Seventh Chapter Great Excitement in Schumann Street

While Emil was standing on street car Number 177, riding down Kaiser Avenue without knowing where he would land, his grandmother and Pony Hütchen, his cousin, were waiting for him at the Friedrich Strasse Station. They were standing at the flower stall, according to the agreement, and kept looking at the clock. Many people passed by, with trunks and chests and satchels and pocketbooks and bouquets. But Emil was not among them.

“Probably he’s grown to be a big boy, don’t you suppose?” asked Pony and pushed her shiny little bicycle back and forth. She really shouldn’t have brought it. But she had teased about it so long that her grandmother had finally consented. “All right, take it along, you silly goose.” So now the silly goose was in a good humor and thinking happily of Emil’s respectful glance when he should see her wheel. “He’ll think it’s pretty grand,” she said, and was perfectly certain she was right.

The grandmother was getting worried. “I wish I knew what the matter is. It’s already twenty minutes past six, and the train must have come in long ago.”

They waited a few minutes more, and then her grandmother sent the little girl to inquire.

Of course, Pony Hütchen took her wheel with her. “Can you tell me where the train from Neustadt is?” she asked the guard, who stood at the gate with a punch to see that everyone who wanted to pass had a ticket.

“Neustadt? Neustadt?” he considered. “Oh, yes, six-seventeen! That train came in long ago.”

“Oh, dear, that’s a shame! You see, we’re waiting at the flower stand for my cousin Emil.”

“That’s fine, that’s fine,” said the man.

“Why should it be fine, Mr. Inspector?” asked Pony curiously, and played with the bell on her wheel.

The guard said nothing but turned his back on the child. “Aren’t you the bright boy?” said Pony, offended. “I hope I’ll meet you again.”

Several people laughed. The guard bit his lips angrily. And Pony trotted back to the flower stand.

“The train came in long ago, Grandmother.”

“What could have happened?” worried the old woman. “If he hadn’t started his mother would have telegraphed. Do you suppose he got off at the wrong station? But we wrote so carefully just what to do.”

“I can’t make head or tail of it,” Pony declared, and looked important. “He surely got off at the wrong station. Boys are so stupid. I’ll bet on it. You’ll see that I’m right.”

And because there was nothing else to do they waited again. Five minutes.

Another five minutes.

“But there is really no sense to this,” Pony told her grandmother. “We can stand here till we’re black in the face. I wonder if there’s another flower stand?”

“You go look around, but don’t stay long.”

Pony took her wheel again and inspected the station. There was no other flower stand. Then she pestered two innocent guards with questions and came back proudly.

“There,” she said, “there are no more flower stands. That would be funny. What was I going to say? Oh, yes, the next train arrives from Neustadt at a little after half-past eight. We might just as well go home. And on the stroke of eight I’ll ride back here. If he isn’t here by then, he’ll get a red hot letter from me.”

“Pony, be more careful of your speech.”

“Well, you might say, he’ll get a cool letter from me.”

The grandmother looked anxious and shook her head. “I don’t like it, I don’t like it.” When she was excited she always said things twice over.

They went home slowly. On the way over the Weidendammer Bridge Pony asked, “Grandmother, would you like to sit on the handlebars?”

“Stop such silly talk.”

“Why? You aren’t a bit heavier than Arthur Zickler, and he often sits there when I ride.”

“If that happens just once again your father will take your wheel away for good.”

“Oh, dear, I can’t tell you a thing,” scolded Pony.

When they came to the Heimbolds’ house, 15 Schumann Street, there was great excitement. Everyone wanted to know where Emil was, and nobody knew.

The father suggested telegraphing Emil’s mother.

“For heaven’s sake!” cried his wife, Pony’s mother. “She’d be frightened to death. About eight o’clock we’ll all go to the station again. Perhaps he’ll come on the next train.”

“I hope so,” mourned the grandmother, “but I can’t help feeling—I don’t like it. I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it,” said Pony Hütchen, and thoughtfully wagged her small head to and fro.