The Hired Girl(90)

“Ah!” said Mr. Rosenbach. It was that throat-clearing kind of ah that reminds me that he’s German. “Of course! You are a romantic, and the temperament of Marcus Aurelius does not accord with that. All the same, you might like Plato.” He plucked a volume off the shelf. “Here we are. Theaetetus. It seeks to explore the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Would you like to try it?”

Of course I said I would. I can’t seem to resist trying to please Mr. Rosenbach. I was glad to see that the book was thin, though, because I’m in the middle of The Dead Secret, which is thrilling. I opened the book and read a page or two. It seemed puzzling, but not dull. In fact, it piqued my curiosity.

When I looked up, Mr. Rosenbach was gazing at me in a most melancholy way. I said, “Mr. Rosenbach, what’s the matter?”

It wasn’t the kind of question a hired girl should ask her employer, but Mr. Rosenbach didn’t seem to notice. “I was wishing my Mirele were more like you.” He grimaced. “Every night I force her to read to me from Little Women. My daughter Anna read Little Women when she was ten, and she couldn’t get enough of it. But Mirele stumbles over every other word. She hates it. I’ve asked her again and again, ‘What would you like to read?’ Do you know what she says to me? Nothing, Papa, I don’t like to read. I went to the bookstore and the clerk recommended The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He says it’s trash, but all the children are crazy for it. But Mirele doesn’t like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. My friends and I are creating a new school, a magnificent school —” He gestured toward his desk, which was covered with papers. “The children will learn because they want to learn, not because they’re afraid of being punished; they will be encouraged to think and feel and create. We will have classrooms in the open air; the children will study nature in the park —” He threw up his hands. “But Mirele, my Mirele! I’m afraid she will be as great a dunce as she’s been in every other school.”

He began to pace, talking under his breath. He had forgotten I was there. “And yet she is intelligent. I would swear to it. When she was little, I thought she was the quickest of all my children. So funny, so curious, so clever — and yet, this child of my body will not read.” His left hand closed in a fist, and he hammered the air. “Even The Wizard of Oz she will not read!”

An idea flashed through my mind. It wasn’t a single idea, more like a series of pictures: Mimi standing well back from the mirror so that she could admire herself; Mimi squinting at her watch and getting the wrong time; Mimi frowning over a silver bracelet and saying it was too plain. My mouth fell open. “Mr. Rosenbach, what if she can’t see?”

He stopped in mid-stride. “Can’t see?”

I nodded. “Up close. What if she can’t see? She told me that reading makes her head ache. She can’t do sums on paper, but she can add up money in her head. And on Tuesday, when we were in your store, I saw a silver bracelet engraved with flowers — I liked it, but Mimi said it was too plain! What if she can’t see little things, close-up things? Reading would strain her eyes —”

He looked at me with such hope. “But if she has trouble seeing, why hasn’t she told me?”

That was such an easy question that I almost laughed. “Because she’d have to wear glasses! You know how vain she is.” I guess he didn’t, because he looked dumbfounded. “Maybe I shouldn’t say that about your daughter. But Mimi’s as vain as a peacock, and I bet she’d die rather than wear eyeglasses.” I realized I was telling tales and was ashamed. “The truth is, Mr. Rosenbach, I’m just as bad. I think about clothes all the time. I never had any pretty things till I came here, and, well, I just think about clothes a lot. And Mimi’s the same way. I guess it’s because we’re about the same age”— I saw a vast abyss open at my feet, but I leaped over it —“I mean, we’re growing up. Both girls, I mean.”

He came to me and grasped my hands. “Miss Lovelace,” he said, squeezing so tight that my fingers stung, “if you’re right, I will thank you a thousand times.”

“Mimi won’t,” I said. “Even if her eyes are bad, she won’t want to wear glasses.”

“She’ll wear them,” said Mr. Rosenbach so grimly that I wondered if I’d done Mimi a bad turn. He released my hands. “Miss Lovelace, I am indebted to you. This is the second time you’ve opened my eyes to the lives of my own children. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”