El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-10-17
! 80. A." a -. A.."-.A..--..
SCHITF.
An Odd Sketch of an Odd Young
Woman.
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er of modern languages. She was Frau
lein which is to say Miss, Schilf for us
girls, too, quite properly, in the presence
of the principal or any of the other
teachers, but among ourselves and be-
tween ourselves and her she was always
just Schiif and the chaperon we most
preferred to have along with us down
town of a Saturday or at st. Flirtation's
church of a Sunday afternoon. St Fir
tatien, by the way, was not exactly the
name of the patron saint of the church
which figured in Mrs. SchermerhOrn Van
Pelt's school circular as the regular place
of worship for her young ladies, but that
was the name by which it went IN our
schoolgirl vernacular along with Schllt
pressions.
There was really reason why we
should be reverent of Schilf. She was
not SO very much older than ourselves
26-and though she was infinitely wiser
In the way of education she was not
learned enough to have ceased altogether
to be giddy. In fact, Schilf was giddy
with 4 giddiness than fairly made us
dizzy with the glimpses she gave us-in
lieu of the private and special lessons for
which she was paid-of its depths. AS l
look back upon her now l can see that
Schilf was a new woman of the newest
kind, all alone by herself there, away
back in the early eighties, when to smoke
cigarettes was a deadly sin and to study
medicine thing not to be mentioned
aloud in a young ladies' fashionable
boarding school. And Schilf was actu-
ally a student of medicine, paying her
way and her board in Mrs. Van Pelt's
fashionable New York school by giving
such special instruction was asked for
in German, italian and Spanish and by
acting as chaperon Saturdays and Sun
day afternoons.
And we liked Schilf as a chaperon, be-
cause of a Saturday down town she
would let us meet and talk and even walk
with-well, in the rear of the procession
any and all of the young gentlemen cou-
sins whom we were pretty sure to meet,
and am quite sure now, l even suspect
ed then, that Schilf was quite up to the
cousin part of the game too. There used
to be look in her pretty yellow brown
eyes as much to say: well, if you
know thing or two about me 1 know
thing two about you, too, my lamb,
and, though, if you were to blab, that old
fraud Van Pelt would certainly give me
the grand kick; if l were to blab, some
body else might get some kind of a congo
too"
So the mutual understanding went on
right prosperously. Sunday Afternoons at
St Flirtation's church Schilf, having al
lowed US to scatter ourselves about as we
chose, would ensconce herself in the in
ner corner of the darkest pew and go de-
hberately to sleep. From one end Of the
service to the other, to and through the
sermon. would she slumber in peace, know
ing right well that the occasional would
bring one or another of us along to wake
her up at the proper moment and also
that some one Of US would have taken
down verbatim in the back of her prayer
book the text of the days discourse.
Ind foy =
evenings Mrs. Principal Van Pelt would
Invariably ask in her most august man
ner, well, young ladies, did you have
an interesting sermon this afternoonf'
To which we would always dutifully re-
ply. Eyes, Mrs. Van Pelt, a most inter-
esting sermon
And then Mrs. Van Pelt would turn to
Schilf and ask still more augustly, "And
what, Fraulein Schilf, was the text?'
Whereupon Schilf would reel it of no
bly,, together with excerpts from the body
of the sermon itself and once in a while
even a whole synopsis while we gazed
down at our plates in speeches. admira-
ton. We none of US ever pretended to
listen to the originals themselves, so we
could not make comparisons, but Schilf
was certainly a very good preacher and
altogether a most useful member of Mrs
SchermerhOrn Van Pelt's teaching staff.
AS a teacher Schilf shone in about the
same way as she did as a chaperon. She
was highly entertaining My lessons in
italian with her, at $50 extra a quarter,
were on the whole about the most in
structive, to look back on, that 1 enjoy
ed in that school. They proceeded in this
wise: Twice a week, at p. M, bore an
armful of Italian books up to Schilf's
room. 1t was the fourth floor back hall
bedroom. and the hour the hour
when everybody else was off down stairs.
l.. h.,I = ~ Il
Having welcomed me in her dry but
jolly way, she would lock the door, hang
a jacket over its keyhole, lay a wrapper
along the crack at its foot and tuck me
into bed with shawl for my head and
shoulders. Then she would open the win
dow top and bottom, seat herself on one Of
her two chairs, put her pretty little feet
up on the other and smoke cigarette after
cigarette-smoke and talk.
OF course, it was an awful thing 20 do,
she would say, but she couldn't help it;
she had contracted the habit too young,
when she was a schoolgirl herself at a
school in Italy, whittier she had been
sent to learn the Italian that she wasn't
teaching me. l was such an utter chit
that Schilf simply made me stare-stare
and listen to her tales of the medical
school, to the compliments of her adj
mirers-and she was pretty enough to
make me believe them-to her own am
bitions She meant to know everything
before she got through, she said, all four
faculties. She had been through the
philosophic, she was doing the medical.
After that she meant to take up law and
finally, if her ston1a h could stand it
that was Schiif's own expression-if her
stomach could stand it she would study
theology.
And after the theology, Schilf," the
silly chit in the bed would ask, what
them"
What them" Schilf would reply. 81
may take up matrimony."-NeW York |