving and her giving life went on, each with its varied pleasures and its pains.
The adopting of the little boy did not put an end to Anna’s friendship for the widow Mrs. Lehntman. Neither the good Anna nor the careless Mrs. Lehntman would give each other up excepting for the gravest cause.
Mrs. Lehntman was the only romance Anna ever knew. A certain magnetic brilliancy in person and in manner made Mrs. Lehntman a woman other women loved. Then, too, she was generous and good and honest, though she was so careless always in her ways. And then she trusted Anna and liked her better than any of her other friends, and Anna always felt this very much.
No, Anna could not give up Mrs. Lehntman, and soon she was busier than before making Julia do things right for little Johnny.
And now new schemes were working strong in Mrs. Lehntman’s head, and Anna must listen to her plans and help her make them work.
Mrs. Lehntman always loved best in her work to deliver young girls who were in trouble. She would keep these in her house until they could go to their homes or to their work, and slowly pay her back the money for their care.
Anna had always helped her friend to do this thing, for like all the good women of the decent poor, she felt it hard that girls should not be helped, not girls that were really bad of course, these she condemned and hated in her heart and with her tongue, but honest, decent, good, hard working, foolish girls who were in trouble.
For such as these Anna always liked to give her money and her strength.
Now Mrs. Lehntman thought that it would pay to take a big house for herself to take in girls and to do everything in a big way.
Anna did not like this plan.
Anna was never daring in her ways. Save and you will have the money you have saved, was all that she could know.
Not that the good Anna had it so.
She saved and saved and always saved, and then here and there, to this friend and to that, to one in her trouble and to the other in her joy, in sickness, death, and weddings, or to make young people happy, it always went, the hard earned money she had saved.
Anna could not clearly see how Mrs. Lehntman could make a big house pay. In the small house where she had these girls, it did not pay, and in a big house there was so much more that she would spend.
Such things were hard for the good Anna to very clearly see. One day she came into the Lehntman house. “Anna,” Mrs. Lehntman said, “you know that nice big house on the next corner that we saw to rent. I took it for a year just yesterday. I paid a little down you know so I could have it sure all right and now you fix it up just like you want. I let you do just what you like with it.”
Anna knew that it was now too late. However, “But Mrs. Lehntman you said you would not take another house, you said so just last week. Oh, Mrs. Lehntman I didn’t think that you would do this so!”
Anna knew so well it was too late.
“I know, Anna, but it was such a good house, just right you know and someone else was there to see, and you know you said it suited very well, and if I didn’t take it the others said they would, and I wanted to ask you only there wasn’t time, and really Anna, I don’t need much help, it will go so well I know. I just need a little to begin and to fix up with and that’s all Anna that I need, and I know it will go awful well. You wait Anna and you’ll see, and I let you fix it up just like you want, and you will make it look so nice, you got such sense in all these things. It will be a good place. You see Anna if I ain’t right in what I say.”
Of course Anna gave the money for this thing though she could not believe that it was best. No, it was very bad. Mrs. Lehntman could never make it pay and it would cost so much to keep. But what could our poor Anna do? Remember Mrs. Lehntman was the only romance Anna ever knew.
Anna’s strength in her control of what was done in Mrs. Lehntman’s house, was not now what it had been before that Lily’s little Johnny came. That thing had been for Anna a defeat. There had been no fighting to a finish but Mrs. Lehntman had very surely won.
Mrs. Lehntman needed Anna just as much as Anna needed Mrs. Lehntman, but Mrs. Lehntman was more ready to risk Anna’s loss, and so the good Anna grew always weaker in her power to control.
In friendship, power always has its downward curve. One’s strength to manage rises always higher until there comes a time one does not win, and though one may not really lose, still from the time that victory is not sure, one’s power slowly ceases to be strong. It is only in a close tie such as marriage, that influence can mount and grow always stronger with the years and never meet with a decline. It can only happen so when there is no way to escape.
Friendship goes by favour. There is always danger of a break or of a stronger power coming in between. Influence can only be a steady march when one can surely never break away.
Anna wanted Mrs. Lehntman very much and Mrs. Lehntman needed Anna, but there were always other ways to do and if Anna had once given up she might do so again, so why should Mrs. Lehntman have real fear?
No, while the good Anna did not come to open fight she had been stronger. Now Mrs. Lehntman could always hold out longer. She knew too, that Anna had a