Chapter CLVII: Section 7: This marked a new stage in the family’s financial progress;

and as usual it was signalized by a grand debauch in bill-paying. Also there was a real table-cover for Corydon, and a vase in which she might put spring-flowers; there were new dresses for the baby, and more important yet, a new addition to the house. This was to be a sort of lean-to at the rear, sixteen feet wide and eight feet deep, and divided into two apartments, one of which was to be the kitchen, and the other an extra bed-room. For they were going to keep a servant!

This was a new decision, to which they had come after much hesitation and discussion. It would be a frightful expense--including the cost of the extra food it would add over thirty dollars a month to their expenses; but it was the only way they could see the least hope of freedom, of any respite from household drudgery. It had been just a year now since they had set out upon their adventure in domesticity; and in that time Corydon figured that she had prepared two thousand meals for the baby. She had fed each one of them, spoonful by spoonful, into his mouth; and also she had washed two thousand spoons and dishes, and brushed off two thousand tables, and swept two thousand floors. And with every day of such drudgery the heights of music and literature seemed further away and more unattainable.

Thyrsis had seen something of servants in earlier days--he had memories of strange figures that during intervals of prosperity had flitted through his mother’s home. There had been the frail, anaemic Swedish woman, who lived on tea and sugar, and afterwards had gone away and borne nine children, more frail and anaemic than herself; there had been the stout personage with the Irish brogue who had dropped the Christmas turkey out of the window and had not taken the trouble to go down after it; there had been the little old negress who had gone insane, and hurled the salt-box at his mother’s head. But Thyrsis was hoping that they might avoid such troubles themselves; he had an idea that by watching at Castle Garden they might lay hold upon some young peasant-girl from Germany, who would be untouched by any of the corruptions of civilization. “A sort of Dorothea”, he suggested to Corydon; and they agreed that they would search diligently and find such a “_treffliches Mädchen_”, who would be trusting and affectionate, and would talk in German with the baby.

So now he spent several days hunting in strange places; and at last, in a dingy East-side employment-office, he came upon his _Schatz_. She was buxom and hearty, and fairly oozed good-nature at every pore; she had only been a week in the country, and was evidently naïve enough for any purpose whatever. She had no golden hair like Dorothea, but was swarthy--her German was complicated with a Hungarian accent, and with strange words that one had not come upon in Goethe and Freitag, and could not find in any dictionary.

Thyrsis helped to gather up her various bags and bundles, and transported her out to the country. On the train he set to work to gain her confidence, and was forthwith entertained with the tale of all her heart-troubles. Back in the Hungarian village she had fallen in love with the son of a rich farmer, quite in Hermann and Dorothea fashion; but alas, in this case there had been no “_gute verstandige Mutter_” and no “_würdiger Pfarrer_”--instead there had been a hateful step-mother, and so the “_treffliches Mädchen_” had had to come away.

They reached the little cottage at last; and then what a house-cleaning there was, what scrubbing of floors; and brushing out the cobwebs, and scouring of lamp-chimneys and scraping of kettles and sauce-pans! And what a relief it was for Corydon and Thyrsis to be able to go off for a walk together, without first having to carry the baby up to the farm-house! And how very poetical it was to come back and discover Dorothea with the baby in her lap, feeding it a supper of _butter-brod_ with a slice of raw bacon!

As time went on, alas, it came more and more to seem that the Dorothea idyl had not been meant to be taken as a work of realism. The “_treffliches_ _Maedchen_” was perhaps _too_ kind-hearted; her emotions were too voluminous for so small a house, her personality seemed to spread all over it. She would sing Hungarian love-ditties at her work; and somehow calling these “folksongs” did not help matters. Also, alas, she distributed about the house strange odors--of raw onions, boiled cabbage and perspiration. So, after three weeks, poor Dorothea had to be sent away--weeping copiously, and bewildered over this cruel misfortune. Corydon and Thyrsis went back again to washing their own dishes; being glad to pay the price for quietness and privacy, and vowing that they would never again try, to “keep a servant”.