My
work was so well done, and I had been so careful to leave
no chips, that even then he could not have guessed that
I had been building the fence anew, though I fancied
he looked at it. He seemed to want to excuse himself for
being there at all, and asked me, with an oath and in a
broad Irish brogue, if there were no other passage
through. I had the presence of mind to say in German,
"Wollen sie sprechen Deutsch?" and so made as if I
could not understand him; and then, kneeling on the
cellar-door of the church, pretended to put a key into
the lock, as if I were making sure that I had made it
firm.
And with that, he turned round with another oath, as
if he had come out of his way, and went out of the alley,
closely followed by me. I watched him as long as I
dared, but as he showed no sign of going back to the
alley, I at last walked round a square with my tools, and
so came back to my mother and the pretty stranger.
My mother had been trying to get at her story. She
made her understand a few words of German, but they
talked by signs and smiles and tears and kisses much more
than by words; and by this time they understood each
other so well that my mother had persuaded her not to go
away that day.
Nor did she go out for many days after; I will go
before my story far enough to say that. She had, indeed,
been horribly frightened that night, and she was as loath
to go out again into the streets of New York as I should
be to plunge from a safe shore into some terrible,
howling ocean; or, indeed, as one who found himself safe
at home would be to trust himself to the tender
mercies of a tribe of cannibals.
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