Page:The grandmother; a story of country life in Bohemia.pdf/164

158 think: "All right; but sweet whiskey agrees better with me." He would want me to live like a bird. Eating and drinking are nothing to him, except to keep a person alive. His food is his books; no such fare for me, thank you.'

"Thus Susannah would go on. Once she took me into his parlor. In all my life I never saw so many books; they were piled up like firewood. 'Just see, Madaline, my master has all that in his head: I often wonder it has not made him crazy. It's like this, if it were not for me, he would die of hunger like a child. I must see to everything, for he doesn't understand anything except his books. One needs great patience to get along with him. But, at times, even my patience is exhausted, and when I speak out he goes as if a dog had bitten him, and doesn't say a word, till at last I feel sorry for him. At times, however, a good scolding is necessary. Madaline, you won't believe it, but his room was as full of dust as the middle of the common, and the cobwebs were as thick as in an old belfry; and do you suppose I could come in with the duster? No, indeed! I thought to myself: "I'll out-wit you yet." It was all the same to him, but my reputation was at stake; it was a disgrace to me, when people came and found him living in such disorder. I begged one of his friends, whom he especially liked, to keep him a long time when next he came to see him, and while he was gone I gave his room a good cleaning and dusting. And would you believe it, Madaline? that man did not know it had been cleaned until the third day, when he remarked that somehow there seemed to be more light in the room. More light