d then she said, 'Ich sprech nicht
English,'" and he mocked her. "That fixed her for me. One of the others
finally told me who she was and where she lived--and, say, I went right
home and began studying German. In three months I could make myself
understood, but before that, in two weeks, I hunted up her old man and
made him understand that I wanted to be friends with the family, to
learn German. I went out Sundays when they were all at home. There are
six children and I made friends with 'em all. For a long time I couldn't
make Madchen (that's what they call her) understand what it was all
about, but finally I did, and she knows now all right. And I'm crazy
about her and I'm going to marry her as soon as she's old enough."

"How do you know that she'll have you?" I inquired.

"Oh, she'll have me. I always tell her I'm going to marry her when she's
eighteen, and she says all right. And I really believe she does like me.
I'm crazy about her."

Five years later, if I may anticipate a bit, after he had moved to
Newark and placed himself rather well in the journalistic field and was
able to carry out his plans in regard to himself, he suddenly returned
to Philadelphia and married, preparing beforehand an apartment which he
fancied would please her. It was a fortunate marriage in so far as love
and home pleasures were concerned. I never encountered a more delightful
atmosphere.

All along in writing this I feel as though I were giving but the
thinnest portrait of Peter; he was so full and varied in his moods and
interests. To me he illustrated the joy that exists, on the one hand, in
the common, the so-called homely and what some might think ugly side of
life, certainly the very simple and ordinarily human aspect of things;
on the other, in the sheer comfort and satisfaction that might be taken
in things truly intellectual and artistic, but to which no great expense
attached--old books, prints, things connected with history and science
in their various forms, skill in matters relating to the applied arts
and what not, such as the coloring and firing of pottery and glass, the
making of baskets, hammocks and rugs, the carving of wood, the
collection and imitation of Japanese and Chinese prints, the art of
embalming as applied by the Egyptians (which, in connection with an
undertaker to whom he had attached himself, he attempted to revive or at
least play with, testing his skill for instance by embalming a dead cat
or two a