They had not the free-hearted, thoughtless, fighting,
mud bespattered, ragged, peat-smoked cabin dirt that irish Mary knew
and could forgive and love. Theirs was the german dirt of saving, of
being dowdy and loose and foul in your clothes so as to save them and
yourself in washing, having your hair greasy to save it in the soap
and drying, having your clothes dirty, not in freedom, but because so
it was cheaper, keeping the house close and smelly because so it cost
less to get it heated, living so poorly not only so as to save money
but so they should never even know themselves that they had it,
working all the time not only because from their nature they just had
to and because it made them money but also that they never could be
put in any way to make them spend their money.
This was the place Lena now had for her home and to her it was very
different than it could be for an irish Mary. She too was german and
was thrifty, though she was always so dreamy and not there. Lena was
always careful with things and she always saved her money, for that
was the only way she knew how to do it. She never had taken care of
her own money and she never had thought how to use it.
Lena Mainz had been, before she was Mrs. Herman Kreder, always clean
and decent in her clothes and in her person, but it was not because
she ever thought about it or really needed so to have it, it was the
way her people did in the german country where she came from, and her
Aunt Mathilda and the good german cook who always scolded, had kept
her on and made her, with their scoldings, always more careful to keep
clean and to wash real often.
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